Create a Defined Stream of Revenue on Social Media with Claire Ficek: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to create a defined stream of revenue on social media. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Claire Ficek and EO Fire Studios. Claire is the founder and CEO of Altered, turning her passion into a thriving business and proudly leading a team dedicated to supporting every client they serve. And today we talk about how age does not matter and you do not need a business degree to run a business, how social media is a free marketing tool to reach people, and how to start now.

0:37John Lee Dumas:Beginning is the hardest part. Identify your market and be consistent and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Claire and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial, plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days?

1:13John Lee Dumas:Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD. On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset. And the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. Claire, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, everyone. My name is Claire Fitzek. I am from Minnesota. So my answer to that question, Um, most people believe that you have to be a certain age or have to be a cert have to have a certain degree to run a business, but that is so not true.

1:58Um, I was 17 when I started this business 18 when I brought on two interns because the workload was so insane. Uh, and now I'm 19 with a team of four and we're growing numerous entrepreneurs businesses every day. So it can be done with enough grit and determination, but also remember to not listen to those people who tell you you're too young or that you need to live out your college experience before you start something. Just do what you're passionate about. And that's what I'm doing.

2:25John Lee Dumas:Or that you're too old. I mean, it goes to both sides of the equation, Fire Nation. I mean, if you find a problem that you can become the number one solution to, you are going to win, no matter your age, no matter your demographic, really no matter anything. And that's what we're talking about here today is creating a defined stream of revenue on social media. So Claire, let's just be honest with Fire Nation. Social media gets a bad rap at times. I mean, it's loud, it's busy, it's saturated. It's impossible to break through all this noise. So tell us, is it worth it for our businesses to be on social media?

3:01My answer actually might shock you on this one, John. I do not think that every single business or company out there has to be on social media. The most important part of marketing is appealing to your target market. So if your target market is 60 to 75 year old men who are interested in the outdoors and hunting, Instagram and Facebook is probably not where you're gonna reach them. But you'd wanna try to find Google ads and make sure your website is ranking on Google. But if your target market is young moms who are interested in home decor, you already know social media is where they hang out.

3:34So your business better be there too.

3:36John Lee Dumas:I love the honesty and I totally agree with it. I mean, it's all about focus, Fire Nation, following one course until success. And if you're trying to be all things to everybody, you're not going to be anything to anybody. You will resonate with no one. Now, Claire, let's say we are going down that route of social media for our business because it does make sense. It's one thing to get your message out to your followers, but what if we want to scale? How can we grow our following on social media when it is a really saturated platform? I know this is a super common concern for entrepreneurs that are worried about starting on social media since it is so saturated.

4:12But wouldn't you want to go where other people are? I mean, if you want an easy way to reach people, social media is your number one bet. It's a free marketing tool to reach people where they already are. The way you stand out on social media is to be authentically you and your brand's voice. That way you're going to attract your audience naturally and effortlessly. The people that try to be something they're not on social media are the ones that get burnt out and run out of content ideas six months in. So the best advice I can give you is to be authentically you and build your brand out on social media.

4:45John Lee Dumas:And I just kind of want to share something that you share with me, Claire, at the beginning of this episode, actually pre-interview chat. You said, hey, John, I'm a little stressed. I'm a little nervous. And I said, I get it, Claire. You're speaking to a big audience, but let's be honest. This is the topics that you're an expert on. We're just having a conversation about things that you're passionate about, that you love, that you know inside and out. And when that's the case, Fire Nation, you can't help but be good. You can't help but enjoy what you do when you be you. So I love that message.

5:13John Lee Dumas:I love that focus. When you can get up every single day and say, you know what? I'm excited to do what I want to do, where I want to do it, with whom I want to do it with. You're on the right path. So let's move into marketing strategy. How can we create a strong strategy when we literally have no idea where to start or if what we're currently doing is actually working? Well, the question I would ask back is, have you asked your target market? Have you asked Lauren down the street what she thinks about your company or products? It's important to hear directly from your target market and your clients.

5:47But you can also see from social media what is working. If you have a business account on Instagram and Facebook, you can look at your insights, which will show you the time of day your followers are active, the posts they liked the most, and the posts that were shared the most. This way you can identify what your followers are interested in and target your marketing efforts towards what is working.

6:08John Lee Dumas:Are you asking the questions? Are you doing the research? These are things you need to be asking yourself, Fire Nation. Now, Claire, let me put you on the spot a little bit here. You've had a lot of clients, a lot of success. Of course, I'm sure some of them have had varying levels of success, some through the roof, some minimal, and you fix the ones that are having minimal success. And you bring them to the bigger levels and you find out what's wrong and you continue to improve and improvise and figure things out. What's one of your favorite conversations around this where maybe somebody came to you, they needed some help, they weren't doing anything or very little before, and then you started helping them and they were getting some results.

