As the Great Recession hit, she started reading personal-development books; if she was going to work for a big chunk of her life, she figured she’d better find something that she enjoyed doing. At the same time, she noticed that women were starting YouTube channels devoted to beauty, makeup, and fashion, “And I thought, Whoa, that looks so fun.”
She realized that she did want to stay in finance—“I just needed more freedom to do it in a way that felt authentic to me.” She set her sights on becoming the next Suze Orman.
She’s great, but she’s for an older demographic. I’m a woman, I’m in finance—there’s not too many of us—I’m young, and I’m half Hispanic, I better freaking play this up! It was a process though, because for so long, especially in finance and law, you’re taught, “No, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t.” It was almost like breaking out of a shell and learning to find my own voice, learning how to be authentic online, but still professional. It’s taken me years to find that comfort level.
The self-professed “business nerd” also fed on a steady diet of marketing and branding books. She read Crush It! right around the time that she moved to an independent firm where there would be more freedom to leverage an individual brand. In 2011 she launched a blog, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account. “I had to explain to them, it’s the same thing as going to a workshop and teaching about money. The only difference is, it’s a video on my YouTube channel. It was just turning what I was doing offline, online.” But she still had to get every tweet and script preapproved. And yet, “even though it was a headache, it taught me how to be very thoughtful and intentional, and not just throw up stuff for the sake of it.”
Two-and-a-half years later, Brittney left the firm to start her own business, Financially Wise Women, catering to women and couples in their thirties and forties.
Not everyone was impressed, but she didn’t care. In fact, the more her peers disapproved, the more she knew she was on the right path. For example, in 2015 she launched a finance rap video on YouTube.
A lot of financial advisors e-mailed me or commented to say, “This is so unprofessional,” and, “You’re using your CFP, your certified financial planner mark, in a way that’s not appropriate.” I do want to stay respectful, and I do use a compliance person, but when that feedback came, I was like, “Yes! That’s exactly what I want to hear, because the video was not made for you. You’re an old white guy in Wisconsin. This is for urban teenagers who like to watch BuzzFeed videos. I’m teaching them money principles in a fun and playful way. And they love it.” I think there is some validity in listening to what others are saying, but I have to stay true to who I am and ultimately what my vision is for my business and my life.
Today she’s on all the expected channels, but surprisingly, Facebook Live is a personal favorite. “I love live content. It’s easy for me to set up a Facebook Live, connect with people, answer their questions. I think it brings them the most value and makes it the most real for them.” She not only conducts Facebook Live sessions within her own Facebook groups and community, but has also done them with her brand partners, like Chase and Entrepreneur. She hopes one day to create an online live-stream video show that leverages all the communities she works with.
In the meantime, while some in her industry lob criticism at her, she’s in demand as a consultant to other firms and advisors interested in learning more about how to market and brand themselves, even if only within a corporate structure. She also accepts a number of paid speaking opportunities each year. Other than that, she’s got her head down.
I actually don’t even care what others are doing in the industry. I never even really look. I just work on my company and my brand. Unless I go speak at a conference, I really don’t connect with a lot of financial advisors. And I did that strategically, because when I first started the company, there was just so much outside noise. It’s draining. It works a lot better because I’m not constantly comparing myself, or competing. I need to just do me.
Though I don’t know Brittney, of all the contributors in this book, she’s the one that means the most to me. People working in industries like pharma and law like to point the finger at strict regulations to explain why they’re not crushing it on social media. But as you can see, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Brittney’s success proves that when you take the time and effort to learn how to navigate toward your goals while still following the rules, you can go forward without fear.
13
Instagram
Except for YouTube, Instagram has created more famous people than any other platform. It’s massive, it’s a place where you can be equally successful as a content producer or a content curator, and it’s the hottest social network in terms of scale and impact. Some would say it’s gotten harder to get noticed there now that it’s crowded; it’s gotten so popular that college graduates are actually taking a year or two to see if they can get big on Instagram before trying to get a traditional job. It’s not as flexible as Facebook, though I predict that very soon it will remove the time limits on videos. Although its content is bite-size like Twitter’s, nothing in its structure makes it ideal for having conversations. Yet there are so many great tactics you can use to garner awareness—hashtags, collaborations, tagging, ads—that I believe the attention an influencer can enjoy here, especially skilled photographers, chefs, designers, and other artists, runs deeper than on Twitter or Facebook. I know it’s true for the thirty-five-and-under crowd, and I suspect that the thirty-six-to-fifty-year-olds are starting to come around, because it’s a newer, shinier, and maybe even happier place than their tried-and-true Facebook. Moreover, the importance of the platform doubled with the launch of Instagram Stories in August 2016.
Until then, Instagram was a highly curated place. That’s one of the reasons people love it so much. Less polarized and politicized than Facebook, it’s a place where you go to post the beautiful highlights of your days. That was a bit of a problem. In fact, on the day Stories launched, CEO Kevin Systrom admitted to TechCrunch that he hadn’t posted anything to Instagram in the six days before the interview because “none of the moments seemed special enough.”1 Meanwhile, the success of Snapchat Stories had proven that people were extremely interested in sharing the raw footage of their lives so long as they knew it wouldn’t stick around to haunt them forever. So Instagram copied Stories and became a platform that gave users complete freedom to create as the mood moved them. They could put up a beautifully filtered photo and leave it up like a fine work of art or put up a piece of throwaway content that would be scrapped like the first draft of your last sales presentation.
It scaled fast. Snapchat had already laid all the groundwork in getting people comfortable with the idea of ephemeral content, so there was no learning curve to contend with, as is the usual case when platforms introduce new features. Instagram placed it at the top of the app, too, making it impossible for users to miss. In less than a year, Instagram Stories became one of the most popular features of one of the biggest platforms in the world, offering a dynamic place for users to create content to complement their perfectly curated Instagram feed.
There are many features that make Instagram a requirement for any budding influencer or entrepreneur. You can post for posterity, or you can post for instant gratification. You can draw and filter and caption and tag. Though the feature is currently available only to verified accounts, you’ll soon be able to add links to your posts, a simple move that will open the floodgate of opportunities to drive people to your other content, whether it’s on your website, your blog, or other social networks.
Anyone wishing to build a personal brand should be on Instagram. Create a profile now, or regret it for years to come.
7 Steps to Biz Dev
Make sure your Instagram is full of incredible content, the best you can make. More people are about to come see what you’re about.
Search relevant keywords. For example, if you’re building a biker brand, m
otorcycles.
Click on the first hashtag that shows up. As I write this, there are over 2.4 million posts with #motorcycles.
Click on every picture you see with that hashtag. The first four that show up in this instance belong to accounts that have a combined following of over one million Instagrammers.
Investigate every account and any linked websites to confirm that they are owned by people or companies in your field, or even if they’re not, to check if they could use your services or products anyway.
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of their pages and send those individuals or businesses a custom-written direct message. Do not spam with cut-and-paste bullshit. If that’s the best you can do, you’ve already lost.
In your message, explain what drew you to them (I love your work; I’ve always admired you; you post the funniest memes; this post is so creative; etc.), why you are worth paying attention to (my goal is to promote better biker safety; I’ve designed a helmet even the most helmet-averse rider won’t mind wearing; I’ve launched the freshest, most exciting biker-themed YouTube channel on the Internet), and what value you can offer (I’d like to send you one of my helmets to try; I’d love to invite you on air to talk about your new book, and I’d be honored if you’d let me make you a free video documenting your next ride; I can send you six bikers to model leather jackets on your vlog for free).
You can also target your search by location. Just type in the name of your city, sometimes even your neighborhood, and click Places or look for the location symbol in your list of top results. You’ll see everyone who posted in your immediate area.
Do this—search, click, investigate, DM—for six to seven hours every day. Do it during every lunch break, every bathroom break, every time you’re waiting for your child to get out of dance class, and in the twenty minutes you’ve got before the enchiladas come out of the oven.
Only a tiny fraction of the people you reach out to will respond. That’s all you need. With every successful contact, you increase your ability to prove yourself worthy of any attention at all, and you increase your visibility. Do this enough times, and the effect will snowball until suddenly you’ll be the brand that people and businesses start reaching out to.
To see these instructions in action, go to the following post: GaryVee.com/GVBizDev.
Imagine This
Let’s say your name is Rick, and you’re a twenty-seven-year-old clothing store manager in Nashville, Tennessee. You’re ambitious, and you’re lucky enough to work for an organization that isn’t interested in micromanaging your social-media accounts.* You start taking pictures of everything in the store—let’s call it EnAvant—and everyone who walks in, if they will let you. You photograph the tops as they’re being laid out on the shelves, the dresses as they’re being hung, the shoes as they’re being displayed. You photograph yourself in the men’s fashions, adding your personal flair to every outfit, and you photograph your female employees in the women’s clothing. You ask your customers if they’ll pose for pictures in their new outfits. Then you post every picture on your Instagram account, accompanied by well-thought-out, relevant hashtags. You know that how you frame your images, or the techniques you use to give them a sense of fun or creativity and really show off the clothes, will be crucial to growing your fan base. But you can’t build a fan base if you’re not visible. Aside from getting influencers to mention you or your product, or paying for ads, you know that the fastest way for a brand starting at zero, like yours, is to master hashtags. If it’s springtime, and you’re posting a picture of a woman in a canary-yellow raincoat, you include the coat brand’s hashtag, along with #EnAvantwear, #springfashion, #springlooks, #raincoat, #readyforrain, #yellow. As more people spot your work, in time you become known for your fashion sense and cheeky sense of humor.
