#awinewith Sam McFarlane
MEET Sam, founder Sam Says.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Amazing. Sam, welcome to Spark tv. So excited to have you here.
Sam McFarlane (00:11):
Thanks so much for having me, Danielle. I'm really excited to chat to you today.
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
So good. Let's kick things off just by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Sam McFarlane (00:20):
Great. So my name's Sam McFarland and my business is samsa. So I'm a social media strategist and consultant, and I work with other businesses to help them create content that helps 'em stand out online.
Danielle Lewis (00:36):
I love it because we all bloody need to be on social media these days.
Sam McFarlane (00:41):
I think we do. I think it's a bit like the old, the Yellow Pages. If you're a business owner, you had to have a listing in the Yellow Pages or you weren't really on in business. And now I think that that sort of goes with social media. You have to have all that content going out consistently as a form of marketing really.
Danielle Lewis (01:03):
Yeah, and I feel like, I mean actually, well you're the expert. Let me get your thoughts on this. I always think even if social media isn't exactly your selling tool, it's not exactly your selling platform. I still feel like you still need to keep it really current because it's almost like your digital real estate. It's like your shop front. I know if I go to someone's say Instagram and it's not been updated, I'm like, I dunno if they're still around, not going to waste my time trying to check it out. I'll just move on and start to look for somebody else. What are your thoughts on that?
Sam McFarlane (01:38):
Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think yes, we have a website which tells everyone about who we are and what we do, but then people are doing their research and then they're going over to social media and I'm like you, if someone hasn't been consistently updating their social media profile, then I kind of think, well, maybe they're not in business anymore. And then yeah, I'd just move on to the next one. So I do see it as an extension of your business and your website really.
Danielle Lewis (02:06):
Yeah, I feel like you can get really, if you do sell through socials, absolutely go nuts on strategy and trying all the things and whatever it looks like for you. But yeah, I just feel like businesses really need to keep things updated and consistent in some kind of way, even if they're not planning on using social as their primary sales strategy.
Sam McFarlane (02:34):
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean it doesn't have to be posting every day or multiple times a day even. It can be whatever the cadence that is going to suit your business, just stick to that, but be consistent in that process.
Danielle Lewis (02:49):
Yeah, I love that. Do you have any tips for people who find it hard to be consistent on social media?
Sam McFarlane (02:57):
I would say that batch creating content is probably the number one thing to be doing if you're really struggling with consistency. Because what you'll find is once you sit down and allocate that time to come up with an idea or two more ideas will come to you just because I don't know what it is, it's just the nature of it. We give ourselves that space and time to actually focus and the ideas will sort of flow through. So I sort of plan out, and obviously I'm creating content for clients and I'll do a month in advance, but even if you're sort of just sitting down and allocating one hour a week or whatever it is and thinking, okay, what do I need to be putting out? What's happening in the business? What can I be sharing with my audience? What can I be educating them on? Just coming up with those different ideas. And then so allocating time, but then having your content pillars outlined as well so you can sort of match the different content ideas to the content pillars and then schedule out in advance.
Danielle Lewis (04:03):
I love it. I am a huge batch creator myself because I cannot show up every day consistently. I literally just can't do it. It really hurts my brain thinking that I've got to do something again and again and again and again. It's like doing the dishes for me. I'm like, what the hell? Why does this happen to me every day? Exactly. So I could not agree with you more. I love just that. And you're so right when you do give yourself that space to brainstorm, the ideas do start to flow, but I think even it's good to just keep a bit of a brainstorm list. I have just a little to-do list in my Clickup platform, and anytime I think of an idea, I'll just chuck it in there so that when I do get to the batch creating day, I'm almost like a step ahead of myself.
Sam McFarlane (04:53):
Such a good idea. And you could even use notes on your phone or something like that if you don't have clickup. But yeah, collating those ideas when they come to you at those random times, like you say, you're sort of a step ahead of that whole creation process. So I kind of see it a bit like when you batch cook or you cook a big sort of meal and then you portion it out meal. Yeah. How good do you feel? Do you feel like you're so organized and on top of the world, right, because you've got your meal sorted. It's a bit like that really being socials.
Danielle Lewis (05:26):
Oh my god, I love it. Meal prep for socials. We should just copyright that as a brand business idea.
Sam McFarlane (05:33):
Yeah, it's going to take off.
Danielle Lewis (05:35):
Yeah. It's so clever. I love it. I love it. What's your opinion? This is so funny. I did a little reel about this last week, but it was because I had two or three different women in business. Say this to me. What's your opinion about founders or business owners like women in business now being the face of the brand and showing up themselves on socials? Do you think that's important or do you think we can get away with not doing it? Or what do you stand?
