THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER PODCAST with Rachel Klaver

When Thunderpants started almost 27 years ago, selling comfortable underwear first in Nelson, then nationally and later internationally, it was like most other clothing companies. There was a woman’s range, and then later a men’s range. 

Sisters Sophie and Josie have seen many changes in what people have bought, and who’s buying. While hipster briefs were the most popular for years, ultra high waisted pairs now vastly outsell them. Their fabrics are designed and printed here in New Zealand, and feel distinctly Kiwi ( Although they are also sold in the UK and the USA to others loving the designs.

A lot can change in twenty-seven years, including how we as a society see gender, and bodies. After Sophie and Josie both experienced connecting with people close to them who were either non-binary, or trans, and started to understand for “mens” and “womens” ranges could create barriers to a whole group of their customers they made a huge yet simple change. Depending on your anatomy, you can now either order a design in a “flat fronted” or “pouch front” style.

While there has been a small amount of negative feedback, the response from their customer base has been largely positive.

Their marketing campaigns have always shown their products on a diverse range of body sizes, and now the sisters plan to take this further to help give more non-binary and trans representation, along with age and body diversity.

The idea that we as small businesses can make a positive change for communities that often feel sidelined is a powerful one. Sophie and Josie didn’t do it as a marketing gimmick, but as a strong desire to make their products more accessible.

In this podcast we talk to both Sophie and Josie about how Thunderpants started, how they work together as sisters, and how they use their values to make significant business decisions including exporting, design, marketing and more

Even if you don’t “see the point” of degendering on a website, this episode will help you hear the processes this duo went through, and why they don’t regret it for a moment

In this episode we cover:

• How Thunderpants started


• Why values have shaped how the business has grown


• What it’s like working together in the business


• The alternative market growth to exporting


• Why they degendered their website


• What has the impact for their business been?

Important Links

Find THUNDERPANTS here

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Creating a course is very very different from selling a course. Whether it’s a DIY, blended learning, or group coaching course, there’s this idea that if you make it, they will come.

That is simply not true.

Every now and again someone will create a course that happens to catch an early wave of change and it’s an overnight success. But even if you’ve got a sizable list, an engaged audience and people like you, selling spots on a course is often far more difficult than the ‘course gurus” will let on.

I learned this the hard way with the first course we ever released. I spend weeks on creating it. I did not spend the same amount of effort in marketing it! That course has now had a little under a thousand people take it, and it’s since morphed into a blended learning course with some one-to-one coaching 

I learned my lessons well by the time I launched my very first group coaching course earlier this year. The Content Masterweb is currently through it’s second intake, and we're changing the business model to have rolling enrollments in 2023.

From my own experience and the experiences of my clients, I know sign-ups are often harder than we expect. So I asked Linda Reed -Enever to come talk through the common mistakes and misbeliefs course creators experience, and how to counteract them 

Linda Reed-Enever is a marketing, public relations and branding ideas strategist with a passion for educating others. She’s a Thinkific approved expert,and works with businesses and individuals to find their point of difference, perfect their image and build their profile in the public domain.

Linda has helped countless others carve out a niche through innovative marketing strategies, public relations, course creation, social media, marketing automation, and branding. She draws on both her educational background and over 20 years’ experience in marketing and public relations to help businesses and individuals via one-on-one mentoring, courses, webinars, training and useful tools.

If your course is creating virtual dust on a website somewhere, this is the episode you need to tune into

In this episode we cover:

• Why the six-figure launches are a false goal


• What your sales page could be missing


• How often you should talk about your course


• What sort of course model is best for you


• What you need to think about if you have intake times 

Important Links

Check out Linda Reed-Enever here

Register for the SUMMIT here

Get her TOOLKIT

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If business growth is on your mind, you have five levers you can adjust in your business. The key is to know which one to work on first, and then what to do next. In this episode of MAP IT Marketing we take you through the five levers, and I show you what you can think about and change at each stage. 

One of the biggest differences between a marketing strategist and a digital marketing strategist is that if we’re looking at all types of marketing, we also will look at your whole business structure. 

The last thing that I’d ever want to do is to help you increase sales without first checking we’re selling products that are profitable, for example.

The five levers of profit, spend, traffic, repeat business and referral business also can help us determine the overall health of your business.

If you’ve got it all sorted with one right now, you just work on the next one. If you know you’ve got an issue in one area in particular, moving the lever will impact all the other areas as you change. 

If you’re got business growth and more profit on your mind, this is the episode for you

In this episode we cover:

• Why you need all five levers


• How to increase profit in your business


• Why understanding average customer spend is so important


• How to best understand traffic


• Why you might need more traffic


• How to invest in getting more repeat business


• Why repeat and referral business matters so much


• How to use third party referral selling

Important Links

Get the Marketing Health Checklist

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Out of the many undesirable traits I have, my ability to underestimate the sheer volume of any one task has to be my least favourite. Match with my confidence that “it’s all going to turn out great” and I get myself into a few too many pickles for my liking.

