40: ADHD Social Media 'teaching': how to balance teaching and gatekeeping for your growth!

Transcript for ADHD and Social Media ‘Teaching’
00:00:00
Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk about the three different types of value that you can
bring to clients on social media. Hi. I'm Katie McManus. Business strategist and money mindset.
00:00:10
Coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast Squirrel. You know that classic what-if question. If there
was a time machine, what year would you go back to? I used to answer this thinking about, like,
what clothes I get to wear, you know, like what beautiful costumes and dresses, what I get to try
on, and then come back to the comfort of modern technology.
00:00:30
But in recent years, I've realized that if I went back in time, I'd be screwed. I wouldn't know how
to start a business back then. I wouldn't know how to make money, I wouldn't know how to help
other people start their businesses without the gift that is social media. I know social media gets
an awful rap because a lot of people struggle with it when it comes to their mental health, and a
lot of folks with ADHD struggle with it when it comes to their mental health. But it is this massive
gift.
00:01:00
If you are running a business and getting clients online, there is no other way in which you could
get in front of hundreds of thousands of human beings without paying a penny. Social media
allows you to do this. I think that a lot of new business owners are terrified of social media, not
just because they're freaked out and worried that they will actually succeed beyond their wildest
dreams. One of the things that my clients often complain to me about is how slowly they're
growing on social media. They'll come to me having 500 followers on LinkedIn and maybe 200
followers on Instagram, and they start posting things that are specific to their niche.
00:01:41
And slowly but steadily, as they're consistent, they see those numbers creep up and they see
engagement increasing on their posts, and they see comments from people who are their ideal
client, and they start getting bookings from people who are their ideal client. But still, the number
of followers is not as high as they want it to be. Their posts aren't going viral. And I want to
remind you that's a good thing. You don't want to go viral.
00:02:11
You want to create content that resonates with your ideal client and no one else. And if you want
to hear more about all the reasons why you don't want to go viral, then go and listen to episode
37, where I dive deeper into this. But imagine you post something that everyone likes. You get
hundreds of thousands of comments and likes and millions of views. Imagine the amount of
management that you have to do on the back end of that, and you don't even have to imagine it.
00:02:39
You can go and see the amount of work that these influencers have to do on all of their posts,
the amount of hate and trolls that they attract. Even now, you're already busy. You're already
running a business. You're trying to get clients. You are trying to keep your eye on the prize of
bringing in income.
00:02:57
Imagine all the extra work that goes along with having a viral post. Your goal should not be
going viral. Your goal should be creating content that speaks only to your ideal clients. Now, this
is where a lot of people also get freaked out, right? So you're freaked out about creating content
that fails.
00:03:16
You're freaked out about creating content that's too successful, that makes you too big, too fast.
And then you get all tripped up about, what kind of content should I share? And I know everyone
is out there saying that you need to share value. And what the f*ck does that mean? Are you
going to be Babs? Babs is this adorable grandma on LinkedIn and TikTok?
00:03:37
And she shares the most helpful house hacks. “Did your mom ever tell you the do's and don'ts
of loading the dishwasher? Here's two don'ts before you start loading. Great don't rinse. Not
only will you save water, but the detergent will have something to adhere to.
00:03:51
Don't put things in the dishwasher that don't belong there, like wood objects or your kitchen
knives. Time to load. All of your fragile items belong on the top shelf. Just nestle them between
the plum.” But she's not getting clients.
00:04:04
She's creating massive value. But that's not the kind of value you need to be creating. So today
I want to talk about the three different kinds of value that are going to resonate with your ideal
clients and how you ensure that the content in those categories actually does lead people to
work with you.
00:04:24
Now, one of the problems about giving away value is a lot of folks tend to give away too much. I
can't tell you how often when I'm doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, I see someone share
their ten steps to doing something and instead of commenting or liking it, I hit that save button. I
think, okay, I'm definitely going to come back to this and I'm going to do what they say and I
never do. And guess what? Because they've just given me so much information, they've given
me all the steps.
00:04:53
There's no mystery of how I'm going to do this thing. I don't go to their profile. I don't look up
how I can work with them. I don't go to their website and download the free PDF that they have
that actually gives those steps. Instead, I don't have to.
00:05:09
They just gave it all to me. So there's this beautiful balance that you want to have between
being in teacher mode, where you're sharing helpful information to your audience, and being in
gatekeeper mode, where you're leaving a little bit to mystery. A lot of my clients, when I tell them
not to be sharing everything that they know, when you first start out and you're sharing stuff
that's helpful, but not 100% helpful. It can feel really gross, right? Because you know that you're
not giving people everything that they need to be successful.
00:05:43
You know that you're giving them half of the recipe but not the instructions. And yes, this can be
super gross when it's done unethically. And let's talk about what that looks like when it's
unethical. You're training someone on something and you make it sound way more complicated
than it is. You tell them the first three steps when there's only four, and you make it sound as
though that fourth step is this incredibly hard, complicated thing that if they want to learn it, they
have to spend $500 on your course.
00:06:16
That's not ethical. We're not doing that here. What we are doing is we're showing them the
strategy of how they can achieve something so that they understand that it's possible for them.
And we're very cleanly pointing to if you want further help here, if you want action steps, if you
want someone to hold your hand or do it for you, get in touch. Book a call with me, download my
free PDF, sign up for my course, because in that asset, I will walk you through exactly what you
need to do.
00:06:48
Now, if you did give it all to them, what's going to happen ultimately is just what I described
when I doom scroll, is they're going to save your post. They're never going to look at it again.
And because they're never going to look at it again, they're never going to take action. So it
actually wasn't helpful. It scratched the itch of what they thought they needed to know, but didn't
inspire them to take further action.
00:07:10
I want to remind you that action begets action. So if someone sees your post and it's talking
about how they can be successful on Twitter, and then it's pointing them to, if you want to be
successful on Twitter, here's your top three tips. If you need more instruction, go and download
my templates for the best tweets you can write for your industry. Right, them just going from
reading that post to clicking the link to downloading the thing, to checking their email, to reading
your PDF, that already starts a chain reaction where they will continue to be in action. Hopefully
now you'll be able to stay in touch with them better because you have their email now, you can
prompt them, you can encourage them, you can remind them of how successful that they can
be on Twitter using Twitter.
00:08:00
I'm not really successful on Twitter at all. I don't know why I decided to do that. Maybe because I
need this consultant in my life. I need to see someone on Instagram or on TikTok who can tell
me about Twitter and how I can use it. If you're this person, please message me.
00:08:15
This is the Weeniecast where I just get consultants, where I get all the business people that I
need from my business anyway. Can you see how that's far more helpful to someone than you
just handing them a whole bunch of instructions that they never use? So balancing teaching
mode with gatekeeping mode, know that you're going to overshare sometimes and know that
you're going to undershare sometimes, and it's going to take time for you to practice. What
content do you want to share that has that right amount of mystery that'll get people to go to
your page to check you out, to download your thing and sign up for your stuff? Bypassing that
and just continuing to throw information at people over and over again is not going to be helpful
for your business or for them.
00:09:02
So when we think about giving value, teaching people about stuff that you do is the first thing
that we think about. The other thing that people worry about when they are told that they need
to go and give value and teach people in social media about what they do is, okay, well, that's
all well and good, but people pay me to teach them this stuff. Aren't the people who hire me
going to get mad when they see that I'm sharing everything that they're paying for, for free on
my social media? And yeah, some of them will get mad. That's why you want to gatekeep some
stuff.
00:09:35
You want to give people just enough information that they understand that high-level strategy
just enough to be dangerous. I took a coding course once upon a time in San Francisco before I
got into sales for the tech industry. I thought that learning how to code HTML and CSS was
going to be like the right way for me to break into tech because I'd understand coders. I was so
out of touch with the tech industry that I thought that salespeople actually know this stuff. They
don't.
