July 18, 2024 • 50 mins
Join Dr. Lewis in a conversation with Shannon Kuykendall, Founder of Up Automation. Shannon's journey from a Technical Virtual Assistant to the founder of Up Automation is a testament to her resilience, adaptability, and marketing acumen. Launching her first business in 2005, she quickly gained a reputation for precision and dependability, skills that would later underpin the success of her digital marketing agency. Email: shannon@upautomation.com
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Success 4 Women Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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(00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed on thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W four WN Radio It's employees or
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questions or comment should be directed tothose show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:22):
W four WN Radio. I gotthe time And did you know women represent
(00:55):
just three percent of Fortune five hundredCEOs and less than fifteen percent of corporate
executives at top companies worldwide. Haveyou wondered what the secrets are to getting
into the top ranks, whether inthe private or public sector. Do you
want to figure out how to stopbeing held back in your career? Are
(01:15):
passed over for promotion, then you'rein the right place. Hi. I'm
doctor Mattlanann Lewis, President and CEOof the Executive Women's Success Institute. I
have decades of experience in the military, the federal government, and corporate America,
and my mission is to help womensucceed and tap into their full potential.
(01:38):
I want to reach a million pluswomen around the world to become the
leaders they are meant to be.So if you want to move into a
management or executive level position, ormaybe you are a female veteran transitioning out
of the military into business entrepreneurship,then reach out to the Executive Women's Success
Institute at three zero one six ninethree three two eighty four. Let us
(02:05):
get you on the fast track tosuccess. Well. Hello, and welcome
to the Success for Women's Show,where you can view us on Talk for
(02:25):
TV and listen to us on theWomen for Women Network. I am doctor
Madline. Ann lewis your host,and my mission is to help women accelerate
the path to success. Well.Today's topic is Simplify your Marketing and my
(02:45):
guest is Shannon kirkindaal. Let mejust give you a little bit of background
about her. Shannon's journey from atechnical vertical virtual assistant to the founder of
up Automation is a testament to herresilience, adaptability, and marketing acumen.
(03:07):
Launching her first business in two thousandand five, she quickly gained a reputation
for precision and dependability, skills thatwould later underpin the success of her digital
marketing agency, up Automation, foundedin twenty fifteen, specializes in helping SaaS,
(03:31):
femtech and cybersecurity startups unlock their growthpotential through strategic marketing and sales techniques.
Expertise, combined with her focus onauthenticity and personal connection, allows her
to deliver customize, impactful solutions thatdrive business success. I'd like to welcome
(04:00):
to the Successful Women's Show, MissShannon Kirkandal. Hi, thank you for
having me. Doctor Madeline Well,thank you for being here. It is
a pleasure. Can't wait to hearyour story and how it all began.
But before we get started, Iusually ask, you know, give the
(04:20):
standard bio on my guests, butthen I like to ask the guests,
So just tell us what you wantus to know about Shannon Kirkandal Ah adventurous,
motivated. I'm a single mom.I have a daughter who's thirty years
(04:43):
old, and so raised her up, and quite honestly, I really really
like her. I think she's becomean amazing human. Not to toot my
own horn, but I feel likethat's sort of half the battle. When
you're raising children is you know,bringing good humans into the world. So
that's one of my success stories.I've had a business for the last twenty
(05:03):
years and what I've learned over thattime is there is one thing that businesses
really need in order to make surethat people know they exist, and that
is bringing awareness to who they areand what they do. And the way
to go about doing that is throughfor me, strategic organic content and reaching
(05:30):
out to people that would be partof your ideal audience and connecting with them.
Wow. So tell me what motivatedyou to shift from technical assistance to
digital marketing and how did you navigatethat transition, because I know I had
to. That was a big kindof a big gap or not, I
(05:55):
wouldn't say gap, but a kindof a big transition there that you hit
to navigate. So I think forme, it came down to a couple
things. Uh. One, Iwas following a company called Digital Marketer out
of Austin, Texas, and Iwas working with a client and we were
actually implementing one of their strategies intoa tool that the time that was called
(06:17):
Infusion Soft it's now called Key Andso we were building out this big strategy
where we were segmenting her audience andthe goal was that we would automate her
email marketing so that she could startselling her courses more regularly, more consistently.
(06:38):
And it was during that time thatInfusionsoft was also having like their summer
event that they have and I reallywanted to go. Well, my client
had paid for me to do thetraining for Infusionsoft so that we could implement
the strategy, and so she said, you know what, I you know,
you've taken to this so quite easily. I'm going to pay for you
(07:00):
to go to this event. Andso it was at that event that it
was like, it's time to giveShannon a race. I'm not a VA
anymore. I'm helping people grow theirbusinesses, and my expertise beyond just the
basics of what a virtual assistant woulddo on the technical side. So I
(07:25):
had some people around me and Iwas like, you know, and I'm
going to build a team and thenI'm going to create this agency. And
it took me about six months toput all the pieces together, and that's
what I did, and through thatI was able to increase my rates.
But I was also able to bringin clients and have the team work on
(07:46):
those projects while I was managing theteam. So it was a slow process,
but at the same time, itwas like the most rewarding And I
think what it came down to wasI needed to find the value you and
myself and the services that I wasoffering in order to do that, because
I didn't see it until I hadactually gone through that training and infusion Soft
(08:09):
and then it ended their event wherethere were all these breakout sections and I
had my AHAs, wow, yeah, you know, I do recall infusion
Soft when it first started out becauseI actually had uh had I was.
I actually had it implemented it inmy business for a while, so I
(08:30):
do remember that. And if Irecall, even though I kind of learned,
you know, sort of how touse it, I didn't always use
it. It was somebody else onthe team, but I just kind of
I thought it was a little difficult. So if you you know, you
understood that it's not easy. Ijust kind of, you know, it's
(08:54):
one of those things where because itwas a part of the business, I
wanted to kind of know what itwas about. So that's why I you
know, learned a little bit aboutit. But when I started really trying
to get into it. I reallyrealized, Eh, this is a little
bit you know, technical for me, So I'm just gonna let you do
(09:15):
it. Okay, I know enoughto dangerous. Yeah, So you know,
I can understand how once you gotto the training and you saw of
this going on and how you hadbeen involved in it beforehand, that that
would give you an Aha moment.And and then the thing about it which
(09:37):
is so impressive is that you actuallyacted on it. You didn't just you
know, sit there and have thatAha mom with them. But when you
left, all of a sudden,it was like, I don't know,
you know, because you you couldhave You actually could have done that and
not really acted on, you know, the thing and started your business.
(09:58):
Exactly the risk that I took becauseI made that change. I did lose
some clients because they weren't ready forme to make that change. Okay,
So I took a risk, butI took the risk, and I bet
on myself right because I had learnedthese new skills, I now could charge
more for my services. So Igave myself a raise, you know.
(10:24):
And that's you know, and asbusiness owners, that's what we have to
do it is I mean a lotof times you do take risks. I
mean, and you know, asa business owner, you have to look
at it and see it as anopportunity and yeah, there could be a
certain risk in it, but it'san opportunity. So sometimes you just have
(10:46):
to step out there and just letit happen. See what happens. And
in your case, it worked outfor the better. It did, it
absolutely did. Now your work isdeeply rooted in resilience and adaptability, as
we can see from how you transition. Can you provide an example of a
significant challenge that you faced and howyou may have overcome that challenge. Yeah,
(11:13):
so this is This happened about ayear, almost two years after I
started my agency. It's my firstreally big fail. I brought in a
project manager who was going to managethe team. My job was to go
(11:33):
out and get clients as the founder, so that's what I focused on,
and it was much harder to findclients than I thought. I wasn't when
I had my virtual assistant. Allmy business came through referrals. So with
an agency, it was a verydifferent beast and I didn't have the mechanisms
(11:58):
in place. To be generating leadsconsistently for my own business, and my
project manager wasn't managing the projects thatwe had, and because of that,
I started to run in the redmanaging the finances. I was on the
entrepreneurial roller coaster feast or famine,And basically it got to the point where
(12:26):
she got frustrated and decided she wasgoing to quit without any notice. That
quitting was detrimental to my business,and that's on me because I didn't have
things properly in place. So whenshe left, I had to let go
of the five people that were managingprojects. I had to let go of
(12:50):
the clients. We had three largeclients at the time. I had to
let them go, and I hadto issue partial refunds. Wow, And
I was devastated. I was embarrassed. I didn't know what to do.
