Suzanne Chadwick
Hey, lovely, how are you? So great to have you back on the podcast? I hope that you're doing well. Yeah. How's your month going? How's your week going? How's life going? It's always nice to be asked those questions, isn't it? But listen, today, I have got a treat for you. I enjoyed this episode so much. And if you follow me on Instagram, on stories at CS Chadwick, you may know that I am talking a whole lot more about this, which is really focusing in on your sales, your sales strategy, your sales process, you know, we work so hard to get leads in our business. And then I feel like a lot of times, and this is me included. Sometimes we're lazy marketers, we're lazy marketers, we're lazy sellers, people come to us, they sign up for our things. And then we either never email them, we never connect with them. And then we wonder why we don't have like the number of clients that we want in our business. And so I am on a mission to help more of my clients and help you to be able to convert those leads. And so that's why I am interviewing some amazing people right now, all about not only how you grow your audience, but how you actually take that audience, that community, that potential lead through to a sale in your business so that you can have the impact and the influence as well as the income that you want. And so I think it's really important for us to talk about this because I think that if you've been in the online space for the last couple of years, and I know that some people really struggled but there are other people where if you were in the like online course or coaching kind of industry, it was booming. It was like just money coming through the door. So I think that now the market has changed. And I think that we have to have better systems in place. And so that is something that I'm really focusing on as well. So today, I am speaking to you Lampi Gabriella, who is the director of Melbourne based social media agency Ruby assembly, she's a senior communication strategist and business mentor and a lengthy views at female business ownership as essentially empowering feminist Act which I love. And she is a prolific business writer and the podcast host of sell more mean more. Her great loves include Eurovision oracle cards, co working spaces and fabulous clothing. She lives in Melbourne's north with our Husby Uli her daughter, a gal and Wagner they're German Shepherd and to villainous cats, super hands and baby belly. She is a very happy lady. So today we're talking all about strategic and intentional selling. And she is really going to be sharing we're getting into the nitty gritty of selling, and all of the amazingly creative ways that you land the magnetizes her clients into her vortex you'll learn all about the vortex. So she can experience super long client relationships, and create deep connections to serve her dream clients more. So I love some of the ideas that she shares in this podcast, I think you're gonna get a lot of a lot out of it. I also really want to challenge you to think about what your sales process is. And if you're like Suze, I don't have a sales process, then like, hit me up, like let's talk more about this as well. I'm going to be talking more about all of this in BBA, the bold Business Academy as well, doing some additional trainings, doing some additional coaching, on selling conversion, growth, all the rest of it. That is what we want to do. You know, at the end of the day, if you want to stay in business for a long time, you've really got to nail these elements of it. You've got to nail your sales strategy, and hopefully create something that you really love and that you know, captivates your clients and converts them. So that's what we're talking about today. I know you're gonna love this episode I did. And if you loved it, then I'd love you to share it as well make sure you tag Atlanta at Ruby assembly. But hey, let's dive into this week's episode. A lengthy Welcome to the brand builders lab podcast series.

Iolanthe Gabrie
I am chuffed when I woke up this morning. I was like I'm going on the brand builders podcast and I am just so grateful and delighted to be speaking with you. So thank you.

Suzanne Chadwick
Oh my pleasure. Love it. We're bringing the energy right started so good. To pay pay a if I can say that big. So good. So I've given my listeners a little bit of an intro to you. But I always love to dive into the story about you and how you got here. And for my listeners who don't know, you just give me a little bit of a snippet like, how do you introduce yourself? Or how do you talk about yourself?

Iolanthe Gabrie
So my elevator pitch is, I am the director of Ruby assembly. We're a social media agency that focuses on comms for professional services. Now, students, it took me many, many years to refine that elevator speech, because when I first began my agency, you know, I did a variety of things. And indeed, we still do. But refining an elevator speech is really focusing on what it is that I can sell the most of, and speaking to people about that thing first. So yes, I own a social media agency, that I also own co working spaces in Melbourne's north, I'm the author of a extremely well selling book called 100 days of brave, I have a podcast, I do a lot of things. And I'm happy lady.

Suzanne Chadwick
I love it. It's so good. But I also think like when you when you really love what you do, and you've got a lot to say which women like us, we've got a lot to say. That's why we write the books, we've got the podcast, we work with clients. And so I love that as well. Also, having that elevator pitch really aligns with what we're talking about today. And what we're going to be talking about, which is strategic and intentional sales, and really learning to you know, back yourself and love what you're selling. And I think that, you know that energy definitely comes across. So I'm excited to dive in. So how did you get here? How did Ruby assembly happen? What's been your journey?

