TikTok For Business with Keenya Kelly – No dancing required!

Yvonne: And we are back with another episode of Boss Your Business. I am on my second coffee because I have the queen, the powerhouse, Kenya Kelly today. That woman, I swear, I need a second coffee and she doesn’t even drink coffee. If you have not heard about Kenya Kelly, what have you been doing? It’s like if you were just even remotely on TikTok, you probably saw her around.

Um, Kenya is the CEO of You Brand It, a marketing and consulting firm right here in San Diego. Also happens to be one of my besties and they are where she strategy strategically, let’s blame the German for that tongue twister, helps business owners understand the value of marketing their business online and through video. In 2020, Kenya actually decided to learn about TikTok and we will be talking about more of that process because that was a fun one.

Um, as a platform and a way to market her business during the pandemic in just 12 short months, Kenya was able to grow her account to over 400,000 followers, and she even helped her clients reach millions. So today, I’m gonna be poking Keenya, my gorgeous friend over there, how she made that happen because I started out with TikTok.

I don’t wanna go dance. And guys, you are gonna learn today that TikTok is not just dancing anymore. It’s what you wanna make out of it. Yeah. Hey girl. So happy to have you. I’m so excited to have you on.

Keenya: Hey girl. Hey, I’m excited to be here.

Yvonne: And my fellow friend movie Daniel, here in San Diego is watching us live.

So guys, if you ever wanna watch live when we are recording the podcast, head over to YouTube, youtube.com/askyvi and you can pop in and ask my guest live questions. Questions like, how did you even get here, Keenya? I know there’s a lot, a lot of things that were going on, and I’m really curious because I have the feeling I’m even gonna learn more.

What’s your story? How did you get where you are today? How did you discover TikTok and especially TikTok for Business? I’m like, I’m starting to get you to know you better over the last couple of years. Learning what you went through for the last couple of years. Yeah, I’m just gonna sit back here and, and get a couple more bits and pieces out of that amazing story that you have to tell my audience.

Getting started in business

Keenya: For sure. So I, I didn’t get my start in like regular business. I actually got started back in 2002 in network marketing. I was in college and someone recruited me. And when you get into network marketing, like if you’re gonna be really successful at it, you know you have to learn how to be a leader, how to recruit people, how to train people, how to mentor people um, and then they really has, like in that particular company, they had us reading a lot of books. And so over the years of me being in network marketing, I started to be like, what? All the gifts that were on the inside of me started to come out because somebody was cultivating all that. And fast forward, um, I think back in like two thousand seven or eight, I can’t remember what year it was. I launched my first business, which was a hair care business, and it was trade shows. Um, as a black woman, we are trained to, like, from the media standpoint that our hair is not pretty, right? The way it grows out. And so,

Yvonne: Yeah. I hate, sorry to jump in here.

It’s like, I, I hate that that prerogative, that perception that was put on you ladies, because I freaking love your hair. I don’t care if it’s, and I, I hope I use the right wording here. Um, when, when you got it together and when you got it rolled up to get your curls taken care of. Yeah. If you have it open. I’m like, I’m one of those. I’m like, oh my God, I love your hair, .

Keenya: Thank you.

Well, you know, there’s like, there’s the, the history of slavery and all that type of stuff, and so all the things about black people were always shunned. Bad. Like the hips, the butt, the hair, the all the things. And so you, you have to like, we had to like fit in.

And so because of the fitting in, we started putting that chemical on our hair to make our hair straight. Yeah. And so fast forward years later, I’m like developing this really intimate relationship with God. And like one of the things that I believe is that, , when you start having some type of inward, inward experience, it, it manifests outwardly.

And so suddenly I just decided I wanted to cut off all my hair and see how my hair looked, um, currently. And so I literally went from long hair to very short, I mean, extremely short. I was not confident whatsoever, but we cut it all off. It’s called the big. And so when we did that, I didn’t know how to care for my hair, but I’m a business person.

Like it’s just a natural thing as a business person. And I got inspired this idea to have convention style trade shows and so I’d like rented out a convention center and said, I’m gonna launch a business and it exploded. Um, but the kicker was that I, the way that I see things, I, I see design, even though I can’t design, I can see design.

And so over the years, businesses wanted to hire me to teach them how to create great marketing materials and all that. And that was not, that was not a business that I had. And so when livestream came out, like Periscope, I got on Periscope just a way to like, you know, market my network marketing business at the time.

But it ended up turning into people wanting to hire me as a consultant. And then we launched our first business or like consulting business, and we did consulting and brand design, and we did that for some years and it wasn’t until 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I, you know, wasn’t familiar with what a recession would be like as a business owner.

Mm-hmm. . So I was really nervous about, well, what could happen if we go into a recession due to Coronavirus, which is what they were calling it. And I started praying cuz I’m somebody who prays for everything. And so I was praying to God and asking him for creative strategies for my business and I heard him tell me to get on.

Yvonne: And I’m getting goosebumps over here. I’m like, this, this is why I love this question, because you never know where the answer is gonna go. And it’s like the how we make decisions, how we get to a certain point. It’s like everybody is so, so different. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to stalk your Facebook account.

I wanna see. If there’s any image with after the big chop where I’m like…

Keenya: Oh, I have it on my phone.

Yvonne: I, holy moly. It’s like, to me, this is often a situation where it’s like, oh hell yeah, I can do that. Suddenly when the hair is off, it’s, it’s, that’s how I often perceive it. It’s like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have the guts to do it.

I, I’m like, um,

But it, I find it so gorgeous, often women after the big chop where it’s like, damn girl. And considering Keenya can pull off anything. Thank you. Um, so you gaga telling you go, go ont talk. Mm-hmm.

Getting started with Tiktok

What did you do with that? What was the reaction?

Keenya: Um, I thought it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

I was like, that’s insane. That makes no sense to me. And I didn’t even know anything about TikTok cuz nobody was talking about it. I remember my friend Shalene, they did something back in like 2018 called The Baby Shark Challenge, and I was like, I couldn’t figure out what was going on or yeah. But I was like, you know, I was wrestling with the like, well that sounds really stupid, but what if this is actually the thing that I’m actually praying for? It doesn’t make sense to me, but what if I did it and something actually kind of pops off with it. And so I downloaded the app and at the time I had some girls living with me and we, they were kind of like trying to show me some basics of the app and we couldn’t figure things out.

And so I just decided that okay, like while everybody was fighting about BLM, ALM, George Floyd getting murdered. Trump versus Biden, mask, no mask, all this stuff. I just decided like, okay, I’m gonna learn TikTok and I’m gonna sit here and I’m gonna learn every single button. And it was a struggle because there were no tutorials, there was no one teaching it.

And then my confidence wasn’t there because people were making fun of me saying that you can’t make money on TikTok or whatever. And so I just decided to learn it.

Yvonne: And it’s like, especially quote, back in those days, TikTok was a lot of it, it was a social platform. It was where you met people, where you did the dancing, where you did the Baby Shark.

And I think with, with your timing stepping into that for business, you were on the forefront with all of that. And I’m like, heck, I don’t know. I don’t know if we can find out, but I’m pretty, pretty confident that you are one of the first ones on TikTok using it for business. Yeah, and it’s, I’m like, I’m using it for sales traps.

Let’s be honest. Um, single in San Diego. Gotta do it somehow. Um, but me now being one of the ones stepping into this late, I, I see the, the different areas I’m like, for me, more in the personal sense where I literally, I’m not joking. I’m there for thirst wraps, having some fun. Um, where it has evolved into kind of like different areas of TikTok where people literally, I’m like, I don’t know. It’s, I’m pulling from the dating information where it’s book talk, where it’s a lot of smart reading that’s happening and you literally have this, this cluster on TikTok. And the nice thing to see is that these clusters that I know in, in my private sector and I having fun also are starting to appear in the business sense in the, uh, in the mental health sector.

And it is, it is fun to watch for me to see how people are starting to use TikTok in so many different and diverse areas. So I’m curious with you being on the forefront of all of that, and I know you were like seriously, TikTok? And I’m pretty sure the public reacted pretty much similar. I would love to hear your experience of growing with TikTok into TikTok business sector where it becomes more of a, not just dancing, but a search engine at this point a, a place where people go for information.

Growing with Tiktok

How was that experience growing with TikTok to it being a platform that it is now?

