Brad Post, Create the Movement, host
Amanda Woods, Social Savant Consulting
Brad Post, Create the Movement, host: Welcome back to Create the Movement podcast. This is Brad Post Post, and I’m very excited to introduce a friend of mine, Amanda Woods with Social Savant Consulting. Amanda, how are you doing today?
Amanda Woods, Social Savant Consulting: Hey, I’m doing great. How are you doing?
BP: Good, good. Glad to have you with us. I think we’ve been friends for three, four years, or less? Or, more? Right?
AW: Yeah.
- Amanda’s Background in Tech
BP: And you’ve been doing some exciting stuff in the social media space for a long time now. Right?
AW: Yes.
BP: So, your website, socialsavantconsulting.com. Correct?
AW: It is. It’s actually Social Savant is the way you pronounce it. I know. It’s French, right? But, yeah.
BP: Awesome. Tell us a little bit about Social Savant and just little bit about your history.
AW: First of all, thank you so much for having me on. I feel really honored that you asked me. I’ve been listening to your podcast for awhile now, so it’s an honor to be on and get to share.
BP: Oh, so you’re the one listener that we have? I was wondering who that was.
[laughter]
AW: I promoted. You should get more listeners. I’ve actually been kind of on-and-off in some form in the IT-digital marketing space for, oh my goodness, I guess 14 or 15 years. I graduated high school in 2000, and my husband and I actually started working at the technology company in a small town in Kentucky shortly after that. This is when people were just beginning to do a lot paper document conversion to electronic documents, management systems. So, that’s what our company did. And we also had partnered with a medical software management company. And I helped to market and promote that. And this when iPads and mobile devices were becoming used more largely by physicians and doctors. That was forever ago!
And on-and-off through the years after we moved to Tulsa, again, worked for a couple of technology companies. But the last five years, I’ve really spent the majority in ministry. I worked for a small church here in town and we helped to build a really large international network. I think of it like a fellowship of ministries. Starting with nothing and was able to scale that to online audiences over 10000. We had an online radio station. We had an annual international conference. Just a lot of great things going on there.
Throughout all of that, social media marketing, of course, has been a big part of what I do. And then training and consulting for these ministries and helping them to get their message out, has been a big part of what I’ve done. So, it was really time to venture out on my own.
And so, that’s what I did January 1st.
BP: That’s exciting. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship.
AW: Yeah!
- Social Savant and Empowering Clients
BP: What would you say is the one thing that is really exciting to you in your business right now, besides launching a new website?
AW: First of all, what I do is Social Savant Consulting. We’re sort of a boutique social media, advertising, and consulting agency. And I say ‘boutique’ because normally when you think of an ad agency you think of large scale. Taking on smaller clients and being able to help them reach their target audience and get their message across clearly. My mission is to empower clients. I want them to be able to see a return on their marketing investment and results on their bottom line. And believe it or not, that actually makes me stand out from some of the local media experts in town.
I’m really focusing a lot less on popularity and a lot more on results. I don’t care as much as the audience size as making sure it’s the right audience. That’s kind of what I’m focused on.
Something I’m really excited about right now, in keeping in line with that, is even though I’ve been doing consult for a few years now several years back, even 3 or 5 years ago, I would need to bring a lot of preliminary stats to the table. And I’d really have to educate people first and foremost on the validity of social before we could even move forward. So, it’s really exciting to me now that, for the most part, we can dive right into discussing ways that we can break through the clutter and just start beginning to put a plan together right away.
So, that’s exciting to me. That we don’t have to initially lead with that. Another thing is live video content. It’s really the last year or two years it has been just skyrocketing. And I like this because I feel like it gives people an insider look, and I feel like it requires a certain vulnerability and transparency. Which I still have some difficulty with, honestly. But the more I do it the more comfortable I get.
BP: You mentioned lived video, but what are some of the productivity tools, software that you use every day? Probably Facebook or your phone?
[laughter]
AW: Right! Swiping through all the apps this weeks. Probably my top one right now is going to be Canva because of content creation and management. I’m doing a lot of graphic design, images. And I’m not a graphic designer and I don’t claim to be one so Canva’s a great tool for me.
Facebook ads manager. I’m on that everyday. Google Analytics.
BP: Definitely. What would you say is the biggest pain point that you’ve been dealing with in your business?
AW: Granted, it’s been 10 weeks.
BP: Yes. Maybe more in the social media space?
AW: Sure. I do have a personal, I don’t know if I’d call it a pain point as much as a challenge to me, and I actually enjoy that. Right now, I’m looking to outsource as much as possible, right away. So, as I just mentioned, I’m not a graphic designer, so I’m partnering with a couple of local designers. And looking for videographers and copywriters. Which I noticed you had one on your podcast. I think it was the last podcast. So that was exciting to me. I thought, “I need to contact.”
And doing so on bootstrap budget. So, the challenger seems to be assembling a team whose work I admire because they’re putting together brilliant, artistic expression. Thinking outside of the box. But they’re also great with time management and communication. And that’s essential to me since it’s going to be my name and it’s going to be me on the line. Right?
So, that’s been the biggest challenge I’m having right now, assembling that team.
- The Best Business Advice Ever Received
BP: Yeah, because you want to be efficient and effective, but also profitable at the same time. What would you say is the best business advice that you’ve ever received?
AW: I think I mentioned that I came out this ministry bubble the last five years, and I’ve got a lot of great things to say about transformation things, about heart beliefs, identity, and what got me here and what gave me the courage to launch out.
I have a friend, you know Ryan Luelf, and he says this numerous times, and it’s the first thing that came to mind. He says, “Be who you be, because who you are is enough.” So, I don’t need to be everything to everyone. And as much as as I want people to hire me, I’m not a good fit for everyone and not everyone’s a good fit for me. My time is limited, your time’s limited and valuable, and I believe being a good steward and having high integrity means not allowing this desire for growth, or the desire to make money, cloud my judgment when it comes to taking on new projects and even in forging partnerships that make good sense. I’m only going to proceed if I truly believe there’s an opportunity to produce excellent results from my clients. That’s it.
- Amanda’s Recommended Books and Podcasts
BP: That’s good stuff. You chuckled before the podcast but I think that’s very solid. I like it. What would you say are some of the books that you recommend to our listeners, or to our one listener. What book would you recommend to yourself?
AW: To myself. [laughter] Me and you Brad. I’m a bookworm, I’m not going to lie, I’m really a bookworm. So, this one was a little bit tough for me. So, I did my top four.
One that I just got through reading is called ‘Go for No!’ Have you heard of that one?
BP: No.
AW: I need to find the author because I can’t remember the author’s name. Basically what it’s talking about is people have this idea that they need avoid pitfalls. They need to avoid failures. They need to avoid ‘no’s.’ And what he is saying is that those failures, those pitfalls, those perceived setbacks, are the way to success. They are the way to the ‘yes.’ You should actually be seeking them. You should actually seek as many of them as you can. It’s by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz – ‘Go for No!’
Can I name a couple of more?
BP: Absolutely!
AW: For advertising, ‘Ogilvy on Advertising.’ This guy was like the original Mad Man. I don’t know if you’ve read that one, but that one is lovely. He is basically talking about how to start an advertising agency and how you work with teams. It’s a creative look and they’ve got all kinds of different ads in there to study and think about.
BP: David Ogilvy, I think? Okay, cool.
AW: Yeah. There’s one called ‘The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.’ And this is by Gary Keller.
BP: Okay, I’ve heard of that.
AW: And this one is about obviously paring down to the one thing, not trying to be everything to everyone, and then being able to produce excellence.
And then my last one that I put on the list is, this one’s a Christian book, but I think that all of the concepts in it apply strongly to anyone, no matter what your religious background is. ‘Moving Your Invisible Boundaries’ by Dr. Jim Richards. And that one goes back to what I was saying about discovering wrong belief systems that you have that, and then being able to transform and replace those.
BP: Good stuff.
AW: Yeah.
BP: Besides our podcast, is there any other podcasts that you would recommend?
AW: So, I’m a really big podcaster, too? I’m a mom. So, I’ve got two school drop offs in the morning, and then I’ve got pickups, and I’ve got all this drive time everyday before and after work. So, a big podcaster. ‘Social Media Marketing Podcast’ with Michael Stelzner – that’s my top. ‘The Art of Paid Traffic’ with Rick Mulready is a good one. ‘Foundr’ – with Nathan Chan. ‘Genius Network’ is a good one. And ‘Build Your Tribe’ with Chalene Johnson. That’s a good one.
BP: You are a podcaster! That’s awesome.
AW: I am. That’s only a few of them.
BP: That’s great. Well, Amanda is there anything else that you want to share?
AW: Yeah. I think I want to encourage the listeners.
BP: Yeah, go for it.
- Closing Thoughts
AW: I want to encourage us. If I can speak out, I just want to say I meet basically weekly who have found themselves burned out on social media efforts that didn’t seem to make a difference. And either themselves, their team, or even outsourcing, they believed that they’ve tried it and that it just didn’t work for them. And they want to give up. I would just encourage people to reach out, contact me. I do free consulting and assessments. Right now, I’m actually looking for some case studies for increasing my portfolio for this year since I am a start up. So, I’m doing a lot of pro bono stuff because my heart’s desire is to see people be empowered and show them that this is powerful and this does work. Don’t give up. Facebook, Instagram, they’re still the most powerful platforms for reaching your audience. Just knowing how do it. Allowing me the opportunity to come in and help assess and maybe give some advice. And help with things that people can put into place so they can see immediate results. And get that hope back that this is going to be powerful for you. Encourage them to forge ahead with that.
BP: Awesome. They can find you online: socialsavantconsulting.com. Savant. Right? And then also on Facebook and probably every other know social media.
AW: Yes. And you can also email me amanda@socialsavantconsulting.com
BP: Perfect. Awesome. Well thank you so much Amanda for being on with us today. It’s been fun.
AW: Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
