the bossbabe podcast - 22. How to Sell on Instagram Stories, Boost Your Engagement & Create Content Consistently

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

In this episode, serial entrepreneur and marketing mentor, Angie Lee, is sitting down to interview BossBabe’s very own co-founder and co-CEO, Natalie Ellis.  Angie and Natalie share the secret sauce to building a loyal tribe and an engaged community, their personal tips to maintaining high-energy and productivity, and how to tap into your creative flow. Together they deep dive into goal mapping, time management, and hiring the best team. They share their invaluable insights into all things Instagram; including the secrets to boosting engagement, scaling intimacy, content creation, and how to sell on Instagram through stories and DMs. Natalie talks about her personal why, and she shares how to successfully show up for yourself, your team, and your community every single day. The takeaways that you will learn from this episode are game-changing and will leave you inspired to take your life, business, and Instagram to the next level. This week’s episode is brought to you by HUM Nutrition. HUM Nutrition is the vitamin company disrupting the beauty industry and is all about making you look and feel your best. Each supplement has a very specific use-case, like clearer skin or boosted energy, and if you’re unsure of which supplements would be best for you, you can even take a quick quiz to get completely personalized recommendations at humnutrition.com/get_started. Plus, use the code BossBabe for 20% off your order!  Discover how to grow your audience on Instagram by 10,000 ideal clients in 30 days: bossbabe.com/ig-growth.

ask yourself what can i do today that is going to help me get towards that goal one thing every single day i don't care whether it's sunday move towards that goal and keep that as your north star just sit back and be like okay what would my ideal client really want to hear today if you know your ideal client well enough you'll be able to answer that question. And if you don't know the answer to that question, then it's probably not a question of what do I post on Instagram, but actually who am I trying to serve and how am I trying to do it? Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all.

I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and co-CEO of Boss Babe and your podcast host for this episode. Well, kinda. This episode's a little bit different. So my friend Angie Lee actually interviewed me for her podcast and I really, really loved the interview. I shared some really interesting information, if I do say so myself. We talked really in depth about Instagram, social media marketing, our journey in building Boss Babe and what that looks like. And I thought I would share that with you because it could be super valuable. And it's also really interesting just to be interviewed as opposed to always interviewing others. So I would love to know if you like this kind of thing. Should we do more solo episodes? Do you want to hear interviews that

we do with others? Should me and Danielle be interviewing each other? Let me know what you think. Just take a screenshot of this episode, tag me at IamNatalie and also tag at bossbabe.inc. We'll share everything as usual, but your feedback would be so, so important. And I'm just going to dive straight into this, but before I do, I just want to let you know this episode is brought to you by home nutrition you can basically think of home nutrition as your beauty routine for the inside I've been using home for about six months in particular the hair growth supplement as I've said before my hormones are all over the place I'm working on healing it but the biotin within that has been really really good for my hair my skin and my nails it's really convenient it's

always on my desk it's clinically proven it's made with natural ingredients. There's no GMO. There's no soy, gluten, artificial colors. And they also have vegan options, which I know is pretty difficult to get sometimes in supplements. So each supplement has a really specific use case like clearer skin, boosted energy, you name it. And if you're unsure of which products will be best for you, you can actually take a quick quiz to get completely personalized recommendations, which I 100% recommend. You can just click the link below. And then if you decide to purchase anything, you can use the code BOSSBABE for 20% off everything. And with that, let's dive straight in. And I hope you get so many pieces of information from this. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way

for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. What's up, Natalie? I'm so excited to have you on the show. We're going to jam. We're going to have fun. And you ladies are going to hear a little behind the scenes of Natalie and our craziness. I want to know, because I'm in this season right now, like I mentioned on your show, of being obsessed with health and wellness, making sure I'm the most energized, productive entrepreneur. I have a lot of shit on my plate. So what I'm trying to do is basically be super woman. So I want to know, what do you do to stay energized? How are you maintaining your energy

throughout the day? What does a day in the life kind of look like for you as far as work hours and nutrition or biohacking, all of those things. I love this question. So a day in the life for me. So yeah, my energy levels are the most important thing to me. Just like you, we have to show up every single day, whether it's for your audience, for your team, for the work that you're doing. It's just so, so important to me to have my energy on point.

