This week, Kimberly Pulito joined us on the podcast to chat about content in all its forms. She’s not only sharing tips about short-form vs. long-form content and how to connect with customers, but she’s also diving deep into the process that has brought her so much success as a leader with Scentsy. Whether it’s systems, sales, or successful branding across social media, Kimberly came ready to arm our listeners with actionable advice!

Connect with Kimberly ⁠on her website⁠, find her across social media @WicklessKimberly, and don’t forget to download her ⁠guide to personalized scents⁠!

Interested in the systems that Kimberly uses to run her business? Check them out:
⁠Notion⁠
⁠Google Sheets⁠
⁠Project Broadcast⁠
⁠Jotform⁠
⁠Boards⁠
⁠CapCut⁠
⁠Canva⁠
⁠Lightroom⁠
⁠YNAB

Time based notes:

1:36 Kimberly Pulito introduction
3:46 Kimberly’s favorite platform
6:51 Converting content into sales
9:52 Kimberly’s content creation process
13:40 Kimberly’s favorite systems
17:29 Sharing content across a team
18:26 Creating content vs. producing income
22:16 Utilizing Facebook “favorites”
23:28 Tips to begin branding
25:34 Kimberly’s favorite office supply

Systems, Sales, and Successful Branding across Social Media with Kimberly Pulito

This week, Kimberly Pulito joined us on the Modern Direct Seller Podcast to chat about content in all its forms. She not only shared tips about short-form vs. long-form content and how to connect with customers, but she also dove deep into the process that has brought her so much success as a leader with Scentsy. Get ready to arm your brand with all of her actionable advice!

For those that have not yet met you, Kimberly, why don’t we just jump in and let everyone know a little bit about you, a little bit about your business, and who you serve?

Yeah, for sure. So, I was a multi-unit leader for Target. And, I was working 60 hours a week, on call 24/7, and I ended up finding this little candle that I loved. And so, I was a customer with that business for a really long time. And, there was this point where I was like, “You know what? I’m going to want to stay home with my family. Why don’t I just go ahead and jump in with this?” So, I pretty much turned from coming in as a customer into building a business.

So, left full-time working crazy hours at Target, and really are full-time now in your business. Now, did that transition take place, like, overnight? Was there some planning involved? Give us a little bit of sense of the timeline.

So, as of right now, I’ve been with Scentsy for over a decade—which blows my mind. I still feel like I’m 18. But, when I started, I would just kind of share with my friends and family. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But, there was literally a switch in my brain where I was like, “I can make this happen. I can make this a full-time income.” And literally, from that point, I started doing those income producing activities. I started reaching out to friends and family to see if they would help me relaunch my business—because I had already started—get new people into my funnel, and I haven’t stopped since.

Well, I think that that really speaks to the fact that you’ve built a really big business and following, but you’re still actively working the business. I think sometimes there’s thoughts out there that you build a business, and then things just happen, or you just kind of coast, or business just keeps coming to you. And, in some sense, it does. But, in other ways, I love that you’re out there, and you’re working it, and you’re focusing on those things that are really moving the needle in your business. So, one thing that I love about you is that you have an incredible brand presence across all the channels. You have your own website. Your blog. You’re on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube—all of the places. So, tell us a little bit about what your favorite platform is and why.

I think, right out the gates, my website and my blog are my favorites. I feel like I have to say that that’s my favorite, because I own it. I have full control. I can never lose it. But, my business would not be where it’s at without YouTube. I found my sponsor through YouTube, so I thought, “Well, she’s successful. I’m just going to do what the successful people do.” So, my first channel that I started was a YouTube channel. And, my YouTube channel has changed so much over the years. But, at this point, 90% of the people who have joined my team over the entire decade found me through YouTube.

I have to say, I think a lot of times we think all social media platforms are created equal, right? But, your website and your blog are searchable. People are going to find you. And, I’m sure people are finding you there from content that you created maybe five years ago at this point, right? And, I feel like YouTube is the same kind of system. On YouTube, your videos gain visibility over time. And, when you look at your most popular videos, I know for me, some of them are videos I created a really long time ago that I’m, quite frankly, not super-duper proud of, even at this point that they have tons of visibility. So, I love that your favorite places to hang out are those platforms where you know that the work you’re putting in today is going to pay off for you 2 years from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, because they’re really going to gain visibility over time. Is that something that you consciously were aware of when you were stepping into building your brand?

