Denise Duffield...:    Hey, gorgeous. You might know that I have a new version of my book out renamed Chill and Prosper. To celebrate the launch of this book, I have got some incredible bonuses including a live book club and a training where we can come together, and talk about how we can make our businesses way more chill and of course, way more prosperous. But this is limited time only, so you have to pre-order the new book. If you go to denisedt.com/prosper, we'll have all the links for you and how you can access your pre-launch bonuses and how you can come onto that amazing life training and join the book club as well. Thank you so much for supporting my new book. It's time for us all to Chill and Prosper. Go to denisedt.com/prosper.

                                    (singing)

                                    Hey, lovely. It's Denise here and welcome to Chill & Prosper. Today, we are talking about internet dating and why internet dating is exactly like marketing. Now I tell this story in my book, Chill and Prosper, which is the updated and expanded version of Chillpreneur. If you haven't got this book by the way, make sure that you grab all of the bonuses for the new edition and you can get that at denisedt.com/prosper. The new book has got a ton of case studies and some extra stuff, and it's very cool. I think you'll like the new expanded edition and it's got a cool new cover, too. So if you didn't like the first cover of Chillpreneur, you'll love the expanded upgraded version of Chill and Prosper.

                                    What I'm talking about today is in the book and it's about how marketing is exactly like internet dating. When I was in my 20's, I moved to London when I was 22. I'm the sort of person when I put my mind to something I'm not going to let things unfold, and I think that is my ruler maverick personality, where just like, "I want it now, instant gratification, what's the quickest, easiest way to do this?" So I went, "I'm going to go into this internet dating scenario, like a pro. I'm going to do it like a marketing campaign, and I'm going to just batch the hell out of it and not just do it for like the next six months." I was like, "I want a boyfriend now and I'm going to get him right now." Before I go into that though, I'll tell you how else this shows up in my life, this instant gratification thing.

                                    For my rose farm, it's very traditional. It's very, cottagey, it's very beautiful and when we did the new renovation of it, we are putting all these big, beautiful built-in shelves. And so I was like, "Wow, you need a lot of stuff to fill those shelves," and in a normal person's life, you would build up your stuff over time, everything in your house would be like, "Oh, I got this here and I got this here," and it would just layer up over time. And I was like, "Okay." I looked on Pinterest and said, "How do people style their shelves in these old fashioned houses?" And I was like, "Okay, so they have old books and then they have like a brass bell and then like a brass apple, and then a little vase or something and then, ooh, a little wooden box."

                                    So I noticed these themes of these four or five things. So I went on to Etsy and I spent a whole day and I bought like 50 million bells. I just went and brought all this brass stuff and I actually got to the end of Etsy because I put into Etsy "antique brass," and there was like a million pages. I literally went through every single page in the whole of Etsy and I had it set to worldwide because people ship stuff and I just went, "I'm not going to sit and do this over the next couple of years. I want it now and I want it to look like I've been building this collection for years."

                                    But then I completely forgot about it, so for the next couple of months, every day or two, a box would arrive and it would be like, "Oh, what did I order from France again?" and then I'd open it and I'd go, "Oh yeah, a brass bell." So I ended up with probably 10 different bras bells, 10 different owls, 10 different brass apples, like letter holders. You know those brass letter holders where you put like cards and letters? I didn't just buy one, I would buy like five.

                                    That's my personality. I always take things just a little bit too far and I always try and find the quickest, dirtiest way to do something. So that being said, this is how I do my internet dating in London, and it's exactly how launches work by the way. So I went, "Okay, I want a boyfriend." I did just a profile pic of me and I did my profile thing, but I went, "I know I'm going to have to be proactive here. I'm not going to just wait for people to contact me, I'm going to go and contact them."

                                    So I wrote this initial message that was like, "Oh, hey, I've just checked out your profile. It seems like we've got some stuff in common. I'm Denise I'm blah, blah, blah, and this is a little fact that I didn't put in my profile, but I want you to know." And I sent that to like a hundred guys. I just sat there and just went, "He looks okay. I sent. He looks okay. Send. He looks okay. Send," and I didn't spent time going, "Wow, I wonder what like our kids would look like." I was just like, "Yeah, he seems interesting. Sent."

                                    Now you might think, "Wow, that's such a weird thing to do, Denise because when you are dating someone don't you want to see that you've got something in common with them and stuff like that?" Yes, but how are you supposed to know from just an initial picture?

