We've made it to 100 episodes of this podcast!!! ๐ฏ๐
Thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in every week for marketing news, tips, and tricks designed to help small business owners.
This week we are taking a trip down memory lane. Vivian and I each talk about 3 different episodes of this podcast that we LOVE, why we love the episodes, AND why you should go listen if you haven't yet.
Have a topic you want us to discuss? Let us know! Leave a comment, send us a DM on social media at The Seasoned Marketer, or email us at Help@TheSeasonedMarketer.com.
Thank you again, here's to many more episodes of helping small business owners succeed in marketing and their business. ๐
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Chapters:
00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave a Review
01:56 Celebrating 100 Episodes of Marketing Insights
04:15 Networking Tips for Small Business Owners
08:47 Facebook & Instagram Blue Checkmark Verified
14:10 Lead Magnets in Marketing
20:13 Growing Your Small Business Locally
28:14 Choosing the Right Vendor Market
36:24 The Importance of Google for Small Businesses
42:56 Celebrating 100 Episodes and Lessons Learned
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๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐:
Networking Tips for Small Business Owners: https://youtu.be/SewV5Fw-CyU?si=YGqfo1ftzLTblaOc
Facebook & Instagram Blue Checkmark Verified: https://youtu.be/husBvI8W0Fg?si=OpmGYb8gfxNwBLuP
Lead Magnets in Marketing: What They Are & How To Make Them: https://youtu.be/7o_TRgtn8tU?si=dkBYOAOFVpkcgY1w
How To Get Local & Grow Your Small Business: https://youtu.be/4jK68Aa6TW4?si=eIjBD5SSQNK7SDEI
Picking The Right Vendor Market (w. Guest The Design Demon): https://youtu.be/zPA3dyIVF4M?si=Jizaysn8i0LwjnSb
Brick & Mortar Marketing Tips (w. Guest Black Circle Records):
https://youtu.be/ohG8s5vtZ6g?si=A47SZ75p4TUeywy4
How To Build a Stand-Out Brand in Your Niche Market (w. Guest Cork & Fizz): https://youtu.be/HAiEqMgS6rU?si=s9UK4uFSlf5gJJYq
Turning Passion into Profit (w. Guest Southern Curiosities):
https://youtu.be/yY199O114Dw?si=KKMiLHpT8fcqBdmC
Rebranding Your Small Business (w. Guest Sweet Rose Waxing Company):
https://youtu.be/YsXkpShd05o?si=RP4LlsoRINguKmPB
Why Google Matters For Your Small Business:
https://youtu.be/mh0rWGneFiI?si=LNvT87XEMsNJkfOp
SEO Is Changing in 2025 - Here's What Small Businesses Need To Know:
https://youtu.be/aZG5wBIfVDo?si=DgWVgRTVAFsAn3DW
๐.๐.๐ (๐๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐ฐ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ) ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ง๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ: https://www.skool.com/sob
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*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Hey everybody and welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in Small Owned Business. We would never call you guys names. Before we get started, thank you so much for listening. I would thank you even more if you left a review. Please, please, please. It helps us get in front of other small business owners and we are all about sharing the marketing knowledge.
Also, if you have a topic you want us to talk about, please let us know. You can email us at Help@TheSeasonedMarketer. You can send us a DM. You could leave it in the comments section. What whatever you want to do.
Vivian: The SOB Marketing Podcast is turning 100 today. Y'all, it's our 100th episode.
It's our hundredth episode. We've made it. Yes. Spirit fingers. We are so excited and grateful to have people even listening to one episode, right? So thank you for that. And, you know, when we started this podcast, all we wanted to do was to provide another avenue for small business owners to get good solid marketing advice and information because sometimes we understand, trust us you guys, we're right there with you. It can feel a little isolated, a little lonely as a small business owner and we feel like with our experience, we want to pass it along, right? We hope to save you guys time in making mistakes that we've made in sharing our marketing knowledge and so thank you.
This is a very big episode for us today, finally reaching 100. And so what Chelsea and I are going to do is we are going to share our three favorite episodes, very hard to narrow down, I must say. When you have 100 episodes in your vault, I was looking back and I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot we even did that topic, right?
