Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors
Intro: 00:00 From ABC News Radio, KIBT 1490 in Southern California, this is BizNinja Entrepreneur Radio, with your host, Tyler Jorgenson.
Tyler: 00:13 Alright, welcome out to BizNinja Entrepreneur Radio. I am your host Tyler Jorgensen and I’m very excited to be here with the one and only Mrs. Pedersen. Rachel Pedersen, how are you?
Rachel: 00:25 I am so, so good. Tyler. Thank you so much for having me.
Tyler: 00:29 Yeah, it is my pleasure. One of us is not pregnant and so I’m doing super good. You do like any day, right?
Rachel: 00:37 It’s a little bit longer than that. I think I have two weeks left, so, oh my gosh. I know it could happen while we’re on this interview.
Tyler: 00:45 Yeah, that would be amazing. We should be taking bets. So what is the elevator pitch for who Rachel Pedersen is, if they haven’t heard of you?
Rachel: 00:55 Awesome. Well, I’m Rachel Pedersen. I am the queen of Social Media. I am obsessed with everything Social Media. From organic strategies that exploded your business literally overnight to paid advertising strategies that help you to grow a consistent and scalable model through generating leads or an ROI directly from Facebook Ads campaign.
Tyler: 01:17 Awesome. And you do that because you have a Degree in Cosmetology, right?
Rachel: 01:22 Yes, exactly. I do have a Degree in Cosmetology. I don’t have a Degree in Marketing. My background is in the school of hard knocks. And through that process I actually was a little bit scrappier than other people in the marketing space. I wasn’t scared to try things that seemed a little unconventional and it worked. You know, within my first couple months of becoming a social media strategist, I intentionally went viral and reached 11.3 million people with one post.
Tyler: 01:50 That’s a lot of people.
Rachel: 01:51 It’s a decent amount.
Tyler: 01:54 So there’s so many fun ways that we’re going to take this conversation. One of them is obviously about you and about your, like what you do for social media. But then also like the business around it and what you’re doing there and how you’re also in term teaching others. It really did become your competition, which I think is so fascinating, right? And so let’s go with that first thing that you said though. You said that you intentionally went viral. How did you make one, how did you make the decision to get into social media and what was the first big like thing that you went after?
Rachel: 02:30 You know, my decision to go into social media was actually kind of accidental. I was working as a hairstylist and a client came in and while I was giving her highlights, she asked if I could help her with her social media for her husband’s business. So I agreed. I didn’t know a lot. I just knew that I knew more than her, so they hired me. I came to their house, worked for $15 an hour, just help them to get things set up. Then we started to go from there. But I didn’t necessarily jump straight into becoming a social media strategist. It was something where it was developed over time. I then applied to work at a marketing agency and for some reason they said yes. From there I started to realize, okay, this whole copy thing, I get it. I get what gets people’s attention.
Rachel: 03:16 I applied to work at an Inc 5,000 tech company. I got their attention. They hired me and we had some really fun results, but it didn’t feel like any of those things were really big. I think the first big intentional decision was to go viral and it happened one night when I was just sitting there thinking. I want to tell a story that impacts people’s lives. So I sat on my phone, wrote up this entire viral post, and I looked at my husband, said, that’s the one that’s going to go viral. Literally within a few weeks, it had absolutely blown up and taken over social media. It was picked up by every major online publication from Huffington post to the Today Show, Inside Edition called us, Glamour Magazine, Cosmopolitan. It was massive for my business.
Tyler: 04:05 So there’s a little bit of man behind the curtain, like figuring out how Oz works. That happens at this thing, right. I’ve talked with several people that have been, I’ve had viral posts and when there, I think when people realize at least when I did. Oh, well they were written with the intent of going viral. At first it was a little bit like peeling back the curtain. It’s like, you mean they just weren’t ranting one day? No, there was, like some intent and how it was written. How do you use that, like intent, right, and a positive way to help your clients?
