Kim Doyal 0:00

Before we get into today's episode, I have a quick message for my sponsor cloudways. cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that simplifies your web hosting experience. The platform allows businesses to focus on their growth and have complete peace of mind with 24/7. Support and flexibility to scale. Can we just say support is hugely important when it comes to hosting. And thanks to cloud wise they are offering an exclusive discount for the Kim Doyal show listeners, visit cloudways.com and use a promo code Chem 20 to get 20% off for two months on the hosting plan of your choice. Alright guys, let's get into today's episode. Welcome to F the hustle. I'm your host, Kim Doyal. You want a life that is meaningful and exciting. In this podcast, we're going to talk about launching and growing an online business that fits your lifestyle. F the hustle is all about doing good work, building real relationships, and most importantly, creating a business that supports how you want to live your life. You don't have to sacrifice the quality of your life today to create something that sets your soul on fire. And yes, that includes making a lot of money. So we'll be talking about selling, charging what you're worth, and help earning more means helping more people. My goal is to help you find freedom and create a business on your terms. Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of the podcast at the hustle with Kim Doyal. I of course am your host Kim Doyal. And I'm really excited today a because my guests and I have only chatted sort of via online. This is really our first time getting to connect in person, which I'll take in person video any day over just email. But we're going to talk about growing an agency. She's got a great YouTube channel. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to pick Nicole's brain about but let's welcome my guests. Nicole Osborne of Wonder stars. Thank you for being here, Nicole.

Nicole Osborne 1:51

Oh, Kim, I'm so excited to be here. I think I told you I'm a total fan girl. So to have you in Costa Rica. And thank you for having me.

Kim Doyal 2:01

You're, you know, it's so funny. You know, you're just like you and like if people say that to me, and it's so funny. I used to tell my kid my family. Like you know, you guys, I'm famous on the internet. And nobody believed me until like, my niece was 12. And she Googled me which it was all like blog posts and links and stuff. And I'm like, well, somebody believes me. But anyways, thank you.

Nicole Osborne 2:19

I'm on my seven year old. I'm speaking to Kim. She's in Costa Rica.

Kim Doyal 2:24

Well, and you're in Germany, like this is what I love about are you in Germany. Oh, no.

Nicole Osborne 2:29

What? German based in London. Oh, even matter. I talked to someone today in Florida and someone in Pakistan. So actually, today's International Day. I'm loving it. It totally

Kim Doyal 2:41

is. It's so funny when when and for people. I'm really curious. And you guys have promised we're gonna get into the interview here. But this is what I love about people in my offline world. Right who it's normal life day to day and it was like I was talking with I'm sure your friends at Pizza Neary this morning. I'm like, No, she's an Italian, who spent a ton of time in London. And now she lives in Spain. Like, this is why I love this. It's like the world is huge and small all at the same time.

Nicole Osborne 3:07

I love I love pizza. I just communicated with her via LinkedIn, chatting about her amazing program. And I think she's absolutely nailing it on LinkedIn. And I just think she's so authentic. And have you seen her artwork? She sometimes publishes that on Facebook. She's oh my gosh, yes. Talented. Wow.

Kim Doyal 3:23

Oh, yeah. No, we literally just talked this morning for like over an hour. And that's part of the goal. Mike, you need to come to Costa Rica, I need to come to Spain. And actually, I was supposed to go to London in May of 2020. So that is still on the list. But anyways. Okay, so before we get into and again, your site is one wonder stars and for people listening, it's Wu, like you're awesome. Wu, n d e r s t ARS. Everything will be in the show notes. But I love hearing the backstory and try it or not. I want to hear what got you into this, besides the fact that you're efficient and logical, which I loved in your bio, because you're super fun, too. So like, let's have a little bit of your background and how you how you got here.

Nicole Osborne 4:06

Thanks so much, Kim. So my parents and I, we we grew up in former Eastern Germany. And you've got to know that there weren't any sort of companies really out there. Everything was state owned, but my parents were really entrepreneurial. So as the Wall came down, they came up with their own ventures and have always helped them like one of the first thing I did was helping them to sell sunglasses in a small seaside town, and I was responsible for picking the best shades and really making people feel good spend some money but really feel good. So I have this intrapreneurial sense that was kind of sent fun. Then I came to England I wanted to learn the language. I met my now husband. Yes, I'm still here. I wanted to study marketing because I knew I wanted to study something I could I could really put into action. So I studied Marketing. I started my corporate marketing career. Always wanted to be a marketing director for some reason or the other. I got to Marketing Director, it was great. But my God be precious of like having a young child going to board meetings. But what I have done for years and years and years, I've always worked with agencies, I was in a position of choosing agencies having really good partners. So when I started my own business, I started lollipops social of Kim, I didn't even like lollipops. Made my son feel really good. When I took him to the hairdresser, we traveled back to Germany. So I figured lollipop was good sort of fun. I transitioned into winter Sass about a year ago really to kind of grow up. And really continuing my work with agency owners, I mostly work with agency owners one on one. And I help them to uncover their personal brand, what they stand for, to really improve their marketing so that they can pick their best with clients, you know, the clients who follow the processes who sent the content on time fun to work with, get what you do pay well, and yeah, I love doing it. So yeah, here I am with one of the stars. And you know, I've been listening to your podcast, I featured it on my on my YouTube blogs, because it's such a cool podcast for anyone building up an audience where you have an online journey, because you always keep it so real. And there's so many actionable tips. So hence me being total fangirl being here.

