Mindset is the Foundation - Profitable Nonprofit Podcast Ep. 002
How Hapacity Marketing’s founder, Holly Reardon sees mindset as the foundation of all entrepreneurial success.
Owner of Hapacity Marketing, Holly Wentworth, explains the importance of mindset in nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurial ventures. Holly experienced years of helping startup founders overcome limiting beliefs as the first step to successfully marketing their business/organization.
The Profitable Nonprofit Podcast
The Profitable Nonprofit Podcast's goal is to educate nonprofit leaders on strategic and tactical marketing advice to increase donations, acquire new donors and tell their mission's story.
TRANSCRIPT:
nonprofits, they're often servant leaders. I have seen that as well. And the biggest thing that I see that comes with that is they say, "Well, I don't want to charge more because I feel like I'm gouging people." Or like, "Why should I do that?(...) If my why is bigger than that? If my mission isn't money, you're making a thriving business,(...) why should I be charging any money? Maybe I should offer it for free."(...) Well, no, because again, if you charge more, you can contribute more. If you don't have enough money to even pay for your family, you don't have enough money to serve the audience that you want to serve in the way you want to serve them.(...) Welcome to the Profitable Nonprofit Podcast where our goal is to educate nonprofit leaders,(...) strategic and tactical marketing advice to acquire new donors, increase their donations and overall just spread their message.(...) Today we have Holly Reardon with us from Opacity Marketing. She's a superstar marketer. She knows how to light up a room and make people take action. Welcome, Holly. This is awesome to have you here. It's like super cool. Thank you. I'm ready to run through a brick wall now because you just made my whole day.(...) I feel like I need what you just said on a framed thing on the wall to remind myself. Thank you for that. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
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The honor is all mine. I think when I look at where you are now, I'm always a little starstruck.(...) But maybe for me and for anybody listening, let's just start from what is the journey that took you from where you started to where you are now and maybe a little of what you're doing now. Yeah, I was actually reflecting on that because I grew up a lot more nervous, not wanting the spotlight, very much wanting to blend in.(...) Then growing up in Maine in a small town, I think everybody knows everything about you.(...) Six years ago, I moved to St. Louis and that was the first time in my life where I said, "Fuck it. Can we swear?" I was like, "Fuck it. I'm just going to lean in and I'm going to see how big I can go and how much I can achieve my dreams." I had an internship unpaid and then just found my way into marketing, did the whole corporate thing for a while.(...) As I was going through, I got the promotions, I got all the hard and fun jobs, got all kinds of lessons along the way, met tons of people.
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Then probably, let's see,(...) three years into the corporate life, I was like, "Gosh, I'm bored.
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I want to do even more." I always knew I had this entrepreneurial spirit within me and it was just a matter of time that I was going to lean into it. Finally, I just bought a house with my husband. He wasn't my husband then, he was just a boyfriend.(...) We had just bought a house. I had a really good job making 68,000 a year benefits and I was like, "I'm going to quit.
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I think I'm going to build the business." Joe, he was so supportive the whole time.
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I created the thing and it quickly popped off. I learned that I was charging too low(...) taking on way too much work. I had to hire people and then up my rates. Then finally today, three years later, I feel like I finally have a business that is functioning more effectively. I'm really proud of it. I feel more in tune with my mission and my why.(...) My clients are just so amazing. I love all of them and I genuinely mean that. That's the road. It's been great. It's been a long road and a well-lived road. I see you now, you're always happy.(...) I know there's probably stuff going on under the hood. Everybody's got their stuff going on, but in general, it seems like you're in a happier place with the nine to five that you work or you're an entrepreneur probably longer.(...) I think that you're helping entrepreneurs startups and specifically(...) female entrepreneurs and female startups, correct? What was the decision for you to say, "I'm going to help these people specifically?" I think I'm a big visionary.(...) I love dreaming. I love sleeping, dreaming, and I just love dreaming big.(...) What I love about entrepreneurs is there's a shared values there. They also are dreamers. I feel like the problem that they're trying to solve the whole time, they want to be able to keep dreaming and not always be so
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tied down in the execution. It can be a lot. I like to come in and solve that problem and say, "Hey, keep on dreaming, doing your thing. That's the reason you built this amazing business. Let us handle the marketing so that way you can keep building it up and achieve those huge dreams that you have." Specifically with just focusing on women,(...) I feel like I know so many women in my life who have these big dreams. They don't always do anything about it because there's a lot of... We all hear imposter syndrome. I think just society puts a lot of pressure on women to fit a certain box to do one thing in our lives. Just like men, we can be multi-passionate too. We can want to do a million different things and change our mind.
