On this episode of Motivating Other Moms, Rosemary is joined by Lindsey Anderson. Lindsey has great insight into marketing, websites and social media. Lindsey shares details about her free web analysis and talks about her web development business. Lindsey and Rosemary talk about the daily struggles of owning a business and being a mom, and the guilt that comes along with it. They also discuss their mutual business coach and their experience with other business coaches.
Tweetables
“Sometimes you just need a referee and you need someone to let you know the other person’s point of view.”
“There’s a lot going on behind those pretty pictures on Facebook.”
“The more value and the more trust you can build with people, the more successful it’s going to be.”
“Just focus on one thing at a time.”
About Our Guest
Lindsey Anderson is a web strategy expert working with small business owners to help them grow their businesses. Lindsey is the founder and CEO of two companies; Web Impakt, a successful web development company, and Lindseys Web, an online resource for small business owners to learn about ranking on search engines, newsletters, analytics, social media, pay-per-click ads, websites, blogging, and the list goes on. She knows how to utilize web technologies to help small business owners achieve their dreams. She is the proud mommy of two little cherubs. A four year old girl and a three year old boy.
Transcript
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Woman: Mompreneurs, if you’re pulling double duty with kids and a business, you know how hard it is and it can be easy to feel so alone. But I’ve got great news. You’re not alone and you can do this. Welcome to motivating other moms. The show that pulls back the curtain to show vulnerable moments, lessons learned and solid business tips for mompreneurs. Now, here’s your host, successful mompreneur, Rosemary Nickel.
Rosemary: Welcome Lindsay Anderson. I’m so glad you’re here.
Anderson: Hi Rosemary. Thank you so much for letting me be on your show. I definitely can relate to it as my children and my business is my passion so you’re right up that alley.
R: And that’s the two qualifications. You own a business and you have kids.
A: Excellent.
R: So in case you’re ever wondering how do I get to be a guest on motivating other moms radio, just inbox me at Rosemary at motivatingothermoms.com and I’ll take a look at what you’re doing and if I find it interesting — it doesn’t matter where you’re at on your journey whether you’re at the beginning. I’ve interviewed someone. It was their first day being a fulltime entrepreneur. I was so excited.
A: Wow.
R: That was a real big honor for me and she probably thought well, this is a big deal. She’s letting me do this the first day but it was like for me that’s a big honor to be able to be in that moment.
A: Yeah. I’m going to go find that and listen to that. That sounds very interesting.
R: Yeah. It was really cool. So don’t be afraid to reach out to people because you might be surprised. I like small and big. Everybody has value to add in the journey that we’re all on as entrepreneurial moms and I’m so excited to have you here because we were just talking about that journey before this show and that we both found out and realized that we’re in the same coaching group.
A: Who-ho. Jim Palmer, doing business academy.
R: Look at you go girl. He is an amazing coach. He’s hands down my favorite coach that I’ve ever had. He really cares about his clients and you kind of become a family member with him. But one of the things we talked about was I said oh, I love what you’re offering on your website. It’s going to be interesting to see what Jim has to say about that and you’re like — what was that that you said about it? I’ll let you tell that part.
A: Well, do you want me to alter the offer first. So essentially you can hit my website at lindseysweb.com so that’s L-I-N-D-S-E-Y-S web.com and essentially there you will find a free website review where you can fill out this form and I will go to your website and all your social media channels, I will check out your search engine optimization and I will tell you some cool action items that you can go ahead and do on your very own to start getting leads online. It’s about — it ranges from 10 to 20 minutes and I will send you a video. You don’t even have to call and talk to my beautiful voice so it’s pretty cool. I have not checked in with Jim about that. I think he’s going to say that you’re giving away way too much but so far I’ve really enjoyed doing it so make sure you go and take me up on that offer before Jim takes it down.
R: Yeah. I think he’s going to tell you to take it down too because I thought —
A: This is awesome.
R: Well, I think it’s awesome too. I was like wow. This is very generous. And why do you think Jim’s going to tell you to take it down?
A: I know Jim’s going to tell me to take it down because he’s going to say my time is worth more than that and people need to pay for such amazing advice.
R: And for people who are listening who are still building their business this is really a big, huge lesson and it’s something that all of us struggle with is understanding our value and the time that it takes. I love that offer because I think it’s different so hopefully he’ll be — it makes you stand out but it is time consuming.
A: It is time consuming and Jim will say, he’ll straight up tell you my hourly rate is 950 dollars an hour so if I’m — if I take his lesson and so essentially if you take me up on my free website review you’re getting a 300 dollar value because it will take me about 20 to 30 minutes to put that together for you. So 300 bucks on my website. Go hit me up.
R: Yeah. Get it now while you can because I mean, we are both pretty sure that is definitely going away.
A: It’s dead. Our IP.
R: Which business — you have two businesses. Which one did you start first?