Iolanthe Gabrie
So I've had a pretty unusual journey to being a serial entrepreneur, I suppose. So I am a real Swat. And as a private school girl, I was like Jimmy, I did all the things I did the musicals, I did debating, I did all the things, right. And I got a really good score at the end of year 12. And because I was intelligent, everyone expected me to go into law because I was able to do well with my score. But then when I got to Melbourne Uni, I realized I didn't really want to do that what I wanted to do was just focus on apps, I come from a family of artists and educators and musicians. So Arts is definitely the kind of the foundational core and drive of my being. And so I did my arts degree and much to my parents chagrin, I suppose they wanted me to be able to get that arm that law degree. And then I finished my degree by going to Dublin and studying nothing but Chaucer for about a year. And that was an incredible experience, I got to really dive deep into a more formal and traditional mode of tertiary education. And then after that, I stayed working in Scotland in Edinburgh, that magical fairytale castle at the city for another year and a half, and I managed a men's store that some of your audience might know it's called pinhoe. elegance. And it focuses just on really high level shaving goods for old dudes, all white dudes. Age, that's an age supination it's one of those products it is has a seal of approval of the previous Her Majesty, Elizabeth. And it was I was must have just been wearing the right suit on the right day. And I've always looked quite formal, so they trusted me with the store. So that cured me of ever wanting to work in retail, but it elevated me to a very adult role fast because I was managing people who were much older than me. They sent me down to London quite often for training. It was just it was a good experience. Then I came back to Melbourne, and here's where the real weirdness of the story became. So came back to Melbourne. I was like, I don't want to go back to university. I sure as hell don't want to work in retail. Even if it's management and retail, what am I going to do? And I thought, well, you're anti if you're going to sell anything, make it the biggest goddamn thing you can sell. And so I decided that I was going to become a real estate agent and eventually an auctioneer. I did that at 21. And coming from a real strong arts background. I'm a pinko lefty, I am left of the political scale. And when people think about estate agents, not only are they reviled and hated, but they're, you know, they're the other end of the spectrum. And so nobody in my social group thought that this was a particularly good idea. But I really followed my intuition towards this thing that I didn't really understand entirely why I wanted to do it. But by golly, it served me well. It was the ultimate training ground for then going on to own multiple businesses. Because if there's a business that's at the coalface and negotiation of talking about money, have difficult conversations and prospecting that is real estate. So I did that for six years. I was really good at it. I got really tired. I was like, I don't want to work this hard. Forever. I've only 2627 or something. And I decided that I would use my capacity to build relationships with ease and to prospect By selling that service to other people. So at the very end of my real estate career, which was about 2009, I began using Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn in their most basic iterations. They were not monetized at that stage. But I noticed that it made prospective clients feel much closer to me. And as if they, they knew me, and could thus trust me, because I use these mediums. And I thought, Oh, well, I can sell that to other people who are in real estate. So initially, I began selling traditional copywriting and social media content and blog content to the real estate category. And it just kind of grew from there. Yeah. So that's how I ended up 14 years later. Now having a much more mature social media agency, I have a number of employees plus, as I mentioned, co working spaces and other ancillary awesome stuff.

Suzanne Chadwick
Amazing. I love it. I love like just the evolution of it. Obviously, when you came back to Melbourne, like did the opportunity just present itself? Like, where did the idea about the real estate agent come from? Because I feel like that's a very different thing to land into.

Iolanthe Gabrie
Yeah, it is. I'm somebody who has, mostly with success followed the White Rabbit. So when something appears in front of me, maybe a couple of times two, three times, I'm intrigued by it, or it seems like the direction I should go, I follow the rabbit. And my parents had just bought a property of a an agent that they thought was an unusual man in some ways, because he had lots of like, literature on the shelves of his agency. And that's really unusual for real estate agents. And Ron was like, well, we maybe could, you know, maybe you could speak to him and find out more. Also, when I came back to Melbourne was thinking about working in real estate. I went for my first interview in real estate at in Preston, which is actually where good acts are co working spaces based. And I went in and I had my beautiful little black one suit on, I had my faux but very impressive throw Louis Vuitton bag with me. I had my hair blow when I looked the goods, very bougie, the owner of the agency said that I would be better off looking in the inner city because they would be a bit of target market for the kind of person I was, which whilst kind of on one level offensive he was he was quite right. So I went and worked at an agency in East Melbourne. And so I just followed the White Rabbit a little bit like how, just a couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Sue's for my own podcast series has been had been suggested to me directly by to people as a great podcast guest for soliciting more. And so if something's presented a couple of times, and there's no reason not to pursue it, I recommend you pursue it.

