Why Relationship-Based Marketing Works with Jessica Abel

Andréa Jones [00:00:00]:
My absolute favorite way to get a client is not from social media. It's not from email. It is from my friends. They send me the best clients. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how we make new friends, build relationships and have the people that we know be a resource for us as we're building our business. We have the amazing Jessica Abel on the show today to talk all about that and more. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Andréa Jones [00:00:29]:
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Andréa Jones [00:01:22]:
Welcome to episode number 367 of the Mindful Marketing Podcast where I'm on a mission to help you with simpler, smart, smarter marketing. Especially for those of you out here who are busy like me and I'm excited to just pick Jessica's brain today. Jessica, welcome to the show.

Jessica Abel [00:01:39]:
Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Andréa Jones [00:01:41]:
I'm also very excited that you're here. I feel like I've known of you for a while, but it wasn't until recently when we worked together on your last event that I really got to know more about your work and what you do. But for those people tuning in, tell us a little bit about your history and how you got into relationship based marketing.

Jessica Abel [00:02:01]:
Sure. I have a background as an artist, basically artist and writer. I'm a cartoonist. I've published a number of graphic novels and book length comics including out on the Wire, probably one of my best.

Tara McMullin [00:02:15]:
Known books, which is about.

Jessica Abel [00:02:16]:
It's a nonfiction book about narrative techniques on long form audio. So podcasting, radio, this American Life, Radiolab, that kind of thing like how do.

Tara McMullin [00:02:27]:
They build their stories?

Jessica Abel [00:02:29]:
And that's my background.

Tara McMullin [00:02:31]:
About 10 years ago or so I.

Jessica Abel [00:02:34]:
Was finishing out on the Wire and You know, this is a book that I'm extremely proud of and, and love how it went into the world. And it's still, you know, it's being used in, by all kinds of people in classrooms and all kinds of stuff. But making comics is, it's grueling, let's just be honest. Like, it's just this incredibly difficult process. And I had been making comics for 20 years plus at that point. I'd been teaching. I wrote two textbooks about comics, like deep in that world. And, and what I had not been.

Tara McMullin [00:03:05]:
Able to figure out was how to.

Jessica Abel [00:03:07]:
Make a living as an author, how to make selling books work for me. And so I was doing what most authors do, which is I was teaching, I had adjunct teaching jobs. I was, you know, I had jobs as an editor. You know, I was the series editor for the best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin. I was an illustrator for a long time. So I would do, you know, magazine newspaper illustration, stuff like that. So all kinds of different jobs to try to support my author career. And being an author who is a cartoonist means so much more physical labor and just time goes into literally creating the book.

Jessica Abel [00:03:49]:
Which isn't to say authors who don't make comics aren't working hard, they're working really hard. I'm not trying to say that, but, you know, I basically wrote and edited.

Tara McMullin [00:03:57]:
The entire book and then had 10.

Jessica Abel [00:03:59]:
Months of, you know, 10 hour days to actually draw it right. So I was burnt out. I was just like burnt to a crisp at that point. I made my own podcast at the end of it, using all these principles, you know, just kind of like kept it going. And I was kind of staring down the barrel of like another book. Like, you know, I. The advances that I earned on that.

Tara McMullin [00:04:20]:
Book were long gone.

Jessica Abel [00:04:22]:
And, you know, most books never earn out and earn royalties.

Tara McMullin [00:04:26]:
Little secret of the industry.

Jessica Abel [00:04:28]:
Like most of them just don't. They don't earn any more money after the advance.

Tara McMullin [00:04:32]:
It's normal.

Jessica Abel [00:04:34]:
And I just, I was like, how can I do this again? I just don't know how I can keep going. So that's when I started learning about business explicitly. Now obviously I had been in business for 20 years, but I never thought of it that way. And I think that's something I find with my audience of people in the creative fields. Very frequently they get into whatever they're doing because they love what they're doing, they want more time for it. So they try to make it professional and make it a business. But they have no, like learning, no Training around that, which, you know. And I've also discovered that no one else does either.

Jessica Abel [00:05:09]:
You know, it's not like there's some segment of people who gets out of school. Like, I know what to do. Like, nobody learns this stuff in school. So that's where I was at. And I also, as an artist and sort of, you know, former, like I was in bands, like all this other stuff business was literally the enemy, you know, it was like, that is the enemy camp. And it was so hard for me to figure out how to translate all of the stuff I was learning into terms I could make my mouth say without gagging. You know, it was just like so difficult to do that. And one of the first people I found, very fortunately, was Tara McMullen, who is very straightforward and clear and ethical and honest about all of this stuff.

Tara McMullin [00:05:57]:
What she was teaching was way over.

Jessica Abel [00:05:59]:
My head, but I loved the way she taught it and I felt like I could really trust her. She wasn't skeezy and trying to put anything over on anybody. She was really trying to go deep and foundational, which if anybody listening knows Tara's work, that's her mo, Very deep. So I was learning this stuff as fast as I could. It was really hard. And still I, you know, so I.

Tara McMullin [00:06:26]:
Basically, as somebody who'd been a professor.

Jessica Abel [00:06:29]:
For, at that point, 15 years plus the classroom is what I know. You know, running courses and building curriculum. I mean, like I said, I'd written two textbooks, so I made a course. One does, right? And this was 2015, so I made.

Tara McMullin [00:06:49]:
The first version of the Creative Focus.

Jessica Abel [00:06:50]:
Workshop, which is still a course that I run and love. It's evolved massively since then, obviously. And that was so much better than.

Tara McMullin [00:07:00]:
In terms of financially in time and.

