Does your marketing strategy and content fall flat? Maybe you struggle with knowing what to create. In today’s episode, Dayna Schaaf of This Can’t Be That Hard joins us to introduce The Marketing Jar, an analogy which categorizes marketing efforts into rocks, pebbles, sand, and water.
Listen in as they share how prioritizing high-impact activities (rocks) and spreading them throughout the year while filling in with medium-impact (pebbles), foundational (sand), and daily tasks (water) can help photographers strategically plan their marketing.
Grab the planner mentioned in today’s episode!
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Guest Bio:
Dayna is your marketing wingwoman —here to help photographers and solo-preneurs turn chaos into consistency. She’s the co-creator of The Consistency Club: Monthly Marketing Magic for Photographers, and she’s also the marketing director and social media voice of This Can’t Be That Hard, where you’ll usually find her sharing brilliant tips, relatable memes, and a dog-mom content.
When she’s not whipping up marketing plans or clever captions, she’s probably baking something delicious, DIY-ing her home into Pinterest-worthy perfection, or chasing her dream of nailing the Wordle on the first try (one day, it’ll happen!).
Headshot Credit to @pupandmephoto
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Content Organization Hub! If you are drowning in a sea of post its trying to keep track of all your content ideas or maybe you’re struggling to remember what you posted on which platform and when, I totally get it.
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Find it Quickly:
00:21 – Meet Dayna
01:56 – The Marketing Jar Analogy: Planning Your Content Strategy
2:47 – The Rocks: High Impact Activities
13:15 – The Pebbles: Medium Impact Activities
17:07 – The Sand: Foundational
19:58 – The Water: Daily Tasks
22:49 – Evergreen Content and Automation Tips
31:53 – Recap and Resources for Effective Marketing
Mentioned in this Episode:
Episode 84: Applying the Rule of 7 with Dayna Schaaf
Episode 163: How to Socially Sell on Instagram: the Magic of ManyChat Automations with Dayna Schaaf
Episode 183: Creating Blog Posts for Your Client Experience with Jessie Andrew of Inkpot Creative
Connect with Dayna
Website: thiscantbethathard.com
Podcast: thiscantbethathard.com/pod
Instagram: instagram.com/thiscantbethathard_
Consistency Club: https://go.thiscantbethathard.com/club
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. I’ve got a person who is returning for her third episode.
Y’all give it up for Dayna
Dayna: Oh, wow, I feel like business first royalty over here.
Colie: I mean, what’s funny. I had someone else. She’s going to be on the podcast next month, but she sent me a little note and she’s like, you know, I really enjoy being on your podcast. I mean, legitimately wrote me like an actual pitch. And I was like, please don’t ever do this again. You could just text me and tell me that you want to come back on the podcast.
And I will just send you a link to schedule. Like I don’t, I don’t do these formal pitches. Like, no, just, just tell me what you want to talk about. And it’s a yes. And I’ll just send you a link.
Dayna: We’re just here to have like a coffee chat.
Colie: I mean, that’s pretty much what these are, but guys, if you are not familiar with Dana, Dana is a marketing strategist extraordinaire.
She was previously on episodes 84 and 163 talking all about marketing and sales in some fashion. And so those episodes are linked in the show notes. If you did not catch her on her first or her second appearance.
Dayna: And here I am on my third one, and guess what we’re going to be talking about?
Colie: We’re going to be talking about marketing. So Dana, how do you want to kickstart this conversation? Because when you pitched me the idea for what we’re going to talk about this time, I mean, I’m very familiar. And so I don’t know if you have like a particular angle that you start at when it’s just a, Hey, this is how you plan your marketing.
And this is what I think, or is there another angle that you want to take?
Dayna: No, I just say, I feel like it’s the beginning of the year. I think this is the time when everybody is like, okay, okay, okay. Let me, like, get my life together. You get your new planner out, you’re like, I’m gonna plan my whole year, and I see, you know, photographers sort of making and small business owners making the same Getting really excited in January.
I mean, like everything we do in January, right? We get really excited, but then if you don’t plan it correctly, then it’s really easy to get overwhelmed with all the goals that you’ve set for yourself. And then it kind of. Best case scenario, you’ll like hang on till the summer and then like, you know, worst case scenario, it hangs on for like a couple of weeks.
