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Show Notes

You’ve probably heard that you need a website if you want to grow your business. But what if having a website makes your business growth harder instead of easier? When it comes to having a website for your business, there are a lot of things you need to consider. Join me and my guest Kathryn Smith as we chat about what is most important when it comes to your website.

Contact Kathryn Smith

Website: https://waltonbirch.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krs_consulting/

Want to Work with Jennifer and her Virtual Marketing Experts Team?

Are you a coach, consultant, or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income, and scale your impact? Connect with me at YourMarketingMatchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer Tamborski

Hey there. Welcome back to Marketing Matchmaker. Hi, I’m super excited today. I know I don’t have guests on all of the time. But today’s guest is some kind of in a different sphere of who I’ve had on recently. So, I’d like to introduce Kathryn Smith. She is an E commerce consultant and founder of Walton Birch, an Atlanta based consulting firm, helping entrepreneurs and small businesses launch and grow their online stores. She’s also the co founder of the Black Lady Business School, an organization that helps lower barriers to success for women and minority or entrepreneurs through business education, networking and access to local experts. Kathryn, I’m so excited to have you on. We were having a little bit of conversation before we started recording. And I just I love your explanation of what an E commerce consultant does. So let’s start there. What does that mean? What’s an E commerce consultant?

Kathryn Smith

Sure. So as an E commerce consultant, I work with small businesses and entrepreneurs to help them launch and grow websites and online stores. And I know that when people hear ecommerce as they get, I don’t sell T shirts, or mugs or candles. But you know, my definition of e commerce is very broad, to really any exchange of information on a site. So if it needs to be information needs to be exchanged, and it needs to be done securely. I help people with that. So I work with traditional b2c or business consumer ecommerce. So yes, T shirts and mugs and candles. But I also work with lawyers and chefs and consultants and coaches and conferences, nonprofit conferences as well. So it’s pretty broad definition.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yeah, yeah, it is. And I think it’s also clears it up a bit. Because I do think when people think about e commerce, they do think T shirts, mugs, candles, a widget that they can sell on their site. And reality is it is much broader than that. Because you had said before that it’s like a it’s a portal where people can you know, process and it’s secure.

Kathryn Smith

Yes,

Jennifer Tamborski

I think that’s something that a lot of business owners neglect, when it comes to their website is their security…

Kathryn Smith

Absolutely

Jennifer Tamborski

Why is security important when it comes to your website?

Kathryn Smith

Well, there are bad actors out here that are looking to do nefarious things with that with that information, you know, so they’re just looking for whoever, you know, whatever information is available and kind of floating around out there. And so, you know, consumers are more aware of this. And I think that they ever have been conscious of this.

And they know that it’s really difficult to kind of recover from that if it happens from from like identity theft, or from just theft, if it happens to you. So they’re conscious are really aware of what they’re doing with their information, who they’re sharing their information with. And so as a small business owner, as a small business, you know, like looking Legit Online is difficult generally, like I tell people, you know, when people are like, Hey, what is an E commerce consultant?

Do I say I hope you look legit online. And part of that is letting people know that if you share your information with me be that your financial information and credit card information for a transaction. Or if you share your personal information with me, I’m going to safeguard that I’m going to keep that protected. I’m not going to sell it around the internet or let randos kind of come through, we’ll take a look at that as well. So think security’s extra important consumers are really looking out for that businesses are looking out for that as well. So part of looking legit, and being legit online is protecting that information.

Jennifer Tamborski

So I want to when it comes to security, I know one of the things I run into quite often just me on the internet floating around is the lack of an SSL certificate. So can you explain what that is and why they need it?

Kathryn Smith

Well, so alright, I’m just gonna say I’m a front end web developer. So like, I’m not one of those locked away in a matrix room type of web developers. But I do understand basically, that an SSL or security certificate for a website basically says, Hey, this website is legit, like the domain or the web address the URL that you’re going to matches up with the you know, the the person that’s collecting this information, this connection is secure, nobody’s peeking in on this connection, it’s not being diverted to a third party.

You know, there’s not like a giant loophole in this transaction. Like if you submit information through this connection, it is secure. And that is as technical as I can get with that explanation.

Jennifer Tamborski

I think that’s as technical as anybody needs. Okay. So the people listening to me don’t even know what an SSL secure okay?

