We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jodie Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jodie below.

Jodie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

In February of 2020, I was in a tough place mentally even though I had a successful career behind the chair as an independent hairstylist. I was able to attract clients. I was doing well in my business. But behind the scenes, I was going through some really difficult personal challenges. We were dealing with secondary infertility, my husband had been laid off, and despite my business success, we weren’t doing a great job of managing our money at the time. I was struggling mentally and feeling like everything was kindof hopeless.

One day, I got a DM from an educator in the hair industry whose course I had purchased at the end of 2019. She invited me to a class she was hosting in Edmonton. And even though I was in a rough place, something inside of me said, ‘You have to go. You need to shake yourself out of this and just go.’ At this point in my life I was avoiding even my friends. I remember when I got the DM I was actually sitting in my car crying to my dad because I’d gotten more bad news that day. But, I listened to that inner voice and I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and went to the class.

Fast forward to the Q&A portion of the class… a stylist asked a question about social media, and what happened next was a total eye-opener for me. The educator said, ‘Oh, I don’t really teach that,’ and what felt like the entire room erupted. All these stylists were sitting there talking about how hard social media was, how much they hated showing up, how it wasn’t working for them, and how they resented it.

It was a funny moment because I knew that I couldn’t relate at all. That was a huge awakening for me because up until that point, I had honestly assumed that because social media marketing came easily to me, it must have come easily to everyone else.

It was in that moment I realized that this thing I loved and was really good at wasn’t easy for everyone else. That’s when it clicked for me that I needed to make a bigger impact than just doing hair behind the chair. I saw a bigger and better way to help others in my industry, and I knew I could show my peers how to market themselves and gain autonomy over their careers.

When I went home, I thought about it and realized that I wasn’t loving doing hair anymore. I felt called to something bigger, and I knew that stepping away from my behind-the-chair business was the right decision for me, even though it was extremely scary to pull the trigger. But I knew I had to do it.

So, after a couple of weeks away from the salon, I decided that I wasn’t going back. I reached out to the person I was renting space from, gave my notice, and told my clients I wouldn’t be returning. I walked away from the business I had built because I knew I was meant for something bigger, and that’s when I fully dove into building my online business.

It was a really big decision for me, but still, to this day, it was the best decision I could have made. You know how they say 30 seconds of insane courage? For me, it was more like 20 days of insane courage that allowed me to get this thing off the ground and start my journey as a full-time online entrepreneur and that eventually led me to what I’m doing today.

Jodie , 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?

Today I am a podcaster, marketing agency owner, branding + visibility educator, and international luxury retreat host. I’m obsessed with helping creative entrepreneurs + beauty industry educators create freedom and opportunity in their businesses because I know firsthand how hard it can be without the right tools and guidance.

At the beginning of my journey, I spent 15+ years in the beauty industry as a hairstylist (with a stint in beauty distributor sales) and spent the last 4 as a self employed hairstylist where I learned the art of building a brand and marketing to attract clients.

After returning from maternity leave about a decade into my career, I had to rebuild from scratch without the tools I had relied on before to build my clientele. I decided to go all in learning how to market myself. I started with podcasts, free webinars, and other resources, which enabled me to build a full clientele and become self-employed within 18 months.

In the process, I became the go-to person for Instagram advice among my peers. Despite having fewer than 1,000 followers, I could network with other entrepreneurs and fill cancellations just by posting on stories. I consistently got clients from Instagram and had a reputation that led to exciting opportunities (like working on photoshoots + destination weddings) as well as business growth.

I started investing in programs and became obsessed with marketing and learning everything I could about the industry… which introduced me to the idea of online entrepreneurship and mentorship as a career path.

After attending a class, I had an AHA moment: many of my peers were overwhelmed and resentful of Instagram (and honestly, marketing as a whole)… Two weeks later, the world shut down.

I closed my behind-the-chair business and went full steam into my online education business and social media management.

The first thing I did is 1:1 mentorship and (after completing a social media management course) managing social media for other business owners + brands to ensure my methods were repeatable. Once I realized they were, I launched marketing education for hairstylists.

