Dave Charest: Today on the very first episode of the Be a Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a four time Olympic gold medalist turned tea shop owner. That's right, a tea shop. And I've got a few things to say about how you can stand out from the big box stores. This is the Be a Marketer podcast. B a marketer my name is Dave Charesthe, 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. This is the very first episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Very excited that you're here. I'm excited that you're listening, and you're probably wondering, what is the deal with this show? Why did we start this show? And I wanted to just share a little bit about that story with you. And I can remember early on when I was getting started and talking to a constant contact customer, and she had said something that had really stuck with me through the years. And she said, where do you go for advice? Sometimes you feel all alone and there's this feeling of that no one's going to really understand. And I don't even know where to begin to explain it to other people. And it was this thing that really made me say, whoa. There is this aloneness that oftentimes small business owners feel. And I'm sure many times you felt that similar feeling because, you know, everything really rests on your shoulders and not everyone around you is an owner and they don't really understand the things that you're going through. And ultimately, this led me down this path of really thinking that the last thing I want you to feel is alone. And I know everyone at constant contact really shares that sentiment. You know, we want you to have the tools, the insights, the guidance to make progress no matter where you are with your business today, although you may have to be a marketer, you dont have to do that piece alone. Im here to help. And youve got a team of people at constant contact rooting here for you as well. Now on this podcast, im really going to be inviting constant contact customers who have been there, done that. These are people with businesses that have survived past that elusive five year period where id say about half of small businesses fail. And you're going to hear their stories and best advice. And I'm also going to be inviting some friends who are what I would consider subject matter experts. Right. They're going to share their stories and their best tips as well. I'm also going to have members of the constant Contact team join me to discuss the latest and greatest product features available to help your business grow. Okay, so ultimately, this is a show for you as a constant contact customer. This is a show for small business marketers. So what does that mean exactly? Well, I look at it like this. This is a show for three types of constant contact customers. So you're likely a small business owner and you're a one man show, one woman show, and you're doing everything on your own. And really what you need to do is just get the basic things in place so you can start to get results and then go about your business. Right. You got other things that you want to do and get going. And let's be frankenous, marketing is more of a necessity for you than a thing that you love to do. Now, my hope will be that we'll give you some of the basic things, the foundations that you can lay down and get implemented with your business in simple ways and easy ways and quicker ways. I shouldn't really use that term easy because I don't think there's anything typically easy about being a small business owner. But I want to make these practical and get you moving in the right direction so that ultimately my hope will be that you start to see results and you go, hmm, what else can I do? Okay. And so that's my goal there. The second constant contact customer that this show is for is really what I would call the small business marketer. Okay, so you're in this position where, and I'm not very good for a podcast, but I'm using air quotes with the marketer here, right. Because oftentimes we see this, someone is given or tasked with the chore or whatever you want to call it, to do the marketing for the business. And the, this means that you may not be a marketer by trade necessarily, but that is now your responsibility. And what I want to do is show you how you can build on these foundational things and get even better results and really start to earn your keep and be respected within that business. That you're now have these sets of responsibilities, you're likely doing other things as well. And so if you got to figure out, like, okay, where are the right places to go? What are the best ways to do them so that you can also go and do those other responsibilities that you're responsible for. And then I would say, lastly, the third group here is really what I would consider the folks that are true marketers, right? You are the experts you're likely doing and implementing for yourself or other businesses. I'd be interested for you as we talk about things here today, how can you help us with thinking about what advice can you offer? But also, you know, do you have examples of some of the things that we've seen here and implemented for yourself or your clients, whatever the case may be, so that people listening you as a listener can get more ideas, tips, things that you can implement to really have impact on what you're doing? And sometimes when you really think about it, each of these things kind of overlap because there are so many facets to online marketing today. It's not just one thing. And I think that's something else to mention here that we really need to think about, is that its not about doing the one thing, its about doing specific things and using those things together to help you achieve a goal. You might set something up and no longer think about it and then move on, and then theres something that you get better at and then youve got to learn a new thing. And so youre really kind of going in and out between these different stages of where you are, depending on what it is that youre doing. Now, ive got some things planned for you as we get into the be a marketer podcast here. And of course, the more you engage, share feedback, ask questions, the better this show is going to get. And it's going to be exactly what you need to reach your marketing goals. And so I really want to encourage you to do that as much as possible. And at the end of today's episode, I'm going to let you know how you can send your feedback in and questions so we can start to take that into account as we build out future episodes. And so again, grateful for you being here. And before we get into our conversation with our guest here today, I want to share some thoughts with you about what I see as an opportunity for small business marketers. And to do that, I'm going to start by sharing a story with you here. The other day, my wife and I went out for dinner and we were at this local restaurant. You know, I was in one of those moods where I wasn't really sure what I wanted to eat. It came down to a couple of things. I was either going to get this sandwich or I was going to get this pepperoni pizza. As I was looking at Hemming and hawing over the menu and looking at the descriptions of the food, the thing that kind of pushed me over the edge was I was reading about the pizza. And it was like, this pizza has thick cut pepperoni. And if you