ericaminadev

When I started my marketing agency, there was one big lesson the universe taught me: you have to put yourself out there if you want to add clients. You can’t start a business in the dark and expect it to flourish. 

Nothing is going to be perfect when you first start (or ever!!), and those of us in the marketing world can easily get caught up in the perfectionism of it all. It’s less about those details and much more about having the confidence to go out there and ask for what you want. 

In this episode, I’m going into the nitty gritty details of how I created relationships, added clients, and ultimately grew my business! 

1. Kill the perfectionism voice in your head – she’s not helping you, she’s only holding you back! 
2. Be vulnerable & tell your story – connecting with people personally is a beautiful basis to start a healthy working relationship.
3. Everyone in your life needs to know what you’re doing – don’t hide it! Tell your aunt, the guy at the smoothie shop, anyone and anywhere that it naturally comes up in conversation (and no, we don’t mean jumping into the DM’s of your old high school acquaintances and “selling” yourself) 
4. Volunteer for what you’re passionate about – the relationships you’ll create through volunteering are with the most well-connected, giving people in the world that you want to have in your back pocket
5. Network & attend events that you feel natural going to – and only during the phases of your cycle when you have the energy to do so.
6. Ask for referrals – the clients you enjoy working with are connected to others like them, so it’s an excellent way to expand your business with clients you actually like!

Tune in to hear more about how I added clients and the lessons I learned along the way. 

Today we’re talking about something I’m sure you’ve seen in quotes all over Instagram, heard in motivational speeches, heck, maybe it’s even on your coffee mug: Doing the next big thing before you’re ready. 

Even though we’ve all heard it before, have you ever stopped to think: what would this look like in my life right now? What have I been holding off on because I’m scared? 

We can tend to sabotage ourselves by asking the dreaded question: “What if?”

And if you ask me, there are two types of people in this crazy business world: people who set the “what if” aside and do it anyway and others who let the “what if” eat them up.

In my experience with my own business, every time we’ve experienced growth it was the result of taking one big, uncomfortable leap. Our business is growing a lot right now, but every time we take on another contractor it still feels really uncomfortable. It never gets easier, but I can look back at my track record and see that these big leaps are what let us grow even more. 

So, how do you push past the fear and dive in anyway? It’s not by just throwing caution to the wind and jumping in blindly; the best way to move forward with confidence is by strategically making educated decisions on how to get to your next step.

Tune into the episode to hear how I grew my agency one scary step at a time and how I had to grow accustomed to the idea of failure. Part of trying is failing, but I don’t let my brain get stuck there; they’re lessons that guide me on what to do differently next time. 

Resources: 

The Ed Mylett Show

The Power of One More by Ed Mylett

Have you ever gotten a new client and you just got a weird vibe right from the beginning? Or as you start working with them, there’s just a feeling that they are making decisions that don’t seem logical to you? As business owners, we can tend to ignore the red flags and just take on the client anyway – clients are clients, right? 

We have made these mistakes and always ended up with regrets – a project went over schedule, over budget, or just ended poorly. Once we were introduced to the world of personality evaluations, it was like a lightbulb went off in our heads: we could pre-screen our potential clients (as well as our prospective hires!) to make sure it will be a good working relationship for everyone involved! 

We use a series of three personality evaluations to determine who we hire, who we take on as clients, and how we design our workflows to ensure that we are creating the most balanced & well-rounded work environment possible. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to give an overview of the evaluations we use, what they mean, and how they play out in our business. The amount of information you get out of these tests allows you to make informed decisions quickly without having to learn by trial and error and truly optimizes the efficiency (and enjoyment!) of your business tenfold. 

Assessments:

Personality Plus:

We use this test we use most when hiring, as it evaluates a person’s core personality

• Sanguine: extroverted, talkers, optimists, appealing personality, naturally attract relationships, normally go with their gut rather than needing data, naturally curious, volunteers for jobs, enthusiastic, creative, inspires others to join
• Melancholy: introverted, thinker, pessimist, deep & thoughtful, analytics, artistic, self-sacrificing, love charts & graphs, perfectionist, schedule-oriented 
• Choleric: extroverted, the doers, optimistic, question everything, unemotional, independent, confident, organized, delegator, love to research and debate 
• Phlegmatic: introvert, watcher, pessimist, peaceful, easy-going, collected, patient, consistent, quiet but witty, sympathetic, kind, all-purpose person, competent, mediates problems

Predictable Success:

This evaluation is all about getting your organization on the growth track & keeping it there – it’s like a blueprint for leaders who are looking for sustainable growth.

