Sonja Crystal Williams: 0:05

Hi everyone, welcome to today’s episode of 10 Minute Marketing. I’m your host, Sonja Crystal Williams. Well, joining me today is Dr Lori A Manns. She is an award-winning business coach, marketing expert, sales trainer and she works with purpose-driven entrepreneurs and small business owners to help them elevate their brands and get dream clients. Welcome to the show, Lori.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 0:28

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 0:30

Absolutely so. I just want to jump right in because I feel like you have such an amazing background and there’s a lot of different ways that you work with business owners and I want to jump into one of the ways that you and I have kind of worked or collabed throughout many years, because every year you host an annual event and I want you to just share a little bit more about the event and why you do it for business.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 0:56

So my company is Quality Media Consultant Group and I started this company back in 2009.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 1:04

After I had been downsized from my corporate job I was in radio sales for 20 years and I wanted to create an event that would bring together purpose-driven entrepreneurs and give them a safe place to ask questions that maybe they didn’t know and just meet other entrepreneurs so they could get information about how to grow their revenue.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 1:31

Because that was something that I struggled with the first year that I started my business, and even the second year was maintaining consistent revenue and income.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 1:41

And with my background in sales, I was like, well, you know, if I’m struggling, I know that there are other people like me who could be struggling as well, because you know it’s different once you start your own business and you are the brand and you are selling yourself and you’re selling your services, and so it really, for me, was a mission of just creating an event that could be centered around helping entrepreneurs to understand how they can increase their income and monetize their skills in a way where it would be consistent. And then, of course, I wanted to put a little food in there so we could eat, drink and be merry, and then, you know, because it’s my business anniversary. I wanted to just say you know, cheers, let’s celebrate the fact that we’re still in business. Let’s celebrate the fact that we have a lottery of entrepreneurs mainly solo entrepreneurs and micro business owners who are just trying to use their talents and make a difference in the business world.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 2:49

Absolutely so. I want to talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of like what it looks like behind the scenes as you’re putting this together. I participated a few times and definitely learned a lot in the sessions. I want to ask you one part, which is when you’re arranging and lining up speakers to participate in the event. How valuable has this event been to you, even growing your own business as a result? I mean, obviously you’re doing it to help people, but I mean you run a business too, so how valuable has it been for you from that standpoint?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 3:21

Oh, extremely valuable because the event is called the Trailblazer Business Summit and I invite trailblazing entrepreneurs, just like I consider myself to be one, and you have been invited twice because I consider you to be a trailblazing entrepreneur and just the value of information that you and others have shared over the years has helped me tremendously, because I am a giver and I believe in sharing information. If I know something that can help you in business, then why not tell you? And if it is a paid service that I offer, I’m going to give you a couple of tips to help you understand. Listen, this is why you need this service. But let me just hip you to the game and tell you why it’s so important for you to know whatever it is I’m sharing. And then when my friends come and they speak on topics that they’re experts in, it just is so incredible because you know.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 4:25

One of the things that I’ve learned about entrepreneurship is simply, you don’t know what you don’t know. And as long as you become a student of the game Right, and you are a student of business and you learn and you grow, every single year you know a little bit more than you knew the year before. That’s a beautiful thing. So, and that’s the only way you can really grow and scale your business is to continually be learning and growing and and invest in professional development. So that’s what the Trailblazer Business Summit is all about. That’s why I host the event and that’s why I host, you know, my sponsorship event as well, because I want to educate entrepreneurs about the fact that they can work with corporate sponsors and use other. All help each other grow and, you know, use our expertise and individual gifts and talents to come together and be fierce and unstoppable.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 5:34

I love that, fierce and unstoppable. So this is a great segue. Bringing up the sponsorship event you do too, because I wanted to talk about some of the other workshops that you host, so one. I wanted to talk about some of the other workshops that you host, so one packaging. Talk to me a little bit, Lori, about how should and you do it really well, so please do use yourself as an example. But how should business owners be packaging themselves, especially when they are in a service-based business where they’re offering coaching or consulting or something along the lines to their clients?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 6:02

Well, I think packaging really comes into play when you want to be known for a specific thing. And so I like to say that I’m a business coach and consultant, and I gave myself that title because when I started out, I was just calling myself the president of my company, right. And as I started consulting with other entrepreneurs and small business owners, they started calling me a trainer, a coach and a consultant. And I started thinking, yeah, I am all of those things. And so when I package myself, I typically just say that I’m a business coach, slash consultant, depending on who I’m talking to. In corporate settings, it’s more of a consultant role. In entrepreneur settings, it is a coach role or trainer role, because I believe that you want to be known for that one main thing, and that one main thing that I like to be known for is sales, like helping you to increase your sales and revenue, and it falls under business coaching, right. And so I feel like when you are packaging yourself, you want to package yourself as that one main thing that you want to be known for and use your talents and I like to call it your trailblazer factor. It’s that one thing where you really excel in that thing and you do it so well that other people just can’t touch that, because you are unique in that gift, you are unique in that talent, and in the sales world we call that the unique selling proposition. Right, it’s the unique value proposition another word for it and it’s just really you know what’s you know different and unique about you, what’s different and unique about your products and services? And when you use that to package yourself, then you’re going to set yourself apart from everyone else.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 8:07

