→ Join Obsessed, our $7/month membership for the entrepreneur who wants it all. Inside, you’ll get weekly support to stay focused, monthly strategy to simplify and scale, and a community obsessed with going ALL. IN. Join now and also get access to my 2026 strategy planning workshop on Dec 2nd: http://embodiedmarketing.com/obsessed

Buyers are taking way longer to convert. And in this episode, I tell you exactly how to adapt.

If sales are down, growth is harder than ever, and you feel like “no one’s buying”…

This episode will show you exactly what to shift to make 2026 your best year yet!

Key Takeaways:

• People buy TODAY based on what you did 18 months ago
• The real reason why your funnel isn’t working (it’s not your webinar)
• How to balance cash flow today while building long-term momentum
• What every big name has that you don’t (yet)

This one’s all about seeing the results of your efforts in 2026!

 ____________________________________

More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

We’re opening spots for the next round of Ignite. It’s our done-for-you marketing system that builds your entire marketing strategy. Lead generation, email sequences, sales strategy, ALL of it. And if you apply by November 24th, you also get 10 pieces of custom content done FOR you: https://get.embodiedmarketing.com/ignite

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♥ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having an incredible week. I am having one of those weeks where I. Really underestimate how much time I have, and this always happens to me. I’m hosting our challenge this week, which is one of my favorite free experiences that we put on, and I go live every day and I look at it and I’m like, it’s fine.

You know, an hour a day of going live and, and teaching. On the final day it’s a little bit longer, but I always like think, oh, that’ll just take an hour without realizing how much. Energy it takes from me afterwards in my capacity to actually execute other things. And so I’ve had a week where I’ve gotten into this energy where like, okay, my, you know, my texts are now behind, my messages are a little bit behind.

And I’ve been doing so well not operating from that place for like the last month and a half. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna get back to that after this week, but. I’m sure all of you are guilty of this, just like me, of like thinking that you have way more time than you do. Like I feel like I’m constantly delusional to how much time I have and how long something will take constantly.

But it’s okay. I’ve, I’ve started, I’ve started building a lot more white space padded into my life because I don’t like living in that place of like minute by minute and I get there sometimes and you know, it always feels like, dang. I’m a badass. When you have a day like that, that’s like boom, boom, boom, but not sustainable every single day, nor how I really thrive at my most creative space.

But it’s been an incredible week and I’m so grateful for everyone who participates in those experiences. And that’s part of, well, maybe part of this, this episode, but more this is inspired from a client situation that I was just talking to my team about and I was like, oh my gosh, I gotta do a podcast on that because it sparked something else for me, which is.

The commitment that it takes to be successful in business and, and a question that I have for you guys. So lemme back up a little, explain a story and then we’ll go into the content of the teaching that I wanna have today. So we have a client. That’s been with us for about six months in our elite roster, and we did an audit of their customer journey.

So we went through and looked at all of the sales that they’re getting in their business, and she sells pretty high tickets, a $4,500 offer. All the sales, and we did a customer journey audit and went back and looked at. Where are these people coming in? You know, what is getting them to, to come in as the first step?

How long are they on the list? How many, you know, live launches and experiences are happening in between? Kind of what is that customer journey? We did this deep dive audit and what we found for her is that on average, on average. So some even longer. People were taking 18 months to buy her $4,500 offer.

Now you might hear that and go, well, crap, that is not good news for me. Now she is higher ticket. But I think this is something I’ve been talking about a lot, that even in my launches, I’m seeing that 80% of the people that are buying have at least gone through a few live launches and experiences with me.

That doesn’t mean 18 months, but for my people it’s more like six months average. Still though, and not a hundred percent, like you will get those few people who will come right in and buy right away. And that’s great that that is normal, that you’ve got a small percentage of buyers that do that. But majority of people are taking a long time, 18 months, a year and a half is average.

So it got me thinking, and I wanna talk about the strategy of this, like what does this mean for your marketing strategy? What does this mean for your business? But it got me thinking about something that, I think needs to be said, which is if you are in business right now or going into business or pursuing your business and trying to make sales from this place of desperation, and it has to work this week, it has to work right now.

