You Know More About Marketing Than You Think You Do

I've been a mentor for the Digital Solutions program for three years. In that time I've worked with close to a hundred small businesses across Tasmania—tradies, retailers, hospitality businesses, creatives, service providers, farmers. A hundred different industries, a hundred different situations.

And almost every single one of them walked into their first session and said the same thing.

"I'm not good at marketing."

Sometimes politely. Sometimes with considerably more colourful language. But the same sentiment, over and over, session after session.

And here's what I've discovered, close to a hundred times now: they're wrong. Not a little bit wrong. Completely wrong. By the end of almost every session, it becomes abundantly clear that these business owners do know marketing. They are good at it. They've been doing it all along. They just couldn't see it.

This episode is about why that happens—and why I suspect it might be happening to you too.

You don't need to become a marketing expert. You need to recognise that you already are one—built from years of knowing your customers, caring about your work, and showing up for your community. This episode helps you see it.

More about the Digital Solutions Tasmania program here.

More about the Digital Solutions program here.

Transcript

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Hey. Welcome to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm.

Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawa people of Lucha.

I pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.

Let's dive in and make marketing work for you.

But today's episode is coming directly from something I've been experiencing repeatedly in my mentoring work.

And I mean repeatedly to the point where I actually started keeping a mental tally because I couldn't quite believe how consistent it was.

So I'm a mentor for the Digital Solutions Program,

a government supported program that helps small businesses across Australia with their digital capabilities,

including their marketing.

And I've been doing this for about three years now in Tasmania. And in that time I've worked with close to a hundred businesses,

like a hundred different industries, like different situations, different people sitting across from me with different goals, different challenges,

and yet they keep saying the same thing.

And almost word for word,

session after session, business owner after business owner,

sometimes, you know, very politely, sometimes with considerably more colorful language,

but it's always the same sentiment.

What I hear all the time is I'm not good at marketing.

And here's the thing,

by the end of almost every single one of those sessions,

it becomes abundantly clear that they are wrong. Not like a little bit wrong, completely wrong.

They do know marketing.

They are good at it. They just couldn't see it.

And today I want to talk about why. Because I think a lot of you listening might be saying the same thing about yourselves. And I think you're wrong too.

I know, bold statement,

but here we go.

Let me paint a picture of what these mentoring sessions typically look like, because I think the pattern is really telling. So someone comes in.

We either meet in person or we meet online, but someone comes in. And these are real small business owners, by the way. You know, they are tradespeople, retailers, hospitality businesses, service providers, creatives,

farmers, all sorts.

Real businesses that are operating, that are serving customers, that are paying bills.

These are not people who've never done anything.

They are people who have built something.

They sit down and before I've even asked a question,

they say it. They're like, look, I'll be honest with you.

I'm just not good at this marketing stuff. Or I've never really understood marketing.

Or on the more colorful day, something considerably less printable than that.

But it literally is the same message, and I take note of it.

And then I start asking questions.

You know, tell me about your business. How did you get your first customers? How do you let people know what you do?

What do your best customers have in common?

How do people usually find you?

When someone refers a friend to you, what do they say? And then something really interesting happens.

They start answering.

And as they answer,

something literally just shifts.

They stop being someone who doesn't understand marketing and they start being someone who's been doing marketing all along without calling it that.

You know, I get the oh, well,

most of my customers find me through word of mouth. I've always made sure that every job I do is done so well that people can't help but talk about me.

That's a marketing strategy and it's a really good one, actually.

Or I get the I always follow up with customers after they've bought from me to make sure that they're happy. And that's usually when they come back or refer someone.

That is customer retention. That's relationship marketing.

Or I hear,

I go to the local market every Saturday and I've got to know my regulars really well. I know what they like, I know when their kids birthdays are,

and I know what they're saving up for.

That is community marketing and customer intimacy at a level that brands spend millions to try and manufacture.

So by the time that we're an hour into our conversation, I'm sitting across from someone who told me they know nothing about marketing and who has just described in their own words a marketing approach that is working,

one that is thoughtful, one that is genuinely effective.

And I will say to them,

do you realize what you've just described is your marketing strategy and the look on their face, like, every time,

it's gold.

So what's actually happening here?

Why do these capable, experienced, and resourceful business owners walk into that session convinced that they can't do the thing that they are very clearly already doing?

And I've been thinking about this a lot over the three years and, you know, 100 or so sessions,

and I think it comes down to a few things.

The first is the language gap.

Marketing as an Industry has done a pretty spectacular job of making itself sound complicated.

