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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and you all already know that I love marketing episodes here on the show.
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But what I love even more than marketing episodes is fellow entrepreneurs who get as excited as I do about entrepreneurship, about their own entrepreneurial journey and about making a positive difference for other businesses and other people, especially when it comes through marketing.
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And that's exactly what we have in today's guest.
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So let me introduce you to her.
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Her name is Brenna Barnhill.
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Brenna has such a cool story because she's a former educator who spent five years teaching second grade before making the leap into entrepreneurship.
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Unsure of what her next career move would be, she felt a deep desire for more for both her life and her family, initially planning to spend the summer job hunting on entrepreneurship.
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Unsure of what her next career move would be, she felt a deep desire for more for both her life and her family.
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Initially planning to spend the summer job hunting on LinkedIn, she unknowingly took her first step into business ownership on the last day of school when a parent came up to her and asked hey, can you help me out with social media?
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Can you help the company that I work for.
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That opportunity marked the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey Within 12 weeks.
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I love the fact that she has such a strong bias to action.
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Brenna was approached by her now CFO with a proposal to invest in a business together.
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Recognizing her talent and passion for content creation, he saw potential in building something new.
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Without hesitation, she said yes, and now here we are with her own company, which has become.
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She turned Flourish Social into Flourish Marketing Agency, so she helps so many other brands flourish online with her work and all of her marketing perspective.
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Since launching her business, she's experienced, of course, the many ups and downs and unexpected twists that come with entrepreneurship, all while balancing life as a mother of two.
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So, if you are thinking to yourself, life just happens to get in the way Brenna is navigating all of these things.
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We're going to learn so much from her today, both from an entrepreneurial perspective as well as the marketing side of things, so I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Brenna Barnhill.
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All right, brenna, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
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This is so exciting.
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Heck.
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Yes, Brenna, listeners know I'm always excited for these episodes, but I think you are on the same level of excitement as I am today.
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Gosh.
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I mean, you're talking to a small town ex-educator.
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I'm like what is this life that I'm living right now?
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That's awesome.
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Well, I will say you are talking to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in over 150 countries around the world right now.
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So the first place you've got to go with us is take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Brenna?
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How'd you start doing all these cool things?
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Oh my gosh.
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Well, just your introduction kind of is a whole thing in a nutshell, where it was just I was an educator for five years in a small town in East Texas and it was just.
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Every school year I started being like this isn't what I really want to do and I just but I doubted my ability to do anything beyond being an educator because, you know, at the time I had two kids.
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You know you have to provide for them.
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Life is not cheap.
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Because at the time I had two kids, you have to provide for them.
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Life is not cheap.
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And it was just like, okay, brenna, what can you do?
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And so I was racking my brain my last year of teaching, just being like what am I gonna?
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I'm Googling, what can you do with the interdisciplinary studies degree on Google?
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I'm the teacher.
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And it's like, okay, well, I'm already doing that and I'm not happy.
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So how do I use the skills that I have as a teacher and put them in something else?
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And so it got towards the end of the school year where me and my husband had a tough discussion of just being like I cannot do this, because I feel like when I get to the end of my career, you know, when I'm 50, 60 years old.
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And if I looked back and saw that I never took the jump or the leap of faith to do something more with my life, I'd be like, what did you do?
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Like you wasted all of that time when you could have just started something.
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So I had no idea what I was going to do.
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Um, this life that I'm currently living was never in the plan.
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I never even dreamt that this would have been possible.
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Um, but it was just.
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It just kind of fell in my lap, like you said.
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Um, on the last day, day of school, I announced to the parents at the end of the school year party that I was leaving and, uh, I had a parent come up to me and she was like, would you do social media?
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And I was like, sure, like, I post on social media, I know instagram and um, it just kind of flourished into what it is today and I'm very blessed to be in this position.
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And, just, you know, as a teacher, I really struggled with who I was as a mom, because it is very taxing to be with students all day and putting out fires and doing all the things, and then I would come home to my kids and I'm still trying to take care of myself and cook dinner, and I really hated who I was as a parent.
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And so now being able to transfer those that deep desire to help business owners that may be struggling with the same thing because they're so weighed down with all the hats that they're wearing and their responsibilities, and I get to take something off their plate to maybe help them get that quality time back, or that sense of peace of mind that something's being taken care of for them.