                                    So the marketing lesson I want you to learn from that is sometimes people resist doing the basics of marketing. Like they resist sending out their newsletter, they resist blogging, they resist posting on social media because they're getting in their head about like, "But what do people want from me? Who's my target audience? Is this enough? Is this okay? Is this unique enough? Is this what people want to hear?" Sometimes you just have to make the commitment that, "I'm going to send out a newsletter, no matter what, every single week without fail." And I started doing this in 2009. I made a commitment that every single week I was going to send out a newsletter. Did I know what was going to be? No, but I made the commitment, so I had to come up with something each and every week. Some weeks I'd be like, "Oh man, this post is a dog." Why do we say dog for derogatory? "This post is so crap."

                                    But then I'd get people say, "Wow, that was the exact thing I needed to hear." Other times I worked on something and I was like, "Oh my God, this is going to be so great," and then it was just crickets. So you never quite know, but what you're looking for is that consistency over time. You're not looking for the one to be the thing that changes everything, you're looking for like... you're hedging your bets basically. You're hedging your bets. Just in case one doesn't work out, don't worry, I've got another newsletter tomorrow. And that's for me, I was like, I had seen friends who went and did internet dating and they did it one at a time. They'd be like, "Oh, I've been talking to this guy, but then he ghosted me." It's like, "Oh, I've been talking to this guy, but then his profile is deactivated." "Oh, I was talking to this guy and then he revealed something weird about himself." So I was like, "I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to just get it all done in one go."

                                    So I sent out those a hundred messages. Now out of those messages, I got... I don't even remember how, how many responses, but it wasn't, a huge amount. Like it wasn't a hundred percent and this is another lesson too, is that you might go, "Well, I'm only getting X percent of people opening my newsletter, so that must mean that nobody likes it." And when you're in business for a while, you'll start to see those patterns emerging over time.

                                    So I know that 25 to 30% of people will open my newsletter and it's not the same 25% of people every time. For some people, they're busy, they're on holidays, it goes into their spam filter that week because there's a word that I used their spam didn't like, they were just busy, they didn't like the subject line, it didn't float their boat, they didn't want to hear from me that week, whatever it was. So you're never going to get a hundred percent of people opening your newsletter unless you have one person on there and it's your mom and she always reads it. And you know what? My mom doesn't read my newsletter. Your parents might unsubscribe from new newsletter and you can't take that personally. So out of those hundred guys that I sent that profile to, there would've been some who looked at my profile and went, "Nah, not into her, not my cup of tea. No, don't like her message." There could have been something, a deal breaker on my profile. So you cannot take that personally because there will be people who will unsubscribe from you. There will be people who don't love your language or your pace or your tips, and if you let that derail you and stop you from marketing, then you are just never going to get traction because you are just going to give up and wait for that perfection to happen.

                                    So then what I did was I sent a second message to just the ones who I thought, "Oh yeah, they're a bit interesting," and this one was a little bit more crafted and a little bit more personal. So then I took a little bit more time to look at their profile. I didn't do that upfront because I needed to make sure that I was talking to the people who were interested in talking to me. So it was only the people who I got a response from who got that second message. And the lesson in that is that sometimes we're trying to craft our business for this mythical ideal client and we don't even know if they're rested in us. Sometimes you've just got to get a client, see if you like it and then tweak later on. But often what we're trying to do is going, "Oh my God. Okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to spend the next year coming up with my ideal client and then I'm going to craft something perfectly for them," and you don't know, you don't know. Same with launching a book or a course or something like that, sometimes you don't know until you put something out there if someone's even going to like it. You can't reverse engineer it and make it perfect without getting in the game, getting in the arena.

                                    Okay. So then I was chatting to some of those guys for a little bit, and then I took action, and I'm going to tell about that. This is a really crucial little action and it's so funny and it's just so my personality, how I batch things and oh my God, how I do things in my business. But I will tell you that the next step after that second message right after this little break. See you in a sec.

Areth Kerglansk...:   Hi, my name is [Areth Kerglanski] and I help people playfully and effortlessly improve their eyesight, but when I decided to get serious about my business, it didn't feel playful at all. Luckily I found Denise and started to chill and prosper. I learned I could have a business I love and a life embracing perfection and accept setbacks as part of the game. Chill and Prosper is smart, practical, and fun to read. It gives good advice and makes the business world a better place with room for different people, styles and ideas of success. I'm really excited that it's coming out again and I highly recommend it.

Denise Duffield...:    Okay. Welcome back friends. So we are talking about my internet dating story, in my twenties, about how I treated it. Like a marketing campaign, sent out those a hundred messages proactively and then sent personalized messages to just the people who responded. So then what I did is that I started being proactive and inviting my top 10 to a mini date. I lived in London at the time and I would always meet them in the same place. There was a joke shop that used to be in Piccadilly Square and it was one of those silly little joke shops that had gadgets and just little things that you could pick up and look at and interesting things. So I always met them there because it was a really great way to go, "Hey, look at this thing, isn't this weird?" and "Oh, look at this cute little thing."

                                    And then there was a bar upstairs that had pool tables and I love, love playing pool, it's one of my favorite things to do. So it was really easy, we didn't have to just sit around and look at each other and it was kind of pitches of just a really casual little mini date of just like, "Hey, let's just meet up. Let's have a couple of games of pool." It wasn't dinner, it wasn't anything special, it was just easy. But here's what I did, guys. I batched those dates up. So I would have one at six o'clock and then I'd have one at like eight o'clock and then if I was really serious and it was like I was feeling energetic, I'd do one at 10, but I'm a grandma. I like to be in bed by nine o'clock.

                                    So I batched those dates up because I was like, "Well, I've got nice hair and makeup, and I'm in a chatty mood, so why not just batch them up?" And so I would just say, "Cool, I've just got something a little bit later, but I've got an hour. Do you want to just play a couple games of pool?" and they'd go, "Yeah. Cool."

                                    So meet at six o'clock, meet in the joke shop, have a little chat and because I was at the joke shop quite a bit, I'd be like, "Ooh, look at this new thing," and they'd be like, "Cool, let's go upstairs," two games of pool and I'd be like, "Okay, cool. Well, it was nice to meet you and I'll see you later," and then they'd leave and I'd be like, "Okay, refresh, reset. Okay," back down to the joke shop for 8:00 PM.

                                    Now the marketing lesson for this, right, is that you take things way less person when you are producing content. Sorry, this is such a funny analogy, because obviously there were people and this is your business, but for me, I don't take things as personally with my marketing because I'm always batching things. So I will hire a podcast studio, which I'm in today, and I might batch 10 to 20 podcast episodes. There's not as much time to think about each one and go, "Oh, is it good enough? Oh, are people going to like it?" It's just kind of like, "Well, cool. I've got a whole day, so let's pull up my list of things that people want to hear from me. Let's pull up my list of articles that I want to make into a podcast episode and let's get it done." I don't have time to psych myself out, I don't have time to second guess things, and I have that accountability of, I've got a podcast studio booked.

                                    I do the same thing with things like my video production. I never really feel like it. I never really want to do a lot of things in my business, but if I create space in my calendar, I'll get it done. I'll have that accountability of somebody else, of an appointment that needs to happen. So that's the analogy for that run.

                                    Then out of those mini dates, I ended up dating, I think one or two guys got extra dates. I think one guy had two dates and then I was like, "Hmm, not really a fit," and then one guy I ended up dating for a about six months. Ultimately it wasn't a great fit, but it was such a good example of just putting yourself out there, not waiting for your customers or potential partners to come and knock on your door, but being proactive and just putting yourself out there.

                                    Then not long after that Mark and I, who's my husband, we started dating. So I was like, "I feel like just putting myself in that process of being open-minded to dating, being open minded to finding somebody," led me to my husband mark, even though it wasn't from that process. So the fun thing now that Mark works in my company, and when he first started in my business, I had to educate him in the ways of online business, because he worked for big sports clubs, he worked for pharmaceutical companies and it was just a very different business model. So I had to sort of say to him, "Look, here are the percentages that we work with."

                                    And the first launch he ever did by himself in the business was for my manifesting course, so I didn't need to really be involved because all the assets were there and he could kind of just run it and I wanted him to feel what it would feel like just to do it without me being behind the scenes. And I remember at the end I said, "I don't want to know anything until the end because this is your experiment," and he goes, "Well, how many sales do you think we got?" And I went, "Okay, tell many how many people were on our newsletter list and I'll tell you how many sales we got." And he was like "Really?" And I'm like, "Yeah, okay, let's do it."

                                    So he was like, "Okay, there was," I don't know, "30,000 people on the newsletter list," and I went, "Okay, so 25% of people opened the newsletter. We get about a 10% click through rate and we probably get about 2% of those people buying." So I gave him the number and I was so close, it was like within 10%. He was just like, "How do you know that?" And I just went, "Well because I know the percentages and I don't take it personally that a hundred percent of people don't open the newsletter, that a hundred percent of people don't see the offer, that a hundred percent of people don't buy because I know that it will always play out like that."

                                    And we've experimented so many times over the years of experimenting with different parts of the funnel. Can we improve our statistics? And honestly it always comes out to about 1% to 2% of people end up buying and it's a bit frustrating sometimes because there's always that optimism or hope when you launch something, you're kind of a bit delusional. It's kind of like when you're doing something like internet dating, you're just like, "Wow, my perfect person will just fall into my lap without me doing anything. A publisher will approach me and ask me to write a book for them. Someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and invite me to speak on their stage. Someone is going to invite me into this beautiful mastermind," and the truth is you have to invite yourself. You have to put yourself in those where it can reverse engineer and then suddenly people are like, "Oh, how lucky?" And you're like, "Well, no, because I sent out a hundred newsletters, I sent out a hundred invitations. I called a hundred people, I had a hundred sales calls," and then the percentages worked them themselves out.

                                    So it's really important to know what your percentages are for your industry, because it will help you feel way less chill about it. Like I wasn't that stressed doing that internet dating thing. I found it fun because I was just playing a numbers game, playing a percentages game.

                                    Now you might resist this in your business because you think, "No, Denise, they're all people to me, they're not percentages." It's not the people who are percentages, it's just how the process works. Think of it as just like a law of the universe. Of course you know intellectually that a hundred percent of people aren't going to buy from you, but you still kind of hope that they will and you hope that it's the people that you want it to be, but sometimes it just doesn't work out like that because of timing or they just didn't see it or it doesn't resonate with them at the time. So if you just know what those overall percentages are, it's going to help you realize that if you just put in enough input at the start, eventually you will get the output and the result at the end, and it's got nothing to do with you and how good you are, it's showing up. It's sometimes literally just showing up.

                                    So I hope you enjoyed my internet marketing, internet dating crossover episode because honestly I just love sharing that because it's just so fun and funny, but I want you to see the applications in your business, and I want you to understand what your percentages are and not take it so personally, that not everyone's ready or right to work with you. It can so be easy, it can so be chill. So that chapter in the new book, I think it's Chapter 10 actually, the marketing is internet dating. It's got a whole bunch of extra case studies and some advice for you about how to apply that internet dating story to your business and feel way more chill about getting the results.

                                    So that is in my new and expanded version of Chillpreneur, called Chill and Prosper. If you go to denisedt.com/prosper, you'll see all of the new bonuses for that, all of the bribes that I have for you to buy a new edition and then new editions got case studies and lots of updated material to make your life even more chill and prosperous. Is that how you'd say it? Chiller and more prosperity? Yes. Okay. Thank you so much.

                                    I've got one last thought for you and I can't wait to hear your feedback on this episode, by the way, even if it's just to say, "Denise, you are crazy." That's totally fine. Let me know what you thought and I've got one final thought for you straight after this final break. See you in a second.

Emma Green:            Hello. I'm Emma Green, the tennis elbow queen. I'm a British physio now living in Southern California. I found Denise after hearing the term money blocks and not knowing what they were. I knew that I didn't want to be hustling away, hiring more staff and opening additional locations. I wanted to kick back with my kids, work with just the clients that lit me up and have money coming in overnight or while I was in the jacuzzi. There had to be another way. Thank goodness I found Denise.

                                    I love the way she explains everything so simply. I read all three of her books, and joined Money Boot Camp in 2021, embracing the mantra, "It's my time and I'm ready for the next step." Denise's new book, Chill and Prosper has been my step by step guide to creating the business and freedom that I've been searching for right down to the scripts for awkward money conversations made easy. I went from working all the hours with my kids in childcare till 6:00 PM every night to now working 12 hours a week from home with no drop in income. Denise, I cannot thank you enough for showing me that there are easier ways to make money.

Denise Duffield...:    Hey, welcome back. My final thought is, as always, I think it's about accepting and loving yourself. So I saw this quote by Diane von Fürstenberg, the dress designer of those beautiful wrap dresses, DVF wrap dresses. She says, "You're always with yourself, so you might as well in enjoy the company." Isn't that cool? "You're always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company," and this totally relates to this story of the internet dating and the marketing, because you're always going to show up exactly how you are in everything that you do. If you have confidence issues in your business that is going to follow through on everything and the way you market yourself and the way that you send out your newsletter and the way that you allow yourself to show up and be seen.

                                    So the key to all of this is always self-love and acceptance, as Diane says, "You're always with yourself, so you may as well enjoy the company." And that is about accepting who you are, loving who you are and giving yourself permission to be exactly who you are. All right. I would love to hear your feedback on today's episode. As always, doing a review, rating it on your podcast app is so useful to us and sharing. If you have an episode that really resonated with you, I ask you to share that in your business group so it can benefit other people as well. Thank you so much for listening and chill and prosper. I'll see you next week. Bye.