So there was during that time whileI was trying to find clients and trying
(13:11):
to figure out a mechanism to putin place so that we could get leads,
I was thing. My project managerquit before I could even get that
stuff set up. And so becauseI had learned this mechanism to put in
place, which was LinkedIn was reachingout to people on LinkedIn and making them
aware of your business. I waslike, you know what, I'm just
(13:35):
I'm going to go ahead and throwthis up there. I don't have any
business. I don't know what todo. But I went ahead and I
put this LinkedIn lead generation system togetherand I started generating leads form an agency
I no longer had. And sobecause I had been partnering with this company
called Digital Marketer out of Austin,Texas, there were people in that partner
(13:58):
group that I could reach out thatwould be able to fulfill. And so
I went to three of them andI said, I'm going to send you
guys the same three the same leads, because I understand it's not a one
size fits all, So they're gonnabasically each approach and whoever the person went
with, whoever the client decided towork with, they were going to give
(14:20):
me a twenty percent referral fee.And so I did that for three months,
and that's what I survived on whileI put together a whole new agency
package that didn't require a team.Okay, and so there was one person
from my team that did come backand he helped me basically manage this process
(14:46):
that I put together, and thenat the same time I decided to put
all my stuff into storage and buya round trip and buy a ticket through
Remote Year, and I spent twoyears traveling the world while I built my
LinkedIn lead generation system. And soI made lemon out of lemonade. But
(15:07):
I definitely spent three weeks after thatlike big fail, feeling sorry for myself,
trying to figure out what my nextsteps were. I thought I was
going to, you know, drivepeople around as their designated driver to wine
taste like I thought i'd do somethinglike that. Realized I don't really like
driving at night, so that wasgoing to be a good idea. Lives
(15:31):
would be at stake, So no, but having that time to develop the
LinkedIn strategy and seeing that if Icould make it work for me, then
I have something here. And soI started reaching out to other marketing agencies
because I knew they were struggling withthe same thing I had been struggling with.
(15:54):
And I said, this is whatI can do for you. And
I charged fifteen hundred a month,fired a three month commitment, and I
was filled to the gills. Okay, I made lemonade out of the lemons.
Absolutely some times. Yeah, thepain point you found out you were
(16:15):
able to meet their needs because,like you said, they they were looking
for something too, and you camealong and you provided that's something. So
hey, yeah, wow that wasa big fail. That just that was
really really hard, you know,just because I think, you know,
having that conversation with clients is embarrassing. Yeah, you know, because they're
(16:38):
looking at you like, wait aminute, you can't run your company.
You're mismanaging funds, you know,and it's like, as with everything I'm
learning, you know, I cantell you that that was the one and
only time that something like that happened, because after that, I was introduced
to a book called profit First byMike mccallowitsh Okay, profit first is a
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way to run your business so thatyou're not you're not seeing what your profits
are after tax time. You're actuallytaking your profits and putting them away.
Okay, all right, And everythree months you take your profits and you
do something with them. So youeither put them back into the business or
you go on vacation, whatever youwant to do. Mike says, it's
(17:29):
you know, this is your profit. There are accountants out there who know
how to do the accounting for peoplewho are using the profit first method.
But it saved me. Like itis you know it. It's basically you
get you know, the money comesin for the services that people are paying
(17:51):
for, and then a small portionof that anywhere from one to ten percent
gets immediately pulled out into a differentaccount and you just ignore it and work
with what you have. We findthat as entrepreneurs, we know really what.
We know how to bootstrap, weknow how to find the free tools,
we know how to maximize those freetools, but whenever money comes in,
(18:14):
we're like, oh, we've gotsome money, I'm going to go
get this tool that costs three hundreda month, only to have to take
it down because of the feast orfamine all right, only to have to
take it down because we can't affordto use it anymore. So profit first
teaches you how to basically manage themoney that's coming into your agency so that
(18:37):
you're not dealing with the feast orfamine. You know, on the months
that you might not have clients comein, you've got money in your profit
account to use to make sure you'recovering your expenses. So it was just
brilliant It was just something that Ihadn't seen before, and I was so
grateful when it was referred to me. So I refer to everybody like,
if you're starting a business, readthis book. I'm gonna have to make
(19:00):
sure I get that book. Yeah, I keep a copy by my desk.
Okay, yeah, I actually willtell us said it profit first book.
That wow, So tell us aboutyour your core philosophy on authenticity and
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personal connection. In marketing people,we hide sort of behind these personas and
we need to basically show up.Yeah, you know, we need to.
We need to show all of ourselvesfor the most part. All Right,
(19:44):
people do business with people, especiallynow. I read a lot of
articles where, you know, corporationsare like, well, we want to
market what we offer for the corporation, and it's like people aren't interested in
what the corporation has to offer unlessyou've got a face. Is there somebody?
Do you have a face to thecorporation, somebody with the personality who's
(20:07):
willing to show up and do thegood, the bad, and the ugly.
All right, that's what people want. I still have a hard time
with that, but I know thatit works. You know, you see
a lot of people post content andthen they've got a personal picture on them
on the profile. The reason theydo that is because people will stop and
take a look at the picture.It stops the scroll. They do it
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because it works, and it doesn'tmatter if your b corporation you're like,
well, that's not professional, that'snot what we want to do. We're
not going to do that, andthen five months later you're complaining because you
don't have any business. It's becauseyou're not showing up for the people who
want to support you. And ifyou're not willing to show up for the
(20:51):
people who want to support you,they're going to go away and they're never
going to support you. So you'vegot to show up. Find the face.
If the face is a cartoon,create a cartoon character. You know,
there's so many different ways that youcan go about that, but you
got to be real. You gotto show up, yes, and you
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have to just be open minded andyou know, you guess what, You're
going to make mistakes. Everybody does. It's part of the process. And
actually sometimes those mistakes can be highlyprofitable because they're going to get a lot
of attention. Absolutely so absolutely,that's that's where That's where I'm at on
that. Wow. So how dothese types of values drive your strategies and
(21:38):
outcomes for your clients? Part ofit is is having the conversation with my
client and making sure that I'm settingsome clear expectations. You know that when
you're coming to work with me,I'm not going to tell you that I'm
going to get you I'm going toget you five new clients this month when
we've just gotten started, Like,I'm not going to do that. That's
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a bold face. That's a boldface line. Anybody who says that they
can do that is actively lying toyou. It doesn't work that way.
It takes three months just to buildup momentum, and it takes six months
to see results, right, andif you are an enterprise company, a
company with five hundred or more people, it's going to take you longer than
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six months. It may take ayear, it may take a year and
a half. And that's the truth. And anybody else who's saying otherwise,
they're they're lying to you. They'relooking for a cash grap And that's how
I see it. Wow. Now, I know that you've probably worked with
a lot of platforms and some ofthem such as probably HubSpot, Clavio,
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Zoho, CRM. Tell us,how do you determine and which of these
tools are the best fit for particularclient because and then there's so many outfits.
Yeah, there's there's a ton.So I take a look at you
know, it's through conversations with theclients. So I take a look at
where they're at in their business.You know, have they are First of
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all, are they even using aCRM? All right? Are they keep
are they building a list of somekind? All right? If they're if
they haven't even done that, I'mactually going to introduce them to a tool
that one is either free up toone thousand up to one thousand emails or
something that's going to be around thetwenty five to fifty dollars a month range,
(23:41):
all right, So really, one, what can they afford? Like
I said, I'm all about bootstrapping, So I know free tools, I
know what we can do. Soit really is all about what stage of
the business are they in, whatis their budget, and what are their
goals with regard to one having theCRM? Do they want to you know,
put together some email marketing? Whatsort of offers do they have?
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So I take a look at everythingin the business before I recommend a toll
because to me, HubSpot. HubSpot'slike your enterprise. You want it to
run everything. Like I've got aclient who actually has their website completely done
on HubSpot. All right, They'reusing every aspect of HubSpot. That's about
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three thousand dollars a month for allof that. All right, she can
afford that. That's what she wants. She has media, she has books,
she has coaching programs, so youknow she needs all of it.
But if that's not where you're at, start with something smaller, because here's
the thing. Every single one ofthese CRMs has a team that will actually
(24:48):
take what you have from one CRMand move it into theirs. And most
of the time it's free of charge, so you can transition to it.
You can upgrade to a new cras your business grows, all right.
