186 – Getting Clients Through Social Media and DM’s with Kayla Walters

Josh 0:00
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. This is episode 186. I am so excited to bring to you in this episode, one of my students and who is also a member of my web design club right now. This is Kayla Walters, who is an awesome, awesome freelance web designer, who for me, it’s been really cool to get to know and kind of oversee her journey and see what she’s doing in her business and more importantly, what she’s doing right. And she’s doing a lot of things right in her business. Her web design agency is called good cheer web design, you can check her out a good cheer design.com. It’s actually a great, great, great example of how to have a personal branded style site under a business name that is so clear about who she serves. And what she does, I can’t recommend it enough.

Josh 2:12
I actually featured her in my recent workshop on getting web design clients. And in this episode, I wanted to dig into how she specifically is got clients through social media. And if we go one layer back how she does it through DMing. And and did we take it one layer back even further, she’s actually learned how to get clients on social media through a lot of messaging by location. So I found this fascinating because Kayla’s, a member of my web design club, and I’ve been able and fortunate recently to be able to coach her and see what she’s done in her journey, we kind of found out that she has really learned a lot about what we just covered with online, you know, getting clients online, through socials through DMS, and by this idea of like location based groups, which is a really, really untapped niche kind of method of getting clients online.

Josh 3:05
So for those of you who are in a big city like I am in Columbus, Ohio, we’re pretty fortunate because there’s a lot of in person style networking and things we can do. There’s, you know, a lot of businesses, but for those of you who are maybe in a location where there’s not that many local businesses, then online groups and social media channels are the next best way to get clients. So this episode, I think you’re going to take a lot of value from now, even if you are in a big city like I am, which I guess Columbus isn’t a huge city, but we’re you know, we’re up there anyway, it’s still going to be super, super valuable for you. So don’t think that this is just for folks who need to get clients online.

Josh 3:42
I just took so much inspiration from Kayla, in this episode. Again, I think you’re really going to enjoy hearing how she’s implemented all these strategies in her business, what’s working for her that way, you can filter into your business today. So I’m super, super excited for you, I really think you’re going to be inspired and get a lot of tactical and practical strategies that you can apply right now. So without further ado, we’re gonna dive in. And last thing I wanted to say before we do before you meet Kayla is she is in my web design club. And when you join my web design club, not only do you get coaching from me regularly, and you can message me as much as you want, but you get to meet other folks like Kayla and the amazing people in my web design club.

Josh 4:26
I’d say it all the time. And I’m not going to shy away from saying how incredible this online community is and what it’s become. So I highly encourage you join it really is such an empowering place. And again, you’ll meet folks like Kailyn so many other awesome web designers all around the world to be your support system. And of course, I’ll be there with you to coach so if you’re interested, go to Josh hall.co/coaching to join today. And without further ado, here’s Kayla, let’s talk getting clients through social media and DMS location based social media all the good things let’s go.

Josh 5:06
Kayla, welcome onto the podcast. Thank you so much for taking some time to hang out with us today.

Kayla 5:12
Well, thanks for having me.

Josh 5:14
We were just joking before we live here that you are like a gold star student of mine, because you have an awesome brand that’s recently kind of revamped and redesigned, you’ve really gone in a really good way with personalization and personalizing your site. And I feel like you have an interesting take on marketing. And I know this idea, this chat that we’re going to dive into is marketing through DMS and social media, which is so outside of the realm of my expertise, which is why I wanted to have you on to share what you’ve learned. So I’m really, really excited to kind of learn from you in this conversation. Before we dive in, do you want to let everyone know first off where you’re based out of and yeah, give us like the 32nd commercial when when you meet somebody, they ask you what you do?

Kayla 5:56
Yeah, so I’m from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. So we’re the most easterly point in North America. So we get to experience everything first year. And, gosh, I’ve lived all around the world, but I call St. John’s home. And I’ve been here for the last eight years now. I designed websites, specifically for women, business owners, and specifically women who are in the growth stage of their business. So they’re ready to scale, ready to finally like automate and streamline their businesses online. That’s what I do.

Josh 6:33
Wonderful. And, uh, how do you find them? And how do you find them at that point, like, this is fascinating to me, particularly because you’re, you know, you’re, I want to hear all about how you’ve built your client base. But this idea of like, finding people where they are on social media, I feel like can be really tricky. So how do you do that.

Kayla 6:52
So for the most part, they seem to find me at this point in my business, but mostly, they’re seeing what I’m doing and noticing, I need that finally, they have, they’ve been in business for four or five years, they have been kind of piecemealing everything together and trying to like get through. And they’re at the point in their, you know, their business journey where they realize that they just can’t manage that any longer. So, you know, it’s around that mark, where I find that people are like, okay, I can finally make that investment, I know that it’s going to be worth it. And that’s when they, you know, start noticing me on social media. A lot of what I get now is word of mouth, but also reshares within the community here. So it’s, it seems to kind of hit with those women at that stage in their business growth.

Josh 7:51
In Do you like, do you have marketing materials or posts that you’ve learned to kind of like, use some copywriting tips to make sure they’re piqued at that interests? Like, for example, do you see like, you’ve been doing it too long yourself? Let me help you kind of thing. Obviously, not exactly like that. I’m sure yours would be much better. But is that how you find yourself attracting the people at this exact moment? Because that’s really interesting.

Kayla 8:15
Absolutely. It’s copy like that. But also just like telling them real life examples of clients that I’m either currently working with or, you know, just finished projects for, you know, giving them the the real breakdown of how clients used to do things and what a new website or how is revolutionizing their day to day, and that really seems to hit home like, those are the posts where I get a DM like 10 seconds later be like, Oh, my God, yes, I need that. You know, it’s, it’s that that drive that people want, you know, to finally, like, solve those problems. They experience it every day. They’re doing everything in eight different inboxes on the phone doing everything manually. And they didn’t realize that their website could do so much for them.

