83: {Interview} Marketing Your Service-Based Business with Emily Sereno

Do you own a service based business and are you struggling with how to market yourself or your business? I got you and today we are spilling all of the tea!

Emily Sereno is the founder of the Servicepreneur Network, a community designed to help service-based business owners connect, network, and build their brands. She offers marketing support and expertise to Servicepreneurs, helping them showcase their expertise and build credibility. Emily emphasizes the importance of focusing on what you have to say and how you deliver that message before considering the channels to use. She also addresses the challenges that Servicepreneurs face in marketing their businesses, such as showcasing intangible results. Emily is passionate about helping Servicepreneurs overcome imposter syndrome and perfectionism and build confidence in promoting their businesses.

Takeaways

• Servicepreneurs are individuals who offer services as their primary business service offering, rather than physical products or content creation.
• When connecting with your audience, focus on what you have to say and how you want to deliver that message before considering the channels to use.
• Servicepreneurs face challenges in marketing their businesses, such as showcasing intangible results and building credibility.
• Overcoming imposter syndrome and perfectionism is crucial for servicepreneurs to confidently promote their businesses and connect with their audience.

More on Emily HERE and connect with her on LinkedIn HERE

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Transcript

Caroline (00:01.753)
Welcome, Emily.

Emily Test (00:03.092)
Caroline, thanks so much for having

Caroline (00:05.531)
So you and I met several months ago through the podcast mastermind that Keisha Get Mary hosted. And I have just been in all of everything that you know with all your content and the strategies that you have in your back pocket. So tell me about where you are now and how did you get

Emily Test (00:22.922)
Sure. So I am the founder of the Servicepreneur Network and to do a quick definition on the word Servicepreneur, essentially what that means is I'm working exclusively with service -based businesses. So rather than having a brand that has a physical product or a content creator, influencer, if you have a service that you offer as your primary business service offering, that's who I'm working with.

And so the ServicePrinor Network is really a community designed to help service -based business owners connect network and build their brands and use that to their advantage to drive new client acquisition, to scale to the next level and just really give them the resources and support that they need. Me from a marketing perspective and then holistically across all aspects of business. I've had this business for about a year.

I'm working directly with clients on their content strategies, building their brands, helping with marketing support as they need it. The Service Prenor Network will officially launch at the end of August. So I've got a wait list for that right now. But the vision for me stepping into entrepreneurship really started because I spent over 12 years building my expertise and credibility working in corporate marketing.

helping C -suite executives, business leaders, tech startups, you name it, really giving them an opportunity to use their voice to build their credibility as experts in their field. So taking all of that insight and information and then now bringing it to entrepreneurs on a larger scale.

Caroline (02:05.157)
So let me have you define servicepreneur. Anyways, someone's listening to this podcast and maybe they work for a CPA firm or work in marketing or work in recruiting. What exactly is a service -based business?

Emily Test (02:20.83)
Yeah, so you nailed it there. So essentially a service -based business is somebody who has built their business from their knowledge, their expertise, and their skill set. So they're not selling a physical product. They're not selling kind of their lifestyle as more of a content creator, which you see more on social media these days where maybe they're promoting products that their followers and audience would purchase. But it's someone that is trading money

a result essentially. So someone that's coming in could come to you and say, I need you to revamp my LinkedIn. I need you to help me build out my personal brand on LinkedIn. You are a servicepreneur. A CPA that is helping someone with their finances, their taxes, that's a servicepreneur. A hairstylist or a salon owner is a servicepreneur. A landscaper is a servicepreneur. Essentially what you're providing is a result and that's kind of the differentiator.

that I use to really help somebody build their brand around their area expertise and the results that they're able to provide.

Caroline (03:28.251)
So what made you want to go out on your own? I've creeped on your LinkedIn profile and you've had some really big jobs with some really big companies and that is a total 180 to leave corporate security, you know, the golden handcuffs as we say, and then go out on your own. So tell me what was going on there.

