Episode 057 – Helping Local Businesses Generate More Leads and Prospects

Narrator 0:01
This is the Digital Agency Insiders Podcast. Inside you’ll learn how to build, grow and scale your digital marketing agency all from the comfort of your favorite coffee shop. Let’s get started with the Show.

Tabitha Thomas 0:17
Hey everybody and welcome back to the Digital Agency Insiders Podcast, the podcast that gives you a little inside look into how digital marketing agencies have grown their businesses. I am your host Tabitha Thomas thanks for listening. We release new episodes each and every Tuesday. So if you like learning about digital marketing agencies, how they make their businesses works, hit that subscribe button. So let’s jump into today’s episode. Today I have with me Kaitlyn Study. Kaitlyn is the owner and creative director of South Street & Co. After two and a half years of marketing for a dermatologist and growing the practice to double the locations she was inspired to help other local service based businesses thrive with the skills and know how that she has acquired Kaitlyn opened her marketing agency in spring of 2015. Since then, South Street & Co. Has helped local businesses reach their reach new heights with their marketing. Kaitlyn, welcome to the show.

Kaitlyn Study 1:07
Hi, thank you for having me.

Tabitha Thomas 1:09
Yeah, super excited. So I usually open up all of the episodes were on the same way. And it’s always How did the path to become an entrepreneur? What did that look like for you? Is that something that you always knew that you wanted to do? Or is it something that kind of just sparked along the way?

Kaitlyn Study 1:23
Yes. So it really starts going back to how I was brought up my dad, always my my parents always taught us that it’s better to sell pencils on the side of the road and just dictate at what your cost is what you want to do, then, you know, potentially thinking about working for someone else. So my dad started his own business, my grandparents started their own business back in the 70s. And so I think growing up, it was always taught to us. So that was my, I guess, my background inspiration. But I didn’t always know I wanted to start my own business. So I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a marketing degree, looked everywhere for a job ended up finding one off of Craigslist, believe it or not, I don’t know why. And that was for the dermatologist, my parents called me a professional interviewer because I went on 30 plus interviews, because in the real world sales and marketing, you know, people kind of combine it. And I would apply for a marketing job and it would be sitting behind a phone cold calling. So I applied to one of those, it was cold calling companies to see if they wanted to move truckloads of their items through a freight truck. And I was like, you know, this isn’t really the marketing that I pictured for myself. So anyways, I got the job with a dermatologist and helped them rebrand the whole company in the first six months with a new logo slogan colors. And I also did their outside marketing. So I was kind of like a business development rep, I would go to doctors who did refer and who could refer and I also helped with their digital marketing. So it’s kind of like half and half here. And in that I helped them double in size. When I started, they had 10 offices, when I left, they had 20, 17 were in the Central Florida area. And then three were out of state, which was really neat to be able to help with that, too. So it got to the point, of course, when you double in that amount of size in that amount of time you the marketing budget just kept being lowered and lowered and lowered. And then the doctor was like, hey, I want to see you outside going and meeting people not so much the digital side in the office. And I really love talking to people, I love meeting people. But I really also had a passion for digital marketing. So growing up and my parents teaching me, hey, maybe you should think about your own thing. And I was introduced to my first client in February 2014. And she was like, you know, I’m paying this company. I don’t really know what I’m getting. Um, and I was like, Okay, let me see everything that you need. So she needed a full website redo. She needed social media help and search engine optimization. So I came in, I think I was charging her like 250 a month, something just super low for Yeah, for doing all of that. Because I had no idea how to price myself. So I helped her with all that. And then she referred me to someone else. And then I was like I applied for some jobs in the meantime, and nothing worked out. And so around this time in 2014, I was like, you know, I think maybe I want to do this. So I created a name, built my website. And then I got into daytime networking, so kind of like leads groups. And that was really the catalyst that helped me put in my notice in March of 2015. So it took me a little over a year and in that time it was waking up at five o’clock in the morning and working until 6:30 getting ready to work from eight to five and then coming home working till 11 o’clock at night working on the weekends. I would drive on the other side of town to meet with people So there is there’s definitely a lot of hustle and grit that went into that year that it took me to leave without falling flat on my face without that paycheck.

Tabitha Thomas 5:09
Yes, I love the story. I love the story. So walk us through what the process or what your what your business actually does now. So is it website and digital marketing? What else is involved in that?

