BONUS EPISODE OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: Sonya interviewed by one of our clients, Rebecca Miller
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Hi everyone. I'm so excited to bring you an episode where I was interviewed by one of my amazing clients, Rebecca Miller. Rebecca Miller is the owner of the La Bella Medispas, The Skin Whisperer, and she's also got another brand called The Real Rebecca Miller where she does a lot of consulting with businesses as well. So her specialty is strategic planning. I get really vulnerable in this episode and share some things about my life I've actually never spoken about publicly before, so be gentle with me. Outside of that, I just love where this conversation went in this episode. Enjoy.
Rebecca Miller:
So this morning on Living Your Best Life, I'm super excited because I'm actually being joined by Sonya McIntyre-Reid. Sonya is the founder and the director of the digital marketing agency, Kiss Marketing. And I know firsthand how amazing this young, 26 year old entrepreneur is. And I think at the moment it is a crucial time for people to really up their marketing with the world being changed as it is. So Sonya, welcome to Living Your Best Life.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Hi Rebecca, thanks so much for having me and I completely agree, especially digitally right now we don't really have any other way of reaching our customers other than online.
Rebecca Miller:
And that's why I thought I'd reach out to you because I know that you're going to be able to bring so much value. Now, for the people that don't know you, who is Sonya McIntyre-Reid?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh, very good question. Who am I? Well, I'm a country girl originally, so I spend my time sort of split between [Abra donga 00:02:09] where I grew up and Melbourne and also a small town on the South coast of New South Wales called Bermagui. So I started my business about four years ago now, and it just started from word of mouth. I was working full-time for not-for-profit, as their state marketing and events manager, and I was asked to build a website by someone and from there it just spread.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So yeah, that's sort of my business background. In terms of life outside of business I'm a daughter, I am the mama to a third child, a sausage dog called Chipolatas. And what I do in my spare time, I love to be fit and healthy. I go to the gym, I'm a swimmer, I play water polo, I love spending time with my friends and family. I'm a bit of a hard body. Yes, that's what I do in my spare time.
Rebecca Miller:
Oh wow. And so obviously you've started your own digital marketing agency, what sort of made you, obviously you would have been working for somebody before that, but what made you say, right, I need to go out on my own and was that a little bit scary or tell us about that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh my gosh, Rebecca it was terrifying. So I was actually working for Alzheimer's Australia at the time and it's something that's incredibly close to my heart. So my mom has early onset Alzheimer's. So for me, I never sort of thought I'd see myself working for a not-for-profit, my family's always been in business and so I always saw my self going into business or had this vision in my head that I'd be working for a big finance company. That was sort of the path I saw for myself. And then I took on this role and I honestly grew very frustrated being in meetings all the time, there was sort of no accountability and I just wasn't feeling fulfilled. So when this opportunity came up to help a family friend with their business, I did and it just kept growing from there.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So I'd be getting up at sort of 3:00, 4:00 in the morning working for a few hours, commuting an hour to my job, doing my job, which I was just lucking more and more. And then I would commute home and then work again sort of until 10:00, 11:00 at night, get a few hours sleep and do it all over again. And it sort of got to the point where I had replaced my full-time income and my dad pulled me to the side one day and was like, "I'm worried about you. Like you cannot keep this up. I know that you're so driven and focused and you're loving what you're doing so much, but it's not something that's sustainable. And I know you're so young, but look at what you've already built. You need to start thinking this is a real business and take the leap and just do it." And it hadn't sort of occurred to me that, that was a choice I even had. I think I had just been so caught up in seeing this amazing results we were getting for these business owners, helping them out.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It was coming from a place of, well, I've got this talent and this skill, I'm just going to use it. So eventually I did take the leap with a push for my dad and it was a very scary sort of first six months. I thought, oh my gosh, is it all going to fall apart now? And it was about getting myself in that mindset of this is a real business, setting up those systems, those processes, getting a team on board to help me. I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm not perfect at everything. So getting people on board such as my web developer or my graphic designer or my account manager who were amazing and all those bits and pieces that I wasn't so great at was a big step as well. That's sort of how I ended up [crosstalk 00:06:04].
