Your Dream Business

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• It's okay to be the person that has all the ideas, but who struggles to put them into fruition. It’s okay to be good at carrying out ideas, but awful at coming up with them. It’s okay to stop doing things you don’t want to do.
• Instagram is the most engaging social media platform as the app makes it easy for people to interact and engage with you easily.
• The swipe up feature on Instagram stories isn’t as people think it is it is not a traffic driving platform. This means it’s better to focus all your interaction, content and engagement within the app itself.
• Growing your following on Instagram takes completely clarity other who you want to follow you. Once you know who you want as a follower, you’ll know what content you need to post.
• It’s important to engage more than you post. This includes engaging with people in the discover tag and engaging with them – almost like a virtual tap to say, ‘I’m here!’.
• When using Instagram Stories, it’s important that your stories have a beginning, middle and end.
• Often the pictures that generate the most engagement are the pictures that feature you and although it may seem scary to share yourself on your feed, it gets easier the more you do it.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Above all else, it’s better to have 500 followers that engage with you and care about what you post, rather than 10,000 followers that don’t want to follow you at all.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Tyler and his story – 03:40
• Don’t overwork yourself – 15:05
• Tyler’s start on Instagram – 19:20
• Growing your Instagram following - 22:30
• Success with Instagram Stories – 28:00
• Creating amazing Instagram content – 31:30

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Tyler J McCall’s Instagram
• Tyler J McCalls’s Membership

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you've had a great week, and it's been super productive. After my last week's episode, it was all about driving forward and trying to take action. I'm really interested to hear from some of you who have mentioned the sorts of things that you have done to drive your business forward. Super excited about that. If you haven't yet let me know, then please come and find me. I'm mostly around Instagram a lot, but on all the platforms. Come and connect, and tell me how you're getting on, and what your big amazing plans are for the rest of the year.

Today's episode I am interviewing the super lovely, Tyler J. McCall. If you've not heard of him, he is an Instagram and Social Media Marketing Strategist Coach for creatives and online business owners. He teaches students how to use Instagram with intention, to grow their community online, and grow their business. Tyler focuses on using Instagram and social media to tell stories, build relationships, and convert followers to fans. Drawing from his 10 years experience in non-profit marketing, and management of a community organisation, he's taught thousands of entrepreneurs and managed dozens of Instagram accounts since getting into the online marketing game back in 2015. Tyler is based over in Chicago, and lives with his partner Eric.

Today's episode is a really good one. We had such a great chat. He has a great story to tell. Some really big things happened in his life, and quite sad things that made him reassess where he was with his business. Overnight, he fired all his clients. As I have a business or part of the business that has clients, boy could I understand how terrifying that would be. But anyway, his story is so good he fired his clients, and he started the online membership that he now has today. How his business has grown has been phenomenal.

He also then shared with us some great tips about Instagram. He walked us through why he thinks businesses should look at it. If you're not on it, or you're not using it for business, then definitely take a listen to this one 'cause I think he'll change your mind. He then talked about how he uses his Instagram, how he gets more followers. That was a really good conversation because followers is something that people always struggle with, so he gave us some great tips about how to get more followers. Then he talked about how he uses Instagram Stories, which again, has been some different conversations to the ones I've had in the past. Some really, really good advice and story from such a nice guy today.

I'm really hoping you're gonna enjoy this one. What I want you to do is once you've listened to it, I want you to do an Insta Story, 'cause I want to see that you're putting this stuff into practise, and make sure that you tag both myself and Tyler J. McCall in, and basically tell us what you thought, and tell us what you liked about it. We'd love to hear. Anyway, I'm not gonna go on any longer. I'm gonna jump straight in. Here's the interview with Tyler J. McCall.

 

Introducing Tyler and his story

 

I am so excited and have the absolute pleasure of introducing Tyler to this week's episode of the podcast. Welcome, Tyler.

Oh my gosh, Teresa. Thank you for having me.

No, thank you so much for joining me. This is a really apt time to have you on because we've just been chatting before we came on, saying that I've just been out to the states to do Business By Design, and you were a Business By Design student. That's how I found out about you. It's really exciting, that all this has happened at this point. It's great.

I love it.

Tyler, I've been following you on Instagram. I love watching your Insta Stories. They're very entertaining. I have recently had the pleasure of listening to your story, and how you got to where you are today, which is a phenomenal story. For the likes of us who are maybe not right at the start of our journey, but working towards trying to get somewhere amazing, you are a great example of what's to come. I'd love it if you could share with my audience just a bit about how you got started, and then how you got to where you are today.

Yeah, of course. I got my start after college, in the non-profit world. That was the thing that I studied in school, that's the thing that I wanted to do. I went to work in the YMCA right after college. The YMCA's different all over the world. Here in the states, the YMCA is typically gym, and swim, a child care, those types of organisations. That's what I did right after college, I went to work for the YMCA, managing an office, ordering toner for the copier, making sure we had enough staples and stuff.

The important ...

The important things. Yes.

But over time in the YMCA, I was able to work my way up, and working in the membership world, and started doing more marketing, and running the Facebook page for this thing, or helping out with Twitter here. Eventually I spent about six years in the YMCA, and the membership, and marketing, and operations world. All my time there was really about relationships with people, relationships with members, and donors, and volunteers, and communicating the Y's mission to other people.

Toward the end of my time at the YMCA, I started getting antsy, because my personality, I'm the type of person that loves to start things. I have huge ideas. I'm a visionary and thinking about the next big thing, but the follow-through is not where I'm skilled.

I love your honestly.

Right? It's cool being in my business now where I can say, "You could just hire people to do the follow-through." That's a really great thing to think about, accomplishing business.

I started getting antsy toward the end of my time at the YMCA, and I started a business making a handmade product. I made a room and linen spray using essential oils. I was just selling it at trunk fairs, selling it to my friends, my dad loved it. Every day he was like, "Do you some more of that spray? Can I get some more of that spray?" He was my favourite customer. But spoiler alert, you can't really build a business as your dad as your best customer. But he loved it.

I started sharing about it on Instagram. I had built these relationships with influencers, and bloggers, and home décor folks on the platform. Oh gosh, this was like four years ago, before really any of the idea of an influencer was really a thing on Instagram. I had all these relationships with incredible people on the platform, tens and hundreds of thousands of followers. I introduced my handmade product, and I just started messaging them and saying, "Hey, I made this thing. I'd love to send you some for you to try it out. Just let me know what you think." The all said, "Yes." I was like, "Oh, okay. I'm onto something here. Real relationships with real people." They all tried it, they all loved it, thankfully. Or at least they told me. Who's knows if they really did.

They could have hated it.

I know, right? Then so many of them bought it, and then so many of them shared, promoted it on their platform. I was like, "There's something here. There's something to this, having real conversations with real people."

Toward the end of my time in the YMCA, I started freelancing, and managing other peoples' Instagram accounts, working with local businesses, creating content for them, managing their accounts, growing their followings, doing all of that. Eventually I was able to leave my full-time job and do that full-time, so doing social media management. That's what I did for about a year and a half. Then I reached this pivotal point in my business where I was working a lot. Like a lot, a lot, a lot. But I didn't really have much to show for it in terms of money, which was this measure of whether or not this was working. My time was stretched pretty thin.

While all this was happening, I was working a tonne, managing accounts, coaching people, writing social media strategy, my dad got sick. He had this weird thing happen with his back. We found out it was something much larger than that. He had to have major surgery. All this went on for months and months, and then at the end of June 2017 ... We're in 2018 now. You reach a point where you can't remember what year it is.

I have no idea what day it is, let alone year.

No idea. No idea, #entrepreneurproblems. End of June 2017, my dad passed away very suddenly.

Aw, that's so sad.

Thank you. It changed everything in my life, and my business. I had this wake up call in my business that I was not running a business that was the kind of business I wanted to run. It was taking up too much of my life, and I wanted more freedom, I wanted more space, I wanted more time.

This is a very short and sweet story. It gets very long and drawn out. I apologise for the length of the story. This is the short version. What ended up happening at the end of 2017 is I actually did that big scary thing that so many times, so many of want to do but we never do. That is, I fired all of my clients. I stopped taking on the work that was draining me. I burned all those bridges in my business and started brand new, with a brand new product, which is an online membership community. Which is what I do now, educate entrepreneurs on how to market online using Instagram. That was a little over a year ago. Everything has changed in my life and my business. I used what I learned in Business By Design, and how to create a leveraged offer, how to get an alignment with my offer, how to get that offer out to the world, to my audience, how to launch, and then have gone on from there.

I love sharing my story because I think there are a few key things that are really valuable for people. I think the first thing is the realisation that it's okay to be really good at certain things. It's okay to be really good at starting things, and having ideas, but struggle with the follow-through. It's also okay to be really incredible at following through and getting things done, but having trouble with coming up with ideas or solutions to problems. Both of those things are totally okay. It's okay to build a business with those in mind as well. It's also okay to stop doing shit that you don't want to do anymore. It's okay to do that, that you should do that. It's okay, yeah. Yeah.

[inaudible 00:11:14]. I think it's so interesting because actually one thing that strikes you when you start your own business is you've got to do all these things that you never knew how to do. The thing that you know how to do and that you're good at, is only a part of what you do every day. Like you said, there's all these other things. I'm a little bit like you in that sense that I love coming up with ideas. But if I'm always the holder, like I'm the one who takes forever to do them, so I don't finish as well as I should. I think sometimes we think to ourselves, "We've got to be brilliant at this." But actually, why? Why do we need to be brilliant at it?

I love your story. I love the fact that you started your life working, which actually is interesting. 'Cause when I hear so many other entrepreneurs' stories, they're always a case of, "Yeah, I did it. From a child, I remember trying to start my own business." I never did. I literally started four or five years ago. It was interesting to go from that transition, then to literally fire all your clients. Obviously I love my clients, but I can't tell you how you must have felt. That must have been crazy good, but terrifying at the same time.

So terrifying. So terrifying. But so necessary.

One thing I realised about myself is when I left my non-profit job and went to work for myself full-time, I did all the things that you're supposed to do. I saved money, we had paid off all of our credit cards, we had all this space, we were able to pay our bills for six months of I can't get a single client, we would be totally fine. Which is smart. You should do those things.

What I found for myself is that it made me very lazy, and that I had too much of a cushion. I didn't have enough of that pain or anxiety to do the dang thing. When it was time to transition to my business, I was like, "I'm not gonna do that same thing again," because what I knew myself and what I would do is I would just drag this out and keep making it easy for me, and then never give my full attention to the thing that needed my full attention. I was like, "Okay, this is happening."

This is also at the same time, we moved to Chicago at the same, from North Carolina. All the things were happening. I'll be honest, we got here, we paid our first month's rent and we were broke. We were out of money. I didn't know what we were gonna do next. Fortunately we had launched this thing that's worked really well since then, but for me, I needed that pressure to actually see the results that I ended up getting.

That's so funny because I totally agree with you. I started my business, I had no savings and my husband had just left me. I had got a daughter to look after, and a house to keep paying. I literally had one month's salary, that was it. Like we said, you don't have a choice, you've got to do it. Whereas I would be the same, and I'm almost ...

The new part of my business that I'm trying to transition into is actually going slower because of the fact that I've still got money coming in from clients, and I have a business. Like you said, that pain isn't there, that fear, or panic, or, "Oh my God, I've got to do this." Sometimes I think you need that to actually get your backside moving, don't you?

Yeah. Yeah.

'Cause otherwise we're just like, "Oh, we're okay."

Maybe not every one needs that, but Teresa and I need that.

Yeah, [inaudible 00:14:42]. Maybe I should fire [inaudible 00:14:43].

We want to start stuff and not finish it, and we need to not know where I our next meal is coming from so we can actually do the work.

Basically put ourselves through sheer panic all the time, and our businesses will be amazing.

Yeah, just see what we can create.

Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book. I should just fire all my clients tomorrow. My husband would have a heart attack. [inaudible 00:15:02].

 

Don’t overwork yourself

 

Also, I remember you saying, when you read your story to me 'cause I like to listen to things. When you talked about your story, one thing that really hit home for me, actually, about the whole working so hard, and at the point where your dad was in hospital, and at this point you didn't know it was gonna end the way it did, did you?

No.

He was getting better.

Yeah.

You were in hospital, and I remember you saying that you sat there working. He was like, "That's fine, you've got work to do. That's okay. Carry on." But I just think back to all those times where my husband and I have just been in Laguna Beach, and I was at the conference, then I spent Saturday working on my laptop, in a bar. It's not the worst place in the world to be, but I'm still doing work. Then my daughter would come home and mummy, terrible mum girl, where I take her up to bed and she's like, "Will you stay with me for a bit?" It's like, "I will, but I've got to go downstairs. I've got to finish that thing." I totally ...

When you said that, I just thought, "Oh wow." That for me was not a surprise that you went, "I can't carry on like this. I can't do ..."

Yeah, yeah. That was the last time that I spent time with my dad. I was on my laptop the whole time, sitting in this hospital room, after he had had this major spinal cord surgery. Of course, he was like, "That's fine." He loved the fact that I was an entrepreneur. He loved the fact that I had my own business. Every time I did a launch or anything, he wanted to know all the details 'cause he was so excited for me. Even when my business transitioned, I wasn't taking clients as much anymore, he was always sending me, "I talked to a random delivery guy that sells this thing at work today, and they need help on Facebook." Connecting me with people. I'm like, "I don't do that, but okay cool. Thank you, Dad."

Thank you, Dad.

Yeah. But that was the last time I got to spend with him, and in person. I was working. That's not the kind of life I wanted.

You know, you couldn't have known, could you? But like you said, it just makes you go, "Oh man, do I want to feel that I'm pinned down to this?" Again, we were just saying before the call, that one of the things that James Redmore talks about all the time is the less you work, basically, the more you earn. Which is not a concept that I'm sure most of the listeners to this podcast are familiar with, 'cause it's drummed into us as children, or from our parents, or from the world that if you want to earn money, you work really hard.

How amazing to get that revelation of, actually this is the best year you've ever had. This year is gonna be the best you've ever had.

Oh yeah. I mean financially in the business, yes. It's a game changer.

Actually considering what you did before to what you do now, it must just feel like a dream.

