TCC Podcast #285: Building a Business that won’t Burn You Out with Tyler J. McCall

Tyler J. McCall guests on the 275th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Tyler is an Instagram Marketing Strategist and Coach for entrepreneurs who want to build and grow their business online. With social media being at the forefront of so many businesses, Tyler shares his experience dealing with burnout and how entrepreneurs can use social media more intentionally. Take a peek at our conversation: Why Tyler founded onlinebusinessowner.com. How his nonprofit careers kickstarted his entrepreneurial endeavors and how he became the go-to Instagram marketing expert. Should you leave the community you’ve become accustomed to? How to find the right coach and community for you, your business, and your values. The process of healing from a previous business and starting another. Why it’s a good idea to unlearn old beliefs before jumping into something new. How to deal with harassment online – actions and steps to take. Repairing your reputation online – is it possible? The double edged sword of social media. How do you know if you’re burned out + how to fix it. The future of social media and how to not lose yourself in it. The potential of podcasting and the forgotten blog… is it still a thing? A guide to unplugging from social media. The reality of starting a media company and how to monetize when your offer is free. The process of building your writer’s muscle. How to regain trust in yourself and your gut feeling. Building a small but mighty team for business growth. If you want to use social media with intention and avoid burnout, tune into the episode. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Tyler's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Episode 177 Episode 191 Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Social media. We've had a lot of people on the show to talk about their approach to Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. It's almost as if you can't build a copywriting business these days without spending serious time on social media. And while that may not be strictly true, you can, but it's becoming less and less common. Our guest for today's podcast is Tyler J. McCall. Tyler's gone through a bit of a transition when it comes to using social media for his business over the last few months. It used to be the main focus and now it's not. And if you struggle with social media as a business building tool, or you're interested in using it in a more sustainable way, you'll want to stick around for this interview. Tyler also shared how he's reinvented his entire business over the last year, how to deal with trolls and people that are harassing you online and overcoming burnout. Like we said, you're not going to want to miss this one. Kira Hug:  Before we dive into our interview with Tyler, the sponsor for this week's episode is the Copywriter Think Tank. It's our mastermind coaching program that helps copywriters dive deeper and explore ideas they didn't think were possible and act on them. We're introducing two new coaches inside the Think Tank who focus on systems and mindset, so members have the opportunity to ask for support from multiple coaches. If you are looking to create a new offer or program, product, scale your income, maybe launch a book, maybe launch a podcast, the Think Tank could be your next step to making it happen. If you want more information, head over to copywriterthinktank.com to learn more. All right, let's get into the interview and learn how Tyler ended up as the founder of onlinebusinessowner.com. Tyler J. McCall:  I'll give you the shortest version possible. I left my nonprofit career back in 2015 to start my own online business after having a bunch of side hustles before that. And the first business I started was a marketing agency with a really close friend. And that's where I really started learning about online business and running my own business full time. And eventually that marketing agency, we started specializing in Instagram marketing, and then I became a go-to Instagram marketing for local businesses, and then I started coaching and consulting. And then in 2017, I took all that experience and knowledge and all of my experience from the nonprofit world. I was also a political and community organizer before that, and put that into my first membership site called Follower to Fan Society. And at the time of recording this episode, beginning of 2022, Follower to Fan Society is almost over. We have just a few more months left of delivering content and coaching in that community and then we're closing it forever. So a four year old membership which, I don't know about y’all, feels like, I don't know, decades in the online business world, with how fast things change and people change their businesses. But that's what I've done for the past four years. I've been an Instagram marketing strategist in the online space. I really enjoyed that. I worked specifically with online business owners, creatives, makers, artists were really the folks that we served through Follower to Fan. And in 2020 and 2021 everything kind of changed in the world and a lot changed for me personally, as far as what was really important to me and what I wanted to do in my business. So for the past couple of years, I've been digging through all of that and figuring out the next step And I left a coaching community I've been part of for a number of years which had turned really toxic. And I left that in 2020, and I've just been spending the past couple years kind of healing and learning new things, and unlearning a lot of stuff. And in October 2021, we launched our new business, onlinebusinessowner.com. And I have to say, it's the happiest I've ever been in my business. It brings me the most joy of anything I've ever done and I feel like it's the best use of my skills. And this is something I could see myself doing for a long time, whereas things before I was just kind of doing them until I didn't have to do them anymore. So that's a little, the two minute version. Rob Marsh:  Yeah. That was like a beautiful table of contents for the, it feels like the whole episode as this thing unfolds, not even knowing what we're going to talk about yet. I'm just like, "Okay, lots of places to jump in." So before we get to the most recent stuff and that's probably going to be the most interesting stuff, I'd love to back up just to when you were starting your own marketing agency, because so many of our listeners are starting their own thing. They're finding their feet. Tell us a little bit about what was going on and why you made the steps that you did, the first couple of clients that you connected with. What was that whole process like? Tyler J. McCall:  Yeah. I love that question because I didn't leave my full-time nonprofit marketing job until I had an established roster of clients, which meant for about eight months, I was burning the wick at both ends and also apologies to the YMCA where I used to work, but my afternoons every now and then may have been spent on a little bit of my own business. And I got my first client actually, it was a gift shop in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, where I was living at the time. And I was a customer of this gift shop. I had gone in there for years. I would go buy gifts and cards. One of my side hustles before my marketing agency is, I had a homemade room and linen fragrance spray that I made called Mr. McCall's Fine Fragrances, which I made at home myself. And they were the first store to ever carry my handmade fragrance company brand that I created. So, they carried that in the store and I had built a relationship with them over years of being a customer. And I had just walked in one day and said, "Hey, I love what you all are doing. I love your store. I know people are obsessed with your brand, but your Instagram makes me really sad. Would you pay me to manage your Instagram account?" And they said, "Oh, sure. What would that look like?" And I was like, "$300 a month. I'll post for you five times a week. I'll come in a few times a month. I'll take photos with my iPhone. I'll write your captions. I'll do the hashtags and I'll do your Instagram for you." And they were like, "Great, fine." And I ran that agency. After I left my nonprofit job, I ran that agency for about three years and they stayed on until the very end. They were my very last client. They were no longer paying $300 a month at the very end, we had upgraded some things, but they were my first client. And from there, I just used my connections and relationships and started getting more and more clients, and getting people on six month retainer contracts to do content creation, management, blogging, newsletter writing. Also, here's the other secret Rob and Kira, at this point I actually didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was fully making it up as I went along, but that's how I started. And I just built an agency from there. Kira Hug:  I want to jump forward in time to 2020, 2021, when you said that you really wanted to shift and focus on what was important to you. You left a community at that time. It sounds like that was a really important step for you. Can you talk a little bit more about that stage and what steps do you take when you realize this doesn't feel right, I'm not in the right places, I'm not doing the right thing, how do you start to move forward from there? Tyler J. McCall:  Yeah. It's a really good question. There were a few things that were happening for me at that stage. One being, I realized that the values that I had, my personal values, the values in my business, were not aligned with the values in the community that I had been a part of and this coach that I had learned from. And at that point I was in a high ticket mastermind, spending $30,