Build Relationships & Humanize Your Marketing w/ TaVona Denise
Building quality relationships with people in the online world is an art form. It’s also a skill that can be learned.
I don’t ever want to lose touch with the part of me that’s excited to shine a light on someone else—and that is precisely what we’re diving into in this episode. Meet my friend: TaVona Denise. Sometimes… relationships get started in the DMs of Instagram. Yes, that’s exactly how TaVona & I connected!
Mid road trip, I found myself listening to a podcast where TaVona was being interviewed. I kid-you-not, I wasn’t 5 minutes into the episode when I paused it, jumped over to Instagram, & said something along the lines of “Hi new friend! I’m listening to your podcast interview with Rick Mulready & I couldn’t wait to connect!”
We went on to learn that we share a nickname because of our people-ing skills! Today, we are on a mission to share the best practices of connecting with other business owners, humanizing your marketing, & the benefit (to you and your clients) of a quality referral network. Tap that play button & let’s go!
With this podcast episode:
Learn how to harness the power of relationship marketing in this online world.
Discover the nickname that TaVona & Brittany share (and why).
Uncover why it’s so important to be open to meeting people in 2024.
Don’t forget you can submit a question that will get answered in an upcoming podcast!
Meet: TaVona
TaVona uses her unique background as a physical therapist and a concept she created called Minimalist Marketing™ to help entrepreneurs with big hearts build businesses full of their favorite clients.
Links & Mentioned Resources:
TaVona’s interview w/ Rick Mulready
Connect w/ TaVona:
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome to the basic be podcast, a show for the wannabe SEO savvy service providers among us for the coaches and consultants who dream of becoming known for their storytelling skills, not to mention the solopreneurs who straight up need to master all things social proof to increase sales. After a little reluctantly, fully committing to this online world of business. I quickly realized I needed to get people to come to me, I needed to tell them I was here and how I could support them. I dove headfirst into social proof which led me to SEO which led me to storytelling. And now it gives me great joy to share what I've learned with other business owners so they skip the hard stuff and ease straight into sales. This podcast gives you expert insights, actionable takeaways, and casual Convos with some of the online world's best and brightest experts and strategists. I think that's enough of an intro. So here we go. We have my friend Teavana here do you call by Tirana or Giovanna Denise I always just call you to mana well
TaVona Denise: 0:59
on internet history in Santa Monica Denise and it's only because way back in the day like in 2008 Somebody already had my domain name. I'm supposed to be like Oprah, Beyonce to vana that's what it's supposed to be like, but here we are to Vana. Denise. Well, they're within another I know. And I've recently discovered that there are multiple Britney Herzberg spelled the same way. Two of them had curly hair, one of them ordered, like some underwear or something, and she typed in your email address wrong. And it came to my email. And normally I don't click on stuff like that. But I clicked on it. And I was like, Wait, this is a legit order for actual human. So here's how SEO works. All right, we're just gonna dive into this thing. I went to LinkedIn and I typed in Britney Herzberg ended up finding the person and I wrote the message. Notice, like, Excuse me, this is gonna sound very out of left field, but did you purchase from this company recently? It's just like I did, I was like, okay, the message ended up in my inbox. Could I get that to you? She was so grateful. But I was like, This is so weird. Until recently, I have never met another Teavana. And even then it's not spelled the same, but close enough. We recently discovered that we both say the same phrase, which is that we are the Kevin Bacon of the online world. And so we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about relationship marketing, and what that looks like working with nirvana. And what that looks like working with me. Shall we share a little bit, I guess we should set up our story about how we met how you stopped reading. Oh, just kidding. I did. I heard you. I mean, you say some magical stuff on a podcast, I'm finding you and I'm saying hello. When I'm 10 minutes into the podcast, it's just gonna happen. You're not the first fret, like legit friend that I've met that just like slid into my DMs on Instagram, like, Hello, we're gonna be friends. And I'm like, okay, but I'm open to it. And I think that's part of the process. Because some Pete wins, somebody slides into their DMS like that. They're like, Oh, who is this? What do they want from me? And that's dependent on my DMs. Right, I might have that same thought. But most of the time, I'm very curious about the person who's on the other end. And so it's really led to some