Rachel: 04:37 That’s a really good question because I don’t think everyone uses it for good. I think a lot of people use it to manipulate markets. Whether it’s with politics or social issues and they use it in a very inflammatory way. There are good ways and there are bad ways to use that viral potential. But when it comes down to the emotion behind what I’m going to use with my clients, I go back to my clients message. What is it that they are bringing to the world? What is the change that they’re proposing and how do we hit their market on an emotional level that makes them want to share their story?
Tyler: 05:15 Okay. So, you recently received a pretty cool award within the ClickFunnels community and that happened probably within what, five minutes of you going out on your own?
Rachel: 05:27 I close ’em. It happened obviously over the, mostly over the course of the last year. Uh, I’ve been full time now for not even two years, which is kind of crazy. It feels like it’s been a long time, but I forget that there are so many entrepreneurs who have been doing this for decades. I’m kind of a baby entrepreneur still. But very quickly I did receive an amazing award, the 2 Comma Club award, which means we did $1 million in revenue for my business. It kind of blows my mind a little bit, but it shows me what’s possible in a short amount of time.
Tyler: 05:58 Absolutely. I think what’s fascinating is how paradigms work in these entrepreneurial space, especially in like of this solo or small team space where, you know, there’s this weird threshold in America that I think a lot of people think. Well, once I make a hundred grand a year, I’m going to, I’m doing great. But now there’s this new threshold that’s like, no, if I’m not getting a 2 Comma Club award, then I’m not even really in business yet. I haven’t even figured things out. Then you’ve got, you know, a handful of people that are already up there saying, no, that’s like, now you’re a 10th of the way there, right? But that’s how paradigms and surrounding yourself with positive people and good influence are, right? So tell me a little bit, why did you decide to go out on your own and start your own agency?
Rachel: 06:40 You know, it actually stemmed from this day when I went to work. After having stayed home for a few days with my daughter when she was sick. I got written up and it was an experience that kind of opened my eyes to the idea that I think I needed something different because I didn’t want to forever be stuck on someone else’s schedule. I wanted to be able to create and come up with ideas and be there for my family. What happens if my daughter has a retreat or something that she needs to go to? I’m not gonna be able to be a part of it. So that was kind of, where it stemmed from. But then there was also a demand in the marketplace. People were asking me to help them. They wanted my expertise. And so that made it pretty simple. It doesn’t mean it was easy. It just made the decision simple.
Tyler: 07:31 You’ve been going a couple of years now on your own. I’m sure that you’ve had your share of phenomenal, wonderful clients and also less than phenomenal clients. What would you give advice to someone who’s just getting started, maybe in an agency or in this type of a role in picking the right clients?
Rachel: 07:49 You know, the best way to put it is that you will probably deal with clients that aren’t ideal, that it happens. There’s sometimes isn’t a way to weed them out beforehand. But what happens is when you work with a client where it’s not an ideal partnership, whether it’s on your end or their end or their businesses and thriving or personally their lives are crazy, whatever, it makes you appreciate the really good clients that much more. You want to do everything for them. You’re so excited about their businesses and who they are as people. So it’s like I said, kind of like dating, where you go on the bad dates and then when you meet the person that you’re supposed to be with. You’re like, oh, this is it. I’ve been through good and bad, I know exactly what I’m looking for. It’s a two way relationship when you find those perfect dream clients. I wish there was a way to completely avoid it. I don’t think there is a way.
Tyler: 08:45 I think that makes sense. So one you right there are occasionally looking for those perfect dream clients and I think it’s good that you highlighted so many of the factors. It’s not always just one person or the other person. It’s often what’s going on in either, you know, the consultant or the customer’s business or personal life or other things, right? We’re humans. But then you know, you cycle through and hopefully build a good enough basket of wonderful people that you’re working with. It helps and it’s easier for everybody, right?
Rachel: 09:13 Yes, absolutely.
Tyler: 09:15 So you addressed a little bit of my next question, which was going to be like how do you handle the work life juggling cause that’s part of what led you into this business, the ability to do that better. I don’t use work life balance because I don’t think if there’s a scale, I think it’s just keeping everything in the air, right? You have a few kids and a husband, a life outside of the office, how are you juggling everything?
Rachel: 09:37 You know, I like that you don’t use the word balance because nothing ever feels perfectly balanced. It’s, you’re always attending to something, whether it’s, you know, your family, meeting, your business. The biggest thing I found that I loved about becoming an entrepreneur and owning my own agency is that it offered me the freedom to integrate things differently. So for example, if my kids have tennis lessons, I can bring my computer to their tennis lessons, be there and watch them while still getting work done. Or like when we’re car shopping, I wanted a car with a 4G wifi hotspot built in. Then that way when my husband’s driving places I don’t miss out on valuable work time. Get that work in time done. Now I can arrive wherever we’re going and have complete peace of mind. Even this last week when we were in Florida, one of the things I did is, we brought our kids. Our kids went to Disney every day. We went the first day, we went the last day and they felt like we were there the whole trip, spending evening with them. It was a really cool integration that I don’t think would normally be there.
Tyler: 10:41 Yeah, it’s so great that you’re able to do that. That’s a big part of the reason why I like, I have been an entrepreneur forever, is just enjoying being able to have that flexibility to be, to have time with my family. What you’ve been, I think continually like raising the bar for yourself, right? Like you’ll hit a goal and go bigger again. What are the next, kind of big hurdles that you want to like, you know, knock over or big goals that you’re going for over the next 12 months?
Rachel: 11:09 This one’s kind of funny. So as soon as I won the 2 Comma Club award, everyone was asking me, are you going for the 2 Comma X? Which means you do $10 million in your business. Which for most people you’d say, what? That’s crazy. That’s huge. It seems like the next, the next natural step. But as weird as it is, I almost feel like that goal, the kind of arbitrary if I just go towards it. So I’m not intentionally going to go after the 2 Comma X award. Instead, my goal is to help 20 clients get into the 2 Comma Club in seed. Their businesses hit $1 million. Ever since I made that goal for my clients, I’ve had two incredible conversations with where we created a path for them to make $1 million over the course of the next 12 months. So it shifted. Isn’t that funny?
Tyler: 12:00 That’s cool. And you know what, everyone I think, one of the biggest things for me is learning to be honest about what drives you. Cause you know there’s some people that are motivated by that plaque and like deeply, deeply motivated. They need the recognition from the plaque. There’s other people don’t care about the plaque. They just feel like they’ve got to accomplish the best of whatever it is for them. They’ve got to be the number one, they gotta be the biggest, right? Biggest doesn’t never been Michael Out. But I like the angle that you’re taking, which is really, it sounds like if you serve those clients well in turn, things will work out and you’ll grow as well.
Rachel: 12:33 Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind. Whether it’s next year or the year after that I’ll hit the 2 Comma X award, but it doesn’t matter. It’s about who else I bring up with me.
Tyler: 12:44 Absolutely. So I’m guessing it hasn’t all been perfect since the day you left, right? Tell us a little bit about some of the challenges you’ve have to go through as you’ve started, since you started your agency and like how you’re handling that.
Rachel: 12:58 Oh my goodness. Of course it hasn’t been perfect. You know, you know what entrepreneurship can be like? I think some of the things that were really surprising to me were, for example, I’m extremely extroverted. I like to be around people, almost all the time. When I first came home from my nine to five I was by myself at the house all day and I quickly discovered this is not a good recipe – extroversion plus exclusion. I can’t do this. I need people around me. So I hustled to quickly bring my husband home from his nine to five that didn’t fix things either. He’s an introvert. He doesn’t want to listen to me all day. There were different steps personally that I went through. But then also, you know, business in general can be challenging. You deal with ebbs and flows in at every single level of success you find. Oh my goodness, there’s a new level of pressure and expectation. I remember someone asked me what were your initial struggles? And it was like things like getting your, you know, growing a following for a client. That was a struggle for me in the beginning. Now it’s how fast are we going to hit the 2 Comma Club? How fast are we gonna hit a million in revenue, our profit margins where they need to be? It’s much more serious questions. I’ve had those for my own business, for my clients. It just elevates the level of pressure. But it also makes you really strong, I think.
