146 - Life and Work Without Social Media with Shanna Skidmore
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Show Notes:
Well, today is part two of a wrap-up of my break from social media, and I took six months off and I'm just talking about the impact it's had on my life and my work. And today we're going to get practical. I'm going to answer some questions about, practically, how did I pull myself away from social media? What did that look like? How did I fill my time?
But I'm most excited about my conversation with my friend Shanna Skidmore(!), which will happen later in this episode. So, I'll answer some questions first, then I'll ask Shanna some questions, and we had the most amazing conversation about it and how to build a life that you want.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.
So when I came back to Instagram last week, I left a question box up and just said, "What questions do you have for me after I've been off Instagram for six months?" And so many questions came in about it.
Did you feel disconnected from friends?
What rhythms did you put into place other than scrolling?
Do you feel alone?
How do you nurse your baby without looking at your phone?
And so I just want to hit some of those really practical questions first, and then I'm going to have a conversation with my friend Shanna. And I want to tell you why I asked Shanna to come on for this episode in particular. She's a dear friend of mine. She is a brilliant business woman, but she has left social media and she still makes multiple six figures a year AND she has a creative business. And so I just wanted to ask her how she did it.
I'm really excited for you to hear that conversation because it's very practical and very helpful. But at the end of this episode, I'm going to have some resources for you if you want to dive deeper with me and Shanna on how to grow your business and do it well, and maybe turn down the noise of social media a little bit. Make sure you check the link in the show notes and listen to the very end of this episode.
Okay, I'm going to start by just answering some of those questions I got—
Did you feel disconnected from friends?
I did. At first, at first, I missed really my best girlfriends and kind of their updates on work and life and their babies, but I connected with a lot of them on Marco Polo and that was an even deeper connection for me. I connect with some of them on Voxer. I just think there's a way to connect that's a little bit more intimate and robust than just looking at them via an app where it feels like it's just really noisy with a lot of other things. So at first, yes, but eventually I actually felt more connected to them than I did before.
Do you have any tips for setting and sticking with social media boundaries? Did you delete the app? How did you stick with it?
I have a lot of friends that delete the app every weekend and or when they want to take a break, they just delete the app. I never did. I never deleted it. I just, the hassle of logging out and logging in. I know that seems really lazy of me, but I clicked and held on the app until it wiggled, you know, and then I clicked the X, but instead of deleting it, it just says 'hide from homescreen' or 'hide from main screen' and I just hid it. And then last week I just added it to my main screen. So I didn't, you know, I think for me it was really great that I announced I'm not getting on social media for six months because it held myself accountable. And I just knew for me, it was an exercise of self discipline. I just, I just didn't, I don't know how else to say other than I just didn't.
There were a few times where I found myself just opening the app out of habit and I would say, oh, nope. And I would quit it and put my phone down and walk away. I tried to do things that were like physical, like put my phone down or on the fridge or in a drawer or something. My phone has a magnet on the back of it and I can stick it on the fridge, which is nice. But yeah, I just did it. I had made up my mind.
Did you feel alone in motherhood without Instagram?
I felt like this question was really interesting because I think Instagram does make us feel less lonely in motherhood. We can connect with friends there. We can see other moms. We can feel not as alone, but I actually felt more connected in motherhood with my close friends via Marco Polo without Instagram.
So I felt more seen, more known with my closer friends circle than a bunch of strangers, if that makes sense. So it had the opposite effect. I didn't feel alone. I felt less alone, actually.
Nursing sessions. What about nursing sessions? I can only watch a baby for so long.
You know, I, yes, I did. I will say this, while I was nursing Benji—I'm still breastfeeding him a hundred percent of the time—it's just a lot of time that you spend and you can feel very bored, but I've gotten better about reading books while nursing him, which has been good. I also have this confession to make, I got on Twitter. LOL—I got on Twitter. Like what in the world who looks at Twitter anymore? I do. I did. I was like, oh, I just need something to read. And so that was the social media that I looked at while I was kind of on this break from social media. I mean, I guess I technically cheated, but really, Twitter's not really like a thing for me, so it didn't feel like it.
I felt like I was reading interesting articles. Also, I read blogs. I read blog posts from my friends who I ad lost touch with their blogs. And I loved reading their blogs. So yeah, I would say I did Twitter some, but I mainly like read blogs would read articles on my phone or I would read a book. And in the middle of the night I didn't do anything. I literally just watched my baby and it kept me sleepy and helped me fall asleep faster, which was really good.
Did I stay off all social media platforms?
No, I just told you I looked at Twitter, but really I got off most of them. I did some Facebook marketplace buying and selling. I don't really care for Facebook, but I did stay off Instagram the entire time. I did not go on until like a couple of weeks before I signed back on officially to post, I just got back on to unfollow a ton of people.
How do you make a social media break stick for more than just a few days?
You have to outline your break. You have to say I'm doing it for this long.
How did you prepare financially? Is your income down? What is your plan for income moving forward? I'd like to ditch Instagram too, but I worry about my income being affected.
