Erin Thomas Wong (00:00)
Today I'm going to be sharing with you the takeaways that I had from the Atomicon Sales and Marketing Conference, which took place in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago. I recorded this video in the hotel before I got on the train so that I could really remember those things that were resonating with me at that time. So if you want to hear the top tips that I gained from listening to these expert speakers,
take a listen to this episode.
Erin Thomas Wong (01:19)
I've just spent the last couple of days at the Atomicon Sales and Marketing Conference hosted by Andrew and Pete up in Newcastle. This is my third time to the event, and I've already bought my ticket for next year.
It is such a great opportunity to up level my skills, to hear things from a different perspective, to meet awesome people, to be inspired and also a great opportunity for me to meet up with some of my own members from the Life-Friendly Business community and also meet in person lots of online friends and connections that I've built up over the years.
So in this video, I just want to share some of the top takeaways before I get on the train to pass on some of the nuggets that I have learned. So I've got my trusty notepad that I've been taking notes on. So we started off with Andrew and Pete doing the opening talk and it's really, really stuck with me. So they talked about the fact that small asks lead to small results.
and that really we need to be focusing on a big cheeky ask. And it was really great at making me think about how often I am just asking for the small yeses because they feel like the safe ones, but we need to be pushing ourselves to go for the bigger asks because the worst that can happen is that you get a no. But I love the fact also they were framing around the fact that it becomes less of a cheeky ask when actually what you're doing is leveraging
your currency. So they talk about the currency that you have in terms of the skills, the access, so your network, the audience that you have, and also the results that you can bring for people. So they talked about marrying up what you can offer with the people that you are approaching to pitch as a speaker or as a client or as a guest, whatever it is.
They were saying about how important it is to, you know, really draw a line in the sand and be like, this is what I want to be known for and go all in on that. And we need to make sure that we are desire matching with the people that we are pitching to.
So the general vibe is ask bigger. And I've written down the quote, one bold move unlocks another. So that's really stuck with me. And also a no is not fatal. That's what we all need to remember. So definitely that's one thing I'm gonna do is ask bigger.
Next up, had Fearne Cotton, who was headlining and she was talking about her own personal journey with Happy Place and how being vulnerable with her audience has kind of opened up that conversation with other people about mental health. having that vulnerability means that she can connect much more easily with her audience. And they feel like it's a safe space for them to think and talk about their own feelings as well.
She was asked how she would define success. And she said it was about making brave decisions, saying no to things as well, and enjoying being in the moment, stop racing through things. And this just aligns so well with the life-friendly approach as well, because it is about doing things to your own measures of success. and it is about protecting your own energy and your boundaries.
And that's exactly what she was talking about, the journey that she's been on.
Next up, had Laura Belgray talking about emails that sell.
I really loved her talk and her approach is all about writing emails as you would to your best friend. And so having one person in mind when you're writing your emails, making them personable, making them conversational. And it was really great actually, because I've kind of learned loads of things over the years about email marketing and always wondered whether I need to be more formal in my emails. And she was really saying about, you know,
people's inboxes are so flooded these days with promotions and all this kind of information overload. And if an email looks like it is for them and it's something for them, they're much more likely to open it and read it. So she talks about writing to one person, kind of writing in an informal yet intriguing tone. So with your subject line,
She talked about not worrying about not having enough to say, because actually, even if you've got one thing to say in an email, that can be really, really valuable. One of the quotes was, no one ever unsubscribed because your email was too short. actually, people quite like things being straight to the point. We don't need to be writing essays all of the time.
And she talked about being caught up in the value trap and how, you know, before we've been told that what we need to be doing is sharing tips and strategies and actionable points. And obviously that does have a place, but she was talking about seeing value as helping people to feel something. So getting them fired up, getting them to think differently, sharing recommendations, inspiring them to try something, entertaining them, making them feel less alone.
making them feel seen. All these things add value. And so she was talking about her recommending what, you know, what she's watching on Netflix, for example, people really love that because she's adding value by sharing what she's enjoying. it doesn't have to be like formal, this is what I'm going to teach you in every single email that you send.
And she talked about the importance of telling stories that came up time and time again throughout the day as well and the power that that can bring.