6:47John Lee Dumas:But then you really dove deep with these strategies. You figured out what really wasn't working. You turned the switch and things really started happening. Now, we don't have to share exact names or businesses or anything. You can be as abstract as you want. But give us the case study, the actual feel of what that looked like. So one of my top clients right now is a financial wealth management company here in YZ, Minnesota. And when I first started working with them, they had a lot of different things going on. They had a podcast, a TV show, a website that needed editing, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

7:25I mean, all of the things they had their hands in everything. So when I took over, they wanted me to pretty much run everything. But I was, you know, talking with them more and figuring out really where their target market is at. And their target market is really the retirement age, either people prepping for retirement or the people that are heading right into retirement. it. So when I was looking at where they were really focusing their time, they were really focusing their time a lot on Instagram. And I was like, that's just not where the typical retiree is hanging out. So we started doing more SEO and blog work for them.

8:02And within the first month, they had their first ever lead straight from the website. So their Google rankings are up. And now they are getting clients and straight from the website on social media, their podcast is growing tremendously. So we really just had to sit down and have those conversations about really where their target market is and who they're wanting to be in touch with because they do have so many skills and their hands in everything. We wanted to really focus down on what we wanted to accomplish.

8:34John Lee Dumas:And these aren't rocket science questions, Fire Nation. These are core questions. These are basic questions, but still you're busy running your business, doing your life, all these things, sometimes you don't sit down, take a deep breath and say, what questions should I actually be asking that are going to get me actual results? What can I cut out that's not working? What can I double down on that is working a little bit that with maybe a little more focus is going to work a lot? That 80-20 rule we talk about a lot here. Now, Fire Nation, we're going to be talking a lot about this jazz when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

9:07Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create

9:11John Lee Dumas:freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform, website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support, so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more.

9:53John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days? If you just thought, yes, then check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something. You have built something, something to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now. If you're done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire.com slash YouTube.

10:38John Lee Dumas:That's eofire.com slash YouTube and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you'll still be thinking or finally building something special. Claire, we're back and I want to talk dollars. I want to talk cents. Let's get specific. Where is the money coming from within social media? I hear it all the time from clients who are naturally confused how they know if social media is truly paying off in their company. In marketing, there's the rule of sevens, which I'm sure you've heard of, John, where a customer needs to be reached at least seven times before they make a purchase decision.

11:16Sometimes if you're not seeing customers coming straight from social media, they still saw the post from Monday, an ad you ran last month, and a post that was shared by a friend. All of your efforts on social media truly will pay off even if you can't see the immediate or direct impact you're making So my advice would be not to give up on social media Even if you're not seeing a direct impact because later on down the road it will grow your business

11:41John Lee Dumas:Fire nation you're playing the long game here. You're not playing. Okay, let me post something here and the money flows in today No, this is the long game I mean look at what i've been doing with entrepreneurs on fire 10 years 3600 plus episodes 120 million downloads and i'm still getting benefit from the episodes i launched in 2012 14 16 18 because people are listening they are learning they're getting value and my guests are getting value claire this is pretty cool for you somebody in 2043 is going to listen to this episode it's just going to happen and they're going to check you out because you're 19 now so you're probably still in the game in 2043 and you're going to be like whoa i remember doing that episode that was pretty cool i was nervous at the beginning but then pretty quickly i was not nervous because I knew what I was talking about and I'm dropping value bombs.

12:27John Lee Dumas:So let's talk best practices because this is what your area of expertise really is. Go through some of your top tips for Fire Nation if they really want to succeed on social media. So go through it like this. Let's share a top tip. Let's share a specific example of what that would look like in the real world. And then we'll move on to the next top tip. Oh my gosh, this is my favorite question ever. consistency is my favorite word all of my clients and my team knows that it doesn't matter as much if you can only post twice a week as long as you're doing it consistently social media platforms want to see that you're active on a consistent basis rather than post four times a day for three days straight and then ghost your accounts for two weeks also make sure your content is branded and is targeting the correct audience.

13:16Your brand voice on social media is extremely important and it's the main way your target market is going to identify your brand from others. The other biggest thing I tell my clients is not selling to your followers 24-7 actually creates better relationships. When you provide value for your followers, they have a reason to follow you, but just like you easily hit delete on all of those spam emails trying to get you to buy something, they will just as easily unfollow you if you're constantly trying to sell, sell, sell. So my always typical rule is do 60 % relatable content. That's the funny meme that you found, you know, a mom quote, really anything that would identify with your target market.

