 Today, I'm with Krista Bauer, and we're going to be talking about creating an authentic online presence. So I'm excited to connect with her. Let me just say hi to you first, Krista. Thanks for being here. Hi, George. Thank you. Yeah. So let me just share your bio with the audience, and then we'll get into talking about creating an authentic online presence. So Krista Bauer is a passionate creative, a mother of two, and an online presence coach who's been organically growing her business between toddler nap schedules and snack breaks for the past five years. Krista's particularly lit up when she can help fellow coaches, healers, and spiritually minded entrepreneurs create a warm and real online presence that builds trust, establishes credibility, and attracts kindred hearted clients who love and adore what they do. If you haven't checked out Krista's website, you should. It's a beautiful website. She is really great with visuals and with copywriting. In fact, I think later this year, Krista, you're going to be teaching me a copywriting from the heart kind of course, right? Yeah, actually, hopefully sooner, like then later in the next few weeks, I'd like to run the first beta round. Cool. And then later in the year, you and I, I'm going to be hosting you and teaching the course on sort of do-it-yourself visuals, do-it-yourself graphic design, kind of making sure that whatever, whether you're creating a website or your newsletter or your Facebook event page or whatever it is you're creating, there's a certain best practices for how to think about visual design that any of us can use. And I'm excited for that course that's coming up later in the year. But I want to just first have you share with us creating an online presence. Some people think it's a really big deal because you have to have everything so polished and professional. And well, if we look at your website, it's very, very nice. But let's say the person who maybe can't spend a whole lot of money right now on graphic design and copywriting, all that stuff, you know, how any guidance for us? Does it have to be polished and professional to be authentic or effective? Right. Right. So actually, yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that because it is not about being polished and professional. In fact, I really don't like using the word professional because it reminds me too much of my corporate career where I didn't fit in. So but really the objective, at least what I try to do with my own work and what I try to inspire my clients to do and people who follow me, is really to bring more of your heart into your work and allow that to reflect through your words, through your visuals so that when your ideal clients or when the clients, you know, the people who are a perfect fit for what it is that you do when they land on your website or when they first, you know, if they find you through Facebook or Instagram, wherever that is, you know, they know that they're in the right place and they know that you're speaking directly to them and they see themselves in the words in the language that you're using. And so for me, it's really about being personal. It's not so much about being polished or professional, although many of my clients do describe it as they want to be having more refined or polished online presence, which I can totally relate to as well. But I just wanted to add one thing that you mentioned, George, which was you said like a lot of people don't have, you know, the money to spend on branding or copywriting. That's the thing is that you don't need to invest a lot of money in these things. And if you look at any thing that you see on my website has been DIYed by me. I'm not a designer. I'm not a professional copywriter, but, you know, I've learned the basics because like as a business owner, as you know, it doesn't matter, like whatever modality you like to say, whatever modality you kind of teach to your or offer service that you provide for your clients or like yourself, your marketer, but you also, you know, you wear so many hats as an entrepreneur. So it's really important to at least understand the basics so that you can draw in and attract and have the right people gravitate towards you naturally. And I think that's one of the power, the most powerful things about having an online presence that really reflects who you are that speaks to your work beautifully that communicates what you do clearly is that it can do some of the legwork for you. It's like, you don't always need to be online posting, although that, you know, consistent content is obviously an important strategy. But you don't always, it can do some of the work for you. And when people find you, they can know, okay, this girl is interesting. I like her vibe. I want to get to know her further. So I think that's one of the things is you don't need to spend, invest a lot of money, you just need to know some of the basics. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll talk about some of the basics now. But one of the things you teach is the four pillars of an authentic online presence. So I'd love for you to kind of share with us what those four are. Sure. So, so I call it the four pillars of creating or growing, we're, you know, building an authentic online presence. And really this started for myself because I needed a framework, sort of a container to help me kind of like keep my content sort of like focused. And also when I'm working with clients, I want it to have a focus with clients. And then I realized that this could be helpful for clients as well. Like this could be helpful for people to, um, as they're creating their online presence and building up their business, like it could be a helpful, helpful framework. So essentially the four pillars are, so the first one is the most from, it's the most fundamental, uh, pillar, it's the core pillar. And I call it finding your authentic center, which is all about connecting to who you are. And so in an ideal world, when