Let’s Get Social with Blair Kaplan Venables | Ep.39

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:07

I believe in divine timing. I believe that the right people information, wisdom, guidance, heck things arrive when we're ready for them. I believe that owning our own truth unconditionally is the path to not only creative fulfillment, but more about success and abundance. This is not only a podcast to help you get strategic and mastered a position of success. It's a declaration to share the truth. It's a commitment to keep going to make it happen no matter what. It's an activation and invitation for me for you and for us to play a bigger game. So my question for you is this. Do you really want it? Do you really want to make your dreams come true? Do you really want to become a six figure coach? Welcome to the diaries of a six figure coach podcast, I am your host, Theresa Lambert, and I dare you to get ready to show up, boss up and make it happen.

Theresa Lambert: 00:01:01

Hello, Hello. And welcome back to another episode of diaries of a six figure coach podcast. I am so excited because I have a very, very special guest with me today, the one and only Blair Kaplan Venables who is the best me and best bestie. And also an incredible social media and PR expert and I have learned so much from this woman, over the years for social media has a unique perspective. She's like a voice in my head sometimes that says it's only social media, and FDI algo. And some of the beautiful things that she has shared over the years. And she's really given me a unique perspective about social media, about public relations, communications, how to get our message out there how to position ourselves as a thought leader that feels very raw, authentic, doable, practical. And I love that about what Blair does. So I'm really happy that she is actually a guest on my podcast, when Usually you hear us together Yep, and on on dissecting success about success. So I'm so pumped that you're here, Blair. So we can have a conversation about all the goodness you do.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:02:20

And I am honored to be here. And you know, I love that we have this podcast that's been going for like two years, and that each of us also have our own other podcasts, because they're all such important conversations. And they're different, because I also have radical resilience, which is about resilience. And this conversation is so important, because six figures, as you know, six figures is actually an attainable number for most people. And the fact that you're you're sharing this wisdom with the world, it's important work. So thank you for doing this and for having me. Oh, my gosh,

Theresa Lambert: 00:02:53

thank you. So it's so good. And yeah, you know, I think that just like the idea of having a six figure business, I feel like social media can sometimes intimidate people and public relations or being in the media can intimidate people. And so I would love to just have you riverbed on your journey on social media. And you know what that was like for you. You've been in this game on social media for longer than most people even know social media exists. And still, to this day, you say things that I'm like, Huh? Like the other day, you shared something on your social media, I thought was, like, very touched me. And it was just a powerful reminder. But you said you should talk on your social media, you should show up and talk on your social media as if you were talking to a friend. And I was like, good one.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:03:56