Emily Test (03:46.568)
Yeah, so I did everything I was quote unquote supposed to do, right? I was a go -getter in high school. I went to college, I got the degrees. I went into corporate marketing and PR and all the kind of subsets of that marketing and branding. And I climbed the ladder. I worked hard. I worked hard as I could. I put in long hours. I took on more responsibilities. I really wanted

climb that corporate ladder. And so I did that and a lot of the sacrifice of a personal life or other things because I was so focused on getting through that glass ceiling. Right. And so I did that. I got to the top and then like, is this where I want to be? Because what I found is that I have big ideas. I've got high energy. I like moving fast. I like being able to flex all of my skill sets and in corporate

Sometimes it's hard to do that, right? Where it's like, hey, you need to do this one thing and we don't want you to deviate from this one thing. And so I just wasn't as fulfilled in that corporate career for the amount of time that I was putting in. And I definitely hit that point where I was burnt out. My relationships and other aspects of my life kind of weren't in a good rhythm. Obviously, I don't truly believe in work -life balance because I think that there's a time and place for you to dive into something and make certain sacrifices.

In that point of my life, it just didn't make sense anymore. And my last job was actually working for an e -comm brand. And it was the first time I'd ever really worked with a physical product before, after spending 11 years or so working with service -based businesses. And what I found is that there are a lot of similarities at a baseline level, right? So like everybody's got to have a marketing strategy. They got to have a social media. They've got to have

you know, a client acquisition or a customer acquisition strategy, they have certain revenue goals they want to hit. Business operations at the base level, they're all about the same in terms of you need one. But when you look at the details of how you go about those, they're wildly different. And what I found is

Emily Test (06:05.608)
I really enjoyed working with service -based businesses. I just think that there's something really exciting about somebody who has created something from nothing and they're taking all the things that they have learned in their professional careers or whatever they've done previously to go into building a really cool business model. And so I just started getting really frustrated as I kind of got into social media and I'm seeing people that are

talking about content marketing strategies and they're sharing all this information and I just got to the point where I was like, what you're sharing does not make sense for a service -based business. And I'm unfortunately in an industry where people have a lot to say about marketing and branding and content and all the things. But in my opinion, they're not doing it the right way. And it can become very overwhelming when you're getting inundated with all of these ideas or

topics that you should be talking about or things that you should be doing, it's really noisy. And so the purpose of me launching the Servicepreneur Network and having an actual community and doing the one -on -one coaching and having a content blueprint program is really to say, yes, high level, you should be doing those things, but let me show you the way to do it so that you're going to get maximum results. Because people are following these strategies and they're like, they're not working for me. And it's

You have to be looking at how you're promoting your services, how you're building your brand differently when you have a service -based business.

Caroline (07:39.291)
Okay. Good segue into my next area of conversation. We just talked about for each of those podcasts, mindset components. So if someone is listening to this podcast and they are a service for newer, they maybe are marketing professional, CPA, accountants, recruiter again, anything like that. What do you, what, what is the best way to connect with your audience and how do you even start connecting with your audience?

Emily Test (08:07.338)
Okay, so I love this question because one of the things that I talk about a lot is that a lot of that marketing advice out there, these marketers are getting it wrong, right? They're saying, you need to be on Instagram, you need to be on LinkedIn, you have to have an email list. And again, those things are all valid, they're valid points, but they're actually focusing on that last part of the marketing puzzle, which is the channel. When in reality, you have to first ask, what do I actually have to say?

What does my ideal client care about and how can I use that information to drive revenue into my business? Most importantly, in a fun and exciting way that I'm going to stay consistent with because the minute that building your brand online or on digital channels or wherever you are becomes a chore, you're not consistent. You stop doing it. It's not it's at the end of that to do list. Right. And so I instead of saying, let's talk about where you should be. Let's first talk about.

what you have to say and what you can talk about. So I have a framework that I follow and it goes what, how, where, what are all the topics that I can speak to to promote my business and build my brand? How do I want to deliver that information? And I'm not talking about channels. I'm actually talking about what is the best way to deliver that information. So is it audio? Is it video? Do you have written content with a blog?

