EPISODE 87 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: HOW TO SET YOUR VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS, STOP MICROMANAGING AND GET YOURTEAM INVOLVED IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Sonya:
If you ask me to name three business owners I've worked with who get a lot done, Rebecca Miller would probably be right at the top of that list. Not only does she run two successful Medispa businesses, she's the creator of a 12 week online program and is a business coach, mentor and speaker. Did I mention that she also has three kids and a husband, and is really active in her local community too? Not only does she work incredibly hard, Becca's put the systems and processes in place to empower her team to take ownership of certain aspects of her businesses.

Sonya:
And one of those aspects is social media. If you follow La Bella Medispa or La Bella Medispa Orange on Instagram, you'll see the friendly and flawless faces of her team, showing up almost daily on stories and reels.

Sonya:
Welcome to the Boom Your Biz podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

Sonya:
Hey, Beck, how are you? Thanks so much for joining me.

Rebecca:
Amazing. Thank you, what an intro. It makes my heart warm when I hear that, it's lovely. Thank you.

Sonya:
Oh, good. Well, like I said, just before we started the recording, I think you do such an incredible job of inspiring and empowering your team to show up on social media. So, it's not always on you and your business partner, Jess, to have your faces out there, it's about the girls getting involved as well.

Rebecca:
Yeah.

Sonya:
So, I think firstly, why do you think it's important for your team to show up on social media, on stories and reels, and not just the photos on your feed?

Rebecca:
Well, I think there's a couple of parts to that. And why is it important? Because what we want to do, is we want to create raving fans of our business. You know that, but also for people that are looking at us before they even come to our business, that they start to identify with those teams, start to connect, think, "Oh, I really like her." They start to become familiar with the team that we actually have in ourselves. And we really have encouraged our girls, and the way that we've done that, is through leadership. And in fact, you never really see me much these days on our social media, it is predominantly the team.

Rebecca:
But however, I did have to be the leader when I first started this quest, around about seven or eight years ago, when I just thought, "You know what? We've got to show up more, this is such a great tool for us to showcase our business, our team, and all the offerings that we have, to people that are watching us." And people are watching your business well and truly before they decide to come to your business.

Sonya:
Yep. There's a lot of lurkers out there, aren't there?

Rebecca:
Yeah. The face stalking's real, and that includes businesses and people go in and look what you've got, look at the before and afters, look at your team. And what they want is to create a relationship. They want to have a connection. And there is no better opportunity than to start that connection, than showcasing your team through your social medias. So, when they walk in... We've had people walk in, "Oh, Cody, I saw your story the other day," or "Are you the skin whisperer?" And I'll go, "Yes!"

Rebecca:
With my lifelong clients that have watched The Skin Whisperer and thought, "I need to go to La Bella and meet this skin whisper." Just things like that, it's just amazing, have the connections that start through social media.

Sonya:
And I think you've raised a really important point there. So, your social media is not all about showing photos of the treatments that are happening or the products that you sell. It really is your team showing up with their individual personalities, and people feel that connection, despite the fact that you're selling a service and you're selling products. And I think that's where a lot of businesses miss the mark, especially if they decide to outsource all their social media, it's very hard then to get your team's faces showing up on your stories, on your reels.

Sonya:
So, that's why I think it's so important that businesses learn how to do their own social media. Get support in other areas like your ads, for example, but we really need the day to day, behind the scenes, real personalities coming through.

Rebecca:
And we've had different companies try and help us. There's been points in time where you go, "Right, let's hand it over," and it just hasn't worked. It hasn't worked, because it's not our wording, it's not our values that are being displayed, it's not our team. We know that we have to do it. So, the last... I think we've handed it over twice for a couple of months and it's just like, "Nah." It's just not working. Do we get help with other things? Of course, we've got you that run our ads and our many chats, and when we're doing promotions and all those things that are super important, helping us with building our online store. But the day to day runnings of our social media, is us. It's planned out and it's very purposeful.

Rebecca:
So, it is delivering value, solving issues, understanding what people want. We know who our ideal client is or our avatar. We know who we are talking to. So, it's not like we're just getting up in the morning and going, "Oh yeah, we're just going to do this today." I think planning is a key component of your social media, and now we've just got it like clockwork. We can plan out a month in an hour. At first, it feels uncomfortable, doing the videos feels uncomfortable. I know, for me, how long it took me to stand up there.

