THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER PODCAST with Rachel Klaver

While most of us use holidays to chill out and think of anything but business, Chanelle O’Sullivan uses that time to plan out cool business ideas on paper, napkins, anything she can find. This was the beginning of her meadery Borage and Bee,  a sparkling mead in a can sold here in New Zealand, gaining huge interest overseas. 

Chanelle operates Borage and Bee Meadery from her home in Glenorchy in the South Island of New Zealand, arguably one of the most beautiful places to live in the world. 

Mead’s core product is honey, and has no artificial preservatives, cane sugar or anything not created by nature. It’s surprisingly unsweet (for those who’ve never tried it,  the honey gets “eaten up” in the fermentation process) 

Chanelle is now two years deep into her business, the third she’s launched and run. This is the first business she’s developed with a clear goal for growth, and she’s spent time taking on advisors to help her think bigger. 

One of the defining moments was when someone asked her “What’s your exit strategy?” 

It was a question that stopped Chanelle in her tracks and made her rethink how her business would grow. It helped her to think bigger, and continues to help her create a strategy that serves her business now, but also helps her plan for the future

In this episode we talk about what an exit strategy can do for your business, and why it’s not all about “preparing to sell.”

Today we cover

• What Chanelle’s plans are for Borage and Bee Meadery 


• The benefits and constraints of running a business rurally


• The impact in getting external help


• How investors have helped the business grow


• What having an exit strategy has done for the business


• What the next steps are for Borage and Bee


• What Chanelle would love to accomplish. 

Important Links

Borage and Bee on Instagram

Borage and Bee on Facebook

Other recommended Episodes

How to build a business without a ready to sell product

Getting into the USA market - with Getting Lost

Going from Markets to selling in stores

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Find out my favourite tools, apps and online solutions that help us create content, develop materials, and keep the content machine churning without causing us all to burn out. 

I first started in marketing over twenty years ago, and I can tell you that life is so much easier now! We had to outsource anything that wasn’t in our skillset (which besides writing was everything else for me.) It was hard work to do anything clever, and so much of the work was manual.

Every year the apps get cleverer, the automation becomes more perfect, and the options become endless. 

I’m an easily distracted magpie who loves the shiny new ideas, but that’s not serving us as a business, or our clients if I’m changing things up every five minutes! I download and test a lot of solutions before we adopt them, and the apps and platforms we stick with are ones we come back to again and again. 

So today I have over twenty different solutions to make your marketing activity easier. Most have a free option, though we normally use the paid one if we can see it’s going to save us time, and money. 

That’s the secret to all of these options, for design, content , video creation and more. Try them out, then keep the ones that make your marketing easier. 

And just remember - no tool can do what it’s meant to, if you don’t know what you’re trying to say, why you’re trying to say it, and who is meant to hear it. The strategy needs to come first.

Today we cover

• What to do before jumping in and giving these tools a go


• How to find these tools


• How I assess whether a tool or app is worth keeping


• Which ones we use at Identify every week


• Why paying for a tool can help you save money and time

Important Links

A PDF of all the tools/apps

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Free Video Trimmer

Telepromoter App (Iphone only)

Other recommended Episodes

How I repurpose content

Getting over video fears

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So often as business owners we fall into the trap of growing our business, focussed on the turnover and external signs of success, and forget the biggie: Profit.

This was certainly true for today’s guest Jennifer McKinley whose company Cor Silver Skincare was being picked up by international markets, considered a huge success and at the same time, causing Jennifer regular financial stress. Everyone was getting paid except her. 

Even though Jennifer loved numbers and accounting (She was a professor's assistant in accounting at Yale when I was getting my MBA there), she still made many of the same entrepreneurial mistakes in terms of managing the cash flow of the business. She was chasing revenue instead of profitability. Now she lives by the quote: “At the end of the day revenue is vanity; profitability is sanity”

With the same tenacity Jennifer had applied to building her business, she learned about Profit First, a system created by Mike Michalowicz for business owners needing to get the profit back into their business.

The results were seriously good, and Jennifer decided she’d like to share her knowledge with other small business owners struggling to grow a business while remaining profitable. She is New Zealand’s only Certified Profit First Professional, and helps her clients apply the Profit First model to their business.

We’re also avid Profit First users, and recommend it to our clients. Like us, they’ve seen dramatic changes in their businesses, from solopreneurs to businesses with teams of 50+ staff.  If you know you need to make more profit in the next twelve months, and want to get a handle on it, this podcast episode is for you. 

