“I came to realize that as the influencer, you’re your own best marketer, you’re your own best advocate, you know your audience best, you know your content best, and people want to hear from you anyway.” – Tessa Arias

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

In today’s episode, Tessa Arias, founder of Handle the Heat, shares her experience going from a hobby-blogger to published author and social influencer. What I love about Tessa’s background is she’s grown a platform online mostly organically, reaching audience numbers that a lot of my friends who spend a ton on paid ads aren’t even able to reach.

We also get super tactical into her experience working with sponsors and partnerships and how Tessa now acts as an advisor for companies wanting to work with influencers. We close with her experience going back into the world of publishing and why she’s self-publishing her next cookbook.

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Episode Highlights:

Tessa began as a hobby blogger with no expectations of making money, until she was offered a book deal in 2012.
Even though she was making money from her website, she didn’t feel like it was a real business, so she started attending Masterminds to learn more.
Tessa found she needed the emotional support of having a team of like-minded people around her.
Someone can have a six or seven-figure business, but hate their business and not feel fulfilled by their life.
Find groups and resources where you’re actually getting advice and tools that you can implement.
Surround yourself with people who understand and respect that you are the one who knows your business and yourself the best.
Bringing someone else into your business forces you to operate at a higher level.
You don’t need to post on major job sites; look within your own community first. For example, Tessa hired through Instagram at first.
When hiring, Tessa suggests you ask them to tell a story about a time they overcame a challenge, and ask them their opinion about something trivial to see that they can make a commitment and not be a yes-person.
Tessa realized she was approaching burnout when she stopped feeling excited about her work.
Growing your business depends on being flexible and adapting to the changing online landscape.
Tessa challenged herself to post something every quarter that is more controversial or more personal and that scares her.
If you buy a course online, make sure you have an accountability buddy to do it.
Her past experiences with sponsored posts were formulaic and based on how other food bloggers did it, but she learned from Sachit and others how to build larger partnerships and create relationships from sponsorships.
Through her success with building partnership relationships, Tessa has become a case study and an advisor for how brands should work with influencers.
Tessa learned to ask open-ended questions of her sponsors to understand how their organizations work so she learns what would work best for both of them.
No one opens Instagram excited to see sponsored content, so you should prioritize sponsorships that work with content you already post organically and that you care about and whose products you use.
Question your assumptions that something has to be done a certain way.
Sell your own content to your audience and remind them of the work that goes into it.
The most important fundamental skills you need to be a successful published author are marketing and sales.
Tessa is writing a second cookbook but is self-publishing it.
The hardest part is marketing the book for pre-sale while creating it in order to fund it at the same time.
Don’t do something you don’t like just to see if it’ll be successful, because if it is successful, you’ll have to continue doing something you hate.
If you’re bored with your content and the content others in your niche are putting out, do something surprising.
Tessa’s favorite part of her job is the ability to do whatever she wants when she wants to and to structure her day how she feels comfortable.

3 Key Takeaways:

Give yourself the space to be creative and stay recharged and excited about your work.
It’s important to build relationships with sponsorships, partnerships, and PR representatives.
You can have a big impact on every person who takes the time to follow, subscribe, or comment.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think the biggest thing for me was realizing I couldn’t do it by myself and I didn’t want to do it by myself. Owning an online business can be really isolating, you’re not in a room full of people unless you choose to be.” –Tessa Arias
“Following someone else’s definition of success means that you have no intention or vision for yourself.” –Tessa Arias
“The things I complain to my friends about in private, sometimes, those conversations need to be made public, because you’re going to find your true fans and followers.” –Tessa Arias
“Working with a sponsor gives you resources that you wouldn’t have otherwise.” –Tessa Arias
“I came to realize that as the influencer, you’re your own best marketer, you’re your own best advocate, you know your audience best, you know your content best, and people want to hear from you anyway.” –Tessa Arias
“When you feel like you’re at a plateau, do something surprising to yourself and for your audience.” –Tessa Arias

Resources Mentioned:

Later: Post scheduler for Instagram
Tailwind: Pinterest and Instagram scheduler
Tessa’s Blog: Handletheheat.com
Find Tessa: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

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