Barbara:

Hi there. I’m Barbara Turley, and you’re watching Feminine Wealth TV, the show that uncovers the diamond tips on creating truly conscious wealth from game-changers, world-shakers, and wealth-creators. I’m joined on the show today by the wonderful Wendy Mak from WendyMak.com, and we’re going to be talking about the power of marketing. Wendy, welcome to the show.

Wendy:

Thank you.

Barbara:

You’ve been carving it up a bit in the world of marketing recently with the launch of your Smart, Savvy, and Rich program.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

You know what, it’s so exciting and it’s been going really well, so I’m really happy.

Barbara:

Oh, that’s great.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

That’s great. Look, I always start the show with a little about how I meet my gust and how we actually met. I’ve got a really funny story to share about Wendy because it was more about myself really. My first time to meet Wendy Mak was actually at my own very first speaking engagement, and Wendy was the speaker just before me. She got up on stage, and she delivered this funny, authentic, the whole crowd were loving it. I was sitting in the crowd just completely sweating, going, “How am I going to get up and speak after this wonderful woman?” You were so good, but yeah. One of the things that really resonated with me at the time was you said just hit go was your philosophy. It’s something that I suppose I have always subscribe to myself, but I love that. I want to just kickoff today with how did you come up with that philosophy or where did it come from, that sort of fighting spirit in you?

Wendy:

Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for saying that about the speech. It was very kind. I don’t know that I would call it fighting spirit so much, but it’s definitely, I guess, an action-oriented ethic that I’ve got.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

I’m big about action, and I’m big about never really just complaining about stuff or whinging about things. If stuff isn’t happening the way that you would like it to happen, for me, it’s always like, you can create your future. You have the ability in your hands to do something about it and change what you think is going to lie ahead. For me, it’s always been, don’t just sit there, hit go, take action. Go change something in your life or do that thing that you always wanted to do, don’t just sit there thinking about it or talking about it, because it’s never going to happen.

Barbara:

Yeah. It ruins, I mean, it ruins your health and enthusiasm, everything really.

Wendy:

Yeah, but talking doesn’t make action happen.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

For me, I guess, a lot of that is a work ethic that I grew up with and was instilled-

Barbara:

This came from your family background 

Wendy:

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Barbara:

Yeah. Yeah. 

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely. I think my family as well as the environment in which I grew up. I grew up in Malaysia.

Barbara:

Right. Okay. 

Wendy:

Just the way the schooling was there. It’s very disciplined and reasonably rigid. I think that also carved out a lot of work ethic that I’ve taken with me into my adult life.

Barbara:

Yeah. Look, I mean, did you ever … Because I know, obviously, your story now, I mean, was there a time that you felt that you procrastinated a bit yourself on hitting go?

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think I definitely spent a few too many years in my corporate life before actually taking action myself and actually hitting go on my own business and reinventing myself as an entrepreneur. I think I probably spent a little bit too much time there.

Barbara:

I think a lot of us do that. That would be a very common problem. 

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

There’s a lot of reasons why you spend too much time, so I think it’s important not to beat yourself up for it. You have to remember that there are issues or factors that everybody might be facing that possibly prevents you from hitting go or to at the point where you want to hit go. You really need to not beat yourself up, because it could be financial issues or-

Barbara:

Even clarity.

Wendy:

Yeah. Clarity, yeah.

Barbara:

I mean, you sort of feel like, “I want to do something but I don’t know what.” Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely, clarity, financial reasons, I think, family commitments, time commitments, so you can’t really beat yourself up too much but you do want to make sure that you don’t sit on that forever.

Barbara:

That idea.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

What happen is somebody else would go and do it.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

They always say, there’s a saying that there are no new ideas in the work because there are so many people it’s just who gets there first.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

That’s why.

Barbara:

How did you get through that? What was the moment, or I suppose what were your tips or your strategies in actually getting to that point where you did hit go?

Wendy:

Yeah. I think, again, you’re going back to my original philosophy, it’s always about action. I really think if there is something that you want in life, it can be had but you need to actually discipline yourself to go out and get it and take the action to make it happen. The other thing that I do remember very, very clearly was I was working for a huge multinational and I had a very high-level marketing role at the time, and I remember it was Melbourne Cup. We had to have a conference call at 3am in the morning with our US parent company, which is crazy, like you wouldn’t even think that that was possible, but it happened. I remember going into the office at 3am on Melbourne Cup night thinking, “This is not a life. 

