[00:00:00] If you want to learn faster, get in rooms where you can watch the decisions being made. I wanna tell you a little story, because something happened recently that made me stop and think, "Ooh, that's interesting." Whenever I think that, there is normally a podcast episode in it. So as you know, or may not know, we have Day With The Queen coming up.
[00:00:18] Yeah. It's actually a really big event for us. We run it every two years, because it's quite the production. We've got 140 women coming together in one room. We've got sponsors, activations, speakers, all sorts of things happening. And we have been very intentional about the sponsors we have brought into the room.
[00:00:36] I don't want people there just because they've got money to give us. I want businesses that make sense for our women. I want businesses that align with what we are doing. I want sponsors who understand the value of the room and actually want to be a part of it. One of our beautiful sponsors has paid some cash, and at some point I said to her, "Why?
[00:00:58] Why did you decide to sponsor this event?" Because ladies, I'm nosy. And her answer was two words: halo effect. And I'm like, "What do you mean?" And she said something along ... I'm paraphrasing, something along the lines of, "Being in proximity to you makes me look good." Right. No pressure then. "Thanks very much."
[00:01:19] That's what I said. Because when someone hands you cash and essentially says, "Your reputation rubbing off on my reputation is worth money to me"- You do have a little moment of, "Good Lord, I better not bugger this up." I thought it was a little bit fascinating. She wasn't buying a logo on a screen. She wasn't buying access to 140 women.
[00:01:42] Will she get it? Yeah. She wasn't just buying the opportunity to be at Day With The Queen, she was buying association. She was buying proximity. She was saying, "I want my business standing beside your business because I believe some of the trust you have built [00:02:00] will transfer to me." That's the halo effect.
[00:02:03] And then something else happened. We launched Day With The Queen. Now, if you've been around me for a while, you know that we know how to launch things. We start with generosity. It's one of our core values, so we always kick off every single launch with a giveaway across our socials and our email list. We give out the tickets first, and then we start selling, and then we start emailing.
[00:02:29] We talk about it. We show up. We show people what was happening. We invite people. We follow up. We created momentum. And when we got down to 17 tickets, I jumped on socials and said, "We've got 17 tickets left, PSA." Two days later, we were down to three, three tickets. So I jumped back on socials and I said, "Three tickets left."
[00:02:51] And then I buggered up and nine people bought them. Whoops. Anyway, it's a bit of a problem when you can't do the math very well. But we made it work. We always make things work. And after three weeks of launching Day With The Queen, we had sold out, 140 women done, dusted And then I received a text from this sponsor, the one who had paid the cash, the one who had told me she wanted the halo effect, and I love this text.
[00:03:19] She says something along the lines of, "Congratulations on selling out Day with the Queen. My sponsorship fee has been worthwhile just to learn from you on how to plan and execute an event." And I read it and I went, "Whoa, that's super interesting," because Day with the Queen hasn't even happened yet. She hasn't even walked into the room or experienced the event or the amazing surprise and delight we have going on.
[00:03:43] She hasn't met the 140 women. She hasn't even activated her sponsorship. She's had zero conversations. She hasn't generated one lead. She hasn't made a sale. Oh, the pressure. The thing that she technically paid cash for hasn't even [00:04:00] happened yet, and yet she's already telling me, "I got value from this." And that's what I wanna talk about today because I think there's something here that we massively underestimate in business.
[00:04:12] Proximity has value. We think people buy the thing. We think they buy the coaching session or the program or the course or the event or the sponsorship or the consulting. The list goes on, right? We think they buy those things. We think they buy the strategy or the photo shoot, whatever your thing is. And of course, they do.
[00:04:31] They still want those things, but when people get closer to you and your business, they also get access to something else. They get to see how you do business. They get to see how you think, how you make decisions, how you sell. Or not how you sell, how you communicate, how you respond, how you create momentum, how you handle things when they go wrong, and how you treat your clients, how you treat your team.
[00:05:00] You know, they watch you when you follow up. They watch you when you execute. And I think sometimes we are so close to our own business that we forget that this stuff has value. I sure do, right? I didn't sit this sponsor down and say, "Okay, lesson one, here is how Emma McQueen sells out an event." I wouldn't even think to do that.
