We recently connected with Suzanne Reilley and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Suzanne, so happy to have you on the platform with us today and excited to chat about your lessons and insights. Our ability to make good decisions can massively impact our lives, careers and relationships and so it would be very helpful to hear about how you built your decision-making skills.
Decision-making skills can be developed across an entire lifetime. So far, I’ve developed my decision-making skills in 4 main ways. One, I find it incredibly helpful to envision the ideal outcome, and base my decisions on how well something will support that outcome.
For example, if a client wants life balance and time freedom, I typically recommend they focus on a few of their favorite select offerings, and steer away from “the book tour, the podcast, the communities which need daily nurturing, and anything else that would bring them endless hours of stressful presence, unwanted travel, or an excess of annoying details.
So with this approach, if someone comes to me and asks, “should I start a podcast?” It’s much less about the podcast, and more about how well it will serve their audience, values, life enjoyment and business goals.
I’ve also developed my decision-making skills by being immersed in complex environments, such as digital marketing (and striving to learn, grow, and evolve through it). It really is a mix of my formal education in business and marketing, as well as my first hand learning, doing, and refining as I go—that helps me ask the important questions, highlight what’s important, and decide on the best path forward.
This last point is also coupled by the great deal of personal growth I’ve done, to also grow mentally, emotionally, socially, etc.
And somewhat related, I often use a mix of intuition and logic to make any decision. I believe they’re both important.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I transformed a steep, winding decade learning about online business, into 7+ years of professional work (with solid outcomes)…
And it’s my absolute greatest joy to reduce others’ learning curve as much as possible. So you can streamline your success, and avoid a big chunk of mistakes, expensive false starts, and flat, disappointing campaigns.
I work with successful online business owners who want to be strategic in their efforts, those who are willing to dive deep into their own brand work with my guidance. I offer a natural mix of coaching and consulting in the 1:1 space.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
One of the best skills to have is a proficiency in conversion copywriting.
The thing is, it’s easy to think that we can “write.” But there’s a difference between writing your friend an email about camping, and the type of writing that can sell products and services. You’ll need this type of copy in sooo many places in your business. Your website, your emails, your ads, landing pages, button copy, etc. It’s everywhere. And it’s a high value skill set that’s quite an investment to hire for. So if you can develop the ability to write your own conversion copy, you can always jump in and write anything that’s needed. You’ll also be that much more educated in the process if you hire someone to help with this in the future.
I developed this skill largely by learning from Jeff Walker. He includes a lot of copy training in his Product Launch Formula (PLF) course. I also learned from Joanna Wiebe, Copyhackers. Once I learned from them, I gained greater proficiency from practicing and testing the results regularly. I also understand the Storybrand methodology mirrors a lot of this training, though I haven’t taken this course myself.
It also helps to have a big picture understanding of digital marketing. Because copy can’t stand completely on its own. It needs to be placed properly, and work within a larger business strategy. Hubspot Inbound courses are solid, and it’s a place you can learn a lot about digital marketing for free.
The third thing that has been impactful in my journey is pursuing inner and outer personal growth. I’m a work in progress, like anyone else. But the more you can heal your triggers, grow your interpersonal skills, and ease stress from the root, the smoother your business growth can be (that’s the inner growth). And the more you can ask questions, curate your brand, get help when you need it, that’ll help smooth your process in an “outer” sense.
My advice here is to reach out to professionals, such as therapists, somatic practitioners, coaches, etc for the inner work, because it’s hard to see your own blind spots. And learn in the way that works best for you in the outer work. Utilize the skill sets you already have, and take courses, or hire advisors or freelancers for the rest.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
This is a great question. I think this really depends on the person. I like to cultivate joy in the process, so that means I’m going to lean into things that I’m strong in, or have an interest of cultivating that skill in the moment. Of course, not everything in business is fun all the time. But on the whole, I’m leaning into things that feel fun. For me, that’s brand strategy and copy.
I do think it’s ideal to gain a cursory understanding of the areas where you’re not an expert. One area that’s somewhat related for me is design. I know when design is on point. I know when it matches the goals of a given client, but I’m not trained on how to create it. So I lean on design professionals for that.
I also have a cursory understanding of back end systems and workflows in email marketing software, but when things get more complex, or if I’m using software I’m not familiar with, I get help from people who are well versed in tech.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.suzannereilley.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzannereilley/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannereilley/
Image Credits
Amanda Nichols
