31: Scaling Beyond Your Personal Network: Building Trust on Linkedin with Philippa Girling (Part 2)
When Philippa Girling reaches outside her network to fund her entrepreneurial vision for Camp Chateau, she struggles to gain traction with her compelling message of female empowerment and inclusivity.
"It's getting to the meeting. Once we have a video meeting, the response is about the same. It's getting that initial meeting that's the bigger challenge." Philippa Girling
Philippa Girling is the CEO of Camp Chateau, a startup business offering inclusive spaces for women and other genders. She has travelled widely, has a PhD in Risk Management and experience in banking and tech companies.
In part 2 of Philippa's interview, she was curious about what was happening when she was reaching out to people outside of her personal network because suddenly what was working, wasn't working as well.
In this episode, you will hear Una coaching Philippa on:
1. What's happening when you're reaching out to people outside your personal network and they're coming back with objections or no response?
2. What was missing from Philippa's Linkedin strategy - and some quick fixes?
3. What strategies can Philippa use to create an effective sales process and build trust and relationships with potential customers who are currently strangers?
This newfound knowledge has given Philippa the confidence to reach more people and make a bigger impact in the world.
Resources
Connect with Philippa here:
About Your Host:
Úna Doyle is the founder of CreativeFlow.tv - a speaker, business strategist and impact coach. Business owners hire Úna to help them to build a business they could sell tomorrow, but don't want to because it's highly profitable, fun-to-run and they get to make a bigger impact on the world.
In every episode, Úna and her guests share strategies, stories and wisdom to help you achieve your goals too.
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Mentioned in this episode:
She Leads Business Season 2 - Introduction
She Leads Business Season 2 - Outro
Transcript
(Machine Transcript)
Philippa Girling :I think it is reaching out beyond my network. The first six months of being in this really great network with a strong reputation was easy mining. Right now, moving to the edges of the people that I know well, and we have to start thinking more about branding, building trust, transparency in areas and groups that I have not ever been seen in before. Now, we've built our email list from our website, went from 30 people six months ago to 1000 today. So we have a really healthy subscription on our mailing list.
Una Doyle :What's happening when you're reaching to people outside the network? Are they coming back with objections or are you just getting a lack of response?
Philippa Girling :I think the response rate is lower. For founding members, the response rate is pretty much consistent for campers. Yes. I'd love to come to that camp. That still is about the same. I know and trust you enough to invest some of my money in you. For a camp that has not actually run yet, that response rate is lower.
Una Doyle :Welcome to the she Leads Business Show, where I shine the spotlight on female owners of growing small and medium sized businesses. You're in the right place if you want to ditch the stress and firefighting, stop working too many hours despite having team members, and never compete on Price again. I'm Una Doyle, founder of Creative Flow. I'm a speaker, business strategist and Impact Coach. Business owners hire me to help them to build a business they could sell tomorrow, but they probably don't want to because it's highly profitable. It's fun to run because they and their team are in creative flow and they get to make a bigger impact on the world. In every episode, myself and my guests share the strategies, stories and wisdom to help you to achieve this, too. Now, let's get on with the show. In terms of your vision for the Chateau, you can see as far as getting it funded and up and running, is there anything beyond that at the moment? Not that that isn't a big enough vision in itself. Just so they have clarity of what's your kind of medium to longer term vision?
Philippa Girling :Yes. The three year plan we have is just to continue to grow the capacity at Shattered Bedway because we could have more people. We could renovate the third floor. It's vast attics up there, beautiful attics that we could have some extra bedrooms. We could lengthen the season so that we could heat the pools. So there's ways that we can expand the revenue over the next three to five years. And in the business plan that we have presented to our equity investors, that's what's in there. However, Camp Chateau is owned by a parent company, Camp Pannier. And the mission of Camp Panier is to create inclusive spaces. And we're starting with women. At Camp Chateau, what we'd love to do is to expand to other inclusive spaces. So for example, perhaps you want to add some other properties. Maybe there's going to be a Camp castello in Italy, maybe there's a camp in Portugal or Spain. We could add new properties and then we could add new products. Like maybe there's an Lgbtqia plus camp. Maybe there's a trans camp camp. Great. So let's make sure. Let's have some camps where people just feel like I can just come and be me and there's no facade or mast and how rejuvenating and relaxing is that? And so we do have plans to keep expanding. We're very focused this year on getting this right, because we know if we get it right, we can then look at how can we do this similar type of product but in slightly different ways, appealing to other groups that are looking for this kind of opportunity.
Una Doyle :I'm really glad you've mentioned that inclusivity side of it because I'm always very conscious when I'm talking about women because I have had different people on the podcast. So say women non binary. I don't really care what people are, I don't care what their sexuality is. It is that thing about this exists to highlight women and other genders who normally don't get in the spotlight in the same way because you look at the vast majority of podcasts and they mainly have men. And so I'm just looking to rectify the odds here a little bit.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, absolutely. And while our camp director is trans nonbinary intersex and we are finding that they are fantastic as a camp director because they're a sponge as they meet with our founders, because they're doing one on one meetings with the founders, there's a sponge for what is it that you're looking for that will make this experience wonderful and healthy and relaxing for you. And people are very open to them in the way that they share their ideas. And now their name is Teguin Evans. And Teguin and I have also been talking about, right, well, what are we going to do in the future that's inclusive of the queer community and how are we going to do that in a way that we can continue to offer this open, inclusive space? And we've had some really interesting conversations around how are we going to handle it if any of our campers are actually not inclusively minded? How do you handle a situation where you've got 50 women in in camp together and someone is behaving badly? And Tegwin's experience is really helpful as we talk through that? How do you make people feel like they're in a wonderful environment and how do you handle any conflict that's to do with identity?
Una Doyle :That's great. What would we expect from you as someone who's been involved in risk and for Teguin's experience that they obviously have been in these situations before, so they're able to bring that to bear as well. It's so interesting that what I have seen in some communities that you think where the focus would be on inclusivity that within that inclusivity sometimes there's real division discriminatory. Yeah. And yeah, it's so interesting. Yes, I can imagine in that group scenario could be challenging if it wasn't handled correctly. So I think that's great that you're working on all of this and also looking to create those inclusive spaces as well.
Philippa Girling :Also we've had to face the possibility that this may be such an experience for some people. We have a lot of people coming from high pressured A type C level roles and then people who are we have a lot of people of color, we have a lot of Hispanic, we have Asian, we have really fantastic demographics of people coming who have their own experiences of not really having peaceful, tranquil, joyful time. And I had one conversation with someone who said you may not be intending for this to be a transformative experience, but it might be accidentally transformative and around day three somebody might suddenly be sitting in a corner going, oh, I didn't even know this about my life because they've never had the space to just be relaxed. So we've also talked through how are we going to handle those moments of clarity and meltdown that could come? And we've talked that through quite a bit.
Una Doyle :Yes, it's well, as they say, you often have to break a few eggs in order to get an omelet.
Philippa Girling :You do. But we really want people not to feel at all broken, stood and relaxed as the goal here.
Una Doyle :Yes, interesting. So it's great that you got 1 million, over 1 million raised so far. Is that enough to be able to open the doors?
Philippa Girling :Yeah, it's enough for us to be able to proceed. We're in a good place. But what we have to do now is decide how much do we want to continue just doubling down and seeing if we can get all the way to the goal line using women equity members and founding members? Or at what point do we want to say, right, well, we only need to go get business funding for the Gap and we face what every startup faces, is that you need the money before you can prove that you can pay the bill. And so our revenue will all start coming in in April, May and June. Most people have just paid a deposit at this point and then 90 days before camp, they have to pay their full balance. So then our revenue really shows on the books. The property itself we have purchased by purchasing the company that owns it. So it's not like it's an easy mortgage type situation. So we're really looking at what is the right way for us to business fund the Gap if we don't successfully fill the gap with female founders. And that's a big question for us right now and we're just moving full speed ahead with getting camp ready. We know we're going to open what we're not 100% sure about is what the funding model will be when it's all complete.
