Inspiring Women in Business Podcast - Episode 9 - How To Leverage Your Personal Brand To Stand Out - Interview With Ella Orr

podcast Jun 14, 2021

In this episode, I had a chat with the lovely Ella Orr from Much More Social. This is a golden episode where we cover how Ella went from being a teacher to becoming a social media manager. She shares how she managed to grow her business and stand out using LinkedIn and Clubhouse. Ella is brilliant at being an early adopter and goes to places where other people are hesitant to go. Listen up and learn so much from this episode.

Key takeaways from this episode:

Personal branding is about how your superpowers can help somebody else achieve their superpowers.
You can get clients from LinkedIn who know what you know, and they are willing to pay enough for your services.
At the end of the day, we are still in the people to people business, and we should remember that in the way we handle social media, even LinkedIn.
The secret in LinkedIn is to be seen, make your profile top-notch, and engage.
If you are still finding your way in Clubhouse, find a buddy to enter rooms in, observe, listen, and participate until you feel confident there.
When you are starting your business, you have to put yourself out there.
Connect with people you feel you will have synergy with.
We all have low moments. A support group plays a crucial role.

Episode Timeline:

00:00 Episode and Guest Intro

00:42 Intro

02:57 Ella and her story

06:02 Ella’s turning point

06:55 The training course that started everything

10:16 Stepping into the freelance world

13:45 The real deal about personal branding

16:35 Building your business through LinkedIn

18:35 Advice on how to get started in Linkedin

21:58 The proper way to network in LinkedIn

22:32 The Clubhouse experience

28:26 Advice for those who are starting their business

29:50 How mindset plays a huge role in business

30:56 The importance of support group

36:09 Ella explainer hour

38:47 Outro

About our guest:

Ella Orr is the owner and content creator of Much More Social. Ella is a teacher turned social media manager. She has managed to grow her business and stand out by strategically utilising LinkedIn and Clubhouse.

Connect and know more about Ella here:

Website: https://muchmoresocial.co.uk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/muchmoresocial/

Ella Explainer Hour: muchmoresocial.co.uk/the-ella-explainer-hour-2

More about Ruth:

Hi, I’m Ruth, a business coach specialising in helping freelancers and business owners adjust their mindset and their marketing so they can get fully booked with clients they LOVE to work with. I’ve helped hundreds of self-employed women achieve the time and money freedom they craved.

I’ve started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I’d created a glass ceiling for myself.

In 2017, I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time that I wasn’t doing what I loved and fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. I don’t want the same to happen to you.

You can expect practical advice, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments as we uncover and kick to the curb all the obstacles you have been putting in your way.

I’m on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business.

Connect and know more about Ruth Gilbey here:

Coaching: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/coaching

Free stuff: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/next-client

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruthgilbeymarketingandcoaching/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruth_gilbey/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthgilbey/

Transcription

Ruth Gilbey 00:00

In today's episode, I will be talking to the lovely Ella Orr from much more social. And this is a golden episode where we cover how Ello went from being a teacher and moved into being social media manager, how she's managed to grow her business, and stand out her advice around using LinkedIn and Clubhouse. Because she's Ella is brilliant at being an early adopter and trying things out and going to places where other people aren't and not afraid to try things out. So it's a great episode full of great advice for you today.

Ruth Gilbey 00:42

Hello, and welcome to the inspiring women in business podcast. My name is Ruth Gilbey, and I'm a business and marketing coach. I'm on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business. Now I started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was just grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I created a glass ceiling for myself. It was in 2017 when I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time that I wasn't doing what I loved, and I wasn't fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. And I don't want the same thing to happen to you. You can expect practical advice, interviews, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments as we uncover and kick to the curb all the obstacles you've been putting in your way.

Ruth Gilbey 01:51

Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the podcast. I have with me the lovely Ella Orr from Much More Social, who's here today to talk. I don't know how this conversation will go because Ella and I, both of us, can really talk. But we just did a little run through the things that we're going to talk about today. So this is going to be a really great episode. So I will let Ella introduce herself to you. Hello, over to you.

Ella Orr 02:18

Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me to come on your podcast, that we're really honoured. So yeah, welcome, everybody. My name is Ella Orr, and I run a business called Much More Social, and I'm based in lovely leafy Leicestershire. So I live in a village in Leicestershire near Hinkley if anybody knows Hinkley, but as you can probably tell from my accent, I'm a born and bred Londoner.

