– To all of you joining us via livestream and everyone who is in the meeting here with me, thank you all for coming out. This is one of our Thursday Zoom meetups, and they are the public-facing part of the vidwheel Creator Network, or the vCN. What is the vCN? It’s a group that brings together solopreneurs who aspire to take our businesses to the next level with self-produced video. We draw on my experience and the experiences within the group as a whole to guide you through the process of making video and making it work for your business, giving you better reach, efficiency, and growth. If you find that intriguing and you’re the adventurous type, I invite you to join the network as part of our beta test team for our newest onboarding challenge. The challenge is called the Reach Challenge, and it gives you the tools and knowledge to create a super efficient introduction video, and you can then make other video content in the same way that starts conversations with ideal clients anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. Beta testers get half off our membership dues in perpetuity. So, if you’re interested, book a meeting at the booking link. I dropped one in the description for the livestreams and dropped one in the chat, as well. One last note, the livestream, if you’re watching via stream, it’s a great preview of what these vidwheel Creator Network Zoom meetups are like, but if you want to get the full experience, join us at our next meeting, which is at noon Eastern on July 21st. TikTok creator Kirsten Granados is presenting a chat titled “Growing Your Business with TikTok.” Info for that event can be found at events.vidwheel.com. That’s also in the show notes and dropped it in the chat. One more thing, and then we’re getting to Stephen, I promise. So, through some conversation on LinkedIn, I actually booked another TikTok creator for kind of a bonus livestream that we’re doing next Friday at 1215 Eastern, which is Chris Bogue, who Stephen knows, right? You were on his show at one point.

– Yeah.

– And it’s going to be a Q&A about TikTok, so bring your TikTok questions. All right. So, now we’re on to the main event. Today, we’re going to hear from marketer and strategist Stephen Pope, and we’re going to hear, “Can You Get Consulting or Coaching Clients on TikTok?” And the hint is, yes, of course you can. Stephen, before we get started, I do have one question.

– Hit me.

Ideas are great, but creating video can be hard.

Collaborate with like-minded DIY video creators.

– How lame am I for bringing up that two-year-old TikTok of the guy on the skateboard with the cranberry juice and the Fleetwood Mac track in the description for this event? Is that, like, totally taboo, or is that classic?

– No, no, no. I’m, like, the least judgemental person in this, like, no. Everything goes. Like, everyone has their own perspective and their own point of view for all of this stuff. So, I mean, no.

– All right.

– As simple as that.

– I love it. Okay, well, because you were so kind, the floor is yours, my man.

– I’ll be much meaner going forward.

– All right, guys. So, I’m gonna share my screen. I’m gonna blow your mind. That’s my job today, and I think good stories start at the end, so you can book calls and you can get clients, and this is just, like, a screenshot of my email from calls that are getting booked from TikTok. It’s, like, it’s quite a high volume of them, and you can look to the right side of it. It’s at quite a high volume, as well, and these are converting into clients, as well. Obviously not all of them. I couldn’t do the all of them as well. And this is like one TikTok that I did, and they’re not all like this, but this is one of those ones I did actually, like, over almost a year ago now, and there’s, like, Perception Number One that TikToks, like, they’re kind of disposable, and you post it, and then it dies, but this one is still getting views today, and had 300,000 views. Lots of people get way more than that, so that’s, but 8,000 shares, and I get a kick out of this, as the total play time is almost 2000 hours, and I can say that this TikTok has generated $50,000 for my business, just this one TikTok. And then I have clients as well, so Lydia, she’s grown, like, really fast. She has over 100,000 followers. TikTok has totally transformed her life, and I think that’s interesting, too, because it’s like lots of different types of businesses that are doing this, and then I have this other client here. He’s got 200,000 followers and he does a franchising. So, he sells franchises. He has a business that cleans trash cans, but he sells franchises of that, and still sells 40, $50,000 franchises from this, right? Which I think is just really interesting. And then, like, one of the first things that people always ask me is, like, are my businesses, like, is my business there? I think it’s just for kids dancing and all that kinda stuff, but, like, this is, you know, whenever somebody books a call through my system, I ask, ’em what they do and, like, where did you hear from me? And like, this is Head of Growth of a B2B real estate tech company. And then I just asked him, where’d you find me? TikTok. He misspelled it, but I’ll forgive him. And this company right here, they want to buy a $20,000 package from me, so I sell like a $7,500 package and a $20,000 package, and I’m selling both of those to big companies. And this is an example of other people that I’ve also sold packages to. There’s a $5 billion energy company, a $50 million a year investment firm, a rapper, I talked with one franchise by the one I just talked about, and there was another one. Agencies, consultants, coaches, CPAs, financial advisors, and really, all of ’em were like 35 and older. So, I’m trying to, like, really dispel the rumors that, like, it’s just for kids. It’s really not. It’s like, I think one of the main insights I had, I think I have this on a slide here. You don’t have to dance and you don’t have to be creative. I have danced a few times at this point. So, like, if you get there, you might do it, but I really just like show up and provide value, and I think the epiphany moment that I had, I don’t know if I was talking about it here. Yeah, it is. It’s just like, I was sitting there one Christmas, and I was, like, just flipping through it and laughing, you know? Whatever I was doing. I don’t know, and then I just had this epiphany moment. I was like, okay, I’m here. I’m here. I’m, like, I was almost 40 at the time, and I was like, so, if I’m here, there’s gonna be other people, and then it’s only gonna get more intense over time, right? Because all these platforms change over time. So, LinkedIn used to be something and now it’s something else, right? So, like, all the people that were there three years ago when it was just a recruiting site, they are now killing it way more than any of us that are just jumping on the wagon now, right? And so I was like, okay, I want to be that person on some other platform, and so I just jumped on and I started to do it.

