Paul: 0:29

Hello, and welcome to another episode of MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers. Apologies if I'm a little bit on the quiet side compared to my usual. It is 9pm here that we're recording here in the UK, because my guest for this week is on the other side of the world, quite literally. Erica, welcome to the show. Do you want to tell the audience where it is that you're actually based?

Erika: 0:49

Hi, Paul. yes, I am based in Los Angeles, so we are definitely more than over the pond.

Paul: 0:56

So yeah, my, my children are in bed. So if, you're, if you start watching this, you're thinking pause, pause, it's a bit quieter than usual. So I'm still here. I'm just, trying my best not to cause extra work for myself when I'm finished the podcast and, have to go and put kids back to bed again. so without further ado, Erica here is the founder and CEO of Leverage Consulting, and she leverages 20 years of experience in marketing and copywriting. She's known for a straightforward approach and specializes in helping revolutionary brands and entrepreneurs skyrocket their leads and sales with custom marketing strategies. She's also a best selling author and functional health and nutrition consultant dedicated to cutting through the noise in both marketing and wellness to deliver impactful results. Erica, that is some write up. we've, had a couple of authors on the show. I have to see it out of all of the guests that I've had so far, you by far showed that you're a true copywriter at heart because you made it very easy to, to write our guests questions and biographies. So thank you for all of that. Lovely to have you on the show.

Erika: 2:05

Thank you. That means a lot to me.

Paul: 2:07

it's nice. Podcasts can be quite hard work and I don't think anybody who hasn't run their own podcast or is a frequent guest on them quite appreciates how much work goes in both sides. I try to keep our show quite light feeling for our guests. I don't want to get people, cause people a lot of work to be on the show and I like to give a lot of value as a result. But now and again, it's nice to be surprised by people who come very well prepared for the show. Being a, good guest and helping direct me towards the things that you can add value with. So really do appreciate that. I'm going to just dive straight in, because I think there's tons to unpack in what you've sent over. I want to give our audience the best opportunity to get some learning from that, because that's what we're all about here. We're all about sharing all the secrets and tips and tricks that we've all learned through our careers. So your background spans marketing, copywriting, health, sales, and you have some really diverse experiences, which I love. I love anybody who's come from outside of the industry, learned their way in, and approaches things with a very different viewpoint. So how, in your own words, like, how did that happen? Where do you, what's your journey that you've come to? And. In your own opinion, how do those diverse experiences give you a unique viewpoint?

Erika: 3:24

Yeah. I think that I've always been doing multiple things and I think the way that my brain functions is that there's always Something that connects them all. And, for me, everything I'm doing, it's an exploration. Can I come to a greater level of mastery? So when I was starting, Essentially what would be my health and wellness authority brand, Total Health Revolution. I, was working on a book, and at the time this was, gosh, I published the book back in 2013 and I was working on it for several years. It's very rigorously researched, 212 very rigorously researched citations for a 250 page book. And a lot went into that. And I wanted to, Make a really cleverly and, branded product. And that was very provocative, but by that same token, I wanted to offer immense value and something that was scientifically sound and, much better than a lot of the pop culture stuff out there. But I want it to be competitive with the pop culture topics. There were so many. Even a specific book out that had a very provocative title that I said, Hey, can I rival that, but actually offer more scientific substantiation? So through that process, I published it and my goal at the time, the carrot in front of me was I wanted to publish this book. I wanted to create an amazing, valuable product, but little did I realize that was only the beginning and there would have to be So much more, and then I realized I need to create a whole brand out of this. I need to create training programs and I need to be creating content. And all of that was throwing me into the ring and I had to sink or swim and learn it all myself. So it was a very natural progression to start my agency when I did, and there's so much behind the, strategy of what I had done and then working with other clients. So I've failed in many ways. I've been successful sometimes where, again, going back where I didn't know why I was successful, but I wanted to figure out why. So I think that provides a lot of value. to, to people that I work with that I've, been there. and then I think the, value also comes from, a clinical standpoint. Working as a practitioner, a clinician, bio individuality became huge to me. So initially my book was a lot about, nutrition and general principles, but over the years that progressed into needing to go deeper into lab testing and really deeply understanding what makes each of us uniquely you or me. And that also then is, transferred onto when I work with a client in marketing, they have their own unique goals, their unique needs, their unique anxieties, what is their budget? What is, the unique calibrations of their business? So I think bio individuality goes across the board, regardless of what I'm doing. And that sensitivity to the uniqueness of the client, it's just a mirror of what I was doing as well in my other