Tyler: 14:20 So let’s get a little bit brass tacks, right? Let’s hit, let’s go through like one, like really cool action items somebody could do on each of the major social. Let’s go Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. What is the queen of social media say, somebody could do today to take immediate action on each of those platforms?
Rachel: 14:42 Well, I mean I’ve reversed what’s the goal?
Tyler: 14:46 Okay, that’s excellent job. Right now, you’re doing a good client interview. No, that’s good. That’s right. Because let’s go through with some of the goals could be, right. So some people just, again, we went through different drivers. Some people want a lot of followers. Yes. Just for own, just for the accolades and having a lot of followers, right? Other people are looking for conversions. Number of followers are less important or engagement. So let’s say we’re gonna break it up across social is to make it fun. Let’s go. Let’s say on Instagram, I want to drive followers. On Facebook, I want to drive conversions. I’m on Twitter and I want to drive engagement.
Rachel: 15:20 Okay. So Instagram followers, I love this. First and foremost, you need to hit the explore page. So your goal isn’t just to interact with your followers or to follow unfollow. Those have been popular techniques in the past that are no longer at all valid. What you want to do is you want to create content that is so engaged. A both if that’s a word, engage worthy.
Tyler: 15:45 Engage worthy. I like that engage worthy. That’s good.
Rachel: 15:49 Engage worthy. People want to share it. Not share it because you don’t share theirs, but they want people to see it. They’re tagging their friends in it, they’re commenting and liking it. So the biggest thing with Instagram is if you can create content that’s viral, worthy. Viral is different on Instagram than it is on any other platform. One of the best ways to figure out what is viral worthy is to go through your explore feed and see what is trending. Then see how you can create or emulate that content for your own Instagram feed. And that is where your Instagram is going to absolutely explode.
Tyler: 16:25 All right, so you’ve got to hack the explore page, but the only way to do that is by doing explore where the content. Yeah, that’s tough. There’s no cheats. You just gotta do good stuff. You’ve gotta make cool stuff. I don’t know. All of a sudden it’s totally worth it though. No, that makes perfect sense. And I mean obviously it is different if you already have a good base of followers that can jump in and create, you know, likes and comments and tags quickly. I mean, is it still possible for someone that’s just getting started at reach the explore page without definitional base?
Rachel: 16:59 Absolutely. There are ways to make it easier. For example, an Instagram pod where you have people who are in a similar niche that are engaging with each other’s content. Pods can be difficult to maintain and to manage, but at the same time, if you’re just starting out, those pods are going to be what you bring in front of more potential followers.
Tyler: 17:22 Okay, cool. All right, so Facebook conversions. What’s one tip?
Rachel: 17:27 Facebook conversions, I love this one. Okay, so one thing that I get asked a lot is how does organic social media lead to conversions? The best answer I have is it can, but that’s not your fastest path to conversions. Facebook ads are going to be the way to go and if you have a funnel, a website or a product that’s already converting, that’s when Facebook ads can come in and ramp you up. I’m going to save a lot of people a lot of money by saying if you don’t have a tested funnel website product, you don’t want to spend money on Facebook ads unless your goal is just data collection. What happens with paid advertising is it just amplifies. It doesn’t fix a funnel that’s broken. It doesn’t transform a website. It doesn’t make a product more appealing. It just makes it happen faster. So whether it’s going to fail or whether it’s going to convert Facebook ads will rent that process up.
Tyler: 18:25 I think it’s that old adage that you don’t have a traffic problem. You have an offer problem, right? And so if you’re not like in your answer, a lot of people have a website not converting. The website’s not doing well, sales are down. So like we’ll just throw fuel on it, put it, run Facebook ads. It’s like you’re just getting more people to see the crappy offer,
Rachel: 18:45 Spending more money and you’re more frustrated. So focus on your offer, focused on your website, focus on your funnel. I’m preferably funnels over websites. And then from there you can pour fuel on that fire.
