Your Dream Business

By Teresa Heath-WareingBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

Your Dream Business episodes

January 15, 2024Your Best Year Yet: Goal Setting for 2024 + Free Workbook for Your Success
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about making sure you are in a position to set your goals for 2024; so if you haven't set yours yet, or you need to add detail to the ones you have, then this is the episode for you!
I delve into how you can ensure that the goals you set are based on what YOU want, what YOUR business is, and what season of life YOU are in.
And the best bit?
This episode comes with a free goal setting workbook, that you can fill in whilst you listen or at a later date!
If you loved this episode, then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review. I would be so very grateful.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The questions you need to ask yourself before you set your goals

The questions to ask yourself during the process of setting your goals

How to break your goals down into actionable steps and avoid self-sabotage

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Download the Goal Setting workbook
Secure your spot at my Insider Experience
Sign up to Teresa's email list
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, Teresa Heath Wareing, an international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in.
In each episode I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started.
Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. And as always, I'm your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are you doing today? So I am coming to you with a solo episode today because we are midway through January. And I want to do a quick check in with you to see if you have given some thought to what you want to achieve this year and whether you have set your goals and planned out what they are and how you're going to actually plug them into your day to day life to get them to be achieved.
So what I thought I would do is, as you well know, this is my jam. Like, if you're new to the podcast, if this is the first time you're listening to an episode, welcome. I am so grateful to have you here. But I am all things goal setting. Like I love this stuff. I am a qualified coach and part of that coaching that I offer and what I do is in and around goal setting.
And this is something I have done myself for a really long time. So. I am a big fan of it. It's proven to work for me. It's really helpful for me. Now, I'm not saying that everybody will find it useful or helpful. Some people are super creative. They might not want to set goals. But for me, one of the reasons you do is that you have a kind of true north, a guiding star as to where you are trying to get to.
And if you don't know, and there's the analogy of like, you know, it's like having a map, no idea where the destination is that you could just waste your time going around and running circles because you're not entirely sure where you're trying to head. And that's exactly how I feel when we do goal setting.
And when we run a business, what is it that we actually really want? Now, one of the things I am super passionate about is making sure that these goals are based on you, what you want, what your business is, and what season of life you are in. Because that makes a humongous difference to the goals. It's all well and good watching other entrepreneurs, other business owners and think, Oh, well, they have achieved this.
They think that this is a version of success and therefore that's the version I should go after. But actually that might not be what you want. And depending on your season of life, it might not be appropriate for right now. It's not to say that you never want to earn X amount of money, or you might not want a huge team, or whatever it might be.
But right now, is that right? Is it fitting with you, your family, your needs, and like I said, the season of life you're in. And by season of life, what I mean is What is important to you right now? Is it that you have young children and you need to be present for them? Is it, I know one of my friends, their child is going through exams.
So actually come the summer, it's going to be a real tricky time for them. So they need to put that into consideration. 2023. It was a huge growth year for me from a personal point of view. And that season of life actually meant that I didn't put as much into my business as I would have liked, but it was the right thing to do to invest that time into me and getting me to where I am today.
And all that will come clear. I'm going to be doing an episode very, very soon on that as to what happened. But goal setting is super, super important for me to kind of look and attract and go, where am I trying to head to? What is it I want out of the business or this year or. And again, it's not about seven figure launches working from a beach.
Now, if that's what you want, great, let's go for those goals. But just because other people go for those goals, you don't have to do the same. Yours can look very, very different and that is fine. So what I thought I would do today is this year I actually tweaked my goal setting worksheet that I do with my clients and my members and within the executive club, my mastermind.
So I thought I would give you an opportunity to download a goal setting workbook, which I have put together really, really quickly. So don't expect like the most beautiful of landing pages, but I've put together a goal setting workbook. And in this episode, I'm going to talk you through some of those exercises in there.
And if you have the workbook, great, you can download it and maybe listen along. Or if you just want to listen and make notes in a notebook, then absolutely fine. Or if you just want to listen and do it in your head as you're driving or getting ready or whenever you listen to this podcast, then that is fine.
But I do think it's super important to spend a bit of time and I'm not going to dictate how long, but a bit of time giving this some thought and making a plan for 2024. So I guess I should start by telling you where you can go and get your free download. So if you head to https://teresaheathwareing.com/goalsetting, then you will find the free goal setting workbook, which you can work through with me as I'm speaking, or you can do it in your own time, or you can just listen to this podcast and make some notes in your head, like I said.
Okay. So the very first thing we do, and I know it feels a bit dull and a bit boring, and sometimes I get a little bit embarrassed, like, Having to take people through it again and again, because I think surely they know this by now. And it's not about, they don't know it. It's the fact of giving them space to do it.
We need to review what happened in 2023. Now, the only way we can improve, we can move forward. We can make changes is by understanding what happened in this last year. Now, the aim of this isn't to beat yourself up and be like, you know, well done, me didn't do as much as I said. The aim is to learn from it.
So the first thing we do, and the first thing you'll see in the workbook is what went really well this year. And this is like typical me, but when it was New Year's Eve, it was my daughter and my husband and I, and I almost did like a whole year review with them. I didn't get my workbook. And I did choose more fun questions, but we talked about what went well in the previous year for us.
So this is something that we do in our personal life as well as in the business and it was really good. It's really nice to remember what happens. Now for this bit I always go back through my phone or I go through my photos or I look at my calendar to remind me what happened this year because believe me when you're sitting down and reviewing the previous year.
That kind of January, February, March feels like a million years ago. And actually what's always fascinating is kind of looking at it and going, Oh, okay, gosh, that was all that time ago. And I'd forgotten that even happened. So what went really well this year? So make notes of them, what happened, what was really good.
Then we look at what didn't go as planned in 2023. And the reason we look at that is because we need to see where we didn't make the moves that we wanted to. And there could be a million reasons for this. It might be that you put it on the, in your goal setting, or you thought you were going to do something, or you tried to do something and it didn't quite go to plan.
And that's okay. You know, part of being a business owner is failing and getting back up again and failing and getting back up again. And if you think we can go through this entrepreneurial life and never fail and never have something go not to plan. Then we're really mistaken because that can't happen.
Every single year in my business I have a very long list of things that didn't go to plan. Now, you might not know that you might not see that. Look at it. Instagram. And I will talk about it because I do. However. there's always things that don't go to plan. So make a sort of a list of what didn't go to plan. And then the key bit to take from both of those sections, which is the next in the workbook is what did you learn this year?
So what did you learn by those two things? So the stuff that went really well and the stuff that didn't go so well, what did you learn from it? Because that's where we're going to be able to start making those shifts and changes going into 2024. It might be that you learn, actually, that was not that important to me.
So I'm just going to literally ditch it off. It might be that actually I did this and I got this. So if I want more, I need to do X, Y, Z. So what could you learn from those answers that you've already put in? And then the next question is, what do you plan to do differently in 2024? So those are the kind of setups in terms of like the main kind of review of the 2023.
The other thing I've put in this workbook that you can download is what marketing have you done? What worked, what didn't, and what do you want to do in 2024? Because this will help you understand the marketing kind of framework. Again, if you put a lot of time and effort into a particular marketing plan and it didn't work, then you probably won't want to do that exactly as it was for the following year.
You might, it depends. But then the key bit about this is doing the goal setting. So this is the whole point. You can't goal set for 2024 if you've not reviewed 2023. The other thing that's super helpful, and the reason I'm doing this episode is because, and I probably should have said this at the beginning, but come the 22nd of January, running through to the 26th of January, I am running an insider experience in the club.
And as part of that insider experience, I am doing some really cool sessions that will help you with all of this if you need some help. So one of the first things we're going to be doing in that week, which I was just about to talk about, hence why I'm mentioning it now. Is we're going to be doing a wheel of life. Now, this is the next thing I get people to do when we're doing this, these exercise, because before we can sit down and go, okay, we reviewed.
So you reviewed the previous year first, before we can decide what goals we want to set for this year, we need to have a look at where we are today and what the wheel of life does. If you've not done it before, or even if you have done it before, having that space to do it and run through that exercise with someone is really, really effective.
So. Okay. In that wheel of life, you decide the areas of your life that you want to look at. And I'll give you examples of this in the free session. And then we rate them and we look at what is it we really want from them and what is it that they are doing now. So let's say, I don't know, let's say your health, you rate at a 5 out of 10.
And so then I'll get you to think about, well, what would make it a 10 out of 10? So what would health, what would you like it to look like? As to why you only scored it five. And then once you know what you would like it to look like and where you are today, then we can take some actions and then we can set some goals as to how we can get further up that sort of sliding scale to 10.
So that's how we can then decide whether that's important enough to go into our goals. So, like I said, in part of part of the insider experience, we're going to be doing a wheel of life. I think we're doing that. In fact, I should probably find this out if I'm actually going to be speaking to you about this in this call.
So we are doing the mindset call on the Monday, the 22nd. We're doing it seven o'clock, 7 PM UK time, which if I was really helpful, I'd be telling you what time that is for Pacific and Eastern, two seconds. And I will go to the right link and I will tell you what time it is. Okay. So the mindset workshop is going to be 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time and 7 PM UK time.
So that first workshop, which is entirely free. The whole week is free is looking at the wheel of life, which is then going to get us ready for doing a later workshop, which is going to be on Thursday, the 25th of January at 4 PM UK time, 8 AM. Pacific time, 11 a. m. Eastern time, and this is going to be the goal setting section.
So, we are going to take some of your goals and I'm going to show you how to split them out over quarters and how to set quarterly goals. Because if we can split them out and set quarterly goals, then we can actually go to achieving them. The problem is when most people do goal setting, they literally just write annual goals and then they wait till the end of the year and then review them and go, Oh no, I didn't get them.
And they don't know why. And the reason is because you haven't given it the kind of, you haven't been paying attention to it all the way through the year, but also you haven't been breaking it down. And that's what we're going to be doing in that session. So not only will I be helping you set some of those goals, but also let's see how we can break them down so you can actually achieve them. Anyway.
So yeah, that's on Thursday, the 25th of Jan. And again, that's all free. Also, by the way, there is an amazing session on the Friday. I've pulled out all the big guns for this week on how to set pricing with confidence. So I know that pricing is a big thing and you might have one of your goals as. I want to increase my income, which might in turn mean you've got to increase your prices.
So how do you know if it's the right price? How do you know if people will pay for it? How do you know if you're too expensive, too cheap? Who should you listen to? So we're going to be going over all of that and that's going to be on Friday, 4 p. m. UK time, 8 a. m. Pacific and 11 a. m. Eastern. Okay, let me get back to the workbook and to the plan as to what we do.
So, like I said, naturally, the next thing you would do is a wheel of life to help you understand what parts of your life you want to change and improve and to decide then what goes on your goals. And We try and do goals between anywhere between kind of six and ten or twelve, like you get to decide your goals.
Now, what I don't want to happen is you to have twelve massive goals that quite honestly are going to completely overwhelm you. Again, that's really important. So you kind of want to balance. You don't want them too big. You don't want them too small. So the first thing we do is come up with the main goal headings and the main goal areas.
And we literally just in the workbook, it literally just says one goal, one goal, two goal, three. But the important bit is the breakdown of the goal. Now, the reason we need to break down the goal is for all of the reasons I've already said. One, we need to make it so that we specifically know what it is we're trying to achieve.
So having a goal that says I want to get healthy is not a goal because how do you know when you've achieved it? You don't. Like, what does that measure of getting healthy look like? Or I want to earn more money. Well, how much more money and how are you going to go about doing it? And that's why, like I said, People's goals often don't make it past the written right in the first goal down.
So in the workbook, what I give you is a goal deep dive. So in the goal deep dive, we look at whether it's an achievement goal or a habit goal. That's just so, you know, because obviously if it's a habit goal, you want to get it on your habit tracker. So one of my goals is to ensure that I am. I've started a new morning routine.
I will share that with you at some point, I'm sure, but to make sure I'm doing my morning routine. So that would be a habit goal and achievement goal for me would be to build my email list to a specific number or to launch a summit that I'm doing. So you would write your goal summary down. And then what I do is I get them to break into three mini goals.
And this way we can make sure that we can start to see where the actions are going to take place. So the example I give in the workbook is let's say you want to build your email list to a thousand subscribers by the end of 2024 so. That goal is the goal summary.
And then when I break it down, the three mini goals, which are more like the actions are, I might run ads throughout the year. That's mini goal number one. Mini goal number two might be have three different lead magnets. Mini goal number three might be
make sure I post about joining my list. So those are more specific goals that are verging on actions in order to get you going with this main goal.
So. Then I get them to identify three next steps that they can take. Again, we want to make sure that we're actually moving forward. So not kind of like just, you know, I'm going to run ads throughout the year. Well, what is the next thing that I can do? And in an ideal world, this is where we start to break it down into the quarters, into the weeks, into the months.
So the next step with running the ads would be plan when I want to run ads. And research, what kind of ads to run. The next step for the different lead magnets would be review currently magnets and come up with ideas for new ones. Then the third one, which is make sure I post about joining my list. My next step would be adding...
23 min
January 08, 2024Purposeful Steps: Aligning Your Thoughts and Actions for Success
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Aneta Ardelian Kuzma, where we are talking all about how can we align our daily choices in order to help us achieve our goals.
Aneta is a holistic life coach, executive coach, wellness expert, and yoga, meditation, and breathwork teacher. She is the host of the podcast Live the Width of Your Life. On her show, she explores what it means to live life more fully, with intention, gratitude, and joy.
She also recently published her first book, titled Live the Width of Your Life: 365 Daily Meditations on living with purpose, passion, and peace. Her passion is helping others to create lives of purpose, passion, and peace.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Productivity habits and rituals to help you be more successful