know me, if you've had the pleasure of dining with me, you know, I'm very particular about my food. I guess I would consider myself a foodie. I love it. And like I said, I'm very particular. And so, you know, when I start to think about things, you know, when you think about pepperoni in particular, thick cut pepperoni is a different style of pepperoni. And each of the, you figure you have your regular pepperoni that's kind of that, like, thin sliced. You also have that, the smaller pieces that kind of curl up and crisp, and you have this thick cut pepperoni. And as you might imagine, each one of those has a different kind of bite to it, right. And so you start to get your heart set on a specific thing, or at least I do when you're thinking about that. And so I was like, you know what? This thick cut really sounds good. I'm in the mood for that type of feel. And so I'm going to go with that. The food comes out, and they put the pepperoni pizza down, and it's regular pepperoni. And so I'm like, hmm. Now, I'm not mad, but I'm just curious as to what happened here. And so I asked the waitress, I was like, hey, the menu made a big deal of thick cut pepperoni, and this is regular pepperoni. Any idea what happened there? Because frankly, if it was, you know, and I didn't say this to her, but I was talking to my wife, I had said, you know, frankly, I would have gotten the other thing because I didn't necessarily wasn't in the mood for regular pepperoni. So she was like, oh, you know, I'm not really sure I can go check in the kitchen or whatever. So she comes back and she said, oh, yeah, the kitchen said they were all out of the thick cup pepperoni. I was like, oh, okay. Well, I was disappointed, right? Like I said, it wasn't a big deal and I wasn't going to make a thing out of it. But what really should have happened in that situation was the kitchen ultimately should have said something to the servers to let them know that we're out of this thick cut pepperoni, so that when somebody orders it, they can say, oh, just so you know, we're out of the thick cut pepperoni, and it's going to be the regular style pepperoni. So that then I can make the decision as the consumer, as the customer, as to whether or not I want to still order that. And then if I do, and I'm fine with that, it's not a disappointment, right? That experience becomes more of a positive one than a negative one for the customer. And this is something that I think is a huge opportunity for small businesses in particular, because when you think about what's happening, particularly when you are face to face, you're in actual locations. The big box stores are really trying to take this human element out of all of this and this line of communication between humans out of the scenario, right. When you think about it, and this is one of those things that really grinds my gears too, is, you know, you go to these big box stores now and it's almost as if you're working for them. Now, I'm going to tell you, when I leave my house, I don't want to be working for someone else. I want to be there because I actually do want that human experience. I want to have a pleasurable time when I'm shopping or whatever it is. And so when you're making me bag my own items, scan my own items, do all of those things, and no one's around when I need to find something or do something like that, that's not a great experience for me. When I'm at home and I'm doing things on my device, like I want the human element out of it many times, but I also want that to be a really great experience. And this is what I, again, as I see as the opportunity for small businesses as we're moving into a new time here, where people are pulling away from those things, I should say the big box stores are pulling away from those human elements. And because you know your customers so well and you can provide these great experiences for people. And oftentimes that comes down to how you communicate with people and how you put people in control of what the situations are and provide these really great experiences for people. So this is important not only when you're face to face, but when you start thinking about the ways that you can engage with your community and your customers online as well. Particularly when you think about the device that people have with them at all times, which is that smartphone. And when you think about the channels that you have to be on that device and keep your business top of mind, we're really talking about using social, email and text marketing. And so through the course of these episodes, we'll be getting deeper into some of these things and providing guidance on things that you can do. But I wanted to just frame how I'm thinking about this right. And what are the ways that you can use any of these interactions that you have with your audience, your community, your customers? And how can you make those really great experiences? Because that's what's going to separate you from your immediate competition and those big box stores. So please keep that in mind as you start thinking about and making plans for what you're going to do for your business as you start working on your plans to grow and do all of that. Okay, friend, I am ecstatic about being able to share this conversation with you with our next guest. She is someone that I've had the honor of speaking to multiple times, but this is the first time I've had a chance to actually be face to face and talk with her and have a sit down conversation. And she's just overall an amazing person. She's a speaker, she's a community leader, a WNBA hall of famer, a four time Olympic gold medalist small business owner, and my favorite these days, a constant contact customer. Her name is Tameka Ketchings. If you don't know her, I hope you'll share my admiration for her as you hear her speak today. And she's going to share her view on the roles businesses play in their local communities. And you're really going to hear what she's learned on her journey since purchasing the tease me Indie cafe in Indianapolis, Indiana in 2017. Now, as I mentioned, I've had the opportunity to speak with her a few times before. And the theme of our conversation that youll hear is building business by building community. And oftentimes when we get together, I like to do a check in and see where shes at with her business. And so just to give you a chance to catch up to speed on what weve talked about in the past and where shes been and where she is. As we hear about just before we hear about where she is now, she purchased the tease me Indie cafe, as I mentioned in 2017, 2020 was supposed to be the year that her business was going to be in the black. She started strong with an in store focus. She does a lot of really great community events, and she was probably about 1% e commerce at the time. And then, of course, as you know, Covid hit like many businesses, she was forced to pivot and she moved to 20% ecomm. She started doing things like subscription boxes. She moved events to virtual. She's really doing a lot of heavy social media work. I connected with her again in February of 2022. She had added catering. The subscription boxes were going well. She had started to bring live events back. And she actually opened a second location in Tarkington. And so I asked her, how are things going today? And this is where we pick up that conversation.
Tamika Catchings: I think like any small business, like, we've hit the highs and lows, right? We are forward facing. So coming back in, we added the second location, Tarkinton park. Prior to Tarkinton park, that location itself was an ice cream shop that was only open during the summertime. So we came in, had not opened, I think, 2020, 2021. Oh, yeah, we took over in 2021. So that had been interesting, needless to say. And we're still kind of going through those throws of learning the neighborhood and really trying to get in and building clientele and people knowing that we are actually there in a tea shop, a cafe right smack in the middle of the park. So we've been dealing with that here. Same thing. People getting back in, getting back, re acclimated. It's kind of like a transition. You think about summertime, you know, people are traveling, finally back traveling, going back out, doing that now. People are transitioning, kids going back to school, people actually going back to the office, trying to find spaces, like trying to find those spot that can become your own. And we're still building. We have our regulars who I invited, some of my people that come and support us, and then we are still building. And still, I mean, 2017, you would think like, oh, my gosh, tease me. Everybody knows about tease me. Like, all the big businesses, but we're still a small business and still trying to figure out marketing and still trying to figure out capital, which somebody said the revenue aspect of it, having people come in, even though we are e.com, we still do rely on people coming into space and being able to have meetings and spend money in a small business. So that's where we are. You know, I can't really say we're not tanking nothing like that. It's been a challenge, you know, I mean, I can speak to this group very honestly. I'm an open person, as always. But it has been hard and trying to figure out ways to attract more customers. And I love this neighborhood. I love both of them. But this one, you have option. An option, create more people coming. But then obviously with options, it's like, oh, well, I'll try this one today and I'll try that one tomorrow and, or I'll go to another neighborhood because we're still close enough to downtown. So there's been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of trials and tribulation. But I think the thing that people love when they come here is the culture that we have. And so forget the numbers and forget all of that. When I got into the even way back when thinking about, do I want to have a tea shop? Do I want to take over this one? I didn't get in it to get rich. I got in it because of the community and really being able to bring people together and build this. But even with that, like any person that has common sense, you gotta at least break even.
Dave Charest: Yeah, it's gonna work. The financials have to work.
Tamika Catchings: Exactly.
Dave Charest: So obviously, as your business evolves, things change. Always hearing about people having shifting priorities. Right. You find this, right. Your business, you're okay, I'm really focused on this. And then something might happen and you're cleaning up the floor.
Tamika Catchings: Right.
Dave Charest: Like, and then it's like, oh, but now I gotta really be focused over here. Right. So what would you say is your, what is your biggest challenge right now?
Tamika Catchings: I'd say right now our challenge and something that we've been working on is marketing. You know, continuing to market the business and get back out there, just remain out there. Figure out, I think I was talking to you just about broadening your horizon, finding your clientele, the people that you used to reach. Now you have to go beyond just that small group of people. And so marketing is a big part of that also. I would say, you know, like for most restaurants, when you think about it, we've been very blessed. We've been blessed because we have great people. I don't hire people that need jobs because your mindset changes. When you need a job. You just, I clock in, I clock out. I'm here, I do, and then I'm out. I really hire people for culture and what we're trying to build and what we're trying to create because I also know that they're not going to be here for the rest of their life. Everybody has a season. We all have seasons of life. And so really what I've really tried to focus on and, you know, I can't really say challenge, but what we really try to focus is through our staff and through our team members, how do we build what we want to build? How do I take myself and the thing that I'm so passionate about and instill that in them? So whether they're here or wherever they go next, that they succeed and at least they know, like, they know. My expectation as a basketball player, my expectation as an entrepreneur, as a vp, as whatever role I was in, my expectation is here it's really hard for me to lower my standard because somebody doesn't feel like they want to meet the standard. So I challenge them. But I challenge them in a way. You can't be me, and I don't want you to be me, but I want you to be the best that you can be. Because when you operate at your best, no matter where you go in the world, whatever happens next, you will be better, and you will continue to operate at your best. That's the only thing that I want.
Dave Charest: So I'm curious, how many people have a staff? Okay, a few. And then, so it's an interesting. It's an interesting dynamic, right. Because you mentioned making sure people are motivated to kind of do the things they do. It'd be interesting. Like, there's another challenge when you're doing it on your own, too, to keep yourself motivated. Right. Which does you find that that comes into play. Yeah. So I'm wondering, you know, when we think about just community in general, why is that so important to you?
