Organic Growth and Visibility with Tracy Beavers

Val:

Hello, everyone. So I've got a guest on today that I'm excited to bring her to you because Tracy and I have already had some conversations prior to this, which is not my normal for a podcast guest. And as we were talking, it's like, oh, yes. She definitely has to come on the podcast to share her expertise, bring it to you, so that, well, I'm not gonna ruin it by talking about it already before we talk about it. No squirrels. So thank you, Tracy, for being here. I am obviously excited to have this conversation with you.

Tracy:

Thanks. Thank you so much for having me, Val. And I when we first talked, I was like, oh, she is somebody that I could have coffee with, and we would be there For 3 hours.

Val:

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. I miss that so much. I am ready to do some live events and just do those entrepreneur after hours and just be chilling and having coffee or having wine and and free flowing the brainstorming. Yeah. I am craving right now.

Tracy:

I know. I know. I do miss that. Although, you know, you can't always spend 3 hours on a coffee house.

Val:

I know.

Tracy:

But every now and then is fine.

Val:

Exactly. And it's been a few years, so I'm pretty sure I'm I'm due a few. Right? Yes.

Tracy:

For sure.

Val:

Yes. I agree. So, Tracy, if you don't mind, would you tell my listeners what you would like them to know about yourself.

Tracy:

Yeah. Thanks. So I'm Tracy Beavers, and I am a business and sales coach from Arkansas. I'm sure you can hear my accent. I, over the years, have honed in my expertise. People call me a visibility and email list Growth strategist. And so that's been really exciting, helping online entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses with ease, with a focus of Getting them highly visible so their email lists grow, so their income grows. And outside of that, I am a wife and a mom.

Tracy:

I'm a dog mom. My husband, John, and I have been married oh my gosh. We've been together 16 years, married for 13, and our kids are his kids. Our daughter Emily is 24. She's a police officer here in our city, and she's about to buy our 1st house. I'm so proud of her. And then, Jack is 20, and he is a sophomore at Saint Louis University, currently studying in Madrid, Spain this semester

Val:

That's I'm at

Tracy:

their campus over there, and we're gonna go over spring break and and see him in Spain. So yeah. And then the only child I have left at the house is our dog, Patton, who is our Sweet baby yellow Labrador. Not baby, but baby to me. But, our yellow Labrador that if you follow me on Facebook, you'll see him a lot, primarily because he's the only one in the house that lets me take his Picture anyone. Right?

Val:

I know. I warned the kids. I'm like, okay. So I just have to let you know that I really have no pictures of you. Because when we get together because they're adults now too. And when we get together, I'm just in the moment with no phone. Yeah. But I've got plenty of dog pictures all over.

Val:

How do you want them posed? I've got a picture of it.

Tracy:

Alright. Me too. Me too. Every imaginable pose with Patton.

Val:

Real quick. I caught something that you said when you said that people call you.

Tracy:

Mhmm,

Val:

the visibility coach.

Tracy:

Yeah.

Val:

Did you know that that's what you were doing for your expertise, or did you realize it because they started talking to you about it.

Tracy:

That's a that's a great question. I think it happened soon after. So I entered into online coaching As a business and sales coach. And you know how our, craft gets honed in and it evolves over time. And so over and over and over again, I had people saying to me, I feel invisible. I don't have any list growth.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

You know? And we all know how important the email list is. And so I decided then To change some of the wording specifically for the marketing of of my 8 week group coaching program, which is all about visibility and email as growth. To make it that instead of just visibility, putting on the email list growth part. And then because of the what I call my marketing machine that I've built, which is all the strategies I teach for visibility layered together, build machine that does your visibility and your sales for you. Because I've got that built, people started saying to me, You're everywhere. I see you everywhere. So now they do call me that.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

But at first, I called myself that, and I used those words and that marketing, but then it It started to switch. In fact, one of my students said but she was talking about joining my program last October, and she was so thankful she did. And she's like, how can I not join your program? You're Queen of visibility, and I thought, okay. I'm doing something right. You know?

Val:

Right. Yeah. It's for sure. Yay. Yay. For sure. I just I just was curious because I spent so long going, oh my gosh. What is my zone of genius? Right.

Val:

And I didn't really get it until other people started mentioning, oh, well, I come for you for this. I come to you for this.

Tracy:

You know what? That did happen in the beginning, though, because when I was still in corporate and I was and I was completely fed up and determined to leave, I was in a women's mastermind, and I was like, I just had had enough of the job. And I was like, I don't know what I wanna do next. And they said, well, you should be, you know, you should look into online coaching. And and at the time, I was like, what the heck's that?

Val:

Right.

Tracy:

n you speak to a roomful of a: 1000

Tracy:

And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. So that's what got me into business and sales.

Val:

Yeah. I love to bring that up because everybody listening, I mean, I know exactly what Tracy just said. You've heard me say it before because I had the exact same issue. It's that thing you don't know that you do.

Tracy:

Yep. Exactly.

Val:

You know? For me, it was collaborations and networking because somebody would say something, and I'm like, oh, I've got 3 people I will connect you with that are perfect for this. You know? And it's like, oh, not everybody does that? What do you mean better?

Tracy:

Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I love networking and connecting people. I find myself doing that too, though. It's really fun, though, to help other people and find out, okay.

Tracy:

Yeah. Who are you looking for? Who do you need like, before I got in the online space, it was I I was the person people will call and go, okay. I know you have a good plumber. Okay. I know you I know you know a good electrician. Okay. I know you you know, whatever you need. I got a guy.

Tracy:

Yes. I just got a guy. Yep. Yeah.

Val:

Yeah, that was the thing too. It was offline as well. I mean, I've just Yeah. Always done it, like, as far back as I can remember even with friends. They're like, oh, yeah. You wanna go play, you know, soccer or something. Okay. Well, I've got 4 people on.

Val:

Yeah. We'll connect, and we'll make it happen. Yeah. So, yeah, totally that thing that you don't even recognize, which can be frustrating because now if you're trying to figure it out, now you're going, what do I do? This is so easy. You know? Right. Just let it organically happen. Just so

Tracy:

Ask some people that are close to you. Mhmm. You know? And start paying attention to the questions people ask you And what people come to you for? Mhmm. That's gonna be a big big clue because it may not be anything you're thinking about

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

At all.

Val:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you don't need because you yeah. Again, we don't you don't realize you're doing it

Tracy:

Mm-mm.

Val:

For one thing, and you help them quickly. So Yeah. It's exciting. Thing.

Tracy:

It's one of those things that Whatever feels easy to you and, like, if you're just, like it's just, like, breathing. And it would surprise you to know that not everybody's good at that. Yeah. Like, sales. I'm like, what do you mean people aren't good at sales? What do you mean it makes them uncomfortable?

Val:

Right.

Tracy:

Because it was just, You know, natural for me.

Val:

Yeah. Nice. Awesome. So you definitely you're in the the visibility, which I love visibility. But in your app that you gave me, your guest intake, and you talked about the fact that your email list is 3,000, which a lot of people are like, yes. I would be excited to hit 3,000, but the income you're making with us, it is a smaller list. And I love that. I love that because your list must be super engaged.

Tracy:

They are. Yeah. They are. So what Val's referring to is I have busted through the 6 figure mark in my 2nd full year of business online well past 6 figures. But when you look at the size of my list, there is a disconnect there. It's like, okay. Hold on. She's making that much money with a list of just over 3,000 people.

Tracy:

And I have been shy about I would either share that I had 3,000 people on my list, or I would share that I busted through the 6 figure mark in my 2nd full year of business. But I wasn't putting those 2 things together in the same sentence because I didn't want people to think that I wasn't telling the truth.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

And I don't know. It just it's like it it just like those 2 things just kinda don't match. You You know what I mean?

Val:

But they don't match because it's that bullshit that we've been told for how many years.

Tracy:

That's true.

Val:

It's that uncoaching that I've been working so hard for myself and my clients.

Tracy:

It's Yeah.

Val:

We have to have a list of a 100,000 to make. You know? No.

Tracy:

No. That's a really good point. Yeah. Because I've heard stories of people that have smaller lists than mine Yeah. That have that have 5 figure launches and are doing very well. So, Yeah. It is the BS that we tell ourselves. You're right.

Val:

ll because I think it's about: 25100

Tracy:

I bet they're dialed in.

Val:

h. And I have another list of: 1800

Tracy:

Yeah.

Val:

But what's the income you're making from it? That's I mean, that's powerful.

Tracy:

highest I ever got was, like,: 46100

Val:

Right.

Tracy:

And I finally just said to myself, okay, Tracy. But you could go Try to attract all these people. I mean, for that matter, you can buy followers if you want to. People do it. Mhmm. But then I had to ask myself, are those people actually gonna buy anything from me? Right. You know? It's like, yeah, you've got 10,000 followers, but what kind of money are you making? Yeah. Yeah.