[00:05:21] There was no masterclass. There was no workbook. There was no, "Here's my five steps." I mean, I love a s- good step, don't get me wrong, but there was none of that. She simply had proximity to what we were doing, and she watched, and she learned. I reckon she was taking notes. And that's what's interesting to me because there's so much knowledge sitting inside the way you naturally do business that you probably don't even recognize as knowledge anymore.
[00:05:49] I certainly don't. The things that are obvious to you are not necessarily obvious to everybody else, yeah? Your process is part of your credibility. [00:06:00] There's just another piece that I really love. I didn't need to tell her that I know how to market and sell something. She watched us do it. There's a massive difference.
[00:06:10] I can tell you, "I'm really good at business. I'm really good at business development. I'm really good at sales." I could tell you that, fine. I could tell you, "I know how to sell." Okay, whatever. I could also tell you, "I know how to create momentum around an offer." Lovely. Who cares? But what happens when you actually watch me do it?
[00:06:32] That is completely different. Because now I'm not telling you. I'm not saying anything. I'm just showing you. She saw the giveaway. She saw the emails. She saw the social posts. She saw the urgency. She saw me talking about the tickets. She had sponsor communications. She saw the momentum building. She saw us go from launching the event to sold out in three weeks.
[00:06:57] By the way, super grateful. She saw the execution, and I think there's a lesson in that for all of us. Don't just tell people you're good at business. Let them watch you do business. I want you to think about this in your own business. If you're a copywriter, is your own copy good? If you're a social media strategist, what does your social media presence tell me?
[00:07:20] If you're a bookkeeper, what does your own business look like financially? If you teach customer experience, what experience do I have when I interact with your business? If you teach sales, can you sell? Can I see you selling? If you teach visibility, are you visible? If you teach systems, does dealing with your business feel organised?
[00:07:42] Because every single interaction is evidence. You don't have to spend all your time telling people how brilliant you are. I mean, feel free. Let them experience it. We need to think differently about return on investment. The other thing this [00:08:00] text made me think about was return on investment, because we often measure return on investment very transactionally, particularly with something like sponsorship, right?
[00:08:09] I paid this amount of money. How many leads did I get? How many people came to my activation? How many sales did I make? How much revenue can I directly attribute to the money that was spent? And yes, those numbers matter. Of course they do because cash is queen. I'm not suggesting that we suddenly stop measuring that at all.
[00:08:34] In fact, each of the sponsors have plans in place. Please measure the money. But ROI, return on investment, can be broader than a direct transaction. Because before this sponsor has even entered the room, she's already learnt something, so much. She's watched the campaign. She's seen how we execute. She's watched the generosity.
[00:08:55] She's had ideas she can potentially take into her own business. She has been associated with an event that sold out in three weeks in this economy. She has had access to us. She's had proximity. And then, then we get to the event. Then she gets to meet 140 amazing women, the right women. Then she gets to have the conversations.
[00:09:19] Then she gets the brand exposure. Then she gets all the things she originally paid for. So her return started before the event even did. And that got me thinking about our clients as well, because sometimes we make the same mistake with coaching. Someone might think, "I pay this much money, and I get a coaching session."
[00:09:39] We've talked about this on the podcast before. No, no. No, you don't. You're not buying the hour. You're buying access to the thinking, to the business brain, to someone who's been there before. You're buying proximity. You're buying pattern recognition. You're buying my little black book. You're buying years of experience, years of expertise, and you're buying the [00:10:00] conversations around the conversation.
[00:10:02] You're buying the idea that pops into your head because- You heard someone else ask a question. You're buying what becomes normal to you because of who you are surrounded by. And sometimes the return isn't I paid X and immediately got Y. Sometimes it's I saw something I can never unsee, or I realize I've been making this far too complicated.
[00:10:29] Let's simplify. Or I saw how someone else does this, and now I know, I know what's possible. And that has value because people are watching. And this is probably the biggest lesson for me. People are watching how you do business, good, bad, or indifferent. N- not in a creepy way. You don't need to shut your blinds, but they are watching.