– Stephen, hey, oh, sorry. I know we talked about jumping in and so on, so Rebecca asked if we could watch that video, that one, and we can save that till the end if that’s better.

– Yeah, I can find that one. Yeah, I can find that one. I did have a couple of examples, but I can, the way TikTok works when you… Let me see if I can just pull, like, it’s a little bit, they make it harder to find specific videos.

– I’d hold on it then.. Finish, and when we get to the end, maybe there’ll be a chance to do that.

– Yeah, for sure. We can definitely do that. And then I thought I’d show some examples, as well, of, like, success successful TikToks. I didn’t show my most successful one. I guess that’s kind of silly that I didn’t, but what I think is fun about it is that there’s lots of different ways of doing it and you don’t have to overthink things. So, like, this video here is like 14 seconds, and I don’t know that I’ll be able to play the sound. I think I would have to stop sharing my screen and re-share it, wouldn’t I? Should I do that, Neil? Just so we can hear this sound?

– Yeah, why don’t you do that? Yeah, ’cause it’d just be that toggle when you share, right?

– Yeah, Share Sound. So, this is a video. TikTok has this feature called The Green Screen, and so it lets you basically, like, overlay yourself on something else. And so I was doing this critique on this email here, and so I’m just giving some advice about writing email newsletters or emailing your list, and I can play it here. See if you guys can hear it. A lot of people say emailing to your list is dead, but they’re wrong. There’s a lot of money to be made. This was an email that I got just the other day. It gets right to the point and stays focused on a single pain point. Everyone struggles with content. As someone that helps people with content, I know what they’re looking for as a process. And they clearly identify that. A lot of people say- So, it’s like, most of these TikToks are just, like, these little tiny tips, right? A lot of times, people feel like they have to do this big preparation and, like, this big production, but all I did was take a screenshot of an email, I got on top of it, and I just gave a quick insight, and I didn’t try to, like, break apart every single word. I just gave one insight about, like, what was interesting about it, and that video did quite well compared to some others, right? But it just goes to show you it doesn’t have to be so complicated. And then here’s one of my clients, Lydia, again. There’s another really interesting feature that I like to show off that’s kind of hidden until you’ve used TikTok for a while, but we’re all familiar with responding to comments on LinkedIn, but on TikTok, you can respond to comments with videos, and not only can you do that with your own videos, but you can go into comments of other people’s videos and leave videos, and so it gives this really interesting, not only are you creating the video that goes onto your profile and you get to count it as a video and people will see it as a new video that you created, but you get to, like, really interact with the people that are following you or asking you questions and, you know, answer, like, in a much more personal way. So, I don’t necessarily have to play, like, a 55-second video, but I might also just play this just for a second ’cause you can see how natural she is. And she was totally afraid to get on video, too, and totally didn’t think TikTok would be her cup of tea, but it’s totally changed her business. But just watch, like, how natural she is at just kind of answering these questions.