And I always tell my clients to add a little bit of your story in there Right, your background and your story, just so people can relate to you. And when I use that in my story, people can relate. I use the fact that I had a media sales career for 20 years. I use the fact that I worked in public relations and communications prior to that, and so that helps me with messaging. It helps me to learn how to brand myself and help my clients brand themselves. So, in summary, to answer your question, it’s all about packaging yourself with that trailblazer factor, aka the unique selling proposition. What’s different about you, why do you do what you do, who do you help and how can you help them?

Sonja Crystal Williams: 9:00

Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about the sponsorship and sales piece too them. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about the sponsorship and sales piece too, cause you said something really tantalizing. I don’t know if y’all heard it, but she said you can get other businesses to sponsor and help fund your business. How do you teach people how to do that? How does even someone even begin to figure out where to go with that?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 9:23

Yeah, so that came across my trajectory because of my career in sales in the media industry, right? So I sold corporations different sponsorship packages for everything that we did in the radio world. Anything that wasn’t tied down, we used to say we will sell it and get a sponsor for it. And so when I started doing events in my business and workshops, I knew I had to have money to put those events on and I knew I needed to.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 10:02

You know, have things like swag bags and you know food and prizes and all of those things that you have when you do an event, because you don’t want to just ask people to come into a room and sit, you know you need to have certain things that are going to appeal to them, including food and whatnot. So, you know, I knew I didn’t want to pay for the food. I knew I didn’t want to pay for the prizes and all of that, so I would go and get sponsors. And the thing of it is I looked for businesses that had alignment with my business, right, I looked for the kinds of businesses that also wanted to reach the audience that I wanted to reach.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 10:48

And then I looked for what was the synergy and alignment between what their purpose is and what my purpose is and you know my mission and vision and all of those things, and so as I began to research those companies, then I would reach out to them to say, hey, you know how can we work together? What are some of the things you look for? And you know together, what are some of the things you look for? And whether they were a cash sponsor giving me money, or they were an in-kind sponsor, giving me products and or services that would save me money.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 11:20

So the fact of the matter is, there are corporations out there, whether they be Fortune 500 corporations or Fortune 1000, or even small business owners that are in your local neighborhood that would want to partner with an entrepreneur like me or you for various reasons. One would be brand recognition and getting loyal followers and being able to audience and get that loyal following that you have to also know about their brand and their business. So that’s, that’s just something that it just makes sense. I call it joint venture partnership and partnership is a way. It’s a marketing strategy as well as a sales strategy, so it’s definitely a good way to increase your revenue streams so you can tap into other people’s money as well as their resources to help you grow your business critical factor when looking for sponsorships, whether that be for an event, workshops, anything that someone’s hosting as a business owner.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 12:34

I’ve seen some businesses have concern or worry or fall flat when it comes to sponsorships. Sometimes Maybe it’s the fear of reaching out, maybe it’s the inconsistency of follow-up. What do you think are some of the challenges there that people need to overcome and how do they overcome some of those challenges, maybe one or two, that you see them faced with when it comes to sponsorship?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 12:58

Well, when it comes to sponsorship or sales in general, people have a fear of rejection. You know, people have a fear of rejection in sales because they don’t want to be told no. Me personally, I don’t care about being told no, right? Every no that I get just makes me feel like, okay, well, I’m closer to getting a yes, because when someone tells you no in sales, it simply means that they don’t have enough information to say yes. Right, because it’s not always about budget that they don’t have the money. Sometimes it could be, but I am a believer that when people want to do something, they will find the money right. And unless it is a strict budget situation in a corporation, which it sometimes is right they only have a certain amount of money that they have to spend for the year, and if you’ve caught them when they’ve spent it all, then you have to wait to the next year.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 13:53

But when it comes to entrepreneurs working with corporations or even local companies, one of the things you have to put aside is the fear of rejection. You have to put aside the fear of, oh, they won’t call me back. You have to put aside the fear of, oh, they won’t call me back, or if they don’t respond at all, you don’t let that stop you, because the bottom line is they’re busy, right, and you’re not a priority. Yet until they know you, until they know that you can bring them value that value that I talked about before with the unique value, aka selling proposition until they know what value you bring to the table, you’re not a priority. So nothing you do in terms of sending them an email or giving a phone call or any kind of communication you do, is going to be a priority for them. So you can’t take it personal when they don’t respond or it takes them a while to respond. You just have to keep reaching out, and purpose is very important. You have to reach out with purpose, right.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 15:00