It does. Something else that I think a lot too, and I share with folks is ... I mean, the money is incredible, having a leveraged offer like a course or a membership, group coaching. The ability to bring in revenue and income just increases exponentially. But for me too, it's the realisation that my...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• When running your own business, it’s important to take time out and think about to motivate yourself, manage yourself and keep yourself in the right mindset.
• Surround yourself with people who are like the person you want to be.
• Sometimes you may over estimate what you can do in a day, but it’s important not to under estimate what you can do in a year.
• Even though it’s coming up to the end of the year, it’s important not to slow down. There’s still time to launch a new service, release a new product or do something amazing before 2018 is over.
• Vision boards are an incredible tool for those that like to visualise their goals, especially when you get to the point of being able to cross something off and say ‘yes, I’ve done that!’.
• Not everything on your vision board must have a deadline.
• Keep your vision board in a place where you will see it everyday and be reminded of what you’re working to achieve.
• If don’t have a vision board or you’ve not thought about creating one before, go for it. Make your goals as wild as possible and dream bigger than you’ve ever dreamed before.
• Make your vision board as realistic as possible by printing out pictures of what you want and physically sticking them on there.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Even though you may have a vision for your business and you know what you want your business to look like, you need to be the entrepreneur your business needs you to be. Behave how your future business needs you to behave.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Motivating yourself in business 03:35
• Powering through the last two months 06:40
• The importance of having a vision board 08:13
• What’s on my vision board 10:58
• Tips for creating your own vision board 18:30
• My goals for the rest of the year 20:45

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• My TEDx Talk
• Wait list for my new course

Want the Transcript - click here!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Small businesses are where the passion is, and that’s who people want to spend their money with. It’s no longer big companies and high budgets, so everyone has an equal chance.
• Tell your personal story with social media and people will want to buy from you.
• People that are listening to speakers want to be a part of the conversation. They don’t want to be talked at, but instead brought along on the journey with you.
• It’s not about knowing your audience and knowing your subject matter, its about conveying things in way that makes people want to listen, learn and do.
• Whatever you’re doing in store or in person, you need to do online. Tell stories, care and show you’re interested in your clients and customers.
• 3 out of 4 people would rather buy into an ‘experience’ than a product, so tailor your website and social media to reflect this.
• Limitations inspire creativity.
• It’s important to have good relationships with people to help grow the speaking side of the business. The more times you speak, the more speaking gigs you will get. Put yourself out there and be willing to immerse yourself into events to show your worth.
• Own everything that makes you a success.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Although it may not seem like it, digital marketing and social media creates a level playing field for both large and small businesses. You don’t have to have big budgets to succeed where it comes to marketing as it’s all about telling your story and focussing on where the heart is.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Brian Fanzo – 03:50
• Tell your story with marketing – 14:00
• Brian’s story and how he got started - 20:09
• Being a natural on stage 30:30
• Being the same person offline as you are online 37:30
• Growing the speaking side of your business 44:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• iSocialFanz
• Fomo Fanz
• SMAC Talk
• Brian Fanzo Twitter
• Brian Fanzo Instagram

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to episode 37 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. This week there's gonna be no hanging about, we're gonna jump straight into it, because I am batching content right before I go to the States. I'm heading off to California and Laguna Beach for a conference, so I'm trying to get ahead. By the time this airs actually I'll be back, but I'm trying to get ahead, get these podcasts recorded so that I can then relax, maybe, for a little bit while I'm in California.

So the inspiration for today's episode is all around how we're standing out in a really noisy environment. Social media world in particular is very noisy. There are a lot of people that do it, there are a lot of people that do what I do, lots of people trying to build their businesses, and I'm sure in your world, unless you're in a real niche area, there are also lots of other people that are trying to do what you do.

Back on episode 26, which we'll link in the show notes, we talk about the five tips of building a personal brand, which if you're trying to stand out in a noisy industry, building a personal brand can be a great way for you to do that. And one of the areas we looked at when we talked about the ways to build your personal brand was speaking, and how if you're willing to speak and put yourself on stage, this can really help you stand out. Now personally, I love it. I know it's not for everyone, I know some people ... I think there's a stat that more people would be willing to bungee jump than speak on stage, I think. I could have just made that up.

Anyway, I love speaking and it's an area that I wanna grow in my business. That's why I was so excited to interview today's podcast guest, the amazing Brian Fanzo. Now he spends about 80% of his time speaking and travelling all over the world to speak, and about 90% of his revenue now comes from speaking on stage. And to think that my business could be predominantly spent speaking would be like a dream come true.

So Brian is the founder of iSocialFanz, and he says that he translates the geek speak and is on a mission to empower great people to connect with great people, and ideas to create life changing experiences. He's a millennial speaker and he mainly talks around change, collaboration and community. He's the proud dad of three beautiful girls, and is the host of the podcast FOMOFanz and SMACtalk. He used to work for the Department of Defence in Cybersecurity, so has taken quite a leap to do what he does now. As I've said, he speaks for a living and has travelled to over 70 countries, and has spoke at some of the world's largest events, including Social Media Marketing World, SXSW, CES Mobile World Congress. And Brian is a huge advocate of being authentic and showing up as his true self. He was a pleasure to interview and I know you are going to love him. So I'll waste no more time and we'll jump straight into that interview.

 

Introducing Brian Fanzo

 

Well it gives me so much pleasure to welcome you, Brian, to my podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

My pleasure, excited to be here.

Oh, and honestly I am really, really excited. I've been following you for quite some time and watch your stuff, and actually last year you were meant to speak at Marketed Live weren't you, and-

I was.

There was a problem with your flight in coming out and you didn't, and you sent a video. So this feels like it's been a long time coming, which is cool, because I've been watching your stuff ever since.

I know, I missed out on that opportunity but I'm glad we're able to still make connections and I get to watch the event from afar for the last two years, and very proud of those guys so maybe I'll have to make a trek out there next year.

Oh do you know we'd love that, and honestly it's a great event. And one other thing that's really interesting, because one of the things I really want to talk to you about in a bit is about you speaking, but the funny thing is the UK does not have a lot of good events. We are not very good at it. You guys in the States do an amazing job, whereas over here we are terrible at it. We tend to do quite boring conferences, so we're starting to see some of that cool stuff coming over from that side of the world and actually Marketed Live is one of those that are really trying to up the game. We've got a couple of others that are over here that are quite good, but yeah, I think that's gonna be a really nice thing to watch and hopefully grow and see how that goes. So fingers crossed you can come across for that again.

Sure.

Brian I love your story and I love hearing where you've come from, and what you used to do, and how you got to do what you do now, which seems a little bit of a jump. So I would love it if you would share with my audience where you started and how you got to do what you do now.

Sure. I guess I'm known for digital marketing social media today, but I went to school, I went to University for Computer Science, and I then I actually worked in Cybersecurity for the Department of Defence here in the United States for nine years. So it's definitely not your tradition path to marketing. I actually joke a lot that my guidance counsellors in school didn't really tell me very much about marketing. They always positioned it as, you just help the sales people sell. And to me I was like, eww I don't wanna do that, so I loved computers, I fell in love with computers, and then I had an amazing job. I had 32 direct reports that worked for me, employees that are on my team, and we grew a giant cyber security team that we were deploying training courses at all different military bases around the world.

And so I got to travel, I've actually been to 74 countries, which is a tonne of countries, and it was great. I worked for the government, I travelled on government money, I did three trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan during the early war years, and I got to work with the military. And I know you said your husband is in the military-

Yes.

And I have so much love for the military, I have military families that I love. I wasn't in the military, but for me it was my little ability to be able to educate them, help them do their job better. I believe the sacrifice that the military makes, anyone that's in the military, is beyond amazing right? It's something that I was able to do. I fell in love ... I went to school, I thought I loved computers. But what I learned in that job over my first 10 years of my career, was that it wasn't computers that I loved. I loved collaboration, I loved community, I loved changed, and really computers were what were facilitating collaboration, facilitating change, facilitating ... and so computers ended up being the byproduct, and I started working outside that realm and people would come and tell me, "Brian you don't really help me with technology, sometimes you help me remove technology, but what you're helping me do is be better at connecting in this world that is around technology".

I think that's the quick segue of how I left the Department of Defence. I decided I just needed a change. I went and worked for a little small data centre company. I became the face of that company, started speaking as the face of that company. And then about five years ago, actually a little over four years ago, I become an entrepreneur with the goal of how do I help connect people? How do I help people understand emergency technology? And marketing just made sense, it was not only because they have budget, but I think marketing today is so much more than sales enablement. It's so much about building trust, it's so much about collaboration, it's about connecting with your community.

And so it's very interesting, 'cause for me I think I was always a marketer in my soul and what I loved doing, I just didn't really understand what marketing was. And maybe I wasn't ready for marketing, marketing wasn't ready for me and I now for the last-

[crosstalk 00:08:26]

Yeah, I think it's the happy medium because now I talk about trust, I talk about how do we work together, how do we build authenticity, how can we be transparent online? And I don't think transparency and marketing was a thing 10 years ago right?

Right.

I think if I had jumped in at that ... so yeah, that's where I've been. I did a little bit of agency life as a marketer. Really wasn't a big fan of that world, for me personally, just the way that I like to deliver and the type of contracts and collaboration I like to enable. I love long term partnerships in a lot of things. And so the last three and a half years I've done some consulting and strategy work, but mostly I'm a full time public speaker now so I speak at about 45 events a year around the world. I'm very blessed, I get to come to the UK a couple of times. This year I was in Scotland, I was in Newcastle. I am working right now actually on a gig that might be in London in early December, but for me I get to travel the world now and speak. I host two podcasts myself, I create a lot of content, but I'm a team of one so for me I kind of practise what I preach, I try to get out there and do that side.

It's a weird journey but it's allowed me to kind of, I'd say disrupt marketing a little bit as well, because I haven't been trained in it for years, I'm not corrupted by the old way of doing things and I'm not afraid to say that the way we did it in the past is not working, and it's a heck of a lot of fun. I get to enjoy being a little bit of a disrupter.

No, I love that. So there's a few things there you just said that blow my mind. First off, that you've been doing this for four to five years, and I've had my business for four years and I am nowhere near as successful as you are, or as well known as you are. So I'm just gonna go and cry a little big tonight. But that is crazy success, that is phenomenal.

Also, I love the fact that you have come from the kind of tech side, that you saw that it was a way of connecting people, and I think you're right. I think actually ... because I am a traditional marketer, or I was a traditional marketer, I have a marketing degree, and it looks nothing like it looks today. And I think for me, one of the reasons of my success in my business is that I have moved on and I've realised that although the degree was great and it gave me a good standing initially, the marketing I did even six, seven years ago is nothing like I do today, and I have fully embraced the changes 'cause I love the tech side. Now I'm not the most tech savvy but I love the fact that we can prove things and track things and follow people through these journeys, and connect with people. It's amazing-

Well I think that's a good point you brought up there, just to jump in. You don't have to be great at tech to understand the value of technology or the value of tracking. And I think the old days of selling unicorns and rainbows is what I like to say ... but of fluff right? Like marketing was through a billboard, project the amount of cars that drove by and then link that to some number, which I still to do this if someone can figure out and explain to me how billboards were proven ROI, I would love to figure that out, 'cause to me that still is the biggest marketing sham of all time because there's no way you proved ROI of a billboard based on cars and purchases. But you're right, in today's day and world it's you market and you have the ability to track and prove that what you do is valuable. I mean how cool is that? I think that's also part of what ... and I also think it's part of that world now where marketing always wanted that but technology now finally has caught up.

Now in some cases you throw technology at problems that we probably shouldn't even involve technology. Even for me a lot of times people assume because of my background that I am so tech heavy and I believe that technology should be in all these different places, and I don't. Oftentimes I will tell people, for me it's that personalised video right? It's being able to have a hand shake with somebody. That to me is still the king of the goals. I just think that we can do better things online to reach those right?

Yes.

I think that's important. And I love that one of the things you said there was getting myself out there, telling my story. This is also, we're living in a world now where you have to be okay with telling the good and the bad right? You have to be sharing. And that's not traditional marketing, that's not traditional business. Business was always about putting out there how great you are, how you're better than everybody else, you talk at people. And now we've learned that we don't trust anybody who says they're perfect, we don't trust anybody that talks at us. We trust people and we trust people that are willing to admit when they're wrong, and in this world we're living in right now, there's so much wrong, so many things that are going wrong, people that are doing wrong.

I think people end of being ... for me, I think one of the secrets to my success as far as visibility, was that I was unapologetic about who I was. I was willing to share ADHD, I was willing to share things that I wasn't good at, I was willing to admit marketing wasn't my first love, it wasn't my background. For many people advising me early on, they're like, "That's gonna crush you, you're not gonna be able to follow the path of Seth Godin or what Malcolm Gladwell did". And I was like, "I know and I don't plan on it, and I don't have any goals or aspirations to be in their exhaust. I wanna do things my way". And I've been very blessed.

 

Tell your story with marketing

 

I can say it's not always easy. I've had lots of backlash, even organisations that are like, "you're a little too diversive for me". And they come back a year later and they go, "Well we've been doing things the same way for a year and nothing's working, so maybe we need you to be a little bit ..." So sometimes people aren't ready for me and I also have to balance that. But I think that's the fun world. I think right now marketing is as best placed there is, because we're able to highlight good stories, good people, good products, good services. And if we're doing it right, it trumps the bad. You don't have to worry about your ... If you're the best in your industry and you're the best person, you're doing good things, you don't have to worry about your competition because if we're able to do our job as marketers, we can put that story out there and you'll beat Amazons, you'll be better than the big Goliaths that are out there.

And no one would have said that 10 years ago. If Walmart came in your town, you're screwed. But I think now, if Walmart comes into your town, it's your job to tell your story and get people to understand why they should buy from you compared to buying from Walmart. We have social media and digital marketing and content marketing to do that. I think it's fun times.

And I think it's giving the smaller business and smaller people and those niche businesses, the voice isn't it? Because you know what ... gosh I bet it was pushing at least 10 years ago, I used to work for Land Rover. I ran their corporate marketing.

Oh wow.

And I did exactly what you said. Our budget was massive, and I would do a campaign and we'd go, "How many did we sell?" And we'd go, "Oh, we're not really sure". And then it makes me laugh that we did that, because in those days that's all you could have done.

Right, there was no option.

No. So we were doing the best of what we had, whereas obviously now the fact that ... funnily enough one of the things I was gonna mention because we're gonna talk about your talking, is that I've just done a TEDx talk, which is kind of-

I know, congratulations.

... Really cool, and I'm proper excited about it. I gave an example in that talk, because my whole premise of the talk was how social media has changed marketing and how I want people to love it, 'cause there is lots of negativity about social media. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly justified, but there is some really positive stuff. And one of the examples I gave was the Dollar Shave Club, how much they paid for their first video - four and a half thousand dollars, and the fact that it went viral. Because they dared to put themselves out there, they dared to do something different, and now a business that potentially 10 years ago wouldn't have even got a look in 'cause there was no way they could have advertised on TV, there was no way they could've got any kind of traction, but now for businesses and marketers I feel this is the best time ever.

[crosstalk 00:16:24]

We are so blessed.

It is. It's a level playing field. And not only do you not have to have the big budget, but oftentimes I think the big budget gets in the way of doing the things that are most value ... I'm a Dollar Shave Club member. My package came Monday this week. I've been a subscriber for them for a long time, and I also think it's one of those...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• For every email you’re putting out there, think of a wide range of different email subject lines you use. They need to either peak someone’s interest or provide a question or statement that will make people want to read on, or that they can relate to. Try to avoid using clickbait.
• Think about how you capture your data and do a regular check to see if you can correct any errors you see - once you have done this you can personalise subject lines to grab attention.
• Consider using emojis to make your email’s subject line stand out in someone’s inbox.
• Preheaders give you a chance to add a little bit more detail to your header to draw people in and encourage them to open your email.
• Your customers don’t want to know about what you’re doing, they want to know how you can help them so focus on that in your emails. This can be done using questions, by identifying with them and by addressing a problem they might be having.
• Rather than worrying about the length of your email, instead consider highlighting the stuff in your emails that are important. Whether this is by bullet points, bold text or by sectioning it off – draw people’s attention to the most important bits is vital.
• All emails should have a call to action as each and every email you send should have a overall purpose. Try to limit it to one CTA per email, as it’s easier to track when it comes to looking at click throughs.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Although it’s impossible to say what will work for one person or the other, testing these methods is a great way to find out find out what is best for you and your email marketing strategy. Test each method, carry out AB testing and create a strategy that best suits you.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Method #1: Your Subject Line - 02:56
• Method #2: Get personal – 05:25
• Method #3: Use emojis - 06:36
• Method #4: Add a preheader to your email – 07:27
• Method #5: Focus on them and not on you – 09:57
• Method #6: Think about the length of your email – 11:28
• Method #7: Calls to actions – 12:45
• Method #8: Have a PS. on your Email – 14:18

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Social Media Marketing Made Simple Episode 32

 

Transcript below

 

Hello and a very warm welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. I’ve spent the last few hours batching content for the podcast and trying to get ahead. I always say this I don’t always manage getting ahead but I have to now because I have changed my process a little bit. Not that it will affect you as a listener. It just it affects us internally in terms of who does what and who is managing what part and therefore it means I have to become more organized which is a good thing. So I will try my hardest because I know I’m sometimes not so great at being organized in this department. This week. It’s the same episode and as with all the solo episodes I have crammed it full of great tools and tips and strategies for you to use in your business. And actually this is almost like a part too if you remember back in Episode 32 just a few weeks ago I talked about the tips and tricks with email marketing. But it was mainly focused around what systems to use how consistent you should be.

