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

Mariya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

Yes, I have been lucky enough to work for myself for the past 4.5 years from my creative work. I had to put in A LOT of work initially- I worked the side hustle in addition to my full-time job (while having a 1 year old), but the hard work paid off.

Some major steps and milestones that helped me reach this goal where:
– Attending networking events, meeting various business owners, and letting everyone know about how I could help their business.
– I did charge very low prices until I built up a portfolio and a referral network.
– I found freelance jobs through Upwork, and that also helped me build up my clientele and referral network (I still work with some clients I met on Upwork 4 years ago).
– I posted all over my social media about the projects that I was working on: I showed the behind the scene process AND the before and after of the designs.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Mariya Bentz, and I design websites at MBM Agency.

I started my career in marketing, and worked my way up to become a Marketing Manager for an event technology company based out of California. It was when I had my son that I started to brainstorm what I can do to ‘stay-at-home’ but still contribute financially. So I started to offer marketing and web design services as a freelancer.
My first order of business was creating my package options, and as soon as that was done, I went to networking events. I was lucky enough to get my first client at my first networking event- and that just grew my confidence to continue the side hustle.
After about a year and a half of freelancing, I was able to go full-time in my business!

It was so scary and so exciting at the same time. After some time passed, I started to niche down from offering all kinds of digital marketing services, to just website design and search engine optimization. The reason for this was I started to have multiple clients coming to me that were unhappy with their websites (designed by someone else). Launching a website is a big milestone in a person’s business, and most people think that once they launch it- they will get an influx of leads right away.

But unfortunately, that is not true. There is sooo much work to be put into a website to get results. So I got to work. How can my clients get leads off of their website? This brought me to re-discovering the beauty of TRUE search engine optimization.
So fast forward to now, I work with clients on creating more impactful – and profitable – websites. Our agency now boasts over 80 clients, many whom have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, INC, Vanity fair, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and more.

When creating profitable websites, we first make sure that your website is able to be found on Google when someone is searching for a relevant search term. Then when they land on your website, we make sure that they resonate with the message (we are very intentional in our layout and design). Our clients have seen amazing results! Some see 50% traffic increase to their website, and a 30% increase in leads within 6 months.

An accomplishment that I am most proud of in my career is being named one of Forbes Next 1000 Inspirational Entrepreneurs in 2021. I am still pinching myself over that feature!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I don’t know why this is common– but apparently in this industry there are MANY unreliable freelancers. I’ve heard this time and time again from clients (and as recent as a couple of weeks ago)!
So it sounds super simple, but I built my reputation by creating quality work, submitting projects on time, and communicating with the client.

You would think everyone would follow this protocol. But I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard of past freelancers my clients would work with. People may provide quality work, but they tend to not communicate the timelines, miss deadlines, be unresponsive to clients, not communicate if they will be late on a project, etc. I just can’t believe it!

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

I mentioned earlier that after some time in offering all the digital marketing services, I decided to niche down to just website design. I was so scared to cut down my services, and offer only one type of service versus a handful. I was scared to turn down clients (and money). But in the long run, I think it was for the best. My revenue didn’t suffer, and instead my systems and process became so much smoother.
I was able to put my focus and energy into studying one side of digital marketing. It helped me not be spread too thin, trying to keep up with all of the digital marketing trends. When I started focusing on just website design leads, my clients started to see results quicker. And I was able to become a true website design and SEO expert.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mbmagency.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mariyabentz
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariyabentz/