Ick-Free Networking for Local Businesses with Corinne Wallington

Ben: Hello and welcome to Berko and Beyond, the Local Business podcast for Berkhamsted and the surrounding areas. This week on the show, we’re talking about business support, collectives, and community. So let’s dive in.

Corinne Wallington. Welcome to Berko and Beyond. 

Corinne: Thank you very much, Ben Baldwin. 

Ben: It’s great to have you here. Thank you. Because you, yourself and the Chiltern Biz Collective, uh, have been mentioned already on the podcast, I think as early as episode two. So I know there are people out there who know about the Chiltern Biz Collective and know of you.

But for those that don’t, tell us a bit about yourself and the Collective. 

Corinne: Okay, so Chiltern Biz Collective is a membership, a community for local independent business. Um, we run networking events, coworking, lots of different things. The idea is it’s a community for business people to come together to support each other, to find like-minded people. Um, just to chat about the highs and lows, um, of which there are many, of running your own business. 

Ben: Yes, indeed. There are many, but, uh, we’ll probably go into a few of those a little bit later on. So how, how did, uh, it come around the Chiltern Biz Collective? What was your connection with it?

Corinne: So it’s been a bit of an evolution, I suppose. I started working for myself, um, seven years ago, I think. And did a few different things. Um. Was doing some social media management, um, sort of enjoying it, not feeling great about it. Feeling quite lonely. I started to look for, decided I needed to, to get myself out there.

Start networking. Start meeting people. Already knew about it – it was called the Buzz Hub Co. at the time. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, and already knew about that. Um, I’d actually done a little bit of work for them the previous year. Contacted Katie who was running that and she said, oh, actually we’re closing the business.

Um, and I was like, oh. 

Ben: That’s a shame. 

Corinne: It was a shame ’cause I was ready to go. I was like, this is what I need. 

Ben: I’m ready to commit. 

Corinne: I’m ready to, uh, to join and I’m ready to do everything. And then it was like, oh, it doesn’t exist. It sort of, you know, she was, they were planning to wrap it up. Um, so I can’t remember who suggested it, but basically I bought the business from them, uh, from Katie and Matt who were running it at the time.

Um, they had some members, they had a website, a social media following all of that? So, um, and I took it on myself and sort of developed it from there. Changed the focus a little bit. Their focus was more around shop local, promoting local business.. Which I’m still very committed to.

But I put more of a focus on the business support side, the networking, um, and then developed it. And then a couple of years in, um, rebranded, changed the name to maybe align it more with what I was trying to do. Um, and it made it feel a bit more like mine as well. Um, and that’s sort of, yeah, where we got to.

Ben: So you went from, uh, at home on your 

Corinne: own 

Ben: to then running a business 

Corinne: to running a membership business that I’d never done before in organizing networking events. In local venues that I’d never done before. 

Ben: Excellent. In for a penny. 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: Um, so what was your background before that?

Corinne: Um, so I worked in HR for about, uh, 14 years.. For a, um, defense engineering company. So a big company corporate, um, all the joys of hr, which 

Ben: There are none. 

Corinne: There are, there are many. 

Ben: I don’t mean that, I don’t mean that, before we get letters. 

Corinne: There are many, but there are also, yeah, it was, um. It was interesting.

It taught me a lot. When I started working for myself, I was like, oh, I, you know, I don’t need anything from that. Obviously what I’ve learned as I’ve gone is a lot of skills that I learned doing that. 

Um, and I, you know, it is classic. I had a couple of kids. Um, I didn’t wanna go back to work after my second maternity leave. And the juggle of trying to work part-time, not really working part-time. Um, and the chase of the childcare and everything like that, which is what led me into working for myself. 

Ben: And it happens a lot. And I guess there’s a lot of people in the Collective that are like that.. That are, you know, parents that have, have kids and they’re like. I don’t want get on that train every day into London, or I just wanna be around and be more present. 

Corinne: It’s just having that flexibility, isn’t it? I think a lot of people I meet who work for themselves, that’s one of the reasons they’ve done it, is flexibility either for their own kids or for other commitments that they’ve got.

But it’s like, you know, um, there’s a class assembly and I can always go to it. And that’s what I love. And I, you know, take my kids to school every day and I can pretty much pick them up most days as well. Um, and you know, they, it’s the cliche. They will only be little once, won’t they? Um, and it is good that I can do that.

Um, and I really appreciate that. Um, but that does bring other challenges with it. Um, 

Ben: Well that’s exactly where I was gonna go with the questioning on that. So you’ve gone from HR, corporate world, uh, working on your own, sort of a micro business, be fair to say? Describe it as a solopreneur, micro business, then to running something a little bit bigger.

What are the different challenges then from going all of a sudden you’ve got you, like you say, it’s a membership and it’s a community that you’re running. 

Corinne: Yeah, and it was, um, I  didn’t really think about it at the time. I was just like, oh, this’ll be fine. 