That is not the energy that is going to work. You have to be in this for the long game. You have to be in this as a no matter what commitment, knowing that if you commit to the consistency of all the, the boxes that you need to check in your marketing, which I’m gonna get into these ’cause this is where the strategy comes into.

But if you commit to the consistency of having incredible messaging and incredible brand representation, having an offer that is so good that you’re, you’re consistently evolving and meeting your. Audience and your, your niche, where they are at, which has probably changed in the last year. If you are committing to consistent content, to consistently showing up, to building your list, to talking to those email leads and talking to the audience you have and nurturing them and creating live experiences and doing all these things.

Then you will be successful. It is not a matter of if, but if you go into this going, I’m not, I need this to happen next week, or I’m gonna need something to blame for why it’s not happening. And if I were to say to you, like, let’s just say that 18 months, I’m not saying for every business that will be the average, but when I heard this I was like, oh my gosh.

Like would an entrepreneur if I told you, like, listen. You start your business today, which I know most of you guys are not just starting your business, but if I were to say to you, all the work that you do right now is gonna pay off in 18 months, could you hang on? Could you actually have the patience, play the long game, do the work, and keep showing up?

Or do you need that like instant gratification now? I know that every business needs sales. Like a business can’t really go 18 months without making revenue. But I just feel like the people who are are gonna win this game because of the, not even win the game, like survive, stay in business, stay thriving, stay making sales are the ones that are so committed to the process and the long game because.

This. What this means is that what we do today in our marketing, the content creation consistency, the audience growth, the lead generation, the live launches, the nurturing of all these leads, what we do today, we reap the benefit of in the next year. Yeah, sure, we might get some initial sales, but you don’t know out of all those leads in the audience you’re building, who is sitting there as a primed potential buyer of the future.

And so that means that if you are living in this instant gratification, I need to make sales in a week and I’m desperate for it, and if I don’t, then I’m gonna blame Facebook ads, or I’m gonna blame the online industry. I’m gonna blame my webinar, I’m gonna blame myself. You’re signing yourself up for disappointment.

You’ve gotta be so committed to the process. So committed to this. Experience as a building a company and as an entrepreneur that nothing can knock you down. And so committed to the long game and understanding that what you do today, you will feel in a year from now. Because what I see is entrepreneurs who hit a a, a road bump of disappointment, a launch that doesn’t go how they wanted.

They don’t make the sales that they want. They’re feeling the pressure and they go, I’m gonna quit this business. I’m gonna pivot. I’m gonna do something totally different, or I’m gonna blame this coach I hired six months ago. I’m gonna blame Facebook ads. I’m going to be really angry. This isn’t working for me and it can’t be my fault.

And then they stop the efforts that they’re making and there’s a balance of, of the need to pivot, the need to adjust. But you never waver in your commitment and you never waver in that commitment to the process and the long game. And so I, what I wanna point out is this, I don’t think that the majority of online entrepreneurs, especially that have been, you know, in watching things like the ClickFunnels crowd and this, this story of all you do is put up a funnel and put up an ad, and it just works so easy.

I don’t think that that’s reality anymore. I think that it was reality, I think 10 years ago when I started my business, I can tell you because I had that happening with clients, that that was a possibility. You could have a single webinar funnel and that’s all you do, and you run ads to that and you get cold traffic in and they convert and it’s enough to make sales.

Now, I feel like going back, it’s like if everybody was doing what you had to do today to be successful, they would’ve been even more successful. But the. Payout is in the long game. Now it’s in the ecosystem of your marketing. It’s in having all of these things working and knowing that eventually it becomes this snowball that gets more and more traction, and then sales really do become easier because you have been working at consistently growing your audience, consistently growing your list, and nurturing them.

And I do know that, you know, most people, like I said earlier, cannot go 18 months without making any sales. And that’s not what I’m saying. I think that every marketing strategy today has to have a balance of cash flow. Like how are we gonna get us at least to a two to three x return on our investment while also staying committed to knowing.

If I get a hundred leads and I sell one or two of those, I still have 98 leads that I want to convert over the next six to 12 months. And in order to do that, I have to stay committed. I have to stay committed to the process, committed to the consistency, even when I. A disappointment. I hit something that didn’t work, I hit a launch that didn’t make the sales.