This is where Shanna's conversation comes in. So I'm just going to go ahead and pivot to our conversation because it was so helpful and she really talks about how she did this. And she's very equipped to talk about it being that she's been off of social media for several years, and I've only been off of it for six months, but it's really good. A couple of things I just want to say before you listen in, I think people feel stuck. I think I have felt stuck—like I have to do social media, have to do Instagram, I have to do reels, I have to do this thing. This conversation is meant to shed light on the fact that we don't, we don't have to do the things. Okay, I feel like Instagram and all the business owners on Instagram are yelling at me, "I have to do this thing. I have to do reels. I have to keep up."
The goal of this conversation is just to show you that you don't have to. And that's a lot of noise and we have the power to build a business that fits our life and to put social media in its place. And that there's another way. And I hope this conversation, whether or not you do anything with your social media, I hope it challenges you to think about it differently. And I hope that it blesses you and it gives you the confidence to do what you need to do in your life, in your work for your health, for your family, for the life that you want. And you know what, if you enjoy Instagram, if you enjoy social media, go for it. I hope that you use it as much as you want to. But my prayer is that this conversation would just challenge you to ask yourself:
What do you want? How much time do I want to be spending on this? And if you're spending more than you want to be, you can change that. I hope you enjoy this conversation, it blessed me so much.
Nancy Ray: Hey, Shanna, I am so excited to have you on the Work & Play Podcast! I'd love for us to start by you just sharing a little bit about who you are and your family and your work.
Shanna Skidmore: Hi Nancy! I'm so honored to be here. Thank you for asking me. I'm Shanna Skidmore, I own a business consulting company for creative entrepreneurs. I kind of talk about the money and love talking about the money. I've been in finance now for 15 years, I actually have—my background is in finance—but I actually have a psychology degree as well as an art degree, which people don't always know. I always laugh and say, I just couldn't figure it out, which is perfect now because I have a finance degree, psychology degree and art degree. That's basically what I do.
I have been married for 11 years to my best friend, Kyle, and we just had our daughter this year, Madeline—she's 10 months old. We've kind of moved all over for my husband's job and then this past year, we decided to relaunch the company together as a partnership, and it's just been so wonderful.
So we're back home in Knoxville, Tennessee working together and just loving life. I think it's always funny. People say, what's it like working with your husband? And I actually met Kyle in finance, like we worked together. That's how we met. So I'm like, that's kind of all we've ever known. So that's what we do!
I'm honored every single day to help men and women around the world just start businesses, make more money in their businesses and understand their finances, because I just love the freedom it gives me to be with my family and the life we've created. And so to get to help other people do that, it's just the biggest blessing.
Nancy: Well thank you just for your work because Shanna, you have had such an impact on me in my business and I'll talk a little bit more about what you do and the impact you've had on my business towards the end of this episode, but your course The Blueprint Model literally changed my work and my mindset about money and time management for the better, to where I literally take this course over and over again, it has been just such an incredible blessing to me and really empowering.
I feel like my husband's kind of like the money and tech guy and I'm the creative visionary. And so sometimes the money side of things can be overwhelming and can feel like "I don't know what I'm doing," but the things and principles you've taught me have taken the scary out of money. In business and work, obviously money is a huge part of it, but it's taken the scare factor out of it, or my insecurity. I'm like, no, I can do this.
And so, yeah, this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you're doing, because it has impacted me so much.
Shanna: That means so much! You know what's so interesting, so right out of college, I started working as a fortune 100 financial planner. And I was the only female in my office. And finance is typically a male dominated industry, and that is one of the biggest things I started realizing so early on that almost all of my clients were women.
And not that I only work explicitly with women, but I think there is an intimidation factor. And I just love getting to—I like how you said that—take the "scary" out of money because I do truly believe when you understand just a few simple things—they're not always easy to do, but they are simple—it just frees you up to be like, I can do this! I can understand! But it's the unknown I think that so many people are intimidated by. So thank you for saying that.
Nancy: Yeah, Absolutely. And it's almost turned it in—I don't want to stay here too long—but it's almost like a game for me. I'm like, I want to figure out how I can do this. And it's more of a fun thing, which you would never think. I would never think I'm having fun with these numbers or these metrics or measuring this, but that's a big part of making business fun, I think is diving into those hard things and then making it like a challenge or a game and yeah.
Shanna: I just love that as entrepreneurs, that's a privilege and an honor. Like so many people don't get to do to, say like, okay, what if we wanted to pay off this car this year, pay off this credit card. Like you can set a goal and work to know how to do that. Like people in their nine to five that have a salary don't have that same opportunity. And I just, that's why I love entrepreneurship so much. It gives us that freeing up, that freedom to set those challenges that some of them, sometimes other people can't do.
Nancy: Yeah, totally. This is why we are soul sisters, Shanna! This is why I love you so much. We've always said that. I know, but we could totally do an entire episode talking about money and business and all the things, but I actually wanted to talk to you today about something really unique and it's something that you've done boldly and differently in the creative industry, which is to not use social media, which still kind of blows my mind that you've been off social media for, I think over a year, maybe two years. But I would love for you to just talk about that journey for you because I just took a six month break from social media and I'm trying to figure out how to make it fit into my life and the way that I want and not be like a slave to it.
But like what, what's your story there? What made you leave? How long has it not been part of your life? And most importantly, has it affected your bottom line?
