What Works

The Nitty-Gritty: * Why Kate Leese and her husband decided to travel full-time in an Airstream while building Kinetics Consulting* How the logistics of running a business from the road have impacted their approach and operations* The tools and method she uses for managing their team—all full-time travelers themselves!* How Kate’s leadership style has evolved since starting the business and adapting to a new way of working A few months ago, I got a little idea. It seemed a bit absurd at first. But finally, I was able to give it a voice. I said to Sean, “What if we spent a month in Montana this summer?” I think his response was something like, “Wouldn’t that be nice?” A response like that is all I need to start the actual process of scheming something into reality. “Yes, it would be nice, and here is my 9-part plan for making it happen!” In order to spend a month on the road, I knew we’d need to keep working. I’d have some masterminds to facilitate, emails to write, and podcast episodes to share. Once I determined the things I’d have to keep doing throughout the summer, I could look at what I could get done well in advance. Little by little, I worked my way through the check list so that I could work a maximum of 3-4 hours, 4 days per week and stay on track while we were gone. We leave July 18. It’ll take 6 days to drive out so that we can stop at a bunch of National Parks and get Junior Ranger badges with my daughter. We’ll be in the Flathead Valley for just over 2 weeks. And then we’ll take our time coming home. It’s not exactly a month in Montana—but it is a month outside the comfort of my home office. My guest today hasn’t just figured out how to run her company from the road for a week or a month at a time. She and her husband travel permanently. But here’s the kicker—they only work with people who do the same. Kate Leese is the co-founder of Kinetics Consulting, which helps electric and gas utilities create a culture of safety and preparedness. Kate and I talk about how she made the move to full-time travel and how it impacted the way she approaches her life and work. We also discuss the logistics of working from the road, how she finds team members, the systems they use to manage projects, and how the way their team is built helps them stand out. Now, let’s find out what works for Kate Leese! What Works Is Brought To You By Mighty Networks powers brands and businesses – like yours! – that bring people together.With a Mighty Network, online business owners just like you can bring together in one place: * Your website* Your content* Your courses* Your community* Your events online and in real life* And charge for them…all while building YOUR brand. Visit mightynetworks.com to see more examples of brands bringing people together and taking their businesses to the next level. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * The day Kelly Higdon realized she couldn’t keep working at the pace she was working at* How she plans her year to prioritize her life—and then fits her business in the space left over* What she’s changed to allow for taking 3 months off from her business per year* How her business is different today thanks to her new working style We recently asked What Works Network members how many vacations they take per year. One vacation was a pretty common answer—always quickly followed up by the fact that work travel is often fun, too. Some said 2 was their minimum—plus plenty of long weekends. A few people admitted that they don’t regularly take vacations—and I’m sure plenty of other folks were silently nodding along with that side of the conversation. And a few others totaled up their vacations as accounting for at least 4-8 weeks out of the year! Sean and I normally take one vacation, one trip with light work—like the trip we’re leaving for in a couple of weeks—and plenty of weekend outings. I’ve cut back on the work travel in recent years but it looks like that’s gearing up more this fall and in 2020. Today on the show, we’re not measuring time off from work in terms of long weekends or weeks. No, today, we’re talking months. Kelly Higdon is a business and lifestyle coach who prioritizes her time off so much… …that’s she’s worked up to taking a full 3 months off from her business every year. Unfortunately, Kelly’s inspiration wasn’t a well-timed shower idea or download from the universe—it was a trip to the hospital. You see, Kelly wasn’t always so good about making space in her business for her life. At one point, she was working full-time as private practice therapist, growing a business on the side, and growing a baby. She was working all the time—and it caught up with her. Kelly shares that story and her process for planning that much time off. She walks me through how she plans for life first and then makes her business fit in the space that’s left, as opposed to the other way around. She also shares how her business is different—and how it’s growing differently—than when she was working all hours of the day & night. Now, let’s find out what works for Kelly Higdon! What Works Is Brought To You By Mighty Networks powers brands and businesses – like yours! – that bring people together.With a Mighty Network, online business owners just like you can bring together in one place: * Your website* Your content* Your courses* Your community* Your events online and in real life* And charge for them…all while building YOUR brand. Visit mightynetworks.com to see more examples of brands bringing people together and taking their businesses to the next level. ★ Support this podcast ★