Jessica Abel [00:07:02]:
Stuff, in terms of trying to make a living for my family than being an author was. And yet it still didn't really like, it didn't close the gap. You know, I got another teaching job at that point. In fact, it was a department, department head job, full time professor job. That's the first time I'd been full time at that point and kept that until like a year ago because that's what I needed to fill the gap. So to compress all the sort of business journey part 10 years of learning stuff. It really took me about six of those years at least, to start to grasp how important business models are. Like the choice of your business model, what does your offer look like, how is it priced? You know, how much time does it take? And then how does that relate to your marketing, how does that relate to how you're going out into the world? Because all of those things, the thing that doesn't work as an author is capacity, right?

Tara McMullin [00:08:04]:
Like the amount of time it takes.

Jessica Abel [00:08:05]:
To put into creating these works versus.

Tara McMullin [00:08:08]:
The amount of money you can make from them.

Jessica Abel [00:08:09]:
You know, with obviously unicorn exceptions. But for the vast majority of authors, it's just totally out of whack. You know, like you're selling something and you make a profit of if it's self published, maybe you're making $6 on it. If it's, you know, commercially published, maybe.

Tara McMullin [00:08:22]:
You'Re making a dollar fifty.

Jessica Abel [00:08:23]:
You know, the number of books you need to sell and the way you.

Tara McMullin [00:08:27]:
Would need to do marketing to sell that number of units of thing.

Jessica Abel [00:08:31]:
No one tells you that. Like, no one explains the, the exponential.

Tara McMullin [00:08:37]:
Numbers you would need to be in.

Jessica Abel [00:08:39]:
Front of to make that work outside of, again, kind of zeitgeisty, you know, unicorn events. And so, like, literally no one ever taught me that. And, and eventually I figured it out through working with different coaches on different things. And like seeing having this calculator here and that calculator there and going like, oh, now I see that I would need to have an audience of like 5 million people in order to be.

Tara McMullin [00:09:06]:
Able to sell a hundred thousand books.

Jessica Abel [00:09:09]:
You know, in a year. Like, I would need that scale. And to have that scale means having.

Tara McMullin [00:09:15]:
A kind of lifestyle.

Jessica Abel [00:09:16]:
In terms of the. What you're doing with your marketing, I just don't. I mean, if you're trying to write books and make comics, you don't have time for that. Even if you wanted to do it, you don't have time. So all of those things were just.

Tara McMullin [00:09:26]:
Like, crashing down around me over time.

Jessica Abel [00:09:28]:
Where I was like, oh, my God, that, that, that, that. All these different ways in which these sort of underlying structures fit together mathematically, you know, there's. It's not hard math. It's just nobody learns it. And so as I've gradually gone through my business journey, I've become a business coach for people who have creative businesses to try to help them understand how to apply these principles and actually design something that could work for them, including the marketing. Because that's the. I think the biggest piece of this is like, not understanding how to match up the marketing that you're doing with the thing that you're offering and whether.

Tara McMullin [00:10:05]:
If the thing is something that requires.

Jessica Abel [00:10:07]:
That massive kind of traffic, understanding what that's going to require, and vice versa, like, how can you fix that by fixing your offer and fixing your business model first and then matching up the marketing style, which is going to be a more relationship based marketing style.

Tara McMullin [00:10:22]:
That was a long answer.

Jessica Abel [00:10:23]:
I hope we got where we need to get.

Andréa Jones [00:10:25]:
Love it. And I hope everyone listening is like me taking notes. I have a couple follow up questions because I'm like, okay, I'm really curious about this, but what I loved what you said is specifically for my creative folks out there in the world, we want our pie in the sky dream is we create the thing and then people just come and find it and they fall in love with it and suddenly everybody loves it like that. That's our goal going into it. And then we realize somewhere in there that we actually spend more time and energy and effort on marketing the thing and it builds a sort of resentment up. And I think that's very common. I just love that you kind of pointed this out. Especially for creative people, it's hard to build a business off of that model.

Andréa Jones [00:11:11]:
I love that you put, you brought up authorship as an example because you do have to live almost like an influencer, celebrity style life to be able to fuel that, that passion. And so I think this is something that people don't talk about enough. And I'm glad that you pointed that out.

Jessica Abel [00:11:28]:
Yeah. Because people get so, so first of all, not if anybody's experiencing that.

Tara McMullin [00:11:32]:
It's not your fault. This is what we're told is going to work.

Jessica Abel [00:11:35]:
You know, you do a thing and it's great enough and people come. You know, no one. When you're going through school, you're going through art school, you're going through liberal arts school, you're learning your, your, your craft. It never comes up that this is a part of that. The business model picture that you have a business model, that there is one. Like none of that comes up. And so if it's, you know, confusing and you wish it were a different way, I get it. I mean, it's not.

Jessica Abel [00:12:00]:
Didn't come out of nowhere, but yeah, this thing. And I think that people end up in a situation where they're like not making enough money. They're working their asses off. Excuse me, working their butts off.

Andréa Jones [00:12:11]:
You can, you can say this is a safe space, okay.

Jessica Abel [00:12:17]:
To bring in whatever they're bringing in.

Tara McMullin [00:12:19]:
They're working too many jobs.

Jessica Abel [00:12:21]:
I have this whole idea, this like term that I use is cyclical burnout, that creatives get into too many jobs to try to just fund their life and they're baffled and resentful.

Tara McMullin [00:12:33]:
Like, why do I Have to show up.

Jessica Abel [00:12:34]:
You know, why are people telling me to show up on Instagram? And I show up on Instagram and nobody does anything, and I'm not selling.

Tara McMullin [00:12:39]:
The things I need to sell.

Jessica Abel [00:12:40]:
And I can't. You know, I've sold a bunch of these.

Tara McMullin [00:12:42]:
People love them, but I can't get it beyond X point.

Jessica Abel [00:12:45]:
You know, like, it tops out here. It's also baffling if you don't understand that underlying, you know, literally mathematical relationship between the. The number. Like, what the numbers are.

