Podcast Summary
Expanding beyond personal skills to build a team and offer more services: Starting a marketing agency enables freelancers to take on larger projects, build a team, and offer a wider range of services for growth and collaboration.
Starting a marketing agency involves more than just providing marketing services as a freelancer. Franchesca, the founder of Vero Creative, shared her experience and explained that she wanted to work on larger, more complex projects with clients, but felt the need to expand beyond her personal skills. By starting an agency, she was able to build a team and offer a wider range of services, including creative content production and digital marketing. This not only allowed her to take on bigger projects but also provided opportunities for growth and collaboration. Additionally, she emphasized the importance of showing the behind-the-scenes process to clients, as marketing involves more effort and dedication than many people realize.
Growing beyond individual skills through agency building: Building an agency allows for collaboration, diversification of income streams, and potential future scaling, leading to a greater impact than freelancing.
Expanding your professional network and building an agency can open up more opportunities and allow for growth beyond your individual skills and expertise. The speaker, who transitioned from a biomedical background to creative marketing, discussed how she chose the agency route to work with other creatives and make bigger projects happen. This approach not only aligns with her passion for supporting women in the creative industry but also allows for diversification of income streams and potential future scaling. Building a team and collaborating with others can lead to a greater impact than working as a solo freelancer.
Embracing new opportunities despite adversity: Determination and willingness to try new things can lead to career growth. Stay passionate about your goals and be persistent, even when faced with challenges or setbacks.
Determination and a willingness to try new things, even when faced with adversity, can lead to significant career growth. The speaker shares how they inherited this mindset from their parents and applied it to their own situation, starting out in a field they disliked but giving it a fair try before transitioning into marketing. This involved taking small steps, such as earning a professional marketing qualification, despite initial obstacles. The speaker's story highlights the importance of staying passionate about your goals and being persistent, even when faced with challenges or setbacks.
Stepping out of comfort zone leads to marketing success: Experience and results, not just a degree, prove marketing knowledge and qualifications. Track marketing stats to show ROI.
Stepping out of your comfort zone and pursuing what you truly want to do, even if it seems out of reach, is a huge step but comes with great rewards. This applies to entering the marketing industry, regardless of your educational background. Experience and results, gained through various means, are valuable assets that can prove your knowledge and qualifications in marketing. A marketing degree is not a requirement to be successful in the industry. Keeping track of statistics and figures from your marketing projects, no matter the size or duration, is essential to showcasing your experience and the return on investment you can provide to potential employers.
Documenting results and storytelling through video content: Effectively communicate past achievements and connect with consumers through video content to expand reach and be a valuable asset in job searching or career advancement
Experience and portfolio, whether it's online or in person, are valuable assets when job searching or seeking career advancement. Olivia emphasized the importance of documenting results from campaigns or projects, even if they're part of a 9 to 5 job. Veerau added that storytelling through video content is a powerful marketing tool and valuable addition to a portfolio. Companies want to connect with consumers on a personal level, and video content allows them to do so effectively. Additionally, holding onto physical marketing materials can also be beneficial in interviews. By focusing on storytelling and the relatability of businesses, video content can reach a large audience and be an essential part of a sales funnel.
Creating Effective YouTube Content for Businesses: Invest time and resources in creating authentic, valuable YouTube content for your business, even if it's low-cost. Stay updated on trends and adapt quickly while staying true to your brand's messaging.
YouTube is a valuable platform for businesses to showcase their solutions and add value to consumers, but creating high-quality, informative content requires significant time, resources, and planning. While it's understandable that not all businesses can afford high-budget productions, even low-cost strategies like repurposing articles into videos can be effective. Authenticity is also essential, as small businesses and corporations alike adapt to video content trends like TikTok and Instagram reels. The key is to ride the wave of trends while staying true to your brand's messaging and purpose. The lifespan of trends on platforms like TikTok is short, so being quick to identify and adapt to them is crucial. However, avoid being overly gimmicky and ensure that your content provides genuine value to your audience.