Barbara:

This is not a life. That’s exactly … I mean, that’s awful. You have to really love doing that to actually want to do that

Wendy:

Absolutely.

Barbara:

A lot of investment bankers have be doing that also, but-

Wendy:

Yeah. For some people …

Barbara:

Some people love it, actually. They drive out, yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah. They love the adrenaline that that brings, but for me, I really had to take a step back and go, “Okay, life is short,” and knowing that I might have a very finite amount of time, and I don’t want to sound morbid about it, but I’m very realistic about the fact that we only get one shot at this life so what do I want to make of it, and is it really sitting in an office at 3am having a conference call with my US parent company?

Barbara:

What do you really want to do with your life?

Wendy:

Yeah. That was, for me, when I was able to really get out of that and go, “I need to take action.” The action doesn’t have to be big or huge or something-

Barbara:

It can be just a decision, actually.

Wendy:

Exactly, and it can be something that you do in bits. I guess, don’t think that you have to put that pressure on yourself to come up with an entire business and launch it and have a million-dollar creation-

Barbara:

You don’t have to leave the job tomorrow, but you might need to get on a strategic path to making that happen.

Wendy:

There are little steps that you could be doing on the side to make your dream come true while being realistic about the commitments that you need to fulfill in your everyday life.

Barbara:

Yeah, and making sure that it all doesn’t fail on you. I mean, was that what you did? Did you sort of take steps like that?

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Yes. I started and I actually did put my toe in the water and started working weekends. I’m not going to lie. It’s hard. I was working-

Barbara:

It is hard, but you used your time and energy, which is the resource you did have at the time, yeah.

Wendy:

Perfectly quoted, it was what I had and it was what I could give to my business to make it come true and that was that time and energy. For a whole there, I was doing some crazy days in terms of 7 days a week, but I was so motivated to do it because it was my dream.

Barbara:

It was your own passion and your own dream.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

I mean, that’s something we’re hearing a lot in the interviews that we’re doing, is that a lot of people’s businesses get started that way, where they actually do need to work 2 jobs or they need to actually focus their energy and attention on creating that passion. Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely. Now, there was a point where I then had to take that leap of faith and go, “Do I believe in my business, and is it now something that I’m actually going to devote myself to full-time?” That’s always scary.

Barbara:

That is very scary, but I think a lot of people don’t ever made that leap.

Wendy:

That’s the thing. It’s like at some point, you have to really just make that decision one way or the other because you can’t keep in the candle at both ends.

Barbara:

No.

Wendy:

If you keep doing that whole work weekends plus-

Barbara:

That’s very tiring. 

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Then your relationships start to suffer and everything can go south, even your health, yeah. 

Wendy:

Yeah. I think you really have to be kind to yourself and give yourself a time frame, a generous amount of time frame, so don’t make it unrealistic and give yourself 3 months to make your business happen, but do give yourself a time frame and know that you’re going to put all of your passion and energy and effort in that time frame to building your business and seeing where it goes, but then at the end of that time frame, take stock and see if it’s something that you can really sustainably do in the long-term. It’s never-

Barbara:

Make money from, of course.

Wendy:

Make money from, yeah.

Barbara:

At the end of the day, I mean, really is about … I mean, it has to be a sustainable business.

Wendy:

Yeah, totally.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

There is no shame, I think, also in saying sometimes it didn’t work.

Barbara:

Absolutely, yeah, fail fast, that’s what they say.

Wendy:

I know I messed up.

Barbara:

You probably want to fail while you still have the job while you still have the job on the side.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

You probably don’t want to fail-

Wendy:

That’s what I mean. If you’ve given yourself a deadline, then you can actually see within that time frame while you still got your day job if things are going to work out. If they haven’t, then at least you’ve got that fallback, that plan B being your day job, but you’ve also allowed yourself enough time to really see if this could work, and then as I said, there’s nothing wrong if it didn’t work.

Barbara:

Well, there’s nothing wrong in saying, “Well, just that didn’t work.”

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Maybe you think of a new idea.

Wendy:

Refine it.

Barbara:

You would’ve learned a lot along the way.