 

What’s the difference. Between HTML and text only emails so if you haven’t listened to that episode it’s well worth going back because it’s a real kind of helps you either review where you are. Gives you some options or if you’re getting started then it kind of is a great place to start. But today’s episode was going to be kind of following on from that episode. Were still talking about email marketing but today I’m going to walk you through my 8 tried and tested methods to get your emails opened and then read. Because let’s face it that is the whole point of doing email marketing. You spend your time crafting the email coming up with the content only to send aid and get an abysmal 20 percent open rate and an even more abysmal 1 or 2 percent clickthrough rate so anything that we can do to a first get people to open their email and then once they’ve opened it to actually read and take action on the content has got to be a good thing. In the first part of this podcast. I’m going to show you four ways in which you can get your emails opened and then in the second part of the podcast I’m going to be showing you four ways in which you can engage your readers to actually read and hopefully take action on your email. So let’s get started opening your emails. One of the first things that you should really pay great attention to is your subject line. This is so important because actually this is kind of the thing that’s going to determine whether someone really does open that email or not. And I’ve got a few kind of hints and tips as to how you can use the subject line in order to then get people to actually open your email. So one of the first things you can do is give your line a really good thing. Now I was watching something the other day by Marie Forleo talking about copywriting and she said for every bit of copy that she writes she does 20 headlines. So if you take that act epic it was five. So if you think of that from an email point of view let’s say for every e-mail you’re putting out there you think of 25 email subject lines then that’s how seriously she was trying to say you need to take this because often I don’t know about you but often we know the rough idea of the content we want in the email and then we kind of just pull out the subject at the end when really the subject is probably one of the most important things for me a good subject line will have one of the following It will either surprise or intrigue or pique someone’s interest or provide a question or a statement. That’s something I want to read on or they can relate to. Now I’ve put together some examples throughout this whole podcast for you so that you can have a really good idea of what I mean by this. So some examples of good subject lines might be you won’t believe the one thing that made the biggest difference in my business.

 

Or if you were talking about a product or you sold a product you could put something like you knew it could do that. And then something like Have you ever done this?

 

Now the one thing you need to be careful of is it doesn’t sound click baity Now if you don’t know what that means. It’s basically where your attracting someone into your content when you’re not really fulfilling the content that you’re offering. So if you are talking about one thing that made the biggest difference to your business and your subject heading. You really have to go on and tell them that one thing in the email. So as long as it matches what you’re saying then you can still create that intrigue and surprise an interest try something a little bit out of the box with this one. So my second tip on getting things opened is get personal. Now if you’re using a modern day system like Mail Chimp or drip or infusionsoft you’re going to be able to put someone’s name not only in the body of the email but also in the subject line. Of course the other major consideration you have when thinking about doing this is how is your data. Do you actually hold people’s first names and how clean is it. So sometimes people spell their first names wrong sometimes they put their first name and surname in a first name box. Sometimes they don’t capitalize it. So you might want to do a regular check of your data to ensure that you can correct any errors that you can see. And then once you can do this and once you’ve got the facility in the system that you’re using to do this you can create subject lines such as Teresa. I hope you can join us or how can I help you Teresa. It just has a lot more impact in terms of grabbing my attention when I see it in my inbox. Tip number three to get your e-mails opened is Have you ever thought about adding a emojis again. One of the main tricks about getting your email opened. Well it’s not really a trick but one of the main things you need to consider is attracting them to that subject or getting that email to standout. We all know what it’s like. We have hundreds of e-mails coming in. You can scan through them to see what’s rubbish and what might be useful. So anything that helps it stand out and makes my eye draw to it has got to be a good thing. Your consideration on this one is make sure that it fits with your brand. If your brand doesn’t use images then you might want to think about maybe it’s not going to work for your business. However if you do use emojis them why not experiment. Why not per an emoji or two in your next subject line and see what open rate you get and then the last tip in this section in terms of how to get people to actually open your e-mails is in adding a pre header now a pre header is a short summary text that follows the subject line when the email is being viewed in your inboxi.e. the email isn’t open and it kind of gives you a preamble or a bit more detail or something that hopefully should draw you into opening that email and often it comes after the subject line so you need to make sure that it follows on from your subject line.

 

So again I’ve got some examples and what I’ve done is the subject lines I gave you in the first part of this podcast. I’m going to add the subheadings into that.

So if you remember the first one it was.

You won’t believe the one thing that made the biggest difference to my business.

 

So you’re pre header on this one could be and its so simple so you’re really intriguing the reader to open the email because not only be told them something that is made such a difference to your business. But you’re telling them it’s simple as well. The subject line. That said who knew it could do that. Your pre header could say and other amazing uses if you are talking about a product and different things that it does. And the last one. Have you ever done this. You might just follow up with or is it just me?

 

Before we move on to once the emails open and how to get people to read it. One thing I want to mention is this is always a test. Now it’s impossible to say at this point what is exactly going to work for one person or another.

So the way I do these things is I will send out an email and I look to see what response it gets. So maybe the first three emails are I don’t know who’s an emoji and the next three are use an emoji or I test different subject headings and maybe do some split testing of subject headings. It’s always worth paying attention to what’s worked what hasn’t. And then using what works. Just because I suggest using a emojis let’s say for instance actually for your audience they might not engage with it as well so it’s always worth just testing and then going with whatever works. So now onto your emails are opened. How do we grab their attention so they actually read what we’ve written. Again going back to the Web another I did Marie Forleo the other day. She focused on this point. My point number one which is focus on them and not on you. This is not about you. Whenever you speak to your customer it’s about them. Their number one thing that they have in mind is them not you. They don’t want to know what you’ve done or what brilliant business you’ve got or how you’ve done something they want to know whether you understand what they’re going through and how you can help them be better grow bigger businesses find the product that they need use a service whatever it might be so you can do this by asking a question or demonstrating that you understand an issue that they are facing. Now an example is let’s say for instance you were going to be trying to promote a time management course or a time management book or something around time management. You could always start your email with something like this.

 

Let me guess you were in the middle of something important and you heard your email ping and you have just popped over to see what it is and you are distracted again this happens a lot right?

As you can see I’ve tried to identify with the person opening the email. I’ve tried to address a problem and engage them into something that is demonstrating their story not mine. So have a think about what your customers biggest concerns are and see how you can help solve those in your emails or how you can address them so that they know you understand them and what they’re going through. Now to number two for getting them to read is think about the length of your email. I’m afraid this answers can be a little bit vague because the length of the email depends on so many things. A It depends on what you want to actually say. Now there is a rule of thumb that says short and snappy is best but then some of the best emails I’ve seen are really long. So for me there’s one thing that’s more critical than necessarily trying to have a perfect length. It’s highlight the stuff that is really important.

 

So for instance if you’ve got a particular part of the email that you really want to make sure they see some salient points that you want to make sure they read them bullet point them or put them in bold or underlying them. So look at the Imao and break it up by doing things like that. So it is a long email. You definitely want to do stuff like that because otherwise it literally is going to look like a page of text short paragraphs are best and keep it kind of snappy even if there is a lot of content on there. But like I said you want to grab their attention in the places that you want them to do something or the most key things. So if you know there’s something that if they read this that’s that you’ve got him works put that thing in bold. Tip number three calls to actions. Now every email that you send should have a call to action of some sort. You obviously are sending that email for a purpose. You’re not just the emailing them to have a chat with them. And ordinarily calls to action can include things like you won’t be able to go to the Web site and look at something maybe a blog or podcast. You want people to download something or maybe book a call or another really good call to action is to e-mail you back. No I think I might have said in the episode where I talked about the top tips and tricks for email that actually if they email you back it’s a really good way of making sure your email is on this safe Senders List and therefore your deliverable rates for that person will go up and the email that you send them is more likely to go through. So having a call to action that says email me and let me know I’d love to know is a really good call to action. Now my advice with Call to actions would be that you try your hardest to have one main one in there and really if you can get away with just one then great. Don’t try and do loads of calls to action and loads of different clicks because otherwise you’re not going to be able to know which one they click and you’re going to confuse them. So think about having one call to action one aim of that email and making that call to action really strong and really obvious and then the last tip in terms of getting your emails read is have a P S now.

 

Next time you get an email with a ps on it I want you to see what you do because I can pretty much guarantee your eyes are going to be drawn straight to that PS. You’re going to go straight back and read what it says. It’s like I don’t know it’s like some strange human nature that is that we know we should wait for that but that’s obviously really important so we do it. So PS are really good. Again that call to action that we just talked about that one thing that you want them to do in your email. Put that and reiterate it in your PS and in my emails. I try and act human so I might even put. Now I know you’re going to jump to the press and read this straight away so I’ve summed it up for you. Or something like that. So you’re acknowledging the fact that they’ve looked down that P.S. But like I said Make sure you use that. I’ve seen emails where they’ve got like a PS PSS PSSS or whatever it is and I think that’s too much. I would probably just stick with 1 PS and make sure that that key information is being reiterated within that PS. Okay said they have it my 8 ways in which you can only get your emails opened but also read and hopefully they act upon it. I’d love to hear your tips that you have and what successes you’ve had. So if you have a really good open rate or you do something and it made a huge difference I would love to hear about it. So my call to action for you today on this podcast is going to be for you to come and connect with me on a social media platform of your choice. As you can imagine I’m on pretty much all of them. Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter and Pinterest you’ll find me more often on Instagram than anything else. I do Instagram stories there all the time. I’m currently doing an Instagram story a day on a trip or a trick so getting some great advice over there but please come and find me. Please talk to me. I love talking to people. That’s my favorite thing to do. I love meeting new people hearing new things so I would love for you to come and connect with me on social media and come and tell me what successes you’ve had with your email marketing. Anyway next week we have a grey interview with the amazing Brian Fanzo which is going to be phenomenal. It’s already recorded. It’s a great episode. He gives some great tips so make sure you don’t miss that line. And I will see you next week.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Social media allows you to research and build relationships before you meet people, so if you do encounter someone for the first time you already have a bit of a background relationship to build on.
• Don’t focus on how well you can do your job, instead think about your goal and how you want people feel about you when you’re not in a room.
• What matters the most is the value and excitement that we bring to the people you are connected with.
• Livestreaming gives you the best opportunity to be yourself and engage with your audience through conversation.
• Livestreaming is not just about the broadcaster, but the conversations you have with your audience who help shape the conversation as you go.
• Although social media gets a lot of negative press, there are so many positive elements that people forget. It’s about that personal, one to one conversations that are important to you and your business.
• Your social media following is not the be all and end all. It’s about the depth and complexity of the relationships you’re building with people.
• How many people think you are the reason they love the internet?

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Don’t be afraid to go live as when you’re live streaming it’s not about you and your business anymore, it’s all about your audience. Interact with them, have conversations and let them lead the stream.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Chris Strubb – 04:06
• Building relationships on social media – 07:09
• Being the best at what you do – 11:52
• Bringing value and excitement to the people you’re connected to – 13:10
• 50 States in 100 Days - 15:01
• Live streaming, its’ not so scary! – 30:41
• One to one conversations on social media – 38:08
• Followings are not a binary thing – 49:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• 50 States in 50 Days by Chris Strubb
• Chris Strubb Courses
• Chris Strubb Website

Transcript Below

 

 

Hello there and thank you so much for joining me for episode 35 of the podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. Really glad to have you here with me today, as I am always. It's so nice to think that you might be going about your day, or walking the dog, maybe getting ready in the morning, and you're listening to me talk, so thank you, I really do appreciate it.

I normally ask this right at the end, and then I did some research the other week, and I stupidly, I don't know why I thought this, because actually this shouldn't surprise me in the slightest, but obviously you have a drop off throughout the podcast. Depending on the type of podcast it is, what it's about, some people don't listen all the way to the end. Which, like I said, if you asked me that about videos that are online, or anything where someone has to engage, I would say obviously that makes sense. For some reason I forgot that this might happen on the podcast.

Normally at the end of the podcast I ask you so nicely if you would be willing to give me a five star review on iTunes, and not to forget to hit the subscribe button. Obviously there is a percentage of you that either when you hear the podcast wrapping up you kind of think, “Yeah, okay, we're done now.” Or people that just don't get to the end. I'm going to get it in early, and I'm going to ask you if there's any chance you wouldn't mind, I would be so very grateful if you could possibly give me a five star review as this obviously helps the exposure of my podcast. Also, if you hit the subscribe button, then you'll make sure you don't miss an episode. Anyway, sales pitch over. I apologise.

Today I'm bringing you another interview, and I'm really excited about this interview, because actually I don't know about you, but often I find that social media gets a lot of bad press. Obviously there are a lot of concerning things that happen because of social media, or things that happen on social media that aren't great. I'm certainly not dismissing those things, it's just that actually in my world there are loads of really good examples of positive uses for social media. Not only for business in order to reach their customers and their audience, but also some really good messages that are out there. Today I'm going to be bringing you one of them.

Today's interview is with the amazing Kris Straub, who has a fantastic story to share with you about how he used social media to promote the message of numerous charities all over the states, in his trip that was called 50 States in 100 Days. Back in the summer of 2015, Chris was only 29 years old, and he travelled solo, and without any funding I might add. No sponsorship deal to do this. He travelled all the corners of the country to promote stories of youth related nonprofits. He used social media and live streaming as a way in which he could convey that message.

From that trip, he wrote a book and also has a film, which I was very honoured to be part of the first live screening in Nottingham a few weeks ago, when I met him for the first time physically meeting him, at MarketEd Live, where he was the keynote speaker. Chris now offers courses, he does keynote speaking, and it was an absolute pleasure to have him on the podcast. He's such a nice guy, and you know one of the best things? He's completely humble about what he did, and I still don't think he sees the impact that he had on all those charities, or the amazing story that he can now tell. I really hope you're going to enjoy this episode. He also gives some great tips and strategies away along the way.

 

Introducing Chris Strubb

 

Without further ado, here is the lovely Chris Strub.

I am so pleased and excited to welcome the super lovely Chris Strub to the podcast this week. Welcome Chris.

Hey. Good morning. Good morning. Glad to be here.

I'm so glad to have you here. I said in the intro that although I've followed you for some time, we had only met just recently at MarketEd Live, where you were keynote speaker, and you are such a lovely guy. I love to talk, and I love spending time with you, and it was a great event, and your first time in the UK.

Oh it was fantastic. It was such a joy to be over there. I'm so grateful to Paul and the team for bringing me in. I had an unbelievable time, and I'm glad to hear that the talk went well. We screened the film too, which was great. It was a really, really exciting week all around. I had a fantastic time, and it was such a great first impression of the UK for sure.

Oh good. I'm so glad, because I think we joked while you were that you were saying how friendly everybody was, and I said that I actually thought, I'm going to get shot down now by all people in the UK, but I actually thought that when I go to the states, the people in the states are super friendly. It was lovely that you felt that we were all super friendly too.

Yeah. You know, I think you and I talked about that a little bit actually when I was over there, which is it all depends on where you go and what your experience is. Like the states, and I could talk to you about the states all day, it all depends on where exactly you are, what communities you're diving into. Again, I was exposed to, over in Nottingham, the very best of what the UK had to offer. Like I'm surrounded by you, and Lucy, and Paul and all these wonderful, wonderful people, both in the contemporary, in the hotel. Downtown Nottingham was gorgeous. I was put in a great position.

