In this episode of 'Your Dream Business Podcast,' I talked with Karen Cureton, a multi-award-winning social media trainer and speaker. We tackled the common dilemmas businesses face with social media, from engaging effectively to overcoming the fear of visibility. Karen shared her journey from corporate sales to helping women in business grow their social media presence, demystifying the process with actionable strategies. Tune in for insightful tips on building relationships online, maintaining authenticity, and consistently engaging your audience for business growth.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Overcoming the Fear of Visibility: Karen shared practical tips on how to conquer the fear of being seen online and why embracing authenticity is crucial for building trust with your audience.
Building Relationships Through Engagement: The importance of genuine, consistent interaction on social media was emphasized as a way to foster meaningful connections and grow your business.
Simplifying Social Media Strategies: Karen broke down actionable steps to demystify social media, making it easier for businesses to create a strong online presence and maintain consistency.
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LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Karen Cureton on LinkedIn, Website, Facebook, Instagram
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
If you are in business, you know that social media is something that we have to do. Some of you might love it, and some of you might think it's a necessary evil, something that we have to do. And some of you might feel like you're not doing it at all, and you really should be. But you might be thinking, why do I go to all that effort of putting all those posts out when it's just tumbleweed?
And people talk about getting clients from social media, but it's never really happened for you. Well, today's guest is addressing all of those things. How do you show up where you actually do engage with your potential customers and turn them into clients?
Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I always love it when I can bring you guests that I know really well and today's guest is no exception. Karen Cureton has been working with me for the past 12 months.
She's actually been in my world a very long time as a voyeur and a lurker which you will hear more about people lurking on social media and she's watched me for quite some time and about 12 months ago she started working with me and it's just been an absolute pleasure to work with her. And as you'll hear in the interview, one of the things that I talk about is that I encourage everyone [00:02:00] I work with to increase their visibility by getting on podcasts, by putting themselves in front of other people's audiences and putting themselves out there.
And Karen obviously came to me and said, well, could I come on your podcast? And I was like, of course you can. So it's really lovely to have Karen come and join us today. Karen is a multi award winning social media trainer and speaker, and she works with women in business to inspire them to grow through being visible on social media.
She is not your typical social media trainer. She is an ex pat Geordie with over 20 years experience in corporate sales. But for the last decade, she's focused on helping women in business navigate the social media maze, where she is passionate about ditching the jargon and creating a safe space to learn.
Karen has a program called Social Media for Grown Ups because as Karen shares in this episode, she was not of an era where she grew up with the internet and therefore her passion lies in helping other women and people who have had the say, where social media [00:03:00] isn't second nature, isn't something that they grew up with, and help them demystify what it is like and get on it.
We have such a cool conversation with some really good actionable takeaways for you. So at the end of this episode, I summarize some of those actionable takeaways, but we're talking about how to show up, how to get engagement, how to be proactive with your engagement and how to feel. like a real human being when you're on social media and how to come across as a real human being so that the people you're trying to interact with know that and they know that you're not some spammy horrible salesperson who's just trying to jump in their DMs and irritate them, which we've all probably had experience of.
Well, I certainly have had loads of it, but most of all, it was just a really lovely chat and so lovely to bring it to the podcast. So without further ado, here is The Awesome Karen. Karen, a really warm welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Karen: I'm really good. Thank you. The sun is actually shining, so I'm happy. I'm [00:04:00] happy.
Teresa: Actually, you're not wrong. It's, it's a little bit, a little bit blue sky here. Obviously, if you're listening to this and you're not British, then you might find it weird that we just immediately talk about the weather, but that is obviously our MO, like, you know, we talk about weather. Karen, you have been in my world for some time, which is lovely.
And What was super interesting was we, one of the things I do with my students and clients is we talk about visibility and it's what happens whenever I teach people the visibility strategy of getting in front of other people's audiences, they then get really nervous to approach me because I've taught it and you sent me.
In fact, you had heard someone I'd interviewed and you were like, I'm never gonna ask to come on the podcast, didn't you?
Karen: Yeah, true.
Teresa: But you did it and you're here, which is great. I, because
Karen: no, I message to you and said, I'm putting my big girl's pants on and I'm gonna apply.
Teresa: Yes. And look what happened. So
Karen: there you go.
