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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Dave Charest: Today on episode 28 of the Be a Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a best selling author and award winning publisher on a mission to help aspiring authors navigate the mysterious labyrinth of self publishing. And I'm sharing the real reason things get done. This is the Be a Marketer podcast. B a Marketer my name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I've been helping small business owners like you make sense of online marketing for over 16 years. You can be a marketer, and I'm here to help. Well, hello friend, and thanks for joining me for another episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. You know I recently had one of those super busy weeks, right? Aside from meetings, I had three presentations to deliver and an interview to conduct for an upcoming episode of this podcast. And it wasn't like I could just show up and give the presentations or conduct the interview. I actually had to rework slides, find examples, do some prep work, and rehearse. And if I'm being honest, the only reason any of those things did get done is because they were scheduled to happen, whether I was prepared or not. And one of the things I learned early in my career was to ask, when do you need that? By knowing full well that if I didn't have a deadline, it'd be easy to let it fall by the wayside. And one of the common things that I've heard over the course of these conversations with successful business owners is that you really have to schedule the work. You need an appointment that must be kept to get things done. Otherwise, it's too easy to put things off for another time. And with everything else going on, it's likely another time may never come. So pay attention to today's guest as she explains her process for following up with people that matter most to her business. Despite her introverted nature, here's a hint. It has to do with a weekly calendar. Well, friend, today's guest is Valerie J. Lewis Coleman, owner and operator of pen of the writer. Based in Englewood, Ohio. Valerie serves professional speakers and experts to magnify and monetize their message by publishing quality books. Valerie didn't start in publishing, though. In fact, her experience was 26 years as a senior engineer in the automotive industry. But when her plant was shut down, she realized it was time for a change. She was tired of working for someone else and coming from a family of entrepreneurs. The bug was in her now. Since starting her business in 2005, she's a best selling author and now has over 181 authors under her belt. And in 2023 Valerie was named publisher of the year by I am her international. It's an impressive list of accomplishments, but it didn't come without some doubts along the way. Let's pick up the conversation there.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Absolutely. Yes. That bi monthly check was phenomenal. I had benefits and I had vacation days, and I was paid quite well for the work that I did for General Motors. So for me, it was a blessing that I'm married. So my husband was able to pick up the slack until I could build momentum for my business. But, yeah, it was scary. One of my friends told me, well, you're a water walker. You're doing it and this. And I'm like, yeah, I'm scared. I'm doing it scared because there are a lot of things I still had to learn. We're talking about in 2007, I didn't have a lot of clients under my belt. I didn't have awards and recognitions like I have now. So I have a lot more experience, a lot more relationships, and a lot more credibility that I can attach to what I do now. So, yeah, I was scared, and I still get scared sometimes, Dave.
Dave Charest: Well, as I'm sure. Right. I think all of us, oddly enough, whether we're successful or not, have those moments. Right. And because there's so much more you have to learn in different phases of our lives. Right. And so, I guess, what can you remember about that first year that you started and, like, what were some of those challenges that you faced kind of getting this off the ground the first.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Year, for me, I would say probably one of the biggest challenges was trying to do everything myself, and I still do a lot myself. But, like, I was designing my own website, I was on a platform designing my website, and then I was having to find, how do I keep track of this and how do I do this? And things that I needed to put in place to establish, legitimately establish my business. So I wasn't in trouble with Uncle Sam and Aunt Sally. So I was doing all kind of, you know, the behind the scenes type stuff that wasn't really generating revenue, but needed to be done to protect my intellectual property. So that was probably the biggest challenge that and then trying to write and publish for other people. So balancing all of those hats was, I would have to say, the biggest challenge you mentioned.
Dave Charest: Obviously, you have doubts that come in every once in a while, but was there ever a point in time where you thought about giving it up and going back to the nine to five?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Absolutely. I probably still have those thoughts about once a month.
