Transcript:

Michelle Grasek: Hello, hello, Kali, how are you? I’m doing so well, how are you? I am well, thank you for joining me again.

You have been on the podcast two times before, episodes 77 and 46, so welcome back. And before we get into it, do you mind introducing yourself for the audience?

Kali Edwards: Sure, I’m Kali Edwards and I own June Mango Design. We do branding and web design and we do, I always say it’s sort of for the healers and the helpers, so plenty of acupuncturists. And then my sort of specialty is building a website in a week, so I have a process called Go Live in 5 where we very quickly, yes, kind of rip the band-aid off because that is always the hardest part of any branding process.

It comes at the end, it’s a lot of technical details, so we just knock that out and then people can kind of launch and it’s much more exciting.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah, and then it’s done. I think maybe the hardest part about DIYing your website is that it is never truly done and then there’s parts where you think to yourself, I will definitely come back and update that, I have done this, and then a year later I’m like, oh my god, this page still says this, oops.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, and I literally say to my clients that a website is a living, breathing thing because I do think that many people think you launch it and it’s done and you like kind of dust your hands off and you move on, but it is in some ways, you know, you get the bulk of it up, but it is something that you actually do want to come back to because you want to refresh things, you want to update things, maybe you want to add to your blog, just, you know, just making sure that it actually continues to grow as you grow and shift in your business, you know?

Michelle Grasek: Yeah, because Google really likes when we make updates on our website, doesn’t it? When we add pages, which includes blog posts.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, so if you have a more static website, you’re less likely to get ranked. Blog posts are great because that’s an obvious way to just continue to add and make changes and have more content, which is then going to be crawled by Google, so people will be like, you know, is a blog still important these days? And I’m like, well, probably no one’s going to come and read your whole blog in the way we used to in like, you know, the early 2000s, but Google is going to read your whole blog, so that’s why it matters.

Yeah. Yes.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah. I guess that’s funny. I haven’t really thought about the concept of binging a blog in a long time.

Yeah, right. But it used to be a thing.

Kali Edwards: Oh, yeah, for sure. I feel like that was, that was like a little pre-social media, don’t you think? It was sort of like when Instagram was just for your friends and had cool filters, but you would like sit there and scroll the blogs.

Yes.

Michelle Grasek: We had connected recently about this concept of what is working in clinic marketing right now. And as you said, you work with the helpers and the healers and have built many, many websites for all different kinds of wellness people, acupuncturists, chiropractors, etc. I am so curious if you have seen any patterns or trends in what is actually bringing people patience.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, I feel like SEO really is one of the biggest movers of the needle for people in terms of on my side of everything.

Michelle Grasek: Right.

Kali Edwards: So again, branding and the website and sort of like the digital marketing part versus there’s always room. And maybe even more so now there’s this sort of like analog movement that’s happening where people are really trying to get away from sort of digital anything. Interesting.

It’s like a rebellion against AI basically. So I’m not going to speak to like how well this is working, but I do love this idea that people are kind of going back into print marketing, leave behind flyers, networking, not in like a sleazy way, but just in a getting out there and kind of chatting with people sort of way. But what I’m really seeing is still SEO.

And then now we have to think about the AI version of it and what that looks like. And it’s still the same strategy. It just is a little bit different key phrases basically that you might use on your website.

So what would be the difference in those key phrases? Yes. So let’s see.

So like a regular key phrase might be, let’s say you were a coach, you might be like high performance coach, something like that. But an AI one might be find a reputable high performance coach for executives. So it’s sort of like the thing that you would put into the chat GPT, the prompt, if you will.

Right. Or top rated high performance coaching programs. They’re a little longer.

They’re a little more just again, like it’s sort of what you would think is, this is what I’m typing into whatever AI program that I’m using. And that’s the same thing again. So like strategy wise, that’s the exact same thing that really you should be doing for SEO pre AI.

What is my customer looking for? What are they typing into Google? Maybe they’re typing for, you know, back pain relief or something like that.

And then we’re just making it more robust. Does that make sense? So it’s sort of like the same idea.

It’s just thinking more about where the people are searching for it, and maybe what they’re sort of searching for in a slightly different way.

Michelle Grasek: Gotcha. Yeah, I do think even pre AI keywords were trending towards more complex long tail keywords, right? Instead of just acupuncturist near me getting so specific, best fertility acupuncturist in blah, blah region, or maybe with some specialty or subset, like some little caveat added to the search.

