Hey there, my gorgeous listener, welcome to episode 324 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re a first-time listener, super super welcome, I am so pleased to have you here.  I am your host Jenn Donovan, and, as you’ll learn along the way, I pretty much live, breathe, dream marketing and social media!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/324

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? It was my annual Word of the Year podcast – and I know it got my community thinking because of all the messages, DMs and emails. Great words like Rest, Confidence, Calm – all coming through from my community as their word of the year. If you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, please do – I feel it’s pretty important. Listen here (after this one, of course!) www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/323

In 324 odd episodes of this podcast, I think I’ve done one or two episodes like this one but never one like this one! What do I mean – well I think I have done one or two episodes that are about me – yep me but I’ve never done one like this and I am, honestly a little nervous.

But if you have been a listener to one, ten, one hundred or 324 episodes, you know that I show up for you each week. Perhaps I’ve helped change your mindset around marketing, perhaps I’ve helped you with your strategy, with your business finances via guests, with your approach to business or perhaps my showing up each week has inspired you to keep going, keep pushing, keep smiling.

Well, it’s that relationship that I think allows me to do the episode I am going to do today – it’s an episode about me but also me asking for your help to build my profile, build my business – see I told you it was going to be different.

Today, I wanted to share with you the launch of my speaking kit for 2025. Speaking is something I love doing, I love standing in front of an audience and talking about marketing and business. I love the questions that people ask, and I love watching the “aha” moments come over them. When someone says things like “I get it now” or “that’s sound doable” or “Jenn, you have inspired me to take action” – that makes me proud and also makes me want to change more lives through business and marketing.

It wasn’t always this way. I’ve been speaking now for about 10 years and getting better and better because I started at such a low base!

I remember my first webinar was from a motel room in Adelaide, whilst I was doing a marketing tour with a colleague – he had forgotten I’d never done one before and therefore forget to tell me how to use the tech! Let’s just say the learning curve was huge that day!

And I remember my first talk to an audience from stage – 150 odd people, and me, 10 minutes before going on, vomiting in the bathroom.

I thought it was a disaster – I forgot to say so much I had practiced, but my colleague reminded me that only I knew what I’d forgotten and later that day a lady came up to me and said “I’ve just done my first ever Facebook live today Jenn – thanks to you” and that my friend was enough to help me get onto the next stage, even though I was vomiting!

So speaking isn’t something that ever came naturally to me. I was brought up Catholic, attending Catholic schools and I was never the person who wanted to do the Prayers of the Faithful or the Bible reading at Mass – or the debate team person, but later in life, I found that it’s been a piece of joy for me – so it’s never too late if you decide you want to learn how to public speak as well! If you do – side note – I don’t coach it – but I know some amazing people who do, so reach out and I’ll intro you.

But back to this week’s subject- my speaker kit.

I wanted to share with you my 2025 topics – because you will find me talking about them a lot in the next 12 months – so here’s a heads up.

Here’s 9 topics – but some will be more popular than others.

The first one will NOT be popular, but I so wish it could be. It’s the most unsexy topic I have and yet could make the biggest impact. My topics around social media etc are always so popular and I get it, but this one – Being Unforgettable With Your Marketing (aka learning the basics) is one of the ones that, as I said, could make the biggest difference. If you learn

• Who your who is
• Where they hang out, and
• What you want to be famous for,

Golly gosh you would find marketing so much simpler – it’s never easy – but these three questions most definitely make it simpler.

The next one – Obsess over your people – is my newest one for 2025 and I know it’s going to be so popular. Of everything I wrote in my book Small Town Big Impact (do you have a copy yet?) page 28 is the page that people mention the most – it’s the one that spins business owners in their seat and they think “wtaf” have I been doing all this time ….

Did you know that 68% of customers will leave your business (will not return to your business) because they believe you don’t care about them! Stuff customer service – bad service will only loose you 14% – but not caring, that will lose you a whole lot more. This, my friend, is why we continually go back to McDonalds even after they stuff up our orders over and over again …. Because customer service is not the driver – feeling loved and cared for and heard is …. Interesting yes!?!?

My third workshop topic for 2025 is around AI and content. Given everything I’ve told you in recent weeks on episodes 321 and 319 – content creation in 2025 is going to look very very different. My workshop is helping business owners navigate those changes and helping them with their marketing to boost their profile, people and profit.

