5/2/22 - A Digital Missionary: Heather Heuman, Sweet Tea Social Marketing

Intro: As a Christian working woman, you have many roles from your responsibility with family and friends to community and work. How do you connect all that you do with all that you are, and still have your faith shine through. It's a challenge, but you are up to it. The, sheWorks4Him podcast at the gathering place to empower Christian working women, to live out their calling at work.

By connecting them to God resources and each other through powerful faith stories from other working sisters in Christ.

Martha: Welcome to sheWorks4Him. You've tuned into, sheWorks4Him, where we connect Christian, working women to God resources and one another. And I believe we're going to do all three of those things today on this show.

So I'm looking forward to the conversation. Thank you friends for being here with me and I am your host, Martha Brangenberg. And I just want to remind you. We want to connect you to resources that are out there that you may not know about. And today is no different. I want to tell you about an event that's coming up in June and it is called boss woman getaway.

And this is an opportunity in June, in Orlando for women, whether they're executives, managers, supervisors, entrepreneurs, team leads, stay at home moms, whatever title you might wear at this season in your life. It's a place that's been created as a collaborative platform that will promote the exchange of dialogue on topics and issues that are pertinent to the Christian working woman.

And one of the things that I, when I talked to the organizers, they say, definitely it's an open door for all women to come, but don't doubt that you're going to be prayed for and prayed over in the midst of all of the learning that's going on. So I want to invite you. I'm so sad. We already had a conflict of our calendar, or I would be there myself, but I will have the link in the show notes for you to go and check out.

And while I'm on that topic, if there are other events or resources that are helpful to the Christian working moment, I want you to let me know. You can just email me at martha@iworkforhim.com and I'll put that in the show notes as well today, because I, we want to make sure that there are places people can go to find out what's going on because we work so hard to get events going or to write resources, to be able to share those with others is such a great thing.

When you hear the word missionary, you might think of traveling overseas, packing up your family, checking your tetanus records and raising financial support. Well, those are all elements of being an overseas missionary, but is that the only kind of missionary that there is? No, I believe it's not. Today we're going to talk with someone who feels called to be a missionary and how it applies to more of us than you think. As a believer in Jesus, we are all called to be missionaries. Some might be full-time short-term overseas or domestic, but my guest today calls herself a digital missionary. Are you curious?

But let's welcome my guest, Heather Heuman, founder of sweet tea social media marketing, and author of the golden rules of social media marketing, thrive in business with strategy and kindness, and self-proclaimed digital missionary to tell us more. Heather, I want to welcome you to, sheWorks4Him.

Heather Heuman: Thank you so much.I'm excited to be here and just kind of chat with you about all of this goodness.

Martha: Well, you know, that's one of the things that drew me to you and I, I would have to go back and look at when I first found sweet tea social media marketing, but right away, when I heard in your conversation that you called yourself a digital missionary of course, it caught my attention because I believe that our workplace is our mission field, but we're going to talk about that throughout the show today. But first I want to hear why you became a Jesus follower.

Heather Heuman: Wow. So, I mean, I became a Jesus follower because I feel ultimately that God was just drawing me to Him. I became a Christian when I was a freshman in high school through a, an organization called young life and their ministry.

And I was actually at like this big crusade, kind of like a Billy Graham crusade in my town that I had gone to with my young life community. And I had always been a really good kid and done all the right things, but there was that moment, even though I had been raised in the church, where I just genuinely felt that God was like speaking directly to me in that moment with thousands of people around and I knew that I didn't want to just know who Jesus was and didn't want to just, you know, in theory, believe that I was a good person, but genuinely know that, you know, Jesus died for me and that I wanted to, you know, believe that with all my heart and live differently. And so I made that decision at the age of 14 and haven't really turned back and just really just pursue that relationship with Jesus.

Martha: So tell me about that. You said specifically and live differently. So as a 14 year old, did you, what did that look like for you?

Heather Heuman: I mean, for me, like I said, I don't have some radical life if I was like wild and crazy and I became a Christian and I was like, oh, I'm going to stop doing crazy stuff. I mean, but I feel, again, even from that good background I would just say that my purpose became ignited that it wasn't just about getting good grades and pleasing my parents in, in doing what they told me to, which all of those are great and lovely, and we should honor our parents and obey what they say, but ultimately I felt I had a craving within myself at that age to learn more about God.

So, you know, I was already involved in like this Christian organization that I then began, you know, going to Bible studies. And then, you know, as I kept getting older, I would, you know, go to summer Bible studies and just really taking intentional time to daily, be with you know, in my scriptures and reading the Bible, but also wanting to just not be satisfied with like, I'm a Christian and in theory, like I have a ticket in my back pocket, but wanted it to be something that was unapologetically like over all of my life, not a box on Sunday.

