There is no such thing as a social media expert

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, this is Robert Smigel and welcome to the BC edition of Canada's podcast where we
[00:09] SPEAKER_01: talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen here in British Columbia.
[00:13] SPEAKER_01: Tessa Maymar is an entrepreneur at heart and proud to lead a 100% virtual social media
[00:18] SPEAKER_01: marketing agency of exceptionally talented and relentless social media managers.
[00:24] SPEAKER_01: Her company, Mar Media Group, works with B2B and B2C brands to build custom social
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: strategies, paid social advertising, influencer marketing, and fully outsource social media
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: management.
[00:37] SPEAKER_01: Tessa is a pioneer in her leadership style with a strong focus on work by balance, empathy
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: and a whole human approach.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: Well, Tessa, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:48] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for taking the time today to be here for all our listeners.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: You're bad.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me today, Robert.
[00:53] SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: Okay, all the way from Pentect in cool.
[00:59] SPEAKER_01: Okay, tell us a little.
[01:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's nice to see someone in the Okanagan where all that great food is grown.
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit more about yourself.
[01:07] SPEAKER_01: We've born and raised there and give us the details on your current business.
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: I was not born and raised in Pentect and I actually grew up in Alberta in Edmonton and continued
[01:17] SPEAKER_00: the start of my career there in Calgary, moved out to BC to Vancouver actually in 2014 and that's
[01:24] SPEAKER_00: where I founded the business.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: That said, my company's always been 100% virtual remote since the get go, since before it was cool.
[01:32] SPEAKER_00: So it didn't really matter where I lived.
[01:35] SPEAKER_00: My partner, my fiance wanted to move up to Pentect and speak also to his kids.
[01:39] SPEAKER_00: And being that, you know, all I needed was my laptop and my Wi-Fi connection to continue to
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: manage my business.
[01:45] SPEAKER_00: I said, hey, twist my rubber.
[01:46] SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to, happy to relocate up to beautiful Pentect and live amongst all the vines.
[01:52] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's been a great journey.
[01:54] SPEAKER_00: Let me see and no regrets.
[01:55] SPEAKER_00: I love it out here.
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so social media company.
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: Tell us more.
[02:00] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
[02:02] SPEAKER_00: So I founded Mar Media Group back in 2014, but it was about 2012 that the idea kind of came to fruition.
[02:10] SPEAKER_00: I was actually sitting at a pub on a Saturday morning.
[02:13] SPEAKER_00: And girlfriend of mine, we're trying to decide kind of where to go out that evening.
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: And we took to Twitter and we tagged a few different, you know, local hotspots to see who would kind of want to host us that night.
[02:23] SPEAKER_00: And not that we were anyone special that, you know, deserved to be hosted per se, just regular paying customers.
[02:28] SPEAKER_00: And we got a response from someone who said, come on in.
[02:31] SPEAKER_00: We'd love to, you know, treat you and your girlfriends to a glass of champagne to start with.
[02:35] SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was just really interesting.
[02:37] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we took our business there.
[02:39] SPEAKER_00: We felt so connected to the company right away.
[02:42] SPEAKER_00: And so it really got me thinking, you know, how many businesses could be connecting with their consumers or potential consumers through social media with the simple, you know, a simple tweet.
[02:51] SPEAKER_00: And obviously every glass of champagne, but I'm sure we spend more than more than that there, that evening.
[02:56] SPEAKER_00: So it was definitely a win-win on their part.
[02:59] SPEAKER_00: That's kind of where the idea was born.
[03:01] SPEAKER_00: Of course, I didn't have any, you know, there was no degree in social media.
[03:04] SPEAKER_00: I still don't think there's quite a degree in social media, but they definitely teach it nowadays.
[03:09] SPEAKER_00: I did nothing, you know, nothing to prove that I knew what I was doing.
[03:11] SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I probably didn't, other than being an avid user.
[03:15] SPEAKER_00: So I set up a Twitter account of my own called gluten free Calgary.
[03:18] SPEAKER_00: I'd recently gone gluten free. And so I was just looking to kind of share resources and help people out that were guy or that we're starting that journey for themselves.
[03:26] SPEAKER_00: And you kind of blew up a little bit.
[03:29] SPEAKER_00: We grew up community of about 30,000 people, launched a subscription box.
[03:33] SPEAKER_00: So that was a fun kind of happy accident that I got to focus on for a couple of years before I sold that business.
[03:39] SPEAKER_00: But through that, I realized the power in social media and my remedia was born in 2014 shortly after.
[03:45] SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool. Now a lot of people obviously know what social media is very popular in our world.
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: But I want you to give me a piece of knowledge or information about your industry that a listeners can learn from that they may not know about.
[03:58] SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's so much. And I guess probably I guess the key piece of information that I would give you is that there's no one size fits all approach.
[04:09] SPEAKER_00: And I would say there's no such thing as a social media expert, even myself who's worked in it for like seven and a half years.
[04:15] SPEAKER_00: I really don't believe in the term expert in this space because social media is absolutely relentless.
[04:21] SPEAKER_00: It changes on you constantly.
[04:22] SPEAKER_00: If you're ever thinking about working in this space, you better be the kind of person that wants to always keep learning.
[04:27] SPEAKER_00: Because the minute you think you've got the algorithm figured out, they throw something new at you, where there's a new platform that you need to figure out and invest in.
[04:34] SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, if you're if you're a business, you need to be paying attention to this stuff and on the on the regular and or find someone who is going to do that for you.
[04:42] SPEAKER_00: And if you're looking to get into the industry, then just be prepared for a lot of change. It's a lot of fun.
[04:48] SPEAKER_00: But there's definitely not a lot of downtime. There's a lot of testing that needs to go into any kind of success that you see on social media.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool. I imagine you have international clients, but what is the long term vision and what will your company look like in the future? Do you see the company expanding into other areas and where beyond Pintikton or where you're currently located in California?
[05:10] SPEAKER_00: Good question. We do about 50% of our business in Canada right now in 50% of the states. We have a large partner presence in the United States. So that's been a really nice connection for us to out there. And of course, because we're virtual, you know, there's really no barriers around where we can.
[05:24] SPEAKER_00: And what businesses we can and cannot help, which is really exciting. Where I see us really expanding is my mission is not to grow this massive agency of, you know, 50 people and 100 plus clients.
[05:35] SPEAKER_00: You know, we like to keep it a little bit more intimate. I like knowing where clients are. We are looking for clients that are long term partners where we really plug into their business.
[05:43] SPEAKER_00: Take a seat at the table with their marketing team and really contribute to their long term strategy and success.
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: So again, we're not looking for, you know, everyone becomes a number kind of a scenario.
[05:53] SPEAKER_00: What I'm really looking for in terms of growth in the coming years is looking at how we can kind of land and expand in different ways.
[05:59] SPEAKER_00: So right now, generally speaking for social media management, working with more mid-sized businesses, you know, who probably don't need to hire one or more full-time social media management people in house.
[06:09] SPEAKER_00: And it's not quite what they're ready for at the same time. It's too big for them to give it to an intern or have the CEO handle it or anything like that.
[06:17] SPEAKER_00: They have some kind of defined marketing function and usually what I hear on my sales calls is we know we need to do social.
[06:23] SPEAKER_00: We have someone who kind of does it off the side of their desk, but it always gets forgotten. And that's where we show up to make sure of course it's never forgotten peace and oftentimes is sort of a social first campaign strategy.
[06:32] SPEAKER_00: So what I'd love to see is obviously has continued to do more and more in that space.
[06:36] SPEAKER_00: But also we're looking at how to kind of pull out some of the pieces of our overall social media management services and offer those as one offs.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: So we've recently launched and adds only programs. So for businesses that maybe either kept afford or just doesn't make sense for them to, you know, look for full source social media management.
[06:53] SPEAKER_00: They might just need help with paid ads and our team has been pretty successful in that space.
[06:56] SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at how we can sort of plug in to help those types of businesses with just that piece.
[07:00] SPEAKER_00: We've also launched an influencer marketing program as well. That's kind of the same scenario and looking at other different kind of service offerings that we can add to sort of augment different clients and different spaces and different levels of budget.
[07:13] SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's talk a little bit about doing business in British Columbia.
