Your Dream Business

This episode is going to a be a little bit different, however I wanted to address the situation at hand. Things have been a little overwhelming and the world is now in a very strange and unique place. Although I don’t usually post episodes midweek, I wanted to have a chance to talk about what is going on and my thoughts surrounding the current situation. I’m also going to touch on a few personal tips when it comes to responding to adverse situations as a business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• It’s important to mention that I batch content and in future episodes that I have going live over the next couple of weeks, there is no mention of Covid19, because at the time we didn’t know what was going to happen.
• Try to step away from your news feed as often as you possibly can. Although you can’t ignore it, spending your whole day looking at what is going on is going to have a negative effect on your mental health.
• Working on what you’re grateful for is a great way to help when there’s a lot of negativity around.
• Stay as routine as you possibly can, especially with the things that you can control. Wake up at the same time, eat dinner at the same time etc.
• In times of panic, people will turn to those that appear to be steady.
• Be gracious and gentle with people that may be struggling, especially when it comes to their business.
• You have to do what is right for your business in times of adversity.
• We don’t know how long this is going to last and when we return to a state of normality, you’re still going to need to run your business. Although you may not want to launch anything brand new during this time, you still need to think about how you’re going to maintain aspects of your business.
• Are there things you can be doing in your business that could help you in the future? Whether that means working on your SEO or scheduling your social media content in advance.
• If you are scheduling social media content, you may want to schedule it for a couple of months in advance, rather than straight away.
• Supporting your community around you is important.
• If you are running an ad or a campaign that you cannot change, don’t take your results too seriously. The world is in a completely different place right now and you can’t take things as read.
• Find new and creative ways that you can turn up for your customers.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Remember to take care of yourself as much as you possibly can. Your health is incredibly important.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Mindfulness in Adversity – 04:20
• Your Business in Adversity – 09:30

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this slightly different and unique episode of the podcast. Now you're probably wondering why am I releasing an episode midway through a week when normally every Monday is when you get to hear from me. Well this week I guess is a little bit different and I thought it was probably best if I come on here and have a really quick chat with you guys just to kind of give you a bit of a heads up in terms of a few thoughts I'm having and also in terms of things that I think might help you. So obviously, you know right now, no matter where you are in the world listening, I know we have lots of people from all over the world listening that the coronavirus, and I don't want to say the C word, but I've had to uh, has hit us with an absolute force.

The world is in a very strange, unique place that it wasn't in a few weeks ago and I just wanted to, I guess like said, come on here and give you a couple of thoughts, but also give you some good positive stuff. Hopefully that will help you out. And I was really conscious, I didn't want it to feel like I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but like, so I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. Reason number one is I batch content. You know that I do episodes a few episodes at a time and I've already recorded episodes ahead of this one. And obviously in those episodes, I make no mention to the sheer fact that this thing's going on. So it didn't want you to think that I was so rude or I was ignoring it because I'm obviously not. But I wanted to explain why you might hear me not say anything or I might not reference it.

And it's because we've had those recorded already. Well, obviously there's nothing sensitive in those. If I thought there was that might upset people, then obviously I would remove them. But they're just normal episodes of me sharing tips, tools, advice, and me bringing on awesome guests who talk about cool things. But the reason I wanted to do this episode is because basically I'm just gonna talk a little bit about it and then I'm basically gonna leave it and you're not going to hear me talk about it again. But like I said, I didn't want you to think that I was. So, um, what's the word that basically I just didn't want to talk about it or that I was ignoring it because obviously it's a massive thing, our business. So what I really wanna talk about today is how in adverse situations like this, how we can manage as business owners.

And I don't think my advice is the most perfect and brilliant out there, right. Also didn't have anything to add from a, you know, what's actually going on in the world's point of view. I just wanted to reach out and say I'm here, you're my audience. I love the fact that you support me and I'm here to support you too. And I want you to know that I am around if you need any help with anything or if you're sat there worried about it. I just wanted to, like I said, just come on and have a really quick conversation about it. So there's a few things that have come up for me. As you know, I have been on a fairly, uh, I guess big personal development journey since having my business and I've talked about it before, but actually what it's done is it's really helped me out in terms of managing situations and this is boy's situation that we have to manage.

 

Mindfulness in Adversity

 

So let's just talk to that first and then I want to give you a few ideas of things you can be doing while things are different in your business, which that obviously going to be, no matter what type of business you have. So I guess the first thing that I want to talk about is about trying to keep in your own head. With all this going on now I am one of these people that will scroll through my feed aimlessly looking and reading and watching all this stuff, and you find yourself spending really valuable hours looking at the stuff. And actually for me, it's not worth doing it. It's not worth spending all that time. So I've made a decision to step away from the newsfeed and not look at anything that's particularly related to it or watch too much stuff. And it's not that I'm ignoring it.

I will catch on the news maybe once, twice a day, but I'm not spending all my time looking through social media because obviously the media has a real problem of exaggerating and scaring and really kind of catastrophizing things. And believe me, I am not sat here saying it's not all of those things. I'm just saying that right now there's nothing I can do about it other than what I can manage myself. So for me it's more about knowing that all this is going on and being respectful and mindful about it, but also looking to myself and looking to things that I can control because I can't control the government. I can't control the news, I can't control the virus, I can't control anything in that case. So really sitting and panicking about it is not helpful to me. And like I said, that's just me.

You may agree or disagree, but I just wanted to let you know that how I was dealing with it. So like I said, one thing I'm doing is I'm not going through my newsfeed as much as I have been because for me, reading this stuff just makes me more anxious and I don't want to be anxious about something I can't control. So then the second thing I, I do is, you know, I do it anyway, but I work even more on my gratefulness. So I really spend time thinking about what I'm grateful for and high very lucky we are, because in situations, whether this grave and this sort of worrying, we do forget that actually there's still an awful lot for us to be thankful for. And like I said, believe ma'am, I'm so cautious about doing this episode cause I certainly don't wanna upset anybody and I don't end up just think I don't care or I'm not feeling sorry for the people that have been affected by this or people that have died.

But I just wanted to say that right now in my current position with my family that, you know, I think if we can work on being grateful for what we've got and concentrate on ourselves, then that's got to be a positive thing. So I guess that's the other thing I think about that, you know, it's a bike kind of trying to do everything as we possibly can, as normal as we can. Now obviously there's some stuff that we can't do. I've just had some events, councils, I'm not travelling to London, I'm cancelling something else towards the end of the week. And I'm waiting to see if my daughter's school's going to close. And obviously that's big impacts on us and and as business owners, that impacts us massively. But what I'm trying to do is stay steady with the stuff that I can control. So I am still getting up at the same time every single day.

I'm still doing my morning routine. I am still doing my work. I'm showing up for my Academy members. In fact, I'm showing up more of my family members because they need the support right now. I've done this extra episode because again, I want to show you that I'm here to support you and I'm trying to stay steady because I think in this kind of the situation, not that I've ever been in this situation before, and not many of us have, I don't think, but in this situation, I think the more I can say study and the more I can keep things as normal as possible, the better for me, for my family, for my membership, for my 90 day people, for my podcast listeners. And therefore I think in times of panic, people look for those people that are steady, they look for the kind of people that are still carrying on and still doing their thing and going forward.

Granted with a lot more sort of, well I guess slightly more cautiously walking forward, but still walking forward and still still doing your thing. So those are kind of some of the things I took for it. The other thing I've taken from this is that it's a really good reminder that am I taking care of myself? Because you know, and I've said before that I am terrible at taking care of myself and actually when there's something as scary as this virus going around and, and obviously you know you need to be in a good place from a health point of view, it's making me think, okay, is this now a time that I need to do this? I do want to add, by the way, my hygiene has not changed at all. I am actually fanatical about washing my hands. I have two dogs and honestly they gross me out.

 

Your Business in Adversity

 

And even as like when B was a little baby, my daughter was a baby. I used to wash my hands incessantly and I do still. So I am just carrying on with my normal routine that but, but like I said, it is making me think, okay, you know, how much sort of fruit and veggie my eating, what sort of good food am I having? What, how am I looking after myself? So today I've taken a walk, I've walked the dogs and I, I've had a good salad for lunch and a few different things. So if that helps me think about that then cool. And then the other couple of things I want to just touch on is if I was trying to be really gracious with other people right now, so people are having to make decisions in their business that are so hard. And I am seeing this in the membership a huge amount that depending on what people's businesses are, they are getting affected some harder than the others.

And I think right now that we just need to be really gracious of people and gentle with them in the sense of, I guess I don't want to pass my opinions onto people though on the podcast. I just wanted to talk generally about it. But really you've got to do what's right for your business. So I can say anything. Anybody can say, you've got to do what's right. And I think I want to be as gracious with people as, as I can be in terms of their decisions that they're making. So if they've got to make a decision that I want to support that decision with them rather than judge them. So I know that one of my members had to cancel some things cause it was obviously affected and she got a bit of stick, not from other members, I hasten to add, but from someone else and you know, telling her that she was overreacting and this sort of thing.

And it's like she's got to do what she needs to do to keep happy herself and we've got to do the same. So if I'm happy to continue posting on social media and still showing up in the membership, then that's, you know, that's what I'm doing to manage this situation the same way as if you need to counsel things and hibernate then that's absolutely cool too. So like I said, I'm just thinking that you know, staying a little bit gracious to people and trying to be considerate of their decisions is probably a nice thing to do right now. But what I want to talk about is the fact of, and kind of moving onto more businessy stuff is we don't know how long this is going to last for. We don't know what's going to happen obviously and we can't control that. So no amount of worry is going to change that.

However it is going to end and we are going to get back to a normal, whether it's the same normal, I don't know, but we are going to find some norm I would see. And at the end of it, you still need to have a business. You still need to make money. And I know right now that obviously you are up against some serious challenges and potentially it's really affecting your business, but when it ends we're going to all be back to it. So I think what I'm thinking now is I'm not going to perhaps start anything brand new. I'm not going to launch anything particularly. Not that I didn't think really it's a launch if I'm honest, but I am going to still think about maintaining a level of my work and doing my stuff. Now I am very lucky that my business is predominantly online.

Even some clients that the agencies still work with could all be done online. I've obviously I speak for living Burt, that just has to pause for a bit because that's not going to happen. One of the events I'm doing is going to do an online version of it so it's not like I don't, and I can't work all together. I know that some of you right there aren't going to be in that position. So one, I think, you know for me, I'm very grateful that my business is set up the way is that I can still carry on. So that's good. But I appreciate not everyone's like this, but if you find yourself in these next few weeks sitting there thinking I can't do my normal business you've been given and I said I am so cautious with this episode because I don't want to come across as frivolous and go, you know every time there's a silver lining.

But I do want to say to you that we're always really short a time and if we're being forced to take time and you know, self isolate and stay in then actually is there things that you can be doing in your business to help you. But when all this kind of it comes to its conclusion, then you are in a as good a place as you can be. So I've got a few thoughts for you of things that you could possibly think about doing over these next few weeks if you want to. And if your business is affected, if your business isn't effective, then cool. I'm really glad for you, but if it is and you find yourself for the bit of time that you weren't expecting, then why not take a look at some of these things. So when did you last review your website? Why not go through and have a good look at it and think about reviewing your site and updating it and tweaking it because those, that's one of those jobs that we never get to do.

Also SEO, I have an email from one of my lovely members about SEO and in fact in a couple of weeks time we have an SEO episode and I've done nothing with it because of course I've been too busy. So if I find myself with a bit of extra time cause I'm not doing the school run or because it can't go anywhere, which to be honest it'd be a killer. Cause I did as you well know, love going to the pub. Although I have stopped up on gin and uh, I'm going to do a wine order soon as well. But you know, if I'm going to do, if I'm going to stay in the haste, then maybe now's the time to look at my SEO. Also. What about thinking about scheduling some social media content? Maybe not to schedule to go straight away. Maybe it's a case of have it already and then press the button on it when everything is starting to to come back to some kind of non normality, but why not sit there and create those social media content ready?

Also if you create content like me, why not batch load of episodes of a podcast or write lots of blogs or you know, do what you need to do from a content point of view because again, these are things we can do on our own at home or when we have some downtime, but when we're busy with meetings and going out and doing, obviously it gets much harder. The other thing I want to remind you to do is support the community and customers you've got already. What's interesting is there's all full lot of information out there about supporting your employees and what businesses are doing to support their employees. And not that that isn't important obviously cause it is. But actually for me, you know, my team will work from home anyways so we're pretty cool with that. But for me it's how do I support my members?

How do I help my customers? So I reached to them, I posted in the group just the other day, you know, what do you need me to help you with? How can I support you? And even if it's just so much a rant or even if it's just somewhere to have a slight panic and then you know, us help support you to feel better than just say the word because that's really, really important. And then this is a perfect time for learning. Upping your skills, doing that, some of those online courses that you've paid for already or learning something new or doing some research or using that time wisely to develop the skills for your business. And again, planning. So I have just finished a five day email challenge. And what was interesting, and actually this is one of my points is that my challenge was, was really good.

I really, really enjoyed it. Got loads and loads an interaction. They did some amazing work, got great feedback, but ultimately the number of people that then went on to join the Academy was not what I expected quite far from it in, in all honesty. But we did it a week. That was a really bad week. It literally just finished last Friday. And I don't want to use those stats. I don't want to make any rash or knee-jerk decisions based on the results of something that happened last week when the world was in this position. So what I'm saying to you is if you are doing an ad at the moment, if you are running something, if you're halfway through a campaign and you can't change it, then don't take those results too seriously or don't take those results as red. So for instance, like I said, in terms of a conversion activity, the five day challenge didn't do what I needed it to do.

However, because it was a lot of effort. If I put a lot of work into it, it was brilliant. I loved it. And so did they. But, but from a conversion point of view, it didn't quite...

This week’s episode is another interview, this time with John Espirian. After hearing John speak about LinkedIn at a local conference, I knew I wanted him to be a podcast guest as I was able to learn some valuable tips and tricks from his talk and as someone who has been in the industry for a long time, it’s always so refreshing when that happens. With lots of actionable advice when it comes to LinkedIn, this is definitely an episode for those that have been looking to maximise their profile.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• The simpler your message is, the more people will remember it and take action.
• When it comes to LinkedIn, you need to trial and error what works best.
• Even if you talk about a variety of different topics, you need to ensure you have that ‘one thing’ that everyone knows you for. This should apply to all social media platforms.
• Invest in relationships as much as you possibly can. Although you need to put sales content out, building relationships is much more important when it comes to LinkedIn. Whether it’s publicly or using direct messaging.
• LinkedIn doesn’t just have to be for those that are B2B.
• You have a smaller reach on LinkedIn so the organic reach is better than any other platform.
• LinkedIn posts have a lifespan of around 2-3 days.
• If you write an article on LinkedIn they will be indexed by Google. You should be aiming to create both short-form and long-form content on your platform
• Don’t put links in your post right away. Post your content, wait a few seconds and then edit your post to include the link. This is known to give your post much more reach.
• Document posts are more likely to be boosted by LinkedIn, so make sure you’re using these every now and again. If you use document posts, you need a clear call to action.
• A great statistic to monitor is how many people are visiting your profile page, as this is a one big sales page for you and what you do. One of the best ways to do this is to switch to follow first.
• When writing your headline you should follow a 40, 60, 20 rule in terms of characters. The first 40 characters should be interesting, the next 60 should be informative and intrigued. This will get more people to click through to your profile.
• Don’t use more than three hashtags. Make them a mix of personal brand hashtags and popular industry hashtags. Put them at the end of your post.
• Tag yourself at the end of your post for up to 28% more visibility.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You have to be in the conversation long enough for people to start remembering your name. You can’t just start posting on LinkedIn and expect it to work. You need to show up and have clear branding.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing John Espirian – 04:59
• Becoming Seen as A LinkedIn Expert – 12:30
• Investing in Relationships - 20:30
• Why Should You Bother with LinkedIn? - 22:56
• The Basics of LinkedIn - 24:53
• How to Ensure Your Posts Are Seen – 30:00
• Using ‘Follow First’ – 39:50
• Other Important Points to Consider – 45:19

Transcript below

 

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you? How are things going? At time of recording this episode, it's a very rainy February day, so I'm hoping by the time you're listening to this, it's kind of mid-March and the sun might be shining. Let's hope so. I am desperate for the spring to come and to have some nicer, warmer weather. That's why, in Episode 100 when we talked about we wouldn't want to move to the States. That's one of the reasons. Wouldn't it just be lovely to wake up every day and the sun to be shining? Honestly, I think it puts us in such a better mood, so much nicer mood. Okay, this week's episode is an interview. It's with the really, really lovely John Espirian.

John and I had followed each other on social media for quite some time, but we met properly for the first time at Cambridge Social Day when I was keynoting Cambridge Social Day and he was speaking there as well, and he talked about LinkedIn. I love it, and I don't know about you, but I love it when I do an episode of the podcast or when I meet people or I see people and they teach me something. Because, obviously, I'm in this world a lot. I do a lot of stuff in this world. I know lots of it. Obviously, or otherwise people wouldn't pay me. You wouldn't pay me to do the academy and you wouldn't listen to the podcast, so I obviously know lots and lots of stuff, but I do enjoy learning from people and them telling me things that I don't know. This is exactly what John did.

John describes himself as the relentlessly helpful technical copywriter and author of Content DNA, formerly a Microsoft Mac MVP and director of The Society of Editors and Proofreaders. Gosh, that's a mouthful. And John writes business-to-business web content to help clients explain how their products and services and processes work. Basically, he's a technical copywriter. Now, that in itself is a hell of a skill. Well, first off, copywriting is a real skill. Then to be a technical copywriter so that not only to do you have to understand technical elements of things, but you then have to translate it into a language that basically anyone can pick up and read. That is a phenomenal skill.

