SEO Mistakes When Hiring On Social Media w/ Erika Macauley

This transcript is machine generated and has not been edited for errors.

0:00Brittany Herzbergwe are back yet again. Of course, the simple and smart as you show. And this week we have another one of my friends, Erica McCauley. We're gonna be talking all things really like around titles and searchability of your title.

0:13And then who knows where else we're gonna go with this. So Crystal, say hi.

0:17Crystal WaddellHello.

0:18Brittany HerzbergErica. Say hi.

0:19Erika MacauleyHey.

0:21Brittany HerzbergI'm like now the director for this thing. Okay, Erica, why don't you tell the people who you are and what you do? We're just gonna jump right in with that.

0:30EmilyAll right. So like we said, I'm Erica. Hi. How's it going everybody?

0:34Emily (2): I am an O B M, which is an online business manager an integrator, which is a fancier word for an O B M sometimes and a project manager. And that's what I do. I surf six and seven figure creative entrepreneurs and I really just get in the back end of their business and whip it into shape. That's a real quick way of saying what I do.

0:54Crystal WaddellOkay, so before we hopped on here, Erica was just explaining that she lives in Canada now, but she

1:00spent some time in Bali and moved back to Canada briefly, or not briefly, but she moved back to Canada in 2020.

1:07So I just, I wanna know what was going on in Bali. So could we talk about that for a minute?

1:11Erika MacauleyYeah, sure. Yeah, actually, Bali was my last stop on about 10 years of living abroad. I had left Canada in, I think, late 2011, early 2012. I was, working a corporate job in Vancouver, bc ready for a change.

1:27And so I actually first moved to the Caribbean and worked as a scuba diving instructor for five years. I know random, I thought, I just thought it was one of those things where I just thought I'd rather look back and say, oh, well, than what if, and I just went for it and I did it and it was great.

1:44And then after that I thought, This was awesome, but now I need to make some actual money. That's not a very lucrative profession. You really do it for the love of what it is. So from there, I moved to Japan for three years and taught English in the public

2:00school system, which was another incredible experience.

2:02I went on a government exchange program called Jet, which was a lot of fun. It's still running. If people are interested in that, I encourage you to look into it. And from there, one of my friends who I actually met as a dive instructor, had started a digital marketing internship program in Bali where interns would come and do a six week bootcamp, learn everything, start to finish digital marketing, social media, s seo o paid ads, all this kind of stuff, and then we would send them out to scuba diving shops around Indonesia.

2:32And they would get dive training in exchange for them running the marketing for the shop. It was called Paradise Interns. It was an amazing company. I ran that with my friend Anna Cloth, who's an incredible marketing professional. And then I came home to Canada for six weeks in February, 2020, and we all know how that went.

2:52I'm still here. I own a house. I have a dog, and apparently this is where I live now,

2:58Brittany Herzberglike I'm here.

2:59Crystal Waddell:

3:00Wow. That is an amazing story.

3:02Erika MacauleyIt was quite a ride.

3:04Crystal WaddellFor those people who don't know. I used to be a teacher. I was a PE teacher, I'm like, oh, this sounds so interesting.

3:09My husband's still a PE teacher, so I'm like, huh, maybe he might be interested in a little jet action.

3:16Erika MacauleyThere's all kinds of opportunities out there for people who wanna, go on an exciting and adventure somewhere. That is so cool. I didn't know

3:23Brittany Herzbergany of that. That's also a really neat way that you like, went about getting your skillset set.

3:28Erika MacauleyYeah. It's, a lot of the skills that I have, the administrative and operational skills that I have now started all the way back when I was working as a corporate in securities, paralegal in that desk job that I was so eager to get out of. And then along the way in all of those jobs, even though they don't sound like what I'm doing now, there was still a lot of it involved.

3:46When I worked as a diving instructor, there was a lot of management, customer service, record keeping, that kind of stuff. Working as a teacher, I had to be super organized, super prepared, be able to think on the fly like strategy, crystal as a teacher, , you know, Krystal as a teacher, you

4:00all about that.

4:01And then with this digital marketing internship program, That kind of tied in all of the marketing and online business working remotely, that kind of stuff, which kind of all put it together in a big package that when I ended up back in Canada and found myself stuck living in my parents' basement, being like, uhoh, what am I gonna do now?

4:19I took it all and put it together and that's how I started this business that I do.

4:23Crystal WaddellSo I have a question about this marketing agency that you're a part of in Bali. How, did that concept even, come up? Are you familiar with that particular backstory of how one starts a business and has multiple locations and then creates their own marketing intern program?

4:39That's, to me is so unique and interesting.

4:42Erika MacauleyI think you would understand if you met Anna Cloth, she's a real force in nature. And she was actually working as a dive instructor for a shop in Indonesia. She ended up as the director of marketing for that shop and she had interns that she brought in and it started as

5:00that and worked so well.

5:01And, it really solidified the business concept, the use case for it. It worked. And then the program just got bigger and bigger. And by the time I got there it was huge. We had interns at like 20 or 30 shops around Indonesia. There was several co cohorts a year running. We were like just at the cusp of it, getting huge and blowing up.

5:21And this happened. But Anna, as a marketing professional did a fantastic pivot. She turned it into an online course, so we were at home in our basements, not sure what to do, and we took that entire program and put it online. And it is now the Pineapple Hustle, which is a digital marketing course you can take online and learn everything that we used to teach in the in-person bootcamp.

5:43Brittany HerzbergWow, that's so smart and so well timed. I know Crystal and I are just perpetually gonna be on this if this video ever makes it out into the universe. Just like what?

5:53Erika MacauleyYeah, it's a pretty cool story, but I have to give the props to Anna for that. That was her brainchild. I worked as the c o

6:00of the company and I was the coach for the intern's content.