[07:17] SPEAKER_01: What are the biggest benefits for you and being entrepreneur in British Columbia.
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: We want you to give us some of the good points about starting a company here in BC.
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: But I also want you to give us some of the tough things are the challenges for listeners so they can keep an eye out for them.
[07:31] SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to mind and it could be because of a conversation I had this morning with my director finance, but one of the challenges and during business in BC is managing PST because it is a pain in the butt to pull out of all your expenses and things like that.
[07:44] SPEAKER_00: But obviously that's, you know, you can hire the right people to handle that.
[07:47] SPEAKER_00: I would say generally speaking, starting a business in BC has been really great for me. I leaned on a few resources in the beginning in terms of, you know, how to get things going, how to find the right people, etc.
[07:57] SPEAKER_00: And it's been generally pretty easy to navigate.
[08:01] SPEAKER_00: Obviously I did record the help of, you know, accounting support as well as a lawyer to help guide those kinds of processes.
[08:06] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I found it to be a really a place that's really receptive to entrepreneurship and new business.
[08:12] SPEAKER_00: So that was really a nice space to walk into and lots of good networking opportunities, etc, etc.
[08:19] SPEAKER_00: Downsides, major downsides of starting in BC.
[08:23] SPEAKER_00: I mean, the only thing that otherwise that kind of comes to mind, which wasn't as big of an issue for me, but obviously cost of living in BC is quite expensive.
[08:32] SPEAKER_00: For us, we didn't have the infrastructure requirements of an office space or anything like that.
[08:37] SPEAKER_00: So that really helped me in terms of startup cost.
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: Mine were very, very low. I pretty much just purchased a laptop and off I went in terms of getting going, which was awesome and really, really helpful.
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: That said, you know, certainly if you're hiring in BC and if you're living in BC, that is a consideration in terms of, you know, funding the right people and making sure that they have the appropriate pay that support to lifestyle that's lived in BC.
[09:01] SPEAKER_00: So that could be a potential challenge for sure. Again, for us, you know, we recruit as well across Canada.
[09:07] SPEAKER_00: So not necessarily as much of a barrier for me, but certainly something that I could see being an issue for.
[09:12] SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't say an issue, but a potential challenge for someone looking to kick things off the ground here.
[09:24] SPEAKER_01: Okay, we get a lot of immigration in Canada and in British Columbia.
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: So this is a question that you can add to them to people coming into the country.
[09:33] SPEAKER_01: If you were to start all over again and you just moved here to British Columbia, but this time you don't know anyone knowing what you know now, what would you do and how would you go about starting all over again as an entrepreneur?
[09:46] SPEAKER_00: Good question.
[09:50] SPEAKER_00: Two pieces of advice, probably that I would give.
[09:53] SPEAKER_00: Number one is definitely start as grassroots as you can in the sense that you know, let your digital presence be large, but your, but your physical presence be small and cost effective.
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: That was definitely the way I went about it. I didn't, I wasn't funded. I didn't even have to invest much of my own money to get started.
[10:13] SPEAKER_00: And I think that really helped. I wasn't stressed as, as stressed at least with having to pay back this debt and kind of get started that way.
[10:20] SPEAKER_00: So anything you can do to show up digitally, you know, sophisticated and keep your, keep your back end really simple.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: I think is as really helpful in terms of getting going.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: So that's something that I obviously did, but I would definitely recommend.
[10:33] SPEAKER_00: Secondly, and this is a little bit of a challenge during COVID, but I would say BC generally from what I found has a lot of great networking groups mastermind groups things like that.
[10:42] SPEAKER_00: So getting in with somebody as some group like that where you can really find a support network, people that you can bounce ideas off of.
[10:48] SPEAKER_00: They may be six degrees of separation from your next client as well is super helpful online.
[10:54] SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of resources that way look for groups on the social networks is a great way to do it.
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: And find some people that are like mind is that you can connect with.
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then lastly, I guess the other piece of advice I would give that's a little bit more general, but is price yourself higher than you're comfortable with.
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: And that's advice. I think that's just like the classic entrepreneurial advice that was given to me so many times and advice that I never took until a year or two ago.