No. Absolutely not. Probably within the last 2 years that has come to the forefront. So, you know, SEO—search engine optimization—not just on my website, but literally in my YouTube title, in the description, even in Instagram. They’re saying now, like, you don’t need to use hashtags anymore, because it’s really SEO-driven in your description. So now what I do is, I really use Google. So, if someone searches for whatever term, the first thing that pops up is normally YouTube videos. So, how can I ensure that my YouTube video, and even TikTok, is in the Google search now? I want to make sure that I am visible in that Google search. And, I do that through having a YouTube video for whatever that search term is, having a TikTok video for whatever the search term is, and then also have something on my blog for that search term. So, I’m like a triple threat when it comes to the Google search.

So, so, so smart. Okay, so I have to ask you this: I think a lot of times, when we’re creating content on social, we think that we create content and then we get a sale. So, is that your experience in creating content, I mean, on any platform?

It really just depends. If it is a limited time offer, something that is very niche and specific, yes. But, if it’s something that’s a normal item that we always sell, not really. So, it takes people numerous times seeing me to become a customer in that sense. That’s why it’s always so important, even if I’ve already answered or done a video about this specific topic, to just do it again. Do it in shorts, or word it a different way, or show something a little bit different, so that way, the content is out there again, but it’s still relevant.

Something you said right there I think is really important to highlight: that people have to see you multiple times, in most cases, before making a purchase. So, a one-off video on YouTube is probably not going to get your desired results, right? But, when you’re putting out content on the regular, and people are seeing you and getting to know you, then that’s when you’re starting to see things convert into sales.

Correct. And, if you’re only on one platform, you’re just hitting a very specific group of people. So, I love to be everywhere but share the same content everywhere. And, I know that goes against the grain of what so many people teach. But, my audience on Facebook, they probably aren’t on TikTok, or they probably aren’t over on YouTube. So, I got this from Grant Cardone from the 10X Rule: being omnipresent. Just be everywhere. And, creating that piece of content that I can put everywhere helps me literally be on every single platform at the same time. So, I’m hitting 10 times the amount of people that I would if I was just posting on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook.

I love that. And, you’re getting more mileage for that content that you’re creating, because being intentional about creating content and then sharing it across platforms is a great way of working smarter versus harder. Because, when you’re creating that content, I mean, it takes a lot of effort and energy, so you really do want to give it as much mileage as you possibly can.

Yep, hands down.

Okay, so let’s talk about your content creation process. Is there a platform that you create for first? What does that look like? How do you plan what topics you’re going to record, and really kind of how you’re showing up? Do you have a calendar? Give us, like, a behind the scenes of what that process looks like.

So, just for this, I really like video, shorts, things like that. I like to create my content on Instagram, because I’m really familiar with it, and I feel like there’s more that I can utilize within Instagram. And then, before I push it, I just download that—because there’s really no audio behind it at that point. That way, I can repurpose that everywhere.

So, as far as my calendar, there’s always content that I’m going to have every single month. We have something called the Warmer of the Month. We get that every single month. I always have a specific order that comes; I’m always going to unbox that. I do postcards for my customers; I’m always going to have video of that. So, those things go on my calendar first, because they’re there every single time. Then, we have the news, or the informational-type content. We get news every Thursday, so on Thursday and Friday, I’m putting out news-type content. And then, for the rest of the calendar, I love to use AnswerThePublic.com. I don’t just say, “Oh, let me throw something out there and see if it’s going to stick,” or “I’m going to post what I want to post today.” I love to use something like Answer The Public or also Asked.com. So, I just put in a search term, like “Scentsy” for example, and it will tell me what people are searching for on Google. So, I take that, and those specific things become my video topics.

Now, some of those are going to be long-form videos that can be evergreen content. Some of them are going to be short-form video; I can answer that question in under 30 seconds. Those are great for shorts, Reels, TikToks. But, I like to plan out everything a month at a time. And, I use Notion. One of the things that I love about it is, you can make it whatever you want it to be.