Ben: It happens a lot in business that, 

Corinne: yeah, 

Ben: I thought that when I started a podcast, I thought, oh, we’ll just do a podcast. And then it’s like, okay, it’s once a week. Oh, there’s a bit of a commitment here. 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: Okay. 

Corinne: I think it’s the best thing, isn’t it? I, I heard someone talking a little while ago about, you know, quite naive when you start out, and actually it’s the best way because I just sort of went for it and I thought, this is what, um, I wanna do, and I was doing social media management at the time, so I saw a very, um, a good link in terms of, you know, I could do the two side by side. Um, I could do social media work for small businesses and I could support small businesses through networking. Um, so they interlinked. 

And then it’s. There’s different marketing and it is probably something I still struggle with sometimes is the marketing of it. Of how do you get across that it’s a community, that you’re not, you know, you’re not looking for someone to buy a product. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: I’m not offering, um, a straightforward service because if you, and you don’t have to be a member to come along to events either.

I say that now, um, lots of people come to, you know, some of our events and they’ll never join the membership and that’s totally fine. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, but people who do join the membership, you know, it is, it’s a low cost monthly. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um. So you have to be part of it. You have to be, you know, if, if you want value from it, you’ve gotta put something in up as well.

Ben: You need to show up.

Corinne: You need to show up. Um, and that’s actually the core of community, isn’t it? It’s, if you wanna be in a community, you have to be part of it. You can’t, it’s not all gonna be handed to you. Um, 

Ben: So talk to me a bit more about that because I think, uh, a lot of people listening and watching will find that interesting ’cause there are those, and we know who they are, that go to networking events and they’re there for the sale and they’re there to do this and that obviously that that’s what networking events are about or about in those different scenarios. But this is a different approach to it because it’s about building a community.

The way I see it is you are going there. And it’s not an immediate sale, ’cause whenever, whenever it is. But you build relationships. And much like I hope this podcast is gonna become, as I’ve talked about before, is you and I can end up being in or doing business together or could end up doing business with someone else as a, you know, as a team. Putting a little, I was gonna say consortium, but that’d be the wrong word. 

Corinne: Collaboration. 

Ben: Collaboration. And um, yeah. So talk to us about that, those, the cultural values on that side of things. 

Corinne: Yeah. So I used to hate networking. I used to go networking when I worked in HR as well, and I would always hate it.

But actually what I’ve learned is networking is just about connection, isn’t it? It’s about meeting people. And, um, for our networking events, we don’t do elevator pitches. We don’t, um, I mean, I don’t even have business cards. People can hand out business cards if they want to, but I’m like, I’m gonna put it in my bag and I’m never gonna look at it again.

So, um, don’t bother giving me one sort of thing. And that’s why I don’t have my own. But, um. We don’t do any of that, I guess traditional networking stuff because it’s about meeting people and I guess just coming to have a chat. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, coming to talk about what you do as a business. Obviously it is, you know, it’s about your business, but it’s come and just have that chat, meet other people, share what you’re up to that week, that month, um, and see what other people think.

And you might at a meeting, you might meet someone that automatically wants to buy something from you, or you automatically wanna buy something from. But I think what people get most out of it is they meet people that they can chat to and who will say, oh yeah, I get that. You know,  I’ve had that problem on my website and I spoke to this person and they really helped.

Or yeah, I’m really slow this month as well. I haven’t had any enquiries and it’s that sort of when you are working for yourself and you can go very insular, um, I think, and you can go very much into yourself and you can think I’m bad because I’ve not had any enquiries this week. I’ve not got any sales. Um, no one’s bought my product this, you know, this month.

So it must be something wrong with me. There must be something wrong with what I’m doing. And you can almost spiral yourself. Um, and actually when you go out and talk to people and you say, I’ve not made any sales on my website this month, someone else will say, oh yeah, I’ve had a month like that. Or, yeah, this, this month’s been really slow for me, or something like that.

And I think just knowing that other people are going through similar, either at the same time or they have done in the past is really powerful to be able to think, oh, okay, it’s not all me, but having people who get it, I think is the big difference. 

Ben: I’ve been in networking groups, mentoring groups, uh, peer groups, coaching groups, done it all.

Corinne: All the groups

Ben: Tried it all, tried all the groups, and, uh, whether they are industry specific, which I’ve done before for video production or whether they are industry generic, the, the thing that all, it used to surprise me, it doesn’t surprise me at all now, is that it doesn’t matter what industry and uh, what, what level of business you’re in? Small, medium or large, or solopreneur? There are the same, same issues. And, they are across the board. And that is, I think, ’cause a lot of people, they do start off in their bedroom or 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: In, in their shed 

Corinne:  Sitting in their spare room

Ben: Or spare room. Yeah. So to be able to get that advice. 

Corinne: Yeah. And it’s, you know, um, I, I think that is the biggest thing for me is that, and I, I know it about myself.

I, you know, need to be around other people to feel motivated and, you know, extrovert in that way. Um, and I was at a point when I first took it over that I wasn’t doing any of that. I wasn’t going out, I wasn’t seeing anyone. Um. And I didn’t really know many other people who were running their own businesses either, so I wasn’t really talking about it with anyone else.

