Kaci Ackerman is the CEO of her self-named business and is a systems and Click Up expert.
She helps CEOs save five to 10 hours a week and has helped over 1000 business owners save time with Click Up and Systems.
Kaci Ackerman was a dedicated office manager for 7 years until she was furloughed due to COVID-19. Looking for a way to regain control of her life, Kaci jumped on a call with her cousin who had been freelancing for a year. Through hustle, networking, and investment in a course, Kaci replaced her management job salary within three months. In 2021, Kaci was diagnosed with cancer and was forced to pivot her business to prioritize flexibility and freedom. Through hard work and creating systems, Kaci now offers VIP days and weeks and has the income she wants with the freedom she needs.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- How Kaci Ackerman replaced her salary within three months of starting her freelance business.
- The systems and strategies Kaci Ackerman uses to ensure her business is sustainable during unplanned events.
- How Kaci Ackerman has managed to gain clients and book out her VIP days/weeks in advance.
Connect with Kaci:
Website: kaciackermanofficial.com
Instagram: @kaciackerman
This episode is brought to you by:
Platform by RAW Artists: www.RAWartists.com/platform
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listen to the episode
Speaker A
00:00:00
I am thrilled to have Kaci Ackerman on here today talking with me. She is the CEO of Kaci Ackerman and I’ll let you explain what exactly that is. I love a self named business. So before we dive into everything, what are you about? What’s your business? What do you do?
Speaker B
00:00:31
Thank you so much for having me. First off, and the reason I just used my business is in case I ever want to pivot. But mainly I am a systems and Click up expert, so I focus on saving CEOs five to 10 hours in their week. I’ve also helped over 1000 business owners save time with Clickup and Systems. So that’s my whole focus.
Speaker A
00:00:54
Love it. I love Clickup, so I’m excited to talk more about that. Let’s start though, with yeah, I love to start with kind of hearing straight from you, like how you got your business started, where did it come from, where did that originate, and then we can kind of go from there into what that journey has been like for you.
Speaker B
00:01:15
Yeah. So I am a COVID business, if you will. I was an office manager for seven years and we were furloughed and our office closed and I just had this feeling of, wow, someone totally controls my life. That’s not me. And I didn’t like that. And so I quickly jumped on a phone call with my cousin that started freelancing, I think, a year before me. And I always had it in the back of my head of like, no, this can’t be real. There’s no way. She replaced her teaching salary by doing a work from home business thing. And I was wrong, obviously, because she told me how she got started. So I dived in and I replaced my management job salary within three months. I didn’t return to work when our office reopened and it has just flourished from there. In 2020, I became a certified online business manager. I went through a course for that and then I also honed in on Clickup and I’ve been using Clickup this whole time. So for three years and I now focus solely on serving people with Clickup.
Speaker A
00:02:36
That is amazing. So have you ever used Clickup before you decided to start a business?
Speaker B
00:02:42
No, I did not.
Speaker A
00:02:44
I love it because also I feel like everybody that I know who uses Clickup is business owners. Like, it’s small businesses that use ClickUp a lot, like for productivity and team management and stuff. And nobody I know who’s not in the business world has ever used it. So it seems like a funny thing to jump right into, like, hey, this is what I’m going to do.
Speaker B
00:03:04
Yeah. So for me, a small little story about me. When I was in high school, I used to daydream about working in an office and doing admin stuff and that was what I wanted to do when I grew up type thing. Right. And so I feel like it just evolved into hyper organization and serious systems and workflows that really produce efficiency in your life and business. So for me, it wasn’t really like this thing of, oh, I’ve never done it before, maybe I’ll like it. I already knew that I loved organization and saving time and now I figured out a way to help other people do that.
Speaker A
00:03:47
Yeah, you’re like, I can actually do this all the time with a lot of different businesses. Rather than just being like it sounds like you were like the office manager of one office, one business, you can actually do it for a lot of other small businesses.
Speaker B
00:04:02
Yeah, and I work with so many different businesses, it keeps it really fun. I get a new challenge anytime I work with a different business because everyone does things a little different and I love that because I also can get really bored if I just do the same thing over and over. So in my office management job, it was very mundane because I just did the same thing for the same business every day. So this also excites me and keeps me on my toes and learning new things. So yeah, it’s a lot of fun.
