Kate Toon is a writing entrepreneur, as well as a popular coach, speaker, author and podcaster. She’s also a mad good hula hooper.
Her digital education businesses The Recipe for SEO Success and The Clever Copywriting School have helped more than 8000 small business owners grapple the Google beast and write better content.
Full Transcript
Bev: Hello and welcome everybody. It's Bev from Living Fabulously, and today, I have Kate Toon, the mistress or queen, shall we say, of SEO.
Kate: I like mistress. That sounds much more exciting.
Bev: So, welcome to you, Kate. So good to have you with me today.
Kate: Thank you for asking me, it is lovely to be here.
Bev: What we want to do today is find out a little bit more about you and your business first.
Kate: Okay. Well, these days, I have branded a lot of different things, Bev. Oh, I have been on a journey. For these days, I kind of bringing everything back onto Kate Toon, my name, and I kind of have three core businesses unto that. The first as you mentioned is SEO related. It is called The Recipe for SEO Success, and that is where I teach people how to grapple Google, and there are courses, resources, a podcast, a shop, all kinds of good stuff, and a big community on Facebook.
Kate: And then, my second business is the Clever Copywriting School where I teach copywriters how to have successful and enjoyable - it is very important - copywriting businesses, and we have a directory, a job board, a shop, a membership, and an annual conference when we are allowed to have conferences again. And then finally, The Digital Masterchefs, which is my online coaching community, or mentoring community for people who use digital marketing to build their business whether it is e-commerce, a small business, service-based, whatever. So, yes quite a lot going on.
Bev: Yes, that is awesome. I think I am going to be following in your wake. Quite far behind, but I love that you have got three... They are discrete in some sense, but they are integrated businesses, and I love that you have brought them under that umbrella. I went to go and look and see if could get my domain name under Bev Roberts, and it was a Chinese game. So, I do not think I will be able to do that.
Kate: Well, I am so grateful now for my dad's ridiculous surname, too. I took a lot of flak for it as a kid. But it is interesting, is it not? But because I think the journey towards branding everything under my name has gone along with my journey of being more confident. Because in the early days, I was like, "Well, no one is going to buy an SEO course since I know it is my SEO course." And, "No one is going to join a copywriting community if I know it is my community." But then, I realised over time that I am the thing that brings - It is my milkshake bringing the boys to the yard. I do not know where that came from, but what I mean?
Bev: Yes.
Kate: And I have to kind of stand out in front of my brand and not hide behind them.
Bev: Yes. That is so It is such a golden gem right there because I think this is the thing is that... I do not have that luxury of having a dot com in my name, and I thought, "Oh, what else could I do?" And I noticed that someone else had used a dot co. And I thought, "Well, that is a step towards it, but it does not feel it will be easy to find." So, I think, for those of you who can get to a domain name, please buy it.
Kate: Yes, do. And the thing is, the problem is while we get a little bit SEO thing here is there are lots of different extensions that you can get. I mean, these days, you have got dot TV, dot Sydney, dot co, dot whatever. But dot com has really become the universal, the global domain. And while you may have the other extension, the problem is that someone goes and types in Bev Roberts, they are always going to see that unless you do an awful lot of work on your SEO, they are always going to see that Chinese game site first, and you second, which is not necessarily a bad thing because at least, there is a huge differentiation. no one is going to be confused that you are the Chinese game site.
Kate: The problem comes when somebody is in your space doing something very similar to you, or when the person who is using your brand name or your actual name maybe has a little bit of a dodgy career, or they are famous. I have a lovely copywriter in my community, he is called Gary Cooper. So, he is confusing with, probably too old for lots of people listening, but he is confused with quite a big movie star. I have had several people come along who accidentally have the same name as a very famous porn star. And in that situation, it is not going to kind of work. You have to think of a different way.
Bev: Yes. So, that is why I have been reluctant to go that way, because there is - funny say your name, that if you Google Bev Roberts, there is this amazing realtor in the UK that comes up.
Kate: I know.
Bev: She has got her SEO sorted. I am still learning, so I am going to have to supersede her on the rankings.
Kate: Yes, you will get there one day. There is a dentist in Ipswich called Kate Toon, and she is gone now, I dominate.
Bev: Awesome. So Kate, if you can cast your mind back to your first online experience, like you were an absolute newbie at this, what was your first online experience, and how did that work out for you?