Wendy:

Yeah. I certainly have done things where it didn’t work, but if you’re smart about it and you don’t invest your entire house into it, then you can afford to take those little risks, and go, “Okay, that didn’t work. Why not? Let me tweak the idea, maybe I got this wrong, that wrong.”

Barbara:

Well, that’s about being strategic rather than emotional.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

When you say, “I have this great idea. I was really passionate about it. I so want that to do it. I believed in it,” and it didn’t work.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

One of the things that I really love about what you did, and maybe it just looks like this from the outside, but you seem to be very strategic from the beginning. You did the book. You did the course. You got on TV. You got the business model right. Was that something you had always planned or was it sort of an evolution that happened accidentally? 

Wendy:

Sure. Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Look, first off, although it may seem like it was the perfect journey, it really wasn’t.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

There were a few hiccups along the way, but generally, it was quite planned. I always knew from the offset that I didn’t want to be just a fashion stylist. I always had a greater plan for what I wanted to do as an entrepreneur, and I always knew that I wanted to have a bigger impact on the industry of fashion styling as a whole.

Barbara:

Right. That was your vision, I suppose. That was your big vision, yeah.

Wendy:

That was my vision. Yes. That helped me to work out the steps that I need, not steps, they were actually just goals that I wanted to hit to help me have a positive impact on my industry.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

It as an evolution, a little bit, in the respect that a couple of things did happen along the way that I didn’t expect to happen or I didn’t design for.

Barbara:

Which is natural, exactly, of course. Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah. I mean, one of the things, obviously you train stylist now.

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

That’s one of the businesses that you have.

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

You are the trainer of that other trainer. Train the trainers kind of model.

Wendy:

Yes. Yeah.

Barbara:

It’s mainly girls, I would think. I mean, men-

Wendy:

Largely.

Barbara:

Largely girls. Oh, you have men? Oh.

Wendy:

I have men there, but largely it is 99% girls.

Barbara:

Let’s say the people.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

The people coming through your courses now, do you find that that could be a bit of a missing link, like they’re coming in to do a course about becoming a stylist but they don’t get that there’s actually a whole lot more to it than just becoming a stylist if you want to run a business?

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Absolutely. For me, the thing that I’ve seen the most is a lot of people come in to the business because they’re excited about fashion. They want to work as a stylist, but they don’t quite realize how … Look, I always say this-

Barbara:

To get business.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

There’s more to it.

Wendy:

Correct.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

I always say, you might be in the business of X, whether they’re your occupation or just what it is, but you ultimately, no matter who you are and no matter what you sell, you’re in the business of marketing.

Barbara:

Yes.

Wendy:

You have to actually know how to market your business and yourself for you to actually run a sustainable long-term business, something that will actually last the test of time and will actually bring you the income that you need.

Barbara:

Actually thought about income at the end. I mean, I know it’s passion and vision and all that, but the income is the big thing.

Wendy:

We all have to live, right?

Barbara:

We all have to live.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

The business, it needs to be kept alive, correct?

Wendy:

Yes. Definitely, for me, that was the missing link, was that people didn’t realize how much that they had to do to establish their reputation as someone that all the people want to work with. Building that credibility and trust with your audience and demonstrating to your audience the knowledge, that you have the knowledge.

Barbara:

Gaining an audience, this is your thing. I mean, as a stylist, you come out, you’ve trained as a stylist, you love what you do. 

Wendy:

Looking for customers. 

Barbara:

Yes. How do you get audience in order to even establish credibility? I mean, what did you do in the early days of your styling career to achieve that? Was that something you knew or did you learn that through the process of building the business, I guess? 

Wendy:

Well, it was something that I knew a lot about, obviously, from the- 

Barbara:

From your marketing background. 

Wendy:

Given that I have a marketing background, but I certainly learned a lot of lessons along the way. Year 1 and year 2 of my first business was a huge learning shift for me. I’ve been really lucky because I’m now at the other end of that spectrum, and I can now take over all of these learnings and teachings and pass it on to other people.

Barbara:

Yes.

Wendy:

The biggest things that I have learned have really been about understanding that it takes multiple touchpoints in order to get people to want to work with you, and understanding that you actually do need to put a lot of yourself out there for people to actually want to become part of your audience. You ask me, how do you find the audience?

Barbara:

That’s difficult, actually, to put yourself out there. I think that sounds easier than it is, because you have to be very authentic. Yeah.