[00:10:49] They are watching. Your clients, your clients are watching how you launch. Your prospects are watching how you sell. Your community is watching how you communicate and where and why and how. Your collaborators are watching how you behave with others. Your suppliers are watching how you treat them. Your team is watching how you lead.
[00:11:11] People who might not buy from you for another two years, they are watching what you do right now. It's creepy, isn't it, really? And every time they interact with you, they are gathering little pieces of evidence. Can I trust her? Does she do what she says? Is she consistent? Does she follow through? Is she generous?
[00:11:33] That's important to us. Does she know what she's talking about, or is she crackers? I'm not crackers, I promise. Would I want to be in her world? And this is why I think the way you do business matters so much. Your marketing isn't just your marketing. Your launch is marketing. Your follow-up is marketing.
[00:11:54] Your customer service is marketing. It's all marketing. The generosity that we do, it's all [00:12:00] marketing. Your boundaries are also marketing, right? Your delivery is market- everything is blooming marketing. The way you behave when nobody is actively selling anything is marketing because people are forming an opinion of what it would be like to work with you.
[00:12:18] You don't need to manufacture the halo. And I want to say something else about this because I can already imagine someone listening and thinking to themselves, "Well, you're Emma McQueen. How do I create a halo effect?" I don't think you do. I think you just do the work. I think you do good work. You build trust over time.
[00:12:41] You show up. You do what you say you're gonna do. All the rules in business. You care about people. You've got curiosity. You get results. You keep your promises. You become known for something. You position yourself well. You generously share what you know, and eventually people start wanting to be closer to it.
[00:13:01] That's it. That's the bit you can't manufacture. You can't slap a fancy brand on average work and call it a halo. The reputation has to be earned, and it happens one interaction at a time, one client at a time, one email at a time, one event at a time, one follow-up at a time. And if you're not following up, could you please?
[00:13:22] One promise kept at a time. And eventually, your name starts to mean something to people. That's brand. Not your logo, not your pretty fonts, not your colors, although I really like pink. What people believe to be true about you before you walk into any room. That's brand. And when another business wants to stand beside yours because of what your name means to people, it's incredibly powerful.
[00:13:51] Quite humbling, I will say. So here are my questions for you. I want you to think about your own business. You know I love some homework. What are people learning [00:14:00] by being in proximity to you? If someone watched you run your business for the next 30 days, what would they learn? Would they see consistency?
[00:14:10] Would they see generosity? Would they see courage? Would they see you following up? Would they see you selling? Would they see you doing the things you tell your clients to do? One more question. Are you making enough of your process visible? Because perhaps you're doing brilliant work behind closed doors and nobody can see it.
[00:14:34] Show people. Pull the curtain back. Take them behind the scenes. Talk about why you made a decision. Share what worked. Share what didn't. I bugger up all the time. Talk about how you filled the event. Show them how you approach the work. Let people experience your expertise rather than constantly trying to convince them of it.
[00:14:56] And finally, who are you in proximity to? Because this goes both ways. Who are you watching? Who are you learning from simply because you are in their orbit? I think about my Thriving Women. Whose standards are rubbing off on you? Whose thinking is making you think differently? Whose behavior is showing you another way to do business or another way not to do business?
[00:15:20] Because perhaps we underestimate the value of proximity from both sides. I thought I was selling a sponsorship She thought she was buying a halo effect. It turns out she was also buying a front row seat to how I do business. Did not connect that before. And before the actual thing she bought had ever happened, she's already told me it's worth it.
[00:15:45] Mind blown. I actually think that's pretty extraordinary. So I'll leave you with this. Again, what are people learning about you? What are people learning about how you do business simply by being in proximity to you? Because they're watching. [00:16:00] They're watching you launch, how you sell, how you communicate, how you follow up, and how you treat people.
[00:16:09] And every one of those moments is building your reputation. So stop feeling like you constantly have to tell everyone how good you are, and let them watch you do it. Because sometimes the most powerful form of credibility isn't convincing someone you know what you're doing. It's letting them experience it for themselves.
[00:16:32] And that, my friend, is selling without the ick. We'll see you next week on Tea with the Queen. Thanks for listening to Tea with the Queen. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It really does help to get the word out. For more about me, please visit emmamcqueen.com.au and I look forward to your company next episode.
