Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Andrea White, Andrea Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. You’re very welcome. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do Yes. Um so my name is Andrea White and I am um the CEO of elite business coaching where I’m super obsessed with helping solo preneurs um to have, we mainly work on traffic leads and sales which are uh those high impact goals that really make a difference in your business ah and we focus on making sure that solo-preneurs are able to save time, money and effort And because I’ve been a solo preneurs for almost 17 years this summer, I’m also able to help my clients to avoid Um a lot of pitfalls, detours and dead ends because I’ve been pretty successful for almost 17 years.
Well congratulations on that anyone who’s in business that long, they’re doing something right, so well done regarding topics of all the things that I could ask you about, what would you say that your passion is in relation to having a conversation, This is probably cliche and um but I really enjoy helping people helping my clients, I enjoy helping people to realize their dream, their vision um to reach their goals to make money um to be able to help their families to really be a part of that is um something that is really hard to even explain when you see people start one way in terms of their attitude or their mindset or you know even the belief in themselves and then you go through, you know working with them over a period of time and um you can see confidence, you can see, um, you know, once you have a little bit of confidence you take action.
That action works, Your confidence grows. Um, and so just to be a part of someone’s vision and dream becoming a reality is um, something I don’t ever want to not have uh in my life. It’s nice. Um just to qualify, you said about realizing dreams, is that when you first work with people, is that that you helped them determine what that is or that you’re helping progress to something they’re already trying to achieve. Most of my clients already have an idea of what type of business they want to start and or they are in the early mid stages and so they want to grow. Um, so most of the time they already have an idea of what it is, they would like to do what business it is that they would like to start and when someone comes to you, what does that, a typical inquiry, if you like, what does that tend to look like?
Um most of the time, the biggest challenge that clients are having before we start working together is um, they don’t, they don’t have enough traffic, um, coming to their sites and so which of course has a direct impact on the ability to make a number of sales. Um, and so typically just not having not knowing how to get enough traffic is usually the challenge that most people have when they first reach out to me or um, it’s one of the top questions that I get as well. So how do you answer that question? So, um, we do it a little bit of a deep dive sometimes. Um, people have not clearly identify who their customers are about over half a lot of times it’s is that they really haven’t dialed in and so they’re really trying to sell their products and services to everyone.
Uh, and as you know, you know, you can’t sell to everyone, people just kind of keep going. There’s nothing to really catch anybody’s attention. So probably over half haven’t really dialed in. So that makes it really easy um, to do some work to help them to help clients to clarify who their customers are. Um, and then some of the other things that I look at in the beginning are what avenues of traffic are they currently using? And um, a lot of times, of course, people are relying on social media primarily uh, and are not, um, thinking about how to use relationships, partnerships and collaborations, how to use, uh, you know, search as a traffic option um, or even how to use paid advertising as a traffic option as well.
A lot of times, there’s a huge myth that to use paid advertising, it has to be really expensive. Uh, and so when you don’t have a large budget, you still can use paid traffic, you just have to, I know that you, it may take a little bit longer, but it certainly certainly can can work. So between clarifying audience and then also opening up other lanes of traffic, those are usually one of those will usually solve the problem. So if someone was, let’s say a solo preneurs or or if they were in business, they haven’t gone through that exercise of determining who is their typical customer. What do you say to them in order to get them to go through that exercise and how would you typically help someone? Um So if they’ve already been in business for a period of time, um I asked them if they know any information about their current audience, if they’ve had any customers.
Um So you know what sort of a profile of, you know, your previous customers up to this point um to see if there are any trends there. Uh if there aren’t any trends to look at from previous customer buying, uh Then we we just start from the beginning in terms of um what challenges are you serving are you solving? Um and what problems are you solving? Who has those problems and why do they have those problems? And um then we also talk about um one of my favorite things to do is to actually look at books related to the person’s product or service? A lot of my clients are service based um to look at books on amazon um that are related to the particular service that they are looking to provide.
And then we look at book reviews and in those book reviews very often people write book reviews and you know they may say how how much this book really helped them. I had A B. C. And D. Problems um and this book really helped me to be able to address my A. B. C. D. Problems. And so that gives a lot of specificity to you know my clients um problems that they’re looking to solve and it helps them to have some tangible real world. Um examples of the things that people are going through the problems they’re having and you can even get a glimpse into of course what type of solutions are offered in the books um and to see if there are any opportunities for my client to use some of those solutions in the books as well. So we look at past customer experience, we um talk about challenges um and problems that they solve.
Uh and then we try to do some real world data as well to dial in on, you know what could eventually be their ideal customer there there’s a lot of other things that we look at as well in terms of you know books people you know that they’re following on social media. Um So your typical sort of avatar type of exercises and for those that are willing to go through the exercise and do it properly and what was the benefit to them of doing that? So it helps with messaging number one. Um and so if you aren’t able to put out a really clear message, it makes it difficult for people to identify that you are talking with them or talking to them, I should say. Um and so it helps with message messaging. It helps with one of the things that we work on when we are getting into sales copy um is creating um hooks or creating curiosity, like in your email subject lines when your captions of social media, so it helps you to be able to create really good hooks, really good captions to grab people’s attention.
Um also having clarity around your ideal customer. It also helps you to use proper imaging. Um uh you know, so if you’re posting on social media if you’re using paid advertisement, people are likely to stop the scroll. If they see something that resonates with them, it’s it, you know, it um is a reflection of them, that’s the word I’m looking for, it’s a reflection of them. Um but we’re mainly trying to work on customer clarity for messaging um for images and then also, so that, you know, where your people are actually hanging out, so you can hang out in those spaces as well, would you say? It’s a form of personalization. So um instead of, you know marketing to everyone, like you said, if you personalize it to a specific person, it speaks to them rather than, you know, absolutely no one essentially.
Absolutely. Um And so uh you know, one of the things that um it’s really important for my clients to understand is especially as a solo preneurs, I think the advantage and sometimes disadvantage that we have is that in this day time in client climate, people really want to do business with other people. Uh And so if you can show up in a way that where people feel like they can connect with you and be in a relationship with you as well as you know, a customer of yours, uh then you’re likely to have a customer for life. Any thoughts on that topic about retaining customers for extended periods of time? Yes. We actually work on that as well in terms of um making sure that you have opportunities for people to actually be repeat customers as well as um your customers are really excited to refer other people to you.
So when we talk about repeat customers, um we’re talking about are hot audience. And so um one of the things that’s really important for business owners to do is to to have a plan to take care of your current customers. Uh And so that that starts from the point that someone decides to purchase from you and so you want to make sure that that purchasing experience is seamless. It’s quick, it’s efficient. We’re all competing with amazon that has one click shopping. Uh And so many of us don’t have one click shopping, but you still want to make sure that that shopping experience as as quick and efficient as possible um that your automation czar working if that’s applicable. Um And so from the moment that a person decides to buy, they are a customer. And so you want to make sure that everything along the way helps them to make the decision to be a customer again, so you start there and then once they, you know, um Perhaps if they have a product of physical product, you want to make sure that that shipping experience is as good as you can make it with what you can control.
Um They have a really good unboxing experience. Um So that’s the packaging. Thank you. Notes things of that nature. Maybe a sample of the next kind of products uh inside of that box um that unboxing experience um If you have the ability to provide some type of follow up um to ask people, you know, how is the product, how is the service? Um All of those things helped create relationships and when people have relationship, uh they’re more likely uh If you make it a good relationship, a healthy relationship, people are, you know more likely to want to shop from you again, are, you know, use your services again and they’re more likely to tell other people. So that’s one part of that equation in terms of making um you know building in strategies for repeat customers. And then the other part of that equation is making sure that you have something for people to choose.
You know, what’s the what’s the next best thing um that they can come back to you for? Um And so if you make that first buying experience really well um really good then they’re likely to sort of follow um follow you through through your you know, your product line or your service line. Thank you for the answer regarding your Your career, your 17 year career. At what point would you, have you always been doing the same thing by the way or to some degree the same thing? I have not, I have um I have changed as I have needed to change, I have our pivot people like to say pivot uh as I have needed to change um as well as I’ve changed um as my knowledge based group, how long have you been coaching solo printers? So this iteration is just a little over what years is 2022?
So since 20 19? Um prior to that and even in tandem with my solo preneurs coaching, I do have um b two B clients as well. Um The other part of my background is leadership development. Uh And so I do have corporate clients as well um where I help either build leadership development programs for them and or I you know lead cohorts through some leadership development curriculum. Um So that’s one part of my business that has never changed, I’ve always done that um And then um from business to consumer side um I have a long term public health experience uh And so I actually started out in public health consulting which a lot of times includes solo preneurs as well, wanting to um you know have a public health consultant company or to be a trainer, things of that nature, so in some shape form or fashion I guess I really have been working with Solo Preneurs now, did I say that out loud um for uh you know doing all sorts of things, lots of lots of different skill sets.
