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Welcome to Shiny New Clients, the marketing podcast that helps you attract shiny new clients to your business.
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We'll talk about social media, what makes people buy, how to go viral, and.
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Marketing psychology all in 20 minutes or less. Whether you're a coach, a stylist or a wedding planner, if you've got a service based business to sell, this is the show you need to fill your calendar. I'm Jenna Warner, your new marketing coach and this is Shiny New Clients.
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Let's talk about technology, fear of it and just see if we can make your life just 2, 8 easier. 48 50%, 75% better.
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More streamlined and easier using software and technology.
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And this is coming from someone who has been notoriously afraid of technology. Slow on the uptick. I was like the last person of all of my friends to get on Instagram one time. I cried having to set up an automated calendar. My friends at the time never let me live it down. So I just want you to know that even though I might seem like a very tech savvy person now, this did not come naturally to me. And if you're intimidated by tech or always afraid that you're gonna spend the wrong money and get trapped in a subscription paying monthly, eating away your profits, like all of these fears, I'm right there with you. I totally understand. Especially when your business is online or even just a part of it is online. Maybe you have a service based business, but you have an online booking cal and you use QuickBooks as your invoicing software or maybe you do zoom sessions. You know you're still kind of running an online business or we'll say like online hybrid. You don't need to be selling courses and digital products and an online membership to have a lot of your business's elements be happening online. Which then means you need software, you need technology, and we need to figure out a way to make it work for you and keep those nice, sweet, tasty profit margins healthy. Speaking of profit margins, if you have a service based business and or your traditional online business, it can't be traditional because it's brand new. But you know, an online business like a course, a membership or a program or a mastermind or something, guess what already. Don't tell the others, but we're winning. We are already winning because these types of businesses have way better profit margins than a product based business. You likely don't have the overhead of a space, you don't have the cost of a product that you're selling or shipping or manufacturing. All of that. We don't need to spend. So it's very easy to make a lot of money very quickly and in an easier way in a service based business where the main expense is going to be humans and a little bit of software. And we just need to make sure those software costs don't get out of control. And I think what happens to a lot of us is we make a mistake. I recently made a mistake. Oh my goodness. Oh, I'll tell you what I, what I did. My business went over onto airtable and we're using it as sort of like a CRM, like a client relationship management. And basically all of the information stored here hitherto in my world, my operations manager has put it all into airtable. It's very organized. It's so much data, it's wild. I was never this organized before. So anyway, Airtable does not cost much. I think it's like $27 or something. And then as you add team members, you pay for each of the team members. And I was adding team members willy nilly. Willy nilly. I was adding so many people and not realizing that I was paying per head. Eventually I reached out to my ops person. I was like, hey, aren't airtable bills like 300? Is that normal? Like, I know we're using in a pretty robust fashion. Is that kind of what we were expecting? And she's like, no, it should not be that much money. Oops. Okay, so we make mistakes like this. Actually, I remember another one. I remember another one where I, I signed up for this resume software. Software to make a resume. This was like a really long time ago. I had pretty much just moved in with my now husband so seven years ago. And wait, why was I making a resume? Oh my gosh, no, it would have been before I started dating him. Basically I signed up for this resume writing website and it ended up being a monthly charge. And I paid that monthly charge for like a year or two. And then once I got together with Jordan, he spotted it on my credit card bill because he's an accountant and he just glanced and was like, what's that? And I didn't realize I had been paying it and I did not have the money at the time to be paying for something like that. So anyway, we make these mistakes and then we fear investments in our business and then we fear signing up for new tech. And even though we would drop $100 on a pair of pants super easily, when we see $100 on a product online that could really, really help us, we're hesitant because of these Mistakes we've made. If that doesn't resonate with you, then awesome, you're doing better than I am.
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If that doesn't resonate and you haven't.