Yeah, I That's great. And I and I didn't make that up. That's something I've heard other people say, but that's how I've always shown up. Because social media, we need to make it very clear before I dive in. It's not a sales tool. It's a public relations tool. Public relations is a planned effort to influence public opinion through responsible action. It's a tool to build relationships. It's the long game, you're planting seeds. You're letting people into your life and your business. So I love social media, I as soon as it starts to become a chore. Anything in my life, as soon as something that's fun becomes a chore. I can't do it. And I like to say I don't make the rules. I just break the rules. And I have systems and processes that I follow when it's time to follow them. But, you know, my background is in public relations. In fact, I have a funny story that I haven't shared on many podcasts and I don't know Do you want me to share my very first experience with social media? Yes, please. So when I was 20, turning 21 I spent that summer living in Greece. And Facebook wasn't really in Canada yet because it started in like the American College Network. And traveling, I met a lot of people from around the world. And I was living on the island of Corfu for one month and the island have iOS for two months. And the last night of the last night, in Corfu, I was working at a place called the pink palace, and if you know, you know, but it was a toga party, but it was also a Canada Day. And throughout this whole summer, people kept saying, add me to Facebook, get Facebook when you get home, and I'll share pictures with you. And it was just such a foreign concept. And so this last night on Corfu, before I was going to spend two months on iOS, it was Canada Day, we were having a toga party. It was our last night on this island, and everyone was painting their bodies with Canada flags. And you know, I am free spirit. So I painted my boobies, like Canada flex, and there's nothing wrong with that, like I was I was young and skinny and 20. And like I you know, have great boobs, that's fine. And they're painted very tastefully. But like, you know, I was partying. And so a lot of people took pictures. A lot of people took pictures, didn't think anything of it. Because sometimes you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know what the future has in store, which is actually really scary. And so, months later, you know, I get Facebook, I get home, I start adding my friends and every so often a picture of me and my boobs painted like flags would pop up and I'd be tagged in it, I then tag it. And then it happened again. And then what happened all of my friends in Winnipeg started getting Facebook, I'd be at a house party. Hey, I saw this picture of you in Greece with your with the flags. And this happened year after year. Oh no, this thing gets worse. It gets better. So I was mortified. So anytime a picture came up, I couldn't delete it. But I would untag myself. And years later, so years later, I get a message. I'm now living in Vancouver at this time. And it's a message from my childhood neighbor. And they have a branding company and they're preparing for Canada Day. And they were googling things. And Laura and my neighbors like oh my god, we're doing preparation for Canada Day, and my dad's found a picture of you and your boobs on Google. So that's mortifying because like, well, you know, parent figure, and also, holy shit. I'm on Google. I didn't even know that was a thing. I didn't know I could somehow make it onto Google. Like, I didn't know that I didn't go to PR school yet. We didn't learn about that. That wasn't like a thing that we knew about. And so that was mortifying. So there's specific words, you can Google and I would show up and every so often, someone I know, it'd be like, I was Googling blah, blah, blah. And I saw a picture of your boobs on the page, one of Google tried to get rid of it. I couldn't figure out how and Anyways, long story short, every so often, my sister likes to remind me when you google certain words, it's actually still there on page one of Google. But the whole point of this lesson is that that was my first experience with Facebook was seeing the power of connection and the power of something going viral. And I will never run for parliament, but my boobs are painted like flags on the internet. And unfortunately, I'm not like a sexy swimsuit model posing. I was like partying, doing shots of ouzo in Greece. But what the moral of the story is, is that you never know what's going to happen, or, you know, come come to be like, Look at what's happening now, with AI. Like, there's artificial intelligence out there that will write website copy and your books and books and do homework and essays. Like we didn't know that was going to be a thing. However, many years ago, when I was in Greece, partying with my friends, I wasn't worried about people taking photos of me and putting it on social media, because that wasn't a thing. But then it became a thing. So that's just a little story about how my boobs ended up on social media. And I'm terrified about I'm worried for the next generation, but also I'm very, like, cautious about when there's phones around, to be very cautious about how I'm behaving.

Theresa Lambert: 00:09:12

Yeah, you know, I, first of all, thank you for sharing that story. I've heard you share the story before and every time you do I just like, I'm like dying on the inside and laughing and at the same time, I remind myself how grateful I am. That social media wasn't a thing until I was, I think 21 nearly 22 before Facebook came out. I was into constraints. That's exactly it. Yeah, I was like, I was introduced to Facebook in Peru. When I was traveling, and somebody told me that this new app has kept came up Facebook, and you could message with people and you could share your photos with people. And mean I had to go to a coffee shop. I didn't have On with me, right? Like I was traveling with a Lonely Planet like there was no Google frickin maps, like, you know, like, same same bands existed. It's so funny. It's the only time I realized. But I always feel grateful that I didn't grow up in my late teens, early, early 20s, with social media and images floating on social media, but I think the point that you're making with that is, it's amazing what we can do from the palms of our hands. Now, it's amazing what we can do with our imagery, who we can reach globally, like, there is a tremendous power from using this form of communication and getting our message out there.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:10:44

And it has grown into a thing. Yeah, and it's not really just grown into a thing. It's something that consumes a lot of people's time. But it's also a tool that's helped people become popular change the landscape of marketing and business growth. It you know, it's, it's an instrumental part of a lot of things in life. And it's really like, It's bananas, when you think about it. When when, you know, when I went to school for public relations after my year in Greece, and boob gate, we, you know, didn't even talk about social media in school. But then fast forward to 2008, I was new to Vancouver, and I wanted to move up in Lululemon where I worked, it was just too hard to do that because I was 23. What did I know? Everyone that was, you know, being brought in, were like, people who had lots of experience because the company went public. So I started my PR company, and accidentally also started a coupon company because I wanted free yoga, and I couldn't find a way to do that. So I just like started a coupon company with all the things I wanted to do. And because of my PR company in the coupon company, I was networking my face off. And because I'm a vintage millennial, I would sit down with someone who's my parents age, which is basically the main group of people I was networking with. And they immediately because of my age would say, Do you know how to use this thing called social media? Do you know how to use Facebook to promote a business? Do you know how to use Facebook for public relations? And I always just said, Yes, and figured it out. Like when Pinterest came out, a big leader in the business community in Vancouver reached out to me he's like this new thing. Pinterest is out how to use it for business, can you lead a workshop? I said, Yeah. And so I spent a couple days figuring it out. And I led a workshop and I created my own systems. And that's how I've always done it. Because when I started, there was no mentors to learn from no YouTube videos, there was no degrees or courses. That was 15 years ago, where now I'm teaching a course at BCIT on social media marketing, digital marketing, I run my own programs, I do private and group mentorship. And it's so interesting to see how the landscape has changed so much to from a place of curiosity to a place of necessity.

Theresa Lambert: 00:12:51

Yeah, and I think that's so powerful to write from up from, like, to a place of necessity, like social media is such a powerful marketing tool. Now such a powerful tool to reach our audience. And you know, it, I love that you're saying, you know, social media is a PR tool, and not a sales tool. But social media allows us to, to position ourselves in a way that makes social selling a very profitable way of attracting and generating leads for businesses and ultimately getting clients which is done for relationship building. And conversations that come out of the content that encourages the conversation, right? Like, I just think that's really cool. But it's also so fascinating how, yeah, I mean, for some people, but you know, I'm listening to you. And I'm like, thinking there's gonna be people listening to this podcast, who weren't old enough to remember that social media wasn't a thing.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:13:53

Yeah, that's, that's because you and I are, hold on the other day, sell me a product. It's like, get on a sales call and airborne in after 2000. And that I felt like 9090 90,000 was just like, a couple years ago, but it wasn't. And like, you know, that's I digress.

Theresa Lambert: 00:14:12

Yeah, and if you're born in 2000, and you're gonna turn 23. Wow. And I remember when like, 2000 rolled around, and everyone thought computers might stop.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:25

The world was gonna explode. The number going over was, Oh, my God, we got we, me and my friend just had a house party.

Theresa Lambert: 00:14:34

Oh my god, I love this. I love this. So, but what would you say like, social media is one of those things that I feel like? I definitely mean a lot of entrepreneurs that are really intimidated about social media. It feels like a lot. It feels overwhelming. They they may be unsure like what to do, how to share how to post. How, like, where can they start? Like, what would you say to people who are out there entrepreneurs that want to tap into the potential of social media get their message out there be seen by the right clients?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:11

How do we do it? Yeah, that's a great question. So I created something called the Social Media empowerment pillars. And there are the seven elements that you need to build out in your social strategy. So you grow your business so that you're seen as a thought leader, which essentially is what you want to do. And so this can be done on a napkin, you know, over brunch, or it can be, you know, written out in like a 50 page document, you need to choose how detailed Do you want your strategy to be? But I'm just gonna walk over like, walk through the high level of what each of those pillars are. So they spell out the word empower. So the first first pillar is E, which is edutainment. That's educate and entertain, you need to have a content strategy. And the best way you the best way to do this is think about like, Okay, if you want to post Monday, Wednesday and Friday have a theme, maybe every Monday is Motivation Monday, maybe it's whiskey Wednesday, if maybe you like whiskey, maybe it's fun fact, Friday, come up with themes, you can do that for every day of the week. Look at your strategy is like a fill in the blank. Right. And there's so much more to that pillar that we don't have time for but as you train, educate and entertain, tell stories don't sell, tell don't sell. Okay. M is the second pillar, and that's for money. Two things. One, social media is paid for play, social media is free. So only a certain amount of people are going to see your content unless you're a celebrity, which you might be one day if you follow this plan. But you need to have an advertising budget on social media. Or even go further than that. Like what is your budget for publicity? PR marketing? Do you want to professional development? Like what budget do you have? If you know if anything? Can you spare 10 bucks extra dollars a week? I recommend a minimum $10 a week on Facebook and Instagram ads. Maybe you bank it and you run an ad every two months for ad dollars to promote something. You should have a budget and then also under money. How much money do you want to make? When I spend more money on professional development? Or courses or ads I make more money. So they work together? E M? P is for personas. Personas, who are you selling to? These are your customers, it's important to have like a high level description of who your customers are. I like to think about who are my favorite customers, the ones that pay me on time that respect my intelligence that talk positively about me to everyone that loves my work. They're easy to work with and have a great brand. I want more of those. So how are you going to attract them in? Where are they spending time on social media? Or media? What do they subscribe to what newsletters do they subscribe to? Who are they? You want to be where they are? Some people only have one persona, some people have 500. Like that's excessive, but you know, maybe come up with two to five different ideal customers. And if you only have one, that's fine, too. But you want to figure out where are they spending time. Right? So someone who is 16 years old might be on Tik Tok. And someone who is 728 might be on LinkedIn, the 16 year old might not be on LinkedIn yet. So who are you marketing to? And where are you? Where are you marketing to them. So oh is the next pillar. And that's for other players. That's your competition. If someone's not spending money with you, they're spending some money elsewhere. I believe in collaboration over competition. So for example, if its competitor, which I don't really believe in competitor, maybe we do a collaboration, maybe we refer business to each other, I want to know who they are. Because one I sometimes refer business and sometimes they refer business to me too. I want to know where they are on social media, what type of content they're creating, but also who's following them who's engaging with their content, because that might be an ideal audience for me. And then also those that are doing an audit will show an opportunity of where you can create content that they aren't yet. So I recommend picking five different you know, other players, and then if it's a other player who's not necessarily competition, but you know, for example, I do social media marketing and a competitor can be a magazine like a business magazine, because instead of coming and like hiring me to do your strategy, you might just put ads in a magazine. So how can I partner with my other the other players and work together for our customer? So the next pillar is wins. That's the publicity pillar. This is where you're going to build all the publicity plan and publicity is plenty I mentioned in the media, it's important to mark it outside of social media, you should not just be on social media. And when you're in the media, when your name or expertise is shared in the media, you're branded as an expert, a thought leader, an industry expert gives you credibility. And so this pillar is about your publicity strategy. And it's also about sharing your wins. I call it peacocking. We stick our feathers out, and we shake them to attract clients, right? We male peacocks do that to attract mates, we need to brag about what we've done for our clients, what we've accomplished for ourselves, big wins, little wins if we don't share how far we've come are, how awesome we are. How am I supposed to refer business to you? How are people supposed to know how great you are, we need to share that. And social media is a beautiful place to not only do that about yourself, but to amplify the other people in your community and your clients. So this is publicity and wins. It's all about celebration and leverage and exposure. ie the second is for engagement. This is easy. Don't just post and ghost don't just schedule and walk away be a real person. Every time you show up a like a comment engagement, a share a post, you're planting a seed? Do you want a pot with one little rose? Or do you want to field full of flowers? Remember, social media is a long game and you have to plant a lot of seeds and they eventually do grow. And then the very last pillar is realistic goals. I like to break my goals into personal professional and health. I like to look at the five year vision it used to be 10 years, but things change too fast for me. So I like the five year vision you can do 10 year if you want. And then I work backwards, what is my life like in five years. And then what are my goals five years, three years one year professional, personal and health. And this is important because if your goals are to live in a hut by a forest off grid, what your output might be different, maybe you only want to work 15 hours so we can do earn X amount of money. But if you want to fly first class once a year to to Dubai and buy three homes in Hawaii, you might need to make a bit more money. And you know, everything works cohesively together. And also when you have these goals, share them this great content to let people know and helps you stay accountable and people can follow your journey. So those are the empowerment pillars.

Theresa Lambert: 00:22:18

So much giusta I hope everyone's taking notes. And I know, you know if you're listening to this and you're interested in learning more, I actually have experienced not just Blair sharing in a few minutes about the empowerment pillars, but I've actually been in her pallmann program and VT land on how to, to really dive in through being in her program but also through momentum and all the incredible things that she's teaching our clients that I am there with us. And I know empowerment your your program, your group coaching program is coming back in 2020. Free, when is it happening? Because some people listening might be really curious about how they can learn from you more. Yes,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:23:01

so we're officially kicking off like the first day of empowerment is March 14. So we still have some time. But you can learn more about the program on our website. And there's going to be a link to sign up. Or you can reach out to me if you have questions. But it's a 90 day program. It's a group coaching program where we not only go through the pillars, but I also bring in other industry experts to teach you. And there's a bunch of different surprises and delights we learn with each other. And it's an at an affordable price point and we break up the payments so you can pay up front. But what's really cool about this is that the group that comes together gets to build this really beautiful bond because we're meeting every week, we're sharing our wins. And we're building our strategies together. And what's really cool is like when you talk about our goals, if one of my goals is to do something specific, maybe it's like, oh, my goal is to do more photo shoots. And then someone and there's a photographer like it actually is like a little bit mini business network. And we're all learning together so it's really beautiful. So that's Thursday, March 14.

Theresa Lambert: 00:24:01

I love that and I'll make sure that the link is in there but if you want to have a chat with Blair you can find on Instagram at Blair from Leyland and I know you can find a black hat on Venables on LinkedIn and all those beautiful platforms you are like on every platform. I feel like if you just searched for black apple and Venables, you'd find out pretty easily

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:24:20

except like don't add me to Snapchat like I've downloaded and deleted snapchat so many times. I don't use Snapchat, I guess like I couldn't get into it. I don't know. Like, I'm also you don't need to be everywhere, right? I don't need to be everywhere. If a new platform comes out. I check it out. But like I don't want to spend my 24/7 on social media. I'm the anti social media social media expert like I love camping off grid where you can't reach me. Because you know, like we talked about in stillness we create the inspiration comes when you're not you know, putting pen to paper always.

Theresa Lambert: 00:24:52

Yeah, I love that. And I love that you're mentioning that because I feel like sometimes we can get kind of consumed with social media and it's almost Like, how much time do we spend on social media versus the result we actually get from from it, you know, especially now that I've definitely like, re evaluated and looked at that. But the cool thing I have found too is that once a post is on your feed, for example, on Instagram is dead. Like if somebody wants to go and log into, like, you know, your content they can go to at Blair from Blue Island, and they can

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:25:27

read it and see what I'm all about, like, whether you're

Theresa Lambert: 00:25:29

off the grid or not, there's tons of articles, like, it's almost like your media publication that they can plug into, right, like the Blair magazine, or the Blair reality show.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:25:41

Welcome to my life, I then you know, it's also really cool if you want to see an example of like, how someone shows up authentically, which is really important is to be a real person and show all the different sides of you, you get to choose how deep you go with your followers. You don't have to go as deep as some other people, but you can see how I show up and share the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between, in my personal life and my business, because we're real people going through real shit like life isn't shiny and polished. Like, I mean, if you're looking at me right now, you know that because I'm in like a hoodie, dress and earrings and like a leopard print scrunchie. But, you know, I think when you show that all the hard work that it took to get to where you want to go, people fall along your journey. And a it brings you more clients, but also people see the work that goes into it, they understand you more, and you build that connection, and you get to have all these internet besties who want to be a part of your world.