– This is a great question. What is the difference between dyslexia and Irlens, and why is it important to talk about? A couple things to note here. First of all, you can have dyslexia and Irlens at the same time, but the interventions are very different. It’s important to distinguish between the two because we want to make-

– So, maybe you were interested in that video. Sorry if I cut it off. So, it’s really cool, like, everyone’s, like, one of the biggest struggles that people have is like, oh, what are the content ideas am I gonna come up with, right? So, now there’s a little bit of a chicken and the egg here. You gotta create some of the content first to get those questions coming in. But once you start getting those questions coming in from people, it’s like the insights that you get from that type of interaction is really actually where the most value is. So, I actually made a video today on TikTok. It’s not gonna do well because I was just being very truthful. And it was like, I mean, I’m always truthful, but I’m just saying it wasn’t like, I don’t know. I was just, it was kind of boring because it wasn’t super, like, I wasn’t, like, saying how to make a million dollars, but the value in these social media platforms, especially on TikTok, is interacting with your community. Like, I’ve developed my product basically through creating the content, listening to what people are saying, hearing the content or hearing the comments, interacting on sales calls, and then actually constructing the final offer from that experience. And so TikTok is a really great way to interact with people like that. And so here here’s a video. So, I’ve developed my own style of videos, and one of the things I’ve found successful is really just using a screenshot of, like, a screen. So, I guess I kind of did a little bit of dancing in here, but this was a successful video for me, and so I’ll just play a little clip of it, and you can just see I’m having some fun. But then also just showing you something on the screen itself.

– [Caption Reader] Here’s an automated A-to-Z podcast workflow.

– Each week, I sit down to brainstorm guests for my show. Then, once I’ve confirmed that time, I go ahead and go to Needs Processing. It generates a template document where I can fill out the description and the questions. It also creates a task in ClickUp for all the subtasks and checklists to run the show. I run my show live using Restream and OBS. If it’s not live- So, you can see it’s, like, it’s real fast-moving, and people can’t even always, like, I get this feedback from people, too. It’s, like, they can’t actually always understand what’s going on, but it’s enough to hold people’s interest, and I’m having fun with it, showing people stuff, showing what I can do, showing the behind-the-scenes, and that just works really well for me and other people, but everyone has their own style. And then there’s also this concept of duets. This is like a really fun feature. So, the people on the right here, they made a video that is them acting very surprised, and then there’s a feature in TikTok where you can duet yourself next to other videos, and so you can kind of have fun with it. And this video did well for me, too, and in a different way. It shows a different side of you, and what’s really neat about TikTok is that people get to know you, and so, anyways, I’ll show you what I did. But basically what you’re going to see is these guys get real surprised, and so anybody on the left can play, like, a little mini part and interact with them in a way. So, I’ll show you, like, how I handled it. Hey, guys, check this out. One time I heard Gary V. say he used Airtable to manage all his content, so I built the same thing. You can see all content with a unique ID. Guys, wait, wait. I have more to show you. Guys. So, when I show this, to me, it’s like, it’s very Tiktokky, but you can see you can kind of have fun with it. And in between the videos where you’re sharing your expertise about your consulting or about how you help people with profit or how you help people make more impact or whatever it is you do, you can also have fun and show other parts of your personality, as well. So, you get interesting opportunities. This duet thing is pretty interesting. And then I’ll show another one with Lydia, as well. So, like, you don’t even have to always talk. So, this is a video where all she’s doing