Val:

And I've had that list before because that was like, a few years ago, it was my goal. I, yeah, I set that goal of 5,000. I want my list over 5,000 because, well, I know why. Because there was some events that I wanted to participate paid in, and you had to have a list of over 5,000. And since I've managed so many people's events, I'm looking at these people with lists of 20, 30, a 120,000, I had some big person with 50,000. I know she makes a ton of money, and that, when I was managing it, her list of 50,000 brought in 45 sign ups on a giveaway.

Tracy:

No way.

Val:

45. And that was the immediate switch of who cares about getting them 5,000 because that 5 up thousand means absolutely nothing.

Tracy:

back when it was still around: 1200

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

And I'm a really, really good coach. It's hard for me to say that out loud. I'm really darn good at what I do. Good. And so I would go to apply to these Summit's knowing darn well I could make a difference and reach people, and what I had is what they needed, but I couldn't even apply because my list wasn't the right size. And then I would just would be like, Well, you just made a mistake.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

That's what I wanted to say to the summit organizer. Okay. Well, you just made a mistake because I can't even apply to be at your summit, And yet, I'm the person people wanna hear from.

Val:

Right.

Tracy:

Which Yeah. Again, that's really hard for me to say, but I have so many people that say to me, Tracy, I wish I'd found you first. I wish I found you and your program first before they went out and spent money on all kinds of things that didn't do anything for them. Stuff they bought from people with big names that didn't move the needle form in business.

Val:

y I do have my list a size of: 25100

Val:

I'm not even counting anymore of how many I've done It's like it's it's honed in. It's, you know, the experience and honed in. But I do know for a fact that some of those lists that are smaller, those people are hungry.

Tracy:

Yeah. They are. Well, they're highly engaged. They pay attention to The person that's emailing them, and they trust. There's a know, like, and trust there.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

There's a connection there that is not present with some of these larger lists or larger followings.

Val:

Yeah. Yep. Because they've lost lost that connection, lost that touch a little bit. And definitely, that's not we're not talking about everybody, but it's you know, in general, that is what we are seeing happening because we're I mean, we're on those lists. Yeah. So there's a ton of those lists that I'm on where I know that they're you know, I know their lift size. And I'm like, I don't I don't feel like they're talking to me. Mm-mm.

Val:

No. Versus some of the other people I follow that I, you know, know their lists they're a lot smaller. And and I replied back, so is this from a conversation that we had, you know, 2 weeks ago? She's like, no. I'm like, are you sure? Like, because I swear you wrote that right to me. Right. Yeah.

Tracy:

Hit me between the eyes with that.

Val:

Nailed it. So I like the fact that you've also said that you've been growing it organically, late. And I don't want you to obviously go into a ton of that because that's a whole workshop I'm sure that you have. I'm sure it's all about your visibility. But I love the fact that you're saying without creating yet another free lead magnet.

Tracy:

Mhmm. Exactly. When I started out, I knew that I needed an email list, and I looked at list building courses. And they all and and and to this day, They all do 2 things. They tell you to identify your ideal client and create a free lead magnet to put out on social media.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

And those 2 things are very important. We have to do those things. Those are foundational. But I did those things, and if 1 more person told me to create yet another free lead magnet, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. I was like, I can't you know what I mean? I had 2 or 3 good ones. They were converting. The list was growing, but it wasn't growing fast enough for me. And I tried pay dads as As a strategy a few years ago, and I wasted 1,000 of dollars.

Tracy:

I might as well have just piled up my money and set it on fire. Right. Because so I thought, okay. Paid ads are not gonna are not my thing. I'm not I'm not trying that again.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

And I thought, okay. I've already got the ideal client figured out. I've got the lead magnets figured out. Those are converting. There has to be other things that I can do. And so that's where I kinda went back to my sales and marketing and business development days And just got really scrappy and creative and thought there are other ways to get visibility, and Those are the strategies that I developed. I have 10 different strategies. And when they are layered together in the way that I teach, they build that marketing machine that we're talking about.

Tracy:

Because what people don't know is they have lots of leaks in their visibility right now.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

There's lots of holes in what they're trying to build. But once we go through and we plug all those holes and we plug the leaks, that's where the visibility just gets dialed up like crazy.

Val:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm meeting with a coach actually at the end of this week because I know my podcast has so many leaks. It's like it's a total sieve. Right? I'm sure it's like you started asking for marketing, but what are you doing to use it? You know?