Rebecca Miller:
Yeah. And I think that's a big thing is that you have to be surrounded by amazing talent that can support you and understand exactly what you're trying to achieve. So when it comes to you finding your team, how did you go about that? And you've got, how many people working for you now?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
What makes that team, we've got one, two, three, four working for us now. Honestly, it was very sort of start and stop. So my first ever hire was actually a virtual assistant and I just thought, I'll just take someone on five hours a week, just baby steps. And I really lucked out with her. Like she's still with me today and I tell you what, she is more like my absolute rock. I will throw stuff at her, have a million balls in the air, be moving at a million miles an hour and somehow she manages just to decode what I'm saying and come back to me with visual representations of things. We could do it this way Sonya or we could do it this way, make a decision and I'll make it happen. She's incredible.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So she very quickly went from five hours a week to full-time. Then I had the need for a web developer to be able to do some custom coding and things like that because I knew that I just did not have the skills and it was very specialized. And again, it had a lot of start and stop with that. We went through quite a few different developers where really for me the attention to detail just was not there with a lot of them. And I've found myself putting out fires constantly, apologizing to clients. And the stress that it was causing me was just so much because I hate delivering work that I know isn't perfect and it creates ... Not perfect, but not up to standard or there's mistakes the client has to then come up and pick up on.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And it was creating more work for me than it needed to be. So then I went, okay, well maybe I need an account manager to be managing this person and looking at those finer details and making sure everything's on track. Turns out, no, I just needed a better web developer, which I have now. But in the process of that, I spent about six or seven months. And again, I sort of went through three account managers before I found Elizabeth who you have a lot of contact with now Rebecca. And I think her role sort of changed from what I expected it to be where she'd be managing this sort of team so I could keep moving forward and keep the contact with clients to now, she handles a lot of my day to day client management and I do the strategy side of things.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I make sure everything's sort of up to scratch and I'm looking at other opportunities for our business. So it has changed a lot and it has been a lot of trial and error and I haven't been perfect at it. And I think there have been some things from the beginning though that I have learned from my very first ever job I worked for a coach in the real estate industry and he had this amazing business and everyone worked remotely. And he managed his team using a project management tool called Asana and was really big on all these different online tools and systems. And I have taken that from day one even when it was just me and we use it, we live in Asana now. So I think that has been really, really important thing that we've embraced that has helped us grow and keep the team on track with everything.
Rebecca Miller:
And I think that's the thing, you've just got to completely streamline everything, so that sounds like it'd be an amazing tool. And I know we do exactly the same thing. So obviously, a few weeks ago you were going for the trip of a lifetime Sonya, over to Europe but unfortunately things changed drastically while, I think you'd only be gone for how long? And tell us a little bit about that and coming home, what was the feeling when you knew you had to come home, all those kinds of things, you went into isolation. Just tell us a little bit about that experience.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, look, it's been a big six months for me to be honest. Look, I'm young, but obviously with my mom, I did a lot of growing up at a very young age and my dad always jokes that I came out of the womb old. I'm not a bloody animal, I'm quite a serious driven person and the end of last year I had a breakup from a very long term relationship. I kind of felt like my life was all planned out for me and I sort of planned out 2020, I sat down at the start of the year, I planned out my 2020 and I was going to spend a couple of months back home in [Oakleigh 00:11:00] reconnecting with family and friends.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I was then going to go on a trip to Ireland with a girlfriend of mine and we were going to have Saint Patty's day over an Island and it was going to be a bit of a boozy partying trip, which is something I've never done before. It's not me. I was a bit apprehensive about it. I was then going to come back, I was going to go and live in Bali for three months, like all of this stuff. Anyway, so we get to go over to Island, having an absolute ball. When I left the country, I think there were six cases in Australia and three in England and that was it. Anyway, we had gone out and had a fantastic night in Dublin, woke up the next morning quite late and found out the whole country had gone into lockdown. And of course I think Ireland was the first country to do this version lockdown, so we had no idea what it meant. We just went, oh yeah, whatever and got in the car and drove to Belfast not really thinking anything of it.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Anyway, about 24 hours went past and panic hit because the US closed its borders. So did New Zealand, and I just looked at my friend and just said, "I know Smartraveller has not given us any travel warnings, I just have this gut feeling that we need to go home." So it took me about 24 hours to actually get through to the airline to get any form of flight. At that stage, there were no flights out of Belfast happening. So we had to drive back to Dublin, get a flight from Dublin to Heathrow, get on another flight back to Australia. And we got to Brunei and at that stage, I think we'd been in transit for about 35 hours. I'm thinking, you know what? I've had a great five days. We'll just do it again next year. I now have this time to go home and just recharge a little bit.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It's already been such a big year. I got stuck in the bush fires on the South coast as well, what a year. And so I'm telling myself, this is going to be great. It's going to be kind of forced time at home to relax and recharge. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to go have a facial and a massage. All this stuff. And as we're in transit, Scott Morrison announces that anyone coming back into the country has to self isolate for 14 days. So I think I was probably the first flight back into the country that had to do that, so I had 14 days in self isolation which do you know what? It was actually quite nice. That's been my start of the year.