The funny thing was… after launching my education business, I started getting approached by other beauty industry educators (and then people outside the beauty industry) for content marketing help, mentorship, copywriting, and launch strategy.

I realized quickly I had found my calling and the way I was going to make my impact. Helping OTHER educators create a massive positive change in their industry by getting visible and building a magnetic brand.

I know what can change when you develop a strong brand identity and implement effective marketing strategies that align with your vision and that’s exactly where I help creatives change. I am the antithesis of the “bro marketers” that rely on push and coercion to get people to buy. I know that when you focus on connection and communication… truly meeting your people where they are at and speaking in a way they feel seen heard and understood, you attract rather than chase. Combining solid and magnetic messaging with visibility is the path to a sustainable marketing strategy you don’t have to reinvent every time the algorithm changes.

I do this through done for you marketing, copywriting and consulting through my agency Align Creative Co as well as international luxury branding Escape To Elevate retreats and online coaching and education.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

So many near-death moments in year 2 (although it ended up being my first 100K year) one that I vividly remember was sitting down and crunching the numbers… finally deciding I could afford to make a huge investment at the time in a mastermind which was $12K. If I did the monthly payments I realized I could just about make it work even though it was a big stretch. I signed the contract and paid the first installment.

The next day a payment from one of my clients bounced. I reached out and this client had their assistant tell me they were not going to be continuing and they were willfully ignoring the 30 day notice in the contract. Initially I panicked because my budget for this thing I had signed a contract to see out was evaporated and it was the biggest amount of money I’d ever committed to for a coach.

But here’s the silver lining – the client that dropped off was a nightmare. They would never send me assets, they were verging on abusive in our interactions, and the scope creep I allowed because of this was eating up all of my time and energy.

When they dropped off, I was able to pour into my own business and marketing… and I replaced that client with a new better client in a matter of weeks. That also allowed me with my renewed focus to concentrate on implementing everything I learned in the coaching program which led to my first-ever 5 figure (20K) launch. It taught me a lot about attaching to one person or client and the lesson was worth the stress.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I first started my social media account it was as a hairstylist and I was able to attract clients and build a business as an independent stylist with under 1000 followers. When I pivoted into education, I knew that was where I was going to find my community.

I prioritized 3 major things when I started building my platform.

#1 Providing valuable and specific content. I had been a stylist for more than 15 years, my mom was a salon owner. I had a lot of knowledge and could have definitely gone in multiple direction when it came to content and building a brand but what I knew intuitively early on is that becoming known for one thing is a lot easier and more powerful than becoming known for a little bit of multiple things. I took a very specific angle and tone that was true to me and I put out a LOT of content about building a brand as a hairstylist and attracting clients on social media.

#2 Networking. I knew the power of meeting other educators, sharing our knowledge with each other’s communities and pouring into other people’s audiences because of how well it had worked for me as a beauty industry entrepreneur. I got social on social media and spent time engaging with and starting conversations with other people in my industry. I focused more on what I could give vs. what I could get and this led to a lot of relationships that I still have to this day. Referrals, clients, speaking opportunities etc.

#3 Iterated and repeated. The biggest piece of advice I want to give here is do MORE of what is working. I didn’t stress about repeating myself at all in the beginning (or now) I just made valuable content, then repurposed the posts that did really well and hit them from different angles. I did this for my emails, my social media, my podcast and this helped me grow my brand and my business.

So to sum up my advice is: start deep instead of wide. You can always expand your niche later. Focus on creating valuable content that helps one specific person solve one specific problem. Get social on social media and lead with what you can give rather than what you can get AND don’t be afraid to repeat yourself and do more of what is working.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jodiebrown.ca www.escapetoelevate.com www.aligncreativeco.com
• Instagram: @itsjodiebrown
• Other: The Visionary Rising Podcast on Apple – https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-visionary-rising/id1729898146
  On Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/64puxAwKkigNJIPJ7gA9k9

Image Credits

Nicole Danielle Photography by Nicole McLean