speaker-0: Before we get into today's episode, this one is brought to you by Flowdesk, the email marketing platform I use to run my own loose letter at Line Creatives. If you've been putting off starting an email list or you're on a platform that just isn't working for you, Flowdesk is worth a look. The templates are beautiful, it's easy to use, and it's built for small business owners. Get 25% off your first year at Flowdesk.com slash C slash Line Creatives, but I'll make sure to drop the link in the show notes.
speaker-1: Why should we even have social media? In this day and age, ⁓ whenever someone wants to work with somebody, no matter how big the company is, how small it is, they're gonna Google you. They're gonna Google the company, they're gonna look for reviews, they're gonna look whenever you go to a new restaurant in a new town, you Google the restaurant, look at the reviews, and look at things. That is why you need social media.
speaker-0: Welcome to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast by Line Creatives. I'm Svenia Line, and in each episode I sit down with local business owners and entrepreneurs to share their stories, how they got started, what keeps them going, and what makes their business stand out. My goal? Welcome back to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast for business owners and entrepreneurs who want to pull back the curtain on branding, strategy, and what it really takes to build something that lasts. Today's guest built her company after living through deployments and constant relocations as a Navy spouse. What started as a solo venture is now staffed by fellow military spouses, women who often face real barriers to steady employment because military lives Military life, ⁓ my God, keeps uprooting them. Danielle is the founder of the Virtual Helping Hand. She's a mom, a military military spouse, a business owner, all at the same time. And she's not the only one wearing all three of those hats. A lot of women listening are juggling the same exact combination. Danielle, welcome welcome to the show. So glad you're here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
speaker-0: I really I really like your story because you know you are you're living through through through challenges and you're living through ⁓ difficult situations but at the same time you're helping other other women that are in the same situation to turn skills that they already have into real income from home. So What do you see most women underestimate about themselves when they start?
speaker-1: Well the biggest one will be the this fear that they lack any kind of work related skills. ⁓ again, I star I was a stay at home mom before I started any of this. So it was a lot of moms are like that where they have to realize that being a stay at home mom, you're literally doing everything. Like that takes time management, that takes organization, organizing skills, ⁓ communication, because you gotta communicate with your spouse, especially military, communicating with your kids, because that's a different ballpark in its own. ⁓ and so many various other things where I'm like, no, we have the skills, we just need to translate that to the work world. But you have them already. So that's that's the biggest mind.
speaker-0: Yeah. And then what I I mean, my my husband is not in the military, however, he goes on business trips a lot. ⁓ but which is a little bit different, but it must be hard to to be responsible for everything for your own job for your own business, for your kids, you know, and with your husband being away all the time.
speaker-1: ⁓ I tell this story all the time. ⁓ our second deployment, which was the first one here in a whole new state. So I have like no support system in this area. And I have a toddler, and the business for the first time was like really taking off. And I'm in a house, we first house ever, first homeowner. I don't know anything. I grew up in apartments, so like I was like, I don't know what to expect in a house. And so that deployment, the HVAC went out, and it was in the middle of summer, and I I didn't know what to do. Like I was I thought everybody I don't even know like how to Google. I literally Googled who fixed the H back. And then I Googled where do I find them? Like that was such a struggle. But going through it, you know, I tell I I use that story to show people that women mostly as women because that's who I like to really target to. Is as soon as like I'm helping the moms and the spouses. We are ambitious and we are driven when we will get stuff done. ⁓ We'll find a way out of no way. And that's another selling point. I tell other military spouses, other moms, other stay-at-home moms, like you are resilient. You are
speaker-0: Yes. And how many times did you move, by the way?
speaker-1: ⁓ we're about to do our third. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: ⁓ my god. So and then you and then every s every time you had to ⁓ start all over again or
speaker-1: Essentially, yeah, because it's a it's a new state. So have to get everything new, ⁓ figure out the area. It took me it takes me so long, I am not good with directions. It takes me forever to find my way home from Walmart. Like so that is going to be my biggest struggle when we move. But yes. Moving is is not fun. Not fun. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ no, I I can't imagine. We we had to move a couple of years ago. Well, long time ago now. We moved from Persephone to California. And then four years later we had to move back. So that was no fun at all. But you know, that was that one time. Yeah. so but walk me through what do you what like how do you help these women or how do you structure your business so that you first of all you can work from everywhere. Yes. And then also how do you work with the women that are helping you?
speaker-1: Yeah, so I'll answer that in order first. How do I do it? I structured the business out. Thankfully, in 2026 now, like everything is virtual. A lot of stuff is virtual. So that definitely helps. ⁓ and then because I did start as a virtual assistant and it's definitely grown since then, it was I never had to worry about explaining to people that I'm virtual. Like everyone knew off the off bat ⁓ she's not gonna be around. ⁓ and then structuring my time of the day around my kids, around life, so that I got into this steady rhythm of okay, every few hours and time blocking is my friend. So every few hours my okay, I'm blocked in for these couple hours. I block in, do work, and I take a break. Then I come back, do work, take a break. that rhythm has definitely helped. And then as the business grew, I input I showed that. To other women, especially I started adding to my team that like we don't have to sit here locked at the table or at our desk the entire day. We can move around. ⁓ and then showing up when I am in those hours of working was also key to the client, to everybody around that. Like when I'm here, I'm here. It doesn't matter if I'm virtual, I'm still here. ⁓ so that helped the business, the structure of it so that I'm able to do stuff while still running a business. And then Taking it anywhere again, love that it's virtual. So I can literally be anywhere and still do the work. And then because I built up that worth ethic, that schedule, it's kind of like engraved into me now at this point. So it it doesn't falter. Now when I do need to move or do have like something big and I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna be at the desk for a couple of days. I'm so thankful for the team I had built so that I can confidently give them whatever I was working on or confidently know that okay, I'm gonna be gone for a few days. And nothing's gonna split. So
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's super important. That's I recently just maybe maybe this year, was it y this year, maybe also y last year, ⁓ we really started working with contractors ⁓ so that I can go. I mean we talked a little bit about but I'm gonna go on vacation. So but during the vacation everything is, you know, set so that I don't really I don't necessarily have to be here. But that was very that was very helpful. And ⁓ took a lot off my shoulders, you know, because it's hard if if nothing is working when you're gone. So yeah. ⁓ and just a question like and I'm just thinking about it. So when you move to a new state, you have to business license and everything that has to be renewed, right? ⁓ or
speaker-1: Yes. Never had that problem. But so I do have to go, you know, legally and paperwork wise, say, Okay, like I'm no longer right now I'm in Virginia, so I do have to go and say, Okay, it's moving. ⁓ taxes. ⁓
speaker-0: ⁓ okay.
speaker-1: paperwork to says like it's moving. ⁓ but thankfully it's just a change of address and then I do have to re-register in ⁓ that whatever state I'm in at the time. So like federal register state new address and then state level I do have to tell the state key like I'm not even here to start.
speaker-0: No, okay. Yeah.
speaker-1: It's not it's not as bad as of a process I think ⁓ people think it is. It does take time though, so I do have to be careful of like that gap. waiting for the state to like give me the green light. Which first usually lines up with me getting a house together anyway, unpacking and all that stuff. So it's usually yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So and ⁓ what inspired you to start the virtual helping hand?
speaker-1: ⁓ I love telling this one as well in this story. I told everybody I stumbled into entrepreneurship. I did I was working at a YMCA. I did not see this for myself. ⁓ so how it started is my husband and I got married in 2017, ⁓ found out we were pregnant a couple months after, and then right, and then a month after we found out, we found out he was deploying for the first time. ⁓ that was like the first one. ⁓ so I went through second and third trimester birth and the first two years without a ⁓ thankfully I was in my home state. So I had like my support system, my family, my friends around. But you know, having a baby without your husband that day to day was terrible. ⁓ I was definitely the type of like go-getter. Like when I met my husband, I was dating ⁓ when we were dating. I was going to school and working, so it's I had that already drive in me.
speaker-0: ⁓ my god.
speaker-1: He asked me while he's in the middle of the Middle East on his first employment, if I could stay home with our daughter for the first year. ⁓ just to give him that peace of mind. He had, you know, he paranoia. He wanted to know his baby was safe. And I was like, I was Yay, I had a discount on childcare. I planned on going back after like six months. So I look I was like, ⁓ okay, you know, give him that peace of mind. I was like, I'll do it. ⁓ my god, that year was hard. ⁓ that following year, I called my boss, which is now the beginning of 2020. I called my boss and I was like, I'm ready to come back. Like, let's get this ball rolling. I had my fingerprint appointment, you know, the background change in February, and I was scheduled to come back March 1st. We all know what happened in March. So now I'm sitting completely bored out of my mind. ⁓ a couple months. Into the year, I had a friend who had a business and she had to let her staff go because of the whole COVID. And I was like, girl, let me help you. I'm bored. I have this baby. Let me do something. ⁓ and so she did. And so I was doing admin and social media work. And that's what started it all. ⁓ I after I worked with her for a few months, I was like, I have to keep doing that for my sanity. ⁓ so I did some research and realized what I was was her virtual assistant, her VA. And Once I figured that out, there was no stopping me. I learned how to do it. I watched other VAs. I joined communities where VAs were sitting and learned, watched. So thankful for the clients I've had these past years and have let me play, have let me grow. I've watched them. They trained me and it's grown so much now. Like now I mentioned before it's past just the regular admin. We now add operations behind it, website design, branding. It's it's Been amazing. So that's how I started by accident. And then I ran.
speaker-0: Yeah. If you're a business owner and you've ever wondered why your brand isn't pulling its weight, I built something for you. It's called the brand audit scorecard, and it's completely free. Ten questions takes about five minutes, and it'll show you exactly where your brand is strong and where it's losing your clients. You can grab it at linecreatives.com/slash brand audit scorecard, and the link is in the show notes. Alright, let's get back to it. That's awesome. So N you just mentioned it a little bit, but what do you offer? Like what are the services that you offer to your clients?