Dave Charest: Well, what keeps you in the business, then?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Because I believe that this is what I'm called to do. It's not just something that I'm choosing to do. It's almost like I am compelled to do it. And I get people who reach out to me and how it's changed their lives and the fact that either they've read my books or the fact that I've published them, and now they're hosting sold out events, or now they're hosting retreats, or now they've launched a client business, client based business, or they're selling a lot of books. So there's the intrinsic reward to meet people. And then I like the process of publishing and teaching more so than anything. So even when I publish my clients, I am teaching them along the way so that when they get ready to do their next book, whether they choose to go through me or someone else or do it on their own, they have a solid. A more solid foundation on what it takes to publish a quality book. Trey.
Dave Charest: So a lot of people, I guess, depending on where you come at it from, the process of writing is not necessarily something that they enjoy. So how did you find. Well, I guess, do you enjoy it? One and then two. How did that become your thing?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: So, writing is not my thing. My thing is telling the story so that someone can have a better life to choose, you know, differently or make better choices. That's my thing. And so with the writing, every book that I've ever written was because I wanted to help somebody do something differently. So I have a book on dating and relationships, the forbidden secrets of the goodie box. Relationship advice that your father didn't tell you and your mother didn't know. It's a clean book. But what I did was I helped women make better relationship choices. We keep messing up, and men aren't that complicated, but we don't understand the differences, and we women complicate the issue. So I wrote a novel to help women better understand men by researching and surveying. Guess what? Men. Duh. And then I wrapped it into fictional characters and take women on this journey. So I didn't write the book because I just wanted to write a novel. I wrote the book because I wanted to help women make better relationship choices. For me, the part I like the most is the publishing, because that's more of the engineering side of it. That's the packaging and the qualities that designing and the editing, all that rolls into combining or combining and creating a quality product, which is what I did for Delphi, and then doing it in a timely manner and a cost effective manner. So my sweet spot is publishing writing, not so much. I do it because writing is very right brain. I'm very left brain. And so that makes you double minded, and we know that causes confusion. Right? So I prefer the left brain stuff, the analytical, problem solving, reasoning, rationalization stuff. I like that better than the writing. For me, writing is more of a task because I have to have quiet in my workspace, and I have to have quiet in my head space because if I don't have one or the other, it's difficult for me to write. And so I have to be very intentional about writing when I'm writing and passionate about what I'm writing. So if I don't have something that I'm passionate about writing, it's hard for me to write.
Dave Charest: Valerie, when you think about where your business is now, what would you say is your biggest accomplishment?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I think the biggest accomplishment for me is the fact that I've got 181 authors under my belt, and 70% of my authors have been bestsellers. And they are bestsellers because they do what I tell them to do. Now, that sounds kind of pushy, but it's my truth, because one of my authors was selling crazy on Amazon, and I was like, what are you doing to sell all these books? She said, I'm doing what you told me to do. Oh, well, you're doing it better than I do it, and that's okay. But I was like, oh, my gosh. I guess I better follow my own instructions. So that is probably the biggest accomplishment for me. I mean, I've gotten awards for having a best selling book. I've gotten awards for my children's books and the illustrations and the content. I've gotten awards. I just received an award of publisher of the year for 2023 from a women's empowerment group. So I've got accolades and acknowledgements and awards. For me, the accomplishment is serving my clients to have a product that they are pleased with. A lot of the people whom I published have published before and had such horrendous issues and problems, and they never gave me the book, and there was typos and the covers wrong, and they wouldn't do this and they didn't do that, and I couldn't reach anybody or they weren't speaking English. You know, it was just a hot mess. And so I worked with people who spent thousands of dollars and then had a product that they were too embarrassed to sell. So for me to create a product for them that gives them pride and that can help them leverage their expertise, whatever that means for them, that gives me the most reward.
Dave Charest: What is it that you love most about owning your own business?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I don't want to sound like I'm a control freak, but I like the control. I decide when I come into the office. I work from home, so this is my home office. I decide when I come into the office. I decide when I leave. I decide who I work with. You know, and I worked for Delphi. This, you're working in this group with these people. This is your boss. Here's when you eat lunch. Here's the meeting. So I didn't have as much flexibility as I do. Now that I'm self employed. I have my, I'm going to have my grandbabies for two weeks in July because I work for myself. I can just clear my calendar and have my babies for two weeks. So those kind of things are the things I really like about being self employed.
Dave Charest: When you think about them running your business and the things that you have to do, you mentioned you do a lot of things yourself. Do you have a staff? Do you have anybody that you work with regularly? How do you bring people on?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I have contract people whom I work with. I have a professional who does my covers. She's probably designed thousands of covers for traditional publishing houses and self published authors. And I don't stay on staff because is on a project basis, but she's my contract for that. I have someone who does my social media posting, so I've hired them for that. When I need some interior formatting or design done, I hire someone to do that. I also have someone I hire to proofread after I've done the initial editing. So I have different people in place with different aspects of the business, but I do all the project management. So when people come on board through pen of the writer, they are working with me solely for now to leverage, I'm going to have to bring on somebody else.
Dave Charest: Well, talk to me a little bit. So when you think about where your business is right now, I guess kind of a two fold question, right? Like, so what are your top priorities now and what are your current goals for the business?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: So my priority right now is developing content for an online, self paced writer publisher marketing academy, and I'm calling it the pen of the writer academy. I have three people in the cohort program right now, and we meet once a month, give them information via a PowerPoint presentation, and then we have a live q and a session. Eventually I'm going to take this content and record it and then use it on an automatic automated type platform where they review the content. And then we just have once a month Q and a type session. So that's what I'm working on to have that jumped off by sometime next year for also for next year, because most of what I'm going to do this year is planned. I'm going to relaunch my free your mind, and the words will follow. Writers retreat. I did one in 2019. It was a three day, two night stay at a resort lodge in the mountains of Kentucky. And so they had lodging and meals and activities and workshops and opportunities to write. And I didn't do it the last three years due to the pandemic. And so I'm looking to launch that next year. I did actually did a site visit yesterday and one back in May. And so eventually I want to move it to Italy, but for now I'm going to stay in Ohio. Then I think I'm going to do one in Arizona before I go across the pond. So that's another big thing for next year.
Dave Charest: Ohio to Italy. There's a big jump right now, right.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: And the investment will be a big jump. So I have to do this incremental so people, you know, can see the value of it. Although a lot of people already expressed interest in wanting to go to Italy. We'll see.
Dave Charest: I like that. So what would you say if you look back at everything and where you are now? Like, what would you say has been your most challenging or scariest time with the business?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Well, the scariest time, which comes in waves, is when my revenue does not meet my goal. I did a presentation at my church a little while ago, and I said, some months I hit five figures, and some months I don't hit $1,000. So that can be scary. But because I have laid out my business and my system such that I have things in place that keep me in the black, that's okay, because I know what I'm working toward. But that's probably my biggest challenge, is not having the monthly financial revenue on a consistent, ongoing basis that I want to hit.
Dave Charest: Yeah. So what does that mean for you from a planning perspective, then? How do you have to think through that in terms of, I guess, budgeting?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Yeah. So what? Like, one of the things I'm doing is I'm going through and I'm looking at making some adjustments. I'm going to those things that aren't really serving me well. I'm going to make adjustments in those, and I am looking to join a cohort program for aspiring seven figure income earners. And I've been with coaches in the past, but the one coach who was specifically for business was so information driven that I would get overwhelmed, and so nothing would get done. And I'm like, I can't. That's too much for me. So the program I'm looking to get into, which is founded by Rachel Rogers. Hello, seven. It isolates you into groups based on where you are in your business. So I'm not in the room with seven and eight figure income earners. I'm in the room with people who are at my level, the pace of where I am earning revenue, the how much resources and information that I have already developed in my business. And so I don't have that intimidation factor. And I think that we can serve each other better in the community by sharing information and having, like, type of conversations. I wouldn't know what to say to somebody. Said, I'm having a hard time with my HR manager right now, and I don't.
Dave Charest: Yeah, I gotcha.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Yeah, I'm the HR, the janitor, the project manager, all of it.
Dave Charest: What would you say is then, the biggest thing that you've learned over the years that really helps you with where you are at the business today?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: The biggest thing I've learned, relationships are so important in this business and any business. So for me, because I'm an introvert, nobody believes that I'm an introvert. I can do this with you, Dave, all day long, because we're talking about something I'm passionate about. But if I'm in a room with somebody I don't know, after we talk about how cute your outfit is, I'm done. Don't say anything else to me. I don't know what to say to you. So that intimidates me. And so to go out and actually have to develop relationships is probably my biggest challenge and scares me the most. Because I am an introvert, I have to step out of that. Even on social media. I don't post on social media just to post, because that's not what introverts do. So I have to get out of that comfort zone to be able to reach people to develop relationships for business to business commerce, for business to customer commerce. You know, I have to spread my wings, so to speak, so that I can then connect with the right people, whether that's clients, whether that's organizers, organizations. Yeah, I have to do more.
Dave Charest: So. Well, then talk to me about that. Right. So this actually transitions nicely into the idea of just marketing in general. Like, what's your point of view there? And like, what's your relationship with marketing, particularly being an introvert?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: So it's weird. That's why people don't think I'm an introvert, because when it comes to, like, speaking, speaking engagements are my preferred form of generating revenue and connecting with people because they like my personality. I love to share information. I'm engaging, you know, blah, blah, blah. So that really helps me to connect with people. But when I, but I can do that in front of an audience, I don't mind standing on platform and doing it, but if I got to talk to you one on one now, we might have some problems. So. So for me, standing on the stage is great. I love that. So that side of marketing, I don't mind, but having to make phone calls and making the ask from people that I have more challenge with that, it's just tricky for me.
Dave Charest: So is there anything that you do to, I guess, how do you, I mean, you have to get clients, you have to get gigs, you have to do all this stuff. So what do you do to overcome that?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: One of the things I do to overcome it is I have a calendar here, a weekly calendar that I write out what I need to do. And I actually have on here from yesterday call, and I've got a list of about five or six people who I've had contact with who have expressed interest in the services or products that I provide that I need to follow up with them. And I haven't done that yet, but I have that on my list. So I have to be intentional about following up with people. Like I said, I do do some posts on social media. And the other thing for me that helps a lot is word of mouth because people have such a great experience with me, they tell other people about me. So I have people tagging me in posts. Like I talked about the writers retreat. I had someone who I'm going to do speaking for her in a couple weeks. She tagged somebody, said, hey, there's a writers retreat. This would be great for you. So it's that cross promotion that really helps me a lot, although that can be the end all for me. I have to get out there and do more. And because of the pandemic, I didn't get out and speak as much because I'm in several high risk categories. So I'm slowly stepping out more into the world and that'll help get momentum.
Dave Charest: Going again, I'm curious on the word of mouth piece, right. Is there anything that you do to help foster that aside from obviously providing a great service. Right. Like, is there anything else that you're doing to help amplify that at all?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Absolutely, I amplify that. Using constant contact. Yes. I send email correspondences, newsletters, and then I try to send tips and information about writing, publishing and marketing. So I do that via email, and I need to be more consistent with that because I know that's how you foster your contacts. There tend to be the first ones. This last email that went out yesterday actually had a 54% click rate. I was like, I've never open rate. Yeah, I've never had that high of a rate before. I'm like, I have to see what did I do differently on this one? But it had a 50, I think, 54% open rate. So, you know, those kind of things. And looking at my statistics and then sharing those constant contact e blasts on social media as well. So I use that feature to share those out on social media so that, you know, it's going to my email list and then it's also broadcast through my social media platforms.
Dave Charest: So I'm curious, what brought you to constant contact? What were you looking for when you came to us?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Well, when I first came to you guys, I came as a indirect referral. So the young lady who I said I started with, who is now six figure income earner, she started out using constant contact. So when she went on and did her thing, and we, you know, the other people in the business, we launched our individual businesses, I went with constant contact out of familiarity. I was familiar with how to set up the, you know, use the software and create the e blast. And so I kind of migrated to what she was doing and started with that.
Dave Charest: Gotcha. So if I'm not mistaken, you've been a customer with us, I think, since 2007 or so.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Yeah.