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Made it, wrong choices or choices you're beating yourself up about, that's awesome. Another thing, this is, this is gonna sound like left field. And you know what? Maybe it is. I just want you to have a nice drive right now, or dog walk or whatever you're doing. We're just gonna chit chat a little. When I finished college, I moved to Toronto. And I moved there kind of last minute because when I finished college, I was scared and I was like, I'm just gonna go home. And then I think one of my teachers was like, you're not really just gonna go home, right? Like you're gonna go try and make it at this whole acting thing. And I was fine. So at the last second, I found a rooming house in a rough neighborhood in Toronto that I could move into. So it was not a great living situation. And it was this like three story house, but there it was, cut up into all these different apartments and different people living in just a room. And every now and then I would see someone and be like, you have a baby. Like, how long has this person been here? How many people live in this house? And I was up in the attic and it was so hot. It was so, so hot. And all I had was this teeny tiny window, like, really, I don't know how big it was really small. And one day it was so hot up there that I had dropped a chocolate chip on the floor. Don't judge me. I am who I am. I dropped a chocolate chip on the floor, and it wasn't even in the sun. It was like near an internal wall. And it melted. That's how hot it was. So. And I bought a fan, you know, again, using money I didn't have. And anyway, I was so warm up there that I thought, here's what I'll do. I'll pile up all my pillows so that my body is flush with the window, the tiny window. And I will run my pajamas under the sink into the water. And then I'll put on my wet pajamas and sleep next to the window, hoping, like a breeze will hit me and I'll be cool. So that's what I did. Really smart. Problem solving. I know, I know. And I was 21. All right, whatever. I made myself so ill. I don't. Maybe it was pneumonia, bronchitis. I don't know what it was. But it was really freaking sick. Do you know how sick I got in the middle of a heat wave in the middle of the summer? Got myself so ill from doing that. But I didn't know. I didn't know. Sometimes you don't even know enough to Google what you don't know. One of my favorite things to say is you don't know what you don't know. And I say that because if there is an annoyance in your business, if something that you're trying to do online is slow, if there's something that could use a process, if there's a whole bunch of stuff you're storing up in your head and not sure how to bring to fruition, if you have a clunky onboarding process with your clients, or offboarding process, if you keep forgetting to invoice people, I'm just going to tell you right now there's a better way to do it. There is a solution out there. It might cost you a couple bucks a month in a monthly subscription, but there is a better way to do exists already. Everything exists. Oh my goodness. Actually, under this episode you will find a free document where I have listed out all of the tech I use in my business, everything. And I link to it so you can know the softwares that I'm using. And I even added a section at the bottom that's a beginner tech stack. That's what it's called. Tech stack is like all the pieces of software you use to accomplish a goal. So I put a tech stack there if you want to launch a course, a tech stack there if you want to start a group program. It's not the most perfect, but it's what I would recommend. And so there's a huge portion of this document is what I actually use and then a couple of like what I would recommend. Some of the easiest ways to launch something like that without having to sign up for a million different things. Or also I considered products that will scale with your business. For instance, you could start email marketing with mailchimp, but eventually you're going to have to transfer to something that is a more robust piece of software. So instead I really recommend you start with Kit, which is the email software I use. It's free for up to a thousand subscribers, but then by then you're going to be using it in a more robust way. You're going to need some of the bigger features. You want to go big. So now that I have grown my business, I can look back and be like, okay, I would use that again. I Wouldn't use that again. Anyway, I put it all together on there. I think this comes up for me and my clients and selling my program magic marketing machine. And it probably also comes up for you and your clients is a lot of the time people don't realize that there is a better way out there to do something. And then your job in your marketing is to show them, hey, there's a better way to do this that's easier, that's faster, that's cheaper, that feels better, that has more longevity for you. You're selling something that gets people somewhere in a better way than if they tried to do it themselves. Right? But a lot of our clients don't realize there is a better way. So I'm telling you right now, when it comes to tech, anything that's taking you a long time, like, even batching content, wow, I'm really all over the place today. But like, even batching content, people come to me and they say they don't want to try it because they already tried it and it wasn't fun or it didn't work for them. You haven't tried it my way. Do you think that I, the queen of fun, don't have a fun? And the person who's TechAverse, the queen of fun, who's TechAverse, you think, come on. Trust me. You know I have a better way up my sleeve for you to batch your content and create more content quickly and spend less time on your phone. It's my whole thing anyway. Loves get that tech stack freebie. It's below this episode. Start flagging the things in your business that take you too long or aren't fun or are clunky or need to be more organized and start questioning if there's a better way to do it and what that is. And then when it comes time to make an investment in your business, to make it move faster, be more smooth and let you see, stop stressing so much. Make that investment. I want to resist the millennial thing of saying, like, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. It really is just a cop out for when you don't know otherwise how to end something.