speaker-1: Yeah, so ⁓ we still offer like the admin, still some basic VA service where like do this task, buy this day. We still do that, but we combined operations and strategy behind it. So when someone posts to us for social media support, we're doing more than just creating your graphics, we're creating it, we're ⁓ watching it and studying and learning your the niche of the client, hashtags, the comics, analytics behind it, the whole nine yards. So we do we applied that to everything. So we literally It's so much easier to tell people what we don't do because we try to do it a lot. Like, ⁓ but we do, like I said, admin and like the everything that comes with that operations, so back in tunnels a lot, CR in management setup, website design. We are official Wix partner. I'm working official with Shopify. email marketing, we do branding, logo designs, graphic designs, of course, and I feel like I'm missing something, but basically we just do a lot.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Do a lot. It's it's so much fun and and we love it. So
speaker-0: That's awesome. And so I'm assuming that you're working with ⁓ like graphic designers and other I'm assuming that not yet that you are not doing all of it, but that that's your team that is
speaker-1: My team, definitely. I I mean I s I can don't get me wrong, I can, but you know, no, no, no. I I'm delegated. So like my team, yeah, as a whole, we do it. But yeah, my team. I have one who just finished her masters in marketing, so she's like our go to for everything with marketing. ⁓ I have another one who man, her graphic designs are unparalleled. I thought I was good and then I saw her do it and I I'm never touching anything ever again. Well yeah, it's been amazing.
speaker-0: That's So when you ⁓ so now that we're talking about graphic design, what's ⁓ do you have a marketing challenge that you are still working through or maybe you worked through it and you found a super awesome solution that you would like to share?
speaker-1: Ooh, marketing challenges. That's a good one. ⁓ you know what, me personally, I'll say me personally, like I struggle with making video content, which is what it is now to is you can you can get away with some static posts, you know, and get it, but if you really want your page to grow, you gotta put your face out there. And that is where I that's where I struggle for sure. ⁓ man, I need to I I I told myself need to work on it. I even bought ⁓ A selfie stick like the tripod, and I have yet to stand it up.
speaker-0: That's funny. I think I think you're not the only one. I think there's a lot of people who ⁓ have exactly the same problem. And that because taking a video is obviously I'm struggling with it too. So it's just very time consuming in my opinion. And I I do know, I do know you have to have it on social media in order to grow your channel. ⁓ but And this is the question that I'm always struggling with, and maybe you can you can solve this for me. Social media is so big. Yes. Right? You have your you have your I don't know Instagram channel, you have your Facebook, you have LinkedIn. Yes, you have to be on it. Because otherwise you're not you know, you're not visible there. However, you can also in my opinion, you can also run your business business without social media.
speaker-1: You can. For sure. You can.
speaker-0: So there's a lot of time that is being spent, you know, to be on social media. So since you're the expert here, what is the most why why do we all have to be on it? First of all. And then the second question is how can we make sure, besides taking videos, how can we make sure that the content is being seen by the people you want to reach?
speaker-1: Okay. Great question. So first, why should we even have social media? In this day and age, ⁓ whenever someone wants to work with somebody, no matter how big the company is, how small it is, they're gonna Google you. They're gonna Google the company, they're gonna look for reviews, they're gonna look whenever you go to a new restaurant in a new town, you Google the restaurant, look at the reviews, and look at things. That is why you need social media. If you want a complete stranger to work with you, to trust you, to learn you. Give them something to look at. If not, they're just gonna look at you and be like, I don't know who you are. And there goes that immediate lack of trust. And then that can just go full another ballpark. ⁓ so you need it. It's like a visual resume, is what I started telling people. ⁓ again, they're gonna look you up, and so give them something to look at. ⁓ so that is why you need social media. Now, what to post is always fine. because I like to tell people. I just did a whole ⁓ training on I should probably do another one where the three pillars of social media is what I call it. ⁓ so the three topics of things you should be posting, ⁓ engagement. Again, they're that one's kind of self-explanatory. ⁓ educational and tips. So people know that you know what you're talking about. Again, they're gonna look at this first before they even talk to you. So let them know, ⁓ this person knows exactly what they're talking about. So, and then lastly, promotional. No, everyone gets a little icky when you talk about promoting, self-promoting, but you should it it can be done tastefully, but it still has to be done so that people know that you're even open to taking clients, that you're even open to do whatever it is you're doing. Those are three things. Now, how do you post to find or so that your ideal audience can find you? That is where each platform is a little bit different when it comes to Instagram hashtags. I'm sure we've all seen videos or reels and you like you click see more, it's like a dozen hashtags down below. That's what you want. ⁓ because when people go to Instagram again, they're gonna look stuff up. If I'm looking for a balloon archer, you know what's we wanna the balloon arch? I'm gonna search on Instagram balloon arch. And if that's a hashtag on somebody's page or somebody's post, it's gonna pop up for me and I'm gonna look and now now here we go. So hashtags on Instagram are like keywords that someone's gonna search in. So that's for when ⁓ when it comes to LinkedIn LinkedIn is all professionalism. So no lols over there is what I tell people. No ha ha ha ha's, don't go too crazy. ⁓ over there, the topics ⁓ how you get found on LinkedIn is the topic of the post. So hashtags aren't gonna work over there. You can put like everyone's for fun, like ⁓ my god, this was so crazy. Hashtag relatable that that's okay. You can't put a dozen hashtags on LinkedIn and topic, what you're saying and you're writing in the caption, use keywords in there. So again, if I was looking for a balloon archer, I would hope that she would post things like here's a balloon archer I did for a 50 year old five year old birthday party. Like that's all it would take. ⁓ Facebook is sort of the same way ⁓ because hashtags don't really work over there either. They used to they don't work anymore. Until everybody I feel so bad when I see them I'm like yes it doesn't work anymore. Facebook, I tell everybody, Facebook is selfish. Facebook is greedy. They want people to stay on Facebook because of all these other platforms, people are you know, not on Facebook anymore. So when you post on Facebook and you want to post your link or your calendar link or scheduling, don't put that in a caption. Put see below. I'm sure we've all seen captions where like look down below or check the comments for the link. That's because Facebook's gonna say they're gonna push your post out thinking you're sharing. something to keep them on Facebook. So when we say check the comments down below and then you comment the link below, it forces people to look at the comments and Facebook things. Ooh, people are looking at your posts and looking at your comments and they're commenting. They're gonna push you.
speaker-0: ⁓ So my question, because that's like Facebook, I don't go. I don't go on Facebook. Yeah. ⁓ but let's say you have a business page on Facebook. You can invite all your followers to follow that page. Yes. Right. But how do you get people to follow your page that are not your followers on your personal profile?
speaker-1: That is where you can well there's a couple ways. One, if your personal Facebook page is ⁓ public, then share your Facebook business pages post to your public Facebook. That will think again, Facebook is greedy. They're gonna be like, ⁓ people are sharing your post out. You're gonna push your business out naturally. ⁓ so I tell people share your own post. There's nothing wrong with liking your own comment. I mean liking your own post, commenting on it, and sharing it. it tricks the algorithm into thinking someone else is doing it. They don't pay attention that it's you. They just see this gets likes, this gets shares. Let's just push it out. This is clearly something that people want to see.
speaker-0: So I would share it so I would share then this post on Facebook. I would share it then with my husband, with I don't know, with friends. Mm-hmm. And Facebook.
speaker-1: This page and be like, ⁓ that shared recently. Keep up that consistent. You don't have to do every post. You can pick like do consistently, but not every single post. ⁓ and then after a while it's gonna start pushing it out on its own because Facebook got tricked into thinking this is something that people want to see. So let's show people. ⁓ that's how to do it organically. It does take time. Unfortunately, everything everything with social media takes time, but that is the best way to do it organically. ⁓ if you're just like by yourself doing it. ⁓ and then of course you can tell other people, other if you're going to networking events, you tell people to like your Facebook page and stuff like that. ⁓ and then again the more followers you get, the more you're sharing your own posts, the more it's gonna push it out. Yeah.
speaker-0: Hmm. And what about the same problem on LinkedIn? You have a LinkedIn business page of obviously you want to share the information that you have on the business page.
speaker-1: With LinkedIn, they care about your you have to watch your ⁓ your connections. Unfortunately, LinkedIn cares about the numbers. So if you are ⁓ again, not on your business page because a personal your you know, your personal LinkedIn and your business LinkedIn, two different algorithms. Your business page is never ever gonna get any kind of push like that. ⁓ it's mostly there for other professionals when they're looking you up. Do you even professional ⁓ does your business have a LinkedIn? It's good, it's one of those where it's good to have, don't expect growth over there at all. It's just what they have because again, they're gonna look you up, they're gonna look your business up. But your personal LinkedIn, this is where you can share your business again on your news feed. ⁓ but I would tell people focus on those connections first. Unfortunately, that's what they care about most. So when you hit like about four or five hundred connections, your page will naturally get pushed out more because now LinkedIn believes you're a real person.
speaker-0: So the the connections, four to five hundred connections on your business page or on your personal page?
speaker-1: Your personal page. ⁓ I would never focus on connections on your business page unless you're like I just wouldn't. I would just as long as you and like your team, if you have a team are following it, ⁓ maybe a couple of friends, but no one's gonna look at the the count over there. They're gonna look at you. So
speaker-0: Okay. So and then regarding the posts, what to post on the different platforms. Like LinkedIn, I feel like that LinkedIn turned a little bit into a Facebook now.
speaker-1: It is definitely going into that way where people are starting to share more personal stuff. And I think that's because of this wave, especially this year, I've noticed the a kind of shift where because AI is everywhere and social media and influencers, you know, people are seeking real and authenticity. So I've noticed this shift on LinkedIn as well where before you could post a business, ⁓ I just got a new promotion and like that would blow up. On LinkedIn. We post it now and it's not. Whereas if someone posts on LinkedIn something personal about like sitting at the computer and like they're cracked, the screen cracked, that's gonna blow up on LinkedIn more than the professional post. So as this new wave is going, I would just promote or not promote, I would tell people keep a professional but sprinkle in some authenticity. ⁓ with this new wave this year for sure.