beautiful things over the years. And I think I'm gonna I want to do a little sales job today, during this on the importance of just being open to meeting new people. Do you want to take it away with that? Do we do we have a soapbox moment or the soapbox moment, but I just think like with you, and here we are now one of my best friends in Playa Del Carmen Mexico, which is where I live, she slid into the environment was like, I'm going to be moving there. And I was like, okay, weird lady. Let me know if you actually do it. Because people said all the time, she came down. And it was it was amazing, like one of my besties now and so we cried together, we've traveled together. We've like we've made money together. It's it's an amazing, amazing thing. But I think a lot of times when people think about networking, it becomes this awkward salesy Judo match for who's going to sell who first. And I think the problem with that approach is it's short sighted people are not playing the long game. And I like to approach those situations of like, Who's the person in front of me, and I think about any kind of situation, but especially an official networking situation, when you walk into the room in the way I categories colorize them in my mind, there are four types of people that everybody thinks about the client. So we had that one move that other side, but then they're cheering. Yeah, you just go to the side, we know you're there. Right. But then there's cheerleaders, and those are people who will maybe never purchase from you, but they love you. And they, they support you. They want to support you, they know about your work, and you're gonna tell everybody about you. And then there's yes, that that is definitely you, I appreciate it. And then there's the collaborators where people have do something that's complementary to your work, say, for example, web designer and a copywriter. They go together like peanut butter and jelly one gets a client and that person they can make the introduction because that person would need their services and vice versa. And then I put this in air quotes all the time and I forgot this isn't the video so I can actually do the air quotes.
Brittany Herzberg: 4:58
Yeah, the competitors
TaVona Denise: 5:00
All right, yeah, some people think about competition, don't have them in your world. Don't let them know what you're doing. Don't be around them. And I'm like, why There's more than enough for everybody. But I also think about like referrals I come from a physical therapy, background healthcare, we're always referring. So either somebody's not the right vibe, somebody's not the right price point, somebody's not at the right stage of business or something like that. So you still want to know who those people are. And I think when you think about all of the four types of people, I just want to be curious about who it is in front of me. So then I can not be creepy when I'm in networking situations, and people are more open to want to continue the conversation and actually build a relationship. I love
Brittany Herzberg: 5:39
that you put competitors in air quotes, because I do the same thing. Like even just yesterday, I discovered threads is still a thing. It seems like it's having a little bit of a revival moment, which I'm I'm here for it. Because I've liked threads, I met some really cool people connected somebody else to another course creator. I'm like, what, this is amazing. And it still has that wild, wild west, like people are just here to be friendly, and you know, cheer each other on and hype each other up. It's great. So just yesterday, I was included in a thread where someone was asking for SEO service providers, and then some other things. I can't remember what they are. But this one comment had me and another woman in it. And I didn't I don't know her. So I clicked over. And of course, I friended her. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't feel like I've never heard about you. She's felt like 20 plus 1000 people on Instagram, and I just hadn't heard of her. And I reached out and said hi. And then immediately she was like, well, that immediately. But pretty soon on in the conversation, she was like, Oh my gosh, don't touch my content too harshly. I took a break from posting about SEO, I was like, Don't worry, I've been focusing on blog stuff I haven't been posting either. I love how you said that. Because I can't help everyone with SEO, I don't want to, there is stuff that I am not the expert at and I don't care to be, I would love to instead send people to so and so like, I really thrive on that. And you know, like the cheerleader and need the collaborator and me I live I live for that stuff like I'm live to be able to cheer someone on and send people their way. And this that's a huge part of why I'm even doing this kind of a series, I don't ever want to lose the part of me that's excited to shine a light on somebody else. And sure I do that with my work with case studies. But like, have all these amazing friends and genuinely everyone that's going to be on here as a friend. And I'm like, check this person out, check this other person.
TaVona Denise: 7:13
Like yeah, and I think we get to do that in our own way. And I think that's part of the reason why I started the coaches collective because I know so many incredible people. And it's a shame that y'all don't know each other. Like I can't be the only one being tapped into this brilliance. And so like, That's the spirit that I that I created in. And I don't know about you, Brittany, but I'm stepping into my season of ease. What is easy for me is to talk to people and to make friends with people and to cheer other people on and connect other people and let's just grow the thing together like a collaboration it doesn't. I don't think business has to be as complicated or hard and burdensome, burdensome as people make it out to be. It really doesn't. I think if we worked together more often and in a more intentional way, business would feel less lonely and less difficult. And I think if I'm correct me if I'm wrong, I think that's what you're trying to do, too, with the new service that that you're about to release. Yeah,
Brittany Herzberg: 8:15
I definitely want to talk about that. And there's like my brain just pinged on so many things to one is that, you know, going back to I have the massage therapy background, you have the PT background, it's almost like thinking of that client, and I can serve the client in one way, and then the client could go to you, and you can serve them in another way. And they're benefiting the whole way through because it is essential, because what I do is very much working with what you're doing and vice versa. And then there's going to be like an acupuncturist in there, and who knows who else in there too. So we could even think of it think of your business as that client, almost, if you're working with all these other different people, it's only going to benefit your business, it's only going to benefit just everyone, you your clients, the other people like it's just magical. But the other thing I wanted to touch on too is you said that you're moving into your season of ease, the thing that came to mind for me is that I really had to tone it down on networking events this year, because I realized that I wasn't nurturing the relationships I already had. And that made me really sad. So I was like, alright, we're just gonna pull back from that we're going to nurture the relationships, I can always step into this stuff. But I'm still I've still been meeting new people along the way. And I think it's because I'm open to it and not necessarily looking for it, but just open to it and aware of it and very much
TaVona Denise: 9:23
here for it. It's interesting, one of my business coaches is really into networking. And I think sometimes you gotta find the balance between the new people and the nurturing and the people that you already know. And I was like, wait a minute, sir. I have been working for a very long time. And I know a lot of people like a lot of people in my cell phone. And I think if I really just think about it, if social media went down tomorrow, I could rebuild my business from the contacts that I have on my cell phone alone. And so how do you come up with a way to stay in contact and nurture and build and continue to build the relationships that you Hang on, I think that's one of the reasons also why I created the collective is this like, let's be honest, it networking requires time. And so how do you be the most efficient and effective with your use of the time when you're a solopreneur, and you're wearing all of the hats in your business. And it's important to build the relationships. I love leverage. And you got to figure out how to do it in your business and how to be efficient and effective in what you do. So there's effective networking, but you can be going out and being a bunch of people in that deepening relationships, and then there's efficient networking. And so like, if anybody's watching this, and they're like, Yeah, I do networking, but I'm falling down on the follow up. My favorite little hack for this is if you're going to networking meetings, whether online or offline, and there is it's a recurring meeting, if you can't connect with everybody all the time, just send them a quick note to ask them will they be at the next meet and make it a point to, because one, that's you back in your inbox for a good reason. And then two, you can say, hey, well, let's meet up 510 minutes before or let's hang out 510 minutes afterwards, because you're already going to be there. So that's my little hack for keeping in touch with people when you're used to doing a lot of offline networking. In particular, I
Brittany Herzberg: 11:12
want to hear about the collective. So why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit more about the collective and then I'll share about my matchmaking thing? Yeah, well, essentially,
TaVona Denise: 11:19
the collective is for coaches, experts, consultants that have a heart to serve, and they want to collaborate with other people, they may be people who are done with the social media trap, I call it being stuck on the content treadmill, because you got to feed the beast. And we don't know if the algorithms don't serve up your content to whoever. And so really, when when you come into the collective, we do two things, we have a collaboration session where it's networking, that's not awkward and gross, it's really about how can we help. And I think that's one of the best ways to get to know somebody is to actually help them with their business. And it's also better than an elevator pitch to be able to explain what you're doing in your business. Yeah. And then the other thing that we do is boardroom sessions of which you're going to come in and do one offshore, where we bring in a subject matter expert around business, and they come and share their brilliance with us on their their area of expertise. Because I think there's a bowl thing and that they, we need to help each other. But then there are experts, you're into SEO, like really help a person figure that out for their business. And I There are so many things that we need to learn in business. And I'm really good at connecting people and resources. So I'm like, here's somebody that you can learn from that I know knows their stuff is good at what they do that cares about people, like go learn about SEO from Brittany, I
Brittany Herzberg: 12:42
love it. I can't wait to come in there and talk about SEO and all the things I live for those guest teaching moments because you get the best questions. And you really get to be seen as the person who's doing the talking and the sharing. And every time I do a talk, like I just did one last night. So it's very top of mind. For me, it reminds me what matters. And it reminds me the questions that people are asking and how I can really make an impact and how I can really help people. So what I'm doing over here with my my little like spiny hands is that this idea just it's been percolating for a very long time. And I have these skills, just like what you're talking about with like the natural connector and wanting to help people, even if I can't help them, I want to connect them with the people that I know in the programs and the resources. So for the longest time, I'm like, Alright, I'm just gonna be open whenever you're ready to hit me up universe just like let me know what it's going to be. Because I wanted to be able to monetize the skill, but in a way that didn't feel icky in a way that still really felt aligned and allowed me to not lose the essence of what I'm doing and how I want to help people. So I was talking with my business coach, and she was like, I told her the whole thing, just everything I just shared. And she was like, Well, what about like, online business? matchmaking? She's like, I mean, she knows the Kevin Bacon line. So she was like, What does Kevin Bacon do? Like when he already knows everybody? He he connects people, he recommends things. So like, why don't you go ahead and do that? Oh, yeah. So mine, yours is more of a group setting. Mine is much more of a one to one setting where someone comes in, they they know they have a need, or they know they have a desire, they might be interested in a program or a person or a coach or what have you. So I really help them to suss out like what do you really want? What do you need? What does it look like? Because you were even talking about the stuff earlier the price point, the vibe of the person, the structure of the program? Like what is it that you're actually looking for, and like I've got my own knowledge and expertise, I have like a plethora of friends like you who have been in all the other programs. It's just like, I'm so excited because I am going to hop on a call with these people talk with them about these things, create a report around what they've shared with me with suggestions like you were considering, you know, exhibit A, but you might want to consider considering Exhibit B, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but like you're gonna get more of the structure that you're wanting or the vibe that you're wanting from this other thing, and it's what I do naturally. Anyway, I have DMS and emails all day. You want out the wazoo because people know that I know things. And they want that support. They want that backup. They want that extra set of eyes that vetting process when they're when they're considering something. So I'm really stoked. And I'll make sure to have links to all of our all of our stuff all the time on this stuff. I'm really excited that we were finally able to have this conversation. Yeah, me too,
TaVona Denise: 15:19
me through, I think it's well placed. I think going into the next year, people really want people are more discerning and who they do business with and what programs they take. And I think it's helpful to know people like you and I that know a lot of people and who have been around for a while to participate in made the investments to be able to say like, Okay, well, this is the Bible over here. But if this is what you're looking for, you might want to consider XYZ over here. That's
Brittany Herzberg: 15:48
the thing that really has been on my heart for a while to just like, protect people from that, because I'm so tired. I'm tired of people saying, Oh, I signed up for this. And I was hoping to get this and none of it happened. And I'm so disappointed. And I'm out X amount of money. And it's not a little bit's amount of money. Like it's like, you know,$10,000, it's $3,000, it's$1,000 like, and you know, to each their own perspective shifts with with the amount of money, but that's a lot of money. And on top of that it's time investment. And it's an energy investment. So when you want to make sure that you're going into something that you're pretty confident is going to get you what you want. And the other thing that came to mind, too, is like Google can recommend things to a degree. But it's really nice, because what do we look for? We look for the testimonials, we look for the case studies, we look for the social proof. So if you've got someone who can say I went through this and or I know several people who went through this, and like we were talking before we started recording, but like people constantly come to us and spill the tea. And it's just helpful because like while it's you know, sure find it's interesting to hear the drama, I'm taking that information, and I'm using that for myself to vet something in the future, or to help someone else. Google doesn't always have the t just say, just saying, Alright, is there any? Is there any final word that you want to leave? Anyone with?
TaVona Denise: 17:01
Business doesn't have to be that complicated? Just get back in talking to humans, and then why your business take off?
Brittany Herzberg: 17:08
I will make sure that we have all the things linked below. Where do you mostly hang out,
TaVona Denise: 17:12
they can slide into the DMS and on Instagram, they can pull Britney, you can pull Britney, I really do enjoy talking to people. So the
Brittany Herzberg: 17:19
only ones that I haven't been responding to are the ones where it's like, are you interested in getting 10 to 20 clients a day? Excuse me, I know I'm being sold to and I really don't like this. So now I actually told someone Nope. Today I was a little sassy. I haven't checked to see the response. But that was a little spicy. We'll catch you next door. That was really something wasn't it? What that really sink in and guide you toward being the answer to even more Google's questions. Thank you so much for joining me this episode. You are the reason this show exists and that it keeps growing. You know, thanks to all those follows and reviews. If you know someone who could benefit from what we've shared, send it to them. We don't do shy around here. If you thought of clarifying or follow up questions about listening, you know what to do say hi on Instagram, check the show notes for all the things that were mentioned. And I'll talk to you soon friend