Josh 9:06
You just nailed it, Kayla, that is what every web designer should look for in regards to sales online, as you want people to say, Oh my God, I need that. Like, that’s the solution I need, or that’s exactly what I’m looking to do that is because that’s the power of case studies and testimonials and sharing your work, right? Like I feel like so many people are afraid do that. But what you’ve learned is a shining example of like, get your freaking work out there, share it, shout it off of a digital mountaintop, because it will attract people. And it will it will it will give them like I think for people who struggle with vision, and they don’t quite understand like how can Kayla’s services helped me if you show them like I took this client from point A to point B, he looked at before and after. Then they’re like, oh, okay, now I see. Is that fair to say? Like, is that kind of what you’ve seen?

Kayla 9:56
Yeah, absolutely. Like it’s the the specifics, you know, the quantifiable results that, you know, get me more clients, every single time I launch a website, and I talk about the process and, and the end result. I, you know, my inbox, I have like three or four new inquiries every single web launch. So that’s it, they want to know the specifics, because a lot of clients come to me, but they don’t really know what they want. Or, you know, they know that their website is not what it needs to be, but they don’t know what is possible. So when we first meet, I’m like, Okay, how do you do this right now? How can we get your website to do that for you? Like, how can your website be your most invalid or most valuable employee? And that’s when it’s just like, oh, my gosh, take all my money.

That was very well said, they don’t know often what is possible. – Josh

Josh 10:55
That was very well said, they don’t know often what is possible. That’s so true. Because a lot of people just get they don’t know, they’re not in the industry, they and a lot of folks who are busy running their businesses, they don’t understand social media, or websites, or how it all works together. So it’s our job to explain that and to give them some inspiration and show them like, hey, this worked for this client, it can work for you, too. I love that it’s such a valuable marketing tip right off the bat here.

Josh 11:22
Now, I’m curious, before we dive into, like tactics on DMS and sales strategies like that, bring us back to when you started growing your client base. And you started as a web designer, obviously, I know a little bit about your background, and I think we have to talk about your logo story, which is a national logo. Want to hear about that? But like it? Did you have DMS and that sales strategy in mind? Or is that just how it naturally? You know, is that how you naturally started getting clients?

Kayla 11:50
Yeah, well, it happened naturally. And even though I had so many people telling me, you know, don’t do business and DMS, everything I read was just keep everything to an email, funnel everything through one space, but that just wasn’t where my clients spent their time. But to kind of go backwards, I have been designing websites for over 15 years, I started in high school, I was the very first kind of pilot program of web design here in our school system. So I’ve been kind of dabbling for years. And I’ve done different iterations of the business full time, part time. And I’ve worked with clients for about eight years now. And I found that, really, you have to work with what works for them.

Kayla 12:47
In like, in my experience, at least, it’s, that’s if a client needs to phone you, instead of sending you an email to your support inbox. You know, that’s how they work best. Well, that’s worked for me to kind of adapt my processes as much as possible to them. And it’s only been in the last year that I’ve really niche down to working with women entrepreneurs. And I find that flexibility really works for that niche. You know, we have mothers, we have people who are working their business part time, like it might be a side hustle, they might be only working on the weekends, they could have a lot that they’re juggling. So having that flexibility and like communicating with them, where they spend their time, especially where like to get the client in the first place. I found that span a game changer.

Josh 13:45
That makes sense for sure. Being that you are you started attracting these female business entrepreneurs who are likely really busy and the question would be where do they hang out? Probably what Instagram? Is that? The main one for you Instagram? Are there other social media channels that you found? You started connecting with your ideal clients?

Kayla 14:05
And you need 2% of my clients are from Instagram.

Josh 14:09
The rest? 82 That’s an exact number. How are you measuring that?

Kayla 14:12
I did that this morning just…

Josh 14:14
That is impressive.

Kayla 14:17
Yeah, so it’s, it is the majority of my business that answer referrals from past clients. And I get a lot of repeat clients as well. So you know, redesigns every three or four years. Yes, yes. But yeah, for the most part, it’s it’s that easy, quick, like reaction to an Instagram story or a comment in a Instagram post. You know, like, they’re in that moment. And they have this feeling that oh, yeah, I want that website. So, you know, it’s so easy for them to send off a quick DM and just say, Oh, how can I get a site or you know, Oh, when are you free? When do you have availability, rather than for them to hop into an email? Which they probably already forgotten by then or to pick up the phone?

Josh 15:11
Yeah, now. So there’s probably a couple of different layers of this. There’s like ongoing communication with current clients. But then there’s new clients. And one thing that I found really tricky with balancing social media and getting leads was some sort of funneling system like I found myself just, I could not, I could not be everywhere at all times for all my different leads at a certain point. Because I was getting dinged on like LinkedIn, Facebook. Well, that’s pretty much it, because I never had instant until recently. But though, even those keeping up with those on top of phone calls, emails and anything else, it was a lot. So how do you like when they’re not a paying client yet? And they’re just a lead? A lot of people are getting referred to you. Do you have like, kind of a I mean, you’ve been doing web design for a while. So I imagine you can kind of get a feel for them. But do you have an official funneling, like weed out system in place through DMS, like can you tell immediately whether someone’s serious or not?

Kayla 16:10
I’m very transparent about my pricing. So I feel like that, in itself really weeds out people that aren’t serious about the project. So when they do reach out to me, I do have a funnel in place, I have a message that I send everyone that I just copy and paste in from my iPhone notes, or wherever it is, that is just like, we’d love to, you know, book a discovery call with you. And here’s my my process. So some clients will come in, or potential clients will come in and have a couple questions first, you know about their specific setup. You know, I have a domain here can this work. But then I also have clients that are just like, Oh, I really want to book a chat with you. So they already are warmed up.

Josh 17:00
That’s what I was wondering, I was wondering if you immediately get them onto a discovery call, or if you’re actually like messaging back and forth, because that’s where it can get really dangerous if you’ve got a different people asking you questions. And then you can literally spend eight hours a day just on your phone going back and forth, back and forth. So do you try to funnel them to a discovery call as quickly as possible?