Kim Doyal 6:13

Like this is supposed to be about you. But you know, and I'm curious. This is again, everybody who listens knows I love to go off script. And what one I love that you pivoted the name, I mean, I went from the word pressure to Kim Doyal. And I'm even looking at as I grow, where is there an element of the company having certain things under it? My company name is marketing online media. Nobody even knows that. And it's a mouthful. But it was, what I'm curious about for you is, as you've shifted, and I get the whole, like my company was growing up, and it was time to step into this, you know, have you found in terms of even whether it's processes or how you hire who you work with? For and this is really a female specific question, right? And I love my my male listeners, you guys, I've got you there. But there is we're wired differently. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say that. And I feel that as women. I don't know how old you are. But as women get older, like there is a sense of you start claiming your expertise, are you gonna whisper you can whisper later or unless you want to share it? To five? Girl? All right, all right, I'm 51. We're good. So but there is you hit this point. And it's, there is this. I like taking a stance almost. And so in really shifting and saying you want to grow your grow up a little bit was you know, what was sort of the the mindset and the thought behind, I'm going to claim this space. And then we'll talk about you know, you've jumped full in into YouTube also. So just kind of tell me what that process was like.

Nicole Osborne 7:46

I guess one of my biggest issues I had with my original company name lollipop socialists had people really assumed it had done for you social media services. And I learned really early on that. I bring all this marketing experience and just doing social media for someone who just wasn't taking all my boxes. And you know, it's not great when you have a name and you continuously have to explain what you do. And I thought, right, you know what, I'm all about marketing, let's rebrand. But let me tell you, it's, it's an exciting, but equally exhausting journey, right? When you change everything around, you put yourself out there. But I had the most amazing agency and, you know, I have a really cool networks that I was talking to people like emergent Allen at the time. Lee Jackson, you know, do you think I'm doing the right thing. But it was so important for me to have a sense of fun still in there, but something really confident as well. And I was determined to have a.com I know that's really silly.

Kim Doyal 8:37

Really? I mean, if you can, why not? Right?

Nicole Osborne 8:41

And you never know anything happened that I decided on my brand name. And then one of the social media handles kind of disappeared. I'm like, oh, no, boy, I'm making up a word to you let me have a name. But yes, it was also as you said about growing confidence. Do you know I think it's always really important. You choose a business name, you have to be able to say it with a high levels of energy that you have to picture yourself on that stage. Am I going to be comfortable saying hey, I'm Nicole from with the stars, and I really am. So yeah, it was about growing up. And it's also, you know, working with digital agencies. These guys are amazing. They do amazing jobs for their clients also have really high expectations. So I didn't want to be mediocre because particularly I'm all about helping guys and girls to stand out. And to not blend into the background. So I had to sort of do something which reflected that transformation. But yeah, it's it's been a journey and I've loved every minute of it. And it's still up and down. You know, I think is really part of it all. But yeah, I'm really happy with the side and I had some really great results coming in and some amazing feedback. So thank you for asking me this. Even my podcasts will leave where we talk about the whole transformation of a brand and he even interviews with agency. I thought it was a really cool sort of different perspective on it.

Kim Doyal 9:48

It totally and I do love your site. It's super colorful. I like bright colors too. I'm just more of a which kind of reflects your personality and energy also, I think it's totally in alignment. But one of the things I wanted to specifically dig in. So you love marketing. And I know so you've you explained sort of the journey here. But what I think is fascinating too, is I mean, agencies know, they need to market they get it. And I felt this. And let's just be really clear that we all bring our own shit to the table, right. So I do know that a lot of this was sort of my own perceptions and stuff. Because I totally felt like an imposter is the word pressure, because I'm not a coder or developer. But yet I fell in love with this tool. I just like to share what I was doing. And it evolved. Ignorance was bliss when I started. But I've also seen that like, how I felt sort of in that space was like it this push pull against marketing at times, because agencies just want to kind of do the work. And there is this specifically in the WordPress space, but anti selling anti marketing. And, you know, and again, I'm really not in the WordPress community a whole lot other than having a lot of friends there. But, you know, did you find any resistance? Or how did you approach saying, You guys need to start marketing?