What John has done, that is his business. That's what he does. However, in order to prove and show how he is good at writing technical copy, he's been putting together content around LinkedIn and it's really helped him stand out. He uses LinkedIn as his platform, so he's not, although he's very well-known as a LinkedIn person, John's long-term aim is not to become the LinkedIn king. His long-term aim for his business is to keep doing his technical copywriting and to grow his business that way, but he's just using content and LinkedIn as a really good tool in order to get that out there. John knows some amazing hacks and tricks that he uses on LinkedIn and, like I said, things that I haven't heard before, so I had to have him on.

He is relentlessly helpful and is a super, super lovely guy, so I think you're going to really enjoy today's episode. I would highly recommend, and obviously I'll link to this in the show notes, but I do recommend that you go and follow John on LinkedIn just because he does put so much content out there and some really smart, clever things. A bit like me, we test things. I did the five day challenge. By the time this episode comes out, it's done, but by the time I'm recording it, I haven't even started it. The whole point of doing anything is I can then come back and tell you what worked, what didn't work, how to do it, how not to do it, how not to waste time, how to do it efficiently, how to get best results. That's basically what John does.

He does that for LinkedIn. He tests his own things himself. Then he'll write a very well-written and straightforward blog post on what that is and how that works and whether you should do it. Like I said, highly recommend that you go and check him out on LinkedIn. But obviously, first, take a listen to this brilliant episode with John.

 

Introducing John Espirian

 

Okay, I am so excited to welcome today's guest to the podcast. Welcome, John Espirian.

Thanks for having me, Teresa. Really excited for this one.

No worries. I'm excited because you and I have been in each other's worlds for a little while now, and you have a very unique presence on social media so you're very easy to spot in terms of your graphics and things. We've been at some events, but we really got chatted at Cambridge Social Day, didn't we?

That's right.

Because we were both speaking there. John gives the coolest stuff away in terms of content that I just had to have him on and had to have him talking about all things content and LinkedIn. Before we jump into that, John, just explain to my listeners, if they haven't heard from you before, who you are and how you got to do what you do now.

Okay, so I am a content writer. I work in B2B. I've been doing that independently for about 10 years, but before then, I was a software and hardware tester. I was the guy who was poking and fiddling with stuff and trying to work out why it was broken or why the manuals weren't as clear as they could've been. When I got made redundant from that job, I took that main skill that I had, which is understanding how stuff works and explaining it to people so that they don't feel stupid and putting that into writing. Yeah, it's been 10 years independent now. That's what I do. I work on websites and some social media content to help people explain how products and services and processes work. That is my service.

I need to explain, John. That, honestly, would be my idea of hell. I'm so sorry. You obviously have a brain that I don't have because the technical side of stuff I would really struggle with, but also, as these guys know, because they listen all the time, I don't like writing anyway. Doing that, is it quite niche? Are there many people doing it?

Yeah. It can be. I mean, there are a million and one copywriters out there, but there aren't so many who focus on explaining stuff as opposed to just selling stuff. I'm not really interested in the world of influence and selling. I'm more interested in explaining because the best feeling in the world for me is when someone's furrowing their brow going, "I don't get this." Then you tell them something and they go, "Why didn't someone just say that to start with?" I love giving people that realisation. It really helps them. Then I become the person of interest for them because I explained other stuff. They see what I'm doing and then maybe some of them hire me to write content for their website, and all of their customers suddenly understand what's going on, so that's cool.

I think that's great because in every industry, and in this industry as well, in the marketing industry, there are people who make a living out of confusing people because they like the fact ... Do you know what? Having done a marketing degree, and I can say all the fancy words if you want me to, but people don't know what you're talking about. Therefore, I am very much like you, John. My aim is that I teach people in a way that makes perfect sense to them and their business. Actually, I think there's a lot of people out there who like the fact that they sound like the smartest person in the room. Just explain to me, so if someone hires you as a copywriter and they have a tool or a system that you've never used before, how on earth do you work it out to then tell other people how to use it?

Well, that all starts with interviews. I get in front of a subject matter expert. Thank goodness for Zoom, so I don't actually have to go to people's factories and stuff like that anymore. I just ask them questions until I just break them psychologically. I say, "Why does it do that? How does this work? Why is that important? Who cares about this?" If I was trying to explain this to my grandma, what's the long and short of it? We just keep asking questions until you get to the root of what value they're putting into the world, and in what way it would be best to express that given their personality. Once we've got that, we just try and make it as simple as possible.

These people who do try and obfuscate, they hide through complex language, that isn't the root to influencing anyone or helping anyone. All the stats show that the simpler your language is, the more understandable it is, the more relatable it is, and people will actually see you as being more intelligent if you keep your language simple. We can see this. To be honest, we can see this in the world of politics. The simpler your messaging is, the more people will remember it and take actions. It's all about just keeping things simple and clear, not trying to have too much ego, and just talking the way that real people talk, even though we're talking about techy things. We can still explain things in a simple way, and that's what I've found that I'm reasonably good at.

That's really cool. I think you do what I suggest other people do, that you ask the stupid questions.

Yeah, exactly.

Like whenever I'm speaking, whenever I'm doing anything, teaching, coaching calls, it's like there's never a stupid question because I could be saying something ... The other thing is, often in our own businesses, we're very much wrapped up in it and we forget that people don't know the really basic stuff. We forget that people don't necessarily know the terminology for that thing, or the word for that thing. Actually, having someone out of that industry all together, like you, trying to make sense of it, you're able to go, "Well, hang on. You just said that. I don't know what that word means," without any feeling of, "Oh, I should." Because we've all done it.

I worked in corporate world for a long time, marketing corporate world. I used to sit in meetings and think, "I don't even know what half of them are saying." I was so embarrassed because I just thought I would look stupid. I was sat there with my marketing degree like I should know what they're on about and I didn't have a clue. It's like I didn't want to ask the question, whereas now, like you said, I think it's all about being totally and utterly, "Hang on a minute. What do you mean by that? What is that?"

Yes, exactly. It's called the curse of knowledge. We think that everyone else understands things on the same level that we do. We forget that we might be experts in the subject, and marketing is a good case. Someone bangs on about the four Ps and no person in the street has any clue what that means.

No.

Yes, if you can just get over that and understand what the other person is thinking, which is, "Make it simpler for me." No one ever complained, really, that something was too simple and easy to understand.

No.

Keep honing your message to make it easy and quick to understand, easy to remember, then you'll be onto a winner.

I think I have this very, slightly mean-sounding, but I swear it comes with love and affection where I say that people online are a bit stupid and a bit lazy. What I mean is you've just got to write for the lowest denominator. Do you know what I mean? It's like, if you're writing for that level and you're assuming everyone is that, then you are catching as many people as you can catch. Whereas if you're writing for a certain level, and especially in our own industries, who am I writing for? Other marketers or other people like me, or am I writing for my customers? I think that's such a good point.

 

Becoming Seen as A LinkedIn Expert

 

Tell me how you got from doing that to doing all the stuff you do on LinkedIn and the coming scene as a LinkedIn expert and that sort of thing.

Well, I was late to the social media game. I didn't really have any kind of social media presence of any note until about 2014. Nothing worked for me for a few years. I tried every different network you could imagine. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram. You name it. Eventually, I don't know, a kind of light bulb went off and I thought, "Well, I'm trying to target people who work in B2B. Where would be the best place for me to hang out?" It's kind of a head slap moment. Obviously, LinkedIn would be the place. That coincided, luckily for me, with Microsoft buying out LinkedIn at the end of 2016 and they've changed the user interface, they've changed the algorithm.

Yeah. They made it much nicer.

At that time I thought, "Let's just dive into this thing." I'd already studied content marketing, so I knew that this idea of building a body of knowledge in one place, answering people's questions would be a good long-term play. I never really liked that, so I thought we'll do this organically. We'll do it without ads. We'll do it with a really long-term plan for building authority, and so I started posting content about LinkedIn, which is what I was learning about at the time. How can I use it to promote my business? Because my business often involves working with clients who I can't name for privacy reasons, I couldn't talk about my clients. But what I could do is express my ability to express how stuff works, and so I used LinkedIn to explain how LinkedIn works with the subtext being, "Well, if I can explain how this works, maybe I can explain how your remote control works or HR process or whatever."

What happened was precisely nothing. I didn't get any kind of engagement. I didn't really get any followers, connections. I certainly didn't get any work from it, but because I'd had this long-term vision that building it would pay off in year two or year three or maybe even year five, and I'd seen other examples of people who'd done the same thing. No one is an overnight success. I thought, "Well, let's stick at this." After about month nine, I managed to get an article published in Social Media Examiner, which got me quite a bit of exposure. Then things started to happen. People started to say, "Well, look. Maybe this guy does seem to know what he's talking about. Let's connect with him. Maybe he could do some writing for our website." It kind of snowballed from there, but yeah, in the first nine months or so, absolutely nothing.

I just want to pause on that for a minute because of the fact that we've just had this conversation and we were talking about the podcast and we were talking about consistency, and I have said a number of times that month nine was the month for me where suddenly it all kind of blew up. Maybe that's a magic number, maybe it was just a coincidence that you and I both had that. But I love the honesty of you saying, "I did this and nothing happened," because I think there are too many people out there who think, "I do a tweet and everything happens." The other thing is sometimes they listen to people like us who have been doing this for some time. I put something up on LinkedIn the other day and one thing I'm going to be doing now going forward is I'm going to be promoting more about the academy in terms of what we're doing in the academy in order to try and encourage people to come and check it out and come and join and come and be part of it.

I put a post saying, "Academy members, here are the dates for Facebook Lives that are going to happen. The first one is happening this Friday and it's going to be about ..." We're recording this, by the way, at the beginning of 2020 and it's going to be about content planning for the year. Or not so much content planning as campaigns. We're talking about campaigns. Anyway, put this post up on LinkedIn, immediately had someone comment on it, she goes, "How do I get access to these?" I don't know this person. I've never met them. Of course, I was able to then go back and say, "Great. These are part of the academy. Here's the link to find out more. Let me know what you think or whatever." People will hear that and they'll think, "Oh, brilliant." So they put a post up and nothing happens. It's like, you've got to remember that I have been doing this consistently. I've been building my contacts on there consistently for years. That's why you and I now have successes like that. I think people think they can expect that within the first five minutes.

Yeah, that's right. I get increasingly more questions asking, "How can I get the levels of engagement that you're getting on your post?" I will say to them, "Look back at my posts in 2017 when I got two comments on a post if I was lucky. I'm saying the

This week’s episode is a solo episode, focussing on why social media isn’t working for you. Having worked in the crazy world of social media for a number of years, I have seen so many tips and tricks being passed around that may not necessarily help your business grow. Social media is something everyone feels like they have to do it and as the results are often disappointing, it’s important to know where you might be going wrong.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• When it comes to networking, the chances of getting a customer on day one is pretty slim. You have to build a relationship and nurture it before they may come to you for your services. With social media, you skip this ‘relationship building’ section. You post and instantly expect customers.
• At some point, someone will start listening to you and wanting to see more. It will take time, so have patience.
• You need to know your customer avatar before you can think about posting on social media. If you’re targeting the wrong people with your posts, you’re not going to attract the right customer.
• Using your social media to sell, sell, sell is a bad idea. You also need to entertain and add value.
• Ensuring you’re not posting dull content is important, yet difficult. If someone comes to your account and sees terrible photos and lazy captions, they’re probably not going to follow you.
• You need to think about whether you’re posting what your customers want to see or what you want to say.
• Sometimes you do have to post ‘tick in the box’ content.
• Only do what you can manage and build your consistency level for yourself.
• Don’t sign up to every platform. You need to choose the platforms your customers as most likely going to be on.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Although you may feel as though people are much further ahead of you when it comes to social media, it’s important to think about where you are and how important it is to you. For some, it comes easier and much more naturally and that’s okay.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Reason #1: People Expect Results Too Fast – 09:00
• Reason #2: You Don’t Know Who You’re Talking Too – 14:40
• Reason #3: Don’t Continually Use Social Media to Sell - 17:58
• Reason #4: Your Social Media Might Not Be That Interested - 20:30
• Reason #5: You’re Not Being Consistent – 25:09

Transcript below

 

Hello. Hello. Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you? You know it's funny when I do the intros because when Biz Paul interviewed Paul and I for episode 100, he said that he wanted to get a hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode cause apparently I say that all the time. So I think basically now unconsciously I try really hard not to say it but anyway, so today started off weird cause I was pretty conscious of it and doing a full few hours of podcast batching today and I'm having real trouble speaking. Do you ever get like that where your brain just does not kick into gear with your mouth, which is really difficult for someone like me who basically has my whole business based on the fact that I talk so much. So yeah, it's a bit kind of like awkward and I keep them to stop the podcast recording to delete something stupid that I've just said or delete a kind of massive gap of, I don't know what I'm talking about right now.

So anyway, fingers crossed the eyes start getting into the flow a little bit cause it does take time. It takes, I don't know, probably a good sort of 20 minutes to get into the habit of recording a podcast. So I tend to do like an intro and outro to a guest one and then I record a solo one. Then if I get chance I do another guest one and another solar one and there's kind of four in the bag at once, which is ACE. But like I said, it takes a little while to get into it and it's a certain way of thinking and a way of not being. That sounds a bit deep, but it's, um, I don't know. It's just, it's just like a skill that you have to get used to is, I guess it's like writing, if you write that, you might take a little while to get into, but once you're into it, it's like absolutely easy.

So that does tend to happen. So fingers crossed that's the case. And I managed to sort out my brain fog and inability to speak, which obviously it doesn't sound like I've managed it yet anyway. So today's episode is a solo one. We had a lovely episode last week with Mark Asquith, which is great. When he enjoyed that, he was good fun. This week we're talking about why isn't social media working for you now? I work in this crazy world of social media and digital marketing and marketing and I see so much stuff like that. I see so much, I don't know, tips and tools and advice and strategy and absolute rubbish around social media about what it can do for your business and how you can make money. So I don't know about you, but I tend to listen to a fair bit of music on YouTube and I get served ads all the time and these ads are constantly like find out how I just earned 10 million in two minutes on Facebook ads.

And it's like, it's no wonder, but we look at social media and think, am I doing something wrong? Is there some magic trick that no one's ever told me about? That means it works brilliantly for my business or am I doing it right? In fact, I was at a conference a little while back and this guy who was speaking on stage put this quote up, which I thought was the best thing I've ever heard to describe how business owners feel about social media or how social media feels. Okay. So the quote is, social media is like teen sex. Stay with me. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. And when it's finally done, there's a surprise. It's not better. I mean, I just thought that was absolutely brilliant and so true. Like, honestly, we were all like, we have to do it, we have to do it, we do it. We're not sure. You know, we fumbled our way through it. We're talking about the social media and not the teen sex. Um, and then basically we do it and we're like, is that it? Like where's all the amazing stuff? Where's my massive business? Because I've done a Facebook Live or I did an ad or I do Insta stories. So I want to talk a bit about why it might not be working for you and just as always give you kind of some honest truths about this world and managing social media for yourself and your business. Because the other thing is, like I said, I see one side of the world that is very much based of teaching and training and experts and social media is amazing and everyone should be doing it. And this is how you do it. And then through the Academy, I work with business owners all the time who are trying to manage social media, but they're trying to manage a million other things.

They're trying to manage their actual business. You know the thing they physically do. So whether it's making something, whether it's producing something, whether it's, you know, coming up with an idea or whether it's a service and then they're trying to do the finance, they're trying to do the marketing, they're trying to get good on social media, they're trying to schedule their content every week. They're trying to work out their SEO or their Facebook ads or whatever it might be. And then that's within the hours that they have for their business. And then what they're trying to do is run a haze, look after children, be a husband, be a wife, take the flipping dogs for a walk the other morning. And I don't want to turn this into a moaning session, but the other morning as you know, I'd get up and I do a morning routine. I get up very early, non-bank, five o'clock in the morning and because I have a busy day and I have children and dogs and whatever, whatever.

So to make sure that I can do my morning routine. I get up early in order to do it before I then have to get else up and my husband works away. So obviously it's down to me and I get up there in the morning to do my morning routine and start my day to make it all super positive and lovely. And I go downstairs and then I know just be the dogs burst and then I will get on with my day. My first two hours were hijacked with an ill dog. I swear to goodness I can cope. I used to be a nurse nurse many, many, many, many years ago and obviously I've had children so I've cleaned up second poo in my time, but Oh my goodness. Like I'm not built for looking after dogs. I was not very well doing this. It was not very nice.

Anyway, I didn't mean to come on here talking about that, but it's just the fact that we've got other things going on all the time. So I know social media is one tiny part of it and therefore I want to be realistic with you. And I want to be honest with you because I think sometimes what we do, we give ourselves such a hard time about, I've got to be better. I've got to do this, I've got to do that. And then you've got, let's take an Instagram expert telling you that you've got to do Instagram and it's becomes the way to go and this is how you should do it and should do stories and you should post every day and whatever. And then they're just running a business, telling people how to use Instagram. So do you know what if that's your business and you just talk about Instagram or one ACE, great, but two, of course you can put all that stuff into Instagram.

Of course you can post everyday. Of course you can do stories. Of course you can come up with creative ideas every day and amazing captions and all this sort of thing. So I want you to know that I hear you. I hear what it's like to do this because I've done it and I'm doing it. You know, I run my business, I do my own social media. Granted it can, I don't know, maybe come a lot easier to me cause this is what I do all day every day. And obviously this is part of my business, Burt, I run a home, I look at a talk, I look after children, I have to cook them dinner, I have to do the school run, I have to do all those things and we're busy. So I just wanted to say that to say I try and be so realistic with you.

I'd try and give you such a, an honest and straightforward approach to it. And this is what this episode is about really so that you're not sat there feeling like you're doing something wrong or beating yourself up for not succeeding at this magical thing that is social media. But to kind of just give you a bit of grace and just give you a few reasons why a, it might not be working for you as well as you would like and be to kind of realise the, the reality of it, if you like. So anyway, I hope that didn't sound too negative. It's, this episode is certainly not meant to be negative. It's just, like I said, sometimes I feel like we sit there and think, what are we doing wrong? Why is everybody else succeeding at this? And we're not. And that's not the case at all.