Kayla 17:20
Yes, as quickly as possible. I’ll exchange like maybe two or three messages if they have like a question off the bat. But the second part of that, you know, fourth messages, if you want to chat further about this, I’d really love to get you on a discovery call.

Josh 17:35
Okay, so it’s not like an automated kickback when somebody messages you that will say, hey, it’s Kayla here, thanks for reaching out discovery call. So you’ve actually you take a more organic approach at first and then then get it going.

Kayla 17:48
Absolutely like, and that’s just my style, mostly, I’m very casual. I love getting to know, my, my clients. So you know, having that personalized response at the beginning, you know, I crafted out but for the most part, it’s just copied and pasted. It’s like would love to get to know more about what you have in mind. Let’s jump on a call. And here’s my my intro questionnaire.

Josh 18:12
Well, I think that sets the tone for what makes a lot of sense with your setup now. Like you mentioned, you get a lot of repeat work and ongoing work. And you’re setting the tone right from the get go like in the very beginning from their first reach out to you if it’s more personal and real and casual, that sets the tone for the entire project, and then a fruitful relationship that might last years, right? Like, I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people. I mean, automation is great, especially if you’re doing it at scale. But for web designers who aren’t doing things at a massive business on scale, you can be more approachable and casual at first. And I just think that’s a really interesting point. Because the way you’ve started gathering the leads and working on that, that has definitely led to your business model now where you’re booked up for a couple of months, as I was talking with you right now, and you’re getting a lot of repeat work, which is awesome.

To start that relationship, it’s very kind of casual and I love you know, that relationship that DM’s can bring. – Kayla

Kayla 19:06
Yeah, like, I have 100% booking, right? If somebody’s booked a discovery call with me, every single person has, you know, gone ahead and booked their project. So it’s really worked for me, don’t get me wrong, I do have a very automated process once they’ve had their discovery call. And I have my I use honey book to kind of go through that whole process of proposals and contracts and invoices and recurring payments. But you know, to start that relationship, it’s it’s very kind of casual and I love you know, that relationship that that DMS can bring, right that just quick, quick one off question or interest and then you know, we can take it from there.

Josh 19:56
A very, very valuable visualization. I think we just hit on which is transparent, casual, really warm and engaging at first and then automate, like, automate the things once they feel like okay, I like Kayla, I feel like she could do a really good job for me, I want to work with her, then the automation kicks in. That’s great that you really think about it like that. But that’s a very, very I think it’s a very sound way to build a relationship that’s going to last a very long time.

Kayla 20:25
So like, you know, social media can do so much to build trust and awareness of who you are. But yeah, that that personalization at the beginning, you know, when you’re trying to get someone to make that investment, that I find that personalization really goes a long way to building that trust and the confidence and what I can do.

Josh 20:47
Now, what about your services? Because I know we have to talk about the guy. That’s actually the first story that I remember chatting with you about, which is the is it the dildo brand, is it a coffee brand? When you said it was so great, because it’s so memorable, but you had this logo design that went national? And I don’t know that helped get you clients, but yeah, shares. Let’s talk about that first. And then we’ll segue into your services and how you find these people.

Kayla 21:13
Yeah, so here in New Zealand, there’s a community called Dildo, and I worked with the craft brewery that opened up there to design their logo. So that was kind of like in a past life of mine when I was like a graphic designer and a web designer. So I did the logo and during it a taping of the Jimmy Kimmel show, somebody brought it up that there is this town called Dildo and Jimmy Kimmel had no idea that existed felt, you know, ruin that he had never heard about it before. And he said, I’m going to be the mayor of that town. He said this online, or you know, in a taping, and it just snowballed. So he sent his entire crew to Dildo though, to do all these live hits, because he had to campaign to be mayor, right. He put up all of his campaign posters. There was jokes that Matt Damon was going to run against him, you know, this big, big thing. So

Josh 22:16
I guess it’s awesome.

Kayla 22:17
So they’re just ended up being that he wore the logo that I designed on national TV. So I was pretty thrilled about that.

Josh 22:27
Yeah, your 15 minutes of fame with your with your doldo logo. I forgot that it was an actual town. Gosh, that is amazing. That what that’s what the world needs right now is a funny town called dildo. I’m sure everyone there. I don’t know if they find the humor in it, or if it’s lost on them, or they embrace it. And

Kayla 22:46
I think they’ve always been. They’ve always tried not to really embrace the funny side of things. Yeah. But you know, this, this event, really,

Josh 22:57
My head is racing with pawns. But I’ll keep us on track here. I have so many branding ideas for that town.

Josh 22:57
Believe me, I have a whole list, but they just didn’t go with it.

Josh 23:08
That’s great. Well, and honestly, though, the reason I asked that is because you were doing logo design and stuff. And you’ve since refined your services, right? Are you doing any branding or logo? Are you just doing web design now?

Kayla 23:20
Right now, just web design, I found it very difficult to juggle timelines when I worked on branding, as well as the website. And then I would always have folks that wanted, you know, the one off brochure or, you know, poster or something like that. So I’ve found it. You know, it’s just changed my business completely. Now that I’m focusing on web design. And I still think that graphic design side of things in the design elements of the sites.

Josh 23:52
Yeah, that’s true. That’s a, that’s the beauty about going from graphic design to web design is you’re still going to design, it’s just going to be a little more two dimensional. It’s not going to be a flat brochure or something. But yeah, you still get your design Cheetos out when you’re building a website. So I agree. It’s not like you’re going from designing to like writing CSS all day. It’s not the case. But it is interesting, like, did you have challenges filtering people out when you were doing the sales through DMS and social committees when you had a bunch of services? Because I imagine that would be really challenging, because you don’t want to book a discovery call for somebody who wants a poster design, I would imagine.

Kayla 24:31
Yeah, that’s been really difficult. I had that ultimately, what I had to do was set up a completely different business. So years ago, I had a business. It was called Mosaic creative, where I did everything. You know, I did the graphic design, I did marketing, I did web design, pretty much whatever people wanted to pay me for in that kind of creative realm. So in order to get away from that the idea in mind I want to let people know that right now I’m only doing web design, I created the whole new business model. So that’s why I go is good cheer design now?

