We were lucky to catch up with Johanna Grange recently and have shared our conversation below.

Johanna, appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I had known my partner for just under a decade. We worked together previously under a different company and titles. We were friends from go. She was actually my boss but a friendship and comraderie grew very quickly. We respected each other, however, I had left the company when my second daughter was born. I was itching for something new.

Beginning our agency really started with very little intent over a casual lunch. My partner and I met up for sushi and caught each other up on life. I had a FT position in the tech world at the time. I actually loved my job but I was seeking more and had hit a glass ceiling due to geography. Once we both found out that we were, coincidentally, doing social on the side for small/medium sized businesses, we then joked that we should start a business and do it our way. I never really thought anything would come of it.

Fast forward a week later, the talks grew more serious. We both decided to go for it because we are both decisive people. We invested $500 each to build a website. Her on creative and content creation and I on new business and sales. We refused to duplicate efforts and really lean into our genius zones. In less than a month, we had a website and in that first month, we started to acquire clients immediately. We never over-thought anything. We created three packages in 30 days and just began selling.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was a ballet addict my entire life. I loved it so much that it hurt. It was my world. I chose a school, University of Iowa, because it had two strengths: the performing arts and journalism. This allowed me to incorporate both loves into one setting. I graduated in four years as a double major in Journalism and English with a minor in Performing Arts. I then returned back to Chicago pondering my existence. Journalists traditionally make very little money at first and I am the type of gal who likes instant gratification.

I leaned into my writing and figured the next natural step was to move into marketing. I held two boring, corporate roles and then landed my dream job at a Chicago ad agency. I was on the accounts side. I was horrible at it. I felt like a paper pusher and after three years, I quit. There had to be more to life except I had zero plan.

I met my now partner as she was running a digital magazine/website focused on beauty and heavy on events. I begged for a position. It paid very little but I took it. Secretly, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t know what I was good at. There was encouragement along the way when I would give presentations in my previous jobs but I never thought anything of it. It was at this job that my partner’s husband encouraged me to pursue sales. It felt cringey. I never aspired to be a used car dealer and that’s what sales felt like to me.

Honestly, I took it because I needed money. The only thing was…I was AMAZING at it and what’s more, I loved beauty and wellness hence I thrived in those 8.5 years. I was making six figures. I also went through a divorce, remarried and had kids. A lot of change happened but it was a great job and it gave me a taste of ownership because it was completely commission based. I had no benefits and my salary was 12K annually. I had to hustle.

After that I worked in the tech industry for three years. I had a fantastic set of bosses, who, to this day I truly am grateful for. I stayed in sales and continued to thrive but management was not an option unless I moved to Cali and that wasn’t going to happen.

Fast forward to present day, and you now know the story, we’ve owned and operated our social media agency for 10+ years. Most of our clients don’t have the bandwidth to create and nurture a strong digital presence and that’s where we come in. We develop a strategy for every platform we manage, a competitive audit, content creation both visual and written and then finally, execution and performance reporting. We are a one-stop shop for all things social media.

I am most proud of our existence. I had no idea what it would be like to own and sustain a business for a decade in a very cluttered space. We have a familial culture and we give our employees a lot of autonomy. We can run our business from anywhere at any time and as a working mother, I love that for my family.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When Covid hit in 2019, I lost 40% of my business in three days. It was a gut punch and for the first time, I was genuinely scared. I was thinking about what I could return to in terms of corporate America. The last place I wanted to be. My partner is an extremely positive person. We are yin and yang which is not to say that I am negative but I am a realist.

Instead of burying our heads in the sand, we acted swiftly. We had bills to pay and we both run dual income households. We gave value ads to our existing clients to support their businesses. That was the first step. We needed them to know that we were in it to win it and that we would all survive this blasted pandemic together.

The second thing we did was a volume move. We created one simple, heavily discounted package and sold the hell out of it. We abandoned big retainers and simply sold social media packages to everyone. There was no time to over analyze as to who was going to be a good client or not. We had employees to pay!

And we did it! We never let anyone go. There were no layoffs. We had gained back all of our losses from March 2019 by May 2019. In fact, it was our most profitable two years to date. Our agency thrived during the pandemic simply because businesses needed an existence and the only way to do it, effectively and affordably, was through social media marketing.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Looking back, there are a couple things that stand out. The first is honesty. Oak Street Social works with integrity. We will always serve it to you straight even if it’s not what you want to hear. We care more about how your content performs than if we annoy you on a singular phone call. Let’s be honest, people expect to drive sales with their social media. Erroneously but true, some brands expect their social media presence to carry the entire company…which it cannot but that is a story for another day.

Second, we are accessible. My partner and I are present on every client we work with. While we have junior and senior employees, we touch everything. There has never been a client who feels handed off and we’ve been in business for almost 11 years.

Third, we are good at one thing. We aren’t trying to be everything to everyone. We focus on social media marketing and social media marketing only.

Finally, we are passionate. We care deeply about the end product. We don’t share anything that we don’t absolutely love or feel proud of. We do not phone in anything…even if that means that it takes longer to get there.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.oakstsocial.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oakstsocial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oakstsocial/timeline
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/6390752/?trk=vsrp_companies_cluster_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A179169661427161403463%2CVSRPtargetId%3A6390752%2CVSRPcmpt%3Acompanies_cluster
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@oakstsocial

Image Credits
Hallie Duesenberg