Martha: Amen. And you know, that's so much about what we talk about on, sheWorks4Him. It's it, you know, Jesus, didn't just save us for the weekends, right, and Wednesday night church, but all of life. And that goes into our work as well. So at what point did you start calling yourself a digital missionary and, and how did that happen?

Heather Heuman: Yeah, so I ultimately, you know, I've got a fun journey of how God even got me into the digital marketing space. And so that goes back 22 years.

But when I started my first company in 2011, it was like this hyper-local business. And then in 2014, when I moved, which is where I currently am in South Carolina, I really just felt, you know, that I was wanting to help Christians and nonprofits, but even in my own I guess journey of trying to figure out who it was that God wanted me to help and what that actually looked like based on my experience that I had, a friend who just off the cuff, you know, she was like saying something about a digital missionary. And I was like, that's what I'm doing because I had a desire to use my gifts and my talents to help people connect with people, to build relationships and leverage this whole online beast. And I wanted to do all of it for the purpose of really trying to, to amplify a light for Jesus. And so I would be honest, I would, I've got to give full credit. My friend, Dr. Jenn Bennett was the very first person I ever heard say those words probably around 2016 and 2017. And I would just was like, that's exactly what I'm doing.

And so that was the first time I would say I heard a, a phrase or two words I felt describe what I already knew and felt God had called me to do.

Martha: Yeah. And I want to dig into that even more when we come back after the break, because I believe this conversation carries over to everyone that's listening.

What kind of a missionary are we in our workspace? And that might look different. It might have a different two words that kind of describe it. But ultimately we all have a mission field that we go to every day, whether, whether we're even paid for it or not, it's not all about the, the income from it, but where God has us in each season of our life. We'll be right back with more from Heather.

You're listening to, sheWorks4Him with Martha Brangenberg.

Break: Did you know that God has a calling on your life? It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us, it looks like a construction site, a cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom, wherever it is that you work live volunteer and invest. That is your mission field.

To learn more about integrating your faith into your work in retirement. Check out our books: iWork4Him. sheWorks4Him and iRetire4Him by going to iWork4Him.com/bookstore.

Martha: Welcome back to, sheWorks4Him. Today I am chatting with Heather Heuman and she has a business and a podcast and a book and so much more. You can check her out at sweet tea social media marketing. Tell me again, the name of your...

Heather Heuman: It's okay. My company is sweet tea social marketing.

Martha: Sweet tea social marketing. So check her out there. Wonderful podcast. It's great to, in fact, your podcast is on our Awaken podcast network.

So listeners you've heard us talk about it before, but if you go to awakenpodcastnetwork.com, you will see. All kinds of podcasts, where people are continuing that conversation of their work and their faith in whatever industry they might be in. And you might find that there's helpful stuff for you there.

And I'm hoping Heather might even give you one little tip today as we continue the conversation. But Heather, let's get back to this conversation about being a digital missionary, because what is it that - maybe in the work that you've done - like, how has that been a challenge for you when you have placed it out there and said, this is how I want to conduct my, my heart of my business. And what kinds of things have you run into?

Heather Heuman: You know, I think it's been a little bit of my own journey of really believing that God could bless what I am doing in the midst of the traditional business world. And I'm, I'm saying that in all transparency, because in my, in my heart, I believed and know it's possible, but it's like, I am somewhat of a, a goal oriented person and I'm like, I want to do this, or my bucket list is to be on this stage. And so I would say earlier in my years, I would say, okay, my goal is to be on this stage. This is who their audience is. This is what they're looking for. Let me pitch myself or position what I do know in such a way that it makes sense for their audience. And some of that would require me to maybe leave Jesus out.

And it's mainly just focused on the content of marketing or social media strategy and all of those things. And so once I really just began to say, you know, my website says I have christian CEOs and business owners. My podcast is titled, you know, Business Jesus sweet tea. So I'm, I'm unapologetically being bold for Christ, but I still had pieces that I almost didn't want to let go of.

And it's not that I was being something untrue, but I was trying to pursue the accolade. Honestly, I mean this in love, but people that don't really matter, you know, and it's like, I'm going, here's my vision. Here's my mission. Here's all these things that I'm doing. But I still had a piece of me that did not want to let go of these: I want to be able to say I got on this stage or I want to be able to do this. And I would say I released that about three and a half years ago. And I just was like, that's so silly. I am 100% confident that I'm doing what God wants me to do. And I need to stop trying to spend so much effort to get on these stages, which in fact, the dream clients I would love to work with may or may not even be in that audience.

