291 I Just Got Interviewed By My Friend On His Podcast (Get to Know Me Up Close and Personal)
Bringing you Behind-the-Scenes
Get to Know Me in a More Personal Way
In this episode I am being interviewed by my friend Michael Roderick and I'm taking you behind-the-scenes on why I started my business, my current approach to marketing and business growth, and why I believe in focusing on 'long game' strategies like SEO, relationship marketing, and being transparent online.
I also open up with an introduction on what I've been up to, what I'm working on, and the exciting adventure that I will be embarking on in July!
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You're listening to the visionary life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl.
Each week, I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth, in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship.
This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders, and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires. If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode. It's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us, you know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime. But perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up, I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you. It's in you, it's in all of us.
Let's dive in. Good morning, good afternoon, whenever you're listening to this, maybe you're on a walk, you're in the car, you're doing dishes, you're winding down for the night. Those are all times when I find myself listening to podcasts. And regardless, I am just so grateful that you're here tuning into another episode of visionary life. We've been doing this podcast for over five years now. And I'm actually just in the process of wrapping up this season.
So season 11 has been going for more than six months now, I think, unless I've lost track of time. So anyways, we are wrapping up our final episodes of season 11.And I am back in recording stage. So what's kind of cool is that I do a lot of my podcast recording in batches. So in January and February, I was full on with podcast recording, every Thursday and Friday, I was banging out probably like three to four episodes for you guys. And then I did not record for almost all of March, April, May. And thus far in June. And this week, we're getting back to the podcast studio I II, my house.
And we are starting to record season 12. We'll be recording for the next two months, you're going to hear some of these episodes starting to air as early as July. And I wanted to take a few seconds before we get into this week's episode where I'm being interviewed by my friend Michael Roderick.
He's been on the show before I've been on his podcast, access to anyone before. He's such an amazing human and the leading source on how to get more referrals in your business. So go look him up Michael Roderick, of small, small pond enterprises. He I feel like he's one of those best kept secrets. It's not like he's super public online. But I actually have a thing for working with coaches who don't have a huge online presence. So a lot of the people that I seek out to work with, I meet through masterminds or intimate events, or I meet them through connection or word of mouth. So even though I'm very visible in the online space, I actually, I feel like I've you know, kind of got that down pat down pat. And for me what's fascinating, is actually to learn from people who are building, I guess you would call them like analog businesses, like businesses that thrive on non digital communications. And of course, Michael, he has a daily email.
So he's very active, he's on LinkedIn. He runs a lot of group online programs. But again, I just find it so cool to learn from people who are doing it a little bit differently than me. So a couple notes before we dive into today's episode number one in recording season 12. I am really looking for your guys suggestions. So if you're listening, and you know of a really cool small business owner, if you know of a local shop where the owner is just so passionate about what they do. If you know about a brand or a product that is in the launching stages, or that just hit the shelves, and is having a lot of success, pass their name over to me. If you know an entrepreneur who has a crazy story, or who's really interesting to listen to, or maybe you've heard of some really cool stories by listening to other people's podcasts.
It If you could just either send me a quick email, I'm Hello at Kelsey rydell.com. You can also find me on Instagram at Kelsey Rydell. But I would love to hear from you guys, who do you want to see on season 12. Already, we have some really interesting people. I have a news anchor who left her public career as a media personality, and is now pursuing a different path in the online world. I have people who are selling evergreen self study courses, and making really good revenue by packaging up their intellectual property, and selling it in the digital space, which is super cool. I have people who are my business partners coming on to share what we've created for you and how you can join the visionary universe in 2023.
I have people who have brick and mortar shops coming on to share about the amazing passion project that they've brought to life and where the struggles lie and what's going really, really well. So that's neat. But really, I'm still looking for people. Let's talk with YouTubers, let's talk with people who are content creators, let's talk with people who are innovators, dreamers, doers, brand builders, who are finding success in the early days of making a transition. If that is you, if you know someone, season 12 is being recorded now. So please reach out. And I feel like you guys are the best people to ask because we have a few recording slots left for July. And I have some ideas for who I'd like to book. But I also really want to seek outyour feedback, because you're the listeners, you're the oh geez, you're the people who come back week after week and who support the visionary life podcast. And I appreciate that. And I just love hearing your recommendations. So that's a call to action. Number one. Let's pivot just into some random life updates. So I put out this poll on my Instagram the other day. And I said, I am going to my first IRL Business Conference in over three years, which is so crazy. So ever since I started my business seven and a half years ago, started working freelance. And you know, I've been doing a lot of marketing consulting for different companies, I have invested a significant amount in my own personal development and professional development budget.
And for me, it's not just about sitting in front of a screen taking online courses, what I look for when I spend that budget, is actually getting in a room with people who inspire me who motivate me who have different perspectives than I do. And so, one day I wake up, I'm not planning any business conferences for the summer that was not on my vision board or list. I mean, actually kind of was on my vision board. Because funny story when I recorded this podcast that you're gonna listen to with Michael Roderick, we ended the recording. And he always asks this really cool question. He says, Is there anything you're looking for or struggling with in your business? Because I'll see if I can help you out.