Una Doyle :Okay, great. And what would you say is your number one challenge then, in this moving forward?
Philippa Girling :Philippapa I think it is reaching out beyond my network. The first six months of being in this really great network with a strong reputation was easy mining. Now moving to the edges of the people that I know well, and we have to start thinking more about branding, building trust, transparency in areas and groups that I have not ever been seen in before. Now, we've built our email list from our website, went from 30 people six months ago to 1000 today. So we have a really healthy subscription on our mailing list. We have some viewing on our Instagram and Facebook, but only really in the hundreds. We probably need to get up into the many thousands in order to just build some credibility there. I'm talking to LinkedIn about how best to show up on LinkedIn. Should we do advertising or should we focus on one on one? I think that's the biggest challenge. Once you get outside where you're known.
Una Doyle :What'S happening, when you're reaching to people outside the network, are they coming back with objections or are you just getting a lack of response?
Philippa Girling :I think the response rate is lower for founding members. The response rate is pretty much consistent for Campers. Yes, I'd love to come to that camp. That still, I think, is about the same. I know and trust you enough to invest some of my money in you for a camp that has not actually run yet, that response rate is lower. Now, I still do meet people and I'm still finding founding members coming in from networks. I have never met them before, which is really interesting to me. But I think that comes from the fact that we have a conversation. It's a very authentic, vulnerable, real conversation. We all share something that is, I'm a woman and I've been trying to have a break. That's always there. So it's getting to the meeting. I think once we have a video meeting, the response is about the same. It's getting that initial meeting that's the bigger challenge.
Una Doyle :Okay, and in terms of the content that you're sharing on LinkedIn, tell me a bit about that.
Philippa Girling :Well, we have a cap shadow page, which we know we need to do more with, to be honest. And then there's my LinkedIn profile. Now my LinkedIn profile over the last 15 years or so, there have been times where I've posted something and got 100,000 views. I can't get 100,000 views on something I post for Camp Chateau. I can get maybe 3000 views, which is all pretty good. But that viral nature used to follow me in my job, changes in banking, because I, you know, I put in who I'm leaving, where I'm joining, and everybody's looking at that. So I think our LinkedIn presence is sort of morphing right now as I change from being someone who's a leader in the risk industry, because I actually have a PhD in that subject. I've written textbooks in that subject. It's something I'm known for. And now I'm talking about something that's nothing to do with that. This is the chateau in France. So I think my LinkedIn profile is going through this morph of chief risk officer, banker to CEO of Camp Chateau, and I've got to see how I can bring everyone with me. And the Camp Chateau LinkedIn site itself, because we're B to C, LinkedIn might not be the best place for that, to be honest. I think it's a good place to find founding members. I don't know. It's where we would really push for campus.
Una Doyle :I've got a question for you, actually. How much time do you spend engaging on other people's content?
Philippa Girling :Not much.
Una Doyle :Okay. I would say I think that's one of your biggest issues here. So the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, and a shout out to Pam Case for her phrase algorithmic connection. So basically what's happening is your posts aren't getting seen because you haven't created those algorithmic connections with your target audience. So when you go and engage on other people's posts, LinkedIn actually more people will see what you do. So number one, you've got the direct thing of somebody looking at a value adding comment. I'm not talking about the kind of great post, thumbs up. I don't mean that. I'm talking about insightful, thoughtful comments on other people's posts. And I think a lot of people don't think of hashtags for LinkedIn because you think of our hashtags for TikTok and Instagram because they use so much more there. But actually, from an engagement point of view, hashtags can be very good. There's one or two posts I've seen where you've got well being women, supporting women, things like that. And actually, of course, you've got the whole diversity and inclusion agenda as well. So I actually think one of the things you can do is spend some time going and commenting that will bring people back to your profile and will bring you connection requests, and you can create connection requests for people who you already know have similar values.