Like, we have jargon for just about everything.

You know, customer acquisition, funnels, omnichannel strategies,

conversion rate optimization,

lookalike audiences, brand equity,

above the line, below the line.

When a small business owner who's never worked in marketing hears this language, they don't assume that marketing is this technical, specialized, complex thing that requires specific training to understand.

And since they don't speak that language,

they conclude that they don't understand marketing.

But here is the thing. That language is just a layer on top of something fundamentally human.

Marketing,

at its core,

is understanding people and communicating value in a way that resonates with them.

Every good business owner does this. They do it in their sales conversations.

They do it in how they present their products.

They do it in how they treat their customers, in the reputation they build in their community.

They're doing it every single day.

They just don't call it marketing.

So when I sit down with a business owner and I translate what they are doing into marketing language, you know, I'll be like, oh, what you're doing or what you're describing is positioning, or, you know, that's essentially your content strategy or what you've built.

There is a referral program.

And then I just see their faces and just something clicks. It's not because they learned something new. It's because they recognize something they already knew in a language they hadn't been given access to before.

The second one is the comparison trap.

Most small business owners, when they think about, you know, doing marketing,

they're comparing themselves to something that has almost no relevance to their situation.

Like they're comparing themselves to big brands with marketing teams and massive budgets. They are comparing themselves to the online business gurus they follow, you know, on Instagram, who are posting seven times a day and running whatever elaborate funnels.

And they're comparing themselves to some imagined ideal of what good marketing looks like.

And against that comparison,

of course they're going to feel like they're falling short because they don't have a team, because they're not running ads, because they haven't built a massive social media following,

because, you know, their website was built by their nephew in 2019 and it probably needs some work.

But that comparison is completely meaningless.

A trades business in Regional Tasmania does not need to market like a Susan startup. A local bakery does not need to market like an online course creator.

The marketing that works for your business is the marketing that reaches your specific customers in the places they are actually present in. And Builds the kind of trust that makes them choose you.

And for many local and regional businesses,

that looks a lot more like, like excellent word of mouth and genuine community presence, then it looks like a sophisticated digital funnel.

When I help business owners see that the comparison they've been making is irrelevant.

That the question isn't, you know, am I marketing like my, like the big brands, but am I doing marketing that works for my specific business and my specific customers?

That's when the whole thing reframes and suddenly what they've been doing looks a lot better than they thought.

It's just everyone gets into that trap, especially with social media. It's like, I'm not posting on socials, I'm not on Instagram. Da da da da da.

You don't need to do what so and so and so and so are doing.

You need to do what works for your business in your specific business, in your specific customers, in your location.

Okay, I'll stop ranting.

The third thing is the confidence gap,

and this is maybe the most important one. A lot of what I see in those sessions isn't actually a knowledge gap, it's a confidence gap.

These business owners, they know what they're doing, they have good instincts, they have real genuine expertise in their industry and an understanding of their customers.

They're making pretty decent marketing decisions. Like maybe not perfect ones, they might have some room to improve, but like pretty good decisions. What they don't have is confidence that what they are doing is right.

They're doing it,

but they're second guessing it.

They're not sure if it's good enough. You know, they've been told, you know, by ads, by social media, by the general noise of the online business world, they've been told that they should be doing more, they should be doing it differently, and they should be doing it on platforms that they're not on,

or doing it in ways that they don't feel comfortable with. You know, anyone here talking about video and getting on camera and so they feel like they're failing even when they're not.

So what those sessions give them, what I get to give them makes me so happy. What I get to give them is simply this, like a confirmation that what they already know is valid, that their instincts are good,

that what they've been doing is working. Even if they couldn't see it, that's the direction they were already heading in and it's already a good one.

That's not teaching someone marketing, it's just, you know, giving them permission to trust themselves and I love it because the impact of that is enormous.

I literally love it when I get to say to people,

you're already doing marketing, and you're doing it really well. And it just makes me happy. I can see people's faces light up and go, oh,

it's just great. All right.

I want to spend a moment on the sounding board piece because I think it's underappreciated.

So much of what these mentoring sessions are, and honestly,

so much of what good could coaching and mentoring is in general is not about the mentor having answers that the other person doesn't have.

It's about creating a space where the person can think out loud.

It's about being able to say the things that they've been thinking, but in a private,

safe space and for them to say it and hear themselves say it.

Because there's something that happens when you articulate something out loud to another person that happen when you just think it in your head.

It becomes more real, like,

more testable.

You can hear whether it makes sense or whether it doesn't make sense in a way that you can't when it's just going around inside your own head.