Wendy:

Absolutely, and you’ve got to know the tools that you have available to you that would help you put yourself out there so that you start to create a reputation as an expert, a reputation of someone that people want to work with and start to build their audience. You only start to attract an audience when you have something valuable to say and offer the work.

Barbara:

Yeah, and said in the right way.

Wendy:

Said in the right way.

Barbara:

Marketing language, this is so important too.

Wendy:

Said in the right way but also understanding the methods and the tools that you have available to you to get that message out there. For example, learning how to use social media well, learning how to blog or doing email marketing, what you have to say and offer the world may be amazing, but we actually have to get quite deliberate about how you put your message out and the way you put your message out for you to attract the right people to your business. 

Barbara:

I mean, here is what you want, are you speaking the right language for the people that you’re looking for.

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely. 

Barbara:

I mean, obviously I want to talk about your Smart, Savvy and Rich program. I mean, I love the name of that. How good is that? Was the realization of this in maybe training lost of these people in styling and realizing there is a bit of a missing link there? Was that the motivation to launch this new part of your business, the WendyMak.com, you realized that I have a lot of experience here now what not to do?

Wendy:

Totally.

Barbara:

Yeah?

Wendy:

Yeah. What I learned was after I actually trained a lot of women, I mean, to become fashion stylist, while I love that, I also found that what I really enjoyed was after the course being able to continue to help them grow and to continue to support them as business people, as entrepreneurs.

Barbara:

As entrepreneurs, yeah.

Wendy:

Not just as stylist, what else could I do and offer them in terms of help to really grow and build a business.

Barbara:

To be successful at this passionate thing that they really want to do, yeah 

Wendy:

Yeah. Obviously, a lot of people don’t necessarily have the luxury on having a marketing background, so you do need to sometimes-

Barbara:

It’s overwhelming, I think.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

For people in marketing, and like a really keen interest in marketing personally because I know that’s where the money is, right?

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

I know that the money is there, but for people who are not into that or find marketing a bit cheesy, the slimy marketing, I don’t want to do the sales thing 

Wendy:

I don’t want to have to market, yeah.

Barbara:

How do you deal with those people? What tips would you give them about embracing marketing?

Wendy:

Well, I think marketing is really all about putting your message out to the world, and as long as you have something valuable to say, that does-

Barbara:

Well, it’s your authenticity, yeah.

Wendy:

It is.

Barbara:

Then you can be authentic in your marketing.

Wendy:

Absolutely.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

You can be really true to yourself in your marketing. We’re not asking you to be something else that you’re not. We’re not asking you to say something that you don’t ever believe in. I’m the first to always say that you have to always, always be able to put your hand in your heat and say, “I absolutely, 150% believe in what I’m telling the world about my business, about my product, about my service.” As long as you’ve got that kind of honesty and authenticity, marketing doesn’t come across as pushy or scammy or cheesy or fake. It doesn’t come across as any of that as long as you’re being real with what you say.

Barbara:

But then that was one of the things I find challenging, because I know in the marketing world that’s what everyone tells you to do. It’s like what I said earlier, being authentic can be quite difficult sometimes because you think, “Sure, it’s easy to by myself,” but when you’re putting yourself, it’s harder because all our masks come off and everything. When you’re writing blog posts, for example, let’s talk a little bit about how does one get authentic in a blog post. I have decided that the best thing for me to do is just to sit down brain dump, and then go back and try to fix it up a little bit.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Would you recommend … I mean, is that what you teach people how to do?

Wendy:

Yeah. That’s a really good question Barbara, because I think that blogging is one of those really crucial things that most because owners in today’s internet world need to do. You want to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise as someone who really knows what you’re doing and what you’re talking about so that you attract people to want to work with you. Blogging is actually a great vehicle for you to get your voice heard and your message out there and to showcase your expertise, but it is hard to sometimes balance that with your own personality, and so whatever method works for you when it comes to the actual writing, so if you need to brain dump and then go back to edit, that’s fine, but what you want to be looking for in general is just making sure that you aren’t afraid to put a little bit of yourself into each post. People love it when you can personalize the experience for them a little bit, and I’m not saying you have to put everything of yourself out there and hang out all your dirty laundry.

Barbara:

Yeah, no, don’t be too authentic. Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah. No one needs to know that much.

