The cavnessHR Podcast - a talk with Jessica Light

The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cavnesshr-podcast/id1289104534

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cavnesshr/the-cavnesshr-podcast?refid=stpr

Soundcloud:https://soundcloud.com/user-119338849/the-cavnesshr-podcast-4

YouTube:https://youtu.be/zDU-kEQ9Xjk

Social Media links for Jessica Light and free resources below!!

 https://www.facebook.com/jjsociallight01/
 
https://twitter.com/jjsociallight
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjsociallight/
 
https://www.instagram.com/jjsociallight/
 
Everything You Know About Social Media ROI is Wrong –http://www.jjsociallight.com/everything-know-social-media-roi-wrong/
 
Jason: Hello and welcome to the cavnessHR podcast. This is your host Jason Cavness. Our guess today is Jessica light. Jessica, are you ready to be great today?

Jessica: Yes sir.

Jason: Jessica is co-founder of JJ Social light. Which is a premier social media service company that connects businesses to help them better connect with others. Jessica fell into the industry by accident. But it has turned out be the right one for her. Today it is impossible to define her without taking account of her social media obsession. It is who she is. She loves working on and managing multiple websites. She has gained a wealth of knowledge related to online marketing search engine optimization, SEO techniques, social media strategies, website optimization and so on.

Jason: She wants to share all of her knowledge with us and help us to understand how to build websites and online businesses and to define our social media goals and to optimize and market our websites. First and foremost, she wants to help us, her fellow entrepreneurs, make the first step into the world with our businesses and help us guide us. Jessica, we all appreciate that. I'm sure I left some stuff out. Can you fill in the gaps and tell us what you're working on now.

Jessica: My biggest project and thing that I'm trying to get out I guess, is social media for small and mid-sized businesses, because large companies get this. But the small and mid-sized businesses don't understand social media. They think in terms of ROI. Let's face it when we're starting our business, we're short on cash. We really want to see the money we spend, that we receive a return. I totally get that. I mean if I put X amount of dollars out. What am I going to receive in return? People talk in terms of 4 X 5 X 10 X. Which I get.

Jessica: But what I'm trying to educate the small and mid-sized business owner is on instead of looking at social media as an RoI, look at it as an RoR. Ted Rubin https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedrubin coined the phrase RoR, Return on Relationship.http://tedrubin.com/return-on-relationship-the-new-measure-of-success So, when you're putting your brand and your business out there. You're not thinking of it in terms of how much business you're going to give back. You're thinking of how much relationship you're going to gain in return.

Jessica: So, a return on relationship and that isn't always measured in dollars. As measured, how are you going to measure the human emotion? How are you going to measure brand loyalty? Or how are you going to measure that you have explained to people what your market differentiator is? That you're an employee centric company and that you put your employees first? Or what it's like to work there and own your own company. How are you going to put that out there?

Jason: Jessica as a start-up, there's all these resources out there for you. How do you pick and choose the right one for you? I mean it's like literally thousands of people out there trying to help you as a start-up. How do you figure out what's the right one for you?

Jessica: A lot of it is trial and error. If you don't have someone helping you navigate your way through some of it. It is trial and error and when things that start to work. Then you put fuel on the fire. I'm pretty honest with my businesses. For some businesses, social media isn't going to be a huge expenditure.

Jessica: It's just not going to be something where they can put their brand and culture out there. For some companies, social media is going to be huge. For them a digital presence is always important. But you have to decide how much time you need to put into that. If it's the number one goal or number four goal that is ok.

Jason: Now there's Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and so on and on. How do you pick the ones to use? Because you can't spend a great amount time all of them. You have to pick and choose I would think. So how do you choose which one's the best for you?

Jessica: I always tell people start with Facebook. All of their demographics are going to be on there. That's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Then you go where your audiences are located. You're an HR guy. So, your companies probably are not on snapchat. The demographic is 16 year olds. But if you're trying to go after Millennials. Instagram might be great for you. You really want to go where your customer is okay.

Jason: Jessica talk to us about a time that you were successful in the past and what you learned from the success and what we can learn from that.

Jessica: I was thought about this question a lot. I don't know that I'm ever gonna say whoa, I'm a success. I was thinking back to the beginning of when I started my business. I knew what I wanted to accomplish. I knew how I could help people. But getting those two variables together was really hard. It was a lot of struggle, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of negative talk, a lot of like what do you think you're doing. You know why you can't do this.

Jessica: It was a lot of day-to-day that I had to grab some courage and make that call on that phone. I had to do what was uncomfortable for me. One thing I always tell people. You should start being uncomfortable with comfort. If you're feeling comfortable, then you should start getting uncomfortable. You should be really uncomfortable with that.

Jessica: Because you're being complacent. I'm at a point where I'm taking it to the next level and I'm anxious and I'm nervous. I'm uncomfortable right now. I think those are the more of the successful times when people don't see that hard work. It's the behind the scenes.

Jason: I mean everybody’s seen the picture of the iceberg. You see the success as the tip of the iceberg. What you don’t see is all the hard work and struggle under the water. The media always talks about the sexy part of being entrepreneur. But they don't see the hard work and the late nights and all the grind you have to put into it. They don't see the 1:00 in the morning.

Jason: Now let's talk about a time you failed in the past. What you learned from this and what we can learn from this failure of yours.

Jessica: This was another thing I thought about. Recently I lost one of my largest clients and I was super upset. I felt betrayed, like someone stole that client. This is when I took a step back and I realized what I did and what I what I didn't do is what I talked about at the beginning of this call. Build a relationship. He was having some challenges and I had a solution for those challenges. But guess what, I hadn't kept up the phone calls or the meetings. So, he didn't know I had a solution for those challenges.

Jessica: I didn't even know he had those challenges because I hadn't kept up communication. So, what I've learned is don't take for granted your clients. You always have to earn their business and keep communication open. Take those experiences when you lose, those big hits, like that. What could you have changed?

Jessica: Now I don't take for granted those clients that I hardly hear from and they pay me every month. I'm still reaching out. I thought that was great. Oh, you're paying every month. I must be doing my job great. But, they're all going stop paying me for work if I'm not building a relationship with them.

Jason: That's good advice. I read somewhere that you have to invest the same time if not more time, once you get the customer. Because there's always someone out there trying to take them from you. So, you have to keep on building that relationship.

Jessica: Yes.

Jason: So tell us how you add value and have to solve problems in your daily life.

Jessica: The biggest thing I try to do is understand not only the business of my clients. I really try to understand the business owner. So, it's really understanding what makes them tick. How I can serve and help them. How I can add value to them. So, I'm not selling them a marketing package if I hadn't taken the time to understand their goals. So, if I'm selling you this $2,000 a month marketing package and those aren't yourgoals. What good am I? How am I adding value to you? Also, if all I'm doing is draining your bank account. You're going to be frustrated at the end.

Jason: That's a very good point. Jessica, now tell us something about yourself that maybe your family knows and you close friends know. But most people don't know this about you. Something that's off the wall.

Jessica: I don't know if would be off the wall. But I was actually a stay-at-home mom for 15 years. I have four kids and I was a stay at home mom. I had worked a little bit here and there. But that was kind of our thing, that we wanted me to stay at home with the kids. You know as they started getting older, I wanted to do something more. Like you said in the beginning, I fell into this by accident. But what I felt I've done is I'm actually the ultimate consumer. I'm a mom. who does the majority of purchases in America?

Jason: Yes

Jessica: So, I feel like that I've taken that knowledge. I'm the consumer and then with my marketing knowledge. I'm trying to stop thinking like a marketer. I try to think like a consumer.

Jason: When you stopped being a stay-at-home mom did you try to go to the job market and get a job or do just start building your own business?

Jessica: No, I did not want to get a job. I had actually somewhat been approached from someone to buy our business. I like the flexibility and being in charge. I like that I'm paving my own course.

Jason: As you know there's like millions of you out there. How do you convince a potential customer that you're the right fit for them?

Jessica: I don't try to convince them. I try to see if we are a for a good fit for each other. I don't try to convince someone that I'm a good fit for them. I try to listen to them. I try to say what I can do for them and see if we are for a good fit for each other. So, I in a way disqualify people.

Jason: I have heard a lot of people do disqualify the potential customer, because they're not a good fit for them.

Jessica. You know contrary to what I would like to say, I'm not the only marketing guy. I'm not the only person doing social media. But you know, I’m not for everyone and that's what's great about business.

Jason: Your base is in Atlanta. Do you just do local business or are you nationwide? How do you find your customers?

Jessica: I'm nationwide. But I do a lot of local business because I really enjoy the face-to-face time. I have business in California, Canada and Florida. I've receive some word-of-mouth. I do some networking. There's this the one guy. I swear he should start my fan club.

Jason: That is great.

