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Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast, I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals, so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you. As we all know, “Jewelry is joy”, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

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This is episode #157, and today I’m going to discuss all the ways that micromanaging is hurting your marketing efforts. And not only that, but what you can do about it. Okay, wait before you shut off this episode, because you think, “Oh, I don’t micromanage. This doesn’t apply to me.” Hear me out. Even if you’re a solopreneur, and you don’t have a team of people, you might actually be micromanaging yourself. If you work with freelancers, interns, vendors, business partners, etc., you might be micromanaging them. When you micromanage, you risk thinking too small and completely missing the big picture, along with major opportunities. You’re probably giving yourself more busy work than you need to be given yourself, and you risk loss of productivity and forward momentum. Definitely listen to this episode, because you may be guilty of micromanaging in ways you didn’t even realize, and I’ll explain how you can change your mindset and start making progress.

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But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video component. So you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching Joy Joya. I love creating this content as my act of service to you my awesome listeners and you can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on iTunes which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too.

2:10
Let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles. And you can get those links by visiting joyjoya.com/signup. Once you’re on that VIP list, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.

2:30
The first article is from Marketing Profs, and it’s all about how to add audio content to your marketing strategy this year. Quote, “just when we’re starting to get the hang of a specific platform, something hot and new comes along with an entirely different set of publishing criteria.” Phew. You’re probably just getting used to all the changes that Instagram is making. And now you’re like, oh my goodness, Laryssa. You’re asking me to publish a new type of content. We’re talking about audio. I don’t mean to overwhelm you. But I think it’s something important to know that audio could potentially inform the future of content. So marketing teams must adapt to this, quote, “ongoing evolution and media consumption”. Customer lifestyles and needs, along with new technologies, are rapidly changing, and marketing teams as well as business owners will need to keep up.

3:30
Audio marketing is what’s hot and new. And something you should potentially consider. According to Statista, the spending on audio marketing jumped $1.1 billion in 2016 to $3.09 billion in 2020. So what are the four most popular audio content marketing platforms? There’s voice search. So quote, “if your company has the capacity to invest in only one area of audio content marketing, make it voice search – Google Home, Amazon, Alexa, and Echo are some of the most popular.” Voice search devices that search engines that people use, and the availability of voice search will soon be prioritized on search engine results pages. Voice search also has a really significant impact on SEO and will be highly lucrative for online businesses. There’s also podcasts, audio books, and audio ads.

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So what are some tips to get you started with using audio as part of your content strategy? First, you want to be determining where to focus your energy and time. So focus on the greatest identified need of current and prospective customers. Set a reasonable budget of time, talent and treasure start with the low hanging fruit. So chances are you are actually already doing some form of audio content marketing. Maybe verbally answer customer questions, present videos and then use that audio from the videos and other places. So strengthen and improve what you’re already doing, and export the audio from the content that you’re already creating to other platforms. You want to think outside the box. So get ideas from a wide range of people through conversations and interviews. Write down those comments, questions and ideas, collect an ad, analyze objective, previous data, and adapt, adopt and improve. That’s really good advice for anything related to your marketing in general.

5:40
The next article is from Women’s Wear Daily, and it’s called “What to Watch dishwater diamonds the engagement ring trend for brown and gray stones”. Oh my goodness, whoever coined the term dishwater diamonds? What the heck are you thinking? That sounds so disgusting. But anyway, they seem to be trending right now. 2022 is expected to be one of the biggest years for weddings and brides are opting for unexpected stones like dishwater diamonds and brown grey champagne tone or salt and pepper colored stones for their engagement rings instead of looking for a perfect stone. These warm hues and more natural stones are getting praised for their unique character and flaws that feel more personal to many brides than a perfect stone. Quote, “they’re also more accessibly priced, meaning couples can get a higher carat weight that suits their budget”. This new trend is really ushering in a larger, significant change in the engagement ring in engagement ring choices and a move also toward yellow and rose gold settings. So look for all of those trends this year.

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And finally, the last article is from JCK, and it’s all about the hot streak of holiday sales. So holiday jewelry sales grew 32%. According to MasterCard spending polls holiday jewelry sales rose 32% in 2021, and rose 26% over the pre-COVID holiday of 2019. The Spending Pulse Index has shown strong jewelry sales for most of 2021 and noted other trends during the 2021 holiday season, including continued growth in e-commerce which increased 11% over 2020 and 61% over 2019. Consumers were definitely shopping early. They’re shopping earlier and earlier it seems is the ongoing trend. And finally Black Friday remained the top spending day of the holiday season in 2021. As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting joyjoya.com/signup.

8:01
Okay, let’s get to the main content of this episode. So first talking about micromanagement in marketing. I want to mention all the most common ways that people, business owners, maybe you or someone you know is micromanaging, even at all the different stages of a jewelry business. So one if you’re a solopreneur, jewelry designer or maker, you may even be micromanaging even if you don’t have a team of people supporting you. So for example, you may find yourself getting stuck on really small, insignificant details when it comes to marketing in your business strategy, especially if you have a perfectionist personality. Like for example, you might spend hours creating an Instagram Reel because you’re so caught up on it looking a certain way when ultimately that one Reel is not going to directly impact your sales in a major way or may end up not even getting the engagement that you desire from it. That’s just one specific example. But this tendency to micromanage yourself and your own business, even if you’re the only one in it could play out in so many ways.

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If you’re a jewelry entrepreneur with a small team or someone who works with a virtual assistant or freelancer, you might be holding back your team members from doing their jobs for a number of reasons. You’re nitpicking their work and thus making them feel afraid to really unleash their potential or and this is something I see a lot you stall on making decisions. So instead of having a forward thinking future thinking mentality where you’re planning ahead and getting everyone on your team aligned with your vision, you have a more reactive mentality and you’re making decisions in the moment or long after they should have been made. And then you just expect everyone to keep up with your whims.