So it's what I'm kind of always thinking about. I mean, it depends. I have a luxury routine that I do when I have tons of time and I have a very basic routine that I do if I have like an 8am meeting because I also have an office in the UK with our UK team so sometimes I have to do earlier meetings but generally like my more luxury routine is I wake up and before I even get out of bed I meditate at least for 10 minutes and then I get up I make some hot water and lemon and ginger I get my yoga mat out and I do a session of yoga generally it's only like a 20 minute session I don't go for an hour just 20 minutes of yoga 10 minutes of meditation and then I sit with my hot water and lemon and just journal and see what's kind of coming up I

love free form journaling just seeing kind of what's kind of coming up. I love freeform journaling, just seeing kind of what's stuck in your mind that you need to get out or maybe it inspires you for what your intention is going to be for that day. If I'm having breakfast, because sometimes I fast, if I'm having breakfast, I'll have breakfast then I'll get ready and then I'll make my bulletproof coffee as I'm heading out the door. And I typically have my bulletproof coffee in the office. So I work from my office every single day. We have one in LA. We have an amazing team here. So I just love to be with them in person. I normally take at least one day off during the week from being in the office, which is just kind of my creative time where I'm just exploring ideas. Like I don't love the idea of being at 100% capacity all the time.

So I definitely take some time just to be chilling or walking, being outside, just really in creative space. But generally I'll come to the office. I have my bulletproof coffee in the morning and just catch up with the team. Generally I'm on calls with my business partner, Danielle, who runs the UK office. Just like really catching up, setting my intentions, looking at what my goals are for the day. I don't really do that before I come into the office because otherwise my mind gets consumed by all of these different things. But as soon as I sit down and I look at my goals and I'm kind of focused for the day, if I'm fasting, obviously I won't eat till noon. You'll do your Bulletproof coffee though, right?

Yeah, Bulletproof. I always fast with Bulletproof coffee. I don't do it without. And what do you put in your coffee? Everybody wants to know. What's in the coffee? So in my coffee, I have Kerrygold grass-fed butter and I have bulletproof brain octane oil and sometimes I put like half a scoop of creatinine which just really helps to turn my brain on oh creatine um it's called creatinine I think oh okay you'll have to you'll have to do a story about that I can see that yeah do you do a lot of butter do you find that the fats kind of make me want to, you know, go to the bathroom? Definitely when I started the brain octane oil would certainly make them a bit more frequent, but then I got used to it after like a week.

Now it feels really, really good. I do it every single day. I'm obsessed. I every now and then I'll take a week off, which is not the best week of my life, but I'll do it because it's healthy and whatever. But it feels really, really good for for me my body generally feels really good with a lot of fat so during the day my diet is pretty like fat heavy like really good fats like avocados smoked salmon veggies with a bit of mct or brain octane on them and then an evening is when I'll have more carbs I'm definitely not keto it's just not good for my hormones right now, but lower carb is definitely best. And then during the day, like if I'm having any kind of energy slumps, I love spearmint tea. I love holy basil green tea. I love like little fat bombs. I sometimes make them at

home. So yeah, just like very much about the energy. I'm really strict about not being in a ton of meetings. I think it's just not the best use of my time it drains my energy so generally my days are not filled with meetings so yeah that's kind of a day in the life and then I'll come home that night I always cook dinner like every single night for me and Stephen it's something I love to do so I'll get home I'll kind of take my work hat off and just cook a really really nice dinner put music on two of us just like dance around the house and be weird have dinner and then just like spend quality time together and we always have a nice early night like to be in bed that's my day I love it I love it I love it I love that

you prioritize being a wife and dinner and I think that's so cute and Natalie and I were out to dinner a week or two ago and I remember her saying that she cooks dinner every night for her husband. I just thought that's so cute. I love it. That's so nice. It's so domestic. And you wouldn't think that because you obviously women are seeing us on social media is like these powerhouses and get things done. And to know that you have this other side is super cool. Yeah, no, I'm super domestic. And I just love that. Like, I love to like really look after him. It just makes me feel good. Yeah, I'm super domestic. I love it. But also just really ambitious and big believer that you can do and have it all.