 

Reason #1: People Expect Results Too Fast

 

Okay, so let's get started. So the first reason why I think that social media doesn't work for some people or isn't working as well for some people is that they expect results too fast. Okay. So what I want to do is take you back to when you started your business and maybe you started your business before social media was a really big thing. Or maybe that wasn't the first thing you did and you went business networking. I'm sure we've all done it. Those horrible bacon sandwiches and a really early morning meeting where everyone's looking like they could just have done with an extra hour in bed and you're forced in a room to talk to people. So you go to networking and let's say I walk in and, and I start chatting to someone and get introduced. This is Jeff. I say, hi Jeff. Hey dude. And we start chatting.

Jeff, what do you do? And he tells me and I, and Jeff says, what do you do? And I tell him, and he said, well, that sounds good, you know, to come here often. Wow, it's my first time, blah blah blah blah blah. And you start having this conversation, you and Jeff, and then what happens is you will start the networking and you stand up and do your 60 seconds and tell everybody why you're amazing. Jeff stands up and does his 60 seconds and then we go home. Okay. And that's it. We've met Jeff for the first time and he knows what we do and I know what he does. So then we go again the following week and we see Jeff, Hey Jeff, how's your week been? You know, did you manage to, you know, sort whatever it was from whatever the conversation was before you remembered something about him.

And you're having this conversation with Jeff and his that has worked. Yeah, good. I've been doing this new thing. I, you know, just find out this, I've done this. And you start chatting to him and then over time, you know, you and Jeff get on really well and you're having these conversations at networking. And then one day Jeff goes hard. You know what? I have trouble with my social media. You know, I'm not, I wasn't sure whether to do this or this. And I might say, Oh Jeff, Janine, what? I wrote a blog post on it, or I did a podcast on it. If you go here, it'll tell you what you need to know. And he might be like, Oh, amazing man stories. That's awesome. Anyway, so then a couple more weeks go by and then Jeff might say, I'm still having that problem. And then I might say, because now I know Jeff, I know his business, I know what he does, I know where his kids go to school, what he does on a weekend.

Because I've got to know all this stuff about Jeffers. I've been networking. And then eventually I might say, do you know what Jeff, you know, if you want me to help, we can, I can do this or this or this and given my services. And then Jeff might go, yeah, do you know what? That's awesome. Could you come and help? And there we go. I've got a customer. So that's old school networking. That's how that happened because none of us walked into networking on day one and suddenly got a customer like that, did we? So then we get to social media and basically we skip like pretty much every single step that I've just talked through. We put up a post saying by our staff and we're amazed that no one wants to buy it. And it's like, well they don't know who you are for starters.

And then they haven't built a relationship with you. And then they don't know that you know them and then they don't know anything personal about your something to have a conversation that isn't necessarily just word. And then they haven't just been reminded of something, a way in which you can be helpful through maybe a lead magnet or adding value or a recommendation of a blog post or a podcast. And then they haven't had the conversation where you've identified a need and how you meet that need and then you make an offer. So people are skipping that whole middle section and then not sure how to manage that. They're not sure how to do that. So what's happening is people are going onto social media, they're posting stuff and going, why aren't people buying my stuff? Why aren't people clicking on it? Well, it's because they don't know who you are and you don't know who they are and you haven't built that relationship so often.

I find that people, especially when we have the agency and clients and things, you know, they would very much kind of say when we manage their social media, you know, Oh, after a month it's not working. And it's like in my head I used to sit there and think come back in 12 months and tell me it's not working cause it takes time. And I know it feels like I'm exhausted with trying to do that and I haven't got the time, energy or money or whatever to put into that. And, and that set decision that we have to think about. That's the decision that we have to make. Personally for me, I would say that social media is a great opportunity for businesses cause there is, you know, you can do it for free. It is barely accessible. You don't necessarily need to know about copywriting or design or whatever it might be.

And you can interact with your audience. But like I said, I think what we do is we forget that there's a whole section in between about nurturing and loving and whatever. And again, there's another great quote that was something like, Oh God, I can't remember it now, but it's something like we don't pick the fruit the day we plant the seed. And I think that's the thing. We, we feel like we're not doing anything or we feel like it's not doing anything because we're putting the content out there, tumbleweed content out there, tumbleweed content, they're tumbleweed. But at some point, and I can't tell you whether that's in two weeks, two months or two years, I'm afraid because no one can, but at some point someone will start listening and they will start following you and wanting to see more. But it takes time. So don't beat yourself up if you're thinking, I haven't done this and I haven't, you know, done it very long or doesn't seem to be getting a reaction and people don't seem to be following my page or liking my stuff.

It does take time. And obviously the other thing that you can do is, you know, ask, ask someone like me, you know, come and join the Academy. Come on a coaching call and say, Theresa, this is my social media. What am I doing wrong? Because I'm not getting that interaction. And I might look at it and go, do you know what? It's great. Just keep doing it. It just hasn't quite hit home yet. Or here's some proactive stuff you can do to reach out or I might say Genoa, you'll probably want to tweak this, this and this and this. So obviously try and get some good advice where you can, but in all honesty it might just be time. Okay.

 

Reason #2: You Don’t Know Who You’re Talking Too

 

Next reason why it might not be working is you don't know who you're talking to. Now I know I go on about this a lot.

Avatar is so very important, but if you're sat there thinking I think my customers, this customer and your, so I'm going to use a really extreme example. Let's say I think my customer is a 40 year old mum, married and therefore I create all my content aimed at a 40 year old woman who's married with children and I talk about, you know what it's like to try and clean the dog poo up while the kids are coming in and wanting the breakfast and I've got to do the school run and all these kinds of things that those women might relate to me about or I might put stuff up about. Like I said, managing children, managing a house, doing things. And actually what if my customers are a 20 year old young lad? Like I told you extreme one extreme to the other. But what if it was, what if that was my customer and all my content is going, Oh what's it like doing a school run?

Hey and these lads are like, I would have no idea or you know, talking about that, how your product or service fits in with the active, you know, saves your time so you can get dinner on the table or whatever. Got that sense of really stereotypical, um, that all the mums just do this and that. Dads don't, and I don't mean to sound like that unfortunately that the case in my house currently. But um, cause my children want to be fed, it's really irritating. Like every day I don't even like not even a day goes by where they don't want to be fed. It's really odd. So where if they could just like maybe go every other dad get a lot more done joking. I do feed my children every day, even under duress. Okay. He's so, like I said, if I was aiming all my content at mums and children and running houses and juggling life and being busy and what it's like to be a 40 year old woman than my, you know, young lad type audience will not relate with it in the slightest.

So even if I have the best design, the best copywriting, the best beautiful

This week’s podcast episode is with a very good friend of mine, Mark Asquith. Known as That Podcast Guy, Mark has seven of his own podcasts and runs both Rebel Base Media and Captivate. With lots of experience when it comes to hosting your own podcast, Mark is the best person to talk to when it comes to getting started and growing your audience.

On another exciting note, I’m doing my first ever challenge and would love for you to join in! The challenge is focussed on starting and building your email list. For those that haven’t started their list or those that are struggling, the challenge will have you signing up new members every single day. It’s a five-day challenge (including a private Facebook group) with tips on how to get started, what systems you should be using and lead magnets. If you’re interested in signing up, the link is below.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Podcasts are a great way to build your network in your industry.
• When it comes to creating your podcast, you don’t want to be the same as everyone else as you will soon find that what works for everyone else, might not work for you. You need to understand what it is you want to get from you podcast.
• A podcast is a great way to add value, especially if you want to turn your listeners into paying customers. It shouldn’t, however, be used as the only way to grow your business. It’s either the product or selling the product.
• If you’re looking to make connections when it comes to podcasting, attending events is a great place to start. Although they can be expensive, you’ll be able to network with thousands of potential guests.
• You can’t start a podcast and immediately be successful, you need to let it grow.
• When it comes to your podcast, you need to trust your gut.
• When you’re starting your podcast, you simply need to start with a basic framework and a platform like Captivate. Once you’ve done that, the hard part is knowing why you’re doing it and what you’re trying to achieve.
• You don’t need an expensive mic to get started, your audience will be forgiving. As your podcast grows, your equipment will get better.
• What can you design into your show to make it different?
• There are lots of different ways to get guests onto your podcasts, however, one of the best ways is to build a relationship with them.
• You don’t need big names to be guests on your podcast in order to be successful.
• There are so many different variables that affect your listener numbers.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Podcasting can be incredibly expensive but if you do it right, it’s definitely worth it.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Mark Asquith - 04:11
• So, Why Podcasts? - 12:27
• How Do You Stand Out and Who Is Podcasting For? - 19:30
• Podcasts and Sponsorship – 38:00
• Using Captivate and Getting Started - 43:15
• Getting Guests on Your Podcasts – 53:45

Transcript below

 

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast, how are you? Now, I'm recording this on a very gloomy, rainy, horrible day here in the UK. So I hope to goodness when you're listening to this the weather is a little bit nicer than the day I'm recording. So before I get on with today's episode, which is an interview with the very lovely Mark Asquith, and I'll tell you all about him in a minute.

I want to remind you that I am doing my first ever challenge. Starting on the 9th of March, I am doing a full five day challenge where you can join me in a private Facebook group, and I will email you every single day with a very short and concise video about how you can start and build your email list. We all know an email list is super, super important, we know that even though I love social media and social media is an amazing platform in order to find your customers and build that kind of community, it doesn't belong to you, it's not your platform.

You're effectively marketing on borrowed ground and if something was to go wrong, and believe me I have many examples where it has gone wrong, then you've lost it, you've lost all those people that have followed you, you've lost your community. So one of the most valuable assets in my business and any business is building that email list.

Firstly there's no algorithm in my inbox. Secondly, I get to choose whether I open and read that email or not. And there's another way in which you can build your audience, there's another way in which you can market to them. So it's not to say that you build an email list and then suddenly that's it, you don't ever need to do social media again, that's not the case, it's just another opportunity for them to see your stuff.

And to say I want to be part of your community, and you own it, you own that data. So I want you to join me for this five day challenge, it's going to be really good fun, fast paced, lots of activities. I'm taking you basically through the process that I use in my business and I am holding your hand the whole way through.

So you will not be lost or overwhelmed or concerned about anything, I am right there helping you. And like I said we have a private Facebook group that's going to pop up for the challenge itself and we're going to get you started on that email list and if you've already started an email list, we're going to get you growing that email list.

Then, other thing we're going to do in these five days is I'm actually going to tell you what do you do with them once you've built an email list, because it's all well and good thinking great, I've got this email list, but now what?

So, believe me, I've got you totally sewn up and covered on all of this and it's going to be an amazing five days. So if you want to get involved and join me, which I would absolutely love you to, go to teresaheathwareing.com/5days. 5 as in the number, and days with an S on the end.

Okay, on with today's episode. As I mentioned I am interviewing the very lovely Mark Asquith. Now, not only is Mark a very good friend but he's also known as That British Podcast Guy, because basically what he doesn't know about podcasts are absolutely not worth knowing.

Not only does he have seven of his own podcasts, which quite honestly is amazing because I can barely keep up with one, but he also runs Rebel Base Media, and basically this company is to do with everything to do with podcasting. And he is also the owner of Captivate, which is the amazing platform that I host my podcast on, and I would highly recommend for anybody.

 

Introducing Mark Asquith

 

But like I said, this guy knows his stuff when it's coming to podcasting. So I am really excited to talk to him, he's a lovely guy, I'm very, very lucky to call him a friend and I can't wait for you guys to hear from him. So without further adieu, here is Mark Asquith.

Okay, it gives me great pleasure today to welcome the very lovely Mark Asquith to the podcast. Welcome, Mark.

I'm not used to being called lovely.

Aw, but you are lovely.

I've not got that rep. If you talk to anyone else that knows me.

It's because you're too cool, that's what it is.

Have you seen what I'm wearing? I am not cool. I'm like 1961 cool wearing some old jumper from TJ Maxx. I probably spent too long a time trying to find, rummaging through for the cheapest jumper. You know what I mean? I'm that guy.

No, honestly, in my world you're pretty cool. I think I'm cool sometimes and then I just catch myself and go, "No, Teresa, don't do that again, that's embarrassing." So definitely not cool. But let me explain to my audience that we are sat looking at each other, which this is only the second ever episode I've done in front of someone.

What was the first one?

Mary Hyatt, international.

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Yeah, yeah. And we sat talking and it was lovely. It just, it has a completely different vibe, I think for me anyway, because you actually are having a conversation to that person in front of you. But also we're in your amazing studio, so I feel like we're on the radio or something because the quality, and I'm hoping you can hear it, but the quality of this is probably 10 times better than what you normally get. So this is really, really cool as well.

It is pretty nice, it's pretty nifty. It's bizarre because we get so many types of different people coming in, like people that have podcasted before, people that have just started podcasting. So the studio might be someone's first ever experience of podcasting.

We always get this really weird mix, and we've got everything from, we've got swingers podcast, to Christianity podcast. Like, the range of people that use this studio is pretty wild. But it is nice. It's only small but we like it.

No, it's ace, it's really, really cool, like I said it makes me feel like I'm a real professional talking on a radio or something. So, Mark, we've jumped straight in chatting there but let's just go back a bit and if you can just explain to my audience, in case they haven't heard of you, who you are, what you do, and how you got to do what you're doing now?

All righty then, so I'm Mark Asquith and I'm an alcoholic.

That's a different podcast.

Oh damn, again.

Not this one.

It's happened again, I can't believe it. So I run Rebel Base Media. We're a podcasting company, basically, we're primarily a podcast tech company. We so own a number of different brands in the space. I've kind of claimed the title That British Podcast Guy, just because it's really easy to explain what I do then and I'm usually in the States, travelling and doing whatever we do. So I've kind of claimed that title, but Rebel Base Media, we own this podcast studio, we own a managed WordPress platform for podcasters called Podcast Websites, so it's sort of a fully hosted and managed version of WordPress for Podcasters.

We own [Podactivity 00:06:57], which is an interaction startup in the podcasting space. Podcast Success Academy, which is a membership that you are helping myself and Izzy with. Earlier this year that we're relaunching I think probably January/February time. And the big one that we run, and which people are probably most familiar with, is captivate.fm, which is our hosting and analytics platform.

So we host your show, we host [inaudible 00:07:23]. So we host so many different podcasts, like hundreds and thousands of podcasts across the world. So that's what we do. And my job is really just whatever needs doing. I'm theoretically, I am the founder, but theoretically, I hate the word or the phrase or the acronym CEO, I hate it, but apparently that's what I do.

Okay.

Which basically means make sure everything's running all right. Doing product dev and product strategy and marketing work and bits of everything is what I end up doing, I think. So that's what I do, that's me.

Cool. So, how did you even get into the podcasting space at all, at the very beginning?

So, it was mainly because of DC Comics, I'm a huge geek. You've just been looking out in the studio.

I have, yeah.

I think there's a Jack Bauer toy, there's a ThunderCats toy, there's a Luke Skywalker toy, there's a couple of dodgy Turkish Phantom Menace toys that Trev brought us in, one of our toy collector friends. So I'm that guy, I'm a bit geeky with that.

I think it was about, maybe 2011, and all sorts of stuff. We used to work with Bosch and all these big brands and I was kind of CEO of that as well. My background is marketing but very much not studied marketing, I was just like we need to make money so what can we learn?

How can we tell people?

Yeah, exactly. So I just learned that for years, and I was a former coder back in the days and I just built this agency and did that with, like you said, with the other guys I was running with. That was around 2011, 2013, and one of the guys that I did this geek blog with, it was called Two Shots of Eddie, said we should start a podcast.

I said, "Gaz, that is absolutely ridiculous. Why would I want to do that, it's not 2005, Lost's not on the TV anymore, what the hell are we going to talk about? This is ridiculous." Sure enough, it got me started. In fact the microphone that I started with, the white Snowball microphone is just behind me on the thingy. The sound was terrible, like Gaz was really pro and I was terrible at it. But we did it. And I was like oh, this is all right.

So then, fast forward, this was maybe early 2014 and I thought to myself, do you know what? People keep asking me for advice on that, how have you grown an agency that's working with these huge brands from this little tinpot studio in Barnsley? Like, it's Barnsley, no one's heard of the place.

Not London, is it?

It's definitely not #LDN. So people were asking for advice. So I thought, like a genius, I thought this is brilliant, I'll do a podcast. And I'm going to interview entrepreneurs. And this is in early 2014, so I'm like no one's doing this.

Then I was like wait a sec, everyone's doing this. But back in the day not everyone was. There was maybe John and Pat and I think Ducker was doing his but maybe not in the format that he's doing it now. So there wasn't that many but I was totally naïve to podcasting, I didn't know people were doing this so I just started doing it.

Then I discovered John, we became business partners for a while and got to know all that kind of side of people, partnering with Chris, and all these people that we now take for granted as doing entrepreneurial podcasts.

But during that process I'd built a website for myself, like a personally branded website, which is now my markasquith.com site, formally [inaudible 00:10:32] site. But I was like this is a complete pain in the ass, like what a total pain this is. I've got to figure out how to work Libsyn, and I've got to somehow figure out why is this so complex.

Then I've got to try and get it on to this website and it looks terrible, because the players aren't great, and it's just a bit heavy. I just thought to myself, there's something going on here where people will want to do this. They might not want to do it now but in a few years time or a few months time I can see people wanting to do this, and there's no way of linking it up to their website easily, people want to use WordPress, there's a gap in the market. So me and Kiran, just on one Tuesday night just created this prototype podcast website, and it was just very straightforward, hosted managed WordPress for podcasters. And we got into that, we launched it with, John was our partner in that in the early days.

And this is John Lee Dumas, just in case...