And I kind of initially wanted to say no, I'm good. And I'm sure a lot of us do that. But I had to kind of check myself and I was like, You know what, Michael, I really want to get out to an in person conference, kind of business, but kind of not. I want to make new connections, but it has to be in person. And at the time, he was promoting a digital retreat, and I was like, nananana No, after three years of doing so much on zoom so much digitally, like, I don't want to do that. I want to get on a plane. And I just have such fond memories and such growth that has happened like three years ago, three and a half years ago, maybe I got on a plane flew to LA I had never been to California before. I did not know a single soul and I showed up at this conference. I literally had to ask hey, is there anyone here I can stay with? I figured this out beforehand but this group of six people who are already friends they were like hey, you can stay with us. Turns out they were amazing and I loved them. We stayed in this Airbnb I arrived before them so I get off the plane in LA. I'm like What am I doing here?
Total imposters syndrome. I roll up at this, Airbnb. It's this gated house in pretty much the Hollywood Hills. And the alarm systems going off. I can't get in using the keypad. I'm exhausted because I've been flying all day. And I'm walking around LA. It's so cool. But I'm also like, This is so weird. I don't know anyone here. What am I getting myself into? Finally, everybody else arrives at the house. They're all friends. And they're probably like, Who is this chick, sleeping in our house with us. But regardless, like it ends up being the best conference ever. It's two days. We're chatting, business. We're chatting, marketing, we're chatting, personal growth. I meet all these rad people, tons of them from Toronto. And that kick started like two years of momentum. Wow, I just can't attribute enough to what that trip did for me and the mastermind I was part of afterwards. If you're on the fence about investing in a conference, investing in a mastermind, just stop being on the fence. I've learned that.So let's go back to the poll I posted on Instagram. I wanted to tease you guys because I've invested. I'm actually getting on a plane soon. And going somewhere. So I posted a picture of the city that I'm going to and I said do you think I'm going to the the rolling hills of California? Do you think I'm going to Utah? Or do you think I'm going to Montana because all of those places have mountains in these cute little charming towns, and they posted a picture. So I thought I would share the gut feeling I got to go to this conference with people I don't know someone who I've kind of become friends with over the internet, but kind of like still meeting. I am going to a conference in Park City, Utah. It is a conference that is focused on adventures and entrepreneurship. It is going to be full of RAD human beings but it's going to be super cozy and small and intimate. So yeah, in July, which is so soon, I'll be spending a week in Park City, Utah. You guys know me, I'm an adventure nut adventure in my life like kayaking, paddleboarding, mountain biking, going on huge Portage trips, or Algonquin Park, flying to Sedona to go on a five day mountain biking trip with my husband, like, we're just, you know, we're motivated by adventure.
But I'm also motivated by adventure in my business, like I want to be around people who think differently, who are not just motivated by money, people who are actually accomplishing things like, you know, there are people who talk a big game, but then there are people who are just humble, and they're like, Yeah, I have a software company that's worth a million dollars. And you're like, oh, yeah, cool. Thanks for sharing, I'm gonna keep a straight face. So yeah, I'm excited to get around these people. These are all good human beings, all different industries. And I just had this gut feeling it was the room I needed to be in so much as it's going to take time out of my workweek, much as you know, it's going to take a financial investment, it costs $1,000, just to fly to Park City, Utah, but sometimes, you know, the return on investment is exponential. So to spend a few $1,000, it actually doesn't seem that crazy. So we're doing it, we're going to Park City, Utah, we're going to meet some really rad humans, and I truly cannot wait.
So that's the big update. That's me putting my money where my mouth is because I always say invest in yourself, invest in yourself. And I'm willing to do it, because that's kind of what I would expect my dream clients to do, too. It's like if you invest the 8000, to work with me, you know, the return on investment is hundreds of 1000s in revenue, but you have to believe that it's there, right? I wouldn't go to a conference and spend 1000s of dollars to get myself to Utah if I didn't believe the return on investment was there. So I'm really, really excited. And yeah, I'll keep you guys posted. There's a few other things in the works. We also have our everyday SEO course coming up. So if search engine optimization and figuring out how to get more traffic to your website, like if you're getting zero traffic to your website, you guys, we got to change something. What's the point in having a site if nobody's seeing it search engine optimization or leveraging search engines like Google is the answer. So let's not forget about our long game strategies. Don't spend all your time posting on social Okay, that is a hamster wheel exhaust, exhaustive. It's not a word strategy. It's good to play in the social media landscape. I certainly do. But more of my resources go into Google, both search engine marketing and search engine optimization. So how do you make sure your business shows up, I'll put the link in the show notes if you want to join the waitlist for everyday SEO. And that's going to be starting soon as a live course.And we'll be walking you through how to get your website on page one of Google. All right, so that's it. So let's dive into this week's episode, I am being interviewed by my friend Michael Roderick. This originally aired on his podcast, which is called access to anyone really great show. So highly suggest you go tune in and just learn from Michael's brilliance. And in this episode, I'm sharing a little bit about my origin story and how I started the visionary method and put the seven step framework together, I talk about some of my viewpoints on marketing, and why relationship building is so so important. I also talk about the strategic decision for me to share a lot of my life online. So of course, I don't share everything. Just because you watch someone's Instagram, you never know the full story. I think we're all smart enough to know that. But I do try to bring my camera out and document a lot of what's going on. So I share a little bit more about why I do that. I also talk about the importance of doing a social media detox, which I think anyone could benefit from, especially if you find yourself following more than a few 100 people, you kind of have to be like, What the heck, this is way too much to take into my consciousness, right. So yeah, it's a really great conversation, I think you're gonna love it. And if you do, make sure you go say hi to Michael Roderick, he's on LinkedIn. Or you can tune into his podcast, and tell him that you just tuned in to the episode with Kelsey. Alright, let's get into it. And I hope you enjoy. Hey, visionary, I want to quickly interrupt this episode to ask you if you've been curious what it's like to work with a private business and marketing coach, if you're a business owner, and you feel like your marketing plan is all over the place, you haven't figured out your search engine optimization are your SEO strategy, you have no idea what your social media marketing plan is, and you are not doing so well on the self Express content front. I call these the marketing trio. It's the three S's SEO, social media self Express content. And by dialing in all three of these pillars, you too, can get more visible, generate more income and increase your lead generation where you're actually turning your followers into paid clients.
