We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amber Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amber, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so one thing we think people don’t talk about nearly enough is investments – either time or money. What’s one of the best or worst investments you’ve made and what did you learned from the experience?

The best (and worst) investment I’ve made in my business is hiring a business coach.

In 2023, I hired a “big ticket” business coach who led a group program designed to help female entrepreneurs scale their businesses. Unfortunately, I got majorly burned by this business coach because this program was not aligned to my business, even though her team assured me over and over again during the sales process that this program would change my life.

Looking back, the sales process for this program took advantage of my weaknesses, then leveraged manipulation tactics to sell me on how this program was the only way out. As a new mom who was struggling to balance my workload with my baby at home, the “work 2 hours a day, make a million dollars” pitch felt like the absolute best option. Having someone guide me through building a group program to create a one-to-many offer seemed like a great revenue driver.

Unfortunately, what I really got was a business “coach” who didn’t know anything about my business, never took the time to understand what I actually do and was wildly uninterested in getting to know me as a human. The only thing I was taught was how to post on social media constantly and use icky sales tactics to rope people into buying my high ticket program – then was encouraged to deliver mediocre content because “no one really knows anyways”…

The result: A $12,000 investment that had absolutely zero ROI and a significant negative impact on my mental health.

I was fed a narrative that I would never have a successful SEO business because “SEO isn’t sexy enough to sell on Instagram”. I was made to feel like I, myself, wasn’t good enough because I wanted to do SEO and brand design – not choose between one or the other.

In the end, I was left with no clients, no revenue and absolutely no confidence in myself because I allowed myself to believe that my SEO expertise wasn’t good enough for people to want to buy.

I swore off business coaches, telling myself that I didn’t want anything to do with them because of this experience.

Thankfully, I didn’t let my “I’ll do it myself” attitude hold me back.

I connected with a new business mentor in late 2023 that felt like she just got it before we even met.

You know how you meet people and just know that they are the person you’ve been needing?
That’s exactly how I felt when I met my business mentor for the first time.

Before I bought anything from her, she took the time to get to know me and actually remembered things that I had told her about myself when we finally met to discuss mentorship.

She never used icky sales tactics to pressure me into buying her business mentorship. She never used scarcity tactics that weren’t actually real. She didn’t change when we actually started working together.

Instead, she took my borderline failing business and turned it into an organized, profitable business.

Ironically, she was a FRACTION of the cost of my first business coach. To date, I’ve had an entire YEARS worth of her support for less than the cost of 12 weeks with the other person who gave me nothing.

And I’ve made more money in the past 9 months than I have in the past two years combined – all while working less.

Hiring a business coach that was aligned with me as a human AND aligned with my business has been such a game changer for me as an entrepreneur.

Moral of the story: If you get knocked down, don’t be afraid to try again. There really are good people out there who CAN help you get to where you want to be. You just have to trust your gut when you find them.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Sure! I’m Amber Johnson, Founder and CEO of Maevan Marketing. After years in the corporate marketing world, I started my business to make marketing more accessible to small business owners.

My ultimate goal is to help you figure out all the marketing things – without making it super complicated and time-consuming.

As a self-taught “jack of all trades” marketer turned entrepreneur, I have a unique opportunity to show up for small business owners because, honestly, I just get it.

I know how many hats you wear. I know how little time you have.

And I know how much you need your marketing efforts to work for you, not against you.

That’s why everything that I do is rooted in SEO.

Keywords give us the clarity most marketing strategies are missing.

Understanding how people search for what you offer (aka keywords) takes the guesswork out of what to say in your marketing content, what information you need on your website and how you should talk about your product or service.

Mix that keyword power with the magic of your brand and you have a marketing strategy that helps your business say the right thing, at the right time; all in the right place – the top of Google search results when someone is looking for what you offer.

My job is to make sure that those people find YOU.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Rest is the key to success.

Like most other millenials, my early career was packed with bosses telling me I needed to “pay my dues” if I ever wanted to move up in the company.

That paired with my people pleasing tendencies resulted in some very unhealthy work habits that eventually led to severe burnout.

Over the years, I’ve had to unlearn the mentality of “you can rest when it’s done” – because it’s literally NEVER actually done.

And, I’ve had to face the harsh realities of what happens to our brains and our bodies when we don’t take the time to rest.

Back in 2019, I had been working in the marketing department for a pizza franchisor. For the past two years, I was busting my butt to manage the equivalent of at least two full time jobs trying to impress the leadership team. I so badly wanted to earn the Director of Marketing title that I was literally killing myself to get there.

We’re talking working 12-16 hour days EVERY day, never taking lunch break, let alone a full weekend off, never taking PTO, always answering my phone, never waiting more than a few hours to respond to an email, that kind of thing.

Then, one day, the wrong email campaign went out to the email list and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I had a complete mental breakdown and quit my job the next day.

No plan. Just literally quit.

It took 5 months for me to recover from that experience.
I had to teach myself how to relax.
I had to unwind my brain’s automatic responses to my phone ringing.
I had to force myself to get up and get out of bed every single day because I sunk into a pretty deep depression as I processed it all.

To this day I have to remind myself that rest is just as important as doing the work.
If we don’t rest, we can never show up as our full selves.
And none of it is worth it if you aren’t physically or mentally able to actually enjoy the fruits of your labor.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I was so anti-social media for the LONGEST time. Part of it was definitely the fear of being judged by people I knew. The other part of it was just having literally no clue what to do.

I didn’t start marketing my business on social media until the spring of 2023. Honestly, I only did it because a program I was in was only teaching social media marketing. But, it was the best thing I ever did for my business once I actually figured out how to do it without burning myself out.

My account started at literally 0. In the early days, I would spend HOURS creating Reels and writing captions. I also felt an insane amount of pressure to share everything about my life, but it HAD to be Instagram ready.

I am SO GLAD I got over that pretty quickly because the moment I did is when my account really started growing.

I went from posting every single day to posting 3x per week.
I went from spending 2+ hours per day prepping social media content that got no traction to spending maybe 2 hours per WEEK prepping content that gets pretty decent engagement.

Over the past 1.5 years, my account has grown from 0 to almost 500 followers! And most of them are my ideal client.

The big turning point for me was when I started sharing things that benefitted other people. I stopped trying to do what all the social media gurus say and instead just started talking about how SEO helps your business in real life. And I started getting to know people as a real human, not as some perfect Instagram barbie who never has a bad day.

And now, I’ve met some of my best business friends on Instagram.

My biggest piece of advice if you’re just starting out on social media: It won’t happen overnight. Stay consistent by being yourself!

Don’t be afraid to get to know people. Send the DM. Reply to the story. Comment on the post. Welcome people when they start following you. Trust me, a little bit goes a LONG way and building those relationships pays off in the long run.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maevanmarketing.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amber.maevanmarketing/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amber-mccune-johnson

Image Credits

Britt G. Photography