Speaker A
00:04:35
How did you first get your first couple of clients? Like, what you said sounded pretty impressive that you basically made as much money in three months or had built up a client base within the first three months to replace that salary you’d been getting. How did you get your first couple of clients and what did that look like? I guess to get to that stage, because that sounds like pretty quick growth.
Speaker B
00:04:57
Yeah, so I wasn’t working, obviously, so I had all the time to put into my business. It is impressive, but it’s also I feel like there’s different variables that come into play. So I currently don’t have any kids and they obviously didn’t then, but also I didn’t have a job per se. I was waiting until my office reopened so I was able to put my 40 hours work week into my business. And I did invest in a course on how to start your freelance business and she really helps through that course explain how to get clients and how to network and how to reach out to people, either cold pitch or how to apply to jobs. And so I really focused, I would say probably an hour to 2 hours every single day networking on Facebook. And I found all of my clients through Facebook groups. I applied jobs. I had this whole little process that I would do in the morning and the afternoon where I would scroll through and try and answer questions and I would post things and then I also would go in and apply to jobs. I was applying to probably seven to ten jobs every single day. So if you will hustled. I don’t like that word, but my goal was to not go back to work and that was how I was going to achieve that goal. And so I will say my first client was not glamorous, it was $15 an hour. So it was not like I just started landing these massive clients or anything at 30 or $40 an hour or anything like that. But it gave me the confidence to get where I needed to go to get that first client and land it. Yeah, exactly. So it was just a lot of hard work.
Speaker A
00:06:52
Yeah. So when you say you’re applying for jobs at the same time, was that like for full time jobs? Like in case you did go back to an office job or that was like if somebody had a business management position open that would become a client kind of thing? Like a part time yeah.
Speaker B
00:07:07
So it wasn’t any full time employee jobs. It was all just through where Facebook groups say like job op and there’s a job description and you apply to it or whatever or you leave your portfolio in there. And then the course that I took actually had a job board as well. So there were a lot of jobs posted in there pretty frequently that were hiring freelancers. So I never was applying to a full time work from home employee status type job.
Speaker A
00:07:34
It was all building a business.
Speaker B
00:07:36
Correct. Yes.
Speaker A
00:07:37
I love how you took such action about like, I don’t want to go back to work. I just feel like some people would have wallowed on the couch for those three months being like, oh my god, I got laid off, or for a load or whatever. The world is ending with COVID and you’re like an example of actually totally flipping that in the other direction and being like, actually I’m going to take charge of my life now and take this time to actually build a business that I can have forever. I love that.
Speaker B
00:08:05
Yeah, it’s been a really fun journey with lots of ups and downs.
Speaker A
00:08:11
Yeah. So what does it look like now? I guess what kind of clients are you working with and what does that day to day look like? What are you doing? Kind of more on the back end.
Speaker B
00:08:20
Yeah. So I focus on typically online service providers, but I do work with other brick and mortar style businesses as well that need project management. And so I work in a VIP status, so I only do VIP days or a VIP week depending on what the client needs. And so my day to day is really freeing because I don’t have retainer clients anymore and I really focus on mondays are dedicated to my business. So I do things like write emails for my newsletter, I record content or write captions, those different things. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are typically always client focused or podcast recording. And then Fridays are a free for all. So I either have appointments in my personal life, or I work because I want to, or I lay on the couch all day.
Speaker A
00:09:21
Sorry, was there more?
Speaker B
00:09:23
Oh, no, I was just going to say it’s very scheduled, but not at the same time. I have a lot of white space on my calendar.
Speaker A
00:09:32
I love that. I want to hear more about how you it sounds like you used to have retainer clients, but then you moved away from that to do more of, like, the VIP days and weeks. That sounds intriguing. Tell me more.
Speaker B
00:09:46
Yeah, so I have four retainer clients as an OBM, and typically, just for reference, they’re usually 20 hours or more a month. So when you take four, that’s kind of maxing out my mental capacity, if you will. And also in 2021, I had quite a few different things happen in my life, but the biggest one was that I was diagnosed with cancer and I had to go through treatment and all this stuff. And it really opened my eyes to almost like so technically, obviously, I wasn’t their employee, but it almost felt like that a little bit still because I had this thing happen in my life and I had to basically not shut my business down, but I had to prorate them for different things that was going on. I had three surgeries and obviously I couldn’t work. And so I was losing a lot of money, if you will, through that process. And it just made me realize there has to be a better way where if I need to do something or if something happens in my life, I have the flexibility of not worrying about things.
