[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of How to Build a profitable Nutrition business. Today, I've got an amazing guest who I'm really excited to talk to because. This is a guest who is an expert when it comes to LinkedIn marketing and email marketing. Now, marketing for health professionals, traditionally might be a bit of a dirty word because we don't see it as our sphere because we're in the health game and we're here to help people.
But the reality is, if you're not good at marketing, you can't provide the service to have the impact for your clients. And so today I'd like to introduce you to Carmen Williams from Global Teams. How are you, Carmen? Great, Chris. I'm excited to have a chat today. Yes. Yes. So we were just having a bit of a chat like I do with all guests beforehand, and we were talking about your background.
So we might start with that just to give our listeners a bit of an idea of where you've come from and how you've landed where you are currently. Yeah it's a bit of a roundabout story, but I started my life as a scientist. I did my honors in fetal lung development, and I decided that I found the lab a little bit boring.
Like I [00:01:00] love learning about science, but doing it, it was another thing. So then I applied for all sorts of jobs and I landed a job in a large healthcare organization, and I knew nothing. But within three months, I was implementing an enterprise wide project. So I stayed there for 10 years doing all sorts of fun things, implementing projects, strategic planning, risk management, accreditation, all that fun stuff until I just walked into work one day and decided to start a business.
Wow. Yeah. Right. And that business has been quite successful. You, you grew to a, a fairly decent, well turning over 2 million a year. Is that where you're at currently? Yeah. So obviously there was lots of ups and downs, and I mistakenly believed Chris, that I would step outta my job and the clients would just come and find me.
Apparently that doesn't happen. No, no. It's funny that isn't it? Yeah so Carmen, like your business now, global teams give like our listeners a bit of an insight into what you guys do. Yeah, [00:02:00] so we've got a team of about 125 team members that are based in the Philippines and South Africa, and they support business owners mainly in Australia with administration, LinkedIn marketing support, email marketing support account management, bookkeeping, all sorts of stuff to free the business owner up so you can work on your business and not do all the doing.
In your business. And the reason we started this was because my business partner and I, we love having ideas, but we don't really like doing the doing. So I don't know if anyone out there relates to that or not. I do. Yes, a hundred percent. I'm good at ideas, not so good at execution. Yeah, I look I'll share a little bit about experience.
When we had our dietician business, we employed VAs, who fortunately are still with us. When we sold our business, we kept our VAs 'cause they're so amazing. Now. Initially sta come to me with the idea of VAs and I was like I just wasn't comfortable with it. I was like, oh no, look, I think we should employ in Australia and everything else.
But the reality is we could like in, in [00:03:00] dietetics, it's such an admin heavy profession. Yes. There was so much admin work and Sta rightly again said, if we hire some VAs, we will then be able to grow and employ more people locally. Which is exactly what happened. Yeah. Like it was such a huge part.
We, we employed some VAs. They were earning great money by Philippines standards. It's not like we were ripping anyone off, which is deep down what I was thinking, which is in reality was nothing like the case. And then we were able to get a lot of the work done at an affordable rate, which then allowed us to employ more people, and we grew to a team of 18 people in a very short period of time.
Yeah I cannot stress highly enough. If particularly for dieticians, you're working head down, bum up doing all that admin work yourself. Put a value on your time and look into this space. Yeah, I just discovered really early on, I hired a virtual system before I could afford it, like pre-revenue.
Don't recommend that to everyone, but you know, live on the wild side. And I just knew that I needed support with the doing [00:04:00] around the marketing so that I could just have more conversations with people. I'm like, I can grow this business if I'm doing that detail. I'm also the place where on social media, they say have to be consistent.
I'm a place consistency goes to die. If you tell me to spend five minutes a day doing something, I'm gonna tell you where to go. But I'm just like in, and then I'm out and my virtual assistants keep the rhythm going. Yeah. So Good. And I'm, I actually am not getting you on today to talk about virtual assistants, but we're here, so I'll just keep talking.
The thing with VAs that we found as well and again this is all Sta, is. It's about them training them up, isn't it? Oh, for sure. A lot of people, like we've talked to friends, colleagues that think they can just get a VA in and then just automatically the hands of the jobs, but. Hence why we've kept our VAs, they're so amazing.