Josh 25:11
I love the brand name. Yeah, I love good tear design. It just it sounds cheery. It’s like, this seems nice. I’d want to work, you know, anytime you can set the tone for a good happy experience, the better.

Kayla 25:21
Yeah, and that’s exactly what I was going for, with the with the name. And originally, I was working closely with, like, hospitality companies. So you know, and tourism, so it kind of, you know, went hand in hand with that, but I just, I feel like it works for everything. Because that’s it’s very true to who I am. You know, there’s not a moment that I’m not smiling or laughing. So, you know, works well with that personal brand.

Josh 25:47
Yeah, it definitely definitely does. Yeah, it was Good Cheer design, but you’re somebody who doesn’t smile much. It would be a bit of ironic style. It would be lost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I’m curious, like, how you’re meeting these people on the socials? And I think it probably stems from Do you have a Facebook community? Or did you have one is that can you share? Because we’ve talked a little bit about that you’re part of my web design club. And we chat a little bit, but I don’t know too much about that. So what did that look like? And what was that for?

Kayla 26:16
Yeah, so I currently run and I found it a Facebook group for women entrepreneurs here in the province of Newfoundland. So I started that, I think it was four or five years ago now. And it’s still going we have almost 700 members in the group. So it’s a place online for people in the Providence to kind of share ideas just very casually. So like, what do you do for taxes? Or, you know, where can I go and get these T shirts printed? And you know, promo materials? Or does anyone have a photographer to recommend? So it’s just a way for business owners to kind of stay in contact? You know, online,

Josh 26:59
But it’s local, but it’s by location, right? So it’s online, but you’re still you could meet for coffee with somebody if, if they make a connection?

Kayla 27:07
Absolutely. We’ve done little iterations of the the networking side of things in person, we’ve had like coffee meetups, and, you know, one off events and stuff like that. So like, that has been a great way for me to build, you know, my niche. You know, I, I noticed that almost 700 women business owners that might eventually need a website. So it’s true that right, yeah,

Josh 27:31
well, anytime. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about this. We’ve talked about a couple times in the club recently, anytime you can be a connector. And you can be the one who is even if you’re not necessarily doing like big leadership trainings and stuff like that. But if you are just the one who owns the space that people hang out in and you’re connecting people, there is so much trust, and likability that comes with that. And that’s like the best foundation for sales because it’s like, well, this is Caitlin’s group, of course, I trust her and might want to work with her. And then she knows a bunch of other people. There’s so much power in that.

Kayla 28:05
Yeah. And it works. Also, it’s like a value add, because I’ll meet with a client and at the end of the meeting, I’ll be are you part of the Facebook group? So a lot of people don’t know about it. So they also get they join this community. So, you know, that adds to the, the overall experience as well.

Josh 28:27
And does that segue into Instagram? Or is that like a separate audience? How do those work in tandem together?

Kayla 28:33
Yeah, so it is a completely separate group. I started it before I you know, niched into working with women, business owners. So, you know, it had a has a life of its own. But I’m very vocal in the group about being a web designer for you know, business owners, like, you know, my members. So, you know, I’ve never really harnessed it and connected it to the business itself. And I feel like that’s actually been to my benefit, because people don’t see it as a salesy move. It’s just a community, more so than anything else.

Josh 29:14
Yeah, I’ve tried to have the same approach with my Divi web designers Facebook group, I mean, I do have on there that is a support group by Josh hall.co. Because the reason I did that was a lot of people thought it was a group of Elegant Themes. Like it was a an Elegant Themes group, but it’s not it’s not affiliated, I mean, it is affiliated, but it’s not, you know, produced by them or run by them. So that’s kind of one reason I made it clear who is behind this, but even because you have a personal brand style approach, I mean, your brand is good to your design, but you have a personal aspect to that that’s a perfect way to go with that that way. It’s not like yeah, new found Lin on women entrepreneur group by good cheer web design. It’s not like a little commercial every time somebody sees it. So they It definitely breeds that trust.

Josh 30:01
Now I’m curious, you’re good cheer web design, Insta. It’s a small account, which I think this is a really good point that you don’t need to have 1000s of subscribers and followers to build the life you want to live and have consistent income. Because, like you’ve got as of right now, I think it’s more of a new page. Right? The good cheer, because you redesigned is a little bit more new?

Kayla 30:23
Yeah, absolutely. I used to have one for Mosaic when that was on the go, that was a little bit larger. But yeah, this one is, is a little bit newer. So I’m still in that building stage. But, you know, my focus is my clients and I have been very lucky to, you know, be able to book back to back and everything like that, but I’ve never wanted social media to kind of ruin my life. You know, I’ve yeah, I’ve lived that, that world, I built an Instagram account that has over like, 60,000 followers, like a travel Instagram account, and I was spending six, seven hours a day to build that. And that’s nothing compared to what some accounts are today. So, you know, I, my big thing this time around was to have that healthy balance to post when I felt it was, you know, organic and not follow a specific, like, weekly schedule or anything like that. And, you know, just when it needed to be done.

Josh 31:27
Yeah, post when you feel like you should, or you need to or want to, I love that it’s kind of the constant reminder, I’m telling myself because similarly, my Instagram is very new. I don’t at the time of recording this, like, you’ve got 239 followers I’m looking at, I have not even 400 For my brand, what but they are both new profiles, new profiles. And I just wanted to mention that because I’m sure some people might be thinking, okay, Kayla’s, getting you know, a bunch of business on DMS, she must have like hundreds of 1000s or 10s of 1000s of followers. It’s not that way, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can do a lot with a little and you can get quality over quantity, which I think is so much more important nowadays with social media.

