Creating a Team Culture and an Engaged Brand

When starting your own business you’re more than likely doing it all on your own. You’re now the creative, the copywriter, the graphic designer, the content manager, the strategist, etc., and as you grow there will be a point where you simply can’t do it all anymore. At this point, you hire a team! It’s such a huge step in your business as you feel like you’re handing off parts of your baby to someone else. But yet it’s SO necessary for continued growth.

So far in 2020, I’ve spent $10,000 on my team support alone, and that’s not including what I’ve spent on business coaching. But yet I’ve grown to a revenue number I haven’t hit in the past two years. Working with multiple 6 and 7-figure business owners, I’ve also had the opportunity to manage their teams, upwards of 30 people. There’s one important element I’ve seen across the board in terms of helping your team and your business thrive, and that’s the culture you create among your team to support an engaged team and a growing brand.

How do you create an engaged team culture? There are a few things you can put into place in your business to help your team feel like they’re a part of your bigger vision. Here are my top tips!

1. Share your larger vision with your team

Each team member likely has a very specific role they play on your team. They may create beautiful graphics, or schedule your content, or provide support to your client questions, or engage on social media, so they’re likely solely focused on those tasks you assign. One way to get them even more excited about the work they do for you is to share your larger vision. What is the bigger project their work is a part of? What is the goal of what they’re helping you create. I’m speaking to not only the specific project but your vision of your company as a whole. This will create more “buy-in” as they can see the role they play in the much bigger picture.

2. Have team values

Establish values for your business that also reflect the values you want your team to have as well. This will help you in the hiring process, as well as something to default back to within your work. For example, a value I have on my team is to double-check your work. This helps reduce mistakes and the back-and-forth of re-doing things, as well as requires my team to take ownership for their work. Another value I have is: Communication is key. Please OVER communicate. I cannot say enough about how important communication is in business and I think the more you communicate as a team, the less mistakes are made, and the more clarity your team has about a specific task or project. You get to determine what values are important to you, your business, and your team. 

3. Provide a way to communicate as a team

Speaking of communication, provide an easy way to communicate with your team, whether it be individually or as a group. I love both Slack and RingCentral. Both are essentially instant messaging platforms where you can easily chat back and forth and therefore reduces the email clutter in your inbox and makes for quick replies to #getshitdone. Also, it may be helpful depending on the size of your team to have once a month, or once a quarter team calls to chat about upcoming projects and again share the vision you have for your brand.

4. Allow room for Creativity

Give your team ownership of their tasks and let them run with it! This is especially important as your team grows and you’re hiring more “specialized” team members who are really good at their niche. Share the overall vision and idea and let them use their own creativity to run with it and bring back something to you! The more your team gets to know what you like and don’t like, the more efficient they’ll be too!

These are just a few ideas for ways to cultivate a team culture for your brand. The more you make your team feel a part of an actual team, you’ll likely keep these team members around longer, build long-lasting relationships, and a way you can grow together to the next level. Do you have a team yet in your business? 

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a wife, stepmom, dog mama of three furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

How to Launch your Online Business During a Pandemic

Deciding to start an online business is easy. It’s actually launching it that can feel scary and intimidating and bring up a lot of feelings of self-doubt and uncertainty.

How do I know this? I’ve been there. I remember launching my online business, while not in the middle of a pandemic, it was a moment in my life that felt very similar. I was let go from my safe, corporate job. I struggled for about 5-6 months in trying to figure out what was next for me while searching for yet another “safe” option. But it just didn’t feel right to me. I dabbled in entrepreneurship a bit by freelancing through connections I had in the marketing world.

For some reason, it felt safer to call it “freelancing” than pursuing entrepreneurship.

Once I did finally DECIDE to launch a business, I had no clue where to start or what I needed to do. So I created a website by paying a guy on Fiverr $160 for some design help and I felt official.

The thing is - you don’t need to do that to launch an online business. All you need to do is decide, and then start promoting your business.

This is where a lot of entrepreneurs get caught up. The HOW. There are SO many things to learn. That’s the beauty of it - we were all there once and we all have just figured it out. To save you some time, stress, frustration and anxiety, I’m going to share with you some tips to launching your business, during a pandemic nonetheless.

1. Show Up Every Day

Consistency is KEY. Show up relentlessly for yourself and others. Join entrepreneurship Facebook groups and comment on posts, get your name out there. Also, show up for your business. So many people get analysis paralysis and over-analyze, or fear, taking the wrong step in their business. Stop worrying and just take action. Do SOMETHING to move the needle forward in your business every day whether that’s engaging, building relationships/networking, building out your first course, writing a bunch of content, etc. Just start showing up for yourself and your new business every single day.

2. Get Clear on What You Do and Who You Serve

Clarity is imperative for long-term success. No, you don’t need to have it all figured out right now, but get clarity on who you want to serve and what you want your focus to be in your business. You want your target audience to know what exactly you can help them with and if you are offering social media management services alongside website design and graphic design, they’re going to be CONFUSED. Pick one thing, and define your target audience. Remember, you can ALWAYS pivot later on. 

For example, when I first started my business I came from the corporate marketing, PR, advertising world, so naturally, I started a full-service marketing agency. I did what I knew, marketing for small corporate clients.

As I became more invested in the entrepreneurship world, I realized I would be a kick-ass OBM. It was so much of what I was already doing in the account management world of marketing, just needed a little bit more knowledge of digital platforms to add to it and BAM I realized how marketable I would be to people knowing I had this sort of knowledge alongside my marketing experience.

Now, after growing my OBM business over the last 18 months, and finding success in my first marketing agency (Fast Follow Co), I’m confident in my ability to grow successful businesses and my ability to share that knowledge with others to help them grow theirs -- in comes business coaching to the mix.

So no, you don’t have to have it all figured out day one, it can evolve. Just start somewhere and get really good at what you pick first.

3. Give Lots of Free Value

You have to build that know, like and trust factor with your audience. To do that, you need to give a shit ton of free value to warm your audience up to you. It takes people on average 7 times before they actually convert to a paying customer. So during those 7 interactions, you need to not only be pitching your services but also providing them with information to solve their problems based on the types of services you offer.

I suggest my clients set up a simple funnel. Create a downloadable “freebie” to give value and grow your email list. Then share with them your story and expertise to get to know you a bit better, give them some more value, give them a discount on a service you provide to get them in the door and then funnel them to a higher-priced offering.

Free value is important throughout the lifetime of your business, but even more when you’re just starting out. I traded my services in the beginning for things and to obtain testimonials to help me promote my business as well.

4. Set up Systems and Processes to Create a Strong Foundation

I wish I knew what I know now about systems when I first started out. Man, it would have simplified SO much in my business. There are a million and one different systems out there. They help you to create a strong foundation from day one where you can feel organized and professional. The ones I highly recommend figuring out how to use in your business include:

• Email Marketing Platform - you want to grow your email list from day 1. I recommend FloDesk or ActiveCampaign personally.

• Business management tool - Dubsado. There really is no other comparable option in my mind. I even have a super simple, and crazy affordable minicourse that will help you get it set up. Learn more here.

• Automatic Scheduler - Acuity, Calendly, Satori, Dubsado. I love Acuity but I also get it for free as I was grandfathered into a plan. If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend just using Dubsado’s scheduler for convenience and not having to learn another platform

• Website Platform - I am a huge proponent of Squarespace. So easy to use and integrate with other platforms.

• Social Media Scheduler - Later.com or Planoly. These are so easy to set up and will allow you to schedule your content in advance. 

• Project Management tool - Asana, Trello, ClickUp. All great resources and will help you to keep track of your to-do lists and manage your clients with ease.

5. Invest in Yourself Before You’re Ready.

Give yourself this permission. It will feel scary. Especially if you don’t have many (or any) clients yet. Investing in yourself reaffirms that you believe in yourself and your business. You have skin in the game. It helps to keep you accountable and learn faster than if you wait until you think you’re ready. Because the truth is, you’ll never 100% be ready.

Hire a business coach. The ROI is WORTH IT. Think about it, would you rather spend 10x longer trying to figure it out on your own, or would you prefer to have someone who’s been there before guide you. This will save you time and earn you money FASTER and you’ll see a huge ROI on this investment. Not only will they help you with the strategic and logistical side, but also your mindset which is so fragile when starting something new.

Personally, I invested in 2 courses within the first 6 months of my business, a business mentor the second 6 months into my business and a year later a business coach. All have been instrumental in my success as an entrepreneur.

If you’re ready to launch your business, stop playing it “safe” (this pandemic has proved that nothing is truly safe anymore) and follow your passions to create the freedom in your life you long for, let’s chat!

I’m offering an introductory coaching rate of $500/mo for a 3-month coaching program. In those 3 months we will get your business set up, launched and bring in money consistently, growing your client roster.

Book a free coaching consult here.

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a wife, stepmom, dog mama of three furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

Why Email Automations are a Must in Your Business

Email marketing is an important part of a marketing strategy. You don’t own your Facebook or Instagram followers. But your email list — that’s all yours. Facebook or Instagram could shut down tomorrow, but I can promise you email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s critical you grow your email list, but more importantly, is how you nurture those on your list.

Automations are a great way to build a relationship with your audience, support them, deliver value and time-sensitive information, and guide them to your next offer. Having automations set up in your business will build that know, like and trust factor and help you gain more of your ideal clients. Another benefit? It saves you TIME. Once you have an automation set up, it runs on its own. You aren’t wasting time writing, setting up and sending the same emails manually. This gives you more time back to work on other projects -- I’m all about the increase in productivity.

Here are 5 ways to use email marketing automation in your business:

1. Welcome sequence (new subscribers)

Setting up a short little welcome sequence for your new subscribers is a must. It helps them get to know you, what you offer, how you can help them and build that relationship (aka the Know, Like and Trust factor). This also keeps you top of mind for the service or product they’re clearly interested in as they go through the decision making process.

I recommend a brief introductory email highlighting your main offer, giving them a little bit of a “what to expect” from you and where they can connect with you more. I suggest following that email with a value add email - maybe it’s a blog post you’ve previously written that you can share, or a freebie you offer, etc. Make sure it’s something that your target audience struggles with that you can help solve. The third email I suggest is a vulnerable story. Something that will allow you to CONNECT with them and their struggles. Finally, that fourth email in the chain will direct them to the offer you’d like them to book with you. You can optionally follow up with a 5th email reminding them of that offer and/or including a “downsell offer”. But just remember the goal of this welcome sequence is to help your audience get to know you and deliver them value. 

2. Freebie

Freebie emails are one of the BEST ways to grow your email list. What I mean by a freebie is an offer / downloadable that you can give your audience in exchange for their email address. Nowadays, people are very sensitive to giving up their email address because of how much “spam” they get on a daily basis, so this freebie has to be something worth them sharing this with you. I want this to be your BEST SHIT. It needs to be transformative - something to truly help them solve a problem they have. Something that will leave them wanting MORE from you.

Set this automation up so that when they sign up for your list to get that download it’s the first thing that comes to their inbox. Tell them how to use it or what it will do for them and keep it short and sweet. They truly probably just want that download and may not read much else you say. It’s here that your follow up emails are important in the automation. Some people download the freebie but don’t actually do the workbook, or watch the video or whatever it is that you’re offering. Providing reminders, helpful tips, next steps, incentives, etc. in those follow-up emails is key. You can also segment your audience and follow-ups based on people who opened your email, downloaded something or clicked a link. This will help you send specific CTAs to those who have downloaded and may need a next step, or to remind those who haven’t. In one of the final follow up emails I like to provide an incentive - such as if they fill out their workbook and send it back to me I’ll do a free 30-minute call with them, or you can offer them a discount on your services. 

3. Launches

Setting up your emails for launches will make your life infinitely easier. You deserve an easy, stress-free launch. This is done by planning ahead and getting organized. Think about your launch phases - pre-launch/early bird, launch and post-launch… or the excite, educate and close phases. What types of emails need to be sent to excite your audience and get them on a wait-list for your program or offer? Do this for each phase - think through your pricing structure, when you want to offer discounts, incentives, pricing plans, bonuses, etc. to your audience. How will you build that feeling of “I have to have this now, time is running out”? Map all this out ahead of time - I love to do this through the program Airtable. It’s so easy to keep each launch organized. Then set all these up in an automation! That way when you run this program again it’s all RIGHT THERE and you don’t have to recreate the wheel. I promise this will save you so much time, energy and frustration. That way during launch time you can be engaging with your potential clients, answering questions they have, building relationships and closing the sale.

4. Abandoned Cart (eCommerce Biz)

If you’re an eCommerce business one of the most common (and necessary automations) is an abandoned cart automation/sequence. You want this to be sent out to your potential customers within a 3-6 hr window of them abandoning their cart. You can simply first offer a reminder, and maybe second you follow it up with a discount code or coupon. Or if you want to close the sale quicker, a discount code (still with money off vs. a percentage off) in the first email would work as well. It’s been proven that 2-3 emails often perform best in terms of an abandoned cart follow up. If you want to dive into this one more, check out Klaviyo’s article on this here. Klaviyo is my favorite eCommerce email platform.