You don’t reach out saying, hey, did you get my email? You got to reach out with purpose and intention and have some type of substance to what you’re saying in every communication that you make. So the biggest thing I see people being afraid of when it comes to sales it’s just a fear of rejection and it’s also a fear of the objection right. People don’t know how to handle objections. When people give you all different kinds of objections in sales, all different kinds of objections in sales, people don’t study people. Sales is about people and relationships. So when you study people and you understand that, sometimes you get objections that are just to block you right.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 15:46

Because they don’t want to give you any time, and so sometimes people just give you objections to make you go away. Well, I’ve been in sales so long. You give me an objection, I’m going to meet it, you know, and I’m not going anywhere, right, until you, you know, actually say no, I’m not interested, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep coming back and keep giving you value until I win you over, and so that’s, you know what sales is about. You know building relationships and not having that fear of rejection or fearing objections.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 16:23

I love it. I love it. That’s so well put. So, one of the resources that we’re going to share and everyone this will be available in our podcast description seven big mistakes that businesses tend to make and, if you wouldn’t mind sharing maybe two or three, which is that fear of rejection to me, which goes hands in hand with the sponsorship and something that we, as business owners, have to overcome if we’re going to be effective at sales or at least increase the ratio of how many deals we’re closing. But what are some other things that you see, maybe just peeking from that and everyone, you’ll be able to download it to get the full set of resources as far as big mistakes businesses make. To get the full set of resources as far as big mistakes businesses make.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 17:12

One of the biggest mistakes, I think, is believing and trying to to target everyone and not having a typical customer or client in mind that you want to reach.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 17:31

And you know, when you have such a broad spectrum of who you’re trying to sell to, who you’re trying to market to and who you are trying to reach, that includes so many people, and all of those people are not going to buy from you as a solo entrepreneur or micro business owner. You kind of have to major in specificity, right. You have to get clear on who is that real target consumer, who is that real ideal client? Who is that service? And then, what is it about the actual service that is transformative for them, right? What is it about what I’m selling that is going to really make a difference for them? Where they can, you know, eliminate everybody else and say this thing right here, this is the thing that’s going to make a difference for me. And so I, like you know, for my clients to be really convinced that they want to work with me, right? Because one of the questions I always ask is why do you feel like my business or me, you know is the solution for you?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 19:02

You know, I want to know what they think about me and what I offer, and so it really helps me to identify who it is that I am targeting. And I think one big mistake that I made when I first started my business was you know, part of my business is a media agency, so we do media buying for our corporate clients, and so I was just like, oh, I just want to buy media for anybody. No, Lori, you can’t just buy media for anybody, you have to really kind of narrow down who you want to buy media for. And so I started narrowing it down to, you know, universities and education, the education industry.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 19:46

And so I was able to get you know clients once I identified that’s really where I wanted to go, and then I identified.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 19:52

I wanted to, you know, get government contracts and okay, I wanted to go that route. Well, what do you do? You get certified. You do all these things because you want to narrow it down to who is it that you really want to work with? And you know, it’s like when I started working with entrepreneurs okay, who would I want to work with? I want to work with women entrepreneurs who are purpose-driven, faith-based and they are primarily solo entrepreneurs.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 20:17

They’re over the age of 40.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 20:19

Why? Because I have something in common with all of them, right? So I think it’s really a big mistake when you don’t get clear on who your target audience is and who your dream client is as well.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 20:32

I think that’s huge and I know, for me when I’m working with clients, it’s one of those things that I say it’s the intangible thing and the intangible part of your branding and messaging. People want to do the logos and the pretty colors on the website and that’s nice. But if you can’t get any of that right, you’re going to spin your wheels and I know, also speaking from experience of like having done that in the past. So I think that’s really eloquently put that we have to invest that time and it’s going to be uncomfortable sometimes and you really got to dig deep to figure out who those clients are. Or, to your point, if you have different cost centers in a sense as part of your business, or different departments going on in your business, it might look a little different per department. Or you might have two or three, in a sense, buyer personas in the social media world that you’re focused on, but that needs to fit within the realm of either a personality type, industry, vertical, something.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 21:23

So yes, yes, absolutely. You hit on all of that. Whether you have different divisions, departments or whatever within your business, you’ve got different verticals there and you need to have a description for each of those categories of ideal clients. Absolutely.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 21:43