A: Yeah. So I started Web impact first. I started that back in 2004 so we’ve been doing it for a long time. Essentially that is a web development company where you can come to me and get your websites or your search engine optimization or your social media. I started that when I graduated from college. I worked out at a nuclear waste facility by day and that was super duper boring so by night I was developing websites. My first website was for a local jewelry company and I think I finished up their website for about a penny an hour because I was just so — it was so awesome that they were allowing me to do that because I was kind of a newbie at the time but it definitely built my resume, it built my credibility and so that’s where Web impact began. We’ve been through a lot of different phases of that company from employees then down to contractors. We had offices then we don’t have offices. It’s been a long journey and we’re in a really excellent place right now so back in September of last year, 2014, I started Lindsey’s web which is essentially a place for small business owners and entrepreneurs to go and learn bite size information about how to market online because it can get so overwhelming for the entrepreneur to know search engine optimization or social media. It just gets really overwhelming and there’s so much technical stuff in there so I just will release articles taking it in very bite size pieces so go check that out.
R: Wow. That’s pretty amazing and along this journey somewhere you became a mother, right?
A: Oh, yes I did. And I love being a mother but it is so dang challenging to be running a business and managing employees and all of that and you have the two little cherubs. I have two little cherubs that — they are most important and it’s — you constantly have to remind yourself of that.
R: How old were they or where in your business did you start having babies? How old was your business?
A: Yeah. It was at the worst — quite frankly it was at the worst possible time I had children in 2010. Obviously we were coming out of the recession. We were making some — we had a bunch of back taxes and we had a huge office and we were paying employees way too much and then we had my first — my daughter Cordelia. She was born in 2010 so she is four years old now and then I loved her so much that I was like let’s do this again and so 18 months later little Batman came along and I have to call him Batman because every day he wakes up and he requires us and his teachers to call him Batman. So his name is really Becket but don’t tell him I really told you his real name because it is Batman. That is a true story.
R: I love it.
A: His grandma will send truckloads of Gymboree but nope. I have to go to Wal-Mart and buy superhero shirts because that is all he will wear.
R: I love it.
A: And so it’s — anyway. I could talk about my kids all day but it was very difficult because then all of a sudden you have more responsibilities obviously with the little ones and there’s just — it’s just they take so much time obviously and the business was kind of struggling and it was a lot. It was a lot.
R: So you mentioned back taxes. That’s a big huge thing we don’t talk about.
A: I know. I shouldn’t even admit it.
R: No. no, no. alright. We have back taxes.
A: Okay.
R: My husband is an expert at that.
A: It’s so hard.
R: He is — well, he does it on purpose.
A: Well, there you go. At least —
R: He had a plan around it. He has a plan around it. It’s like okay. We’re going to put this off and then we’re going to go do this and this and this and this. While we’re going to do it and this is by the end we don’t have to pay as much because we’ll have time to do this and then okay. Whatever.
A: Yeah.
R: He’s not ever allowed to die on my for so many reasons.
A: Yeah. Otherwise the IRS will come after you.
R: So let’s talk about back taxes and what that looks like and whether — you can postpone paying your taxes but how does that affect your business and what kind of stress does that put on you?
A: It was horrible. I was eight months pregnant with my daughter and we had so many back taxes that the IRS had to send a lady over and she was looking at all of our receipts and it was just like oh my goodness. How are we going to do this? Because again, we had all these employees and so with the payroll taxes and all of that. We made payroll every single paycheck. We’ve never missed the payroll and so it was just those back taxes that kind of are the — us and the taxes are the last thing to get paid and it adds an incredible amount of stress because it just keeps adding up and adding up and adding up and then you hear all these commercials about the government’s going to — the government will not relent so it was a lot of stress but we just put our head down, came up with some plans. We were bringing in plenty of business. I was — we were — our revenues were huge but it was all going out the other way.
R: Out into the employees?
A: Yes, yes.
R: Yeah. I read that you said that — or I think you said you were overpaying them or I read it. That you were overpaying your employees. What got you to that point to realize that you were overpaying them?
A: Well, the problem was as I said, I came from a government job so everyone was making like ridiculous hourly rates myself included and I was surrounded by programmers that were making ridiculous hourly rates so of course when we started our company we were starting everybody at half what we were even making as a government job and thinking oh, we’re getting a pretty good deal. What finally made us realize that is — I mean, they’re just — we weren’t making any profit. So it’s like we’ve got to evaluate what’s up and we opened our mind to outsourcing and subcontracting and it’s just better that way because the employees aren’t sitting — contractors only work when they have work and you don’t have to pay them for vacation, you don’t have to — I still have three fulltime employees but they are well worth it and they’re always busy.
R: Yeah. You don’t have to pay health insurance either.
A: Health insurance, vacation, all of that. Yeah. It just — yeah. I don’t know.
R: It adds up because my husband’s business is extremely lucrative and the money that we see come in I just look at it and we both sit there and go oh my god. We could be millionaires if we didn’t have to pay all this money out.
A: I know.
R: And it hurts.
A: Yeah. Yeah. It does hurt. And taxes are — all of that hurts. It’s horrible. It’s very difficult being a small business owner and yeah. And a mother so —
R: Yeah. It is. What was the most difficult thing? Becoming a mother and having your business. What was one of the — what was one of your biggest down moments?
A: I would — that’s a really good question. Still thinking. One of my biggest down moments probably was I have a lot of — we’re being honest, right?
R: Yes, we are.
A: So I have a guilt thing, right. I’m sure — I guess you’re not a good mother — maybe you’re not a good mother if you don’t have a lot of guilt so I constantly feel guilty that the business is taking away from the time with the kiddies and I’m looking at my phone too much but I am — but on the other hand at least they’re not with the babysitter and so is it okay that I look at my phone enough. It’s a constant struggle I would say.
R: Yeah. It is a constant struggle. I actually talked to a entrepreneurial mom at an event recently and she was saying — she’s like — I said your kids are out of school, right? And they’re out of the house? And she goes not — the last one’s almost out and they’re all starting college and she goes and I am — I’m like oh, alright. You’ve — meet the golden egg. This is great. It’s like retirement for mothers. And it’s something that I think a lot of us with younger kids strive for and don’t at the same time.
A: Yeah. It’s such a mix. And then the younger kids — as I said, my kids are three and four so it’s like constant entertaining them.
R: Yes.
A: There’s no — we don’t do a lot of TV at our house and so it’s just constant — there is no slipping away to my computer when it’s my turn to be with the babies.
R: No. and she said — actually she says it’s really harder than I ever thought it was going to be.
A: Yeah.
R: And I thought — I always thought that well, I’m going to make sure I have a purpose so that I can continue on and my life isn’t empty. Well, she has a purpose. She has a really big business.
A: That’s awesome.
R: And she still is — she says this is the hardest thing. And she goes my biggest regret was being with my kids but not being present and I would be on my phone, talking to my clients. And she goes that’s my biggest regret. So it’s funny that you mention that. It’s something that we all — I struggle with it all the time as well. It’s very hard.
A: Yeah. It’s like I’m literally not taking my cell phone to I jump because I want to be there with the kids. I don’t want them looking back and being like yeah. Mom was always on her phone. And I don’t want that for them.
R: That’s been my only cure is that the phone stays in the car or it just doesn’t come at all.
A: Yeah. It has to be. And it gets frustrating. Yesterday I had my business coaching call with Jim, my one on one with my business coach and he came up with some amazing ideas and it was my turn — because my husband actually works for me so it was my turn to rock the kids in. the whole time I’m like oh I just really want to go work on this but I got to take the kids to I jump. I just have to. That has to be compartmentalized and put off till the morning. Where when we didn’t have kids you could work all night, work all day. I don’t know. It would be so awesome if I had a few more hours a day.
R: It would, wouldn’t it?
A: The kids are awesome. I’m not saying — we love our children and all of the wonderful things they bring with them but it’s definitely a struggle.
R: it is definitely a struggle. In starting your — lindsaysweb.com how does that — does that complement your other website or is it just so totally different and why did you choose to do that?
A: Yeah. So well, first of all, the power of social media and doing video is something that every business should be taking advantage of. People — I’ll kind of go into the lecture mode now. Let me talk about video real quick. So people love video. People get sick of kind of reading on paragraphs and — little bite sized video — just that doing some videos has changed my business a lot. I started Lindsay’s web because I wanted to be able to educate people so my clients are constantly — my web design clients are constantly asking the same questions over and over so instead of me having to repeat it it’s been way awesome just to send them this professional video. Hey, you want to know more about how to get listed on Google? Well, watch this quick video. And the clients seemed to like it. So essentially Lindsay’s web is a gateway to web impact work so I give out all this free information and I am the face of Lindsay’s web and people learn to trust me. The beauty of social media — I’ve met so many new friends. I’ve had people contact me through Lindsay’s web saying you have to help me. And we’re best friends now because I watch you on videos all the time and I basically take that work that comes in through Lindsay’s web and hand it off to Web impact which can handle all of your web development needs.
R: How has this been because you’re working with your spouse? There’s very few of us that are working together with our spouse. How — what’s been the biggest struggle with you guys working together?
A: Oh, gosh. I don’t see how honest are we going to be today Rosemary?
R: I could tell you I love my husband. I hate my husband. There’s days that we don’t like being together and there’s days that — most days we love it. We love bouncing off of each other and the energy we have but yeah. It’s — that’s my review of it. For me.
A: Okay. Fair enough. My husband Ian, he is truly great. I am divorced. My first husband — so I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life. I used to work at a swimming pool. I was a manger of a swimming pool. So I came up with this idea. This was many, many years ago. Where people could go and schedule swimming lessons online. There was nothing like that because online was just coming on. So I went to my ex husband and I was like can I totally do this. And he was like yes. You can have 50 dollars to do that. It’s like wow. That is so not enough. Anyway, flash forward to today. So that was supposed to be funny. Flash forward to today, my wonderful, amazing, supportive husband, he’s really great. However he does not have an entrepreneurial bone in his body. He just kind of — he just doesn’t work that way. He would be fine with an eight to five job and so he’s been really great to support me in that so he works for me. He does all my heavy lifting programming so he can pretty much program. He can program apps, he can program anything at all and so he basically takes the work that I get and I hand it off to him. I don’t let him to talk to customers because if you know web developers you don’t ever want them talking to clients. Anyway, he’s been so supportive. So I can’t complain too much about that but we definitely — it’s been a struggle because we’re very different that way as far as being entrepreneurial and not entrepreneurial. He’s definitely not a stressed guy where I’m very — I’ll call myself high strung. I get very worried about things. I’m very stressed and that has been probably our biggest challenge where like I will micro manage a client and be like should I send this email with or without a period in this sentence. And he’s just like just send it. and it’s like I will wake up and since I’m an entrepreneur I will talk business from — I usually get up at four because I have the two little babies and I’ve got to get in a few hours of work before they wake up but I’ll usually — I could talk work from four to 10 where like two or three into our marriage Ian was finally like okay. You cannot talk to me about business until after I have my first cup of coffee. So we’ve laid these rules. I will not talk to him before he has his first cup of coffee even if I have this really great idea or a problem with a customer. That’s just some rule that we have made. And once we turn off the computers at five o’clock we go upstairs like it’s — we don’t talk business anymore. He has laid those ground rules which is totally fine. It has helped our relationship so much and quite frankly we would do a little bit of couple’s counseling maybe once a quarter to kind of go in to a counselor and just make sure that our communication lines — nobody’s feeling taken advantage of, nobody’s feeling not appreciated in our relationship.
R: I think that is brilliant. That is brilliant.
A: It’s not — it’s something — it’s kind of iffy because it’s like oh, she goes to counseling with her husband. But quite frankly, sometimes you just need a referee and you need somebody to let you know the other person’s point of view.
R: I think it’s brilliant. My gosh. It was years ago. I met Debbie Philips of Women on fire. Feels like a lifetime ago. And she was just releasing her first book and I had just got connected with her and my husband says — my husband was at a conference where she was at speaking _____00:19:50 husband and he says you’ve got to get to know this person. I’m connecting with her. And so then I kind of started looking into more about what they do and they do this thing called couple’s vision day on Martha’s Vineyard and I went oh my gosh.
A: Wow.
R: I want to do that. We were like extremely happy when we signed up for this thing.
A: Wow.
R: But there was a part of us that we’re like okay. we’re in this — we could feel we were in this growth area that you couldn’t explain things needed — we could feel that the changes were happening and we needed to change and maybe it would be smart for us to go ahead and go and do something like this now before maybe things started changing and they wasn’t good. So we went and it was a full day just for us. And I’ll tell you what. They wouldn’t let me complain about him for a minute. I’m still mad about that. I’m still mad. I’m like but you don’t understand.
A: He’s this way.
R: He doesn’t do this and he doesn’t do that. And they’re like that’s not what it’s about right here, right now. And it’s really great. And I’ve got to say it’s been one of the single, biggest and best investments we ever made in our marriage.
A: That’s awesome.
R: So I think doing what you guys are doing and being proactive is extremely smart.
A: It has to be. Ian will tell people — I mean, there have definitely been times that he’s like I do not want to work for you. I’m just going to go find a legit job but we have somehow — overcame those and we’re like — right now we’re working in a really good place. Jim will tell a story of like you have a horse and it can pull 10000 pounds by itself. And then you have another horse which can of course pull 10000 pounds but if you put them together they can both pull 50000 pounds. And so that’s how my husband and I are kind of taking on life and the business and the children is we — if we can synergize and become together then we can move mountains together. And I’m so lucky to have him because a lot of husbands don’t believe in the whole woo-woo thing. I got my husband’s feedback on a vision board I just created which I thought for sure he was going to make fun of me but he was there totally supportive. I signed up for Jim’s mastermind group and I was like honey it’s going to be this much. Is that cool? And I was the one questioning it and he was like just do it. So I feel particularly blessed that I have him to support me and to follow my crazy entrepreneurial ideas for sure.
R: Yeah. I think that makes a huge difference when you have somebody on your team that is cheering you on and saying alright. You can do this or yeah. We’ve got this. It’s great. What are some of the big things that you struggle with at home with the kids and dinner and house chores and all of those things because that’s a big problem with couples.
A: It really is. It’s definitely the — I know I’ve already brought TV up but it is a — it’s something that — when we first had kids we were like we’re only going to do about half an hour a day and it’s something that I really want to do a lot more than that because the clients are screaming and you want to push things ahead for them so that is definitely something that has been very difficult. When they were younger we didn’t send them to daycare so my husband as you know works for me and so we would literally have to split up the day and — so that becomes very difficult but every Sunday — what has started working really well for us is every Sunday we actually sit down and him and I have a planning meeting for the week so we take family time as business and we say where do the kids need to go, what’s for dinner, make sure that’s all lined up and what needs to get done with the business and we literally write it down and then the next Sunday we check it off. So planning and writing things down definitely helps. Even though it’s annoying but it definitely helps.
R: Yeah. Do you guys split the responsibility of the home of making dinner or do you guys hire out help to keep the house clean? How do you guys handle that?
