The Dos and Don’ts Of Marketing To Women

The Dos and Don'ts Of Marketing To Women

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the most foundational elements of marketing is understanding your target market and who your ideal clients are within that market. Everything in marketing builds from this foundation, and that is why I'm going to dig into a huge target market today with our special guest. We are going to focus on women, and she's going to help us understand the do's and the don'ts of marketing to women. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I am super excited to have with me today, Bethany Meadows from Vertical Solutions Media. Bethany, welcome. And thanks for taking the time to be here.

Bethany Meadows
I'm so excited to be here, Tim. Thanks for asking me.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. I'm excited to switch sides of the mic. I was on your podcast a month or so ago, so thank you for doing me the favor of coming on. I'm excited to learn more today. But before we do that, I want to ask you some rapid fire questions, help us get to know you a little bit, and then have you tell us more about what you're doing. Are you ready to jump in here?

Bethany Meadows
I'm ready. I love a rapid fire because it just kind of steals you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, my rapid fire questions probably aren't quite as rapid fire as most. When you are not working, how do you like to spend your time?

Bethany Meadows
Well, I have the good fortune of living on a Lake, and so when the weather's nice, we're definitely out there on the Lake. I love kayaking. I love getting alone out there on the lake with my kayak and finding the turtles and just being at one with nature. I know it sounds so cliche, but, you know, when you're working in marketing, it's all about deadlines, and it's just fast all the time. So for me, I just love being able to slow down and listen to the water and the birds and kind of get back to nature as it is.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What's your hidden talent?

Bethany Meadows
So I don't know if this is a hidden talent as much as something that I've developed over years of having a big family. I can cook for a crowd at a moment's notice, no matter what I've got in my pantry.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's awesome.

Bethany Meadows
I think it's a talent.

Tim Fitzpatrick
No, that is definitely a talent. Nobody has ever said that. So I love that at a moment's notice with whatever. So you're kind of like the MacGyver of large meals.

Bethany Meadows
Exactly. I got a big stockpot. I can just pull together whatever out of the pantry and make a meal for 20 people. No problem.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Bethany Meadows
Be the driver of your own bus. And what was meant by that is that not letting other people drive your emotions or drive your boundaries or that just kind of personal responsibility. Own your own stuff.

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the first things that came to mind when you said that was the thought that there are so many people out there that are doing things not for themselves, but for other people, and they're totally unhappy.

Bethany Meadows
So true.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So that is a fantastic piece of advice.

Bethany Meadows
The older we get. I won't say how much older I am, but the less that we care.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, if only we could get that way earlier in our lives than most of us do. Frankly, some of us never get there. What's one thing about you that surprises people?

Bethany Meadows
Okay, so the thing that I say to people that always kind of raise some eyebrows is that I home schooled my children for 16 years total, most of that time as a single mom of five kids and working full time. Started my business while homeschooling five and being the sole breadwinner, usually that gets eyebrows up. I homeschooled my stepdaughter for four years as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So you're good at time management?

Bethany Meadows
Yeah, I did a lot of time blocking during those years because my youngest is 28 now. So I found that maybe amusing is not the right word. I don't want to be kind of snooty about it, but when the mothers of one children were all freaking out that they were schooling their kids remotely at home, it has a few eye rolls happen.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I can only imagine. What does success mean to you?

Bethany Meadows
Having joy in what you do and being able to help somebody every day.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Where's your happy place?

Bethany Meadows
My backyard. Sitting on the swing with my husband and a glass of wine in my hand.

Tim Fitzpatrick
How big is the Lake that's behind your house?

Bethany Meadows
88 acres. It's pretty big.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's pretty decent size.

Bethany Meadows
We water ski on it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?

Bethany Meadows
Sincerity, definitely. I hate fake people. Just be you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, just be you. So tell us more about what you're doing. Vertical Solutions Media is your marketing company?

Bethany Meadows
Yeah, it's a full service marketing agency. We found it in 2008. So it's almost 14 years now, and we work with mid sized companies, banks, insurance brokerages, kind of in that space. When we started, it was more of this small business. And then as we grew and our reputation grew, we ended up with bigger clients, which is what actually brought me to time to thrive membership, because during the pandemic, a lot of these small business owners were in a panic because they were either closed down or weren't as relevant as before or were struggling to find ways to pivot and really adapt or evolve to what was going on in the marketplace. Because it happens so fast. We know that marketplace has evolved period, over time, but the pandemic kind of created this whirlwind, and they couldn't afford our retainers at that level. And I really wanted to do something to still help them. So I sat down and was like, what business model can I come up with that would make sense for a small business owner and really add value for them, but in an affordable way. And honestly, it's been like when you asked about what success means to me, we started it in July of last year, 2021. And it has been so much joy for me to kind of get back to my roots of really working with a small business owner and introducing some strategies for them that just make a difference that are game changing for them.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So Vertical Solutions Media is your marketing agency Time to Thrive Membership is your monthly marketing membership that's geared towards small business owners, giving them the support, the resources they need to level up their marketing game.

Bethany Meadows
Yes. There's a training library of on demand videos and downloadable resources. Worksheets, workbooks, and that kind of thing. But I didn't want to create that, just that evergreen, here you go, figured out kind of situation. So we do live events every single week. Some of them are open door group coaching. Some of them are deep dives workshop intensive on a particular topic. We bring in guest experts. In fact, we have you coming in next week.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. Thank you.

Bethany Meadows
To our membership. And then we also do coaching weeks every single month. And those are much deeper dives into telling your brand story and business success planning, because those are two areas that a lot of business owners really struggle with to figure out on their own. So I really wanted to come alongside business owners rather than here's a video I did figured out this is more collaborative. We have a community that they become a part of, so it's somewhere you can get the support training, but you also have access. So if you have questions, you can come into the mastermind group and ask your questions and I'm there to answer them for you.

Why Should You Keep Women Top of Mind with Your Marketing

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. Let's dig into marketing to women. It's obviously a huge target market. There are tons there's no shortage of ideal clients within the marketing to women space. Let's first understand why target women in marketing to begin with.

Bethany Meadows
Yeah. So think about it. Global brands are spending as much as 70% to 95% of their budget on reaching women. So what does that tell you?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Say that one more time. Local brands.

Bethany Meadows
Global brands.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Global brands.

Bethany Meadows
Global brands spending 70% to 95% of their marketing budgets targeting women. And there's a reason for that. Research shows that women drive 70% to 80% of all buying decisions. Either they're the primary driver or they're the influence behind the decision. So they show the buying decision for 91% of new homes is made by women. 66% of computers and electronics women. 92% of vacations women. 65% of new cars women. So when you look at it in a big picture setting, you can estimate about 80% of these buying decisions are being made by women. I mean, groceries, luxury items purchases. Women are not a niche market.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. So whether they are working in the home or outside of the home, they have huge buying power and decision making that frankly, if we're overlooking, we're missing a huge part of the market.

Bethany Meadows
Yeah. And it's a little bit more nuanced than that, too. Women don't all think alike. So we can't group them all into a big bucket and say marketing to women so XYZ. Purchasing decisions are based on lots of different factors. There's income, there's location, there's occupation, hobbies. So it would be a mistake to treat marketing to women like a single audience. So you still have to segment down your if your target is women, you still have to segment that down into additional demographics that are going to make sense for what you're selling them.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Let me give an example here, because I actually interviewed on a podcast last week, and this woman started a jewelry company. I don't know how many years ago. Now I think it's a half a billion dollar company, something like that. It's huge. She was marketing to women. And this goes back to my point of target market, maybe women, but we need to drill down. And when she got into market, she was going to market to women. She was looking at stay at home moms, and then she was looking at women that were busy professionals. She chose to market to busy professionals for a number of different reasons. But because of that, there was a huge the messaging to those two groups is completely different from what she was selling. And so that's kind of what you're touching on here, right?

Bethany Meadows
Right, right. And different women have different needs, wants and pain points. So we need to make sure that our messaging is on target to the segment that we're going to. I did a workshop one time at a public library, and I had about 110 business owners in attendance to this workshop. And I asked for a volunteer and lady in front row. So I chose her. And she told me that her business, she makes soap. She makes this organic soap in her basement, sells it online. And so I asked her, who's your target audience? And she said, well, everyone, because everyone uses soap. And I'm like, well, no, not everybody's going to buy your soap. Right. So when we're thinking about our product, then we think about, okay, as business owners, we just think what we do is so amazing that everybody would want it. Right. Who wouldn't want what we do? Because we're just that amazing. But the truth is, there are people more likely to want what you do. And so you can't waste marketing dollars trying to convince people who are less likely to want what you're offering. And so when you're thinking about marketing to women, you can't just stick them in a niche. We want to look at that particular segment and then really drill down and understand the pain point that we're trying to solve. And that really helps us narrow our message, narrow the way that we're going to talk to them.

