Kelly Schuknecht's Two Year Dream Became A Reality In Two Weeks

In this conversation, Rob Pene and Kelly Schuknecht discuss the evolution of fractional marketing, the importance of thought leadership, and the challenges faced by women in the workplace. 

Kelly shares her journey of transitioning from a corporate job to starting her own marketing business, emphasizing the significance of quick decision-making and networking. They explore the services offered by Kelly's company, including thought leadership marketing and outsourced marketing, and the impact of her podcast aimed at empowering women authors. 

The discussion concludes with advice for those navigating career transitions and the importance of community support.

Takeaways

• Fractional marketing has become a relevant term in recent years.
• Building a marketing business requires understanding client needs.
• Thought leadership is essential for entrepreneurs and CEOs.
• Networking plays a crucial role in finding clients.
• Quick decision-making can help overcome career challenges.
• Women in leadership often lack visibility and support.
• Podcasts can be a powerful tool for refining messaging.
• Community support is vital for women authors.
• Outsourced marketing can provide a full team for businesses.
• Clarity in goals helps in making swift business decisions.

Sound Bites

• "We become this extension of their team."
• "I have a heart for just women in the workplace."
• "I want this to be a place for women."
• "I started working on my business immediately."
• "I had a two-year time period of knowing it was coming."
• "I just started making those decisions quickly."

Connect with Kelly

Author Power Circle:
https://kellyschuknecht.com/author-power-circle/

Websites:
www.kellyschuknecht.com
www.twomilehighmarketing.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyschuknecht

Episode Sponsor

LinkedIn Ghostwriting and Profile Management service
https://thedigitalwritingfirm.com

Transcript

Rob: [00:00:00] Okay. Countdown is on. God bless you guys. Thank you for joining. Welcome. It's nice to meet you. The behind the scenes stories of busy professionals. I am your host Faleulu Ropati Nikolau Mikaele Pasi Pinholo Taulau Usofano. I nailed it, but you can call me Rob. If you're listening, that's who I am. And we have Kelly Schupnett.

Which is a really interesting last name. We'll get into that before we jump into the interview. It's gonna be real fun This episode is brought to you by get ghosted. It's a LinkedIn ghostwriting service and profile management A lot of people are on other platforms, which is great But sometimes neglect LinkedIn because maybe it's not sexy or they don't have time or they just don't know what to post that's where get ghosted comes in They'll take over the whole platform, do everything from the DMs, appointment, setting, posting, all that stuff.

So if you're interested, go to the digital writing firm. com and you'll get all the [00:01:00] information you need. Now, today's guest boy, we go back like 2011. Yeah, 2011. And it's fun. Because I was featured on her blog back then. And we'll talk about how that happened, man. We're still trying to figure it out, but Kelly Shuknecht.

She is a fractional marketing executive, and she's got a ton of other things that she's really good at like marketing for authors and even writing books for executives if they want to, become an author. So we'll dive into all that stuff, but man, I'm grateful to, to have you here and it's good to finally connect and catch up after all these years.

Wow. 

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you remember the year. I remember that. We we connected, but I do not know how we first met each other back in 2011. I have no idea, but we did, do you remember Kate Buck? 

Rob: Do you think it came from Kate Buck Jr. She was the, I dunno, social media? No. I don't know. 

Kelly: Maybe.

I don't know. But I featured you as meet on [00:02:00] at the time my blog had a Meet the Expert feature. Now I do a meet the author feature, but I used to have a Meet the Expert and I would. Invite experts, marketing experts to be on my blog. And yeah, so we did an interview way back then. We've always been connected on LinkedIn and then we've now connected over the podcast world.

Yeah. So it's amazing how relationships in this industry can last forever. 

Rob: And we're still marketing. We're still in the industry too. Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool. So I know recently the fractional thing became a craze. Maybe a couple of years ago, which it's funny because that's essentially how we would work because we would have this client here and then we would do this timeframe, this client here, but then tagging the term fractional became a little more, what's the word I'm trying to look for, maybe relevant.

But that essentially is what you're currently doing, right? You're serving that role and I know it's huge and it's very necessary, but not everybody could do it. [00:03:00] Yeah. Everyone can do it. So tell me about that. Cause that's a very unique skillset and a strength. Really. 

Kelly: Yeah, actually. Okay. So a couple years ago, the company that I was working for, I was an employee at a company and the company was acquired.

And so I knew that my job was probably on the line because in marketing, when you're a smaller company, you're acquired by a bigger company, those types of roles, typically. Unnecessary because now the bigger company, they already have their marketing team. So I knew that there was probably an expiration on that job, that role.

So I started two or three years ago. I started really thinking about the idea of starting a fractional. Marketing business and, it was like this dream I was just having. I was spending time just thinking about what that might look like. I'd already picked the name of my company a couple of years ago.

I created the website, in, in fractional marketing was what I had in mind. [00:04:00] We'll fast forward to just the end of 2024. I lost my job, which I was not surprised by. And I had a decision to make at that point, whether I was going to look for another marketing director role or CMO role, or. Do the thing I had been dreaming about for a couple of years.

And so at that point I decided, okay, I'm going all in and I am going to start this business. Now you use the term fractional marketing and that was what I had envisioned, but I decided to actually position my. What we do my business as not necessarily a fractional marketing, although you and I know that's really what we do but I position it as more of outsourced marketing, like an outsourced marketing team.

And the reason is because I see, companies that are hiring a fractional CMO or who actually, I should say it this way companies who are looking for. Outsource marketing services, like they know they need to step up their marketing game. They know they [00:05:00] need help. They need to develop a marketing strategy.

They've been growing, but like without really having any plan in place, they may not be looking for a high level CMO to hire a fractional CMO. So I wanted to position ourselves in a way that is more friendly to that type of company. They need marketing help, right? They need a marketing team for the price of a marketing person and not a high level.

CMO necessarily, they need somebody who can implement the marketing strategy. So that's how I decided to put, to position us right out of the gate. Everything that I put out there was said fractional CMO. And then I just, it didn't feel right to me. And so I positioned it slightly differently.

All of that to say, it's very similar in the services that we provide, but again, I want it to be seen as an extension of the company, a part of their. We add on to their team, right? We're part of their overall team, but they get a whole team of people when they hire me, because [00:06:00] now I should also explain that.

So it was just the end of. 2024. So just a few months ago, when I decided to take this leap, create this company, but it has already grown so fast that I've able been able to hire the people on my team that are needed. So I am not a designer for example, but I have. Design people on my team. I am a writer, but I can outsource the writing to people on my team.

So we, you have all of these marketing people who have different strengths who are behind the scenes when the client is working directly with me. So yeah, so it's been a crazy busy few months and I am just leaning in and enjoying the ride. 

Rob: And how are people finding you? How do you get to connect with these guys that hire you?

Kelly: Yeah. So great question. A couple of different ways. So I originally, I should say my last role, the job that I lost, I was in the accounting industry. So there were people really, all of it is coming from my professional network. There were [00:07:00] people who like you, I had been connected with for a while.

They knew of me. They knew what I had done, maybe a little closer to my actual work. They had seen what I had done at my previous company. And so when I announced on LinkedIn that I had started my company, I had people reaching out to me saying, Hey, can you help with this? Can we talk to you about that?

And so it helped me quickly figure out what those service offerings were going to be, because I, people were naturally coming to me, asking me questions. And so I knew what people were looking for and it was able to put together a workshop that we do and some. The different kind of packages of how we can provide services to companies.

So that was one way. Also, I'm part of some online communities for different types of organizations. And so again, people who once, as soon as they knew that I was free, they, I shouldn't say free. I was a free agent available. People were. Just asking about certain things that, if I could help with certain things.

So [00:08:00] that has been what has gotten us to this point is just that word of mouth referrals, people who were already familiar with me. And that's been great. And also, we're working on, okay, now we have to come up with our own marketing plan for how we're going to get to that next phase of not just that word of mouth referrals, but people coming to us in different ways.

Rob: What would you say your signature offer or service would be? 

Kelly: Yeah. So far it's two different things. So one lane of service that we offer is thought leadership marketing. I call it the speaker elevation plan. My, my company is called two mile high marketing. And the name of that came from, Denver is the mile highest city, right?