you start your business, we would start with the first pillar and move your way through each of the pillars. But realistically, that's not usually how it works. Cause typically we start our business, we get our coaching certification, or we, uh, you know, we're trained in a new healing modality and we're like, okay, we want to get ourselves out there and start working with clients. And what happens is, is a lot of us will, I did this too, will, you know, DIY our website, or we'll put, put up an about page, maybe a homepage, maybe get someone who can do a website for us on the cheap and we'll do that. We'll throw it up just to get our name out there and start working with clients. We'll start working with people for free and all of that kind of good stuff. And then, you know, over time we start getting paying clients. What happens is, is then now we are at a place where we are still maybe working for free a little bit more than we want to be. And we want to attract more of the right clients. We have more of a clarity around who it is that we want to work with, who we don't want to work with, and now it's like you want to refine. So I think it's a great way to start is to just jump in and just go for it and do it. I would always recommend that to any person. But my clients tend to now be a couple of years ahead of that. So now they want to go back to stage one. And that's kind of like laying the foundation. So again, I call it finding your authentic center, which is, you know, helping you get clarity around your vision and your values and what you stand for, what, what's your perspective? What's the perspective you want to share? Why are you doing, you know, why is your business important to you? Like, why are you doing it at all? So that's really the first stage is, you know, again, a lot of people I find will will talk about, you know, getting to know your clients and understanding your niche, but for me, that's not the first place you start. So the second one, the second pillar is all about. And I just want to pause there. I mean, I think what you just said is might be surprising to some people because people usually think, well, the first thing we do in business, or when we're kind of rebranding or, or re kind of launching is to clarify our niche, our target market, you know, speak to them on all that stuff. But you just said that, Hey, it's, it's really about your story. What's important to you? Why are you doing this? Is that right? And did I get that right? Yeah. So, um, this is what I have found for myself personally, right? So when I started, I had no clue who my niche was. I kind of had an idea I wanted to like work with, um, healers and things like that, but I wasn't entirely sure. So when I started doing this, I really focused on like, what was I interested in? Like, how did I want to show up online? Like, and so that's kind of where I started. And then through that process, people resonated with my message. People felt my heart as I shared it online. And so they naturally gravitated towards me. And then through that, I could, it was clear to me then, who were the people that are drawn to me? You know, so that's kind of how I identified, um, I guess, got more clarity around who it was that I wanted to be working with. And that's how I recommend doing it. And there's lots of people out there who do teach, you know, target market and niching, but it can be really difficult when you haven't worked with anyone. So how do you know who you're supposed to be working with? How do you know who you don't like working with? And all of these things, like, who was your message really for? Yeah. And I find that isn't clear until you've done some work first. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, because when I first started, I thought that my ideal client was somebody who, you know, looked like me, was my age, et cetera, et cetera. And then in the first year, as I, I didn't thankfully say, well, you must look like this or you must be in this age range when my marketing, I just put my service out there based on my own point of view and sort of my personality. And then the people started signing up. They were nothing like me, actually. They were quite different. They look different, different age range, different background. And I was quite surprised. So, yeah, I have that same experience too. So I'm glad you mentioned that. But yeah, go ahead and go to the second pillar. Yeah. So the second one I refer to as attracting your authentic audience, and I think that this is more around, you know, you have clarity a bit more about who it is that you want to be working with, but this is the stage where you're refining a little bit more. You're refining it a little bit more. So, you know, again, a lot of clients have worked now. You know, when I work with clients at this stage, they've already worked with people. So, but when I look at their website or when I look at the content they're putting out, putting it out, it's not really speaking to that person that they want to be working with, for instance. And I think this is a big mistake that a lot of us make is we tend to either use too much jargon because we have so much expertise and we're so knowledgeable in what it is that we teach, but it falls, you know, flat on the people that we're trying to connect with, or we're not maybe speaking directly to what it is that they're going through and the struggles that they're facing. So this is the refining stage. And then the third pillar is all about, I call it, communicating your authentic message. And this is really about not just your verbal language, but it's also your visual language. So as you know, George visuals are very important to me. So it starts with, again, I want to say that my clients at this point, you know, it's not, I don't typically have to help clients figure out what their message is. The message is they usually already have an idea. It's more about refining. So in this stage, we're refining