Designing Your Brand's 'Smarter' Digital Space with Natalie Guzman

Val:

yone. And now we're well into: 2024

Val:

I am excited about that. Excited of still about the new year and everything that that is bringing us and the new guests that it is bringing to me to bring to you. So today, we'll see Will the Squirrels Take Me, of course, but we do have quite a few topics we can cover because I have the wonderful Natalie Guzman here, and she's got a lot of expertise that we can pick from her brain today. Thank you for being here, Natalie.

Natalie Guzman:

Of course. I am so excited to be here and to talk with you.

Val:

It's gonna be so much fun to pick your brain. So would you please tell my listeners what you would like them to know about you?

Natalie Guzman:

Sure. So I am a serial entrepreneur. I started my journey from a very, very Weird and controversy moment in my life. Me and my husband were actually trying to start for a family, and, unfortunately, we had multiple losses. And when we were Finally in that safe zone of my 3rd pregnancy, I told my job, and they told me I had 2 days to give birth, and then I would have to go back to work. Oh, beautiful. I know. Isn't that fantastic? Like, exactly how I wanted to start motherhood.

Val:

Hello, America. Exactly. So

Natalie Guzman:

I, of course, I was like, that's putting my family at danger, that's putting my health at danger, and I was already a mama bear, right, at this point. Yeah. So I quit right on the spot. I was like, I gotta find a way to make money, so I started using the good old Google before ChatGPT became really famous. I use Google for everything. Yeah. And so I started learning for ways to make money from home, landed on being a virtual assistant, And became addicted to businesses and processes and systems where I actually grew my agency to 6 figures in 3 months, Which is pretty much unheard of. It is definitely.

Natalie Guzman:

But I think it's because I was very good at All sorts of things. I would do customer service. I'd do sales. I would be doing admin work. I'd be doing graphic design, website design, funnels, automations As basically a chameleon for business owners. Whatever they needed, I did, and then I trained my team how to be that person. And then I turned it into the agency, of evolves from there, where now the best of the best do what they're great at. So we have, like, graphic designers and copywriters and things like that.

Natalie Guzman:

So no longer are we trying to do it all because we realized that no one can do it all. Right? No.

Val:

Yes. Good very good point. I'm super glad you said that.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Exactly. Just hammering that into y'all because I know we, women, we try to do it all, but we really shouldn't. No. One of my favorite things, I was able to find something that I really love. They always say niche down. Right? And I never really did I was saying niche down and trying to put myself in a box. I said, what do I love to do? And that was websites and automations, but there was no software That allowed entrepreneurs to have their websites, their email marketing, their text campaigns, their calendars all in one spot.

Natalie Guzman:

So I created it. And so that's how Nadora became to be. And now we are specializing in website design automations, and we still have our team of marketing assistance.

Val:

Love it. Love it. 1st, I'm terribly sorry about your losses along the way to get to this point, but I do celebrate the fact that you had the report from your husband, obviously.

Natalie Guzman:

Yes. And that baby did come safely into the world and then add another one 12 months later. He can do anything for UV. Yeah. Oh, nice.

Val:

Nice.

Natalie Guzman:

Exactly. And, actually, my husband has a job where loan, we travel every 2 years. So I would have had to have a job and quit every 2 years to keep up with this career.

Val:

Oh, yeah. Everything happened for a reason with you going. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So it sounds like you leaned into your expertise of what you were doing for other people and figured out how to bring it online.

Natalie Guzman:

Exactly. I just saw so many entrepreneurs struggle and it was like we were trying to figure out what software is the best and how do we Connect everything without spending 1,000,000 of dollars because that that's what's happened. They were spending, like, 1,000 of dollars a month on software Yeah. Between, like, the Mailchimp upgrades and Zapier and trying to use Kajabi and trying to use GoDaddy. And also, a lot of these softwares were just not, like, great for, like, More the one these entrepreneurs wanna scale their business, but the software was allowing them to do so. Like, it wouldn't be great for SEO. Like, if you're using Wix for your website, please you're killing your SEO.