And you're constantly bringing new people in at the top of the funnel. If you're not familiar with my work, I am a private business and marketing coach. And I have spent the last 13 years working in the marketing industry, many of those years doing consulting with clients like you who want to finally get more visible and get in front of their dream clients. So when we work together, you have me for four months, as your marketing partner, I'm going to do a full audit of your business, put you on a private project management software with me. And then based on your innate skill sets based on your strength, based on where you are curious and where your dream clients are paying attention. We're going to build out a custom marketing strategy. We're going to track it, we're going to optimize it. And by the end of the four months, you have a plan that works and you're seeing results. It's truly incredible. Christina crook just landed a $100,000 consulting contract after implementing just one of my marketing strategies. Emily Fraser signed multiple new clients in one day after just one month of working with me. And now she is having consistent five figure months. And Natasha, she started leveraging her email list in December, and 30 days later in January, she pulled in $25,000 from one single email that we created. So these results are possible for you too.
But don't sign up yet. Just head to Kelsey rydel.com. And check out how we can work together learn all about it. Make sure you feel informed. And if you'd like to book a discovery call with me just fill out the application on my website, we can get on the phone and see if it's a good fit for you. So anyways, I don't want to interrupt this episode anymore. I cannot wait to work with you to support you and getting you more visible and let's get back into the show.
You're listening to access to anyone the podcast that reveals how you can get to know anyone you want in business and in life using everything from the latest technology to the most time tested principles.
All right. Welcome back to access to anyone I'm your host Michael Roderick and we are here today with Kelsey Rydell marketing coach who has this is her second Time. So Kelsey, welcome back.
Well, thanks for having me back. I guess that means that our first episode went Okay, so here we are around.
I mean, I think the I think people loved it, we had a great conversation. I always have great conversations with you, Kelsey. So I'm very excited to have you back on the show and hear all the latest and all the greatest things that are going on. And normally, we start out with origin story, but folks have, they can go back to the earlier interview with you to hear sort of the wayback kind of origin story. But what I thought would be interesting, especially since we are now recording this pretty much right at the very beginning of 2023, would be to approach that origin story. And that idea of call to adventure moment, from the angle of sort of what did last year look like? And what are you kind of looking ahead to and and if there were any of those kind of call to adventure moments that happened to you last year, that are kind of moving you in a direction and getting you thinking about some exciting things for 2023?
Yeah, awesome. So I'll kick off by saying that one of my words for 2022. So for the past 12 months, I've been guided by the word of simplicity, and I'm sure some of your listeners can relate. But when we enter into this online space, and I've been creating marketing courses, and teaching online business programs for the last seven or so years, and I'm very passionate about what I do, I love social media, I love email list. I love website, building, branding, all things marketing. So I had this tendency for the first few years to create a lot of new things, new offers. And a lot of these were lower costs many programs, many products. But years into doing this, I realized that the more products that you sell, and the more problems that you solve, the more marketing you ultimately have to do. And one of my visions is to keep my business simple. And I don't really want to manage a really big team right now, especially as we think about growing our family. And I really reconnected to this vision of having a simple business model. So over the last 12 months, I really thought What is that really remarkable product that I have that I've created that is almost so obviously right in front of me, but I've gotten away from it, and how can I just go really deep, and that is a product I've created called the visionary method. And the visionary method is online business and marketing coaching for business owners who are just starting out, as well as there's a second tear for business owners who have a strong foundation. But now they need to get really good at marketing, and they need to get in front of more people and grow their audience. And so for all of 2022, I promised myself, I am not going to launch anything new, I'm not going to spend time focusing on these little mini pocket products that I sell. And instead, I'm going to focus on serving a limited number of clients building really strong relationships with them, because that's what I love to do, I love to step in and help people and act as a consultant with them for, you know, months and months at a time. And I thought this is what lights me up. But it was almost so obvious that I got away from it. So that's what I've been up to for the last year, you know, it took looking at my website and, and eliminating a lot of things. And instead of adding adding, adding it was doing less, but doing more of the right thing. And then having all marketing efforts point towards the visionary method instead of feeling so scattered. So that meant that I felt clear, every day that I sat down to work in 2022. I never had to say okay, what am I launching this month? Or what do I need to be talking about, and in turn that really translated into my audience understanding who I support, what problem I solve, and, and really the value that I'm here to add to the world. So that was kind of the main, I guess, objective of the year and I'm happy to say that I feel like I've accomplished it and stayed with it. And yeah, that's kind of a summary of where I've been at since our last Love
it. Love it, love it, love it. And congratulations on on pulling that together and really sort of finding that I think you're bringing up a couple of things that I think are really important for folks to be thinking about. And one is you mentioned something that I think that we forget about and that is whenever you're creating a new products, there actually needs to be new marketing for that product, right.
And in some cases, you are creating a product that might be geared to words a completely different market than you've been working with in the past, or they might be in a different place on their, on their journey, it may be that that product really actually only sells in one medium. It might be that like, it does not sell very well, you know, on, on email, but it sells really well on social media, like there's all these variables that end up going into play when you create something new. And I think that we often forget about that we often forget about the fact that when we're creating this new product, now we're kind of starting from the place of okay, well, who is buying this? And what does this look like? And of course, we can do our customer development process, and we can see what people want and we can build around that. But then we got to think about okay, well, how am I getting the word out about this? How am I selling this? Who am I selling this to? How many people do I need to sort of make the business model work? So I just think that that's a really, really important distinction, that that you're making there, that anytime you are creating something new, you really do have to consider the fact that all the other stuff that you might have been doing from a marketing standpoint, there are going to be a lot of things, and maybe even all of those things that aren't going to work nearly as well for that new thing. Mm hmm.Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the other things that we have to consider too, is just general confusion of our audience. So the more products we introduced to them, if we're still speaking to our LinkedIn followers, every time we post, now they're seeing us talk about these different products. And then they feel confused about how they can work with us or what to reach out to us for and it takes, you know, double or triple as long for them to get to that point where maybe they understand whether we are the coach or consultant or service provider who can help them. So when you think about simplicity of your product suite, it also lends to less confusion of your existing audience.
Yeah, and I also love the fact that you brought up and I found this for myself, where you basically saw that you wanted to work with a smaller group of people in a more concentrated way, you started to kind of notice that as something that just really resonated in sort of worked with how you operate, right, and sort of like the thing that you enjoy doing.
And I think that that's another thing that comes up. And I think this comes up a lot in the online world, especially because most of the things that ended up being sold are sort of presented in the online world, especially when somebody is presenting the idea of if we put you know, success in quotes, right? Is this aspect of that massive audience? And is this aspect of that big, huge launch and all of these different types of things. And there are plenty of business models out there, there are plenty of ways to do things on a much, much smaller scale, and to spend concentrated time with a smaller group of people. Can you tell us a little bit about how did you come to that realization for yourself? Especially because so much of the online world is geared towards this mass and then sell a portion of the mass on the product? How did that journey kind of happen for you? Yeah, Iguess a lot of it happened by actually trying to sell a lower cost offer. So as I mentioned right now, I mostly do one on one coaching and the price point is $7,000. Canadian, so it's a higher ticket item, but you get a level of support. And, you know, for a while there, I kept thinking how do I package this up into a low cost, self study, enter this digital course space, this evergreen, automated, you know, buy it DIY thing. So I actually did take all my resources, and I boiled it all down into a course that I put up onto teachable, and I launched it and the first set of students went through.
And I just found that there were a lot of questions, a lot of requests to book one on one sessions in addition to the online course, and just a level of just people dropping out. And so of course, my first thought there was well there's something wrong with the curriculum like I need to enhance the way this has been designed and I need to do a better job but making sure these resources are comprehensive, but when I fixed it up, I still was finding that there was just again the level of disengaged men out of the students who are doing the online version versus the ones who I was working with personally. And I believe that it's because business and marketing are so nuanced. And because yes, there are formulas and there are principles, and there are step by step processes. But at the end of the day, we need to nuance each strategy so that not only does it fit the offer that we're trying to sell, but for most people so that it's reflective of who you are as an entrepreneur, as a founder, as a visionary as a marketer, because if I'm telling you in a certain module, you know, here's how to sell more of your offer through podcasting, but you hate the art of podcasting, you don't even consume podcasts, you're not interested in the medium of podcast, but you think,
Okay, well, Kelsey is telling me this is a wildly effective strategy. But here I'm not able to actually interact and tell this person you know, if this isn't for you, we can find so many other strategies, we can do paid marketing, we can do PR, we can do, you know, organic list building, like there are so many ways that I could tell them, let's skirt around the art of podcasting and not even do it. But again, when you're taking an online course, often they do need to be more prescriptive. And I just in my heart of hearts, I knew that the clients I was able to work with personally act as a consultant with them and really get my hands dirty in their business, they were having greater results. And at the end of the day, that people having results, that's what lights me up, that's what makes me feel that I'm in the right place, I'm doing a good job. And I just tended to see that students that were going through the self study version, especially with something so challenging as online marketing, they needed that additional support. So that made my decision easy. And I just kept picturing you know, what I can do is I can share so many free resources and really serve the masses, with a lot of these video trainings and these workbooks that I've created. And I put out tons of free content. And then hopefully, by serving 99% of my audience with free value, hopefully there will be 1%, who's ready to take that leap with me and to walk to the to the summit together, right? I'm not trying to take 100% of my audience to the summit, I want most of them to just be on a journey with me to reap so much value from this adventure of learning online marketing and business.
But for those people who are keen to get to the top, who have the money, who have the time who have the energy to invest in help, I want to walk with you to the peak to summit Everest together. And I'm with you, like I'm your Sherpa, and I promise to guide you there and do everything I can to make sure you get there safely. And that we do a great job together.
And you bring you have something and I've talked about this before on the show. And you know that I've talked about this in different entrepreneurial circles. And it really does come down to this aspect of the aspirational client versus the excellence client, where you have the aspirational client has this belief that whatever the tool is, whatever the online course is, whatever the program is, that's going to be the Savior, right? Like that's going to fix them. And they put all of this effort and sort of thought into, you know, this thing, and they expect so much out of it, right? Like they expect so much because they look at this thing. And a lot of the marketing that's out there basically trains them in this way they look at this thing is like a turnkey solution to everything, right? And that there are no variables, if they just take this Instagram course, then they will instantly make millions in their business, right? Like there's that. There's that classic sort of thing that's happening. And then you have the excellence clients who they've been through it, right. Like they've been through the trenches, and all these different types of things. And they already know like what they want, they already know what success they're looking for. But they realize that there are people who have just done a deeper dive than they have in a certain area.
