Episode 103 Transcript:

Hey friends, and welcome back. So this week I want to talk a little bit about how to do things in your online business how to take steps how to put the pieces together. When you don't consider yourself tech savvy, and it's possible, yes, totally possible.

In fact, most of my clients come to me and say, I don't know what to do, I'm not tech savvy, I can't really do this, I'm not tech savvy, I don't know how to do social media, I'm just not tech savvy, and if you believe that about yourself, know that you're in good company. So it's not just my clients but go back to 2017 ish. I was not tech savvy at all. I, and I still in some ways don't consider myself super techie I have evolved though, and that's what we're here to do right is evolve. But let me take you back a little bit, just a few years. And at that time, I had a personal Instagram account. That's it. Occasionally I uploaded, like pictures of my kids are holiday photos and things like that. Same thing with Facebook, I had a very simple personal Facebook. And so when I got into starting my own business. I realized that I wanted to leverage the Internet I didn't know yet that I was going to be pretty much entirely virtual, but I knew that it was, I wanted to leverage the Internet, social media, having an online presence I wanted to leverage that to build whatever business you know was going to build right so in person virtual combination hybrid anything. And so at the time, you may have heard me say this if you've been hanging out on the podcast with me for some time at the time, I used to read blogs and blogs and blog posts from all of these digital marketing experts, and I would listen to podcast of various digital marketing experts in different industries, not in the birth industry there really wasn't anybody that I found in the birth industry talking about doing business online, because it really wasn't very popular, I think the, the maximum at the time that I saw was worth professionals having a website, and that was that was about it and occasionally I would see like a really really really well put together clear website. And that was it, so I was learning from all of these free spaces at first like how to do this, how to do that how to start a website, and my first website was total crap. But I wasn't tech savvy, and it's not lost on me that I am a digital doula right now and that's, you know kind of what I've been calling myself, and I've helped. I don't even know how many 1000s of people with my free and paid virtual digital downloads and other resources. Some right like some free some paid some private clients but basically leveraging all of these amazing tools and technology, via the internet, and I still don't consider myself super tech savvy.

My job, and the way that I help birth professionals is not to teach you how to use technology that's generally not the highest and best service that I provide most of that stuff you can learn on YouTube, honestly.

And then you might be surprised by this but the way that I moved forward in the early days and even now I still, I still do this sometimes. But the way that I learned and move forward in the early days when I felt like I was really not tech savvy. Anytime I wanted to take a step and I was looking at something in my business that I desired to have, whether it was an Instagram business account or my website or a logo or any of these things that felt like mountains, they felt so confusing so overwhelming, a brand kit brand colors. All of these peat forget email marketing, just all of these things felt like massive mountains and overwhelm and confusing, and my little secret is that I prefer to keep anything like this, as simple as possible. On all fronts of my business until I reached the point that I'm ready to evolve, again, that's what we're here to do, but in the beginning when you're starting something when you're learning something and starting might, might take you a long time. The example I'm going to give. I'll dive into in a second, is my starting period where I kept something super simple has been two years. So there's no pre determined timestamp on how long it takes you to evolve beyond the simplest form of doing something. So wherever you're at on your entrepreneurial journey. And if you're listening to this, you're, you're probably a small business owner. I was actually, I had a private workshop for my clients. Last, like last week, as of the time of this recording, it was like early September and we have a guest. Alexis Edwards she's been on the podcast before, and we were talking about how some birth professionals are accidental entrepreneurs that you come to this industry, not because you want to start a business and make loads of money necessarily that's not usually what I hear, but more often. It's because you came to this business with passion and purpose and desire to create change and you are very mission centered and heart centered, And so you might be an accidental entrepreneur. So a lot of this stuff can be like, huge, scary next steps when you're building and you are wearing all the hats, and facing these mountains of things that you're trying to figure out, so that's really why I want to go deep and explain like one very thorough example for you in this episode is breaking down this mountain and making it very simple, right, asking yourself, whatever that step is that you're looking at right now like I'm sure you've brought one up in your head like what is this next thing that you desire to have that feels kind of overwhelming. And then just ask yourself, How can I make this easy. How can I simplify this, you can get complicated later, you can add bells and whistles and all the fancy stuff later. But the first time as you're building something, how can you make it easy. The example that I want to walk you through is email marketing, and that might not be something you're working on, it might be you can apply this theory to anything, but I want to give you my email marketing experience as your example. So, first let me define what I mean by email marketing. My definition. You know you'll get a series of definitions if you Google it and what Various people have to say and there's a lot of bro marketing explanations out on the internet, I don't really adhere to many of those in my opinion. Email marketing is just one of the methods of communicating with your audience, virtual communication, marketing, its marketing and marketing is really just communication, and the, this tends to be a warm audience because you had to have an exchange to get their email address, so this is not a cold audience, meaning you're not out on Instagram, posting something and inviting people to do something. This is more intimate. It's a warm audience because there has been some exchange you probably gave them something in return for their email address, and now you're communicating with them via email. So to me this is just communication. And in my opinion, in my professional opinion. Email marketing is much stronger than social media at building your business, truly, and I've talked about this in a great length we could probably have an entire podcast about why. And you'll learn more about why that is later but for to stay on topic here.

