IAM2500 – Entrepreneur Helps Clients Make Their Dreams a Reality

Danielle Klemm explains that her path to entrepreneurship was profoundly influenced by the early loss of both her biological mother and stepmother, each of whom was an entrepreneur, who passed away from cancer before she completed high school.

Danielle specializes in helping service-based entrepreneurs generate leads and convert them into paying clients through her signature PAC Method —Positioning, Attraction, and Conversion.

She emphasizes the need to establish clear and compelling messaging before diving into marketing strategies and urges business owners to prioritize meaningful results over getting everything perfect.

Danielle also shares practical tools like Later.com for streamlining social media efforts and stresses the value of tracking metrics instead of chasing vanity numbers.

Website: Danielle Klemm

LinkedIn: Danielle Klemm

Instagram: danielleklemmm

Previous Episode: iam303-entrepreneur-helps-clients-make-their-dreams-a-reality

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Transcription:

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Danielle Klemm Teaser 00:00

I started with mainly just website design and graphic design. And I realized that clients would come to me and they'd want to have their website done, but they wouldn't have something like an email list.

They wouldn't have a freebie. They wouldn't have the things that can actually help their business to grow.

It was more like just having an online billboard. And I found that, okay, I need to make sure that my clients get serve the best they can so over the years I've kind of moved more into marketing space and as of now I've really helped my clients with growing a similar funnel that's automated for them as well as ads.

Intro 00:34

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:01

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today, Danielle Klemm of danielleklemm.com. Danielle, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Danielle Klemm 01:11

Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:13

No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Danielle so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Danielle began her business after losing both her biological mom and stepmom from cancer before graduating from high school.

This made her focus on helping clients to discover the how-to of turning their dreams into reality, as her specialty is taking the terror out of marketing terror through her signature PAC method.

Today, Danielle helps service-based entrepreneurs create a stream of ready-to-buy leads, sell-out services, while getting their time back.

Through strategy, educating on the Female Entrepreneurs Journey podcast, and creating content all around these topics, she's helped clients be seen as expert in their field and make strides more sales in their business.

Danielle, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Danielle Klemm 02:03

Yes, I'm ready.

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Gresham Harkless 02:04

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Danielle Klemm 02:11

Yeah. So, I mean, we went into a little bit with the bio itself, but one of the biggest milestones for me that really turned out how I wanted to start my business was from not only losing my, both my moms and actually both of them were entrepreneurs.

One of them was a real estate agent. One of them, was also like a chef and so many other things.

So not only was the entrepreneur spirit kind of in my family for a while, but to see those two women who were very influential in my life kind of gone before their time made me really passionate about wanting to help those who are wanting to fulfill their dreams, wanting to get to the next level in their business to do that now.

Because I don't believe in waiting to the next day or waiting for tomorrow, because you don't really have that guaranteed.

Gresham Harkless 02:55

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I'm sorry, obviously, to hear that. But I appreciate you for first of all, telling your story.

But secondly, to understand and remind us of that and remind those entrepreneurs and business owners you're working with that you have to really appreciate each and every day and each every second, but also to seize the day and take advantage of that.

Because sometimes we always will put things off to tomorrow, next week or next year.

And we have to kind of remember that the time is of essence a lot of times.

Danielle Klemm 03:22

Yeah, I find that with entrepreneurs, especially with clients that I have, they're so passionate about what they do and they really want to help people, but they can almost get in their own way.

You can go into analysis paralysis, perfectionist mode, which makes you really procrastinate on what you want to go forward with.

So I find that usually the people who are the higher achievers can also have the same trait of procrastination or wanting to be perfect before it gets laid out.

And I'm really trying to help re-educate people that doesn't have to be perfect for it to convert. And that's one of my biggest things I tell my clients.

Gresham Harkless 03:51

I love that. I love that. It doesn't have to be perfect in order to convert. That's a great reminder.

And I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. So I know you touched on a little bit.

Can you tell us like how you support the clients and some of the things you do to help support them?

Danielle Klemm 04:03

Yeah, so when I first started my business a couple years back, I started with mainly just website design and graphic design.

And I realized that clients would come to me and they'd want to have their website done, but they wouldn't have something like an email list. They wouldn't have a freebie.

They wouldn't have the things that can actually help their business to grow. It was more like just having an online billboard.

And I found that, okay, I need to make sure that my clients get serve the best they can so over the years.

I've kind of moved more into marketing space and as of now I've really helped my clients with growing a similar funnel that's automated for them as well as ads.

I really try and teach not only about conversion marketing but also how to infuse that into something like Instagram into podcasting.

Because I think we should which is always like the phrase nowadays work harder not smarter but I believe it's work harder not smarter or longer.

Gresham Harkless 04:57

And yes, yes, that makes perfect sense because you only understand just like you only have a certain period of time.

