We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rachel Kennedy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rachel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.

When I started my company in 2015 my main goal was to make enough money to replace my corporate salary. I had a marketable skill and knew I was good at the thing I was selling, but I started a business for the wrong reason, and therefore attracted the wrong kind of clients.

Because all I was trying to do was make a paycheck I also attracted clients who only want a TON of traffic to their websites without really considering the next step after getting all this traffic.

Their intent was QUANTITY, not QUALITY.

You attract what you are.
I was in need of paying clients.
My clients were in need of traffic.

Or so we all thought.

What we were BOTH in need of was the RIGHT type of client.

I should have ONLY been going for clients who knew who their ideal audience was, and my clients should have ONLY wanted traffic (readers) who were interested in what THEY were selling.

It took about a dozen mismatched clients before I realized that when you’re starting a business “the riches are in the niches.”

All this means is that you can’t (and shouldn’t) try to please everyone.
My ideal client is someone who knows Who they are trying to reach and has a product or service that solves a specific pain point for that person.

For example: my ideal client is someone with a gorgeous website and a great product that’s just NOT getting traffic or sales online.
My ideal client wants their gorgeous website (that they invested a lot of time, money and energy into) to become their TOP SALES AGENT… capturing, nurturing and converting leads for them through organic Google traffic, even when no one in their company is online.

Once I narrowed down who MY ideal client was i immediately started attracting amazing opportunities online. The content I created for my social media became effortless to create because I knew EXACTLY What to say to target who I wanted to have as a client.
I was able to capture and convert email newsletter sign-ups through valuable lead magnets that answered my ideal client’s most burning questions and positioned myself and my agency as the clear and obvious guide to help them convert their website into a sales machine!

If I could go back i would NICHE DOWN and stop being so concerned about cashflow. Cashflow will come when you know who you’re ideal client is.

Rachel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My Name is Rachel Kennedy and I got into the copywriting and SEO industry after creating hundreds of high-converting blog articles for major brands such as Amazon, Bvlgari, Sephora and American Express as an influencer. I figured out I could get a LOT more traffic and brand deals through blogging than trying to grow on social media.

When I discovered the power of search engine optimizing a website and pairing that with captivating copywriting in the form of blog posts and articles I realized there were so many awesome companies, websites and products out there that NO ONE was finding because the content on the websites was not showing up on Google search results.

I wanted to connect these products with the people whose lives they were created to help change for the better.

I started doing SEO and content marketing (ghost writing articles and blog posts) for businesses in 2015 and never looked back!

8 years later my agency (and small but mighty team!) have optimized over 560+ websites and helped those clients generate over $2 Billion dollars in revenue from our services alone. That’s an average of $3.5 million in revenue created for every single on of our clients!

We offer technical SEO strategies, copywriting and website design consulting for our clients.

We think of our clients as this analogy: Our clients are like the hero of an epic story who have a gorgeous luxury car (their website) they want to drive somewhere… and we are the gasoline that gets them to their destination. We’re the guide who shows them how to take that gorgeous car out of the garage and make it be SEEN AND HEARD as it roars down the street towards the sunset!

Essentially, you can have the most epic product in the world and the most gorgeous website anyone has ever seen… but unless people can find you on Google and be CONVINCED to BUY that product when they land on your website… you’re not going to make one single sale online.

The thing that sets us apart from other agencies or people who do what we do is that we don’t work with everyone. We ONLY work with people we KNOW are ready to receive an INFLUX of traffic to their site. If you don’t have a product to sell, or a website to capture all that traffic investing in SEO + Copywriting is going to be a huge waste of your money and our time.
We’re really good at what we do, and we want people to read our copy! We also want people to BUY your product when they land on your site! So, if you don’t have a way for people to buy what you’re selling, or a product to sell them when they get to you, you’re not ready for the traffic.

We will never sell someone a service they’re not ready for.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I knew that it’s OKAY to ask for help! You’re allowed to not know what you’re doing and look like a beginner. There are WAY MORE business owners and mentors out there who WANT To help you succeed than you can imagine, and honestly you’re just missing out by not sliding into people’s DMs and requesting they mentor you!

Also I wish I’d known that you don’t need fancy business cards, expensive outfits, a professional photo shoot or any of this extra fluff and nonsense to be taken seriously.
Less is more when you’re starting a business.

Ask yourself: What’s your MVP. Your minimum viable product.

Choose ONE THING to focus on, DRIVE THAT HOME, promote the heck out of it, tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW that you offer this service and then OVER DELIVER when you get those first few clients.

Get testimonials from those first few clients, ask them how you can improve, then use those testimonials and their feedback to sell to more clients and keep improving. Rinse and repeat this process until you hit your first 7 figures. It’s so much simpler than you think to get to that “coveted” 7 figure mark with this method.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

You get to let it be easy.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I did a MAJOR pivot in 2017 when I realized my initial “take on as many clients as possible to make as much money as possible” business model was NOT sustainable. I ditched the “please everyone” mentality and pivoted AWAY from hustle mode and into focus mode.

I went from offering SO MANY services to offering only 2 services wrapped into ONE package.

We stuck with that ONE package for probably 5 years before we started offering anything else. And it was only after REFINING that 2-service package to sharply executed process before we started doing anything else or adding on additional services.

It was REALLY hard to say no to things I thought would make us “quick” money but when I said no we got better and better at what we loved doing and as a result we get to work with incredible clients who pay premium prices and are a DREAM to service, AND they refer us business so we have the luxury of allowing some of the business to simply come to us instead of being in “chase” mode all the time.

Contact Info:

• Website: thekennedycurate.com
• Instagram: @thekennedycurate

Image Credits
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