Philippa Girling :So maybe do a search on a particular hashtag that I know relates to us, see who else is writing back. I try to make sure if something comes up in my notifications that looks like it's sort of on point for us, I'll go in and comment, not just, yes, well done, or congratulations, but something where I'll sort of circle back to what we're thinking of as well, but not often enough, perhaps. I mean, I do that maybe once or twice a week.
Una Doyle :Okay, yeah, you want to be doing this at least probably four or five times a week to get it going. And look, I've been changing up my team right now. I don't have someone helping me with social media. My social media has not been as active as it would be normally. I'm okay with that. I have my focus on some of the things it will pick up. I am just dropping in little bits that I do kind of at least a few times a week go and do some engagement and post something and all of that. There's times when things will go down, but generally speaking, it's amazing how you go and put an insightful comment on somebody else's post that ideally has got traction. And then what happens is a lot of the people will be notified who've already commented on that post or who will come to comment and read your comment first and maybe even reply to your comments. You can actually get some discussions going and you can also use that for some of your content as well because you put a good comment on and then you can often turn that into your own post, tag the original person, there's things like that. But I actually think that engagement piece is one of the things that's missing because right now there's nothing wrong with the post per se that you're putting out. I'm not saying they couldn't be improved, but I don't see glaring errors in them. I think it's just not enough people are seeing them.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, well there was a recent post I really liked and I commented on it and then I reposted it because I said I really like this, this is great. And that's pretty much all I said, I really like this post and it instantly got 3000 views. That's so interesting because all I did was reshare something that somebody else had posted and I assume everybody else who had seen that post was then informed oh, somebody else has reposted that. And so that sounds like a great idea. I could look for things I want to repost.
Una Doyle :What you want to do is add the comment on the post and then reshare with your comment because what you need to think about this if you just start doing a load of reposts it's not going to help you. You've got to think about curating content but also you want to be engaging in the space of the original poster because that helps you to build a relationship with that poster and all of their followers. If you only repost going oh, I really like this. I mean, it's great you got more views. However, a view just means it showed up in somebody's newsfeed. What about reactions? What about comments that actually shows a stronger level of engagement rather than just visibility?
Philippa Girling :Right, that's great. Okay, that's a good thing and that's easy to try. I can do that right away.
Una Doyle :Yes. And it'll probably take a few weeks, I would say three weeks of doing that consistently and see what happens and what you'll probably find I know when I go and engage another people's posts and I put thoughtful comments and I share insights that next thing I know, I've got a flurry of connection requests. So you can start pulling people to you. I just think there's so many things that you could be talking about. You've got such a rich history of experience. So you've got the La law experience of being in New York. You've got the fact that you've worked with Risk, the fact that you've been a project manager, and you could be sharing tips in all of these kinds of areas relating to what you're doing now, but referencing where you've come from.
Philippa Girling :Right? Yes. And I did realize a couple of weeks ago, tegwen and I went through a risk assessment that we were doing on Camp Chateau, make sure we hadn't forgotten anything. And so we took some of the old risk assessment techniques that I've been using and we applied it. It was incredibly helpful. And we did identify a couple of things that we needed to reprioritize all that we could stop worrying about because we realized we've got that covered. And at the end of that, I thought, this is something I should offer. I should offer to do how to do a risk assessment of your business or your startup? Or are you lying awake at night worrying about what could go wrong? Here's a way to get your arms around that. And then offer that to people who are in networks where they are starting businesses, they're entrepreneurs. And just do that, and then let that land. And then say, by the way, this is what I'm doing. So what do you think about me trying to do that?
Una Doyle :I would actually say that there's a concept called seeding when you do public speaking. Have you come across that before?
Philippa Girling :I haven't.