I live in Leadville, Colorado, which is. Two miles high. So that was the inspiration for the name of my company, two mile high marketing. And so the speaker elevation plan is one of the service lines that we created, which is helping CEOs and entrepreneurs find speaking [00:09:00] engagements, podcast interviews, and doing their LinkedIn posting for them, that all goes together, establishing their thought leadership.

And then the second kind of service line that we created is that outsource marketing. So we start with a a workshop. So we do a workshop. If the company comes to us and they say, we, we really want to grow and we don't know what to do. We have been growing, but we don't know what's next. So we do a two hour workshop with them where we help them. Figure out what's a lot of times they know it, they have it in their head. They know what works. They know what they've tried. That doesn't work. They have ideas of things they want to try, but they just haven't had time to do it yet. So we help them get all of that out of their heads and then come up with a plan for how to implement those marketing strategies to help them grow.

And then from there, they can either hire us to help them, or they can hire a person to do it, or they can try to implement it themselves. Chances are they don't have the capacity to do that but they have, multiple options [00:10:00] that they can take from that point. And like I said, they can hire a person, although with us, they get an entire team of people behind the scenes that can do the work for them.

Yeah, so those are the two lanes that we've created so far based on just what has made sense from the needs of the companies that have come to me. 

Rob: Yeah, the speaker elevation thing sounds pretty cool because I know there's speakers out there. 

Kelly: Yeah, that, that really came from some conversations I had with somebody, when I first lost my job, I was just talking to everybody.

And just trying to get my head around. My place in the market, like my experience that I had and how I can provide the most value to people. And one of the things I just remember this conversation really distinctly is that he said to me yeah, you probably don't know yet. Like what you want to do, that'll come with time.

And I was like, no, I know exactly what I want to do. This was probably about a month, two weeks to a month after I lost my job. I said, no, I know exactly what I want to do. And he was like, what's that? And I explained to him, I was like, I want to help people develop their thought leadership [00:11:00] platform by getting speaking events, getting on podcasts, turning that.

Content that they're already do, producing in a certain way into content for LinkedIn and growing their platform. And he was like, why aren't you doing that? And literally the next day I was like, okay, I put together a package and I was like, I am doing it. It was just funny how like you have these conversations with people and it helps you get clarity around again, if you already have it in your head, right?

Like you already know what you're good at. You already know what your experience is. It's just. Getting that to the point where you can bring that to life and go to market with it. 

Rob: Yeah. There's, are you on the different Facebook groups with all the, 

Kelly: I'm not in very many Facebook groups. 

Rob: My goodness.

There's so many speaker Facebook groups. Oh, okay. And then authors to really big ones too. 

Kelly: Okay. Yeah. Massive. 

Rob: Yeah, I should ping you on some of those. 

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'd join them. 

Rob: I think there's so [00:12:00] much value in the podcast circuit because I know that when people think speaking, they want to go on stage, but there's so much traffic, so much like you said, content that can be created to help push their speaking business to the next level just by jumping on podcasts.

Kelly: Yeah, and the podcast I really encourage that for people who want to speak like they're, it's a business owner. They know their message, but they haven't done a lot of speaking. The podcast give you a really good way of just like practicing that messaging and learning how to. Just how to talk about those things that, so you learn what people are engaging with and what people, what questions people ask.

So it helps you really refine your messaging so that you can then take it to a stage or to a small group of whoever your audience is. So that's usually the first step is I try to find people podcast interviews as quickly as possible so that they can just start talking. And that talking helps them get better at their messaging.

And then from there getting on stages or in, small class. [00:13:00] Classroom type settings where they're in front of their target audience that by the time they're speaking where it matters a little bit more, as far as, my, you might convert from those actual speaking events, then, they've got their messaging down and they're really good at it at that point.

Rob: Yeah. Are you familiar with Kimanzi? Kimanzi Constable? Okay. I'm going to send that link to you. He's got 

Kelly: all these resources, Rob. You got to send me. 

Rob: He's got a tool that has all these. So you can basically reach out to editors and then pitch a story, but in that same tool, you can reach out to HR directors that manage their events that you can pitch your client to speak at.

It's a great, yeah, great software. Tons of people use it. I think it would be a great resource for you to just, yeah, knock out and all the emails can go through it. He's got automations. It's crazy. It's amazing. 