Speaker A
00:10:58
Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, it sounds like what we all need, at least even with clients, it’s like a certain level of responsibility. And it can be a huge level of responsibility because it’s actually not even like you can take sick days from a job and still get paid. It’s like, okay, if my clients feel like I’m not here for them, they’re going to not renew their contract or something, and then it’s all on me, and then I have nothing. So I could see that. So at that time, you did have clients, though, and you were dealing with illness, and you were like, I need to change that. Swap this what’s the word I’m looking for business structure pivot.
Speaker B
00:11:47
Which I definitely pivoted, and it took some time to get in the space that I’m in now, but I’m a big believer in investing in things for the ROI, if you will. So when I figured out that I wanted to do this, I had this plan. And also this is the other funny thing that happens in business, things never go as planned. But I had this plan for 2022 because all this happened in 2021 towards the end, and then I also was still in treatment for, I think, like, the first quarter of 2022. I think everything finished around March. But anyway, so I had this plan that I was going to keep all of my retainer clients until the end of 2022. And during that time, I was going to build up how to structure my VIP days and how I was going to offer them and different stuff like that. Okay, well, I lost all of my clients within two months in March and April. So immediately it was like I had let one go on my own accord because I was starting to kind of phase things out and change some things. But then the other two decided to end services due to financial reasons in their business. And so I was like, okay, well, that didn’t go as planned. So I immediately invested in a program that teaches you how to really structure your VIP days, how to market them, how to figure out all of the ins and outs of everything. And I invested in that. I did that. And then now, since I believe since June of last year, I’ve been exclusively VIP days and have the income that I want, it took some time to market and figure out how to market, but once I figured it out, that’s what I do.
Speaker A
00:13:35
Oh my God. Wait, I’m going to ask you more about that because to me that sounds a little stressful in a way. Like, yes, you’re only working maybe like one day of the month with a client rather than all month long. But do you feel like, are you having to kind of constantly be finding new people to do these VIP days with? And that sounds stressful to me for some reason. I don’t know.
Speaker B
00:14:00
It is stressful sometimes. My goal when I did the program was to be at least a month booked out, which so far I’ve always been at least a month, sometimes six to eight weeks.
Speaker A
00:14:16
So how many a month do you do? What does that mean, to be booked? What does that look like?
Speaker B
00:14:22
So I like doing three a month, and that allows me to have an entire week out of the month where I don’t have any client stuff and I can really just either rest or focus on stuff in my business or do podcasts, whatever, those types of things. So I like doing three a month. And then I also like doing or I like doing two VIP days and one VIP week. So it just depends on what gets scheduled. So, like, for February, I did one VIP week and I had two VIP days. So it kind of just depends on what’s going on with my clients at the time. But I have to market a lot. So there is this idea of like, oh, if you offer VIP days, you only work one, two, three days a week or a month. That is not true. They’re lying to you. Right?
Speaker A
00:15:15
That’s what I feel like people do, make things sound like or like, oh yeah, get these big ticket clients and then you only have to have one or two a month or whatever. But I’m like, but you’re having to get okay for a little bit of background if you don’t know me. My business is a PR agency, so we work with long term retainer clients. So we only have a few clients at a time, but they’re working with us for like a year or at least six months. And so to me, it’s such a different mindset. I’m hardly ever trying to bring on new clients, and so when I see people who have a business, I mean, obviously it’s just a different mindset. I’m sure if you’re used to doing that, it’s a different thing. But for me, I’m like, oh my gosh, the idea of having to be constantly getting even one or two new clients a month seems like a lot of effort would have to go into that.
