We recently connected with Laura Rebekah Cone and have shared our conversation below.

Laura Rebekah , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

It all started when my husband found success working at Facebook. He had the opportunity to lead some big campaigns but we realized that we didn’t want to work for just anyone. We wanted to work for ourselves because of the freedom and opportunity it gives us. We can choose our clients and feel like we have better opportunity to help those who we know help others. We love working with nonprofits specifically. Although it seemed like a great passion project that also pays the bills, we couldn’t imagine quitting our stable careers and diving into the unknown—both of us don’t have any entrepreneurial experience. After sitting on it for months, we decided to finally take the plunge. We started a digital marketing agency and haven’t looked back.

Starting your own business sounds romantic but it is hard work. So many questions arise, and so much is required of you. We have been in business for 4 years and there are still things that sometimes surprise me. But it also taught me that I can do anything. No matter how hard it is or if I have never done it before I have learned that anything is possible if I put my mind to it.

Hiring, in my opinion, is one of the hardest things to do. At the beginning, we attempted to do it all ourselves because we were not confident to find capable people who fit in with our culture and excited about the work we are doing. But burnout taught us the lesson the hard way. So, we hired professionals for our team and our entire business began to improve. Learning to find and keep those people are valuable skills that have taught me so many things. We had the vision, they carried it out and our clients loved the updates and stayed with us longer. The same principle went for other items and it’s how we were able to scale.

But one thing I would say is: not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur.

As I mentioned, it is romanticized but it isn’t freedom, not for awhile at least. It’s working 24/7 and it can change how you live life for awhile. If you are successful though you can have the freedom that you wanted but again it’s mentally, physically, and psychologically draining. It takes time and patience to learn how to balance it all. I am thankful that I pursued being an entrepreneur and I wouldn’t change anything but it was definitely not how I originally pictured it. It has taught me more than a doctorate of schooling and some.

Laura Rebekah , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have always wanted a business that provides us freedom and opportunity to help people in a special way. My husband has a marketing background and we decided to use his background to create a digital marketing company. We are the paid ads you see on all social media with our main socials being Facebook and Instagram. We build magical ad campaigns that combine your message and the right marketing channel to find your target audience. We love helping companies who are ready and excited to start working on marketing as it’s a huge part of every business nowadays. Like us, our clients learned that using a professional marketing company will improve their company’s bottomline. We also love helping with social posting and encouraging engagement on their socials. It can be their way of talking to those who love the product or interested in it to engage. We make sure to get the voice of the company and match the aesthetic to save them time and help improve engagement and sales. I am so proud of so many things but think that being able to improve a company’s bottomline and helping them engage more with their customers is a gift that keeps on giving. We love hearing the good reports from clients. Another one of our specialities is helping a startup build from the ground up. We build their branding guidelines and create all socials and start building them an engaged audience. To see something from nothing start to produce and bring our client’s vision to life is so rewarding.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Our story is a fun one. We are co-founders and married! We met at a New Year’s Eve party in Austin. We both came with different friend groups and met for the first time. I found out later that my dad took him to Boy Scout meetings when he was younger so as always it’s a beautiful small world. After that day we haven’t stopped dating and got married after 1 ½ years of fun. A lot of people recommend not working with your spouse but I can’t imagine a more fun and exciting life. I am so incredibly thankful for him and the joy and laughter he brings to me. He also is an amazing business partner and we both excel and different things so we ended up being the perfect team and have been able to build out company up in the 4 years since we started. We also have started another tech company and bought a gym so we aren’t stopping anytime soon.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We do our best to provide value to our audience. Our social profiles are always trying to educate any and all business to help them navigate the digital marketing world. From fundamental design concepts such as typography to useful tips on running social media ads to best practices on building an email list, we have it all! We believe that we’ll never go wrong when we are coming from a place of help so we share everything we know on our socials for free.

What most entrepreneurs don’t realize, which cause a lot of frustration, is that social media isn’t primarily for sales. It is about building a community around your brand and then, listening and engaging with them. We saw that the community’s loyalty yields bigger returns overtime.

Keeping up with the new algorithms is also key to improve and grow your audience. For instance, Instagram was originally a photo-sharing app. Then, they changed their algorithm as they embrace more video content thus launching Reels. They were, of course, trying to keep up with Tik tok and it worked. Reels took off for accounts that used it and grew astronomically.

I always recommend each account becoming a creator account vs business because you have the ability to do more and have more options for music and even GIF’s.

If you ever want more insight follow our social profiles @cone_agency to keep up and learn about the best ways to grow your business and increase online presence.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.coneagency.com/home/
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