And they're like, I want to learn from you. I want to partner with you on this journey, right and really get to this place. And I think that a lot of the self study and a lot of the online stuff can appeal very much to a lot of folks in that aspirational place. But to your point when those people actually do the course or do the program and they actually follow through and use it especially if it's a free resource because I think like that is the thing, how many people probably have hundreds if not 1000s of free resources sitting on you know, hard drives and you know, different places that they They've never touched, right. But it's like when they actually use it, I think that they start to move more towards that excellence place because they start to get that confidence of okay, well, I follow this, I kind of did this, I've got an understanding. And then they say, Okay, now now I need somebody that kind of that, that higher that higher level, now I need a little bit more nuance. Now I know what I want to do. And I'm pretty clear on what I'm missing. And I want to find somebody who can sort of help me with that, and support that. And I think that the other point that you're bringing up, which is really important, is that when it does come to that, you do need to give a lot of attention. So it doesn't work in 100 person group, it doesn't really work in, you know, the masses kind of model, it really works in a smaller, more intimate sort of thoughtful model.
And I've, I've seen that personally, with my, with my own stuff, where you've been through one of my masterminds and you know, it's like that aspect of when you get a smaller group together, you can just spend so much more time with everybody on their things, and they have the time to support each other. Hmm, absolutely. So in terms of what the visionary method is, tell us about it. Where did this come from? How did you kind of come upon the idea of the visionary method? And what does it look like, like, walk us through a little bit of where this came from and what you're doing with it these days?
Yeah, so to rewind a little bit, I spent most of my corporate career working in marketing, so a lot of experiential marketing, community marketing, social media marketing, when it was just becoming popular 10 years ago, digital marketing as well. And eventually, like many people do, I got a little bit fed up with the corporate world. And I just felt like I was walking into the stale office, downtown Toronto, and I was wearing these clothes that I hated. And I was like, You know what, like, I'm a bit too different for this. So I had been making a lot of connections in the community, and just noticing that a lot of small to medium sized businesses, they didn't have the resources for a full time marketing hire, but they knew they needed a stronger online presence, they knew they needed to work with somebody to help them get more visible. So I decided to go freelance and just test it out. And I took on a handful of clients. And I found myself working around the clock, and I loved it. But I also had that like 20 something year old energy, and I could hustle my brains out. And I could respond to emails at 11pm. And, again, I think this is a common story, right?
There's a time in our lives when we're willing to do whatever it takes and to answer those phone calls at all hours of the day. But with these few clients, I kind of found that I was working on the same problems with them, I was having the same types of coaching calls and client calls. And I just thought, okay, like, this has to be a more common challenge, then I even realized, like if these small to medium sized businesses are all needing this type of marketing support, you know, why can't I try to help more people with this? And that's when I really decided to map out that framework for what the main components of a marketing strategy would be, how do you put together a plan, whether you're at that early stage of launching your product to an audience for the first time, or whether, you know, you're relaunching a brand, and you need to get in front of more and more people. So like I mentioned, I developed a set of trainings, and I started teaching them to more and more people. And so the visionary method today is a seven step system, where we essentially start by walking through the foundation of your business, do we have product market fit? Do you know your positioning against every competitor? Who's out there? Do you have a simple sales funnel setup? So how are you reaching people at the top of the funnel? How do you bring them down to the middle? How do you nurture them at the very bottom to buy?
And then what we do is we actually start testing out marketing strategies one at a time, so that we can see is this making an impact on your bottom line revenue? Is this driving sales? And if the results say yes, we keep it, we add it to the marketing playbook. And we continue to go strong on that while testing other strategies. If the result produces you know what know your audience is not on tick tock or you're like you said earlier, Michael, like maybe this product doesn't sell through email, then we actually put that strategy on pause, we write a description of why we think it didn't work, and then we continue to test new things. So a lot of people call this growth marketing. It's just really having data behind what we do and making sure that we're really Exploring where are the different opportunities and making sure that we test it in a way that we can actually measure the result. So that you have some clear proof of, hey, this is something you might want to pass off and hire a paid ads expert, or this is something that, you know, maybe revisit it in 12 months, but it's not something that you need to spend your resources on now. So I do that all in the course of four months with my clients. And by the end of the visionary method, they should have their playbook complete, so that they feel confident walking forward into the rest of their year, knowing exactly what to do when they have time to work on their marketing strategies.
And what do you find stymies people the most like, there's seven layers there, right? Like there's so many kind of different directions. And I'm sure problems that come up sort of at all of those different phases. But if you had to say, I just feel like this is the place where almost every time I go through this process with somebody, somebody stubbed their toe here, right, like, you know, that kind of thing. Is there a pattern that you see, is there something that really just stands out? As yep, this this, this gets most people?
Yeah, that's a really good question. The first thing that comes to mind for me is that most of my clients forget about this idea of content remix thing. So content marketing is something that I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with. It's the creation of value, whether that is video based, or posting on social media, or creating blogs, putting content out there that is resonant to your ideal client. And when you're building out a content marketing strategy, you're usually trying to figure out, okay, what are some of the most common problems that our ideal customer would have, that we could actually create content and solve that problem, or at least give them some value to further them along the journey that would then prompt them to want to learn more about our product or to invest in our product.
And so usually, there are three or four key topics that we need to address in order to capture that lead. However, when people embark on a content marketing journey, I think that they feel as though they have to reinvent the wheel every single day. It's like they show up, they look at, you know, where they need to show up, whether that's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and email, and they say, Oh, my gosh, I need four unique pieces of content every single day. But if you really think of this idea of content remixing, all you need to do is look at that core topic, that core piece of content that you set out to create at the very beginning of your content marketing efforts. And continue to iterate on that there are so many ways to answer a question or to add a unique spin on a certain content topic. And a good way to do this is to actually use a tool called Answer the public. So if you've never been to that website, it's so great because you could type in how to go vegan, for example, and it's going to create this insane web of questions. It'll be questions starting with how so it'd be how to cook a vegan meal, how to go vegan, how to transition from keto, to vegan, how, and then it'll go to y. And there'll be about 1000 outputs of different phrases that are actually being pulled by Google's top search results.
And these are all of the different ways that people are asking that question or searching for solutions to a particular problem. So I encourage my clients to really start by coming up with those core pieces of content, the things you need to be talking about at the top of the funnel. And then instead of constantly feeling like you need to reinvent the wheel to simply remix different topics, and to just add unique spins to the content that you know, works, and attracting your ideal audience. And I know we think we're repeating ourselves and we're worried Oh, my gosh, what if they think I'm saying the same thing, or they see that I'm reposting this piece of content. But honestly, going back to what we mentioned earlier about people being confused oftentimes with Well, I don't know what this person sells. This is a simple way to ensure nobody is confused. You become a subject matter expert, because when it all boils down to it, you keep talking about the same three or five core messages.
Yeah, I think that that is so so important. And I 100% agree with that. So I think that there's there's so many instances where you could write something and And you could take that exact article, post, whatever it is that you created, and literally just look at the very beginning of it.
And there's five or six other things that you can easily pick apart. And you're like, oh, this could be its own article, this could be its own section, you know, or you describe, you tell a story. And you realize, Okay, I've never actually researched that story. So let me research that story and find out like, what are the other pieces, you know, of that of that story? And then you share the other pieces of that story that people had no idea. We're also we're also part of, of the narrative, there's so much that you can find within that, but I do think you're right. I think that a lot of the time, we get worried that Oh, am I just beating people over the head? Oh, I use this thing, you know, three months ago? Is anybody going to notice? If I use it again? And truth is no. Right? Like, nobody's paying that close attention to our stuff. And being like, yeah, I read that, you know, I read that before, right? And there's just there's so much content that ends up being created. How do we ever sort of stay on top of did I see this? You know, did I see this before? And even if I have I've read emails, from different marketers, that I follow where they've recycled that same email, like three or four years in a row, but I learned something new every time I read it. Right, I there's always something else to kind of pick from it and see. So I think that's such such a great point. One of the things that we talk about a lot on the show, as you know, is relationship building. And one of the things I'm curious about for you, how has your relationship building process, the way that you've done things changed, as you've started to focus on, you know, this this smaller group, kind of dynamic as you started to focus on the really going into more of that one on one creating deeper relationships? What does it look like? Is there any change that's happened now that you're really focused on probably finding just like really, right, fit people? I'm curious, has there been any shift in your relationship building process and the work that you're doing?
Yeah, I think it's been a gradual shift. But the biggest thing that I can share on this topic is that it's only become more important as we get into this world where it feels like people are just kind of shouting random messages through social media, or we're getting inundated with emails in our inboxes. And now more than ever, relationship building is a huge priority in my day. And I really prioritize at least 15% of my working hours on creating meaningful connections. So even though I am using tools like Instagram, or I'm using tools, such as responding to people's emails, or just engaging with their content, I do really feel like it has to happen, because not a lot of business owners are doing it and not a lot of people are doing it meaningfully. So for me, I know that if somebody is going to take a leap and bring somebody in as a consultant to their business, they have to feel comfortable working with me. And in order for them to even consider that as their next step.
They need to see that not only do I have the right expertise, but they also need to see that I am the type of person who cares about their growth, who is relatable to them in some sort of way, who has a genuine interest in what they're up to, or what they've created. So a lot of the relationship building that I do comes in the form of being curious and asking them questions, and reaching out to them and, you know, based on a piece of content they put out there, asking them to explain something further or just reflecting back to them what I love about what they've said, and just facilitating that relationship in the most natural way. So I just I think that's something that it's hard to explain to people who maybe don't feel that natural urge to engage with content or to create conversation. But I think if you can just try to harness that quality of being naturally curious and to be not only a consumer of what you're seeing, but to actually not just passively watch what's happening in front of you, but to see step in and to engage. If you're going to spend time watching Instagram Stories, that's where I hang out a lot, don't just creep actually pause and say, What do I have to offer to this person? Or how can I shower them with a compliment or gratitude? How can I say something meaningful that will stand out from what everybody else who's watching this piece of content will do. And it's a really small way to potentially get into a bigger conversation, right? One out of every five or 10 of those messages will often lead to, Hey, we should get on a zoom call. And just, I would love to learn more about your business, or I'd love to know more about what you're up to for 2023. And that is ultimately where we can either decide, hey, this is something we might want to explore, you're looking for a marketing consultant to support you on this strategy. Or perhaps we end up referring to our peers, like there's always something good that can come of it. But for me, that is the best way that I know how to work with a client, and to make sure that they feel like they can make an informed decision of whether I am the right coach or consultant to support them. Yeah,
I 100% agree, I see it all the time where people will write things or sort of put things out there. And in some cases, there's sort of a handful of comments. In some cases, it's very small group and the number of people who actually like they listen to something and they reach out to you individually.