Dave Charest: What would you say that experience has been like for you?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: It's great. Well, here recently, I did make a phone call. Matter of fact, I think it was this week, I made a phone call to constant contact about how do I adjust my email list, because I wasn't, I couldn't figure it out. And I'm like, okay, I gotta get this done. And so I called and talked to the young lady. I can even tell you her name. Cause I write down everything. And she stepped me through the entire process of what it takes. I wanna say Mindy, but that may not be right, but the entire process of what it takes to modify my email list the way I needed to modify it. So she walked me through that entire process clear in voice. Clear in communication, she stepped me through, you know, because I'm fairly smart, Dave, I have two degrees working on a third, but some of this stuff gets in my head and I'm like, I don't use. You might as well be cussing at me the type of you using words that I don't understand. So break it down. She was very clear and concise on what I needed to do and gave me almost step by step instructions on how I needed to modify my email list.
Dave Charest: I love that. I love that. If you had to say like, what does constant contact allow you to do that you couldn't do before?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I think one of the things that constant contact allows me to do is before I immediately migrated to constant contact, I was trying to send out mass emails and this is back in AOL and we were still doing dial up. Okay, it's been a long time and so after I think it might have said 1000 emails, it would shut me down. You're not allowed to send that many emails. So I was like, oh, what do I do? And I said, oh yeah, constant contact. So it allows me to expand my email list. And then I like the fact that I can segment my list because I have people in my list who are based on different topics. So I have lists for the media. I don't send the media everything I'm doing. I only send them media releases because I don't want them to get mad and get off my list. I have a list of people who are interested in my relationship book. I have a list of people who are interested in writing books so I can segment the emails. And to those people who have expressed interest in what I'm doing, I have a list that's just a library, contacts. So depending upon what communication I want to send, then I'm able to segment my emails and send them appropriately. So I love that feature.
Dave Charest: Yeah, I think you're also using tags, if I'm not mistaken.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I'm a note taker, so I got tags on everything.
Dave Charest: So let me, can you walk me through a little bit how you think through that process and how you use those?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Yeah, so the tags, I mainly use those so that I can further segment people. It helps me to because, you know, people will call somebody I may have spoken to 20 years ago, hey there, how you doing? I'm like, hey, but when I go into my constant contact I can say, oh, I met this person at and out because I'll put the, maybe the event I spoke at or attended and then the year, that's a tag or if they have expressed interest in my writer's retreat, that I can say, oh, you're ready to talk about the writers retreat now. So it's a way for me to keep track of who I've spoken to and what we've spoken about and then maybe where I met them, so it's not as awkward.
Dave Charest: Gotcha. Gotcha. You mentioned sharing your newsletters and things like that to social media. Are you using the social posting features beyond just sharing the email? Are you using any other of that stuff to just do regular updates to social at all?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: So I use that feature to send out the same eblast that I've created and then at the time it goes out and then I schedule it to go out again and say seven days or whatever. Okay, so I do use that scheduling feature, and then I've also used the resend feature, which I love that because I have, you know, clients or people, they get bombarded in their emails and sometimes they miss them or they don't see them or they ignore them. So that recent feature is fairly new. I don't, maybe a couple years maybe.
Dave Charest: I think within there maybe.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Yeah, yeah. So I really like that feature because then it allows me to, you know, and so it puts an automatic pilot for me. And as a solopreneur, even though I have a team of people, not anybody who comes in the office with me, but as a solopreneur, then I can check that off my list and know that I've got that particular communication complete.
Dave Charest: Yeah, you mentioned that resend and unopeners. Is there anything else that you would call maybe your favorite feature within constant contact?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I love the templates and I don't know if that's a feature, you would call that a feature. But I love all those templates where I can just kind of plug and go and right here you want to do this, and right here you want to do that. So I love the template feature and being able to change the colors, of course, so the ability to customize it without having to do the, with the HTML and all that background code, that's a great resource for me. And, and the fact that I can categorize my emails themselves so I can, you know, the way I name them and I can put them in categories and say, okay, well, what did I put out about my writer's retreat? Then I can go to all those emails and copy and paste. I don't have to recreate. I just make maybe change some dates and change some of the content, which again, helps to expedite my process.
