Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Charlene Brown

Damon Pistulka  00:05

All right, everyone. Welcome once again, it’s Friday. What happens on Friday, Kurt? Oh, he’s got it muted. He’s got it muted. It’s the manufacturing ecommerce success series.

Curt Anderson  00:18

Yeah. Gotcha. That was April Fool’s joke for you. I was gonna do the whole thing on mute today. I had it planned.

Damon Pistulka  00:30

Oh, that’s great. That’s great. Well, like I said, we’re back here with the manufacturing ecommerce success series. It is April 1, April Fool’s Day and yes, I am as gullible as a hungry fish. So let’s get started. Kurt.

Curt Anderson  00:45

Hey, dude, happy Friday, Damon, man. How’s things in your world Damon?

00:53

It’s busy, busy busy.

Curt Anderson  00:55

It likes was busy isn’t the same as a puppy. So I this is round two. We’re going into round two and demount if you know this or not, but we have the brand misfit in the house. today. We have the one the only Ms. Charlene Brown. Shirley Brown. Happy Friday. How are you my friend?

Charlene Brown  01:14

Happy Friday. I’m good. I’m good. I’m got some projects. I’ve been tweaking with one it’s trying to get to me, but I will let it but other than that, it’s been a good time. I’ve been having a very good week actually busy but good.

Curt Anderson  01:30

You are Tanisha So guys, if you’re new to Charlene Brown, first off, please connect with Charlene. She is absolute. She’s on LinkedIn Dynamo. Now, Charlene you do a couple of LinkedIn lives every week, right? Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I have that correct?

Charlene Brown  01:42

Yes, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Now I have my mini series with Carl, we’ve been doing a nice little mini series, we try to keep it to 30 minutes every Friday morning. And that’s been really cool. We’ve been mixing it up. So now we’re going to bring in our two brands, our strengths, and we’re going to mesh it throughout the rest of the time that we do this series. And I also launched my podcast as a video version of it. Last, um, yesterday at two o’clock and it was good. It was good. So I have some things to work on for that. But yeah,

Curt Anderson  02:18

yeah, well, that’s awesome. Well, we have a few friends here today. Here in Rochester add on Gary it my friend. We have Jad on here. Yeah, Gail. And Gail was at trade shows us we Yeah, she

Damon Pistulka  02:30

is she’s at the molding trade show. I’m not remembering the name of it. But that was a great, great post. And as so many people are heading out to the trade shows again. And the thing that’s cool, is all these people that we we’ve got to know gotten to know well over the last couple years on LinkedIn. You know, Stucker, you know, not at trade shows. Now, our great coverage of trade shows, Chuck Cox said raise a gun. So Gail, and many others, you know, Chris Lukey J call saw some stuff of his Yeah, just so many people are doing it.

Curt Anderson  03:00

So well. It’s I think this is a great positive sign. Hopefully, you know, I’m very comfortable saying that maybe COVID is coming down a little bit. So now we’re at where we can actually shake hands or Hi, Fi person. So this is wonderful. So Charlene, you had is perfect your LinkedIn live yesterday. So let’s let’s go there for a minute. Okay, so gal just started a recent new LinkedIn live. If there’s anybody on the program here that is considering LinkedIn live, you had a wonderful conversation. I caught a little bit of yesterday. I think you had Simone. Was that yesterday? With? Yes. And yes. Great conversation. So first off, I’d like to touch on what inspired you to jump into LinkedIn live? One, not one day, a week, not two days a week, three days a week, my goodness gracious, what inspired you to go that direction?

Charlene Brown  03:45

Besides insanity? Carl, Carl really pushed me because I’ve always heard it. I’ve practice I’ve, I’ve done the pre recordings. But Carl was like, You know what, let’s just do it. Let’s go live. And he’s already he was already going live. So that helped me a lot, because there was someone who was very comfortable. He managed a lot of the backend, so I’d have to worry about it. And with him doing that, it allowed me to get comfortable in front of the camera, see how the comments were coming. And then still not really pay attention to the comments, but pay attention to our conversation. And when we started bringing guests on, he would handle a lot of that. So he would take the reins. So I would learn how to how to do interviews, because it’s one thing to ask questions and be on camera with people. But to do an interview is a little different, because you have to understand, okay, if the conversation isn’t going anywhere, how do you how do you have like your set questions on the side, just in case. And then if somebody says something, how do you kind of pick up so you can dig a little deeper and then of course, bring in the audience too, especially because it’s alive. ABSHER

Curt Anderson  04:58

so I’m gonna go for a second so yesterday I was talking with Simone Cherie Cherie, do I have there

Charlene Brown  05:04

are men? Yes, sure. Her name is Shu Ray. Her name is Simone. Sure. Cherie Harvin uses her

Curt Anderson  05:14

middle name. Yes. You guys had an awesome conversation. And so in bio, like you said, like calling out people so right, your friend Val’s here today. Yeah. Damon posted the manufacturing Twitter chat yesterday. Oh, awesome, all about comedy, and how important comedy is in the workplace. So, Val, man, how about a little round of applause for Vale? It was that dynamic. It was, it was awesome. It was

Damon Pistulka  05:40

so funny. I’ve just scheduled someone on the faces of business that we’re going to talk about the importance of humor and business.