And then building out that marketing ecosystem and understanding that it takes, having the really strong brand, the really strong messaging, the consistent content, the co consistently generation live launch experiences, the nurturing of all of those buckets. And then the, the consistent reason to bring them back to your offer to create freshness around your offer, like.

Everything I just said, that’s what I think every company needs. And it’s not quote easy, right? Like there’s a lot of effort and a lot of energy that goes into good marketing and it takes that time and there. One of the entrepreneurs I really do look up to is Alex Hermo. I don’t, I don’t align with everything in terms of how he lives his life and how he looks at.

You know, work being the, the primary way that he spends his time. But I do think that is his purpose and regardless of that, there is something he does so well, almost better than anyone in this space. And that is patience and commitment to the, to the day-to-day grind, to the day-to-day boring work and.

When you look at, he had his book launch and I did a podcast on it where he did like a hundred million in a weekend, and the podcast I did on it was, it’s not about the weekend. It has nothing to do. Actually with that weekend, he could have almost done anything. It has to do with the years, years of what he did before.

Like three years of consistent content creation. And he used to create content and say, I have nothing to sell you. ’cause he had nothing to sell, but he would create this, these incredible valuable YouTube videos, valuable podcast, high volume of consistent content on his Instagram. And he wasn’t going in with the energy of course, ’cause he had money, but he wasn’t going in with the energy of like, well this better work by next month, or I’m out.

Like, no. It’s commitment to the process of, I will stick with this until it works. I am playing the long game. I’m building trust, I’m building connection. I’m building relationships. And there’s this difference in entrepreneurs that I see. There’s the ones that. Are in their business going, I desperately need to make sales, and if I don’t make them quickly, then I’m gonna be angry at my business and I’m gonna be saying that this won’t work for me and this doesn’t work for me.

It’s the industry, blah, blah, blah. And then there’s the others that hit the same roadblocks and have the same struggles, but go, I’m gonna make this work. I understand that this is a process. I understand that this is taking longer than I want it to, and I do need to still make money just like this other group does.

But I’m gonna make this work. And so, okay, what are my options? How do we bring in some cash immediately while also still playing that long game? And so when, when we had this client conversation today and my team was telling me this 18 months, I was like, holy crap, that is crazy. I, you know, props to this client for being so consistent because she hasn’t even been with us for 18 months and we we’re seeing, like, so she’s been with us for six months and we’re starting to see an an uptick in sales.

The last few weeks and we’re like, this is interesting. And it’s looking at the leads that we’ve been bringing in. And then we do these monthly email campaigns and that brings in revenue boosts, and so we’re creating the strategy around that. But when I heard that, I was like, you know what? If you told most people and you said, Hey, you have to do a bunch of work for 18 months and you’re gonna get no payout for it, I would say 90% of entrepreneurs would be like, well, I’m out.

I’m not gonna do that. Because I need the payout right away. I need, I need the instant gratification. I can’t be that patient. And again, I’m not saying you have to go 18 months without making money, but I am saying that’s actually more realistic in business. If you think about big companies, I’ve talked about my brother’s company on here, I think before.

And my brother own. My brother is the CEO of an a, BA therapy company. And so they work with insurance for kids who have autism. It’s, it’s a therapy. And it’s, it’s a booming business because insurance started covering these therapies in the last few years in some of the states. But in, anyways, he’s CEO, he didn’t found it.

He’s CEO and he’s got, they have tons of investment because when you start these companies there needs to be a lot of. Invest in investment because of insurance. And I don’t know, there’s a huge startup cost, but he’s been doing this now almost I think over two years. And he will call me and be like, we’re finally profitable.

And I’m like, wow. Like I can’t imagine, because for me, my business has always paid the bills. That’s just not my story. But to him, he’s like. Oh, the investors are thrilled. Like we’re operating at a 20% profit margin, you know, doing a million dollars a month and we’re profitable. And we’ve been in the red and the business is still, if you look at the whole trajectory of it’s still in the red, but we’re profitable and like they’re thrilled and that’s normal to them.

And I just find it so fascinating because to a lot of startups and businesses, that is normal that you spend the first one to two years not even profitable. Now I think when you have a solopreneur business, you have a service and you can hustle and kind of get clients here and there and get revenue coming in.

