Today we’d like to introduce you to Bea Porter.
Bea, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
After a few years working at a private school on the southwest side of Houston, I took on more responsibilities with them, which included marketing. I began building up their social media profiles and discovered that I really enjoyed it. As my posts started to get noticed, I had a few people ask me if I could manage their social media as well but I turned the down, because, in my mind, this was just a fun part of my full time job.
I began wanting to do more with social media. I found myself coming up with ideas for posts for my business-owner friends. There was something exciting about coming up with new and creative ways for people to engage their customers online. I decided to turn my “fun hobby” into a “side-gig”. I thought I could take on 2 to 3 clients while keeping my full time job. I created a mission statement, a business name and some business cards to hand out and ended up with my first client in February 2017 (who is still my client today).
By November of 2017 I had 3 social media clients and had just turned down 2 more new clients because I didn’t have enough time. I hated that I had to turn away clients (I know, good problem to have) so I took a leap of faith, with only 3 clients, I quit my full time job at the private school. I knew that I had to work full time on my business in order to grow it. Within 6 weeks I had a total of 5 clients and now am at 11 clients and growing!
While all this was happening, I went through my Yoga Teacher Training at Awakened Yoga Studio and became a 200 hour registered yoga teacher in March of 2018. It has been one of the best things I have ever done! I don’t think that I would have had the faith to try to grow my business without the confidence I gained through yoga teacher training.
Has it been a smooth road?
I am lucky to have a very good network of people and have received many referrals along the way. I did have a few challenges though.
I’ve had to learn about running a business while running a business. Doing taxes, managing clients, learning what the word “overhead” meant, these were all things I didn’t know before. I had no previous experience with this, I went from being a dog trainer to working in a school office, to running my own business, I had a lot to learn.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Bea Connected story. Tell us more about the business.
Bea Connected provides social media services to help their clients engage with their customers online. We provide social media strategy meetings and goal setting, content calendars, content creation to include digital images as well as photography. We also respond to comments and messages across our clients social platforms.
What makes us unique, is that we are not a huge corporation who outsources all these tasks. When our clients sign on, they know that our team is a part of their team. Our clients’ growth really matters to us!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
So many people are going away from print marketing and heading towards digital marketing. It makes the most sense, take your marketing strategy where people already are, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. I think this business will only grow.
Pricing:
- My rates are $75/hour, depending on what their needs are, this averages between $450 and $1200 per month.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.beaconnected.me
- Phone: 682-478-5641
- Email: bea@beaconnected.me
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/beaconnected
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/beaconnected.me
Image Credit:
Maria Pete Photography www.instagram.com/mybeautifulphotos2017
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