speaker-0: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So and then now going back to Instagram. Yes. So for a while, and maybe you're the experts so you can tell better, but for a while it was all about the carousels, right? So care ⁓ but carousels, I don't know. I don't read carousels. But are they still important or no?
speaker-1: Ha ha ha. I will say yes. ⁓ but now it's more about ⁓ before it was like the posts in on in all graphic posts and static posts, the words were covering the graphic. Like you put like a whole little mini paragraph and people would read it. Not anymore. so I will say carousels, yes, but ⁓ limit it to the amount of ⁓ slides you have in there. So, like you when you see people say here are three tips and And they have five slides. Like, let's not do that anymore. You have three t here's three tips. Give me four. One's the cover that says three tips, and then one, one's half a sentence of what the tip is on each slide. And then that is for the caption where you can put a little, you know, you can go a little longer in it. But for sure, I would say chaos cells work. Just limit the words you have on there and then limit how many slides you actually have because nobody's gonna sit there anymore and slide through. You're a ten tips. No way no way to do it anyway.
speaker-0: And so then you put all that information into the caption, I'm assuming.
speaker-1: So I will say put it in a caption. ⁓ because this is a good way to I like to do this. ⁓ someone who's serious is going to read it. ⁓ and those are the people we want. You know, they're save everybody's time. ⁓ those are people we want. And so that will be where you put the details in the caption. But for those who are just simply scrolling, quick little scroll, yeah. Keep it, keep it short and sweet on those carousels. Yeah.
speaker-0: And also no links in in Instagram.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, no links in Instagram because you can't click a link on Instagram. So that is where you see people say in their graphic in their captions, they'll say link in bio or we there's this app called ⁓ mini chat where you can connect to Facebook and Instagram and that's when they say drop a a fire emoji and I'll send you the link. And then that's a little automated system. You see people drop a new fire emoji, you set it up in mini chat and now a message gets sent to them immediately. Another way because Instagram's owned by Meta now, so Again, you're tricking the algorithm into thinking, Wow, she's keeping people here. Let's let's push this post out. And you're like, ⁓ I'm not. But it's
speaker-0: It's Okay. So and then what besides ⁓ carousels? What's another good post to engage? Especially the engagement part, because I think a lot of people because there's such so much. So I think a lot of business owners they're posting and posting and posting and just like throwing information out there, but I don't think there's real engagement on those posts because everybody just scrolls. So what is a good post? That makes people react.
speaker-1: So that would depend on your niche for sure. But ⁓ so I'll use mine as a perfect example. So we're all about operational support. So when we want engagement, we're going to ask you a question that makes you stop. ⁓ one of them being the one that we're working, we have a clan right now where we're cleaning up her onboarding. So her onboarding whole thing. A lot of people don't pay attention to that. But so we're cleaning up her onboarding. So like I would create a question, like a simple graphic with a question that says something like, ⁓ Has a client ghosted you during the onboarding? And then tell me about it. Or in the caption, I put like a couple options of like why. But that would encourage them if I'm a business owner who just lost a client during onboarding, I'm gonna stop and be like, I did. Tell me how I can fix it. And so asking a question that will make a person stop. And
speaker-0: So and then you put and then you put that, for example, that many chat
speaker-1: I would put like ⁓ the caption would live my graphic would say, Have you ever again have you ever lost a client during onboarding? And then like I'd have like on there I'll use a fire, put like a fire if your answer is yes, and I can help you help tell you why. And so now someone's gonna comment the fire, send them a in the mini chat can set up like an automated response and then now they're in my DMs. And we all love when they're in our DMs. So now they're in my DMs and then I can take over from there.
speaker-0: And then for your clients, if s if you're if you're working with your clients and you're working ⁓ on a post like that, are you the one then replying or well maybe s
speaker-1: ⁓ sometimes it depends on like what it is ⁓ sometimes we do have it automated depending on whatever like especially if they're promoting something that's when we use that more so because we can't keep up with can't keep up with all those ⁓ but if it's like a regular post like that then yeah we are in there engaging where so the person will somebody will comment we come in and comment behind them like their comment if there's ever a comment or message that comes in where we're like ooh we'll leave that one to our actual client we let them know hey you might want to check out This comment left by this person, definitely your ballpark. So
speaker-0: Okay. All right. And then I so last week was last week, I had like a lunch and learn with ⁓ someone who also specializes in ⁓ you know, the engagement and ⁓ social media in general. And she said that it's soup videos are the most important now. And that brings us back to our problem child. Yes ⁓ the video. And but while she was talking, I was like, ⁓ yeah, I you know, I can do that. I can You know, I can create those videos. But she especially said that because of AI and because of everything now is perfect, the imperfect videos are more successful than the staged videos.
speaker-1: Again, that comes back to this wave of because of AI, everybody wants authenticity. I literally have this video up on my page where I was trying to have like a cute morning in the life of a mom and a business owner. And I have my two kids cups and I was gonna pour them milk and then coffee and mine. I spilled because I'm trying to like hold the phone and do it. And I spilt it and I said, you what, I'm just gonna leave it 'cause that at that point I was tired. I was like, I don't feel like editing this video. I was like, I just need to get something out there. So I left it and that blew up. Really? That blew up to like other people relating, like and it was just funny where I'd and the only reason why I didn't cut that out was because I was too tired to edit it. I you I'm just gonna do it. It's fine, it's fine. And yeah, it was literally me like trying to hold like a holding phone. I pour my coffee and then I spilt pouring their milk and I just go and just kept going. Yeah.
speaker-0: So but and that's where I w what I struggle with. Mm-hmm. I don't have to show the whole world everything that I do. Like not, you know, not everybody has to know, I don't know, that I drink coffee in the morning. I mean that's mm, it's cool and it's maybe relatable, but why do I have to share that? So that's you know, that's my thought process. Why do I have to share everything with everyone? This has literally nothing to do with my business. Why would I why would I share these things just to add to the noise of social media?
speaker-1: So you are not adding to the noise. ⁓ again, this goes back to when people look you up when they want to work with you, they're gonna look at your page, right? And you want them to know that you are approachable, you're relatable. We get this is more than just business, you know. Especially us solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, like we get so invested with a client that it's more than just like they're not just another ticket, they're not just another person. And as a person, and we wanna feel that way. ⁓ no matter how big or small the company is, you go to Walmart and you have a mistake, you want them to be able to fix it. So You're posting it to be relatable. ⁓ me posting that video showing people how I'm a mom and I'm still relatable, like even though I have this business. You posting that you and then ⁓ when it comes to videos, you don't have to put your face on there. You can just like again, like how I was doing, record yourself, record the coffee being poured into a cup. Just relatable. And then you can put like a comment like Folgers is my favorite coffee. What's yours? You know, but like that shows like, ooh, I also like Forgers. Like now I'm open a little bit more to talk to you. I see you're relatable. You drink coffee. I drink coffee. Like small connections like that will will matter.
speaker-0: Hmm. Definitely a lot to think about. And but like this is and this is why I think a lot of business owners and they get frustrated because there's so many things to think about. Okay, so I love coffee post video, then the carousel with I don't know, the thought leadership or whatever you want to call it, and then static posts don't really do well, right? Any more?
speaker-1: They do, ⁓ but you gotta be careful about them. They're and again, every this is one of those where I can give all the tips in the world, right? But everybody is different. I had one client where videos did terrible. Like it didn't matter if it was a video of her face or something, they didn't do nearly as well as her static post. Her static posts were what did it. Whereas with other clients, I could it's the f it's flit. So ⁓ I do tell people like when we're first starting out, it's gonna be a learning curve. We're gonna like just trust the process. Trust the process. So but yeah, it's yeah.
speaker-0: And how long do you ⁓ like roughly? I know that I know social media takes time, but Roughly how long does it take for social media to really work?
speaker-1: If do it right, ⁓ and hum humbly speaking, we do it right. ⁓ sixty days, you'll start seeing real progress. ⁓ I saw in the first month is us trying multiple things ⁓ seeing what works, what doesn't work, watch that's where watching the analytics come in and things like that. So we learn what works and didn't work in month one. So month two, we're doing obviously only what worked. And our goal is by the end of that second month, you're starting to see either your engagement is up your consistently, because it'll spike. So we're talking consistently. ⁓ your engagement is up, your likes are up, your followers may have increased, ⁓ the amount of interactions you're having has increased. So if you do it right and you stay committed and consistent, too
speaker-0: Hmm.
speaker-1: But ⁓ you won't see like if you have like five hundred followers today, you're not gonna see seven hundred. But you might see five hundred today and now you have five hundred and ten. ⁓ now tells you that it's working.
speaker-0: Yeah. And then so when you talk about the analytics, what especially do you look for in the analytics?
speaker-1: Yeah, so when we look there, we look at what times ⁓ when we post them, what times work the best? Some people, eight a.m. is when most of their people are up and looking at their stuff. Other people, it's eleven at night. So we're watching ⁓ things like that. When is when is this post actually being seen? We're watching just because somebody didn't like your post doesn't mean they didn't see your post. So we're paying attention to We're watching that ratio, but we care more about who's seeing it, how many are actually seeing it, because how many times have you scrolled on your own social media and did not like something, you saw it and we're like, ⁓ that's cool. And then and then moved on. So we're watching those. ⁓ and that's when we watch the hashtags, watch which ones are actually working when people look them up. Did this hashtag actually get pulled when it again, if I'm looking for a balloon archer and I didn't hashtag balloon, but I hashtag balloon archer and we notice balloon archer is not getting You know, not popping up. Okay, well let's try balloon. Let's try balloon. Like playing like that.
speaker-0: So when where can you see how hashtags perform?