Kathryn Smith

Yes. So, like, usually you don’t have to buy them separately like usually they are included with website hosting. So for people who buy website hosting separately, so if you go to like a GoDaddy or Name Cheap or HostGator SiteGround is another popular hosting company, then then SSL certificate is something that would be included usually in one of those offerings.

But you can buy it separately. If you’re on a built in platform like Shopify, Wix, Weebly, WordPress, Web flow, I can’t, there’s so many of them anyway, all those are the big ones. If you build a site on those that SSL is included, like it usually comes with the platform.

So, but, a really easy way to check that is when you go to your website, if you’re if you look in the little URL bar at the top, and you see the little lock, that it is secured with an SSL. Another, another really easy way to know is if you go to the site and your browsers, specifically, Chrome is like, Hey, I don’t think you want to do this, like maybe we should go back to safety, then there’s probably not an SSL.

 

Jennifer Tamborski

And I’ve run into that. I can’t tell you how many times in the past week or so I’ve run into that as I’m looking for some information. And I’m like, should I reach out to this person and help them get an SSL certificate?

 

Kathryn Smith

Because the message is alarming. Like if Google is telling you hey, I don’t I don’t think we should do this. Like you’re listening to Google. Like you’re just like, Okay, take it and the link literally says, Take me back to safety.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yes, it does, then it is alarming. And you obviously, do not want that in for your own business. Right? I mean,

Kathryn Smith

It’s a deal breaker

Jennifer Tamborski

But it does make it a deal breaker. At least for me. I mean, I’m not going.

Kathryn Smith

I’m going back to safety.

Jennifer Tamborski

I’m going back to safety. Like you never know. We’ve all heard malware and you know, you know, people stealing your identity and all of that kind of stuff. That’s the last thing you want to do is is take that risk.

Kathryn Smith

Absolutely, especially now.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yeah especially nowadays. I mean, ever, but every day, it becomes more and more. I mean, how many people that we seen get hacked, right?

Kathryn Smith

Yeah,

Jennifer Tamborski

This company is hacked, and this company is hacked and the small little guy,… you can’t afford…

Kathryn Smith

Absolutely you can’t afford it’s just it will make or break your business. Especially when you’re competing with people who have like, world class security. So if you’re showing up and anything about it looks not legit. People are gonna just be like, no, no, never mind. Let’s check on Amazon.

Jennifer Tamborski

Absolutely. So how can a solopreneur or small business owner maintain a healthy web relationship with their platform, their online presence, their website?

Kathryn Smith

That’s a That’s a great question. And I think looking at it as a relationship is actually super helpful in this case, because relationships kind of take an effort from both parts. And also, if you’re thinking about, especially as a small business as an entrepreneur, or solopreneur, if you’re thinking about your website, kind of as an extra employee of your business, and not just like a thing, like a widget to your point, it’s a lot easier to think about these the relationship between you and your website.

So your website is a quasi living, breathing, thing. And if you neglect it, it will die. It cannot help you and serve you in your business, if you are not paying attention to it, if you’re not feeding it, nurturing it, watering it.

And what does that mean? That’s a great question. What does that mean?

So there are a lot of different things that impact your website’s kind of ability to show up online. So obviously hosting is one of them. Keep paying your hosting, if, if that’s the thing that you need to

Jennifer Tamborski

Yes. Forever.

Kathryn Smith

Yeah, forever. And then also, from you know, people know that when you go to Google and you type in things, or a search engine of your choice, I’ll just say that. When you go to your search engine of choice and type in something, it returns webpages. And the big question for entrepreneurs is like, all right, how do I get my website, they’re like, they think it’s like, internet magic. And to some extent it is, and you know, so if your business’s name like XYZ, PDQ, Jr, then maybe you have, it’s easier to search specifically for you.

But if your business is named, like the Apple Store and man, that’s terrible. That is a terrible example. But if your business has a very common name, then it makes you that much more difficult to find among with millions and millions of results. And so little time and energy and effort into content to kind of differentiate your site from other sites with that same name is super helpful when it comes to I’m gonna call it search engine optimization, but I don’t want to like have people shut off there.

So it is search engine optimization, but it really is just feeding your website content that is relevant to your business that is current to your business, you know, that helps your customers and your clients and helps them to find you.

So not going to go with SEO. I’m just going to call it feeding your website. So the key to a healthy website relationship is feeding and nurturing and paying attention to your website? For sure. And I think that’s, it’s easy to do, you don’t have to go all the way out, you can definitely do it one article or one blog or one landing page at a time for sure. And I think it’s important that people know that.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you, because content is how our audiences recognize what we’re doing. And quite honestly, if we stopped posting content on our website, just like if we stopped posting content and social media land, they think we died. Like they just assume we no longer exists.

Kathryn Smith

Yeah.

Jennifer Tamborski

So the best way to create relationships is to continue to communicate. And the easiest way to do that is through content on your website.

Kathryn Smith

Absolutely. And you get to, you get to kind of control that. So a lot of times people wonder, like, do I even need a website, you know, for my business, or for my, like, whatever it is, and, you know, I say to them, if you’re okay with the internet, describing you in the way that whoever wants to describe you, then no, like don’t do anything, don’t have your own online presence.

But if it’s important for you to describe your brand to describe yourself and your services and tell your story in a way that’s meaningful to you, then you absolutely have to have a platform that you control.

So like a platform, like a Facebook or an Instagram, or Tiktok, like you can post content there. But when those platforms come away, your concept also goes away. Yeah, so the like, I think a website is a good option, because you own it like it is something that you have created you own you determine if you keep paying your hosting, whether it stays online, and then you can you can tell your story, you can talk about your services, you can talk about your products, and how they’re different from other products that are similar. And so I would say yes, super important.

Jennifer Tamborski

I mean, I agree with you wholeheartedly, I always tell people, I mean, as much as in my business we spend on social media, obviously, we want run paid traffic, plant ads, so we’re on social media all the time. And the number one thing I tell my clients is to take them off of social media. Because you don’t control your message, you don’t control. You can control what you post, but you don’t control who sees it, when they see it, how they see it. All of those things. So the I guess the other question becomes, if you were going to buy from somebody would you buy from somebody that didn’t have a website?

Kathryn Smith

I mean, but like, how, how would I buy from them? Right? I mean, if I stumbled across them in the real world, perhaps like if, you know, they were just like at a market or something. I was like, Okay, that’s cool. I’ll totes buy that. Yeah, but other than that, like, literally everybody, Google’s everything these days, I’m like, you know, you know what would be cool? A Mickey Mouse headband. Let’s do it. You know, like, the very first thing I’m doing is going to my search engine of choice and saying like, listen, who’s got this? Where can I get this? Where can I find one of these? You know? So I would literally ask the question like, how are people supposed to find you and buy from you if they can’t find you online?

How does that work?

Jennifer Tamborski

I think, if nothing else, 2020 taught us that? Right? So many businesses closed because they didn’t have an online presence, like the mom and pop shops that didn’t have a website or weren’t able to pivot on their website, died because of it. Because most people spent all of their time searching social media and buying from Amazon.

Kathryn Smith

Absolutely

Jennifer Tamborski

Instead of the mom and pop store.

Kathryn Smith

Yeah. And so during the pandemic is actually when I ended up in E commerce. So I started out in marketing research because I have an MBA and I’m like, That’s what I do now. But I pivoted back into E commerce. I was a web designer forever ago. And but I pivoted into E commerce because of the pandemic. So there’s some local businesses I live like outside the city of Atlanta, Atlanta is a huge city. And then the suburbs have nice like you can get like quaint shops and boutiques in the suburbs. It’s great.

And so where I live, there were some brick and mortar stores that did not have online presence at all. And the state of Georgia shut down for like a week. But at the time, we didn’t know it was just going to be a week. And so I got into E commerce actually helping them do buy online pick up like curbside so they’re still it’s like a hybrid, you’re still in person, they’re still operating a physical presence. They’re not giving up on it completely.

And I think that was a lot more palatable than them to then saying like listen, forget my brick and mortar, I’m going 100% online, buying online picking up curbside was how they were able to make it through the pandemic because you know, during the early parts, nobody knew how to avoid COVID COVID which is not a great situation.

So even a hybrid solution even if you’re just you’re not like okay screw this brick and mortar let’s you know go completely online, you can absolutely have an E commerce solution that helps you you know in running your store and running your business and growing your audience and things like that.

Jennifer Tamborski

One of my favorite stories of of the pandemic was a little restaurant there in Illinois in like this little town in Illinois. But the way they survived is they started a membership for their their, you got X amount of meals a week, and you paid regardless if you ate got those meals or not if you pick them up or not.

But that’s how they survived as they went online and created this new idea and this new platform. And that’s how, you know, it was that same idea. People bought it, they picked it up, they took it home they ate. And that’s I think that’s one of the things that I think most people get to keep in mind, right? Is that that online presence, do you really exist?

Kathryn Smith

Theoretically, you’re kind of like a unicorn.

Jennifer Tamborski

Exactly, exactly. So before I get to my marketing question, I wanted to ask you about the Black Lady Business School, tell me about that tell my audience like, what is that? What is it? What does it do? And then how do you help people?

Kathryn Smith

Sure. So Black Lady Business School was kind of a, like a, an offshoot of my initial business, I met my co founder during the pandemic, and we were both we’re both marketing consultants are in the marketing consulting space, she does social media, I do kind of websites and ecommerce. And we were saying, like, wow, like, marketing is helpful. But marketing is not everything, to growing a business and staying in business, especially during a pandemic.

And so we really wish that there was something that we could do something that could be done to help our clients with some of those other things that weren’t marketing, you know, to help them kind of grow in their business, and because this is the, during the pandemic, to stay in business.

And so like, we kind of toyed around with the, you know, the idea a little bit, and then Black Lady Business School was born as a way initially to leverage economies of scale. So during the pandemic, you know, a lot of small businesses got had supply chain disruptions, you know, Amazon’s buying, like, 10,000 of everything. So suppliers are like, I’m sorry, we don’t have any more toilet paper. Number one, we don’t have any more toilet paper. We don’t have any more jars or, like bottles, we don’t have, you know, cocoa butter, shea butter, you know, like those raw materials that people needed to make, package, sell their products or services depending.

And so it was like, it initially started as a way to leverage economies of scale to be more effective, you know, as individual businesses during the pandemic. And through that different people in different industries said, Oh, hey, it’s not just like, I have this product, or I had this material, or I have this dollar, it was, oh, I have this experience, I can share this experience as well.

So Black Lady business school just kind of grew from there, where somebody says, Hey, I’ve been through this, I can tell you about it, or, Hey, this is my specialty, these are the clients that I work with, I can teach you how to do that or work with you on that. And then there’s still an element to leveraging the economies of scale to make things more affordable. So teaching workshops or classes in like a one to many format instead of a one to one definitely makes things more affordable.

But it’s just being in a community of people, you know, that can, you can network with that you can learn from and that you can teach and mentor yourself as well. And just to you know, create successful outcomes for everybody.

Jennifer Tamborski

That is awesome. And I know didn’t really have a whole lot to do with your your business. However, I do think it’s a fabulous platform that you’ve created.

Kathryn Smith

Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s a cool project. I’m excited about it every day.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yeah. Okay. So my questions for you is, what marketing mistake did you make when you were first starting to grow your business? Or what’s the biggest one that you see your clients making?

Kathryn Smith

Oh, I have an answer for both of those. So I’ll do mine briefly, just because it’s actually related to my clients mistake. Actually, I’ll just talk about all of them at one time.

So not being very specific.

And it’s still there two things not being specific and not being consistent. And these two things are 100% related, then the mistake that new businesses make is not seeing how those two things are related. So when I started I was like, I’m a marketing consultant. And we talked about this a little bit beforehand, I started saying like, Hey, I’m a marketing consultant, then I actually still use my old business cards because I bought like 1000 of them and the email hasn’t changed with the information has so it’s still on my old business cards.

But I said I’m like I do all the things like all the things marketing, I do marketing research I do with data analysis is an insights I do this and then this and this and this and this, and then inevitably, I would go to a networking meeting or something and people would be like, Okay, so do you do paid ads? That’s just like, Oh, no. Hey, do you do SEO? Also? No. So, you know, for a solopreneur, like a getting leads and kind of efficiently handling leads is super important to my business and calling myself a marketing consultant was not very specific. And it meant that I ended up spending a lot of time on not very qualified leads, or Yeah, as a qualified lead.

So like people were the services just didn’t match, you know, right, what they meant, right? It’s not just me, it’s them, they’re having a conversation with somebody that can’t necessarily solve the problems. And I wasn’t just gonna, like, learn paid advertising.

And One does not simply learn paid advertising.

You know, so, being more specific about what it is that I do offer, you know, and what service you know, how I can help people has tremendously helped in my business to the point where I literally, don’t I just say, I’m an E commerce consultant, when I say I do Front End Web Development plus marketing, consulting, super specific, and no, I do not stray outside of that, individually, like I worked with other partners to do that, I refer out definitely to other, you know, things like that.

But like, I know what I do, and that has made it very easy, or easier for me to kind of craft an offering and to consistently offer that and like hone the process for that and do it efficiently. So super important for growing my business. And I think when people start, they just don’t really know that they’re just like, I need to get paid. So I’m just going to do all the things and then we’ll figure it out later.

And I get it, I completely understand that. And so part of what I do as an E commerce consultant is like, how can we get you that success? I guess this is more kind of Black Lady Business School than with Walton Birch, because Walton Birch works with people who are trying to sell things. And sometimes that takes time, but for service providers, like other people, other people who are starting out as consultants, while some birch works with them to say, okay, like, how can we get you to your first client, without having to take any and all the jobs?

Jennifer Tamborski

I agree with you. I mean, that’s one of the things I think I have a conversation with people getting into our business or any other business that just, and that’s their biggest struggle, they just want to make money. And in order to do that they do everything in anything. Doing everyone anything, I have to I’m not gonna lie, I did it when I first started my business. Yes, I can do that. That was my that was my answer to everything. And I figured it out. And I also didn’t get paid well,

Kathryn Smith

No, I took on some very time consuming jobs for like very low pay, like I was getting paid like $15 an hour. And that was not very helpful because at an effective 40% tax rate, that’s nothing like that is not a livable wage.

Jennifer Tamborski

So the more specific you can get, the higher you can increase your pricing because you know, your whatever your, your website building better than anyone else, and so you can be better compensated for it.

Kathryn Smith

Yeah. And you’re, you can do it more efficiently. I’m not sure how to describe this. So instead of doing one thing today, one thing you know, thing a today, thing be tomorrow things see and investing in platforms for thing a and thing be the equipment for thing a thing B and things See, like my computer is optimized for making websites, my computer is optimized, you know, I have the licenses that I have are relevant to a front end web development, business, business and marketing, you know, like, those things are all more efficient.

So I’m not spending as much money on platforms that I don’t need, like I at one point did transcription. I don’t need to leave my bed anymore. I literally did all the things. So I don’t have to pay for all this extra software. I don’t have to pay for these platforms. You know, I’m not spending time kind of transitioning between these things I can use. I have a small team of people now. So I have a team of developers and the developers can work on multiple projects, if there’s similar projects. So like you just become more efficient. If your offering is very kind of narrow.

Jennifer Tamborski

You also become better at it which makes you faster at it, which also makes you more efficient, which means you’re Yes, you can get paid more for spending less time on something.

Kathryn Smith

Yes, absolutely. You said it better than me.

Jennifer Tamborski

Well, Kathryn, it has been a pleasure to chat with you for any of you out there that are struggling with your website or looking to jump into the e commerce website or even just a more secure platform. I will have Katherine’s contact information in the show notes below. Kathryn, is there anything that you would like to share with our audience before we leave?

Kathryn Smith

I’m just kind of in the theme of having good relationships with your online presence. Like it shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t be fraught with angst. It’s definitely something that is doable. Something that can help you in your business. Or, you know, even if you’re, you know, it’s not like an E commerce business like to grow in your venture. So I would say like, you know, start somewhere like don’t let it don’t let them mountain of like, oh my gosh, this seems difficult to kind of stop you because I think in the in the long run, it’s definitely more helpful. It should be more helpful than it is like a headache.

Jennifer Tamborski

Awesome. I agree with you. And I was so happy to have you on. Thank you so much for joining me. And thank you everyone for listening. If you have any questions for Katherine, her, all of her information are in the show notes. And you can always reach out to me if you are ready to grow your business, increase your revenue and scale your impact, head over to yourmarketingmatchmaker.com And we’ll have a chat.

OUTRO: Thank you for listening to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to Apple iTunes and leave a review so we can hear from you. And if you are a coach, consultant or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income and scale your impact. Connect with me at your marketing matchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.