Tamika Catchings: I love people. I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't be who I am, obviously, without my parents and my brother and my sister and the circle that we were around. But then also the people that surrounded us through every single step of the road, even to me landing here. Number three in the 2021. Well, 2001.
Dave Charest: Let's go 20 years back.
Tamika Catchings: In the 2001 draft, I was a third pick. And it's crazy because I could have went to Seattle, coulda went to Charlotte, ended up in Indiana, Indianapolis. Only thing I really knew about Indianapolis, I went to school in Knoxville, University of Tennessee. My parents lived up in Chicago. So the only thing I knew about Indy was I 65, because I had to pass through here to get up and back. That's the only thing I knew. And so when I landed here, it was kind of like, okay, what is this place? And you think about Indiana, like, of course, the Hoosiers. But then you're also like, okay, like, what is it like, what is it really like? You know? And you can imagine the thought that go with it. Like, what is it really like? And so coming here and being embedded immediately, I got welcome. And that's why I love the community. I love the people that I get to serve. I love the people, the fan. That's how it started. And then eventually, like, getting into the community and learning the different places and the different spots. And my passion is the youth is really changing their lives, because if you can better their lives, then you think about what they are, the future. So if you can make it better for them and where they are and show them another way of being successful, then ultimately they will end up. They will be the one that will end up changing the world.
Dave Charest: Yeah. You know, it's funny. So this first time we've been. Courtney and I travel a lot together, and this is the first time we've been to Indiana, and we've both been like, everybody's super nice. Like, I lived in New York for, like, 15 years, and, like, when we left there, it was like, all right. Like, I'm literally walking down the street. Like, I'm walking towards. I'm a person, like, like, it's like a whole different vibe. My wife and I started to get angry, and we're like, we have to get out of here because we're just too angry at everybody all the time. And so. But it's saying something, though, when you come to a community and. And everybody, like, we've had some amazing conversations with just our Lyft drivers just coming over here.
Tamika Catchings: Right.
Dave Charest: Like, doing those things. So it is. I see what you're saying about, like, feeling welcome and having that, just those types of people around you, which is really great. What do you think the role of business is then, in the community?
Tamika Catchings: Ooh, such a good question. To serve. I mean, I really think I. What we have created, and when you look around from the front door to the back door and everything in between is a thousand square feet. So in this small but yet intimate space that we have, we have created community. We have created a space where people feel comfortable coming, no matter what demographic, no matter what race, no matter what sexuality, no matter what people feel welcome from the time they walk in the door and somebody, one of our team members greets them from the time they come around this corner, and one of our team members greets them to the people that are in the space. And that's what I feel like business is. It's made to serve other people. I hope you don't get in business to serve self, because ultimately, when you serve so great, you can make all this money, you can do all these things, but at the end of the day, you leave the world just like you came with nothing. And if you have nothing to show but your own accolade and your own thing that you get, it's like winning awards. You don't want to win awards by yourself. You want to win with the people that are with you, and you want to be able to go and celebrate my movie award right here. Want to celebrate with the people that you love, that care about you, that want to be around, not because Tameko, the basketball player, but because they genuinely love you for who you are.
Dave Charest: Yeah, yeah. Talk about some of the things you do from a programming perspective. And the events. How did those come about? Why did those come about? And what keeps you doing those?
Tamika Catchings: Yeah, we do a lot. It's fun. You know, it's fun. We. So we just had our teaseme community conversation last night. You look at some of the artwork that's on the wall. That was actually from 2021, 2020, my ears all messed up, but 2020, we started doing the tease me community conversations right after George Floyd got murdered. And really what it, for me, it was having a platform to be able to speak freely because I had a corporate job, and, you know, sometimes in corporate job you can speak, but you have to be guarded on what you say. And it was important to find and create a platform and a space that people can come and be free. And so we have been doing that last night with our 29th episode. Absolutely amazing. So the tease me community conversation right now, we're doing a five month series. We're in the midst of a five month series around gun violence. So that going on, we have our talks over tea, which my wonderful mom, who normally is here, she hosts talks over tea. We have Joy and I, who used to be our GM. Actually, every once a month, we get out and talk. All things tease me first Tuesday of the month is just great just to get on. Really tried to figure out ways to use IG live and Facebook Live. And so that's how we stream a lot of our information. So that we. What else do we have? We're gonna. We had our first Friday. We're bringing it back. Instead of doing first Friday, we're gonna do third Friday. Just don't ask. So we're gonna do third Friday. But majority of the stuff that we do is very. Is all of the stuff we do is community centric. But majority of the things, I really try to focus on youth and, you know, just trying to make sure that they have a place that they can come to. If you notice the artwork, we do change the artwork once a month. So we try to find local artists, something that's really cool and I'm really proud of. If you've heard of gang, gang and the 18, the collective, I would say that out of the 18, we probably have had at least, I would say at least twelve of them on the wall before gang gang before the 18, before all of that. So really cool to see the success that they've had. And we do more like, I can't even talk about all the things, but we do a lot of collab with my foundation. My sister and I have a foundation, catch the stars. And so we focus on boys and girls ages seven to 18. We provide programming around fitness, literacy, and youth empowerment. So between those events that we have, we're in the middle of our October 5 month. So Fridays and Saturdays, we have activities from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. workouts. Hey. Yes. So we're doing that, but we do a lot. We got the basketball camp through the foundation, but a lot of the stuff that we do, we actually collab with the foundation. And the majority of the things that we support are really youth centric because of my passion and my heart.
