Meet Kristyn:
Kristyn is a corporate drop-out turned entrepreneur and the founder of Dream In Color Marketing. With a passion for empowering small businesses, she specializes in developing existing brands, executing effective marketing strategies, and optimizing operations to make brands come alive. As a former marketing lecturer, at Central Connecticut State University, Kristyn discovered her true calling is working directly with small business owners.
Kristyn's journey took an unexpected turn after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. It was a challenging time, but today she is cancer-free and dedicated to igniting success for entrepreneurs through coaching, strategy & content consulting, and creative services. Dream In Color Marketing provides businesses with the tools to save time, leverage experience, and drive growth.
Links & Resources:
Ready for a website you love? Let's hop on a call and see if working together is a fit.
For the transcript and show notes:
https://laurakamark.com/71
Meet Kristyn:
Kristyn is a corporate drop-out turned entrepreneur and the founder of Dream In Color Marketing. With a passion for empowering small businesses, she specializes in developing existing brands, executing effective marketing strategies, and optimizing operations to make brands come alive. As a former marketing lecturer, at Central Connecticut State University, Kristyn discovered her true calling is working directly with small business owners.
Kristyn's journey took an unexpected turn after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. It was a challenging time, but today she is cancer-free and dedicated to igniting success for entrepreneurs through coaching, strategy & content consulting, and creative services. Dream In Color Marketing provides businesses with the tools to save time, leverage experience, and drive growth.
Links & Resources:
Ready for a website you love? Let's hop on a call and see if working together is a fit.
For the transcript and show notes:
https://laurakamark.com/71
Laura Kåmark [00:00:01]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Be Bold Make Waves podcast, a show bringing you inspiring stories of women who are growing and scaling their business. I'm your host, Laura Kamark, a website and tech integration specialist who works with online business owners who love their work and not their website. Join me as we have incredible conversations about business, mindset, productivity, and, of course, the website and tech behind the business. Let's go ahead and dive in to this week's episode. Hello, and welcome to this week's show. For those of you who don't already know me, I'm Laura Kamark, web designer, evergreen system, and funnel integration specialist for women who love their work, but not their tech. I am so excited to introduce you to my guest today.
Laura Kåmark [00:00:49]:
Kristyn is a corporate dropout turned entrepreneur and the founder of Dream in Color Marketing. With a passion for empowering small businesses, she specializes in developing existing brands, executing effective marketing strategies, and optimizing operations to make brands come alive. As a former market marketing lecturer at Central Connecticut State University, Kristyn discovered her true calling is working directly with small business owners. Kristyn's journey took an unexpected turn after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. It was a challenging time, but today, she is cancer free and dedicated to igniting success for entrepreneurs through coaching, strategy, and content consulting and creatives creative services. Dream in Color Marketing provides businesses with the tools to save time, leverage experience, and drive growth growth. Kristyn, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your backstory of how you started dreaming color marketing?
Kristyn Neal [00:01:49]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I was gonna say it was 2015, and I got laid off from my corporate role. And then shortly thereafter, I had a car accident. So I was interviewing for jobs in the corporate world, and, you know, the it because I was in pain from my axons, I had a little injury. They were not going so well, I would say. I was kind of you know, pain was oozing out of me a little bit at that time and, just kind of part of my demeanor. And, you know, my friends and my family were all very much like, I don't understand why you're not just going out on your own.
Kristyn Neal [00:02:30]:
You should just go do this. And I thought, well, I I just want the stability of having a 9 to 5 job. And I've always had an entrepreneurial bug, so I think that's why they were kind of like, what why are you not just doing this? This is what you should be doing. At that time, I wasn't really quite ready, but a little bit down the road, I sat down. I was paying some bills on my couch, and I had everything sort of spread out all around me. And I was just looking and going, this this can't go on like this. How am I gonna do it? And I was doing some real estate, and my broker called me up. And she said, who created your website? And I said, I did.