Tim Fitzpatrick
You're speaking my language.

Bethany Meadows
Yes.

The Dos and Don'ts of Marketing to Women

Tim Fitzpatrick
So you already touched on one of the big don'ts, which is don't group women in this large category and treat them all the same because they are not all the same. What are some other do's and don'ts when we're looking at marketing to women that we need to keep top of mind?

Bethany Meadows
Yeah. So let's talk about don'ts first. And some of these should be obvious, but not always so much. I actually did an intensive on this inside the membership. And when I do those intensive, I pull a lot of live examples because I don't want to talk about any concepts. I want to show actual examples. So if you looked at marketing over the years, like 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and so on, you can see the progression of marketing. One of the big don'ts is don't patronize women and don't be sexist. That should be an obvious one, but not always so much. The other don't is don't stereotype. Women don't want to be pegged as something. Right. Because we're complicated humans. Everyone who's married to one knows that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
No comment.

Bethany Meadows
Yes. Don't be insensitive or negative. Women want positive messages, and they definitely don't like insensitivity. One thing not to do is girl boss language. What does that mean? That's like the thing you throw like a girl or, wow, you didn't throw that like a girl. Like, what does that mean? I throw right. Period. And don't be too gender specific. So if we get all focused on, we tend to if we get gender specific, we'll tend to go into stereotyping. So you got to be careful of that. Some of the things that you can do, because men are transactional by nature. They just want to buy something. They just want to feel like they got a good deal or, you know, whatever. They want to feel good about their purchase, but they're very transactional about it. Women are relationship. They want to feel like they're creating a relationship with you. And there is a stat out there that says that 91% of women feel like advertisers just don't understand them. So there's a real opportunity to create marketing messages that women will really connect with and that will resonate with them. So some of the dues is women want to be inspired. They want to like, if you market to them, if you want it to stick, inspire them with something. Right. They want to relate to it. It want to be something that they feel like makes sense for them or their family. Sympathize with the pain points that women have. Be funny. Women love a good sense of humor. Look at the dating profile of any Match.com person. It'll say the things that they want in a mate is humor, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.

Bethany Meadows
So be funny. And ultimately be a storyteller. Women love stories. They connect with that. It's part of their neurological makeup that, you know, if you tell a story, like memories and things, they stick with us much more than with men. So we remember all the little details. So stories are a great way to market to women.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Some of the things that stuck out with me here as a male, because I think sometimes it's difficult for us to understand and relate in some ways. Don't be insensitive or negative stuck out with me. Don't be patronizing. Super important. On the do side, inspiring and creating relationships. Right. As a male, as you pointed out, we tend to be very transactional when we're marketing to women. We need to kind of take a step back and give it time to build.

Bethany Meadows
Yes. If you watched a conversation between my husband and I, he would be saying you need to get to the point, and I would be over here telling a story about why I feel the way I feel. And then that kind of sums it up, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
Some marketing language. You mentioned more about negative versus positive. I can give you a practical example of that. If you're doing an ad and you're choosing an image, sometimes people will choose an image that demonstrates the pain point, but rather women want to see the image that demonstrates the solution. So maybe the pain point makes me afraid or angry or frustrated or whatever. These are all very negative emotions. So if you put an image out there that's reflecting a pain point, it's going to be this real negative oh my knee. But the solution is I'm out here jogging, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
And my knee has no pain because of the product that I'm using. So that would be a good example of not using these negative emotions or negative images or phrasing even. So, are you in pain versus live your best life?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Let's dig into this a little bit because this is a really important point in marketing. We talk all the time. You got to focus on the problems and the solutions of the result. When we're marketing to women, how do we find that? How do we find that balance where we are touching on that problem, but we're more focused on the end result? If that makes sense.

Bethany Meadows
Right. And we still need to communicate the pain points because that's what creates the relevance.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.

Bethany Meadows
Right. But we want to have the highlight where the focus on the solution rather than dwelling in the pain point.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it.