Paul: 6:49

I love that idea that, everyone has that, and it's common sense, right? It's not groundbreaking. It's common sense. Everybody has their own unique needs. I Know why I do what I do and I'm comfortable with doing that. And therefore I can concentrate fully on you as a client because I've been on the journey and I want to help you go on that. So I really like that. why'LeverEdge'? Where did that come from?

Erika: 7:15

Oh gosh, you know I haven't even thought about this for a while. I was tossing around different ideas, I didn't want to call it like Erica Herman's agency. And so the idea of leveraging, I even had an old slogan, which I ended up, this is probably a good recommendation. Being clever is it's not always, helpful as opposed to just being helpful. So it was the idea of growing your brand, growing your business past its edge and leverage, because it's spelled You know, in a, punny way, lever edge consulting, and ultimately it just became more about cutting through the noise and other terms we, I, use for that, and just helping people to get more. Clients, Customers, Patients. That's more of the slogan, but historically it was, growing your brand past its edge.

Paul: 8:14

you talk a lot about businesses hitting a ceiling at, around about the a hundred thousand dollars up to$500,000 mark and. You've got four critical pieces of data driven funnel that you use to help them break through that and skyrocket their leads and sales, right? Could you talk us through what that, process is and what those four critical pieces are?

Erika: 8:35

So this is what I call the anatomy of a data driven marketing funnel. So the most foundational piece that you need in place is an irresistible offer. And, if, you don't have an amazing offer, you could pour money into running a bunch of ads and people aren't going to buy it and you're So an irresistible offer does require market research, really getting to know your, clients, refining that you're not going to hit it. if you look, if you hit it out of the park, right off the bat, great, good for you, but you should expect that's not the way that it typically works. So an irresistible offer. Sometimes it's like a few sentences even of something you can put together, but it is the core of everything else that's going to come downstream from the funnel. So that's number one. Number two is content with a focus on long form content. That typically means What we're doing now, that can be podcast interviews, whether you're the guest or you are the actual, the interview and the interviewer and the host, blogs housed on your own website, right? That are ultimately search engine optimized so people can find you through search engines and also video, which typically when we talk about video, we're talking about for long form video, it's YouTube and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. It's by Google and. Your videos, should they be ranked, hopefully they are, they're going to take priority actually over some of that written content. And diversification is important. So one of those is oftentimes not just advisable, doing maybe at least two, and doing them well, not, just, trying to do all the things. So long form content's critical. And notice in that also, I didn't include some people will say, I did a Facebook live. That's long. But there's a reason why I'm not including that, because it's also about the staying power, the longevity, the ROI. That doesn't have traction in search engines, for example, so I'm not including that in the list. It's really very simple. You've got video, blog, and then maybe like podcast, right? And each of those requires considerations based on your business, your bandwidth, your budget. Everything. So number three is lead generation. And that's how you are getting brand new people who have never heard about you before. That includes things like search engine optimization and advertising. It's typically going to be those two things. I'm not mentioning organic social media posting in that. Paid social media posting can be included in lead gen, but organic social media is not typically something you'd be the exception, not the norm. If you're practicing that for your business in the lead generation, stage of the funnel. And so for number four of the, That critical piece in a data driven marketing funnel is your nurturing and nurturing includes multiple components, especially email. That's non negotiable. And you could include a podcast could be part of nurturing actually for the audience. That's already heard about you. your social media could be, if it's going to be there, notice how maybe they already know you. so nurturing's critical. Email, I think, is the most important piece, though, of it.