Are there different things that you can do? Because if you don't like showing up on camera, then there might be certain decisions later on of how you create that content that don't make sense for you. So it's really about figuring out what aligns with you, what lights you up, what you're going to stay consistent with. And then finally, you talk where, which is you actually talk through the channels. And for me to answer your question on the mindset perspective, I am a huge believer that you have to start small.

Right? Like there are so many places you could be, but if you start with all of them, like you're going to get overwhelmed. You're not going to be as enthusiastic about promoting your business because we start with these insecurities and these fears right out the gate of like, God, what am I doing? Is this going to land well with my clients or my ideal target audiences? So I always say when you get to that channel part of the conversation, like start small, pick one or two, build confidence.

Emily Test (10:31.114)
and consistency repetition, right? So making it to the point of like, okay, I know how to create a reel in 30 seconds. I know how to edit it really quickly and I can get that sucker posted. Once that becomes so easy for you, that's when you start adding more and you say, okay, I have this channel. Could I now think about adding those reels as YouTube shorts and posting them there? Or this is great content. Could I think about creating a newsletter with this information and repurposing it there?

For me, I kind of do a little bit of a different approach. And I think starting with the thing most people struggle with, which is what do I talk about, is the thing that builds that confidence and then makes everything else a little bit easier.

Caroline (11:14.949)
That one piece that you just mentioned is what I hear from so many women. They don't know where to start. They want to be great at whatever they're going to do. They're afraid of not failing, but they're looking silly or looking stupid. And the reality is we all like stupid and we all like silly when we're starting anything out. And that one mindset shift holds so many people back and it's just, it's devastating that I've seen, you know?

Emily Test (11:43.198)
Yeah, it's really interesting because the work I do now is the work I've done throughout my entire career. And I have seen such a different mentality between the male clients that I've worked with in the past and the women clients that I've worked with where men will come in and they're like, yep, let's get it done and it's checkmarked. Whereas there's a lot more.

Okay, I'm not smart enough or I have nothing to say or there's nothing unique about the things that I have to say that somebody else or competitor isn't saying. But the reality is, is you do. And so to be able to kind of have that moment of working with a client and then being like, no, I don't know this. I don't, I know I need to be posting, but I don't know what I need to be talking about because I'm not sure.

I have anything to say because we're going through our day to day of our business. We're not thinking like, this is great things that I should be sharing, right? We're like, I got to have this meeting. I got to do this strategy. I've got this client that needs XYZ. I got to do this report. All of those things are things that they could be talking about, but they don't realize it because they're in the day to day. So that's where I come in to really help them like extract those. talk a lot about translating your expertise into marketable topics.

And that's where I see that shift where women tend to have a little bit more insecurities up front. But the confidence booster on the backside is, it's just incredible to see happen.

Caroline (13:07.131)
I want to go on record to when I started my LinkedIn journey, it was messy. I had so many posts, flop. I had so many posts I put out there that I had crickets. I had people sliding into my DMs like who, who think you are as the expert at this? mean, anything that people think about is scary or that might happen to them. happened to me, but it's all you have to do is you have to commit to it and keep going. And like you said, you have to be consistent and the consistency piece is what made everything

Emily Test (13:36.574)
Yeah, and as a personal anecdote on that, I have been pretty fortunate where a lot of my clients have been referrals, right? So my personal brand is rooted in the success that I've had with clients that then refer me to other clients. So I'm now at the point where I'm like, I talk about this on my podcast of things that you should be doing as a service -based business owner. And I have to caveat it with like,

what is that saying? Do what I say, not as I do because I haven't invested there. And now I'm at the point where I'm doing it for myself and I'm building my content topic map and I'm building my strategies out. And that insecurity still shows up for me. I know how to do it. But there's always gonna be that until you like rip the bandaid off and then to your point, just keep going because it's only going to get easier and easier. And with that builds that confidence that you need to then be

okay I got this, now I gotta do something else scary and I gotta start back over from square one and get nervous and stressed out all over again but then kind of see that reward every single time which is pretty exciting.