Josh 32:09
It’s actually interesting I, I had I was on Jay Klaus, his podcast, which is called creative elements, which is an awesome podcast, if you haven’t checked it out Kaler if anyone else listening hasn’t checked it out. But he talks with a lot of creatives, some of whom have big brands, like crater brands online. And he told me after our call that he knows a lot of creators that might have hundreds of 1000s of subscribers, but are making like half as much as I am with my 400 followers on Instagram, you know, like it, it dad does not measure like followers do not measure the the success that you can have in your business, particularly nowadays, which I think is awesome.

Kayla 32:48
Yeah, cuz like, you know, you could spend 5, 6, 7 hours a day on Instagram and building your, you know, your following. But if those aren’t converting, then it’s, you know, it’s just not paying off, you know, the ROI just isn’t there. Whereas, you know, if you’re, you sit down and you research the hashtags that you want to use, you’re using, you know, if you have a local niche, and you’re using, like location, tags and stuff like that, then, you know, you can get a lot of business or enough business, you know, to, to be happy without having, you know, to dedicate half your job to social media.

Josh 33:30
It’s a good point. And I think a lot of people who do have bigger brands, who have a big following and who are on social media constantly, they either have stuff automated or they have a team in the team is doing it. So they’re not personally sitting there on their phone writing something out. It’s a team that’s doing it, which I’m actually honestly considering for myself here at some point. So yeah, there’s a lot of interesting takes on that with social media now and how it’s evolving and where you’re at how often you’re posting. I do want to ask about because are you getting leads into your personal Instagram as well, and then funneling those to good cheer. How does that work?

Kayla 34:06
So they all come through good cheer. Yeah, my my personal Instagram, I only have time to really work on one. And I also have an account for my dogs. So that takes up enough time.

Josh 34:17
That’s the one that will get the most followers for sure.

Kayla 34:20
Yes, always have to have Gus and whatever I do. He’s quite cute. He gets lots of likes, and that’s all that matters.

Josh 34:28
Yeah. Oh, he is a little cute. Yeah, no, I the most you did where he’s like, in front of you. Yeah, it’s on your Instagram. Little gus. So he’s the he’s the star of the show. That’s for sure.

Kayla 34:38
Yeah, it’s just you know, adds to the whole personal brand. He’s, he’s always running around here in the office. So I make sure that everyone gets to meet him and you know, it’s just part of who I am. I’m, you know, a full time dog mom just as much as I’m a full time business runner.

Josh 34:53
Well, I feel bad that he can make it on the podcast. You said you took him to daycare so it’d be quiet but just you know, dogs You’re always welcome on the show for sure.

Kayla 35:02
Yeah, well, future ones for the next round.

Josh 35:05
Yeah, I want to make an appearance for sure. So okay, I will Yeah, cuz I was just curious if you had a personal face or personal Instagram that is, you know, you’re still getting business through because that was another struggle that I had personally is I had my interns at studios, Facebook, and I was, I was getting dinged left and right in my personal Facebook, and I was like, here, you know, go over here, ideally go to my website. Which is why I just didn’t care personally for the for the DM route. But my target demographic, my, my best clients, that generally wasn’t the way they were going. They weren’t coming through DMS, like my best clients, most of them were through networking, or through relationships or referrals.

Josh 35:47
But again, your, your kind of ideal customer, they are there. So like you said, you got to meet them where they are, and then provide for them, serve them. Give them some inspiration. You mentioned hashtags, I love to talk about hashtags. Because I am elderly in the online world, I’m 35. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand hashtags. I’ve never really, because I’ve never clicked on them myself. Like I’ve never looked at a hashtag and be like, Oh, who else is posting this? Hastag? It’s just, I don’t care. It’s not my not my thing. But obviously, a lot of people do. So how does that work? You mentioned like researching hashtags, is that a good way that you recommend growing your brand and getting out there on social media?

Kayla 36:28
So this might be outdated now, I’m probably aging myself too. Because I am older than you, Josh.

Josh 36:35
Are you really?

Kayla 36:38
Yeah. But what I learned, like a few years ago, is to use a mixture of like, local, local hashtags, how hashtags that you know, have probably like 10,000 to 30,000 posts, using that, but also, like a few, like maybe four or five larger hashtags. So you know, in the millions,

Josh 37:07
So it’s kind of like keyword research, you do one that’s like, a big one, a broad one, the one that’s a little more like longtail keyword it, or it doesn’t have as much competition.

Kayla 37:16
Yeah, that’s actually the analogy I use when I’m talking about search engine optimization with all my clients. So my clients understand Instagram, because their, like, their Instagram game is amazing. But they don’t understand SEO. So I do make that kind of connection, that it’s very similar. Like, I could be wrong. Now there’s stuff going around that says you only use five hashtags. Whereas generally, like, my kind of old school thought was to use like, 30 use all of them. Because, you know, more chance of getting seen. But yeah, the sweet spot seems to be like local, you know, if you work locally, like I use all of like Atlanta, Canada, but also like hyperlocal, they here in Newfoundland, and that like kind of sweet spot for the middle range of, of hashtags, like, you know, web designer life rather than web designer, right, just being a little bit more specific. Because, yeah, I find that that works really well. Or just like,

Josh 38:21
Dang it. Now, now, I feel like, now I feel like I’m gonna have start using hashtags. I’ve never used any hashtags on my stuff. Yeah, now I feel like web designer life would make a lot of sense for my brand.

Kayla 38:35
Yeah, so those are the ones I use for like, you know, the, kind of behind the scenes posts, when I want people to see what it’s like, you know, in this job. But then I’m like, obviously, if that’s not who I’m targeting, if I if I’m launching a website, and I want local folks to see that, yeah, I’m gonna load it with as many local hashtags as possible. So I do have like, this is a terrible, I don’t use any of the social media apps. I just have a note in my phone, I old school, and I have just collections of hashtags that I copy and paste in. Anytime I make a post.

Josh 39:17
You know what, since we’re both elderly, in social media realm, it still works like the tried and true methods still work. And then the idea of like, 30 Hashtags versus five, I guess that would make sense because that’s kind of how SEO is going. Like, you don’t want to overload a page with keywords like you could do 1010. And now it’s a little more succinct, like, Don’t overwhelm Google, there’s too much for it to find needs to know exactly what it’s looking for kind of thing. So that would make sense that that social media is headed that way as well. But by golly, if it works, like keep doing it, obviously it’s working so.

