Your Dream Business

In this week’s solo episode, I’m talking about the mistakes people might make when it comes to running their own their business. I want to use my experience and knowledge in the industry to help you see where you might be going wrong. Although you may not be making any of these mistakes, hopefully this episode will give you a chance to look at the way in which you run your business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• When it comes to branding it is 100% worth investing in a graphic designer. Although you can create graphics, logos and artwork yourself - the difference a designer can make is incredible.
• Your social media profile images need to make it clear who you are. Whether you’re using your logo, a product or a shop front – it needs to be as clear as possible so people can recognise you right away.
• Cover images are incredibly important when it comes to your social media profiles. You need to be sure you’re changing your cover photo with the seasons and that you make it clear what you do as a business. Canva is a great tool for this.
• Your ‘about’ section is not a CV. You need to tell people exactly what you do AND make it personal. What do your customers need to know?
• Giving away ‘free’ information is a great way to add value and to get your customers to trust you. Whether it’s a free guide or a podcast, the more trust you build the better.
• You don’t have to be on every single platform in order to succeed.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It is important to remember that you can’t be all things to everyone. Whilst you can try new and interesting ideas, you don’t have to see everything through. Try not to make leaps that are ‘too big’.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Mistake #1 Business’ Don’t Invest in Branding - 02:41
• Mistake #2 Business’ Don’t Use the Correct Profile Image on Social Media - 09:00
• Mistake #3 Business’ Don’t Make the Most Out of a Cover Image – 12:32
• Mistake #4 Business’ Don’t Think About Their Bio and About Section – 14:44
• Mistake #5 Business’ Don’t Want to Share Their Information - 17:28
• Mistake #6 Business’ Spread Themselves Too Thin and Try to be too Widespread – 21:04

Transcript below

 

Speaker 1: (00:33)

Hello and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast and as always, I'm your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. How the devil are you? Okay. I've been doing some major batching and I feel like I'm on, I think I've done about four episodes of podcasts, so it gets to a point where I'm like, I don't know if I can talk to myself anymore in this room or it feels like I say the same thing over and over and it's not the content I'm saying over and over. The intro and the outro always feels like the same. So when I welcome you guys onto the podcast, I always feel like I'm saying the same thing and especially when you've just done four in a row, it definitely, definitely feels like that. Okay. So this week is a solo episode and this week I'm going to be talking about some of the mistakes I see people make, not just a social media majority social media, but some generally.

Speaker 1: (01:27)

And when I'm talking about businesses, I'm mainly talking about small businesses, although that actually this applies across the board to any size. But when I think about some of the examples in my head, it's tends to have been small businesses that I've been dealing with and basically this episode is coming out of a place of love. It's coming out of a place of take my experience and hopefully a bit of my knowledge and make sure that you're looking at what you guys do and just be conscious of, am I doing any of those things? Does it fit right for me or my business? And that's the other thing for me to say. Okay. When I come onto the podcast and I give my opinion, obviously it's based on many, many years of experience over 15 years now feels like, wow, I did it. It feels like less or more actually, it just sounds too many.

Speaker 1: (02:14)

And also having worked with thousands of businesses and seeing really good businesses do amazing things and seeing some businesses not so great doing dreadful things. So hopefully, although it's my opinion, it comes from a hopefully smart place. So I'm hoping you don't mind me going over these things, telling you the kind of mistakes that I see and ideally, hopefully you won't be making these mistakes. So let's get started straight off. Now I've given you like my caveat of please don't hate me for speaking so honestly about these things.

 

Mistake #1 Business’ Don’t Invest in Branding

 

(02:46)

Okay, let's start with the first thing. One of the very first things I see small businesses do is they don't invest in their branding. Now I get it. Totally get it when you're starting your business. And if you heard my story about how I started my business, I'm going to link to that in the show notes.

Speaker 1: (03:03)

But I can tell you it wasn't all big money and investing and you know, people helping me out. It was very much on my own. No savings, no salary. Oh my word. I've got to pay my bills and my mortgage so I didn't have loads and loads of money to start with. So I totally get that. Sometimes when you're setting up, you've gotta be really cautious where you're, where you're spending your money. But for me without a doubt, spending your money on some branding is really, really important because this is the face of your business, whether you're going to be a shop, whether you are a service, whether you're a product, whatever it is that you're going to be. One of the things they're going to see first is your branding. And we all know about sort of what we like and what we dislike and what looks good and what doesn't look good.

Speaker 1: (03:53)

So let's take for instance like, Hey, the branding can affect your business and I'm going to use some big examples. One that I like to use all the time is supermarkets cause it's super, super easy. So let's take Asda versus Waitrose. So when you look at Asda, it's very bold, clear font, it's very in your face. They use prime colours because prime colours, bold fonts and for wrrds is very easy for everyone to understand. They, their branding is all around saving money. It's bright, bold, primary colours, which are attractive to people. They are very simple in their marketing and that's who they're trying to, as opposed to that's what they're trying to target. They're not trying to target simple people, I'm going to have a barrage of people going, I show up at Asda. What are you trying to say it about me?

Speaker 1: (04:38)

But basically this brand is trying to be more applicable to everybody. And then when you go into the store, it's big, it's bright, it's about saving money. It's about quick and efficient for children and families and busy people. Then you look at Waitrose and how you believe you are not in the U K so as there is, um, well I wouldn't even say it's a low end supermarket. I would just say it's a more family accessible supermarket. Probably cheaper, well not, not that much cheaper actually, but anyway, you get my drift. But Waitrose is our kind of whole foods. So if you're in the States, that's whole foods. I'm trying to think of what might be an example of what Asda might be. Well Asda is Walmart, so, but I don't know, if Walmart's the same anyway, you get my drift. Whereas Waitrose, the colours they use are not primary colours.

Speaker 1: (05:22)

They're much more subtle. They're much more muted. The font in which Waitrose is written in is not big bold, bright brush in your face. It's saying we're much classier than that. When you go into the store, it's not about price, it's not driven on, look, you can buy five of these for half the amount of money. It's driven on the quality of the food. It's driven on the welfare of the animals and the health and the taste of it and the experience. So those two brands know exactly who their audiences are and they are producing a brand that will attract their audience. So if you are more concerned, more discerning, not more discerning shopper, and you want to make sure you're being healthy and you eat organic and the animal welfare and you have a bit of money, then Waitrose will be very attractive to you.

Speaker 1: (06:07)

You might not be attracted by the bright, bold price slushing, you know, use of Martin from Asda. I hope that makes sense. I hope I haven't offended anybody, but I just wanted to let you know that how important the branding is. Now, the other thing I always think about your branding is, and again, I'm going to be really careful here, is sometimes we create stuff ourself and we think it's amazing, like we look at it and think, I love it. It's brilliant because we're not graphic designers and because we've created something, we're really proud of it and absolutely. Why not? Totally. But there is a reason why graphic designers exist. And I'm only saying this because having worked in marketing for a very long time and being okay when it comes to creativeness, I think I've got a creative eye. I still absolutely would never create a brand for myself or for someone else.

Speaker 1: (06:59)

I would always get a designer to do it because that's what they're there for. That's the thing. And honestly the difference they can make just by even like taking your concepts. So even if you know what you want, but getting a design as a finish it, they'll just get the spacing right, like the typography of things. People will look at your brands and if you haven't got the spacing right on your letters, people will look at that and think what's wrong with that? You know, it's little things like this and I notice that the thing got to reason right and start a business. I haven't got time to be thinking about these things or go back and you know, look at what you've done already and think I haven't got time to have a rebrand. It's not always a paper. And it doesn't have to expensive and it doesn't have to be timely.

Speaker 1: (07:37)

It's just the fact of, honestly I would much rather hand over something that I know I am not, not qualified to do. You know, and like I said, there's a reason graphic designers exist. Now obviously there are marketing agencies out there who are amazing and have amazing graphic designers. There are freelance graphic designers, but sometimes when you're starting the business you can't afford to do that. So go and look at things like fiverr.com and people per hour and that sort of thing. Now the quality is going to differ massively and some people you might stumble across someone. I know someone that's found a graphic designer on there, that actually they absolutely love and they're amazing. Me - I've never had that much luck. I have a graphic designer that I've worked for years and years and he actually comes to my house. He's the only one who comes to the house and works with me here and, but he likes to spend a whole day so he doesn't do the kind of, can you do me that project?

Speaker 1: (08:28)

I hire him for a day. I fill his day full of work. But like I said, it doesn't have to be super expensive, but I honestly for me that's some mistake that lots of people make, but that literally is your shopfront. That's the clothes you wear, that's the way you speak. That's how your hair looks like and if you have done all that yourself or you've got someone who's pretty good on draw to do something for you, it's a very different thing. Like I said, I'd highly recommend going to professional to do that. For me that is super, super important and it can honestly make a massive difference. So that's the first one. Okay.

 

Mistake #2 Business’ Don’t Use the Correct Profile Image on Social Media

 

Going off the branding, one of the things I see all the time, and the reason I'm saying this because my husband and I were sat having cocktails in the town where we live and we were looking over the road and there was, this town has lots of small businesses, sort of you know, independent businesses.

Speaker 1: (09:18)

And there was a shop and I thought, gosh, I'm sure I know the owner of that shop. And I looked at the name and I looked at the brand and I thought, I sure I knew that that business owner, so I was like, Why not, I'll go and have a look at their social media in order to, I'm sure there'll be a picture of the owner on there as well, so I go on social media, I go into Instagram, I start typing their business name in. I looked down the left hand side, all the pictures, the profile pictures as they're coming up in the search and bear in mind, and I think lots of people forget this, when people are looking at you on social media, that picture is teeny weeny tiny. Okay. But I'm literally sat there looking at the shop with the logo thinking that's the logo I'm looking for and I scan all the way down and I scan all the way up, can't see anything, come off it, go on to something else, something else.

Speaker 1: (10:03)

And I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm absolutely positive they should be on there. Went back to Instagram, started clicking randomly some of these accounts that the name was very similar to and ended upon this one account. That was the account of the shop I was looking at. The only reason I could tell was because we'd been over the road, had a look inside, and we could tell that that inside was the pictures that were on this Instagram. The picture on the profile was something to do with what they were selling. So actually they were an estate, they weren't an estate agent, they were a travel agent and it was a picture of a beach. Right. And it's like there was no point where I could have instantly gone. That's them. And that's the speed we need to do it. Because you know, if I wasn't looking for a reason, I would've gone. I can't find them. Let's not bother with that. But often I see this happen all the time.

(10:55)

People either use images of their product or service or the thing that they're selling, or they use some random image or they use a part of their branding, but not the branding. And honestly, I need that consistency. We are so busy that I need to be able to see a shop front or a bag or something and I need to be able to go to social media, or I've been on your site and go to social media or whatever, and I need to see that logo instantly. I need to have to go, Oh yeah, look, that's that. You know, I'm going to sort of say suggestions in there. Like I'm sure paper chase, they do this. So if you go to paper chase and you look in the shop, there's the branding.

Speaker 1: (11:32)

If you go to the website, there's the branding. If you go to their social media, there's the branding, but everywhere does it. You know, all the big places do, and often small businesses think they're being creative. But I promise you sometimes the creative stuff just doesn't work that way. So your profile pictures should absolutely, unless you're a personal brand for me, be your logo and I don't want it stretched. I don't want it squashed. I want it to be as clear as possible. Sometimes you might have to have your logo tweaked. Again, I'd use a designer in order to put it into that circle space, cause everything circle now online. But you really want a clear logo so that when I see it in that teeny tiny space, I see it in stay in, I know that's who you are. So and it needs to be consistent across all platforms.

Speaker 1: (12:16)

So use the same logo across all platforms. So that was absolutely one thing that I see people making that mistake all the time. Then not using that logo properly on their profile picture. So go check out yours, make sure you've got that there because I want people to see it and go, Oh that's so and so. And I recognise that from there and there and there. Okay.

 

Mistake #3 Business’ Don’t Make the Most Out of a Cover Image

 

The...

This week we have an incredible interview with my lovely friend Natalie Hailey, where she will be sharing all of her top tips for using content to its full effect. As entrepreneurs we spend so much of our time producing and working on our content, but how do you make the most out of the content you’re creating? Whether you use social media, run a blog or host your own podcast – this episode is perfect for those who need that little bit of an extra push. Natalie talks us through her tried and tested process, telling you how you can make the most out of your content in a fun and practical episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Although you may spend hours perfecting your blog, podcast or social media, creating your content is actually less than 50% of everything that needs to be do when it comes to making the most out of your incredible content.
• It’s important not to be over ambitious to begin with, as you’re leaving a standard of expectations your followers will start to expect. Ideally, you want to start small and know your limits.
• Having a process in place is the best way to ensure you’re doing exactly what you need to, every single time.
• Repurposing the content you have created for one platform can be incredibly easy. For example, if you create a YouTube video you can use Rev.com to request a full transcript.
• When creating new content, make sure you’re thinking about whether or not you link back to content you have previously created. Whether you do it throughout your content creation or you spend 5-10 minutes adding it in at the end, it can be incredibly beneficial.
• Create a content audit sheet. This will detail everything you need to know about each episode you have created.
• Create your processes before you need to create them.
• No one is going to see the amazing stuff you have created if you don’t put it out there.
• If you’re not skilled at something, outsourcing is a great investment. There is no shame in outsourcing parts of your processes.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you take anything from today it should be that once this episode is finished you need to sit down, grab a pen and paper and start planning your processes. If it helps, set up a spreadsheet that your whole team can get involved with.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Natalie – 07:48
• A Step by Step Guide to the Steps That Should Follow Publishing a YouTube Video – 17:20
• Repurposing Content for Other Platforms – 30:00
• Linking Back to Previous Content and Using A Content Audit Sheet - 35:45
• Promoting Your Content – 43:00

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a very warm welcome to today's podcast episode. How are you doing? How has your week been? Mine has been good, busy, few trips in and out. I'm recording this right before I head off to California for two whole weeks. I can't wait. Now, I'm not going over for a holiday. I am going over for work reasons, but obviously working in California in the sun is obviously way nicer than sitting in my office in a very grey looking England. I am really, really looking forward to going over there. Also, the other really cool thing about going over there is that I get to meet up and see lots of people that live over there and I only ever see when I'm over in California. That's going to be super cool. Very much looking forward to that. It's my last trip of the year out of the country anyway, so that's cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, onto today's podcast episode. We've got an interview for you today, and this is my very lovely friend Natalie Hailey, who helps businesses basically use their content to full effect. Now, you know I am a massive advocate for you to produce content, I.E., a blog, a vlog, a podcast, a live video show, whatever it is. I am really, really keen for you to do that. Because unless you are a big business that can advertise and get your brand awareness that way, then really content is the next best way in which you can do that. I highly, highly recommend you do it. Also, it proves you're an expert, blah, blah, blah. There's a million reasons I've probably told you over and over again, so I won't go into that now. It's super important for you to actually have that regular content.

We spend so much time producing, as I well know, because I'm recording a number of podcasts today, so I know how much time it takes. I'm going to let you in on a secret. Episode, let me think, episode 87, last week's episode, I recorded, and it was a 30 minute episode, and it took me about an hour. It never does that, but for whatever reason I kept messing up, and stopping, and starting, and stopping, and starting. Even when you're on episode 87 of a podcast, it still sometimes takes way too much time and way more time than it should take.

Anyway. It takes all this time to produce this amazing content. You've written your blogs. You've produced your videos. You've done your podcast. Then you put a post up on social media and it's tumbleweed. That's it, no one's reading it. I remember when I had a blog and no one read, or hardly anybody read my blog. I am much happier now with the podcast, because obviously I can see my stats on that and it's awesome. That's the problem, you write this content, you do this stuff, and then how do you make sure that people actually know that it's out there and how do you make a point of really making the most of that content?

Natalie works with business owners and entrepreneurs from all over the world who have podcasts, or produce videos, to make their content happen. She takes the initial content and takes the pressure off the content creator and handles the entire publishing, promotion and repurposing process in order for them to keep producing top quality content consistently, and to grow their audience. Basically Natalie will take someone's video, and then she does everything else.