5. Events (virtual or in-person)

Events, whether you’re hosting virtually (such as a livestream or webinar) or in person, can absolutely benefit from an email automation series. From event promotion to sign up confirmation, to reminders about the event, to follow up post-event with next steps, these are key for engaging your audience. Think of these emails just as you would a launch, but they may require more specific details on the “who, what, when, where, why” as opposed to a launch sequence. The most important email here I’d say is the follow up post-event. You want to either give them a replay, or let them know where they can learn more or what their next step is. Where are you guiding them next and what incentive are you giving them to take that next step?

To take a step back, if you’re still struggling with picking the right email platform, I highly recommend ActiveCampaign or FloDesk. FloDesk is visually appealing with gorgeous pre-made templates that I LOVE. If you like simplicity though and very extensive automation experience, go with ActiveCampaign. FloDesk calls their automations workflows if you’re looking for them, and you’ll always need a trigger to set up an automation - whether it’s an email sign up form or a tag, etc.

There are numerous videos and help guides if you’re still struggling, but if you don’t have any of these set up in your business, and want to save yourself the time and/or frustration, I’d be happy to help you with these through my 5-hour intensive. Book a discovery call here to chat more.

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a wife, stepmom, dog mama of three furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

Systems for Success: How to Save Time and Grow Your Business

Setting up systems in your business is a step that so many entrepreneurs find overwhelming! Where to start, what to set up, how to work them, etc. It can be exhausting and lead you to just continue to push off setting them up.

Here’s the deal though, if you don’t have any systems in place in your business, you’re actually wasting valuable time and stunting your business growth. While you’re spending time creating, revising and sending contracts and invoices, what else could you be doing? Or maybe you’re bogged down in the back and forth of finding a time to set up a meeting with a potential client that you never actually get that meeting set up? Or maybe you’re missing a valuable opportunity to convert someone into a client with a killer freebie.

Systems don’t need to be overly complicated or overwhelming. In fact, every industry or profession has systems in place in order to create a successful business. Restaurants, stores, large corporations, etc. all have systems in place so that the business runs smoother, is more streamlined and productive, therefore more profitable.

Want to save time and grow your business? Of course you do! Implement these 4 steps to create systems in your business:

1. Write down your business activities

Do you even know what all you do in your business? Would you consider yourself proactive, or reactive? Sometimes we get into this cycle of just reacting to what needs to be done vs. truly realizing all of the things that are going on in our business month-to-month. Take inventory of your business activities such as writing content, scheduling email newsletters, creating proposals or invoices, scheduling calls, business planning, project management, meetings, website updates, creating funnels for launches, paying team members/tracking biz expenses, etc. There are so many backend activities that you need to get organized in even understanding what all you do to determine where to start putting systems in place.

2. Determine what you could automate

Start by writing out your process for each of the business activities that you listed. Note any tools or systems that you use already to help you do the task at hand. Then determine if there is a way to take yourself out of the equation. Could you set something up one time and then repurpose it each time you need to do the task? For example, do you offer the same service at the same price to where you could simply automate your onboarding experience for new clients? Or maybe instead of having potential clients email you to set up calls you put an automatic scheduler on your website with pre-call questions to help make it easier for people to access you and not miss out on any potential opportunities. So many times we think we need to be involved in every step of the process, but once we write it down we realize that if we just set it up, it can truly be duplicated without us. As humans we like to overcomplicate things, when really we can always simplify the process.

3. Research tools 

There is truly a tool or platform for EVERYTHING. I’m all about simplification though, so I am not recommending you try ALL THE TOOLS, but I am suggesting that you look into what would be the most helpful for you. There are a lot of platforms that can do multiple things for you, such as Kajabi (lead pages, email marketing, webinars, course hub). It really just depends where you’re at in your business, what you need right now and what you want to pay for. If you’re just starting out there are a ton of free or low cost options that you can set up that actually can talk to each other. For example, I link Acuity to zoom for meetings and to my email list. There’s definitely tools out there for everything. I list out some of my favorites in another blog post here.

4. Evaluate

Take some time to see if these new systems work, give them a month or two. Refine the processes to make them work better for you along the way. If you find a particular tool, system or process just doesn’t make sense, change it! There will be a learning curve to some degree, but if you find it’s causing you more frustration than help, find another way. And at the end of the day, you can always outsource!!

Once you implement these things and put those systems in place, your business will run much smoother and you’ll have created time and space in your business to continue to grow!

If you’re still overwhelmed thinking about implementing systems in your business, schedule a discovery call and we can chat about my 5-hour systems intensives where I help you identify what systems to put into place, set them up for you and teach you how to manage them. 

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.