But I think you can set yourself up for success by just planning your marketing a little bit differently from the get go. And so, So let me just start by telling sort of the analogy here if you guys don’t know me, I’m like an analogy queen, but this is kind of a well known analogy, but I’ll go through it for those of you guys who haven’t heard of the concept of a jar for your time.
So we’re going to use it here in, in terms of both your time, but also your marketing. So we’re all visual creatives, everybody like. Get your, get your like visual hat on. We’re going to build this jar. Okay. So just imagine that I have like a glass jar and, you know, I fill it up with some big rocks, you know, that are maybe like the size of your fist.
We fill, we fill it up with a couple of rocks and we can fit like maybe five or six rocks in the jar and I show you the jar and I say, is the jar full? Well, you might look at that jar and be like, heck yes, that jar is full. It is full of like five or six really big rocks. And I would say to you, well. What about now?
What if we take those, you know, add some pebbles in around those rocks, tiny little pebbles, and they sort of fill in the cracks around those bigger rocks and then show you the jar and say, is the jar full now? You’re like, well, Dana, surely the jar is now full. Like, we’ve got the cracks filled in. But then I take some sand and I pour sand in around the pebbles, around the rocks.
Is the jar full now? And you’re like, babe, it’s gotta be full now. And I am like, what if we poured some water in this jar? And the water gets in between all of the cracks. And now, in fact, the jar is actually full. And the idea here is twofold. It is first. that, you know, um, the way you look at your life, like sometimes when you look at the biggest picture of things, the biggest rocks, it can feel like really like, Oh, my, you know, my plate is full.
My jar is full, but there is often spaces in the cracks where you can fill things in, but what’s really the most important in this lesson is if we had started with the water and we filled the whole jar up with water first, and then we tried to put in. Sand. Okay, we’ve all done this at the beach, right?
You fill up like a bucket, then you put in sand. Okay, that might, yeah, that might be okay. Love a drop of sand castle, but then you start putting in the pebbles and the rocks. And what’s going to happen is the water will overflow out of the jar, right? And that is the mistake that I see people make when they’re planning out yeah.
Their marketing or really anything for the whole year is like you start with the water, which is sort of the smallest bits and pieces and you fill your whole jar all your time, all your energy up with that water. And then when you start putting in the rocks, which are really the biggest chunks of the puzzle that are going to move your marketing the furthest along, you’re already at capacity because you’ve spent all this time talking with the marketing.
So, Let me back up and give a, and like, assign each of these objects, a marketing tactic. So when we’re talking about the rocks and the pebbles and the sand and the water, I want you to look at the rocks as your In person networking events or your things that are like your biggest, things that are going to move the meter for you.
So like this might be like if you do weddings, this might be like trade shows or if you do, you know, if your family photographer, maybe this is when you go and do like school portraits or you do like a networking event or some kind of like charity events, things that sort of are these big. In, usually in person networking events, they take a lot of energy, but they move the needle, right?
They bring you quite a lot of leads. They also take a lot of your energy, right? Okay, so then your pebbles are going to be some things that move the needle, also quite a bit, and they stick around for a long time. So these are going to be things like blogging, podcasts, YouTube videos or vlogs, things that are gonna like stay, you know, stay around, maybe right in the beginning it takes a little bit of time, but like, you have a blog post out there that does really well, that’s gonna, that, the longevity of that is gonna stick around, right?
And it takes like maybe a medium amount of your energy. Then you have the sand and your sand is your email marketing. Now I’ll talk all day about why I think email marketing is the strongest type of marketing you can get, but all of your other marketing should always pull back to email marketing
Colie: All roads lead to email
Dayna: all roads lead to email marketing.
And I think I even talked about that on the last time I was on the podcast. Your email marketing is like maybe two times a month, right? And then at the end, we have your water, which is going to be your social media, okay? And that’s the stuff that you’re doing every day. Now to go back to if we fill the jar up with water, if you only focus, if you’re like, okay, this is the year, I’m going to post every day on Instagram, it’s going to be amazing.
So if you’re spending all of your time creating content for Instagram, and you have filled up your jar with so much water, that when this in person networking opportunity comes to you, and you drop that, Rock in that bucket of water, all of a sudden, boom, it’s overflowing. And so that’s what I want to kind of strategize around this year is how do we at the beginning of the year?
