Virginia Parsons joins us to discuss marketing strategies that work today in this fast-changing marketplace. Strategies to help you gain visibility and authority.
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https://mediaspotlightmarketing.com
https://Shinetips.com/VDPrsvp for virtual dinner reservation
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Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us a special guest, Virginia Parsons. Virginia is a visibility and marketing coach and she's also the host of the inspirational business women's show. She is all about empowering us to increase our visibility.
And reputation so that we can multiply streams of income and profits without working 15 hour days. I gotta love that. So welcome to the show, Virginia. It's.
Really great to have you here.
Ah.
Thank you, Jill. It's great to be here with you. And I love talking about this because it really is my passion and it's the way my whole business has evolved, which I never would have dreamt it. It evolved this way 20 years ago, but here we are today.
Yeah. And you do this on the road too, which is like, so phenomenal to me.
I do in the last two years. Yeah, we we sold our townhome and I said let's just do this. Let's go try it out. What do we have to lose? We can always go back to living, you know, in an apartment.
Or.
Whatever and.
My husband was game and the biggest thing that held us back initially was.
This.
Can we get good quality Internet service?
And once we resolved that problem, it was let let's do it and we haven't looked back.
It's so amazing how much having Internet solid Internet connections I can remember back in the day when I first started truck driving with my husband.
We was back in the days when they would have the plug in modems and you had to like plug it into the the telephone to dial up Internet. So anyway, we're we're walking into the truck stop with our laptop, the big bulky laptops and and looking at this this telephone.
To see if we could unhook the the receiver part of it because you have to unhook the receiver in order to plug in your.
Sort of.
Adapter thing. So there's this old chucker sitting in the corner watching us examine this telephone, and he leans in. He goes, you just pick up the receiver and dial from a different or something.
Ohh I know it is so evolved it has. I can't believe what's happened really in the last 10 years since I've been broadcasting the show. But even before that, I remember when cell phones were the size of a brick.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm. I'm right. In your age group, that was like 20 years ago, like 20 years ago. It's like almost.
I'll be more like.
Almost 30 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, that's when I began my marketing career. And and I'm I was a sales manager at that time for a custom home community. And I remember it was right when faxes were coming out and instead of having to have contracts, you know, sent by Courier, you could now put them in this little machine and it would come out the other side.
And then the cell phones that were the size of a brick, things have evolved a whole lot in 30 years.
And those fax machines you had to stick the receiver down into these little holder things like like this.
The old style telephones, I mean I'm dating myself, but telephones used to have like 2 parts.
There was the receipt.
And then there was the machine. Or now it's just all in one end. It's a computer too.
That's right. That's right.
That's right. It is amazing. Really. What's happened. It's been an exciting time actually.
Because you know, when I was working in marketing years ago, it online marketing didn't exist. Come on, the Internet didn't exist, right?
And so everything was done through, you know, magazine and newspaper articles and and Flyers and mailers. And ohh wow. Have things changed. But what an exciting.
Door to door.
Time. Ohh yeah. Door to door, yeah.
Yeah, we I sold real estate and I remember knocking on people's doors and asking, you know, Are you ready to sell your house yet? And if y'all come see me and yeah, no Internet. So you had to go and see the house and take lots of notes to see what you were. You know, when you had buyers come along.
And.
And no GPS. So you really had to.
No, no, just a map. One that folded.
Use your maps.
Or or the the traumas guides that you had to flip the pages and you're like trying to like.
Ohh gosh.
I'm sure there's some people in the audience that can identify with what we're.
Talking about. Yeah, yeah, I hope so.
So now that we're we've moved into like this new century.
That has offered us so much more opportunities. How are? How are people getting visibility now instead of?
What a great question. Yeah.
And but you know, part of the problem is that people who are what I call emerging entrepreneurs, and I love to focus on what I call heart centered entrepreneurs, which means they're mostly women, although I do work with a few great men, I have to tell you. But it that's all that they want to know about is how do I get my message out there?
I know that that's what I need to do. I know I have a passion. I know that I can make big difference in other people's lives. I can have a big impact, but I just don't know this one part because.
There was no training on it. There's no real education on this. This is an evolving path that people are learning. We're all learning it. I just have been maybe working that longer than quite a few people have.
But so how do people get the word out today? Well, the beautiful thing, really, Jill, is that we do have the Internet #1.