Chelsea: I was looking back as someone who edits this podcast and I was like, oh man, good thing I've gotten better at this because wow.
Vivian: It's called growth y'all. We believe in trying things even before you're ready to try them so that you could grow and learn as you go. We're big learn as you go girls. So we hope that you're gonna enjoy this episode today. Chelsea, why don't you go ahead? We're gonna do a little tit for tat. So Chelsea will go first and I'll share my favorite episode and I think really what we're just going to do is give a synopsis of the episode and then why we enjoyed it so much.
Chelsea: Yes. My first episode that I'm bringing, because we're bringing 3, is networking tips for small business owners. Y'all networking, if you listened to last week's episode, you've already gotten this spiel, but it's so underrated and people really hate doing it. I get that as an introvert. I 100 % get that. But networking is such a strong, powerful tool, and what I really love about our specific episode is we give tips, like networking tips, for both introverts and extroverts.
So Vivian and I each gave tips on how we feel comfortable networking because Vivian and I have very different personalities. I know that might seem shocking and I know that might seem untrue because I bring a lot of great energy to this podcast. I know. I'm very different when I'm out and about...
Vivian: Shocking.
Chelsea: doing my own thing. I have RBF, y'all. I don't look friendly. Networking is a lot more effort, I feel like, for myself compared to Vivian, but it's still something that I can do.
So it's a really great episode if you're an introvert, really great episode if you're an extrovert. Vivian has some pro tips, next level, expert level...
Vivian: Stuff Chelsea did not like. I think I recommended like touching somebody's hand, like touching someone's arm and Chelsea's like, don't.
Chelsea: If you are Vivian level extrovert you can absolutely do that, I'm not touching anybody. I would make it so awkward. But it's a really good episode.
Vivian: I will say, can I pay you a compliment? So I know you just said you're an introvert, and I hope for everybody out there listening, if you are a little bit of Chelsea. She's a little more of our bookworm in the family. She loves having time to herself, right? But when we first started, like if you asked me maybe four years ago, the Chelsea then at a networking event is very different than the Chelsea now at a networking event.
I just want to bring that up so that all of you out there listening, if you have anxiety before going to engage with people and having to interact, if it takes a lot out of you, if you're like, it just depletes my tank. I just don't know why it is, but it depletes me, just know that I think over time you can find a way to make it enjoyable while also staying true to who you are.
Because I can tell you when Chelsea and I go out together to networking events, I can't tell that she's like, I don't want to say over it, but it looks like she's having a good time. I know that when the second she starts to feel like she needs to leave, she'll say that. I feel like you have in your own way found a way to really get something good out of a networking event.
Chelsea: Yeah, it's definitely... you need to find what you're comfortable with. I love that you said, you know, as soon as I feel like I need to leave, I'll tell you. That's very important for me because I don't want to give anyone my bad side.
Vivian: Yeah, you're done with it. You can't continue to have conversations. Unfortunately for you, I think maybe it's also being paired with a sister who doesn't know when to quit asking questions.
Y'all can ask Chelsea. She will look at me when we're at the grocery store or something or even just shopping and she's like, quit asking, why do you need to know if that lady has grandbabies? You don't need to know any of this stuff. She'll shoot me a look. So I think there's also the fact that we're able to read each other's cues and we just have a system to where obviously I want to be respectful of your time and also your energy levels and comfort.
My favorite, are you done with that one? All right. So my first favorite episode is actually one, it was early on that we did, and it was called Facebook and Instagram Blue Check Verified. Is it worth it?
Chelsea: Well this is very timely.
Vivian: Yes. The reason, okay. So what Chelsea and I did, there are a couple of reasons this is one of my favorites. For one, I think it helped to, you know, I don't like using the word experts because in a field that changes all the time, you can only be an expert as long as you keep up with what is changing, right? So Chelsea and I, "marketing experts". It means we've been doing this a long time. We live, eat, and breathe marketing stuff. What's interesting is back then when we released this episode, they had just allowed people, remember that blue check mark on all of the Facebook pages and Instagram profiles were only reserved for people of like public figures, right? So whether you are an actor or whatever, or you had to reach a certain amount of followers to be considered a "public figure." So it was very locked down, right?