Dave Charest: So what's different? So with the community cafe, is there a different charter there? Is there something different that you're doing with that location that you either can't or you don't do here?
Tamika Catchings: Yeah, I mean, if you've been there, which I think most of you guys, a lot of you have, it's different. The vibe is different, right. Is told me. I like to. Well, somebody described that one as the fishbowl. I don't know. I know there's windows all around. Don't know about the fishbowl concept, but the neighborhoods are different. Literally, that one, it is the melting pot. Four neighborhoods. I mean, you got $30,000 homes all the way to multimillion dollar home, and everybody clashes come together there. When we first got there, the thing that I'm proud about for that space, when we first got there, the one thing I would talk about is you would walk around and you would talk to some of the youth. They did not have hope. They did not see a way outside of that neighborhood. I felt like everything was just like, gun violence and murders. Like, it would just. It's normal. It's normal. They see it, they feel it. That's just part of it. A year later, and the vibes that you get, it's just different. And people are like, what does that even mean? I'm like, it's just different. The kids don't. It doesn't seem like the black cloud that used to be there is still there now. That's not just tease me or just the foundation. I think it's also the community. You know, my faith is a big part of who I am. So prayer walks around the park and prayer walks within the neighborhood. I took the staff, I'm like, we just. I just walk. I will go wherever my. My feet and my shoes will take me. I will just. I've started having walking meetings. I have prayer walks. I mean, trying to do a lot of things just to shake it up a little bit. And I feel like it's gotten better. And it's not just us, but I think we have a big part of it.
Dave Charest: Okay, so seeing that, what does that do for you? What does that make you feel?
Tamika Catchings: Thankfulness, gratitude? And it's not like I said, it's not just me. It's the people that come into the neighborhood and that come to the cafe, come to the playground, come to the splash pad. They see different, and it's also open in the eyes. I mean, I think, hey, I'm african american. I'm a female. I'm hearing impaired. I wear contact glasses, whatever you want to say. So seeing somebody that maybe has flaws, in a sense, still be able to succeed. We had these kids come this summer, and we were just talking, and one of them was like, oh, you own this place? And I'm like, yeah, so stop breaking up. But I'm like, yeah. I think being able to connect in a way of, oh, well, if you can do it, let me tell you. Let me show you how you can do that.
Dave Charest: Yeah.
Tamika Catchings: And now you actually tangibly can touch and feel and see someone that looks like them, someone that has flaws, maybe like they have. Being able to be at a different level and still be real. I mean, that's the thing. You don't have to live above everybody. I want to live with everybody.
Dave Charest: I'm curious. Did you ever think that you'd be in business, you'd be doing this type of thing?
Tamika Catchings: Not this. No. Mm mm. I was telling, I think I was talking to a young man back there. I was like, yeah, we grew up having tea parties, and my sister and I would have tea parties, and mine was more like a barter system. If I have a tea party, she'll come play basketball with me. That's what it was. My dolls would come to the tea party. Hair cut off, head maybe on arms, legs, it didn't really matter, and we would have the party, but now it's like we are having an adoptee party in a real cafe. And I did not go to school to do this. I did not go to school to have a foundation. Everything had just kind of happened organically, and I think that's the way God designed it.
Dave Charest: Yeah.
Dave Charest: I hope you're not going to make.
Dave Charest: Me play basketball later.
Dave Charest: No, I want to shift us a little bit to start talking about, well, my favorite email marketing tool and online marketing tool, constant contact. So you became a customer actually in April of 2022. What's that experience been like for you?
