Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carolyn Daughters. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Carolyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?
These days, everyone’s a freelancer. What I mean to say is that everyone’s a photographer, copywriter, designer, brand strategist, and/or SEO expert. Your coworker, your weird neighbor, all 17 of your cousins, and every single person hanging out at your local coffee shop.
According to Forbes, nearly 60 million American are freelancers.
I know. It’s incredible, right?
You’re probably thinking, “Still, not everyone’s a freelancer.” And you’d be right. The ones who aren’t freelancers are agencies. Some agencies are one (wo)man shows, while others have dozens or hundreds of employees. How many agencies are there? Roughly 35,000 worldwide.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably needed to find an agency or a freelancer at some point. It’s as easy as F-I-V-E-R-R. The real question, however, isn’t how to find one – it’s how to find a great one. How can you separate the wheat from the chaff? It’s a serious question.
Some agencies and freelancers are order takers (see Fiverr above). They’ll take any work that pays. If you ask them to write a bunch of blogs but what you really need is clear brand messaging, they’ll knock out the blogs. If you hire them to run ads that point to a site that looks like your cousin Timmy designed it, they’ll run those ads.
Some agencies and freelancers are posers and sorcerers. These silver-tongued soothsayers promise pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. Their goal? Hold onto your business (for a month or three months or twelve) until you realize they’re leading you down a road to nowhere.
Am I describing every single freelancer or agency? I am not. Am I describing the majority of freelancers and agencies pitching themselves as brand strategists, marketing experts, SEO experts, copywriting experts, and design experts? Yes, I am. That sound? That’s me throwing down the gauntlet.
We don’t know what we don’t know, which is why it’s so easy to hire order takers, posers, and sorcerers. Entrepreneurs who want to properly vet agency or freelance “experts” should strongly consider (1) building a foundational knowledge in the areas of expertise for which they’re hiring, (2) combing through the experts’ sites and marketing materials to see if they walk their own talk, and (3) asking the experts the hard questions.
Some examples of the hard questions:
* You suggest that I purchase lists and blast out emails, but won’t that mar my brand?
* If you’re a social media guru, why do you have so few followers and such low engagement?
* If brand strategy is your agency’s top offering, why do you subcontract out your brand strategy work?
* Should I really pay for expensive ads before investing in on-page SEO?
* Won’t SEO efforts be rendered ineffective when people land on my weird website, which my cousin Timmy built?
If you’re calling all the shots, walk away. If you’ll need to spend all your time micromanaging “yes” men and women, walk away. If the sales pitch seems too good to be true, walk away. And if there’s a disconnect between the expert’s online presence and their purported area of expertise, walk away.
Education is key. So is trusting your gut.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Entrepreneurs wear 20 hats, at least 10 of them ugly and ill-fitting. I get it. I’m an entrepreneur too.
Fortunately, I’m not afraid of hard things. Most days, I do whatever it takes to get the job done. (I have my off days, I’ll admit. I’m not a Marvel superhero. Or a robot.)
The most ambitious among us pick our battles. We recognize where we excel and where we don’t, and we identify high-value, strategic partners who help us raise our game, use our time wisely, and get the job done.
I started my career working for Unisys at the Pentagon under the guidance of Beasley, the world’s best mentor. (We can play the “my mentor was better than your mentor” game, but I’m pretty sure I’ll win.) Under Beasley’s tutelage, I edited U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) manuals, co-authored multimillion-dollar proposals, and designed and led writing workshops for DoD personnel. It was a nifty gig as far as first jobs go.
I learned how to respect, listen to, and learn from experts. Over time I became an expert in business, brand, and marketing strategy myself.
In short, I like to lead or be led. Where I falter is the murky in between. You won’t find me doing my own taxes, going the “for sale by owner” real estate route, or maintaining my own website. I know what I don’t know, and I turn to trusted experts for the work I don’t have the time, talent, or inclination to do.
In turn, I recognize and own my areas of business, branding, and marketing expertise, and today I spend my time telling smart entrepreneurs and business leaders what they should do and exactly how they should do it.
The brand strategy, marketing leadership, and persuasive writing courses focus on helping organizations tell the best story possible. My three main business offerings are described below.
BRAND STRATEGY WORKSHOPS AND HIGH-VALUE PLAYBOOKS: I lead daylong brand strategy workshops and craft strategy playbooks for ambitious startups, fast-growth businesses, and businesses seeking acquisition.
FRACTIONAL CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER (CMO): I provide fractional chief marketing officer leadership to small businesses, empowering them to build a strong foundation for long-term growth.
PERSUASIVE WRITING ENGINE: My daylong onsite courses position corporate and government teams to understand the art, science, power, and vast potential of persuasive writing. I show attendees how to craft compelling arguments and adopt real-world strategies for winning hearts, minds, deals, and dollars.
Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?
Yes! Twice a year, I teach a six-week, online Marketing Boot Camp for entrepreneurs and freelancers who want to attract an audience that trusts them and buys from them.
Drawing upon two decades of experience as a chief marketing officer, brand strategist, and persuasive writing instructor, I’ve built a boot camp that serves:
* Small businesses overwhelmed by marketing and struggling to gain traction
* Solopreneurs who wear 20 hats, work 12-hour days, and run their whole show
* Entrepreneurs tired of hiring subpar freelancers to produce subpar work
* Teams that handle site, blog, PR, and social media content
* Copywriters, content developers, and virtual assistants who want to stand out from the pack
* Anyone who spends endless hours performing random acts of marketing
Attendees build a marketing foundation that positions them to grow their visibility — and their business — with confidence.