Speaker B
00:16:06
Yeah, so I have a great network and so I get a lot of referrals, which works fantastic. A lot of people are referring me in Facebook groups or they’re emailing me with referrals, different stuff like that. So I do have that quite a bit. But then also I changed my messaging and my marketing. And so in my marketing, I only talk about my VIP services. I don’t talk about anything else. And again, which you probably know this, but roughly like, your efforts are three months behind you, if you will, when you’re marketing things. And so I had a lull in 2022 where it was like skin and bones. I don’t have a retainer client. I have one VIP day, but I just stuck with it. And once you kind of get over that hump, every person that comes to me knows exactly why they’re coming to me. So I actually like it because I don’t really have to vet my leads, because every single lead that’s coming to me knows that it’s for a VIP day or a week. And we talk about that on our call, but there’s no more question of like, oh, I don’t know what I need. I’m just going to chat with you and see if my budget works or see if you can do this or that. And so it’s very specific and I think also just building up my name and my brand has really helped with that as well. So I don’t feel like I have to constantly sell, if you will. I’m just doing my regular marketing, I’m doing my emails, I’m doing the different things that I do to network with people. And that just brings things in, though my husband will probably say differently, my husband will probably say, if you brought in a retainer client, you’d be less stressed out.
Speaker A
00:17:57
But it totally depends. It totally depends. Then it’s like, as you said, you’re at the mercy of I mean, sort of. Obviously you have control but there’s a certain level of feeling like you have to produce whatever it is that they’re going to want and it might not. Of course we want to say it’s always going to be aligned with what you want to do. And if it’s a client you like to work with, you’re going to want to do that work, but not always. You definitely will feel guilt in having to do certain things or even just the time of like, oh, I said I would get this done by this week and now I have to make sure that happens or things like that.
Speaker B
00:18:37
Yeah, well, another thing too is when I onboarded clients, I told them my boundaries because I don’t like working Fridays. I never worked Fridays in my office management job either because our office was closed. So I’m just so used to not working Fridays, but I felt like I had to be in their business every day as their manager. So even if I wasn’t working Fridays, I would still log in in the morning and double check that things are.
Speaker A
00:19:03
Good just as a business manager. It’s like such an internal part. I don’t know, it just seems like such a needed part of their business that if they get used to having someone doing these things, they probably would call on you at any time they do. I feel like there are some industries where it’s easier to be like, okay, here are the hours I work and here are the days I’ll be available, and things like that. But when it comes to the back end of someone else’s business, I could see it getting very demanding.
Speaker B
00:19:36
Yeah. And so I always tell my husband, I’m not doing that, I don’t want to. And I think the stress or pressure is actually more like self inflicted than actual because it always works every month, everything is fine. And so I think it is a little bit of mindset that probably I should work on. But here we are and I’m like.
Speaker A
00:20:00
The one, like projecting it onto you. So I’m sorry. Clearly I have it too, but yeah.
Speaker B
00:20:10
I see this as far worth it over, not worth it, if you will, with the freedom that I have. And just things happened in my life in 2021 that I realized I wanted more freedom. And then also once I do have kids, I want to be able to be very present in their life. And we’ve talked about maybe homeschooling or doing like a hybrid thing. And I want my business to be able to work around all of that and not have my business constantly dictating my life.
Speaker A
00:20:43
Yeah, totally. Well, and that’s a good segue for one of the things that you had mentioned before, which was, like, building an emergency systems into your business. I feel like well, there’s more I want to ask you about, like click up and how you work with clients too. But maybe we can get to that afterwards, if we have time. But I was really interested in some of the things that you talk about in terms of having these systems built into your business, which I imagine is things that you help your clients do too. So it is still related to how you work with clients. But I imagine that came did that come out of the things that you were dealing with personally and the things you had to do in your own business? Or was that kind of like emergency preparedness? I don’t know if that’s the term, but was that something you already were helping people with and you already had systems around or how did that come from and tell people what I’m talking about?
Speaker B
00:21:35
Yeah, so I’ve mentioned a couple of times 2021 was a lot, so I’m going to give you a very quick rundown. So in April of 2021, I had emergency surgery and was in the hospital for seven days. In June, we got married and was in Hawaii for the marriage in Hawaii was like a month. That was planned, but it still happened in 2021.
Speaker A
00:21:58
But that was only a couple of months after the emergency surgery.
Speaker B
00:22:03
Right. And then my husband got an offer to move out of state for a job. So that was very unplanned. We had to move within a month. And then in that while we were moving in October, that’s when I was diagnosed with cancer. So all of that happened in 2021.
