Confidence Classic: How to Drive More Traffic & Turn Visibility Into Sales with Stacy Tuschl

Summary

Podcast Summary: Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan

Episode Title: Confidence Classic: How to Drive More Traffic & Turn Visibility Into Sales with Stacy Tuschl
Host: Heather Monahan
Guest: Stacy Tuschl (Small Business Growth Coach, Bestselling Author, Founder of Foot Traffic Formula)
Date: November 12, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on actionable strategies for small business owners and entrepreneurs to increase visibility, optimize sales funnels, and drive qualified traffic that converts into revenue. Heather Monahan interviews Stacy Tuschl, who shares battle-tested tactics for tracking business growth, refining customer acquisition, leveraging both organic and paid strategies, and standing out—even in saturated markets.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Realities of Small Business Growth and Sales Funnels

• Difference from Corporate Predictability
  Heather and Stacy discuss how, compared to corporate America, entrepreneurship lacks the luxury of long-term predictability and forces business owners to operate in a live, adaptive manner.

  • “It seems more like you're living in that moment and allowing that moment to help project that.” – Heather Monahan (04:15)

• The Importance of Recent Data
  Stacy asserts that relying on outdated data can mislead entrepreneurs. Instead, real-time metrics should drive decision-making.

  • “When people are talking about funnels from a year ago or launches from a year ago, I immediately say to my clients, I don't care about any of that stuff. ...If you haven't launched something in six months or you have just started running Facebook ads now, it is a whole different ball game.” – Stacy Tuschel (02:52)

2. The "Foot Traffic Formula"

• Three Pillars: Traffic, Touch Points, Transactions
  Stacy’s formula emphasizes tracking each stage:

  • Driving traffic (visibility)
  • Managing touch points (leads/engagement)
  • Fostering transactions (sales)

• The Necessity of Tracking
  Data—not feelings—should determine next steps.

  • “The secret sauce is tracking. So you really have to track your traffic, you have to track your touch points, track your transactions, right? So the data determines what you do next. You've got to get the drama out of it.” – Stacy Tuschel (05:58)

3. Diagnosing and Refining Your Funnel

• Identifying Funnel Breakpoints
  Rather than tweaking minutiae deep in the funnel, entrepreneurs must start optimizing at the top—where visibility converts to leads, and so on. - “She had this whole funnel set up and she was like fixing email number seven. Like, listen, they're not even getting to email number seven, right? We've got to start at the beginning.” – Stacy Tuschel (04:19)

• Volume Before Perfection
  Without enough traffic, there’s no reliable way to assess conversion rates or effectiveness.

4. Top-of-Funnel Strategies that Work Today

• Giveaways Must Be Tangible and Value-Driven
  The era of generic freebies is over—attention and conversions come from genuinely useful assets.

  • “It's not some stupid freebie that you're never going to do anything with. You're actually thinking, she just convinced me I need an EA, and now she's going to give me her job description for free.” – Stacy Tuschel (12:48)

• Short-Form Video and Direct Calls to Action
  Stacy’s Instagram reels feature her sharing direct, useful advice and then offering a tangible resource in exchange for a comment, which transitions to DM conversations.

5. The Role of Testing and Iteration

• Constant A/B Testing Across Channels
  Heather shares her own LinkedIn DM strategy experiments for podcast promotion, while Stacy notes that organic and paid winners often differ.
  • “The ones that are winning organically are not winning on Facebook... So you can't just assume.” – Stacy Tuschel (15:29)

6. Paid vs. Organic Traffic

• Current Shift Toward Organic
  Paid traffic used to dominate, but Stacy now allocates 80% of her effort to organic content, using paid ads tactically for warm audiences.
  • “I'm not spending, I mean I used to spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook ads. We do not do that anymore.” – Stacy Tuschel (16:02)

7. Automation: Pros and Cons

• Manual Effort Often Converts Better
  While automation can boost volume, genuine, tailored interactions—especially in DMs—produce stronger results.
  • “Sometimes it's just not as effective... We have custom conversations in our DMs. Right. We're really helping people and coaching them.” – Stacy Tuschel (17:23)

8. The Power of LinkedIn & Social KPIs

• Heather's LinkedIn Strategy
  Change your job title for algorithmic notifications and automate DMs for launches. Focus less on likes/followers, more on conversions from engagement.