Bethany Meadows
Yes. You have this situation, but we have the solution. And then the big focus is the solution. Some real practical ways that you can incorporate language that really resonates with women. Because women are relational. They really like it when you use their name. And so if you're sending out emails or things like that, be sure to include that kind of personalization. And you can even do that in direct mail pretty easily. But if you can't use their name, talk about it in you. That kind of voice. Women always like to know why, right. That's part of that story, right. That I'm telling. I got to tell you this story so you understand my why. So use words or phrases like because, X-Y-Z, because women want to know why. Use words about like connection, relationship, partnership. Those are things that women value because they're about that relational aspect of it. Added values. Women resonate with added values because that's part of the relationship part. I'm giving you an added value because we're in a relationship.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
Not just part of the transaction. Women also are very security oriented. So they like the no risk, risk free, money back guarantee, that kind of phraseology and language. So those are the ways that you can as examples, that you can take language and make it appealing to women without being condescending or stereotyping or whatever.

9 Tips to Remember When Marketing to Women

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it. Bethany, you shared a lot of great do's and don'ts here. I know you've got some tips for us when we're marketing to women. Let's run through those.

Bethany Meadows
Okay, well, one tip is women are not a minority, so don't treat them like one. So when it comes to buying decisions, women are the majority. You can't treat them like a special market. We kind of touched on that before. You also don't want to pinkify everything. Making something pink doesn't automatically mean it's going to appeal to women. You don't want to genderize with color. It's not the 50s. And women are past that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That would be one of the don'ts of stereotyping. Correct?

Bethany Meadows
Yeah. Don't pick up by. Okay, I know that's not a real word. Another tip is figure out where they live online. Like when you've done that process of creating those segments, those buyer personas as they were, figure out where they are. Women are highly active users of social media. 81% of female millennials, for example, said that social media was the best way for brands to reach them. That's powerful.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
So just figuring out where if you're speaking to senior women, they're not going to be in the same place as millennials. So just make sure that you're understanding your buyer personas and then where they live online. Another tip for marketing women is giving back. Companies that are good corporate citizens, that matters to women. So by partnering with or by becoming a champion of a cause yourself, you can really create appeal and build that affinity with your female audiences. And you'll also attract women who align with your values. So if you communicate your values in some way, by the way that you give back, you're going to attract women who share or align with those values.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
Create content. Women love content. I think I heard somewhere at some point I can't tell you which study, but it's in my head and forevermore. It must be true. Women speak an average of 25,000 words a day, and men speak an average of 5000 words a day.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That doesn't surprise me.

Bethany Meadows
So I think as far as consuming content, I think we also do that at high levels. We like content, especially content that has value as relevant and create some sort of emotional connection for us. 30% of women will refuse to read anything that doesn't inspire, entertain them, or inform them. So you can't just put stuff out there to put stuff out there. I mean, that applies to social media, too. A lot of people make that mistake. They just throw stuff out on social media. Because, hey, I'm supposed to post every day. No, because all you're just creating noise. So that same study showed that 60% of women will only share content that is thought provoking and intelligent, and 70% of women share content that makes them laugh. So if you want to create content that's engaging, that has some viral capabilities, you've got to make sure that it's quality and focus on that rather than the quantity. Women don't like trivial content. We don't like stupid jokes. We want to be entertained, informed, and not patronized.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay, so if I'm counting correctly, I've got five tips.

Bethany Meadows
Yes. Okay.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I know you got a few more for us.

Bethany Meadows
I do. Okay. I don't know how much time we have.

Tim Fitzpatrick
We're good. Keep rolling.

Bethany Meadows
I listen to my podcast at one and a half speed, but I think if someone listened to me at one and a half speed, I might sound like the chipmunks. But we talked about this before. Avoid stereotypes. Carving out that target audience. Create messaging that resonates with each one. Don't be too broad. Think through the needs and the pain points for each of those target audiences, but avoid stereotypes at all costs. Consider influencers when marketing to women. Women dominate the influencer marketing space. About 84% of all ads posted in 2017 were influencers. Most of the time, women influencers attract an audience of other women, which makes them an ideal way to market to women. It also has that added value of third party testimonial feel, which we give more credibility to than a glossy ad that we know somebody paid for. So influencers can be a really good strategy when marketing to women. Number eight, tell stories. Women love to read other women's stories of overcoming challenges. So if we can tell the story of a customer, a woman customer who overcame a challenge as a result of using our product, for example, that's going to inspire, that's going to really resonate with people. And every woman has a journey that's totally unique. Right? Everybody has a story.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
And so by sharing the stories as they relate to our brand, we can really attract women in all kinds of demographics, whether that be race, age, socioeconomic statuses, stories kind of rise above all that and unifies. And my last tip for marketing to women is don't be negative. Women don't want to hear what's wrong with them. We're harder on ourselves than anybody else could ever be. So we really don't want to hear someone else telling us about one more thing that we need to fix about ourselves, right? We want to be supported, loved, celebrated, and so brands can do that. They can find ways to do that in their marketing. And just thinking about how can you celebrate women? I'm just going to look down here and I can't remember the name of the company that did it. Hold on, Amazon.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay.