is dancing a little bit to some music and then just pointing to different things that she wrote on the screen. So, you can see, like, even if you’re afraid to talk, you can figure out some way to do something that’s kind of creative and fun. So, you’re delivering value in any number of different ways. And, I mean, if you scroll TikTok for a little while, there’s all sorts of different ways that you can take from and make your own, right? So, like, one of the other common things that I hear is, like, do I have to follow trends? Do I have to dance? You don’t really have to do any of those things, but you can certainly take inspiration from something that somebody else is doing and make it your own. So, that’s what I do a lot, too, is, like, if I just see something and I can see how I would fit into it and I feel comfortable, and I’m, like, being my authentic self, and I just go for it. And then here, like, I’m gonna show you one other video, not so much about the video, but the networkability of it. So, this is a 15-second video. It did really well, but I’m not even gonna play it, but the interesting thing about this one is that I was talking about a platform called ClickUp, which is like a project management software, and so because TikTok is new, a lot of people that are on it, they’re a little bit more active there than they might otherwise be on some of the other platforms, so the founder of ClickUp, this is like a multi-billion-dollar company, I just went into the comments and I tagged him in it because I was like, hey, I made a video about ClickUp. You should know about it. And then he came into my thread, and we had a conversation, and then me and him ended up getting on a call together. So, I’m trying to show all the different kind of ways how this is, like, a really interesting platform. And now I was like sitting there with, like, a founder of a $4 billion company. I thought that was really interesting. One other interesting thing along those same lines is you guys probably know Kajabi. That’s, like, one of the online course platforms. They reached out to me on LinkedIn, and I was kind of like, why are they reaching out to me? And basically what had happened is somebody took my TikTok and put it in their Facebook group and said, “Hey, we should be doing what this guy’s talking about. Do you have any help around that?” And then they ended up reaching out to me. And so, I mean, that happens on social media in, in general, but I think it’s just, like, because it is TikTok, I think there’s just interesting opportunities, and I think people are more focused on this platform just ’cause it’s new. And then, of course, on the same note, you can repurpose your TikToks, as well, so I push them to LinkedIn. Some of ’em do better than others, but some of ’em do quite well compared to some of my other videos, partly just because they look so different. So, right? So, if you think of the typical LinkedIn video, it’s that kind of square format with the bar at the top and the bar at the bottom. I think sometimes these things just kind of start to blend in, and when people see a TikTok, they’re like, “Oh, this person’s a little bit different,” and so people watch it. I’m also pushing these over to my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel has grown significantly because of my TikTok performance. When Neil first reached out to me, I think I was at, like, 200 subscribers, and that was just a few months ago. So, I mean, getting subscribers on YouTube is significantly harder than pretty much any other platform, so now I’ve gained like 200 or 350 subscribers since me and Neil even became friends. And then I can also push these all over to Instagram Reels, as well, and getting good traction there as well. ‘Cause you have to understand is, like, all these other platforms, they are competing now with TikTok, and so they are pushing the promotion of these vertical-style videos to compete, so you basically have a gold rush of vertical video content. All the platforms are trying to give people as much exposure as possible and, you know, this is the time. So, like, something else will come and replace it, of course, but, like, if you want to take advantage of some of these opportunities, this is really a time to do so. So, that’s the presentation in a nutshell, and if I can look for that other video, and in the meantime I can answer questions, as well.