That's it, yeah, sorry.

That's all right.

So John was our partner in this up until maybe like August or July this year, and we worked together very closely, did a lot of good work together and we launched it. And I remember being sat there, Kiran and I sat in the studio one night just watching this product launch. Before we'd even built it, like we pre-validated it. And that's how we got into it.

Then we'd always had this plan of what we wanted to do, like we knew that we wanted to have Captivate and we didn't know it was going to be called Captivate but we knew we wanted a better hosting platform, we knew we wanted Podactivity. In fact, Podactivity was my first ever idea in podcasting. It was before podcast websites, before anything else.

And that's how we got into it, and then suddenly five years later all the plans that we'd started to put in place five years ago are just now kind of the public are like oh, right, okay, that's the plan. So, it's an exercise in patience and frustration.

Yeah, that's business full stop, isn't it?

Isn't it just?

 

So, Why Podcasts?

 

I mean literally my life. So what's interesting is we've got this really weird thing about podcasts, because like you said you started one and you were like hello, we've got the internet now and TV and video so what the hell are we doing doing a podcast? And I remember when I first started listening to them thinking, no, this is old school, this is ridiculous.

And now, literally in the last few months, and we're recording this at the end of 2019, we're literally seeing, I'm seeing adverts for the BBC talking about their podcast platform and how to listen to this podcast.

Every celebrity and their dog is now having a podcast. I've got theories as to what I think or why I think they've become popular, but what's your thought? Why are they suddenly this big thing?

So, a few outliers. Martin Gladwell, you know, it shows that to be a pro hockey player it's better to be born within this time window. If you look at Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, if you look at the guy that invented Java, I forget his name, I feel terrible for that. But they were born within a 12 month period of each other.

Which meant that when they got to a certain age, there was a culmination of things, of situations, of circumstance that came together to allow them to do what they did, and then they jumped on it. Anyone in that generation could have jumped on it, they did and had one of those pieces not been in place, they would have never been able to do what they did.

It's the same scenario with podcasting, in so far as you see people in line talking about well it's not a podcast unless it's an RSS feed and I remember when I had to type my own RSS feed out. Like, okay, well done you can type and you were playing with podcasting, that's brilliant. But that was the barrier, you know?

Up until I think 2010, what was doing on was that podcasting was almost a little like CB radio. It was brilliant for broadcast, it was brilliant for connections, it was brilliant for getting content out, but it was kind of for the geeks.

Yeah.

I'm not saying you had to manually code things because hosting companies existed at that point but no one really cared because it was natively supported by Apple, they didn't put it on their phone until much later as a native you cannot delete this app app. They didn't put it on iOS as an undeletable for a long time. It's only fairly recently.

So that was one part of it. If you think about the world in general and in particular for this audience now, for your audience, content marketing was still a buzzword, no one knew what it means. And there's still like 50% of marketers still haven't got a bloody clue what it means.

So it's like content marketing started to exist. But then there was this perfect storm of technology, and what happened was YouTube gave creators a way to start to build an audience. Like the Slow Mo Guys, what happens when you pop a balloon at slow motion. It's amazing content, but at the same time it's totally pointless.

Yeah, it's not doing anything.

But it's entertaining and that's the kicker, is that podcasters then decided, wait a second, this is kind of an entertainment medium. But then there was this other perfect storm going on around education.

And the BBC said this, I went to [inaudible 00:15:27] in London last week and the BBC said something that everybody else had known for the last 10 years, which was we are now in an on demand economy. Really? Thank you, I appreciate that. Please put that in your marketing.

But what happened was Uber came around and then Uber Eats came around, and then Netflix came around and stopped delivering your DVDs and started streaming everything. Then suddenly...

This week’s podcast is all about losing a customer and client and how you can turn what may seem like a bad situation, into a positive one. After losing a client, I thought now was the right time to discuss something that is going to happen to every entrepreneur during their journey.

On another exciting note, I’m doing my first ever challenge and would love for you to join in! The challenge is focussed on starting and building your email list. For those that haven’t started their list or those that are struggling, the challenge will have you signing up new members every single day. It’s a five-day challenge (including a private Facebook group) with tips on how to get started, what systems you should be using and lead magnets. If you’re interested in signing up, the link is below.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• If you have been approached to end a client relationship and it’s out of the blue, you need to face it as soon as you possibly can. Rather than thinking the worst, get on the phone and speak to them.
• It is important to apologise and ask why it is they want to end the relationship. If something was wrong, try to view it as an opportunity to learn and develop instead.
• Once you have discussed the issues at hand, you need to speak about a potential handover. You should offer to help as much as you can.
• If you’re working in social media, you need to agree a date for when you’re going to log out of everything.
• Consider whether or not you can offer any training. You can charge for this.
• If you had a really good relationship, consider sending them a thank you gift. Whether it’s a card or a bunch of flowers, they will be thankful.
• Don’t forget to ask for a testimonial, review or a referral.
• If you need the client that you’re losing, it’s normal for panic to set in. The first thing you need to do, however, is take a breath. You need to think, what if you’re exactly where you’re meant to be right now? A better opportunity, client or customer could be right around the corner.
• Panic mode can be extremely detrimental to your business so instead, you need to go out there and be as purposeful as you can. Share testimonials, post about your services on social media or ask your current clients for referrals. Step up your activity.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Not all client relationships are good ones and you have to do what is best for you and your business.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• My Experience with Losing A Client – 07:00
• How to Approach the Loss of a Client Relationship – 12:56
• The Mindset Around Losing A Client – 24:50

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you? So I am recording this little bit late in the day because I've had such a busy week. Some weeks are like that, aren't they? Some weeks you feel like you can take on the world, you can manage everything and you are on fire and other weeks, not so much. And unfortunately this week I've had a not so much week but anyway, it's Thursday when I'm recording this. So only another day for the weekend, which will be lovely cause it's nice to get a bit of rest and I've got some friends come around for dinner and you know what? Before I have my own business, I used to love a dinner party. I love cooking mainly because I love eating, but I used to love entertaining. I liked doing the table. If you've seen my Instagram and my Christmas table, you might get an idea of the type of thing I like doing.

And then I just really enjoy cooking and hosting and getting nice wine and nice food and all the yummy bits. So yeah, we've got some friends coming round and I am really looking forward to doing it. It is funny though, ever since having the business, I haven't done it anywhere near like I used to. And now I also find myself getting a wee bit stressed about making sure everything's perfect and right and rather than joining the process. But anyway, this weekend that's what I'm going to do and hopefully it's going to be a fairly chilled affair. Okay. Before I get on today's podcast episode, which by the way is going to be all about when you lose a customer or you end a client relationship and how you can pull some really good positives out of that. And we're going to look at mindset things and a few different bits and bobs, but great way to turn that what is seemingly potentially a negative situation into a really good positive one.

So we're going to be talking about that. However, I want to tell you something super, super cool. Before we do that, I am doing my first effort challenge now. I've never done a challenge before. I'm very excited about this. I am very excited to see how it works, how you interact with it. If you like it, if you don't like it, what results you get from it. But this challenge is all around how to start and build your email list. So this is for anybody who has sat there thinking, that's been on my list for too long and I need to do it and I know I need to do it, but I just haven't had a chance or I can't think of where to start, or I don't know how to build an email list. Or if you're sat there thinking, well, they have started a list and I'm trying to build my email list, but it's a little bit like tumbleweed and I'm getting nowhere with it.

Then this challenge is also going to be perfect for you because we're talking about how to build it and had to get to a point where every day you are being notified of another perfect potential customer coming into your email list. So that's what I want to do. The challenge around, it's going to be five days. It's going to be really, really value packed. If you've, well, if you listened to my podcast, which you obviously do, you know I love to give you the good stuff, I don't hold back. I make sure that I cram it full of the good tips and tools and techniques. So over the five days we're going to be learning things like how to get started, what systems right there and when you should use what type of system, because that is a big question I get asked all the time because obviously there are different email systems which you can store emails in.

And I use Kajabi and I've used infusion soft, but they're very expensive. So you don't start there. And then at what point do you, do you decide, actually now I need to move to that. So we're going to look at that. We're going to look at things like lead magnets, we're going to look at giving people an opportunity to sign up, and then we're going to look at how do you actually get them on the list. So once you've got a lead magnet, hedge it because it actually entered the lead magnet, and then what do you do with them while they're on the list? So five days each day, there's going to be a video. We're going to have Facebook live. So I can answer all your questions. We're going to be in a private Facebook group so we can all work through this challenge to get there.

And the idea is by the end of the five days you are going to know exactly what you need to be doing to be getting on and building that email list. So I'm really, really excited about it. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it goes. Really interested. I, I try and view every marketing thing, every strategy as let's see how interesting this might be. So I don't ever really hold much judgement on success or failure or how many I'm expecting to get or how many people might enter. It's mainly, okay, this is going to be fascinating. Let's see how it goes. So that's that and I'm really excited. So if you want to join that would be helpful Teresa. Maybe tell you the address. So go to teresaheathwareing.com/fivedays and I haven't got a date for it to start, but by the time this episode comes out, there will be a date.

So go to that page. On my site, sign up, get into that group and join me for this awesome challenge that we're gonna do. I am very excited to see you in there. Okay, let's talk about today's episode. And I'm going to tell you why I was inspired to do today's episode. It's for a few different reasons, you know, cause you know I'm a little bit woo-woo and I quite like the woo-woo stuff. It's like the universe has been going, you need to talk about this, you need to talk about this, you need to talk about this because I've had so many different things happen that have made me have to answer questions around this or think about this. So firstly, there's been a few people in my Academy at that have recently lost some clients for whatever reason or a customer that was buying product is no longer buying a product.

And they'd been asking some questions about how they manage that and what they're going to do. But also, interestingly enough, I have just lost my second ever client as in they were my second client that I got when I started the business six years ago. So my first client that I got when I started the business still works with us and we still manage their social media for them and they still support me and I support them and I love them dearly. And my second client that came on has just come to the point where it's ended. And bearing in mind you've been doing this like five years now. I've worked with this client and it's really a little bit emotional actually because obviously I know these people, I know their businesses, I've worked with them for a long time. But let me explain to you what happens.

 

My Experience with Losing A Client

 

So in your business you start off with an intention of how something might look and we're really fluid. Things change and move and they get different and that's exactly what happened to me. And you probably know my story about, I started off consultancy, I started off being someone's social media, not social media manager, someone's marketing manager, and basically would go in there and help them market their business. So if they couldn't afford a full time marketing manager at a good level, they would pay me to go in for a day, a week or so many hours a month or whatever it was. So that's what this client did. And I worked with them. They were in a state agent, they're local to where I live. And I worked with them for years in that, in that scenario. And basically a couple of years back when things started to change in my business.

So when I started doing the podcast, when I started speaking more, it was getting more and more challenging both for me and them because I wasn't around, I wasn't as available as I have been because I had changed up what I did. So no longer was I sat in my office or no longer was I local to where they were. I was all over the place. And you know, there was a few comments where they were a bit like, Oh, you know, your heart in the country. And, and I was really, really apologetic, but I was still trying to manage their things. And the other interesting thing was I was doing the work, not my team. I never ever handed them over. And it almost got to the point where I never could hand them over because they were so entrenched in me or I need them so well that it was going to be impossible to hand them over.

And because I am the type of person I am, I never increased their prices. Now I know some of you are going to be sat there going, you did what I know. I know it was crazy, but I have this very moral, I'm not saying it's not moral if you up your prices obviously, but I have this thing where if I hadn't have had them as my second client and they were very good to me in those days, they referred me a lot. They paid me straight away and I was a single mum with a child to feed and they didn't, you know, delay on my invoices. They paid them immediately. They paid me well and therefore I felt like I owed them something. Can I still, you know, I don't regret that decision at all. So anyway, I never upped their prices. So again, it wasn't even economical for me to pass them onto one of the team because I wouldn't have made enough to make it worth its while anyway.

So I get working with them and I had a meeting with them a few months back, probably six months back now and said, listen, I don't know if this is working. I love you dearly, I love working with you. But in all honesty, I'm not around and I'm not offering the things that I normally offer or I, I don't offer this service anymore. This isn't a thing. And I don't want to let you down. I don't want you to be in a position where you email me and go, Teresa, we need a decision on this tomorrow or we need something today and I can't do it. And I hate letting people down. I, I really dislike that, you know, I want to be really good at what I do. So anyway, I had this conversation and they, we carried on for a bit longer and they basically emailed me the other day saying, can we have a call?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. And I got on the phone and bless this client, he was, he was really nervous and he said, I've been worrying about worrying sick about this and I'm having this conversation and said very similar to what I had kind of said, you know, we love working with you but we don't think you're right for us anymore. You know, we've seen your success and we are over the moon with it and very proud but we can't get what we need. And he was really concerned that I was going to be cross or angry or upset and I wasn't. I was relieved. I was so pleased that they had found an alternative and that it kind of got me off the hook as well as giving them the service they needed. And I was absolutely no, you should totally go with someone else.

That's totally understandable and I just want you to have a really good service and I want your business to thrive and it can't do that with me in the situation I am now in. So therefore I handed them over and it was that whole process that made me think about some of the ways in which you can do this in a really nice way. Now granted, this has finished very lovely, but I also have a, a story of a client that I sacked so and that wasn't as nice as this obviously as you can imagine. But again, it was kind of the same thing. It was actually a real personality thing there. I felt very anxious every time I saw an email come in, I felt like there was big communication breakdown and although I felt we were doing above and beyond what we had agreed and what I was being paid for, what the team being paid for, it wasn't enough.

And therefore, even though it was my biggest contract at that point and they put in the most money into my business, I made the decision to fire them and it wasn't an easy decision and yet it went okay. They weren't happy with me. However, even through that not nice period, there was still things that I could do to make it not as bad as it could have been. So that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about what if you lose a client, what if you lose a customer? What if you have to get rid of a client or customer and how are you going to deal with this and make the best possible situation out of it because it's inevitable. Don't, you know, does to even think that I've had two of my very first clients for literally six years is kind of crazy, but it's inevitable that people are going to move on.

 

How to Approach the Loss of a Client Relationship

 

People are going to change. You're going to come to an end of a, a project or whatever and therefore you're going to lose that customer or that client. And what are you gonna do? Like how are you going to make that situation as good as it can possibly be? So let's start with the nice ones. You know, if it's a really nice amicable thing, then let's do some nice things to be thankful to them. So really appreciate the fact that actually they may not want to work with you more and there is that panic. So we'll worry about that in a minute. But they, you know, if I went and looked at what this client's paid me over those years, that would be a lot of money and I gotta be so thankful for that. So I think the first thing is, is in how you deal with it.

So if someone comes to you and says, I'm afraid this isn't going to work, if it's completely out of the blue, cause normally if things aren't quite going as you would like then or sort of ticking along nicely, then you're normally aware that something's about to come up. However, if it's coming completely out of the blue, the very first thing I would do is obviously jump on it and respond immediately. So the minute they said we need to talk to you, I was like, this is what I can speak to you. And I gave them my next available slot. So sometimes we might want to hide from this because we won't want to think. I don't want to have that conversation. But I really urge you to just get on it, face it immediately. Because the longer you sit on it, the more you're going to think in your head.

Oh, that's why, Oh, it's because of this. Oh, it's because of this. Oh, I've done this, they've done this. I'm really angry at them actually. While I'm glad it's ending, I'm whatever the stories are, you'll be telling yourself in your head, it's actually just so much more easier to go. I don't know why they want to leave. Let's just contact them and speak to them. So obviously you're gonna get on the phone because that's going to be the best and easiest way to do it. Or zoom call or something where it's more face to face. You don't really want to be doing this over email and then you want to be saying to them why? That's the first thing. I am so sorry to hear this. And can I ask why this is the case? So what is it that's made you come to this decision?

And then obviously you're going to get their response. And it might be numerous reasons. I can't sit here and go through them all, but I guess the most popular ones are I can't afford you or I can't afford it if it's a product or something was wrong. And obviously I want you to view that something wrong as a really good opportunity here. So I want you to be put your emotions to one side. Put your feelings to one side, which is hard cause when it's your business, geez, does that hurt? But put all that to one side and ask them, okay, can you tell me about it? What is it that the problem was? Why did they make that decision to leave you? And I want you to be curious. I want you to see this as an opportunity to learn an opportunity to develop an, even if the learning from it is actually they're not the client for me and they didn't understand the service and that's why it wasn't right.

I would still try and look, is there anything we can change? Did we not communicate properly? This is how we work. So even if the fault isn't dying to you, you still want to be thinking, what can I do? So that's your first thing. Look at why they're leaving and trying kind of get as much information around that as possible. Then once they've kind of said, yes, this is it, this is what's happening for me, I want to be as helpful as possible. I am very much one of these people that wants to set up the situation for success. So every time someone works with me, every time we have a client that has worked with me over the years, it's very much a case of these things are yours. This is your advertising, this is your images. I am storing them here and I'm using them, but basically everything I own belongs to you and you can have it all at any point and I want you to be as self-sufficient if I wasn't around.

Now, obviously this is going to differ for some of you that are selling a product, but the point for me in a service is if you decide you don't want to work with me anymore than I want you to be able to still do as good a job with Amy and feel happy with...