And so I’m really curious, when we think of these long tail keywords, if people are even calling it that anymore, now that AI is involved, if we come up with one that really fits our target market, and we feel confident, okay, I’m pretty sure my people are searching for this or some variation, where should we put that on our website? Is that a homepage thing? Is that a title of a blog post?

Or should it be a page by itself?

Kali Edwards: I feel like I mean, it sort of depends. I feel like the easiest place to put it is in a blog. And the reason for that is because you’re going to want to put it in a couple of times, right?

So it’s, there’s always a balance there where you’re not, you don’t want to put it like 17 times, because then it looks like you’re writing for the Google crawl search engine, and you just feel like a robot wrote it. However, you want to put it a handful of times. So it’s easier to do that in a blog than on your homepage.

Because again, if you’re, if you’re writing something that’s like, so, you know, back pain relief is a really good example, right? Like, I’m probably not writing back pain relief a couple of times on my homepage, it just doesn’t make sense. Because the purpose of a homepage has a different purpose.

It has, you know, needs to tell who I am, what I do, who I work with, that sort of thing. So while you may say, I help treat lower back pain, something like that, you’re probably not gonna say in three, four or five times. So again, maybe on the services page, that’s a better place for something like that.

I do think that there is value in having a blog. And it doesn’t have to be called a blog, by the way. I do think people are like blog, feel sort of like old fashioned, even at this point or something.

But you could call it articles, you could call it updates, you could call it whatever you want to call it, you can reframe what it is. But ultimately, what you’re doing is putting out content on your website. That’s all that really is, right?

So that could be anything. If you were a photographer, it could be a ton of photos from your most recent wedding or something, right? There’s no right or wrong.

The point is that you’re getting in there and you’re putting out some content into the world. And then I think it’s easy to focus on a really, like you said, long tail keyword. And the reason it’s long tail is because it’s much more specific.

And then that specificity can work well with a blog.

Michelle Grasek: That makes sense. Because I’m thinking about how I might structure a blog post for something like, I don’t know if the title was, how many treatments do I need for back pain relief at Seneca Falls acupuncture. And then I could certainly think of ways to sort of rearrange that sentence two or three times in the body text, or at least use most of those words in combination so that we can kind of grab Google and at AI’s attention.

And I find it to be a relief that there’s been multiple people that I’ve talked about, about how to get AI to show your clinic website. And everyone keeps repeating that at the core of it is just good basic SEO practices. Knowing your target market, speaking to that person, using the phrases that they’re searching for.

And again, I think it’s a relief because it’s not some fancy new thing that we have to implement right away so we don’t get forgotten in the AI movement. It’s more about going back to the basics and just making sure that they’re implemented well on your website and maybe asking for help with basic SEO before trying to get more complex and really worry about how can I hack the AI algorithm. Like you have to have the foundations in place before you can even think about trying to hack something or pretending that it’s possible.

Kali Edwards: Totally. And I think so one of the services that I offer for my clients who want like a more robust SEO strategy going into the website build is we basically kind of run whatever their ideas are. So again, if they’re just, maybe they do have something that’s like acupuncturist near me, which is like pretty basic, but we maybe would think through.

There’s two things, you kind of want to like be in the middle of something. So on the one hand, people need to be searching for the thing that you’re looking for, right? So if no one is searching for it, well, that’s pointless.

That’s not going to matter. So people need to be searching for it. And there shouldn’t be so many pages already for that particular search term that there’s no way you’re going to break through.

If there’s hundreds and hundreds of pages for this, then it’s like, again, what is the point of that? Like you’re never going to break through that because people are already there and you’d be like, it’s like climbing a ladder just would take too long. So you want to find that sweet spot where enough people are searching for it, but there aren’t so, so many pages where like you do have kind of a fighting chance.

That’s sort of step one is figuring out, okay, well, what is that? And then maybe it’s just tweaking it a little bit. So maybe it’s saying instead of back pain, it’s lower back relief.

It could be the exact same idea with slightly different words. And there’s, you know, there’s tools out there. You can just like give it a Google and see what there’s some that are free, or maybe you pay for it for like a month or whatever it is like you can kind of run these, these search terms and then they will spit back out at you like what the volume is and how many pages there are so that you can get that data and be like really intentional then with the small amount of terms that you’re using.

That way you don’t feel like, oh my God, I have so many terms, or I just need to like throw spaghetti at the wall and I just need to write 50 blog posts and hope one of them sticks. You can sort of use your time more wisely and be more intentional about it by doing it that way.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah. And I think in my understanding, Google tends to like it when you have clusters of topics. If you specialize in maybe pain management and digestion, and then those are the primary topics of your blog posts.

And then all of your pain management blogs are linked together and also linked to your pain management conditions page. And then the same thing for the digestive pages, they’re linked together and then they’re linked to the conditions page. It really helps Google solidify what your business is about instead of like you said, throwing spaghetti at the wall and being like, I’m going to write one blog post about any topic.

I just think Google’s going to have a harder time unifying that. Although maybe I’m wrong, maybe Google will say this person’s a generalist.

Kali Edwards: Yeah. Right. Well, you know, the other thing that I say, and I maybe in my particular industry, I feel like maybe I’m, this isn’t the most popular opinion, but my opinion is that really, you should just be writing good quality stuff and not stress out so much about figuring out what the heck Google is doing today.

Same with Instagram and figuring out what the algorithms are doing. Like I just, it’s just a lot. And we could spend a lot of time being exactly on top of the next thing that we’re supposed to be doing.

That’s going to magically make us go viral or, and maybe and, but probably, or write the thing that you think your customer really needs to read, right? The thing that they are going to be searching for at 2am because they are in pain or they are stressed or their husband’s keeping them up because he’s snoring or whatever. You know what I mean?

It’s, it’s, it’s like adding value is always going to be more important because eventually that will, and it may take time because SEO does take time no matter what, even if you’re doing it perfectly. But especially then too, people are going to be like, oh my gosh, like this person really knows what they’re talking about. I really feel like they’re talking to me, which makes you already like create this level of trust, which is huge.

And then that is really going to get more people in the door ultimately.

Michelle Grasek: I love that prompt. What is my ideal patient laying awake thinking about at 2am? Because that’s something that is powerfully motivating.

I’m awake at 2am, whatever this thing is, is really annoying me and I would like to get it fixed. That’s something that I am going to take an action on compared to maybe other things that are less irritating. And I think the, the trouble with blog writing that I see a lot is we love to write blogs about things in a way that our potential patients are not searching for.

And so let me give an example. The number one thing I’ll see is seasonal blog posts about East Asian medicine and things like the liver in springtime. From our perspective, yeah, spring is coming, regulating the liver, it’s important.

Here’s food you can eat and here’s qigong you can do and all these different things. But our patients didn’t ask for any of that, especially from the angle of the liver in the spring. So starting from their actual symptoms, and the thing that they’re worried about at 2am is I am congested with these allergies, because it’s springtime and I cannot breathe.

And what am I going to do about it? So I would never tell people, oh, you can’t talk about the liver in spring, but you need to position it from a place where your patient can actually enter that discussion like where they have an interest. And then when you get them, you’re like, are you laying in bed thinking about your allergies and your stuffed up face at 2am?

And they’re like, yeah, save me. Then you have the opportunity to explain. Okay, according to traditional Chinese medicine, here’s why that might be happening.

And here’s how we can help with herbs and acupuncture. But it’s really challenging for patients who know nothing about our specialty to suddenly be interested in this random thing on our blog that may or may not feel like it is relevant to their life. Definitely coming at it from the patient perspective makes a huge difference.

I think also for Google, it’s not just the humans, but also to help Google understand, okay, what is the emphasis of this blog post? The thing that I am treating is allergies. And so when people are Googling that, bring them here, because they’re less likely to be Googling the liver in springtime, unless they’re an acupuncturist.

Kali Edwards: Exactly. Well, and that’s what I was going to say is, again, that’s like knowing your audience. Are you writing for other acupuncturists?

Because maybe you are. And if that’s the case, then getting into the more technical jargon makes perfect sense. But for the most part, you’re probably not.

And you’re writing to get the people in the door into the clinic. So again, it’s the more layman’s terms. And I think it is a good idea to think through, well, what are their pain points?

When someone comes to see me, what are the questions that they’re asking me? That’s another one that you can start with. What are the questions that come in asking me that I get all the time?

That can be something that you can be like, oh, let me answer these questions on my blog, something like that.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of, well, I guess this is a little bit separate, but thinking about how your Google business profile and your website connect to each other and reflect each other. And I was talking to someone else about this recently.

If you’ve got a couple of keywords that you’ve decided to feature on your website, making sure that those are also mentioned on your Google business profile, do you feel like that matters to Google? I think Google loves itself. So yes.

Kali Edwards: That’s really funny. I mean, it just it’s like it wants you to use all those things all the time. So I think yes, it wants you to be featuring like it wants you to be clear in that so that then it’ll be able to feature you in that way too.

And you know, obviously, like Google has its own AI now. So like, that’s a whole additional thing. So and again, I feel like what we’re really saying is like it, it all sort of makes sense.

If you think about it, it’s really not that complicated. It’s sort of like, yeah, did I, did I use the keywords, but are the keywords, the things that make sense again, would they make sense to somebody who’s looking me up that may find me on like Google Maps, right there that I want them to know? Yes, I definitely do treat allergies, whatever that is.

And some of that is a little bit of like, even like goes all the way back to branding and brand strategy and sort of what do you want to be known for? I worked with an acupuncturist who does all everything is like skin related facials and things like that. That’s very specific, right?

So she doesn’t do fertility. I mean, she could, but that’s not really what she wants to be known for. So it wouldn’t make any sense for her to even like begin mentioning that so she’s very targeted in what she’s offering in the first place.

So that’s going to then lead into everything else moving forward. She’s going to be writing about that, of course, she’s going to know what that is. These are the five things that I am specifically amazing at and that I want people to come in for.

And then that’s like her niche. And then everything flows from there.

Michelle Grasek: I really like thinking about that, those concepts as part of your brand, because I think when we start thinking about brand or branding, we’re thinking about logos and color. And we’re not really putting it together necessarily into this bigger picture of like you said, what do I want to be known for? So there’s the visual piece of branding, which I think people are pretty well acquainted with.

But having that other piece is very important, because it kind of steers the ship, as you’re saying. And without it, things can get pretty watered down.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, and even I’m a designer. So of course, I love the logo and the colors and all the things. But I always tell people whenever they come to work with me for the branding process, we’re actually going to start at who your ideal customer is, again, like, who is this patient who is this person, because we need to figure out what it is that they are looking for.

And then how do we represent that in your logo in your colors. So again, with with the woman who did like facials and everything, that was a very specific brand, right? It was just, it was so unique to what she did.

And that had to match in the tone, both in what she was writing, but in the visuals and everything else. So it does actually start before you get to the super fun stuff, which is, you know, people are so excited to do their logo, because it’s so fun. It is so fun.

And you can throw a logo together that’s beautiful. And a lot of people do that. But is it strategic?

Does it actually make sense for your business, for your brand, for your goals, what you’re actually doing? Hmm.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah. And I think that’s a really hard concept. And maybe that’s a place where us DIYers start to really need help is, yes, it’s, it’s fun to DIY a logo.

But how do I know if it is a good fit for my ideal audience? What are the different pieces representing? And how do they fit together?

And does it draw in this person? I think that’s pretty challenging without a design background.

Kali Edwards: It can be and I’m very much here for the DIY when you’re getting started and you’re bootstrapping. I know that hiring a designer can be an expense that not everybody has budgeted in. But I do think what I again, I’m a little biased, obviously, but I do think that it kind of comes back and it does.

It gives you a big ROI, actually, you know, like the return on your investment is actually bigger than you would expect. Because again, you have all this intention in there, it makes you look really professional people, which then makes people trust you. It makes you look like you’ve been doing this, you know what you’re doing.

So even though the easier thing to do is DIY the logo based on the things that you like and the colors that you like, even if you yourself are DIYing it, but you can at least be more intentional and thoughtful and go through that process of Okay, who is this client? What might they be attracted to? What does what do they like to do in their free time?

Why are they here? What would make them trust this brand versus or come to this brand in this business versus someone else, all of these questions, if you can kind of think through them before you dive into the visual part of it, it’s, it’s just gonna guide you a little bit more.

Michelle Grasek: And I think there’s something to be said, because I’ve been teaching marketing, I think for 12 years now, something to be said for feeling confident about not just your logo, I think that’s probably the biggest piece that people get the most excited about and that they also think about when they think of branding, but how it all fits together. I’ve seen so many people who don’t want to do marketing, they don’t want to get visible in their community because they feel slightly uncomfortable with their current brand. And whether it’s conscious or not, they are just they’re reluctant to share their their business and be visible in a bigger way because it feels misaligned to them.

So I always tell people, and I totally made up these numbers, so you could correct me as the professional. But I think it’s helpful to think like your branding is maybe 80% for your ideal patient to attract them and built around what might interest them. And then 20% should still be for you, like, you’ve got to like it, you’ve got to feel good about it, you’ve got to feel like it represents both you and your business, and is a good fit for your patients.

