Frequently asked questions to the Sherpa
These are the top questions I get from people who want to take their social media to the next level
Prioritize your marketing efforts.
Get clarity and accountability to do your own marketing.
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Frequently asked questions
Learn more about the Your Social Media Sherpa experience.
The Problem:
So you want to be held accountable to your social media goals but don’t have the years experience to hack through where you should be spending your time online to best reach your future clients.
Look no further! Shaily is here to help.
The Service:
Book a 1-2 hour session with Shaily where she will not only answer your burning social media questions but will also train you on how to best use the platforms for your small business. Learn all her best online relationship building tips too. Meet with her once for a crash course, or have regular weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly* sessions with her to help you stick to your needs. (*Ask about bulk autopay pricing)
Qualifications:
Shaily has been running social media accounts for the last 5 years for various organizations and has been teaching and tutoring kids and adults for years beyond that. She is also a certified K-6 educator, who knew? She has the patience to work with you at your own pace and will not judge your starting point. She has specialized in motivational tutoring for kiddos and those skills are easily transferable to adults especially the more she gets to know you and what may be holding you back.
What you get:
What do you get for the money? We sit down for a 1-2 hour session depending on your schedule. You will get a few warm-up questions from Shaily via email in the days leading up to your session. Based on what you have told her your needs are, she will make an adaptable lesson plan to follow the day of. Though she cannot cover all your needs, Shaily does her best to make sure you leave with more information on your priority needs.
What to bring to the session:
The session works best if both you and Shaily have a computer in front of them.
Post Session Accountability:
What happens after? I hold you accountable. Before the session ends, I ask what is a realistic timeline to get done what you have set out for yourself. When I get home, I schedule a series of personalized emails to go out in the ideal intervals to remind you of what you hoped to accomplish.
One customer said she needed to work on writing more blogs but only needed a reminder every 2-3 weeks. So I set that up for her. One client said she liked working on strict deadlines and procrastinating before sessions. I set up emails that emphasized the deadline being our next session. My customers can then respond to those emails with any updates or questions they had between sessions.
Scope and relationship beyond the session:
If you have purchased a session from me in the past month, I am happy to answer small questions that come up over time. I trust that you will use your business sense to ask within reason and will let you know if you ask too much. I am generally very open. *I am even more generous if I can reply to your email in a voice message.
Extra Check in Session:
If you booked a session within the last month, I am super flexible on spending time answering your questions over email.
Location:
Most sessions are virtual over Zoom.
It's the time to get to where you prefer to meet. I live in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. I sometimes work out of an office near The Bean. Around once a week, I am out of a location in Lincolnshire, IL. I can drive to you if there is readily available free parking. I prefer not to go too far from these areas.
Let’s chat and see if there is a great location that works for you that I can easily get to. I have found coworking spaces work well. Crowded coffee shops are a bit harder. Finding a space where we can both talk out loud without interrupting others around us is the goal.
What hours are you generally available?:
I am generally available Tuesday-Friday between 9am-4pm central.
What is your cancelation policy?
I ask that you cancel 48 hours in advance if you cannot make the session. If you cancel within 24 hours, I reserve the right to charge for the full session. When I block out time for you, I have to say no to others. I set up my schedule to make sure I am in the best spot to serve you. I take this very seriously. I know things do come up. I try to be flexible and accommodating.
Payments:
I love payments over Venmo, Paypal, or Zelle. I am also happy to take physical checks or online checks mailed out through your bank account.
Most major banks offer Zelle. It goes directly from your bank account to mine in a blink of an eye. Open up your banking app or web browser to Zelle and use this specific email as where you want to direct the payment: hakimian45@gmail.com (keep in mind that it may ask for an email or phone number, please only use this email)
I also have my PayPal set up under hakimian45@gmail.com. You can send money from your account to my account. I can also send an invoice where you can pay online. I may collect additional convenience fees for these options.
~What is the ROI of social media?
