IAM2010 – Sales and Marketing Professional Helps People Leverage LinkedIn

In this episode, we have Jessica Koch, CEO of Jessica L. Koch Consulting. Jessica has over 25 years of experience as a sales and marketing professional, and she has worked with various Fortune 500 companies, government accounts, hospitals, and universities. Read on to discover her journey, her unique strategies, and her advice for entrepreneurs looking to make an impact in their industries.

During her hiatus, Jessica volunteered to teach a class for her local chamber of commerce. Although she was initially hesitant to step back into the business world, that experience reignited her passion for sales and marketing.

She discovered immense joy in sharing her knowledge, and the positive response from the audience sparked a new direction for her career. Jessica started receiving requests to consult and work with other companies, which eventually led her to found Jessica L. Koch Consulting.

Conclusion:
Jessica's journey from corporate burnout to entrepreneurial success showcases the power of following your passion and embracing opportunities that come your way.

Her unique approach, focused on reciprocity and cause marketing, has helped her create a lasting impact in her community and attract clients.

By sharing her knowledge and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Jessica has been able to make a global difference and build a legacy for future generations.

Previous Episode: sales-marketing-professional-helps-people-leverage-linkedin

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Transcription:

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Jessica Koch Teaser 00:00

I've done many of those types of free trainings, free speaking events. And I think that has opened the door. So one of the unique things I teach is reciprocity and what I call cause marketing. And I encourage every client that I work with based on their level of comfort and what organization or cause is important to them.

Intro 00:19

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:47

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jessica Koch of Jessica L. Koch Consulting. Jessica, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Jessica Koch 00:57

Hi, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 01:00

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit about all the awesome things that Jessica has been able to accomplish and been able to do so you can get a little idea of all the great things that she's been able to do.

Jessica Koch has been named a National sales and marketing professional for more than 25 years. She has spent the last 10 years working with a consulting company, expanding the company's industry to include national government accounts, Fortune 500 companies, National Power Utilities, Hospitals, and Universities and Colleges.

Prior to working with a consulting company, she worked with a marketing firm where she interviewed, hired, and trained a sales team for Fortune 1000 business-to-business promotions, including Washington Gas Energy Services, Verizon, and Disney.

She oversaw and assigned territories, and her team was consistently the top sales producer of the company. She has traveled and lived in numerous states throughout the country, as she is the daughter of a retired Navy service member.

Her family is active in our local church and they enjoy hiking, camping, canoeing, time at the beach, exploring state parks, and just walking the Solomons boardwalk on an almost daily basis.

Jessica also enjoys reading, scrapbooking, painting, sewing and baking. Jessica, it's awesome to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Jessica Koch 02:10

I am. I am. See, I'm a well-rounded business professional, mother of seven, big. So the whole deal.

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Gresham Harkless 02:16

Exactly. We have to have all that on there. So we make sure we know exactly who you are. So what I want to do, which could you found a little bit more upon your bio and tell us a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to get started in your business.

Jessica Koch 02:29

I did. As it says, I actually spoke across the country. I worked with this firm for many years that helped reduce operating expenses for Fortune five hundreds as well as government entities across the country, and universities.

So I got to speak at many of their national conferences and genuinely what brought me to being a CEO of my own company was I was burnt out and tired.

I was working for other people literally made, other corporations, millions of dollars and group pipelines and manage and train sales teams. And often sales professionals can be not always, but often underappreciated and undervalued.

And especially as you become more senior in this field, younger people will come in and if you train them well, and that's what I was doing, it's very tempting for those corporations to pay them less and send them out to earn their skills and be the street.

And it's more challenging for them sometimes, even as the money is large to pay seasoned professionals with what they deserve. And so I actually took a two-year hiatus, which I was able to do because of industry. I was in, I had the savings and the ability to take two years and just spend it with our youngest daughter.

And I, everyone says, Oh, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. I thought for many years, I've been self-absorbing every bit of information on the marketing and sales front that I could ever get my hands on to only mostly because it fascinates and interests me and I love it.

But I hadn't seen where could I convert that into a business of my own that would make my heart. And they would make me happy and bring me joy. And so I would say to people, volunteer, because at a little bit, I'm embarrassed to say took a little arm twisting for me to volunteer and share and teach a class for green for the local chamber, just because I was done with the business world and I was honored.

Of course, we asked and I just wasn't sure I wanted to get my feedback into the big business market at all, but under the understanding that I was not going to join the chamber at that time. I wasn't working for anyone. I didn't have a business. business. I would go and teach this class. What happened was a light came on for me and I experienced that pure joy, total to my surprise sharing this information.

