Transcript: Welcome back to your 20 minute podcast with David Brower, and our special guest today is Lindsay Phillips from SS Online Support. Hey Lindsay, how is Canada this morning?
LyndsayPhillips: It is feeling like spring. The mornings are brighter, and it’s not as dark right after dinner. I am feeling like there’s a new breath of life in here.
David Brower: Nice. Nice. Yeah, I’m ready for spring. I’m over it, you know?
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly.
David Brower: So Smooth Sailing Online Support is really the name of Lindsay’s company. She’s a serial entrepreneur, a self-professed organizational freak, I like that. Client appointed taskmaster, plus project ninja and warrior VA. Which I assume is virtual assistant, but I don’t know that for sure. Is that right?
LyndsayPhillips: That is true. Yeah. They’re the names that some of my clients had given me.
David Brower: I like it. I like it. What does a virtual assistant do actually in your realm of the world?
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah, there’s so many different kinds of VA’s, so it is a really, really broad term. There’s some VA’s that strictly do scheduling, and working on your calendar, emails, quotes, helping with customer service. There’s some VA’s that focus strictly on web-based stuff. The options out there to get support online is absolutely massive. For me though, David, I’m actually in the midst of rebranding my business slightly, so I’ve just discovered over the past year, eight months, that what I love, love, love to do and have a passion for is content marketing. Our company is niching down so that our VA, if you will, focus is strictly content marketing. So your blogs, videos, podcasts, social media, email marketing, sales funnels, and, of course, online events, and your lead magnets to attract and acquire business.
David Brower: Well, and that makes all the sense in the world. As rapidly as the technology is changing, and businesses need to ramp up. Especially those who don’t even know what content marketing is, right?
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah. I think that some people too, they know the term, and Lord knows, there’s a lot of terms out there of online marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing. Basically, just to really simplify it, it’s all that content, the material value that you’re giving people through all the different mediums. Not everyone has a podcast show. Some people deliver it through videos, some people let people know, give tips, share their knowledge, share their expertise through blogs, or lead magnets, so like an e-book, or a video series, whatever it may be. Basically, you’re sharing all that good stuff that you know, and you’re sharing with the world how awesome you are, and how you can serve them by giving them free resources and free stuff.
David Brower: That’s what we’re all looking for is something free to help us grow our business, right?
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly, that’s how I started out.
David Brower: Good for you, good for you. How do you do that? An entrepreneur says, “Man, I need to understand this content marketing. What Lindsay’s talking about makes all the sense in the world. I don’t know how to get from A to B, let alone A to Z.”
LyndsayPhillips: I know, I totally get that a lot, and I think people … There are so many options, right David? There is so many social media platforms, there is different video hosting, there’s different ways of doing podcasts, there’s blogs. They’re like, “Oh, my god, how am I going to get all this done? Where do I start?” They’re just, I think even stuck. They aren’t moving forward because they don’t even know where to begin. For me, and I said this to a number of clients recently too, it’s like, “Breathe. Don’t feel that you need to do it all at once. Start with having consistent social media marketing, ensuring that you’re engaging with people on a regular basis. Make sure that you have a blog that’s going out consistently.”
LyndsayPhillips: Some people do it once a day, some people do it once a week. Honestly, even if you’re doing it twice a month and you’re consistently sharing it, that’s a start. Then if you can do two videos a month. Then once you get into the rhythm, and you get a routine going, and you get your confidence, then you can do one a week. Then maybe from there you’re like, “Hey, I’m rocking it out on video and blogs, I’ve got tons of content ideas in my head. I could totally start a podcast show.” You’re stepping into it slowly.
David Brower: That makes all the sense in the world. Do you lead them by the hand through that? Do you do the content marketing with them, for them? How does all that piece together?
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah, that’s a good question. Because some people are not skilled at writing blogs, or they just don’t want to, they don’t have the time. That is an easily outsourced item. I do have some clients that they love to write. They have so much content, so much stuff written. You can pull stuff from a book that they’ve written. It’s just finding, it’s like, “Okay, what do you like to do, what do you not like to do? What makes sense financially?” Let’s say someone’s hourly value is $200 an hour, it doesn’t make sense for them to post a blog when they could outsource that for a cheaper rate. So then I manage all the moving pieces. You give me your video, I will set it up in YouTube, do all the backend, promote it. I obviously proof the material with my clients in regards to the social media content, but I’m the one that’s doing all the backend stuff. You create the content, or use a copywriter, and then I do all that back end stuff and the website, and promote it out to the right channels.
David Brower: Wow, that’s a lot. That takes a huge burden off a lot of business people, especially those that don’t have the confidence to even put their toe in the water. You’re saying, “Come on, jump in, let’s go.”
LyndsayPhillips: Absolutely. Honestly, I hate videos. I hate putting myself out there. If I could be on podcast shows, if I could do videos, [inaudible 00:06:58] anybody can. Be confident in what you know, what you have to share. People have value in that. They want more of it. Just, once you start, it’s just the starting. Right?
David Brower: Yeah, exactly.
LyndsayPhillips: You’ll get your confidence after you start.
David Brower: Yeah, you got to ease your fear enough to at least take that first step, figure out a way to be consistent with as little or as much as you’re comfortable with.
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly. Just know that your first couple of podcasts or your first couple of videos, they’re going to suck and that’s okay.
David Brower: Right. We called that a learning curve back in the day.
LyndsayPhillips: I know, and then once you get a bunch under your belt, then you can remove the old ones that you hate. At least you’re starting. You have to start somewhere.
David Brower: Let’s say somebody gets a hold of you and they don’t know what they don’t know. They say, “Well, could you help me with the blogs? Could you help me with the videos?” Do you have a team that does all that stuff, or do you encourage them to outsource it through other people? Or how do you put the pieces together for a novice?
LyndsayPhillips: For sure. It’s funny, in the past six months or so I have been doing a lot more strategic coaching, if you will, on getting people from A to B, because it can be overwhelming. It’s brainstorming sessions on different topics. Honestly, reusing the same content. If you have a great article idea, and then you want to write it, or I have copy writers on staff, so we outsource that. You can take that one article and create an easy three minute video from that, if not two videos from that. Podcasts, you can easily create a podcast from that as well if it’s host only, or interview style is a different ballgame.
LyndsayPhillips: Reusing that same content, you can create social media posts, probably about eight of them just from one blog alone. It’s knowing some of those tricks. I just try to scale it in for the clients, say, “Just focus on the blog. If you can write one blog, then I’m going to tell you to do X, Y, Z by such and such a date, and then I’ll take care of the rest, and then you can breathe and it’s done.”
David Brower: Wow. That is a huge sigh of relief when somebody doesn’t know what they’re doing.
LyndsayPhillips: It is. I think sometimes people feel like they need to do stuff every day, but it’s like, I have one client where it’s like, “Okay, the first week of every month you need to give me two blog topics. Once we have those topics, you need to do couple of videos.” Then they record their podcast as well. They have the first week of every month where they know to schedule it in their scheduler that they have to do those things, and then I take care of the rest, proof them at the end of the month for their social media, and the way it goes. It’s a very well oiled machine, and it’s very methodical.
David Brower: It sounds like it. It has to be structured, it has to be simple.
LyndsayPhillips: Then honestly for the clients, I mean, I do it too obviously, but for the clients it’s like, if you have one day a month where you have a video script, or a rough outline of certain topics that you want to cover, and then you just take two hours and do a whole whack of videos, you’re done. That’s it. You don’t have to think about it.
David Brower: It’s interesting, because I do voiceover work as my profession. I put up some of my commercials, TV commercials that I do, I put those up on my YouTube channel, and I have a video for my business that I put up there. As you’re saying that I’m going, “My gosh, I could take the dozens, and dozens, and dozens of blogs I’ve written over the last few years and just really create some interesting videos.” I never even thought about it. Never even thought about it.
LyndsayPhillips: Yep, reuse what you got.
David Brower: Yeah. Recycle, recycle, recycle, and don’t try to reinvent the wheel and make it as simple as you can.
LyndsayPhillips: Because really, for me, I love to read. I love blogs where some people love to watch videos. You also got to think about how different people learn differently as well, and which avenue they’re going to come in on. If you’re only focusing on one channel, or just blogs, you’re missing a whole pool of people that love videos.
David Brower: Yeah. Absolutely, right. In sales, obviously, the sales game is to push everything towards the sales funnels, right?
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah.
David Brower: How do you do that?
LyndsayPhillips: The biggest part of sales funnels is when it comes to email marketing, but if you do look at it literally as an actual funnel, and you have all these, what I call, entry points. Your social media platforms are entry points, your website is an entry point. Same with, let’s say you have a lead magnet on your website, you’ve got Facebook ads out there for X, Y, Z, they are all your entry points. If someone lands in one of them, like your social media, you want to offer them something to get on your E list. You want them to get fully engaged. You want them to click, you want them to comment, you want them to share. There’s tricks and tips to do that.
LyndsayPhillips: Let’s say, for instance, your blog. At the end of your blog, you always want to have a call to action. Whether it’s, “Hey, if you enjoyed this topic of X, Y, Z, I bet you would really like a free report on this.” They’re like, “Yeah, I would like that.” Then they sign up right there. Get them while they’re hot right on that blog page. Some people, of course, have specific pop ups that only occur on blog or podcast post pages. Then you can track too who’s watching your blogs, and stuff like that. Again, a little pop up, “Hey, if you’re interested in this, maybe you’d like to sign up for my online webinar.”
David Brower: If they’re reading a blog, and I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying, so you’re reading my blog, and there is a pop-up that comes up on my blog?
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah, so you can have it timed so that when someone’s reading your blog, like it doesn’t pop up right away, because that’ll just annoy them. Let’s say they’re, I don’t know, three minutes in, or whatever the timing is. They’re about three quarters of the way through reading your blog, and then a pop-up comes up and, hey, maybe you’d like to join this webinar, or maybe you’d like this checklist. Maybe you’d like to join my newsletter list.