13:5820 % should be informational. So really teaching your client or your following how to do something in your market. And then the other 20 % is selling. So really the biggest chunk of your social media should really be that relatable, building that relationship because that in turn is going to create trust. And those customers and followers will in turn turn into customers pretty much.

14:25John Lee Dumas:So Fire Nation, 60 % relatable, like have some fun, some memes, some jokes, 20 % informational, like let's be informative, let's add value, and then 20 % selling, like let's make sure that we are running a business here and we are generating revenue. Otherwise we can't keep giving value and we can't keep being relatable because we can't keep the lights on because we can't keep the business moving. Now, Claire, I'm going to go for kind of an interesting question. So take a deep breath here because you haven't been in the business for decades because you're 19 years old, but you've been in the business long enough to see changes and to see things coming.

15:01John Lee Dumas:what's something that you've changed your mind about over the past six months you know this is kind of a question along the lines of like you believed this about social media or about business or about client work four months ago six months ago eight months ago but for any number of reasons you've changed your mind about it is there anything that comes to mind there i would say that in the beginning of my business you know any client that came to me that needed my work I was open to working with them. I was like, you know what? I just need money right now. Let's do it. I need experience. I need to work with people and figure out what I'm really interested in and who my target market really is.

15:39But coming on two years now of running the business, I've really figured out that it's way more important to find your niche and really market to those people. So starting out, I was marketing towards the moms and the 50-year-old women that don't know how to run social media, but their business is kind of a side gig. Um, and they just wanted to have more of a brand voice out there. Um, but you know, two years later, I'm now starting to focus more in the financial, um, area and work with the wealth managers, um, more of the health and wellness area. So we work with a lot of chiropractors. Um, we work with some Pilates instructors.

16:20So really niching down and finding where your heart is and really where the need is too. I mean, there are a lot of social media managers out there and a lot of them are the cutesy, bright colors, fun brand, but not a lot that would take on talking about investments and retirement and taxes. So really finding where there's an open gap in your market, that's a big deal.

16:49John Lee Dumas:So Claire, you've dropped a lot of value throughout this episode. I mean, we've talked about standing out. You know, we've talked about your top tips. We talked about where the money comes from and how to really make sure that you're spending your dollars and cents in the right areas. Let's take it home here. What's the one big takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our entire conversation today? If you're not on social media yet, just start. It's the hardest thing is just starting. And after that, it'll come naturally. You'll be able to figure out what your followers want.

17:23I know a lot of my clients don't like showing their faces on social media, but that's really where everyone's at right now is reels and TikTok and Facebook reels. So really take some time and figure out what your target market is interested in. One thing that I've encouraged, my mom owns a home decor and furniture store. One thing I've encouraged her to do is, you know, set up her phone while she's painting a table and take a time lapse of it. Or, you know, the wealth management company, you know, make a little reel about how people can save money for retirement in easy ways. Those are the best things when you're just being real and showing your day to day life and kind of what you teach your clients.

18:03That's so important. So if you haven't started, just start. If you have started, really make sure that you're finding the strategy that is making sense for you so that consistency thing comes back. If you're getting burnt out because you're posting seven times a day or seven times a week, that's just not sustainable. And your customers are going to see that you're burning out and running out of ideas. So it's much more important to take time and effort into those social media posts. and post three times a week rather than seven times a week that are just thrown together last minute posts because your followers will notice that.

18:42John Lee Dumas:So Claire, you shared so much value today. How can Fire Nation connect with you? How can they find out more about you, potentially work with you? Give us a call to action here and then we'll say goodbye. Yeah, so you can follow us on Instagram. We're at Altered Socials. So Altered Socials is spelled A-L-T-A-R-D, socials. And then we're also on Facebook and LinkedIn. And then for all of the listeners today, we're actually offering a free 20-minute social media strategy session with me or my team by visiting www.alteredsocials.com slash fire. So again, Altered Socials is A-L-T-A-R-D socials.com slash fire.

19:24John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. and you've been hanging out with CF and JLD today, so keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com, just type Claire, C-L-A-I-R-E in the search bar and her show notes page will pop right up. Claire, one more time, give us that URL call to action. So it's www.alteredsocials.com slash fire, A-L-T-A-R-D socials.com slash fire. Claire, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much, John. Hey, Fire Nation.

20:06John Lee Dumas:Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Claire and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Well, check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. Freepodcastcourse.com. That's freepodcastcourse.com. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

20:45John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD. On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset. And the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today.