I'm a firm believer and don't takeon more than you need. Most of
the time, these tools sit idle, not doing anything for them, and
(25:14):
meanwhile they're spending three hundred a monthor whatever to have the tool. So
make sure you're you know, theclient needs to make sure they're in a
position where we're going to take advantageof that, because for me, I
want to get in there and startputting pieces and building out campaigns right away.
Yeah. Absolutely, I want themto take advantage of what they have
(25:37):
available to them. Wow. Andjust for the listening and viewing audience out
there, we're talking about the differentCRMs when we talked about the HubSpot clabo
and just to clarify, CRM iscustomer relations men exactly. Yeah, I
(26:02):
just wanted to make sure that everyoneout there knew what we were referring to
when we kept using the acronym CRM. So, given the fast paced nature
of digital marketing, how do youstay updated with industry trends and ensure your
clients benefit from the latest advancement becausethings change so quickly, very quickly.
(26:27):
What I've seen with digital marketing isI'm seeing it do a bit of a
full circle. At least a coupleof years ago I saw a full circle.
So which is what it does becausethe names change. When I started
out in marketing as a virtual assistant, it was called Internet marketing. When
I started my agency, it wascalled digital marketing. So but for me
(26:48):
to answer the question, I don'trest on my laurels. I'm a firm
believer in continued education, So forme, I will look for webinars,
I read articles, I just Iabsorb in for so A couple things that
I'm doing right now to stay ontop of current trends would be one.
I am listening and I'm reading toGary Vaynerchuk's new book Day Trading Attention.
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That's one of the things I'm doing. And then the other thing I'm doing
because I do LinkedIn lead generation formy clients, I decided to retake a
course that was offered when I firststarted doing LinkedIn lead generation. The course
came back by the same person Itook it from seven years ago and they've
(27:34):
revamped it, and so I waslike, you know what, I'm going
to go ahead and take it againbecause maybe they've got new information. So
quite honestly, what I have foundis I actually know a little bit more
than they do. Not brag.Yeah I'm bragging, But at the same
time, when you do something fora really long period of time, you
(27:56):
learn all you like, you've gotto learn the rules to break the rules.
So for me, it was like, I'm going to go back to
basics and that ultimately helped my businessbecause I scaled back and went back to
basics. It was like relearning therules because so much had changed, and
sometimes you have to do that.Things change so quickly that sometimes just pulling
(28:21):
back and going back to the basicsand then trying again is what's going to
work. So why LinkedIn though,Why do you like that particular platform platform?
Because if you are a B toB, if you're looking for other
businesses to connect with, if youare looking for the CEO, the owner,
(28:45):
or the founder, LinkedIn is wherethey're at. Okay, you know
we're looking at It's now reached abillion people. Yeah, and it continues
to grow. I used to getfrustrated because the number was never the same.
That's how quickly it grows. Andthat's one billion people worldwide. Eighty
(29:07):
percent of people on LinkedIn log intoit daily, every day, every day.
But here's the thing, only sixpercent of everybody on LinkedIn is actually
posting content. Six percent. That'sit. I think about all the room
(29:29):
there to really get your message outthere. Absolutely all right. So for
me, because I work I workprimarily with sas technology, cybersecurity and femtech.
Those founders all right, And Iuse sales navigators, So sales navigator
is really going to let me honein on who my target audience is so
(29:52):
that I can get in front ofthem and so, and I don't do
a pitch fest. Nothing bugs peoplemore are than to connect with them only
to be sent five paragraphs with metell me about it. Yes, I
scratched my head, but I actuallyfigured out a new strategy to engage those
(30:15):
folks, Okay, all right.And it's not about pitch slapping them back.
It's just about starting a conversation tosee if what they're doing is actually
working, okay, because I knowit's not. Yeah, I mean it's
like I get those all the time, you know, Like you say,
the long messages in my inbox fromLinkedIn, you know about something or other.
(30:44):
Yeah, it's well. And thething with if you're going to do
outreach on LinkedIn, you're going youneed to build the relationship absolutely all right.
I'm not like I'm gonna I'm gonnaconnect with you. I'm gonna invite
you to connect with me. Thefirst thing you're going to do is look
at my profile, see if I'mworth somebody connecting with. Absolutely, accept
my invitation and I'm just going tosend you a simple email saying thanks for
(31:08):
connecting. Yes, pretty simple,that's it. Yeah, that's what I
was doing in the beginning. Andthen I started getting these people sending me
these long things, and I thought, hmmm, should I just keep saying
thanks for connecting? Or do Ineed to do something else? So well,
there, I feel like there's twoschool of thought out there, all
(31:30):
right, And I've worked with twodifferent clients in this aspect. I have
the client who understands I got tobuild a relationship and that it's going to
take you some time to build upthe momentum to get people into the funnel
m hm, and to engage withthem before I get somebody who's interested in
booking a call. Then you've gotthe people on the other side who are
(31:52):
no. I don't like it whenthey come in and they trying to be
friends with me. I just knowI just want to get it out of
the way and move on. Ohwow, that's their attitude. And I
don't like working with the clients thatsay no, I don't want to nurture
the lead. Okay, I can'thelp you if you're not interested in nurturing
(32:14):
the leader building a relationship. Ican't help you, and you'll start just
pray and spraying. Wow your spammessage to all over. Yeah, and
you're going to get a lot ofengagement, but most of it are going
to be people who are angry andannoyed exactly like I because I like to
the people that especially that I'm connectedto. You know, when I see
(32:36):
that their birthday is I use Ilike to send them a you know,
happy birthday or congratulations on your anniversaryor a new position or whatever, you
know, just to send something that's, like you say, not trying to
sell them anything or whatever, juststaying connected and just letting them know,
hey, I appreciate you being apart of my network. And you know,
(33:00):
to me, it's like if wecan't do anything for each other,
then fine. But like you said, when you get the long we just
connected two minutes ago, and thenright after that you get that long email
wanting me to get something that theyhave, I don't like that either.
Yeah, I'm the same way.I just had somebody do that the other
(33:22):
day and I replied back, youknow, I'm testing out this new way
to engage the spray and pray andto see if I can convert them into
a lead for myself. But thisguy, when I tried it, he
had a whole nother long message tosend me. Yeah, he's got a
lot of words, and all Isaid was watch and learn, my friend.
(33:45):
And his last reply is, Ihave no idea what you're talking about
exactly. If you just respond withsomething hey, you know, thank you
for reaching out or something like that, then they come back with something another
long Yeah. I have an experience. The secret to it is when you
(34:06):
are engaging, if you want todo LinkedIn and you want to do it
yourself, all right, if youare reaching out to people, keep your
messages extremely short. Offer value.So one of the things there are a
ton of people on LinkedIn who loveto create the carousel. They've got these
really beautiful PDFs that they've created andthat you can download. I feel like
(34:30):
I'm I'm addicted to collecting them.So what I have done is I space
out my messaging and I take alook at one. This is related to
what I could do for them.It's not from me, but I'm introducing
them to a post and something thatcan be done on LinkedIn. Right,
(34:51):
So I've offered them some value andthat's all I do. They don't have
to leave LinkedIn for it. Ihaven't pitched my services. I've just said,
hey, you know what, Ithink this is really cool. It
might interest you. That's it,and I share the post. I'll do
that three times, okay, overover a thirty day period, keyword thirty
(35:14):
day period. Three times every tendays, and then I'm going to invite
them and see if they want toget on a call with me. And
that's it. I haven't pitched myservices. Besides that, my profile's optimized.
They already know what I do exactly. I don't have to pitch you
anything. You see the content thatI write. You know my writing style,
you see what I do. I'mactive on LinkedIn. I don't have
(35:37):
like people make it harder for themselveswhen they create the five paragraphs with ten
links right off the gate. Yeah, that's that's true. So now I
know how to handle this, Ithink. Okay, yes, well tell
(35:58):
us. You know, with theincreasing focus on social media marketing, though,
how do you advise your clients onwhich platforms to prioritize for their specific
industry and audience? Because I know, do you tell all of them to
just be on LinkedIn or do youalso recommend any of the other platforms.
(36:20):
Most of my clients come to mewith other channels that they have accounts with,
so a lot of times I usea tool called metric Cool. It's
M E T R c L,It's free, and basically I get them
to plug in all of the accountsthat so all their social media accounts,
(36:42):
I go into metric cool and Iput their posts on all of them.