Speaker A
00:22:21
Wow.
Speaker B
00:22:22
And it definitely inspired my systems for unprepared situations because we always talk about I know you see this in the online space, we always talk about planning for maternity leave or planning for vacations or being not present in your business for a month or whatever, those different things. And you plan for all of that because you know that it’s going to happen. But the things that no one talks about is when things don’t go as planned and things happen that you have no control over and what’s your process for when that happens. So it definitely stemmed from me experiencing all of these things. So in April when that happened, I luckily had a virtual assistant and she was able to let my clients know that I was in the hospital and all that. But we still didn’t really have anything in place to sustain the fact that I was in the hospital for a week and then I had like another two weeks of recovery once I got home. And basically I just had to not charge my clients the following month. Basically they got a month free of service because that happened in April and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t ever again. Yeah, so I worked with my virtual assistant and we built out we literally have an SOP for every single thing we do in our business, for her, for me, literally every task in our business has an SOP and then also we have a directory in our click up. So all this is also in click up just to throw that out there. But we have a directory in clickup that has all of the team members on our team, and they also have email, phone number, emergency contact, and then also status. So if they’re active, maybe they’re on maternity leave, maybe they’re on vacation, so we can always see at all times what’s going on with our team. And then we also have just like a process built out, so if you can’t get a hold of a team member for X amount of days, which seems unnormal, you would reach out to their emergency contact just to make sure, like, hey, I haven’t heard from them. Is everything okay? So we can make sure that we’re taking care of what we need to take care of. If I am in an emergency situation, my head virtual assistant takes over things and delegates while I’m out. And it’s all based off of what we work together to build. And it’s all written inside click up so anybody can view it at any time. How to prepare or what to do when somebody is out based off of an emergency.
Speaker A
00:25:03
Smart. Sounds very smart.
Speaker B
00:25:08
It took a lot of work to figure that stuff out and also to figure out how to notify people, I think is the biggest piece because we’re also virtual to not know and also not putting stuff on your spouse. Because if you’re in an emergency, more than likely your spouse or significant other or whatever is dealing with that emergency as well. And the last thing they need to do is go, like, email somebody in your business or try and figure that stuff out. So we have a system of lack of being able to get a hold of somebody, and that’s how we do things because I don’t want it on my husband to make sure that he’s alerting my virtual assistant. So we have it set up where she has his phone number, and if she doesn’t get a hold of me within three regular business days, because we talk every single day. So that would be odd for me not to respond to her. She would be able to text him and say, hey, I’ve been able to get a hold of Casey. Is there an emergency? And he can just say yes, and then she knows all the steps to take care of.
Speaker A
00:26:19
Wow. This is like something that you obviously never want to have to use, but it’s something that would be smart to have so that if something ever does come up, people aren’t like freaking out. It’s like, okay, we know what to do. We know what steps to take.
Speaker B
00:26:37
Yeah. When it happened in April, we didn’t have this stuff. And so much happened in that week in the hospital that I actually don’t remember barely any of it. But either me or my husband at some point told my virtual assistant, I don’t know who, but it was on one of us to do that. So she was able to at least email my clients and let them know. But I don’t even remember any of that. So that means that it was put on my husband to try and even figure out how to do that because he doesn’t talk to her and I don’t have her phone number. We used Voxer and so he’s on my phone trying to find Voxer, he knows her first name, but what if I have multiple people in there with the same name? So all of those different things just very much brought to our attention after that happened in April. And so we sat down and we figured out what it would look like if it’s a long period of time. Are we notifying our email people? Are we setting up a vacation auto response in our support email and our regular email different, like figuring out how to let your audience know? Are you going to put a little pin a post on your Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn that you’ll be back or something? It just depends on what you want to do and how you want to have those things happen. And the reason I wanted to do this and the reason that I actually talk about it is because my business pays some of our bills. So we are a two income household. If I don’t have the income, then we are using savings or we’re doing other things, right? And so the point of that is I don’t want my business to go up in flames or die or lose all of my clients because I had something happen, I had an emergency and then they didn’t hear from me for a week and they’re like, oh cr, I found somebody else.