❏ Your network has $ in it, you just gotta do a better job of engaging them! Clients come to
me who post all the time with no results because they a) post in the wrong place 2) post
content that doesn’t serve their business opportunities. Your current referral network is
the one that needs to see the content that you put out. That is your base and the easiest
people who can buy again or refer you clients who are just like them. You already know
that your business needs to stay in touch with these people but let's be honest, you are
behind on your CRM. Phone calls take too long. Holiday cards? One day. But social
media lets you hack that staying in touch at scale.
~Are you teaching me to be a social media manager?
❏ No. I am the bridge between your business goals and the tasks and efforts of your
social media manager (whether that is you or someone you hire). I teach you to use the
business and networking skills you already have and incorporate them into your social
media efforts. I work with you side by side to help you better understand the tools you
have in social media and give you a system on how to use those tools. How you do
business now relates directly to what you will do on social media. You aren’t learning
something new - you are honing in on what’s already in your brain and what you already
do in your business.
~When should I hire someone like you vs a social media manager?
❏ I am the person you bring on before you hire someone to execute on social media. If you
don’t understand how to do social media and how it best serves your business, a social
media manager won’t be able to maximize it to help you. You have to know what you
need before you can hire out for it. I will help you get the most benefit from what you're
paying for when you hire a social media manager. You will have a clear directive in place before you hire
someone to post all the amazing content that will amplify your business goals.
~I already have a social media manager. Can I still work with you?
❏ Yes! Business owners sometimes hire someone to manage their social media but don’t
know what to tell them to do. The ideas need to come from your head onto their paper,
because you know exactly who you are serving. I’m the perfect person to link the 2
efforts into 1 successful strategy. I can bridge the gap and make connections so the
social media manager can have a really good understanding of not only what to post, but how those posts
directly affect your business. Social media managers are awesome and they speak my language and
once we develop a strategy, I can then tell them what to do with it. This is not only
extremely effective for your business, but it will also help your social media manager when they are
coming up with creative posts. I am able to get information from the leader’s head so the
social media manager can thrive and then make the business thrive!
~Why should I hire you vs. an agency?
❏ Agencies are big commitments and the wrong fit can be costly if you don’t know what
you are doing in social media. I’m the friend you call before making a big buying decision
for your social media. I want to get you organized and clear with your goals. You may not
need a whole agency and instead just a writer to help you get your ideas out of your
head. Let's help you find the least stressful solution to keep your marketing going.
~Will learning with you mean I have to spend a ton of time doing social
media when I have 100 other fires to put out in my business?
❏ Look, I have a business too. I know how much work you have to put in and how many
things you have to keep afloat. My goal is to prioritize your time and find a way that fits
into your flow, your skills, and the people you want to serve. You keep doing what you’re
good at and I cut down the noise and the shiny objects of social media for you. There’s
so many choices when it comes to marketing, and you may not know what you should
focus on. You don’t need to be a genius at social media. You have to prioritize and take
what you know works and use that. It’s usually a lot less work than you think too!
~ Am I hiring you to teach me one specific method for social media?
❏ NO. I am helping you develop a clear understanding of the relationship between getting
business and posting on social media. A lot of programs will sell you one specific system
that has worked for them. I have lots of friends who do this - I will even refer them out to
folks. But ultimately, we all have to find the flow that works specifically for us and our
specially curated goals. There’s a dozen ways to do social media. I don’t just tell you
what works and tell you to do it. We are going to work on it together and find a way that
works into your flow and utilizes the things that you’re good at. I learn about you and
take your strengths and interests and come up with a system so you can put the right
information out to your people and you actually enjoy the pieces you are creating.
~I bought a course from someone in my industry teaching me LinkedIn,
social media, sales, or something related but haven’t figured out how to put
it all in place, can you help me with that?
❏ YES! A chunk of my clients come to me with this exact problem. I find that sometimes
these coaches have good intentions but it can be confusing and overwhelming for a
student to integrate. Sometimes the coach is more of an expert of selling in their specific
field and social media is a footnote in their course. I can expand on that and make it
easier to understand. If you took an amazing course but still don’t know what the heck to
do with your social media strategy - that’s where I come in and help you maximize those
efforts! If you want to know how I feel about courses: (link to possible blog).