– Right on. Great job, Stephen. An excellent rundown of all the different ways that, well, maybe not all the different ways, but, yeah.

– Yeah, there’s so many ways.

– Many different ways that you can use TikTok and some of the different video types, which I think is really interesting, as well. So, we will open it up to the group here. Does anybody have any questions they’d like to ask Stephen about TikTok or his process or anything like that? And, as usual, I got lots of my own. So, then I’ll start asking if we don’t have any, so.

– I see a thumb-up there from, looks like Bernhard, if I’m saying that right?

– Yep. Yep. Do you have a question, Bernhard? Yep. Go for it.

– Lots of them. Lots of them. But first of all, I’m sorry for being late. In Spain, it’s two, almost 2:30 in the morning. I’m not sure if you covered it before I joined the meeting, but my main concern is, like, you know, just like with any social media platform is how to get the audience? Because if it’s like LinkedIn or others that you have to invest hours and hours and hours of engaging with other people, that’s extremely, extremely time-consuming.

– That’s a great question. And, like, so, no, you don’t. So, like, the way TikTok works is that, and the reason why it’s so successful and the reason why some of these other platforms that are trying to copy it may not do so well, is the algorithm. So, instead of it being, it’s all content-based, so it’s listening to, so all these other platforms are social-network-based, like your friends, so it’s a friend graph or a people graph. This is a content graph. So, the algorithm is matching you up against content. So, all you have to do is go into TikTok and watch the feed a little bit. It starts to learn. It’s like, oh, Bernhard likes this. Bernhard likes that. He skips this, he skips this, he skips this. And so very shortly, it’s gonna be delivering you stuff that you like. It will always, like, feed in new stuff just to test you, and say, hey, like, I’m not gonna only serve you that. Like, what about this? And you might be, “Oh, no, I hate that.” And you can tell it, like, “I don’t like this,” but what it’s doing is it’s learning what people like and feeding that to them. And so is all you have to make sure you do is make content that is relevant to them. And if you call out, “Hey, coaches, this is for you.” “Hey, Springfield,” you know? Or, “Hey, Phoenix, Arizona. If you live in Phoenix, Arizona, check this out.” The algorithm is gonna, the people that are watching that, it’s gonna learn why they’re watching it, and then it’s gonna bring you to your tribe, ultimately. And here’s one other thing that’s interesting about TikTok that no other platform has ever done is that every time you make a video, it’s serving it to new people. So, think about LinkedIn. It just really kind of keeps serving it to the same people over and over again. Same with YouTube. It’s showing it to your subscribers. TikTok is always giving a portion of your video to new people to see if they’re interested in it. They’ll show it to 10 people, then a hundred, then a thousand, and the more watch time they get, the more viral it’ll go. So, you could show up on Day One and have a viral video. You could also be there for three months and not have that happen. There’s no guarantees or anything. It’s all just about, like, is your content valuable to the people that they end up showing it to.

– Just one last question. Try to break the myth. For me, TikTok has always been, and that’s why I haven’t tried it out yet, that’s why I’ve kind of retired also from Instagram, kind of a younger audience. I’m not sure if I’m right or if I’m wrong, if it’s just the myth, but my topics are, well, I have two main work areas. One is addiction recovery, which is a very tough one, and the other one is just plain communication and coaching, so. I’m 59. I’ll be 60 next year. Is there room? Is there audience? Could TikTok be a place for that?

– I think it would absolutely be a wonderful place. So, most of my customers are all over 40, and if you look at just the, that’s kind of a dying myth. Like, that’s the way it started. If you go look up at any, like, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can go look at recent statistics from Google, if you want, just to confirm it for yourself. The demographics are changing. The fastest growing demographic is, like, over 35. And not only that, but so I showed one of my clients, Lydia, she does dyslexia intervention for kids, and I think it’s not for me to judge, but I think I have a hypothesis that one of the reasons why is because it’s so emotional for the parents, right? So, she’s taken off. It’s not because kids are watching her. It’s because these parents care. And so, Number One, addiction, here’s another interesting insight for you is that addiction is across the board, right? Maybe you don’t want to work with younger people. That’s up to you. But they’re gonna help push the video out, nonetheless. So, everyone is gonna be emotionally tied to these topics because it’s an emotionally charged thing. And you might even consider, because one thing I haven’t talked so much about yet is, like, niche. Like, if you only talked about intervention, like, you talked about the communication stuff, too. If you mix both of them, it might skew how the channel responds, ’cause the algorithm is going to be very tuned in to these things. So, if you came on there and was only talking about intervention, about addiction, I mean, I can’t tell you what would happen, but I think it could be really good for you. I think it could be amazing for you.

– Neil, I’m sorry to-

– No, keep going, keep going.

– I think you just nailed it, and you just made my day, because LinkedIn and Facebook, both of them have been very, very punishing when I talk about addiction, when I talk about suicide. They don’t like that because it’s not happy, happy, happy, and it’s not, you know, it’s still the stigma there.

– Real quick, to interrupt you real quick. You do want to read their community guidelines.

– Yeah, sure, sure.

– Read those and be familiar with what they-

– What they allow.

– What they allow and all that kind of stuff. I don’t think that they disallow talking about suicide, but I know that their algorithm is looking for specific words, and…

– So, I’ll give it a try because I decided not to do that on Facebook anymore, not to do it on LinkedIn anymore at all. So, I will just do that on YouTube and I might pick that up for TikTok because it allows me to talk about addiction in a less serious manner, but in a more human way, not in a clinic, not with a clinic perspective, not with a sickness, illness, or whatever. More of a human part. I like that, thanks.

– I don’t know how you are in, like, how you deliver video content, but it would be really interesting if, like, if you just showed up and hit record and told some of these stories without, like, preparing, without doing a script.

– That’s what I do.

– Yeah, like, if you did that, I think it could be really interesting.

– Yeah, that’s how I work, yeah.

– Cool.

– Thank you.

– Sure.

– Thanks, everybody else. Sorry for taking up the time.

– No, that’s good. That’s good. I think you probably knocked some things loose from other folks in the meeting who might have some questions. What do we think? Anybody come up with any questions there?

– I have a quick question, actually.

– Nick, let’s hear it.

– To build upon what Bernhard was saying, I think a lot of people will see TikTok as an addiction in itself ’cause you pick it up and you can’t put it down kind of a thing, so it is addictive in that way. But my question is more towards, like, have you had experience in trying to pitch this to the older crowd and like the corporate world? And, it’s like, you know, what are some things that, you know, maybe someone in my position should bring up to say why we should be on, you know, TikTok?

– Yeah, I mean, every once in a while, you’re selling steak to vegetarians and there’s no, like, amount of education that will bridge the gap. But to me, it’s just like, I still think it’s, like, entertainment, right? So, people are going there to be entertained. I’ve never met anybody. Well, somebody always chimes in and says they are that person. I’ve never met anybody that goes home and be like, I’m gonna go watch my LinkedIn channel, right? So, like, people are going there actively, so you want to go where the attention is. It doesn’t matter why they went there. If it just so happens that you’re the one that pops up and starts talking about what you know, and that person’s interested in it, it’s like, to me, this is like dead-common sense. But for whatever reason, it’s not always, and TikTok is serving these, and you can show ’em the statistics, how this is growing like crazy. It’s growing faster than any of those other platforms. It’s also breaking the mold on how people create content. So, aside from all the other cool stuff I’ve talked to you about, you’re gonna learn how to be really creative with video, too. Like, say it completely goes dead. Like, all of a sudden, like, the government shuts it down for spying or whatever it is. Like, you’re gonna have learned some really cool, creative things. LinkedIn’s not bringing any new creator tools. Like, every tool they bring is, like, boring. It’s like, it doesn’t make you a better creator. TikTok, and that the other one thing to mention that I couldn’t really show you. I’ve done it on other ones, but the recorder of TikTok is innovative. So, you can record in chunks. So, if you’re the kind of person that can’t get through the video in one take, you can record it in little chunks and then splice out the little breaks, and, like, you can add music and stuff, and makes it totally easy for anyone to create videos. So, you’re gonna come out on that side. So, corporations are always hard. Like, sometimes you can’t get a corporation to go onto LinkedIn, so now you’re asking ’em to go into TikTok, right? The smart ones are doing it.

– Yeah. So, I’m gonna add one more thing to that, too, Nick, is you could always use the track record of YouTube, which was once a video platform for kids, and, like, that’s not really the accepted, you know, kind of characterization anymore, right? It’s for everybody. And it’s a lot of interesting stuff on there.

– And if logic doesn’t work, just berate them with insults and, like, no, I’m just kidding.

– On the TikTok channel, of course, right? Rebecca has a question for us.

– Yeah. Yeah. However, the biggest difference with YouTube is that people don’t jump on somebody’s calendar from YouTube like they’re doing on yours, obviously.

– I mean, it does happen if you have a big channel, and people-

– Well. Yeah.

– That’s true.

– You’re right, yeah.

– What you’re talking about is for the common man, for the common woman, for the everyday person versus the viral YouTube star, so my question in terms of how you have leveraged this to connect with people one-on-one through your Calendly link, do they have to then go to your page channel? I’m not even sure what it’s called, or do you keep posting or pasting that Calendly link within your posts?

– Interesting, yes, I don’t do that. See, I think this is gonna change with social media in general. Like, I think the days of telling everybody what to do all the time is gonna start to get old. Like, people are starting to be smart enough, and it’s like, okay, I like this guy. Let me check out his profile. Oh, there’s a link there. Now, here’s what I will say is that my link is very simple. Like, if you click my link, I don’t have eight different products there, right? The only thing you can do is book a call. And here’s an interesting insight that’s a little bit different. This is more about marketing and funnels and stuff. But, like, I used to have more options that people could buy. Like, there was a $10 thing, and then you could book a call with me. As soon as I took the $10 thing away, I made a lot more money because then I just talked to the people and I sold them into much bigger packages.

– Yeah.

– And I think that’s pretty fascinating, but yeah. In fact, TikTok, and if you tell people in your videos “Go check out my profile,” TikTok will, there’s rumors. I don’t know. I’ve never tested this myself, but they won’t push your video out as far.