As you’re listening to this, I’m somewhere between the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Acadia National Park in Maine. Sean and I are celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary in the only way we how: in a National Park! That’s right, I’m on vacation—but that doesn’t mean the business comes to a standstill. We’ve worked hard to improve the operational efficiency and predictability of our business over the last few years and that means that I get to enjoy both my time off and the flexibility of my schedule on a daily basis. Plus, it means that my team gets to do the same. You’re listening to What Works, the show that gets candid about what’s really working to run and grow a small business today as told by small business owners themselves. I’m your host, Tara McMullin. We’re spending the month of July exploring the theme “On The Road.” Our goal is to look at how small business owners plan for time off, work from anywhere, and manage teams that are remote, too. I’ll tell you more about what you’ll hear this month soon. But first, I wanted to share what’s worked for me as I’ve endeavored to build a more flexible business that allows me and my team the time off we need, as well as the ability to work on our own terms. First, I’ll mention that most of the team works a pretty typical schedule. I start work by 9am most days and wind it down by 4:30pm. That gives me time for my workout in the morning and my interests in the evening. I work in my home office Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we have a team meeting with our local employee, Shannon. You can find us at a picnic table inside Whole Foods in Lancaster most Friday mornings! The rest of that day is a buffer. If I don’t need the work time or I’m craving some “me time,” I’ll be done for the week. If I’m inspired to start something new or I’m on a deadline, I’ll do that. Regardless, I’m done by about 3pm so that I can either pick up my daughter or head to the climbing gym. What I’ve found is that consistency, routine, and structure actually allow me the flexibility I crave from my business. I don’t just do what I feel like when I feel like it. That’s not real flexibility because it means something is always getting left behind and I’m not mastering my own workload. And that really is the string that ties the 4 ways I’ve built flexibility into my business together. First up… Embracing predictable cycles Within the first few years I was designing websites and consulting on business strategy, I started to notice that clients would disappear during the summers. Their projects would stall out. Deadlines would come and go. I can remember thinking that there was just no point in working during the summer. And then it hit me: I didn’t have to. Summer often feels like a time when we’re just punching the clock. Sure, we’ve got some passion project underway or maybe we’ve got a client or two who really wants to get moving during the summer. But lots of people want to travel, take it easy, and enjoy the weather. So that’s what I did. I decided I would wrap up any projects I could, put my calendar on hold, and just enjoy the flexibility of summer. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * What inspired Thien-Kim Lam to develop a subscription box and virtual book club for a niche audience* How she channeled her love of romance books and her experience selling adult toys into the subscription she would have loved to buy herself* How she’s connecting with the right people using a Facebook group, author partnerships, and savvy content marketing* Where she’s run into trouble with her niche The first business idea I ran with was a blog for makers and artists in Pennsylvania. I was smitten with the new maker movement and I figured that highlighting “made in PA” goods would be an easy way to engage with the community. I was right. “Made in PA” wasn’t just the perfect constraint on who to feature. It also served as a constraint for who the audience for the site was too. I was writing about Pennsylvanians for Pennsylvanians. I had no idea at the time just how savvy this business decision was. I immediately connected with incredible people. And they were immediately into what I was doing because they loved that it was just for them. Soon, the site caught the eye of people from the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, one of the largest non-profit craft associations in the country. Within a few months of launching my site, I was teaching social media workshops with the Guild’s artisans. I was invited to attend one of the largest tradeshows for handmade goods in the United States on a media pass. I spoke at Etsy headquarters. I hosted meet-ups. The site never got huge, of course. But that didn’t matter because people were connecting with it and with me because they knew I made it for them. Today, we’re talking about building a niche audience—just like I did with my very first website. There has never been a better time to have a niche business. In fact, I would list not specializing in a niche as one of the top 3 business mistakes I’ve personally made over the last 8 or so years. Thien-Kim Lam knows the power of an engaged niche audience. But her niche is a little different than mine was. In fact, consider this your parental advisory warning. Thien-Kim Lam is the founder of Bawdy Bookworms, a subscription box company and virtual book club for women who prioritize pleasure. She took her love for romance books and experience selling adult toys and turned it into the subscription service she would love to buy, knowing there was a niche audience out there who would think the same thing. Thien-Kim and I talk about her initial challenges bringing the subscription box to market and what’s working now to connect with her niche audience. We talk optin incentives, author partnerships, content marketing, and Facebook groups. Now, let’s find out what works for Thien-Kim Lam! What Works Is Brought To You By Mighty Networks powers brands and businesses – like yours! – that bring people together.With a Mighty Network, online business owners just like you can bring together in one place: * Your website* Your content* Your courses* Your community* Your events online and in ... ★ Support this podcast ★