This week’s episode is a practical episode, with lots of incredible tips from Amy Woods, an expert in repurposing content. In her business, Content 10x, Amy takes a core piece of content and ensures she maximises it to its full potential. Whether your core piece of content is an article, a video or a podcast, Amy shares her top tips for creating various other pieces of content alongside it, without taking up too much of your time. If you’re looking to put more content out into the world, this is definitely the episode for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Repurposing content is split into two different sides – promoting your core content and then taking the message of your core content and communicating it in various different ways.
• You should be promoting your content in various different ways. Whether that’s a teaser image, a launch post, a reminder post or various different posts throughout the launch period. Sharing your own content is never a bad thing, especially if you’re getting a conversation started.
• Having longevity in your repurposing strategy is valuable. This means thinking about SEO and search queries for Google, YouTube and other popular platforms.
• The lifespan of Tweet is 18 minutes, so don’t worry about scheduling lots of your own content. Not everyone is going to see it.
• You need to look at the existing resources and the skills that you have, thinking about what steps you can add to your content creation processes that would allow you to repurpose content easily.
• If you don’t think you have the time to repurpose content, you may want to consider outsourcing it to someone else.
• Blog posts are one-dimensional, which often makes it hard to repurpose. When it comes to your copy, however, this is something that can be shared in various different places. From sharing it on LinkedIn to using it on Instagram Stories, it’s an easy jump. If it helps, create some graphics using Canva.
• If you’re looking to make a video or podcast out of a blog post you have written, you can use the post as a way to structure any further content you make.
• Lumen5 is a great way to repurpose your blog post into a video. The software will pull out the main points of your blog post, making a video for you.
• Live video is a great starting point when it comes to content as it’s an experience for your followers, helping you to build a community. It gives people access to you and it’s authentic content.
• If you have published a live video, you can extract the audio and potentially use it as a podcast episode.
• Write key discussion points from your videos and turn them into a blog. The same applies to podcast episodes when you’re creating show notes.
• When creating a podcast, you may also want to consider having a transcript.
• If you’re talking about visual content in a podcast, it helps to have visual content that goes alongside it. This could be a content upgrade and lead generation tool.
• Repurposing content doesn’t necessarily have to be breaking down content, but it could be building it up too. For example, you could turn 10 blog posts into an eBook.
• When it comes to repurposing content that people have paid for, you need to be as transparent as you possibly can. Whilst you can’t give everything away, there are ways in which you can share some of the information you’re using in paid content. In a sense, you want to create a sense of FOMO.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Although you may feel like you don’t have time, you need to think about whether or not your schedule is too tight. You should have time to repurpose, so make sure you’re making time for creating new short-form content that is based on the long-form content you’re already producing.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Amy – 03:59
• How Often Should I Be Posting My Core Content? - 07:01
• Having Time to Repurpose Content – 15:30
• How to Repurpose Your Blog Content – 21:36
• How to Repurpose Your Video and Podcast Content – 30:51
• How to Repurpose Content from your Membership, Speaking Opportunities and Courses – 43:56

Transcript below

 

Hello, good morning, and a very warm welcome to today's episode. How are you on this wonderful day? I hope it's wonderful. I don't know about you, but the beginning of the year has felt a little bit tough, a little bit hard-going. I was talking to someone yesterday and talking about the weather, as you do because we're British, and saying that in the UK, it's just grey. I don't mind it being cold. I actually quite like it being a bit frosty, because at least then there's a blue sky, but just it's been really grey. So yeah, I think that's had a really big impact on my mood and how I felt. Anyway, I'm thinking more positively today and ignoring those grey skies and being much more upbeat. Which I am generally upbeat, I have to say. But occasionally, it just feels a bit much these dark nights, and dark mornings, and rubbish weather. So roll on some sunshine.

And this year, I'm not going to Social Media Marketing World, which I have been to for the past four years and I've been in San Diego in March, which I have to say is always lovely. Because one, it's my birthday at the end of March, so that's always nice to have a trip close to it. But also, so I have actually spent quite a few of my birthdays in the states. But also, having a bit of sun in March is heaven. And I remember ... Oh, I don't want to think about it, actually. I remember sitting by the bay, looking at the boat, drinking a cocktail and, oh gosh, if only, if only. Anyway, I'm focusing on growing the academy, which is why I'm not doing as much travelling. Although saying that, I have got a few things planned in for later in the year, so that should be fun.

Anyway, anyway. On with today's episode. So this one's a really good one. I think you're going to love it, because when I look at my podcast stats, which I do far too often, by the way. The stuff that is really practical content stuff tends to go down brilliantly and actually they tend to have some of my highest episodes. And this one is exactly the same. So this one is an interview with the very lovely, Amy Woods, from Content 10x, and she is an expert in repurposing content. So what she does in her business and for her clients is she will take their content and create loads of different content out of it. Whereas we had the lovely, Natalie, talking about how to make the most of your content in the sense of once you've created it, where to put it, what sort of things to say about it.

This is if you've got some core content, like a video or a podcast, how can you then turn that into loads of other bits of content so that you're really maximising your effort of that one core bit of content? But like I said, Amy's an expert on this. She actually has a podcast talking about this. I was a guest on it a little while back. I'll link up to all this in the show notes. And I don't know how she talks about it all the time, because to have a podcast where you just talk about content repurposing, it's amazing. She's got loads of ideas. So well done to her on that front, because like I said, I don't know that I could do a podcast on that every single week. I would run out of ideas fairly quickly. But anyway, she's fab. I think you're going to really enjoy today's episode. So I am not going to waste anymore of your time and I'm going to let you jump straight in.

 

Introducing Amy

 

So I am really excited today to welcome my guest, the very lovely, Amy Woods. Amy, how are you?

I am very good, thank you. Thank you for having me on.

No worries whatsoever. I should just say, we've just spent the last 45 minutes chatting and then realised we really need to get on with this podcast episode. So we've had a lovely catch up. Amy, in case my audience don't know who you are and haven't come across you and Content 10x before, please just give us a really brief overview of who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today.

Yeah. So, I run a business called, Content 10x, and we're a creative agency, basically, that specialises in repurposing content. So we work with small businesses predominantly who embrace content marketing, so they'll have podcasts, create video content, live streams, that kind of thing. And we repurpose content as a service, essentially. So we're an agency consisting of copywriters, graphic designers, video editors, podcast editors, and content publishers and NQA review, etc. And we offer that as a service to businesses so that they can focus on core quality and then focusing on running the business and lots of content gets repurposed. And then also have podcasts, like [Sophie 00:05:18] had been on it a few weeks ago just saying how brilliant that episode was and how it's been one of the most downloaded episodes of [crosstalk 00:05:24]-

Nice, so awesome.

Yes, it's awesome. And blog. And I had my blog come out recently. So anything in the world of content repurposing is what I'm all about, basically.

And that's awesome. Because, one thing I never did, and we just briefly talked about this previously, is I never niched down. Now I don't feel like I could or I want to, because I like doing bits of everything. But I love the fact of when you think about running a business and being niche, this is really niche, isn't it?

Yeah.

But, it's something that, A, people aren't doing enough. And B, it doesn't need the business owner to do this. Once you've created that core bit of content, you just need a process. So, a few weeks ago, just so my audience aren't listening to this and thinking, "Oh hang on, we've done this." A few weeks ago I had Natalie on and Natalie talked about creating content, but she talked about a process as you are creating it. So she talked about ... And I'll link up to this in the show notes, but she talked about obviously if you're doing a video, how'd you get it on YouTube, what are some things you should do. So that we're not talking about this, we're talking about once that video is out there, or that podcast is out there, or that blog is out there, how can you make the most of it?

 

How Often Should I Be Posting My Core Content?

 

Because actually, this is kind of the thing that we create, and you and I know this for sure as podcast hosts, so much content. Seriously, if let's say you did even half an hour an episode and we're ... By the time this comes out, we'll be over, I think, maybe just under or over 100 episodes. That is a hell of a lot of content. So how do we make the most of it all the time? So let's start right at the beginning. Let's say I've just done a podcast episode now and I've put it out, talk to me about how many times I should be posting it, or what I should be doing with it the minute I put that out before you then repurpose it for other things?

Well, I think ... Yeah. So, I think there's two sides to the repurposing, because there's the promotion of the core content. So you've got the podcast episode and you're wanting to create spin-off content and additional content to promote and market that piece of content. And then there's the other side, which is just seeing it as, content is a message being expressed in a particular format in a particular place, so let's see how we can take that message and turn it into lots of different types of ways of communicating it that isn't all about, "Listen to the podcast." It's actually, "No, I'm communicating this message in video, in written, etc." So there's the two aspects, the promotional and then just the different ways to share that message to each different people. So I think with the podcast content, so podcast and video are always the best starting point for repurposing.

We find video is always our favourite starting point because it's just [inaudible 00:08:23] talks with video. You have audio, but you have everything else as well. Well let's say for a podcast ... So I think you want to do the shouting out about it when it goes live. I actually think that if you can do a little bit of additional content before it goes live to tease people to when it's going live as well, that could be really good. So let's say you have a podcast episode coming out and you create some short little audiogram, so sharing a bite-size bit of audio with an image or an animated graphic that we've all, I'm sure, seen shared a lot of the time on Instagram. Or creating quote images, just title images, so graphics and things like that. And teasing up to the episode can be something good. Next week on the podcast it's like, "Here's a soundbite of what you've got [crosstalk 00:09:10] to look forward to." Yeah. So treating it a little bit like ... Treating content like a launch, like mini launches.

And then, shouting about it on the platforms that your audience hang out. I also want to say that it's not always about being absolutely everywhere. It's absolutely being where your audience are and thinking about how you can shout out about it in the most appropriate way for that platform and that audience. So on Twitter, it's usually more conversational, isn't it? It's conversation [crosstalk 00:09:46] started, it's trying to get everything going. So maybe not just sharing a graphic of the title image, the title of the podcast and saying, "This week we have a discussion about this." But more, maybe extracting a great question that came out of it. "So and so said this, what do we think?" Or-

Yeah, that's a good idea.

... teasing ... Actually here, it's conversational, so how could we get conversations going on? [crosstalk 00:10:11] the episode, but get questions, pull things out, like a bit of controversy if you want to. But Instagram is all about visuals and aesthetics, isn't it? So there, you'd have a different approach for shouting out about it. You would be ... Well actually, in the feed you're looking more at the aesthetics, and the visuals, and the graphics. Well, then video, video, video, isn't it?

Yeah.

On Instagram, say things like embracing Stories, so going to Insta Stories, letting people know that your episode is about to go up. Just no. It's more like, "If you listen to it, this is what you would gain from it. Do you have this problem? If you do, you're going to love the solutions that we talk about in this week's episode and what people gain." We're using all the features there, so things like sliding scales, votes, ask me anything, live features. So making the most of each platform and the features that it has. And Facebook, LinkedIn. So I think it's having that different approach for the different platforms, shouting out about it coming up to, and then day of, and the week after. And I think what tends to happen is, if you have weekly content, shout out about your podcast episode, or the video, whatever, the week that it comes out and plan, "Okay, so it goes out on Monday, so let's say this on Tuesday and Wednesday let's dah-dah-dah." And then you get to the next one and of course it's like rinse and repeat, isn't it?

Yeah, and you're doing it again.

Yeah, exactly. Which you should. You should definitely get to each week and then shout out about it, but if the content is evergreen, then we don't want people to ... We've still got so much more to be saying about that in weeks, and months, and maybe even years to come if it's evergreen and solving a particular problem. So I think it's just not losing sight of the fact that just because it was out there, not everybody caught it that point in time and people will still have that problem in the weeks and years to come. So having some longevity to your marketing and repurposing plans as well, turning your content into things that could be found by a search, as well as social, so writing blog posts and having an SEO focus, videos to have that YouTube SEO focus as well, and things that will help people to find that content in the weeks, months, and years to come as well. So it's the mix of the promotion at the time and then the repurposing of the message to be found further down the line as well, if that [crosstalk 00:12:38] makes sense.

Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. And I love the fact that you talk about the different platforms, because I always say and will caveat that with, in an ideal world. Because in an ideal world, that is what you do. But we're not talking about you being on every platform. I am. Are you on everything?

I am on everything, but we don't put as much focus onto all of them. But yeah, I am. Yeah.

But I think that's a lot to do with the industry we're in and that's why I'm on everything. If I wasn't doing social media digital marketing stuff, then I wouldn't be on everything. I would focus on the ones. And for me, it would be Twitter and Instagram, because they're my favourites. But therefore, so firstly, you shouldn't have to be on everything. But when you are posting in an ideal world, like you said, I love the fact of asking a question on Twitter, getting them to say even things like, "These are our tips for this. What do you?" And starting that conversation, again, using some of those polls, talking about some of those things also on stories and things. So I love the fact you're talking about that. The other thing I just want to pick up on is the fact that you said, "Goes out on a Monday. You plan this on a Tuesday, this on a Wednesday, this on a Thursday."

They're lots of people out there who I think will listen to that and go, "What? You post every day, or you post more than once." Because I think what happens in our head, and you sort of let me know whether you agree, but I think what happens in our head when we create something, because we are doing it, so we focused on that thing while we're creating it and then you create the graphics, and then you're doing this, and then you're doing that, and then you're posting it on social media or you're putting it wherever and you think, "Oh great, done that, done. I don't need to do any more because I don't want to irritate anybody. I don't want to bother them. I don't want to ... " And actually, good luck. I mean, great if you're irritating people, because it means they're seeing your stuff. Let's be real. The chances are, they're not going to see it. So actually, this isn't just a, create one thing, post it once, is it?

No. I mean, the lifespan ... What did we say? The lifespan of a tweet is 18 minutes or something like that. Anyway-

Yeah, something crazy like that. Yeah.

I think I saw a Gary Vaynerchuk clip recently where someone said something similar to him and he made the good point that people are not going to see everything that you put out, and if that one super fan sees those 15 things that you put out that week, they're a super fan so they don't care, if they're following [crosstalk 00:15:02]-

They love you.

 

Having Time to Repurpose Content

 

Exactly. I think people ... So let's say for your email subscribers, okay? So sometimes I think people neglect email as well as social, and search, and things like that. So something like that. Maybe we just send one email a week. If you have a weekly newsletter, maybe there's a weekly roundup or something, then there's a section in there for things I've posted this week, or that kind of thing. You probably do that versus break down your content into it. You wouldn't send maybe an email or recommend an email on Monday about ... Or email on Tuesday about it and things like that. Because that's more of a captive...

At the request of one of my Instagram followers, I am going to talk about the important of authenticity in social media. Whether you’re running a business or you are your business, being authentic is essential if you want to grow. This is going to be a jam-packed episode filled with lots of tips and tricks, so make sure you have your notebook handy.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Authenticity is the quality of being real or true. It’s a bit of a buzz word in marketing, but for very good reason.
• Social media changed everything in marketing because consumers became even more powerful. They had bigger choices and the lines to communication between consumers and brands were opened. It allowed brands to build trust and gave consumers a voice.
• User generated content is great when it comes to authenticity because it allows you to show that other people think you’re great too.
• Social media was a blessing and a curse, as people could manipulate the content that they show people. Fake marketing, unclear advertisements, paid influencers, celebrity endorsements and clickbait all led to people stop trusting brands.
• If you can build trust over time with authenticity, your customers will be loyal for years to come.
• If you are your business it is easy to show your personality within your business. If you don’t want to show your face, you don’t have to.
• Listening and responding to your audience is one of the most important things you can do when it comes to authenticity. If it helps, put people in groups and categories so that you can respond to them easily.
• Being open and honest with your audience is really important when it comes to authenticity. We are all human and mistakes are okay.
• In order to relate to your audience, you need to know who they are and how you can relate to them.
• It’s okay to admit you were wrong and it’s important to say sorry.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It is so important to have someone who supports everything that you do. Whether it’s a friend, a family member or your partner – having that support is vital when it comes to success.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• What Does Authenticity Mean? – 07:30
• #1 Show Your Personality – 15:28
• #2 Listen and Respond – 18:00
• #3 Be Transparent - 24:30
• #4 Relate to Your Audience - 28:40
• #5 Say Sorry - 34:07

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the devil are you? So this is the first episode of recorded since we did the hundredth episode and it was such fun. I have to say it had so much nice feedback. So many of you messaged me and talked to me about what you thought of the episode and how different it was and how fun it was for you to get a bit of an insight around I guess my family and my home and my husband and yeah, I loved it.

I was really, really pleased at the feedback and also Paul and I did a live on Facebook on my Facebook page. I'm going to link it up in this show notes and that was so much fun and honestly the people who were online were like, please can you do this as a regular thing, which I don't want to give my husband too much of a big head. He'll be taking over the business before I know it. But it was so much fun and it was really great to chat about work and answer questions and just how it all works. And again, I've got some really nice feedback from people in terms of how it might work with them and their relationships and what support networks they have.

So just really quick on this, actually, I really want to encourage you to make sure you have that support network because honestly, if I didn't have the faith of my husbands that I can do this and this is going to work and we're going to be amazing, then I don't think I would have as much. I don't know whether it was motivation or determination or tenacity to go after it. I just think if you haven't got that person at home, and it might be because they don't understand it might be because it's such a different world to theirs.

It might be cause you haven't explained what the possibilities are. And I know in the early days Paul didn't get it. You know, he, he supported me, but he didn't get it and he couldn't see what I could see. And then I started getting him more involved. He started to come to some of the events that I was speaking at. He started listening to some of the podcasts I would listen to or some of my episodes. And honestly it was, it was a real changing point for him cause I then think he saw, actually, not that he ever thought I was playing at it, but actually, Oh man, you could make something out of this. And, and the more he could see the lovely feedback I was getting and the podcast episodes increasing in terms of downloads, that's what really helped encourage him, I guess to, to be more supportive about it.

But like I said, not everyone has that. And I think you need to have that. I think you need someone somewhere supporting you in what you do because this is a lonely place at the best of times. If you don't have that, it's incredibly lonely. So actually I wasn't turning this into a sales pitch for the Academy, but that's kind of one of the reasons why the Academy is so good and why I am part of other memberships. And I'm part of other mastermind groups because even though I have a supportive husbands and and supportive children, I still like to be able to talk to someone who might be in my shoes or might have done the thing that I'm trying to do or feel the way that I might feel. So for instance, this last week, my husband and my stepson have been skiing for the week and my daughter has been with her dad and I've been on my own the entire week.

