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How Content Marketing Supports Your Business Goals
Episode 135 • 12th May 2022 • Women Conquer Business • Jen McFarland
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The Women Conquer Business Show is an educational how to

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women in business podcast that features stories, marketing news,

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and real life experiences from fun and friendly hosts.

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Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney join us as we dive

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into the details so you can slay marketing overwhelmed streamline processes

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and amplify your impact. You'll learn strategy

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and tactics, leadership skills, and practical advice

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from successful women entrepreneurs to help you grow,

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nurture, and sustain your business.

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We're here. Hello. Welcome. Hello. Welcome to the

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women Conquer business show. I'm Jen McFarland, joined by Shelley Carney.

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And this week we're going to talk about how content

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marketing supports your business goals. So if you've ever been curious about

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content marketing, if you want to know what it is, I suggest listening

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to last week's show where we broke down all the 101.

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This week we're going to talk specifically about how you take business goals

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that you have and then support that through the content that you

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write, share, and what you talk about.

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So if you wonder what to say, how you

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say it, and how often to say it, you are in the right place.

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That's right, because we do it all the time. We do it all the time.

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We never stop talking. I'm told I stop when I sleep, but I'm not sure.

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Have no proof. So what

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is up? We're both going on the road. We are traveling. It's a

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traveling time of year, of course, for Mother's

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Day. Happy Mother's Day. I'm going to go visit

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my mom in Arizona. I'm leaving tonight,

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leaving on a jet plane so

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I can go visit her. I've got all kinds of

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books and audiobooks and games on my tablet

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to share with her because she's still in the rehab center after her stroke,

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still learning how to use the left side of her body. So I'm

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trying to think of ways to entertain her. She loves

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certain games on the computer and she'll play them on the tablet so

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we can force her to try to use her left hand to play

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the games. Then maybe that'll be a little bit more fun for her than

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just exercises. Absolutely. My plan for the week.

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That's great. Oh, how fun. I will be in a yurt on

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the Oregon coast. I'm very excited and a little apprehensive.

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The weather here today in Portland is icky,

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and that means it's probably ickier on the coast.

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So I will be with my two dogs and my husband.

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It's also the first time in, I don't know,

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forever that I've been away from my computer for that long.

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So it's been interesting things. I'm a little nervous about it.

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I will have my phone at

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the same time. I'm very excited about it. I think it's really phenomenal

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to be away and it's going to be fun.

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I'm glad. I want that focused time. Yeah. So we're both on the road,

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we're both doing stuff. And what is next?

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Do we have any breaking news? I don't

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know. Let's see if we have any breaking news.

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We were supposed to have somebody helping us with our music, but I think Toby

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took a break.

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So just pretend we

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had that dream that we were going to be mad at him about the Roadcasters.

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He wanted to make his dreams come true. Oh, my gosh,

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that is so funny. So next week, as I said, I will be in

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a yurt. There is no WiFi there in

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the yurt. Is there heat? I wanted to think of you freezing in

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there. I don't think there's a kitchen, though. We stayed in a yurt once that

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had a kitchen and a bathroom, and it was really nice. And then everyone we've

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been in since yeah, no, there's electricity,

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but then the shower and everything is away. So it is like camping,

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but it's not like being on the ground. So that's really nice, but there's no

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WiFi there. This is the downside of having a

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streaming live show. We don't have episodes in the can,

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so if people are gone, we have to find a

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solution. So next week, I am not going to run home

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from the coast to record the women Cocker business podcast

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unless she's freezing to death,

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I'm going home.

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But what will happen is next week, and it's

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a perfect week for this to happen next week, Shelley and Toby will

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be taking it over for the week and talking about

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DIY home studio. If you want to do video

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to support your business. So this is part of your content marketing plan. If you

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want to create videos that look good and you don't really know where to begin,

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that will be next week's show. And guess what? This is what Shelley

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and Toby do on their show all the time. So this is

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a really good episode next week for you to tune into to

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learn more about how to set up your home studio, I will not be there.

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And they have my blessing to talk about this and

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help you work through these types of issues.

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So that's what's going on next week. I will not be live casting

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from the yurt on the Oregon coast. That's right. And she

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has invited me and Toby to do the show. Toby was like, Are you sure?

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Because I don't want to be man explaining to women. And we're like,

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It's okay, you're a guest. You're an invited guest.

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In other news, there's also some really great things going

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on out in the world. There's so many shifts

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in the breaking news segment. The first one is there's a new

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Google SEO course available. SEO certification

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course. Most of their certification courses are free. I think it's

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hitting the news and it's not any good.

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Why is it not any good?

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What don't you like about it? It focuses on some of the wrong things that

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are not accurate

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or current. Things like keyword density,

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number of words, things like that. As always,

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if you are weird because isn't Google like the shouldn't they be the

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SEO masters? Yes,

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they should be and they're not. I don't know

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if it's I don't know, but we have an article, we'll put this in

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the show notes and it breaks down all of the things

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about it that are behind the times or not accurate.

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What I will say is what I continue to say for small business owners

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out there, the answer really is that the

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best SEO is answering customer questions. Look up your topics.

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Find out the questions that people are asking. There's actually

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a whole section when you type in a search term into Google.