Nicole Osborne 11:03

Yeah, I mean, actually, yeah, complete amount, because it's, I guess, it's not planned resistance. But it's like, it's so passionate about the client projects, that they get so engrossed into that, that they don't really do too much about generating leads in the future. Now, then they get really trapped in this whole feast and famine rides really, really busy, or there's not enough work. Or we're really heavily rely on referrals. And can I get it, I guess, when you work, and you choose a digital agency, it's a huge risk. So of course, you're going to ask in your network, do you know a good agency, but in a way for that agency, they really get stuck on that price point. And I think agency owners to me, I mean, everyone has got different definitions of success. But one thing I really learned from interviewing all the agency owners I did for my agency growth book is that, for everyone is different. And for some people, it's really, I want to be able to charge while they're so that I can really offer a transformational project to my client, I really want to give them what they need to grow and take their business to the next stage, which usually involves you've got to have better processes, you've got to be able to chat Valpo. So then you do your marketing, you kind of get there much quicker, because you can become that go to person, you know, you step out of that whole entire invisibility. I mean, I didn't know it was funny. I'm currently doing some research into SEO agencies, because I'm going to be talking at Brighton SEO. And my talk is very much about you know, the more you get better clients, many SEO agencies, oh, my God, they're all blue. They're all Uber professional. They're all right content, which is like for the search engine versus for human. And yes, hardly any people inside. It's lots of stock photos. Now, when you end up competing on price, right, because you kind of a commodity, because there's so many of you offering that. So I really do a lot of educational content. And I always share examples of this, you know, if you only did that this is what you could achieve. So you could be that go to person, every time you send your proposal. Everybody made up your mind, they're going to be working with you. Because you're the expert in that sphere. I guess, you know, we're always a kick out of working with people who are marketing reluctant.

Kim Doyal 13:01

Yeah, yeah.

Nicole Osborne 13:03

I've generally do I always get bored when people say to me, you can totally get by we need to do is, I want to have that challenge.

Kim Doyal 13:09

Or like, I want to flip you, I'm gonna tone you. Yeah. That's funny. Well, but you know, what's interesting, too, and specifically with the SEO piece, as you know, my hashtag, everything is content. I've tried drilling this down to people so much. And the thing about it is some of my highest traffic, most highly converting content has nothing to do with a damn keyword that would serve anybody. It brings people into my space. And I have this thing I call my core content values. I'm like, my core content value is that I want people to feel better for me engage with my content, you're going to learn something, you're going to be entertained, or I'm going to, we're going to connect that kind of soul level, right? And I just, I mean, and what I see, and I'm curious if you see agencies too, is they do get hung up, I get as soon as people get like, well, I've got to write keywords, I've got, I've got SEO, I've got SEO and I'm like, you know, you do it matters 100% But at the same time, you know, I started out in 2008 in this space, and it was a lot easier to get pulled up. It's the long game, SEO content. All of that is the long game. But there's elements to marketing where you can connect quicker and make a splash and it's that personal connection. Right. Go ahead. Sorry.

Nicole Osborne 14:29

Absolutely. And so my strategy is often I do my best for people to have quick wins I just had this conversation earlier with someone in Florida Great guy, great agency so much potential. So we had a brainstorm on on lead generation because I know once that person does that and gets the team involved, it will automatically call that's the next thing we can do to to really set up a personal running. Do you know can? It's often lots of confidence. I chatted to someone based in Ireland yesterday. Really successful agency owner and it's a confidence thing of color have nothing interest seemed to say, what really, I have nothing going on. I used to do surfing. But now I'm not really fit any longer. So I can't talk about the surfing. So we kind of dug a bit deeper. And we figure out other stories, that person was really comfortable sharing. So it's a bit like, do you know Dave, for you? I mean, he's an amazing guy, right? Oh, he's a wonderful online entrepreneur. And he really didn't feel very, very brave when it came to sharing his story. So what we did actually, we figured out, so what's the anti version? How do you not want to come across and for him, it was douchey Dave who would pretend to own sports car and be shouting into the camera and, you know, you smiling now because that's really not how he comes across. So we figured it out. And then we dug into his stories. And we've we've thought about so the viewer audience there, what are the best stories for you to connect, what will make them feel like you can help them with a transformation thereafter. And boy, he's, you know, he's taking it to another level, I don't know, when you get a chance to have a look on his website, he's published his story. And it's so powerful, you sit there and read it, and you get goosebumps. Now, I'm not saying I can always achieve that level of transformation. But you want to have that real personal connection with the best person you want to work with. Right? And so personal branding, storytelling, putting yourself out there, and not being afraid of actually letting, letting go that need to be professionalism, because my experience is for agency owners. As soon as I want to be too professional, really boring.

Kim Doyal 16:25

Yeah, I keep when I see sites like that, um, all right, Microsoft wants our website back, like here, we got like, circa 1995, right. It's just like stock photos that the whole the whole nine yards of the nine yards. And, in the thing is like, where you were saying, like with Dave, you know, it's fun. Because for those of us who know him to see the trajectory of his career, and you know, he's just doing phenomenal. And I love when Dave shares Oh, it's those little bits, like, you're happy, like other building a house. That's phenomenal, right? And we all know, Dave's a musician, and, you know, so you start seeing these pieces. And you just start thinking, Oh, I have a friend that that plays guitar. I mean, you have no idea these little I, I joke around that, like one of my biggest regrets was not getting into email earlier. But I think there's a piece there that ties into your marketing. And it's when you start understanding the psychology of how human beings connect, and what drives them to do things. It's like going into a portal of a magic kingdom,...