099 – Managing Social Media with Tena Pettis of Tena.cious

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 99.

You're way too talented to be sitting in this cubicle like

you, I need to do more.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift of biz unwrapped.

And now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift bears on wrapped your source for industry specific

insights and advice to develop and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Mona height.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

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but you just can't get yourself to do it because it's

scary. Are you afraid that you might walk into the room

and not know anybody or that you're going to freeze?

When you get up to do that infamous elevator speech,

where you talk about yourself and your business?

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't need to

be scary.

If you know what to do to help you with this,

I would like to offer you a coffee chat for the

price of buying me a cup of coffee.

We can sit down through an online video and I'll tell

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Just go over to Bitly forward slash network Ninja.

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And now let's move on to the show.

Hi, it's Sue and welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Whether you own a brick and mortar shop sell online or

are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I have joining us,

Tina pedis of tenacious after spending some time in the big

city with a big girl job,

Tina quickly realized that the cubicle life just wasn't for her

and with a little nudge from her husband,

she founded tenacious as social media and graphic design firm.

She effectively launched herself as a brand with a career that

makes room for all her passions.

Despite starting off as a company of one,

Tina has since built a team of amazing women who have

supplied the resources and woman power for her to be able

to pursue a legacy outside of solely running a business.

Tina is a social media expert,

accomplished speaker and trainer on all things.

Social Tina,

welcome to the show.

I'm sorry.

Excited to be here.

Thank you for having me on this whole world of social

media keeps changing all the time.

It's like a struggle to keep up with.

I know I'm going to learn quite a bit from our

conversation here too.

To start off,

I like to have our guests describe themselves through talking a

little bit about a motivational candle.

So if you were to describe what your ideal candle would

look like,

that represents you,

what color would it be and what would be the quote?

I love this question.

When you sent this over to me,

I was like,

this is brilliant.

It made me have to really think about this.

And green is a color that is around me,

everywhere from tenacious to other businesses that I have,

and I'm always attracted to it.

And I think just as human beings,

you see new green grass,

especially if you live in the Midwest and having plants around

and all that kind of stuff,

it's a color of light growth.

So all I could picture was this huge,

massive candle because the small green candle just wouldn't have the

same impact.

And then I couldn't get away from this quote.

And this is one that I rest in it.

I love it.

I just,

every time I read it,

it, it motivates me.

And it makes me think of so many different things,

but I'll just read it to you.

It's by Erma Bombeck.

So, you know,

it's not all that serious of a quote,

but it kind of,

it is.

So it says when I stand before God,

at the end of my life,

I would hope that I would not have a single bit

of talent left and could say I used everything you gave

me. And that quote to me,

just like,

ah, like I hope my children take that quote to heart.

I hope the people around me take that quote and just,

you know,

truly using our talents and growing in them.

I love also that you say that it's a big,

huge candle because as entrepreneurs,

I think we have this idea of bursting inside of us.

And so many people don't let it out,

you know,

in your quote is talking about just that.

Do it,

let yourself shine,

let yourself be big to the world so that when you're

reaching the end,

you really have done.

And given the world everything you can have yourself.

Yes, exactly.

Okay. Well Start with talking a little bit about tenacious,

why social media,

Tina, You know,

such a good question.

So it's funny when you read my little intro,

you know,

big girl job.

It's like,

yeah, I did.

I moved to the twin cities,

you know,

Minneapolis St.

Paul to find that marketing slash design job and our career,

I should say.

And I landed a job at a corporation doing some design

work and customer service and really,

truly it was my hobby that just said,

babe, you're way too talented to be sitting in this cubicle.

Like you need to do more.

And we used to joke when we were in college that

I would always be his,

a sugar mama or like be the breadwinner.

And at that point I just wasn't,

I mean,

I had a steady job,

but it was the whole nine to five feeling.

I had a one-year-old at the time I actually had a

clock. You know,

you had to punch in and punch out at,

you only got your 30 minute lunch.

And if you wanted to take a longer lunch,

you wouldn't be home soon,

you know,

at the same time.

And so it just started to weigh on me that I

had all of those restrictions.

I was just driving back in the same conversation I was

having with my hubby about the whole bean to town to

just sit in a cubicle.

And he,

you know,

we, we just started kind of really brainstorming.

It was just,

it was quicker than I'm even telling the story of how

quick it happened,

but I was like,

well, I can do design work.

I have a buddy that could do web work.

And I'm like,

but we need a piece to this because I don't want

to be just your everyday freelance artist out there.

I want to have a company,

an agency or whatever that looked like in my mind.

I didn't have all the words,

but I just knew I needed another piece.

And again,

quicker than I'm even telling the story popped in my head

was that Facebook had just came out with business pages.

