How to grow your business without spending money on ads with Niki Hutchison

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Niki Hutchison, and we are talking all about content, and how to be seen in as many places as possible, through organic reach; as well as sharing our thoughts around the online world. Niki has spent most of her career creating and implementing marketing strategies to grow businesses. She has helped hundreds of small business owners, as well as large organisations like The NatWest Group, The Scottish Government, The UK Space Agency to improve their marketing strategies and effectiveness. Her goal is for entrepreneurial women to enjoy marketing and the results that it brings. This is such a great episode, and you’ll feel like you’re having a chat with us - so go grab your coffee, sit down, and join us!   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST ●     The difference between organic marketing and paid marketing ●     Why organic marketing is the solid foundation you need in place ●     The importance of an authentic brand consistency ●     Different ways you can build your audience ●     How getting negative comments can actually help you show up more naturally as yourself ●     Why you need to pay attention to your insights and use them to be a detective in your own business ●     Why purpose is more important than how often you post ●     Why joining a membership isn’t enough, you need to join in too ●     Whether it’s possible to accelerate not caring what people think of you and showing up more authentically   THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE You are the only person who sees 100% of your content, so never think people will get bored of hearing from you; if they do, they’re not your people!   HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS ●     How to grow a business using organic marketing ●     What needs to be in place before you start doing organic marketing ●     How to choose the right place to be, when you’re just starting out   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Head over to part 2 on the Audience Growth Podcast   TRANSCRIPT   Hello, and welcome to this episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So we've got a really cool episode today. It's something a bit different. We thought we would try. And I'm really excited about it. Today is an interview with the lovely Niki Hutchison. And we're talking all about content and we're talking all about how to be seen as many places as possible. And we're talking about organic, so things that you don't have to pay for. So it's a great episode, loads of good stuff in it. And we have some cool conversations about being employed and then being, you know, having your own business and what that's like. But what's super cool about this is we decided to do a two-parter. We decided that we would do like a podcast swap where half the episode was on my podcast and then to listen to the rest of the episode, you need to go and listen to her podcast. So we thought that would be a really cool idea. And obviously half of the episode is on hers and hopefully her audience will come and listen to this half and if you are from Niki, Hi, welcome. Nice to have you. So yeah, so we thought we'd do that. We thought it was cool. We had a great chat. We got on so, well, I really, really like her. Uh she's. She came to my September event, which is ACE and yeah, it was just so, so good to have a conversation with her. So many things in common. We loved it. So I'm really excited about this episode. It's a really good conversation. It's definitely a one of like, get your coffee, sit down, or, you know, it's gonna feel like you're having a chat with us. It's really,really cool. So I'm not gonna take up any more time. I am gonna go straight to the interview. Enjoy. Okay. I am really excited today to welcome to this very special podcast Niki Hutchison. Niki, how you doing? Niki: Hi. I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about what we're doing today. Teresa: We're kind of, you know, cuz I'm more about honesty. We're kind of winging it if I'm honest. So we've decided that we're gonna do this cool concept of, we both have podcasts. We both wanted to interview each other. So we thought. What if we did like a two parter, one part on mine and one part on Niki's. So good luck listeners. Let's see how this goes. But as we're over on my podcast, let me start by as I always do Niki, please introduce yourself and tell everybody who you are and what you do. Niki: So my name's Niki Hutchison and I am a business and marketing expert. I work with entrepreneurial women who are looking to grow an engaged audience to grow their businesses. Teresa: Amazing. So you and I fit very nicely in terms of what we do. Have you always done this, Niki? What, what's your background? What did you come from? Niki: I haven't, I haven't, I worked as a brand strategist for many years in ad agencies, studied advertising, marketing, and then I had my kids and worked out that, that wasn't really a great environment for a working mother in my experience. And. I actually had, uh, I lost a lot of confidence as an employee. And so when I left, after my second maternity leave, I didn't have the confidence to set up anything related to marketing. So I set up a kid's hip hop dance company, as you do. Teresa: Well, they naturally seem to go from one to the other. Uh, I'm assuming you have some hip hop dance something. Or did you bring in a teacher? Niki: I cannot dance. Teresa: Perfect business. Niki: Yeah, doesn't it. Basically, my kids were young and also when I had been working in the agency, I'd been working on a big research project for the Scottish government into how to reduce antisocial behavior amongst children and young people. And the main findings were that they need a strong role model and an activity that they love. And I thought, "Hey, I could provide both of those with a hiphop dance company." So that's what I did. And I grew that business for eight years until the pandemic. So we were delivering classes all over Scotland in nursery schools, communities. I had a team of up to 40 at one point, and then the pandemic hit. And I quickly decided that actually the business model was not going to be viable for a very long time. And so I closed that down. And a few years prior to the pandemic, I had started this marketing business. Finally feeling that I had enough confidence and know how to run a marketing business. And so I started this business in 2017 and I've been growing it ever since. Teresa: That's so funny, like what was it that made you not have that confidence? Like, because I, I came from marketing as you may or may not know and don't agree in it where my entire life in it. And for me, when I left, it was just the most natural thing. What else was I going to do? Cuz that's all I knew, but my, how I'm helping with marketing has changed over the years of my business. So was there something in particular that made you go, "Do you know, I can't do this." Or was it just the process of having children and being out of it? Niki: No, it was, it was actually a boss. It was actually a male boss who treated his department badly, essentially. You know, in, I dunno if it's the same, you were client side marketing, weren't you? Teresa: Uh, yes. So I was for worked for an agency. Well, no, I worked for an agency and I was client side, so I've got folks. Niki: Oh, okay. Okay. Teresa: Yeah. So the last job I had, I was agency. Niki: So I signed often in agencies. There are people who are promoted because they're incredibly good at their jobs and they're very good with clients and they're great at what they do. And then all of a sudden they find themselves in charge of these departments and they actually haven't had any training in management. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually had an ectopic pregnancy in 2019 and I was off work. I'd lost so much blood. It was it, it ruptured misdiagnosed, bloody blah. I'd lost so much blood. Sorry, I'm saying 2019. That's wrong. 2009. Teresa: I was gonna say that time recent ago. Niki: Yeah. A long time ago. And I'd lost so much blood that I was off work for three months. And when I went back to work. I was pulled up on the work that I had been doing the day that I was hospitalized. Teresa: Oh, wow. Niki: And when I said, are you talking about this brief that I was writing the day that I was hospitalized? I was told everybody has off days. And that was just standards kind of office crap. I realised I like to swear on this podcast. Teresa: We can say crap, that's fine. Like see this, you know, it's something you'd done for all those years. You knew what you were doing. You were obviously good at what you did, cuz you couldn't have stayed in a job that entire time, if you weren't. And just because of some someone's bad management that then knocks your confidence, which then means, you know, And obviously you went into a business, which was great and you loved I'm assuming and was wonderful. But what if you didn't, what if you went into something that you hated or went into something, you know, or tried to get another job or, you know, all because of that...