Technology, Marketing and Growing Your Business

Published on 15 March 2019

Elize Hattin with Karyn Battersby

Social media and technology are becoming increasingly important in running a business, especially when it comes to growing an audience, connecting with clients and conducting appointments over the internet. On a recent Hub Live, SmartHub Business Manager Elize Hattin and Karyn Battersby from Liminal Coaching, talked about using technology every day to run your business.

Karyn Battersby is a relationship coach, based in Rockhampton and she uses technology to connect with her clients all across the world through her business Liminal Coaching. Her business has an emphasis on helping people to meet their potential and to clear the blockages that are preventing them from reaching their full potential. Technology is key to how Karyn operates and markets her business and she believes it is the key to her success.

The Purpose of Marketing

When it comes to marketing, Karyn aims to create a relationship with her audience to build understanding and trust. “It may not result in a sale right now, but it’s about developing that relationship for the future, so they feel that we’ve got a connection and that they know me intimately and trust me,” She said. “I have clients throughout the world and a lot of my business is online. So how do you develop trust and intimacy from 20,000 kilometres away? The best answer to that is technology.” 

When Karyn was creating her business, she knew she wanted to create a brand that promoted female empowerment and that would help women achieve their dreams. Firstly, she created a client avatar, an imagined version of the ideal client she wanted to work with. “A lot of people build their business and then they analyse the statistics and go, ‘This is who my customer is’, but it needs to be done in reverse. You need to intimately get to know that person and build the business around what they need. You’ll be able to communicate better with your audience, so you can capture their attention between friends, family, kids, making dinner, working, watching TV. You need to do something extraordinary to interrupt them and actually talk to your audience.”

Branding and Social Media

Karyn spreads her brand across most social media platforms and uses branding techniques to make her posts unique. “There’s a consistency between who I am as a person, my authenticity and my personal values. I make that very clear through all my social media platforms. I always use the same colours, the same black and white imagery, the same accent colours and I use the same kinds of images of couples in intimate – non-sexual – spaces. It all revolves around the work that I do,” She said. 

By using these branding tools online, Karyn often gets clients reaching out to her via social media. She uses her weekly Facebook Live to create 15 different pieces of social media content each week. This includes an article that is uploaded onto LinkedIn, posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, a podcast and the original Facebook live is also uploaded to YouTube. By creating a single piece of media and repurposing it across all channels, she can then schedule everything through the week within just a day or two.

When it comes to creating the Facebook Live, Karyn finds inspiration for topics all around her. “It’s always something that has come up with a client, or maybe it’s just a reflection. Perhaps it is something I’ve observed or experienced, or it could be an article I’ve read, and I just realised that this is a problem that many people are experiencing. So, I find the pain point that they’re experiencing. Then I look into how I can answer that question in a way that educates people, because my Facebook Lives are really about education. I want people to have some skills and tools to take away after they’ve watched it,” She said.

Once she has the topic, Karyn writes down everything she wants to say before the Live. “I have it written down, usually on a little thing outside the camera’s view. I use dot points to make sure I cover everything I want to. I’m a talker, I love to chat, and I can go down a rabbit hole and get completely lost. So, the script helps to bring me back on track or I’ll run out of time and I won’t have covered the key points.”

For Karyn, it’s not unusual for her to have followers reach out a few months after watching the message she’s giving out. “My social media is about building credibility, intimacy and the relationship between the client and myself. They already know what I stand for. They understand who I am, because I have no filters and I’m pretty genuine online. Then they are more comfortable to reach out to me and we have a conversation which lets us explore whether we think we’d be a good fit as a client and counsellor.” In a recent Hub Live, Matthew Doyle spoke about the difference of marketing and sales. In Karyn’s case, social media is her marketing and the initial phone call is the sale. This is where both Karyn and the client can decide to continue with the counselling services.

The Power of Technology

As a counsellor, one of the services Karyn offers is group counselling sessions. She runs these online, using an app called GoToMeeting, which allows her clients, no matter where they are in the world, to join in each week, do an activity online and then do some homework after the session to be discussed at the next session. The platform allows users to decide how they wish to engage with the session, whether with video or just audio. “I’ve literally had people who were in the car on the way home from work for instance, and they join these meetings.”

Another tool Karyn uses to run her business is a Virtual Assistant, who works remotely and performs certain tasks for her business. “My ultimate goal is to have a laptop lifestyle, and to be completely flexible about where I live in the world, where I’m travelling and to be able to run a business from a laptop no matter where I am. I won’t always have a bricks and mortar business as far as counselling rooms or things like that, so I’ve chosen a virtual assistant rather than hire somebody who sits in an office for 40 hours a week.”

As Liminal Coaching is moving towards being run entirely online, an online payment portal is necessary in the running of the business. “I’m not a fan of PayPal, I find it quite glitchy and I have a lot of problems with it. I do have PayPal, but it’s not my preferred method. I use Stripe, which links into my Xero accounting package. The benefit of Stripe is that I can also use it in my counselling room with an iPad or iPhone and clients can tap, pay and go with their cards. It also integrates into my booking system.

The booking system Karyn currently uses is called Satori. “A lot of coaches do find Satori quite good because you can put together different packages and things. There are some limitations though, and I am looking at switching across to Calendly or another system. It’s just not working as well as I would like with where I am in my business.”

“When you start in business, you put these things in place and then as you grow, and you’ve been using it for a little while you end up wanting more functionality. You’re always looking to grow and change and update and upgrade.”

Karyn’s Advice

For other businesses facing issues, Karyn urges them to embrace technology. “Highlight the areas where you feel like because you are not embracing technology, you are being held back. This could be social media, advertising, sales or something else, like adopting some kind of hardware or software in your business. I recently got a new Mac, and I’ve never had a Mac before and I was really uncertain about it. For the first month I thought I’d made a mistake, but I went to YouTube nearly every day and watched all kinds of little tutorials. It’s a good place to start, just watching tutorials and teaching yourself. Just start with one technology or one platform, start educating yourself and have a go. What’s the worst that could happen?” 

If social media is an area of confusion, being clear about who you are and standing out from the crowd is key to success, according to Karyn. “If you’re on Facebook or any other social media, you know just how much information comes across. It can be really overwhelming, but a lot of it is quite vanilla and generic. You have to stand out! The first thing I would do is go back to your values, your mission and your vision, because when you’re clear on those things, that’s where you develop your client avatar. You have to know who you are before you can promote that to somebody.”

If technology is really something you don’t understand, Karyn suggests getting a Virtual Assistant to do it for you. “If you’re sitting in that place and you’re concerned about getting started, some assistance is actually a really good way to get started until you develop some confidence. Following that, start with one social media platform and focus on the one where your clients hang out.”

Part of the SmartHub

Karyn has been a member of the SmartHub since the very beginning and loves having access to a space with like-minded entrepreneurs and creatives. “I’ll never walk out of the SmartHub without another new idea. I like to put myself in an environment where I grow and learn, and my creativity is sparked. I run a mastermind group here on the last Friday of the month for entrepreneurs and business people who want a forum to talk about the challenges they’re facing in their business. It helps to have different viewpoints and skillsets to attack the problem from a different angle. It’s an inspiration space, more than a problem-solving space. I love being in this environment and I wish I worked here five days a week.”

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