Kristyn Neal [00:03:11]:
And I and then I was like, okay. There are people seeing my work that have, value that thinks that it has value. It's not just my friends and family being kind to me. Right? This is this is a real thing. And so Dream in Color Marketing was launched and that's where, I actually dreamed the name Dream in Color Marketing and I said this is this is what my next step is. Oh, I love that. It's in that
Laura Kåmark [00:03:38]:
was so interesting when you said that in 2015. That was actually the same year my entrepreneurial journey fully when I went full time because I had that super secure corporate job and got married, pregnant. They knew I was pregnant, and then they were like, surprise. Your position's been eliminated. And I was like, so that was so that stuck out to me. I was like, oh, that's very similar journeys right there of just kinda jumping into it before we were fully, you know, quote, unquote ready. As I know I've talked with a lot of people that they were, like, you know, doing the side hustle thing for a while and then had built up clientele and all that, and then made the jump from corporate, they had kind of that safety net. So it's a very different, I feel, experience for those of us who are kind of, like, forced into making some quick business decisions.
Laura Kåmark [00:04:28]:
How did you get your first clients?
Kristyn Neal [00:04:32]:
My first clients were, I think just through networking. I was going to a lot of networking events anyway, at that time. And so, anybody that's been unemployed knows, like, you just wanna get out of your house. So you kind of wanted so I was going to a networking event, and and it sort of just came about that way. I, then when I the pandemic happened and all, cancer and all of that happened, I did step back from the business. So, I've now been back in it part time and then, I'm pretty excited that this year I went full time into the business, more so. So I was out there kind of talking to everybody and letting people know that I was in business and, did they need any help with anything marketing related, really?
Laura Kåmark [00:05:21]:
So I feel like marketing can be such a broad term. Can we we talk a little bit about what sort of marketing services you help clients with?
Kristyn Neal [00:05:29]:
Sure. So my business focuses on brand strategy, optimization, and creative services for brand development. So, from the creative side, we have things like videography and editing, photography, voiceovers, all of that type of work. And I have a team that I work with to support on the ground services. Mostly, those clients are located in Northeastern United States. And, then for the strategy side, we we work, you know, across the board, internationally, nationally, all all of it, and work on sort of looking at people's websites as well as their social media. A lot of times I talk to people who just like me started their business, and they either were forced into sort of forced into it or they got into business because they just love the thing that they love, and they really wanna share it with the world, but they don't really know anything about running a business or what kind of marketing should be done. Right? So I, help them create systems and funnels, give them some feedback on their, what they've been doing in marketing.
Kristyn Neal [00:06:44]:
Sometimes you'll find that it's just they're doing all the right things, but there's just, like, one little thing that need to be tweaked to make it work or convert, and it it makes all the difference when they have someone with a different eye and not sort of in the weeds on their business looking at it with them.
Laura Kåmark [00:07:01]:
That's such a good point to bring up. I mean, some it's so hard when we are so close to our business to see the things that so often, like, I know I have, a lot of friends that I have little, like, mini peer led masterminds with, and it's so easy for, like, me to come up with content ideas for them. I'm like, I know what you could talk about, and I'm like, I have tons of ideas for you. I have a great idea for a new freebie for you. Here's a great presentation you could talk about. Here's questions I have about the thing that you do. But then when it comes to my own stuff, I'm like, I don't know.
Kristyn Neal [00:07:30]:
That's and they're so funny because I've been there's a couple of marketing, folks in different parts of the state or around this area that I've talked to, and I'm like, I'm so excited to talk marketing with someone because there's just not you know, that's not in our businesses. We're doing all of the things a lot of times. So it's just not, something that's always at the top of the mind with someone or we're having the opportunity even to talk because we're just so busy. So it's been great.
Laura Kåmark [00:07:58]:
Well, Kamark marketing, such an important piece to the whole picture. I mean, I know when as a web designer, I build websites for clients. They're like, so does this mean clients are just gonna come to me? I'm like, no. You have to go market your business. The website is just a tool that's there. So once you go out and market it, they land on your website, and it's gonna lead them in the right place. We have a user journey, customer experience, all those things in place for specific reasons, and then all your buttons are gonna go to the right place, and we're not gonna have a bunch of broken links, hopefully. And that's what the website's for.
Laura Kåmark [00:08:32]:
The website's not necessarily gonna just, like, open the floodgates. Don't get me wrong. We can do a lot with SEO, or the SEO experts can. And but you still have to go market your business. That's, like, key to success.
Kristyn Neal [00:08:46]:
Yeah. As SEO is great to have and but it is only one aspect of the business, like driving traffic through other channels, whether it's, you know, your social media or you're getting out there and doing educational talks or whatever, you know, events and that kind of thing, whatever you're doing at for your top of the line, top funnel, pushing people towards that website so you can ultimately convert them. That's the goal. Right? So, it's it's ultimately a great place, but you have to have to make everything sort of work as a system. And what I find when I'm talking with people these days anyway is that because of the siloed nature sometimes of marketing, that they they're just very much focused on, well, my mark my if we're seeing social media, for example, is doing this, but I'm not getting any clients from it, but you're spending a lot of time. So the one thing I ask them is where are your clients coming from, and how are they getting to your business now? Because maybe we just try to enhance that way and that approach rather than push you into some area that you're uncomfortable. You know, if you don't wanna stand up and speak in front of people, then that's not a great spot for you to be.
Laura Kåmark [00:09:59]:
Where do you find that your clients typically are their clients are coming from, or is it just different across the board?
Kristyn Neal [00:10:05]:
I think it's different across the board. Most of the time, I'm finding a lot of them are coming from networking and in person events, and then some are have developed reoccurring, contact with them through, like, email channels and things like that and staying top of mind. Mhmm. But for for the intake of new clients, I would say that the majority of the small business owners that I'm working with are mostly coming from a place of minimal actual marketing that they're doing.
Laura Kåmark [00:10:43]:
I have so many things I wanna talk about. I'm talking about from that. Would you but first, I wanna ask. So are your clients typically, like, brick and mortar? Or is it a lot of local clientele that you have, or is it more like the online service provider kinda like what I do?
Kristyn Neal [00:10:59]:
So my clients are are typically service based businesses. I do work sometimes work with the nonprofits just because that's, like, really near and dear to my heart, and I want to be supportive when I can. And, but most of the time, you know, my my work experience and my history has been in service based industries, and so I tend to focus more on those type of businesses rather than, brick and mortar or profit, excuse me, product based businesses.
Laura Kåmark [00:11:31]:
So I am I every time I look at any of my marketing stuff, I'm like and I know this, and I know this for most of my business friends as well. Like, it's a full blown word-of-mouth by referral based business. That's where my clients come from. I'm very active on Instagram. I've talked a lot on the show about how I've outsourced to Lizzie Matson at Wild Feather Co. She's done my Instagram for years, and then we stopped for a while, and then she just did a VIP day for me where now we have evergreen content, which is amazing because I've always really struggled with Instagram. It just does not work for my brain. I can't figure it out.
Laura Kåmark [00:12:05]:
And so that's, like, the piece that I wanted to outsource so that I could know that I was showing up consistently somewhere and not having to, like, put in the brainpower to necessarily try to figure out something that just didn't make sense to me. And it's interesting because, at the same time, I don't necessarily get clients from that, but I do it to show up and so people still see me. I have people tell me all the time. They're like, I see you all the time on Instagram, and you're so you know, you're everywhere and this and that. I'm like, oh, good. That's working because the visibility aspect.
Kristyn Neal [00:12:34]:
Right.
Laura Kåmark [00:12:35]:
But in terms of for people who it's like a word-of-mouth business, how what's your recommendation for, like, probably the best marketing strategy?
Kristyn Neal [00:12:44]:
Well, I think that it just really depends on the business and what kind of, you know, service they're selling. I always think that growing your list is the most important thing that you can do and then staying in front of people on a email list is most important. I mean, if you think just the other day we had another social media outage, I'm sure that those will continue to happen. If social media is a fabulous way to stay in front of people on visibility, and and you can even convert people if you set it up correctly and, you know, do all the things that that make that happen. A lot of times, people are just using it for sort of community based or sharing information and that visibility like you're you're saying. But my ultimate goal is to have all of my clients convert any, social media followers if possible or anyone they meet out while they're talking to people onto an email list so that they can stay in front of them, on a regular basis through email. And people will say and I'm sure you probably have heard this too. Well, how I I don't wanna email my folks too much, and I don't know what to, you know, what to email them and what should we put out.
Kristyn Neal [00:13:55]:
There's so many things that you could email people, and there's and, I was just talking to somebody the other day who told me that, you know, I was so upset somebody unsubscribed it. I was like, no. That's the wrong mindset around that. Right? Like, I was like, I'm gonna have you do a mindset shift on this because if somebody unsubscribes from you, they are not your person, and they are not probably likely to buy your service again. And that's okay because we wanna save room for the people who who we are connecting with and who were more likely to to connect with us and want our services.
Laura Kåmark [00:14:30]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. So all of that. I am such a big fan of emailing. This is the thing that I've and one of the things I've really started talking about more in the last couple years and setting up for clients is evergreen email nurture sequences. Because I have one client who she's such a fabulous writer.
Laura Kåmark [00:14:52]:
She's a copywriter, but she's also like, her emails are so funny. I love getting her emails, And I told her she was, you know, consistent she'd been in business about 2 years, and I'm like, I feel so bad for the people who are just now getting on your list because they will never get that past content. And it was good. It was funny. I love when you email me. I love reading your emails. I know there's tons of people who read her like, they look forward to her emails coming in the inbox. I'm like, why don't you take all those emails? We'll put them together in an evergreen nurture sequence.
Laura Kåmark [00:15:22]:
It's strategic. She had some digital products she'd created, but she and she still Laura on them. And she also does her 1 on 1 services, but she wasn't really promoting her digital products that much. And we went, we set up a whole thing. I think we're up to 5 months now of evergreen emails and flash sales and, like, all the things, and it's working. I mean, she had one email in there that was like, hey. You need a speaker? I know a gal, like, to be on your podcast, to come speak at your summit, be in your a group x an expert in your group. She got just flooded with all these emails for, like, pod you know, invitations for podcast interviews.
Laura Kåmark [00:15:57]:
She got DMs on Instagram, and she was just like, wow. What? I'm like, well, that email went out because it was when we kinda dumped her whole list into the evergreen sequence. And when it got to that one, she's like, this is amazing. I'm like, yeah. You just went and created some marketing opportunities and visibility opportunities without having to think about it. It just and now anyone new coming into your list is going to get that same offer made to them of, like, hey. Do you need a speaker? You know, if she's selling, I will get a you know? I'm like, please, I want I wanna hear every time you make a sale. Like, be that annoying person who's like, I got another one because I wanna celebrate that with you.
Laura Kåmark [00:16:32]:
And it's so fun. She's like, oh my gosh. I was out. You know, I took the day off. I was out with my son. We were back to school shopping or whatever it was. It wasn't this the wrong time of year to be doing that. But I forget what she was doing.
Laura Kåmark [00:16:42]:
She was not in the office, and she's like, I made a sale today. I was like, yes. That's the point.
Kristyn Neal [00:16:48]:
So that
Laura Kåmark [00:16:48]:
that list is gold. I mean, that truly is so important in your business.
Kristyn Neal [00:16:54]:
Yeah. I love it. And there's and people will say, oh, email's dead, and, I just it's really not. It's not. And especially with this younger group of people that are coming up, I can see if you're targeting a a sort of an older clientele, but and they're like, oh, having some issues with it or whatever. It's it's the new regular mail. Right? So if if you want to have somebody in your inbox or show up and and then, you know, for me, if I need somebody to do my roof, I and I had someone there, I go right back to my email box and say, you know, this person worked well with me. Everything went well.
Kristyn Neal [00:17:33]:
And now where who is their contact information? It's right there easy for me to connect with versus me trying to remember who they are and find them on a directory and then, you know, connect with them again. So, I think it's it's really got its place in marketing.
Laura Kåmark [00:17:51]:
Absolutely. I mean and for the people listening who maybe haven't been spending as much time on growing that email list, Do you have anything that you would say to them on when the best time for them to start is or on any sort of encouragement for I also know I for me, I had a block for a long time of emailing my sad little tiny list when I had it when it was I was like, it's so small, and what if people are mean to me? What if they write back mean things, which no one did? But, I mean, for anyone who might have a little, like, hesitation or and that's actually not true. I had one person who, like, wrote unsubscribe, and they were like, you have typos on you have 2 typos on your home page. And I was like, what? I had to call in a friend to, like I could not find what he was talking about. There was, like, 2 grammatical errors. I'm like, I'm not perfect. So that's fine. Thank you.
Laura Kåmark [00:18:41]:
Goodbye. Like, you are not if you if that bothers you, you should not be on my list or in my world because I'm not the right person for you. I'm way too easy breezy for it to be like, it's not buttoned up and Oxford comma in this room.
Kristyn Neal [00:18:56]:
No. That's so funny that you say that because I always think it's funny when I do get an email back. Not funny, but I just don't know who has time to be doing that. I just need to to write back to somebody. And I think maybe sometimes they're trying to be helpful. Like, oh, you have 2 typos or whatever, and and maybe you wanna fix those, and that's cool. And other times, you know, you get an email that is, like, who do you have time to write all these emails to these people? It just seems like a waste of time to me. Just move on with your life.
Kristyn Neal [00:19:25]:
Right? So yeah. I I mean, I would say that you should start as soon as you want to, as soon as you're comfortable or as soon as you start your business collecting emails even if you do nothing with them immediately. But even emailing a small list is is good and better than, you know, waiting. One of the challenges that I had was that I was emailing my list, and then I had, my health issue and cancer. And since I sort of stopped back, I stopped back from it. I was not able to, you know, keep up with the emails to my list. So I had to warm up my list again and say to them, like, hey. I'm back.
Kristyn Neal [00:20:08]:
And I sent out a funny little email just saying, like, hi. I'm back, and hey, Kristyn. Where you been? Like and then sort of explaining what's been going on. And and I actually did get a couple of nice emails, back regarding my health and my cancer and all that. And so, that was actually nice to see that somebody was actually reading my emails when they came in and not just deleting them, so it was pretty exciting. And every day, I just go about trying to add more people into it And, you know, if they're a good fit for my for what I'm offering them and and how I can serve them, then that's that's the people I wanna be in front of.
Laura Kåmark [00:20:48]:
Exactly. Yeah. I always get so excited when because I have a number of people on my list who I know personally. And then I have, like, the strangers, and they write back. I'm like, oh, this is fun. Let's start a little conversation. I love hearing from people on my list. It feels very special when I get replies, and it does.
Laura Kåmark [00:21:06]:
It's like, oh, someone's reading this, and it's not just going out into the void because sometimes it feels like that.
Kristyn Neal [00:21:12]:
Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
Laura Kåmark [00:21:16]:
So I wanna talk a little bit about the tech side of your business as a website and tech integration specialist. I love all things tech. What would you say is, like, one of your favorite tech tools that you use?
Kristyn Neal [00:21:35]:
So I have a lot of my business going through Kajabi. So a lot of everything is wrapped up in that, in that tool. So I don't have a ton of extra tools, at the moment. But I do use chatgpt as a tech tool to try to help generate ideas, for myself. And, I think, like, the most important takeaway from chat gpt is and we used to say this in in my corporate life is crap in, crap out kind of thing. So
Laura Kåmark [00:22:09]:
you could
Kristyn Neal [00:22:09]:
put if you don't put the right information in, you can't feel comfortable with the information that's coming out of it. So you do have to know what you're putting in as valid information, and, it's not just hallucinating and throwing off, crazy comments to you. But I do use that to sometimes generate ideas when I have a a block, or if I'm looking to, you know, rewrite a piece of content or change the tone, something's not clear, I sometimes will ask for some clarification. So that has been great from a AI perspective.
Laura Kåmark [00:22:43]:
Yeah. I've been going down the AI rabbit hole for about the last year. That's been really interesting. It's been interesting to see how chat GPT's kind of evolved in different ways. And I still there's something I gave it the other day, and it just was like, I can't help you with that. I'm like, what? Yes. You can. I was like, write this, add some empathy to the start of this email that is you know, talks about this, this,
Kristyn Neal [00:23:09]:
and that.
Laura Kåmark [00:23:09]:
It's like, I can't help you. I'm like, what? Try again. And I was like, oh, okay. I can't. And it's, yeah, it's been interesting, journey for sure. For someone who wants to use a little bit of Chat GPT in their marketing, what are some things, aside from what you've already mentioned about it, that some good ways to use AI in marketing to generate ideas?
Kristyn Neal [00:23:33]:
So I actually use it a lot, and this isn't to generate ideas, but, just as an idea of how I use it in marketing is I use it a lot to analyze information. And so either whether that comes to be, like, an article or a, you know, some piece of video content that I just don't have time to listen to. And I'm like, here, put this in here and tell me what the summary of of this article is, right, and and give me the high points. Or, for my clients sometimes, often do social media analytic. So I can use it to analyze the impact of social media, and what they're doing well and what competitors are doing well so that they're able to get that information, and then we use that content creation or ways to talk to our audience and tone and language to use that will resonate with the audience. So taking data that we know is doing well and being able to analyze it and driving our marketing through actual figures and numbers is one of the best ways that I found to use the tool.
Laura Kåmark [00:24:54]:
So then what what numbers are you take or data are you putting in there? What it I want I wanna hear more about this.
Kristyn Neal [00:25:02]:
Yeah. So, with our social media clients, we're able to just you know, which we have a a few people that we do the analytics for their social media. We'll we can take aspirational, you know, say somebody's got a wonderful channel that they're promoting a bunch of information on and and you, as the business owner, wanna be like them. Right? That's who you're aspiring to be. So we can take their do some with the tool that I have, we can go back into the back end of it and see how what kind of content they're putting out. And then we do some manual analysis of that content and adjusting it, and then we would put it into there for them to see the tool, g p trap u t t to find the patterns. So it's sort of a 3 step process. 1 is extracting information identify or I guess 4 steps.
Kristyn Neal [00:25:54]:
Like, one is identifying, you know, what content do we want to do we aspire to be like as a business owner, then kind of looking at that person's content as a second step. Then we do some manual, manipulation of that, and then we ask chatJPT to go ahead and provide sort of the summary or the high points, and we can ask it for what are the keywords, what is the tone that the person is talking in, what, you know, what patterns are you seeing throughout this content, and it can summarize all of that for us. And then we can move that forward to our content creation team who help build the content.
Laura Kåmark [00:26:34]:
Oh, that's awesome. I love I love all hearing how people use ChatGPT in different ways because, I mean, it's just the the ideas are endless. So it's a lot
Kristyn Neal [00:26:45]:
of fun.
Laura Kåmark [00:26:45]:
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Kristyn Neal [00:26:47]:
Absolutely.
Laura Kåmark [00:26:48]:
That's super fun. So I would like to know I wanna talk a little bit about some of the challenges, when you that you've overcome since starting your business. You know, we all kinda go through this different journey and have it's not, you know, it's entrepreneurship. It's not all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. It's It's not. Not today. Tomorrow's not looking good either. Well, I would love to hear about you know, when you first went out on your own, what were some of the fears and doubts that you had?
Kristyn Neal [00:27:23]:
I think the biggest I have 2, really, that I think were the biggest. 1 is has been imposter syndrome and just I'm I know other people struggle with it, but I really was like, and I still am and kind of have to, like, pull myself out of this thinking that everybody knows what I know because lots of people know what I know, but lots of people do not know what I know about marketing. And, you know, when I talk to my clients about things, they're like, this is this has been great. This is such good information, and they find it very helpful. And I think that my teaching sort of background and lecturing at the school sort of had me lean into kind of the explanation, on the side of things. And the other thing I think has just really been stepping outside of my comfort zone. You know, coming from a corporate background, I went in. I worked hard.
Kristyn Neal [00:28:20]:
I did my work, and that was it. But, you know, this experience as an entrepreneur and starting my business has been, nothing that I've done before and really had to say, like, okay. What what am I willing to do, and what am I able to do? And look at it that way. So really stepping outside of my own comfort zone.
Laura Kåmark [00:28:43]:
I always find it interesting too, like, the things that feel so hard when we do them and then we continue to do them. And then it's, you know, it's it's stretching that muscle and making getting out of your comfort zone to do, like, whatever that one thing is. And then it does get easier the more you do it. It's really hard at the beginning.
Kristyn Neal [00:29:04]:
Yes. It can be. And I was even when I started teaching at the, at the college, I I didn't really like to stand up in front of groups, and I was like, this is gonna be hard, but it was always something I wanted to do. So I said, I'm I'm gonna go ahead and do this. And I remember the 1st day of class that I did that, the 1st year, and I thought this is this I'm gonna have a heart attack, I think. You know? I was so nervous. It was really it was really, hard. And then it just was like, okay.
Kristyn Neal [00:29:34]:
I'm I'm good. They you know, I'm in here, and I'm okay. And I'm gonna live through this experience, and now it sort of is is second nature to me to be able to stand up in front of small groups of people and and talk with them about marketing eventually. That's I
Laura Kåmark [00:29:51]:
love that. That's amazing. What, what would you say that you're doing that's being bold in the industry? How are you showing up different than some of the other people who are doing marketing?
Kristyn Neal [00:30:08]:
So I think that there's probably others that are doing this. But I find that a lot of my clients that I'm working with, I am trying to teach them along the way. It's probably the teacher in me.
Laura Kåmark [00:30:22]:
Yep.
Kristyn Neal [00:30:23]:
And, so one of the things that I have heard back from clients and prospective clients is, thank you sort of for teaching me this, or will you talk because a lot of times an agency will just take it on, work through the problem, and then when the company is ready, wants to take it back, they'll just go, okay. Well, here are the log ons for that, and then they'll just sort of, like, leave them with that information. You know, I think the idea many times being is, like, if we're separating ways, then I don't really owe you any kind of, time or or insight into my head or the way that things were going. And I try to not look at it from that perspective because my goal is to help small businesses and business owners, you know, enhance the community and feed their families and all of those things. So I really want, you know, to be able to share some of the knowledge along the way. Some people want it. Some people don't, but it just depends on the on the person. But if if I'm able to, I like to be able to do that as well.
Laura Kåmark [00:31:31]:
I can relate to that so much because with all my clients, I am I love Loom. Loom is one of my favorite tools. I create Loom videos because I want to empower my clients to be able to go in and make changes to their website, understand fully, like, the tech setup that we have going on for their emailing and all their automations and things. And not a lot of web designers do that. I had one client. I didn't build her website, but I do maintenance on it now. And she had her LinkedIn profile or, like, the link for her LinkedIn, icon. She had changed the profile name on LinkedIn, so it was no longer working.
Laura Kåmark [00:32:11]:
And I went into the website, and it should have been super easy to find, but it wasn't. And it's not a complicated website, but it was somewhere, like, deeply coded in the website. I spent a few different, like, hours trying to find it. On different days, I had friends that would come and we'd do a share screen hop in. We're, like, poking around. We could not find wherever the developer put this code for her LinkedIn. And so I said to her, hey. Could you just and, like, we figured out a workaround when my girlfriends and I of, like, using a plugin, better search and replace where we could just replace the URL, but I'm, like, the problem solver and the puzzle solution person in me was like, I want to know where it is.
Laura Kåmark [00:32:48]:
And so I asked her to reach out to developer and just see if they would tell us where it was. And he basically was like, I can either show you and charge you x amount of dollars or for 50% less, I will just go do it for you. And so then he just went and did it, and still we, to this day, have no idea where it is. And I'm like, that's kind of a jerky thing to do. Like, to have something on it's her website. She should be able to go in and make changes to it. Like, that doesn't seem okay to me. And I think there is I don't know if it's the women in the industry.
Laura Kåmark [00:33:20]:
I don't know if we just have dealt with a lot of that sort of thing in life that it doesn't feel okay for us to, like, lock down our clients' stuff. Like, I want my clients to understand how everything works and have full access to do it.
Kristyn Neal [00:33:33]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I know in the past, I've worked with people who were helping build a website at one of the firms I was at, and they and I just so this is we're gonna be able to go in there and make changes. Right? Like, this is not gonna be complicated, and they were like, yes. We're gonna set it up for you to make changes. But I wonder that's sort of to your point, that makes sense. Like, is it women that are sort of, like, wanting to make sure things are taken care of and that somebody can actively participate in it or men that wanna gatekeep it a little bit more. I I don't have there's no evidence to anybody.
Kristyn Neal [00:34:06]:
It's just an interesting question.
Laura Kåmark [00:34:08]:
It's just something, yeah, that I've definitely noticed, as I've taken over, like, other websites. There was another website I recently, you know, have a new client that came on, and they had the developer had put in code to, like, hide all, on WordPress websites. There's, like, plugins that need updating and all these things because all the security updates and software updates come out. And there was code they put in to hide that there's any updates available. And so I'm like, why would you do that? Like, it's you're it's like disabling, like, the smoke detector or the gas, gauge in a car. That's how that feels. That's a better analogy. So you wouldn't know when you're running out of gas.
Kristyn Neal [00:34:48]:
Wow. That's that's something.
Laura Kåmark [00:34:50]:
Yeah. So I I really feel strongly, like, I thought going back to the point of just really empowering our clients, and showing up in a way and supporting our clients in a way where they are empowered to understand the work we do for them and how we help them, and it's more collaborative.
Kristyn Neal [00:35:07]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I love that about, being able to have those conversations with them. And, you know, sometimes I'll talk to a a client of mine, and she was like, you know what I would just really love is, like, a glossary of all the marketing terms, you know, like, because somebody will be talking, and she's like, I just don't understand all of the things, and I don't understand how they work together. So I feel like that's that's the key to all of this is is you can hire somebody to do this social media. You can hire somebody to do the content. You can hire someone to do the website. But if you don't understand how all these things work together, which is sort of where I come in, I I still could be using my team over here that does content or the website site over there, team that does that, or your website team that does that does it and handles it for another company.
Kristyn Neal [00:35:56]:
But if they don't really understand, you know, how these things work together for their benefit, then it's just really hard for them to get behind why we're suggesting a certain action or a certain strategy for them. So I that's why I kinda lean towards that that side of thing and being more collaborative and and sharing that knowledge that I have. I love that.
Laura Kåmark [00:36:20]:
I also find that I just I I'm I like my clients to be long term clients. I create long term relationships. It's not like a one and done ever with me. Like, they don't get rid of me. We we're gonna hang out for a long time. So my clients are my most favorite people. And so I think it also just really helps in having that open communication so that everyone's clear and on the same page as much as I try not to get too technical with people because I can see it when I do sometimes.
Kristyn Neal [00:36:48]:
I was
Laura Kåmark [00:36:49]:
on a call before we got on this interview, and I I was getting a little too technical about something. She's like, I don't understand what you're saying. So, yeah, it's fine. I'm like, okay. Sorry. I got a little excited.
Kristyn Neal [00:37:00]:
Yeah. It does happen. It does. I mean, I'm I'm always like, oh, wait a minute. I could see on your face that you're not with me. Let me back up. A good thing
Laura Kåmark [00:37:10]:
I promise. Don't worry. Just sit there like, uh-huh. Oh, I love that. Oh my goodness. Kristyn, I could sit and talk with you about this all day long. This is so fun. But we are getting close to our time, and I do have one question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, and that is what is one piece of advice you would give someone when they are growing and scaling their business to help them be bolder, be louder, and make waves?
Kristyn Neal [00:37:39]:
I think the best advice I could give would be to step out of your comfort zone as much as you can. It doesn't mean you have to love the thing you step into, but you'll never know if you don't take that step and try something new.
Laura Kåmark [00:37:54]:
Oh, that's so good. Yes. I love it. Oh, Kristyn, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners where they can go find you, hang out with you, find out more about your services, all the things?
Kristyn Neal [00:38:07]:
Sure. I am, at my website, of course, dream in color marketing.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, and I'm for Kristyn l Neil. And on, Instagram, I am at to dream in marketing dot com dream in color marketing dot com.
Laura Kåmark [00:38:25]:
Wonderful. I will link all that up in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on today. This was such a fun conversation.
Kristyn Neal [00:38:30]:
Thank you for having me. So good. I'm glad you were able to chat.
Laura Kåmark [00:38:35]:
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at laurakamark.com/podcast. And if you're ready to turn your website into a marketing machine, get more sales, save time, and simplify the back end of your business, grab my free resource, power integrations for your website. Head on over to lauracomark.com/power. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe. And also, I'll just love you forever if you leave me a review. It helps get this podcast in front of other people that can help inspire. Thanks so much for listening.
Laura Kåmark [00:39:13]:
I'll see you next week. Bye now.