Rebecca Miller:
But it also, and the thing too is it's really flown you into, even though you had that little bit of time at home, which was great, but then you had to deal with men when you got home, which was always ready to conquer the world. Would you say that you your business has just gone crazy now because we have had to go to that digital space and what are the trends that you're seeing?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I mean, sorry, go.
Rebecca Miller:
What are the trends that you're seeing?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Oh, goodness. It's really funny Rebecca, I'm seeing business owners attending to fall into one of two categories. There's the clients that have like yourself, who are my dream clients by the way, that are just getting stuck in looking for the opportunity and making things happen and reaping the rewards as a result. And then there are the clients that are running scared, sticking their head in the sand, shutting everything down and not doing anything. It's kind of like this moment of denial. This is completely out of my hands, I'm just going to sit. And do you know what? I probably had a week where I had honestly the worst jet lag when I got back because I'd worked so hard up until the trip to get away that I was exhausted and then I was exhausted coming back into it. So I probably found myself in that second state for about a week until I recharged.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
The trends that I'm seeing are really ... I've built probably four online stores for businesses in the last week. A lot of business owners going, right, how can I do online consults and if they aren't able to sell their products and services in any way, the business owners that are thinking longterm at the moment and realizing, well hang on a second, social media usage is up by 40%, engagement is up by 70%, cost of ads are down by 60%. The smart ones are realizing great, this is going to change people's behaviors on how they shop online, how they interact with others whether or not they're open to doing business online. I need to build an audience now and take advantage of this situation because people are sitting in their homes and when things are ready to go again, I want to be top of mind. So they're putting content out there, they're building audiences and they're taking action. And I think that's the big trend that I'm seeing that's positive at the moment.
Rebecca Miller:
Yeah. Because it's really funny, I know that just even being in a couple of webinars, business webinars that I jump on, I'm holding my On The Couch series where I'm talking to beauty business owners. And it's really funny as you said that one of two ways, and in those, some of those webinars people were saying cuddle your marketing, stock your Facebook ads, all those kinds of things. But for me, and I'm sure you'll agree with it, this is the time to ramp it up. This is where you can really test and measure and find your audiences and you do things that you've never done before. This is your chance because everybody's watching, what do you think? So definitely not a time to be putting your marketing budgets to the side, this is the time to ramp it up.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. I think you've got to be smart about it, you don't need to be spending as much as what you were. So for some businesses it might be a situation where you've been running, say Google ads to drive people to actually come in store. I think it comes down to you've got to be smart about it. Look at what your goals are and what you can achieve at this point in time. Is this a time for you to be monetizing or is this a time to be gearing up to monetize after this is all over and that's going to depend on your business, your business model, and also the resources you have around you in terms of a team at the moment as well. I do a lot of workshops, Rebecca, a ton of workshops on social media and a common theme from business owners is I just don't have time to do that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
When do you find the time to do this? Oh my God, if you don't have the time now, you're never going to have the time. And I think it comes down to, it's not that you don't have the time, you're not making it a priority and you're not making it happen. It might only take you 20 minutes to schedule out a week's worth of content on social media. How much time are you spending scrolling through your phone at the moment consuming other people's content? So even if you can't be running ads or you don't have that budget right now, what are you doing? Are you working on the content on your website? Are you filming videos? Are you reaching out to past clients? Are you focusing on the customers that you already have? I think there's so many different things that we can be doing, and that doesn't necessarily have to mean spending money on ads at the moment.