What's really good about this episode is I haven't necessarily brought her on here to promote her services to you. I've brought her on here to talk you through the process that she uses. What I discovered during this episode, as you'll hear, or what I kind of mentioned, is that it's taken me a long time in business to realise, and maybe I'm just a bit slow, that actually if you can put a process behind something, it makes it so much easier. Natalie doing this week in, week out, for various different people on various different platforms, she has obviously had to bring in a process. Also, when she's working with people, they have had to follow her process so that she can do the work with them.

What's really great about this episode is Natalie talks us step, by step, by step how she makes the most of their videos on YouTube, how she makes the most of their podcasts, what she does with blogs. She talks you through all the things that she does in order to publish them. How do you make the most of putting a video on YouTube? She gives some great tips around that. Then what she does in terms of creating that content, so the types of social media she posts, and where she posts and promotes that bit of content. Then how she uses that content to then create other stuff, so she's repurposing that one thing.

Like I said, I love this episode. She really just talked through step, by step, by step, which is awesome. She's also got a template as a freebie that is in the show notes. If you go to teresaheathwareing.com/88, the number, then you're going to be able to get the download for her template. That's her process on how to do YouTube videos, and podcasts, and blogs. Also, she gives loads of tools and loads of different systems that she uses to help her find keywords, and to put together her titles, and different things like this.

Really, really useful. Very practical session. I really enjoyed this one, just because I had a few revelations in it, which is always funny and I always enjoy that. One about this podcast, which was interestingly enough. Yeah, really, really useful podcast. I think you're going to find it useful.

The other thing that I want to mention before she gets started is the fact of, like I said, this isn't necessarily for if and when you want to give this away to someone. This is a process that you can use. What's great about you having this process is come the day when the business is grown, that you can pass on these things to someone else, believe me, having done this, I know how useful this is to have that strict process in place. Not strict, but to have that process in place is really, really key in terms of saying to a VA, or to a content manager, or whoever, to say, "Actually this is the process I go through. This is what I do. You just need to follow that process."

She was really helpful in helping you understand about thinking more long term. Because at the moment you might do things all yourself, and there's still things that I do all myself, and yet I still have a process for it. Funnily enough, one of the things I've just put together is a kind of monthly to do list for the academy, because I know that every month I'm adding in additional calls. I know that we have several coaching calls. I know that we've obviously got Facebook Lives, and I give everybody social media updates. If there's any challenges, and that sort of thing. I've done myself a process in order to say, "Right, Teresa, have you done it for this month? Have you done, this, this, this, this, this?"

Because even though it's me doing every step, it's really useful to be able to tick those things off and to remember, okay, once I've done that, I do this. Once I've done that, I do this. Like I said, I really hope you're going to enjoy this one. She's a very lovely lady with lots and lots of good ideas, so fingers crossed this is going to be a good one. Over to Natalie.

 

Introducing Natalie

 

Okay. I am really excited today to welcome my very lovely friend, Natalie Hailey, to the podcast. Welcome.

Hello Teresa. I've got a huge beam on my face. I'm very happy to be here.

No. That's good. I'm really glad, and I'm so happy to have you on because not only are we friends, which is lovely, but secondly, what you do is very smart and very helpful. You know how I always have amazing guests on, and I love having amazing guests, but sometimes you think, that's so cool but it's so far away from most people and what they can do, or that's a different level of business, or whatever. Actually for you, and what you do, and what we're going to talk about, I think it's going to be perfect for anybody listening. This is going to be an awesome one.

Oh, good.

Before we get started, why don't you just tell our listeners kind of how you got to do what you're doing now?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, it wasn't really a straight road. I didn't exactly fall into it, but it's funny how sometimes when you start off in business it takes a different path to what you first thought it would. I started off really with the main focus being on copywriting and helping businesses and entrepreneurs create their blog content. From there it became really clear to me that there was a real demand, people who had a blog, or a podcast, or created video, there's such a lot to do behind the scenes.

It's one thing actually putting a blog out there. It's one thing creating a fantastic video or podcast episode. It's quite another thing to then do everything else that comes after that, once it's been edited, to actually get it published, do all of the fraffy things, as I call them, behind the scenes, which most of us hate doing. Then actually getting that content promoted. Because let's face it, we have to work quite hard really most of the time to drive people to watch our video, or listen to our podcast, or read our blog.

It led to me actually helping, as I said, businesses and solopreneurs mainly, to actually get their content out there in a high quality way and on a consistent basis. That's really the key, is helping them do it consistently. Because when we're running a business, there's so many things to think about, and we're so busy that often it's our own content that falls off the end. I'm very happy to be able to help people do it on a weekly, however they choose to do it, to get it out there consistently.

I think that's great, because the other thing is when we do make content, and everybody knows who's listening that I am a huge advocate of you having some kind of regular content, whether it be a blog, vlog, video, podcast, whatever it might be. When you are going to all that effort, because this takes time, obviously, all of this takes time, creating any kind of content. The last thing you want to do is create it, put it out there and have tumbleweeds, or not maximise that opportunity to get it seen by as many people as possible.

I think like you said, sometimes the emphasis is so much on the content, I.E., you've got to create the thing, and putting all your effort into it, and then if we're doing it ourselves, you just shove a blog up on a website and think, oh brilliant, the world, and their masses are going to come and look at it now. It's like, if you build it, they will come. Well, they're not going to, not unless somehow you tell them, and you get the message out to them.

No.

That's where you find a real kind of niche in terms of helping people do that.

Definitely. I mean, I would say that the actual creation of the content itself, in whatever form, probably doesn't even form 50% of overall what needs to be done. Because most business owners are so busy, it feels like a huge achievement. It is a huge achievement to take that massive, oh, I've written a blog this week, or I've put another episode out this week of the podcast. Like I said, there's so much more to be done after that. Hopefully what we can talk about today will help people get some kind of process in place that it doesn't feel as overwhelming. In that sense they're much more likely to remain consistent.

Yeah, and also if they're sat there thinking, "Oh god, so I've got to do a load of other stuff after it." It's like, why not consider then reducing the amount you make of the content? If you are doing something weekly and you think, but literally I'm just checking it off and I don't have the time to do the next bit. Then maybe go every other week and make sure you put that time and effort in.

100%. I'm a huge advocate for doing less but making more of it. Huge. I think there's been a real shift over the past couple of years towards that. People do seem to have that. A few years ago it was like, well, you need to produce a blog every single week, or at one point every single day. I think we have to be realistic about what we can achieve.

My biggest piece of advice to people when it comes to staying consistent with any form of content is not to be over ambitious, at least to start with, or at least when you're in the early stages. Because it's very easy to kind of build up and increase that frequency, but once you've set a certain expectation, not just for yourself, but for your audience, it's very, very easy for them to lose a little bit of confidence in you if they see that you can't keep up with that. Much better to pare it back a little bit, be realistic about what you can achieve, and then build it up from there. Because it's hard, especially in the early days of business, when normally you're doing everything yourself. Outsourcing isn't always an option to start with.

No.

You do have to be realistic. With my own podcast, I decided to publish a podcast episodes fortnightly rather than weekly, and make more of it in between. Focus more on the repurposing and promotion. I do think that's something that people should consider. Then as time goes on, build it up. When you can look at bringing in help from other people, with all of the different elements of it, certainly go down that route. Then it frees up your time to focus more on whatever you need to be doing.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. It is a huge pressure, I have to say. There's a few things about doing regular content, and podcasting, and doing it every single week. Because one, you've got to do it every week. I knew, and this was one of the reasons why I think I did podcasting, because I knew once I started I couldn't just not do it. Whereas with the blog I was never consistent. I was never, because I knew no one was paying that much attention. With the podcast it was like, no, if I'm going to do it, I've got to commit to doing this every single week. Don't get me wrong. Some weeks I am right on the nose, or I have been. Literally, anybody want to work on a weekend? Because it comes out on a Monday. That bit is, it's not that that doesn't happen, but every Monday, without fail, a podcast will be made.

It's staying consistent, but also it's finding content. Don't get me wrong. We are in an industry that is massive, and there's so much to talk about. However, not every industry's like that. Also, it's just so much content. If you wanted to go back and listen through all the episodes I've done, so when this episode comes out I think, well we're going to be mid 80's. That is a lot of content. Again, if you're just doing it and you're not maximising each one, then you're losing out, or you've put so much effort into doing that content, and then it's just, oh, move on to the next thing. Oh, move on to the next thing. Yeah, totally agree. Starting lower, then if you want to do it, move up. It's like I've always, and I talk about this all the time, that I always have this idea that I'd like a YouTube channel, I'd like to do a YouTube thing.

Yeah. Me too.

It's like I can't, because one, if I can't be consistent, I'm not doing it.

No.

I just know that I do enough. This is a lot of content, and I'm glad people love it, and it's great. Yeah, I do like the idea of a YouTube channel, and maybe one day I might.

One day we shall both have our own YouTube channel.

Exactly, and we'll be like YouTubers, and be cool.

We will.

My daughter will be unimpressed.

The kids will think we're amazing.

No, that is never going to happen.

Rather than embarrassing.

Yeah, so I think to keep consistent but small, but then make sure you put almost as much effort into the promotion of that thing, rather than just literally kind of just getting it out there just to tick the box and go, "Look, done my content. How good am I?"

Definitely. I think a lot of people are, they lack confidence when it comes to sharing their content. They think, okay, well I'll promote it once. They're fine with that. Yeah, I'll put another, a second time with the social media post out. I'm fine with that. Then after that they're a bit like, "Oh, I don't want to-"

Don't want to talk about that again.

Yeah. I don't want to talk about it again. I don't want to annoy people. I don't want to bombard people. I think 99.9% of the time people are not promoting their content enough, because there's just so much out there. The risk of somebody actually seeing more than one of your posts, if you've done three for example, is not that high anyway. You've really got to put some welly into the promotion of it for sure.

Yeah. Exactly. What's so great about today is that you're going to talk us through, step, by step, by step, which I love, and hopefully my audience love because I do it all the time, exactly how to take something from, okay, here's your finished content, to putting it out. We're going to talk about YouTube, but obviously this is

This week’s episode is all about bringing emotion into your marketing. As business owners it’s super important to use emotion, especially if you’re trying to be authentic and build a tribe. Your tribe, of course, are the people that will connect with you, engage with your posts and eventually become loyal customers. Throughout the episode I’m going to discuss the positives of using emotion and the difference it can make to your marketing.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Emotional marketing is marketing to your customers and audience in order to get an emotion out of them. By provoking this emotion, you encourage engagement. 
• Think about the last thing you shared on social media. Was it based on an emotion? What emotion was it?
• It is much easier to relate to someone if you feel something. 
• Not every single post needs to evoke emotion. Not only will your feed become an emotional rollercoaster for you and your followers, some things just don’t warrant a lot of emotion. 
• People tend to buy with their emotions. Even when you’re talking about a practical product, people will buy through trust. 
• The very first thing you need to consider when it comes to using emotional marketing is your target audience. If you’re trying to use emotion to build your community and sell your products, gauging your target audience wrong could catastrophic. 
• If you want to evoke and emotion, storytelling is a great tool to use. 

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You can evoke ANY emotion through marketing. From admiration and happiness to anger and sadness, it’s important you know exactly what emotion you want people to feel. HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• What Is Emotional Marketing? – 03:18
• Why Is Emotional Marketing Important? - 04:24
• What Do You Need to Consider When Creating Emotional Posts? – 10:30
• How to Evoke Emotion in Your Posts – 14:30
• Incredible Examples You Can Use in Your Marketing – 20:00

Transcript below

 

(00:32)

Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I can't believe that we are almost, well I'm not going to say towards the end of the year, but we are obviously in the latter stages of the year. It's going so, so fast and my November is absolutely jam packed. I am talking at lots of amazing places, so if you're going to be seeing me then please please please come up and say hi and let me know that you listen to the podcast. I love meeting people. So definitely come and say hi. But yeah, it's going to be a super busy November. And before I know it, It's going to be December, which is just crazy. But anyway. So this week I am doing a solo episode. I wanted to talk about something as having a real brainstorm about what could I talk about and trying to write then loads of different ideas and things and I've decided that I want to talk about how you can bring emotion into your marketing because actually it's super, super important.

Speaker 1: (01:30)

And one of the reasons I decided to talk about this is because I've been reading Kotler's marketing book, Marketing 4.0 and he talks about the fact that it's even more important than ever for authenticity and to build that tribe. And I want to talk about tribe. I basically just mean your community of people that are going to want to come and engage with you and want to have a conversation with you and want to ultimately buy your products and services. And one of the ways in which you can start to connect to them is via emotion. And I'm really, as I was writing down all the ideas for this, it made me a little bit nervous because sometimes when we think about using emotion, we think about tactics that maybe aren't that nice. So for instance, an emotion that you could use in marketing is fear.

Speaker 1: (02:16)

And I remember many, many, many years ago, I used to work for a bank and we used to sell insurance. It's very different nowadays, but we used to sell insurance. And one of the ways in which we'd sell insurance is through fear. It would be, well, why? What would you do? What would happen if you lost your job and you couldn't pay your bills? You'd lose your house and you'd do this, and you do that, and you know, and your kids would need, and you'd start building this horrible, scary picture for them. And then they would go, Oh yeah, you're right. Okay, yeah, maybe I should have that thing. So I'm a little bit worried that talking about this, people are gonna think that that's what I'm talking about. So hopefully in today's episode I'm going to be able to give you a really clear idea about what I mean when I talk about using emotion in and how really positive it can be and also how it can actually make a big difference to your marketing and how you connect to that audience.

 

What Is Emotional Marketing?

 

Speaker 1: (03:08)

So hopefully it will be a good one. So let's start talking about what is emotional marketing? Well, it's basically marketing to your customers and your audience and trying to get an emotion from them so that it helps them remember or share or interact with your post or your marketing. So it's basically just trying to provoke something from an emotional side from them. And this can be any emotion. It can be admiration, anger, anxiety, craving, and the calmness, love, fear, sadness, reminiscing, intrigue. It can be any one of those emotions. And really what I would suggest is if you're trying to go for an emotion, you'd go for kind of the more stronger ones. So you wouldn't perhaps go for slightly annoyed. You would go for angry, you wouldn't go for, okay, you'd go for either really happy or really sad. So you're going to wonder why am I talking about making people angry and sad through posts.

 

Why Is Emotional Marketing Important?

 

Speaker 1: (04:12)

But bear with me and let me explain. But first let me talk about why this actually works and why it's really worth considering whether you are posting anything on social media or doing your marketing and you're bringing in any emotion at all. So there's a couple of things I want you first to think about. What was the last thing you shared on social media? Now when it comes to Facebook, I'm not a very big sharer, so I don't actually share a lot of stuff. I will retweet stuff on Twitter, but that's just how I use my, my own personal Facebook. But I want you to think about what was the last thing you shared or the last thing that someone you follow shared. And I can pretty much guarantee it was something based on an emotion. So it was either something through pride, something that made them angry, something that upset them, something that pulled on their heartstrings, something that was absolutely rolled around the floor laughing.

Speaker 1: (05:05)

It was something that made them react in some kind of way. So first of all, that's one of the reasons why you really want to be using emotions in your posts because if someone looks at a post and has a non feeling about it, it's kind of one of the worst things we can do because they're not gonna do anything, whether it's good or bad, positive or negative, we want them to react in one way or another. Also think about when you were told the story by someone or I try and liken it back to when I was at university doing my marketing degree and I have two different lecturers. One was a statistician. Now even just saying that word is a bit full on and I used to go into his lessons and I swear to goodness I couldn't have repeated a single word that he said because even though I was listening, it just didn't go in because it was all facts and figures and processes. And then I would go into another lesson called service marketing and they would talk about how to market a service. So if you're a hairdressers or a, I don't know, beauty salon or whatever it might be and or a restaurant. And they talked about all the different things that you would have to do and consider if you're a service. And what was really interesting is she used to tell stories and I could listen to her stories over and over and over because they would sort of obviously react with me in one way or another. I'd sit there and think, that's interesting. That's funny. That's sad. That's good, that's not good. Whatever those kind of emotions were that were coming up for me, I remembered it because you remember those details.

(06:40)

I often get people speaking to me when I do go and do events and they will remember things like, I have a daughter because I talk about it. My husband's in the military. They do remember these things cause we remember the personal stuff. It's really hard to remember the kind of really facty type stuff. But we do remember the personal stuff. So again, that's why the emotion stuff can really, really work. And also it's much, much easier to relate to someone when you feel something. Like I said, if someone's scrolling through your posts and see a post from you and they don't feel anything, then that's going to be really, really difficult to try and build that relationship and build that community and have some kind of engagement with them. If they just look at that and they're like, nah, not bothered either way. And to back this up, there is this amazing quote, which I am going to do a terrible job at remembering who it was said by, but basically it was something along the lines of, you might forget what someone said to you, but you'll never forget how they made you feel.