Ruth Gilbey 02:42

Amazing. Ella, can you tell everybody your story? Because you used to be a teacher, didn't you? So I'd love to hear how you went through and being a teacher to where you are now to tell everyone. How did it come about?

Ella Orr 02:57

It's really funny you ask that, Ruth, because I sort of feel that I've fallen into a sort of five boats into my careers into my five jobs in my career say, I didn't actually really want to be a teacher. That's such a terrible admission. But when I was at college back in the late 80s. That's a long time ago now. I actually was on creative articles. So I do actually wants to be a professional singer. So yeah, so music is very much part of me. And I love I still love singing very much. But I sort of have all went down. Oh, I've got to get a proper job, a sensible job. And so I went into teaching, which turns out to be absolutely fantastic, really, really brilliant. I did love it. I got my PGCs working in primary education worked in that 13 years, then, yeah, the stresses of the job did start to get to me being in the classroom. So after that, I had a few other different jobs that I did within the education sector. I was always at work, which was fantastic. And then I finally ended up in community education and adult education, then that was sort of 2015, 2016, but then I started to get a little bit sort of touchy. I've been sort of touchy for a few years before that about the education system thing and whatnot. And I thought I don't really know if I want to spend the rest of my working life. And actually, I'll sort of say this now podcast, I think I did, again have another sort of really low bout of sort of, you know, mental well being that was really, really low. It was really it's all quite a dark place, really. So I knew I had to get out and do something different. And um, but then I was thinking what can I do, what could I do you know? Because I don't want to go back and teach in a picket sign-on through tutoring. Obviously. This isn't what I want to do. I just want by scrolling on my phone thinking social media, Facebook. About that was exactly I had no idea at all. You could actually do a job working in social media. But there was such a thing as social media marketing. That's how in the dark I was. I mean, the only reason I was on Facebook was that I'd got a young daughter at the time and up to speed with the social media business. She's 13 now, and now we were just broken up making Instagram reels and stuff like that. Really literally, and then as you know, Ruth, I joined the digital mom's course. And, you know, that's how you and I, you and I met. So that was a long time ago. Now it was 2017. I was so glad that I did it. But you know, I was really unsure about myself. I really believed that I was too old. I had no previous experience at all in marketing, you know, and more or less with this organization type of training me, but they did. And I'm so glad they did. So that's how I went about social media marketing.

Ruth Gilbey 05:53

How long were you kind of looking around for something else before you found that thing that you wanted to sort of getting into and make that inspired you to make a move?

Ella Orr 06:02

It must it was at least 18 months? Within almost two years? Yeah, I did a lot of I had a lot of online careers, interviews, you know, you do those in the in research, you know, sort of market research platform, and that kind of thing. I did all of that. I spoke to people. Yeah, but I think you know, again, like the turning point for me was the fact I really had to do something I wasn't going to stay teaching was the fact that my mom was very ill. And sadly, she passed away. And that's just not and again, you know, I always say that she's, she's like a huge inspiration to me, my mom, because, you know, she, she lived life to the full, and it made me realize that no if I wanted to be happy, I've got to find something that I wanted to do in life that was really going to make me happy.

Ruth Gilbey 06:45

Yeah. So when you qualified, what was it like for you? Once you've kind of, I guess, trained as a social media manager, what was it like for you once you got that qualification?

Ella Orr 06:55

It was blooming difficult was it really was when you're on a course you're passing argue, you've got support there, you've got, you know, your peers, I was in an absolutely fantastic peer group. We're still friends. Now, four years later, amazing women. And there are seven of us in the cohort, which is about 13, the promo for that particular month that we started the course, those seven women, you know, we really inspired each other. But of course, then you're sort of really starting to the big, quite overwhelmed, and you're thinking, Oh, my God, I've got to get some work. And it was really, really tough. Because I mean, I know that I was suffering from a bit of imposter syndrome. I lacked belief in myself, but also, I believed that nobody probably really wants to take me on because I didn't have that experience. All I thought was the training course. But you know, what I drew on my resources, and my skills from teaching, which and I mean, I think that's what made me sort of gave and gave me the monthly kick up the whatsit. Because I just thought, right, what can I do to get myself experienced, to begin with? So I did a couple of voluntary jobs. Yeah, that's how I first got experience. So I just thought, I'll go and volunteer, offering my social media marketing services. But you know, the most really tough to begin with. And as you know, you know, the first year was very tough. And in the first 18 months, I was applying for everything under the sun, stuff that was totally inappropriate. Really, you know, it wasn't really that interested me.