Setting boundaries and protecting your energy as a busy business owner

How to know when you're being kind to yourself and when you're self sabotaging

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out Aneta's website
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So I hope you've had a good week and actually by the time this recording comes out, it's really early January. So I'm wondering whether you've done your goals, whether you've sorted out what you're going to do for this year.
If so, and even if you haven't, this is going to be a great episode for you because my amazing guest today is going to be talking about how we can break down those Goals so that we can create daily actions to align with what we want from our dream life and what we want from our dream business. So I am very excited to introduce today Aneta Kuzma. How are you doing Aneta?
Aneta: I'm so well, Teresa. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Teresa: My pleasure. So I was introduced to you cause I did your podcast and it's always so lovely when we can do like a podcast swap because it's like. You don't just get to have one conversation. You get to have a couple and that's really, really nice.
Aneta: I love it. And I love that our communities get to participate in these conversations with us as they listen afterwards.
Teresa: Yes. Do you know what I did once that was such a good thing? And I should really do it again. I did a two part podcast with someone else. So part one was on mine and part two was on theirs. That's such a cool idea.
Aneta: I love it. Such a great idea.
Teresa: It was really, really good. And again, introducing people to each other's podcasts and stuff. It was really cool. Anyway. Anyway. And this, I would like you to introduce yourself and explain to us how you got to do what you do today.
Aneta: Sure. So, and that's a Kuzma and, it's interesting.
I used to be in banking. So I would say the short story of my life is that I was the type of person who just followed all the rules. I did what I thought was expected, you know, went to the right school and got a good education and started my family and found a great job. And I wanted to work for a company that I could grow into the company and my career and raise a family.
And, at some point during that time, I recognized that this was probably not where I wanted to finish my career. I still had another chapter in me. So. In my mid forties, I hired a coach and I really wanted to figure out what do I want to do? What is my purpose? What is my mission? And I say purpose with a little P it doesn't have to be a big one.
We typically get overwhelmed with that. And so, I started my own coaching and consulting business. And when I started my business, I said, I want to build a business that is so aligned to who I am, that is just allows me to take all the things I'm super passionate about and pull them all together. So I do a lot of one on one coaching, my, I do group coaching.
I also teach yoga, meditation, and breath work. I think I continue to expand and add to the things that I do. And as Teresa mentioned, I have a podcast and, I'm also also an author and, Really what I love to do is I help people, typically professionals and entrepreneurs identify what is it that is a successful life for them?
How do you redefine success? And then as you said, what we're gonna talk about today is how do you take daily aligned actions to build that life and help you achieve all of your goals?
Teresa: Love it. Love it. Love it. So a couple of things. Banking to breathwork, it's not a natural alignment really, is it? Or does it appear to be?
Was that like, did it feel like when you were in banking that something was not right?
Aneta: Yeah. So I've been a yoga practitioner since, you know, my twenties, so for a very long time. And so definitely early adopter of that and meditation, always very interested in spirituality and took a lot of comparative religion courses in college.
And so I always felt like there were two separate parts of me and now I get to integrate them, which is, you know, the spiritual inquisitive, curious part, and then also the professional part. And what I love to share with people is that it's not either, or it could be, and, and you can build an integrated and balanced life.
And you get to define what that looks like. So while I was in banking, people knew that I was going through yoga teacher training and that if I had the door closed, I was meditating. So it definitely wasn't a secret towards the end. It was at the beginning, but once I knew I was going to be leaving, eventually, I just started to bring more of myself to where I was.
Teresa: Yeah, I love that. And I love the fact of sometimes the, what would appear the polar ends of the spectrum, there is space for all of it. And, yes. And I guess we need to get into a position and a confidence within ourselves that actually we can show up as those alternate versions of us, and that's okay, you know, we are complex human beings and it doesn't actually matter if we like one thing, but it means that we like another that isn't normally associated or seen as a natural fit with the other, we can be complex in that way.
Aneta: We can and, and we get to redefine what's okay. Right? Like, I remember, you know, there was no issue with people talking about training for a marathon and, and running, you know, and so there are certain things that they were okay with, or if people were part of a, you know a sports team or something like that, but there are certain things that, especially on the spirituality side, where we just sort of didn't necessarily talk about it.
And I do see that now people are much more curious and open to talking about all kinds of different things.
Teresa: And I love that you use the word curious and you've used it a couple of times, because that's how I see it. Right. So like, I quite like to dabble into that side of the world. And my thing is, I'm just interested and I'm curious about it.
And if it helps or benefits me in some way, then great. let's, you know, I am happy to go with it. Like I don't need all the explanations. I don't need to the debate of it. I don't necessarily need, I do like the science of stuff and I do like to research that. However, I'm also just open to going, Oh, let's see what happens.
That's cool. You know? And there's something really nice about that.
Aneta: Oh, I agree. And I do think that in society, we're starting to see, as you said, the science, connecting to some of these ancient practices that work, but even as we think about breaking things into action plans, for example, right? That used to be maybe under a self help stage or something that was considered a little bit different.
And I do think that people are starting to say, what are the practices that can help me? And, let me see what works as you said.
Teresa: Yeah, exactly. And as far as I'm concerned, you know, if it doesn't harm anybody else and you're enjoying it, then do what the hell you want, you know, go with it, go with it. I just want to touch on as well, your book and, tell us what the title of your book is.
Aneta: Yeah, it's right there. It's called Live the Width of Your Life: 365 Daily Meditation on Living with Purpose, Passion, and Peace. And, I wrote the book because one of the things that I discovered and even about myself is so many of us read books, we consume a lot of data and information and we have bookshelves filled with them and we don't necessarily take the daily action then to apply those things to our life.
And so when I was writing a book, I said, you know, I love reading. Daily devotionals or reading my daily stoic or reading, just inspirational books, whether they're secular or not. And, so I wanted to write something that was easily digestible. And so every day there is a content maybe 1 page worth, and then there's a journal prompt or a challenge so that you can do something with the information to spend some time in reflection or even take an action.
So if the theme is gratitude, you could do a great gratitude practice, or maybe reach out to someone, tell them what they mean to you, et cetera. And over the course of the year, you should have seen a transformational shift in your life.
Teresa: Love it. That's so good. And you're right. I, I inhale books, but I remember a little bit small of them, but have they, they had a profound effect on the point in which I was reading them.
And then you put them down and you move on to the next one. Also, I'd like you just explain your title, what you mean by living the width of your life.
Aneta: Yeah, that's a great question. So, it came, it comes from a quote by Diane Ackerman. And when I first saw the quote, I thought, wow, what does she mean by living the width?
And so I defined it, for myself, although I think everyone has a different definition. For me, it means that we do not get to control how many days we are alive. We don't, we do not know we can do the things to try to create this beautiful, long life. But we can control what we do with the width of every single day.
And so you can be, you know, go through the day super present and mindful and curious and filled with gratitude and thanks and all these things that are beautiful. Or you can wish the day away and wait for the weekend or your next vacation or things, you know, these big moments in life. So I think living the width means treating every single day, just like you would, any of the big moments in life that we sometimes wait for or plan.
Teresa: Yeah. I love that so much. Like, You know exactly what you've said. You dunno how long you're on here. Yeah. You know, you don't know. We do wish so much of our lives away. We do think, oh, when I just get here or when I just get that, or if I can just have this. Yeah. And the truth is the way humans are designed, we get there and we want something else and there's Mm-Hmm.
in one way. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, I like having an ambitious side of me. However, it's that taking in the moment and going, but look at where we are here and look at how this is. And yeah, I just love that. There's a quote that I should actually remember. I was a co author in a book, right?
And I had to, and I wrote this chapter on basically what? What creating their dream business looks like and what it means for them. And I use this quote, which I found on a podcast or I heard on a podcast and basically it was something along the lines of, and I'm going to make sure we, I'm in the show notes cause I do a terrible job with it every time, but it was something like if this was all my life was, could I be okay with that?
And basically like the podcast episode was around happiness and it was, it's basically saying, so if this is all that it was like, if, if my life didn't move on from here, if I never got a bigger house, if I didn't get a bigger garden, I really want a bigger garden. I want lots of land. I grew vegetables.
But like, if this was it. Would I be okay with it? And the truth is, I absolutely would. Like, it doesn't mean I don't want more. It doesn't mean that I haven't got the ambition for more. But I would be okay. And it, that quote seems to sit really nicely with the, the concept of enjoying it and taking it in and making it as wonderful as possible.
But knowing and being okay with the fact that we want to move on and do other things, but we're taking, we're not taking now for granted. We're not taking every day for granted. We're not wishing our life away or thinking we will be different. Life will be different. Something else will be different if, and when we get to the next big thing.
Aneta: Oh my gosh. I love everything you said about that. And, when I talk to people and I ask them, do you feel like your life is in balance, or do you feel like you're living this integrated life? Many people can say no, but they don't necessarily have a definition of what that is. And that's where I said, and I recognize with my clients, it's you will be in balance when your daily choices align to your life values.
And I think that goes back to what you were saying is, do you fill each day with joy? Do you, spend time with the people that you care about? Do you make time for self care things that make you feel good? Do you spend enough time in quiet and reflection or resting if you need to? And when you start to think about being able to incorporate more of the things that you seek, that you need, that you want, that you value every day, and you're not going to have the same amount of time every day. You will then be able to say, yeah, this is a pretty good life.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think as well, like some people might be listening to this going, Oh, it's okay for you to say that you've got blah, blah, blah, but that's the beauty of it. It's not about, you know, it's about being able to recognize that, you know, other people might have what I want.
You know, someone out there has a four acres of land and a pig and some chickens, and I really want that. But it doesn't mean that my life now isn't amazing and beautiful and lovely as it is right now, you know, it's, it's appreciating that. And I think doing that more and more, and I try and teach my daughter gratitude all the time.
Because I think there, especially in a world where, Well, just the fact the world they're brought up in is you deserve more. You should have more. Everything is immediate. You get it straight away. And I just think sometimes slowing her down and going, do you know how much we have, do you know how amazing it is that we've got what we've got?
And, you know, I think is, is a good thing. Anyway. So I'm so glad I asked that question about the title, because it's such a good point. And, and even if you take nothing else from this podcast, which I know you will, that is exactly the point to take. So obviously. The amazing people who listen to me and have done for years know, I am all about the goal setting and I, my November and December are always very busy filled with walking people through processes and different things in order to get them ready to do their goals and to help them with their goals.
And one of the things that people really struggle with is turning those goals into actual things or creating the life that is going to get them or help them get close to that goals. And one of the things that we do and I do is I help them break it down into actions. But I'm really fascinated to understand your point of view on how can we align our daily choices in order to help us get towards those goals.
Aneta: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love talking about this. This is something I do with my clients. I always start with a vision. I always say start big and work backwards. And so I love starting with a vision. And I take people through a vision of what do you want your life to look like? And this is looking at not just your career or maybe just relationships or because we typically focus on a couple of areas of our life, but we really, we could expand beyond that.
Look at our health, which is mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, look at relationships, look at your home environment, look at you know, your career, your finances, growth and development, whatever is really important to you. And let's just define what that looks like. What is the life you really want to live and allow yourself to dream?
Like I always say, dream big. Better to start there. And then we work backwards about five years and then one to three years. And then we start getting into more, tactical plans and saying, what are the goals that, or the steps that will get you to that vision? And so once we do that and we kind of have the steps that we need to get there and becomes more granular, there are a couple of things that I always tell people is that.
We have to show up every day and we have to show up in with the aligned choices. Now, I love using a planner and I'm gonna get real tactical here because I use my planner, I write in it every day and you know, there's so many good ones out there. I will create my own one day.
Teresa: That's on my list too.
Aneta: That's on my list. But we should talk about it.
We should. So I love starting with, you know, as you work backwards, I always do a month ahead and take a look and say, what are the big goals that I have for the month? Realistic, we have to get very smart about setting realistic goals in terms of what we're capable of achieving. And then when we get to the week, I use my Friday afternoons as an opportunity to do a reflection on the week before.
Yeah. And then to say, did I hit my goals? How did I feel? Was it sustainable did my schedule support me, did allow me to be successful and then I do a look ahead and so I don't have to go into the weekend worrying. I do like, let's Friday afternoons. Let's look ahead and see what is the upcoming week coming up?
What are my priorities? Do I have the right meetings on my calendar? Do I need to create some more space and time? And do I have time for all those things that I said were important? So that's where. You know,
Aneta: making sure you plug in the time to spend with family, making sure that you're not going out for a work event every single night.
And then you feel exhausted and you're not sleeping properly. Right? And so making sure that works out. And then Monday morning is a time just to check in again and just say, okay. What am I going to do? And then I use the planner every day for top priorities, you know, maybe three of them. What are the tasks?
And I always track all the self care, you know, am I drinking my water? How did I sleep?
50 min
January 01, 2024Embrace the No: How Seeking Rejection Can Amplify Your Brand
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Liz Mosley, where we are talking all about the challenge she set herself to receive 100 rejections in her business, what she learned and why embracing rejection is important for your brand!
Liz Mosley is a graphic designer with over 15 years experience and now specialises in creating creative branding and animated GIFS for small business owners. She also hosts a podcast called Building Your Brand and teaches courses showing people how to create their own branding and GIFS if they don’t have the budget to outsource it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Overcoming embarrassment and shame in personal and professional growth

The concept of "failing forward" and how it can help you learn from your mistakes and move forward quickly

Practical tips on how to pitch to be a guest on a podcast and what you need to consider

