Marketing Your Massage Business Without Social Media with Alexandra Franzen |

Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 54.

MINDY TOTTEN: Hey hey there. Welcome back everyone. I am over the moon excited to be talking with Alexandra Franzen. Alex, welcome to the show.

ALEX FRANZEN: Hi, I'm so happy to be here with you.

Mindy: I'm really excited to talk about this whole idea of marketing without social media. It's one of my things that I'm always kind of preaching about. Before we do that though, like to ask my guests on the show, what is one thing that very few people know about you, and then I will share something similar.

Alex: Ooh, one thing very few people know about me is I would say that I'm really obsessed with anything scifi fantasy, supernatural paranormal. my very first TV show that I ever got.

Like completely obsessed with was the X files. Do you remember that?

Mindy: Yeah.

Alex: I was so obsessed with that show as a kid. Like I would beg my dad to record it every Sunday night. Cause it came on after my bedtime and he would report it on the VHS or Betamax. And I watched every episode, I memorize the title of every episode.

I had a guide book. I had a tee shirt. I mean, I was like deep.

Mindy: I love it. Are you a Trek-y as well?

Alex: I've never really been attracted, although I have great respect for those who are, and I understand my uncle actually, Adam, who passed away a few years ago was attracted. It runs in my family.

Mindy: I love it.

I did not know that about you and something that. Very few people know about me, except people who are close to me is that, well, Alex and I are recording this on September 22nd and today's my birthday. And so I, I used to think that I was a triple Virgo Alex, but I have since been shown the light. I'm not actually, I'm a double Virgo with an Aries moon, which I think might be even more like headstrong and. Eyes on the prize.

Alex: Thank you for sharing a little of your birthday with me.

Mindy: Oh, I'm delighted. Delighted to be talking with you on my birthday or any day. So before we get started here, can you share with my listeners a little bit about your journey? What kind of work that you do, the kind of people that you enjoy working with, and then we'll jump into the social media stuff.

Alex: Yeah. So I am a writer. I'm a professional writer. I've made a living full time as a writer for. Pretty much my entire adult life. I started way back in the day, working in public radio and public broadcasting. And I worked in the communications department at a major public broadcasting company. And then when I was around 25, 26 years old, I quit my job and I decided to become self employed.

And back then, this was about 10 years ago. I didn't really have a plan. I was well, I'm gonna see if I can somehow figure out how to be a self employed writer and make a living as a creative person. And if it doesn't work, then in a year, I can always become a bartender or whatever.

Like I figured I would, can always figure something else out. But little by little, over the course of the next couple of years, I. I started to find a flow for myself and I began working with clients on different kinds of writing projects, mainly working with small business owners to help them write their website, their newsletter, their book proposal, their pitches, their proposals, scripts for their podcasts or YouTube shows.

And so I kind of developed a little niche working with mainly small business owners and some larger companies. To find their message and voice and start to share their work with the world in writing. And then in addition to all of that, I also have my own body of work as a writer. I'm an author, I've written six books to date, both fiction and nonfiction.

I teach creative writing. I teach courses on writing and marketing and communication. So basically just all things word related is what I do. And yeah, it's been going on a little over 10 years now that I've been self employed, which is amazing and a blessing. And I'm super grateful. And I mean, at this point, like I kind of can't imagine working a traditional job.

Yeah,

Mindy: same with me. Same with me every single day when I'm writing out my gratitude list. One of the things that I say is, Oh, I'm so grateful to be able to do this work and my own time in my own schedule and to help people to be of service. And I just think it's so fantastic that you were able to create this life.

In writing. And at the same time, you are just this really friendly kind person, because writers don't always have that reputation sometimes, I'm reading a book, right, right now what's the name of it? The friend, I think it's called and it's about writers and they're all interesting stories, academia and all of this stuff.