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That is questions people ask. These are good questions to

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be answering and talk about them like you would

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talk to your customer, like you would share when

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you were asked the same question. This is a much better

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approach for how to handle things like search and building

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out your content, which is one of the things we're going to be talking about

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today. That's a much better approach than investing

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in a course, especially if you're not planning to become

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an SEO or like a professional in the field.

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Okay, that's interesting.

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I'll put it in the chat about SEO and the SEO course

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so that people can see that as well. The next piece is

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that TikTok has stores and not

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all of the information that's being shared between the

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channel and the channel store that you

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might be seeing on TikTok. Not all of that is consent

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based. They're harvesting information and serving things up to you.

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It's just another example of TikTok and their privacy policy

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taking advantage of users. This kind of thing happens a lot.

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We've seen similar things with Facebook. We've seen it

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with other platforms as well. It's really just something to be aware

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of and understanding that there seems to be a lot of gray

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areas in the privacy policy with TikTok in particular

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that just are not there for some of the other companies.

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So just an awareness on the breaking news side,

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what do you have for breaking news, Shelley? When Jen and I get back

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from our traveling, we are putting together some

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ideas to create a membership. If you have some input

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that you'd like to share with us about what you'd like to see in a

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content creator type of a membership group, we're going to be

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building it as we go, so we are

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open to all the input of what you want to see in

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that group. So that's all the breaking news that I have.

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That's awesome. Just contact us, leave a comment on our videos,

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or go to the website Women Conquer Biz and go

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to the contact page and leave a message. There's lots of ways to reach out

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to us. That's right. Yeah.

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So let's get started with today's topic. You bet

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you. How training. We got some training to

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do. Toby was

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on it this time. So just so you understand why there's a little delay here,

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our producer is in another place. Yes,

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all three of us are in different places right now. Yeah.

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And this is an interesting thing. This is like a sidebar about

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content marketing and your goals. It's so

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interesting to me in the Sheep Podcast group, and I've seen it in other

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marketing groups and places, a lot

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of people worry about the best tools for doing this. Like we're

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using StreamYard. It's working great. The podcast

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sounds great. Everything is coming together. I think a lot of times people

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worry too much about tools. In Sheep Podcast,

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a lot of people are asking now about what to use instead of

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Zoom. Zoom is a fine tool for this. You can still use it. And a

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lot of people are always jumping onto new things. So we're

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going to go through how content marketing connects to your business goals.

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But be aware that everybody's always going to have different opinions

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about the tools. And as we go through the

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tools next week and in the coming weeks,

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just understand that we've done a lot of research on

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this and we have a lot of ideas around what those

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tools are. And going into things like Facebook groups

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isn't necessarily the best place to go find that information. That's true.

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And to be very blunt,

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every tool out there will work. It's more about

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what are you comfortable with? So I can tell you you need this and this,

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but if you get those things and you're not comfortable using them, then it's not

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going to work for you. Take everything with a grain of salt and investigate it

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before you invest in it. Absolutely. And it was

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funny because somebody was asking me, I gave a training

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last week about the top five digital marketing essentials

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out there for small business, and the question came of which

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email marketing platform is the best? And my answer might surprise you,

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Shelley, in that I said, it's the one that you use.

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That's right. What's the best email marketing platform?

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The one you use? What's the

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best podcast interview platform? The one that you use to

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because then you don't have that friction of having to learn something new.

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Yeah, exactly. So let's get into the

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topic, how content marketing connects to your business goals.

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Shelley, you want to kick us off? All right. First you have to know what

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your business goals are. For most of us, it's making money. But for content entrepreneurs,

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a lot of times it's growing your audience so that you can make money.

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It goes hand in hand. Right. Growing your audience means

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that you're likely to have more prospects within that growing

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audience who are interested in buying from you. And the more

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you can connect with that audience, the more loyal they

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become, the more likely they are to trust you enough to

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spend money. With you. So goals can be something like

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growing my audience to the point where it becomes

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minimum viable audience, where it starts to grow on its own

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without me really having to work hard at it so much anymore.

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And that sometimes takes about 18 months unless you are lucky

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enough to go viral. Absolutely. One of the

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things I talked about last week is that I'm in this Ghost Creator program and

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in that first week there were all of these resources

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that we were going through. And I read one

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of the articles. I don't think I texted you about it, but I was

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like, oh, that's it was like the first

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hundred blog posts are practice and

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it's funny because the time you think they're gems. But if you look

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back after you get into like number 150 and you look at

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number three and you're like, oh my God, let's get rid of that. So I

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think that one of your business goals has always got to be

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keep going. Yes, keep connecting

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with people, keep doing it, be consistent, and also understand

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that it always is a work in progress. It's always

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something that's going to get better. And I think that

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a lot of people give up way too quickly because they

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don't see instant progress. And the same is true if your primary

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focus isn't being a content creator like we

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are. If it's more like I want to grow my

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business, you still need a following of some sort,

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meaning like email subscribers, people on social media, on different

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platforms so that you have people

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to talk to and to sell more of your products to. So a

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lot of the goals around content marketing are around

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like how do I communicate? What is it that I'm communicating?

