[Allie & You] Social Media Secrets from a Top Twitter Influencer – with Amy Joy Martin

Yeah, so. Well, I, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. And so you've had, you've had a big transition over the last few years, shifting from your agency, digital royalty, to really focusing on your brand as an influencer. And so how was that transition for you? Because I know a lot of people here are, they're adding new revenue streams, they're shifting focus in their business. Yeah, absolutely. It has been a big transition and I was a 20 something year old, first time entrepreneur and first time around the block. Didn't really have a vision and just started to grow the company and it took off with some of these big personalities and brands and what I had set out to do when I left the NBA was really have the freedom to design my own day. That's really all I wanted. I'd just like to be free on the map. I call it map freedom, geography freedom and time schedule as much as possible. Then the business started to grow and I was the face of the brand almost to the extent of too much. I heard the comment earlier about scaling yourself. I was on 210 flights in one year, averaging about four hours of sleep a night. That personal brand started to elbow out the real me and I realized it was time to make a pretty big shift. So that was probably one of the hardest things I've had to do. But what helped me was thinking about what do I want my day to look like? Because a mentor had asked me early on, you're growing very quickly. Why do you want to get bigger? Why do you want to keep adding these employees? And we had employees in 10 different countries and I just thought that was the silliest question. Like doesn't everybody just want to grow and get bigger? That's human nature. And now I'm like, aha. I get. Took me a while, but so exiting that and really taking some time. I lived on a boat here in San Diego for a year and did what I call an adult timeout where catching up on my sleep, learning to meditate, and now have been able to shift my business model to where it's just me and my husband in terms of, of the full time employees at the business, but we're able to, to scale in different ways through different products and stuff. So it's. Yeah, it's been interesting. Yeah, there's various ways to scale. There's. You can scale on revenue side, team side. It just, you know, and that's what's so unique about business I think is because you can create it how you want, want to. Absolutely. So. And congratulations to you to say, I think for all of you, it's like, how do you want to spend your day? That's really the question. How do you want to spend your day? Because you can create it how you want to. So you said that the founder's identity is part of the brand identity, and you were talking about that a lot. What are some of the biggest things to keep in mind, would you say, when incorporating? I know you talked about it on stage a little bit, but the entrepreneur brand and the company brand, I think sometimes it's like, how much? How much is too much? You know, it's a great question. And it is so important to be intentional and think about in the beginning because, I mean, one of the things to think about is your exit strategy. If you were to be acquired or sell your company, how much are you tied to it as the face? Right. And so there's this kind of parallel that you really want to grow and build to be able to leverage your voice of authority and your presence, but also not be so anchored to it that all of the value is wrapped up in that. And so that's kind of an obvious one, and it's something to think about ahead of time. If you look at Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop, she will always be the face of Goop. Right? Right. There's no getting out of that one. And so that's a little bit different because she was a celebrity prior, but it's something to think about. And then the parallel. Your company has its own personality too. So imagine it as a human. If you were to write up a personality description, if you were to cast your company in a movie, who are they? What do they sound like? What. What do they not say? How do they show up? And I think that that allows you then to say, okay, that's different from me. There might be some overlap, hopefully. So because that's your culture and you're the leader, probably bringing the team into it as well. Absolutely. Like, we love to bring our team on our social media channels and so forth. Absolutely. That's a great way to scale, too. When Hilton Worldwide was a client, one of their goals was to. To really have the faces be the front line and the humans too, because you can do a lot more with all of your employees versus just the one to one. And it's a scaling method too. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Important things to think about. Now, you talked about some celebrities we all know, Shaquille the Rock. Sometimes that you have the public out there, I mean, especially they'll Just say whatever. And there can be haters, you can get negativity, you can get negative reviews from people that you've never even met before. You're like, wait a minute, I don't even remember meeting this person. So how do you recommend business owners handle that negativity online? It is a part of just showing up. Even when you're not a celebrity, there will be a difference of opinions or just those things happen. So first and foremost it's showing up. I mean, there are different types of negative feedback. If it has something to do with your company, your service, your product, and you feel like it's not just a one off someone that needs to be blocked because there are those people too, just block them. And let's just. If it's not your tribe and it's not worth your time and energy, but if it is someone that has an issue with something that's happened, really my advice is to address it. At least show that you're listening and then move that conversation offline. Because people behave differently when they think they're being watched. Right. If they think that people are following a thread and they're following this back and forth banter, their responses are probably going to be different than if you were having a one to one conversation. It's very situational. It really matters on what happened. But what's nice is you have that direct access and bridge versus the media versus some third party for big crisis communication situations. I always recommend the CEO. The, the voice of authority shows up. Not just a logo that says the PR team or whatever. Because people want to know that someone's listening. Right. And they want to know you care. Right. Absolutely right. And then also know that that negativity is. The more vulnerable you are, the more that's just going to show up and you can't let it throw you. Exactly. Yeah. So. And so the third most powerful woman on Twitter. So that's like, wow, how the heck. I mean, you know, I know you were talking about earlier, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean that if you have quite a bit fewer followers, doesn't mean that you can't make a big impact. But that how fast did that happen and how did you do that? The timing was very important in this. So the 2008 presidential election really put Twitter on the map in terms of the candidates embracing and then the celebrities joined and having a high profile individual bantering back and forth with me put a big spotlight on my account too. So some of this was pre algorithm days. The good Old days when there were 11 people working at Twitter and I could call them up and talk to them. That being said, I think people just follow this journey and they realized, okay, here's someone who is not a big name, has zero celebrity, and they're growing. They could kind of see me rising in my own career and following this play by play because it was interesting. And so I think it was just part of the journey where I still have people say, remember when this happened? And it was 10 years ago, and they feel like they were there and they might be from, you know, France, so I have never met them, but. And so it's just that human connection. I really try to check my intent and make sure that I'm showing up because I want to be there and I'm having fun. Otherwise, people will know. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? Because I know. Do you feel like you can still reach out on Twitter? I know you definitely can on Instagram. Just direct messaging with notable people and get that response. I mean, which is, you know, if you were to email them or try to call them, it would be. Would be much more challenging. Right. And there are more gatekeepers usually there. Absolutely. It's a powerful way to connect. And whether it's. Maybe you're looking to get local TV coverage or national or connect with a journalist, syncing up with them through a direct message on Twitter or Instagram and sharing something of value like a quick pitch and getting into their pathway is a great way to garner some media attention, too. I met my first mentor who became a friend, an investor of my company. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, threw a direct message on Twitter. That's how Nike became a client. I met my husband kind of on Twitter. Not really. I met him first in person, but then we didn't exchange phone numbers, so we DMed. I mean, this stuff is powerful, right? You guys had no idea what you're missing out on here. It's just the key to life. And Twitter has changed. It really has. The algorithms are different. It's 2019, and the resonance and the engagement has definitely shifted for me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you talk about mentorship, and obviously, I really believe in mentorship because we run a mentoring company, and I've always had a mentor and will continue to. How is having a mentor helped in your business career? It's been huge for me. And historically, I always had men as mentors because of, I think, just the sheer numbers and the industries. I thank you. All right, thanks again. People always talk about they want to be part of seven figure companies. I'm now part of seven, eight and nine figure companies. I've been introduced to some of the largest corporations, Fortune 500 companies, and it's with Alison's help. She's kind of expanded my horizons and my capabilities. And I think that's the most important thing. Where she expands, she makes, you know, what you can do and be successful at that. Being with Alison and being able to learn who to hire and why to hire and how to develop a passionate, creative, inspired team was really, really important for me because I needed to shift some energy in my business and I feel like with her help, I've really done that. Pinnacle helped me grow my company to where at this point a year ago, I'm making, I made a million more than I did at this point last year. So I really wanted to break that ceiling. I've hit that ceiling for several years in a row and Pinnacle has helped me do that by implementing the thought. It's actually just a thought process and how you view your company and how you view what you're doing. I think a lot of us entrepreneurs are hard on ourselves and are hard on our companies when it's not that we shouldn't be that way. So I think it's just looking at things a little bit differently, putting into practice the systems that she teaches us. For example, if you want an example, putting people in place to where I want my business to be at in two, three years. So I've got people right now in place and it's wild. It's just like it's all the work is coming in and we're in place and we're not stressed out and it's just amazing. It's just an amazing place to be. What I love most about being in the Pinnacle is constant access to support. So whether it be my mastermind group or the recorded resources that Alison has produced for us, or the constantly cutting edge information that's coming to us on social media, Facebook ads, how to conduct webinars, you name it, we have a resource for it. So since joining Pinnacol, we've added 12 new positions to the company. We've increased revenue about 43%. We've increased profit by 111% this year. More importantly, I've gotten out of some roles that I was in, like QA manager. And some of the marketing things that I was doing are now outsourced or not outsourced in sourced to a team member. And I've really focused in on running the business instead of letting it run me. Coaching opportunities out there and a lot of times I'm a little bit suspicious. It's kind of a sales job. Are they in it for themselves? Are they in it for me? And at no time have I ever felt with Pinnacle that my best interest was not number one priority. And it's truly an organization and not just Allison and the coaches, but everyone there. It's coming from a place of giving and working for mutual benefit. A lot of sharing going on and that's a great team to work with right off the bat. I laid a foundation for my coaching practice and I increased my prices and within one week I had signed two high paying clients that had basically paid for my coaching program with Allison. And since then, then my income has doubled every single month. It's been tremendous. But being a part of the community has been the greatest asset. I've been so fortunate and blessed to befriend so many other amazing entrepreneurs who I learn from on a regular basis who always have my back, like minded people that I surround myself with. And the environment is so positive. I just cannot speak highly enough of it. And I am always compelled to share it with everyone I know. I feel it is the biggest gift to introduce and share this opportunity to connect with this kind of community with everybody that I know. Don't be the company like I was being in business for over 12 years, looking back and saying, what did I do in the last 10 years? Do it now. Now is all we have. We don't have the past and we don't have the future. All we have is now. I've been in business for 21 years now and I've worked with a number of business coaches and, and I watched Alison for four years and the results that her clients had when they worked with her and I finally decided this is the next coach that I'm going to hire. Because she is the real deal. She is available to her people. She absolutely cares deeply about each and every individual and the success of their business. And you know what? We have to in business take risks. And sometimes taking risk is hiring that new coach. This is a risk worth taking. There is nothing like it. I can't even explain what the opportunity and the learning that comes with Pinnacle. Don't even think about it. Because if you think about it, that's the number one thing that will hold you back. Just do it. You won't regret it. You just need to do it. I mean, you have to stop being on the fence. You have to get off the fence. Is boring the fence is. Honestly, I was on the fence for. Oh, gosh. I was on the fence for maybe two years. And it was a horrible fence to sit on. I hated the fence because the fence kept me stuck. And it was when I finally jumped off the fence that my business skyrocketed.