Andréa Jones [00:12:57]:
Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad that you brought this up, because I do think that this is part of the. The challenge of social media is that the people who are successful make it look so easy because that's part of the appeal. We don't want to see them. Them ugly crying in the shower that morning because they have to. They have to put on makeup that day because they have to film content because. Because that's. That's their job.

Andréa Jones [00:13:23]:
It's not the creative side. So I'm glad that you're pointing that out, but the next question that pops up for me with this conversation is, okay, so let's say we're creative, we've made our thing, we want to keep making it, and now we're staring at this, this giant challenge in front of us of finding 5 million people who want to consume the thing. What do we do now? Do we. How do we. Like, where do we start with this idea of offer creation that suits our lifestyle?

Jessica Abel [00:13:52]:
I think that's a super good question, and it's not an answer people love, because what they want is for me to say, oh, well, there is an answer to this. Living off, you know, your book sales or living off, you know, doing like, ceramics workshops for building your creative, you know, mojo, or, you know, life coaching, same kind of thing. It's like all these different things you want to do, they're like life giving, but somehow you can't get them to connect in the way, like through these kinds of channels.

Tara McMullin [00:14:22]:
Right.

Jessica Abel [00:14:23]:
And I think that the. The answer for me is to separate the creative work that you want to be doing. Like the actual, like, literal thing that is the, you know, sort of expression of your greatest, you know, creative impulses for making money. Which doesn't mean don't use your creativity in a business do. But you have to look at all the threads of things that go into your skill set and kind of tease those apart and say, all right, I'm going to use these because these have a service implication that's very Strong for a client base. Like, I can create a service out of these things that I do for a client base who they need it and they will pay for it. And then these other things, I'm going to do these because I love them and I'm going to build a business that makes space for them, makes time for those activities. Doesn't mean I can't be professional at those things.

Jessica Abel [00:15:21]:
I can still be like, I can still be a published author, I can still, you know, sell books and whatever. But if I, as long as I'm.

Tara McMullin [00:15:27]:
Not trying to make that, pay my.

Jessica Abel [00:15:28]:
Mortgage, I can make money at that. But it doesn't, you know, it's the weight on those things. And so figuring out how to take the weight off this creative expression makes the creative expression better, right? It makes it freer, it makes it something. And this is what everybody kind of dreams of is like, the money's gonna pour in, you do whatever you want. Right? But that's not how it works. And so how can you engineer that in some sense? Like engineer the situation where you have enough money maybe not pouring in, but at least coming in to make it possible to pursue the creative work that you want to be doing. And you know, a lot of people I work with are not like big C creatives. They're not painters, they're not, you know, you know, cartoonists or whatever.

Jessica Abel [00:16:12]:
They, they just are kind of creatively.

Tara McMullin [00:16:15]:
Oriented and, and even building a business itself is a creative act.

Jessica Abel [00:16:18]:
I mean, anyone listening to this is like, I'm not creative enough. Like, no, you are. Like, if you're making something up out of your head, like, it is a very creative act. But like, you know, even, even for somebody who's just, who's just quote, unquote, just building a business and using their creativity in that way, there are going to be offers you have in mind or ideas for programs or ideas for, you know, books or content that don't really fit into what you can sell very well, but you really want to do those things. And so if you're not somebody who identifies as like a capital A artist, think about that. That's what I'm talking about, like being able to do those things because you feel a mission to serve a certain audience or you want to talk about a certain topic and it needs to be in the world, but it doesn't necessarily like fit into the neat, you know, space of what you're doing professionally. That is like a solid money making service. And this is the other big thing is that most, a lot of creative people want to create whatever it is, essentially what, no matter what form it takes, it's a product, right? It's like pre created.

Tara McMullin [00:17:28]:
It's something that exists.

Jessica Abel [00:17:29]:
And then you try to find an audience for that and sell the thing, which is inherently challenging. Just trying to find enough people who already want that thing and who are.

Tara McMullin [00:17:39]:
Already in that audience.

Jessica Abel [00:17:40]:
It's just hard. It's just like, you know, it's a lot of work to find those people. Not impossible, just a lot of, A lot of work. But if you are creating something that's a service of some kind or another, then if you're doing it with strategy and forethought, you are creating something that already, there's already a need for it.

Tara McMullin [00:18:01]:
People are already looking for it and.

Jessica Abel [00:18:03]:
They want to buy that thing.

Tara McMullin [00:18:05]:
And also, this is also very important.

Jessica Abel [00:18:07]:
For this whole model thing is it.

Tara McMullin [00:18:09]:
Needs to be something that's priced at.

Jessica Abel [00:18:11]:
A relatively premium level, depending on what your financial needs are.

Tara McMullin [00:18:15]:
Maybe very premium, maybe like medium premium.

Jessica Abel [00:18:18]:
You know, but it needs to be priced high or you're gonna be stuck.

Tara McMullin [00:18:22]:
Trying to sell to many, many, many people because of those exponential numbers.

Jessica Abel [00:18:26]:
And that means you're gonna be spending all your time doing marketing. So if you want to do only a portion of your time doing marketing, you know, and keep that under control, you have to have an offer that has a higher price point. That's what the math tells us. Period.

Andréa Jones [00:18:39]:
Yes, 100%. I'm co signing everything that you were saying, because this is a challenge that I bump into a lot. And I don't know if you experience this as well, but it's a hard conversation to have because by the time someone comes to me and they're asking me for support with their marketing, we're trying to force in a marketing plan that works for an offer, when really the offer is what needs to be examined. And not just the author, the person delivering the offer too. Because a lot of my people, they don't actually, actually like marketing. That's why they come to me. Like, the people who, who love it, they, they don't really need me that much. Okay.