And so I would just would say that it was a personal shift to almost like fully let go and renew my mind because I would say I was like 90%. But that 10% was consuming so much of my mental bandwidth and so much of my, you still quite haven't accomplished this, that it was almost, I'd say bringing me down and almost shifting my focus more on myself, and a little bit less on the 90% that God was doing. And so I feel like that was something that when I made that shift and just leaned fully into whatever God wants this to be like, that's what I want to pursue. It's been really fun just seeing God continue to open doors that I didn't even know I would want to even go through.

Martha: Right. So let's talk about that for a minute. Cause I was, I'm curious, what kinds of things have, you know, where has God shown up? Specifically since you've let go of that? You know yeah. That little bit of an idol that you might've had.

Heather Heuman: Yeah. I mean, why don't we even say, look, I'm a teacher by nature. I love to teach people how to do things. And ultimately I want to teach them how to fish, so to say, and so I like to take my desire to teach and come alongside people so they can learn how to do social media more effective. And I've had like this academy that I launched in 2018 and I've had dozens and dozens and dozens of clients in that program who had fantastic success.

But I ultimately have this vision for that to become this huge part of my, my business and what was happening is that God was like exploding other parts of my business that I was almost like, no, no, I don't really want to, I don't really want to grow that. And it wasn't, no, I don't want to do that because I love it.

But I was like, no, God, my efforts are over here. Can you just bless, can you just bless what I'm trying to do? And I would say that it was somewhat a little bit of pride again on the inside. I don't want to give up. And for anybody listening right now, who's in entrepreneurial space. Like, there's this, there's a part of you that's like, I don't want to give up two months before, like I'm going to have this huge breakthrough, but I just prayed it over. And I genuinely felt God was like, Heather, you need to close that academy. You need to let go. You need to trust what I'm doing. And I've done that over the last, you know, four months and God just continues to like blow my socks off with clients doing what I love that allows for me still as a mom - cause my number one priority is to, I want to add financially to our income, but I want to be the wife and the mom that I feel God's called me to be. And I don't want to lose focus of this season for my life. So it's been really cool. Just kind of walking through that and just being like, God is just continually showing me his grace of like Heather, even though I've been telling you this for quite a bit, I'm glad that you're finally listening.

Martha: Well, you know, cause so many times we can feel like when we close something or, or even just shift, like as entrepreneurs, maybe feel like it's failure like that didn't work, but God has a different plan. So speak to the listeners in like a minute here. Like what you can encourage them with if they're facing maybe something similar where God is saying, you know, I'm trying to get your attention. You're not listening. How can you encourage your challenge them?

Heather Heuman: The number one thing I would say is that it is, I would say natural for you to maybe be hesitant, but I will say, and it's awesome in hindsight, but there is a gap between maybe what you need to stop doing, or a season that may need to transition or shift or pivot, and then the next thing, like growing, so to say, and there was a season, I don't want anybody to hear this to make it sound like I knew what the outcome was going to be before I let something go in there. And I will say, God has blessed what I am doing, but there's a gap in between. I feel for many people that feels like that, maybe isn't supposed to be there, but I believe that as a Christian is where we really have an awesome opportunity to fully and truthfully trust God.

Martha: So listeners, if that is a situation you're finding yourself in right now, you know, I think the encouragement there is to just be a good listener and to be asking the father where he wants you to be. And if there's something you do need to let go of or something that you need to better chase that he's built inside of you, that you just aren't pursuing, there's no better time than now to ask him what that is and to seek it out.

You are listening to, sheWorks4Him and we're going to be right back with more from Heather Heuman.

Break: Hey listeners. One of the huge projects Martha and I have been working on for years is making it easy for every workplace believer, defined all the voices, speaking, encouragement, and equipping into the faith and work movement.

Presenting the Awaken podcast network online at Awakenpodcastnetwork.com with over 130 different podcast voices speaking truth into you. The workplace believer, including over 30 podcasts, dedicated to Christian working women go online to awaken podcast network. So can podcast network.com.

Martha: Welcome back to, sheWorks4Him where today I am with Heather Heuman and, you know, friends we talk about on sheWorks4Him that we're connecting you to God resources and one another. And Heather has a resource that I remember downloading when I first found out about it. And I want you to know about it as well.

And it's the 31 day content calendar. So Heather tell people what they'll get when they click on that.

Heather Heuman: Yeah, absolutely. So what you're going to get is a PDF document that's available and ready for you with 31 social media post ideas. They're broken down into categories, and if you're someone that's going, what should I be posting on social media? What can get people talking? What is going to be something that I could post? If you yourself feel like maybe you're lacking imagination. It's going to give you not just posts for you to check out. But it's going to be 31 posts that you can do that are proven to have high engagement, good results, and help for you to really get that push that some of you might need as it relates to your social media marketing.