It sounds, in our conversations as well, when you come over to the states, you mentioned you're coming back to California in a week or two, you're putting yourself in a great position as well, and surrounding yourself with some really smart, and lovely, and compassionate people. It's lucky, but it's luck by design. We're both getting better at putting ourselves in these advantageous positions.

Yeah. I totally agree, and in fact we've just said that one of the things that I like to do, even though obviously we are huge advocates of social media, actually there is still a huge part of me that likes to get physically in front of someone, because that is when you can make some real connections I find. I know it's a long way, but sometimes these trips are really worth doing.

Yeah. I think that's why we connect so closely Teresa. I mean, my company is called I Am Here LLC. Yeah, literally. I've spent much of this year and last year travelling around my country, and now of course over to the UK, with that exact same goal in mind, to get in front of people.

 

Building relationships on social media

 

Social media really gives us the opportunity to do our homework in advance, to research a little bit. To start building those relationships before that meeting, so that when you do encounter that person for the first time, you have a bit of background.

Boy, that sounds a little creepy when you kind of put it that way, but from a professional standpoint this is what we do as marketers, and as networkers, and relationship builders, we want to make sure we have those right people on our radar so that when we do have those encounters we're able to hit the ground running with that conversation, and be able to pick up with exactly what we're looking to accomplish in that conversation.

Absolutely. Actually that is such a perfect way of putting it, because the fact is you do start building those relationships on social media. You start to interact with them, you start to see what they do, what they like. They start to see what you do and like, and therefore it just makes that meeting so much easier, and it opens the door for it. Whereas if you went in completely cold, to try and get a meeting with someone, or to try and get someone to meet you for a coffee, it's not going to be easy, is it?

No. It's not, but I do think there's so many opportunities there now to get to know, like I said, the people in advance. I would also say Teresa that in my travels I used to be a bit nervous. I noticed this in our conversation over in Nottingham as well, or even in your podcast with Amy where you're talking about, “Oh, I have this dream list of all of the people that I'd love to speak to for the podcast.” I've really found that the more you travel, the more conferences and things you go to, the more you realise that even the “big names”, these people that we really look up to in the industry, they are so incredibly nice. Like with almost no exceptions in our industry.

My favourite story to tell is when I met Joel Comm for the first time.

Lovely guy.

At Summit Live. Just the nicest man you could possibly meet. He's keynoting this conference, Summit Live in San Francisco in 2016, and you just expect, okay, man there's thousands of people here, they're all here to see Joel, he's got to be kind of haughty and uptight, and like he doesn't want to talk to someone like me. I'm just a kid, this is my first social media conference. It was the total opposite of that. Like everything I thought in my head, everything that I was worried about unravelled within two seconds of meeting Joel Comm.

I think that encounter in the hallway in San Francisco, totally reset the tone for me for what it's like to be in this industry, in this relationship building industry. From that point forward, everyone that I've really tried to connect with I think has just been fantastic. That's really how I got to the UK, was this exact sort of game plan, this exact sort of strategy, if you will, meeting [Biz Paul 00:10:04] at Social Media Marketing World. I was like, this guy is awesome. If you see the two of us together, we're like brothers from another mother. We just immediately hit it off, and now we're like best friends, and I got to go keynote at this unbelievable conference.

Yeah. Honestly it's so good meeting these people. I think the other thing that makes me think is I think for the up and coming people, which hopefully I would class myself in, I'd obviously class you in, well you're a bit more than up and coming, you're definitely more known widely than I am.

Ee. Okay.

Honestly, but you know, for the likes of us though, it makes us want to help everybody else, and perhaps that's where it comes from. Perhaps because the people above us are showing us this really lovely way of being, and wanting to support people coming up, and support people to be better at what they do, that actually for me I just want to help everybody else up. I just want to keep kind of lifting them up to kind of build them up to where we can all be. I want us all to feel like this.

Yeah. I love that sentiment Teresa, of wanting to be able to lift others up. I've been talking to a lot of my friends and colleagues in the industry about this. One of the folks that I so dearly want to help is Ben Roberts, who was also at MarketEd Live. He's working on his book about his Marketing Buzzword Podcast. He's just a phenomenal guy, right?

Yeah, lovely.

 

Being the best at what you do

 

This is the thing that we can keep coming back to throughout our entire conversation here, is we have the opportunity to meet people in this industry that just blow you away with their kindness, their generosity, but also their intellect and their ambition. When we talk about stratifying people in the industry, we talk about the people who have been really successful, and you've interviewed Pat [Folan 00:12:01] and Amy Porterfield in recent weeks. I mean, that's awesome.

I know. Yeah.

What I think we all have in common is the determination to want to be the best at what we do, and want to be the best in our field. That was a major theme, of course, at Marketing Live as well, is do you want to be the best? At the end of the day it doesn't come down to how good you are at creating an internet post, or can you schedule our your 25 tweets a day? That's really not what it is.

No.

It's really about, what is your goal? How do you want people to think about you when you're not in the room? How do you want to be spoken about in that conversation? I can sense, and I can see it, and all your listeners can hear that ambition in your voice as well.

Thank you.

With wanting to raise the bar with this podcast. Teresa, to me it's all about perception. I talk onstage too, about how we are all famous to a few people. In the grand scheme of things, it's no offence to either one of us that 99.9999% of the world doesn't know who either one of us are.

No.

No, I'm just being frank about it, right?

Yeah. You're cool.

 

Bringing value and excitement to the people you’re connected to

 

In the grand scheme of things what matters the most is the value, the energy, and the excitement that we bring to the people that we are connected with. That's when you start to, the wheel starts to turn, you pick up that momentum, and then one day you wake up, and you're Amy Porterfield, and you have this unbelievable impact on hundreds of thousands of people. It's because of that ambition, and that drive, and that determination that you've put in over the years.

I love that. I love that actually one of the things I think about, and I think it was possibly Amy who mentioned it on a podcast, where she talked about, she did a podcast about, how do you get going if no one knows you? She basically said, you love the people who do know you.

That's it.

You give them more value. You appreciate them. You don't sit there and think, “Oh, I wish I had 10,000 downloads a week for my podcast.” Don't get me wrong. Wouldn't that be lovely? Absolutely, but I appreciate every single person that has sat listening to this. I appreciate the fact of everybody who comments on an Instagram post, everybody that interacts with me, and I love them for it. I desperately want to help them back, and for me that is actually something that you don't just say, or do, you are literally living that.

 

50 States in 100 Days

 

Now we've jumped on a little bit, because I wanted to kind of give your story. Actually this does fit in perfectly at this point because you are the epitome of giving back and being completely selfless that you are just doing what you do to help other people. Because one of the things that you said we did in Nottingham, was we watched your first airing of your video that is about your 50 States in 100 Days. I would love you to tell my audience about this, because this is a phenomenal story. Please explain what I mean by 50 states in 100 days, and what it was you did.

Yeah. First of all, thank you for being there. It was very, very special to have you there in the audience. It meant the world to me.

It was very emotional, I have to say. Very emotional.

For those who haven't heard the story, in the summer of 2015, I quit my job in South Carolina, or as [Biz Paul 00:15:21] would call it, the bottom right of the states. I love that disambiguation. I took a road trip, solo, to all 50 US states in 100 days. It's about a 15,000 mile drive, plus the flights across to Alaska and Hawaii.

Now this ties into social media and social media marketing because I became the first person to use both live streaming technology and Snapchat in all 50 states, which has kind of become the hook. Much more importantly for me was the work that I had a chance to do with different youth related nonprofit organisations in each state. I would get to the state the day before, wake up, go to, say the YMCA, or the Boys and Girls Club, the local Big Brothers, Big Sisters chapter, and spend a few hours working with and using social media to share the stories of these organisations.

As I talked about at MarketEd Live, it's not so much about the trip anymore, it's about the community that's developed around this project, because I really did set out to try and make a memorable, digestible story that sticks with you. We talked about this as well, that it's nice, it's round, it's simple, it's easy to remember. 50 states, 100 days, and it's turned into a self-published book.

As you mentioned Teresa, in the recent months here in the states we were able to produce 50 States, 100 Days, the film, in partnership with a company called Scofield Digital Storytelling, based out of Indianapolis. It's 22 minutes long, and it basically tells the story of a number of the organisations. It tells the story of the ups and downs of the adventure, a little bit of the how to. My joke is always, Teresa, that I never want to spoil the ending, but he doesn't get the girl at the end.

Yeah. The right amount [crosstalk 00:17:28].

It's a feel good story. It's a fun story. It's a great new medium through which to share this adventure, but really it's a great way to bring people together. Like you said, we had about 15 people there at the Lace Market Hotel. It's just it's an experience that makes you laugh, and it makes you cry, and it makes you feel emotional. A wise man once said, if you can do those things in a day, then you've had a pretty good day.

I love that.

Showing that film, still the only time that we've shown it, and we're trying to think of a long term strategy to release it here in the states and such. It was an emotional day for me,...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Everyone has a story. Everyone has to start somewhere. It’s important to remember that the greats in the world weren’t always that way. It’s all about growth!
• Sometimes, when disaster or loss happens, we have to shift our focus onto what makes us happy and fulfilled.
• Loss can also cause us to create our own path. My divorce led me to quit my current job out of dissatisfaction and start my own business which led me to where I am today.
• Be careful when choosing your business name. Using your own name could cause further consequences later on.
• It’s important to put thought into your business. You need to understand your goals, your services, your mission, etc. This allows you to be strategic and more fulfilled in your business. You don’t have to say yes to the things you hate to do.
• Think about your future. What processes or rules will you put in place for when you begin to grow? It’s easier to do this now than change your current processes in the future.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You’ll have people who don’t understand what you’re doing. Your own family might question your decision to start your own business. Find those people who will inspire you such as mentors or those knowledgeable in the industry. Find those individuals who will be excited about what you want to do, instead of those who question your abilities.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• I never wanted to run my own business – 05:03
• No money, no help and no job – 11:33
• Mistake #1: I used my name as my business name – 13:16
• Mistake #2: I didn’t think about my business – 17:14
• Find people who inspire you and lift you up – 21:01
• Mistake #3: I didn’t futureproof – 23:08

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• The E-Myth Revisited

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to Episode 34 of the social media marketing Made Simple podcast and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. So tell me how is your day going. I hope it’s good and productive and you’re achieving great things. You might listen to this on a Monday which means you’re at the start the week. Or you could be through the week. But wherever you are I hope things are good for me it’s been a great week. I started off not so great if I’m honest. Monday was a little bit quiet and I didn’t really feel in the mood to do much. Do you ever feel like that and do you think you want to shake yourself and be like C’mon you’ve got stuff to get on with. But sometimes your mind just isn’t in the game. So Monday started off like that for me. However it’s Mayfair’s day and I’m feeling so much happier about it. I’ve done some great things this week. I’ve recorded a great podcast interview yesterday which is going to be out next week with Chris Strub that’s going to be read exciting. Then later on today I’m recording another interview with the amazing Brian Fanzone. So I’m super excited about that. So we’ve got some really good content coming up for you. The other thing that’s super exciting that’s just happened today is I’ve just been sent the first version of the Ted x talk I did. Oh wow. I couldn’t wait to watch it. Now normally when most people see themselves back on camera and this includes me you kind of really critique yourself and you look at yourself and you think oh god was like pulla face or do that or be like this. But actually the Ted x experience was so amazing and so exciting watching it back. All it did for me was made me think What an amazing day that was. I am so excited to get this aits you know as it stands at the moment it might be different when the podcast is life. It’s not ready to be shown to the general public. When you do at. Now I know a little bit about it. There are an awful lot of rules that the licencee and the organizer has to conform to and one of those rules is that obviously everything has to go through tax and Tadd first. So what’s going to happen as far as I’m aware is the videos are going to get approved by the speakers and then they go to Tadd and upload uploaded to Ted and hopefully fingers crossed they get put on the YouTube and the TED Web site.

 

Now you know it’s not actually a given that your video is going to be put up. If there’s something in it that they deem isn’t true they have rules and like that there are a lot of rules which is completely understandable. But if there is something on there that they’re not overly happy with or whatever then they can actually say your video is not going up. Now as far as they know everything on mine should be absolutely fine. I’m touching a lot of words here as I’m talking to you because I would be devastated if the video didn’t go up but it is awesome. So hopefully when it does go up keeping everything crossed. I can’t wait to share that with you. I’ve been talking to lots of people over the last few weeks in terms of the interviews I’ve been doing and one of the things I’ve been asking them is to tell me their story because I don’t know about you but for me. I love listening to the stories about how people got to be where they are today and do what they’re doing today. I find it fascinating. The other reason they like hearing their stories is because so often we look at the Amy port fields of the world than the Pat flans. And we think oh my gosh that is an amazing achievement. I’m never going to get there. But the truth of it is there was a time in their career in their life that they didn’t even know they were going to get there. So for me I find it really inspirational to hear the journey there come through and the lessons they’ve learned.

 

Because actually we’re going to learn from those lessons too. So today I thought I would do things a little bit different. And I wanted to share my story. This isn’t a story of look at how amazing my journey has been and what I’ve done. This is a story of how I got started and the mistakes I made because boy did I make some mistakes.

 

And my thought process around this is if hopefully you listen to some of these things and think I’m not going to do that or it makes you go back and revisit a couple of things then great. And actually although I love talking about social media marketing I do also love talking about building a business running a business and how we can all succeed because some of these messages they will span over any business in any industry. So I am really hoping that you will enjoy my brief podcast interview how I got to get started and what I did wrong. So I guess the first thing I should tell you and admit to is I never actually wanted to run my own business. Never not once I had worked in marketing. For oh about 10 years I think it was I done my degree in marketing and I joke that I was a great employee. I loved working for other people. I always worked really hard. I wanted people to think that I was really good at what I did. And I worked really hard to get that respect. I often work longer hours than I needed to. I was very ambitious. I climbed the career ladder fairly quickly and moved to a lot of different jobs. If it meant that I could then get promotion or get to the next step. So it had quite a varied career in marketing. I had worked for huge companies like Landrover. I worked in their head office and I manage their corporate marketing for them and that I worked for teeny tiny companies who had hardly any budget and I used to do everything so I give them myself a really kind of rounded view of marketing and then one of my last jobs I was in a marketing agency. Now I just want to say quickly before I started this marketing agency I was a director for a care company. I started off in that care company as the marketing person. However again I got promoted through and I ended up becoming a director of a service. Now if you’ve ever worked in a care company and this is a company that has children that are in care and we used to home those children and provide them support now as you can imagine this isn’t a 9 till five five day a week job. This is completely and utterly forlorn. This is children who have a lot of challenges and a lot of things going on their lives and they are being looked after 24/7. So for me I had a young daughter she was in fact I was in that job in the marketing role when I had my daughter. So she was sort of you know 1 or 2 years old by the time I became the director. And I had this young daughter and my entire life was spent on the phone traveling working. And I was missing out on huge chunks of her life. And it kind of came to a head where I’d been working really hard for this company and I was up in Nottingham city in the UK and I was doing some training. And one of the young people we looked after had a daughter and I had to go and spend some time with that young person because the person who is meant to be seeing her was ill the person above that person should have gone next they weren’t around anyway. There was no one to do it. It fell on me. I had to do it. I ended up going to see this lovely young girl with her lovely daughter and her daughter was about the same age as my daughter and I’m sat there at 7 o’clock in the evening having promised my ex husband that I would be home having promised him I’d be home so I could put my daughter to bed. I am sat then playing with some toys with someone else’s daughter and I thought what am I doing at that point. I decided I no longer wanted to travel around the country and be gone for such a long time. Not just physically gone but mentally gone because I was so preoccupied with what was going on with these other young people that I couldn’t spend that time with my daughter so I decided I wanted to get a job locally back where I lived and I wanted to get more back into marketing because I hadn’t done well. I had done a bit of marketing but I hadn’t done solely marketing for a couple of years. I applied for a job at a local agency got this job and that was great. I loved it. I loved the variety.