Andréa Jones [00:19:15]:
But it, my people are like, okay, I, I'm, I don't want to post Instagram stories like what, what else can I do? And, and honestly, when you create this product as you're describing it, you create it once and then you try to sell it. The requirements for marketing, something like that are astronomical. And unless you don't, if you like marketing, like I like marketing. So for me, marketing in this way is fun for me. For a lot of people, it's not okay. And it's okay to be like, I don't like this. So I love that you mentioned the service side of it as well. But I can already hear the hesitancy from a lot of people listening where they're like, okay, I have an offer and now I have to create something entirely new to be able to sell something.

Andréa Jones [00:20:00]:
And there's this objection that happens a lot, especially in online business space, this passive income idea that we've been fed, this passive income idea where we create it and then we relax on the beach and it just sells in our sleep, right? And when you talk about a service to me, when I hear that it requires active input from the person delivering the service, how do we overcome this objection or this thought of, you know, it sells in our sleep, we create it once and the people will come and buy it.

Tara McMullin [00:20:34]:
I mean, does it sound familiar?

Jessica Abel [00:20:35]:
Like that's exactly the dream about, you know, writing a book or creative work or whatever is like, you make a thing and people will come in the door. The fact is, passive income doesn't exist. You know, I have a friend who is, has a business that sells relatively low priced courses and she doesn't do what you do with social media, but she posts on YouTube and she has a lot of backend automation. You know, she has, she uses ads significantly, she creates webinars, she has funnels, there's lots of tagging and things going back and forth, different sequences, all the different stuff. She loves it, it's a business she loves. And if you love doing that kind of stuff, fantastic, do it. I'm not trying to say there's anything better or worse about any of these ideas, but if you're somebody who is like, oh, I don't really like marketing.

Tara McMullin [00:21:26]:
Then you do need to redesign your.

Jessica Abel [00:21:27]:
Business model and your offer around something that you can price more, you know, higher. And I get a lot of people too who are like, oh, well, I have this idea for this course because I really just want to be hands off and not be doing stuff. And I'm like, okay, I hear you.

Tara McMullin [00:21:41]:
And I have a feeling that's because.

Jessica Abel [00:21:43]:
You'Re so over capacity right now. Like you're doing so much stuff to try to make your financial life work that it feels impossible to do some kind of service that's going to actually require time of you. It feels like it's too much.

Tara McMullin [00:21:59]:
Right?

Jessica Abel [00:21:59]:
I just can't. How could I possibly fit that in with all of this other stuff? And the whole point is you need.

Tara McMullin [00:22:05]:
To redesign from the foundation, from the base.

Jessica Abel [00:22:07]:
This is what I do in my coaching. Like this is we start with the business model, then we go to the offer, then we do market research and refine the offer, then we do like an MVP pilot thing. And at the end of this, after.

Tara McMullin [00:22:19]:
We do sales, then we do a.

Jessica Abel [00:22:20]:
Marketing plan, you know, that's at the very end because you have to have this structure that can potentially deliver the kind of revenue you need in the amount of time you have.

Tara McMullin [00:22:33]:
First you have to have that.

Jessica Abel [00:22:35]:
If you try to like force it from the other direction, like you're talking about, they come in and they're like, I have this thing, how do I sell it?

Tara McMullin [00:22:40]:
Well, if you're going to start with the thing, you're going to have to.

Jessica Abel [00:22:43]:
Follow the rules of the thing, you know. So if you have a course that.

Tara McMullin [00:22:47]:
Sells for $500 and you want it.

Jessica Abel [00:22:49]:
To be this passive, quote unquote, passive thing, you better be ready to have.

Tara McMullin [00:22:54]:
A bunch of marketing channels that you're.

Jessica Abel [00:22:55]:
Feeding regularly, you know, using ads, spending a bunch of money on ads, creating funnels, using automations, getting real comfortable with the tech. If you do all that, it could work, you know, but, but that's what it requires. And so when I'm talking to people about working with me, that's what I lay out. I'm like, okay, these are your options. You can do what you want. But like, if you're trying to get out of the constant grind of marketing, you have to do marketing period, like to feed your business. But if you're trying to get out of this sort of like constant like content grind and whatever, this is what it looks like, you know, you have.

Tara McMullin [00:23:30]:
To come up with a business model.

Jessica Abel [00:23:31]:
And an offer that makes it possible to escape that grind. And so that, that mind that it's not even mindset but that that situation people are in where they're like, how? I don't. One to one, you know, or like, you know, service for, you know, it's.

Tara McMullin [00:23:45]:
Just so, it's so demanding.

Jessica Abel [00:23:46]:
It's so like, how do I possibly do that? It's like, well, because you wouldn't be doing all this other stuff, you know, stop doing that and put that energy into this. And it could feel actually kind of life giving and great, but you have to be able to imagine not doing all the other stuff. And everybody wants to come to and like do cohorts too, like out of the box. They're like, I have a sort of idea for Coaching. And what I want to do is it in groups and cohorts and classes. And they're thinking this is going to pay more money for less time. And so therefore I'll be able to handle the time issue again.

Tara McMullin [00:24:18]:
Cool, great. But you need a large audience for.

Jessica Abel [00:24:22]:
That and you need a lot of marketing energy behind that. So it really has to start with business model and it has to start with then the offer that fits in.

Andréa Jones [00:24:30]:
That business model a hundred percent. And I still think to this day, even though I don't currently offer services done for you, services are still the most profitable way to have a business. Like, I think it's very challenging to just start off especially, you know, in the online business space with a course or a digital product of some of some sort. It's very challenging.

Jessica Abel [00:24:53]:
I mean you evolved into this like you started there and it took 11 years.

Tara McMullin [00:24:58]:
Yeah.

Jessica Abel [00:24:59]:
And I went backwards and then went like, oh, I think I need one to one coaching. Which is, you know, like I figured it out, like everything went backwards. Right. And yeah, no, 100% like exactly what you're saying. Like you don't necessarily have to stay there forever, but that's. If you're trying to innovate your way out of this crunch that you're in, you have to start. Well, you don't have to.