6:04So I was proofreading blogs, teaching SEO o teaching a lot of like basic, English grammar and things like that, that sometimes people need reminders about. I used to work as a freelance content writer, so it was a really natural progression for me. I had a lot of background in content writing and seo, so that really worked when I came into the program, I was able to handle that side of things for them.

6:25Brittany HerzbergThat's right, because I remember one of these, one of the days, I don't know, last year, at some point Erica messaged me because you had seen, I think, an article where I was cited and I told you that I got that article feature because of haro.

6:37And you're like, oh yeah, I used to use them. And I was like, what? So yeah, I forgot. I knew like bits and pieces of your story.

6:43Erika MacauleyYeah. The, it's such a big backstory. I don't get into it too often because it's, it is interesting, when I say it out loud now I'm like, oh, wow, look. But a lot of people, they just wanna know like what I'm doing now and what do I do, but that's like the whole story of how I got all of those skills together

7:00and was able to put them into a package that made sense for a service provider.

7:05Now.

7:05Brittany HerzbergYeah.

7:07Crystal WaddellI think it makes a case for the people who know the business the best or the people who are working in it, and I think sometimes business owners forget that. Like they get a little bit hesitant or they get a little unsure or uncertain when they hear a term like s e o and they're thinking, oh, that's like outside of my. My knowledge graph or whatever, but when in fact you actually know it the best because you're in it every day and you're, you understand the processes and what it takes to make it work.

7:38So I just think that's just a really cool illustration of, why business owners could be good at seo.

7:43Brittany HerzbergSo before we forget, cuz I, I will, I did last time, although Britney still came back and answered the question. What, how do you define seo? Or what do you say when someone asks you what is seo?

7:55Erika MacauleyAs Crystal said, it can sound like a scary concept for people and they're like, oh, you have

8:00to hire a specialist and it's really hard and I don't really get what it is. It's this like concept that's out here that people don't understand. And the way that I always introduced it during this digital marketing internship bootcamp that we did is in the most simplest of terms, is.

8:16Just knowing what people are gonna type into Google to find you, that's a really great starting point. If somebody's gonna sit down, open Google and try and find you, what are they gonna say? And that's what we're gonna take and run with to make sure that they can find us. And I've found that like that simple of an explanation as let people know that it can be a very accessible and achievable thing because you're like, okay, I use Google.

8:42I know what I sit and type to find a car repair place, or somebody who can do my copywriting for me. Like I know what words I'm gonna type in there. All you gotta do is find out what everybody else is typing and go from there. Exactly.

8:56Crystal WaddellI thought it was neat that one of the terms you used to describe yourself was

9:00chaos organizer . that reminds me of SEO and keywords in general, yeah.

9:04As you start learning, like these are the words people are using or these are the words I wanna use. So how did you take that from chaos to something that is like strategic?

9:14Erika MacauleyYeah, I think really getting to know how to use tools was a big step for a lot of people in that, there's, where people I think start to get overwhelmed is when.

9:26They start Googling stuff and then going to the related search terms and they end up down this rabbit hole and they're not really getting anywhere with it. And then all of a sudden they're like, okay, now I got an Excel spreadsheet of 265 words, like what do I do next? Yeah. And I feel like that's the point where people feel like they can't get to the next step with it.

9:43And I think really getting a little bit more of an understanding of some of the SEO tools that you can use to give you insight about which ones would maybe be better to use, which ones you're more likely to rank. Like being able to look at which ones your competitors are using. I think those are

10:00really like the useful next step once you have that big Excel list and you don't know what to do with it.

10:05Brittany HerzbergYeah. Okay. So on that topic, what are some of your favorite tools?

10:10Crystal WaddellEven if you can't remember the tool, can you remember your favorite thing about the tool? Like why you used it?

10:16Erika MacauleyFor me, it's, I really like seeing the competitor information on there. I like to go the, I like working backwards.

10:23Why not go see somebody who's already doing it, see what they're doing, and figure out what they're using and work backwards from there. I think starting, and this is, applies to so many things, content writing, copywriting, lit, like mapping processes and workflows. Anything that we do in these businesses, like starting from a blank slate is so hard.

10:42Why not go look at somebody who did it? Get some inspo, we don't let's not copy people. Let's have my things off. Let's not be gross about it.

10:51Brittany HerzbergInspiration.

10:52Erika MacauleyYeah. Like use that as some, as a starting point and think, okay, this is what they're doing. This is how I

11:00could do it to be a little bit different with my unique, selling proposition or whatever I'm doing.

11:04But I think why start with a blank slate if you don't have to? That's just u use what's available to make life easier for yourself. That's what I always say.

11:13Brittany HerzbergYeah. What are some of the mistakes that you see people making? We can start there and we can work backwards from that. So what are, and what I say mistakes like with titles and things like that.

11:23Erika MacauleyYeah. I think that people get afraid to use really niche. I'm Canadian, we say niche really niche keywords and like phrases and stuff like that. Because they're afraid. Nobody's searching for that. They're not gonna find it. And they err on the side of being way too broad and then end up on page 35 of Google when somebody's looking for it.

11:48Like for example, if you're looking to hire somebody in your business and you go type in va. You know what's gonna come up? If you type VA Pro, it's probably gonna break Google like nobody's

12:00gonna find anybody just typing VA into that. But if you're looking for a podcast editing va, let's say somebody who's gonna work remotely, but edit your podcast for you.

12:12Why not use that phrase right? That's gonna lead you to the person who's actually doing that instead of the social media manager, va, or the content manager, va. So I think getting more specific is what I'd love to see people doing. Where I see people going wrong is just going way too broad and crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

12:33Crystal WaddellLike we were discussing a little bit ago, I've been doing a lot of research into UX design, and my specialty would really largely lie in UX research more than like the actual design process.

