The Social Circus

EP8 - Lisa Kniebe - Courses That Connect

As the Launch Success Coach, Lisa helps coaches and healers translate their one-to-one work into online courses. Her specialty is launch messaging, and she really knows how to work her magic with words.
 
As a copywriter, Lisa found herself booked out – a common occurrence for those that deliver services such as coaches and trainers. She was inspired to create an online course and quickly developed a passion for helping others create their online course.
 
Lisa believes that everyone has an online course inside them. Her signature course “Courses that Connect” takes you through the process of mapping out your course, designing the content and everything in between.
 
She talks about the fact that we get very overwhelmed with the process of creating a course. In our mind, we often have so much to share and initially try and bundle everything in to the single course.
 
The hard part of creating your course is NOT the tech – it is unpacking your idea and putting the learning together in a way that flows for your audience. However, many people get stuck inside the tech – this is what often holds them back. The reality of it is, that you can create a course with very simple and unsophisticated tech.
 
Sarah also shares her experience of creating her courses with Lisa as her launch success coach. She shares her initial launch and how during COVID in 2020, she went on to create more courses applying the knowledge acquired through working with Lisa. Lisa has intentionally created a process that can continue to be applied in your business.
 
They also discuss the key to launch success – it is about having an audience. This means we have generally battle-tested what we want to create a course on, we have testimonials and we have an audience who is primed to buy from us.
 
You can connect with Lisa:
https://lisakniebe.com/
https://www.facebook.com/launchsuccesscoach
https://www.instagram.com/thelaunchsuccesscoach

EP7 - Understanding the role of a VA

Join Sarah as she chats about all things “virtual assistant” from understanding how to outsource tasks in your business to getting organised with tools such as Asana.

EP6 - Jo Bendle - Creating the Business of your Dreams

Jo Bendle is the Founder of the Meant for More Movement empowering women in business to stop settling and claim more from life.
She’ll fast-track you to claiming your more with her proven methodology that gets you clear, focused, and taking aligned action towards the right dreams.
Jo shares her own personal journey and how she created a business that allowed her to be location-independent and how she is now the leader of a movement that helps women create a business that lives up to their dreams. She shares honestly her journey when she noticed she was making choices that felt aligned to her values and goals.
In the early days Jo was known for her productivity skills and systems. Her business now uses these tools as the foundation and offers inside her membership, the opportunity for women to work on their mindset, goals and all the things that hold them back.
Jo’s membership is called “The Lab” based on the “Meant for More” system. Inside this membership, you are encouraged to dream big and relentlessly pursue those dreams.
Her one piece of advice in terms of uplevelling our thinking, Jo suggested:
In the morning – choose what the story is. Is this enabling my mission?
 
You can connect with Jo:
www.instagram.com/jo_bendle
https://www.facebook.com/JoBendleUK
www.jobendle.com

EP5 - Getting started with list building

In Episode 5, Sarah discussed the foundations you need to get started with list building. To get started with list building, you don’t need lots of moving parts. Start simple – you need an email marketing platform and a lead magnet.
 
So why is list building important? Let’s look at a couple of things that happened
 
You know that social media is my jam - I love it  and spend a huge chunk of my business teaching and coaching people on how to make the most of it. But (now this may surprise you), I would give them all up before I gave up the most important assets in my business - these 2 assets are:
My website
My email list
I have thousands of people following me across my main social media platforms. It is where I spend so much time hanging out, connecting and growing my business. But, let's look back over some events of the past couple of years:
February 2021: Facebook shuts down the pages of the main media outlets in Australia- GONE, just like that, do not pass go, do not collect $200
October 2021: Facebook went offline. Like the whole platform - down for almost 6 hours. 
These actions remind us of some cold, hard facts about social media:
We DO NOT own our page, our followers, their info, our content. We are playing in their sandbox, by their rules and at their direction. If it all vanished tomorrow, what would this mean to your business?
My most frequent posts on social media always link to list building - I probably post 3-4 times a week across all platforms encouraging my followers to sign up to my list - it is vital to the health of my business that I get people across from social media to something that I own and I control - that is my email list.
If all this makes you feel a bit vulnerable, now is totally the time for you to start your list-building journey. 
 
To get started with list building, you need 2 things: an email marketing platform and a lead magnet. That’s it.

EP4 - Rachelle Glendon - How to Live Slow

Rachelle Glendon hosts the podcast How To Live Slow where she shares stories and inspiration about motherhood and slow, seasonal, simple living for gentle mums who want to opt out of hustle culture. She supports her clients to do less, be more present and prioritise rest in a world that pressures mums to 'bounce back'. Her first book, The Seasons Of Slow, is due out later this year. 
Rachelle shares her own journey where she found herself considering how on earth she could do it all. She discovered Slow Living as the feminine side of Minimalism.
As women who run businesses, we often feel the pressure of trying to do it all, working long hours. She talked about how we can start our business to be flexible parents. We can think that will give us the flexibility we did not get in the workplace.
She talks about how all this can go wrong so quickly – instead of creating a life that suits you and your ebbs and flow, you create work that is just at home.
They chat about listening to your body and your seasons and cycles – what does this look like?
 
“If that is the time to capture, your best work moments, there are no rules”.
 
Rachelle teaches a system that allows us to play with seasons and cycles. This is balanced with serious rest time. She calls it “the seasons of slow”.
 
“We are not used to resting”.
“The do less phase is all about learning to have boundaries and saying no to things that are not our priority”.
“You can’t be clear about what it is you want if you don’t take time to rest and reflect”.
 
Rachelle goes through the four seasons and what activities we need to be doing in each season rather than just pushing through constantly.
 
Here is how you connect with Rachelle:
www.howtoliveslow.com
www.instagram.com/howtoliveslow 
www.facebook.com/howtoliveslow 
www.pinterest.com.au/howtoliveslow

EP3 - Podcasting with Amanda Kendle

In Episode 3, Sarah interviews Amanda Kendle.
Amanda Kendle is a seasoned professional in the social media space and has had the podcast, The Thoughtful Traveller.
Amanda started a blog 17 years ago. She was encouraged to start travel blogging, initially for someone else and then her own.
Her experience dates to 2010 in the social media space and she now offers support to sole traders, creatives and small businesses teaching them the best ways to promote their work on social media.
As well as running workshops and masterminds, she also teaches social media at Murdoch University (where she taught Sarah in 2021).
 
As an avid traveller, she runs The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, something which she initially entered as a blogger writing for others about travel.
“Consistency is the key to success with a podcast – it is one of the most important factors. It can be a lot of work but it is worth the consistency as the connections you build are so deep and long lasting”.
“People are listening to you in their ordinary lives”.
 
Amanda shares some of her best tips when it comes to pitching yourself as a guest on podcasts.
She suggests that you:
Make sure you are aware of the podcast and its content. Listen to several episodes so you know the format and provide a sensible pitch.
Pitch yourself in relation to the podcast content – how are you relevant? What can you offer to the podcasters’ listeners? What is your expertise, what is unique and useful?
Don’t be pitching them multiple times in the same week simply because they have not replied to you. Give them a chance to respond.
Check if there are pitching guidelines and make sure you follow them. If there are none, consider dropping them a quick message on socials and ask.
Follow them on socials and follow them to create a relationship and connection.
Know your work and how this aligns.
Consider what you can share and how it can allow people to connect with you.
 
Here is how you connect with Amanda:
www.amandakendle.com – find her podcast here
facebook.com/amandakendleconsulting
instagram.com/amandakendle
linkedin.com/in/amandakendle
twitter.com/amandakendle

EP2 - Why you cannot be ignoring video any longer

EP2 - Why you cannot be ignoring video any longer
Video has been a hot trend for so long. In this episode, Sarah will chat about why it is a great idea to get visible and if you are not ready yet, some great alternatives to creating video.
In Episode 2, Sarah discussed the importance of video content.
Taken from a study done by HubSpot, she shares some key insights including:• Video continues to be a key priority for marketers.• The amount of video people watch online has doubled since 2018.• Customers use video as an integral part of their brand journey.• 87% of video marketers reported video gives them a positive ROI.
With that in mind, video is truly the type of content you want to be creating consistently. But if you feel scared to put your face to camera, here are some tips Sarah shares:
Remember, your audience wants to see and connect with you, NOT judge you.
Being visible creates a deeper connection to your audience.
She also shares some tips to get yourself camera ready:
Try recording yourself on your phone. Get used to hearing and seeing yourselfUse these sessions to give yourself constructive feedback, NOT destroy everything about yourself.
If you want to dip your toe in gently, why not have a go at doing a Story on Instagram. Pop in and say hello, introduce yourself or just ask what people are doing today? It is a gentle way to use video – short and sweet.
Now if putting your face to video feels scary, here are some of Sarah’s alternatives.
Warm yourself up to putting yourself on video by using yourself as a voiceover to video – you might shoot a behind the scenes.
Turn a series of static photos or images into a simple slideshow style video.
Add gifs and animations to your content.
Use stock video footage
If you are keen to dive into video some more, check out this free class Sarah has on offer.
Want to create Reels without all that silly pointing and dancing? This class will walk you through how to create Reels in minutes using Canva:
https://onlinesocialbutterfly.com.au/reels-class

Ep1 - Meet your Host Sarah Thomson

Welcome to the first episode of The Social Circus. In this episode, you will meet your host, Sarah Thomson. She will share her journey into entrepreneurship with you. This is an introduction and over the coming episodes, you will get to learn more about Sarah as she shares her wisdom and insights.