Una Doyle :Okay, so one of the things I would say when I introduce myself, I would say that I focus on teaching principles first. And my aim with all my clients is to help them to at least double their revenues and triple their profits. So that's planting seeds. But then through the content that I'm sharing, I can be talking about, okay, so here's this example of where I actually did that with a client using this principle. And so it's planting seeds. So you could be doing the same thing. So in teaching the risk assessment, you could show the example of what you did with Camp Chateau.
Philippa Girling :Right.
Una Doyle :So don't kind of go, oh, here's how to do the risk assessment. Actually make it a very story based, relevant to what you want them to be thinking about. And you could be talking about part of this is around our funding members. So this is the business model for Camp Chateau. It works like this, and people can invest from as little as six and a half thousand euros. But you're making it part of the teaching rather than a pitch. Right, but it still seeds the idea. And then people come up, oh, are you still looking for founding members? I'm really interested in this. You could probably look at a few things so you could look at the risk assessments, but maybe look at some different angles or different lengths of talk that you could do. Maybe put on some events on LinkedIn, Do, LinkedIn Lives, but then also going and talking to the owners of some of these groups and seeing, okay, hey, listen, would you like me to come and do a talk about this? Obviously, because if they can promote it for you and bring an audience to you, then absolutely, there's a lot more leverage there.
Philippa Girling :Okay, I like that. That sounds like really good guidance. So I can think about how can I provide the information that people are going to find helpful at the same time as using ourselves as the example for how it works? And then this way they understand, first of all, what we do and secondly, that we're safe when we do it because we've thought it through. And then they could take those experiences and apply them to their own business.
Una Doyle :Exactly. And if you're going and giving a talk for free, you'll usually get the opportunity to promote something. So at the point that you're arranging the talk workshop, live, whatever it might be, with the group owner or network owner, then you could say, would it be okay if I offer people the chance to have a one on one with me if they want to find out more? Or I'm just wondering, actually, the other thing that you could look at as well is your sales process. So right now you've got some kind of messaging and then people get on a call with you and from there you're golden. I wonder for the newer people that don't know you yet, if there's one or more interim steps to create one, to build a relationship, and number two, to create that trust and really with that. So that could be a number of things. It could be some short videos. It could be holding like a training presentation, webinar style thing. And it could be quite short. It could just be like 1520 minutes. So let me share this with you. And then they get on a call, which also means by the time they get on the call, they're already presold because they've had that essential content. It could be like three videos on a page when you send them to the page. And then you could have maybe one is aimed at people who are interested in actually attending just as a customer, and then talk about the funding model and the whole vision, the bigger vision behind it, and actually talking about what does it mean to the women who invest? Maybe this is the first time they've ever made a business investment. How does that make them feel? What does it do to their identity to be I'm an investor in something, I believe in what we have at.
Philippa Girling :The bottom of our website, we asked all of our founding members, would you be willing to share your face and why you invested? And we put those at the bottom of one of our pages in the website, the About US page. And every time I read that page, I'm just inspired because they're all so enthusiastic and so excited to be part of it. And we use that also in our Instagram and Facebook. So we do little profiles here from a couple of our founders. Here why they are founders, and I think there's more we can do with that that helps also to build confidence because it's a bit of a snowball. The more people who come, the more comfortable people feel.
Una Doyle :Well, and here's the other thing, is that actually, I would imagine for many of the women, particularly if they're business owners, they would love the publicity opportunity that would come along with being an investor, of actually being showcased as an investor.
Philippa Girling :Interestingly, maybe 5% of our founding members have their own businesses.
Una Doyle :Interesting.
Philippa Girling :Very few. Very few. Most of them are somewhere in the corporate world I hadn't really thought about before, but just hearing you say that, thinking that's interesting because yes, absolutely, we'll promote them.
Una Doyle :I'm curious, is that reflective of your LinkedIn network or is it reflective of a lower take up rate from business owners?
Philippa Girling :I think both.