Rebecca Miller:
Exactly. And so what would you ... If you had to really say what do you ... If you had to choose one platform, what would it be? That's a big question for people like you.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
That is such ... Okay, I'm going to be snaky and I'm going to have two answers. If you have one platform for advertising, it would be Facebook. If you have one platform for ... Actually, do you know what? No, screw it. I'm just going to say Facebook. I think because you have the ability for your content to be shared, that you don't have that on Instagram. You have that ability to be having conversations with people. You can do live videos, you could have Facebook groups. Facebook ads convert far better than Instagram ads do. So Facebook for me, I think maybe 12 months ago, I wasn't spending a lot of time on the platform. I'm finding now people are starting to jump back on it a bit more and there's been all this hype around old people are leaving Facebook and spending all their time on Instagram. It's actually not the case. Usage numbers for Facebook have been really steady over the last 12 months. So yeah, I'd actually say Facebook.
Rebecca Miller:
Yeah. And I'd have to agree with you there. And I know that we still deliver a lot of content on Instagram, but Facebook's always been, you can run many chats out of there. It's just, it's a really good communication. Like we get a lot of engagement on Facebook and especially with lives and it's a free platform. Like people don't ... You don't actually need to even spend, I know all of our stuff that we've done until we started doing a little bit of spin yesterday on one of our home series, it's all been completely organic. And that's what we were saying, like for things to go that gang buster-ish and it was organic, organic rate, organic ...
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Exactly.
Rebecca Miller:
It was just amazing looking at the numbers. But I'm with you, I definitely think Facebook is definitely still is leading the way. Especially in our industry, for business to business, I think you'd probably be looking at LinkedIn and places like that. It depends on what your business is too, doesn't it, Sonya?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh, absolutely. And I think that's the thing. I mean, there's so many experts and gurus out there saying this is the one system and way to do things. No, it does not work like that. And I mean I, we do a lot of lead generation campaigns and we can run a campaign on Facebook for a business in Melbourne, run the exact same campaign on Facebook for a business in Sydney and get completely different results. So it varies business to business, industry to industry and even location to location as well.
Rebecca Miller:
And that's what people need to take into consideration. So obviously there's a lot of platforms out there, what would be some of your favorite, so your scheduling tools. What are some of your favorite tools that are out there that can assist people with their businesses at the moment?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yes, there are two that I absolutely love. So I love later.com for Instagram because it's been specifically built for Instagram. So they have a free version, I think you can do up to 30 posts a month. I do recommend paying for the paid version though, just because it allows you to actually go and save groups of hashtags. You can do your hashtag research, you can schedule Instagram stories and they've got some amazing sort of analytics and insights that you can get from that as well. Then when it comes to Facebook and LinkedIn, I love Buffer because Buffer actually has an extension that you can add onto Google Chrome. So if you're on the internet and you see something, you go, oh my God, that's fantastic. Love that article. My audience would really get a lot out of this, you can just click the little Buffer icon and it'll add it to your feed or your queue in your content wherever you've next got a gap.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So they're my two favorite and I actually have a free little course, Rebecca, that I've put together for business owners because I get asked this all the time on how to use and set up these two tools and also a system on putting your content together. So if anyone's interested in that, I'll shoot Rebecca through a link and you can include that.
Rebecca Miller:
That will be fantastic.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
[inaudible 00:22:27].
Rebecca Miller:
That's amazing. What great value are you already. So obviously when it comes to doing a marketing plan, what tips can you give everybody? Because I know sometimes that's even a bit overwhelming, how can we make it really simple, Sonya?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Look, I think when you say marketing plan, I mean there's two elements to that. People who often go, I need a marketing plan and they're just talking about their social media. But I think you've got to take a step back and when I do strategy sessions with people, the first thing I ask them, what are your goals? And they're like, "Oh, I want to get more followers." And I go, "Well, why?" It comes down to ultimately what are your overall business goals and why you want to achieve that. So why are you wanting more followers? Is it for more sales? Because more followers might not necessarily equal more sales. So I think that's the first step. Coming back to what is my number one goal and then putting down maybe two sub goals as well that would be nice to achieve.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Then when it comes to doing like your marketing planning, and your social media in particular, to make it easy for people I think you've got to sit down and come up with your core content pillars. So what do I mean by this? There are three different types of content that you can be putting out there. There's promotional content, so features and benefits of your different products and services. There's your connection content and this is the content that might be the funny names or the funny videos, things like that. And then you've got your educational content. So what are you putting out there that makes you a thought leader in the space? And your connection content and your educational content don't necessarily have a sales message or a call to action. You're just providing that value in some way.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And when you're doing that, that actually means that your promotional content is going to be seen by more people because they've been engaging with the other pieces of content. So I think having those kind of frameworks when it comes to your marketing planning, based around what your goals are and the platforms that you're going to be using is really important. It becomes completely overwhelming if you don't have these kind of frameworks to work within.