Tamika Catchings: It's been great. And I'm not just saying that it's been like, no, it really has. It really has for us. You know, one of the things, I mean, you guys, very few raised their hand when we talked about having employees. So think about this, even for me, like, thinking about the foundation before I even got to tease me, all of the different things that we had to use. So trying to get surveys out. Oh, like, you know, surveys, newsletters, emails, sms, like, we didn't do sms, but email marketing, like so many different things that you have to do. And so you're trying to find even at this location, you know, when you get on the email, you have to put in your email address. Like, that's a whole nother system that we use to. But you think about all these individual system that you have to use in order to get the messaging out. One thing that I love, like simplicity. So going back to the question you asked about challenge, one of the things that we are really working on is automation. How do you automate stuff in the kitchen when we're making sandwiches and the teas? Like, how do you make it where eight year old can come in, look at the directions, look at the pictures and know how to. Okay, this is how you make tea. Okay, this is how you make the sandwich. Same thing for sending out emails, for the marketing aspect. Now, social media, I mean, we have Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, I mean, all of these things. And if you have to do all of this individually, it's a lot of work. So, yeah, of course you need to find somebody that can do that. What I love about constant contact and not like, honestly, y'all know I'm honest. Everything is under one umbrella. So it makes it easy because it's like, all right, our marketing person, Bon, who a lot of you guys know, von boom, we need this. I need this up. And now it's easy because she can put it to wherever it needs to go through our newsletters. You know, I am still hands on, so I do check the newsletters, but I don't send my remarks in. I just go right in and make my own edit. That would be me. But that's what I mean. I love just the ease of having one thing. And we're still transitioning because we still had contracts that we had to fulfill through the year. But now we are making our transition to be able to house everything under constant contact and be able to make sure that everything is consistent. Our marketing is consistent, messaging, pushing out. You can schedule it just like you can do any of the other apps and stuff. So I just love that, the ease.
Dave Charest: And automation, one of the things where we talked about getting some things set up in the account, making sure you're doing certain things. And one of those, of course, is list growth. If you don't have a list of contacts to send information to, well, who you send information to, that's really important. What did you get going and what are you looking forward to getting going? Just in terms of growing the email.
Tamika Catchings: List, we have a QR code. Continuing to build the list. I think the, and probably you guys can all not sympathize, but all relate to this. How many messages do you want to get? How many emails do you want? If I get too many emails, as it stands today, if I get too many emails from your organization, I am putting it in the trash, and then when I want to find it, I will go and find it. But so you're trying to find that balance of what is enough but what's not. So I think with the email, the segmentation, which I know we had talked about, you know, just being able to segment your list, how many people want everything? I mean, we got a lot of events going on. Do you want all of the events? Maybe not. But if you click on it, then I know that you want the events. And so now you get entered into another list, that segment of event. Oh, pumpkin cream. It's the tea. Oh, I love the pumpkin cream. Great. You want that tea. All right. You are now segmented in the list for tea. So you will know all of our tea of the month. You will know what our favorite teas as our staff is going through and talking about their tea. So I love the segmentation part of it. But first off, in order to have a list, you have to be able to get it out to people. So the text has been great, the QR code has been great, and then, you know, events and stuff and having things where people can sign up is another great way as well. And social media, of course. And I forgot the landing pages. So through constant contact, one of the things that we built was a legacy landing page for people to be able to pick which group. So now instead of just clicking like when you click on teeth, you're going to automatically get it. Now the legacy page for us allows you to pick, like I want to know about your event, I want to know about your tea. I don't want to know about whatever that is, you know? So like you get to pick and I love that part too. Yeah.
Dave Charest: For anybody doing, or anybody like segmenting their lists now or doing that stuff. Great. What do you find? Like are you able to send more of the right messages to the right people? Like how many lists you have?
Dave Charest: That's good.
Tamika Catchings: That's good.
Speaker D: Target based on the clicks.
Dave Charest: I love it. I think this is what gets interesting, right. Is that when you do start to do that, you start thinking about what are the unique things. As you mentioned, you don't want to hear everything, but if you have people that you know are interested in something very specific, it's kind of like you can actually can send to those people more because the information you're going to send them is relevant to them.
Dave Charest: Right.
Dave Charest: And I think that's the, the key is the timeliness and the relevance of the information that you're sending. So I'm glad you're talking about that and doing that.
Tamika Catchings: Can I ask, so how often do you send emails?
Speaker D: It depends on the ad. That's right. So right now I'm running a weekend funnel right now. So if someone clicks on something, they have a timer until midnight on Sunday to make a purchase. And based on where they click, they're gonna get more emails based on that. So, but normally, like on a mailing list, like a newsletter maybe like once a month or when I learned something from my daughter or my wife or my son, and it's like, you know, today I was hustled by a three year old.
Dave Charest: So I love what you're talking about right now in terms of like using the click segmentation to kind of dictate. Let the subscriber dictate, like when and what they're going to receive. I think this is something, if you aren't doing this, this is something to think about. You know, that you're talking about the click segmentation thing. It's that like, oh, here's the thing about something. If you're interested, learn more. Here we have a customer that does catering. So perfect example there. He'll have his regular newsletter that goes out once a month. In there will have a link about catering. When somebody clicks on that, they get added to an interested in catering list and then he's got an automation set up with that that sends more information about the catering thing. What's nice about that is because it's happening when I, oh, I'm interested in catering. Now I'm getting more information on catering, right. Versus what we've been talking about here is that like, hey, I'm going to keep talking about catering, but I have.