You don’t have to do it that way. But it is true that like the first few years of your business is building a massive foundation and. You’re not necessarily crushing the revenue unless you have huge investment, unless you can go out the gate and you have a huge investment that you can put into marketing.

Because the biggest thing, the biggest factor to success in a company is the warm audience. It’s building the warm audience of people that trust you and are connected with you. And once you have that. You are set like at this point in, in my company, I know that no matter what happens in the world, and you know, obviously like there’s probably something that could destroy it, but we’re not gonna think about that.

And I know that as long as I have a warm audience, I have an audience, and I have leads and I have people that I am garnering the attention of by providing my consistent value. As long as I have that and I focus on serving them. I will always be fine. I will always be able to pivot. I will always be able to be successful.

And that really is the foundation of a business and it takes time to build that up and to build the volume of that up. And when you look at some, you know, big names in the industry and you look at them launching something brand new, why are they always successful? Because they have a warm audience.

Because they have a foundation of people that they get to launch to. And so they constantly are building on top of that. But so when you look at Amy Porterfield, when you look at Marie Folio, Russell Brunson, Mel Robbins, all these people what have, what have they all done consistently since they started their business?

Created content, created connections with their audience, built their email list, created live experiences, new offers, new opportunities, and served the heck out of their audience. And pivoted when needed. Offered new offers. Changed their offers, like they all, all of them have done that. There isn’t one successful entrepreneur and company who hasn’t done that consistently.

So what happens is beginning entrepreneurs. In the first few years, compare themselves to these other entrepreneurs and are like, well, they’re doing it so easily. Why is it not easy for me? ’cause you don’t have that foundation. You haven’t committed to the process yet. So all this to say, you know, we’re heading, you know, it’s end of the end of a year, we’re heading into a new year.

It’s like looking at your marketing strategy and really challenging yourself. On how committed you are to the long game, how committed you are to the process of marketing, because so much of marketing comes down to consistency, to showing up, creating the content, building the list, nurturing the list.

Then selling is easy, but are you so committed that no matter what you will show up, that the, the process becomes the goal. And of course we refine it and we make it as good as possible, and we look at how to bring in revenue and how to balance that. ’cause we are a business and cash flow is important and sales are important.

What I’m trying to say is if that is your marker of like, if I’m not making the sales that I want, then I’m gonna quit, or I’m going to lose my momentum, or I’m gonna stop putting in effort. I think you’re in trouble. Because you’ve gotta have a bigger commitment to that long game and to that process and to, and to really understanding, like a company, a real company, a legitimate business, and a real company is here, is supposed to be here for decades.

Maybe your goal is to sell it, you know, in a five year period. But even then, it’s like my brother’s company, the goal is to sell it. But it’s a five, 10 year plan and most people don’t think. That way most people cannot think so far ahead in the future. And I don’t even, I don’t like to plan so far ahead in the future.

’cause I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m gonna want in a year from now. But I never waiver from staying committed to the process. I make the goal being the commitment to the process and to the consistency. So. When you think about my client, whose average time it’s taking to convert someone is 18 months.

When I look at every single one of my live launches that we’ve done this year, and on average 80% of the buyers have went to at least two to three different either live launches or come through our lead gen funnel. The data is showing us that people are needing longer to convert. And so if you are changing gears and throwing out a strategy or giving up or feeling defeated because you had one launch that didn’t work well, or it’s been three months even and it’s not working how you wanted.

That’s an opportunity for you to say, maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. And the more I stay committed to this process and to creating as much volume as I can of growing my warm audience and growing my list and serving them, and mastering my messaging, and focusing on all of that, and staying so committed to the long game, maybe it’s gonna start to gain traction.

It’s gonna start to gain momentum. And I really get it because I am somebody who loves speed. Like I also want the results tomorrow. And I’m usually, you know, I usually think something will happen faster than it will. But in reality, so much of anything good in life that you’re going for is the long game is the consistent brick by brick game.

