Megan West

I think I've really found a way to blend what I love doing with work, making it feel like it is not work. I really enjoy relationship building and getting to know people, and the work that I do is very personal when business owners are letting me in very early, showing financials and projections, and saying they're not really sure what they should do or how to convey their business and story. Doing what you love is really important, and it makes it so that the work doesn't feel like work at all.

I would definitely say go for it. Being able to network and connect with others who have maybe been in the industry for longer is really important. Taking on projects that are outside your comfort zone to build the skills - maybe not even for the pay, necessarily, but to just expand your experience outside what you're getting at your current role - is really important. And finally, just go for it, because I did not want to be self-employed or open a business. I was laid off, and then I was looking for my next opportunity, and it actually just made the most sense. While I was looking, I had so many project offers come up, and I said, okay, I have the systems in place, what I do internally, I could do externally. It's very easy to just spin up. I think just going for it and betting on yourself, as long as you have a little bit of experience and you have senior people to lean on and ask questions.

The biggest challenges are that there are a lot of things out there with marketing and with AI, and someone can do it cheaper or better. There's this need to feel like you need to sell yourself, or you're being set up against someone else who does something for marketing. But there's plenty of work out there for everyone. What I try to do is say, this is a skill set, and you're also getting a relationship. It's more than just the marketing and work that I produce - you could find maybe someone else who could execute on content for you and help you tell your story, but it's easier to get that when you have a really solid working relationship with the people that you hire. That's the biggest challenge - there's all this stuff and easy ways to get marketing, and it's not the best, but you have to answer to that a lot when clients are like, well, why would I pay you if I could do it for cheaper? On the opportunities side, the technology is moving really quickly, and since I'm so digitally native, starting at such a young age with creating content and getting into all this software, it's very easy for me. As things come in now and clients have questions, I can quickly jump on that, trial it myself, and let them know what I think. I'm brought in a lot for helping them decide what is in their tech stack, and that's really easy work for me because I'm so used to all these tools and all the tech. I can really shine there, versus maybe some of these other companies and consultants that don't get to try all these new things because they're in legacy systems or they're not really familiar with it.

I think transparency is really big. Open communication is important to me. I'm really big on relationship building, so it's more than just being someone who's executing work - the people that I work with, I want them to feel like they can call and say, oh, I need to reschedule, you know, my kid has this, my kid has that. I want to do business with people who are very people-first, not just focused on outcomes. Though I'm also very outcome-driven and I get the things done for my clients, I think that the best thing I've found doing this type of work is that you're able to make sure you can work with people who have values that are aligned with yours. If you have something happen, the clients that I have are respectful of it and flexible, and we're able to do really great work and have really great relationships outside of just the work we're doing.