And also a great tip about the footers of your emails, which I have been doing ever since I learned that from Laura Robinson from Worditude, is having that footer on your emails that basically says, this is how you can work with me and having your links. So.
It was a really, really great talk. I've got lots of things to action from that. Next up, I saw Carrie Green from the Female Entrepreneur Association. I've been following Carrie ever since I first started on my journey.
As we know, Carrie is hugely successful in the online world with her membership. And it was really great to see her in person after seeing her online for so long. And, you know, she's really personable and she talked very honestly about her journey and how she kept buying domain names and saying she was going to start a business and then she did nothing with it. And that went on for a few years until she finally launched the Female Entrepreneur Association. And then she shared with us.
the process that she'd gone through.
It was really great to see her in person and hear her story. Obviously she has gone from zero to millions. So it's a story of amazing success, but really what she was saying is, is that we just need to focus down on a few things and get really, really good at them and just rinse and repeat and keep going with it. And I think that there was a real theme of the day of
just keep going, just keep going, keep trying things, experimenting, tweaking things and going again. So she has five focuses to grow her business, which are social media, email marketing, ads, paid ads, podcast, video, and also running live workshops and challenges. And she shared with us what she does for her launches and all the different emails that she sends and all those things and doing her live sessions.
And then also the fact that at the end, if people haven't bought, not only does she survey them, but she also surveys the people that have bought and gets information about why they bought and how long they've been in her world and all those things, which I thought was really interesting because I've always heard a lot about surveying people who haven't bought, but that has given her really great data to know.
how long people are in her world before they actually buy as well, if you're doing it from the people that have purchased. So that was a bit of a light bulb moment.
And she also gave us the great example of learning to play an instrument and how, you you decide that you want to learn to play the guitar. What do you do? You know, you go on YouTube, you find training, you might get a guitar teacher and you practice every day. And, you know, when a year has gone by, you've absolutely made progress because you've been taking action and you've been learning and you've been practicing. And she was saying it's exactly the same with running a business.
over time, you are going to make progress if you're making those actions and taking those steps and if you're getting the support. So it was really great. And she talked about the whole importance of mastering ourselves. This was another common theme of the day. We are the ones standing in our own way. So what we really need to do is master that and just
push through on the days and the weeks where we're just not feeling like taking the action. If we can learn how to push through that and take the action, then we are going to be making progress.
Next up, saw Suman Randhawa, who I saw last year speak and really, really enjoyed her talk. And this year she was talking about handling objections. It was really great. I've written down so many notes here. And, you know, she was talking about the importance of kind of overcoming these objections in the content that we're creating. And she gave Joe Wicks as a great example when he was doing his online workouts and how people were thinking that
you know, do home workouts really work? Are they as effective? Will they see the same results? And then she explained about how he created content to overcome those objections and was making us think about what we could do with that in our business. And also gave us some examples about if people say, you know, I think I need time to think about this or I need to speak to my partner. She gave us some great tips on.
what we can be saying to overcome those objections and about having curious conversations with people. So if you are getting people on sales calls, know, really seeing it as a kind of collaborative conversation to understand more about the support that they need and you kind of helping them with all the information that they might need. And I really love her approach because it's not horrible and salesy. It's not that kind of like icky tactics. It's really about, this is what I'm offering.
And, you know, is it going to be right for you? Let me give you all the information. Let me help you make the best decision for you. So really, really enjoyed her talk as well.
The other talks I wanted to give a mention to were Teresa Heath-Wareing, who is fantastic and I love her podcast, My Dream Business podcast.
she was talking about the secrets behind million pound launches. I really love Teresa's no nonsense approach to this
She talked about the challenges that people are facing right now with getting people to sign up for their free events as part of their launches, getting them to actually engage once they have signed up and then getting the sales. It's really tough out there and it's changed as well over time. And she gave us some really good reality checks on the kind of conversion rates that are normal and some great examples of case studies of really successful.
online business owners and how their launch stats work out.
And she also talked through like how many things people are doing in this, in the online space to get these sales right now. And, know, we often worry that we're sending too many emails and we're putting too many posts out. And it's absolutely a fraction of what these bigger online businesses are doing. And she had a great quote here, speaking straight here. Don't be upset by the results you didn't get for the work you didn't do.
