Podcast Transcript :
Jilllian: My guest today is Mia Johnstone. She is a marketer, a coach, a relationship coach, a business strategist, an amazing photographer, and an awesome mama. Stay tuned. Hey there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur, and a three time best selling co author. In each episode you’ll get real world, practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place. Everyone. This is Mia Johnstone. I am so excited to have her on the podcast today. And Mia, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Mia: Thanks Jillian. I’m so excited to be here too and I love talking business and marketing. So this is the right place to be.
Jilllian: It’s amazing. And really your business, you help women really understand who their potential mate is going to be what they look for in a partner and that’s kind of marketing in and of itself, isn’t it?
Mia: Yeah. And so I’ve worked in marketing. I mean, I think a lot of us can say this, like pretty much my entire life. And, you know, I started off helping schools with their marketing and then, you know, business advising. And you start to realize like it’s all marketing, it’s all relationships and what is the most important relationship of our life. And for most of us, that’s our significant other. And having the real skills to understand how to find that person is all based. If we can use those marketing skills, we can really optimize who we’re looking for.
Jilllian: I love that. Can you name a few of those parallels that you see between just general good marketing skills that a business owner would need to know.
And then as a person seeking their potential other, what are some of those marketing skills that they need?
Mia: Yeah. And I love how you labeled that right away. How can we take that to a strategic level? Well, so, first of the things that we can do is label looking for a loving partner is often an emotional practice and we don’t recognize that it is, but we make it emotional. But if we look at business, we try to make that professional. One of the things that we can look at is we have to identify as a business, who is our target market. What is that avatar? Who does that person look like? And then what we need to do is use communication that is going to bring those people in. And understand what are their attributes, what are they gonna be doing on the weekends? How are they going to be acting on the apps if, in the terms of dating and. And what are they gonna look like on the apps? I mean, that is like such a thing that we don’t think about because here’s our problem is: we have this picture in our head of what Mr. Right or, or Mrs. Right looks like and we expect that that’s going to translate the same way on the apps. And it does not! Because no one knows how to market themselves. Hello. And so we have to keep in mind that our target audiences when we’re dating don’t know how to market themselves. But we have to look for those people and understand with compassion they don’t know how to put themselves out there. And so when we can do that, now we have a much more clear picture of what that looks like for us. And we bring so much more compassion to the table and how we approach people on the app. That’s taking a much more structured strategic mind to the dating apps and recognizing that we don’t know what we don’t know.
And, and so that’s what we can do is understand that the people we’re looking for don’t know how to usually communicate. Like I had my boyfriend write up a dating profile, oh my God. And then I did one for him and he put the two side by side. And it was like: he’s like, my life is taken up by kids and sometimes I have some free time. I was like, you are nothing less than extraordinary and you are this amazing dad who is juggling a business. And that’s what we need to say. It just shows that we don’t know how to communicate our best attributes. We tend to think of them as challenges and that’s what we need to bring. Is this, what are we not thinking about? Stop with the emotions, think strategy.
Jilllian: Yeah, I think that’s such a good point too. To relate to, like, being in business, whether you’re a coach, consultant, an agency owner, if you’re a small business owner, brick and mortar, online, whatever it is. Everybody needs a coach. Everybody needs somebody on their side. Because I can do so many things for other people’s businesses. But to take that mirror and turn it around and point it at myself is extremely difficult. And I’m doing consulting, or I’m in a coaching call, or I’m on a webinar, I can think strategically and so much differently about other people’s businesses and come up with ideas and strategies that I never would have thought up or come up with on my own for my own business because it’s me and I feel differently about it. But when you have that outsider perspective and you can turn that mirror in, with somebody else holding it up for you, it’s a much different experience.
Mia: That’s right. I love that. And you just touched on how important support is. So, we are only as strong as we recognize what our challenges are and we seek out those people to help us fill in those blanks. Absolutely key. That’s a sign of a real leader. If you want, if you want the pot of gold, surround yourself with amazing people.