Yep. Hashtag my new tattoo. My new tattoo is all about this. Love it. You are a ninja about your time. If I'm correct, I have a feeling that you are super type A and meticulous about your time in the best way. You're on it every hour of every day. You've got a very, very clear Google calendar. Give us some tips around how you are so organized in your business and in your life. You are correct. I am very type A. How am I? I mean, I will first say like it comes very naturally to me to be very, very, you know, structured, organized. I'm naturally a very focused, productive person. I never struggle with like procrastinating or anything. I think that just comes very, very naturally to me. But I love to

have things mapped out because I just really like to know in advance what I'm doing so that I can ask, is this moving me closer towards my goals or not am I making the absolute best use of my time or not because I just don't want to waste any of my time it's so valuable just like for all of us so the more specific I am the more I can have fun and really enjoy my time and not ever be worried about hitting deadlines and all of these things coming crashing in like my weekends by the way I don't work a single minute of my weekends unless there's something really big on I just don't work like it is full relationship time with my husband or with my friends or myself and I like to have fun I like to relax and I think I get that because my days are so structured I love. As far as managing your time with your content creation,

how do you do that? What does that look like for you? Do you have a calendar of what you're doing every day as far as what you're posting, what you're saying? How do you organize that? Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your

business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so I have two creative days a week a Tuesday and a Thursday and so my team knows on those days do not book meetings with Natalie unless it's like absolutely essential. So that's kind of the first thing that I do. Those two days are really, really good for me to get my head down and get content done. We do have a big content calendar where we literally have 12 months planned out in themes. So this week is this theme and we even, you know, theme it down to the day. So Monday is blog day, Wednesday is podcast day, Friday is more personal story day we have all of these themes that's kind of the broader the macro and then for my actual content I really just

believe in getting in to create a flow because you'll probably notice like when you're writing something or creating a piece of content and it just flows out so well you can keep going you can keep creating but when you're jumping in and out of meetings and trying to do a million other things at the same time you're just like oh why can't I get this task done it's taking forever and it's because you're not in that creative flow so that's really really important to me so yesterday I was like in flow from like 2 p.m to 6 p.m or something and I planned out an entire month of content four posts a day and I did that in like three hours, complete focus, no distraction. And I was so in the zone. It was so easy. I would say the first half an hour was definitely a bit disjointed and I was like hitting that frustration wall. And then after that I broke

through and it was just flowing. Wow. Are you still the person who is in your company? Are you still the one who is managing all the content creation or do you have, you have people who obviously are helping you with that now? Well, no no so I'm the one that does all of the Instagram content creation and we have team who help with all the other content creation on different platforms that is changing we are hiring a social media manager who is going to come and manage all content across the company but right now we just haven't found that person and for us like our brand is on Instagram is so so important and it's something that I'm so naturally good at. Well, actually naturally good at, and I've trained myself to be good at

it. Like I've been doing it a really, really long time. So I still do it, but definitely that's my intention to be moving it out. Talk to us about tribe building and what you think is the secret to building a really, really engaged audience. If someone said, give me the top three things that I have to do, what is the secret or what do you feel like is the it factor to building an audience that is buying whatever it is you sell or whatever it is you're offering? Okay. So if I was going to skip three things, I mean, the first one is definitely MSI, meaningful social interaction. It's what every single algorithm on social media is built on so you have to have a really engaged audience and I think you do this by creating conversation whether that's in your comments in your dms on your live videos on your stories like whatever it is I think you need

to be creating conversation so ask them questions listen to them reply to them don't be afraid to like really get into it with them and the more msi you create the more algorithm favor you're going to get so the more you can actually be seen by other people that come in and help you even build a bigger and better community so that's the first thing the second thing i'm a really big believer that we should have stickers if we're personal brands more influencers and what i mean by stickers is so for example baby grandma is one of yours right It's something that you say and talk about all the time. It's something that if someone heard that they would assume they would funnel it back to you. For me, like my little puppy Nala is one of mine. I show Nala on my stories over and over and over again. And whenever people see a Pomeranian,

they take pictures, they send it to me. She's one of my stickers. I would say my husband is, I'm always showing videos of me and Steven just doing ridiculous things. And so they think about that when they think about me. And so I think we should all have five stickers. So think about what five things make you unique and really sum up your brand or your life or your values. What five things are you repeatedly showing on your stories over and over and over again? Like, do you love pumpkin pie? Is pumpkin pie one of yours? And it doesn't need to relate back to any of your products or brands because the more that you build this know, like, and trust factor with your audience, the more that they're going to buy into whatever you're selling. So it's not just about building a brand for the thing you're selling. So really think about those stickers.