Jessica: He loves my work. I put a lot of effort into what I do for him. I think if you can find those few people that are your ambassadors and that you know sing your praises. That is always a good thing.

Jason: Do you focus on any certain type of business or size of business?

Jessica: I mostly do small to mid-sized business. I don't do large corporations because they usually have internal in-house marketing teams. I focus on small to mid-sized businesses. I've created some smaller businesses packages and some do-it-yourself packages. That way they can get some quick wins until they can earn some more revenue.

Jason: We are coming to the end of the podcast. Do you have anything else you want to talk about?

Jessica: Think out of the box. Think about how you can build relationships and what is the best way to build a relationship. Digitally, it's going be on your website and social media. So, stop thinking in a little box. I think a lot of business owners think I have to do A, B, C and D and those are important. Because we all need processes and we all need structure.

Jessica: But just because everybody else did it. Doesn't mean you have to do it the same. A lot of business owners will say well my competition, they're not on social. Well. awesome that's a huge advantage for you. So how can you put yourself in a position when you’re ahead of the pack?

Jason: That's good advice. I've always heard this and is this true? That you need to have like eighteen or twenty touch points before a customer actually purchases your product.

Jessica: Absolutely I would say five to twenty, because it really depends on the product and service. Even if you're not putting a big push on social or your website. Those all add to the touch points. Even if you have a sales guy. What do you think they're going to do when that sales guy walks out of your office? They're probably going to look you up on social media. Start adding to those touch points. Think about fifteen to twenty ways you can to add to make those touch points. More than just the sales guy or the email that you're sending.

Jason: Jessica, what's your philosophy on email campaigns? You know the mass email lists and email blasts you can send to a thousand people. What's your philosophy on that? Do you think that works or is a waste of time?

Jessica: It depends on the industry. In my business, I tend to get 5 to 15 emails a week from that say we can do X for you. I don't know who they are and they didn't take the two minutes to go on my website and figure out my name is Jessica. It's on the website. Recently I had a guy who emailed me that told me a little bit about my business.

Jessica: He emailed me personally a little bit about his business. He suggested that we meet at a coffee house within a mile of my house. He picked two coffee houses and said let's just grab coffee on me. He took the time to take an extra five minutes to personalize an email and guess what his open rate is? His response rate is 40 percent.

Jason: That's like unheard of, isn't it?

Jessica: Yes, it is unheard of. Because he's taken that extra couple of minutes to personalize the email. It makes you feel like a person not a stock email.

Jason: I have friend and he owns a leadership consultancy service called Full Sound LLC. Well he got an email like a month ago from a guy. That said we want to repair your speakers for your sound store. The guy did not even make an attempt to learn about what type of business it was.

Jessica: This specific gentleman, he doesn't send a hundred emails a week. He sends out ten to fifteen. But his open rate is like twenty five percent.

Jason: That's great! So, do you do the minimum effort, sending a thousand a week. Or do you take some time and effort.

Jessica: For me personally because of my niche. It's the smaller output. If you're a brand who's selling a product or service and there's tons of it. You definitely can do more massive emails. It really depends on your niche. But, just think about how you're sending that email.

Jessica: Would you open it? What about the email, would even make you want to open it? Just think of the business owner that receives all that email. I have one client who just opened another email account because of all the crap he receives.
Jason: Jessica, do you have any last words of wisdom or knowledge like to pass on to our listeners?

Jessica: Just work on building relationships with your clients or your customers. Because if you don't, you're just another brand. You're just another company that they may buy as an impulse. You're never going to have loyalty.

Jason: Can you provide us your social media links so we can contact you?

Jessica: I'm on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and everything under JJ Social Light.

https://www.facebook.com/jjsociallight01/
 
https://twitter.com/jjsociallight
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjsociallight/
 
https://www.instagram.com/jjsociallight/

Jason: For our listeners, when I do the show notes, the show notes will have all the links to Jessica's social media and other links. Jessica, thank you very much for being with us today we really appreciate it. We appreciate all your great advice and all the value you provided.

Jessica: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Jason: For our listener, thank you for your time we really appreciate it and remember to be great every day! Thank you very much!

Social Media links for Jessica Light and free resources below!!

 https://www.facebook.com/jjsociallight01/
 
https://twitter.com/jjsociallight
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjsociallight/
 
https://www.instagram.com/jjsociallight/
 
Everything You Know About Social Media ROI is Wrong –http://www.jjsociallight.com/everything-know-social-media-roi-wrong/