• Visionary: see big picture, big thinkers, charismatic, deeply loyal, passionate, hate routine, love conversation, comfortable with ambiguity, really high visionaries can get stuck in the clouds
• Synergist: learned skill that people have actively worked on themselves, comfortable in group environments, high emotional intelligence, managing group dynamics, read individuals & groups well, persuasive without being manipulative
• Operator: doers, task-oriented, easily bored by meetings, action-oriented, work a lot and like to work alone, don’t like to be micro-managed, not naturally inclined to play well in meetings/groups
• Processor: focus on underlying systems/processes, rational, analytical, logical, objective, trust data over emotion, love routine, dislike risk, prefer not to be rushed

Positive Intelligence:

The Positive Intelligence test is all about how you sabotage yourself and how it translates into your work & personal life; how you protected yourself as a child turns into how you sabotage yourself as an adult.

• Avoider: focus on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way; avoid difficult and unpleasant tasks and conflicts.
• Controller: anxiety-based need to take charge and control situations and people’s actions to one’s own will; high anxiety and impatience when that is not possible.
• Hyper-Achiever: dependent on constant performance & achievement for self-respect and self-validation; can have unsustainable workaholic tendencies and loss of touch with deeper emotional & relational needs
• Hyper-Rational: Intense and exclusive focus on the rational processing of everything, including relationships; can be perceived as uncaring, unfeeling, or intellectually arrogant.
• Hyper-Vigilant: Continuous intense anxiety about all the dangers and what could go wrong; vigilance that can never rest.
• Pleaser: try to gain affection & acceptance, can lose sight of one’s own needs & become resentful
• Restless: constantly in search of greater excitement in the next activity or constant busyness; rarely at peace or content with the current activity.
• Stickler: perfectionism, a need for order & organization taken too far, punctual, methodological, can be irritable, tense, and highly critical
• Victim: emotional and temperamental as a way to gain attention and affection; an extreme focus on internal feelings, particularly painful ones.

Resources:

Personality Plus by Florence Littauer

Personality Plus test

Predictable Success by Les McKeown 

Predictable Success test

The Synergist by Les McKeown

Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine

Positive Intelligence test

When you bring up the terms “bear market” or “recession,” a lot of people want to just avoid the topic altogether. Business owners don’t want to think about it until they absolutely have to, but this head-in-the-sand approach creates a scenario where you have to be reactive rather than proactive and prepared…and that’s not a great place to be! 

In this episode, we’re going to help you create a plan and feel SECURE in your business, no matter what the market does or how your industry changes.

You don’t have to come up with a buttoned-up plan or completely restructure your business in a bear market, but this is the time to take a step back and look at the changes happening in your industry. NOW, before sh*t hits the fan, is the time to plan out how to market and/or pivot your business going into a recession and adjust to the changing climate.

Step 1 is to create a threshold for survival; essentially, get an idea of how much revenue your business needs to survive at the bare minimum. 

Next, we’re going to make a variety of worst-case scenario plans: what happens when business goes down 10%, 20%, 50%? Make an A, B, and C plan for these scenarios so you have a solid plan of what to do if these situations arise!

-What expenses can you trim back?

-Who do you have working for you and who do you need at different levels of business?

-What additional tasks do YOU need to take on without driving yourself into the ground?

Why do we do this? To help our brains feel SAFE. If the worst-case scenario does happen, you already have a plan, a safety net of how you’ll survive and you don’t have to go into panic mode. 

Another aspect to evaluate during a bear market or recession is your marketing; look, I know we run a marketing agency so this might seem a bit biased…but PLEASE don’t eliminate marketing until you absolutely have to!

Marketing is like your main source of food for your business; why would you cut off the source that’s feeding you? It might seem like you should spend less on marketing during a recession, but large companies actually DOUBLE their marketing budget during recessions; why? Advertising becomes cheaper, there’s way less competition, and there’s a HUGE opportunity to gain ground in the market! 