Kelly: Cool. Yeah. I'll check it out 

Rob: to you. I think. This is encouraging because you take the booking agent to the next level.[00:14:00] 

But you're not just booking, but you're actually helping to build a platform, right? 

Kelly: Yeah, it's a whole strategy where all of it goes together and do, we could do the booking without the LinkedIn piece, but especially if somebody is really particular about their voice on LinkedIn, if they're really wanting it to be authentic, we can get it close, right?

We can get it very close to. Their voice. And of course they can refine it before it goes out, that kind of thing. But if they're really concerned about that, they can do their own posting and we can, we have a different version of the package that doesn't include the LinkedIn posting, but to me. My team is really good at taking that content.

So if they're on a podcast, like we make those clips and we share those clips and we, develop content, visual pieces, infographics, things like that, based on their messaging that they're putting out there, we encourage people to include the LinkedIn with it because it is, it's a thing where if they're going out, if we're.

Applying for speaking events for them. People are checking out their LinkedIn. So we want those things to all be cohesive and, [00:15:00] really help establish their expertise. And if they're silent on LinkedIn, it just, it doesn't really, it doesn't support their online presence. So we want to do as much of that as we can.

Rob: Yeah, they don't want to fall in the trap of the time stamp because if they look at the other person though They posted today and then they look at you posted nine months ago. Yeah. No. 

Kelly: Yeah. 

Rob: Yeah. Yeah. We'll tell everything 

Kelly: Yeah, sure. 

Rob: So this is really cool because you're not really just targeting speakers to build their platform, but you're actually targeting entrepreneurs and business owners who want to, who have that desire to get their message out, but just either don't know how to do it or Maybe scared or limited, right?

Yeah, 

Kelly: I think it's more the limited piece. Like a lot of times they are, they know their message, like these CEOs that they know their stuff, right? Like they know it, they just don't have time to go out and look for speaking events or handle all of the communications around it. Or they have a team maybe, but their team is already busy and they're not [00:16:00] specialized in.

In that type of marketing work. Like I said, we become like this extension of their team. We work together with their team if they have one. And if they don't have one, that's okay too. But really the, I think the biggest reason they come to us is they know they need to get out there and speak.

They just don't have the time to deal with the booking and finding those events. 

Rob: Yeah. It's a hustle. Yeah. It's a grind. It's a hustle. The emails, the followups, the compounded followups. Yeah. 

Kelly: Yeah, for sure. 

Rob: Your team for the outsource marketing, is it the same team or do you have separate teams? Have you crossed things?

Like how does that work? 

Kelly: Yeah, it's the same team. We're pretty small right now. There's just four of us, but the so yeah, so we have one person's very specialized in design and strategy, really good at strategy. And then I have a, an assistant not doing the marketing work, but supporting the whole team.

And then a new person who's helping with the pitching, because that work. Like you said, it's a hustle. And I can spend the time doing it, but I'd like to spend the time [00:17:00] growing the business and working with the clients directly. So I have somebody who's supporting us on that side. And then we also outsource to freelancers for the writing piece.

So we have, yeah, that, and I see the team growing, and having more people specialize in the different areas. But right now that's the size that we are. 

Rob: And then you also run a podcast for authors. 

Kelly: I do. So my podcast was one of the things I wanted to do right away when I started my business.

Have, so I have a heart for just women in the workplace. I have been a woman in the workplace for 20 some years and I know it's challenging and I know that we don't, especially when you get to a position in leadership, you often, in my experience, I looked around and there weren't very other, very many other women that were at the table.

And so I'm very, I want to support women who choose to either they have to work or they choose to work, but they're in a professional setting for whatever reason. So my podcast is bringing on [00:18:00] women who have written a book that's inspirational. That's a professional nonfiction book. And I really just want to showcase them to show other women that we're not the only ones here.

There's a lot of us that are working. We just don't always. See them at higher levels within companies. I, and I also want to highlight these women and the work that they've done. And so I've had some men reach out to me, like, why don't you have men in your podcast? I'm like, because I really want this to be a place for women where women feel supported and just have that, like kind of building that community.

So part of what we do with the podcast I talk with these women who have these books, but I also have a community for women who are wanting to write a book. So if they're in the process of writing a book or thinking about writing a book, my community is a place for them that is just for women. We meet every week and we help support each other around just being accountable, answering questions that we may have.