Caroline (14:42.329)
Why do think that women struggle with that more with the imposter syndrome and the perfectionism piece?

Emily Test (14:48.996)
That's a great question. I think it's because there's an unspoken element of having to prove yourself, right? That like as women in business, you know, I worked in male -dominated industries my entire career and regardless of what my resume said, I was doubted with every new room that I walked into or every new interview that I had. And so I think that there's just

this need to prove ourselves regardless of our experience. And so where that imposter syndrome comes in is like, okay, I need to prove myself, but I need to be perfect at this to prove myself that I'm good at it. And if I'm not good at it, so for me, like I'm great at content, words are my jam design, it's a struggle for me. So I find resources to support me on those things. But there's always going to be something that you're in the back of your mind. You're like, I'm not perfect at this.

And I can't prove myself unless I believe that I'm perfect at something. And that's where that cycle comes in of just feeling like I'm an imposter and I'm not ready or I'm not capable or all these things that are just crap, really.

Caroline (16:00.175)
Yeah, I agree. And I think a lot of it is to that little girl inside of us that, you know, wants to prove XYZ to their parents or their teacher or their friends or whatever, fill in the blank. And the reality is that we're not that little girl anymore. We're full blown grownups and we're out there doing things that change the world. And we can't let that voice in our head hold us

Emily Test (16:20.458)
Yeah, I share this story about kind of the first time that I got a piece of advice that I have literally carried with me through, you know, from the time I was 16 years old through now 35. And my first internship, I was in high school and I was working for a radio station and my mentor at the time, who is still my mentor to this day, he had said to me, I was a pretty timid, quiet kid, which for anybody who knows me now is like, that seems a little crazy.

But I was pretty quiet and reserved. he had said to me at the end of that internship, had said, Emily, you're smart, but if you don't learn to speak up for yourself, you'll never get ahead in business. And that was like a punch in the gut and a wake up call for me that was like, holy shit, like I am capable. Other people see me in a way that I've never looked at myself before. And I think that's something I've carried with me through every opportunity. I'm now pretty vocal. I've used that to

kind of get me opportunities and get me in rooms and fight for myself and advocate for myself. And so a lot of the work that I do now is I see it. Like when I start working with someone, I'm like, you are very intelligent and I can connect the dots for you and help you position yourself in the best possible way to make you an expert and get you that client that you're looking to get and build your book from. But a lot of people don't have that luxury to have somebody say those words to them. So I channel a lot

because it's a game changer. And the minute that you can use your voice in a way that allows you to be recognized for the person you know you are, but you're just scared to really take that leap and be that person externally to the rest of world.

Caroline (18:04.773)
I love that story and thank you for sharing that. mean, what epic words that your mentor shared with you that literally changed a lot of things I'm assuming for

Emily Test (18:13.162)
Yeah, oh, 100%, 100 % changed my entire outlook on myself. And I know that I'm so lucky that I got that at 16 because I don't know if I'd be in the same place today if I didn't have somebody that willing to say something that critical to me at such a young age.

Caroline (18:33.625)
All right, so switching back to, want to learn more about servicepreneurs. What is the biggest challenge that they face?