I have gotten better. But this year I discovered that my decision to self publish my book Be a Spider, Build a Web was a far bigger task than I had expected. Not only did I have to write the thing, but then I had to work out how to get it ready for publishing AND then work out how to market it.

And yes, I’m a marketing strategist, and I’ve had books published before. But marketing a book is working in a particular subset of marketing, and my last published book was (cough) 2008 and that was with Penguin, who did all the heavy lifting both on the publishing and on the publicity front.

After getting help with the publishing side, I felt I could manage the launch, until all too late I realised I was wrong (learn from me people!) So I sent a desperate email to Elizabeth Heritage, a freelance publicist who offers everything from a DIY package (that’s what I got) to a complete “done for you’ book publicity service. 

Thankfully she came to my rescue, and while there was a limit to what she could do, as I’d left it far too late, I immediately had a plan, and direction in where to go. I’m still implementing her plan, and I’d call the release of Be A Spider, Build A Web more of a “slow burn” but we’re getting there!

Elizabeth Heritage has worked in book publicity for nearly a decade, both in-house at publishing houses and freelance for small presses and self-published authors. For seven years she was the sales, marketing and publicity tutor on the Whitireia publishing course. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara with her whānau and pet rats.

In this episode we cover:

• How book publicity is different from other types of publicity


• How Elizabeth got into book publicity work


• Why it can help having someone else help you with publicity


• When you should think about engaging a publicist


• What authors can do to help their book be seen


• Why a publicist can get into doors you can’t 


• What your business can learn from a book publicist

Important Links

Check out The Elizabeth Heritage here

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is one constant in digital marketing. And that constant is change. Sometimes it’s a change for the better, sometimes it’s not, and sometimes so much changes at once it’s hard to work out what on earth is going on. 

Because I work with small business owners on marketing, I take hours a week to learn and stay updated. But with taking off a few weeks in July, I managed to miss one of the biggest (and quick to be removed) updates to Instagram in some time. I knew I needed help to work out what I’d missed, why I still needed to care about it, and what’s coming up.

Thankfully Sarah Galbraith could tell me (and you) the whole story. Sarah and I spent the Pandemic years meeting weekly on an Instagram live to talk about social media updates, and came on a bonus episode early the year. Her business The Social Approach helps Kiwi and Australian small business owners with content creation for their posts, providing both images and caption templates every month, along with support and guides. 

Instagram may have rolled back the changes I saw briefly on my feed a few weeks back, but they are coming. So listen in and learn so you’re prepared for the new ways we’ll need to use the platform to reach our target audience. Because as the platform changes, we also need to change. 

In this episode we cover:

• Why Instagram is changing


• Why they rolled out changes then stopped


• What we can expect in the next few months


• How to use your static posts within the new style


• How we’re using hashtags now


• What you can do with your beautiful long captions. 

Important Links

Check out The Social Approach here

Follow Sarah on Instagram

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m getting older (aren’t we all!) and often get super frustrated when trying to find clothing, and skin care that is targeted to me, but uses younger faces and bodies. I want to see things using my type of skin. Or my type of body.

I first heard about our guest Gemma Ede’s range Conviction when someone I love following on Instagram - Emma John, talked about how she was using the product on her skin. Emma’s an incredible stylist and has influenced me before. Last time it was a white linen shirt! 

Using micro-influencers such as Emma to help promote her range wasn’t the initial way Gemma used influencers. She initially started with an agency that offered “big name” or “big following” influencers, and while these all produced good traffic to her website, they often didn’t result in sales, and weren’t the target market Gemma believed she had created her product for: Women over forty needing skincare that was easy to use, felt good and gave her results. 

Her ads often use her own face, or the faces of her customers, with their own stories, and she’s building a range of engaged fans who are helping her sell her product with their own delight.

In this podcast we talk about how Gemma came to create a skincare range, what she’s learned about marketing it, and what’s up for her next. 

(AND for the record - I love and really rate her product. And no - she didn’t pay me to say that!)

In this episode we cover:

• How Gemma started her business 


• Why she’s now following her gut on her marketing


• Why she’s planning to maintain a direct to public model


• How she now selects influencers 


• Why she uses real people in her advertising

Important Links

Check out Conviction here

Follow Conviction on Instagram

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve got a particular love for family run businesses because we’ve got one ourselves! So when I heard that Fiona from The Damson Collection was now working alongside her son in her business, I really wanted to find out how that dynamic works. 

Fiona was an editorial and commercial photographer for twenty-five years, until she had to find an alternative income after losing her ability to see with binocular vision. (it’s since been restored) She had started up a macaron business, and moved to Hawkes Bay to run it. While there she bought The Damson Collection from the orchardists who had started it, and since then has grown into an award winning business.