So you want to make sure that you aren't working long either, because that's important to kind of bring that in. But I wanted to ask you for what I call now like your secret sauce.

And this could be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Danielle Klemm 05:16

Yeah, so you mentioned it in the bio too where I have something called the PAC or PAC method.

And I developed it because what I noticed from my clients or even my audience members, they kind of fall into one of three missing links in their marketing which is positioning, attraction, or conversion.

And without all of these three kind of playing in harmony, it's really hard to grow to the level that you want to get to positioning would be messaging your content, the copy that you write.

Basically the language in which your ideal clients can say, I love this person, I want to learn more, or I don't really want to attraction, which is more of that strategy around like actually bringing in leads, bringing in followers, bringing in a new audience.

And then conversion, which is obviously nurturing those clients, nurturing those leads to become just like your loyal people your paid clients and so forth.

Gresham Harkless 06:02

Nice and I love the acronym as we talked about a little bit offline or where that comes from and I think it's great to remember.

Because all those different aspects do play a part in in terms of like building a successful business. Is that correct to say?

Danielle Klemm 06:14

Oh yes, especially online because like you said, I love the question about secret sauce because nowadays, most industries, you have to have something that makes you stand out.

And for me, that's where the positioning, the P comes so, that's why I have it the first thing because what happens is people go straight to attraction or conversion without having their messaging or language correct.

And it's not gonna convert as well because you're not really hitting the exact pain points or desires that your I.O. client has.

Gresham Harkless 06:42

Right. That makes sense. It's like you're bringing all those bring in, I guess, all the people to whatever you're creating, but you have no idea if that even helps them.

Would that be correct to say, or if that's even the right fit for them?

Danielle Klemm 06:53

Yes, exactly. This is something that I try and give an example for a lot when I'm teaching this.

So if you were a health coach of sorts, let's say you're a health coach and you just specialize in health versus a health coach who specializes in binge eating.

And you just talk about binge eating their problem a person who's gonna look for someone, if they're a binge eater, they're gonna go immediately to you, have more, they'll know exactly, this person can help me.

And there's just a higher chance of them actually becoming a client versus just saying you're a health coach.

Again, no problems towards health coaches whatsoever, but again, it's that special sauce, that specialization that can really help you.

Gresham Harkless 07:28

Yeah, that's a great reminder just to make sure that you're always drilling down because if you can basically paint a picture of exactly who you want to target.

And everything is positioned in a way in order to do that, then when you start to do the A and the C, then all of a sudden you have a successful business.

Danielle Klemm 07:42

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 07:43

Nice, nice, nice. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Danielle Klemm 07:54

Yeah, so I would say going back to positioning like with content I find a lot of people really struggle when it comes to writing good content or learning like how to do that and how to schedule it.

And without going into too much strategy, one of the resources that I love so much, especially for Instagram is later.com.

I don't always auto schedule my stuff, but something really cool with that area, if you're really trying to not spend so much time on social media is you can actually schedule out stories on there too, as well as posts.

So for those who are wondering, okay, I don't want to spend all my time on Instagram. then I would really look into using that. You can also put in Pinterest to schedule for, Facebook and so forth.

And I just believe that when it comes to social media right now, the more we spend on there could be beneficial.

But usually if we're on there longer than an hour or so, we're probably not really doing work all the time.

Gresham Harkless 08:48

Yeah, a lot of times those social media platforms are built to keep you there. So like you said, if you go past that hour, then that definitely helps out.

But no, I love that because a lot of times, you know, there's ebbs and flows in business.

Sometimes you're super busy for a certain period of time. But if you're able to go out and you're able to schedule those things in advance, you can always go back and update from here to here.

But at least, you have some consistent posts kind of going out.

Danielle Klemm 09:11

Exactly. And something that I love about later as well is something that I've been getting better at and having my VA do is people forget that you can repurpose your content.

People always think like your content, your social media, whatever you can let to one and done posts, which is not true because if it's one topic, let's say around coconuts, you can try and go 5,000 different ways on that.

And I just find, again, it's working, it's working smarter, not harder. So it's really trying to repurpose some of your stuff as well.

So you don't constantly have to wake up each day wondering. Okay. What do I write today? Okay, what do I need to write today and so forth?

Gresham Harkless 09:44

Yeah, it makes sense because I've heard of like Gary V I think he calls it like waterfall content where you're able to take like one piece of blog one blog post or one video or whatever.

And you create like ten hundred pieces of content just based off of that just because you're able to figure out different ways to kind of put it on different channels.

So that is that aligned with what you were talking about?

Danielle Klemm 10:02

It is, and even to go in a little more from a scientific standpoint, I mean with social media right now, for those who are on there.