Well, thank you. This has been a lightning fast, really good conversation. I hope y’all have been taking some really great notes as we’ve been chatting. I always like to end every interview with a couple of quick lightning round questions. These are fast, easy, just fun questions to kind of wrap us up. So first things first. You have such an amazing background in radio, but I want to ask you before you took the path into radio and communications, were there any other paths you considered and, if so, what other direction might you have gone in if you were in an alternate reality?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 22:17

Yeah, I went to school for journalism. My goal when I was in college was to be an anchor. I loved Barbara Walters and Carol Simpson.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 22:27

They were my sheroes and Barbara Walters, you know, as far as a media queen goes, she was it. And Carol Simpson she was one of the first Black anchors on air when I was coming up. So yeah, both of them were my idols back then and I wanted to be a news anchor until I actually did an internship at a TV station in Alabama and figured out that I had camera shyness.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 23:01

Good to find out early.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 23:03

good to find out early and, like I, truly froze. I went on assignment and truly froze. I had the opportunity to interview a presidential candidate for the United States of America and I froze right there in front of him and while the reporter was training me, he kept, kept going it’s okay. It’s okay, calm down. Do you remember your question?

Sonja Crystal Williams: 23:28

And I was like I mean, that’s a nerve wracking experience.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 23:34

And I’ve talked to other you know journalists who had that happen, but you know, it clicked and they remembered the question and they were able to do the interview, but I wasn’t. I actually, I was like sweating, I was nervous, I couldn’t, I practiced. When I got there I was like cause, it was Michael Dukakis, I don’t know if you remember that. Um, yeah, um, it was in 1988. Yep, I was so scared, jesus, I was scared and just couldn’t get it together, couldn’t remember my question. I was shaking, sweating. I was like OK, obviously I can’t do this, you’re not a family star now?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 24:12

Not at all, not now, but it was. You know I didn’t have the confidence then and you know somebody I really feel like For news anchors and news reporters. They got to train you in sales first because you got to be able to sell yourself you know, and you got to be able to get the story. Yeah, but you got to have a certain bravado.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 24:36

you know and confidence to go out and get in somebody’s face and put a microphone and ask those questions. But hey, I’m not scared now, but I certainly was back then, straight out of college, and the reporter who was training was so nice. He was like it happens to the best of us, he’s like you can do this and I was like no, and then I went home, had a meltdown so I ended up saying you know, what else can I do in the media industry?

Sonja Crystal Williams: 25:07

Pivoted. Well, that’s really cool. Thank you for sharing that story. One more question in the vein of media what are you listening to in the world of media? Whether that’s a podcast or any good audio books books, you’re reading anything along those lines that you’re enjoying audiobooks, books you’re reading, anything along those lines that you’re enjoying.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 25:34

Oh gosh. I have so many books that I’m reading right now and one of them I just met, damon John, and he has a book about being broke, right, and he just gave me that book and I just cracked it open this past weekend. I can’t even think of the title right now, but it’s something about being broke and how that you know, financial situation that he was in really drove him to succeed and he knew that he wanted to, you know, be successful and be an entrepreneur, because he basically grew up poor circumstances. You understand that it is so important to learn from entrepreneurs like him, who had humble beginnings, but they use that to catapult them into accomplishing just enormous success, right. So I’m trying to find, let me see, uh, it’s called the power of broke.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 26:48

Oh, cool title.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 26:49

Okay.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 26:49

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 26:51

Power of broke.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 26:52

Yeah.

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 26:53

Uh, I just started reading that book and, um, it’s, it’s really a good read so far. And um, you know so so many others I have, and you know so so many others I have. You can see this bookshelf behind me. I have another book that I love. It’s called the Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. He also wrote the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, yep, and when he wrote the Speed of Trust and he talked about how important trust is in business and how it speeds up business when you trust somebody and you’re dealing with somebody that you trust, I’m gonna have to look that up.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 27:39

Yeah, because he’s got a whole training institute. So yeah, there’s a whole, but I haven’t ever looked up that book. So thanks for sharing it. Yeah, because he’s got a whole training institute. So yeah, that’s a whole, but I haven’t ever looked at that book. So thanks for sharing it. Yeah. So, dr Manns, how can people find you? Get in touch, learn more about your services, workshops and events?

Dr. Lori A. Manns: 27:55

Yeah, they can go to my company website, quality Media Consultants dot com and follow me on the Internet qualitymediaconsultantscom. And follow me on the internet. I am Dr Lori Manns. I’m on Facebook, instagram, twitter Threads and YouTube and, of course, linkedin, so I would love that qualitymediaconsultantscom is the website and I am Dr Lori Manns on social.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 28:21

Thank you so much again for taking the time out today. Everyone else, until next time, have a good social. Thank you so much again for taking the time out today. Everyone else, until next time, have a good one. Thank you.