10:09
And finally, if you’re a jewelry entrepreneur with a more established business or you’re a leader in such a business, you could be similarly micromanaging your team by having a quote unquote manager mentality, instead of a leader mentality. So instead of sharing your overall vision, your goals and expectations, and then really letting your team members shine, you put them into small boxes, and then detail for them exactly how their tasks should be done according to your standards and preferences. As a result, your team morale will go down, and ultimately, you and your team will just really lose sight of the bigger picture.

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So why is it just not great to be finding yourself in any one of the scenarios I just described? Well, there are a number of reasons, but I want to share my top five. Number one, this tendency to micromanage is really going to kill your own motivation and the motivation of others who work with you. If it’s just you, you are really going to frustrate yourself and burn yourself out, you’ll be unable to achieve the ideal of perfection that you want to achieve. And you’re going to wonder why the heck am I not getting the results when I’m putting in all of this work. If you’re leading a team, then your team members are going to get frustrated and they won’t feel like they’re allowed to shine. And they’re going to be so nervous about making mistakes and not doing things exactly the way you want them to that they’ll they’re going to feel like they’re set up for failure and their nervousness is going to get in the way of their success.

11:59
Number two, this mentality really keeps your business small, and it crushes innovation. How can you expect yourself and/or your team to be creative, when the expectations are so stringent, making making jewelry, creating innovation in your business, all those things require creativity, and that can’t flourish or grow when perfectionism kind of like arbitrary version of perfectionism is the standard in your business. Number three, this mentality really pulls attention away from the point, the goals, the big picture, and the business strategy. Frankly, it can just serve as a distraction while it’s masking other issues like a fear of failure, a fear of success, indecision, uncertainty about what to do next, etc.

13:01
Number four, this micromanagement mentality holds everything back and slows everything down. If you are not moving forward toward a big picture, and away from this tendency to micromanage insignificant things, then you’re going to get stuck on the wrong details and constantly be in reactive, putting out fires mode, it’s going to slow you down because you’re going to be frustrated and tired and not motivated to move ahead. And it will slow down your team because they’ll probably have to redo their work or what I think is even worse, wait on you to make arbitrary decisions that aren’t based on any sort of overarching plan or vision. So everything’s gonna be slow, you’re not gonna feel like you’re making progress.

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And finally, number five, this micromanaging mentality could be driving away customers, and damaging the customer experience without you even realizing that this is happening. When you’re so laser focused on the wrong thing on the most insignificant details because you’re micromanaging, you could be missing opportunities to step outside of yourself, and your need to control everything about your business, thus missing opportunities to really connect with customers and instead, focus on their needs. And of course, they are the most important people or should be the most important people in your eyes.

14:42
So great. Now you know why micromanaging is bad, and how it can negatively impact your marketing and ultimately your business. So how can you realize if you are guilty of micromanaging either yourself or others and stop doing it? One. If you’re easily frustrated by your business or frequently find yourself wondering, why me, why aren’t things working, you may be micromanaging, by focusing on the totally wrong things and trying to control the insignificant details. Two. If you notice that the people around you like your team members, like your partners, your vendors, anyone that you work with, is just kind of paying you lip service and not showing a lot of creativity or initiative, they may be afraid to do something wrong. And they may not even be aware of the big picture for your business because either A it doesn’t exist, or B, you’re not communicating it.

15:46
And then number three, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your business in general, and not really sure what step to take next, then you’re lacking a strategic business plan. And you’re just gonna be micromanaging by default, because you don’t know where to focus your time and energy. Are you guilty? Even if you’re not, you really want to be aware of these tendencies because I think it can be easy to fall into micromanagement mode, when your business becomes overwhelming, or you lose sight of your own role in your business and or the big picture, which is something that can happen as you grow, and evolve as a business owner or leader. Keep yourself in check.

16:32
So what can you do when micromanaging has really gotten in the way of your marketing you’ve realized it? Or you want to prevent it? You don’t want this to happen to your business? First, you really want to figure out, why are you doing this? Are you a perfectionist by nature? Do you need to always feel like you’re in control, it’s time to work on those qualities. While they can be really positive in some situations, they also have a negative aspect and can hold you back from achieving your goals. Are you unsure about your business and or how to get from point A to point B in your business. Maybe that means it’s time to get support, like a business coach or consultant, or someone who can completely take marketing or business strategy or whatever function in your business off your plate. So you can’t micromanage so that that’s not even something that’s in your vision, and you’re focused on other aspects of your business. Make sure that you’re hiring people who are right for their positions for your business culture, who are a good fit for working with you, especially if you have micromanaging tendencies. And even if you’re not at that point, you know that you want to hire in the future. This is something to keep in mind. Think about the people you would work well with who who you would allow to flourish on your team, and set those people up for success by creating systems that include checks and balances like regular employee evaluations or checkpoints and milestones for employees to know that they’re on the right track without having to run every little detail by you creating create standards for your business and for your employees.

18:24
You also want to set some serious priorities and make sure you actually have a big picture strategy and vision for your business, as well as, and this is the important part in actionable plan, at least for the upcoming quarter. Even better for six months. And even better than that for the next year. That way you’ll know to keep moving forward according to the plan, and not get caught up in insignificant details and distractions. And finally, have some trust in the process of growing and evolving your business and be ultra honest about the limitations that you yourself have as well as the limitations that any team members might have. Perhaps it’s time to get outside help to fill in those blind spots and weaknesses so that you’re not working out of a place of fear and a need to control everything.

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What did you think you can always email me Laryssa that’s laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you loved this podcast, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on iTunes. To purchase a signed copy of my book Jewelry Marketing Joy, visit joyjoya.com/book for more information.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai