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Welcome to Future Sharks Esther! Tell us a little about yourself:

I have created eCourses, digital content and workshops for some of the biggest players in the digital marketing space under my agency Esther Marie Creative. As a military wife and Mom I had to work from any space, and now I offer a Virtual Assistant training program and community Virtual Assistant Internship. 

City where you’re from: San Diego, CA but I am a digital nomad and we are currently in Portland, Maine.

Hobbies: Reading, Masterpiece Theatre shows, museums, plays, music, yoga, wine, journaling, travel, being outside, good food and good people

Favorite quote: “When preparation meets opportunity, success is inevitable”

Twitter: www.twitter.com/esthermcreative

Facebook: www.facebook.com/esthermariecreative

Virtual Assistant Internship Facebook: www.facebook.com/virtualassistantinternship

Background

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

As a new military wife and Mom, I had to find something extremely flexible and that could 100% be done remotely. These kinds of jobs are difficult to find unless you want to do customer service for $10/hr. So I entered the world of virtual assisting but then found I didn’t like helping another entrepreneur make their dreams come true so I started offering my own services and programs.

Who were your biggest influences?

I grew up with an entrepreneur Dad and a very encouraging Mom. They truly taught me from a young age that I could do ANYTHING I wanted to if I was willing to work hard enough. I also grew up seeing that you didn’t have to work a normal 9-5 job. My parents were always around and involved, we took trips whenever, etc. So I grew up with confidence I could do whatever I set my mind to AND was modeled a flexible and rich lifestyle by design.

I also have to say I was mentored by Sean Roach who helped me craft my niche, offerings, messaging, gave me speaking and leadership opportunities and took me from 0-100 in a short amount of time. Very thankful for him.

Was there a defining moment in your life?

There’s too many to count. The amount of tragedies and intense shitty life events I’ve had to endure in the last few years would shock you. I will say though that the main 2 were:

1) When I just decided to up and quit my corporate job 4 years ago. My ex husband supported me 100% and we had no idea what was going to happen but we knew I was unhappy and THIS wasn’t it. That’s what began my Virtual Assistant ventures, led me to Sean Roach which taught me about group programs and moved me into my eCourse, digital content and workbook agency.

And 2) Would be more recently when sadly my son and I had to very suddenly leave my husband. We’ve made the best of it and decided to be digital nomads but I had to get my business ass in gear. I had to get consistent clients vs. project based and get my automated funnels going FINALLY. When you don’t have your spouses income or another job as a safety net it PUSHES you like nothing else. My businesses have exploded ever since.

Now

What are you working on? How did you come up with this idea?

Right now I am focusing on marketing my Virtual Assistant training program for military wives and Moms and getting the word out to military communities that legit work from anywhere EXISTS and it doesn’t involve selling crap to your friends and family.

I was a military wife and stumbled upon the Virtual Assistant life. As I grew my eCourse and digital content creation agency, I needed VAs to refer to others and I wanted to hire fellow military wives to help me too. But NONE of them knew what the hell I was even talking about or didn’t have the skills. So I started mentoring some girls and then turned it into a program so I could help more than just a few women at a time.

How is your product/service different and unique? What’s the vision?

There are other virtual assistant or freelance training programs out there I am sure, but none of them understand more intimately then I do the military community’s need for this. I also built my entire program and community without spending a dime on Ads. Just word of mouth, Facebook Groups specific to my military wife community and marketing hacks I’ve learned from my agency clients. This speaks to the huge NEED for this program.

I am incredibly passionate about this, simply because being able to work from anywhere and anytime is REAL and the military community has no idea. Everyone is targeting them to sell wraps, shakes and junk and not actually showing them how to make GOOD money by the hour or even on salary from home as a virtual assistant or other online gigs. I am actually a bit angry about it honestly. Our community and government isn’t sharing this lucrative opportunity and career path with our disabled veterans who can no longer work a traditional job. Or with the family’s that support active duty service men and women and have to move every 2 years, parent alone during frequent deployments and can’t sustain a traditional job.

We have to do better to spread the word about these legit home based career opportunities and help connect our men and women with them.

Who are your customers? How do you find them?

For both my VA training program and Esther Marie Creative agency, I find them from referrals, Facebook Groups, and give away a lot of good free content to attract people and show them my expertise. I give incredible free online classes, not a webinar full of just pitching my stuff, I actually give a real class and just reserve the last 10 minutes for anyone who wants more. I give aways books, Facebook Live trainings in other groups with my target market, etc. Any chance I have to GIVE to my target market, whether I pitch or not, I jump on it. It always comes back to you.

Did you experience failure along the way? What did you learn from it?

I truly believe 50% of being an entrepreneur is failing. Literally, the only difference between me and someone else is that when I failed I didn’t give up. I just kept going anyway. This continues to be true almost everyday. Marketing campaigns fail, nobody shows up for your online class, you take on too much work and then clients get angry you are so behind, etc.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is to remain honest. Be honest with your clients when you aren’t going to be on time with something. Be honest with your participants when your life went to shit and you need to take a few months off. Be honest with yourself when you fail so you can outline how to avoid it next time. Pride doesn’t win in this game.

Value-add questions

Give the readers the best entrepreneurship advice you have.

I know you hear a lot of “don’t ever give up!” for entrepreneurs. But I have to disagree to a certain extent. Sometimes your ideas are crap, there’s no market for it, or you need to tweak and change things as the industry changes. You have to be flexible and wise in your perseverance.  

Teach us something about {internet marketing, social media ads, fundraising, sales funnels or another topic} Can you recommend any favorite websites to learn that topic?

You can not launch a product or program without properly testing it. This is extremely frustrating to me as an eCourse and program creator. Every entrepreneur sees people doing courses, products, programs, etc and thinks they can just record some shit and launch it. You have to properly test your program with a handful of people or 10-15 BETA testers and have real tangible results from them to show others. You must use their testimonials in your sales copy, video reel, marketing, everything! Even in eCommerce, you have to have social proof in this day and age otherwise it simply won’t sell.

There’s lots of ways to test and do this, I have a bunch of info and examples on my blog www.esthermariecreative.com/blog and personally for my program I took 3 women through it intensely before I ever even considered selling it. Then with my initial launch I had crazy low pricing so I could continue to gather social proof before charging higher fees.

What should an entrepreneur focus on?

Automating everything. Anything you repeatedly do needs to be turned into a system ASAP with either software tools and virtual support. For tasks I find myself doing a lot and don’t want to pay a VA to do every week I’ve even considered investing in a developer to design custom code for me to take it off my plate. This isn’t just so you have less to do and can relax more. It’s so you can get out of the weeds ASAP and then focus on GROWING and what’s next in your businesses.

Technically I have 3 businesses and have another 1-2 I want to do but know I can’t until my first 3 are 90% automated. My income is limited by the systems I have in place.

What are some of your favorite books?

Honestly, I learn a lot from webinars and podcasts these days because I can have them play in the background while I do other things. Since I work in a digital space, I feel like unless a book has been entirely written and launched within the last 3 months, by the time I read it it’s probably already out of date so why bother. For business and life I love the Tim Feriss podcast. He and his guests keep me on my toes and challenge me to just do better. Both personally and in business (they are so intertwined, and he gets that). I also love to see how he does his marketing because he’s down to earth and his genius is hidden amongst that.

Otherwise my favorite book is Les Miserables.

Where do you see yourself and your accomplishments in the coming years?

I really love teaching. It’s what I went to school for and did initially, it’s in my bones and I am really good at it. I am more comfortable teaching and being in front of people then behind the scenes. I see myself creating and running my VA programs and Creative agency consulting and classes full time with the occasional speaking gig, workshop, or podcast opportunity.

I see my VA program being accredited so military wives can use their spouse education benefits on it. I see it being a non profit so we can get into bases and events easier to spread the word about this opportunity.

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