Sam McFarlane (06:05):
I think it's so important because people want to buy from people who they know and trust. We go to a website these days and if I don't see who's in the business no about me, about me or about the team, I will just move on to the next one. I want to know who I'm going to be working with. And so I can guess get to know them better on that level. I know that I'm going to be dealing with Danielle or another member of the team, whereas you go to those websites and there's just nothing about the team. Or it could be a hundred thousand people or it could be one who is it? So I do think it's really important for building that and trust essentially.
Danielle Lewis (06:50):
Yeah, I feel like I totally agree with you. I feel like women just feel a little bit not confident in front of the camera sometimes, and because of that kind of go put it off a little bit.
Sam McFarlane (07:06):
Oh, so easy. And I hate video. I, I'm one of those people that
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Apologies in advance for this podcast.
Sam McFarlane (07:16):
No, all good. But it's fine when I'm chatting with someone, but when I have to do a face to, I'm like, oh, here we are. But I think that it is really important and thinking about how you can do that in a way that is going to feel natural for you. I was talking to a photographer and videographer the other day, and he shared with me how he found, I think she was an interior stylist or maybe she was, I think an interior stylist. And what she'd done is she'd set up her phone on the side and was recording her on talking to the computer basically. So it was as if she was having a meeting, maybe we are today. And she just recorded the whole conversation and then she was able to pull snippets from that. So it wasn't just her having to sit face to camera and talk. It was just a nice angle. And I think that probably for me that felt a lot more comfortable to do that rather than just having the camera in front of my face as if I'm having a conversation. And that's all it needs to be. It's literally just a conversation. If you were meeting someone in the street, what would you say?
Danielle Lewis (08:25):
It's just
Sam McFarlane (08:26):
Keeping it real and natural, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (08:30):
Yeah. And it's nice to find these hacks. I feel like sometimes we see what other people do on social media and we think, well, if I'm not on stage in the suit or I'm not how people talk while they're putting their makeup on, I'm like, I could never do that. I don't. Oh,
Sam McFarlane (08:50):
I know. Get it. How do they do that?
Danielle Lewis (08:52):
Oh my God.
Sam McFarlane (08:53):
Multitasking. Yeah, I know. I know mean it's hard enough to do, especially your eye makeup without having to have a conversation as well. But there are some very skilled people out there. And I even see people, I'm not sure about the one though, where people are driving. I get a bit nervous when they're recording and driving. I'm just not sure about that
Danielle Lewis (09:14):
Same, I have had enough time paying attention focusing. I don't need to be thinking about a speech I'm giving to the side camera as well. I don't think that would end well. I know, I do love your suggestion though. Find something that works for you. And even if you set up your camera and you go, yeah, I don't want to speak to the camera, but you just do the little side turn and just start talking. It really takes the pressure off, doesn't
Sam McFarlane (09:43):
It? Yeah, so much. Yeah. I couldn't believe how easier it made it feel when you're recording video content. Just doing it like that. And I know a lot of people will set up their camera to have that sort of, I've just lost the word. There's a word for it, but B
Speaker 3 (10:02):
B-roll.
Sam McFarlane (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, the B-roll footage. So yeah, you just, and you speed it up and whatever, but I think that that can also work really well also and just have your overlay text on the back over the top.
Danielle Lewis (10:15):
Yeah, and it's cool too because I think if we're feeling like I don't want to be that glam today, by the time you've kind of got a filter and all of this text over you, it doesn't really matter how much makeup on you've got on or whether you've done your hair today or whatever. You can kind of get away with a few little imperfections, which I like.
Sam McFarlane (10:36):
Yeah, for sure. And the other thing is no one is seeing those imperfections that you see of yourself. Everyone's so busy thinking about their own imperfections that they're not even looking at yours. They're sort of listening and getting the goodness out of what you're saying.
Danielle Lewis (10:53):
Oh, I love that so much. That too. I have literally a post-it note here of a reel I was supposed to make that Oh yeah, look, it's literally right here. And it says, no one is paying attention to you. Yeah, because it's true. We are all Yes, yes. The message you have is valuable and you should be putting that out. But people don't care. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they really are not going to judge you for your eyeshadow or lipstick or lack thereof.
Sam McFarlane (11:20):
Yeah, exactly. And if they do, then they're not your people anyway. Oh my. So it's best just to offend them so that they can move on.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
It's best to offend them so they can move on. Yes. I'm so here for that. I hope you're offended by my lack of dry to my dry shirt
Sam McFarlane (11:38):
Today people and move right along to the next
Danielle Lewis (11:41):
Person. Oh my God, that is so good. I love it. Amazing. So how did you even get into this? How did you get to starting a social media agency services? Love it.