If you receive my weekly free shit Tuesday emails you've been on the receiving end of what email marketing looks like in my business it's communication, I send out my weekly newsletter, free shit Tuesdays. I usually tell you about the new podcast episode, and I have a link for it and then anything else that I have, whether it's blog posts or just a message that I want to share. For the week, or if I'm working on something like right now, all of my pieces in my emails are inviting you to apply for the online business school for birth pros the three day event that I'm hosting at the end of September. So, I choose chose email marketing as our example because it. To me it felt like one of the biggest mountains in the beginning. And to back up a little bit. In fact, my first website for doula work was, I started it in very early 2018 Actually, it may have been the end of 17 End of 17 early 18 it officially published, while I was at my Doula training. So I took my in person doula training in April of 2018 I was about,

say, four,

six months pregnant with Imani, and my website when published live while I was at my training and my trainer was so cool. She like showed it to the class and I was so proud and thinking back to some of the copy that was on that first website was like cringe worthy like some of the words that I chose because I am certainly right was early in my business but it was a great website and I was proud of it. And the thing about it though is that it was new to me. All of this was really really new, and my website designer, told me that I needed 16 emails in my first sequence so part of the package I got with her was that she would set up my website design my website, create my won't take the freebie that I created, so I created a freebie, and then she was going to set up my first opt in sequence. So basically when someone lands on my website, they have the opportunity to have an exchange with me, they can put their email address in and in return I give them a free thing. And she was going to do all the technical stuff the logistics of setting that up, and she suggested 16 emails for my first email sequence. So these are all automated emails that go out and she wanted me to write them up in like a Google Doc, and send it to her. And she would basically set it up in my email system.

I was like,

16, I just, my whole body shut down. It was like a huge contraction in my system at the time I couldn't even think of one thing to say to my audience, let alone, six teen fully thought out and written out messages. So she guided me through these email templates that she had set up that she used which really weren't my tone, the way that I speak right the voice that I speak and that's really important when you're creating anything is speaking your own voice. And I don't think that ultimately I had 16, I am actually pretty certain I did not. But there were enough that I had to get me going. And after she did that initial setup. I didn't email my community, one time. For almost 18 months. Okay. Like, I had the welcome sequence set up, but I wasn't sending newsletters and like I wasn't following up with that I didn't adjust it I wasn't tweaking anything, I just, it was too overwhelming email marketing was just too much and mind you, like, I was having my third baby. I was postpartum and I had that wild birth and just all these things and so life was happening to right like I wasn't just sitting around doing nothing but work like I was living a life which is really what sustainable business is all about. But email marketing felt like too big of a mountain to climb. And weren't this, the purpose of this podcast is not to convince you to start email marketing it's to just look at whatever that mountain is for you to think about if you're at the point where it feels too overwhelming, like I did, and you, I realized I wasn't, I wasn't getting anywhere. If you realize that, take a step back and pause and simplify. And that's exactly what I did in September of 2019, so it's been two years. Today, basically, a colleague, a business colleague associate of mine was raving about this new easy email platform keyword. Easy. I was in. So I tested out the platform, and I found my groove, and I found myself loving, sending emails, and I've really really wanted to be doing that this whole time that whole time but it just, it was too complicated for me with all these other systems, and I needed it to be easy to start. Now, I should say. Side note, some of you have asked, and actually, several people have been asking, and I haven't had an opportunity to explain it, but people have been asking what system I'm migrating to if you get my emails I mentioned it like hey, if you see a new format it's because I'm migrating email platforms so if you're curious. I did that, the easy peasy one that I started with in September of 19 is flow desk, and I will share a link in the show notes for you if you want to test it out. You can get it at att you can get it at their initial rate and I do should mention that I was notified that they're going to be increasing the start rates in early November so if it was something you wanted to try out this is not a bad time to do it but that's not the point of this of this episode.