Shanna: Yeah. Oh my goodness. These are such good questions. Okay. So quick back story, Nancy, you might be in the same boat, but so Facebook came out when I was in college or maybe it was in high school, but I knew about it in college, I don't know. My roommate in college set my Facebook account up and I still have the same like username today. That's how non-tech savvy I am. I probably would have never even signed up for Facebook if I had not been for my college roommate. So, you know, we were doing the Facebook thing and it was just social and fun.
And I launched my business in 2013 officially. I had been doing it for about a year, kind of an officially and then had my Instagram account and I was posting pictures of my dog and just random things. And I guess it was maybe 2014-2015 when Instagram really started becoming used as a tool for business marketing. And this shift started happening, and I remember it really clearly where I was trying to document my life so that I guess people would like me.
It's that kind of "know, like, and trust" factor that I think social media gives as a business marketing tool. Right? But I'm not a photographer. Nancy you were made for it, but like, I'm just not. I don't know how to edit photos. And I remember I would be out to dinner with Kyle or we lived in Savannah, Georgia at that time. And I would be trying to take these beautiful pictures of these trees and it was taking up so much of my time trying to document this.
And I am, I do have an artistic side, so I'm a perfectionist about it, you know, I wanted it to be as beautiful as a photographer's feed, but I'm not a photographer. So it was always a wrestling match for me. It was this feeling that I had to do it for marketing, but it was really intruding on the lifestyle that I want to have. I didn't want to be to dinner with my husband or have, you know, quote unquote, Instagram husband or take pictures by myself, like without my family. And I just really struggled. I felt like I was never good at it. And if I want to do something, I want to do it really well. So it was just years, I mean, Kyle for years, my husband was just like, why do you need that? Why do you need that? And I would always be like, "I need it, it's for business. Like I need it it's for business."
And it just, it just became too big. So the beginning of 2017, I really felt the Lord say like, you don't need this anymore. You need to let it go. And so in 2017 I decided to take a year off of social media, Instagram specifically completely. I've never had TikTok or any of those other things. So basically for me, it was Instagram, and I started taking her off and we had a big launch of my, kinda my signature program, The Blueprint Model right before that
So people always ask me like, financially, how did you do it? Is that I volunteer as tribute. I use that launch to like save up what our financial need was for the year. So I always recommend if people want to take a break, like if it is a part of your business, bottom line, know how you're going to replace that income.
So we went in with a plan. I knew that that launch would sustain us for an entire year. So I decided to go completely social media free for all of 2017 for an entire year. And my biggest goal was I didn't want to come back until I had replaced that marketing channel with something that felt more sustainable to me. So at the time, Instagram was bringing in 70% of the traffic to my website and so I wanted to create a way to bring in that same amount of traffic with another marketing channel. And that was really helpful for me, Nancy.
I don't know if you've started thinking about this this way, that like social media used to be social, but now it really is used as a marketing tool. And so when I made that transition in my mind, I was just like, this is just one tool. There are all kinds of tools out there. Let's look at the purpose behind it and find the right tool for me. And so people always ask, like, I never want to get a social media, bad rap, even though I do think there's a lot of psychological stuff there, but let's think about it as a marketing tool. And so I just wanted to replace that with something else. So for me, that was content creation. I focused on blogging, SEO and Pinterest. And so I started bringing it—it took me 18 months—but I did finally replace that social media, Instagram traffic with just content creation.
And that was such a better fit for me. I love teaching. I love encouraging. I love journaling and writing, not always super consistent on it, but that was such a better fit. So after 18 months I came back on Instagram and immediately, I just knew like this isn't for me. So I've kind of dabbled in it for '18 and '19 and then kind of just got off that. I didn't even make an announcement, I just kind of quit and people email me and be like, I can't find your Instagram, I'm like Yeah, I shut it down.
So did it affect my bottom line? No. And yes. You know, no, because I had this launch before and so I went in with a plan financially and then I wanted to replace that marketing was something else. But in 2017 and 2018, we actually more than doubled our revenue. And in my business, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we did that completely without social media and how we did that is in 2018, we actually did an affiliate launch, and so we essentially utilize other people's networks to help boost our audience reach.
So I always say like, there is a way. There is a way, but you have to have a plan. So I want to keep rambling and share so much more. But that's how we did it.
Nancy: Yeah, No, that makes so much sense to me. And I think where I'm at is I keep hearing everyone say, "You have to use social media for your business." You know, you have to be posting to Instagram and then to keep up with the algorithm on Instagram, you have to post you, can't miss a day on your stories. And the latest thing now is all the reels. It's like, you have to be posting reels and to be honest, reels get on my nerves. And I, you probably don't even know what I'm talking about.
Shanna: I don't know what a reel is.
Nancy: But I'm like, man, I just want anyone who's listening to realize like Shanna doesn't know what a real is. And she is having such a successful, flourishing business and life. And that's the goal. Like your business is flourishing, still making multiple six figures. Your life is flourishing. You're doing work that you love and you're not spending time on social media.