Sam McFarlane (11:55):
I know. So it certainly wasn't something that I set out to do when I was a teenager at school or whatever, but it basically, I have a background in marketing. So I studied marketing at uni, and then I worked in corporate in marketing over the years, and I had children. And so I went part-time in my corporate role, and my son was going to be starting school the following year. And I started to think, oh my God, how am I going to manage working school hours, school holidays? I just dunno how I'm going to do that and keep a part-time job. And I had a manager that kept saying, when are you going full time? And I was like, well, I'm never going back full time. I can't ever imagine that happening in the near future. So it started me thinking, what am I going to do?
(12:45):
So I looked at other roles that were around at that time. So this is 12 years ago now. I would've been looking and all the roles that were marketing based roles needed some form of social media. So I thought, okay, I better go out and learn social media, whatever that is. I'd used Facebook obviously from a personal perspective, but not from a business perspective. So once I learned a little bit more about social media, it suddenly dawned on me that there must be a need for a done for you social media service for a small business owner. And so that's sort of where the idea came from and luckily it worked out, and I'm here to tell the tale those years later, which, yeah, that's sort of how it all came about.
Danielle Lewis (13:35):
So good. I love it. And how has it gone? How did you find taking the leap from being an employee into being a business owner? I mean, sure, from a skillset point of view, you're still delivering the same, but now you've got all of this added complexity of running your own business. What was that like?
Sam McFarlane (13:55):
Yeah, it was a massive shift, and I guess I just had to thank God for the internet,
(14:05):
Had to do a lot of research and really rely on groups like Spark with other women in business for support and for networking opportunities as well. So it's completely different when you're in the corporate world, you don't have to think about that sort of thing, but once you start your own business, you all of a sudden need to go out and meet new people. So I think there was a lot of research, a lot of late nights on the computer when the kids were in bed looking up different things. But yeah, I'd have to say that going and finding groups and being a part of a community like Spark has probably been the number one thing to get me through and have those conversations with other people. And then of course, business opportunities come up as a result also.
Danielle Lewis (15:01):
Yeah. I must admit, I am a part of five different women in business membership groups, and I just love how we are so supportive of each other, whether it is, oh, who's a social media person or who's a website designer, or who's this or who's that? Pooling of work opportunities for each other is so cool. But even so, we had one of the Spark monthly virtual coffee meetings this morning, and it was just everyone was like, I'm just fucking lonely sitting in my house with no one to talk to. And it was really crazy. I think everyone on that call just had that same vibe and wanted to show up and just talk to somebody. I think that's a huge challenge. Yes. I'm like, okay, now I need to be a bookkeeper and my own marketing person and this and that and that. And there's so much you can learn from the web and whatever, but I don't think anyone prepares you for the isolation of being a business owner.
Sam McFarlane (16:03):
No, I know. And so that's so great about these online communities, which is I guess a lot of that we can be, there were some good things that did come out of of Covid, which is probably that ability to jump online and everyone's used to it now. And so I think it's probably something that would've saved me because it is really lonely when you're working for yourself, and you also have to motivate yourself, especially if you're working from home, there's lots of other things that you could be doing rather than sitting at your desk. Yeah. And I've got animals that I can talk to, but they don't respond. So these types of communities, great. It's when
Danielle Lewis (16:48):
They do start to respond, that's when you need to be worried. I'm in trouble. Oh my God. It is funny. And that was actually coming up for me this week was I just think because I'm at home, I should be working. It's just like I want to fill the hours. And I go, well, because my partner, he works in mining, so he's gone by six o'clock in the morning home after six o'clock at night. So there's this really long period of time that I'm filling, and I just almost feel bad if I'm not filling it with work. But then I'm like, we got into this business to also be flexible and have a life. And yeah, I struggle with that a little bit as well when you're in your own home just pacing around what do I do? And staring into the void that it's just a little confronting sometimes. So it is nice to just be on a call, be on a podcast, be on a virtual networking event or something, just see other humans and know that we're all going through the same stuff.
Sam McFarlane (17:54):
Yeah, exactly. I think it's definitely key to keeping everything going really.
Danielle Lewis (18:00):
No, I love it. And what do you think has been the biggest challenge for you? I mean, I know we've just touched on wearing all the hats and the isolation of business ownership, but what do you think in terms of moving from employee to business owner, you found the most challenging through that time?
Sam McFarlane (18:19):
I think that it's probably keeping yourself motivated to keep on going, but also, and all the things that we've talked about, building that community, but then I guess finding clients that want to work with you again.