Tyler: 18:58 Awesome. All right. And now were to Twitter for engagement. Just do what Donald does?
Rachel: 19:05 You know, that works for some people like Donald. But the best thing you can do on Twitter is to engage with people. Sounds kind of crazy, but it’s a conversational platform. People want to engage. And even something as simple as, you know, as following someone back, if they follow you and then replying to one of their tweets, they’re gonna remember that and they’re going to engage with your future content. The other thing with content is don’t make it about your day. It’s just not the right platform for that. Unless you’re already a celebrity or you don’t care about engagement. So the biggest thing you want to do is give people statements that they feel good about sharing. If you give someone a statement or a positive quote or something that they say, yeah, I’d be proud to share this, they’re going to retweet it and now all of their followers are also going to see that tweet.
Tyler: 19:59 Awesome. What’s your favorite social platform?
Rachel: 20:02 Ooh, a toss up between Facebook and LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn.
Tyler: 20:07 All right. That’s why I’m really glad that you brought up LinkedIn. I think it’s probably like the most under-utilized platform for, especially for entrepreneurs, especially for service based entrepreneurs, right? You’re a service company. So my entire like next six months strategy is LinkedIn first, right? For my personal company’s growth and then you know, we market and do all that other stuff. So, tell me why you love LinkedIn?
Rachel: 20:32 I love LinkedIn for several reasons. It’s not a crowded platform where people are just constantly pitching their offers. It’s not appropriate for that. It’s not the same as Facebook where your feed is filled with people talking about me, me, me, me, me. LinkedIn is about professional networking and it makes it really easy to connect with people. People are ready to connect, they want to expand their network. They’re looking for services, they’re looking for business that offer solutions to their pain points, which is why I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn. Another reason as well, it’s so simple and the shelf life of every single post is so much longer. You know, on Twitter you have like a 10 to 15 minute window before you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes it can even disappear from people’s feeds faster. It can disappear every six minutes. Facebook is, you know, 24 to 48 hours and then it’s gone. LinkedIn, you can sometimes have people engaging with your content for weeks or months. It’s phenomenal.
Tyler: 21:33 Absolutely. I still have, yeah, and I’m not active on there like I should be. And that’s, like I said, part of the future plan. But I still see engagement from old video shares or article shares. It’s pretty cool. All right, so you’re growing, the company’s going well, family life’s awesome, You’ve gone through tips for people to go on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. All these great things are happening, right? But what’s going on with Rachel? Like I always ask everyone, like, what’s one big personal goal, not business over the next 12 months, we can call it a bucket list. We can call it anything else. What’s Rachel’s big goal for the next year?
Rachel: 22:10 You know, the biggest goal I have for the next year, so I’m going to have a baby in two weeks. And you know, it’s, this is where it gets hard. The rest is easy, business is easy. The biggest thing I want to do is to not transition seamlessly, but figure out how to integrate my life with the baby. Being the boss of the agency, being the boss of the university, being the boss, I have the ability to decide. Do I want to work from home? Do I want to work from the office today? Do I want to bring the baby with me? Do I hire a nanny? And in the past I feel like I’ve been so set in this is what everything’s gonna look like. This is our plan and this is our goal. For this one, I kind of want to feel it out as it goes.
Rachel: 22:57 So I have a gut feeling. Like I’m going to be bringing the baby with me a lot. Will probably be going on a lot of trips together, cause I like to travel for business. Yeah. That’s going to be the biggest thing, is trying to figure out how to integrate that, with also taking care of myself personally. It’s hard for moms sometimes to figure out how to, you know, get the baby weight off or how to feel like yourself again. So I believe, but I’m open to this changing that being a part of the business and active is actually going to be really helpful for me in re-setting after having a baby. That’s kind of the big thing that I’m thinking about. Yeah.
Tyler: 23:36 How old is your current youngest?
Rachel: 23:38 Three years old. Almost four.
Tyler: 23:40 Yeah, this is the first baby that you’ve had while you’ve been out on your own. So that will be there, definitely shift. You’ll get it figured out, I have no doubt. Yeah, that’s going to be fun. We’ve gone through some tips, but you know, what’s the one thing that people should know about Rachel that maybe they don’t?