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I like to support that group because just like with the entrepreneurs,(...) I can relate more.(...) There's similar values and also similar struggles. Not to mean that we need to sit there and trauma dump on each other, but it's the other side of it of like, "Yeah, that happened. How can we keep going? How can we persevere and kick ass and show the world how fucking awesome we are?" That's amazing. It's really cool to see how strong your why is. I knew you were perfect for this podcast just because I think there are a lot of nonprofits who are entrepreneurs at heart and they see a problem. They see a specific person or creature or something that they're not getting the help they need.(...) They say, "I can be that service for them. We can be that problem." They found a gap in the market. If you want to give businessy, they found the gap in the market and they found the product for it. Holly is going to be perfect because she works with all of these entrepreneurs, all of these startups.(...) I think there's a lot of overlap that we could probably talk about and might be beneficial to some of these nonprofit leaders. Even startups and small businesses, I found in talking to my mentors,
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it's such similar problems in the smaller businesses as the bigger businesses.
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It's resources. Do we have enough people and good people? Are we solving the customer's problem? It's the similar stuff just at a different scale.(...) I think even businesses of all sizes are going to relate to some of the things we talk about.(...) One thing you've really touched on a lot is(...) the mindset of these startups, these entrepreneurs, and a lot of limiting beliefs. A lot of, "Oh, maybe I should charge more. Maybe I should do this or that." What are you finding are some of the common mental roadblocks that these entrepreneurs are facing?(...) Yeah. I can speak to myself especially because I've gone through a lot of this.(...) Am I charging enough?(...) Even if I do charge what I think I'm worth, do other people think that I'm going to be worth that amount? Is the problem I'm solving? Is the solution good enough for the customer?(...) Am I the person for the job?(...) Why wouldn't they go to somebody else? There's all these things that people, especially women and just startups, entrepreneurs in general, we create up in our head of why the reason we're not the one. But the way I reposition, reframe all of that is all you have to do is just to be a little bit better, a little bit smarter than your client or customer in that area to solve their problems.
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Because it's that simple. If you're a little bit better than them, they're glad. Most businesses, they know marketing. They know every area of their business. They know HR. They probably know a little bit about accounting and finance and all the other different parts because they have to if they're the leader. I think it's just about reframing that. You don't have to know everything. You just have to be willing to go find the answers or be willing to say, "I don't know right now.(...) I'm going to figure it out." Just be true to your abilities and lean into those skill sets that you have.(...) One of the things that you're talking about that keeps popping up is just a little bit better. I think for a lot of nonprofits, they started in the pursuit of just a little bit better or a lot of visionaries say, "We're going to do this a thousand times better." I know a lot of nonprofits, they say this specific group of people, they really need help. There are some government programs maybe that aren't giving them the help that they need. I think that our nonprofit could just do a little bit more. I think, listen to Holly everybody.(...) If you can just do a little bit more, that's where people start to say, "Okay, your nonprofit, your startup is something that I would donate to, that I would donate my time to." It's just that little bit better. Here's me just talking out of books. I'm an avid reader and I've been reading Positioning. That's an old classic, marketing classic.(...) They're also saying, "What can you do to position yourself not only so you're a little bit better, but so you're not doing the exact same thing, but something a little different." It doesn't have to be incredibly different, but just a couple degrees different. A super basic example is the single blade razor. All of a sudden people come out with the double blade razor and everyone's like, "Oh, that's so much better." That's positioning. In the sense of a startup, a government agency, they're doing something. Maybe they're providing services to the homeless.(...) Your nonprofit maybe shouldn't do the exact same process that the government agency is doing.(...) What can you do differently?(...) Yeah. A way to do that is to stop looking at everyone around you. Go and reflect separately without doing a deep dive in competitor analysis. Just do a deep dive in who you are and what makes you to be the person that solves this. There's going to be a different approach that comes from it because you're not the same leader as so-and-so business or nonprofit.(...) It's going to be different, but you have to not get so caught up in what everybody else is doing. You have to focus on you.(...) A lot of people don't do that because they're like, "Oh, what they're doing is working, so why would I reinvent the wheel?"(...) Because it's positioning, like you were saying. That's how you stand out. Instead of blending in in a sea of similar products and services or solutions,
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you're the obvious choice for your audience.(...) I love that. It really is. I think another mental roadblock of a lot of nonprofit leaders are servant hearts. They will do anything for the service and overlook everything for themselves.(...) If you're listening, just take the next 10 seconds and say, "What do I need and what can I look in on myself to provide to other people?" You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of other people. Yeah. It's like the plain idea of if you have a kid, you bring the kid on the plane with you, put your mask on first before your kids because that's the way you create something that's thriving and you can save both of you versus passing out and your kid dies too. That's not great. That's not really what we're trying to do.
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You know what I was thinking about too?(...) You mentioned nonprofits. They're often servant leaders.(...) I have seen that as well. The biggest thing that I see that comes with that is they say, "Well, I don't want to charge more because I feel like I'm gouging people." Or like, "Why should I do that?(...) If my why is bigger than that? If my mission isn't money or making a thriving business,(...) why should I be charging any money? Maybe I should offer it for free."(...) Well, no, because again, if you charge more, you can contribute more. If you don't have enough money to even pay for your family, you don't have enough money to serve the audience that you want to serve in the way you want to serve them.(...) Yeah. In the terms, I think a lot of nonprofits will be like, "Well, we don't sell a service." It's like, "Okay, maybe not." But you probably ask every day for money.(...) I think it's a little revealing sometimes for the amount that you might ask for. You might feel terrible asking for $100 when maybe it's more appropriate to ask for $1,000 or $10,000 or a million dollars.
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Why not? How do you ask that question? How do you get over your own limiting beliefs that you are more valuable than you think you are? If your service is truly helping people or creatures or anyone, then you should ask for more money. If you're providing services that go back to your nonprofit, then charge more money because it's going to a good cause. You're not here feeling greedy. It's like Beyonce. Beyonce charges a lot of money for her shows, but she's one of the biggest philanthropic philanthropists. Yeah, philanthropist. Yes, that's a tough word to say. She's one of the biggest ones because she makes all this money and then she gives it back in a lot of ways. Yeah, she's still balling. I think she's a billionaire. But the whole point is if you charge good money for your services, and I'm not saying pull it out of nowhere where you're like, "All right, screw it. Let's charge a million dollars." Have some
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analysis there of why you're charging that amount and what you need.
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But at the same time, don't shoot yourself in the foot before you even start.(...) I might have to take your advice too, Holly. You're always driving jams.
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Do it. Charge more until someone says to you they can't afford it, but that has nothing to do with you.(...) It's true. It's true.(...) But that does come into, I think,(...) when people look at marketing, especially nonprofits,(...) sometimes it can be really difficult to convince the board or other(...) leaders to say, "Hey, we need to invest some money or time or something into marketing." Do you want to talk a little bit about how you view marketing and the costs maybe associated with that? Yeah.(...) And that's a tough one because I feel like to get into the jargon, there's a whole funnel, right,(...) to make it really basic, awareness, engagement, and conversion. And then there's a ton more levels there. But I think it depends on what your goal is. And as a company, you have to get really clear on what that is and what stage of that goal you're in. If you want to earn lots of money(...) but people don't know about you yet, you're in an awareness stage.(...) So you need to focus on getting awareness out. That means you might spend money on social media or SEO or video because YouTube, that's how you get discovered. That's awareness. That's visibility.
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Or again, if your goal is still to make money and people know about you but they're not necessarily engaging with your content, they're not being reminded,(...) they're not liking, they're not watching, they're not subscribing,(...) then you need to think about, okay, maybe you're in an engagement(...) stage of the business. How do we get people to engage with you? How do we get them to visit your website so then the end result is that they donate?
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So you just have to know where you are and kind of like the stages because obviously the end,(...) once people have, you know, they learned about you, they've engaged with your stuff, they've visited your website and all that.(...) And then how do we get them to purchase? So there's all these steps in different marketing channels in order to do so and get to the end result.(...) And even further than that, once they're paying, how do we continue to keep them paying? Because it's way more affordable to maintain your current customer base than it is to acquire new ones. So how do we do that? And marketing and obviously customer service and some other departments are so important for that. My husband, he's an accountant, he always says that the first department to get fired in a down market is marketing.(...) And that is actually the time when you need to invest more in marketing. And I'm not just saying that coming, it's going to sound biased, of course, I'm in marketing.(...) But genuinely, while everyone else is pulling back on marketing spend, you put more dollars into it. And it's easy to stand out because you're putting in more effort.(...) And it's just
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marketing is such a good thing, because it's your reputation. It's how you make money and keep making money.(...) And it's also it humanizes your brand. So you have to be able to spend money, you have to invest in it to continue doing those things. Yeah, yeah. And I think you hit a lot there. So just to kind of recap, I think super important is understanding what what stage of awareness your customer is in about your company. So you've you kind of talked about the buyer's journey of funnel.
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That awareness stage is, hey, we're not buying anything, we're just discovering you. You guys are kind of cool. Maybe you're not being sold anything yet. But they at least heard who you are and see something about you. And I think a lot of people skip that step. And then they just put out like, this is who we are. And then expect a million dollars in donations.(...) And it's like, people won't even get to that video in the first place. Yeah, it's like dating. You wouldn't ask someone to marry you on the first date. Imagine that. Like imagine like going on a first date with someone being like, will you marry me? Like it's cringy. And the same thing goes for businesses.
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So if you're taking anything away from this, don't ask to get married on the first date. You got to be putting content out. It doesn't have to be video. And you don't have to necessarily pay for it either. There are a lot of ways that you can make this work on your own. I always recommend there are reasons why you go with experts. But there are plenty of ways and hopefully through this podcast and through some of our other material on our website, check out the blog,
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you can understand a little bit of how you can do this yourself.(...) So that eventually you can afford some expert services and you don't have to be putting your time and energy into that marketing thing. You can focus more on the story of your mission, getting in front of, you know, maybe very specific people.(...) Not marketing stuff. And it takes a lot of time because if people aren't coming into your nonprofit, it's going to shut down. Right. And I struggle sometimes I've worked with some nonprofits who are near the end of their rope because they just refuse to market. Or they'll do it a little bit and not invest all the way. It's like once again, going back to the dating type thing. It's like being in a relationship with a partner who is one foot in one foot out. It's like sometimes they're, you know, there for you. They're the best partner ever. And other times they're staying out till 4am getting drunk with their with their guys. Did I just make that super feminine? I love it.(...) I'm just saying like, you know, you got to have both but both feet into, you know, the marketing bucket or none. Like you have to decide. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully in the marketing bucket. Yeah. Yeah. I'm it benefits them and benefits their audience to keep being reminded.(...) And it's a long game. It's not a super fast thing. You don't get married after one date or two dates or three dates. Maybe maybe you do. But if you're Kim K or something, you're Kim K, but she's rich. She can do what you want. She can afford several weddings. She can afford several weddings, divorce lawyers, all of that fun stuff. So she's cool with the third day marriage.
