Ep 234: How to Make Your Business Visible Online (Without Being Everywhere) with Tracy Beavers

“It feels like we’re standing on the side of the interstate naked, holding a sign that says ‘Look at me!’”

That’s how visibility expert Tracy Beavers describes what it’s like to show up online when you’re building a business. If that sounds uncomfortably familiar, this episode is a must-listen. Tracy breaks down how to grow your audience and email list authentically—without the ick.

Tracy Beavers is a visibility and list-building strategist with over 25 years in corporate sales and marketing. She helps entrepreneurs cut through overwhelm and fear so they can grow an online business that actually supports their life, not the other way around.

WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT

• Why being everywhere online is a fast track to burnout—and what to do instead
• How Tracy used podcast management to help her son start his own freelance gig
• Practical visibility tactics that don’t require dancing on TikTok
• How to repurpose a single piece of content into an entire week’s worth of posts
• The importance of building your email list—and why social media alone won’t cut it
• Ways to start DM conversations that aren’t spammy, salesy, or awkward
• Why vanity metrics don’t equal sales—and how to track what actually matters
• The power of treating your business like a real CEO—even before it’s profitable

Ready to stop hiding and start growing? Tune in now and discover how to show up consistently, build trust, and grow your email list the smart way.

Get regular access to tips, techniques and advice from experts about growing your business:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• • Tracy’s free guide: Social Media Made Easy – https://tracybeavers.com/social
  • Free guide: DM Conversations That Feel Good – https://tracybeavers.com/dm
  • Tracy’s podcast: Create Online Business Success – https://www.tracybeavers.com/podcast
    
  • Her Facebook Group: Be a Confident Entrepreneur – https://www.facebook.com/groups/beaconfidententrepreneur
  • Descript (affiliate link) – Audio/video editing software Tracy and her son use for podcast production.
  • CapCut – Easy-to-learn video editing app used for social media content.
  • Canva (affiliate link) – Graphic design tool for creating social posts, visuals, and more.
  • YouTube – Used as a free learning resource for Descript, CapCut, and Canva tutorials.
  • Facebook – Tracy’s main platform for visibility and client attraction.
  • Instagram – Secondary platform, auto-posted via Facebook Business Page integration.
  • LinkedIn – Recommended for B2B or corporate-facing entrepreneurs.
  • TikTok – Mentioned as optional, but not required; Tracy replaced it with automation tools.
  • Opus Clip – AI tool for repurposing long-form videos into short-form clips for Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc.
  • Buzzsprout – Podcast hosting platform Tracy’s son uses to manage and publish her episodes.
  • Metricool (affiliate link) – Social media scheduling tool that posts to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest.

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 234: How to Make Your Business Visible Online (Without Being Everywhere) with Tracy Beavers

[00:00:00] Trudy Rankin: I felt like I was standing naked on the side of the internet highway holding a sign that said, look at me. That’s how today’s guest, Tracy Beavers, describes the uncomfortable but necessary experience of becoming visible online. And if you’ve ever cringed at the thought of putting yourself out there, you’re going to feel seen.

[00:00:51] Trudy Rankin: In this episode we take a good look at how to grow your audience and your email list without feeling slimy or salesy. Tracy [00:01:00] shares how she transitioned from a 25 year corporate sales career to building a thriving online business. The strategies she used to get visible, even as a self-described extrovert who still hated reels. And how you can use small, repeatable actions to build trust and drive growth. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re scaling with decades of sales, business development, and visibility strategy under her belt, Tracy knows how to grow a business from the ground up and make it feel doable for people who don’t love tech or social media.

[00:01:35] 

[00:01:48] Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin, and I help people who need a flexible work from home option grow the online side of their business so that they can earn more stress [00:02:00] less, and have greater freedom in how they live.

[00:02:03] Trudy Rankin: We’re going to be talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart because I know that a lot of my listeners and a lot of the people that I work with struggle with this.

[00:02:11] Trudy Rankin: And we are going to be talking a little bit about how do you grow your audience, your email list. And do it in a way that’s building relationships in the process, but not in a slimy, salesy, yucky sort of a way. So Tracy, thank you so much for being on the podcast and welcome. Thank 

[00:02:33] Tracy Beavers: you so much, Trudy. I’m excited to 

[00:02:35] Tracy Beavers: finally be here. 

[00:02:36] Trudy Rankin: It has taken us a while to, to get this organised. Tracy, I was intrigued, when we first got in touch and we started talking back and forth about the sorts of things that you could share to help people as they try to grow their business. And I was a little bit intrigued by your background because it actually, there there’s some similarities there.

[00:02:56] Trudy Rankin: Can you please share with our listeners a little bit about yourself and [00:03:00] how you got to be where you are now? 

[00:03:02] Tracy Beavers: Absolutely. It’s a pretty interesting story, but I have a feeling that a lot of people in the audience can relate to it. So I am in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m a wife. I’m a mom of two young adults.

[00:03:13] Tracy Beavers: We are empty nesters, which kind of blows my mind. The only child that’s left at home now is our Labrador and he gets really sick of me most days ’cause he’s the only one here. But my story is having an over 25 year award-winning sales career in corporate, being in sales, marketing, business development.

[00:03:32] Tracy Beavers: Honestly, Trudy, I never thought I would leave. If you told me that I was going to be an entrepreneur and I was going to build an online business, being a business and sales coach and a visibility strategist, I would’ve said you had lost your mind. Because growing up my father was an architect and he worked for himself.

[00:03:52] Tracy Beavers: And he made it look awful, like a grind 24 7. And it never really took off [00:04:00] despite his best efforts and all of the work that he put in. And so I said to myself, oh, I’m not doing that. So I went to high school, graduated, went to college, graduated.

[00:04:09] Tracy Beavers: And I am of the generation that when you graduated college, you got the job, a job, any job, but it was the job. And you stayed in that job for 40 years, and then they gave you a retirement party with a gold watch, a cake, and a pension. That’s how old I am. So a lot has changed in the million years that I’ve been on the planet.

[00:04:30] Tracy Beavers: But I never really thought that I would leave corporate because entrepreneurship just looked really difficult and scary. And but what ended up happening to me was about seven years ago, I’m in a sales role. I have been asked to come over to work for a title insurance company in business development because they wanted to gain market share.

[00:04:48] Tracy Beavers: So the first year I was there, I grew that company, 86% in their market share. And then the second year we were on track to grow another 38 or something percent. So it was really good. The numbers were really good and the [00:05:00] CEO actually had the nerve to say to me now he didn’t phrase it like this, but this is what he meant.

[00:05:04] Tracy Beavers: He didn’t think I was going to be that successful and he was going to rewrite the commission structure basically to benefit the company so that I would not make as much money. And I knew being in corporate I knew I didn’t have any control over my time. It’s eight to five or nine to five or whatever.

[00:05:22] Tracy Beavers: You get a one hour lunch, you get so much PTO. You only get so much vacation. I knew that, but I thought being in a sales role with a commission structure, you can make as much money as you want, right? Yeah. Apparently not. So that was my, that was a wake up call. But years before that, I had little signs that this was not the right fit for me.

[00:05:43] Tracy Beavers: A few toxic bosses, a few job descriptions that didn’t quite feel right, for some frustrations being a working mom. This has been leading up to this final straw moment where I was like okay. I finally was like, okay, God I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, but I am [00:06:00] getting the picture that this is not where I need to be.

[00:06:02] Tracy Beavers: But I was afraid. I was afraid to be to work for myself. And some really good friends of mine said, you should look into being a coach. You’re really good at business. You’re really good at growing businesses. You’re really getting good at getting to the root of the problem. You’re really good in sales and you’re really good at marketing.

[00:06:16] Tracy Beavers: And I was like, coach, ’cause I’m in Arkansas and we’re slow on the trend. All the trends, it doesn’t matter if it’s food, fashion, music, whatever, business. And I looked at them and I’m like, that’s a thing. And they’re like, yeah, that’s a thing. I was like, I’ve never heard of that in my life. So turns out coaching is a thing.

[00:06:36] Tracy Beavers: And so I thought, okay, I can do this. I’ll try it. But I did not quit my full-time job because at the time the kids were high school and middle school sports, proms, cars, college, and my husband would’ve been like, you’re going to do what? You’re going to quit your. You’re going to quit your six figure job and we’re going to go do …

[00:06:57] Tracy Beavers: Yeah. He was like, no. I said, I’ll build this [00:07:00] alongside my corporate job. And so what I ended up doing was, as the business coaching grew, I was able to step down to different companies in different roles that were smaller and smaller. And because the income was the same, I was just getting it outta two different buckets at that time.

[00:07:13] Tracy Beavers: But then about a year and a half later, I was able to fully go into my online business. And my husband was so cute. He is okay, this is really exciting. Let’s see where you are in six months. And he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I took it like, oh, let’s see where you are in six months.

[00:07:27] Tracy Beavers: And I was like. Flipping my hair going, okay, sir, watch me. Here we go. That’s not what he meant. But anyway, it was pretty funny. But here I am, and it evolved from where I started as not where I am now. And that, and I think that’s really important for your listeners to hear, especially if they’re starting out or they want to start a business.

[00:07:45] Tracy Beavers: Where you start is not always where you’re going to evolve to. And so I just really needed to get started and I started with people here locally that knew me. They knew my track record, they knew how good I was in business. And in large part, they came from the real estate industry. ’cause [00:08:00] that’s what the jobs that I had.

[00:08:02] Tracy Beavers: A lot of realtors hired me to help them build their book, have an email list, retain more clients with that email list, close more deals with their sales verbiage and things. So it’s been exciting. 

[00:08:15] Trudy Rankin: That’s fascinating because it’s, I it’s really true what you’re saying about where you start’s, not necessarily where you end up, because I worked with a lot of people and it almost invariably that’s the case.

[00:08:27] Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Because they’ll start doing something and then it, whether it’s successful or not, pretty soon you get to the point where you’re going, eh, it’s boring. I’m not really into this, or, that’s not exactly where I want to go. But that’s the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship is that you get to change, you get to mold your path.

[00:08:46] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:08:47] Trudy Rankin: By, by what you do, by the actions that you take. And I think that’s fascinating. I had to smile too about your story, about your husband. It’s so true. Our partners, the people in our lives they can really make a difference. ‘Cause [00:09:00] unfortunately, some people’s partners don’t support what they’re doing.

[00:09:03] Tracy Beavers: That is so hard. Yeah. I’ve worked with some clients whose husbands are not on board, and it just makes it that much more difficult for them to even have success because they’re so worried about the money and did they make any money? And that’re scared that he’s going to ask, did you make any money?

[00:09:21] Tracy Beavers: And then they’re going to have to say no. And then, and it’s just ah, yeah. So when I have a client whose husband is on board or spouse, is on board I’m like, man, that’s a blessing. Be happy because but I knew for me, Trudy, I, at first, I had an all or nothing mentality about the corporate job and the online business.

[00:09:41] Tracy Beavers: I was like, will I have to quit the corporate job if I’m going to build this business? No, I it dawned on me. I was driving down the road one day and I’m like, Tracy Beavers, you’re a highly educated woman. Why didn’t you figure this out sooner? You can do both. What the heck? And then I thought, and then I reminded myself, okay.

[00:09:58] Tracy Beavers: If I get full-time [00:10:00] into the online coaching and I end up hating it, or I end up stinking at it and making no money, I can always go back and get another job. So I had all this stuff going on inside me that was like, no, it’s, you’ve got to do the corporate job, or you’ve got to do the co coaching.

[00:10:15] Tracy Beavers: And, and that just wasn’t true. And so I think we all need to figure out our way of making it happen. And I knew that building it alongside my corporate job was going to bring comfort to my family. 

[00:10:26] Trudy Rankin: Yes.

[00:10:26] Tracy Beavers: Because one of the things my husband said to me was, he said, honey, I know you’ll be successful.

[00:10:31] Tracy Beavers: I know you’ll be good at this, but I do not want to derail our retirement. We have worked so hard to stay on track, to be able to fully be funded by a certain age. And I’m 55. And and he made a really good point, and I didn’t want to derail that either. So thankfully he was on board with a few caveats.

[00:10:51] Tracy Beavers: And the kids were like, okay, hold on. How much sacrifice am I going to have to make? That was pretty funny. I was like, look, you’re not going to be eating [00:11:00] mayonnaise sandwiches, you’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. 

[00:11:03] Trudy Rankin: Noodles, yeah.

[00:11:04] Tracy Beavers: Ramen noodles. Yeah. 

[00:11:05] Trudy Rankin: Ramen noodles. Exactly. No, they saved that for university.

[00:11:08] Trudy Rankin: So I do have a question.

[00:11:10] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:11:10] Trudy Rankin: Because I know that some of my listeners will be asking this question. So I’m thinking about people who are a much in a much younger age bracket. 

[00:11:17] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:11:17] Trudy Rankin: And they’re in a place in their life where maybe they’re at university and they need some part-time income.

[00:11:23] Trudy Rankin: Or they need something that they can do that’s going to bring in a bit of cash, or they might be a young parent or whatever. You were able to step into this new business, this new way of making your money, making a living based off of the skill sets that you developed over a 25 year career.

[00:11:41] Trudy Rankin: Do you have any advice for people who are, might be going I haven’t finished university yet. I don’t have masses and masses of experience. What could they, what might they be able to do that would help them get started? 

[00:11:55] Tracy Beavers: Oh, that’s a great question. And I do have two kids in my life that I love [00:12:00] very much that are college.

[00:12:01] Tracy Beavers: So our, now obviously we love our oldest daughter, but I’m talking about our son and his longtime girlfriend. They are both finishing up college, they’re both in their senior year. So I know exactly who you’re speaking about. So my son, our son got started with me because I had a podcast on my list of things to accomplish and do for years before I was actually able to do it.

[00:12:27] Tracy Beavers: And the thing that was holding me back, Trudy, was the tech piece. Oh yes. Tech is not my love language. Not at all. And I thought, if I’ve got to edit a video, if I’ve got to edit an audio, it’s going to end up sounding like crap. Nobody’s going to want to listen. I was just talking myself out of it. And last summer I said Hey, I want to do a podcast.

[00:12:47] Tracy Beavers: Will you be my podcast manager? And he goes, he kinda looked at me and he goes what does that, what do you want me to do? And I was like, I want you to edit my stuff and make it sound good. He goes, okay. He goes, what do I need to do? I said, you need to learn [00:13:00] Descript. He goes, okay. Yes. So I paid somebody.

[00:13:02] Tracy Beavers: Okay, so this is so funny. This is the biggest difference between our brains. Mine’s 55 years old, his is 22 years old. Big difference. So I paid somebody for an hour of their time to teach me the script, recorded it, all that. They gave me frameworks, they gave me step by step, the whole thing. I give it to Jack.

[00:13:20] Tracy Beavers: I. He didn’t even need it. 15 minutes later, it took me two weeks to learn to script. 15 minutes later, literally he looks, he goes, Hey mom, what do you think about this final compilation? And I went, did you even listen to the Zoom video? He goes, I didn’t need to. You just pushed these buttons and you put this stuff together.

[00:13:37] Tracy Beavers: And then it’s, and I’m like, oh my God. Okay, you’re hired. So that’s how he got started was but also, okay. But in that same scenario, if you didn’t have a mom that paid somebody to then teach you how to do it, YouTube. Go to YouTube and look up how to learn to script, go to Scripts, website and do their tutorials.

[00:13:57] Tracy Beavers: So that’s a great way to get started because there [00:14:00] are a lot of podcasters out there like me that do not love tech. And all you need, this is all Jack does, is he takes my cold open, my intro, my episode, my outro, stitches it together, throws it over into Buzz Sprout. Make sure it goes through. And then he’ll go onto my YouTube channel and he’ll add what do they call those things?

[00:14:20] Tracy Beavers: Timestamps into the video there. And he also has been able to pick up another job working for a podcast agency when they have overflow. So that’s a great way to get your feet wet. So you have to think through, what am I good at? Like Jack’s really good at tech stuff and he loves podcasts and he loves movies.

[00:14:38] Tracy Beavers: So that was up his alley. His girlfriend, she loves social media. And she’s really good at social media. And so she was hired as an intern for a local nonprofit. One summer when she was home, she did all of their social media. She taught herself how to use Cap Cut. She taught herself how to edit videos, and [00:15:00] she did amaze an amazing job.

[00:15:02] Tracy Beavers: But once again, she has that 22-year-old brain that can do anything in 15 minutes. But she taught herself and she also taught herself Canva by watching YouTube videos. Yes. So those are two really great examples of you don’t need to necessarily pay somebody. To get started, you don’t have to pay for a certification or buy a course or anything to learn.

[00:15:22] Tracy Beavers: You can go on to YouTube. You can use chat GPT to help you and learn the basics of it, and then offer it out to people. Maybe work for a couple of people for free, just for a little bit to get your feet wet, to get a portfolio together, to get your skills nailed down, and then go out there and let people know you’re available.

[00:15:41] Tracy Beavers: Because I have clients and students asking me all the time, who can I hire for my social media? Who can I hire for my podcast editing? Who’s a good video editor? You know who’s a good, who’s good with a camera? Do you know anybody that would do some photography for me in the local area? Those are great things for college kids to do.

[00:15:59] Trudy Rankin: [00:16:00] Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. Absolutely. And maybe not even just college kids. If you are somebody who can only work part-time

[00:16:06] Tracy Beavers: Yes.

[00:16:07] Trudy Rankin: On your business part-time and you need to develop some skills. One of the brilliant things that, that I’ve learned over the years is that as people build their business, they’re starting from scratch, from zero.

[00:16:18] Trudy Rankin: As they build their business, there’s a really high chance that they’ll fall in love with something that’s part of that business building thing. And they end up getting so good at it that they end up flipping their business, changing it completely and focusing on that, which is really interesting.

[00:16:32] Trudy Rankin: And I’m curious actually, as you’ve gone through your journey and you’ve learned the skills and you started coaching people and you started working with them, you’ve refined your skillset around based off of the experience that you had, but also newly built experience around coaching into that whole

[00:16:50] Trudy Rankin: visibility thing. Because and I’ll just confess something here. When I first started out I was a little bit shy, about putting my name and my face out there. I [00:17:00] did it ’cause I knew I had to do it, but at the same time, I couldn’t see so much the value, the visibility value. Or the value of visibility. And now of course, I know 10 years later that if you’re not visible, if nobody knows who you are, you don’t have a business.

[00:17:14] Tracy Beavers: Exactly.

[00:17:15] Trudy Rankin: So can you focus a little bit on, on the visibility side, maybe talk a little bit about, from your perspective, why it’s so important and then I’d like us to get into a little bit, some tips maybe if you could share some tips with us about how to go about that whole visibility part of things.

[00:17:32] Tracy Beavers: It can be a hurdle for a lot of people. I’m an extrovert. I’ve spoken on stages. I love to teach. I love to talk to people. So being visible I’m fine with it. I’m, I’m the person that if I’m walking across the stage and I trip, I just am like, make a joke out of it. I keep going, I deliver my speech, everything’s fine.

[00:17:49] Tracy Beavers: But there are, the vast majority of people are not like me. They are not, they care more than I do. I guess you could say what people think. But yeah, so it can be [00:18:00] that. I love what you said about when I first started out, I didn’t want to put my name in lights. Here’s what it feels like when we enter the online space.

[00:18:08] Tracy Beavers: And my students laugh every time I say this. It feels like we are standing on the side of the interstate naked, holding a sign that says, look at me. Look at me. But that’s not what it is. Because when you’re in the online space on, so social media, we need social media, we need content.

[00:18:28] Tracy Beavers: We need the favor of the algorithm. Do we need to be on it seven days a week? Absolutely not. Do we need to be on every single platform to have success? Absolutely not. I’m a prime example. When I was building alongside my corporate job, I had time for Facebook. That was it. Instagram I knew nothing about. I stayed away from it.

[00:18:45] Tracy Beavers: I’m only on it now ’cause I have an assistant. Otherwise, I’d shut the whole thing down. I still don’t get it. LinkedIn back then was a place you went to go get recruited for a job.

[00:18:53] Trudy Rankin: Yes.

[00:18:54] Tracy Beavers: It’s not what it’s now. So Facebook was my jam. I did not have time to be on that [00:19:00] platform seven days a week. I did not have time to create seven days of content for my new free Facebook group that I wanted to have.

[00:19:06] Tracy Beavers: So what we need to do is decide what platform we want to be on. Where do we feel most auth authentic, and where are our clients? Vast majority of them are on Facebook. Unless you’re doing something like career coaching or executive coaching or something with corporations, then LinkedIn needs to be your primary.

[00:19:23] Tracy Beavers: For sure. But then you decide, okay, what’s my comfort zone on my regular piece of weekly content? Do you want to do a live video if you’re on the shy side? Probably not. That might make you pass out. Do you want to do a podcast? That might be a lot easier, even if it’s audio, because it’s audio only, or do you want to do a blog?

[00:19:43] Tracy Beavers: Now a blog is a little bit heavier lift because you’ve got to take the time to write it with ai. It helps, but it still not needs to come from you. And it has to be SEO keyword rich, and it has to have the H one, the H two, the blah, blah, blah. So there’s a lot of pieces to it. So we needed to decide that.

[00:19:58] Tracy Beavers: But I love what you said about, [00:20:00] I knew I needed to do it, so I did it because I knew that I needed to do it for my success. And I think part of being a serious CEO is, are we willing to do the things that make us uncomfortable to get what we want and have the business that we want and the income that we want?

[00:20:18] Tracy Beavers: And that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s just a little tough love statement. I do not love everything I have to do in my business. I don’t want to do the tech. I don’t love, believe it or not, I do not love writing out what my live training and episode’s going to be week in, week out.

[00:20:36] Tracy Beavers: Sometimes I’m like, God, I’d just like to take a break. But I have to say to myself, Tracy Beavers, you are a serious CEO. You are building this business, so you never have to return to corporate. Put on your CEO pants, hold your nose and get it over with. And that week, that work that I do might be B plus work, but I’m going to put it out there, and so we do have to decide, even if [00:21:00] someone that’s listening is massively introverted, we do need to decide a way, a pathway for them to have the success that’s authentic to them, but to push themselves a little bit, but do some of the things that are necessary.

[00:21:12] Tracy Beavers: Because if you’re going to have an online business, you’ve got to be visible. You can’t, you’re not going to make any money. People can’t buy what they can’t see. 

[00:21:19] Trudy Rankin: Exactly. And that’s, and that is the thing that I think is a bit, is hardest for people to, to realize. Because a lot of people, they’re still they want to start a business.

[00:21:29] Trudy Rankin: Sometimes it’s changing a hobby into a business, or it’s taking things that they like to do, and they’re just dabbling their feet in the water still. And they don’t necessarily have that sense of themselves as a CEO. They’re still a creative or somebody who’s got some skills and they’re still testing the waters and they still don’t quite believe in themselves as being a business owner if you want to, just to call it what it is.

[00:21:54] Trudy Rankin: And so just that whole, you need to feel the fear and do it anyway.

[00:21:57] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:21:58] Trudy Rankin: You have to do it. You do it [00:22:00] anyway. But I’m a little bit curious. I want to talk a little bit more about the visibility side of things. So when we’re talking about visibility, we’re talking about, making sure that people who don’t know us, have a way of finding out about us. So that they can decide and see whether or not we can help them with the problems and challenges that they face. And there’s so many different ways of doing that. We’ve talked about social media, we’ve talked about Facebook, LinkedIn, and there’s so many, there’s YouTube, there’s TikTok.

[00:22:27] Trudy Rankin: Just outta curiosity, do you use at TikTok at all or do you play on it?

[00:22:31] Tracy Beavers: So the reason why i’m laughing is ’cause a couple of years ago I thought I’m going to try TikTok and oh my gosh, do you know how long it would take me to make one of those videos? It would take me two hours to do one short form thing.

[00:22:46] Tracy Beavers: And I finally got to the point where I was so sick of it, I messaged my assistant and I said, I’m never making another reel again in the rest of my life. And she was like what are we going to do? And I was like I don’t know. Is there a software program that can slice and dice my [00:23:00] big video for us?

[00:23:00] Tracy Beavers: And she goes, let me do some research. So that’s when we found Opus clip. I was like, praise Jesus for Opus clip, because I was not going to make another reel. But yeah, so I was on the TikTok for a while and I go back and look at, I need to take that down because it is just ridiculous. I am way too old to be doing the things I was doing on TikTok.

[00:23:18] Tracy Beavers: I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t. 

[00:23:20] Trudy Rankin: I think it’s interesting ’cause, and the reason I’m asking is because I like trying new things, new business models. Checking ’em out. Do they work? What kind of personality and business, do they fit? And so I’ve been doing a little bit of work with TikTok just to just to get a sense of what’s possible with it.

[00:23:36] Trudy Rankin: And I’m still in the really embryonic early stages because there was a bit of a hiccup at the beginning and then I went on holiday.

[00:23:42] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:23:42] Trudy Rankin: But I’m just getting back into it and it’s really interesting seeing what’s there and then looking at the data and realizing that there’s a lot of people our age on TikTok

[00:23:53] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:23:53] Trudy Rankin: Doing stuff that matters and it’s not dancing. 

[00:23:56] Tracy Beavers: Thank God.

[00:23:57] Trudy Rankin: No, I know you don’t want to see me dancing on TikTok, that’s for [00:24:00] sure. But then it has a reputation for just being for dancing teenagers. 

[00:24:04] Tracy Beavers: Yes. 

[00:24:04] Trudy Rankin: And it’s so that’s so not what it really is. Yeah. There’s a lot of nonsense on there, but there’s also a lot of business focused stuff, which is really interesting.

[00:24:11] Trudy Rankin: So I thought that was interesting. So the visibility there’s a whole world out there of different, many different things and ways of being visible.

[00:24:18] Tracy Beavers: Yes. Correct.

[00:24:18] Trudy Rankin: And you hit the nail on the head when you said. Video. You might rather poke yourself in the eye than have to show on video but when it comes to the visibility side of things, let’s, let’s just take a hypothetical person who’s just, they’re getting started. Let’s say they’re in their forties, early forties or something, and they’ve maybe they’ve got mid school mid-level middle school aged kids, maybe a few older teenagers, and their business is just starting to pick up, they’re starting to feel like they’re getting their head around what it’s all about, and they know that they have to actually become more visible.

[00:24:53] Trudy Rankin: What would be some of the things that they could do to actually go, if I did this and this [00:25:00] and this, that would help me become more visible? What do they need? What could they do? 

[00:25:05] Tracy Beavers: Oh, there’s so many things and because, so this, I have over 10 strategies that I teach in my group coaching program.

[00:25:11] Tracy Beavers: And there’s way more than that. So I would ask that person what feels good to them. So I have a one-to-one client right now who does not love social media. She knows she needs to be on it. She does not want to go live on there. She started a free Facebook group. She still has it. She still likes that.

[00:25:29] Tracy Beavers: She does not like being visible in other people’s Facebook groups, which is a strategy that I teach. She’s this doesn’t feel good. I don’t want to do this. I said, okay, cool. Park it just on the shelf. We’ll find something else. She said, I think I really want to be a guest on podcasts, Uhhuh, and I think I really want to be a guest speaker in summits, and I think I really want to do some in-person workshops.

[00:25:49] Tracy Beavers: And I said, brilliant. Those are all visibility strategies. So we need to, I would ask that person, what do you like to do now? We do want to create. [00:26:00] Let me rewind a little bit. There is a foundational piece to visibility in the online space, and that’s content. So we do need to create enough content to be consistent week in, week out, to get the favor of the algorithm, to get the opportunity for our audience to see us, hear us, hire us, and make that connection.

[00:26:18] Tracy Beavers: But it does not have to be seven days a week, and it does not have to be on a every platform, and you do not have to dance. That’s the good news. But I would say let’s pick what do you want to do every week or at least twice a month that delivers value to your ideal clients, whether that’s a live video, podcast, or a blog.

[00:26:36] Tracy Beavers: And then from that be, and with ai, now it gets easier. This was, this is an exercise, I’m going to walk you through that I created myself to keep my sanity building alongside my corporate job. I knew I wanted to go live. That was the easiest thing for me to do because there was hardly any tech required to just push a button and you talk super easy.

[00:26:55] Tracy Beavers: So I decided to do the, to do that every week so I would make sure that I had [00:27:00] my notes about what I wanted to say. Then I would write a couple of social media posts based on that training that I was delivering. So if I had, like for example, if I was going live and I was giving four tips, I could write one social media post with two of those tips.

[00:27:14] Tracy Beavers: Another social media post with the other two tips that gave me two social media posts for the week. So now I’ve got my live, that’s a post. And then I’ve got two other things that I’m going to post. Now I’ve got three things I can post for the week, and that’s really all you need. But once you get some free lead magnets, you post those.

[00:27:33] Tracy Beavers: So let’s say you throw in a lead magnet and you throw in a podcast episode that you were a guest on. Look, now you’ve got five things, but you only created one, which was the notes for the training that you want to deliver. But that way they have enough content without exhausting themselves to, to be on the platform where people can start to know their name.

[00:27:56] Tracy Beavers: And then from there we look at, do you want to be a guest? Do you want to have your own [00:28:00] podcast? Do you want to be in summits? Do you want to be in bundles? That’s great visibility, especially for introverts. ’cause bundles is just a bundle of free or low cost or high, sometimes high ticket paid things that people go together and bundle up to then promote to their audiences.

[00:28:15] Tracy Beavers: You get list growth, you get visibility, you get audience growth from that, and you don’t have to talk to anybody and you certainly don’t have to dance. There’s lots of different ways to get visibility. We just need to figure out. What kind of business do they have? Where is their audience and what feels good to them?

[00:28:31] Tracy Beavers: Because if it doesn’t feel good, we’re not going to do it.

[00:28:33] Trudy Rankin: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Tracy Beavers: We’re just not going to do it. 

[00:28:35] Trudy Rankin: So I’ve got a question for you, because when I first got started, and even for a long time, there was this whole the gurus basically said, you got to be everywhere. You got to be everywhere doing everything.

[00:28:47] Trudy Rankin: And I don’t know a quicker route to burnout than that. So when you are working with your clients what do you say to them in terms of choosing how many things to be on? Because you could do [00:29:00] combinations that work really nicely together, or you could just focus on one.

[00:29:03] Trudy Rankin: So what’s your thinking on that? 

[00:29:05] Tracy Beavers: We need to figure out where their audience is. So if their audience truly is on Instagram, then that’s what I would recommend. And when you connect your Instagram with your Facebook business page, you get a two for one there because every time you post on Instagram, it drops right into the Facebook business page.

[00:29:19] Tracy Beavers: So you get content in your Facebook business page and you don’t even have to think about it. So there are ways to figure out how to be on more than one platform at a time. One of my clients uses an app called Metricool. It’s a scheduling tool.

[00:29:30] Trudy Rankin: Oh, yes.

[00:29:31] Tracy Beavers: Because we were going through her, we just started together.

[00:29:33] Tracy Beavers: I had our first session yesterday. I’ve known her for a long time, and I was looking at the platform she was on and she said, I use Metricool, and I post to my Facebook business page, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest on there. And I’m like, I said, does that feel okay to you? And she’s it’s cool because I just schedule it out and it does all the places all at one time.

[00:29:51] Tracy Beavers: So there are ways now of being in all the places, but I still don’t think you need to. I don’t know if I answered your question or not. I think [00:30:00] I went off in a different direction. Sorry, Trudy. 

[00:30:02] Trudy Rankin: No, that’s okay. Because different people have different ideas about what you do and

[00:30:08] Tracy Beavers: Oh yeah.

[00:30:08] Trudy Rankin: And I’ve used Metricool myself. Yeah. In the past. But it’s almost more along the lines of you want to do just enough. So that it works.

[00:30:18] Tracy Beavers: Yes.

[00:30:18] Trudy Rankin: But not so much that you feel like you’re drowning. 

[00:30:22] Tracy Beavers: Yes, exactly. Yeah. There’s a balance and there is an argument for everything in the online space and it’s maddening.

[00:30:29] Tracy Beavers: There are people who say you have to be on all the platforms. And there’s people like me who say, you don’t, there are people that say, oh my gosh, if you don’t run paid ads, your business is never going to be successful. And then you’re going to meet people like me who are the prime example poster child for somebody who grew a multi-six figure business without paid ads.

[00:30:46] Tracy Beavers: You’re going to find people that say, oh, you need about 10 or 12 free lead magnets. And then you’re going to find people like me who are like, no, you don’t, and when you’re just starting out and you’re trying to figure out, and especially if it’s the big people, the gurus [00:31:00] that are saying things, people think that, oh they must know. Maybe they’re making more money than I am. But I don’t know that they, I don’t know. I don’t know that they know any better.

[00:31:12] Trudy Rankin: Not to mention the fact that they’ve got a team uhhuh who can help do it all for them. And yeah I still think that too many people think they’ve got to be there everywhere, but they don’t pay attention to the analytics.

[00:31:23] Trudy Rankin: And when you look at the analytics, you can tell that some of the stuff that you’re posting on some of the channels or systems that you’re using, they’re just not getting a return. 

[00:31:33] Tracy Beavers: And to your point a lot of people get caught up in vanity numbers. 

[00:31:36] Trudy Rankin: Oh, yes. Talk a little bit 

[00:31:37] Trudy Rankin: more about that.

[00:31:38] Trudy Rankin: Sorry, 

[00:31:38] Trudy Rankin: go ahead.

[00:31:39] Tracy Beavers: Oh, no, I, yeah, totally. I had a client who came to me. She had about 600,000 followers on Instagram, and she was creating a YouTube channel, and within a couple weeks of that YouTube channel, she had a hundred thousand subscribers. She was making no money. She had no email list. She was not putting her offers out there.

[00:31:59] Tracy Beavers: [00:32:00] And truly, I do not think that even a, I think a small fraction of those people were actually her ideal clients. And also, I’m a prime example of somebody who does not have a following like that, but yet I have a business that makes well over six figures every single year. My profit margin is well over 40 to 50% every single year, which is also really important because yeah, you could be making a million dollars, but what are your expenses and is your marriage healthy?

[00:32:33] Tracy Beavers: And are your kids talking to you? You know what I mean?

[00:32:35] Tracy Beavers: Exactly.

[00:32:36] Tracy Beavers: Like I was listening to a podcast the other day where a gal was talking about, yeah, I hit seven figures and you know what I found out as I was sitting in the bathroom, four o’clock crying that my marriage was over and my kids hated me. And I was like, wow.

[00:32:51] Tracy Beavers: The quantity versus quality issue, we get caught up in the vanity metrics, just like you’re saying with your analytics. [00:33:00] Okay, cool. You might have a reel that goes viral, that’s so fun, but did it make you any money? No, exactly. Okay, which one do you want? Do you want to be an influencer and famous and have people know your name or do you want to bring home money for your family?

[00:33:15] Tracy Beavers: And, I would rather have the money for my family. So it, that’s a little frustrating. I, my, my email list people think is huge. It’s not, it hovers between thirty five hundred and forty five hundred or so people, depending on how often I’m scrubbing it. On Instagram, I think I have 4,000 followers.

[00:33:31] Tracy Beavers: I’m not sure ’cause I’m not really ever there to pay attention. But the other thing is with those analytics that came to mind are the analytics and the things that you’re doing well, converting into buyers. Yes, that’s where the rubber meets the road. If your social media content is growing your email list and you have people you’re converting from your email list into a buyer, or because of your social media content, you’re getting into the dms and you’re having conversations with people and it’s converting into either them being a client [00:34:00] or them being a collaboration partner or converting into business growth in some way, then knock yourself out and get a million followers.

[00:34:06] Tracy Beavers: But if you’re not paying attention to the people that are literally raising their hand, wanting to be a part of your world, you’re missing out on money. 

[00:34:17] Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that’s a really important point that often gets just missed out of the conversation altogether.

[00:34:24] Trudy Rankin: I want to sort of circle back a little bit because we’ve covered a lot over just this, just the last few minutes. So we started out by talking about how content is a really foundational part of, of getting visibility and making sure people know that you actually exist. And of course you want to provide content that’s helpful for people just straight out the gate. And we’ve talked a little bit about how you can turn one piece of content into multiple, it’s called repurposing for our listeners. It’s called repurposing content. And it fits really nicely into

[00:34:57] Trudy Rankin: one of the frameworks that I use, which is the, just the [00:35:00] flywheel mechanism where every time you post a piece of content and spreads out and becomes more content, which attracts more people to your list, and you build your list and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. That’s just part and parcel.

[00:35:13] Trudy Rankin: But once you get to this, and I want to bring this back into what you just said, which is that none of that matters if people aren’t buying from you. So let’s take our hypothetical person where they’ve figured out where they want, what kind of content they want to create. They figured out how that helps their audience.

[00:35:32] Trudy Rankin: They know where they’re posting it and they’re doing that and they’re making sure that it’s designed in such a way that it builds their email list. ’cause that’s another thing that people forget about. Without an email list you’re just renting. Yes, you need that email list.

[00:35:46] Trudy Rankin: That’s your asset. The email list is your asset. And so now you’ve got people coming onto your email list. And then hopefully these people are writing newsletters and reaching out on a regular basis to their list. [00:36:00] What’s the next step after that? Because now we’re starting to talk about relationships, building relationships.

[00:36:07] Trudy Rankin: ’cause they’ve gone from cold to social media warm to email list warm. Where does it go from there? 

[00:36:14] Tracy Beavers: With regard to the email list, we want to make sure that not only are we writing to our audience regularly providing value, entertainment, fun, giving a little bit of yourself here and there, but also sharing your offers with them.

[00:36:28] Tracy Beavers: Because if they don’t know about it, they can’t buy it. So I had a client, a student who said, I’ve got this $97 offer, but nobody’s buying it. And I said tell me how you’re marketing it. I just put it out on social media a couple of times and nobody bought it. And I said tell me about your email list.

[00:36:42] Tracy Beavers: And she said, I have 2,500 people on my email list. I said, are they fairly warm? Which your open rate? She said, yeah, they are a 60% open rate. I said, oh my stars. That’s amazing. I said, did you email your list about this $97 offer? She goes, no. And I said, okay. I go, here’s what we’re going to do. I said, in the [00:37:00] next 48 hours, I want you emailing your list about your offer.

[00:37:03] Tracy Beavers: And then I want you to email ’em it again next week. And then you let me know what happened. She made $2,500. 

[00:37:09] Trudy Rankin: Yes. Just like that.

[00:37:12] Tracy Beavers: ‘Cause they didn’t know. They didn’t, they can’t buy what they can’t see. So with regard to your list, you want to be sure that you’re sharing with them what you do and what your expertise is.

[00:37:19] Tracy Beavers: And also coming up with fun ways to get them to reply back to you because that helps your email deliverability, but also gives you an opportunity to have a further conversation with them. 

[00:37:30] Trudy Rankin: Yes. 

[00:37:31] Tracy Beavers: And then on the other place we can have conversations is in the dms, which I know scares the heck out of a lot of people because they feel like they’ve got to be weird, they’re afraid people are going to think they’re spammy, salesy, make up your own adjective.

[00:37:45] Trudy Rankin: Stalking.

[00:37:46] Tracy Beavers: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:37:48] Tracy Beavers: But here’s what I will say. If you and I are in the same group, LinkedIn group, Facebook group even if we’re on Circle or Mighty Networks or Heartbeat in a community, you can still send a DM there. [00:38:00] So it’s not a, to me, it’s not weird to reach out and go, Hey, Trudy, it’s Tracy from the X, y, Z group.

[00:38:09] Tracy Beavers: I just joined, or I’ve been in it for a long time. How about you hope it’s okay to send you this dm and you end it in a question mark, because anytime you end it in a question mark, it prompts their brain to want to reply back. And so you’re more likely to get a reply than if you just made a statement, Hey Trudy, it’s Tracy.

[00:38:26] Tracy Beavers: We’re both in the x, y, Z group period. You’re going to read that and go, cool. I don’t need to reply back to that. So then you’re going to reply back and what we want to do is we want to have a conversation that is just if you and I were in person, if you and I were in a group together, and let’s say I saw you at the Chamber of Commerce lunch, and then you and I are at the local coffee shop, it would be weird if I didn’t walk up and go, Hey Trudy, it’s so great to see you at the Chamber thing.

[00:38:53] Tracy Beavers: And now we’re both here at the coffee shop. That’s totally normal.

[00:38:57] Trudy Rankin: Yes.

[00:38:57] Tracy Beavers: But we get into this, we get into the online [00:39:00] space and we get into the dms and we’re like, what do I say? And I’m like, you say exactly what you would say if that human being was right in front of you. But it, our brain thinks it’s different.

[00:39:12] Tracy Beavers: Our brain thinks the conversation needs to be different. And it doesn’t, it needs to be the same. We just need to use, we need to be more careful about the words we choose and use emojis to help convey the emotion and the actual intent of the message. ’cause the problem with flat words on a page is that the person that’s receiving it is going to read it in the mood that they’re in.

[00:39:34] Tracy Beavers: So if Trudy is having a really crap day, and I send her a message, and I don’t have a heart emoji on it or a laughing face or something like that, she may read it and go what the heck is this Tracy girl trying to, so we just have to be really careful to try to overcome that part.

[00:39:50] Tracy Beavers: Or use an audio DM where you can clearly hear my voice and the intent of the message, but our brain thinks it’s different and it’s not a different message. It’s [00:40:00] the location of the conversation that has changed that makes our brain pause and say, this is weird. It, whether we’re in person or we’re in the dms, the conversation has changed.