Tara McMullin [00:25:22]:
You're likely to start there.

Jessica Abel [00:25:23]:
And it could be one to one services. Services are, you know, done for you. Services are probably the easiest thing.

Tara McMullin [00:25:29]:
Second would be one to one coaching.

Jessica Abel [00:25:31]:
As long as you have a very clearly defined value proposition like you, what you do is very clear and the people you do it for are very clear. It's a little harder because it's people deciding on something like do they want to go down this road or not, but also the same thing where it's just you only need to get that.

Tara McMullin [00:25:47]:
One person to say yes.

Jessica Abel [00:25:48]:
You don't need to get hundreds of people to say yes.

Andréa Jones [00:25:51]:
Yeah, I love this. And this, this kind of transitions us into the second part of this conversation beautifully, which is how do you sell this offer? And I love that you talk about relationships because that's why I love social media. For me, most of the time I spend on social media is actually relationship building. It's not content creation. I would much rather have a direct message conversation with through social media than create content. That's how I've been able to build my business. It's the, it's the hidden, I call it the dark social strategy. Right.

Andréa Jones [00:26:23]:
So it's like everything that's behind the scenes behind the closed doors, so to speak, the private conversations that have built my business. Not necessarily what everyone else sees publicly. So I want to talk about this idea of relationship based marketing. How do you define it? Like, what is, what is the structure of this in your experience?

Jessica Abel [00:26:41]:
First of all, credit where credit's due. I learned what, I've learned about this from Michelle Warner. Even the term relationship marketing comes from her. And so if anybody wants to go deep in this, she's the person to go to. But I have been paying attention to her and help and teaching this to my clients for a number of years. And essentially, as Michelle puts it, all marketing is on a spectrum between traffic and relationships. And the extreme end of relationship marketing is a one to one referral. It's somebody saying, you should work with this person, you know, and it comes out of the blue and it's the best.

Jessica Abel [00:27:16]:
Right? Those are amazing, but they're not very controllable. You don't know when that's going to happen. And you know, it's sort of hard to build a business on that. On the other end of the extreme end of traffic marketing is like the three times a day Banana Republic emails you get, you know, where it's like, it doesn't, like, doesn't hurt you to get them. You're not offended by them, you sort of expect it. But also it's like, you know, I don't need those things. I just like skim over them unless I need a new shirt. And then I'm like, is there a sale? You know, that's kind of how it functions, right? It's very, it's very transactional, right?

Andréa Jones [00:27:49]:
Yeah.

Jessica Abel [00:27:51]:
So on, you know, looking at that spectrum, there's a, there's every. And again, I'm, I'm basically quoting Michelle here. Everything fits on that spectrum somewhere. And so it's not that you have.

Tara McMullin [00:28:03]:
To be all the way at one end of it either.

Jessica Abel [00:28:06]:
So the closer you get to that end, the deeper the connection you have with a person with the prospect at the outset, essentially, like when you first meet them. So, for example, this format of having a podcast with you, if people are listening to this and they're like, wow.

Tara McMullin [00:28:23]:
Jessica, sounds super interesting.

Jessica Abel [00:28:24]:
I definitely need to work on my business model and my offer. I want to change my foundations. I'm going to go call her, you know, I'm going to go to her site and get, you know, get on a call. This is a relationship marketing tactic because we're talking for however many minutes, you know, like pushing an hour probably at some point. And people can get a very deep.

Tara McMullin [00:28:43]:
Sense of who I am and how.

Jessica Abel [00:28:44]:
I think and, and my influences and all that other stuff. In that amount of time, I'm not talking to them directly, so it's not at the end of that spectrum. But you have invited me on your podcast, therefore there's a trust transfer between you and me where you say, jessica's great, you should listen to her, you know, which you literally said at the beginning of the, of this thing. And, and then your people are like, wow, you know, Andrea says I should.

Tara McMullin [00:29:09]:
Listen to Jessica, so therefore I'm going to listen.

Jessica Abel [00:29:11]:
And then here they are listening and.

Tara McMullin [00:29:12]:
So they're learning who I am.

Jessica Abel [00:29:13]:
Right. So that's somewhere towards the relationship end of the spectrum. There are things like doing talks and presentations live online. You know, especially the more exclusive the invitation to speak, the more there's a trust transfer for the people in the room and the more open they're going to be to listening to you all the way through and hearing who you are. So if somebody says, hey, I have a mastermind group, would you come in and present on your. Whatever your idea is? That's an amazing opportunity to have those kinds of connections.

Tara McMullin [00:29:51]:
So when we say relationship marketing, it.

Jessica Abel [00:29:52]:
Doesn'T necessarily mean one to one networking, although that is certainly included. And a lot of the networking working you're doing is not with the people who are going to be your clients, but the people who are going to be your hosts. So it's reaching out to people, finding people who are going to be the ideal collaborative partners. So when you came to the autonomous creative conference and you spoke there, you know, that's me introducing you to my.

Tara McMullin [00:30:13]:
Audience, you introducing me to your audience.

Jessica Abel [00:30:15]:
And saying, like, look, these, these are.

Tara McMullin [00:30:17]:
People worth listening to.

Jessica Abel [00:30:19]:
And that's the purpose of a conference like that. Beyond the actual content, the learning that people get out of it. It's that sense of like, look, we, we endorse this. You know, this is, you know, if you. Because there's so much garbage out there.

Tara McMullin [00:30:33]:
Trying to find trusted voices is, is tricky.

Jessica Abel [00:30:36]:
So if you find somebody you really trust and you like, you're going to look at who they point you to because you don't want to just go out. Like, it's scary to just go onto Instagram and like, click on influencers, you know, that's gonna get you in for some very dark places very quickly.