Emily Test (18:39.966)
Ooh, okay, so I'm gonna answer this from the marketing perspective because I think one of the hardest things when you're trying to promote your business or build your personal brand or build your business brand is you don't have anything truly to show, right? If you have a physical product, Childvino, for example, you wanna talk about the product, you can show the product. Your customer or potential customer can physically visualize them sitting on their back deck

having a drink that is gonna stay cold because they can visualize that product in their hand and how it will influence their life, right? From the influencer content creator perspective, it is a little different, but their audience is like, I'm gonna follow you because I'm interested in your lifestyle. I'm curious about the foods that you eat, the places you go, the things that you buy. And so they just have to do their life, record it, and then promote some products. Again, products, places, things that they can show.

and then someone is gonna buy that and they'll get a revenue or whatever the affiliate program is that they're using. For a service -based business, our visual is just the result, right? Because if I'm saying, okay, I can help you with content, like sure, I can show you the Excel spreadsheet that we'll build to build your content blueprint, but that's not sexy, right? Nobody wants to see that. They're not like, that's probably gonna overwhelm them more than it's gonna get them excited as much as it gets me excited, but words are my jam.

So for us, a lot of it is, how do I showcase that visual? Even things like, okay, your website, what are you putting on there? A ton of pictures of you. You you go to the servicepreneur .com, you see a lot of hands on computers, because it's all visual or virtual content creation or conversations through a screen. It's very difficult to visualize and design that brand. So a lot of times, the hardest part is, okay, let's break down, how can we showcase

Can we talk through the results that you're getting? Say you can show before and afters between things that they're doing. Is there data that you can talk about, right? You and I had a conversation around LinkedIn and what are your impressions and what do those stats look like before and after? So there's a lot of challenges related to marketing and branding that just stresses you out because you're already entering foreign territory of promoting your business because

Emily Test (21:03.816)
your expertise is in the service you provide, not the marketing that you need to do to promote it and get those clients to do that service, right? So that I think is one of the hardest parts and it's something that you need to explore and get creative with, but it's not quite as easy to be able to kind of use that as an example for someone that is like trying to put themselves out there to level up their branding and being like, okay, how do I show that?

So that's probably what I would say.

Caroline (21:34.927)
Yeah. And I've found that people want to work with people. So for example, with my LinkedIn, people gravitate towards my personal page much more than they do because I have a business page for my podcast, but I get much more engagement on the personal side. And so it's getting comfortable with really personally as the service provider, putting yourself out there and selling, because I mean, there's plenty of LinkedIn coaches out there. There's plenty of CPAs out there. There's plenty

Emily Test (21:51.954)
Mm.

Caroline (22:03.929)
fractional marketing people out there. But why do they want to do business with you?

Emily Test (22:09.172)
That is such a great question. And I'm gonna use a little bit of a strange example for you because I feel like it really paints the picture well, especially given your audience. So say you've got someone who owns a wellness salon and they do facials and they do skincare, right? And they do a before and after picture and they post a result on, insert social media platform here, and they say before and after.

And they're not of the habit of creating a great content strategy or the things that I would be talking about within my programs, but they're just going at it and saying like, I should be posting content. Let me just post this. Or they're hearing from somebody that's like post before and afters or post testimonials or results on your page without a strong strategy to reinforce it. And so say I see that information and I say, she's beautiful. I don't look like

She probably doesn't have, she's probably got better skin than I do. I'm not gonna get that result. Those are probably the thoughts that are gonna go through my head. However, insert the same person with a true strategy and in between that, they're talking about how to choose the right facial for your skin type. Or they're talking about the challenges that one of their customers had and specific things that she's targeting. Maybe that's, you

wrinkles or acne or insert whatever it might be here. Now I'm like, she understands me because she's talking to me about the challenges I have. She's got content on her platform that makes me believe that she knows what she's doing. I'm seeing myself in the content. I'm nodding along as I'm reading things. I might be more likely to go see

because of the larger brand that she's building through her content strategy. And so that's kind of when I get a little frustrated. My hot take is that people who are not marketers for service -based businesses should not be offering blanket marketing advice because it doesn't work. It doesn't hit home. Now, you might see some results and some people may be like, ooh, I want to look like that girl. I'm going to go get that facial.