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Liz on Instagram
Download Liz's Rejection Challenge Trello Template
Listen to Liz's podcast 'Building Your Brand'
Check out Liz's website
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So we are back with another interview. I don't know if I'm going to like bring back some solo ones. I will at some point. I just go with the flow and see how I feel. But at the moment, I'm really enjoying the interviews and I'm loving having some of these people on, which is awesome.
So today I have the very lovely Liz Mosley, who is a graphic designer with 15 years experience, and she now specializes in creating creative brands and animated GIFs for small business owners. She's also the host of a podcast called Building Your Brand and teaches courses, showing people how to create their own branding and GIFs.
It's a, there's an interesting story cause I was on her podcast, but we'll get to that later. Liz, welcome to the podcast.
Liz: Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here.
Teresa: My pleasure. So let's just start with the, I was on your podcast and you asked me to do something very unique on your podcast. Didn't you?
Liz: I know I really loved it and it was such a popular, popular episode, but yeah, I asked you to basically come on my podcast and coach me, which I think we were both a bit scared about cause you were scared that you would. You would coach me and everyone would be like, what's she even doing? And then I was scared that I, I have like a tendency to overshare.
So I was scared that I treated like a therapy session and go a bit too far with what I was sharing.
Teresa: Never want to put the episode out.
Liz: I never want to put it out, but it, I, you know, it worked really well. And I think I had so many messages from people saying that they like really resonated with it because it was a more like personal, vulnerable, this is what I worry about.
And, you know, as usual, it was the sort of thing that everybody else worries about as well.
Teresa: Yeah. There's, you know, and the truth is, I don't think no matter what stage you're at in business or where you are, and even the people you look up to or the people that you aspire to be like, they're still dealing with the same sorts of things, maybe on a different scale, maybe with a different topic, but it all kind of boils down to something similar.
But it was, it was such a good episode, but it was a very nerve wracking one to go into because to just jump straight into a coaching call and like, coach someone. Like, yeah, because some, I guess some coaches or sometimes that I coach, I feel like I get to the end and I'm like, I'm not entirely sure what I've done here, if I've done anything, but you just don't know.
Liz: Well, and that's the thing is because you didn't know what I was, I mean, you had an idea of the sort of thing I was going to talk to, but you didn't know what I was going to bring to the table. And I think for coaching to work really well, that there is that dynamic where. The person receiving the coaching has to be open to being coached.
So it could have, it could definitely have gone horribly wrong. Yeah. But thankfully I did feel fairly confident because we have spoken before and I feel like we have the sort of rapport where actually like. we speak to each other really easily. You know, it's not like it was ever going to be a stunted or awkward conversation.
So I think it, yeah, it worked well.
Teresa: It was, it was really, really good. But, and, and you're so right with the, I think the emphasis is often put on the coach, which is rightly so because obviously you're paying them and, and, you know, if you're working with a coach, your expectation of them is high or should be high.
However, you're entirely right. If the person coming to be coached isn't willing to be coached, then it's a dead end. Like there's nothing the coach can do. I had to remind myself of this recently when I started working with someone new and I actually got a new know Biz Paul. I actually got on a call with Biz Paul and I was moaning about something to do with work and saying something was difficult.
And he's like, have you spoken to your coach about this? I was like, no. And he was like, isn't that their job? I realized that I wasn't being very vulnerable. And that is one of my problems is that I have this, you know, This show, not show that I put on, it's me, but there's this element of, I can't let my guard down because I'm the one who leads the conversations.
I'm the one. And interestingly enough, even as I was interviewing other coaches, because I have one coach that I've worked with for years and I love and she's amazing, but I needed something slightly different. From what she did and I was interviewing other coaches and I realized that they were getting on a call and I was taking the whole call.
Like I was leading it. I was driving it. I was the one filling the gaps. I was the one asking the questions. And I was like, this isn't what it should be. Like, you know, I've got to, but that was partly my fault. Partly their fault. Cause it was like, I've got to step back and go, okay, am I willing to be coached?
And am I willing to get vulnerable? And I have done now, I've got more vulnerable now, which is good, but it is very much a two way street. So, yeah.
Liz: I think the key thing though, is that, is you, well, A, having a good friend to point it out to you, but also having, like, you need to have the self awareness, don't you, that that is something that you're doing.
Cause you could have easily gone into that situation thinking, Oh no, I'm doing, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. But actually like you need to like be able to recognize it so that then you can actually make a change so that it'll work for you.
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely. But no, it was really, really good fun. And your podcast, how many episodes have you done now?
Liz: I'm coming up to my 100th, which I'm really excited about.
Teresa: That's amazing. Have you got something exciting planned for your 100th?
Liz: Well, so I have a podcast editor and basically we've recorded an episode where she interviews me. So kind of what we did with yours, where she interviews me, kind of about like what my experience of the podcast, what I've learned, you know, kind of the lessons, the impact it's had on my business.
So yeah, hopefully that should be nice. And I think I'm going to do a gift, like a fun giveaway with like, like loads of the guests have like amazing physical products. And so I'm going to put together like a goodie box of things all from previous guests.
Teresa: That's so, so good. We had, I had Biz Paul interview me and my husband, Paul, because at the point he worked a lot in the business and also he came with me when I spoke and so episode 200, episode 100 and episode 200 are both me and Paul.
And then when it came to episode 300, he was like, you don't work in a business anymore, Paul. So you're not coming on. You've been on twice. That is enough. And people like him more than me. So I get jealous. But. Episode 300, I didn't actually do anything because I'd planned to do something, but the timing wasn't right.
And as it is, I still haven't done it. It will be coming. But yeah, so 300 is just a normal episode.
Liz: I can't believe you're over 300. That is mega.
Teresa: It's mad isn't it? Like.
Liz: I've got, I've got a funny story to tell you. So your husband does well on your podcast. The only episode that I have recorded that has never gone out on my podcast was with my husband.
Teresa: No, did you tell him? Is he completely gutted?
Liz: No, he was really relieved. It was like, I think I didn't prep him well enough, but basically, so he like, he does something that would have. The top, he like works in online education. So we were going to talk about online courses. It was like, perfect. Fitted really well, but he's in a much more sort of like corporate sphere to me.
And I don't think I sort of like briefed him on the sort of tone of the podcast. He doesn't listen to it, which frankly I think is rude. But then we basically were sat next to each other really closely with this one microphone. And it was, it was the most awkward conversation ever. I was like, yeah, that's.
I'm like, it's not going out. I can't. I can't.
Teresa: That is so good. That is awesome. You're the only one with you, my husband, sorry. And that is the thing. So when Biz Paul interviewed us first time, we were both, we were all in a recording studio. So that was much easier. The second time I think Paul and I did it just using my mic here.
And he is actually going to be recording another episode with me for something completely different, which we'll, we're going to go to Biz Paul's recording studio again to do it there because I just think like, it's that kind of. This is our home and we just huddled around like a pizza. It just seemed really odd.
Liz: Yeah, it was weird. Yeah, I think if I did it in a studio it might go a bit better, but it was really funny.
Teresa: And this is the thing, like he had a lot to say the first time and it was quite nice people getting to know him and getting to know me with him. But when, like he moved out, when he didn't move out of the business, he just got a real job, that meant he was not here and therefore couldn't help with the business.
I was like, yeah, you're kind of losing your point now, Paul. Sorry. I'm sure my audience would love to hear him back on. Anyway, anyway, so even though, so one of the reasons we met or how we met was through Adobe. So you and I are both, part of their, ambassador program. And Liz always does better than I do.
I'd like Liz is really good at doing the Adobe stuff. She's much higher on the leaderboard and I do get a bit competitive, not with Liz, just moving up the leaderboard a bit, but I just don't give it enough time, but your job naturally lends itself more.
Liz: Mine lends itself better to it, I think, than yours does.
And I'm already creating content like that, so it's sort of not that big a leap. Well, not that it's a leap for you, but it's just, we've got different audiences, haven't we? So it's just
Teresa: And your whole thing is talking about brand and branding and design, and so it fits perfectly. But we met through there.
However, today, we're not going to be talking about branding and things. We're going to be talking about a challenge that you did, which I just thought was brilliant. Tell us what the challenge was, Liz.
Liz: So I set myself a challenge to get a hundred rejections in my business. And I feel like I always need to caveat by saying in my business, because there's loads of people on TikTok going around trying to get a hundred rejections just in life.
So like going up to people in the street and asking them to like, sing duets with them and stuff. I was not doing that. Like that's not, that's not my vibe. So yeah, it was a hundred rejections in my business and like a whole story of how it came about. yeah. And I, well, I originally, I mean, I set myself Either to get to a hundred, to do it for six months, basically, my goal is to get to a hundred rejections in six months.
I massively failed. But that was sort of like part of the process. You know, it was an all in experiment.
Teresa: It's a good thing.
Liz: Yeah, it's a good thing, yeah.
Teresa: So, how come you started it?
Liz: So, I invited, so on a whim, about, it was just over a year ago now, I Had tagged someone, basically Christo, I tagged Christo in my, in a story, cause I'd just met him at Adobe Max and he replied, which was really nice of him.
And I thought, Oh, while he, like, if he's replied, then if I reply back, it's probably going to come up in his inbox, you know, rather than filtered off into that people you don't know inbox. And so I was like on a whim, I was like, I'm just going to ask him if he'd be on my podcast. So really impulsively, I asked him to be on my podcast and he sent me a really nice. A really polite message back, but basically asking how many downloads I used to get on my podcast and saying that when I got higher numbers to get back to him.
So basically saying no, which was, and it was very nice and friendly and polite, but I felt like really. My, I guess my reaction to it felt a bit over the top and I actually felt really embarrassed and a bit ashamed and a bit like, I had, you know, when you have that sinking feeling where you're suddenly like, I shouldn't have done that.
Teresa: Why did I do that?
Liz: Yeah, why did I do that? And I felt really embarrassed. And then I was, and then I could immediately sort of like, feel myself going into. Oh, I'm not going to do that again. You know, like I'm never going to ask anybody that's, you know, like too big, to be on my podcast again. And then like, I kind of didn't think anything of it.
I, you know, a few days later, I kind of like forgot about it. But then like a few months later, probably, I can't remember what, but something else will have happened. And it just set me up on this kind of like thought process of like, why am I reacting like this to these things? Because They don't, like, my reaction doesn't seem to match up to the very, like, polite, nice rejection that I've had that's not a big deal.
It's usually not anything about me, particularly. You know, it wasn't that he thought my podcast wasn't good. It wasn't that he thought anything was wrong with me. It was just that he was looking for a bigger audience to reach. And, you know, he probably gets invited onto loads. Anyway, so I just started this process of like, okay, hang on a second.
I can really see now that this is holding me back and it's stopping me go from things because my natural reaction is like self preservation and this doesn't feel nice. So my immediate reaction is like, I don't want to feel this again. So I'm not going to do this again. And so then I was like, okay, well this is not serving me well in my business at all because like, when I sort of take off, I think you've referred, you referred to this on our podcast episode on my podcast about the chimp brain.
And so it's like when I sort of can get myself out of the chimp brain and I think about it logically, actually, most of the times the rejections aren't really about me. If they are about me, then I probably wasn't the right fit for that thing anyway. So there's actually lots of other reasons why the rejection is valid, but I was making it all about me and all about what a story that I would then tell myself about me that was just effectively pretty self sabotagey.
So I was like, so I started to think about how I could change that. Like, what could I do that would change how I felt about rejection? And a friend of mine had done a similar challenge, like a few years previous. And I'd remembered like reading a blog post about it. She called it the no thank you challenge, which is much polite, like a much nicer way, a very friendly version of the rejection.
Teresa: Rejection. Rejection sounds so like. You're awful. Whereas someone went, oh, no, thank you. I'm good. It sounds so much nicer.
Liz: But I went all in with the rejections. But, yeah, and so I just decided that I would, I am the sort of person that loves challenges and this is why I do well in the Adobe Express thing, because they gamified it.
And I love, I love, I love gamifying anything. So like, give me a challenge and I'm, I'm on it. I'm gonna like work at it. And so I set myself this challenge. And honestly, the change was like immediate. So the minute I decided to do it, it was suddenly, I'd created a win win scenario for myself. So if someone said no, it was no longer this really negative thing.
It was helping me achieve my goal of getting a hundred challenges. So yeah, that was the challenge.
Teresa: I love it. So there's a couple of things I want to touch on. And obviously, you know, because we've spoken many times, this whole brain thing is my bag. So first off, for those of you listening, going, Oh my God, that's me.
I need to sort that. And what's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with you. It is absolutely natural that we would feel like that, that we don't like, you know, one of our Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And weirdly, I've just interviewed someone else this morning and we put that came up as well. How very odd, you know, is that we're accepted and we're part of a community and someone rejecting us goes against that, which then makes us go, Oh my God, I'm not liked. I'm not part of this community and kicks huge fears into us.
So, so that in itself is absolutely fine. And the other thing that's interesting, although you said, and you're right from a business point of view, it's not helpful. There is always a reason why our brain, our nervous system, our Us are doing those things.
Our
54 min
December 25, 2023 Merry Christmas
Today’s episode of the podcast is a short and sweet Christmas message from me to you!
Have a really beautiful Christmas and I hope you have a very happy new year ❤️

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
You are listening to the Your Dream Business podcast, and I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing, as always. Now, at the point of recording this, or sorry, the point that this will come out will be Christmas day. So I didn't want to spend your valuable time. And I didn't think many people would be jumping up on Christmas morning, ready to listen to my podcast episode.
So I just wanted to jump in and say. Have a very merry Christmas and I hope that when this comes live that you are enjoying yourself and spending some very valuable time, with your family and friends and relaxing. It has been quite a year for me. I have lots to share with you and lots to tell you, which I haven't quite got round to how I'm going to do that.
But all of that is coming in the new year and I have lots of new exciting things that I'll be sharing, including a summit that I am putting on and a more niche that I am going down. So I am super excited about all of that. But like I said, this was just a very quick episode just to say that I've never missed an episode.
But this does come out on Christmas day. So I just wanted to wish you all a really beautiful, Christmas and hope you have a happy new year and I will see you on the next episode.
2 min
December 18, 2023Surviving Personal Struggles in Business: A Story of Resilience
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Kimberly Swenk, where she talks openly about her experience with facing numerous personal struggles and shares how she managed them whilst still being able to run a successful business.
Kimberly is a Digital Marketing Expert and two time cancer survivor. She has 15 years experience in digital marketing, including social media, websites, SEO, email marketing, and paid ads, in addition to traditional marketing like print and events focusing on small business communications and client loyalty.
This episode is filled with so much wisdom, insights and important messages, and really is a must listen for all business owners.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How Kimberly stopped herself from going down a rabbit hole of depression and failure

The actions Kimberly took to ensure her business didn't disappear completely

Kimberley's experience of guilt and how she learned to show herself grace and empathy