Andréa Jones [00:30:51]:
Yeah, I don't, I don't necessarily recommend that, but I do love this idea of the trust transfer, specifically because it is a high level of trust to have someone in this space. Your example of this podcast is a great one. I get an email at least a day, someone asking to be on the podcast. And a lot of it is copy and paste random pitches from people who don't even know who I am or have listened to the show. And so it's an instant no for me. Right. But when you say, hey, can I be on the podcast? Like, absolutely. I can't believe I actually haven't talked to you yet on the podcast because I know you and there's inherent trust there.

Andréa Jones [00:31:29]:
And now I can bring that to my community because that's really important to me as a creator of the podcast. So I love that you have brought that up. But for the people who are listening, who want to know how to start these relationships, what are some of the. The guidelines that you give your clients as they, you know, they have their offer create, and they're starting to put out to the world. How do they find their people?

Jessica Abel [00:31:52]:
I mean, it absolutely depends on what the offer is. You know, I have a client who creates custom pieces of artwork that are lighted boxes. So it's like she creates artwork for the face of it and then it's lit. And so she does this for commercial spaces and also sort of for families for their, you know, for the homes and stuff like that. So the people she's looking to connect with are designers. You know, they're interior designers. They are developers for buildings and things like that. They're various kinds of professionals in the design world.

Jessica Abel [00:32:24]:
So she joined Women in design, whatever, and she goes to these different things. She's, you know, has handouts and cards and stuff and has coffee dates with people who are in that world and presents her work in that kind of way that's kind of obvious, right? Like, it's, that's just plain straight up networking. Another thing I've talked to her about.

Tara McMullin [00:32:42]:
Though, specifically is like, well, what if.

Jessica Abel [00:32:44]:
You hosted an event where you have your work up on the wall and then you're inviting these people to it? So there's another way to like, create some excitement about what you're doing and.

Tara McMullin [00:32:54]:
Maybe you're collaborating with other people who.

Jessica Abel [00:32:56]:
Do work that's aimed at these kinds of designers who design big commercial spaces and things like that. It's somebody who does furniture and somebody who does whatever. And like, you're all helping share those audiences. So then those other service providers are your collaboration partners.

Tara McMullin [00:33:12]:
I have another client who is a poetry coach.

Jessica Abel [00:33:14]:
She's a poet and a Poetry coach. And so she, when she is looking for access, like she does book tour stuff and when she's going to poetry.

Tara McMullin [00:33:22]:
Centers around the country to do readings.

Jessica Abel [00:33:24]:
And things, she'll do sometimes a workshop. Cause her specialty is publishing, like how to create a publishable manuscript as a poet. And so she's working, she's looking for people who are like, in that MFA post MFA range, you know, who are very serious and experienced. Not people who are like, I think I want to write some poetry, but like people who are like in that other category. She can get those through that, those connections. Right. And so when she does a lecture or talk, when she does a workshop, she's then gathering people to do, to come to like, you know, she does low paid workshops on these topics. And that can then lead to poetry clients.

Jessica Abel [00:34:01]:
So in both cases what they're doing is they're looking for, and I gave those examples because they're super different in terms of the way you think about it. But you're looking for other people who work with the same population that you work with, but they're doing it differently. They serve different needs. So a poetry center serves the needs of poets doing workshops to write poetry, which she's not doing, and bringing like poetry to an audience. Like people who are appreciation appreciators of poetry. She doesn't do that either. So they're aggregators of attention. Where she comes in is like, let's talk about publication.

Jessica Abel [00:34:43]:
Let's talk about the thing that you don't learn in your MFA and how to actually put this together in something that you can put in front of an editor. That's a vast need for this audience. And she fits right in.

Tara McMullin [00:34:54]:
And they're like, yes, please, let's have that.

Jessica Abel [00:34:56]:
You know, I have another client who is a web designer and he specializes in churches and religiously aligned nonprofits in a certain kind of segment. Right. So he's looking for other service providers in that area. He's going to conferences for like pastors, he's doing, you know, other kinds of stuff where like those people are going to be together. So there's strategic thinking that goes into this and thinking like, who are the people who aggregate attention of your ideal clients but are not competitive because you're not going to go in. I'm not going to go into a space with another creative coach. And we'll talk to people about our.

Tara McMullin [00:35:38]:
Creative coach, you know, doing business coaching.

Jessica Abel [00:35:40]:
For creatives because it's dividing attention. Although I actually have talked about doing that just for fun and talk about the, the distinction between our approaches. But, you know, in general, you're not going to do that, right?

Tara McMullin [00:35:50]:
You're not.

Jessica Abel [00:35:51]:
It's going to be a hard pitch, especially if you haven't met the person before they don't know you, and you're like, hey, can I come to your community? They're like, no, you're poaching people. But if I go to your community, Andrea, like, I do something you don't do, and you do something I don't do. And so there's a really great matchup there in terms of who we serve and how we serve them. So thinking about that, and then basically, people feel like they're, you know, it.

Tara McMullin [00:36:18]:
Comes down to being a little bold.

Jessica Abel [00:36:20]:
And, like, going out and meeting those people. And that's where the social media stuff comes in. And relationship building, especially the relationship building via social media, because you can be, you know, building connections with people based on your admiration for their work and, like, you know, how your interests over, you know, overlap. It's not going to happen by putting a heart on something or like, you know, a clap emoji. It's going to happen by thoughtfully writing people what you think about their work and, you know, how it's affected you and how you're using it with your clients and those kinds of things. You know, that's how you're going to make those connections.

Andréa Jones [00:36:56]:
I love this so much. This is basically before anyone works with me, go work with Jessica first, then come to me, because this is the.

Jessica Abel [00:37:04]:
Once you work with me, go work with Andrea.