[11:23] SPEAKER_00: And it feels uncomfortable. It was a struggle for me anyway with, you know, feeling and posture syndrome and a lack of confidence, etc.
[11:31] SPEAKER_00: But the minute I raise my price is no one even willing to die. And I think, you know, I know there's something around the marketing side of pricing to if you price a little bit higher people automatically assume they're getting a higher quality product.
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: When it comes down to it, I would say the right price point is something that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable and makes your customers feel a little bit uncomfortable. So find what that looks like if the yes is too automatic.
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: You haven't pushed high enough. If you start to get a little push back, that's when you kind of start to find that sweet spot.
[11:57] SPEAKER_00: So that's something I would definitely recommend people take a look at closer to the beginning than I did because I have to think sometimes the money I left on the table by doing that so late in the game.
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: Okay, entrepreneurs are always educating themselves. Let's see how you educate yourself. What books are you reading now and why are even audio books and or podcasts? And can you recommend any books for listeners who are also entrepreneurs?
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely. I am I try and read I'm in a book club recently over in the last year just to try and read a little bit more because I find it so a great opportunity to unwind.
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: Very introspective, but it's something I don't have a great habit around and what I've discovered about myself is I don't necessarily like to read every day for 15 minutes. What I'd love to do on the weekend is binge read for like three hours.
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: So now that I've kind of unlocked that about myself, I've really leaned into reading a little bit more. And what I've tried to do is kind of read one one business book and then flip it the next time and just read something that's personal kind of mixes it up.
[12:55] SPEAKER_00: So I don't always feel like I'm working when I'm not on the job.
[12:58] SPEAKER_00: So a couple really good ones. One book that I just finished that's written by a local entrepreneur here in the Okanagan as well, actually named Pam Raider.
[13:05] SPEAKER_00: And she tells her story about her life story, I guess growing up, not growing up, but as an adult, I suppose dealing with addiction abuse, I read it in one day, which is I don't think I've ever done that in my life.
[13:19] SPEAKER_00: It just was recently released in five stars on Amazon right now.
[13:23] SPEAKER_00: It's called Through the Cracks by Pam Raider if anyone wants to check that out.
[13:27] SPEAKER_00: The other one I just finished is called Biology by Martin Lingwood, I believe.
[13:33] SPEAKER_00: Martin Lindstrom so close. And that was super interesting. It's around the science of science of neural marketing. So a lot of the reasons that we buy and I found that absolutely fascinating.
[13:44] SPEAKER_00: And the next on my list, I actually have it here is Talk Triggers by J. Bear. And I actually got this one, got this recommendation from another podcast that I attended.
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: Or sorry, a webinar that I attended about podcast and about giving better podcasts and this one talks a little bit about how to do that. So that'll be my next, my next read and my next focus.
[14:04] SPEAKER_01: Awesome. Okay. Let's talk about what if you weren't doing social media, what you're doing now. If you weren't doing what you do now, what would you like to do for a profession?
[14:13] SPEAKER_00: The path that I didn't take that I do sometimes still think about is law actually that is something that I would have loved to pursue.
[14:22] SPEAKER_00: It's definitely my favorite TV shows and I get really into it. And I had a moment about, yeah, five to seven years ago where I did consider whether or not it was a good point in time to make that shift and go into law school.
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: But I think I don't want to say it's too late for me, but it's a big commitment. And it's one I don't not sure I'm ready to make and certainly with what's happened with the business in the last years. I'm really glad I stayed the, stayed the path this way at the same time before I was doing this.
[14:48] SPEAKER_00: I was a flight attendant. I worked in the airline industry for 14 years and travel is very, very close to my heart.
[14:53] SPEAKER_00: So while I was definitely ready to get my feet on the ground a little bit more being up in the air that often is so much fun, but can be very exhausting.
[15:02] SPEAKER_00: I could see myself doing something in a travel industry again for sure.
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: What kind of a job could you not do?
[15:10] SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to mind is anything domestic. I'm not the person on the planet. I will tell you that right off the gun.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: I can keep my kitchen clean, but mostly because I don't use it. So anything in that realm is not where I sell.
[15:25] SPEAKER_01: In business, what is your favorite word quote or sentence that you like to use?