Keenya: Honestly, it was awful, you know, and it was awful for a couple different reasons.

Number one, I wasn’t a digital marketer. I was a personal branding type of person teaching those types of things. And so when I got onto TikTok and like, first of all, just trying to figure out what was going on. One, I’m 41 years old, but at the time I was like 39. And just feeling super old on the platform, not knowing what was going on, and then trying to figure out what content’s gonna work and then creating business content and, and like crickets, no one saying anything.

Oh, and then the young people being like, what is this old lady here? Or whatever, you know what I mean? Um, and then just the features that TikTok just did not have because they didn’t need to have it cuz it was more so like, it was younger people that were dancing and singing and all this type of stuff at the time.

So there were just things that as a business that TikTok didn’t have, cuz they didn’t need it. Um, and so it was awful trying to learn it when there were no tutorials from TikTok or whatever. There weren’t a whole lot of business people on TikTok at all teaching or anything. Um, and it was like, it was like the test of faith, right?

Cause for me, it was my faith of like, hey, I heard God said, let me to do this thing. And it was hard, but I’m, I’m really used to doing hard things, unfortunately. Um, but then just slowly watching people start going, oh, this lady, she’s an educator. We’re gonna listen to her. We’re gonna listen to her. And to finally at the end of 2020 deciding that I’m gonna close my agency and I’m gonna focus on TikTok Marketing.

I love video marketing. I’m very good at it. And that’s how we built our audience. I was like, this is what we’re gonna focus on. And to then watch, you know, TikTok reach out to me and go, hey, we, we see what you’re doing. We want you to be part of our TikTok Holiday campaign. And I’m. What? Out of all the people on TikTok, I’m like me? And then to work with them again where they paid me, and then just to be invited into these backdoor type of meetings and webinars and experiences.

It has been like, the, the ride of my life. You know, I feel like I have like done all these things in my business and growth and, uh, personal growth and all that to get to this point to where it’s like, now I’m teaching TikTok Marketing and then to watch me explode, but also watch the platform ask us how to improve.

Like, I had, I think it was three calls with TikTok, I, they were asking us about, features on the platform and to give them our opinions and to watch these things, like all these changes that are happening on TikTok because we gave it to them, was like, like, I have never been a part of a company or experience like that where I have the ear of the creator of an app that I’m teaching about.

Yvonne: Remind me on the timeframe. So from the message of, hey, you need to do TikTok to, Okay, people are actually starting listening. How long did that take?

Keenya: Um, I would say it probably took a year and a half.

Yvonne: Yeah, that’s, that’s kind of the numbers I had in my head. It’s like years num. Yeah. Yeah. Um, And why I’m asking that is because we actually behind the scenes before we hit the record button, we’re talking about this where people are like, oh my God, you’re an overnight success.

And it’s like, you know, you put the work in, you stuck with it for a year and a half till you actually started to see some serious feedback, some serious engagement, TikTok starting to reach out to you, and I wanted to bring that up because we often forget how much work people put in to get where they’re at.

Mm-hmm. , you’ve been in business for a whole bunch of years. I’ve been in business for a whole bunch of years. Guys, you watching and listening, stick with it. Be clear on your message so people know who you are and what you do. Every time I hear TikTok, it’s like, you gotta talk to Keenya. Yet it’s like she is the TikTok Queen.

That’s just the one you need to talk to. The moment you are able to drill it down to something, these simple things will start to go exactly where you want them to go. So little, little off, off time reminder here for everybody that might be in the world right now, and you’re like, why am I doing this? This is why.

Stick with it. Do your thing. Now you are quite busy. I know you are growing your team. You are growing your business. You are switching things up a little bit.

Keenya’s workflows and processes

What are some of the workflows and processes that allow you to do your work to regularly push out all of those videos to support your clients and your groups, to work with your team? To work with TikTok?

I know there’s a whole bunch of brand deals in the making and that, that are producing right now. How do you make it all happen?

Keenya: Yeah, so I would definitely say that this has been a huge process. You know, for many years it was just me and a design team in India. Uh, and then when I got into TikTok it was like there was, I wasn’t making any money with it, so I didn’t, I couldn’t find myself hiring an assistant cuz it just didn’t make sense financially.