Teresa: If someone is sat there thinking, oh, I'm too scared to do that, [00:05:00] just do it. You just never, never know. And actually, I. Love what you do. And obviously, I've been watching what you do for some time and even in my world for some time. And I think lots of people are going to resonate with this conversation. We are talking about social media, but you come at it from a different angle.
Now, obviously, if someone's listening to this, they can't see you, Karen. So maybe let's start with why you come at the angle you come at.
Karen: Well, I come at the angle I come at because I didn't grow up with the internet. I am a woman who grew up, I don't even want to say what decade, that's really scary. But I grew up, didn't grow up with the internet.
I grew up when my old boss used to send me faxes on a Sunday night with my reports and stuff like that. So I came to social media, I was still a really early adopter. I was on Twitter, God forbid that, Ooh, don't get me started on that, but Twitter was where I very first started [00:06:00] because I was in a sales role.
I was sales director for a national house builder. Absolutely loved what I did and then was stupid enough to have a kid, you know, who does that? And then I started looking at, I didn't want to go back into the corporate world and I thought how can I attract new clients? Because I didn't have a big budget, I didn't have lots of money and I came at it from a perspective of, do you know what it is? everything that I've learned about selling high end properties. which is where I worked. It was about building relationships and social media is exactly that. People forget, like we just say, it's, if you forget, it's called social networking and you build relationships with your future clients. And so I started looking at it as a woman in business with very little budget.
It didn't grow up with the internet and thought, do you know what it is? I [00:07:00] think this could be a goer. I think it could be absolutely a goer. And that's what, 14 years ago.
Teresa: I think, I think this, I think my audience is probably a little bit split in a sense of, there are probably some people listening to this, like, yeah, I love social media.
I'm great. I'm good on it. It's brilliant. And then there are some people who are like, I just can't get my head around it. And how, If you deal with people who, like you said, didn't grow up with the internet, didn't grow up with social media, you know, we all know that when we look at, you know, your children are older than my daughter, my daughter's 15, and how old are your boys?
Karen: My son's come, he's 19, he's 20 in May.
Teresa: Well, it's so second nature to them. That's all they know. So how do you go about encouraging someone who didn't, they didn't grow up with it, they don't even necessarily like it? Like, some people don't, you know, it's not their thing. Like, how do you encourage them to [00:08:00] actually even consider it in the first place for their business?
Karen: I think, I think there's two things there that I want to address, which is I, I assumed because I'm the wrong side of 40 that it was just people who didn't grow up with the internet. But I actually trained a young woman last year who was a personal trainer. and she said, I absolutely hate, hate social media.
I'm terrified of it. And I think whether you are her generation, younger, I'm actually coaching a young woman who's 18. Who's working at a dad's business, doing the marketing, and I'm coaching her to do the social media for that business. She's terrified. So I think. We almost need to swipe the age thing out.
I think it's a thing where people lack confidence. They're fearful of judgment. And then it's the donor looks silly. [00:09:00] You know, I remember the very first time I went live. Back in the day, I went live on Facebook, I was absolutely bricking it. And I planned it all out and I did it and I thought I'd done a decent job.
Then this horrible woman messaged me and it's the only time in 14 years somebody's done it. And she messaged me, oh, I thought your lighting could have been better. I thought you could have done this, could I? And I just responded and went, thanks for your feedback and blocked her. But my point is, I said this to a lady, well, just before Christmas and she said, I really don't like social media.
I know I need to be there. It's a necessary evil. And I said, well, your options are you are the pay somebody to do it for you, which is never the same as your voice. No, never the same as your voice or you learn how to do it. So what I do is I bring in my old sales tools and I say, well, what if. You learned this stuff.
What if you then signed up, [00:10:00] say five new clients in the first six months, what would the value of that client being to your business? And how would that make you feel? Well, I'd feel great. And I think it's that it's like. You know, I'm an introvert extrovert. I know you. I'm quite comfortable chatting away and I will chat away, but I'm also the person that flew to Australia and didn't speak to a soul.
Yeah. I'm not sociable in that way with people I don't know. And, and in social media, I, I do that. I think I dress for work and I think I'm putting my, my work avatar on, which is confident Karen. And so I'll say to, to clients and I'll say to your listeners. Take a step back for it and think about how you'd feel if you get the results you want, but I think it's, it's take it to the point that what we want to do is build relationships first, because we forget if we walked into a really [00:11:00] smart shop.
for me, it would be a handbag shop. We walked in there into Mulberry and it would go, can I help you? And you go, don't touch me. Don't touch me. Whereas actually I went to Mulberry before for my birthday, I went to Mulberry and this lovely woman came up to me and said, she says, Oh, you've got a Daria. She says, Oh, she says, Oh, it's one of my favourites.