The third one would be really knowing your stories so knowing what stories you have that allow your ideal client to connect to you have you been where they've been well where they are and how did you overcome it what story can you tell them that gives them hope or is inspirational or makes them feel like you really are one of them and just get so so clear on those and like recycle them don't be afraid to use the same stories over and over so that they know your story and they feel like they know you. Oh, I love that. What are your thoughts on scaling intimacy? This is the million dollar question, right? How can we do this as influencers? Or what do you feel like is the solution to

scaling intimacy when we can't be in the inbox all day long? Well, firstly, if you can't be in the inbox all day long, definitely get an assistant. That is a game changer and have your assistant doing a lot of that for you or at least bringing to you a lot of the same questions or flagging them for you so you can reply. I think that one, first and foremost, is really important. A second little tip that I have is, so say you put a post out on your Instagram you say hey would you love it if I was to give away my entire Instagram strategy like let me know below and say you have hundreds of people comment yes oh my god I would love this yes yes yes have your assistant go through or you if that's the stage you're at go through all of those

comments put all of those usernames into an excel document then when you finally create that thing go back do a post saying hey it's live link in bio like go sign up go through and tag every single one of those people and it might seem like it takes forever you might not think it's the best use of your time but trust me it is because they really are feeling like you care about them you've created this product with them in mind they're not just another follower to you. Because sometimes we forget that followers are just people. They are real human beings, guys. Like they actually have a heartbeat and they walk and talk just like everyone else. And sometimes we forget about this. We're like, I have this many followers. Like, no, you have this many real life people listening to what you're saying. So definitely

just thinking about how you can tag them and involve them more, you know, highlight them on your stories, like give people shout outs when they do something amazing and make your community feel like a community. One thing that we love to do is on our newsletters, we shout out people in our community who are just killing it. And we notice them so that other people can follow them. So just thinking about how you can create more of a community than just building an audience. It's a pickle that a lot of us are in now. And it's something that can be difficult, but it can definitely be done. Especially on Instagram, it can be difficult. I want to dive into IG. I know you and I love Instagram. Instagram is where it's at. I mean, IG stories are taking over the world. It's pretty much where I make 99.9% of all of my sales

and my virtual best friends. I want to know some of your do's and don'ts of Instagram right now. It's 2019, it's May. What would you say are some of the top do nots? Like what is not working? What is working? And then we'll get into more of your ninja tips. So I would say what is not working is using bots. I think that's really scary. And Instagram are really smart. They know what's happening. And it would just be a shame to have anyone's account penalized for using bots. I say disconnect those APIs. Don't let Instagram see that you're using them. Just don't be using them and start to grow in a more kind of organic way that's definitely a don't another don't is just selling constantly you know we've talked about this before but just actually lead with value lead with what content that your your ideal

client actually wants to consume every single day and then every now and then give them that invitation to take the next step with you or buy your product but if you're just constantly selling and not demonstrating why you're the kind of person to take them through that process then it's never going to translate so that's another thing you know leaving your account with no posts on like posting once every four weeks is just not good enough if you're wanting to really scale up your audience and boost up your engagement you really need to be posting regularly let go of thinking that everything needs to be absolutely perfect I think now we're moving into a place where your grid aesthetic isn't as important as it used to be people are wanting more kind of real meaningful behind the scenes kind of content than they want the real polished so I think that's also really

interesting and I think above all else, and something that I touched on before, but that meaningful social interaction and creating viral content is, in my opinion, and what I've seen with tons of my clients, the best way to grow organically right now. So when your content goes viral, it's hitting the explore page, it's being seen by a big percentage of people that don't even follow you like sometimes when our content goes viral like 30% of the people that see it aren't even following us and we'll get like thousands of people follow us from one post and so really researching the people that are doing it really well in your space your absolute ideal client and think about how you can create content in a similar way that also might go viral and just do that really, really consistently.