speaker-1: ⁓ there's a few different places. one obviously is the you have to go to Instagram.com like on a desktop. Not on you can see them that way. ⁓ there are I'm not gonna lie, there are a lot of platforms you could look at and because of AI today, you can even take your Instagram page and take that G PC to do it. So there are that's probably the easiest way I would just tell everybody. Just go ahead and ⁓ what we do what you could do is we watch it every week on different
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-1: platforms and like that, but you can tell chat to look at your posts engagements from this day to this day and ask it whatever you want.
speaker-0: Okay. So and then up obviously the are you looking at ⁓ I know we're going very deep into the social media problem, but ⁓ I think that is a lot of that is a big topic for a lot of people. So ⁓ do you look at your when you look at the engagement or who how ⁓ who saw your posts? Are you looking at your followers or the non followers?
speaker-1: So we're paying attention to both because ⁓ I mean, yes, we want our followers to see us, but sometimes especially ⁓ we've all been there, your followers get stagnant. They stop commenting, they stop liking. So we're paying attention to them as well as the non followers. The non followers to us matter a smidge more because that is where someone who doesn't know you, and how many times have we I think we've all heard tales all the time. Sometimes strangers are your biggest supporters. So We're paying attention to the non-followers a smidge more. We want to see because we want to make sure your page is getting pushed out to non-followers, to the strangers that you don't know yet. So we're looking at both. And then we're also looking at like you can break it down from there to like men and women, the age groups. And that's how we also help some people who don't know who their target audience is. We can learn it from this.
speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. So and then obviously you look at the performance of one post versus the other post. Like let's say video post versus the carousel post. So and depending on which one has the most engagement.
speaker-1: Yes, then that's the one we're gonna continue to do. So yeah. Now we're not gonna stop. Like if we did video and carousel and carousel did better, we're not gonna stop videos. We're just gonna not as much. They're not gonna be as frequent.
speaker-0: Mm, okay. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. So, Now let's talk about your brand. Yeah. So when you first started, you know, you had like, okay, you had this idea, you helped, ⁓ and then it developed it it developed into something bigger. Yes. So when did you realize that having a brand is important in order to grow further?
speaker-1: Yeah. Don't learn that now. I really realized it in 2023 when I tell people like use me as a learning curve. We're gonna go back to like my on my personal page. I did not mention my business at all. Like it truly I just did it behind the scenes and would post pictures of flowers. ⁓ and then like I kept the business completely separate so that when people which is a problem. When I'm like talking to somebody and they're like gonna go back and look me up and I'm not talking about anything I do. I didn't get especially if I accidentally forget to like tell them to look me up on like social media, they're not gonna look up the virtual helping hand, they're gonna look Danielle up. And so I realized I had to work on connecting that and be like, Whoops, my bad. I w I do have a company. I learned that in 2023, ⁓ was when that big shift came where I was like, I have to. Put my face out there a little bit more. I have to actually talk about things on my social media a bit more. ⁓ started joining networking events a little bit more than like putting so that when people thought of the virtual helping hand, they thought of me. And I kept that up to where now it's flipped. When people think of me, they think of the virtual helping hand, which is what we want. I tell people Jeff Jeff ⁓ was it I just want blank man's name. Jeff Bezos. When we see him, we see Amazon. We don't in
speaker-0: Wait.
speaker-1: So same thing, you want them when they see you, they see your business.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. And why do you think did you not talk about your business at the beginning?
speaker-1: there's a lot. No one throughout one. one was that fear of like the people who actually knew me in my personal life. What are they gonna think? Are they gonna like what are they gonna think? I'm seeing as this class clown, life of the party type of person, and now I'm telling you I can build you with a website. You know, like ⁓ that was that was probably one of the biggest hurdles was like, what is everybody who follows me, who knows me, going to think? And I had to realize, ⁓ Who cares? Who cares what they think? I'm not doing this for them. So that was the biggest one. And then it became I'm gonna get judged for what I say. what if I say something and like someone in the business field doesn't agree with me? Like now, now what? Like, you know, like there's just so many. And then I went through this phase where I did not have confidence at all in myself. I was just like, can't do it. Sorry about it. Like, Where no one would I tell people all the time if I can get them on a call, they'll see that I know what I'm talking about, but I could not for the life of me do that for a while. ⁓ so like those were the big three. Fear of what everyone was gonna say who actually knew me, ⁓ fear of being judged by people who knew better than me. I th well, you know, like I thought, like you're in the game for longer than I am. You're gonna judge me for I'm gonna say, ⁓ and then the lack of confidence. Those were the big three as to why I did not say anything for a while.
speaker-0: And I I think that is a big problem for a lot of people. It is. That especially at the beginning, because you're just starting out and every everything is kind of intimidating because you kinda have to figure everything out on your own. Yeah. And in order to build the confidence, it takes a while. It takes a while to be okay with calling yourself the ⁓ CEO of your business, you know? And I feel and maybe because I'm a woman, but I feel that every like a lot of women struggle with that more than men do. Or maybe men don't talk about it. They do, but they don't talk about it. ⁓ yeah. But ⁓ how did you overcome it? Like what what happened?
speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-0: Or what changed?
speaker-1: Things changed, but the biggest one was I started doing affirmations. And I know, trust me, I was that person who was like, affirmations, like what? I'm a smart am kind. Like, I'm not gonna walk around doing that. but I took it and I realized I had just finished this documentary. ⁓ it was so random, but you know, like things connect in your brain. I was watching this documentary on like how placebos, the placebo pills, and how doctors will throw in a a sugar cube on your medicine. How your mentality truly can take, can like transform your body. ⁓ in a sense. So kind of crazy that in my brain, I was like, okay, well then let me start saying. ⁓ this is before I built the business, is I started saying, I have a team when it was just me. ⁓ I started saying stuff like that where I what I wanted was what I was saying. ⁓ I have a team, I am highly sought out. I And again, not like the it didn't matter about the money to me. It was more about me. So every affirmation I've ever used, even to today, I don't put money to it. I just say I am fully booked. I am highly sought after. My team is expanding. ⁓ things like that. ⁓ when it came to posting more on social media about my business, I would say stuff like I it started off a little cliche. So I was saying I am confident. But it did, it did. ⁓ so I was saying like I am confident, I am bold, I am like things like that. It did it did start off cliche and then it grew from there to other stuff. ⁓ but saying it every day made me believe it more and more. And we already know seeing is believing. Now that you're saying it, I believe I'm a highly sought after, I'm gonna walk like I'm wholly sought after. And then it works. ⁓ affirmations, but they don't gotta be corny. Yeah.
speaker-0: No, I agree with I agree with you. And I think affirmations and the manifestation and all these things because you involuntarily you give your brain the proof that you are highly thought after. You know, you're proving to yourself that it's okay. You know, it's ⁓ this is what what we are, and then eventually your brain will believe it. And then things will happen. Yes. Because as if If you're still doubting yourself, it's not gonna happen because you kinda block things. Exactly. ⁓ no, I totally believe in that. That's well. I believe in manifestation. And I have a funny story because a while ago, a friend of mine, we were reading ⁓ the book, ⁓ what was it? Was some one of those manifestation books, I don't remember the title, but it talked about money and manifesting money and things like that. So we were like, okay, let's let's let's go through the process and it was more like fun. But we were listening to the book, and ⁓ so I walked my dogs every day, and it's always the same path. And then we were talking about this manifestation and the money and blah, blah, blah. And so starting with that, eventually, it's so funny because I kept finding money on my walk. The same path that I always walked. I never found money before, but then all of a sudden, after reading and listening to this book, I kept finding like 25 cents, maybe I don't know, a cent. And then eventually, as I picked it, ⁓ every time I picked it up, I'm like, God, look, I have money. I found money. And it was kind of it was funny. And then I found five dollars, then $10, you know, and like, ⁓ my God, this is really working. And my friend did the same thing. And we had this thing. So every time you find money, even if it's just a cent, you have to pick it up to tell the universe that you are, you know, serious about it. Because if you leave the money sitting there, you don't really want it. So and so then she called me from the mall. And a guy, she was standing in line and she sent me a picture. The guy must have sat in his car and ⁓ in like gum or something, but there was a penny stuck to his butt on his jeans. Like, what should she do? How can I pick up this penny? Didn't pick it up. It was the funniest thing because that penny was stuck to his butt and she couldn't get it. And it was a conundrum because
speaker-1: She
speaker-0: How can I tell the universe that I'm serious about money? But I can't feel this penny off his butt. Yes. So no, but manifestation works. And
speaker-1: I like to say that ⁓ again when you say you're looking for it ⁓ as well, like you're gonna find a way to get to the town. Like, you know, when you're driving and you're like, I've seen a lot of white cars and now you see is white cars, you know.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Or you wanna yeah. Or you wanna or you wanna buy a certain car and then all of a sudden everybody drives that car.
speaker-1: That we just bought a car last year. I have never seen this car before. And now it's everyone road. I've never seen this car around before. So I like to say also the affirmations help you find it. You're good. The you say it, the more you're gonna go and try and do it. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's that's a very very good tip and I do believe in it. So
speaker-1: Awesome, but
speaker-0: Now it's already forty five minutes. More than forty, forty five minutes. So if people would like to get in contact with you, where can they find you?
speaker-1: I'm everywhere. No, I'm kidding. ⁓ so you can again search me up on Facebook and Instagram because I'm actually consistent now. Or ⁓ my website, the business website is www.the virtual helping hand dot com. ⁓ my email is Danielle at the virtual helping hand dot com and on all social media platforms, virtual helping hand.
speaker-0: Perfect. And I'll make sure to ⁓ add all those links into the show notes. Hi every yes. So yeah, thank you so much for ⁓ being here. And yeah, of course. And yeah, if anybody would like need some help with ⁓ a virtual assistant, social media ⁓ or with your branding, you can give both of us a call. Okay. ⁓
speaker-1: This was fun. I think. Okay.
