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Marley is the co-founder of The YouTube Lead Machine with Steve J Larsen. Their mission is to help entrepreneurs unlock the immense business-building power of YouTube and transform their businesses into daily lead generation engines and money-printing machines!

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How to Become a Social Media Manager with No Experience (Entrepreneur Tips)

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How to Become a Social Media Manager with No Experience (Entrepreneur Tips)

Get Your “Must-Have Social Media Manager Kit”

If you want to learn how to become a social media manager but you have no experience, you’ve come to the right place because that was exactly me three years ago and now today I’ve built a seven figure business where we work with clients all over the world and are able to make a massive impact and a great profit being able to do so. There’s lots of other videos on my channel too and I do put out videos every single week to support you in this journey in entrepreneurship. So be sure to subscribe for more videos just like this one.

Before I was a social media manager, I was a dental hygienist – I was working nine to five cleaning teeth. How boring. I know, right? You might be in a similar situation, whether you’re working in a nine to five or you have another business and you want to move into social media management, which is a great option because you’re able to do this from anywhere that has an internet connection. I got started with some local clients and then it grew from there. Then I started having clients on the other side of the country or even in different countries. My social media career started because when I was in the dental office, I started doing their social media on the side just cause it was something that I was good at creating content, posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever platform that they wanted to be on. I knew how to do that. Their IT guy saw that I was doing this and asked if I would be interested in supporting one of his other clients with their social media and asked if he could refer me. Well from there he referred me to all of his clients and I didn’t even realize at the time that social media was an awesome and lucrative and flexible business. So I was a dental hygienist full time.

But between patients I’d run to the bathroom and hide so I could do my social media clients work from the bathroom. And then evenings and weekends I would continue to work on my clients work until I got to the point where I was like, “This is replacing my income, maybe I can leave dental and begin to do this full time”. So for me it started through referrals that I found the opportunity to do social media for the dental office I was working for. And then the opportunities came for referral. But from there I knew that if I wanted to keep doing this, I needed to find more opportunity. So where I would suggest starting is if you have a friend or a family member or a business that you know that could use social media help, ask them if this is something that you can provide.

And if you’re just starting and you want to give them a discounted rate or something like that to get your feet wet, I would highly recommend that. However, one thing that I want to caution you on is not giving it away for free or undervaluing your service. This is a problem that I see a lot of beginner social media managers make is they undervalue themselves and because of that, it’s hard to set a boundary in the future. That’s certainly a mistake that I made in the past where I just wanted all the opportunities. I wanted to prove myself and I wanted to gain this knowledge, but then I got to a point where I was making over a hundred thousand dollars a month from the social media management that I was making for this company that when I wanted to ask for a raise or that I had to say no to, “can you work extra hours?” Or “can you do this extra for us?” They had a hard time understanding why I said no, which caused some tension between us. So make sure that whatever you do, even if you do give a discounted rate or something to benefit the client while you get your foot in the door, that you make sure that you’re setting your boundaries from the start. It’s much easier for you to set boundaries from the beginning than to try to change behavior and expectations after the fact. So start by going to someone that you might know or ask for referrals. If you have a friend or a family member that has other business owners in their circle that can use social media by putting yourself out there and saying, “Hey, this is a service that I say that I have or something that I want to start.” Another common question that you’ll get as a beginner social media manager is they’ll say, well, “can you show me some case studies or show me results that you’ve gotten for clients?”

And this is a common concern for people when it comes up and if they’re totally new and don’t have that is what can I provide as that answer? Now I don’t recommend lying and making anything up. What I do recommend is creating a result from something that you do have experience in, whether it’s your own social media page or something that maybe you learned and be able to say, “this is something that I’ve learned and this is a strategy that I would create for you and here’s the result that it created for this person. From what I’ve observed.” Now I’m not saying to take credit for that, but to say this is a case study or this is a strategy that I saw and I’ve studied and want to be able to implement for you, and because you’d be one of my first clients implementing this, this is how I’m going to do it.

But when I say investing in yourself, please know that I’m not always saying investing financially. If you have the means to pay to buy a course or pay to hire some support while you’re learning and growing, that’s great. But when I first started, I was totally bootstrapping. So what did I do? Exactly what you’re here doing, is I went to YouTube and I learned everything that I could for free from YouTube. And then as I was growing and ready to invest financially, that’s where I found some online courses or I hired an assistant. I hired a graphic designer to be able to support me in the output of work while I still had my full time job. As you’re growing in your business, you’re going to encounter some roadblocks that you’ve never faced before, so it’s going to be really important for you to find that community, whether it’s an online course or a teacher or a mentor or even other social media managers around you that you can learn from.