But full disclosure, I was in Alex's a tiny book course and it. Such a remarkable thing for me. I actually ended up writing a teeny tiny book in honor of my brother. And it was such a remarkable experience. And I know that is coming up again. The tiny book course is coming up again. So if any of you listening are thinking, what is all this about writing?

I absolutely recommend you check out Alex and her work and we'll have all those links in the show notes. And the show notes are at Mindy totten.com/podcasts. Slash episode 54.

Mindy: you can find all of that there, but what we're really going to jump into today. And I can't wait to hear, I mean, I'm like have my pen and pencil and paper to write notes for what we're talking about

Alex: is how to market.

Mindy: A business

Alex: without social media.

Mindy: So most of my listeners know that I'm not a big social media fan. I am very seldomly on social media. And I think my reasons are different than Alex's. And we'll hear both in just a second, but I want everyone listening to know that it is

Alex: absolutely

Mindy: 100% possible.

Alex: To

Mindy: create and sustain a successful business on your own without using social media.

So Alex, can you share with us how, I mean, you used to be on social media, right. And then how did that change so that

Alex: you are no longer? Yeah. Yeah. So I always like to come out and state my sort of stance on social media before diving into my story. Just to be crystal clear, I'm someone who. I don't believe that social media is bad or evil or, sort of ruining society.

That is not what I believe. I think social media much like email much like the internet, much like our phones, much, like all these other tools that we have. It's exactly that it's a tool and it's a tool that can certainly be used to do wonderful things in the world. It can be used to inspire people. It can be used to connect with people.

It can be used to bring clients to you, but social media is an optional tool. Not a mandatory,

Mindy: yeah. Yeah, because you hear so many times. Oh, well you have to be on.

Alex: Right.

Mindy: Facebook, Twitter, blah, blah, blah. You have to, or you won't be able to make it. And I agree. It's optional.

Alex: It's optional. And I think that's something that we're forgetting these days.

I think that in our human world, we're all heavily influenced by one another and it's very easy to get swept up in what most people are doing, what other people seem to be doing. And it's easy to start feeling like, well, I have to be on Instagram. I have to be on Twitter. I have to run a Facebook group.

If I'm not there, how could I possibly run a business? How will people find me? And you can sort of get caught up and this spiral of feeling like you have to do things a certain way, just because that's kind of what you see most of the people in your field doing or. Or it's just what you have been doing.

It's out of habit. So my personal story is many years ago, back when I was just starting my company, starting my freelance writing business, a mentor suggested that I get on social media. They said, get on social media. Get on all the platforms, you need to have a presence on Twitter, on Facebook, on Pinterest, on Google, Hangouts on all the things and make sure that you're posting regularly and make sure that, you're building an audience there because that's how you're going to find clients.

And I was like, okay, sounds good. So I got on there and I started doing exactly that. And what I found was that. did social media bring me clients? Maybe honestly, it was hard to tell, I don't think anyone ever just read one of my, and then hired me on the spot. I think it was people would hire me for other reasons.

Usually word of mouth recommendations. But what I did start noticing was that social media was definitely taking up a lot of my time. And it was really starting to suck up a huge amount of my time and creativity and energy and mental bandwidth, and even becoming a little bit of a compulsion. Like I don't want to use the word addiction because I know that's a loaded term, but.

Like many people. I was noticing that I was checking social media. The moment I woke up the moment before I went to bed all day long and it was just gobbling up a lot of my attention, much more than I wanted. So I started to become curious, and this was a little over five years ago. I'm one of those people.

I love to just kind of question authority,

Mindy: Alex, watch your son.

Alex: I am. So I am a Sagittarius sign and then cancer, moon, and cancer rising.

Mindy: And are they rebellious or challenging authority or.

Alex: Well, Sagittarius is definitely a sign around, freedom, autonomy, and, it's the centaur, the half horse, half person, the Archer, so very goal oriented, but also adventurous free spirited.

Okay.

Mindy: Yeah.