Take a look at our whole year and plan out our marketing so that we don’t get overwhelmed both in slow season and even when it’s busy season, right? How do we plan out our marketing so that we, both our time and our energy is spent in the best way possible?
Colie: It’s funny listening to you. It’s not guys listening audience. It’s not that I forgot who you are. Please don’t take what I’m about to say is that, but as I’m listening to Dana and she’s talking about the big rocks being like your in person events. In my mind, I was thinking your rocks are like your launches.
And then I remembered we’re talking to photographers. I mean, like, it just took me a minute to be like, Oh yeah, we’re talking about photographers because. I feel like on the flip side, like when I would think about it, I would be like, okay. When I was still doing like a lot of photography and I don’t really do events, but when I would counsel and coach other people, I’d be like, those are your events.
Like if you know that you’re going to do like a mother’s day event and you’re going to do like fall mini sessions or whatever, like those are things that you plan and those are kind of like your big things. And I always think about it like at the beginning of the school year, Actually, way before the beginning of the school year when the district publishes our calendar that tells me when my kid will be in school and not in school.
I sit down and I put these things on my calendar. And basically, that is telling me. What my capacity is going to be in some of those cases. So if the whole in person marketing guys, if Dana said that, and you’re like, yeah, I don’t do that. Don’t worry. There’s something else that you can use as the analogy for the big rocks.
Just something big that like takes up space on your calendar initially and that you’re building the other things around it.
Dayna: Great point, Koli. Like, I do think it could be any of these launches that you might do. It could even be The busy season, like if you’re, you know, if you always in the fall do some kind of promotion around holiday, you know, card photos, something along those lines, that can be one of your events. But like, yeah, it should be that sort of, I love that analogy of like, it’s a, it’s a, it’s the, when the kids are off school, it’s like this, it’s like this thing that is going to take up a chunk of your time and energy.
Yeah, I love that. And it doesn’t have to be in person. It could also be virtual. There’s plenty of, you know, online fundraisers or, but I want you to think about that as like a place where you kind of get the most of a lot of leads and if, and if you’re looking for more leads, those are some ideas for in person events or I’m going to say in person, but they could also be virtual, just like events where you can,
get the most bang for your buck. And like, yeah, I get it. They take a lot of energy and time, but again, that’s why they’re your rock. Right?
Colie: that’s why you certainly can’t do rock activity after rock activity after rock activity because you will be so exhausted. You won’t have any energy to actually photograph people. Like in our business as photographers, you do have to do both. You have to run a business and you actually have to take pictures of people.
So keep that in mind. You still need time for the client activities.
Dayna: we need like another thing besides water that goes in the jar because that’s the actual like taking of the photos. Okay, so here we are. We’re in January. Let’s think about our year. Guys, I’m going to give you a download if you’re like a visual person who likes to write things down, or if you just have a planner, you can write out these four, you know, areas, your rocks, your pebbles, your sand, your water.
Okay, what do you think for rocks? What do you think is a good number of these big rock marketing activities that Koli?
Colie: So the funny thing is, I am going to say something small because I feel like we want to make sure that people do it
Dayna: A hundred percent.
Colie: grow as they go. So how about one rock activity per quarter?
Dayna: Oh my gosh, you even say more than I was going to say. I was going to say you could pick two for the whole
Colie: Oh, see, look at you.
Dayna: All right, two to four guys, but yeah, I think maybe the ideal would be getting to one a quarter, but if right now it feels really overwhelming to think of four big rock activities, like, just think of two, like, do one in the spring and one in the fall, and ideally, you want to Plan these to be just before your busy season.
So,
Colie: Yeah, this is not something that you want to do in
Dayna: yeah, you don’t want to do this in October. You want to be doing this in like, August, like, before your busy season happens, right? If you’re in the northern atmosphere and you’re, you know, family photographer, that would be kind of your busy season. So, yeah, I went through them before, but I want you guys under rocks just.