Today we cover

• .Why Jennifer became a Profit First Professional


• What the impact on her own business was


• What focussing on profit can do for the whole business


• Why this system can help you prepare for big purchases


• Why you need a “Government’s Money account


• Why a long holiday can be a sign of health


• What other accounts you need, depending on your type of business


• How to apply this process to your own business

Important Links

Jennifer’s Website

Jennifer on Linkedin

Jennifer on Facebook

Other recommended Episodes

Your budget is not their budget with Natalie Coombe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sel Leigh created a business that pulled together her decades of experience in working across multiple government and NGO roles educating not-for-profit and business owners, and had a growing number of clients who loved her help, advice and support around helping them understand the obligations and entitlements of being in business, specifically in the not for profit, or other impact style business models. 

But Sel had a problem

Her business was soaking up hours she did not have, she was stressed and the profit coming in from the work wasn’t enough. She needed help. 

In this episode of MAP IT Marketing, we walk through why Sel needed to get some external help to reset her pricing, what mindset barriers she had to break down, and how her clients reacted to her new pricing structure.

For anyone who’s struggled to work out how to price your value, as opposed to “what you think you can get” this is a must listen to episode. 

Sel now uses the lessons and techniques she’s learned to help her clients also change their mindset and ensure they’re building a business that is profitable and healthy. At the time of our interview, Sel was still on maternity leave, which she was able to take fully, leaving a team member to look after the business, and still be paid from the business. 

Sel’s about to return to work with clients, helping them with their Impact-focussed businesses, knowing she’s built a business that still gives her time with her three young children, aligning her business with her personal values around family.  

Today we cover

• Why it’s good to think about profit (even with a passion / impact business)


• Why we so often don’t charge what we’re worth


• What you need to take into account when you change your pricing


• When you may need to get help


• What the biggest impact of changing your money mindset is


• What happens when you tell your clients the pricing has changed

Important Links

Sel on Tiktok

Sel on Instagram

Sel on Linkedin

Natalie Coombe, Pricing Expert

Other recommended Episodes

Your budget is not their budget with Natalie Coombe

How People Pleasing Can Harm Your Business

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you dipped your toes into using LinkedIn but are not sure if it’s a social media platform you should be focusing on? Or have you been putting effort into it but haven’t seen an increase of leads or sales from your activity? LinkedIn can become a powerful growth tool for your small business if you use it right. And it all starts with optimising your profile.

For a long time, LinkedIn has been my favourite of all the social media platforms, although I’ve been exploring new loves such as Instagram this year. No matter how obsessed I have got around creating a reel or an engaging Instagram post, I still love the community power of LinkedIn, and the potential for huge organic reach from a post without as much as a few sentences placed together is better than any other platform.  

It’s so much more than a job finding or corporate promotional platform and can provide you with the ability to build relationships with both your ideal client and other business owners like yourself around the world.

I often say to small business owners “If your target market tends to be employed, and has money, then they’re likely to be found on Linkedin.” All small business owners can find their particular target market on the platform. Like anything, it’s how you use it!

Your personal Linkedin profile helps you connect person to person with your network. Because you are talking to each other as “real people’, your profile page needs to be a well-constructed information centre of what you do, who you do it for, and how you do it, from the banner to the record of your activity. 

We walk through how to construct your Linkedin profile, explain where you need to add a call to action and explain some of the common mistakes people make when creating their Linkedin profile. 

Today we cover

• Whether you need to be on Linkedin


• Why the profile is so important


• The key elements of a Linkedin profile


• How to write a create headline 


• Why you need the headline


• Tips for writing your about us and bio


• How to use the featured section


• Why it’s important to moderate your Linkedin activity 


• What to do from here. 

Important Links

Episode 27 - Why Linkedin Company Pages could become your secret weapon

Your FREE Linkedin infographic

MAP IT -Action plan for 2022

Social Media for Boring Businesses (free webinar)

Other recommended Episodes

Are Case Studies your Secret Weapon?

How to Create Engaging Social Media Posts

How to Create Social Media Content as a Boring Business

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I formally apologise for everything bad I’ve ever said about Linkedin Company Pages in the past, because today’s guest Michelle J Raymond has changed my mind! If you’ve also always wondered “Should I have one, and if I do, what do I do with it?” then this episode is most definitely for you

Michelle covers how Linked covers the big four reasons you need to have your Linkedin Company page do more than post job vacancies or company updates, and how this is one of the best places on the internet to sell to a targeted, and curated engaged audience.

In this episode of MAP IT Marketing we cover the content plan you can use for your business, and how to make this work whether you’re a solopreneur, have a small team, or a team of far more. 

Michelle J Raymond is the Chief LinkedIn Social Strategist at Good Trading Co and a founding member of the LinkedIn Small Business Advisory Council.   

Michelle specialises in helping small to medium business owners make a real impact in business using Linkedin Company pages.  She takes a hands-on approach, integrating her services into existing teams and working closely with businesses on strategy, execution and practical implementation of successful LinkedIn social selling campaigns.