Rebecca:
But what we've got to do, is not make it about us. It's about us serving the community that's watching us. And once that happens, where you know it's not about you and how good you look, all those things, all the stories that come in here, the limiting beliefs and the confidence that comes in. The girls are just happy to throw bright lippy on. If they have to put a filter on, so be it. But they're just happy to be there now, and I think how we've been able to do it is just through the consistency, whether it's good, bad or otherwise. And there's been times that there's been some oh my goodness videos that are not great.

Rebecca:
But I've posted them, because I just thought, "You know what? It doesn't matter what I think." And those videos sometimes are the ones that do the best.

Sonya:
That's the thing, I think people overthink it so much. They think they need to have this super, super well planned out, and scripted, and all of the above. But in reality, when you're jumping on, you're being authentic, you're going off the cuff. You get that realness across, which I think cuts through the noise, because there is so much staged content on social media at the moment.

Sonya:
I just want to take it back to when TikTok reels, Instagram TV first started becoming the predominant features on social media or Instagram. I came across a TikTok of you with your kids, doing a dance or trying something out. So, you definitely jump on and test it and you don't care about, "Oh, am I doing this right or wrong?" You just work it out. I think what you've said earlier around, you have to be the leader, you have to jump in and start playing around with it and then the rest of the team follows, is a really good lesson, because I think some people go, "Oh, well, my team can just work that out."

Sonya:
You're not then providing them with any guidance. They're not going to feel comfortable doing it. It is a big thing to get your face on it. So, I just wanted to find out, when you show up on your stories, and on your reels, you really do come across completely as yourself. It's really authentic. Did you have to work to get to that stage, or have you just always been comfortable on camera?

Rebecca:
Definitely not. I've definitely had to work. I started the same way; I had all the stories, the self-doubt, the fear of people judging me, and it wasn't actually our consumers or the people that we wanted to build relationships with, it was actually people in our industry, worried about if I said something wrong. And there's been 100 videos where, when you're speaking on video, because nothing's scripted for me. I free speak with everything that I do, and sometimes I say the wrong thing, because your mind's moving so quickly and you're trying to keep up, to get it all to marry up.

Rebecca:
And when I've watched the video back, there's been things that have been wrong. And you know what, I've still posted it. And I've never, ever heard anybody ever come back to me and say, "Oh my God, did you say that?" So, it was the fear of judgment from, I think, the industry, especially when it comes to skin. There's a lot of smart women out there that are very skin focused, and I know with being in the coaching space now, that's what frightens my coaching clients, is not the people they're trying to touch, but other people in the industry, and we've just got to support each other.

Rebecca:
And everybody's doing their best, and if you can just turn up as your authentic self, deliver value, and be yourself. Literally be yourself and not be out there trying to impress anybody, you just want to create, show people that you've got something that can help really change their life and improve their life. And that's when we talk about it, especially with my team, that's where we go, "Well, how is this going to change somebody's life?" And when you start having conversations like that, it really changes the game. And yes, it takes time.

Rebecca:
And one of the bits of advice that I got years ago, was just to jump in Snapchat, 10 second video. It's a really good way to build up your confidence, and you've got 10 seconds to catch somebody. So, it's a really good space to play around in, and I played in there for a little bit until I got my confidence. And then, I just started doing more, and more, and more, and more, and more. So, the more that you do it, it's like riding a bike; the first time you ride a bike, you need the training wheels on, you've got your mom and dad running around with you, even with the training wheels on. Then the training wheels come off and your mom and dad are still doing it and you fall off a couple of times, and then you start to get super good on a bike, and before you know it, you're jumping over jumps.

Rebecca:
And it's exactly the same. The more that you do it, the more that you practice, like anything, the better that you'll become. It's just stepping into that discomfort, something that we've all got to do, if we want to continue to grow, whether it's social media or in your business. Wherever you feel discomfort, it's the place you need to go. And I know even with a lot of our coaching clients, we ran a challenge this year and it was just in my closed Facebook group. Amazing videos, but one of it was so great that they all did a five part series, and it was educating and delivering value and solving issues, and they put it in for feedback from all the other coaching clients. And those videos did exceptionally well out on the market. And it was just beautiful to see everybody build each other up.

Rebecca:
"Oh my gosh. Wow. You're amazing. You're a natural." Most people are naturals, they just... People don't see themselves how we see them, or somebody else sees them. I wish that we could see each other through other people's eyes, because I tell you, so many times I say, "Oh my God, I saw your video," just even to one of my friends. "Oh, really? That was wrong. This was wrong." And we're just so coded to look for what's wrong instead of going, "Hold on a minute. I'm going to pat myself on the back. I just nailed that."