It's so so small, I've seen this numerous times where you'll do like a podcast interview or something. And you'll get a message from somebody that they actually listened to the episode, right? Like, they listened. And they reference things that you talked about, and they ask you some like, good question. And you're like, I'm going to respond to this, and I want to meet you, I want to know, like, like, you have really taken the time. And so few people do it, that I just think it's such a blue ocean. Like I just think like so few people ever, really, you get a lot of like, Hey, that was great, or thanks for the presentation. But how often do you get the paragraph or two, where they're really like telling you that they listened to their stuff that they like, get it that they're they're asking you a good question they're connecting. It's so so rare.
Mm hmm. And that's a good point, too, for anybody who's feeling like they want to grow their network, or potentially are searching for a mentor or somebody who can guide them in their next chapter of business, the easiest way to facilitate those connections is to do exactly like you say, to reach out to really listen to the podcast, to tell them how it's impacted them, and then to maybe say, and I would love to stay connected with you, because the person on the receiving end of that email is going to be blown away, because that is an email that does not slide into our inboxes very often. And I think if you're willing to go the extra mile to facilitate a connection, or to create some form of a relationship or conversation, it will get noticed.
Yeah, I think that's so so true. So another thing that I've always been really fascinated with is there's relationship acquisition, where we're sort of always going out and sort of having conversations and getting to know people, and we're building the network and building the network. But what I'm always really fascinated with is the idea of relationship retention, and the aspect of like, how do we make sure that we are staying in touch with folks and that we're staying, we're staying connected, and that we're really being thoughtful about that, because we can't, we can't just be, you know, emailing or contacting everybody all the time. Like we have to be thoughtful about sort of this process. So I'm just curious, do you have either a way that you think about this, or some systems that you use that help you with the relationship retention piece for yourself? Yeah, this might
take a totally different angle at relationship retention. But like I mentioned, I use Instagram as a main driver of leads in my business. And that's just because I started building an audience there many years ago, and a lot of them have stayed with me and have become clients. So I spend about, you know, 40% of my marketing efforts there. And so not only do I acquire relationships there but there's also this incredible opportunity for retention and what I have done in the past And this is actually something that's on my to do list for January. But I often do what I call a social media detox. So I will unfollow everybody. So I'll just blindly put my hand over everybody's name, and I'll hit unfollow, unfollow, you can unfollow 100 people an hour. So I'll just completely cleanse my Instagram. And because I use my Instagram for Business, what I will do is I will then, you know, look through my Excel spreadsheet where I track all of the people who are in my world, people I've had meaningful connections with over the years.
And this is just an ongoing spreadsheet, where I track my last point of contact with each person. And I will specifically follow 50 to 100 people. And these are people that I actively want to retain in my network people who I feel I may want to invite on my podcast, or I may want to invite as a guest speaker in the visionary method, community, or people that I think would be great private clients in the next few months. And in order to retain that relationship, because I'm only following a certain number of people, I make it my priority than to actually engage in everything that they're posting, because I'm only seeing a very, very small amount of people's content popping up. And then you know, maybe in a couple of months time, I'll do the same process, go back to zero, and then kind of re curate my social media feeds. So I think this can kind of apply to any marketing channel where you're hanging out having that shortlist of people that you really want to pull in a little bit closer, maybe there's 10 or 20 people floating around your brain that they keep popping up. But you don't do anything about it, you're not actively reaching out.So try to make it easy for yourself. I mean, there's only so many names and people that we can process at a time. So for me, that system of only following the people that I really want to make sure I am staying close to or pulling in a little bit closer for the month, it's an easy system for me to go, okay, when I open up Instagram, I'm just going to see those people that have been on my mind who I want to, you know, bring in a little bit closer over the next 30 days. And that's just what helps me. So if you can apply that to any way that you show up, I think it's an effective system for not getting overwhelmed and doing nothing.
Yeah, I mean, I think that first off, that's a really, really fascinating way to kind of use the algorithm to your advantage, right? Because you're you're creating that scenario in which you've cleared everything out, and then you've kind of rebuilt it. And the algorithm is basically only going off of what you're telling it right. So it's like, hey, I want to see these people, you know, that's going to show that up. So I think that that's a really interesting concept. But the other thing that you bring up that I think is so so important, is this element of saying, Okay, what's the smaller number of total, that I want to think about, like staying in touch with more, because I think so often, that's not what happens, right? We get to this point where we have that massive spreadsheet, and you know, we're, we're being in touch with people.
But if we were to try to be like, Okay, I'm going to stay in touch with all 2000 people on this spreadsheet. And yes, there's things out there, there's CRMs. And there's stuff that people use and everything, but I don't think anything is is as effective as basically taking a smaller number and being like, Okay, who are 10 to 15 people who I just I have decided it would be great to deepen the relationship. Like I just think these are really solid humans. And I realized that I don't actually know them as well as I would like. And I want to follow them more, I want to get to know them more, I want to see what else we can do together. So I think that that point about really thinking about what is that smaller number, I think is also a really, really valuable point as well.