Suzanne Chadwick
I love that. Yeah, I agree. I just think that, you know, I think that things come up at the right time, when we need it as well, just to kind of assess like, is that what I want? Is that an opportunity I should look at? And I think that you're so right, I think that things do come up. And we've just got to be aware of it as well, I think just kind of being open to those opportunities can really present like new opportunities as well.

Iolanthe Gabrie
So I love that, you know, when somebody suggests something to you, that doesn't seem like quite the right fit, or perhaps somebody wants to have a cup of coffee with you, and it feels a little left field. That can be really interesting conversations, because you're never quite sure where they'll lead you. And I've had numerous numerous great business developments relationships come from the seed of pretty weird and random coffee.

Suzanne Chadwick
That's awesome. And so we're talking today about being really strategic and intentional when it comes to sales. Obviously, this is something that every business needs. It's a lifeblood of the business to make sure you've got clients coming in. And I know that you've come from a very strong sales background. So I really wanted to get your thoughts on talking about the strategy of it, and some of the actions that you think we need to take and the tactics around it, but also the mindset and us being brave enough to sell what we have, because this is one of the biggest things that my clients always say I'm in my own way. Like I'm the biggest barrier to my own success sometimes. And so I know that this is an issue that so many people have. So I'd love to talk about it. So let's start with how do we think about sales in a more strategic way? What do you see? And what do we need to know?

Iolanthe Gabrie
Sales for many entrepreneurs will be entrepreneurs, women in startup, and I want to address women more than men. Feels like a really dirty word. And when you elevate the idea of selling to prospecting, it's even more, oh, I don't want to touch that. Because we associate it with cold calling without purpose with unwelcome knocks on the door with MLMs with stuff that we're being handed at supermarkets that we actually don't want. But every business in all ages has needed a kind of marketing, whether that was you know, Da Vinci in the Renaissance period who who needed to market his fine artisanal skills to bankers, or whether it is you the listener who might have a great accounting practice, and who wants to serve people who own. I don't know, veterinarian clinics, like, all businesses need marketing. And I think that it's so easy to get caught up in the romance of doing your branding, and writing a copy. And not pushing go on a project because you might be a perfectionist. When people say to me, they're perfectionist, that's like a really big alarm bell to me, one may be a perfectionist and understand it as something that they need to work with. In the same way as I could say I have, I'm a, you know, I can be an anxious person, that's something I'm aware of, it's not something that I use as an excuse not to do shit in my life. So in my practice, done, is generally always better than perfect. So launching the staff is important. But more than just having the product is actually understanding a couple of things. The first is who my prospect audiences, we can feel like we're just swimming in a giant lagoon of potential customers, when we a don't have an elevator speech that works. So we can define what it is that we do well. And be we don't know, who is the customer who is most likely to buy them most of my stock, whether your stock is product, or whether your stock is a service. So doing the work that I guess I talked about, in my book, 100 days of brave, that is literally a roadmap to you being able to identify the steps and build the concrete slabs to get you to the point where you can prospect with success, but you need to understand the product, you really need to understand the client, so you can design techniques or prospecting around them. So for example, when I prospect, or in my book, I go in great detail for this prospecting system, it works really well for me, I find that fine attention to detail always pays rewards, I don't want to have the biggest marketing list in the world, I want to have one that really works for me, and it's packed with prospects that will respect what I do. And even if they don't use them use me themselves. They might remember me and refer me to people who are a better match with me. So slow and steady wins the race in my case. So when I'm looking for a client, for example, I love working with the legal category. I love working with allied health professionals. I love working with accountants, for example. I'll look up accountants in a certain area. And I'll see on the internet, I'll you know, I'll see who the decision maker is. Once I've identified who that person is, I need to strategize how am I going to reach out to them now me, I'm relentless, I'm intense. I'm a hunter, I love the taste of blood. Right? I love it. If you gave me nothing but a list, and like internet research, the stalker and me would just be like, I'm gonna sit here all day. Love it. So everybody will have their own tolerance for what that cold outreach looks like. Now you can warm up your outrage by building a resources, which is what I'm sure something that you probably speak about with a lot of your clients, building very high quality documents. When you make those quality, quality documents niche for whichever client you want your likelihood of success with that call, if you say you don't want to call them, you just want to email them. If you've got a document that relate specifically to the concerns and pain points in their business, they're more likely to remember you. Something else I do is I have stacks of postcards printed up with my face on them. I send them after I prospect. So my prospect involves calling emailing postcards, newsletters, it's a whole system. And by the end of that two week process, that prospect will know who I am. And then they just enter the vortex of Ruby assembly or good X or whatever it might be. And then they're contacted on a monthly basis because of newsletters or remarketing or whatever it might be. But I guess the point that I want to drive home to our audience is that you need to set aside time for prospecting. It needs to be set aside as really important blocks of time, I'd suggest two to three hours at a time. And you know, you'll build up a tolerance to that feeling of fear when you're doing something new. That you can't go over the fear. You can't go under it. You have to go through it. Yeah, if you do not do it, your business will probably fail.

