Rocky Mountain Marketing- Digital Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Our guest this week is the one and only THE Instagram Expert, business coach, Sue B Zimmerman. Sue is a natural-born entrepreneur who started selling hand-painted barrettes at a very young age. She believes that if you're doing what you love, it is easier for you to make money from it. These same lines sounded true until she grew up. Her love for things allowed her to grow her business far and wide because she knew exactly how to stand out among her competitors. She used Instagram to grow her business. From scrapbooking and putting embellishments on photos, she had gone digital and go really strategic with her profile. She discussed the importance of understanding SEO and applying that firstly, in your bio. Make yourself searchable. Use appropriate keywords related to your niche so that when people visit your account, they'll know instantly what you do. Also, another important thing she pointed out is how easier it is for your audience to relate to it, and trust you when you do your videos.A lot more strategies and Instagram hacks to learn when you tune in to today's episode.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkley EPISODE LINKSVisit Sue's website: https://suebzimmerman.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theinstagramexpert/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.

"Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability." – Patrick Lencioni In this week's episode, we are joined by Miruna Dragomir. Miruna is the Chief Marketing Officer of Planable. She helped Planable to grow 35x in revenue for the past three years. As a social media collaborative platform, Planable traces back its beginnings from a 5-man team, and that already includes one marketing person - HER. She experimented with strategies and ways to make the system better. One of the things she said had the biggest impact was their love for collaboration. Miruna said that they continuously look at what they're doing. She believes that nothing starts off as perfect and that they should all be happy to give out feedback and receive feedback. After all, their ultimate goal is to get better, and so they created an environment that encourages all minds to work together to get the most outcome. With collaboration, each team member pushes the others and brings out the best they have. They are also able to identify issues in their processes and provide effective solutions to them. One of these solutions is automation and/or delegation. They found ways to automate or delegate tasks that took so much of their time. Planable is based on these things and has been extremely helpful to other businesses, as well.When you listen to this podcast, you will not only get tried-and-tested strategies to scale your business but also a whopping 30% off in your first 3 months in Planable. Use the code ROCKY30 to avail.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Planable's website: https://planable.io/LinkedIn: https://ro.linkedin.com/in/mirunadragomirLearn 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.

It's a long time coming and finally, we have Jennie Wright. Jennie is an online marketing strategist, a list builder, and a lead generation expert. She is the creator of List Build 2.0, her own lead generation system based on attraction and permission marketing. She is a natural-born salesperson. Her first gig was a fundraiser for their Grade 6 yearbook. She grew up with her hardworking parents. Her father was a mechanic and they own the gas station next to it. She was so into the family business working on cars, cleaning tools, understanding the exhaust system, etc. Every summer, she worked in the station painting the curbside, cutting grass, and pulling weeds, among others. When she was to go to the university, her parents decided to close the station. She applied to a big box retailer down the street and started her 14.5-year career there. This helped her get through to the university and gave her most of her working experience. She was paid top dollar and was given a lot of incentives. She was promoted as a supervisor before hitting a wall and decided to leave the company. She decided to join a gold mining company and only after 4 weeks from her big box resignation. She started as Investor Relations and Communications Officer. She felt like she is now working THE job. She used her bilingual skills. She had her own office. She dressed up to work. Absolutely a huge leap from her jeans and t-shirt kind of job.However, she happened to join a start-up and that didn't work out for her. She was about to start a new job but required to move to New York for training. It was a dealbreaker for her. She told one of her girlfriends about it and offered her to work as a virtual assistant for her and all the other real estate agents in the office. She continued doing these gigs using Fiverr and there met her client who needed help with her summits. Being new to this, she tried to learn as much as she can. The next thing she knew she was already working her own system of lead generation and doing nearly 250 online summits. But how is she able to do all these? She said she has a strict list of non-negotiables. This made her prioritize her business and what needs to happen. Through her journey, she learned that the email list is the business's greatest asset. She believes that however huge your following or friends list in your social media platforms is, that's nothing when those social media platforms decided to stop. You don't own it! Your email list, that's yours to make use of.Learn more about list injections, as well as her take on the right mindset to set your business off the ground. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Jennie's website: https://jenniewright.com/Email: jennie@jenniewright.comSystem to Thrive: https://systemtothrive.com/Facebook Group: Grow and Profit OnlineLearn 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.