Tracy:

Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Val:

Need to do more than just get on here and have fun and talk. Right. I No. No. That's the easy part.

Tracy:

We need to make it grow your email list for sure. So make sure you and your coach talk about that. Oh, yeah. Podcast grow my email list. For sure.

Val:

So you talk about lead magnet. So what what do you have in place to bring? Because we definitely I definitely want people to come I can hang out with you because I'm sure that they've just you just nailed it for quite a few people. Especially in my community, you nailed it for quite a few people because they're like, what? We can make money and not have 400,000 people on our list. What are you talking about? We're talking mass numbers. How can they, get into working with you and find out just even more about you.

Tracy:

Yeah. I would love that. So I have a free Facebook group. It's called be a confident entrepreneur, get visible, and grow your income. We have over 2,000 online entrepreneurs in there. And what sets my group apart from others is that it is a true community of support and kindness. A lot of Facebook groups that I've been in, people just sort of post and run, And nobody's paying any attention to what anybody else is doing. Yeah.

Tracy:

But in my group, that's different. Everybody's allowed to promote themselves anytime. If you need feedback on something, If you're stuck in Canva and you're about to pull your hair out Mhmm. You can post in my group and say, I'm stuck in Canva, and I'm about to pull my hair out.

Val:

Somebody somebody saved my computer.

Tracy:

Yeah. Somebody helped me before I before I throw throw this thing out the window and do a screenshot of this is where I'm at. You know? Can somebody help me? And somebody in that group because the members are so dedicated, and everybody wants To be in a community. They want to be there. They want to help each other. Mhmm. But then the Canva experts get to swoop in and showcase their skills or, like, somebody posted the other day about A podcast thing they were stuck on. Something some sort of editing or something or other.

Tracy:

A podcast manager swooped in and was able to showcase their expertise by helping that person out. Not to sell them anything, but just to be of service and to help each other. So it's a really fun group. I absolutely love it. And then also a really great Lead magnet that I have, a freebie that I have that converts really, really well is my social media content made easy guide, and it helps you create 90 days social media content topics in only 30 minutes.

Val:

Oh, yeah.

Tracy:

They can grab that at tracy beavers.comforward/social. And just go through the exercise, and you will have content coming out your ears, and you're not and then you can repurpose it and, you know, just really takes the overwhelm out of what am I gonna post? What am I gonna say? You're staring at the blank computer screen. Now with chat GPT, it's easier. You know, back when I created this exercise, it was when I was building this alongside my full time job, And this was the way that I saved my sanity on trying to create consistent content. Mhmm. And now with chat at GPT, oh my gosh. It makes it that much easier.

Val:

Yeah. Definitely. Oh, and then, you know, of course, because you're all about the visibility. So, you know, everybody, when you're getting your her stuff, pay attention to, you know, what she's saying is stuff. How is she engaging? How do you feel when you're getting her emails? And I don't know how I'm not in your community because that community sounds exactly what I love.

Tracy:

I would love for you to be there.

Val:

Will definitely be going to that because I just I love an environment where you're just paying it forward.

Tracy:

'm in there every Thursday at: 11:30

Tracy:

You know? We just bring in the expert.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

And then the expert gets to showcase their expertise and grow their audience through my audience. And then we do entrepreneurial inspiration interviews with the members. We pick a a a couple of 1 or 2 members a month and have them tell their story and, you know, the roller coaster that they've been on with their business, the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, the ugly, the you know? Good. All that stuff. And it's just really, I think the more we can have honest conversations about this entrepreneurship thing and how Freaking hard it is every single day.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

And honest conversations like you and I were having about yeah. You can have 10,000 but are those people buying anything from you?

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

And then honest conversations about when somebody says that you know, it just it used to get on my and people go, well, I had a 6 figure launch. And I always wanted to say, well, show me your p and l because I wanna see your

Val:

interest. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.

Tracy:

You know? I think that, okay. Maybe you earned $100,000 from your launch, but if you spent $90,000 Yeah. To get that $100,000, Then my business is actually more profitable than yours.

Val:

Right.

Tracy:

And you know what I mean? Yes. Like, there's all this

Val:

The full story instead of just the grandiose of it all.