 

Working with lots of different businesses on lots of different things and the fact that I got to use so many different strategies and tools and campaigns gave me a really good understanding of marketing in its entirety. I’d been with this company for a few years I really enjoyed it and at this point in my life and I’m going to get quite personal now.

 

So I apologize because it really isn’t like me although I put myself out there a fair bit I do tend to keep sort of personal stuff private but this is part of the story so it’s important that I share it. My husband left me and I was living at home. I stayed in the house and I paid for the mortgage. I looked after my daughter. I paid for the car and I had this job which afforded me to do this which was brilliant and then kind of out of nowhere.

 

I had a couple of difficult weeks and I think when you go through something as horrible as a divorce or a partner leaving you suddenly start to really pay attention to I’m only going to do things that make me happy because actually that was a really tough part in my life and therefore I really want to make sure that I make the other areas of my life as easy as possible not just easy but as nice as possible so that a couple of difficult weeks at work. And I decided you know what I don’t think I can work here anymore I’m going to get another job and being slightly rash which isn’t like me. I handed my notice in that I’d given the the company eight weeks notice and in my head very arrogantly I have to say I had actually thought I’ll get another job easy I’m good at what I do I have lots of connections I know lots of people I’m sure another agency locally is going to snap me up. Wow. Seriously how arrogant was I anyway after three weeks of approaching other agencies and getting good feedback but forgetting I was on a fairly good salary and they would have had to pay that salary. I was basically just getting. We’d love to have you but we can’t afford it right now. And I was three weeks into my eight weeks notice and I was thinking what am I going to do. Like seriously this notice is going to come up and I’ve got to leave or I’m going to leave and I can’t afford not to have a job. So at the same time as this was happening a friend approached me and said Would I consider doing social media for their business am I put in a price that was really fair and actually very fair. Now based on what we charge now but I put in a price and they said yes and I thought okay this is interesting.

 

What if more people want me to do this or more people want me to help them with their marketing. So I had the most craziest thoughts.

 

I’m going to start my own business. Honestly it literally appeared one night and the next day I started tweeting things in action. But almost simultaneously my boss of the agency at the time kind of started to pick up on the fact that maybe I was thinking this and told me to leave and gave me one week left of my notice. So I effectively ended up leaving in a bit of a shock I have to say because it was literally I went in to do some work. And she was like you can go now. And it’s understandable I don’t blame in the slightest for that. And we’re friends again which is lovely but yet she was absolutely right to do that so she asked me to leave and I had effectively a month and a bet worth a salary. I had no husbands no rich parents no money coming from anywhere else no savings. And I had to earn over a thousand pounds a month in order to keep my mortgage being paid to keep the car running to keep my daughter in nursery to keep us fed and basically to live our life. And I didn’t have any money coming in from anywhere. I didn’t have anybody that I could lean on or go to. I literally just made the most craziest decision of my life and started my business. Now I was very lucky. I had a friend who obviously I had met through the design agency who obviously was a designer. So he came up with my logo. I made the most stupid mistake of choosing my name as my business name and I say this is stupid for two reasons. Firstly my company my agency is called T H W marketing. If you type that into Google Google thinks you’ve spelt that wrong and it defaults it to the marketing. So to try and find my agency Google is really hard. The second reason that this was a bit of a rookie mistake is because the t h w obviously stands for my name. Teresa Heath-Wareing but some of you might not realize that that is part of my ex husband’s name and I am since remarried and have a new surname. But of course I can’t use it for my business so I still have to be known by Teresa Heath-Wareing because if you Google me I appear there and my photos appear and my Web site and everything. So I have to stick with this name which makes for very awkward moments in my life when I broke into a hotel and my husband stood next to me and they go what names it under and I can’t remember whether I booked my business namei.e. my ex husband’s name or a book to undermine new married name. So yeah. Little bit awkward but like I said I started off and really quickly got my business going but because I did it in such a rush I didn’t think about things that I needed to think about so I never had a vision or a goal.

 

I didn’t think about the services I was offering based on what I loved or what I was really good at. I didn’t think about all of the other stuff that you have to do in running a business. All I thought about was well I’m good at what I do. But of course I didn’t think about it. There was admen and finance and things like hosting websites or managing your own social media. I literally just thought well I can do marketing for other people. I didn’t spend any time thinking about what am I going to charge. How is it going to work. What equipment away need. I literally just dived straight in and set up my business. I started one week later with a Web site. Honestly my friend was amazing. I don’t know what I had done with him. A very basic web site but I had a website site at a social media page and I had my business cards and that was about it. And you know it’s funny because I would never recommend that anybody sets up a business in that short space of time under that kind of pressure knowing that if I wasn’t earning that money literally within about six weeks time that I couldn’t afford my mortgage. However for me I am normally a very considered person. I am now in my business. I’ve been trying to launch a course for oh gosh I would say almost a year I’ve been about this and I am not going very quickly because I’m a very cautious person. There is a part of me that would like to bring back that incredibly rash person that decided to set up a business within a week to help me speed up a little bit. However I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that people do it within a week with the fact of having no buffer in terms of any money. But I think it was that that actually made me earn money and be as successful as I have become because I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t earn money from day one and get myself out there and put myself in very uncomfortable positions in order of selling myself and selling my service I wouldn’t have had money to actually keep my daughter and I in my home. And that is a very real and scary prospect. So for me although like I said I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. I think that’s what drove me to build the business I’ve got today. Another mistake that I alluded to before was the fact that I hadn’t given a huge amount of time and consideration to what the goal of the business was what I wanted to offer what services I was going to offer what money I was going to charge for it.

 

I hadn’t really thought about that at all.

And what that meant in the early days was that I basically just said yes to everything. I literally was not fussy. If you said to me can you do this thing or that thing I would have just gone yep we can do that. I can do. I can do it. And it kind of meant that I was not as strategic and also probably some of the things I was doing I probably wasn’t the best person to do because that wasn’t my forte or my thing. But I suppose all I was thinking about at that point was I just need to survive here I need to earn some money. And if someone wants to pay me to write their blogs or them even though I might not be the best placed person to do it I’m going to find a way in which I can do it. If I was going to do it again or in some of the businesses or some of the changes to my business that has happened since I have spent much longer more than a week thinking about what is there I want to offer what is it that I love to do. Even if you have a business today I want you just to think about that just for a minute think about what is the one thing in your business that you love doing more than anything else. What are the parts of your business that you hate doing. What are the parts of the business that you are terrible at doing and why are you still doing them for me. Like I said the main issue was that I had to earn money. So instead of being brave and thinking okay I can earn money doing these particular things I basically just said yes to anything. And what that meant was it confused my message. It confused what I did for people and it confused me when I was trying to sell my services to people because I was like yeah I do that in a bit. There’s no but the other. It doesn’t make you sign very expert. It makes you sound like you’re trying to do everything for everyone and probably

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• A lot of brands are educating their prospects to share their authority and knowledge prior to asking them to purchase or sign-up for something.
• Online courses help you offer more content than you can via any other medium. You can use videos, audio, quizzes and more.
• Anyone in any industry can create and use an online course! Hula hoopers make online courses. Those who are experts in Excel use online courses. They truly are for anyone!
• Your social media strategy will differ depending on the platform you use. Instagram might be a bit more laid back versus Facebook, and even more laid back than LinkedIn, which is a bit more formal.
• Content is incredibly important, but it doesn’t work if no one sees it. That’s where social media comes in.
• To easily curate your content, create a content plan that’s easy to follow.
• Decide what type of post you’ll make on each day. This makes it easy to create content, generate ideas and curate simply.
• When you’re taking a blog and repurposing it, use Easel to make all of your images. It allows you to duplicate it into any social media dimension easily.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It’s never about us, it’s about the people we’re serving! Focus on the customer above all else, no matter what it is you’re doing. Whether it’s creating a course, marketing your business or posting on social media, put your customer and their needs first!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• What industries can benefit from online courses? – 08:00
• How online courses are disrupting education – 11:54
• Rob’s background in digital marketing and social media – 16:37
• Social media is a big part of any marketing strategy – 21:18
• It’s all about the customer, always – 27:40
• How to generate social media ideas – 36:08
• Using and repurposing existing content – 40:08

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Thinkific
• Episode 25: Why and How to Repurpose Your Content to Maximize Its Potential
• easel.ly.com

Transcript below

 

Hello, and welcome to episode 33 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, and I'm your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you have had a great day, whatever you're doing. And if you are looking for a podcast that helps you understand social media marketing and how to use it for your business, as well as other tips and tools and tricks and strategies around running a business, than you are in the right place.

Now, this week we are doing another interview, which is really cool. And I am really pleased to introduce to you the lovely Rob from Thinkific. Rob and I met in San Diego back in March when we were attending Social Media Marketing World, and I managed to get some time with him and the Thinkific team and have a breakfast, which was really, really lovely. And I decided back then it would be great to get them on the podcast and great for them to, not only talk about the online platform that they have, which is Thinkific, where you can basically build a course online for free. They have a free version of their platform, but also one of the things that they do really well is they do really nice social media. I love the way that they are able to be very personable, considering they are a platform.

And sometimes that can be quite hard to do, but they do a really good job with their social media. So I wanted to get Rob on for two reasons. One, because I love their platform and it's a great platform for you to look at if you want to do an online course. And two, because I love how they do their social media. So Rob is part of the Thinkific marketing team, and in July 2016, he joined Thinkific in the support and onboarding team. And then he moved into marketing. And [inaudible 00:02:07] managers Thinkific social media and community channels. We had a great chat about all things social media, about managing social media for a platform company, and being a social media manager for our business.

We also talked about why online courses have been so popular and are increasing in popularity, and some of the amazing case studies that they've got. It's a really cool episode if you are looking to start an online course or if you are managing social media and you just want to find out what some of the ideas they have, and how they manage their social media platform. And he's a lovely guy and it's a great conversation. So I'm really excited to bring this one to you. So without further ado, please welcome Rob.

Rob, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here.

I am super excited, super honoured be on your podcast. Thank you so much.

No problem. So as I said in the intro, Rob and I met in San Diego this year. Gosh, that feels like such a long time ago. Feels like last year, definitely this year. And I've seen you guys previously, I'd been following you guys. I know what you do, and then I got to meet you and have breakfast with you. And it was fab. So when we started the podcast, I knew that I wanted to bring on key people and also people who knew particular things in different industries. So you guys are a great fit for that, but my audience doesn't know, if they've not heard of Thinkific before. Could you just briefly tell us what you guys do and what the platform's about?

Sure, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So Thinkific is a online course platform. So it's a software as a service, and it helps entrepreneurs, brands, creators really use online courses to sell it as a profit, for a fee or to use it to train their customers for retention or for lead generation. So really, it helps all types of businesses and entrepreneurs leverage technology to get their knowledge out there, get their content out there, in an easy way. So that's really what really Thinkific is.

It's something that is not new as such, but it's still growing. I feel like, from my point of view, and I think possibly over in the states and Canada, it might have grown a bit quicker than we have over here in the UK, but I think online courses is a real area of growth and something that I've looked at, loads of people I know look at, and I think one of the reasons they're doing it is because it's this additional revenue stream or revenue stream, kind of this dream of making money while you sleep. Sounds so easy, I believe it's really not that easy. And why do you think that people are really kind of coming into this online teaching type side?

So there's a lot of ways ... I think there's a lot of reasons why people are coming to online courses now. You know, a lot of people are, even as lead magnets, people are using online courses, They used to share PDFs or video series, or that kind of thing, but people don't really like to be sold. So I think a lot of brands and a lot of entrepreneurs are now educating their prospects, I guess you want to call it, educating their prospects to share their authority, share their knowledge in that space before asking them to sign up to something or purchase something. So it's a way to really get your name out there, get your knowledge out there, to show off your authority and knowledge in particular topics, and to attract those potential prospects into your world.

And that's really interesting actually because I guess I had never thought naively of a course as a lead magnet. Now, one of my lead magnets is a five email mini course. So I literally just emailed the content out and it's just text within an email. But I'd never really thought about actually using a course of some sort or a mini course as a lead magnet itself. That's such a good idea, isn't it? And maybe just using a small course, building up to the sale of a big course, could be one of the ways to then convert them into a sale maybe.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a great way to do it as well as just an email course, but an online course actually helps you with other aspects. You can use quizzes, you can kind of see which students are completing which lessons and consuming that content, so you can do a little more sort of digging into that topic and giving more value. You can use videos, audios, presentation slides, you can do that all within sort of your platform, so you can kind of see all of the different things that your students and your prospects are doing in there. So yeah, it comes off as a little bit different than just a straight content push.

And actually, one thing you've just said there that is so good is the fact that people don't want to learn just by one way, do they any more? We are so used to this crazy multimedia world we're in of videos and audio and images and gifs, and whatever it might be, that actually we want to learn more that style than necessarily ... If I have to read anything, if I'm totally honest, I'm a nightmare. I don't want to read anything. If someone could show me a video, I would much rather watch that video. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic way, a much more interactive way in order to get that content across. Isn't it?

That's the truth.

 

What industries can benefit from online courses?

 

Do you guys see that online courses ... because so many people are really excited about online courses, because of the fact that there's this revenue stream, and some people ... I've had amy on the show, I mean she has built her entire career, and a very successful career, in selling online courses. So it's not just as a side hustle as it were. People can build their entire careers by selling a course online. But do you think that there is a particular industry that really suits the kind of online course platform or do you think that basically anyone in any industry can kind of come up with an online course?

Yeah, I think anyone in any industry can come up with an online course and use online courses to grow their business and to scale their business. Obviously, the authors of the world, the consultants, the coaches, they naturally will gravitate to online courses first and start adopting that first because they're already doing that offline. But I've seen a lot of different industries and niches use online courses for a number of ways, and not just to sell it for profit, but use it to, like I said, attract new leads, but also to train their customers. We even have other software companies using online courses and using Thinkific, companies like Hootsuite, Later, Aweber. All these companies are using it to educate their prospects, but also to keep the retention and even using it as part of the onboarding to train their customers on how to use their platforms.

So it's really interesting. Even other niches, you don't really necessarily think of. We have a really successful course creator who teaches hula hooping and we have another one that teaches how to sew. We have other ones, John, who is out of Spain. He teaches people how to use Excel, and then he does really well. There's just so many different online courses out there. So it's an interesting time. I think a lot of people are going online to learn things that they don't necessarily want to learn offline, if that makes sense. You can't necessarily go to a course in real life on how to use the hula hoop, you know? But people are using that and they're going online to learn those kinds of things. So it's an exciting time.

It is. And actually what was really interesting, because I have a degree in marketing, which obviously I sat in a university for a whole three years doing, and obviously that degree was literally just lecture, someone talking, read loads of books. Which, how I even got that degree, I don't quite know. Because like I said, reading is not my forte. And one of the things that happened was obviously I then went into my marketing career. I spent 10 years in marketing, and when I started my own business, and I wanted to focus on social media, one thing I wanted to do was make sure I was really good at it because there were lots of people out there that said they did social media and they didn't perhaps have the level that I would have liked them to have, or I would have wanted for myself. And I went and find all these experts in social media.

And the very first one I find was Mari Smith. And I did a course, an online course with Mari. And I remember thinking at the time, and this would have been almost five years ago. And I remember thinking at the time, oh my God, this is crazy, right? So I'm doing this course and she's in San Diego, and I'm sat here in the UK, and she shouts out my name on one of the calls or whatever, and I literally like ... my husband sat in the same room as me. And I'm like, "Oh my god, Mari just said my name." But that's how I learned. That's how I learned about social media. And since then, I've done loads of online courses like ... and obviously that's one of the reasons I know Amy's because I've got courses that convert. I've obviously done stuff with her. I've got James Wetmore's that I'm doing at the moment. And for me, actually that's how I keep ahead. That's how I make sure my business is where I want it to be. And I couldn't ... like you said, there is no where locally that I could walk into a classroom and learn what I can learn online. It's crazy, isn't it?

