This is the Social Strategy Podcast with me, your host Vernon Ross, and this is episode number five. Welcome to the Social Strategy Podcast, where it's all about making the most of your business with smart tips on what's working now in social media, online business, and good old-fashioned networking. And now your host who's also known as Ross PR on Twitter, Vernon Ross. Hey, what's going on guys?
This is Vernon Ross and this is the Social Strategy Podcast. This episode is pretty cool. It's a short one because it's at a conference and as you'll find out throughout these podcasts, some of the interviews and interrogations that I get a chance to do, often at conferences, because I think those make the best shows because you get a chance to meet a lot of people at one time and you get some really memorable interviews. One, I did episode number two was actually with Michael Britto, social IRL.
He's a former vice senior vice president at Edelman Digital. It's a great interview. He gave us some really good content advice, content strategy. If you're having to listen to episode number two, just go out to socialstrategypodcast.com.
This episode, we got a chance to talk to Gene Chatsky and we covered everything from the government shutdown and happened a couple weeks ago, the end of a couple weeks ago to small business and small business investment, all in and about the span of 10 minutes. So it's quick to the point where we cover a lot of ground, get some really good general ideas and some good general advice from Gene Chatsky about doing things that can help you with your small business. We also talk about Gene's book, Money Rules, and it is an awesome little book. I mean, it's really easy to pick up $12.99.
Make sure you listen to the end of the podcast because there is a special offer that's just from me to you. I'm going to give you a hint. It has something to do with her book. Anyway, so I've been getting a few emails, actually.
Now the podcast has gotten a few episodes under its belt and I've gotten a few emails about social strategy because the podcast is, after all, the social strategy podcast. So a few people have had questions about Facebook and Facebook pages and whether or not they should use a personal profile or their fan page or vice versa, which one should they focus on. And it's funny, I was having a conversation with Brandy, Love May Lifestyle podcast and you guys can find that on iTunes, by the way. And we're talking about whether or not to build out fan pages for our podcast.
I actually currently do not have a separate fan page for this podcast. Facebook has never really been a focus for me as far as my business is concerned. So it is really just a placeholder there for my business. I don't really communicate that often with my clients through Facebook like that.
I do have Facebook pages that I manage. But from a consulting standpoint, it's never just been that important to me. It's always been important for Facebook ads because Facebook ads convert like crazy, especially the ones that you place in the newsfeed, stuff like that. But it's just never been a focus to me.
And I would much rather have a strong email list than worry about building a huge Facebook following. But you can't discount the level of community that you can build with Facebook and Facebook groups that you can create or on your fan page depending on how much stuff and what you're actually doing on Facebook to drive traffic to that fan page. So if you take a full advantage of the tabs that are out there and you're doing lead capture and stuff like that, on those tabs, then great, knock yourself out, use Facebook fan pages. If not, and you want to have more of a conversation and the conversations that you drive on your regular newsfeed are for your business, then I say use the newsfeed, use your regular profile.
The problem is that you do run into limit with your regular profile. So when you get to 5,000 users, I believe it is 5,000, it used to be three. But when you get to 5,000 users, you're going to have to either migrate those people over to a fan page or you're going to have to start a new profile. That is the one downfall of using your personal profile for business is that you are limited to the number of friends that you can interact with through a personal profile.
So that is a limitation there. And it's one of the reasons that I recommend for my clients that if you're going to have a Facebook page, number one, make sure that that's where your audience is. If your audience is not on Facebook, there's no reason for you to be there. So just, you know, it's an audience thing.
My audience is on LinkedIn and on Twitter and in email. So I focus a lot of my efforts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and email. We can get into that in another episode. But I just wanted to answer, I got now like two or three emails about the whole Facebook thing about, you know, whether or not you should use Facebook for business or for personal and should you mix the two.
I say, it makes it too a little bit. It just depends on what your audience is. And if it's mostly family on your Facebook page and your family doesn't do business with you like that, then I don't recommend using your regular personal newsfeed for business or, you know, for promotion. I think that you'll be better off or much better off using a business page or it's not really called a fan page anymore.
It's just a Facebook page now. But a Facebook page for business, I think, is the best option there. If you have a business and your audience is there and you're getting engagement or you think you will get engagement from your Facebook page and then just test the heck out of it. You know, put stuff out there, you know, get your followers up and start testing whether or not you get interaction.
And then if you can pull them from Facebook to wherever it is that you want to get them to, ultimately, that would be your email list. We're going to have a whole podcast about email list and email list building and all the good stuff that comes along with it. So without further ado, I just wanted to answer those couple questions because I'm starting to get questions and email, which is very awesome. If you want to email me, email me at verdon at verdonross.com, it's v-e-r-n-o-n-r-o-s-s .com.
So verdon at verdonross.com or just go out to socialstrategypodcast.com and you can contact me a number of ways that are on the website. So without further delay, Gene Chatsky. Thanks a lot guys and I'll see you on the back end. But hey, this is Verdon Ross with the Social Strategy podcast and I'm sitting here with Gene Chatsky from this Today Show and just kind of ambushed her in the lobby and saw her.
So this is totally unscheduled interview and she was nice enough to sit down on top of this for a few minutes. So Gene, how are you liking St. Louis and FinCon 2013? Well, this is my first time at FinCon.
I'm very excited to be here. St. Louis is gorgeous today. I got in with no travel fluent from Chicago and went out and did a few loops around the arch.
So got to run in. All is good. Which is now open. So tell us about that.
What do you think? What does this whole government the government shut down and how does it affect small business from a financial standpoint? Well, it affects confidence in the ability of Washington to keep the government open. I mean, they kick the can down the road.
Essentially, we don't we have a resolution but it's a really short term resolution. It's like four months. Six weeks something. I mean, it's not it is not a long term fix.
There's still a lot of work to be done which means that small businesses are going to worry about the economy. They're going to worry about whether or not we'll have strong growth going forward and companies big and small. I think they're going to really think twice before they start hiring and putting their resources to work. They're going to be a little more conservative.
Right. Now, you're an investment expert. Can you give advice for a small business? They want to grow their business.
Say they're not really successful. They're not just starting out. What's the safest type of investment for somebody to make as far as a small business and not sacrifice or risk so much of their money? Something that's safe that won't take 20 years from the sea results?
You mean in terms of what their business what sort of business they should go into? No, just what sort of investments they should make? Well, I just I was actually just with a group of 350 small business CEOs and I find that small business owners put so much of their time and their energy into their businesses that they often don't focus enough on their own retirements. Their attitude to their detriment all too often is my business is my retirement plan and that's a huge mistake because it means that everything is tied up in this relatively illiquid pie that you won't necessarily be able to access when you need it to fund retirement whenever you happen to retire.
And I know there are a lot of small business owners who say well, you know, I love what I do. Why would I ever retire? About two thirds of people tell us that they'll continue to work in retirement but we know that a lot of them won't be able to because either the job or the industry won't be there or they're helpful though. So that attitude is really really risky and I would like to see small business owners opening retirement plans funding them to the extent of their ability which as a small business owner you know, you can you can put a lot more money away than somebody who just has a 401k, you know, you've got a set plan, you've got a db plan, you've got a solo 401k, you can really suck a lot of money away and and the key is to just get in and do it year in and year out because whether or not your business is successful you need that stash of cash.
So, you know, as a small business owner it's it is difficult for me to funnel any money towards any investments. Is there a way to start small? Yeah, there is a way to start small. You just take a piece of change off the table every time you get paid and you move it somewhere where you can't touch it.
Right? No, I'm not kidding. I mean 401k's work because the money comes out when we get paid. Right.
And then it's barricaded in an account where if you want to get it out you have to face penalties and taxes that could eat up 30 to 40 cents in every dollar. Right. It hurts. We don't touch the money.
So, you got to replicate that in your life as a small business owner which essentially means when you pay yourself and hopefully you pay yourself on some sort of a regular schedule. You immediately, you know, take some money and you move it to the side. Right? And you know, if you are functioning through a payroll with the help of a payroll processing service they can do this for you know, they can set up a 401k for you and you can have the money go just like a corporate employee does.
Right. That's interesting. You know, part of that in talking to other small business owners is they worry about what happens when the market tanks like they did in 2008. Well, you're talking about two different things.
You're talking about saving and then you're talking about investing. Right? And saving has to be done first. We got to get the money out of our own hands.
And then once it's in the 401k, once it's in the set plan or the DB plan, wherever you're going to put it, then you need a strategy for how you want to invest that money. And it has to be based on your age and your risk tolerance. And it has to be very, very diverse. Diversity is more important than it's ever been.
And if you aren't sure exactly how to do that, you sit down with a financial advisor and you structure a strategy. You can certainly fill the buckets yourself, but I think it's worth paying a financial advisor for a few hours of their time just to get going. You know, it's interesting as you were talking about financial advisors. Do you recommend a certain type of company?
Because I know there are some that have like the financial advisors. They do everything for you. And you have other companies where you do it all yourself. And then there's some where it's kind of a mix of both.
So I like financial advisors who take a holistic approach who look not just at your investments or just at your insurance, but your whole life. And I think this is particularly important for small business owners where there are a lot of different tax considerations. You want somebody who can really look at your life as a whole and help you chart out your goals and figure out how do you get from here to there. And those advisors get paid in many different ways.
You know, I think there are good financial advisors under all of the different payment structures. The trick is finding somebody who syncs with what you're looking for. So now, do you recommend that people get accountants? I ran into this in my own small business that because of taxes and an audit and stuff like that, I needed to get an account.