– Wow.

– So, just go out there, make good content. People will go to your profile. People will click your link, and then people will talk to you.

– I was gonna follow up on Rebecca’s question there. You said you don’t put your link in the video descriptions. Is that because of some, you know, something TikTok does? Do they not like that? Do they penalize you?

– Well, well, it would also just be awkward in the way that the TikTok is, like, that’s where you put the title, and then, I dunno, like, I just think, like, social media is going to continue to advance and, like, the people that are always telling you to go do something, like, people are smart enough. And then, like, they’re going to just, like, if they’re not going to your profile, it’s like, maybe they think it’s funny or entertaining, but they don’t care that much or your content didn’t trigger the right thing, like if you’re not really listening to what people want and so you’re not saying the right thing to get them to go to your profile, to then for them to voluntarily click the link and book the call with you.

– Yeah. All right. The death of the call to action, perhaps.

– Yeah, okay.

– Rebecca’s got another one.

– I do, I have another one. So, you’ve put your link out there to book a call. How many people have you had calls with that you wish you hadn’t?

– Oh, like, lots of ’em.

– Okay.

– But, like, to me, those are all good, like, so, here’s the way I look at funnels, is like you keep ’em wide to begin, and then as things start to happen and you’re getting certain behaviors, the wrong fit, this, that, you start to learn, hey, okay, I’m gonna pre-qualify with a couple questions, do this and that. I just encourage people keep your funnel open to get those insights, those early insights, the wrong moves are all good insights to have. ‘Cause you want to ask people, like, “Why did you book a call with me?”

– Right.

– Like, “What made you book the call?”

– So, along those lines, then, because I noticed those questions on what you showed us earlier, if they have the wrong answers, according to you, then how do you extract yourself from the call? Or do you go ahead and take the call and make it short?

– Yeah, right now, I’m still taking the calls and just making them short. I will tweak it eventually, but yeah, like, I’m being cautious of just being, like, canceling the call and being like, I don’t know, just, I don’t think there’s anything ethically wrong with that. Like, if you don’t wanna take the call, you don’t have to, but right now, I’ve been taking it, but I’ll eventually fix that and change that.

– I’m just going to piggyback on that, too. I’m a big fan of the short calls for that reason, and we may have even already talked about that, Rebecca, where if you let people book a 15-minute call, like, you can endure 15 minutes, right? And it’s not a huge chunk of your day, but I always book a buffer after my 15-minute calls for when the call’s actually more productive and we can go a little beyond that time if needed, right?

– Right. And I always say, too, like, “Hey, just to keep in mind, this is a 15-minute call,” you know?

– Haley’s got the question. This will be our last one, and then we’re gonna do some closing notes, and we’ll wrap it up here. So, Haley, go ahead.

– I was just wondering, like, the experience with the hashtags on TikTok as a marketing, like, kind of connection instead of, like, the dancing trending, do you find, like, did you ever find like an area where you can use, like, different or certain hashtags to get it out towards different people than the dancing or viral videos that you see on like a normal…

– Well, I have had feedback, and I’ve tagged certain things, and I have had feedback that I did end up connecting with some of those people, but I don’t obsess over the hashtags. I don’t. And there’s lots of popular creators out there that just, they even say I don’t even use any of the hashtags.

– Yeah. Okay.

– But I’m one of those people that, like, I pay attention to hooks. I pay attention to being concise and trimming my videos down and taking out the things and trying different things, but I start to get a little, like, I can’t get into all the algorithm stuff, and I’m in this for a longer game. I have a longer point of view. But there are other people that surely, probably would argue with me and say I’m missing out ’cause I don’t know the proper hashtag strategy.

– Excellent. A great answer. Yeah, you make good content. It rises to the top regardless of hashtags and so on, right? So, with that, I’m going to say thank-you to Stephen, to everybody in the meeting. We’ll probably have a chance to do a little more chatting after we’re done with the livestream, but to all of you who joined us via livestream, thank you very much for coming out. Thank you very much, Stephen, for sharing your knowledge with us. And for those of you watching via livestream, again, don’t miss Kirsten Granados’ “Growing Your Business with TikTok.” That’s on July 21st at noon Eastern. That event info is published at events.vidwheel.com, and there’s a link to that in the description of this livestream. And with that, I say, have a good night, and create confidently.