"There are studies showing that people who take time off from work to slow down are actually more productive."
Jessica Tappana Tweet
Jessica Tappana is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Columbia, MO who started her first business, a private practice, in 2017. After learning how to optimize her own website to quickly rise in the Google Search Engine Rankings and helping a handful of friends, she opened a second business, Simplified SEO Consulting, in January 2019. Since then, she’s grown a small team that specializes in helping mental health professionals optimize their websites to show up more in search engine rankings. Throughout their growth, Simplified SEO Consulting has remained laser focused on the mental health field and now has clients all over the United States and several other English-speaking countries.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Jessica Tappana: Simplified SEO Consulting helps therapists around the country optimize their websites to show up better in Search Engine Results. We are pretty niched in that we work almost exclusively with mental health professionals, and the websites we work with outside of the mental health field would still fall into the “helping professions” category. Because of this focus on mental health, every employee at Simplified has at least a Bachelor’s degree in a related field-usually Psychology or Social Work. Once someone comes on board, we teach them everything they need to know about websites & SEO. Our most popular services are our “Done for You” services where we optimize a website for the owner, but we also offer courses for business owners who want to DIY their SEO and also several SEO training options.
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your life and how did they impact you? How did that lead to where you are today?
Jessica Tappana: Without a doubt my Dad was the most influential person in my life. My dad wasn’t biologically related to me, but he married my mom when I was 8 years old and raised my sisters and me as his own. I was pretty resistant to accepting him into our family at first, but over the years we grew really, really close.
My dad impacted who I am in more ways than I can count. For example, he was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and even when he was in leadership positions (which he often was in his career) he always made decisions based on how his actions would help people. He wanted to really make a difference and I carry this motivation with me every day as I make business decisions. He also had a “win-win” attitude and would look to resolve conflict in a way that helped everyone involved and I try to bring that same attitude to problem-solving in my own life and business when there is any hint of conflict. Lastly, my dad’s favorite saying was, “There’s a solution for every problem.” Now, I know this doesn’t always mean I’ll like the solution, but when I get stressed or something in business seems impossible I just remind myself of this phrase and search for the solution.
Unfortunately, my dad passed away about two years before I started my own business. But I know he would be proud of me. He was incredibly proud of his younger son, Brad, who owned a business while our dad was alive. When I went into business myself, Brad helped me with some important graphic design work and it felt like a sign that my dad was watching over both of us. I know without a doubt he would’ve loved that he helped me. And now, I know he would be incredibly proud of the success I’ve had in business.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us, particularly for businesses. How did the pandemic impact your business? Please list some of the problems that you faced, and how you handled them.
Jessica Tappana: In March & April 2020, I became worried my entire business was going to go under. It was a scary moment because I had never felt that way before. I thought of not only how it would impact my own family but also my employees. I was open with my team that we were in problem-solving mode but tried to portray more confidence than I had at times during those early days. I dropped my salary down to $500/month for a while and just took that problem-solving approach. We got creative with our marketing and it was the only time we’ve ever offered a deal where if they paid us to optimize 3+ pages we’d optimize one page for free. And then, there was a month where we optimized more pages per person than we ever had before or had sense. Looking back, I have no idea how we did it with kids at home and a world still falling apart around us.
My husband was still working every day at the local hospital so I was managing kids and working. Another employee was a full time single mom. Yet another had a toddler at home. But we did it. We made it through those early months. And then, I started saving VERY aggressively. I now have more in my savings account than my CPA or financial advisor think is needed, but it gives me comfort knowing if something like that happened again we’d be ok.
The pandemic led to a myriad of cultural side effects, including one that was quite unexpected that is informally known as “The Great Resignation”. Did this widespread trend affect you in any way?
Jessica Tappana: The Great Resignation has really hit our business this year. We are a very small team and have had several resignations this year as young professionals are searching for “better” jobs. While our job has always offered flexibility to work from home and choose your own hours, bonuses based on performance and a great team atmosphere I realized throughout this year that we needed to offer even more. In 2021, we’ve added health insurance, a monthly gift of a Starbucks gift card and even a sign on bonus. For now, it appears that the people who have stuck with us are here to stay. But we’re still finding it slow going to hire. The sign on bonus was new with our latest round of hiring and the full bonus isn’t given until they have stayed with us for 6 months so time will show how helpful that has been.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. How do you feel about this trend? Explain.
Jessica Tappana: It’s frustrating as a business owner who is offering what I feel like is a fantastic job opportunity for people new to the field of mental health. Not only is hiring more difficult these days, but it’s beyond frustrating to invest thousands of dollars into training someone only to have them leave a few months into the job.
On the other hand, knowing how quick people are to quit their jobs has led to me looking for ways to better care for the staff and I think that is ultimately a good thing. I do value my staff and hope that the changes I’ve made have helped them feel more valued than ever.
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. That can be quite an alarming rate. What advice would you share to increase employee retention?
Jessica Tappana: Focus on creative ways to motivate employees. Consider retention bonuses (we gave a retention bonus to everyone when we started using a sign on bonus so every employee would feel valued), ask your employees what they want (our monthly Starbucks giftcard was an employee suggestion and only costs us $10/month each) and be open to trying new things.
According to a Nature Human behavior study, In 2020, 80% of US workers reported feeling that they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them – a phenomenon known as “time poverty”. What is your take on the work-life balance? Explain.
Jessica Tappana: Work-life balance is incredibly important. There are studies showing that people who take time off from work to slow down are actually more productive. In addition, I believe that my employees are going to be more likely to stay with me if they feel like they have work/life balance. Therefore, this has been a top priority for my team. Both myself and the director under me have emphasized time and again to our team the importance of taking time off when they need it. Because our employees function remote, we’ve had employees who have even been able to travel and work from other places. With few exceptions, employees are able to set their own work hours which has been so important to our staff this year. For example, two staff members have had significant others with serious medical situations that they were able to be there for because of the flexibility our job provides.
Also, I believe in rewarding productivity. While all of my employees have a base hourly pay, they also get a generous “task completion bonus” based on work completed. This encourages them to make the most of their time and be efficient. However, it’s important to note that if when reviewed their work is of poor quality they do not get the bonus. Therefore, we are incentivizing efficient work that is still high quality.
A more recent survey by Joblist asked about 3,000 respondents if they’re actively thinking about leaving their job. That survey found that 73% of 2,099 respondents who answered this question on their employment plans are considering quitting. How are you preparing for the future to counter this potentially persistent problem?
Jessica Tappana: Honestly, it’s scary to think that high of a percentage of employees were considering leaving their job! However, I’ve learned that in business it’s important to be able to adapt. As I look ahead to 2022, I’m looking for ways to reduce other costs in anticipation of the cost of labor continuing to rise in order to keep employees in this competitive market.
Thank you for all that, our readers are grateful for your insightful comments! Now, if the Great Resignation isn’t your greatest concern, what is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Jessica Tappana: Honestly, staffing is the number one concern in my business. Hiring and training employees takes time and money, so at this point in time truly our top priority is finding a way to keep the employees we have and recruit new people who will stay as long as possible.
Before we finish things off, we do have one last question. If you had $10 Million Dollars to spend in one day, what would you spend it on?
Jessica Tappana: I’d spend it by making plans for an AMAZING retreat for my staff and then donating to a mental health-focused charity organization.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Jessica Tappana for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Jessica Tappana or her company, you can do it through her – Facebook
Did you enjoy this article? Check out similar stories:
Dan Bilzerian: The True Story Of Instagram Playboy Millionaire
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.