Ep. 042 - Kirsten Graham: Grow Your Business By Outsourcing
Kirsten Graham is all about flipping the script for business owners, helping them go from being total wallflowers to the life of the party with some savvy outsourcing and a little video marketing magic. She’s a powerhouse from Six Figure Business Coaching, and trust me, this episode is packed! We dive into why outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant can save you tons of time. Plus, Kirsten gives you the do's and don'ts of working with VAs, from protecting your accounts to finding the right fit for your biz. And hey, if you’re wondering about video marketing, she’s got some tips on why it’s time to dust off that YouTube channel and get it going! So buckle up and get ready to unleash your business potential, because this chat with Kirsten is a total game-changer!
Podcast Title: Generator
Episode Title: Grow Your Business By Outsourcing
Episode Number: 42
Publish Date: 4 April 2025
Episode Overview
Navigating the chaotic world of entrepreneurship can feel like overwhelming. In this episode, we dive headfirst into the whirlwind of creativity and business with Kirsten Graham. As a co-founder of Six Figure Business Coaching, Kirsten is on a mission to help business owners just like us break free from the shackles of invisibility and step into the spotlight where they belong. We chat about the often-overlooked superpower of outsourcing—specifically, how a virtual assistant (VA) can save our sanity and make our businesses soar. We explore everything from the nitty-gritty of hiring the right VA to the freedom that comes with delegating tasks like marketing and bookkeeping. Kirsten shares her wealth of knowledge on the dos and don'ts of outsourcing, ensuring we learn from her hard-earned lessons (spoiler alert: it involves avoiding the “pay now, ghost later” scenario). Plus, we take a detour into the land of video marketing, where Kirsten encourages us to embrace our inner YouTuber and start creating content that not only showcases our brand but also connects us with our audience. Trust me, if you’ve ever felt like you’re drowning in the daily grind of your business, this episode is your lifesaver.
Takeaways:
- Kirsten emphasizes that outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant can free up precious time for business owners, allowing them to focus on growth instead of being bogged down by daily minutiae.
- In our conversation, we dive into the importance of having a clear brand voice and style guide, as it not only helps in consistent branding but also aids virtual assistants in understanding the business better.
- We discuss how video marketing, especially on platforms like YouTube, can be a game changer for visibility and authority, turning one piece of content into multiple marketing assets.
- A key takeaway is that taking breaks and stepping back from daily operations allows business owners to recharge and strategize, ultimately leading to better decision making and business growth.
- Kirsten shares that effective onboarding of virtual assistants is crucial, and this involves teaching them your brand voice and expectations to ensure they can represent you accurately.
- We agree that embracing imperfections and being authentic in content creation can create a stronger connection with audiences, making them more likely to engage with your brand.
Resources and Links
- WEBSITE: https://sixfigurebusinesscoaching.com
- FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/kirsten.graham.3517
- INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sfbizcoaching/
Get Your Free Guide to Virtual Assistants at https://outsourcingforbosses.com
Calls to Action
- Website: https://generatorpodcast.com
- Subscribe to Generator: Never miss an episode – subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
- Leave a Review: Head over to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/generator/id1668192673 and leave us a 5 Star review if you liked the show! Help others discover this podcast.
- Follow on Social Media: Connect with us on Instagram or TikTok @generatorpodcast or on YouTube @stonetreecreative
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Listen, as a creative solopreneur, I wear about a dozen different hats on any given day.
Speaker A:Image creation and video editing, networking, finances, social media, and on and on and on.
Speaker A:I know you get it, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here listening to me.
Speaker A:Well, I've got an episode for you.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Generator, my friend.
Speaker A:And this week I'm talking to a powerhouse of a woman, Kirsten Graham.
Speaker A:Kirsten's one of the principals at Six Figure Business Coaching, and she works with clients all, all over the world, helping them recognize the power of outsourcing with a virtual assistant.
Speaker A:As someone that's been debating using a VA for the better part of a year, I'm now fully convinced that that's my path.
Speaker A:There isn't a single moment of downtime in this conversation, and the sheer volume of knowledge that Kirsten brings to the table is staggering.
Speaker A:We talk about what to do and what not to do, the power of using VA for marketing or bookkeeping, what ways to protect yourself and your accounts when outsourcing, and what you need to do before you even think about hiring someone.
Speaker A:And if that wasn't enough, we segue into video marketing and talk about how to best go about using video to enhance your brand.
Speaker A:Spoiler alert.
Speaker A:It's time to start your YouTube channel and finally take it seriously.
Speaker A:So during the course of this interview, I say it several times that I could have talked to Kirsten about any one of these topics for hours.
Speaker A:So I'm sure at some point I'll have her back and we can continue the conversation.
Speaker A:But in the meantime, strap in, because from the moment we start, we go 100 miles an hour.
Speaker A:So if you reach the point where you're working in the business rather than on your business and you're drowning in the day to day minutia, it's time to outsource.
Speaker A:Kirsten Graham has you covered.
Speaker A:You're really going to enjoy this.
Speaker A:So let's get on with the show.
Speaker A:I really am glad that you're here because like I mentioned a few moments ago, most of my photographer friends, creative friends, authors, sculptors, artists, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, anybody in the creative arts, we suck at marketing.
Speaker A:We just, we just do, you know, and so, Kirsten, I'm so, so happy you're here today because you're going to help me define what it is that I need to do.
Speaker A:I'm going to be your avatar for all other creators out there and you're going to mold me into someone that's outsourcing and being more efficient.
Speaker A:So just Wanted to say thank you for being here.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:I'm excited about the conversation.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:So you can tell highly caffeinated, lots to talk about and I really don't know where to start.
Speaker A:So why don't you give me an understanding of what six figure business coaching is doing.
Speaker A:I know you dabble in virtual assistants and you dabble in marketing and you help businesses really become more efficient and proficient with what they're doing.
Speaker A:But that's my nutshell.
Speaker A:Why don't you give everybody an understanding of what it is that you really do?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So actually my background is real estate.
Speaker B:I started selling real estate.
Speaker B:I eventually moved to the mortgage side.
Speaker B:I owned a mortgage company, owned a title company and I did a lot of loans for self employed people.
Speaker B:And so they would always then take me to lunch so they could pick my brain.
Speaker B:I mean, I guess after you've seen someone's business tax returns or their personal tax returns, they feel like you know a lot about them.
Speaker B:So I mentored for well over a decade and what happened next was one of my clients who is now my business partner, I knew that she, she called to check on interest rates and I knew she was think thinking about leaving her job and I asked her, you know, did you start your business?
Speaker B:And she said yes.
Speaker B:And in that conversation she said, I just don't know anyone else who has a business.
Speaker B:So of course I started mentoring her, started meeting her at a coffee shop a couple times a month.
Speaker B:And that was, I'm only going to date us right now.
Speaker B:But that was back when Facebook first started with fan pages and people in the online space were already using blogging and they were using email marketing.
Speaker B:But your local business is not so much.
Speaker B:I mean they definitely thought of LinkedIn as just a resume site.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the first thing we did was we put together a group of classes for what business owners needed to know about these, these tools, blogging, email marketing, LinkedIn and Facebook Fan pages.
Speaker B:And it was fantastic.
Speaker B:She sold out her classes.
Speaker B:It was really awesome.
Speaker B:But then all of a sudden people started reaching out to her, wanting her to do everything for them.
Speaker B:And she had a small marketing agency at the time and just trying to figure out, well, how, you know, how do I h to help me do this?
Speaker B:And I said to her, this is 17 years ago, this is before Zoom, before WhatsApp.
Speaker B:You know, it's back when we were doing most of this by email and I said, I have read about outsourcing, would you want to try that?
Speaker B:And she said, well, if you'll help me.
Speaker B:So we went on to build a virtual team for her business.
Speaker B:They were building websites on the.
Speaker B:Doing the backside.
Speaker B:They were setting up people's Facebook fan pages, which I know it's hard for people to think that they would need someone to do that for them, but back then it was so new, they wanted to post on Facebook or LinkedIn in.
Speaker B:So her company was doing that.
Speaker B:She was doing a lot of email marketing.
Speaker B:People were.
Speaker B:I think a lot of local businesses saw the value in that right away.
Speaker B:And then some people wanted blogging.
Speaker B:So that's what she was offering.
Speaker B:She was offering those services.
Speaker B:And, you know, we've outsourced to six different countries, and at this point, we've hired hundreds of virtual assistants for ourselves and our clients.
Speaker B:And we did it all wrong.
Speaker B:I'm telling you, if it could be done wrong.
Speaker B:We made so many mistakes, and we really learned a lot of lessons the hard way, you know, paying someone in advance because he had an emergency and we never heard from him again, you know, or, you know, on the flip side of that, not having solid SOPs and onboarding processes.
Speaker B:So, you know, we joke we were the crappiest bosses for a while.
Speaker B:So it was one of those things that, looking back, we both joke that we didn't give up.
Speaker B:The fact that we didn't give up is probably just because we're really stubborn and not so smart sometimes.
Speaker B:But it really ended up being very rewarding in the long run.
Speaker B:So I still have my coaching practice.
Speaker B:She still runs her agency.
Speaker B:But things start to change.
Speaker B:You know, people need to start showing up in their marketing, which makes it, I think, harder for agencies to do a lot of content creation.
Speaker B:I think we have to be our content.
Speaker B:So she and I ended up partnering almost 14 years ago at this point, and we started helping people with their marketing and outsourcing.
Speaker B:And that's just really grown.
Speaker B:But we've tried to stay somewhat in certain lanes.
Speaker B:So we really help our clients with outsourcing, video marketing, social media marketing, emailing, and blogging.
Speaker B:That's one program.
Speaker B:We also have virtual assistants to get our clients booked on podcast as guests.
Speaker B:And we're launching a program that will help small businesses with their bookkeeping.
Speaker B:Because I feel like that's something that's so important for small business owners is to, you know, to fall in love with their money and to become empowered CFOs, because that can change everything as far as how quickly their businesses grow.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I know the bookkeeping part for me, while I can understand the numbers.