Tracy:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I if if I see 1 more picture of somebody with a laptop on the beach, first of all, who takes their laptop to the beach? I mean, I is that safe? I just like Kobe a Kobe a an old woman, but I don't wanna sit on the side of the pool with my laptop top or sit on the beach with my first of all, you can't see the screen. Right. Sun. So I'm like, you know, that kind of stuff. Or Or walking onto the to the yacht or walking onto the jet. I'm just like, who are these people?

Val:

Right. Right. Because if I made enough money, I sure as hell, I'm not on that yacht working. No. I set it up so I don't have to work Right. While I'm on the yacht.

Tracy:

And if I made that much money, I don't think that you'd see me. I would be

Val:

You did.

Tracy:

Here we go. Out, my brothers. What's going on my yacht? Camera off. I don't know. I got off on a tangent here.

Val:

No. No. No. I no. I totally understand. It's it's been that whole uncoaching journey that I've been going on for quite a while and and working on helping, you know, my clients uncoach as well because, I mean, I've got 23 years of this old school crap that I've been told how we have to do business. You know, you're talking about the lead magnets. I mean, we were taught to have 10, 15 lead magnets to come in.

Val:

Yeah. You know what I wasn't taught? Have something to sell after that goddamn lead magnet actually brings people in. So here you got 10, 15 lead magnets. Have a whole list of people Right. Who are freebie seekers Right. And I have nothing to sell them. Right. Right.

Tracy:

And I'm wondering why they're not buying from me, and then yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I did something about this. A week or so ago, I'm like, I'm gonna show you how to make money in your business right now. And it's basically, Like, do you have any offers?

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

Or you have offers, but you don't think you have offers. That's happened

Val:

to us. Yes.

Tracy:

Well, you've got the offers, And they're great, but nobody knows about them. Yeah. Because you're not saying anything about them.

Val:

Yep. Yeah.

Tracy:

That's funny. 10 to 15 lead magnets and nothing to sell.

Val:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like so I'm I'm always constantly, you know, talking about okay. We're working backwards. Right.

Tracy:

Let's make some money. Yes. We're here

Val:

to make money. That's the only reason we're here. The only reason I have a damn business is to make money. Yes. We love people. We wanna help people. We will will will feel good, but I need money. Perry

Tracy:

We all do. We all do. I wish I could do this for free. I really do. It'd be it would be an absolute blast, wouldn't it?

Val:

Honestly, I don't think so. I don't think it would be quite as fun. My mindset has been changing about money. Yeah. And I think it's because I have done so much for free for all those years as I was, you know, being told by people to do the wrong things or or not the whole picture like you're talking about, that I'm like, yeah. I'm over that. You know what I love? I love watching the money roll in.

Tracy:

Yeah. Or

Val:

I do. That's awesome.

Tracy:

I do too. But I think, you know, there's just a bunch of stress that Comes with it sometimes. It's like

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

Yeah. Anyway Oh, for sure.

Val:

I know. Yeah. See, you squirreled with me. I knew this would be great.

Tracy:

This is this is the best squirrel. 3 hours later on the podcast.

Val:

Exactly. Right. But I was not even. This is just water. So is there anything that you'd like to leave my listeners with one last thing? Or

Tracy:

Oh, yeah. You know, I say this every single week at the end of my live trainings. Being an entrepreneur is freaking hard.

Val:

Mhmm.

Tracy:

Some days, everybody wants to buy what you're selling, and other days, nobody can remember your name. And the thing I want them to remember is they are not alone. Yeah. And get into a community and a community that truly can support you and have your back. Because If you're sitting there at your desk and you're staring at your laptop and you're like, why the heck am I doing this? I can't coach my way out of a paper sack. Nobody's gonna hire me.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

That's when a community can come up beside you and go, oh, no. You're just having a bad day.

Val:

Yeah.

Tracy:

And we all have them. Because it doesn't matter if somebody is just starting out Or they're 15 years in and they're making Mhmm. $23,000,000 a year. We all feel like that.

Val:

Yep.

Tracy:

So that's the biggest thing I want them to hear from me today is You're not alone. And reach out to me, ma'am. I'll cheer you on.

Val:

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So I'm not even gonna comment on that one except for if you go join her group, you will find me because I'm going there right now. Awesome. I can't believe that I wasn't a member of your group. It sounds exactly I'd

Tracy:

love to have you.

Val:

She's a lover. I'll tell you. Alright. Thank you so much for being here, Tracy. I know we could continue to talk forever and ever, so I'll I'll probably have you on at a later date when we could talk about another another piece of this. But thanks so much for being here, Tracy.

Tracy:

Thank you,