Alex: I started to ask myself questions like. everyone's saying I need to be active on social media in order to run a successful business. But is that actually true? Is that actually true? How do I know if that's true? What would happen if I cut back on social media or if I use it differently or if I don't use it at all, could it be possible for me to still find clients and make money and run programs and sell books and do all the things that I want to do?

Without being on social media, what are some other options? What are some other ways that I could promote my work? So I started asking myself questions like, and I decided to do kind of just a series of little experiments to see what would happen if I drop off Twitter for the summer, what would happen if I shut down my Instagram account?

what would happen if I do this and that. And I started testing things and seeing, is my web traffic going down? Is my newsletter readership going down? Is my income going down? How do I feel? And what I found by kind of experimenting on myself was that the morning I reduced or stepped away from social media, the better I felt, the more calm I felt.

The more creative. I felt more productive. I felt, and over time my productivity and my income actually went up. Oh, okay. down. Yeah. That was. Surprising to me. And it gave me the confidence to keep moving forward. And I mean really long story short, what I discovered, or what I came to really believe, through evidence, through testing on myself is exactly what I said a moment ago.

It's that social media is an amazing tool. And if you want to use it. Great use it, but if you don't want to use it, there are other options and you don't have to, you don't have to live a certain way just because that's what most people do. You can make other choices. That's something I really believe.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. I, my story is similar except. I do think social media is the end of the world now. I believe like you do that, but I found myself from the very beginning. I never really enjoyed being on Facebook or, Facebook's really the only one that I was on and then I wasn't on it for awhile.

And then when I started in online business, people said you cannot grow without social media. You absolutely must be on it. And then. Facebook made a number of decisions over the past couple of months, that just were not. In integrity with me and I thought, okay, well, I can just deactivate my account and be off of here, but I do group coaching and that was on a Facebook group page.

Yeah. Well, what am I going to do? How am I going to, what am I going? Everyone's on Facebook. Everyone is going to do this. And I made the decision to move the group off of Facebook and onto another platform, which is not social media. And I just thought, Oh, I'm going to lose people. They're not going to engage.

And just like you were saying, Alex, the opposite happened. People were thanking me. Oh my gosh, this is so great. I've wanted to do your program forever, but I didn't want to be on Facebook

Alex: or I

Mindy: am so excited just to come to this platform. And I know that these people are here for me. I don't have to see anything else.

All this other noise. It's just. The support of this group on a different platform.

Alex: So that was really important

Mindy: to me because I thought I felt like a hypocrite saying, Oh, I'm not on Facebook, but our group is going to be on there. So I noticed from the very beginning, I felt better mean off of it.

And since I made the decision to move the group off of it as well, like you, I feel more grounded is the word that we body workers would use, seem more centered, grounded. Calm. And I feel like my wellbeing is really enhanced by not scrolling, not looking through all of the stuff. Now I know that I have people listening right now who say, well, I can't get off social media altogether because I won't be able to find out what's going on with my friends.

Alex: Did

Mindy: people say that to you?

Alex: Yeah, I would say that was actually a fear of mine when I started to Maeve social media and I did it gradually. I think I left Twitter first and then later Instagram, et cetera. At this point, I've deleted all of my accounts. I don't have any social media accounts. And that was a fear is how will I stay in touch with friends?

How will I stay in touch with family? And when I came to. Realized was two things. number one, it's okay to miss out on that certain things, I feel like we have such FOMO in our society that fear of missing out. And I just kind of came to realize, if I occasionally forget someone's birthday or I don't know that they had a bagel for breakfast on Tuesday or whatever, like it's okay.

It doesn't. Damage our friendship. and in fact, I would prefer to see, stay connected with the people I really care about. In other ways, I would rather have a long phone shot once a month and catch up on everything or take a beautiful walk with the dogs and have a deep talk once a week, which is something I do with a friend of mine here where I live and.