Una Doyle :It would be interesting. Go back and have a look at the numbers.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, I think both. I think people who are business owners tend to be very focused on their own fundraising business generation. To ask them to think about themselves is quite hard. People who are in corporate America, and we have quite a few stay at home spouses too, but people who are in corporate America have just been through the two toughest years of their career. They are burnt out from what they've experienced since COVID began and everything that went along with it too. I mean, there's been a lot of trauma in the world, really, in the last few years, and they have paid vacation and they know that they have to do something or they're going to burn out. I think women running their own businesses find it much harder to admit that because you're supposed to just keep working hard and make it successful because it's all on you. Whereas if you're in a corporate role, you can say, you know what, I'm stepping away. You can manage without me.
Una Doyle :And that might be to do with the scale of the business owners. So if it's a one person business, but even a one person business, you need time off. I wouldn't have that with my clients. I took two weeks off at Christmas.
Philippa Girling :Yes, but you know, UDA, you're in England. You know, there's there's a work ethic in America that is so unhealthy, that is so driven and I mean, lots of people in America have two weeks vacation, which is just horrific. And so I think if they're in a role where the corporation gives them four weeks, then they feel like they have a little more time that they can give back to themselves. The conversations I have with people in America are quite different to the ones I have with people not in America. In America, our customers understand what camp is. They're like, yeah, I want to do that. My kids have done that. Why haven't I done that? My husband goes off and plays golf for five days with his friends. Why am I not doing this for myself? And that's how they're thinking. The nut to crack for them is, how do I get there? Travel is the biggest thing for them. When I talk to people in Europe, travel is nothing. It's easy. It's literally really affordable. Their question is, what's camp? And I have to explain, oh, this is what summer camp is. They're not thinking of, Can I take the time? In Europe? They know they can take the time. In America. People are thinking, Can I take the time?
Una Doyle :Interesting. Okay, there's just a few things about the profile. We don't have time right now to go into detail in it, but you're missing a trick in terms of your headline, because right now it says, Chair and CEO with Diversity and Inclusion mission Focus. You don't have anything in there about looking for female founders because every time you post and every time you add a comment, people see your headline, or at least the beginning of your headline. So if you change your headline on your mobile, you actually get way more characters than if you do it on desktop. Little trick. Little trick for you.
Philippa Girling :Good trick.
Una Doyle :And the other thing is that your about section needs to be completely changed. Right now, it reads like a CV, but you're a business owner now. You need to be focused on customers, not like you're trying to get into the job.
Philippa Girling :Right, good point. So I'm not looking to get hired.
Una Doyle :No.
Philippa Girling :And it probably reads like my old LinkedIn.
Una Doyle :Correct.
Philippa Girling :Hire me. I'm an expert.
Una Doyle :I would be focused on your founders because this is LinkedIn. You got to look at what pain is this solving? What aspiration is this solving for them? You need to hit them quickly with that. And then you've got quite a lot of room in your about section to really get things in there and to put in the credibility aspects as well. If you say to the average person, I have a background in banking and risk, I think for most people, oh, she sounds like a safe pet, because they're thinking, oh, well, she understands money and how to mitigate risk, even if they don't really understand the whole risk industry. I think there's definitely some things you could do there. I talk a lot about market. Dominating position. When I look on the website, I can see immediately what you do, which is great. Okay. And because that might sound obvious, but it's not obvious on a lot of websites for sure. I'm not seeing anything about the become a founding member.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, that all is under about US and we've had some conversations about this. Do we want to put it on the first page or not? And interestingly, some of the feedback we've had from Campers is that when they receive something, an email that's to do with founding membership, it makes them nervous because they come back and say, wait, is this something where I have to invest to come? Because I thought I was just coming. And we've had to be very clear, no, you are just coming. There is also this opportunity to be a founding member. So with our website, we have kept it camper focused for the first page and then founding membership you really get to when you talk about us. But perhaps there's something we should do more upfront on the first page.
Una Doyle :Yeah, I would separate out what I can see is there's some information on the About US page and then you have another page to click to find out more and then they have to email you. I think what you really need is like a sales page for those founding members.