 

How online courses are disrupting education

 

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that is the whole education world, it's just getting disrupted that way. You know, I think the stats with university enrollments are down, people are learning things online. And not only that, employers are looking at experience versus knowledge and I guess a degree and all those kinds of things. I think Google just announced that as part of their ... They don't longer need specific education requirements for some of the positions that they're hiring for. So it's an interesting time in that way. You know, like even in social media, I see a lot of on Linkedin. I see a lot of people that have even put down that they've completed Hootsuite certification. So that gives some credibility when they're going out there and saying, "Hey, yeah, I know how to use these tools now." So it saves me a lot of training time on your end if you hire me versus someone that may have like a degree in marketing but no experience.

And I totally agree, and obviously having a degree in marketing, I obviously advocate the fact that it was great that I have this degree.

Of course.

But I'm really honest in the fact that A, in my entire career, not one person asked to see my degree certificate. Like honestly, it's kind of made me think like I could have just made it up. Obviously I didn't, but they never asked to see that. And secondly, although my degree was brilliant, the transferrable knowledge was actually not that high and it wasn't as practical. It was obviously much more theoretical. So when I then got into the workplace, I didn't know these kinds of things that I really needed to do, and especially on something like social media, it didn't exist when I did my degree, and even if it did, it moves at the speed of light.

So you could do a course today on something and tomorrow it can be completely out of date. And what's really funny is ... It's funny that you should mentioned the education system because I have a stepson who's 15 and he's in his last year of school and he's going to be doing his GCSEs, the exams over here, and he's kind of had conversations with me before and he said, "I don't understand why we need to do this. If I want to know something, I just look on youtube."

And you kind of can't argue with him because actually we are in this amazing world where we can find out anything and we can find an expert in it and go and say, "Have you got a course? Can I come and learn online with you?" You don't necessarily have to go through that kind of formal education. Not that I'm going to tell him this obviously because I've told him he's got to go to school and work really hard on his exams, but you kind of can't argue with him, can you? It's an amazing world we're in.

You can't, you can't. One example that comes to mind is, like right now on social media and we're talking about social media, is that Instagram has a lot of attention and Instagram stories has a lot of attention and I dare you to look for a course somewhere in any college that is going to teach you how to use Instagram stories to grow your email list. But yesterday, I came across Chris Strub who I think you probably know.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah, Chris Strub. And he has a course on Instagram stories because he does a lot of Instagram stories. He's built his whole brand on it. And so, how can you keep up, right?

Yeah.

And my son even, like you mentioned your son ... My son yesterday, we were like, it's fall here in Vancouver, so everything's back to school and it's kinda like, okay, what do you want to do programmes wise, do you want to do swimming or basketball?

And he's like, "I want to learn digital animation." He's eight years old.

That is awesome.

Yeah. And I'm like, "Okay." So I did a search and there's some colleges here, some arts colleges, that has digital animation courses, but they're not going to take an eight year old. Right? So he went on YouTube and he's going to learn how to do it. I'm like, "Well, I'll try to look for an online course for you." But it was hard for me to find one. But on YouTube, there's a tonne of those how to videos. And so that's where he's going. So it's an interesting world.

It is. And when you think about what social media has done for our world, and the different roles now ... So there isn't just a marketing person, there's a content creator, there's a community manager, there's a social media person, there's animators and advertising people. There's so many different roles. And actually, all of them are amazing. But like you said, I think if I walked into a marketing degree today, I don't know how much of that stuff they would actually teach and how much they could teach because it's moving so fast.

 

Rob’s background in digital marketing and social media

 

So this is a great point actually, to introduce the fact that you are a social media community manager for Thinkific, I think I've said it in the intro, but to say it again. And actually, it would be great just to get a little bit of your background, and where you've come from, how you ended up working at Thinkific.

Sure, yeah, yeah. So before Thinkific, my world was digital agency, so I was working at a digital agency here in downtown Vancouver for a number of years doing everything. I was at one point creating WordPress sites. I was doing SEO and OnPage SEO.

So I was there for a few years and so I kind of learned the ropes, how digital agency worked and digital marketing worked. So it was great. In our building, there was another startup, it's actually an eCommerce startup called Lemonstand. And there was a guy there named Sid [inaudible 00:17:30] and so we bumped into the elevator a lot and we'd talk about, "Hey, what are you doing? Like what kinds of things are you guys doing?" We even exchanged businesses, we would refer them clients and vice versa because they were an eCommerce platform similar to Shopify.

And so yeah, got to know him. And then one day I messaged him like, "Hey, yo, what are...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Email marketing should still be a priority. Although we can market on social media, we’re posting on borrowed ground that doesn’t belong to us. If the platform disappeared tomorrow, you’d lose your following.
• Once an email is on your email list, it belongs to you.
• If you send an email to your list, you can expect an open rate of 30-50% depending on your list. On Messenger, the open rate is between 70-80%. However, the reason that rate is so high is that people aren’t
• used to it yet. This is why there’s still a place for email.
• You need to be sending marketing or newsletters through a proper email provider, not just Outlook. Plus, you need to provide an opt-out. MailChimp, Drip and Infusionsoft are great options that offer opt-outs automatically.
• HTML emails often cause email providers to see them as a bulk email. This can cause delivery rates and open rates to decrease. Text-based emails work and are better for producing increased open rates.
• Keep your emails consistent. At least once a month is a good minimum.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You should always be adding value to your recipient’s lives through your emails. Tips, ideas and strategies are a great place to start! Obviously, a strong call to action is a must. However, start by adding value and then attempt the sale.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Is email marketing still worth doing? – 05:30
• Open rates in email compared to Messenger – 07:15
• Collecting email addresses for your list - 09:10
• Best email platforms for your list – 10:44
• HTML or text only? – 11:42
• Always add value to your emails – 18:42

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Episode 6: 5 Tried & Tested Strategies to Build Your Email List
• MailChimp
• Drip
• Infusionsoft

Transcript below

 

Hello, and welcome to episode 32 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple podcast, and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you're having a great Monday, if you're listening to this as it comes out on Monday. Or whatever day it is that you're listening to this, I hope you're having a good day.

So this week I've been out and about, I've had a bit of a busy week, and I've attended Marketed Live, which is an event here in the UK. It's an event aimed at, obviously, marketers and people who work in social media, and they have some great speakers talking all about various different things to do with the future of marketing and social media. And it kind of got me thinking a bit about, do you attend many conferences? I know in this digital world we live in, it's amazing that you can be, I don't know, cooking dinner in Australia and listening to my podcast, phenomenal what a world we live in, and how amazing it is that if you want to learn anything, you can just go online and learn how to do that thing. But sometimes I honestly think that it's worth having that one-to-one interaction with human beings in the same place. Because actually, not only is it great to see the speakers and connect with them, but also it's so good to meet other people in your industry, like-minded people who you can talk through things, who you can share ideas with.

So it was a really lovely event and I was really glad I attended. But I understand it takes a couple of days at the office, you got to pay to get there, you got to pay for the events, so it is a big investment in your time, but I do genuinely think it's a worthwhile investment. And actually, if you get the tickets early, and I know Marketed Live have already released the 2019 tickets, if you get them now before they announce their speakers and get closer to the event, you can actually get these at a really low cost. So it's the same with all events, but I would definitely have a look at that one.

So the other thing I've been thinking about, and I decided that I wanted to talk about it on here before I get in today's content, is I've decided to challenge myself. Now, most people won't believe this, but I'm actually not that keen putting myself on camera. Like most people, I am super critical of how I look and how I come across, and there are a million times that I've recorded me on camera, on Insta stories, or wanting to put it somewhere, maybe on Facebook or whatever, and then I've taken one look at it and thought, uh-uh, and I've deleted it and forgotten the idea. So I am going to set myself a challenge, and I'm going to become accountable because I'm going to tell you now what that challenges, and I would like you to come and have a word with me if you see that I am not meeting that challenge, if you see that I am not carrying out what I've said I am going to do.

Okay, so the thing I'm going to do is, every day for 30 days ... So I'm going to start the challenge when this podcast comes out, which is Monday, the 1st, and I'm going to run it until the end of October. And my challenge is, every single day, I am going to appear on either Insta stories or Instagram TV, depending on how long I want to talk for, and I'm going to share with you one tip and it's literally going to be really quick, really direct, and really helpful, useful tips. Now, they're not going to be big, complicated things. This is going to be back to basic stuff. It's going to be explaining how to use hashtags or how many you can use. It's going to be explaining a content idea, or a scheduling tool, or something like that.

But do you know what? I train an awful lot, and sometimes you get to a point where you think surely everybody knows that because obviously I talk about it so much. But actually, the truth is, lots of people don't know some of these things. So I'm going to go back to basics. Like I said, October 1, I'm going to show up every day over on Instagram, so if you're not following me, go and find me over there, and I'm going to start sharing some tips for you. And like I said, they're not going to be the most massively confusing or crazy tips, they're just going to be some real basic stuff that you can change and do today. Go over there and have a look, and if I'm not doing it, then you need to tell me.

Okay, after four amazing interview episodes, I love doing them, I hope you enjoy them, too, today's episode is just me all on my own. As I've said, the interviews will come back, but I'm going to mix them up with these sessions where I'm just talking on my own. So today, we're going to be talking about email marketing. We're going to be looking at, with all these new technologies, is email marketing still a thing you need to do. We're going to be considering of how it fits into social media. And then we're going to be looking at some email marketing platforms, and some of the things you might want to think about when doing email marketing and how to use some of those emails.

 

Is email marketing still worth doing?

 

To start us off, is email marketing even still worth doing it? With things like Messenger advertising, and direct messages, and social media being so great, is email really worth still putting time and effort into? 100% yes. From my opinion, I think email is still a very valid and key part of any marketing strategy. The first reason I think that is because when you market on social media, and I've said it before, you market on borrowed ground, it doesn't belong to you. So it's all very well and good having loads of followers, and loads of likes on a page, or loads of connections through LinkedIn, or whatever it might be. However, if something was to happen to that platform tomorrow, or you were to break a term and condition, then you would no longer have those connections. Also, with the constant algorithm changes, what might work today, suddenly then doesn't work tomorrow.

So it's always best to try and get that data onto your own email list in a good and proper way, obviously, and if you're in the UK and Europe, then obviously complying with GDPR rules. However, it's always helpful to get that email onto your email list because then it belongs to you and you have another way in order to connect with that client, or prospect, or audience member. Obviously, once you've got that email address, don't think, that's it, I don't need to put anything on social media for them. You still want to try and capture them and market to them in different ways. However, having their email just gives you another option.

 

Open rates in email compared to Messenger

 

At this point, I just want to address sort of open rates and how that's comparing next to something like Messenger. Now, if you send an email today to your list, you can expect an open rate between, let's say, 30% and 50%. Now, obviously this is different for everybody. It depends on the size of your list, how warm you list is, who you are, what you're talking about, et cetera, et cetera. However, you're probably talking 30% to 50% tops, so I would say. And your click through rate, well, that is going to be down near 5% to 10% if you're lucky. And when you look at Messenger marketing, i.e, when someone sends you a message, a business sends you a message within instant Messenger within Facebook, the open rate on that is anywhere between 70% and 80%, and the click through rate is something crazy like 40%. I think that's great and amazing. And if you can do Messenger alongside your email, then brilliant. But I also think that the reason that rate is so high is because it's a fairly new technology and people aren't used to it yet. And maybe like email, they will get tired of that once it becomes overly popular and people are using it all the time. But I still think there is always room for email.

The other thing I love about email marketing is you can now do super clever stuff through email automation, and it's no longer just sending those massive bulk emails to people where it says, "Hi, first name." Classic, don't know how many of them I've had, or not even bothering to attempt with your first name. You can send much more personalised emails to people based on what they've done, what they've looked at, what they've bought. So therefore, you can get much more smarter with your marketing.

 

Collecting email addresses for your list

 

So if you're going to be sending emails, one of the first things you need to think about is collecting that email data. Now, if you head back to episode six, I talk you through five tried and tested strategies to build your email list. Because obviously there's no point putting together emails if you got no one to send them to. You should be actively trying to build your list all the time. So go check out that episode. I'll link it up in the show notes, which if you go to www.theresaheathwearing.com/32, you'll see the show notes there. But you want to head over and check out that episode to see how to build your email.

But let's say you have an email list and you want to start marketing to those people, you're going have to think of a platform in order to use to send those physical emails out. Now, some people might still think it's okay to use your own email, i.e, Outlook or Mac mail, or whatever it might be, but I promise you it's not. You really do need to be sending marketing, or newsletter type communication through a proper email provider, one, it's built for that purpose, and two, you have to provide an update. So at the bottom of your email or somewhere in your email, there has to be a very easy way in which someone can physically opt out of your email list if they want to. And obviously with the platforms I'm going to be talking about, they have this technology easily built in as standard into their emails.

 

Best email platforms for your list

 

So the three platforms I'm going to talk to you about as possibles for your email marketing are MailChimp, Drip and Infusionsoft. And as the same with the episode link, I will put these links in the show notes as well. Now, MailChimp is probably the one that most people know. And the good thing about MailChimp is it's free to get started, and you can actually send quite a lot of emails to a fairly large list with no cost whatsoever. However, the one downside to MailChimp is that some of the functionality, some of the really cool stuff you want to be doing if you want to take your email marketing a step further, then actually cost you money. Even though you can send out newsletters, if you want to automate it, or if you wanted to make it do something clever, you're likely to have to pay for that.

 

HTML or text only?

 

Now, MailChimp is a really good thing to use if you want a drag and drop builder, where you literally put together a HTML email. Now I have to say, I have stopped sending HTML emails. Let me just quickly explain what I mean by that. So an HTML email is an email that has lots of images in it, or is really beautiful looking. So people like Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer, these are UK company. Sorry, I'm just trying to think. Who else I could think of that's American as well and Australian? But obviously any kind of big brands are likely to send you HTML emails where they're all beautifully done and there's images in the email. I now send text only. And the reason I send text-only emails is, one, when a email provider, i.e, the people you're sending it to, the systems that they're receiving their emails through, so say Gmail, sees a HTML email, they know that it's a bulk email, they know that it's a big marketing email. So the deliverable rates, the people who actually receive those emails, could be less than with a text email.

The other reason I use text only is it looks really personal. It looks like an email that I would physically send as if I was directly emailing you myself, and I really like the look of that. I like the fact that people see it as a more personal thing between me and them. This is really odd because actually I love beautiful things as I've talked about before, and I really liked HTML emails because I like the fact that you can make them look great. But what's more important to me than something looking beautiful is actually working. And for me, text-only emails work so much better. Now, you can use text only emails in MailChimp, however, they are predominantly set up for HTML, and that's what people tend to use them for.

If you don't want to do any automation or anything of the cool stuff, then MailChimp will be a great option for you because you can have up to 2500 people on your email list and send your emails for free. So definitely check out MailChimp. However, if you want to get a bit smarter, and by smarter I mean, let's say when someone signs up to your email newsletter they get an autoresponder back, let's say if they click on something in their email, they then get something else sent to them. That's the kind of more automation that I'm talking about.

So for me, I have a lead magnet on my Teresa website where it says, "Five things," I have to think now, "Five things that you can do in order to grow your Facebook followers for free." And that lead magnet is a five part email mini course. So because I use one of these cool systems, I'm obviously not having to send out each email, I set it up, I decide the time difference I want between each email, and it sends it automatically for me. It's really smart like that.