Rebecca Miller:
And the big thing too is making sure your content's relevant. Because I know at the moment, for the things that we were working on before this, which were in clinic treatments, we've actually never had to change what our marketing ... What we were trying to ... Our reach, what issues we were trying to solve for people is making it relevant. Have you seen that there's definitely a big shift there?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. And you know what, when we're not living in the time of corona, what I say to my clients is I think it's really important that we plan say a month in advance, have a set amount of content scheduled out around 80%. But what I get them to do is make sure that they're doing things on the fly as well. So it's relevant, it's in the moment and it's talking about what's happening at that point in time. So Instagram stories, for example, boomed because of this. Obviously at the moment with corona it depends on what industry you're in. We're working with our clients week to week, not scheduling far in advance like we used to. And even for some clients we're working day to day as well.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So I think you've got to have the ability to be flexible and responsive to what's happening because there's nothing worse than seeing, and I mean its sort of past now, but last month we're seeing a lot of post from businesses that I was like, that's very, very clearly pre-scheduled and it's completely not relevant to what is happening at the moment. And it kind of piss me off. I was like, what are you doing? Why would you even be ... Why are you teasing me like that at the moment? I can't go out and have a drink at your bar. Like it's just yeah, I think it's the point-
Rebecca Miller:
No it's one of the things-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
That it was coming across as human still.
Rebecca Miller:
And that's one definitely one of the things that I have noticed too is that sometimes content that is coming out is not relevant to the world we're in at the moment. And to make sure that we do keep it all relevant. So if you had to give one tip, what would it be as far as marketing goes?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
My one tip is start with the customer base that you already have or the audience that you already have. And they might not necessarily be on social media at this point, as in that you might not have connected to them. But if you have a brick and mortar store, for example, what can you be doing to really please those customers and spread word of mouth? So I think social media is like word of mouth on steroids. Right? So can you have something up in your store saying share us or tag us and receive a discount off your next coffee, for example. Do you have an email list of people that you can get in touch with, run a competition, get them to follow and like your page?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I think people, a lot of the time go and reach for a cold audience that have never heard of them first. And I say this, especially when it comes to advertising, it's best to work with the people that know you and get them to like and trust you and then purchase from you first rather than going up to someone cold. Does that make sense?
Rebecca Miller:
Yeah, definitely makes sense. And I know for us, our clients are our skin influencers at the moment. They're the ones posting videos of their home facials and their products when they arrive. And we just put a little note in to ask them if they would love to share, if they're comfortable with sharing, just to share their experience. And it's been amazing because people see that they see a normal real person using our products, seeing it being delivered, and then it creates, "Oh, I've got a couple of sisters that went, oh, my sister bought that. Can I get one of those as well?" It just creates that intrigue and all as it is, is working with our clients that we've actually got now that are now, it's her sister that's up in Queensland that now would like our home facials delivered to her. That's something that we've found where has worked really, really well. Have you seen that with other businesses as well?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. And I think that comes down to people buying into who you are as well. And I so often come across businesses where they need marketing help, but no matter how much marketing we do, unless they are loving their existing customer base and doing amazing work and providing a good or a service that people actually want, no amount of marketing in the world can help you. Marketing helps amplify what you're already doing.
Rebecca Miller:
And so is there an importance around knowing who your, I guess, ideal client is or having an ... Because I know for us we've got a couple of little target markets we really watch, who opens our emails, who's looking at us on Facebook, their ages, we've got these people ... We know a lot about them so we're not able to target them. Is that really important when it comes to your marketing as well?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh my goodness Rebecca, it's so important. I always thought when I was at uni, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've all heard doing the customer persona a million times, what boring marketing speak. But how do you actually use it and put that into practice? Well there's an amazing clip from Gary V. who he talks about how can you speak directly to your ideal customers and social media lets you do that. And he gives an example because he grew up and his family, one store and he says, what happens if you put together an article about the top five wines for moms with kids under the age of five or something along those lines. So you're really speaking to a specific audience. That's what you can do on social media. And we've all seen it, scrolling through and an ad pops up and you're like, oh my God, how did they know that about me?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
They're speaking directly to me. Are they inside my head? If you know who your people are, then you can do that and you're going to cut through all the noise. So yes, I think it's very, very important to be tailoring your message to your ideal client to attract them. Otherwise, if you're just sitting on the fence and you're not really talking to anyone, well if you're trying to talk to anyone, actually you're talking to no one. It's got to be specific.