Speaker 1: (07:38)

Is that right? I think I've said it right, but yeah, you get my drift. So we remember the emotional things. Remember how we feel about things. We don't always remember these facts and figures. Now, my telling you that every single post you've got to do on social media has to include some emotive thing. No, not necessarily. Because quite honestly if you're talking about, I don't know, Oh, I can't even think off the top of my head. But if you're talking about selling houses, it might be really difficult to try and get something in every single post that is creating some emotion. Also, you don't want it to be like an emotional roller coaster as someone looks through your feed where they're like, Oh, that's so awful and that's hilarious. Oh my God, I'm so angry about it. So again, it's not necessarily about that either.

Speaker 1: (08:20)

It's also not just about trying to get them have that one same emotion. Now you might be really good at doing the funny stuff or you might be really good at doing the sentimental stuff, especially depending on what your business is. However, sometimes you do want to try and mix it up. So you are doing different emotions for different things. And then lastly, the other reason why emotions are so good is because we tend to buy with our emotions. So even when it's a very practical product, we tend to buy with our emotion through trust. So if I go onto Amazon and I want to buy a wire from my phone or something really non emotive, then I'll obviously look for things like trust to make me feel better about making that purchase. If I buy something like, Oh this is so sad, but if I buy like a notebook it's because I love it and I think it's beautiful and I like how it makes me feel that I've got that notebook.

Speaker 1: (09:12)

If you are buying a house again that might be down to, you know that will come through emotion in the end it might be, yeah, I'm looking for these practical things. But you walk in there and you have a feeling about it and then things like you might buy something because you are so frustrated and angry about your problem that you've got that actually that's why you want to buy that thing. So the emotion may not be about a buying the physical product. So the other day I bought, I have real trouble sleeping sometimes and I bought some magnesium and buying magnesium is not like the most exciting thing in the world. I don't get super excited and all emotional about, Oh wow, I'm going to buy it magnesium. But when I do get emotional about and what is an emotion is I get so frustrated that I can't fall asleep.

 

What Do You Need to Consider When Creating Emotional Posts?

 

Speaker 1: (09:56)

So for me through the frustration, I then buy the product. So like I said, I want you to kind of think about next time you're buying something as well, what's the emotion attached to that? And it might be emotion of giving, it might be through sort of reminiscing, it might be a craving, you know, there's so many different emotions. So I want you to try and keep as wide in terms of your mind, thinking about that and thinking about your business. So if we want to start talking about doing some of these more emotive type posts, what sort of things do you need to consider in order to do these? Well, the very first thing you need to know is you need to know your audience. So this is well. Do you know what I mean? I'm so sick of saying this, but see, you're probably sick of hearing it.

Speaker 1: (10:40)

But this is so, so important on everything in marketing. And honestly I couldn't urge you enough to go back and listen and I can't remember the episode. I'm going to put it in the show notes. So go back and have a look at the episode where I talk about how to create your perfect avatar, i.e. Your perfect prospect and definitely do that if you haven't. But it's so important to know your audience because if you are trying to use emotion to sell your products and services or to engage with people and you gauge your audience wrong, it could be catastrophic. You could put something out there and you could have built this really lovely community and people who are following your page and liking your stuff. And then you put an emotional thing out there or you put something out that you think they're going to resonate with in one way.

Speaker 1: (11:27)

And actually you've got them completely wrong and they resonate in an entirely different way. Now obviously some people, emotions are completely to ourselves. There's some people will react one way and some will react another way. But generally if you know who you're talking to and you know your audience, you're going to know what would wind them up and what they'll relate with and what they'll engage with. So obviously bear that in mind when you're thinking about trying to bring some level of emotion into your posts. So let's say for instance that I had a predominantly young male following. I don't, by the way, but let's say I did for me to start posting emotional stuff about what it's like to be a mum and a, an a, you know, entrepreneur or how awful I feel about leaving my daughter for two weeks when I head off to California and all this sort of thing.

Speaker 1: (12:14)

It's just not gonna resonate. It's just not gonna hit home. And in worst case scenarios, it might end up actually alienating your audience. So I definitely want you to think about who is it that you're talking to and are they likely to relate to this in the same way or in the way that you're expecting. Okay. The next thing I want you to think about is it really helps if you're telling a story. So trying to evoke an emotion is really difficult if there's not a story behind it. So you're going to know in your business and when I give you some of these examples, what kind of stories you can tell, but often, funny enough actually the episode that's just gone out as I'm recording this was the one about fear, episode 85 I think. And what about fear and getting over it and doing actions and that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: (

On this week’s podcast I am interviewing the amazing Michael Hyatt. As a New York Bestselling author, we are talking all about his book ‘Free to Focus’. We’re going to be talking all about how we can become more productive without having to increase the time that we have. The episode is going to be sharing a mix of simple mindset practices and various different hacks to help you become more productive, because who doesn’t need to know how to do that? Filled with lots of incredible information, you’re going to want to grab a notebook for this one!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• The Hustle Fallacy is the idea that you in order to achieve more you have to do more. In reality, not all tasks, not all meetings and not all opportunities are created equal. Focussing on the things that really matter is what will REALLY allow you to achieve more.
• There is such thing as a double win, where you can win at work and succeed at life. You just need to have that balance.
• You are the most important asset your company has and if you don’t look after your energy levels, your business is going to suffer. Because of this, nutrition is important. If you know a food is likely to slow you down, try to avoid it.
• When you’re taking time off, whether it is for a vacation or a weekly break, make sure you’re not doing any work at all.
• There are three steps to becoming more productive, the first one is to stop. Whilst it may seem counterproductive, you need to stop and see where your productivity lies. Ask yourself the hard questions. Has your smartphone made you less productive? Do productivity hacks give you the life you want?
• Evaluate the tasks that you’re doing. Think about the tasks you have completed over the past two weeks and evaluate whether or not you were passionate about it and whether or not you were proficient.
• Outsourcing your work is a great way to increase your productivity, as well as your income.
• If you know you enjoy something, you need to do everything you can to ensure you’re doing more of it. If you’re not enjoying something, you need to eliminate it.
• If you don’t want to say yes to something, you need to follow this simple hack. First of all, you need to affirm the person asking in your initial response. Once you have affirmed their work, you need to pivot. The best thing to say is ‘In order to be faithful to my other commitments, I have to say no’. This is the yes-no-yes formula.
• If you find yourself responding to a lot of requests, consider setting up your yes-no-yes responses as an email signature.
• The 3-by-3 System is where you have 3 goals for the quarter and 3 outcomes per week. Limiting yourself to 3 goals is important, because when your focus is dispersed across too many goals, you’re less likely to achieve any of them.
• If you could only pick three things to do this week to help your business grow, what would they be?
• When it comes to large projects, consider the 10-80-10 rule. This is where you are involved in the first and last 10% of a project to oversee it. You’re the architect, but you don’t have to be the builder.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The biggest tip when it comes to being focussed and driving results is to ensure you get a good night’s sleep. A well-rested mind will be your most productive mind.Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. Welcome, welcome. If this the first episode you listen to, then I am very happy to have you here, and boy, have you chosen an amazing first episode to listen to, because I'm not even going to do hardly any intro, we're going to go straight in, because I am so excited about this episode, because on today's podcast I am interviewing the amazing Michael Hyatt.

Now this guy has been in business a very long time. He is a New York best-selling author, I'll give you his proper bio in a bit, but basically today we are talking all around his book, Free To Focus, which is all about how as business owners and CEOs we manage our time, how we become more productive without necessarily just pushing to do more within the time we've got, and honestly, it is full of so much good information. It's a mix of the mindset stuff alongside with some really practical, cool hacks how you can save more time and become more productive. And let's face it, who on earth does not need that?

The other thing that I love about this and about Michael is the fact that he talks about taking naps and how good they are for us, and how crucial they can be in business. So, I am a massive fan of taking naps. I love a nap, because let me just add the caveat of I don't sleep very well for whatever reason. I often wake up, my brain doesn't stop working, and it's like constantly giving me things to think about in the middle of the night. Anyway, I love a nap but I was always too fearful to ever say anything through embarrassment, because I thought it made me sound lazy and that it wasn't good that I was taking a nap in the day when I'm running this successful business, blah, blah, blah.

However, he has assured me that it's a very good thing. So anybody who tells me taking naps is good, I just think they're amazing straight off, anyway. But like I said, today's episode is jam-packed full of stuff. But if you haven't heard of Michael before, which I'm sure you have, then let me tell you a bit about him. Michael Hyatt is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Michael Hyatt & Company. He has scaled multiple companies over the years including $250 million publishing company with 700-plus employees, and his own Leadership Development Company that has grown over 60%, year-on-year, for the past four years. Under his leadership, Michael Hyatt & Company has been featured in Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America for two years in a row.

He's the author of several New York Times and Wall Street Journals and U.S. Today's best-selling books. His books include Platform, Living Forward, Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, and I have to say, having read some of his books, they are great. Really, really good books. He is also, and I say this on the episode, he's got a great voice so I do listen to him on Audible as well, and he comes across really well. But he enjoys what he calls the double win with his wife of 40 years, his five daughters and nine grandchildren. So he has got a busy, busy life, but you know what? As you're going to discover from this episode, he manages to get that balance with everything, so, honestly, I think you're going to learn a whole lot from him today. I was so very honoured to have him on. He's a very busy man and I'm very privileged that he agreed to come on to the podcast, so I hope you enjoy this one.

So, I am very honoured to welcome the amazing Michael Hyatt to the podcast. Welcome, Michael.

Thank you, Teresa. I'm delighted to be on with you.

Honestly, I am very, very grateful that you found the time. I know you're a very busy man and I know that my audience are going to love what you have to say, and get so many good takeaways from this episode, so I'm very excited. But, just in case, it is a just in case, because I'm sure my audience have heard of you, could you just briefly tell us how you got to do what you do today and have these amazing books and do this business that you have today?

Well, I spent most of my career in the book publishing world. Most recently as the CEO and the Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers which began as a British company in Edinburgh in 1798. Now, I wasn't at the company quite that long, but when I was like the seventh CEO in the company, and so I decided in 2011, we sold the company to HarperCollins publishers, and I decided it was now or never. I was going to launch out and become an author and speaker which had been my dream thing for a long time, and I'd been in business for myself before, before I was at Thomas Nelson, and I said it was time to become an entrepreneur again, but I did that.

So I had started blogging, believe it or not, back in 2004. I broke my ankle, and I decided while I was laid up after I had surgery on it, that I would take on this thing called blogging, and so I was pretty consistent at it for years and years and years, and to this present day, but that had created enough of a platform that when I left Thomas Nelson I was able to write a book on it, which was my book Platform: Get Noticed In A Noisy World. That book went on to become a New York Times best seller and I was able to create a membership site called Platform University based on that, and everything else happened as a result of that.

So, today, we have 40 full-time employees. We're really focused at Michael Hyatt & Company on leadership development today, so we have that extensive coaching programme for entrepreneurs, we have some physical products like the Full Focus Planner, and just an array of suite of products.

I love that. And it's really interesting, that, one, you came from a job, if you like, and then obviously went into being an entrepreneur, and also, what I love about where you are now today, is the fact that you came from a fairly traditional corporate background. The stuff that you talk about today, for me, seems like you've taken a big leap in the sense of how you are and what you promote, and the life you lead and the balance that you have, because actually I don't know about you, but I worked in corporate world for quite a while, and actually some of the things that you now promote in terms of becoming a good leader, I don't think they were around, you know. I worked for Land Rover, I was in their head office in the U.K. and I don't think those things existed back when I was there maybe 10 years ago.

So, it's interesting that you have been a corporate, and now you're promoting all these amazing things. Did you get any of that from working in corporate? Was it a great corporate place to work, or...

Well, it was kind of mixed. I mean, you learn a lot from bad examples. In fact, I think sometimes you learn more from bad examples. I certainly worked for some leaders that weren't great, and I was inspired by that to try to find a different way. At Thomas Nelson, when I arrived there back in 1998, I wasn't really excited about the culture. I felt like the culture was toxic, and one of the things I did as a mid-level manager was, I said, "Well, I can't really change the world above me but I think I can change the world below me and have some impact on the culture."

So I set out to be very intentional about creating a company culture for our division, and then it was kind of contagious because one of my contentions about culture is that it drives operating results, it's the unseen force that drives operating results, and so it started driving our operating results. The division I was running was the 14th division and out of 14 divisions in the company, we were the worst performing. We had zero revenue growth. We were losing money, terrible company morale. But in 18 months we went from number 14 to number one, and as a result of that people wanted to know, "Gosh, what are you doing over there?"

And so, a lot of it was having to do with the culture and leadership and some of the things actually I talked about in Free To Focus about productivity.

Yeah. And the other thing I must mention, I was very lucky, when I came over to Nashville, I actually went to your office and I put it on Insta story and I actually wrote, "This is better than my house." Your office is phenomenal. It's so-

Thank you.

... beautiful, and it just... From where you're coming from and the talking about culture and things, you have created something where surely your team must be absolutely in heaven to go to work. It's such an amazing environment for them.

Well, I really see my team as a stewardship responsibility for me. I have a responsibility to take care of them and what really gets me excited is creating an awesome working environment where they can discover their strengths, where they can work in their zone of genius, we call it the desire zone in my book Free To Focus, but we try to say, "Okay, if we're going to build an amazing company that's going to grow and really scale sustainably, what kind of environment do we have to create to attract those A-level players? And so, I remember my daughter, Megan and I, I don't know that you met Megan, I know you met Mary-

Yes. No, I didn't meet Megan. No, I didn't. No. I met Marissa, I think.

Ah, she's my youngest.

Yes. That was it.

Megan's my oldest and she's also the COO of Michael Hyatt & Company, but she and I went away for a day and we said, "Okay, how can we create this amazing environment for our employees?" So, get this. This is where we started. We said, "Let's approach this like anything in marketing. So, let's create a sales page. So, if we're going to create a sales page that's going to really attract and convert the best employees, the best prospective employees to become employees, what kind of benefits would we have to have?"

I mean, we were thinking almost like when you sell a programme and you create bonuses, and we thought, "Okay, so what are the benefits have to be?" And so we came up with some crazy stuff on that page, and we give our employees a 30-day paid sabbatical after three years. We give them unlimited PTL, they can choose to be off whenever they want to be off, they can work from wherever. We have generous paternity leave provisions and all that, so that all just came out of that desire to create a place that would attract the right people.

And that's wonderful because, like you, I've worked in mixed places. Some places that were nice, some places that were just horrendous culture and terrible morale, and they treated their team like absolute dirt. They were terrible. And I remember, in this one company I worked for, I had a team under me and a bit like you, I thought, "There's nothing I can do about that, but this I can." And I realised that my team who were doing the work, if we didn't look after them and treat them nice and appreciate them and focus our attention on them, then they wouldn't do a good job and we wouldn't have a service to sell.

So, for me, the onus of the business and the people who run it got it all completely wrong. It was like they treated those people like they were no one, and they treated the directors like they were everything, and it's like, "But what if tomorrow they all decide they're going to do a terrible job, because you haven't got a business left if that's the case."

No. That's right. In fact, I often say to my people and when I'm out speaking to CEOs and business owners, I say, "Look, your first job is to take care of your people. If you take care of your people, your people will take care of your customers, and if they take care of your customers, the customers will take care of you. And don't ever get that backwards."

Yes. No. You're right. That's awesome. Such good advice. So, I said today I want to talk about Free To Focus, your book that I've read. Well, I've read a few, but it's in this one, for me was a really good standout book that I think my audience are going to love hearing about, because when you start a business, and I made this huge mistake. So I started my business, and I go, "How hard can this be?" How naïve was I? And I thought, "I've been in marketing for 15 years. I know marketing like the back of my hands. I can do this. This bit's easy." But what I didn't appreciate was what it's like to run a business because I'd never run a business, and how do I manage myself?

