We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angela Von Weber-Hahnsberg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angela below.

Alright, Angela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I desperately wanted to be a writer from a young age, and spent hours every day as a kid sequestered in my room, typing away on my latest story. I didn’t think it was realistic as a career choice, though, so I ended up becoming a teacher instead. But as my 30th birthday loomed, I decided to revisit my childhood dream, and started sending out query letters to different magazines. I still have a picture of the first check I ever received for a published article – just $40, but I was on top of the world, being a real, paid, published author.

I did lots of freelance writing at first, but then became a full-time writer for a marketing agency. In that position I had the chance to write all kinds of content, from blog posts to magazine articles to website copy – and I even got to ghostwrite a couple of books! The skills I learned there eventually allowed me to leave and start my own marketing agency, where our focus is still on writing amazing content for our clients. In my current role, I’ve also had the chance to do some really cool creative work alongside the marketing copy we write – from editing a tech startup CEO’s personal poetry, to working on content for a stand-up comedian!

I’d definitely tell anyone who is hesitant to pursue their dream of a career in their creative field to just start taking small steps, and be willing to take a gig or a job that maybe doesn’t correspond exactly with what you envisioned, but still gives you a chance to expand your creative skills. You never know where that may lead!

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?

So, my marketing agency, Manoula Marketing, is really all about creativity. We work with one-of-a-kind, creative brands, and definitely DON’T follow a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy! Each of our clients is uniquely unique, so we handcraft an individual strategy for each one, and then produce custom creative content to fit. We pride ourselves on our unusual approach to marketing, our way with words, and of course, the results we deliver.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Cultivating relationships with people, hands down. And not only with people I’d think of as potential clients – just getting to know anyone who’s put in my path in life, and keeping in touch with people I worked with in the past. Almost 100% of our clients have come either from referrals from people in areas of my life where I never would have expected to gain new clients, or have been people I’ve worked with in the past in some capacity.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Covid lockdowns hit us hard. Several of our clients had to cut way back on marketing, and some had to cancel our services altogether. But rather than let it put us out of business, we doubled down on helping our remaining clients – hustling for them even more than usual, but at reduced rates they could still afford. As an example, for one of our clients, a dental supplier whose brand is all about humor, we organized a free virtual comedy show for dentists while their offices were closed due to lockdowns. This built goodwill – and also helped gather email addresses for future sales opportunities! All that hard work paid off though, as we kept those clients and our agency afloat through the worst of covid – and we even won an award for it, being named to the Top Ten in Ignite Visibility’s 2020 Courageous Marketing Leader Awards list!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.manoulamarketing.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/manoulamarketing
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/manoula-marketing/

Image Credits
Teresa Fougerousse