Sandra Clark – Success Story
Meet Sandra Clark:
LinkedIn Coach & Consultant, Owner of LinkedIn Mentoring
Sandra is a wonderfully talented entrepreneur with a prolific body of work. After time as a teacher and teacher director, she spent over 25 years as an administrator at the University of California where she ran a department offering customized corporate training services to Silicon Valley companies. Based in Silicon Valley herself, she says, “Anything in the world that’s technology-driven, there’s a heart of it here – An energy that I love!”
In her time as Theater Director, Sandra picked up pivotal marketing skills and eventually combined her love for teaching and making people look good on stage – to making people look good on LinkedIn.
Today, she has settled nicely into her wheelhouse: Running a successful LinkedIn coaching and consulting business – LinkedIn Mentoring – and helping working professionals understand the finer points of LinkedIn so that they can “get noticed, and get results”.
Partnered With Red Cape On: August 2020
The Challenges
What challenges did Sandra want Red Cape to address?
A life-long learner at heart, Sandra loves to explore new information. She leads with this curious spirit in her business as well, which initially drove her to handle her marketing and operations single-handedly. She would take time out of her day to learn the latest tactics, especially pertaining to her newsletter and CRM, and transfer those lessons into her business, doing this religiously for 10 years.
In time, she found herself not enjoying the process as it became incredibly draining and distracting.
To handle those key aspects of her marketing and operations – and handle them well – Sandra approached Red Cape Consulting. This was a turning point as she is now able to take a breather from her logistics and focus on interacting with her clients.
Why did Sandra face this challenge?
Sandra’s approach to operating all her business engines single-handedly took her away from her Zone of Genius. Being an expert at writing her newsletters and recording her videos – she found it a challenge to make them look pretty and catch every formatting detail.
Eager to nurture her growing business and interact with her clients, she sensed she would need outside help. Her trust and confidence in Red Cape were immediate. Sandra now finds herself returning to her Zone of Genius and is able to have an expert team in her back pocket to pass off the aspects of her business she doesn’t enjoy as much. The turnaround time was a surprise for Sandra as tasks that usually take her an hour, get done in 5 minutes with Red Cape.
As Sandra says, “My life is so much easier now and I can spend that time making money instead of spending it on something I don’t enjoy.
What initial solutions or marketing companies did Sandra try prior to Red Cape?
Sandra initially contracted with a couple of different VAs for a few years to handle her newsletter and manage her CRM system. Not especially pleased with the results and simultaneously dealing with communication and feedback issues, Sandra found herself doing a lot of the work herself at the last minute.
For Sandra, working with Red Cape is a welcome change. She loves Red Cape’s approach of treating her business with the same care as their own. As she has seen, Red Cape is very flexible and up for any challenge – responding with an immediate solution. “There is this partnership of equals which I really love,” says Sandra.
The Solutions
Why did Sandra choose Red Cape?
Sandra met Tiffany in a coaching program and was immediately assured by her integrity and her commitment to Red Cape. She appreciated Tiffany’s warm, friendly demeanor, and found there to be an instinctive values alignment.
She was further convinced of Tiffany’s credibility and expertise when a mutual coaching friend, Karen Cappello, committed to working with Red Cape.
During the coaching program, Sandra had a valuable opportunity to get to know Tiffany which isn’t always possible when hiring a VA. She discovered this same alignment with the rest of the team at Red Cape and began confidently handing off larger pieces of her marketing and operations.
How did Red Cape help Sandra solve this challenge?
Sandra is now able to focus on writing her newsletter – the part she enjoys most – and pass it on to Red Cape to format, design, add videos, and feed it into the system. This also involves details like making sure all her links work and navigating the technical quirks of her CRM.
The partnership is a huge relief to Sandra as she knows everything is completed as requested – with Red Cape even taking the initiative to suggest newer and better ways to streamline her process.
Sandra shares, a lot of her business comes from nurturing her mailing list and sending them LinkedIn tips. Red Cape took over this important business development aspect and streamlined it for her.
As Sandra has started getting back into posting videos, she relies on Red Cape’s expertise to handle the editing, uploading, thumbnail creation, and optimization – all of which has fetched Sandra some very exciting results.
Her Google My Business page has also been optimized by Red Cape’s tech experts to show up in more searches. This has increased Sandra’s visibility exponentially.
How did this solution impact Sandra’s business?
Sandra confirms her partnership with Red Cape increased her business by at least 20%. She is getting back to having fun with it and giving her main energy to interacting with her clients.
“I’m not fiddling with technology anymore. This has allowed me more time to spend with my clients. I’m really grateful,” says Sandra.
What was the timeline?
From 2020 to 2022, Sandra’s email open rate has increased exponentially by 18.1%. Sandra was also able to garner 4,052 views on her YouTube channel in the last year and continues to steadily increase her subscriber count.
The Road Ahead
Were there any unexpected/surprising benefits that Sandra was also able to receive with Red Cape?
Sandra frames her answer quite honestly, “I realized I like being taken care of. I was brought up with, ‘I have to take care of myself’. I don’t really like going to fancy hotels where they do everything for you. That feels uncomfortable to me. With Red Cape, I discovered I love being taken care of. That was my biggest surprise!”
Additionally, Sandra also came to appreciate the holistic nature of Red Cape’s services. She started with handing over her newsletter, and over time, came to hand off more and more aspects of her marketing and operations, pleased to find that Red Cape is skilled at taking the ball and running with it.
Has Sandra signed on for additional services than what she initially engaged Red Cape for?
Starting with proofreading and making sure her newsletter is right to publish, Sandra has also handed over the management of her CRM.
Additionally, she relies on Red Cape to publish and optimize her videos, polish her Google My Business page, and leverages Red Cape as a sounding board for her business development.
She has found Red Cape to be very adept at stepping in to take care of her marketing and operational tasks, and getting them done quickly without the trial and error.
More Recently, Sandra had Red Cape re-write and design the services page on her website. This has enabled her to streamline her message and make it easily digestible.
What benefits does Sandra anticipate long-term with Red Cape?
Sandra says, “Working with Red Cape has allowed me to keep doing what I love for as long as possible. Honestly, if I had to do all these other parts, I would have had to retire earlier because it would be too much of a burden.”
Having struck a very positive cadence in her relationship with Red Cape, Sandra looks forward to spending her time connecting with her clients one-on-one and enjoying a nice and comfortable life where she can focus on the parts of her business she loves the most.
Sandra Clark continues to do important work with her coaching and consulting business, helping her clients create a powerful impact on LinkedIn and land amazing business and job opportunities.