 Learn how to create the right sort of content for your Linkedin page, and prepare to  have your mind changed just like mine was on the the benefits and possibilities of a Linkedin Company Page.

Today we cover

• Why small business should consider Linkedin company pages


• How company pages have changed in the last year


• How to grow your following


• What you need to do each month to help build an engaged following


• How to use your page to sell authentically to your audience


• How to use your page to grow your brand or company awareness


• Whether solopreneurs should use one alongside their personal profile


• The 3-2-1 approach to content creation for your page.

Important Links

http://www.goodtradingco.com.au/

The Good Trading Co on Linkedin

Michelle on Linkedin

Find Michelle on Instagram

MAP IT -Action plan for 2022

Social Media for Boring Businesses (free webinar)

Other recommended Episodes

Are Case Studies your Secret Weapon?

How to Create Engaging Social Media Posts

How to Create Social Media Content as a Boring Business

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do you do if you’ve had a few too many “no’s” recently and you need to find an extra ten thousand dollars?

Well for Cat and her husband, the answer was simple. Start a business.

Cat and her husband had long talked about turning a family game, where the family would explore New Zealand with a whimsical mystery tour of directions set out from the kids in the back for years. They’d built a community of ten thousand readers of Cat’s blog “Getting Lost” detailing their adventures, and had requests of how to help others explore New Zealand. 

The need to make right on the ten thousand dollar loss was enough to stir Cat into action and the result was a adorable game designed to travel with you as you go on a trip of exploration in the car. 

Six weeks after the launch, they’d made the ten thousand in profit, and realised that perhaps this game had a little more potential than they’d thought!

The business has continued to grow and provide games to help people on all sorts of adventures, from date nights, to dog walks, to trips with your mum. With a range of sixteen different games, selling all over New Zealand and the world, this game is definitely not getting lost in the plethora of other games out there!

Cat’s now planning to launch into the US, after a viral post saw a spate of orders and requests come from there.

One of Getting Lost’s skills is their ability to take a core idea and spin it into variations for different markets. They also are able to work quickly when needed, like the launch of the Art Home Edition mere days after the first lockdown in 2020

This is rollicking podcast episode, with the firecracker energy Cat has brought to her business. Prepare to enjoy the journey!

Today we cover

• How anger and frustration led to the launch of a business


• How Cat built a community before she had a business


• How she’s used her community to test and diversify


• What she learned from listening to criticism


• How her product production has been bootstrapped as they’ve grown


• How social media has opened up the US as a market


• What we can learn from Cat’s business

Important Links

www.gettinglost.co.nz

Getting Lost on Facebook

Getting Lost on Instagram

IMPORTANT LINKS MENTIONED DURING MAP IT MARKETING EPISODES

MAP IT Marketing Facebook group

Identify’s Events and Webinars

Identify Marketing Instagram

Identify Marketing Facebook Page

Rachel Klaver Website

Identify Marketing NZ Website

Identify Marketing Australian Website

Rachel Klaver - Linkedin

Rachel Klaver - Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"The hardest thing for me as a people pleaser was to discover my attempts to please everyone caused people to trust me less. That was the thing that made me the most devastated"

I used to be a sold out, all seasons pass People Pleaser. I was terrible at saying no if something wanted it, even if I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. Sometimes it all paid off. Other times, it didn’t. In one of the very first episodes of MAP IT Marketing I shared the story of how I built up our Agency Identify, only to have it all crumble back down in a huge mess. 

At that point I realised that for my life and my business to change, I had to make some changes too. Recognising that my “kind” desire to please everyone was actually not pleasing many people at all was a huge and horrible shock to the system.

In the episode I cover the areas that people pleasing can affect in your business from your team, your pricing, your capability, your reputation and more.

This is a super personal and honest story of the battles I’ve had to overcome as I’ve learned to create healthy boundaries that have helped us rebuild our business into one I’m proud of, that delivers on our promises and has an incredible team to help us. 

Saying a big NO to pleasing everyone has allowed me to become more confident in what we do best. As I say on the podcast: " When we're doing the things that we love doing that really light us up, and we put boundaries around our life to allow that to happen that people will respect, then that helps us to be the best gift that we are, we are a gift to the planet, each one of us as a gift to the planet"

Whether you have the same struggles or not, I invite you to learn from my story. 

Today we cover

• What impact people pleasing had on my team


• Why people pleasing limited our ability to be profitable


• How people pleasing attracts the wrong types of customers


• Why boundaries in business are essential for thriving


• What I’ve learned and experienced from dropping the people pleasing.