The reason for the question was I wanted to ask how you implemented some of these things that you’re talking about into your own business and maybe some examples of that, so does anything spring to mind? Yes. Um So uh probably what we just talked about in terms of repeat customers. Uh And so um you know, I want to make sure that I have uh services that can follow people along their solo preneurs ship journey. Um So I have entry level um products and services, I have you know mid tier, you know products and services based on where people are in terms of profits and budget. Uh and then, you know, for those solo preneurs that are ready for um significant growth, um I have a top tier um service as well. Um So I do a lot of work to really retain um my clients as well as um encourage them to refer other people to me, so that does work really well.
Um I’m also pretty big on messaging and so those um those content topics where we talk about messaging, we talked about creating captions and hooks and really getting people’s attention. Um Those are things that are not only teach, but those are things that I also conduct them for those that haven’t heard the term or don’t know what it is from a marketing perspective. How do you define a hook? And what does that mean? So a hook is a way to really hook somebody’s attention, whether it is if you are doing a um a social media real or social media post or if you’re going live and you’re needing to put a title in for what your live topic is or even if you’re naming a particular product, um you want to create curiosity um so that people a if you can do it if you can do it really well, I hope you don’t if you can do it really well.
Um then um the hook is going to speak directly to your ideal customer, it’s going to cause them to stop the scroll and want to read more or want to come, you know, participate in the live or to click that little Seymour where it expands and you can see more of the caption um or to watch the real uh so a really good hook is going to stop the scroll and get people to read more, whether it’s your social media, post your paid advertisement, um you know, attend your live or watch your Youtube video, thank you for the answer. I guess the only thing I’d add, I’m not going to say, okay, let’s give us a give us a good example Andrea um what I would say is that there’s a there’s a a proper way of doing it, which is the, a genuine way of getting someone’s attention who’s a good prospect for you, and then there’s the new term which is essentially Clickbait, which is um here’s something that you might like, and when you actually click, there’s actually nothing to do with that.
So um any any thoughts that springs to mind there. Um so I absolutely deplore, you know, inauthenticity, I like um I actually believe that functioning that way in your business. Um not even from, you know, a customer perspective, but um from just like an energetic perspective, I think when you put your business together and you lead your business um with things that are inauthentic, um I think you’re gonna have a really hard time uh in business. Um and so I think at the end of the day it’s important to be able to be honest truthful excited um passionate about your business and when you have those things going for you, I think in my opinion, I think it’s hard to lead with um things that are half truths or things that are not true at all.
Um I can’t imagine being passionate the way that I am about my business, about my clients and on top of that, using things that are inauthentic and being successful, I don’t see how that it may work temporarily. Um but for long term success for, you know, great profit margins and good revenue, I don’t see how that can, can serve somebody long term, maybe great answer deserves a clap. It’s an applause, You mentioned leadership and you said that you’ve got leadership development in your um in your experience, um can you just sort of give a definition or your thoughts about what what leadership development is? So one of the things that I usually start with when we talk about um leadership development or um working with clients or developing some type of curriculum is around emotional intelligence.
Uh and you know, emotional intelligence means that you are attuned to your own thoughts, projections, presence attitude, etcetera. So, first you’re, you know really attuned to your own stuff. Uh and you’re attuned to how your own, you know, stuff impacts other people. Um and so that’s one of the key components of emotional intelligence um that really does make a difference. Uh and then once you sort of have this ability to be more self aware, the second part of that is learning how to manage um those things. And so even when you know, you may be having a rough morning or maybe a really not so great, you know, decision has been made and you have to carry it out whether you are a formal leader or informal leader, you know, we have a responsibility to manage how we present that to the world um so that we can, you know, certainly collaborate alongside people, motivate and inspire people to help us get things done even in tough times.
Um and then you also have to have an awareness of other people’s stuff, especially as a leader, you want to make sure, you know, have somebody come into the office whether that’s virtual or um or in person and they seem a little bit different, you know, like you want to be, you want to be intentionally paying attention to your colleagues um to your direct reports if you’re in a formal leadership position. Um and checking on people asking questions those types of things make a difference in how people show up. Um and the quality of work that they provide as well as in relationship. So emotional intelligence for me is key. Um and you know, as we work on developing our emotional intelligence are work products get better, our relationships get better um perhaps um you know, and then that can all have an impact on our body misconceptions about emotional intelligence that you that you’re aware of.
