We recently connected with Maria Von Losch and have shared our conversation below.

Maria, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Taking a risk should be my tagline, LOL. I’ve been a risk taker my whole life. At age 22, my last semester in art school I decided to open a vintage clothing store at the beach. I had no experience, little money, I was still in school. This was definitely a HUGE risk. But I had a vision and a calling and nothing was going to stop me from doing it. I had it for 3 years and then closed it to move onto bigger things. Another entrepreneurial risk I took at age 28 was a novelty item I created and had one specific chain store in mind that would be perfect to sell it in. Again, no experience in creating an actual product made out of a specific foam material, how to import/export from another country, no experience with retail buyers, filling orders, etc. I also had little money and had to negotiate minimums with my manufacturer. This company also lasted 3 years before I sold it. That’s right, sold it with no experience ever doing this either.

Maria, 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 feel like I’ve made a full circle in my ventures of being an entrepreneur. My longest and most successful business I had was a PR and media relations agency with clients in the lifestyle and travel space. But I’ve also have a love and passion for design, art and style which is why I detoured after 10 years of owning my agency. Blogging and YouTube became the main places to focus creative talents, so that’s where I went. I created a personal brand for myself with my blog Savvynista, which is now The Savvy Life (grown version of Savvynista).

The one thing that grew one following was this crazy challenge I decided to embark on. I was going through an unexpected divorce at 40, moved in with my mom in a new city, no job, network, money. I had some savings which I blew through binge shopping to numb out the heartbreak. After a couple months, I decided to look at my bank balance and I had about $100 left.

That snapped me out of my divorce-a-coma and I was desperate to do something. I had my blog Savvynista and decided to put it to good use. I challenged myself to Shop My Closet for 365 Days and blog about it everyday showing what I wore that day and a diary entry of how my life is going through all this.

During the pandemic, I decided to rebrand Savvynista. I wanted a digital magazine that spoke to a broader audience. Today I’m proud to share that our site has over 100k monthly readers. We also started an amazing partnership with BossTalks to create The Savvy Boss column and launched our Podcast this year.

This is all due to smart branding and many years of risk taking as an entrepreneur.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building a large audience (followers) on social media isn’t like how it used to be. It’s definitely harder but I think it’s better. I built up The Savvy Life Instagram to over 100k then we deleted a bunch of followers and now we’re at 84k. But more followers doesn’t mean high engagement.

The key to cultivating an “engaged” following is to keep showing up, daily. And to repurpose your content on all social platforms that fit your brand. Creating conversations in comments and your DM’s are key as well. It’s a lot of work but it does pay off.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but consistency is truly the key. I coach clients on branding and content creating and consistency is their biggest issue. That’s why I created an App called Content Cure to send reminders daily of what you should be doing with your content.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Money is a topic many self-starters seem to shy away from. Most solopreneurs have to bootstrap and get resourceful with the money they’re spending. That’s me. I’ve opened up credit cards to help fund my businesses, asked for a few loans from relatives, taken on side jobs to make extra money to fund my new ventures. I even sold some designer bags I owned that are worth a lot of money. Here’s the thing. Money is currency. It comes and goes. You’ll have it and you won’t. I had to let go of some old thoughts I had about money to invest in my businesses in order for them to scale.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thesavvylife.co
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/themariavonlosch
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/themariavonlosch
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariavonlosch/
• Youtube: http://youtube.com/marialosch
• Other: http://tiktok.com/@mariavonlosch

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