Andréa Jones [00:37:06]:
Well, this is it, right? This is the foundational concepts needed in order to build a sustainable business model. Not, you know, not the, the 0.01% example that we're, you know, sometimes trying to aim for, but like the actual practical way to build a business that supports your life and supports your creative hob. Love this. One of the things that you mentioned, though, is that it kind of requires you to be bold to put yourself out there. And I am an introvert. It's part of the reason why I like social media and why I work at home alone, by myself, besides talking occasionally to people on the podcast, because I am a very shy person, especially in person scenarios, I can fake it for a while, but only for a short while. And so what do you. What do you experience or what do you recommend to your clients who are on the shire or introverted side of things?

Jessica Abel [00:38:03]:
You mean all of them?

Andréa Jones [00:38:05]:
Okay, good. I'm not alone. I just, I get like, Honestly, Jessica, I start sweating so bad that when I go to conferences, I intentionally schedule my day so that I can take a shower halfway through the day because I, like, I get so nervous that it's. It's not great, it's not cute at all. So. Yeah, help.

Tara McMullin [00:38:23]:
Yeah.

Jessica Abel [00:38:24]:
Well, I mean, honestly, I feel like for the vast majority of people who are listening, I'm sure their businesses are online. The other people they're talking to, their businesses are also online. The idea that you're going to meet these people in person anytime soon is very. It's a very slim chance. Right. So the idea of having to, like, face people in person and do a live thing. Yes. If there is an opportunity like any.

Tara McMullin [00:38:47]:
You'Re open to it in your town.

Jessica Abel [00:38:49]:
To go to, well, targeted networking events that, you know, are your target audience. You know, gin yourself up and go like, you should go. But a lot of this stuff happens asynchronously, you know, and it, and it is really like the first steps. And, and I'm gonna point to Michelle again, you know, because she has this whole thing of thank you notes, you know, writing people thank you notes and.

Tara McMullin [00:39:14]:
Just do it all the time.

Jessica Abel [00:39:15]:
Right.

Tara McMullin [00:39:15]:
People think you notice all the time.

Jessica Abel [00:39:16]:
But make sure that they have content to them that they're not just like, hey, I needed to hear that today.

Tara McMullin [00:39:21]:
What did you need to hear?

Jessica Abel [00:39:22]:
What did you do with it? How did it affect you? What are you doing? You know, how is it moving forward in your life? Those kinds of things. If you, if you're willing to put a little effort into that, people will notice. If you've ever gotten a note like that, you remember it, you know, like, I know people who have thoughtfully responded to stuff through email, you know, on social media, they've said, wow, this really was so great. And I did this and I learned that. And, you know, I may not work with them in the future, but I certainly have.

Tara McMullin [00:39:52]:
I'm very well disposed toward them.

Jessica Abel [00:39:54]:
You know, I will answer them. And so thinking about it in terms of everything that you're, like when you're connecting with an ideal collaboration person, the whole point is it's ideal both ways.

Tara McMullin [00:40:06]:
You will help them and they will help you.

Jessica Abel [00:40:08]:
And so if you need to make a list of all the ways that you will help them and help their.

Tara McMullin [00:40:13]:
Audience and don't tell them all these.

Jessica Abel [00:40:15]:
Ways, but just know it, you know, like, don't just go like, and I.

Tara McMullin [00:40:18]:
Could do this for you and this.

Jessica Abel [00:40:19]:
And this and this.

Tara McMullin [00:40:20]:
That's a overwhelming.

Jessica Abel [00:40:21]:
But like, if you can see how what you do helps Their audience that's.

Tara McMullin [00:40:28]:
Going to give you the confidence to.

Jessica Abel [00:40:30]:
Reach out to them or give you.

Tara McMullin [00:40:31]:
More of the confidence you need to.

Jessica Abel [00:40:32]:
Reach out to them. Yeah. I don't claim this is easy. It's hard, you know, but what you're going for is friends. You know, you're going for people who you're going to have long term relationships with, who you're going to, you know, once you sort of build this up and they can introduce you to other.

Tara McMullin [00:40:48]:
People who you should know.

Jessica Abel [00:40:49]:
And you know, having these kinds of.

Tara McMullin [00:40:52]:
I think even for introverts, I mean.

Jessica Abel [00:40:53]:
Everybody wants friends, right? Everybody wants to have a sense that they belong somewhere, that there's like a network. A lot of people who come to me feeling very, very alone, you know, like, this is a very lonely thing to do sometimes. And they don't know. They don't have anybody to talk to and they don't know who to ask. If you go into this thinking, like.

Tara McMullin [00:41:11]:
I need to make some biz besties.

Jessica Abel [00:41:13]:
Like, I need to make some friends who I can talk to about this.

Tara McMullin [00:41:16]:
That's all I want right now. You will still get good results from.

Jessica Abel [00:41:19]:
That eventually in terms of your business. You know, if you are thinking like this person, their approach just like works for me. Like, I love how they talk. I want, I want to be friends with that person. Like, think about it that way and maybe that helps.

Andréa Jones [00:41:36]:
Yeah. Oh, this is so beautiful. I do think there is something about thinking about it as an actual relationship versus transactional that can be very empowering when you're going into these conversations. Because if you go into it thinking, you know, what can they give me, you know, what can I get out of it? It makes it very challenging to even start the conversation versus what you said, which is, I know the ways I can support this person, but I think first and foremost it's like, okay, we're human, so like, let's just act like a human. This is why I will, every. Anytime I do this, I always say I'm going to be live in person at these events. But if you hug me and I'm sweaty, I will kindly ask you not to point it out. Because I know, I know, okay? And that's my human moment.

Andréa Jones [00:42:26]:
And now we can move past it. And I think that that's. There's just something there too, to just being a human being, which I love. But I'll also say this too, in my personal experience is why I also like social media. Because it's a signal that I'm available for this type of relationship. And I find it challenging to do that outside of the predefined spaces. And that's why I like social media, that's why I like conferences and events. Because it's, it.