My fourth topic is Brand over Product – it’s seriously time to build your brand over your product. Who are you, what do you stand for, what does your brand stand for, how are you standing out in a crowded marketplace – all great questions that make a great topic for talking to business owners. If you don’t grow your brand, you are just competing on price and in a cost of living crisis, that’s not good because everyone is looking at price – you seriously want to stay out of the price market as you will find yourself at the bottom very quickly.

My fifth topic is one of my favourites – H2H Marketing – human to human marketing and goes through 11 ways you can put some more human into your business. Why? Well, everything I just said about brand works here ……. Still to stop hiding behind those products or services my friend.

Topic Six is my next less sexy one – strategy – the five elements to a great marketing strategy. No matter what problem clients come to me with, most of it can be solved with strategy. Business owners don’t realise that the lack of strategy is the cause of most of their issues in business – profit issues, people issues and profile issues – all come back to marketing. Five elements make it simple – again not easy – but definitely simple. You still have to do the work, but at least now you have direction.

Topic Seven is one of the favourites – 17 Ways to Market your business for free and none of them are social media. Most businesses would like to know what else they can do to grow their profile, profit and people other than posting on social media constantly … this topic has the answers!

Topic Eight is my social media bootcamp which I have renamed to “7 Seconds to Win or Lose” – and 7 seconds is probably being generous! It encompasses the 11 7 4 strategy that I talked about in episode 179. A social media bootcamp is always popular because we do need to go back through our socials and make sure we have the basics right and we are up to date with what’s working and what’s not.

Topic Nine and the last topic is Be More Google-licious …. This is about Google just be name because although I talk about showing up in Google searches and having a Google presence, including Google Business Profile, being Google-icious is about being found and in 2025 that might mean being found through searches on Social Media, AI platforms, YouTube etc. This is a HUGE topic for me for 2025 and one I hope lots of speaker bookers will embrace!

So that’s me for 2025 – you will, as I said, hear me talking about these topics A LOT in 2025.

I feel that all my topics are important to get in front of business owners like yourself to ensure your marketing is going to boost your profit, profile and people, and that I stick to my promise of making marketing simple for you.

So, if any of these topics sound good, can you help me? I’d love your help.

Maybe you belong to a membership as a business owner – like a Chamber of Commerce or a franchise or a Traders Association – you could send me Speaker Kit onto them or send this podcast episode onto them. My speaker kit link is in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/324 or my speaker kit link is www.bit.ly/2025speakerkitjenn

Or perhaps you know the people running your local council economic development department and you could send it onto them.

Or perhaps you have a community of business owners in your own world who’d like to pull together and put on an event – either in person or online (webinar) and would love to have me come along.

Or, perhaps again, you have attended some conferences or events this year that I would make a ripper speaker at in 2025? Maybe send this on to them or at least spend them my speaker kit.

I know I’m asking you to do something I’ve not asked before. But again, if my podcast and I have helped change your mindset around marketing, perhaps I’ve helped you with your strategy, with your business finances via guests, with your approach to business or perhaps my showing up each week has inspired you to keep going, keep pushing, keep smiling – then this might not be a big favour to ask.

Perhaps a referral opportunity might come up in conversation of the next 12 months and you can say “hey, I’ve got the perfect person, let me introduce you to Jenn”.

Regardless, just you listening this far will help. You just never know when this information might become useful to you and being a listener of the pod – there is little doubt you won’t hear more about these subjects just by tuning in.

But there’s nothing like a two way conversation – you being able to ask questions like at a presentation or a webinar, to help move you closer to where you want to go.

Thank you – no seriously, a massive thank you for listening until here. I really appreciate you.

Again, just for reference, you can get my speaker kit at www.bit.ly/2025speakerkitjenn or head to my website www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au and click the “Keynote Speaker” tab at the top of the page – it’s all there!

On my speaker page, I have a pretty cool interview about my 2025 topics, it’s definitely worth a listen to. Can’t wait to share with you more about that too! All in good time!

But that’s it for ep 324.

If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content.

Massive love coming your way if you do!

See you next week on the podcast for episode 324.  But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn. Are you part of my Facebook community in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook Group yet? If not, please come join!

But whatever you do,

…….. remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!