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So that's that, yeah.
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Yeah, brenna, I love that overview for so many reasons.
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We're just going to jump straight into the real and the deep stuff, because what I love about that overview is, I think, about your mindset in that moment.
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You knew that you were hungry and ambitious for more, but navigating that question of what does that look like?
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What I hear in your journey is you probably could come up with 30 reasons at the time why you shouldn't or couldn't start a business.
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You didn't know how to do these things.
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You didn't.
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You had no prior business experience up to that point.
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You're a busy mom.
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You have so many life obligations.
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But, brenna, you took the jump.
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You looked at all of those reasons and still did it.
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Talk to us about that decision because I feel like it's so valuable for listeners who convince themselves of all the reasons not to do it.
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But you found a way to convince yourself of a reason to do it.
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Yeah, I mean, you know it was, trust me, like it is, a social media is really good at giving you the highlight reel, and so if you look at my profile, it looks like it's just, you know, magical and I'm just rolling in the dough and I'm so successful.
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There has been so many hardships during this process that, looking back two years ago, I had no idea what I was in for.
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You know, you go from working nine to five to 24, seven, and you know, for me, though, I wouldn't change it, and when I was sitting in my classroom just thinking like you want more for your life.
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So you're going to have to do something about it.
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And I will say that every part of this business that has happened for me, it's just happened Like I haven't had to try, like I.
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It's hard work, but it's just kind of all fallen into place, every single part of it, and that's why I feel so much peace, knowing that I made the right decision.
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I'm not saying it's that way for everybody, but I just feel like that's a sign that you're doing the right thing for yourself.
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You know, even with my business partner going from Flourish Social, which was just me and my CFO, and I was doing just social media management and I got to a point where I needed to hire on somebody because I had too much on my plate and so I put out an application or a ad for, you know, I'm hiring, apply and I did a couple of interviews and then I went on social media and I was like I'm looking for somebody, I need them to be, uh, near East Texas and Dallas.
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And my business partner now messaged me just happened to see it and she was like my in-laws live in Tyler, I live in Dallas, can I be considered?
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And I was like sure.
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And it turns out that she is a past assistant principal and that I'm past educator.
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And we both were two educators dreaming the same dream of wanting more for their life, but had no idea that our paths would cross.
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And then it did, and now we're business partners and we have a marketing agency, and so I just really encourage people because I know so many teachers and people that they have the same desire, like everybody knows, like we only get one life, and it's like do I want to spend it, you know, dreading going to work or having the Sunday scaries or whatever it is, and it's like no, in doing what we're doing is scary.
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This is the hard way.
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I don't believe that entrepreneurship is easy, so but we did it, and it takes a lot of hard work, but if it's what you want to do, like you're just going to have to go for it.
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Yeah, brenna, you talk about the pieces seemingly falling into place and as someone who talks to entrepreneurs for a living and hears a lot of entrepreneurial stories, I'm going to call something out about that.
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And to me it seems like they fall into place because you're willing to ride the waves and so I even look at that evolution that you kind of gave us the tip of the iceberg on of going from flourish social to flourish marketing agency, obviously expanding the breadth and the scope of your services.
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I want to talk about that evolution because too many entrepreneurs they think you know I have to have the idea that whatever it is that I think I'm going to do, that's going to become the thing that I do.
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But you've clearly followed that natural evolution over time.
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Talk to us about that going from Flourish Social to broadening it into Flourish Marketing Agency.
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Sure.
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So you know, it's crazy because before, when I was an educator, I didn't even know social media managers were a thing.
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Like I was just sharing my kids and sharing my life on social media.
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And so when I you know, when I was leaving education, I did not have any idea what the heck I was going to do.
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I just, you know, was going to apply for jobs on LinkedIn.
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And then, because you know, teachers get paid for the summer, and so I was like, at the end of summer, if I haven't found anything, I'll work at Chick-fil-A or Walmart, like I'll figure it out, but I'm going to take this chance.
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And so I happened to come across a content creator named Sam Schmidt and she was doing something called scale school.
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She was also a past educator and she was had a course for social media managers.