And just one more tip on that this is probably the obvious tip, but I've been really following through on implementing this is when you think of someone reach out to them right away, chances are you have your phone on you or near you at all hours of the day. So when you think of them, send them a message. And if you are somebody like myself who gets very distracted by their phone during the workday, I always have one piece of paper where I'm just jotting down notes. So through the workday, I draw a tiny little box on my scrap paper. And anytime I think of someone like say I think of my friend Laura or I think of a past business colleague, Moira, I will jot their name down and then before I end my workday, I look in that box and I send a connection note to each of those people before I throw that scrap paper out for the day. So that's that's a non distractible way to do it,
that's great. That's great. I love that idea of the little box. I think that's a really, really good one. Because if you don't separate it, right, if it's just part of your notes from the, from the day or like, oh, yeah, so and so it's gonna get mixed up with everything else. But that aspect of the separation, I think is a really, really great, great distinction there. And very, very cool. Thanks. So we're starting to get close to the end of our time. And time always flies when we have these we have these conversations. And as you know, there is a question that you're gonna get to answer a second time. But before we get to that, if folks are listening, and they're thinking, this is awesome, I want to know more about Kelsey, I want to I want to connect with her. Where should they go? And what should they do?
My website is just my name, Kelsey rydell.com, and Instagram. Same thing at Kelsey Rydell. So those are the two best places, and you can find me all around the interwebs at Kelsey rattle.com.
Awesome, awesome. And those links will be in the show notes for you, folks. And we are on to the final question of the show. It's often referred to as the golden question. So Kelsey, as you know, the name of the show is called access to anyone. And the question that I asked every single guest, is if you could have access to anyone you got a chance to sit down with anyone you like they have to be living. Who would that one? Person B?
I'm going to answer this question. And you might say that's not an appropriate answer. Or perhaps somebody has taken this before. But honestly, I want to access the me of 20 years from now, it's so incredible, when you are somebody who is constantly learning and growing and chatting with people like you might go, like, I feel like I'm learning so much every single day. And when I think about just the incredible opportunity to be connected with so many visionary individuals, and to see what's possible, with my peers who I know in person who I follow online, I'm excited that I'm literally downloading so much energy from yourself and from so many people that I would love to meet the meet of 20 years from now and learn from her because I feel like she will be so much wiser, she will have just so much more to share than I do today. And I'd be excited to know where I will be at that timeframe. So I'm allowed to share that answer.
I love it. I think it's fantastic. Well, folks, if you happen to have a DeLorean and you want to bring and you want to bring future Kelsey Yeah, hang out with present. Kelsey, I am sure that present Kelsey, would love to chat with you.
Thank you for that call to action. Buddy messages me?
Exactly. Come on people. Get into those quantum fields. Let's make something happen. Well, Kelsey, again, thank you so, so much for coming on the show. It's always always a pleasure to have you on in such great conversation. Thank you for sharing so much. Great stuff.
Thank you so much for having me, Michael. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and all the best into 2023.
Thank you. And thank all of you for continuing to listen. If you've been enjoying what you've been hearing, feel free to give us a rating. Let us know how we're doing all that fun stuff. I'm Mike Roderick, you've been listening to access to anyone and we'll talk to you next time.
Hey, visionaries are you an entrepreneur that started your business to feel the freedom that it can bring? I know that certainly one of the reasons the main drivers actually why I decided to take the leap, leave my corporate marketing management job and to start the visionary brand. So we start the business, we crave the freedom, but then we kind of get bogged down in things like too much responsibility, and we have decision paralysis. And it's really challenging to figure out where to put your time and energy and how to not stay up all night worrying about your marketing worrying about whether this business is ever going to feel easy and take off. Well, what if we told you that you could enrich your weeks and your days with a community of devoted passionate, impact driven and health and lifestyle anchored entrepreneurs. Like you don't want to just build a massive company that supports you financially and that supports your well being. You also want to do it in a way that supports being your best self feeling healthy. Be around people who are like minded with shared values. I know for me that eating well and making sure I'm accountable to my workouts and being around amazing, driven positive women who lift me up and cheer me on rather than bring me backwards, it has been essential to my success. Over the last seven years, I've gone through phases where I felt lonely and disconnected. And I can tell you that those have been the worst months in my business. So that's where we want to talk about the mastermind presented by the visionary method and the magnetic life. So my business partner, Emily Elliott is a certified mindset and success coach, and myself being a professional marketing coach, we've collaborated and we've created what we believe is the top mastermind for female entrepreneurs like yourself, if you are feeling a strong call for connection, and you want accountability to get through your launches, and to make sure your marketing plan is on track, and you want to space to ask questions about hiring virtual assistants. And knowing when the right time is to launch that next offer versus scale your existing one, you're definitely going to want to be part of this group. It is weekly elevation, we are calling you forward to your highest version of your CEO self. But we're also going to be there for you through the lows and the challenges. Maybe you're a new mom, maybe you are going through some sort of relationship struggles. You know, this is a place to be your full self. We are not just entrepreneurs in silos who just work like workhorses all day, we have stuff going on, and let's make a space where that's accepted. And let's make a space where we challenge each other to be better both in and outside of our office. If you are interested in applying this as a very intimate small group, head to Kelsey rydell.com/mastermind. Or you can just head to Kelsey rattle.com and click the coaching drop down, we would love to have you apply, I'll jump on a call with you give you the full overview of what this space is like we meet every single week, and we cannot wait to see your application come through. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of visionary life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis. So it would mean so much to me. If you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either iTunes or Spotify. It just takes a second. And if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice tagging me at Kelsey Reidl. I'll catch you in the next episode.
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