And I just thought about all the business owners in my

life. And I pictured them tackling this piece,

a business owner,

being able to tackle the creative and the every day posting

and just all of that.

And I thought no way there is going to be a

need for this.

And so I started tenacious.

Instantly guy was doing lean up logos.

I was finding people to be on my team.

I was still working in the corporate world,

a few really awesome things happen,

made my leap a lot easier to jump into the entrepreneurial

world. Two months later,

I was corporate free and I had Tanesha started.

Since then I've found out a few kind of cool things.

We were the first social media management company in all the

twin cities and social media.

Wasn't even actually a phrase yet at that time,

you know,

people are like digital,

social networking.

I mean,

no one just knew exactly what to say or how to

say it.

So it's been really fun journey.

It's obviously been a path that we've had to pave.

No one else has done it before us.

So that part has been really interesting.

What I love about your story.

And I think it's a lot like how I was and

maybe gift biz listeners.

You're sitting here feeling the exact same way right now with

your story.

Tina, you talk about how your husbands just say,

well, why don't you do something yourself?

There's so much inside you,

you know,

you're worth more than this.

And it sounds like that clicked immediately.

You just had to have somebody say it to you.

And then you knew in your gut right then and there.

Yes, that's exactly what I need to do.

And then it's just a matter of putting the pieces together,

figuring out the first steps and all of that.

That's exactly what happened,

honestly, with my husband too.

He's like,

well, why don't you start something yourself?

And I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

why did it take someone to tell me that,

to agree and to think that I showed for myself.

Right? Isn't that interesting though,

because you and I,

I mean,

I know you well,

Sue, and I feel like,

you know,

me as well,

it's like,

we're both confident women.

We didn't need someone to tell us that.

But it was like,

wow, that was the point that just kind of came that

you're like,

yeah, you're right.

It just validated your meaning,

your thoughts,

your value in the world and pushed you.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like this big crescendo.

And then it's like,

yes, I've known this all along it's time.

Absolutely. Yes.

I can see it in you so well,

because I have to say this Tina's group has been helping

me with my social media now for almost a couple of

years. I think it is.

And you run and I'm not even kidding you.

I said this last week,

the plasty used business.

I think I've ever seen,

I love that word on me.

I will take that out.

I'll accept it.

You should,

from a,

you know,

interaction the way you worked,

systems, how you appreciate your customers,

the event that you put on,

which I think we should talk about near the end here,

everything. So if you were to have hidden this and just

stayed with what you were doing before and not started everything

you're doing now,

we would have all missed out and again,

give his listeners.

I want you to think of this for yourself too.

There are things that all of us do that we need

to share with the world,

not just for ourselves,

but for everyone who can be the recipient of all these

things. All right.

Now let's talk about tenacious.

Like how did you start in the beginning?

And let's talk then about why someone should consider social media

and outsourcing that task.

I think I just asked you two questions.

No, it's both.

Yeah. I can go with good roll.

So first one,

like really,

honestly, I quit my job and I had a Dell computer,

which I now use Apple.

Like I'm an Apple girl and soar all my girls.

Now I make,

I make them be that way.

But I started out with like a $400 computer.

And I look at this business now and we're,

you know,

a team of 10,

we have a location,

of course we could have done things completely different.

I could have had contract workers forever.

I could have everyone working virtually and all over the place

and things.

And there's some part to me that has just wanted to

hold that as tight as I could in having my teams

on location every day.

And for us all to be part of the same exact

team, not working with other clients outside of tenacious,

that this is their home.

This is what they do.

And now I'm so happy.

Like I just,

I'm so happy that I've stuck with that because yes,

it could have been easier at times to just have contract

workers and not had to deal with employees.

Right. But the part to me,

when you say our team is so classy,

the things that we do,

how we handle things is my team truly,

truly cares about each one of our clients so deeply.

And we get to sit in our conference room once a

week and chat about each client and really go over their

goals, go over.

What's going on in their world.

We brainstorm during that time and chat about each client.

And if there's a struggle,

you know,

not everything is always smiley faces and ice cream and parties

and exciting sometimes there's issues,

right. Or,

you know,

maybe a client isn't happy or a mistake happened or they

didn't quite get their goal or things just aren't going that

great. You know,

we've been through some economy slumps in our business,

you know,

I mean,

there's been a lot of different things.

And so we have to go through those storms right along

with the client,

whether they're a little rainstorm or a big one.

And I don't know that our team could have done that.

Had we not been here connected on a regular daily basis

seeing each other.

So that was a big thing for me.

I did start out with everyone being contractors and me starting

out my business at 28 years old.

I did not truly know all the rules and restrictions around

that. So hopefully the IRS isn't coming after me,

but, you know,

I had people,

they just wanted to be a part of the team.

And I only knew of really,

truly starting out with contractors.

Cause I was like,

employees were expensive in my mind and I looked back and

that was a very limiting belief that I had because once

I changed over to employees,

it was like,

Oh, I could just rest,

you know,

like we're together now we're truly a team.

And that's one of the biggest things.

But you know,

it's funny you ask how we got started and then why

social media and why is it important?

And, you know,

I started out and the very first client that I went

to was one of actually my husband's clients,

he's a personal trainer.

And so he spends lots of time with his clients,

you know,

a whole hour,

a couple,

three times a week or,

you know,

one time a week or whatever it is,

but you get a lot of talking time.

And so he actually gave me my very first referral and

this gentleman had three different businesses and I walked into their

living room with a cardstock piece of paper that had three

different levels of offerings on it.

And it was called walk,

jog, run.

I still remember because his wife was like,

I don't really understand the running analogy.

I'm like,

yeah, it has nothing to do with social media,

But it totally related to your prospects.

Yeah. But it hasn't been Bristol trainer,

all those things anyways,

they're still a client today.

So obviously they weren't too upset about the card stock piece

of paper or my packages.

Yeah. But you know,

what I like about that,

Tina is you didn't wait to have everything put in place

in this professional proposal or coming in with a binder or

a brochure or something like that.

You just got started.

Exactly. And that's what I tell people all the time.

I'm like,

you know what?

I have this cheap little computer.

I had a card stock piece of paper that I designed

myself and I printed it off on our,

you know,

laser or whatever,

you know,

our inkjet jet or whatever.

And they said,

yes. So I think,

and I,

well, I don't think I know that it is just truly

the passion behind it.

So when I dug deeper in my story,

because you know,

when you have coaches,

so you and I were talking about this before,

when you have these coaches,

you don't know what really,

what path they're going to bring you down entirely.

But also it kind of turns into like a therapy session.

Sometimes you become friends or whatever it is.

But my coach,

you know,

I, my story was,

well, I knew that small business owners won't be able to

handle this whole social media thing on top of everything else.

And, you know,

I already said that in her interview,

but she kind of challenged me on it.

She was like,

well, Tina,

how do you know that?

And I was like,

Oh, dang it.

You're right.

Like, how do I know that I've never owned a small

business before?

And when I dug back into my story,

my story went all the way back to when I was

about seven or eight years old.

And my dad owned a small business.

It was a pizza shop.

It was open.

And I should probably ask him this,

but it was only open for a few years.

And it ended up failing.

He had a business partner,

but he did everything.

I mean,

he was the cook and,

you know,

the DJ and the janitor.

And he was just,

he did everything.

And I just pictured my dad trying to around on a

computer, especially back in like the eighties.

But now you've been,

you know,

fumbling around on a computer to try to post something,

you know,

on social media,

to entice people,

to come into his location,

which is necessary.

It's necessary,

especially for brick and mortar type location like that.

And I just couldn't picture it.

And so my dad's business actually failed.

It didn't sell or anything.

They just,

they closed up and my dad isn't an entrepreneur anymore.

And that story to me is just so incredibly sad that

he's no longer pursuing dreams like that.

And I truly believe it was because of not being able

to delegate or understanding the power of delegation.

And that brings us to social media.

Why should we be delegating social?

And I know obviously Sue,

you see the value in,

in delegating it,

but really,

truly with anything that we're going to be able to hand

off to someone else,

if it's not your favorite thing to do,

and, or you're just not really equipped to do it,

handing it off to someone else is going to be a

complete weight off of your shoulders.

One of the other things that I just want to bring

up here,

that was a really important point.

I want all of our listeners to get is you also

identified the trigger of the Facebook pages.

They were coming out into the market.

And that was a great opportunity because it was new,

it was different.

And it's something then that you could relate to and offer

up like,

look, there's something really new here that you should be using.

Let me take care of it and help you with it,

which led to your whole tenacious business in terms of that

third leg you were talking about earlier.

Yeah, exactly.

So you talk about the fact that if you don't like

what you're doing in terms of doing the social media posts,

if it's not your favorite task of all things,

because then of course,

when you're the business owner,

you get to decide which things you're doing.

And also if it's not your best skill,

but how do you manage that?

Like at what point can you do that?

Because let's face it when you're a business owner money's tight

in the beginning.

So how do you balance those two things?

The ability to have the funds to actually delegate out,

even if you knew you needed to do it,

where's the trigger and what's the benefit of doing it maybe

sooner than you're probably comfortable with doing yes.

So the,

you know,

it's interesting because I,

I usually send a business somewhere else first.

And then to second,

what we find is that our ideal client,

and I say that because our ideal client is people that

want to outsource their social media,

of course,

but it is a flow of any business is that you

need to probably have first an assistant of some sort.

It doesn't mean it's someone load totally on the totem pole.

It could be someone on,

honestly, that you're running right alongside this business with.

And usually they're going to be someone that's going to take

some things off of your plate first.

And they're going to be some of the smaller things.

They are going to be some of the $10,

or maybe even like a hundred dollar items.

So I talk about this on a regular basis is when

you're thinking about your day,

or if you could go back and look at your last

week or your last day or whatever it was,

and you were to list out every single thing that you

do every single day,

and you put it into categories on $10,

a hundred dollars thousand dollars,

and maybe even $10,000

items, you would want to first outsource those $10 items.

And those are going to be some of your assistant type

items. And then you're going to go to more of the

a hundred dollar items.

And that's where like social media management and design is going

to fall into.

And to kind of just expand on that a little bit

thousand dollar or $10,000

items are going to be things like we're doing right now.

So no one else can use our voice.

You know,

that's like one of the only things video and audio,

the third piece is writing and,

you know,

yes, people can edit your writing and people can go straight

for you and things like that.

But there still needs to be a really some platform of

something that you're doing first.

And those are going to fall into those kinds of thousand

dollar, $10,000

items. So to go back first,

you got that kind of assistant,

or you got a little bit of a helper of some

sort. And I remember watching this Ted talk and I wish

I could find it,

but it's,

it was a Ted talk on.

Basically the person saying the best hire you ever make is

your first $8 an hour hour.

And if you can find someone to work for $8 an

hour, send them on over $8 an hour doing assistant work.

But you know,

even that $10,

$20, whatever it is to be able to do some of

that assistant work,

to keep you doing the things that you truly want to

do, that's going to be the next step.

And then I'm going to say,

okay, now you've built up because you already understand this outsourcing

of your assistant type work,

your VA work,

whatever that is.

And then we're going to move into the design and the

social media management piece.

Sometimes people want to do this a little bit too early.

For some reason you have some,

you know,

funding or things like that.

Yes, I will say it's a great decision to make,

but usually it's going to be a little farther now in

your business.

I mean,

I guess that doesn't say exactly the timeframe or how to

do it,

but first I would say your virtual assistant or your assistant,

and then move into outsourcing some of those other tasks.

You bring up a good point too,

in that you're just not taking tasks off of your plate

or your assistance plate just to free up time to make

life easier.

It's freeing up time to do other revenue producing type things

like we're talking about here with the podcast,

or if you're writing or you're going out on sales calls

or you're going speaking or whatever it is.

So it's to replace things that other people can do better

because they're in the know,

you know,

such as your team,

Tina, you know,

you're always up to date with all the platforms what's changing

Facebook ads,

you know,

all of that,

but you're freeing.

Then as a business owner,

you're freeing up your own time to go after tasks that

are going to help grow your business.

That's really important for our listeners to understand too.

You're not just,

you know,

replacing time.

So you can go out to lunch with your friends,

right? We actually Had a client one time.

She, a certain amount of spaces she wanted to sell in

a in-person event.

So she wanted to sell like 60 spots.

And when she hired us,

we just obviously didn't ask enough questions a few weeks in.

We asked her,

well, you know,

how's the networking going?

You know,

how are sales going on your end?

And she goes,

what do you mean?

That's why I hired you guys.

And like,

Oh, so she didn't really understand the clear difference between what

your responsibilities were and that she still had stuff she needed

to do.

Yeah, We are going to be a supplement to that.

I mean,

Oh, of course there are tons of businesses that the majority

of their businesses online.

Great. But I say the real strong mix is the in-person

and the online.

And so figuring out what that mix is for you,

maybe it is that a majority of it's going to be

online, but you still gotta be shaking hands and meeting people

thrown on those name tags,

you know,

getting to events,

conferences, networking on a weekly basis and really,

truly getting to know people because those people are truly going

to be the people that are your cheerleaders and are your

fan base and the ones you create strong,

strong relationships with.

Absolutely. There's two points I want to bring up here.

Number one,

two, if you own a retail shop,

you also need to spend time in your shop.

Don't just let your hourly workers who are stocking and taking

sales because you'll lose touch with your customers.

So, you know,

when Tina's talking about face-to-face,

it's not just out,

it's networking for sure.

All you guys know,

I talk networking a lot,

but it's also making sure you're staying in touch with who

your customer is because as their needs change or they're seeing

something that they're really needing and they anticipated you,

haven't, you don't,

you need to know that information so that you stay relevant

to each of your customers.

The other thing is,

and what I've learned,

Tina, you're the first company that I've used to bring on

social media is that you don't just hand it off and

be done because there's learning and adjustment.

Like you guys always ask me,

well, what's coming up the next few months that we should

know about what are you focusing on?

What are your goals?

And people have gotten to know me and what I like,

because you need that connection or posts.

Aren't going to make sense.

They're not going to sound like they're coming from you or

that type of thing.

So there's work in terms of integration,

always. Yup.

And taking over the voice of a client for us,

you know,

if you came to us,

Sue and you had not yet really done any work,

you know,

I mean,

you were just a brand new baby business and you didn't

have a podcast or you didn't,

you know,

you didn't network and you didn't,

you know,

you hadn't already been writing and doing all these different things.

We would have had to completely create your brand from scratch,

which we have definitely done for businesses.

But I can tell you that it's a longer journey to

get to where you know,

where you are or where someone else is in your place.

So our clientele is usually doing a lot online to begin

with, and they're probably a little bit overwhelmed by it.

And usually what we do when they come on board is

we say,

let's get rid of a couple,

even though we're managing it,

you know,

now you feel like,

Oh, I can hand this off.

We'll say there's too much noise out here happening.

And we really want to be focused in on the best

platforms for you.

And it's different for everyone.

It really is.

And we did that when I first came on and it

was like,

there were so many things and we consolidate and you know,

it was nice to be able to run back and forth

a strategy like I'm using this platform for this.

Now, granted I have two businesses too,

so it gets a little bit confused,

but in terms of the overlap,

but you know,

just being able to bounce back and forth the strategy and

what the true platforms are helpful in terms of knowing where

to post,

what to post all of that.

So anyway,

if someone is considering outsourcing their social media,

what would be a first step that they should take and

what should they be looking for in a company that would

take on this task for them?

One of the things that we always say for our clients,

and I want it to be reciprocal is that like we

would actually want to hang out.

So if you're sitting in a meeting with someone and you're

about to hire them to take over your voice online or

brand or design or whatever that piece is,

you got to love them.

Like you really,

really got to have a good vibe.

And for us,

we actually put it in kind of a different term.

We say,

you know what?

We would do breakfast and lunch and appetizers and happy hour

and dinner all in one day and really not get sick

of these people where we could keep learning about their business.

And then we go even a little bit deeper and we

say, you know what?

We want to be able to actually want to use their

services. We either value what they do,

or we truly understand what they're up to in this world.

And we want to promote them to others because that's really

what we're doing.

And so that's a big piece.

So if you do a flip flop on that,

and if you're coming at it,

if I'm going to hire someone to outsource to you really

truly have to really,

really enjoy these people and connect with them.

I often say like,

if you hear me talk,

I'm speaking at an event or I'm here on a podcast

and you're at all ever annoyed with me.

Our team will not be a good fit.

This is how we are all the time in our blog

and my podcast and our whole staff.

And so we're kind of high energy.

And, you know,

we talk a lot and you know,

so we got all our silly words that we say all

the time and all that seriousness,

you really truly do want to really enjoy the people that

you'll be working with,

That you want to relate personality wise then too.

But now we have some clients where like our,

we're not the same,

you know,

like as these people,

like we have a lot of guy clients,

we're obviously not the same as them because we're a bunch

of females and we were able to take over their voice,

but they really enjoy being around us.

And we enjoy when they walk in the office or,

you know,

we get on zoom or whatever that is.

And they don't necessarily have to be exactly the same.

They just have to be willing to put up with us.

Okay. So we got the personality.

Okay. It's a mix.

Everyone loves each other.

It's fun.

What other qualifications should someone be looking for in a social

media team?

So here's kind of a divider,

different agencies run different obviously,

but here's the two different areas.

I'm seeing a lot.

We are very much relationship and goal setting.

So for example,

if a client comes to us and says,

I am putting on this event and I want 150 people

there and it's November 3rd and we're like,

okay, well,

we'll work up a 90 day strategy and a plan to

get you there.

And then everything that we track is based on getting a

hundred and whatever people in the room,

we are not a tracking numbers on analytics,

on website,

on Facebook likes our goal is the a hundred and P

a hundred plus people in that room that is a very

different strategy.

Other people will track numbers and numbers and numbers and numbers.

Great. That's a fine way of doing things,

you know,

collecting data and all of that.

But I so want to personally,

even as myself as a business owner,

my goal is either to get butts in seats,

get downloads higher because I know what that's going to amount

to. So I got these milestones that then hit a goal

where, to me,

I don't add,

it's not as tangible for me to go look at all

these analytical numbers all over the place.

So there are,

it's a very distinct,

different way of doing business and we get some heat for

it. Every once in a while,

people are like,

well, what are your SEO?

Or what are these numbers?

Or what are that?

And I'm like,

you know what?

We put butts in seats,

or we do this or whatever over here.

And we focus on these goals.

Now, all those numbers are milestones and they get us there.

But the goal setting is huge for us.

So really it's more of the relationship piece and more of

like, kind of the data piece and some people that really

truly want those reports.

We started doing the reports a few years ago and we

were sending them out to our clients and,

you know,

we'll have anywhere from like 30 to 50 different clients that

we're managing on a regular basis.

And we'd have one,

maybe two people even open the email.

And I was like,

ah, there's so much time put into these.

I would way rather jump on the phone and discuss strategy

and ideas on how to move us forward versus spending time

on reading.

And at the end of the day,

the number of Facebook likes you have,

or Instagram followers or Twitter followers who are,

I don't even care what the platform is.

Doesn't always equate to the people who are showing up to

an event or the people who are purchasing product.

I mean,

it's kind of their vanity numbers in a way.

I mean,

absolutely some people would say their credibility makers,

if you will,

because you know,

all the social credibility,

but what you're doing in terms of actually targeting and going

against performance of the goals,

I think is so much more important than people get lost

in that.

People want to see their Facebook numbers rising and thinking that

that is bringing them in incremental revenue and it's not necessarily

a correlation.

So that is a big difference with you guys versus many

other people,

I would say,

well, okay,

back onto this track of,

if someone is looking for a social media company,

should they be asking to see what other businesses are doing

so that they can get a feel for it?

Or what other tips can you give us so that someone

can land on the right company for them?

It's a good idea to see some of their previous work

for sure,

because you're going to be able to see how often are

they posting for these clients,

or you can see the numbers a little bit,

or you can see if things have been replied to,

or, you know,

is there good design work?

That's one thing I know we love is we have in-house

designers. And so our clients,

aren't outsourcing new,

a couple of different companies.

It's all one group.

And so I think that is a valuable piece as well,

but yeah,

checking out their clients or their work.

Now you have to take into consideration.

Some of the things we were just talking about,

you know,

we have some clients that are sitting at like 300 Facebook

lights, but they make half a million dollars.

They don't always correlate.

So maybe even some case studies would be good.

We draw up case studies and say,

you know,

this was the goal of the client.

Here's all the things that we did to get this person

there. And you can see that work.

And then I would also ask them,

what is their process?

So for us at tenacious,

we've been through a lot.

I mean,

we've been in business for eight years and kind of started

this journey and we had to figure out,

okay, what process works the very best for our clients to

be able to approve the work that we're doing.

Now, we have some clients that we've been managing their social

for so long that they don't even look through what we're

going to be posting.

We have their voice down and we don't need approval from

them. Now,

most of our,

I'd say about 70% of our clients check our work each

week. So what we do is we use a project management

tool called base camp.

We write out all the posts for one week.

At a time we send to the client,

they have usually about four days to approve the posts and

then we post them.

And so knowing what the flow is,

is very important.

Cause I know it's all over the board for every different

social media management company.

Say just having gone through that process,

I think it's really important to know what's going out there

because if you have a customer who calls back and references,

something Should probably know what that was.

I like having my hand in it,

you know,

I have a few different businesses as well,

like you Sue.

And I like to see what's going to be happening on

my social.

I don't want any surprises.

And so of course my team and I talk quite a

bit, but my team talks with all the clients on a

regular basis to know what's going on in their world.

And the other great thing about you with that whole team

is there are multiple people that you interact with,

you know,

just like you're saying,

you know,

I have my lead person,

then I have graphics and I don't know all 10 of

your people,

but I know Sarah.

Yeah. Something like that.

Okay. Any final comment to wrap this part up in terms

of looking for a social media company?

Good. I mean,

I think one of the things is like checking out a

few different places.

Like we talked about and not just going right away with

your first one and they're all over the place.

There's all over the board,

you know,

that you can find different.

I wa you know,

maybe I was the first,

but I'm not the only anymore.

And so there's a lot of companies out there doing this

and some are going to feel,

you know,

they're going to have a solo,

like they're just going to be them.

And that might fit more for your flow,

but you'll want to ask some of those questions on how

they manage things.

And I can hear people asking this in the back of

their mind anyway,

right now,

what would you say is a range of pricing that you

would look at?

If it was just a single business,

maybe managing a couple of platforms,

you know,

starting off easy,

what type of price range would you see?

Someone investing You're me around the thousand dollar price range for

a couple of different social media platforms.

And that's going to be just one spot.

So one Instagram account,

one Facebook account.

That's not a Facebook business page and a group.

So you're looking at around that thousand $1,200

Mark, and I'm finding that's pretty average in the Midwest.

Now it gets a bit more expensive when you're talking East

or West coast,

but that's pretty average.

All right.

Perfect. Just to give everybody a little bit of an idea

here of the investment,

well worth it,

because again,

remember this isn't just money going out.

The anticipation is it's money going out because you're going to

get eyeballs on your business for people to be attracted in,

to buy what you sell your services,

your product success.

So it's not just a one-way street.