Barbara:

Yeah. It’s more a flavor of you. Yeah.

Wendy:

You have to just be real and go, “This is me.” When I write, you certainly, I hope, get a sense of who I am, and in some days, I’ll talk about the fact that I’m feeling frustration or insecure about things but I’m always very careful about writing in a way that would never offend any of my readers or anything like that.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

I’m talking about my emotions as I go through them, but I’m also being careful not to turn it into a dumping ground of self-

Barbara:

Yeah, or a ranting post.

Wendy:

Yeah. Exactly.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

That’s really the best advice that I could say about putting a little bit of yourself into your blog post to get a bit more authentic. In general, with marketing though, it really is all about, as I said, cultivating and creating an ongoing relationship with your ideal audience.

Barbara:

Yes.

Wendy:

You have to acknowledge that people don’t make a decision to buy or work with you just through 1 interaction. It’s through a series-

Barbara:

Oh, just do 1 blog post 

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

There’s more to it than just blogging, of course.

Wendy:

Absolutely.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Whether it’s a blog or whether it’s an email campaign that you’ve done or whether it’s some social media that you’re putting out there, the decision to work with you never happens through just one interaction. You have to make a conscious deliberate decision to plan a series of interactions with your target audience so that through that relationship, over time, they understand who you are, they see your expertise, they understand that they’re comfortable and confident with you and they start to really view you as an expert in your field and someone that they can really trust enough to say, “Yes, I want to work with you.”

Barbara:

They’re naturally then want to work with you.

Wendy:

There’s a relationship.

Barbara:

They feel the relationship, yes.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

It’s all about building that.

Wendy:

Yeah 

Barbara:

Yeah. I’m interested, what about some sleeping giant business, business that are even 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 years that are a bit dull and they lost their edge a little bit and they want to revamp marketing, what would you … I mean, is it a different model for businesses like that that need a different structure, or is it the same formula, I guess? What would you do with a bigger business like that?

Wendy:

Fundamentally, I think it’s always the same model or formula, whatever you want to call it. There are certain steps that you need to take if you want to really be seen as the person that everybody wants to work with 

Barbara:

The business, I guess, the people want to …

Wendy:

Yeah, the business. Yeah 

Barbara:

The brand. Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah. I always talk about businesses as people, because that’s … I guess, part of the trick for me is about humanizing businesses.

Barbara:

It’s like the identity of business. Yes, it should be personal.

Wendy:

Make that business a person that I want to work with and have a relationship, so that’s a really interesting thing that just happened in there, because for me, I have a slightly different way of thinking about it. It’s like every business should be a personality and should be humanized, that business, for me, the consumer, so that I really just see emotions and a person that I want to work with.

Barbara:

Then something to connect to, yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah. Rather than-

Barbara:

I suppose for bigger businesses, maybe that the trick, that if they want to revamp themselves is actually humanizing the business.

Wendy:

I think so.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

I mean, obviously it does depend, at the end of the day, ultimately what industry you’re in. Certain industries won’t lend themselves to that, but for the majority of businesses and industries out there, humanizing is super powerful.

Barbara:

I even think of the financial industry, legal industry are seeing some that coming at the moment actually, that there’s a change and they are trying to create a personality, and it does work.

Wendy:

It does work.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

I think you also gotta be really aware, for the established business, really just consciously saying to yourself, “Look, challenge status quo. What if we always challenge that?”

Barbara:

What if we change this?

Wendy:

What if we change things? What if we looked at a different avenue to find customers? What if we have never been in social media and we do?

Barbara:

Spoke to our customers differently.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah, spoke to them as people rather than as numbers.

Wendy:

Absolutely, challenge the status quo 

Barbara:

Yeah. Look, your Smart, Savvy, and Rich program is launching at the moment, very exciting. This is round 2 

Wendy:

Yes, it is.

Barbara:

Tell me a bit about the program, what this entail, how long does it take, what would you learn, what are they going to achieve.

Wendy:

I always have had this philosophy that no matter what you sell, whether it’s product or service or anything that you’re doing, you have to come across as an expert in your field if you want people to say yes and work with you. We don’t really want to work with people or we don’t make decisions to buy something from someone or a business that we don’t trust at the end of the day.

Barbara:

Yeah. It’s all about that.

Wendy:

Yeah. People trust-

Barbara:

People buy from people they trust and know they can trust.