Paul: 12:30

Every guest that I, every guest that I speak to that's a marketing expert or has a lot of history in marketing tends to stand one side or the other of organic and paid. And I think that's good because I think people should, right? I'm firmly on the organic side. I don't pretend to understand the paid side of things. And I know that there's a, unique skillset. I often get people come to me and they're like, Paul, I'm going to launch a podcast. And I'm going to use it to drive leads. That's great. You should do that. Brilliant. Well done. But I want to promote it. I don't want to be, I don't want to be somebody that gets a couple of hundred views. I want to go for thousands of views. So how much, I want to put, I've been thinking about it, Paul, and this is real conversations. And I have these all the time with people. I've been thinking about it. I've got some money put aside. I want to put it into peer promotion. All right. Brilliant. Yeah, you can do that. I've got 300 pounds a month. Why don't you just put that 300, put it, in a plastic bag, go out to your garden, dig a hole in the garden and just drop that plastic bag in and put the soil back on top. And then in 6 months time you can get that 300 out and you'll have 300. Because if you put it into paid media, that's not going to make a dent. I guess where I'm going to with this is, what's your advice for those that are, you're looking at those four critical pieces of data driven, funnel parts, and people who are wanting to get involved with peer media. What's your advice for them to create a solid ground? basis to get involved with peer media. Where do they need to get to before they can start to consider that? Because it's not for everyone, right?

Erika: 14:16

I would say most businesses would benefit, but I think, again, that point at which you take that plunge. So first off, in the stacking that I was outlining of the offer, the content, then lead gen and nurturing, right? So you're going to want to build out that long form content. if you come to me and you tell me, I want to put not just like you said, 300 pounds or, 300 USD, right? I want to put that in. And I would say, it's not even about the money, actually. Where are you in your business? Have you defined your business? Have you identified the problems and the pain points of your target audience? And have you created content that's Very helpful and valuable to help solve those problems. Because when you're running ads and you're running ads, essentially, where are people going to land? That's your website. What are they going to find on your website? Is it valuable? Is it helpful? So creating content is important, and that long form content really is how you build trust. again, is that, are those videos, blogs on your site? some people, by the way, can create great value in social media. and so there's, that kind of gets into the whole case specificity and context, which is something that is really important. that's exactly part of, what I do and, my platform, there is a time and a place for things, but I think most of the time, one of the common traps that people fall into business owners is that they think in these general terms, I saw this webinar, I, heard this one interview and they don't yet. Possess the discernment to understand, does that apply to me in my unique business at the stage that I'm at in my business? So a lot of people will put the cart before the horse and a lot of people expend a considerable amount of bandwidth of their resources, time, energy, money in, let's say posting constantly on social media, and they don't quite know what they're doing. They haven't built out their long form content, so that's where I hope that complication is not overwhelming, as I say this for those listening. It should really help to give that perspective of it is valuable to have help on that journey.

Paul: 16:31

I, agree. I agree. And as somebody who I went on that journey myself, right? Like when I first started my business, what, 18 months ago, maybe a bit more, I've changed my target audience 3, 4, 5 times since then, and I've refined it down, and the content has had to be refined to adjust to the different audience, and then I had to refine the message, and then I had to refine the offer, and it is very much an iterative process, and I'm pretty comfortable with where I'm at now, I know it's working, because we got, a good chunk of new clients in September, so it's building, and it's building nicely, so I think it's working. My, my two pence or my two cents on that would be to, if you're, listening to this and you're thinking is that where I am or where I'm not is, I think what, if I'm going to translate what Erica just said to, non marketers is, you're at the point where you're starting to see consistent sales and growth, and you're seeing really good indicators, now's the time to double down. If you're still at the point where you haven't seen that growth, you're stumbling around a bit, then you need advice. And that's the two differentiators for where you need to be is when you start to see that success, that means you've got a lot of the rest to a, decent point, but maybe not finished, but you're good enough to start to scale things out on the other side of things. But if you haven't gotten that far, then you just need that advice from somebody who's been there and done it, who's made the mistakes, who's learned and experienced lots of different industries and styles. To go, aha, here's the questions you need to answer, but nobody knows your chessboard like you. And I think that's an important lesson for a lot of business owners is, there's a lot of bad advice out there.