Kayla 39:54
Well that’s it like I’m not a social media manager or anything like that. So I feel like I’m getting You know, piecemeal pieces of, you know, information from Facebook pages or other like other groups that I’m in. So I think that’s one of the biggest challenges of you know, running your own business is trying to stay up on all these other trends and marketing when, you know, that’s not your, your background, it’s like,

Josh 40:23
So for people who have a smaller profile like we do, in the way of like followers, how do you feel that that? Like, do you think that could deter people, as opposed to seeing somebody with 1000s of followers and the reason I asked this is because it’s extremely timely. At the time of recording this yesterday, I was on Pat Flynn’s podcast for the second time. And I tagged him on Instagram. So I do know how to tag it mentioned somebody, and then he shared it, he shared it on his profile, which is I mean, that’s got almost 100,000 followers, so…

Josh 40:58
But I kind of wondered, what does that look like when when Pat Flynn shares something and then they go to my profile? Or like all this Josh guy doesn’t even have like 400 followers? Who is? Is he brand new at Instagram? Or is he just not quite who I thought he was going to be? Because a lot of people don’t know that I have like two and a half million views on YouTube. That’s, it’s like some of my different platforms when you don’t do them at the same time. They don’t necessarily stack up next to each other in the same way with number you want. I mean, like, do you think that hinders? Or is that still okay, that people find JV just started, because the reason I asked that is I’m sure a lot of people are like, in my late in my late to the Instagram game.

Kayla 41:37
Hey, we all have to start somewhere, you know, like, we and if we don’t do it, then, you know, we’re we never know what is gonna happen, we might be missing, you know, a lot of opportunities if we don’t start. So I think, you know, whatever number we have is, you know, all that we can do at this point. I don’t know, if it really affects, you know, somebody’s opinion of you. I think that, you know, your posts should speak for that, you know, you’re sure sharing website that you done, you know, that’s what’s going to resonate with people not so much that you know, only 200 people follow you, you know, that doesn’t speak to your engagement either, you know, you’re you know, that’s a number that’s invisible.

Kayla 42:28
So, you know, you could you could have 200 followers, but have an amazing engagement, right? Because those people are, you know, really engaged with what you’re posting. So, you know, and that’s really what matters. And I guess it really, ultimately depends on what kind of business you’re trying to build. At the end of the day. You know, if you’re trying to build an empire, then, you know, you have to have the numbers on social media. That’s, that just seems to be the connection that I’m seeing. But, you know, if if you just want enough, you know, what projects to get you booked through the year, you probably don’t need a million followers. So I personally, like I’m not ashamed of my 230 some odd followers, I’ve worked hard to get all of them and I like knowing that I know most of them actually, I’ve had conversations with them. So you know that it’s it’s all about your brand and you know, the business that you ultimately want to run.

Josh 43:27
That’s so well said that was a perfect little snippet of that the difference between like having a million followers versus like, if you don’t need a million clients, you don’t need a million followers like yeah, if you’re an influencer and you making your money by product sales, or like for referrals affiliates and stuff like that, you need a big audience. But if people are paying you four or $5,000 for a project, you don’t need a huge audience to make six figures. So that’s definitely the route that you’ve gone this is this is great, because it’s kind of like a case study of how to do it on a small smaller level like social media on a on a smaller manageable level. Maybe that’s the new title for this episode.

Josh 44:06
Because it really this I’ve hope this makes people feel better like it is for me, that you don’t have to post every day, non stop, super structured. Like because then it is you do spend 6, 7, 8 hours a day on Instagram easy, because you can spend, you know a quarter of that just scrolling. So if you’re actually intentionally working on it, then it’s next thing you know, that’s your whole that’s your day job.

Kayla 44:30
Yeah, and like you know, Instagram shouldn’t be you know, your business it can be fun to like I just spent, you know, half hour going through little Instagram reels that other business owners are posting and all I do is like them, you know, just showing you show up in their their likes feed and they might see your name, you know, just keeping engaged as much as possible with you know, your followers and you know your community Just little little things like, obviously, if we do this again next year, I could have a completely different approach I might be, oh, this time for agency life. So I have to, I need 20,000 more followers or something like that.

There’s lots of lots of things that you can do on Instagram, but yeah, just doesn’t have to take up hours and hours of your day, every day. – Kayla

Kayla 45:15
But, you know, at the stage that I’m in now, you know, still in that startup life, it’s what’s working. And I know, I have to do more in terms of information posts, that’s, that’s my big focus now. And the spring is, you know, getting more information across to my clients, about how long it takes to build a website, you know, how soon in advance should people be? You know, inquiring? Because that’s the biggest question I get, you know, and so just a little stuff about, you know, what it takes to to work with me. So, there’s lots of lots of things that you can do on Instagram, but yeah, just doesn’t have to, you know, take up hours and hours of your day, every day.

Josh 46:02
So are you going more of an organic approach overall, with the type of content versus like, like, showing off work versus information versus puppy pictures versus thought type of, you know, cuz that’s kind of one thing, I’m kind of trying to work out too, as I’m doing some stuff. That’s just fun. And just like, like, last week, on a Monday, we took the girls swinging, and we just posted that because it was like a fun Monday post versus like, Hey, I’m doing a webinar this week. So I’m trying to, like have a good balance, because I’ve always, I’ve tended to not post the personal stuff. But the more and more I’ve been encouraged actually, by a lot of folks in the in the club.

Josh 46:39
I think you’ve met Lisa breed from who’s out in South Africa. And she’s a big time, you know, branding gal, and she kind of encouraged me to, to just have just keep it casual, like post the fun stuff that isn’t even work related, just to give people a, you know, a peek of what’s going on outside of you know, behind the computer. So I think that was a really good that was when she was on the podcast a little while back, it was really good, like reminder to have the the personal stuff, even if it’s out of your element, because a lot of people aren’t the posters, they don’t want to share. They just want to creep, and they just want to watch what but if you’re building a business, you’ve got to get yourself out there. You don’t have to be an influencer, but you do have to get yourself out there. At least that’s what I found.