This week we worked on our elevator pitches for our books. Just, it's just a [00:19:00] relief. fun community. And I think the women just really feel supported by one another. And so yeah, so it's a side note of what I do, but they're all thought leaders in what they do. And that's how I'm bringing them together.

Rob: I like that because there's a ton of women that have. A message and feel like they want to get their voice heard. How do they find that? Is there a URL for the, with that women's support group? 

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it is the author power circle is what it's called. Every one of my podcasts ends with a kind of a plug for the author power circle.

And it's on my website also. And I can share the link with you so you can put that in the show notes. But yeah, I it's. I've just found it, it just happened, not by accident, but just, it just happened. I've always worked with authors. I was in publishing at the beginning of my career and I've always worked with authors ever since then.

It's always been like a side thing where I've just taken on an author client. Or two at a time, just helping them with the writing [00:20:00] accountability around the writing or the publishing process, the marketing process. And so this just happened from a couple of clients I was working with said, I'd really love to have these sessions with a group of women.

And I was like, okay. So I just started putting out feelers and quickly grew the group to, we have 10 people in it now and we meet weekly and it's open to more members and it's just been really great. It's been every Tuesday and we meet and it's just been such a Refreshing time. The women just really learn from each other and or yeah, loving, supporting one another and learning from each other.

Rob: Is it different levels are some like C suite and then some just like a teachers or are you specific to a particular type? 

Kelly: So most of the women in that group have, it's just happened that most of them are consultants. So they do consulting work. They have a book. In fact, I will feature one of them.

This is just because I happen to have it right here, but I had Terry short on my podcast and her book is the words we choose. This was one of the books she wrote, and then now she's [00:21:00] working on another book. Just after the podcast, we ended the conversation. We were just chatting and I was telling her how I was starting this group.

And she was like I love that. I want to be a part of that. And yeah, so she's in the group and she is a leadership consultant. I have a therapist in the group. I have, yeah, just a variety of different people, but the, I think the biggest theme is consultants who work with that C suite basically.

Rob: Nice. Yeah. I can see this thing grow pretty quickly. 

Kelly: Yeah. I hope so. It's really, it's not a big part of my business plan. It's more of just a fun space for me and part of, I don't know, something that I've always just wanted to work with authors. So it's just a passion project for me.

Rob: Yeah. Interesting. I'm sure ultimately they'll want your help on the ghostwriting side for the other people that come in, through word of mouth and all that stuff. So 

Kelly: yeah. 

Rob: Yeah. You've got a lot of really cool things going on. 

Kelly: Yeah. And I think it was just from having my wings clipped and going, okay, you're free, and so all of these [00:22:00] things that I had been thinking about for a long time just came together really quickly. I'm just, I'm fortunate to be in that position where I was able to play around and figure out what I wanted to do and have that time to build it. 

Rob: Yeah, I imagine you're feeling great now, but how did it feel and then how long did it take that feeling to when things happened and they're like, okay, what next?

Like how long did it take for that to get normalized again? 

Kelly: I don't think my experience is probably normal for everyone. Cause I'll say that I felt like it was pretty shocking, right? It was pretty shocking at first losing your job. I don't know if you've ever been in that position. The more I talked to people, the more I realized that it's not that uncommon, but at the time you feel like.

Holy cow. Like what just happened? It happened on a Thursday and on Friday morning, I got up and I started applying for jobs and I spent, a few hours, I told myself I'm going to apply for 10 jobs every day. And I'm going to be very disciplined in that. And then I'm going to, after I'm done applying for jobs, I'm going to work on my business.

[00:23:00] And so I did that on Friday. And when I started working on my business, I started working on the website a little bit and I went, this is what I want to be doing. And by Monday. I was like, I'm not applying for jobs anymore. Like I am all in and this is what I'm doing. So I went all in really quickly and then spent a lot of time in that discovery phase.

I spent about two weeks there just talking to people and getting, I had a leadership coach in my job. I met with her and just talked through my thoughts. I had just different people in my professional network who I. Just talked through what I was thinking and, and that's when I had that conversation where the guy said to me you don't really know what you want to be doing yet.