Honestly, I felt like a bit of a hermit. I felt like I literally hid in the house the entire time. But when you work on your own, and I know obviously I have calls with my team and I have calls with, uh, you know, 90 day programme people and coaching calls. So I have all that when I do talk to people. But that's a very different energy from sitting down in your house and talking to your husband or your kids or, so honestly, it was so lonely this week and it was just, it was really sad. And I'm being really honest about that. But literally you'd wake up and you would perform when you're on the calls or whatever, and then you'd just be sat there and you'd make a meal for yourself and then you'd go to bed on your own. And, and it's a really lonely place.

And like I said, I think if you haven't got someone to support you in the business, you need that community. You need people around you who can go do you know what? You're doing an amazing job and you are brilliant and you can do this. And I, I am thinking of people who I know who will listen to the broadcast, who've reached out to me and I swear you can, I wish I could just name all these names right now, but I don't embarrass you. Um, but I know you listening to this, you know, I know you, I know you're going to be brilliant at this and sometimes we just need that bit of support around us and just that help in mindset to help us shift into believing in ourselves. Because if we don't believe in ourselves, then you could have the best everything in the world.

You could have the most perfect product, the most perfect marketing, and you could still fail when actually, and I've said this before, but when I look at the people who are super successful, when I look at the people I look up to, like Michael Hyatt and James Wedmore and Amy Porterfield, they just literally were the most tenacious people and they just kept going for it and going for it. And they had a good support network. Amy Porterfield, Amy Porterfield's first ever webinar, a main webinar was done with, um, um, well not in conjunction with, but with the support of Louis Hayes, who it well is now is massive, but you know, we're still very big then. So she had that support. So you need those supports too. And the people who are around you and your community they had growing with you. So I urge you, if it's not the Academy, that's fine, but I urge you to make sure you've got someone or some people or, and it's not just about having the support of your husband or your partner or your wife or your, you know, best friends.

It's about having people who can understand what you're going through too. Because like I said, my husband is so, so very supportive, but he doesn't get what it's like to be doing what I do all the time. He does understand a huge amount of it and I don't want to take that away from him. He's, you know, he's fantastic like that. However, he hasn't run his own business, so he might not know what it's like that your brain never actually turns off and you can't stop thinking of things. And some days you wake up and you're ready to kill it and other days you wake up and you're like, I just want to hide in bed today and I don't want to do it. And who did I think I was? And you know, who am I to try and do this for my audience? So I just, I just wanted to, I didn't mean to take up so much time talking about this, but honestly I was really touched by all the feedback and then by the honest feedback of some people that were saying, I don't have that.

And and how important that is. So anyway, I just thought I'd talk about that because I thought that was really important. But today what I'm going to talk about at the request of someone on Instagram, so it was actually PIP, social pip on Instagram who saw me post about an event I was speaking at last year and my title of my talk was the importance of authenticity and social media. And she said, Oh, that's a real shame. I'd love to have seen that talk. So I thought, I know, I'll share it with you today and I will go through what that talk was and tell you why it's important to be authentic on social media. So what do we mean by authenticity? Well, if you give it a Google and you have a look at the dictionary, it will say the quality of being real or true.

 

What Does Authenticity Mean?

 

And it feels like a bit of a GoTo buzzword, if I'm honest. Like in marketing, you hear a lot about being authentic and authenticity in marketing, but what does it actually mean to be authentic in your marketing and why to consumers crave it so much? Because they do. So if you're thinking, well, I don't want to be, not, no one wants to be not authentic, I hope not. But if you're thinking you'd want to put yourself out there and show that through our authenticity, it's not just the you that you're doing it, it's for your customers. So basically, you know, little bit of a, a kind of background, social media changed everything in, in marketing. Literally being in marketing for like 16 years now I might even be 17, I'd need to do the maths. Um, it did, it changed everything. What I started doing, what I did my degree in was not like we do today and I've had to move with the times because of that.

And that's great. I'm happy to do that. But basically social media changed for the consumers because suddenly the consumers became powerful. The consumers had the opportunity to see so many more options. You know, obviously really, really long ago it literally used to be you would go down your high street and you would buy whatever was off your high street. You didn't have the option, you couldn't do the comparisons. And then obviously the internet came along and Amazon prime in all its glory and people could have much more bigger choice. They could look at reviews. But what social media did for customers was it actually opened the lines of communication. So it was a two way conversation. So it put a face behind the brand and even the big brands. So even the likes of, you know, your Coca-Cola's and your McDonald's and your, it opened this communication that you never had before and it validated who these brands were.

It built trust and it gave the consumers a voice ne, I will happily admit that not all consumers should have a voice because sometimes people just want to say mean things for mean sake. And that's not really my bag. But obviously it gave them that voice. So if they had bad experience they could go on and tell the world. But brands, it also opened the line of communication. So no longer were they having to do really ridiculous research through um, questionnaires and online forums and focus groups. When I was at uni, we were made to do a focus group. So obviously being at university and a bit of a scaredy pants, I just got people I knew it was the hardest or most stupid thing I've ever done because I remember my brother in law who to this day is still a bit of a fool and hilarious, but he just wouldn't take it seriously.

And I was like, come on, I'm into doing this. Seriously. But anyway, it was brilliant. So yeah, they don't have to do any of that now. If they want to know about something, they just put it on social media and go, what do you think? All the feedback they get off social media is massive. So you can really kind of get to know who your customers are without having to do big research. Also, it creates a community. It creates a sense of belonging, which again, for big brands, I know lots of you listening aren't big brands, so don't, don't worry, I'm getting to to ask stuff. But for those bigger brands, it did help that community, but also for the smaller brands, but for small businesses, for solopreneurs because like I just said, I didn't intend this to match it. So wow. But it is lonely.

It is lonely being in business when you work for yourself on your own, in your office even, you know, I have a team but they're virtual and again it is different, you know, so, so it sense, it gives you that sense of community. It's nice that your customers reach out and they feel part of what you do. It's a great way to get testimonials and also use a generated content. So I know that there are people listening here that I've got products, I know that obviously you guys listened to the podcast, you post on Insta stories, which I love and I share every single one of them. User generated content is brilliant because your content is saying, Hey, look how good I am. However their continent content is, Hey look how good she is. And that holds a lot more weight to it than necessarily you just saying, I'm brilliant.

So, you know, that's another great thing, which we didn't have back then. However, it was a beautiful, lovely thing for a long time and it kind of went all a bit wrong because brands and influencers decided that they could, Mullin manipulates and see this is authenticity, want to get the word wrong and manipulate social media. So they started to see that this was an amazing tool for them. But then what they started to do was manipulate that and, and make it work even harder. So instead of just being so grateful for the lovely new things that social media brought to them, it actually then started to try and make it work even harder. So fake marketing came up, unclear ads, paid influences that weren't being clear about the fact that their main paid for it. Celebrity endorsements, click bait, fake news. All of these things led to consumers, not trusting brands.

And in the presentation, because it was an academic presentation I gave, it was mostly university lecturer type people. Um, and in fact, actually, can I just say just a little bit of a fangirl moment, uh, when I went to university, and I think I might have said some on the podcast, the book I learned from was Philip Kotler you like he's the, they call them like the father of marketing. American guy wrote a gazillion books on marketing. Like I said, if you're in university, you do marketing and learn from him. And it was his event and I spoke on the same stage as him. Unbelievable. Anyway, slightly digress there. So in the presentation I put like loads of examples of marketing week saying consumer trust in brands and social media fools, um, as uh, between marketing and noncommercial blurs trust and social media platforms is eroding, you know, customer trust and social media is declining.

So I gave loads of examples as to why, um, you know, this was actually really happening and then checked in some stats that was like, you know, 54% thing that companies don't operate with their customer's best interest in mind. And 78% of consumers trust each other more than they trust advertising. And like I said, it wasn't just the brands, it was the fake influences. You can buy followers on every single platform. And luckily this is being clamped down on, which is brilliant news. And secondly, if you're smart enough, you can, you can see what's fake. You can see whether if they've got like a know 10 20,000 followers and they're getting 50 likes on a post and two comments, they're not real followers or they might be real followers, but they're not the right followers because you would engage. So yeah, so they were able to do that.

They could show inflated popularity and they were doing unclear ads. And again, you can buy engagement. So, so all of this added to the fact of being authentic was so, so important because the more I can show you my true and honest self, which I hope I do, um, I won't show you with like makeup because quite frankly, no one needs to see that. And not even my husband like me. I'm definitely one of those people that seek makeup, uh, and need it anyway. Um, you know, they need that authenticity. They need to know that you are real because the more they can see that, the more that they can trust you and the more that they're likely to do business with you. And although we can take some time to build that trust when you've got it, as long as you don't mess it up, they're going to be your customers and fans for life.

So this isn't a quick win type thing for marketing. This is definitely a slower process, definitely a longterm burn. But when you get it, it's going to add up and it's going to pay dividends. Okay? So how can you actually be authentic on social media? So I'm going to give you five ways in which you can be authentic so that you can start to build that trust in your audience.

 

#1 Show Your Personality

 

So number one, show your personality. Now this is really easy to do as a person, as in if you're, you are your business because your personality is you. And luckily you don't need to train for it. You don't need to learn anything, you don't need to do anything. It's entirely you.

Now, there are people out there who run businesses in my world who I'm not keen on and I'm, my personality doesn't relate to their personality and they're not for me and it's not, I don't do it that way or I don't like it that way and that's absolutely fine.

There are people that don't like me and that's absolutely fine because what you're going to do is if you show your true personality, if you show the real person behind the brand behind the business, then you're going to attract like minded people and especially if you are selling a service where you're part of that service, you want to attract like minded people. If people don't like you and don't like what you do, you don't want to work with them. So being honest about who you are, and I don't get me wrong, you know, there is still an element of, there's a Teresa that's in my lines in what I was going to say in like joggers, but that's a lie. I have never worn joggers. I'm like, you know, relaxing or slightly drunk on a Friday night with too many gins that isn't the Theresa I'd show online obviously.

So obviously I'm tempering it a little bit, but what you see of me is absolutely, genuinely me....

This week’s interview is with Katie, who initially came on board my business as my virtual assistant. Now, she’s so much more than that. As well as sharing our journey, we talk about how to find a VA for your own business. We cover 5 things that you can do within your own business to help improve your organisation, which is what Katie does for me on a day to day basis. The episode is a light-hearted and honest discussion about what I do well and what I am not so great at, making it another one of my favourite episodes so far.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Project management platforms are perfect for a business hub, as you can see exactly what you’re doing and when. Not only that, but it gives you confidence that you’re on the right track.
• If you can, try not to keep more than one notebook. Once you’ve written your meeting notes down, transfer them into your business hub and project management platform.
• Try to keep everything in one place if you can.
• Use your calendar to dedicate time to certain tasks. Block it out and be as disciplined as you can. If you don’t, overwhelm will start to kick in.
• It’s important to be flexible, but you need to be as strict as you possibly can.
• Have a daily or weekly review to look over everything. Look at where you are, what has slipped and what you need to look at in the following week. Not only that but think about what has gone well.
• You need to get your business to a place where you can feel comfortable enough to leave. Whether it’s for a day or for a two-week vacation, you can’t be IN your business all the time.
• If you want a team to give you the freedom to step away, start now.
• Recording your screen when you’re carrying out important business processes is a great way to pass important training on to your team.
• In order to achieve points 1, 2, 3 and 4, you need to build habits to make things stick. Whilst that means giving things time, it will be worth it in the end.
• Don’t give your ideas and time away for free.
• xx

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Unless you have the foundations in place to make your business succeed, it won’t work. You can have incredible ideas but without the systems there to back you up, chances are they won’t come to light.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Katie - 02:56
• How Katie Plays a Huge Part in my Business - 07:20
• #1 Build Your Business Hub – 19:35
• #2 Be Organised and Intentional About How You Spend Your Time – 26:36
• #3 Stay in Control of Your Business - 32:41
• #4 Ensure You Have Systems and Processes in Place - 35:50
• #5 Build Habits to Make Things Stick – 42:20

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm smiling already because I've just been re-listening to the episode, so when I batch content I batch interviews and then I do the intros and [inaudible 00:00:46] afterwards and I have to sometimes re-listen back through to the interview just like sections of it, and this week's interview, honestly, I love. So this week's interview is with Katie who works with me and has worked with me the longest. She's been with me quite a few years now, and Katie came on board as a virtual assistant and has become so much more than that. Just hearing us talk, honestly, it makes me smile so much. I love, it to bits, I totally, totally do.

Basically this episode is two fold. One, if you were thinking about getting a VA or thinking about how that might work, we share our journey about how I find Katie, what we did in the initial days. Some of this is hilarious as well because I was an idiot basically and Katie sorted me out. Then we go through five things that Katie does or Katie suggests that you do in your business that will help you be really, really on it and really organised in your business. This is what Katie's job basically is for me, is to try and get me organised. There's some things I do all right, other things I do dismally and we're really honest about that.

So today's episode is a very frank, open discussion about how Katie came on board, worked with me, what she does, and then these five brilliant things that you're going to be able to do in your business, and if you're better behaved than I am, then you're going to do them more successfully than I did and won't need Katie to keep trying to batter you into submission to get these things done.

So it's a great episode. Like I said, I love it for so many reasons because one, Katie is so smart at this and really she's been amazing in my business, hence why she's been in it for so long. And two, I think it's a really nice personal insight and we're kind of following along the personal theme around the fact that we have the 100th episode when I just thought this would be a really another nice one to follow up with. So this one I'm really excited about. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Let Katie know what you think as well and I'll just hand you over to us. Here we go.

 

Introducing Katie

 

So today I am very, very excited. I'm always excited, but I am super excited today to welcome the podcast guest because today it's my very, very lovely friend and member of my team, Katie McDonald. Hello, Katie.

Hello. Hi, thank you for inviting me.

Honestly, this is so weird, but cool.

It really is.

We speak on Zoom all the time. We do meet in person as well, but we speak on Zoom all the time, so to sit here and do a recording and the other people are going to listen to our conversation, god help them. If they'd listened to some of them, that wouldn't have been so great, I'm sure.

No, but this one is going to be fine. We can do this.

We're professionals, Katie. We can totally do this.

We are. We are at all times, yes.

So, Katie, let's start by explaining who you are and what you do and if you want to check in a bit about what you do for me, then that's cool. Up to you, you crack on.

I'm not sure what you'd call me really. We've had this conversation lots of the times haven't we?

We do.

What actually am I?

Yeah.

I think essentially I am a virtual assistant and online business manager. I've been doing that for 10 years next year, which is amazing to think that it's been going for so long.

That is Crazy.

Came from an exec PA background, which I think most VA's probably do, will start off that way. Never really had the thought of running my own business, just kind of found this VA idea, which was very big in America at the time, and thought, "Yeah, I'd quite like to give that a go." So started alongside my day job and then had the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy in 2012, so I did dead and thought, "Well it's kind of now or never really," and gave it a go and yeah, eight years later here I am.

Wow. Yeah.

So it's brilliant.

That's crazy. So you work with lots of other people as well and I've worked at different business people in different industries and different things, haven't you?

Yep, I have. I've got a real mix of clients, which I love because I think the variety is great. I get to do lots of different things, no two days are the same. It's mainly people who do run their own business. I know some VA's work with corporate organisations, but now I'm very much the entrepreneurial end of the scale.

Yeah, and now have a team.

I do.

So people that work with you because you're so busy and so in demand.

I have two lovely associates, yes.

Which then come up with you, which is super cool as well because I mean sometimes, especially on a VA type business, if you are a VA and I know some people who listen are VA's, it must be hard to think, "How am I going to grow this?" because when you're someone's assistant or your someone's number two or second in command or whatever they want you.

Yeah they do, yeah.

And then try and work out what goes to other people or how other people can manage things must be tricky.

It is. I think I've been very lucky with my client base and for Amy... Well, Zita joined me first a couple of years ago now and then Amy joined last year, but all my clients have been so open and supportive to me wanting to grow the business that it's been quite easy to integrate them in. I'm still very much involved with all of the clients. Although some of them now might be more day-to-day supported by Amy or Zita, I'm still very much there and know what's going on. I think for me that's quite important. I never really wanted to grow to an agency model where I was very hands off. So I'm very lucky that my clients have accepted Amy and Zita and just been very supportive of that.

Yeah, that's cool, really cool. We want to talk about, because you do some stuff online yourself, obviously you've got your own personal brand, you put your own stuff out there and we do want to talk about something that you do to help businesses in terms of taking them from chaos to calm in five steps if we're going to be going through that, but I want to just talk briefly about you and me in this business and how you came about.

 

How Katie Plays a Huge Part in my Business

 

So Katie was my first team member and I knew I needed help, but I had no idea what it was or what it looked like or anything. I've told this story a few times and Katie knows it, that I downloaded Jean Lehnas lead magnet on how to hire a VA and it was very much based in the Philippines and hiring of Filipino VA. Although it was great advice, I felt that I needed someone within arms reach or someone that I knew, someone that someone could recommend, someone that I have more of a connection to because this is the first person in my business and it was a bit scary, you don't know how that's going to go.

So Katie and I's paths across a few years before where she had actually gone to the agency that I was working at to have her branding done, and one of the designers who is a good friend of mine, Nick, he was doing all the work. KTM was still with Katie even after we both left the company. So I contacted him and said, "You do work for that Katie, don't you?" because of Katie, "You do work for her don't you?" And he's like, "Yeah." I said, "What's she liked?" and he's like, "Oh, I think she's amazing, and I think at [inaudible 00:08:30] she's amazing."

So anyway, we met for a coffee and we had a chat and you told me what you did and we tried to work out what on earth it was I wanted or needed, but what was super funny was... This is before like the real online-ness of what we do now and you were like, "So we'll have Skype calls," and I was like, "Why?" Like, "Why can we not meet just in person? You live like half an hour down the road."