And it's, I enjoy, that weekly walk with my friend and saying, okay, so tell me everything what's been going on with you. And getting to catch up in that way. And I'm also, I'm an introvert. I don't necessarily enjoy big groups, big parties, big collectives. I like it number of really deep and very close knit relationships in my life.

Like my inner circle is very small. There's probably. Five to seven people that I text with communicate with stay really closely connected to in my inner world. So that was another thing that I realized is I would rather have five really deep friendships people that I could call from prison.

And they would be rather than then 50,000 acquaintances online that we don't even really know. Yeah. quality over quantity. Yeah. Well

Mindy: pivoting then from friendships and personal connections with people to the business side of things. So what are some things that you can share with us that you did to market your business

Alex: or to reach

Mindy: out to other people that weren't.

Social media, because I'm like you, Alex, I looked back and I said, have I gotten people from social media? And my answer was maybe,

Alex: yeah. Yeah. So one question, I run a program called marketing without social media, where I teach exactly this, how to do marketing without social media. And there's often a lot of resistance when people first joined the program.

Like they want to be in the program. They want to learn, but they have a lot of resistance in doubt. And so one question that I love to ask people at the beginning of the program is think about the last 10 purchases that you made. Maybe you bought a car, maybe you bought a particular book or got it from the library.

Maybe you bought, a particular pair of yoga pants or whatever, and then ask yourself. Why did I make that purchase? Was it because I saw an ad on Facebook and I clicked it and bought the thing maybe. But what people find most of the time is that you bought the thing where you invested in the program, or you hired the service provider because a friend recommended that, word of mouth referral.

Or because they had amazing reviews or because you saw them, mentioned it magazine or you've heard about them on a podcast or you've been on their newsletter for months and you love what they're about. And then it was time to invest most of the time when people really look at well, what do I purchase?

What have I purchased recently? And why did I purchase it? Social media is usually not the driving reason. Why it may not, it may have nothing to, so I think that's an interesting way to start too. show yourself through evidence like, Oh yeah, it is possible to sell products and services and programs without social media.

There's other ways to connect with customers. And some of those other ways that I often encourage people to explore are number one, just email. Personal emails. When's the last time, the time that you sat down and sent it me now to your friends, your family, your colleagues, maybe to some recent clients to let them know what you're offering right now and where to find it and how to sign up.

Like when I ask people, have you, for example, if you've just launched a business, have you told your family that you've launched a business? do your friends and family know what you're doing and how to support you? Very often people are like, no, I haven't really told them. Right. But

Mindy: I haven't told anyone, but I did put it on social media.

Yeah.

Alex: Right, right. Which, and I think

Mindy: I'm interrupting you here, but I think that there is a fallacy that if you put something on social media, everyone is going to read it. And the algorithm is just not that way. So maybe. 3% of the people will be shown what you put up there or 5%. And I point that out to everyone who's listening because I've heard often Bodyworkers say, Oh, well, I put it on social media and nobody responded.

So it must be a terrible offer or nobody's interested and that's just not

Alex: so no, that's exactly right. And it's interesting how. for example, when I first started my business as a writer, as a freelance writer, the very first thing that I did was I went to a coffee shop. I took my laptop. I made a list of about 50 or 60 people that I knew, close friends, close family, distant family.

Former colleagues, former bosses, that lady I used to babysit for her when I was a teenager. Like I just put everyone I could think of who knew me, liked me, trusted me, who I was connected to in some way. And I sat at the coffee shop and one by one, I sent a very brief personal email to each person to just say hi, how are you?

I have some exciting news. I just quit my job. I've started my own business. I'm now a freelance writer. Here's three services that I offer. And if you happen to be looking for someone who offers what I do, let me know. And if you know someone who's looking for what I do, send them to me and. Thank you.

so much. And thank you for joining me in celebrating this exciting new step in my career. I mean, that's pretty much verbatim what I said to each person. So I have a little template and I just sent a quick personal note to each person, one by one, it took me a couple hours.