I could have all the best tools and hacks and everything in the world, but if I wake up in a day and I don't feel like doing that work, or if I get overwhelmed and then I can't focus on anything, the impact on my business that I have personally is obviously massive, and what was so great about the book is, it turns a lot of stuff on its head in terms of how we think we're trying to be productive, and how we think we're trying to manage our time effectively, and actually we're doing the complete opposite. So, can we start by just looking at, what are the myths that business owners and CEOs and people get wrong when they're trying to, or they think they're trying to, be super productive?

Yeah. I think one of the biggest one is, they fall prey to what I call the hustle fallacy. And this is the idea that if you want to achieve more you have work more. And the entire premise of the book, in fact, the subtitle of the book is A Total Productivity System for Achieving More by Doing Less.

Yeah.

And I think not all tasks, not all meetings, not all opportunities are created equal. And I think the sooner that we realise that, the more we can focus on those high leverage activities or meetings or opportunities that really drive the results, so that we can have a life and a business, because I've seen so many business owners burn out when they bought into the hustle fallacy. They're working 70, 80 hours a week, and there's so many people out there, so many business gurus that are out there teaching that, and what they don't see is when people have a health crisis or they blow out their most important relationships, they go through a crisis in their marriage or their kids aren't talking to them any more.

And I just think none of that has to happen. I'm after what I call the double win where you can win at work and succeed at life, so that "and" is very important. But that does require that we think about work differently and set as a goal, I think, that we're going to achieve more by actually doing less and focusing on the things that really matter and letting the rest go.

Yeah. And the other thing I love particularly about this, and you, generally, in terms of how you put yourself across on your message, is that balance, is that it's not just about all your focus is on work, all your focus is on building a business, all your focus is that... It's the fact that you talk about your wife and your children and your grandchildren, and you take a long holiday, you take a sabbatical, don't you, every year.

I do.

And how long are you away for, when you do that?

30 days, every year. I've done that since the very first year I started, because, part of that, Teresa, was because I didn't want to build a business that was so dependent upon me that it couldn't run without me.

Yeah.

And I've often thought that if the business can't run without me, I'm really not an owner, I'm just an operator and basically I have a job, and I'm probably working for the most onerous, most intense, most demanding boss I've ever worked for, and that's... That's me.

Yeah. Honestly. And like you said, that's the thing. We set up these businesses, and one of the first books or one of books I read very early on which really helped me shift a bit with this, I owe you big because I think you have to have lots of impact and different things, was the E-Myth Revisited. Is that-

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Michael Gerber.

Yeah. And he talks about the fact of, we are basically just setting up our businesses to have a job, and if we're not in it, it doesn't exist. So, how do we set up the business, exactly what you said, in order to then come out of the business?

The other thing that you talk about, which I think is amazing in terms of this balance, because like you said, the hustle culture, and especially when you look at some of the more guru-esque type of...

This week I am going to be talking about something that has made a huge difference to my business – my mindset. This is a common topic in the business space and having done a lot of work on my personal mindset when it comes to business, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the topic. As well as focusing on mindset, I also want to look at failure. Whilst most people look at failure as a bad thing, I want to discuss why I am now happy that I fail every once in a while. This will be a slightly different episode than what you’re used to, but I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Imagining big goals is a great way to set your dreams into motion. Although you don’t need ‘huge’ goals to see, dreaming big is a great way to put yourself in the best mindset.
• Don’t feel stupid for setting yourself big goals, it’s okay to dream big.
• If you don’t feel as though you have the support when it comes to your goals, try to surround yourself with people that focus on their mindset. Whether that means listening to podcasts or joining like-minded communities.
• Sometimes, you have to accept that you can’t control your goals. What you can control, however, is the actions you take to achieve them.
• Ask yourself ‘’honestly, what is the worst that could happen?’’
• Rather than thinking ‘’what if they say no?’’ think about what would happen if they say yes.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you let the fear of failure stop you from doing something, you have failed already.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Should You Set Big Goals for Your Business? – 02:35
• Failure Is Okay – 11:50
• My ‘Scary’ Experiences of Facing Failure Head On– 19:07

Transcript below

 

Speaker 1: (00:33)

Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the devil are you? I hate having stopped the podcast because I feel like it started the same way every single week. Also, while I'm talking about this, when I interview people, I start out the same way. But you know what happens if I try and mix it up? I mess it up. So I just think, hopefully it's so sure and we move on quickly that you'll just not realise that I start the same way pretty much every single week. Of course, now I've drawn into your attention. You're going to go back and listen or next time you'll think, Oh yeah, she did. Um, I've seen maybe I should've just kept my mouth shut. Anyway. So I hope you've had a good week and I hope you enjoyed last week's episode where we were talking about going live and if you haven't gone live already, please do so and please tag me and Tiffany in cause we really, really want to hear it.

(01:24)

So this week I'm going to talk about something a little bit different. I'm going to talk a little bit mindset-y. Now, I don't know whether you guys liked these episodes or whether you prefer me to be like proper tactics, strategies, tools, tips, but you know, honestly, this is the thing that's made the biggest difference in my business. And when I look back, I was looking for content for these episodes, thinking about what can I talk about? And I went back through the Academy that because it's a great place to find what people are asking and then I think, Oh actually that would make a great episode or I can create something around that. So for me it's a really, really good resource. And I, and I was looking back and I find a couple of posts that all came down to mindset and how they felt about their business and how they were struggling.

 

Should You Set Big Goals for Your Business?

 

Speaker 1: (02:13)

So I wanted to focus around this, but I also wanted to focus on the fact as to talking about failure and why I am now happy to fail and I wasn't previously. So if that's okay with you, that's what we're going to be talking about today. So let's kick this off by talking about goals. And this was specifically the question that was asked in the Academy about one of the members of the Academy said that they were in two minds about setting big, hairy, scary goals. Now I don't know whether you know, there are lots of people out there like from celebrities to business owners to whoever that do a lot around manifestation and trying to imagine the big goals they want. And I am all for this. Okay. I never used to be, I have to say this, I, when I started the business, I didn't even think about mindset at all. Didn't think I had to, I didn't think it would affect the business. And then I quickly learned that for me and my business actually it has a really positive impact.

(03:18)

Now, I'm not gonna say that it's gonna be the same for everybody else, but I want you to try on this episode, just keep slightly open minded about things if this isn't really your bag and just think whether this may or may not work for you. Like I said, I am very, what's the word? I don't think it's cynical as such, but I think I would, I like facts and figures. So I wanted the science behind it all. And of course some stuff that just isn't science. But in my mind, the way I think about all this is if I do these things and they don't hurt anybody and I don't feel like an idiot doing it then, and it makes a difference in any way, shape or form, then surely it's gotta be a good thing. Whether it was that that made the difference or whether it was something else, it doesn't matter. The fact is it made a difference.

(04:04)

So, so anyway, I just wanted to kind of check that caveat in there. So let's start with the goals thing. So like I said, I am a big fan of setting goals of dreaming big. Now there is some science around this about the fact that your brain doesn't know the difference between a imagined thing and an actual memory apparently. Also I'm not scientist, so don't quote me on that. But anyway, basically your by imagining how it can be and what it might be in those big goals, you are almost kind of setting things in motion to get you to that. That's the way I read that. So I am a big fan of goals. I write my goals at every single morning. I say every morning, every morning I do my morning routine. Which of late has not been as much as I didn't liked cause I'm not very good at doing it while I'm out and about on the road or when life gets busy, which is terrible cause that's the time I should be doing it.

(04:55)

Anyway so I write my goals out and some of the goals are crazy. Like some of them you would look at and think, who are you kidding? Or people might look at and go, who you kidding? And the question and the group was around the fact of do you ever feel like you're telling yourself, who am I kidding? How ridiculous is this? The thing that this is actually gonna happen. So for instance, one of my goals, I'm very honest about sharing all this with you, but I think it's important and hopefully you'll know by now I'm a very honest person. So one of my goals is that I want 100,000 pounds sat in my savings account, you know, rainy day money. Wouldn't that be nice?

(05:30)

And another of my goals is I only want to fly first class or business class because quite honestly, if you've ever flown first or business, which I've been very fortunate for mainly reasons of points and because I fly so much, but oh wow. It is like a whole different world. So imagine how amazing it would be to be doing that. Like every flight I ever took. So I put some of these crazy amazing goals in there. And like I said, my, my, one of my Academy members talked in the group and asked the question about, you know, do you ever feel like I'm an idiot? What am I thinking? Who am I kidding? And she also talked around the fact that maybe other people in her circle of not influenced, but basically the people who are very close to her didn't see those common goals either and didn't necessarily believe that they might happen.

Speaker 1: (06:18)

So there was two things here just quickly. The first one was, do you feel like an idiot when you're writing them down? And I said to her, I totally get why you might feel like that. Because sometimes when things are tough, when they're hard, when you've had a bad week, when you were hoping that something would happen and it didn't come off, sometimes you do look at them or think, who am I kidding? But I have to say 99% of the time I'm pretty fine on it. And I really do kind of let myself just daydream about it. I let myself think, Oh my gosh, imagine how amazing that's going to be. And the kind of crazy thought is that I am sat here going that is going to happen and I do believe that it's going to happen and I'm doing everything in my power to get there.

Speaker 1: (07:03)

So that was the one thing that sometimes, you know, do you feel stupid? And I know, um, we talked in the group about the fact that Jim Carey once wrote himself a check for, I think it was like $1 million for a, for a film. And he wrote it when literally he was getting no work at all and he was like broke and wasn't the actor that he is today. And he wrote it with a date on, in the future. And by that date he got, he was just signed to do, I think it was Dumb and Dumber and got $1 million for his acting in Dumb and Dumber. So like I get it and I think if we did something and there's loads of celebrities that do this sort of thing. So I am like all a big fan of that. But I do get that if you don't feel very confident in yourself or if you're struggling a little bit that you might look at it and go, that's never going to happen.

Speaker 1: (07:54)

But I urge you to not think about that and to think about, imagine what it's going to feel like when it happens and you know what and if it does, absolutely flip and amazing. If it doesn't, you might have reached further than you ever thought that you would have done if you hadn't have drummed that far ahead. So let's say you want to make, I don't know, 500,000 this year, and that is so far out of your reach that you're like, well that's just crazy. But if you'd set yourself a goal of 50,000 then you would only get 50,000 because in your head that's all you're aiming for. When you set some crazy massive goals, so right in front of you, then your head kind of has to stretch that bit further about how do I get there and it's not about and then we're going to come to this a bit more.

Speaker 1: (08:40)

But it's not necessarily about the actual getting to the goal in the end. It's about the action that you're taking to get there. Because if you are trying to get to 500,000 you're going to take many more actions and work much, much harder than necessarily you might do if you are only trying to aim for 50,000 let's say.

(08:58)

Okay, so that was the first bit. And the second bit was I felt really bad about it because she talked about the fact of the support wasn't necessarily there. That's really, really tough because you know what, when I first went into this mindset and mindfulness side of the business, it was brand brand new to me and I sat there at times and thought, what a load of rubbish. Like what are you on? That it's not going to happen. Don't be ridiculous. And my husband, who I've talked about lots of times, is an engineer in the military, no less. So like not only does he have an engineering brain, but he's also a military person. So he is the furthest away from wuwu mindset stuff than anybody I know.

(09:41)

So again, having those conversations with him and trying to get him to understand why I was interested in it or the effect it might have on my business was a bit of a tricky one because he didn't get it necessarily straight off either. So what I did was I kind of tried to get him more and more involved with the business. I would often, and I do often part of my morning routine, I play podcasts and I listen to podcasts. So I was listening to more and more podcasts like James Wedmore and Brooke Castillo. I'm going to hook up to both of those in the show notes because they are great podcasts, especially around kind of mindset and coaching and that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: (10:18)

And do you know what? He kind of listened to it and almost by osmosis he kind of started to take it in and he started to see it, but not only did he see or understand it a bit more because I was kind of playing these things and he was like, Oh, that's interesting. And he kept a very open mind. But secondly, he started to see the effect it had on me and my business, I. E. the more I put into my mindset, the more I worked on this, the more I was motivated, the more I thought I get achieve bigger and better things. So that's kind of one of the things I wanted you to think about when it comes to goal setting. Are you goal setting? Are those goals literally like half a mile in front of you? Or are they literally wrapped around the world? Because mine, mine probably aren't as crazy as they could be compared to some.

 

Failure Is Okay

 

Speaker 1: (11:03)

And I'm not sat there saying I'm a prime minister or I'm going to be a millionaire. I'm, you know, I suppose in one way you could say they're fairly modest, but they are, you know, I don't have a hundred thousand pounds in my savings account or anywhere near that right now. So, you know, so for me they are a good stretch in front. So, okay. So that's the first thing. Setting those goals. But like I said it, the mindset thing isn't around necessarily the goal setting. It's about the actions you take in order to start getting towards those. And this was a massive shift for me now when I not even when I started my business or forever and a day. I hate failing. I'm very competitive. I am also a perfectionist and I get embarrassed really easily or I used to get embarrassed really easily. I had like a fool, this podcast.

Speaker 1: (11:53)

So why I don't get embarrassed about that. I have no idea. But I think it's, cause I'm sat in this room just talking to myself like a slightly strange person and I forget that you guys are got me in your ears and you're listening to me right now. But anyway, we won't think about that. So, so yeah, I those things I hate failing, perfectionist, you know, want to be brilliant at everything, competitive and the fact that I hate, I don't like looking like a fool. So anything like putting myself out there slightly that then might give me a response I don't want, I would never have done in a million years. I always worked in my comfort zone. I've worked in marketing for 15 years, so I was never really out of my comfort zone in terms of that. I happened to like speaking, so that didn't really put me out of my comfort zone the whole lot.

Speaker 1: (12:41)

Obviously different events have put me more out of my comfort zone, but generally I kind of stayed pretty safe in what I was doing and then I started to want to work towards the online business and a couple of episodes ago I talked about the transition in the business that I've made and making and how that looks and some of the fear stuff that I've done there, but I wanted to transition over and I wanted to achieve more and do more and I just wasn't doing it. I was literally sat absolutely in the spot saying, yeah, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that. And then when it came to anything tangible to move towards it, no, just didn't do it. I was too scared. And I think I've, I'm sure I've talked about this before, I definitely talked about in emails, but basically I went and joined James Wedmore's Business by Design and I went out to Laguna beach, beautiful Laguna beach, sat in a conference room with 200 of a very successful entrepreneurs and felt very much out of my depth.

Speaker 1: (13:43)

Although I had a good successful business that, well, I started a successful business,...

This week we have Tiffany Lee Bymaster on the podcast talking all things live video. As a huge fan of using live video to grow your business, Tiffany is definitely the right person to tell you everything you need to know. Although people are scared of doing live videos, they can be an incredible tool for your business. We talk about what to do, how you should do it and how to get over that initial fear of going live.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• You have to work hard in order to succeed. Those that want to succeed will get past that initial moment of getting started and it will separate the starters from the finishers.
• Rather than focussing on negative what ifs, try focussing on the positive what ifs. Focus on all of the things that could go right.
• The feelings you get when you’re experiencing fear are the same symptoms you get when you’re feeling excited. You can choose how you interpret them.
• If you’re worried about what you look like when it comes to live video, you need to remember that it’s your voice that matters. We need that diversity in the online space.
• Live video is a vital component for brand building. You need to ensure you have a strategy and you’re not doing live video for the sake of doing live video.
• If someone else cannot easily describe what you do as a business, your brand is blurry.
• You can target your ads to previous video viewers, meaning you have a targeted audience you know are already interested in you. Facebook and Instagram also favour the ads of those that are doing live video.
• If you’re putting off starting, it’s important to remember that all you need is your phone and your voice to get started. No one expects your live video to be polished, they just want to be able to see and hear you.
• Introduce yourself at the start of each video and give your signature statement. Let people know what you do and why, as you cannot assume that people know who you are.
• Look at your camera lens and not yourself to show that you’re confident. Speak as though you are the leading expert in what you do. If you show up with that kind of confidence you are guaranteed to succeed.
• People are going to be following you for YOU. Live video is the best way to be authentic and show the real you.
• The beauty of live video is that you will get better over time.
• Have a primary and secondary social media platform and be as consistent as you can with your posting schedules. Try to go live once a week.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The fear is never going to go away, but you take it out of the way and become a successful business owner because you stop making it about you.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Tiffany – 05:31
• Getting Through the Fear of Going Live - 15:40
• The Power of Live Video – 23:54
• Is Consistency Key? - 32:00
• Common Excuses for Not Going Live (and How to Get Around Them) - 36:05
• How to Get Started with Going Live – 42:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

 

Transcript below

 

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you this week? Okay, I've got a great episode for you today. It's an interview. I'm going to jump straight in talking about it. We're not going to waste any time. I know how valuable your time is and I want to get to the good stuff, and there is loads of good stuff on this one. Now this week I get the absolute pleasure of interviewing the very lovely Tiffany Lee Bymaster. Who is super generous with all the amazing information she's giving us, and cram packed full of ideas. We're talking all about doing live video, and she is like the live video queen. She's a huge fan of it. She's very passionate about how all businesses should do live video. Slap my wrist there Teresa, because I don't do many. I do live videos in the Academy, which is now open by the way. Woo. Exciting stuff. If you want to join, head over to Teresaheath-wareing.com/academy but that was a completely impromptu mention, and then I realised they went into commercial mode. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll carry on where I was.

