We recently connected with Mickiala Williams and have shared our conversation below.
Mickiala, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
When you hear the word “Coupon”, it often makes people cringe and dive into judgement. Judgement of economic failure from that person, or they fit into a specific demographic and overall instant disgust. On social media, I’m known as “The Coupon Genius” and I’m not your typical Couponer. Yes, I go inside the stores and do the traditional price drop at the registers which is what Couponing is, but there is something I do differently in the finance industry. And yes, Couponing is nothing more than finance. Shocker, right? You use you’re money to spend to get the low cost items but what I do differently is I teach you how to earn back all the money you spend on these purchases and beyond. As I stated before, Couponing is going to those tradition stores but it’s far more than that. You can use coupons and promo codes on Amazon to save, I’m an Amazon Influencer and livestream there every week to capture this. Second, I have an online course called “Teach Me How To Coupon Bootcamp” where I teach people how to Coupon in a genius way whether they are new or have 20 years of experience so they can eliminate debt, increase their income, learn how to shop and use Coupons in every aspect of their lives outside of the traditional ways, etc. Anytime I hear someone say, they can’t afford something, they are in debt of some sort or looking for more income, I step in to assist with my services.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Unemployment pushed me into this industry in 2010. I was working in Washington DC as a Multi Functional Financial Analyst for a Fortune 500 company. Once I was laid off, I looked for temporary ways to save money. That’s where Couponing came into play. I started Couponing and posting deals on my personal Facebook page and caught the attention of my family and friends and eventually the outside world. Grew my following online and converted over to a business. I started teaching Couponing online to solve a problem that I noticed people had while shopping. They lacked making more money, they lacked understanding what Couponing really is (mindset issues), they lacked learning how to eliminate debt, all while complaining about these things as an adult.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Currently, I have 100,000+ followers on TikTok, 20,000+ on Instagram, 5,000 on Amazon, just to name a few. How did I do it? I did it completely delusional. I get comments like “people really pay you to teach them how to shop/coupon” or “I can just go to YouTube to learn” and my response is “you are still watching me and all those other videos from others and still stuck”. Overall, I do not let other’s opinions stop me or affect my mental health. The vision was for me, not them. Second, my audience and any audience likes consistency. If you want consistent money, you have to do consistent things. I show up on social media, give value in my videos and in turn, tell them what to do and how to work with me in very direct and indirect ways. Third, my goal wasn’t to build my social medias at all but since I am here, my advice to others is, don’t expect a huge crowd overnight and think you need thousands of followers to make money. If you don’t know how to sale, you will make no money. Strategy is what you need to come up with.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
I use email marketing as a form of communication with my audience. I know I do not own Twitter, TikTok. Instagram, Facebook, etc so in my marketing plan, I make sure I give a CTA (Call to action) to my audience to go join my email list. That is the best option to keep in contact just in case my social media pages disappear. I’ve been doing this for the past 6 years religiously.
Contact Info:
- Website: therealcoupongenius.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/shop/thecoupongenius
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thecoupongenius
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/thecoupongenius
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecoupongenius Amazon: www.amazon.com/shop/thecoupongenius Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/buyitupcrew
Image Credits
not applicable