And I feel like, you know, I don't want to say that it's a lie that we've all bought into because there it is a marketing channel, like you said, like, and I personally have seen financial opportunities and financial gain when I post on social media. There is an audience that I have there that, that trusts me that, and I love interacting with them. And I like, I just struggle. Right? Here's the struggle because I get, there is a financial tie there, but I think what I love about what you're saying is you can look at your business holistically and from a lot of different angles and knowing that social media is not the only channel, it's not the only way. And if social media is taking away from your ability to be a good wife and mom and run your household. Or if it's just, I mean, I've talked with several of my friends, it just ups our anxiety. It's like, yeah, just this feeling of needing to post or FOMO. Like we actually can lay that down. We can lay that down and pursue something else.
Shanna: Okay. I'm going to, can I just ramble off a ton of things to you Nancy? I'm going to, I, gosh, there's so much stuff here. I, you know this about me and if anybody, I truly believe I have been in finance now for 15 years, I've worked with thousands of business owners. Even when I was in personal finance, I only worked with business owners and I truly believe you can build a business a thousand different ways. And if somebody's listening, it's like social media is not a good fit for me. There's so many other ways to get the same effects of social media. And that's what I started thinking about. Okay, if social media is a marketing channel, we have to replace that audience reach in another way. How can we do that?
We can do that through blogging. We can do that. Like I mentioned with, for me: affiliate launches, that's where other people share about the products that I have. Testimonials; I ask my clients to go share with other people. My biggest referral source is still like my clients, my students, they are little advocates for me.
There's so many other ways, but I will say Nancy, like you mentioned, I miss, I totally miss like DMs. There is the social aspect of social media that's really sad. So then I was like, okay, I truly do miss that. What can I do? So I actually do a lot of live trainings, especially on now that we have zoom, especially with my students, I love doing that because I want to see their faces. I think it's really important that "know, like, and trust" factor is real. And so if I can do more videos, if I can do live interactions with students or non-students like, so you have to kind of take each component of social media and say, if this isn't a good platform for me, how can I recreate the good things and let go of the bad things, which is a funny story: We tried to apply for like an Amazon account last year affiliate account. And we got denied and I got denied, but you know why? Because I don't have Instagram. I'm convinced. Because there's so many opportunities that I missed out on in income generators for sure ,that I miss out on because I don't have social media, but I learned a long time ago. You know, if you chase every single dollar, you lose a lot of dollars. And so I just focus on my area, you know, my offers, my products and I let the small income streams go. So yeah, I was so upset. I was like, come on people! I have a big audience! But because I don't have Instagram social proof, there you go. There you go.
Nancy: I know it's so interesting how the world feels like it's starting to revolve around that, which is silly. And that's why I love your bravery. And I feel like you're a pioneer, you're like way back in 2017, I quit social media! But really, I mean, I just feel like you're ahead of the curve because what I'm seeing and hearing now is a lot of people is just really tired. They're really tired of having to keep up with it all. And I just want this podcast episode to be a breath of fresh air to build the life you want. And I will say this, too, like someone listening might really enjoy using Instagram for their business. And if that is you use it like you: use it. It's, it is an incredible tool. And it can be a really fun platform. I have a friend, a good friend of mine who loves using Instagram. She's an influencer. She has so much fun with it. It really feeds her creativity.
I have other people who maybe want it in their lives some, but like, don't really love it all the time. And that's kind of where I'm at. I'm like, I'm doing one day a week here and I'm going to try that for a few months and then reassess. I feel like it's just such a changing beast. Like it's not something that we can say here's the formula for, and it's either all or nothing. Like there's no formula. We have to keep kind of reassessing. But I do think what you've done is so powerful because it shows other business owners, your business is not as dependent on it as you think it is. It's just how you strategize your marketing. It's just a marketing tool. And I think that's so smart and so refreshing to hear.
Shanna: Yeah, I love that. I wish—that's exactly the message. I want to give people. I have friends, too, who love social media. I'm like more power to you for me. It just, wasn't mentally healthy. And I just got really tired, but I still use Facebook for business. And I have a lot of Facebook groups on groups on Facebook, which we're trying to transition off, but you know, that's the piece that's okay with me. You know, and people always laugh like, "Oh, Facebook." Instagram, Instagram was too much for me. It was too much activity too much. And I heard years ago and I wish I could credit, I have no idea where I heard this, so this is not mine, but somebody mentioned, I heard the idea of like, be a celebrity versus hero. And it was this idea of a celebrity has to keep showing up to be remembered, and that's how I started to feel about Instagram. Like you have to perform and you just have to keep showing up, whereas a hero does something once and is remembered for it.
And so I just think about that. So often, you know, in the smallest way of like content, how can we have our content live the longest? That's going to be a blog or on Pinterest versus something so fast on Instagram, you have to just keep performing, keep generating, I just can't work at that pace. But also for me, I might be quiet. I might be less known, but my clients are out there sharing about my work and that's the biggest compliment I could get. So that's something for me again, like find what works for you and know it's just a tool. We all have to fill our funnel. We all have to grow our audience, but there's so many ways to do that. And I just want people to know there's freedom to be kind of social media independent, and I wish more people would do that. Yeah.
Nancy: That's so good. When you first kind of got off all the social media platforms and broke up with Instagram and you know, kind of went dark on us. How was that for you?