So like, one of the things we do in the membership is, um, online coworking.

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: So just go on a Zoom for a couple of hours. It’s actually really good for productivity. Because I won’t go and procrastinate and put the washing on ’cause I’m like, oh, there’s someone else there. Obviously they’re not actually watching me, but, you know, it makes you think, oh, I’ve gotta stay here and actually do some work.

Um, but also we have like a little 10 minute chat at the beginning and a little 10 minute chat at the end. Just have a little chat.

Ben: and the day can disappear so quickly in those scenarios. In, in, in a good way or in a bad way. So if, if you, you know, if you’re there on your own, it’s just like, oh, right, where did that day go and what did I get done? The same thing might if you days going slow.

That kind of connection with someone else helps, but also just being able to go and bounce that idea off straight away. So when, if you are, I remember when I first started, and you’re just kind of like, uh, it, you can get that kind of, you describe it as a spiral.

I describe it as a just a kind of. Um, you just get stuck. ’cause you’ve got no one to ask who’s around you. 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: Talk me through a, a, a typical event if there is, if there is, such as one, ’cause you do, uh, netwalking, netwalking as well. I like that. 

Corinne: Yeah. We do netwalking.

So that was like the first. I’d seen someone else do it. And it was like, I think the first event I ever did was a netwalk and, um, because I love to go out walking, even before I had a dog, you know, we’d happily go out walking. And there is, you know, lots of mental health benefits aren’t there, of just getting outside walking.

Um, but I think also the other benefit for doing it as a networking thing is you don’t have to look someone in the eye. You don’t have to stand if you’re a bit nervous about meeting new people, you know, you don’t have to sit, look them in the eye, shake hands, do any of that sort of formality thing, which actually for some people is their worst nightmare. 

Ben: I’ve not thought that before. 

Corinne: Yeah. And fills them with anxiety. So, you know, when you’re walking, you’re just, you are all looking in the same direction, aren’t you? 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: So you can walk 

Ben: or at the floor. 

Corinne: Yeah. Or at the floor. If you can’t think of anything to say, you can say, oh, the trees look nice.

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Or, oh, the weather’s a bit rubbish today, isn’t it?. Or, you know, whatever. There’s, there’s always something to talk about. 

Ben: and just listen to what’s going on and 

Corinne: yeah,  

Ben: you’ll probably hear a little gem of advice and 

Corinne: yeah, and we just, we, we walk and we talk about all sorts of different things, not just business, you know, we’ll end up talking about families, what we’re selling on Vinted, like, you know, everything that’s going on. And then always, um, stop for a coffee and a cake because that’s, you know, I 

Ben: it’s just what you,

Corinne: that’s how I survive  

Ben: quite right. 

Corinne: Yeah, 

Ben: Coffee and cake. 

Corinne: Coffee, always needs coffee and cake.  

Ben: Very good. Um, talk to me about the not selling. ’cause I, I find we, we touched on it earlier, but I find it really interesting that, that, that it, that is part, part of the value. 

Corinne: Yeah, so it’s not that I say to people, you can’t sell what you’re doing, you know?

But, um, yes,  

Ben: come to this networker and do not sell 

Corinne: and do not sell. But it’s, it’s not about, um, standing up and doing a one minute pitch of what you’re offering. It’s not about coming and handing out your business cards to everyone. Um, it’s about coming and talking and building a connection. And people do sell all the time.

I know like people who come to the events have bought from each other will refer each other, will, you know, it has helped their businesses grow in that sense. But. We don’t do anything at the events that is overtly about you promoting yourself. It’s about you connecting with other people. There’s another side to it on the website, there’s a directory and I promote what people are selling

Um, so all our members are on the directory, so if you wanna support local business, you can go on there and find them. I do blogs and gift guides and, you know, all that sort of stuff as well to help promote the members. Um. But yeah, the networking community side is just that. 

Ben: I think it’s interesting because, um, as we’ve been setting up this podcast, doing a few other things within the video production business, you, you kind of go off referrals of people that you know for different kind of services and, and actually don’t look at the local as much and we’ve, by starting a local, uh, business podcast was like, well, hang on. If someone’s gonna do our socials or someone’s gonna help out with this. Or you go, it’s gotta be someone local. 

Corinne: Yeah. And I think, like I never used to really even think about shopping small, probably before I started working for myself. Um, you know, you just went to a high street and just bought what was ever there.

But, um, now I’m so conscious of it and I think. I’ve been quite amazed actually, the amount of different businesses there are locally, Berkhamsted, Tring, Aylesbury, everywhere. There’s, you know, there’s lots of stats around, but if you spend a pound in your local community for a local business, you know, more than 50% of that goes back to the local economy.

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Which obviously if you give Amazon a pound, 0%, it’s probably going back into your local economy. So there’s lots of extra benefits, um, apart from just buying probably a great product or a great service from a real person. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Who maybe lives down the road from you. 