[crosstalk 00:08:55]

Yeah, exactly. Like, "Why are we going to speak on Skype?" and I'd never done that and I was like... This sounds like I'm so flipping stuck in my ways, but I hadn't because it'd never comes up. I mean, I've done Skypes, but I haven't had a working relationship with someone over Skype. Anyway, we started working together. I still didn't know what I wanted you to do, you still didn't know what I needed from you, and it was just one of those things that we worked out as we went along,

And it kind of evolved, didn't it, as we got into the business together?

Yeah, and you see things in the business that I didn't see. So Katie, the one thing that I would highly recommend and one of the reasons we're going to talk about her five ways to cast calm is because when you start your business, you know you're good at the thing that you're selling, right? So I'm good at [inaudible 00:09:46] Someone else might sell shoes, they're good at making and selling shoes. Someone else might be a trainer, they're good at that. We're not business people. When you start your business you're not, you're an employee if that's what you were doing and you were good at that thing.

So then you start your business thinking, "How hard can it be? I just do my thing every day." Oh my goodness, like obviously, but one thing that you did is you came in and looked at what I was doing and was like, "You need to sort this out, man. This is ridiculous," because-

What have I done?

I just had... yeah, like, "Can I really help this person?" because I just have no structure to the business, did I?

No... Well, you thought you did because you were serving your clients really well, you were doing really well as a business owner. So you thought you did, but I came in and was like, "Whoa."

"No, you're not."

Yeah, and I think what's interesting is that sometimes, and we've spoken about this as well, you're so in your business yourself and you're so focused on your clients and what work you do and you've got all these big ideas of where you want to take your business, but you forget that unless you've got the foundation and the systems in place to do that, it won't work. I think that's what we found quite quickly, is you had all these great plans and yet we were like, "Oh, but how's that going to work and what's in place for this?" So it was interesting to look at that and peel everything back.

And it took me from being a one-person business that did everything and it was all in my head and it was all on me, to then how are you going to scale, and that's not necessarily what everybody wants to do. Not everybody wants to scale.

No, they don't, no.

But I did and as I've scaled in a different way to maybe what we imagined in the early days, but I could never have done that without that help. There is no way on this earth I could have got to the team I've got now, done the stuff I've done without you coming in and going, "You need to sort that out, you need to sort that out. What is this?"

"What is this?"

Yeah, what's funny though, is when people bring on someone like you, and it's funny that we don't know what to call you, which makes us laugh.

It does, yeah.

I always say that you're the number two in the business. Like Katie oversees the business with me. So I would not to class Katie as a VA because there are things that I, A, wouldn't give... I have Sophia that obviously works in the business while she's manages the podcast. There are things I'd give Sophia and there's things I give Katie and also I think Katie's role in the business has become way more then some of the VA tasks that I would have initially have thought of. It's not to say and Katie doesn't sit in and go, "That's not me anymore. I don't do that. So do you know who I am? I don't sent your emails for you, don't be insane. Who did these [inaudible 00:12:50] and get over yourself," but you still do some tasks that someone would class as a VA task.

Yeah, for sure, yeah.

But you have a much greater sight of the business as a whole and how the teamwork and who they are and what they do and, and when I... not that I ever step out of the business fully, I'm not very good at that.

No. We haven't haven't managed that yet.

Not quite. Katie's has it in her own business, which is amazing and her team does an amazing job of looking after me-

It did, yeah.

... and I didn't need much looking after, to be fair. I'm not high maintenance. I'm like Katie.

No, you're not. Not at all.

She said that really genuinely I think a lot of people listening would think, "Really? Actually I think she is high maintenance." But no, I think I know what I like to... This is going to say awful, but use you for in the nicest sense of the word because what I use Katie for now is not so much of the VA task, but more we have calls every week and we talk about business and we talk about what have I done this week, and Katie is absolutely imperative in the business.

When I look at like... and I'm not just saying this to be nice because she's on this podcast, I would say it anyway, but when I look at the financials of the business and who we pay, there's some team members that are dependent on clients because they do client work and until the Academy grows bigger they will have to stay dependent on that client work, and for me, Katie was never that. Katie might have come in initially, me thinking "You're in for this," but actually you are now as much a fixed cost as having to pay for hosting on the website. Do you know what I mean? It's a no brainer because-

That's lovely. Thank you, yeah.

Also for me, and if anybody's listening, having that person who is not your husband or your wife or your partner that you can talk to that has some amazing experience in lots of different industries, doing lots of different things and working with lots of different people, to then get on a call and go... I nearly swore then. That would have been the first time I've ever sworn on the podcast. That's because me and you are talking. That's what that is.

You nearly forgot yourself.

I nearly genuinely swore. Katie, they'll never believe this, because I've never sworn on the podcast and I can occasionally swear, as Katie will well know, when we've had a few difficult calls.

Yeah.

So yeah, but when things aren't going so well... God, that was so funny. I'd have like absolutely howled if I swore.

Woo.

Yeah, remember what we're doing. You know, things aren't going so well to get on a call with Katie and don't get me wrong, I can literally tell you that two days ago I did exactly that. We're recording this end of November 2019, I'm five years into my business and I still had to do that two days ago because sometimes you just need to do that.

You do.

You need someone in your team or you need someone on your side that is more than just a fulfilling of something.

Yes.

For me, that's what you are. You are very much part of who we are, what we do, the direction we go in, and I think we have a relationship now where you can literally go-

"No."

"No, Teresa. [inaudible 00:16:07] What a ridiculous idea. You're crazy." Yeah.

Yeah, because I have that knowledge of you and I know you very well and I have that knowledge of the business. So yeah, sometimes I can word things in such a way that it's beneficial. It makes you think differently and I think that's important, and I think that's how my own business and my own role has evolved in that because of the knowledge I have of online business, because I'm in this world myself, I can be that sounding board and that somebody that you can really talk to on that level, which as you said, sometimes husband, wife, partner, even your closest friends that might not be in the same situation, they don't fully understand what it's like, so to have that person I think is really important.

That the really cool bit about it because you are in a position where you have your own business so it would be different. Like if I bought some on full time into the business, even if I thought they were second in command,

We did think of that didn't we at one time.

We did, yeah.

We thought that might work.

Yeah, and actually for your role, I think I actually really like the fact that you are almost in the same position as me as in you're a business owner too and you're feeling some of the pains I feel-

Yeah, absolutely.

... going through some of the things I go through and we watched some of the same people and we follow some of the same stuff. So for me, I think that is particularly helpful when trying to help me with my business and deal with my staff. Also the other bit, and...

Before I started my own business, I worked for a number of different larger companies - all of which followed a formality of putting together campaign and strategy documents on a regular basis. Now that I’m my own business, however, I’m a lot more fluid and things can be much easier when it comes to decision making. Although you don’t need to follow the long process that I used to, I want to take the opportunity to talk to you about campaign planning in today’s podcast episode. We’re going to be looking at putting together a campaign plan, how you can structure your campaigns and how to execute them successfully. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• One of the first things you need to do is understand your objectives for the year. What is it you want to achieve? What are your targets? Once you know this, you can think about campaigns that will allow you to reach your goals.
• It’s also important to think about your target audience in the early stages of your planning. If you don’t know who you want as your customer, you’re really going to struggle.
• Write down ALL of your ideas, no matter how crazy they are. Write down as many as you can.
• Once you have written down all of your ideas, pick three or four for each objective.
• Take a look at your calendar and see what may impact when you do your campaigns. Split your year in quarters and put a couple of campaigns into quarters.
• If your campaign involves social media, you need to think about whether or not you need artwork. This can take some time and if you’re not planning in advance, you may find you’re unable to create what you need.
• On that note, if you need someone to help you with something, you need to work out when the latest date is you need to let them know by.
• Whilst planning, you also need to think about your expected outcomes. Make sure you’re realistic, yet optimistic.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Depending on your objectives and the stage you’re at in your business, you may want to limit the number of campaigns you’re doing each quarter. Make sure you’re not doing more than you can manage.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• #1 Understand Your Objectives for the Year – 07:05
• #2 Who Are Your Target Audience? – 08:08
• #3 Start Brainstorming – 08:30
• #4 Work Out Which Ideas Are Best – 09:50
• #5 Look at Your Calendar – 11:30
• #6 Deep Dive into Your Campaigns and Start Planning Them in Detail– 13:46

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. And honestly, I have so excited that I can now say what on 101 that just seems like so much work and I am so honestly, I'm so proud that I've managed to be consistent all this time because actually I'm not very good at consistency in terms of like, I don't know when I try and start something new and new year's resolutions, obviously we're not far from the new year and I've been pretty bad at them over the years I have to say. And I'm just so pleased that actually I love doing this so, so much and I get such lovely feedback from people and people. It's a Monday today actually when I'm recording this. So the podcast has just gone out for today and I've already had a couple of DM's already of people messaging me and tagging me in and I love it and it really spurs me on to create more good podcasts, bring on more good guests.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also, I am going to take this moment to have a little cheeky request that if you haven't done a review on iTunes then I would really, really appreciate it. Like I said, I love doing the podcast and I love hearing from you guys. So if you would happily go along to iTunes and give me a lovely five star review and write something, that would just be amazing. So thank you. I feel like this is public service announcements or something. I'm trying to think. Is there anything else I need to say but I don't think so. So we will crack on with today's episode. So I hope you enjoyed last week's episode. I really do. I'm, this is really odd. I'm recording episode 101 before we've recorded episode 100 so I'm recording this thing. I hope you enjoyed it and I have no idea what it's going to be like cause I haven't yet done it, but I'm really excited about the prospect of it so I really hope you enjoyed it. I can't wait to hear your feedback from that.

So yeah, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to it. It is a bit different for me, but I think you'll like it. Hopefully. Like I said, I have no idea. I haven't done it yet. It's really weird. It's like I'm in some funny time warp thing where things are done in the wrong order. In fact, if you're in the UK, do you watch Dr. Who? I love Dr. Who. It's a bit of a sad admission. I don't know. You might think it's sad. You might not. My husband thinks I'm particularly sad, but it's a little bit like Dr. Who in the sense of the timelines are all out of sync and it's a bit like that when I'm doing the podcast cause I'm talking to you about things that haven't yet been done. Very strange.

Anyway, I'll stop talking about Dr. Who and get on with today's episode. So you may know by now, obviously I've been in marketing a long, long time, but 15ish years at this point and I've worked for some big companies and worked with huge marketing budgets and some big marketing teams and big marketing agencies. And obviously when I worked at those places I was going to say I had to do things properly. Like I don't do them properly now. And I do. But when you're working with bigger companies, they do like the formality of putting together a big massive strategy documents or a huge campaign plan or the more formal stuff. Whereas now I would say I'm managing smaller business stuff and my own staff, I'm a lot more fluid. And actually what's lovely about working with smaller companies as opposed to, I used to work for Land Rover, so massive, massive company is that you had a million people that you had to speak to.

You had to, everything had to be long and arduous and detailed because it wasn't just you making the decision. And honestly any campaign took forever, not only to discuss, to put together, to plan, to organise, to get all the elements together, but also then to actually go and go ahead and get it approved. So not only if you've never worked with a big marketing department, we would have obviously, you know, people way above me. So I might have to get it past global marketing or retail marketing cause I was corporate marketing. Then once I'd done that, I might have to check the product stuff with the product people, then I'd have to send it to legal and legal wants throughout an entire campaign because they didn't like the headline. And it was just so frustrating. So there was so many hoops that we had to go through and these long arduous like I these massive documents, these big processes that we'd put together in order to show everybody what we were going to be doing, what we expected to get from it and all that sort of thing.

However, I want to talk to you today about some campaign planning. Now I'm not going to go into the long and arduous process of what I used to do, but sometimes it's good to do that more formal side of planning and actually this year I am doing this as I'm recording, this is the sixth of Jan, so like I said, it's a bit early in the year for me. So I'm actually doing my campaign planning now. I should have probably done it towards the end of last year. But anyway, I was really focused on personal and business goals rather than the actual campaigns that were going to help me get those goals. So what I want to talk to you about today is putting together that campaign planning so you know what you're going to be doing going forward in the year and then how you can structure each one of those campaigns in order to them and to execute them successfully.

Because I don't know about you, but sometimes you have really good intentions and think, Oh yeah, I could do this. And then you leave everything to the last minute or not even that. You underestimate what's going to be in that campaign or what you need to do and therefore you start rushing some of those last things. And I, I am guilty of that. I'll happily admit it and I should know better because obviously I do this a lot, but I think we need to sit down and plan a bit. And although sometimes in the bigger companies, I'm not saying this as Land Rover obviously, but they could waste a lot of time and we still have meetings for meeting sakes and forms for forms sakes. And I'm not saying to do that at all, but I am saying a little bit of planning will actually go a long way in terms of helping you with your campaigns for this year.

 

#1 Understand Your Objectives for the Year

 

So I'm going to talk you through what kind of what I used to do but in a much more simpler and less arduous process in order for you to then follow along and start planning your campaigns for this year if you haven't already done so. Okay? So the first thing you need to do is you need to understand your objectives for the year. So what is it that you actually want to achieve this year? What are the objectives for your business? And they might be around various different things. So it might be around, I want to, there's inevitably a financial goal for the year for the business. I want to grow it by X amount percent. I want to increase it to X amount of customers. I want to put my prices up, I want to do a get more people on my email list. I want more people signed up for my lead magnet.

Whatever your objective is for the business, I want you to write them down first because if you don't know what you're trying to actually get, then how on earth can you create a campaign to try and get that thing? So you need to understand what are my business objectives for the year and I'm not necessarily talking to crazy, amazing goals that we've talked about before. I'm just talking about what is, what do I really genuinely want to get from my business this year?

 

#2 Who Are Your Target Audience?

 

The other thing I want you to plan at this point, or I want you to write down is who is your target audience? Now I go on about this all the time. You're probably sick of hearing it, but obviously again, you need to know that because if you don't know what you want or who you want to sell that to or who you want as your customer, then you're really going to struggle.

So those two things kind of are given that you've already got them in your head, but obviously they're the two things that you're going to start with. What do I want and who am I targeting?

 

#3 Start Brainstorming

 

Okay, so once you've done that, the next thing I do is I literally brainstorm as many different ideas as possible and I will scribble them down on a piece of paper and I write down every crazy, amazing, different, boring, interesting idea that comes out in my head. So it's things like, well, I do a competition. Will I do a flash sale? Am I going to launch any new products? Do I do a launch? Am I doing live masterclasses? Shall I do a sales campaign? Shall I do something along the podcast? Shall I? And again, if one of my objectives is to increase podcast downloads, which is, and by now you'll know that we did a little competition to win some stuff at the beginning of the year.

And that campaign was purely focused around getting people to listen to the podcast and promoting the podcast. So again, try and write down as many different ideas as you can. Think of as many different campaigns that you can do. Like I said, can you focus on a particular area of the business? Can you focus on a particular product? Should you introduce a new product? Are you going to reopen your cart, close your cart, up your prices, all these different things. So try and write down as many different campaign ideas as possible and then literally Google campaign ideas or marketing ideas. And let's just see what's in there. If you're struggling for ideas to come up with.

 

#4 Work Out Which Ideas Are Best

 

So once you've written down loads of different ideas, you want start now thinking, okay, which one would be good for which, which would be realistic. What would I like to do?

Because one of those campaign ideas might be, I want to do an event, well I might not be ready this year to do an event. So that's a great idea, but it might need to shelve til next year or it might be that I don't have any new products to launch this year. So it might be that gets shelved as well. So go through those ideas. And ideally what I want you to do is kind of pick, I would say between three and four for each objective. So let's say you've got an objective to build your email list. Let's say you got an objective to build your sales and an objective for me to get more people to listen to the podcast. So those might be my three objectives that I've got for the year. And really I want at least three or four ideas for each of those objectives.

So for instance, the competition I did for the podcast, then I might do an advertising campaign for the podcast and then I also might do a, I don't know, something a bit different. Well the hundred episode is a, is a good one as well cause there's a lot of talk around that. So, so what can I do around those different times in order to help promote that? So two or three, three or four ideas for each of those objectives, that's what I would try and end up with. And I liked it at the moment. You literally just have a campaign idea. So let me, I'm going to use an idea of a flash sale. So at this point. So my flash sale would be for my objective to get more people in the Academy. So okay, that's my campaign idea. I'm going to do that.

 

#5 Look at Your Calendar

 

That's one of my three or four ideas for getting more people into the Academy. So then the next thing you need to do is go and look at your calendar and I want you to see what's going on this year that may impact when you do these campaigns. So for instance, for me, obviously I wanted to see when I hit episode a hundred you might have an anniversary and you might do an anniversary sale, you might have something else that has some kind of impact if you are seasonal. So I know a few people that listen, they have products that will sell more up to Christmas. So do they do something in the quiet periods or do they do something in the busy periods? So want you to kind of have a look at when you might have to fit these campaigns in based on what else happens in the year.

Then what I want you to do is split the year into quarters and look at putting a couple of campaigns in each quarter. Now this might be too much for me. I'm okay at this stage. Now you might want, and I've got three main objectives, but you might want to do one or two campaigns a quarter, but I can probably get away with doing about three I think now, because I've done it quite a few times, or they're saying that, you know, it's still a lot of work, so we'll need to see. But I want you to try and write down and go, okay, so in quarter one I'm going to do a competition for the podcast. This is obviously me and I'm going to do a flash sale for the Academy and I'm going to do a new lead magnet to get people on the email list. So those might be my three things that I'm doing in quarter one.

Then quarter two, I might do a live masterclass in order for the Academy. I might do a, I don't know, something for the podcast, but you get my drift. So every quarter I'm putting down what campaign I'm going to do for it. Now you pretty much at this point, ignore quarter two, three and four just because I want you to focus on this first quarter. Now if you can do quarter one, quarter two, great, you've got like half a year all set up, you vaguely know what you're gonna be doing all year, but you've got half a year where you're actually going to go and planning. Now, once I know roughly when and what I'm doing, and you might sort of in your head be deciding, okay, well this will probably take two weeks. So this two weeks of work, well then I'll do this in the next two weeks.