But I will share my affiliate link if you wanted to give it a test. So to answer the question, I am migrating I'm migrating away from flow desk, not because I don't love it I love flow desk. It's so easy that emails are so beautiful, they have templates, and they've just made it so easy for me to have all of these pieces set up for the last two years, but that window that I mentioned a few minutes ago of two years being, you know, needing it to be easy. I've outgrown and so one of the things about as of the time that I'm recording this, because things change every day, is I've just outgrown the options that are available to you the bells and whistles that come with flow desk I needed something that's a little bit more robust and offers more analytics options, and, you know, if you're into email marketing, you might speak the language, if not don't worry about it. It's okay. Flow desk is a great place to start and really you could even back up even further and start with Gmail, I mean your first emails might just be on Gmail, and that's okay too. So simplify, whatever that looks like for you. And the same applies to anything that you're working on, because I didn't consider myself tech savvy enough to do this ginormous thing, that is, email marketing, I just needed to make it easy for it to work for me. And it did, you know, in two years I built up my email list, pretty healthily of, you know I have different segments for different, different groups. I have a doula list, I have a pregnant list, and a couple other ones depending on what people opted into, but this could work in any area that you're struggling. Anything that feels overwhelming, Get curious and ask yourself like how might this end up working out easier. How might it end up getting done in a simple, simple way and the truth is, it really does get to be that easy and that is the foundation of how I teach doing business online. So people that have taken my courses often come into my programs, feeling like they're not tech savvy, and I always say, and this is on many of my pages on my website, you don't need to be tech savvy to do this if you're reading this on your smartphone or on Instagram or Facebook, then you're tech savvy enough to get started. You really don't have, if you've ever sent an email, then you can start email marketing, you don't have to overcomplicate it in the beginning, anything can be like that. And that's how I teach doing business online, so anybody who's joining me for the free three day online business school for birth pros know that you don't have to be tech savvy to start. The way that I teach, I can make it so simple so that anybody can start. And over time, you'll add pieces on, you'll start to evolve and think okay I've outgrown this thing, if you think about it. Yeah, here's the example so think about it. We've talked about this on the podcast before as well but another reference from Alexis. Alexis and I had a conversation one time, Alexis Edwards, we had a conversation one time about outgrowing garments, and they don't fit anymore and so think about it like that, you know, keep it easy for this garment and when the garment doesn't fit anymore, you'll know if you've outgrown it and either you need to make alterations or you need to go get a new garment. And so, apply that to your business. Right so me switching platforms is I just needed a new garment. You know I outgrew my old one, and it was time for a new one. And that's part of, you know, evolution is in every area of our life including business. So, wrapping that up. I hope you join me at the end of this month. The three day event, it's free, but it is by application only. So, head to the link in the show notes to apply, and if you're new wish to the business. Sorry if you're new ish to the birth world, or if you're new to doing business online. This is going to be very helpful for you. We need to make it very simple, actionable steps to give you clarity and set up your logistics so that you can move forward. Alright, I'm excited to see you there. I hope this has been super helpful and have a great week friends.