Val:

Alright. It's so funny because for many years, of course, I understood the need for new software and innovation and all that because I love finding new stuff. I never understood the concept of creating it yourself Mhmm. Until the last 2 years, and I'm like, oh my God. If only this program did this and this, it would be the god said software. Right?

Natalie Guzman:

Exactly. It's like our jobs are already hard enough. We don't need To be trying to sit down and figure out not only how the these softwares can connect, but how to use them all when we've never used the full potential of a software ever. I have a time tracking software. It does, like, annoying features. I only use 3 of them. And that's kinda like the beauty of it. So Medora also has, like, a support group and do workshops To really kinda help you or your team, because if you have, like, a team of employees or virtual assistants, really wanna help Sure.

Natalie Guzman:

And teach them as well. And so we have really cool workshops where we'll actually kinda teach you new skills. Like, I think this Thursday, we're doing Automations, and then we're doing, like, funnel building and all these really cool workshops. That's awesome. Yeah.

Val:

since I've been online since: 2000

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And when I was working, I'm like, really I used to do these crazy Zapier connections. And I'd I would have to turn off my phone And I would be sitting there for hours. I wouldn't be eating. I wouldn't drink. I only use the bathroom because I'd be so lost in this automation. And Especially if it broke. And so it it was just so much time and energy, and I'm like, no wonder people are hiring me because How can entrepreneur do that themselves? Yeah.

Natalie Guzman:

And that was kind of one of my goals as a virtual assistant. Like, if an entrepreneur wanted to do it, I wanted to teach them how. And they were always Always just handing off automation to me because they just struggled so much with it. But our software makes it super easy. It's like literally, like, if this happens, then what do you want to happen next? And that's it. So easy.

Val:

Yeah. I love click and go to the next step.

Natalie Guzman:

You too. Drag and drop.

Val:

I mean, don't we all drag and drop? Tell me what I need to do. We're all looking for that all the time. So how did you start I mean, like I said, there's so many topics we can go into. How did you start the delegating process. How did you figure out okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring somebody else in and do this part.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. I was kinda actually forced. So it's really interesting, especially we kinda compare it to where my life was. Line I was as brand new mom and brand new boss all at once. I never been manager. I never delegated.

Val:

Oh, gosh.

Natalie Guzman:

And all of a sudden, I was a mom and a boss. So 2 very big positions where you need to delegate. And I had to learn really quickly that I couldn't do it all, and I would stress myself out line If I didn't rely on other people. So when I decided to turn it into an agency so when I want new clients, I get a lot at once, and my team is always making jokes about it. So I decided to turn it to agency. I knew I needed clients. I got 7 clients in 1 week.

Val:

That's amazing.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And they were, like, pretty much all full time, so I had no choice. I was like, if you wanna serve these new 7 people and, like, have hundreds of hours, and you need to hire someone. Yeah. So I hired 2 people. And right when I got that 7th client, I was like, alright. I got basically a week to hire someone, train them, and get them on the train. And so one of those is still with me today, which is super, super special.

Natalie Guzman:

It's several years later, and it was a big learning curve. Line I had to realize that you have to create a system and a process before you can hand it off to someone. I can't just give them this virtual assistant and be like, figure it out together. Mhmm. And so I got into SOPs, which are your standard operating procedures. It's every step that you do in your business. And I basically have them categorized like social media or every time I create blog posts, these are all the stat stuff that happen. You won't realize it's a lot.

Natalie Guzman:

oing. And there's just like a: 100000

Natalie Guzman:

And then you put training videos under each step. And so if they ever forget how to do it, they can just watch a quick little 30 minute or last video on how to do that task. And you are basically hands off at that point and just checking the tracker and check their work every once in a while.

Val:

Yep. I've been working on that with clients because I know once I finally I was forced to delegate as well because there's just no way to run multiple events all year long without delegating. And I'm really been working on every time I do something of, okay, let's just create a video of me doing it. Mhmm. And even if I'm not gonna delegate that, it's like, okay. Well, down the road, I can pass it on. And usually, I am delegating it now because it's like, okay. That took me 3 minutes to do the video, but now I never have to do it again.