This way, I don't have tolog into each channel. I can do
it all for metric Coal, andit's going to give me the analytics for
all of them, so I don'thave any problem cross posting to their other
channels. If they have them,we've got the content, we might as
well make sure that we're getting itout there. So I don't technically do
(37:06):
any strategy for those channels. Youknow. The one thing that I know
is, no matter what channel you'reon, if you want more engagement,
you've got to engage with other people'scontent. That's just the rule of it.
If you're posting stuff on these socialmedia it's the posting ghost If you're
posting in ghosting, you're doing yourselfa disservice. You really do need to
(37:30):
spend some time, especially if youwant eyes back on your stuff, You
do need to spend some time engagingwith other people's content. Absolutely, So
how do you recommend that businesses optimizetheir LinkedIn profiles so that they'll attract potential
leads? So we focus on thebackground header. All right, that's free
(37:57):
real estate. I see a lotof people who have nothing there. They
have a pretty scenic image or somethinglike that. That's your calling card,
that's your business card. Take advantageof that space. Then you want to
make sure that you've got a niceprofile picture profile pictures that do really really
well. You've got it, youknow, from the shoulders up, facing
(38:17):
forward, professional. Don't have yourkids in the pictures with you. Don't
be doing something silly, although somepeople like that. Whatever works. And
then something that I've seen that worksthat I now do is to have a
bright color behind your picture. Okay, something that pops and stands out on
(38:38):
the platform, right right. Thenwe're going to focus on there's a subheading
which is right underneath your name.This is another area to basically say I
help, Who do you help?So? Who's your avatar? How do
you help them? All? Right, and what's the benefit. All right?
(39:02):
Those are the three elements that needto go into that sub headline because
the moment that someone visits your profile, they need to know immediately what you
do and who you help, andthat headline will allow them to do that.
And then I'll focus on the featuredarea. So there's a featured section.
(39:23):
I put a link to my website, I have links to articles that
have done really well on LinkedIn,and then I have a link to my
LinkedIn newsletter. Got you all right? So that's in the feature and then
in the summary area, most peoplewill basically put their bullet points of their
resume. No take advantage of this. This is where you can pitch your
(39:46):
five paragraphs and your ten links rightall right, because people will go and
take a look at that. Allright, that's what you're going to do
in the summary section because all yourwork experience is actually down below up.
Absolutely. Wow, those are theareas to optimize. That's good to know,
(40:07):
you know. I hope while peoplewere taking notes and listening to that,
especially if they're on LinkedIn, becauseI've seen a lot of LinkedIn.
You know, that's one of theplaces that I'd like you I stay on
LinkedIn all the time. I meanthat's how I found you on LinkedIn.
So a lot of my guests actuallythat's where I get them on LinkedIn.
You know. So, if youhad one piece of advice that you could
(40:32):
leave with our viewers and our listeners, what would that piece of advice be.
Make sure you have a system inplace that is continually generating leads on
behalf of your business. If youdon't have any form of a system that
(40:55):
is making people aware of who youare and what you have to offer,
you're not going to have a businessfor very long. Gotcha, Wow,
Anything coming up on the horizon thatyou want us to know about, any
training that you might provide, oranywhere you're going to be that you want
(41:16):
us to know about anything that youthink that our viewers and listeners might be
interested in knowing about what's happening inthe future with you. So I'm actually
in the talks with a couple otherwomen who really want because, like you
said in your opening, like threepercent of women are entrepreneurs, Like it's
(41:40):
just such a small number. Andso we are talking about putting together an
AI agency that revolves around women andgetting women whatever sort of help their need
with regards to helping them grow theirbusiness. Okay, you want to be
(42:00):
the AI agency for them? Wow, great, you want to do And
so we're in the beginning stages ofthat. So I'm very excited. You
know, maybe venture it takes timeto build out, but the women that
I'm talking to have really big mindsand ideas and now it's just about putting
(42:22):
the plan into place and bringing bringingpeople in so that we can help them.
Gotcha. So tell us if theviewers and listeners wanted to reach out
to you to find more out moreabout you and what you do and also
about, uh, what you're goingto be doing with the AI, how
(42:44):
can they reach out to you.The best way to get a hold of
me would be to visit up automationdot com. I've got links there to
schedule a call with me. I'vegot resources with regard to content that I've
posted. My LinkedIn is there.I'm also on substack. Substack has been
(43:05):
a really great resource with regard togetting my content out there and getting more
exposure to what I'm doing. Sothose are that's essentially the best way.
I Also, if they're not familiarwith lifetime value and customer acquisition costs.
They can visit upautomation dot com andlearn how to figure out what their lifetime
(43:25):
value of their clients are so thatwhen they make investments into their business,
they can do so knowing this iswhat the lifetime value of a client is
and can I afford this investment?And that's a free download on my website.
Great, well, thank you somuch. We appreciate you coming and
(43:49):
sharing your business journey giving us somegreat success nuggets that we can implement,
especially in business for those women thatare in businesses all. It's good to
have great information. It's always,like you say, continuous learning, and
you've definitely provided that for us today. So I want to thank you for
(44:09):
joining me and again it's just beena pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you, daughter, Doctor Matlin, Little Time Tyler, thank you
for inviting me. This was alot of fun. So I'm really happy
and hoped that I was able tobring some value to your listeners. You
(44:30):
absolutely did. Thank you so much. Okay, so what I'm going to
do now is just let everyone knowabout some upcoming events and of course I
am doing another show up to RiseUp Virtual Summit, which is scheduled for
September twenty six through the twenty eight, twenty twenty four. So if you're
(44:52):
interested in being a speaker for theShow Up to Rise Up Virtual Summit,
you can go to www dot speakat Show Up to Rise Upsummit dot com
at www dot speak at show Upto Rise Up Summit dot com, or
(45:15):
you can email me at info atEXWSI dot com for more information about becoming
a speaker. Don't forget to markyour calendars, and as I said last
time, to start working on gettingyour passport if you don't already have one
or if you need to renew it, because the next Show Up to Rise
(45:37):
Up Women's Retreat is being planned forMay. Yes, we have a date
now May eighteenth through the twenty second, twenty twenty five, and the location
is the Hotel Emotions Resort and Spotin the Dominican Republic. So if you
want to be kept up to datato what's going on or either put your
(46:01):
name on the list, you canemail me at info at EXWSI dot com.
Don't forget to make sure that youview my TEDx talk that I did
in Vancouver, Canada and the talktopic is Show Up to Rise Up.
You can watch it on YouTube,and to do so, just put my
(46:24):
name in the search box doctor Madlinand Lewis, or if you want the
direct link, you can email meat info at EXWSI dot com and I'll
send you that direct link. I'mstill excited. The video is still moving
out there right now. As oftoday, it's at two hundred four thousand,
(46:45):
seven hundred and four views, andof course my goal is to reach
one million plus views. So Iwant to thank you in advance for your
support continuing to share, continuing tolike, and continuing to comment on the
video. Don't forget that I'm alsoa contributing writer to the on It magazine.
(47:08):
I share nuggets and resources every month. On It magazine is a resource
for personal, professional, and businessdevelopment, so make sure to get a
subscription, and to do so forannual subscription, you can go to my
website www dot exw SI dot comand there's a link on there where you'll
(47:36):
be able to purchase an annual subscriptionto the magazine. I also, let's
see, I think that's all theannouncements for today, so I just want
to thank again my guests. ShannonKirkindall and my viewers and listeners for joining
(47:58):
me today. This has been thesuccess for Women's Show. I am doctor
Madeline Ann Lewis, and if you'dlike to reach out to me, you
can email me at info at EXWSIdot com. Go to my website www
dot exw si dot com, andwhile you're there, make sure you just
(48:19):
to download my free three part videoseries on three things every woman should do
to position herself for executive leadership.I'd also like you to sign up for
my online course, which is Crackthe Career Code, how to Lead with
Confidence, Charisma and Credibility. Tosign up for the course, go to
(48:42):
www dot crackthcreercode dot com. Youcan also reach out to me on any
and all of the social media platforms. Make sure that you subscribe to our
YouTube channel, the Talk for TVchannel, and also shared this episode.
We had some great nuggets today,so make sure to share again. This
(49:07):
is the success for Women's Show.We're here every week. I am your
host, doctor Madeline and Lewis helpingwomen to accelerate the path to success.