Philippa Girling :Yeah. And it may be that what's on the About US page is most of that. And so we could sort of bring that. We've had this conversation recently because we had two pages, then we had one page and then we had two pages and we need to go back and look at that. And I have wondered whether we should have about a founder as one of our menu choices at the top, but become a Founder, which we did at one point. And then during some of the redesigns, it went away again, whether it's on.
Una Doyle :The menu or not, you definitely need to be able to send it to people who might be interested in that. But also we were talking about creating some content that's going to close the loop in the relationship, building a bit for you that's going to help you to get into the calendars of the people who you want to be speaking to who don't know you yet. I think there's just a bit of a rethink there. It might be here's a PDF, here's a playlist with videos. You just want to get this stuff produced and in the hands of the people who you want to be speaking with.
Philippa Girling :What we send people is pitch deck list of all the benefits link to the founding member page when we get them, if they respond with yes, I'd like information that goes right.
Una Doyle :And is that from an initial message or is that once you've had a.
Philippa Girling :Conversation with them, that's the first thing we do. And then that leads to the conversation.
Una Doyle :Okay. Right. With the people who don't know you yet, because you're getting a lower response rate, I think you need to add an extra step or two in there.
Philippa Girling :Right.
Una Doyle :Because even though it's some extra steps, it will actually increase your response rate because it might just be too much of a leap.
Philippa Girling :So what would be a good interim, do you think, from somebody who says, yes, I'm interested to know more?
Una Doyle :Look, you're really personable. A short video that includes some of the pictures and things so they can see, oh, this is real, this is tangible, it exists and this is the concept behind it. Without giving any of the detail, per se, but you may say from six and a half thousand euros. So they have an idea what's involved, but also saying you may not be interested in being a founding member. However, maybe you just want to come for a break. If I've messaged you with this, hit reply and let me know. Yes to info. Find some shorthand of going, just go founding member if you're interested in that, and just go escape. Or take a break if you're interested in finding out more about actually coming to visit. Because I think for somebody who's kind of going, oh, yeah, I like to find out a little bit more. To suddenly get a pitch deck, that feels like a lot because they don't know you yet. It's not like the people who were already in your network who knew who you were.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, that's a really good point. I like that.
Una Doyle :This is the thing about you got to look at the sales process in context, because what happens a lot. And so you get a lot of marketing people and they will break down different stages of a sales process, and they look at each one and try and tinker each one. But you have to look at the system as a whole.
Philippa Girling :Yeah, that makes sense.
Una Doyle :And the context is so, so important and interestingly.
Philippa Girling :We were already talking this week about putting together a video, actually for other purposes as well. And so I started talking to Tegwin about it, saying, we have quite a lot of reels, we have quite a lot of moving, beautiful pictures of the harvest and the buildings and the landscape. There's so much we can show. Let's put together a video that summarizes the high points of the pitch deck without being the pitch deck. So that sounds like I could change my approach, so that when I'm reaching out to people on LinkedIn, for example, or in any of the networking groups I've joined, I can say, if you'd like more information, let me know, and then I just send them the video.
Una Doyle :Exactly. But you got to give them a call to action.
Philippa Girling :Call to action, which tell me more about being a founder. Tell me more about being a camper.
Una Doyle :Yes, exactly. So you understand you got the pitch deck. I think the other thing to look at is the positioning for those founding members, because now that you're going beyond your network so this is what I see happen time and time again with businesses. They get to a certain size, and then they're going outside of their existing network. And quite often you're keeping up those one to one conversations, but there will come a point where you may not want to be doing that when people go beyond that, and then all of a sudden, their response rates fall and their sales fall, and they're like, going, oh, what's going on? And quite often this causes companies revenues to plateau or even to decrease. And the reason is because they don't have a strong market dominating position. We've run out of time for today, unfortunately. But I've talked about market dominating position in lots of these episodes. I just wanted to make that point because it's something that's quite different, I think, for the consumers coming to just to book a break, I think people will see the pictures and go, oh, this looks great. And they look around it and, yeah, I think it looks fantastic. I do wonder with the founders, for the people who don't know you, what's the positioning in terms of them becoming a founding member and going beyond the relationship that they may have with you? So, yes, there's the financial information. I know you got all of that there. But what pain is it solving or what aspiration is it helping them to achieve? What are the things around their identity? Just some other things like that. I think if they're not already in your pitch deck, then maybe they can be brought in and or brought into other stages of the sales process as well.
Philippa Girling :And there was a time where I tried a different approach to my contact people, which was, have you always wanted to invest in women and didn't know how? Or have you always wanted to invest in yourself and don't know how? We can show you how. And I didn't get a good response to that. I did better with, Hi, this is me. This is you. I've made this change. Would you like to learn more? Which surprised me. So I think maybe it's just who it's targeted at.
Una Doyle :And also LinkedIn is full of spam messages. You go look at the environment. Now, if you were to do a talk about that in somebody's group, that's a totally different context than something landing in your inbox from somebody that could be a fake profile for all you know. True context is very important, especially when it comes to money.
Philippa Girling :Yes, absolutely. Okay, great. This has been so helpful, so helpful.
Una Doyle :Good, I'm glad to hear it. So, Philippa, what has been most significant for you in our conversation here today?
Philippa Girling :I think the most helpful thing here is to think about how to adapt our sales and communication process to the changing demographic that we're going into, which is away from my close contacts to my more distant contacts, I think that's really helpful. That's something that we will do, and I'm absolutely going to jump right in there and look at my profile and make those changes because you're so right. It's definitely still pitched as, do you want to hire me? Instead of, do you want to join me?
Una Doyle :Yes. It's a totally different message.
Philippa Girling :Yeah.
Una Doyle :Fantastic. You can't see Philippapa's face right now, but I can see the cog swearing.
Philippa Girling :I'm thinking this is really good stuff. Thank you.
Una Doyle :Fantastic. Thank you, Philippapa. I've really enjoyed our conversation today. Do go check out the website. Tell people where they can find you.
Philippa Girling :Philippapa, www.campshadow.com. And you can find us on Instagram and Facebook if you look up Camp Chateau as well.
Una Doyle :Wonderful. I'm excited to hear how you get on. And do, please contact Philippapa if you're interested in checking out the Camp Chateau, either as a visitor or even a founding member. I think it's a wonderful opportunity to become an investor and to support other women and to know you've got a holiday booked every year for the next.
Philippa Girling :Three years, and it's going to be wonderful.
Una Doyle :Exactly. And also, I want you to think about funding models as well, because I think sometimes women get stuck in particular about how to grow, and I think they don't seek funding as often as they ought to. And then also for those who do seek funding, they face a lot of barriers in that. But be innovative. There's all sorts of different ways to fund what it is that you're looking to do in your business. And so I really applaud you and your partners for what you've created here and taking a different approach in what you're doing. So hopefully that will be an inspiration for some people who are listening as well.
Philippa Girling :Fantastic.
Una Doyle :Thank you for your time here today. Philippapa, best of luck going forward. I'll speak to you again soon.
Philippa Girling :Thank you so much for inviting me.
Una Doyle :That's all for today, folks. Have you subscribed to get more of this juicy goodness for your business? If not, tap that button now. Remember to check the description for links mentioned in this episode. Did you enjoy and find value in this free broadcast? I want you to know that I go so much deeper into the topics discussed with coaching and workshops based on my impact driven growth model. Want to know how I can help you to double your profits without spending a penny more on marketing around? Let's arrange to hop on a call to discuss your goals and challenges, and I'll show you how. Plus, when you book, I'll send you some free training videos too. Go book now at https://www.CreativeFlow.tv/callwithuna. That's https://www.CreativeFlow.tv/callwithuna.