Curt Anderson  05:46

So she did an amazing job. And so will your we live is the National Comedy center. And so she was talking about the niche where I live in the comedy capital of the country, man. There you go. He’s talking about the comedy. So anyways, great. But surely what I want to do is I want to talk about your conversation yesterday, but I absolutely love Damon, you would love this conversation. Guys go on Shirley’s LinkedIn profile. Look on her live from yesterday, you talked about how important it is to niche down. You talked about how you know who your client base is. And you even talk about like, hey, when you started your business, and I would I really was so impressed. And what I admire about you is, you know, when new entrepreneurs, sometimes we try to be everything to everybody, we’re just hungry, we’re trying to take any business, you are really a woman of conviction you stuck with with your guns, talk a little bit about when you started your business and why it was so important to stay in your lane and speak to your ideal clients.

Charlene Brown  06:42

It was important because I listened I did the same mistakes. You know, I listened to others telling me to go against my my gut. And they were saying you know, you don’t want to lose, you don’t want to lose money. You don’t want to miss opportunities. You want to keep it wide open. And I had to stop and step back and say, You know what, this is not working. I feel like I’m I’m juggling and I’m, I’m tap dancing for the world, but I can’t. And it was it was even where I had to I had my business coach with me. And they were like, Okay, what’s going on? Why are we stalling? What’s why we spinning wheels? And I said I don’t know, I’m, I’m promoting? So we would look at my advertising. And it was it was so general, it was like it was I was not really asking for anything. Because I didn’t know who to ask this, these call to action for. So it was really a lot of sitting down with myself to say, am I serving anybody. And also am I serving myself by doing that by being so general, because it was just wearing me out. So having a good group of people around me in my circle who were in business, because even though those who were telling me to keep the doors open, why they weren’t trying to harm me, but they just didn’t know anything about that aspect of business. So I had to really lean into those who were in business. They may not have been in the type of field I was, but they were they were used to and also getting results from doing certain things. So once I started to put that in practice and follow my gut and say, Look, I need to be around people who I know need me, I hear them all the time. And then let me start promoting to them. Let me start marketing to them. And of course, start listening back. Because even though I may be focused on this area, my ears and close to everyone else, so I’m listening to hear what they’re saying. And then maybe there’s a commonality that I can now bridge between them. So at first I was I specialize in helping a lot of the black women in my community. But now I know I can always branch out and help the consultants help the coaches help the speakers. And they all three might sound different, but their commonality is they’re selling a lot of information. They’re selling a lot of things that may not be something that you walk away with like a book. So it’s really how do I now get them all together to have a similar game plan going in?

Curt Anderson  09:14

That is phenomenal. So guys, we’re here with Charlene Brown, please connect with her on LinkedIn, check out her profile, Brooklyn custom designs. She’s a website, web design expert, vast experience. You were at Reuters for 22 years. And so, man, we have a great crowd.

Damon Pistulka  09:30

We all Yeah, Lisbon is here. John’s here can be gleaned

Curt Anderson  09:34

from John, you absolutely have to connect with Sharia in China is awesome. We’ve talked about is we would love to bring your expertise, your superpowers, and we were talking about manufacturers how they need help. Gaming. We had a nice little conversation before we went live. So let’s go there. Let’s talk about Charlene. Why is it so important for manufacturers to have a really strong web presence? Steven, did you have you on Chen I did.

Damon Pistulka  09:59

cuz I think I think this goes right into it because what you were talking about there Charlene about niching, down and really going to what’s your gut where your best customers are, is so important because those people around you, they’re good people, they were probably trying to protect you, but they just didn’t really understand the business you’re in. And so many times we as manufacturers, we as business people, we get sucked into that, well, maybe I shouldn’t turn down that client or shouldn’t go that way with that client. But when you really feel and you feel that client that is your ideal soulmate, as Kurt would say that. That’s where you want to be doing business all day long, if you can. You that was just so relevant, I thought. And when you look at that, again, that translates over into how websites need to look for manufacturers, because a long time ago, they were built to be Hey, we can do this for anyone, right? Mm hmm.