00:10:02
So I signed up for this boot camp. It was awful. The people who ran it, they lied about who the
teachers were and their experience and yada, yada, yada. They basically hired all of their old
students because their students couldn't get jobs. And by the way, yes, of course, I led a revolt
and most of us got our money back anyway.
00:10:23
They hated me at the end. Anyway, in the course, the reason I bring this up is because in the
course, yes, they would teach us how to do stuff, but mostly they were teaching us how to
Google how to do stuff. They were teaching us what questions to ask. And I didn't realize before
that course, before that boot camp how valuable it is to just know the right question to ask to just
know who's the right person with the right qualifications to go to with this problem.
00:10:54
As you are creating content and providing value and teaching your audience about stuff that you
do. Just giving them enough so they understand what questions they need to ask to take
themselves further. That is super valuable to them. If they were going to do it on their own
anyway, they're still going to do it on their own. It doesn't matter what you share.
00:11:13
But often, if you've been helpful enough to them and gotten them to a certain level of success
and then they get stuck, guess who they're going to go back to? They're going to go back to you
because you got them there whether you knew it or not. I recently got this beautiful DM from this
woman in New Zealand, Laura Bradley, who just started a business. It's had this beautiful
launch and she messaged me, and I honestly thought she was trying to do a sales pitch, but
she told me that two and a half years ago or something, she kept seeing this tagline on
LinkedIn, and it was the thing that motivated her to actually start her business. And that tagline
was my tagline.
00:11:55
Stop being a weenie and start your business already. Now, I have never spoken to this person in
my life. She was not at all on my radar. And yet, me just sharing constantly so that she could
see my tagline over and over and over and over again, that created value for her, that motivated
her, and I'm so delighted that it did. This is the beauty of starting a business where you are
advertising on social media.
00:12:23
You really don't know the impact that you're going to have around the world, and literally around
the world. This woman is on the opposite side of the planet from me, and something I said
helped her on her journey. She doesn't ever have to be a client of mine. I would love her to be a
client of mine. I'm not saying that.
00:12:41
But she doesn't ever have to be a client of mine, and I'm so happy I got to help. This is the
beauty of social media. This is why when people say, oh, social media is bad for your mental
health, I actually really disagree. I think social media can be so healthy for you because it
provides this level of connection that we wouldn't have otherwise. We live in a global community,
and how special is that?
00:13:04
Think of how we get to empathize with people in different parts of the world in a way that we
would never be able to before. So teach. Yes. Give people enough, yes. But do not forget to
invite them in the door.
00:13:20
Don't forget to create a little mystery like your grandma probably told you. Like you don't want to
show all your skin. Who's going to buy the cow if you give the milk away for free? Right? It's the
same for your business people.
00:13:33
And to be clear, I'm not slut shaming anyone. Sleep with as many people as you want. I'm just
giving business advice here. My mom's going to hate that part. Okay, so that's one way that you
can give value another way that you can give value is literally just empathizing with your ideal
clients.
00:13:50
I just did it there. I don't know if you noticed it. I named a bunch of different ways that people
worry about posting the social media. They worry about their content. They worry about the
reaction, lack of and too much.
00:14:05
You showing that you understand your ideal clients. A builds an incredible amount of trust with
you because if you know their problems and their worries and their deepest, darkest fears that,
well, then people will start betting that you know how to solve everything for them without you
having to spell it out, without you having to prove it. The other side of empathizing with your
audience. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out.
00:14:33
But first squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
00:14:41
If the other side of empathizing with your audience is it normalizes everything that they're
worried about everyone and their mother is worried that their problems are so unique that no
one else has experienced their fear before. And the worst part of feeling like you're all alone with
your problems is like, okay, well, there's no one who can help me, then it's isolating. I was
recently talking to a friend who was describing assuming that they're always the bad person,
and I had never heard someone else admit that before. And it was so freeing for me because I
have gone through this lifelong journey of trying to realize that I'm not actually the bad person.