So as I was saying, Tiffany is a massive fan of doing live videos, and you know what? Why not? Because I am a huge fan of live videos. I might not do them as much myself. However, from a marketing point of view, what they can do for your business is phenomenal, but hardly anybody does them because they're so scared of doing live videos. So in this episode, we smash through all the myths about doing live videos, and Tiffany talks us through how you get to do a live video. What you should do, how you should do it, and how to get over that fear.

And you know what was super interesting, when we talked, when I interviewed her, I thought to myself, oh, we're going to talk strategy in terms of right press this button, do this thing. But actually after working with thousands of students about live video, the thing that Tiffany knows better than anybody, is actually that is like the tiniest bit of the reason people aren't doing it. And the main reason is the fear that we are all terrified to go on camera and do lives. So I share a very funny story or I think it's funny anyway, of a live video that I watched of a very dear friend of mine and I'm sure he won't mind me sharing the story at all. But I just wanted to let you know about the fact that live video doesn't have to be perfect. And Tiffany talks about this too, she shares some of her experiences as well.

So hopefully by the end of this episode, you will not only feel so much more comfortable and confident about doing a live video, but also you're going to feel like you have the tools in place in order to do that too. And she gives you some good ideas about what to speak about as well. So like I said, this episode is going to be a great one. It's jam packed. So let me tell you a bit more about Tiffany. So Tiffany Lee Bymaster, AKA Coach Glitter. Isn't that the coolest name ever? Literally Google coach glitter, you'll find her, has worked in the production world as a makeup artist, wardrobe stylist and designer for nearly two decades, in film, TV commercial and fashion, as well as with top online marketers, authors and speakers. Listen to this, kind of some of the stuff that she has done.

She has worked with things like the Real Housewives of Orange County, America's Next Top Model, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, TV channels like Bravo, VH1, MTV, ABC, CNN, and Fox News. Like hello. That's amazing. But for the last five years, Tiffany has built her own personal brand from the ground up, so she went from that business and then decided I want to do something else and she talks about that in the episode. So Tiffany is now known as a blogger, consultant and a top affiliate marketer, educator and camera confidence coach. She has an online course called lights, camera, branding, where she has worked with thousands of students and combines her vast knowledge and experience working behind the camera, helping a clients look and most importantly feel their personal best. Tiffany is obsessed with coaching her students to gain clarity in their brand messaging, skyrocket their confidence on camera and increase their visibility through the power of live video in the online marketing space.

I also know Tiffany because she happens to be one of the coaches for the James Wedmore next level group that I'm in, and I have seen Tiffany speak and I've watched her stuff and she really is an expert at this. And her enthusiasm is infectious. So I will leave you to listen to this episode. Please do come and let us know what you think. I know she's very excited to hear from you all, and I hope you enjoy it.

 

Introducing Tiffany

 

So I am super excited today to welcome the very lovely Tiffany Lee Bymaster to the podcast. How are you doing Tiffany?

I'm so great. I'm so excited to be here.

Honestly. So am I. Not only is your bio amazing and we're going to get into that in a minute, and what you've done, but also the subject that we're going to talk about is something that is very close to my heart, because I think it's something that's so many businesses can do and should do, because it's so easy and free and the barriers to entry can be quite low. So I'm really excited that I think lots of people are going to get loads of good stuff from this today. But before we get started, if my audience haven't heard from you and don't know who you are, if you could just tell us how you got to do what you're doing though and a bit about you, that would be awesome?

Yes. So I have been in the online space a little over. Well, it's kind of like this long journey, right? I started off just kinda dabbling, way back on Myspace and Twitter even before Facebook became a thing. But prior to that, I was working as a professional makeup artist, wardrobe stylists, and set designer for film and television and commercials and fashion. That's how I started. And that's what I used to share in the beginning. But it was only four years ago, almost exactly four years ago, that I literally got shoved in front of a camera that was doing a live video, because it was one of my clients who has a huge brand, and she was tired of hearing me talk about doing live video. And at that time, four years ago, live video was just starting out.

Brand new.

Yeah. But it was months and I kept on talking about it and had not taken action on it. So we were at a huge event, she had downloaded Periscope on my phone, and handed it to me and said, your live, and oh my gosh, it was the messiest, the ugliest live video anyone has ever done. I didn't even realise that I still had it playing and I put it in my pocket because we had to run off stage. It was on for at least a good 10 to 15 minutes in my pocket sideways, you can hear our conversation. We're running to catch our car, to leave this giant stadium. And that was my first live video. So if anybody can survive doing that terrible of a first live video, then anybody can. But since that day, four years ago, I have not stopped.

And because of that, it created a completely new trajectory for my business and my brand. And today, just in the last three years, because of that one amazing, crazy, horrible live video that I did, in the last three years, I have shifted my entire business, my brand. I'm no longer working on production sets. I no longer work 18 hours on films and television. I have created a complete online business, and people forget that it's only been a few years, but I have been relentless and I haven't stopped. And today I help other online business owners, entrepreneurs who have a personal brand business, grow their following, grow their engagement and grow their businesses and their launches to have more effective launches with the power of live video.

Amazing. Some people might be sat here thinking, well you were in that industry. You knew what TV was like and people presenting and stuff. But actually you were behind the camera, like you were-

Oh yeah.

... behind the camera. So to transition and turn that shift into putting you in front of the camera must have been just as scary as anybody else doing it.

Absolutely. I mean, there were no photos, there were no videos. I mean, I didn't even want to take pictures, even to this day and I kind of am proud of this so I don't want to switch it anytime soon. Even to this day, I have still never done a proper, a real quote unquote real photo shoot, like a branding photo shoot. All of my photos are selfie timer photos or they're literally still shots, screenshots from videos. Yeah. It's not my thing. It's not my natural state to want to be the person in the limelight. And I had never done any kind of video prior to that first terrible, janky live video four years ago.

But I knew even through the fear, I had this little tickle, like a little wish, a little dream, and it was barely a glimmer of an idea. Barely a glimmer of an idea. But I had been thinking about it and thinking about it and not taking action on it. And I'm just getting older, just doing my thing. And I loved, I mean, I was very successful, top two percent of my industry in the production world as a makeup artist and wardrobe stylists and doing amazing set design work. But I knew there was something more for me. I had no idea what that was though, but I literally had just this faint glimmer of an idea of like, why not me? Why couldn't that be me in front of the camera, especially on social media. And in the online space, it's not like television and commercial and film where you're the celebrity or you're the actor or you're the talent.

What I love about social media, is that we have this amazing opportunity that we all have this platform that regardless of who you are, what you do, what your niche is, how weird it might be. And I love the weird ones. It makes us stand out. That all of us square pegs, this is our space, this is our platform that we can make a mark. And that is what I saw early on. But it took me a long time to get over my fear, and I was so driven by fear, and when I allowed that fear to be the thing that held me back, I wasn't creating anything. I wasn't helping people, I wasn't impacting. But because I did that first terrible, awful live video, it got that initial fear out of the way and it's so much scarier in our heads than it is in reality.

I totally agree. And the funny thing is, you doing that first dreadful video, which sounds hilarious. It did it then didn't it? It was done. It was the fact that you took that first step and it's always the first step as an artists. And you know what's really funny is, I have a great example of this guy. Years ago when I first started my business, I was talking about live video to small businesses and I was like, you should do it. You should try it. And this one guy said to me, I'm going to try it. And I was like, you should, it's a great opportunity for you. So he was a photographer, he went and did a live video. And what he did is he set up his camera and he obviously hit record or hit play as it were and went live. And he's got his laptop next to him because he obviously wanted to keep an eye that it was coming through and that sort of thing.

So what happened was, we're watching this live video and it comes through and you hear it playing, and he realises he's on the side. Literally the camera is playing on the side, and he's like, "Oh my goodness, I'm sideways." And we are hauling, we think this is just brilliant. He then gets up alive also alive, turns in the camera around and goes and sits down [inaudible 00:12:44] talking like, oh, I'm so sorry. I can't believe my first ever live. I was sideways. Anyway, he was upside down and it didn't correct.

Yeah. You can't do it in the middle of your live.

Honestly. We were hauling, and the the thing that I loved about that more than anything is do you think anybody was like, I'm never doing business with him. Do you think people hated him or do you think it affected, no, if anything, I talk about it all the time. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. It just showed how human he was, so it's like-

Absolutely.

It is what it is, and it showed him in its entirety, he was laughing at himself and he was like, Oh God, can you believe this is happening? But it was like if I wanted to connect with someone, the connection there was just brilliant because it was entirely completely him and him being authentic. It was just brilliant. So I love-

Great.

The other thing I love that you talked about is the fact that you've worked really hard, because I do think, and I don't know about you and we weren't going to talk about this, but we digress slightly, but I do think sometimes in this online space, and funnily enough, I was just telling you that just for recording this. I've been at a conference all about online memberships, that sometimes when someone's at top of their game, they paint a picture of how easy it is, and it isn't that easy, It's not impossible, but it does take work. So I love the fact that you said, you have this kind of amazing career. You knew these very influential people. You did these amazing things, however you still worked really hard to then build your brand up in this side.

Yeah, absolutely. I have worked really, really hard to get my business started. And I can't stand that people paint that picture, that it's so easy and instant and overnight, there's no such thing. None of us do this alone. None of us do this without the support and help and input from people who are a little bit further along ahead of us, and it certainly isn't impossible like you said, but that initial getting started phase, that initial pushing your business, I always equate it to, if you're on a bicycle with no gears at the bottom of a very steep hill-

Great analogy.

It's that initial momentum of going from zero to five miles an hour. That is where all of the dabblers and the wannabes and the wantrepreneurs and the, I wish I could do this. The people that stay there, and then there's us, who are relentless and they're willing to do it because there's a bigger reason at the top of that very steep Hill to get that momentum started, and that initial momentum is going to be the hardest, but that is where it separates the people who are the starters with the finishers. And I will never paint the picture that it was unicorns and rainbows and butterflies-

Yeah, welcome one day, open at [inaudible 00:15:32] celebrity. Brilliant.

 

Getting Through the Fear of Going Live

 

None of that happened for me. That is not my story. Not even close to it. But it's all worth it. And I wasn't killing myself. I'm like, it could be worse. I've worked 18 hour days on set so I know what hard work is and what we get to do on the online space. If you really are driven by serving and helping people and seeing the results, it's worth it.

Yeah. And I think the other good thing that you mentioned, is that it's not that we're not scared because boy we're scared. Honestly, the first time we do anything, the first time we stand on stage, the first time I ask someone to come on the podcast, the first time I did a podcast episode, I'm just as scared as everybody else. But I think, like you said, for whatever the drivers, whatever the goal is you're trying to get, that is stronger than our fear. Our why is stronger than our fear, and therefore we do it. Whereas unfortunately, and such a shame that so many people just let that stop them at that point.

Yeah. And if we just look at our own lives, think of all the times that you've done something for the first time, it's the unknown, and what our minds and our brain does is that we fill that unknown with the worst case scenario. And so what if we started shifting our perspective and instead of focusing on all the what ifs and the worst case scenario, what if we started focusing on all the amazing possibilities, the positive outcomes. And I know that our brains are not built that way, but we absolutely have a choice in how we want to continue to let our brains think, and what it will focus on.

And I've learned to do that, but I do everything scared. Every time I'm on stage, that is the hardest thing for me still. It's the most challenging thing, but I do it anyways. And every time I do it, I grow, I become a better business owner. I become a better human being. And I proved to myself, I literally say to myself, but I didn't die. So how bad can it be? And I've had terrible, not...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• In the early days of my business I worked really hard to network, find clients and build my email list.
• During the first few years of me running my business, I did a lot of local speaking gigs.
• Once my business started to grow, I was able to hire my first ever VA, who has now grown to be No.2 in this business.
• It was great having someone who understood how businesses are run as she helped me turn my business into an agency. I now have 6 freelance members of staff within the agency.
• When I started speaking on bigger stages I noticed that I was getting less and less enquiries from clients.
• Although my team were working with clients back home, I knew that these speaking opportunities were something I had to do.
• As my clients started to reduce, I noticed that my email list and audience was growing and growing.
• I soon realised that fifteen years of experience put me in a position where I could offer valuable advice to people who are in the same position I was in years ago. I wanted to work out how I could offer this advice to people and still earn money as a business.
• For me, the best step was to open an Academy. I knew I could talk about growing your business all day every day and never get bored.
• I moved from a one-to-one to a one-to-many model for a number of incredible reasons.
• Once I launched my academy, I had to be more selective when it came to bringing on new clients. I also had to rejig the way in which my team worked and accept that I’ve had a drop in income.
• Although I have taken a drop in income, I now have a business that I love even more.
• I want you to think about what you’re doing as a business and whether or not that is what you want to do. What changes would you make? How can you get there? Can you grow your business without having to grow your time?

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The real organic content that gets the most reaction tends to be the things you create off the cuff. Although you can hire content writers and social media managers to run the day-to-day aspects of your business, the most relatable content will come from YOU.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Me and My Business - 03:12
• Hiring My First Member of Staff – 10:00
• Increasing my Speaking Opportunities 12:20
• Growing my Audience – 15:00
• Taking Things Online - 17:50
• One-to-One to One-to-Many – 25:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Episode 69: A Guide To Starting Your Own Membership With The Membership Guys

Episode 34: 3 Mistakes I Made When Starting My Business

Episode 79: 5 Top Tips For Gaining Speaking Gigs In Your Industry

Buy The E-Myth Revisited

Attend A Masterclass

Join My Academy

Transcript below

 

Speaker 1: (00:33)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Marketing That Converts podcast. I nearly forgot the name. Uh, that's a great start to the podcast. Well done, Teresa. I hope you are well and having a great start to your week. I would just wanted to mention that I've had some lovely reviews on iTunes. I appreciate it so, so very much. And you know what's really, really nice is that so many of you have said that it's like listening to someone you'd go for a coffee with or having a chat with someone or like a friend. And I love that. I just think I'm so glad that's what people think. And obviously I just get on and I just do my thing and talk away whether it's very professional and I'm yet to decide and I guess that's for you guys to decide. But I really liked doing it naturally.

Speaker 1: (01:24)

I really like doing it a little bit off the cuff. I like the fact that it's not scripted, that I literally just get on hit record as I've just done and start speaking. So for me, I'm over the moon that you like it that way and that you guys think and feel that we are literally just having a conversation and we're like sat down and having a chat and we could be having a coffee or depending on the time, maybe a gin and tonic, glass of wine, glass of Prosecco, champagne, you name it really. Any of them, I'm up for it. Cool. No problem.

(01:57)

Okay, so this week is a solo episode and I've been racking my brains, right? I focus so much on getting interviews in place and I've got a load of them stacked up and there's some brilliant ones and I focused so much on that and so much time on planning what they're going to be that the solo episodes are kind of forgot about, very organised of me and I've just literally sat down and thought, right, I need to record. I'm doing some batching at the moment. What am I going to talk about? And I always go back and see what we've talked about previously. I look at kind of other people's topics, what are the people talking about at the moment? And I try and come up with a few different ideas. And today's episode I've decided that I want to talk a bit about business overall and I want to talk you through some of the things I've learned and changes I've made in my business because I really think that you're going to find this interesting. And I also think you're going to be able to sit there and resonate with some of the stuff I'm saying and it might help you think about your business going forward.

(02:59)

And one of the other reasons I've chose this for today is because last week I was in Newcastle in the UK and I went to Retain Live, which is part of The Membership Guys and they were on the podcast not so long ago.

 

Me and My Business

 

Speaker 1: (03:12)

I'll put the number in the show notes. I wasn't expecting to talk about it and I forgot what episode they are, but it was a great upset. I had both of them on it, Callie and Mike and yeah, so I was up in Newcastle, at Retain Live and Retain Live is all about memberships and doing memberships and as I'm sat there looking at all these people in the room and the speakers on stage and thinking about how good and effective memberships are, I kind of realised that I never ever intended to go out there and have a membership. So it was interesting that I've sat in the room and kind of made me think about what got me to that point. I suppose I should start with saying, and I have said it before, but in case you didn't know, I actually never intended having a business at all.

Speaker 1: (03:57)

I was a very good employee. I liked being employed, I was very efficient. I liked having that kind of structure in terms of this is what you do, the accountability, being patted on the head when you did something right. I really liked all that. So the fact that I even started my own business is a bit of a shock still I suppose when I think about it. But then what it's gone from and to, it's taken a real curve. And you know what? What's really interesting is at the moment I'm at a really interesting point in the business, which is a little bit scary and I wanted to talk to you about that and talk to you about kind of some of the steps we have to make in order to move on and get the life and the business you want.

(04:38)

So let me start by going back a bit. Let me start by telling you how my business started. So, like I said, never intended to have in a business. I have talked about this before in another episode so I weren't going to too much and I will link up to the episode in the show notes cause I literally took you through the gory details of the fact of I had no husbands, no rich parents and no savings and I left my fairly well paid job while I had my daughters look after, a roof to keep in my hand and a car to keep running. Very smart decision, Teresa. Managed to come up with a brand and a website in about a week and basically had to earn money immediately or otherwise I would have been homeless and I would've had no home and no food for my daughter and no car to run. So I basically started of the business as a marketing consultant slash if you didn't have a marketing manager, I could be your part-time marketing manager.

Speaker 1: (05:33)

And the idea was I thought about, shall I go in and work in people's places? And there was a couple of clients I did that for initially. Shall I just do the stuff for them but do it externally? And I started of by offering all sorts of marketing because my background is marketing. Obviously if you haven't gotten that by now, I've been in it over 15 years. I have a degree in it. And although I was doing digital and social media and staff at that point I, when I offered marketing in general, in fact my first view, um, business cards actually said marketing and PR because people didn't know the difference. And I was worried that if I didn't put the word PR on there, people might discount me out when actually the thing that they wanted was marketing. Anyway, so I started off that and I realised fairly quickly that I didn't want to be tied down into someone's office and I could be way more efficient doing it in my own time, i.e. taking the work off them, doing it from home or I had an office at the time and getting in a lot more work that way and therefore could increase my income. And in the early days, I literally busted a gut. I was out and networking all the time. I was promoting myself. I was doing social media all the time. I was trying to build my email list and I was working really hard cause I had to, cause if it didn't have any money, my daughter and I didn't have a house so I was really sort of fighting if you like really hard to get clients and I was pitching a lot. I was meeting loads of people for coffees and really trying to get my name out there and I discovered that one of the things that would really help is speaking locally. Now a couple of episodes ago I talked about again doing an episode around getting speaking gigs and I do talk about the fact of, I started small and I did loads and loads of local stuff, but from my marketing consultancy type business, which started to turn into a bit more of an agency type business, that worked really well because I was sat in a room with people who were physically close to me, i. e. They, they were in business in the same area. They were the types of businesses I was working with and I was able to very quickly relate to them and speak to them and talk to them about what I could offer. And I love what I do. I'm very passionate what I do. So normally if I'm trying to do a sales pitch, if you like, to a client, if I'm face to face, I can normally do all right because I love it and it's really easy for me to get excited about it and come up with loads of ideas. So that's what I was doing. And then I, I started to realise that my time was like hitting that barrier where you're, you're done. There's only so many hours in the day. And I started to read some books at this time as well. So this was about the time that I started to change and develop as me rather than seeing my business as I am being paid by individual people to do my day job, i. e. Marketing that I'd been paid to do forever.

Speaker 1: (08:25)

But as an employee, I started to think about myself as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, which literally I used to say I was the accidental entrepreneur because that word just didn't actually resonate with me. In all honesty, I didn't even know how to say it. Like it wasn't until someone told me it was French that suddenly it made sense how to say it. Anyway, side note. Um, so I had, I do this all the time. I'm so sorry. I will get back in focus now and then what happens is I start talking and laughing about something and I completely forget where I was on and what that was I was talking about. Anyway, let's get back to it. So like I said, it was about this time that I started to see myself as a business owner rather than a person who did their day job.

Speaker 1: (09:09)

And I read a book called the E-Myth Revisited. Now if you are a business owner where you have gone from an employee position doing a particular type of job to then having a business that does that type of job, you really want to check this book out. Because it really changed my thought process and made me think, because it was basically saying you're no more a business owner really by doing that because you're literally just selling out your time to do your job and it just happens that you haven't got one client or one boss, you've got loads of them. So it really kind of made me think about how am I running this business? How much time have I got? And by this point I was doing okay. I was, the business was growing, I was earning money, but I didn't have any time.

 

Hiring My First Member of Staff

 

Speaker 1: (09:53)

So I took on my first VA, Katie, who is still with me to this day. So she's probably been with me like four or five years now. And I was working with Katie, didn't have any idea why I needed her, just know I needed someone and something and it was really organic and we kind of, I took her on and suddenly things started to work out about, oh she did this and this was really good and that was really good. Katie by the way, has turned out to be so much more than a VA. She isn't a VA anymore. She is actually like number two in the business. She's the one, I discuss everything with, she is my person that we, we talk about the direction the businesses going and she helped me so much in that. So, so for me that, that was a kind of another step that not only did I start reading and listening to these books, but then I took on someone else that I could talk about my business to that I could share ideas with and someone else who was super smart when it came to running a business and helped me bring in processes and change systems and actually get more organised cause I was literally winging it because I was doing it all myself. So it was fine cause I was the only person that needed to know about it. And then the agency started to grow and I started to take on other people. Now all my team are freelance. They're all based around the world. I've got six of us now in total and all the team are doing very particular things for particular clients. And I've got people who are content creators, I've got people who do management, I've got designers, I've got tech people, I've got ads people. So I started to bring on these people and I was really happy by the fact of they were freelance. I always, and that was the thing when I started the business, I guess if I had, if you'd asked me, how did I want the business to go? I'd have said I want an agency and I want a team and I want an office. And it's just so interesting how time has moved on and changed and how no longer that is important to me.

 

Increasing my Speaking Opportunities

 

(11:45)

So, like I said, I started to do more of this and I was realising that my time was getting thin and spread thinner amongst clients and I was struggling to serve everybody. And the bit that I loved was the speaking and the speaking was starting to grow more and more the kind of being seen as the authority was growing more and more. But you know what happened when I started speaking on bigger stages, I started not getting as many clients. So this was a real interesting tipping point for me because it was like, okay, you would think as my credibility goes up and as my awareness of me and my personal brand goes up, that suddenly more clients would want to work with me.

Speaker 1: (12:25)

But I was speaking on much bigger stages to many different types of people and it wasn't those local people who wanted that marketing assistance or that agency assistance and it just didn't quite convert into promoting the agency. Somehow the agency kind of just kept quiet and I barely talked about it. And also at this point, like I said, I wanted to find a way, how could I build the business, help as many people as possible but not feel like I'm being tied down every minute of every day. And that's how I felt. And there was some times that I worked with back then literally wanted me at their beck and call. And that's a really difficult thing because I am a people pleaser. I like to please people and therefore I would feel so bad if I couldn't take their call immediately or if their email came in and I didn't respond within five minutes, but I had to keep reminding myself these people are only paying for a small chunk of your time and that's not full time.

Speaker 1: (13:26)

If they want to do full time, they'd have to pay you full time. But I've really struggled with that as well. And then as the events started picking up more and I started to do more...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• There are right times and wrong times to be running Facebook Ads and if you’re in your infancy as a business, it might not be the right time.
• Growing your business will either take time or money and you need to decide which one is more valuable to you.
• Not everyone is advertising on Facebook, meaning there it is a massive market to break into that is guaranteed to be effective.
• When you first get started with Facebook Ads it’s important you take the time to experiment. You won’t know what is going to work and what isn’t so you need to set aside some budget to cover this.
• A boosted post is the simplest way to create an ad on Facebook, however, it doesn’t mean you should use it. As it is a simple way to create an ad, you’re not getting access to all of the features you would get if you were using Ads Manager.
• Choose the objective that matches the outcome you want from your ad. Whether it’s likes, followers or conversions.
• Run campaigns alongside one another to test what works best.
• Think about what you’re asking people to do in your ad. If you’re asking someone to book an appointment or pick up the phone straight from your ad, chances are it’s not going to be successful. You need to warm people up first.
• In order to understand how your ads are performing, you need to take the time to learn as much as you can about Facebook Ads. Even if you’re outsourcing your ads to a professional, the more you know the better.
• There is a Facebook Support chat that you can use if you’re struggling.
• From February 2020, Campaign Budget Optimisation is going to be mandatory for all Facebook Ad accounts. If you’re worried, start getting used to it now and find what does and doesn’t work for you.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Your ideal audience are probably on Facebook and they are telling Facebook EVERYTHING. This is something you definitely need to be tapping into as a brand.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Liz – 04:58
• Why Should You Advertise on Facebook? – 08:20
• Getting Started with Facebook Ads - 16:11
• Should You Be Using the Facebook Boost Button? - 19:20
• Picking Your Objective - 23:20
• Should You Do Facebook Ads Training? - 33:18
• Getting Your Ads Accepted – 40:00
• Campaign Budget Optimisation and Dynamic Creative – 42:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Join My Masterclass

Facebook Blueprint Programme

Liz Facebook Course

Liz Melville Website

Liz Melville Instagram

Liz Melville Facebook

Transcript below

 

Good morning and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast, how are you? I'm having a slightly stressful morning, it's got to be said. I'm trying to send some videos to an event that wanted me to speak, anyway, as it happened I wasn't able to go and speak in person, so I've done some videos for them which is really cool actually. Really excited about the fact that I still have a presence there and they can still see me although I'm not technically there.

However, you know when the world of technology is trying to work against you and basically destroy your life, that's how I feel right now because I'm trying to upload these videos and they are not going. They're just taking forever and I've made them smaller and I've stopped everything on the computer and I've turned the computer off and I restarted the internet and honestly, things like this really wind me up and I have to remind myself to be calm and it is what it is and I can't change it but it's just so frustrating this very modern world we live in that some things just aren't exactly as they need to be.

So, anyway, my little run over for now, this week we've got an interview with the lovely Liz Melville who is a Facebook ads expert and we're going to be going through some really good, simple, getting started tips. Some new things that are new and that you might want to consider, but basically if you are looking at starting Facebook ads, then this might be a really good introduction to you.

It might give you an idea of how to get started and why you should do them and why they're good, and I honestly do believe they're really good. I use them in my business and I've used them for lots and lots of clients and they're fab, and Liz is lovely.

Before we get into the interview though a couple of reminder things. First off I have a masterclass coming up so I would love you to join me live for that. It's on the 24th of September, it's got loads of different times as always so no matter where you are in the world I'm sure there's a time that will accommodate you. If you head to teresaheathwareing.com/masterclass you're going to be able to sign up there.

And like I said, I really hope you can join me because it's going to be another fun one. I only ever do these things live. You know how sometimes when people do launches because obviously, this obviously is a step towards my academy opening again and sometimes I do them on Evergreen. Do you know what I mean by that? Basically they pre-record it and then it's a recording. I'm not keen on doing that. I love the live interaction. I love answering questions, so I really do enjoy kind of getting on there and hearing what you've got to ask and giving you that help that's going to help you directly in your business.

The other thing I wanted to mention as a side is obviously this episode we're talking about Facebook ads and the fact that obviously it's really good for your business and this could be of a real benefit. So I wanted to mention as well that in the academy, when it does open which will be on the 24th, there is, one of the courses that are already in there is a getting started with Facebook ads course and the academy itself, now I haven't confirmed the prices. At the time of recording this I'm still weighing up a few ideas, but anyway it's not going to be a huge amount of money and to come in and do that one course and then if you wanted to leave, hopefully you don't, but if you did then you technically could.

I'm just thinking if you do want to get started with Facebook ads there is a course in there for you, so it might be worth going and checking it out. Okay, let's get on with today's interview and let me tell you a bit more about Liz. Liz Melville is a highly regarded Facebook ads and marketing specialist, with over eight years experience in promoting brands and businesses online. Her clients spend tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook each month and they include some of the biggest names in Facebook and online marketing.

She has also mentored and taught countless online course creators and personal brands how to ditch the drama of Facebook ads and confidently unleash growth and scale their impact through her trusted signature strategies. Liz really is the fountain of knowledge when it comes to Facebook ads. She was fab on this episode so I really hope you enjoy it.

 

Introducing Liz

 

Okay, I am so excited this week to welcome my very lovely friend Liz to the podcast. Welcome Liz.

Oh thank you Teresa I am really honestly so excited. I've been looking forward to this.

Thank you, I've been looking forward to it, so I've said in the intro that we met through James Wetmore and being part of that community which is very exciting and very nice and that you have been doing Facebook ads for some time and you are a bit of an expert on it. So I am super excited to share with my audience some real practical stuff with them today because for me I go on a lot about Facebook ads that if you are on Facebook then really you should be exploring that and there are lots of ways you can do it for not a lot of money, which is amazing for small businesses.

But before we dive into that, Liz can you tell my audience if they haven't heard from you before, who you are and how you got to do what you do now?

Yeah, absolutely. So I started my business back in October 2010 and had other self employed businesses before then but when I was doing these things I was telling people on Facebook what I was doing and I noticed that ooh, they told their friends and I would actually get sales for what I was doing. I had two little businesses, one was walking dogs, and that was amazing, so I walk my dog in this area and look at this amazing photo and thought ooh can you walk my dog and I thought this was quite cool.

Just chatting on Facebook and another business I had when I had a proper job was selling chocolate bars and I am a complete chocoholic. I probably ate more than I sold but we made these wedding favours and personalised them for brides and again I would just take pictures of them, put them on Facebook, have a chat about them and I would go, ooh my friends getting married, she will want to talk to you and would get sales.

Yeah.

So it wasn't until I was made redundant from corporate that I realised that I needed to still earn money, what could I do? And I thought oh, there's something in this Facebook thing. It was really just gaining traction at that point and I thought you know I can see the power for businesses how they can tell people what they're doing and that's what really got me into Facebook marketing at first but at that point it was Twitter marketing and it was YouTube and it was LinkedIn.

I would talk to anyone about any type of social media platform but over the years that's really just niched in to just doing Facebook ads so it was first of all just Facebook and then really got into Facebook ads. That's been my evolution, short story, over the last nine years but loved every minute of it.

That's awesome, and finding something that you can niche [inaudible 00:07:26] in because I've always still stayed fairly wide in terms of what I talk about and what I know and that sort of thing and I've always wondered whether I should or wanted to, but I've never had that desire or call to, and I think when you do start finding that thing to grab onto and go actually no I'm going to be brilliant at this, it's fantastic isn't it because then that's what you're known for which is awesome.

What I really want to do for my audience today is, if you sat there listening, thinking I've never done it before and there are lots of people who don't advertise of Facebook and I'm not sitting here saying, I'm very careful to say that if you are doing something on Facebook right now that is working for you and you're not advertising, then great. Crack on. If it's working for you then brilliant but the chances are if you're using Facebook, you will find that the results you used to get or the results you want, you're not getting and advertising can really, really help with that.

 

Why Should You Advertise on Facebook?

 

So let's start with the basics. Why should they really consider advertising on Facebook? Why is it even a thing that they need to think about?

That's a great question and I agree with you because I don't think everyone is ready yet for Facebook ads. I think there is a right time and a wrong time to running them and in your infancy as a business owner and you're just starting out then it might not be the right time and I think if you really want to get into Facebook ads and get the benefit of them you probably want to be investing in them regularly, consistently and in the early days you might not have the cash flow to do that but I think for me if you are a business owner and you want to grow your business it's either going to take you time to do that.