I want to thank again my guestMishannon Kirkandaal for being here with us my
viewers and my listeners for joining us, and as you know, I love
(49:28):
you all to life and as always, be well and stay safe out there. Got they
The topics and opinions expressed on thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W four WN Radio It's employees or
affiliates. We make no recommendations orendorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or onour web. No liability, explicit or
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questions or comment should be directed tothose show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:22):
W four WN Radio. I gotthe time And did you know women represent
(00:55):
just three percent of Fortune five hundredCEOs and less than fifteen percent of corporate
executives at top companies worldwide. Haveyou wondered what the secrets are to getting
into the top ranks, whether inthe private or public sector. Do you
want to figure out how to stopbeing held back in your career? Are
(01:15):
passed over for promotion, then you'rein the right place. Hi. I'm
doctor Mattlanann Lewis, President and CEOof the Executive Women's Success Institute. I
have decades of experience in the military, the federal government, and corporate America,
and my mission is to help womensucceed and tap into their full potential.
(01:38):
I want to reach a million pluswomen around the world to become the
leaders they are meant to be.So if you want to move into a
management or executive level position, ormaybe you are a female veteran transitioning out
of the military into business entrepreneurship,then reach out to the Executive Women's Success
Institute at three zero one six ninethree three two eighty four. Let us
(02:05):
get you on the fast track tosuccess. Well. Hello, and welcome
to the Success for Women's Show,where you can view us on Talk for
(02:25):
TV and listen to us on theWomen for Women Network. I am doctor
Madline. Ann lewis your host,and my mission is to help women accelerate
the path to success. Well.Today's topic is Simplify your Marketing and my
(02:45):
guest is Shannon kirkindaal. Let mejust give you a little bit of background
about her. Shannon's journey from atechnical vertical virtual assistant to the founder of
up Automation is a testament to herresilience, adaptability, and marketing acumen.
(03:07):
Launching her first business in two thousandand five, she quickly gained a reputation
for precision and dependability, skills thatwould later underpin the success of her digital
marketing agency, up Automation, foundedin twenty fifteen, specializes in helping SaaS,
(03:31):
femtech and cybersecurity startups unlock their growthpotential through strategic marketing and sales techniques.
Expertise, combined with her focus onauthenticity and personal connection, allows her
to deliver customize, impactful solutions thatdrive business success. I'd like to welcome
(04:00):
to the Successful Women's Show, MissShannon Kirkandal. Hi, thank you for
having me. Doctor Madeline Well,thank you for being here. It is
a pleasure. Can't wait to hearyour story and how it all began.
But before we get started, Iusually ask, you know, give the
(04:20):
standard bio on my guests, butthen I like to ask the guests,
So just tell us what you wantus to know about Shannon Kirkandal Ah adventurous,
motivated. I'm a single mom.I have a daughter who's thirty years
(04:43):
old, and so raised her up, and quite honestly, I really really
like her. I think she's becomean amazing human. Not to toot my
own horn, but I feel likethat's sort of half the battle. When
you're raising children is you know,bringing good humans into the world. So
that's one of my success stories.I've had a business for the last twenty
(05:03):
years and what I've learned over thattime is there is one thing that businesses
really need in order to make surethat people know they exist, and that
is bringing awareness to who they areand what they do. And the way
to go about doing that is throughfor me, strategic organic content and reaching
(05:30):
out to people that would be partof your ideal audience and connecting with them.
Wow. So tell me what motivatedyou to shift from technical assistance to
digital marketing and how did you navigatethat transition, because I know I had
to. That was a big kindof a big gap or not, I
(05:55):
wouldn't say gap, but a kindof a big transition there that you hit
to navigate. So I think forme, it came down to a couple
things. Uh. One, Iwas following a company called Digital Marketer out
of Austin, Texas, and Iwas working with a client and we were
actually implementing one of their strategies intoa tool that the time that was called
(06:17):
Infusion Soft it's now called Key Andso we were building out this big strategy
where we were segmenting her audience andthe goal was that we would automate her
email marketing so that she could startselling her courses more regularly, more consistently.
(06:38):
And it was during that time thatInfusionsoft was also having like their summer
event that they have and I reallywanted to go. Well, my client
had paid for me to do thetraining for Infusionsoft so that we could implement
the strategy, and so she said, you know what, I you know,
you've taken to this so quite easily. I'm going to pay for you
(07:00):
to go to this event. Andso it was at that event that it
was like, it's time to giveShannon a race. I'm not a VA
anymore. I'm helping people grow theirbusinesses, and my expertise beyond just the
basics of what a virtual assistant woulddo on the technical side. So I
(07:25):
had some people around me and Iwas like, you know, and I'm
going to build a team and thenI'm going to create this agency. And
it took me about six months toput all the pieces together, and that's
what I did, and through thatI was able to increase my rates.
But I was also able to bringin clients and have the team work on
(07:46):
those projects while I was managing theteam. So it was a slow process,
but at the same time, itwas like the most rewarding And I
think what it came down to wasI needed to find the value you and
myself and the services that I wasoffering in order to do that, because
I didn't see it until I hadactually gone through that training and infusion Soft
(08:09):
and then it ended their event wherethere were all these breakout sections and I
had my AHAs, wow, yeah, you know, I do recall infusion
Soft when it first started out becauseI actually had uh had I was.
I actually had it implemented it inmy business for a while, so I
(08:30):
do remember that. And if Irecall, even though I kind of learned,
you know, sort of how touse it, I didn't always use
it. It was somebody else onthe team, but I just kind of
I thought it was a little difficult. So if you you know, you
understood that it's not easy. Ijust kind of, you know, it's
(08:54):
one of those things where because itwas a part of the business, I
wanted to kind of know what itwas about. So that's why I you
know, learned a little bit aboutit. But when I started really trying
to get into it. I reallyrealized, Eh, this is a little
bit you know, technical for me, So I'm just gonna let you do
(09:15):
it. Okay, I know enoughto dangerous. Yeah, So you know,
I can understand how once you gotto the training and you saw of
this going on and how you hadbeen involved in it beforehand, that that
would give you an Aha moment.And and then the thing about it which
(09:37):
is so impressive is that you actuallyacted on it. You didn't just you
know, sit there and have thatAha mom with them. But when you
left, all of a sudden,it was like, I don't know,
you know, because you you couldhave You actually could have done that and
not really acted on, you know, the thing and started your business.
(09:58):
Exactly the risk that I took becauseI made that change. I did lose
some clients because they weren't ready forme to make that change. Okay,
So I took a risk, butI took the risk, and I bet
on myself right because I had learnedthese new skills, I now could charge
more for my services. So Igave myself a raise, you know.
(10:24):
And that's you know, and asbusiness owners, that's what we have to
do it is I mean a lotof times you do take risks. I
mean, and you know, asa business owner, you have to look
at it and see it as anopportunity and yeah, there could be a
certain risk in it, but it'san opportunity. So sometimes you just have
(10:46):
to step out there and just letit happen. See what happens. And
in your case, it worked outfor the better. It did, it
absolutely did. Now your work isdeeply rooted in resilience and adaptability, as
we can see from how you transition. Can you provide an example of a
significant challenge that you faced and howyou may have overcome that challenge. Yeah,
(11:13):
so this is This happened about ayear, almost two years after I
started my agency. It's my firstreally big fail. I brought in a
project manager who was going to managethe team. My job was to go
(11:33):
out and get clients as the founder, so that's what I focused on,
and it was much harder to findclients than I thought. I wasn't when
I had my virtual assistant. Allmy business came through referrals. So with
an agency, it was a verydifferent beast and I didn't have the mechanisms
(11:58):
in place. To be generating leadsconsistently for my own business, and my
project manager wasn't managing the projects thatwe had, and because of that,
I started to run in the redmanaging the finances. I was on the
entrepreneurial roller coaster feast or famine,And basically it got to the point where
(12:26):
she got frustrated and decided she wasgoing to quit without any notice. That
quitting was detrimental to my business,and that's on me because I didn't have
things properly in place. So whenshe left, I had to let go
of the five people that were managingprojects. I had to let go of
(12:50):
the clients. We had three largeclients at the time. I had to
let them go, and I hadto issue partial refunds. Wow, And
I was devastated. I was embarrassed. I didn't know what to do.