And then with stories just showing up every single day, like being really active on stories and using all of the features that are available to you. Within Instagram, there are tons of little teams who are creating new features and products and they all want their features to be successful. And so in order to make them successful, they'll go to the algorithm team and say,

hey, I would love everyone to be seeing this right now. So like IGTV right now, super hot, then they'll try and get their product to get some traction by doing that. So if you see a new feature come up, make sure you're using it and see what happens and really test the data and see if you are getting growth from that. How do you think that women should be responding in the DMs? How should they be using the DMs to sell? I think just the first thing is like really asking qualifying questions. Like if someone DMs you saying, Hey, is this a good fit for me? Rather than being like, yes, here's the link or buy an hour, be like, well, tell me a little bit more about your situation and really let that person sell to you where they're at. And if you know, it's a really good fit, respond to them with a video

or an audio and just get really, really intimate with them. And they'll believe that they're not just another dollar sign to you, like they are a real human and you're selling from a place that you know is going to really benefit them. What if a woman listening is like, I don't know what to post. I literally don't know what to post. What's the blueprint or what do you feel like is the best way to ever start that conversation on IG? I think I know a lot of women listening have a very broad business and I'm really encouraging them to niche down and they're a little bit nervous too, but what would you say is your best tip to helping them figure out what to actually post on their wall? Yeah, that's a good one. So I would definitely,

if they've already got a history of posting posting I would go into your insights and see which kinds of content you've done that have had the highest engagement ask yourself why and see if you can redo that kind of content more frequently I would be asking your audience on stories what do you want to see more of me what is interesting to you that I could be sharing what have I talked about in the past that you found super interesting like really be asking that question and I would also be looking at other people in your space that are doing it really successfully go and look at what kind of content they're posting and see if it's relevant for you see if you could do something like that but essentially for the days where you're literally like I don't know what I want to say on Instagram instead just sit back and be like okay what would

my ideal client really want to hear today like what, what does she want me to say? What does she want to know today? And if you know your ideal client well enough, you'll be able to answer that question. And if you don't know the answer to that question, then it's probably not a question of what do I post on Instagram, but actually who am I trying to serve and how am I trying to do it? Is there a secret to virality? What does viral mean to you? I call it shareable content. You're calling it viral content. How does someone create viral content? There's no guarantee, obviously, but do you have a system? Do you have a blueprint? I think that's something you teach, right? Is how to essentially go viral in a sense. Yeah, that's definitely something that I teach a lot in IGA. And so the secret,

so viral content, essentially, say you're scrolling through someone's page and they generally get a thousand likes, and then one of their posts has like 10,000 likes you can probably assume that that was viral style content so it's being liked and shared by a massive chunk of their audience or people that aren't even following them and so I've studied a lot of viral content and really started to ask what's making accounts grow really fast so I'll follow accounts that are growing really quickly and you'll normally see, you know, it's the memes, it's the quotes, it's the videos, those types of pieces of content. I'm like, okay, interesting. Or it's a really vulnerable piece of content where people are getting real and like there's not a call to action at the end of it. They're just generally getting very real. So I look at those pieces of content, I'm like, okay, interesting.

Let's dive into it even more. Well, these posts, when they've got a white background, as opposed to a black background are actually getting more engagement. Okay, great. And then when they're using this kind of font, there's this much text on them, they're going viral. And so I'll narrow it down like that. And I'll be very specific about my target demo. So I won't just be trying to find out what goes viral on the internet generally, because it's not relevant to my ideal audience but I look in people in pages that are doing really well with my audience and then I'll go test I'll see okay if I post a picture like this what will happen and I'm like very in the data and if it works then I'll build upon that and if it doesn't I'll ask why and I'll fix it what I find for creating viral content generally is it has to be really easy to read