Uh, but one of the first people I did hire, I think it was last year I met my first hire, uh, and it was to, uh, a VA, um, and the downside of that was there were no processes. There were no systems, there were no nothing. Everything was in my head. And so it was quite the gruesome process over the last year and to change, trying to pull out everything out of my head and then working with the right VA, like we’ve had lots of different VAs come and go, to create standard operating procedures for all the things that we do.

And so one of the processes that we created is like I do a TikTok three day challenge, uh, a bus, a TikTok for Business Challenge. And that leads into people being an opportunity to join our mastermind for learning how to use TikTok to grow their businesses. And so I had to pull out everything in my head of like, why do we do a challenge?

What comes along with a challenge? And the way that I operate is I begin with the end in mind, and that comes from the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. And so I go, okay, when the cart closes for my course, what all had to be done for that to happen? And this is really, really, really, really, long list of things.

What graphics are needed? What all videos are needed? What all ad copy is needed? What all emails have to be written? And so we have all of that documented out, and it was very intense, very long time. Mm-hmm. . Um, but now, now we have like, um, we have a main, SOP but then we have the SOP for the designer. We have SOP for the ads team, the SOP for the, uh, chatbot team, the SOP for Keenya.

You gotta shoot all these videos, you know, like the tech team, you know, like all this stuff. And that’s just for that, you know. And so then we started this. We decided that we were gonna really focus on building our YouTube channel, and so I had to learn. One, like if we’re gonna do that, how does that make sense for the business?

So then we created this massive, uh, workflow for YouTube. Like, here’s all the videos, here’s the thumbnail, but here’s the title of the video. The thumbnail of like image, like here is a description, and then like, how are we gonna promote it? And like, so all those like flows. But I, I’m saying this cause I know somebody’s like, wow, they got it all together.

No, we don’t. We’re like everybody else. I’m like, okay, we just changed. Now we have the whole process for that.

Yvonne: I’m, I’m, why I’m laughing over here because it’s like, that’s what I teach people and even in my business, I’m like, Keenya, we got to see it this morning. Nothing is perfect. Even in my business. Yeah. Where it’s like tech wasn’t nice and the writing wasn’t nice and things just went haywire.

And I’m like, Keenya’s gonna think I’m completely insane. I teach people how to do workflows and have everything in order and I don’t, but that’s what it is. That’s what life is. It’s constantly adjusting. It’s just, how does ClickUp say be 1% better every day? Just really keep working on it. What I often say is start with a process that is your money maker.

That’s the first thing. Don’t try to go all crazy and, and do all the SOPs and do all the things. Just use what’s there right now, what you can do often enough, just pen and paper and just how can you set, get it out of your head. Yeah, because now that you have worked on that and you have worked with your VA on that, you have that repeatable process. Mm-hmm. , you are able to be like, guys, you know what to do. We got the resources, now go do your thing. As I can do my thing. And I’m assuming life has gotten a little bit easier now with the process all. With certain processes all documented and you being able to just hand it off, right?

Building a repeatable business

Keenya: Yeah. Like I find myself looking at Slack sometimes, like, where is the team? You know, talking me, you know, and I’m like, oh, they’re doing their jobs. That’s where they are. You know? But I was so used to being involved in everything. Um, but it’s been amazing. And so then doing that, it helps me go with even more processes.

It’s like, cuz my VA, I was like, I’m trying not to be as chaotic, and so I need you, like you’re here to help me stay organized. And so one of our simple things that we had to do was every single time somebody invites me to something, a podcast or whatever, they have to send me a regular invite and it goes to iCloud and Google Calendar, right?

And so, but what that does is it like, is one, it notifies my phone and my computer, but also, my assistant every single day when she logs into Slack, she says, you have a meeting at this time and this time, and here’s the links, right? Because I have these things going on and whatever happened overnight is happening right now, but if this, if everything is in here, my assistant is able to do her job so well that I don’t have to think, you know, it was just like yesterday I was like, what is happening?

You know, cuz I’m doing a, um, a TikTok intensive next Saturday and I’m like, I haven’t worked on like my full agenda or whatever, and whatever we have done so far with me and her, she said, she said, I worked on this today. She had a whole detailed agenda of all the things that I need to cover in this intensive, and I was like, what is this?

