Hannah is an entrepreneur at heart and has always dreamed of owning her own business. In 2019 that dream came true when she discovered how much small businesses need support when it comes to marketing online. From social media to web design she saw the opportunity to combine her passion for entrepreneurship and marketing to support the dreams of other small businesses. She is growing her business into a full marketing agency with a mission to serve small businesses and work to do good for their communities.

• CEO Hack: (1) Book – Grit by Angela Duckworth (2) The Full Focus Planner for time management
• CEO Nugget: (1) Giving yourself space to fail hard and learn from it (2) Marketing your business cohesively
• CEO Defined: Freedom to use your influence to do good in the community

Website: https://www.westfalldigitalstrategies.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westfalldigitalstrategies/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westfalldigitalstrategies/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/westfall-digital-strategies/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/westfalldigitalstrategies/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/westfalldigita1
Free webinars: https://www.westfalldigitalstrategies.com/digital-marketing-mini-sessions
Monday Morning Fix: https://www.westfalldigitalstrategies.com/monday-morning-fix

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

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 Harkless 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.

[00:00:29.80] – Gresham Harkless

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 Hannah Westfall of Westfall Digital Strategies. Hannah, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:40.60] – Hannah Westfall

Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[00:00:43.29] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Hannah so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Hannah is an entrepreneur at heart and has always dreamed of owning her own business. At twenty-nineteen, that dream came true when she discovered how much small businesses need support when it comes to marketing online. From social media to web design, she saw the opportunity to combine her passion for entrepreneurship and marketing to support the dreams of other small businesses. She is growing her business into a full marketing agency with a mission to serve small businesses and work to do good for their communities. Hannah, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:21.00] – Hannah Westfall

Yes. Let's get started.

[00:01:22.79] – Gresham Harkless

Let's do it. So, to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. I know you said you always wanted to start your business, so I wanna hear a little bit more on what I call your CEO story, what led you to finally get started with your business.

[00:01:34.90] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, I have been a CEO dreamer forever. Everyone's always like, what's your dream job? And I'm like, I just wanna run everything, which is always super funny. But a lot of that comes from, seeing my parents. So both of them are entrepreneurial. So my mom has started a variety of different businesses. I'm actually in her business right now, TerraHub, which is really great. And then my dad, while he technically worked for the Washingtonian magazine, he was an ad salesman. And so he got to do kind of his own thing. He got to go make connections with the community, and he really taught me how important it is to, like, get to know the people that you work with and genuinely think about what's best for them.

I mean, he would always have ten-year-long relationships with people who never bought an ad. And then that eleventh year, they bought, like, four full-page ads, and it was because they had that relationship with them. So between the two of them, I just, have never really desired to be a corporate, kinda gal. And so as I went into college and I got to pick what I wanted to study, I knew I wanted to go into business, partly because I was like, at the very least, I can get a job doing something with that degree. And then I did marketing and entrepreneurial management. So, I love marketing. I love understanding how people, buy what they buy, how you can communicate their message to others, and how you can really create some influence there.

And then also entrepreneurial management, I just love the idea of starting a new business. So I thought, why not get a degree in that? So through my experience doing that, I just got to talk with other entrepreneurs and small business owners, and that really grew my passion for that. But I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Like, I didn't have any great inventions or I didn't even really know what businesses needed. And so I kind of just went into the world, got a couple of jobs after college moved to Georgia, which is where you might hear some of that southern drawl. And, I just really didn't enjoy working for other people. Like, that sounds kind of silly and ridiculous, but, I just felt like, okay. I wanna kind of do things my way.

And so while I was working for Chick-fil-A, doing a lot of catering and some marketing for them, I started to work for my mom's business, and I did all of her digital marketing. So social media, updating her website, all that fun stuff. And she paid me better than Chick-fil-A did even, and so I was like, this is great. And I just really learned to love it. And as I was doing that, people that my mom knew were saying, hey, Julia. Your stuff's looking awesome. And being the mother that she is, she helped me out better than I probably deserve. And so from there, I just thought, wow. People really could use this kind of help.

And people started to reach out saying, hey. Can you help me with this? Hey. Can you do this? Hey. How do you do that? And I was like, why am I messing around with Chick-fil-A when I could do all of this fun digital marketing content and really kind of own my own story and my own business? So I moved from Georgia back up to DC, and I've been here for almost a year now. I grew up here, so it wasn't that big of a change, and it's been really fun. I've gotten to meet a lot of new business owners and just help them find ways to share their stories and their messages online.