speaker-0: Alright. Bye. Thanks for listening to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast by Lion Creatives. If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show and share it with someone who loves discovering local businesses and creative entrepreneurs. You can learn more about my work at LionCreatives.com or find me on Instagram, Line.creatives, and LinkedIn at Lion Creatives. Until next time, keep showing up, keep creating, and keep getting seen.
speaker-1: Why should we even have social media? In this day and age, ⁓ whenever someone wants to work with somebody, no matter how big the company is, how small it is, they're gonna Google you. They're gonna Google the company, they're gonna look for reviews, they're gonna look whenever you go to a new restaurant in a new town, you Google the restaurant, look at the reviews, and look at things. That is why you need social media.
speaker-0: Welcome to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast by Line Creatives. I'm Svenia Line, and in each episode I sit down with local business owners and entrepreneurs to share their stories, how they got started, what keeps them going, and what makes their business stand out. My goal? Welcome back to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast for business owners and entrepreneurs who want to pull back the curtain on branding, strategy, and what it really takes to build something that lasts. Today's guest built her company after living through deployments and constant relocations as a Navy spouse. What started as a solo venture is now staffed by fellow military spouses, women who often face real barriers to steady employment because military lives Military life, ⁓ my God, keeps uprooting them. Danielle is the founder of the Virtual Helping Hand. She's a mom, a military military spouse, a business owner, all at the same time. And she's not the only one wearing all three of those hats. A lot of women listening are juggling the same exact combination. Danielle, welcome welcome to the show. So glad you're here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
speaker-0: I really I really like your story because you know you are you're living through through through challenges and you're living through ⁓ difficult situations but at the same time you're helping other other women that are in the same situation to turn skills that they already have into real income from home. So What do you see most women underestimate about themselves when they start?
speaker-1: Well the biggest one will be the this fear that they lack any kind of work related skills. ⁓ again, I star I was a stay at home mom before I started any of this. So it was a lot of moms are like that where they have to realize that being a stay at home mom, you're literally doing everything. Like that takes time management, that takes organization, organizing skills, ⁓ communication, because you gotta communicate with your spouse, especially military, communicating with your kids, because that's a different ballpark in its own. ⁓ and so many various other things where I'm like, no, we have the skills, we just need to translate that to the work world. But you have them already. So that's that's the biggest mind.
speaker-0: Yeah. And then what I I mean, my my husband is not in the military, however, he goes on business trips a lot. ⁓ but which is a little bit different, but it must be hard to to be responsible for everything for your own job for your own business, for your kids, you know, and with your husband being away all the time.
speaker-1: ⁓ I tell this story all the time. ⁓ our second deployment, which was the first one here in a whole new state. So I have like no support system in this area. And I have a toddler, and the business for the first time was like really taking off. And I'm in a house, we first house ever, first homeowner. I don't know anything. I grew up in apartments, so like I was like, I don't know what to expect in a house. And so that deployment, the HVAC went out, and it was in the middle of summer, and I I didn't know what to do. Like I was I thought everybody I don't even know like how to Google. I literally Googled who fixed the H back. And then I Googled where do I find them? Like that was such a struggle. But going through it, you know, I tell I I use that story to show people that women mostly as women because that's who I like to really target to. Is as soon as like I'm helping the moms and the spouses. We are ambitious and we are driven when we will get stuff done. ⁓ We'll find a way out of no way. And that's another selling point. I tell other military spouses, other moms, other stay-at-home moms, like you are resilient. You are
speaker-0: Yes. And how many times did you move, by the way?
speaker-1: ⁓ we're about to do our third. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: ⁓ my god. So and then you and then every s every time you had to ⁓ start all over again or
speaker-1: Essentially, yeah, because it's a it's a new state. So have to get everything new, ⁓ figure out the area. It took me it takes me so long, I am not good with directions. It takes me forever to find my way home from Walmart. Like so that is going to be my biggest struggle when we move. But yes. Moving is is not fun. Not fun. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ no, I I can't imagine. We we had to move a couple of years ago. Well, long time ago now. We moved from Persephone to California. And then four years later we had to move back. So that was no fun at all. But you know, that was that one time. Yeah. so but walk me through what do you what like how do you help these women or how do you structure your business so that you first of all you can work from everywhere. Yes. And then also how do you work with the women that are helping you?
speaker-1: Yeah, so I'll answer that in order first. How do I do it? I structured the business out. Thankfully, in 2026 now, like everything is virtual. A lot of stuff is virtual. So that definitely helps. ⁓ and then because I did start as a virtual assistant and it's definitely grown since then, it was I never had to worry about explaining to people that I'm virtual. Like everyone knew off the off bat ⁓ she's not gonna be around. ⁓ and then structuring my time of the day around my kids, around life, so that I got into this steady rhythm of okay, every few hours and time blocking is my friend. So every few hours my okay, I'm blocked in for these couple hours. I block in, do work, and I take a break. Then I come back, do work, take a break. that rhythm has definitely helped. And then as the business grew, I input I showed that. To other women, especially I started adding to my team that like we don't have to sit here locked at the table or at our desk the entire day. We can move around. ⁓ and then showing up when I am in those hours of working was also key to the client, to everybody around that. Like when I'm here, I'm here. It doesn't matter if I'm virtual, I'm still here. ⁓ so that helped the business, the structure of it so that I'm able to do stuff while still running a business. And then Taking it anywhere again, love that it's virtual. So I can literally be anywhere and still do the work. And then because I built up that worth ethic, that schedule, it's kind of like engraved into me now at this point. So it it doesn't falter. Now when I do need to move or do have like something big and I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna be at the desk for a couple of days. I'm so thankful for the team I had built so that I can confidently give them whatever I was working on or confidently know that okay, I'm gonna be gone for a few days. And nothing's gonna split. So
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's super important. That's I recently just maybe maybe this year, was it y this year, maybe also y last year, ⁓ we really started working with contractors ⁓ so that I can go. I mean we talked a little bit about but I'm gonna go on vacation. So but during the vacation everything is, you know, set so that I don't really I don't necessarily have to be here. But that was very that was very helpful. And ⁓ took a lot off my shoulders, you know, because it's hard if if nothing is working when you're gone. So yeah. ⁓ and just a question like and I'm just thinking about it. So when you move to a new state, you have to business license and everything that has to be renewed, right? ⁓ or
speaker-1: Yes. Never had that problem. But so I do have to go, you know, legally and paperwork wise, say, Okay, like I'm no longer right now I'm in Virginia, so I do have to go and say, Okay, it's moving. ⁓ taxes. ⁓
speaker-0: ⁓ okay.
speaker-1: paperwork to says like it's moving. ⁓ but thankfully it's just a change of address and then I do have to re-register in ⁓ that whatever state I'm in at the time. So like federal register state new address and then state level I do have to tell the state key like I'm not even here to start.
speaker-0: No, okay. Yeah.
speaker-1: It's not it's not as bad as of a process I think ⁓ people think it is. It does take time though, so I do have to be careful of like that gap. waiting for the state to like give me the green light. Which first usually lines up with me getting a house together anyway, unpacking and all that stuff. So it's usually yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So and ⁓ what inspired you to start the virtual helping hand?
speaker-1: ⁓ I love telling this one as well in this story. I told everybody I stumbled into entrepreneurship. I did I was working at a YMCA. I did not see this for myself. ⁓ so how it started is my husband and I got married in 2017, ⁓ found out we were pregnant a couple months after, and then right, and then a month after we found out, we found out he was deploying for the first time. ⁓ that was like the first one. ⁓ so I went through second and third trimester birth and the first two years without a ⁓ thankfully I was in my home state. So I had like my support system, my family, my friends around. But you know, having a baby without your husband that day to day was terrible. ⁓ I was definitely the type of like go-getter. Like when I met my husband, I was dating ⁓ when we were dating. I was going to school and working, so it's I had that already drive in me.
speaker-0: ⁓ my god.
speaker-1: He asked me while he's in the middle of the Middle East on his first employment, if I could stay home with our daughter for the first year. ⁓ just to give him that peace of mind. He had, you know, he paranoia. He wanted to know his baby was safe. And I was like, I was Yay, I had a discount on childcare. I planned on going back after like six months. So I look I was like, ⁓ okay, you know, give him that peace of mind. I was like, I'll do it. ⁓ my god, that year was hard. ⁓ that following year, I called my boss, which is now the beginning of 2020. I called my boss and I was like, I'm ready to come back. Like, let's get this ball rolling. I had my fingerprint appointment, you know, the background change in February, and I was scheduled to come back March 1st. We all know what happened in March. So now I'm sitting completely bored out of my mind. ⁓ a couple months. Into the year, I had a friend who had a business and she had to let her staff go because of the whole COVID. And I was like, girl, let me help you. I'm bored. I have this baby. Let me do something. ⁓ and so she did. And so I was doing admin and social media work. And that's what started it all. ⁓ I after I worked with her for a few months, I was like, I have to keep doing that for my sanity. ⁓ so I did some research and realized what I was was her virtual assistant, her VA. And Once I figured that out, there was no stopping me. I learned how to do it. I watched other VAs. I joined communities where VAs were sitting and learned, watched. So thankful for the clients I've had these past years and have let me play, have let me grow. I've watched them. They trained me and it's grown so much now. Like now I mentioned before it's past just the regular admin. We now add operations behind it, website design, branding. It's it's Been amazing. So that's how I started by accident. And then I ran.
speaker-0: Yeah. If you're a business owner and you've ever wondered why your brand isn't pulling its weight, I built something for you. It's called the brand audit scorecard, and it's completely free. Ten questions takes about five minutes, and it'll show you exactly where your brand is strong and where it's losing your clients. You can grab it at linecreatives.com/slash brand audit scorecard, and the link is in the show notes. Alright, let's get back to it. That's awesome. So N you just mentioned it a little bit, but what do you offer? Like what are the services that you offer to your clients?
