THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER PODCAST with Rachel Klaver

It’s often only when we stop and breathe that we can see our new direction, and things finally fall into place. As we head into a new year, hoping for the best, prepared for the unexpected (if the last two years have taught us anything - it’s to be prepared), it’s a perfect time to reflect on our business, and check in with ourselves. Is our business leading me where I want it to...

It’s the end of 2021, and 2022 is looming. I’ll tell you what I’d like for the New Year. It’s very simple. Some plans to stay put and work out To have limited change However the last two years have shown me that I have very little control over both of those things! And, if there’s anything I’ve learned about digital marketing, it will change no matter whether we...

This year I’ve created more content across more platforms consistently than I ever have before. But I also nearly lost my own voice and style, the things that set me apart from every other marketer and content creator out there.    What happened to me is so common, and can happen to any of us when we’re trying to learn new ways of doing things, and spending too much time trying to emul...

It was day one of a new job in a new town. Toni had taken a job at a local radio station in Broome, Western Australia, and a tropical low pass went through and caused damage to buildings and businesses.  This was the point where Toni saw that regionally based businesses can often have issues with supplies, stock levels and may need to deal with issues around internet coverage, couriers, and extra...

Several months ago I was watching a Tiktok video about overcrowded beaches in Sydney during lockdown. I was stuck, feeling trapped, in lockdown in Auckland and the rule breaking in Aussie made me feel incensed. I shared it to my personal Facebook profile, and quickly discovered (from people who were currently on that beach at that instant)  it was old footage that had been cut to look like it was...

While most of us use holidays to chill out and think of anything but business, Chanelle O’Sullivan uses that time to plan out cool business ideas on paper, napkins, anything she can find. This was the beginning of her meadery Borage and Bee,  a sparkling mead in a can sold here in New Zealand, gaining huge interest overseas.    Chanelle operates Borage and Bee Meadery from her home in Glenor...

Find out my favourite tools, apps and online solutions that help us create content, develop materials, and keep the content machine churning without causing us all to burn out.  I first started in marketing over twenty years ago, and I can tell you that life is so much easier now! We had to outsource anything that wasn’t in our skillset (which besides writing was everything else for me.) It...

So often as business owners we fall into the trap of growing our business, focussed on the turnover and external signs of success, and forget the biggie: Profit.   This was certainly true for today’s guest Jennifer McKinley whose company Cor Silver Skincare was being picked up by international markets, considered a huge success and at the same time, causing Jennifer regular financial stress....

Sel Leigh created a business that pulled together her decades of experience in working across multiple government and NGO roles educating not-for-profit and business owners, and had a growing number of clients who loved her help, advice and support around helping them understand the obligations and entitlements of being in business, specifically in the not for profit, or other impact style busines...

Have you dipped your toes into using LinkedIn but are not sure if it’s a social media platform you should be focusing on? Or have you been putting effort into it but haven’t seen an increase of leads or sales from your activity? LinkedIn can become a powerful growth tool for your small business if you use it right. And it all starts with optimising your profile. For a long time, Linked...

I formally apologise for everything bad I’ve ever said about Linkedin Company Pages in the past, because today’s guest Michelle J Raymond has changed my mind! If you’ve also always wondered “Should I have one, and if I do, what do I do with it?” then this episode is most definitely for you Michelle covers how Linked covers the big four reasons you need to have your Li...

What do you do if you’ve had a few too many “no’s” recently and you need to find an extra ten thousand dollars? Well for Cat and her husband, the answer was simple. Start a business. Cat and her husband had long talked about turning a family game, where the family would explore New Zealand with a whimsical mystery tour of directions set out from the kids in the back for yea...

"The hardest thing for me as a people pleaser was to discover my attempts to please everyone caused people to trust me less. That was the thing that made me the most devastated" I used to be a sold out, all seasons pass People Pleaser. I was terrible at saying no if something wanted it, even if I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. Sometimes it all paid off. Other times, it didn’t...

Great images of your products and of you can make selling what you do a whole lot easier. Even if you’re on a budget, the investment of great photography can help elevate your business and make you look far more together than you probably feel! But it’s often one of the biggest areas of lack for most of the business owners I work with. So few invest money into getting a range of photos...

What do you do when a pandemic blocks your opportunity to go on the OE you’ve been planning and saving for for years? Well for Charlotte Greer, it was the perfect opportunity to start a business. After saving, while studying for her degree in Economics, Charlotte was all set to explore beyond the borders of New Zealand. When she realised that OE wasn’t going to happen any time soon, Ch...

If I could get my Christmas wish in early (very early!) it would be this: That you will get to Christmas Day with a good amount of profit in your account and you’ll be able to do more than wish you were napping all day over the stat days! This is your time of the year for you to maximise your profit, put some extra away for some of the leaner months, and move a whole heap of stock. And to do...

Have you ever wondered how to get over a hundred thousand followers in a year on Instagram? I know I have! So I was thrilled that Lucas O’Keefe agreed to share exactly what he did to grow his account by over 150 thousand followers in a year, using engagement and community building methods. "So my big takeaway it's been, you know, in a world where we need consistency, we need content, to just...

Five years ago, Cherie Metcalfe started a business selling salts, laid out on a duvet cover at a local market. Her goal was simply to contribute to the family income, without having to return to the late night life of cooking in a hospitality business. "I never had any money to put into the business. Every dollar I've put in started from money I earned from selling salts off a duvet cover at a mar...

Today I’m sharing with you what content I create from my podcast episodes every week. Learning to repurpose content is a huge step towards creating cohesive, on brand and on track content for your prospective clients to find and engage with, wherever they are. Part of the magic of repurposed content is it all fits together like a massive jigsaw puzzle. It can help you create content more eff...

"I am a recovered camera shyness person. Now I'm on the other side of it, I have made it my life goal to help as many other people overcome camera shyness as possible. " -Harrison Fear of showing up on video has to be one of the biggest blocks my clients have when it comes to marketing. It doesn’t matter what they ACTUALLY look like, except for the odd weirdo who, like me LOVES video, most o...

"You want to pull out all those nifty little quotes and testimonials, then really tattoo them on your arse, you know, everywhere, where ever it will work for you” - Lizzie Davidson If you are a service based business, you need to add Case Studies to your marketing strategy. These powerful marketing stories help people see themselves in your happy client’s shoes, and can imagine all the...

Today we’re talking social media captions!  Years ago, when I was a primary teacher, I discovered that the thing I was worst at teaching was art. And I was great at teaching PE. It was weird, because I love art, and creativity and PE? Well that’s not something I’m naturally good at! I was having to learn as I taught, often only about three of four steps in front of my learners. I...

Today in episode 15 of MAP IT MARKETING  we’re talking stories, and the power of using them in your marketing And not just any story. But the most important story (for you) " Your customer is bombarded with over 5000 commercial messages per day.  And so their poor brain is having to filter through all of this information just to understand what's going to be relevant to them " - Joel Woolley...

Today we are talking...TIKTOK! Tiktok is not just about lipsyncing to a song, or following memes, It can be a powerful marketing tool. Today we’re talking about how to use Tiktok as a product based business. (As a service based business I also learned a lot from this episode.) I’m so pleased Tasha Miller from Jubly-Umph is joining us today to talk through how she uses Tiktok to grow he...

Marketing overwhelm has the power to take us to meltdown. We either freeze, flee or fight and in the end the only thing we don’t do is keep on going on. “Sometimes I need to remember this is not the time to learn that new thing because it’s not a current focus for the business” “When marketing overwhelm is overtaking me it’s normally that either something is out...