We've kept them for a long period of time. They're now quite highly skilled. And that's through the effort that my wife has put into their training and everything. And it does get you in a position where you can then offload a lot of the work. That and to be honest, [00:05:00] they're 10 times better at it than us anyway, like the social media creation and the video editing and, things that we'd spend, we would spend hours doing.
They do so much better. Yeah, for sure. And I'm happy to have a chat, perhaps another time about how to delegate what a virtual assistant can do, how to make it work, how not to stuff it up and all those things because it's a bit of a science and an art form on, must say Chris. Yes. Okay. Well that, that's another episode in itself.
Okay. So the reason we are actually talking today is not about VAs, it's about LinkedIn marketing and email marketing, because these are two tools. That'd help blow up your business to a $2 million a year revenue business tell me about LinkedIn. It's a platform that I love, like for me with Mey than, a lot of my audience or target market are on, on LinkedIn.
I do, it's a different feel to Facebook and Instagram, but what. I, and I've got a lot of connections. It's quite good. But tell me what I'm missing. What do I need to know about LinkedIn to help me [00:06:00] grow my business? Yeah, so I was LinkedIn was the place that I grew my business initially when I walked out of work that one day and knew nothing.
And so LinkedIn, if I had to choose one social media platform to play, that would be the space. I have coached coaches, LinkedIn coaches who just loved LinkedIn for the sake of it. I need to tell you straight Chris, I don't love it. I just love it 'cause it gives me results. And what I'd love to share with you today is like how to get those results.
And so people just think, oh, I just need a post on LinkedIn. I think that's a really good start, posting on LinkedIn and if you've got content, ready to go, you can do that. But there's so much more to it. And so one of the things that you mentioned was the connections. And so over time you can send connection requests every single day and you can be very strategic with that.
So for example, if you as a dietician provide NDIS services, you could send connection requests to care [00:07:00] coordinators in the area. Or perhaps doctors in your area or other people who might refer to you. Once you send a connection request to someone, that means that they can preferentially see your content.
Otherwise they're probably not gonna see your content at all. And you can message them something of value. Yeah. Yeah. I do that about LinkedIn is that it's very searchable for the target that you're looking for and the. Resume in a way. Like you're learning about who you're connecting with.
Yeah. And so obviously you can connect with these people, you can, start conversations. You can say, Hey, do you want to come on my podcast? Hey he's a resource on, I don't know how to not waste too much time on developing a meal plan or, he's, how we're special and different or just something of value and yeah.
What I don't do on LinkedIn is say, Hey Chris I do virtual assistance. You probably need one. Let's have a chat. So I never sell anything. Yeah. I [00:08:00] just offer value. And you spoke Chris at the start of how sometimes, marketing can be a dirty bird in healthcare. Yeah. And I know there's regulations and things like that.
But. I was so nervous about marketing my business at the start, like I had all this imposter syndrome. What if I don't have anything good to say? What if they don't like it, blah, blah. But then I just came to realize that if I don't tell people about what I do, I cannot help anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if I, so now when I'm producing content, sure, I would love sales, I would love new clients, that'd be great.
But my primary thing is how can I just deliver value to people? And some people will. Take it and go, great. I'm going to, use LinkedIn more, or I'm gonna be nice to my virtual assistant, or I'm gonna have better outcomes in my business or whatever. And a small minority will come to me and go, actually Carmen, I now want your help.
[00:09:00] Yes. Yes. So you position yourself as the expert, the, they're starting to see your content. You've already offered them value. I do love that. And look, to be honest, you've, what you've just described to me, I'm thinking of people that I've actually engaged with on LinkedIn, and that's exactly who I've engaged with, is people that you know, haven't put the hard sell on straight away.
And you get them, don't you? Someone's reached out as connection. You connect automatically. There's a. A message in your inbox in there selling you something, and it just, I just block it. I'm just not there. So I love that approach. And so how to do messaging well first of all, one, I think it's underutilized.
And two, I think 90% of people do it so badly because they're just like, sell, sell, sell. And I have had clients, 'cause obviously we support people with virtual assistants who help them with LinkedIn marketing. And I have had clients come to me saying, some experts told me to do the cell message. And I'm like, it's not gonna work, but you can try it.
And then they come back within a month going, okay, come and let's do it your way. And what I like to do is I'd [00:10:00] just like to offer something of value. Hey Chris, I've just developed a course, a short course on this. Would you like it? Hey, Chris, I'm running this event. Here's the link if you'd like to join us.