Kayla 47:21
Yeah, absolutely. Like, especially if you know, your brand is personal, that I feel like goes hand in hand, you know, if I love sharing stuff about, you know, my personal life all and I go to a craft brewery and post a picture there, you know, if I’m there with my laptop, or something like that, or just, you know, Saturday afternoon, but it shows my clients to who they’re working with. And I think it builds trust and an awareness of who we are as people. And I got in the business, and you know, work for myself for the flexibility. And you know, all the adventures that can come along with that. So, you know, I like my clients knowing that that, you know, that’s important to me, like work, work life balance, and, you know, having fun just as much as you know, getting down to business. So

Josh 48:14
Well, you said it, I think the more you open up about who you are and your interest that’s going to attract this the type of people who you probably want to work with, they may not be exactly the same, but particularly for you, you have a brand that is attracting women business owners who probably want to be like minded towards you, and they want to work with somebody who has similar value sets or ideas and approaches. So it makes a lot of sense that that goes a long way. I know. Funny enough, more recently, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot more hockey fans coming into my courses, like a lot of people will tell me I’m a huge hockey fan. And yeah, you are as well, like, because I’ve said that a lot. I think that could potentially be bringing people in who are like, Oh, Josh likes hockey too, or they just know to bring it up because they know I’m a hockey guy as well. Even though I’m wearing a baseball t shirt right now. I almost wore a blue jackets shirt to on this one. Dang it.

Josh 49:06
Oh, well, I should have wore my hat shirt. We’re very big hockey people in Canada, obviously. So

Josh 49:11
obviously, that’s how far are you from Montreal?

Kayla 49:15
Um, it’s about an hour and a half or two hour flight. So it is quite a little bit further than like Halifax or Nova Scotia. But all my lot of my family are Montreal, so I spent a good bit of time there.

Josh 49:30
Yeah, I always forget that everything in Canada is by increments of like multiple hours. Like in the States. I could drive Cincinnati an hour and a half. You know, in Canada, it’s like one town and it’s like, oh, it’s about eight hours. So the next town will just do a quick drive.

Kayla 49:45
Well, like here in Newfoundland, everything is an island so we have to fly everywhere or take a ferry to the mainland. So everything is in flight time for us.

Josh 49:55
That’s interesting. Yeah, I didn’t even think about that. Yeah, honestly there really looked at it the map. So after this, I’m totally going to look at that, like where it is in relation to everything. Because here’s another interesting point, I didn’t even think about this. But where you are in the world, like, online community and online ways of getting clients is probably crucial. I mean, you’re, you have that local based Facebook group, but are your clients what? I don’t know if you’ve mapped out the percentages, but I’m going to challenge you on this because you already gave me a detail percent before, but like, what percent of your clients would you say are just outside of your local ish area? Like are they all over the world? Are they mostly in Canada? Are they stateside?

Kayla 50:39
I would say 90% are like hyperlocal here in Newfoundland. Yeah. So they’re, I’m still working through this client base here. This is where I have my all my connections, and then branching out into kind of Atlantic Canada. So you’re on the East Coast. And but I do have clients, you know, on the west coast of Canada, as well, but the majority like the I’ve mentioned this before, in our web design group, like the word of mouth like referral basis here is unbelievable. So you know, we’re such a very tiny community of like, our capital city has 250,000 people.

Josh 51:27
It’s a big area, right? Like,

Kayla 51:29
Oh, yeah. sighs of the British Isles.

Josh 51:33
Oh, my gosh, I’m looking at it’s like the size of almost Texas as I’m looking at the map like, oh, yeah, okay, so forgive my ignorance. I thought Newfoundland was much closer to Montreal. I thought it was outside like New Brunswick. I didn’t realize it was way up there. Like, oh, my gosh, is it Arctic up there? All year. You’re, you’re not far outside of like freaking Greenland.

Kayla 51:55
Yeah, that’s actually probably closer to us than Montreal.

Kayla 51:59
Oh, my gosh, that’s wild.

Kayla 52:01
It’s generally very cold. Like after this. I’m hoping that I get to go iceberg hunting. So that’s a big thing here. And in the spring is, we have lots of icebergs, and that’s our biggest tourism draw. So that’s something if you’re listening and have no idea where Newfoundland is that day, you should look that up.

Josh 52:22
This is fun. We’re doing a live case study on where Newfoundland Newfoundland is. Or Newfoundland, that’s how you say it, right? Yeah. Cuz it’s said spelled newfound limb. But of course, it’s not right. It’s like, yeah. All right.

Kayla 52:34
Jason Mimosa used to live here, because he was taping a TV show here. And he explained it really well on a talk show. It’s called Newfoundland, like, understand. That’s how you Yeah, yeah.

Josh 52:49
Awesome.

Kayla 52:50
Yeah.

Josh 52:51
That’s fascinating. Yeah, I really did not realize how far up there you were on the on the edge of Canada there. So usually what people tune into the podcast, it’s web design lessons, it’s inspiration, and it’s geography. Looking into because I definitely did not realize that it’s interesting.

Kayla 53:10
Well, geography is a big part of my business. Or like, you know, the reason that I’ve been successful in my business. So we have a very unique kind of business ecosystem here. There’s not a whole lot of people doing what I’m doing locally. I could probably count them all on my two hands.

Josh 53:30
Wow. That’s awesome.

Kayla 53:31
Yeah. So that’s been really helpful. And you know, good to know, kind of, if you’re comparing apples to apples.

Josh 53:39
That is a good point, and empowering for social media, too, if you are in an area where yeah, maybe it’s not as densely populated, but you’re one of the only ones who are doing that service, then you’ve got an immediate edge, like in Columbus, Ohio, it’s booming to I mean, I couldn’t even tell you how many people are doing digital media services or web design. So while there’s a lot of opportunity, there’s way more competition, whereas where you are, yeah, like you said, there might be a dozen, maybe less, who are doing exactly what you’re doing. So you’ve already got a huge edge on them.

