006 Using assistive technology for productivity and efficiency in your business + Prioritizing Strategy Over Format
Discover how assistive technology can improve productivity and efficiency in your business, with insights on tools to make life easier for everyone.
This episode dives into the power of assistive technology, exploring various tools that boost productivity and efficiency, especially for those with neurodivergent needs. Whether you struggle with focus or just need smarter tools to streamline your work, this chat will offer practical solutions to help your business thrive.
Assistive technology can significantly improve business productivity and efficiency, not just for individuals with disabilities, but for anyone seeking smarter ways to manage their workload. The episode highlights tools like dictation apps, text-to-speech software, and AI-powered solutions like Otter.ai and ChatGPT, which can streamline tasks and boost productivity for neurodivergent people or those with similar challenges.
Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own business processes and consider adopting these technologies to save time and mental energy. With tools to simplify everything from grant writing to email scheduling, the episode is a reminder that technology can help everyone achieve more with less effort.
Take a moment to evaluate your workflow and try integrating one new tool from this episode into your daily routine—you might be surprised by how much time you save!
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0:00 - 5:00: Introduction, acknowledgment to country, and weekly updates.
5:00 - 10:00: Overview of assistive technologies for productivity and their role in business.
10:00 - 15:00: Personal story about dyslexia and overcoming business challenges with assistive tech.
15:00 - 20:00: Tools for enhancing reading and writing, including voice-to-text and text-to-speech.
20:00 - 25:00: Expanding efficiency with dictation apps and text expansion shortcuts.
25:00 - 30:00: AI tools like Otter.ai and ChatGPT for streamlining tasks and grant applications.
30:00 - 35:00: The importance of thinking about your processes and implementing assistive tech for personal and business productivity.
35:00 - 40:00: Wrapping up the discussion with insights on adopting technology to improve business operations.
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G'day, everyone and welcome to this week's video, confidence, connect with your host the video confidence coach, Zoe wood, that's me here to connect the dots between your personal brand with the power of video. Whoa, I would like to welcome everyone to today's live stream. Today is going to be a jam packed one. I think I've got three podcast episodes that I want to record today, and also giving you an update on the past week and general acknowledge the country as we do, as I do. If you are live, feel free to comment below, and I'll make sure to reply to it as a live stream. And if you're on the replay, do not worry. Hashtag, replay, I'll respond to you. Then I take this opportunity once a week to be able to answer people's questions and record podcasts episodes for my podcast, the video, confidence, cast, video, confidence coach. Cast, honestly, I still need to come up with a better name for the podcast. But my plan is just to roll with it until I come up with a better name, because that's the idea. I'm not ready yet, but neither are you, and here we are. So let's get started. I'd like to start off with an acknowledgement to country before we begin. I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the wadawurrung people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians and owners of the land on which I conduct my business. I pay my respects to the elders past and present, and I stand with the traditional custodians of these lands in working towards a more equal future. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to face discrimination and disadvantage due to our country's colonial past. I stand with them in their fight against injustice. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land, and I thank you. As we begin with a round up of this week, feel free to skip this part if you're watching on the replay. This is just mainly for me, but also possibly for you, just to see what I have been doing over this past week in all respects, this week has definitely been a rest week for me. Personal life has been a little bit topsy turvy, and we're just taking off the accelerator a little bit in the business to compensate and make sure I don't burn out as heavily as I probably will do regardless. Let's face facts. I'm not very good at processing or not trying not to burn out, but they're very much this week has been a a rest week. I'm mainly still recovering from the networking sessions that we did last week, where we had three in one week, which usually, in the past, say, pre everything going to crap in 2020 I usually would do around two to three networking events a week. Honestly, that was before treatment, and then now I've got no energy to do nothing. So three in one week is a lot for me and the networking events, I really enjoyed meeting up with people. I followed up with most of them already. And if I have been to a networking event and I haven't reached out to you, my apologies. Then I would like to reach out. Feel free to reach out comment here, and we'll follow up here. I'm setting up for the Geelong podcasters event, which is not happening this Friday, of course, because I'm here, but next Friday at the cafe, go on bellerine Street in Geelong. If you are there from 130 to three, feel free to reach out and say hi, because I would love to discuss podcasting with you, and that's why I do it once a month. It's a free event. Feel free to reach out. We also run a weekly podcast. I run a five minute podcast every week to help you grow your podcasting audience and enjoy podcasting towards fullest. I'm also starting a new course, uh, on entrepreneurship. So wish me luck on that one. I think I've mentioned it maybe once or twice before, but now we're actually beginning it now, which is great. I love academia. I do not like academia, but it's an opportunity that I could take. So I took. Okay, so now we will learn together. Yay. Hopefully I can use some of these tools and stuff that I learned to be able to teach you guys about marketing, about business, about everything that I do with the work and with the clients that I have, because hopefully that's why I invest my time into something, is I want to be able to get it back to you in a nice, digestible format. Hopefully, that's at least my intention, at least. And we're also doing a lot of client mentoring this week. So I wanted to quickly discuss for myself and for my customers as well, that the difference between coaching and mentoring when it comes to small business or specifically personal branding, coaching and mentoring. So the reason that I delineate those two different things is because it requires a different amount of work, and also it requires a different mindset to those who are coming in specifically for coaching, compared to mentoring. Mentoring is in a position of authority, as in, you have done this stuff in the past, and as a mentor, you are helping guide the mentee in wanting to achieve their goals. But you're not providing tools. You're not laying out structures. You're not actively breaking down these larger topics and essentially coaching someone compared to when you are a mentee, you are getting the experience and hopefully the connections from that mentor that can help boost your career or the line of work that you wish to pursue, compared to coaching, where there's a lot more of a structure to it, there's a lot more breaking down of goals and what you want to achieve, and that, of course, takes a lot more time and a lot more resources, compared to, say, just, you know, just having a chat once a month, once once every two months, to discuss on how things are going, almost like, I would like to put this when with specifically small business owners, think of a coach compared to an accountability buddy, where they are there to make sure that you're on your goals, but they're not going to break down these or give you tools to be able to achieve what you need to achieve, compared to a coach, which has someone like myself who has been trained on being able to do that, And in turn, can actually break down these largest topics for you. So today we've got three podcast episodes that I want to record. Yes, we will have time for that. We have using assistive technology for productivity and efficiency in your business. I know that is a very long title, but it's something that I've come across a little bit this week, which I think I might want to address, not for myself, but for my clients. I also got a podcast, specifically a smaller podcast, talking about prioritizing a content strategy over a content format, and what I mean by that, and I'll break that down for you. And also the third one that I want to get to, hopefully have enough time, and if not, we can always push it to next week, understanding your ideal customers through questions. So today is going to be a lot more like business direction heavy and business productivity heavy, compared to, say, general marketing. And of course, the work that I do with people is that I work on marketing strategies and the tools to be able to achieve them using live streams and podcasting and other video formats. Because, as you can imagine, the video confidence coach has the three words that implies what I do. I say that because this particular over these past two weeks, I've had a very interesting conversations with people who hear what my business name is, and then they have the follow up questions, which is quite normal, and I answer them, and they're just surprised at how straightforward it is. It's like, that's why I chose the business name, because has the three things that I do pretty consistently. Yay. So I do apologize if I'm a little bit off this week. I am doing my best to make sure that I have the energy for you to be able to be here to show up every week like I plan to do and intend to do, and I want to do my best to support you guys as I do that. So let's get going For this first episode. You
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how to make your business more productive, or not exactly your business, but more yourself. To bring efficiency to your business with the work that you do and how you do that usually, one of the many answers to this question is tools, utilizing tools both digital and physical, to be able to make things easier for you. And I would like to posit for you, especially for those of us who have any sort of neurodivergency as it is classed at the moment. To be honest, I think everyone is a little bit neurodivergent. It's just some people can pass as not someone. I had to discuss with someone recently about how what exactly is the different? What is the opposite of neurodivergent, and I came up with neurostrate. That is not true. But come with me into today's podcast episode where we're going to be talking about assistive technologies for both productivity and efficiency in your business. I know a referring title as ever I'd come up with Zoe, but essentially what I want to talk to you about is how utilizing assistive technologies. And of course, I'll go into a description of what that is. Is more beneficial to you than not, and how assistive technologies is not just built for those who are disabled or impaired. And I use very big air quotes around impaired in some way, it's being able to make things more accessible for everyone. So breaking down my notes in front of me. Zoe, so there will always true, always be tools to help you find your focus and to be able to help you achieve what you want to achieve, both in your business and in your personal life. And finding these tools can be a case of just experience, of going, of looking for ways of being able to sort your problem out, or being able to figure things out, but sometimes you just don't have the words for it, and that is okay. That is what we're going to go through today. But the whole arching umbrella of everything that we're going to be talking about today, specifically my focus for today's podcast episode is going to be assistive technologies. Now the word assistive technologies refers to any device, tool or software that helps people with disabilities or impairments perform tasks they may not have otherwise done found difficult or maybe impossible to do otherwise. And of course, I want to stress, as I did just a second