Hey, Chris. I've just developed, this resource on the 169 things my virtual assistant said for me last week. If you'd like a copy, flick me your email. Yeah, so flick your email so you're getting them off LinkedIn then. Yes. And so that's a critical thing. Obviously the aim of any social media is to get them off social media and into your database.
Yeah. So STA is in Facebook marketing. She says that all the time. Yeah. So you see, you say the same for LinkedIn then as well is to get 'em off and you own that contact. Yeah, so Facebook marketing is fantastic 'cause obviously you can get people to opt in and they give you emails and phone numbers and you can do the exact same process on LinkedIn.
And when I send out things, I'll say, Hey Chris, if you'd like a copy, flick me your email. Yeah, gotcha. Or if, do you wanna [00:11:00] register this for this event? Alright, great. I'll, here's your email, here's your phone number. And so then when we send out like messages, we'll have people go, here you go, Carmen, here's my email.
And then I get to email them. And I get to message them on LinkedIn and they're gonna see my targeting my content on LinkedIn. So it's manual targeting, on Facebook ads you can send Audi, stuff to like, what I call like the fresh meat audience. And then you can retarget people.
Yeah, like this is like manual retargeting, like they're gonna see you on. Your content on LinkedIn, they're going to see you on the messaging on LinkedIn. They're going to see your emails, and then you can actually export that data and put it into Facebook ads, so then they're gonna see you on Facebook ads as well.
Right. This is genius. But then they're just like, fuck, she's everywhere. She must be all right. Yes. Yeah. Like Carrie, oh, I have had someone say to me, Carmen, you annoyed me so much until I needed you.
You're solving problems, aren't you? You know? So, and [00:12:00] people have them. Yeah. That's brilliant. So then when you've got them on email, so why email I really wanna talk to you about, because, as we were talking about earlier, there's, there's that thought that email's dead when in fact it's not.
Is it, like I think it's easy to assume it because there's so much junk email that comes through and emails can get missed, but, what insights can you provide to, to help get that message through on email now that you own the list? Yeah, I dragged my heels on email for years, Chris, because I just read everything and it's like email's dead.
No one opens it up. I looked at all the shit I was getting in my email. I'm like I'm not reading it. And I'm just like, oh, it's dead. It's useless. And I don't know what to say anyway, I. So I just did nothing for years and it was a complete like I, I just wish I could turn the clock back and redo it again.
'cause what I found was my content that I was posting on LinkedIn was storytelling content. So I tell a story of a client who came to me thinking they wanted [00:13:00] this, but then we worked out that they wanted this. So you need to scope your rollout when you're finding a virtual assistant, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
I'll tell stories and then I'm like, huh, I can just tell those stories in email. I can just offer the, my same value I'm doing on LinkedIn in email. Like an email. Obviously some of our emails are longer, but most of our emails are like 300 words, which is, similar to what you do in a LinkedIn post.
And I'm just like, wow. So I started sending them out and then I had people write back to me going, oh, that was great, Carmen or I would have a sales conversation and they'd just be even warmer than they were in the past because they're like, oh, I know that you're gonna ask this because I read an email saying that's what you do in a sales conversation.
Yeah. Right. I know that you're gonna tell me I can't get a unicorn virtual assistant because I read an email about that. Yeah. And I'm just like, wow. And so now we get I think it's about 25,000 emails opened a month. And I'm just like, I wish I'd started this sooner, Chris. [00:14:00] So how 25? So what have you, what's your open rate like?
Yeah, so our open rate it's reduced a little bit. So it was actually 50 and I'm like, oh my goodness, we're so good, blah, blah. I think it's about 42 at the moment because I think I don't know, as the list gets bigger or whatever, but yeah, so 42. So the two would still be above industry standard though, wouldn't it?
What would I think so. Yeah. And obviously not everyone's cup of tea it does hurt when you get unsubscribed. And I think that's one of the the things that I really struggled with at the start. Like I'm sending out like my heart and my soul, and then people like unsubscribe. Yeah.
And I'm just like, oh. But, not everyone's cup of tea. And you know what I love Chris is one when someone unsubscribes, but then they come back to me through LinkedIn or Facebook ads or one of those other th things and resubscribe, I'm like, ha. Wasn't that bad after, or was I, yeah.
Well, I was talking to someone about this the other day and the unsubscribes is that just means that, it doesn't mean they don't like you, it just means that they don't need your service at the [00:15:00] moment or whatever. Whatever you are posting isn't relevant to the, at this point in time, and I get where they're coming from because our inboxes are so congested with junk and everything that sometimes cleaning it out is important.
