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Kate Ahl: Lessons Learned in Making Millions (& Watching it Slip Away)

APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY Kate Ahl is the owner and founder of Simple Pin Media, a Pinterest marketing agency. Their goal is to help business owners leverage Pinterest marketing to help them make sales, grow their email list, and expand their community. Founded almost ten years ago, Kate Ahl took the lessons she learned in assisting an […]

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Hey, I’m Shanna Skidmore. Former Fortune 100 Financial Advisor turned Business Consultant. For the past 15 years I’ve worked in finance helping entrepreneurs around the world make more money and then manage it well. During that time I’ve unlocked the blueprint to building a profitable and sustainable business designed to align with the life you want to live.

Here’s the thing—the "business side of running a business" can be hard, and it’s not everyone’s best skill—but it *is* mine. I would be honored to come alongside you on your business journey.

Shanna Skidmore

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APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

Kate Ahl is the owner and founder of Simple Pin Media, a Pinterest marketing agency. Their goal is to help business owners leverage Pinterest marketing to help them make sales, grow their email list, and expand their community.

Founded almost ten years ago, Kate Ahl took the lessons she learned in assisting an extreme couponing blogger grow her reach by launching her very own Pinterest marketing agency.

In this conversation, Kate opens up about the early days of Pinterest & SEO strategy, building a 7-figure pinterest marketing agency, and how the best business lesson wasn’t learned in making a million, but rather watching it slip away.

Marketing in today’s world, developing a team, & wondering if the IRS might come knocking, all in today’s episode.

Press play for the full interview or keep reading!

In this Episode:

Accidental business owner. 💁‍♀️
Extreme couponing. 💰 How experience helping to manage and grow the blog of an extreme couponer opened the doors to Kate’s business today.
Blogging is dead. 🪦 What Kate overheard at a conference in 2016. How she knew (& believed) that staying the course in a consistent SEO and google strategy would be the ticket to long term success.
Wild wild west. 🤠 The early days of Pinterest, SEO, & social media strategy and how they’ve shifted today.
The pain point of content creators. 🤕
But what if you were hit by a bus? 🚌 After navigating a tragic season with her family, Kate had a moment where she questioned what would happen to her business if she were hit by a bus? This question led to building out and developing a team.
Apples to oranges. 🍎 The biggest mistake Kate made when developing her own marketing strategy.
Distracted by the gurus. 🤩 Why you need to stop chasing other people’s version of success.
Fear of the audit 💵 A common fear many entrepreneurs face & how to move forward.
Spreadsheet gal 🤓 Learning how to look at the numbers in your business.
The biggest financial lesson 💸 (Hint: it isn’t from hitting a million.)
Up & to the right 📈 Nope, not a lyric from the Cupid Shuffle. Why you can’t expect your business to grow upwards forever.
A sinking ship. 🚢 The steps Kate took when she needed to cut $10,000 in business expenses a month.
My worth and my value is not the sum of my profit and loss statement. 🙌
Two sticky notes. 🗒️ What the two sticky notes on Kate’s computer say & how they inspire her walk as an entrepreneur.

Put’em on a Bumper Sticker. These Quotes are Pure Gold.

“In 2016 I remember going to a blog conference and people were saying blogging is dead. Instagram is taking over. Nobody’s gonna blog anymore. And I thought in my head at the time, that is so short sighted, because Google is not going to go the way of Instagram.”

“2013 2014 2015 it felt like the wild wild west online, that people were trying so many different things. There were no rules, there were no regulations, like, go for it, right?”

“There’s a very distinct difference between somebody who’s a really good service provider or really good educator and somebody who’s a really good marketer.”

“Getting to a million in revenue. That wasn’t the greatest lesson. Dropping down from my height of revenue the last couple of years has been my greatest lesson in finances.”

“Inside our company, one of our things is, 1) we fail forward and 2) we are always going to be learning from everything that we can, to do better, to be better, to get better.”

“Think of the nail salon on the corner, or think of the construction business owner… It’s going to ebb and flow, and it is not at all a reflection of who you are or your character or what you’ve done right or wrong.”

“My worth and my value is not the sum of my profit and loss statement.”

“So I like to say business ownership for me has highlighted my greatest gifts and my greatest insecurities all at the same time, which I think motherhood and marriage has done the same thing.”

“Thinking about your business happens when you’re at dinner with friends, when you’re about to fall asleep, when you’re driving, when you get up, when you’re working out. It never, ever leaves you. So this kind of mythical idea that entrepreneurship means freedom, yes, you have freedoms in some areas, like I love the freedom to dictate my own schedule. I love the freedom to outsource what I don’t want to do to a team member. That’s great, but I don’t love the moments when I’m having a panic attack on my floor because I don’t know how I’m going to make payroll. So you take the good and you take the bad and you either love it or you hate it.”

“I have these two sticky notes on my computer that I’m looking at right now, and one is, who do I serve? And it’s clients, customers, my community, not other influencers, because it is very easy for me to try to appeal to another influencer first, and forget that there is a hierarchy of people that come way before them. I don’t need to impress somebody else on Instagram or another Pinterest Marketer. I have to impress my clients. I have to let their wins be the thing that drives our success, because if they don’t have success, then we don’t have an agency. And then I have another one that says, What is your highest value? And for me, my highest value right now is being the marketing director of my company. I wasn’t always the marketing director, but that’s a role I’ve had to step into in the last six months. And so I lean into that.”

“Don’t compare your business to somebody else’s, because that is not your business to run. You’ve got your own business, and you need to keep your eyes on that prize.”