Suzanne Chadwick
Yeah. So interesting. And when I and when you were talking about, like really knowing your audience as well. So obviously you're like okay, well, we want to work with people in allied health, accounting, legal, etc. When you are doing your research, is there anything in particular that you're looking for as as far as the type of client as in like them personally like who you want to work with? What are you looking for?

Iolanthe Gabrie
Well, there's there's two. There's two versions of that looking For the first one is the more intentional, where I'm going perhaps through a list of accountants that I have collated. I'm just trolling the internet myself and looking at accountants and different postcodes, I look at the website, if the website is to Windows 95. And it's to court, they're probably not going to be a client for me because they haven't invested in digital for a very long time. And they probably don't respect the medium. If I have a look at the social media suite of a firm that I can see has a good website. And they're, they're producing content every week, they're probably being taken care of. But if I find the site of somebody who has like, maybe it's mediocre, it might be okay. But they look like they have the bones of a good business and like their current. And I can see that might have tried to do social media. But ultimately, they haven't persisted. That's an ideal prospect for me. So I know what the sign of somebody is, who could be a good fit. And then there's the incidental prospecting. So when I'm just going through Instagram, if I see a business, regardless of really the category that I think is, perhaps interesting, connects with me emotionally, but it's doing a really poor or perhaps potentially dangerous job of their social media, I will take a screenshot of that. And then I've got a list on my to do list, which says, go through your Facebook snaps. And I just, I literally just go through the list of the snaps, and I see which of those clients look like they could be a good connection with me. So everybody will have a different metric of what a good client looks like. And I must say that in terms of services, it is probably easier to niche down into into that. But with products, I mean, great success in products tends to be by designing media for a very specific vertical or verticals.

Suzanne Chadwick
Yeah, I love that. I think that's so and I feel like what you just said, like, that's just such a great, like overview for somebody to remember, like, if you think about the problem that your client has, like you said, there might be somebody who obviously is archaic and never going to invest. You've got somebody who obviously looks like it's working really well. So probably they've got help. And you know that right in the middle there. Like the Goldilocks effect, you're like right in the middle, just right, perfect for you. Because you know that you can help them. I want to talk about the mindset around it, because I think a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with the approach. And I'd love to know, when you're in an approach, what's the mindset that you've got around that relationship build,

Iolanthe Gabrie
I'd say that when I contact somebody from scratch, I genuinely feel that they are lucky to have heard from me that day. And I feel like that, because I am significantly expert, not only in my category, but in their category and the way it should work for them. I really understand it. I have invested significantly in my digital ghost my avatar. So when you look up your Lanthier gabrial on the internet, you will see page after page of awesome gorgeousness, you will be a fool to think that I was anything but legitimate. So I built this fortification around me. But of course, helianthus didn't always have this fortification, humanity probably was always a bit of a narcissist who felt like she could do a good job for people, which is true, which is why I was able to build reassembly so quickly from you know, when I began. But there is an element of learning how to cope with somebody saying no. Somebody saying no to one's offering isn't a personal rejection. Yeah. It's just that that offering isn't for them. It doesn't mean it's personal and am often No, in the moment doesn't mean No, forever. Yeah. And that's when they go on the mailing list. That doesn't, it doesn't mean no forever. And I think that the only way you can build up those calluses is through repeated outreach, because very few people do it well. And I find that when people receive the postcards in particular, after they might have entered the vortex of reassembly. They're often delighted they'll send me a little thank you note. You know, I send I use a program called Bon jour as well, which is great program. I send video and voice messages to prospects too. And that can be really effective because they know I'm real. They know I'm not a bot. They know I'm not Chachi T. You know, I'm a real person and I've made the effort. So the only way to reduce your feeling of pain and anxiety around prospecting is to try and work out a way for you to enter it. And it could be with emailing but don't think that one step is enough. It's like when people begin perhaps wanting to work with a social media agency like mine, and they want to believe that this exact ROI. I'm going to spend three months with you lengthy and Ruby assembly. I'm going to expect this many clients. That is not how Hypnosis marketing works how influence marketing works. Influence marketing is effective because it happens over such a long period of time. It's not an instant turnaround kind of behavior, it's something you have to do every day, you have to apply your makeup every day or your moisturizer. That's the same with prospecting. I know that if I prospect today, on the 13th of June, in three months, most likely, something from my three hour period of prospecting today will have come to fruition. I just I just know that because because of my time in real estate, I suppose because prospecting is an experiment in human behavior. But I know that if I don't do that prospecting today, and I expect September to be a good month, then I'm also a bit of a fool.