[00:05:05.60] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. No. I love that, and I love that you have the entrepreneurial blood, as you say, kinda running through your veins. And your mom's been a contributor to our sites as well too. So I know, you know, you got you all to do some phenomenal things, and I love how a lot of times you don't start out knowing exactly what you wanna do. Like you said, you may not have the invention. You may not have the exact idea, but you know you have that entrepreneurial kind of spirit running through your veins. And then, you know, you get one opportunity, and next thing you know, it starts to blossom into so many other, which I think sometimes some of the best, businesses kinda just grow from that, that need standpoint, it sounds like.

[00:05:42.00] – Hannah Westfall

Absolutely. Yeah. It's always even now, I'm, like, started out with one thing, and it's looking slightly different. And I'm looking at some new opportunities, and it's just really cool and very exciting. I love a challenge. So

[00:05:53.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And entrepreneurship is definitely the way to go if you're looking for challenges as well.

[00:05:58.30] – Hannah Westfall

Yes. It is.

[00:06:00.50] – Gresham Harkless

So, I know you touched on a little bit, and I did as well when I read your bio. Can you take us through how exactly you work with your clients and how you you provide those digital marketing, skills that they need?

[00:06:10.69] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. Absolutely. So, some of it is a variety of things. But mainly what I do for clients is manage their social media. So that could be anything from their strategy all the way through their content and engagement and always looking at their analytics. So I really help them to create a solid opportunity to connect with their potential and ideal customers. I don't want them to just connect with anybody. I want them to connect with people who are actually going to want to pay for what they're offering. And then I also help them to design websites and email campaigns, and I've been branching into some more SEO, which is really fun and exciting. And so it's been cool to see how I can even work with my clients to combine all of those things because they all work together. And so trying to help them to really create a cohesive online presence so that they can connect with their ideal client. So that's kind of a short run of it.

[00:07:03.80] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that, especially that that word that I think a lot of people forget, and they forget oftentimes in the execution of what they're and your online presence, but to be able to provide that cohesion where if you're on a Facebook page or an Instagram, account or you're on somebody's website, you feel like you're in and talking to and communicating and hearing from the exact same business, and that's definitely something that, is huge. And I would say not as well executed as it could have been.

[00:07:36.89] – Hannah Westfall

Yes. Absolutely.

[00:07:38.69] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself or your business, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:47.10] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. So I really enjoy being kind of a jack of all trades. I think that I'm good at what I do, which can sound very arrogant, but I'm trying to own that, and just being willing to say, you know, I can really help, and I work very efficiently. And I think that that's what really makes me unique. I hear a lot from people. They're like, wow. You did this so quickly. You did it so well. And I was like, well, that's what happens when you focus and you really try to put your best foot forward.

So I think that's the big difference there. And I genuinely, care about my clients. So even that you know, when they're like, hey. Can we do this? I know it's a little bit about the outside of our scope of work. Oftentimes, I'm willing to kinda make a little bit of a and say, you know what? I know this is really gonna help you. I know as a start-up, you don't have the extra funds to add this massive thing. So let let's find a way to work together and get this done. And so I really believe that that's what kinda sets me apart I genuinely want to do everything I can to help them benefit and grow as best they can.

[00:08:51.20] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And doing it in a cohesive way is definitely as important as you said as well. So, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:09:07.00] – Hannah Westfall

Yes. So I actually have two that I'm gonna share, so I'm gonna be a little crazy. But, the first thing that I've really found that was really helpful was the book Grit by Angela Duckworth. I don't know if you're familiar with it. I'm sure a lot of your listeners probably are. But I am not naturally a growth mindset kind of person. I have a very fixed mindset. And so since reading that book, being able to recognize where I am and actively choose to say to myself, okay. I can learn these new things.

I can do these new things instead of really sitting in that, okay? I am what I am, and I can't learn anything new. Everything I do now for my entire business is something I've never done before, in the same way, on the same level. Every new client is something completely new. The second one, I actually have in front of me. It's the full focus planner, like, full of all this fun stuff. It is a Michael Hyatt tool. Mhmm. And it has completely transformed the way that I manage my time.