Theresa Lambert: 00:26:36

Yeah, I think that that's such an important aspect that I've really like learned from you over the years as I've been on my journey of sharing more and more of what's happening in my life and behind the scenes and, and my social media and the way I'm sharing has really changed and like I dropped like a mad amount of value on my social media, I teach a lot of value on my social media. And it's part of like, it's really in alignment with who I am as a giving caring person that wants to help more entrepreneurs scale their businesses, but you've also really inspired me to share more about my life. Like there is a lot more content on my social media now, especially on Instagram where I spend a lot of my time about my own interests what I get up to on the weekend, what I'm thinking about what I'm doing that really doesn't have anything, quote unquote, to do with my business, but then it does because it's the life I'm creating. But it that took me a while to wrap my head around that because you have such a different voice in the social media Well, compared to other experts.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:27:47

Yeah, no, thank you, Anna and you're doing a great job with it. And, you know, an invitation to everyone who's listening or watching, like, share a personal story, like share story about what maybe as a little kid, what you wanted to be and how you got to where you are today. Like that's we all have that story. It's real. Like we all you know, as a kid, I wanted to be a psychologist. And apparently, I also wanted to write a book, I found that in a diary entry, and I did it, which was cool. That's a whole nother story. But I wanted to be a psychologist and I started studying psychology in university was like, Whoa, I need one I should not become one. And I didn't know what to do. And then I found out public relations. And it was exactly who I am as a person and what I was doing, and there's a bigger story to that. But you know, and I think that's a really cool way to kind of start sharing about who you are is about your journey.

Theresa Lambert: 00:28:37

I love that. That makes me laugh because I wanted to be a pastry chef. And so I worked one night in a pastry kitchen like I started at like 2am And I remember having to like the first thing they made me do was weighing 10 kilos of whipped cream. Anyways, after my long overnight shift when I left that I decorated cakes and like all these things I left in the morning and I decided that I'd rather eat the cake and make the cake.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:29:05

I've never heard this story. Have you shared it on social?

Theresa Lambert: 00:29:07

No, I have not yet it so I feel like

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:29:11

it's hilarious and amazing. And I'd rather eat the cake too with you like you can have your cake and eat it too and someone else can make it that's okay.

Theresa Lambert: 00:29:19

Have your cake and eat it too. But yeah, I prefer if someone else makes it so yeah, there we go. So that that wasn't for me, but I love that glad this was so amazing. I know we have your social media that Blair from blauen is Instagram. Is there any other place that you'd like to, to share to go to to connect with you?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:29:38

Yeah, you know, just check out my website Blair kaplan.ca. Everything needs to know about me is there. The projects I'm up to the work I'm doing and I'd love to connect with all of you.

Theresa Lambert: 00:29:47

I love it. Lat Thank you. This was so inspiring. I love this. I know everyone's gonna get a ton of value. It's such a pleasure. It's so fun that I got to interview you like it's very fun when I get to interview you as a guest, and we have, it's like it's such a different field, and then our awesome conversations on dissecting success, but it's really nice to be able to highlight you and your expertise and everything that you do. And again, like I highly recommend following Blair on her socials reaching out to her and checking out what she's up to. Yeah, because she'll give you a very different perspective. And I feel that's a very healthy thing, just like I tried out pastry shopping is really good to figure out different ways of doing social media because one might work better for you than the other and you still get to eat your cake. So with that being said, it's a wrap. Thank you, Blair. And thank you.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:30:42

Bye.