~What if I am stuck with a problem or question and we don’t have a
session?
❏ I never want my clients to be stuck on something that I can help them with! I would rather
you be able to focus on what's important in your business. Part of the benefit of being on
a sherpa long term or ongoing plan is that you can reach out to me between sessions for
feedback or if a question comes up. Sometimes there’s a feature that doesn’t work or
there’s a hack that you can't figure out, and I have had clients spend hours trying to
figure out something that takes me a few minutes to fix for them. I don’t ever want my
clients to feel like the tools and tech challenges are stopping them from succeeding with
their social media. That is part of why people bring me on so they no longer have to be
lost.
*I do set a limit on this but for the most part, I am available to my clients.
~Do you also help career seekers who want to enhance their LinkedIn?
❏ YES. I am not a recruiter and have not really been a traditional job seeker, but what I do
know is how to pull out the unique edge you have over others. Your profile is like a
freebie before an interview. It lets them see that you are a gem. Remember, the new
company has no idea what you were like day to day at your last job, so it’s up to you to
tell that story. LinkedIn is the place to do it. Think resume but with personality. Want to
watch my training for job seekers? Check out my resources here:
https://www.yoursocialmediasherpa.com/blog/linkedin-networking-evolving-career
~What is the difference between you and other social media coaches?
❏ Other social media coaches can teach you how to be a social media manager for
yourself. They teach you social media as a new skill. You don’t need to learn a whole
new skill, you need to use what you have and know works. You need to know how social
media connects to YOUR business. With me, you will learn how to use social media as a
tool. We will work together to strategize how to take the skills and motivations that you
use to serve clients and use that tool and check where you have missed opportunities to
engage your referral network.
~I have a firm with a lot of individuals, can you help our whole office?
❏ YES. I find that companies miss the chance to showcase their staff and what makes
them special online so new leads can feel more bonded to those who they work with.
People want to see that your staff is interesting and so much more than a suit jacket.
Some companies opt in for a group training where we walk through what needs to be
included in their bios and profiles while other companies go a bit deeper where I work
with each individual to pull out all the right details about them. Oftentimes I can partner
with the in-house marketing staff to make this happen. This will not only give your firm
fresh content, but more personality to thrive with new opportunities. Check out an
example of a firm that highlights what individuals in their firm have to offer: https://www.smartautotraining.com/about-us/
~Have you ever worked with my industry?
❏ If you have a group of people that already love and adore you that you think can open
doors for you - it doesn't matter what industry you're in! My programs work great if you
are a connector and you have a network. They are effective if you have past clients that
you are still in contact with and would refer you because they think (know) you’re great.
Ultimately, I’m taking information out of your head - your own expert knowledge - and
helping you expand your expertise online. It is how you communicate the message. It
doesn’t matter how much I know about your business, it’s about how I will help you
communicate. You can see all the past industries I work with here:
https://www.yoursocialmediasherpa.com/private-client-1-on-1
~If you haven’t worked for a big corporation or large agency, how can I
trust you?
❏ I never worked corporate or a 9-5 gig. The people who work for big companies know
how to serve one specific role for the company they themselves work for. You need
someone who will understand the size and type of company you run and knows what it’s
like to be the everything (accountant, project manager, writer, etc) for that business. You
want your marketer to understand your day to day.
~So what’s it like working with the social media sherpa?
❏ What I do with you is look to see where in your marketing you have the most potential.
From there we figure out exactly what set up you need to get the most bang for your
effort. You may even find it manageable to do on your own. But once we get clear on
that goal and the content that needs to be made, you can then hand it off to the right kind
of social media manager that is specific to your goal. To learn more about me and what I
do and why, check out this page: https://www.yoursocialmediasherpa.com/about
~ What should I do next?
❏ Let’s chat and see if we would make a good team to take on your social media strategy!
Shaily Hakimian - Your Social Media Sherpa®
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