And we ended up talking handbag. She built a relationship with me.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think. That's the key thing. I think often when people are scared of social media or don't want to do it, they're not thinking of, which was always the problem in the first place, they're not thinking of forget the Forget the, the actual, you know, platform itself, it's about, that's all it is.
Like it just happens to be a different way of doing it. It's the, the essence of what you do doesn't change the, the building, the relationships that have in the conversations that doesn't change. It's just the format in which you put that out, whether it's in person, whether it's something [00:12:00] else or whether it was on social media.
But I guess people really get hung up with the, the actual mechanics of using social media.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think it's about one of, one of the ladies I worked with about five, six years ago, she said, what I need is a workable way to do this stuff. And I think, you know, I, I have, I, I, in my head, which can be quite, crazy at times.
I have four things and I try and keep it really simple. I have four things that I think we need to learn and we incrementally, it's a bit like, you know, when your daughter was learning to ride a bike, she wouldn't get on that bike and go straight to the end of the street and back without falling off. We build up, we build up our learning.
So I'll say to people, if you think about the foundation of your, knowledge starts with the plan because we still have a plan for our businesses. You know, I have my big flip chart in my office where I have what I'm doing month by month, what I want to do in my business, [00:13:00] what I need to do to get there.
Your social media activity should be just the same. So you start with your foundations, your planning, what, where do I want to be this time next year? What do I want to be doing? Then you build up by the next layer. It's almost like a cake. Next layer of super chocolate icing, let's call it chocolate icing.
And then that's the juicy stuff. That's your content, that's your imagery. Maybe creating reels, going live. Some gorgeous branded imagery. Understanding that and then building up again by then starting to build your audience and then engage with them because that's the piece every time I go to a networking event, somebody will say to me, Oh, I'm paying my VA to do my social media, do my social media.
And I said, well, what's she doing? Yeah, well, she's posting. I said, and who's engaging, who's talking to your audience and, and it's a bit like if we [00:14:00] shouldn't just hit a tennis ball at a wall, it would be very exciting that's posting on social media, not actually, let's get to be hitting that ball back to us and talking.
Teresa: That's a great analogy. The whole, you know, the difference between playing tennis with a partner and just banging it against the wall. Like, you know, you're not getting anything back, you know,
Karen: like boring. It's boring. You know, I remember when I very first started on social media. I was in selling mode. I wasn't, I was in almost in that panic, you know, that fight of like, just sell to them, just put stuff out about how you can work with me.
And then I took a step back and, and I'll do this now. I would actually urge your listeners to do this. Do an audit of your last 20 posts. How many of them are building a sense of your personality? How many of them are authority positioning you? How many of them are talking about your pedigree? And what your clients say about [00:15:00] working with you, how many of them give you a sense of what results you can achieve and the difference you make and your differentiation.
So I'll say, take a step back, have a look, because actually quite often when we all start, we all start with selling because that's the easy thing to do.
Teresa: Yeah. So, okay. I've got questions coming out of my head. Okay. So. Firstly, what if you are literally getting tumbleweed? So what if? And I think this is the mistake that you kind of touched on and, and, and we can talk more about is that just the posting thing that I'm posting, I'm showing up and doing the thing and I'm getting nothing. Let's talk about that first.
Karen: I would strip it all back to basics. So I would say, okay, who do you want to attract? Because majority of us, a lot of us offer services. And I think there's a thing around positioning our expectations. How often does somebody need what we offer? [00:16:00] Now, if somebody was buying the pen.
That's really easy. You know, I buy loads of stuff on Instagram for the cats, you know, it's what I do. It's, it's an easy quick sale, isn't it? Yeah. But if you have a service, I would take a step back and think about, are you clear about who you want to work with? And will your profile Your bio resonate with them, regardless of platform, and my ethos is very much around, it doesn't matter which, you said it before, it doesn't matter which platform.
Mechanics are different, but actually the principles are the same. Your bio, your profile. needs to be something that's going to resonate, it's going to talk to that person. So I would say if you're sitting there and you're getting nothing happening, do a bit of a family and friends test with your bio, ask people, your friends, people that you trust, what do you think I do?
Who do...