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And since I was already helping this past student's parent with their social media and I was like, why not?
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Like this looks awesome?
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And so I enrolled in the course.
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It was 12 weeks, and then I launched Flourish Social in October of 2023.
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And so I literally started from scratch, like zero followers, zero reels, all the things and I just went after it and I invested in getting cameras and all the equipment.
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And then it took four months for me to land my first client and they paid me $700 a month and I was like, okay, we're getting somewhere.
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You got a client, and before that I had to build a portfolio, right.
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And a month and I was like, okay, we're getting somewhere.
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You got a client and, uh, you know, before that I would, I had to build a portfolio, right.
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So because no one's just going to hire somebody, because for their word, like they need their work, and so I would go to coffee shops and be like, hey, I'm, can you make me three pretty coffees and can I film you while you do it?
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And so, and they always said yes, and so I would go behind the counter and I would just start filming them, and then I would use that content to build a portfolio, because I didn't have clients at the time.
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And then I would go to restaurants and I would order like $100 worth of food and I would just be sitting there with my tripod in my life just doing the dang thing, because I was just like.
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I'm going to do this, I'm going to be successful.
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And it helped me get practice too, and so I did that for so long.
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And then, you know, I got to a point where I got that first client and then, but it was like nothing, no momentum was happening, and so I was like you know, I have a family, and my husband was like you know, like we gotta make an income, and I'm like I know.
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So I got to a point where I was like, okay, if this isn't what I meant to do, then, like I just prayed about it and I was like I'm not meant to do this, that's okay and I'll do something else.
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But if this is meant to work, like, help me out.
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And so the next day I landed a client, and two days later I laid another client and three days later I landed another client and I was like, okay, I'm meant to be doing this.
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And then it just completely flourished into this company and, um, you know, I gained a lot of experience.
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And then it was in the summer of 2024 where I landed a ten thousand dollar a month client and I was like holy moly.
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And that's when I had emily come on board.
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And then entrepreneurship, I had ups and downs of I ended up having to fire that client for being a very toxic uh partnership.
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And so I was like what the heck like?
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You feel like you get this big breakthrough and then it doesn't happen.
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And then, as Emily and I were working together, it was like we had opposite strengths and so that's how we merged to be Flourish Marketing Agency, because it was like we could really build something where she's great at data and analytics and I'm great at content creation and messaging and talking with people.
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And so we were like we need to take advantage of this and merge.
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And we have, and we already, you know we're set to make six figures this year as a company and just it's just mind blowing, yeah.
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Gosh Brenna, I love that.
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I will tell you, I don't believe there are many or any coincidences in life.
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So the fact that you sat down and you said I'm going to do whatever it takes, I'm going to make this work, and then clients started following, I love that story, and especially the coffee shop story, because that shows your I'll do anything it takes to make it work attitude and that is so ingrained in the entrepreneurial DNA.
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Talk to us about that, because you clearly saw the value of content and we always hear in the marketing world that phrase content is king, but so few people actually act on it or so few people have the strategy to support those content efforts.
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Talk to us about your love for content and the way that you have it help businesses.
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You know, it was kind of like a thing where it was like, okay, I have a phone and you go on social media and you see all these social media managers or content groovers and it's like they're using their phones.
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I'm like, okay, I have a phone, like I can go out there and do this.
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So it was just having the drive to learn and to like try and fail, and it's like I'm very aware that content flops sometimes and reels aren't going to perform well, and that's okay.
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But it was such a learning experience.
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Like I look back in content that I created in the beginning and I'm like, oh my gosh, brenna, this was terrible, but I get to see how far I've come from that and that's all from just the dedication and the perseverance of just I'm going to keep going and I'm going to get really good at this because I really love doing this.
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And for me as an educator, I'm used to getting a brand new roster of students every single year and they all had different learning styles and so I, as their teacher, had to adjust how I created lesson plans and how I executed lessons to meet the needs of each learner.
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And so for business owners, it's such the same thing, because I get to adjust my content creation and their marketing strategy and their social media strategy to fit what they each need.
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And so that love of what I did as an educator got to transform into what I do as a social media manager and it was really cool to see the transfer of that.