Natalie Guzman:

Exactly. Yep. Always do it and hand it off. And then we store it. So I have like a team portal that we actually built in the door, which is kinda Cool. But it's basically, I have it separated by project manager, admin, social media managers. And because we have all these trackers, we have Different spreadsheets. We have trainings.

Natalie Guzman:

I have processes and systems that we use on the back end. Even, like, new member onboarding, I have a whole video section for that. And so this really allows the right people to get it so they're not overwhelmed by so many videos as well.

Val:

Oh, yeah. We have I use Asana and have Asana tasks, But I'm not an agency, so, of course, it's and I I do wanna make sure everybody knows. Use whatever system works for you. I mean, I have clients that I'm like, okay. This is what I use. This is what I love. I'm gonna set you up, see if you like it. Well, I hate it.

Val:

That's okay. Well, let's figure out what you will use because your software and everything is only as good as what you will use.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And it can evolve too. Like, as your business gets bigger and you're trying to streamline things or make things ease easier, you're gonna quickly realize what needs you have, and you have to try to find a software that works for that. So for our project management, we actually don't use an indoor even though it does have a task function because I needed something just a little bit more, and Basecamp already had that. So So I use Basecamp for project management because my clients can talk with me and my team through there. They can see the process and vice versa. So and I can control who sees what, which is really cool.

Val:

Yeah. And the right software is, I mean, just gold. It's gold. It saves us so much time, and time is money. Time is actually more valuable than money. Right? Because we can't get more time. We can go make more money. So I know that we were talking before we recorded that Website design.

Val:

And I know that's popping in my head right now because I am feeling that vibe of what do I wanna do with my website right now?

Natalie Guzman:

Biggest question most people have. Right?

Val:

It's like, what website designs are out there and the colors, and, oh, there's so many choices, and I love colors. And How do we even and I do have a lot of new people. So how do you even get started on figuring out what you'd wanna create for your website? I know it's a huge question. Right? Huge.

Natalie Guzman:

Oh, I got an answer for you, though. That is not gonna be like most designers, and I think it's because line I come from the VA world where I worked in so many different businesses and different industries. Right? And so the 2 things you need to have before you even start a website is you need a brand book. So this is your brand colors, your logos, how you talk to your audience, who your audience is, what do they do, what are their hobbies. I like to have just like you can even look in Canva for a brand book template or a branding template. It can be anything, but it's basically a slideshow of All of that, I mentioned. And what is great is not only will I use it to design a website, but also use that, like, if I'm getting marketing materials. If I'm doing anything honestly.

Natalie Guzman:

Or I'm hiring someone to do marketing for me, I give them this brand book, and and all of a sudden, they know exactly who my brand is, what we stand for, and how we talk. So super, super important. And then the second thing and that will also take out it'll tell you what your colors are. So that'll answer your color question, Val, is that You should always use the colors that your brand is because your website is a part of your brand. I always say your overall brand. So you may have online colors for different products in your business. But whatever your overall brand is, when someone sees maybe a certain type of post or piece of content, What are they seeing? Have it represent your colors or even logo. Right? And that's what I always do the website as.

Val:

Yeah. The recognition is huge.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Brand awareness. Right? It's essential for any business, especially if you're trying to think long terms and look into the future. We have had so many clients that they they go with what feels right to them and what colors they like. We you're not buying your product. Your I know. Right?

Val:

Exactly. I was like, okay. I fell in love with this. I was like,

Natalie Guzman:

Yep. Yeah. Our company, we originally started out being all there for women entrepreneurs, which we still are, but we let the men come in a little bit too. And so now we've we shifted. We went from, like, purples and pinks to, like, blues and greens. Right. But what I love about blues and greens is it's, Number 1, it gives you, like, that professionalism. They're very professional colors, but they're also very calming and almost the Royalty scents, you feel like it's an experience, the colors that we use.