Speaker A:I keep my QuickBooks nice and clean.
Speaker A:Once tax time comes around, it gets real dicey, real quick.
Speaker A:And I want to talk to my cpa, and she takes care of everything there.
Speaker A:But I really just wish I had a little bit better financial literacy.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And I think a lot of.
Speaker A:A lot of creatives like myself, we get enough of it to run our business, and we probably pay ourselves and keep the business running and maybe put a little bit away for savings, right?
Speaker A:Times can be tough, but beyond that, it really becomes an exercise in I don't know what I don't know.
Speaker A:And that's where having that expertise, especially in bookkeeping, as an entrepreneur, as a solo business owner is essential.
Speaker A:So I'm going to put a pin in that for a second.
Speaker A:And I really want to get into outsourcing.
Speaker A:I was out at WPPI last week.
Speaker A:I don't know if you're familiar with wppi.
Speaker A:Big photo conference out in Las Vegas.
Speaker A:And so I was able to talk to a lot of my friends that have been photographers and videographers and artists for years.
Speaker A:We all face the same thing, which is we have a great eye for making the content, whether that's photo or video or graphic design.
Speaker A:We're great at making the content.
Speaker A:We really stink at putting it out consistently.
Speaker A:And I know that consistency is a big key.
Speaker A:You know, we all ask each other, who are you using for a va or who are you using for marketing, and how much does it cost and should I do it?
Speaker A:The common thread that I heard in all those conversations was, I don't want to train anybody.
Speaker A:I can just do it faster myself.
Speaker A:So I do it myself.
Speaker A:And then I look at them and I go, but are you really doing it right?
Speaker A:And they go, no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker A:It gets lost in the weeds.
Speaker A:So what do you say to that business owner, that artist, someone like me that says, I can do it faster myself, and then it kind of goes nowhere?
Speaker A:What do you say to that person?
Speaker B:They're emphatically right.
Speaker B:However, you're one person, and at some point you hit a wall.
Speaker B:And you also have to make a decision.
Speaker B:Do you want to be a solopreneur forever or do you want to build a business?
Speaker B:And then also, what part of your business do you enjoy doing most?
Speaker B:And I'll use my business partner, Jeannie, as an example, because she's the creative on our team.
Speaker B:That's her, all her, not me, when it comes to creating design.
Speaker B:So, for example, if we're going to roll out A new landing page or lead magnet we always talk about.
Speaker B:Cause sometimes we get excited talking about the ideas.
Speaker B:And I can look at her and see that she's really fired up about.
Speaker B:She's thinking about the creative.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I always say, do you want to do this one?
Speaker B:And she'll look at her schedule and say, yeah, I've got some time I'd like to block out and I'm going to do this one.
Speaker B:Or she'll look at her schedule and say, no, I'm going to go and delegate this one because I've got other things to do that are more important.
Speaker B:That's a really hard place, I think, for a lot of creatives to get to.
Speaker B:But what I can tell you is if you can shift your mindset to training a virtual assistant into coaching a virtual assistant, you'd be surprised what they can do for you.
Speaker B:So, for example, Jeanne's always coming back and saying, did you see what so.
Speaker B:And so did?
Speaker B:That was brilliant.
Speaker B:I would have never thought of that.
Speaker B:So they.
Speaker B:They can.
Speaker B:There can be very creative, amazing people that you can work with who can take your coaching.
Speaker B:And if you can coach them on your style of editing, whether it's photos or videos and what you're looking for, why they can get to the point where they can do that really well.
Speaker B:And then if you will, ask them, hey, if you have a creative idea, bring it to me or show me something different if you think I might like it.
Speaker B:And I always tell our virtual assistants, don't take it personally if we don't like it.
Speaker B:If you bring an idea to us, whether it's a creative idea or, you know, a business idea, and we don't implement it right away, sometimes we have a lot of ideas too, that we can't implement all the time, but we're always open to hearing what people have to offer.
Speaker B:And so instead of thinking about your virtual assistant as someone who you just throw tasks at, if you can think about them as being a viable part of your team long term and invest your time coaching them on what you really like and what you dislike with your editing, and it is harder.
Speaker B:So for someone like me with a video, you know, I can say, I like this B roll, I like that transition, but my eye is not going to be as skilled as yours.
Speaker B:I'm not going to be as picky as you are.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:But you can still take that to a new level and coach them on what you really want.
Speaker B:And I think it's just important to realize you can invest time now and you know, when you have the opportunity to really invest in a person and get them up to speed, which can allow you to work with more clients.
Speaker B:So I guess the question would always be, do you enjoy photographing more or do you enjoy editing more?
Speaker B:And you know that I think that's the challenge.
Speaker B:I think most photographers probably would say they enjoy photographing more.
Speaker B:But, yeah, what about you?
Speaker A:Without a doubt.
Speaker A:And I think that that act of creation is kind of core to who we are as artists.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The interesting thing about onboarding a VA or any sort of marketing assistant, anybody that you're using to outsource some of the tasks in your business, the challenge that I've always found is that onboarding process.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Investing that time and energy into someone to teach them your voice, your brand voice, the voice that you want to use on social media with your followers, the way that you want to write copy for your website.
Speaker A:Sometimes that's easy to define.
Speaker A:For a lot of us, we want to say what a lot of others are saying, but in our own way.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because we are individuals, individual businesses.
Speaker A:How hard is that onboarding process?
Speaker A:Most of the time, generally speaking, of course.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So what can someone realistically expect to spend terms of time and energy onboarding someone to the point where they can be semi autonomous and be doing some of these things for you?
Speaker B:So, first of all, it would really depend on your hiring process.
Speaker B:So hiring the right person is imperative.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So if you've got the right person, if you have things like your style guide and your brand voice, if you have all of that documented, then that makes it a lot easier.
Speaker B:So, for example, if I were coaching a virtual assistant who was editing one of our videos, and let's say they had a piece of B roll that had a bunch of men in suits walking down Wall street, the way I would coach them around that is, I would say 80% of our clients are female, 20% are men, but they're not men who are wearing suits.
Speaker B:So when you're finding B roll for us, we want that feeling, you know, we want the person who's watching that to connect with that and to see themselves in that.
Speaker B:So make sure that these are the type of images that you're using, this is the type of B roll you're using.
Speaker B:So, you know, find.
Speaker B:Find video clips that are about 80% women, 20% men, or make sure that the men are in more casual outfits, not suits.
Speaker B:So I think if you can figure out how to coach them, yours is a little bit different.
Speaker B:Because if you're coaching them on editing a specific.
Speaker B:A particular style that you have with your photo editing or your video editing.
Speaker B:I think it's just a matter of taking time and working with them and then always tell them what.
Speaker B:What you love that they did.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh, this is perfect.
Speaker B:You did a great job here.
Speaker B:And here's what we need to change with this part.
Speaker B:And this is why it's always about.
Speaker B:This is why we usually recommend that you meet with your virtual assistant, like, every day for Monday through Thursday and just coach them for a little while.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes Those calls are 15, 20 minutes, sometimes they're an hour.
Speaker B:But if you spend that time in the beginning, eventually you might meet with them once a week.
Speaker B:And you may not have to really coach them anymore, because once they learn what you're looking for, it's rinse and repeat, right?
Speaker B:It's not, you know, they're not.
Speaker B:They're not changing.
Speaker B:You're not changing styles of what you like every week.
Speaker B:So once they know what you like, because all they're doing is really emulating that style.
Speaker B:Emulating your style of editing or, you know, touching up photos or whatever you're doing.
Speaker B:So I would.
Speaker B:I would definitely say the first month, meet with them Monday through Thursday, invest the time with them, be patient, complimentary, you know, explain why.
Speaker B:And then from there, maybe you go to three days a week, maybe you stay two days a week, go to one day a week.
Speaker B:But you always want to meet with your team on a regular basis and check in, make sure that, you know, sometimes people get sloppy.
Speaker B:Not just.
Speaker B:Not just virtual assistants, but even business owners, right?
Speaker B:So it's imperative that you put your CEO hat on, and you realize that it's your responsibility, you know, to lead your team.
Speaker B:We manage tasks.
Speaker B:We lead our team.
Speaker B:And that's what I would also say is definitely lean into using a project management software like Trello.
Speaker A:I know you're a big Trello fan.
Speaker A:There's Trello, there's Asana, There's a million products out there, right?
Speaker A:For project management, doing something like that allows you to be asynchronous with your va.
Speaker A:You can put stuff in there.
Speaker A:They can get the tasks right.
Speaker A:If they're in a different time zone, different country, whatever it is, they can keep pulling from that, and it keeps the process rolling, kind of 24, seven.
Speaker A:But you said something earlier, you know, and it struck me as funny when you said your.
Speaker A:Your style guide and your brand guide.
Speaker A:And I'm like, I put one together about six or seven months ago.
Speaker A:In anticipation of outsourcing some of this down the road.
Speaker A:Still haven't done it yet, but I was able to put this thing together.
Speaker A:I don't know how many people that are solopreneurs or in the creative arts have ever put together a style guide or a brand guide.
Speaker A:Are there ways that you can suggest, I mean, use ChatGPT, hey, take a look at my website, take a look at my social media, come up with a brand guide.
Speaker A:Is it that easy?
Speaker A:Or do you really need to spend a ton of time thinking through the intricacies of it?
Speaker B:It depends on the type of person you are.
Speaker B:Fair.
Speaker B:That's fair, right?
Speaker B:So we always have to work within our own strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you know what your style, you know what your brand colors are, you know what your fonts are, you know those things.
Speaker B:I think the best thing to do is can you tell me what emotion you want people to feel when they look at your photographs?
Speaker B:When you shoot a photo, what type of photography do you do?
Speaker B:I'm sorry, I didn't ask that earlier.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I do primarily adult portraits.
Speaker A:So no weddings, no babies, no kids, just adult portraits.
Speaker A:Personal branding, final art, headshots, that sort of thing.
Speaker B:Okay, so what is your goal for them when they get those photos?
Speaker B:How do you want them to feel?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:I base my whole business on human connection.
Speaker A:So the entire process that I go through allows me to connect really deeply with each one of my clients so that I understand what it is that they're looking for in their images.
Speaker A:By the time they ever step into the studio, we're already semi friends.
Speaker A:You know, we're joking and laughing and having a good time.
Speaker A:That decreases a lot of the nervousness.
Speaker A:And as adults, we don't get in front of the camera all that often.
Speaker A:Maybe a wedding, maybe a birth of a child, maybe an obituary.
Speaker A:You know, for me, it's all about demystifying the process of portraiture for adults and the power behind it.
Speaker A:I don't like to use the word empowering too much.
Speaker A:I think it's overused.
Speaker A:I try not to use authenticity too much.
Speaker A:I think that's a little bit overused.
Speaker A:But they're the right words for what we do with this style of photography.
Speaker A:It does give people a sense of self value and self love.
Speaker A:It gives people this sense that maybe the things that I say in my head aren't real and that people see me a different way than I see me.
Speaker A:So what does it look like to be captured like that?
Speaker A:My whole brand is really rooted in Those concepts of it being a deep emotional connection to yourself and making sure that the images that you receive are proper representations of who you are and how you want to appear to the world.
Speaker B:Okay, when you finish with this recording, take the transcript.
Speaker B:And now you've got your brain guide.
Speaker A:I knew you were gonna do that.
Speaker B:You did?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because you're talking about, like, your goals, your relationship.
Speaker B:These are things that we don't think are important for a virtual assistant to know, but they are, because how you work with your clients and your ultimate goal for what you want them to feel with their photos and how you want it to help enhance their business or their life, that is who you are, and that's who you are as a business.
Speaker B:And so being able to explain that helps them understand a little bit more about who you are.
Speaker B:And then when you think about when you're shooting your photographs, do you do a lot of editing?
Speaker B:A little editing?
Speaker B:Like, what does that look like with your style of photo editing?
Speaker B:And within that process, talk it out.
Speaker B:Like when you're.
Speaker B:Next time you're editing photos, talk it out like, just as if you're talking to a fifth grader.
Speaker B:I'm editing this because of this, and I'm thinking about moving this, but I'm not sure, or darkening it or lightning.
Speaker B:And I have no idea how to edit a photo, but you know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:So talk it out as if you were.
Speaker B:You're your.
Speaker B:You know, your fifth grade child came in the room and said, tell me what you're doing.
Speaker B:Explain to me what you're doing.
Speaker B:Do that.
Speaker B:Because what is going to happen, it's going to help you actually have a lot of the content that you'll need to start coaching and onboarding a virtual assistant.
Speaker B:And even I think when you go back and listen to this conversation with us, I think you're probably even going to have some wording for your marketing that you didn't maybe have not used before.
Speaker A:I wouldn't doubt that at all.
Speaker A:We think we know everything, right?
Speaker A:Because we're in it every day.
Speaker A:We're just in the trenches with our business every day.
Speaker A:So of course we know our voice, and of course we know how we want to be seen by the rest of the world.
Speaker A:Asking me to write that down.
Speaker A:Okay, now it gets a little bit more difficult, right?
Speaker A:Because we think we have to speak in a different way or write in a different way.
Speaker A:And now it doesn't sound like us, but we want it to sound like us, but we also don't want to Sound like us?
Speaker A:Because sometimes that sounds really kind of weird.
Speaker A:How do we market authentic, Authentically, how do we show up but also not drive people away?
Speaker A:All this stuff is going on in my head when I'm thinking about hiring a va, right?
Speaker A:And I guess for the purposes of this conversation, I'll model it to.
Speaker A:I need someone to run my social media and my marketing content.
Speaker A:I can produce it, the majority of it.
Speaker A:I can provide all the content, need my VA to take that, all the photo, video, put it together, and then put it on my social channels for me so I don't have to think about it.
Speaker B:You want them to write the captions, you want them to write the call to actions?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So all of that, again, if you've written a lot of that yourself, you can show them.
Speaker B:Or if you have a ChatGPT prompt that you use on a regular basis to help you write that.
Speaker B:It's interesting.
Speaker B:Most of us have a voice that can be categorized if we took time to think about it.
Speaker B:So a lot of times if I'm writing certain emails and I'm getting started in chat, I might say I want to write a kind but firm email, and that's my intention with the content.
Speaker B:Chat already knows I don't like long emails.
Speaker B:Wrap this crap up.
Speaker B:It's gotta be short and to the point.
Speaker B:That's who I am.
Speaker B:And so when you can figure that out, then you can explain that to your virtual assistant.
Speaker B:You can go back and look at some of the older posts that you've done and say, I wrote this and I really liked it.
Speaker B:It got a lot of reaction.
Speaker B:You know, you.
Speaker B:You have to just coach them on what that voice looks like.
Speaker B:And sometimes that's just helping them understand prompts that will help ChatGPT.
Speaker B:Write a lot of the, you know, captions for them.
Speaker B:And then with the call to actions, making sure they know what.
Speaker B:What call to actions you want to use in your content, or what.
Speaker B:Or what call to actions in certain content.
Speaker B:Maybe it's, you know, book a call, maybe it's get this free guide, whatever that looks like for you.
Speaker B:And then if you want them to monitor the content as well, if you want them to reply, you know, let them know, I want you to reply to things that are generic, but if it's something more personal, where it could possibly lead to something else, please let me see it, because I may want to jump into that conversation and take care of it myself.
Speaker B:So it's just communicating the boundaries and the expectations of what you want them to do.
Speaker B:And Then again, don't let them schedule or post until you've signed off on it.
Speaker B:That's what the meetings are about.
Speaker B:Hey, I just gave you 35 photos and video clips.
Speaker B:Go ahead and write captions.
Speaker B:And here are the CTAs.
Speaker B:And let's meet in two days and let's spend an hour together going through them together.
Speaker B:And I'll tell you what I like and why I like it, what's not working and why it's not working.
Speaker B:We can correct it on the spot together.
Speaker B:And that's how, that's how you coach them.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker A:As you start to transition, some of this work, right?
Speaker A:And it's hard, man.
Speaker A:Being a control freak type a control freak, it's hard to hand some of that stuff off.
Speaker A:I'll tell you, as you start to do it and you're coaching your va, inevitably there are going to be some bits of nuance that either they don't get or you don't explain.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it's no fault on either side.
Speaker A:It just happens, right?
Speaker A:There's nuance that will never get translated from the standpoint of the audience.
Speaker A:What's good enough?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So if, if a word isn't precisely right that I would use, but it's, it's pretty much on point, how does someone who worries about every word and every phrase like me, how do I let go of some of that control and be like, you know what, it's good enough.
Speaker A:It's good enough for my audience.
Speaker B:Progress, not perfection.
Speaker B:And maybe if we look at it from a different lens, what if the way they worded it actually connects with someone that you wouldn't have necessarily connected with if you said it your way.
Speaker B:Just sometimes having the voice broke, not, not coming off a brand, but just having something, somebody say something.
Speaker B:Because you and I, let's say we went to Google, we were going to, we're searching something the way we.
Speaker B:What we might put in that search bar can be very different, but we're trying to get the same results.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Neither of us are wrong.
Speaker B:We're just.
Speaker B:The way we ask things in Google may be very different.
Speaker B:So just understanding that sometimes having people use a little bit different language than you might.
Speaker B:May use, it may be a good thing because it may connect with someone that you wouldn't have connected with otherwise.
Speaker B:It could be an ideal client for you.
Speaker B:The other thing is when you talk about consistency, it's really important to be consistent.
Speaker B:And perfection gets in the way of that.
Speaker B:And most people, you know, are not going to read your Captions and think, oh, they should have used a different word there.
Speaker B:Or oh my gosh, one out of 30 things had a misspelling or a typo.
Speaker B:Like, we sometimes act like those things are the end of the world when nobody really noticed.
Speaker B:And a lot of times they don't care even if they didn't notice.
Speaker B:Now you do have, you do have those grammar nazis who are like, oh, you have a typo here.
Speaker B:Okay, thank you for letting me know.
Speaker B:But I think most people, I think one of the reasons why people connect with us so well on YouTube is because what you see is what you get.
Speaker B:You know, not perfect, make mistakes, you know, all kind of dog walks into the middle of a video and there they are.
Speaker B:But people, I think, connect with us as humans more so when we.
Speaker B:Than when we try to be perfect.
Speaker A:What's the biggest mistake that a lot of people make when they're first starting to outsource?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Do they hire the wrong va.
Speaker A:Do they go about it the wrong way?
Speaker A:Do they not do enough guidance?
Speaker A:What's kind of one of the biggest mistakes that you keep in the back of your mind to try to avoid in this whole process?
Speaker B:I think it's not following the proper steps.
Speaker B:So, first of all, you need to have the resources that your virtual assistant needs.
Speaker B:Just like we were talking about your style guide, your brand voice, those things.
Speaker B:Then you need to be very specific about a job description.
Speaker B:Take time to write a job description.
Speaker B:What do you really want that person to do?
Speaker B:And do not try to find a magic unicorn.
Speaker B:There's not anyone out there who's going to be a fantastic video editor and amazing at graphic design.
Speaker B:And they can also do your bookkeeping and they can do outreach and they can manage your schedule and they can take care of your inbox.
Speaker B:That's what people want, right?
Speaker B:That doesn't exist.
Speaker B:Here's where the magic happens.
Speaker B:When you hire someone who is passionate about editing and as you are, they love doing it, maybe even more so than you do because you love photography.
Speaker B:That's win, win.
Speaker B:They're.
Speaker B:And they're working in their unique ability.
Speaker B:They get to use their passion, they get to do what they love doing and get paid for it consistently.
Speaker B:And you get to, you get to enjoy the results of having this work done that you didn't have to do, which frees you up to get more clients, spend more time with clients, or spend, you know, do more photo shoots.
Speaker B:So it really is magical when you hire the right person for the right job, brand voice, everything that they need to be trained on first, very clear job description, very clear job post, and have a very detailed interviewing process.
Speaker B:Hire slowly, fire quickly.
Speaker B:And this is something I think a lot of people don't really understand the importance of.
Speaker B:If you'd much rather spend time having two or three interviews with someone just to ensure that they are the right person than to hire someone and then spend two months with them and realize that they're not the right person.
Speaker B:So the more time you spend vetting them, asking questions, having conversations with them, you know, really finding out what's important to them, it's really that that that makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker B:And then when you hire them, have, like I said, a detailed process of how you delegate work, making sure that you have a process for clear communication, meeting with them consistently.
Speaker B:And a lot of people are thinking, well, I don't have time for this.
Speaker B:And what that tells me is that you're in a place in your business where you're making money, but not nearly as much as you want, but you can't make any more because you don't have enough hours in the day.
Speaker B:So you have to invest time, energy, and money in outsourcing.
Speaker B:But the rewards can be exponential.
Speaker A:And, you know, I'm sure you see this across all your clients, right?
Speaker A:Obviously, you know your stuff.
Speaker A:What do you find that people try to do in house, but a VA actually crushes it more often than not.
Speaker A:And it doesn't have to be in the creative space.
Speaker A:But what is it that you find that people struggle with the most?
Speaker A:That when they hire a va, the VA crushes it time and time again.
Speaker B:Like, bookkeeping is a great example.
Speaker B:I don't know about you.
Speaker B:I don't want to get certified in QuickBooks.
Speaker B:Like, I don't want to know the ins and outs of bookkeeping.
Speaker B:I just want it done so by January 20th, I can send it to my account and have my taxes done before everybody else.
Speaker B:That's the end goal for me.
Speaker B:So I feel like that's really empowering, and I feel like that makes the biggest difference.
Speaker B:I know when Jeannie started her business, that was the first thing she hired someone to do.
Speaker B:She hired someone stateside at that time, but for her, it was so liberating not to have.
Speaker B:Not feeling like, I've got to look at my bank statements.
Speaker B:I've got to put this together.
Speaker B:I've got to do this rather than I just have to send this off to my, you know, my bookkeeper, and he'll take care of all of it.
Speaker B:I feel like that is a real.
Speaker B:That can change everything because it helps people understand how much money they really do have coming in, what their expenses truly look like each month.
Speaker B:It gives them the information to be able to cut their expenses or think about how they could spend more money in marketing to increase revenue.
Speaker B:The difference, I think, in having a bookkeeper in the Philippines versus having a bookkeeper stateside.
Speaker B:A lot of times when you hire a bookkeeper stateside, they have a business and you have a business, so you're more equals.
Speaker B:Where when you hire a virtual bookkeeper for the Philippines, you're kind of bringing someone onto your team and you don't feel silly asking questions, you enjoy the meetings with them more.
Speaker B:And the other thing is you're saving so much money, you can invest time to meet with them and go over your balance sheet and go over your profit and loss sheet and you don't feel silly asking questions that you may feel silly asking someone stateside, which I know seems crazy, but we found that to be across the board is that people are a lot more confident to talk to their bookkeeper and just say, well, I don't really understand what that means.
Speaker B:And then having that bookkeeper really explain it to them and not feeling like they're being judged.
Speaker A:When you're hiring a VA or anybody outsource and you're getting to the point where you start trading passwords along them, access to your accounts, your financials, that sort of thing.
Speaker A:Obviously you've assumed that little bit of risk because you're in this process of hiring someone outside of your company.
Speaker A:But what are some of the things that folks need to be on the lookout for when they are letting someone in to their, you know, secure accounts?
Speaker A:What's the best way to go about it?
Speaker A:Setting up secondary accounts?
Speaker A:Is it giving your password out?
Speaker A:What's the best way that folks can protect themselves when they start working with someone that may or may not be around for three months, six months?
Speaker B:Well, when you think about bookkeeping, the software in and of itself gives you the ability to just give that bookkeeper bookkeeping access, right?
Speaker B:So they can see the accounts, but they don't see the account numbers and routing numbers and things like that.
Speaker B:So that's one thing to realize is they don't have access to everything.
Speaker B:They just have access to the information that they need when it comes to passwords.
Speaker B:Like let's say you're going to let someone log into your canva account or they're going to log into your social media account.
Speaker B:You know, one, make sure they have a VPN because you want to make sure it looks like they're posting from the US and not from the Philippines.
Speaker B:But two, you can have a process where you change passwords every 90 days or so, just so you're keeping those as secure as possible.
Speaker B:Yes, you're giving that virtual assistant that new password.
Speaker B:But we find that hackers are getting better and better at hacking social media accounts.
Speaker B:So by having a really hard password, like we use LastPass and it generates all of our crazy long passwords.
Speaker A:You do.
Speaker B:So having really secure passwords is important.
Speaker B:Having your virtual assistant use LastPass so they're not writing down your passwords.
Speaker B:And then, you know, again, just having a protocol where you're being careful to change passwords on a regular basis for safety issues because of hackers.
Speaker B:Not so much that the VA is going to give it away.
Speaker B:Out of all the years we've hired and fired and all the things we've done, we've never had a virtual assistant that was vindictive.
Speaker B:You know, we generally change everything when we let someone go, but there have been times when we haven't gotten around to it or, you know, we let someone leave the internship and we don't change everything right away.
Speaker B:You know, we release them from the internship.
Speaker B:We've just never had a problem.
Speaker B:I don't find that people in the Philippines are vindictive or mean people.
Speaker B:They tend to be very kind.
Speaker B:If we've let someone go, we've let them go.
Speaker B:We've given them so much encouragement and so many chances that, you know, they know that we gave it our all and it's just not a good fit.
Speaker B:So I just think sometimes you have to decide, are you going to.
Speaker B:I always say faith or fear.
Speaker B:Faith or fear can occupy your mind and they can't occupy your mind at the same time.
Speaker B:So I just have faith that we're going to find the right people, we're going to have a good safety protocol and we're going to follow that and then just move forward again.
Speaker A:It comes down to running any sort of business.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Having a little bit of forethought.
Speaker A:What are my processes?
Speaker A:What are my security protocols?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:When am.
Speaker A: n't changed my password since: Speaker A:Well, maybe it's a good time to start doing that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:So getting into those good habits that any business owner should have.
Speaker A:I think that is, even if you don't wind up hiring someone, it's a good process to fall into anyway.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Something like LastPass, it'll tell you all of your passwords that are, that are low strength.
Speaker B:Just go through and have all of those changed.
Speaker B:Have, you know, have an automated password created.
Speaker B:It's stored there.
Speaker B:You can have LastPass on your phone so you have access to your passwords no matter where you are.
Speaker B:But I think that's the number one thing is getting stronger passwords from the beginning.
Speaker B:And I think again, that's a mindset shift, realizing that, you know, you are the CEO, you are the cfo, and you are also security and compliance for your company as well.
Speaker B:So just spend a little bit of time in that category is helpful.
Speaker A:LastPass saves my life day in and day out.
Speaker A:I've been using it for years.
Speaker A:Thousands of passwords that are, you know, 16, 20 characters long.
Speaker A:And it gives me a little bit of a peace of mind that if I do get some fraud alert from a bank or I start getting some pretty fishy texts or whatnot, I know that it, that my data's been leaked somewhere.
Speaker A:Someone's asset accessing some part of my life.
Speaker A:So let's do the best we can and change the passwords.
Speaker A:And it's a 32nd thing to do in LastPass.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:You know, neither.
Speaker A:I don't know if you're an affiliate.
Speaker A:I'm not an affiliate for LastPass.
Speaker A:I just know that it has saved my hide more than once.
Speaker B:So, yeah, my business partner Jeannie used it for a long time and I got an account and I just fell off the wagon.
Speaker B:And then I finally had to set up a new account because I didn't even remember what that one was.
Speaker B:But it's so funny, once you kind of get into using it, you can't imagine life without it.
Speaker B:You have people that have things written down.
Speaker B:I had dinner with a lady on Monday night and she said, all my passwords on a piece of paper, a little tiny notebook, I can't find it, like.
Speaker B:And I was like, well, people, if someone found it, they wouldn't know what it's to like.
Speaker B:You don't put every.
Speaker B:Like, you don't put.
Speaker B:This is my bank of America account.
Speaker B:This is the rowdy number.
Speaker B:And she said, I do.
Speaker B:Oh, yes.
Speaker B:And so I said, please, please, please, you know, and I understand we're all burnt out on learning new things.
Speaker B:Yeah, sometimes you have to prioritize.
Speaker B:But I would say for everyone, LastPass is really important.
Speaker B:And I will tell you how awesome the hackers are getting.
Speaker B:I left Sarasota, Florida and went to Orlando for a conference.
Speaker B:I was not driving my car.
Speaker B:I did not have my Toll tag, and I did not sign into the hotel, so there was no part of me anywhere.
Speaker B:About an hour after checking into the hotel, I got a text message saying I needed to pay a toll of $6.17.
Speaker B:A little while later, my friend got the same toll request.
Speaker B:So we knew it was a scam.
Speaker B:We knew right off the bat based on the phone number.
Speaker B:But I'm like, how the holy heck did they know that I went through a toll?
Speaker B:And it has to be that somehow they have figured out how to hack our phones based on where we're located, which I think is scary as I'll get out.
Speaker B:So I think you also have to remember, because I know this is really easy for all of us to do is when something comes in and it looks fraudulent or we're getting an alert that we need to do something, we freak out.
Speaker B:We want to react.
Speaker B:Don't.
Speaker B:So I have a couple.
Speaker B:When it happens to me, I just go.
Speaker B:I send it to Jeanne.
Speaker B:I go, is this for real?
Speaker B:And she'll come back and she'll go, yes, it is.
Speaker B:We're.
Speaker B:Same thing with her.
Speaker B:She'll go, I got this.
Speaker B:I just need a minute.
Speaker B:Let's talk about it.
Speaker B:Find somebody that you can bounce it off of, because we.
Speaker B:We do want to react.
Speaker B:We freak out and want to react.
Speaker B:You will be taken advantage of more often than you want to.
Speaker B:If that's how you.
Speaker B:How you live.
Speaker B:If you do owe somebody some money or something's going on.
Speaker B:They're not going to bomb your house in the next 15 seconds if you don't reply to that text message and go get them a gift card at Target.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So don't be reactive.
Speaker A:I'm pretty good.
Speaker A:I spent a little bit.
Speaker A:I spent a lot of time in IT and cybersecurity, so I'm relatively aware and pretty paranoid about this stuff.
Speaker A:However, there's a.
Speaker A:They're getting so good.
Speaker A:You know, things come through.
Speaker A:I'm like, is that real?
Speaker A:Is it not?
Speaker A:How well is it spooked?
Speaker A:So a lot of times I just take that and go, okay, so such and such text scam, question mark on Google.
Speaker A:And immediately it comes back.
Speaker A:Now I know, okay, yeah, I can just get rid of this thing.
Speaker A:But, yeah, it takes a little bit of vigilance.
Speaker A:And I'm worried about folks like my parents, right, that get this stuff all the time and are clicking on things.
Speaker A:They're not listening to this podcast, let me tell you.
Speaker A:However, like, people that take that security for granted are inevitably going to fall for something.
Speaker A:And it's not their fault.
Speaker A:It's just the hackers are getting that good.
Speaker B:But if you're traveling and you use a particular credit card for your trip, when you get back, just lock that credit card and don't use it for a couple months.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So people don't realize you can usually go in and turn your credit card on and off yourself.
Speaker A:Great tip.
Speaker B:And so when we were in Vegas last time for a conference, Jeanne misplaced her car.
Speaker B:She actually had it on her.
Speaker B:She just couldn't find it.
Speaker B:So instead of canceling the car, we just went and cut it off.
Speaker B:And then she was, A few hours later, she found it was just stuck to something else in her wallet.
Speaker B:But not having to cancel, just being able to cut the card off, you know, gave us a peace of mind that we didn't have to worry about it.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:But again, when we get back, when we travel, another big tip is if you are using, if you're running Facebook ads and things like that, once you stop running ads, remove all of your credit card information.
Speaker B:Information, because I don't know why.
Speaker B:Hackers will hack into your ads.
Speaker B:Account.
Speaker B:Ads.
Speaker B:Account on Facebook.
Speaker B:And then they'll run ads, and then you get billed for it.
Speaker B:And that's, you know, and then you have to fight with Facebook to resolve it.
Speaker B:And that happens a lot.
Speaker B:So we always, anytime we run ads, we then remove our credit card information.
Speaker B:So if we get hacked, Facebook will always spend like 25, and they'll say, hey, there's no money here.
Speaker B:There's nothing to pay us, you know, and they stop them.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, that's actually, that's going to be a good segue, and I'm going to try my best to segue, but we'll see how this works.
Speaker A:So you talked about Facebook ads.
Speaker A:I have never run an ad on the meta platform.
Speaker A:It's more of a philosophical difference that I have with Mr.
Speaker A:Zuckerberg.
Speaker A:However, I run Google Ads, so same thing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But as we transition and we start looking at video marketing, which is another big piece of your coaching business.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Let's talk a little bit about how you go about.
Speaker A:Is it developing the same brand voice guide and then applying that thought pattern to using video, how you show up in your brand, or is there a whole different playbook for video marketing that you've found to be successful?
Speaker B:So we work with a lot of coaches and consultants.
Speaker B:We also work with a lot of real estate agents.
Speaker B:The best part, and we really lean into YouTube.
Speaker B:YouTube is owned by Google.
Speaker B:It's the second largest search engine more or less these days.
Speaker B:But if you ever search, if you've recently searched on Google and you see YouTube ads pop up, the reason for that is Google is an ads platform as well as YouTube.
Speaker B:Google knows if they send you to a video, you'll spend more time on that than if they send you to an article or a blog post.
Speaker B:They will make more money sending you to a video, which is why you're seeing so many more YouTube videos show up in the Google search bar.
Speaker B:So when it comes to video content, it's really important to have a video strategy, an SEO rich strategy.
Speaker B:So for example, for real estate agents, and I think this could probably be true for photographers because you're going after local business, so you have the ability to marry industry specific keywords along with location.
Speaker B:So for example, and again, I'm not a photographer, so I'm just making stuff up.
Speaker B:But if I were a photographer that did a lot of outdoor photography or wedding photography or things like that, I may spend time going around and featuring different venues and talking about what I like and what I dislike, or the challenge and the pros and the cons.
Speaker B:So, you know, creating content because now you're using keywords, you're talking about a specific venue in a certain area.
Speaker B:And so when someone's searching for photographer, you have a better chance of coming up because now you have video content that is also SEO rich.
Speaker B:So when they look for a photographer near me, you have more keywords that are related to locations.
Speaker B:So if you're going to create a video strategy, I think it's important to have a plan before you start because video is amazing and it can generate a great deal of revenue for you.
Speaker B:But it is, it is something that you have to commit to for a while.
Speaker B:It's not like, oh, let me run ads for 30 days and then if I don't do well, I'll stop.
Speaker B:If you're going to have a YouTube strategy, you need to think about it for the next three to five years.
Speaker B:You need to think about how can I create something.
Speaker B:But I also want to emphasize, when you create a YouTube video, you're creating something that is evergreen, that's working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for you for years to come.
Speaker B:So when you create that one asset, you spend, you know, half an hour researching it, a half an hour recording it.
Speaker B:You know, you send it off to your video editor, they take care of everything else.
Speaker B:Now you have something that's working all of the time for you, but also you now have that piece of content that can be broken down to short clips for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.
Speaker B:The other thing that I think is super powerful, and this is where we see a lot of our clients get their, their initial business from.
Speaker B:The strategy is sending out your video to your email list.
Speaker B:So a lot of times when you send out a video, if you indicate in the subject line that it is a video, you'll get a much higher open rate and people will watch the content.
Speaker B:We had a real estate agent on the very first video they sent out, they had someone who wasn't a close friend.
Speaker B:It was someone who was on a sphere of influence.
Speaker B:It was just someone who they knew not really, really well, who reached out and said, hey, loved your video.
Speaker B:Not sure if you can help me, but I want to buy some land in the next few months.
Speaker B:Do you sell land?
Speaker B:So having a strategy that's kind of like a flywheel, where you do something one time and you end up with the content for all the other platforms, I think is powerful.
Speaker B:It also, it's you.
Speaker B:You're showing up consistently in your content.
Speaker B:If people watch my content, they either like me or they don't.
Speaker B:I mean, whether they're cup of tea or I'm not.
Speaker B:And so, you know, if, if you meet me on the streets, I talk with my hands just like I do here.
Speaker B:And I think what happens is that makes people feel really good.
Speaker B:You know, when they see enough of your content, they watch enough of your videos.
Speaker B:When they book a call with me, they feel like they already know me.
Speaker B:And that's very powerful.
Speaker B:They're generally already sold on us and what we do.
Speaker B:So if for a photographer, if you're thinking about creating a strategy, think about how you can leverage industry words and local keywords.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's a big part of that with the way that Google classifies content and looks at your website, looks at everything that you're doing from an SEO standpoint, they're looking to see if you are relevant.
Speaker A:If you're answering questions that people are asking, if you're giving insight.
Speaker A:You can't be a photographer and then start talking about soda can manufacturing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And just put a blog post up because it's stuffed with keywords.
Speaker A:Google's gonna look at that and say, not really relevant.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna rank that page for what you're doing.
Speaker A:The thing I love about YouTube, not a huge YouTube star.
Speaker A:I wish I had started years ago, like 15 years ago, now that I have a strategy of my own.
Speaker A:I love putting generator on YouTube because not only is it being searched, but now I have constant SEO, right, with transcripts and captions and relevancy to my industry.
Speaker A:And like you said, it's working 24 7.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:The thing that I see a lot of creatives or people that are starting with video, right?
Speaker A:I get asked a lot of times, hey man, can you teach me how to do video?
Speaker A:Can you teach me editing?
Speaker A:Can you teach me how to film?
Speaker A:I always say, well, where's it going?
Speaker A:What are you doing exactly?
Speaker A:And a lot of people think that video is just take your phone, turn it on, capture the video, post it, a lot more that goes into it, which is a whole different conversation.
Speaker A:But from the standpoint of looking at the platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, I know you can repurpose the same video across all the platforms.
Speaker A:Is there one platform, is it YouTube that has performed the best for you over the years?
Speaker A:Given that the algorithms are changing seemingly every 30 seconds, what tends to be for you in what you've seen over the years to be the best platform for what you're doing with coaching and real estate and all the other bits of your business?
Speaker B:Do you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is?
Speaker A:Oh, sure, Gary Vee.
Speaker B:Okay, so Gary Vee talks about how our short form content is where people initially find us or become aware of us, but it's our long form content that converts them.
Speaker B:So maybe someone finds you on Instagram or they find us on Facebook, but when they come to us and we ask where they found us, they found us on YouTube.
Speaker B:Maybe they found us from a search or maybe they saw a lot of our smaller clips and then that drove them to YouTube to watch the longer clips.
Speaker B:Because what happens is awareness is the first part.
Speaker B:You know, they become aware of who you are, they become aware of what you do.
Speaker B:They get little snippets.
Speaker B:They're starting to decide if they like you, do they trust you now?
Speaker B:Okay, well, maybe I want to know more about what they do and could it benefit me.
Speaker B:Now I will go and binge watch these long form videos.
Speaker B:So for us, most of the time when people come to us, they come to us from YouTube, but at the same time, I can't guarantee that that's exactly where they found us.
Speaker B:So I think when you think marketing, you always want to think about it like a flywheel.
Speaker B:Now if you're running ads or if you've a person who built a really big Instagram following, well, then yes, you can say directly where your content's coming from.
Speaker B:But for a lot of us, creating content from multiple platforms makes sense because our clients are on different platforms.
Speaker B:And also being into SEO, I think is really, really important.
Speaker B:I think a lot of people think I'm going to run out of things to talk about.
Speaker B:Yeah, do you, do you feel that way sometimes?
Speaker B:Like, I'm going to run out of things to talk about.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I want to promise you you're not going to.
Speaker B:And I'm going to give you an example of a channel to go to.
Speaker B:People want to use us if we're known for something.
Speaker B:If you are known for being the wedding photographer in Minnesota, that's who you are.
Speaker B:You're that, you're the, you're the star of Minnesota.
Speaker B:You've got the content out there, you've got the channel.
Speaker B:That's what you're talking about all the time.
Speaker B:You become known for that.
Speaker B:You become the expert.
Speaker B:Well, you think, well, how many things can I talk about?
Speaker B:There's a lovely woman who has a channel, it's called Minimal mom and she's been talking about minimalism for, God, I don't know how long, but she consistently shows up.
Speaker B:Her videos do really well and she's been talking about that same topic week after week, year after year.
Speaker B:The bigger challenge is not that you'll run out of content, it's that you'll get bored with it.
Speaker B:And those are two totally different things.
Speaker B:So you have to challenge yourself to think about, well, how can I stay on topic of what I want to be known for, but also make it interesting?
Speaker B:So wedding photographer, maybe you actually go and video different bridal studios and you interview, you know, the people that own the shops, you know, again, venues, maybe you're talking about, you know, different types of flower arrangements.
Speaker B:Or should you have a videographer and a photographer?
Speaker B:How do you tell your guests not to stand up when you're walking down the aisle and take pictures with your phone?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So you've got so much to talk about.
Speaker B:But sometimes we do get bored with it because we forget that people who are not in our industry, who are not in it every day, sometimes it's the most basic things that we educate them on that means everything to them.
Speaker B:So it's all about value based educational content and making it interesting.
Speaker B:But answering any and every question someone has ever asked you in your videos is super important.
Speaker A:I don't know if we can overstate this point enough because I know that I faced it quite a bit.
Speaker A:I'll go on and I'll say, all right.
Speaker A:Well, I can talk about portrait photography.
Speaker A:I could talk about video.
Speaker A:I could talk about podcasting.
Speaker A:I could talk about playing music.
Speaker A:I could talk about all sorts of things.
Speaker A:I try to keep on message, right?
Speaker A:I try to pick one thing because I know that in the past, if I'm scattered, then people really don't know who I am or what I'm doing, right?
Speaker A:So if I'm approaching this as a business and I say, all right, well, I want to be.
Speaker A:I want to be the podcasting guy, right?
Speaker A:So I'm going to talk about podcasting.
Speaker A:It's not just about showing people these episode after episode after episode and the shorts.
Speaker A:It's about the process.
Speaker A:It's about why I love doing what I do.
Speaker A:It's about backstories of guests.
Speaker A:It's about the problems that you run into with all of your equipment.
Speaker A:It's about all the things.
Speaker A:And then it's also connecting with other people that do the same thing in hearing from them and getting short bits and pieces from there.
Speaker A:I think the more that you can position yourself as a passionate advocate for what it is that you do, rather than just saying, here's my business, buy my stuff.
Speaker A:Instead you're saying, hey, let me give you insight to what it is that I do.
Speaker A:Let me help solve your problems.
Speaker A:Let me give this information away.
Speaker A:I think you absolutely attract more people with that because they see you as a colleague or friend rather than just some talking head on YouTube.
Speaker A:I know that the.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The accounts that I follow, the ones that I go back to, their content over and over, it's not them producing the same video.
Speaker A:I'm getting the insight to the world that they live in.
Speaker A:I'm getting more of their personality.
Speaker A:And I found that a lot of us creatives want to project an image of being the perfect person.
Speaker A:And there is so much life that is housed in that imperfection, in the stuff that.
Speaker A:You know what?
Speaker A:I'm having a.
Speaker A:I'm having kind of a shitty day.
Speaker A:I'm having a hard time managing my family and my business and all the stuff, and I need to talk to somebody and, hey, look, there's a camera right here.
Speaker A:So I'm going to talk to half the world.
Speaker A:I think that type of content without getting into, like, trauma dumping.
Speaker A:I think with.
Speaker A:With that type of content, it gives you a much more multifaceted view of your world so that your audience can better understand, hey, is this someone that I want to do business with or not?
Speaker A:So in that I've used ChatGPT, I've used.
Speaker A:I'm, I'm a huge AI nerd.
Speaker A:So I've used all the different models out there to see what works best, what sounds most natural.
Speaker A:But one of the things I keep going back to is idea generation of saying, all right, chat GPT, you know, everything besides my waist size, basically about me.
Speaker A:So one of the things that I can talk about now that I haven't talked about in the past, I want to focus on client experience.
Speaker A:Give me 15 or 20 videos that I could make short form videos, let me pick a couple of titles, let me take that title, and now maybe come up with a shot list or a script, something that I can finesse and not start from scratch every single time.
Speaker A:One of the biggest boundaries that I find for creators is that they just feel like it's this burden to start from scratch every single time.
Speaker A:And I don't think you need to do that anymore.
Speaker A:What have you found with the folks that you're coaching?
Speaker A:How do they stay consistent and continue to produce relevant content for their businesses?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, it helps if you have a spreadsheet, I think, to list video ideas.
Speaker B:I mean, first of all, someone asks you a question, you're like, oh my gosh, that's a great video, but you'll forget.
Speaker B:You think you won't.
Speaker B:So having a place even on your phone, on notes and say, so and so just ask is that's a great video.
Speaker B:So having a process to be able to capture those ideas when they come to you, and then being able to organize them in a way to say, okay, well, I'm going to, you know, I want to do these on client experience.
Speaker B:I want to do these on location, location.
Speaker B:I want to do these as an interview so I can promote another local business.
Speaker B:Having a little bit of a plan makes it easier.
Speaker B:The other thing is we encourage our clients not to post their first YouTube video until they have four videos fully produced.
Speaker B:And the way we define fully produced is they're uploaded.
Speaker B:All the SEO's done, YouTube's best practices are done.
Speaker B:All of the social media clips are ready to go, scheduled, ready to go out.
Speaker B:The email's written ready to go out, everything is a go.
Speaker B:And by being a month ahead and being able to work with their virtual assistant without the pressure of a deadline on those first four minute videos is that's amazing.
Speaker B:So that'll be the other thing.
Speaker B:Take your time to get a month of content banked before you go live with your content.
Speaker B:It'll make a big difference if you ever get sick or have A family emergency, and you have to bounce out for a week.
Speaker B:You know you have content.
Speaker B:You're not.
Speaker B:You're not missing a week.
Speaker B:The other thing is, now we find clients.
Speaker B:We had clients on our Tuesday call.
Speaker B:One is already scheduled through June and the other one through July because both of them, they have big vacations they want to do over the summer.
Speaker B:They have other projects they want to work on.
Speaker B:So they just put their heads down and create content.
Speaker B:Worked with their virtual assistant, got it done, got it scheduled, and now they've got all this breathing room to work on whatever else it is they want to work on.
Speaker B:So it's about pre planning.
Speaker B:Some of our clients, they record all four videos for the month in one day.
Speaker B:They change their shirt.
Speaker B:They know what their topics are.
Speaker B:They do it.
Speaker B:They're done.
Speaker B:Other people like to just set aside Friday mornings.
Speaker B:I record one video every Friday morning.
Speaker B:Whatever that looks like.
Speaker B:Whatever works with your energy and who you are is important.
Speaker B:But getting ahead on your content and getting excited about your topics.
Speaker B:I mean, if a topic doesn't excite you, figure out how you can make it exciting.
Speaker B:How can you make it interesting for you to want to record it?
Speaker B:Because people can tell, even on topics that are not a ton of fun to talk about.
Speaker B:Like, you were just talking about the challenges with editing a podcast.
Speaker B:Best podcast ever is the one where you didn't hit record.
Speaker B:And you realize at the end, like, crap, I just had a great interview with that person.
Speaker B:We did not hit record.
Speaker A:I checked on this, like, three or four times.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Just because that thought is constantly going in my head.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We go to PodFest every year in January.
Speaker B:And it's so funny because everybody who's been creating content for a while has all the same stories.
Speaker B:You forgot to hit record.
Speaker B:Or you realize, like, long after it was recorded that something was crazy off or that the audio didn't record at all.
Speaker B:It happens to everyone, and it's normal.
Speaker B:So just roll with it and have fun with it.
Speaker B:And I think just again, just know that there's no such thing as a perfect person.
Speaker B:So if you're trying to be a perfect person.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You're shooting for something that doesn't exist.
Speaker A:You know, speaking of perfection.
Speaker A:And I love that.
Speaker A:I really do.
Speaker A:I think a lot of us tend to want that perfection.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And we're kind of back to the beginning of the conversation.
Speaker A:Done is better than perfect.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Have you ever had a thing that.
Speaker A:That you're like, this is gonna bomb.
Speaker A:I'm gonna put it out there anyway.
Speaker A:This is gonna bomb.
Speaker A:And then it turned out to be brilliant.
Speaker A:Do you ever have a moment like that?
Speaker B:It is so often we.
Speaker B:We find it for ourselves and for our clients.
Speaker B:You've.
Speaker B:You know, there's no rhyme or reason.
Speaker B:We're talking to two clients on Tuesday that both had shorts go viral, and neither of them can figure out why, because they're not really any different than their other things.
Speaker B:Because, of course, you are trying to look at the analytics.
Speaker B:You are trying to figure out why that took off so that you can duplicate it.
Speaker B:But sometimes there's no rhyme or reason.
Speaker B:But one thing I think people need to understand when it comes to creating video content is the SEO gets people to your content.
Speaker B:It's what YouTube or Google will show them if you're using the right keywords.
Speaker B:But then your thumbnail has to be fantastic.
Speaker B:And in our coaching call, we had a young lady.
Speaker B:She said, I can't understand why this particular video, which is a testimonial from one of my clients, isn't doing well with all these others are doing well.
Speaker B:Well, all the other ones were of her.
Speaker B:She's cute.
Speaker B:She's adorable.
Speaker B:One of them's her on the beach, playing volleyball.
Speaker B:Big platter of beautiful food.
Speaker B:And then the client is kind of sitting like this, you know, kind of slumped over a little bit.
Speaker B:She's in a dark shirt, and the background's dark, so there was nothing popping that made you want to.
Speaker B:That video.
Speaker B:And when she showed us the clip, because the video was about gas and constipation and there was a stock photography of a woman sitting on a toilet.
Speaker B:Make that the COVID shot.
Speaker B:Then start letting your.
Speaker B:Let your client tell it.
Speaker B:Because people will click on someone sitting on the toilet, so.
Speaker B:And we might think, well, that's embarrassing.
Speaker B:And obviously, she wouldn't want to embarrass the client.
Speaker B:They gave her this great referral.
Speaker B:But I would say, call that client and tell them what you're doing and why, because it'll get more clicks and more people will hear her testimony, her story.
Speaker B:So we have to think about what can we do to be enticing and creative and have fun with what we're doing.
Speaker B:You know, I hate making faces, all the faces people make on their channels, like the surprise face.
Speaker B:And I call it the bass fish mouth face with their mouth hanging open.
Speaker B:People like those.
Speaker B:I hate doing them.
Speaker B:I try, but it's not.
Speaker B:I'm not fabulous at it.
Speaker B:I'm always thinking, close your mouth already.
Speaker B:But, yeah.
Speaker B:So figuring out how you can make your thumbnails interesting or fun because that's what people are attracted to.
Speaker B:Or beautiful and warm.
Speaker B:Whatever your brand is, make sure you're able to get that really across in those thumbnails.
Speaker A:You know, I think the thumbnail is probably one of the most underestimated parts of the entire process.
Speaker A:And I suck at it.
Speaker A:I'll be the first to admit it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I know that my thumbnails for the videos that aren't generator specific, anything that I'm doing online, it's almost always an afterthought.
Speaker A:And it.
Speaker A:It can't be right.
Speaker A:And the reason that things go viral is the hook.
Speaker A:It is the thumbnail.
Speaker A:It's all the stuff in those first three seconds that are going to attract one of the 7 billion people on the planet to listen for more than seven or 10 seconds.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I think, you know, people underestimate some of those smaller bits.
Speaker A:They're so focused on the content itself.
Speaker A:And does my hair look good?
Speaker A:And am I saying the right thing that they forget about all the stuff?
Speaker A:That is the silent marketing of getting people to, you know, get drawn into the content.
Speaker A:Is there anything that you've done unusual or creative or kind of off the reservation that was really weird at first, but now is a kind of a normal part of your business?
Speaker A:Has there been anything that you considered weird at the beginning, but now you couldn't stop doing what you tried?
Speaker B:Something that was comical that now I realize I should implement more is I was shooting a video because I was somewhere else and I was on a bed and my little dog was behind me.
Speaker B:Well, when they would edit it, my dog would just go from one place to the other.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I got so many comments about, we love how your dog can disappear, move, move like that.
Speaker B:And the editor, of course, he called me.
Speaker B:He's freaking out because he's like, I can't edit this video because your dog's there.
Speaker B:He keeps moving.
Speaker B:I was like, just edit the video.
Speaker B:Whatever the dog does, the dog does.
Speaker B:But you don't think about people finding something like that so interesting.
Speaker B:And people would rewind because you can see when people go back to watch something again, they would rewind to watch it.
Speaker B:So we.
Speaker B:Sometimes we forget it's the imperfections or the funny things that happen.
Speaker B:I was on.
Speaker B:It wasn't a recorded call, but I was on a zoom call with someone the other day.
Speaker B:And then my cat jumps up here.
Speaker B:He's sitting, like, right behind me, and everybody can see him.
Speaker B:And I didn't even notice he was there looking Right at the camera.
Speaker B:Because I'm just so used to the cat, the dog being around.
Speaker B:But you know, they were like, oh, we have a cat too.
Speaker B:You know, it just brings in this whole conversation.
Speaker B:So if you have animals, definitely use them.
Speaker B:People love seeing animals in your content.
Speaker B:I think it definitely makes a difference.
Speaker B:Also, don't forget you have Thumbnail generators like TubeBuddy, Vidiq, YouTube, they have thumbnail generators that can help you come up with creative ideas.
Speaker B:We do some that we have our virtual assistants do manually.
Speaker B:Then we sometimes try to see what YouTube would come up with.
Speaker B:And also don't forget it's really easy to ab test actually abc test your thumbnails.
Speaker B:YouTube will actually run three of them at one time and see which ones get the most traction and then use the one that is most active.
Speaker B:So you've got all these tools to use that can really help you get ahead.
Speaker B:Are you familiar with Think Media?
Speaker A:Yeah, I subscribe.
Speaker A:They're fantastic.
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:And so we love them.
Speaker B:And I was listening a long time ago and they were talking about thumbnails and they literally have their team monitor that video.
Speaker B:The minute it goes up.
Speaker B:They're monitoring that thumbnail and they have something ready to replace it within an hour.
Speaker B:And this was probably before the automation of a B testing through YouTube or TubeBuddy or whatever.
Speaker B:But you know, most of us don't have a team like that.
Speaker B:You know, our YouTube channels aren't bringing in millions of dollars where we have somebody just sitting there watching a metric to change things.
Speaker B:But definitely remember to look at your data because your data does give you interesting information and insights and can help you make better content.
Speaker A:Moving forward very quickly because engagement rates and analytics is yet another multi hour conversation.
Speaker A:What's the metric that you look at the most?
Speaker A:Is it engagement?
Speaker A:Is it time spent watching a video?
Speaker A:Is it number of views?
Speaker B:What.
Speaker A:What is the metric that you look at and say this is performing well?
Speaker B:I really think it's all of those.
Speaker B:Because if you have a video, I know it's hard to say, but if you have a video that is not performing well, then you probably should change the thumbnail or change the title if you have that luxury to do that.
Speaker B:You want to watch where people drop off.
Speaker B:A lot of times we are too wordy in the beginning.
Speaker B:So people, you have 30 seconds, you have eight seconds, then it goes to the 30 second mark.
Speaker B:So always trying to improve your hook and how you get people on there.
Speaker B:The other thing is, I generally never watch a video that is not at 1.5 or 1.75 on speed.
Speaker B:I listen to everything really fast.
Speaker B:So if you are a methodical speaker and you talk slowly, edit that thing and speed it up a little bit.
Speaker B:Because people, you know, they're chop, chop, chop.
Speaker B:So little things like that, like looking at everything, but also the number of views is important.
Speaker B:But we really realize that you don't have to have a big audience to make a lot of money from YouTube.
Speaker B:That's what's amazing.
Speaker B:You can have a channel that has a thousand subscribers and end up getting clients easily because you're really targeting what your, what your keywords are.
Speaker B:What you're talking about is targeted to your ideal client.
Speaker B:And, you know, again, if I were to go back, if I were a bridal photographer, you know, what are the hottest bars in your area?
Speaker B:You know, most of the people that are getting married, you know, between 25 and 35, where are they going?
Speaker B:Go in and talk about, like, you know, talk about going to that bar in the evening and talk about how much fun it is or talk about how you saw a bridal party there.
Speaker B:Bring up words and places that your ideal client is interested in and let them find that content.
Speaker B:Because maybe they just got engaged, maybe they get engaged for a month or two, but they're going to remember that they saw your content that was talking about their favorite bar or the most beautiful park in the area where people have weddings or, you know, and also I think sharing some of the bloopers, not that you, your brides necessarily want that, but sharing stories.
Speaker B:You know that things that happen at weddings and, you know that, you know, it just, things just go on.
Speaker B:It's still the best day ever for that couple.
Speaker B:But sometimes there are things, you know, falling on a pond may not be the best idea, but it happens.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We see pictures all the time of things that happen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So being open and honest and sharing and having fun with your content, I think makes a huge impact.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It humanizes you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it gives, again, that different facet of your personality that makes you more attractive from a personality standpoint to the viewers.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:People are going to love you or hate you regardless.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You have no control over that.
Speaker A:But the more information that you can give, you're going to start attracting the people that you want to attract.
Speaker A:It might take a little bit longer, depending on your niche, but it's going to happen regardless.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And always put your title of your video into YouTube and see what other videos pop up, because that's your competition.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So take the Time to look at that.
Speaker B:What do their thumbnails look like?
Speaker B:How did they do the wording on the title?
Speaker B:You know, are they using exclamation marks or, like, what are they doing to make their title stand out?
Speaker B:How can you make yours stand out more?
Speaker B:But also, sometimes negative titles.
Speaker B:You know, five things you should never do if you're having an outside wedding.
Speaker B:You know, the.
Speaker B:You know, whatever those negatives are.
Speaker B:People are drawn to negatives.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:So making sure you have some of those things.
Speaker B:It's real estate.
Speaker B:They do really well with.
Speaker B:Everyone's leaving Sarasota, Florida, and I am, too.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:A real estate agent.
Speaker B:They're trying to sell houses in Sarasota.
Speaker B:Why would they do that?
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:But they spin it around to a different direction.
Speaker B:So, yeah, the negative title.
Speaker B:The negative titles can have, you know, because then you can turn it around to something super funny.
Speaker B:You know, you can make those things you never want to do, you know, comical.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:All right, so we're gonna go with this.
Speaker A:If you could come up with a title for your life to this point, what would that title be?
Speaker A:Why would people watch the video of your life?
Speaker B:I'll be like, happens.
Speaker A:You stole mine.
Speaker A:You stole mine.
Speaker A:You can't have the same.
Speaker B:Just happens.
Speaker B:Yeah, I.
Speaker B:A title front.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:No, that's actually perfect because I think it.
Speaker A:It speaks a lot to that nonlinear connection between point A and point B.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We always think life is going to play out in this straight line exactly as we plan.
Speaker A:And it invariably.
Speaker A:After 51 years on this planet, I know that it has never once happened the way that I planned.
Speaker A:And I've gone through all the careers and all the mistakes and had a little bit of success here and there, but most of the time, it's just kind of like the hell just happened.
Speaker A:And how am I still here?
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:Well, I guess it worked out.
Speaker A:So I think.
Speaker A:I think shit happens kind of works for me.
Speaker A:You know, as we start to land this plane a little bit, I think about everything that you're doing.
Speaker A:You're coaching folks, you're hooking them up with virtual assistants.
Speaker A:You're giving them some marketing advice.
Speaker A:You're teaching them about how to best represent their brand.
Speaker A:You're doing the financial services part of it, or, you know, at least teaching them the importance of the financial services.
Speaker A:Where should people focus from the beginning?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because we can do all of these things at once and get immediately overwhelmed.
Speaker A:Where should folks start?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:After hearing the past hour of all of us, what's, you know, one or one or two of the takeaways that you would give someone that's saying, all right, I need to outsource because I'm not efficient.
Speaker A:I need to grow my business.
Speaker A:I've hit my ceiling now.
Speaker A:I'm doing all of these things on YouTube and TikTok and Facebook and I'm running ads and I'm writing blog posts and I'm doing all of it.
Speaker A:None of it seems to be working.
Speaker A:What do I look at first?
Speaker B:So the first piece of advice I would give you is to make sure you're taking 24 hours of at least a 24 hour block of time where you don't work.
Speaker B:So whether that's you never work on Sundays at all or you don't work on Saturdays, we actually don't work Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Speaker B:So we take those.
Speaker B:We actually meet on Friday morning for a meeting, the two of us, and then we take the rest of the weekend and half day, Friday off.
Speaker B:So time off gives you time to recharge, it gives you time to think.
Speaker B:And that's really important.
Speaker B:And I would say for us, we generally try not to take on too many things at one time.
Speaker B:So, yes, we have a lot going on.
Speaker B:But our marketing VA program is up and running.
Speaker B:It is dialed in.
Speaker B:Our team that manages that is spot on.
Speaker B:So that is dialed in with starting the bookkeeping.
Speaker B:We have that process.
Speaker B:We've done it before, we've done it in other areas, so it's fairly easy for us to lean into this.
Speaker B:But we also do a ton of market research before we roll anything out.
Speaker B:I have usually done 50 to 100 market research calls because I want to make sure if we're creating something that I know is what people want, I know that I know how they explain their pain points, not how I explain their pain points.
Speaker B:I want to know what they want to walk away with, what would be a win for them.
Speaker B:And I always end up surprised.
Speaker B:Like, I go into this with a great outline of what I think would be a great program and then it turns out to be something a lot different based on what the feedback is and what I'm learning from people.
Speaker B:And so creating something that really is what people want and need is important.
Speaker B:You know, some examples of that that I learned through the conversations is, you know, a couple people really like the book Profit first, which I love.
Speaker B:So I'm definitely going to add a small module.
Speaker B:And about Profit first or most of our clients are all service based clients, so they generally don't have inventory.
Speaker B:But we did.
Speaker B:I did run across someone who does have, keeps a small amount of inventory on certain products so people can buy them and not have to wait to get them.
Speaker B:So now, okay, well then your bookkeeper has to have a little bit of a, you know, product based section.
Speaker B:Like, you have to think about how you're going to do that in your bookkeeping.
Speaker B:And so just figuring out what people really want, what they really need, and what are they really afraid of, you know, and that's what's interesting is everyone knows that they could run their business better if they truly understood their numbers, but they don't know what truly understanding their numbers means.
Speaker B:And so it's just, you know, it's trying to break that down in a way that people can understand what's going on with their finances, but also get excited about it because, you know, it's like you talked about, you made some money, you've not made some money.
Speaker B:If you've had a business, you hopefully have had some really great months where you, you're like, hell yeah, let's, let's keep this going forever.
Speaker B:It doesn't, it doesn't always work that way.
Speaker B:And then you've had some months where you're thinking, oh my gosh, like, how am I going to pay the bills?
Speaker B:And so that is just part of being a business owner.
Speaker B:But sticking your head in the sand when it's not good or overspending when it is good is not the answer.
Speaker B:And so just I want people to understand that they're not special, they're not different.
Speaker B:All of us are the same.
Speaker B:We're all in that same boat on a regular basis.
Speaker B:But the people who power through are the people that take the initiative, look at what they don't want to look at when things are stressful.
Speaker B:And then that information, because that's all your bookkeeping is, is information.
Speaker B:That information can help you make decisions that can then move you forward.
Speaker B:Okay, I need to really focus on making two sales in the next 60 days or I really need to cut these costs, whatever that looks like.
Speaker B:And it's the same thing, I think, with your marketing, you know, having a plan and not trying to do everything at one time.
Speaker B:So, you know, we really focus in on YouTube, create great content for that.
Speaker B:They can pull content from those, for those other platforms, but a lot of them go on to create specific content for a certain platform.
Speaker B:We have a couple people that love Instagram and they love that Instagram feel and that's the platform they love being on.
Speaker B:So along with their video clips that Go on.
Speaker B:And their, their posts that their VA creates, they still create some content for that platform because it is their biggest platform and it is a platform they really enjoy engaging on.
Speaker B:So you can't do it all at once.
Speaker B:So sometimes you have to say no.
Speaker B:So we say no a lot.
Speaker A:I want people to get in touch with you because the amount of knowledge that you're able to just impart in the past 60 minutes is fantastic foundational knowledge that everybody needs to hear.
Speaker A:And clearly we're just scratching the surface of all of these things.
Speaker A:Any one of these topics we could discuss ad nauseam, right.
Speaker A:And still never finish all the details in.
Speaker A:Not only because they're huge topics, but because everybody's business is different.
Speaker A:And you know, one of my, my favorite things to, to say is that even Olympic athletes need coaches.
Speaker A:So no matter how good your business you think is running, you could always stand to get a little bit more insight and an unbiased opinion of what it is that you're doing.
Speaker A:So if people want to find you, I know that you have YouTube channels and Facebook groups that I've joined and all of these different channels.
Speaker A:Where can people find you most efficiently?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, I do have a free gift for your audience is a guide called Double youe Income with a Marketing virtual assistant.
Speaker B:And they can get that at Outsourcing for bosses dot com.
Speaker B:Outsourcing for bosses dot com.
Speaker B:And then if you that guide at the bottom, there'll be a link if you want to book a call to chat with me.
Speaker B:I'm always happy to chat with people whether or not we're the right fit for you.
Speaker B:I'll tell you if we're not.
Speaker B:I'm always giving direction on maybe someone else that can help you.
Speaker B:But yeah, love helping people figure out what's the next steps for them.
Speaker B:And I guess one thing I do want to say to you that's a little bit different too, which I don't think I said earlier, is we're not a marketing agency and we're not an outsourcing agency.
Speaker B:Which means when our virtual assistants go to work for our clients, we don't mark up their labor.
Speaker B:That virtual assistant goes to work directly for that client because we want it to be a long term relationship and we want that virtual assistant to be on that client's team.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And then on the flip side of that, we're not a marketing agency.
Speaker B:We are truly coaching you on how to create the best content you can create so that you show up in your content.
Speaker B:It's on your branding.
Speaker B:So that where.
Speaker B:That's where I think we're a little bit different than most people that are out there.
Speaker B:Yeah, we.
Speaker B:We have fun every day, you know.
Speaker A:Ain'T that the point?
Speaker A:Isn't that why we're doing this for ourselves?
Speaker A:Like, instead of sitting in a cubicle somewhere and just collecting a paycheck in Social Security, like, we're supposed to be having fun at this?
Speaker A:Sometimes it doesn't feel that way.
Speaker A:But it's supposed to be the goal, right?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think if you can.
Speaker B:I guess that's the other thing, is evaluate.
Speaker B:What do you enjoy doing the most?
Speaker B:I think you're my seventh call today.
Speaker B:I would have eighth had eight, but one canceled.
Speaker B:So, yeah, so it's been a long day of calls, but this is what I love doing most.
Speaker B:I love doing podcast interviews.
Speaker B:I was doing market research calls today at a sales call today.
Speaker B:So all good stuff and figuring out what.
Speaker B:What is your unique ability?
Speaker B:What do you want to spend most of your time doing?
Speaker B:Because if I can spend 80% of my time doing what I love doing, and that's where I'm gonna have the biggest impact.
Speaker B:That's what I want to do.
Speaker B:And so figure those things out for yourself, because that makes your job and your life way more enjoyable.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker A:Kirsten, you've been absolutely incredible today, and there's so little editing that I need to do with this.
Speaker A:I can't thank you enough just for that.
Speaker A:I know we're.
Speaker A:When we started this conversation, we were talking about editing tools and whatnot.
Speaker A:I might just let this thing fly as it is.
Speaker A:I don't know if there's really, besides my incessant rambling to cut out.
Speaker A:I think it's been really, really fun having you here.
Speaker A:I really.
Speaker A:I'd love to catch up in, you know, another six months or so and see how many folks from here have kind of knocked down your door.
Speaker A:I know I'm going to be doing the same thing, so be looking for a calendar invitation for me to have a little bit of a call.
Speaker A:This is right at my alley and something I've been searching for.
Speaker A:And I know after last week talking to all my friends that it is an in demand service, regardless of where you find it.
Speaker A:It's something that almost every creative, at least, should go through the process of evaluating.
Speaker A:Do I need help at this point, or do I need to get my, you know, ducks in a row before I start going to outsourcing?
Speaker A:I think having your insight and your expertise is going to help a lot of folks in my world.
Speaker A:So thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you for being so open with all the information and everything.
Speaker A:It's just it's an invaluable tool to have someone like you in a network.
Speaker A:So thank you for that.
Speaker A:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:You are a great host.
Speaker B:So interviewing was really easy.
Speaker B:It was a great conversation.
Speaker B:So thank you for that and I am definitely looking forward to us connecting again.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker A:All right, so stick around for just a minute.
Speaker A:I'm going to have everything for those of you listening, I'm going to have everything in the show notes.
Speaker A:All the links, all the freebies that Kirsten was talking about are going to be there in the show notes.
Speaker A:So just go check those out and you can download this guide.
Speaker A:I already downloaded it.
Speaker A:It's fantastic.
Speaker A:So go do that and thanks again.
Speaker A:I will be speaking to you soon.
Speaker A:Thanks Kirsten.
Speaker B:Thank you.