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I got to still use the skills and what I was passionate about of helping others achieve and be successful, and now I got to do that for entrepreneurs and business owners that took the same leap of faith that I did and are doing the dang thing and you know, because it's such for a bigger purpose.
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You know entrepreneurs don't just start because we want a different job.
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It's like there's such a bigger picture in mind and it whether that's retiring early or traveling the world or setting their kids up, it's, and you know social media is such a huge part of that in this state and that's time.
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You know Gen Z, millennials and all the things, and you know to be a part of their team and partner with them to help flourish their business so they can get to that long term goal.
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And it's fun like content creation is so fun where you just get to go and take videos of them and learn about them and see what they're passionate about and then transform that into their content is just really something special.
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Yeah, for sure, brenna.
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It's right there in your business name.
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You and I have both said it a few times as the verb that it is that you help brands flourish.
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Talk to us about the approach that you and Emily take in your business because I'm going to tell this for listeners, because obviously I can see your website right now, but I love the way you articulate it of we're like the right and left brain of your brand, which I love.
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The fact and you've already displayed it a few times for us here today how you and Emily balance each other out.
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Talk to us about your approach when you start with a client.
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Obviously, every business needs that growth fuel of marketing.
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How do you even begin to formulate that strategy and execute on it?
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Yeah, okay.
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So with business owners it's just kind of they have to come to a realization that's like, okay, I'm not, I'm not either executing well, I'm just posting the post with no strategy, I don't have time or they're, they post and they go, and so there's so many things.
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And then when they finally get the courage to take the step to see if they want to outsource, and so for us what they do is they just sign up on our link and it's they schedule a free discovery call.
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And that's where we it's kind of like a you know as much as we're interviewing them and seeing, like you know, are we the right fit for you?
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They're doing the same for us, and so we really help, like we don't take it lightly that business owners come to us and we really heavily press on that, where it's like we believe in your business as much as you do and we are here to help you to success the way that we would for our own.
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And we want our process to be so authentic and organic to who they are and the voice of their brand that people don't even know that we're there.
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And so we always tell them that in our discovery calls.
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It helps ease them, because business owners are really afraid that if they outsource and they give to somebody else, their voice is going to be lost and then it's just going to sound like chat, gpt or these stranger people that they just hired on their team, and it's not going to sound like them.
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And so, after we do a discovery call, we send them a customized proposal of what exactly we believe that their business needs, whether that's taking on full social media management, where it's like, okay, take off your social media hat and give it to us and then we will create your market strategy, where we'll do market research and a deep dive and competitor analysis and look at data and what is doing well in their niche and we'll create a custom, personalized, unique social media strategy, just like kind of what we did for our students and we get to present that to them.
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And then, once they sign their contract and we partner with them, we do something called a roots call.
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And so this is where we get to the roots of the business, where we interview and them for about an hour and we and we have a list of questions and we learn about their story and we learn about why they're doing this and we learn about their business so we can transfer that into their content.
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And so that's a big thing because we like, like we said, I just want it to show who they are, because on social media it's not that we're trying to sell their product or their service, we're trying to sell the problem their product or service solves for people.
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And so we actually just did a training the other day where it's like, when you look at social media, it's I want it to be your book cover, because if you took a cover off of a book and you just had a plain book, is anybody going to pick that up off the shelf?
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No, because it's just going to be blue or black or whatever.
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But on the inside of the book they would miss all that information because the value of their product or their service, because they would never pick the book up.
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And so our job as a social media manager or their marketing agency is to build the cover of that book.
00:19:15.260 --> 00:19:29.417
It would have the illustrations, their brand guidelines, their fonts, their colors, their aesthetics, and then we get to transfer that into their messaging who are they talking to, who is their ideal customer and we create that.
00:19:29.417 --> 00:19:40.699
So our job is to get the people to pick up the book and then after that they get to go and explore and learn about the value of what they're going to get from the product or the service.
00:19:40.699 --> 00:19:47.703
But our job is just to get them there, so, yeah, I love the way that you lay that out.
00:19:47.986 --> 00:20:15.559
I'm a big fan of analogies and I'm a very visual person, so the fact that you're using this book analogy with us I think that it makes it more tangible, because a lot of people they don't think of the process of bringing someone into their business, into their ecosystem, in the way that you do, because we've all heard about marketing funnels, but what I'm really hearing is you think about where these things belong in the experience that someone has with a brand and so, thinking about that, I often wonder.
00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:19.579
I love asking people in your position, brenna, like what's the purpose of social media?
00:20:19.579 --> 00:20:35.184
A lot of people worry about the call to action or I don't want to be too salesy and it just seems to me, looking at what you guys do at Flourish Marketing Agency, is that you support social media efforts with the backend for conversions, like email marketing, like the website, like the branding.
00:20:35.184 --> 00:20:43.538
Talk to us about how all these things play together and what the goal of each is, so that we know the right calls to actions or the right bridges to build.
00:20:44.461 --> 00:20:45.705
Sure, so okay.
00:20:45.705 --> 00:20:51.232
So most and foremost is with social media, like it's 2025, we're not getting away from it.
00:20:51.232 --> 00:20:53.684
Okay, it's a necessity and we teach them.
00:20:53.684 --> 00:21:05.368
Doesn't necessarily have to be done by you, but for social media, like I said, it's just your book cover, it's just attracting them enough and giving them enough information for them to go oh my gosh, this is for me.
00:21:05.368 --> 00:21:07.277
Or oh my gosh, they're talking about me.
00:21:07.277 --> 00:21:14.541
And so, as social media, we create content for our business owners that attract their ideal audience through messaging.
00:21:14.742 --> 00:21:26.201
And so it's like you don't want to find a reel that just says, like, come to happy hour, like that's, that's boring, that's not going to attract me, that's not going to get me to go to your happy hour.
00:21:26.201 --> 00:21:37.709
And but if I saw something that's like POV, you love a crisp glass of Pinot Grigio and spicy margaritas, come to hobbies for happy hour.
00:21:37.709 --> 00:21:49.327
It's just that specificity in that relatableness where it's like, oh, a crisp glass of Pinot Grigio, a spicy margarita, it's being so specific that it makes something in me go, I desire that, I want that.
00:21:49.327 --> 00:22:04.820
And then you know somebody that loves Pinot Grigio or a spicy margarita and then you send it to them and then once you share it because it's relatable and shareable, then that gets more eyes on your content, which tells the algorithm I need to boost this to more people.
00:22:04.820 --> 00:22:08.585
And it all funnels back into getting more eyes on you.
00:22:08.585 --> 00:22:16.738
Like I recently created a reel that got six million views and it was just saying I love coffee, I'm a coffee, iced coffee addict.
00:22:16.738 --> 00:22:17.440
I'm guilty.
00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:21.088
My husband should be grateful.
00:22:21.088 --> 00:22:25.311
He married an iced coffee addict and not a designer bag designer bag addict.
00:22:25.311 --> 00:22:26.669
And it just went bananas.
00:22:26.669 --> 00:22:32.865
Because so many people can relate to that, they're like, yeah, he should be grateful and it's funny and it's shareable content.
00:22:32.865 --> 00:22:43.094
And so we do a deep dive for our business owners of like what problem does your product or your service solve and how can you make that relatable, specific and shareable?
00:22:43.094 --> 00:22:45.866
So we get more eyes on your page.
00:22:45.866 --> 00:22:47.309
Because that's all social media is.
00:22:48.191 --> 00:22:52.026
There's a great analogy that I learned from Sam Schmidt.
00:22:52.026 --> 00:22:54.031
She was the one I did scale school with and it's like.
00:22:54.031 --> 00:22:58.955
It's like imagine social media is a baseball field and we're the pitcher.
00:22:58.955 --> 00:23:06.751
Social media is your pitcher, okay, and you're pitching to your client, your ideal audience, and all you're trying to do is get them to go to first base.
00:23:06.751 --> 00:23:08.878
And then, once they get to first base.
00:23:08.878 --> 00:23:11.428
That's social media has done its job.
00:23:11.588 --> 00:23:18.410
You got them to the next place and then that's where your email marketing comes in, like do you have a freebie?
00:23:18.410 --> 00:23:19.313
Do they, you know?
00:23:19.313 --> 00:23:20.476
Do you have a call to action?