Wendy:

Exactly, and that trust is created when you actually prove yourself as an expert in your field, so first come trust, so we buy from people that we trust, but why do we trust them, because we know that they know what they’re talking about, know what they’re doing. They’re experts in their field.

Barbara:

They have that knowledge that we want, that information that could help us.

Wendy:

Yes. For me it was always about, “Well, how can you be seen as the expert in your field?” You know my past. I came from a very strong corporate marketing background. I threw in the towel on that and then became a fashion stylist, and I learned a lot through that process, because it was a very short period of time before I was suddenly on TV and writing a book 

Barbara:

Right. You were the go-to expert in the fashion industry all of a sudden. Yeah, that’s right.

Wendy:

I’ve taken everything that I’ve done to help me establish a reputation in a new filed in a relatively short period of time as an expert. What have I done to get there I’ve actually packaged up into this program into a 6-step method.

Barbara:

Oh, okay, great, yeah.

Wendy:

It’s done 10 weeks online, from the comfort of your own home.

Barbara:

People can do it just-

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah, because sometimes the course and things, they don’t work with your time frame.

Wendy:

Absolutely.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Having said that, we also connect fortnightly in live phone calls as a group so that I can really help everybody out in a live environment, we just hear out-

Barbara:

Oh, you created a community to people in the course. Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah, absolutely, and if they’ve got questions, they can ask. You’re never alone, but you can certainly do it in the comfort of your own home. You don’t have to go somewhere to do it.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

What would be something that you said, the 6 steps 

Wendy:

Yeah, there are 6 steps. 

Barbara:

What are the 6 steps, if you don’t mind tell us about the steps? We’re going to get some tips here.

Wendy:

Well, the first thing is to establish your platform. Now, establishing your platform is really finding a strong message within in niche in your field that you can really champion. I call it a hero topic.

Barbara:

Okay.

Wendy:

What’s a hero topic? What’s that one topic that if we were to think about that topic we would automatically associate you as the expert with that topic?

Barbara:

Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah.

Wendy:

Finding a topic in your industry that you can write about, talk about, speak about, and people want to listen and hear from you about that topic. That’s what I call a hero topic. Establishing your platform is super important because what happens is when you are able to say, “I’m an expert in this particular topic,” and it can be quite a niche topic, eventually, we start to associate you as the expert in all these other topics.

Barbara:

Oh, sort of subtopics within that field.

Wendy:

Yeah. Kind of divide and conquer. Conquer 1 niche topic in your broader industry, and then over time, you start to become the expert in all of the other areas, and soon, you’ll be known as the expert in your whole industry.

Barbara:

Industry.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah. When you say platform, what do you mean by that exactly? Do you mean these different topics or these different niches or do you mean …

Wendy:

Yeah. It’s your voice. It’s your message, what do you have to bring the table that is super valuable for all the audience.

Barbara:

Okay.

Wendy:

I forgot the other 5 steps, didn’t I?

Barbara:

At least we’re [crosstalk 00:25:39] by this step 1, we’re still going on step 1.

Wendy:

We got carried away on step 1. Step 2 

Wendy:

Step 2 is monetizing your expertise.

Barbara:

Oh, I love this bit, the money bit.

Wendy:

Yeah. I knew you’d love that.

Barbara:

You have to monetize it.

Wendy:

There is not business if you don’t make money, and we’re not saying that to be crass or to be really about it, but-

Barbara:

It’s realistic.

Wendy:

Exactly. We have bills to pay. You have a business to run. It needs to make you money.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Monetizing your expertise is about really taking your amazing knowledge and information, all of that valuable thing that you have to give to the world, but really being able to prioritize it.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Actually turn it into a product that you can sell.

Barbara:

That you can then sell, absolutely, yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah. Ideally, multiple times over. For me, it’s about actually monetizing expertise so that you break the barrier of hourly rate, income limitations.

Barbara:

Oh, working for time, stopping time for money, there’s so many that are caught in that track.

Wendy:

Exactly.

Barbara:

Actually, what I always say is, “Then you don’t really have a business, you have a glorified job, if you’re constantly trying to have to work for it.”

Wendy:

Pretty much, yeah. That’s a great way of putting it, great way of putting it. Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

You get stuck in that track of just working, and you’ve only got a certain amount of hours per day, so there’s always a limit.