The other thing that these email systems do that I'm going to be talking about, is they can tag your audience with things, and this is awesome. So for me, if someone downloads a particular lead magnet, I can tag them so I know that they got that lead magnet. If I speak at an event and someone downloads something again, I can tag them to say they were at a particular event. And when I mentioned earlier that email is getting more personal and smarter, this is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you being able to email someone saying, "Thank you so much for downloading that thing. How did you find it? What was it like? Because you downloaded this, I think you might like this." That's really cool. You're not wasting people's time, you're not sending them messages that aren't of interest to them.

So for me, the two email systems that I use are Drip and Infusionsoft. Now, Drip is a great system and does some really cool automation stuff. It is owned by lead pages. And obviously as you know, because I've talked about it before, I love lead pages. So the two systems talk together really nicely. The cost wise isn't too bad. You get something like your first 100 email contacts for free, but it's free with all the functionalities. So if you wanted to start your account today, you could at no cost. You could set up all your automations, you can plan all your emails, plan your funnel, and then as people start getting added to it, then when you hit the 100 mark, you'll then start getting charged for it. I actually really like that way because at least you can go in and have a play and decide whether you like the system or not.

Now, Drip is a great one. Like I said, it can do some great automation, and currently, that's what I use. I am actually moving over to Infusionsoft, which I feel really bad about because I do love Drip. They're a great company. But Infusionsoft for me is next level stuff. So the cost of Infusionsoft is considerably higher than Drip is. However, the stuff it can do is immense. It connects to a card, it can tell me when someone's paid, it can do reoccurring payments. It's a really fancy system. It can do some really smart integrations. So for instance, I've used Infusionsoft for a client where we've done a webinar and we've connected it with Zoom, so we know who's registered, we know if they've attended. And because of that, we can then send a more specific automated email out. It can do some really, really cool stuff.

So like I said, those are the kind of three platforms I'd use. If you're only at the stage of wanting to send the odd newsletter, or the odd email out, I would try and be consistent with it by the way. I would at least try and do something once a month as a minimum. Now, I'm going to have to speak to myself about this. I'm not very good at emailing people very often. However, if I was advising someone, I would say you should probably do it at least once a month. Obviously, we all know that we have some companies that we follow or people that you follow, and we get bombarded constantly. However, for me, if you're doing it a minimum of once a month, then that's a great starting place.

Like I said, if you're just going to be sending out newsletters, or fairly sporadic emails and your list isn't massive, then MailChimp is a good starting point, if you're wanting to get more sophisticated, which is a fantastic way to save time and ultimately money in the end. And the other thing it does is it future proofs you. So even though at the moment you think, "Well, you know what, I'm not getting loads on my list, but it would be good to automate that bit," imagine when you then start getting loads of people on your list how easy it would be that that's already set up. So it's worth having a think about that. And also when you're used to a system, you don't want to then have to change again. Because I'm changing from Drip over to Infusionsoft, I've...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Content marketing isn’t an overnight success. However, it doesn’t have to take years like you’ve been told. It’s only long-term if your content is boring and you’re the same as everyone else.
• Sometimes, it isn’t enough to be yourself in content. It takes being different and standing out to make a difference and to grow.
• Consistency is key with marketing. Create an amazing idea and be consistent in always improving. However, don’t consistently do something that isn’t working. Be consistent with what IS working.
• Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great tool for marketing. Test the waters using your Instagram story or social media first to see how it’s received!
• What piece of content got the best reaction? Milk it. Use it again and create something new out of it!
• For bouncing ideas around as a solopreneur, find an accountability partner or get involved in a mastermind group.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You have to be different. Don’t be afraid to break the mold and do things others won’t expect. There are so many marketing services out there, so it will take something new and unique to make it all work. The moment you stand out, the quicker you grow.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Content marketing isn’t a long-term strategy – 12:13
• The remarkability trifle -14:44
• How to test your ideas with reaction spikes – 22:04
• All about Andrew and Pete’s very first event Atomicon 2019 – 45:52

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Andrew and Pete’s website
• Find Andrew and Pete on:Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Andrew and Pete TV
• Atomicon 2019

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to episode 31 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath Wearing. I am so glad to have you here with me today. I am now at the end of September, where we have focused the entire of September on interviews, on bringing you amazing guests. Today, to round off, I have not disappointed yet again. I have got a fantastic guest for you today. Now it's not to say that after this week, we're not doing guests anymore, that's not the case at all. We're going to mix things up. So there's going to be episodes with me that are solo episodes, and then we're going to have yet more amazing interviews. I still have some amazing people lined up coming soon. But I just wanted to really kickstart the interviews, as I had done none since starting the podcast. Hence, why I decided to dedicate an entire month just to giving you amazing guests.

Today, I've not got one, but two amazing guests. I am so privileged to not only have them as guests on the podcast because they're amazing marketers, but that I am lucky enough to have them as friends. So in today's podcast, I bring you Andrew and Pete. It's like I need to fanfare again, I want to do this on every single one. I am definitely going to have to get that kind of sound clip that plays when I mention someone's name. So if you haven't heard of Andrew and Pete, they are the funnel content marketing duo who help business and brands get faster results from their content. They have a weekly YouTube show, and they run one of the UK's leading content marketing membership communities called Atomic, where they bring people in every single month to teach their audience various different things to do with marketing and social media, and content.

I was lucky enough, not so long ago, to do a lesson for them all about webinars and converting people from an email to a sale. So that was great. So they provide some great content within their membership. They've also written two books, the Hippocampus, and Content Mavericks. They regularly keynote internationally at conferences around the world. They've spoken at Social Media Marketing World a number of times. I have to say, they are some of the most entertaining people you will see on a stage.

Whenever I see Andrew and Pete, I always, A, learn something from them, and B, am thoroughly entertained. So, today, you are up for a real treat, because this is going to be a fun podcast. I do feel, though, it needs to have a slight warning in place that there is a lot of laughing going on. So I apologise at times if it gets a bit silly. But I can assure you, they drop some amazing value bombs and you are going to get some great content from this podcast episode. They are the kings of content. So let me not take up any more time and go straight to the interview. Here's Andrew and Pete.

So I am super excited about today's podcast episode, and to introduce you to these amazing guys that I am very lucky to call my friends. So it gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome Andrew and Pete, yay. Thank you so much for coming on, guys. I am so please to have you on the podcast with me today. Thank you for saying yes.

Aw, it's our pleasure.

We would say yes to you any day of the week.

Aw, thanks guys.

I feel like there should be a pre warning, though, to anyone listening, that when Andrew and Teresa are in the same room, they laugh a hell of a lot. We just trigger each other off. I don't know what it is.

We love a laugh, don't we?

We love a laugh. It's good exercise.

Do you know what? I think it's a great way to be. I think if you can laugh at stuff, then life is just so much nicer, isn't it? And easier.

We should call each other every morning just to-

Just to like pump each other up, get each other kind of all siked for the day. The problem is, though, the other thing that we do is we get on a call, and we take forever, because we just can't stop laughing. So we are ...

For this podcast interview, we've already taken half an hour. We've only just started recording.

Yeah, yeah. So I apologise now, that this is going to be ... This is going to be great, these guys are fantastic. It's going to be fun. But we are going to laugh a lot, which hopefully you don't mind, because I quite like that.

I'm going to try not to.

Yes, should we try and be reasonable.

[inaudible 00:05:13].

Yeah, we ought to do five minutes.

I think Pete is going to keep us on chat.

Yes, absolutely. I think we need to be kept on chat.

This is the look.

Oh, that's a good look.

It's great for a podcast.

You have to screenshot that look, so that people can see. But yeah, Pete just gave me a nice sort of firm, teacher stare, eyebrows down, basically saying that is enough now, get on with the podcast.

Question one, please.

Let's talk about content.

So, let me start off, because I just have to let you guys talk, because honestly, we're just going to keep laughing. So let me start off, if my audience hasn't heard of you before, one, where have you been? Because Andrew and Pete are amazing. But tell me guys, who you are, how you got to be doing what you're doing now, which is mainly just laughing? But please share for our audience.

Okay, so me and Andrew, we've set up a business together and we met each other at university. We bonded over our friendship to one day rule the world and run a business together. When university was over, we had to make that decision of do we go into business together? Do we not? Do we just get a job like everyone else? What do we do? Andrew wanted to move all the way to the other side of the country to live in New Castle, which is just below the wall, hello Scotland, and any Americans there. He wanted to go and live with his girlfriend. I was like, oh my god, what do I do? Because I'm going to have to move out of my comfort zone, I've only ever lived with my parents and the university halls-

Which was like half an hour away from his parents.

Yeah, okay. My parents did everything for me. I had to move all the way to New Castle, to set up a business in a place where I knew absolutely nobody. We have no business contacts, we had no experience, we didn't really have a proper business at that point. We had no content, we had no social media presence. We thought, how the hell are we ever going to make this work? So we started doing all the regular things that everyone does. I made that decision, let's move to New Castle with Andrew. I decided to be that third wheel in the relationship. I didn't get the hint.

Yeah, his girlfriend was thinking, great, we'll get away from Pete now. Pete was like, no, no, I'll just come with you.

All the same house as well, it was tough.

I'll sleep on the end of the bed, it'll be fine.

Just a little.

So we did everything that we should do, and that's something that, a lot of people get into that stage where everyone is doing all the things they think they should be doing in the way that they should be doing it. We were [inaudible 00:08:08], we were doing email marketing, we were tweeting, we had a LinkedIn, we had a Facebook page. We were doing everything right-ish. But yet, we weren't seeing any results. Not any results, which meant nothing. It was really devastating. But we knew that it was a longterm strategy. So that's what we always tell you, right? It's a longterm strategy.

In this podcast today, I'm going to prove to you that it's not a longterm strategy. Well, it is, but you can get short term benefits too. We were doing this for so long, and nothing was happening. In fact, we got all of our results from networking, face to face business networking. We did that, because although we were the two youngest people in the room, like literally every time, we looked like we were 12. We would always go and do something daft, wouldn't we? We'd go and take indoor fireworks, [crosstalk 00:09:06]-

We threw chocolate across the room.

Once it landed down a woman's top, and a man went to grab it, and it got awkward. But it was hilarious.

That's a true story. I don't think she ever came back. It was like I was aiming, but I honestly wasn't. I was forgiven, because the guy that went down to get it, I feel like everyone thought, what in the world?

I think everybody does networking, especially when you're starting in a location. I have been to more networking things than I care to remember. I can only imagine how you two went down, because they're not that fun. You know? People aren't for like ... Sometimes when people do do quirky things, it's a bit like, oh, cringe. But, I can only imagine that they must have thought, what the hell have we got here? When you two walked through the door dressed as [inaudible 00:10:00].

We made a name for ourselves quite fast.

Locally.

Locally, anyway. But still nothing was happening online. Like you said, you can imagine how people are reacting, because nobody does anything really different.

It did not go down well at BMI.

Probably one of the most serious ones I've ever been to.

Yeah, they did not want us to join, I don't think. Well, it kind of, the point there was it was working offline with networking, because we were completely ourselves, we did things completely differently. Looking at our online presence, it just didn't match up. It was just boring, it was blasé, it was the same as everyone else. That's when we though, right, we've kind of conquered New Castle, let's try to conquer the world, which was always the grand plan.

How do we take what's working offline and put it more online? So that's when we really started looking at our online content, thinking how do we make this more fun? How do we make it more sharable? How do we make it more us? It wasn't necessarily, I hate the overnight success kind of thing of it. But, relatively quickly, like six to 12 months, we were suddenly becoming more and more known. A lot more people knew about us, a lot more people were sharing our content. It felt like we had funds for the first time. We started getting us to speak at awesome events, even though people had never seen us speak. They had just kind of seen our online content, assumed we could speak, and booked us these huge events all over the world. That was over maybe 12 months.

Yeah. So like, I mean, in the first six months of, what was it? 2015? We achieved more in that first six months of the year than we had in the previous five months. We made more money, we got more speaking gigs, we got more ...

Five years.

Sorry, yeah.

Take two.

That's quick.

 

Content marketing isn’t a long-term strategy

 

We did more in six months than we did in five, In five years. So when people say content marketing is a longterm strategy, it's a longterm strategy if your content is horrendously boring and you're not constantly improving, and you're not different from everyone else, and you're not making those fast improvements. So the moment you do it right, you do see immediate benefits. Our very first speaking gig was Social Media Marketing World.

What? No.

That was our first conference.

The world's largest social media ...

That was our first conference, yeah.

For anybody who doesn't know Social Media Marketing World, it's a huge ... It's probably, I think now, guys, it's the world's best social media conference, isn't it? It's a massive event. For someone like me, and for these guys, and anybody in our industry, that has got to be the highlight. It's got to be up there on the pinnacle of events to speak at. So that fact that that was your first event you spoke at, that is crazy.

We were crapping ourselves.

You were like, what if we're dreadful? No one's ever seen us speak before. We could be awful. But the funny thing was, all you said you did there was be yourself, you know. You had this fun personality offline, and for whatever reason, you weren't putting that online. The minute you did, the minute you were honest and said, actually, this is who we are, it made such a difference to your business.

What we will say there is, though, because I feel like this phrase is bandied about a lot, like the be yourself and everything is going to be great. I'm going to actually challenge that and nix that and say-

Don't be yourself.

Because often times, like yes, we want you to be more of yourself, get yourself more, and that's what builds the trust in relationships. But for some people and for some businesses, that isn't enough. For some people, that isn't enough. In a lot of industries, especially the really saturated industries, it's not going to be enough. How many marketing podcasts are there?

Oh man.

How many marketing YouTube channels are there?

Yeah.

 

The remarkability trifle

 

Everyone is being themselves, but yet, why are none of them growing? Or why are you struggling to grow? Because everyone is doing it, right? So it takes more than just being yourself. It takes being different, it takes standing up. That's what's going to make it worth sharing, worth subscribing to, worth wanting to come back for more, worth telling people. That's the level that we want to get to. We almost see it as like three different levels. So we call this the remarkability trifle.

We've never talked about the trifle on a podcast before. So this is the first-

This is like an exclusive trifle talk. We haven't talked about trifle either. So this is a first for both of us.

I get Pete, like, are we actually talking about the trifle? We've never actually talked about the trifle before.

I mean, okay, to say this, as I'm saying it, I'm going to go with it anyway. Now, there's a trifle.

Now there's a trifle.

Have to tell you about the trifle now.

Okay, so the first layer of the trifle.

Well, the first layer of the trifle is ideation. So it's coming up with those ideas. So we've got 1,000 ways for you to come up with more creative ideas, and we'll go through those in a little bit. The second level of layer of the trifle is about getting validation. So if you went with yourself, how do you have the confidence to take forward those ideas? How many of you listen to this podcast, have thought of a really fun content idea, kind of giggled to yourself, gone, all that would be great, and then never done it? Right? You're too scared, you don't know how it's going to go, you're going to ruin this professional image that you've been trying to build up. So you might be a little bit scared.

So how are you going to get the confidence? Then if you're in a team or a bigger company, how are you going to convince your boss, your peers, that this is a good idea? Then if you're an agency, how are you going to convince your clients that this is something that you should do for them and it's going to work? Then the third layer, once you've tested that, once you've got that buy in, is about dependability. So one of the biggest problems we had was we really had a lot of different creative things going on. We were known to lots of different people for doing different things creatively. For some people, we were known as those guys that had the funny Twitter DM, to some people we were known as those guys that did that online conference once.

Or dressed as zombies, once.

It was always once. We always did a lot of crazy things, but just once. So it becomes-

Do you have a list, when you say once?

Oh, no. Once.

It was the face. I know, also, you can't see this, but his face when he said the word once, as well, was really good. He was really emphasising the once.

Oh god.

Oh no.

So you did it all once.

Yeah.

That was a good one.