Erika: 18:13

Oh, there is. That's, even on my agency website, you'll see that it's, cutting through the BS. And, if you're at the place, Where you're between about a hundred K to 500 K in revenue, you are at the place where you should be, as you say, doubling down, what something that you're doing is obviously working, people are interested, but you need to really, commit that into like officially concretize what is that, have the conversations with your, audience, with your target market more, get that verbiage also, that's where the copywriting part comes in to speak that language back to. Your ideal customer client patient, but if you're in that bracket of about 100k to 500k, you're doing something, many things probably right. You just need to systematize and understand what to scale.

Paul: 19:04

So coming off the back of that, and you raise a really good point there, we talked before the show about lead generation myths. So there are, you've identified six lead generation myths. I'd love to hear what they are, cause I'd be willing to bet there's probably more, but I reckon these are going to be the key ones that everybody needs to be aware of. so do you want to share a little bit about what those are? Because this plays in nicely to one of the questions I ask all of our guests. And I'm keen to hear what yours is at the end, cause it can't be one of these six. this is a bit of a, I'm going to pull a bit of a, a curve ball for you here, is we always ask our guests, what's one thing that you think business owners should stop doing? Because it perhaps never worked. It has never worked, or it doesn't work very well, but there's a consensus that it does. So I'm keen to hear this, because I think this plays really well into what the show's about.

Erika: 19:54

I, by the way, I should say that I do thoroughly agree with you that there are probably a lot more than six, but this is the sort of like distillation and I'm sure you and I could go

Paul: 20:05

We could do a whole webinar. Yeah.

Erika: 20:07

than, yeah, like a series, a webinar series. there's a lot that is done that should not be done in marketing. basically, If you want to fill the top of your funnel, cause that's what we're talking about in a funnel, you have top of funnel, bottom of funnel, lead generation is top of funnel. And if you're doing any of the following six things, you're leaving money on the table. So the first thing is that, you think you can get away without niching down your message and your market. And this is, There's a reason why I'm saying this first, because this is the number one thing that so many brands, businesses, experts struggle with. They have this aversion to niching down. I've personally, professionally experienced that myself. It's well, if I restrict myself to a box, I don't want to do that. I think what I'm doing can serve more people. And as an example, let's say that there's. Some expert that, you really are great with helping people with naturopathic medicine, holistic health, but you don't, you, have an aversion when I say, what about talking about the thyroid or, this specific pain point, do it well, get known for that. And it's, not a hard number, like a period of time, but let's say you do that well for 6, 9, 12 months, you build a following. Guess what? People are going to want to hear whatever you have to say about other topics as well, but you have to have people connect and resonate with you. That's key in marketing and copywriting and you are leaving money on the table if you're not doing that. Don't be a generalist, you need to be some kind of a specialist and then you can be a specialist of multiple things.

Paul: 21:54

love

Erika: 21:54

that's number one. Number two, the myth is you can get away without a new website and be successful with your marketing. I'm not about, constantly updating, everything, but I have people come to me who are, they have dinosaurs. And you can't. Your business, people hear about this, your website is your business card. it's so much more than that. It's part of the, the core of Everything else, you run ads, they're going to go to a landing page, if you're doing SEO, the blog is housed on your website, so that's pretty critical. So when people come to, my agency and say, Hey, I'm thinking about running ads or SEO. I'm also going to be vetting, what does your website look like? Cause that might be the first step before, and it's great. Also working with, at my agency too, we can work on the website knowing that what you want to do moving forward is that, and then create the website with the sensitivity to those like other goals for lead generation. so the third myth then is that you can successfully run ads on social media on 5 a day.

Paul: 23:11

that.

Erika: 23:14

it's, believe me, there might be some people out there who are listening, who are saying, yes, but X, Y, Z, person, expert said that you could, so here's the thing, when you're trying to double down, when you're trying to scale, there's something in marketing, and I'm going to use, it's like a clinical term in marketing called rapid fire testing, you're trying to gather data, A substantial amount of data within a certain window of time. So if you were to say, but I don't want to spend, let's say, 1, 500 in a month, which I would say is around the bare minimum to be doing it, probably even just two, maybe three campaigns you're testing out, you're not going to be able to collect the data that you need to confidently and strategically. Put money into your marketing, you're still not going to know that what you're doing is working. And if you say, what if I spread that 1, 500 out over six months? The problem is that you can't get the data with any accuracy that you need in that period of time. And data also does become obsolete. The market fluctuates, and the intelligence of meta, of AI, that you're, investing in with your ad spend money. That's not going to be valid six months down the line using what you started with. So that's the third one. You can't successfully run ads on social media on 5 a day. Someone tells you, you can be wary of it and your business isn't going to get where it needs to go. and that's why it doesn't work a lot of the time.