Brainstorm a couple of things. These could be, these could be trade shows. These could be doing school portraits. So like if you do school portraits at the end of the year or in the, you know, in the spring, or maybe you do them right at the beginning of the year. any kind of networking event that you might go to, and this doesn’t necessarily have to be photography specific, I would give you permission to make a rock, any networking event that you go to, like if you go to any kind of thing that is like where you’re going to meet other people in your area.
Charity events and fundraisers are a really good one to put , in this bucket. Like, if you have a cause that is really important to you and there is, you know, like an animal rescue in your area that you can get involved with or, you know, any kind of like, um, if your school does some kind of fundraiser and you’re going to do some kind of silent auction bid, that would go in this category.
Colie: I mean, it’s funny that you mentioned that listening audience inside of your show notes. If you want to look, I actually interviewed Rebecca Honeycutt about how she uses silent auctions and free services to get other like services out there. So that was episode 142. If you’re like, well, I, that sounds intriguing, but I’ve never done it.
That particular episode goes into some of like the nitty gritty of how she actually does it in her
Dayna: Amazing. She’s a genius at that. So that’s a perfect resource there. So there you go. There’s your episode 142
Colie: 142.
Dayna: for your rocks. Okay. So now let’s move to our pebbles. I really feel like for photographers, blogs are a great pebble, right? I mean, I think that’s probably the strongest one. The life of a great blog is so long.
If you aren’t in the habit of blogging, maybe aim to do like four a year, but make them awesome. If you are in the habit and you’re a little bit better at it, try to aim for one a month,
Colie: hmm.
Dayna: There are tons of people out there who, are excellent at blogging. Have you had Melissa Arlena on the show?
Colie: I did. She talked about something more general, but yes, Melissa has been on here. I had an entire like SEO series. And the thing that I want to say about blogging is I more recently was chatting with Jesse of Inkpot Creative. She’s actually a website designer, but she specifically came back for her second appearance to talk about how photographers can write blog posts that go beyond your client sessions.
There is nothing wrong with, like, showcasing one of your client sessions, but it’s the words that go with it that are going to get you found on Google. So, like, using your images. To answer a question like here in the Denver Boulder area, like, where are my favorite five places to go and have a family session outdoors, which we all know.
I don’t do that, but that would make a great blog post for one of you other people, I mean, doing that and then using images from your sessions are what it’s going to take in order to get those blogging activities done versus. Oh, here’s my client. This is their beautiful family, blah, blah, blah. And then just ending it.
Remember, your goal of a blog post should always be to be found on Google. And so what are people searching for and what answer can you give them along with your beautiful images?
Dayna: So, I’m going to tag right on to that. Sit right now down and underneath your pebbles, I want you to brainstorm your top six to twelve most commonly asked questions by your clients or things that like bug you that your clients like ask you all the time. Like if it really annoys you when people are like, but what do I wear?
Great! Make it a blog post, babe. Then you can just send them that link, right? Or if it’s something that people constantly have an objection to, like, or, that they like, it makes them hesitate to either book or if people are like, Oh, I don’t know if I’m ever going to use an album or whatever, make it a blog post.
Any, anything that is a question for people as hesitation for people or something that they ask over and over again, make those into blog posts.
Colie: Yes.
Dayna: Okay, so that’s our pebbles. Moving to our sand. Okay, email marketing. How often, as a photographer, do you think you should email your list?
Colie: I mean, I don’t have many times I think people should be emailing in general, but as a photographer, I would say one time a month is good.
Dayna: agree. And I would
Colie: a month is perfect.
Dayna: two times a month is perfect, one time a month is great. The mistake I see people make here most frequently is they only email when they’re selling.
Colie: I mean, which brings us back to episode 84, where we talked about asking for the sale. This is not the time where you ask for the sale every single time. And I mean, that is, that is definitely what I see a lot of. And I’m like, you know, your email marketing is not only To like sell your services, but it’s also just to remind people who you are and to connect with them on a human level.
So, like for myself, for example, if I was ever writing a newsletter to photography clients, which I’ve, I’ve actually never done. So this is more like a do as I say, not as I do, but I would love to write an email that’s like all about my Disney trip.
Dayna: Yeah.
Colie: Or what my favorite crockpot meals are. I mean, these are things that parents would find very helpful, and it doesn’t mean that I’m sending them an email every single month like, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing.