[15:32] SPEAKER_00: My favorite quote, I think my team would tell you is my kind of motto is let's find a way to yes. So I'm a big believer about, you know, I think when you collaborate and you work together, let's find a solution that fits for both people.
[15:45] SPEAKER_00: It can't always be an automatic guess, but I think if you if you work together, you can find a way there.
[15:50] SPEAKER_01: Awesome, what's your least favorite word or sentence you do not like to hear?
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: Gosh, that's hard.
[15:58] SPEAKER_00: No, thank you. No, I'm just kidding.
[16:04] SPEAKER_01: Can't. Can't is one that people do not let.
[16:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nothing is popping into my head, but I but definitely I mean, I think not that I expect everyone to be yes people, but one of our values that my media is make should happen.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: Yes, sometimes we swear I hope that's okay to do on the show, but, but yeah, I'm really surrounded by people that are go getters and so, you know, it's definitely within our philosophy to not wait to be told something and just go ahead and make it happen.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, I don't know, I like saying that you have to be a yes person, but I guess it relates to what I previously said is working together to find a way to yes is is kind of the what aligns there for me.
[16:42] SPEAKER_01: Okay, do you have any advice that you may have received from other entrepreneurs that you can pass on to other entrepreneurs so Canada.
[16:52] SPEAKER_00: Other than the first piece I said about like look at your pricing earlier on and charge more than you're comfortable with another couple things that I would add firstly is delegation is key to growth.
[17:02] SPEAKER_00: I know for a lot of entrepreneurs it feels uncomfortable in the beginning for a couple different reasons number one it's their baby, which I can appreciate it feels like my baby to.
[17:10] SPEAKER_00: So having to let someone in and kind of handle things a little bit different than you might do feels awkward at first sometimes, but it really is the key to growth and we see that a lot on the other side of things when we work with clients who the owners are to involved in things like the social media.
[17:26] SPEAKER_00: They're not as successful as many because they need to be looking ahead at the bigger picture and letting someone else handle that piece of things.
[17:32] SPEAKER_00: It can be more inefficient than in the short term, but definitely it's the key to growth.
[17:37] SPEAKER_00: And then secondly, I would just say when it comes to leadership, this is a big belief of mine is that we really need to focus on leading with empathy.
[17:43] SPEAKER_00: I know in the past, you know, the no tears, no pain, no gain that whole vibe of treating people like for treating employees like worker bees that's not a style that I believe is going to find a success in the future and not a style that certainly I want to emulate.
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: I really believe in treating our teams like they are whole human beings and making space for, you know, their emotional experience and what's happening in their personal life and things like that so that they can show up, you know, as their whole selves and feel really supported in that case from what I've seen in my thoughts on people do their best work.
[18:18] SPEAKER_01: Awesome. Okay, we're going to wrap things up. How can our listeners get whole of you and is there anything you'd like to add before you do this today?
[18:26] SPEAKER_00: You can definitely get a hold of me on social media, no shockers. My handle basically across the board for everything is just at test a may mar so happy to connect with anyone, probably the place that I hang out the most is on Instagram if anyone wants to hit me up there. I'd love to chat.
[18:40] SPEAKER_00: And other than that, I would just say if you're thinking about starting a business in BC and you don't feel ready, this is something I hear a lot.
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have great ideas, but they just feel like, oh, they don't quite have all their ducks in the row, you're never going to feel that you're never quite going to feel that.
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: And I think if you wait till till that that, you know, elusive feeling comes, you're never going to get started. So just start act fast iterate often, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to mess things up, make changes as you go.
[19:09] SPEAKER_00: But start sooner rather than later or you'll regret that you didn't.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things people witness, I think even with people in retirement homes is that the regret of not doing what you're doing is what you want to do and take care of yourself.
[19:24] SPEAKER_01: And you know, things all where he's worked out in the end, right? Somehow some way we all find a way to get back to what we'd love to do and I think that's good advice. So awesome. OK, that's a.
[19:37] SPEAKER_01: To all our listeners, thanks for listening to Test the Story. Thanks for listening to Canada's podcast like comment and subscribe to all our channels to get the latest podcasts from our tours across Canada and we'll see you next time.