On this week’s “Manly Pinterest Tips Show” we shake things up a bit to deliver a healthy dose of estrogen with special guest Natalie Eckdahl.
If you’ve ever wondered where a female entrepreneur can turn for advice and support, then look no further. As a woman with two businesses, three kids, and one husband, Natalie has the art of balancing work and family down to a science.
Natalie holds an MBA and is a former management consultant who, once she became a mom, opted to do freelance work in order to spend more time with her family. In 2011 she and her husband, Mark, founded ScheduleMAX.com, an online scheduling software that helps entrepreneurs make their businesses more efficient.
Natalie felt that the female voice in the business world was underrepresented, so she started BizChix.com. an online community and podcast, in order to help bring a voice to women and women entrepreneurs. She’s built up a great community there, but sorry gentlemen-this one’s ladies only!
Her community may be exclusive, but she’s got plenty of tips and tricks to share with all of us. She has interviewed over 180 female entrepreneurs and is always willing to share the insights she has received from those conversations. Natalie loves coaching new podcasters and small business owners, as well as hosting masterminds for her community.
On our show this week she offers some great tips for building and managing a successful online community, such as setting specific rules and guidelines and encouraging member engagement. She’s also got plenty to say about using masterminds effectively to generate amazing ideas for your business.
She’s a big fan of delegating work whenever possible in order to maximize productivity. By doing this she’s been able to run her business and have plenty of time left over to be with her family doing the things they love (like spending time at the beach). She also enjoys pampering herself on occasion with a little red wine or dark chocolate.
- Tell us about your background and how you ended up online and eventually doing a podcast. (1:58)
- What was the reason you went to podcasting? (5:00)
- Did you launch with doing one show a week What was your schedule, and has that evolved? (6:44)
- How would you define an online community? (10:45)
- Do you have an application process that you send them through? (12:10)
- You built your community from scratch. How do you do it from zero? (15:15)
- How much time do you spend managing your group? (17:29)
- Do you have moderators or super users that you’ve appointed to help manage that? (19:39)
- How do you handle difficult members? (20:22)
- How do people find out about the BizChix community? (22:15)
- Do you cross promote a lot of your community on other social networks? (24:55)
- Why did you go with Facebook rather than building it on your own site? (26:48)
- Can you explain to people who have not heard of what a mastermind is what they are? (28:20)
- Do paid masterminds usually last for a short amount of time or are there some that go on forever? So when is it time to monetize and how long should it last? (31:57)
- Do you limit the number of people you have in those paid masterminds? (35:04)
- Do you wish you would have started a paid mastermind earlier or do you wish you would have waited longer and learned more? Should you wait to have so many followers before you start? (36:12)
- You’ve interviewed dozens of female entrepreneurs during your BizChix podcast. Is there a common element you’ve seen throughout these interviews? (38:22)
- How do you balance work and family? (39:38)
- What advice would you give for guys who start using Pinterest? (41:2)
- Where can we find out about you and your services? What’s the best way to connect with you? (43:12)
Thanks For Watching And Listening!
I really appreciate you joining me for this week’s episode. Have questions or comments? Leave a message in the comment section below!
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Thanks to Natalie for being such a great guest. See you for the next episode where we’ll be adding testosterone, one pin at a time!