Kate: Hi, this is Kate Kennedy from the Kane Area Development Center, serving as a PA Wilds Ambassador for the Wilds Are Working series. I’m here today with Ellen Matis from Hello Social Company. Welcome, Ellen. We’re so glad to have you with us to share how you’re pivoting your company during these unchartered times.

Ellen: Thanks for having me, Kate!

Kate: Well, why don’t we go ahead and start with you briefly describing your company, what you do, who you are.

Ellen: Hello Social Co. is a social media marketing agency that’s based in Bellefonte, PA. We only offer two services, social media management and social media strategy. So either doing it for our clients or helping them do it themselves. And our agency is a little bit unique because we use what we call the “Focus on Local Approach” to kind of guide everything that we help our clients do.

Kate: What does that mean, the Focus on Local Approach?

Ellen: So basically, it’s a framework that helps us connect our clients more with their local communities.

Kate: Oh, that’s a great fit for the PA Wilds I think.

Ellen: For sure!

Kate: Speaking of the PA Wilds, how did you decide to open your business here?

Ellen: Yeah, it was actually kind of an accident. So I did not grow up in the PA Wilds. I wasn’t super familiar with it before I moved here, but I thought about doing business in the Pittsburgh area. I lived for eight years in Indiana, Pennsylvania. And when my husband and I were just kind of figuring out what our next steps were, central Pennsylvania seemed like a really good place to start the business. There were not a ton of marketing agencies here and definitely no one that specialized in social media marketing. So we moved here about three years ago and the business opened in 2017.

Kate: That’s awesome. And sometimes when you are in a smaller area, you can feel the impact a lot more broadly. So that’s a great reason to be here. The PA Wilds are so beautiful on top of it all.

Ellen: Yeah, for sure. We have fallen in love with the area since then. We go up to Wellsboro to go hiking and we love Cook Forest. So we love the proximity to the PA Wilds outdoor adventure scene.

Kate: Yeah. It’s a win-win. You started your business about three years ago and probably were just getting in the swing of things. How have you pivoted during this COVID-19 time when everything has changed for businesses?

Ellen: Really, two major things happened. So I don’t want to say that COVID-19 has been good for our business by any means. But it did allow us to really slow down a little bit. And it gave me the option to have a little bit of extra space to sit down and think about our big picture. So in one of the first weeks of the shutdown, I just kind of did a brain dump. I sat down and I made a file that has what are essential functions are and why we often offer the services that we do in the way that we do, kind of what our procedures and our client processes were. And most importantly, I think, what my values are as a business owner. And I was able to send this to my team then so that they could really understand the why behind the services that we’re offering and hopefully guide some of the decisions that they make as a team moving forward. So that was a really big, important task that needed to happen. That’s going to be really important for the success of Hello Social moving forward that there wasn’t any time for before. Yeah. So the second big thing then was that we went full remote. So we’re in downtown Bellefonte. I had this idea for the longest time that I needed to be downtown to be connected to my community and be involved in my community. But it’s taken this to learn that I can connect with my community in other ways. So we take on clients nationwide and it’s not really necessary for us to be readily available downtown. And oftentimes our clients aren’t even in our downtown. So, you know, my team has really proven that they work really well remotely. And in some cases, it’s been better to do work, via Zoom, because we can hit record and and go back and take more notes and see what we talked about with a client. And, you know, there’s just been a really strong effort to to shift our work to full remote.

Kate: Wow! So yeah, this time has really allowed you to have the space and time to sit down and just reconnect with why you even began and the values going forward, as well as being able to move from an office downtown into your home. So you probably have more time without all the commuting and traveling and things like that as well?

Ellen: Yeah. That’s certainly part of it. Luckily, my office was only a half mile away to begin with, but no, it’s just not driving between meetings all day and not, you know, just constantly rushing around has really been influential for us. And, you know, I found I’m walking my dogs, you know, two or three times a day right now. And that’s given me so much time to just think about what’s next and what’s important.

Kate: Sometimes just being outside is something different and can get those creative juices flowing.

Ellen: Yeah.

Kate: That’s awesome. So how are you keeping in touch with your customers during this time?

Ellen: Well, obviously, social media has been a huge part of what we do. You know, one of the biggest things that we did when this all started is that we reached out to all of our clients and we said, ‘hey, we understand that the way that you’re going to be doing business in the next couple of weeks.’ Back then, we thought it was a couple of weeks. ‘We understand that things are going to be changing.’ So we wanted to let them know that we were there to really help them through this and really help change their messaging for positioning them in a new way of working.

Kate: Right. You guys probably did a lot of your business through email and on the phone. But now you were pivoted to help businesses think through their strategy in a different way than you’ve ever had to do that before.