the message, we're making it more clear, we're maybe paring it down and simplifying it, because I find a lot of people will include things that are not relevant to what their client is struggling with and maybe what they're offering in their business. And then it's pairing that, pairing your verbal language, the message that you have then with a visual language that can help convey that emotion, that can help convey your message and deepen it for people. Like for me, that is a crucial part. And it's not only about conveying the emotion, it's also being able to express yourself and your heart through your business in an artistic way in a way that feels like beautiful and reflects the work that you do beautifully and the quality of the work that you provide. You just mentioned visual language. Can you give us maybe an example or two of what you mean by that? So I think like when you go to my website, for instance, now I have to warn you, I'm going through a refresh myself. So depending on when you see this video, who knows? Yeah, yeah, and that's a good example, right? I mean, we are always evolving. And so our website probably should be evolving on some consistent basis. It doesn't have to be every week or every month or even every year necessarily. But yeah, so this is a good example of you yourself going through that experience of these four pillars. Exactly, and I think that like, so the example that I was gonna use for me, it's about, you know, if you can go to my website and if you don't read a word that I write on my website, I think that you will be able to sense that I'm a soulful person, you know, that I feel like, you know, and I've had people say this to me, like, you know, I can feel your authenticity on the page and I can, you know, like it helps people step into that. And then I always think about, you know, when I'm creating visuals and when I'm creating sort of like my online presence and you know, again, it goes deeper than just your website but I'll use the website as an example. You know, thinking about if I had a tangible space and you know, my business was, you know, you had to go to, you know, like a brick-and-mortar style shop or something to work with me. What's the energy that I would want people to have? What's the vibe? What's the feeling I would want them to leave with? So I use visuals, color, fonts to help, you know, translate that emotion for people and that feeling that I want to create. Yeah, that's right. Was that clear? Yes, definitely, definitely. So the second, so just to recap with the first pillar is really about your own authentic story. Yes, connecting to yourself. Yeah, the second pillar is connecting to the ideal. The clients. Yeah, the ideal client. So what's the third pillar then? So the third pillar is the communicating your authentic message, that's the verbal and visual. The fourth pillar though is all about making an authentic connection. So, you know, you can see there's a theme there. So very quick sidebar. Like in my past life when I had a long tenure corporate career but one of my last jobs was working in human resources and I was an onboarding specialist. So I was hired with someone else to create an onboarding program for our new employees. We didn't have one at the time. And so it's a lot of the same work that I'm doing now. At that, you know, it was about making people who were hired, who accepted our offers, started the company and feel welcome and warm and making that connection with them to help also reaffirm their decision to wanna work with us. Cause there's nothing worse than having a new employee start. There's no one there to welcome them. They got nothing on their desk. They don't know what they're supposed to be doing. It's like the worst feeling in the world. So I have in a sense, when I look back, I've brought that now into my business online and a lot of that work is the same. And so the making authentic connections again is like connecting people through your content. It's getting yourself out there. It's like those touch points that you have with people. You know, it could be when they start working with you, making them feel welcome, like having a nice onboarding process so that they feel taken care of. It could be the content that you put out. Like every sort of touch point that you have is really important to me. Yeah, so it is about relationship building. It is, yes. And being aware that whether it's an email that they receive from you, or whether it's how you are connecting with them on a meeting, all that is a relationship building. And just to be aware of that, that is there's a thread there. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. So maybe you could share with us when you work with clients on this kind of stuff, what stage should they be at? And you mentioned before, okay, maybe they're not, but you can work with clients who are, or maybe not, maybe you can explain, do you work with clients in the beginning of their business or once they've already done some work, maybe they've already got some clients and now they're wanting to relaunch, rebrand. So, yeah, share with us a bit about that. Yes, I can work with clients. And I do work with people who are just in the beginning stages of their business, but I don't like to start from scratch, meaning you need to have some copy written. You've got to have some idea about who it is that you're talking to, or what it is you're talking about and who it is that you're talking to. You've got to have a website there or something. I don't like to start from scratch and I don't have to catch everyone up, get everyone up to speed, so to speak. So as long as you have some of the basics, then we can work from there. Most of my clients, however, tend to be already in business for at least a couple of years and they've got, like I said, they started their business and they were passionate and excited. They've got their new coaching certification or their new modality, whatever that they're