 

#6 Deep Dive into Your Campaigns and Start Planning Them in Detail

 

So you might have already got some dates in for it, but you definitely know what quarter it's going to be in. Then what you're going to do is you're going to start deep diving into each of these campaigns and start planning them that, you know, as I was going through this, I was thinking to myself, I should actually put this on a form and do a form for you. So that's what I've done. I wasn't gonna change my mind and I haven't done it yet, but I'll have it done by the time this podcast is gonna get live. So head over to the show notes teresaheathwearing.com/101 and you will find the link to this campaign form where I have already filled in and I've put gaps for you to write in. I haven't already done it cause I haven't done it yet.

Like I said, I'm in this weird time thing anyway. I will have it done by the time you go and hear this, but I'll put down spaces so that you can literally just build this in almost kind of what I would have done when I was working for somebody else in the marketing department. So basically all these things I'm going to talk you through now are going to be on this. So do go and grab that like I said teresaheathwareing.com/101.

Okay, so the first thing you're going to do is you're going to write down which objective this is relating to. So you know overall, right this the objective for this. This is why I'm doing this campaign. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to fill in any targeting details. So for instance, let's say, although my Academy can actually serve anybody with a business and anybody in marketing, let's say that I found actually loads of photographers really want to join the Academy.

I might do this particular campaign just to photographers. I'm not going to, but I'm just saying that might be why I put in some more targeting details. So rather than the overarching targeting, I might choose to put a campaign more succinctly to a certain audience. Then I want you to put the dates, so start and finish dates. How long is the campaign going to be? And then obviously that's when you can plan it in your diary. And I've got a wall planner and I would write it on the wall planner. And then I want you to just put a little bit of a text, kind of, there's a text box where you can just sort of brainstorm a little bit about what is this campaign. So if I'm going along my flash sale idea, so this is where I'm going to write down, that it's going to be a flash sale for the Academy.

The price is going to be whatever the flash sale price is going to be. Is it going to be just for one month, is it going to be recurring, is it going to be a dollar for a month, is it going to be half price for a month, 5% off? What is the actual deal going to be? And just write a few notes and anything else that you might need to know almost as if someone said to you, tell me about this campaign. That's where you want to write that bit down. Just so that you remember it in your head because I might think of something today and then two weeks later I think, Oh yeah, I need to do that and think, Oh I can't remember cause I have a terrible memory. So write down bits there that you need. Then you're going to think about how you're going to market this.

So what route to market are you going to use? So if I was going to...

Welcome to episode 100 of the podcast, time has gone so fast! I wanted to make sure this episode was special, so for this episode only I have got someone else taking over. The reason being, they are going to be interviewing me and my wonderful husband. So, for this week only, I would like to hand you over to Biz Paul.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• When I first started my podcast there was growth but it wasn’t until month nine that my stats experienced that ‘hockey stick’ growth. It’s taken time and money, but it’s worth it because I can teach so many people at once.
• Without the podcast, I wouldn’t have been able to get in front of the people I have been able to. From Michael Hyatt to Amy Porterfield, I’ve had some incredible guests. It’s invaluable.
• Learning how to have a positive mindset is incredibly important in the early days of your business.
• When working with a partner, patience and support are really important.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you’re selling something that is of good quality, you don’t have to apologise for trying to tell.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Hello from Biz Paul – 01:27
• #1 How Does It Feel to Reach 100 Episodes? – 03:48
• #2 Why Did You Decide to Do A Podcast and When Did You See Growth? – 04:58
• #3 What Is the Biggest Outcome from Your Podcast for You? – 07:17
• #4 Getting to Know (My Husband) Paul – 08:34
• #5 The Story of Teresa and Paul At Home – 13:56
• #6 Paul and the Business – What Does He Do? – 20:00
• #7 Sharing Your Life on Social Media – 35:15
• #8 Have Your Lives Changed in Anyway? – 38:30
• #9 What Would Your Life Be Like if Marketing Didn’t Exist? – 47:00
• #10 Would You Have Done Anything Differently Over the Last 5 Years? – 50:00
• #11 What Are Some of Your Biggest Mistakes? – 52:00
• #12 What Does the Future Hold? – 56:40

Transcript below

 

Hello, and welcome to episode 100 of the podcast. Wow, I can't believe we're at 100 already. It feels like ... I don't know. Well, in some ways it feels like two minutes since I started, and then also feels like I've done it for a million years as well, which is odd. Anyway, I wanted to make this episode different and special and interesting because it's 100 episodes and I didn't want to do what I do every other episode.

For this episode only, I have got someone else taking over, and the reason I have someone else taking over is because they're interviewing me and my very wonderful husband. I would like to hand you over, very nervously, to the amazing BizPaul, who is going to be looking after the show today. Please enjoy.

 

Hello from Biz Paul

 

Well, hello there. A super warm welcome to this very special interview with the lovely Teresa Heath-Wareing, and her husband, Paul Campbell. It's such a pleasure and an absolute honour to have been asked to talk to Teresa and Paul today because, just like you, I'm an avid listener to the Marketing That Converts Podcast, and I know that everyone has different ways of listening, but I tend to listen on a Monday morning during the commute to the office.

I love hearing the amazing guests that come on this show and the lessons that Teresa shares, her experience with everybody. Because I guess it doesn't matter whether you're an entrepreneur just starting out, or a more experienced marketer. Other people's experiences are really valuable to hear. Without further ado, Teresa and Paul, welcome to the podcast.

Hello.

Hello.

This is the weirdest thing ever. First off, and I've got to be really conscious that I don't take my own podcast back off of you, BizPaul, but that was a little bit like we were about to get married. "I'd like to gather you here today in the witness hall."

It feels a bit like I'm presiding over your podcast for a bit. I am genuinely honoured that you've asked me to talk to you guys.

There was no one better to do it, BizPaul.

Thank you. It's just that weight of responsibility. I'm representing the listeners here, so I'm just going to ask you everything-

I was going to say you crack on.

You go ahead.

How does it feel to be on the other side of the question?

Do you know what? If I was on someone else's podcast, then that's fine. I think I'd be fine. The fact that this is mine feels ... It's exciting, but I am scared because I'm a control freak and I like to know what's going on and I have no idea what's going on.

Don't know what the questions are.

Obviously, to have a podcast with Paul with me is very odd as well, but wonderful.

It's strange to me because I listen to your podcasts in the car when I'm driving around and stuff. Yeah, you always ask me questions, so I need to answer them, so yeah. It's going to be really interesting to listen to myself in the car, which is weird.

Well, I hope I do a good job because this is a very special episode. It's the 100th episode of the podcast. Let's talk about that for a moment.

Yeah.

 

#1 How Does It Feel to Reach 100 Episodes?

 

How does it feel to have reached the milestone of 100 episodes?

You know what? It's really odd because I don't even think I thought about getting to that point or what that would mean in terms of time, because it basically means I've almost done this for two years, which is crazy. I just love it, so it's almost flown by, that you wouldn't even know that we'd got here. I wanted to mark it with something a bit different, a bit special. I've had some amazing guests, and that's the other thing, actually.

Because as I was running up to the 100, I was like, "Right, who have we had on? What sort of things have we talked about?" and, honestly, the people I've had on, I could not be more honoured to have half of those people. They were a phenomenal half ... I mean all of them, but you know what I mean. The other half are rubbish. I'm joking, but honestly, that was amazing. I love doing the podcast, to think that I'm at 100 is crazy. Let's get to 200.

It takes some doing, doing a podcast. There's a fair amount of effort in full, from the organisation to the recording and the editing and the publishing and the promoting of it as well.

 

#2 Why Did You Decide to Do A Podcast and When Did You See Growth?

 

I'm not sure if anyone's asked you this directly, but why did you decide to do a podcast in the first place?

I'd done a blog. I was terrible at a blog. I hate writing, I've talked about that before, not a good writer, and I talk too much, so there we go. Perfect.

That was easy.

Just thought I'd see how it went and I don't think I ever thought it would go the way it has in terms of being successful it has. I just thought, "Let's see what happens," and yeah, just started it, just thought, "I'll give it a go," and love it. Other people seem to like it, which is awesome, and people say nice things about it, so yeah.

You're still going.

I'm still going.

Because one of the things that people often talk about when it comes to podcasts is being consistent and sticking at it because it takes a while to grow their audience. I know that in previous episodes you've spoken about that hockey stick effect where, all of a sudden, it goes through the roof. You've had that experience, and can you remind us maybe of how many episodes that took before that happened?

Yeah, it was month nine.

Wow, okay.

It was nine months of doing the podcast, and don't get me wrong, there was growth and I saw bits of growth and people were saying good things about it, so I was still encouraged, but I always said, "One year, I'll do it for a full year. I'll see how it goes," and literally, month nine, like I said, hockey stick. I remember talking to Paul about it and he's like, "What have you done?" I said, "No idea. I don't know what's happened. Why has it suddenly gone so amazing?" but it had, so you do need to be consistent.

The other thing is it is hard work, and some people do seasons and that's cool if they do seasons; that's obviously their bag, but for me, I wanted to get to the point where every week, every Monday, you knew that there was something to listen to because everything's about habit, isn't it? If I get into a habit of listening to something, or if I get into a habit of doing something, I want people to miss it if it's not there.

For me, even though it is hard work and it does take a huge amount of time to do it, and money, and I've been really honest about that, but it's the most expensive content I could do other than maybe video. It does take time and money, but it's really important and it's a great way for me to do teaching and teach so many people, which is amazing.

 

#3 What Is the Biggest Outcome from Your Podcast for You?

 

It's not a vanity project, is it? Is it must have some impact in your business and how you're perceived, or maybe it helps you build relationships with people. What's the biggest outcome for you?

Do you know what? I think for me the biggest thing is I could not have got in front of those people I've got in front of without this, so let's take Michael Hyatt. I can't even imagine what he costs for an hour of his time. I'm sure you couldn't buy him for an hour of his time, and yet I got to sit there and pick his brains for a whole hour. The same with Amy, the same with Pat, the same with James.

Phenomenal people that ordinarily would be really hard to get in front of, and suddenly you're having a really personal one-to-one conversation with them. Granted, we might be on a screen, he sat in his office, I'm in mine, but we're still looking at each other, we're still talking to each other, and that's invaluable, I think. That for me has been massive in terms of growing my brand and growing me as a person.

Again, there's no way on this earth I could have done what I've done with a blog what I've done with the podcast.

As you say, it's a format that works for you, so we're expecting this to go way beyond 200, 300.

Yeah, for sure. This is your thing, mate.

Well, you have had some amazing guests, but let's talk about today's guests. Well, I suppose you are a guest on your own podcast, but we know quite a bit about you, Teresa.

Yeah, a little bit.

 

#4 Getting to Know (My Husband) Paul

 

Paul, we know less about, so Paul, tell us a little bit about you.

Okay, so I come from a totally different world to Teresa, such as in work and everything you've probably heard from Teresa's past podcasts. I've just retired from the military about 25 years, and whilst 25 years in the military you get very closed-minded to a lot of things, as in it's just all military. You socialise with military people and it can be very closed-minded to anything else. However, meeting Teresa a some good few years back now has opened my mind to social media, marketing, all that stuff, and meeting amazing people like you, Paul.

It's opened my eyes to all of this podcast kind of thing and everything, so before I wouldn't even know what a podcast was, so now it's great. I find it really interesting and exciting, especially the journey that she's come on through. It's obviously the 100th episode, so pretty good.

That's nice.

That is nice.

I wonder whether this could get really emotional, actually.

Yeah, so what's some TV shows where they try and make you cry?

Yeah.

Yeah, don't do that, BizPaul.

We could put some background music on, in back of us. Some violins.

Ugly cry face. You wouldn't want to see it.

Now, Paul, I introduced you as Paul Campbell and I did that for a reason, because there's been some confusion, hasn't there, in the past as to who's called what?

Yeah.

You want to tell us about that?

Well, you continue.

Okay, so when I started the business, I was a bit of a fool, and I started it very quickly and I used my name at the time, which is Teresa Heath-Wareing, except that was part of my ex-husband's name, so my unmarried name, my maiden name is Teresa Heath. I got married and my surname changed to Teresa Heath-Wareing, and then I got divorced, but I'd already started the business during that time and my name is so unique.

You can google it, you can find me, I'm easy to find. When I met Paul, I was still Teresa Heath-Wareing, and then when I got married to Paul, I changed my personal stuff to Campbell, but in terms of my business world, I'm still Teresa Heath-Wareing, and everywhere we go, they always speak to him and call him Mr. Heath-Wareing.

Awkward.

Yeah. Well, I can understand why. However, it's a little bit grating sometimes. We were in a hotel the other day or something, it was Mr. Heath-Wareing, and actually he called me something else, didn't he?

Called you Keith Wareing.

Keith Wareing, so that was even worse in some case, so I have to bite my tongue and laugh it off, really ...

Yeah, but it's a bit awkward just because if it wasn't my ex-husband's name, if it was just my maiden name, it would probably be okay.

Yeah.

It got in the way of your American visa, ESTA thing, didn't it, as well?

Yeah.

Goodness.

We had a slight issue when we were going to Nashville, flying first class. First time ever on planes, always make that clear, and forgot to update my ESTA, went to check in, we were both so excited and my ESTA was in the wrong name, so yeah. We had a bit of a nightmare. Nearly missed our very first first class flight.

Did you keep it together, Paul?

We both stayed very calm.

We were amazing.

Internally, that was another thing. It was very stressful, but it all came good in the end.

Yeah. I do find that, having known you, Paul, that you are a very calm, almost Zen-like figure, which is what works, I think, from knowing you both. Would that be fair?

No, I think so, yeah, because especially our life at home can be quite erratic and having two kids at home and now two dogs at home, it can be very busy so I try and keep everything calm and cool, because obviously Teresa is super busy most of the time, so I try and keep everything else in the background nice and calm.

Yeah, sorry. Also, bearing in mind, Paul's worked in jobs that none of us can understand, so we get stressed about marketing or social media or someone has a breakdown because you've forgotten to do a tweet or something, and Paul flies to Iraq, exactly, some very dangerous places, and his life is in jeopardy at times and has to keep calm when something's going wrong. I guess for him, he must look at the stuff that we melt down about and be like ...

Eye roll.

Yeah, exactly, like, "Really, do you want to sort yourself out?" I think that's one of the things that helps him maintain his calmness.

Yeah, I think so. Through the experiences I've had through the military world and trying to keep calm in stressful situations, because if other people see you get stressed, then the people get stressed as well. Internally, I might not be as calm, but externally I keep it all cool.

If I may say so. I think there's an online course right there.

Really? My next career.

Yeah, being calm.

Yeah.

 

#5 The Story of Teresa and Paul At Home

 

Tell us a little bit about home life, then. Let's get some more backstory into this. Tell us maybe a little bit about how you met or what home life is like now and the setup that you have. Because if I was in your situation, I'll be honest, I wouldn't be bringing an extra dog into it, but obviously that's what you decided to do, so tell us a bit about how that works.

Okay, so we live at home with my daughter, who lives with us every other week, and my stepson, Paul's son, who lives with us full-time. We have two dogs now, we have a new puppy, which is hard work, and Paul's job is always taking him away. Even though he's left the Air Force, he's moving into a new role, which will take him away again, so it's very busy, very stressful at times because there's a lot of logistical nightmares.

If anybody's got kids, you'll know what logistical nightmare is like anyway, especially as they're growing up, because you don't actually know where they are half the time. Then, like the other day, I called upstairs to my stepson, Harvey, and was like, "Are you having dinner?" and he answered me like, "Yes, stupid," and I thought, "Well, I don't know whether you are," and half the time he doesn't. It just is a bit manic at times, but Paul is amazing. I am a very lucky lady. He does a lot of stuff right in my eyes.

How does it work in terms of that organisation, then? Because, as you said, Paul, you've been working away and will continue to do that, I guess. Teresa, you go all over the world with work and speaking and all that kind of stuff, and people in your academy are in different time zones, and then you've obviously got Harvey, he's clearly not putting his appointments in the shared Google Calendar for the family. How do you manage those logistics?

Actually, with you saying that, it actually highlights how manic it really is, because when you're in the situation, we try and just get on with it, but with you just saying that, it's like, "Gosh, how do we deal with it?" Like you were saying in the calendar, we do have a calendar and I get told off numerous times for not checking things when I book things in, and I forget the calendar's there, but yeah. The calendar helps massively, but we just get through it. I don't know how, really.

We try really hard not to plan too much when I have Bea.

Yeah.

Obviously, that's not always easy done. If I'm speaking somewhere, if it's something that someone's booking that I can't change the date, then sometimes it falls on a Bea week. Ideally, if we're booking stuff, I try and make it when she's not with us. I am very lucky in the fact that my ex-husband is very good at having her. He has her when we don't have her, so he is pretty flexible as well, which helps us massively, and Harvey is growing up, which is great. He's almost 17.

He's very independent. We've got close friends, close neighbours, so he's pretty good at looking after himself, but it is a case of being organised. We literally have a rundown every week of where are we, who are we seeing, what are we doing, who's looking after this person? Also, as well, Paul's parents are amazing.

Yeah, really lucky with that. With one of the dogs now, and we wouldn't expect them to look after the new one, but one of the dogs, the first dog, Charlie, they will always drop everything and take him whenever we need to, so we're really lucky with that. Even stuff around the house, they come and help out with.

It's hard work.

I'll tell you what this reminds me of. You're a team. The way that you're talking about it now, you've got a process about maybe you have your team meeting of the week to see what's going on. I've met Harvey, and total credit to you, I think he's really cool. It sounds like there's a team there, that you all understand each of those roles, you know what the priority is. You've got a system that might appear on the surface a bit manic, but actually you are in control of that.

Yeah, and I think for me, the fact that we are a team really helps me out in the sense of I dictate a lot. Slightly high maintenance. For instance, if I am recording a podcast, obviously we're at Role Based Media...