All this month, we’ve been talking about building an audience here on the podcast—and we’ve been asking members of The What Works Network, well, what’s working for them when it comes to audience-building and marketing their businesses. Some people have told us that keeping it simple and focusing on just one technique has paid a lot more dividends than trying to be everywhere and do everything. Others have told us that video, like showing up on Instagram Stories, Facebook Live, or YouTube, has helped them reach new people. Plenty of folks told us that the most important thing they do to build their audiences is reaching out to new contacts one at a time. Still others told us Facebook groups, guest teaching, virtual coffee dates, in-person events, or asking for referrals and recommendations are their sweet spot. Clearly, there is no right way to build an audience today. That can be comforting for sure. Those of us who are naturally questioners, rebels, and skeptics don’t have to mold ourselves into something we’re not or fit our businesses into someone else’s formula to get ahead. And… at the same time, all of that open-ended possibility can be daunting. As much as we want to do things our own way, it would be nice if there was a clear, well-maintained trail for our hike to the top of the audience-building mountain. Make no mistake: I’m not suggesting that we all need to blaze our own trails when it comes to marketing our businesses. Far from it. But we do need to decide on a plan and stick to it. “How?” you ask. Earlier this month, friend of the pod Bonnie Gillespie shared 5 things that have worked for her over the last 20 years of building her Self-Management For Actors audience with What Works Network members. I want to focus on the first three for the sake of brevity: Time. Trust in the long-haul. Consistency. Never stop showing up. Treating everything I do as if it’s the only thing they’ll ever see. And being sure my links roll deep for those who’d like to follow ’em to other things I’ve created from there. I can’t agree more with these points. Plus, I think they’re useful constraints for finding the audience-building plan that’s going to work for you. Consider each of these points as questions: * What can you stick with for the long haul? What could you do week in and week out for the next 10, 15, or 20 years?* What can you deliver on consistently so that your traction grows and grows?* What can you work towards mastery of? What are you willing to get better at every single day? The answers to these questions might not be as sexy as a technique promising to be the secret to finding 10,000 true fans in 10 days. But, in my experience, these answers will serve you much better. Like the small business owners you’ll hear from today, my own audience-building strategy has evolved over time. And like Bonnie, it’s required trust in the long haul, leaning towards mastery, and—as Dr. Michelle Mazur calls it—radical consistency. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * Why Eli Trier embarked on her first community project—and the results she experienced from that first project* How facilitating community projects help her reach important business goals and build her audience* The exact process Eli uses to put together each project* How community projects differ from less effective marketing tactics like telesummits When I first heard about this idea of a “community project,” I was dubious. It sounded an awful lot like an telesummit—which I’m on the record for calling bad marketing. My beef with the vast majority of telesummits or online summits is that they’ve evolved to serve the needs of the organizer—and nearly no one else. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it’s when someone organizes an online event, solicits a bunch of speakers with good-sized email lists, and then has those speakers promote the event so that the organizer’s list grows by leaps and bounds. The pitch emails I still receive for telesummits—even after writing a 3000 word screed against these marketing events—are egregious. Full of jargon, double-speak, and quid pro quo. So you can imagine that when I heard about someone organizing a bunch of people creating content around a theme and using it to grow an audience, I wasn’t impressed. And then, I talked to Eli Trier. Eli Trier organizes community projects for introverts and quiet revolutionaries. Her goal is to raise the level of discourse around a topic, bringing people together and growing audiences in the process. I was so impressed with Eli’s approach and how it tied into our values and philosophy at What Works… that I hired her to help us with our first community project—coming out in August. Eli and I talk about why it’s important to her to deep-dive on important questions and involve a diverse set of voices in the discussion. We also get into the nitty-gritty of how Eli’s community projects work, how she plans for them, and how they help her reach both her audience-building and sales goals. Now, let’s find out what works for Eli Trier! What Works Is Brought To You By Mighty Networks powers brands and businesses – like yours! – that bring people together.With a Mighty Network, online business owners just like you can bring together in one place: * Your website* Your content* Your courses* Your community* Your events online and in real life* And charge for them…all while building YOUR brand. Visit mightynetworks.com to see more examples of brands bringing people together and taking their businesses to the next level. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * How Rachael Kay Albers got the idea to create a “business comedy show“* Why Awkward Marketing really stands out—even when plenty of other marketers are using video to promote their businesses* How the show supports her web design & digital marketing studio, RKA ink* The start-to-finish process she uses to produce each season of the show* How she finds new videos and measure the success of the show Lots of people want to know how to stand out online. Few people put in the time and effort to actually stand out. What I’ve discovered over the years is that standing out is never the product of following whatever trend is lighting up social media or taking the blogosphere by storm. Standing out is incredibly personal. Anytime I’ve tried to play the game, I lose. Anytime I make up my own rules, I win. This podcast is no exception. I could have chosen to play the game of getting the online business world’s biggest stars to talk about their own pet projects and programs. I could have crossed my fingers and hoped they’d promote the show to their massive audiences. But I didn’t. Instead, I looked around the podcast marketplace and found a hole to fill—the very show that I wanted to listen to: small business owners talking about what they were really doing. I wanted it to feel more like a mastermind than a masterclass. I wanted it to challenge assumptions and debunk myths about “the right way” to do things. And I really wanted to highlight the small business owners who so often don’t get much press but are making things work every single day, without buying into the hype or gurus. This show is different and that’s a big reason why it stands out. The other reason it stands out is because we put a lot of time and intention into those very aspects of this show. We work hard to get better out our craft. I work hard at becoming a better interviewer, Sean works hard at becoming a better producer, Marty works hard at becoming a better editor. We want to be different and excellent. And it results in stand out content. My guest today also has a knack for creating stand out content. Rachael Kay Albers is a marketer who hates marketing. As the founder and creative director of RKA ink, a branding, web design, and digital marketing studio, Rachael has helped hundreds of small business owners all over the world stand out online without selling their soul or playing the manipulation game. When not crafting epic, unforgettable brands for her clients, Rachael hosts Awkward Marketing, a business comedy show blending fun-size small business advice with storytelling and sketch comedy, for entrepreneurs who want to create epic, unforgettable brands online. Now, if you did a double take when I said “business comedy show,” I get it. But that’s a prime reason why Rachael’s content stands out. It’s unexpected and far from ordinary. The other reason it stands out is the painstaking effort that Rachael puts into each episode. She’s working to become masterful at making you laugh while learning the ins & o... ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * Why Kim Herrington believes start content creation is the key to building your audience and getting off the social media treadmill* How she used 20 targeted articles to boost a website’s traffic by 1000%* The tools she uses to discover what to create content about and the technique she uses to maximize their potency for search* How she bridges the gap between social media and SEO to get the best results Social media success isn’t the same as business I spend about an hour every morning looking through news and culture websites. I hit CNN, Slate, and Vox, and then I open up Apple News to see what I might be missing from more unusual sources. The other day, an article on Buzzfeed caught my eye. First off, yes, I love me some Buzzfeed. Sometimes you just need cute dog pics and funny parenting tweets to bring a smile to your face. This article was neither about cute dogs nor parenting tweets. It was about an Instagram influencer with over 2 million followers who wasn’t able to sell 36 shirts to her audience. That’s a conversion rate of fewer than 2 thousandths of a percent. Now, I gotta hand it to Buzzfeed. Their angle was to curate a bunch of tweets that contained genuinely helpful marketing lessons in response to this debacle. Most of those tweets were along the lines of knowing your customer and what they want to buy. Fair enough. Unfortunately, that’s not how a lot of people go about “winning” at the game of social media. It’s all about churning out content that will get the likes. Churn and churn and churn. And to what end? Hopefully, sales, of course. But so often, the sales just don’t come. My guest today wants to offer a remedy for the churn and burn that is audience-building on social media… …a remedy that is much more likely to lead to sales and time saved. Kim Herrington helps online entrepreneurs and influencers conquer the content creation treadmill with SEO and marketing strategies to build traffic and empower them to achieve their goals. She’s worked with people like Sarah Von Bargen, Paul Jarvis, and many more to increase organic traffic as much as 1,000%. Kim is also the founder and Creative Director at Orsanna, a digital marketing agency that focuses on day-to-day marketing. Her agency’s client list includes brick-and-mortar stores, product designers, doctors, dentists, law firms, manufacturers, and other small businesses. I asked Kim what’s working when it comes to SEO today—not just from a technical standpoint, but from the perspective of building audiences hungry for the products or services we offer. As part of our “what’s working” series, Kim shares her own experience working with clients and how SEO has helped them build much bigger audiences. We talk about what SEO actually is and how creating the right content can bring leads who are ready to buy straight to your website. Kim also shares some straightforward ways to organize your content so you get as much “juice” from it as possible. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty-Gritty: * Why social media marketing agency founder Andréa Jones doesn’t try to game the social media algorithms to build her audience and, instead, spends a lot more time behind the scenes* How she finds people to connect with, how she starts the conversation, and how she follows up* The process and tool she uses to track her time spent on her behind-the-scenes audience-building* Why creating social media content is still an important part of how she’s building her audience Back in 2010, I was spending a lot of time on Twitter. And, I can remember realizing one day, while working from my dining room table back before I had an office to call my own, that a lot had to be happening behind the scenes. In other words, there was everything I could see happening on Twitter, in emails, on websites, and in teleseminars. And then there were all of the conversations that had to have happened to make that possible. I could see people promoting each other’s programs and services. I could see joint ventures. I could see genuine friendships and deep collaborations. I could see these same people start to rise to the top, see their audiences explode, their authority grow exponentially. And I knew—for certain—that it wasn’t just happening, it was being nurtured and engineered behind the scenes. All of a sudden, I felt like I was on the outside looking in. Except, I didn’t feel like an outsider. I just felt like I needed to find the door. My hypothesis was that much of this relationship-building that turned into serious audience-building was happening in-person at events and coffee dates. I didn’t have access to that. But I did have Twitter and it felt like the next best thing. So I started to put together a list of the movers and shakers that I wanted to form relationships with. I made that list the main Twitter feed that I saw. I spent a good hour or two every day (okay, probably more than that) pouring over that feed and interacting with what people tweeted. It was strategic and genuine at the same time. The results came fast and furious. In no time, I had all sorts of new friends and opportunities. And, even though I was forming these relationships one at a time, I started to see my audience grow exponentially from the shares and comments I was receiving from the people who I was interacting with. I was getting interviewed, hosting panel discussions, and being invited to events. Those individual relationships led to massive growth. Over time, I started to rely on these relationships and stopped putting such an emphasis on meeting new people. In fact, meeting new colleagues and influencers became a pretty low priority. That was a mistake. When I realized that my audience-building had stalled out last year, I started thinking about what I could do to jumpstart growth again. So I asked myself: what’s worked in the past? The answer was easy, networking behind the scenes, connecting with people one at a time, trusting that real relationship-building leads to real audience-building. And yep, I can say the results have been typical in the best possible way. Here’s what I know: ★ Support this podcast ★

A year ago this week, I deleted about 12,000 people off my email list. That meant that my audience shrank by about 80% with the push of a button. GDPR was going into effect and, while I wasn’t caught up in the mass hysteria happening in the digital marketing world around compliance, I did look at the regulations as an opportunity to take a new approach to building an audience for my brand. Quick aside—pro tip: never get caught up in any mass hysteria, especially when it’s about digital marketing. The me of 2018 felt pretty calm and collected about the whole thing—but the me of 2016 or 2017 would have lost my marbles. That email list—and the number attached to it—represented all of the work that I had put into writing, speaking, teaching, and positioning my business over nearly 10 years. But there was a problem… I had become more attached to the number than the people on that list. And that number was holding me back. I viewed every marketing, branding, sales, or product development decision through the lens of that number. I would experiment with messages, angles, and stories to see what would happen to that number—and all of the smaller numbers it would spit out, like click thru rate, open rate, or unsubscribes. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the people reading—I cared about them deeply. It’s just so easy to forget that numbers are people… and that sometimes the people I care about most just aren’t represented by the big number but by one that’s much smaller and harder to discern. When I made the decision to all but start over with my email list, it was a decision to do the work to find that number, rediscover the right people, and rebuild my audience from there. This month, we’re tackling a topic that tends to be top of mind for most small business owners: building your audience. Whether your business is the kind that thrives with an audience of 10 or whether you’re aiming to reach millions, we’ll be exploring what works for a variety of entrepreneurs as they work to attract the right people and earn attention for their brands. Now, I’ve been building an audience online for over 10 years but my perspective has recently made a big shift. To kick off this month’s theme, I decided to share what’s working for me as we build an audience around honesty and transparency in small business—including my own. The first thing that’s changed is who I show up as. When my company made a big shift 2.5 years ago to focus on The What Works Network, I declared that I was no longer the teacher or coach. My products weren’t going to revolve around how much I knew and how much of that I could teach you. I simply recognized that I didn’t have all the answers—and I wanted to turn my focus to gathering a group of people to build collective knowledge. This represented a huge change in our business model—and I knew that. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much that was going to change the way I approach audience-building, too. ★ Support this podcast ★