And about like in the next week or so I would say. Almost every single person wrote me back. And at the very least, they said, congratulations, this is really exciting and rooting for you. And about 20 of them either hired me or said, Hey, I know someone who should hire you. And then out of those 20 leads, like I got my first five to 10 paying clients and they were small projects, it wasn't like an Avalon.

It wasn't like a millionaire overnight, but yeah, that was the start. That's how it started that got the ball in London. And that's a perfect example of you don't necessarily need a hundred thousand fans on Instagram to start or run a successful business. You can go to a coffee shop and email the people you love and start there, like start with very simple steps that are often completely overlooked.

Mindy: Yeah. I love that. You say that Alex, because, and you're talking about. person to person connection and person to person referrals, which in the bodywork industry, nothing is more important. Nothing even comes close to the conversion rates that a personal referral, because people have to be vulnerable to go get body work.

They have to trust you. I've never had anyone said, Oh, I heard about you from somebody on social media. It's always, Oh, my friend such. And so said, I have to come. I don't even know what you do Monday, but I know that you fix their headaches. And so can you help me, and that's so much more powerful.

I

Alex: mean, we were

Mindy: talking about connection here really, and the difference between connecting one-to-one like you did at the coffee shop. Each person got an email or trying to connect one to gazillions. Yeah. Okay. So email is a terrific idea, but again, personal email, like you said,

Alex: that's right.

Yeah. So one thing too, and you kind of alluded to this a moment ago with the, the word of mouth and personal referrals is. First and foremost, whatever it is that you're offering, whether it's writing services or book coaching, or bodywork or craniosacral, whatever you're doing, if you provide like for your heart and soul and energy and intention into providing an extraordinary service that really leaves an impact on your client or customer so much so that they walk away from the experience.

And they're like, That was amazing. And they can't wait to tell their friends about you. That is the most powerful form of marketing, just providing an exceptional service that people can't wait to talk about. That is worth more than a thousand posts on Instagram.

Mindy: Yeah. Creating raving fans, right. People.

That

Alex: is the thing. And I feel like people get so distracted. By social media. And by thinking that they need to post, this curated with the perfect caption and an agonizing over every word. And it's like, what about just. Doing an amazing job clients so that they can't wait to hire you again so that they book their next appointment on the spot so that they immediately text their friends and say, you've got to hire Mindy.

She's amazing. That's really where the intention and the attention should be going. so yeah, working on creating raving fans, working on creating an amazing experience for your clients so that they naturally. Talk about you and rave about you and also. Asking them to send referrals.

Mindy: Yes.

Alex: You people do because they're nervous, they're insecure or they just forget.

But if you explicitly say to your clients, I love getting referrals from my clients. If you know anyone who should come in to see me, please send them my way. Here's my info. Here's my card. Here's my, this is my, that. And explicitly let them know. I am seeking new clients. I have space from your clients. I love referrals.

Thank you so much. Very few people I think actually ask. Yeah,

Mindy: I think you're right. And something that. That I encourage people to do. And I would love to hear what you think about this when asking for referrals.

Alex: I think

Mindy: that people can really tell when we're not coming from our hearts. And so if we just ask every single person who comes in for a massage, Oh, do you know anybody to.

I tell my students, when you have a really good connection with somebody, take that and say from the heart, I love working with you, Alex, and you've gotten such great results from this work. If you know of anybody else who you think this work would be of service to, I would love to have them come in.

You can refer them by doing ABC. What do you think of that?

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, it has to come from a sincere, genuine place. 100% of people can feel it. I think that's, and I think, again, the key is you have to be willing to ask there's so much fear oftentimes, and I noticed this particularly among women around just asking.

Just asking for what you want, whatever it is, asking them to post a positive review, asking them to send someone your way. I see people will like. Jump through hoops to do anything, but yeah, it was intimidating. But when you don't ask, you don't get, and when you do ask amazing things happen and your client might be more than happy to help you out if you just asked, so that's a big one.