If you want to do it organically, or it's going to take you money to do that and using paid traffic. So I think it becomes that choice of what's most valuable to me? Do I want some of my time back? Do I want to grow this faster? In which case you're looking at paid traffic and when you make that choice you can tap into with Facebook. You know we're talking millions and millions and billions of people out there and you can't tell me that your ideal audience isn't part of that.

I know Facebook gets a lot of bad press or its not as trendy as Instagram these days and all the old fuddy duddy's like Liz Melville are on there now but it's just simply not true and your ideal audience probably is on Facebook and what's more is they are telling Facebook everything. What they're eating, where they're eating, what magazines they like, what books they've read, where they live, their age, you name it, it is on Facebook. We spill our guts on Facebook and that is data that you can tap into as an advertiser.

So if you're sitting thinking how do I reach people? How do I get people to see what I've got to offer, then what better way then to just send an ad out and let Facebook do the work for you and take your message to millions of people.

Yeah, I love that and you know what, you've just hit on two things that I talk or think about a lot, so one my audience are on Facebook, no no no. I assure you someone, somewhere from your audience is on Facebook because like you said even though there are growing popularity in things like TikTok that I only vaguely know because my daughter's on there and I haven't yet thought about how that works from a business perspective or why or how I would use it but I know people are saying, "Oh it's not as popular." And my stepson, he's not on Facebook but your audience are.

It's still the biggest platform by far and then the other thing is how much they do know about us. I always, I don't know about you Liz, but I always get the whole well how do they know that? You know, how can they know these things and that's not right and my argument is two fold, it's kind of like, well if you don't like it, don't be on it.

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

If you don't put your stuff on there then they not going to know it and two, it's not just about when someone says to me you can search on salary. Well how do they know my salary? My answer, you might disagree and I'd love to hear your take on this but my answer is obviously they are gathering data in from everywhere and they're surmising stuff or they're making very smart assumptions about you live here, you have this type of job, you are this type of person, you are this and therefore we assume you'd be earning this type of money. That's how I think they would work that sort of stuff out. What do you think Liz?

They actually know, they know.

How?

It's not even figuring it out or assuming.

That's amazing, I didn't know that.

It is and what a lot of people don't realise and a lot of this came out in the Cambridge analytical scandal because Facebook have partner networks that they share data with.

Yeah.

They used to partner with companies like Axiom, Experian, insurance companies so of course they know if you've got pet insurance and it's for a dog, you're a dog owner so if I want to target dog owners who live in the UK within a certain radius of whatever town, then they can use that partner data to find you and it's going to... yeah because they've got insurance policy there, they fit the criteria you've just put in, so that's it.

So a lot of us, we might not have told Facebook about our lifestyle but we may have made a transaction or done something that is publicly, well, not publicly but certainly it can be shared data that can be tapped into.

Now a lot of that got crackdown so a lot of these partnerships were closed down after Cambridge analytica so we can't now target on things like income because a lot of these categories have gone but there's still an awful lot of data that Facebook has and has access to that makes the targeting very, very powerful indeed.

And there is, so from a marketers perspective, honestly it's one of the best things I've ever seen. The fact that I can target down to those things and they've got some other super cool things that you do with pixels and custom audiences and stuff which we'll get to but that for me, and presumably you are still finding it effective and useful because again there has been talk recently, over the past year but ads are less effective than they used to be but presumably or I certainly feel that they're still as effective or still effective for my business. What about you?

I take the view that having just finished up a launch for someone where they made five million dollars.

That went all right.

We used ads extensively. Are Facebook ads less effective? I think some business owners would say no and they would call time on that kind of talk. I think Facebook ads are still as effective as they ever were. They might cost you more.

Yeah.

But that's a lot of it because there are more people coming into the advertising space and using it and advertising space of Facebook is starting to become a little bit depleted but that said, it goes back to something you said at the start Teresa, not everybody's advertising on Facebook and actually if you looked at the whole population of Facebook business page owners, normally that would mean you're a business owner. Only 6% of them are actually advertising.

So there's actually a massive amount of people who are just not touching Facebook ads at all and what's great for us is if you are using Facebook ads and you getting that experience and you getting your reputation with Facebook as being a responsible advertiser then you've got a massive opportunity there to keep doing that and they will be effective for you.

Where I tend to see struggling entrepreneurs who are saying things like Facebook ads aren't effective anymore, it's because their strategies for using them are not effective.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think we were really lucky having, a, a social media that we didn't have to pay for that worked really well for our businesses in the first place and, b, even when the advertising kicked in a bit more that it's still really cost effective to advertise through that way. I'm old school marketer, I used to work for Land rover who would put adverts out that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and we would have no idea how effective they were and it was too late by then because it was a press ad or it was a TV ad or it was an event or whatever.

We didn't have the way and the flexibility that we have now that if we turn an ad on and it's not working once you've given it enough time to realise whether it's working or not. You can turn it off. I joke that when people come to me and say I want Facebook ads or what budget should I put on and it's like how much could you afford to lose?

 

Getting Started with Facebook Ads

 

For instance, if you're going to test something because in all honestly I don't know about you again, you might disagree Liz but I think I might know what the outcome of that ad might be but in all reality I don't because there are so many variables for every single advert even all my own stuff, some can go really well, others not so great and that could be the time of year. That could be the type of picture, that could be the audience, that can be the call to action, that could be all these other things so I never really know how it's going to go.

So in my opinion, how much can I afford to lose and not be too upset about that and the chances are I'm not going to lose that money and the chances are I'm going to get some results from it but that's how I kind of view when you first start out. What do you think?

Yeah and I would tend to agree because I think when you first start out with ads you're...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Growing your business doesn’t necessarily have to mean you want to earn lots of money or grow your team, it could just be that you want to lower your working days or you want to earn enough to take time off. Growing your business means creating the business that you want.
• There are sections to the MTC method – get seen, get emails, get sales and get fans.
• Each section is equally as important and they follow nicely on from one another.
• Getting emails focussing on finding out who out of those that has seen you, is interested in what you have to offer. One of the best ways to do this is to get emails.
• Where are you asking for sales? What are you doing to encourage them? Do you have sales pages? Are you doing webinars? Do you have client meetings?
• There are so many incredible ways to get seen, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, blogs, guest blogging, speaking, live video, SEO, AdWords, Facebook Ads, your website, PR, networking and your branding.
• LinkedIn is great for B2B businesses.
• Try to focus on just a number of things, rather than trying to be all things to everyone. Consistency is much more important.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…When it comes to getting seen you need to ensure you’re not forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. If you’re not going to enjoy what you’re doing, it’s not going to work for your business as you will find you’re less likely to stick at it.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• What Is the MTC Method? – 05:51
• The MTC Method – 08:54
• 10 Ways to Grow Your Audience and To Get More Customers In 10 Days – 12:13
• How to Get Seen – 14:13
• How I Get Seen – 22:45

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Tickets for MarketEd Live
• Sign Up for The Masterclass /masterclass
• 10 Ways To Grow Your Audience And To Get More Customers In 10 Days /10ways
• SEO SAS
• My Instagram
• My Twitter

Transcript below

 

Speaker 1: (00:33)

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? You know right before I got on this episode I was doing some work on upcoming episodes, looking at who we've got coming on the interviews and when they are and what episode they're going to be on and I can't actually believe I'm recording episode 81, it seems crazy. I've just sort of, obviously we have a folder for each episode on our shared drive. And I've literally just added a load more folders cause I'd run out and I've just literally gone up to a hundred and it feels like it's going to be there in no time at all. So I can't believe we're on episode 81 and I just wanna say thank you. Thank you so, so much for listening. And if you're new to the podcast, hello and welcome. Great to have you here!

Speaker 1: (01:22)

And let me just remind you guys what the podcast is about because obviously I went through a name change a little while back. It was, or it used to be Social Media Marketing Made Simple and now it's Marketing That Converts because I find that we were covering so much more than just social media. And actually where I really love sort of talking about and the things I think is super smart are things like funnels and ads and landing pages and sales pages and all the other good stuff and that it's not to say that I don't ever talk about social media cause I totally do. But I want to include that other stuff as well. And it was interesting, you know, when I was trying to come up with the name marketing that converts because at the same time I was trying to name my academy. And then from that I've since come up with now I shorten it sometimes because marketing that converts is point and my fault, I've shortened it to MTC, which I always get the wrong way round, which is embarrassing.

Speaker 1: (02:15)

Uh, normally I say MCT, but anyway, MTC and I've since come up with a method and a model. Now, I never intended on coming up with either of these things, but I'd worked with so many businesses over the years. I've been in marketing over 15 years. I did a marketing degree and I've worked with thousands upon thousands of businesses helping them to better market themselves. And I wanted to take some of that knowledge and, and some of that experience. And work out what makes some of those businesses really fly and really successful? And then some the aren't, what were the differences? Anyway, I ended up coming up with the MTC model, which interesting enough, I'm going to be talking about when I speak at MarketEd Live, that's going to be the first time I really present that to the world, which is going to be very excited if you haven't got a ticket. I think there are a few left, so do go check out MarketEd Live. I will put a link in the show notes. Just so you know, when I say there's a link in the show notes, what I mean is if you go to www.teresaheath-wareing all one word, so that's t, e, r, e, s, a, h, e, a, t, h, w a r, e, i, n, g, such a mindful.com a forward slash and whatever number episode you're listening to, but the numbers in, so today it's going to be forward slash 81 (www.teresaheathwareing.com/81) Then you're going to find all the notes to do with this show. You'll find a transcription that we do every week and anything that I say I'm linking up is on that page. So I've got loads of other things that I haven't talked about. So there's going to be quite a lot on that page today so do go check that out. Anyway. So yes, I'm talking about the model that MarketEd Live, which is very exciting. And then from the model I came up with the method, again, I never intended to come up with either of these, but it was like, great, now you know how to structure your business, how do you actually do it? How do you actually then turn people who are prospects into customers into loyal fans? And that's why I came up with the MTC method. So anyway, today's episode, I didn't really mean to go on that rant. Actually. If you are new you'll get used to this. Um, hopefully. So I didn't think to go on about that at this point cause that's what I'm talking about today. Just a slight, slight introduction to the MTC method and one of the sections in it. Anyway, I meant to sort of say welcome and kind of give you an idea of what the podcast is about. Hopefully, I did that during that long ramble.

(04:47)

Also, if you are new to the podcast, I have been having a real push on trying to get reviews. It's one of those things that that's one of the many ways in which iTunes rank you, so therefore the more people that do reviews and write review, the more higher up I am in the rankings and more people hear about the podcast. So I would love it so much. If you haven't yet, please go and give me a review. Obviously I'd love five stars and write a review as well. So if you just go onto, if you're on an iPhone, you can go onto the podcast app, you put in a Marketing That Converts or my name, you'll then see the podcast, you click on it, scroll right the way to the bottom past all the episodes, and it'll show you my reviews and ratings and you'll be able to rate me. And also it says write a review and I'd be so, so very grateful. Thank you so much.

 

What Is the MTC Method?

 

(05:41)

Okay, let's get on with today's episode. So I've already alluded to the fact that I'm going to be talking about my MTC method. Now really quickly let me explain what this is. I created a four step process on how you can grow your business because like I said, it was great that I put together this structure and I felt really happy and clear in my mind that there was this structure about how you should structure your business. However, I wasn't actually telling you how to then do it or I wasn't actually telling you, how to get customers. So the method was really kind of like the hands-on. This is what you actually do type thing. Now, a couple of things to mention before I go into it anymore is first off, when I talk about growing your business, it doesn't have to be that you want to get loads of money or you want a massive team or a big office or to be, you know, in the top 500 inc companies or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: (06:37)

It could just be that you want to work four days a week or three days a week. It could be that you want to earn enough money that you can take six months of the year off, whatever it might be. So when I say growing your business, it's more about creating the business that you want. And inevitably it means kind of finding the customers that you want, the right customers, charging them the right amount of money, and having that constant flow of customers coming in so that you're not ever sat there thinking, 'Oh my goodness, where are the customers? I've got no one coming in, or no one in the pipeline.' So that's one thing that I wanted to just mention. The other thing, I'm not going to go into this too much on the MTC method because I did a masterclass a few months ago where I talked about this and I talked people through it and it was great.

Speaker 1: (07:23)

I got such lovely feedback from the people who attended and I'm going to be doing another master class and very soon, and I'd love you to get signed up for that. So on this masterclass, like I said, I will be taking you through the method every single step. I will be giving you tonnes of ideas in which to do each step. We're going to look at one of those steps. Then I'm going to give you some ideas, but yeah, the masterclass itself is going to be on September the 24th I always have varying times for you, so no matter where you are in the world, I am hoping there'll be a time that is going to work for you, so do check that out. If you go to, and I'm going to obviously put this in the show notes again, but you can also go to teresaheathwareing.com/masterclass and you'll either have a waitlist signup, which also if you get on that it's great. I will let you know as soon as it's open or if it's open by the time you listened to this, then obviously you can just sign up straight away. But honestly it's going to be so good and I love doing live training. It's the one thing that.. Oh not the one thing. There's loads of things in my business that I love doing. But that for me is like one of the best things about I, if you've seen me do a live training before, you know I give away a tonne of content. I give lots of ideas because do you know what? I have done way too many live trainings and webinars that have wasted my time that I have thought, gosh this sounds good. I'm going to get some good stuff from this. And they've literally told me nothing. So that is not my aim at all.

 

The MTC Method

 

Speaker 1: (08:48)

Okay. So the first section of the MTC method is called Get Seen. And Get Seen is obviously at the beginning cause it's one of the most important things of the method. Well they're all equally as important as four of them Get Seen, Get Emails, Get Sales and Get Fans. So they are all equally weighted because you need each one of them. And basically the method walks people through what to do in each of those boxes. Because if you're not getting seen, if your key customers or prospects or anybody isn't seeing who you are and what you offer, then obviously you're never going to be able to get them to be a customer because they don't know you exist. So once they've seen you, the next section is they get emails. Now I call it Get Emails. But really what this is is a hand raiser.

Speaker 1: (09:35)

It's identifying from those people who have seen you, the people who are interested in taking it a bit further or who are interested in buying what you've got to sell. So get emails is really just them saying, yes, I'm interested. And one of the ways in which you do this is through asking for people's email addresses or it could be subscribers on a podcast or whatever. So, so that's an important step because again, the chances of someone just seeing you today on a Facebook ad or seeing you on a social media post or finding your website to then convert into a sale tomorrow is really unlikely. So you need to get them to take that step. So again, what are you doing in that box in order to get them to give their emails? Then you go into the next box onto the Get Sales.

Speaker 1: (10:18)

So again, where are you asking for these sales? What are you trying to do to encourage them? Are you doing webinars? Are you doing sales pages? If you're doing sales pages, how do they look? Is there the right content on them? Are you meeting objections? So there's the sales bit how you're going to actually ask them to get the sales. And it doesn't necessarily just need to be online stuff. It could be if you're writing a proposal or having a meeting and then the bit that most people forget, but actually it feeds back into the beginning is Get Fans. Once you've got someone who has purchased from you, how do you get them to love you and want to share from the rooftops how amazing you are. Now I'm very, very lucky that I've got some fabulous people in my academy already that are huge advocates of the academy.

Speaker 1: (11:06)

They are so pleased that they're in there. They'd been promoting it on social media and that's what I'm talking about. What are you doing to your customers to turn them into those fans? So in that sort of section, we might talk about adding value or doing those little extras or getting more personal with people. So for instance, when the academy opened the last time, it's shut at the moment it's opening again soon. When the academy opened and people purchased, I sent them all handwritten cards. I'm spoiling it man, because if you join when obviously I open it again, which I would love you to join, then you're going to know you're going to get a handwritten card. But it took me ages. Obviously I had to write loads of them and I wanted to write different stuff on every one. But that's the effort I was going to in order to really appreciate the people who were in there.

 

10 Ways to Grow Your Audience and To Get More Customers In 10 Days

 

Speaker 1: (11:50)

So I've talked you through those sort of things. I'm actually gonna put a picture of the full things up on the show notes page. So teresaheathwareing.com/81. So you can have a look at that kind of visual. So I've put a visual on there for you as well. Now let's start with Get Seen and let's focus on that for today's episode because what I've done for you today is I wanted to explain what options you've got in the Get Seen and I'm literally going to fly through a load of them because there are millions of ways in which you can get seen and get your business seen. Then I want to talk to you about the things that I do and the focusing down on a number of things because even though there are loads of things you can do, it doesn't mean you need to do more because obviously we just won't have time or energy to try and do all that stuff.

