We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bea Porter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Bea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
I am happy as a business owner, but I think often about what it would be like to go back to a regular job. There is so much pride in being a business owner. Our agency provides a much-needed service for so many other business owners. We get to help tell their stories online and are a part of their successes! I love that as a business owner, I’m able to help others build up their own business and provide jobs to our wonderful team of people. However, there is also a lot of stress and worry that comes with being a business owner. I think of it as if I’m running a second family and I want to make sure that each team member and client is taken care of. There are times when I think, it would be so nice to have a regular 9 to 5 job working for someone else, where I was not the sole decision-maker. But then I think of how much we have helped so many people with the work that we do and I think of how much I love working with our team at Bea Connected. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a “regular job”.
Bea, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have always had a knack for social media, so when some friends asked me for help creating content for their businesses, I was happy to lend them a hand! In 2017, I decided to take a leap of faith and make social media marketing my full-time career. In no time, The Bea Connected Team was off the ground and running.
I’m the mother of three girls who lives by the motto,- “anything is possible with the help of Google!” I’m proud to be a native Houstonian and a Board Member of the Houston Digital Marketing Association.
You’ll find me regularly posting pictures of what I’m eating, using slightly more hashtags than the average person, and including a gif or emoji whenever possible! The best part of my business is telling my clients’ stories through social media and blog posts. I love helping them shine!
When I’m not brushing up on the latest social media trends, you can find me drinking coffee on my front porch, going to escape rooms with friends, or watching movies with my family.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I started my business as a freelancer while working a full-time job. I took on several clients and set aside the profits to help grow Bea Connected. Eventually, I was turning away clients and decided to leave my full time job to work solely on Bea Connected. Less than a year later, I was adding on team members, and growing from there!
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
We want our clients to always feel like we are their number one fans! Because we are. :) We have monthly meetings with clients to check in and send anniversary and holiday gifts each year. We also post client highlights on our social media pages directing our followers to their accounts and website. The client highlights don’t focus on the work that we do with them, instead, they focus only on the client’s mission. The goal is not to highlight our services but to 100% highlight the client and the work they do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.beaconnected.me
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beaconnected.me/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beaconnected.me
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28117652/
- Other: Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/BeaConnected/_created/