Athletes online: From career ending injury to winning in the online business game ft Rachel Ngom
How, can you best use, the internet to join the number of successful, former, athletes online. Even. If you weren't the star of your sport well today we will chat with former. All American volleyball player Rachel. And going to get a shortcut, and a very specific strategy on how to best build a sustainable online, brand, and online business so. Stay tuned, this is athlete story and I'm your host and coach and your buddy yeah dedicate. It to helping former athletes like you own your sports career like other people may, have an MBA if. You are world-class athlete or simply into sports success you subscribe, to my show right now because I'll be posting a lot more athlete stories and chats, with world-class, sports insiders, and experts, Rachel's. Success formula is not about using a household name or some claim to fame or number of followers that, could have been an advantage but Rachel and gum didn't have that from a sports career but she did have there was her, athlete, mindset, and once, she tapped into that she showed up consistently, trusting. Her ability, to learn and improve, through trials and errors and getting. Back up to put herself back out there again and again and again just like, youth that's what you did as an athlete to. Win the Junior Olympics, and become, an all-american, volleyball, player now in this episode rachel. Shares a short, version of the story and a, lot about how. She's making an impact online, with. A business sense consistently. Attracting, real, buyers online, rather, than constantly, chasing. Attention. In vain on social, media so, listen. In and take advantage of Rachel's. Generosity. With her experience, as a former, athlete gone. Online business, let's. Welcome Rachel, and going from she's making and impact calm. Hi, Rachel, good, story. Hey thanks, for having me I'm very very happy you could do this so you've been an athlete yourself I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about that and and where, you're going now so my, athlete, background was I played volleyball for. Time. About ten years I played. In. The Junior Olympics we actually won the Junior Olympics competed, in China played, in Italy I was an all-american got, a full ride scholarship, to play at the University of Illinois. That's where I had, a career-ending. Injury, to, my, ribcage which, was kind of a blessing in disguise because, I was able to take six months off and go to Kenya, and do an internship over there and. Then come, back at my Masters, in Social Work and since. Then, I started my own business and, right. Now I am working, with female entrepreneurs, helping them get more leads and sales with interest short, short version how did you make. That move over to social, media and Pinterest, and all that yeah. So I actually, started off in the fitness space back. Seven. Years ago this is crazy. So. A, lot, of the success that I had with my fitness business, was on social media and so I had a lot of entrepreneurs asking me to help them with their social media and then I just kind of decided that was, what, really kind. Of like lit my soul on fire it was working, with other business, owners and really helping them see, success, and so it was been a little, over a year since I made that transition out, of the fitness space and a, full-force, into my brand she's making an impact, and.
That's What we've been doing ever since. So. That was very fast but your brand is called she's making an impact yep, right so let's say this is all completely, new to you you you hardly know what, a blog postings, yeah, or you at least you don't know how to get. Started writing, one where, would you get started if you want to either go to expert, on I don't know tennis. Fitness for example, for. Sure I have a ton, of resources. Blog posts free content, on my website so, you can just go to she's making an impact calm, I'll teach you how to write a killer blog post I've got a free Pinterest masterclass. I've got everything, there to really help you get started Oh excellent. When you first got started I think, you were doing network, marketing. Yep. Yeah network marketing so you were basically, selling, products, and having. Other people help. Sell those. Products for, a fitness company. Or was it is a nutrition, company I think right both. Fitness, and nutrition right now, that's a very popular way. For athletes to. To make some extra money and yeah every tire did. You start. That whole business on by. Creating your Facebook page and then you, you. See this, is this is working this is working until the algorithm changed. The, algorithm, meaning how Facebook. Chooses, to show your, content, to people and then. From, there on you've, you figure out, this. Is not. The. Good way or did you start all the way out in. Like. Person to person and more physically, or you were you directly, off unto, thee I did. Everything, under the Sun to try and have success, in my network marketing business I mean I failed, for a good two years before. I learned how to actually use Facebook, the right way, so, I sucked, I was I did cold Kali and I bought leads I did person a person like I tried anything I'd hosted fit clubs I did everything and. It was one I learned how to use Facebook the right way that's, when my business really took off so, it was a matter of just being relentless. And just, tried something else and, so I was, like okay this cold killing thing like this does not Park I had to try something else try something else try something else and then I finally found something that worked until. It didn't so I said okay that was great but now we have to find something else and that's when I found Pinterest, and what, you're teaching people if, we, can put it like an athlete's perspective, to it so we, if you try to imagine you're an. Athlete, or former, athlete who wants to get more. Speaking. Gigs or get booked for conference. Or maybe, even find sponsors, or just, put yourself out there and make, your story be heard and how would you go about doing that oh gosh well I think the biggest thing is having a personal brand so building, your personal brand we, use our blog for that and now our podcasts, it doesn't mean you have to be a blogger necessarily. But it means having content, it could be from a podcast, YouTube channel something that you're putting it on your blog Pinterest, drives traffic to that, blog and, that's just gonna help you get, more eyeballs on, everything, that you're putting out there and so we use Pinterest, as kind of the lead generation. To. Get people to see the content that we're creating and, from there we can get them on to our email list and then market products, and services to our customers, right. Why would you say Pinterest, works better for this than other like, the more social, media where more athletes, are on like Instagram, and and Facebook, can totally. Yeah. So in my fitness business actually, built my Facebook fan page to over 50,000. Followers my Instagram, to over 20,000, and it, worked really well until, the. Logarithm changed, and then all, the traffic I used, to get it was completely, gone and so I was kind of scrambling, trying to make things happen and that's, when I stumbled upon, Pinterest. And blogging and so I just started creating content putting on Pinterest, I didn't have this huge strategy, behind it but, I noticed, that I was getting a lot more traffic to my website so I'm like where are all these people coming from, and I saw that there were over. 34,000. People per month coming, to, to. My blog from Pinterest, and the crazy thing is I checked my analytics, it's been about, one year, since, I actually touched, that, blog uploaded.
Any Content, did anything on Pinterest literally it's I haven't done anything with that business the, traffic, is actually increased, from Pinterest over, that year so. I mean it's just a way for you to get in front of so many more people it's a way for you to work smarter. Because whenever you post something on Facebook and Instagram if, part. Of your audience use it like 1% it's, gone within 24 hours so you're working so hard to create new content, all the time it's kind of like that rat race you, could work so much smarter just by putting your content up on Pinterest, and literally. Stuff that I posted, and I saw one where from April 2015. It's. Still bringing traffic to my site that's, amazing, well, I guess it's also, when. You post on Instagram, or Facebook you. Well. That's at least my experience I don't, always see what I want to see so I suppose that the people who see what I post may, not even want to see what I post whereas. On Pinterest. People, are searching, for things and that's how they find you right exactly. That's why it's so powerful Pinterest, is a search engine so it's really not like another, social media platform so, if you can get in the head of your ideal client and figure out what they're searching for when, they get onto Pinscher when, they search for that they can find you so, we've dumped myself and a bunch of my clients I've gone through my course pen with purpose they've actually dominated. The intermittent, fasting space, for women because this, is such like a it's a good niche on Pinterest, and when people are searching for that they're finding us, so, if you can understand, keyword, terms and search engine it's brilliant. So. I'm, gonna, try not make it too technical, for. Sure yeah wait. If you were to try. And get let's say try, and get booked for to, come and tell you speech and get paid for that what. Kind of, things. Would you post and how would you go about doing it so if you're talking about like an athlete, what are the what's their niche what do they do Abe well. Let's say it's a tennis. Player who. Has. Retired but wants to still, leverage. That, maybe, they have a little bit of an household, name and they, have a good athlete story they know how to talk about for example. Resilience. And overcoming, obstacles, right, they want to pitch that so that they get a speaking, gig in, a, corporation. Or a bigger organization, okay. Making a bit of extra money off of that. So. In terms of pitch II and I don't do any pitching, with Pinterest, I would be privately. Reaching out to somebody via, email, or even direct, mail to get their information, or to get on their radar even. Instagram, direct messaging, but, in terms of Pinterest, and generating leads it's more for building. Your email list and, actually making sales not, necessarily. Getting, like media publicity attention. Although it's possible but that's not what I use it for so the idea is to get people onto your site and then capture their email yep. Exactly, so, it's just a matter of knowing who, are you trying to attract, and what are they searching for, so that when they search for it they find you all, right so, let's go back to building a brand if you want to build a brand as an athlete or, a former, athlete and maybe you don't, have a huge number of followers on Instagram, or Facebook or, maybe you don't even want to go that way can you build a brand using. Pinterest. For, sure I mean, you want to help people and solve a problem that they have and you can do that with your content so, someone, is searching for something they find you they land on your blog let's say you write a blog post it. Could be about like athlete nutrition, or whatever it is that you want to talk about and, they read it and they think wow that was so helpful how else can I learn from this person and that's when they start looking around how can they work with you how can they get on your email list and you really start to build a relationship with, them that way let's, say you, can maybe write one article blog. Post a month because, that's all the time you've got can. You still get. Enough. Interest on a thing like Pinterest, by you know posting, different. Things that lead to that same article. Totally. So I teach within my, course to actually create, at least five, different images. Per blog post so, that way you'll have more content that you can be published in so you could create pins. That have different headlines, that are leading to the same blog post so, for. Example I I've been running a website. Called strong skier, there's. Many many years so, I have, like a very. Nice, in-depth, blog post up there about, core training for skiing or balance. And all. These kinds of things are hard to prepare for skiing yeah, and, so.
Instead, Of trying constantly. Trying to find new angles. To kind of moreless those same things and write, new blog posts I would, keep, those blog. Posts there and but, then, renew. The. Doorway, through Pinterest. Through those five hi yeah I mean you totally could do that I do suggest creating, content on a consistent basis. Because you're building an audience and, that audience is, looking into, you to be consistent, and show up for them right so, in terms of building pretty new people to your site you could totally be doing that and just creating different images and using different headlines, but, you want to make sure that you're nurturing your current audience too so, I suggest. Blogging, every, week if you can but, maybe you do it twice a month if you can or once, a month but ideally, you're doing that on a consistent basis, and just adding a lot of value within, that one blog post all. Right if, you're already on Instagram, and Facebook, and, Twitter and you feel like okay this is what, would you choose and how do you see the future of this, whole. Social. Media marketing. Right. I mean I wish I would. Choose Pinterest, just because it's gonna give you the most return for your time investment, and so you will spend a few hours getting, it set up and really understanding, the platform, but. Like I said I haven't touched my fitness blog in a year and it's still bringing that many leads and so it's the lowest, maintenance, platform. Out there if you, were gonna do two, platforms I would do Pinterest. And YouTube in, conjunction with your blog because those are the search engine platforms, and, that's where you can really control how people are finding you because they're searching for something and then they find you after. That I would probably do Instagram just because of Instagram stories, and you can build a relationship with your audience there, but. I don't really use Instagram. To get new leads into my business I take, the leads that I'm getting from Pinterest, and then, through, our email, funnel, we have emails that we send to them I tell, them to go follow me on Instagram, because I provide different tips and resources there, so, I'm using that as a place to build a relationship with my people that, makes perfect sense to me because you are, in a in an environment, where people actually, are, looking for things, exactly. Yeah okay, so now we're. Trying to build our emailing, list how. Often do you need to email people to use, stay. In contact with them and get that relationship, going so I suggest, starting with a nurture, sequence and, that's basically the first 3 to 5 emails that you're gonna send them after they subscribe, I actually send an email per day for an entire week, just because people are subscribing to stuff all the time and if you send one email and then they don't hear from you again for another month they're gonna have no idea who the heck you are and so you want to make a good first impression and, stay on their radar so, email, them I mean maybe it's the first 3 days that they subscribe, but, you're staying in contact with them and then after that I email at least once a week I never go one week without emailing my list just because out of sight out of mind I don't want them to forget about me right.
So. The nurturing, sequence, is equally what would that include, just. This is who I am and this is how I can help you and is, that what it goes or is it more like personal stories, and you're already writing. As if you're friends, all, of the above so every email has a specific, purpose and I'll have a specific, call to action in that so one of the first emails is actually, I call it the what what. This says about you email so, I'm really speaking more about my, ideal client and about them and so I'm like hey you signed, up because you. Have, bigger dreams a bigger vision bigger goals all these things I'm, here to guide you and to help you along the journey and then I use that, email. Every, email like I said as this was specific. Call to action so and one of those emails I might say respond. Back and tell me what your biggest struggle is right now and what your goals are or, another call to action might be go. Follow, me on Instagram or another call to action might be here's, another blog post that's really gonna help you within, our business we actually use our nurture sequence we call it a funnel, where we're trying to get them to do a specific action, so we host a free Pinterest, masterclass, and so, within those emails, I'm teaching, about Pinterest, and so, a lot of times they have common misconceptions. Or why you should use Pinterest, so I'm kind of getting them used to the concept, of using Pinterest for their business and then, within two of those emails I'm inviting, them to actually get on that free master class where they can learn more make. Sense that makes total sense yeah, now. Um there's. This athlete. Story and so I, always try to link the. Athlete, story to what, the rest of the, advice is that we're hearing yeah, do you feel like you use anything, from, your, athletic, background in, what you do today oh, of. Course. Oh my gosh so much, discipline. Is huge so, just being disciplined to show up and be consistent, I think that's really big visualizing. So, visualizing your success I remember when I was I think a freshman in high school my coach actually had us have quiet time before our matches where we had visualized, ourselves getting the kill and getting the ACE and all these things so I do that in my business where I visualize, the success that I'm gonna have that's. Like it's crazy how well that works it's so insane. Consistency. Discipline. Being, on time so I'm never late for anything. And. Teamwork too so we have it like a killer team and there's, no way I'd be able to do everything that we're doing right now without them what, else that's, the main stuff and I guess being relentless, too you, have to be relentless if you want to be successful in business and, are you competitive oh my, gosh yeah I've toned. Down quite, a bit over the past couple years because I married a very non competitive, person which is funny because he's an athlete too he's, a horse trainer but he just likes to do, it for fun I. Don't. Know. But. Yeah I've toned down a little bit over the years but my whole family is super competitive I mean we've played there's, a game in America called spoons where it's like a card game and everyone grabs a spoon and we've actually like drawn blood to playing that game how, competitive everyone is so actually not a lot of play that game anymore. But, yeah very competitive. I think that's actually something that could, do you a disservice if, you're trying to be an entrepreneur because you might be comparing, yourself to other people and trying to when you really should be staying in your own lane and just be better, than who you were yesterday right, and. How. About patience. Is patience, a good thing in this game or you, have to be patient I mean because a lot of people think like they expect, overnight results.
And That's not gonna happen I mean my. This business, really, took off really. Quickly she's making an impact but. It's it's, because, I had six years of prior entrepreneurial, experience. That, I could apply into. This business and so, you're probably gonna suck for years, and you have to know that like I said I sucked for two years before I started to really get success, and get traction so you have to be patient and relentless. Like you just have to keep going try something new find a different strategy learn, from a mentor keep growing. I definitely think one thing that that actually talked about this on my Pinterest workshop, is that if you want to be the best like an Olympic athlete you. Have to learn from the best and so hiring the best coaches, getting, the best strategies. Investing. In yourself because you invest in yourself to learn from a good coach right why wouldn't you do the same thing in your business exactly. That's why I'm trying to bring all, the best people like you on, the bill, so that the. Listeners and viewers have, liked the best advice out there thank you so much for these excellent, tips and I. Hope that's encouraging, people to get something started and, take advantage of all, this technology that, can really help us not stress out too much about it but take the, advantages, and leave the rest out of the game for. Sure thank you so much for having me all right thank you.
2019-02-23 22:34