Ellen: Yeah, for sure. We spend usually a whole month working on a strategy for a client, getting to know how they do business and getting to know the products or the services that they sell. And we basically had a 24 hour period to totally shift that for every single one of our clients.

Kate: Wow. My gosh. So while some people were really slowed down, you have to gear up there for a while.

Ellen: Yeah, for sure.

Kate: Are there any operational pivots or approaches that you will take once things reopen… the clients you work with start to go back to normal, whatever that’s going to look like?

Ellen: Yeah, I think that, you know, like I said, we have been working remotely now, and … it’s been great for our business to just try that full online model. So it’s giving us more time to do better work. And that’s going to definitely stay long term.

Kate: That’s awesome. So you got rid of your building then downtown?

Ellen: Yep.

Kate: That’s a big decision. Something you probably never would have had to do if this hadn’t happened.

Ellen: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I also serve as the president of our local economic development organization. And I know that for a downtown to thrive office space can’t take up storefront. So, you know, that’s, you know, opening up that space for our community as well.

Kate: Yeah. And you kind of hit on a few of these already, I think, but maybe just to underscore it…. What are the silver linings that you’ve seen during this time?

Ellen: You know, really, just again, that space. I’ve really kind of embraced slower living a bit, if you will. And, you know, it’s just been a huge opportunity for growth during this. You know, I’ve read a couple of business books and, you know, I’ve just sat down and enjoyed some things that I wasn’t able to before. So, you know, while I’m excited to get back into the world and for our businesses to be fully open again and to be shopping and doing all those fun things, I have really tried to embrace this opportunity to chill.

Kate: Yeah. Right. Because it’s not one that comes along very often.

Ellen: Yeah.

Kate: Are there programs or resources or organizations that you find helpful that you would encourage other small business owners to check out?

Ellen: Yeah, for sure. The Small Business Development Center statewide has been really helpful and has pushed out a ton of great information and in Center County, our county commissioners have been really helpful just letting us know about loans that are available and how the county how they can help on the county level; our local chamber of Commerce; other economic development organizations. There are just so many resources for business owners right now. The one thing that I did do is I applied for the Payroll Protection Program loan. Because you know me, like many other businesses, I was in crisis mode in that first week or so. I was freaking out. I thought we were going to lose all of our clients. I thought I was going to have to lay off all of my employees because of that. And applying for the Payroll Protection Program. Allowed me to stop thinking out of desperation, stop acting out of desperation and really think strategically about how we were going to hit our revenue goals in a couple months period of time rather than a few weeks.

Kate: Yeah. Well, that was a great thing. I’m so glad for you that you went forward with that. You had mentioned that you were the president of the economic development place in your town. So you probably really had a lot of access to the different resources that were coming through.

Ellen: Yeah. It was certainly a media experience to be trying to get all this information out to our local community and help our Main Street manager get those resources out into the world while trying to figure out which ones were right for me as well.

Kate: Right. Oh, yes so you were sorting through it. That is a lot to think about! Well, do you have an example of a moment of humanity or inspiration that helped you get through these times, especially early on, maybe when it was pretty unknown and unsure what was next.

Ellen: Yeah, I’ve I’ve honestly I’ve been really inspired by our clients and by the businesses that we work with. Like I said, you know, the first week or so was really stressful. When you think that you’re going to lose all of your clients, you get a little desperate. And seeing the amount of clients that stuck with us and continued our services was a lot of validity for me that the work that we’re doing is important. And I know that it’s going to be impactful for those clients when downtown they’re able to open again. And when our communities are able to get back to normal. So I think that those business owners that have kept pushing and trying to figure out how to make this work in any way possible have been really the most inspiring part of it all.

Kate: What I think is interesting, because your job is social media, and it seems to me that social media has been really important to many businesses during this time to continue to get the word out to their customers. So you have your own business to think about, but then you’ve had to think about the communication for these businesses of your clients. So that’s a lot that you and your team have really had to rise up to during this challenging time.

Ellen: Yeah, it hasn’t been easy, but it certainly was an interesting experience.

Kate: Well, is there anything else that you would like to share or to say before we wrap up?

Ellen: I don’t think so.

Kate: Well, this was so interesting. And people can find you, you’ve a website and obviously probably social media: Facebook, Instagram.

Ellen: Yes. HelloSocialCo.com. And then just @HelloSocial on all social media.

Kate: Well, awesome. Ellen, thank you so much for your time. For those of you watching the question and answer from this interview and other resources for small businesses for the PA Wilds can be found on WildsCoPA.org. So there you can also apply to share your story if you’d like to do that. So, Ellen, thanks again. And take care and we’ll see you guys again soon.

Ellen: OK. Thank you!