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Kimberly on Instagram
Check out Swenk Social's website
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcription
Teresa: Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? I feel like I start that off the same every single time. It's hilarious. I really should have, even my voice goes up at certain points, so I do it. But you guys are used to that now, so that is fine.
So I am back with a another interview today, and I am really excited about today's interview, because, well, this conversation could go anywhere. So we're going to see where it goes, but I'm interviewing the very lovely Kimberly, who has been in my world for a really long time. And it's actually so nice to get on and have a proper chat with her.
Cause I don't think we've done this. So welcome to the podcast Kimberly.
Kimberly: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited. I definitely have a unique, because I've been listening to a lot of your podcasts that have been, and I don't know if you've had someone like me on here yet.
Teresa: We have. I don't think we have. So start as always by telling us what you actually do and how you got to do the thing you do.
Kimberly: Well, my actual job is I help I'm in the marketing and advertising world. I help anestheticians, usually smaller ones, like solo anestheticians, smaller med spas create and work on their digital marketing strategy. That includes email website, social media, and basically most of my clients need someone like me to come in on a one off because they can't afford the big agencies come in and be like, okay, this is what.
You need to do these are your weak points all to do with their marketing strategy, because a lot of times an estheticians and med spas, they're not trained in marketing and advertising, you know, that's a whole they don't teach that. And their type of medical or aesthetic school, and also they're very intimidated by it.
Because as I know, you know, and your listeners know, it's the digital part is very technical and that can be overwhelming. And when you get into like Google ads, Facebook ads, I mean, you know, it's technical.
Teresa: And that's not what they're there to do. That is not what they've been qualified to do. That is not.
And I think I see this a lot and you must see it, especially in the industry you're in. Like they come into their business because they're good at the thing they do or they want to do the thing they do. And then suddenly they're expected to have all these other skills doing all these other things, which quite honestly, why should they know about these things?
Kimberly: Exactly. And they don't, they don't teach that. And it's, I'm sure you have this a lot with a lot of your clients. It's extremely, it's a long game. It's a marathon. And, you know, you keep hitting these walls and you keep failing and which is not really failing. But if you don't know, you don't know that. And you just want to give up and that's the worst thing you can do.
Teresa: Yeah. A hundred percent.
Kimberly: A lot of it's just telling them, like, listen, you're doing great. You may not think it's great. You may not think, you may not think a 1 percent conversion rate is great, but I promise you in this instance, it is really good. Pat yourself in the back. And so it's a lot of that.
Teresa: That is something that I think as marketeers, as people who are in businesses need to talk about more, the amount of people that I speak to and they go, Oh, it didn't do very well.
It didn't go very well. And I go, do you want to tell me your numbers? And then they give me their numbers now. And then I've sat here with my calculator and I'm like, that's like a 10 percent conversion. It did amazingly. Like, but they don't think it did because they don't know. And. We need to educate people a bit more.
So what, cause obviously you've been in this digital marketing space for a long time and you niched into this space you're in now. Why did you decide to take that niche?
Kimberly: Well, it goes back. I, I worked in the corporate world forever. Worked with, it was Danone, which is the French water company. I've worked for AT& T.
All the biggies and the corporate world in the US is not very conducive to a family. And I had my first child who was premature and he couldn't go into any type of daycare. And in the US we really don't have a support system. Like legally, I could take three months off and not be fired. But you know, I was technically kind of expected to come right back.
So, I had to quit because. Couldn't do that with a premature child and so I just thought I took a couple of years off to raise him because he was premature. And then I started just continuing doing what I was doing, like AT& T and Danone, but I did it for just companies just random, I did, I did a funeral home, like just random, total.
Teresa: I love this stuff though. Like when you're in marketing, the stuff we learn to market is nuts.
Kimberly: I mean, I did a tire company, but the most interesting one was the funeral home. And, you know, it was all the, the website, the search, the ads, you know, you're like embalming. One of them was actually a trailer park, and this was the big drama is they didn't want to like when you go into a search, you have to like Google, you have to search for what the people are thinking, not what you want them to think.
So they were trying to change their branding away from trailer to mobile unit. And I'm like, people don't type in mobile unit.
Teresa: No, they try to type in trailer. Like, I love this. I love it. Okay. So you were doing it for anybody.
Kimberly: And then at a random shoot, I was, it was a organic soap company and I was at a random shoot and I was doing the social media, you know, all the behind the scenes.
And I met at the time, the spokesperson they had hired was the head makeup artist for CNN. Which when I lived in Atlanta, that's where CNN is based. So she actually hired me to help her. And then that's how I got into it. We formed a really great relationship and I started working for her and she introduced me to people and she, and I'm like, you know what, this is kind of my dig.
This is, this is what I do. It interests me very, very much. I'm very vain. And it's better than the tires. It's better than the tires. And it's better than the funeral home in the trailer parks. And I just really loved it. And I always believed that, you know, what is the riches in the, is in the niches or the niche that phrase.
I know it. And. I really enjoyed it. And I got along with the people in that industry. It felt more organic, the relationship. So I started going that route and working with her and I did a lot of her personal stuff. She also owned a magazine and I did a lot of stuff for that. And then that's how I kind of organically grew into it was when my kids were older.
So that helped too. Yeah. And just kind of grew into that. And that's how I yeah. I basically went with my passion. It's, is it easy? No, but I'm legitimately interested in it.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think like that helps massively. And when you've had clients, you know, cause I've done it the same, you know, when I started just with the agency, we work with people that are not.
Like, I have no interest in the thing that they sell and it's not that, you know, when you're a marketer, you mark, you know, you can market things, that's your job. However, if you can be interested in it, I just think it's, well, you've just taken another step, haven't you? So the reason we've got you on today isn't necessarily to talk about, social media and the job you do.
It's to talk about resilience in business, because this is the bit that I don't think, and I try and talk about it a lot, but I don't think we talk about it enough. I think we have grown up in a world where one, you know, women's. Women are not seen the same way as men in business. And when we've gone into a business world where we, as entrepreneurs have created our businesses, we are being coached or watching experts who are males who don't have the same life experience as we do.
And yet we're still expected to just rock up and be like that and get up at 5am and do the 5am routine and do this thing and do that thing. And you have had the most stuff thrown at you. And if I was you, I'd be like on a sofa with my head under a blanket.
Kimberly: You know? Yes. And and no. What I, you have to accept things for what they are and you can either fail or you can succeed or you live or die.
Yeah. There's no. So you have to make a decision of what you want to do, and you can't, you can only play the victim so much, you know, I think a lot of that. Once you stop playing a victim and realize, okay, I've got to do what this is, this is my world. So, and it, you know, but when my child was premature, I had to do what I wanted.
I had to do. I mean, it is what it is and. I, the corporate world was just not that, you know, and then my second son was born, but he has severe dyslexia and ADHD and dysgraphia, which is where you write backwards.
Teresa: Oh, wow. I've never even heard of that.
Kimberly: Yeah. And he cannot, the good thing, he can only write in cursive.
He cannot write print. Okay. So he actually has beautiful handwriting. And it took us about five years to figure out what he's also was speech delay. He's fine now. What was going on? So all my dreams of having this big career and my ignorance of knowing what having children was like. Yeah. You know, I had to change my paradigm of what I expected out of life and I still wanted to work and I, this is what I think is difficult being a woman is almost in a way you're expected to have a career and a family and you can't have both perform at a level 10 at the same time. It's just impossible.
Teresa: And then add in. Like some of the other things that you've been dealing with. So, just tell us, like, I've got your personal bio in front of me. Just like, just talk through kind of what's happened in your life.
Kimberly: Well, so, basically my life was Pretty easy till I was 17, and I mean, that being normal, like, nothing extreme, but my dad had served during Vietnam and was exposed to chemicals at a camp, a military camp called Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
And what they had done is they had not lined the refuse like ponds. So all the chemicals were sipping, dripping into the water. So my dad had been eating, breathing these god awful chemicals and ended up dying at age 45 of a rare cancer that's attributed to these chemicals. Any American might, you can just type up Camp Lejeune and it will come up.
Yeah. And he died was basically over six weeks. And then my mother had a nervous breakdown. And one of the last things that I was doing with my father was trying to get my mother institutionalized. And so that, I don't want to get all teary eyed just cause that's so traumatic. So, my father died and then it was basically me and my brother and my grandmother used to come in and my mom was physically present, but not mentally, she did not do well, it was very suicidal.
And so I basically had to step up in the span of six weeks. So a little stressful there talk about post traumatic stress and I'll get that plays into it later. So when I was 25, I was first diagnosed. So my dad died when I was 17, when I was 25 after university, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and it just came up as a lump on my throat.
That's it. From my understanding, it's largely genetic. It runs in the family. All the females in my family have thyroid problems. It's just me and another aunt that have the cancer. So they're thinking it's some type of gene. And so I went through that. Luckily at that point, see what it was is at that point in 1999, they were not sure how Synthetic thyroid would affect your childbirth, your ability to carry a child to term because that plays a role in accepting the foreign body and not aborting it.
So I kept, I only had the part of my thyroid that was cancerous removed, so I had the rest of my thyroid left in because at that time I was like, I need some organic natural thyroid hormone and that was a risk I took and I knew it and. People who are familiar with thyroid cancer, it's a very manageable cancer. It's, you know, you only die
Teresa: saying to me, as cancer goes, it's the best one. Like you're going to get one, get this one.
Kimberly: Yeah, pretty much. Who really die of it are 89 and they also have, you know, C. P. O. D. They also have heart failure. You know, it's kind of like Parkinson's or something that it leads to a decline. But that's not what kills you. It's something that side effect of it.
You know, like, most Parkinson's people died choking. Yes, you know, it's not. But anyway, so then I was fine. I went on, had my children. And so then I've been working and it was COVID back and forth. I moved from Atlanta, Georgia, all the way to Colorado.
And that was a change in itself. If you, it's definitely a better change, but going from a huge Southern. U. S. southern city where it's hot to the middle of the Rocky Mountains in a ski town. While it's great. It's a change.
Teresa: And it's beautiful where you live. Like the pictures are stunning.
Kimberly: It's beautiful. Except when, you know, like the other day, my 17 year old son had, I had COVID and I didn't know it, but we were driving over a mountain pass. I'm like, Son, you got to drive like I'm about to pass out. So there is 17 and a foot of snow driving the car over a mountain pass in the Rockies, but it is what it is again.
And so then I, when you have thyroid cancer, any cancer, you go back for a yearly checkup and 22 years later, 22 years later, it came back. And this time. It was in the other part of my thyroid and it was also in 9 lymph nodes. So it had really kicked up a gear, which is very common when a 2nd cancer comes back that it comes back stronger.
And so this was all during COVID and I'm like, this is this is hell, like, you know, and part of my treatment was delayed because of it. Yeah. You know, and I actually had 3, I have 3 members of my family who at the time were COVID. They were, critical care nurses. So they were in the COVID world. And so it was delayed.
I mean, there's no way around it. It was just. It is what it is. So I had this in Atlanta. There is a thyroid research center. So I had my actual surgery there. Done by a surgeon who only that's all he does is thyroid cancer surgeries. And so he took all all of it out. But since it was a non lymph nodes, it had migrated.
I had to go get radiation treatment and the radiation treatment is nuclear. So there's only so many places that can do it. So there's, I went to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona cause that's not that far from where Colorado and it's absolutely amazing. And Shannon, Shannon, right? Shannon, Shannon, she actually lives near where the Mayo Clinic is.
And it's absolutely wonderful, but. So with the nuclear stuff, you have to go all the way. It's like three stories in the ground.
Teresa: Oh my god.
Kimberly: Yeah, I know, because it's, and it's surrounded by steel walls.
Teresa: I mean, that makes you feel like, well, this is going to be safe for me to do it. Like, literally, you're surrounding, like, walls, and not letting other people get exposed, and yet you're going in there.
Kimberly: Yeah, that's the scariest part, and I don't Many of your US listeners will know this, but not so much the UK, the Mayo Clinic does special treatments, research, end of life, last hope place. And so while I'm not end of life, my nuclear medicine is specialized only so many places. I mean, I don't know if they use uranium.
I don't know what they do. And so I have to, and this is where I really was probably in the lowest points of my life. So I go in and this sounds awful, but what. I felt like it was the grim reaper's waiting room. I'm like, this is awful. At least when I had my surgery, I was just in the surgical office. Now, this is where people go afterwards.
And a lot of the people who go there are on their way out. It's the last ditch effort. And I'm sitting in there. So the way it works is you always have to go to the blood work floor first, and then you have to go to your ultrasound gamma ray, x ray floor, and then you go to the doctor. So you're, but everyone there is either.
Most people aren't coming out alive. They are. And it's, I'm sitting there and I'm, you know, I'm 49 and I'm one of the youngest. And I'm like, this is just awful. And at the time, the only, you couldn't really have anyone in with you because of COVID. And I was like, I mean, they're, I'm just like, Oh my, like one person next to me, this was the blood work floor was stage four lung cancer.
And the other, this other lady next to me, she was older, probably in her eighties in a wheelchair. I don't even know she was alive. Like she was so gray. Cause her blood was, you know, it kind of comes to your core. And here I am 49 and this was on my first day, you have to go through all these appointments and I have a panic attack.
I start crying. A couple of reasons, one, I was at the same exact age that my father was, he died. And then here I am again, and this goes back to the post traumatic stress disorder, because I didn't understand, because I talked to my psychiatrist, why I was absolutely having panic...
52 min
December 11, 2023Measuring Success: Using Google Analytics to Improve Your Business Decisions
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Laura McKenzie, where we are talking all about why as business owners we need to be taking data and analytics in our business seriously.
Through her business Cloudy Day Digital, Laura offers measurement marketing services to business owners and sales teams; helping them to demystify the world of analytics and feel confident in making data-driven decisions.
With a varied background in film and television, broadcast digital media, as well as hospitality sales, Laura’s background offers businesses a unique approach to analysing their next campaign.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How your data can help you make better decisions

What you should be tracking through Google Analytics

GDPR compliance and tracking your customers online

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Laura on LinkedIn and Instagram
Sign up for Laura's email list 'The Forecast'
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of your dream business podcast. How the devil are you? I hope you are good. So, back again with another interview, like I said, I think I mentioned it last week, I'm going to be doing a lot of interviews. I just really enjoy talking to people. And also, I enjoy talking in general, actually, kind of understatement.
But also there's a lot of things that I am not the expert on. And I know a lot of amazing humans who are expert at things. And as I said last week, they just happen to be members of my executive club, which is wonderful, but that's not the reason I chose them. I chose them because they are very good at what they do.
So today I have got the very lovely Laura McKenzie, who is joining me on the podcast. Now, Laura sent me her bio over, but basically I'm going to say in short, Laura is like all things Google, tech, data genius stuff. Okay. And she's going to help us understand a little bit more about what that is. Things like Google, my business, Laura did some training for us.
And I realized in that training, I didn't have a Google, my business, which I still haven't done. Don't tell her. So yes, so Laura is all things tech and analytics, and she's going to help us understand what they do for us in our business. So welcome to the podcast, Laura, how are you doing?
Laura: That's lovely. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. We'll be listening to quite a few of them recently. Just thinking, Oh God, what am I going to say? But no, I'm here now. And ask me whatever you want.
Teresa: Oh, well now I'm going to, like, you're going to be sorry you said that. So like most of my amazing members, members, I said that wrong, members, I'll start again.
I did just tell Laura that this is a clean episode, i. e. whatever we record goes out. So I've messed up. That's fine. Laura has a really interesting background and a bit like when we had Katie on and it's like, we'll be in the group chat saying something and then they'll drop in and one of them will go, Oh yeah, when I did so and so and we're like, what?
Like, this happens all the time with Laura as well as Katie. So Laura had a background in, like, the television type industry, so I want you to tell us, and actually she gave me a fact, that she was once a picture in a wanted poster on a BBC daytime drama. What the hell, man? So how do we go from being a wanted poster in a BBC daytime drama, to doing what you do today?
Laura: Okay, yeah, so my, my journey has been quite interesting, I guess. I've got a film degree, and that's always what I wanted to do from when I was very little. I always wanted to be a director with a hat on, telling people what to do. But then when you get out in the real world and actually learn, you think, Oh, I don't actually, I don't want to do that.
So yeah, I first started out as a runner, so making teas and copies everywhere for film and TV sets. And I worked in drama, so rather than, like, your X Factors entertainment shows, I was working on those sort of Netflix dramas, or poor Netflix. And yeah, one of the shows I worked on was a daytime TV show for the BBC.
And often the art department would, they'd have to create so many different props. And one of them was this Wanted poster. Where they came in and said, oh, we really need just a picture for this. So I thought, well, if here's my chance to be a criminal on TV, why not?
Teresa: I love it. I love it.
Laura: So yeah, I love that fact because then I completely forget about it.
And then, yeah, when it was on TV, I was watching and I said, oh, let's rewind that back. Yeah, that was great. That was quite fun. So, my, yeah, my background was in film and TV for a bit. And it was really good. Then I sort of moved, because you sort of work on contracts of contracts in television, so you go three months on one thing, then you jump on to the next, so it's not very stable.
Neither is freelance life, so maybe that's why I quite like it. Yeah, that's probably it. So, I was doing that quite a bit. And then I moved into more of a digital role in TV broadcasts. And I loved it. And it wasn't something I ever thought that I would ever do before. And all of a sudden, here I am with a digital team.
And we're coming up with different campaigns to get people to watch the main program. And it was just a complete eye opener for me. And I was sort of hooked from then on. So It was in broadcast media, contracts happen, and then they stop. Normally in TV, if you get to near October and you've not got the next contract, you're thinking, okay, I'm not going to be working over Christmas.
Yeah. So, I randomly got a job in hospitality, just to cover me for that time. And I ended up working in a hotel as a concierge, just to get a bit of money. And My marketing wasn't quite satisfied and moved into their marketing team. So all of a sudden from broadcast media and doing something completely different.
I'm in the marketing team, quite a corporate big business with, quarterly sales meetings, APIs and everything like that. So that was quite fun. And yeah, that's really how I started to get into it, and I was there for quite a few years, and I just started noticing in probably around June for hospitality, if anyone's worked in it before, June is when you start talking about Christmas, and you get your Christmas jumpers on, you're going around hospitals with mid spies, and.
Teresa: Oh my goodness. Yeah, that would be my husband's idea of hell. I mean, he's not even cool with Christmas in December, let alone in the middle of the year.
Laura: Exactly. It's just, it's a bit of a nightmare, but, you start looking at it. And so all your marketing campaigns are revolving around Christmas a lot of the time. And I just kept on thinking, it was like a niggling thing that was in my brain all the time about, well, how, when, how are we measuring this by each different thing that we do?
Cause a lot of it was quite ridiculous. I mean, all respect to sales teams and hospitality, they're probably the hardest workers I know, but, Yeah, I kept thinking, Oh, you do all this all the time, but we're measuring the outcome, but you're not measuring the little individual bits to see what makes sense.
So that was always in the back of my mind. And when the pandemic hit was when I was in another role because I'd moved cities. And I lost my job. So I was about six months into 2020 going, Oh, I've not got any income whatsoever.
Teresa: Probably need a job, or some money.
Laura: Yeah, need a job. And I thought, I've been thinking about this for ages.
Why don't I just do it? Don't have a boss. I'll just see what I can do. And here I am, a few years later, still doing it, so. Yeah, it's going okay.
Teresa: That's awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So the first question I've got to ask you is what programs are you on that people would recognize? Because that's obviously one of the most important things.
Laura: Of course. So big one is Hollyoaks probably. So that was, that was possibly one of the best places to work. So if anyone's around Liverpool, they need a job. Try and work at Lime, at Hollyoaks. They're the best people. So, Hollyoaks, and then, first film I worked on was the Horrible Histories Bill film. So, they did this big thing in Yorkshire where it was about William Shakespeare writing his first play.
And so yeah, so I was a production runner on that one. And then, No Offence, if anyone's watched that one, with Joanna Scanlon. So that's a Channel 4 thing. Based in Manchester. So there was lots of fake, fake blood and fake drugs and everything on that scene.
Teresa: Love it.
Laura: So that was quite fun.
Teresa: That's awesome. Honestly, that's so cool. And I love like the, the previous lives that people have had prior to doing a business. And what's super interesting is like, often when we come into our own business and we do our own thing, we can lack masses of confidence because somehow we just forget that actually we did some pretty amazing stuff prior to it.
And like the stuff that you did for the campaigns, for the hospitality and like, you know, It's almost like we just forget about all that and go, Oh, you know, as if I'm starting again, which we're not like we have all this amazing history. So you are going to talk about stuff that people don't turn off people don't switch off.
I promise it'll be worth it. Sorry, Laura. She knows me well. I'm joking. But it is one of those things like when I had to update my Google analytics to G. something for something. I don't know. Literally. I was like, I don't even know what this is. Like. And this, and I'm someone who has experience in websites and Google analytics.
And, you know, I wouldn't say I was a fay in it. I wouldn't say I was like, yeah, I've got this, but I do at least know what they are and know kind of roughly the basics. And I was like, Oh, no, someone else do this, please. And then things like Google my business and the analytics and the, all of that stuff around it.
Like now do we like get us excited about it or tell us why we should be listening to this podcast and why we should be taking our kind of analytical side of our business. Like importantly, that's that didn't make sense, but you know what I meant.
Laura: I know what you mean. So, analytics, I think you said it really, as soon as people hear the words on GA4, Google Analytics, have you looked at your bounce rate, everyone just sort of switches off and sort of falls asleep.
But when more exciting things like actual marketing campaigns and getting this nice flashy thing out or ads and you start seeing the money rolling out and then stuff coming in. Everyone gets excited about it. But the big thing is if you haven't got your analytics set up, then you don't really know what's working.
And that's the, that's the crux of it all really. And, you know, you see lots of business owners constantly, every year, focusing on, okay, I know I need to do this thing, get my email list out, I know I need to do this Facebook ads, or do I do Google ads, or do I even need to do ads, or even do I need a website when I've got social media?
Like, all these things, people are always asking themselves every single month, pretty much. But the truth is, if you set up your analytics and have the code on all your websites, have all your links with the UTMs and the tracking things at the end, people know they need to do but never do. If you get that all set up, you, you go back and have a look at your dashboard and everything, all the answers are there pretty much straight away.
So if you've set it up in a very specific way. Within five minutes of just glancing at your analytics, you can see what your next move needs to be. Because you know what your business goals are. So that's in a nutshell, that is why everyone needs to pay attention to it, but possibly don't.
Teresa: So I'm going to play devil's advocate and go, okay, Laura, I have done my website through Squarespace or whatever the Wix, whatever it is.
I barely managed to put that together. I don't. Like, how do I even start to understand how to do some of this stuff that you're doing without blowing my own mind? Cause it feels, and I think half the problem is the words alone. You said something about setting up the URL with the. And I know what you mean.
It's the question mark. Minute. There's a question mark. Everything after the question mark is tracking as to how you got to that link. But the word you said, I was like, what is that? So like, if someone's listening to this, like, yeah, that sounds cool, but I literally have no idea how to start. Like. How do they do this stuff?
Laura: So the first thing that, if anyone wants to start setting this up, I would always say just close your laptop, first of all. Dont.
Teresa: Throw out the window, ignore it.
Laura: Throw out the window into the ocean to get about it. Just don't look, don't look at anything. 'cause I think that's the big thing and that's where the overwhelm starts.
Yeah. Is when people's. Instantly open up, even if they know the analytics, Google URL, as soon as they go on the website, you start going down rabbit holes. And it's quite notorious for being a rabbit hole of, Oh, I know I can look into this. I can look into that. Just close everything down and just sit there with a piece of paper and think about your business.
And that's the big thing that I'd say is what do you need to know about your business to get where you want to go? So, is it that you're a brand new business and you know, in order to get sales, you just need awareness. And what I mean by awareness is people actually clicking into your website or to wherever your things are.
So you know, you need that information. So even if you haven't got the technical jargon for it all, if you write down a list of what it is you need, so you need your traffic, how many people are actually looking at your website? You need to know why aren't people pressing this, the purchase button, or I've got a form on my website.
People are submitting it, but I'm not sure if they're the right people. So those are the questions that you need to ask first of all. And then once you've got them, that's when you can figure out what level you need. So if you've not got any analytics whatsoever, or you've even got your little bit of code.
Set up in the header of your website, because most people have got to that point and then they've ignored it and gone, well, you know, that's tracking something that's fine. So, the first thing everyone needs to do at that opint is get the code set up, which most web developers can help you with. They don't have to be a Google Analytics person.
Or just ask, especially in business, you can ask your, your business mates about what they've done or how do they know somebody who can do it. 'cause initially that's all you need to set up.
Teresa: And luckily because you're an exec club, you are our business mate.
Laura: You could just ask me.
Teresa: I forward it to, Laura, when any chance you could have a look at this for me, please. Thank you. Yeah, and I think, I think that's the truth about it is. And I know this is very easy to say, but everything is simple and you know, everything's hard until you know it. Right. And you did some training in the club. There's a training in the club about, Google My Business. Right. And that for me would appear something pretty simple.
Okay. And it is really compared to some things. It is pretty simple process to go through. However, there were certain things that people didn't know. And I mean, I say it's pretty simple. I haven't got it set up. But there were things that people who had got it set up, didn't know that existed. And actually, if you just tweak that or did that or whatever, but the training was so simple and so structured that it was like, this is where the button is. You do this thing.
And that's the same with Google analytics. It feels because there is so much involved and so much to it. It is so easy to go, don't know what on earth they're talking about on here and get lost in this gazillion million bits of data that you could find. But when you've got someone who can go, go here, do this, do this, do this, suddenly it's like, Oh, is that it?
Laura: That's, that's the big thing and I think that's the thing I don't like about analytics because people get scared by it really quickly because there is instant jargon. If you Google anything, you get massive experts in the industry who are targeting like Don Lewis and Amazon and really big business people who need to know the really ins and outs of everything.
And when you're looking for something really simple, you think there's no hope really, but there is hope and that's something that I've seen there's loads more people recently. I'm trying to do a similar thing to I am, which is trying to get cut through all the jargon and just make sure that everyone just gets what they need, because Google, even though we give it our data, so it's not free, it's free to all businesses.
Yeah. And, you know, even if you have to spend a tiny bit of money setting up what it is you need to do, whether it's the questions you know.
Teresa: Getting some help to do that, yeah.
Laura: It's, from that point it's free. Up until you need the next stage, but then you know what it is that you actually want answering. So, yeah.
Teresa: So what sort of stuff should we be looking to track? Or what sort of stuff, like, if you're a small business and you've got Google Analytics set up, what are the key things that I'm looking at or would be helpful to me?
Laura: So, if you only just set up your account, the first thing I'd say is really boringly before looking at all the reports and the bar graphs and everything that looks really fun, just click into your admin and go through the boring little sections.
Because those are the, those bits are the things that will make all the difference. So that in, in there, you've got how long Google's going to take your data. So, or keep your data. So, but it, either it's two months or 14 months. So Google went for a big thing recently where, and this is the reason why we're talking about it, is there was universal analytics for ages and ages and everyone knew they had to set it up and then if they...
44 min
December 04, 2023Growing Your Personal Brand: Why LinkedIn is the Place To Be
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Gus Bhandal, where we talk all about the world of marketing and how to use LinkedIn to grow a trusted personal brand.
Gus is an experienced marketer and has worked for some of the world's largest companies. He now runs his own digital marketing agency and has been since 2017; where he has helped literally thousands of companies around the world with being better on LinkedIn. He is the UK's number one* LinkedIn trainer and offers social media and marketing strategy for business owners, senior executives and corporate teams.
*according to his Mum.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The right balance between personal, professional and sales in your content

How to use LinkedIn for business growth through engagement and outreach

How to curate your LinkedIn audience and manage spam connections

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Gus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or X
Check out the M Guru Website
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the Your, Dream Business Podcast. Gosh, like I am not having a good day today. I've got a couple of episodes to record today, so God knows what they're going to be like, but welcome to this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you're having a lovely, lovely week.
So this week. Now I don't wanna put any pressure on, but I've got high hopes for this week because I am interviewing the very lovely Gus who in brackets the marketing guru. And Gus is very funny and we laugh and we see each other. So I'm really hoping that we're gonna have a bit of a giggle today.
Well, you learn some things as well, of course. So please welcome to the podcast, the very lovely Gus. Gus, how are you doing?
Gus: I'm very well, I think I'm even better now that I've heard that ridiculously fantastic, introduction. And it's, but I feel pressure now. I need to be funny.
Teresa: Yeah. It's always hard when people say that, cause I think I'm quite funny.
And then when people go, Oh no, you are really funny. I then feel like I've got to be really funny. I've got to be really funny. I'm much better off the cuff.
Gus: Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to be natural. Right. Yeah, exactly.
Teresa: I did a talk once. I did talk once in Nashville for some, seven figure mastermind, which was very intimidating.
But actually it was amazing and they were all women and they were like, you should do stand up. And I thought there's a very big difference to me coming out with a little funny and actually doing stand up. I'm fairly confident that wouldn't be for me. Fancy being of stand up Gus.
Gus: No way, no, it's yeah, far, yeah, far too much pressure.
I like, I like making people laugh when they don't expect it, when they turn up and think this guy's gonna be funny. That's the moment I'm not funny, basically.
Teresa: And you've been doing some speaking, and obviously, you know, I speak, and I've done funnies. Like, purposely funnies on stage, and some of them haven't landed.
Gus: Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that, actually, because a lot of my, I said to somebody the other day, and I shouldn't give away my secrets, but I, I Pre plan my jokes kind of thing. So I know when I do presentations, I know where I'm going to stick something funny in and yeah, sometimes it's kind of, when I write it down, I laugh to myself and I think, this is hilarious.
I'm the funniest guy ever. And when you kind of stand up and say, and the room is all quiet, you have to quickly move on. You're like, okay, cool. That's yeah. Next, next, next item.
Teresa: That is me all over. Like I will do something and I will laugh about myself. Ages, I'd be like, God, I'm hilarious. I will literally like praise myself, pat myself on the back.
God, I'm so funny. But yeah, it is, it is a bit awkward and they don't laugh. I sometimes I have the problem where I don't leave enough of the, I don't let it land fully before I then move on to the next thing. Cause I speak so fast. So that can sometimes be a problem in my world. So just. You know, a little tip for you there, Gus.
Gus: Yeah. Yeah. Just, really wait for people to laugh. Yeah. Yeah.
Teresa: And if they don't get it, maybe follow up with a brrm ch.
Gus: Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good idea. Or I might just have a slide that says laugh, you know, like in the audience.
Teresa: Exactly. Cue laughter.
Gus: Now's the time.
Teresa: I think that is the one, what we should do. That's how they're going to get it. I love it. Gus. Okay. Now we've pitched you up to be a comedian. How about we start, as we always do, by you telling us who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.
Gus: Wow. Okay. So, I was born in the late seventies in. Yeah. Wolves grave hospital.
I won't go into that. You know, I'm a, I'm a Liverpool,like I support Liverpool, FC and I used to tell people I was born in Liverpool because basically people always say, Oh, how come you support Liverpool? And so I was used to, yeah, I was born in the Paul McCartney hospital, you know, in the seller black children's award, you know, it was the kind of, it was all very made up, you know, you know, Jimmy Tarbuck was the midwife and all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, no, I was born in Coventry, born and bred in Coventry. Spent my life here until I moved to London and started a marketing degree. And at that point it kind of all took off. I tried my hand at nearly every subject going and I failed at everything except marketing. And I thought, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I should make a career out of this.
So that, and that's kind of, yeah, that's where it went on. I spent years working for some large companies, international organizations. I worked for local authorities. I then run a pub and a restaurant for a little while, and then I started my own marketing agency and that's where I've, come and even, even that is niche.
So I, I help businesses with marketing and marketing strategy and all that kind of stuff. But, it starts with LinkedIn. That's kind of where I say to people, right. I'll train you on LinkedIn. I'll get you great on LinkedIn. And then we'll do other elements of the marketing mix.
Teresa: Okay. So a couple of things.
First off, I don't think I've interviewed anybody or they've certainly not alluded to me that has a marketing degree because I have a marketing degree. Did you start your degree in marketing? I started mine in business and then within the first year realized that I wanted to sack everything else off other than the marketing or did you go straight in marketing?
Gus: So, cut a long story short, basically I did business studies as a GCSE. And I thought, Oh, this is pretty cool. But then I wanted to be a lawyer. So then they said, Oh, you should do history for a level. So I did history for a level and I failed it. So I couldn't be a lawyer. So, but then I did also psychology for a level.
So then I thought, right, I'll do psychology at university. And I went to university and it was all biology. Like we were dissecting brains and stuff like that. And I thought, yeah, this ain't, this ain't for me. I started on psychology, I also did a minor in sociology and I hated sociology because there's no wrong answer.
It was just like, it was very wishy washy. It was just like, everything is right and I was like, I'm not gonna, you know, survive in this. And then I moved into law, I thought, Oh, I'll give my hand, you know, try my hand at law. And then I saw how long it was going to take to do a law degree and I thought, forget this.
Teresa: I thought law for a while and then don't forget that.
Gus: Exactly. And then I moved into marketing and that's where I, that's where it became second nature. Cause once I started doing marketing modules, it kind of, for want of a better phrase, it was like, this is so easy. It was like, I go, you know, I can do this standing on my head.
And I think that's the thing when something becomes second nature, it's so much easier to deliver to others as well. Kind of thing. So that's, so I failed at everything else before settling on marketing, basically. So psychology, sociology.
Teresa: What's left?
Gus: I went through the prospectus. It was, it was quite close. It was, you know, I almost got to zebra farming kind of thing. I was that far into the, that's an A to Z joke, by the way. That's for sure.
Teresa: He got it.
Gus: Yeah, good. Yeah, yeah. Cool. But yeah, I got to marketing and I thought, right, yeah, let's try my hand at this. And then I, luckily I stopped there.
Teresa: That is lucky. Cause I think if marketing LinkedIn is niche marketing on the marketing Zebras. Zebra care, whatever the Zebra thing was. Very niche. I'm not sure what the prospects are like for that. I am, I kind of, like I said, I started in a business degree thinking I actually was very good at maths. So I thought I would go down like a finance route and then realize finance had nothing to do with maths.
And it wasn't just adding things up, which was a bit disappointing. So, and then I started, like you, I started doing marketing and going, this is like, I could, yeah, I can do it in my sleep, like get it, I get everything. So yeah, I loved it and I love the fact that I have a degree in marketing. I think for us doing the roles that we do, I know, like you, I don't know what year you did your degree and I don't even think I can remember what year I did my degree, but I know that what they taught me obviously is not the world we live in now.
And websites weren't even like they were a thing, but they weren't like really a big thing that they talked about. However, obviously the, the strategy and the thoughts and stuff behind it is, so I still feel pretty happy that I've got that degree.
Gus: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same. I think the, the theory will never change, you know, ultimately you're promoting a product or a service for somebody to buy and you want to make a, you know, you want to make a profit.
That's the ultimate, the underlying theory, but the, the purpose of a marketing degree, Not that I want to kind of brag about this, but I went on to study two postgraduate qualifications.
Teresa: You are much better than me Gus.
Gus: Then marketing, mark comms. I'm a member of the chartered Institute of marketing and all that have loads of letters after my name.
But the, the point is that I think a lot, yeah, yeah, I think a lot of people kind of, a lot of other people think that marketing is second nature as well. And it's kind of like, they'll just, they'll just try their hand at something and think, oh, well, you know, I'm now a Facebook specialist, so that makes me a marketer or I can, you know, I can write copy and that makes me a marketer.
And that's not always the case. So I know there are marketers who haven't got a marketing degree that get very, they get, you know, their knickers in a twist about the fact that when I turn around and say, well, actually, no, I've got loads of letters up to my name and I've done all the theory. And, you know, I did marketing before social media was a thing before Facebook or Linkedin or Instagram anything was invented.
Because the theory will never change and I've got, I'm glad that I've got that grounding, basically.
Teresa: And it won't. And I think this is the thing for me, one of my superpowers, and I think this has got to come from my degree is that I can put myself in customer's shoes very quickly and easily. So someone can come to me and go, this is who we work with.
And I can kind of very quickly go, okay, well, this is the type of person I probably am. This is probably what I'm interested in. This is how you probably talk to me. Like. I feel, and I feel like I can shift from one business to another really quickly. And you must've seen this and this episode was definitely not about, slagging off anybody that doesn't have a marketing degree, I can assure you.
However, I used to get, and probably would still get a little bit frustrated in people who. Like, so for instance, I worked with someone who had, she worked for me years ago and she basically was an influencer and she was a travel influencer and she built a very good, successful Instagram. And I used to have a tourism board that we used to do Instagram for.
So she was a perfect match because it was very much in her wheelhouse, very much in her zone of genius. However, Just because someone has built something themselves does not mean they can then go and market anything, because I've marketed, we'll have a market off, right? I've marketed chicken, i. e. processed chicken. I've marketed telescopic slides. So, you know, when you're in a car and you lift the thing and your seat slides forward or slides back. Obviously, I've got a fancy car, so I just press a button, but I remember those cars. Oh, wait. But like, those are telescopic slides. And like, if you've got, if you're pulling out like a big server on big, it's like the, the sliding, like I've marketed stuff like that.
And I think that's what marketing helps us do. We can market stuff like that. What have you, what's your most obscure? Oh, I've got another one as well.
Gus: Wow. What's my most obscure. So I have marketed. A sub region of where I live, I, I always used to work in automotive and advanced engineering and all that kind of stuff.
So that's kind of my background. So it's, I used to work in vehicle rental. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I essentially, I marketed Mercedes Sprinters and Ford Transits. Nice. And I was nominated for an award, which was called the Tranny Award. But Tranny is an abbreviation of transit, just so everybody knows. So, for example, thankfully I didn't win. I didn't wanna say that
Teresa: That's a niche award. To be fair.
Gus: It's a very, it's a very niche award. Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad I didn't win, so I didn't put on my cv. I'm a winner of a tranny award. That would be very strange. So, yeah, and I, you know, it's, it's all that I used to work in motor sport and et cetera.
So vans, cars, you know, motor sport, all that kind of stuff. So I don't, I don't think there's anything too obscure, although I used to work for a local authority. That's pretty obscure in yourself.
Teresa: Yeah. I've done marketing for children's care homes. I mean, that's random. I also worked in the car industry.
I worked for a company that bought, this is interesting, our lives might have crossed Gus, although I'm a bit older than you, I think. I worked for a company that bought ex rental cars and sold them to dealerships. So they would go to someone like enterprise and buy as they all like, cause obviously rental cars can only be on their books for so long and then they have to be gone because they get too old.
Like when we say, oh, they're like six months old, they would buy like hundreds of them. And then we would sell them to dealerships or not dealerships, independent dealerships all around the country. And then I've also marketed adult toys. I've done it all Gus.
Gus: You mean like playstations and stuff? No, no, no, don't, no, stop that. I get it.
Teresa: Yeah. Not, not what I mean. No, it was fascinating. It was, but it's funny because this is the thing we're trained in marketing to go there's a product, there's a customer, there's a need, there's a pain point. There's a like, and just put our marketing thing on it. So it almost kind of doesn't matter what the product, who the customer or any of that, you just put your kind of blueprint back on it and go, okay, how does this work?
Gus: Yeah, absolutely. I think all marketers, all proper marketers have a marketing toolkit, like a marketing blueprint that they will kind of, they can overlay onto whatever the product or the service is. And, you know, we can talk about acronyms like the four P's and the seven P's and PESTEL and SOSTAC and DAGMAR all these other kinds of things.
And, you know, and then we intersperse it with a bit of psychology, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and all that kind of stuff. And, and it all come, you know. And we say all this fancy stuff and use all these, you know, long words and all that kind of stuff, but ultimately it's the blueprint that kind of we overlay onto anything that can then deliver that.
And I think that comes from knowing the theory, knowing the stuff behind stuff. So we could quite literally market Anything and anyone. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where Eskimos is the favorite one, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. And now that we run our own organ, our own businesses, I think that's the thing that we can, whoever comes in, because people always say, well, what's your niche?
And I normally say, well, service industry businesses, which sounds like everybody says that, right. But it's kind of, it doesn't matter if you work in HR or accountancy or wealth management or photography or videography, I can market your business because ultimately I understand the marketing.
Teresa: Yes. Yes. It is. And I think that's why I've never had a niche because, because I can market anything. This is so cool. I don't think I've ever spoken to a marketer like this before, but it's really interesting. Tell me then, and we're going, I did tell you we'd go around whatever direction that we took us and this is taking us a different direction, but I love it. So when it came to your own stuff, because I very.
I'm going to use the word arrogantly and I'm not arrogant, but I think I confidently walked into having my own business and going, but I know marketing so I can market myself no problem. And I couldn't, I found it really hard. How do you find marketing yourself?
Gus: Particularly in the first couple of years of my business, it was, it was really hard.
The reason I started my business was because I left a Long and illustrious marketing career to then run my local pub. And what I discovered was that without social media, without proper marketing, et cetera, I wouldn't...
50 min
November 27, 2023Beyond the Logo: The Importance of a Strong Brand Strategy and Identity
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Katie Caldwell, where we explore how the world of branding, websites and SEO can hugely increase the confidence and visibility of a small business - and most importantly can attract your ideal clients.
Katie founded Geek Boutique in 2015 and has helped over 150 businesses define and perfect their visual and digital presence and helped them to elevate their brand to that all important next level. Her passion is helping smaller businesses who DESERVE agency level design but can't necessarily afford the agency price tag.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Why branding is so much more than a logo

How to know when you need to review your brand

SEO tips to help you optimise your blogs

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Free Download: How to write blogs to make your SEO zing
Check out Katie's website
Connect with Katie on Instagram
Check out Tiny Shell Media's Website
Get a 30 day free trial with Kajabi
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How lovely to have you join us this week. I hope you're good. So I have another interview. I'm just doing straight up interviews now for a little while, just like to mix things up. Change is as good as a rest. And as I've done 300 and odd episodes, I think mixing up is not a bad thing.
So this week I have another amazing, wonderful human on. Now. Most of these amazing interviews I've done happen to be members of my executive club. And now I didn't just bring them on because they're members of the executive club. They all are very good at what they do or otherwise they wouldn't be on.
But it also means I know them really well and hopefully it makes fun interviews. So this week I have the amazing Katie Caldwell. She is the founder of Geek Boutique, from 2015. She's helped over 150 businesses define their perfect, visual and digital presence and help them to elevate their brand to the all important next level.
Her passion is helping small businesses who deserve agency level design, but can't necessarily afford the agency price tag. And she works with them to develop their strategies, have a crystal clear idea on who they want to attract and how they do it. And she helps them create beautiful brand identities.
And when she says beautiful in her bio, I can holy attest to the beautiful of it, they are stunning and I have had Katie do some stuff for me and she is just awesome. So please welcome to the podcast, the very lovely Katie Caldwell.
Katie: Hello, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you.
Teresa: I am happy to be here. We were just laughing because Katie's in exec club and there was a whole conversation going in.
Basically, this is how, this is the level of humor that my exec club have, which is perfect. Someone put in the club, I have a question. And one of the other members replied saying cashew nuts. They're always the answer. And it just.
Katie: I agree. I do agree.
Teresa: It just went crazy. I mean, you know, we. If people are ever thinking about joining my world, they need to know this is kind of some of the levels you get.
But that's how you get through. Exactly. Yeah. If you can't talk about cashew nuts, we're probably not for you. But this is how, like, it needs to be like this sometimes. Cause if we just all just did works up all the time and we're all serious all the time, we would lose our minds. I swear. Yeah. We need to have fun.
Katie: That's what I love most about it. It gives you an amazing community to be ridiculous with. And they are funny people. They are funny people.
Teresa: We laugh a lot, which is good. Which is good. Katie, I've done your little bio there. I hate, I hate reading them, as you well know. But just tell us a little bit of backstory because you have a fascinating work history. So tell us kind of what you've done and how it got you to what you're doing today.
Katie: So, I have had so many different types of jobs over the years. I started as an actor. So, I, after leaving university, I basically ran away to the circus and joined, went to drama school and became an actor for the best part of 10 years.
But of course, as a relatively unsuccessful actor, which I was, there was lots of time.
Teresa: Some good stuff.
Katie: Around the acting jobs. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I, and I loved my time as an actor. It was really, really, really enormous fun. But there's, there's always lots of time around acting jobs where you have to find other work just to be able to pay the rent, pay the mortgage.
And you have to be pretty creative about that. So it was during that time that I started to get really into marketing, really into design, which was always a massive passion of mine in a way, and into web design, which actually one of the amazing companies I work for, really supported me as an actor, paid for me to...
To learn how to develop websites. And it was when I was pregnant, decided to put acting a bit more on the back burner and start my business doing the thing that over the years had given me the most joy and fun, which was working with, with people to develop their brand identity and, and websites. I haven't really looked back.
It's and a lot of the, what I used to love about acting was really getting under the skin of a character. So you, you start to play, you've got a certain number of lines in the script, and around that idea of who this character is, you've got to build up a full life. You've got to find out what their fears are, their loves are, their ambitions are, and you, you build a story for them.
And it's a really similar process, believe it or not, working with brands because you, you, you you go under their skin, you find out what they really want to represent, how they really want to present themselves. And there's a lot of kind of psychology involved with putting out a visual identity that really matches those values.
So there are, I think there are overlaps. Bit tenuous.
Teresa: But I think that makes perfect sense. And I think one of my skills that I've always, accredited myself is that I can do that pretty easily in terms of when someone starts to describe a customer, I can put myself in those shoes and go, how would I feel?
What would I think? And that is exactly what you did. obviously we just have to like have a brief moment of where did you act that people might know names or recognize things or people want to know that surely that is the number one question like.
Katie: I was mostly a theater actor so unless you saw some you know oh gosh what are my favorite parts I am it's coming up to christmas i played the snow queen once up at the stephen joseph theater in in scarborough which is alan akeman's theater which was a always a big wish of mine to act there.
And, I wore this incredible long length white gown, full white make up. That theatre's in the round, so it's got steps leading down to the stage. And on my first performance, I appeared at the top in a spotlight, at the top of the stairs and took a step and fell.
Teresa: You did not!
Katie: Oh my goodness! It just, it was, it was dreadful.
I got up and carried on, but I'd lost all of the fear that the children should have been feeling about me at that point.
Teresa: Oh my goodness, that is, that's everyone's nightmare. That's my nightmare of speaking, is that I trip on the stage and fall over. Because I would go down like a sack of potatoes.
Like, it would be a very dramatic thud if I fell, I'm absolutely positive of it. But that's awesome. So can you sing as well, Katie?
Katie: I think I can sing.
Teresa: Have you had to sing for roles?
Katie: I have had to sing for roles.
Teresa: Well, you must be able to sing, because they wouldn't have you do that.
Katie: That's debatable.
Teresa: I love it. I love it. Do you miss it?
Katie: I miss, I really miss rehearsals. That, that kind of creative process where you're working with a team of people, because the one thing about, and that's, you know, one thing I value really strongly about being in your club is that you have this community of people around you again, because it gets lonely as a freelancer.
Teresa: So lonely.
Katie: And if you're having to be creative in your own little bubble, At the back of the house.
Teresa: And essentially a creative industry. You know, I worked at marketing agencies before I started on my own and, and I remember those lovely moments in the agencies where a new client would come in and we would all sit around a table and just talk about it and just muse about how we might deal with it.
And, you know, oh, this is a nice idea and this is a nice idea. Or when the designers had created something and then we'd all gather around again and give our thoughts and which obviously the designers probably hated. But, that. There's something about the collaboration, the creative process that is super, super important, isn't it? So, yeah.
Katie: Oh, definitely, definitely. And you can feel, you can feel it when it starts to really abhor. You know, things come harder. And you have to, yeah, collaboration is a must.
Teresa: One of the things I love about Katie, not only is her sense of humour, but she will just drop in in the conversation something random about, like, where she's worked or who she's worked with or met so and so and whatever, and it's like, You've had this entire life before we knew you of like, craziness in this world.
And also, and do you mind me saying that your husband is also in the same industry as in theatre?
Katie: He is. He did in theatre, yes. Not, not, not, not Brandon Webster.
Teresa: And he's done some really cool stuff recently, in fact, and you were sharing some stuff with us, if you're happy to share it here.
Katie: Yeah, no, he's, I mean, he's, He's an amazing, creative.
So he started life as an actor, got a bit bored of acting, and moved into more the visual side of theater making. So he got really interested in mask work and puppet work. And he was one of the original cast of War Horse, which was such a huge kind of explosion onto the theater scene, which is actually where we met as well.
17 years ago, something like that. And from that, War Horse took him all over the world. He ended up directing the puppetry in productions in America and in Australia, and then producing his own work in recent years. So his most recent Show that's had a lot of attention is a theater, a stage production of the life of pi.
And him and his co puppet designer, Nick Barnes, created these absolutely amazing animal puppets and the, the play as well. The, the, the play is just this visual feast of movement and puppetry. And actually it's on tour at the moment. So if anybody wants to see it, feel free.
Teresa: The life of Pi. So I'm interested because he is so creative.
Now if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that my husband has a lot to say about marketing and thinks he's an expert and he's not, he's an engineer and he's so very far away from the creative sphere. So when he comes and gives me his opinion, we always kind of laugh a bit at him giving me my, his opinion.
But does your husband's then, because he is so creative, is he like over your shoulder looking at your sites or looking at your brand and going, Oh, I'd tweak that if I was you?
Katie: Yeah, he would if I let him.
Teresa: So I was going to say, yeah, try it.
Katie: Because, because as much as he knows about how to make a really convincing tiger puppet. Yeah. He doesn't really understand the world. of branding. Of, of branding. So, he would, he would give a bit of, kind of off the cuff, oh, that color's a bit strange there and . And it wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't have necessarily kind of understood the process of Yeah. Where that comes from.
Teresa: Although obviously I could talk about your past life, Frasier, that isn't the reason you're on here. So let's talk about branding, because one thing that I always find really interesting, and we've had people on before, and I've talked to people before, about branding and how when you're a small business, or when you're starting out, or when you're doing all that, you, people put very little thought into that brand.
So why? If someone said to you, why should I pay attention to creating a brand for my business? Why can I not just whip up a logo on Canva or get someone to do it on Fiverr and just shove that logo on everything and doesn't matter about the fonts or the colors or the anything else? What, what would you say to convince them otherwise? Bearing in mind, we've only got, like 40 minutes.
Katie: It's, I mean, it's a constant bugbear of mine, I suppose, that people underestimate the value of investing in branding. It's the foundation of your business. You know, it dictates who you are, who you speak to, what you offer, what you want to achieve. I, I personally think it really deserves investment.
And I do also think you see the return on that investment. It's, I often say it's a bit like, building a house without any foundations. a few years down the line, or a few months down the line, you're going to see cracks. And that, you know, it, it, it, well, it, it's integrity will be compromised and nobody ultimately is going to want to move in or live there, or maybe even come and visit.
Yeah. But if you, if you, if you build the house on really firm foundations. If you develop a really strong brand strategy, either by yourself, you can try to do it yourself or, you know, or with a professional house is going to grow with you and, it will be a constant ambassador for your business and everybody needs that.
There's not one business I can think of that doesn't need a clear, strong brand identity. And it, it is odd how it is pushed down the list of priorities when it comes to people investing in starting businesses. Well, you know, that said. If you don't have the budget to invest in a professional, you can have a go at doing it yourself.
You know, you, if I came to your house, you could probably cook me a really nice dinner, but it might not be as good. Yeah. But it might not be as good as if a, you know, Michelin star chef came.
Teresa: No, I'm not that good.
Katie: But it's, it's the same thing really. You know, you can. If, if you've got a degree of a visual eye, if you, if you have the ability to step away from your business enough to see what it's like from the outside, then you could try, but is it worth the time?
And is it, would you get a better return on your time and your money by hiring a professional.
Teresa: So I've got a couple of questions that I've just, thought about. The first one being, how do you, and I've had this quite a few times, and I do not know how to answer this question. How do you tell someone they haven't got an eye when they think they've got an eye?
Or how do you, like, because some people, and we have this amazing tool, we have Canva, we have Adobe Express, we have these... Which when I started in marketing and when you started doing what you did, they did not exist. There was no, you had a designer or you just didn't do it, right? Because you didn't have the facility to even attempt to make something yourself.
So now we have these amazing tools, but the problem with these amazing tools is that people give it a go and it's awesome because they don't have to pay, but it's God awful. Or they don't think about, so there's an example I give, which I'm not going to. Okay. Yeah, I can't. Otherwise it's like, not that I think this person listens and they're actually a member of my family, but they created a brand that was, aimed at a very male industry and their logo was a butterfly and it was.
A very feminine color and it's like, so yes, they love that and that was awesome, but they weren't necessarily thinking about who they were targeting and what they would resonate with. And, and I'm not saying this person's got terrible design. It was just not the right one for this thing. But also what if they have got terrible design?
What if actually what they put on is just God awful. Like how do we have that conversation and how do you try or how can people audit themselves to go, actually, am I really bad at this?
Katie: It's hard to audit yourself, isn't it? Especially if, you know, it's like the, can I sing thing? Maybe I think I'm an amazing singer, but nobody else will enjoy the sound of my voice.
I mean, I do often come across this, often people will approach me and they'll, they'll want me to create their website. And they'll say, well, I've already, I've done my brand already. Here it is. And my heart falls because I've got, you know, it's, it's much harder to create a consistent look across all digital media when the brand isn't there in the first place.
So I'm gentle. I'll point out the reasons or I'll ask questions, you know, why is it do you feel that you feel this, these colors? You know, attract you. So we'll, we'll, we'll enter the conversation of strategy and strategic use of their brand by, by, by asking questions around it. And often it becomes clear that it does need adjustment, that it does need defining more.
It's, I mean, it's one of the biggest mistakes, I see, with branding in terms of the, you know, the logo mark is that people, well, first of all, people think that's what branding is.
Teresa: Yes, just the logo.
Katie: As opposed to everything that surrounds it, that you present yourself visually with. But also, it's not about what you like.
Yeah. It's, I've seen so many busy logos with kind of watercolor splotches here, there, and everywhere. And, and, and, you...
49 min
November 20, 2023From Searches to Sales: A Deep Dive into Google Ads and Google Shopping
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Sara Jones, where we take a deep dive into Google Ads and Google Shopping!
Sara is a freelance Google Ads consultant and founder of the Online Retail Academy, where she teaches retailers how to run Google Shopping Ads and supports them in all aspects of growing an online store. Sara has previously built a 6 figure eCommerce business and loves passing on the knowledge she has gained to other business owners, to help them do the same.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The minimum budget you need to run successful Google Ads

The difference between Google and Facebook Ads

Marketing strategies for e-commerce businesses

If you really enjoyed today's podcast episode, I would really appreciate it if you would go and share it on your social media or share it with someone who has an e-commerce business; and of course go and give Sara a bit of love online!

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out Sara's Online Retail Academy
Connect with Sara Instagram
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Teresa: Hello, and a really warm welcome back to this week's episode of Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So as we've been doing recently, we have another interview and I've been interviewing, and I don't know if I've said this actually during every interview, but everyone I'm interviewing at the moment is actually, they're actually members of the club or executive club.
And I haven't pick them because they're members of executive club or club. I've picked them because they're really flipping good at what they do and they know their stuff really well because I wouldn't have them on if I didn't think you would get some benefit from it and you wouldn't find it useful.
So today I have the lovely Sara. Sara is now this is where I try and read. I hate reading. She's a freelance Google ad consultant and the founder of the online retail Academy. She teaches retailers, how to run Google shopping ads and support. So in all aspects of growing that online store. Sarah has previously built a six figure e commerce company and loves passing on the knowledge that she gained in her business, to other business owners to them to do the same.
And after speaking to Sarah many, many, many, many, many times, she often talks about the fact that she made all the mistakes, so no one else has to. So today we are going to be talking all about Google ads and Google shopping and all of that good stuff, which if you're sat there thinking, yeah, this might not be for me.
I would just stick around and listen because I found it fascinating and it's just really interesting that whole side of the ad side. So we will crack on Sara, Sara, see I've started off, I called you Sara, I never called you Sara. You're Sara. Like this is, I brief Sarah before the interview and I was like, you know, if we mess up, we'll just carry on.
And I'm the one to mess up. So there we go. She can relax. I've messed up. Sara welcome to the podcast.
Sara: Thank you, Teresa.
Teresa: You could have like just said my name wrong, just to like get me back. But I'm sorry about that. I don't know why I suddenly went into funny mode. You know, I have a sister called Sara, don't you?
So, and also we have two. We have a Sarah and a Sarah in the club and both of them spell their name the same. So, and, and for a long while I kept mixing up which one I would say what to anyway, anyway, anyway. So, Sarah, let's start off by you explaining how you got to do what you do today.
Sara: Ooh, that's a long story.
I'll give you the brief of the story. It was starting my online, my online shop back in 2004, 2005. Where I kind of suddenly thought, Oh, I've built a wonderful website. Now I need to get people to the website and it was the kind of wild west of Google ads back then. So I kind of played with Google ads and did some money work and it sent traffic to my website and I used it on and off for that business for quite a few years.
But then kind of fast forward to 2016, I ended up completely switching and closing down the e commerce business and doing the Google ad side of it full time. Cause it kind of. It was lighting me up more than the other, than my other business. So, and I've been doing that ever since.
Teresa: What did you do before your e commerce? Were you in any kind of marketing or anything like that?
Sara: No, I was a stay at home mom for well, 1991. I think I gave up work to have my first before that I was in accounting. So I'm actually qualified accountant as well for my sins. But yeah, which has stood me in very good stead. I have to say every business owner should learn at least the very basics of bookkeeping and accounting because Yeah.
Yeah. But that, you know, nothing, nothing sexy like marketing or anything like that. I had to learn all of that.
Teresa: That's really fascinating. What made you decide that you needed more than just putting a website up there? Because I interviewed Suze a couple of weeks back. Well, I didn't, I interviewed her today because they're actually batching.
But if you're listening to this, then she would have been quite a few weeks back. And she and I told the, like, we laughed at the story of her putting up her website and then being devastated that she wasn't a millionaire within a week. And, and, and the truth is most people and most business owners will do that.
They will think, Oh, I've got a Facebook page. Why aren't customers flocking to me? I think that is incredible insight, smartness. I don't know what the word is to, to actually go, this isn't enough. I need more. I'm going to learn Google ads.
Sara: That's, do you know what? I've never thought about it like that. I just took it as, I, well, I've always been really good at thinking what, like, trying to figure out what I need to do and then going off and, and researching and learning what I need to do.
So of course when I built the website and I had all my stock and it was all lovely. And, and I was just like, well, nobody's going to find it. I did SEO, which back then that's a whole different story. But so I guess I, I must've just probably been researching and thought, Oh, this Google ads thing that, that should work.
And. Just gave it a go. It's, it's, it's a really good question, actually, but.
Teresa: And, and like I said, it's not, yeah, it's not something I've ever seen someone do, and especially no disrespect back then, you know, because that was some time ago. And, and Google ads at that point were probably nothing like they are today.
So. Why, tell us what your e commerce shop was first.
Sara: Okay, so it started off, it had many sort of versions as it, as it evolved, but it ended up being DIY favors, wedding favors, so boxes, sugared almonds, ribbons, flowers, all loads of stuff, table decorations, and bespoke wedding stationery as well, which is kind of a second side of it.
And that's, that's what the, that's what grew. And that's what. That's what ended up being the big one. It was lovely. I loved it. I loved it. Until I didn't.
Teresa: I was going to say, and then you decided that you don't want to do something when you want to teach it. So you have had your online business for quite a few years then now.
Sara: Yes.
Teresa: How many years have you done this teaching element?
Sara: This teaching element since 2021.
Teresa: Okay.
Sara: About two and a half years because it was in the start of 2021. Yeah.
Teresa: Okay. And explain to us what, what's the main thing that you teach and help business owners with?
Sara: So the main thing that I teach is the Google shopping side of things, because I think a lot of people struggle to just get their head around it, and they're very intimidated by it, and I don't think, and it's, it's, yes, it's, it is, it can be complicated, but it's not something that's impossible for just normal people like you and me to do, like the fact that I can do it proves that.
And so that's the main thing that I teach that the membership itself, kind of, we teach other stuff because I have other people coming in to teach other stuff in the membership, but that's what that's my kind of main focus because that's where my knowledge is. Plus a little bit of the, obviously the, the e commerce in general side of it as well. Yeah.
Teresa: And I think The reason I wanted you on is because there's, I do have e commerce people in my world. And I'm sure that if you're listening to this and you're thinking, well, I'm not e commerce, you probably know an e commerce business. And I think it's one that a lot of people go into because especially kind of from the handmade or the homemade side kind of thing, selling something that they've made, selling a physical product.
And we kind of hope, well, I guess lots of people go into it because someone says, that's amazing. You should sell that. And then They go into it, they create this thing and then they realize the selling element of it or getting people to your website or getting people to commit and buy is the hard bit.
So if it, well, first off, if you're listening to this and you know someone who's e commerce, then definitely direct them to this episode of the podcast. So explain to people exactly what the Google shopping bit is.
Sara: So if you go and search for something for a product, on Google. So say you're looking for running shoes or something like that.
I don't know why I always use that example because I'm not a runner. I should, I should search for lounge trousers or something. That would be more my scene. So if you go and search Google for any product based search, you will notice usually across the top, but sometimes down the right hand side, you'll notice like the product ads, the product images with the price and a link.
Those are the Google, those are shopping ads and people have paid to put their products across the top or down the side in the Google search results. So that's essentially what it is. It's just basically your product information, the image, the price, the type that, you know, the name of the product on Google, on Google's search results. And those are the shopping ads.
Teresa: Those ones across the top, because I know them well, like, you know, I often search stuff, in fact the most recent thing was yesterday and it was a dehydrator, you know, to dehydrate all my tomatoes that I've grown over the summer. Are all of those across the top sponsored or have they paid to be in that position, every single one of them?
Sara: Yes. Every single one. Okay. On the homepage. Yeah. There, there are three product listings, shopping, I won't call them shopping ads because they're not ads. There are three shopping listings, which you can, if you have it all set up, you don't have to pay. You can still show, but that is, if you notice at the top of the search results, you'll have like little tabs, which say images.
And there's one that says shopping. If you click on that. The ones at the very top, again, are paid for. I think it says sponsored. So it'll say somewhere on there that they're sponsored. But then the ones down, further down the page... They're free. Nobody's paid to put those there, but it's kind of all the same process of setting all of that up. On the main homepage of Google.
When you search all of the ads there, they're paying to go there, but they only pay when you click on the ad. It's not like Facebook where you just pay to put it onto somebody. You only pay when they actually, somebody clicks on your product ad and comes through to your website.
Teresa: So actually I'm super glad you brought up Facebook because one of the things that.
And I said before in another podcast that I did the Google ads exams years ago, right? Because I had a client that I worked with when we had the agency, I had a client and they came to me and said, do you do Google ads? I'd like you to, I don't want to think about bringing them to you. They were using a Google ad specialist.
So I started researching how to do Google ads, and I started doing the exams. So I thought, Oh, maybe this is another service I can offer. And they were the Google exams in order for you to kind of like Google partner, which I wouldn't have got because you have to have so much money revenue coming in through the app, anyway.
And I did them, and I literally had no idea I passed them. And then he got me to run a test against this Google ads company. And I got better results and I have no idea how I did it right. So I then decided this isn't for me and I didn't offer it and I gave it away. And I think when people think about ads.
The way Facebook is set up and designed, it's trying to make it, and we had Michelle on the podcast as well talking about Facebook ads, but they tried to make it as kind of, you know, easy and as accessible as possible. Whereas I think when businesses look at Google ads and especially retail businesses, they think, and I'm assuming for them, but I think they think that There's no way they could get to the top of Google and they can't afford those ads.
And those ads are way too technical and way too difficult. So what would you say to someone who's listening to this thinking, yeah, it's all well and good. You're an expert. You know what you're talking about?
Sara: Yeah. So it is, it is a myth. It, it, it is an auction at the end of the day, it's an auction so that you're bidding to, to be in whatever slot you want to be in.
So the person that ends up in the top is not necessarily the one that pays the most. They'll be the one that's got the best product information that the most relevant information to the, what the person is searching for. So you can compete with big companies if you know what you're doing and you do it right.
And you, you know, you have everything set up properly. You can compete. And even the, like the most tech phobic retailers have gone through and managed to set up their own shopping campaigns and run them and have profitable campaigns set up, so it is definitely doable by everybody. It is, I feel it can be an even like a level playing field if you know what you're doing.
Yes, you are paying to show your ads at the top, and you know, obviously the best spot is that one on the far left. But just because somebody else has a 5, 000 pound a month budget, and you have a five pound a month budget, does not mean that you can't show your ads on that homepage of Google. If you're set up right, if you've optimized everything properly and you know what you're doing, then you definitely can.
And yes, it can feel really intimidating. And there is a, there is some sort of tech setup to do, but I've got people in my membership who are, you know, they hate all that stuff, but they have managed to do it. And just, it's a case of step by step following, you know, following all step by step and doing each step as you go.
And it's, you know, they're fine and they do it. And so I would a hundred percent say everybody can do it. And. Don't be scared to have a go.
Teresa: Okay, so a couple of questions then. If someone set up Google Ads shopping ads, do they need a website? Probably a stupid question. Yes, they do. But what kind of website?
Can they have kind of the off the shelf ones? Is there certain, is there a certain level that you need to have before even looking at these?
Sara: It just needs to be a functioning like online cart. So obviously for a lot of people, it'll be something like Shopify, cause that's really easy to set up and it's, you can do it yourself.
So that's really simple. So any, any of those online platforms, you know, even Wix. I mean, I, my preferred one is Shopify just because it's easy to integrate with everything else and it's easy to set up. But yeah, you basically just need a, an online checkout. A secure online checkout, so people need to be able to obviously go all the way through and you need to have all the, the things you would have in place anyway, if you are wanting to sell online, you'd have to have all of the privacy policies and the cookie notices and terms and conditions and, you know, SSL certificates, which obviously Shopify takes care of that anyway, so, and you also, people need to be able to see the price before, you know, without logging in.
So things like wholesale websites don't really work because usually with trade or wholesale websites, you have to log in to see the prices. You couldn't use Google shopping for a website like that, but most retailers, obviously that's not a problem. So, so yeah.
Teresa: That's what you need. What kind of budget would they have to look at?
And I know, I know this is going to be like, you know, give me a clue type thing. You know, so when I had Michelle on and she talked about Facebook ads, she was sort of saying, you know, £10 minimum a day, really. So what are you kind of looking at? What kind of budget over what kind of length of time if you're getting started?
Sara: If you're getting started, so there isn't really a minimum budget. I mean, you can put five pounds a day on if you want to. The, the only thing I would say is obviously the smaller your budget, the longer it takes for data and information to start coming into the ads about who's clicking and what they're doing so that you can then optimize things and improve things.
So a hundred percent, you can start with five pounds a day. I would, if I was doing it, you know, if I was sort of setting up an online shop and I were doing it, I would say that if you can spend sort of 500 to a thousand pounds a month, it just means you're going to get the results quicker and you're going to be able to see what's working, what's not faster.
And the, obviously the faster you can do that, then the the more you can optimize it as you move forward. But you know, if I appreciate that lots of people don't have 500 quid in their back pocket to just throw up some ads that let's be honest, they might not necessarily believe will work. So yeah, five, five pounds a day, 10 pounds a day is absolutely fine to get you started.
Obviously the theory would be once you start seeing sales and you start seeing a return. Yeah. Then you'd want to put more money in anyway.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're putting a pound in a machine...
38 min
November 13, 2023Keeping It Real: Navigating Authenticity and Self Expression in Online Branding
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Shannon Kleinjans, where we chat all about how to be authentic and show up as yourself through your social media marketing.
For over 30 years Shannon has been helping business owners create their specific brand voice, and achieve their marketing goals. She helps businesses to take the fear out of social media marketing, get visible and create meaningful connections with the clients and customers that they want to serve.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Shannon's experience of leaving her 9-5 job to open her business

How to overcome the fears of showing up as yourself in your business

How to deal with negative comments and curate your feed

Please do give Shannon a follow, and let us know what you took away from this episode, we would love to see what you thought of it!