ago, that assistive tools are not just meant for those of us with disabilities. They're meant to assist everyone, no matter what you know, no matter what impairment you may have, because I doubt that there are any of us who are perfectly at 100% all of the time, and if you are, I would like to meet you because I don't think you're human. So how I came across this myself, and I'd like to bring you along in a little story that I've come across, and then we'll get down into some tools and some things that you can use to search for in your your own ways of utilizing these tools. So for those whom you, who may not know, I have dyslexia. Dyslexia is where it is very hard to read because the letters of the words move around. Or in some aspects of dyslexia, when you look at a word, the letters aren't in the right way. So you have to look at a word, dissect where these letters are in a word to be able to read it out comprehensively, usually in front of people. And for a very long time, I struggled with this. I was always just constantly told that I was dumb, that I was stupid, that I did not know how to read the basic word, like cat that was right in front of me. And when I was able to do that, then I was stupid because I didn't know how to read house, and then it just progressively got as soon as I was able to grow and learn and find my own formulas or ways of breaking these words down to make it suit me better and my learning style, the goal posts were always shifted and moved. But I digress. So I was always told throughout my life that I would need support no matter what I would do, no matter what I needed to do in my life, I would constantly need support. I was told that I wouldn't be able to do reception jobs or do any admin or do any word process, word process, heavy jobs throughout my life because of the way that my brain happens to work. I was told, keeping in mind, I was told this when I was 16, despite the fact that I had started my business when I was 14, that I wouldn't be able to successfully run a business, because how are you going to be able to do that? Zoe, well, I'll tell you how. Because I was able to use these tools and I was able to work on ways of going around the problem, the way that I'd like to explain this to educational teachers that I have worked with and also been on panels to discuss my dyslexia and how I've been able to overcome my dyslexia. I for those who are listening, I'm using air quotes there, mainly because it's not something that I overcome. It's. Just something that I work on, and I work very heavily on, to be able to work around these issues to a lesser extent. I like to use the little analogy called the Mona Lisa analogy. So essentially, what you can do, and how I like to explain this to people, is imagine the Mona Lisa in your head, just how it looks, all right. So you can picture that in your head. Now, draw it exactly. Picture Perfect. You know, every line, every brush broke, every detail perfectly. Do that? No, you're not. You're not Leonardo da Vinci. You're not a classically trained artist. And oil paints, I say that it's skeptically because I can't even remember if it's oil paints or not. It's oil points or not. Probably is on like, you're not, you're not that. Oh, really. Oh, that's a surprise, isn't it? But the way that I have learnt to remember words is being able to see them in context. So say, for example, when to remember the word house. I visually remember the say, for example, when you were maybe in school or in primary school, they would have the alphabet on the wall, and they would have a physical like, say, for example, cat. They would have a big C that may or may not have been like the letter cat in the letter C with at and I remember being able to see those words and then be able to remember cognitively going back and forth when reading a word, to be able to switch back and forth, to be able to understand these longer words or even bigger words, because I've seen them In context. For example, spaghetti. I can now see them in my mind on a packet of spaghetti, and I can just remember what that looks like and get the letters in the right order. At the end of the day, I'm not really writing letters. I'm more just like copying what the squiggles look like in my head when it comes to writing, when it comes to reading, however, I usually find a quicker format to be able to do that. Again, that pattern recognition, again, like using the Mona Lisa to be able to have those back and forth in this essentially, all I am to say is that I have found a very complicated way of doing something that people usually find very simple to do, and that is okay. It usually means that I am unable to read large swans of text, because my brain initially, as soon as they see, realistically, anything more than say five sentences, my brain initially goes okay. We are not doing this. That is so much, and I have to be a I have to, you know, push myself a little bit and start utilizing my tools that I'm about to go in for you how I break that down to make it easier on myself and be able to process the information that I'm being given. Now, of course, this can work great at the start of the day or at the start after a nice weekend or a break, but when I'm run down, or when I'm tired, these tools that I'm about to describe to you, I use even more, and does that make me less than does that make me, you know, worse at my job? No, I think the only issues that I've had, to be perfectly honest, is when there's been a couple of spelling mistakes every now and again, which is the reason that I use WordPress is I use little I use tools very much, like Word or, you know, your basic Google email to be able to tell me, Hey, is this word spelled right? Is there a red line under this word? No, cool. I've spelled it right, and then I will be picked up on it later. But that is why most of my messages that I work with, specifically my clients, are pre approved. I make sure that they're checked over by more than just one set of eyes, and I do my best to make sure that I have the assistive technology working with me. Now, of course, this doesn't work 100% of the time, but I doubt people that have that do not have dyslexia, are able to ace everything 100% of the time. And again, if you do, I do not think you're human, and I would like to have a chat.
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So some tools that I'd like to break down for you that you could use in your own business if, for example, you have any struggles or any hurdles that you're coming across. And again, you don't have to use these tools all the time. Maybe it's just at the end of the day you're getting tired. You want to be able to have something like this next tool that I'm going to describe for you that can make processing the information easier. So for example, I use voice to text tools, which is known as dictation, to be able to save time and energy when I'm working what I mean is that I have honed my skills of being able to speak publicly, be able to speak on camera, and I have worked on this over time to the point where the connection between my brain and my mouth doesn't always work, but it's relatively succinct, to the point where. So when I get asked a question, or, for example, if any of you have come to my workshops, you will have noticed that I do the workshop, I answer the questions. And if there are any questions afterwards that maybe I didn't get a chance to answer to answer, or maybe it was a little bit overwhelming, what I like to do is I like to reply. If I have your email or open it up to the floor and reply in both a video format, very much like what I'm doing now in in the live stream. If you're watching on the live stream or I essentially use these voice to text tools to be able to distill all my information that's coming out of my mouth to be recorded almost transcribed instantly, and then from there, depending on how much energy I have, I either edit what I have said in text form to be able to send to this person via email, or I run it through an app Like chatgpt or a ml, MML, a multi, multi language processor. I've forgotten what it's called a an AI, essentially an app that works with text. Specifically, most of them do, pretty much all of them do at this point, but I use an app to be able to distill my ramblings, my words and my thoughts into something a lot more focused and cohesive for the person who's wanting to get their question answered, because I don't want you to come to my workshops and not have your questions answered. Now, of course, we don't always have the time, but I as the instructor, have the time to make sure that your answers are answered. So when, especially after a workshop, especially a very long workshop, to be able to just dictate my words into say a paragraph Max, to be honest, and then run it through chatgpt, or run it through or maybe just if I have a bit of time and energy to be able to edit it, send it through an email. That is more useful than just leaving it hanging or just not doing anything about it, because having people answer your questions means the world, and I want to be able, not necessarily, to form them as leads and then maybe get them as clients, but more, because you've come to me for answer. You come to me for answers. I'm going to do the best to be able to give you the best answer that I can with the knowledge that I have and the experience that I have, it's not always going to be the same answer, because, of course, I will grow with more experience, as you will too, but I don't want to leave you hanging. So the tools that I use are a very expensive tool that I pay for called otter AI, so a, o, t, t, e r, dot, a i is a tool that I paid a lot of money for each year, but it essentially takes my transcriptions, just transcripts them, transcribes them as the most efficiently that I've honestly come across, and it provides AI outputs. So then I can have these, you know, long ramblings or 45 minutes to into something that I can actually action into these AI summaries. And I can also use this transcript very much like in, for example, be able to use it for my podcast, for my live streams, to be able to break down my information into different formats so it is better consumed by people depending on how they learn. Some people don't like watching a video, some people don't like listening to a podcast, and that is okay. I can easily and with these assistive technologies turn that content into something that's more palatable to them. It may not be my cup of tea, but I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for my customers. And when it comes to the work that you're doing and the way and the reason that you're doing for something in your business, it should be to benefit them, then it should be to benefit you. I digress. Other tools that I use are basic dictation apps. I think I've just got an app on my computer that just is called the dictation app, and essentially it transcribes my voice using my microphone. And if you're watching on the podcast or on the live stream, you can see it right here. I essentially just talk into it or talk across it, as you should with microphones, and it streams lined my work in process, because I don't need to constantly keep going over my words, because I have to use multiple different processes in my brain to just get the words on the page. I can just speak, and because I'm more comfortable with that, I can then use that knowledge later on. I then also use the opposite the text to voice tools that are essentially read aloud text so that it is a in a method that is easier for me to hear and be able to consume the large swaths of information or research that I am. Uh, reading, and to be able to have something being spoken to me in my headphones, compared to seeing a large swath of text who it is so much easier just to spend the 30 seconds to actually listen to what's going on and then be able to action what I'm actually reading into something useful, for example, to be able to distill my thoughts into again, I listen to something being read out from, say, a report or a survey that I read. I read an awful lot of those, I must say, and then I read say three or four paragraphs. And then I switch to my transcribing service, and I just transcribe my thoughts into a way that is easier for me to then utilize, into an educational piece, into a blog, into a live stream, into a podcast, into something that is useful for you. And that's how I find I best learn things. And when you are someone who is growing a personal brand, to be able to form a habit of educating your customers, your leads, your potential leads on what you're passionate about is the best way for you to learn and reinstate that learning over time. So another tool that I like to use is what is called as a text expansion tool. So utilizing really quick shortcuts on a keyboard, essentially, I am able to expand these, say three different what seem like random keyboard strokes to be able to expand into a much larger, multi sentence piece of text, so say, for example, a good example of this is i They a term that I like to use is thank you for your patience. Is a nice it's not me apologizing for being late because I'm not doing I'm not being late, but I'm doing my best to make sure that I get the information to you as soon as possible. So instead of me typing out thank you for your patience, every time I go semicolon, t, u and bam, it automatically expands that text out into that, you know, sentence, and then I can just keep typing. Of course, this takes a bit of learning, and I've had to get a couple of of my clients and a couple of my business associates on board, who have decided me a little bit, but to be able to use this for templates, say, for example, if you write a lot of emails, which, honestly, I think a lot of us do to be able to have some sort of templates that you can just again. The most easiest way for you to do that is press a couple of different keystrokes together. And of course, you would use stuff that is not a word my recommendation. So say, for example, what I like to do is, I like to use the semi colon and then the a letter, and then another letter, and then the program that I like to use called a text, but there are plenty of options out there, both free and paid. So again, depending on how you're using this tool, then expands that knowledge, because it's very unlikely that you are going to be typing a word that starts with this MA colon and then a letter immediately after that. I don't know I don't know you, but however you do things. And of course, this tool has been able to save me time and also allows me to be very accurate, because there are plenty of words that I just do not get that because they're English or they're French, they've got ease for some reason, or they've got like, weird vowels in various places. And I can never really, no matter how much I try and skew that little squiggly red line, I never seem to get it right. But I use the Text Expander tool to be able to get to be able to just not have to think about how to spell this word, and I can just get my message out there cleanly, easily and repeatedly, because it is spelled correctly.