Ben: and lots of those little businesses will, Uh, ’cause obviously convenience with Amazon is you, it’s there the next day. But a lot of those smaller businesses around are, are now offering those kind of services locally as well. 

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. And that’s, 

Ben: if you think about local butchers in particular, that, that, that kind of stuff. 

Corinne: Yeah. And there’s so many that, um, you know, I’ve met so many amazing people.

And I think that’s the other thing that um, differentiates, you know, local small business., is that level of customer service, like they really value every single purchase? Don’t you, you’re probably the same. You know, every single client who pays you for something, you really value it. You don’t get that same sense from big corporates.

I’m sure someone does value it somewhere, but you don’t get that feeling. And I think. And you therefore don’t necessarily get the same level of customer service, especially if something goes wrong. 

Ben: No, and it’s the same in these, I mean, up and down the high street here in, in, in the town where those independents, lots of independents,.

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: Great service with, you know, be it the, the independent gift shops or the independent coffee shops, that kind of stuff. 

Corinne: I mean, that’s what I love about Berkhamsted High Street is there’s not many chain shops. You can walk down the high street and you know, always find an independent, you know, if someone says, where do you wanna meet for coffee?

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: I mean, you’re spoilt for choice, aren’t you?  

Ben: Yeah, you are. Um, talk to me about the businesses that are in the Collective then.

So is it, I guess there’s not a typical business, but what’s, is it? 

Corinne: Um, mostly sole traders, I’d say. Like people working for themselves. Maybe with a small team, but it’s mostly people who are on their own. Um, but it’s everything. We’ve got, um, you know, pelvic health physiotherapy, photographers. graphic designers, um, jewellery makers, um, you know, all sorts of different gifts.

Um, so it’s product, it’s services. It’s B2C. It’s B2B. Yeah. Um, so what we all have in common is we’re local, doing it for ourselves. That’s the, I guess, the niche. 

Ben: And how are they at the moment in that sense of how, how is business? How are they feeling? Are they seeing the same challenges? Is there anything, is there a common theme at the moment?

Corinne: I think, um. There, it’s been up and down, hasn’t it? 

Ben: Mm. 

Corinne: You know, recently, um, some, I think everyone sort of struggles with marketing struggles with sales because we could all do with more, right? 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Like, and that challenge is the same and different I think, because obviously if you are B2B or B2C, you need to market differently, don’t you?

So, um, but that’s probably the one that always comes up and that people never have enough time. Um, everyone could do with more sales. So, you know, go and buy something from a local business, um, would always be my message. But, um, yeah, they are, they’re doing well and they’re, you know, lots, some of the businesses as well have been going for 10, 15 years.

We’ve got other people who have just started up in the last year or two. Um. but it’s nice that even the people that have been going for a long time, they’re still, they’re not just there to pass on their, you know, ’cause you could just think, oh, they’ve just passed on all their great knowledge ’cause they’ve been running a successful business for so long. They still come and get value back from, you know, sharing ideas and finding out what people want. 

Ben: I always think it’s really interesting on those businesses, smaller businesses that are starting out now, well actually any size business they, they’ve got something to teach, you know? New tricks to the old dog, as I could probably put that a lot more politely.

Uh, but you know what I mean? Yeah. It’s as in there’s this stuff that they’ll have looked at that let’s say, um, we, you know, those who have been in business longer have just been going along and like, oh, I didn’t know that existed. Or, that’s a new fresh take on it. A different way of looking at it..

Corinne: Obviously AI is a big chat topic 

Ben: Really? Yeah, of course. 

Corinne: Um, to see, you know, some people are for, some people are against, some people are embracing, others are a bit nervous. Um, but yeah. But I think, like you say, and when you’ve got people who are new to it, they have new ideas, like we said, they’re a bit naive probably as to what they’re doing. But actually that brings the sort of almost when you’ve been doing it too long, you can get a bit like, oh no, I’ve tried that. I won’t bother again. 

Ben: I guess as well for the, the size businesses that we’re talking about in the Biz Collective, that AI’s mainly a plus for them as if it’s, if using it rightly, it’s about, it’s about enhancing that business, making some things quicker.

Corinne: Yeah, it’s just all about training it, isn’t it? We had a conversation yesterday and I was like, oh, I just dunno if I’ve got the effort to properly train it.

But I do use it to help with certain things and like just automation, isn’t it? It’s, you know when you can automate things that you would, I guess, previously had to spend three hours doing. That’s the joy.  

Ben: And also that stuff we’ve probably been doing for longer than we’ve realized. And it’s just not been, it, it was AI, but it wasn’t called AI.

Yeah. That kind of thing. Um, so what on that then, so where are you using it in your, your business to sort of enhance what you are doing or, or take the load off? 

Corinne: Um, 

Ben: is there anything particular you’re using at the moment? 

Corinne: I probably just use it. Um. Really for idea. So like from like a marketing, so when I do social media content and things like that, I use it to help prompt me.

So I don’t use it to write things because I think you can tell. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, and, and I do. And you know, I think it’s important, especially when you run your own business to write things yourself because people are buying into you and so they need to hear your voice. Um. When you have those like blank page days and you’re just like, I just, I don’t know where to start with this.

Ben: Have a bit of a conversation with it. 

Corinne: Yeah. Have a bit of a conversation with it. Get some ideas from it. Um, that’s the, the sort of key thing I’m using it for, but I know, you know, um, someone else using it for product photos to help do you know they can add their photos into it? 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: To do like the mock up so they’re not having to set up a whole studio.

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: To take what, four photos or something? And equally, um, I, I’ve not used it yet, but I saw something on Instagram this week about using it to write all your, um, like the metadata and things for your photos ready to, so SEO friendly, ready to load them up onto your website. 

Ben: Yeah, we’ve just started looking at that.

Corinne: Which I think things like that is where, as well as a, when you’re doing it all yourself, you can’t be the expert in everything can you?

And lots of people are like SEO oh, I dunno, I can’t do it. And you think, well actually you can do it and you can use things like AI to help make it a little bit easier. 

Ben: Speaking of, uh, your, your other side of the business is the one, is the one-to-one stuff that you do? 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: Talk, talk me through that.

There’s some mentoring, there’s some other stuff.. 

Corinne: Yeah, so I do sort of mentoring with other sole traders, really just to help people with their marketing, with their business planning. Um, obviously I’ve been doing it myself now for quite a few years. So really just using like my experience and my ideas.

Um, you know, I just love sitting, having a chat with people and if I can do it and help them, you know, make plans and do stuff with their business. Um, and then I do, um, little bits of social media for a couple of people and also like training sessions, workshops, um, on social media, using Instagram for your business, content ideas, you know, all of that sort of stuff.

Um, which is one of the things that people seem to struggle with? I think because online people make it sound complicated. And it’s not, 

Ben: I was gonna say, that was gonna be my exact question, is what do they struggle with? And it’s the complicated, 

Corinne: it’s, it’s, um, so I get quite annoyed with, um, people, 

Ben: oh, come on, let’s have a rant. We love a rant on this podcast.

Corinne: I love a rant, um, but you know when people are like, oh, you need to beat the algorithm. You need to, it’s like, you don’t need to beat the algorithm because actually the algorithm’s there to help you. 

Ben: Yeah. And also it’ll change next week 

Corinne: and Yeah. And it, it’s constantly changing.

That’s, it’s designed to constantly change. Um, and you know, you get people sort of moaning about, oh, Instagram’s not the same as it was 10 years ago. Well, what is, you know, nothing’s the same as it was 10 years ago, is it? Um, so 

Ben: it’s not the same as it was last year. 

Corinne: Yeah. Um. You’ve gotta embrace it, don’t you?

It’s, you know, my view is of social media is it’s, it is a blessing and a curse, but it is free, right? We get to market our business. All it actually costs us is time. Obviously you can pay someone to do it for you. But if you’re doing it yourself, it costs you time. Obviously they’re gonna put ads in there.

Obviously they’re gonna push you to boost your posts or whatever it might be, because they need to make money. Like, like we all do. Um, and all the, you know, there’s a lot of noise around, you know, when you share a post, you then need to go and comment on five other posts, and you need to do this within 15 minutes.

And, and you just think probably all of that might help you. But who’s got the time or the inclination? 

Ben: And, but how much and how much will it help you? Well, it’s, it, it comes back to the ROI, doesn’t it? Is there return on investment for that 15 minutes you’ve spent doing that? Gonna get you the amount of views or, and often it’s a, it’s, well not often, it is about the right person looking, seeing that post, isn’t it?

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: And seeing that post, or post like it with the same message 5, 6, 7, 8 times. 

Corinne: Yeah. And it’s, it’s consistency. That’s, you know, I’ve had conversations with people who are like, oh, well I’ve done a post. I’m like. If, if you’ve just done one, it’s, it’s not gonna work. You know, it’s such a busy place online.

Whatever platform you’re on, you need to be posting consistently, um, with the same message, trying to get the same message out there. And it is hard. Um, but you’ve sort of just gotta keep trying and, you know, we all say the power of the lurker, that’s all you need. They might never, you know, I’ve, I’ve had people join the membership who I didn’t know were i n my sphere. You know, they, they never commented on my post. They’d never been to an event. They, I’d never had a message from them, anything. I, I sort of knew that they existed in a way, but we’d never actually interacted. And then they’ve joined my membership and they said, oh, I love what you’re doing.

And I’m like, oh, okay. I wasn’t actually aware. Didn’t know that you were aware of what I was doing. 

Um, and that’s, but that’s all you need, so. You don’t always need the feedback because the ultimate feedback is the sale that you might make three months after you’ve shared the post. 

Ben: Yeah, yeah.

LinkedIn’s a big one for that as well. For the lurkers, the amount of people that say to me, oh, I saw your thing on Bob and I was like. Okay. did you, no idea. I mean,

Corinne: and you always wanna shake them and say, well, could you comment on it then when you see it and you really like it, 

Ben: Perhaps comment on it, yeah, that’d be really good. So if we can, can we use this, uh, I get a bit of free business advice while you’re here.. Uh, we’ll use the Berko and Beyond podcast as an example for social media and for building a following. So obviously for us, the most important thing is getting likes and subscribes, ’cause that helps with those algorithms that you’re talking about on not. Of course we’re across a lot of different platforms.. Again, for us, it’s not really about massive numbers. We just want to build a community like you’ve done around, uh, small, medium, and large businesses, um, that are based in, you know, Berkhamsted and beyond, which fits nicely with Dacorum and with the Chilterns.

So it’s that, those kind of areas. So what would your advice be for us? For posting short clips and building that community in social media? ’cause it’s, for us, it’s, I, I wouldn’t say it’s alien, but it’s not something that we do for the business ’cause we’ve always stuck to LinkedIn.  

Corinne: yeah, well I’d, I’d still use LinkedIn.

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: For Berko and Beyond, because I think obviously there’s lots of local businesses on there. Um, so I would definitely still use that. And video on LinkedIn, you probably know is getting better and better like people, you know, so posting short clips and stuff, 

Corinne: As it is everywhere, you know, short form video is the thing, isn’t it? It’s become, for socials, it’s become the thing. Um, so I’d definitely post it, you know, LinkedIn still. Because you’ll, you’ll get interest.

Um, LinkedIn. You don’t need high quantity. It’s more, you know, you could probably just do a post a week. Of the, of the clip of the week. Maybe. Maybe you posting a personal sort of reflection on that. You’ve talked about that week as well. That would probably be enough. Um, 

Ben: and would you do that from my personal or from the, would you do it from the, the well business page as it were 

Ben: from the 

Corinne: Yeah, the business,I think you could post it from the business page, but then you share it. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: So that’s the. Sort of trick, I guess, as it were. Yeah. Because business pages don’t perform that well on LinkedIn, but also you sort of want the business page to give it that authority. But if you, um, post the short clip of the podcast on the business page and then you can share it to your personal profile and then maybe that’s where you put in a few little personal reflections from the chat that you’ve had on, on that week. Um, because that will obviously go out to a wider population. ’cause personal profiles work better. But equally the rest of your team can do that as well if they’re on LinkedIn, which is the good thing about doing it on a company page ’cause then actually 

Ben: they can share from the company page as well

Corinne: They can share. And equally like, you know, if you share my clip, I can share it as well. You know, all of that. So that’s, it’s about getting other people to share it as well, particularly on LinkedIn, and obviously on Instagram as well, you can do collaborative posts. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: So. Then it goes to the wider audience. ’cause it will go to both audiences or three or four, depending on how many people you are collaborating with, which all helps with the reach as well.

Um. But it’s little things as well, like putting in the location on the post. So when you share the post, 

Ben: say, what’s the trick to that? 

Corinne: You add, you can add the location. So when you’re on that final share page to click share. There’s add location, so you can add Berkhamsted there. And there’s some, you know, there’s, and it’s, it’s fairly consistent that posts with a location perform better.

Um, and then hashtags are sort of out. 

Ben: Yeah, 

Corinne: They’ve limited it. Now you can only have five hashtags. I mean, you could always stick in hashtag Berkhamsted just to help. Yeah. Um, but it’s insta well, all of them, you know, it’s like SEO now. So it’s getting keywords into your captions. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, so the caption that you put underneath the video or the post, it’s trying to pack that with a few keywords of what people will be searching for.

Um, and then. It’s obviously trying to get people to share it, which is, which I think you’ve got a great advantage because the format of the podcast is you are interviewing other people, so obviously the people that feature on the podcast will naturally share. 

Ben: Yeah. So there’s a collaborative post there for every episode.

Corinne: For every episode, and you know, um. Like after today, I’ll go and post about being on the podcast even before it’s, 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Released and then that, you know, will generate a bit of interest from my followers and, you know, if you can ask people to do that almost in return for you featuring them. You know, it’s a quid pro quo, isn’t it?

Yeah. They get featured and ask them to do a bit of promo themselves about, um, the podcast. You know, you could send them a couple of graphics and things that they could use. Um. Then it just helps to push it out to the wider followers. 

Ben: Oh, you’ll, you’ll get your video clips. 

Corinne: Yeah. Yeah. 

Ben: You’ll get your shorts

Corinne: Um, and that all, that all helps. Um, 

Ben: And what about Facebook? ’cause obviously that’s where there are community groups and things like that. What’s the advice on that? 

Corinne: So, um, it can be a little bit tricky because certain groups have, um restrictions over who can post in the group and how often you can post. So 

Ben: yeah, 

Corinne: it takes a little bit more work to work out what groups you can post in and which one you can’t. 

Ben: Which is why you end up with two or three different groups in per village. 

Corinne: per village or town? 

Ben: or per town. 

Corinne: So yeah, it’s working out which one to, will allow you to post in about your business. ’cause some don’t. Um, which is fair enough you don’t want them. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Full of spam. So, I think actually sharing it with a bit of commentary to say. Listen to our latest episode we spoke to Corinne about X, Y, and Z. Um, you know, it, it would be really interesting if you are a 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: A, B, C, you know, so trying to hone in on who it’s for. Um, so you know, like the, the one you did with Ben, you know, you can share that and say, you know, we spoke to Ben all about leadership and his, um, experience of working in the military as well.

You know, few interesting takes and ’cause if you can get those sort of different key things in as well, then actually that episode appeals to other people who’ve been in the military. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: It appeals to people who are leading their own teams. You, so it’s, yeah, but I think that’s probably the difference of trying to be a bit more targeted and specific with who it’s for.

’cause obviously we know the town groups are really big, aren’t they? Like you, you know, you can have, because also it’s not just people who live in the town, is this, 

Ben: no, of course. 

Corinne: It’s people who 

Ben: work in that town,

Corinne: who work in that town, or people who lived in the town 20 years ago and now live in Scotland or you know all that as well.

So you almost wanna call out in your post, who is this for? You know, this episode is for you. If you are working in Berkhamsted and running this sort of business or, and interested in leadership or it’s for you, if you are a small business owner, feeling a bit lonely and you’re looking for a networking group.

Ben: It’s just about being specific again.

Corinne: Specific, so yeah – probably, you know, you could probably do that for every episode, couldn’t you? If you are a small business and you, you know, wanna know more about leadership, listen to this episode with Ben 

Ben: Excellent. Very good. and all the others, 

Ben: the other Ben, not me.

Corinne: That was the one I just listened to on the way here. So that’s my example of your podcast. 

Corinne: Um, but yeah, so it’s being specific. It’s like Instagram, you probably need a, and Facebook, not, not so much fa, I’d say Facebook it’s the groups rather than, so you can have a business page and things on Facebook, but they don’t get you much. It’s posting it into the groups, is where it, it will work. Um, Instagram, you need probably a bit more quantity than say LinkedIn, but you can post very similar things. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: and then making sure that just, and it’s little things like just making sure that all your links are right. Which I’m sure they are. Um, and then it’s clear for people 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Where to go to find things. Um. And you know, because on Instagram you can put five links in your bio, so you know you can have a link to your website. You can have a link,

Ben: Link in the bio. 

Corinne: Yeah. You can have a link to well, and that’s another thing, never put a link in your caption. That’s like one of my little pet hates. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Because you can’t click them, they don’t work and you can’t copy and paste it. I think people are like, oh, they’ll copy and paste, like you can’t copy and paste from someone else’s caption.

Ben: There is a reason why all those massive people with followers put link in the bio and there are, like you say, there are now five links 

Corinne: and you can now put five links so you can, you know, you can have a link to your YouTube channel, 

Ben: YouTube, uh, so yeah, if it’s sort of TikTok shop for those that are doing that kind of thing.

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. All your different things, you can put them all in there. Um, and I mean, you can put links on stories, so obviously you can share things to stories as well and add a link, a direct link from stories to wherever you want it to go. Um. Yeah. And it’s just reminding people always putting the call of call to action in your caption as well.

And I think that’s where a lot of people maybe miss that is they just put a post out and it’s like, but what do you want someone to do? 

Ben: Yeah. It’s, yeah, 

Corinne: because, ’cause we’re busy, right? We need to be, actually, you need to tell me, if you want me to go and listen to your podcast, tell me, go and listen to it.

It’s, and where, and tell me where it’s available. Like it’s available anywhere that you listen to your podcast or if it’s not. Tell me, I’ve gotta go to YouTube or you know, whatever it is, 

Ben: watch the video on YouTube or Spotify, that kind of thing. 

Corinne: Yeah. And it, it sounds like, I think some people don’t like to do it because it’s like, oh, well people will know that.

And it’s like they do know that, but they have to do an extra couple of thinking steps. Don’t 

Ben: want ’em to burn any more energy. 

Corinne: No. 

Ben: Or any more calories thinking about it. 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: It’s the easy, easiest route. 

Corinne: Yeah. You’ve got to remove all those points of resistance. 

Ben: It’s like not asking for the sale. 

Corinne: Yes. 

Ben: Yeah.

You’ve done all that work and you get to the end and you’ve got someone who’s interested and then, 

Corinne: and you don’t ask for it.

Ben: Okay. And actually, obviously we’re selling, we’re selling the podcast. 

Corinne: Yeah. Yeah. And you, and you might, and you know, you can vary up your call to action. You can say, you know, if you are sharing something about like your own reflections on a, on a conversation you’ve had, you can ask people their opinion and then you can get some comments and get a bit of traction going.

Don’t just share. Oh, I went for a nice walk. Well walk in Berkhamsted today. Great. Why do I care? 

Ben: Yeah. I did the same last week. Thanks. Yeah. Not interested. 

Corinne: Yeah. But it’s like, oh, I went for a nice walk and it got me thinking about this conversation that I had on the podcast last week. 

Ben: So go listen!

Corinne: You can find out more about it ’cause you can listen to it here.

Ben: On that then, uh, biggest mistake that people make with social media?

Corinne: Oh, um, biggest mistake is overthinking, which is a really hard one to not do. 

Ben: I don’t know what, I have no idea what you mean. 

Corinne: Um, 

Ben: who would, who would overthink a short post on social media that 

Corinne: You’ve just gotta put it out there? Like that’s, and I do it all the time. I mean, actually I, um, did it a couple of weeks ago and then I luckily I was doing it as a collaborative post with someone, so I sent it to them and was like, I’m not sure about this post. I think it’s a bit rubbish, but tell me 

Ben: it’s already up. 

Corinne: Tell me what’s wrong with it and then I’ll change it before I post it. And she was like, it’s great. And then I did put that message out to our community to be like, just ask each other, because actually that’s all you need. You need someone to break your overthinking and say. What you getting worried about? 

Ben: You need to get over yourself, 

Corinne: get over yourself. And that’s, and I think that is probably the other big piece of advice, or maybe the mistake, depending on which way you spin it, that people get too focused on themselves and they think too much.

And actually something that I learned, um, about content is it’s not about you, it’s about your audience. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Corinne: Um, and it’s what do they wanna know? So you might not wanna share your face. You might not want to, you know, talk about certain things, but actually they might need that to buy from you. 

Ben: It’s about making your customer the hero, isn’t it?

Yeah. You are a hero in this scenario. It’s very much a Donald Miller building a StoryBrand kind of view on it. 

Corinne: Um, but if you can get over that, if you can sort of think, actually it’s not about me, it’s about them and what they need to know and focus on that. Um, there’s a good book but I can’t remember what it’s called.

Ben: We’ll find it afterwards and we’ll put it in the show notes..

Corinne: and , it’s basically about always, always answering your audience’s questions. 

Ben: Ah, I know the book. 

Corinne: Yeah. 

Ben: I’m looking over there. ’cause it might be over there. If not, it’s in the office and it is called, oh no, this is gonna, I might actually run off the, 

Corinne: it’s the guy who did the pool

Ben: Yeah. You Ask, They Answer. 

Corinne: Yes. Yeah, 

Ben: You Ask, They Answer. It is. It’s a brilliant book. Uh, and we’ll put that link in the show notes as well. 

Corinne: Yeah, and it’s just, it’s a good perspective to remember because I think that’s where people overthink it because they’re thinking too much about themselves. 

Ben: Yeah. And the premise of that book as well is basically answering everybody’s questions, even if it’s a, at say a, not a detriment to the sale, but they specialized.

Corinne: or it’s a bit uncomfortable.

yeah. The, the, the case study is that they specialized in a certain sort of pool as in swimming pool, so they became the leading authority on it in basically the state that they were in, and then became all of America. And it was. They’ve got millions of views on, on blogs and things like that. 

Corinne: And it’s, and it’s answering the questions like, why should I listen to a podcast, not the radio, you know, which, which feels a bit uncomfortable for people because it’s like, well, why would I wanna talk about the competition? Because that makes people think about the competition. And it’s like, well, but actually you’re gonna talk about it and show why you’re better.

Ben: Um, yeah. And position yourself, position your value 

Corinne: And not, and not everyone’s gonna buy from you. Um, either, and you don’t want them to, you know, if, if everyone who followed you all suddenly wanted to buy from you, you wouldn’t be able to deliver that. 

Ben: You know, people talk about vanity metrics and it’s often, it’s just not about the amount of views that you get on a post. It’s about the right person or the lurker, as you said. Um, if people wanna get involved with the Chiltern Biz Collective, tell us how they can do that.

Corinne: Um, follow me on Instagram is the best place. It’s where I hang out most, as they say. Um, or, um, go on the website. We have, um, netwalks pretty much at once a month. Um, hopefully in the summer we’ll do a couple of evening ones as well. Um, we’ve got, um, we also do like regular, I call them Biz and Brews, so they’re a bit more formal networking.

Come to a venue. We have a guest speaker. We’ve got one on the 6th of May. Um, is our next one. Um, and that’s, yeah, but like I say, there’s no elevator pictures. There’s no. Awkwardness. No, ick is, as I call it, 

Ben: No ick.

Corinne: Ickfree. Um, we try, um, and yeah. But just, yeah, connect with me on Instagram. Go on the website, um, where you’ll also find the directory of lots of amazing local businesses.

Ben: Brilliant. Many of which I hope to have on the podcast in the future. 

Corinne: Yes. I’ve got a whole list for you. 

Ben: Awesome. On that, thank you for taking the time to join us today on the podcast, and we’ll see you again soon. 

Corinne: Thank you very much for having me.

Ben: Thanks for watching this week’s episode of Berko and Beyond. If you’d like to be a guest on the show, then drop us an email podcast@berkoandbeyond.com, and don’t forget to like and subscribe wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts.

We’ll see you next week.