And I'm revealing a little bit here, but I think you're safe to share this with.
00:15:29
I've struggled with being a co-dependent throughout my life, and I think this is kind of related to
ADHD. I find a lot of my friends and clients and people in my world who have ADHD also
struggle with co-dependency, because co-dependency is when you prioritize other people's
comfort and happiness over your own. Doesn't that sound a hell of a lot like mirroring? As
someone with ADHD or who's neurodivergent, we're constantly masking and mirroring to make
other people comfortable so that they don't realize that we're different. So here's this friend
admitting to me something that I've been terrified to ever admit to anyone else, that I always
assume that I'm the bad person in situations, and I didn't realize that we were allowed to admit
that about ourselves, and it was so freeing.
00:16:14
And this is recently this is like literally in the last month or so that a friend admitted this to me.
And I remember going to my therapist and saying, oh, my God, did you realize that not
everyone thinks that they're the bad person in every situation? And her response was
something along the lines of, yeah, Katie, that's what we've been working on for the last two
years. I wanted to think about this in terms of marketing. If someone on my Instagram feed or on
my TikTok feed admitted that about themselves or at least normalized that a lot of people feel
that way.
00:16:49
And I thought how relieved I would feel that I was not the only one. Now you can offer that relief
to your audience and your people as well. You can just name what are the things that they're
frustrated with, what are the things that they're afraid of, what are the beliefs that they have
about themselves that are keeping them from getting what they want, that's value? No one
wants to go to the doctor to get a mole checked out and have the Doctor freak out as if it's the
biggest, scariest mole they've ever seen in their life. No.
00:17:21
You want to go in and say, hey Doc, I have this mole, I'm concerned, it could be problematic,
can we look at it? And you want the Doctor to look at and go, oh, could be something, might not
be something, we don't know, but let's do a little biopsy and we can cross that bridge when we
have more information. But I don't think it's going to be anything, right? You want them to be a
little blase about it. If they're too freaked out, you're going to get freaked out and that's a long
wait for test results.
00:17:53
What do they say about being on a plane? Like, you don't have to worry if the stewardesses are
still smiling, but as soon as they stop smiling, get worried, buckle up. Your clients are out there,
they're living their lives and they're all in their own heads. And imagine the bond that you'll
create with them if you just call out what they're thinking already and make it normal. Because if
you're able to name it, it means that they're not alone.
00:18:20
It means that they're not this freak with these unique problems that have no solution to them.
You're out there and you obviously work with a bunch of other weirdos like them who have the
same problems. It's like you're the mole doctor. You look at all the moles. This ain't your first
mole and it's not your millionth, it's your gazillionth.
00:18:38
And you're a pro, right? You want your client seeing you in that light. Maybe not that light. The
Mole Doctor doesn't sound sexy at all. But you can find a more alluring way to frame yourself
up, I'm sure I'll leave that to you.
00:18:53
Now, lastly, as we're talking about value, remember, you're valuable. Your story is valuable,
even if it's boring as fuck. I recently did this survey with a bunch of new business owners and a
question that kept popping up is how do I tell a compelling story about myself and my business
that will make people be interested in me and my business? And this question comes from
people who have lived a fairly benign life, right? And good for them.
00:19:21
I don't want them to have anything too exciting like that's, usually that something bad happened,
right? But if you've lived a normal life, an insignificant life up until now, there's not a whole lot
that you can make a story about. Or so you think. If you're just an average Jill and you go about
your days and all of a sudden you just realize, this isn't what I want my life to be, and you decide
to make a change.
00:19:44
And then there's a sequence of events from there that leads to you living a way better life than
you had before. That gives hope to the person who's reading that story, who's also an average
Jill, who is living a fairly average life and just wants to change. Now, if you're listening to this
podcast, I will bet you $5 that somewhere in your house you have a self-help book. You have
something that's personal development, I guarantee you. Now, I challenge you.