Was it hard to break the, "I have to share this moment" kind of mentality. And did you pick up your phone all the time? Did you feel that FOMO, or did you feel disconnected from your family? Just share a little bit about that and then kind of what you did to replace that impulse and addiction—to use strong language—but I really believe that's where we're at with it. Like what, what did that look like for you?
Shanna: Oh, was horrible. Horrible. I was listening to one of your podcasts where you mentioned, like you had just that phone addiction. That was what it felt like for me, I felt like I just kept reaching for my phone. Like subconsciously I just kept like picking it up and I ended up putting Pinterest—I don't have any email on my phone, I don't have any apps on my phone—but then I put Pinterest on my phone just because I was like, I need something for that moment. That was back in 2017. I put Pinterest on there, but I remember I was at a speaking event and I was sitting at the airport. It was a very small airport and I was sitting, there's like two gates and every single person was on their phone except for me. And it was this moment of just like, it was just a really interesting moment. And for about six months, I would say it was hard. Maybe not even that long. It was a challenge, you know, but then I forgot about it. You know, I remembered how to have conversations with my family and with my husband and be more present where I am. And I now literally don't even think about Instagram. I don't even think about it, but yeah, in the beginning it was tough. I missed my best friend's baby shower because they sent out invites on Facebook. In 2017, I went on Facebook and Instagram completely.
So they sent out these invites on Facebook. So I literally missed her baby shower and she got her feelings like really hurt. I literally did not know. No, like of course I would have been there. She sent me the pictures after it was over. And I was like, what? I didn't even know this happened? It was hard.
I still feel like, like you said about reels. And I was like, what? I don't even know. I feel disconnected from the world a lot, but I look at that and I think that's good. You know, I clear my mind. It keeps me focused on what I do. It helps me with FOMO, not that I never have that. And it makes me more present. Like I, my, my circle is smaller, which isn't always easy, you know, but my friend, do you know Erin Lochner? She wrote the book Chasing Slow. I don't know her, but I know of her. And she has the most beautiful heart. And she's an incredible author. She's amazing. She came up to one of our events, Blueprint Summit, and we just, we get to them send voice messages back and forth. She's such a wise lady, but she said, I want my circle to be somebody I can take a casserole to. That's my friend group. And not always like—kind of figuratively, I have friends that don't live next door— but that's just what's helpful for me.
We have this different view of friendship now. And so I have a very small circle that are really close. And then my next group is kind of my students, you know, that I talked to you and hang out with, my business acquaintances, but yeah, my circle is a lot smaller.
So yeah, there's definitely struggles. There still are struggles. But for me personally, it kind of is a risk-reward situation, like weigh the pros and cons and the pros heavily outweighed the cons. Yeah. I don't need to be an Amazon Affiliate account, but I have better conversations with my husband. I don't get stressed. I don't have FOMO every single day or very often, and that's been really good for me. I was so mad at myself, Nancy. I don't know if you felt this way. I got mad at myself. Like, why can't you handle this? Why can't you handle this? Why can't you handle it?
And the more I've read about social media and the way that it's created to become addictive, it's like we weren't designed to create, to handle it. And now that I've had my daughter, I even more, and I say this extremely carefully, I'm just very aware of how much I use my phone with her. I mean she's 10 months old and she already like scrolls and I'm just very aware of that. So for me, I'm thankful that it doesn't have to be a big part of my business and I don't have to be on it a lot because I want to be really aware of how much I'm on it in front of her. I don't want to shame anyone in that. Okay? Yeah, I want to be very careful there, but I'm thankful that I can be independent.
Nancy: And I think every mom listening, is going to say at the top of my list is to be on the phone in front of my kids. You know, like every mom listening feels this tension. I'm sure because I felt it where I'm like, I've been on my phone for 10 minutes in front of my kids and I don't want to be, but yet here it is. And I totally agree.
I've talked about this on the podcast several times in different books, digital mentalism I've talked about, and just the way that our brains are wired and the way these companies literally design these apps to be addictive and give us these dopamine hits so that we keep coming back for more likes and the bottomless scroll, endless scroll is like, it's a thing that someone created to make us feel, never feel closure. All of that is so important to realize. And I think also we have to zoom out, not just on our lives and the work and businesses we want, but on all of human history, this is a massive spike.
Like what is it like a bell curve or whatever we know where technology has just exploded. And I'm not even talking in the last a hundred years. I'm talking in the last 10 years I'm talking in the last five years, it's different. It is continuing this upward growth of: You must do this. You must be this. You must do—and all of those voices are just bombarding us all the time. But all of human history, the circle of friends that we have been created to have, has been close, you know, in all of the last thousands of years, we haven't even, you know, my mom didn't grow up with a cell phone. Like the house phone, in the house had four digits only! Like it's crazy. You know? And I just think about that versus our generation and as entrepreneurs, the things we're told to do all the time. And I just want to say, you don't have to. You don't have to, you know, you've worked with a lot of fortune 500 companies or fortune 100, or I don't even know what those mean. I mean, I think, Yeah, anyway, they're really—they make a lot of money. That's what I know. My husband has the privilege of working with business owners, too. And what I've seen, as like a front row seat of watching him work with dozens of business owners in our area, is that very few of them are good at social media. And they're in the millions, billions even some of them, which blows my mind. Right? That kind of money. I don't understand, but here I just, we need to think about it differently.