They held a class. It was standing room only was one of the largest turnouts they'd ever had and the response and the, even the emotion during the class. teaching it, the energy was reflected back to me from the audience and from the room. And for me, that was it. I was by this bug. I was, I still drug my feet into opening a company because I still don't know what that would look like exactly.

But again, I got asked because of the response from that. Speak at a woman's conference that had over a hundred UN women attendees. I was on a panel. I one of the key speakers. I taught a workshop and this bursting joy and at that point I still didn't have an official business. And I was still getting many requests to consult and work with them.

So it took on a life of its own. But I can genuinely say, and you used to actually even irritate me, where everyone's just. Do what you love because I just couldn't really put my finger on what was that? What did that look like? What did that mean? And I feel immense and complete joy.

Every time I work with one of my corporations, now I do training. I'm developing some training videos. If I do a webinar, when I teach a class, I am bursting with joy. To the point of butterflies, excitement in my stomach that we're going to do this again, not from fear or nerves, because I'm excited we get to do this again.

So I think that's my story found me almost.

Gresham Harkless 05:58

That makes perfect sense, and that's sometimes how it happens where the universe pushes you in the right direction, whether you want to go or not. Could you tell us a little bit more about what exactly you do, what are your products and services for your business?

Jessica Koch 06:08

What happens is the door is open because I for all these years, almost from the inception of LinkedIn being on as a being useful platform, I had been on, I think I came in just a few years of their inception right after. And so I often start with training. We're going to talk a little bit about how to use LinkedIn and how to use it as a social hub because it ties into Facebook and Twitter.

And then so I do some LinkedIn specific trainings and webinars and I'm developing some training videos. But the other thing I'm providing companies is like I said, a lot of times my introduction to that company is because of LinkedIn, but what I'm formatting is helping them link into multiple platforms with their content efficiently.

We're developing a marketing and sales plan, a sales and nurturing system and cycle, a follow-up process that's more uniform. I'm working with several companies that have locations in five different states and many locations and helping them to develop some cohesiveness and so that there's a little bit easier accountability for the sales manager.

These are things I designed and developed as I was, doing, actually doing the job for other corporations. So I honed it and fine-tuned it, and I've done a lot of research on the psychology of a sale, what moves people to action, how does this look like? So we're building marketing content plans as well to hook into several usually between five and eight platforms is what I suggest to clients depending on their industry.

Gresham Harkless 07:32

I wanted to ask you a little bit more about you and your business. What do you feel like makes your business and yourself unique? What's your kind of unique selling proposition?

Jessica Koch 07:39

So, I think one of the things that I do uniquely, I don't know about it being a selling proposition, but it's it speaks to who I am and it tends to actually attract clients. I haven't actually had to pursue a lot of these opportunities, they've come to me, which is very unique and a little bit of a shocker for me from a sales professional, because I have learned to beat the streets while I'll be processed professionally persistent and not pesty, ride the line.

It's an occupational hazard, but I think one of the things is, my voice speaks loudly on, and this is how I started is volunteering my time. So I'm doing a big event or it's a big workshop. We have filled and sold out tickets for a room coming out this Friday in the local library where I'm teaching a workshop and the benefit is for the nonprofit alliance and for the chamber scholarship on.

So the chamber has lasted it, all the registration takes place there because their scholarship is going to benefit. The non-profit alliance has lasted it route all internally and all their nonprofits. The nonprofits are coming for free, but the business professionals that come are paying and then the proceeds are going to support this organization.

And I've done many of those types of free trainings, free speaking events. And I think that has opened the door. So one of the unique things I teach is reciprocity and what I call cause marketing. And I encourage every client that I work with based on their level of comfort and what organization or cause is important to them.

And to inquiry that in their marketing plan, not to take advantage of, Oh, we're going to share. So you should work with us because when we, as organizations and business. and companies. And even for myself, I talk the talk and I walk the walk when we give, it allows, I feel like our hands are wide open and it allows for us to receive and business just comes because you do the research, there's a lot of competition for about every industry out there.

And as humans, the idea of a sale and obtaining a client is moving them to action. One of the things that individual from the psychology of the human being evaluates is, are they connected to something bigger than both of us that makes, that speaks to me and when there's two companies that can provide basically the same service and basically the same price competitively, the one that's supporting the local humane shelter or the local homeless shelter, or, whether it's puppies or people or whatever makes their heart sing.

And that is what pushes that rises that other company up. little bit for them to say, You know what? I'm gonna go with that because I can basically get what I need here or here. But these people are involved in something I care about that's bigger than both of us, and that moves them to action. So one of the things I think that's unique about me is I do that and I encourage it, and it has seemed to be a recipe for success for me.

Gresham Harkless 10:20

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, it's definitely important to make sure that you know you're giving you're providing kind of an opportunity for you not You need to do it from a selfish standpoint, but just doing it in order to try to impact and make the world a better place, so to speak, which is why a lot of people start their businesses and organizations.