00:20:14
After you listen to this podcast, I want you to go and pick one up off the shelf. I know you have
more than one, and I want you to read the introduction or the first chapter. 95% of the time. The
first chapter of the introduction are about the author fucking up their life royally. You might think
that that's where they build all their credentials and they tell you how impressive they are and
how smart they are and wow, look at me and everything I've accomplished.
00:20:42
That comes later. They need to show you that they started off worse than where you are now to
give you hope so that by the time you get to the point where they're trying to convince you that
you can do anything, you actually believe them because they're far more credible in your eyes
because they came from a worse situation than you did. And remember, worse is relative. The
beautiful thing about being a business owner with ADHD is you've had a gazillion different
interests throughout your life. You have gotten hyper-focused and so obsessed with random
topics, and then you've moved on.
00:21:18
I'm sure you've changed your career a couple times, and you've probably changed who you are
a couple times. Every single time you've changed something. That is a story in itself. That's
something that your ideal clients can relate to. It's not something to hide.
00:21:33
One of my biggest fears when I was younger, when I was working for other people, is how do I
present how many jobs I've had so that I wouldn't look like I was a career jumper? I didn't stay in
a job for more than a year and a half, and a year and a half was a really long time for me to stay
in a job. I would get into a job, and here's the thing about sales, you're constantly talking about
the thing you're selling, obviously, right?
00:21:57
That is the conversation you're literally paid to have over and over and over and over again.
Well, it was interesting for the first seven months. By the 8th month, I don't want to talk about
that thing anymore. By the 9th month, I'm talking about other stuff. By the 10th month, I'm on a
pip because I haven't sold anything in two months.
00:22:15
And then by the 12th month, I'm breaking records again because I'm so excited that this is my
last month in this job and I'm moving on to something else. It's more exciting. You have these
stories, and I don't want you hiding them. Because in each stage of your life, everything that
you've gone through, every hyper-focus you've had, every job that you've had, every success
and failure, you've picked up skills that make you better at what you do today. The world we live
in has told you over and over and over again that not sticking with things is a failure on your
part.
00:22:43
And I don't think so. Someone on LinkedIn today shared about, when you're looking for a job,
you really have to look at what your transferable skills are. And I got to thinking about what was
the thing that I did that helped me the most in growing my business. Now, of course, learning
how to sell and learning how to market obviously is super helpful. But the thing that I find has
been most impactful in the day-to-day running of my business is the teaching skills that I learned
when I taught knitting.
00:23:10
I used to be a knitting teacher in San Francisco. If you didn't know that, now you do. And the
funny thing about teaching knitting, I mean, you're literally taking string and two sticks and
making fabric, right? It's complicated. It requires some dexterity in your hands.
00:23:24
And when you're learning, people learn in different ways. Some people learn by it being
explained to them. Some people learn by it being shown to them, literally. There would be some
students who I'd have to bear hug from behind and hold their hands and guide their hands.
Some students needed metaphors.
00:23:42
They needed to be able to visualize stuff and have little rhymes. Teaching that stuff every week
made me so much better at teaching my clients how they can run their businesses. I mean,
that's a really boring story right there, right? I just told you I taught knitting. Knitting is so boring.
00:23:58
But it positions me now as someone who is really good at teaching. If I can make knitting
relevant to my business and useful for marketing, you can make anything boring about your life
interesting to your clients, I promise you.
00:24:16
Funny quick story. So I'm going to be in Edinburgh for a few days of my trip, and this guy had
reached out to me a little while ago, and he's just south of there, but it's still in Scotland, and his
name is Gary Katie McManus. And so I reached out to him and I was like, hey, Gary, I'm going
to be in Edinburgh for a couple of nights in August. Would love to meet up with you and anyone
else who is named Katie McManus. And so I think we're organizing a Katie McManus meetup.
00:24:42
Squirrel, squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.
© 2022 - 2023 Katie McManus – Business Strategy For Weenie ADHD-preneurs