Rebecca:
It doesn't have to be perfect. Whenever we're searching for perfection, we're never going to get there. Progress is more important than perfection.

Sonya:
Absolutely, and I think what you said around, you've had some of the girls produce really bad videos, or what you think are bad videos, and they're not great. You've posted them anyway, sometimes they're the best performing videos. So, it's just amazing sometimes what actually cuts through the noise, what gets the attention, and sometimes when it's not super polished and staged, and it's just someone talking to the camera, that's what performs best, because again, it goes back to that connection side of things, doesn't it?

Sonya:
I'd really like to know, Beck, anyone that is on social media, doing everything themselves at the moment, but wants their team to take some of that load and start showing up for reels, start showing up for stories, videos, whatever it might be. What is the first step, and how can they ease their team into it? How can they empower their team?

Rebecca:
Yeah. So, for me, everything's all about planning. And the highest level of planning, is understanding the purpose of the business, the mission and the core values, and really embedding that into your team. And when you embed that into your team, it creates these behaviors, this high level language and action-taking, because they know they're part of something bigger than themselves. And this is where your meeting rhythms come into play, and planning. So, for us, we plan every quarter. And so, one planning day, all the girls came. This is when we first started out, we set up a little space. They'd had their scripts and they got to practice.

Rebecca:
And we just did some videos at our planning day, made everybody feel really comfortable, gave feedback. It was awesome. Most of them have been posted. And we just started the conversation, how can we deliver more value? We've got these amazing tools, Instagram, Facebook, and all the social platforms that are available to us now, for us to showcase our business. We know we need to show up more, what's stopping us? What's really stopping us? And the girls, we just really hone down into the limiting beliefs, and at the end of the day, standing in front of your camera, you're not going to die.

Rebecca:
And I think Kerwin's the one that sort of put that into my mind, but what's going to happen when you actually make it not about yourself, and we make it about what we are delivering and why it changes the game? And that's where we need to take the team. We need to take the team to why we are doing it. We really want to create change, we really want to deliver value impact. We can impact outside our walls of our clinic. And for us, we deliver all around Australia and that's through the support of our social media platforms. So, yeah. And then what we did is, we sat down and we have the month. And first of all, everyone committed to one video a month.

Rebecca:
So, we didn't make it crazy. Then now, it's down to two videos a week. And this is part of their planning and their contribution to our business, that's outside the treatment room. And we've got all the things that make videos. We've got tripods now, we've got lights, we've got a space at La Bella that we can sit in and do videos. Just the more that we've got better at it, the girls are great at doing reels. It's definitely not my forte, I just scan over the videos and go, "Yeah, I want this, this, and this." And the young ones, they put it together and they love it. And it gives them some more, they feel like they're contributing to the business even more.

Rebecca:
So, it's just slow steps, but it's really coming back to why. And that's the most important thing, it's something that I'm so passionate about, and just really solving our clients' issues. So, why are we doing this video? For what purpose? What issue are we solving? Who are we talking to? And asking those questions and being purposeful around what we're delivering.

Sonya:
Yep, that makes a lot of sense to me. So, in a nutshell, number one, you've got to make sure the team is on board, they understand your mission, your vision, they're part of it, and they're seeing the bigger picture. So, that helps them get over those limiting beliefs. Some people are so scared of getting on camera, but when it's not about themselves, then it's a lot easier. Number two, I think you have set quotas? So, they're doing two videos a week. Number three, you've provided the right environment for quality videos to be taken. So, you've got the tripods, you've got designated areas.

Sonya:
With the two videos a week, do they just sort of book that into their calendars and go, "All right, I'm going to do my video on this and a video on that, and this is my designated time to do it, send it off, and I'm done."

Rebecca:
So, one hour a month. We have a training every single Friday, and one hour a month is where we do all of our videos. So, everybody, for that hour, shoots videos. They know what they're going to do. We've got a platform where we keep all our social videos in Trello Boards, and on top of that, it's before and afters, and client testimonials, and all those things that are essential to showcase your business. So, we've actually got a platform that everything sits in, so we can just go in and pull out whatever we want, whenever we want.

Rebecca:
Plus, the girls know we've got our planning done for next year. Everything's done. So, we go by six week cycles, but season to season, also look at important things that are happening. It could be Kindness Day, and there's something that we do about that. We'll throw up a post about that. It doesn't always be what we do with our business; it can be behind the scenes, our Mother's Day. You've seen our Mother's Day. It's fun, we involve our children.