and understand like the quotes where they have so many random words in and they don't flow they just don't go viral because people don't understand what the message is on first glance like people have to actually stop their scroll and do a double read that's never going to go viral when you just look and you get it right away and you have that kind of ah that's good that's never going to go viral. When you just look and you get it right away and you have that kind of, ah, that's good. That's a really good reaction. That's a good piece of content. What I've also found is people are conditioned to like posts that look a certain way. We're very conditioned to like posts that look like memes or look like Twitter style quotes, that white background, that plain black text, like no frills, no flowers, like very, very very plain and so then when we see a piece of content like that it takes less of a decision for us to double tap something like that than if

it was designed in another way because we're interacting with all of these pages that are going viral constantly with every single post and are growing really really quickly and so there's a reason that a lot of influencers or people in the space who are growing really quickly are using this kind of content so really tap into the subconscious of human behavior and just okay well are they really conditioned to like this kind of post or is it really unique and different that's what's going to go viral and then you know the vulnerable kind of content when you're sharing a message that's really really powerful and a lot of people can relate to they're going to share it I see a lot of content going viral when it kind of sums up how someone feels and they can share it without having to put any words like of their own on it but they can say this I'm feeling just by sharing a piece of content that does really really well and other

viral content is when they can send love to someone else very easily like if it's tag three people that you're so grateful for whatever it is that means in one second I can tag three people that's me sending love to them it's going to make their date makes me feel better I get a bit of a hormonal hit from that all of those little pieces make sharing content so much easier and this is is why quotes do so, so well. I love studying sales psychology. And to me, it's so easy. It makes so much sense. Why would a woman want to share a quote?

Why do I share quotes? Why do I tag people in quotes? You know, I mean, the create the love page, it's the relationship page. I'm always tagging people in it because it's so powerful. It's because it's the resonance factor. It's the, he took the words out of my mouth

and I look good to my people if I'm sharing something of high quality and so I think there's something about quotes that it just it just makes it so so shareable it does and especially right now we're just going through that space on social where quotes are just gold and people are really really gravitating towards them and pages that are actually sharing them and definitely like we're talking about like create your own quotes like people ask why boss babe grows so fast. And the reason is we create a lot of original content. Like yes, every now and then we share quotes from other people, but the majority is original content. And if you're only sharing value that you've reposted

from someone else, then someone will land on your page and be like, wait, if I can get all this content somewhere else, why would I even bother following that person? I love that. I love that. What is your thoughts about niching down? What are your thoughts on this? You know, every Cheryl listening to this right now is like, I want to be a woman empowerment, feel good coach who is also teaching health wellness business relationships blah blah blah yeah Cheryl and I'm like what do you do what do you do yeah the thing is if you're trying to sell to everyone you're going to sell to no one when you're really starting out you have to really specifically speak to the type of person you're helping and you need to let them know how you're going to do it and why you're the right person to do it and if you're just this multi-passionate person that's doing all of these

different things then people are never going to believe that you're speaking to them and you're not going to be their first choice like we want to work with experts we want to work with someone that knows that shit and so in the beginning like I think it's so so important and when you've been doing it for a really long time you can start to expand and build out your brand. That is something I'm a big advocate of. And it's something I've been able to do because I've been in this game for so long. Same with you, Angie.

But for people that are just getting started, niche down. Cheryl, if you're listening, just like get even more specific than you thought was possible. Oh my gosh, Cheryl, niche down. Where's Cheryl? She's like, guys, I'm really trying my best here. I know. She was like, God, why is Angie always bringing up my name? This is so awkward. But my question is the bio. I think that the bio on Instagram is very underrated. No one's

talking about it, but like dating, it is the first impression. When I find out about your page, maybe someone tagged me in it, whatever. I click on a new page. I read the bio. And if in 10 seconds, the bio doesn't capture my attention or speak to me, I'm not following them. So my take is take out the fluff, make it super specific. Unless you're literally Oprah and Beyonce and could just write like, I love kitties or I love flowers or something silly, or like a random quote. I think you make it to the point credible niche specific and you make it something that is super irresistible catches their eye and you take out any of the I love sea turtles and I'm a fitness coach fluff you know what I mean I agree I want to see like an I help statement I help six-figure entrepreneurs scale to seven figures I want to see some authority in there okay great you say you do that but why should I trust you then I want to see a really really specific call to action okay. You say you do that, but why should I trust you? Then I want to see a really, really specific call to action. Okay. So you say you do that. It looks

like you're authoritative. So what are my next steps? Don't make it about you. Make it about the customer or the person that you're speaking to. What are your thoughts on stories right now? What do you think is the sweet spot with stories? What do you think is the best strategy when it comes to IG stories I love stories firstly you should all be using them especially if you have a personal brand they are so so powerful I love when people show up and do like mini trainings on stories you know daily showing up just sharing a really valuable piece of content if it's you speaking to the camera amazing get some subtitles on there because we all know we use the stories when we're sitting on the toilet.