So there was during that time whileI was trying to find clients and trying
(13:11):
to figure out a mechanism to putin place so that we could get leads,
I was thing. My project managerquit before I could even get that
stuff set up. And so becauseI had learned this mechanism to put in
place, which was LinkedIn was reachingout to people on LinkedIn and making them
aware of your business. I waslike, you know what, I'm just
(13:35):
I'm going to go ahead and throwthis up there. I don't have any
business. I don't know what todo. But I went ahead and I
put this LinkedIn lead generation system togetherand I started generating leads form an agency
I no longer had. And sobecause I had been partnering with this company
called Digital Marketer out of Austin,Texas, there were people in that partner
(13:58):
group that I could reach out thatwould be able to fulfill. And so
I went to three of them andI said, I'm going to send you
guys the same three the same leads, because I understand it's not a one
size fits all, So they're gonnabasically each approach and whoever the person went
with, whoever the client decided towork with, they were going to give
(14:20):
me a twenty percent referral fee.And so I did that for three months,
and that's what I survived on whileI put together a whole new agency
package that didn't require a team.Okay, and so there was one person
from my team that did come backand he helped me basically manage this process
(14:46):
that I put together, and thenat the same time I decided to put
all my stuff into storage and buya round trip and buy a ticket through
Remote Year, and I spent twoyears traveling the world while I built my
LinkedIn lead generation system. And soI made lemon out of lemonade. But
(15:07):
I definitely spent three weeks after thatlike big fail, feeling sorry for myself,
trying to figure out what my nextsteps were. I thought I was
going to, you know, drivepeople around as their designated driver to wine
taste like I thought i'd do somethinglike that. Realized I don't really like
driving at night, so that wasgoing to be a good idea. Lives
(15:31):
would be at stake, So no, but having that time to develop the
LinkedIn strategy and seeing that if Icould make it work for me, then
I have something here. And soI started reaching out to other marketing agencies
because I knew they were struggling withthe same thing I had been struggling with.
(15:54):
And I said, this is whatI can do for you. And
I charged fifteen hundred a month,fired a three month commitment, and I
was filled to the gills. Okay, I made lemonade out of the lemons.
Absolutely some times. Yeah, thepain point you found out you were
(16:15):
able to meet their needs because,like you said, they they were looking
for something too, and you camealong and you provided that's something. So
hey, yeah, wow that wasa big fail. That just that was
really really hard, you know,just because I think, you know,
having that conversation with clients is embarrassing. Yeah, you know, because they're
(16:38):
looking at you like, wait aminute, you can't run your company.
You're mismanaging funds, you know,and it's like, as with everything I'm
learning, you know, I cantell you that that was the one and
only time that something like that happened, because after that, I was introduced
to a book called profit First byMike mccallowitsh Okay, profit first is a
(17:06):
way to run your business so thatyou're not you're not seeing what your profits
are after tax time. You're actuallytaking your profits and putting them away.
Okay, all right, And everythree months you take your profits and you
do something with them. So youeither put them back into the business or
you go on vacation, whatever youwant to do. Mike says, it's
(17:29):
you know, this is your profit. There are accountants out there who know
how to do the accounting for peoplewho are using the profit first method.
But it saved me. Like itis you know it. It's basically you
get you know, the money comesin for the services that people are paying
(17:51):
for, and then a small portionof that anywhere from one to ten percent
gets immediately pulled out into a differentaccount and you just ignore it and work
with what you have. We findthat as entrepreneurs, we know really what.
We know how to bootstrap, weknow how to find the free tools,
we know how to maximize those freetools, but whenever money comes in,
(18:14):
we're like, oh, we've gotsome money, I'm going to go
get this tool that costs three hundreda month, only to have to take
it down because of the feast orfamine all right, only to have to
take it down because we can't affordto use it anymore. So profit first
teaches you how to basically manage themoney that's coming into your agency so that
(18:37):
you're not dealing with the feast orfamine. You know, on the months
that you might not have clients comein, you've got money in your profit
account to use to make sure you'recovering your expenses. So it was just
brilliant It was just something that Ihadn't seen before, and I was so
grateful when it was referred to me. So I refer to everybody like,
if you're starting a business, readthis book. I'm gonna have to make
(19:00):
sure I get that book. Yeah, I keep a copy by my desk.
Okay, yeah, I actually willtell us said it profit first book.
That wow, So tell us aboutyour your core philosophy on authenticity and
(19:22):
personal connection. In marketing people,we hide sort of behind these personas and
we need to basically show up.Yeah, you know, we need to.
We need to show all of ourselvesfor the most part. All Right,
(19:44):
people do business with people, especiallynow. I read a lot of
articles where, you know, corporationsare like, well, we want to
market what we offer for the corporation, and it's like people aren't interested in
what the corporation has to offer unlessyou've got a face. Is there somebody?
Do you have a face to thecorporation, somebody with the personality who's
(20:07):
willing to show up and do thegood, the bad, and the ugly.
All right, that's what people want. I still have a hard time
with that, but I know thatit works. You know, you see
a lot of people post content andthen they've got a personal picture on them
on the profile. The reason theydo that is because people will stop and
take a look at the picture.It stops the scroll. They do it
(20:30):
because it works, and it doesn'tmatter if your b corporation you're like,
well, that's not professional, that'snot what we want to do. We're
not going to do that, andthen five months later you're complaining because you
don't have any business. It's becauseyou're not showing up for the people who
want to support you. And ifyou're not willing to show up for the
(20:51):
people who want to support you,they're going to go away and they're never
going to support you. So you'vegot to show up. Find the face.
If the face is a cartoon,create a cartoon character. You know,
there's so many different ways that youcan go about that, but you
got to be real. You gotto show up, yes, and you
(21:11):
have to just be open minded andyou know, you guess what, You're
going to make mistakes. Everybody does. It's part of the process. And
actually sometimes those mistakes can be highlyprofitable because they're going to get a lot
of attention. Absolutely so absolutely,that's that's where That's where I'm at on
that. Wow. So how dothese types of values drive your strategies and
(21:38):
outcomes for your clients? Part ofit is is having the conversation with my
client and making sure that I'm settingsome clear expectations. You know that when
you're coming to work with me,I'm not going to tell you that I'm
going to get you I'm going toget you five new clients this month when
we've just gotten started, Like,I'm not going to do that. That's
(22:00):
a bold face. That's a boldface line. Anybody who says that they
can do that is actively lying toyou. It doesn't work that way.
It takes three months just to buildup momentum, and it takes six months
to see results, right, andif you are an enterprise company, a
company with five hundred or more people, it's going to take you longer than
(22:25):
six months. It may take ayear, it may take a year and
a half. And that's the truth. And anybody else who's saying otherwise,
they're they're lying to you. They'relooking for a cash grap And that's how
I see it. Wow. Now, I know that you've probably worked with
a lot of platforms and some ofthem such as probably HubSpot, Clavio,
(22:55):
Zoho, CRM. Tell us,how do you determine and which of these
tools are the best fit for particularclient because and then there's so many outfits.
Yeah, there's there's a ton.So I take a look at you
know, it's through conversations with theclients. So I take a look at
where they're at in their business.You know, have they are First of
(23:18):
all, are they even using aCRM? All right? Are they keep
are they building a list of somekind? All right? If they're if
they haven't even done that, I'mactually going to introduce them to a tool
that one is either free up toone thousand up to one thousand emails or
something that's going to be around thetwenty five to fifty dollars a month range,
(23:41):
all right, So really, one, what can they afford? Like
I said, I'm all about bootstrapping, So I know free tools, I
know what we can do. Soit really is all about what stage of
the business are they in, whatis their budget, and what are their
goals with regard to one having theCRM? Do they want to you know,
put together some email marketing? Whatsort of offers do they have?
(24:04):
So I take a look at everythingin the business before I recommend a toll
because to me, HubSpot. HubSpot'slike your enterprise. You want it to
run everything. Like I've got aclient who actually has their website completely done
on HubSpot. All right, They'reusing every aspect of HubSpot. That's about
(24:25):
three thousand dollars a month for allof that. All right, she can
afford that. That's what she wants. She has media, she has books,
she has coaching programs, so youknow she needs all of it.
But if that's not where you're at, start with something smaller, because here's
the thing. Every single one ofthese CRMs has a team that will actually
(24:48):
take what you have from one CRMand move it into theirs. And most
of the time it's free of charge, so you can transition to it.
You can upgrade to a new cras your business grows, all right.
