How To Stand Out In Your Niche - With Shannon Hinderberger

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Shannon Hinderberger.

Shannon is a digital marketing coach who teaches small business owners how to grow their business using simple digital marketing strategies so they’re less overwhelmed, get results, save time & make money. She has over 20 years in the online marketing space and loves to help her clients make an impact with their business.

Why you've got to check out Shannon's episode:

- Find out how Shannon helps women over the age of 40 who are new to starting their own business and therefore in most cases don't know where to begin.

- Understand the biggest challenges they typically face which is the tactical side of marketing including social media, website as well as the confidence to work on branding, put their personal brand on the business.

- How to consistently stand up and stand out in your industry and what assets you need in your business to get yourself known in your niche. And how you can do this in a low tech and low cost way.

- Discover the one piece of advice Shannon gives all her clients, which is to stand out in a unique way alongside your competition so that your ideal clients come towards you.

- Get access to Shannon's free 28 video ideas guide for Instagram stories as well as other social media platforms, and find out about the importance of omnipresence across all platforms.

Resources / Links

https://shannonleestrategy.com/

Transcript

Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to the Flow And Grow Expert Interviews. The place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.

Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'm very honored to be joined by Shannon Hinderberger, who is a digital marketing coach and the founder, and recently appointed CEO of Shannonleestrategy.com. So, Shannon, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Shannon Hinderberger: Hello, how are you?

Tom Bailey: I'm great. Thank you so much for being here. And whereabouts are you in the world right now?

Shannon Hinderberger:  So, I'm located in Central Oregon, Bend Oregon to be exact. A lot of people think when they hear Oregon or rainy and dreary, actually I live on the other side of the cascade mountains. So, I live east of the cascade mountains where it is 300 days of sunshine and beautiful, but today. It's not. So, it's actually raining. We only get rain like a couple of times a year in like May, in like May and September.

Tom Bailey:  Maybe it's good luck maybe who knows. Yeah. Thank you so much. And let me just jump into the subject of a Shannon in a little bit more detail than so Shannon has over 20 years experience in the online marketing space and loves to help her clients make an impact with their business.

She shows them how to grow their businesses, using simple digital marketing strategies so that they're less overwhelmed, get results, save time and ultimately make more money. And the title of today's episode is How To Stand Out In Your Niche. And Shannon is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes.

So, question number one for you today is who are your ideal clients?

Shannon Hinderberger: I mostly work with women over the age of 40, they are new to starting their own business. And so, they come to me and say, I don't know where to begin. I've had and, and out, so those are my, my ideal clients. So yeah.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. And what is typically the biggest challenge that they face?

Shannon Hinderberger: The biggest challenge they face is kind of the tactical of their website, email marketing, social media is the big one. And the other part of this is not only the tactical. How to, is they don't have the confidence to put their face on video to go get branding photography done to work on a website, or they don't know why they need to have a website.

So, I helped them. I do this one-on-one and I do this in a group setting and I help them slowly, consistently begin to start to stand out on all of those platforms.

Tom Bailey: Amazing. So, it's a lot of know-how, but also a lot of confidence that's needed as well. And if they don't have these two things, what impact does that typically have on them as a, as a startup business?

Shannon Hinderberger: If they do not have them, they will not stand out. And it's such a crowded space, but at the same time, it's not really that part of the space. And usually when somebody comes to me, they they're like, I don't, I don't, I do, I have to hire a videographer, do my videos. No, iPhones make it super easy.

Now I'm, you know, I'm talking to you from a computer and you know, I don't have fancy lights up. I have. I show them tips and tricks to bounce light off their window onto them. And I try to make it low tech, low cost as possible. But if they just start doing things consistently and they know how to reach their audience they will, they will stand out above their competition and just teaching them that and giving them the confidence is, is what I teach.

Tom Bailey: All right. So, if there's anybody listening, this resonates with what, what's the one piece of valuable advice that you'd give to them specifically to really help them get started on this journey.

Shannon Hinderberger: So, I hate fear of missing out FOMO, but if their competition is doing it, they need to be doing it as well.

And the difference is you don't have to copy your competition, but you will stand out because of you. Who you are, what you do. We all have these unique messages. So, if you're competent, if you're, if your competition isn't doing it, this is the time to stand out. If your competition is doing all the marketing things, you can do it yourself and you can do it and be you.

Tom Bailey: Fantastic. And do you have any valuable resources of free guides to help people get started on this journey?

Shannon Hinderberger: So, people usually come to me, wanting to put their face out there on video, and they're really hung up by the tech. They're really hung up by the content and they're hung up with just opening the phone and doing it. So on my website, shannonleestrategy.com . I have a freebie 28 video ideas you can use for Instagram stories. You could use these video ideas across the video spectrum, and I try to make it. Things that you can use across, across platform, because really what I teach is an omnipresence. You shouldn't just be focused on Instagram.

You should be focused across the board and creating across the board and have a plan for that. And that's really what I teach. So, you can go to my website and if you're really, really hung up on video sign up and get that right in your inbox. 

Tom Bailey: Amazing. shannonleestrategy.com . I'll post that link below in the show notes.

So, people can click that and they can dive right in and download that guide. So, moving on to a slightly, slightly separate topic. Now the next question is what would you say is your greatest failure that you've ever made in life for business? And what did you learn from it?

Shannon Hinderberger: Not following my gut. Not trusting my gut.

In 2012, I was given the gift of losing my job and I had the opportunity to start a business in 2012. I've been in the Market, in digital marketing since 1998. But in 2010, I started a side hustle, helping businesses with their social media, where I live and my employer was okay with that. In 2012, I had my daughter. I have two kids and my daughter was my last kid that I had. And the company I worked for eliminated my position. So, I had this gift of, I could start my own business and I really wanted to do it, but I was really held back by fear, by fear of not having insurance, a regular paycheck, not having clients and I leaped into a job.

And it was a great job. I had that job for six years. And then in 2017 I just decided after a few experiences in the workplace that I was ready to make the move and I was scared. And I just have to say like, go with it. If you have this inkling in your gut don't ignore it because. Roadblocks will be put up that will make you make you think I should have taken that turn then or started that business in 2012.

So just follow your gut. I have so many stories about not following your gut that now I just, if it's not a heck yeah, hell yeah. That I'm not going to do it.

Tom Bailey:  Amazing, and I love that reframe of seeing the redundancy as a gift you know, a great opportunity to do something different and yeah, probably you got in, in that instance, Amazing.

And the last question for you today is what is the one question that I should have asked you that will also give some great value to our audience today?

Shannon Hinderberger: Oh, where's the, where's the first place somebody should start with standing out in their niche and it should be on their website. It should be having a website and the website is the foundation of everything.

And it's actually speaking to your dream clients on your website and doing the research. To know what they want from you and building products and services is the content and all that kind of just like you have the website, you don't want to use Instagram or Facebook as your website. Somebody had said you don't need a website to stand out.

I'm like, yes, you do. Search engine optimization. It all goes back to the website. So don't skip the website as a new business owner, and you can build one for 200 under $200 or under $300. If I go into something as simple as a Wix and Squarespace, where it's built for you practically.

Tom Bailey: And it's great credibility as well to say, here I am, this is what I do. And you can find that all about me and my business.

Shannon Hinderberger:  Yeah. Don't wait nine months. Like I did do not wait nine months. The second I got a website and it seems like everything kind of, then that's why preach the website and then one that, because as a social media strategist for all these years, you would think, I would say no websites, not something you need.

Tom Bailey: Thank you so much again for your time and for sharing such great value with our audience.

Shannon Hinderberger: Thank you so much for having me. I was really looking forward to this, so thanks so much and you have a great day too.