- In this episode, we talk about the number one hack
on social media from Kim Garst, coming up.
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What's up influencers?
Welcome to another interview here
on Video Influencer, where we help you
build your influence, income, and impact with online videos.
I have best-selling author, speaker, and all-around
social media extraordinaire Kim Garst.
- Woohoo, thank you!
That was a lovely intro.
- We're here at Social Media Marketing World,
and I had the honor of hearing you speak about live,
about your history on social media, an amazing story.
- Thank you.
- Would you share with us how you got your start
and what was your first big win, when you realized,
"Okay, this is what I've gotta be doing!"
- Basically, I got started because my oldest son was born.
I was on my way to law school,
and the moment they laid him in my arms, life shifted.
My priorities shifted, more specifically.
And we as a family went from two incomes to one,
thinking we could do it.
We were young and naive.
And quickly realized that, well, that was tough.
- Yep.
- So, borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, I'm like,
okay, I'm going to have to do something.
I'm going to have to figure out some way
that I can stay home, and I think a lot of people can
relate to that because a lot of women, and sometimes guys,
want to stay home with their little ones.
- Especially these days.
- Yeah. Absolutely.
And that was 26 years ago.
And the internet was young, and definitely not commercial
really at that point in time.
There were no YouTube videos to watch and do your eyes with.
There were no blogs to learn from.
- You were lucky if you saw a video back then.
- Yeah, it just didn't happen.
So I got busy trying to teach myself.
It took me literally about five years to make my first $60.
- That's five years. - Five years.
- That's five years.
We talk about putting in the grind, hustling,
and being committed.
Five years.
- Honestly today, it's so much easier.
- Sure.
- I mean, you can shorten that learning curve substantially
today because there's resources,
there's people who have already been down the road
that you're wanting to go down, you can learn from.
But then, not so much.
And I'll never forget,
my husband came into our dining room at the time,
because we had converted the dining room table
into my office, and he said, "Do you have any idea
"how much money you've made?"
And I'm like, "No, how much?"
Thinking he would say,
$100,000 or something, which was a lot of money,
and he said, "You've made a million dollars this year."
I'm like, "No, you're lying right?"
And he's like, "No, I'm serious."
So it was such a surreal moment because I never, ever
would have thought that I would make a million dollars.
That was never my goal.
My goal was just to make
a little money to allow me to stay home.
That was it.
- Absolutely, and thank you so much for sharing that story,
because so many people just assume this is going to be like
6 to 12 months and they're going to be able to make it work.
Not only did it take you five years just to make some money,
but however many years to have that opportunity
to make the big money, right?
During that time, arguably where there wasn't as many
opportunities to do it, right?
Like, if you were making it that big back then,
you were really finding the angles,
you were really making the connections,
and hustling really hard, right?
Working hard to earn that.
- Well the interesting part was, there was no ads or
anything, so how did you get your customers?
I spent hours in B to B boards, I'm really dating myself,
and AOL Business chat rooms.
And today it would be spam.
I would find people that owned businesses
in these chat rooms or on these B to B boards
and I'd send them a quick message and say,
"If I could help in any way, reach out."
So that's how I cultivated clients, and back then,
when you got an email on AOL, you've got mail,
it was awesome, there wasn't like 50 or 100 emails
every day, it was like one or two, so it was fun.
- And you know, the principles don't change.
Obviously the platforms have changed, some of the technology
has changed, but that grind, that everyday consistent
hard work and effort to make the connections.
One thing that I think you can speak to
that a lot of our viewers would love to know is,
you've seen the birth of blogs, right?
You've seen social media take over the internet,
and you've seen what's happened with people connecting
through apps and basically that becoming the world, right?
People used to laugh at blogs and now corporations are like,
"We need social media."
Can you talk about some of the trends you've seen
and what you're seeing today that you don't think is a trend
and is going to be the next wave when it comes to social
media, and help you grow your influence in this new world?
- You're right, I have seen a lot of things come and go,
and I think because of that, I see the next thing
a lot easier than some others.
But I made a fortune with Yahoo ads,
banner ads back in the day.
Who does that anymore, right?
- You know what's going to keep going, what's going to be
real, and what's not just going to be a fad.
- Right.
Funny story though, I was actually one of those
people who said they would never have a Facebook account.
And then, funny thing about this story is,
that I heard exactly the same thing said about social media
as I heard about websites back in the day.
"If you don't have a website,
"in five years you're going to be out of business."
And I heard the same thing said about social media,
"If you're not on social media in five years
"you're going to be out of business."
And I'm like, deja vu, I've heard this before.
So I got busy with social media, and I'm like,
"Oh my gosh, this is like B to B boards on steroids!"
So I was convinced.
And same with blogging.
I was like, okay, why would you write all this stuff,
and people just find it?
How does that work?
But blogging today is probably one of the most
impactful things you can do for your business.
It's work, it is a grind, but it's such an important part
of attracting the right people to you.
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- As what's next, I think that we're coming full circle
with social media where people are getting tired
of being broadcast to,
social media's become a little bit of a commodity
for businesses and people are overwhelmed.
They don't pay as much attention anymore.
It's kind of become like banner blindness
with Yahoo ads back in the day.
Today we have to really pay attention to
who our customer base is, and/or who we want to become
customers, and then have those real conversations with them.
And I think the next thing will be facilitating that
because people are like, from a business perspective,
"Well I don't have time to sit around and talk all day."
So the way that I foresee this being scalable
for the average business owner is messenger chat bots.
And leveraging the power of that
to funnel the conversation to somebody.
In some cases it won't be necessary.
They'll get the information they need through the
conversation they have with your bot.
But sometimes it will require a personal conversation.
- And what I love about this,
we were talking like 20 years of experience,
seeing these trends, these ups and downs,
some things working, some things not working.
Of all the things that are out there right now,
from utilizing advertising, all the different
social media platforms, is messenger bot, right?
Chat bot.
- It's the hottest topic, right?
- If you guys don't know what that is,
that is the ability to message your audience
directly in their inbox.
Can you dive in a little bit deeper about that
and explain how people can utilize it to help them
not just grow their influence but grow their income?
- Absolutely.
I try to explain it from the standpoint of,
think about it just like you would your email list.
Because it's essentially the same thing.
And what I think that's so beautiful about chat bots is
it's the easiest way that I've ever seen
that we can move our social media community to our list.
So you're not just building a messenger list
if you set it up correctly,
you can also integrate your regular e-mail address...
Their regular email and you're pulling it
and putting it into your CRM.
If you're on MailChimp, or if you're on Infusionsoft
or ActiveCampaign or wherever you are,
and that's money in the bank and that's something we own.
I think that's something that we have to think of at first,
it's like an email list, but the way that works is that
instead of it going into their inbox with the hundred other
emails they get every day,
it goes into their Facebook messenger app.
It's integrated inside of Facebook.
- A little more intimate.
And they're checking it more regularly versus email,
people are like, forget that.
- So right now it's a very uncrowded space.
- Right now, you guys. - Right now.
We'll run it eventually, let's be real.
- Marketers ruin everything.
- Marketers ruin all good things.
But the opportunity right now is just that,
the open rates are ridiculous.
On average they are 80%.
Mine are like 97%.
It's crazy.
- People are lucky if they get 5-10% on email,
so to be able to get it up at that rate.
By the way, we actually utilize that here and there too.
It's very new to us, but again,
we're seeing huge amounts of success with it.
And again, people are receiving it in a much different way
than they're receiving spam on email.
And this window could be short.
Hopefully it's long,
but I think it's going to be really short,
and that's why I wanted to have Kim talk about it.
- Well I think there's probably, for smart marketers,
like I know you guys are,
I think that we have a window of possibly a year to two
before this really becomes such a crowded space.
That's why, as early adopters, it's always the case.
Early adopters always win
when new marketing techniques come out.
I think a lot of times we get complacent,
I can't believe that Facebook's changing.
I just learned this!
It's so annoying when they do.
But the reality of it is, stop your whining
and just get with it and do the next thing.
- Stop your whining.
This is from a lady that's been in the industry
20 plus years,
that knows the challenges of having to learn new platforms,
new strategies, inherit more technology.
We're going to go right into something fun,
we call it the Lightning Round.
- Coffee or tea?
- Coffee.
- The last thing you remember grabbing out of the fridge.
- Water.
- Favorite social media platform.
- Oh.
This is a toughie.
Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
No.
Facebook's the monster.
It's the elephant in the room for sure.
I would say I'm probably on Facebook
more than I am the other platforms.
- If you had to give up one thing,
social media for the rest of your life,
or movies for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
- I'd have to say Facebook.
- Oh really?
- Yeah, I like my movies!
- Oh wow!
So, thank you so much.
I just have one more question.
Yesterday I went into your talk about live.
We have a lot of influencers here that are video-centric
so they're trying to make it on YouTube,
utilize video on all kinds of social media.
I think the one thing you and I can relate on,
even though our experiences are completely different,
is live is so important.
Can you tell us why live sets apart from everything else,
from your 20 plus years of experience, why it's the thing
right now that people really need to be looking into?
- Interestingly enough, video has been the
thing for a long time.
I'll speak from my own experience.
I really didn't embrace it because it required equipment
that you didn't have, it required the sense of perfection
that a lot of us do have, certainly it was a problem for me.
It had to be perfect and my team hated video days because
it had to be perfect.
But now, you can sit down literally with your phone
today and engage with people and you're like,
"Well how does that work?"
People can comment and you can respond to them
in the moment.
In my opinion, that's so much more impactful.
One, they get that you see them.
And they now have value in a way that is personal to them,
versus them commenting on a static video, for example.
But still, that know, like, and trust factor is built
through that personal connection.
- It's like a conversation, right?
- Absolutely.
- I love what you said, it doesn't take a lot of work.
Don't get me wrong, you're gonna have to work.
You're gonna have to get better at it and practice,
but there's no editing involved, right?
You can use what almost everybody that's doing this has,
which is a smartphone.
- Absolutely.
- And almost every platform now offers
some sort of live function.
Can you really quick, just tell us
one or two of your success stories from live,
and how have you seen it work for your business?
- Well it's incomparable, in my opinion.
It's the fastest path to the know, like, and trust factor
that I've ever seen.
I've been online and done a lot of marketing techniques
for a long time, as we've established.
It's fascinating how quickly you can really build
that deeper connection with people.
That's obviously a benefit anytime when you're trying to
build community because without community,
you can't create sales.
But one time, I'll just share this story real quick,
because it's a money story.
I jumped on live video, I said, hey, this is the problem
that I had.
I know many of you have it.
And because I had
the problem I created a solution to the problem.
If you're interested in the solution here's how you buy it,
and I created like five figures in sales in 12 minutes.
So normally, you know the process.
You send out a bunch of emails,
and the sales trickle in as they trickle in.
So it's fascinating to watch how quickly people snapped up,
people were buying before I'd ever finished the video.
- It's a QVC model, right?
And again,
QVC was selling products and things.
Gary Vaynerchuk said this in his first big book, Crush It,
he said, "Whoever brings QVC to the marketplace first
"is going to see huge wins."
- My friend Chalene Johnson teaches
what she calls the infomercial strategy.
That absolutely worked.
I tried it for the first time
a couple of weekends ago, actually at her event,
and it's fascinating because it was uncomfortable
because I hadn't done it before.
It was fascinating to watch how the process
not only gives people value but makes them feel
like they're not being sold to.
It was awesome.
Fascinating. - Awesome.
Kim Garst you guys.
Check her out.
We're going to have the links down below.
Is there anywhere you want to send people,
something you want to promote?
I know you have a blog as well, and we'll make sure
we put the links before we end this.
- I usually just send everybody to my blog,
which is KimGarst.com/blog.
Lots of great free content there that you can learn from
and see where it fits into your business.
- And you guys can even see
if you're addicted to social media.
I saw that post on your blog.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you. - It was an honor.
You guys, as always
here on Video Influencers, helping you build
your influence, income, and impact with online videos.
We'll talk to you later.