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How many products do I want to sell? Am I asking people

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what they want and then finding a way to deliver

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it? That's right. I took a mini course a couple of years ago called

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Your 1st 100 Leads. And the point of that was

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to sell your free stuff first. So if

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you have a free download that you want to offer

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so that you can bring in those leads, you have to use that same

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marketing message to

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get people to opt in for that, as you would if you were

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trying to sell something. Because they're still in

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exchange, they're still giving you their time, their attention,

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and their email address in exchange for this.

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So you are still selling that free product in order

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to build your 1st 100 leads. And that's a great goal.

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Absolutely. It is about customer trust.

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That's the same thing that goes back to that TikTok ads

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and the stores. When people are sourcing things without consent,

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you're breaking down customer trust. So it's the same thing

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if you want to put a freebie up on your website to get subscribers

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or you want to offer something even on the YouTube channel

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or through social. However it is that you're doing or whatever it is,

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make sure that it's worth it. People guard their email addresses

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much more carefully these days. And the quickest way

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to unsubscribe Bill, is if your freebie

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is just not what you said it was.

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Yeah. If they don't deem it worth anything, then they're going to unsubscribe

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you're. Not what I wanted. Yeah.

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So the thread here for those of you who are like

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you're all over the place is you need to have some business goals and

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those goals need to be tied to some services or some products, even if

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they're not developed yet. And then each of those products and services and

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the goal, you need to have an idea of what it is that you're going

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to create that aligns with each and helps you drive

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traffic and people to the products and services that are in support

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of your goals. Yes.

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So what are your goals? What are your business goals? Write them down and

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make them tangible. Something you can hold on to with some numbers and

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some deadlines. In six months, I will have this many videos

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up and my channel will be at this level. Get those goals. And even

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if you don't hit those goals, at least you have something you're shooting for so

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that you can focus on where you're going.

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Absolutely. Yeah. So this is the first step

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and you might be like, well, this sounds a lot like planning. There is some

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planning that goes into you have to be aligned

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in all this. And by writing this stuff down and

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creating goals around it, you can then see the progress.

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And I would encourage you to consider goals that are reasonable.

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So it can't be like, I'm going to have a million people in my audience.

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That might be a great long term goal, but if you're starting from

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zero or from a smaller number, you're definitely

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going to want to give yourself milestones along the way

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so that you can feel like you're achieving something. It's really important

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because, again, I think we've talked about this before, content marketing

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is the long game, so you want to have things along

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the way that you can celebrate. I think celebration and

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reflection are really important in this process. That's true. That's true.

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Because it's going to keep you going when instead of looking at the big,

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I'm not at a million yet, I'm not at 1000 yet,

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instead of being sad about that, you can say, look at all these great comments

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I got on last week's video. I changed somebody's life.

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You cannot have a better goal than that. There's nothing

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better than having improved somebody's day and then changed

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their life. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

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And that's usually the goal for anything, I think. I don't know.

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I always go into things like that. If I can just change one person's mind

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about something, I was going to say click funnels and then I was like,

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man,

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it's funny. So you might be

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asking yourself, okay, so you've talked about goals before. Now we're

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aligning goals, we're listing out the goals and how

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we're going to talk about it, the different ways we're going to deliver and speak

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to our products. How can content marketing help me

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achieve each of these goals? Of course, if you tie your goals to your

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content marketing, content marketing is something you have control over.

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The actual achieving of the goal may not be.

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So you might say, I want to get 26 downloads or more each week

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on my podcast. That may not be something you have a lot of control over,

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but you have control over putting out a podcast every week

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and having it be very topical for your

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target audience. And when you do that and

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you keep an eye on your analytics and really try

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to adjust according to what does the best, what gets the

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most downloads, then you will eventually get

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to that 26 downloads a week marker

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that tells you you are in the top half of all podcasts out

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there. That's a great thing to shoot for. But again, focus on what

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you have control over and then keep an eye on your analytics to see where

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you're going. Absolutely. And if you're like,

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how do I even know if I'm talking about the right things if I'm not

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getting the eyeballs or people listening to my show,

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eyeballs on videos, people listening to your podcast,

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nobody's reading my blog. I can't even draw flies on my

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social media. And I would say we've all been there at different stages of our

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businesses and the best thing to do is to really start

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asking questions. Find out what it is that people

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want to learn more about. And you can ask your existing

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customers, you can ask the internet.

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There are a lot of places like Quora, there are places

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like social media where you can just start asking questions.

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A place that I like to mine for information

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is if you get a lot of feedback, customer reviews,

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things like that, they're telling you what they like about what

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you do. And these are also in their own words and

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these are also opportunities that you can use to say oh,

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I can talk about that more. And these are things that you can be doing

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to achieve those goals. It is hard sometimes

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unless you have storefront and you can be asking people how did

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you find me? Or if you have a specific product,

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sometimes it can be really hard to close the loop on how exactly content

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marketing is helping you achieve those goals. But just

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know that if you write a lot of posts,

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for example, on Facebook or LinkedIn, something like that, or if you're creating

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videos and you're starting to see more and more comments, as long

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as you're including links, back to your products and services.

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Probably a lot of people are accessing

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what it is that you have to offer because they're looking at

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or listening to what it is that you're producing.