Natalie Guzman:

A little bit mystical. It's very interesting how we combine those colors. But what we wanted was our customers have a sense of something new, something very interesting. And they knew that they were loan to be treated right and it was gonna be professional, but it was also gonna be fun. It wasn't too serious. Tech is very serious to a lot of people. I have almost every single one of our clients are non techies. And so trying to make sure that they never feel like it's a A suit and tie type of company was very important to us.

Val:

Right. Yeah. And I'm looking at Nadora right now, and it's that use of the watercolor that brings that softness To the professional hard lines of everything else.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Exactly. So that's, like, my little mystical. And, also, our logo is like, Someone said it's like the Illuminati. I'm like, no. We weren't trying to go that route, but I with all these geometric shapes. And it's super cool, but someone gave me some really good feedback. They're like, you have to do the watercolor or gold behind it or something, or else you look like the Illuminati, and I was like, no.

Natalie Guzman:

Alright.

Val:

See, I don't even go to Illuminati. I think of Ira. That's all I have to do. I'm into all of that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I wouldn't it doesn't bother me.

Natalie Guzman:

That's amazing. It's a conversation. It is.

Val:

It is. It's like, how in the world did you get that? Where did that come from, why is your logo staring at me?

Natalie Guzman:

Yep. Exactly. Right? And so all those things are just really, really important. You want to create a feel and a vibe. Now, on the other hand, every website has strategy. Right? Or should have strategy. And so one of the things I tell people is you need to have your customer journey. Every step that you want your customer take in your business, whether that's from your freebie to your baby offers, you have a high ticket or whatever your main offer is.

Natalie Guzman:

Those are all steps in a customer journey. Maybe it's a Facebook group. Right? And so whatever the first steps that you want should be at the top of your website. I can't tell you how many times I see people have their Freebie, either not on their website or at all or at the bottom or in a pop it should actually be like one of the very first things you click on. Super, super, super important. I even have, like, a whole speaking session that I do. I'm big in the podcasting world. I podcast myself, and so I have like a podcast strategy website thing that I do.

Natalie Guzman:

And so basically, what I say is whatever your goals are and whatever things you want your customer to do first, that needs to be on the very, very top. And so that could be anything from a lead generation. It could be an embed player of your pass, it could be a YouTube video. You're trying to grow. If your goal for the quarter is growing your YouTube, then your YouTube should be all over the The first part of your website or even all over your website because YouTube is really cool because if you have different pieces of content, you can put that all throughout your website.

Val:

Right. Yeah. Definitely. You guys, the strategy is so important because, Bundle Bash, I have to pretty much start all over again because when we didn't start with a strategy with my partner and I. And then after she left the business, all of a sudden I'm looking at it going, oh my God, there's fragments. It's so fragmented, right? And now I have to go back and that's tough. That's tough because you're already in the business, you're already going, you've got all your stuff you need to do, but now I need to go back because I'm leaving so much money on the table, Leaving so much traffic on the table without any strategy whatsoever going on over there.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And your website should answer 3 main questions, Who you are, what you do, and how do you help people. And I never see that on websites anymore. I feel like some people are starting to get a little bit more storytelling, which is great because a website should be a story. Right? Should say I usually try to start with, like, what's the struggle they're facing Your audience. So, like, mine's like, are you sick of spending so much time in Zapier? Are you sick of spending so much money on software? Mhmm. So I think that's actually the one that's at the top of my website. Right? So it's all their biggest struggle.

Natalie Guzman:

Right? And then you say how you help or who you are and then how you help them. Sometimes that's gonna be changed that order. It just depends on if you need to teach about what your product is or is it something that everyone knows what it So for me, mine's a software. So I gotta teach a little bit more. So I gotta say who I am before I say how we help our who we help. But for other companies, especially if you're doing any type of coaching, I'd probably say more about how you can help first than who you are. Mhmm. And

Val:

And one of the beautiful things about drag and drop is you can usually move those pieces back and forth and see what works. Right?

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And the door is really cool. It's just a touch of an arrow, And it moves a whole section. You don't even have to touch the section. You may have to adjust the colors if you had, like, different colors in the like, if you were doing, like, gray white, gray, white, or something like that. But it's so easy. Just, like, a couple clicks, and it's done. I love it.

Natalie Guzman:

You don't have to do

Val:

the drag and drop, and it drops, and you're like, where'd it go?

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. That used to happen to us so much.

Val:

Not that I did that yesterday, not at all. Nope. Alright. Go back. Don't save that. Where are you?

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. And ours is actually cool because you can go to the top, and it'll say, like, manage columns or manage different sections that have different names of those sections. And you can actually if you feel like you really lost something, you can go and click online and try to figure out where it is without having to scroll up and down, up and down. It's really

Val:

I remember back in hand coding days in the beginning of WordPress, and, Oh my gosh. I totally it it took me a couple years to remember to always hit save because I would do stuff and, I mean, it's dial up.

Natalie Guzman:

It would still dial up. Things would all of a

Val:

sudden be gone because all of a sudden the Internet goes out, and you're like. That was 2 hours worth of work. Dang it. Hard lessons. Hard lessons. Oh, we have so much better now. So much better, guys.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. What I love is like if our Internet goes out now, as long as you're not, like, a page with no Internet, your stuff is pretty much saved. It's pretty much on there. You just have to hit save once your Internet is back on. But, man, I remember that. I remember when my stepfather got one of the very first computers in our town. He's the businessman. And so I remember him looking at it and just thinking it's like a hunk of trash.

Natalie Guzman:

And I was probably about 7 years old, And I get up in there in in that chair, and I'm just staring at this thing, listening to that beautiful dialogue chip and is awaiting advert from the Internet. And my stepfather would watch me amazed. Not many things, like, We're new to him because he had experienced so much. He was like in the military and everything too, and he just had a lot of knowledge. I always tell him he's the smartest man in the world, and He used to look at me amazed. Like, man, you were meant to be on the computer. I was the one that was trying to teach him how to use it when it first came out. So that was always really, really cool.

Val:

That's awesome. Awesome. Okay. So we've got great tips on here, and I don't wanna overload you listeners because I love it for you to implement. But we have talked about the Endora, but I would love for you to go into the Endora just a little bit more. And I know we're talking about website design, and you've got something going on right now or starting when this errors, you guys. Right? In that period.

Natalie Guzman:

I am so excited. And you know what? Even if you've listened to this episode Forever after that it airs, just reach out to me, and I will honor this deal because it is amazing. It's super cool. It's basically you get a free website developed by our team with the purchase of a Nador membership. Not sure what the price of Nador is while you're listening. Currently, it's $100 a month or 900 for the year. So super, super affordable for entrepreneurs. But I will definitely honor that deal because I feel like every entrepreneur needs at least 1 great website that really follows that strategy, follows their brand.

Natalie Guzman:

Line And we just really wanted to help entrepreneurs. And I feel like a lot of them feel like, man, website design is so much money, and so they never get it designed. And then they're on wasting so much time and frustration trying to do it on their own. And so that's why we came up with this deal just to really help other entrepreneurs, and that's why we have our workshops and we even have, what, Chatty Cocktails is one of our networking meetings we have, where after work, we all get together and get to talk and network and always referring other entrepreneurs. So it's not just a software. It's so much more than that. It's also a community of entrepreneurs.

Val:

Lo you guys listening, I want to address because I already know this hasn't even aired, and I can already feel you going, $100 a month. Oh my god. I wanna, like, go through just some of that stuff that's in there. CRM, let's just go through what I pay right now. I think I'm paying almost $100 a month for my ActiveCampaign, I am paying $50 a month for my hosting. I am paying $400 for my Thrive suite that I love. If you sit down and add up what you are paying, we're usually paying over $100. So if that's making you cringe going, oh my gosh, it's like, no, just sit down if you're looking for something to to move to.

Val:

Sit down and write down what you are already paying and take a look. An all in one could be that answer because you're trying to do everything yourself and learn everything.

Natalie Guzman:

And we actually have a really cool subscription tracker where you can write down all that, and it'll calculate it for you. So just email me at natalie@nador.org, and I'll send it to you. It's actually we just developed it today, so I'm gonna be really excited about that.

Val:

Seeing every time we I have a conversation with somebody, it's like, yep. Here it is.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. It it was so funny. My team, it's That's one of the things I love about having a team is they have these own ideas, and when them came it's like, I already created it. Here you go. I didn't even ask you if I could do this, but and I was like, Oh, it's amazing. We may need this. This is exactly what we need.

Val:

Yeah.

Natalie Guzman:

So it's really cool. But, yeah, like you said, Avon does course creation, calendars, Automations, unlimited landing pages that you can create, there's not very much that we ever upsell or there are extras. We just have a few premium triggers and then, like, other companies we partner with, if you ever needed an upsell. But, otherwise, that software you get access to. You can check it out in adored.org. It tells you everything that you get included in that membership. And then we have, like, courses, we have networking meetings, we have workshops, all sorts of really fun things just to help you all the way around. But, yeah, you can replace Calendly, you can replace ActiveCampaign, Kajabi.

Natalie Guzman:

You can replace Mailchimp or any other type of email marketing, texting, and doing phone calls. So it can actually do a whole phone automated system if you have a sales team or use any type of phone lines for your team. It is really, really cool.

Val:

Yeah. That didn't even bring in the Calendly. I've got Calendly with taxes, $17 on top of it. Yeah. I I mean, honestly, if I look at it, it's like, wow. I'm paying way more than that.

Natalie Guzman:

Yep. Exactly. And then if you do the yearly, it's even I think it ends up saving you, like, $300. So the yearly is even less than $100 a month You calculate that, which is crazy.

Val:

Yeah. And the headache, because, like, we're talking about the headache of things aren't breaking. You have to track down where it's broken and being able to it's broken and hitting up, I'm sure, your customer service. Right? And saying, why what happened?

Natalie Guzman:

Line What

Val:

did I do? It's usually what I'm asking my hosting person. Like, what did I break?

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. We have office hours. So if you're ever like, I don't wanna look through a tutorial, and I'm just so tired. I just wanna ask a real person. We do office hours weekly. And Ben, if you don't wanna do the work yourself, we have a team of virtual assistant that know it inside and out to help you.

Val:

Oh, talk about a one stop. That's amazing. Yeah. What a great thing you created, Natalie. I love it. I love it. And I I love that you just, like, Wait for it. Like, I this is the need.

Val:

Here we go. We're gonna make it.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. 100%. It helped me too. It was a little selfish on my part. It's exactly what I needed in my business.

Val:

Oh, for sure. Yeah. And what it it made your life easier, I'm sure, with your clients. Right? That's like the here. Let's do this. Excellent. Oh, gosh. Okay.

Val:

Yeah. I don't wanna go into more details of other things because that will just bring too much to you guys. So is there any one last thing you'd like to leave my listeners with?

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Just take everything one step at a time, starting with your processes and systems so you don't get overwhelmed. And just take the time to brainstorm and think about your business. I think that's something that's really, really important whenever we're trying to design a website or do an automation. Whatever we're trying to do, if we just take a moment and really brainstorm on our business, that is definitely the most important thing that we can do. And then if you guys ever wanna reach out to me, it's natalie@nadora.org. I'm also on social media. It's natalie guzman everywhere.

Natalie Guzman:

Always checking all my messages, so feel free to reach out.

Val:

And we'll have all of that information easily at the show notes for you to grab, so No worries about writing that down. Just grab the show notes and click the button, and you'll go there straight away. Thanks so much, Natalie. I appreciate you being here and bringing all this information.

Natalie Guzman:

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I've had a blast.

Val:

I'll talk to you guys later.