Don't be upset by the results you didn't get for the work you didn't do. Harsh, but true. Like, you know, she was just saying, you know, we've got to put the work in here. We've got to put the work in and we've to be thinking very strategically when we're launching. And when we're talking about launching, it's not launching for the first time. It's basically going through a promotional period. And she was talking about the importance of our offer ecosystem as well. And she has got brilliant podcast episodes about all of this.
And her final tip was about failing fast. And she was saying how we need to be dynamic, really. We need to be learning all the time from the things that aren't working and keep tweaking and refining yet again, this message about just keep going, rinse and repeating, seeing how things go, and then trying a slightly different way. And she had this great quote at the end. If you were 10 fails away from success,
How fast would you fail? Really, really like that one. And so then I just wanted to touch on the closing speech by Geoff Ramm. It's the first time I've seen him speak. Apparently he spoke before Atomicon, and I must have missed him. But people were saying he was an amazing speaker, and he really, really was a master storyteller. It made me feel.
close to tears, I was laughing out loud, like it was a masterpiece in terms of a keynote speech.
And what he's talking about is celebrity service for your clients, how you can make people feel special. And he was really driving home the fact that as small business owners, we have an opportunity to really make a positive impact in people's lives. And we need to be thinking about those touch points that we can be putting into every connection that we make with people. And it was really moving and
you know, really provocative thinking about what we can be doing. And, you know, for example, he was giving examples of like a wedding venue who were trying to get more bookings and, you know, people send an email saying, I'm just inquiring about this venue. And of course, they're probably sending out these messages to multiple venues. And he was like, what can you do differently? You could actually pick up the phone and respond to them with a phone call, or even better, you can just do a little video of you saying
Hi, know, congratulations on your engagement. Like you can see behind me, this is the room. We've got it all set up for another wedding. I'm going to give you a sneak peek, you know, and sending people a little personalized video. What an amazing, amazing thing to do to make you stand out. And he was really encouraging us to think about what we can be doing with those little touch points in our business to make people feel special, to make us stand out from our competitors as well. It was a really, really great end to the day.
And his strapline was to become memorable, referable, and talked about for decades to come. Absolutely awesome. You know, it was such an amazing day. And there were so many talks and so many other talks that I didn't get to see because basically you choose between four different speakers, but all of them you get access to on replays as well. So I've got a little list of ones that people have said, that was really good. I want to do that.
But it was really great as well because I got a chance to hang out with some of my Cocoon members and also other people in my Life-Friendly Business community and meet some people that I have been friends with online for a long time. We went out for dinner a couple of times as well. had to, you know, made sure I had early nights because it is so full on and, you know, my head is buzzing with ideas and I know it's going to take a while to let everything percolate. But this is just a brilliant thing to do, you know, and
Yes, it is an investment to come to a conference, especially when you're traveling up the country and staying over. But this is what we need to be doing as business owners. It's these experiences that build our confidence and give us these new skills and make us aware. Like, we don't know what we don't know until we come to events like this and we get to hear from these amazing speakers and, you know, the topics that they cover. There's just such a variety.
And there's also all the fringe events around and about the festival as well. There are parties that you can go to. you know, and actually, honestly, you know, I'm staying in the hotel just nearby. It's called the Leonardo. I've stayed here every year and some of the best conversations I have are over breakfast. I'm an early bird, 6.30 a.m. breakfast. But I've just met some lovely, lovely people,
But one thing that is for sure is that a lot of us have got dyed hair, all different colors under the sun, much more adventurous than my red. And there were lots of sparkles and glitter and just people being themselves. It's just really diverse and inclusive and such a warm, friendly atmosphere. So I highly, highly recommend it. I'm going to be here next year. So if you want to come and hang out with me,
then do let me know and I have got an affiliate link to share for Atomicon. But I just, yeah, I mean, it's just a great opportunity as a business owner to get out of your own head, get out of your own bubble and, you know, hear from people who are doing amazing things.
It really is an opportunity for us to stop and think about what we're doing and what we could be doing differently and push ourselves. you know, the big cheeky ask that Andrew and Pete opened with, you know, the worst that can happen is a no, let's just get out there. Let's push ourselves. Let's try and do things that scare us. And because that's how we're going to grow our business. So.
If you've got any questions, do comment and let me know. And I'm sure I'll be sharing more of my takeaways as they decompress and percolate. All right, take care.