And a lot of business owners that I sit with, they've been carrying their marketing questions and their doubts and ideas.

They've been carrying that around privately for months, like, maybe years.

There's nobody to talk about that kind of stuff. You know, like their partner, you know, they might be supportive, but don't really understand the business specifics. Their friends don't know about marketing.

They can't exactly, you know, workshop their strategy with their competitors.

So they come in with this backlog of unspoken thinking.

And when I ask the right questions, it all comes out. And quite often in the process of it coming out,

they answer their own questions. I love this. It's so good. Like, they answer their own questions. They solve their own problems. They articulate ideas that they didn't even fully know they had.

And my job in those moments is not to give them the answer. It's just to ask the question that unlocks it.

And I think about how many business owners are out there right now carrying that same backlog of unspoken thinking with nobody to ask the questions that will unlock. Unlock it.

And how much of the I'm not good at marketing feeling is really just, you know, I've never had the space to think this through out loud with someone who could help me see it clearly.

Like, is it really that you're not good at marketing, or is it really that you just haven't been able to verbalize it and, you know, have that sounding board. That is not a knowledge problem,

that is a support problem.

And that one is very easily solvable.

So if what these business owners need isn't more knowledge, then what is it?

Based on the three years and close to, you know, 100 sessions, here's what I've observed.

They need someone to reflect back what they're already doing. Well, not in like a hollow cheerleading kind of way, but genuinely, specifically, like with actual recognition of the particular things that are working.

And why?

Because when you're in the thick of running a business,

you just lose sight of what you're doing. Well, it's hard, like it's hard to read the label from inside the jar. You only see the gaps.

So having someone point to something specific that you've done and say, that's actually really smart, do you understand why that works? That is worth more than almost any advice you could give.

They need clarity on what's actually important.

Because the noise out there, like the content about what you should be doing, what platforms you should be on, what strategies you should be implementing, it's just overwhelming.

Even to me. I'm in it every day. It's overwhelming and it creates this sense of,

you know, that there's an infinite list of things that you should be doing that you're not.

One of the most valuable things I can do in a session is help someone narrow that specific thing down to two or three things that actually matter for their specific business right now, not the 20 things they've been told they should be doing,

just two or three that are actually moving the needle. I love this, like just strip it all away.

And they need permission.

This is the one that always surprises me a little because it sounds so simple really. But business owners, especially small,

local,

non marketing background business owners are waiting for permission to trust their own judgment.

Permission to focus on what's working rather than chasing what's trendy.

Permission to say no to platforms that don't suit them.

Permission to keep doing the thing that's been building their business for years rather than, you know, blowing it up and start again with something else.

And when that permission comes from someone who actually knows what, what they're talking about, who can see their business clearly. Because I'm looking from the outside in,

I can say with real conviction that you are heading in the right direction,

that changes something.

The self doubt that was burning energy and creating paralysis,

it just, it lifts and then they walk out ready to actually do the thing instead of just forever second guessing it.

Sometimes that is all I do. I literally just tell them, don't worry about that. That doesn't matter.

You don't need to worry about that.

Focus on this. And they are already doing it.

It's just. It's great.

So what's the point of me telling you all of this? You know, what's the takeaway if you're listening to this episode?

Well,

if you're someone who has ever said I'm not good at marketing,

I want to challenge you on that.

Before you write yourself off, I want you to actually examine the evidence.

You know, how did your first customers find you?

How do people find you now?

What keeps your existing customers coming back?

What do people say when they refer someone to you?

Have you ever done anything to get your name in front of new people?

Have you ever thought deliberately about who your best customers are and what they have in common?

Because if you've done any of those things intentionally or not, consciously or not,

under the label of marketing or not,

then you know, marketing,

you've been doing it.

And the fact that you haven't called it that, or that you've never taken a course on it, or that you can't speak the jargon fluently doesn't change that.

The question isn't whether you know marketing.

The question is whether you're giving yourself enough credit for what you already know and whether you've got the right support around you to help you see it clearly and build on it.

Because here's what I've learned from a hundred sessions.

The gap between I'm not good at marketing and I've got a solid marketing strategy that's working for my business is almost never a knowledge gap.

It's a clarity gap, it's a confidence gap, it's a support gap.

And those are all fixable.

I want to share a couple of examples without naming anyone, of course,

because I think they illustrate this better than anything I could say like, about this.

So I worked with a tradie.

He was genuinely convinced that he knew nothing about marketing,

didn't have social media,

didn't have a fancy website, had never run an ad in his life.