Emily Test (24:24.84)
But I would bet that there's a larger audience that is going to have a narrative in their brain of why it wouldn't work for them until you prove it, right? Like no trust. You need to connect with that person. You need to believe that they're credible. Content strategy is to create credibility. And for me, that would make me way more interested and willing to trade my money to hope that I get that result than I would that first example, if that kind of helps to kind of paint that picture a little bit more.

Caroline (24:53.293)
It does. So what's lighting up with some of the clients you're working with right

Emily Test (24:58.138)
Ooh, okay. So I just, there's something to me, and I mentioned this earlier, there's just something to me about having somebody come in who is like wildly confused, right? They're in this confused state. They're like, I know I need to be putting myself out there. I don't know where to begin. I don't know what I should be doing. All of the channels stress me out. I'm good at my craft. I'm not good over here. And so for someone to come in and just be

I don't even know where to go. To then work with me through this process in my Content Blueprint program, which is, it's not a done for you. I do a pretty big lift of it when we get to building out the actual comprehensive topic map, which gets you hundreds, if not more than that, topics that you can use to build your entire marketing strategy for the entire year and beyond. But that moment when I'm going through that topic map with them and they are

my God, this solves all of my problems, right? Because it goes back to like, I know how to post on social media or I know that I want to work with Caroline on LinkedIn and have her build me that strategy. But like when she asked me like, hey, you should do polls or you should be doing surveys or you should be doing questions or you should be posting every day of the week. This the angst is in, OK, well, what do I post? What goes into that post? What question do I ask in the poll that makes the most sense for my business?

And then this salts for that. So that aha moment is my, it's just like, if I could bottle up that moment and like give that to every woman in the world, like everyone would be confident in themselves. So the content Bluebird program is like that moment is just what excites me the most, but I'm in the process of actually building a community and a platform for service -based business owners that is going to really give them a home to get.

blinders up to crappy marketing strategy and business strategy and go all in on the things that matter most to them that's going to hit the mark for them in their business. So the platform will have a member directory so that you can promote yourself. It's going to have the ability for you to promote your services, help you find services. So if you're like, hey, I need a lawyer, I need a CPA, I need a LinkedIn coach, they can go in there and then people can use it as a way to drive client acquisition.

Emily Test (27:22.548)
There's a podcast corner where people can say, hey, I've got a podcast, I need guests, or I'm ready to be a guest because I know what I can talk about on that podcast. There is a live chat where you can ask questions and get support from myself and other servicepreneurs that are in the group that can speak to not just marketing, but business conversations as a whole. There's going to be workshops each month for a variety of topics across business. I've got some cool things from a networking standpoint that I'm working on.

looking at like speed networking so that you can connect with other people and a whole lot more that I'm just super excited about launching it at the end of August to be ready to kind of hit the mark going into the fall where I feel like people are coming out of that summer kind of lull and ready to really hit the ground running for the following quarter. So those are probably the areas that I'm most excited about and what's kind of new in my business right

Caroline (28:17.637)
So as we wrap up, how can our listeners find

Emily Test (28:20.52)
Okay, so if you are interested in getting like a lot of marketing advice and some business conversations as well, I'd love for you to check out the Servicepreneur podcast. I do short topics around things that are very tangible. So if you listen to an episode, immediately you can turn around and implement those things in your business. And then if you want to connect

Me on LinkedIn. I'd love for you to just look for the servicepreneur. I'd love for you to join that company page. I share a lot of content there. My personal page is connected. Emily Serino there as well. And then on Instagram at the servicepreneur. And then my personal is at mserino. And I share a lot of great information soon because I'm practicing what I preach next. And I'd love for anyone to just kind of check it out and connect with me if they're interested in working with me.

slide into my DM, shoot me a message, and I'd love to chat

Caroline (29:15.427)
I'll tag all of that in the DMS, not in the DMS, in the show notes. Thanks Emily.

Emily Test (29:19.326)
Perfect, thank you. Thank you.