12:47Because that's just not, I'm not as strong there. But if I were to say, offer that as a service to other business owners to help them, what do you think, like position-wise I should do in terms of

13:00keywords and, just positioning those keywords?

13:02Erika MacauleyI love that question and I think that really highlights the need for or the importance of doing research because while we know a lot of, like some super niche industry specific terms, we have to balance that with.

13:18Does your audience know that? Yeah. Are the people who are gonna hire you No. To type in UX researcher or is that even a term that they've heard of before?

13:27Even if we're gonna, brand ourselves on our site as a UX researcher, knowing what words people are gonna use to try and find you is important as everybody here knows, to be working into the copy, to be working into the meta-description, getting it in page titles and stuff like that, so that it's easier for people to find you.

13:46So that even if you're like, hello, I'm UX researcher, the words people are actually gonna be searching to find you are also gonna be appearing in there. So that you'll come up in those results and then they'll get to your site and say, oh, crystal, okay, I need Crystal and I guess what I

14:00need is a UX researcher.

14:01But they might not necessarily use those terms to get there. So finding that out first I think is a really key first step.

14:08Brittany HerzbergYeah, that's a good one.

14:09Crystal WaddellI love that. And it aligns with this concept of ux, where there's lots of companies, especially ones that are getting millions of dollars invested in their product, where they're, creating the product.

14:20And it's what have your users said or what have, what's your potential audience said about this particular product? And they're like we just know they're gonna love it oh yeah.

14:27Brittany HerzbergDo you,

14:28Crystal Waddelland it's you know what, but what if they don't, what if they don't? If if they don't, then you have just wasted so much time and money and effort in creating something that no one wants.

14:39Erika MacauleyI think it's a, it's the, it has to be the first step.

14:42Like I can give you an example of a huge mistake I made with my own site. When I finally got, professional copywriter, I got a professional designer. I got this fancy new site. And what I ended up doing is I, my copywriter came up with a brilliant name for my v i p days. They're called

15:00integrator intensives, which I thought was like perfect for that.

15:03That's all I put on the page. And nobody's going to search for it integrator intensive because they don't know that's my v i p day. They don't know what that means until they land on the page and see what it is. But nobody's out there searching that because my brilliant copywriter made it up.

15:19That's where it came from. And I was like, why is nobody getting to this page? That's not what they're searching. They're searching for like v i p day with O B M or something like that. So that was a huge mistake that I made right off the bat, like thinking oh, I've got this like cool page and I've got this cool name, like this is the best.

15:35Then not really thinking about what would my clients type into Google to find that, because I know that they're not gonna type the words integrator intensive cause they don't know what that is.

15:45Brittany HerzbergGreat. And that's really similar to what I did. Two different things. One is like I named my massage therapist marketing program be social cuz I thought it was cute and clever and I was like, this is great.

15:56No one's looking for that. They're looking for Instagram marketing course for massage

16:00therapist. And then I would show up. So that was like my oopsie. But then my win was recently, I actually wrote website copy for my dad and he sells window replacement replacement windows in Raleigh, North Carolina.

16:12And I wrote the copy, did the SEO strategy, but then he was working with another company that actually brought this website to life. No. So mind you, they've worked with other companies, they've have their process, whatever. His website was performing better, faster, and they were like, I don't understand what's going on.

16:29And I was like, dad, can I tell him, can I tell him now? So that's why I love bringing SEO and copywriting together, cuz I think that it really does give your words a strategy on your website.

16:37Crystal WaddellAnd if you need help with keywords, and let's say you're not comfortable using tools yet and you're just trying to get started, the way that I really started researching keywords with SEO was just asking my husband, who is not a computer guy, like he's, yeah, he knows how to use Google to search for stuff that he's looking for, YouTube or whatever.

16:57But I'm like, what words do you think somebody would

17:00use? Or what would you use to find this thing? And I just typed him down, or typed into my computer and then tried to categorize them into lists, or whatever related words. But that was the way that we got started, and it was actually pretty effective.

17:15Erika MacauleyIn the course that I taught, I used to tell people, if you don't know where to start, ask your mom what she'd put.

17:20Brittany HerzbergYeah. It's so true.

17:23Erika MacauleyBecause that'll give you, for most of us, that'll give you the like, basic starting point of what somebody who's not familiar with any of that stuff would be typing in.

17:32And I also, something that I used, that whole time that I was living abroad, I kept a expat blog, it was like the heyday of blogging. So I kept a blog that whole time, and something that really gave me good insight as a starting point was just looking in the backend of my WordPress site and seeing what terms people were searching and landing on my site.

17:52So without using any other, fancy tools, without really doing any research, I could just log into the backend of WordPress and see what words

18:00people were ending up on my site after searching. And I, that was a really helpful starting point for me with a site like that.

18:07Crystal WaddellYeah. And now there's tools like Google Search Console, which is free, that does the same thing, so I've I've been keeping track of a couple clients with their Google Analytics and their Google search console results, and I was just going over that with one today. And so we were just talking about it and asking ourselves questions, and thinking why is this word coming up now?

18:29And, how can we prepare for next year? Because that's the other thing is a lot of this data, it only helps you look backwards, it can help you strategize for the future, but it cannot guarantee future results because we don't know what's gonna happen 11 months from now. Look at the last few years. I just thought that was really in, important to talk about. And then also this idea that just because you have a website or just because you have a website designer and beautiful images and just this amazing website, an amazing copywriter,

19:00whatever, if you don't do the work of seo, it doesn't matter.

19:06And I think so many people are distracted by the visuals and just the actual infrastructure of having that set up. Like I'm checking off the box, I got an Instagram account, I'm checking off the box. I have a website, I'm checking off the box. I got an email address. It's okay.

19:24Those things are important, but what's more important is having a plan for how you're going to use them to grow your business. And I feel like the biggest mindset shift I had to get over when I was first thinking about s e o was the fact that my website didn't come with s e o built in. There was no magic formula to find these special words that people were using to find the product I sold and they weren't hiding anywhere on the site. I had to physically do it myself or hire someone to do it. But those things don't just exist because you buy a domain name.

19:57Erika MacauleyYeah. And I think people can, they

20:00can sometimes feel overwhelmed, like we talked about, and it feels very techy for them.

20:04A really easy place to start if you're a service provider, like SEO is not just for your website. Like when I'm trying to find hiring projects for clients and when I'm trying to find somebody for those often, the first place I start is Instagram. Like putting the right words in your Instagram title and bio.

20:22I can find you on there. But what I see, especially on Instagram, is either people, they're just following the formula. I help six and seven figure service providers get more time back. Okay. That's not what I'm searching. I'm searching online business manager, or I'm searching project manager, or I'm searching Kajabi expert, or I'm searching, podcast manager.

20:43And I think there's a huge missed opportunity on Instagram that people are not taking advantage of that because I look for people all the time on there. If I have a client who comes to me and they're like, I need a Kartra va. I need somebody who knows how to use Kartra backwards and forwards.

20:57The first place I'm gonna go search

21:00is Instagram. And if people don't have that in their title or their bio, they're not gonna come up for me. And it might be something they're really great at, but people either don't have it or they use some kind of w they'll, they won't say launch email copywriter.

21:14They'll say S like making your email snazzy. No, that's not what I'm typing into the search bar when I'm trying to find a launch email copywriter.

21:22You've gotta say what you do.

21:25Brittany HerzbergYeah, you do.

21:25So if you have ever seen my profile or like this video again, if it makes it out there, I have curly hair. I have never really had a curly hair cut. We need some help over here. So recently we were looking,, where can we go get our haircut?

21:39So I was like, I'm gonna find myself a curly hair specialist, so I'm really crossing my fingers. This works out well. But that's exactly what I did. I went to Instagram. I'm looking at the bio, I'm looking at what she's got written in there or just anybody what they've got written in there.

21:51And I was looking specifically for like curly hair specialists. So that was one thing I wanted to touch on. And then a couple other things.

21:57Going back to what you said Crystal, about like how you were talking

22:00with John or Erica, how you were like, just ask your mom what she would type.

22:03That is largely how I started getting into social proof because I would go to my clients and see okay, what did they already tell me? Or if I go ask them a question what do they tell me back at that point?

22:15So testimonials are huge. Social proof is huge. Talking to people, whether it's your husband, your mom, like one of your clients, a stranger.

22:21That's big. And then the last thing was that yeah, like your website doesn't come pre-packaged with an SEO strategy, which I totally thought that it did.

22:30And y once you start putting stuff out there, what I realized is you're gonna be like, a strategy will be provided for you once you start planning words out there.

22:39I was showing up really heavily for a certain keyword that I don't even wanna say anymore cuz it's related to massage. And I'm trying to focus on copywriting, but I was showing up for this one key phrase and I had to really ask myself like, is that something that I wanna lean into or do I need to, shift away from it?

22:55So just a few little loose ends that I had thought of that I'm wanted to tie off.

23:01Crystal WaddellOkay. So let's say someone comes to you for your services. What do you do for them in a v i p day?

23:09Erika MacauleySo for v i P days, mine are fairly flexible because I find that the people who are coming to me for those are somebody who's not quite ready for a retainer online business manager.

23:19They don't need somebody long term. They just have something that's not working for them and they want an expert to come help them fix it. So I've done everything in those from a business audit to Getting them prepped for hiring and onboarding a team member and getting a complete hiring and onboarding workflow built out for them in their project management tools.

23:39Some of them don't have a project management tool and we build one. So they've been, they've been a lot of different things because I try to be flexible with them. I know that people sometimes, first of all, don't know exactly what they're looking for. They just know that they have these frustrations and they just want somebody else to take it off their plate.

23:56So those are the most common things that I've done in them.

23:59What I'm

24:00seeing a lot more now is people interested in a shorter version of that. So I do 90 minute strategy calls and I'm finding that's everybody wants this, like really quick low stakes win right now.

24:12They just want to pick an expert sprain, get the answers that they need and get out the door.

24:17And that seems to be really what a lot of business owners are looking for, especially when they don't have those permanent members on a team yet to.

24:25To give them that strategy and advice like that. It's like an easy, as I said, like low stakes way.

24:31I don't know where this started, but it seems like a lot of people feel like to build a team, they've gotta hire someone permanently or long-term or full-time or something like that.

24:42And there's just so many options out there. If that's not the right move, you can hire somebody on a project basis for a v i p day for a strategy call for all kinds of stuff.

24:53So I like, on every single podcast I go on to put my message out into the world that if you

25:00wanna hire somebody, they do not have to be a permanent full-time hire.

25:03Whichever coach is out there saying this, quit it.

25:05Crystal WaddellI think what gets confusing is because in the online space, there's a lot of influencers who take up most of the space, and so if you come in as an online business owner and you're looking for advice, the people who have most of the ad dollars are gonna get in front of you.

25:21And it may not be a good fit for your business, but you don't know because you haven't been doing this long enough to really understand what direction you should go or what you actually need.

25:32And I remember about a couple years ago, everybody was talking about how you had to have a va.

25:38You have to have a VA and you have to give away these tedious tasks or these tasks that you shouldn't be doing.

25:44So it frees you up to work in your Arizona genius and blah, blah, blah. And so I was like, yeah, oh, I do that. And then I forgot, like usual, like butterfly flue. But then this girl reached out to me on Facebook and said, Hey, I, I'd like to be your va.