Here are some ideas of how to take advantage of marketing in a bear market:

-Create evergreen ads that you can turn off/on

-Turn up/down your ad spend depending on how much business you’re in need of

-Take advantage of low/no-cost networking and marketing opportunities!

It’s as simple as this: you can’t turn off your marketing and expect your business to grow. 

Lastly, think about how your clients and customers are working through these same things; look into what their pain points and struggles are and utilize their language and their mindset to get their attention. 

Tune in to the full episode for more tips and information on how to best prepare your business for any upcoming recession. 

Need help putting together a plan? Download our free bear market guide at theminacompany.com/bear-market-guide-freebie/

The absolute worst thing: You booked a networking event a few weeks back; The day of the event is here and you’re on your period, you have no energy, and you simply just DON’T want to be there. Sound familiar? Let me introduce the concept of cycle mapping.

I spent YEARS fighting to work against my cycle and my body’s natural rhythms and let me tell you…it’s rough! Our world was designed with a man’s 24-hour cycle in mind but as women, we have a 28-day cycle that dictates our energy, focus, and strengths on any given day. The solution? Cycle mapping!

Cycle mapping is a way of tuning into and embracing the different phases of your cycle so that you can utilize your cycle to work FOR you rather than fighting against it. Sounds pretty dreamy, right?! It’s not as woo-y as it may sound and it’s not that challenging either; in fact, once you start embracing your feminine flow and energy you’ll realize that it actually makes life and work a lot easier! 

As a business owner, cycle mapping can totally transform how you support your business and your team. In today’s episode, I’ll teach you the basics of how to determine your feminine and masculine energy, take advantage of the peaks and valleys of your energy & focus, and batch your work to make the most out of your cycle.

Need a quick overview of the phases of your cycle & how they play into your business? Look no further!

Menstrual: a time to slow down & rest; this is when ideas flow!

Follicular: energy is building; the time to make plans & schedule, carry out new ideas

Ovulatory: your energy is at its peak; the time to be seen & be social

Luteal: energy is dropping; the time to wrap things up & finish projects

Listen in for more tips and tricks on how to best utilize each phase of your cycle and optimize your energy!

Resources referenced:

“In the Flow” by Alissa Vitti 

Loomly social media scheduler

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I’m Erica: agency owner, girl mom, and ultimate hype girl for female business owners.

I’m starting this podcast to teach you the actuals of how to start a marketing agency.

Learn how to start your own successful marketing agency and strategically outsource immediately – yes, that means you don’t have to do everything on your own, even as you’re just starting out!

This episode is all about me (yikes!), but I think it’s important for me to tell my story despite the discomfort I feel in recording a full episode about myself! I love learning about other people, hearing their stories, and discovering how they tackled all they’ve accomplished. So today I’m documenting my own journey into entrepreneurship; it’s one riddled with trauma and grief but also with so much joy and growth. 

If you’re interested in hearing how one agency owner got started, tune in! 

What drove me into entrepreneurship was a time when both my work and personal life came crashing down, from caring for a sick parent to a complicated pregnancy and even getting laid off, it felt like my world was ending…so I had to create a new one. 

My first step? I made a list. I made a list of local businesses that I loved and saw potential in, got vulnerable, and asked if they would consider letting me do freelance marketing for them. 

I didn’t have business cards, a website, a portfolio, anything! I started simply with what I had and gave my ALL to the clients who would take me. The most amazing thing? It worked! 

Despite the blows that life continued to throw at me (and trust me, there were a LOT!), I slowly grew my client base and, eventually, a full agency. But truthfully, the only reason that this business survived and grew in the way that it did was because of the structure I set up in those first few months. The structure is what saved me when life was too much, and THAT is what I’m aiming to teach any freelancer who dreams of owning their own agency. You deserve to have both financial and time freedom, and friend? It is truly possible; it’s not just a pipedream. 

My goal is to get you to make the leap to agency owner. If you feel scared, trust me, I get it! When I got started, all I had was a spreadsheet, a resume, and a prayer; if I can do it, you can too. 

Links mentioned: 

1:1 Freelancer to Agency Owner Coaching

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