Rachel: 23:59 Okay. Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t normally get stumped, I have had a lot of past lives. So I have a bunch of totally random, crazy skills from different things. Like for example, I was in the Navy Sea Cadets when I was in high school, so I know how to like, use semaphore to communicate, which is using flags to communicate from ship to ship. I’ve spent time in helicopters. I have done a lot of like repelling and stuff like that. But I also was like a cheerleader so I can do high kicks. And so there’s like a whole bunch of really random stuff that I can do, just from like, past lives. I’ve got a lot of funny stories. I love horseback riding. I’m up for pretty much anything. It doesn’t mean I’m good at all this. It just means that like I have an awareness of how to do it all. And so I think it’s that I have some kind of crazy stories from past life.
Tyler: 25:07 That’s good. I like it. I see, like a video coming out down the road of you like, oh my gosh, you’re taking and then doing flags and then, you know, repelling and then jumping on a horse. I think it’d be, you know, the whole intro like, how you come into the office.
Rachel: 25:23 Yes. Swinging on in the vine, like of a Tarzan. Yeah, I can do all that.
Tyler: 25:28 Yeah. You gotta get funnel bids in there for you.
Rachel: 25:30 Oh, absolutely.
Tyler: 25:33 A random note. I just realized that one of the main guys at Funnel Vids and I went to high school together. It’s just so funny how the world is, right? But, and that’s what I think kind of wrapping up here is that this world in marketing, business and entrepreneurship, it is small. Right? So how important it is to make sure we do our best, take care of the people who keep our ethics high so that as the circles come back around on the ground, right, we’re still in a good place? How important is doing the right thing? I know this is almost like an obvious answer. I’m gonna give you an easy one after stumping you, how important is just doing the right thing for your customer, for you and growing your business?
Rachel: 26:12 It’s everything. It’s absolutely everything. And you’d think that would be an easy question, but a lot of people don’t live it. If that makes sense. You know, if you say to your client, we’ll get this to you by Monday, you need to get it to them by Monday or Tuesday with an apology. Don’t get it to them a month later and say, we’ve been swamped, so sorry. I see that a lot in the marketing space or people who don’t ever finish their projects that they were already paid for. I see it happen time and time again. I’ve had it happen to myself as well. And so even though it seems like an easy question, the funny thing is it’s not something that everyone lives by. I know that there have been a lot of nights where it is Monday and it’s the deadline. I find myself staying up very late to make sure that we hit that deadline. So being a person of your word is essential in this space because it is small.
Tyler: 27:06 All right, I agree. Now, tell us a little bit about the SMU and then we’ll wrap up.
Rachel: 27:11 That sounds great. Social Media United is my other business besides my agency. People started to ask me about how to become a social media manager and how to manage social media. So I created an entire membership training around it. I’m supporting other people to become entrepreneurs, some for the first time. And in Social Media United, we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of success stories of students who have left their own nine to fives who are making an income for the first time, who are making a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars a month. It impacts their life forever and my favorite part about it is that it teaches people how to do good social media, not just thrown together strategies. It’s so much fun. We have over a thousand students, it is currently closed. But when we opened the doors, I’m super excited because it’s going to be a blast. I think we’re gonna have a ton of people.
Tyler: 28:04 Very cool. So, if people need to learn more about you, where do they go?
Rachel: 28:08 Easiest place is my website, rachelpedersen.com. That’s all E’s and a D. Or I’m on all social media platforms as the Mrs. Pedersen.
Tyler: 28:17 All right. Thank you so much for coming out. I appreciate you all listening. Wherever you’re at today, it’s your turn to go out and do something.
Outro: 28:27 Thank you for listening to BizNinja Entrepreneur Radio with Tyler Jorgenson. Please make sure to subscribe so you’re first to hear new interviews and episodes. If you found this podcast to be valuable, please share it with a friend. Don’t forget to visit our online talk show at BizNinja.com to claim your reward for listening to this show.