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Yeah. Toby and I lately have been talking a lot about

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how we help people to publish their

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book. So if they have written a book and they've got it

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edited, and they're just like, how do I get it up online? How do

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I publish it on Amazon? What do I do? I don't even know what to

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do. I don't have a place to start. We talk to those people. We say,

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this is something we can do. This is something we can help you and teach

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you, and we'll talk about it. During our show yesterday,

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we talked about proposals and we talked about giving a proposal out based

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on this. And lately we have been getting a

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lot of people writing to us. I have a book. I want to publish my

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book. How can I work with you? So just keep

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talking about what it is that you do for people, and people

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will hear you and they'll say, oh, I need that. And they'll start

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reaching out. And that's when you can see, oh, obviously my content

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marketing is actually working here. People are reaching back.

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Just keep making offers. And if that offer isn't

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getting any feedback, anybody taking it,

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then it's not quite right yet. Keep tweaking that offer.

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Yeah. And it's valid when if people are like, if anybody

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ever says, I don't really understand what you're talking

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about, that's a good clue, because that happens. And I'll be really

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honest with you, I work in nerdville

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of marketing. Most of the time I'm in marketing operations. I'm doing

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integrations, researching software, coming up with ideas around

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how to construct things. And when I first started my

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business, I had no worthy idea how to talk about these

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things in a way that was fun,

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exciting, or that didn't scare people away,

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because a lot of people don't like talking about technical things.

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So it can take a while to hit the right notes and to find the

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right people and to get people to come back and to understand.

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And I'll be honest with you, for me, having a podcast

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was really great because it gave me an opportunity

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to practice talking about what I did,

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to track even though the numbers were really small,

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just track what people were listening to, getting feedback around what people

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liked. Sometimes content marketing can help you

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practice your presentation skills. It can help you do

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so many different things, help you practice talking about things in

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a different way. It can help you be more attractive to

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potential customers, help you get subscribers, help you

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in so many immeasurable ways. That's another reason

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why it can be hard to close the loop on

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the way that content marketing can yield success

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on your goals. I talk to a lot of small business

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owners about this. It is important

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that they are consistent in their messaging.

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Meaning your website, your email,

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your social media, your podcasting,

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your blogging, all of these things need to be cohesive.

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They need to be consistent about how you're communicating,

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about what you do and sharing it with

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people over and over again because they begin to understand

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the narrative. It's part of telling that story. Do you agree with

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that approach? Yeah, I just laughing at myself

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because I had two or three different photographs

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that I was using for Avatars on different sites, and I finally said,

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I need to have the same photo on every site.

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Even though they're all me, I need to have the same one.

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So that it's just immediately, oh, that's her, and she does this

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and have that same message. No matter what channel you look at,

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whether it's my blog, my podcast, my YouTube channel,

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whatever it is, or any one of my YouTube channels,

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you can see that it's the same person.

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And she's still talking about content marketing and she still has this

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system that she adheres to. And this domino

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belief of live streaming is the best way to build

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an online community that buys from you. And that's my message.

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Everything. That's me in a nutshell. So, yeah, it has to be

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consistent or people are like, is that the same?

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What is she doing? Is she doing this or that? Yeah. And for

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me, the consistency is around being that

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solid trusted advisor that helps

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guide you through the marketing forest. And I

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think that for me, I just picturing the

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woodsmen with Snow White. Yeah, and it's funny.

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It got really solidified for me after I

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was contacted about that documentary about ClickFunnels.

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They brought me in to talk about just that thing to help make sense of

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things and help do that. I was like, Wait, this is what I've wanted all

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along. And it was like, crazy. But it was the fact that

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when you do it and do it and you practice I finally hit something

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with that one blog post, but I've done it before where I've had other

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posts that get picked up by big publications and things

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like that. And you realize, because I'm a blogger, I really like blogging.

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That's what I like to do more than live streaming and podcasting. No offense,

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everybody, because I just love to write. And I acknowledge that

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not everybody loves to write. So you need to do

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what you love doing the most and then

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practice and get that aligned message. What you say and

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how you say it really matters. And then over time,

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that is what leads people to understand what you do,

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how you help people, and closes the loop for

-->:

people where they decide to engage from you. They can learn something

-->:

from you, whether it's how to write a book or how to do a live

-->:

stream, or how to make sense

-->:

of your marketing when nothing else seems to make sense

-->:

when there's just so much information out there. Whatever your

-->:

message is, it's important to talk

-->:

about it more than one time. One of the mistakes I think a lot of

-->:

people make is they just keep jumping from thing to thing and people are

-->:

like, well, I don't even know where your expertise

-->:

are, what it is that you do. It's true because they

-->:

join you in progress, right? They don't join you on day one.

-->:

They join you where you're at when they find you, and maybe

-->:

you're on page ten and they're still on page one. They're like,

-->:

Wait, who are you? What are you doing? I need to hear it again.

-->:

Yeah, but it's great practice. And just remember that as

-->:

long as you make clear what that thread is so people can

-->:

pick it up wherever they are and go, that might be the

-->:

most important piece of the puzzle. And when you think about your

-->:

business, your services, the content you create, who this

-->:

audience is that you want to have around you,

-->:

you have to look at what it is that you're offering

-->:

and make sure that it's clear to

-->:

the audience how those things are all connected. You don't

-->:

have to share your business goals with other people. But remember how we

-->:

said, take your products and services and how you're going to talk about them?

