Esther
Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast, I'm Esther.
Melanie
And I'm Melanie.
Esther
And today we're talking about celebrating your wins, big or small. A win in business is a win.
Melanie
Absolutely. And it's very important, and it doesn't matter what size of business you are that you respect the wins, the wins can take all sorts of shapes and sizes. One of my favorite ones would obviously be the public testimonial, the one you receive from a very happy customer who hopefully puts it up on your Facebook, your LinkedIn, or even your Google, my business page. These are already public and can be widely shared, but a lot of people don't. Can you have any idea why, Esther?
Esther
Sometimes, especially in our business, a lot of people don't want you to know or don't want other people to know that there's somebody else running their social media, so they feel that they're letting their audience down, maybe by sharing the fact that somebody else's is the voice behind their page on Facebook, even though, you know, we would be doing it for them on their behalf and not on our behalf, they might feel that they're not being honest.
Melanie
They lose their authentic voice, don't they?
Esther
Absolutely, absolutely. So maybe that would provoke them not to add it to the public domain of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, my business. But you may receive a testimonial from them via email, just thanking you for helping them land the new client, helping you get the word out. It could be that if they send it via email, you may need to ask their permission to share it, but it's still a nice win. We have also received handwritten notes sent to the office and that is brilliant. I mean, nobody writes posts anymore and nobody sends anything through the mail, so to get that, it was just the extra added bonus of yeah, we got posts, it's not a bill and it was a great testimonial and a great thank you for all our help that we did on her website, so we contacted her and asked her if we could take a picture of it and send it out to share it out in our social media, and she said yes, so it's always nice to get testimonials.
Melanie
There is also another really big when you can get in the shape of awards, even being nominated, even if you never get any further, is a wonderful accolade to the hard work and dedication, and namely, it could be somebody nominated for this award, and, you know, bless your cotton socks, you probably didn't even realize somebody noticed you were doing so well and they thought enough of you to actually put you into an award. You may not win, but I still would share that as a win, and somebody registered their absolute intention, they think you're good enough to enter this award in the first place and when you do win, because let's face it, the hope is that you do, you then share that again. And I was really honored for two years, I won the Micro Business Awards and Best Business to Business Award in 2018 and 2019, and that was a wonderful feeling. But it did feel really weird telling people about it. It felt a bit self gratuitous if you know what I mean.
Esther
Yeah. And I think that's something that a lot of people, especially on this little island that we live on in Ireland, are very aware of, that they feel like self-promotion is bad or that it's just, you know, them showing off, but it's not that at all. OK, so as Melanie says, if you get an award or even a nomination, it's a great achievement, I mean, somebody out there is noticing you and somebody is voting for you, somebody is in your corner, they are rooting for you, they're cheering you on and share it out, I mean, shout to the world that this is happening. Another place is when people mention you on their websites, so, for example, the top ten list of influencers, or we were recently named in a top ten list of website designs that somebody had come across our website, they like the design of it and they put us on a list, and we only realized when we were going through our Google Analytics as to how people were coming across to our website was one of the ways was through this blog that this guy had written. We don't know who he is. We don't know where he is, but he found us and shared our blog.
Melanie
Well, kudos, but there are other ways as well, less familiar ones, but I Trended said in Ireland last week on Twitter as part of a Twitter chat that may not sound like a significant win if you like, because only trended for a couple of hours. But for me, I saw that as a significant win. It raised my profile. I got an awful lot more followers from it, generated a lot of chatter about my brand and I consider that a win, and so I put across all my channels, I trended third Niland.
Esther
Yeah. And that is a great win as well. Another one would be when you get a new client, you've just landed a big, small, medium-size deal, and, you know, you want to celebrate, you want to show to the world that you got a new client, you don't have to say who it is. You don't have to say even what it's for, but just the fact that you got a new client and that somebody is hiring you to do X, Y, Z, that is also a fantastic win, and especially, you know, if you've sent out three, four, or five different proposals and got three, four rejections, then to get that one "yes" out of all that negativity is an amazing feeling.
Melanie
I don't know. I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Esther, just to be controversial, and me, I hate those posts out there where they say, yay, what a great day. And they put it on Facebook and you go, hey, what happened? What happened? Tell us. And there's nothing. It's like cricket's the most annoying thing in the world. You know, put some detail in there if you can. Yeah, I do agree with Esther that there is a real it's really frustrating because I've had some really lovely clients over the years of being in business and I haven't always been able to put them up. I've got the section on my website called Clients Past and Present, and I can't put them all up there. Must like I work part time because there are not enough clients on there, but you're representing another brand and there's only so much you can say and admit to as well, which is a shame.
Esther
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It is a shame because we do such great work behind the scenes and it is a great help and asset to the business that for them not to want us to shout about what we're doing for them, is a bit disheartening, but we totally understand. I mean, we're not going to go against our client's wishes and shout and say, yeah, I landed the name of Big Client in here. But we are conscious that a lot of people can celebrate and say, yeah, I'm working with Toyota, I'm working with the government, I'm working with, you know, and that they are able to say because they're giving sort of a different type of service that isn't so personalized, so to speak, and that's perfectly OK as well, I mean, we are we chose the industry that we're in and that's the bed we have to lie on.
Melanie
A bed of nails as to a bed of nails.
Esther
It's very comfortable, actually. But yeah, I mean, you can celebrate everything that you do in your business and it doesn't have to be something huge, it doesn't have to be even, you know, landing that big client or that small client, it can be finishing your to-do list something that in my case, just keeps getting longer, longer and longer.
Melanie
It's just not possible.
Esther
Well, I mean, even just checking off one thing from that huge list that we have, does help and it does provide that little bit more kick and incentive to keep going and do the next thing on the list, and the next thing on the list.
Melanie
It is hard, though, isn't it? I mean, doesn't again, it really doesn't matter what size of business you have or what size team you have if you don't do the wins occasionally you kind of forget why you were doing it, and you need to remind your audience why you're doing it as well, and I think that's why it's important that we put publicly our wins.
Esther
Yeah, definitely. And it is an important incentive to yourself, I mean, I know people who when they finished three, four blog posts, they have a spa day, you know, and they're not content writers like Melanie who do it, knock out four or five blogs in half an hour, they are people who don't write for a living, they don't have the creativity to just sit and write a blog or three or four in a day, so when they get those done, they take themselves off for half a day, a day, they go to the hairdressers, they go for a walk in the park, there are lots of ways that they celebrate their wins and some people even save up a little bit more extra money and go away for the weekend and celebrate it.
Melanie
Goals and mindfulness I think it incorporates both. Definitely. Absolutely.
Esther
And a little bit of self care in there as well, just to look after yourself and to keep yourself motivated in your own business is important as well, so when it comes to celebrating your wins, you can celebrate from the tiniest little detail that you got a letter in the post that wasn't a bill all the way up to the landing that massive client that you have been looking for for the last six months, a year. And they're all valid and it's important to keep yourself motivated. So that's it for this week, Melanie, any homework?
Melanie
Yes. It doesn't matter what kind of week you've had, honestly, there must be something that you can celebrate, maybe personal, maybe business, but I'd like you to really focus on what you can celebrate this coming week. And I hope by the end of this week, somewhere on your social media, you're sharing your celebration, your win. And if you are, please make sure you tag us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
Esther
Thanks for that, Melanie. Yes, we will all be looking forward to seeing your posts. That's it for this week. Have a great one. And we'll be back next week with another episode of the Monday morning marketing podcast, Goodbye.
Melanie
Bye.