Entrepreneurs Over 40 Episode 19 with Colleen Kochannek

Episode Nineteen features Colleen Kochannek talking about how she helps women from the Typewriter Generation start successful online businesses.

My Key Takeaways:

• Colleen had a lot of corporate experience that she thought would serve her well when starting her first online business. But she quickly found out that it didn't necessarily translate well. She found herself thrust into Social Media, Content Production and Content Marketing. Where in the past, she would have relied on a Corporate Marketing department, now she had to figure it out herself. She dove into online training early on to supplement her knowledge

 

• She also admitted that she didn't realize that selling ad space to customers was just the beginning. She found herself having to create the ads and optimize the images in the ad space for her customers as well.  

 

• Colleen thinks that people over 40 make great entrepreneurs based on their depth of professional, personal and life experiences. By the time we're over 40, we have both discipline and persistence as well as marketable skills to pass on to others. 

 

• Colleen notes that older seasoned individuals are digital immigrants, while the younger crowd are digital natives. Our generation largely grew up with typewriters, where pushing a button had a consequence. Younger generations are used to dealing with technology and are unafraid to push buttons or try new things.

 

•  Colleen admits she is a realist and doesn't let her students believe in three months time that they'll be conducting business at the beach while having pina coladas. She estimates that takes at least 12 months or longer to get traction. 

 

• Colleen is as big fan of outsourcing technical stuff using Fiverr and also has used a VA in the past to assist with content creation and re-purposing. 

 

• She advises, starting to build an email list as soon as possible. That way you aren't beholden to a platform and can have control over communication with your customers.

 

• She also preaches and practices, email list hygiene, where she periodically purges subscribers, who haven't opened an email in 180 days.  This boosts her open rate, which helps her emails get delivered better. It also ensures she isn't paying for people that don't want to do business with her. 

 

• For lead magnets, she recommends that they be simple, easy to consume and solve one specific problem. She said you don't want to create something too complicated, such as an E-book. 

 

• Colleen preaches against trying to DIY too much and says you have to invest in yourself to get further ahead. 

 

You can check Colleen out at ScrappyFrontier.com

Now next week we will have on Ramon Ray talking about the Celebrity CEO concept that he outlines in his book by the same name.  Be sure to hit Subscribe in your podcast app so you don't miss it or any of the other episodes.

Show notes and more can be found at EntrepreneursOver40.com