Another thing that I really emphasize and encourage people to do is snail mail. Sunday school, snail mail. I love

Mindy: getting letters. I love getting stuff in the mail.

Alex: Yes, I've done all through the last 10 years and that I encourage my clients to do as well. if you've worked with someone and after your time with them as complete, or maybe after they've been seeing you for a while or whatever, Send them a little, thank you.

Note in the mail, send a quick postcard. I love using mood.com and  dot com to get custom postcards printed, like with my company logo and everything. And it's just a small thing. It doesn't take that much time, but it makes an impact. And these days, It's so rare to get something lovely in the mail.

That's not, a credit card offer or a bill.

Mindy: Yeah.

Alex: People are so touched when they get a little snail mail and it can simply just say, it's been a joy to work with you. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. we've connected or something like that. It can be so simple, but sending a little snail mail is a great way to.

Deepen a relationship to reinforce how much you appreciate this client to naturally inspire them, to rave about you and talk about you. It's a great thing. So I'm sending postcards, I send little gifts to some clients of mine. I do my best to really send snail mail pretty regularly. And I've noticed it makes a huge impact.

Mindy: Yeah. I second that I do the same and. Often, my students are kind of resistant to that, Oh, come on. That's so old school. And I said, nothing will make you stand out more because so few people are doing it again. It can't be something that you're doing just to be doing. It needs to come from the heart.

Alex: it needs to be a reflection of you,

Mindy: but I. it happens to me too. And when I get something in the mail, I'm just like,

Alex: woo

Mindy: hoo. It's just so fun and exciting. And I saw my clients do that with craniosacral therapy. Cause I would do that in my practice. And then also with coaching folks, I love I'll have to send snail mail stuff and it's.

It's fun for me. And so I know that it's fun for people to receive it as well. And it is just so much stronger, like you said, than doing the thumbs up. Like our Harding. That's just a completely different energy.

Alex: Totally. Yeah. two quick stories on the topic of snail mail. there's a woman who is a graphic designer and web designer.

And many years ago, she actually hired me for a small writing project. And after she hired me. She sent me a sweet little postcard in the mail, just saying it was so fun to work with you. And thanks for your help, writing the copy from your website and just a very sweet little note. And it was a beautiful postcard that she had designed because she said it was on there and it was so pretty.

It was like a little work of art that I can send it to my bulletin board in my office. Cause I just liked looking at it. And so her little postcard with her sweet note was pinned to the bulletin board. And then what would happen is that, every so often, if a client would email me and say, Hey, I really want to revamp my website.

Do you know a good designer or, Hey, I really need a logo for this thing. I'm launching. Do you know a good designer? What designer would I recommend Natasha because her card was right there in my office. And I saw it every day and she was always on my mind that one little postcard, which probably cost her, 25 cents and maybe two minutes of her time, I ended up referring probably $20,000 worth of business to her over the next year.

All because she had made an impression on me. She had left a memorable Mark in my mind. And her adorable card was right there in my office as a little visual reminder that she exists. Power is snail mail. especially if it's beautiful, people will want to keep it. They'll want to keep it on their desk.

They want to keep it around. And then you. a really lovely way of sort of burrowed into their minds. You're on their mind. They're thinking about you. Yeah. And there are also opportunities, especially if you're, you're a body worker or you're a healer and you have maybe a couple of clients that.

You've worked with long term. They're practically a part of the family. you've seen them for months. You've seen them for years. You have a really deep relationship with them. You can, there are moments where you may want to go above and beyond with your snail mail. one example is I have about four or five clients who have hired me repeatedly over the years for a variety of projects for their business, creating books, all kinds of things.

And I'm very close to them. And I recently hired a local artist here in Hawaii to create a small custom watercolor painting for each of them. Cool. They're dogs love, or like their favorite historical figure or something that's really personal and meaningful. And. I just mailed those off, like with a card and I'm so excited for not to leave them because I know it's going to be a total surprise unless there was another spot job.