  • “If you want to grow quickly in a community where business is getting done and people are talking about business, get on LinkedIn now.” – Heather Monahan (18:41)

• Viral Content Optimization
  Update viral posts to inject conversion links, leveraging algorithm momentum.

• Tracking True Indicators
  Stacy tracks DM leads, CTA comments, and consult bookings—not surface-level metrics.

  • “Do you see that growing Instagram does not mean growing our bank account. In fact, we shrunk for some reason last week, but we made more money than we've ever made in a week.” – Stacy Tuschel (21:47)

9. Qualifying Leads and Conversion Process

• Manual DM Qualification Before Calls
  Not every “hand-raiser” is a good lead; only qualified prospects move to discovery calls, protecting the team’s time and efficacy.

10. Retention Strategies for Existing Clients

• Instill FOMO and "Next Level" Positioning
  Present program renewals or retention as access to the next phase, advanced community, or new features—spur curiosity and commitment beyond "more of the same."
  • “People want new stuff... You want them to understand what they're going to unlock by retaining with you, by staying with you.” – Stacy Tuschel (27:52)
  • “Any language around next level, next phase. That's going to be really helpful for them to see how they can ascend versus just stay with you.” – Stacy Tuschel (28:58)

11. Standing Out in a Saturated Market

• Find the Gaps In the “Red Ocean”
  Don’t always try to escape competition; instead, do deep market research to find what the competition lacks and double down on those angles.

  • “Go where it's saturated and look at what's out there and then find out what's missing. ...You want to have what they have, but you want to go above and beyond and different angles.” – Stacy Tuschel (29:36, 00:00)

• SWOT Analysis
  Regularly analyze both your business and competitors for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

  • “SWOT analysis... Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. ...Strengths and weaknesses are internal. ...Opportunities and threats are external.” – Stacy Tuschel (31:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You want to have what they have, but you want to go above and beyond and different angles on this journey with me.” – Stacy Tuschel (00:00)
• “If you converted at 2.5%, you're in there. So it's not that you have a broken funnel, it's just you want more, which means we've got to fill the top of the funnel, right?” – Stacy Tuschel (06:40)
• “Tracking is the secret sauce. It is everything you need to be doing on a daily basis.” – Stacy Tuschel (15:29)
• “It's not about likes and followers. ...We made more money than we've ever made in a week.” – Stacy Tuschel (21:47)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | The key to standing out in saturated markets | | 02:52 | Importance of recent, relevant data and adaptability | | 05:58 | The “Foot Traffic Formula” explained | | 11:42 | Today’s best top-of-funnel strategies | | 15:29 | Paid vs organic traffic – tracking differences | | 16:59 | Automation: When to use manual vs. automated methods | | 18:41 | LinkedIn’s power and social KPI tracking | | 27:52 | Client retention via “next level” positioning | | 29:36 | Creating a blue ocean in the red ocean | | 31:12 | The SWOT analysis breakdown |

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Actionable Takeaways

• Focus on relevant, up-to-date data to guide decisions—not old metrics.
• Track every step: traffic, engagement, and transactions.
• Give away valuable, immediately useful freebies aligned with customer pain points.
• Test constantly; what works organically won’t always work for paid, and vice versa.
• Use manual DM strategies for best conversion, but automate where effective—always measure!
• Update viral content with conversion links.
• Qualify leads before expending resources on calls.
• Sell retention as “next phase,” not just “more of the same.”
• Analyze competitors rigorously; innovate based on their shortcomings.

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Resources & Where to Find Stacy

• Podcast: Foot Traffic (Three episodes per week)
• Instagram: @stacytuschl
• Signature Program: welloiledoperations.com
• LinkedIn: Occasional content, LinkedIn Lives

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“Congrats to you, Stacy, and thanks so much for being here.” – Heather Monahan (33:13)

Transcript

[Stacy Tushel]

Go where it's saturated and look at what's out there and then find out what's missing. I just did some market research and I went to a lot of people that I know that went to my competitors before I was ever around. They didn't know me. And I said, what did you love about them and why didn't you stay with them? Because a lot of people go and then they don't stay. I start writing down all the things my competitors are missing versus all the things they have because a lot of us look at our competitors and go, oh, they have this. I'm going to have that. But that's not helping. So you want to have what they have, but you want to go above and beyond and different angles on this journey with me.

[Heather Monahan]

Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.

[Stacy Tushel]

I'm ready for my close up.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Tell me, have you been enjoying these.

[Heather Monahan]

New bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week?

[Sponsor/Announcer]

We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to.

[Heather Monahan]

So these bonuses are a great way.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

To help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as.

[Heather Monahan]

Much as I do. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet Stacy Tushel. She's made a name for herself as an expert in growing small businesses. Let's put it this way, she started her own business at the age of 18 in her parents backyard, turned that company into a multi million dollar business. She still runs it today. In addition to being a small business growth coach, Stacy is a bestselling author, founder of the Foot Traffic formula, helping small businesses around the world get more customers in the door, more profit in their pocket, and more happiness in their homes. I mean, she's the 2019 Wisconsin Small Business Person of the year. This woman is on fire. She's featured in Inc. Magazine as one of the top 10 podcasts for moms looking to grow a thriving business. She's been featured in Forbes, Fox, Huffington Post. Like the list goes on and on. Stacy, thanks so much for being here today.

[Stacy Tushel]

Hi Heather. Thanks for having me.

[Heather Monahan]

Oh my gosh. All right, so let's get to it. It's interesting. As you know, my background's in corporate America and running large companies. Now I run my own small and here's what's funny or what I a question to you. I guess there's so much that I take from corporate America and I it's business acumen Right. And I apply it to my business life every day. However, some of the challenges for those of us that are solo entrepreneurs is this idea of trial and error and not having the ability to forecast out like we used to in a business filled out that we had 20 years in. And I knew the cadence and I knew the pipelines, right? So when I talk about conversions now and sales funnels, this stuff is like live and die type conversation versus, you know, when it was so predictable before. Throw in a global pandemic to completely upset business deal flow. And here I am not only having you on because I want everyone here who's listening to gain value, but I need your help. I need to find ways. Stacy, how can I improve my sales funnel? How can I improve my conversion rates?

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Stacy Tushel]

Oh, so good. And just so you know, my opposite background is zero corporate. Like, started a business right out of high school. So I love when I talk to corporate people because there's things, you know, that I'm like, teach me, teach me everything. Like, I'm just winging stuff over here. And you really have to get good at using your past data, but you've got to use the most recent history. When you have corporate, you can go back however many years and go forward and. And it's just like, plug it in. Oh, here's what's going to happen. Not here. And when people are talking about funnels from a year ago or launches from a year ago, I immediately say to my clients, I don't care about any of that stuff. Because if you haven't launched something in six months or you have just started running Facebook ads now, it is a whole different ball game. So I think you have to really ask yourself, like, I think there's a couple things, but you've got to get really good at finding, like, what is that new wave? And not just riding one wave at a time. Because anything, like you said, can all of a sudden stop. If you're relying on Facebook ads or you're relying on one funnel, one product, and all of a sudden something shifts. Your business is just gone overnight, and you're trying to figure out what to do next. So I think the biggest thing is when I teach people how to work their sales funnel, how to track all of that, it really is just as simple as you're not really predicting as much as you're seeing what happens, and then you're using that data to start to predict and scale and grow. Does that make sense?

[Heather Monahan]

It seems more like you're living in that moment and Allowing that moment to help project that.

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah, I mean, I'm setting goals of what I want to happen and what I want to see, but I'm kind of just guessing, like people say, well, what number should I put that out there? I'm like, honestly, you throw whatever number you want out there, but you better start to take the actions that you think you're going to be able to do to create that success. And once you actually get the real data, the conversion rates, the open rates, the click through rates, now we've got something to say. Okay, well I want that better. If I want more results. What does my pipeline look like and where is the problem? Right. I had somebody a client was working with and she had this whole funnel set up and she was like fixing email number seven. Like, listen, they're not even getting to email number seven, right? We've got to start at the beginning, go in order, fix like the first thing they see. And that's probably what we call like driving traffic. Getting that visibility. Is your visibility converting into leads. Are your leads actually can, like are they, are they becoming consults? Are they becoming that next person to raise their hand and from there are they converting into sales? Look at what's happening and figure out where your funnel is broken. Right. And even if you've got a great converting funnel, there's still places that could be massively improved. And we've got to get good at refining. But if you're anything like me, we don't want to be doing the boring refining stuff. We're like, create this new and new product over here, a new platform and new, new, new. And you've got to get good at the boring stuff of just the little tweak here and the little tweak there and how do we get them to open more and click more and all of the things.

[Heather Monahan]

So when you're working with these companies, you know, no matter what size they are, what are some of the biggest challenges people have that you have a pretty straightforward fix for?

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah, so for me, in my foot traffic formula, it's driving traffic, getting that touch point which are leads in a transaction. But the secret sauce is tracking. So you really have to track your traffic, you have to track your touch points, track your transactions, right? So the data determines what you do next. You've got to get the drama out of it. A lot of people, we've got big goals, we think this thing's going to blow us up and then it doesn't, right. Or at least not right away. And we're like, well, only two people bought. But when I look at the data and I look at, well, what is the percentage, what is the conversion rate, right? And I try to give people benchmarks, not to say try to hit it, but just to say you're in the pretty normal range, right? So when you're not happy, like, people will say to me, it's not working. I'm like, well, give me numbers. Like, give me. Don't tell me it is not working. Tell me what the conversions are, right? So we start to see, well, this was their opt in rate and it was 32%, which is not bad for a free opt in, let's say. And then the next page had something for sale and they converted at 2.5%. Like, well, the standard is 2 to 5% and if you converted at 2.5, you're in there. So it's not that you have a broken funnel, it's just you want more, which means we've got to fill the top of the funnel, right? And sometimes people just don't have the traffic to even see. Do you have enough data to decide if this is good or not?

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

If you started running ads yesterday and you're not happy with what the funnel's doing, we don't even have enough information, most likely to see if. If enough people even saw it to get us the conversion rate we're looking for.

[Heather Monahan]

Meet a different guest each week. Confidence clear.

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[Heather Monahan]

I asked you to try to find your passion in the day and age we're living in. What are you seeing as some of the best ways to drive that top of funnel?

[Stacy Tushel]

So I think back when you know like even a year ago it was all about the freebie and then it was all about the low ticket offer Right. I honestly think both still work, but it has to be valuable and it has to really stand out. So I'm friends with a lot of people in the online space, and I know who's doing well and who's not doing well. And I will tell you, the people that are giving something tangible, right, they are walking away with something versus, like, just pitching digital and online courses and all the things, right? It's like, how can you give a system or a template or something they're actually going to want? So one of the big things that I do, and if you go stalk my Instagram, you'll see this. But I do reels, and in my reels, I'm just talking. I'm not dancing or doing anything crazy. I just talk. I give an objection or I give something that I hook them with something, right? And it could be something silly. I'm just gonna make this up. But it could be something silly about, like, you're losing money if you don't have an ea. Like, it's like, attention, CEO. You're losing money if you don't have an ea. So I've hooked you into being like, wait, I don't have an ea. I want to listen to this, right? So now you start listening, and I'm like, listen, every CEO needs an ea. Here's why. And I give you value where you are thinking, okay, I need to hire an E. And then maybe at the end of it, I say, and if you want my EA job description completely free, just comment below the word EA and I'll send it to you. This is blowing up my business. Because here's the deal. It's not some stupid freebie that you're never going to do anything with. You're actually thinking, she just convinced me I need an ea, and now she's going to give me her job description for free. So what do you do? You come in ea and, like, we just did one of these posts on Monday and today's Tuesday as we're recording this. And we had a hundred posts like that morning. Hundred comments from that one post. It wasn't the ea. One was something else. And we have all these people literally raising their hand of, like, I want that thing. But we only talk about the things that we can go even deeper with and help you on, right? So now you've raised your hand. I'm passing you over the template you asked for, right? And now I can go like, so do you have any. Are you trying to make it better? Are you trying to hire somebody new? Like, Fill me in. And I can now start conversations in DMs. So how do you serve where people actually want it? Like, nobody wants a boring freebie. That is not helpful. But what they do want is something that's going to get them results, get them fast tracked. Right. And I think that's how you can create a better experience, at least in today's market.

[Heather Monahan]

Well, for those of you who don't know what an EA is, and it's an executive assistant, so just in case anybody didn't know what that was, when I'm hearing you describe that, it's reminding me of a strategy that I have been developing over the last year to drive downloads for my podcast. And so we've done a ton of different things on LinkedIn where I have the largest, most engaged following. And so we did this DM strategy where my team was, you know, in the background testing and trying different copy that they would reach out around some around. Oh, we saw that you like Heather's quotes. If you want to hear her talk about this topic, click on the link and you know she'll speak to you about it. And it's a podcast, right? That one didn't do that. Well, then we tried. Oh, saw that you liked Sarah Blakely's post because, you know, they commented on it or whatever and thought you might want to see this amazing interview she did with Heaven Monahan. There's some great takeaways. That one is the highest convert. Wow.

[Stacy Tushel]

Insane.

[Heather Monahan]

Stacy, why did that work versus all these other ones? I have no idea. But the only thing I do know for sure is that you have to constantly be testing and trying, even if it sounds like it's a crazy idea. I don't know. I just have to test and try and like you said, look back at that data to steer us to make better decisions.

[Stacy Tushel]

And what's really weird is we're testing these and then we're picking our winners and we're running them as a Facebook ad, like a real ad.

[Heather Monahan]

Right?

[Stacy Tushel]

And the ones that are winning organically are not winning on Facebook. So we'll have different winners organically than we do with paid traffic. So you've just got. You can't just assume, oh, like, oh, we should run that as an ad with Sarah Blakely. You can try. And then you have to test it and see if it actually does well, because just because you split test it over here on one platform does not mean that's the thing that's going to work on the other platform or in paid versus organic. So that's why I say like tracking is the secret sauce. It is everything you need to be doing on a daily basis.

[Heather Monahan]

And so what are your thoughts on paid versus organic growth for anyone in business?

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah. So right now, really, I mean we are spending 80% of our time organically. And when we're doing it organically, we are then looking at what are the winners coming from our organic traffic. We then go to Facebook and Instagram and we are having a very, very small budget because we're doing mostly video views and getting people warmed up to us. So I'm not spending, I mean I to spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook ads. We do not do that anymore. It is just a different ballgame. Which is great because our expenses dropped drastically. Right. So we're really just warming them up, getting people to watch our videos. And then from there we can do that same, you know, executive assistant posting. And if people comment all of a sudden now we're driving paid traffic to that post and can do the same thing with DMs.

[Heather Monahan]

That's so interesting. Tell me about automation and what your thoughts are on that. Because I have gotten some terrible feedback from some of my automation strategies I've implemented and then I have some that are working. Okay.

[Stacy Tushel]

I am a big believer in automate anything you can. But when it comes to clients and potential clients. Right. Sometimes it's just not as effective. Right. You have to really weigh the pros and cons and you also have to test. So do something manual, see what your results are and then do it automated. Maybe it doesn't convert as well, but the volume is there that the outcome that you're looking for is higher than your manual.

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

Are some people going to hate that it's automated? Yes. But what you're looking for is that end result. Where were you able to serve at your highest level? So I love automations. I'm all in. Somebody had said, why aren't you using, I mean I'm using myself and real people in my DMs. And we were like, well, just use many chat or just use automations. It's like, well then it's not custom and we have custom conversations in our DMs. Right. We're really helping people and coaching them. And you can only do so much with like manychat and places like that. Right. So because I'm a big tracker and I can see my results, I don't try to fix something that's not broken.

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

I am leaning in to what is working for me at this moment, and to me, it's that manual strategy will, at some point it become a lot less effective, I'm sure, because as you know, in this online world, you've got to ride waves as they're happening, and then once everybody starts ruining the wave, you've got to fix something and go someplace else. So we're just really trying to diversify and be smart about it. Like, when you say you love LinkedIn, I'm like, okay, I should be on LinkedIn more. Like, why am I not doing that right? And I just know that little by little, we've got to keep adding on. So we're not just one platform with one product with one strategy, because we just don't want to be that fragile.

[Heather Monahan]

Guys, for anyone listening right now, if you are not on LinkedIn, five years ago was the right time to get on. Today is the only time. Get on there today. Stacy, this includes you. It is the algorithm. Show up every day. It's the only algorithm that you can grow organically so fast. I coached this woman last year, and she had no presence on LinkedIn at all. She now has as engaged following as I do. I think she has maybe 80,000 followers. And I mean, her engagement is off the charts and she does it all herself. So it really does not take a lot of time. If you want to grow quickly in a community where business is getting done and people are talking about business, get on LinkedIn now. And LinkedIn also has a great feature. If you're saying, oh, I don't want to go pay to, you know, use automation to test it. One of the ways that you can do it for free on LinkedIn is, and I've done this before, if I change my title, right? I do this strategically. Whenever I have a new product launch or something, I change from author to, you know, whatever. I launched a candle line. So then I put, you know, oh, co creator of blah, blah, blah, immediately a notice goes out to your entire community saying, hey, Heather just changed her job. Do you want to say congrats to Heather? And so what happens is a large percentage of people will go to your DMs to find out, like, oh, what's this all about, Heather? Or like, I want to have a conversation or I want to buy or whatever. You can set up. There's a feature in LinkedIn that says set away message. And so you can go in there and set, you know, for the next seven days. I want to put this notice out. Hey, I'm swamped right now with the New candle business. If you'd like to order your own custom candle, here's an opportunity for you to do that with a 20% off coupon. No, this isn't me. This is automation. Because I am producing candles for you. I'll get back to you soon. And now here you presented an opportunity for a conversion without 100%.

[Stacy Tushel]

Okay, I'm obsessed. I love it. I will go stalk your LinkedIn when we're done.

[Heather Monahan]

Okay.

[Stacy Tushel]

All right.

[Heather Monahan]

So to that point, and with social media, it doesn't have to just be LinkedIn. One thing that I noticed in my business, the majority of my leads come from social media, which then my goal is to try to convert them into my email list so that I can have some level of ownership. Right. Is that the correct process, Stacy?

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's what. Not that there's not more than one right way to do it, but that is what we are doing as well.

[Heather Monahan]

Okay, so that's my goal. Well, I started looking at, oh, yeah, my numbers are growing and I get more shares and likes and followers than anyone. Yay. Okay, but what does that mean to my bottom line? So I had to sit down with my social media team. Then, you know, every month they're cheering, oh, we're growing, we're growing. Great. But here's what is important to me. I need to drive more revenue. I need better prospects, better leads. I don't just want anybody anymore. I'd rather get less likes, less followers, and get the right ones that might convert. So we've started to your point, massive tracking on everything. And for anyone who's ever had a post go viral, one of our new strategies we implemented is on every viral post, once it hits a couple hundred thousand likes, we go in and alter the post because it's already being picked up on the algorithm, and we include a conversion link right in front of everybody's eyes. Okay?

[Stacy Tushel]

I love that so much. And when you bring up about the social media, it's not about likes and followers. One time we had like a record week and our Instagram following went down and I had to show the team. Do you see that growing Instagram does not mean growing our bank account. In fact, we shrunk for some reason last week, but we made more money than we've ever made in a week. Right. So we have KPIs, key performance indicators for every role. And social media, a lot of times people will have Instagram following, like the growth, Right, the likes, the comments for us. Us. What we're looking at is first engagement.

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

I'm not looking at likes and followers, but I'm looking at engagement because you do want people to engage with your content. I'm looking for number of comments under what we call our CTA posts. So when I do those reels and I say comment, the word this, those are leads, potential leads. So to me, I do count comments when they're literally raising their hand to say, I want your thing. And then from there, I look at how many of those people that raised their hand booked a consult. Because once they book a consult, it's out of social media's hands. Like, they have done everything they could to get to draw you. Draw you in and get you on your way to booking a consult. But once they pass you off to other parts of our team for sales, like, that's where their KPIs stop. So now that they're focused on how do I get people on a call with one of our specialists, how do I now it's like they're thinking a whole new way of posting. Engaging their calls to actions, all of it, because that's what they're getting measured on.

[Heather Monahan]

So your process looks like creating content to build some expertise, some credibility in a relationship. Call to action to find out who's interested in could be a potential lead and then converting that potential lead into a customer discovery call.

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah, so we're qualifying them in the DMs. Not everybody gets offered a call because if they're just not the right fit, like sometimes people raise their hand for the executive assistant and they're an executive assistant. Like they just wanted to see it. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, do not let these people jump on it. Cause we're giving coaching and strategy and like, no, no, no, this is not a good fit. So then we. They qualify them in the DMS to then decide who gets to jump on a call with one of our team. And then from there, our team over delivers, gives value, and people will naturally say so, like, what does it look like to work with you? Or tell me more.

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

And now all of a sudden, we're converting from what started as just like a simple post about grab this if you want it.

[Heather Monahan]

Okay, that was a great piece that I missed. Qualify that prospect before you waste your time getting on that call up. Meet a different guest each week.

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[Heather Monahan]

I asked you to try to find your passion. Can you share one strategy to help increase existing client retention?

[Stacy Tushel]

Existing client retention. Ooh, I love client retention. Okay, so first stop thinking of just like new people, more people, right? Think about who you already are serving and what does that look like? I think it's all about people not wanting to get more of the same thing. People want new stuff. Let's say somebody has a three month program and you're like, buy it for three more months. They're thinking, I already have it, it wasn't working. But let's be real, they didn't work it and then it didn't work. So that's what they're saying, right? What you want to share with them is what is coming on the other side. Like people feel fomo. So you want them to understand what they're going to unlock by retaining with you, by staying with you. If all you're doing is letting them keep the same thing they already have, people at some point are like, no thank you. Right? Unless they happen to be your rockstar clients. Already getting results. Right? So what can you do to let them know when you do this, you'll get this. Right? So I like to even say phase one, phase two, next level. Right? Because when you hear phase one, you don't think, oh, I have everything. You think, I'm only in phase one. I wonder what's in phase two. Right? So we even will sometimes unlock alumni Facebook groups where you don't even get in to the Facebook group with certain players in our, in our community, right? Until you've been in our programs for a certain amount of time. So now you're in advanced level conversations. You're not with the newbies that joined yesterday, right? So any language around next level, next phase. That's going to be really helpful for them to see how they can ascend versus just stay with you.

[Heather Monahan]

Oh, I love the phase one. I have not used that, but I definitely am going to use that now for sure. Markets can be saturated. Can you share with us a way to create or position ourselves as a bestseller, to stand out? That's busy.

[Stacy Tushel]

I actually Heard Steve Larsen say this, and I loved how he said it, because people always say, like, find a blue ocean. And he's like, no, I actually go to red oceans, but I become the blue ocean opportunity in the red ocean. I'm like, ugh, game changer, right? So he's saying, go where it's saturated and look at what's out there and then find out what's missing. I just did some market research, and I went to a lot of people that I know that went to my competitors before I was ever around. They didn't know me. And I said, what did you love about them and why didn't you stay with them? Because a lot of people go, and then they don't stay. And I started to hear, well, I really wish they had this or if they would have had that, I probably would still be using it. I start writing down all the things my competitors are missing versus all the things they have, because a lot of us look at our competitors and go, oh, they have this. I'm going to have that. But that's not helping somebody who's maybe comparing you, right? So you want to have what they have, but you want to go above and beyond and different angles. So I think that's probably the biggest thing is what is out there. We do SWOT analysis on our competitors all the time. We're doing a team retreat next week, and one of the activities is everybody's bringing their computer and they need to go find our competitors, find a new competitor we've never heard about, because, trust me, there's a million out there, Right? So start Googling certain phrases and then tell us, what did you Google that popped him up? Or how did you find this person? And then go find reviews on them and find their Facebook group and what are people saying? And go see their testimonials. Like, we need to use that information to see who are we up against and how do we become the blue ocean opportunity in this supersaturated market.

[Heather Monahan]

Will you break down for everyone listening what a SWOT analysis is? Yes.

[Stacy Tushel]

So it's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And the way that you look at that is strengths and weaknesses are internal. It's about me or the company itself. Opportunities and threats are external. It's about what's around in the marketplace competing for their attention. So you literally look, you do one on yourself, and then you find a competitor and you say, what? What are their perceived strengths? What are their perceived weaknesses? And then again, you do it for them as well. Now we're guessing. We do it for them.

[Heather Monahan]

Right.

[Stacy Tushel]

We can only use as much knowledge as we have. But for us, we can be super honest and share. Well, we're really fragile in this situation or we really don't have this set up. Right. Or we're maxing out on our capacity and. Right. You can really get deep here and then figure out how to fix that.

[Heather Monahan]

Oh my gosh, we can talk forever. But unfortunately you're the busiest woman in the entire United States and I know I need to let you go. So tell everybody. How do they find you? Where do they get the podcast? How can they work with you?

[Stacy Tushel]

Okay, so the podcast is foot traffic. That's by far probably the best place to go. We're dropping three episodes a week right now, so it's loaded with content. And then Instagram is my personal favorite place. Not LinkedIn yet, but Instagram. So if you go to Tacy Tushel, you're going to find me there. If you want to experience all of this stuff, go find out our reels, go check them out and see how that works and like what that process looks like. If you want to be nosy and see it is a game changer for us. I do have stuff on LinkedIn. I'm just not personally like there, but I'm doing LinkedIn lives and all of that. So I do have content over there. If anybody is a huge LinkedIn fan listening to you and if people want.

[Heather Monahan]

Your business coaching, is that one on one coaching? Is that group coaching and where do they find that information?

[Stacy Tushel]

Yeah, so you could go to welloiled operations.com so that's basically what our signature method is and how we get people to become a well oiled machine. So well oiled operations.com and all the details are there. Even if you go to Instagram. Like we are very called to action heavy. So if you ever want to work with us, you're going to see it and find it and be able to direct you to the right place as well.

[Heather Monahan]

Oh, guys. Start using call to actions and everything you're due this Hasty did not become successful by accident. This is definitely strategic. Congrats to you, Stacey and thanks so much for being here.

[Stacy Tushel]

Thanks Heather. So fun chatting.

[Heather Monahan]

All right, until next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.