A: Yes. I have a housekeeper. But it’s — and a lawn keeper but only because — back to what we were saying at the very first of this it’s like is that worth my time to take away from the kids and to take away from the business doing something that — someone I can pay 20 bucks an hour to do? No. so you have — it’s — you have to take that to your life and same with your business. Hire a VA to do those tasks that you don’t want to do. Hire a housekeeper to — so you can do other more important tasks even if that is sitting on the floor, playing with the kids. My time is way more better spent that way. So take it to life.
R: Oh, yeah. I had a friend who had a nanny watching her kid and she said she realized one day — and she’s a lawyer so she’s really busy and she said one day she’s in the kitchen cleaning and her nanny’s out front playing with her son. And it just really slapped her in the face. Oh my gosh. I’m cleaning my house and paying somebody else to play with my son.
A: That is — yeah. Those moments. Back to guilt. I don’t know. Motherhood is just a trip through guilt, right.
R: Yeah. So she —
A: And we just do our best.
R: Yeah. So she hired a house cleaner.
A: Yeah. That’s awesome.
R: And she had — then took the time to have with her son which made more sense. But it’s kind of a journey that we have to go on and learn on our own for some reason. I hired a yard person. My husband’s like no. I want to do it. it’s a good release for me but he would mow half the yard one week and then half the yard the other week and then he might — and then next week edge it and I’m like I can’t stand this.
A: This is not working.
R: This is driving me nuts. It’s never done.
A: Yeah. Yeah. This is not working out. So that’s good. Yeah. And it’s kind of — you — I don’t know. You always envision — women with housekeepers are like — I don’t know. Super wealthy or whatever. Entitled or whatever but it just makes sense because there is so much better things you can do with your time than cleaning your house and stuff, right.
R: Yes. It does not make you a snobby person, it doesn’t make you less of a mom because somebody else is doing it. Trust me, you’ll still have those five, six other days during the week to keep your house clean.
A: Oh, yeah. And the kids have chores so we’re covered.
R: Yes. It’s still — there’s still work to be done regardless.
A: Yes. And I can’t wait till they’re old enough where I can fire the housekeeper and just make them do it.
R: Oh, good luck with that.
A: Doesn’t it work out that way?
R: It can. Mine’s 11 and eight.
A: Perfect, you can do that.
R: They do it but it’s still — it’s exhausting. It’s like okay. Did you do this. Did you do that.
A: Packing the whip is very exhausting.
R: Yeah. It is exhausting. So but we can together if I can get them in the flow, we can knock a whole house out in two hours of everything done.
A: Very nice.
R: If, but that’s a rarity.
A: So you’re not saying that’s your life right now.
R: No. I’m saying that I could still have a housekeeper and still have them do the chores.
A: Very nice.
R: Yeah. That was a lot.
A: I know.
R: That’s awesome though. I love your energy. I love your honesty because this is really what it’s about because so many of us sit behind a computer and we beat our self up when we’re watching everybody else just do all these amazing things and we’re like — we feel — only think about is the stuff that we haven’t done yet.
A: Yes.
R: And we see what everybody else is doing and we don’t realize that we are all in the same boat.
A: Yeah. There’s a lot going on behind all those pretty pictures on Facebook for sure.
R: You were talking about video and how important it is. What are some other things that people can do to — that are simple, that are not huge and time consuming that they could add to their business as far as social media because you review social media, you review websites. What’s the single biggest thing that you think people are missing in their business?
A: Right now it’s definitely the utilization of social media and Facebook marketing. A lot of people think social media marketing is actually just going out and making posts on your favorite social media channels but it’s actually way more in depth than that. I would say — again, don’t get overwhelmed thinking that I’m telling you that you have to go to Facebook and Lined In and Pinterest. I always say pick one and if you’re overly zealous pick two but only go with two and once you’ve mastered those two social media channels then you can pick another one. Let me give you a hint. Your first one should be Facebook because it’s ultra powerful. So yes. You need to be posting on Facebook but you also need to be running a very small or big ads campaign. Facebook is very powerful because you can go in and maybe you’re marketing to mothers in Southern California with toddlers. Facebook will allow you to go in and target those people. That exact demographic so unlike any other marketing in any other time of the world you know who’s seeing your ad and who is liking your page. So at least take a dollar a day which is not very many but at least building that fan base with new people coming in on Facebook and target that demographic. Now I’m giving a Facebook class. I don’t mean to plug so much but I’m giving a Facebook class so there’ll definitely be webinar recordings of that so go check out my site for more information on that and it will show you how to do this for yourself because a lot of people can’t hire a social media manager. They can be pretty expensive. They’re running a thousand dollars a month or something for a good social media person which will run these ads and do all this but you can actually — if you have a very small budget you can do it yourself. So start bringing those fans in, start feeding them content, start building their trust which is where video comes in like when people see you talking on video they feel a rapport with you, they can feel your energy and your spirit and they can learn — they will learn to like and trust you which is why video is way more powerful than the spoken word. So do some short videos and it doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to get a whole video set up. Get your smart phone out, make sure that it’s quiet and record. Now quick, helpful tip before you go do that, make sure your phone is on landscape mode and not — you’re not holding it up and down because your video will look silly if you don’t do that.
R: Bravo, bravo. I couldn’t agree more.
A: So please do that. A lot of people don’t know that so if you’re just beginning just hold the landscape mode and do a quick 30 second video. Hey, this is Lindsay, this is what I do and this is why you should come see me. Hey, this is a problem that a lot of people — a lot of my customers have. This is a real quick way to do it and give people lots of information. It’s like with this free website review. You’re telling me I’m giving too much but I’m also building trust and I’m giving them useful information. After that video there is no doubt that people know that I know exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to online marketing and your website. And so I’ve built that trust.
R: And how does that video convert for you? Do you find — because here’s the thing is a lot of people are like you’re giving away a lot of free information and you’re not going to get a client because you’ve given them everything that they need. But what really happens?
A: They — I would say a lot — I would say 50 percent will ask me for follow up work. Like maybe it’s a little bit, maybe it’s a lot but it’s definitely — like it definitely pays for itself. It is very time consuming but it does pay for itself. It is kind of like when you send a video that you put 30 minutes into and you don’t even get an email back. It’s kind of frustrating. But then on the other hand I have a phone call at three o’clock today with a guy from New Zealand that heard me on a podcast advertising that. I sent him a review and he’s like let’s do something. Let’s do this. So it pays for it.
R: Yeah. because what happens is if you’re feeling like that you’re afraid to give away too much information about what you do and then nobody will need you what really happens is that they look at that and go wow. That’s a lot. I can’t do all of that or I don’t know how and I don’t have time so if you’re a really smart and sharp, savvy business person you’re like I don’t have the time and the time that it would take for me to learn this is wasted.
A: Exactly. And that’s why — we can talk a little bit about email marketing. One of the most powerful kinds of an email marketing campaign is hey. I will teach you exactly how to search engine optimize your website and I will send you little this drip email. Every other day you will get a new task item. Third day in even though they are task items they can do — I’m advertising hey. We could do this for you. And people will pick up on that.
R: Yeah.
A: Just tell them. Tell people. People can find out that information anyway. Another thing that you need to do is figure out what your competitors don’t want you telling people and just tell them. Back in the day when I started Web impact we were building custom websites because Word Press wasn’t really around these — these quick website builders weren’t really around and then Word Press and all those — hey, you can get a website and build it yourself. You don’t need a web developer. That was very scary at the time because it’s like they’re going to put me out of business because people can do this on their own. The moment — I have a website, I have videos on Lindsay’s web where I am like you do not need a web developer. You do not need me. You can go out to Wix and get a perfectly fine website if you are X, Y, Z company. You can go and get a Word Press website for like a 100 bucks. Go and do it. That has not hurt my business at all. People feel like they can trust me because I’m going to tell them how it is. They don’t need to spend 1500 dollars on my website. They can go get one for 100 dollars at Wix.
R: Well, and the other thing is hiring a website developer, a lot of times what happens is people get this really pretty website and they have nothing of value on it whatsoever because it’s just pretty. Because their website builders are not marketers.
A: That is true. That is true. So it is important — that’s funny you should say that. So it is very important to definitely have a home base website but the way that online marketing really works is you develop landing pages and you develop email campaigns and that’s something that we can do for you at Web impact but it takes a lot of work but that’s the real power of online marketing. It’s like targeted landing pages, giving things away, collecting emails, doing some significant email marketing but that doesn’t take away from the fact of if you’re starting like a bakery yes. You need a website. There is no doubt that you’re not going to be legit unless you have a website even if it’s just a simple brochure website. It’s got to happen.
R: One of the biggest things that I see missing on websites and a lot of people are like well, what is that when I say it. They don’t have opt ins for newsletters.
A: Yeah.
R: So you have no way to capture anybody.
A: Every single person that comes to your website, you have got to try to get their email address because email address — email marketing is gold and it might sound like crazy or that was the olden days but email marketing is gold. Social media on Facebook — I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Only 10 percent of the people that you’re actually — a part of your fan base every time you make a post only 10 percent of people are actually seeing that. Once you ask someone can I have your email address and may I market to you chances are they are going to read your email, they are going to see your message. It’s like when — it’s like I’ve liked Old Navy on Facebook and they always show ads but the moment Old Navy sends me an email I’m always clicking on it to go check it out for my kids. Email marketing is gold and so you have to collect those email addresses even if you’re not ready to email market right now, do some sort of lead magnet and try to get those email addresses.
R: Yeah. It is gold for your business.
A: It is. It is. Start building your list. Start building your list. That is my message.
R: Start building your list.
A: Yeah.
R: When you do an email campaign — let’s talk about email campaign if you don’t mind real quick.
A: Yes.
R: When you do email campaigns there is a certain system that you do when you put it together because — and there’s — I guess it depends. Sometimes — I hear lately people are like you could start selling immediately depending on the option that you have but I think the general rule of thumb is you have to have like seven touches before you start selling.
A: Yeah. It can definitely vary. It definitely varies based on what you’re trying to sell. I’ve seen a lot of success in either way. I believe Jeff Locker’s product launch formula – I think he only does four or five. Obviously the more value and the more trust you can build with people the more successful it’s going to be. So it kind of depends on how targeted that landing page was. Now we’re getting all technical. But how targeted it was and how 911 their need is or if they’re going to be fine with just receiving some information, building that trust over a long time and then when they’re finally ready they’re going to call you.
R: Exactly. Exactly. And there’s a lot of free email services out there. You can use Mail Chimp. There’s another one that’s free. I think A Webber is free but not. I think you can only do it for so much.
A: Yeah. I’m a big fan — I usually steer clients towards Mail Chimp. It’s the best option right now for collecting those email addresses.
R: Right. And that’s what I use too is Mail Chimp. It’s just easy.
A: It is. Yeah.
R: The Dragon Drop.
A: Yeah, yeah. And they already have templates in there. And again, I do say start collecting your list even though you’re not ready to email market but there is a thing where like if you are collecting email addresses but you’re not going to email market to them for a year then they’re as good as no email address because they’re not going to remember they gave you their email address. So just — and it doesn’t — they don’t have to be long emails or anything like that. Just try to provide value. Give, give, give and you will receive. It’s the way of the world.
R: And the World Wide Web is your oyster when you give, give, give, give, give.
A: Yes.
R: Where did I see that? Oh, on your website.
A: That’s right. Just give. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. People like legitimate, honest people. Not people who are trying to be someone else or trying to tow the line. People like honesty and being legit and that’s — part of the power of social media is that it gives us an avenue to show our true selves.
R: So let’s talk Instagram then because it’s more — it’s probably the newer one on the block compared to the rest of them. Do you find that it is just as effective as Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook if you use it right?
A: Of course. It is used right — I have a couple of clients that are pretty successful on Instagram. They run boutique, clothing boutique stores and they are quite excellent at getting people to try on things and really like — and taking pictures and uploading them and showing their real personalities there on Instagram. So yes. Pretty much any social media channel I feel if there is an — if you can find your audience there so like obviously there are some companies that would not benefit from Instagram but a boutique — and she kind of rocks it on Instagram so —
R: So Instagram has this feature where you can share to Facebook and Twitter which at first I loved because I’m like oh, great. I could post to three places all at one time.
A: At once.
R: But then I went to social media marketing world in San Diego this year and they’re all saying well, if you post to Twitter from Instagram the picture doesn’t show up and they have to link back to Instagram and they may or may not click on that link. So uploading the picture directly to Twitter is probably more effective and then when you’re talking about video from Instagram to Facebook it’s better to upload directly to Facebook because it’s a more natural, organic thing and video’s so big on Facebook right now.
A: Yeah. And there is something to be said for that. it’s like if you have a fan base on Facebook but all people see is that you’re just sharing from Instagram they know you’re not really spending time with them or taking the time to spend — take the time to actually do it correctly so you’re going to actually lose people because they’re going to be like she’s not even here. She’s just doing this auto share thing. it’s going to take away some of your credibility, some of your like real liveness so I usually use Hootsuite or something and I’ll schedule them all separately and I won’t do any of this feed thing including like a blog feed. Word Press has a plug-in where it will like shoot out to all of those social media channels and I just don’t like the way it looks. I would rather customize my message for the medium that I’m uploading for.
R: When you do Hootsuite does it show when you post that it’s coming from Hootsuite?
A: Yes. It will. But yeah. Yeah, it does.
R: So it’s kind of the same as the Instagram that is showing that it’s being automated?
A: Yeah. That’s very true.
R: Because I was using Hootsuite and I’m like oh, well it’s showing that it’s Hootsuite and I don’t want people to think it’s automated. It really becomes very difficult.
A: Yeah. From my personal Lindsay’s web I take the time and I go to Twitter literally and I literally go to Facebook. Because it’s that important to me.
R: And you have to comment on your posts, respond to people because if they’re not getting anything from you they’re going to walk away.
A: Oh, yeah. So any time someone — yeah. You definitely need to keep a sharp eye on that but that’s how you build relationships. Even if — people on my videos will be like that was awesome or whatever. I take the time and I respond to every single person.
R: That’s awesome. What would you say the number one struggle is for people with their websites as far as getting started or building it? What keeps them from doing it?
A: I think they definitely get very overwhelmed so it’s like what kind of website, what pictures, what content, what social media channels, how do I get up on Google. They get really, really overwhelmed. My advice for that is to — we all have to start somewhere so obviously your number one thing is to get a website that — it looks professional for you. Then we can work on the newsletters and the emailing and the lead capture form and all of that later but just start baby steps. Every day take a new step forward in your business to make it that much better. Start posting a little bit on Facebook, start running this ads campaign. Just every day have a goal. Don’t get overwhelmed at oh, I am doing social media but oh, I need to do some search engine optimization too. Just try to focus on one thing at a time because there’s a million, billion things that you can be doing.
R: Oh, that focus thing. It is so incredibly hard because there are so many things.
A: Yeah. And the whole — I believe they’re calling it Shiny Things Syndrome or something. Try — as far as online marketing just — like the basics are the basics. You need a website, you need to do some social media which you can do yourself. Search engine optimization means coming up on Google when people type in key words. That can get a little bit more technical and you’re probably going to need to outsource that a bit but there are some things you can do on your own too. Go check out lindsaysweb.com and I tell you, all these things that you can do on your own for search engine optimization so —
R: I’ll tell you what, finding somebody — you want to watch people that are ahead of you to get ideas but at the same time finding somebody who is just a step ahead of you is probably better than watching somebody who’s got a lot going on because what happens is if you just look at the one person that’s just a little bit farther ahead of you it’s easier to see and watch the progression so that it might start with blogging and then they might add in video and then they might add in podcasting but it’s never done all at the same time.
A: No. there’s no time. Especially — since we’re talking to moms, there’s just no time for that. That is a perfect point which I’ve never really thought about but that’s an excellent point or something that I just — we’ve been talking a lot about is get a business coach. I just started my business coach journey and I’m kicking myself that I did not do that a very, very long time ago. I only had one other business coach before Jim who is super awesome and actually Jim’s her business coach believe it or not but —
R: I’m not surprised.
A: Business coaches can make things like they will — they’ve made all the mistakes so go and take a shortcut and learn from a business coach.
R: You know what I love about Jim and this is really a great lesson is Jim is out there but he is not like this big, overwhelming, massive, in your face person.
A: Right.
R: And so when people ask me — some big coaches will ask me well, who’s been your favorite coach? They’re like huh?
A: Really? So how many coaches have you been through may I ask? Oh, really? That many?
R: It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. So I’ve hired some really big coaches in my day.
A: Wow.
R: Jim gives you more personal time than any of the coaches I’ve ever worked with.
A: Wow.
R: And he really, truly cares. But what I love about it is that what — the point of this is while he does have bells and whistles and it’s taken him many years to have them, he does not showcase himself in a way — I’m trying to find a word. Do you know what I’m saying? It’s not like he’s out there doing these massive, huge events that are just like —
A: Yeah. He’s definitely _____45:09
R: And he’s making just as much money as these people while living a really great life and having his family and doing all of these things and living his dreams without having to be this massive, big things. And that’s kind of what I’m getting to is — in a long way because I’m struggling with this whole explanation is that you do not have to be big. You don’t.
A: Yeah.
R: To make the money that you want to make.
A: That’s true.
R: You don’t have to sacrifice your life. If you hire a coach like Jim he can help you be very strategic in what you’re doing so that you’re not making mistakes, so that you’re not wasting your time and he’s more about making the money. Okay. How is this — what’s your return on your investment on this? Is it really smart for you to do an event or is it better for you to do a webinar at home? Is it — he’s going to make sure that you make the right decisions for your business. I can’t speak enough about him as opposed to if I go somewhere else they’re like you’ve got to have this large event and you’ve got to go do this and you’ve got to — and it gets very overwhelming.
A: Well, Jim better be spending — be paying us some commissions on this podcast.
R: I know. He keeps you focused. He keeps you focused.
A: Yeah. And even if you can’t afford — there’s a 100 business coaches out there that have taken the entrepreneurial journey that probably — there’s one for every niche probably. They’re going to tell you the shortcuts so even if you don’t go to Jim or something just try to find a mentor or something to tell you the secrets.
R: Yeah. And I’m not saying that the other coaches were bad. They weren’t. They were fantastic. It’s the personalization that you get with Jim that I love.
A: Yeah. Definitely.
R: Because the bigger the coach and the bigger the community they have then the less time they have to be focusing more on your business.
A: Yes.
R: They’ve got a 1000 other clients to focus on as well.
A: Yeah. Exactly.
R: So that’s — I guess that’s what I’m trying to talk about so sometimes if you’re paying less it’s not necessarily worth it. you’re not necessarily going to get what you’re paying for and sometimes that you’re paying more you’re not necessarily going to get what you’re paying for. So be careful how you’re choosing.
A: It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult.
R: Yeah. It’s very, very difficult and you’re going to waste some money sometimes but if you could, I definitely recommend Jim’s.
A: Definitely. Amen.
R: There you go Jim. We love you. Alright. We’re at the end unfortunately but how can people get in touch with you and reach out to you for your free offer that you have before it goes away and Jim stills it?
A: Big trouble. Okay. Just go to lindsaysweb.com so that’s L-I-N-D-S-E-Y-S web.com. You could follow me at Lindsay’s web on Twitter or you can email me HYPERLINK “mailto:lindsay@lindsaysweb.com” lindsay@lindsaysweb.com. Thank you again Rosemary. I’ve very much enjoyed this interview.
R: Thank you Lindsay. I did too.
Woman: All right mompreneurs. This episode of motivating other moms has come to an end. Are you feeling inspired? Visit motivatingothermoms.com for more wonderful episodes and be sure to join our mailing list to get great free bonuses to keep your life and business moving forward. We’ll see you next time on motivating other moms.
Key Takeaways
[00:04:23] Lindsey talks about her first company, Web Impact
[00:05:27] How Lindsey’s Web got started
[00:07:47] Rosemary and Lindsey discuss back taxes
[00:09:41] Overpaying employees and switching to contractors
[00:11:08] Lindsey explains her biggest struggle with being a business owner and a mom
[00:16:05] What it’s like working with your s