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But your nonprofit is not. It's not. So take some time. Try it. Just like a couple stats, just so I can,(...) I've sent out an email that the subject is like, why are you shooting yourself in the foot? And it's really like user generated content, which is someone just walking and talking with a cell phone saying, hey, check this out. And they upload it to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, whatever has a 10 times more watch rate than like professionally done content. Yeah. And I'm like, people ask me, like, why are you sharing that information? Aren't you like a professional content company? Like, yes, but I want you to get the views that you need. And I also understand the format of each platform. So like if you're having an event,(...) probably not going to be good to have like a walk and talk cell phone video that you're playing at your gala.(...) But maybe for some of your social media,(...) it's good to have the walk and talk. You're like the queen of the walk and talk video and people engage with it because it's human and authentic and people, I engage with it. And so that's good. Yeah. You know, so yeah. And I think it just changes your approach. You can be a company that does this professionally. And it doesn't mean that every time you go to a shoot, you need your most expensive camera.(...) Like staying with trends and updated just means that, okay, as a marketer, I'm going to continue to solve your problem. I'm going to continue to do my best to get you the views, to get you the donations and all those other things.(...) So yeah, I think that's something that I always keep in the back of my head of like, I say this to clients sometimes of my ultimate goal for you, my like biggest happiness moment would be you don't even need to hire me anymore. And I genuinely mean that. Like you have enough revenue coming in that you can hire your own team of marketers because imagine where someone's businesses at that stage, you know, that where they don't need me, that I've been able to build them up to where they're like, all right, this is a lot of work. We need a person for this, a person for that. So I just, I think that's what it's about is of hiring, like outsourcing your marketing means that you have someone whose literal job is to stay updated with the trends and also pivot as things are changing to give you the best product possible. Yeah, I think that ever learning mindset is so important. And I think what is important for people in whatever content they're creating is to understand the real business of it is very data driven.(...) Yeah. Authenticity, of course, you'll find probably in your data, the more authentic you are, the more people resonate with it, the more engagement you'll get, but it really is a data game. So put stuff out. If you don't put anything out, you won't have any data. You won't move any further than you were than yesterday. So just put something out and see what happens. And at least you can say, okay, this video got 10 views. Well, maybe in the next video you get 12 views. That is an improvement in the right direction. I'm not saying,(...) well, if you work with me, you'll get 12 views. No,(...) you'll get thousands of views, but it's just putting stuff out there and not being afraid to put it out there. It's just, it goes back to what we were talking about with perfectionism.(...) Miles and I, we both struggle with this coming from creative backgrounds.(...) It's the desire. It's a little bit of people pleasing, let's be honest. I wanted to do everything to make this the best product possible, but it's also the constant questioning of is it good enough?(...) And the more you tweak something and then you're like, oh shit, I'm not going to put that out. Then, like Miles said, you have no data. You have nothing to compare to. And then you just stay in the spiral of guilt and shame because you didn't actually put anything out. And then you feel bad because you're like, well, I'm not seeing the results. Well, like Miles said too, it takes time.(...) It really does. You have to nurture the relationship with your audience. And also you have to give them something to even look at, to engage with.(...) I think that digital marketing is evolving. It's always evolving because it's such a fast moving culture, just being online.(...) How do you see trends moving? Like, how are you trying to keep up with the times with your clients?(...) Good question. I'm subscribed to so many newsletters and transparently I don't get to all of them every month because there's a lot. But I do see kind of like what you were talking about with like the lower production value type videos, the very like Gen Z chaotic type content that people love because it's a little bit of a
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I don't know, like it speaks to the human experience, the intrusive thoughts that we have versus like the marketing when we first started, it was very much like be polished and professional. And now brands are speaking with like first person saying like, I,(...) and they're having a lot like funnier, clever type messaging out there. And I think the direction we're going is just brands are taking themselves less seriously.(...) And the brands that are not are the brands that are still kind of taking themselves too seriously, they're being too polished, those are going to be the ones that are left behind. So it goes back to that authenticity,(...) being yourself and also just being really clear on who your brand voices and who that audience is. Because obviously you wouldn't have a Gen Z voice for a, you know, a boomer audience. Right. That doesn't make sense. In addition to that too, just with AI as marketers, we need to pivot with it and use AI as like our toolbox. Because I think what jobs are going to be start popping up and I'm sure they already are is just AI technicians,(...) you know, marketers who are like executing on the AI, knowing what to ask it and then how to further that into actual marketing content. Yeah. What about you? What do you think? I think you hit the nail on the head of how it's moved from, you know, you think of older commercials. That's kind of where it was. Like only 10 channels on available on TV. And, you know, you are, you only have a certain amount of slots where you can put a commercial. So you better get that ad out.(...) And then it moves into social media and people took that old commercial style of here we go. Like blah, but there aren't 10 channels anymore. There are unlimited channels. You know, there's so many channels you will never in your lifetime be able to watch them. So you have to figure out a way to get people in. And the way is not that old commercial style. It just isn't for the most part. I'll put an ask it. Maybe there's a scenario where it is. I don't want to talk in absolutes, but for the most part, I think it is. And finding your brand voice, I think you're right as well. I think there are a lot of nonprofits that deal with very serious issues and it's not like we just walk around and make goofy videos all the time for serious nonprofits, but being authentic in, in how they operate, you know, they are still people who operate in those nonprofits and they're human beings and they're not serious and sad all the time, even though they work around serious and sad services.(...) So being able to show the authenticity of what's going on at that nonprofit is going to go way further than just being sad all the time because people don't want to do it. People turn off the Sarah McLaughlin commercial after one watch, you know, so
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people kind of get fed up with it. You got to spice it up. Yeah. You got to pull back the curtain of like show, like you said, what's actually happening behind the scenes because it's way more interesting to feel like you're in the in-crowd of like the nonprofit, the business you get to see behind the scenes.(...) So actually, I like to do that with my email newsletters is I give them some sort of announcement I'm going to give before I even tell my social media audience because they feel like they're part of something. They're like my, my group, you know, they're all groupies and I'm the star.
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Feels good.
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Yeah, that's amazing.
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Kind of final question.(...) I'm sure you could take it as far or as small as you want, but for
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someone maybe starting their nonprofit or early in their nonprofit organizational days,(...) what kind of actionable advice could you give them to maybe give them a quick win or get them get that momentum going for them?
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Yeah, if I were to start a business right now and I wanted to get some traction quick, the first thing I would do is get clear on who my target audience is. And once I know,(...) I would go interview them.(...) I would spend a ton of time interviewing them, asking them about their pain points, how they envision it being solved,(...) and also like what their biggest value is, like how do they define value? Because as businesses, we always,
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the biggest things we're always trying to solve for is saving time and making people money. But it goes further than that of like, why are we saving them time? Is it so they have more time to spend with their kids and they can be a more present mother, father,(...) whoever, or they want to make more money so they can go on that family trip or on the girls trip, the guys trip, like why do they want that money? Do they need to pay off their loans?(...) So you need to know your target audience in and out. So I would go and interview them. And what you might discover as you're interviewing them, that they're actually not the right fit for the problem you're trying to solve.(...) And as you kind of determine that, you pivot. But I think the one thing that needs to stay true as you're pivoting to a different market, your values need to stay strong. So that's another thing. Be really clear on what your values are, because you don't want to work with a client who, you know, for example, if your values are dependability, that's mine. If my client is not responsible and like getting things done, I can't depend on them to hold up their side of the deal. I'm not going to be happy.(...) So be clear on what your target audience or who your target audience is and what your values are.(...) And then from there, start creating content that immediately addresses those pain points that they gave you. Do that on social, create videos, you know, start creating content and figuring out what channels that you want to focus on to get them out there because you don't have to be on every channel. Let's be real. That's a lot to manage. But focus on those really important ones that your audience, that target audience is already incredibly active on, whether it's social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn,(...) or it's YouTube, or it's email. Maybe they're a little bit older and they still are really active in their email or to your website. And so you're creating a blog. So(...) that's what I would do. Create a lot of content and then make sure that you have things in place to measure how that content is doing. So whether that's UTM codes, we're getting real jargony here,(...) like our Google analytics on your site, make sure you have, you know, platforms or like software to measure how your social media posts are doing.(...) Dig into YouTube to see the analytics. Like that's exactly what I would do. And as you go along, pivot, you know, make changes. Really dig into the data and track all of it. So that way you can go back and be like, how did that thing do a month ago?(...) Oh, you know, and then just keep going.(...) I love it. Holly, thank you so much. If there's anything else that is on your heart that you want to put out any final notes, now's the opportunity. If not, we'll call it. But my last note here is I just want to give a great big shout out to Miles for doing this podcast, for serving this audience.(...) And also I want to tell you all of the content that you've been putting out, you've been inspiring me. So you've been, you've been building my head up, but I have to let you know that what you're doing is also inspiring me. And I can tell that you're, you're really putting a lot of effort into your business and you're going to inspire a lot of people just like you have with me. So keep it up. Oh, shucks. Well, thank you, Ollie. That means a lot. And I value our friendship and the fact that we can get into the nitty-gritty of business. Thank you. I love talking about it. I love talking to you. Thanks Ollie. And thank you everybody for listening to the profitable nonprofit podcast. So follow us on social media. I don't know. I've never done this before. Do all this stuff. Follow us. Bye.