Sometimes, all it takes is you popping up in their inbox, and them seeing your name, to remember that they need a photography session.
Dayna: Couldn’t agree more. And if you guys are thinking, you know, wow, this sounds like there’s a little bit of overlap with blogs here, like I want to share my best recipes. There absolutely is. And there is certainly a strategy to be had in brainstorming out those blog sessions. And then, you know, if you’re going to post a blog, make that into an email or two.
But yeah, it’s really important to make sure that you’re emailing your list about things that are just. them getting to know you behind the scenes. What’s super cool about email marketing is it is a permission based marketing. People have said, yup, add me to your email list in a way that is different than them finding you on social media or even, you know, even in an in person event or stumbling across your blog in the internet, it’s like you guys have.
Shaken hands and made an agreement. They were they were like, Yes, I want to hear from you. That is really special and cool about email marketing. So you can get a little more personal in there. And to Koli’s point, like you shouldn’t be selling all the time. Sometimes all it takes is them seeing your name as a reminder.
And you can even just put a little PS. I love using the PS space PS. If you need to book your blah, blah, blah, like here’s the link or PS. Don’t forget. My mother’s day minis are coming up. Like, but the whole email before that should be about something else, right? Just something personal, something, you know. Okay. So that’s our sand one time a month. Or two times a month would be perfect in my opinion. And then let’s get down to social media. Okay. The, I feel like this is the one that overwhelms everybody. So
Colie: love hate relationship with Instagram. I actually went like two solid months at the end of the year without posting a single thing on Instagram. It was fabulous. It was fabulous.
Dayna: feels good. Right? I think we all have a love hate relationship and it’s because it’s really hard to put your effort into something that you have such. a small, um, control over how it gets out into the world. Like, that is so frustrating. If I make a bomb reel and it gets like 20 views, I’m like, like, who, you know, that it’s just hard to keep coming banging your head against that wall over and over again. Without making this a whole episode about social media, just, you know, try to switch your mindset in social media this month about I’m really thinking about it like the water that fills in all the cracks everywhere else. And I also like to really think about social media as, I don’t know why I use this analogy, I am not a fisher lady, but this is just what comes to my mind is like, social media is like you’re fishing, right?
And you’re like, that’s how you like pull people into your little pond of life, right? And when they come to your email, your email list, now they’re in your pond and you have like a lot more control over You know, whether they see your name in their inbox or not. So just try to think about social media as, um, a way to do networking events that is just online.
Like you’re just getting your name out there. You’re just pushing it out there. And I want to really encourage everybody. Please just reuse your content over and over again. Like you don’t need to, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every single time that you post on social. Like, I think that really stresses people out.
If you have a post that really hits for people, again, go back to those blog questions. Those are the things you should be making social media posts and reels about is like questions that people have because. Instagram is also SEO based. So it is looking for when people have questions, it is pulling in what you’re making.
So if you’re like, what to wear to your photography session in Boulder, Colorado, that is going, and somebody is looking for, and they’re like, you know, I’m in Boulder and they’re like, what to wear to my, that’s going to bring up your reel, you know? So just think about it like that. They’re like mini blogs, little mini things.
And if you have one that hits. Just remake it or literally repost it like over and over again, because that is, you know, it will get out there. And if you look at the most successful, influencers and like people who have, they do that. They reuse their content over and over and over in different and creative ways.
Colie: The funny thing is, I’ve never actually thought about this for photographers, cause you, you know, you and I, we both worlds photographers and then just like small business owners. Yes. I’ve never really thought about this, but one of the things that I have focused on really hard in the last year, and I just did another, I sat down and wrote 12 emails, but evergreen emails is where I have really pushed myself to go with my marketing, you know, in 2024 and then going forward.
And it’s this concept that no matter when someone joins your email list, they get a certain set of emails. And I don’t think that I’ve ever really considered that you could do that with your photography clients. Like if you’ve got ones that are like how to prepare for your set, like these things that people ask over and over again, if you sat down and you wrote them in a way that it wasn’t time sensitive.
So in other words, don’t say that it’s fall and it’s time to do this, like make sure that It is still valid information, no matter when somebody gets it, if you put together like 12 emails and sent one a month, and these are like content that everybody needs, can get to know you, those kinds of things, you could actually set it to where when someone joins your email list, they get those 12 emails, regardless when they join.
And then you could be doing like one live email, email. Every month that is more time sensitive. That is talking about what you are currently doing inside of your business. That is like real time. I’m selling mini sessions if you are interested in one, you know, do it now. Now there is also like a secret sauce way in order to get, and if you guys are on either my email list or to be frank, um, that this can’t be that hard list we have. They’re called snippets in kit. I, it probably has a different word in flow desk, but there’s a thing that you can put at the bottom to where those little bits of information that are kind of more time sensitive can go out to people who are getting an evergreen email from you. And then they’re still getting like.
Something that’s relative right now, but won’t be outdated for the next person that gets that email. So I encourage everyone, like, just like they tell you to sit down and plan your blog post. If you sit down and think of like 12 really good emails, you can put that on an evergreen sequence. I mean, I’ve just literally never thought about that,
Dayna: Yeah, and like, I think if you, uh, brainstorm out those 12 blog posts, make them into those 12 emails. I love that idea. If 12
Colie: traffic to your
Dayna: Yeah, and then like make those into Instagram posts, like on and on. I think if 12 feels really overwhelming, or if you’re like, I can’t think of 12 things, you can also do that.
What, what we’re really talking about here is like a, you could also do, call this a nurture sequence. When somebody joins your list for the first time, they could get like an email every week from you just so that, you know, it’s like, here’s the top things that people ask me. Here’s the da, da, da, da, da, here’s what you need to know about, you know, and so on.
So you could write like four emails that everybody gets. As soon as they join your list, that, that’s another thing you could do as well. And these are, like you said, things that once you build them, and so if it is your slow season right now and you’re listening to this, this is a great time to lean into building things like what Koli said that are evergreen, that, that are going to work for you right now in January.
And they’re also going to work for you in October when you are in the middle of your busiest season.
Colie: Absolutely.
Dayna: So yeah, well, I am going to give you guys a link. let’s put it at this can’t be that hard dot com slash marketing jar. And it’s a worksheet that you can download and that’s where you can brainstorm and I’ll have like a couple of prompts in there for you that will help you come up with these rocks that you can come up with these, you know, the, um, your pebbles, your sand, and you can write those out for the year.
But really guys, I really would encourage you, um, to, to sit down and, and do this for the year and see how it changes not only your mental approach to marketing, but your results. So I want you to like make a note to check in this time next year and be like, did that feel good? Did that work for me?
Colie: Yes. And you know, we’re all about resources here, guys. So I’m going to recap something for you. So we’ve talked about your rocks. Your rocks can be those in person events. They can also be things like charity work. I’ve already given you one previous podcast episode to go listen to. It’s 142 with Rebecca Honeycutt. In terms of figuring out what you could do for blog posts, and this is specifically as photographers, Jesse Andrew was on here. It was episode 183. I’m going to link that in the show notes as well, but then I’m going to give you guys a pitch for Dana and Annamie of This Can’t Be That Hard, because if you are looking for help specifically for your pebbles and your, well, no, actually your sand and your water, They have the Consistency Club and we are going to have a link in the show notes to where if you want to give it a try, you can get your first month for 1.
Dayna: Yeah. And so for, if you haven’t heard of the Consistency Club, basically it is monthly marketing magic for photographers. And we sent out. two email templates and six to eight social media ideas for each month. So the idea being you can focus on your rocks and your pebbles and we’re gonna do about 85 percent of the work of your emails and your social media for you.
We really just make them remember Mad Libs? Remember when you just fill in? Yeah, that’s how we try to make the templates so that you can just copy those over. Put your voice in it and it just takes your, you know, that blinking cursor syndrome where you’re like sitting at the computer like, uh, what do I say?
We’re going to tell you exactly what to say. And I’m going to tell you exactly what to post on social media. And I’m going to find the trending audios for you and tell you all the things. It just really saves your butt a ton of time. So yeah, that is what that was born out of. And yes, we’ll give you guys your first month for a dollar.
Colie: And I’ve got a question for you. If this is like totally unreal, what’s kind of related, but not, I talked about it recently, but one of the things that I got out of 2024, and it has definitely continued into 2025 guys, I am a member of a different email marketing program. And it’s not that I don’t love consistency club, but it’s really for photographers and I don’t email photography clients like that.