And we have something that is become more cost available for most people. When I started broadcasting years ago or we're talking over 10 years now with my show.
There were just a few new platforms out there. I was actually on Google plus at that time, built over 10,000 followers there, and I was broadcasting on Hangouts and Air, which don't even exist anymore, and at the time it was a fabulous, very powerful platform that was now available at no cost.
Or very little cost and just to set up the.
Tools you needed.
For the average person so that they could get visible like you know, the big companies were, you know, spending all this money in advertising.
So we have now so many different ways to, you know, get out there, get known, get seen, share ourselves, you know from the heart and that's what I always say. It's about coming with a sense of passion and inspiration to let people know what you truly are passionate about.
So the ways have changed a lot and I would say obviously top of mind top tool to use is what we're doing right here, right now.
Connecting with people using your camera that's hooked right into your computer, or even on your cell phone, and just having a conversation. Being genuine, one of the very best ways to get out there. I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon.
Really, zoom has taken over where Google Hangouts left off. Google Hangouts were not that dissimilar from this. You could have groups of people and.
No.
And.
You know, the pandemic really helped us. I think in in terms of everybody knows what zoom is now because we had to use it for schools and.
It's there's there.
Are other platforms like stream yards are really a powerful tool also. So I'm going to plug both of them. Could be fair here.
But getting on starting podcasts is another thing that you know people can do. It's not.
It's would you say it's about volume or would you say it's about authenticity or would you say it's?
A combination of both.
Of course, it's both absolutely.
Authenticity comes from getting comfortable, being on camera, and I remember when I first started to broadcast, I had all the typical fears of public speaking that we're all known to have. You know, the palpitations, the dry mouth, you know, the the things that.
You know, sweating all those things like, oh, I'm on camera. What's the world?
Going to think.
And of course, once you get comfortable with the camera and I always say make the camera your best friend because it is your window to the world and it is your way of connecting to the world an authentic way. So authenticity is really important. But I know.
Initially, it's hard.
To feel authentic when you're trying to communicate through a camera rather than talking to people you know across the table kind of thing, or even in a live speech or presentation to a room full of people.
But once you get that part down and you really realize it's just a wonderful tool that you have access to at an at a really.
Low cost these days.
Then it is about exposure. It's about distribution and learning all the different paths of distribution that are available.
To you. And of course those two combined, I don't think you can beat because authenticity #1, but people still have to see you right. You still have to get the message out there. So both are important.
So do you rely mainly on social media or do you have other ways that you?
Distribute your content.
Yeah. Well, again, social media is here to stay. It's not my favorite place to hang out in all honesty, but it is where people are hanging out. It continues to change, by the way.
We encourage people.
Because you know, when I was on Google Plus, that's where I built, you know, most of my following in in the beginning and now Google Plus is gone.
Right, it's disappeared.
So, you know, I went to Facebook. I'm not as big on Instagram personally. It's not my favorite platform, but for some people it's like the only place to be depends on where you're wanting to brand your brand, your business. Basically, I think YouTube continues to be very important. I certainly use it a LinkedIn. If you're business to business.
Is excellent.
And now you've got, you know, lots of other platforms out there that are wanting to compete.
Where do you go with this? I think you have to decide what feels the most authentic and resonates with you as an individual and also where are your peeps hanging out right? If your your particular ideal audience.
Is not on LinkedIn. That's really not a place that you should probably put a lot of effort into. However, I do think the more you diversify the better because the big mistake I made back in I don't know. It had to be 5-7 years ago now was that I put all my emphasis.
On the Google Plus, even though I was on Facebook, I wasn't doing it.
I put all my emphasis on to Hangouts on air, actually built my business. Originally around Hangouts on air, it was called Hangout marketing. You and I was teaching people how to market themselves online using Hangouts on air, and it all went away. So this is a this is a constantly changing fleeting.
Business to do with social now, given that I'm going to say still the most important place you can be hanging out and adding new content is your own website because it's the only thing you control.
Your own your own website and your own e-mail list are what you can control. You cannot control these social platforms and what they're going to do from today to tomorrow.
You know, we know that Facebook might be doing some changes next month and you can't stream from something like stream yard or restream directly into Facebook. They're going to make that very difficult as far as doing it into your groups shouldn't say into everything, but into your groups right now, we can stream from these platforms directly into our groups. Well, they're going.
To make it difficult to do that.
So you don't have control.