You start reaching out to people who live in the vicinity of the store, but you don’t use direct mail, because who’s got money for that? And you don’t hunt for the fashionistas and society people already appearing in the local culture-and-lifestyle glossies that document all the area fund-raisers and real estate development. Instead, every day during your lunch break, you open up your Instagram account and type in “Nashville, Tennessee.” Up pop the most popular posts in the area. You click around on a few of the ones with the most followers to make sure they live in or around Nashville, and in particular, you look for pictures in these accounts that suggest the account owners would be interested in wearing pieces from your store. You then send them a direct message: “Hi, my name is Rick and I’m the manager of EnAvant. Love your look. Come by the store, we’d love to give you a gift certificate for 20 percent off.”
In the time it takes you to finish your chicken salad, you’ve started building relationships with six new people who live near your store and have a proven interest in your product. You do this every day, five days a week. Of the thirty-two people you talk to every week, seven post a story about how this guy named Rick who works at EnAvant reached out to compliment their shoes, top, or hat, and offered them a discount at the store.
Maybe you go even further. You put together a fashion show and DM all the influencers in the area, as well as any locals whose Instagram account makes it clear they’re really into clothes and accessories, and invite them to attend so they can see the new collection and get 30 percent off all in-store purchases. And then you make sure the event is so fun and special that people start posting pics of themselves and telling their followers where they’re spending their evening.
Here’s what happens next:
People start posting pictures of themselves on their own Instagram accounts and tagging you, the brand, and the store. Competitors start reaching out to find out if you’re interested in re-creating some of your magic at their stores. Meanwhile, someone in EnAvant’s upper management takes notice and realizes that she has an incredibly valuable employee in Tennessee whom she will do pretty much anything to keep.
Or:
By following up all this incredible word of mouth with impeccable customer service for those who venture into the store, in short order EnAvant becomes one of the hottest new stores in Nashville—and you catch the attention of fashion photographers and clothing designers all over the country.
Or:
Some of the brands you feature in your Instagram posts notice what you’ve done and reach out to find out if you’re interested in helping them with their social media. That’s another big win.
Or:
You have so much fun sharing your brand of visual storytelling that you decide you want to do it full-time, and you launch your own digital fashion magazine.
Not only can you build business for the store by biz-deving this way, but also you can make someone’s day. Any or all of these scenarios could happen, and they could happen to you, whether you’re a clothing store manager or work in retail of any kind, even in a restaurant. It all comes down to passion and proper execution.
How I’m Crushing It
Brittany Xavier, Thrifts and Threads
IG: @thriftsandthreads
It was supposed to be just a hobby, a creative outlet to practice with her new camera. That’s what Brittany Xavier had in mind when she launched her blog, Thrifts and Threads, in December 2013. Even as a political science major, she’d always loved fashion and had made it a habit to follow trends and designers. Her look was a blend of high and low fashion, mixing ready-to-wear with vintage finds and select designer pieces. Upon graduation, she was accepted by several law schools, but, concerned that law school was incompatible with raising a toddler—her daughter, Jadyn, was only three years old—she instead went to work for an insurance marketer that would guarantee family-friendly hours. It paid the bills, and it wasn’t too demanding. She often found herself finished with her goals for the day by four p.m. and had to find busywork to fill up the time until she could go home at six.
Even when they were dating, she and her husband, Anthony, also in marketing, had always had si
de hustles, such as buying items at discount stores and reselling them on Amazon. It was something they did as a couple, a shared activity that gave them a little sense of freedom. In addition, Anthony, who had developed an interest in Web design and social media in college, built websites. When he got a camera soon after they were married, they thought they’d go out and take pictures of themselves and their daughter, document their family life on a blog, and hopefully make a little money off the affiliate links. Xavier, always interested in style and fashion, would do the creative, and Anthony would take care of the back end of the blog.
The only reason Xavier started an Instagram account was to promote and bring traffic to the blog. She figured out that she was supposed to tag brands and use hashtags by looking at other accounts like hers. Six months in, when she’d accrued about ten thousand followers and was earning about $100 per month from the affiliate links on her blog, she started getting occasional calls from brands asking if they could send her some clothes so she could post photos of herself wearing some of their pieces. That’s when she started doing some research and discovered that there was a whole strategy behind growing an Instagram account. She and Anthony stayed up late at night reading and listening to podcasts about online marketing. It was after reading Crush It! that they realized the blog could be more than just a fun hobby—an actual business.
Crushing It! EPB Page 20