Ruth Gilbey 08:35

Yeah, I mean, as you said, I did the same course as well in 2015. And it's similar for me that I remember just googling jobs for ages trying to find something might where I've got twins, and they were, how old were they when I started the course, they were four. And so they were about to start school. I was like. It was a couple of years that I've been looking and thinking about what I could do? But what really struck me was that years later that I totally disregarded everything else I've done.

Ella Orr 09:07

Yeah.

Ruth Gilbey 09:08

I thought everything I thought everything I'd done Previous to that course. And that's nothing to do that. That's not the course's fault.

Ella Orr 09:14

No, oh, no, no,

Ruth Gilbey 09:15

Not the course's fault, but I thought I was retraining, whereas I wasn't. I think we were adding skills. We already have a lot of skills already. But I think if you're kind of putting yourself out there it your brain starts to play tricks on you're insane. You don't know what you're doing. Like, I was like, hang on a minute. You know, it was only years later was like all the women that did that cool. So more than just the course or like any course any levels that we do. We're not jus the last course that we did. It sounds like you went through this thing of like, oh, okay, I really loved the course. I love being a social media manager, but how am I going to get clients, so you know, doing that was getting the experience and building up this experience. What else have you done to help you kind of grow your business? And I mean, I think you've spoken before, did you see yourself as a freelancer, to begin with, like finding jobs? What's that transition been like for you?

Ella Orr 10:16

I think when I realized that actually, I didn't want to... well, I was struggling to sort of getting work with joining an agency. But then I realized that actually, I probably wasn't going to get paid as much if I work for an agency that you know, but think about working, you know, I've been, I think, a couple of opportunities to sort of do some agency work. But then when I looked at the rates of overpaying, and at the time, we were talking hourly rates. And they were very poor. You know, we were getting close to sort of almost a minimum wage sort of level, because and I think, you know, that's the status that social media marketing had two or three years ago, it still has, it's still relatively very poorly paid, I think, if you're working in certain agencies, and I'm also asked not to sort of being described to agencies at all, but I think, obviously, you know, they've got lots of overheads, and they'll have lots of other staff. And there's got to be sort of equilibrium as far as where people are paid and whatnot. So I decided, right, I'm going to do freelancing. And then that was kind of like a bit of a step forward. Because I realized, as a freelancer, I could set my own rates. I could do what I wanted to do. I could offer what I wanted to offer. And I did again. I did a couple of challenges. I remember doing a really good challenge with another social media manager, and pricing was her real focus, you know, and she was really helpful. And that sort of made me think why I'm gonna work my hourly rate, you know because, at the time, I was thinking, like, 10 pounds an hour, which was dreadful, terrible, terrible, you know, but yeah, I think just talking to different people moving for different experiences that help you to grow, and also help you decide what you want to do. But more importantly, what you don't want to do. Yeah, sort of what you don't want to do the sort of people you don't want to work with, you know, I mean, and I think the other thing, I think, you know, the reason you and I talked about race earlier on was the fact that I felt that I needed to sort of work locally, I needed to offer my services on a local level. Well, you know, I live in Leicestershire, and, you know, Leicester is and a rich city. But, you know, I know, I'm pretty sure that, you know, a lot of social media managers working in Leicester won't be offering the same kinds of rates, you know, they'll be offering cheaper rates, maybe then, you know, if you go elsewhere in the country, because no, we are a little bit digitally behind something in certain parts of the country. So I just thought, right, you know, I mean, I think this is the thing, you know, you've got sort of cast your net wide, people close to that wide, because you know, they are paying more money, that there's an expectation that you put in will pay more money for the freelancer if you're working with businesses based in London because that's the government money. Make sense? So that I thought might

Ruth Gilbey 12:58

Yeah, I suppose it's, it's really interesting too, even though you have skills that were taught online that initially, you were looking locally, and I remember having this conversation with you, you've got the freedom to be able to work with anyone, really, because it's online. But initially, I think we do think locally, don't we? And maybe there's a pull to wanting to work locally with people and help them. You said I watched a Facebook Live of yours the other day. I loved watching your Facebook Lives, but you were talking about how also you had always been really interested in the idea of branding and personal brand, and how you wanted when you qualified, and you were out there putting services out that you wanted to learn how to stand out. Could you just tell everybody about that?