I didn’t assign that to her and I was like, this is insane. This is why I just gave you a raise without you asking for it. I was like, girl, this is nuts. But it’s only because we have been working on processes and things of her, like seeing how I think and realizing that this can make Keenya’s life a lot easier if she has the this and then she can edit it just changes everything.

Yvonne: And what my, what my podcast listeners don’t see right now is I’ve been smirking and smiling because I’ve been on the other side of those processes. I’m used to a couple of things where it’s like, I just pop somebody the right link when something goes wrong in Facebook because they usually have it on their computer. It’s there. Now, Keenya was like, girl, my social is for social. This goes into email and I love boundaries like this. I now know specifically, okay, now that I even know the process behind the scenes, it’s like, okay, makes even more sense. It’s email, period. My initial reaction was like, okay, she doesn’t open up Facebook on her desktop.

This is work and not private. But again, now hearing the workflow and the process behind it, it makes complete sense to me and it makes not only your life easy, it also makes my life easier because I know directly okay, everything business, any update, any link, even if things go south, email. So your assistant has the access to it and it allows you to be more productive and get things done.

Yeah. Now I’m curious, the moment things got, quote, easy and quiet, and things just started to work out and smooth in your business. How did that make you feel?

Keenya: Um, it made me feel weird. I felt scared, like, are they actually working? Like I’m paying these people? Are they actually working?

Or like, you know, and, and, but I also said, Keenya, don’t go and create chaos. You know, I had to like talk to him. Don’t go and create chaos where there isn’t anything, you know? Um, and so you’re just having this like dialogue or whatever. But then I went like, go look at your list. Maybe they’re working on their list.

Go work on your list. And it made me go, okay, let me work on my list. But I, but I start, initially it was like, hey, just checking in. How’s everything going? How, and I’m just checking in with each person and they’re like, oh, I’m doing this, this, and this, and it just let me go. Okay. I can trust these people cuz like no one is in my office.

Everybody is in the Philippines, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Columbia. You know where they are, you know what I mean? And so it’s like, okay, you’ve got the right people. Go and do your job. Go and do the thing that’s gonna bring the company in money and yada, yada, yada. So initially it made me feel crazy. Um, but then it made me feel peaceful.

Um, and then it was just like, this is why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing all these years. Um, and then it also gave me an opportunity to focus on, here’s an area that I haven’t focused on. Like one area I wasn’t focused on is company culture. Because everybody’s virtual. And so it gave me this brain space, I think it was two weeks ago, where I said, oh, I wanna, how can I make company culture better virtually?

And I was able to just think about it, post it on social media and whoosh people gave me all these ideas for ways to like celebrate my people and all that. And it’s because I had the space for it.

Yvonne: And that’s, that’s one of the things why I asked that question, because my experience was the same way when things started to just work.

Because you suddenly have repeatable businesses, you suddenly have easy ways to tell your team what they need to do that you don’t even need to tell. Because often enough, we have recurring tasks, we have general processes, we have stuff that just goes and it’s like, oh my, I am not packed to the brim and stressed out and what’s happening? And I did the same the first time that happened to me.

It’s like I suddenly caught myself creating chaos where I’m like, mm-hmm. . So it’s, it’s nice to hear that I’m not the only one who has that same reaction when it suddenly goes quiet and it’s like, um-mm. No. That actually means your business is going better and your clients are more happy. Yeah.

Tools

Now, with all of that process and workflows and stuff going on, what are some of the tools that help you make this happen?

Keenya: Yeah, so we have, well first of all, we use Slack. Slack is our 100% way we communicate with the team. Um, and we have like, we have a main Slack channel, but most communication is happening between me and my assistant, and then she’s talking to them. Uh, we’ve had ClickUp for a while, but we’ve finally started actually like using it, implementing it, you know, because to learn any new tool, you have to learn it, then you have to teach it.

And so we’ve been learning how to use ClickUp for all the project management things and keeping things very organized and systematized. Uh, Google Drive is everything. Yes. Houses, everything. Um, we use Dropbox for all video, like for like podcasts and all videos and for YouTube and short videos and all that.