But then I, and I'm the same, I've had them then come back and it's interesting. Like I, you can't look into the unsubscribes too much and take it to heart. No, it's a bit, it's a bit hard at the start. Now I don't now I just look at the numbers. I don't look at the people. But at the start, like I knew most of the people on my list.
Yeah. Like they'd been to an event or now we've diversified. Now I don't know who most people are. But at the start I'm like, oh, they unsubscribed. So you've built that list primarily from LinkedIn. LinkedIn and also Facebook ads now as well. So what I find is, so we make conversions through Facebook ads and so that's worthwhile for us.
But what I find still is the quality of a conversation I have with someone from LinkedIn. On average, not every single time is often better than someone [00:16:00] who's fresh shish from Facebook ads. Yeah. Now because someone through LinkedIn has probably been connected to me for a few years.
They've probably seen my content, they've probably seen my messages, they've probably been in my email. What I'm curious to see is the emails we are collecting through Facebook ads now, if they convert in a year's time, are they gonna because they're gonna be reading my email. So I think that's really, yeah.
Interesting. So, yeah. Yeah. So a really key question for me is how do you get 'em to open? Is there a trick with the subject line or is it they go, oh yes, this is from Carmen, Maureen I, this is gonna interest me or. I, everyone says it's a relationship you have with them, like the previous emails that you've sent out.
So I just try and make every single email really valuable. So the subject lines, like I've played with them, I've done AB testing and Chris, I don't know, there's not an answer. Sometimes I just feel it in my bones that might be a good opening, subject [00:17:00] line. But what I do know is that when they open it.
I just want it to be really valuable. So I might talk about our point of difference, but I'm only gonna do that in the context of some sort of story that helps them with thinking about a virtual assistant or working with their current virtual assistant. So I might say and normally our account manager, feels more creative, and these are the awesome things she's doing.
But only in the context of. This is how you can make your team more creative as well. I'm just really, so I got someone this year to help me write my email. So this was a new move for me. It's from South Africa. I was so nervous about getting this person to help me 'cause I was so sensitive over like how Carmen's way of right doing things and and so I just found myself saying to her a few times in a row I, I only want something if it's adding value to the person reading it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's I like that because it's I'm thinking the emails that I like when I'm typing an [00:18:00] email, I try to think about what would I read, what would I open? And, I may not relate to everyone, but you're looking for value, aren't you looking for, how's this gonna improve my life?
Yeah. So for example, I've got people on my email list who have got big virtual assistant teams themselves. They are never gonna get a virtual assistant through me, ever. Yeah. But I'm adding value to them. And then one of those people referred to me the other day. Yeah. And so I'm not trying to convert that person to become a client 'cause he is not gonna be, but I'm just trying to add value.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that. How often do you send emails? Like what, do you have a set frequency that you do or I. Yeah, so we started off like once a week and then we increased the frequency and that was really nerve wracking as well. 'cause that increases the unsubscribes. And so it's most days now that we send an email.
Yeah. And so what I've done is that I've got this system whereby. We send out three new emails a [00:19:00] week. So just say it's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we send them. Yeah. And then I've got some emails that we've sent in the past that are like Evergreen emails, and so they're in a nurture sequence and so they just say they get sent out on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, for example.
Yeah. And so what that means is someone might get six emails from me in a week, but we're only sending out three new ones. It also means it gives me confidence that if I just stop writing emails that there's this nurture sequence that goes for about a year now that people will just receive emails from me.
Right. So it goes Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, every week, and there are different email 52 weeks of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Do you use any AI to help build out those emails? Look, I have been using AI recently, so I wasn't. And what I found is that AI accelerates the rate which we can write emails.
Zola, who I've hired to help me write those emails. What I do [00:20:00] is like one of the ways we use AI is I'll send her a voice message saying, I spoke with this client, this is the story, da da da da, da. And then she'll grab that voicemail and then. Help get AI to help her. So we've got like a common copywriter where the team have loaded all the emails that we've ever sent, all the good emails we've ever sent.
There's ones I've never not said again. All the downloadables we have. And so it actually knows a fair bit about how I like to express myself. So with between the voice message and the carbon ar copywriter, that means we can write emails really quickly. Yeah. There are other emails that we write that are a lot more complicated.