Yeah, absolutely. And I just think that, you know, when you were just saying that, when you connect with them, your thought is how lucky I am that, like I've made this offer to them today. And I know that when we were chatting just before we started the podcasts like that is one of the things that I think a lot of people struggle with is the belief in their own product or service, the belief that they have the answer, or the solution for their ideal client where they can really help. And so I think that people like their products and services, I think that they think their products and services are good. But I'm not sure that a lot of people have the confidence to be like, This is amazing. You need this, I can help you. And so where do you think that kind of bridges to? I think like what I've got is good to actually having the Kahunas to kind of go out there and be like, Hey, here's my thing. Do you want it?

Yeah, look, I think that a portion of that conundrum lies in maturation as a business owner, you know, as you forge forward through winning clients, and clients and inappropriate, undercoating, over quoting, whatever it might be, you kind of begin to understand the lay of the land around what you can do, what you do well, the kind of people who are attracted to you and work well with you. And the kind of people who you shouldn't really work with, regardless if they're attracted to you or not. So part of part of that, that feeling that your service is valuable comes from doing part of it also comes from investment, we tend to value what we invest in more. So I find that when a business doesn't invest, what resources it has, into displaying how legitimate their service is, it's a lot harder for the business owner to feel legitimate themselves. And it's a lot harder for clients to gauge how much they should pay for someone as well. So if for example, you're still using your builder, right, and you're still using, I don't know, Coburg best concreter@gmail.com. That's not a great vote of confidence in your, in your business. The signs of that are that it might be an amateur business, of course, it might not be an amateur business, but you want to portray every sign of investment in your business that you have the wherewithal to produce at that time, I find that photography tends to actually make people start to feel differently about themselves, because they're seeing themselves through someone else's eyes. So as a early stage, in all of our client work, we always get clients to work with a lifestyle photography team so that they can begin to see what other people see of them at their best. So it's a kind of it's a, when people don't feel really good about their, their service, or they feel like, oh, there's someone out there who probably knows more than me, so why shouldn't they use them? They, you know, why should I charge as much as somebody who's been doing this for 10 years? I think that I think that I mean, on one hand, there's like, there could be issues around self esteem there. But on the other hand, it's like this. It's this fear that other people have some magic that you don't. But look, that's that's not the case. When we're pitching business to new clients or services or E commerce products to new clients. We have our solution to a problem. It might not work for everybody. But if you're a sensible person who does do what you say you can do, and a client comes to you, you'll offer your approach to this, you'll offer your solution to their conundrum. There's not one right answer. You know, I think people feel like Oh, my God, they're going to work out that. I'm not like that. I don't have the right answer. There is no right answer. There's your approach to the conundrum, you know.

Suzanne Chadwick
Yeah, absolutely. And so we've kind of talked about the prospecting we've talked about I love the fact that you're like, don't just make the call, like find the right person make the call, like, send the postcard. Like, I feel like sometimes we're a bit kind of wham, bam, Thank you, ma'am. We're kind of like, we find somebody, we connect with them. And we think that that's enough. And I think that that relationship builds too. So once they get the postcard and the emails and that, is there anything else that you do, once they're kind of in your vortex and and you've started to, I guess, engage with them on a regular basis? Where do you take it to from there to sign to client?

