Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Marcellino.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My passion for bringing people together and knack for non-sleazy sales led me to create SGS Media. Before SGS Media became the social media agency for overwhelmed service providers looking to market and sell their offers easily, it was a one-woman show with me quite literally doing it all.
From selling bracelets to kids on the playground to selling print ads for Auto Trader magazine at 20 to selling thousands of dollars in sponsorships for my daughter’s PTA, one thing is for sure: I’ve always been selling, and now is no exception.
After three years of consistent growth, repeat clients, referrals, and expansion, what was formerly known as Sam Gets Social has bloomed into the SGS Media agency it is today.
Dedicated to helping overwhelmed service providers cultivate engaged communities to effortlessly market and sell their offers to an audience who truly needs them. When I’m not serving SGS Media clients, you can typically find me hiking or walking on the beach with my husband and teenager.
My mission as a mom, woman, and entrepreneur is to help others seize amazing opportunities and bring their dreams to fruition, and I’m living my mission.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We increasingly hear stories of entrepreneurs having unconventional paths to entrepreneurship, and mine is no different.
After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years, I finally had the opportunity to return to school to finish my bachelor’s degree in business and became fascinated by the fast pace of digital marketing (literally the textbooks we were reading on Google Analytics were already out of date). I truly fell in love with digital marketing because of the convergence of getting to flex my creativity (the campaign creative) with my science brain (the analytics and sales psychology).
But when I graduated in 2018, the truth is I lacked the confidence to get started. The self-doubt continued to mount: Did I have what it takes? Would people pay me to do this? How would I know how to build an online business?
It took joining an online networking group, The Social Squad Society, that connected me with other online business owners to give me the push to take messy action and see where it would lead instead of trying to have all the answers before I’d allow myself to get started.
Rough patches along the way? I’ve had my share. Systems not working the way I hoped, hiring team members that didn’t work out, those times that it feels like all the clients put in notice at the same time.
But the toughest was a year-long period when I had to shut down the agency to be present during a family emergency. I was about 18 months into the business and found viral success when Instagram Reels came out. Leads were flowing, my marketing was catching on and I was terrified that taking that kind of a break would keep me from being relevant when/if I returned.
I continued to service one client and maintained the bare minimum presence online (mostly through Instagram stories). There were many days when I felt like a fraud because I was showing up on social media as though things in my personal life weren’t crashing around me. Although, if I had to do it again—I would. Keeping that one client and the connection to my online community helped me feel a sense of control + purpose in an otherwise chaotic time.
The good news: when I was ready to open SGS Media again, the community I had built was right there waiting.
What matters most to you?
I believe that there is enough opportunity out there for everyone, you just have to have the confidence to get out there and take advantage of it.
It’s my mission as a mom, woman, and entrepreneur to help others seize these opportunities and bring their dreams to fruition—and it’s my passion to help them do this using authentic and effective marketing practices that I’ve coined Community-First Marketing.
By empowering women entrepreneurs to embody the Community-First approach to marketing, I’ve been able to teach them how to leverage digital marketing channels to deliver their services to people who need them and believe in their expertise without the guilt and shame that so many women feel when it comes time to “sell”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sgsmediaco.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samgetssocial/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samgetssocial
