We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michelle Thames. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michelle below.
Michelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to help creative entrepreneurs make money doing what they love. I was fired from my healthcare job in 2016 and decided to go full force with my creative business. I’ve since made multiple figures from organic social media.
Michelle, 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 am a fired healthcare worker turned award-winning marketing strategist. I went from working a 9-5 with two master’s degrees to being able to work from home and spend more time with my family, travel and create a living doing things that I love! I pivoted careers at the age of 30 when most people think it’s too late to start something new. I took my skills and expertise and began to build a digital service-based business helping small and mid-size businesses build marketing campaigns.
I got the opportunity to work for one of the top healthcare and beauty brands (Mielle Organics) as their first digital marketing manager. I now help creative entrepreneurs build passion-led businesses. I provide 1:1 consulting and mentoring for online business owners who want to grow and scale leveraging organic digital marketing.
I am most proud of my podcast Social Media Decoded for hitting 100k downloads and being named one of the Top 10 social media podcasts to listen to! We are also in the top 1.5% of podcasts globally!
I want people to know that my main goal is to help business owners understand marketing better so that their businesses can thrive!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I started back in 2009 building my blog and YouTube channel. Back then “influencer” wasn’t as hot of a term as it is now. I built my following on Instagram by being reposted on other popular pages in the beginning. When that ran out I had to come up with a real strategy on how I could reach more people. I pivoted from natural hair and niched down. I started to create content geared toward my ideal client’s needs and started to see some change. My advice to anyone just starting out is to be patient. Also to try different things. There is no one way to build your brand on social media but you have to be patient and know that it will take time.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I was fired from my healthcare job in 2016 with no plan. I am a mom and a wife and I had to truly figure out what to do next in order to support my family. I gave myself one day of a “pity party” and then I got to work networking within my network to figure out the next best plan of action. I reached out about a few freelance writing gigs and I ended up landing a job writing for Naturallycurly.com. Other opportunities started to present themselves as I started to put action toward what I wanted. I now make multiple six figures from my online businesses! I turned that tragedy into triumph.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stan.store/michellelthames
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellelthames
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.bridges.503
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-thames/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/michellethames_
Image Credits
Headshot- Michelle Dokes Photography Ajah Lexi Productions – other photos