Role there. So you want to think about, yes, being social. But where else do you have full control of getting the message out and becoming more visible? So do not neglect your own website and don't neglect your own e-mail list.
Yeah, and.
Your point about depending on platforms, I've seen this happen a lot of times over the years you.
Develop your your following in just one area and then that that goes away. Google Plus was one of the big ones that there was a platform called Squidoo for a while and squidoo made some people very wealthy.
And really help them.
Get the hang. They helped Amazon honestly, really get get going. And some of these places they they make connections and then the connections break, like Pinterest and Google. Pinterest and Google depended on Pinterest Depended on Google a lot to get their start. But then Google said.
No, I'm sorry. We're not gonna allow you to do that. And it really impacted Pinterest for several years. They're just now really kind of coming back.
From.
From their heyday, when Google was recommending them everywhere and and that's what happened to Squidoo also, they just Google said no, we're not going to prioritize your listings anymore. And so all these people that we're getting all of this traffic from from Google with.
Squidoo to their they call them lenses.
It just it went away almost overnight and it's kind of when Google started doing their uh, their updates, their animal updates that like terrorized everyone.
Yeah. I mean, I really grew a very loyal following on Google plus and you know the way we use Facebook today to have private groups for, you know, for instance, if you've sold a a program or a package in a private group of people going to, we were doing that on on Google plus. I had a big group on there as.
Well.
And so it was a great lesson for me. Probably the one of the biggest lessons I learned is that you do not put your business, your business cannot be dependent on any one platform or should not be dependent on anything you don't control, period. And so that was a very hard lesson for me and one that I.
But.
What am I going to do now? Because I really had to change the whole direction of my business, so I moved it from the hang out, marketing you domain into mediaspotlightmarketing.com because I moved it into the idea that I want to help spotlight people in all forms of media.
I want them to help get the word out so they shine online using.
All the different media possibilities that are available.
Out there. So that's how I transform my business. It was a very hard lesson. It took me a good year and a half to two years to to to make that transition. But when I did, I realized that the lesson was one worth teaching other people that you must control what it is that you're doing and what you're distributing and.
How you get the word out?
About it.
Hard listen.
For sure for sure. And and knowing that they're these platforms are tools and technology changes and the tools will continue to be upgraded and updated and sometimes just done away with altogether and it's you have to.
Right.
Be nimble. You really do so that you can change.
Change with the with the platforms and and. It's not to say that you shouldn't have like maybe one or two main platforms that you know really well so that you have a fall back position.
That it's it's difficult to get.
Really big on all of the platforms. Not impossible, but if you're just starting out, you know, pick two.
Your main one and your backup.
Yeah. Don't pick one. Pick more than one.
Yeah, pick two.
Pick two or three.
Yeah, yeah. And and and get proficient at the other two, but really know the 1:00, so that.
If you have to fall back, you're not falling all the way back to the beginning. You're falling back to the.
The next best.
And then get really good at that one and find a third one again.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's kind of.
The the best way to protect yourself? I think so.
Yeah. And how do we know who? Who knows when something's going to go down? You just don't. We really didn't have any warning at all on Google.
No, I think there was like.
Maybe a month if if that.
Yeah, if.
Yeah.
It was. It happened really fast and and. And what do you feel about offline marketing? Is there still a place for that?
By offline, I think you mean in.
It's in the marketing. You mean the old fashioned way? Like when we get together and and have a cup of coffee or a drink or we get together in a group and do a real networking event where we shake hands and give real hugs and the things that we lost access to when the pandemic came down.
Yeah.
Ohh yes, I think they are so valuable. You know I've always been one that has emphasized online and doing these kind of connections that just we're having right now.
But I just I remember I was a part of a mastermind. And the reason I joined that mastermind was for the personal connections.
Because when you're meeting in person, even if you're going to like a mastermind training or an event and you're in the same hotel, for instance, one of the the best things that happens at those events are what happens outside of the event. You know, as you're maybe sitting down for lunch together, having a conversation, the best relationships.
At that time, and so I'm glad we're moving back to having.
More of those.
Because I have connections from those that have lasted me, you know, over a decade, relationships that have grown into you know, client relationships, relationships have grown into incredible what we would call JV partners affiliates.
That came from that one to one contact where you you can go so much deeper in your conversations, it can feel that much more genuine. So boy, I'm so glad to see that those are back as well. I think they're just really.
I think so too. And and you're right, you just you make connections with people and they just they they stay with you forever. Yeah, it's like.