Other recommended Episodes

The Most Important Part of your Marketing

Managing Marketing Overwhelm

IMPORTANT LINKS MENTIONED DURING MAP IT MARKETING EPISODES

MAP IT Marketing Facebook group

Identify’s Events and Webinars

Identify Marketing Instagram

Identify Marketing Facebook Page

Rachel Klaver Website

Identify Marketing NZ Website

Identify Marketing Australian Website

Rachel Klaver - Linkedin

Rachel Klaver - Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Great images of your products and of you can make selling what you do a whole lot easier. Even if you’re on a budget, the investment of great photography can help elevate your business and make you look far more together than you probably feel!

But it’s often one of the biggest areas of lack for most of the business owners I work with. So few invest money into getting a range of photos they can use for social media, the website, print and anywhere else you can place them. 

In episode 24 of MAP IT Marketing, we talk to “Hipster Mum” owner Jade Warne. Jade specialises in helping business owners create stunning photography and videos of both themselves and their products, along with handing over a fair amount of advice and support around digital marketing. 

Jade’s snapped Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marie Forleo, Elizabeth Gilbert, Elle Macpherson - but her favourite clients are small business women who are building their dream. After starting her career with Marie Claire and the Sydney Morning Herald, she worked for start-up “Shoes of Prey” (which I vastly regret not asking her about in this episode because I loved that business!)

Jade has an energised and engaged community on Instagram under the name @hipstermumsocial where she mixes the realities of the business and parenting juggle

We talk about the importance of carving out a persona for yourself as a business owner that can be separate from the banalities and stress of parenting, and how this can make you feel more confident and in control of your marketing and brand. 

As Jade says ”Who do you need to be in a business sense? Who you know, what is that person? How do they show up? What do they wear? What colours are important to them?  And let's bring that construction to life for you so that you can communicate really succinctly swiftly with your ideal client to make those connections in a split second”

This episode is for anyone needing to understand how  to find their own brand persona, what you need to have at home for your own product photography, why using an expert can be a worthwhile investment, whether you should use your children’s images as part of your marketing, and exactly how the balance between being in business and being a parent can sometimes feel completely impossible 

Today we cover

• Why it’s ok to have a brand persona


• What happens to you when you own that persona


• What you need to create your own product photos at home


• Why getting a brand photographer can save you time and money


• The juggle of owning a business and being a parent


• Why sometimes we need to follow the different seasons of our lives


• Whether you should use your children as marketing material

Important Links

https://www.hipstermum.com/

https://www.instagram.com/hipstermumsocial

Identify's ECommerce Webinar October 7th

Other recommended Episodes

How to build a personal brand

What you must do to improve your ECommerce sales

IMPORTANT LINKS MENTIONED DURING MAP IT MARKETING EPISODES

MAP IT Marketing Facebook group

Identify’s Events and Webinars

Identify Marketing Instagram

Identify Marketing Facebook Page

Rachel Klaver Website

Identify Marketing NZ Website

Identify Marketing Australian Website

Rachel Klaver - Linkedin

Rachel Klaver - Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do you do when a pandemic blocks your opportunity to go on the OE you’ve been planning and saving for for years? Well for Charlotte Greer, it was the perfect opportunity to start a business.

After saving, while studying for her degree in Economics, Charlotte was all set to explore beyond the borders of New Zealand. When she realised that OE wasn’t going to happen any time soon, Charlotte picked up a project she’d initiated at university, where she’d created a business plan, with costings and sales projections, to help understand and process the application of her study.

This business was the perfect blend of her business brain, and her desire to live a “blended” sustainable life, where she may not “carry a straw everywhere” but definitely wanted to reduce waste, and choose products that did not leave a negative impact on the environment.

Veto began as a small range of products Charlotte sold online, and through the markets. Her business is still young, new and at the early stages, but she’s already gained stockists, has a pop up “refillery” in Tauranga, and has long term goals to grow both the range and the reach of her products.

Charlotte shares what she believes is the most important parts of starting a business are to get right, what she’s be able to do herself to launch it, and some of the challenges she’s faced since launching her business.

We also talk about the assumption that GenZ/ Millennials will automatically know how to market their business with social media, and the different skills you need when looking at it from a business perspective. 

Today we cover

• What Charlotte sees are the most important parts of a business plan


• How to grow a business with no budget


• How to use customer feedback to develop your range


• Why Charlotte chose a sustainable brand


• How Charlotte saved money when she launched


• What’s next for VETO

Important Links

https://www.vetozerowaste.online/

Veto on Instagram

Other recommended Episodes

Backing Yourself to move from markets

How Pepper and Me was built on community

What you must do before spending a cent on Facebook Ads

What you can do on your website today to improve your ECommerce sales

IMPORTANT LINKS MENTIONED DURING MAP IT MARKETING EPISODES

MAP IT Marketing Facebook group

Identify’s Free Events and Webinars

Identify Marketing Instagram

Identify Marketing Facebook Page

Rachel Klaver Website

Identify Marketing NZ Website

Identify Marketing Australian Website

Rachel Klaver - Linkedin

Rachel Klaver - Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.