Conversations with the Inspiring Shauna Armitage

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shauna Armitage.

Shauna, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I originally wanted to be a teacher, but I struggled with taking the teaching exams and opted to graduate in three years versus four so I could move home. Without the tests, finding a job was impossible, and I ended up going back to school for a degree in professional writing just two years later. The economy wasn’t doing so hot in 2011 when I graduated with my second degree, and I was sending out resume after resume without getting any interviews at all. A cousin suggested that I try virtual assistance work, and within two weeks, I had landed my first gig.

My VA work naturally transitioned into blog writing projects, website content development projects, and the like as I sought to make a reasonable living from freelancing. In 2014, I was hired full time onto a digital marketing agency team as the Director of Digital Media to develop all the content for all of our clients. While I did enjoy the writing, I learned a lot about marketing as a whole during this time and started to branch out into other areas to support the team.

After only nine months working for the agency, they merged with a larger company that decided to cut our entire department… and I was back to freelancing once more. I quickly got a position as an SEO Coach for a great organization but left that job a year and a half later for what I thought would be the opportunity of a lifetime.

The guy who had hired me in the first marketing agency had recently launched an agency of his own. He loved my work and wanted me to come on board to help him grow the company. At first, the job was as dreamy as I had imagined, but after a few months, cracks were starting to show everywhere. Focus shifted from getting clients results to simply landing more and more clients. Team members were missing deadlines and no one was being held accountable for the work. I didn’t feel good about what was going on and tried to speak to my boss about it… and then I was fired.

Only six months into this big career shift and I found myself without a job with three young children at home three weeks before my husband was to deploy to the Middle East for half a year. I was terrified.

After a lot of tears and a solid weekend of feeling sorry for myself, I bought a domain and launched my own marketing company. I had seen how founders had felt mistreated by other marketing companies, and I was determined to do this thing right.

I struggled for about a year, not being able to bring on enough business to do more than pay for daycare. A little after my one-year-in-business anniversary, an early-stage startup company came to me and asked me to run their marketing department. I already had one early-stage startup that I was currently working with, and that’s when it clicked… this was my niche!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitely not been a smooth road! I probably changed my service offerings 5 or 6 times in the two years I’ve been in business trying to figure out what I could offer that people would actually pay for. Client acquisition was one of my biggest struggles because I didn’t see myself as a salesperson, so I avoided doing anything sales related. When I finally took ownership of the struggles I was experiencing in my business and confronted them head on—instead of trying to hire someone to fix them for me—things started to happen.

For young women who are just getting started on their journey, I would say there’s a lot that you don’t know, that you don’t know. You can’t solve problems if you don’t know they exist. So, find a mentor. It could be a friend or family member who has gone down this road before or a social media influencer who gives you actionable, tangible advice. Listen and learn. Take action. There was so much I didn’t understand about running a business in the beginning and tuning into the experiences of others was key to my success.

I’d also say that it’s incredibly important that you care. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me how impressed they are by my “confidence.” In truth, I’m not always that confident—what they experienced was my passion in action.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Marketers tend to be consultants—who don’t support the actual execution of a marketing plan—or agencies—which handle everything for you, but can be pricey and disengaged. My work bridges that gap. I come on board as an active marketing director for early-stage startups taking ownership of the entire marketing program from strategy straight through to execution and optimization.

These three things drive me:

Innovation. Early stage startups have big ideas and small budgets. They need to get creative to spread the word about their awesomeness.

Effectiveness. Creativity is great, but all the ideas in the world mean nothing if they aren’t actionable. Marrying big ideas with analytics and data helps startups reach their goals.

Integrity. We’ve all been burned in business before. Startup founders work too hard to waste energy and funds on companies that aren’t personally invested in their success.

What truly sets me apart from others is the relationships I build with my clients. I found early on that with a reasonably large retainer fee like mine, long contracts were the single biggest barrier to closing a deal. Everyone has had an experience where they have signed a contract with a marketer for three or six months and then got stuck paying even when the work wasn’t getting done… so I don’t do contracts. My work with all my clients is month to month, and I strongly believe that if I treat them right, I have no need for contracts because they won’t want to go anywhere else. So far, this belief has rung true and the majority of my clients stick with for a year or more until they’re ready for a full-time hire in their business.

For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
Honestly, I think women need to create their own opportunities. I knew that the traditional 9-5 was out of the question with young kids at home and my husband serving in the military, but I still wanted a job that I was deeply passionate about. With the internet connecting all of us and more and more companies taking advantage of the gig economy, there’s so much opportunity for women to learn new skills and find rewarding work that fits with the lifestyle of their choosing.

Women tend to be more comfortable in the presence of other women, so I think even more opportunities are created when we look for ways to support other female founders.

Pricing:

• Marketing Director Retainer – $2,500 per month
• Small Business Growth Consulting – $1,000 for 4 one-hour consulting sessions

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ShaunaArmitage.com
• Email: shauna@makingmoxie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shauna.armitage/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMObyshaunaarmitage
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/shauna_armitage/

Image Credit:
Shauna Armitage

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.