And I said, no, actually I do. So those types of conversations helped me really get my head around how to move forward. And so two weeks after I was laid off, I registered the business and two weeks later, I started my first client. And when you get that first client also, you feel like. Okay.

Like you feel a little more confident and you feel like, yeah, okay. These things are making sense [00:24:00] now. So it didn't take me very long to go from, zero to 60, but I think that's because I had a two year time period of knowing it was coming. And I don't think most people know that.

I didn't know 100 percent for sure it was coming. I just suspected that it was. And so I really had been, I think, preparing my mind for a long time. And even though it still was shocking when I lost my job, I think I had already gone through a lot of the stages of whatever people go through at that point.

And I was already prepared from what I see on LinkedIn from people. I don't think a lot of people have that experience, but I'm fortunate that I did. I really do feel fortunate that I had a long time to prepare my mind. Cause I am not a risk taker. I am not the type of person who would start a business.

I, I've just not, but I think that because I had been, had the opportunity to dream about it for a long time, it got me over that fear. [00:25:00] And I. Was able to jump in. 

Rob: Yeah. What would your encouragement be for people that are, that were in a similar situation, but starting over? 

Kelly: Yeah. You mean starting over, like they just lost their job or yeah.

Rob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go with that. 

Kelly: Yeah. Okay. So one of the things I know I've noticed so through the conversations I've had with people is I think the biggest thing is like if you're in that spot, I'm sure there's, for somebody who's lost a job there, there's fear, there's stress, anxiety, and I think that people get paralyzed in that.

And I've talked with a lot of people who are like. They overthink everything, right? I think that's just what helped me the most was making decisions quickly and talking to as many people as possible and making decisions quickly. Because the more you sit in that analysis paralysis stage you're just losing time.

And I'm not making, I'm not saying make decisions based on panic. Like I wasn't making decisions based on panic. But I [00:26:00] had the end in sight and I got clear about that and I started making those decisions quickly to get me to, I say end, but like to basically launch the business. And the longer you sit in this like I started my podcast, like immediately, right?

I knew that was a part of the overall plan. And it was just like, okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to start working on it and I'm going to, yeah. Start working on like the business, like the service lines. And I'm going to start working on, and I just started doing the things instead of going what should my podcast be titled and who should the audience be?

And what's, I just didn't spend. Time overthinking it. I just, I looked at here's where I want to get and what are the steps I need to do to get there? And then I started making those, making those decisions on a daily basis. And I think that's what helped me move really fast.

Granted that knowing where I wanted to get was what I had been thinking about for two years. So that's where I think, again, going back to I had. The benefit of having that time to think about it. But I think getting that clarity as quickly as possible and then making those decisions [00:27:00] quickly is what the advice I would give.

Rob: I like that. When you wonder you waste time. Yeah, that's good. This has been helpful. Yeah. To hear the story, but also to hear more deeply about what you actually do and the outsource, but then also the thought leadership platform. 

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. 

Rob: It brings more clarity to me so I can know who to, I'm going to definitely share the women's author group with some people.

I know a ton of people that man, just have a desire, but for some reason don't get to it. At least they can be around like minded people, 

Kelly: yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'll send you that link to, to add to the show notes and yeah I think the resources that you shared with me are great as well. I think it's always great to learn from other people that have gone through these things and learned and, have all the tools that they use.

So thank you for that. 

Rob: Yeah, I'll send those over and then I'll also connect you with K on LinkedIn too. 

Kelly: Yeah. 

Rob: Awesome. Where can people find you on LinkedIn and on the other socials and then your website? 

Kelly: Yeah. So [00:28:00] LinkedIn, we can also put that in the show notes probably because my last name is not the easiest to spell.

So yeah, my LinkedIn is just my name. So Kelly Schupnack and otherwise my website is kellyschupnack. com. And that's where you can find the author power circle and my podcast. And then I also have my website for my business, which is two mile high marketing and for anyone who's interested in the thought leadership marketing or a marketing strategy for their company, that is where you can find me for that.

Rob: Nice. Great. I appreciate you. Thanks again. And I'm so happy that we got a chance to catch up. 

Kelly: Same. Yeah. Thanks Rob. 

Rob: Okay. Thank you.