In particular, they learn how to:
* Identify and articulate what makes their company unique and what clear value they provide.
* Create a home page that converts prospects into customers.
* Perform SEO/keyword research to turn their content into a prospecting engine.
* Write high-value content that reinforces their credibility and brings home the SEO bacon.
* Create lead magnets that engage their audience and build their email lists.
* Create social media pages and backlinks that build their audience and reinforce their good name.
The marketing industry is filled with order takers, posers, and sorcerers who claim expertise they do not possess. It’s a big problem. I launched the Marketing Boot Camp to empower attendees to master the marketing essentials. Attendees go on to handle their own marketing, or they hire employees, freelancers, or an agency to get the marketing support they need. Regardless which path they take, they come away from the Marketing Boot Camp knowing what they should ask, what they should look out for, what they should do, and how they should do it.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
“I am made of light; I am made of stars.” That’s what the tattoo says on my right arm. Because it’s written in Spanish, I often have to translate when someone asks about it. I usually get one of three responses.
#1: Huh?
#2: Right on.
#3: That’s true! During a supernova, when a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the resulting high-energy environment enables the creation of heavy elements, including iron and nickel. The explosion also disperses those elements across the universe, scattering the stardust that now makes up the planets. Most of the elements that make up the Earth, humans, and all living creatures were formed in stars. In fact, some of the elements in the human body may have originated from the Big Bang!
#3 is a sciency type who goes full-on geek because they’ve unexpectedly found a kindred spirit who gets the complex science underlying the humans as stardust theory. Or hypothesis. Or fact. Or whatever it is.
Before #3 dives too deep into the star-infested waters, I clarify that I have a third-grade understanding of science. For example, I think airplanes in the sky are elaborate hoaxes. I also try to explain why I wear these particular words on my sleeve.
The quote is from Don Miguel’s Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, I say. I like to remind myself that I’m made of light and stars, I tell them. And between the two is me — the person I am, my life, my intent.
The reminder is all the more important because it’s all too easy to forget. There are a million reasons to not accept the person that we are, to not evolve into the person we wish we could be, to not do the things we wish we could do. The forgetting holds us back.
If you’re somehow still with me after reading the last 300 words, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with entrepreneurial thinking. It’s this: The entrepreneur creates something where once there was nothing. It’s hard. Fortunately, entrepreneurs can do hard things. It’s also work. Fortunately, entrepreneurs know work isn’t a dirty word.
There are a million ways to live without intent. The bravest among us, however, choose our path. We think it through and charge ahead. Sometimes we see clearly. Sometimes we have trouble seeing. We’re not good enough. We’re not cut out for this (whatever “this” is). We question our sanity and romanticize the box-checking life. We deflate, reinflate, push through walls of fog, wander and course correct. We get back on the path and keep on keeping on.
I’m not better than you. I’m not worse than you. I am you. I can do this. You can, too.
Why? Because we are all made of light, and we are all made of stars.
Excerpt from The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz:
THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, THERE WAS A HUMAN just like you and me who lived near a city surrounded by mountains. … One day … he dreamed that he saw his own body sleeping. He came out of the cave on the night of a new moon. The sky was clear, and he could see millions of stars. Then something happened inside of him that transformed his life forever. He looked at his hands, he felt his body, and he heard his own voice say, “I am made of light; I am made of stars.”
He looked at the stars again, and he realized that it’s not the stars that create light, but rather light that creates the stars. “Everything is made of light,” he said, “and the space in-between isn’t empty.” And he knew that everything that exists is one living being, and that light is the messenger of life, because it is alive and contains all information.
Then he realized that although he was made of stars, he was not those stars. “I am in-between the stars,” he thought. So he called the stars the tonal and the light between the stars the nagual, and he knew that what created the harmony and space between the two is Life or Intent. Without Life, the tonal and the nagual could not exist. Life is the force of the absolute, the supreme, the Creator who creates everything.
This is what he discovered: Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God. And he came to the conclusion that human perception is merely light perceiving light. He also saw that matter is a mirror — everything is a mirror that reflects light and creates images of that light — and the world of illusion, the Dream, is just like smoke which doesn’t allow us to see what we really are. “The real us is pure love, pure light,” he said.
This realization changed his life. Once he knew what he really was, he looked around at other humans and the rest of nature, and he was amazed at what he saw. He saw himself in everything — in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the clouds, in the earth. And he saw that Life mixed the tonal and the nagual in different ways to create billions of manifestations of Life.
In those few moments he comprehended everything. He was very excited, and his heart was filled with peace. … He could understand everyone very well, but no one could understand him. … He had discovered that he was a mirror for the rest of the people, a mirror in which he could see himself. “Everyone is a mirror,” he said. He saw himself in everyone, but nobody saw him as themselves.
And he realized that everyone was dreaming, but without awareness, without knowing what they really are. They couldn’t see him as themselves because there was a wall of fog or smoke between the mirrors. And that wall of fog was made by the interpretation of images of light — the Dream of humans.
Then he knew that he would soon forget all that he had learned. He wanted to remember all the visions he had had, so he decided to call himself the Smokey Mirror so that he would always know that matter is a mirror and the smoke in-between is what keeps us from knowing what we are. He said, “I am the Smokey Mirror, because I am looking at myself in all of you, but we don’t recognize each other because of the smoke in-between us. That smoke is the Dream, and the mirror is you, the dreamer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.carolyndaughters.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carodaughters/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carodaughters/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyndaughters/
- Other: Tea, Tonic & Toxin (my mystery and thriller podcast!): https://teatonicandtoxin.com/