Hopefully

Mindy: they'll get them before this comes out. Yeah.

Alex: It's feels like I genuinely am so excited for them to open those packages and see that artwork and feel. Touched, and so it's, I think it's fun. And it's an opportunity to think about the people that you care about. Think about something that would be so profound and meaningful for them and create like one of those.

Oh my gosh moments for them. And it's such a win, because it feels good to do. It feels amazing for them to receive it, strengthens your bond even more. And you've left such a memorable. Impression in their life and mind, they'll never forget you. And whenever someone asks, do you know a body worker, do you know, massage therapist?

Do you know a chiropractor? Of course, they're going to think of you first because you've taken the time to nurture that relationship.

Mindy: Yeah, that's beautiful, Alex. That's I think that's a wonderful idea. so you've given us some terrific ideas for marketing and for, or sort of spreading the word about a business that doesn't depend on social media.

And I want to change the topic just a teeny bit, but it is still related. I know that you and I share a,

Alex: We're

Mindy: both intrigued slash obsessed with Cal Newport and his work on focus and concentration. I was telling my students that he's, he and I he's a brother from another because I read his books and I'm like, yes.

Alex: Yes. Yes.

Mindy: if you're not sure I'm familiar with his work, his name is Cal Newport and his books are the main ones that are, would be of interest to people. Listening are so good. They can't ignore you, which is just what Alex was talking about. Deep work, and then also digital minimalism, which kind of ties this all in together.

And I'm curious what you think of his work and how, he talks about deep. Focus like creating an experience or the room in your life to be able to

Alex: focus deeply and create something meaningful.

Mindy: And I'm curious with you, Alex, that, do you feel like not being on social media any longer has gone hand in hand with some of this deep work ideas, like being able to create more.

Fully more deeply.

Alex: What do you think? Oh, absolutely. and there's, I'm such a calendar port fan as well, and I love the way that, he uses science and evidence and research to back up things that many of us intuitively feel to be true. He provides the evidence so that you're like, Oh, that's why that happened.

For example, I think most people would agree that. If you start your day. Bye. Are your phones scrolling through your tacks, looking at your email, scrolling on social media all before you even, Had breakfast or sat down at your desk, you're gonna start your day already feeling distracted, feeling overwhelmed, feeling stressed, feeling a little foggy, or just feeling like you can't quite get into a roof.

Like you can't quite. Focus because your attention is already being pulled in a million different directions, right? All from just 10 minutes of scrolling on your phone and in his book, deep work, he explains the science of why this happens. And he explains that when you start scrolling through emails, scrolling through Facebook, scrolling through Insta throat, scrolling through tax, all of that scrolling.

It's like you're then inputting like a thousand different little, teeny bits of information into your brain. And there's actually like a chemical reaction in your brain. Your brain starts to generate a particular kind of chemical, almost like lactic acid building up in your muscles. And the result is that this attention residue builds up in your brain.

Which is, I mean, imagine almost like a sticky gum building up in your brain, that's what's happening when you're looking at got all the different things. And so then when you sit down to try to, really think deeply about your business or craft a program curriculum, or write something powerful or a project that requires like deep cognitive thinking.

It's really hard because it's you're trying to do deep work and you've already got all this gunk in your brain. So yeah. To answer your original question. Since leaving social media and since making a series of other adjustments in my life around setting boundaries, with emails, setting boundaries, with text messages, creating more space in my day where I'm undistracted, it has unquestionably changed how I work, how I think, how I live.

I would say that my quality of writing. Has gone way up. I'm much better able to get into a flow state and stay there. I'm able to create more and in less time. it's, I mean, it's there. I could go on and on, but I absolutely see a change and I don't think it's a coincidence that since leaving social media, I've written the majority of the books that I've written since then.