Dave Charest: No interest in that. Right.
Dave Charest: So that's really cool. I love that you're doing those things. I think those are sometimes the things that feel like very time consuming to do but can be very beneficial.
Dave Charest: So that's awesome.
Dave Charest: One of the things that we talked about early on too was this. I'm going to do a poll here. If you are using email, do you have a welcome email set up for your lists?
Dave Charest: Great.
Dave Charest: Good, good, good. I'm always surprised by how many people.
Dave Charest: Don'T have this set up.
Tamika Catchings: Well, we didn't. We didn't. Yeah.
Dave Charest: Right. And I was like, to me, but, right. It's this really amazing time where you've got somebody that's really engaged with your business and, you know, we were talking about, or I was talking about experiences earlier. It's like when you can provide a really great experience, get them to kind of take that next step and stay connected with you, you want to continue to deepen those relationships. And I, when you start thinking about welcoming somebody, it's just a great opportunity to one, reconfirm that they made a great decision to join your list. Oftentimes, depending on the nature of your business, you might offer something in exchange for that email address. So it's also good to provide that in that email, that thing that you promised and then you can do more. Like I think tease me is a great example where because you have so much going on that as a patron I might not even know about unless.
Dave Charest: I'm in the store all the time.
Dave Charest: And because I'm not, it's like a great opportunity to think about it. I often try to think about it and I think for you is really good when you start thinking about like three emails, right. So it's like, oh, welcome. Great to have you here. Here's some things you should know. Another email could be, hey, here's like an invitation to connect, right? Like here are all the different channels that we're on in terms of social and here's why you should follow us on those things. The reason we recommend that is because as we know, right, as people are connected with people online, they start engaging, doing those things.
Dave Charest: Those engagements get you in front of.
Dave Charest: Other people that are connected to those people who likely make good prospects for your business. So you've got another way to stay top of mind. And then particularly here, because you have all of these events going, another email that lets me know the ways I can engage and have, like, do business with you.
Dave Charest: Right.
Dave Charest: So many businesses have, like, other things that people just don't know about. Right. And so, you know, a perfect example I'll give you is, you know, my exterminator. Okay, I'm only going to call them when I've got a bug problem, right. But then I get emails from them say, like, hey, it's winter times, come up. Did you know we can also deliver salt to your house and we can do this thing or we can do that thing. Like, I would have never thought. Right.
Dave Charest: Unless they told me about it.
Tamika Catchings: Right.
Dave Charest: And so it's the same thing. You've got all these things that make sure, particularly when you have new people joining, that you're kind of giving them the groundwork for what they need to know so that they can do business with you. Are you doing a welcome series now? Like, what does that look like for you?
Tamika Catchings: I don't necessarily know if it's. If I would say a welcome series. I know for the most part, I believe for the most part because I get emails all the time now when every single time I come in the cafe, get on my computer, I get welcome emails. But I think we could do a better job on that. I know the first email goes out, but I like what you said about, did you know, we offer this? And then the third one being like, hey, are you interested? Because we do have a lot of events, and you and I sat back here before this started and we were going through our newsletter, and our newsletter we do once a month in the beginning of the month. And I want you to know all of the information at that point in time. But if you're the average person, you'll skim through the first couple, and by the time you get to the end, unless you're looking for the event, you probably actually looked at the heat. There's a map. A heat map. This sitting there was the first time I've ever looked at the map, the heat map. But you could see the first couple ones were red and then there was nothing at the bottom. So Dave made the suggestion, well, you know, you should probably just think of three things that you really want to know. Whether previous email to the last, to this past month were three things, and you could see the map. Like, the heat map was big for each one of those three items and even on the website. So thinking about that, I am totally away from your question, but no, no, thinking about that. That is definitely something. As I start thinking about the welcome emails and pushing things out, what are maybe the top three things that are going on in the moment? But then that also pushes you to, like, maybe it's a. Instead of having to change it for every single person and every single week, it's more just pushing them to the events or the event tab or pushing them to a certain tab so that you don't have to get on every single week to automate it.
Dave Charest: Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about how you're using social, and I think you're connecting your accounts now within constant contact as well. How does just social. What role does that play in your marketing efforts?