gonna be offering their clients and they've put up a website fairly quickly and it no longer reflects who they are. Or it's a jumbled mess and it's cluttered and it doesn't speak directly to their clients and so now they need some help refining it and making it speak more exactly what you said, George, talking about the evolution. We evolve, we're no longer at that stage anymore, so we need everything to kind of catch up to where we are now. So that's sort of where people tend to be when they work with me. And how does somebody know when it's time to do that refresh? So how do they know when their online presence, maybe they just go to the site and they can't bear to look at it? And that's one way of doing it. But yeah, any other signs that it's time to kind of refresh that? Yeah, I mean, exactly like you said, the obvious, right? Like you not feeling it anymore, you just know it's not right. Like I said, like for myself, the reason that if you go to my website, it's out of date is because last year I was working as a virtual assistant and I switched over to what I'm doing now. I was always doing it when I was a VA, but now I'm doing it more full-time, not working as a VA anymore. So I made that switch at the beginning of the year and because of COVID and everything else, I haven't had the opportunity to go in and update it. So there's that, you make, you switch, like you're changing your services and your offerings have evolved. The other sign is just, you're not attracting the right people. So maybe people are still wanting to work for free all the time. Maybe people that are getting on discovery calls with you, they're not your people. Like you're like, I don't wanna work with this person or they're just not the right fit. The other thing is that maybe I hear this all the time too is that my website isn't doing anything for me or I'm putting up content, no one's engaging. I mean, there's nothing worse. So if that's happening, then it's like, okay, well, what's going on here then? It could be something in the way that you're writing. It's not connecting to people or there's a disconnect. You can go to someone's website. You might see them, this happens to me all the time. I'll engage with someone in a Facebook group and they'll say something that's really intriguing. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I wanna check this person out. I'll click over to their Facebook profile, find their website. And then I go to their website and it's like, no, it doesn't speak to me, I don't connect with it. It's like a jumbled mess or it's cluttered. It doesn't have any content or whatever. So I think that that's the big thing is you're not really getting the right clients or you're not getting anyone engaging with anything that you put out there. There's other factors as well, obviously that go with that, but that's one thing. That's one way to know. Yeah, that's really, really helpful. So just wanna make sure people know how to reach you and kind of what to look for as you are putting out these new offerings. Your website is christabower.com, your name. So K-R-I-S-T-A-B-A-U-E-R.com. And you're gonna be, maybe mention again, the classes that you are gonna be teaching coming up, the online classes. Yeah, tell us about those. So I have a new class coming out. This is, it's called Copywriting with Heart and this is going to be, I'm hoping it's the beta class is gonna run in a few weeks here. So if you're interested, George is gonna leave a link below. You can get your name on the wait list so that there's gonna be 10 spots opening up. I'm gonna follow your lead, George, and kind of do something similar to what you're doing with your beta classes. So if you wanna get on the beta class for that, it's be like the raw, gritty sort of version. You can certainly do that. It'll be free. And then I hope to release the more polished and refined version mid-July kind of thing. And so yeah, if you're interested, if that sounds like something that you're kind of wanting to learn more about, learning how to write in a way that speaks more to your ideal clients and resonates more, share more of your heart, share more in a personal way, then that's what I'm gonna be teaching in the class. Cool, great, yeah. And then you and I are gonna be doing the class on visual branding, sort of do-it-yourself visual thinking coming up later this year. So I'm excited about that. How else should clients reach out to you? Do you provide one-to-one services in terms of their branding, their copywriting? Tell us a bit about that. So I work with, so I do coaching as well with clients and traditional coaching. And then I also work a lot, I do a lot of writing for clients, but I'm hoping by the end of this year to be phasing that out and focusing more on teaching. But you could still reach out to me, I do copy audits for clients. So I will, it's not just copy audits, like a whole online presence. So I'll look at your website, I'll look at the copy on your website. I will give you a video report of my findings and areas that I see that maybe gaps and things that are missing. I'll look at it through the perspective of your ideal client and also the perspective of someone with sort of like a background in doing this. So that's kinda how I share with clients. And then from there, a lot of times clients will hire me to write their copy for them. But the reason for the course is because I would much rather teach someone what I do so that they can do it for themselves. And I think that's the most authentic way to share your message is when it's written from your own heart. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. And Krista, thank you so much for your work. Those of you watching who are interested, definitely go check out Krista's website, see what's available. You might decide to work with her or take some for classes. So thanks, Krista. And yeah, thank you for your work. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, George. Thanks.