Rebecca Miller:
Exactly. And so for somebody that really wanted to learn more about how they could learn how social media can work for them, learn how to actually create a great plan, do you have something that you can actually offer? Do you, have you got some online courses? I know you said there's a couple of little complimentary ones and I know you used to have workshops, but if you changed the way you're doing that as well, I know you've got your own podcast, tell us about all this stuff.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. So I'm very lucky that actually November last year, one of the last workshops I did, I had someone come along and film it. So I'm actually in the process of having that put together to be something that people can download off our website for social media. But in the meantime, while we're waiting for that to happen, I do have a podcast called the Marketing Solutions podcast, so an episode comes out weekly and there's a ton of stuff on there. And then also if you head to our website, kissmarketing.com.au/free, I've got about seven or eight free downloads on there as well.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
One of them that I think everyone should start with is a social media workflow course, which is going to talk you through how to set up these scheduling tools, how to sit down and make a content plan and basically sit down and have all of your content scheduled out and then supplement that with some realtime happenings. So you're really taking the stress out of your social media. Again, I'm big on like systems and structures and processes, so it takes that guesswork out of it for you.
Rebecca Miller:
And also, another thing is, what was in the site and I just had a really big thought that came into my mind. Oh, there's no greater time than now to be learning this stuff. We've got time.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh my gosh, we've got time. And also we're seeing the good old days happening where engagement's way up, reaches way up and ad costs the way down. So why would you not do it now? Like we're going to come out the other end of this, in six months time it's going to be back to how it was before. It's probably going to be harder because I just have this feeling that businesses are just going to be raring to go. The ones that survive are going to be raring to go. They're ready for the economy to be stimulated again, people who've been sitting at home, like it's going to go up in terms of ad costs because it works on an auction system. And when that happens, it's a lot harder sort of to test and measure. So now is the time to take advantage of it and you've got the time on your hands potentially now as well.
Rebecca Miller:
And also the time to come and listen to your podcast, to come in once you've released those two little, you said you had two little courses that people can jump into your website and get, was that right Sonya? You did say that, didn't you?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Yup, yup. So just head to kissmarketing.com.au/free and it's just a page of all of these free resources for you.
Rebecca Miller:
And then you're going to bring out as you said, you've had that other ... When you did that workshop training, that people are going to be able to get this from you. How amazing that this is the perfect time? I know for us, our girls are committed to learning, to up-skill one hour per on their normal day of work that they just up-skill. So whether it's some skin training or it's ... All those kinds of things to be able to up-skill, this is a great time for people to up-skill.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh, absolutely. And I think that's amazing that you've actually built that into their work day at the moment. You're making use of the time that they've got on their hands at the moment.
Rebecca Miller:
And just really recognizing where they do need to have some help, where's the gaps that need to be filled? And this is as business owners, this is something that you can sit down and do with your team and get them to commit to an hour of up-skilling every day. I think it's crucial. We've got time, really we've asked for this. A lot of the time our excuse is, we've got no time to be able to up-skill a few things on social media, up-skill your craft. It's perfect timing.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Exactly. And I think what's become very apparent is that for a lot of people it's never been about the time. It's about just not making it a priority.
Rebecca Miller:
True this. And I think now's the perfect time for that. So some little bit of rapid fire, in the theme of living your best life, what does it mean to you to be living your best life?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Living my best life is getting up in the morning and going for a run and having a swim in the ocean. Amazing coffee, wine, good food, feeling I think really calm, focused, healthy and committed to my goals. I think when I'm in that place, I'm living my best life and I'm happy.