Iolanthe Gabrie
Yeah. So after they've, after I've kind of gone through the initial introduction into what we do, then it is kind of a matter of them getting our newsletter regularly, or invitations to workshops that I'm hosting or like real world stuff that I'm doing promotions, my book openings of work workspaces. And then I'll look very closely at my MailChimp opens, I can see that someone has opened my email 12 times. They're due for an email, Hey, they're interested in something I've got to say. And just last week, I want a new client. And on one hand, you could say, oh, that client came out of the blue girl. She came from years of my work. Yeah, impressing another person that referred her directly to me. No, so and I saw just in the, in the week before I got that cold, new business, that that person who was the referral had opened my email like 12 times, and she was on my to email contact. Like, if I get a referral from people, I send them a goddamn gift. Definitely, yeah, doesn't matter if the work comes through or not, that is immaterial. Do not be too transactional with your generosity. Yeah, being too transactional, with your generosity for referrals, or when you go networking is like, it's a poor use of your time in terms of networking. And it's not where a sense of generosity and abundance like kind of come from, I only recently went to a really good networking event actually by Vicki there Melbourne based Chamber of Commerce. And it was a really beautiful event I was against. And when I go to inworld networking events, which I don't do as much anymore, because I have a small child post pandemic, I guess no one goes to inreal, like IRL networking events quite as much as they used to. If I make two or three good connections, I'm happy to sit chatting to somebody who feels like a good fit for 20 minutes. 25 minutes, I do not need a handful of business cards. You know, I have digital for that. Yeah, I don't, I don't want to feel transactional. And you know, it's not pleasurable for me. So and from that, you know, from that night, the prospects are actually really good. So there's one person who's getting warmer, so I follow her up every week, like if I, if I can see that someone has opened an email 12 times or I have a really good conversation with them. And they tell me a little bit about their business. And I think oh, no, they're definitely going to be up. So using my service. I'll diarize to contact them every few weeks, until they told me either yes, or they're telling me that they need some time to get some more money, or whatever it is I need to do, then I contact them in six months. So I use my Outlook or Gmail or whatever, I use my calendar really heavily. And I use MailChimp to power most of my prospecting. But it's a matter of following up in a in a courteous way. And having people see you on having people see you on social media, slowly helping them understand more about what it is that you do. And what is it that you are the solution for their clients problem or their own problem.

Suzanne Chadwick
Amazing. I think that that leads really well into my next question, which was more around, like, what kind of content? Are you sharing about yourself? Or are you sharing when you're managing clients accounts that you feel really helps you to, I guess, position yourself as the go to person? Like, is there anything in particular where you're like, if you want to be the go to person, if you want people to know that you're the person to work with, these are the types of content pieces that you need to really think about?

Iolanthe Gabrie
When it comes to sales, I'm really interested in the long game. I don't need immediate ROI. I'm not particularly numerically driven, interestingly enough. And I think that sometimes when we have expectations that are too high, about an immediate kind of ROI, we can feel really discouraged in our business as if we're not hitting the mark or as if we're not able to make sales. So content that I find converts people over a long period of time, and which is ideal for professional services. People who don't want to discount like, I'm not into discount codes, I mean to the right person purchasing at the right time for the right price. So on a weekly basis, I look at the contributions I'm making to the community around me. So in the first iteration, but say I, on social media, I will create content that isn't explicitly sales, but it will be educating people about what we do. But what we feel like as an agency, now that content is invariably beautiful. And it doesn't just present me as the character, I put focus on also featuring my team, because having a charismatic leader, which I am is important in a business, but clients need to know that they feel like there's a suite of people that are helping them. And that, you know, most people will expect that I'm not the one working on their material. And that's very helpful, because I'm not, I'm the one who's designing strategy around it. But it doesn't mean that I'm the day to day, someone who is like, way better than I am at that stuff works for me, and does that on the day to day. So creating content that I know will make prospects feel safe, feel confident, and feel entertained. So we talk about selling content. And we also talk about discovery content. And discovery content is stuff that we know will entertain an audience, but doesn't have anything to do with selling really. So for example, my colleague, Catherine has designed a beautiful suite of Pride Month content for Ruby assembly in June. And it looks at like all our favorite LGBTQ i plus content across the team. And that that material is going extremely well. It's got nothing to do with sales. It's got everything to do with culture and aesthetic. So that material, I find us very well. A mix of ugly, real and aesthetically gorgeous as well, too. So ugly, real, ugly, real is like when I'm just you know, talking to camera, and it's really unfiltered, that allows people to see that I am a real person. And it gets a sense of like movement and being off the cuff and being approachable and being real. If all we have as a brand is ugly and real, it looks illegitimate. And on the other side, if all we have is like an aesthetic type of brand that feels totally plastic and not capable of faults, then that also doesn't feel very real. It's that space in between that is effective. But then beyond that contribution, I look at other ways I can make people feel a part of my business, even if they're not a purchaser. So that's where a podcast comes in. For example, I don't need to produce a ton of it. But what I do need to produce should be interesting. And again, speaking to the right audience, but it doesn't have to be everybody. Other things that make people feel included in Ruby assembly, I run a women's networking organization called Serious Women's Business Northside. Over the past, I don't know, seven or eight years, we've recruited over 600 members. And that's a space that I curate, and that I offer for other people to, to learn and grow in. These are all small things. But the cumulative wave effect is a tsunami of presents, and doesn't happen overnight. It's something that's really cumulative. And I'd say the best example of a kind of a prospecting methodology that I love, I love for a couple of reasons. One is because it has this intangible aspect that make people go, why do you bother doing that? So I do paste up campaigns, you know, on the side of hoardings, like in the city where, you know, Phil Collins could be coming to town or Beyonce, the big rock posters. I do those for Ruby assembly. Wow. Yeah. So they're not particularly they're fairly cost effective. And I do one of those campaigns each year. And did initially did I worry that people would would like, draw dicks on my face? Yeah. But I never saw any pictures of myself with Dick on my face. But what I did say, were photos of people who supported me and love my brand, and love what I do and love how that capacity to present myself is a massive vote of confidence in self. And I think that if people get that, that's what we do for them. Worked on, I don't need an ROI map. But that's real. And not many people do it. That is some big old Kahunas. And, and clearly, I have them. Oh, gosh, she made me love.