00:23:20.476 --> 00:23:24.611
Where it's like, if this is, you comment flourish below and we'll meet you in your inbox.
00:23:24.611 --> 00:23:29.680
And then, if they type flourish in the comments, they automatically will get sent a link.
00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:50.180
So automation systems are really important and then you get to start doing your freebie process, getting them on your email list and it's just getting them closer into that sales funnel of eventually them becoming your next customer or your next sale and having a website that, again, is aesthetic and is authentic to who you are.
00:23:50.180 --> 00:24:10.019
There's just so many different parts of marketing that it all can really start with social media If you really just see the importance of what you can do, if you're consistent and you post with strategy, but then you're also not afraid to show behind the scenes, because that's what people want.
00:24:10.580 --> 00:24:34.175
Like, what I've learned through this journey is people want to see authenticity, authenticity and raw and real, and it's like, yes, I'm a business owner and yes, my story sounds really cool that I was a teacher and I'm a business owner and a marketing agency, but it's like I also get to share the hard stuff and I show behind the scenes of what I'm up to and we really push our clients to do that.
00:24:34.175 --> 00:24:37.016
Because it's like people want to feel like they know you and they can trust you.
00:24:37.016 --> 00:24:59.074
And that starts with being vulnerable and being open and sharing that on your stories and letting that transfer into your content, because then people are going to want to buy from you, they're going to want to keep up with you, they want to know what offer you're bringing, they want to know what you're working on or what construction you're doing, and so it's bringing them along that journey.
00:24:59.074 --> 00:25:05.477
And then once you catch their attention enough, that's when those automated systems really can play their part.
00:25:06.384 --> 00:25:18.715
Yeah, brenna, I love hearing these real life perspectives and especially real life stories and examples, because your iced coffee example that's something that a lot of people will see on social media and think, oh, that's so clever.
00:25:18.715 --> 00:25:20.382
So I'm going to ask you this question.
00:25:20.382 --> 00:25:27.039
I've never asked this of a fellow entrepreneur and content creator, let alone asked it on the air, so it's fun to get to do this together.
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:36.071
I get asked so frequently you know we're more than 1100 episodes into this podcast and people always say to me how do you have ideas for what content to create?
00:25:36.071 --> 00:25:44.858
And I always laugh because I think of that Seinfeld episode where they're talking about the show itself and George goes that's content and this is content.
00:25:44.858 --> 00:25:51.590
And our conversation right now, this is content, brenna, I've never struggled with it, but I know a lot of people ask me about it and I'm sure you get it all the time as well.
00:25:51.590 --> 00:25:53.772
Where the heck do these ideas come from?
00:25:54.244 --> 00:25:56.333
Oh my gosh, this is my jam right here.
00:25:56.333 --> 00:26:01.894
So there's so many different ways to create content ideas, and that is like one of the biggest questions.
00:26:01.894 --> 00:26:03.817
When we ask business owners like you know what do you struggle with?
00:26:03.817 --> 00:26:05.339
They're like I just don't know what to say.
00:26:05.339 --> 00:26:12.189
Like I just wish that you could help me figure out what to say.
00:26:12.189 --> 00:26:12.810
Um, and so it's really there.
00:26:12.810 --> 00:26:13.432
So I'll tell you a secret one.
00:26:13.451 --> 00:26:23.960
So if you look in your industry or your niche and they had a reel that just went bananas, went viral, did really well, um, you go in the comments and see what people are asking.
00:26:23.960 --> 00:26:26.204
What is the top question that people keep asking?
00:26:26.204 --> 00:26:27.663
There's your next content idea.
00:26:27.663 --> 00:26:29.509
It's really just like.
00:26:29.509 --> 00:26:39.476
It's a trick into, kind of like getting a shortcut into your next content reel and then, just, anytime you get an idea, write it down.
00:26:39.476 --> 00:26:47.538
If you see something that did really well, okay, so how can I make that into where it fits for my brand?
00:26:47.538 --> 00:26:52.710
And so that's where doing that market research does really well, like I have on Instagram.
00:26:52.710 --> 00:26:59.978
I have folders on there for each client and then, when I'm doing my market research, I see something that I think would perform well for them, I'll save it in their folder.