Artwork for podcast Women Conquer Business
Spring Cleaning Your Small Business in 4 Easy Steps
Episode 131 • 7th April 2022 • Women Conquer Business • Jen McFarland
00:00:00 00:52:44

Share Episode

Transcripts

-->:

The Women Conquer Business show is an educational how

-->:

to women in business podcast that features stories,

-->:

marketing, news, and real life experiences from fun

-->:

and friendly hosts. Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney join

-->:

us as we dive into the details so you can slay marketing,

-->:

overwhelm streamline processes and amplify your impact.

-->:

You'll learn strategy and tactics, leadership skills,

-->:

and practical advice from successful women entrepreneurs to

-->:

help you grow, nurture, and sustain your business.

-->:

Welcome to Women Conquer business. I'm Jen McFarland, joined by Shelley Carney,

-->:

and this week we are talking about spring cleaning your small business

-->:

in four easy steps. And if you are a longtime listener of this show,

-->:

you will know that there was an episode in the wayback machine of

-->:

spring clean your business and avoid project fatigue.

-->:

That one was more about how to manage all of the projects

-->:

that you have going on in your business and picking and choosing and tidying

-->:

up around that. This one is more about looking at some different things within your

-->:

business to help you clear the clutter so that you can be cleaning

-->:

your business just like you probably are going around maybe with a feather

-->:

duster or something like that right now and cleaning up your house.

-->:

So we want to clean the business house. Hi, Shelley.

-->:

I'm doing pretty well this week. I did two podcast interviews.

-->:

Let's talk about what's going on in my business,

-->:

in my life. What else is going on? My mom is improving. She's still in

-->:

the hospital, but she's getting better and they're

-->:

starting physical therapy with her this week, so that's going

-->:

on. My husband is halfway through his cancer treatment, so that's going well.

-->:

We have all kinds of medical issues in our lives right now. Yesterday on

-->:

our show, Toby and I talked about our new feature

-->:

coming up. We're going to do Saturday night conversations and

-->:

it's going to be an open conversation where people can show up and just

-->:

talk about whatever in the chat room with us. Toby and I will

-->:

be having a conversation to spark more conversations,

-->:

so we're looking forward to starting that tomorrow.

-->:

Saturday night. It's only Thursday. It's not Friday. Thursday.

-->:

Yeah. That's excellent. I think that we should acknowledge that

-->:

we weren't on last week. That was for multiple reasons.

-->:

I am also having some health issues and

-->:

the concussion has turned into a bigger deal than I

-->:

thought. That's the thing. It's so important when you have a small business to

-->:

take care of yourself. I can honestly say that my roller skating career

-->:

is now. It was an Olympic endeavor, so it's

-->:

not like I was a pro. But it has made

-->:

it very difficult for me to work with clients and having the

-->:

ring light on and video and things like that, it's been a challenge, so I

-->:

also didn't feel up to it. Shelley had a lot of stuff going on and

-->:

so we took a break. I want to just acknowledge that we

-->:

did that and we're back. Also, for you who

-->:

are out there watching or listening, it's okay to take those breaks when you're not

-->:

feeling super great. That's right,

-->:

of course, in typical gen style, because it's like I have to do all

-->:

of the things. I do have an updated website, and I'm

-->:

very excited about it. I'm still putting on a lot of the finishing touches on

-->:

it. That's not really an official launch of the new website, but I'm

-->:

excited because I was telling Shelley before the show, I feel like it finally puts

-->:

all of this content I've been creating for the last five years in a place

-->:

where it's a little bit easier to navigate and it's

-->:

easier to find out about me. It's got a little bit more information.

-->:

It's got more of my personality in it with things like

-->:

some of the different emojis and stuff like that. So you can go there.

-->:

It is lightning fast, and it really shows off

-->:

the podcast episodes a lot better. So if you go to womenconkerbiz.com,

-->:

I also included some of my favorite tools. People are always asking me what software

-->:

I use, so there is just a lot in there, and I'm hoping it's

-->:

easier for people who find it or who have enjoyed

-->:

reading the content in the past for you to engage with it. Very excited

-->:

about that. The other thing that I'm really excited about, that probably nobody

-->:

else is that today is opening day.

-->:

It is Major League Baseball opening day. I am a huge

-->:

baseball fan. When I lived in Arizona, my husband and I

-->:

would go to spring training games. We went to all kinds of Arizona Diamondbacks

-->:

games. I'm a lifelong Mariners fan, which means I have suffered and

-->:

never seen them even go to the World Series in their entire existence.

-->:

I'm excited. Tomorrow we're having our baseball party with our

-->:

friends, Anna Robert, which is really awesome. So happy

-->:

New Year to all of you baseball fans out there.

-->:

This is the day I celebrate because the Mariners

-->:

are in first place. My husband celebrates because the Orioles are in first place.

-->:

And typically this is the only day they're in first place.

-->:

Everybody's in first place, because there have been no

-->:

games yet. Breaking news. What you got, Shelley? Breaking news.

-->:

You know what? Toby changed

-->:

the board on here, so I don't have my breaking news noise.

-->:

It's fine. We're lucky to be here today.

-->:

I gave you the DJ airhorn, and that was as much as I could.

-->:

Breaking news.

-->:

TADA. We have a new book out this week called Livecast

-->:

Life, the content Creator Lifestyle that Toby

-->:

and I put together. And you can see me and Toby on the COVID And

-->:

there's Toby now. Wonderful,

-->:

wonderful change to my music on this

-->:

site. So this came out on Amazon this week.

-->:

It's 1718 chapters about how

-->:

to live stream podcast and blog at the same time. Every week

-->:

and then get your content out among the world and doing

-->:

it in a way that is streamlined, simple and

-->:

scheduled so that you can continue to do it every week. You feel

-->:

motivated, you keep consistent with it. This is available on Amazon

-->:

and you can go to Book Livecast Life

-->:

and find it very simply and easily. If you would

-->:

like to get this book for free, we do offer it

-->:

on Kindle Unlimited for free read or on this

-->:

Sunday and Monday the 10th and 11th. I think that

-->:

is this weekend. On Sunday and Monday you can get it for free

-->:

as a Kindle download. Please do go ahead and grab that for

-->:

free as our gift to you. If you do, please leave

-->:

us a review on Amazon and let us know what you thought about it.

-->:

That's awesome. And again, this is so amazing to me how you

-->:

do video series on YouTube and then

-->:

shortly create a book, then to put on Amazon.

-->:

I think this is just a wonderful thing and to tail onto

-->:

that because we both create content to sell in different ways. A course,

-->:

as I've talked about before, and now what I did with that course is I

-->:

took the audio from it and it's an audiobook that will be live

-->:

shortly and that's a neat thing. I used a software

-->:

called Publish Drive, which if you've never heard of that,

-->:

is software that you can use for getting your Amazon

-->:

books up, but you can also use it for audiobooks as well.

-->:

So using my nifty little podcasting skills, I was able

-->:

to separate things out into chapters, upload the chapters into Publish

-->:

Drive. And then they are doing all the coordination

-->:

with all of the book companies that should be coming out soon, but they

-->:

say it could be like a three week wait. So we're in like week

-->:

two or three now, so who knows

-->:

when it'll come out. But it's very exciting. It's a cool thing now that

-->:

all of us can do those things just like

-->:

the big guys. And I think that's what's so great about you creating

-->:

books and publishing them and then being able to

-->:

make audiobooks and things. There's no gatekeeper, you can do it. Yeah,

-->:

when you're ready to do it, you just do it. That's right.

-->:

So what else is going on? It looks here there's something going on. LinkedIn oh,

-->:

let's see. LinkedIn is building new analytics where's

-->:

my court? Analytics and video features for creators.

-->:

For creators and increasing the visibility of their content.

-->:

Now this is an article that LinkedIn is building new analytics and video

-->:

features for creators. Basically they have updated and upgraded

-->:

how you could put a little video where your profile picture is and that

-->:

wasn't working very well. Apparently they've updated it, made it easier for people

-->:

to use and it works better now. So we'll give that another try.

-->:

They're giving us more analytics about who's reading and engaging with

-->:

our content. I'm loving the LinkedIn newsletter

-->:

because it sends it out to people and they get an email

-->:

about it and I can share it in groups. And every

-->:

week my subscriber base goes up just a little bit more

-->:

on that newsletter because of the visibility I'm getting

-->:

there. I recommend using LinkedIn. If you haven't used

-->:

it in a while or haven't used it at all, or haven't really done content

-->:

on LinkedIn, sharing your content, then really try

-->:

that out because it's going to help you reach new people that you haven't

-->:

reached before. Absolutely. I'm guessing so by these new

-->:

creator tools. If you're not using creator mode on

-->:

LinkedIn and you are a creator, I highly suggest that you

-->:

turn on creator mode in LinkedIn.

-->:

The main difference that you will see immediately is instead of

-->:

having a connection request button, it turns

-->:

into follow. So people can follow you. That's right. But it also changes

-->:

some of the ways that content is presented on your home page

-->:

and LinkedIn profile page. That is a pretty exciting thing. It makes

-->:

it a little bit easier for people to engage with you in that way.

-->:

One of the people that I follow on LinkedIn, who is a pretty great resource,

-->:

who is just an expert and he's helped me

-->:

out with my LinkedIn is his name is Andy Foot. His last name is

-->:

spelled F-O-T-E. He's a real thought leader on LinkedIn. He's always talking

-->:

about things like creator mode and how to extend

-->:

the use and how to use LinkedIn. Right. There are a lot of people who

-->:

are saying, oh, go and have a pod. And that's one of the

-->:

worst things you can do. A pod means you and a group

-->:

of people, and it's usually a large group of people go

-->:

in on boosting each other's content in a very artificial way.

-->:

It's one thing if you see a story that somebody has written

-->:

and you share it. It's another thing when it's this coordinated

-->:

attack of boosting each other's stuff. It's one of the quickest ways to

-->:

get not so much banned, but penalized on LinkedIn and things

-->:

that are happening out in that community that LinkedIn is aware of.

-->:

And then Andy talks a lot too about some of the other features out there.

-->:

So I'll have to check and see if he's talked about this because this is

-->:

pretty exciting. And what is this? LinkedIn debuts its own

-->:

podcast network. Right. You've heard of networks for podcasts?

-->:

Basically, you belong to a group of podcasters

-->:

who is sponsored by a particular corporation like

-->:

LinkedIn and they have started doing this with

-->:

some bigger names, bigger people, like the startup

-->:

of you, Hello Monday and other things that are

-->:

going on. And that's just a little thing that they're getting started with and

-->:

they're building out. So just something to be aware of. I think that's

-->:

fantastic. We're seeing it. You can upload your podcast now into Facebook

-->:

and all of these different social media platforms.

-->:

I haven't done that with Facebook. It is just interesting to

-->:

me how big podcasting has become. Even when I started back

-->:

in 2018, it just wasn't what it

-->:

is today. It's just been this huge explosion. My big concern with

-->:

it is, what does that mean for indie podcasters like us?

-->:

I think it means it's harder and harder to get a foothold,

-->:

but because so many different areas, the gatekeepers are

-->:

gone, you don't know if that's really the case or not.

-->:

There's been a lot of people who are saying that it's harder to get

-->:

a foothold, but the average podcast still only lasts like seven

-->:

episodes because of Pod fade, and people don't realize how hard it actually is to

-->:

get a show out. No matter how easy we say it is. It's a lack

-->:

of planning, not having the system. I think all these tools are exciting.

-->:

And who knows, LinkedIn sometimes surprises me where it

-->:

seems like they're totally corporate and they send out tools that

-->:

are not corporate at all. I love seeing all these platforms

-->:

becoming more creator focused. I think it's great. I think LinkedIn

-->:

or even data testing a creator fund on LinkedIn.

-->:

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I need to become more engaged.

-->:

I actually was accepted into a program with Facebook,

-->:

a business leaders program that's put out by

-->:

I guess it's meta now, but I was interviewed by people

-->:

from Facebook and Vetted, and I'm a part of this

-->:

group and I need to engage with it more because it would make me more

-->:

of an expert in Facebook. But I personally

-->:

do that because it changes so much. It changes so much and it's

-->:

actually for small business owners to really help them understand how

-->:

to use the tools better. I need to do that. I haven't really been engaging

-->:

on Facebook much. I feel like more of my people are on LinkedIn,

-->:

but I could speak to things on this show and stuff a little bit

-->:

more, become a little more engaged with it. So it's interesting.

-->:

I'm excited. I'm very excited with a lot of things going on with LinkedIn,

-->:

and I feel like this evolution LinkedIn

-->:

is better positioned. We've talked about Amazon before and

-->:

their creator tools. I feel like LinkedIn is better positioned for it,

-->:

mostly because it's more concentrated in one area.

-->:

And as we've talked about, Amazon is more spread out.

-->:

It's spread thin. It's really hard to be everything to everybody.

-->:

Do we have anything else? You've really taken the lead on things like breaking news

-->:

and Tweaks of the Week, because I've been not working much.

-->:

When you have things, you put it in there. When you don't. That's right.

-->:

So, are we ready to get into the spring clean? I'm a

-->:

little excited. Yeah, we got her powering up.

-->:

I even brought my feather duster. I see that you're

-->:

not wearing your French let's tell the podcast listeners. She's even

-->:

wearing a French made costume. I am not wearing a French made costume.

-->:

Although that is interesting. We could put something in the show notes.

-->:

When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan,

-->:

and there would be like special days, like International Women's Day or

-->:

holidays or graduation,

-->:

the girls and young women in the school would dress in

-->:

what I thought looked like French chamber made costumes.

-->:

But it's the traditional dress for when they dress up to school.

-->:

And when you said that, I immediately went to Lomanosova

-->:

School in Turgan, Kazakhstan and thought about all these adorable

-->:

kids running around in their French chamber made costumes. So anyway sidebar

-->:

jen just went back to Peace Corps. Cool. I am not wearing a costume like

-->:

that. I did bring a few. I don't know that they can only hear,

-->:

next time, tune in and see if she really did. Next time?

-->:

Yes. No, I won't be wearing that.

-->:

But you could tune in and watch us and ask us live questions.

-->:

Yeah. Contribute to the conversation.

-->:

Today we're going to talk about four key areas you need to clean up to

-->:

make your business shine. I like that.

-->:

So what is the first thing you have

-->:

here? Take a look at your website. We just did your website.

-->:

We don't have to look at my website. But as a

-->:

business owner, one of the first things that you could be working on,

-->:

if you clean out your closet, you clean out your kitchen.

-->:

You can clean up your website and it doesn't mean that you personally have

-->:

to do the editing. But a lot of times people

-->:

set and forget the website. Unless you're a creator,

-->:

you really just let it go. Raising my hand, I do that.

-->:

You set and forget. And one of the things that I've found in

-->:

a lot of the presentations and the research and working with clients that I

-->:

do is because

-->:

so many people are looking for you online versus pre

-->:

pandemic. People are really relying on that information being

-->:

accurate. And if, for example, you have a phone number

-->:

and it's old or your address is old, or the services you

-->:

offer are not correct, people just bail.

-->:

They're not going to keep trying to figure it out. If your hours are wrong

-->:

on your Google business profile, they're not going to engage with you.

-->:

It's not worthwhile for them that first

-->:

impression. Yeah, you've lost that potential customer.

-->:

So it's really a good time. This is one of the

-->:

low hanging fruit, if you will, that you can go through, read your

-->:

website and look at it and say, man,

-->:

this is accurate. This is great. I think people should do it more than once

-->:

a year. But hey, once a year, if you haven't

-->:

done it, take a look. Is it accurate?

-->:

And if you can look at it through your potential customers eyes

-->:

and this is a little hard sometimes because we get really

-->:

close to the content and things like that. I know

-->:

that with my website. I sent it to Shelley and she was like, You've got

-->:

an error here. I was like, what?

-->:

Because it was just a little typographical thing, but it's

-->:

so close to it I can't even see it anymore. So I was like,

-->:

Keep it coming, just keep telling me what's going on. So if it's possible for

-->:

you to look at it through your customers eyes, look at it and say,

-->:

is it easy to navigate? Is it easy for people to find what

-->:

I do? Is it easy for people to understand why

-->:

they should engage with me or how? And those are some of the

-->:

things that you can be doing. And then you just make little tweaks. This isn't

-->:

a big overhaul or anything, this is just,

-->:

oh, I could make this a little bit easier. And that's the

-->:

first thing I think that you can do to make

-->:

your business shine a little bit more. Yeah, and I did that

-->:

today, in fact, because I was on the podcast interview this morning at

-->:

07:00 A.m., and I told him about the book and I

-->:

sent them to the website Agkmedia Studio,

-->:

and I was like, this book better be on there. So I made sure to

-->:

add it in on a couple of different pages and links and buttons to

-->:

push to get there. So, yeah, you definitely, whenever you're doing something new

-->:

in your business, you put out a book or you started a new show or

-->:

something's happening, definitely immediately go and get that

-->:

onto your website so that people will know about it.

-->:

Absolutely. Again, this is something relatively simple.

-->:

Probably just a few things that you might find. If you look

-->:

at your website, you might be like, oh, okay, I just need to change a

-->:

handful of things, then I can move on to the next thing. But yes,

-->:

make sure that everything is accurate that's up there and your products are up there.

-->:

I do the same thing. I forget and I talk

-->:

about something and then I'm hustling after the podcast interview.

-->:

That's another good reason to do things like that. It reminds you, oh,

-->:

I better get my website straightened out because I just gave that link out,

-->:

or I better make sure that this is correct because I just gave that link

-->:

or I'm going to give that link out at the next isn't going to work.

-->:

That's right. Absolutely. So then the second thing,

-->:

this goes a little bit deeper under the hood, but I

-->:

think that this is really important and it takes me back to an interview I

-->:

did with Tim McCain. It was one of the first interviews I did on the

-->:

show, is you need to review your business goals.

-->:

And the reason is if you're not touching

-->:

base with your business goals and saying, how are we doing? We just

-->:

finished the first quarter of the year. If you keep track of that, we're at

-->:

the beginning of the second quarter now. What were your first quarter goals? How are

-->:

you looking toward that? How are you tracking? Are you getting close

-->:

to that? Do you need to adjust your goals? And I remember what he said

-->:

on that show, which was that they had set a goal

-->:

of a million dollars in revenue and they

-->:

hit it and they never adjusted the goal. So they

-->:

never really got beyond the million dollar revenue

-->:

until they went back and they looked and they were like, we can do better

-->:

than this. We've already proven that we can meet that goal. But because they hadn't

-->:

been consistently reviewing it, they weren't really stretching

-->:

themselves into doing it, doing more,

-->:

and how they can improve even more. Then they said that once they adjusted

-->:

for that, then they were able to achieve more.

-->:

So one of the reasons that you look at those goals is you can be

-->:

like, whoa, I am way off from my goals, or I

-->:

have exceeded those goals. In either case, you need

-->:

to adjust what your thinking is and what it is that you're working on,

-->:

tracking and adjusting. Yeah. Do you

-->:

do that? It's not a sit down and look at it and check numbers

-->:

as much as it is. Toby and I'll sit and we'll have a talk.

-->:

Is this working for us? Okay, we had

-->:

some bad news last week. We lost a client. He passed away.

-->:

Are we going to keep on this track? And if so, we need to get

-->:

some new clients, and what are we going to do to make that happen?

-->:

So when things happen that, hey,

-->:

wake up, is this still a viable goal? What do we need to be doing

-->:

to get back on track with this? So we don't have a

-->:

set time when we do it, but when stuff happens and

-->:

we take another look at what are we doing, what should

-->:

we be doing? Yeah, I totally understand.

-->:

I do the same thing with Gail for Epiphany courses and then I need

-->:

to update it. It still has my Q one goals of which

-->:

I did some and then some were really outlandish.

-->:

And I'm realizing that I need to adjust. I need to scale back to be

-->:

a little more reasonable on some of my goals. And then the

-->:

part about it. The reason that you do the goal

-->:

review, even if it is a high level feeling

-->:

into it, or you're touching base with your co founders or

-->:

other people or even your customers, the reason that you really review those

-->:

business goals really goes into step number three,

-->:

which is, are your marketing strategies aligned

-->:

with those goals? So if you go and you adjust your

-->:

business goals, then the next thing you need to adjust is

-->:

your marketing and your budget and anything

-->:

else that's related to those goals. But this is a marketing show. So we're going

-->:

to talk about marketing. You don't want me talking about budgets.

-->:

That's not my lane. But I will say that when you shift your goals,

-->:

then you're probably shifting what it is that you're doing to achieve

-->:

them. You may have some new initiatives, some new projects. You may

-->:

have some things that's going on that you may be shifting. You may be changing

-->:

some things. So have you also adjusted

-->:

your marketing strategies to fit your goals?

-->:

It's a good time to go, okay, so what is working with my

-->:

marketing? Am I getting out to the people that I

-->:

want to? Are they responding?

-->:

Has my marketing been effective? What parts of my marketing were helping

-->:

me achieve my goals? What parts are then it's not really doing as

-->:

much as I had hoped. And how can

-->:

we adjust that? Are my marketing campaigns effective?

-->:

And we haven't mentioned that yet. That's really what we're going to be

-->:

talking about for the balance of the month, are marketing campaigns

-->:

and how to get your marketing campaigns going and getting

-->:

started with that. If you have a smattering of things that you're doing,

-->:

I like to call it a lot of people call it spray and pray.

-->:

Other people I like to call it throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what

-->:

sticks. If that's your strategy right now,

-->:

it's a good time to circle the wagons a little bit and be

-->:

a little bit more strategic and use tactics that are

-->:

really think of your marketing as a support system for your goals.

-->:

Like, how is it helping you in a direct way achieve those goals,

-->:

especially since you've adjusted based on your spring cleaning?

-->:

That's right. What Toby and I did is we've been interviewing digital marketing experts

-->:

because you're one of them. And we took quotes from the six

-->:

people we have spoken with thus far and found a

-->:

theme that they were telling us. And we decided the theme was

-->:

having authentic conversations within your content to

-->:

attract audience and to make them feel like

-->:

they belong. Give them some ownership of what your content is

-->:

all about. Just have them becoming a part of your community. So we

-->:

discussed that, and then from there, we decided, okay, we need

-->:

to start doing more conversations where we're just having it

-->:

more open, where we're giving people a chance to give us feedback and

-->:

to talk about what they want to talk about instead of just listening to us

-->:

give presentations. So we decided to do a Saturday night show based

-->:

on that. I think we did do what you're suggesting

-->:

here. We looked at our marketing strategies. We said, how could we make it better?

-->:

And we took the advice of those experts we've been speaking with and

-->:

said, okay, how can we take their advice and put

-->:

it within our business model? And how can we use that

-->:

to make those connections happen? I think that's

-->:

great. And I love this concept. I need to check

-->:

my newsletter again and see what time that is on Saturday and see if I

-->:

can get in there.

-->:

Pacific 06:00 P.m. Pacific.

-->:

Yes. Okay, that'll be fun. And that's

-->:

the thing. Community is important and it's

-->:

a big part of it. So I'm not surprised

-->:

that that's a theme or a thread that kind of came through.

-->:

And I like it because it's a lot more authentic. One of the other things

-->:

that is a big trend right now is the influencer marketing

-->:

stuff. I'm listening to this book right now called Hype and it's

-->:

a lot about influencer marketing, but it's about the scams that

-->:

kind of come out of it and that bro marketing,

-->:

and it's not as authentic.

-->:

A lot of people can use things like influencer marketing to

-->:

really promote something that isn't real. But you can't fake

-->:

community. That's the thing. You can't fake community. You can't fake

-->:

the questions and answers and that interaction that you get from

-->:

people and that's what makes it so much more effective, is reaching out

-->:

to people and saying, hey, how can I help you? And do the live q

-->:

and A. That's right.

-->:

You do it within the parameters of your own business model

-->:

so that you do what works best for you. Like I said, we're doing this

-->:

conversations because that's what's going to work within our business model.

-->:

But you can do a back and forth in any way

-->:

that you want to send out an email and please write back

-->:

and whatever it is that you can do to get that feedback from people

-->:

if you're way off base or if you're speaking to the heart of the matter

-->:

or not. Absolutely. And in the marketing

-->:

model that I use to go through with my clients, feedback is

-->:

actually a big part of it. Most of the time, people look for reviews

-->:

and testimonials. You're asking the people who are already happy. Like,

-->:

most of the time, if you have a client that is not happy with you,

-->:

you're not going to be like, oh, hey, can I get a review? That's not

-->:

who you're asking. And that's why it's much more effective,

-->:

say, on your website to have those reviews sprinkled throughout your website than to

-->:

just have a review page, because everybody knows that's a praise page.

-->:

People are just saying great stuff about you. But what makes

-->:

marketing much more authentic and more real is when you have feedback.

-->:

So you're getting feedback from people that may not be

-->:

your all star clients, maybe it went well,

-->:

but it wasn't like the best, but they can give

-->:

you honest feedback. And a lot of small business owners, a lot of

-->:

people I talk to are fearful of that, and I'm like, but that's how you

-->:

improve. So anything that you can do to not just get

-->:

the praise, but get the feedback about what could be better and

-->:

then you take. That and you integrate it into your business processes,

-->:

then that is a marketing improvement. And people don't

-->:

necessarily look at that as part of their marketing, but for

-->:

some businesses, that can be like the linchpin

-->:

toward something greater if you're willing to take that

-->:

risk and get feedback from people. Yeah.

-->:

So if you're interested in all of our thoughts on that, you can watch our

-->:

show that we did yesterday on Messages and Methods or listen to the podcast.

-->:

I found it very interesting, but then I created the presentation.

-->:

But it gets into the whole Content marketing and Content

-->:

Ink and that model of build an audience first

-->:

and then listen to what they want and then give them that. It's really good.

-->:

Oh, I forgot to tell you. So we talked about Content Ink. This was an

-->:

off air conversation that we had because

-->:

Shelley's been reading it. And then I went and found Content Ink, and I think

-->:

I have a newer edition than you. I got the second edition,

-->:

and I've been reading it, and it's fascinating. It's a really great

-->:

read. So we'll have to put a copy of that into the show notes

-->:

so that if you're interested in reading and learning more about that

-->:

content, about Content Inc. And then also looking

-->:

at how Shelley is applying it,

-->:

that is a fascinating thing. And I love the idea of creating

-->:

the audience and then selling the products.

-->:

I think that it's a great thing, and I want to get all of

-->:

your insights on that. So I'll go back and listen to the show.

-->:

I haven't been as with it because of

-->:

this concussion. It's making me a little bit goofy. You're doing good,

-->:

but what else did you get from that book? It's just a quick I think

-->:

that was the most important thing was that whole concept

-->:

of first you build an audience and then

-->:

you come up with a product. And that was like to me, it was like,

-->:

oh, interesting. Now, that is what we do, and especially

-->:

as a media company. But what you also want to do is you

-->:

want to be the leading authority in your

-->:

niche industry so that people are going to come

-->:

to you whenever they think about, for instance, if they

-->:

are like, I want to start live streaming and podcasting

-->:

and blogging all at the same time every week. Who's going to talk to me

-->:

about that? Me. I do that. I don't know anybody else

-->:

who does that, in fact. So I have a niche industry where

-->:

I am the premier thought

-->:

leader. So come to me as I grow that audience.

-->:

Then they can tell me, here's what I need to

-->:

buy from you. I want this book. I want this course, I want this one,

-->:

and I can start producing exactly what they need.

-->:

Absolutely. And I think that the other thing that you'll likely learn,

-->:

because it happens to me because I'm on the technical side, too.

-->:

One of the great things about feedback and growing that audience first is that

-->:

they will tell you. You say that this is super easy,

-->:

but I don't think that this part is super easy. So I think that it's

-->:

also an opportunity when you open yourself up to these Q and A's that you're

-->:

getting, that you're technical and I'm not. And this is easy and

-->:

it's not. And that's how we can adjust to and get better. And that's the

-->:

beauty of growing the audience first, is that you're learning

-->:

as you go, like what obstacles people have. And then you take

-->:

that, and then, because you're the expert, it's relatively easy for you to take

-->:

that building block that you get and just go, oh,

-->:

okay, I'm going to add this, because what I've

-->:

been hearing is that it's not X,

-->:

it's actually X plus Y. And that's what my

-->:

people need in order to really get ahead. And that's

-->:

what's so great about it. Because oftentimes I think and it's the old way,

-->:

right, of doing things, that you make a product and

-->:

you sell that, and then you find out nobody needs that,

-->:

and you wasted a lot of time apple. And then you just convince everybody

-->:

they need it. They have a lot more money than we do.

-->:

That's a lot different.

-->:

So I love this. I think that this is great. And that's

-->:

actually something that you can do to spring clean your business as part of the

-->:

marketing strategy, is to look at how you can bring in

-->:

things and tidy some of that up. Are they in alignment?

-->:

Are you creating content that really speaks to your people?

-->:

Because sometimes that's where that disconnect is. Sometimes that disconnect is

-->:

that you haven't been getting the feedback from people or they're telling

-->:

you and you're not listening to what it is that's happening.

-->:

And because the marketing is one of the ways that you boost

-->:

people into that conversion place where they're buying, that's one

-->:

of the reasons why it's really important that you make sure that your marketing

-->:

strategies are in alignment. And a lot of times we do

-->:

a lot with content, both you and I. That's really what we do.

-->:

So we tend to lean toward the content side. But this could be if you

-->:

rely heavily on social media or you rely on some of

-->:

the different areas, the different dimensions of marketing, you may

-->:

need to be making some tweaks. That's right. You might want to think about,

-->:

am I utilizing my referral network

-->:

at all? Or effectively? And that's something that we

-->:

have that's there that we sometimes forget to use.

-->:

Yeah, I think that my thing about that is

-->:

I was meeting with a client a few days ago, and they were already going

-->:

into Facebook groups and all kinds of stuff. And I'm like, hey, let's get

-->:

your word of mouth and referrals. Let's get that flywheel going

-->:

before we start worrying about a lot of people we don't know.

-->:

Let's work on the people that we do know and build community and

-->:

content and everything around that. I think that's a really big part of

-->:

the business growth model, is like, how do you bring other people that

-->:

you already know into the discussion to really help you out?

-->:

That's right, because if I look at who our clients have

-->:

been, they have been people that we already knew and had worked with

-->:

in the past in other areas of our lives. And then they decided

-->:

to work with us because they already have that no, like, trust factor with

-->:

us. That much easier just to add them on in a new

-->:

capacity and a new business model. Yeah, absolutely.

-->:

Oh, it looks like somebody how neat.

-->:

Yeah. Content marketing. Thank you. Thank you

-->:

so much. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for

-->:

tuning in. Are we ready to move on to

-->:

number four way? Okay, so the last way

-->:

that you can be spring cleaning your business okay, so let's

-->:

be honest. Let's take a pause. My guess is, if I were to wager

-->:

a guess, Shelley, your inbox is pristine.

-->:

Is that right? No, I think we know the answer.

-->:

Email inbox. I did go through

-->:

and unsubscribe from a lot of things this last

-->:

weekend. Yeah. So that of course, helps if I find myself

-->:

going through and just mass deleting stuff. It's okay. It's time to

-->:

go through and unsubscribe from things that I'm no

-->:

longer interested in. I also told myself I

-->:

have way too much going on in my life this month to sign up

-->:

for any more free webinars or courses or anything else like

-->:

that. So I immediately delete that stuff too,

-->:

and don't even look at that. I think it's a honing

-->:

process. It's okay. What do I need to get rid of? Because we

-->:

collect clutter in our inboxes.

-->:

So I've been working on it, but it's not quite there yet.

-->:

Wow, that surprises me. I thought you'd be one of those zero inbox

-->:

people. So if you are a zero inbox person

-->:

I know my friend Elizabeth Case is a zero inbox person. This is

-->:

not for you. But if you are, probably the

-->:

majority of people have inboxes get a little out of control.

-->:

This is a good time to really take a look at your inbox

-->:

and see if there's some easier ways of managing. I think I've talked about it

-->:

on the show before that I'm not a huge I don't really like email that

-->:

much. It's a necessary evil. As part of a business owner, I use both Maelstrom

-->:

and Sanebox. I use them for different reasons.

-->:

Sanebox has gotten me into some trouble because it's a filtering system,

-->:

but sometimes people get filtered, and it's

-->:

typically business owners who use their personal

-->:

business email. So it would be like,

-->:

Jen@womenconkerbiz.com, if that's what my

-->:

daily email was, then if I use

-->:

that as my email marketing that goes out

-->:

from ActiveCampaign. Then when people email me, sandbox will

-->:

assume that it's email marketing and it puts it in there so I

-->:

don't have to worry about unsubscribing and stuff. Because all of the email newsletters end

-->:

up in a place sanebox does. That where it knows if

-->:

it's email marketing, it knows if it's something that is later.

-->:

So it seems to know if it's like product updates. I subscribe to a lot

-->:

of stuff that a lot of software product

-->:

updates and that so Sanebox does a lot to save me time in

-->:

terms of filtering things into different places. Like I said

-->:

though, sometimes you have to train it so that it won't auto

-->:

filter everything, and so that's sanebox. The other one

-->:

that I use, that I absolutely love is called Maelstrom.

-->:

Now, Maelstrom, I think I could probably get

-->:

to do some of the things that Sanebox does. I use Maelstrom

-->:

to just mass delete,

-->:

clean up things. Gmail account, that is not a work

-->:

account. And I use Maelstrom to really go through and

-->:

delete a lot of stuff and clean out the inbox quickly.

-->:

But if you are, there are all different kinds of programs

-->:

out there. I think one of them is called superhuman. There are a few other

-->:

inbox zero things that you can do. Take a look at

-->:

your email situation and if it's

-->:

stressing you out, if you are like my aunt who I

-->:

don't think is listening to the show, and you have 40,000 emails

-->:

that you haven't read, I looked at her phone, her iPhone,

-->:

and I was like, is this for real? Just seeing that many emails stressed

-->:

me out. So if you have an email situation

-->:

that is stressing you out, spring clean that, find a

-->:

tool, whether it's Maelstrom, sanebox,

-->:

superhuman, anything that can help you organize and

-->:

manage it. It may even be as simple as creating folders for

-->:

your clients, and like sticking those emails in the

-->:

client folders and keeping up with it, it can really

-->:

save you sanity

-->:

time,

-->:

I think. I don't know, maybe. And I did a whole article on this years

-->:

ago that some people don't even get stressed out about email at all.

-->:

And I thought it would be where she would never even look at her email

-->:

box anymore. And I think she just eventually just closed that one

-->:

and then opened a new one. Oh my

-->:

gosh, really? She never opened anything or

-->:

looked at anything. I was like, oh boy. Yeah.

-->:

If you're interested, Toby and I did

-->:

do a we have a playlist that goes along

-->:

with our book, and it's a bunch of videos and a playlist

-->:

called livecast Life. It's on our messages and methods YouTube channel.

-->:

If you look at this one here, gmail is a great tool, so learn

-->:

to use it. Toby goes through a lot of his things

-->:

that he does with Gmail in order to filter, to forward,

-->:

and all of the things that you can do just within Gmail without getting any

-->:

additional tools. It's also Gmail thing is free, and it gives you

-->:

some ideas on some things that you can do to help you keep

-->:

your inbox under control. So we found that one

-->:

of our first clients, we had just didn't even understand Gmail,

-->:

didn't understand forwarding, didn't understand how to find

-->:

something. We sent you an email. I can't find it.

-->:

Okay, we'll go to all mail. What's that? So we went

-->:

through step by step in this video because the client that

-->:

we had needed that. So we thought there's probably other people,

-->:

a lot of people out there for sure. Check that out. If that's

-->:

something that you need to understand a little bit better,

-->:

it's right there on our YouTube channel.

-->:

We'll put it in the show notes. If we remember.

-->:

We'll try to remember. I'll try to remember. I'm the one who usually does

-->:

the Show Notes, and now I have to look up, and it's we're 45 minutes

-->:

in, and I've done nothing. Good luck. I got a lot of it in the

-->:

chat, but it'll be okay. We'll help you. We will put it on right

-->:

now. So I think that we've covered a lot of the major areas.

-->:

If you think that we have forgotten something, then please

-->:

let us know what you would do to spring clean your business

-->:

and help it shine. We're trying to hit things that we've

-->:

seen and that we can talk about. I would say that the first three were

-->:

definitely in the marketing arena, and that is taking a look at your website,

-->:

reviewing your business goals, and you're reviewing your business goals so

-->:

that you can make some marketing adjustments. I would say probably the

-->:

inbox stuff isn't so much a marketing thing only if you're not

-->:

replying to people. That could possibly be

-->:

bad marketing if you're not responding to emails. So take

-->:

a look at your inbox, especially if it stresses you out. I think that these

-->:

four areas will really help you heading into

-->:

this next quarter, or I guess it started seven days ago,

-->:

and I really hope that those help you make your

-->:

business shine. So we're rounding third.

-->:

How funny is that, that I use a baseball analogy.

-->:

Happy opening day again to everybody It is

-->:

also, if you are stressed out by social media,

-->:

this may also be a good time to check out the seven day social

-->:

Media Detox. We have a link to that

-->:

in the Show Notes. It's a free seven day

-->:

journal that can help you process how you

-->:

are interacting and engaging with social media. If social media

-->:

is the thing that you need to spring clean in your business, this might be

-->:

a good option for you. And it's absolutely

-->:

free. And I believe that Shelley also has something.

-->:

I just once again bring up the book livecast Life,

-->:

the content creator lifestyle. And this has

-->:

got the system in there for you to do every week.

-->:

You can do your live stream, your podcast, and your blog. And it's all very

-->:

simplified in that way. It's going to keep your life a little bit

-->:

more organized when you have a system like that. I just love it. I love

-->:

it. I'm excited. I'm definitely grabbing that. Yeah.

-->:

And again, grab it on Sunday or Monday of this coming

-->:

week and it's going to be a free download for the Kindle

-->:

and you can then review it when you're done.

-->:

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. So tweaks

-->:

of the week. Tweaks of the week music

-->:

just makes me so happy.

-->:

Oh. LinkedIn Live stream event add to calendar. What is let me tell

-->:

you what happened. I saw when we scheduled this show

-->:

on LinkedIn today, I saw it there as a post and it said,

-->:

Attend, and I clicked that button and then it said, add to

-->:

your calendar. And I was like and

-->:

it sent me an email that said, you are attending

-->:

this event at this time. Do you want to add it to your calendar?

-->:

So it asked me twice if I wanted to add it to my calendar,

-->:

and I was just like, whoa, that's phenomenal.

-->:

That's fantastic. And we didn't have to do anything extra other than schedule

-->:

it. That's a pretty royal

-->:

we since you scheduled it. But I'll take it. Yeah, but you

-->:

gave me the information and then I just put it on StreamYard. So yeah,

-->:

we do it as a team. That's fabulous.

-->:

Look at us. It's lovely because they

-->:

really seem to be embracing more of the creator

-->:

thing, like getting into what it is we have to do and helping people

-->:

remember. If they really want to engage and they're really learning something,

-->:

then it's good for them to have a way that they can add it to

-->:

their calendar. Yes. I love it. That's phenomenal. I didn't know

-->:

that, so I'm going to have to go. This is the first time I've

-->:

seen it, so I think it's new. Yeah. That's awesome.

-->:

What is the wisdom app? Wisdom App? Okay. I got an email from

-->:

the people at Wisdom and they said, we would like you to claim your podcast.

-->:

And I was like, I don't even know what this is about. Okay, let me

-->:

check it out. Wisdom App is an app

-->:

that it combines place to find podcasts,

-->:

a place to meet people who are also podcasters

-->:

and possibly have them on your show. And it combines

-->:

it with a clubhouse type of an

-->:

app, social audio app. So you can just go on

-->:

yourself or just talk or show up, and then people will show up

-->:

with you, and then you create a clubhouse type room or

-->:

you can find people on there who might be guests on your podcast.

-->:

And it's new, so it's still building.

-->:

It's very different in that it combines it seemed to me

-->:

to combine all the things that people liked about Clubhouse

-->:

but without some of the things they didn't like. You can record the name

-->:

that you're doing and then you can use it on your podcast.

-->:

So if you had a really good session on the app,

-->:

then you can take that and put it on your podcast. How interesting

-->:

because that sounds like Fireside. Also.

-->:

That's fascinating. Yeah, I'll have to go look at that claim my

-->:

podcast. Yeah. And that sounds so that

-->:

before we move into because Vote Frenzy also podcast

-->:

related a little bit, let me slip in

-->:

my app that I was going to use last week that then we didn't have

-->:

a show and it's called Air. AIRR.

-->:

And I learned about it from a

-->:

YouTuber who was talking about he has a concept called Second Brain

-->:

and he uses Air A-I-R as a way to

-->:

capture quotes that he really likes from podcasts.

-->:

So what Air does is it's a way for you to listen to

-->:

podcasts. So it would be like instead of say,

-->:

Spotify or Apple podcasts or whatever. And then

-->:

as you're listening, if you find something like a quote that's just like

-->:

really great that you want to capture, you can actually highlight

-->:

it and it actually makes audio clips

-->:

of that. So I'm like looking at it through the podcaster lens and I'm like,

-->:

oh, so could I make like audio clips to share? Yes, you can do

-->:

that. But it's also if you want to share things

-->:

either with your audience or you found something enlightening and then you wanted to put

-->:

that like in a blog post or something like that. And that's

-->:

Air and that was a pretty interesting thing. It seems like

-->:

if you are listening to big name podcasts, the transcripts are already there.

-->:

If you're listening to indie podcasts, you need to generate the transcript

-->:

and it will help you get through it. So that's air. And then

-->:

you also had vote Frenzy. What's that? All right, I met one

-->:

of the creators on LinkedIn of Vote Frenzy and he told me all

-->:

about it last week. So I checked into it a little bit and

-->:

basically you can put out a poll,

-->:

a quiz kind of a game that you can use on your phone

-->:

so it looks like a little app phone game

-->:

thing. And then when you answer the question, what's your

-->:

biggest obstacle as a digital marketer? And you can have four or five

-->:

different choices and then after you answer, it gives you what other

-->:

people have answered. So percentage wise, 5% said this,

-->:

20% said that, so you know what their answers were.

-->:

And then you keep scrolling down and then you get a coupon for something.

-->:

So it could be a coupon for percentage

-->:

off of merchandise that company puts out or it

-->:

could be a freebie or it could be any kind of a coupon that you

-->:

decided on. So it is a way to gather

-->:

audience and give them things that are

-->:

of interest to them. So if you were to say, do you prefer

-->:

vegetarian meat pizza or no pizza or whatever,

-->:

and when they answer vegetarian pizza, then you can give them a coupon

-->:

for veggie pizza so that they're telling you what they like. So then you

-->:

can hone that coupon just for what they said that they wanted.

-->:

That's fun. I'll have to check that out. Yeah, that's cool.

-->:

What is the radio? Are we at the bottom of the hour or the

-->:

top of the hour? We're getting at the top of the hour here, I think

-->:

at the top of the hour here. So what inspirational nugget

-->:

do you have to share? I have this

-->:

here. Build and use your support system to grow closer to your family and friends.

-->:

And the reason this came up is because my mom is in the hospital,

-->:

and I've been getting a phone call from my brother almost

-->:

every day. This is the most I've talked to my brother on the phone

-->:

in my entire life. It's not that we don't like each other

-->:

or anything else. It's just that we've never really been close. We have a

-->:

lot of respect for each other, but it isn't something that we ever did,

-->:

was just to call each other on the phone. But now he's

-->:

calling me on the phone. He's giving me updates. I'm supporting him because

-->:

it's rough. He's got to be in there in the hospital and see her go

-->:

through these things, and it's rough. So I can support him

-->:

as he gives me that conversation about what happened today,

-->:

and here's where she's at and here's what's happening. Then I can tell him,

-->:

you're doing great. Hang in there. I really appreciate you. We can support

-->:

each other, make sure that you do stay in contact

-->:

and do have that support system so that when you do need

-->:

it, it is there for you. I have been very lucky

-->:

to have a very strong support system. It's not big,

-->:

but it's deep. It's not shallow and wide.

-->:

It's narrow and deep. So I

-->:

have those people that I know I can rely on, and they've told

-->:

me again and again in the past month or so, I'm here if you need

-->:

me, if you want to call me, let me know whatever you need.

-->:

So I think that sometimes when we don't

-->:

need that support system, we forget that it's a good

-->:

time to build one up, maybe to reach out and make some new friends and

-->:

to grow that community so that it's there when you need it.

-->:

Exactly. Or we forget that people are

-->:

there, or we don't reach out because we're like, I'm okay.

-->:

I don't need anything. Right?

-->:

Yeah. I know that. When my dad died about a

-->:

year and a half ago, it was a real time of, like, you realize

-->:

who is and isn't in your support system.

-->:

And I would say that it's

-->:

good to know before then. Yeah, so it's good

-->:

to I totally agree with everything that you're saying. And hug the

-->:

people you love. Make sure that they know short. Take it short connections

-->:

every time you can. That's right.

-->:

That's all I had inspirational music here

-->:

that was inspiration for the week.

-->:

Yeah. I just want to send out a lot of love to everybody. Thank you

-->:

so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening.

-->:

And we will be back next week and we'll be talking about

-->:

marketing campaigns. I believe next week is

-->:

Marketing Campaigns 101. Kind of.

-->:

Is that what we decided? Yeah. At least that's what

-->:

I'm prepping. So, anyway, have a great week,

-->:

everyone. If you have any questions or comments, please feel

-->:

free to reach out. Otherwise, we'll be talking to you next week. Get that

-->:

spring cleaning started and we will see you next week.

-->:

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.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube