Speaker 1: Here we are again with another episode of the Mullet,
Speaker 1: the business and content marketing something advice offshoot of Countryslide.
Speaker 1: We have just recorded three episodes back to back, and
Speaker 1: this is the fourth episode in that chain. So this
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the silliest of the lot.
Speaker 1: That's what tends to happen. So some of them are good.
Speaker 2: I think some of.
Speaker 1: Them were good. Some of there was definitely content in there,
Speaker 1: so I think this is my turn to read it out,
Speaker 1: isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Can you do a Welsh accent? Oh you've got
Speaker 2: that in the locker? Now, don't do that. It's it's inappropriate.
Speaker 1: No, how much time should I actually know?
Speaker 2: No, don't don't do that, that's silly. This is very
Speaker 2: serious business.
Speaker 1: How much.
Speaker 2: You stop it?
Speaker 1: Stop it? Stop at you? How much time should I
Speaker 1: actually spend on content? I run a small eco clear
Speaker 1: This is actually more across the other side of the
Speaker 1: tam aisle. It's a bit more cornish. I run a
Speaker 1: small eco cleaning business in a rural area. Nothing fancy,
Speaker 1: just me and a couple of part time staff. I
Speaker 1: keep hearing how important social media is, but between doing
Speaker 1: the actual work admin and trying to have a life.
Speaker 1: I've got about twenty minutes a week's spare. Is it
Speaker 1: better to do the odd scrappy post when I can
Speaker 1: or should I carve out proper time and try to
Speaker 1: make a plan. Claire east Devon, Oh, I've got stuff
Speaker 1: to say about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got. First of all, I don't know what
Speaker 2: eco cleaning is. I mean, you don't use things to
Speaker 2: like that will kill stuff, And.
Speaker 1: I don't think you just don't lungs out, don't spray
Speaker 1: bleach everywhere? Yeah, okay, fair use an army of trained
Speaker 1: termites to eat away at the limescale in the kettle.
Speaker 2: Twenty minutes spare. I feel like if either they're overworking
Speaker 2: or they need to put their prices up. It's really
Speaker 2: easy in all businesses to create a prison of your
Speaker 2: own making. Yeah, and not have time. We've done it,
Speaker 2: and not have time for.
Speaker 1: All the things.
Speaker 2: You know, we're currently recording a podcast. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 2: really easy to do a prison of your own making
Speaker 2: in the form of a business, and you end up
Speaker 2: not with a business but with a job that you've
Speaker 2: given yourself, plus lots of liability and stress. So potentially
Speaker 2: the first thing if you only if you've got such
Speaker 2: limited time, look at your pricing, because maybe you could
Speaker 2: put it up, you know, a five or an hour
Speaker 2: and see you might get some of that time back
Speaker 2: and be granted the ability afforded the ability to actually
Speaker 2: do some social media and some marketing. That's my first
Speaker 2: observation of such things.
Speaker 1: You know, mine sort of follows on from that. Why
Speaker 1: you thinking about this? You just think you should do it?
Speaker 1: Or is it because you want to find more customers?
Speaker 1: And if you want to find more customers, well, when
Speaker 1: are those customers going to be served because you're so
Speaker 1: flat out already unless you can find someone else to
Speaker 1: come and you can have employees and expand out that way,
Speaker 1: which sounds what that's what Claire's doing. She says she
Speaker 1: has a couple of part time staff already. Okay, you
Speaker 1: can do that and get more customers. But then are
Speaker 1: you still working flat out or should you be working
Speaker 1: on the business rather than working in the business, Which
Speaker 1: is a really difficult part to get beyond for people. Oh,
Speaker 1: particularly when it's your thing that you started and you
Speaker 1: scaled it out and then you've got some people to
Speaker 1: work for you and you're telling them how to do
Speaker 1: it and you're managing them at quite a few different
Speaker 1: levels at the same time. Getting to the point where
Speaker 1: you're just working on strategy and working at the high
Speaker 1: level at the ten thousand foot view is really hard
Speaker 1: when they're used to you working alongside them or in
Speaker 1: the job at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Trades often have this problem, builders and carpenters and sparks
Speaker 1: and so on, because you know how to do the
Speaker 1: job and your reputation relies on doing the job properly,
Speaker 1: and then you get someone else to work for you
Speaker 1: to do the job, you're almost stood over their shoulder
Speaker 1: making sure they're doing a good job, in which case
Speaker 1: you may as well have just done it yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Or you spend as much time explaining how
Speaker 2: to do the job as it would have taken to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Do you know what's an ADHD problem?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I suppose there's a control thing as well. You
Speaker 2: want to be in the control of the quality.
Speaker 1: So there's that, But there's also if you're somebody who
Speaker 1: if you learn how to do something yourself, and if
Speaker 1: you had to teach yourself how to do and you
Speaker 1: had to, you weren't given a guideline. If you do this,
Speaker 1: then this, then this, than this. You had to observe
Speaker 1: what other people were doing, try it for yourself, work
Speaker 1: out what worked, work out what didn't, and put it
Speaker 1: all together. That way, it is almost impossible for you
Speaker 1: to step out of that because your brain literally doesn't
Speaker 1: work in that structure for that subject. You you see
Speaker 1: every problem almost instinctive. Instinctively, you don't see it as
Speaker 1: something logical that you can just write down as a
Speaker 1: paragraph of this is how you do this, and this
Speaker 1: and this is why. Because you are working from a
Speaker 1: continual series of memories and experiences which you need to
Speaker 1: have in your brain in order to solve that problem,
Speaker 1: you can't coldly step out of it and go right
Speaker 1: What you do is this.
Speaker 2: I converted that in my web design marketing business, where
Speaker 2: I wrote an entire higher operations manual of exactly blow
Speaker 2: by blow how we did certain things. And a lot
Speaker 2: of times I'd use it even for myself, like just
Speaker 2: working out all the numbers and where the where the
Speaker 2: stuff was for paying a fat bill. You know, I'd
Speaker 2: need to do all of those bits, and yeah, you can.
Speaker 2: It's a good way to separate, separate yourself from that
Speaker 2: and give people a protocol of stuff to work to
Speaker 2: and hold them accountable for doing things correctly because they've
Speaker 2: got no excuse once they've got a step by step
Speaker 2: instructions that they didn't follow. I think we've got sidetracked.
Speaker 2: Have we got sidetracked? Brilliant?
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think that's good universal advice. So
Speaker 1: this is about the social media. Do you actually need
Speaker 1: to do social media? Because what are you? What's your
Speaker 1: end goal with it? If it's to get more customers
Speaker 1: it in and actually do you have the time to
Speaker 1: service it? Or is that a parallel problem of working
Speaker 1: on business versus working in the business. Let's keep it
Speaker 1: on the social media side of things. What players ask if.
Speaker 2: You can scale? If you can scale those people, you
Speaker 2: have always got to be careful of trying to scale
Speaker 2: business that relies on you. So I'd say you could
Speaker 2: put your prices up and then that might free up
Speaker 2: some time, and then replace the terrible, terrible clients with
Speaker 2: the goods some good clients, and all the ones that
Speaker 2: want it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper can probably drop off,
Speaker 2: and all the ones that are good that value the
Speaker 2: service will keep paying, and then you could probably leverage
Speaker 2: social media to your benefit. To be honest, you could
Speaker 2: if you've got your pricing strategy right and the business
Speaker 2: is profitable, you could easily you could easily just pay
Speaker 2: somebody else to do to keep up to date with
Speaker 2: your social stuff. But if not leverage those Facebook groups
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, where hyper local you need to
Speaker 2: focus on hyper local social media, it's no good. It's
Speaker 2: no good. What I see with cleaning companies and stuff
Speaker 2: is they'll set up a cleaning company and they'll target
Speaker 2: hashtags like cleaning company, and you know, they'll be like
Speaker 2: talking about products and all this sorts of stuff and
Speaker 2: the people that are liking it like other cleaning companies.
Speaker 2: But actually what you need is local people that are
Speaker 2: in that area that might need your service. So I'd
Speaker 2: leverage like your local you know, an East Devon group
Speaker 2: of people in that village or surrounding villages that you
Speaker 2: can actually go to, and that's where i'd focus it.
Speaker 1: I'd say there's another element to it as well, which
Speaker 1: is it's not just about finding new customers, it's sort
Speaker 1: of keeping those customers. It's keeping that trust, it's keeping
Speaker 1: that quality of service and making sure that staying with
Speaker 1: you is one of the most important things. To them
Speaker 1: in that aspect of their business, whether it's for the
Speaker 1: home or whether it's for like airbnbs or something like that,
Speaker 1: that you want to keep people with you so you
Speaker 1: don't end up going backwards and losing customers. So social
Speaker 1: media doesn't have to be just about finding new people.
Speaker 1: It can be about serving the existing customer base in
Speaker 1: the existing audience, which can be making sure that you
Speaker 1: do things or show things that are aligned with what
Speaker 1: they want. So there's a heavy breathing in the background
Speaker 1: because that's my dog that's just arrived in the desk.
Speaker 1: You're very interested in social media strategies, aren't you. Yes,
Speaker 1: so say ROAs, Yeah, that's a return on ad spend.
Speaker 1: People who don't know yeah, gets all, gets all. The
Speaker 1: marketing type's really excited. So what you're putting out in
Speaker 1: your social media could be just we've done this amazing
Speaker 1: job here yet again, and you don't expect much interaction
Speaker 1: from it. It's not going to get your new customers,
Speaker 1: but it means that in a year's time or six
Speaker 1: months time, or even three months time, someone might look
Speaker 1: through your grid and that's the you know, all the
Speaker 1: photos are on Instagram, all your reels and just say yes,
Speaker 1: this person does consistently good work for lots of different
Speaker 1: people over an extended period of time. Sometimes that's all
Speaker 1: people are looking for, is that you just want you
Speaker 1: to be reliable and good. You know. That's particularly for
Speaker 1: service based businesses where there's other competition in the area.
Speaker 1: They just want Yet this person's active and good. So
Speaker 1: staying up to date as well and just posting once
Speaker 1: a week. It's not going to get you much growth,
Speaker 1: but it shows that anyone checking in with you goes,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they're still trading.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: How many people do you know, or how many businesses
Speaker 1: have you found that you remember going there two years
Speaker 1: ago and you go to look at their websites actually
Speaker 1: nothing's changed, or their Facebook accounting. You start thinking have
Speaker 1: they gone bust? Are they still trading? Are they still
Speaker 1: doing stuff? Or are they just really busy and not
Speaker 1: doing social media? And you have to ring them to
Speaker 1: fight and say, not being funny, are you still open?
Speaker 2: Fishing?
Speaker 1: Tackle shops are quite bad for that at the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just finding new people, it's almost sort of
Speaker 1: continual maintenance, continual contact with an audience. Even if it's
Speaker 1: just one way communication. A lot of the time.
Speaker 2: I would post I would post transformations sort of like
Speaker 2: before and afters if you can get the client thing
Speaker 2: or a bit of educational content that it's something like,
Speaker 2: of all the cleaners I've used, this is the best
Speaker 2: for excellent amount of years, no harmful. Emma calls this this,
Speaker 2: you know, stuff like did you know that Bleach does
Speaker 2: this and this and this? This is why we don't
Speaker 2: use that when we when we do cleaning, and I don't.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say try and sell hard unless you're on
Speaker 2: local groups then you can push it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's just something you just said there. That's
Speaker 1: it's the first time I've realized this that cleaning businesses
Speaker 1: are hard ones to do transformations, to do before and
Speaker 1: after so.
Speaker 2: Because you'd have to get clearance from the client and
Speaker 2: you also have to get you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's a social element to it as well.
Speaker 1: So if your thing is car detailing and car cleaning,
Speaker 1: filthy filthy Porsche, going to clean Porsche. Everyone wants that
Speaker 1: because they want to show having a dirty car because
Speaker 1: you've driven it a lot and had a couple look
Speaker 1: at hard days driving. It isn't there's no social negative
Speaker 1: to that. And obviously you're rich enough to pay somebody
Speaker 1: to clean your car, So there's two levels of signaling
Speaker 1: there that they're happy with personal trainers before and after on.
Speaker 2: That in a pigsty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, if you say like this, look at
Speaker 1: this person's filthy toilet before I cleaned it, you know
Speaker 1: that's not it's no one's happy with that transformation. I
Speaker 1: think you can just show afterwards maybe with that and
Speaker 1: just hint at that and say this took seventeen hours
Speaker 1: of solid work to get the staying out of that mattress.
Speaker 1: That's whatever it is. Wow, it's coffee.
Speaker 2: It would be really good. Just a little guide of
Speaker 2: how to get blood out of a rug and put
Speaker 2: that into your local Facebook groups, because there's no way
Speaker 2: people wouldn't bite it to that. I'm giving you that
Speaker 2: one free. You will get engagement and someone will probably
Speaker 2: pick up the phone if your if your socials are
Speaker 2: up to date.
Speaker 1: Has one of your guests that your airbnb butchered and
Speaker 1: munch jack on the living room carpet?
Speaker 2: Does red wine get out white wine or is it
Speaker 2: white wine get out red wine? I'm not sure. I
Speaker 2: can't remember the thing.
Speaker 1: I've just made the worst cocktail ever.
Speaker 2: Carpet wine. Carpet wine.
Speaker 1: Cocktail carpet wine?
Speaker 2: Is it.
Speaker 1: The So when the producer puts in the production chat
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, you know you're onto a good one. So
Speaker 1: if you are going to do social media, look at
Speaker 1: the what you're doing it for, and just if you're
Speaker 1: happy with how things are now, just do maintenance. But
Speaker 1: just just keep it going, keep it ticking over good
Speaker 1: consistent stuff. And then if you need to ramp it
Speaker 1: up at some point in the future to get more
Speaker 1: working or to grow, or you finally manage to step
Speaker 1: back from the business and you're just working, you're working
Speaker 1: on strategy and marketing rather than out cleaning people's houses,
Speaker 1: then you've got a base to build on. You know.
Speaker 1: Just do good, simple strategy now that's consistent and right
Speaker 1: for your brand. And that applies to pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't need If you don't need to grow your
Speaker 1: business through social media, but you need to be on
Speaker 1: social media, just do maintenance. One post a week and
Speaker 1: when people tag you and stuff, when people say and
Speaker 1: that it's positive stuff for your business, just share it
Speaker 1: to your stories or something like that. It takes ten
Speaker 1: seconds to do. It makes that customer feel good, makes
Speaker 1: you look active, and it keeps that relationship with that person.
Speaker 1: I see that with friends, businesses and other businesses where
Speaker 1: they get tagged and stuff and they don't share it.
Speaker 1: They go, yeah, well I don't need to or I'm
Speaker 1: too busy too. So you might have just nudged that
Speaker 1: customer a little bit further away without realizing it, because
Speaker 1: they didn't get the social feedback of you, sh of
Speaker 1: you tagging them in something. I'm tagging you in something
Speaker 1: and you sharing it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like blanking them. So ghosting kids, ghosting. Yeah, whether
Speaker 1: there's a social element to social media, it's not just
Speaker 1: a place for you to make money or to find customers.
Speaker 2: People don't like being sold everything.
Speaker 1: Nope, no, no, I mean I don't know what they're
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Speaker 2: Okay, that's it. That's all for what a night it's been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's we're here and now we're going and that's
Speaker 1: it and that's all that can be said.
Speaker 2: Okay, boy,