[00:40:10] Tracy Beavers: Doesn’t matter that the location of the conversation is different. So people that comment on your, where I was going with this is people that like heart or comment on your social media, they need to get a dm. Trudy, thank you so much for liking my post all about, how to navigate people’s free Facebook groups.

[00:40:27] Tracy Beavers: How are things where you are like, tell me about your business. Hope it’s okay that I DMed you. Tell me about your business. I’d love to connect. That’s not weird.

[00:40:36] Trudy Rankin: Yeah. No, that’s not.

[00:40:37] Tracy Beavers: And if the person you sent it to thinks it’s weird, then that person’s not your person. I’ve had people tell me that before.

[00:40:43] Tracy Beavers: They’re like, what are you trying to sell me? And I’m like, I’m not trying to sell you anything, ding-dong. I’m trying to network and make a connection, but I, but it’s not, I’m not going to be for everybody. If you get that response, it’s okay. Keep going. But yeah, we have to use our social media content that people have.

[00:40:57] Tracy Beavers: ’cause when they heart or comment, they’re literally raising their [00:41:00] hand and saying, I like you. I like what you just did. And that’s an opportunity for us to connect further. Maybe they want to be a client, maybe they don’t, maybe they want to be a collaboration partner. Maybe they don’t, maybe they know somebody that needs you and can refer you to somebody.

[00:41:14] Tracy Beavers: Maybe they don’t. We never know where it’s going to lead, but we have to have, we have to use that content that we took so much time and effort to make to this for this extent to not only grow our email list, but to have those conversations. 

[00:41:27] Trudy Rankin: I think that’s so important because it’s just so easy to skim right over the likes and the hearts.

[00:41:34] Trudy Rankin: If they comment, it’s easy. It’s the liking and the hearting that it’s like …and there’s this I’ll just put it on me. But I know other people feel this the same way, feel the same way that I do. And that is I don’t want to develop a fake relationship.

[00:41:51] Tracy Beavers: Yeah.

[00:41:51] Trudy Rankin: I want to make sure that if I’m going to spend the time and effort to build a relationship. It’s a genuine relationship. It’s going to be [00:42:00] helpful to the other person. 

[00:42:01] Tracy Beavers: Yes. 

[00:42:01] Trudy Rankin: If there’s things about what they’re doing that can help me, that’s wonderful too, right? But it’s not about selling them something or them selling me something.

[00:42:10] Trudy Rankin: It’s about who are you as a person? How are you going, what are you trying to achieve in life? How’s your family, and keeping it genuine and real. And I think in this day and age of ai, that’s so important. So I like what you’re saying about how to take it from a, what feels like a, almost a closed door, a or a heart or something.

[00:42:27] Trudy Rankin: Oh, that’s nice and sweet but it, there’s no words there to go by. So turning that around and going, okay, I’m going to take the initiative here and I’m going to take what you’ve indicated one of those, one of those signals that get sent and just going and taking it further. That’s really cool.

[00:42:43] Trudy Rankin: Tracy, it’s been really lovely speaking with you. I’ve enjoyed our conversation and I know based on some of the stuff that we’ve talked about and talking to just before we started recording as well, that you’ve got much more in depth stuff that you can share with people about this.

[00:42:57] Trudy Rankin: This particular thing that I know is a big [00:43:00] barrier for a lot of people who are trying to grow their business. Do you want to just talk about that a little bit? 

[00:43:05] Tracy Beavers: Sure. So the best place for people to find me is through my podcast. It’s called Create Online Business Success, and I have lots more tips to share and do go in depth a little bit more on some of the strategies that I teach.

[00:43:17] Tracy Beavers: Also a great place to go a little bit more in depth with me would be my free Facebook group. It’s called Be a Confident Entrepreneur, get Visible, grow Your Email List and Your Income. Lots of free resources in there as well. But yeah, there’s a there’s a lot more we could talk about.

[00:43:31] Tracy Beavers: We could be here all day, Trudy. 

[00:43:33] Trudy Rankin: Absolutely. We could too. And I noticed on your website that you have a free giveaway that answers some of these questions that we’ve been talking about. 

[00:43:40] Tracy Beavers: Oh, yes. What you’re seeing is a live masterclass. ’cause we’re in so we have a couple of different free resources based on some of the things you and I talked about today. One of one would be if they go to tracy beavers.com/social, they’re going to get my social media made easy guide, which literally walks them through what I was mentioning that I developed when I was building [00:44:00] alongside my corporate job about building the one piece of content and then repurposing it into everything else you need.

[00:44:06] Tracy Beavers: It’s going to walk ’em through how to do that, and it’s also going to walk ’em through how to map out 90 days of social media content topics in only 30 minutes, so that every week they have something they could talk about and they’re not struggling to figure out, what am I going to say this week? You just look at your topic that you wrote out and there you have it.

[00:44:22] Tracy Beavers: And then the other resource that they would love is direct DM conversations, how to have ’em, how to get over your fear of them. And that would be tracy beavers.com/dm and they’ll get a free resource there as well. 

[00:44:36] Trudy Rankin: Fantastic. Now that’s really great ’cause I know people will find that really useful.

[00:44:41] Trudy Rankin: Thanks. Once again, thank you so much. It’s just been fun talking with you. 

[00:44:45] Tracy Beavers: Yes, I’ve loved it. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

[00:44:48] Trudy Rankin: Fantastic.

[00:44:49] If your idea of visibility feels more like standing on a highway in your undies than confidently claiming your space online, Tracy has just showed you that there’s [00:45:00] another way, whether it’s choosing one platform, mastering simple content, repurposing. Or learning how to start non weird conversations in the dms.

[00:45:09] The key is building a system that fits you. And if this episode gave you an aha moment, do me a favor, hit subscribe and leave a review. It really, really does help others find the podcast and grow their own and grow their own online businesses too. And hey, remember I’ve got a newsletter filled with tips for building the online side of your business.

[00:45:34] Head over to Online Business Liftoff dot com slash newsletter to get practical strategies delivered straight to your inbox. That’s Online Business Liftoff dot com slash newsletter and I also include stories in that.

[00:45:49]

[00:41:55] Trudy Rankin: That’s [00:42:00] onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you in the next episode.