Suzanne Chadwick
That's hilarious. That's not even something that I would think of. It's so guerilla marketing, it like almost takes me back to my recruitment days. And we were like, what guerrilla marketing campaigns could we potentially do in the city? You know, and so, what made you decide to, I guess, put that into the mix?

Iolanthe Gabrie
Because nobody else was doing it. Okay. It was cost effective.

Suzanne Chadwick
When you say cost effective, like what sort of range

Iolanthe Gabrie
ah, under 1600. Okay, and for like a month or no, it's only for it depends on the survey that you use, but the business, but it's typically like two weeks and across a part of Melbourne that you want them to be and I think that's very good value. It's also absolutely delightful to see your brand in the public space. It's delightful, even if I just did it for me, is delightful. I bloody love it.

Suzanne Chadwick
Oh my gosh, I just want to tap into this for a second that because I feel like you know, people are very, like, this is where I market. This is what I do, like, you know, we're on all of the digital platforms where, you know, we're sending emails, etc. I'd love to just touch on creative ways to connect with your audience. Is there anything else that you've done either for yourself? Or for other clients? That is a little bit like out of the box?

Iolanthe Gabrie
Yeah. So I do client love they once a year and client loved a is like, I mean, it's it is what it sounds like on the box. It's a gift that clients received that they're not expecting, and it just arrived sometime in the year. So I would do things like I think I did one that was like cozy winter, where I went and I got like I did what 20 or 25 of everything. So it was a big, it was a big gift bag. And inside it was like a warm blanket. There was tea there was a mag, there was a book, there was like a face mask, there was no there were all the accoutrement that you'd want for like a COVID-19. And it was completely, they're not really there's not a branding exercise. It's a generosity exercise. And it's about like feeling like somebody, somebody cares, who cares about you, and when they do care about our clients. So we want them to feel that way. Other things I've done in the past, I haven't done this very recently, when I first began for Christmas presents, I would buy my clients T shirts, that's very personal. And they'd be like T shirts that you get from are the, like Threadless like T shirts that have like interesting pop culture references. So it's a way of clients like gifting as a business. Generosity is what you want to convey. Tailoring is what you want to convey if you can. But it's okay, if it's kind of about your impression of the client as well. Like with new business or referrals, I'll send people books that I like, of course, I like my own book, but I also send I send other books as well, you know, because it means that I've cared enough to listen. Yeah. And it's that fine attention to detail, that when to clients for a long time, my average client 10 years, eight years. That's amazing. It's really long business because I really, really care and respect their business. Yeah, you know, and, you know, even when we have a client wrapping up, for example, the client didn't need a full month worth of the content, they needed two weeks, but our terms are 30 days. And he's like, Oh, don't worry, but the last two weeks, just wrap it up. It's cool. We've delivered that content regardless, that's what they've paid for. That's our that was our promise, you know, nine years ago. And that's indeed what we're going to give you. And that's a sense of pride in what we do at Ruby assembly. But it's just, it's just good business, I think, yeah, I think that people can get really really romanced by this idea that everything is digital. And whilst we can enjoy tremendous reach and power in the digital space, you need to be creating things in the space that are genuinely useful. Don't be giving me some chat GPT, like generic advice on, you know, the best ways to move home. It can begin as a chat GPT prompt, but it must be more than that, if you're going to want to show that you're worth the money that you're charging. Yeah, that's why, for example, we're not particularly worried about things like Jack hibbity. They're just ways of beginning documents, they're certainly not wasted ending them. It's thinking beyond what you might have been sold as a package of like, you know, launching your business in four months, from a, you know, from a from a coach who teaches coaching, for example, it's not it's not that, that is templating. And whilst it can give the facade that you're a legitimate business, if you scratch a little you can see who is legitimately offering something of depth. That has a longevity of relationship. But what we all want as business owners is that repeat business we don't want people who use us once for a ton of money and never come back. That's not good business cost too much too. When a client you want people who spend a good amount of money with you like clockwork. Yeah, that's that's the gold.