Bethany Meadows
Amazon did a whole campaign targeting women. And it told stories of women from all over the world that were entrepreneurs and so like India and Africa and all over. But you know what? That resonates with me because I'm hearing the stories of women who are hustling and making lives of their families better through small business ownership. And Amazon was just the vehicle that told me the story. But it also made me value Amazon as a brand because I could see how they were supporting women all over the world in entrepreneurship by using their platform as a means of creating a business. So that's a powerful example. And it wasn't about all the challenges that they had. It was all about the story of inspiration and overcome.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Bethany, I want to pull some stuff out here because you just dropped a ton of value here. We've been talking primarily about marketing to women, but I think there is a lot of stuff that people can learn just in general for their marketing with some of the stuff that you've shared here. So I want to pull this stuff out of here. Your third tip was figure out where they live online. This is key no matter who the hell you're trying to target.

Bethany Meadows
Right.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Once you understand who your ideal clients are, you can start to create that list. One of my mentors said, success starts with a list. That list of where these people that you intend to work with congregate, both online and offline. And I think so many people skip that step. But it is a critical step because once you have that list, it doesn't mean that you're going to mark it in every single one of those places. But you now have a list of where you can make choices. And any one of those choices, you are going to be fishing, where the fish are right. Which is so important.

Bethany Meadows
You can test it. So if you're not sure if you have your top two and maybe you run a test the same thing in both places, which one pulled better and again, we got to get away from that idea that we're advertising to women, that marketing to women is about building relationship. So social media is where we can do that really well. Social media is kind of built for that concept of building a relationship. So when you think about your content that you're creating for social media, you want to run it through that filter of is this helping me build affinity or is this helping me build a relationship? Am I asking for engagement because I've got an agenda, or am I asking for engagement because I truly want to interact because relationships are not one way. Right? We just need to create that environment where we're back and forth, we're giving and taking.

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the other things you touched on and you were just talking about it in tip number five was create content. And I think for some people out there, creating content can be kind of scary because, I mean, look, it either takes a lot of work and or money or both. But content, honestly, I don't know how you market at this point without creating content of some kind. And where I think a lot of people, they just look at, okay, well, great, that's my content marketing. But what you are creating content wise can drive so many of your other channels. Your email marketing, your social media marketing, it supports SEO. You cannot rank in SEO long term without creating content. So it plays such a critical element in all the other marketing channels, you can't overlook it. What are your thoughts on that?

Bethany Meadows
So I think the big problem with creating content is that we're too quick to compare ourselves to a big global brand as a small business. Right. And we think, oh, well, I could never put together that two minute video that's all slick and produced at that kind of level. And I couldn't afford to pay someone to do that for me. And so we just don't do content because we've compared ourselves right out of it, which allowed us to talk ourselves out of it. I think the most important thing about content is that it's real and it's genuine, and that means it is whatever it is that you can produce. Right?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
It's not about comparing ourselves to everyone else because there is only one us as a business owner. So we give what we have to give in whatever form we can give it. I was actually on a coaching call right before we got on this call. And major imposter syndrome going on. And he has this amazing product that he has created, but he is so uncomfortable with doing a video or doing other things. And my answer to him was get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you're a business owner and you're comfortable, you're not pushing, you're not growing, you're not going to the next level. You're just stagnant sitting in a pool of your own comfortableness. Right.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
And so imposter syndrome is just part of the part of the deal. And so I think that's another reason why a lot of people don't create the content because they're like, oh, I don't know if I'm smart enough or, oh, I don't know if anybody would read my stuff or what if somebody criticizes it. Right. So it keeps us from creating that content. But you have value that you need to share with the world, and you can't keep that imposter syndrome from letting you do it. It can't become your legacy. That one thing that you shared that you had overcame that imposter syndrome to share could be a game changer for somebody else. You can't keep it to yourself. That's selfish. So it's important that we just create what we can come from a really real, genuine place. Don't try and be something you're not. That's why in the membership why I have guest experts come in, because I don't know everything. I know my lane. I share my lane inside the membership, and then I bring people who are outside my lane because I know what I know and I don't what I don't try and be something that I'm not. If you come to that realization that I'm just going to be real and genuine and put it out there, then you don't have to be nervous anymore because you have a lane. You know what it is and just excel in it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I interviewed a guest a couple of weeks ago who touched on this, and you talked about this, about being yourself. And she said, I struggled until I started being myself. And once I started being myself, my business took off. And so if you're struggling with creating content, one be yourself. There's only one you. You're going to attract some people and you're going to turn off some people. That's fine. We're not all things to all people. The other thing that I have found incredibly helpful is you need to stop caring about what other people think. The minute you get to that place where you just don't care and you're going to do your thing, that is incredibly freeing and it allows you to just go do what you need to do. There's always going to be people that are going to hate. Forget it. It is what it is.

Bethany Meadows
Right. I heard someone say once, if you think about the worst case scenario. Right. And then be okay with the worst case scenario, then you're fine, right? Yeah. But what if it's the best case scenario? Giving up by letting fear dictate? Because that's what it is. It's fear.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.

Bethany Meadows
Right.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yup.

Bethany Meadows
Think that imposter syndrome is the idea that everybody else thinks that you're capable of more than you really are. As long as you're being yourself. That's not the case. It doesn't even factor.

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
You have dropped a ton of value. Bethany, any last minute thoughts, words of wisdom you want to leave us with today?

Bethany Meadows
That's a lot of pressure on one question.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It doesn't have to be crazy.

Bethany Meadows
No. We were talking a little bit about when the subject of fear comes out. That was something I struggled with when I was writing my book. I wrote a book on parenting. I kept getting hung up on it, not being good enough to share with the world because I felt like everybody was going to judge it and judge me. My thoughts on this or my thoughts on that. And what I kind of came to was I had to dig back to my why. Right. I had to dig back to why am I writing this book? Well, I'm writing it for my children. It's my legacy to them of sharing with them so that when they had children. I have four grandbabies now. That's my why. That's why I was writing the book. It wasn't for everybody else. If nobody ever bought the book, I was going to be okay with that because I did it for them. I think as business owners, when we start feeling that fear creep in, that's why it's so important to have the why. Understand why we have the business that we do, why we're doing what we do. Why do we work 80 hours a week and get paid for 40? Right. It's because it's got to be more than just revenue. There has to be a reason that we go the distance and do all the crazy things that we do as entrepreneurs. And if we can really define that for ourselves and really hang on to that, that will get us through the fear, it will get us through that imposter syndrome. It will get us through all those things that we're going to face. When we get up and we have a really hard day, we'll keep going. If we don't have our why, we might give up and quit.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Bethany Meadows
Know your why and hang on to it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Couldn't agree more. Where can people learn more about you, Bethany. I know you had touched on Vertical Solutions Media, which is at vertical solutions media dot com.

Bethany Meadows
Right.

Tim Fitzpatrick
But small business owners, we want them to go to time to thrive, correct?

Bethany Meadows
Time to thrive membership dot com. And that's where the monthly marketing membership is. And of course, you can find me virtual solutions media is on all social media platforms, so you can come connect there with me as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. I love it. Bethany, thank you so much for taking the time today, guys. She's obviously shared a ton of value. Go check Bethany out at vertical solutions media dot com or Time to Thrive Membership dot com. If you're interested in the monthly marketing membership to help level up your marketing game. Again, thank you, Bethany. I really appreciate it. Those who are watching listening, thank you for tuning in. Again. I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you are struggling with your marketing, you're not quite sure what that next step should be or you're investing in marketing, you don't even know whether it's working or not. You just need clarity. Head on over to our website at Rialto Marketing dot com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O Marketing dot com. Click on the Get a free consultation button. It will give you a ton of value in that call and you walk away with some clarity on what your next step should be to get where you want to go. Til next time. Take care.