Danielle Lewis (18:37):
How did you go about building early client base?
Sam McFarlane (18:41):
So I was very lucky. I had a friend that who was one of the main reasons why I started my own business. She was like, you've got to leave the corporate job. There's so much more. And I was like, what is that more? I don't understand it. And so once I came to that decision of doing Facebook for business owners, she actually had some work that she needed done, and she had some clients that she could hand over to me as well. So I did rely a lot on her initially, I guess, for feeding work through. So I was very lucky there in that respect. And then just joining other groups, I guess, and being on directory listings and going out to networking events. And it was just a lot of going and meeting different people and having lots of conversations
Danielle Lewis (19:39):
Doing your own socials.
Sam McFarlane (19:42):
Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (19:46):
No, and so it is interesting. I find that people often start their own businesses with a skill that's the thing that they're good at, and they want to go into delivery mode and spend a lot of time looking after perhaps those couple of clients that they left their business for, but then having to put on that salesperson hat and network a hat and marketer hat can be a little daunting. But I think you do just have to put yourself out there in the early days. It's just no shame. We're all in this together. We're all putting ourselves out there. The more places you can get your name, your business name, and what it is you're known for, that can only lead to good things.
Sam McFarlane (20:31):
Yeah, exactly. And I think in the sort of work that I do, you have to do that consistently as well, because I know that during times when I've gotten really busy and I haven't been out there networking, I certainly feel that sort of six months down the track when maybe the pipeline isn't blowing as much as I would like it to be. So yeah, it's sort of just constantly going. Finding those groups that you find are a supportive network for you, and just showing up and having conversations with people. But yeah, it's just sort of one foot in front of the other and just getting back out there again. And sometimes some days you might not feel like it, but you always know that once you've been and had those conversations, I usually find really, I get so energized from them, and I'm really glad that I did make the effort in the end rather than just giving into myself and saying, oh yeah, you can just stay home. It's cold outside, or it's dark, or whatever, excuse that I can come up with. I'm tired. Or, yeah, it is just, it's like being consistent on socials. You've got to just consistently be out there and having conversations with people.
Danielle Lewis (21:47):
Yeah, it is so true. Definitely. I know it's funny, I'm a salesperson by trade, but I've still gotten myself into those situations where I'm like, oh, go, go, go. Everything's so good. We've got so much work on and put that networking or sales outreach or whatever it is to the bottom of the pile and gone, oh my God, what the hell? That contract ended or that campaign ended, what the hell am I going to do? So now I have diarized every day, one hour, even if it's just an hour or half an hour where at least things are going out into the universe, and so that things will come around eventually. So yeah, I just love that sentiment that you do have to consistently put yourself out there because otherwise, yes, you can find yourself in a sticky spot
Sam McFarlane (22:38):
For sure. And I've really enjoyed going through, you've got a program available also for Spark members, which is the sales, I'm not sure what it's called, but I'm sort of going
Danielle Lewis (22:50):
Through that it called, it's called Sort Your Sales Shit Out. That's
Sam McFarlane (22:53):
Right, yes. And it's great. I'm going through that at the moment, and yeah, you sort of take these things for granted. But yeah, it's so important, such an important part of business,
Danielle Lewis (23:09):
And it's nice when you can find what works for you. I mean, it's interesting because there are so many different things that you can do for sales and marketing. You could list a hundred different ideas that you could do, but you don't have to do all a hundred to find the ones that work for you, whether it is directories or networking events or whatever it is, and just make sure that you're consistently investing in those avenues.
Sam McFarlane (23:35):
Yeah, yeah. I loved that because yeah, it doesn't have to be icky and the sort of stuff that you dread. You just find something that works for you and keep repeating that, and it feels a lot more natural that way, rather than forced and uncomfortable.
Danielle Lewis (23:51):
Yeah, exactly. I love that. That's kind been the theme for the podcast today. Do things Your way, whatever that looks like. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (24:00):
That's so amazing. Well, I always love to leave these conversations with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman in business on her journey?
Sam McFarlane (24:17):
I think it really, it just comes down to finding that supportive community that you feel comfortable in. Because without that network of other supportive women in business, business is a really lonely journey. And there's good times and there's not so good times. And I think if you can find that group, that network that is there to support you and you can support others as well, I think that that's probably the key to what's kept me going all these years.
Danielle Lewis (24:54):
I love it. You are absolutely amazing. Sam. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your tips. I know I've gotten a few out of today, so I appreciate you so much.
Sam McFarlane (25:06):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been great chatting to you today, Danielle.
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