Kaitlyn Study 5:20
Yes, so our specialty is helping small to medium sized businesses grow their reach online, and we specialize in service based businesses who want to reach a local clientele. So it doesn’t have to be local in Orlando, but someone in Missouri who wants to reach that clientele or someone in Georgia or Atlanta, who wants to reach that clientele. And we do anything from website design and development to search engine optimization. We’re really great at local search engine optimization, social media management, website marketing, copy creation, and email marketing, and then consulting too so that’s something that if someone’s like, you know what, I just need some direction, like, I need a marketing coach or an outsourced marketing person to help me, then that’s what we can help and do too.

Tabitha Thomas 6:11
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So working with local businesses, does that allow you more hands on time with your clients? Or are you guys doing a lot? Well, especially now with COVID being absolutely insane, you ‘ve talked about, you know, working with clients all across? So is it a lot of hands on stuff?

Kaitlyn Study 6:27
It really varies. So if you would have asked me this, a year and a half ago, it was like all in person meetings, it was always meeting with them, we had this amazing office in this little cute area in downtown Orlando is an old house that they turned into a commercial property. So it was really charming. And then we decorated it and fixed it up. But actually, at the end of last year, I took the company fully remote before it was like the cool thing. Everyone was like you’re going remote? And I would either get the side eye like, how’s that gonna work? Or I would get oh my gosh, that’s so cool. Let me know how it goes. Yeah, It’s either or, yeah. But now, I’m really thankful that I ended up making that transition, because I did a lot of research in order to get us there. But it’s a lot of now it’s a lot of video meetings, and occasionally some in person meetings with clients who are local too. Gotcha.

Tabitha Thomas 7:19
So how big is the team now? Is it just your you got a lot of people working with you?

Kaitlyn Study 7:24
Yes. So I have a really amazing team. So it’s myself, I have an account manager, I have a graphic designer, I have three actually four content people. So we’re a really big content team. We write all of our content in house do all of our SEO and social media in house. And then I also have a development team as well to help us with monthly website updates. And then any additional website builds that we need to

Tabitha Thomas 7:52
That’s awesome. Are you guys all located there in Florida? Are you guys all across all across the US a world? It’s not limited? Yeah,

Kaitlyn Study 8:01
no, we’re we’re actually as it turns out, all of us are in the Central Florida area. So um, there’s a lot of us in Orlando, but some of us are in one. I have my graphic designer. She’s in Daytona Beach. And then my developers, they’re in winter springs. So it’s kind of all in the Central Florida area for the most part. Gotcha.

Tabitha Thomas 8:21
So have you liked working from home? And did that give you a one up from everyone else? When COVID actually did hit because I’ve been working from home for Oh gosh, eight, nine years now. So like, everybody’s like, how are you handling this? I’m like, it’s Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever day it is. I’m like it’s normal for me.

Kaitlyn Study 8:38
Yes. Well, to be honest with you, I did. I never thought I would have taken the company remote. I never ever, ever thought yeah, if we are doing this interview, and like maybe a month before last year, so like June of last year, I would have said no, absolutely not. But there were just a couple things that happened. I ended up having to pay attention to the office a lot like is the door locked? Are the windows closed? Did everyone turn the lights off? Do we have enough toilet paper? Do we have enough k cups for the coffee? And you don’t think about those things. But those things took up a lot of my time is everything stocked when the clients come in because I don’t want to not be able to offer them water, coffee. And I was like, You know what, I really don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to have to deal with little things like that. But I did I read this amazing book. It’s by the creators. Oh, it’s called remote office not required and it’s by the creators of the only company that comes to my mind isn’t the right base camp. It’s the creators of base camp. Yeah. And all of their books. There’s one called rework and there’s one called remote office not required. And one of my girlfriends, she was remote and she was like, You know what, you need to read that book and just kind of understand what they’re talking about. And I felt like they were talking to me because I had all of these ideas that I just made up with no evidence backing them I was like, well, I can’t do this because no one will do work or I can’t do this because we’ll have bad communication. And it literally had chapters that was like, you can have great communication when remote. You don’t have to be keeping an eye on your employees every second of the day, because you have to trust them. And I’m like, okay, okay. Okay, got it. So then I had my whole team read it. And then we started implementing one day, like a Tuesday out of office. And then that went well. And then Thursday out of office, and then that went well. And then we added Monday, and then we added Wednesday. So by the end of last year, before the holidays came, we were fully remote.