So. But what I have been doing with my email templates is I take them and I feed them into chat GPT and I say please treat this as a Mad Libs email template. Please ask me. One by one, whatever question you need to ask me in order to customize this for my business. And then sometimes I’ll be like, and as a reminder, like, this is my sales page for the CRM blueprint.
This is my sales page for, you know, workflow set up. Like I will give it specific things if I think that it needs it. But guys, chat GPT can really take what they’re giving you in templates and really help you turn it out in like 60 seconds.
Dayna: Yeah. And I mean, I think you probably already know this, but if you keep it all in the same chat, it will remember all of like, you
Colie: projects
Dayna: yeah, it, Oh God, projects. Oh, I love it. Yeah. It’ll, you can, you can really train your bot to know everything it needs to know about your business. And then, yeah, it can, it can turn that template out for you in like, I mean, you could have an email out in like five minutes, like truly just like top to bottom.
Colie: includes the time of scheduling, guys. She’s talking about letting ChatGPT give you the email. You tell it what’s wrong, because I think for fun, at one point, I should write an email that’s like, this is how I talk to my ChatGPT.
Dayna: Yeah.
Colie: Like, does that sound like me? No, let’s try that again.
Dayna: Sometimes I’m like, uh, that was terrible. Please do it again. And they’re like, I’m so sorry.
Colie: Oh, my gosh, when I was building it, because I built an AI, I built custom GPTs now for my workflow template product, and I got it going. It was the best thing that I created in 2024, honestly, but as I was building it, I was getting it to where it was perfect. And then I was trying to take what I had done and put it in the instructions.
And then it would go haywire. It wouldn’t do any of the things that I told it to do. And finally, I was like, I’m so disappointed in you. Like you were doing this perfectly. And now that I switched this one thing, I can’t figure out why. Oh, Coley. I’m so sorry that you’re disappointed. Please give me one more chance to make it right.
It was hysterical reading their responses to me.
Dayna: Robots are still just robots.
Colie: Yeah.
Dayna: They’re just robots. But yes, agreed. I love that use of chat and agreed that if you educate it, it really can help you turn out templates really quickly. And that’s just the whole thing, guys, is like, I, one of my catchphrases is like, don’t get it perfect. Just get it going.
Like, get your marketing out the door. Every email doesn’t have to be perfect. You are just one person. People like to know that you, you know, you are just a person on, on the flip side of that, do make sure that, you know, you’re not just saying, write me an email for this month to chat and then copy pasting what they say, because that will sound
Colie: there’s no copy. No, no,
Dayna: Yeah, I
Colie: not, not, I mean, the amount of, and I mean, granted, I don’t, you know, it’s like, I just go back a couple of times. I mean, and sometimes guys, the only thing that I ask it is. Do you really think that sounds like me? How about we try again? And then it spits something out that, you know, mentions Disney or automation or like something that it didn’t do before.
And I was like, that’s much better. Thank you very much. But guys, I want you to think about this conversation in its entirety and. Remember, we talked about the rocks, the pebbles, the sand and the water, and so we have that worksheet linked for you inside the show notes. I would really encourage you to print it out and write on it, or just to write down your own notes.
But once you’ve got those rocks, and you’re putting them on your calendar, and mostly you’re also putting the pebbles on your calendar, then you can work in the sand and the water as you see fit. Dana, anything else that we need to add in before we close this out?
Dayna: No, I would just say if you guys have questions, you can find me on Instagram. I’m over at the at this can’t be that hard, Instagram. So you can DM me over there and ask me questions. Thanks for having me back. I just, I love being on your show. You’re so easy to talk to.
Colie: Well, thank you for coming, Dana. Everyone, I hope that this episode in particular, in addition to all of the other ones that we’ve had in January, have given you some good inspiration in terms of your finances. The metrics that you need to track, how to be more productive and set your goals. And now how to go forward and market like a pro.
Now, next week’s episode is all about me telling you guys specifically what I am doing in my business for 2025. And so I’m going to take all of the little tidbits that we got from the previous four guests, and I’m going to tell you guys what I’m doing. So if you’re interested in that, I know make sure that you come back.
Well, that’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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