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Shannon on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm laughing because I know today's episode is going to be awesome because I have the most beautiful, wonderful guest ever. She is one of my most favorite humans in the whole wide world. And the, the little story is that I met her at social media marketing world.
In fact, she is probably the person in my world, in my membership who I have known the longest, even though she's not in the country and she's over in Arizona, but I met her at Social Media Marketing World years ago. And from there, from that connection, we stayed in each other's world and then she joined my membership and all of that sort of good stuff.
And she's been in there ever since. So I'm so grateful for. Welcome to the podcast. The very beautiful Shannon. Shannon. How are you doing?
Shannon: Hi, Teresa. Thanks so much for having me. I'm. This is a bucket list thing for me for years, actually. And I've never been on a podcast before. So just diving right in.
Teresa: Well, that is lovely. And you should have asked, like, I'd have had you years back, Shannon.
Shannon: No, I had just. Yeah. I should. That's the thing. Should ask for what you want. Right. But thank you so much for having me. You're also one of my favorite people. I love that.
Teresa: I have had, I've known Shannon for years and years and years, and I'm interested to talk about lots of different things with her.
Not only what she does as her day job, but also her transition into running her own business and coming up with her brand, which is super unique and awesome. But before we do all that, Shannon, please tell us what you do and how you got to do what you do.
Shannon: So hi, I'm Shannon. I have a boutique social media and marketing business where I focus mostly on local, smaller to medium sized service based businesses.
And I help them get online because social media is scary when you don't know what you're doing. So I like to try and help take the fear out of social media marketing for them. So I've been in marketing for really for about a million years. I, started in the prehistoric days. Now back like when, my space was all the rage and talking to people.
I, I worked in the dental field and would I happen to have the gift of gab with my patients and happen to just Transfer that over and with share all their like answer their dental questions and stuff like that. So, it kind of started there. Yeah, I don't know. I've been just been doing it for a while. I ended up working with an entertainment center locally that I convinced them.
Somehow to let me do their social media marketing and be their person. They had an agency, which was great. They were doing their Facebook. And I said, well, let me do the Instagram and show you what I can do. And it took just a couple of months. And then I was running all of the social media for the entertainment center.
Teresa: Wow. That's amazing. Big. No. So good. So a few years back, cause Shannon, as she said, she worked for the entertainment center and she did like, you did a bit of this on the side, didn't you? But obviously you had a full time job, so it wasn't easy.
Shannon: That's true. That's true. So the funny story, the entertainment center is what sent me into social media marketing world when I met you.
So that took a couple of years of convincing, but they were great and very supportive. But yeah. So I was doing this. I mean, I love it. It's obviously you don't keep doing it for decades and not love it. But as I got to know people that, Oh, let me, let me pick your brain. Can I take you out for coffee or happy hour and let me pick your brain.
And I love doing that. That was fine. But I was like, Hmm. I don't really have the time for this, but you know, maybe I could help more people if I did it on, you know, as a business. So, so then I, I started it kind of on the side and then after COVID we had, well, during COVID that was, I ended up actually being super busy with the entertainment center, trying to keep, keep their presence alive and going.
Cause nobody was going there. It was shut down, but we had, I had some stuff going on and I just, my dad got ill and not with COVID, but that doesn't matter. But my dad got ill and passed away and. I just had a really hard time just going back into work and being in an office.
And I just, you know, how you just kind of like, Oh, I need something needs to change. So I left the entertainment center and thought I'd just roll with this. And it's been almost two years. It's been just two years, actually.
Teresa: That is crazy. Two years. That doesn't feel like. It doesn't, it doesn't. It feels like you've been doing it for ages, but.
Shannon: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's kind of weird. Time is crazy. But yeah, it, I mean, because I've been doing it so long, I guess it feels like I've been doing it for a while, you know. On my own, but I love it. It's, it was a scary, that was kind of my goal for a while too, while I was at the entertainment center to eventually, I think, and I, yes, I know on our coaching calls and all of that, I had that on, on my list of, these are my goals and I'm going to, I'm going to leave my nine to five and it just didn't happen how I was planning it.
I thought I'll have all of my ducks in a row. Everything will be ready and organized and instead. I just went, yeah, I'm just gonna do it. So, that was the best decision though, I think, that I've made.
Teresa: And, and do you know what? I think sometimes those are the decisions you have to make, because if you, if anyone spends too long thinking about this, and trying to make it the perfect setup, trying to make it at the perfect time, trying to wait until you've built so much, the chances are you'll never do it.
So actually I think to just kind of go now or never and just jump into it and do it. How did it feel like the first few weeks of you giving that up and thinking now I've got to find clients?
Shannon: So, yeah, that was, that was kind of a trip. I, I was, I had one client at the time and they were great and I, you know, had them for a little bit where I was working with them on, you know, is my side gig.
So I had one going in and I was like "I can do this.", I very lucky in the fact that I have a very supportive husband who's like, go and do it. And I was like, I'll just try it for a month. He's like, you need to try it for longer than that because I, you know, I wasn't going to give myself very much. I'm just going to give myself a quick out, you know.
Teresa: A month is not long enough by any stretch of the imagination.
Shannon: But yeah, he was like, try it at least three, six, at least just try it. And yeah, it just started. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like overnight, Oh, now I'm booked. I mean, it's, it was definitely some trial and error. There was, you know, I learned about what kind of clients that I work best with, that I can help.
You know, which is kind of where I've fallen more into the service based and also nonprofit is a thing that I find that I'm kind of getting into as well. That's working. So yeah. So I mean, it was just like a lot of trial and error of like finding what niche I want to be. And I wouldn't say I'm super niche down, but you know, and it's always evolving.
Teresa: What was, what was the most terrifying bit of starting your own business?
Shannon: You know, there's so, there's so many and, and, you know, I like terrifying, but yeah, I do love terrifying. So, oh, there were a few things that were really scary. You know, of course there's the, you know, I need to, I need to bring in an income.
That's, that's one thing, but I think honestly, the scariest thing was, and I. I mean, I knew I could do this, but I don't think I really like knew I could do this if that makes any sense. It's that imposter syndrome. Oh, my gosh. What if I think I can do this and I'm actually fooling myself. And if, well, if I am, I'm still rolling with it.
So it's that, that imposter syndrome is. That imposter syndrome is they can tell you make it that's awful. Yeah, no, I mean, obviously it's, I'm not, we're not just flying in this blind. You know, we. We put in the time and we spend the money on the education and staying updated and, and all of that. So, I mean, it's definitely well earned, but remembering that, and just, you know, that, that worst critic is that voice in, in, at least for me, it's that voice in my head, that's like "Oh, what are you doing?".
But yeah, kind of showing her up, I'm, I'm, well, I kind of, I kind of like showing her that. You're still here.
Teresa: Good. Good. Yeah. You're wrong. I can do this. So one of the things I think you've done. Yes, yes. That's like a, that's like a common theme in our world. It's like we often talk about, you know, if someone thinks we can't or someone said something, we're all like, yeah, we can. And if that, if that's the thing that drives us, then let's go with it.
Like, I'm cool with that. If whatever motivates you, let's just do it. So one of the things I love. And I want to know whether this was intentional, whether this was accidental and you stumbled across it. But one of the best things about your business is your branding and your brand tone. And this isn't why you're here to talk today, but I do want to touch upon it because tell us your, what's the word I'm trying to think about the inspiration for your brand name.
Shannon: So when I was setting this up of the people on my team at the entertainment center is also a graphic designer. So I had asked his help to help me come up with a logo and I thought, Oh, I need business cards. You can't have a business without business cards.
So I had one small ideas. I know. I know. We learn. So, yes. So, so I'd asked for his help to help me create a logo. I knew what the name was going to be. I, but I had no idea what kind of logo I wanted to do, but having been on a team with this gentleman for, Oh, it, I mean, for several years, you know, you get to know your coworkers.
And I didn't even throw some of these things at him. I was like, Oh, I like garden gnomes and I like the color Tiffany blue. And he came back with this logo and this whole set of logos that had a skull in them. And because he knows me so well, I love horror movies. I love Halloween. It's been a thing. My family, both growing up with my dad, Halloween was our jam.
We loved watching just awful, awful, scary movies. Or like, like the worst acting. Yeah, like the worst they were, the better.
Teresa: I'd say, do you know what, I think I could get on board with the worst scary movies. Because they're not actually scary, are they? Whereas like, I am, and Shannon knows this, this is the one and only thing, we are so similar in so many ways, but this is the one and only thing that divides us, like, separate, because I do not like scary stuff.
I am the biggest baby ever. So like, really poorly acted, terrible effects, scary movie, I probably would be alright with, but like, genuine scary movies, like, not for me.
Shannon: Oh, and I love those too, I love a good ghost story, I love... classics. I've got a Frankenstein behind me and on my wall. I mean, I just love them.
My dad's favorite was attack of the killer tomatoes. So if you want, like, super, super sweet, oh, it's awful. So it's like hilarious. One of our favorites, which I was going to share with you later is American Werewolf in London, which is kind of spurred my, one of the reasons I'm really excited. England, kind of go to the slaughtered lamb.
It's terrible, but it's so funny. Anyway. Yeah.
Teresa: The tomato one just sounds too much like, you know, I'm not sure that like I could even get on board with that.
Shannon: Oh yeah, the original fly, like the old, old one, it's just so cheesy. They're fantastic. Some Vincent price stuff is wonderful. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I could go on for days probably about just all the cheesy horror movies I'll send you a list.
Yeah, but so yeah, so and I loved it.
Teresa: Okay. Thanks. I won't watch them.
Shannon: Yeah, so I love I love all the scary movies. I love Halloween. I've always got You know, there's always something spooky ash or I, you know, Ouija board ish or whatever. And it just on my desk. And so anyway, so he came up with this, take a short story and make it really, really long.
Sorry. He, he came up with this logo.
He came up with this logo for me and, and I was like, Oh. Yeah. Why can't I, I mean, nobody does. I don't see a lot of that. Not nobody, I don't see a lot of people with skulls in their, in their logo, but, you know, unless they're very dark. Yeah. And yeah, and which I'm not, I'm not like dark spooky. Yeah. I don't know.
It's weird and twisty. It's weird and it's a fun, yeah. Dark and twisty, but hang on. I'm, but I'm not. I love it. Yeah. In a fun way. It's all good. What could go wrong?
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. You make scary fun. Exactly. Exactly.
Shannon: And scary is fun. That's why we go on a
Teresa: One of the things that is awesome about brands. Well, no, it's fine. Yeah, no, I get that. I get that. But one of the things that I love is in your social media, so not in your social media, you do that as well, but in your emails that you send.
So Shannon and I often have this conversation about, well, I have this conversation with everybody about the consistency of sending emails and Shannon kind of fell off the email wagon. So she had to. go back to her email list and go, Oh, I'm still here. I'm still alive. And like, so the fact that your headline on this, your, your email that you sent out was, I didn't choose the ghost life.
The ghost life chose me. And then it said, whoops, did I ghost you? So like, I love the fact that that is so on brand. And then this one that's just come out is spooky IG mistakes that you might be making and how to vanquish them. And then your spooky slip ups and you talk about like different types of slip ups.
And it's got, do not enter one, two, Freddy's coming for you, posting and ghosting, like, I just love that. Like. And I don't think you see it as this, I don't think, I'm about to say I love the confidence in just showing up as you, I don't think you see it as confidence, I don't know, no I do know you, I don't think you're doing it because you're like, I'm uber confident in myself, but I just love how Authentic that is and how on brand that is and how very naturally appears to come to you to show up in that way.
Shannon: Well, thank you. Thanks. It's, it's kind of fun getting back into writing the emails took that first one. I spent a whole Sunday with that's Sundays here, football's on TV all day long, just game after game. And it's, so it's just playing in the background and yeah, so it was, and I just, the whole entire day.
And I spent way too much time on that, which we've talked about, definitely spent way too much time on that. But to get back in the groove of it, because it literally was years that these people signed up for my email list. Thank you so much. By the way, if you're out there listening and you signed up for my email list.
Thanks for hanging in there for the, all those years . I am back now.
Teresa: Waiting. It was worth the wait.
Shannon: I could've done the poltergeist thing. I'm back. But yeah, it, I mean, and that was really scary. Not in the fun way. It was scary to, to come up with that kind of definitely overthinking every little bit and getting out of being consistent.
It's, it's hard to get back in, but it's so important. And I mean, and it's getting easier to the more that I write them. And I mean, you just kind of, it's like, oh, I don't have time and, oh, it took me a whole day to write it. I don't want to write another one that took a whole day. Just, yeah. You just got to remember that.
Yeah.
Teresa: The more you do it.
Shannon: Done is better than perfect.
Teresa: The quicker it gets.
Shannon: So it's, there's going to be typos.
Teresa: Exactly.
Shannon: Yeah. There's gonna be typos. I'm probably going to misspell something.
Teresa: And that's how we know it's real.
Shannon: What's that?
Teresa: That's how we know it's real. If there's typos, if you misspell something, if it's not perfect, that's how we know when a bot hasn't written it and you've written it, Shannon.
So that's the main thing.
Shannon: Now I do love AI. I like it for getting some ideas and helping, you know, generate some thought, Oh, that's kind of a cool direction to go in. And I didn't think of that or whatever, but Oh yeah, no, not the. Yeah. Have you noticed, like, I can tell on.
Teresa: Like, the just straight up write an email.
Shannon: Yeah, I can tell on some social media posts when they've, like, they're, they're embracing AI.
That's great. But it's like, that is a hundred percent chat GPT just wrote that entire thing. They have like a format almost. Yeah. Yeah.
Teresa: Yeah. Not ideal. So. Let's talk about what...
41 min

About Your Dream Business

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Hi! I’m Teresa if you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and life you dream of on your own terms and doing something you love then this is the podcast for you!