So make sure you've got some subtitles on there so people don't. After your bulletproof coffee with butter and MCT oil. You're going to be there a while, guys. So like, and you don't want to have the noise going when there's someone in the cubicle next to you because they'll kind of think you're weird, even though they're doing it too. But whatever. Get the subtitles on. Get the subtitles on. have fun be entertaining you know like show up and show people like your real personality bring energy so that they feel good about actually watching your stories and they feel excited to go

and see what you're up to share stuff on there that you know might even make you a little bit scared and uncomfortable you wouldn't want to share in your feed because it gives people a real reason to keep tuning into you and feel like they're connecting with the real you and encourage them to respond to you dm you and then reply to those dms like that kind of thing the meaningful social interaction it always comes back to that using polls surveys like dm responses but generally just show up every single day on stories. Yeah. I think that people aren't using them enough. I like to do it a lot and it's okay. It's an addiction. Yeah. It's fine. Same. It's fine. I want to know some of your tips on hiring a team. There's a woman listening to this right now who is trying to build a team. Maybe she's

brand new. This would be her first virtual assistant, or she is crushing it multiple six figures doesn't have a team yet. You've done a really good job hiring really good people around you. And that's the definition of a really great entrepreneur is someone who is hiring smarter people around them to do the shit they don't want to do. Like, let's be honest, that's really what it's about. So how do you do it? How have you found great people to work for you? Yeah, you're right. It's all about the team. So I will just say building a team, it can be very challenging. And it definitely was for me, like finding the right people can be quite difficult. So the first thing I'll say when you're building a team, be patient. Know that you might not get the person you want tomorrow, next week even next month but if you're patient

and you hold out for the right person when they come along they are going to make everything so much easier for you and add a lot of value because too often we hire when it's too late and so we know we've got a big position to fill we started hiring when it was way too late now we're panicked we're stressed we just need someone to come and take the burden off of us and then we'll actually end up hiring someone that isn't as great at what they need to be doing as they should be and so you actually end up still doing that job that you tried to outsource so I want to say that again you will still end up doing that job you tried to outsource if you don't hire someone who was really competent and really really good in that area and it just ends up becoming a headache for everyone involved and then you've got to fire them and it doesn't feel good so I like to preemptively hire so what I will normally do

is I'll map out like my big 12 month goals and then I will map out what my ideal org chart looks like so my ideal organizational, like all the seats that people are in, what positions I need, like the job descriptions for each role. And then I put dates on. It would be amazing if I had this person, August, September, October, have the specifics there. I've got the job description. I've seen my goals and I'm like, okay, if I hit these goals, these are the people I'm going to need. Then I'll start preemptively hiring before I might be ready because it's going to take you so long to go through those different stages that kind of time buffer is going to be amazing for you

I would totally recommend doing more than one interview people can come across really really well in an application or an interview but then when you set them on to doing an actual task or a challenge something similar to what they would do in their role they don't perform so good so I would really get them doing that I normally do three rounds of interviews they get a first interview with one of the team then we set them a challenge then I'll do an interview with them and that kind of three step really really works and if it's just you right now and you're hiring your first person definitely have them do a challenge before you even get on the phone with them because your time is so so valuable you really don't want to be wasting any time on calls with people that just aren't qualified enough and aren't going to do a good job and then for my secret sauce like you're going to want to write

this down because this is a secret yeah this is a this is a big one this is going to be an absolute game changer for you so get ready write it down create application form. So get on like typeform.com, something like that, and create a really, really solid application form based on everything you want them to do. So the specific softwares that you want them to be able to use and have experience with, the different skills you want them to have. So for example, I would say,

rate your copywriting skills one to three. I'm not giving them a one to 10. I don't care for like six or seven answer. Like you're either bad, you're good, or you're really good. And that's all I care about. So give them a one to three. So get really specific. Okay, this person in this role will do all of these things.