Andréa Jones [00:42:55]:
My brain just goes, aha, this is what we're here for. And I made my friends the same way. Y', all, like, every single one of my friends, they claimed me. I was just there in the space that we just, you know, I just showed up to book club and they were like, you are friend now. And I'm like, okay, yes, this is what I came here for. And so if you're shy like me and you have the same thing, sometimes just showing up in this space is a really good first step. And a, And a friendly extrovert may just claim you.

Jessica Abel [00:43:23]:
Yes. And being willing to be claimed, you know, like when somebody says something to you, you don't just go, oh yeah, you know, like actually answer and engage in this conversation. You don't necessarily have to be the one to initiate it. But yeah, I mean, again, it's not, it's not easy, but it's a totally different kind of hard from trying to show up on Instagram five days a week, you know, or figure out something to say to all of the random people who follow you. You don't really know. Like you're trying to present something for everybody all at the same time. You know, it's all, it feels like.

Tara McMullin [00:44:00]:
It'S all visible all the time.

Jessica Abel [00:44:01]:
You know, we get all kinds of stories in our head about all of that stuff and it's just a lot of work.

Tara McMullin [00:44:06]:
Right?

Jessica Abel [00:44:06]:
It's just like so much time. So once you get going with this, then you have relationships and they can snowball to a certain extent. You know, you can meet other people through them and so on. So that's fantastic. But it's never not work, you know, it's. It is something. And knowing that when I say be friends with people, like, sure, you can make your like actual best friend this way for sure. But that's not really the goal you're going for.

Jessica Abel [00:44:32]:
You're going for people who you're going to be able to share various parts of your business journey with, maybe have.

Tara McMullin [00:44:39]:
Questions for them, get their advice, maybe.

Jessica Abel [00:44:41]:
You know, like somebody I've met a couple years ago who we now meet every two weeks for like a two person mastermind, you know, like, that was pretty random. She reached out to me to see whether I wanted to host her in my community and I said, sure, it's a good match. And now we do this, you know, and she's great, but it's still within that container of business related stuff. We were, you know, we meet during business hours, we talk about our, what's going on in our businesses. So it also doesn't have to be like all consuming, you know, because people can be like, oh, I have enough friends. Ah, who says that? I don't know. But anyway, you know, you know, I feel socially like tapped out. Does not have to be that.

Jessica Abel [00:45:20]:
That's not what we're talking about. It really is about finding common interests and having people to talk to about very specific kinds of things. And again, like, choose your work. What kind of work are you into? You know, just, you're gonna have to do something. So what do you want it to look like?

Andréa Jones [00:45:35]:
Yeah, I love that. Okay, last question is one of my nosier ones, but I'm curious, what's your favorite type of relationship marketing?

Jessica Abel [00:45:47]:
I, I love doing this. I love doing podcast interviews. It's such an opportunity to, you know, go deep with somebody who is there to be interested. So that's awesome. You know, and I also really like, I actually like speaking in person. I don't do it very often, but I'm not an extrovert, but I'm an ambivert. And so I enjoy being like I. And I'm also a bit of a ham.

Jessica Abel [00:46:14]:
So I like being up on stage and like getting people to laugh and you know, doing that kind of stuff. I am not a professional speaker in the sense of like going or, you know, trying to set all that stuff up. I've actually not been doing very much in the last few years, but I do enjoy it. It's really fun. And then, then people have this opportunity to come and talk to you afterwards and they've had this cool experience of you and, you know, have questions and stuff. So that's kind of fun too.

Andréa Jones [00:46:37]:
Oh, I love that. Okay, good to know. Good to know. So for the people who are listening, who are like, I need more desk in my life, you have a monthly free coaching call that you do. Can you tell us about that and any, anything else that the people need to hear that you're working on?

Jessica Abel [00:46:50]:
Sure, yeah. So, yes, I host a monthly call.

Tara McMullin [00:46:54]:
Called Simplify to Amplify Roundtable, AKA Star.

Jessica Abel [00:46:59]:
Which is just an open coaching call where I can answer questions about things like business models and offers and how do I do this and where am I going to find these mythical people who will pay me money and so, you know, all that kind of stuff and you can find that@jessicaable.com Starr S T A R and that's just, you know, it's just a, like you can pre submit a question. I usually get through a good chunk of them. If you're there live, I invite you, if you want to, to speak to me live when I'm answering the question. So that's really fun. The other thing is I'm working on, I've actually, I've done this but I haven't quite recorded it and set everything up.

Tara McMullin [00:47:34]:
But I hope by the time this.

Jessica Abel [00:47:35]:
Goes live I will have this available which is a training on using your capacity as we talked about before, to align your pricing and your and your offer and like what that means about what kind of offer you're going to design. How do you think that through? Like literally talking about the math I was talking about. I will show that. And so that's something I hope to.

Tara McMullin [00:47:59]:
Have recorded and ready and it will.

Jessica Abel [00:48:00]:
Be at the top of my homepage. If it is there by when we.

Tara McMullin [00:48:04]:
Go live then fantastic.

Jessica Abel [00:48:05]:
If not, it'll be there soon.

Andréa Jones [00:48:07]:
Awesome. Yes. Well you can check those links out in the show notes onlinedrea.com 3 Jessica, thanks again for being on the show. This is great.

Jessica Abel [00:48:16]:
Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Andréa Jones [00:48:18]:
And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. If you liked this episode, come on into the Mindful Marketing Lab. We have conversations like these and more all of the time. Plus you get unlimited strategy in the lab. It's one of the biggest perks of being in the membership. It's not just a collection of courses. I don't let you just sit there and watch things and never implement them. I am your kind and loving cheerleader.

Andréa Jones [00:48:42]:
I will give you the big push that you need and tell you not to do things that you don't need to do in your marketing. So come on in next week I have another episode for you. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, make sure you give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify help support the show. I'll see you next Tuesday. Bye for now.