Charlene Brown  10:59

Yeah. And and especially from a manufacturer standpoint, you can do almost anything. But where do you Where are you really making a mark in your industry? And then, especially with a lot of the issues that were going on this past couple of years? How can you pivot quickly, and still save your bottom line, because that’s a big deal. And with a lot of manufacturers, you have others that you really need to make sure that you keep them working in some way, shape, or form. So when you’re promoting and you’re marketing for your business, you want to think to yourself, What can help me stay afloat, and stay and stay happy doing this because I have to go to these meetings and and you guys do a lot of in person. So how do you mesh the two worlds of being in person being virtual, but also being accessible enough that you can talk to a wide amount of people without you feeling drained, but you don’t want to miss out or or whitewash your crowd, you want to make sure that your audience but you want to reach them enough of them as possible. We then and when I say this, I Yes, I’m speaking of the digital world. But that does not negate or eliminate the mailings that that can be done in the industry, because you have to still stand strong to what works. Email is still something that works. So if that’s something that you can do, start building out your email list, start reaching out to them, start asking them questions, stay in touch with them. So then when you do have to pivot, it’s easier to just shoot out an email to your crowd, your audience, your customers, and say, Hey, this is what’s going on with us. We’d love to hear back from you. Or thank you so much for being loyal customers all these years. And you can surprise them too. That’s another reason that people like to stay connected. You can get their their addresses and start sending them little gifts. It doesn’t have to be anything major. But let’s say your as a company, you guys have t shirts, you might have extra T shirts. What a great way to get rid of the extra supply by sending it out to customers who always been with you, right?

Curt Anderson  13:12

Yeah, that’s fantastic. So let’s man we’re gonna, let’s double down on this conversation. So if I’m not mistaken, your LinkedIn live yesterday, builds your digital digital foundation intentionally builds your foundation intentionally. So guys in the chatbox let’s let’s Alright, we’re in our safe place, everybody. If you guys want to brag a little bit, let’s like in your niche, okay. And as Charlene is saying, we want to you know, Damon, what do we say? niche down to let her hurt and niche down till it hurts so good, right? We want to finish off that sense. And that’s what hurts painfully. But we’re hurt so good, where we stay in our lane where we can exhaust our superpowers and not find ourselves like, Man, I’m really not good at this. But I’m just trying to, you know, capture this customer. So guys in the chatbox job, like what are your superpowers? Why are people reaching out to you? What are they contacting you about? So certainly, let’s pretend, Hey, these are clients of yours, right? We’re going to do a little website you call a website rehab again, go to Brooklyn custom design. Yeah. Charlene calls it the website rehab. So let’s go. So you’re working with a could be a solopreneur? Maybe some of our folks here. I mean, if not for whoever that might be. Let’s walk through that process of like, how do you help them? How do you help them stay in their niche where they don’t try to be everything to everybody? And what’s that? Let’s take some next steps and how do you what are what are strategies that you help to improve their website?

Charlene Brown  14:29

Yeah, so the first thing I always ask is, what is the purpose of their business? You know, what, what got them going? Once they understood once they can tell me that then I say, Okay, well, why do you want this website? Or what is it that you don’t like with your current site? What is it that you need or you feel you need to be updated or changed? And the reason why I asked that is I can always give my insight and I can always say what I think is wrong with this site. However, it doesn’t make sense to tackle a large list A large laundry list if your goal really can be supported and helped through three quick changes. So that’s why I asked, you know, how big is this to you? How big of a issue is this? Some people may not know, but they will say, You know what? I had an email list. I’ve drive people to my website. And it’s been a year and I, maybe within a month, I’ll get two signups that will say, Okay, no, maybe it’s not about you driving it, maybe it’s what you’re offering, maybe we need to tweak something, or maybe you just need to create a new download or something like that. So it a lot of times, it’s really about let’s see, if it’s your offering, let’s see, maybe it’s their price point. And then if you do need a full redesign, then let’s see what your investment budget is at this time. So a lot of times people need a real redesign that’s way out of their budget. So we have to scale back. And then that’s where it’s important to understand what do you need to handle now? What’s your what’s your goal quarter now?