Tamika Catchings: Well, I think this is great. Like, having these conversations are great. More so because I'm interested in growing, too. Like, we don't have. I don't have all the answers, you know, like, we're new to constant contact, and even with the marketing, I just never feel like you can do enough marketing. There's always something to learn, which is why I love having these types of networking events and just meeting new people to be able to do that. So our social media, we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. We have a YouTube channel. We have our young people that do TikTok. I am not a TikToker. So, you know, we have a lot of different things. What I love about it, though, is because we have a variety of different ages, we are able to cater, or they are rather able to help us cater to different things. So we came up with this new thing, the ambassadors. I know it's not new, but it's new for us, and having our own in cafe ambassador. So actually, Tarina over there is one of our ambassadors, and Lindsey kind of helped to oversee our ambassador program. But it's been fun because I love watching Serena. Like, I love watching and seeing, you know, her. And then we have another lady, Miss Julie, that's on staff. I love watching them do tiktoks and do videos and just all the stuff that creative come up with that maybe we don't think about. We got a new thing in town. What is that new place that you could do? The selfie world? So that's something that she brought up. Like, why don't we take our staff to selfie world and take photos? And then we have a whole segment, like, we have a whole album of photos that we can plug in whenever we need to plug in. Not saying that you can't eventually get to that, but it really does help having a variety of different ages. And people that are able to cater to different things to help us be able.
Dave Charest: It's amazing how much you have to feed the beast, so to speak, right. With social media and all of that stuff.
Tamika Catchings: It's crazy.
Dave Charest: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've got some good things going on, though.
Tamika Catchings: Yeah, yeah, we got some really good people. Great position.
Dave Charest: One of the things we also talked about was just, like, surveys. How are you thinking about using those for the business?
Tamika Catchings: Well, so surveys have been great. We've done surveys in house with our guests that come in and send them out through our newsletters and all of that. We've done that before. Kind of going back to the initial question that he asked, like, what do you like about constant contact? Well, we had another serve, like, another app that we had to use in order to do surveys. Constant contact now has surveys. So that's something that we've been able to pull underneath that. So we just did a. I did a survey just amongst our team on a staff meeting I couldn't attend. Just me being nosy. Just one, really. It was my first time doing a survey on constant contact. So I wanted to put it together, push it out just to see if it worked. It does. Okay. It worked. We got great feedback and a great feedback for us to use, for managers to use, for our team to use, and how we organize our meetings. So we will push one out, too, to our guests that come into our.
Dave Charest: House, give us some insight into five years from now, what's going on with Yzme.
Tamika Catchings: Five years from now, the goal is that we will have five tea shop. We have two right now. But also think about this, and I want to put this disclaimer out because, you know, you also ask the question, like, where are we as far as today? Where are we? When you think about capital and you think about revenue and you think about running a business, sometimes you have to take a couple steps back in order to be able to move forward. And so thinking about that, as we're looking at our operations and where we are today, we might have to take a couple steps back in order to push forward and be able to get to five in five years. That's a goal. I want to be in the black. You know, I think that's every business, right? And not just, like, barely scraping black. I want us to be like, yeah, we're in the black.
Dave Charest: Yeah. And we're not going back. We're not going back.
Tamika Catchings: You know, so I think that, and even when I think about the five maybe having at least one outside of Indiana. Why not? We're going to Hawaii. No.
Dave Charest: Sign me up. Tameka, if you were to offer a piece of advice to maybe a business owner just getting started, what would that be?
Tamika Catchings: I say business plan obviously is really important, but whatever you dream, you can do. And when I first even thought about tease me, like, I doubted myself, like, I can do this, like, this is like. And then the more I started thinking about it and the more putting the business plan and just thinking about the opportunity that it presented to help other people, that's why I'm here. And so, like, my advice is, whatever it is that you want to do, you can do it. Put the business plan together. Stay the course. There are going to be highs and there are going to be lows, but having the right people, and I think that's the most important thing, having the right people around you, whether you're in business by yourself or I, like we have guests, we have our team members. We had to hire the right team members in order for this to work because we've been in situations where you have the one that wasn't working and you can't let your business fail, for one, and lose the rest of your team. So stay the course. Make sure you have the right people around you.
Dave Charest: You can do it well, friend, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Tameka as much as I did. A couple of things to recap were things that I pulled from that conversation was, of course, one of the things that really stood out to me was when Tameka mentioned that whatever you dream, you can do. And so I hope that serves as inspiration to you as you continue to move your business forward. Put the plan together, stay the course, and as always, surround yourself with the right people, because ultimately, those people are going to help you get to where you're trying to go. You can watch the full conversation that I had with Tameka. I will provide a link in the show notes for you if you want to check out more of that. I'll leave you with one last piece of advice here as we close up for today's episode. But relationships, the community, people knowing, liking, and trusting you, all of these things will serve you well. And that's really what constant contact is all about, right? We're delivering you the tools, insights, and guidance so that you can stay connected with the people who matter most to your business. I hope you enjoyed this first episode of the be a marketer podcast. If you have any feedback for me, any things you'd like to see, please. As I mentioned earlier, we want you to engage, so please do. You can contact me directly at dave.charest@constantcontact.com. You can also reach us@podcastonstantcontact.com but please do send in your emails. I'd love to hear your feedback. And please, if you did enjoy this episode, leave us a review. Reviews are very important for getting the show seen by more people, and of course we'd love to hear your honest feedback as well. So friend, I hope you have a great rest of your day and continued success to you and your business. We'll talk to you soon.