Rebecca:
Ask your team, do a brain dump of amazing ideas of what you can bring to market. Start looking at what other people are doing and seeing how amazing their stuff is. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just do it in your way. There's so much, there's access to everything now. So, it's just getting clarity, and then just supporting your team and letting them know that you are truly believe in them.

Sonya:
Yeah, I think that's massive. For us, something that we started doing over the last few months as the team has grown, we've got a Slack channel that I call a Swipe File. So, if they see anything that's really cool in marketing, they have to drop it in there, and it gives us a ton of ideas. So, we might see something someone in the beauty industry is doing, and we go, "Oh my God, how could we use that as a marketing agency?" And then, each week they each have to drop at least two great results they've achieved for a client that week.

Sonya:
So, it might be a wonderful email where they've got some praise. It might be fantastic ad that they've set up. It might be a screenshot of all of the sales that they've made for a client that week. And then, for us, it just makes it so much easier, and all the burden then is not on me to be producing this content. Which I think is what you've done as well, and I guess it just comes down back to each business owner, finding based on their business model, what's going to work and putting those frameworks in place to support your team to do that.

Rebecca:
Yeah, and if you're doing the marketing all the time, and I know there's some businesses, it's a full-time job. It's literally a full-time job, trying to videos all the time, especially if they're working in reactive mode where it's just, "I get up in the morning and think of something for that day." I know, because I did it for a long time. But now that I've got the team on board and just getting the more that they practice, the better their videos are becoming, sometimes we see, and I think COVID was a great opportunity for us to really showcase the team, because they had more time and they just really stepped up and it was just fantastic. Actually, they ran all the socials. It was literally, we didn't do anything.

Sonya:
Oh my God, your socials during COVID, I think we even recorded a podcast episode on this, because it was so impressive. Obviously, the girls couldn't work, like do treatments, and each day they had to do, what was it? Some professional development, they had to create one piece of content, and there was something else as well.

Rebecca:
So, an hour of personal and professional development, an hour of self care. So, reading a book for an hour, or resting, or walking, or whatever it was. And then an hour of social content, or something that's going to build our business. That was all of our expectations. That was it.

Sonya:
Yeah, and I think that was probably the best thing in terms of getting the team involved. What an opportunity, you had this time on your hands, and it could allow them to play around without the pressure of going, "Oh my God, I've only got an hour on a Friday to record all my videos." And honestly, anyone listening to this, what La Bella did with COVID and the way they pivoted with that, and I know we've all seen everyone doing at-home facials and things now, but I honestly think back that you were paving the way in the industry, and you were the first market to do that, and you got your team completely involved in it.

Sonya:
And then, I feel like everyone else in the industry was following and started doing the same thing. But because you had the whole team behind you doing it, it was so much more effective.

Rebecca:
Oh, and it was fun. I look back now, yes, COVID's been a bit of a pain in the bum. Well, it has been a big pain in the bum for most people, especially business owners and our poor Melbourne salon owners. Salons and clinics owners, I feel for them. But for us, instead of getting caught in that, we've really looked at all the gifts that it's given us, and with the way that we delivered our business in that time. When I think back now, it just blows my mind. I absolutely just go, "Wow, we were just ready so quickly." You got to teach your girls how to use Zoom.

Rebecca:
It's a whole new skillset that you actually have to take to your team, and it was... I look back now and it puts a smile on my face. It created... Our culture was great, but this just took us to a whole new level.

Sonya:
Oh, absolutely, and as an outsider looking in, I could completely see that. It was so inspiring. So, well done. I just want to change it up for a second, and this kind of plays into empowering and inspiring your team, having them tap into the bigger vision of the business.

Sonya:
Tell me about your morning hustle meetings. How often do you have them? How do you go about getting the girls to set their own KPIs and having them accountable, and what does that look like? Because I think it's the most incredible way of managing a team, being a leader, but it's not micromanaging.

Rebecca:
Yeah, and the big thing is, as business owners, what we want to do is develop behaviors. What we want to do is develop a certain language that's uplifting, inspiring. And yes, KPIs and things like that are very important, because we want to, at the end of the day, have a profitable business. But what we do is, we really encourage, we take our team through a planning process, where we come up with our, "What are our big rocks, or our priorities that we would love to, in the next three to four months, if we could achieve those, it would get us closer to the mission that we've set." And we set a five to 10 year mission, depending on our new business, but 10 years it's been.

Rebecca:
And so, what we do is look at that, and then all we do is keep chunking it down to weekly goals, to daily tasks, and those daily tasks are our huddles. Now, in those huddles, it can be videos. It's anything outside the normal scope of what the expectations are. So, some of our girls do a bit of writing, some of the girls might be getting our client gift packs, the welcome packs, organized. There's different things that we've got on our list that, if we can tick those off, could be writing processes and procedures, delivering training, everybody's involved.