Martha: Excellent. And I'll have that link in the show notes, but friends, you can go to sweetteasocial marketing.com/ content calendar. If you can actually remember all that, that's awesome. But you can go back to the notes and check that out.

And then Heather, I also, you have pretty recently released a book that God had you write. Tell us about that resource as well.

Heather Heuman: Yeah, so my book is called the golden rules of social media marketing. And I will tell you that my book is about a two and a half hour read, and I wrote it so that a fourth grader could understand it and know how to go and improve their marketing for their business or their nonprofit using social media.

So I, my signature framework is taking everything in social media, everything in business, and saying, these are the six stages that you want to incorporate. And the whole book is just going through what those six stages. And letting you know that the goal is for you to try to be doing something from each of those stages in your marketing.

Martha: Excellent. And, you know, it's kind of funny because what I thought of when you said I wrote this, that a fourth grader, I'm thinking most of us probably think a fourth grader could do the social media better than we could, because it's more intuitive to a lot of the younger generations than it is maybe it's just somebody who's trying to and struggling on their own. But I would encourage you also to be listening to Heather's podcast. And this book is a great resource as well. So thank you for sharing all of those resources with us in the last little bit that we have together. I just really want you to talk about your talk, how God has shown you that, without hesitation - I guess I would say that's my opinion, my looking in on where you're at? Is it even in the middle of your teaching sessions and you know, that not everybody watching you is a believer in Jesus Christ, you're very clear that that's where you're coming from in such a sweet way. And I know you use goodness and kindness a lot in your, I mean, it's, it's part of your DNA, but just talk about that and then, and then encourage us how we maybe should take that next step.

Heather Heuman: So, yeah, I mean, for me personally, I feel that I have grown up in this era that is like, you don't talk about business and politics and religion in the same setting. And I would say that I think a lot of the issues that are happening in our country and in our world right now are a direct reflection of so many people that are literally trained to think that way - to compartmentalize their faith.

And so I have just had bold convictions that have always just been be who you are. Do so with grace and truth, but at the same time, let God and who he has created you to be, to also be a part of your business. And so I, like I said, I've got clients, they aren't necessarily believing. But they know that I am, and it's not a deal breaker for them.

And they're like, I'm like, I can still help you with your pet shampoo. Like that's fantastic. Not all of my clients, even if they are Christians are posting Bible verses and that may or may not be part of your business model. However, I believe when you are conducting business from a biblical worldview, that needs to be, you know, oozing out of the pores of who you are and how you treat people, how you show up.

And I, again, I feel that there are so many people that are just kind and they're nice and you're like, what do they really think? What are they really believe? And so I just like to just be straight forward and just say, this is, or this isn't going to resonate with some people and I'm not offended if I'm not a good fit for them.

But at the same time, I feel very confident in being myself to include the quirky parts of me and the Jesus loving part of me. And I find it personally, just to be really freeing because people know who they're getting ready to get on a phone call with, or they know what I am outside of this social media box.

Martha: Being authentic in all that we do. So real quick, 30 seconds or less, give us one little social media tip that we can take into our day.

Heather Heuman: I think everybody, whether you're business or non-profit, you need to say whoever you're trying to resonate with or attract - what's the one thing that you would like those people to know ?Whether it's a misconception or a truth or a way that you can help them and turn that into ongoing, consistent content, either in a post or in a video and stop hiding because you have to get visibility if you want to have more influence on social media.

Martha: Amen. Heather Heuman, thank you so much for being my guest and letting us just get a chance to chat and see the perspective of a digital missionary and how we all can be missionaries in our, in our space that God has us in. Thank you so much.

Heather Heuman: Absolutely.

Martha: You've been listening to, sheWorks4Him with your host, Martha Brangenberg. We're Christian working women, helping other Christian working women to live out their calling at work as sheWorks4Him.

Outro: As Christian women, we have many roles from daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother to analyst, accountant, executive or educator. Is it possible to balance our roles at work and home in a way that honors God? The answer is yes. And our new book, sheWorks4Him will help show you. Written to celebrate, encourage and equip women in the workforce. sheWorks4Him discusses the diverse experiences of today's Christian working woman.

Pick up a copy by going to, iWork4Him.com/bookstore. You've been listening to the, sheWorks4Him podcast with your host, Catherine Gates, Nadya Dickson, and Martha Brangenberg. Please like us on Facebook and subscribe on YouTube under sheWorks4Him and to access any of the resources we mentioned on today's show see the show notes at sheWorks4Him.Com that's she works the number 4 Him.com.

This podcast was created to empower you to live out your calling at work so that the world knows sheWorks4Him.