We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Megan Merola a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Megan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
I started by simply offering services to business owners for free or at a very low cost. Especially when you are young, it is imperative I believe to go above and beyond early stages in your career in order to make a name for yourself. I firmly believe it pays off.
Once I was able to generate positive word of mouth, the money came right back to me in tenfold, because we now had several business owners willing to pay good money, as opposed to the one or two I started off with.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Megan Merola, otherwise known as Meg. I am a graduate from the University of Tampa. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, in the travel and construction business. I am from Upstate New York, and now reside in Tampa, Florida. I love fitness and my family and friends.
I have always had a passion for entrepreneurship, but never really knew what I wanted to do with it. I tried wellness services, writing, editing , and eventually stumbled upon social media after a few changes to my major in college.
I am super proud of Merola Media, the company that initiated BluHouse Socials. I love the wide range of companies we get to work with, and seeing the results that come of good social media and PR.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn doing everything alone and striving for this “picture perfect” image. When you own a business, you realize fairly quickly you can’t be 10 people at once and maintain quality. I had to learn to outsource and trust the people I work with.
I started this on my own, and was stuck working 12 hour days that eventually lead to an all out burnout metldown—which is never worth it.
I would say to anyone with a dream, it is okay to get help, it is actually BEST to cultivate a team that cares the way you do.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met Kyle at UTampa, and we were friends since sophomore year.
I started freelancing social media management by junior-senior year of college as a way to make extra spending money. Overtime, I began to get enough clients via word of mouth and through networking where I slowly began to turn it into my full time gig. Kyle, an insanely talented videographer and photographer, seemed like the perfect fit for a partnership, because we could now offer all these new clients social media marketing AND elevated content,
The rest is history and we have never looked back!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bluhousesocials.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluhousesocials/?__d=1
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blu-house-socials/?viewAsMember=true
Image Credits
Kyle Flynn [email protected]