This week we are joined by Alison Proffit. Alison is the founder of Proffit Coach. They help small businesses and entrepreneurs build processes that are heart-centered and soul-aligned. Her goal is to make their businesses grow focusing on the sales aspect to avoid having the stress that sales often brings. Her background in the HR industry made her an expert in finding the best sales process for you, and business strategies that contribute to sustainable success. In 2017, she got her certificate from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). This opened doors for her in the corporate coaching and leadership development consultancy. However, she also had unexpected personal life struggles after this certificate program. She lost her job, got divorced, and moved houses 9 times. It was tough, but she proved that she was tougher. She got her second career change in the company called Sales Contact. She held a sales position for one year and did really good at it. Her communication skills and being able to affect their mindset helped a lot in closing sales. According to Alison, sales is all about connecting and having those meaningful conversations. When you know how to structure your sales conversation, you'll be able to close those sales with flying colors. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Alison's website: https://www.proffitcoach.com/Email: alison@proffitcoach.comLearn 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.

Our guest this week is Jana Osofsky. Jana is a marketing and Pinterest expert for online course creators, coaches, and service providers. She creates strategies to generate a continuous flow of leads for a more profitable business. She started her career as a virtual assistant last 2016. She was creating content for a client and in time find herself at the back end of her client's marketing. She discovered Pinterest and since then fell in love with it. Over the years, she saw how Pinterest evolve and how it became more and more useful for businesses and service providers to attract potential clients. As she describes it, Pinterest is more like Google than Facebook and Instagram. Her winning strategy starts with finding the right keywords. What do your target audience usually search for? For local businesses, you can try adding your geographic location or something that your area is popular for and then use it in your pin description, profile, etc. In this way, the algorithm will see you as relevant when someone search for that keyword. The good thing about Pinterest is that once you find the right keywords, the leads will just follow through. When people search here that means they are already interested in that particular service or product. The goal is not to attract but more of be on top of the searches. Another excellent benefit of Pinterest is that the contents are evergreen. Your pins are good for a month or even longer. It doesn't expire or stop showing in others feed for a limited time.Find out more about Pinterest and the magic it can give your business. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Jana's website: https://janaomedia.com/Pinterest with Purpose: https://janaomedia.com/pinterestcourse/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 episode, we are joined by Christine Daspro. Christine is the founder of Threads of Leadership and Curating Connections. She spent 30 years in the corporate jungle of Wallstreet before deciding to take a break and live in Colorado. However, this puts her into level zero. It was a clean slate, her big and great network was in the corporate world, and now she's starting over again. After some research, she joined the Women's Vision Foundation. This allowed her to find her passion in helping leaders by educating them on how to build meaningful and impactful connections.It was something she enjoyed. She mentored. She coached new entrepreneurs. She worked with the board. She's absolutely making an impact and decided to level up her playing field. At this point, she become a great advocate of overcoming impostor syndrome. It was her life story. Her 30 years in the corporate world is nothing but living as the person who is always being told. Her success was that of others. She felt empty and sad. She realized she's not being her authentic self. Tune in as Christine shares her story on how she overcome impostor syndrome, and then eventually, help others get out from it too. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Christine's website: https://curatingconnections.com/2021-threads-of-leadership//Email: christine@threadsofleadership.comLearn 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.