I'm just convinced we need—it's a tool. It's, it's fine. It's good. But there is, there are so many other things that we can do instead of this.
Shanna: I am like a religious tracker of my time. I use Toggl—T O G G L. It used to be free. I'm not sure if it is now. I love it. I track my time religiously. So, thankfully, I had a lot of data on how much time I was spending on social media and something that was super interesting was it took me about an hour to do a post. And that was like really systemized. I had tools that I don't even think existed anymore with planning your image, posting your image, scheduling it, writing. I know there's a lot of those tools now. So I had it pretty well scheduled out. And then I would do, you know, engage for 30 minutes today. So let's have an hour start to finish. So if I did a post a day, that's five hours a week, right. And so I was like, how can I take that same five hours? And what I did is I replaced it with a blog post and then I generated Pinterest images.
So, that was kind of how I thought about time management. And if we're thinking through what is the most useful amount, especially now, you know, working part-time with little ones at home. I just realized too, not only is it just a tool, I don't even think it's the best tool. Because like you mentioned, a post lives for a very small time on Instagram and then it's gone and what a very small fraction of your feed sees it. And then you've got to, I don't even know about the algorithms. Gosh, my brain hurts. It's like, okay, I will tell you Nancy, that the businesses that I have seen make the most money and generate the most revenue were bloggers first. Not bloggers, but they generated content that can live on for a long period of time. And I just really started to ask myself, not only is this maybe not good for me, but is it even the best use of my time? Let's just talk about it that way. Again, if you like it, go for it. But I say it should be the cherry on top of your sundae, not the whole sundae, because we don't own it. There's a lot of things that are not controlled in it. And so as a business owner, let's talk about marketing and what's the best use of your time, you know? Cause people think they can't live without it, and that's what, that's what makes me sad. You can! You know, you don't have to, but let's talk about the best use of time.
Nancy: So good. And that was one of the main questions I'm sitting here. I'm like, okay, Shanna, be my coach for a second. Tell me what are the ways that I can make money apart from social media?
Because I do, I want it to be a very small slice of my work overall, a very small sliver of my time. And the thing is even on Tuesdays, as I'm trying this, it's already turned into like a couple of hours and I'm like, no, I don't even want that. So like, tell me, talk, talk me through what are all the avenues or channels that I could use and, you know me, but like what should creatives do you think be using instead? I mean, you've talked to this a little bit. You've said blog posts, Pinterest, is there anything else? And then how do you track that? Like how do we practically take this information and then do it? Does that make sense?
Shanna: That's fantastic. Yes.
So first of all, I, if we're going to talk about social media, Instagram, I know there's a lot of different social medias. I don't know all of them just bulk it all together. Social media as a marketing tool. And I use Google analytics to track where all of my website traffic is coming from, because I believe we need to move people off of a social media platform, which is a marketing tool onto something you own like an email list.
So I think that's first just looking at how much traffic is it actually bringing to your site for me, Instagram alone, brought 70% of my website traffic. So I noted that number and I said, okay, how can I replace that with other avenues? Because something I talk about with my students, like we all I learned this day, one senior in college as a financial advisor in my internship, you know, we all have to have a big audience to sell to one customer. It takes a lot in the funnel to generate one sale, right? So how can we put more people into the funnel? And that's through marketing. And so, Instagram is one tool, content creation I like because it lives longer.
So you can do, you can get SEO just with keywords. You can use something like Pinterest, like a search engine to bring a new audience to your content. That's really helpful. You can also get that featured on other people's blogs. So that's really helpful. And so that's something I felt like, okay, that's a good use of time. There's a lot of ways that can bring traffic to the website and then get people on an email list.
Also just features, you know, reaching out to other people that you admire, like being on this podcast, you know, like I'm so honored to be here and know that like there's people in your audience that maybe have never heard of me and if they resonate with this conversation, they might, you know? So being on, getting featured on podcasts and other blogs, things like that, that's how marketing has been for years. It's just about growing awareness. So those are some things that I've done personally, to try to just build that audience reach. And as mentioned with launches and products, we do affiliates. We say, "Hey, you, you like this. You believe in this product. You want to share it genuinely with your audience. Let's partner together. That'd be good for your audience, hopefully good for you." Like that's been really something that's been special to me. I love affiliates, which choose and select them very carefully. And that's been one of the best things, because I feel like I get to bless not only our new students, but also these affiliates.
So that's kind of three ways that we have focused on replacing social media traffic with other marketing, through other marketing means.
Nancy: I love that. And they're practical, tangible ways, which I love and it's challenge. I don't know. It's just so refreshing because I feel like all the time I'm hearing do this, do this, do this and social media, social media. And it's like, no, take a breath step back. There are some other avenues.
And did you just look at the numbers on your website, like monthly and then kind of keep a chart? Is that what you did for the 18 months that you were trying to grow that traffic. Yeah.
So I looked at it the day I left and noted, you know, 70% from Instagram, that's this many users. And then I just started to, I still track it every single month, all of our users and how what's coming. And with Google analytics that you can see where they're coming from, whether it's a YouTube video or a certain blog post, whether someone else has promoted or linked to a blog post for you. I mean all kinds of things. And you can see where that traffic's coming from. And I'm just really, I've watched that every single month. And then I just, my goal is to grow our, the amount of audience reach we have each month, right? So we want more users, more people reading the content. And so I just, I love, for me—boiling everything down to numbers. And I know that I'm a numbers person, but that just gives me a lot of freedom. It gives me something to hold onto that's tangible.
And so, you know, it's like, okay, social media is one form of marketing. It brought in this amount of traffic and it took me X amount of hours. I use toggle to track that, right. So it's like, okay, how then can I replace that traffic in less hours? That's, that's just smart. That's just profitable. Right? And so I track now content creation, how long am I spending writing blogs, making Pinterest pins? I have someone on my team who manages our Pinterest account. I don't even know how to post anything on there, but all of that's tracked. And then I look at the same thing and I asked myself, which was more profitable? Spending time on social media or spending time writing content. Again, because that's our number one right now, marketing tool, is content creation. And that just to me, it just becomes about the analytics just becomes about the metrics. It takes the feeling and emotion out of it, and it just becomes about the metrics. And also it's more authentic to me. I love content creation. I love serving in that way. I love webinars. And probably that one of those weirdos, I love getting on free trainings because I just genuinely like to help and serve. And it just felt more authentic than again, like social media. I wouldn't even, a reel? I wouldn't even know where to begin. That just wasn't a right fit for me. And acknowledging that was just really good because then I can use my time in a better way.
Nancy: I totally agree. And I love, yeah, I love all of that so much. I just want to say like the things that have meant the most to me, and what I have learned from you is the importance of tracking things.
You have your Blueprint Model course, which I have gone through and I am a huge fan of, and I think the two modules or lessons that helped me the most were the ones all about tracking, like your data, your financial management, and digging into those and tracking your time. And I love that you've talked about toggl and time management, but those lessons to me were worth the price of it. Like they were mind blowing how important tracking those things are. And I think we just jumped into posting on social media and doing these things because it's easy and we know how to do them, but we don't pause and track things. And those are just two components of this overall course, and I just wanted to give you a minute because I am an affiliate for your Blueprint Model Course. I am a huge fan of it. I'm going through it myself again this year, because it's that valuable to me. And I know I just need the refresher again and again, but just talk for a minute, Shanna, about this course, what is it? What have you put into it? I just want to hear like your explanation of the course and why it's so valuable.
Shanna: Thank you so much. I love it. I am so grateful to get to do this work. And I wanted to—something you said reminded me—I used to have, I had this hot pink binder of goals. I started when I was a senior in college. I was 21 years old and I pulled it out years ago and I had written at the very top of it: "Am I thinking more about what I have to do or what I want to accomplish?" And I was like, man, I was a real smart 21 year old. And that's when I think about with the Blueprint Model, with everything that I teach in these analytics, I want to teach you. There's so many good things you can do in business, grow an email list, post on social media, post to your blog, like so many good things, get better at your craft, but there are a few essential things you have to do. And that's what the Blueprint Model teaches. How to understand and track your numbers, and really my goal is to simplify it, to simplify. Okay, if we have to generate an audience to generate clients, how can we simplify that and look at data and track the right data to know how to do that.
So, because I hear so often from people, I know they feel like they're learning and getting all this education, but they don't know how it all fits together or what's kind of actually going to move the needle forward. And I truly boil it down to about six numbers. You really have to know like, what do you need to make personally? Therefore, what does your business have to generate to make that? What is the price point that you need to sell that to have a manageable workload? You know, if you're as a photographer, if you're needn't to take on 65 events to hit your financial goals, we probably need to look at your pricing or your spending. So like how can we boil it down to these data points? For me, it takes almost that emotion out of it because entrepreneurship isn't easy. It's a roller coaster. Some days you're high, some days you're low, some days you're feeling like I'm a rock star and some days you're like, Will anybody ever buys something from me ever again? we all, I mean, I think all of us go through that. Maybe some people don't, but I go through that for sure.
And so if I can say, okay, I have a plan. All I have to do is work the plan. How many clients do I need? How many products do I need to sell? If I'm, if I need to slow down and take a break, what can we cut and not spend money on so I can do that? When I took a year off in 2020, that's exactly what we did. How much do we need? To say, how much time, you know, how will that allow me to take this time off so I can rest and get rejuvenated. Those knowing those numbers gives you that freedom to build that business. You know, we talk a lot about profitable, sustainable life, enriching bins. I truly believe that you can design a business to really live the life you want. And it comes down to it: we have to know how to be profitable. The few numbers you need to look at. And I want every business owner to know those numbers not be afraid of those numbers. And that's what the Blueprint Model teaches.
It's six weeks, it's a six week mastermind component as well. So you can get an individual feedback from me and it goes through what I call the six building blocks of building a business. So we talk about vision, offers, pricing, marketing. I talk all about my social media free journey. And then we talk about financial forecasting, sales goals, budgeting, like people say, what should I reinvest my business? I guess, percentages for all that. It's like the best guide. And then the last one is all about managing it well. Like how do you stay on track with that month to month? Because it's one thing to set a sales goal and then never look at it again, and it's another thing to kind of track it.