Kayla 54:10
Yeah, and I’m the only one, like working solely with women entrepreneurs. So you know, that’s an edge on itself. But I started living in a rural community of 5000 people. So you know, if if, I guess the big takeaway is if you’re listening to this, and you’re in a small community, and you know, you’re thinking about making the plunge into web design, like it’s, and you’re the only one that would be offering that service anywhere close to you, then it’s it’s a great business to be in and it’s, you know, because so many people need a website and need somebody to help them do it.

Josh 54:46
Yeah, that’s so well said, Gosh, Kayla this has been really cool. This has been awesome. I mean, really, we instead of diving into just DMS we talked about that we really talked about social media as a whole. So that was, this has been really I think interesting and inspiring too. Because again, I think the moral of the story is you don’t need a massive brand on social media, particularly as you know, as a web designer, you don’t need that many clients. If you do it right, you shouldn’t be getting new clients all the time. It’s more about connecting and, and keeping them coming back. And then then you can do social media as much as or as little as you want. Right? Like, it’s, that’s not the name of the game isn’t a post every day, and try to get 10 new clients every day. It’s post whenever it feels organic, and then get a client or two a month, and then you can be booked up for a while.

Kayla 55:36
Absolutely, yeah, just priced yourself. Right. And yeah, Postlets feels good. And you know, when you want to, and I think the rest kind of comes along. Yeah,

Josh 55:47
that’s awesome. Well, I have one final question for you. But before we get to that, where would you like everyone to go to check it out? Obviously, your website is good cheer. design.com. But I imagine you’re cool with plugging your Instagram since we’ve been talking about that, right?

Kayla 56:01
Yeah, I’m at go to your web, on Instagram. So you can check me out there.

Josh 56:06
So yep, check Kayla and check out Gus. So I’m about six weeks, seven weeks out on podcast episodes. So it’ll be a little while before this comes out. But when it does, maybe you can do a couple more posts of guests. That way. It’s fresh in the feed. I’ll let you know when this goes live. So last question for you. If you could give someone who is introverted by nature, and has a problem getting out there? What would you let me not challenge them to do but what would you encourage them? If they know they got to get out there, but they’re just they’re introverted, and they just feel like, Ah, it’s so against my nature to put myself out there? What would you encourage them to do them?

Kayla 56:47
Well, just start small, maybe behind the scenes of posts, so like little Instagram stories of what your office looks like, you know, the more personal side of things, so you don’t necessarily need to have your face in the posts. i A lot of my stories, I don’t do a lot of like talking to the camera. You know, just share, you know, what it’s like, from you working? Yeah, we’re like, what it’s like around your, your day to day? Yeah, just start small, because you have to start somewhere. And, you know, the comfort level I find comes with from that.

Josh 57:28
Yeah, I love that. I think that’s good advice, start smaller than just be real and, and keep it organic. I would say that way you don’t feel like I got to create like this huge set of like to do or to like how tos or these like information posts that can be really overwhelming. And I think that paralyzes people who are afraid to get out there, especially if they’re new, it’s like, I don’t know how I don’t know that much. I don’t feel like I know that much. I don’t want to share anything, but if Yeah, if you’re just a little more organic and real about the approach, it still gives people a chance to meet you and know who you are. So

Kayla 58:01
Yeah, and that goes hand in hand with like DMS as well you know, just kind of have a conversation with people that’s, that’s why they’re reaching out to you and build trust that way. And, and then funnel them into your more professional, you know, workflow, after that kind of relationship is has started to build.

Josh 58:22
That’s my favorite takeaway from this talk is organic, and real and personable at first then automate once you get them into your, your system, your funnel, I love that. That’s definitely what’s sticking with me here. So and of course, we had a geography lesson now I finally know where Newfoundland is

Kayla 58:39
so great, and you can say it well that’s great.

Josh 58:43
And I can finally say it which is a massive, massive win for this podcast so awesome. Well again, this has been super fun thank you so much for your time and for for chatting again definitely I don’t think would be the last time I’m excited to see where your business goes again you’ve been like it’s been just really really cool since you came into our web design club and I got to know you better to see your business grow and to see all the changes you’ve made and implemented and you’re booked out and you’re doing such a great job with balancing the lifestyle you want to live but also growing your business and doing it organically and at the pace and level you want so hats off to you for for you know really like the the the tagline of this podcast building a lifestyle you you you love and you want to live and web design. Well that was not the tagline but you know what I mean? You’re living it you’re like the prime example of how to do it right so.

Kayla 59:36
Yeah, well thanks to you. I you know half the reason I took this plunge and doing it full time as listening to this podcast, so you know, it’s I took it to heart you know, you’re live the lifestyle you want to lead so that’s what I’m doing.

Josh 59:49
There it is. You said it better than I wrote it. I’m curious. I was gonna ask you this after we got done recording, but we’ll just keep rolling here. How did you find the podcast Did you did you know of my Previously, or were you just searching web design?

Kayla 1:00:03
I believed that I knew your brand from the Facebook group. Obviously, I’m big into Facebook groups. But I’m also huge podcast nerd. So I’m constantly looking through like explore feeds and, you know, business podcasts. And yeah, one day yours popped up. So I was like, Oh, this is Kismet.

Josh 1:00:24
Awesome. Oh, that’s so cool. I’m so interested in to hear how people come to find out about the podcast. So yeah, appreciate that. Awesome, Kayla. We’ll keep at it. Definitely excited to see how the business evolves. And then not close by but by golly, I would love to have an in person meetup for everyone in the club. So hopefully, we can do that. Even though it’s global. We’ll have to have a lot of flights coming in and we’ll make it a big weekend or something.

Kayla 1:00:48
Yes, absolutely.

Josh 1:00:50
Deal. All right. Thanks again, Kayla.

Kayla 1:00:53
Thank you so much for having me.