So, what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit to talk about a CEO hack that you might have. And this might be an app, a book, or just something that you do or use on a regular everyday basis that makes you more efficient and effective as a business owner.

Jessica Koch 10:46

From a book standpoint, I would say whether I'm working with a client or working with a team, the One-Minute Manager was phenomenal.

Gresham Harkless 10:55

I want to ask you for CEO nugget. Now this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, maybe even something related to LinkedIn that you have, that you can give to other entrepreneurs and business owners to be more effective and efficient. I

Jessica Koch 11:04

would challenge people to really think carefully about that piece of reciprocity and what in the community they can get involved in on whatever level or, and, or sharing their knowledge about something.

I'm constantly on a soapbox of it's so simple to write an article on LinkedIn. And when you take the time to write an article on LinkedIn, you can insert a photo quickly. you put a headline, can insert a video, you can do a voiceover video through with a PowerPoint. Very simply to do a training, share what you know with the world because you can make an impact literally globally because the way social media works, LinkedIn's articles are a living webpage.

So that can be emailed, texted, Facebook message, LinkedIn message. It is a living webpage of its very own that URL can get sent anywhere. So if you take the. Yeah. So I'm going to give you a few minutes to teach someone something that may can make their life better or that's happening in your community or whatever that is, that's something they could say, Oh, we could do that.

We need that. We should do that. And this is what we're going to do to start it. Not only do you push it on LinkedIn platform, which happens to have 40 percent of the globe's mill millionaires on it. As a platform.

So philanthropy is huge that the opportunity for getting a message out or a story or a need is gigantic, but you can multipurpose that one effort, like a photocopy machine, pushing it out to Facebook, pushing out to Twitter, having that video living on YouTube and having that YouTube description, hold the article so that your can be made an image.

So it can go on Instagram. It can go on Pinterest. It can go Snapchat. So there's all these things and they can have those, that URL embedded into the link. So you're making a wave of a movement, sharing your knowledge or sharing whatever it is you have to share with the world that genuinely can make a global difference.

And the difference happens with small actions equaling a big result. So I would encourage people to write articles for one month for business and one month for something greater than you, or just sharing your knowledge with something that can impact something greater than you. I think that will attract business, but yeah, I think it's most important why we're here.

Gresham Harkless 13:08

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And it's incredible. Have you, you talked about, being altruistic, make sure that you're giving, but being able to use these social media sites like LinkedIn to be able to do that because they carry such a large reach to be able to touch people across the globe, like you mentioned.

So I think that's a phenomenal kind of CEO nugget that a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners can take into account. So the last question that I wanted to ask you was really your definition of being CEO. Like on this podcast, we're hoping to get different types of quote-unquote CEOs and redefine exactly what that means.

So I wanted to ask you specifically, what does that mean to you?

Jessica Koch 13:38

So for me, it's going to be a cheesy and cliche, but it really does mean time freedom for me. I get to plan how this corporation is going to grow in that strategy and in my personal plan. I'm doing it so that my success. It's not going to 100 percent be leveraged to my time.

So I'm not going to be trading time for money on that. It's not the plan for me. Some of it is because that brings me joy and I want to interact with clients. But when you do things strategically, you genuinely, as a CEO, have the ability to decide when you're going to work and when you're not going to work.

What do you want your income to look like? How do you make that happen? And does that involve you and can you make it happen so that it's not always involving your direct interaction by fostering a good team, there's a different things that you can do as a CEO that give you your style freedom. And I think that for me is the most important about owning my own company and also being able to leave it as a legacy for my children.

So whatever I build here, I'm willing to my children. I know there's some other business opportunities that have that global laws, which is fabulous. But I feel like that's a big check mark for me on what's. important is having that ability to build something that I leave to my children.

Gresham Harkless 14:48

I definitely think that's a phenomenal kind of insight and definition of what it means to be a CEO.

So Jessica, I wanted to thank you so much for taking some time out of your schedule. I wanted to give you the mic or the floor, so to speak. So you can give us anything additional, whether it be word or wisdom, piece of advice, or tell us anything additional about your business and then how people can get ahold of you.

Jessica Koch 15:06

So I have one quote, so this is the Jessica Koch quote, and it came because I was the mother of. So many children now is later, sooner. I always got the, I'll do it later. So now is later, sooner. So do it now. And that's a great quote from Jessica Koch. If I do say so myself, and they can find me at my website, JessicaLkoch.com.

Gresham Harkless 15:29

Thank you so much for all you do and taking some time out of your schedule. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Jessica Koch 15:33

Thanks so much.

Outro 15:35

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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