speaker-1: Yeah, so ⁓ we still offer like the admin, still some basic VA service where like do this task, buy this day. We still do that, but we combined operations and strategy behind it. So when someone posts to us for social media support, we're doing more than just creating your graphics, we're creating it, we're ⁓ watching it and studying and learning your the niche of the client, hashtags, the comics, analytics behind it, the whole nine yards. So we do we applied that to everything. So we literally It's so much easier to tell people what we don't do because we try to do it a lot. Like, ⁓ but we do, like I said, admin and like the everything that comes with that operations, so back in tunnels a lot, CR in management setup, website design. We are official Wix partner. I'm working official with Shopify. email marketing, we do branding, logo designs, graphic designs, of course, and I feel like I'm missing something, but basically we just do a lot.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Do a lot. It's it's so much fun and and we love it. So
speaker-0: That's awesome. And so I'm assuming that you're working with ⁓ like graphic designers and other I'm assuming that not yet that you are not doing all of it, but that that's your team that is
speaker-1: My team, definitely. I I mean I s I can don't get me wrong, I can, but you know, no, no, no. I I'm delegated. So like my team, yeah, as a whole, we do it. But yeah, my team. I have one who just finished her masters in marketing, so she's like our go to for everything with marketing. ⁓ I have another one who man, her graphic designs are unparalleled. I thought I was good and then I saw her do it and I I'm never touching anything ever again. Well yeah, it's been amazing.
speaker-0: That's So when you ⁓ so now that we're talking about graphic design, what's ⁓ do you have a marketing challenge that you are still working through or maybe you worked through it and you found a super awesome solution that you would like to share?
speaker-1: Ooh, marketing challenges. That's a good one. ⁓ you know what, me personally, I'll say me personally, like I struggle with making video content, which is what it is now to is you can you can get away with some static posts, you know, and get it, but if you really want your page to grow, you gotta put your face out there. And that is where I that's where I struggle for sure. ⁓ man, I need to I I I told myself need to work on it. I even bought ⁓ A selfie stick like the tripod, and I have yet to stand it up.
speaker-0: That's funny. I think I think you're not the only one. I think there's a lot of people who ⁓ have exactly the same problem. And that because taking a video is obviously I'm struggling with it too. So it's just very time consuming in my opinion. And I I do know, I do know you have to have it on social media in order to grow your channel. ⁓ but And this is the question that I'm always struggling with, and maybe you can you can solve this for me. Social media is so big. Yes. Right? You have your you have your I don't know Instagram channel, you have your Facebook, you have LinkedIn. Yes, you have to be on it. Because otherwise you're not you know, you're not visible there. However, you can also in my opinion, you can also run your business business without social media.
speaker-1: You can. For sure. You can.
speaker-0: So there's a lot of time that is being spent, you know, to be on social media. So since you're the expert here, what is the most why why do we all have to be on it? First of all. And then the second question is how can we make sure, besides taking videos, how can we make sure that the content is being seen by the people you want to reach?
speaker-1: Okay. Great question. So first, why should we even have social media? In this day and age, ⁓ whenever someone wants to work with somebody, no matter how big the company is, how small it is, they're gonna Google you. They're gonna Google the company, they're gonna look for reviews, they're gonna look whenever you go to a new restaurant in a new town, you Google the restaurant, look at the reviews, and look at things. That is why you need social media. If you want a complete stranger to work with you, to trust you, to learn you. Give them something to look at. If not, they're just gonna look at you and be like, I don't know who you are. And there goes that immediate lack of trust. And then that can just go full another ballpark. ⁓ so you need it. It's like a visual resume, is what I started telling people. ⁓ again, they're gonna look you up, and so give them something to look at. ⁓ so that is why you need social media. Now, what to post is always fine. because I like to tell people. I just did a whole ⁓ training on I should probably do another one where the three pillars of social media is what I call it. ⁓ so the three topics of things you should be posting, ⁓ engagement. Again, they're that one's kind of self-explanatory. ⁓ educational and tips. So people know that you know what you're talking about. Again, they're gonna look at this first before they even talk to you. So let them know, ⁓ this person knows exactly what they're talking about. So, and then lastly, promotional. No, everyone gets a little icky when you talk about promoting, self-promoting, but you should it it can be done tastefully, but it still has to be done so that people know that you're even open to taking clients, that you're even open to do whatever it is you're doing. Those are three things. Now, how do you post to find or so that your ideal audience can find you? That is where each platform is a little bit different when it comes to Instagram hashtags. I'm sure we've all seen videos or reels and you like you click see more, it's like a dozen hashtags down below. That's what you want. ⁓ because when people go to Instagram again, they're gonna look stuff up. If I'm looking for a balloon archer, you know what's we wanna the balloon arch? I'm gonna search on Instagram balloon arch. And if that's a hashtag on somebody's page or somebody's post, it's gonna pop up for me and I'm gonna look and now now here we go. So hashtags on Instagram are like keywords that someone's gonna search in. So that's for when ⁓ when it comes to LinkedIn LinkedIn is all professionalism. So no lols over there is what I tell people. No ha ha ha ha's, don't go too crazy. ⁓ over there, the topics ⁓ how you get found on LinkedIn is the topic of the post. So hashtags aren't gonna work over there. You can put like everyone's for fun, like ⁓ my god, this was so crazy. Hashtag relatable that that's okay. You can't put a dozen hashtags on LinkedIn and topic, what you're saying and you're writing in the caption, use keywords in there. So again, if I was looking for a balloon archer, I would hope that she would post things like here's a balloon archer I did for a 50 year old five year old birthday party. Like that's all it would take. ⁓ Facebook is sort of the same way ⁓ because hashtags don't really work over there either. They used to they don't work anymore. Until everybody I feel so bad when I see them I'm like yes it doesn't work anymore. Facebook, I tell everybody, Facebook is selfish. Facebook is greedy. They want people to stay on Facebook because of all these other platforms, people are you know, not on Facebook anymore. So when you post on Facebook and you want to post your link or your calendar link or scheduling, don't put that in a caption. Put see below. I'm sure we've all seen captions where like look down below or check the comments for the link. That's because Facebook's gonna say they're gonna push your post out thinking you're sharing. something to keep them on Facebook. So when we say check the comments down below and then you comment the link below, it forces people to look at the comments and Facebook things. Ooh, people are looking at your posts and looking at your comments and they're commenting. They're gonna push you.
speaker-0: ⁓ So my question, because that's like Facebook, I don't go. I don't go on Facebook. Yeah. ⁓ but let's say you have a business page on Facebook. You can invite all your followers to follow that page. Yes. Right. But how do you get people to follow your page that are not your followers on your personal profile?
speaker-1: That is where you can well there's a couple ways. One, if your personal Facebook page is ⁓ public, then share your Facebook business pages post to your public Facebook. That will think again, Facebook is greedy. They're gonna be like, ⁓ people are sharing your post out. You're gonna push your business out naturally. ⁓ so I tell people share your own post. There's nothing wrong with liking your own comment. I mean liking your own post, commenting on it, and sharing it. it tricks the algorithm into thinking someone else is doing it. They don't pay attention that it's you. They just see this gets likes, this gets shares. Let's just push it out. This is clearly something that people want to see.
speaker-0: So I would share it so I would share then this post on Facebook. I would share it then with my husband, with I don't know, with friends. Mm-hmm. And Facebook.
speaker-1: This page and be like, ⁓ that shared recently. Keep up that consistent. You don't have to do every post. You can pick like do consistently, but not every single post. ⁓ and then after a while it's gonna start pushing it out on its own because Facebook got tricked into thinking this is something that people want to see. So let's show people. ⁓ that's how to do it organically. It does take time. Unfortunately, everything everything with social media takes time, but that is the best way to do it organically. ⁓ if you're just like by yourself doing it. ⁓ and then of course you can tell other people, other if you're going to networking events, you tell people to like your Facebook page and stuff like that. ⁓ and then again the more followers you get, the more you're sharing your own posts, the more it's gonna push it out. Yeah.
speaker-0: Hmm. And what about the same problem on LinkedIn? You have a LinkedIn business page of obviously you want to share the information that you have on the business page.
speaker-1: With LinkedIn, they care about your you have to watch your ⁓ your connections. Unfortunately, LinkedIn cares about the numbers. So if you are ⁓ again, not on your business page because a personal your you know, your personal LinkedIn and your business LinkedIn, two different algorithms. Your business page is never ever gonna get any kind of push like that. ⁓ it's mostly there for other professionals when they're looking you up. Do you even professional ⁓ does your business have a LinkedIn? It's good, it's one of those where it's good to have, don't expect growth over there at all. It's just what they have because again, they're gonna look you up, they're gonna look your business up. But your personal LinkedIn, this is where you can share your business again on your news feed. ⁓ but I would tell people focus on those connections first. Unfortunately, that's what they care about most. So when you hit like about four or five hundred connections, your page will naturally get pushed out more because now LinkedIn believes you're a real person.
speaker-0: So the the connections, four to five hundred connections on your business page or on your personal page?
speaker-1: Your personal page. ⁓ I would never focus on connections on your business page unless you're like I just wouldn't. I would just as long as you and like your team, if you have a team are following it, ⁓ maybe a couple of friends, but no one's gonna look at the the count over there. They're gonna look at you. So
speaker-0: Okay. So and then regarding the posts, what to post on the different platforms. Like LinkedIn, I feel like that LinkedIn turned a little bit into a Facebook now.
speaker-1: It is definitely going into that way where people are starting to share more personal stuff. And I think that's because of this wave, especially this year, I've noticed the a kind of shift where because AI is everywhere and social media and influencers, you know, people are seeking real and authenticity. So I've noticed this shift on LinkedIn as well where before you could post a business, ⁓ I just got a new promotion and like that would blow up. On LinkedIn. We post it now and it's not. Whereas if someone posts on LinkedIn something personal about like sitting at the computer and like they're cracked, the screen cracked, that's gonna blow up on LinkedIn more than the professional post. So as this new wave is going, I would just promote or not promote, I would tell people keep a professional but sprinkle in some authenticity. ⁓ with this new wave this year for sure.