Speaker A
00:28:41
Right?
Speaker B
00:28:42
So that’s kind of how it all stemmed. And I just think it’s important even if you just have a directory of your team members and have those SOPs in place just to start, because it’s a lot to build all at one time. And I think it’s really important to start small. So just having at least a way to contact them outside of Voxer or Slack or whatever business tool you use I think is important.
Speaker A
00:29:09
Yeah, that’s a great point. And then do you consider having SOPs for everything you do kind of part of that? Or is that just like something everybody should already have in their business anyway, not related to emergencies? Is that part of being prepared?
Speaker B
00:29:25
I feel like it’s a plus because I do think that everyone should already have them. And it’s interesting because a lot of times you don’t have them and then stuff happens and you’re like, oh wow, maybe I should have had this stuff written ahead of time. So I think that it’s something that everyone should have in place.
Speaker A
00:29:45
Already.
Speaker B
00:29:45
Anything you do more than once in your business should have an SOP, even if that’s just a loom video to get started of a screen recording just to get started. And then you can have your VA or somebody like write that out and actually the new AI services can write SOPs for you, which is really cool. I found that out from a friend of mine last week, so you can make things easier.
Speaker A
00:30:11
How do they do that? Is it like from a thing?
Speaker B
0:30:14
Yeah. So I recorded a Loom video and I sent it over to my virtual assistant and I told her I was like, hey, one of my friends said that they’re using Chat GPT to do this. And so she looked into it and I don’t know exactly how she did all of it because she just kind of took it over for me, but she sent me a Voxer and she was like it just wrote, like, my entire SOP in less than five minutes.
Speaker A
00:30:39
Okay, I need to look into that. Oh my God.
Speaker B
00:30:41
Yeah. So apparently you use the transcript from Loom and you give it to Chat GPT and then you tell it that you want, like, a written process. And she sent it to me and there was just a few tweaks she had to make and then also add in we like to use screenshots throughout our SOPs as well, just to kind of show them where things are. So she just had to add those and tweak, like a couple of things, but it was literally like step by step and it just wrote it for her.
Speaker A
00:31:07
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:31:07
So they’re not hard to do anymore. I feel like there’s no excuse to not have SOPs.
Speaker A
00:31:12
Totally. Are there like three top SOPs that you usually always start with for businesses if you’re working with them, or that’s one of the things you do on a VIP day, I assume.
Speaker B
00:31:24
I do SOPs in my VIP weeks and so they are always usually accustomed to what we’re building for the client. I include SOPs in that. But when you are talking just like on your own, I think it’s really important to have SOPs for how to track time, how to manage your email inbox, how to schedule out your social media content, how to maybe manage your calendar. Things that are very easily able to offload and not have to train for is where you should start with. SOPs maybe even how to use your project management tool. So if you’re using Click Up, have a little SOP on how to add a task, how to comment on things like kind of your process for stuff. And same with Alessandra or Trello or whatever you use because it allows the onboarding process as well to be very easy for you to offboard things and you’re not dreading the fact of like, I know I need help but I just don’t have the time to bring someone on and sit on a zoom call and train them for 2 hours. You don’t have to do all of that when you have SOPs you’re able to hire somebody, which obviously that part takes time. You’re going through your applications and you’re doing zoom interviews, but after that your onboarding is very straightforward and they actually onboard themselves. So my process is we have an onboarding list and click up and we add them to that and it actually says like, read these. SOPs comment on this task if you have questions about those. SOPs review your tasks and ask us if you have questions. So in their onboarding process, before they even start doing stuff, they are reviewing things to make sure they understand what we are asking from them so that they can confidently execute their tasks.
Speaker A
00:33:16
Yeah, and then you don’t have to go over any of it in person. You don’t have to spend your time doing that kind of basic level like here’s how to do things.
Speaker B
00:33:24
Yeah, that’s why I say everyone should.