25:56And I'm like, yeah, I need a va. I forgot about that. Yeah, you

26:00can be my va. But I had no strategy. I had no plan. I didn't know what I was gonna give her. I had no workflows.

26:05It was just such a mess because it's like, these things are out of order, so what advice would you give for the business owner that's ooh, that, that kind of sounds familiar.

26:17How would you help them get back in the right order?

26:21Erika MacauleyOh, let me, lemme go to town on that question. This is my favorite question. Okay. First thing is exactly what you've just said. It is like these coaches are very big on just get a va, but then they don't tell you what to do when the VA gets there.

26:37And that's the whole part of how it works, is you have to know what to do when they get there. And before even that, like this whole just just get a va. Okay. What even is that, what is that person gonna do in your business? I think that, I personally think it's a very outdated term.

26:53That's the term I used when I started my first like freelance business in 2010. VA for me,

27:00virtual assisting as an industry. It's support team members who are remote workers who are gonna work online in your business, where wherever your business is, brick and mortar, maybe it's online, but they're gonna work remotely.

27:11So as far as I'm concerned, VA's an industry is not a job title. Because it really means like we don't, what doesn't mean none of us know, right? Nobody else does either.

27:20In a new business owner doesn't, definitely doesn't know what is a VA and what are they gonna do in my business. So I think really what I encourage new business owners to do is to think about what is gonna move the needle in their business and.

27:38Is that something that they, as the business owner, the person with special sauce needs to be doing? So if you're like, oh my God, making YouTube videos takes all my time. It's so much work. I gotta set up the light. I'm recording for hours. Okay. But if that's what makes you money, like a VA's not gonna come in and record a video for you, right?

27:57Like you're the, you're selling you gotta be on the camera.

28:00But if you're like, I'm on YouTube all day, I love doing this. I'm doing the editing myself. I like doing the recording. I like setting my lights up. I like writing my scripts, but all these emails in my inbox are going unanswered. And clients who are reaching out to me are not getting responded to.

28:16Maybe you're looking for an administrative assistant, maybe you're looking for an executive assistant to help with that kind of stuff. Or if you're like, I'm doing my thing I'm a copywriter and I love writing this copy and stuff, I don't like, I don't have time for marketing. That's not. The place where I want to be.

28:31Maybe you're looking for a marketing va. Maybe you're looking for a social media manager, right?

28:34This big catchall VA term really just gets people having coming into their business, nobody knows what to do because nobody's a specialist in anything. They end up not knowing what to give them, and they're like, do they do this?

28:48Do they not do this? What can they help me with? It's very confusing, if you hire a podcast editor, virtual assistant, like you can tag that onto the back after you say what it is. Like a podcast editor,

29:00virtual assistant, you're gonna give them the podcast editing tasks. They know that, you know that.

29:04Easy peasy, let's go to town and do some stuff and make some money. But if you're like, I'm a va. Okay, awesome. What do they do? And then you're like, you start holding back, right? You're like, I'm not sure if I should give them the social media stuff, or will they book my travel for me when I'm gonna go to this conference?

29:21Is that something they do? It's just this wildly undefined scope. And I think that doesn't set business owners up for success because they're spending too much time thinking about what do I give them and how do I give it to them? And all this kind of stuff. And having a more defined role is gonna be easier to know exactly what goes to them and what they know how to do.

29:43Crystal WaddellAnd I find it that it probably also eases that feeling of resentment. Yeah. Because I don't know if you guys have ever felt that, but I've noticed, like in retrospect, looking back, there's been two major times I felt resentment in my business. Maybe three, but I'm not gonna include the family stuff right now.

30:00Let me include the family stuff. Let me start there. Okay. So let me just say I have all these wooden letters around that I need to pack up and ship, and John is playing with my son Asher, which I appreciate, but I'm like, I need some help over here and I'm the only one that can do this.

30:14Why don't you come over here and help me? And I'm thinking this in my head. But I don't say it out loud. So I'm starting to resent him for not reading my mind and coming over here and helping me, and also playing with Asher at the same time. There's the first one. The second one is resentment of clients.

30:30I don't know if you guys ever been here, but it's oh, I took on this project and it's way more than I thought it was gonna be. Or, I am a maker and I'm working on a project, but now I have 50 of these and there's just not enough of me to get all these done. So now I'm resenting 50 people, and then the third one was the resenting, like an employee or a contractor or whatever, because it's look, I'm paying you, maybe we have a

31:00retainer, maybe it's an hourly fee, but if I have to spend more time, training you for. Three months or more time fixing what you give me, rather than just being able to take it and run with it.

31:11Now I'm resenting you as an employee. So I thought a lot of those things all three of 'em. All three of 'em, I just want you to know I own that. Those were my, that was my fault, right? Because number one, I sh if I need help, I have to express it. I have to verbally tell somebody that I need help.

31:28The second thing, I raise my prices. Anytime I start to feel any kind of resentful about what's going on, like I have to choose this work or I have to choose my life.

31:40I have to start selling it for more so I can get more of my time back, and that's been a really great strategy for me as a maker.

31:47And then the third thing is where you come in and all the things that you just said, you have to have specific tasks in mind. And I love how you said, You can't outsource yourself. You can't outsource

32:00what you do. And just being able to recognize that, I think that's a really important, mindset shift to make and just to realize, okay, these are the things that I absolutely have to do.

32:10So is there a place someone else can help me?

32:13Erika MacauleyYeah. CEOs trying to outsource CEO tasks to me is a huge red flag. It tells me that they're super burnt out. They don't wanna do anything in their own business anymore, and they're trying to fob everything off. Onto contractors and team members and they don't wanna do any of it anymore.

32:29That they don't even wanna do the things that they're supposed to be doing as a ceo, the revenue generating activities, the thing that makes them unique and special, that thing that they do that makes them money they get to a point where they're just trying to outsource everything.

32:43And that's, they're like, I'm gonna grow and scale and just give everything to the team. At the end of the day, if you give everything to your. It is your team's business, you're not doing anything anymore. So for anybody who's feeling at that point, I would say time for a

32:58check-in with yourself, you are likely

33:00experiencing burnout.

33:01And even if you have all these great team members, you've hired your podcast editing va, you've got your executive assistant helping you, you've got an online business manager helping you rent stuff in your business, you still have to lead it. You still have to be the person who does the thing that you do.

33:18And you've gotta be, at the end of the day, the buck stops with you as the ceo. So you can't out. I know some people would love to, but you can't outsource everything. But there're definitely things you can outsource and that's the kind of stuff you need to identify before you ever go looking for anyone.

33:34If I had a dollar for every time I saw a post in a VA group that said, need a VA 10 hours a week, $20 an hour, DM me. Are you kidding me?

33:45Like to me that just says somebody who has, that's gonna be a disaster start to finish.

33:50Like you need to be able to tell people, and even if you don't know what that specific term is that you're looking for someone to do, if you know what the

34:00collection of tasks you want them to handle are gonna be, people will use that to identify and self vett and decide, this looks like a list of executive assistant tasks, or, I'm a social media manager and this matches with the service that I offer.

34:14You gotta say something about what you need to know, what you want them to do before you can bring them in. Because if, for these execution level team members, so not a management team level like an O B M or a project manager, you don't have to tell me what to do.

34:27I know what to do when I come in. But an execution level team member da va. They need direction from you. They need instructions. They need guidance. They need your definition of done for the tasks.

34:41They need to know where the resources are to go find the stuff, to do the task. And if you're already so overwhelmed and not prepared to do that, you are not ready to bring them into your business.

34:51You've gotta have that ready first before you can bring somebody in to help you. Cuz bringing them into chaos, I'm telling you right now, is just gonna

35:00add more chaos. It does not take it away at all.

35:02Brittany HerzbergYeah, exactly. And I just recently, like in the last couple weeks, found someone and linked up with her and we're ready to go.

35:08And she's starting this week. And even now as you're saying these things, I'm like, what would we call her? What does she consider herself? Because honestly, she was working with another friend, this other friend, and I have like very similar. Ideas of what we want our businesses to look like.

35:21Like we don't wanna build out and have agencies. I just want me and like some support people. And I did not even entertain the idea.

35:29Like I remember when Crystal hired her va, I was like, cool, if I had one, what would I do? I don't know. I feel like I should be able to answer that question.

35:37So I held off and like here I am, I started my, massage business back in 2015.

35:42But I haven't had any help up until now. I've hired off like a couple projects here and there, but I haven't had any consistent help. So I had started, making a list of okay, this is time, sucking my time and I'm not enjoying it.

35:53This is something I could hand off. I have a workflow for it, and just kept going down the list and eventually this

36:00woman had an opening and I was like, sweet, can I can we work together?

36:04But I wanna go back to her now and ask her how she would answer this. Cuz I'm very curious cuz I just went based on the person and the experience that my friend had with her.

36:12Crystal WaddellYeah, so I love that. I love what you're saying, in terms of building out the workflow before you hire somebody, and then I just absolutely love too.

36:20What Erica, what you said about this is the definition of done.

36:24Yeah.

36:24So that both people are clear. I think so many times, just like with s e o we feel like we know the what the thing is.

36:31We call it that internal language or whatever. But it's is the definition of done the same for you and for the person helping you?

36:42And if it's not, it's wow, think about the conflict that could be avoided there, just by simply having a definition of what done looks like.

36:50Yeah.

36:50Erika MacauleyIt's a huge part of, I think, something that people don't hear enough of.

36:55Delegation is a skill and it's something that needs to be, it's a craft that

37:00you hone, like you're not born innately being a great delegator.

37:03Most people. So something that I'm often in my role coaching CEOs on is better delegation.

37:10And that's a massive part of it is if you can't articulate what your expectation is for the end result of that, it is very unlikely your team member can meet that and that's not their fault.

37:24If they're not given what the end result should look like. Whatever they come up with is then correct because you haven't given them any guidelines of what your expectation of what that looks like.

37:35And I think really being able to articulate that for the tasks in your business that you want to hand off is a huge first step. If you can say this is what a finished client report looks like.

37:48It has this section looks like this. This is where these numbers come from, and it gets sent out before 9:00 AM on Tuesday.

37:55That's a very clear definition of done. Either that happened or it didn't. Either it looked like that or

38:00it didn't.

38:00But if you're like, yeah, just put some stuff together and try and send it out when you have a minute, you know there's gonna be a problem there.

38:08Crystal WaddellYeah, and I think this goes back to what you

38:10said in the very, very beginning about starting from somewhere, rather than starting from like a blank screen, just simply handing somebody an example and saying, this is an example of what I expect.

38:22That just, again, I feel like that eliminates probably 99% of any communication issues.

38:29Brittany HerzbergI feel like I have my marching orders, I'm like, all right, gotta figure out what her title is.

38:32Gotta keep on like keeping a list of things. No, this is great. And I, I. I really struggled with it for a long time because I am not good at asking for help.

38:40I'm not good at delegating. I'm getting better.

38:42It's a skill. I'm like starting to exercise, but it wasn't there for a long time. It was just like, yeah, pile it on. It's fine. There's room on the plate. I can get another plate. This is cool. At some point

38:52you have to ask for help. Like you have a certain capacity and that's normal. That's to be expected.

38:57You're a human. So this is really helpful, I

39:00think, for anyone who's listening and is maybe this is like something that I need to start considering.

39:05Crystal WaddellYeah. Or just how to fix myself, because really, I think that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this. Yeah. Because it's Hey, we are branching off by ourself to have our own thing.