Because if you totally leave out that 20%, then you’re gonna feel like, and I have totally been there, I had, I think I had like, so, oh my gosh, so many floral business cards before I finally went with my branding and made a decision. But I was just using templates on Vistaprint, which was fine. But then I would feel really awkward handing a very fussy floral business card with a script to a big dude who wanted to come in for sports medicine.

And do they care? No, they have a referral, especially they just want someone to make them feel better. I don’t think that it mattered that much to them, but it mattered very much to me.

And people can sense the hesitation to give them a business card. And you just don’t want that. It’s not the way that you expand your business, right?

It’s that’s a contracting feeling.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, and first of all, I think I would agree with those numbers. I mean, I probably would have made them up too. But I feel like I would be like somewhere in that zone of 80 and 20.

Because it does matter. But this, you know, it’s just thinking it’s almost a little bit like putting on an outfit. There are different outfits for different things that we do in our lives, right?

So if you are going into like a business meeting, for example, you’re probably not wearing like your yoga clothes. Maybe you are I mean, you know, we should be able to wear what we want. But you should feel like you’re going into the thing feeling really confident.

So that is kind of what your brand is for you. I am building this business and I’m now sharing this business and I feel really confident in the outfit that my business is wearing in some sense. That’s sort of what that is.

And I feel like what you were saying is, I like it, but it’s sort of like wearing a dress to to something where like you then you feel a little overdressed. And you’re like, I don’t know that this was like exactly the choice that I want to like and in some ways it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t you like maybe in this metaphor, you’re not somebody who does wear dresses all the time, right?

Like, do you know what I mean? So yeah, there’s a way in which like, that’s the part where it’s for you, but it’s for you in the sense that you feel grounded in it. You feel like this matches who I am, because ultimately, this is your business that is always going to come through with all of the businesses that I work with.

It’s always sort of like the person who’s running the business is the life of the business. So they’re kind of driving that personal representation, right? So and that’s ultimately what your brand is.

Michelle Grasek:

Yeah, I like the clothing metaphor. It makes me think of wearing a sparkly dress on a hike where I’m like, I love this dress. Why did I choose to wear it here?

Kali Edwards: Yes, exactly. There’s different there’s you may love flowers, right? But it maybe didn’t make sense in this scenario.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah. Well, is there anything else that you would share with the audience? Any other tips?

Anything else that you’ve noticed is working well?

Kali Edwards: This is not digital, but it is just showing up and doing good work. And I know that that sounds really obvious. But I really do think I find this fascinating, just in general as like a cultural movement.

But as I sort of mentioned in the beginning, when we started talking, there’s this very fascinating movement towards people moving away from anything digital. So moving away from social media, moving away from even just like being on their screens, I think it’s like a rebellion against AI in some ways. And so there’s this major like analog trend and all these different ways people, I think people miss coming together.

There’s probably some COVID backlash, you know, like there’s, it’s all just like an interesting cultural moment. And what I think is so interesting about that is that there was marketing before digital marketing. And sometimes we forget, you know what I mean?

People have been marketing for a long time. And since there were things to sell, things to sell, like someone chiseled the sign outside the place and you went to the place. I do like to mention it and like remind people and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, just because I think it’s so interesting, but there and there’s like bridges to can we come together in some online community way that it’s digital, but there’s a presence in which now we’re sort of networking in this way that feels really authentic and really great and wouldn’t be possible.

If we didn’t have this digital platform that we can all be together, even though across the country or something. Or are there places we can go where we are just meeting new people, and we’re talking about our business and how much we love what we do. And there’s other ways.

And I say that, one, because I do think people forget to because I do think it’s actually having its moment right now. And so in some ways, that’s trending and what’s trending does kind of affect like how, how much people are gonna how useful it is. And then also, because I think sometimes people start to get overwhelmed with how much they feel like they need to do or keeping up with the algorithms, like we were saying, or oh, my God, now I have to worry about AI and changing my long tail keywords or whatever it is.

And I just like to remind people that yes, you can do those things. And they’re helpful. And you can take a breath and be a person in the world.

And go and chat with your neighbor and talk about how much you love your job. And you know how you had this patient the other day and blah, blah. And then your neighbor remembers, oh, yeah, she’s amazing at this.

Like I have my cousin who lives 20 minutes from here, maybe could use her services. There are ways in which we forget that we can just be people in the world and still kind of promote our business.

Michelle Grasek: Yes. Oh, I love that. I was speaking to someone recently about pre digital marketing, it seems to be a theme.