Then, this is when they first introduced it and Meta was like, "Hey, you know what? You guys can actually pay now". But at this point, when we recorded the episode, they were only doing this for personal profiles. In there, part of the discussion, what I said, you and I were having this conversation. Part of the discussion was, I guarantee you they're going to open this up to businesses because they made so much money. They shared how much money they made from allowing other people to get that blue check mark for a payment that I was like, there's no way they don't allow businesses to do this. Sure enough, they did. Part of the reason in me bringing that up is just to say, you would think that I've been doing this a long time that I wouldn't need sometimes that like, okay, something you predicted was correct, right? Where you saw it going, it was definitely going, right? Even though at the time they weren't specifically saying that. So I love looking back and saying, you know, my gut reactions to stuff, I think we're pretty good at it. It holds true. I've been doing this long enough that usually when I have a gut reaction to something, it's for a reason, right?
Chelsea: So you feel validated?
Vivian: I do feel validated. That's what I was looking for. I feel validated.
But no, the other reason I really loved it as well is funny. You and I were talking about how I have this like weird hang up with like giving, part of the thing to get blue checkmark verified is you had to scan in your driver's license. And I was like, I ain't gonna be doing that, blah, blah, blah. I don't like giving people my personal information. Then I brought up a question. I was like, what about these bands? You have to upload an ID, but it's not your band name, right? So how are they going to go about doing this? I think we suggested at that point that if my band name was Bitty Bitty Bum Bum, I had to go get a driver's license...
Chelsea: Change your legal name to Bitty Bitty Bum Bum.
Vivian: So I love that we were being silly even in that conversation early on. Lastly, and probably even more importantly, part of the reason it's my favorite is because Chelsea and I, we could do a follow up to this episode because Chelsea and I wanted to try...
Chelsea: We should do a follow-up.
Vivian: we will do a follow up. We wanted to try because we believe in, what we're recommending to y'all as small business owners because we're small business owners too. We believe in trying the things first before we bring you like, yes, it's true value or whatever.
Chelsea: Basically, we wanted to test it first before we said, hey, small business owners, you should try this. We had small business owners that were asking us, hey, should we go ahead and become meta-verified?
Vivian: Yeah. And we can tell you...should I give it away? Our response to that would be HELL to the no. Okay. Because they are just not giving you what they tell you they're going to give you to promote your profile. And so we'll do a whole episode on that. So if you have not hit subscribe and if you are not following this podcast, please do so right now.
We're going to put that on the docket, just to talk about our experience with being meta verified. can tell you'll be a good episode to listen to, especially if you've been thinking about doing this. Wait for that episode to come out first before you spend any money on it.
Chelsea: Oh, absolutely, because it was quite the experience. Yeah, we'll just say that.
So my second, my next favorite episode is going to be lead magnets in marketing, what they are and how to make them. Because I feel like sometimes we forget that small business owners, small business owners forget that they have things of value, that they know things, that they have information they can share, and you can use that to your advantage.
Lead magnets are really helpful with building email lists. Another thing that we preach all the time and is really important for creating your own community that's not controlled by someone else's platform, right? We're looking at you, TikTok.
Vivian: Is TikTok in the room? And I just didn't know.
Chelsea: Yes. I mean, they're on our phones. They can hear us.
My point is, if TikTok goes dark, at least you have those followers on an email list so you can still connect with them. I also love in that episode, we give some really great examples of popular lead magnets and how to go about creating ones that work for your target audience. And we talk a little bit about segmenting your target audience, which is really important. I didn't re-listen to the episode fully because I don't like listening to my own voice. It's uncomfy for me. And I already have to edit these episodes, so I already listen to my own voice enough. But I believe we also talk about quizzes. I also believe we have an entire episode on quizzes for lead magnets. Yeah. Quizzes also amazing lead magnets.
I just love this specific episode because I feel like It's jam-packed with really great information that can help small business owners. I mean all of our episodes are jam-packed with great information, but I think it's a good episode It's a heavy hitter.
Vivian: It's a heavy hitter. Well, and I think out of everything you just described, because I was starting to remember what that episode was about...
Chelsea: Lead Magnets, I just told you.
Vivian: the key there is... no, I know. It's like the fact that sometimes you do need a reminder that you have something valuable to share. What happens is we become so blindsided in our day-to-day stuff. I'm talking to you, Small Business Owner, because I know you're doing it right now. You're trying to do two things at once, multitask, listening to this, doing something else, and then you're probably thinking, what's next on your to-do list, right?
Because you are so ingrained in what you're doing day to day, I think if you're not looking up and saying like, oh, hey, you know what? I'm a bakery and I know how to make bread from scratch. That's something that I could teach. That's something I could put down. I could do a shopping list of items you need to make your own homemade bread. That could be something of interest to somebody else who's looking for that information. You're just not sitting there thinking that way, right?
So I love that in that discussion, we just reminded you guys of this superpower that you have that it doesn't, it could be in something so random and something that you do so much that you're like, I never thought people don't know how to do that. Right.
Chelsea: Yeah.
*S.O.B. Community Commercial*
Vivian: You know what we keep hearing from you fellow S.O.B.s?
Chelsea: Small Owned Businesses.
Vivian: Yes, small owned businesses. You guys are so overwhelmed with your marketing.
Chelsea: And we totally get that! You didn't start your bakery, or your boutique store, or your jewelry business to become full time marketers or content creators, or ad designers.
And marketing can feel really overwhelming.
Vivian: Oh yeah. Then you S.O.B.s try to go figure it out, because that's what you do. You Google stuff, watch videos, and end up spending hours trying to figure it out, only to sometimes end up more confused.
Chelsea: This is my full time job and trust me, the way marketing is talked about on the world wide web can be really misleading.
Vivian: Let's not even talk about trying to hire an agency for help. It's daunting, they don't know your small business like you do, and so they are not as effective. And let's not even talk about the cost.
Chelsea: We understand why a lot of you S.O.B.s feel ready to give up. That's why we even bothered to create The Seasoned Marketer.
Vivian: That's also why we started the S.O.B. Community. We wanted to create something practical and affordable for people who can't, or simply don't want to, outsource their marketing.
Chelsea: Right. So for $50 a month members can get free downloads and templates, step-by-step tutorial videos, a weekly live Q&A call with both of us marketing professionals and other S.O.B.s. You also become part of a supportive community to bounce ideas off of.
Vivian: It's like having a boardroom of like-minded individuals and marketing professionals where you can talk through all your marketing questions.
Chelsea: Without having to pay boardroom marketing agency prices!
Vivian: So if you're tired of wasting time trying to figure it all out on your own...
Chelsea: Or spending money on things that don't work, join us over at the S.O.B. Community.
Vivian: We'll help you turn your marketing stress into marketing success. And hey, it's just $50 a month.
Chelsea: So click the link in the description to join, and we can't wait to see you in the S.O.B. Community.
Vivian & Chelsea: Now back to the episode.
*End of Commercial*
Chelsea: Okay, well Vivian, what is your second favorite episode?
Vivian: My second favorite is how to get local and grow your small business. I love a good local small business.
There's so much talk and discussion about online businesses that I think there's not enough information out there about how to market locally. All right. And so I feel like that was a really great discussion. There were a couple of reasons that I love this. For one, we did touch on creating specific partnerships. For example, what we explained is sometimes it requires a little bit creativity. Let's say for example, that I'm a local florist and I could easily partner with a local pottery business and have them supply me or purchase my vases from them. Okay. So how this works is basically you're then offering to the customer to say like, Hey, everything is locally sourced in our floral shop, down to the vases. These vases are something that we purchased from this other company. That way, what you're doing is you're able to tap into two audiences because then it behooves that other company to promote the fact that your floral shop is using their product as well, because that means more money in their pocket too. I think there are just synergy sometimes and partnerships that, we think maybe we have to do this on our own or maybe we're just too scared to approach somebody. That's it a lot of times, right? Like how do I even go up to someone and ask them?
You can't be shy about these things, right? So get nervous about other stuff. Get nervous that you have a rip in your pantyhose or something like that, but don't get nervous about this kind of stuff because this kind of stuff can actually give you opportunities to just grow and promote your small business.
Chelsea: The worst thing that can happen is they say no.
Vivian: Yeah. Let me share with you guys this exercise. Chelsea, I know I tell you this all the time, but, I don't know, if you try this, if you guys don't do this now and you try it and it works, tell me. Leave it in the comments below and just let us know. Like, "Hey, I tried that thing and it actually works".
When I was in college, one of the best classes I ever took was a personal selling course and part of the professor's responsibility was to get us to be comfortable pitching to people, right? Selling to them, whatever, because it is a very hard and weird thing, y'all. Mad respect to people that do it day in and day out. One of the best jobs I ever had was as a radio sales person, because it made me grow so much. I was like, what is this? You feel embarrassed half the time, right? People are shutting you down saying, no, I don't want to invest in that. I don't see value, this and that.
But in this personal selling course, the professor said, one of the things that you can do if you start to get nervous about pitching to someone is play out the worst case scenario. What Chelsea just said. They're going to say no. They're going to say no, skedaddle. Get out of here. Leave my office. Slam the door. You visualize that, and then you visualize your reaction to that.
Then it's almost like you lived it. You're like, okay, well. So if it happens, you already know how it's going to go down, but it probably won't happen because very rarely do those worst case scenarios happen.
Chelsea: I have an example of worst-case scenario actually happening. I worked in healthcare like Vivian still does and something that we have to do is office visits. So you go to an office you have cupcakes or cookies or something. It's basically you saying, hey, don't forget about us. We're thinking of you. Hopefully you're thinking of us.
Vivian: When it matters.
Chelsea: When it matters, when you refer people. So we were focusing on research. So I had a research coordinator with me going to these office visits. I was also introducing her, talking with the office managers about our research program, all that stuff.
We went to an office. We were focusing on low income areas and offices that focus on supporting those who need a little more help.
I don't remember what office this was. I wouldn't tell you guys either way. Just saying. I'm not going call anyone out. I'm not getting sued.
We went to this specific office. It was a government related office, doctors office. We went in. I'm trying to talk with the lady. Here's our research coordinator, here's some cupcakes.
She told us to get out because we were, she didn't say soliciting. She said something along the lines of basically this is illegal and we're gonna call the cops. So you have to leave right now.
That is the worst case scenario, that they threaten to call the cops. But guess what? The girl and I just left, and then we went to the next office. It was fine. Hopefully she doesn't remember who we were.
Vivian: So worst case scenario for sure, getting told to leave, right? To exit. But I have found for me, it works tremendously. Even if, I mean, you can use this in everyday life. You know, when you start to have anxiety over something and you kind of do that, it's like, okay, well then I'm not as anxious anymore.
Chelsea: Yeah. Can I just say this happened one time out of the hundreds of times that I did office visits, okay?
People don't usually threaten to call the cops on you.
Vivian: For sure. So that was part of the reason that I really loved this specific conversation that we had. On top of that, we also, in that episode, how to grow your local business, we also introduced community events.
So we talked about Y'allMart and the fun thing in there was Chelsea blasted a picture of her plague doctor on there. Which can I just tell y'all, I know that I'm the older sister, I should know what a plague doctor was. I didn't know what it was until she explained it to me and she showed me this picture so little sis teaching me new things all the time. The reason we brought up Y'allMart, it's a very specific community event in Columbia, South Carolina that is geared towards vendors who sell oddities. I think it's unlike any other event that we have.
So one of those discussions in there was talking about how no matter how niche you think your target audience is, right? If you're thinking, man, are there other people out there like me that like this stuff? The answer is more than likely yes. Okay, keep it legal. But the answer is more than likely yes. So I love that we were able to touch on a couple different things there in saying like, hey, you can grow and promote your business by doing X, Y, and Z and it's also a great way to find community.
Chelsea: Yes. So funny that we end on that note because my final favorite episode is "Picking the Right Vendor Market as a Small Business", with our special guest, Rae, The Design Demon. That's one of the key reasons that's one of my favorite episodes. First off, I have to be honest. I love Rae. She is now a great friend of mine. So having her on the podcast was wonderful.
Also, Rae has so much experience with vendor markets that it was wonderful to be able to pick her brain and to get her opinions and her thoughts on all of the questions that we had for specifically for picking the right market. So full disclosure, Rae is The Design Demon. She also runs a very popular market here in Charleston.
Vivian: Super popular, you guys, super popular.
Chelsea: Very popular and called the Feminist Magic Market. So love this episode also because we got an insider look on how vendor markets operate, which was also amazing. So go listen to that episode if you haven't, if you are a small business that's considering getting into craft fairs and markets and stuff like that, because not only do you get the perspective of The Design Demon, picking out markets that are worth her time and how she does it. But you also get the behind the scenes, how she picks what vendors get to be in the Feminist Magic Market and what she looks at when she's looking through the applications.
Vivian: That's a really great one because of the perspective. Very rarely do you get somebody who has the perspective of kind of like behind the curtain and then also the front-facing part of it. That was a really great conversation. I loved it because she's also always open and transparent with us as far as exactly what her thoughts are on things. And it's nice to know that small business owners want nothing more than to help other small business owners succeed.
Part of that conversation, if I remember correctly Chelsea, was she was talking about everything that as a owner of a market she does to try to promote the event because she knows for a fact that if it's not a good sales day for that small business owner, they likely won't be back.
So if anything, I think it's a true testament to what she's done with the event because she has a long list of people that always want to participate. It seems like that list grows year after year. And she even, I think now she has kind of like a, maybe it's a scholarship program.
Chelsea: It's a scholarship program.
Vivian: Yeah, where if you're a small business and let's say you're just getting started, you don't have the funds right now.
There are probably, she has requirements outlined and there's an application process and then there's decision making on their end on who gets it. But there are a few spots where she'll actually allow small business owners to come in and get their feet wet with it so that they can start doing this market circuit. It's great to see people out there helping each other out and kind of once they figure it out, they're like, Ooh, we want to share this. Hey, by the way, y'all don't make these mistakes. Like, here's stuff to consider before you start to engage in this.
Chelsea: I also just love whenever we have guests on the podcast. Small business owners, you sometimes forget that you know things. Like, you've gotten experience. You've maybe stumbled and now you want to share that knowledge and say, don't do this because I did this and it wasn't a good idea.
Vivian: Can we also just bring up the fact that we understand you are a small business owner in your own right. You did not sign up to be a podcaster. I get that. So any time we approach someone and they say yes to being on the podcast, I do a little happy dance because I'm like, good. It could be their first podcast that they've ever done, or it could be the 20th or 50th. The comfort level is different for every one of these interviews that we do.
Just a few people that we've had on here as guests, we've had Rob from Black Circle Records. He owns a vinyl record store in Summerville, South Carolina. We've had Hailey on here from Cork and Fizz who does like an online community and teaching people about wine, getting their comfort level there. Who else, Chelsea, have we had on?
Chelsea: We've had JessC from Southern Curiosities.
Vivian: That was also one of my favorites. That was great. I mean, not very many times do you get to interview a, what do you call it? Exotic taxi-dermist. Right?
Chelsea: I'm pretty sure you said that correctly, you just enunciated that weird.
Vivian: Okay, well enunciate it correctly for me then.
Chelsea: Taxidermist.
Vivian: Yeah, definitely not. It's not a taxi-dermist. It's a taxidermist. I'm admitting I said it incorrectly.
Who else?
Chelsea: We've had Brรฉ from Sweet Rose Waxing Company.
Vivian Walton (33:44) Yup, and we hope to have some really great interviews coming up here in 2025. So please you guys, just stay tuned. We're going to have some good discussions, we know there's value in - yes we can share marketing information, we are also small business owners so we have that under our hat. But, we don't have all the knowledge out there. So when we see people doing something so cool and so right, growing their audience and their following. Being great at sales, and all that stuff. We want to bring them on here to talk about it themselves because that should be a big feather in their cap.
Chelsea: Big feather in their cap?
Vivian: Yeah, you know what a feather in the cap is?
Chelsea: I've never heard that. Well, I've heard of like Yankee Doodle, but not... not that.
Vivian: I'm googling it right now.
I just double checked to make sure I was correct. That is a correct expression, feather in your cap. It's probably just a little old and you're unfamiliar, but it is an achievement or honor that someone can be proud of in case we have any super young listeners out there that have never heard the term, the phrase, feather in your cap.
Chelsea: You think I'm super young? Thank you. Thank you. I am super young.
Before Vivian goes into her last one, your last episode, I just want to let you guys know if you're a small business owner who's getting into craft fairs, vendor markets, and that sort of thing, and you want more information, we have multiple podcast episodes. We have free downloads that you can look at. We have blog posts, we have YouTube episodes on the main channel, The Seasoned Marketer. We also have an entire course called "Rock Your Fair" that is designed to get you from start to finish to post event and what you should be doing communicating with people that you met at the market. We have an entire, we have so much resources, so many resources for small business owners looking to start in the vendor market/craft fair scene.
Vivian: Yeah. And if you guys need any help as to which resources might be the most useful right now, you can always ping us. So send us an email at Help@TheSeasonedMarketer.com and we'll respond back.
All right. So my final one is why Google matters for your small business and man oh man Chelsea the more things change the more they stay the same. So part of the reason that I loved this episode in particular was it was kind of like a nice tutorial. Everyone's familiar with Google at this point I would say but if you're a little less...
Chelsea: I would be, I'm sorry, I would be super impressed if you were not familiar with Google.
Vivian: Okay. So if you're not familiar with Google and you've never used it, please ping us and let us know. We're going to put you in our hall of fame.
Everyone uses Google or has used Google to some extent. I think the search engine thing we understand as users, we probably understand it a little less as small business owners when we're trying to rank in there. Right? What I loved about this episode is we kind of broke it down to understand what's going on, on the backend for the visibility, right? How they're projecting or how these Google results are appearing on that search page. Now, because this was an old episode, I think it was like number eight for us. It was super early in our podcasting journey. Yeah, things have changed. All right, y'all, you can't sleep in this marketing world. It changes because in there, we're talking about some of the ways that you could get your search engine optimization and some tips we had for that. They very much have changed.
If you're wanting to know the most recent updates and how Google is using AI and now how your data is going to be looked at by the search engine, how your website is going to be ranked by the search engine, go listen to one of our previous episodes here that we did on SEO in 2025. Great information, the most updated information, and we dive deep into that and give you specific examples. But I think the analogy that I like that we used in that early episode about SEO, or Google, was that Google is a matchmaker. And I love that analogy, because I think that is the best way to explain it to anybody, right?
The job of the matchmaker is to find the best match for what you're looking for. As a user when I go to Google the matchmaker and I tell it what I'm looking for, there's a whole algorithm and a whole process that Google is using in order to find the best match for that. I think as a small business owner when you start to put these pieces together it becomes less about keyword stuffing and stuff like that, but you're like, how can I actually create content for what people are looking for? If it's useful and if it's true content that actually will help people, Google's going to pick up on that. There are some ways that you can give it a little flag to say like, Hey, this is what I'm doing, and it'll pick up on it. But I do think it still holds true, that matchmaker analogy.
Chelsea: Yeah, I completely agree. Also, I know you think it still holds true because I'm pretty sure you brought it in our recent episode for SEO in 2025.
Which is totally fair because it's a it's a very good analogy. It really helps simplify how everything works.
Vivian: Well, I just think it's silly. With so many outlets out there, that's the whole thing. You need to be answering people's questions. Okay. You need to be giving them the information they want in the packaging that they want in, in how they're best going to consume it, whether that be video, blog posts, downloads, whatever that is.
I think it just plays into what we always remind everybody of. You have a target audience. As a small business owner, if you're truly there to serve your customers or your clients, then it means listening and understanding where your target audience is, what they're wanting, how they're wanting it. You should kind of know this stuff, right?
I'm always very confident when it comes to marketing resources, especially, Chelsea and I now with YouTube channel, podcast channel, blog post, stuff that we're posting on social media. We have a weekly email we're sending out. Trust us, we know we're a good match for small business owners out there that are looking for marketing resources. Now our job is to stay on top of the trends and be sure that we know exactly what Google's wanting, right? How they're ranking that, what they're looking for.
Chelsea this year has gone in and added some new stuff that she's doing with our blog posts and all that, because now she knows Google has changed the way that they're looking at things.
Chelsea: Oh, it's been real fun. BUT very important. Can I just say, if you go listen to SEO in 2025 and we talk about updating your website, I know that I just said it's not fun. It's not, but it's very important. So.
You can have an attitude about it, but you still need to do it.
Vivian: I mean, I will say approach everything with joy, be joyful about it, but sure, go ahead and have an attitude about it. A little spicy over there. I do think - treat it, if you're going to invest time in doing those SEO initiatives and changes, even if it's, you know, in blog posts or something, treat it like you do every other marketing initiative, monitor your numbers. It's going to show in the analytics for your website.
Okay, so we can easily tell if what Chelsea is doing works because we pop in and we check our website analytics, right? So just keep that in mind, treat all of these marketing initiatives like you would anything you're investing time and money in to see if it's giving you value in return. Is it worth the time she's doing? I can tell you right now the answer is yes. But you always want to look at the numbers and the data to back that up.
Chelsea: Well, Vivian, I, you know what? Can I, can I take a second? Can I be vulnerable with you?
Vivian: Sure, I can't promise I won't laugh.
Chelsea: Jesus. Okay.
I am very proud of us.
Vivian: What are you proud of?
Chelsea: I am proud that we've made it to a hundred episodes. You know, a big problem that a lot of people have when they start podcasts is that they give up.
I feel like that's true for marketing and most marketing initiatives as well. You know, you don't give it enough time to work. So I'm proud that we stuck by it, you know, and we've made it to 100 episodes. That's. Wow, I can't believe I've sat here 100 times.
Vivian: Wow. 100 and beyond. If there was any advice that I could give to anybody out there, start messy. Start messy. Chelsea and I still have technical issues, not Chelsea, me. Okay, y'all, it's a me thing. These mics, like all of that stuff, I'm like, I cannot wait for the day where we just hire somebody to do this, okay?
So that's going to be on the forefront of things we do to grow and expand in the future. But you have to start somewhere, and it doesn't get better unless you're exercising that muscle, like we say, and you're doing the thing. If you've had an idea of starting your own podcast or any initiative that you've wanted to start doing, what are you waiting for?
Okay, what are you waiting for? Like we're giving you permission right now to start it. It's not going to look good. I'm going to tell you right now, the first time you do something, it looks awkward and it's kind of weird and you know, more power to you if it's a banger coming out the gate, like great. But for the most part, there's a lot of learning in between there. A hundred episodes in. The other thing is, I think we questioned whether we would have enough stuff to talk about. Yeah. That is a normal roadblock to anyone that's thinking about: "Can I do a weekly podcast? Can I do a monthly podcast? Is anybody going to listen?"
It's the same thing on YouTube. The first couple videos you post and honestly my motto has always been I'll talk to the crickets. I don't care. I'll speak to the crickets and then as I get better hopefully more people will start to tune in and whatnot, but you're keeping the world from valuable information or entertainment or great ideas if you're not out there just sharing it and you're not willing to take that plunge. It doesn't have to be perfect. I'm super proud of you. You've learned so much in podcasting. Chelsea knew nothing about podcasting before this.
She did all of the research, got the podcast up and going. We figured out all the equipment. She's been posting. She's been looking at the SEO. SEO for podcasting is different, y'all. Okay. So she's learned SEO for podcasting. We were just looking at analytics. She knows our analytics like the back of her hand. And it's been a fun, fun ride. I hope we make it to like...
a thousand episodes.
Chelsea: I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say a thousand. You know what? Yeah, I'll see you there. Okay, it's a date.
Vivian: All right, excellent. And we're proud of you listeners too. I just want to say it takes a lot also as a small business owner to try to stay on top of this stuff. It's overwhelming. I understand that. But kudos to you for showing up on a weekly basis and with an open heart and an open mind to want to learn and improve. We hope that all of our discussions, I know my sister over there could be a little spicy, but we always talk about how if anything we want to empower you. We want you to know that you are not alone and we want to be super approachable in any questions that you may have because you know we just don't want you to feel alone out there. Small business ownership is hard and it could be a little less hard if you just kind of let us help you out with the marketing side of it.
Chelsea: Yeah. Y'all go be the best SOBs you can be and thank you for joining us for a hundred episodes.
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