Ella Orr 13:45

Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, you know, it's something I just hadn't thought about at all before. When I was in the early early stages of my career, but I did some training. And one of the topics that they were talking about was personal branding. What is personal branding and all that? Surely, personally. So branding is your logo, and it's your colors. And yeah, this, you know, the typical thing that people think of when they think about branding, which obviously, visual branding, but that whole idea of a personal brand. When I started, I did the sort of activities that we've been suggested or suggested to us and our work through, and I thought, this does actually make sense. This is where I can draw on all of my previous experience all my skills, and one of us talking about this, we talk about superpowers. So we got that phrase from you, Ruth, you know, it is about your superpowers. It's about, you know, what fires you up, what makes you get out of bed in the morning, what you know, you've done that you've been really proud of and how you can then give that those experiences and like that learning and those skills, pass that on to help somebody else do well in their business, you know, and so I think all of those kinds of elements of the personal brand, but it's not just about you. It's about what your customer is asking for. It's, you know, what are they looking for, being absolutely clear about what their needs are? And I know we talked about pain points, but really, it's about, you know, where they want to get to. So how are your superpowers going to help somebody else to achieve their superpowers? That's, in a nutshell, what, to me, Personal Branding is about, why it's so powerful.

Ruth Gilbey 15:28

I love that how getting you know, helping them with their superpowers through your superpowers. I think that's brilliant. And I've watched you, you're just such an amazing learner and networker, and you take on new things, and you don't let them faze. You have just watched you kind of try out things. And you know what we're gonna get on to, but let's start with like, how, how amazing you are on LinkedIn as well, you know that you took a channel that a lot, you know, a social media channel, but a lot of people think just still thinks it's an online CV, they still think it's just, you know, where you go to be professional? You've gone on there you like now that you've become a LinkedIn expert. Because of how you've embraced the channel, you've embraced the channel. You've made built relationships you've built. We've built really soul-strong connections on there. You've got clients through there. Why LinkedIn? Why did you go onto LinkedIn? What was it that appealed to you about it initially?

Ella Orr 16:35

Well, this isn't part of my personal brand embrace, you know, I've had to sort of do the opposite of what everybody else is just hanging out on Instagram. And let's face it, there's plenty of social media managers on Instagram. And I can understand why for more reasons I won't go into now. But you know, I mean, I can understand the appeal of Instagram, but I just thought to myself, why don't I discuss with someone else where people are coming? And part of it? That was part of it. But also, I know, this sounds a little bit kind of mercenary. But then having settled that, you know, we've often talked about pricing. How can we move more money? People look for clients through the LinkedIn channels and through and through the other social media channels, because you know, you're not going to get your 10 pounds an hour client on LinkedIn because they're in a professional space. They know how much you know, they charge things, what they pay for things, and everything else. So yeah, it was a little bit of a, you know, I'm more likely to get a different type of clients on that, let me put it that way. I just love I love it. I love it. I mean, I posted about my PT workout over the weekend, and it's gone. You know, I don't get a huge amount in comparison to a lot of people, but I still get a healthy amount of engagement, you know, a healthy amount of views, a healthy amount of comments, and likes. And it was about my PT. It was my training in the gym. So to me, this is again, you know why also to people about LinkedIn it? Yes, it is. It does have its own professional space and everything else. But at the end of the day, you know, we are in the business of p2p people to people, yes. This is what the customer journey is about.

Ruth Gilbey 18:26

Yeah. So what anyone listening who's kind of a bit frightened of LinkedIn, and a lot of people are, what would you say to them? What kind of advice would you give them to get started on LinkedIn?

Ella Orr 18:35

I certainly say that, well, first of all, go on to your account. Obviously, you've got to have an account, go on to your account and onto the platform and engage first of all with people who, yes, you may well know because that will be so feel safe to do that. But I mean, one of the reasons why I was finding it a bit tough, to begin with, was the click, following everybody who I knew from the sort of digital mums course. And then what happens is you get stuck in an echo chamber and the social media, so you've got to sort of, you've got to go and find conversations. Now, if people want to come and follow me, I will tell you, I get involved in conversations with all sorts of people. And therefore, my LinkedIn followers, my LinkedIn connections are are brilliant. They're not just people who work in social media, marketing space, or even the marketing space, or even the creative industry space. There are all sorts of people. But you've got to do that. You've got to go and be seen. LinkedIn is the platform to be seen on, so you've got to throw yourself through conversations, then people go, oh, who's that? No, I'll go check out her profile. That's when you need to make sure your profile is absolutely optimized like London social media. I would say engagement engagement engagement is the first thing with LinkedIn. Then making sure your profile is top-notch so that when people visit your shop, your shop and go there get they're interested in you, and they want to find out more about you. And then also obviously in posting and are looking for a different thing about what to post on LinkedIn. But there are all sorts, you know, you can be a thought leader, you can offer tips you can offer, you know, decide to tell stories. And if you're really stuck, yes, you know, look at other people's content and look at what they're posting, and you know, do something similar. But don't press that share button because the share button doesn't give you visibility on LinkedIn for some reason. LinkedIn doesn't seem to like that so much. So if you want to share another person's content, write an original post about it.

Ruth Gilbey 20:32

Right, yeah, that's great advice. That's great advice. Because yeah, I know, it's a real block for so many people that they think it's wildly different from Facebook, but sometimes the same post on Facebook would work on LinkedIn.

Ella Orr 20:48

Oh, God, it does. I mean, and that's the other thing. You know, I've been, I've been posting my Instagram reels on LinkedIn.

Ruth Gilbey 20:54

I saw you did that. And God, yeah, genius. And you've got loads of engagement.

Ella Orr 21:01

So apparently, reels and tik tok are going really well on LinkedIn.

Ruth Gilbey 21:06

So you make your own rules. I love that. So it sounds like it's, I mean, I always go. I used to be on LinkedIn a lot. And I have had to park it because I had to take my own advice, which I tell everybody, which is don't spread yourself too thin. So I just had to come off it for a little bit. I post about once a week to keep it ticking over. Yeah, I keep a presence going. But It surprises me how much better my posts do on there. And I am rethinking my own strategy at the moment, like, Where am I putting my time? You know, where are my clients, etc. But it is a great place for networking, isn't it? Building relationships, and that's what it's about, like you said, People to People, building relationships, having conversations, you don't go, here's my business card, or Hey, you know, buy from me straight away, you've had those conversations. And that's what you're doing.

Ella Orr 21:58

You know, that's exactly it grows, as people say, you know, think about when you are networking in person, which of course we're going to have to do again now. You wouldn't walk in there and say to people straight away, oh, look at me by my stuff. And if you're expecting to go on LinkedIn and do that, then you know, you're definitely barking up the wrong tree. You've got to go on there and be interested in other people you really are. And that's why I say the engagement, in a way, is far more important than the posting. The engagement that hits you in the conversations posting shows your authority.

Ruth Gilbey 22:29

Yeah, but equally, also do show your office as well. And your poll? God Yeah. But yeah, you don't go straight for it. Yeah. 100%. Agree. Yeah. So can we just also, can I ask you about Clubhouse as well, because you have embraced Clubhouse? I think you were on there so early. But you're an early adopter, weren't you? How pleasing?

Ella Orr 22:52

Who's on 55? How on earth? Could I have been an early adopter?

Ruth Gilbey 22:55

And you are, you're amazing. It's brilliant. I'm just like, yeah, I've watched you embrace it and be on panels. And just Can you tell us a bit, I actually, I've never hosted a room on Clubhouse. And I've been on a fairly small amount and listen to. I think I've listened to you a couple of times in your group. I just I think I've had to, again, had to park it for a little bit. But I do have the. I think this could be a good channel for me and could be a good channel for a lot of people to want to just tell everybody what your experience has been like?

Ella Orr 23:32

Yes, yes. Well, I'm not. I went on to the Clubhouse, again, sort of very early on in 2021, sort of this year, because someone told me about it. And I thought most of this about sort of thing. And I was a little bit skeptical, to begin with. Because and there were a lot of kinds of all you know, there's a lot of touching rooms on there all this kind of thing. Basically, people don't know what Clubhouse is. And sadly, if you're an Android user at the moment, you can't go. But it is just basically like what Ruth and I do at the moment. It's like sitting in a room with people having a chat or think about it as listening to a radio, radio, talk, talk radio, you're twiddling the knobs on the talk radio, and you're in different rooms that you can go into just like different radio stations that you can tune into. But the difference with Clubhouse is, is that when people are talking, and you become part of the audience that you can put your hands up, and you can go onto the stage, and you can ask a question of the people who are moderating and hosting the room. So the kinds of experts, if you as you would say, or you can contribute something as well become part of the conversation. And the more that you do that, the more people see that you are talking with authority, talking sensibly, you're gonna mean value to add most of them are adding value on social media. And then they sort of go, Oh, yeah, okay, Ella, would you like to be on stage now. And where would you like to moderate now and then the next thing you know is that because you can what you do on Clubhouse is you add your Instagram and Twitter handles, that's how people then can talk to you off-platform. And but for the interesting thing again, Ruth is that there are so many LinkedIn people on podcasts, they love it. So many LinkedIn groups, I've learned so much about LinkedIn through listening to podcasts. And that's why I spent a lot of time on it. And you know a lot about LinkedIn already.

Ruth Gilbey 23:36

So anyone listening, just a piece of advice, how to do Clubhouse well, what would you say just a few tips for them?

Ella Orr 25:34

Again, you know, sort of thinking about the about, I mean, lots of this please invite me. Yeah, that's, that's the sort of idea of it. But the idea of is to invite-only is that you've got a buddy, you've got a party who's invited you onto the platform. So the first thing to do is go and hang out with that buddy, go to the rooms that like to stay, it's a bit like going to networking for the first few times, isn't it, if you go along with somebody, then you find your feet. So that's what I would do. Now, hopefully, your buddy will be somebody who does actually also hang out on the Clubhouse because I think, you know, there was a lot of initial kind of interest in it. And then, of course, now lockdown has been lifted. A few of those people may have sort of fallen by the wayside a bit, but I would say go in because you can put your topics in, that you're interested in, in the listing about. So I mean, obviously, marketing and branding are a big part of my topic interest. So I do go to quite a lot of marketing rooms. But you'll see people in the audience there who you know, so you can follow them around and see what other rooms they're going to. Those are the tips that they are the initiatives I would give to you. But eventually, you know, you'll start to get your own as to do with everything, you get more confident, comfortable and confident and why the platform works. And you may well start your own room. I mean, I've been on it three and a half months, and I've never started my room. But, I do like being part of other people's rooms and being very involved in people's rooms. It's conversational, really interested in I will put my hand up onto the page of any join that club as well. So then every time that club runs, you can get a notification to say that so and so's, you know, talk here again. But there's also I mean, I'm part of a regular club. And I speak at it every Wednesday evening from eight to 930. So people want to come along and see what it's about. Come and join us. You know, drop me a message on LinkedIn on Instagram. I'll let you know about it.

Ruth Gilbey 27:27

We'll put a link in the show notes to your clubhouse room. What is it? I feel like?

Ella Orr 27:32

Clubhouse clubs

Ruth Gilbey 27:33

Clubhouse clubs? Ella, I should know these things, shouldn't I?

Ella Orr 27:39

Very happy I'm very happy.

Ruth Gilbey 27:42

Yeah, it's just I yeah, I think it would be a good thing for me to do. I think it's. It's kind of. Equally, it's about that thing that I say to you. You're in my membership, you know this, that I say, when you're choosing what platform to be on? Ask yourself, is this going to take me closer to my goals? And what is the thing that I'm going to? It's going to help me move the needle in my business. And it's really if Clubhouse could be great for that. But it's, it's doing that kind of qualification process and also yourself there's questions because you don't need to be on everything. However, I think you are someone who is almost become part of your brand that you try things out.