Kate: Oh, I mean we are going back a long way now, Bev. So, we are probably talking - Oh, gosh. I do not even know, 1996? So, that is when I was working at an events company in London, fairly fresh out of the university being an executive assistant to some idiots. Sorry, he was lovely. - He was not. And I was tasked with building one of these fancy new-fangled websites for the event, which no one had done before. And so I went off to this very trendy little two-man agency in Brighton, and they showed me a website. And at this point, remember, we had only just got email. We were still at a stage people were passing around a brown envelope and writing their names on it when they would read the notes inside.
Kate: So, yes. And after building that one website, I thought, "I can do this." And so I applied for a job at a digital agency. I mean, they have just started as well, and my first client was Marks & Spencer. I was head of digital for Marks & Spencer, and helped build their e-commerce site, and I had no idea what I was doing. So, that was my first experience. My first experience was kind of a business pioneer.
Kate: Fast forward about ten years I think, and I jumped into being a freelancer. When I was pregnant with my son, I set up a very basic WordPress blog for my business. I called myself Kate Toon dot com, and I was just something for hire. I did a bit of terrible graphic design, some website builds, some copywriting, anything that would make money. And yes, and then it all kind of grew from there.
Bev: Yes, that is amazing. And I guess for most of us, we do need to start somewhere, and that is what I encourage people listening is every successful businesswoman and wise woman that I have interviewed on this show, we have all started in that same place. Not knowing what we do not know, and then trying to find it out and sometimes spending the long route, which is YouTube tutorials, or whatever, instead of finding a mentor and actually just fast-tracking your online presence.
Kate: I mean, I have never had a mentor, I have never had a business coach, I have never done an online course, and all these lovely books in the background are really just decoration because I buy them, but I never read them. Because I am somebody that likes to... I like to take the long route,? And fast-tracking is I think, there can be amazing people that can mentally on the fast track, but there is a lot to be said for trudging thru the trenches and working it out your own way. I have wasted an awful lot of time. But I feel that the journey has been I do not know, I am possibly trying to justify my own stupidity at not getting fast tracking, but there is different ways. And it also it depends on money.
Kate: When I started out, I hardly had the money to buy courses, or pay coaches. And then, when I did have the money, I did not want to pay them. So, it is- there is different ways to go. I could have saved an awful lot of time, so I just got some advice here in.
Bev: Yes, and that is where I see the difference between just sticking with the - because YouTube tutorials are generic, that is the one problem, whereas if you are learning, it is better to do the learning in a way that actually moves your business forward all the time, because I have had a number of people who have come to me, who have spent an inordinate amount of time on YouTube tutorials, but they have not asked the right question.
Kate: Well, this is it. It is the same with online courses. I mean, I have got several online courses and I am about to launch a new one, and what I have realised fairly quickly is it has actually got nothing to do with the quality of the course materials.
Kate: That is why people put all their effort into making these beautiful screen set videos, and intros, and animated PowerPoints. They are not actually the important bit. The important bit is the support, and being able to ask questions, and being able to spend time with the person who is running the course and feeling that the person who is running the course is actually in the group answering questions. Because at the end of the day, I can go and learn it on Udemy or YouTube.
Kate: But the thing that I want from the person running the course is being able to go, "Hey, I got a minute free, and I did what it said on the screen but that did not happen for me. My screen turned black, and my computer turned off there." And you go, "Oh, well, you have got this." That is what you need, that interaction, and I think a lot of people think, "Oh, just whack up a quick course, and it is just going to print me money." Unfortunately, it does not really work like that. It is the support and the questions that actually count.
Bev: I agree this, and I think there is that continuum, like having an Evergreen course which is sort of a lower cost for somebody so that they can get started on it but then having a community to support them. Them being able to come and ask the questions versus the higher end price ticket where it is live Q and A and those kinds of things.
So, I think there is enough spectrum for people, but I agree with you. Of the courses I have worked with self-paced and there is no live call, I would say, I have not completed that many.
Kate: Well, that is it. And for my big course, I call it the big course, the recipe course, the completion rate is absurdly high. I mean, it is not quick because it is a big course, and some people, it may take them a good couple of years to complete it, but they do complete it. And again, that is about other things as well, like giving people lifetime access, and access to the updates. It is so important, the business owners as well, that you set boundaries. I luv what you just said.
I have an Evergreen course, it is much lower cost, there is much less knee in it because it is lower cost, and I am fine with that. You do not get me for a hundred dollars. You do not. You get some of my knowledge, you get some great resources, you get videos, downloadables. You do not get me. If you want me, it is a higher ticket price. And that was a hard lesson for me to learn. Most humans are people pleasers, we want to be liked, we want to make people happy, and so there can be this tendency to over give. And that is fine, as long as people are willing to give back to you in the form of money! Let us do this!