You can't say, oh, you should go follow Andrew and Pete because they do this really cool, and then list the thing. You can't do that. So what we say is you need that five second story. What is that five second story? So for example, our YouTube channel, go check out Andrew and Pete's YouTube channel, they talk about marketing, but they do it in a really fun way. So there's lots of fun, and [inaudible 00:18:14]. Sent to Andrew and Pete's podcast, it's like a game show, where the guests have to drop value bombs to win points, and there's that overall winner.

So it's almost like two prong, right? So you need that kind of story that people can pass on. You need to know what that story is, and repeat it. Yeah? Welcome to our YouTube channel, where we make marketing unboring, or that kind of thing. Then you also need to be consistent. I think that's something that we got really serious about around the same time when we realised, you know what? We need to do this better online. It was just that consistency, like every single week, new piece of content, constantly reminding people. It's completely compounded as well. When you start getting consistent, every single piece of content adds to that in an almost exponential way.

So for example, if we release a video on YouTube every week ... Go check out our YouTube channel by the way, Andrewandpete.tv. So let's say one of our videos gets one view, another gets ten views every week or every month. Over time, those ones and tens, they just keep adding up and adding up. I remember looking at our...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Becoming an entrepreneur often takes work. If you’ve fallen into your own business and need help owning your new entrepreneurial endeavor, that’s totally ok.
• A coach is a brilliant investment to help you work on you as an entrepreneur.
• The imposter syndrome is real for all entrepreneurs. “Who the heck am I to do this?” is a common question and a barrier to break through. Flip the script on this and ask, “Who am I not to do this?”
• Facebook Ads are still the most cost effective and efficient social media advertising platform available today.
• A successful Facebook Ad requires you to know your audience, to understand your offer, to create the right copy, to choose the right image, and more. You need to know the fundamentals of marketing!
• If you’re just starting out in Facebook Advertising, start with just $10 a day for 7 days. Test it, see how it works. Then run another one for $10 a day for 7 days. Compare those results. Keep testing until you find something that connects, then put money into it.
• You need to remember the full funnel tied to your ad. Remember to think all the way through your funnel to ensure the messaging remains consistent throughout. This consistency is what is necessary if you want higher conversion rates.
• When you’re going for a conversion-based campaign, the algorithm wants you to go after a larger reach.
• You need to allow your ads to run for at least 3 days for the algorithm to figure out your ad. This is part of the “learning phase.”
• To be in this space, showing up on camera is important. And being consistent is important.
• Anxiety is a real thing when showing up on camera, and even when running your own business. It takes a lot of work to keep it under control!
• Remember that what you’re doing is offer help to those who need it. Use that focus to put your ego in check and keep perfectionism at bay.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Paid advertising is an art. You don’t need to start out with a lot of money, but you do need to test it and commit to it. Those who commit are the ones who succeed. And remember that commitment doesn’t require perfection. All you need to do is commit and follow through on a consistent basis. Get your stuff out there!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• A bit about Rick’s path to online advertising – 06:40
• The accidental entrepreneur – 14:23
• Why Facebook Ads is the right thing right now for Rick – 18:37
• What most people get wrong in Facebook Ads – 21:16
• You can advertise on Facebook for very little money up front – 25:37
• The best part of Facebook Ads – 30:00
• Facebook Ads are part of a larger process – 35:13
• Facebook’s AI: “The Learning Phase” – 41:32
• Perfectionism, life on camera, and more – 45:15
• Getting personal is hard, but worthwhile – 55:16

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• RickMulready.com
• The Art of Paid Traffic podcast
• Rick’s Facebook page
• Rick’s Instagram page

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a super-warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I hope wherever you are in the world, you are having a great week. Actually, saying that has reminded me ... Because, this week, I was talking to one of my listeners on Facebook Messenger, and she was asking me whether I knew what kind of split I had between the UK and America.

And I wasn't sure, because actually I wasn't sure where I could find that kind of information. And she really kindly put me in touch with a friend of hers that knows a bit about podcasts, and also was able to give me a link to somewhere where I could see the kind of breakdown I had. It was so cool, I have to say, to look at it and see that I'd got people listening in America, Australia, obviously here in the UK. It's just so nice to think that you put some content together, you work really hard on it, and you want people to hopefully take in that content, appreciate that content, and that it benefits them in some way, that they would listen.

So, I am so very grateful that you have decided to pick up this podcast and listen to it. I really do appreciate you being here, and I really hope that you have been enjoying the interviews that we've been doing so far. So far this month, we have had Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield, which, as I said last week, are like kind of dreams come true for me. And it's funny, I did an Instagram post in the week, where I said that success was like buses, that you get nothing for ages, and then everything comes along at once. I am not complaining, I am just blown away recently about some of the amazing things that have happened.

One of those things is that I've been invited to do a TEDx talk, which is amazing, because this has been on my vision board since I had a vision board, actually, along with lots of other places that I want to speak at. But a TEDx talk was always near the top of the list, because for me it has real experts. I find TED talks fascinating, I find the people that do them really polished, and the fact that I've been allowed to do one is crazy.

Now, I am terrified, by the way, and I'm trying to put together the presentation for it. I am panicking and having self-doubt, and impostor syndrome at every single slide that I am doing, because it's something huge, and I want to make it really good, and I want people to love it. Also, I know that doing a TEDx talk is an amazing opportunity, but I look at that for every opportunity I get. I think to myself that I want to be the best I can possibly be, or do the best I can possibly do at every single thing that I'm asked to do or invited to do. So, even though TEDx is really high on my list, I think I would care just as much about the smaller things as well. But I do really want this one to be really good.

Anyway, on with today's show. So, it's still September, which means I still have another interview for you, and this one is a really cool one. They're all cool. I wouldn't bring you anybody that wasn't cool, obviously. But I loved doing this one, and in fact the interview itself was done really late at night, because again, I think I mentioned before, lots of people I'm interviewing are in the States. So, it was about 10 o'clock at night by the time I started the interview, and I got off, and I was buzzing, because, you know when you do something, you think, "I loved that. Every single minute of it, I thought was brilliant." And I'm really hoping that you're going to think the same.

So, this week, I have the pleasure of introducing the amazing Rick Mulready. Now, I found Rick through Amy Porterfield some years ago, as he is Amy's go-to Facebook ad person. Now, Rick has been in the online marketing space for 18 years, and is an industry-leading authority on how to simplify Facebook ads, and that's one of the things I love about Rick. He has this amazing ability to take something that could be quite technical and complicated, and make it so simple and straightforward, and give you the ability to walk through it, step by step. He also is the host of a popular podcast called The Art of Paid Traffic, and they've just gone past their 200th episode.

So, Rick really is an amazing font of knowledge about Facebook ads. In this podcast, we talk about how Rick got to do what he does. We had a chat about what he loves about Facebook ads, and quite frankly him and I were really geeking out about numbers, and how cool Facebook ads are, and what they can do for your business. And then we had a really interesting chat about him and how he deals with not only anxiety, but perfectionism, when we're in a business where you put yourself on camera, and effectively leave yourself open to be criticised and judged. I really hope you enjoy this episode. I thought it was a great one.

I won't wait any further, and I will introduce the awesome Rick Mulready. Rick, I am so happy to welcome you here on this episode of the podcast. I am so excited to have you with me. Welcome.

I'm honoured to be here, thanks so much for having me, Teresa.

I have been really lucky that I've seen Rick talk. I've followed him for quite some time, and I remember seeing you, or hearing you, more likely, on Amy's podcast, and thinking to myself, and I was driving ... It was one of those moments when you're like, "I haven't got a pen, I need to remember this guy's name." Because you were just talking so much sense, on a subject that, A. I haven't really found anybody who was really good at it, or said it in a way that we could understand. So, yeah, I found you really quickly, and I followed you, and I've loved your stuff ever since.

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

No worries, but, for my audience, if they haven't come across you before, and I have mentioned you ... In fact, really quickly, I did a talk at Converted in Minneapolis last year for lead pages, and you were in my presentation. Because-

That's right too, you mentioned that to me. Thank you- [crosstalk 00:06:36]

Yeah, remember that. Yeah, I name-dropped you there, and I know I've name-dropped you before, but if my audience haven't heard of you, Rick, tell me a bit about how you got into doing what you're doing, and how you got here today.

 

A bit about Rick’s path to online advertising

 

Yeah, so, I come from a corporate background. I was in online advertising for ... How long was I doing that? For 12-and-a-half years, before I left the corporate world. So, I started back in, I like to call them the Wild West days of the Internet, where ... I started back at AOL, on the East Coast of the States here, and I was in the online ... the advertising [inaudible 00:07:12] operations team. So I started out as somebody who implemented all the ad deals that the sales team were selling, and then, pretty quickly, I was managing the team. So, I was one of the managers for a couple of people, and then it progressed from there, and then before I knew it, it was me and one other guy who were managing about 40 people, total.

And so that was my first sort of introduction, if you will, to online advertising. And this is still back in the days where, when I first started, I remember, they were still sending out those discs, the AOL discs, with the annoying connection sound and everything like that.

And so, this was a lot, too, before there was any kind of regulation or standardisation of advertising, so I just got to see things really early on. Also, way back when things were just measured by click-through rate. That was it. It was just like, that was the measure of success. Like, "How was the click-through rate?" I was at AOL for five years, then I moved out here to the West Coast, I worked for Yahoo for a couple of years, worked for Funny or Die for about a year. And so, a lot of different companies in the online advertising space, over about a 12-and-a-half-year period. And so, starting in 2000, and here we are in almost the fall of 2018, I've been doing this now for almost 19 years-

Wow.

... in the online advertising space. And, obviously, I love this space, the whole world of online advertising and marketing is just ... I love it, and I can talk about it for days. I've just seen so many different iterations of it, and also worked in so many different parts of it, from back in AOL, which was just like standard banner ads, and things got a little bit crazy when we were doing animated gifs, back then.

You're like, "I'm changing the world here."

Exactly, and then when I was at Yahoo years later, then it was more like, we called it rich media, where there were interstitials, or things moving around the screen, and all that type of stuff, and search. Then, when I was at Funny or Die, this was a branded entertainment. So, these are big production videos that we partner with brands on, and stuff like that. And I did contextual advertising, another company.

So I've just kind of seen the whole gamut of online advertising and online marketing, and what works for big brands and what the accessibility, I guess you'd call it, for small businesses. And that was really the reason, or that was a reason why I got into Facebook ads, was because I was at these big corporate jobs and companies, working with and for some of the biggest brands in the world, but I was also, number one, I was starting to get an itch of, "I want to do something else. I want to do my own thing, I want to get out of corporate."

I didn't really know what that was, but, this was around 2010 or so, I was seeing what was happening on Facebook, and I was seeing the ability for small businesses to market themselves, on a platform that wasn't costing them a lot of money. And so, because of my advertising background, I gravitated towards the advertising side of Facebook, and I dove in. In 2010, I said, "You know what? I need to figure out something. I want to leave the corporate world. I don't know what that looks like, I don't even know what ... I've never been an entrepreneur, I've never ... running my own business or anything like that."

But, I knew I had this itch to do something like that, and so I said, "You know what? This is what is right in front of me right now, from a Facebook ads perspective. Let's try it out." And so I dove in, started teaching myself, started running some campaigns. I ran some campaigns for friends. And so, long story short is, I left the corporate world in 2012, in the fall of 2012, fumbled around for 15 months, had no idea what I was doing, and then finally got some coaching, got some direction, in January 2014, and started the business that I have now. We've been growing over the past ... almost five years now, because we're at the end of August here, so a little over four-and-a-half years, and things have been awesome. It's been an amazing ride.

That's so cool, and actually one thing that I find really interesting, because your story is fairly similar, in a sense, that I came from corporate as well. And in fact I was listening this morning to ... I don't know whether you know Carrie Green, she's Female Entrepreneur Association.

Yeah.

I was just listening to her audiobook, and she was saying, "From a really young age, I'd started my own business." And then I was listening to something from James Wedmore the other week as well, and he was saying the same, and I was thinking, "Do you know what, I never did." I don't know about you, but I never had the inclination at all for a long time.

Yeah, I was just talking about this this morning with somebody else. Like, I don't come from an entrepreneurial family.

No.

My dad was an auto mechanic, my mom, when I was growing up, was a paediatric nurse, and then later a children's librarian, so I don't come from that entrepreneurial background. However, when I was a young kid, I was best friends with a kid in my neighbourhood who did have that entrepreneurial kind of ... He wanted to do his own thing, and so we used to do ... I recently told my wife this, she was like, "That's the weirdest thing ever." We used to dig up dirt, and sift it, in like wire mesh.

Okay.

And we used to put in little Ziploc bags, and take it around to homes in the neighbourhood, and sell what we called "sifted sand". And we would position it like, this was great to grow plants in, you know?

Brilliant.

We always got the pity dime from people, but they were just throwing it in the trash right after that.

And it didn't take off, Rick? I don't understand.

It did not take off. No, we did not end up selling that business or anything like that.

It's really weird.

We would hold magic shows at his house, and we would invite neighbourhood kids. They would have to pay to come, or I remember we would do Halloween haunted houses in his basement, invite neighbourhood kids. But, even though I was part of these little entrepreneurial ventures that we were doing, it wasn't driven from me. These were driven from him. You know, as I think back on it now, it's like, yeah, that could play a little bit, like, that's what it's like to do our own thing. But these were definitely coming from him, and he's since gone on to ... He's started his own business and done really, really well for himself. But, for the most part, the entrepreneurial stuff, I don't come from that type of ... My family was not that, from the entrepreneurial side.

So, I don't know, I think it's just more of, I've always been one to want to do my own thing. I grew up in New Hampshire, went away to school in Virginia, so I went away 500 miles from home-

Oh my goodness.

And then, lived in Virginia for 15 years, then moved out to the West Coast and all my family is in New Hampshire. And so, I've always been that adventurous, want to do my own thing, but, at the same time, I just don't really know where it came from. I just want to do my own thing, want to create and work on things that I want to work on, and serve people in a greater way.

 

The accidental entrepreneur

 

Yeah, that's awesome. I was thinking about calling myself like, "The Accidental Entrepreneur" or something, because, and I don't know about you, for a long time I couldn't even call it myself. To see myself as an entrepreneur, it wasn't even a word that entered my head, because I was just doing what I guess I'd always done, but doing it for myself, rather than doing it for a business. So, I think it's really interesting, and actually you and I had a conversation when we did meet in San Diego, about coaching. So, it's interesting that you said you got your coach, because I actually asked you a question about, "Would you pay for a coach? Do you think you should have a coach?" and you said to me, "Everyone should have a coach."

100%, yeah.

And actually, I'm not blaming you for this, Rick, but I'm just saying that I now have a coach, who I love, and is amazing, and yeah, and she's awesome, and I get it, and I see it. But, actually, one thing that I think I love having about a coach, and maybe this has helped you as well, is that I needed the help on me and working on me as an entrepreneur, rather than ... I didn't need the help doing marketing or social media, because that's what I knew how to do. You know, I was the technician in the business, whereas I needed the help stepping out into being that entrepreneur person.

Totally, and one of the first few things I'll never forget. So, my first coach was James Wedmore, and I'll never forget-

That's not bad for a first coach, is it?

Yeah, he's pretty good. I shouldn't say that, he's the second coach. He was the one, though, that really helped me take things off, or helped me to get things off and running quickly, in January 2014. But I remember sitting down with him the first time, and he said, "Well, why do you think you've not made any money since you left the corporate world?" That was 15 months, you know. In almost a year and a half, I really hadn't made hardly any money, and I said, "I don't know."

Like, I'm just sitting here, and I'm just trying to think about this, and James is very good at not telling you the answer, but leading you to the answer, and you figure it out yourself. And like, "Why haven't I made any money? I don't know. Oh,...