And we were talking about location, just being in the right place at the right time. And connecting with people was an original type of marketing. Oh, it was an acupuncturist who had moved her practice into like an inner city area.

And she was worried that the lack of parking, or only having paid parking would really impact her patient numbers. But the opposite happened because her practice is in such a walkable, visible street, that she’s getting people just coming off the street, asking her questions and making appointments. And we were talking about remember when that is all marketing was, you were in a good location, and you had a big sign.

That was it.

Kali Edwards: Exactly, exactly. And not to really not to diminish the other things, because I do think that it just all works together. It’s just that I don’t, yes, I think it can feel a little overwhelming.

And I think, in fact, I think that’s why people are having this, really interesting little cultural rebellion against it. It’s like all those, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but all these older crafts are coming back, you know, people are like crocheting and doing all these things. I think it’s just people are like, you know what, I think I’m gonna put my phone down.

And that’s not the worst. Yeah, you know, sometimes.

Michelle Grasek: I also think there is a lot of strength recently in sharing with your audience that you are not going to do, like if you’re very committed to not using AI to create images or video, you can tell your Instagram people that, and just reassure them that’s not who we are, we’re not into it. And it gets such a positive feedback, because even though everyone is using AI, even in a Google search, it’s popping up at the top of a Google search now, there are still so many people who just want confirmation of authenticity. 

and then to feel like, I can relate to you because you get that I don’t want to see anything that was AI generated, I just want to see you and what is real life. So I think that is having a big movement as well and it’s also really nice. I love AI, I love talking to it. I think it’s fascinating and sometimes funny. But also feel like it will probably ultimately be really healthy for us all to take a step back, maybe before it gets to the point where taking a step back feels really difficult.

Kali Edwards: It’s becoming so integrated yeah. And I think and that’s sort of partly why I say – it will continue to integrate into everything that we’re already doing and so it’s just helpful to remember that even though that’s true, you still have a choice. You don’t have to be blown with the shifting winds of whatever technology is doing. You get to decide. It’s your business. You get to decide how you want to run it, how you want to market it, who you want to work with. You don’t have to be stressed. If it’s stressful. If you feel excited about it, you’re like I love this, I want to see if this works and let me just see if I can get some new people walking in the door because I figured out how to do this SEO that’s now working with ChatGPT. That’s great. If you’re hearing this and you’re like, “Good lord, I feel like I can’t do it,” that’s who I’m saying this for.

Michelle Grasek: Then don’t worry about it, yeah. I think that’s a nice measure. If anything in your life feels energizing, pursue it. If anything feels heavy on top of many other heavy things, then probably time for a break.

Kali Edwards: Yeah, time for a break. And then I think the only other thing I would say is sort of similar to the website where less is more. I always say less is more on a website. Mostly it should feel clear and easy to understand, point people where you want them to go. It’s a bit of a workhorse and sometimes I think people think it needs to be very flashy or trendy. It doesn’t have to be this super fantastical special magical thing. It just needs to tell people who you are, what you do, how to hire you and who you work with. As long as you’re doing that, especially if people are coming who found you through a search and they don’t know anything about you, that’s going to be the most important thing anyway.

Michelle Grasek: Yeah, simplify. We love that. I’m sure I asked you this in your previous episodes, but I am curious because maybe it has changed. What is your definition of success?

Kali Edwards: I think it is pretty much the same, which is that I feel like I have a lot of autonomy and a lot of freedom to work when I need to work. I have two young kiddos still who are growing but they’re still relatively young so my ability to be with them as needed and be flexible has always been my biggest driver of how I work. So the fact that I’m able to do that and also do what I really like – like you said, doing something that energizes you. I don’t feel like I’m dragging my feet to build this website for someone. That for me means that I’m really I’m doing some successful stuff.

Michelle Grasek: I love that. How can everyone find you? How can they work with you or reach out to you?

Kali Edwards: Sure, so junemango.com is my website. Because it doesn’t energize me very much, I’m not on social media that much. But you can find me @junemango design on Instagram. That’s pretty much it because again, I’m just I’m over here hanging out with my kiddos and apparently I’m really enjoying the analog life. So if you see me in real life, let’s be social.

Michelle Grasek: That’s awesome. What state are you in?

Kali Edwards: I’m in D.C. so technically no state but yeah I’m in D.C.

Michelle Grasek: But in case anybody sees you there…

Kali Edwards: Yeah, in case anyone sees me, say hi and I’ll be social with you offline.

Michelle Grasek: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Kali Edwards: Thank you, Michelle. It was a joy.