We put everything in Dropbox because Dropbox, that doesn’t, um, the, the file size doesn’t shrink. So with Google Drive, if we like put a YouTube video in there, get it edited and then download it, it’s a little distorted. But on Dropbox it’s a hundred percent. It’s always the same. So we use Dropbox, um, for that.

And I think that’s, I’m sure there’s plenty others I can think of.

Yvonne: A lot of, there’s a lot of little tools that are often going on, so, um, yeah, the main tools and your, your tool stack is pretty similar to, to what I use. I’m like, heck, my audience knows. I’m like, I’m a ClickUp sucker. Let’s be honest.

Yeah. Um, it’s interesting to hear the whole, um, Google, because we are actually using Google rather than adding Dropbox to the whole connection. Hmm. I haven’t seen any. I need to dig into that.

Keenya: That it could’ve changed, but like my experience was always like, every time we upload a testimonial for somebody and then re-download it, it was like there was a difference, but it’s been a while. Some I might be wasting money on Dropbox.

Yvonne: Oh, who knows? Again, it’s like, it’s, you know how that goes. We are, we are in our tool stack. We are in our processes, we’re in our workflows, and if things don’t necessarily get pointed out to us, it’s like, heck. I’m not saying you are wrong. I’m not saying I’m right.

I don’t know. Um, I haven’t run into the issue, so we gonna be double checking and triple checking to make sure we are not losing quality on our videos because I’m paying too much to get those done. Um, Keenya, I love having you. Keenya also has a freebie for you.

Keenya: Yes. For sure.

Yvonne: Which will be in the, in the, uh, description section.

The link to that is tiktokforfemalecoaches.com.

Keenya: We actually have a brand new one.

Yvonne: Oh, I get to share your brand new one.

Keenya: Yeah. It’s actually better. It’s much better than that one. Yeah, so it’s called, uh, it’s called Ten TikTok templates because one of the things we realized is that people are coming to TikTok, but they’re like, but what do I create for my business?

Yes. So yes, so we created this, uh, pdf file. Uh, and, and when you get the file, it’s also like clickable. It takes you to TikTok, and so it’s gonna give you, here’s a sample video, here’s a tutorial for this video, click it and recreate this for your business. And we have, there’s 10 of those inside of that file. And that way you don’t have to think about it.

Yvonne: That’s, that’s one of my issues where it’s like, I’m, I’m, I’m overthinking everything. That’s always my issue where I’m getting way too granular and I’m way too overthinking everything. It’s like, okay, here you go. Easy template. Yeah. Do you happen to have that link handy? Yes. It is King kelly.com/templates with an S oh slash And that’s all together?

Yep.

Templates because what we are doing, yes, you’re gonna have that all in your, um, description of the podcast and everything. And I act, I just put it into the comments too for everybody that’s watching live. So you can grab that and that’s Keenya with two E by the way, don’t let auto correct screw that up.

Right? And maybe some of my audience is gonna join me in this TikTok. Getting used to it and getting my business on there. I always feel personally attacked in a good way when Keenya has her videos of so, where are the people that told me you are starting doing TikTok? Yeah, I’m one of those. I’m one of those. Working on it.

I’m always getting stuck in my head, as I mentioned. Just trying to make sense of it rather than just doing, so, yeah, who’s gonna join me? Just do it. I swear. TikTok is, I think, one of the most forgiving platforms actually for, for, for beginners to just start to just go on video. Don’t overthink it.

You don’t have to over-edit. Just keep it easy right.

As I’m calling myself out. Yep. That’s how that often happens on our podcast. Girl, thank you so much for joining me. And guys, again, you can find Keenya anywhere on social media as Keenya Kelly. She was lucky enough to get her handle on everywhere. Everywhere as Keenya Kelly double E for the Kenya, as well as literally just KeenyaKelly.com.

I will plug in all of the links in the description so you easily can click them, go follow her, go get your TikTok for business because she did it. Her clients are doing it. You can do it too.

Keenya: That’s right.

Yvonne: And I’ll see you soon for dinner and everybody else, I’ll see you live next Thursday for the next episode of Boss Your Business.

Thanks everybody. Thanks Keenya.

Keenya: Thank you.