We recently connected with Allison Anna and have shared our conversation below.
Allison, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
When I was younger, I believed that if I got straight A’s in school, followed all the rules, and went to a good college, my road map to success would be laid out for me. For some people that may be true. It really depends on what success looks like for you. I followed this structure to a tee, and yet I found myself in a life and career that I was miserable in. I was always good at numbers, so I studied Finance in college and landed a job as a Data Analyst. After years of working in the corporate world, I realized that I did not actually want the life I had. I realized that I actually wanted to go against the grain, pave a different kind of life, and wake up every day loving what I do. Success to me is having freedom, impact, and a voice in this world. Read on to discover what success looks like for you and how to build your own road map to a life you love!
Clarity on Your Vision – First things first, you have to explore what success looks like to you. Here, we are tempted to think about a specific career or how we will get there. Instead, you should simply explore what you want your life to LOOK like. When I made the transition from my soul-sucking 9-5 to build my dream business, I knew I had to get very clear on my vision. I had to know what I wanted in life so that I didn’t get lost along the way. I would meditate on how I wanted my life to look, what things were important to me, and what a day in my dream life looked like. Focus on the details here, what does your time look like, how much are you working, where do you want to live, and what would you love to do if time and money were not a hindrance? If we allow ourselves to dream and expand our thoughts, our brain becomes more creative and we become more capable and clear on what we want. Here’s an exercise to try – take 10-15 minutes every morning for 21 days to write what you want your life to look like. Be creative and really dream/meditate on these thoughts. At the end of those 21 days look back and notice what things kept popping up. This will help you start to build clarity around what you want in life and what success looks like for you.
Get Rid of Limiting Beliefs – The biggest enemy on our road to success is our own mind. We must pick the weeds in our brain, for our brain to understand that we are capable of all that we desire. We are all passed down belief systems from family, school, society, culture etc. Not all of these beliefs serve us well on our road to success, however. I didn’t come from a family of business owners, but my family was not poor either. I came from a working-class family, and as a result, I was passed down beliefs that encompassed the working-class mindset. Some of these beliefs were limiting me when I made the decision to up-level my life. Since our subconscious mind controls about 95% of our daily thoughts and actions, we must get rid of the beliefs that limit us. Finish this sentence to find out what your limiting beliefs are – “I would be more successful by now, but…” An easy way that we can start to break down these limiting beliefs is by creating daily affirmations that state the opposite. So if you have a limiting belief that says “I am not worth it” a daily affirmation could be “More and more I believe that I am worth all that I desire” The key is to make your affirmations “progressive” so that your brain doesn’t automatically reject them. This is why I added “more and more” to the above affirmation. It feels easier to start believing it. Create affirmations for all of your limiting beliefs and say them daily.
Viewpoint of Failure and Asking For Help – If you ask any wildly successful person if they have failed, they will most likely tell you they failed ALOT. Not only have they failed a lot, but their failures have likely been a catalyst to their success. If you are afraid to fail, you will not grow. This is the natural law of humans, we learn through failure and pain. My motto is “fail forward and fail fast” The more you fail, the more you learn and the quicker you grow. The longer you wait to do that thing you want to do, the longer you will sit in fear and stagnation. Nobody wants to be there!
We have to understand that we are not alone on our journey. We all have resources and support whether we chose to believe it or not. If you are an independent person, asking for help may not be easy. The most successful people know when things are out of their scope and when to ask for help. We operate inefficiently if we try to do everything ourselves. Outsource the things you are not good at and you will have more time and energy for the things you are good at and passionate about doing. Contrary to society’s opinion, asking for help does not make you weak, it makes you stronger and smarter for doing so.
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?
My name is Allison Anna. I live in Indiana with my Husband and 2 beautiful children. Over the last decade, I have studied leadership, emotional intelligence, and the psychology of the customer journey. I spent 8 years in various sales, marketing, and Data Analytics roles, before embarking on my entrepreneurial journey (and haven’t looked back since). Today I am a Best-Selling Author and Owner of Allison Anna Advertising. We are a digital marketing agency that helps entrepreneurs and small/medium-sized businesses get to the next level in their business using the power of digital marketing. We are experts at generating leads and sales through paid advertising campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Google, Linkedin, and more. We also offer web design, funnel building, branding, and copywriting, in addition to many other marketing services. We use a holistic marketing approach, where we explore the whole business instead of just the marketing aspect. We help businesses rediscover their purpose in their niche, and then we position them authentically in front of their dream clients. We help our clients go from being stuck and burnt out to having control over their business and their sales. Ultimately we give business owners back their time!
I am also working on a couple of projects to spread awareness about emotional intelligence and inspire female entrepreneurs. I hope to reach all corners of the world one day with my teachings about empathy and emotional intelligence. These projects are still in the very beginning stages so please follow me and connect with me to learn more!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I built my presence on social media by showing up consistently and authentically. Since my business operates in the online space, growing an audience on social media is a vital piece of what I do. You can make all of the reels and posts that you want, but if you are not showing up authentically, your audience will notice. In order to show up authentically, you should first explore your “why”. Why do you do what you do? What message do you want to get across? Who do you want to speak to? How can you show up as your raw self? Take some time to really think about these questions, and it will help you formulate better content that attracts the people you are meant to have in your audience. The last thing you want to do is have a huge audience of followers who aren’t really here for you because you’ve portrayed this made-up version of yourself. The age of the “influencer” is dead. People want real, authentic, and behind-the-scenes, and they’ve gotten better at sniffing out the fakes.
Showing up consistently is another important piece of growing your audience. It can feel like it takes forever to grow your audience, but consistency is a catalyst if you stick with it. You may also consider an omnipresence content strategy if you know that your audience is on multiple platforms. An omnipresence strategy involves posting your content across all platforms that you can reach your audience instead of just focusing on one or two. This can be time-consuming, but it has huge benefits in the long run. As far as what you should post, focus on content that engages your audience and speaks to their pain points. Storytelling is your best friend when you are writing content. Always remember – When you speak to everyone you speak to no one. Make sure that you are laser-focused on who your target audience is and what they need from you.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Communication and feedback are the most important values when it comes to client relationships. We meet with all of our clients at least bi-weekly, and we have monthly check-ins to gauge their satisfaction with our process and their results. We always welcome feedback in any form, and in fact, we ask for it at all parts of the customer journey. When we don’t get a sale, we ask why they didn’t choose our agency and what we can do better in our sales process. We also have exit calls with each of our clients to ask what went well and what didn’t in their experience working with us. We even reach out to old clients just to call and say what’s up, see how they are doing, and ask if they need any help (we DON’T try to sell them anything here). I highly believe this speaks volumes for our brand personality and trust. We are not in business to serve ourselves. We are in business to serve our clients. For that reason, their opinions are invaluable to us. This is also how we continue to grow and change things in our agency. We keep a spreadsheet of all the reasons someone didn’t buy from us or had even the slightest negative experience with us. At the end of each month, we go through the sheet to look for any trends. These are the items we work on changing in our business moving forward. It’s one thing to seek feedback but another to take action to fix things. Creating a feedback loop for your business is invaluable for business and client growth.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.allisonanna.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allisonanna_advertising/, https://www.instagram.com/allisonannaofficial/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllisonAnnaAds, https://www.facebook.com/allisonanna111
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-anna/
Image Credits
Lorrie Ann Photography