Brilliant Business Moms with Beth Anne Schwamberger

Today we're chatting with Jescalyn of Love Lila Ann on Etsy. This episode was originally a business brainstorming session that we did on Blab. So please forgive some of the sound issues we had! Overall, though, we had such a great chat with Jescalyn, and what makes her business unique is that she's an expert in her field.

Jescalyn has been a NICU nurse for several years, and she saw the struggles that NICU parents face each day. She wanted to create products that would solve their problems and make them feel more at home in the NICU. While she initially developed a onesie that would work with IV's and other tubing, Jescalyn quickly discovered that it would take a huge order from China or an enormous expense for each product to manufacture her onesies in the states.

Jescalyn switched gears and solved another problem for NICU parents - it's really difficult for them to personalize their baby's space. Jescalyn designed brilliant fitted sheets that serve double duty by working as a changing pad cover, as well as fitting on any of the 3 mattress sizes used in the NICU. She did this by using a cord lock system at the corners of each sheet. How brilliant is that?!

Jescalyn also created a fitted sheet that works on a typical crib mattress as well as a pediatric hospital mattress, and she's working on developmental toys for infants who spend months in the NICU and need more stimulation.

What we Love about Jescalyn's Business

• It solves a real problem. There are so many beautiful products and shops to choose from on Etsy, but if you can pair something beautiful with something functional, you've hit gold. So many parents would love to have custom-fitted mattress covers or other products that serve a need while they are in the NICU.
• It's unique. Jescalyn's invention for versatile fitted sheets is so clever!
• It's beautiful. We mentioned this above, but it doesn't hurt that Jescalyn chooses gorgeous fabrics and patterns.
• It has great photos. This is one of the biggest problems we see with new Etsy shops - the photography is distracting, poorly done, and grainy. Jescalyn has beautiful, bright, clean photos.  She's off to a great start!
• She's an expert. Jescalyn is an expert in the area her business will serve: NICU babies and their families. She's worked as a NICU nurse for several years, and she sees the problems and struggles these babies and families face day in and day out. Being an expert on a topic is an amazing way to grow your business!

How to Position Yourself as an Expert

• Step 1: Trust in your abilities! Jescalyn had a difficult time thinking of herself as a NICU expert, but she truly is!  She's spent years working one-on-one with patients and families. She's honed her craft as a nurse, and even more importantly, she's listened and cared for families. She knows the struggles they face and how best to comfort them and encourage them. Sometimes it takes someone else affirming that you're an expert for you to really believe it and take ownership of it.
• Step 2: Write about your topic any chance that you can! With Jescalyn's background as a NICU nurse, we suggested that she skip ahead a few places in line and submit guest posts to large parenting sites such as Baby Center, Babble, or Parenting. Jescalyn has the expertise to write intelligently on topics that other guest bloggers can't. While some larger sites might require a writing sample, others are so eager for new content that they may not. Jescalyn will never know unle...

I have someone to introduce you to.  You're going to love him.  Yes, I know this is a podcast for moms, but I just had to make an exception for this guy. He's adorable, multi-talented, and he's about to solve your most pressing problem. Meet Edgar.  He a social media scheduling software created by brilliant business mom, Laura Roeder.

This interview is fun and laid-back, but full of practical advice from a woman who has built a software company from the ground up.  She's way too humble to tell you that it surpasses 100K in revenue every month (but I'm not!)

On the Podcast

01:18 - Quitter
03:25 - The Solution to the Social Media Timesuck
06:15 - Why Re-purpose Content?
09:03 - Meet Edgar. He Loves Bringing You More Traffic.
11:00 - How to Spread out Your Content
12:52 - Time-Saving Tips
13:52 - Building a Software Company
17:10 - Marketing Edgar
18:44 - Creating the Creature
19:42 - Facebook Ads Made Easy
21:31 - Customer Acquisition Cost
24:30 - Why Laura Turned Down Funding
26:15 - Edgar's Arms
29:10 - Wearing Pajamas doesn't Make you Qualified
34:59 - We Didn't Miss You When You Were Gone
37:03 - Laura's Shocking and Hilarious Mom Moment

Press Play on the Podcast Player Below to Hear Laura's Story and her Best Business Advice

Quitter

Laura is a proud quitter! After working for a branding company as a junior designer for a brief stint at age 22, Laura decided she wanted more interaction with clients and more control over her work. She left her first job out of college at less than a year in and has been working for herself ever since!

Laura started LKR Social Media to help entrepreneurs learn how to use social media in their businesses. Laura helps people become “famous in their field” and learn how to be the go-to expert in what they do.

The Solution to the Social Media Time Suck

In her work with social media students, Laura was using spreadsheets  to organize their content and sharing strategy online. She used this same method for promoting her own business. The spreadsheets were very labor intensive and, essentially, organized old content and kept track of when things were posted to various social media apps.

After using this method for some time, Laura realized that there had to be a better way. It was very odd to her that social media scheduling apps were not creating a library of old posts and doing the hard part for her. Laura began discussing this issue and her frustrations with her husband.  He said that he could build a solution for her in a week!

Laura's husband did, in fact, build this software (it took 6 months!) so business owners can re-purpose their content and updates easily to take advantage of all the hard work they put into those initial posts.  The software is called Edgar, and he's an adorable octopus (because of course!)  You can find him at MeetEdgar.com

Why Re-purpose Content?

One of the most time consuming things entrepreneurs do each day is create new content to share. This is so important because business owners need to consistently bring in new potential customers. However, when you do have a new potential lead, they only see the new things that you are posting and creating. Most of the time they never see the podcasts or blog posts that you shared six or more months ago.  What a bummer! You spent a lot of time creating that great stuff!

With Edgar, you have a library of all your great content that is still relevant but is being shared over and over again so that your new audience is seeing it. Most people spend hours creating new content and then just share it once. 90% of their audience never sees it! By re-purposing older content, business owners can make sure that their growing audience is able to see more of what they have to offer.

Most business owners see traffic spikes when they write and share a new post.  Then things begin to die down. With Edgar, a business owner sees regular traffic spikes by drawing fans and followers back onto their site time and time again.

Meet Edgar. He Loves Bringing You More Traffic.

Laura constantly hears from users that they see huge increases in their traffic after using Edgar. Logically, this phenomenon makes sense.  If you share a link on social med...

Are you struggling with balancing too many social media platforms? What about monetizing your site to its fullest extent - so there's a chance to earn something from every single visitor? Jennie Brandon, our very first guest from the UK walks us through loads of great tips on how to use the IF app to leverage our presence on social media. She then goes beyond a handy app to teach us all the ways we can make sure our site is ready for an international audience. (The stats she shares are staggering, so you definitely don't want to ignore this huge demographic who could fall in love with your content!)

01:26 - Jennie's Two Blogs03:29 - How Learning Creates Opportunity06:57 - What is the "IF" App?11:30 - Build Leverage Across Social Media Platforms14:38 - How to Start Using IFTTT20:37 - How to Monetize your Site for International Customers28:52 - Why your Amazon Affiliate Links Aren't Making you Money35:25 - How to be Inclusive of an International Audience47:10 - Jennie's Hilarious Mom Moment

Jennie lives in Cambridge with her husband of 10 years and two small children Sophie and Joe. She has two blogs, The Errant Sock, and Laundry in the Temple. Laundry in the Temple is where Jennie shares how she teaches her children about her faith and The Errant Sock is a lifestyle blog with parenting hacks, books, and lots of recipes. All of Jennie's friends call her the “slow cooker whisperer” so she shares plenty of tips to help out other mums! Running two blogs and being a mum of 2 means that Jennie has limited time to invest in social media and sharing her content.

When Jennie first reached out to us it was to share a story of how the Brilliant Business Moms podcast had helped her business and landed her a new job. Years ago, Jennie created her first blog where she focused on slow cooker recipes. Later when she tried to get back into blogging as a way of bringing in more income, she found that the blogging world was very different. In order to get caught up quickly she began listening to the podcast and it was Episode 53, Everything Twitter with Kelli Miller, that made the biggest impact on Jennie's blog and life.

Jennie had never been very comfortable with Twitter before listening to the episode, but by the end of the podcast, she felt ready to give it another try. Jennie dug into Twitter and got 600% more views to her blogs by focusing on the platform!

While Jennie still works on growing her blogs, she knew that she needed to take on a traditional job for now to make ends meet for her family. The podcast helped her with that goal too! A local pastor approached Jennie with a job opportunity, and it was her social media knowledge and web design expertise that set her apart from the other candidates! Jennie's new job lets her use her new skills in social media and website development, and it fits around her schedule and life as mum.

What a great example of how learning creates opportunity!

IFTTT (If This, Then That - now called the IF App) is an app that allows you to connect other apps and websites to each other for completing an array of different tasks.

Each app, program, or website you can connect is called a channel, and you can create "recipes" between the channels.The title really explains it all: If you do something on one channel, then something else will automatically happen on another channel.

There are hundreds of suggested recipes to help you get started, but almost any way of connecting two apps that you can imagine can be created to make your business and personal life more convenient.

The IF app currently has over 250 different channel options, which include Ebay, Etsy, Twitter, Evernote, Fitbit, Spotify, Feedly, Youtube, Trello, Reddit, and they just recently added Pinterest!

Here are a few examples of how the app works: Jennie has set up the IF app so that IF she takes a photo on her android phone, that photo is automatically saved to her Google drive. If she tweets something, that tweet is automatically saved to Evernote. If you leave the office, you could even set up a recipe to turn on your heat if you have a smart heater! There are so many possibilities!

Our heads were spinning when we heard that Pinterest was just recently added: You could automatically pin items that you just added to your etsy store, Pin instagram photos to a board, or Tweet every time you add a pin.

In running two blogs Jennie really didn’t have time to devote t...