If you need an accountant, you should get an accountant. I think QuickBooks does the trick for an awful lot of people. You know, QuickBooks combined with TurboTax. A lot of there are a lot of people who really do manage to do it themselves.
I am not one of them. You know, I have an accountant and I am very thankful for that. But sure, I don't think that all of these things are so complicated that with the resources available to us, we couldn't do it ourselves. We're smart enough to do it ourselves.
We are time-starved. And so the question is, if I only have a certain amount of time and you only have a certain amount of time, what's the best way for us to allocate our resources? My time is not best spent trying to figure out my taxes. Exactly.
Because I did it and I did it wrong and I ended up paying for it in the end. So to kind of switch gears a little bit, you have a new book that came out. It's relatively new. It's called Money Rules and it is quick and dirty tidbits for how to handle your money.
They're mantras and maxims and sayings and they're funny and I enjoy writing it. Who's the audience for that book? Oh, it's very mass audience. I mean, I really think it's all ages and you know, that's what I've heard from readers, all ages and all professions.
Right. Now one of the things that I think is impressive about you is you do a lot of your own stuff. You run your own website from what I'm doing. Well, you write for your own website.
I write for my own website. I don't do everything I do by myself. I have people who help me and I've got a team of two. Okay.
So and I hire additional help when I get it. Now do you outsource that or are they actually work for you directly? Okay, cool. Now do you do your own tweets?
Do you handle your own Twitter account? I do some of my own tweets. I like Twitter. So I tweet throughout the day when something is interesting to me.
There's some tweets that we schedule because we know things are happening. Okay, well cool. Well Jane, I really do appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. Thanks.
Since I did kind of ambush you there in the VidCon lobby, but I really appreciate it. And thanks a lot. So how was that? Short sweet and support, but she covered a lot of ground.
You know, something that I had not really given consideration to and I hate to say it was actually one of the attitudes that I've had is that, yo, my business is my retirement plan, but that is not a case. I do have 401k investments and stuff like that. And I'll have some of that stuff in the show notes. I do not like giving investment advice.
And so I will not give investment advice. I suggest that you look into the things that Jean mentioned if you're not familiar with 401k's, find a good financial advisor when it takes a holistic approach, just like she recommended and learn some of that stuff. Get out on the Googles. They are wonderful.
You can find out all the information about anything that you want to find out on Google. So Jean's new book are fairly new, as she said, Money Rules, the simple path to lifelong security by Jean Chasky. It is available from Rodeo or RodeoBooks.com. That is a link, there is a link on the, in the show notes for the book, but for one lucky person that leaves a comment or review on iTunes, I'm going to send you a copy of the book.
As a matter of fact, I have two copies and I am going to personally send you two copies. This is not sponsored by Jean. This is just something that I decided to do. I got a copy and then I went ahead and got a couple more copies of her book to give away.
I want to share this with as many people as I possibly can. It is just a really good book. As I mentioned in the show notes, Number 88 is actually one of my favorite ones. And it was one that resonated with me and I ended up just going through the rest of the book and you know, this past with the weekend that I got it.
So Number 88 is spend more time building a legacy than an inheritance. What's more valuable, leaving $20,000 to your kids or instilling a work ethic that lets them earn an extra $20,000 a year, that is a powerful statement. And to be honest, I was thinking, oh, well, you know, the inheritance is good. But you know what, if you don't instill that work ethic and then they'll just blow through the inheritance once they get it and then it's gone and you've worked all that time to build up all that money to give it to them so they can blow it because you didn't give them the tools that they needed.
And there's just all types of stuff in here, just like that, really, really good stuff. So I'm going to send a copy of her book, which I was just thumbing through. Nothing one is I'm going to send out. But it was just thumbing through her book.
I want to give two copies. So make sure I'm going to pick the person at random if you leave a comment and you go either out to Stitcher or iTunes and you leave a rating and a review. You'll get it. You'll get entered in.
It's not really a contest. I'm just picking somebody at random. So if there's not that many comments, you stand a better chance on getting a free copy of jeans book. So I'll contact you whoever it is that leaves a comment and make sure that you if you leave a review out on iTunes that you shoot me an email or send me a tweet to let me know that you left a comment and I will definitely make sure to get your information and send you a copy of the book.
Now we have two copies. Just letting you guys know this is not going on forever. So whenever you're listening to this podcast, if it is after November 10th, you're probably out of luck and I've already picked the person. So with that, thank you again for tuning into another episode of the Social Strategy podcast.
Not that long, but hey, I like the short ones. The short ones are fun too. So please let me know what you guys think about the podcast. If you were enjoying it, if you like it, if you love it, let me know in the comments, subscribe on iTunes.
Thanks a lot guys from tuning in. And I will see you in the next episode. Take it easy.