Paul: 24:48

Unless you're working with an expert who knows what they're doing, how do you know which data correlates to show you whether it's working or it isn't? Because a lot of the time, the indicators on those sorts of things are metrics that your average business owner would not have a clue about. I I just go into Google Analytics and it blows my mind, let alone trying to work out how paid media impacts on all of that. So if you're going to run paid media. On those sorts of things like, please don't do it yourself, cause you're just chucking the money away. It might work and you decide it doesn't because it didn't bring a lead in. But actually there's indicators hidden in the background that somebody like Erica would be able to go there, that, that thing that you did right there, that was really successful you need to double down on that. You miss it. It's very easy. Sorry, I interrupted. Number four, go. Cool.

Erika: 25:38

No, you said it beautifully. that was Getting giddy inside of those, like what he's saying right now, exactly. and let's see, I'll just, to make sure the, the fourth lead generation myth is that you can get away without creating long form content and also that you can get away without search engine optimizing that long form content, whether it's You know, written blogs or videos, for, YouTube. So your long form content, and this is, why I'm not opposed to organic social media. I'm not, it has its place. And so that discernment, much like we were just talking about with how do you identify that, the team that you're working with or the contractor that you're working with, do they know what they're doing with ads? you'd know because it would be working and helping you to get leads, you have to close the leads, etc. And so with the, the content, are you spending a considerable amount of your time creating organic social media content, where you should be putting that into your long form content search engine, optimizing it. That is where ideally, when people are on your social media. Where should they be going from there? They should be going to your website, giving you their email address, right? So again, your website's that core. The content on it is how you demonstrate your value, your authority, and your trustworthiness. And that's where everyone ultimately has to go. To go at some point, everything else is an offshoot to direct you back to that. And that's why we call it a funnel. We're funneling people, right? So you can't get away with that. Focus on your long form content. And then, and for SEO also, most people shouldn't be, and this is, this segues then into the sixthly generation myth, which is you can DIY your marketing. If you are in that position of you're hitting a ceiling between 100 to 500K, You can't DIY your marketing for a very functional reason, which is simply you aren't an expert, you don't have the bandwidth to become one and you need to outsource things. I think it was David Geffen who said, people asked him, he's, like a gajillionaire, how did you become so successful? He said, I surrounded myself with people who know what they're doing that I trust, so if you're hitting that threshold and you're trying to do everything yourself. You won't be able to grow. And if you hear something like, Oh, I go in there and I check my ads and I do this, they're the exception. Don't try to mimic that. Grow first. And then if you want to become an expert in, marketing yourself, okay.

Paul: 28:35

It's fantastic. I've really enjoyed, and again, like I said at the beginning, it really aligns with the purpose of this show is, just to give people that guiding light to see it. Here's some things that you should avoid doing, and there's some other things over here that you should probably try doing regardless of, sector or industry or type of business. so really appreciate you sharing all of that with the audience, Erika. That's really useful. And if anybody out there is listening to that and that resonates, then please do like contact Erika and have a chat. Before we get round to, just finishing up the show, I just want to quickly, we've got a, we've got a couple of minutes left, so I'll be keen to hear, as I said in the, middle of that conversation, keen to hear your thoughts on, two questions, Erika, which we ask all of our guests, which is one is, what is one thing that you wish business owners would do more of? What is the one thing, that, that, underrated by so many business owners, that maybe just a marketer sees the value of, but business owners always skip over?

Erika: 29:41

Yeah. I would say if you're growth oriented, you should be tracking KPIs, Key Performance Indicators. usually the typical four would be your website traffic. Your domain authority, or sometimes it's called your authority score. It depends which, tool you're using. your Google page speed insights, cause let's say you've got this amazing website, but it's not loading well. People are just going to bounce and you don't get why. and then the fourth KPI, would be your email, which includes things like How many subscribers do I have? What's the open rate? the click through rate. do you have tons of unsubscribes and people are like reporting you constantly, take a look at that.