Curt Anderson  16:07

I love that because you know what? You know, in the E commerce world, Boy, those dollars can creep up Oh, yeah, projects, right? Damon, they can get super, super expensive. And it’s daunting, it’s overwhelming. So he’s like, okay, it doesn’t have exactly what you’re seeing Charlene, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing. We can tackle these projects in phases, you know, as the long game because when you your website, your social presence, e commerce, man, it is the long game, it’s a marathon. And so we can tackle these in chunks. So let’s go there a little bit further. And what I want to let slip into our SEO heads for a second because we had a great conversation before we went live Damon, let’s let’s go there. So let’s talk a little bit, Charlie, man, you’re dropping some major? Yeah. Let’s look, man, we gotta live right live,

Damon Pistulka  16:53

right? I know, I know. Cuz we started going because because we’re talking about what you know what we are going to talk about today. And with with me some one of the things that’s come up in the work that I’ve been doing and helping clients is like, the SEO changes lately have have just like, well, they say they’ve screwed some people’s organic rate your results. So and you were starting to talk about that, Charlene, that’d be awesome for you just to continue on with what you’re telling us. Because, you know, it used to be, you could just put a website up, maybe throw some content up. But now it has to be a living organism almost.

Charlene Brown  17:26

It has to, but that’s where the strategy comes in, right. So that’s where if you’re planning it out, that’s where that helps you a lot. SEO can be improved by just updating with the name, the name of your photo is, a lot of times we use photos on our sites, and we don’t even give them names. They’re like 1287. And by the time Google goes, looking through all your images, there’s no way to connect the images back to you. Right, so let’s say you You did all this time and effort, you spent all of this money, and you went and hired a brand photographer. And they took so many photos of you your products, your your environment, your your your team, everybody. And you didn’t take the time to rename everything. So it’s connected to you as a business. So now as you’re using it, and and Google and there’s like over a dozen or more others, search engines, they’re all hating your website to find out, do you supply any information? So just I’m just going to tackle the images. So just images alone, they’re in there taking all these images, there’s they’re storing it away on their side. But Google has improved their bots to say, is this saying anything? Is this telling us where to put it. And if not, then it it files it away somewhere randomly. So now you’re if there’s a conversation going on in your industry, and let’s say your photo could be representing that solution, let’s say your printer or so, or you’re manufacturing ink for a certain type of printer, brand new printer that’s out or you have certain batteries, that you’re giving them a better deal. And it’s still a higher quality, all of those things, right? You’re giving someone a solution, but you’re not naming the photo to one connect back to you as a business and to say state the actual solution in the title of the photo. So So with all of that Google cannot add you to the image search, which also comes up when people do results. Or they ask questions, all of those come up. So from videos, to images to actual blogs, websites, all of those come up in search results. So if you’re not actually starting to map that out and say, Okay, I wrote a blog. I think the blog is amazing. I’m going to put an image to the blog, and then I don’t name the image. You just lost a couple of kudos there. Right. And the same thing with titles we don’t think of titles when We’re putting things together so you have an amazing blog, but the title doesn’t make sense. Or the title doesn’t include your key words or things that people are searching for if they have a question, you see what the questions are. So you can actually you can actually take the question forming into a response and answer and make that a title and then give them their points and then don’t forget you have sub headers so put those into your your blog posts talk about that and then make it where you know a human is reading this so a lot of times we write only for the box but Google got smart on that to Google’s will tell you this doesn’t sound like a human would read this and and understand it and it’ll give you if you have the right SEO support they will give you those hints they will tell you oh wait it needs to be a little more humanized we’re saying the keywords too much so it looks like you’re stuffing the keywords in here so it’s it’s not it doesn’t it’s not hard it takes a little practice but you have guidance there’s tools out there to help you so it’s not impossible

Curt Anderson  21:08

moment of silence John was right and you’re like check the check like your we got fire seven oh geez ugly no see we need Part Three Hey, Terry 10 from 10 Alpha technologies and Yeah Chris if you And Charlene are connected man you have to connect you need to connect with indoors she’s dropped out

Damon Pistulka  21:29

cargo Margo is here today. Here today man

Curt Anderson  21:36

with cargo Margo and you know we did fine it was awesome. So Okay. All right. Let’s just Let’s just savor some of these bombs and Charlene is dropping right now. Okay, so let’s I mean, there’s so much to cover keywords. I’m a keyword geek junkie let’s go into that whole keyword strategy. Okay, so again, guys, so let’s I’m going to do a quick recap, but it’s all about Charlene. Nobody wants to hear me talk. But we’re we kicked out the program. With a brand misfit in the house we have cut Brooklyn custom designs you want to connect with Charlene she’s absolutely amazing. She does LinkedIn live two days a week now she’s doing three days a week without so she has a kitten chat. Oh, he’s over there sleeping. So we have all sorts of fun things going on with Charlene right now, right? So April’s fools they you know, Charlene and I were gonna come out on mute just message demon. But you know, that was another story. So okay, here we are back to the program. So Charlene, let’s talk about keywords. We’re talking about niching. So if you guys missed if you just came in, Charlene had an amazing conversation yesterday, on LinkedIn live talking how important it is, really be true to your conviction, stay in your lane and know your niche. Okay. Now with your niche, it helps speaking the right language of the right buyer on your website. It also is critical. Critical with your keyword strategy, surely, yes. Let’s talk how do you coach? How do you advise suggestions, strategies, tips for your clients for our peeps here today, an effective keyword strategy?