-->:

And then you have to look at how you're going to talk about them and

-->:

make sure that it's clear to people outside of your organization

-->:

what that thread is, what those connection points are,

-->:

so that they'll be more inclined to follow you along the way.

-->:

Yeah. And they'll know if they fit with you or not. If you tune into

-->:

a marketing show and they're throwing a whole bunch of jargon

-->:

that you do not understand, you don't fit. You're just like,

-->:

I don't even know what that is. I'm a beginner, apparently. So let me go

-->:

back to square one with somebody who's talking to beginners,

-->:

and you need to know where you fit in and you find that

-->:

out by the person who's marketing. What's their

-->:

message? At what level are they at? Yeah.

-->:

And I think that not always, but sometimes the mistake that

-->:

business owners make is they join somebody midstream

-->:

and they are talking about something much more advanced than where you might be.

-->:

And you just pick up on the high points

-->:

and you start going with them without really realizing

-->:

that they're in a different place. I see it a

-->:

lot, and that's how people end up with things like ClickFunnels

-->:

at the wrong phase of their business.

-->:

And that's one of the things. And thankfully, I think that this is starting to

-->:

shift. I think that at least I hope it is, that as we

-->:

progress and as people are buying more things online,

-->:

you start to realize there are lots of different ways that

-->:

people can put the pieces together and make. Sales and

-->:

communicate and bring people in. And what we're really seeing,

-->:

I think, and I think you're going to agree with me on this, Shelley,

-->:

are more and more people being creators and realizing that

-->:

creating content gets you more attention and

-->:

gets you to people quicker. So there is

-->:

space for doing that. Yeah. My son has been looking for a job

-->:

for quite a while now, and I keep encouraging him to

-->:

create content online. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is

-->:

showing that you are doing things because people are looking for people

-->:

who are productive, who are self starters, who,

-->:

hey, hire me or don't, but I'm making content and I'm doing

-->:

stuff. Yeah. And I think that is where we're at today. If you want

-->:

to be noticed as somebody who has a lot of value

-->:

to offer, then you should be getting content out into the world.

-->:

You need to be offering it now. That doesn't mean you have to do it

-->:

like us. It looks different for everybody.

-->:

But if you want to be a creator, meaning you

-->:

want to create content primarily for your business as a driver

-->:

to products and services, then it does mean being

-->:

consistent about your messaging and showing up again

-->:

and again and doing things that encourage people to

-->:

engage with you through the content that you're creating.

-->:

That's right. Meet them where they're at.

-->:

Yeah. For me, I go around and I

-->:

speak to business owners in the first five years of their business.

-->:

That's like the core. I travel all around the state of Oregon

-->:

and do that. I'm looking at starting my own events

-->:

in support of Epiphany courses where people can come and

-->:

engage with me. These are the bread and butter people that I

-->:

talk to. So I am working on creating content now

-->:

that is really consistent with

-->:

the questions I'm getting again and again with the message

-->:

that I want to repeat, how I want to share what marketing looks

-->:

like for people in the first few years of their business.

-->:

And I need to do that consistently. And it's

-->:

the same for anybody out there who is

-->:

looking to create something. This isn't you create

-->:

it and share it once. It's like you create it, you consistently

-->:

support it, share it with people, and then beyond

-->:

that, oh, email your list about it, which now we're both doing.

-->:

So I can say that without sounding

-->:

like I don't actually do what I say people

-->:

enough times to do something, then you decide you better do it yourself.

-->:

So, yeah, you need to repeat the message consistently and then talk about

-->:

all these different areas of expertise that you have. And this is where I come

-->:

back to thought leaders practice that really breaks down these

-->:

different ways that you can share your expertise. And then the next

-->:

I can't remember what the next book was, and I don't even know if you

-->:

can find it. I think they offered it as an ebook for a while.

-->:

It was excellent. And it's about these pink sheets. So you can come

-->:

up with, like, 50 things that you can talk about on the fly,

-->:

and then you just break them down into these little cards

-->:

that make it easy for you to just be like, oh, yeah, I can just

-->:

talk about this now. But it's all related and consistent with what your

-->:

areas of expertise are. And it's a really powerful tool

-->:

because sometimes you forget what it is that

-->:

you have to offer. I don't know how many content creators

-->:

and business owners think that they don't

-->:

have a broad base of topics that they can be talking. If you feel that

-->:

way, then you haven't done enough live

-->:

streaming because you have to come up with stuff sometimes.

-->:

And Jen hands it off to me and what do you think, shelley and I

-->:

have to come up with something.

-->:

What was that? Which cartoon was it? Like, watch me

-->:

pull a rabbit out of my hat again.

-->:

Rocky and bowinkle. Rocky and bowinkle.

-->:

That is basically the bonus of doing podcasts and live

-->:

streams. I think it's less so with a blog. I think people stress about blogs

-->:

way more than if you just talk off the cuff. And I've

-->:

done enough speaking now that I actually prefer some of that talking

-->:

off the cuff, where people are asking me questions in the middle of

-->:

something and those hot seats, and certainly

-->:

that's not for everybody. I'm sure there are people who are freaking out about the

-->:

very idea of hot seating, putting themselves in a hot seat

-->:

moment, but it

-->:

helps you talk to customers. It helps you be

-->:

clear about what you provide, about your

-->:

expertise. It helps you sell, actually,

-->:

if you're used to being put on the spot and answer questions.

-->:

It helps you in these sales conversations that you're having with people

-->:

because you're used to answering questions on the fly. You're used to

-->:

coming up with things. You become more solid in your expertise,

-->:

and you start looking for stories to tell. This happened

-->:

this week. Let me pull that in and create a story out of it that

-->:

connects with what I'm talking about. The more you do that, the better you get

-->:

at it and the more interesting it is to your audience because

-->:

they can relate to your story. They could say, oh, yeah,

-->:

I spent a week with my mom and that happened to me, and,

-->:

oh, I get that. And that storytelling is a

-->:

really important part of our marketing because

-->:

people are hardwired to listen to stories. If you start

-->:

a story, people are leaning in, tell me a story. I want to hear the

-->:

beginning, the middle, and the end, and I want to know how that ties into

-->:

what you're going to say next. It's amazing.

-->:

It is amazing. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting

-->:

in on presentations for a local

-->:

incubator and there were a couple

-->:

of businesses in there that I had worked with previously through

-->:

the Prosper Portland Inclusive Business Resource Network and

-->:

I was just so proud of

-->:

them. And these are people that their marketing has gone

-->:

just gangbusters and their business has gone

-->:

gangbusters. And I was sitting there and one of them called

-->:

me out and thanked me in the middle of the presentation and I was like,

-->:

that was so neat. And it's feedback limped.

-->:

I was it's just such an honor to work with businesses

-->:

and you don't always hear or see the feedback.

-->:

I can't go back and revisit everybody and see

-->:

these amazing victories and yet it was just amazing.

-->:

It's here I am, I've been working with that program now for four years.

-->:

We have helped over 120 businesses in that time

-->:

and everybody meets with us and then everybody

-->:

goes their own way. It was that exact moment of

-->:

I have been telling people the same thing for four years with

-->:

this program and then I was sitting there watching what they had

-->:

done with that information. Now, certainly they've gotten other advice,

-->:

they've done all the hard work, but sitting there and

-->:

seeing the fruits of the parts

-->:

that I had been talking to people about and seeing it come into fruition,

-->:

I was so happy for them.

-->:

I was just happy for them and then gratified

-->:

that I could be even just this tiny piece of their

-->:

journey. And it was validating

-->:

in a way to see that message that I have

-->:

been sharing, that sometimes I just feel like I am

-->:

shouting into the abyss that somebody

-->:

saw it and is listening and is doing it.

-->:

And I think that sometimes

-->:

when you are creating content and sharing it and

-->:

helping people connect things to their own business goals,

-->:

that sometimes it's really

-->:

hard to keep shouting into the abyss. But it's really important that you

-->:

keep at it and you keep doing it because you're

-->:

always helping people and you may not always get that validation of what

-->:

it is that you're doing, but I

-->:

did. And it was just amazing

-->:

to see firsthand.

-->:

Awesome. And that's why we write books,

-->:

so we can put all our knowledge in there, not have to say it 50

-->:

times. That's why we make videos. Same thing. We can say it once and

-->:

then say, oh, go watch this video, because it addresses that

-->:

exact thing. But we still have to keep saying

-->:

the same things over and over because we need to be consistent. We need people

-->:

to know we really believe that and we really

-->:

do that. We do what we say we do. It's also why you start

-->:

a business course. Business, exactly.

-->:

Yeah. And a membership. And a membership. That's why you start these

-->:

things. You can begin to send people to places and

-->:

say, I break this down in a lot more detail here.

-->:

And it gives people the opportunity to engage with you on that level.

-->:

So hopefully we've given you a pretty good idea of

-->:

how to support your business goals

-->:

with content marketing. And we would

-->:

like to invite you to go to the Women

-->:

Conquer Business website that would be a great place to subscribe

-->:

and get updates about what it is that I'm up to get

-->:

connected with our podcast in a different way,

-->:

all different kinds of things. And Shelley, you've been talking

-->:

about the book. How do people create content

-->:

and put it in book form? So there's many ways.

-->:

This particular way is each week we created a presentation

-->:

that was all within one theme. And then when all the presentations

-->:

have been completed, after about four

-->:

or five months, we put it all together and put it in a book so

-->:

that you can get the book. And once you have the book,

-->:

you can get the free downloads which give you checklists,

-->:

you can watch the videos of the presentations that went

-->:

into the book. So you have all these different ways of

-->:

learning that will be one of those is going to hit

-->:

you so that you can really understand it well. And we also

-->:

in this book, tell how to write a book like this. So livecastlife

-->:

you can find at book livecast life

-->:

and get your own copy. And again, it's got free downloads.

-->:

There's videos that go with it. So it's a pretty cool way to learn

-->:

how to do livecasting. livecasting is live

-->:

stream videos that turn into podcasts

-->:

that you then transcribe and turn into blogs so that your content creation

-->:

is streamlined and consistent

-->:

and you see the link on the typing. It's very hard

-->:

for me to type and talk, I've learned. Yeah,

-->:

it is for everybody. You can also visit the Womencocker

-->:

Business website, it's wimachuckerbiz.com and

-->:

feel free to peruse. There's 100 podcast episodes and

-->:

another hundred blog posts, which apparently were all practice according to

-->:

the Ghost Creator program, which is very difficult.

-->:

It's still very difficult for me to accept, but I will say more

-->:

recent posts are cooler than the earlier ones. Yeah, that's how I feel

-->:

about mine too. They're always getting better and better. They're always getting better.

-->:

So what are your tweaks of the week?

-->:

Tweaks of the week? Let's see,

-->:

I mentioned that Toby and I yesterday, we talked about

-->:

putting out proposals. So if you want to make more money

-->:

in your business, make more offers. And an easy way to do that

-->:

is with proposals. Toby and I found a great product on AppSumo

-->:

called Proposal. And basically you plug

-->:

in things into this proposal template

-->:

and it looks like a beautiful website.

-->:

And we created a proposal last week for somebody who

-->:

wanted us to help her publish her book. And we created

-->:

a 3D mockup of what her book could look like.

-->:

And we talked about what it would be like to hold a book in

-->:

her hands. And then we shared the books that we have published.

-->:

And then we gave her an idea of, here's what we need from you,

-->:

here's what we'll do for you. Here's the price.

-->:

If you're happy with this, sign here. And all of

-->:

that was super easy to put together because of

-->:

the templates provided in Proposal, which we got through AppSumo.

-->:

So I highly recommend it. Oh, that's awesome.

-->:

Yeah, I need to look at that. I go off and on Proposal software,

-->:

and I think right now I'm back to doing Word

-->:

docs. And if you want to see a run through, we actually do

-->:

show it on the screen. We do a little tutorial. We'll click here, do this,

-->:

do that. So you can watch the video on Messages and Methods and

-->:

see all of the little tutorial stuff if you're interested in learning more about it.

-->:

Yeah, I might look at that. We'll see you're looking at a bunch of stuff

-->:

on AppSumo right now. It's very exciting because of you

-->:

and all of these things. And my Tweak of the Week,

-->:

before we get to your second Tweak of the week okay. Is that

-->:

I'm continuing to refine my own

-->:

marketing tech stack. I make recommendations all the time.

-->:

I have a page on my website around favorite tools,

-->:

and I realized that I hadn't really been refining my own

-->:

core tech stack. So I made a huge change that I've

-->:

talked about before, which was migrating my website to Ghost.

-->:

And then I was like, how do I get rid of some of these Zaps?

-->:

So I use a program called Zapier for integrations.

-->:

I think a lot of people use that alternatives to Zapier would be, like,

-->:

Integromat, and there's something now called Pabli.

-->:

There's like a handful of different tools that say, if this

-->:

happens in this program, then I want that to happen

-->:

somewhere. Triggers. Yeah, different triggers. Think of them

-->:

as if then statements. Yeah. And there's actually, like an if this,

-->:

then that app that will do the same thing I was realizing

-->:

that I have. And Zapier works well. Pysync works well.

-->:

But the problem is,

-->:

if the Zap fails, then it can trigger a whole bunch of bad things

-->:

happening that you have to rebuild and stuff. So I have been actively

-->:

trying to reduce the number of third party

-->:

integrations into things. And this morning I installed something called

-->:

Outpost onto my Ghost website, which is

-->:

the autoresponder, which means that I think

-->:

this is like, huge breaking news. I think I'm going to go off of Active

-->:

campaign now because it manages members,

-->:

it does autoresponding, it onboards people.

-->:

If someone unsubscribes, it asks, especially for paid subscription,

-->:

it'll ask give them an offer if they to come back.

-->:

It's pretty dynamic. I guess that's my tweak of the week. That's a

-->:

pretty big tweak. And I think that the

-->:

lesson learned for all of you listening is these

-->:

things need refinement. So Shelley and Toby are

-->:

looking at different tools. I'm looking at different tools.

-->:

Some of these tools can be very fundamental that needs to be done with

-->:

care. But if things aren't working,

-->:

if you're maybe not using tools because they're actually not working for

-->:

you, it's okay to make some of these tweaks

-->:

and changes because they can really improve

-->:

your business and really help you get to where it is that you want to

-->:

be. And you might think, but I'm really tied in here.

-->:

And then it would take a lot to redo. When you do

-->:

it a second time with a different program, it goes faster

-->:

than the first time because you already have it in your brain how things work

-->:

and you can easily shift it over. And I know with Jen, she was

-->:

on the Ghost platform for a month where they would help

-->:

her to shift everything over with her. Oh,

-->:

they migrated my website for me. I have 200 pages. Oh my God,

-->:

how would I a lot of places will do that. So if

-->:

you do want to make the change, don't be afraid of that migration process.

-->:

Yeah. And if you need help with figuring all of that

-->:

out, that's the work that I do. I help people with these types

-->:

of things, making those shifts, making the decision about those shifts,

-->:

and maximizing their tools to their fullest potential.

-->:

So please feel free to reach out about that. Yeah. Okay.

-->:

Full disclosure, I don't understand YouTube.

-->:

I am going to add YouTube to this list

-->:

of episodes because we don't have things about

-->:

StreamYard or YouTube on this list. So we're going to talk about YouTube in

-->:

some depth at some point on our own show.

-->:

But I see this tweak of the week that says Super thanks on YouTube

-->:

and I have no earthly idea what that's about. Okay,

-->:

so this is for people who are monetized. To get monetized

-->:

on YouTube, you need 1000 subscribers and 4000

-->:

watch hours within a year to be able to be monetized.

-->:

And then you start enabling all these different features of

-->:

monetization, such as showing ads on your show, being able

-->:

to do super chat during your live streams. There's this

-->:

new thing that they've enabled for everybody who's monetized that

-->:

you can enable, and it's called Super thanks. If you go back and look

-->:

at some of our old videos on our Monetized channel, which is Messages and Methods,

-->:

you will see a little heart just below the screen that's

-->:

got a dollar sign in it and it says thanks next to it. If you

-->:

click on that, you can donate to

-->:

our channel. This is another way that's like super chat, but it's

-->:

for videos that have already gone up that people really enjoy.

-->:

If you like a series that somebody's put out, you want to donate to their

-->:

channel, you think they're a great creator and you want to give them that

-->:

extra boost. You can write a really nice comment and

-->:

give them some money and it will be a celebration

-->:

kind of a thing, pairing on the screen and it's really cool.

-->:

I think that's amazing. I'm giggling because I just think that's so neat.

-->:

And one of the features that we have now with me in

-->:

my installation of Outpost is the ability to take donations,

-->:

but it's nothing as slick as Super thanks where

-->:

it's just included in YouTube.

-->:

And I need to go back to some of these other older videos that

-->:

you have with the Super thanks and things like that. And I keep meaning to

-->:

tune in on Saturdays so I can see the super

-->:

chat and everything firsthand. So definitely

-->:

encouraging everybody to tune in on Saturdays and see

-->:

Messages and Methods. It's actually called News and Views on

-->:

Saturday. News and views on Saturday. Sorry, you've got like 100 for

-->:

me. We try to keep the two separate because News and Views

-->:

is talking about the news and our views on the News and

-->:

Messages and Methods is about content marketing. So two different things.

-->:

So do you want to close this out with the inspirational nugget? You bet.

-->:

You magical.

-->:

This is something that I got out of the Daily Stoics. I want to share

-->:

it with you. Kindness is invincible, but only when it's sincere.

-->:

With no hypocrisy or faking for what can even

-->:

the most malicious person do if you keep showing kindness?

-->:

What if the next time you were treated meanly, you didn't

-->:

just restrain yourself from fighting back? What if you responded with unmitigated

-->:

kindness? What if you could love your enemies? Do good

-->:

to those who hate you? What kind of effect do you think that

-->:

would have? I recently in a blog post or a newsletter

-->:

I wrote about people having fear of doing

-->:

a YouTube show or whatever, putting it out there and then having people say

-->:

mean things to them. And I explained

-->:

that very often people do that because they're hurting and

-->:

they hurt people. So they'll go in your

-->:

comments and if you could look at the comment, take a step back, take a

-->:

breath and go, this is not about me, this is not about my content.

-->:

This is about what's going on with that person. They're having a bad day,

-->:

they're feeling angry, they're feeling sad, they're feeling hurt. What can I do

-->:

to make them feel better?

-->:

Help them to have a better day and then answer them from

-->:

that point of view and you might actually get a

-->:

new viewer, a new friend out of that conversation

-->:

because you reached out with kindness and you helped, instead of just

-->:

being upset and angry.

-->:

Absolutely. Haters are going to hate.

-->:

There's one I say guy I don't know, one person who,

-->:

every time I post a video on YouTube, dislikes it almost instantaneously.

-->:

This is funny. You're taking time out of your day

-->:

to dislike something that it's unlikely they've

-->:

even paid attention to. At first I was hurt by

-->:

it I don't know who it is. It doesn't matter.

-->:

And now I just think it's funny. And when

-->:

we talk about these comments, it can happen on your posts,

-->:

your Facebook, your Google business profile.

-->:

It can happen on YouTube. Always reply with kindness

-->:

and a helpful bet. And when you reply with kindness,

-->:

people don't know what to do. They're expecting a fight, and we

-->:

don't offer the fight. It might infuriate

-->:

that person, but a lot of other people who see it,

-->:

it makes you more endearing if it comes from a place of love.

-->:

That's right. It's a good example for others to follow as well.

-->:

They'll see that you're being kind and they'll say,

-->:

that's a good example. I'm going to do that myself next time.

-->:

Absolutely. So share kindness.

-->:

Kindness is invisible. Thank you so much for watching

-->:

and listening, and I won't see you next week,

-->:

but Toby and Shelley will. That's right, we'll be here next week.

-->:

Please join us to learn about home studios and have a

-->:

wonderful week yourself. Yeah.

-->:

Thank you for joining the Women Conquer Business podcast hosted

-->:

by Shelley Carney and Jen McFarland. Please subscribe

-->:

and leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging content

-->:

creation or business problem. Then share this

-->:

podcast with family and friends so they can find the support

-->:

they need to expand their brand and share their message with the world.

-->:

Check the show notes for links to valuable resources and come

-->:

back again next week.

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