Bev: Yes. And that is the thing. We are in business to earn an income. When we were all in corporate, you could spend as many hours I guess as you are logged. I remember when I ran a professional services business, I had to try and teach the developers there, that actually every hour you spend needs to be recorded because what, that is your bonus.
Kate: Yes. It is billable time-- the concept of billable time, and I think any of us who worked in agency, or professional services, we understand this concept of billable time - how much time you are spending, and how much of that is billable? And when I worked in agency, it had to be about eighty percent billable which is so high. That means there is only an hour or so a day where you could mess about in your inbox or go and put a tuna sandwich in the microwave and annoy everybody.
Kate: And I think a lot of business owners do not get that. They just think they got all the time in the world. But every hour you give to somebody free is an hour that you are not earning money. It is also an hour away from your family, an hour away from you, and I hate the whole thing that time is money, but in reality, it is. We can have different expectations of how much money we want to earn, but if we are not earning money, then our business is a hobby. And that is okay too but let us just be clear about the distinction.
Bev: Yes. Exactly. That is great. And so, if we fast forward to now, how does your business leverage technology so that it is easy to do business with you?
Kate: Look, I have worked really hard thru the last couple of years on the back end of my business, so not the front-end, but trying to improve the back- end so all my websites are built on WordPress, which I find a great, flexible platform. It allows you to have shops, memberships, directories. Very diverse.
Kate: I use ActiveCampaign as my email platform. That enables me to do a lot of automations, and response to emails, as well as campaigns. I use Agorapulse to do my social media, but I probably only schedule about half of my social media because scheduled posts do not do quite so well.
Kate: And then really, automation and technology only gets me so far. At the end of the day, to really serve my customers, I need humans, at the other end. So, I have a small team now. I got online business manager who works about fifteen hours a week, and I have a couple of VAs, I have a WordPress person, he does a few hours as designer. There is no one person and it is no one full time, but that level of responsibility can automate so far. But at the end of the day, again, it is the support. We are back to the same thing. You can send them to FAQ page or a video you made about how to do the thing, but sometimes, you just need someone to just help you. "I cannot log in, why cannot I log in?" and you need someone to help. So, a lot of it is people rather than technology.
Bev: And I like what you say, you have got those pillars of your business that are automated. And so, for example, when one signed up for your course, you do have the automation that takes you thru this next step. So, here is your next step, here is what you need to do, sign up for this Facebook, those sorts of things. So, I think those are the key parts of the customer journey that need to be automated. But it is like - when me as the individual, I am interacting with your course material, and then I can chat for the live Q&A, or I can show up in the group, and those sorts of things. So I think you are right, there are some things where - you would not want to deal with like a bot mentality.
Kate: No. I have written a few chat bots` for brands when I was a copywriter and, bots are great and they do solve - I have a bot on my Facebook page, it is also very basic questions. But the idea is not that you are going to chat that bot for five minutes. Maybe 15 seconds, so it can divide you down - send you down one or two, or three different paths, and then straight away, you want to give them a human connexion. And also, be very clear, this is a bot, you are not really talking to me, and I think that is a distinction that people fail to make as well like, is it you on the chat or is it me? Is it you answering my questions in the Facebook group or is it a minion? Be real, be transparent. If it is a minion, it is fine. Just say it is a minion, but do not pretend because people see thru things very quickly.
Bev: Yes. And I also think the energy behind the response also, your style is so unique. I mean, you are such a breath of fresh air. The comedy in this of you do not take yourself too seriously so that is really a great way to be. And I think that would be so discernible quickly if you had a team member acting as you.
Kate: Yes, I think it is a good test of how vanilla your brand is. If people find it really easy to write as you, maybe you need to dial up the "youness" a little bit more. I have had a few copywriters try to write as me, and it is almost too much, they go too far the other way and it just turns out sounding kind of deranged, and I am a bit deranged, but I am not completely deranged.
Kate: So, yes. It is important to... I also just think to have that transparency like if I feel if someone is just paid two thousand dollars to have a course with me, I do not want to immediately palm them off into a minion because I would hate that. That is how I run my business is really to think what do I like? What grates me about online experiences? Okay, well I do not want to make those mistakes. Even if I can see other very successful people doing this thing, that does not sit well with me, so I am not going to do that.
Bev: No. Really good point. You mentioned a couple of tools and apps there, so what is the one tool that you just could not live without, that you are just not willing to go without?
Kate: I think it probably got to be something really boring though, like Xero. Xero is one of the first software I bought, and it is one that I encourage all my members to get. I am not affiliated to Xero. But I think one of the biggest mistakes I see in business is not getting your finances organised and not understanding what money is actually yours because it is actually when you - your money stats make good money, it is surprising how little of it is yours. When you break it down how much goes to GST? The taxman? Your team? Your rent? Your whatever. It is like, "Oh, I thought by now, I would be lying in a bath of money, pouring champagne on myself. Oh, no. Okay, no.
Kate: So, Xero would be number one. And I am a really big fan of having some kind of organisational workflow software. I used to use Basecamp when I had projects as a copywriter. Now that I am more managing a team, I found Asana. It is really great for managing my team, and we use Asana with Slack. So, Slack is like a message board, so we can chitchat on Slack, it means we do not have to send emails to each other, and Slack integrates with Asana, so I can see when tasks are completed.
Kate: And the main thing is so it is like - because we all work remotely, it is like being in an open panel first. I can kind of listen in to Tony and Sue having a conversation about design. I can jump in and go, "No, no, no. The files are over there." rather than them continuing for a whole another day and not being able to find the files. So, it is kind of a little Slack and Asana are a useful combination for me.
Bev: Yes, that is interesting. So, you are using, because obviously, some people use Asana for content management, so you are actually using it for a team environment.
Kate: Yes. So, we have the project set up by discipline, really. We have a design project; it is a copy project. Each website has its own project, and then the relevant team members are in there. So, we got the copy project, and I have got my junior copywriter working on it, our online business manager can breathe farther, she can tag the developer and say, " Hey, Tony, the copies are ready for the site." So, we kind of use that for chitchat, but we use Asana for actual tasks, and that is where we set milestones, and deadlines, it is all that kind of stuff.
Kate: It took us a while. I mean, this is it, but then, you suffer. It took us a while for us all to get our head around it and use it in a way that worked for everybody. And whenever we bring someone new in, we kind of have to indoctrinate them into our way. But there are about twelve different people working my business now at different levels, and I think if it did not have that it will be chaos. So, yes. It works for us.
Bev: Yes. That is awesome. And what is the best guidance or advice that you had been given as an entrepreneur on your journey?
Kate: I have not had a whole lot of advice because I am terrible for not taking people's advice, but somebody that I admire very much, his face, he is Robert Gerrish. He previously owned Flying Solo, and he just kind of has this whole mantra of just because you could, does not mean you should.
There is an awful lot of things that you could do in your business, software you could buy, for me, because I am kind of a serial ideas’ person, I could make a course tomorrow about having a podcast, I could make a course about writing a book, I could launch a series of workshops. I mean, I could do a lot of different things, but why? Why am I doing them? I always try and judge things by three things. Do people want it? So, I ask my customers, "Would you buy this thing? Will it make me money?" Because if it does not make me money, it is a hobby and it is taking away from my life. Number three is, "Will I enjoy it?" Because there is an awful lot of business that you can get into and you are going, "You know what? I actually built something I do not like very much."
Kate: So, those are really important, but you see none of those factors involved, "Are my competitors doing it? Is it on-trend? I am like, I do not care." So for me, it is like really thinking about why we are doing what we are doing and not just doing things because we feel we ought to or because Sue is doing it, or because we saw Barbara doing it on Instagram. it is like let Barbara be Barbara, let Sue be Sue, and you be you.
Bev: Yes. Awesome. that is a really really succinct way of saying that because, I guess the other thing to that is important out of what you said there is, when you start a business that is not your endpoint. It is the beginning, and you can take small deviations or big ones based on - like you mentioned those three things. I think those are three really great things to say.
Do the people that are in my community or my tribe, my where- whoever:
Are they interested in buying it?
Will I make some money, and
Do I have fun doing what I am doing?
Because I think that is really, good litmus test for a number of things. Because I have that problem too with ideas. I could do this, and I could do then no. So you have given me a good sort of nudge, okay, get back in your lane and find out what it - because I think, I am good at lots of things, and I think many entrepreneurs are.
Kate: Yes, that is it. There is nothing wrong as well I think. I try and be eighty percent good. Eighty percent I just stick with what I have, I maintain it, I improve it, but I have to have about twenty percent of the time just playing around, launching new things, and having them fail and that is okay. I am about to launch a copywriting course which is kind of bizarre that is where I came from, copywriting, and it is the only course I do not have.
Kate: So, I am going back to all the stages of imposter syndrome, and what are my competitors doing that anyone whether the beginning of their journey, even though I have already got quite a successful business. because it is like this is a new thing, and I will be judged on this thing. But also, I am like, I am just going to have some fun with it. And if it fails, it is a couple of months of my life to create it, it is not the end of the world, and you are so right, my business now looks nothing like the business I started. Not even two years ago. My business has transformed even in a couple of years, and it will again, and again. That is what keeps it interesting. Because as soon as it gets a bit too normal and successful, and predictable, that is when I get bored and try and mess it up a little bit.
Bev: And so, when you are doing a new launch like this, have you tested that your audience are ready for this?
Kate: Yes. I mean, it is one of those things where if it is brought up enough times, then that it is wanted. So I have an SEO course which has a copywriting component, but I can see people coming into my universe who are just starting out as copywriters, or they have different businesses but would like to be a copywriter, or have it as a side thing, I refuse to use the word hustle. And so, yes, I think there is enough interest, but also, all I need is twenty people. I get twenty people on the first round, then I can improve the second version, and maybe we get forty people. And then the third version, blah, blah, blah. So, if I can get twenty people to take the first thing, which would be, even if it is a free thing, the free thing then gives me feedback that people will pay for a low costing. The low costing gives me feedback, but people will pay for a high-costing.
Kate: So, I have already got the model for the SEO side of things, I am recreating it for the copy side, and I have really managed my expectations. It may take two or three years for this to recoup the effort that I put in and of time. But once it does, it will to some degree just make money. It will sell itself to some degree. Not the market side.
Kate: I think a lot in business is about patience. As long as I accept that it is not going to make me a million dollars next week, then it does not matter, does it really? I can take my time. And I have hoped to be doing this until I am older and grey, I am very grey already, but I doubt it. I hope to do this for a long time. So, if you are always just amazingly successful, and then with all my money and buy next week, what would I do next? I do not know; I have got no other problems. So I am happy for it to take a while and just see how it goes.
Bev: Yes, and I want to encourage people who are at the start of their journey is it is not iterative process. So exactly how Kate has described that you can obviously start one-on-one first, because maybe that is how you learn what people's pain points and their problems are, so that when you get ready to do a group, to course, or program, whether it is a mastermind or whatever, and set your expectations that you are learning. It is a pilot.
That first one is a pilot. Like you say whether it is free or not, and it is the feedback that especially helps you to improve and get to the next stage. Many times I have launched things where I had a pilot group in, and I just knew in myself I could not teach this again
Kate: Yes, this is it. I launched I created something recently, I cannot remember what I called it, but I got so excited about it, and I wrote a sales page, and I put a price on it, and I put a product in my shop, and I have shared it on social, and it is sold out in seven minutes. It was like a webinar thingy. But I have not made it yet. It was just the idea. I managed to put some things together, and then I thought, "You know what, I really do not want to do this."
So, I just had to email everyone back and said, "Changed my mind! It is not happening. Have a refund." And now, I would not want to do that all the time, but we are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to create something and then kill it again. We are allowed to dial up this thing for a bit and dial down a little bit to build this next thing that I am building, I am going to have to kind of dial down the SEO a little, because I cannot do everything. So, while I invested in the new things the other things- those plates are just going to have to kind of spin on their own for a little bit, or maybe wobble and fall off. And then later I can pick those back up again.
Kate: So, yes. It is interesting, and as long as you are open-minded about that and do not judge yourself too harsh. What a judgement, online. And a lot of impatience, and a lot of comparisonitis, and as long as you can free yourself of that, and just as you said, stay in your lane, take some detours, but just enjoy the process. Enjoy the journey, not just think about the destination, then you will be all right, I think.
Bev: Awesome. Great wisdom here today. Thanks so much, Kate. And so, where can we find you online?
Kate: Well, thankfully as I said, I managed to squash that dentist from Ipswich. So, you can go to KateToon.com. And that is kind of the hub site for all my various bits and bobs.
Bev: Okay. Wonderful.
Kate: It is a work in progress, so please do not judge the design.
Bev: Everything evolves. You know, we evolve, our business evolves. It is all good.
Kate: I think that is the theme of this live, is it not? Evolution, people.
Bev: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being with me today, and thanks everyone for listening. Bye for now, and remember, let's live the fab life together.
No more needing to rely on a third-party program to duct-tape several monthly subscription services together. Groove combines 20 different services that are necessary to run your growing business.
With GrooveFunnels™, you can:
Capture leads and convert them to clients with GroovePages™
Send emails and create advanced automated campaigns with GrooveMail™ (coming April 2021)
Grow your passive income and create a membership site with GrooveMember™
Boost conversion rates, increase engagement, and truly stand out from the competition with GrooveVideo™
Sell unlimited products to an unlimited number of customers with GrooveSell™
Manage and communicate with unlimited affiliates using GrooveAffiliate™
And so much more…