Staying trendy and adapting to new platforms is crucial for businesses: Businesses should stay updated with trends, engage on social media apps like TikTok, have a clear goal, create meaningful content, prioritize quality visuals, and focus on a customer-centric approach for successful campaigns.
Staying trendy and adapting to new platforms and trends is crucial for businesses in today's fast-paced digital world. Keeping an ear to the ground and being active on social media apps like TikTok can help businesses capitalize on trends and engage with their audience. When creating visual campaigns, it's essential to have a clear goal, focus on creating meaningful content that resonates with your audience, and prioritize quality visuals and consistency. By leading with a customer-focused approach, businesses can create campaigns that not only engage but also drive conversions or sign-ups. Remember, the key is to create content that people would want to engage with, even if they weren't trying to be sold something.
Creating a successful campaign: Clear vision, attention to detail, and relatable message: A successful campaign needs a clear objective, meticulous execution, and a message that resonates with the audience to make an impact.
Creating a successful campaign requires focusing on a specific goal, paying attention to detail, and finding creative ways to make it relatable and impactful for the audience. The speaker emphasized the importance of having a clear objective and putting in effort to make every aspect of the campaign visually appealing and engaging. She also shared the challenge of reminding clients that people may not care about their product launches as much as they do, but rather respond to campaigns that resonate with them. The speaker's personal experience as a business owner and her involvement in a feminist community further emphasized the importance of empowering and educating people to make a difference. Overall, the key takeaway is that creating a successful campaign requires a clear vision, attention to detail, and a relatable message.
Recognizing historical challenges and creating a more equitable workplace: Small actions like acknowledging and addressing unfair compensation can lead to a more inclusive and equitable workplace where women's ideas and contributions are valued
Promoting gender equality and fairness in the workplace goes beyond personal gain. It's about recognizing the historical challenges women have faced and making small but impactful decisions to create a more equitable environment. This can involve uncomfortable conversations and advocating for fair compensation for all team members, not just the most visible ones. For example, acknowledging and addressing the lack of compensation for models in a photo shoot is a small but significant step towards ensuring everyone is paid fairly. These actions, although seemingly insignificant, can lead to larger changes and a culture where women's ideas and contributions are valued and acknowledged. It's important to remember that having these conversations and advocating for change can be challenging, but the benefits of creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace are worth the effort.
Investing in Employees Beyond Finances: Provide opportunities for growth and learning, understand goals, offer training, and foster a supportive environment to increase productivity, engagement, and career advancement for employees.
As a business owner, investing in people goes beyond just financial compensation. While budget is important for startups, it's essential to provide opportunities for growth and learning. By understanding employees' goals and aspirations, offering training, and fostering a supportive environment, businesses can create a mutually beneficial relationship. This not only leads to increased productivity and engagement but also helps employees develop new skills and advance in their careers. Ultimately, this approach leads to a more motivated and fulfilled workforce, contributing to the overall success of the business.
Sowing seeds for future opportunities: During challenging times, stay focused on long-term goals, keep sowing seeds, and trust the process for future growth
Building a successful business takes time and patience, just like how you don't eat the fruit on the same day that you sow the seed. During challenging times, such as a pandemic, it's easy to get discouraged when things don't go as planned. Business may have slowed down, and it might feel like all the effort put into marketing and content creation isn't paying off. However, it's essential to remember that these actions are sowing seeds for future opportunities. Instantly gratifying social media culture can make it difficult to stay focused on the long-term goals. But, as the speaker shared, many successful business owners experienced tough times in the first few years. It's essential to keep sowing seeds, ensure they land on fertile ground, and continue to water them. The results might not manifest immediately, but they will eventually lead to something beautiful and greater than the current situation. In summary, even though it's normal to face challenges and stormy weather in the early stages of building a business, it's crucial to keep sowing seeds, stay patient, and trust the process.