Tabitha Thomas 10:39
That’s awesome well, it’s good that you were able to do that how many people didn’t have that opportunity this year to be able to do it in little spurts, to get used to it and see where the weaknesses and strengths were for doing all of that. That’s, that’s incredible.

Kaitlyn Study 10:52
Yeah, thank you. And in order, I was like, you know, how can we? How can we help with everything happening with COVID. So I put together a remote guide, and it’s everything that we did, it’s on our website, and it’s free. If you just look at our toolbox page, we put I put together remote guide. So I was like, you know, I can’t I don’t know how a marketing company can contribute to helping people with COVID. But I was I was thinking maybe we could help companies transition. So I have we have a lot of fun slack channels that I talk about in there. We have like a lot of Q and A’s that we do we have a weekly or daily Scrum meeting. So I kind of go over all of the things that I implemented in order to make us successful.

Tabitha Thomas 11:31
So let’s talk about some of those because that’s a big question that I get a lot about people that are doing remote work, you know, they’re there, how do they get their team motivated and feel like you’re still part of a team, even though you’re not together? I mean, I know what we do we do. We do Fitbit challenges. Oh cool. So everyone in the company gets a Fitbit. And so we want to encourage you to get up and move basically, we’re, it’s very easy doing what we do to sit at your desk all day long and not move. And that’s not healthy for you. So we try to encourage people to move. And so you’re for every 10,000 steps that you move, you get your name thrown in the hat. And every week, we draw a $50 gift card. And if you know it’s random draw, but the more you walk, the more chances you get. And at the end of the month, if you’ve walked more than anyone else, or moved more than anyone else, it’s $250 gift card. So that’s a big, it’s silly. It has nothing to do with work, but it’s a little competition within all of us. And it brings us all together in a weird way.

Kaitlyn Study 12:24
That is so neat. I’ve heard of things like that, but I’ve never heard of how they’ve implemented it. And it’s mostly with giant companies like Alloy or huge organizations. But I love that. Yeah, some of the things that we’ve done is, number one, I read a lot. I read a ton of articles in that book, too. But they said that a lot of people get lonely. And that’s the one thing I really didn’t want to happen because you don’t have that camaraderie around you. So um, the item that I think we’ve implemented that has worked out really well is daily Scrum meetings for 15 minutes. Everyone talks about what did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? And is there anything that’s preventing you from getting your work done today that you need help from someone else. So it lasts 15 minutes, and it’s every morning from 8:45 until nine and it’s over video and and then at the end, we leave with a positive quote. So that has helped because everyone gets to see everyone in the morning, it starts the day off well. And then slack is basically the backbone of the communication of our company. So we have some fun slack channels. One of them is a virtual brainstorm. So you can’t just turn to the person next to you anymore. So we created a virtual brainstorm channel where someone is stuck or having like a brain freeze or a creative block, they put what their question or issue is, and then everyone just throughout the day or throughout the week just contributes to it. So that’s a collaborative effort there too, for everyone to kind of be on the same page and still help out. Yeah. And then another thing that I really love that we’ve added is this channel called Sweet wins. So every week everyone gives someone else in the company a shout out for doing something really well helping them pull something together to meet a deadline. Really great, really great article that they wrote, if a client was like, hey, this month’s blogs were amazing. Thank you so much. I pass that along to to them. And then we go over those every week during our weekly meetings on Fridays. And I think that that’s helped a lot because it’s kind of fostered gratitude. And it’s everyone helping everyone else too.

Tabitha Thomas 14:33
I love it. I love it. I love that you’re well. And for us, we have a tendency to not do the video where we meet every week and every other day and things like that, but we don’t turn our videos on yours encourages people to get up, take showers and actually show up and be presentable. Like we’re I could just throw out a bed in my PJs and you’re like let’s do this.

Kaitlyn Study 14:52
Yeah, I will tell you though, there are times I know I’m a morning person so I’ll go for a run or workout in the morning and then There are times when like my hair slicked back and I have on like, you know, my cut off T shirt, and I’m sitting here sweating. And I’m like, I just need to do the scrum meeting and I need to take a shower. And then I had to run to all my meetings. So there’s definitely those days, but I’m like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. This is me. Here I am.

Tabitha Thomas 15:17
Yeah, that’s when you know, you got a really good team when everybody’s like, you know, whatever.

Kaitlyn Study 15:21
Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t matter.

Tabitha Thomas 15:25
So let’s get into clients. What is the ideal client look like for you guys in your business? Is it? Is it a specific niche? Or is it just local people that are serving local, local people?

Kaitlyn Study 15:35
It is service based companies. So I’ll give you some examples. Like we have tree trimmers. We have roofers, we have a dog walking and boarding company that’s really fun. Wow, have a cleaning company, an antiques company. So they will buy and sell antiques and buy estate sales, they’ll run those and then or buy it in bulk. So it’s really based on service based companies. And then anyone who wants to reach that local target market, so local, wherever they are, we just don’t have I feel like our specialty lies within the local marketing. So not someone who wants to reach all of the United States. But if someone wants to reach all of Florida, or all of Georgia, or all of wherever,

Tabitha Thomas 16:24
yeah, I like it. So what advice would you give to somebody who has just decided to start their own agency?

Kaitlyn Study 16:32
I would say if, number one, find a mentor, find someone who can help you. I can’t, I can’t tell you how many, I probably have five to six mentors, and all of them have marketing agencies themselves. And technically, you could think of us as competitors in the Orlando area. But all of our specialties are just a little bit different. Yeah. And I one of them, we have our own Slack channel set up. And so I’ll just slack him if I have a message. Another one, I just shoot him a text or call him randomly. But all of them actually are agency owners in the Orlando area. And it has been so so helpful to me to be able to turn to them because they’re they’ve been in the industry, one of them has been in for probably 18 years, another one like 22 years. Another one is an amazing husband and wife team, but they’ve built up their teams, and they’re bigger than us. And that is amazing. Because they don’t see me as direct competition. It’s more of like collaboration over competition. So I think my biggest piece of advice is to find a coach or a mentor and really utilize them. And I People always ask me, okay, well, that’s great. But how do I do that?

Tabitha Thomas 17:51
Did you have them in the beginning, when you first decided to start the business? Did you have these people? Or was that something you picked up in those groups that you were going to?

Kaitlyn Study 17:59
In the very beginning, I would say that I did have one person, I went to college with him. And we weren’t super familiar with one another in college. But after college, he had always talked about and posted on Facebook, hey, I’m starting this company. It’s been really hard, but really amazing. If anyone’s thinking about starting their company, I would really recommend it. And he was kind of an advocate for being an entrepreneur. And he he was very vulnerable in some of the posts that he put out. And I messaged him, and I said, Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, but we kind of had similar friends in college. And would you be open to grabbing coffee, and he and I grabbed coffee and met up and he gave me all of these amazing tips to do and, and this was when I was still working full time. And he was like, well, when are you going to quit? I was like, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that. I’m just trying to like get through the day. And he’s like, well, you need to set a goal because if you don’t set a goal, it’s never gonna happen. And I was like, Okay, well, and he had just told me that he was releasing a new a new version of his app on it ended up being St. Patrick’s Day. So March 17. And I was like, well, you’re leaving on or you’re releasing this on March 17. So how about I put my notice, and in my last days, March 17, we like high fived over the table. We were like, okay, yeah, let’s do it. And so I ended up putting in my notice, and the day that I put in my notice it was it was a day called ruckus maker day. And if anyone follows Seth Godin, this is a day to make a difference and make an impact and I believe I not 100% sure, but I believe it may have been Steve Jobs birthday too. But anyways, this was an Seth Godin is is someone that I just absolutely love for marketing. And when I heard that on the radio, I got goosebumps because I was like dude Is this the right decision? I’m putting in my two weeks notice. I don’t want to get fired, but I also Know that I don’t want to work here for the rest of my life. And when I heard that on the radio, I was like, Okay, all right, we’re doing this, this is this is the sign that I needed. So he helped me that was what I would call a first mentor that I had. And then I ended up finding them through introductions through those networking groups that I ended up going to. And it was mostly like, Hey, I don’t know if you can work with this person or learn from them. But maybe it might be worth grabbing coffee. And I did. And then one of my mentors, we went to a marketing conference didn’t know each other. It was in it was in New Orleans, ended up sitting the last day at the same table for breakfast. We’re all kind of going around and saying, Oh, well, where are you from? Where are you from? And I’m like, I’m from Orlando. And like two people down. He’s like, I’m from Orlando. I’m like, you’re from Orlando, where? And it turns out his house was right around the corner from where I worked. Yeah. And he ended up being in marketing for in travel marketing for like, 20 years. So I still keep in touch with him today. So he still. That’s incredible.