39:16And maybe there were some things that we didn't like back in the old life, in terms of rules and hierarchies or whatever. But we have to have some version of that. Like we start, it's like a maturity thing. You start to realize oh, some of these rules that my parents set for me, in my teenage years were actually for my good, to help me survive and be able to live the rest of my life.

39:36I am just loving the fact that there's still solutions here. Like you can learn how to delegate, cuz I, one last example for me, that's how horrible I am. I'm the type of person that rather than have a conflict with someone in the past, like a virtual assistant that had no real job title.

39:53Rather than say, Hey, this is what I really expect because. I didn't really know what I

40:00expected. Rather than say this is what I expect, I would just fix it. I would just take what was done and either do it over or add to it until it met my expectation.

40:09But that's not efficient.

40:12At the very least, it's not efficient, and you could call it a whole bunch of other things on top of that.

40:17I just, I really appreciate this conversation because it just helps shore up some of those deficiencies that we might have as business leaders.

40:25That those job responsibilities that go beyond just being an entrepreneur.

40:30Erika MacauleyYeah. It's a big responsibility to bring on a team member.

40:34And I think people. Especially recently, I felt a little, it's a very flippant attitude that's just go get a VA thing. These are people who are trying to pay their bills Yeah. And who are eager to do good work for you and support you in your business, but it's a two-way street, right?

40:50You have to be prepared to know what you want, to be able to ask for it, to give them a solid onboarding and introduction to your business.

40:58And, even if you're not

41:00great at delegating, to be having good check-ins with them and being able to be very honest and actively seek honest feedback too.

41:07There's a power dynamic at play when you're paying somebody else's invoices. So the, they don't always feel comfortable to tell you, out of the blue Hey, it would actually help me do a lot better work here if you would gimme the link to this before you asked for it, or whatever the thing is.

41:22Yeah. But I also think a lot of business owners beat themselves up about it, but it's just because. It's new to them and they're not used to it.

41:29And my advice for that would be if you're brand new and you're getting your first team member and you're not super confident or sure, I would hire the team member with the most amount of experience that you can afford, even if it's for less hours, because they're gonna know what to do.

41:49They're gonna be able to offer you guidance and teach you how to work with a team member like this because they've done it in a lot of places before and they have a lot of experience and they very likely can get more

42:00done in that fewer amount of hours than somebody who doesn't really know what they're doing, but you're like, oh yeah, I'm paying someone $9 an hour.

42:07Good for me.

42:07Like it's, I got 'em for 35 hours a week, but I'm spending 28 of them redoing their work. You know what I mean?

42:15So if you're new to it, that's what I would recommend. Go with whoever you can afford for the amount of hours that you can get with them so that you get the benefit of their experience and they can kind help train you because it is a training process, learning how to work with a team member.

42:31And if you hire somebody with experience who knows what they're doing, who's done this before, who's been around the block with the whole support team member thing, they're gonna be able to give you a bigger bang for your buck than being like, ah, I got my 35 hour a week, $10 va look at me.

42:45But they're sitting there because you don't know how to delegate anything to them. And everything you give them, they're doing it wrong.

42:51Brittany HerzbergExactly. And that's what you said on, I think it might have actually been Rick Moretti's podcast where you were talking about this exact thing and I was like,

42:58Erika MacauleyI say this everywhere.

42:59Anyone

43:00will let me say it.

43:01Brittany HerzbergReally that stuck in my head and I was like, That's a really good point. So when I, started opening up myself up to okay, I need to look for some help, that was totally, I didn't care what the hourly rate was that she said, I was like, I know you're gonna do good work.

43:13I know you've helped my friend with some of the exact same tasks that I need help with and can you train newbies? And she's yeah, actually like this is part of my thing.

43:21I'm like, perfect cuz I get that because I trained my trained air quotes, my massage therapist. They would come in, they've never been to any other massage therapist.

43:30I'm like, cool. I get to tell you tell you, I get to show you what this should look like. I get to set expectations.

43:35I get to let you know what's normal, what's not normal. I'm like guiding them through this thing. So I explained that to her and she's oh yeah, like I got you. Like this is totally what I do.

43:43So that's exactly what I was looking for. I'm new. Tell me where the like bumpers are.

43:48Help me figure this thing out. I'm not gonna, I like setting people up for success and I think that was a big reason why I held off for so long because I knew that so much of this stuff was still in between my ears and it wasn't out

44:00on paper or, something that I could explain.

44:02And I knew that wasn't gonna help set someone else up for success. So listen to what Erica said. Go back and rewind it to what she just said.

44:09Crystal WaddellOkay. So I have one final question. I think cuz it, wow, this is a great, a long, great episode.

44:15But you talked about when you go to look for your clients because it sounds as an om one of your job responsibilities is to fill these support roles for your clients.

44:24Do you use other social media sites or anything like that kind of as search engines like you do with Instagram and part two? What would a great bio look like, not just. This is what I do. But what do you love about a bio when you're like, this is gonna be a great fit for my client.

44:41Erika MacauleyI wanna talk about the bio first because this is where I think people can really get the most bang for their buck and I can get what I need.

44:49So as I mentioned, if you wanna put your like cutesy thing that you made up on it, great.

44:55But also put what you actually do so that when I search that thing, it's gonna come

45:00up. If you have a business Instagram, please have a link to something.

45:07Put a link to a link tree, put a link to your website, put a link to your services guide.

45:12Cause if I find you and you're like, Kartra va, and I'm like, perfect, and I'm looking for a Kartra va, and then I message you and it goes into your request folder that you never check and there's no other way for me to find you or get ahold of you.

45:23When I'm running hiring projects for people, like I don't have time to go search you on the internet and try and find something that way and find your email address like, Give me the email button.