So magical and.
And and you're trying to kind of capture that with your virtual dinners. I think they were probably born out of the pandemic and that the need for us to not network in person.
And is that is that how they were born? Or maybe you should just tell us how?
Were they born? That's right.
Well, I can't say that I was the inventor of this term virtual dinner party, but I learned about it and said I love this concept.
Because it is a way for people to come together in a non salesy environment.
Where we just exchange ideas where we support each other, where we uplift each other. And I thought this is we need more of this. Women are so great. First of all, in collaborating, I feel it's just a they're natural at it because we're we're natural nurturers, right?
So the virtual dinner party was that I'm aware of was sort of born by Greg.
Calls and he's been training on it now for a few years, but when I saw the concept, I said yes, we need more of this opportunities for people to come together virtually because it is so difficult to travel and it's expensive to travel. But if you come together virtually and you come together with an idea that you are here to network.
But not sell all the barriers go down. Everyone's there saying, you know, here's what I'm struggling with in my business. What are some of your challenges? Here's what I'm thinking about doing.
I'd love your feedback.
Back on it and it's just a great exchange of ideas, collaboration and a lot of partnerships end up being born out of that, not to mention new clients coming just because you're there being authentic and giving of your own knowledge and support. So I love the concept and I thank Greg for really coming up with it. I've been running with.
It now for.
About a year and a half and offer them on in my group, my Facebook group once a month.
Awesome. And so how do people get in touch with you? And as far as your Facebook group goes, what's that?
Called. Yeah, well, my Facebook group is inspirational. Entrepreneurs who shine online. That's the name of the the Facebook group. And if they're interested, I can also give you a link if they'd like to find out about the virtual dinner party.
Yes.
That would be awesome.
OK, so let me go grab that. I've got it here for you. It's if you go to this is my link shortener, it's called shine tips shinetips.com/V DP RSVP.
VDP RSVP is for RSVP ING to get notified for future.
Virtual dinner parties.
Awesome. And does the VDP have to be capitalized?
No.
It doesn't. Yeah.
Does it? Does it matter if it's capitalized?
It doesn't. It'll go either way, yeah.
OK.
Because sometimes those links they.
They are dependent on upper and lower. Just wanted to make sure so that's pretty cool and.
Yes, yeah, this is this is fine.
What kind of people would would you say would be interested in what you're doing? Who?
Who are you calling out to? Let me put it that way.
Well, you know this is evolved.
And I think it's because I've come from a spirit of wanting to serve and inspire. I wanted to share with you that my verb.
Is inspire and I talked to people about this in the virtual dinner party, we all come up with our verbs. It's what you stand for. And that's really what I've been standing for for a number of years is I inspire. That's where inspirational businesswoman show was born. That's where the inspirational entrepreneurs who shine online.
Facebook room.
Come from. I want to inspire it and uplift people. That is what I stand for. So who do I reach out to? Anyone who needs some inspiration. Who needs support, who needs help using technology? Obviously I've been doing broadcasting for years. Anyone who needs help around us.
Speaking and getting more exposure or visibility online, those are all the areas that I specialize in and one of my favorite things to do is to take an interview such as what we're doing here and leverage it for my clients. And so one of my favorite programs is interview leverage. So I take it.
And take that interview and create 30 pieces of compelling content for them and then distribute it out over six different platforms. They love it because all they have to do is show up in their bright shiny blouse and give me great information. And I take it from there so they can go back and do what they do best, which is to inspire people in their work.
That is amazing and people don't realize how much content they're creating when they go and do podcast interviews and and the then to go back through it and to cull out choice pieces.
You do one or two a week and you've got content forever.
You do you?
And you know, when I see people going online and they're putting other people's quotes online, you know, like as a post.
I think that's fine, but why not put your own quotes on there instead?
Yeah.
Because they're all about who you.
Are what you do.
Do you help what you stand for? Those are the quotes. I think people should be using and that's what I do. I pull them all out and put them into what I call animated post so that they catch your people's attention and then all the videos I create, it's just for me. It's inspiring. And for them, they're so excited to see.
I created all that with an interview and I said yes you did.
You don't realize how quotable you are until somebody else comes along and says, oh, that was great. We'll capture that nugget.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And you also do television, which is.
Something that just recently came into my my periphery. I TV is TV is also evolved over our lifetimes.
But you're you. You work with. Just tell me about it.
Be easier than me trying to ask.
It's another. It's another thing that's evolved. You know, once you start working in this field, you start to see what are all the tools that are available out there for me. And you have to realize that a lot of the TV tools.
Have evolved in the last 10 to 12 years as.
Well, so you know, thinking of Roku TV, it's it's something that they now I mean it's been out there for people to use to receive traditional TV programming. But now there's a developer mode for Roku to TV, for Amazon Fire, TV for Apple TV.
That as a developer you can then have your own channel, your own station, so to speak, and people can see you that way as well. So yeah, I started exploring that. I think about five years or so ago. And the inspirational businesswoman show is now on, you know, Roco and Amazon.
Etcetera.
And of course, then we also send it out on iTunes. You can't neglect probably the most powerful platform at all for for podcasting and broadcasting, which I still think is iTunes, it just for my people and the shows that I do, they they just get wonderful viewership there. I think you do too. Don't you use that one?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I use them all, but Apple is definitely still the King's. Spotify is trying to be a close second, but when we're talking about, you know, pick two platforms or three.
That's where you got to.
Be yeah, absolutely. Start there.
Start there, start with the big one and then the next one. That should be your backup. The one that's trying to get there.
So.
We talked about television and.
And getting on television and Roku, and I was going to go someplace else with that, but.
I just forgot.
Well, I think we've we've hit on the main points as far as those are concerned because anyone can get on these shows now you have to jump through a few hoops to do it. I don't think that being a developer is all that easy. I did it for a while and then had the ability to also offer other people shows on there. It's sort of like, you know, your own programming.
You've got a network, you've got, you develop your own channel and then you can bring other people on and service them. And I was doing that for a while and then I said, you know what?
This is not where I am passionate. This is not where I'm inspired, so that's part of you learning yourself and what really makes you, you know, shine. And so I've now offloaded that and I have the inspirational business woman show is on these other channels. I have someone else doing it for me. So you learn where to offload.
And you learn where to focus so that you can provide the very best of yourself.
It's a way to grow too. Be knowing where to say no and knowing where to pivot slightly and then knowing when you just gotta like.
This isn't working. Let's try something else. There's a big balance in there. What I was going to say about the content is that.
Yeah, yeah.
Because of streaming.
They're always looking for content on even, like Netflix and Amazon and all of the places they they're there's they're not sharing with each other as much as they used to because content is becoming more scarce.
Because people are just like they're binging stuff.
Well, I don't think it's becoming scarce.
I think that there's tons of content out there.
Oh yeah.
But as far as being someone who produces content, I think that you have to be a little more discriminating about what you produce because there's so there is so much out there, it's almost overwhelming. So when, for instance, I'm looking to provide something for my audience, whether it's, you know, one of my quick tips on visibility.
Marketing. Or it's the inspirational businesswoman show. I'm always looking for an angle that maybe hasn't been touched on much.
And I think that that's really an important piece to provide. I was just talking to a gal today actually before this and we were talking about she's going to be on my show and she has she she considers herself a professional dreamer. And I said, Oh my gosh, I've never had anyone on my show like that.
And isn't this an important concept that we all give ourselves permission to dream and and imagine what the possibilities are? And so often it's suppressed, you know, society puts us down for dreaming too big, right? So I look for opportunities or dreaming at all, which is her point.
Dreaming at all.
So I look for opportunities to share content that is a little bit differentiated from what people do over and over again.
Yeah, I think that's really key to just to, to.
To look at it.
From just a slightly different angle and see how the light.
Hits it.
Yeah, definitely like a good.
Prism. Yeah, like a good prism. So, Virginia, this has been awesome. What's the one thing that you hope the audience takes away from our conversation today?
It's so basic.
It is about giving yourself permission to be who you already are.
And let the light shine on that. So I always say to people, you know, I want you to shine online because that's how you can get the word out in a bigger way than if you.
Hold it back and step or are in your shadow. So I just say, give yourself permission to step out of your shadow, be your authentic self and shine online when you do that.
People will resonate with you because you truly were yourself.
And the people who want to work with you will be attracted to you because you are being who you are.
I know that's.
So basic, but that's why it's important because it is so basic, just being yourself.
And be scary too, but it's OK.
Yeah.
You certainly don't need to be perfect. I learned that 10 years ago when I started.
Broadcasting.
Thanks again for joining me.
It's been great. Thank you, Jill.