Barbara:

Time limits you.

Wendy:

Yup.

Barbara:

There’s a limit towards what you can make and the amount of people that you could help.

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

That’s the only thing with your message. Yeah.

Wendy:

Step 2 is monetizing expertise. Step 3 is all about using the power of the internet to help you get your message from set 1, making your own topic, and your product to the world. We’re really using technology all of the great tools that are out there on the internet to really help your voice get heard-

Barbara:

By as many people as possible. [Crosstalk 00:27:12] of course.

Wendy:

Yeah, reach more ears. Reach more ears. Reach more people. Expand your impact and reach more people. Step 4 is actually establishing your credibility as an expert. Now we actually start to do things like use social media and blogging and newsletters and speaking at events and writing books to really help cement your reputation-

Barbara:

When people see you product online, they go, “Oh, there’s that girl who does that thing,” or “I saw her at a talk.”

Wendy:

You’re backing it up.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

You’re backing it up. You’re bringing something to the table where they go, “Yeah, she the real deal,” basically.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Then we look at how you develop your perfect pitch. Step 5 is, and I find a lot of people-

Barbara:

That’s hard.

Wendy:

… Fall at this.

Barbara:

Perfect pitch is hard.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

A lot of entrepreneurs, especially new entrepreneurs, fall over when it comes to this. We don’t really know how to pitch ourselves and we don’t know how to do it in a way that’s distinct.

Barbara:

We fumble through it as well.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

You to a network event and you think, people go, “Oh, so what do you do?”

Wendy:

We don’t make it happen.

Barbara:

Just stumble through the whole thing.

Wendy:

We say something and people go, “Okay, that’s interesting.”

Barbara:

Oh, whatever, they move on. Yeah.

Wendy:

Anytime someone says, “That’s interesting,” it’s really not.

Barbara:

Yeah. True, it’s like saying, “Oh, that’s nice.”

Wendy:

Yes. Exactly 

Barbara:

You teach this in the program.

Wendy:

Yes.

Barbara:

This is so important.

Wendy:

We talk about networking. Even if you’re an introvert, we talk about how you can network productively, because there’s a lot of networking happening.

Barbara:

Even if you don’t like it.

Wendy:

Yeah. Even if you don’t like it.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Also getting results from it. A lot of networking really doesn’t come to anything. That’s step 5, and finally step 6 is about your marketing funnel, creating what I call your marketing funnel which is in essence putting everything that we have from the first 5 steps into that series-

Barbara:

A sequence online … 

Wendy:

… Of touchpoints.

Barbara:

Oh, mainly online?

Wendy:

Mainly online, but it is that series that I mentioned earlier about touching your customer over a period of time and developing that.

Barbara:

Automating that.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Okay, not just your funnel. It’s the automation of that.

Wendy:

Yes, absolutely, and developing that relationship. Really, the funnel is all about, “How am I going to, over a period of time, put everything together into a cohesive series of touchpoints with my ideal customer and actually develop that relationship, so that by the end of that series, they go, “Yes. I absolutely want to work for you or buy from you.”?

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Look, this is absolutely vital, important information. I mean, I just love the fact that you’ve launched this program. I think it’s an amazing thing.

Wendy:

Well, I am excited about it also.

Barbara:

Yeah.

Wendy:

Yeah.

Barbara:

Look, if our viewers want to know more about Wendy Mak, about your program in particular, where should they go?

Wendy:

Well, they can jump on to WendyMak.com, so that’s M-A-K.com to join me on my blog, or if they’re interested in Smart, Savvy, and Rich, they can just jump on to SmartSavvyandRich.com.

Barbara:

Is that and, A-N-D? 

Wendy:

A-N-D, yeah. 

Barbara:

It’s A-N-Drich.com. Excellent. Wendy, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking about your new program and all things marketing, because I’m a big believer in marketing, and I know that is really what drives businesses forward.

Wendy:

Thank you so much for having me.

Barbara:

Listen, thank you to everyone again for watching for another week. Remember that you can catch me later this week on my podcast, Wealth Unplugged on iTunes where I’m going to be talking about my key takeouts from today’s chat with Wendy. Also, remember to join me next week if you can. I’m going to be talking about the power of really good business partnerships with a lady called Claire Wivell Plater. See you then.