Tabitha Thomas 21:05
Yeah, just starting conversations. That’s how you get out there and just find those kind of people. So that actually segues into my next question. How are you marketing yourself to find those service based businesses?

Kaitlyn Study 21:17
Yes. So everything that we do for our clients is exactly what we do for ourselves. And I positioned us as I wanted to be the company that walked the walk and talk the talk. So you type in. I’m sorry, drink your own Kool Aid. Yeah, exactly. So if you search us on Instagram, you’ll see that our Instagram grid is very well put together. And I look at it as kind of like a social media portfolio for everything that we’ve done. And we have some amazing tips that we go through and put on there. And then I’m all about repurposing content. So Instagram is our primary channel. And then we repurpose that across LinkedIn, and Facebook as well. And then if you are in the Orlando area, and you type in small business, marketing, Orlando, we’re the first person that pops up. And then we also are on the maps listings. So when people are like, Well, how do I know that that why should I hire you over the competition? I mean, that’s my answer, because Google asked, and we come up as the number one position. And I can even give them keywords to Google for some of our clients. One guy was like, I want you to give me keywords that I can Google, but I don’t want you to tell me who your clients are, I want to guess. And he guessed, because they’re in the top positions, too.

Tabitha Thomas 22:34
That’s incredible. That is incredible. So So how do you guys scale your agency to half a million dollars in just a few years? And how did that How did that happen? How did you guys grow so fast?

Kaitlyn Study 22:47
Well, it was, um, I’ll tell you that one of the pivotal moments was last year when I decided to invest in a lot of amazing programs. programs, like I’m not sure are you familiar with Zapier? Mm hmm. Okay,

Tabitha Thomas 23:03
so the greatest thing on the planet

Kaitlyn Study 23:05
on the planet, I think Zapier is I call it my personal assistant, because I’m, I’m pretty sure it saves me 20 hours a week, and I’m not even exaggerating, I’ve automated everything. And for anyone who doesn’t know what that is, I call it a connector app. So it lets this app talk to this app when they wouldn’t necessarily talk to one another. So it’s kind of like an if this thing happens, then do this type of program. But I decided to start investing in programs and that enabled us to have more hours for us to focus on getting more clients and just I think it’s all it’s a lot of a lot of things in business too are about mental like okay, I have this taken off of my plate. Now, what else can I focus on? or What else can I kind of put my efforts into as well? So Zapier is an amazing program. We use social scheduling programs, and we it’s all about trial and error too. Hmm. And finding those but I think in scaling, I think programs helped a lot. Also, I mean, walking the walk and talking the talk that I think that’s essential, but doing what you say you’re going to do, I there, there are a lot of of people out there who who are marketing companies, but maybe don’t follow through with some of the things that they say that they’re going to do and that’s one of the things I really wanted to do. And of course everyone makes mistakes, we’ve made mistakes, we’re not perfect by any means. But I also just wanted to make sure that it was my reputation on the line and I wanted to do a really great job so I we always try to go above and beyond for helping the client too and then you know results are a big thing in that as well. Getting people results and keeping them updated and telling them the newest things that are happening and staying top of mind. For them too, and making them know that we’re doing a great job for them.

Tabitha Thomas 25:05
So going back to, you know, marketing your own stuff. And one of the big things that people talk about is I don’t have time, I’m so busy working on my clients that I don’t have time to do my own stuff. So how are you guys? chiseling out the time to make sure that you’re doing, you’re drinking your own Kool Aid and you’re doing your own stuff? How do you guys find the time for that?

Kaitlyn Study 25:24
You, you kind of just have to do it. I mean, you just sometimes. So everyone in the company, we all write one blog a month. That’s everyone writes one blog a month, and you can do your own keyword research, you can come up with a topic, we kind of all come together to make sure we’re not writing about the same thing. But everyone writes one blog a month, and we put it on our website, our blogs come out every Tuesday. So that’s automatically done. And then from those blogs, we create Pinterest graphics, we create Instagram graphics, we create LinkedIn graphics. And we also create Instagram stories. So when I say repurposing your content, it’s literally creating multiple pieces of content. And then using those Yeah, from that one blog.

Tabitha Thomas 26:11
Yeah, that’s incredible. And it’s been just purposeful. I know with us when the agency that I worked with before our agency was a client, like we put them in as a client, everything that we did, we worked the system like we did with all of our clients, and we just put our own stuff in it. Just that’s how you had that’s for us. That’s the only way we could get our stuff done was just treated ourselves as our own client. So

Kaitlyn Study 26:31
yeah, I think that’s a good way to think about it, too. I never actually thought about it that way. But I think that’s the perfect way to think about it as treating yourself like a client because I wanted us to showcase exactly what we could do to help others as well.

Tabitha Thomas 26:48
Yeah, so true. So So what’s your favorite part about being an agency owner now that you’re there?

Kaitlyn Study 26:54
I think my favorite part is the creativity that comes with it. I love people ask me in the beginning, Oh, are you going to focus on a vertical your backgrounds in medical marketing? Are you going to focus on that, but I love learning about all these different industries, some of them I had never known about before the client, you know, came to me all of these

Tabitha Thomas 27:14
really, tell me a weird one. What’s a weird one?

Kaitlyn Study 27:16
Okay, I’m a weird one would be well, I had this amazing lady, we did a logo for her. And she was starting a sewing and seamstress school to teach kids how to sew.

Tabitha Thomas 27:29
That’s pretty cool.

Kaitlyn Study 27:29
Oh my gosh, that is amazing. It’s so incredible. And then this other this other lady, um, she was creating a online downloadables to help other teachers with students who had autism. Oh that’s awesome. Yeah, so helping them learn how to teach them better. And I’ve worked with a drone company, and I was like, holy cow. You know, this was like, a couple years ago, before drones were were big. So that was great. And then this other company that I worked with, they did disaster recovery, for when hurricanes came through, they would send like the, the generators, the gasoline, to help companies get back up, or at least get their electricity up to, you know, be able to open and close their doors that like, you know, big stores like Walmart or places like that. And also to send people out there to help with the disaster recovery after a big storm.

Tabitha Thomas 28:29
That’s incredible. That’s incredible. It’s funny you said that it was a sewing thing. One of the weirdest client not weird clients, because I enjoyed her I liked her but she had a yoga sewing Class A DVD where she was teaching people I swear to you how to sew but then also do yoga like poses in the middle of it like to relax. Oh my gosh. I was like, is this really a thing? And I’m like, go watch the because we did you know, video work too. And I was like, this is really a thing.

Kaitlyn Study 28:55
Yeah.

Tabitha Thomas 28:56
You never know what you’re gonna come across.

Kaitlyn Study 28:58
No talking about a niche. Like that’s a niche right there. That’s great.

Tabitha Thomas 29:03
I love it. I could do probably a whole podcast on niches. niches within niches within niches.

Kaitlyn Study 29:09
Yes, yes.

Tabitha Thomas 29:11
That’s what I need to do, I need to create that podcast and I’m gonna name it niche please. Yeah. Oh, my gosh,

Kaitlyn Study 29:19
I love it. That’s so great.

Tabitha Thomas 29:21
Yeah. So it’s like a whole side hustle there. Anyway, sorry, I’m getting distracted. So do you guys have any other projects or any other side hustles that you’re working on right now within the business?

Kaitlyn Study 29:30
Yes, I created another business this year. And actually, I have been doing it for five years, but it’s I’ll call it my side hustle from the main hustle. And it’s a company that I created called becoming a local. So over the past five years, when I started the company, that same person that I told you about that helped me determine, okay, when are you going to leave? What’s the date going to be he he was the one that gave me this idea and he said you should create some local Instagram accounts so that you can cross promote your marketing company and showcase all of what Orlando is because so many people just think of Orlando when they think of Disney when it comes to Orlando, but there’s so many amazing little communities, it’s becoming a really foodie destination, which I love because I love trying different things. So I ended up over the last five years with a lot of help too I ended up building up these Instagram accounts, one of them just hit 36,000 followers, I have five of them. Another one. So I have around downtown Orlando just hit 36 around Winter Park, I think it’s around like 32,000, we have around Tampa, around Sarasota and around Thornton Park all around this area. So I never knew what to do with them. But every once in a while I promoted my company in there. But it was mostly things that were happening really amazing photos that other people took, and we would give them credit, and then fun places to go and visit. So now I’m creating a website and building it out and offering advertising to small businesses so that they can reach our audience who we’ve built up over the last five years. That’s awesome.

Tabitha Thomas 31:05
That is awesome and become becoming a local. So is that something you’re just going to do in the Orlando area? Are you talking about maybe doing that once it gets big doing it for other cities?

Kaitlyn Study 31:16
maybe doing it for other cities? Well, so right now I have those five locations all around Florida. So I’m doing a test market in Orlando, because that’s the biggest one that I’ve been that I’ve built up. So we’re doing that we’re launching the website, but the the focal point of it is going to be telling small businesses stories. How did you start? What motivated you to start? Why did you become a local in the Orlando area? Why did you choose here? Yeah, so that’s going to be the focal point. And then I’m also going to have a directory on there too, so that even if businesses aren’t in the Orlando area, but they want to promote to the Orlando area, they can be listed on there. So it’ll be a fun, I would call it like a fun, almost a mix between like a blogger and a news website having a directory too. So I’m really looking forward to that. And I’m glad I finally have a direction because it took me five years to get a direction we were kind of just building and posting every day and testing and going from there.

Tabitha Thomas 32:18
That’s awesome. Well, having a directions gotta help to clear vision. clear vision.

Kaitlyn Study 32:23
Exactly, exactly.

Tabitha Thomas 32:25
So one of the last questions that I always like ending every podcast with is, is there anything that you’re currently reading, watching listening to that’s helping you grow as a person as an entrepreneur? Anything like that? Or are you more of the I got to watch trash TV to kind of let my brain defrag as I call it.

Kaitlyn Study 32:43
I think I’m I’m a little bit of both, but more so like 80% educating myself 20% Let’s watch selling sunset tonight because that’s just.

Tabitha Thomas 32:56
I clicked on it. Yeah, cuz I’m like, I know. I’m gonna like this. I’m like, click on it, because I know often gets sucked into it, because I love this kind of shows. Yeah, I totally got sucked in, tell me about maybe educational side of things that would be helpful to our listeners. So anything that you recommend?

Kaitlyn Study 33:11
yes. So I love Love, love books. I’ve read a lot of amazing books. One if you’re looking for books about really successful entrepreneurs, shoe dog is a great one, by the Nike founder, also pour your heart into it by the Starbucks founder and also quench your own thirst by Samuel Adams founder, Jim Koch. Those are all really amazing. I also have some podcasts that I listened to in addition, and I love the side hustle nation one. And what side hustle nation is what I’ve been listening to for the most part, but then also, if anyone, any agency owners want to get into Pinterest, simple pin media is a really amazing podcast. That’s all about Pinterest marketing. It’s I mean, she’s incredible. And then, you know, the other thing that’s really helped me and I know we touched on this before, but it was honestly getting a business coach and and if you have a local Small Business Development Council SBDC they’re amazing. And they I used them in the beginning because I couldn’t really afford to pay someone to be a coach. But I found a business coach, and he’s been pivotal in helping me overcome certain things that I am like, you know, I don’t know where to go this way or this way, and helping me really hone in on what I’m looking for and how to scale strategically keep growing. He’s helping me with this becoming a local, but I think that having someone and paying someone so that I’m accountable for homework that he gives straighten things that I need to do that I hired him, I think right before COVID so maybe around like February or so. And that was a really a really amazing thing and I’m really glad that I did it.

Tabitha Thomas 34:54
That’s awesome. And definitely yes, anytime you can have somebody that’s outside of your organization To give you clear vision, because sometimes you’re so far into it and your vision gets clouded and you can’t see the big picture. That’s so true for so many of us.

Kaitlyn Study 35:09
Yeah, I totally agree. It’s helped so much.

Tabitha Thomas 35:12
Oh, well, Kaitlyn, thanks so much for being on the podcast. I’ve really enjoyed getting to chat with you about the business and about where you are taking things. So thanks for being on.

Kaitlyn Study 35:21
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.

Tabitha Thomas 35:24
Yes. All right, guys. We’ll see you next Tuesday.

Narrator 35:28
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