Speaker 1: (12:42)

And then I have put together this amazing freebie for you, which if you haven't grabbed already, cause I have had it out for a week or so, but I did it in particular to go alongside this episode. I've put this amazing freebie together for you, 10 Ways To Grow Your Audience and Get More Customers in 10 days. And what I've done is every single day, I have given you something that I would like you to do, which is very simple, very straightforward. I talk you through how to do it. These are going to take minutes of your day and in most cases cost nothing and I want you to try each of these things and then at the end of those 10 days, you're then going to be able to have a look and go, actually, what worked well for me? What did my audience engage with best? What did they not engage with? What did I like doing? What do I now think I can do consistently? Because obviously, consistency is key.

 

How to Get Seen

 

(13:39)

So that's what we're going to be going through. Like I said, I've got that amazing freebie for you. You can either get it on the show notes or you can get it at teresaheathwearing.com/10ways. So 10 as in the number and then ways. All one word, 10 ways. You can find that freebie there as well. Okay, so before I run...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• LinkedIn is the perfect platform business professionals who want to create better conversations with potential prospects.
• If you’re a small company selling B2C, you probably don’t need to invest a lot of time in LinkedIn. In the B2B industry, however, it can be incredibly powerful.
• LinkedIn is a great place to showcase your work, your personal brand and your recommendations.
• One of the most trusted platforms is LinkedIn, with 64% of B2B executives trusting the content they see.
• The first thing you need to focus on when it comes to your LinkedIn is your profile as this is what people are going to look at first. You don’t need to create a whole new profile, but you do need to find a way to reflect your brand.
• You need to think of your LinkedIn as a mini sales page. Think about your header image, your profile image, your headings and your experience. It’s important your information is buyer-centric so your potential clients can identify themselves in your content.
• Make sure you’re adding resources. Whether it’s blog posts, videos or places that you have been featured.
• When it comes to LinkedIn, it’s a great way to showcase your knowledge and experience without coming across as though you’re constantly selling your business.
• Share other people’s articles that you think your connections would enjoy. Not only does it show that you’re interested in the industry, but it encourages shares and engagement. Ultimately, this will help increase your overall visibility on the platform.
• Be aware of your audience and know what is suitable for LinkedIn and what isn’t. Just because other people are posting personal photos, it doesn’t mean you have to.
• Ads are great if you want to target micro-markets. If you want views, pay per click. If you want more clicks, pay per view.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…One of the most trusted platforms is LinkedIn, with 64% of B2B executives trusting the content they see. With various different platforms being known for fake news, it’s important you’re focussing on the platforms are trusted.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Viveka – 04:26
• Why Should You Be Considering LinkedIn? – 07:55
• Who Should Be Using LinkedIn? - 11:30
• How Do You Get Started with LinkedIn? - 18:40
• What Should You Be Posting on LinkedIn? - 27:17
• How Much of Your Personality Should You Be Sharing on LinkedIn? - 32:50
• Growing Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn - 42:00
• Using Ads on LinkedIn 49:11
• Should You Be Using LinkedIn Articles? - 51:36

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Viveka von Rosen Website
• Viveka von Rosen LinkedIn
• Viveka von Rosen Book

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Marketing That Converts Podcast, and thank you for joining me here today. It is always a pleasure to have you with me and to know that you're listening. I just wanted to say a very heartfelt welcome and thank you. While I'm talking about this actually, I'm always really keen to hear from people. I think I mentioned it in the last episode, but I'm going to mention it right here at the beginning before we get started, so I know that you're listening.

I'd really love you to come and reach out and find me, DM me on your favourite platform, I'm on them all as you know, or hit reply to one of my emails if you're on my email list and come and find me and say hello, tell me who you are, tell me where you're listening from and what you do because I'd love to find out more about you, and with the podcast the stats are really difficult, so it's really hard to get a good idea of who my audience are.

Now, I think I have a fair idea, but I just want to get as much information as I can so that I can make sure I'm bringing you the episodes that you want in the future. And also while I'm in the asking mood, if there's any chance you could head over to iTunes and drop me a review, I would appreciate that so very, very much. You just go to your main podcast page, you find me, I think you scroll to the bottom of the page and that's where the reviews are and you'll have the opportunity to leave me a five star review and if you could say something lovely, that would be absolutely amazing. I see them all and I appreciate them greatly.

And also from a podcasting point of view, it obviously helps me get found and get more listeners, which again I would really, really appreciate. I know you're busy, I know you've got stuff to do, so if you could find that time then I honestly do appreciate you very, very much. Like I said, do let me know what you want me to talk about. Do let me know if there's anything that you think, "Teresa, an episode on this would be so helpful," it would be great to hear from you.

Okay, so today is actually one of those episodes that I think you're going to love, because it is something that we've not really done before, but I know you guys have been asking for it and I know that this is something that we should have talked about for a long, long time. Today we're talking to the amazing Viveka Von Rosen, and she is a ... Of bestselling books, LinkedIn Marketing, An Hour a Day, and LinkedIn 101 Ways To Rock Your Personal Brand.

She really is the expert when it comes to using LinkedIn for your business. We have a really good chat about LinkedIn, and what it is now, and why you should think about it and not just if you are looking for a job or a recruiter that really why everyone should be considering their LinkedIn profiles and thinking about how to use it. She talks us through the main things that you should make sure your profile is doing, so literally the top three things that you should be focusing on.

And then we talk about content. What should you be putting on LinkedIn? What shouldn't you be putting on LinkedIn? Because as you hear me say in the interview, I once had a LinkedIn requests from a guy with no top on and quite honestly I'm not sure I'd accept that request anywhere, but certainly not on LinkedIn. It's not the place for it.

This is going to be a really, really good one. Like I said, if you're not doing too much on LinkedIn, then it's definitely worth thinking about this and definitely worth listening to this episode. Also if you are B2B, then honestly LinkedIn is a real winner for you, because right now it's really hot. It's really working well. You're getting seen in much more on LinkedIn than maybe you might be on your Facebook account.

Again, definitely, definitely worth having a listen to this episode. And Viveka was so lovely, we had such laugh and we had a good chat beforehand, and a good chat afterwards and she was such a nice lady. I really did enjoy having it on the podcast and enjoyed talking to her about this.

You know what, I'm going to leave it there and I'm going to let you jump straight into the episode and listen to her because there's some great stuff in there that you're going to get from this episode and I'll see you on the other side.

 

Introducing Viveka

 

It gives me such pleasure today to welcome Viveka von Rosen to the podcast. Welcome Viveka. How are you?

Thank you so much, excellent.

Good, good stuff. Viveka, I'm really pleased to have you on today because do you know what? Somehow I have got to episode, I think we're on episode 80, and we haven't really talked about LinkedIn and I've had no one on to talk about LinkedIn. You know what's really funny at the moment is my husband is leaving the military after 25 years, and suddenly he is asking me question, after question, after question, about LinkedIn and I'm like I think this is how you do it or I'm trying to help about it but it's just so funny, because he's all over LinkedIn at the moment and he was so excited when he heard I was interviewing you today. Yeah, this is kind of very good timing for me in a personal point of view.

Viveka, if my audience don't know who you are, which I'm sure they do, but if they haven't heard from you, can you give us just a little bit of a bio as to what you've done and how you've got to do what you do now.

Sure. Sure. So my name obviously Viveka Von Rosen. My Twitter handle, LinkedIn handle, Facebook handle, Instagram handle, YouTube handle is LinkedIn Experts. If you've heard of me, it's probably because you once Googled LinkedIn expert and my name came up first, so thank you Google. Wonderful SEO there that I never-

Yeah, that's awesome. Good idea.

Right. The problem with that is having to prove it's true now for the past 15 years or so but, yeah, I've been teaching and training on LinkedIn since about 2005, 2006. I've had my own company, I just started a new company with my partners which is a whole other story in and of itself. Yeah, I'm a huge LinkedIn advocate, even when I'm mad at the platform, I'm still a huge LinkedIn advocate and I still think it's such a powerful tool for business people, business owners, people like your husband who are in transition, folks who are in sales and marketing.

It isn't just for job seekers anymore. And it's not just for spammy network marketers anymore either. It's really, it's for the business person, either a professional within a company or owns their own company who wants to create better conversations with prospects. And that's the one thing that LinkedIn can really help you do.

Yeah. You know what, LinkedIn has had a bit of a rocky past, hasn't it? In the sense of, it wasn't great for ages and it was ugly and it was like not intuitive at all. It was a really difficult platform to get rained. And so it didn't do itself any favours, did it? For ages and ages. And then suddenly, I think probably in the last, I mean maybe even longer than this, but it's three, six months, it's like, no, no, no, honestly, this is a real contender.

I think you can explain obviously lots of reasons why it's a real contender, but suddenly now people are going to LinkedIn to do their live videos, to put videos up, to do their marketing rather than necessarily just looking straight at Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Suddenly LinkedIn is now really coming into its own really, isn't it? So yeah, just sort of give us a bit of an overview on why we should be even considering LinkedIn and thinking about it for our businesses.

 

Why Should You Be Considering LinkedIn?

 

Sure. Well, from 2003 to about 2010, really for seven years, it was such an ugly platform and it was ... Yeah, it was really mostly for job seekers. Salespeople were beginning to understand that [inaudible 00:08:15] Rolodex on steroids. It was using a lot of, integrating a lot of third part apps to make its features and functions work. It was okay, but it certainly wasn't nearly as much fun as Facebook, Twitter and then later Instagram and YouTube and all of the other ones. It was, it was ugly and boring for a long, long time.

And then right before my book published with the old platform, they decided to overhaul the whole thing [crosstalk 00:08:44] that was 2011. They hadn't made a change to it in like seven years.

You are kidding.

Viveka's publishing a book, let's change the whole thing.

Yeah, she says she's a LinkedIn expert, we'll see.

We'll show her.

That is [inaudible 00:08:59].

Planning a book a week while we took a whole bunch of new screenshots. But yeah, and that was kind of my favourite time up until right now, of LinkedIn because it had a better platform, it was better looking, it still had an open API, you still could use it with a lot of third party apps. And then they decided we're going to sell LinkedIn and we're going to make lots of money, we're going to go public, and then they locked everything down. And then it was a kind of a sucky platform honestly, for three or four years, I think, until even while it went public, because they were just doing what needed to be done to keep the Stockholders happy, and I think it really restricted visibility of LinkedIn. Then went back down into the dumps again a little bit, and I was like, "No, really, it's a good platform."

But then Microsoft bought them. A lot of people were afraid of that and they thought, "Here it goes, LinkedIn's going to suck now." But really, they put their resources, they put their people, they put their money behind it and it's still pretty close. We can't use a lot of third party apps with it, which might be a good thing because there are a lot of spammy apps out there. Nonetheless, it's still a very functional, I think it's still a very functional platform. It's not as intuitive as it looks, but that's why I have a job. But it's still much better than it was, and I think people really are beginning to realise what a good platform it can be and how powerful it can be, whether you're in sales, marketing, business owner, job seeker, whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Today what is really interesting, I was actually really positive about Microsoft buying it, because of the fact that they needed money. Take Facebook, I always say, I feel sorry for someone like Twitter, because Twitter comes up with these great ideas. They were the first to live stream, and they were the first to come up with some of these amazing things they have, but they weren't very good at it. So then Facebook took a look and went, "Oh, we could do that way better." They had the money and the time to invest.

For me, when I saw that Microsoft, my only disappointment was I thought they'd go crazy straight away. I thought they'd want to put a huge stamp on it, change everything and make it beautiful, and they didn't, and it seemed quite slow going, which possibly was a really good thing. But I was always quite positive. And also I felt like, because Microsoft hadn't got a social media platform, so I felt like this is going to be their thing to get in on and be like, yeah, you know, this is awesome.

 

Who Should Be Using LinkedIn?

 

But like you said, I think LinkedIn still, and it's interesting, I was having this conversation with my husband, is still very much seen as a platform for jobs and salespeople and recruiters, because obviously we all know about being bombarded by recruiters. But actually it's so much more than that, isn't it now, for any. Is there anybody that you wouldn't be sat there going, LinkedIn isn't good for you, or industries that you think, not the LinkedIn?

I think there's a place for LinkedIn, for almost every business or industry, because you can use it in some way, shape, or form. If you made me say that there's someone, probably the smaller B2C with the smaller product skew. If you sell $5, $10, $25, $30 things, if you've got a store front and you're selling to consumers, groceries or whatever, you probably don't want to spend a whole lot of time on LinkedIn. But with the bigger skew, certainly within the B2B market, I think it's a very, very powerful programme for everybody.

It's funny because marketers get it, a lot of marketers, not all marketers, especially the independent solopreneur, entrepreneur, marketer, or business owner and marketer, they kind of get it. They see the power of it. Some corporate marketers don't get it yet. They're still not bought into social. They're still paying for ads, and they're still putting up billboards for heaven sakes. So some of those marketers don't get it yet. And then a lot of salespeople don't get it yet just because they haven't been educated in the right way and they haven't been educated in the right way to utilise the marketer mindset and the marketer resource as a salesperson.

I think that shifting, I'm doing my best to bring that [inaudible 00:13:34], but it's still not 100% accepted, I think as a tool by sales and marketing people, even though as modern consumers, especially as a modern B2B consumer, they're using LinkedIn left, right, and centre. Whether you're a B2B marketer or a seller and you think LinkedIn's a spot or not, rest assured, the modern P2B buyer is absolutely convinced in LinkedIn.

They're using it to just research their sellers, they're using its research company. They're using it to look for constant, so it is a really, really powerful tool that hopefully people will adopt more and use more strategically than just a Rolodex on steroids or more strategically than just like, let's connect, and by the way, here's some spam.

Yes, yeah, because obviously like every platform, there's that isn't there? And like any platform, there are people that are using it really well and people that are using it and not so well. There's a couple of things that when I think about LinkedIn that I've said in the past, and now you can tell me where I'm wrong or right, but for me, one of the things I would say about LinkedIn is that it's the one place you can show off without looking like you're showing off. This is the one place where you can go, look, I've ... Look at all this experience, look all these things, people saying nice things about me. It feels to me that you can be very confident about you and your offering without looking like you're being a real show off.

That's so interesting because yes, I agree 100%. I mean they have recommendations for heaven sakes [inaudible 00:15:15] a feature that actually pulls those in your profile, which not enough people use and more people should use those. But to your point, yeah, it's a great place to showcase your knowledge through the content that you share, to showcase your personal brand through your profile, and then of course recommendations and things like that.

What's interesting is, and it tends to skew male, female and then also some country's culture. It's like, Oh I couldn't possibly say anything about myself, and I would be too braggy. So you get a lot of women or you'll get a lot of country culture that people won't allow their brilliance to shine through their LinkedIn profile, and there's so much opportunity lost there. And sure, there's ways of going like, "Oh, I'm a quota crushing sales guy and I'm awesome, you should totally buy all my stuff all the time, because I rock the most."

But, there's also like, "Hi, would you please buy from me."

There's a lot of grey area in between those two and unfortunately most profiles seem to be like one [inaudible 00:16:21]

Yeah, they're either one or the other. The other thing I heard or read or made up, I can never tell, but isn't LinkedIn one of the most trusted platforms?

It is. Especially by B2B executives. I'm probably going to make this one totally up. I'll be off by a few percent [inaudible 00:16:41].

Yeah, I have no idea.

[inaudible 00:16:49] something like 64% of B2B executives trust the content on LinkedIn. And then there's a really high number, it's like 98% of B2B content that they read comes from LinkedIn in some way, shape or form. That's too high, but it's somewhere between 60 and 90. It's really high anyway, and it's two or three times that of any other social platform.

Yeah, and that's just amazing.

If you really want to look it up, look at HubSpot, B2B, LinkedIn stats, you'll see them.

Yeah, and honestly, in a world where at the moment no one trusts Facebook to do anything, our trust is very down.

[crosstalk 00:17:24].

Yes [crosstalk 00:17:26] what's going to happen there, and then also, we even take something like Instagram, we don't trust what each other's putting on because we only put the best of everything on. And so we do feel like, because it's more...