So challenge yourself. Are you looking at your business that way? We live right now in a world of such instant gratification of like, I want it tomorrow. I want it yesterday. I wanna have the idea and it come to life. And I think that’s really a valuable skillset in business, but only when it comes to executing and, and getting things moving forward, not when it’s so tightly tied to the outcome that when you don’t hit it, you give up.

That would be like equivalent in, in weight loss and fitness to go like, I wanna lose, you know, 10 pounds by the end of the week. And if I don’t, I’m just gonna stop completely. You wouldn’t do that. What if you, what if you lost five? You’re like, okay, the process is working. I’m getting that momentum. So when we go into 2026, my prediction is like more and more the companies who prioritize the long game.

Prioritize consistency. Create a marketing ecosystem that has opportunities for people to constantly engage and reengage with their audience and bring their leads back into experiences to convert them are going to be the ones that make it, that are successful. And also the entrepreneurs who have this mindset of, no matter what, I will create success.

Because I’m more committed to the process and, and this journey than anything else. And I think that’s also where a bigger purpose comes into play. Like money is actually the lowest driving force. When you’re really driven by purpose and mission, and I know it sounds cliche, but like the bigger thing that you’re doing, money becomes a byproduct.

Like when you dial in the purpose and you dial in the bigger mission and the serving of your audience, money just happens. But when you’re So, when money is the only driving force in a business and then you don’t make the money, you lose, you’re like, well, why am I doing this? But when you have purpose.

When you have a mission, it’s like, well, we’re, of course we have to keep doing this. If we didn’t hit a launch goal, of course we have to you know. Continue on the path and optimize and stay committed to the success and believe in it because we have a mission, we have a purpose. And then I also think on top of that next year, it will be really important to have things like self-liquidating offers to help cover your ad spend, have a value ladder of a few different options of offers with one core focused offer.

Have strategies that, you know, help work leads a little bit tighter, a little bit more, to have those conversations, to get those initial sales over, get ’em over the fence, because that’s gonna create cash flow. Have multiple forms of traffic. Yes, Facebook ads, but also can you have guest speaking opportunities or go on a podcast or network or use Facebook groups like getting strategic with this because.

That will create the cash flow to allow you to simultaneously build the bigger picture and build the ecosystem. The companies that will crush it, every single one of them are gonna have a marketing ecosystem and are gonna be so committed to the process that they don’t even realize it’s happening. This client of mine, like she didn’t even realize that this was her customer journey, but she.

Is successful in her business because she does show up consistently. Has shown up consistently, runs lead generation ads every single day, sends emails out to her list posts, social content, runs, promotions. That brings her email, leads back to her offer, like she’s got the ecosystem, which is. Critical for success.

So that’s what you should be looking at next year. And then questioning like, you know, do I have a big enough purpose and a big enough mission that if I didn’t make sales for the next 18 months, yes, I know you need the cash. So not from that perspective, but like, would I keep going? Am I that committed to my mission?

The answer should be yes. Right? Like. For me, I mean, yes, I need to make sales. I’ve got a team to pay, family to feed, but no matter what, I keep going with my mission because it’s bigger than, than just the money. And also, if what you do today is gonna impact you in a year and a half from now or a year from now, are your efforts aligned today or would you change it?

You know, I, I sometimes see people, it’s relevant in the holidays too. Like I see people let up the gas on their marketing, they turn off their ads, they’re like, whatever. It’s the end of the year, it’s the holidays. And while I’m all for, you know, be present with family and don’t overwork and have that, that harmony in your life, what you do right now is gonna impact, impact quarter one and quarter two of next year.

So it’s really important that you’re intentional with that and, and you’re not. You know, delusional to the fact that what you do now is not just impacting next week and tomorrow. It’s impacting in, you know, three months from now and six months from now. So it’s, it’s important that you’re playing that long game and that you see it from that perspective.

All right, everybody. Speaking of planning on December 2nd, I’m actually hosting a workshop just for our obsessed membership on planning out your 2026 strategy. So we’ll actually look at this marketing ecosystem, all the pieces, and it’s a workshop. So together live, we’ll build out your 2026 plan. It’s insider obsessed membership only, which is $7 a month.

So cheap, and there’s other things you get in there, but if you go to embodied marketing.com/obsessed, you can join that membership and join me for the workshop. All right, everyone. Talk to you next week.