Our guest this week is Vince Warnock. He is an award-winning business marketing strategist, author, coach, and a Star Wars fan. He was included in 2018's Fearless 50 where emerging bold and fearless leaders were recognized. He established his first "company" at the age of 11, unknowingly, when he played on faulty computers and fixed them to sell. This allowed him to discover his interest in computers and technology.A true born Kiwi, Vince accepted the challenge to be independent and figure out things on his own. In college, he continue to pursue his interest and took up software engineering. He was involved in several startups and found success in selling them to larger companies. In 2015, he joined CIGNA as Digital Marketing Manager. It was a crazy journey but absolutely a happy one. It was all good stuff, according to him, he love the company and the people he worked with, however as time went on, he realized that he was not satisfied. He felt as if he wasn't himself anymore. In 2019, he took the courage to say goodbye to the corporate world, and start working on his 2nd book about impostor syndrome. While he's on it, the pandemic hit and found businesses that needed his help. He helped them pivot to digital marketing and it made him feel fulfilled like never before. He started being a marketing coach to businesses.As he talk to business owners, it reminded him of his book about impostor syndrome. He mentioned that the best way to deal with this is to fully embrace it. He believes that there's no point in battling or defeating impostor syndrome as it is natural to most of us. We have to learn how to embrace it and cope with it. When we discover and make friends with those small voices in our heads, then we take courage and move forward. This is the very core of any business in any industry. Once you've dealt with impostor syndrome, you are now able to see clear and scale up your business. It's in clarity, knowing the simplest framework, that you can be successful. Just the same as creating landing pages. When we overcomplicate the landing page, make it too long, we lose our potential clients. We lose that chance to convert. Tune in and learn more about Vince in this week's episode. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Vince's website: https://chasingtheinsights.com/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/chasing-the-insights/id1528241477Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/66p2n7EMUmtbSFx2ua68zZLearn 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 Kelly Lemon, a one-armed wedding and elopement photographer based in PNW. Her story has inspired thousands of people and gave a big reason for everyone else not to give up. She is the epitome of dedication and hard work. The car accident she was in when she was 12 years old has transformed her life in many ways than one. A huge part of her body was paralyzed. She survived and tried living with only one hand. But this didn't stop her from pursuing what she really wants, and that is photography. Kelly decided to enroll in a photography class despite her challenges. she experienced rolling the film in the darkroom using her feet. It was only last 2018 that both her hands are fully functioning. She does photography as a side hustle and loved it. It was when a NY Times photo editor saw her shots that pushed her to go full time. She started her photography business and got clients from all over the US. In the middle of her success, her arm did it again. She was driving when she felt her arms fell off. No one knew what happened but she definitely can't stop where she is right now. She dealt with her clients and hired assistant photographers that helped her achieve what she wants. Surprisingly, her clients understood and still chose to go with her. She said the secret here is communication. Listen in and discover how Kelly managed to face all these challenges and come out stronger, bolder, and definitely a winner! Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Kelly's website: https://kellylemonphotography.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellylemon/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kellylemonphotography/_created/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 Humaira Akhter, a personal brand strategist who helps businesses harness their unique identities to generate revenue. She sees herself as someone who is used to being thrown into tough situations and be able to come out the other way. She recalls her experiences when she flew from Bangladesh to the US to study. The plan was to go back after school but that didn't happen as she found herself working tirelessly in the corporate world. It became monotonous for her and that she no longer enjoys what she does. She wanted to do something that doesn't only makes her happy but can also impact others. Humaira believes that by knowing your core identity you will easily scale your business' efficiency. Understanding who you are, and what's your biggest strength, will allow you to align your product, mission, and values all together to achieve the life you want. Humaira's goal is to help her clients be on top of mind whenever people need their services. That's why it is important for business owners to have this clarity to be able to serve their clients with confidence. She answered the controversial question - which comes first - branding or marketing. Listen in and see her take on this hot topic.Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Humaira's website: https://www.brandwave.consulting/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/authoritypositioningforcoachingandexperts/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/humairaakhter/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 Tim Fitzpatrick. Tim is the president of Rialto Marketing. He is based in Colorado but grew up in the Bay Area in California. His story started from working in a wholesale distribution company to selling houses and then finally, digital marketing and business growth. He believes that most people make marketing complicated which, according to him, should not be the case. He believes in working smart rather than working hard. For Tim, being laid off opened an opportunity for him to focus on what he enjoys doing. He founded Rialto Marketing with this in mind last 2013. Their mission is to help businesses breakthrough their marketing roadblocks with the use of their 90-day marketing plan. The idea is to go back to the fundamentals of the business and identify specific goals and target market. He follows a 6-step structure in navigating through one's digital marketing strategy. When asked about his advice to other business owners, he said that being able to adapt to change is important. Given the events last year, the ones that were able to pivot survived, and those who didn't fail. Another strategy he shared is to break down the task or project into smaller pieces and finish each small task before going on to the next. The point is to simplify the method by focusing on what's working at the moment before moving on to the next strategy or platform.Listen in as we deep dive into simplifying digital marketing for businesses. Like the show? Keep Katie running and show her your support!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiebrinkleyEPISODE LINKSVisit Tim's website: https://www.rialtomarketing.com/Podcast: https://www.rialtomarketing.com/rialto-marketing-podcast/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.