Episode: Spending on Software: Online Business Growing Pains
Host: Jenna Harding (Warriner)
Release Date: July 28, 2025
In this episode of Shiny New Clients!, host Jenna Harding delves into the challenges and fears associated with investing in software for online businesses. Aimed at service-based entrepreneurs, the discussion centers on navigating technology to enhance business operations without compromising profit margins.
Jenna opens the conversation by addressing the common apprehensions entrepreneurs face when integrating technology into their businesses. She empathizes with listeners who fear overspending on software or becoming entangled in unfavorable subscriptions.
Jenna Harding (B): "And if you're intimidated by tech or always afraid that you're gonna spend the wrong money and get trapped in a subscription paying monthly, eating away your profits, like all of these fears, I'm right there with you."
[00:48]
Having once been "notoriously afraid of technology," Jenna shares her personal journey from being reluctant to embrace platforms like Instagram to becoming a tech-savvy business owner. Her transformation underscores that overcoming tech fears is achievable and beneficial for business growth.
Jenna recounts specific instances where mismanagement of software subscriptions led to unnecessary expenses, highlighting the importance of vigilance in software budgeting.
Overcharging with Airtable:
Jenna Harding (B): "I was adding so many people and not realizing that I was paying per head. Eventually, I reached out to my ops person. I was like, 'Hey, aren't Airtable bills like $300? Is that normal?'"
[03:15]
Unnecessary Subscriptions:
Jenna Harding (B): "I signed up for this resume writing website and ended up being a monthly charge... He [Jordan] just glanced and was like, 'What's that?'"
[04:10]
These anecdotes serve as cautionary tales, illustrating how easily subscription costs can spiral out of control without proper oversight.
Transitioning from challenges to solutions, Jenna emphasizes that for every business pain point, there's a technological solution designed to streamline operations and maintain healthy profit margins.
Jenna Harding (B): "When it comes to tech, anything that's taking you a long time... There's a solution out there. It might cost you a couple bucks a month, but there is a better way out."
[04:50]
She introduces a valuable resource—a free document listing all the software tools she utilizes in her business, including beginner-friendly tech stacks for launching courses, group programs, and more. This resource aims to help entrepreneurs select scalable and efficient tools without the overwhelm.
Jenna Harding (B): "Under this episode you will find a free document where I have listed out all of the tech I use in my business... It's not the most perfect, but it's what I would recommend."
[05:30]
Jenna urges listeners to identify and address inefficiencies in their businesses by adopting better technological solutions. She highlights the importance of making informed investments that enhance operational speed, organization, and overall business health.
Jenna Harding (B): "Start flagging the things in your business that take you too long or aren't fun or are clunky or need to be more organized and start questioning if there's a better way to do it and what that is."
[07:25]
She reinforces the idea that investing in the right tools can reduce stress, save time, and ultimately contribute to a more profitable and enjoyable business experience.
Jenna concludes the episode by reaffirming that while technology can seem daunting, the right approach and resources can demystify it. She encourages entrepreneurs to embrace tech solutions thoughtfully to enhance their business operations without falling into the trap of unnecessary expenses.
Jenna Harding (B): "There is a solution out there... When it comes time to make an investment in your business, to make it move faster, be more smooth and let you see, stop stressing so much. Make that investment."
[08:40]
Listeners are reminded to utilize the provided free tech stack document to make informed decisions about the software that best fits their business needs.
Resources Mentioned:
This episode serves as a practical guide for online entrepreneurs navigating the complexities of software investments, offering both personal insights and actionable resources to foster business growth without unnecessary financial strain.