Like a blank slate, basically.

Yeah, you can make it a calendar. You can make it a Trello board. A document. A spreadsheet. So, I use that for my calendar, and it allows me to really plan. Another thing I like about it is if I do a video, and I reference another video, within Notion, I can tie those two videos together, so I know that those two are pretty much connected on social media, as well.

Okay, so for short-form content, you’re creating inside the app, using Instagram, starting there. And then, you’re taking that short content, and you’re sharing it in YouTube Shorts. You’re sharing it in Facebook Reels. Sharing it, of course, on Instagram. Repurposing it on TikTok. Kind of in all the places. And then, for your longer-form content, my guess is that you’re creating that specifically for YouTube, right?

Yep. And then, that content can also go on my blog. I can create a blog post about that content and have it live in my space, too.

Yes! I love that! Okay, so I think sometimes we get really caught up in creating content, right? Creating content in Canva or creating an Instagram Reel can be fun, and this is a big part of the brand that you’ve developed. But, what are those other activities that you’re doing in your business to drive sales beyond the content creation process?

So, every single day, with the exception of Saturday, I have a Power Hour. So, some people do Power 30s or what have you, but I really set that intentional time to work on my business and do my ABCs. So, I set a 10-minute timer for active selling. I’m doing my follow-ups. I’m reaching out if there’s something that I know someone would like. I’m having those conversations one-on-one. I set a 30-minute timer for building relationships. So, I have a feed on Facebook that’s just my customers. I’m going in there. I’m commenting. I’m building those relationships. I also use that time to network, to find new people to follow or to bring into my funnel. And then, the last 20 minutes is just for creating content. So, whether that’s an email for the day, or a video, whatever that looks like, I’m spending not a lot of time on the content creating.

But—and here’s the key with this—I only start conversations within this Power Hour; I don’t finish them. So, I finish once that Power Hour is done, because I feel like when I start those conversations, I want to continue, I want to talk, but I’m not being as productive as I could be. So, during that hour, I’m just starting those conversations, and then once that hour is done, I come back and finish those conversations.

That is an incredible system. And, I think you could even scale it down, right? Like, you’re working your business full-time, but for somebody that’s a more side-gig, part-time hobbyist, I think you could probably do it in 20 minutes. And, of course, you could multiply that over time if you want to do more, too.

Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. There are some days where I’m like, “I could have built more relationships. I’m just going to sit on the couch, and I’m going to find people.” Of course, I have to make sure that they’re not a consultant, because I have a lot of consultant followers, or I’m following them, so I’m really honing in on the people who aren’t my customer yet and building relationships with them. That way, I show up more in their feed as well.

Oh my gosh, I love this conversation so much! Okay, so any tips for those that might be listening right now, and they’re like, “Whoa, Kimberly, you’re leaps and bounds beyond where I currently am. I want to have all the spreadsheets. I want to have the systems. I want to have an hour a day that I can carve out for Power Hours. But, right now I’m just dipping my toes in the water.” So, any tips for those that are just getting started in building their brand, leveraging digital marketing strategies, or anything maybe, if you were to start over again, that you’d start with first?

Yeah, for sure. So, I know that me saying “being omnipresent” can scare some people, but the very first thing that I would do—if I was starting over—is I would find my username. Like, I would identify what that is, and I would secure that username on every single platform, even if you’re not ready to be active on that platform yet. Secure that username, so that way you can say, “I’m XYZ everywhere,” so it just makes it so much easier for people to find you.

And then, when it comes to branding, just know that your brand is going to change. It will evolve. Like, teal used to be my color, but now I’m like, “Why am I painting myself down to this one color scheme?” So now, my color scheme is the entire rainbow. Whatever you choose now, it might not be that in a couple of years, or maybe in a couple of months, but you’ve got to try to see what you like. See what’s going to fit you.

Yeah, absolutely. That’s so true. We’ve gone through many brand revamps over here, and I would think the same thing about a website. Just get it out there, because you’re going to want to redo your homepage in, like, three months anyway. And, that’s the beauty of it, that it can grow and it can evolve, and people are still going to recognize you and still follow you, even as your brand continues to grow. So great, great tips there!

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