In this episode of Burning the Boats, Oscar shares an insightful interview with special guest, Melissa Meredith, of Tampa based Content Creative, a full service agency for all of your branding, marketing, content, and digital needs. Melissa candidly shares her career journey and the valuable lessons she has learned along the way.

Resources

Marketing with Mel: http://www.marketingwmel.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarketingWMel/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketingwmel/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-meredith-8122a25b/

Content Creative: https://www.contentcreative.co/
Emai: [email protected]

Show Value Bombs:

1. Self awareness is key to being able to communicate your strengths and knowing what gives you drive.
2. Self development is key to the growth of your business.
3. Marketing and branding are two different things that must work together as part of a cohesive strategy.

Show Notes

Today on The OMG! Show: Burning the Boats with Special Guest Melissa

:30 – Oscar introduces Melissa as an “awesome marketing hot shot” and asks her to share her background Melissa changed her major in college four times before deciding upon a Telecommunications major with Business Communications concentration.

• She had a marketing internship with a production agency and volunteered social media management. Her first job was in a marketing department where she learned how all the different content and communications channels work together which opened up her world to content marketing and content strategy.
• She began working from home for that business part time and started taking on her own clients.
• She moved away from management and started doing consulting.
• She realized she was doing it for other people and not herself.
• She hired a photographer to uplevel her own platforms.
• The two of them decided to partner together to use their services for clients.
• They launched a full service agency, Content Creative, which marries a branding agency and a marketing agency.

11:51 Oscar asks her what she thought she’d be before she changed her major four times.

• Melissa intended to major in business.
• She had they “why” and the “how,” but not the “what.”
• She had a passion for serving others and helping.
• The next majors were in nutrition and exercise focused which is interesting because a lot of her clients are in that space.

15:00 Oscar asks Brittany what led her to Tampa

• Melissa grew up in Indiana and knew she wanted to land somewhere else with growth and opportunity.
• Her budget didn’t allow her desire to go to California.
• She had an aunt that lived in Tampa who offered her to come and she did.

16:20 Oscar asks Melissa her driving force to leave Indiana.

• Melissa shares that Indianapolis didn’t have the growth, economy, new businesses.
• She knew her income potential would not be what she hoped.

19:00– Oscar identifies that not having a network breeds character and asks Melissa how having to build her network in Tampa changed her character.

• Melissa shares that she has always been outgoing but learned she is an ambivert.
• It forced her to realize what her characteristics and qualities are so that she could adapt.
• She sent five resumes a day and was determined not to settle as a server but was persistent.

24:19– Oscar underscores that Melissa’s experience mimics that of a lot of other entrepreneurs and asks her if her experience at her first job has led her to conversations with her current clients.

• Melissa emphasizes that talent and skill are one thing but if you can’t take initiative and communicate, they don’t matter.
• Drive and self awareness are so important.
• She discusses her internship at “Tampa Bay is Awesome.”
• He needed someone to grow his marketing and she was looking to get out of the office.
• She also had a friend that launched an automotive agency so she handled the marketing for four of his dealerships.

30:11 – Oscar asks Melissa how she found her next client.

• Melissa shares she sat behind a computer doing three hours of research a day doing custom pitches based on what she found on the internet.
• She didn’t have any presence with a website or social media to share but knew she’d figure it out.
• She laughs that she still has a little bit of imposter syndrome.

34:06 Oscar asks Melissa to define what social media management means to her.

• Melissa emphasizes it is NOT sticking up a pretty caption with a picture on a post.
• What are the clients’ goals? What are they trying to achieve with social media? How can you make it not sound salesy? What is the content mix? What are the KPI’S of the social media in order to pay attention to analytics.

35:10 – Oscar asks Melissa how she realized she was better moving into a consultation role.

• She had a couple clients not renew their contracts and it came back to the integration and big picture.
• The social media side was great but didn’t drive metrics because it wasn’t looked at as a whole.

37:08 Oscar reiterates that you can do one piece of the puzzle but if the rest of the pieces don’t fit, it doesn’t work. Oscar asks Melissa asks how being a consultant changes the relationship with her clients.

• Melissa shares that she was a for hire in-house client and her individual jobs were put on hold.
• Helping people and making a difference is what was driving her forward to the next step.
• She is willing to say no to a job if what needs to be accomplished is not aligned.
• Melissa emphasizes if your morals and values are in check, the rest is easy because it will be “yes or no.”
• Melissa shares a personal story about a hard decision and how she felt about it.

43:21 Oscar asks Melissa about the branding does and how that helps a business and how it can combine with marketing.
Your brand is who you want people to think of when they think of you and how you want them to feel.

• Your vision and value and mission all needs to tie in together.
• Taking all of that from a data and analytics standpoint is marketing.
• If putting something out aesthetically, she suggests two versions and seeing which one performs better.

43:21 Oscar asks Melissa the biggest challenge she seems to be having when someone comes to her.

• Melissa feels the #1 challenge is people not being able to create results with their efforts.
• Nine times out of 10 there is no cohesive strategy and they are focusing on small details instead of big picture.

50:33 Oscar asks Melissa for words of wisdom and shares his target audience.

• Melissa share the best thing she’s ever done for herself is to continue to work on herself.
  Self development is key to growing your business.
• Know how to plan and why you have that plan. WHY is your WHY you WHY?

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