Dave Charest: Do you use the constant contact app at all? And if you do, how do you use that?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: I do. I don't use the app to create eblast. I don't know if you can or not because to me that that screen is too small. I have an iPhone 13, but that screen is too small. I mostly use it to check my open click rates and I also use it to add contacts. So if I'm out somewhere and somebody wants to join the list, then I can add them from there as I've also used the text to join feature. Like when I'm doing presentations, I have a slide that says, hey, join my contact list. Text here, text this and you and, you know, answer the questions. You'll be in my email list.
Dave Charest: What would you say is your number one tip for maybe another business getting started with constant contact?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: My number one tip. If you don't know, call and ask. I think because oftentimes, especially with marketing, marketing with the book business is the most challenging aspect and I would believe go as far as to say that's true for almost every business. You know, you can create this great product. You can position it and have it out in front of the, you know, into the world, but if you don't reach the right people with the right message, they won't either connect with your product or service or they won't know that you're there. So marketing is the most challenging part of it. And don't go off a happened or assume you know how to reach your audience. You know, contact, constant contact and get some insight. You guys have webinars and training and opportunity for people to learn. Even headliners are important. How you list your subject line makes a difference of what opens and what doesn't. As I said, I have to go back and check that last one I did. I don't remember what I put in there, but 54% open rate is a big deal. So, you know, get learn from people who have already done what you hope to do to avoid the pitfalls. Now, you can learn a lot from your mistakes, but then you can also make quantum leaps towards your success by connecting with people who have already done what you hope to do. And they can help you mitigate the fail rate. We want to fail because we learn from failure, but you don't want to fail and waste hours and hours or thousands of dollars and then become so frustrated that you quit. So get with people who can help you to market. And I know constant contact has that team who can help you with that it.
Dave Charest: When you think back on all that youve learned through the years of doing this and reaching the level of success that you have, what would you say is your best piece of business advice for other businesses out there?
Valerie J Lewis Coleman: Dont quit. And I know that sounds so cliche, dont quit. But ive got things on my walk. I never give up. She believes she could do it, so she did as aspirations and information for me. Because it's going to be challenging. It's difficult. And, you know, we watch shows and see these people who are landing these deals and these gigs and making, getting these people to invest in them, millions and thousands. Okay? So that doesn't happen for everybody. And even the ones that we do see on those platforms are probably one in several thousand who had that opportunity. So it can be difficult. It can be challenging. But my recommendation, my suggestion is whatever you do, if you're passionate about doing it, don't quit because there's someone's life who can be changed by the message of the product that you're offering. Whether it's just a change for them to live better, smell better, look better, do better, whatever it is your product is offering. If you offer that and offer it successfully and you reach your niche audience, then you could be, you could be the world to that one person. Well, hopefully not just one, unless you got a million dollar product. But you could be the world to that person. So don't quit. You just never know whose life you can change with your product or your message or your service.
Dave Charest: Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, make adjustments or delete the things not serving you well. Valerie reviews what's working for her and what needs to be adjusted so she can hit the goals she's setting for herself. It's the ability to make adjustments or delete the things that don't move you forward that gives you staying power. Dont be afraid to make changes. Number two, surround yourself with others that share your aspirations. Valerie mentioned that shes joining a cohort of aspiring seven figure income earners. Being able to have conversations with others at the same level and with the same struggles allows you to learn from each other and help each other overcome those challenges. And number three, put relationship building on the calendar. Although Valerie is an introvert, she knows she needs to spread her wings to meet new people. To overcome those challenges. She uses a weekly calendar to keep track of what she needs to do to build those relationships. Being intentional about it makes things happen. The same goes for marketing. The more you can do to be intentional about it, the more benefit you'll see from it. Here's your action item for today. Check out the tags feature to further segment your contacts in constant contact. Valerie uses tags to keep track of who she's spoken to, what they've spoken about, and where she met a contact. Think about some ways tags may help you manage your contacts internally so you can send more relevant information to those contacts. Ill include a link with more details on tags in show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me directly at dave.charest@constantcontact.com. If you did enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. Well friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.