Charlene Brown  22:58

Yeah, so for me, I remember, my my huge mistake was I put out over 130 blog posts with no SEO strategy. So you can imagine and this was for my website’s been up for eight years. So can you imagine the amount of overhaul that I had to do but I took my own overhaul in pieces. So I first tackled the main website, and now the blog is going to be this year’s lovely homework. So but what, but for a few things that are a few of the posts that I saw, they are already at the top 10. And some of them are climbing fast. So these are working. So the things that I would definitely say is, especially for SEO, and for you to be part of the conversation and for you to be seen as a solution. One thing that you can do is write something as an article. And it doesn’t have to be long articles, you can write a nice little article and talk about a pain point that you see your customers go through. And even you can even write up a case study that you’ve helped the customer go through. In that case study, or in that write up what you can do to help with not just the SEO, but the key people on your website, you can actually insert links back to services that you use with that client and have them in you can hyperlink a term or whatever that may look like and tell them to contact you or they can learn more about how else you you helped solve this issue. And that link will take them to a contact form, or that link will take them to a service that they can purchase. Those are nice little ways that you can sell without you telling them to buy this. So what you can just hyperlink a term or phrase and it doesn’t have to say by me it doesn’t have to say Sharp here or contact us, it can literally say this, learn more how my client was able to do this, or see more about our services here, or this solution was able to and you that that phrase, this solution, you can hyperlink that to a service. So people aren’t when they click on it, they are taken to the actual service to learn more about the service. But those are just little niches and little ways that you can help fine tune the SEO, because part of that is people staying on your website. So you want to create a little cipher of all of your knowledge being the solution for people. So if they’re if you have maybe like another article answering another piece of the pie, in that case study, you can redirect them to that article, you can find ways to keep them engaged on your site. Also, let’s say you’re writing something that you learned from someone else on their website, you can actually hyperlink that person site to your article. And that will give you credit because that person site is credible, and so is yours. So you’re kind of sharing that wealth of Link knowledge. And you’re allowing people who come to your site to see oh, wait a minute, they’re also referring me to other resources that I can learn more about this. Yeah, they know, they know what they’re doing there. Okay. And it builds that credibility with them, right. So you want to make sure that whatever you’re doing on your site, you have that game plan and like I said, it doesn’t all have to flow together at once. But that’s why if you did it once the if you did a blog post, it’s always great to go back, see if you can update it, and then add things to it and that allows people to say Oh, you are keeping active so you don’t have to always write out a full blog post. But every year you know things change if something’s changed in your industry maybe you were talking about how shipping was crazy in 2021 Oh wait a minute, they have new shipping taxes. You can add that information to your your what shipping was doing in 2021 article and maybe not date it but you can give it like a nicer name to cover what the shipping chaos could be. Or, or things that go wrong and shipping. And then you can add those type of information on on articles like that. Oh,

Damon Pistulka  27:30

my goodness.

Curt Anderson  27:32

This is just awesome. All right. So man clad teacher is in a session.

Damon Pistulka  27:36

No kidding.

Curt Anderson  27:38

Okay. Go back to to Elizabeth’s comment, go back up a little higher. Do

Damon Pistulka  27:42

you see Elizabeth up there? Yeah. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  27:45

yep, massive knowledge drop right there. And we have Dr. Elissa Rodriguez in the house man. Dr. Lissa, you And Charlene have to connect. She’s the director of the manufacturing extension partnership of the great State of Alaska. Everybody can connect with Dr. Elissa man we love her so man this is fire today. Okay. David Go ahead. Oh awesome tip right there

Damon Pistulka  28:08

there’s one thing the one thing I do have a cameo performance here I guess I’m here but this is our little guy Hey there demons poses while this guy yeah, he’s really

Curt Anderson  28:27

troubling me Odin, Odin, the house right now so not

Charlene Brown  28:31

owed and he’s ready.

Damon Pistulka  28:34

It’s like he’s like fixated because mom’s standing right behind the cameras.

Curt Anderson  28:40

So we IT guys we’re gonna do a bring your pet today. But so Charlene has a little kitten one years old. Can you get it? So

Charlene Brown  28:49

I could wake him up but

Damon Pistulka  28:51

he’s no no, no. No, don’t do that.

Curt Anderson  28:55

Shadows shadow sleeping. I’ve 140 pound Rottweiler. I’m too old and too weak to lift it up. So he’s over there sleeping. So anyway, so it wasn’t so Hey, hello to Odin. So we what in addition to the family, so. Okay. Alright, let’s get back to the program. Okay, Charlene. So anybody out there who needs a new website, they’re maybe exploring, you know, their little challenge. They feel a little overwhelmed of connecting with a new web designer. Your website is your first line of defense. Right? When somebody Google’s you when somebody wants to do business with you. In basic, what is your website? One word, one word only? Trust, right? Can I trust you? Can I part would I be willing to partner with my hard earned money to do business with anybody out there right ourselves. So for a new company, manufacturer, one of your customers, clients that you work with? What are some tips that you have, you know, when they’re engaged with a web designer for the first time? What are some tips and strategies that you have to engage with that web designer so there’s good healthy communication so that you have a good end product to eliminate that flow? frustration?

Charlene Brown  30:01

Oh, I say be clear, be absolutely clear about what you are looking for what your expectations are. A lot of times, we tend to be too vague, vague, meaning, hey, I want something modern, our wants something hip, that can be anything. So you don’t want to, in the mind of a creative can go anywhere. So the last thing you want to do is waste time going through different reiterations just say, Hey, these are things I don’t like. So I had a client. And I would ask, you know, just let me know, my form said, let me know what you would like what you don’t like, and know, where did the client say anything about scripts. So I went, we did me and my, my team, we did a logo, and came back. And we tried, we thought where we’re going towards what they were expecting what they what they asked for. And before we knew it, they started saying that they don’t like script, they and that they were getting feedback from others. And I’m like feedback from who like this, this is not out in the public yet. So you want to make sure that one, if you’re going to be the main person to make the feedback and give the I guess, give your opinions on on topic, then make sure that that’s who you are you can you can objectively look at a design or look at layout or whatever that may be for you for your website and say, Yes, I like this, no, I don’t like this. Because if you have to go to six other people, then you don’t know your business, or you don’t know what you want, you’re looking to see what other people are expecting or what other people want. And these are even your clients. So that’s where that’s where a lot of the issues can come in. And you can be frustrated, and so can the designer, because the designer and you usually will say, okay, who’s going to give the feedback you, maybe you have someone else on your team. And if it’s you, then we’re expecting you to give us feedback, and clear feedback. So if it’s maybe fonts, what type of fonts Don’t you like, is a great way to start off, that knocks out a ballpark of things that we can look at. If you want to say these are the three types I like, then no problem, we can limit ourselves. And the reason why you want to try to limit yourself is a lot of times projects should not take six months, or a year, depending on if it’s a small project, if it’s something that’s small and basic. It shouldn’t take that long. If you have a overhaul like Disney, and they want it they said hey, we want to revamp everything we own, then that’s going to take a long time. But if you coming and you’re saying hey, I’m a startup, this is all me, I don’t know what else to do. And I just want to put something up, that should not be taking a year or two years because there’s no communication or there’s no clarity. So I always say get clear on what you want. Understand the purpose of your business and definitely know who your audience is. Understand what that is. And also who’s going to create the content. Most developers and designers are not going to create copy. They’re not copywriters, most of them may not even do your graphics. So you want to make sure and make it clear who’s creating what, what deliverables are owed from who, and then who owns what, at the end of the day. So make sure anything that you turn over to the designer, you own those images, make sure you own the copy. There’s people that especially from my peers, they will get copy, or they will get a link to another person’s website and be told, hey, I want this and meaning they want the copy. We can’t give you the copy. We can’t copy and paste someone else’s site to yours. So you have to be really clear on what was going on and who’s doing what. Right,

Curt Anderson  34:05

man, I absolutely love that. So yeah, man a lot to uncover right there. So let’s just I want to I want to stick there. I want everybody kind of digest that. Yeah, I’m digesting it for a second but I also want to go back to something you said previously so with what you just covered Communicate, communicate, communicate good healthy communication. Again, our friend Chris Harrington, at Gen Alpha technologies she knows firsthand they do amazing work with heavy duty e commerce solutions. She knows how critical that you know that communication is Charlene is you’re working with your clients just communicate share you guys in you know, when you team up with your web designer, you guys are partners, you know, like again, man, they used to treat them better than you do your your priest, your dog, maybe not your dog named Matt Damon’s dog, but you get the idea. This person is critical part of your team. And so that is very important having that that communication is essential. I want to take a step back and you’ve talked about all that content that you had. Okay, I’m sorry that I’m kind of. I’m old, I went back a few more minutes. But you had 130 blog posts, I believe you said that you wanted to repurpose. Now, guys, what was phenomenal, is you can go back to that content that is an asset of yours. So what I absolutely said, it’s like man, it was from eight years ago. But the thing is, a lot of that information was probably so relevant and valuable for today. Now, you can take that content. Boy, I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, let alone a blog post that you wrote eight years ago, you can take that blog post, twist it, massage it, update it, keyword it, all those other things. So guys, if you haven’t been on from the past, boy, you can just repurpose it. And that’s a great way to move forward with that. So we’re gonna change gears on conversation. But before we do that, any last thoughts as far as website goes, any other tips as far as for as far as web design for our friends in the audience,

Charlene Brown  35:56

be flexible, your website should be growing with you never think that what you create it is that’s it, it’s there to the business. That is no longer No, make sure that you are evaluating your site. If not, every six months every year, look at your site, make sure that it’s doing what you want to and the best way is to check performance. So make sure you have Google Analytics on there. There’s a lot of other platforms but because Google’s plugged into so many places already, that’s one of the better ways to know all the traffic everything that’s going on on your site.

Curt Anderson  36:33

Yeah, perfect. And so in the great thing is what like a great word today niche man like average, surely and everything you talked about. And again, please if you guys are just joining us, or you’re playing Yeah, just know where you’re playing know your strike zone know who you’re singing to. Right? If we if we had a baby three of us started a band, if we had a band, you know, can’t be everything to everybody who’s going to be in the audience, right? If we try to be everybody, we’re not going to go very far. But when you sing that one song to that specific crowd, so Charlene now we’re going to go here you do great LinkedIn lives, you cover a lot of diversity conversations, and culture and everything else. Unlike how to really drive a great successful business environment. You have that you have 22 years of corporate at Reuters talk, let’s go there for diversity manufacturers are really trying to flip the script and change on women in manufacturing, different race, different Creed’s millennials, just really trying to change the direction of our future for manufacturing. Here in the US, let’s talk a little bit about diversity strategies that manufacturers could be incorporating to help have a more successful track record.

Charlene Brown  37:39

Right? Well, um, a lot of the discussions I’ve been blessed to be a part of the core has always been the same, you need to understand the culture, you need to build it from the culture first. Because no matter how many times you create these different initiatives, especially if you’re building an initiative, because you feel the heat of the public, you feel like people are coming for you. That’s not going to last long, you’re not going to be able to sustain something if the culture doesn’t support it. So from corporate, from my corporate experience to others who’ve been around me, even through speaking with other business owners, it’s hard to say, yes, you’re diverse, you’re inclusive, and you’re here for equity. If at your core, it’s not trickling down through everybody. So if you have a large team, and some people in the team are just not pushing to the initiative through, you have such a huge mix up going on. And you’re going to have a batch of people who are upset, you’re going to have a batch of people who are disgruntled and you’re sitting there wondering at the top of your of your organization, hey, why isn’t why aren’t all of us excited? Why is that small group upset? We all and you’re looking at your managers, and you’re looking at at them and saying, Hey, we all agree, didn’t we? And they’re like, sure we did. But when they went back to the to the playing field, they didn’t execute. So how are you going to now enforce these things. So it’s, it’s a big thing to understand, like, initiatives are great. Putting down the writing out the laws of how you’re going to make sure that they happen, that’s wonderful. But if at the very core, you don’t believe it, and you don’t push it through and you’re not going to stand by making sure that it happens. Then they really fall on deaf ears and it becomes a point of useless time and you’re wasting time at that point.

Curt Anderson  39:40

I love what you’re saying there you know, and it’s great. You know, you walk into a place of business we have the inspiration notes on the wall, but what you’re seeing is like it really needs to come down deep and I love that word you said core right. And you know in big takeaway man a lot of takeaways today. Culture first you You know, he really starts at the top? And just how do you institute that culture? So Alright, so let’s go here. So a small manufacturer out there, and you know, maybe there is some challenges within a team. Any other suggestions that you would have those of like, you know, how can we how can we just make this work together as a team?

Charlene Brown  40:19

I say recruit externally, if there’s others in the team that don’t know, it’s okay that they don’t know it’s okay. If nobody in the organization knows there’s a lot of organizations that are old, like me in it and not in a bad way. They just been around so long, that we all know it’s hard to implement change when the base and the foundation hasn’t been touched up in a long time, right. So sometimes you need a whole overhaul. And it’s scary because you’re like overhaul means you’re getting rid of us, you’re getting rid of me, no, not really overhaul means we’re going to put in some new blood to mix with you. And then everyone’s going to take and learn from each other. It’s not sometimes it’s almost like a battle of either either the new with the old but we both can be here. And that’s not true, the new can learn from the old and vice versa. So that’s where as if especially if you’re if you’re branching out, because a lot of us who are our small startups, we came from larger entities so we’ve been around for a long time, but running our own is different. So if you don’t know if it’s okay, if you don’t know start looking externally go to your your, your Oregon, your local organizations go to these networking groups that there’s so many on LinkedIn where you can find people in that space to help you and if you just say hey, I’m looking to do this, I would love some help you will find the help but I think staying silent and and and being dismayed is not going to help so you really you really have to get out of the comfort zone that we’re so used to and going out there and asking and talking to others and saying hey, I need help. I just don’t know where to start. can you advise me can you give me some help and you’ll never you’ll before you know it there’s so many people were willing and waiting to come in

Curt Anderson  42:15

dad you’re giving me chills man, this is so good. So guys, you know just think about what Charlene just said, you know, I don’t know where to turn. It is made you know manufacturers demon. We talk about this all the time entrepreneurs you feel like you’re in a silo and you’re not. So we have Dr. Elissa root Rodriguez here today. She’s with the MEP network, you have the manufacturing ascension partnerships. There’s one in all 50 states reach out to your local MEP on Monday. And we’re in Brooklyn Today we’re in Queens on Monday, Damon, we have Evelyn from the Small Business Development Center, small business development centers, there’s nearly 1000 throughout the United States and they are great both the MEPs and SBDCs are excellent resources for entrepreneurs for manufacturers out there trying to create a better workforce trying to tackle diversity and inclusion and all these wonderful issues that we’re that we’re facing integrating is as you know, this is such a competitive advantage America’s low melting pot on the in the on the planet man with the more that when you look at companies that really take full advantage of this. Look at what an amazing competitive advantage we have. You know, we can be the greatest by just working together stronger together. So Charlene. Oh, my God, man. How about everybody? Could we all stay? Round of applause?

Charlene Brown  43:34

I enjoy all the time.

Curt Anderson  43:38

Or what? Charlene, I’m going to be mindful of your time. I know you’re super busy. So again, folks can connect with you on here on LinkedIn, your website courses, Brooklyn, custom designs anywhere else shirt, what else you have going on to just repeat again? Where can people find you on your LinkedIn lives and how we can connect with you?

Charlene Brown  43:56

Yes, so I have a few LinkedIn business pages as well. So not only can you connect to me Charleen brown on LinkedIn, you can also connect with me through Real Talk Live podcast on LinkedIn. sippin chat with Shree And Charlene asked me and also, I have the mini series, we did not create one yet for that, but you can also look out for transform clicks to profit. That’s my other podcast, where you Kurt saw Simone, and yeah, we can’t wait to look for more information and of course amazing people. So if there’s anyone who would love to join any of those, please hit me up and let me know.

Curt Anderson  44:40

Absolutely. So guys, if you are looking for web expertise, if you have friends, family, business partners clients looking for expertise, man Charlene is the place to go. So, guys, how about parting thoughts, any words of how about words of advice, any words of inspiration for folks as we close out, you know, and where we started quarter were the quarter goal was it? Like New Year’s was yesterday? I swear to God, wasn’t it? Yes,

Charlene Brown  45:05

I felt like it.

Curt Anderson  45:08

Inspiration for Russell 22 Before we wind down

Charlene Brown  45:11

Well, since we’re heading into the next quarter, I would say if you won’t invest in yourself, why should anyone else

Curt Anderson  45:21

drop the mic. Gotta play. Definitely chart. Chris Harrington says You’re definitely a go giver. So, guys, we’re gonna close out the program today. So hey, hey, Pappy. April Fool’s go out and fool somebody make a good joke out of it. We have an amazing new quarter coming up. We have great speakers coming up. We have Evelyn on Monday. We have a great speaker coming at us next Friday. Charlene, people are already screaming for part three. So we’re happy to have you back. This was awesome. So guys, have an amazing, incredible weekend. Keep crushing it Daymond. Take it away, my friend.

Damon Pistulka  45:56

All right, Kurt Shirlene. Awesome. I’m still back there at we need to keep doing our website because we just finished one last year. And yeah, I put a few pages on it every week. So it’s gets a lot to do when you can look at the size. And I’m just I’m still kind of stuck in there. But thanks so much today. You had a just awesome, awesome advice for us today. I just appreciate you so much. And we will be back again next week as we always are. We try to get a you know, we’re lucky Dan was in here today because we started at 1033 instead of 32. I’m just thankful, John, don’t tell Dan. But thanks so much, everyone for being here. We’ll be back again next week in the manufacturing ecommerce success series. Thanks