So for example, my account manager was telling me some really good stories the other day, and so I got my account manager and my writer Zola to meet, to to write those emails completely independent on me even though it's coming out as my name. So that's a bit of an out of body experience. Like similar with ai, like I use ai, but all it does is give me the bones and then I [00:21:00] polish it with my personality and touch and everything.
So I, I'm guessing it's, yeah. Like you say, it's saving time. It accelerates what you're doing. Yeah. I find like when I was playing with ai, even with the Carmen copywriter, it I felt the points were just so generic. Like I, I feel that. I need to give it quite a lot for it to do, make magic, and it can make magic.
So, for example, I've recco, I've uploaded transcripts of podcasts in before, and then I'm like, make me three social media posts. Make me an email to convince people to listen to this, but make it a storytelling email that offers value, even if they don't click on it. And so I just keep on playing with it and it just keeps on getting better.
I love it. I'm gonna do that, the storytelling email for this podcast, and we'll see how it goes. So, okay, so just to try and recap and describe your success or your growth model is that you've used LinkedIn as a very effective tool to target your, potential clients and people that you see as a, [00:22:00] for your business.
So you've targeted them. You'll then reach out, they'll then see your content through conversation. You'll grab their email, you get them onto your email list. You can then upload that list into Facebook. So you're then giving them LinkedIn, Facebook, and email. Yeah. And your key take home is that it's just about giving them value.
And then when they're ready, you've given them so much value that you're at the front of their mind. They come thinking, oh, Cam's the person I need to talk to about this. Yeah. And that's exactly right. So some of my emails will have, if you wanna learn, wanna learn how to do this yourself, book a time with me.
But you wanna have the secret, Chris. We actually get sometimes more conversions from emails that don't have a call to action at the end. It's really weird. People just write back going, we need talk. And I find it really fascinating, like human psychology. Yeah. So yeah, I just. When I do a sell it's a soft, almost afterthought sell, and I don't do it on all emails.
Yeah I like that. And that's, this is what I actually love about marketing. I was not into [00:23:00] marketing, and again, Stacy's the business brain and everything I've ever done, but the more I've learned about marketing, it's actually just about human psychology. And then as a dietician. Everything that we're doing is about psychology, yeah. Yes, there's the science and everything behind it, but in actual eng behavior change, which is essentially what marketing is doing as well it's about, what makes people make decisions. Yeah. I think it's great. Yeah. It's and you just get to look at the data and go, oh what's working?
I thought that would work, but it didn't. Let's, let's try something else. Yeah. Just on the email and even for LinkedIn, if you can share this as well. Is there a particular time that you'll send an email, a particular day of the week that you find to be successful? Or is it just get it out there?
They'll see it. Like in terms of looking at your data and your metrics, has there been any, consistency? Yeah, so in the early days we tried all sorts of things 'cause I was trying to find the magic answer and the data was just so inconsistent and, so I've just, I think we now send it out at 12 o'clock Melbourne [00:24:00] time, every single day.
Because what the literature said was that the more consistent you can be, the better it is. And so my theory was I. A business owner might be thinking of lunch at that time, but like obviously we've got different time zones in Australia and so I don't really know, but that's what I've just landed on.
Yeah. I haven't tried it for a little while, so I just went for consistency, reliability, I. Like certainty and I decided it was better to be received during the workday rather than, how often you log in and there's been an email sent overnight. I decided not to do that and decided that it gets received in the workday.
So I don't know if that's the right answer, Chris, but that's where we've landed. It's working for you. If we're gonna. Look at a model, then let's look at one that's working successfully. Carmen, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing. There's a lot of really useful information in here for people looking at LinkedIn.
And just to clarify that 'cause a [00:25:00] lot of dieticians are their business model is really about chasing the consumer so that B2C sort of model. Whereas, like you said with the NDIS like you, you really, LinkedIn's really effective at targeting the plan managers and the people that can then offer you many, customers if you like, or clients.
So LinkedIn's quite effective for that. But I, like I was telling you earlier with dietetics, a lot of our referrers, the doctors and everything are on there. So LinkedIn really has some merit for trying to build that B2B relationship with our referrers. So yeah, this is a really useful podcast.
I think a lot of people get a lot of benefit out of it. I think if you have time, I would love to get you back on and talk all about your strategy around virtual assistants. But thank you for your time. Sounds good. Thanks Chris. Been great.