speaker-0: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So and then now going back to Instagram. Yes. So for a while, and maybe you're the experts so you can tell better, but for a while it was all about the carousels, right? So care ⁓ but carousels, I don't know. I don't read carousels. But are they still important or no?
speaker-1: Ha ha ha. I will say yes. ⁓ but now it's more about ⁓ before it was like the posts in on in all graphic posts and static posts, the words were covering the graphic. Like you put like a whole little mini paragraph and people would read it. Not anymore. so I will say carousels, yes, but ⁓ limit it to the amount of ⁓ slides you have in there. So, like you when you see people say here are three tips and And they have five slides. Like, let's not do that anymore. You have three t here's three tips. Give me four. One's the cover that says three tips, and then one, one's half a sentence of what the tip is on each slide. And then that is for the caption where you can put a little, you know, you can go a little longer in it. But for sure, I would say chaos cells work. Just limit the words you have on there and then limit how many slides you actually have because nobody's gonna sit there anymore and slide through. You're a ten tips. No way no way to do it anyway.
speaker-0: And so then you put all that information into the caption, I'm assuming.
speaker-1: So I will say put it in a caption. ⁓ because this is a good way to I like to do this. ⁓ someone who's serious is going to read it. ⁓ and those are the people we want. You know, they're save everybody's time. ⁓ those are people we want. And so that will be where you put the details in the caption. But for those who are just simply scrolling, quick little scroll, yeah. Keep it, keep it short and sweet on those carousels. Yeah.
speaker-0: And also no links in in Instagram.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, no links in Instagram because you can't click a link on Instagram. So that is where you see people say in their graphic in their captions, they'll say link in bio or we there's this app called ⁓ mini chat where you can connect to Facebook and Instagram and that's when they say drop a a fire emoji and I'll send you the link. And then that's a little automated system. You see people drop a new fire emoji, you set it up in mini chat and now a message gets sent to them immediately. Another way because Instagram's owned by Meta now, so Again, you're tricking the algorithm into thinking, Wow, she's keeping people here. Let's let's push this post out. And you're like, ⁓ I'm not. But it's
speaker-0: It's Okay. So and then what besides ⁓ carousels? What's another good post to engage? Especially the engagement part, because I think a lot of people because there's such so much. So I think a lot of business owners they're posting and posting and posting and just like throwing information out there, but I don't think there's real engagement on those posts because everybody just scrolls. So what is a good post? That makes people react.
speaker-1: So that would depend on your niche for sure. But ⁓ so I'll use mine as a perfect example. So we're all about operational support. So when we want engagement, we're going to ask you a question that makes you stop. ⁓ one of them being the one that we're working, we have a clan right now where we're cleaning up her onboarding. So her onboarding whole thing. A lot of people don't pay attention to that. But so we're cleaning up her onboarding. So like I would create a question, like a simple graphic with a question that says something like, ⁓ Has a client ghosted you during the onboarding? And then tell me about it. Or in the caption, I put like a couple options of like why. But that would encourage them if I'm a business owner who just lost a client during onboarding, I'm gonna stop and be like, I did. Tell me how I can fix it. And so asking a question that will make a person stop. And
speaker-0: So and then you put and then you put that, for example, that many chat
speaker-1: I would put like ⁓ the caption would live my graphic would say, Have you ever again have you ever lost a client during onboarding? And then like I'd have like on there I'll use a fire, put like a fire if your answer is yes, and I can help you help tell you why. And so now someone's gonna comment the fire, send them a in the mini chat can set up like an automated response and then now they're in my DMs. And we all love when they're in our DMs. So now they're in my DMs and then I can take over from there.
speaker-0: And then for your clients, if s if you're if you're working with your clients and you're working ⁓ on a post like that, are you the one then replying or well maybe s
speaker-1: ⁓ sometimes it depends on like what it is ⁓ sometimes we do have it automated depending on whatever like especially if they're promoting something that's when we use that more so because we can't keep up with can't keep up with all those ⁓ but if it's like a regular post like that then yeah we are in there engaging where so the person will somebody will comment we come in and comment behind them like their comment if there's ever a comment or message that comes in where we're like ooh we'll leave that one to our actual client we let them know hey you might want to check out This comment left by this person, definitely your ballpark. So
speaker-0: Okay. All right. And then I so last week was last week, I had like a lunch and learn with ⁓ someone who also specializes in ⁓ you know, the engagement and ⁓ social media in general. And she said that it's soup videos are the most important now. And that brings us back to our problem child. Yes ⁓ the video. And but while she was talking, I was like, ⁓ yeah, I you know, I can do that. I can You know, I can create those videos. But she especially said that because of AI and because of everything now is perfect, the imperfect videos are more successful than the staged videos.
speaker-1: Again, that comes back to this wave of because of AI, everybody wants authenticity. I literally have this video up on my page where I was trying to have like a cute morning in the life of a mom and a business owner. And I have my two kids cups and I was gonna pour them milk and then coffee and mine. I spilled because I'm trying to like hold the phone and do it. And I spilt it and I said, you what, I'm just gonna leave it 'cause that at that point I was tired. I was like, I don't feel like editing this video. I was like, I just need to get something out there. So I left it and that blew up. Really? That blew up to like other people relating, like and it was just funny where I'd and the only reason why I didn't cut that out was because I was too tired to edit it. I you I'm just gonna do it. It's fine, it's fine. And yeah, it was literally me like trying to hold like a holding phone. I pour my coffee and then I spilt pouring their milk and I just go and just kept going. Yeah.
speaker-0: So but and that's where I w what I struggle with. Mm-hmm. I don't have to show the whole world everything that I do. Like not, you know, not everybody has to know, I don't know, that I drink coffee in the morning. I mean that's mm, it's cool and it's maybe relatable, but why do I have to share that? So that's you know, that's my thought process. Why do I have to share everything with everyone? This has literally nothing to do with my business. Why would I why would I share these things just to add to the noise of social media?
speaker-1: So you are not adding to the noise. ⁓ again, this goes back to when people look you up when they want to work with you, they're gonna look at your page, right? And you want them to know that you are approachable, you're relatable. We get this is more than just business, you know. Especially us solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, like we get so invested with a client that it's more than just like they're not just another ticket, they're not just another person. And as a person, and we wanna feel that way. ⁓ no matter how big or small the company is, you go to Walmart and you have a mistake, you want them to be able to fix it. So You're posting it to be relatable. ⁓ me posting that video showing people how I'm a mom and I'm still relatable, like even though I have this business. You posting that you and then ⁓ when it comes to videos, you don't have to put your face on there. You can just like again, like how I was doing, record yourself, record the coffee being poured into a cup. Just relatable. And then you can put like a comment like Folgers is my favorite coffee. What's yours? You know, but like that shows like, ooh, I also like Forgers. Like now I'm open a little bit more to talk to you. I see you're relatable. You drink coffee. I drink coffee. Like small connections like that will will matter.
speaker-0: Hmm. Definitely a lot to think about. And but like this is and this is why I think a lot of business owners and they get frustrated because there's so many things to think about. Okay, so I love coffee post video, then the carousel with I don't know, the thought leadership or whatever you want to call it, and then static posts don't really do well, right? Any more?
speaker-1: They do, ⁓ but you gotta be careful about them. They're and again, every this is one of those where I can give all the tips in the world, right? But everybody is different. I had one client where videos did terrible. Like it didn't matter if it was a video of her face or something, they didn't do nearly as well as her static post. Her static posts were what did it. Whereas with other clients, I could it's the f it's flit. So ⁓ I do tell people like when we're first starting out, it's gonna be a learning curve. We're gonna like just trust the process. Trust the process. So but yeah, it's yeah.
speaker-0: And how long do you ⁓ like roughly? I know that I know social media takes time, but Roughly how long does it take for social media to really work?
speaker-1: If do it right, ⁓ and hum humbly speaking, we do it right. ⁓ sixty days, you'll start seeing real progress. ⁓ I saw in the first month is us trying multiple things ⁓ seeing what works, what doesn't work, watch that's where watching the analytics come in and things like that. So we learn what works and didn't work in month one. So month two, we're doing obviously only what worked. And our goal is by the end of that second month, you're starting to see either your engagement is up your consistently, because it'll spike. So we're talking consistently. ⁓ your engagement is up, your likes are up, your followers may have increased, ⁓ the amount of interactions you're having has increased. So if you do it right and you stay committed and consistent, too
speaker-0: Hmm.
speaker-1: But ⁓ you won't see like if you have like five hundred followers today, you're not gonna see seven hundred. But you might see five hundred today and now you have five hundred and ten. ⁓ now tells you that it's working.
speaker-0: Yeah. And then so when you talk about the analytics, what especially do you look for in the analytics?
speaker-1: Yeah, so when we look there, we look at what times ⁓ when we post them, what times work the best? Some people, eight a.m. is when most of their people are up and looking at their stuff. Other people, it's eleven at night. So we're watching ⁓ things like that. When is when is this post actually being seen? We're watching just because somebody didn't like your post doesn't mean they didn't see your post. So we're paying attention to We're watching that ratio, but we care more about who's seeing it, how many are actually seeing it, because how many times have you scrolled on your own social media and did not like something, you saw it and we're like, ⁓ that's cool. And then and then moved on. So we're watching those. ⁓ and that's when we watch the hashtags, watch which ones are actually working when people look them up. Did this hashtag actually get pulled when it again, if I'm looking for a balloon archer and I didn't hashtag balloon, but I hashtag balloon archer and we notice balloon archer is not getting You know, not popping up. Okay, well let's try balloon. Let's try balloon. Like playing like that.
speaker-0: So when where can you see how hashtags perform?
speaker-1: ⁓ there's a few different places. one obviously is the you have to go to Instagram.com like on a desktop. Not on you can see them that way. ⁓ there are I'm not gonna lie, there are a lot of platforms you could look at and because of AI today, you can even take your Instagram page and take that G PC to do it. So there are that's probably the easiest way I would just tell everybody. Just go ahead and ⁓ what we do what you could do is we watch it every week on different
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-1: platforms and like that, but you can tell chat to look at your posts engagements from this day to this day and ask it whatever you want.