Rebecca:
So, how we run our daily huddles is, we recognize our win from the day before. Starting out on a positive note is something that's just amazing. In our huddles, it's high energy, it's uplifting, we're all standing, there's no one sitting around slouching and, "Oh gosh, here we go again." There's none of that. We just don't have any of that. We then work out what are the three things, three little tasks, these are 10, 15 minute tasks. Videos, five seconds. So, it's three little tasks that's outside the scope of what we normally do with clients, and it could be getting a before and after, it could be getting a client testimonial, but three little tasks that are going to contribute to the priority that we've set for the quarter.

Rebecca:
So, if you can imagine all of your team working on little tasks and weekly goals, and to achieve your priorities that you've set, you get there, because everybody knows what the goalpost is, but there's a lot of clarity around it. So, our three things that we commit to for the day, we troubleshoot or be solution focused for if there was something that's going to stop us from doing that, what would it be? And then the girls might say, "You know what, my energy's a bit flat today."

Rebecca:
Okay, cool, right, we need to make sure you've got water, get outside on your breaks. We come up with a solution really quickly. It's all very strategic, tactical, but with a lot of love as well. We also really align to one of our values that we are going to live for that day. I could stand my girls up now and they could tell you every single value that our business stands for, because we have embodied it, every single day in our business. And then, what we're grateful for. Gratitude has to be, it is a part of the success of a business, being grateful in that moment. And the more that we can develop our teams, the better our business is always going to be. The more that we develop ourselves, the better our team's going to be.

Rebecca:
So, it's just that continual dedication to growth, dedication to self mastery. And my girls, we teach them to lead themselves. They lead with certain behaviors, they lead with the core values, they lead knowing what the purpose of the business to being so aligned to that, that people walk into La Bella and they just feel this vibe. Everybody says it, there's just this vibe. It's just so happy in here, everybody's happy. And it's just, I walk and it's my happy place, and I'm not in there all as much now.

Rebecca:
And just having that start of the day, where you start, you're connected, you plan out your day. What have we got coming in? If there's anyone that we... Girls need support with any skins, whatever it is, there's a lot of planning that goes into what we do. And it's the secret to success, it's the planning. But also knowing, as the leader of the business, you are the role model.

Sonya:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
Model the behaviors that you want to see, because they will follow.

Sonya:
Absolutely. So, back in the morning, when you have your huddles, how long do they go for typically?

Rebecca:
About eight or nine minutes.

Sonya:
Great. So, short, sharp, straight to the point, you've got a framework you follow.

Rebecca:
Stories, there's no fluff.

Sonya:
Yep.

Rebecca:
It's just this, this, this, this, this, you know what I mean? It's just really high energy.

Sonya:
Yeah.

Rebecca:
But everybody's very focused for that 10 minutes, and it's really good. It's something that we put into our business about seven years ago now? It's just become part of what we do.

Sonya:
Yeah, I think that's fantastic. Beck, this has just occurred to me, so feel free to say no, but I think there's a lot of beauty businesses that listen to this podcast and also other service space businesses. Would you feel comfortable sharing a document with everyone that have your business values, and your vision and your mission, and maybe the structure that you do for your morning huddle? Because I'm listening to this going, "Oh my God, this sounds awesome, we could do that in my agency," for example.

Sonya:
And I think, particularly, if we are going to continue, touch wood we don't, but have situations where we are working from home a lot, we're not in an office or working directly face to face with our team, it just sounds like such a fantastic way to continue that bond. Great culture, keep everyone focused, on track, and it's not micromanaging, it's really empowering people. They're leading themselves, and they're part of that bigger mission.

Rebecca:
Yeah, exactly. And the more that you develop as a leader, the more that your team will develop. And I've been a micromanager. I'll be the first to admit it. And it's so disempowering. When your team know that you trust them, when your team know that you just have so much faith in everything that they do, they just really want to do the best for you, themselves, the business, the clients. It just changes the game. I'd be happy to share that with you.

Sonya:
Wonderful. And Beck, you also coach beauty business owners. So, I will include a link as well to the details around that in case there's anyone listening that would like to get in touch with you for some coaching.

Rebecca:
Amazing, yes, I would love that. Thank you, Son.

Sonya:
Thank you so much for coming on board, Beck, it's always a great chat with you.

Rebecca:
You too, Sony. Thank you so much for having me, it's my honor to be here.