Paul: 30:26

And then to flip that on its head, what's, one thing that you wish business owners would stop doing? What, maybe a myth or a tactic or a strategy that maybe never worked or doesn't work as well as people believe it does?

Erika: 30:39

Yeah. I would say that they're probably not aware they're doing it when they're doing what I'm about to say. And, I call it, Flying Spaghetti Marketing. And it it's three pronged where there's shiny object syndrome going on. You're like trying to do all the things without discernment. you heard about this, that some people did it successfully. so that's one part of Flying Spaghetti Marketing. The other is hyper focusing on one thing that really isn't getting you results and ROI. And that could be like posting on social media 24 seven. A lot of people think, because that's your experience as the consumer, I'm seeing brands post on social media. You don't get that there's so much else going on, too, for a successful business. And then the, Flying Spaghetti, the concept also that you're not data driven. So you're just, Throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks and while there is a degree of experimentation in marketing, as I know, this, that's with some degree of strategy to test, get results, and then move forward based on that data. Whereas the flying spaghetti marketing is literally you're just trying all the things. And don't do

Paul: 31:54

feels like you've described every neurodiverse business owner I've ever met, including myself at times. And yeah,

Erika: 32:02

And

Paul: 32:03

it's, a true story. and some, a person who's neurodiverse is something like 600 times more likely to be a business owner because we get frustrated with other people's ways of doing things. We're natural rebels, all those sorts of things. We do end up business owners and then all of those things you've just described happen. And it's the truth, I'll get a new tool. I'll be up till 3 in the morning figuring out how to become an expert at that tool, and I'll do it, I'll do it, but then the next day everything I do suffers as a result because I've spent all night figuring that out and actually didn't really get anywhere with it, didn't really find the value in it in the end, but I had fun doing it because my brain said I had to. So thank you very much for sharing your experiences, Erica. I loved your answers. if people want to find out a bit more about leverage consulting, or they want to chat with you a bit more about some of the things that you've said, cause I think there's some phenomenal experience shared there. How can they get in touch?

Erika: 32:57

Yes, if you've DIY'd up the wazoo, or you've hired contractors and agencies, but yet you still haven't quite gotten results, then I'd be happy to talk to you, on a no pressure call. We'll identify a six month game plan for you, your tactical steps, This is what you should be doing to bring in leads and help convert them like you haven't before. And just go to my website, which is Lever Edge Consulting, not spelled like the common way, L E V E R E D G E. com, which should probably be in the show notes. And any of these big red buttons, it's conversion optimized, big red buttons. You click on those and that's how you convert. Book a

Paul: 33:41

Love it. Love it. And yes, we will make sure that's in the, that's in the show notes, along with a link to your book, which I don't think we mentioned the title of your book at the beginning of the show, and I absolutely love it when I, saw that, which is Eat Like a Fat Ass, Look Like a Goddess. I love that. It's brilliant. It doesn't quite sound the same when I say it in English to accent though, does it?

Erika: 34:03

Eat a fat ass, look like a

Paul: 34:05

That's what we needed.

Erika: 34:06

story of healthy foods. Yeah. I actually stopped, I stopped promoting that years ago just because it was so food focused and I got so deep into bio individuality that it's like, For me, it's just, it's one component. It's a wonderful introduction to, foods that we think are taboo and real food. It's a wonderful introduction to it that I still stand by, but when you're ready to get to know you, you're gotta go deeper and then, you'll find me in other

Paul: 34:38

But I think it's, regardless of that, I think it's true to you. Having met you on the podcast, I can see the direct line between where you've been and where you are now. And I think you've steered true to that line. hats off for being Authentic. I like it. Thank you very much for being a wonderful guest, Erica. I appreciate your time on the show. please come back again and see us another time. We'll have you back on the show for another episode.

Erika: 35:02

Will do. Thank

Paul: 35:02

thanks for coming along and viewing us. If you're watching us on YouTube, thanks for listening. If you're on any of the good podcast directories, and I will see you next week on the MarketPulse podcast. Thank you. Bye bye.