David Brower: Yeah.
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah.
David Brower: That’s pretty cool.
LyndsayPhillips: You’re pulling them in, and you’re hooking them with your content and giving them free resources, but then you always want to have a call to action in some way via those entry points.
David Brower: Absolutely. You want the call to action, you want them to take advantage of whatever the free information is that you have so that they have a reason to connect with you, and you continue to reach out to them over time, right?
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly. Then email marketing is a whole another strategy. You want to nurture them, send them free content here and there, let them know when you’ve got free webinars. Again, the more engaged they get with you and your content, the further down the funnel they’re naturally going to get. You know what? That person does really know what they’re talking about when it comes to, I don’t know, let’s just say video marketing. I think I’d like to get into that. They’re going to be top of mind, so they’re going to contact you.
David Brower: That’s terrific. I love that process, and you’ve obviously been working at this for a while to get it as streamlined and as simple as you possibly can for the end user.
LyndsayPhillips: Yeah. I’m always learning as well myself, because like you said earlier, things are changing so much. There are so many options. I studied like [inaudible 00:15:25], and he’s got his indoctrination series, and engagement series, and a trip wire to pull them down the funnel. Frank Kern, and his sales funnels. They’re a lot more elaborate and spider out there a little bit more. I do pay attention to what those big entrepreneurs are doing, how they’re doing it. I find it interesting. There are so many different strategies out there and it can be overwhelming, so it’s what fits you, your personality style, but also your target market. Some strategies may turn them off, and some would be a good fit.
David Brower: Right. That’s a matter of you getting with the business owner and learning more about their business, their philosophy, their personality. Just really having a solid conversation about what’s going on, what they’ve been doing, what they need to do, those kinds of things.
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly. Because I have at one point, in his target market, they’re very blue-collar. They’re not necessarily email, or techie savvy. What’s going to attract them is going to be completely different than, let’s say, me.
David Brower: Yeah, absolutely right. Absolutely right. On your bio in the list of 27,000 things that you offer businesses, it might be a slight exaggeration, but not much. You talk about starting your own podcast, and how you can use a podcast to grow your business. You’ve got a step-by-step process for those who are interested in it, but really don’t know what to do.
LyndsayPhillips: I do. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to A, set it up, and then B to launch it if you will. If you simplify it down, it’s not that bad. It’s just knowing what those steps are upfront. Podcasts, I don’t know if you remember the commercial way back when, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on. That’s pretty much what a podcast does. I love it because I love connecting with other hosts, or my guests, or you just meet so many cool people. I love that part of it. They’re sharing it, and other people are sharing it. It extends your exposure so so many more people can find out about who you are, and what you do, and you can serve so many more people exponentially.
David Brower: It’s like way back in the day, and it’s still true today, but back in the day, the primary form of success was word-of-mouth. This is really word-of-mouth on steroids.
LyndsayPhillips: Exactly. So many people are on the go, and they’re listening to podcasts in the car, at the gym while they’re working out, even while they’re getting the kids ready in the morning. They listen to a mommy podcast, or whatever it may be. People want help. They want resources. Or they want something that’s amusing, or even just inspiring. Like how to get in the right mindset, and you can do it. Whatever that may be. Just hearing people’s success stories. People eat it up, they love it.
David Brower: Absolutely. They want something to help get them excited, and be excited about going to work the next day, and figuring out something to grow their business.
LyndsayPhillips: Yep. Exactly.
David Brower: If somebody wants to get a hold of you, and they don’t know what they don’t know about working with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?
LyndsayPhillips: For sure, thanks for asking. I have two sites, so one is LindsayPhillips.com. I still wish I was Ann Smith.
David Brower: I know, right? Yeah.
LyndsayPhillips: It’s L-Y-N-D-S-A-Y, P-H-I-L-L-I-P-S.com. There is my podcast show, my videos, my blogs, so tons of really great resources. In regards to my business side and how I can help other entrepreneurs grow their business, that is SSOnlineSupport.com. I do have a great client attraction system, so eight easy to implement content marketing strategies to attract more clients and grow your business. If they go to SSOnlineSupport.com/clientattraction, they can easily grab that guide as well, it’s free.
David Brower: How cool. I’m doing that in three minutes. No.
LyndsayPhillips: Awesome.
David Brower: Lindsay Philip’s is Smooth Sailing Online Support. She’s helping emerging entrepreneurs be more efficient, productive, and profitable in their business. Be sure to log on to either one of her websites, Lindsay Philip’s, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y Phillips.com, or SSOnlineSupport.com and see what she could do to help you. It’s obviously you’ve had great success, and people need to reach out to you. Congratulations on your success.
LyndsayPhillips: Thanks so much, David.
David Brower: Lindsay Philip’s, our special guest. You’ve been listening to your 20 minute podcast with Dave Brower. We hope you’ll follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/your20minutepodcast.