That's not the point.

Then you might as well not do it.

Yeah. It's not bringing in.

It's not doing well.

You know,

one other thing I wanted to make sure I said,

too, is each company you want to make sure you're comparing

apples to apples.

So some companies will just write stuff and send it to

you. Other people will actually post it,

engage with it when people comment.

And then they're also,

like I said,

as the design aspect of it,

now we do all of those pieces.

So when we say that thousand dollar Mark,

you may just be like,

Oh my gosh,

well, there's a lot of pieces to that.

So we're doing behind the scenes sayings as we're doing the

writing and the posting of things too.

So you just want to make sure what levels of this

is everyone going to be doing for you?

That was a great add.

Thank you for sharing that.

All right.

We're going to move now into the reflection section.

So this is a look at you.

And also I think your business in tandem of what has

made you successful.

If there's one natural trait that you feel you call upon

over and over again,

what would that be?

I'm really coachable.

And as I tell people,

every time I hire them,

if it's my CPA,

if it's my lawyer,

if it's my business coach or even my employees,

I tell them,

I don't know everything,

even though I act like it.

I still need you to be the expert in my life.

When it comes to X,

Y, and Z,

I take everything in that I'm told.

Some of it gets tasked right back out.

If it doesn't align with me.

But most of the time,

if someone's really truly speaking into me,

you know,

I hire very intentionally.

If someone's speaking right into me and they tell me,

Tina, I believe this is your next step.

Or I believe this is what you're lacking or what you

need to push yourself in a little bit or whatever that

is. I'm going to listen.

So that trait,

I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with because we got

this right.

We can do this on our own.

We don't need the help.

We know our stuff.

And just admitting that you need help,

you need help and that you can take direction from other

people. I think that's a big piece.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people can identify things

in us that we won't necessarily see in ourself.

Good and improvement wise.

That's all exactly.

And you're right,

because I mean,

I know that I'm that type of person,

like, I know what I want to do.

I know my goals,

I know everything.

And sometimes I have to stop and say,

wait, listen to what people are saying,

because you might miss something really valuable.

Now we've already talked about base camp,

but is there another tool that you're using personally or you're

using within tenacious that helps you to be productive or to

create balance in your life?

Yeah. We use Slack,

which is a messaging system for our staff.

And I would say 96% of the time,

it actually helps us immensely.

We don't exchange any emails back and forth within our staff.

So that helps our email be cut down to our clients

and then any email newsletters that we belong to.

And so it is very,

very helpful.

So Slack,

we can just chat like Facebook messenger,

back and forth.

We can have group chats going on individual chats.

And it has been a huge shift in how we do

life. Now I say 96% because there's a lot of little

fun things that you can do inside of Slack.

And so we goofed around a little bit with GIPHYs and

just funny things every once in a while,

but it's kind of like the virtual water cooler.

So even though we're all here,

you know,

right here and staff,

if everyone just talked,

when they needed something to answer and it would be a

hot mess up in here,

like it would be crazy.

And so it's very,

very helpful to be able to have that spot,

to just put the information and then wait for that response.

And it's not,

it's not bogging down our email.

And so that's been a really,

really helpful spot for us.

Yeah. It sounds like you can stay on task,

then you just ask the question work,

and then when you get your answer,

fit it into wherever it needed to go.

And then exactly.

Plus if you guys like each other,

as much as you do,

then you're not going to be working when you're here.

That brings me to what else I was going to say.

We actually started because of a consultant that came in,

we started a new process where we do a no talk

Tuesday or no talk Thursday,

or we pick a day where we come in and by

nine o'clock Slack is shut down base campus,

shut down,

email, shut down,

texting and down.

Facebook is shut down.

Everything is shut down.

And we work on something.

That's been sitting out at the top of our to-do list,

our frog or whatever that is,

that needs to move quickly.

And we need really,

really focused time.

And so we do that from nine to noon.

Then we sit together and have lunch because we are a

bunch of girls and we need to get our talking out.

And then we sit and have lunch.

And then we do a couple more hours in the afternoon

to really wrap up.

And then we share at the end of the day,

what was accomplished and the girls,

I thought the girls were going to be like Nat,

about this day.

They're going to be like,

what the heck?

We can't do that.

And now they're asking for more because they get so much

work done.

And the statistics around the interruptions that we get on a

regular basis,

it should make us all want to do this on like

even a daily basis to block out our time,

turn off the notifications and things.

But one of the stats is that every three point something

minutes, we get an interruption.

And if we had a 20 minutes to get back,

that's what it takes you once you've had an interruption is

20 whole minutes to get back to peak performance.

But the thing is,

we don't have that because after that first three and a

half minutes,

another three and a half minutes,

we'll have another interruption.

So we never get to our peak performance if we just

constantly have those notifications and things happening to us.

So our writing is suffering our focus with our time being

able to do a podcast.

You know,

I mean,

I literally have to shut my computer so that I can

truly just focus on podcasting or else there's been 700 Facebook

messages and texts and whatever you know happening.

Oh, it's so true.

Yeah. It's so true.

And taking that time and just focusing.

You're absolutely right.

So I've struggled with that too.

I haven't found my day that I can take yet,

but you're presenting an interesting opportunity.

I'm going to have to consider that.

Is there a book that you've read lately that you think

our listeners would find value in?

Hello? One of my faves as one great goal by Ursula

Manchez, and that's talked about setting goals a lot here already

on this podcast,

but that was a game changer for me in my business.

I reread it every year.

I'm trying to force her to do a audible so I

can just listen to her and my ear on it.

But as well has been a client.

She's been my coach now where you collaborate on things,

but she wrote the book one great goal.

And it is truly all about focusing on one thing at

a time.

And it has been a game changer for everyone around me

that I've been able to coach in on that.

And then myself,

That's fabulous.

And I need you to make sure that she does that

she follows and does some type of an audible book.

You know,

she doesn't have to be the one reading it either.

If she didn't want to tell gift biz listeners,

just as you're listening to the podcast today,

you can also listen to audio books with ease.

Unfortunately, not one great goal quite yet,

but we'll be working on that.

I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to

get an audio book for free on me.

All you need to do is jump over to gift biz,

book dot and make your selection.

Okay. Tina,

I'm so excited for the answer to this question.

I would like to invite you to dare to dream.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What's inside your box.

Oh my goodness.

How long do you have,

Is it a really,

really big bond?

Actually, The very first thing that came into my mind was,

you know,

of course,

I'm in this tenacious box right now and thinking about this

and you alluded to this earlier,

but last year we put on our very first conference,

the before conference,

and it felt like my second wedding day,

it was the most magical couple days of my life.

I loved every minute of it.

It was the perfect time to put on a conference all

of the above.

But when I look at that box,

that magical box that you're talking about,

I pictured it being filled with people at the very big

box, but it was our conference growing and being known as

a national,

a truly a national conference,

small business conference for small business owners.

And that is,

I just love the idea of small businesses,

us changing the facts and the stats around how much we

struggle and us showing up stronger and bigger and better and

brighter every single day.

Because the flexibility I have as a mom,

a wife,

a daughter,

granddaughter, a friend in this space of owning my own business

is something that I want everyone to be able to experience

Agreed. So if listeners wanted to learn more about the conference

or about tenacious overall,

where would you send them?

Of course.

Yeah. The before conference.com

is our conference site and our conference will more than likely

be every April.

And so that is right now,

we're going in sales on that and we're surpassing our numbers.

So it's really fun.

That magical box is happening soon.

So thank you.

Congratulations on that.

No surprise,

no surprise because I was there last year and it was

spectacular. Well,

thank you.

It's been a blast,

you know,

and the coolest part is when you have a speaker that

you thought would maybe be a little bit of a stretch

and they're like,

of course I know everything about your conference.

I can't wait to speak.

Wonderful. I love It.

So anyways,

that's been really fun.

And then our website is tenacious edge.com

and you can find everything there,

but my name is a little bit quirky.

Tina Pettis,

it's spelled T E N a and you can find me

everywhere at Tina Pettis like everywhere.

If you just Google Tina Pettis,

it's me,

it's me.

And you can also find her on our show notes page

because we'll have all the links there available for you just

in case you're out walking the dog at the gym,

straightening your shop right now.

I encourage you all to look into this before conference.

It really is spectacular.

And you can hear the passion with which Tina about it

in terms of just uplifting and energizing.

All of us who are doing our thing,

we're letting our light shine for our businesses,

but we can always learn more.

We can always get better and things change.

So we have to stay relevant and current with the times

as well.

Tina, thank you so so much,

we've been talking about getting you on the show for several

months and I'm so thrilled.

We've finally gotten it together.

You've given us some great information.

I encourage all of us in terms of listeners who are

considering outsourcing social media,

took me a long time to decide that that was what

I was going to do.

And I'm so glad I did now that I actually made

the leap.

Tina's given us some great advice,

great suggestions.

And I wish for you,

Tina, you know,

the business is going to keep growing.

I know it is that before conference,

pretty soon,

you're going to need to go into a whole nother building

because it's just going to grow.

So, so big continued success to you and your team and

may your candle.

Where are you in your business building journey,

whether you're just starting out or already running a business.

And you want to know your setup for success.

Find out by taking the gift biz quiz,

access the quiz from your computer at bit dot L Y

slash gift biz quiz or from your phone by texting gift

biz quiz to four four,

two, two,

two. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for

the next episode.

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