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Another tool that I mentioned just briefly before is utilizing text based AI tools like chatgpt, mainly because there are other tools out there, and again, depending on what you actually want to achieve, there are always more accessible tools. Now, of course, there are a lot of caveats, especially when it comes to AI and the information that it's using and taking of your information, but to be perfectly honest, when it comes to not exactly answering someone's email, but when it comes to say, for example, applying for a grant, there is a lot of information that you really just need to shove in there. And for some reason, I'm not sure about yourself, but whenever I apply to grants, and I might even have a podcast episodes about this in the future, it's always on, like a Friday afternoon, for some reason, and there's like due on like 5pm that Friday, and I get told, I get told about on like midday. Okay, so by the time I'm applying to the grant, I'm already tired. I'm already exhausted. And to be able to use apps like this again, to be able to distill, to be able to use a dictation app and just distill all this information that it wants in a succinct fashion. Cool done. We're doing it. Whoo. And again, this is like, I'm not doing this to sell anyone on anything. I'm doing this to tick the boxes. So to do that makes sense to use something like a tool like that, and other tools that are useful are that I haven't written down because I'm smart like that is essentially I can't think of them right now. But what I would recommend is just spending time thinking about your processes, like taking a breath and realizing, okay, what am I doing, or what am I spending all my time on that I could make more efficient for myself. Are you spending a lot of time in your emails? Okay, well, then you can look up, you know, assistive technology that can help you with the typing, that can help you with the sending, maybe working on how to schedule your emails. That is something that is an assistive technology tool that a lot of people don't really realize is an assistive technology tool, I should say, that allows you to be able to schedule emails to be sent later on. So for example, you may be working on something, and I do this a lot with my clients in both my CRM and my email technology, where I think, Oh, I have to remind them about this. Oh, I don't have to remind them about this for another couple of days. I will just schedule an email to be sent off, and then they'll get back to me when they can. You've taken a lot of the stress and work out for yourself to make things easier for you, and you're going to be on top of things more than you both in the past. So I know I've given you a couple of examples, but if you have any examples of assistive technology that you use, for example, on my phone, I use a simple tool that enables me to highlight an area and it reads the text out to me, I am able to use screenshots and other tools like that to be able to save what I'm reading, and then again, use that technology where it can read the text on screen. There is going to be more options out there, and as things progress, hopefully there'll be more tools for you to use and to make things easier for you, for both your brain power, but also just the amount of energy that you have. Because, hey, I was told that I wouldn't be able to run a business, even though I'd already been running a business for two years by that point, and I continue to do for the past 15 years. Wait, yeah, 15 years. They can't tell me what to do. I'm gonna finish up this podcast today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much for your time. I really hope that you have been enjoying today's podcast. Today was a little bit of a rambly one, but that is okay if you have any assistive technologies that you recommend, feel free to comment or reach out to me and let me know, and then we'll have a nice little Kiki about everything that we do with our assistive technologies. And if you are interested in mentoring or coaching by me, feel free to reach out on my podcast. No my website. Zoe at VCC, dot training. Have fun. You
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G'day and welcome to the video confidence coach cast. And today we're going to be discussing about prioritize, prioritizing your content strategy over your content format. Now I'm going to explain what I mean in a second, and thank you for listening and taking the time to listen to today's podcast. Feel free to reach out to me on all our matching. Channels and my website, VCC, dot training. So let's get back to the question at hand. Zoe, so when it comes to marketing yourself and your business, be it a personal brand that you are building or a small business that you are also building, or maybe you probably do one or the other, being able to define your message and defining the strategy on how you're actually going to get that message to your audience is more important than how you do it. That may seem a bit counterintuitive, and of course, how you actually go about talking to your customers is important. I don't want to discount that entirely, but when it comes to actually thinking about your message that you're using and making sure that how you actually go about getting that message out there is more important than the format that you end up taking. So a story that I had so last week, I went to a networking event. And I, as I do with networking events, especially in my local area, I definitely stand out because I am tall, I am big, I wear blue, I wear crazy makeup, and my hair is huge, like you can't exactly miss me. And I've had a couple of times, especially over this last week of I would go to a networking event, doing my best to be cool, calm and collected as much as I possibly can, and then I have someone see at the corner of my eye, and then they completely beeline for me, and I'm like, Cool. I don't have to worry about reaching out, talking to people, because you're coming to me. And considering I've been networking for 15 years, I would expect that to happen at some point. I digress. So we had a nice chat with this lovely lady who was essentially coming to me saying, hey, my reels aren't working. What is going on? And I my immediate question to her was, what are your customers saying? Like, what? What are your customers need to hear. And she was immediately stumped back, and she's like, What do you mean? And I said, well, then who are your customers? And she gave me a bit of a rundown of who our customers were, specifically the demographics of women in, you know, 45 to 55 and I had to kind of stop her there and go, like, no, no. But like, when it comes to your reels not working. It's clear like you're trying different messages. You're seeing, what's resonating. And you know, we've had chats like this in the past, but I wanted to emphasize with her about the people who are that she's aiming for. Do they actually watch the reels on Instagram, or are they more like someone who wants to engage with the story element of the of Instagram, or are they someone who likes to just scroll on their feed? You need to strategize yourself and the content that you produce to be where they are looking, where your customers, the type of people that are wanting to engage with your services, who have the funds at the end of the day to be able to engage in your services and also have the time to engage in your services. A lot of the people that I work with currently are service producers. I do have a couple of product producers there. What I mean by that is that most of the work that they do requires time on both sides of the equation to be able to achieve the result that the client needs. Now, of course, there's obviously a little bit more work and expertise coming from the person providing the service compared to the person actually engaging the service. But I digress, when it comes to being able to be seen by these people, to have a clear idea of who you're actually talking to and why you're reaching out to them is more important than Hey, you're doing Instagram reels because you find them fun, awesome. You find a method of marketing that is fun for you, that you can do consistently, that you engage with awesome that's great. Let's try and line it up, however, with the people that you want to get on board. And that's where the content strategy, over a content format, comes in, because when you're working with like, maybe you're doing your marketing yourself in your free time. That doesn't exist for small business owners, but go with the analogy here, in your free time, your your hobby is essentially marketing your business, and that's where a lot of personal branding and a lot of small business owners find that they their hobby that they're doing outside of their business is marketing their business, and they have fun exploring that opportunity that they have. Now, of course, you can delegate this to maybe other members of your team, interns, if you have any, or be able to delegate it to another company entirely. Now, of course, you need to have funds, and you need to have the time and investment that they would take to have them do your marketing for you. But I digress, but understanding why your. Audience wants to consume like the information from you, but also have an idea of like where they actually are looking for your information is more important than how you're wanting to approach it. So for example, being able to define the idea first and selecting appropriate format is then the next point of call. A lot of people that I speak with, and especially the woman that I spoke to last week, very much had the format in mind first, rather than the actual message that was being touted. Now, of course, as most of us do, we have multiple different messages, multiple different things we want to say, and multiple different things that we want to bring people on board with. Well, that is fine. It is perfectly understandable. Not every single piece of content that you put out there is going to have the same message. That is okay. For your own sanity, I'm going to ask to be able to put those type of messages and information into at least three buckets, maybe four to five, if you're lucky, to be able to make the process of figuring out what type of message you want to deliver your audience easier. Again, not necessarily the message yourself, but the type of message into these they're called silos, but silos has a very bad connotation, especially in the marketing industry, because they're cut off from everything else. What I like to think of is put them into piles. They are freestanding, piles of ideas and messages and information that are right next to each other. So they do feed into each other, and they can feed into each other, but you're able to streamline your thinking. So for example, a good example of this, especially for the client that I was working with. Sorry, not client I was working with. I digress, the person I was speaking with last week was being able to think of, okay, so what is the message that we want to speak to? We want to speak to about how spending time in your mental health is important, and actively investing time on other modalities, not just, Hey, I just want to get a Tarot reading, for example. Because a lot of people, for example, they reach out to her for tarot readings, find themselves needing more than just the Tarot reading to not exactly feel better, but just to have any sort of sense of direction, because that's the starting point. So from that information that we've been able to digress, okay, we were able to break this down into a message of taking this journey is going to be a journey. How do we break this down for them? All right? So that's the message. That's a bit of a bit of a wide message, but this was the message I was using with this lady at the time, and what we've been able to again, we talked it out, we had discussions, and we were able to figure out, well, maybe a Facebook, you know, or maybe an Instagram reel maybe wasn't the best way of being able to communicate that message. Okay, so where would they go about finding more information about this. Okay, they are probably more likely to stumble upon it on Pinterest, not necessarily that they're going to engage with you from that, but that is, and again, an idea we discussed about, maybe still using the real method of like using a vertical video that showed both the journey, but also her her face and the words that she uses. She has a very calming she has a very calming voice, which, of course, brings more people on to that journey of actually focusing on themselves. So she found that useful to be able to think about, okay, now maybe it's you're actually doing something useful for yourself, like, for example, creating a reel every week that is useful. Maybe it's not resonating with your audience. Maybe just because they're not there, maybe they're on Facebook. Okay, when it comes to posting stuff on social media, as those who have maybe listened to my podcast before, I usually put it down fairly low on the priority list because social media is rented land. It is not your property. The Facebook metas and linkedins YouTubes of the world will change their algorithms in an instant, and you can be left high and dry.
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So when it comes to that amount of work, especially if you're putting a lot of work into one piece of content, sharing it on all platforms is okay. Yes, for example, it may not exactly fit, say, the LinkedIn esthetic, but you're still showing up. You're still there, and it is good start before you carry on with the rest of your marketing journey. And especially if something that you have worked hard on that really resonates with people and has a really good message, do not be afraid to post that video again in 60 days, maybe even a little shorter depending on the focus of the actual message. Do not be afraid to reuse that content again. Maybe even move some of the visuals around. Maybe have the same voiceover, but have some of the visuals move around. Because, again, the content itself is just in that awareness. Part of the work that you are doing, you're still bringing people in to your sphere of influence. You haven't got them to a lead yet, and not necessarily. The work that you do on social media is going to generate a lead straight away. Of course, it's going to maybe over time, but you need to be consistent with that messaging first, and that's why, again, we're going back to having the content strategy over actually how you perform the message being more important. And questions that I like to ask my potential clients when I work with them regarding this type of mentality, is, what do you like doing and what do they want to see? What can you the Venn diagram in your head? What do you like to do when it comes to marketing your business, maybe recording a video, and what do they want to see? What can those areas overlap? And that's where the content strategy comes in, in regards to your focus. For example, if there's something that there's a client that I work with who loves carousels. So carousels are a line of images that are pretty much on all platforms now that distill information across multiple slides, maximum 10. And some of these have text, some of these are just images. Some of these have a combination of both. And she loves creating them because she had, I think, worked with someone and created like, 15 different templates. And she just finds it so easy to be able to break down her messages and her thoughts into these, like individual slides, and she gets a lot of reach from them, cool, awesome. Again, we're in the middle of that Venn diagram where what she likes to do and what people want to see are in the same sphere, and that's where she puts her energy. And she continually gets, you know, things going viral, because she actually spends her time on things that she enjoys doing. Now, of course, that is a win win that is not always going to happen, especially with the target market that you're working with. The target market that you're working with may be very different to you, and that is okay. You are there to help them grow. You are ahead there to help them succeed. You are not necessarily going to be the exact, exact same person, nor should you be. But I digress. I'm saying that a lot today, so my apologies if that is grating on you a little bit. Another question that I have is, is there something that you don't hate doing when it comes to marketing and the activities that you do. Is there something that you don't hate doing? Can you work with your customers and with your clients to be able to do something like that if you don't hate doing it? So say, for example, I have couple of clients at the moment who do not like getting on video. And that piece, it might seem rather strange from Zoe, the video confidence coach. You don't need to necessarily get on video if you are uncomfortable with it, but what they don't hate doing is filming them, filming their hands as they make their art. They don't hate doing that. So maybe you'd be able to utilize that with a voiceover, or maybe reading some poetry, or again, what type of atmosphere Do you want to bring people into again that resonates with your target audience? Again, we're thinking of the strategy more than the actual output of what we actually do again, strategy over format. And as I mentioned before, earlier in this podcast, if there is something that you hate doing, that you cannot stand doing, can you delegate it? Can you delegate it to one of your staff? If you have any, can you hire someone for maybe one to two days a week to do that type of work for you, if that's how much effort it takes. Or maybe, for example, I work even with a couple of clients who have me do their social media because they dislike it so much. And honestly, with the amount of work that we've done over the years, I just, you know, put it all together for them relatively easily, and they're happy, and their clients are happy, and if your audience cares about the litmus test that I like to use, especially for my clients, is, if your audience cares about it, it should be important to you. Do your audience care that you are on LinkedIn, if your business is not aimed at people who are in corporate, who are in those type of spheres. Maybe they don't really care, maybe. And then that shouldn't really be important to you. Do they care about, for example, how they look when they post stuff on Instagram? Well, then you should care about that too. So what does your audience care about? Then you need to care about it, and the importance of understanding your audience is something that takes time and something that takes actively thinking about how they want to receive their information and how you want to go about giving them that information, because, because, because the information that they seek may not be the information they want to hear, especially if you are being the solution to a problem that they have, but they still want to find a solution. Regardless, you may not be the right fit for them in that moment, but if you constantly are in the feeds, if you are appearing in front of them on a regular basis, again, those multiple touch points when it comes to marketing, you want people to be able to recognize your brand and see your brand and see you out and about, not just digitally, but face to face. If that is an option for you and your business, because you have to remind people that you exist, and for a lot of people, especially in this current cost of living crisis, to be able to have a problem rise above all the other problems to the point where they need to fix it and they need to find your solution. You need to be there. And if that means working on your website, if that means providing some context to what you do. So when people have questions, you're not there on the phone, you know, juggling trying to answer people's questions, when you can put that effort and time into a FAQ list on your website to maybe do a series of videos, maybe even just really basic videos on your YouTube channel, which then can stay on, that can then, you know, stay on your website to help answer people's questions. But then you can use that content in blogs. You can, again, there is so much that you can do with such little bit of effort, but to be able to have the thinking or the wherewithal to think about, Okay, what does my audience need? What are the answers that they're seeking, and what is the way that I can do that that is easiest for me? And say, for example, if something isn't easy for you, but you're interested to learn, there will always be tutorials for pretty much everything. And if you don't contact the professionals who do know that space, like I'm currently in discussions with someone right now who hates talking, but we're gonna, but they want to start a podcast, because their clientele love podcasts like rave about them. So we're trying to work a little bit on that little bit of the Venn diagram, that bit in the middle of, okay, you don't like talking, might make podcasting hard. Let's see. Let's delve into that a little bit. Of course, I'm not a psychologist, but to be able to delve into that a little bit and make sure that the reason that you're doing it, and as I mentioned specifically to this potential client, is if you hate something, you are not going to do it, and even if it's for your business, even if it is going to light up the faces of the people that you work for. And you know, if it's going to make you a so much moment, so much money, if you hate doing it, you are not going to be consistent with it. You are not going to do it, and you are not going to continue to do it, and you are not going to make it a habit in your business, which is why marketing always falls by the wayside for a lot of business owners, because of course, there is so much that you need to think about, especially when running your business, but also you okay, if you can make something fun for yourself, and if something is not fun, then can you do something that you don't hate? And if it's something that you don't hate, so it's not fun and you don't and you absolutely hate it to the point where you can't even do it just for 10 minutes a week, then hire someone else to do it. It's not always going to be your full thought, and it's not always going to be your like best thing maybe, like I said, the content strategy may not always fit the content format that you have in mind, and
54:18
that's okay, because you are learning, you are growing, and you're able to use that knowledge in other aspects of your business. You can always use a piece of content more than once. You can always use a content strategy more than once. You can always use a message more than once. Because when marketing yourself and your brand, be it your personal brand or your small business, it's gonna take time, but I believe in you, and as you learn and you find out more about your clientele, but also about yourself, you're able to make these decisions. You're able to see, for example, an idea of, hey, I. I can see that this maybe competitor, is doing this series of podcasts, but they're not getting a lot of numbers. Could you do it better? Maybe, or maybe the format doesn't exactly work with you and your sensibilities, but doing a weekly live stream on those topics will because you can just stream it, you can just get it done, get it out there, and then hand over your, you know, the follow up and the trends the word is, being able to transcribe it and turn it into a blog and all of those other following activities. You can hand it over to someone else that works. You're able to appear for your customer. You're able to give them the information that they need in a format that works for you, because you don't hate it, and you may even like it, to the point where then they can use that they being other people that you work for, or maybe you, 24 hours later, are able to use their content to be more efficient for your overall strategy of your marketing. Hopefully I haven't prattled on too long for you, and I apologize if I have maybe gone a little bit too deep on this particular topic. This is something that has been cooking around in my head for the past week that I had multiple people speaking to. And do not worry if the way that you think or the way that you initially react to something is, oh, I should do, you know, I should do a post about this, and you initially have a specific thing in mind that is okay, that is your experience. But be able to think about, okay, what, how is this going to work for my customer, what exactly are they thinking and how are they going to see this? Because they're looking for it. Hope you have a wonderful day. Enjoy the rest of your week, and I look forward to seeing you on the next podcast. You
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so we didn't end up getting to that last episode there that I had regarding understanding your ideal customers through questions, and that may be a little bit heavy for everything that we've discussed today. So I'm going to move that to a future podcast episode for you or a future livestream, I should say, I apologize if today I've been a little BIT RAMBLY on the side. To be honest, my brain is still very much in fog, and I hope to be able to clear that and be able to be a little bit more straightforward with my thoughts as of next livestream. And I thank you so much for being able to stick by me by when those little things bounce around in my head, but I want to know that it's okay you're not always going to have the best days, and when working with customers, that's kind of the feeling that we're having at the moment. August was an incredible month for everything going wrong for so many people, and I hope that September is treating you better than than my August especially. Thank you so much for your time today, and for those on the replay. Hashtag replay, feel free to comment, and like I said, I will always do my best to respond to questions, and if I don't, I'm sorry. I do my best to make sure that I respond to all questions. I'm going to do the follow up and do the after part of my live stream. Now I hope you have a wonderful week, and look forward to seeing you on the next video. Confidence. Connect you.
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Who is your host?
Zoë Wood, your Video Confidence Coach connects the dots between personal branding and video marketing. Helping women and non-binary folk in small business, find their way in the world of marketing their passion without the energy drain.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
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