[00:10:07.89] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Could be around digital marketing, or if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:10:19.10] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. I would say, definitely, it kind of goes with that grit kind of thing. Giving yourself the space to fail and to fail hard.

[00:10:28.60] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:10:28.89] – Hannah Westfall

I feel like that's something that's not it's definitely not new. It's not an original thought to me, but, I mean, the number of times even since starting my business, I've failed, and sometimes I've wanted to cry or sometimes just completely wanted to beat myself up and say, what am I doing? Should I just quit and go into a safer field? Reminding myself, hey. You're learning something. Every hard conversation, every failed proposal, every awkward interaction, is teaching me something. So I would say, you know, letting yourself be okay with failure and then learning from it. Not letting it define you or define your story is a big, big piece there. And then when it comes to marketing, something I kinda mentioned before too is really focusing on that cohesion.

I think our world, our economy, and our businesses are all so global now. Like, even if you don't think it is between all the different social media platforms, you know, people with a small sticker business here in the United States could have someone in Japan who wants to purchase something from them now, and it's totally possible. And so I think when you can create a strong cohesive digital presence, it just helps to make your customers feel better about working with you, that they feel like they can trust you, that they can really understand and know the brand. And so I think to be able to market your business cohesively is vital. So for anyone, I mean, myself included, that's something I'm working on for my business as well. I'd say those are my two little CEO nuggets.

[00:12:09.00] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So 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, Hannah, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:20.79] – Hannah Westfall

I think for me, being a CEO is an opportunity to influence not only the clients that I work with but the team that I'm building. So my dream is to really build out an entire agency and to hire people who are smarter and more creative than I am, and to really use that influence to do good in the community, to find companies who are doing good things, who are, taking stances on, you know, different political or social issues and using their business to help promote good things in this world. And so I think being a CEO allows me to pick and choose what that looks like. You know, I get to pick which clients I work with. I get to pick who I hire. I even get to pick what message I wanna put into the world. And so I think that freedom is really important to me and just gives me a really great opportunity to bring about some good. So, I think being a CEO is really finding how you can use your influence to make a positive impact in the world.

[00:13:26.10] – Gresham Harkless

That's extremely powerful. And I think so many times we get so caught up in the what of what we do, and I think, of course, that's important. But as you kinda talk to and spoke to the why of why we doing it, to be able to have that influence, to be able to have that impact sometimes directly through our business, but sometimes through the clients and businesses we work with and the team members we have, that we're working as what with as well. We can have such a great influence. And and and as the the quote goes, you know, be the good you wish to see in the world. And I think when we're doing that, when we understand that, then we start to see that ooze in every aspect of our lives and in the world that we live in.

[00:14:00.10] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:14:01.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Hannah, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. 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, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:15.79] – Hannah Westfall

Yeah. Absolutely. If anything additional, I would say take the time to figure out how you wanna market your business well and invest in that. I think I, have run into a lot of people who are just kind of scared of marketing. They either wanna have it all exactly right or, they just don't even know where to start, and there are so many options now. And so I think finding someone who can help you have that conversation, think through it, and create that strong, message and plan to share that message is really important because I know there are so many businesses who are doing incredible things and, you know, offering incredible products and services. And half the time, they just aren't getting the message out in the right way for people to get to know them and to say, wow. You need or you have exactly what I need.

I want to be a part of what you're doing. So I definitely would say for any business owner or anyone listening, you know, make sure you take that time and think about it not as how can I sell people things, but how can I share my message, how can I help, and how can I serve others because that's ultimately what you're doing? And then just the best way to get in touch with me, I'd say check out my website, westwell digital strategies dot com. I have a million different social media accounts, so the easiest way to get ahold of them is from that site. They're all listed there, and I would love to connect with anyone who either has questions or, you know, wants to be a part of bringing about good in our nation, in our world, through our businesses.

[00:15:47.10] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Hannah. We will have the links and information in the show notes, but I definitely, you know, appreciate that reminder as well too. It's kinda like I guess the saying is, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it fall? And I think the same thing is you have a really great business. You have a really great organization. You're doing phenomenal things. But if you're not able to accurately concisely and succinctly express that to your potential clients and customers, are you really making the impact that you could? So I appreciate you so much in helping so many businesses and organizations do that, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:20.60] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by 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. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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