We already know that for Instagram and Facebook, people are maybe seeing 5-10% of your stuff, like your whole audience, maybe 5-10% of them are actually seeing your post.

That's why I believe when it comes to what you have right now when it comes to posting, you could probably post the same thing, maybe a different picture.

But post a similar thing two weeks later and you'll be able to reach more people or the people who saw it before. It'll instill in them better and you'll become known for more of that.

Gresham Harkless 10:37

That's a great kind of nugget or a hack on top of a hack. Because a lot of times you forget that because of the organic reach is so low that when you repost it, if you repost it in a different way.

You might reach more people or you might just further submit in those people that you've already connected with.

So I appreciate you for sharing that. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget.

And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Danielle Klemm 11:04

I actually just posted about this earlier today about my first six months of it when I was on Instagram and I was just it was an utter mess.

So the first I guess the golden nugget that I would say is to be quite honest is don't overthink too much because I get in this space and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are as well.

There's so many gurus or experts out there or coaches, which again, I love everything.

But my biggest mistake when I first started out was investing in any course I could or any coach I could, which really jumped up my knowledge very quickly.

However, it made for almost debilitating analysis paralysis or like overthinking, is Pinterest the right way to go? What should I do here? Let me take a course on this.

Let me help a coach. And it just, it snowballs. So I would say the biggest gold nugget to have Is give yourself a 90-day strategy plan, whatever it is.

Like I want to focus on Instagram I want to focus on this one offer for 90 days or even you know 60 days.

And then just from there because too many people start and then stop, you know a week later.

Gresham Harkless 12:05

Right that that makes perfect sense. And it sounds like, and I know it definitely happens on social media I see it a lot too where you compare your beginning game to somebody's end game or even their middle game or something like that.

So sometimes you get frustrated after that week, but just understanding that, having that fine line between action and creating something, but also of making sure you are knowledgeable and you are learning more and more and more. It's a fine line because you can't get that analysis by paralysis, as you mentioned.

Danielle Klemm 12:31

Oh yeah, 100%. And the last little nugget I want to put in there too, because I see this happen a lot, since I've been on Instagram for a while and social media as well.

Really try the best you can to not look at vanity metrics, like the follower numbers, because I've talked to a lot of people who have 28,000 followers, 130,000 followers.

And to them, they look at me as a conversion expert, as the Instagram expert, even though they have more followers, because they're not converting them.

So I want you to really, when you guys look at other people, see what is something unique that they might not have, or what is that person that you bring to the table?

Because I work with people who have thousands upon thousands more followers, but because I work in this one specific area, I'm the expert to them, and so can you be. So I just want to put that out there for everyone.

Gresham Harkless 13:18

Yeah, I love that. And I appreciate you for sharing that with us, because a lot of times you can get caught up in that.

But I think someone said, likes never paid anybody's bills or fed anybody.

So you have to remember that they are, in fact, vanity metrics. So being able to convert them is an entirely different story.

So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

And we're hoping to have different, quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Danielle, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Danielle Klemm 13:44

The first thing that came to mind when I read that was it's being in charge, taking charge of your life and responsibility.

Because I find that what happened to me when I was becoming more of an entrepreneur versus CEO, because I do believe they can somewhat be a little bit different CEOs.

You are responsible and you take charge of every aspect of your life to make it and enhance it the best you can.

So for me, the CEO is, okay, what is the best version of myself that I can be?

And how can I use that? and show up like that in my audience and my social media and my business.

So a CEO just means taking in charge, taking responsibility and just showing up 110% each day.

Gresham Harkless 14:25

Nice, I love that definition and that reminder and kind of like the distinct the difference between the both of them and how they kind of symbolic or are they align together as well, too.

So I appreciate you for sharing that with us and Danielle. I appreciate your time what I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then how best people can get a hold of you.

Danielle Klemm 14:47

Yeah, so if you guys have not noticed yet, I'm usually on Instagram, so you can find me there mostly.

I am Danielle Klemm, but I want to say for additional stuff when it comes to, let's say social media and Instagram.

The last thing I'd want to say for everyone out there is really, especially if you're using it for business, make sure to check your insights.

And this is something that you might hear here and there, but I find the difference between entrepreneurs and CEOs, entrepreneurs get really caught up in the idea in the like.

The idea creation phase, CEOs, they know their numbers, they know their metrics, and I find that entrepreneurs can sometimes forget that.

So I would say really double check what posts are doing well for you, what has gotten you the most reach and engagement and start to create posts around that.

Because people ask, what do I create content on? You actually already know, you just got to check your insights.

Gresham Harkless 15:35

There you go. That makes perfect sense. It's all about, understanding the strategy and acting on that strategy as well too.

So Danielle, I truly appreciate you again, and we'll make sure to have all your information as well in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Danielle Klemm 15:49

Thank you so much.

Outro 15:50

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 Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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