How are we tracking towards that? How many clients have we booked? It allows you freedom. It gives me so much freedom to know exactly what I need to bring in. What is enough for me and my family. And if I need to rest, if I'm excited, I want to speed up, I have that because I know what I need.
And that's just freedom for me. So I love it. I think the number one feedback we get from our students is life changing. This course is life changing. And that's just so wonderful to hear, because like you said, Nancy, I truly do believe it's a mindset course. It equips you for sure, but it completely readjusts the mindset to think about: what are we trying to accomplish. Let's not just do to do's. What are we trying to accomplish? And how can we best accomplish that?
Nancy: I'm getting so hype because I'm taking it again. I am, I'm getting so exc— soI actually started it. And then I was like, no, wait, I'm going to pause. I'm doing this with Shanna. We're going to be all in.
And so for anyone listening, if you're like, I need that in my life— because I'm an affiliate, I was able to partner with Shanna in this and also offer some group coaching. And I'm going to tell you guys all about that at the end of this episode. So hang on to the end, I'll tell you where you can find out more about The Blueprint Model and my coaching and Shanna's mastermind and I mean, really, life-changing, it feels like those are really big, heavy words to use, but I can honestly say, if you are working and you're an entrepreneur and you need help managing your business well, and you feel overwhelmed or like the finances overwhelm you or your time management, this literally hands you, those answers and tools. And like, you have to do the work.
It's not like everything's solved for you. You have to dig in and do the work, but it's, it's so good to do that work. And I just can't say enough good things about The Blueprint Model. I, I think I'm literally, I'm going to commit to go through every year because it's that grounding and that helpful.
Shanna: Well, you know, what's funny. I go through it every single year with my students. I still walk through it. I mean the, the fifth building block is about financial forecasting and I do that every single year. It gives you a full template of building out, okay, what do we need to make with our household? What is my salary going to be? What's my pay going to be? What are all of our business expenses this year? Therefore, how much do I need to sell to hit those goals?
It's a really great way of kind of reverse engineering those numbers. And you have to go through it every single year. And I have seven, we call it, the financial toolkit, but seven of these templates that you can use in Google docs or Excel or whatever people like that are just calculations done for you about pricing, financial forecasting.
It really simplifies, again, the very few numbers I believe we all need to know. And it just, I love it because again, as I've said so many times, like it does give me freedom and going back to like social media, why do I feel like I can stay off social media when yes, I'm sure I could make more money if I were on it?
It's because I know the life I want, I have a vision for the business, and I know what I need. I know what I need to sell. And I have a plan to do that through other marketing channels. So I don't feel stressed. I don't feel worried like, oh, I'm missing out. It's like, it's okay. Because I'm hitting my goals and doing what, building a business and life that I really truly is life giving to me. And there's freedom in that.
Nancy: That's so good, man. I'm, I'm really pumped to go through it again. Thank you so much for just sharing your heart and it, and it's obvious once you're inside the course, it's so obvious how much time and heart you have poured into it, so thank you for that. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to leave a link for all of this in the show notes. Hang on to the end of the episode. And I'll tell you a little bit more about how you can get involved in that, or just learn if it's something that you want to learn about and it may be a good fit for you—it might not be that time, that's okay. I'll just leave all those links in the show notes. So anyone who's listening can go find that stuff.
Okay. Shanna, since you're not on social media, why don't you share where our friends can find you?
Shanna: So the best place to find me is on my website, shannaskidmore.com, that's kind of the hub for everything. And I would say, get on that email list. I know everybody said that, but that truly is my social media. That's where I show up and say hi, tell you what's going on. And any live trainings, as mentioned, I do a lot of live trainings just because for me, whether we're opening enrollment for something or not, I really like that interaction and serving. And that's where I get to see people face to face. So definitely shannaskidmore.com. Get on that email list. That's how we can stay connected.
Nancy: Perfect. Thank you so much for being here. Shanna.
Shanna: Thank you for asking me.
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of work in play with Nancy Ray.
Listen, if you were interested in The Blueprint Model, head to nancyray.com/blueprint. The Blueprint Model is a six week online business course, which includes a six week group mastermind component all led by and hosted by my friend, Shanna, who you heard from today. And in addition to that, you'll get three live group coaching calls with me and access to me via Marco Polo on Fridays, if you buy it at nancyray.com/blueprint.
Now, when Shanna asked me to be an affiliate for this course, my answer was a resounding yes, because I've been through it myself. I know the value of it. I know how it's impacted me and my business and our family financially. Now, it will be available from February 17th through the 24th and then the doors close.
So don't wait to go check it out at nancyray.com/blueprint. And if you're listening to this and you're like, man, it's past February 24th, I missed it. Don't worry. You can go to that link still and sign up to be on the wait list for when it comes out next time.
What I love about this business course is it's so intentional. She only lets in a certain group of students at the same time and then closes the doors so she can really focus on those students. Can't recommend it enough. I've loved it myself. I'm going through it again this year. I hope you'll check it out.
Thanks so much for listening to Episode 146 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray.
I'm going to close with the simple words you've probably heard before from Henry David Thoreau who said,
"Live the life you've always imagined."
I hope that this resource today helps you do that. Thanks and have a blessed week. I'll see you next time.