Yes. Um usually people hear the word emotion emotional emotion, uh and you know, think that first they think it’s woo. Uh and uh they also think that it has to do with um you know, being in touch with your ability to um the only word that I can think of right now is is to cry, you know, that for some reason, you know, thinking about emotions and your ability to cry or not cry um are to be soft, especially from a traditional um a male perspective. Um you know, for a lot of of of men, um that is something that is um challenging for them and to feel like, you know, that there’s no place for emotion in the workplace especially, and so when we start to talk about emotional intelligence, that’s usually the first kind of myth we have to break down, like we’re not talking about being emotional quote unquote in the workplace.
Uh and so it’s important to kind of start there based on audience. It’s sort of it’s a, it presupposes that human being sort of reduces emotions down to like what a handful, maybe less than a handful when there are actually dozens of different emotions that you could feel and to think that human beings are not emotional is a bit strikes me as a bit naive. Yeah, and I think there’s, you know, I think from a a social perspective, um, you know, for some people, uh they allow um what’s going around of course on social media or in media in general, um or even in our families really, you know, how we learn about what emotions are. Um and and the role that they play in our lives.
And too often people get only half of the story about emotions and, you know, the role that they play um in our lives, whether it’s personal or professional and that’s important about half and what’s the other half. So I think um part of it is when we, you know, talk about and think about emotions, half of the story is um, you know, to be emotional or to show emotions like for many people, um that doesn’t mean to smile, that doesn’t mean to be joyful. Um when you say the word, you know, to be emotional, people may, you know, typically think about outburst crying. Um if you think about what it may mean to overreact loud, you know, etcetera, but you don’t think about to be emotional means to be uh perhaps sorrowful, if something sad happens to be joyful, if something, you know, really great happened to be surprised those are emotions as well.
Um and then I think from um depending upon your upbringing and depending upon um your circle, Uh sometimes there’s a box that people want you to stay within as well, like you can only be this emotion 90%, of the time. And if you step outside of that box, then to be in our circle means that there’s something wrong with you or your two different to be in our circle with it as family, personal friends at work etcetera. Can I ask what your goals are, my goals? Uh This year moving forward, I have always used my business up up until this point um to supplement my income, I’ve had my business part time, I’ve had my business full time depending upon what was going on.
Um But as a single mom raising two awesome young men, I’ve always really taken whatever business profits I had, and you know, used it for them really to be able to play basketball. Um They traveled to play basketball, they had trainers, they had coaches, um all in an effort that they could um go to college for free. And so my oldest son who is now 27, um of course, he finished college um four years ago um finished on a full athletic and academic scholarship. Uh And um it’s now, you know, having a great career career at Fidelity, and my youngest son is a freshman this year, um and he’s on a full athletic and academic scholarship as well.
And so now that I don’t necessarily have to take my profits and buy lots of airplane tickets and lots of hotels and lots of trainers and coaches. I really can um, grow my business. Uh, and so perhaps, you know, I will not be a solo preneurs your for much longer. Um, I’ll be able to grow my revenue, grow my profits, um, grow my reach, uh, and grow my impact. Uh, and so that I’m able to help more people and, and that’s as clients and customers and also through giving, well, congratulations to you. Virtual High five for being a great mom. Okay. Is there anything I should have asked you about today? I don’t think so. I love this conversation. And can I just like pat myself on the back, I did this interview without any coffee And it’s seven a.m. over here.
So, and I love coffee. So, um, I feel like I did okay. I feel like I did a really good job. Um, I love this conversation. I love your questions. Um, they caused me to think, uh, and I love that I’m a thinker. Uh, and so anytime I get to think through things and it’s not on autopilot, you know, I appreciate that. I think you did great. I appreciate it if you want another, another thoughtful one. Um, would you say that you’re successful. Yes, absolutely. Um, when I think about why I started my business. Um, and what I just shared with you. Um, my business, being in business did exactly what I I wanted it to do um in terms of being able to support um my son’s through to their goals uh and now I am going to shift um the goals for my business for um an even bigger purpose uh and so I have confidence that um you know, because I have success in the past, so I feel pretty confident about more success coming in the future.
Well done, it reminds me of a definition I like to use for success, which is the pursuit of a worthy ideal and you’re worthy idea was to get your son’s the scholarship to go to college and you pursued that and you achieved it and you know, what other definition would you use other than that first success. So, well done for being a successful individual Andrea for people that want to connect, where do they find you? So I am at Elite Coach Andrea across all social media platforms, um primarily um use facebook and instagram I knew to Tiktok um and I hope to one of my goals is to grow my Youtube channel this year as well um but you can even, you know, google at Elite Coach Andrea on youtube and my budding channel will be there um but across all platforms at Elite Coach Andrea, okay, well, for everyone listening, please review the links in the description and Andrea thank you for being a great guest