Ella Orr 28:26

So visibility is part of my brand. So I mean, I probably won't always be full steam like this. But you know, I'm still in quite an early stage in my business. I've only been. I'm not very savvy, really doing it properly for the last two, two, and a half years. It's still very early on, and I'm still finding my niche. I'm still working out what my offers are. And yeah, and I think that's what was gonna give advice to anybody about when you're starting a business, you've got to put yourself out there, nobody's gonna come to you. Nobody is going to come and say, Oh, you know, I need graphic design services, blah, blah, blah. If you're a graphic designer, you've got to go and say it on these different platforms. And that's why you know, you may well need to invest a year in going hand in Tom's social media, or hands-on networking, because you've got because let's face it, you know, we're in competition with so many other business owners.

Ruth Gilbey 29:25

Yeah, we've got to stand out like out online have a way we do have to get out of our own way and say, This is what I do and start telling people because it doesn't just come to us, we have to get stuff that says that. Yeah, I guess that's one of my questions. You know, what advice would you give to someone who's making that move from either corporate or making a move from you know, actually, I'm a freelancer, and I want to grow my business. What advice would you give them?

Ella Orr 29:50

I would certainly say mindset work is a huge part of it. You know, I think so much if you're going to call yourself a business owner and Ruth You, this is why you persuade everybody on your membership to be called salesperson and you have to stand in the mirror, and you have to sell it, I am a business owner, if you are going to be a business owner, then you do have to have a certain amount of ego about you, you've got to know because as I said to you know, nobody is going to start to come and say hello to all, you know, enter, I'd really like to just help with my social media marketing, I've got to go out there and tell people about it. And you will do that. So you find your way of doing that. But you know, do the mindset work? Get yourself in with good people, people who are who you feel, you know, you have a synergy with people who you who will listen to you. That's why I've been part of it. I'm not gonna tie some of your membership now, Ruth.

Ruth Gilbey 30:49

No pressure only if you've got one or two, for honestly get whatever diamond only if you want to talk about it, go there.

Ella Orr 30:56

No, no, no, honestly, if you get yourself in with a group, good group, honestly, in this business, if you're going to be a business owner, you need other people, you can't do this on your own. Go and find people, but also, you know, go find the right people, because there's no point in being with people who are just. Oh, yes, it's, it's so hard, isn't it, whatever you need, people got energy, you've got efficient, who also going to hold you accountable. The thing, I would say, you know, and I've I know I've really benefited from that over the last 18 months, obviously, on the membership rates, but you know, I knew about these things as well beforehand, you know, about the fact that you need accountability, you need to do some work on yourself, go out there, you know, listen to but also the other thing I must mention is don't compare yourself to other people. Because we're all on our own journey, as you say, you've got to stay in your own line. Because I think as soon as you start comparing yourself to others, and thinking, Oh, I ought to be doing now, perhaps I should be doing that, you're going to sort of, again, stop following polls and not sticking on your own out in your own lane, you know, you'll be going off on different tangents. So really decide what you love, what you want to do, who you want to work with what your strengths are. I mean, I know, I don't, I don't do advertising. You know, if people want to pay to advertise, I've gotten lots and lots of lovely people I can send them off to, but you know, organic content creation is my thing. You know, I love creating content. And I'm very, very happy to teach somebody about how to create great content that's going to make their personal brand stand out. So those are some of the things I would say, you know, I could ramble on about this all day. But I just love my business. I love what I do. And, and I want to show the people that anybody what whatever their background, whatever age they are, if you've got half a mind, you and a business owner want to really do it, you can do it. You can.

Ruth Gilbey 32:52

Brilliant advice. And I think that you're saying this with a smile on your face, which you've really enjoyed learning the journey, the clients that you work with, the people that you've met, and I think what you said as well about staying in your lane so important. And also that yes, we try, and we try and do these things on our own without support or without having some fun along the way, we've got to enjoy it now.

Ella Orr 33:19

We have. And I was gonna say as well Ruth that, you know, there are times when now on the membership, where you know, some we all have our low moments, but what's so lovely is that we can come online to each other in our private Facebook group, and there was nobody else sees, we can just really bare ourselves. Now, we can really talk about what's got us down this week. And then we get we've you know, we give each other advice. We also sort of doing it in a microscopic way, don't when we sort of do a real deep dive into what it is that someone might be feeling like that the next week or come back into the group. Guess what has happened? Somebody offered me that at work, or I've got this need or whatever or, or just feel better about my business.

Ruth Gilbey 34:00

I know. It's interesting, isn't it?

Ella Orr 34:02

I think it's so important.

Ruth Gilbey 34:05

I love them. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm just getting excited about it. I love that.

Ella Orr 34:14

Yeah, yeah, no, but I just I can't even question there, Ruth. But I just wanted to say that. I think probably my reason I said all of that is that you know, we know that was running your own business. It's not always going to be a smooth ride. You know, there will be times when you're really down. And you know, we all know how many small businesses go under, don't we? Goodness, as to how many years, but I think if you've got good people around you and you really have got a strong sense of self and the direction that you are going in your business goals will succeed.

Ruth Gilbey 34:49

Amazing. That's brilliant, such great advice, and I thank you so much. So how can people find you, and how can they get to know you and find hang out and have a chat with you?

Ella Orr 35:00

Everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Don't do LinkedIn. And I know some people don't, then you know, obviously come and come and connect me on Instagram, which is much more social app, @muchmoresocial is my handle, or you can come to find me on Twitter, I'm also on Twitter, and I'm starting to enjoy Twitter a lot more. And I have got a Facebook page as well. So if you want to find me on the socials, then please do either on Ela Orr and or @muchmoresocial, or you can come to my website, which is also Much More Social. Okay, please do use the messaging. You know, one thing I do say to people is the use of direct messages on these social media platforms, not everything has to be in the public domain, you know, the PR feed, I think, you know, use the messaging and come and say hi to me and tell me that you saw me on Ruth's podcast.

Ruth Gilbey 35:50

Brilliant, and you've got an amazing Ella, explain it an hour, haven't you? Which is so much more than an hour. But I love that you've called it that. And what can people expect if they had an hour with Ella? More than an hour with Ella. What do you do on those calls? How would you help people?

Ella Orr 36:09

It's a diagnostic call, I would say. So when I say that, what I mean is, is that I will have found out from you beforehand what your pain points are. So we try to work on two or three things that are really bugging you about in social media marketing. And so I will unravel all of that and try to work out ways that you, the client, can put and take action, or actions into place that are actually going to smooth over those problems, work out what those problems are, and help you to progress on social media for your business. So I do that before the call, then we have the hour call, we'll have a chat like this and talk about things that are bothering you, it could be you know that you don't know how to post a video properly on whatever or whatever it is, then I'll give you the action. But then this is the crunch that is the accountability because the teacher bit always goes back to my teaching that I will do a follow-up call with you and a follow-up email. So the process of us working together is much more than an hour for what you know, for what you pay for so and hopefully, other people will feel a lot more confident or feel a lot less overwhelmed by the social media as a result of what we pay for that time. So that's the aim of the other Ella explain hour.

Ruth Gilbey 37:24

Amazing. So, for instance, if someone's like in putting off posting on LinkedIn, or even making a start, you can ignite that in someone in that. Yeah, I mean, I've done. I've had similar conversations with you. But I've done these kinds of live sessions with people where I've been stuck in something really powerful to get you kind of like moving out or like taking action and moving forward. If it's something that's been stuck on your to-do list, like with social media, LinkedIn, whatever to get in touch with Ella, I would say definitely,

Ella Orr 37:59

Definitely, and also, it's gonna save us. I mean, I don't think and again, you know, that's sort of sheltered sort of people like us to do this kind of work is that no, I was spending so much time going through Google looking for blog posts looking on YouTube to find solutions to the problems. And this is the difference to me about working with somebody once upon who will help you get, yes, you'll have to pay money for it. But you've got to. You'll get a lot further forward a lot quicker. And that's why I think it's such a great one to work with someone.

Ruth Gilbey 38:28

And a bespoke approach for their business as well as trying to figure it out. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ella. It was absolutely brilliant, having you on the podcast, loads of golden advice for people on social media, and starting a business. Thank you so much.

Ella Orr 38:44

I've loved it. Thank you very much, Ruth. Thank you.

Ruth Gilbey 38:47

Thanks for listening to the inspiring women in business podcast. I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, I would love it if you would leave me a review. Also, I would love to connect with you on Instagram. That's where I hang out most of the time. I'm @Ruth_Gilbey. I'll put a link in the show notes for you as well come and connect with me. Tell me about your business. And also tell me what you'd like to hear next on the podcast. And lastly, go and check out the business building hub on my website. There you can find more amazing free resources to help you take the next step in your business. And you can also find out other ways that you can work with me. I'll see you soon.