45:32Gimme a way to talk to you.

45:35Another place that's an emerging search engine that I really want people to be aware of is TikTok.

45:41Especially like I'm a millennial, but especially like Gen Z, they are using TikTok like a search engine and people are sleeping on it.

45:50That is a place where if you have that, it's worth focusing some effort because I've found people through searching on TikTok and that's like Gen Z is using TikTok,

46:00like Google.

46:00I don't know if anybody's noticed that. But it's, that's what they're doing. They're searching on TikTok first because they're like, I don't want whatever Google's gonna feed me when I type this in.

46:08I wanna see a first person account, which is why they're using that. And then from there, I don't do a ton of searching.

46:16I'm mostly posting and hoping people will find my posts. So I do a lot of posting in like Facebook groups where support team members are looking for work.

46:25I submit to like requests for proposals for OBM organizations and stuff like that. But when I post my job, you're never gonna see looking for a VA 10 hours a week.

46:3620 bucks an hour, maybe I'll put the time zone. No. Like my job descriptions are like this long, but it helps people who are searching for stuff in the Facebook group, right?

46:46You can use the hashtags of like job op and stuff like that. And then I'm really clear about the job title, who I'm looking for, responsibilities, tech stack pay.

46:56I always put the pay in it. That's my other soapbox point, put the

47:00pay. On your job descriptions. Okay. Set it.

47:02But I put a lot of information like the tech stack, like the role, like the responsibilities, a really clear title because the best way to get good people to apply for your role is to be explicitly clear about what you want from them and what the role entails.

47:22Because self vetting for people at that stage, for candidates at that stage is gonna save you days of reviewing these applications.

47:32The more clear you can be in that job description, the better applicants, the better matched applicants are gonna apply for that job.

47:38So I like to put as much as I can into it so it's easy for people to find when they're searching, stuff like that.

47:44But yeah, as far as like just me actively going out to look, I do a lot of Instagram and some TikTok now.

47:52Brittany HerzbergI love that cuz that's definitely what I do. And if anybody is listening, I know we have a whole episode on the, Instagram and using it.

47:58But for

48:00simplicity's sake, the bold text is really what you need to do some work for you.

48:06So it's really not the best place to put, like Britney copywriter, like that's where I put SEO and case study copywriter. And I've even had people say, Hey, I found you because I searched for case study copywriter. It's what? Really? This worked? Yes, it works.

48:21Erika MacauleyIt works. Everybody go change the bold text right now.

48:24If you got something weird in there.

48:25Go put something that actually says what you do and put the weird thing in the non bold text underneath. I'm not saying get rid of it, just saying put in a it, put it in the right spot so I can find you. I

48:34wanna give you a job. If you're looking for work, I wanna give you a job.

48:37I have people hiring me to run hiring projects all the time. I wanna give you work, but I need to be able to find you.

48:44Brittany HerzbergYes. Totally support that. Okay, so after that epic mic drop, where can people go find you and connect with you if they're like, obsessed with you as much as I am and now they're like, I wanna talk to you.

48:56Erika MacauleyYeah you can find me on Instagram. I'm on there with a

49:00normal title in my bio. My Instagram is erica underscore McAuley.

49:04It's e r i k a, underscore m a c a u l e y.

49:09You can find me on my website over@ericamccauley.com.

49:13I've got all kinds of stuff on there. If you're a new business owner, I've got a lot of free blog posts you can read about hiring support team members who to hire first, who does what, what the heck is an O B M.

49:25Anyways, all that kind of info is all over there. So that's, those are the two places you can find me.

49:30Brittany HerzbergI'm so happy. Thank you so much for being on with us. This was really like a crystal said like this was totally a great conversation. We could probably keep talking to you.

49:37Erika MacauleyOh, people have to cut me off this, I would go on forever.

49:40Crystal WaddellYeah, thank you for being so gracious in your answers and definitely appreciate all of the shares that you gave today cuz it was so helpful.

49:48Erika MacauleyAbsolutely. And if you are a business owner who is still I really don't know who does what here, and I am new to all this, where do I start?

49:56I've got free hiring cheat sheets that people can access.

50:00If you go to erica mccauley.com/hello for the low price of getting on my email list, you can get access to those, which has some more explanation about who does what.

50:11And I talked a little bit before about the difference between the execution level team members and management level team members.

50:17I've got some links for where you can go to find people and I've got a full job description.

50:22Like we said, we don't wanna start from scratch.

50:24Look at what somebody else did and go from there. You can copy it. I don't care.

50:28There's a link to the Google form I use for hiring. It'll really set you up for success.

50:32If you're a support team member who is looking for work.

50:35The way that I find people for that is I have a super secret email list where I post open roles.

50:42So if that's something you're interested in getting on, it's erica mccauley.com/hiring list and you will hear all about. The open roles that I have.

50:51Brittany HerzbergAwesome.

50:52Yeah. Chris and I, again over here with

50:54Erika MacauleyJaws dropped.

50:55Crystal WaddellYeah, I'm getting on everybody's email list.

50:59Erika MacauleyGet on the list.

51:00That's where the good stuff's on the list.

51:02Brittany HerzbergIt is. I'm gonna have to start saying that too, for the low price I'm getting on my email.

51:05Erika MacauleyI know. It's free, but you gotta gimme your email.

51:08Yeah.

51:09Brittany HerzbergTotally worth it.

51:10Crystal WaddellYou'll have at least two new sign-ups.

51:12Brittany HerzbergThanks again. This has been really amazing.

51:14Erika MacauleyYeah, this was super fun. Thank you so much for having me on.

51:17Brittany HerzbergAll right, we'll cut you next week on the next episode.

51:21Crystal WaddellSee you then. Bye.

51:22Brittany HerzbergBye.