Tag: Mellissah Smith - Page 2

When you spend years soul searching, trying to figure out why God put you on this planet and what you are meant to do with your time, you can falter in a lack of understanding.

Mostly, the lack of understanding is of who you really are, and what is your purpose. Many people espouse to know what their purpose is, but how many of those same people can put their hand on their hearts and say, that this is why they were put on earth, and follow through with that mission until the very end?

It's 2 a.m. in the morning. I lay awake having just flown in the day before from Los Angeles. My eye's are sore, and somewhat tired, but my mind is wide awake. I can't seem to get back to sleep. I get up and get a drink from the fridge.

If you have read this blog for a while, you may have realised that I am a country girl. I grew up in rural North Queensland in a small township called Charters Towers, just over an hour west of Townsville. It seems like a million years ago now, as I have been living in big cities for the past 20 years or so. I currently reside mostly in Melbourne and from there I have built a multi million dollar international business. What I have realised about business is that the  more mature my business becomes, the more flexible I am with where I work from. It certainly has got me thinking about where in the world people can build successful businesses from and what are the hurdles that they must overcome if they are not located in a major city.

I've always been aware that I have all the things in life that are necessary to become successful; mentors, learning and development, financial stability, and a community... and the right mindset. But it wasn't always that way, and the first thing that you need to know about being successful is that you have to have the right mindset and belief that anything is possible. It takes so many parts to be successful, but I guess for most of us, it just starts with a dream.

The most amazing thing happeneda few days ago. I went to a pool party in Atlanta and a guy came up to me very excited at the opportunity to finally meet me. He had never met me before, but had heard things about me. But his real reason for wanting to meet me is that he is a "fan" of my blogs, tweets and really anything I put on social media.

Not the creepy type of fan. The genuine person who appreciates honestly, vulnerability and someone who is fearless in sharing her real life.

So, I thought I might start a few blogs about who I really am.

The mentor

To use this word seems strange to me because I feel like I am not old enough or experienced enough to be anyone's mentor, but it just so happens that I am a mentor to a lot of people and that is something I have to take seriously.

Today I started writing a series of blogs on our various websites: www.marketingeye.com | www.marketingeyeatlanta.com | and now www.marketingeye.com.au giving readers of these blogs an insight into who I really am. I am going to try and be raw and real, with no secrets or pretense. Feel free to give any feedback on whatever you read.

Inquisitive

I am inquisitive. I ask the "why?" every single time, usually inside my head. I don't just accept things as they are. I think about why they are as they are, or why someone has said what they have said. I think about why people do the things they do. Why they are one way with one person and another with the next.

When I see a painting, I think about why the artist chose to paint the picture like they did? What was going on inside their minds when they were painting away? Why they chose to sell their painting where they did? What they really thought of the painting that they did?

I am fascinated by design. Today I walked into Restoration Warehouse in Atlanta. It is one of the most beautiful retail buildings in the world. Each piece of furniture or fitting has a unique story to be told. 

Further on my journey today, i walked past Moncler and stood watching the window display. The robots with the mannequins dressed in jackets was so creative I wonder how anyone could have come up with it. It not only made me stare at it long enough to think that in itself it is a piece of art, but it also had me completely in awe of the designer. That's a real talent. 

Inquisitive people have a strong desire that borders on obsession. They want answers - especially one's that are not so obvious.

Good marketers are born to be inquisitive. They need to be inquisitive as to why someone would buy a product or service. Why someone chooses one brand over another. If they are not inquisitive, then they usually are not the best marketers.

In two days, I will be 42 years old. I write that with a huge smile on my face. I have in the past 12 months had the hardest 12 months of my life from an emotional perspective, but more recently, strangely, the best. As I get older, I keep learning so much about myself and others and I know how enriching that is. Getting older is exciting and allows me to grow in ways I never thought possible. 

When you are navigating life by yourself, it is hard to know whether you are doing the right or the wrong thing. The decisions you make in some way seem less important because all the mission critical one's were made earlier on, yet some are defined more by time. Finally I have hit that mid point in my life and it would be ignorant not to reflect and appreciate the good and learn from the bad. At least that's how I see it.

So many of my friends hit their 40's and have had mid life crisis; divorced or have done something crazy that I am sure one day they will regret. I was a little different. I went within myself and was probably a tad hard on myself and what I had achieved to date, and started this path which I have since gotten off, that was not going to make me happy long-term.

I won't deny that I am my own biggest critic, but mostly what I have learned is that I have grown in ways that make me extremely proud of the person I have become. Not the business woman that the world sees, or those so-called successes, but the person within. I am sure that sounds wrong when someone else reads this, but by saying it out loud, I am revealing who I am today.

The other day I read an article that Ashton Kutcher shared on Facebook "8 Fears and Insecurities Everyone Has". Of course, like the millions of other people who clicked through to the article, I wanted to know what insecurities and fears other people have.

Ashton outlined his fears in the retweet:

No. 1 I'm not good enough
No. 2 My work isn't good enough
No. 6 I'm afraid of failing/disappointing
No. 7 If people knew the real me, they wouldn't like me

It got me thinking. What are my fears and insecurities? Like most people, I have many but I possibly don't dig deeply into them too often, because who wants to be confronted by what we fear most?

I don't want to be reminded about my fears/insecurities but after reading the article, I decided that it's possibly not the worse idea to confront them head on and by doing that, share them on this blog.

They are a bit 'girly' in some ways and not at all the same as Ashton's (but hey, he is gorgeous, successful, smart, hot blah blah blah). But they are something I think a few readers may relate to.

After a bit of soul searching, this is what I came up with:

There are blogs and then there are, well, blogs. Some bloggers are one hit wonders, others stay around for the long haul continually reinventing themselves and bringing out new material.

I asked marketers to give me an insight into what they believed was the top 50 blogs that every entrepreneur should read at least once. This is what they came up with:

1.             https://neilpatel.com/blog/

Neil Patel has run two successful software companies, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, he has worked with clients of all sizes in almost every industry, in return getting results in some of the most competitive online niches like car insurance.

I really don't want to mislead you, but there are some truths about social media that you need to be aware of.

Social media is powerful - undeniably so. It has the strength and depth to make or break a brand. It can cleverly make a company or person appear more successful than they really are. It can make you famous, rich and powerful.

Out of the wood work, names that were not known just five years ago, are now ranked in the top brands online in the world. 

But is this 'social media' thing all that its cranked up to be?

As an ex-journalist, interviewing people of all backgrounds and walks of life is second nature to me. I've interviewed police officers, politicians and met the Prime Minister, but have never been asked to have a sit-down interview with my former news organisation's owner (who would be Rupert Murdoch himself - eep!).

Today, I'm on day two in the marketing industry and have been given the chance to pick the brain of Marketing Eye founder, Mellissah Smith – it’s a slightly daunting ask, especially when you consider that she was little older than I was when she first branched out and went solo in her first agency.

“I’ve been in marketing for 20-odd years and was 25 when I started my first agency – what inspired me to start was an account opportunity falling in my lap,” Mellissah said.