Every single day, they'll use this software. They'll bring these results. Okay, so then go and ask, when have you used this software? Give me an example. When have you achieved these results? Give me an example. And get them to really fill that out and what you're going to realize is there are so few people that really really stand out when it comes to like having an application form that narrowing people down is going to be really really easy for you because half the work's already done because

if you just put out there that you ask you're hiring you want to cover a letter and a cv you're going to spend so much time wheeling through people and then you're not really going to know if they're any good until you get them on a call then you'll say hey have you got experience doing this tell me about a time you've done this you and i both know your time is way too valuable for that so get the application form really really structured and know that if you go through the application form and it's mostly yeses and threes, this is a winner. If it's mostly no's and empty questions, delete. You're not interested in hiring that person. I love this. Ooh, this is good. This is something that people don't talk about a lot, but hiring is everything. Hiring and firing. It's everything. I want to close it out with a fire under their butt, whether this is maybe touching on your why, maybe this is giving them a specific tool or a specific exercise or any little

digitalization maybe that you do. But I want to know what you can say to the woman who's listening, who wants to give up because there are a lot of women listening to listening who wants to give up? Because there are a lot of women listening to this who want to give up. They maybe have been in business for a year or two and they just feel stuck and it's exhausting and it's hard. And they're at that point where it's not fun. It's not sexy. It's not glamorous. What do we say to that woman? Well, firstly, I totally get that because it is really difficult at times and for me I went through that for a couple of years of literally living on super noodles barely able to pay my rent my family not knowing what the hell I did my friends actually falling out with me because they just thought that

I was like just wasting my life I didn't get the grad job so I feel you it's really really fucking hard and I'm not gonna say any otherwise but if you get so clear on the one goal you're trying to work towards like get rid of all the things that you're doing that you think are working because you're on that one goal and ask yourself what can I do today that is going to help me get towards that goal one thing every single day I don't care whether it's Sunday move towards that goal and keep that as your north star because if you're only working towards one thing it's going to be so much easier to achieve than if you're working towards 10 different things and you're just kind of throwing shit at the wall and hope something sticks

so get really really clear on that one goal and every single day map out what it's going to take to get there and if you can on a macro level you know when you've got that big goal reverse engineer it these are the milestones that I need to hit so this month I am working towards this milestone or this quarter I'm working towards this milestone and just get less concerned with having loads of goals get more concerned with your one goal and then your one why like for me I have three why's but they come in this order my first why is building the best life possible for me my family and my future family beyond everything else that is what it is important to me and that is kind of the litmus test that I run every new idea through is this going to change my lifestyle is this going

to put me at risk like I ask those questions and if it doesn't align with that number one then I simply will not do it number two I have an amazing team and I really care about them being able to build lives that are so meaningful and fulfilled for them. And number three, my community, I want to have an impact on the world. I'm having an impact on the world and that really, really matters to me. And so you can run everything you're doing through those three things. And if you're doing anything that just isn't aligned with that, then that might be why it's not working. So get rid of it and just get so, so clear on where you're going. I love it. I've been realizing lately, we, you know, let's just be real. Us as influencers who are at a point now where we've gone through most of the

grind, I would say, obviously it's, we'll always be a grind. We've got, we've overcome the biggest hump. I think that we forget those days where we wanted to give up and we didn't want to do it anymore. You know? Oh yeah. Well, I remember those days and to be honest you still have them right like you have weeks where things are just really hard and you're like why the hell am I even doing this and it just never really goes away because we're not choosing an easy route or an easy option like we really are choosing something that is difficult but it has the most reward. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love this. Where can everyone find you, creep on you and learn all the things Boss Babe and Natalie? I love it. Yeah. Come stalk me. So you can find me on Instagram at I am Natalie,

or you can connect with Boss Babe's Instagram at bossbabe.inc or visit our blog bossbabe.com. Oh, and also if anyone's interested in IGA, you can head to instagrowthaccelerator.com. Woohoo! All right. And if you guys love this episode, tag us in you listening. Bonus points if you're dancing. Bonus points if you're doing something epic

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