I'm a firm believer and don't takeon more than you need. Most of
the time, these tools sit idle, not doing anything for them, and
(25:14):
meanwhile they're spending three hundred a monthor whatever to have the tool. So
make sure you're you know, theclient needs to make sure they're in a
position where we're going to take advantageof that, because for me, I
want to get in there and startputting pieces and building out campaigns right away.
Yeah. Absolutely, I want themto take advantage of what they have
(25:37):
available to them. Wow. Andjust for the listening and viewing audience out
there, we're talking about the differentCRMs when we talked about the HubSpot clabo
and just to clarify, CRM iscustomer relations men exactly. Yeah, I
(26:02):
just wanted to make sure that everyoneout there knew what we were referring to
when we kept using the acronym CRM. So, given the fast paced nature
of digital marketing, how do youstay updated with industry trends and ensure your
clients benefit from the latest advancement becausethings change so quickly, very quickly.
(26:27):
What I've seen with digital marketing isI'm seeing it do a bit of a
full circle. At least a coupleof years ago I saw a full circle.
So which is what it does becausethe names change. When I started
out in marketing as a virtual assistant, it was called Internet marketing. When
I started my agency, it wascalled digital marketing. So but for me
(26:48):
to answer the question, I don'trest on my laurels. I'm a firm
believer in continued education, So forme, I will look for webinars,
I read articles, I just Iabsorb in for so A couple things that
I'm doing right now to stay ontop of current trends would be one.
I am listening and I'm reading toGary Vaynerchuk's new book Day Trading Attention.
(27:14):
That's one of the things I'm doing. And then the other thing I'm doing
because I do LinkedIn lead generation formy clients, I decided to retake a
course that was offered when I firststarted doing LinkedIn lead generation. The course
came back by the same person Itook it from seven years ago and they've
(27:34):
revamped it, and so I waslike, you know what, I'm going
to go ahead and take it againbecause maybe they've got new information. So
quite honestly, what I have foundis I actually know a little bit more
than they do. Not brag.Yeah I'm bragging, But at the same
time, when you do something fora really long period of time, you
(27:56):
learn all you like, you've gotto learn the rules to break the rules.
So for me, it was like, I'm going to go back to
basics and that ultimately helped my businessbecause I scaled back and went back to
basics. It was like relearning therules because so much had changed, and
sometimes you have to do that.Things change so quickly that sometimes just pulling
(28:21):
back and going back to the basicsand then trying again is what's going to
work. So why LinkedIn though,Why do you like that particular platform platform?
Because if you are a B toB, if you're looking for other
businesses to connect with, if youare looking for the CEO, the owner,
(28:45):
or the founder, LinkedIn is wherethey're at. Okay, you know
we're looking at It's now reached abillion people. Yeah, and it continues
to grow. I used to getfrustrated because the number was never the same.
That's how quickly it grows. Andthat's one billion people worldwide. Eighty
(29:07):
percent of people on LinkedIn log intoit daily, every day, every day.
But here's the thing, only sixpercent of everybody on LinkedIn is actually
posting content. Six percent. That'sit. I think about all the room
(29:29):
there to really get your message outthere. Absolutely all right. So for
me, because I work I workprimarily with sas technology, cybersecurity and femtech.
Those founders all right, And Iuse sales navigators, So sales navigator
is really going to let me honein on who my target audience is so
(29:52):
that I can get in front ofthem and so, and I don't do
a pitch fest. Nothing bugs peoplemore are than to connect with them only
to be sent five paragraphs with metell me about it. Yes, I
scratched my head, but I actuallyfigured out a new strategy to engage those
(30:15):
folks, Okay, all right.And it's not about pitch slapping them back.
It's just about starting a conversation tosee if what they're doing is actually
working, okay, because I knowit's not. Yeah, I mean it's
like I get those all the time, you know, Like you say,
the long messages in my inbox fromLinkedIn, you know about something or other.
(30:44):
Yeah, it's well. And thething with if you're going to do
outreach on LinkedIn, you're going youneed to build the relationship absolutely all right.
I'm not like I'm gonna I'm gonnaconnect with you. I'm gonna invite
you to connect with me. Thefirst thing you're going to do is look
at my profile, see if I'mworth somebody connecting with. Absolutely, accept
my invitation and I'm just going tosend you a simple email saying thanks for
(31:08):
connecting. Yes, pretty simple,that's it. Yeah, that's what I
was doing in the beginning. Andthen I started getting these people sending me
these long things, and I thought, hmmm, should I just keep saying
thanks for connecting? Or do Ineed to do something else? So well,
there, I feel like there's twoschool of thought out there, all
(31:30):
right, And I've worked with twodifferent clients in this aspect. I have
the client who understands I got tobuild a relationship and that it's going to
take you some time to build upthe momentum to get people into the funnel
m hm, and to engage withthem before I get somebody who's interested in
booking a call. Then you've gotthe people on the other side who are
(31:52):
no. I don't like it whenthey come in and they trying to be
friends with me. I just knowI just want to get it out of
the way and move on. Ohwow, that's their attitude. And I
don't like working with the clients thatsay no, I don't want to nurture
the lead. Okay, I can'thelp you if you're not interested in nurturing
(32:14):
the leader building a relationship. Ican't help you, and you'll start just
pray and spraying. Wow your spammessage to all over. Yeah, and
you're going to get a lot ofengagement, but most of it are going
to be people who are angry andannoyed exactly like I because I like to
the people that especially that I'm connectedto. You know, when I see
(32:36):
that their birthday is I use Ilike to send them a you know,
happy birthday or congratulations on your anniversaryor a new position or whatever, you
know, just to send something that's, like you say, not trying to
sell them anything or whatever, juststaying connected and just letting them know,
hey, I appreciate you being apart of my network. And you know,
(33:00):
to me, it's like if wecan't do anything for each other,
then fine. But like you said, when you get the long we just
connected two minutes ago, and thenright after that you get that long email
wanting me to get something that theyhave, I don't like that either.
Yeah, I'm the same way.I just had somebody do that the other
(33:22):
day and I replied back, youknow, I'm testing out this new way
to engage the spray and pray andto see if I can convert them into
a lead for myself. But thisguy, when I tried it, he
had a whole nother long message tosend me. Yeah, he's got a
lot of words, and all Isaid was watch and learn, my friend.
(33:45):
And his last reply is, Ihave no idea what you're talking about
exactly. If you just respond withsomething hey, you know, thank you
for reaching out or something like that, then they come back with something another
long Yeah. I have an experience. The secret to it is when you
(34:06):
are engaging, if you want todo LinkedIn and you want to do it
yourself, all right, if youare reaching out to people, keep your
messages extremely short. Offer value.So one of the things there are a
ton of people on LinkedIn who loveto create the carousel. They've got these
really beautiful PDFs that they've created andthat you can download. I feel like
(34:30):
I'm I'm addicted to collecting them.So what I have done is I space
out my messaging and I take alook at one. This is related to
what I could do for them.It's not from me, but I'm introducing
them to a post and something thatcan be done on LinkedIn. Right,
(34:51):
So I've offered them some value andthat's all I do. They don't have
to leave LinkedIn for it. Ihaven't pitched my services. I've just said,
hey, you know what, Ithink this is really cool. It
might interest you. That's it,and I share the post. I'll do
that three times, okay, overover a thirty day period, keyword thirty
(35:14):
day period. Three times every tendays, and then I'm going to invite
them and see if they want toget on a call with me. And
that's it. I haven't pitched myservices. Besides that, my profile's optimized.
They already know what I do exactly. I don't have to pitch you
anything. You see the content thatI write. You know my writing style,
you see what I do. I'mactive on LinkedIn. I don't have
(35:37):
like people make it harder for themselveswhen they create the five paragraphs with ten
links right off the gate. Yeah, that's that's true. So now I
know how to handle this, Ithink. Okay, yes, well tell
(35:58):
us. You know, with theincreasing focus on social media marketing, though,
how do you advise your clients onwhich platforms to prioritize for their specific
industry and audience? Because I know, do you tell all of them to
just be on LinkedIn or do youalso recommend any of the other platforms.
(36:20):
Most of my clients come to mewith other channels that they have accounts with,
so a lot of times I usea tool called metric Cool. It's
M E T R c L,It's free, and basically I get them
to plug in all of the accountsthat so all their social media accounts,
(36:42):
I go into metric cool and Iput their posts on all of them.