Jilllian: No, no, it’s so true. And your spouse, or like the people that you date, are no different. If you are dating with the purpose in mind of getting to marriage, you need to surround yourself and be dating good people. If you’re in business, you need to surround yourself with good business people that are going to lift you up. It’s absolutely no different for sure.
Mia: Yeah, it’s absolutely, absolutely right. It’s so true. And, and that even goes in alignment with: when we pick a partner that is truly the, a great and a good partner for us. We will elevate in our work. I mean, it is just a natural flow that we will rise in our work. We will earn a higher income because we have that cheerleader at our side.
Jilllian: Mhm Yeah, definitely. What would you say is one of the key things as far as, like, being able to market yourself, that people just don’t know how to do. Mia: Understanding our value. And this goes for business owners, this goes for dating everything. Understanding our value and understanding how to communicate that value, is something that people have a very challenging time with. Because they’re like, I don’t want to sound arrogant. I don’t want to. I’m afraid of saying it that way. I don’t have enough experience to say that. We still think we need to speak certain kinds of truths which are just factual. We are not practiced in understanding how to communicate our value. What really is it that you do? You know, as a photographer, I don’t sell photos. I sell a legacy that is going to be worth over generations. It’s the most important thing that you can have for your family. That’s what I offer as a dating coach. What is that value? I’m not just pairing people up, that’s gonna be a good match. I’m giving you the tools for finding that most amazing partner that’s gonna elevate your life to the next level. That you can never have imagined what your life could have been like otherwise. It is a life changing thing that we do. And how can you put that in a context so that people understand that this is a journey. That’s where, I think, you know, over and over as a business advisor I just find businesses don’t know how to explain their value to their market. And that’s where they have such a hard time finding that target market: it’s, they don’t have the right words. They’re not understanding what their market is wanting and how to communicate and share that.
Jillina: You had mentioned right before we started recording that the key to marketing is talking to our audience in the right way. And it really is the thing that most people fail at and what’s so hard about not just finding the avatar and doing the things, but really talking to that person as if they’re one human being and you’re having this direct back and forth conversation is kind of like you said, we don’t want to puff up our chests. A lot of us, especially if you’re a woman, I think, we’re taught to be a bit more submissive. To elevate other people rather than ourselves. And so when you’re doing the practice of finding the avatar, and getting your messaging right. That is such early on stuff and early on work. But if you can do it right. It’s like the domino effect where all the pieces kind of fall into each other. But also, and I try to tell, emphasize, this with my clients too is: don’t be afraid to just take a message, take your avatar, take your message, run with it. And then if it doesn’t work, or if people start to change or they’re not responding the way that you wanted them to, then iterate pivot move. You know, you don’t have to be stuck with this one message, for, forever.
Mia: Right. It’s a constant conversation. You can pivot any time you want.
Jillian: In relationships too, right?
Mia: Right! And it’s just like in business, it’s all relationships and, and a lot of times like this is what I see among photographers that I coach. It’s this fear that I’m not gonna have a flow of clients anymore if I let go. Like, I’m literally like pivoting, and raising your pricing is kind of letting go of your past market, because they’re used to like you as the, you know, the $500 photographer, or whatever. And now you’re the $5000 photographer shooting the same pictures. And it’s this fear of, are they going to be clients? There is a fear that when we pivot, we’re not able to market to a whole new set of people. Are we gonna be able to do that? Like it’s, it’s a whole new set of marketing and advertising and using different verbiage. And there is this fear of letting go. But it’s also do you want to stay and continue and working at that level? So there’s always a shedding of the layers, right?
Jillian: And I think too a big part of marketing that sometimes people forget about is: you’re not just attracting the people that you want to, to do business with or to be in a relationship with, but you’re also repelling the people that you don’t want to be doing business with or the people that you don’t want to be in a relationship. And that’s where it’s really hard. It’s like, ok, I’m changing my price or I’m changing my structure or my core values are no longer aligned with doing business this way. Or being in these types of relationships. Now, I need to pivot and go to something else. And that’s going to repel all those comfortable people that you were used to being around.
Mia: Yeah. And that brings up something that I had another business adviser tell me was: we have to know who our anti customer is too. That’s awesome.
Jillian: Love it. Love it.
Mia: Yeah. So as much as we need to know our avatar. We have to create our anti-customer avatar too. So we know who to say no to. So we have to know how to speak to our ideal client, but we also need to know how to speak to our non ideal client. Having that verbiage already so that we’re not having to come up with it.
That’s pretty powerful stuff. I had my boyfriend mentioned, he said something about, you know, you need to sit in those experiences. So that you, when they, do come, you feel like you’ve already lived them. So you wanna sit in those situations where what’s it look like with your ideal customer, and what’s it look like with your non ideal customer?
Jillian: Mhm Is there, like, a way that somebody can practice sitting in those moments?
Mia: Oh, I love this question. I love it. You’re deep. I love it. I love it. I would actually take that picture of who that ideal client is. And this goes with dating. I mean, this is what I do with people in dating. You want to sit and think about who is it you’re working with. But it’s not just the pluses they bring. You wanna put together what those challenges are going to look like with that ideal customer? And that’s what you want to have too, because what are going to be the challenges that you’re gonna encounter with this person? Because that’s a piece of the work. I mean, I just had a client call and they want an appointment. They’re really interested in what I have. And then all of a sudden 10 minutes before a meeting, they’re like, I’m not able to make it. OK, so how do I deal with this situation? So I establish my value. That’s one of the challenges and so they’re working people. What I do is, I go through the processes of the anxiety that you’re going to feel, working with them. Where is that anxiety going to feel? How are you, how and, and even think about and that goes to the avatar, what are going to be their objections? Why those objections? Where is their self awareness level? Thinking about that. And you can even come up in your head of where they need to have self awareness so you want to work with that. You know, it came to that point when I was doing luxury photography, I wanted to work with only certain people of certain self awareness. So, I’m taking care of myself too. In dating. I’ll give the example of, you want to know. You first have to have the practice of understanding what have been your blocks to coming to what you need in your life. What are those blocks? What choices have you been making that have not been good practices? Same thing in business. And then you need to think very clearly about what is that right avatar, what is that right person? And then you go into your life, and you pick the examples of working with people that has been productive for you. And you can do this in your business too. What have been the situations where you have worked at your highest level, felt really great and very productive. You take those examples, and you line them up, and you look at those people, and their characteristics. You put that together and now you’ve got someone that you can work with, and you’ve got an ideal person to be looking for that.
Jillian: Oh, man, that’s awesome. Have you ever had no? For real? That’s so, so, so, so, so, so good and truly, it really is that deep work. Whether it’s in a relationship or it’s going into business or anything. You need to do that deep work, to prepare yourself, prepare your heart. Because, it’s like, as much as I don’t want to say that business is, oh, it’s just business it’s not personal. No. Screw that. It is deeply personal. It’s my life’s work. It’s everything that I’ve put over 13 years of my life into, to this. It’s very, very personal. But you can have those moments and live in those moments without bringing the emotion into it. Because if you’re prepared with what their objections are, or if you’re prepared with, OK, I’ve seen this situation before or I’ve, I’ve heard this verbiage before and I know that they’re not where I want to be. Then you can have a response to that, that’s prepared or practice rehearsed and it takes that emotion out of it because you just recognize. Ok, you’re not aligned with what I need or what I’m looking for. That’s awesome.
Mia: It helps you profile people and identify behaviors that are not in alignment with where you want to go. That is an extremely powerful tool. And the more you practice that, I mean, those are high level leadership skills. The high level leadership skills, most people don’t have them.
Jillian: Yeah.
Mia: And now you can start using them in your everyday life really. It’s a way of identifying behaviors. Identifying where people’s power, your power stops and begins. And understanding where the misalignment is in other people’s lives or alignment and using that to help you create that pathway of what you want. Yeah.
Jillian: Have you ever had a dating client that came in and was like, ok, here’s my laundry list of the perfect person has to have all of these things.
Mia: OK. Like that’s a really common thing. And, and I would honestly say like the ideal client is not in that place. When we have a laundry list that becomes kind of an emotional thing. Having a list of wants and desires is really important. But what we really need to look at is: what is that is just an emotional attachment to something I cannot ever date a Republican. OK.
Jillian: Where’s that baggage coming from? Yeah. OK.
Mia: So we need to think again, because what if this person if someone shows up and you’re gonna close the door but they have everything else. Maybe there’s something we’re not understanding about their political beliefs. Maybe we need to evaluate: what does that really mean? So we have to be able to understand. It’s like a testing process. It’s a test, and the minute you put parameters, you’re gonna limit your pool, and make that journey so much more difficult.
I’ll say like my ideal client. I had one person come to me and they were so lovely and highly educated, an attorney. They were on the apps. But I could tell, like, what they lacked was communicating their value, right? They didn’t know how to do that as well. And I said, so who do you, who are you looking for? Like, I really just want someone honest, and that’s going to show up, and personally responsible, and self-aware. I’m like, so are you OK to discrepancies in income, if they were a teacher? She’s like, oh yeah, I’m totally open to that. It’s like she was perfect. So she was open to possibilities. The first thing she was looking for was character. She wanted a foundation of stability. So when we have layers of desires. What we’re missing out on is: we need to understand that stability layer is number one. That’s where you need to have your boundaries. Is that they have to have a stability layer. And I, and that’s the foundation of what I teach people. And then you can add on some wants and desires. Yeah, because you can’t negotiate with an instability. You cannot negotiate with instability.
Jillian: Yeah. And I think that rings true. That’s just human nature. That’s anything. That’s doing business. Whether you’re in a business relationship, in like, a friendship, in a romantic relationship, that’s just human nature. And I think that’s what all of this comes back to. I cannot tell you, how many, in my agency side, not on the coaching side, but in our agency side. I cannot even count on all, all of my appendages: how many clients I’ve had over the years, that the business looked glorious and amazing on Facebook, or Instagram. And was just spider webs, was a rat’s nest, was a horrible toxic environment, behind the scenes. And then I would come in, not tooting my own horn, but very self aware, and very emotionally stable, and come into this chaos and be like, oh, this is a very bad place for me. I do not belong here. My suggestions are not being heard. My core values are being challenged because I’m trading money for my values that this is not good. And I would then eventually leave because it was just a very, very bad working relationship. And I think that rings true, whether you’re in a business relationship, or romantic, or otherwise.
Mia: I so appreciate you sharing that, because that is I mean that just drives home. So many things of so. So here’s the thing is we allow, even in business, we can allow our emotions to drive our decisions, our intuition. We think it’s intuitive, right? We meet someone and we’re, like, swept off our feet. And it feels so right to dive right in, right? The thing is: we have to have a compass for measuring, for stability. Not just measuring, but testing for stability. And there’s things that you can do to test for that. And it goes for business too. And those are boundaries, and understanding those boundaries. And it’s first and foremost, taking care of yourself. If you know how to understand, and listen to yourself and your needs, but there’s, there’s strategies for doing it that are just awesome. Right. And when you practice it over and over and you see the patterns you get it. You get how to do it. It goes back to what we said. It takes support. Oh, because it’s so emotional.
Jillian: It is. Yeah. Would you be willing to share what we can do in our business relationships to test that stability?
Mia: Yeah. So, when I think of, OK, so like today I got a, I got a lead in and I was talking about how they decided to reschedule their call. And so the first place I can go to, I’m like, oh yeah. So are you available at two o’clock instead of, you know, 12? And I’m like, I didn’t do that. I want them to know that I have shown up for this time. And so one of the things I think about, like, OK. So this is a lead that’s already not made time even though they said they would and I take that as a bit of a flag. So how much time do I want to really get? And so I’ll follow up, but I’m gonna follow up on my time. I’m gonna realize I don’t need to put myself out there 110%. That is not solid customer service. And again, there’s gonna be people that translate this differently, because having been in the business industry and, and business advising. You want to establish value for what you do. That your time is precious. And so, I just back, I go, I can let you know in a couple of days when my schedule opens up. I’m happy to do that. It was customer minded, but it was, I am not an organization of 20 people. I just want you to know that we can do this on a time that’s good, hopefully for both of us. The other thing I do is, we. One of the things that we can really do as business owners, is very much identify, where other people’s freedom stops, and ours begins. And you want to have very clear boundaries of being able to identify who is not your customer. That is the first way to take care of yourself. Who is not your customer. And look for those flags, and have your verbiage, your wording ready, or letting them know that this may not be the right situation for either party.
Jillian: Yeah. And when you can prepare, right? When you can have that script ready in the back of your mind, it doesn’t take the emotion out of it entirely because you should still have those feelings, and still sit with them and still process them. But in the moment, it can take the emotion out by just saying, OK, here’s my script. I’m gonna say what I need to say to get through the moment. And then you can process it after the fact.
Mia: I love that. Oh, that’s so, I love that. The processing after the fact. Exactly. Right. Save that conversation for the wall, for the therapist, for your life. Yeah. We need to get that off our chest. And I appreciate you saying that that’s true. Sometimes we do.
I had a really great strategy that someone shared with me once. She was having challenges with an employee. And her coach told her to write out the conversation she had that was difficult, and where she felt the things fell apart. And so like, I do that all the time when I’m dealing with people that are clients or, you know, leaders. And I feel like I’m having to be the leader, you know, in, in, in the situation. And I write it out, and I identify where the conversation fell apart, and where I emotionally was having difficulties. The situation really becomes so much more clear after that. And it really helps me process on the next round because you’re writing it down. It really puts it in your mind for next time of flag! Remember this from last time?
I mean, and I, you can do that with your Children too. I’ve taken conversations with my kid. And I was like, ok, this is where it fell apart. And then you start to see patterns of where things fall apart, and you’re like, oh my gosh, I can catch this next time so much better. It’s so powerful when you understand and you start seeing the patterns and, and the patterns in yourself. It’s a real wonderful self awareness thing.
Jillian: I love that. Well, actually, we went through a situation recently with our child care provider. Where we just kind of butted heads over something. And I sat with that for a minute and was like, ok, what’s actually making me angry? Like, can I name the thing? Can I physically name the emotion that I’m feeling?
And the actual pinpointed thing that’s making me feel that emotion. Because then I could look back and analyze it and say, ok, this is what I felt. This is why I felt that way. And can I actually do anything about it, or can I help teach this person a lesson, or can I take a lesson from it? Yes or no. And then we can actually move forward and either, like, rectify the situation, or make it better, or just agree to disagree. Because, like, at the end of the day, I’m not everybody’s emotional support. But I have to be mine. And I have to recognize if I’m not going to take stock, and learn this lesson in this moment, it is going to show up again a year from now, a day from now, five years from now. If you can actually write out: here’s what I felt, here’s why I felt it, or where that came from now. Can I actually do anything about it? Yes or no. And if the answer is no, then you just kind of have to deal with that and save it for your therapist. Or if the answer is yes, then we can move forward.
Mia: Yeah, I love that. Exactly. You get to see what your options actually are. You’re not powerless. We always have options. And so, yeah.
Jillian: And it’s not letting that emotion take the power from you because you can’t name it.
Mia: Right. Exactly. It’s a way of identifying behaviors as opposed to emotions.
Jillian: I love it. Oh, Mia, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate you, and have enjoyed getting to know you over the last, I don’t know, a month or two however long we’ve known each other, but it’s been great.
Mia: This has been wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.
Jillian: Yeah. Thank you.
That was such an amazing podcast. I absolutely love talking to other women, other mamas, other business professionals. And I really hope that you enjoyed listening to it just as much as I did recording it. A special thanks again to Mia John Stone. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I had such a great time. And if this podcast recording has brought you any value or gotten you a step closer to building momentum in your business or in your relationships, and please share it with a friend, and I’ll see you on the next episode.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: #13
Topic: Business Relationship Parallels
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