I have a Facebook group for this. There’s tons of other Facebook groups for entrepreneurs and social media managers that you can find for free and even be able to post in there with, “Hey, I have this challenge or this is something I’m overcome that I’m faced with” and be able to get that advice and build that community. What’s also great about that is you can find referrals to that community or people might even go into that group looking for social media managers. So another great way other than referrals and putting yourself out there or advertising on your own social media is to go to social media, go where there’s business owners, go where there’s other social media managers and look for the opportunities where you can raise your hand and say, “Hey, I would love to be able to do that for you.” LinkedIn is also a great platform to be able to message people and network and support other people with their business.

What I would recommend is there’s a ton of cold messages that go out on LinkedIn and might come across a little bit spammy. So if you are going to do some cold outreach to a business, make sure that you are adding in a personal element and showing them that you took the time to research who they are and what their business is about and why you’re passionate about it. Because if someone comes to me and is just like, “Hey, you need a social media manager.” I’m like, no, and if I did, I’ll go look for someone. I want to find the right fit for me, but if someone came to me and showed me why they were unique and why they cared about my business as much as I do, that really piques my interest and makes me want to build that relationship with them and see if they’re a good fit to work together.

For me, my first goal was to replace my nine to five income so that I could leave that and come into social media management full time. Once I was able to do that, the next goal was to grow the business so I could serve more clients, and use less of my time by being able to leverage other team members. So as you get to that place in your business, it’s so great if you can find other people to join your team, whether that’s other social media managers or if you need graphic designers or copywriters or an assistant to support you in scheduling or even just any of the implementation in your business. I would recommend when you are ready to look for people or through sites like Indeed or Upwork or onlinejobs.ph. Anyway, those are some of my favorite sites that we’ve used to find other members for our team.

But I also have a video on my channel, which is about how to grow your team and some of the processes when it comes to interviewing and applications and finding the right fit. Because for me it wasn’t just, “Hey, you’re a nice person, I’m a nice person and let’s work together.” I want to find someone that has the skills and also is a good culture fit for my company. You want to have people that have the same energy, that have the same goals, that are passionate about this, and it’s not just a job. Because I’m sure you know what it feels like to be in a job just for the money. And this is something that we’re passionate about. We want to be able to support our clients, which is in turn going to grow our businesses even bigger. So if you’re a new social media manager looking to get experience, the best way to get that experience is by getting some experiences to dive right in.

Get into practice. Even if you’re brand new, we want to grow your skills, get some referrals, learn by doing. Ask your friends and family for referrals. Practice on your own social media, learn from courses, join Facebook groups, get into a community with other social media managers that you can learn from and hey, you’re doing the right thing by being on YouTube and learning by finding other creators like us, who are willing to share this advice. And as you’re growing in your skills and even growing outside of social media management, maybe from social media, you start to learn like me video marketing. Maybe you learn web designs and graphic design, branding. From there, maybe you open up your skills that you can take on other types of clients and projects from there and as you do grow in your skills, charge more for that because you are a professional.

You’re developing your skills, which is only going to help your clients to develop their businesses and grow their business and their revenue, which you deserve to earn more money for too. Remember the phrase that “when people pay more, they pay more attention”. So although we want to say yes to every opportunity, we want to be able to grown our skills, it’s also important to price yourself at a level that your clients will take seriously. I’ve also had people that come to me that wanted to work for me or contractors I’ve hired. Then when they charge too little, I wonder if they’re amateur and if they’re not skilled enough for what I’m looking for. I personally would rather pay more and get the best quality results and make sure that when you’re pricing, you’re not pricing too low, that they don’t take you too seriously and not pricing too high that it’s out of price ranges, but something that’s fair for you and the client.

With that said, it’s also good for you to say no if the client isn’t a good fit for you. I’ve personally had businesses that wanted to work with me, but I couldn’t stand behind their product or service or I didn’t align with their values or I just straight up didn’t believe in what they did or thought that maybe it was scammy. So if there are clients that come to you that you don’t know how to be able to put your name behind what they do or you don’t feel right about what they do, or even if it just comes down to the price point, it’s so much better for you to price yourself and make the appropriate money for what it is that you’re doing than for you to be bending over backwards and breaking boundaries just to make a smaller paycheck. With that said, I have a ton of resources for you for how to get your first few clients and websites and resources you can use as well as a checklist and a must have list for new social media managers.

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