The business had mainly sold their Damson plum based products via markets and retailers. With a pandemic impacting both of these avenues, Fiona had to move online fast - and thankfully her son Rogan was there to help. He stepped in, took over the online side, and the packing of orders and the team was born.

Now several years into this new combination, the mother and son duo continue to work together, with both contributing significantly different skills into the mix. 

The Damson Collection has won both national and international awards for their products, and with more new and innovative ideas in the pipeline, it’s clear that this business is definitely going places. 

In this episode we cover:

• How Fiona grew her business


• Here initial plans for the business, and why they’re still in development


• How Fiona’s been able to move out of operations


• How Rogan and Fiona work together in the business


• What’s up next for The Damson Collection

Important Links

Check out Damson Collection

Follow them on Instagram

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m sure you’ve either experienced that “free webinar from hell” or heard about them. You know the ones where you sign up for what looked great on paper, to find it’s got three bits of fluffy info, and a forty minute sales pitch (with a promise of the good stuff if you stay and listen, only to find the “good stuff” was the fourth bit of fluff)

I’m a huge believer in the power of using webinars to build trust, gain new clients, and make sales. But I’m not a fan of crappy webinars that waste the participants time

So in this episode, I’m going to run down how I structure my webinars, tell you what you need to think about, and what you can do to make your webinars effective, and the elad generating machines they are supposed to be.

I struggled for a long time to get my head around webinars and how to use them, and now they’re a big part of what we do to grow trust, community and get more clients.

So come along with me as I take you behind the scenes of what I do to plan for our webinars.

In this episode we cover:

• What platforms we use 


• What you need to think about before planning your webinar


• How I structure my webinar


• How to reward people for showing up


• When to sell


• How much time should be selling

Important Links

DEMIO - Check it out

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest today, Vanessa Victor has a saying. “Once you’ve met a Neuro Divergent person, you’ve just met a neuro divergent person.” What that means is that the way a neuro divergent brain works will present itself differently in everyone. 

With between thirty to forty percent of the population considered to be likely Neuro Diverse, and the fact a neuro divergent person is more statistically likely to own their own business, there’s a lot of us running around out there in small business land!

I know that my brain really struggles with normal basic tasks, but can also get huge amounts of work done if I’m having a good day. This up and down nature of my output, and my focus used to be a source of great anxiety, along with my knack of oversharing, my oversensitive nature, and my anxiety in new types of social situations. 

All of this has had a large impact on me as a business owner. And I know I’m not alone.

So I’m so thankful I met Vanessa. She’s dyslexic and has ADHD, and also happens to teach organizations and businesses how to make the most of their ND team members, as well as helping those same members learn skills to help them thrive in a neurotypical world. 

She’s also a small business owner, and knows first hand the traps and issues that can crop up for us in our businesses. She’s going to be sharing both what she’s learnt and what she knows as an expert in today’s podcast

Vanessa is one of the owners of Remarkable Minds. They provide solutions, tools and life-changing programmes. They coach individuals and businesses with a range of solutions to enable anyone with neurodiversity to feel empowered, confident and capable.

In this episode we cover:

• What Neuro Divergent means and what it covers


• Whether being ND is a disability or not


• What are some of the common issues for ND business owners


• What tools can we use to help us


• What we need to look out for

Important Links

Get in touch with Vanessa

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While there are a few outliers who are thriving at the moment, many of the business owners I’m speaking to are definitely seeing a cool down in leads and sales at the moment. Now I’m not an economist, but I love to read and explore, and I’m also a mega planner. So with markets all over the world saying a recession is coming, and my desire to make sure both we and you are prepared, I thought this was a great opportunity to talk about how we need to market during a recession.

If there’s anything you can get out of this episode, it would be two things. First, a recession doesn’t always mean disaster is coming. Many businesses can thrive during a recession. It’s about narrowing your focus, your message and really getting your target market clear. 

The second is that marketing must continue. I don’t know if you’re like me, but when I’m stressed I want to hunker down, and sometimes the marketing stuff feels a bit harder to do, because it’s taking me away from the effort of just surviving. I’ve experienced this recently, not due to recession effects, but just with a large couple of projects that have taken up my head space. But this is not a time to abandon marketing. In fact marketing might be your ticket out of any recession based pain you might be open to.

I’m confident you can recession proof your business. We’ve managed to survive over two years of a world wide pandemic. So take the time, listen to the eight key points and get marketing. We’ve got this. 

In this episode we cover:

• The most important thing to do


• Why you’ve got a solution in front of you


• What may need to change


• How to build trust and engagement


• Why consistency is essential


• Whether you should reduce your marketing budget

Important Links

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.