Rebecca Miller:
Yeah, that sounds good. And how you start your day is definitely how your day plays out, isn't it? Have you got any little secret rituals or routines, like I know that you swim and you've got your exercise and those things. Do you do some journaling affirmations or is there any little secret tip of how you keep yourself on track?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Look, I wouldn't say it's a secret tip, but I'm a very structured routine driven person. So for me, I wake up in the morning, I take my phone off airplane mode and I meditate for 10 minutes. I use an app called Shine, which is amazing. I wouldn't even call it a meditation, it's like a little daily pep talk. It's fantastic. They record them the evening before to upload into the app. So it's completely relevant, so it's been great during the time of corona. If I am not in corona time, I will be at the pool having a swim in the morning. At the moment, I'm out doing a walk and a little jog in nature. And then on my way home, whether it be from the pool or my run and my walk, I will grab a coffee from my favorite little coffee shop.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I'll then sit outside and do my emails while I'm drinking my coffee. And then I get on with my day and then in the evening I'm very routine based as well. I will do my to do list for the next day. So I'm trying to stop my brain from thinking about work at this point, putting it all on paper. I know it's there, it's going to be there the next day. I usually journal a bit and yeah, that's probably the extent of my evening routine. But for me, all of those little elements and making sure I never miss them keep me happy and keep me sane.
Rebecca Miller:
Disciplined. And I think there was a really good point there where you said, I just structure out my next day because I think when you do have those sleepless nights, and I know I'm guilty of it myself, if you know exactly what's happening the next day and you've got all your bits and bobs that you need to tick off the list, you sort of get a better night's sleep. Let's be honest. So I think that's a really good point, to really make sure our listeners really take on board. So if somebody was looking at doing some marketing, they can come to your website, obviously. What other books or resources would you recommend?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh my goodness. Well, I'm a content junkie, so in terms of podcasts, Amy Porterfield's Online Marketing Made Easy is a great one. I have found that her early episodes are a lot better and more relevant to business in general, whereas Nash is quite niche down to online courses and things like that. So maybe not quite as relevant. Gary V. is someone I follow religiously, he wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and it was probably five years ago now, but it's still completely relevant for social media.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Other books, anything by Seth Godin. Absolutely amazing. I love him so much. I think the thing is with him, I love his ideas and these concepts behind marketing, but when it comes to actual like practical ways to implement things, I don't really feel like he's sort of kept up with the times. He's not super digitally savvy, but I mean, I think you've got to just take what you need from specific people rather than looking at someone and taking everything they say as gospel. Because as I said before, what works in one business, in one industry, in one area is not going to work for every business. So I think when it comes to your marketing, looking at what all these experts are saying, trying it out, but not being committed to have to make this one strategy work, it might not work for you.
Rebecca Miller:
Exactly. And I mean, Gary V. is definitely, he stands out. I'm actually reading his, or listening to his book, called Crushing It.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yes.
Rebecca Miller:
But I find the way he does things is very, very interesting. And I mean he's, people like him, Kerwin as well, they're leading the way as far as the way that they present. Their content creation is just next level and it's based-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
And that's the thing, with Kerwin as well like he's Australian. A lot of these people that have sort of been leading the way and putting out content previously have been American. So I think whenever you can find someone in Australia that it's applying it to an Australian market, follow them.
Rebecca Miller:
Yep, follow them, get their little tips, see exactly what they're doing because they stand out for a reason. And you know what the biggest thing with Kerwin is that he just committed to amping up his social presence and look what he's been able to do. Everything rolls out of all of his social, I think he's got like 25 people that work on his social team. It's huge. And so it goes to show you for somebody that was coming from nothing to now what he's built and it's only been three or four years. Phenomenal story. If you jump onto him, he's a great bloke to sort of really see what he's been able to create.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's always some people that will sort of sit back and be really negative when they see people putting out content and doing things, and I think that stops a lot of people from doing that themselves, but at the same time those people are still sitting there consuming that content. You're either ... I read a stat around, there's like 99% of people that are lurkers on social media and 1% that are creators. You want to be creator, not a lurker.
Rebecca Miller:
Exactly. Well, Sonya, thank you so much for joining me today. I want to try and get this interview sort of cut and into our podcast series as quick as we can because I think there's a lot of resources there for the business owner at the moment, especially when it comes to marketing, social media and all those little nuggets of gold that you've been able to give to us. I might get you just to say again your website and where people can find you on social media as well.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So my website is Kiss Marketing, K-I-S-S, marketing.com.au and I know I said that Facebook is my love, but actually Instagram is probably the best place to find me on social media. So our handle is kiss_marketing.
Rebecca Miller:
Excellent. Well thank you for joining me today and I love all that you've been able to share, especially at this crucial time when people really need help with the marketing and the social part of their business. So thank you for joining me today Sonya.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Thanks so much for having me, Rebecca. I feel like you and I could just chat for hours and hours about all things happening in business.
Rebecca Miller:
Exactly. We love it. We love it. Thank you Sonya.