speaker-0: Okay. So and then up obviously the are you looking at ⁓ I know we're going very deep into the social media problem, but ⁓ I think that is a lot of that is a big topic for a lot of people. So ⁓ do you look at your when you look at the engagement or who how ⁓ who saw your posts? Are you looking at your followers or the non followers?
speaker-1: So we're paying attention to both because ⁓ I mean, yes, we want our followers to see us, but sometimes especially ⁓ we've all been there, your followers get stagnant. They stop commenting, they stop liking. So we're paying attention to them as well as the non followers. The non followers to us matter a smidge more because that is where someone who doesn't know you, and how many times have we I think we've all heard tales all the time. Sometimes strangers are your biggest supporters. So We're paying attention to the non-followers a smidge more. We want to see because we want to make sure your page is getting pushed out to non-followers, to the strangers that you don't know yet. So we're looking at both. And then we're also looking at like you can break it down from there to like men and women, the age groups. And that's how we also help some people who don't know who their target audience is. We can learn it from this.
speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. So and then obviously you look at the performance of one post versus the other post. Like let's say video post versus the carousel post. So and depending on which one has the most engagement.
speaker-1: Yes, then that's the one we're gonna continue to do. So yeah. Now we're not gonna stop. Like if we did video and carousel and carousel did better, we're not gonna stop videos. We're just gonna not as much. They're not gonna be as frequent.
speaker-0: Mm, okay. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. So, Now let's talk about your brand. Yeah. So when you first started, you know, you had like, okay, you had this idea, you helped, ⁓ and then it developed it it developed into something bigger. Yes. So when did you realize that having a brand is important in order to grow further?
speaker-1: Yeah. Don't learn that now. I really realized it in 2023 when I tell people like use me as a learning curve. We're gonna go back to like my on my personal page. I did not mention my business at all. Like it truly I just did it behind the scenes and would post pictures of flowers. ⁓ and then like I kept the business completely separate so that when people which is a problem. When I'm like talking to somebody and they're like gonna go back and look me up and I'm not talking about anything I do. I didn't get especially if I accidentally forget to like tell them to look me up on like social media, they're not gonna look up the virtual helping hand, they're gonna look Danielle up. And so I realized I had to work on connecting that and be like, Whoops, my bad. I w I do have a company. I learned that in 2023, ⁓ was when that big shift came where I was like, I have to. Put my face out there a little bit more. I have to actually talk about things on my social media a bit more. ⁓ started joining networking events a little bit more than like putting so that when people thought of the virtual helping hand, they thought of me. And I kept that up to where now it's flipped. When people think of me, they think of the virtual helping hand, which is what we want. I tell people Jeff Jeff ⁓ was it I just want blank man's name. Jeff Bezos. When we see him, we see Amazon. We don't in
speaker-0: Wait.
speaker-1: So same thing, you want them when they see you, they see your business.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. And why do you think did you not talk about your business at the beginning?
speaker-1: there's a lot. No one throughout one. one was that fear of like the people who actually knew me in my personal life. What are they gonna think? Are they gonna like what are they gonna think? I'm seeing as this class clown, life of the party type of person, and now I'm telling you I can build you with a website. You know, like ⁓ that was that was probably one of the biggest hurdles was like, what is everybody who follows me, who knows me, going to think? And I had to realize, ⁓ Who cares? Who cares what they think? I'm not doing this for them. So that was the biggest one. And then it became I'm gonna get judged for what I say. what if I say something and like someone in the business field doesn't agree with me? Like now, now what? Like, you know, like there's just so many. And then I went through this phase where I did not have confidence at all in myself. I was just like, can't do it. Sorry about it. Like, Where no one would I tell people all the time if I can get them on a call, they'll see that I know what I'm talking about, but I could not for the life of me do that for a while. ⁓ so like those were the big three. Fear of what everyone was gonna say who actually knew me, ⁓ fear of being judged by people who knew better than me. I th well, you know, like I thought, like you're in the game for longer than I am. You're gonna judge me for I'm gonna say, ⁓ and then the lack of confidence. Those were the big three as to why I did not say anything for a while.
speaker-0: And I I think that is a big problem for a lot of people. It is. That especially at the beginning, because you're just starting out and every everything is kind of intimidating because you kinda have to figure everything out on your own. Yeah. And in order to build the confidence, it takes a while. It takes a while to be okay with calling yourself the ⁓ CEO of your business, you know? And I feel and maybe because I'm a woman, but I feel that every like a lot of women struggle with that more than men do. Or maybe men don't talk about it. They do, but they don't talk about it. ⁓ yeah. But ⁓ how did you overcome it? Like what what happened?
speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-0: Or what changed?
speaker-1: Things changed, but the biggest one was I started doing affirmations. And I know, trust me, I was that person who was like, affirmations, like what? I'm a smart am kind. Like, I'm not gonna walk around doing that. but I took it and I realized I had just finished this documentary. ⁓ it was so random, but you know, like things connect in your brain. I was watching this documentary on like how placebos, the placebo pills, and how doctors will throw in a a sugar cube on your medicine. How your mentality truly can take, can like transform your body. ⁓ in a sense. So kind of crazy that in my brain, I was like, okay, well then let me start saying. ⁓ this is before I built the business, is I started saying, I have a team when it was just me. ⁓ I started saying stuff like that where I what I wanted was what I was saying. ⁓ I have a team, I am highly sought out. I And again, not like the it didn't matter about the money to me. It was more about me. So every affirmation I've ever used, even to today, I don't put money to it. I just say I am fully booked. I am highly sought after. My team is expanding. ⁓ things like that. ⁓ when it came to posting more on social media about my business, I would say stuff like I it started off a little cliche. So I was saying I am confident. But it did, it did. ⁓ so I was saying like I am confident, I am bold, I am like things like that. It did it did start off cliche and then it grew from there to other stuff. ⁓ but saying it every day made me believe it more and more. And we already know seeing is believing. Now that you're saying it, I believe I'm a highly sought after, I'm gonna walk like I'm wholly sought after. And then it works. ⁓ affirmations, but they don't gotta be corny. Yeah.
speaker-0: No, I agree with I agree with you. And I think affirmations and the manifestation and all these things because you involuntarily you give your brain the proof that you are highly thought after. You know, you're proving to yourself that it's okay. You know, it's ⁓ this is what what we are, and then eventually your brain will believe it. And then things will happen. Yes. Because as if If you're still doubting yourself, it's not gonna happen because you kinda block things. Exactly. ⁓ no, I totally believe in that. That's well. I believe in manifestation. And I have a funny story because a while ago, a friend of mine, we were reading ⁓ the book, ⁓ what was it? Was some one of those manifestation books, I don't remember the title, but it talked about money and manifesting money and things like that. So we were like, okay, let's let's let's go through the process and it was more like fun. But we were listening to the book, and ⁓ so I walked my dogs every day, and it's always the same path. And then we were talking about this manifestation and the money and blah, blah, blah. And so starting with that, eventually, it's so funny because I kept finding money on my walk. The same path that I always walked. I never found money before, but then all of a sudden, after reading and listening to this book, I kept finding like 25 cents, maybe I don't know, a cent. And then eventually, as I picked it, ⁓ every time I picked it up, I'm like, God, look, I have money. I found money. And it was kind of it was funny. And then I found five dollars, then $10, you know, and like, ⁓ my God, this is really working. And my friend did the same thing. And we had this thing. So every time you find money, even if it's just a cent, you have to pick it up to tell the universe that you are, you know, serious about it. Because if you leave the money sitting there, you don't really want it. So and so then she called me from the mall. And a guy, she was standing in line and she sent me a picture. The guy must have sat in his car and ⁓ in like gum or something, but there was a penny stuck to his butt on his jeans. Like, what should she do? How can I pick up this penny? Didn't pick it up. It was the funniest thing because that penny was stuck to his butt and she couldn't get it. And it was a conundrum because
speaker-1: She
speaker-0: How can I tell the universe that I'm serious about money? But I can't feel this penny off his butt. Yes. So no, but manifestation works. And
speaker-1: I like to say that ⁓ again when you say you're looking for it ⁓ as well, like you're gonna find a way to get to the town. Like, you know, when you're driving and you're like, I've seen a lot of white cars and now you see is white cars, you know.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Or you wanna yeah. Or you wanna or you wanna buy a certain car and then all of a sudden everybody drives that car.
speaker-1: That we just bought a car last year. I have never seen this car before. And now it's everyone road. I've never seen this car around before. So I like to say also the affirmations help you find it. You're good. The you say it, the more you're gonna go and try and do it. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's that's a very very good tip and I do believe in it. So
speaker-1: Awesome, but
speaker-0: Now it's already forty five minutes. More than forty, forty five minutes. So if people would like to get in contact with you, where can they find you?
speaker-1: I'm everywhere. No, I'm kidding. ⁓ so you can again search me up on Facebook and Instagram because I'm actually consistent now. Or ⁓ my website, the business website is www.the virtual helping hand dot com. ⁓ my email is Danielle at the virtual helping hand dot com and on all social media platforms, virtual helping hand.
speaker-0: Perfect. And I'll make sure to ⁓ add all those links into the show notes. Hi every yes. So yeah, thank you so much for ⁓ being here. And yeah, of course. And yeah, if anybody would like need some help with ⁓ a virtual assistant, social media ⁓ or with your branding, you can give both of us a call. Okay. ⁓
speaker-1: This was fun. I think. Okay.
speaker-0: Alright. Bye. Thanks for listening to This Might Get Creative, a Behind the Brand podcast by Lion Creatives. If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show and share it with someone who loves discovering local businesses and creative entrepreneurs. You can learn more about my work at LionCreatives.com or find me on Instagram, Line.creatives, and LinkedIn at Lion Creatives. Until next time, keep showing up, keep creating, and keep getting seen.