Speaker A
00:33:28
Have SOPs, yeah, I feel like I don’t have nearly as many as I should. And the reason I ask you where to start is because I always find not to make this about me, but I always find that my business, I don’t have a typical online business kind of business. We work with clients with very specific strategy work and we reach out to media in very different ways for each different client and different depending on what we’re doing. It’s very different. And I’m always a little bit jealous of people who I see their business just seems very systematized. This is how we do this, this is how we do this. And everything falls into that category. And I feel like so much of ours is sort of like I don’t even know the word I want to say, like, up in the air, but I really just mean, I guess, so tailored and personalized to the client and the kind of project we’re doing for them, even if, essentially our services are all very the same. It’s like media outreach to do this or that. But I know there are a lot of kind of the behind the scenes in business things that we really should have more written down or more mapped out in a way that people could just look at it and know how to do it. But I think I always get kind of caught up in the idea of my business is not that cut and dry, so I can’t write it all down like that. But I definitely could start with how we use we do use click up. So we could definitely be like here’s how you do it and here’s how you even things like how we manage social media content, even that stuff I could be writing down and I do not have any procedures.
Speaker B
00:35:12
So there’s definitely the back end, but then you can even I think the term is like bespoke. Is that what it is? Where you kind of build custom packages, if you will, for your clients. So you could though, because I would assume you’re a PR, right? So you reach out to different media platforms based off of what your client is wanting to like their goals, right?
Speaker A
00:35:39
Right.
Speaker B
00:35:40
So you could have the process of reaching out to people is more than likely the same. Like you go and you research for X things and then I would assume you pitch them via email or whatever, like LinkedIn, whatever your thing is, so you can think about the leading up and then also the aftermath. So like if they say yes, what is your process for getting that client all set up to be featured in that media platform or whatever. So there’s pieces there and then also if you are pitching I’m just going to use a podcast for example. But if you’re pitching podcast, you can have templates set up and so the onboarding process would be getting those templates ready for the client because obviously that does need to be custom to what the client’s goals are and what they can talk about and stuff like that. But once that onboarding phase is done, you can have an. SOP that is pretty much the same for every client. Like this is how we pitch for podcasts and you will utilize this template and pick this. You’ll pick the topic and you’ll send it out and then you follow up maybe 30 days later if you don’t hear back. And then another follow up 60 days later and then you archive if you don’t hear from them. And then if they say yes, this is our process.
Speaker A
00:37:03
Yeah, that’s actually a great point. And now that you say that, I’m glad you use podcasts as an example because we do pitch podcasts a lot. And now that you say that, that is like the one thing that we do have written out is like after you’ve secured it, if we pitch the podcast and they said yes, we do actually have a written out sheet of here’s what to do to make sure afterwards. So that’s a great example. We could probably bring that into some of the other forms of outreach and the other kinds of things that we do a similar thing. For some reason with podcasts it does feel a little more cut and dry. So I guess we did, I did one time make a list for that. And also because it’s something that honestly newer, younger, greener team members do a lot of our podcast outreach because it’s a lot simpler in a lot of ways it is a lot more cut and dry. So that’s why we have it written out is because a lot of times when we have a new assistant account manager, she’ll be the one who’s handling podcast or at least the aftermath, because there is a lot that goes into it kind of in terms of making sure it’s in everybody’s calendar in the right way and that the client has this certain information by a certain day because sometimes you don’t have all the details right away. Once they say yes to the interview. But you’ll need to make sure you get them by a certain so. We have those things right now. That’s a great example of how I can see that working. But you’re absolutely right that we could have some general kind of procedures even for other kinds of outreach too, even if it’s editorial outreach. Here’s what to do if they don’t respond or here’s what if they do respond and just kind of like write down those timelines and that kind of stuff. So thank you.
Speaker B
00:38:42
Of course. Well, and then the great thing is you mentioned you guys use Clickup. You can actually systemize that in Clickup where you have due dates that are triggering based off follow ups and then you guys know exactly when you’re supposed to follow up and you could have automated emails sent out based off of what follow up you’re sending. And there’s a lot of fun things you can do in Click Up as well. So I just want to put that in your head as well.
Speaker A
00:39:10
Great. Good to know we’ll need to do a VIP day. Yeah, no, I know there’s so much more to do in Click Up than what we do. By the way, I know we’re not utilizing it as much as it should. Well, okay, that’s a great I feel like we could probably talk about this stuff all day and get my business in order. But tell us, I guess I’m still curious, like what is the difference between a VIP day and a VIP week? Not to make this be like a selling spiel for your business, but I feel like everybody is probably wondering that. So I need you to at least tell us that. And then I have one other thing I want to ask you.