By his own assessment, marketing was, you know, 0 out of 10.

And then I asked him how he gets his work, and he told me that every single job he does, he makes sure the site looks immaculate when he leaves. He's meticulous about it,

and he always lets the neighbors know when he's going to be working nearby. Like he knocks on the door, introduces Himself leaves a card,

follows up with every customer three months after the job.

Ish.

Because we're all busy to check that everything's still perfect.

Do you know what his marketing is?

He's impeccably neat and professional in a visible way. He introduces himself to the neighborhood,

which, by the way, is full of potential customers. And he has a systematic way to follow up that keeps him top of mind exactly when people might be thinking about their next project.

That is a referral and retention strategy that many sophisticated businesses would be delighted to have. And he's been doing it for years.

He never thought of it as marketing.

I also work with a woman who runs a small retail business,

and she said, I don't do any marketing is what she told me. She just has a shop.

She's not on social media much.

She doesn't do ads, doesn't do email marketing. And then I found out that she knows virtually every regular customer by name. She remembers what they've bought before.

When something comes in that she thinks a specific customer would love, she texts them personally.

She also quietly sponsors a local community event every year, not for the branding, just because she believes in it.

And she's been doing this for long enough that the community genuinely considers her shop to be part of the fabric of the place.

So we've got customer intimacy,

community investment,

personal outreach.

That's marketing.

That's some of the best marketing there is. And she had no idea that she was doing it.

These are the stories that stay with me because they remind me that great, good marketing isn't always what it looks like in a textbook or a course or an Instagram reel about business strategy.

Sometimes it's just someone who cares deeply about what they do.

They treat people really well,

and that, when you look at it clearly, is the foundation everything is built on.

So if I could say one thing to every business owner who's sitting there right now thinking, yeah, that,

that's them. I don't really know what I'm doing. This is what I want to say.

You know your customers better than any marketing expert does.

You know your industry, you know your community.

You know the people that you serve and what they need and what matters to them.

That knowledge is the most important marketing asset. You have.

Everything else, the strategies, the platforms, the tactics, the. Those are just tools for communicating what you already know.

You don't need to learn to be a marketer. You need to learn to trust that what you already know has value and then find the right way to communicate it to the right people.

That's all marketing is and you're already closer to doing it than you think.

So there you have it.

Close to 100 businesses, close to 100 times I've heard I'm not good at marketing and close to 100 times it turned out not to be true.

You know more than you think you do.

You're doing more than you give yourself credit for. And most of the time what you need isn't more knowledge,

it is simply clarity on what you already know and confidence to trust it and permission to keep going.

So I've got an action step for you this week.

I want you to write down three things you are already doing,

intentional or otherwise. Three things you're already doing that are getting your business in front of people or keeping your existing customers coming back. Three things,

not things that you should be doing. I want you to write down the things that you are already doing and then I want you to sit with those three things and recognize them for what they are.

And that is marketing.

You're doing marketing and you're doing marketing that's working even if nobody ever gave you a certificate for it. You're doing marketing.

And if you're in Australia and you think your business might be eligible for the digital solutions program, which is any business with less than 20 full time employees and they have a program all over Australia,

I would really encourage you to look into it. So I'm a mentor for Tasmania, so unfortunately if you're not in Tasmania I can't mentor you. But there's mentors across the whole country so look for digital solutions in your state.

I'm part of digitalsolutionstas.com so if you are in Tasmania, look that up.

It's a government supported program. The mentoring is subsidized which means that you can get, you know, proper personalized, one on one guidance for your specific business without a massive investment.

I will pop some of the links in the show notes. It is very, very affordable.

So if you want some support,

definitely look it up if this episode resonated, especially if you've ever said I'm not good at marketing and now you're not so sure if that's true. I would love it if you left a review and sent me a screenshot.

I will send you my Marketing Momentum playbook as a thank you. So just send your screenshot to email. So hello biancamckenzie.com or DM me on Instagram Bianca McKenzie and I'll send it straight to you.

Now remember, you don't need to become a marketing expert. You need to recognize the marketing expert that's already in there, built from years of knowing your customers,

caring about your work, and showing up for your community.

That person exists,

and I've met nearly a hundred of them, and I have no doubt you're one of them, too.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the new School of Marketing podcast. Now remember,

I'm not good at marketing is almost never the truth. I don't want to hear it anymore. It's just what it feels like before someone helps you see what you're already doing.

I'm Bianca McKenzie, and I'll catch you next week. Until then, keep making marketing work for you,

because you already are.