My business has grown. I've developed four online programs which have all become, kind of a cornerstone of my income and business. I launched my own book, publishing imprint. I mean, I could go on and on so many, really profound, beautiful things have happened in my career since leaving social media.

And one could argue okay, well maybe that would have happened. Right. Anyway, like who's to say that leading social media was the catalyst for all of that. And I get that, I get that skepticism, but I also know what's true for me. And I know that. My brain feels different and better since leaving social media.

And I do feel that it's been, for me personally, one of the best decisions that I've ever made, both for my personal and professional life.

Mindy: That's so great to hear. And I so appreciate you sharing with me and with everyone listening your journey and. I love the way that you connect with people. some of the things that Alex said, snail mail or a personalized email, or going above and beyond creating premium services.

And there are things that you just can't do. With a click. you can have really strong. I think particularly the pandemic has shown me that she can have really strong communities online, but there is a difference between an online community and just scrolling through random things. So I am so delighted that you joined me today, Alex, and I want to end by asking you, what does do it with intention mean to you?

Alex: Oh, I love that question. I think for me it means rather than operating on autopilot, rather than checking email 45 times a day or being on Facebook, just because everybody else is rather than sort of just living and working on autopilot, doing it with intention means that once in a while you stop.

And you pause and you really assess how you're designing your day, how you're communicating, how you're promoting it work. And you asked yourself, why am I doing it this way? And is it even working and how does it feel? And could there be another way? That's one of my favorite questions, because there's always another writing.

there's always another way. And if Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, if all of those services crashed tomorrow and were just gone. You would find another way.

Mindy: Yeah,

Alex: it's always possible. And, and to anyone, I just wanted to add this to anyone who's feeling curious about, running a business without using social media or maybe with using social media in a different way, or much less anyone who's feeling here, Prius, but also skeptical or curious, but kind of scared to make a change.

I would say, do a little experiment, like maybe just for the next 20 dates. See what happens if you take a mini break from social media, reclaim all of that time and energy that used to go to social media and put that time and energy into connecting with people in a different way. Send a handwritten postcard send a personal email craft, a beautiful newsletter to your mailing list, whatever the readership may be, do some other things in those next 20 days to let people know what you're doing, what you're offering, how to get in touch and just 20 days, and just see what happens.

My hunch is that you'll feel so much better. And you'll probably get more clients. Mmm. And if not, Oh, well, but at least do the experiment to see. And she does a timeframe that feels, okay. For you 10 days, 20 days, 30 days, if the experiment doesn't work out well. Oh, well, you're right back where you started, you really haven't lost anything, but what if it leads you somewhere?

Amazing.

Mindy: I love it.

Alex: Yeah. I love it.

Mindy: Alex, for people who want to find out more about you and your work, what's the best way to do that?

Alex: Well, not on social media. The best way to find me is I'm like website, which is just my name. Alexandra franzen.com. And that's where I have a newsletter. You're welcome to join that.

I share inspiring stories. I share writing tips. I shared marketing tips, all kinds of things in my newsletter, which is free. Of course. And then I also have the tiny book course, which I call lead with my friend Lindsay. And that is a course typically for anyone who wants to write and self publish a book.

So that's at tiny book course.com and yeah, those are the two main places where you can find me.

Mindy: Perfect. We'll put those into the show notes for everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today, Alex, I really appreciate your insights and I appreciate the person who you are and the way that you show up in the world.

It's inspiring for me. And I hope it's inspiring for all of our listeners as well.

Alex: Well, thanks for having me happy birthday. Happy birthday. It's so beautiful that it's your birthday. It's also, it happens to be my anniversary with my partner. So it's a special day for both of us. Oh,

Mindy: happy anniversary.

Alex: We're going to actually. Ah, two hours from now, I'm stopping work early for today and they've promised to whisk me away or some kind of activity. So I'm very excited.

Mindy: That is exciting. Well, approximately 10 minutes from now, I will be walking on the beach with a glass of wine.

Thank you so much, Alex.