Suzanne Chadwick
Yeah, no, I love that. And I feel like we've kind of been through the spectrum of, you know, from the very beginning of finding the client nurturing the relationship, surprising and delighting for longevity. Like, I love that, that journey and I love all of the left field out of the box. It says Well, that's so good. And I would really encourage Yeah, my listeners to really think about you know, what is it that you're doing that is a little different. What is it that you're doing To surprise and delight your clients, you know, that they may not know about and what else could you do outside of maybe the digital space to that would really build that connection as well. So I absolutely love everything that you shared. Thank you so much. I'd love to just wrap things up and talk about the 100 days of brave. Tell me about the book, is there a role is there a party that I can come to what's happening?

Iolanthe Gabrie
So 100 days of Brave is a book that I began writing probably in about 2017. And the title of it came to me in a dream, you know how so many of our best ideas, they're like this giant porridge of all these inputs. And then at some point, your brain finishes processing and downloading, and it comes out with a fully formed idea. That's what 100 days of rave was, for me, I wanted to be able to write something that was a genuinely helpful, accessible roadmap to building a business safely, because I've mentored and worked with many people over the last 14 years, who might have a good concept, but they may be frightened or disinterested in compliance, that bow that's not going to work, they might not have tested their concept at all to see whether or not that's actually appealing. Again, that's one way towards wasting a whole lot of money. I wanted to write a book that was democratizing, because business is for everybody, we just all do different ways. We all do business differently. And that is successfully What 100 days of brave has done, we have all the accoutrements of any good brand. So I have a beautiful website, please go check it out. It is unbelievably gorgeous. We have a playbook which accompanies the book, which helps you get more out of your three trimesters of brave action. There's a playlist there's a Facebook group, and next year, I'm doing a two day festival event in the city, which will be live lessons from 100 days of brave, which will be a hell of a lot of fun. However, that is a 2024. But the 2024 goal, this year, I'm going to be opening another co working space. So that's what's on the cards for them. But hundreds of brave wasn't written for a Ruby assembly client, for example, there are people who, you know, they already have the wherewithal to pay for outsourcing. This is a dedication to people finding a way to live life on their own terms. Because, you know, we're all a multitude of things were daughters, we're friends, we may be mothers, we might be carers for the elderly or the young. And the traditional way of, of making money. Just that nine to five just doesn't really serve many of us anymore. And for me, I found that business has allowed me to live life in full color at loud volume. Because people engage with me, they want me as I am. And if we can live life as we're meant to be, that's got to be a good thing. And so that's why I wrote 100 Day surprise, because I think that women can find freedom in business.

Suzanne Chadwick
Ah, let's finish on that. Full Palai yes to that. Gray. I've absolutely loved his chat. Thank you so much for sharing. I obviously have all of your links everywhere, for sure. But for my audiences who I always say are on the dog walk or in the car, where can they find you? What's the best place

Iolanthe Gabrie
Best place is on Instagram Ruby assembly. If you're curious about our co working spaces in Melbourne's north, it's at the good X and Y podcast is Celeste men more on Spotify and Apple. So that's probably all the good places to find me. But I'm everywhere Don't worry.

Suzanne Chadwick
And once you get into that vortex look out. I love it. That's great. We will have all the links on the show notes to that. But I really appreciate you sharing all of this I know that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I think it's a vibe. We love living out loud full colour,

Iolanthe Gabrie
thank you so much for for allowing me to speak a little on my experience to your audience. I hope that we've both been able to offer some value to them. And yeah, I look forward to more Susan you let the magic in the future.

Suzanne Chadwick
I am here for it. Thank you so much.

Iolanthe Gabrie
My pleasure bye Su

Suzanne Chadwick
but how good how good how good how good was that? I love that conversation. There is so much gold in there for you like for you to really sit down and work out what your lead nurturing strategy is like, how are clients finding you? What are you doing with them when they come to you? What things are you not doing right now that you could maybe shift and change what is something that you could do that is a bit more creative, like so much gold? So if you got a lot of that episode, I would love you to share it share it on your socials, share it everywhere, you know say what it is that you're either gonna do or what did you get out of this episode and make sure that you tag you plant the Ruby assembly tag me, we will share it. But this is a conversation we're having, like, if you're here on the podcast, we are having this conversation more. Are you up for that? We're gonna make 2023 2024 for those who are in Australia where, you know, new financial year now, but we're going to make this the best sales year that we've had. Yeah, where we're putting great systems in place. We are being active, like focused, intentional marketers, and we are selling in a way that converts our dream clients. Are you with me? Are you with me? Give me a yes, wherever you are, whether you're in the car, you're walking, but like yes, today. Yes. Let's do this. I'm going to make this happen. So I'm excited to talk more about this. But listen, have an amazing rest of your day and I will see you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai