Rocky Mountain Marketing- Digital Marketing for Entrepreneurs

In this Business Besties episode, Kendra and I talked about the time we are spending on our social media. As digital entrepreneurs, it's a given fact that we spend more than the average time online. Managing our own accounts and our clients' is not an easy task as these platforms are designed to be addictive, and not to mention, associated with mental health issues.It is very important that we draw the line between mindlessly scrolling versus creating content and engaging for your business. There are a lot of times, especially when we don't have a system, that we don't realize we're spending too much time on social media. It's a two-edged sword that can make or break your business. So we recommend you assess the impact of social media to your business. How does this platform impacts your business? Does it give you clients? Does it pave the way for sales? Make an honest assessment and create your system from there.When we are aware of the impact of social media on our business, we can then become intentional with your business goals. With your intention/s in mind, you'll know what to prioritize. It will be easier for you to avoid FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out. Learn more about our strategies in managing our time with social media. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Kendra's website: https://girlmeansbusiness.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlmeansbusiness/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I still can't believe it!! It's our 100th episode today!! Rocky Mountain Marketing started April 2020 with my passion for radio, entrepreneurship, and social media. It is a perfect place for me to share my expertise, my story, get other people's stories in front of many people, and inspire them to take the same path that allowed others to succeed. In this episode, I will share with you my 5 tried-and-tested tips on how podcasting can help you and your business grow.1. Utilize social media to grow your network. Make connections.2. Batch your content.3. Repurpose your podcast episodes.4. Be consistent.5. Reviews help you be seen.Learn more about these 5 main points by tuning in to today's episode.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyLearn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Lara Buelow. Lara is a certified professional coach since 2017. She focuses on helping people with their career transition journey by allowing them to redesign their lives and pursue their true passion. Her younger self was exactly the kind of people she helps today. When she was about 14 years old, she was already working a couple of jobs mostly in the service industry. However, none of these gave her joy.In school, her favorite parts of the library were the "Self-help" and "Business" sections. Her interest in truly guiding people in their lives grows stronger year after year. When she moved to Denver, she saw an opportunity to fulfill her passion by building a community that truly supports one another. She recognizes that people's relationships in life and business are all different. "I really want to meet them where they are and understand their own values and conscious with the decisions they are making," Lara said.Contrary to what most people think, Lara believes that entrepreneurship is not sexy. She strongly advocates for connecting with other entrepreneurs for help and support. "The world needs all kinds of people.", she added. As a professional accountability partner, she stresses the importance of the need for a fresh set of eyes and mind to help in making decisions for the business. Lara is also certified by the Design Your Life and Gottman methodologies. These are self-help institutions focusing on behavioral changes leading to better and more informed life decision-making. When asked about her advice for people who are not happy with their current jobs, her advice was "Don't resign, redesign.". She believed in negotiations and that it allows for us to create a lot of your own reality.Listen in and be inspired by what she has to say on everything business and transitions. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Lara's website: https://larabuelow.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larabuelow/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larabuelow/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lara.bcoaching/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest today is Rachel B Lee. She is the Co-Owner and CMO of StandOut Authority and help business owners and influencers create a strong personal brand, grow their influence and draw in amazing opportunities. Completing an MBA at The University of Texas at Austin led her to go corporate including a significant position in Microsoft. Here, her love for marketing grew more and more. Every single stage of her career eventually gives her the question, "What's Next?".In 2019, she and her husband Joshua Lee started StandOut Authority. Their focus is on helping 6-and-7-digit entrepreneurs to maximize LinkedIn as a social media platform and to grow their own personal branding. LinkedIn is such a generous place to build your personal brand's awareness. Not to mention, it is absolutely SEO-friendly. That means, as long as you are able to optimize your profile, you can grow your organic reach. According to research, LinkedIn posts are highly indexable in Google.Rachel is very passionate about helping business owners show their authentic selves as he believes that this will all for people to easily connect with them. People buy from people. People want to hear the stories behind the company. They want to know who is leading the company, who works for the company, and what these people have to say. She believes that the only way people can be authentic is through the human voice. Katie supported this idea by saying that the opportunity to hear someone speak can move relationships at lightning speed.She further discussed the pillars of personal branding. This includes communication, aspirational clients, differentiation, and passion.Learn more about LinkedIn and personal branding in today's episode.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Rachel's website: https://standoutauthority.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/therachelblee/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therachelblee/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest today is Sarah Madras. Sarah is a former mental health therapist, a certified Dare to Lead facilitator, Mindset Transformation Expert, and Leadership Development Coach. Hailing from North Carolina, Sarah answered her call to courage to help people with their relationships and mental health, communication, building self-confidence, and how to have hard conversations. She's been doing one-on-one with her clients for 20 years and she noticed a pattern among them. Most of them also wanted her help on how to communicate and deal with dysfunctions in their workplace. This was her hint to shift in teaching business owners who are having these challenges.As a leadership development coach, she identified a leader as not someone who does everything right. A leader is someone who sees the potential and has the courage to develop that potential. One of the greatest traits a leader can have is vulnerability. Being vulnerable is being human. It allows you to be relatable therefore many people will be able to connect with you. A work culture that allows vulnerability creates a closer team.Being a certified Dare to Lead facilitator, Sarah teaches the four courage skills. 1. Living into your values2. Developing and understanding trust 3. Vvulnerability4. Learning to rise from setbacks and failuresWhen asked about the common mistakes business owners make, she said it is breaking trust. She discussed how we are breaking trust in many different ways. Sometimes we are not even aware.Her greatest piece of advice is to be master awareness and curiosity. Tune in and learn everything leadership and mindset transformation with Sarah Madras.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Sarah's website: https://www.sarahmadras.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmadras/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahmadrascoaching/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever imagined yourself on the other side of the fence?Are you dreaming of leaving your 9-5 to start your own business? Or are you wanting to get back to corporate life?No matter which side you are on, you have to listen to this episode of the Business Besties!Each side has its own pros and cons. There's no right or wrong. "No path was ever a mistake." Whatever suits your lifestyle and goals, that is where you should go. Katie calls her entrepreneurial journey an accidental one. If she wasn't laid off, she wouldn't have thought of starting her own business. It wasn't an easy task. All the distractions are there. The flexibility of working anywhere is two-faced and it's challenging for a mother of two to make her business grow. And as much as we hate the pandemic, this is when a whole new kind of running a business started. It forced every business owner with the possibilities of the internet. We found business partners in Zoom, accountability partners in online networking events, and so much more. It is so important we try and build or join an online community where we can share our entrepreneurial journey. As her final takeaway, Kendra mentioned that you really don't have to choose between having a corporate job and a business if you enjoy doing both. Whatever works for you is totally fine.Listen to today's episode and this might just be the conversation you've been meaning to have.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Kendra's website: https://girlmeansbusiness.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlmeansbusiness/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What better way to maximize your content than to repurpose your existing ones. Our guest today is Sheryl Plouffe. Sheryl is a video strategist and repurposing expert. Her career started out in broadcasting. She spent about 15 years in Ontario's Weather Network. She held several positions and in 2017, she decided to start her own business.She found video marketing as the best way to deliver one's message. According to her, producing a long-form video is a good way to start your content as you can always repurpose this into short-form videos. These short-form clips are seen to be very effective for the brand or person's positioning. This allows them to be seen as the authority in their niche. She specifically mentioned that if you're objective is brand awareness, a 2-minute or less video works best.She stresses the importance of showing up in front of the camera. She said people want to work with people. You can drive connection and build trust when people see who's beyond the logo. She shared an interesting story about why companies like Weather Network keep on getting people to report the weather news even though it's just data. Listen in and learn more about videos and how to repurpose them.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Sheryl's website: https://www.sherylplouffe.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sherylplouffe/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherylplouffe/?originalSubdomain=caLearn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: joinclubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We keep on hearing Katie say that if you're not doing videos now, then you're really missing out big time!In this week's episode, our guest just supported that and explained how we can all use our camera phones to create awesome videos for your social media. Heather Hukari is a videographer for 20 years now. She studied broadcasting and communication in college and can be seen mostly running around the campus with a camera. Her first job was in advertising where she do a lot of video editing for short-form videos.In 2018, she opened her business which she called Video Service Hub in Denver, and helped local businesses, small and solo entrepreneurs, to create videos using only their camera phones. She revealed that adding a video on your homepage increases the conversion rate up to 80%. She believes that the pandemic has allowed people to realize that being raw is okay. That authenticity is way better than being perfect.Creating videos using your phone only has a slight difference from that done professionally especially if you're going to use it online. There are a lot of available editing apps that you can use to edit your videos using your phone. Heather mentioned Kinemaster as one of her favorite editing app. She clarified that if you're doing a video for online marketing then you can certainly use your camera phone, but if you're doing something for TV then you can use a professional videographer. She stressed the importance of starting with Instagram stories and reels. They are so fun, easy, and short videos to create. She said that we don't have to be all glammed-up to do this, just be ourselves, and that's what's really important. She's currently offering a course about the A to Zs of creating videos using your phone and all our listeners can enjoy a huge 25% discount when you use the code: NextStepSocial.Tune in to this very relevant episode and learn everything about videos and your camera phone. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Heather's online course: https://phonevideo101.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phonevideo101/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-hukari/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: joinclubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, we have Alyson Lex, our favorite copywriter, join us in an elaborate discussion of how we can measure the effectiveness of a particular marketing strategy. She mentioned sales as the common display of marketing success. However, more important than the sales is the actual process of getting it. Understanding the buyer's journey from the lead capture stage to the actual buying of the product or services.She discussed how important the subject line is in getting a high open-rate. Alyson mentioned about making a compelling but significant subject line to encourage your list to open and read the email. She even shared a story about an extremely effective subject line but was found irrelevant, and eventually made a negative impact on the business as a whole. "Curiosity has its limits.", Alyson said.In the second half of the episode, Alyson talked about conversion checkpoints. We find it very helpful for everyone to understand this concept and be able to improve their customer's journey down to a particular stage. She points out important stages where leads are given the chance to decide yes or no. According to her, it is in these stages that we can assess and improve our strategy.This episode is gold so if you're itching to get better with your marketing this 2022, don't miss out on today's conversation. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Alyson's website: https://alysonlex.com/System To Thrive: https://systemtothrive.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlysonLexCopyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alysonlex/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: joinclubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember when your parents tell you not to talk to strangers? The online space has changed a lot about how people meet. In today's episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing, we're featuring episode 1 of Business Besties where Kendra and I talked about how entrepreneurs can build relationships online. We've only met face-to-face twice last year but it's like meeting a long-time friend. It's like having an accountability partner. It's so interesting to note, as Kendra said, "We may all have our 20-plus-year friends, but there's this only one person whom we can call and talk about anything about our business."Building relationships online doesn't always have to be about making a sale. Creating meaningful relationships with fellow entrepreneurs can benefit both parties in more ways than you can expect. We've met in Clubhouse and continued the conversation over on Instagram. Instagram DM is a great tool to establish that relationship further. It's so important that you choose that one platform you would like to grow your community and focus in there.Listen in as we talk more about our friendships over the internet and how can this benefit both your personal and business growth.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyVisit Kendra's website: https://girlmeansbusiness.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlmeansbusiness/Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications: Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkleyhttps://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.comlinkedin.com/in/katiebrinkleyhttps://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.