Speaker B
00:39:47
Yeah, so it really just comes down to client needs and how much time things would take me. So a VIP day is typically 6 hours and we usually work on only like streamlining and automating. One process versus a week is we are looking at your business as a very holistic thing and we start connecting, like I said, like automated emails or automated things via Zapier based off of where your onboarding process is. And so a week is more, like I said, that holistic. Look, in your business where a VIP day is very cut and drive of like we’re going to automate or systematize one process in your click up and it typically doesn’t include outside integrations. It’s usually all click up only versus the week. We look at outside integrations and we see how we can connect things and basically just save you more time. And one thing I love saying is allowing Clickup to be an additional team member for you because when you have all those pieces, it starts doing a lot for you and you’re like, wow, I didn’t even have to remember to do it because Clickup did it for me.
Speaker A
00:40:55
Yeah, I do love those automations and stuff.
Speaker B
00:40:58
Yeah, they’re fun.
Speaker A
00:41:02
Awesome. I love it. That’s so cool. And I love that you’ve just built the business around what you want and need and been able to make that be the structure of your business that you’re just doing these days or these weeks and not taking on retainer clients anymore since that wasn’t what was making you happy anymore. I love it. We have so much possibility to create the business and life that we want, don’t we?
Speaker B
00:41:27
We really do. And I think if you have, I guess your why. I know people talk about that and it’s very cliche, but it really works. My why is so big that I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to make it where I get to have true freedom in my life. I get to be very present once we have kids, I get to homeschool them if I want to. Those pieces are so important to me that I made my business work that way and I’ve built it in a way that it’s going to support me when those things happen.
Speaker A
00:42:05
Yes. I love that. I always ask people, what’s one thing that you wish you had known more about when you first started your business? Is there one thing you can pinpoint?
Speaker B
00:42:16
I feel like I wish I would have known about the VIP day structure sooner and just went all in immediately, if you will. But at the same time, I really enjoyed my journey because I got to find what I like and I don’t like and I got to experiment in different areas.
Speaker A
00:42:37
Different clients. Did that give you a better perspective on how you can serve people at a VIP day because you’ve had those different experiences?
Speaker B
00:42:45
Yeah, it did. And it also really showed me what I don’t want to do or who I don’t want to work with as well. There’s different pieces there, but I do kind of wish that I knew about this business model sooner. So I don’t know. I guess it’s bittersweet. I don’t think that’s the right term.
Speaker A
00:43:06
But that’s what a lot of people say is like, it would have been nice to know this thing, but also I feel like I needed to not know it until I knew it kind of thing. But I think it’s still helpful for people to get to hear what that is for you because maybe somebody else will decide to do VIP days from the beginning or maybe they never thought of it before and now they’re going to look into it and still helpful for someone else. What’s? Any last word of advice you want to share with other entrepreneurs?
Speaker B
00:43:39
Don’t sit on getting your systems in place. I know it’s usually on the back burner for a lot of people, but it’s just really important to build systems for where you want to be in your business. And if you are in that solopreneur stage or the newer business stage and you’re like, oh, I can just do stuff manually, it’s fine. I only have two clients. Think about how your business would be sustainable if you had ten clients. And if those systems would not work, then think about what you need to make that work. Because your business is going to blow up overnight. And you’re going to all of a sudden be like, I have no idea how to serve any of them without working sun up to sundown. So don’t sit on them. Just start thinking about them and start putting them in place because they’re important.
Speaker A
00:44:24
Yeah. Great. Word of advice. Thank you so much. Can you tell people where they can find you if they want to connect with you after this? Where they can obviously find you if they want to hire you, but also if they want to just shoot you a message or connect in a deeper way?
Speaker B
00:44:38
I hang out on Instagram, so I am Kaci Ackerman on Instagram. Please come say hello to me. I love connecting and making new friends. And then also, if you do want to learn more about my services, my website is Kaci Ackerman.com.
Speaker A
00:44:54
Awesome. Thank you so much, Kaci. I’m so happy we got to talk today. Thank you for coming on.
Speaker B
00:44:59
Thank you so much. This was awesome. Bye.