This way, I don't have tolog into each channel. I can do
it all for metric Coal, andit's going to give me the analytics for
all of them, so I don'thave any problem cross posting to their other
channels. If they have them,we've got the content, we might as
well make sure that we're getting itout there. So I don't technically do
(37:06):
any strategy for those channels. Youknow. The one thing that I know
is, no matter what channel you'reon, if you want more engagement,
you've got to engage with other people'scontent. That's just the rule of it.
If you're posting stuff on these socialmedia it's the posting ghost If you're
posting in ghosting, you're doing yourselfa disservice. You really do need to
(37:30):
spend some time, especially if youwant eyes back on your stuff, You
do need to spend some time engagingwith other people's content. Absolutely, So
how do you recommend that businesses optimizetheir LinkedIn profiles so that they'll attract potential
leads? So we focus on thebackground header. All right, that's free
(37:57):
real estate. I see a lotof people who have nothing there. They
have a pretty scenic image or somethinglike that. That's your calling card,
that's your business card. Take advantageof that space. Then you want to
make sure that you've got a niceprofile picture profile pictures that do really really
well. You've got it, youknow, from the shoulders up, facing
(38:17):
forward, professional. Don't have yourkids in the pictures with you. Don't
be doing something silly, although somepeople like that. Whatever works. And
then something that I've seen that worksthat I now do is to have a
bright color behind your picture. Okay, something that pops and stands out on
(38:38):
the platform, right right. Thenwe're going to focus on there's a subheading
which is right underneath your name.This is another area to basically say I
help, Who do you help?So? Who's your avatar? How do
you help them? All? Right, and what's the benefit. All right?
(39:02):
Those are the three elements that needto go into that sub headline because
the moment that someone visits your profile, they need to know immediately what you
do and who you help, andthat headline will allow them to do that.
And then I'll focus on the featuredarea. So there's a featured section.
(39:23):
I put a link to my website, I have links to articles that
have done really well on LinkedIn,and then I have a link to my
LinkedIn newsletter. Got you all right? So that's in the feature and then
in the summary area, most peoplewill basically put their bullet points of their
resume. No take advantage of this. This is where you can pitch your
(39:46):
five paragraphs and your ten links rightall right, because people will go and
take a look at that. Allright, that's what you're going to do
in the summary section because all yourwork experience is actually down below up.
Absolutely. Wow, those are theareas to optimize. That's good to know,
(40:07):
you know. I hope while peoplewere taking notes and listening to that,
especially if they're on LinkedIn, becauseI've seen a lot of LinkedIn.
You know, that's one of theplaces that I'd like you I stay on
LinkedIn all the time. I meanthat's how I found you on LinkedIn.
So a lot of my guests actuallythat's where I get them on LinkedIn.
You know. So, if youhad one piece of advice that you could
(40:32):
leave with our viewers and our listeners, what would that piece of advice be.
Make sure you have a system inplace that is continually generating leads on
behalf of your business. If youdon't have any form of a system that
(40:55):
is making people aware of who youare and what you have to offer,
you're not going to have a businessfor very long. Gotcha, Wow,
Anything coming up on the horizon thatyou want us to know about, any
training that you might provide, oranywhere you're going to be that you want
(41:16):
us to know about anything that youthink that our viewers and listeners might be
interested in knowing about what's happening inthe future with you. So I'm actually
in the talks with a couple otherwomen who really want because, like you
said in your opening, like threepercent of women are entrepreneurs, Like it's
(41:40):
just such a small number. Andso we are talking about putting together an
AI agency that revolves around women andgetting women whatever sort of help their need
with regards to helping them grow theirbusiness. Okay, you want to be
(42:00):
the AI agency for them? Wow, great, you want to do And
so we're in the beginning stages ofthat. So I'm very excited. You
know, maybe venture it takes timeto build out, but the women that
I'm talking to have really big mindsand ideas and now it's just about putting
(42:22):
the plan into place and bringing bringingpeople in so that we can help them.
Gotcha. So tell us if theviewers and listeners wanted to reach out
to you to find more out moreabout you and what you do and also
about, uh, what you're goingto be doing with the AI, how
(42:44):
can they reach out to you.The best way to get a hold of
me would be to visit up automationdot com. I've got links there to
schedule a call with me. I'vegot resources with regard to content that I've
posted. My LinkedIn is there.I'm also on substack. Substack has been
(43:05):
a really great resource with regard togetting my content out there and getting more
exposure to what I'm doing. Sothose are that's essentially the best way.
I Also, if they're not familiarwith lifetime value and customer acquisition costs.
They can visit upautomation dot com andlearn how to figure out what their lifetime
(43:25):
value of their clients are so thatwhen they make investments into their business,
they can do so knowing this iswhat the lifetime value of a client is
and can I afford this investment?And that's a free download on my website.
Great, well, thank you somuch. We appreciate you coming and
(43:49):
sharing your business journey giving us somegreat success nuggets that we can implement,
especially in business for those women thatare in businesses all. It's good to
have great information. It's always,like you say, continuous learning, and
you've definitely provided that for us today. So I want to thank you for
(44:09):
joining me and again it's just beena pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you, daughter, Doctor Matlin, Little Time Tyler, thank you
for inviting me. This was alot of fun. So I'm really happy
and hoped that I was able tobring some value to your listeners. You
(44:30):
absolutely did. Thank you so much. Okay, so what I'm going to
do now is just let everyone knowabout some upcoming events and of course I
am doing another show up to RiseUp Virtual Summit, which is scheduled for
September twenty six through the twenty eight, twenty twenty four. So if you're
(44:52):
interested in being a speaker for theShow Up to Rise Up Virtual Summit,
you can go to www dot speakat Show Up to Rise Upsummit dot com
at www dot speak at show Upto Rise Up Summit dot com, or
(45:15):
you can email me at info atEXWSI dot com for more information about becoming
a speaker. Don't forget to markyour calendars, and as I said last
time, to start working on gettingyour passport if you don't already have one
or if you need to renew it, because the next Show Up to Rise
(45:37):
Up Women's Retreat is being planned forMay. Yes, we have a date
now May eighteenth through the twenty second, twenty twenty five, and the location
is the Hotel Emotions Resort and Spotin the Dominican Republic. So if you
want to be kept up to datato what's going on or either put your
(46:01):
name on the list, you canemail me at info at EXWSI dot com.
Don't forget to make sure that youview my TEDx talk that I did
in Vancouver, Canada and the talktopic is Show Up to Rise Up.
You can watch it on YouTube,and to do so, just put my
(46:24):
name in the search box doctor Madlinand Lewis, or if you want the
direct link, you can email meat info at EXWSI dot com and I'll
send you that direct link. I'mstill excited. The video is still moving
out there right now. As oftoday, it's at two hundred four thousand,
(46:45):
seven hundred and four views, andof course my goal is to reach
one million plus views. So Iwant to thank you in advance for your
support continuing to share, continuing tolike, and continuing to comment on the
video. Don't forget that I'm alsoa contributing writer to the on It magazine.
(47:08):
I share nuggets and resources every month. On It magazine is a resource
for personal, professional, and businessdevelopment, so make sure to get a
subscription, and to do so forannual subscription, you can go to my
website www dot exw SI dot comand there's a link on there where you'll
(47:36):
be able to purchase an annual subscriptionto the magazine. I also, let's
see, I think that's all theannouncements for today, so I just want
to thank again my guests. ShannonKirkindall and my viewers and listeners for joining
(47:58):
me today. This has been thesuccess for Women's Show. I am doctor
Madeline Ann Lewis, and if you'dlike to reach out to me, you
can email me at info at EXWSIdot com. Go to my website www
dot exw si dot com, andwhile you're there, make sure you just
(48:19):
to download my free three part videoseries on three things every woman should do
to position herself for executive leadership.I'd also like you to sign up for
my online course, which is Crackthe Career Code, how to Lead with
Confidence, Charisma and Credibility. Tosign up for the course, go to
(48:42):
www dot crackthcreercode dot com. Youcan also reach out to me on any
and all of the social media platforms. Make sure that you subscribe to our
YouTube channel, the Talk for TVchannel, and also shared this episode.
We had some great nuggets today,so make sure to share again. This
(49:07):
is the success for Women's Show.We're here every week. I am your
host, doctor Madeline and Lewis helpingwomen to accelerate the path to success.
I want to thank again my guestMishannon Kirkandaal for being here with us my
viewers and my listeners for joining us, and as you know, I love
(49:28):
you all to life and as always, be well and stay safe out there. Got they
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