Are you working in your business or on your business? This is the question I answer in this episode, as I talk to you about where I am in the process of figuring this out.
Many a time we think that we must do the tasks in the business to get things done and it may not be the right approach. Getting help, as I am learning, is the thing that will help both you and the business in the long run.
Enjoy the episode.
In 2014 after reading Tim Ferris’s book “The Four Hour Work Week” he set a 100 day goal to be self sufficient and to leave his home country and start traveling the world. He since lives in Bangkok running a 6 figure marketing consultancy working with clients in Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and the United States and other areas in the world.
Show Notes:
Burhaan Pattel: [00:00:00]
Welcome to the marketing stack podcast. And in this episode,I'm going to be talking to you about myself, about my marketing journey. Aboutsome of the things that I am just am thinking about, and some of the thingsthat I am a little worried about. And so on this episode, I'm going to betalking about, sort of niching down.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:00:23]
And if some of you are thinking about, well, okay, you nichedown. So that means narrowing down your audience and find it doesn't matterwhat your product is or what your service is. But ultimately we were in a timeright now where if we're just talking about marketing, It's not enough becausethere are thousands of people literally talking about marketing.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:00:44]
And so if we really want to stand out, if you want ourclients to see our, our content, if we want our clients to actually engage withus, we've got to go deeper. And so it's this, what I call speciality orspecialization in the medical field. It's like, you're not just a GP. Youbecome. An naturopathic doctor or you become a surgeon, a heart surgeon, or a,I'm not a medical person, but you get the point.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:01:10]
Like you go deeper into particular field. If you choose to, but in the marketing world,in the digital world. Yeah. It's kind of like we have to, there is not otherway. And the reason for that is because, well, there's just too much noise. Andwe've gotta be able to appeal to a very specific customer to a very specificavatar.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:01:33]
And so as I come up with avatars for my business and I thinkabout, well, who do I want to serve? And obviously I've got five. Well, notobviously, but I've got five or six years of experience in my freelance slashdigital marketing slash agency business. Over the last six years I've workedwith speakers, authors, course creators, occupational therapists, eventplanners.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:02:01]
Student facilitators, e-commerce businesses and the variousrange of, of people. And initially I had thought that I would be servinge-commerce businesses, but I realized that one e-commerce struggles with thiswhole thing of being able to add higher ticket items to their cart.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:02:21]
And if you're using something like Shopify, You know, beingable to do upsells is one of the more difficult things to do. If you usesomething like click funnels to sell your merch or sell your products, physicalproducts, then fine. Amazon has got a built-in upsell thing where they ask youto add something else to your cart, or they say that other things will gotogether or other people have bought this thing with this thing that you'relooking at right now.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:02:46]
And so I feel like on the e-commerce side, I wasn't going toserve well, I like, I know, I know the marketing side, most of the e-commerceside of things runs with marketing advertising. And on the content side fore-commerce businesses, it's a little bit more difficult it's possible, but it'sa little bit more difficult, where business owners just can't seem tounderstand that this concept of content is actually what drives sales off theproduct.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:03:11]
But nonetheless, I then decided to move into more of like,to be more of an expert, to be more of a consultant sort of coach and workingwith more sort of course creators and, you know, people who wanted to selltheir information online and I had been working with those people beforebuilding out the Kajabi stores and building out their funnels and doingadvertising for their funnels.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:03:33]
And so as I think now, I feel like I'm at that crossroadagain where I'm trying to decide, should I be helping in the marketing space,should I be helping in the medical space or should I be helping inentrepreneurial space? And then it's like, if it's entrepreneurial space, whoare the people that I want to serve.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:03:49]
So if I had to think about who I was five years ago, I wasquitting my 9 to 5, I had quit my 9 to 5. I was going between sort of gigstrying to figure out how to start my own business. I had started my ownbusiness and closed businesses. I was selling stuff on the internet sort ofjust randomly, not necessarily collecting money on the internet, but you know,finding my clients on the internet.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:04:11]
this digital media became a thing source of, clients, asource of leads. so yeah, it's, it'slike. what are we here to do? And who do we serve? The, who, who do we servewell for trying to fulfill that purpose? as I look at these two demographics orthese two types of people on the naturopathic doctor slash functional medicineside and the entrepreneurial 9 to 5.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:04:34]
There are a lot of commonalities in the sense that I have afeeling that they both want freedom. They both want independence. They wanttheir businesses to run an almost on autopilot. Yet they want to be creative intheir businesses. people are looking to spend time with their families and goout traveling and, you know, do all the human things that we want to do.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:04:56]
And I, and I mentioned this in one of my videos as well is,you know, while we are working nine to five, even if we are working a nine tofive, or even if we aren't building a business, the stuff that we do afterhours, whether it's, you're having a drink with friends or sitting down withfamily or going to visit with grandparents or volunteering or donating, or, you know, helping out in the community orbeing part of a religious group.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:05:17]
Or, you know, just contributing in that way in some, in someway or form. I feel like that's who we all are. And so I'm not quite sure howto narrow that down further, but I do know that , our intrinsic human need isvery close to what, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs says where, you know,we want transcendence, we want self fulfillment. We want enlightenment. We wantall of these things at the top of the pyramid.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:05:43]
And I would think that people who are just starting outmaybe quitting their nine to five are maybe a little lower down on the pyramidversus people who are already doctors who are already fulfilling certain partof their duties and obligations not are not in survival mode and have kind ofgraduated to being a little bit further up. They're thinking on a lot moredeeper humanitarian level.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:06:05]
So maybe. As I, as I talked through this podcast episode, asI, as I talked to you trying to figure this out myself, I guess I'm asking youto either support me or comment or, , get your thoughts on, this is what I'mfeeling right now in my business. And kind of wondering if you're thinking thesame thing and kind of wondering if maybe you are also try to understand, , howthis whole thing fits together.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:06:28]
And then of course there's all the internal stuff ofactually running your business. So it's like, I, I am wanting to expand my, myteam a little bit, which means I've got to get onto more sales calls, whichmeans I've got to try to get less internal work, keeping me busy and work moreexternally, you know, making more of this content.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:06:46]
Trying to do more videos on YouTube and trying to fulfill onmy internal obligations, like working in the business or working on thebusiness and not necessarily working in the business. And, and yeah, it, itfeels like I need to dedicate time or time block or, or do something in thatrespect to be able to fulfill these two roles that I've, that I'm trying tofulfill on.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:07:07]
Which has been a challenge for quite a while. And as abusiness owner, you probably, you probably didn't do it, understand that thisis just the way that, it goes and breaking free, breaking out of that patternof trying to figure out, well, what should I be today? Which hat should I fit?Wear today?
Burhaan Pattel: [00:07:21]
Which hat should I wear? Which hat should I, what colorshould I be wearing on a daily basis? I think is a. There's a magic trick thatmost entrepreneurs either accomplish or work through or don't so, yeah, that'sthat's me for today. Just my thoughts down on paper. Let me know what youthink. If you liked the episode.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:07:39]
Definitely subscribe, leave a review on Apple iTunes. Ifyou're keen on more episodes, if you're willing to give me feedback. Come checkout burhaanpattel.com. I started a Facebook group as well. For Bridgeight,Bridgeight is my company name, and it's community around Bridgeight and whatI'm doing with Bridgeight as a business, which is basically all the stuff thatI'm talking about on this podcast.
Burhaan Pattel: [00:07:58]
But yeah coming out with me in the group. Come have a chatand, yeah, I hope you enjoyed the episode and we'll see you on the next one.Thank you. Bye.
