How a Magazine Founder Can Level Up Their Business - Featuring Amy Martin

Get in touch with Amy: amy.martin@n2co.com | 918-407-5090

Owning a business is a challenge. Knowing how to keep innovating in your business is an even bigger one. Join restaurant owner, motivational speaker, and innovation expert Sara Frasca each week as she guides fellow business owners in taking the next step to level up their business. If you've ever pondered hiring a business coach but want a sample first, come along for the adventure!

Send us a message to join the show for free business guidance: https://pointnortheast.com/contact-us/

Sara Frasca is the founder and owner of Trasca & Co Eatery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, an experienced and engaging motivational speaker, and the CEO of global business coaching firm Point NorthEast.

Transcript

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You're listening to level up your business, the podcast where we talk to hardworking business owners and leaders and help them solve real issues in real time. I'm your host, Sarah Frasca restaurant owner, keynote speaker and business coach. I've spent my career not only in corporate America, but also as an entrepreneur, carrying on my family's legacy through my restaurant. Now a business coach and consultant. I'm helping other businesses to use creative problem solving and innovative thinking to drive lasting change. Stay tuned to hear some inspiring guidance that will help you to level up your business quick time for. That's great. Well, thank you again. So welcome, everyone to this week's edition of level up your business. And I'm Sarah fresca, from point northeast and also from Treska. So Amy, and I know each other because we live in the same community. And I got to know her through the restaurant through Treska. And thank you again, Amy, for being a part of our show today. I'm really excited to chat with you. I'm equally as excited to get to chat with you. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Well, maybe start out and just share with folks what you do, and the current kind of business that you have built. Sure. So currently, I'm working as my own magazine owner. So I'm about to publish a brand new magazine that will be going out to the sawgrass TPC community. It's really fun. It's a neighborhood centric publication that is focused all around the residents that live inside that community. So think about stories of their kids or their pets or their dogs, their families, their homes. And so that is a large part of what I should say. That's where all my time is going right now. Um, but yeah, so I'm about to launch that. And very, very excited. May 15 is our official first date. And there will be nine scenes in everybody's mailbox in June. So we're very, very excited. But yeah, that's, uh, that's what I'm doing right now. Yeah, that's great. What about how did you come to find this business? What did you do before this? Okay, this is gonna be a little bit of a long story, because all right, good journey, a crazy journey. So what you have to kind of back up all the way to college, which embarrassingly enough is more years further away than I wish that it was. But I'm all the way back up into college. I I've always loved business. I've always been very entrepreneurial, very dream oriented. And one day I was sitting in college, I don't know, I think it was like a junior. And I realized there is no good coffee on our school's campus, all the coffee was terrible. You know, it's like half coffee, half water. And I don't know, it just wasn't any good. We always had to go off campus if we wanted to go find a cute little coffee shop to do work in. And so one day, I'm sitting in my dorm, and I realized I was like, I could start my own coffee thing on campus, I could sell really good coffee. So that led me down a crazy journey. And basically, I ended up I graduated. And right after I graduated in May, a few months later, I launched a specialty cold brew coffee bike, which is about as crazy as it sounds. But I launched this coffee tricycle that's that sold only specialty coffee. And so really my first two years of running that it was like, Oh my gosh, was crazy. But I learned so much in that time. But what it taught me is that I really loved being my own boss, I loved getting to build and develop a team, I loved being able to have a dream and then having an outlet to actualize it. And all of the things that I had just learned in business school, it was like, the perfect petri dish for me to be able to take all of those different elements, put them all together, and then see what came came out of it. Or didn't come out of it, you know. So it was it was just such a cool time in life. And I what I found is I was trying to develop this concept, and I found that it worked. Like the students loved it, I was able to manage it. And I was I was on my way to figure out how to scale this thing, and basically explode them all over the US on different college campuses. And then COVID hit. So, you know, the sort of unforeseeable was in my business plan. The reason why I was so genius was that for four years, I had this captive audience that, you know, I had loyal customers from freshman year to senior year. And, you know, then you multiply that times all the potential colleges and universities and there was just as great plan and then when everybody backed off, you know, and went home and went virtual, I lost 100% of my customer base. So It was really a bummer, I had a couple of really big contracts that I was in the middle of negotiating. And of course, you know, adding a coffee back to their campus was sort of the last bit of their priorities when all the students went away, and rightfully so. But what that did in my sort of business journey as it caused me to take a step back and really ask myself the question like, where am I professionally Am I going in a direction that I want to go, you know, etc, etc. So that really launched me on to this journey in the coffee industry, which is where all of my passion has been in the past I sustainability of the coffee industry really is sort of the bread and butter of have an honest and even today is such a huge passion of mine. So I'll spare you the rest of the like, really, so much happened in the three years after that, that it would, it's hard to even compromise all that. But basically, I was a part of let's see, three other startups all having to do with the coffee industry from like a coffee byproduct to growing and scaling coffee bikes for and coffee bars and coffee shops on college campuses with a different business. So just a bunch of different business endeavors for startup company sort of in this sweet spot of like, just starting out to maybe like, three, four years old. And anyway, I just had all this random coffee knowledge from my two year journey of my bike. So it allowed me to sort of get into operations. And, you know, just gotta keep refining my business skills as I as I went along. So I kind of kept getting along, it was kind of like this journey, right? So like, I find the startup that has a great idea, I help them build and grow and scale it, and then the business would fail, because they ran out of money, while actually is probably 100% of the reason why all of them failed. And so then, you know, you back up to about a year ago, and I really got to a place in my career where I was like, What do I want to do? I don't know what I want to do. You know, I love the coffee industry. And I do you know, and so I believe sometime in the future, there's there's something there for me. But for right now, I was like I, I just kind of was ready for something else. And my sweet husband too, that has just supported me through so many ups and downs and ideas. You know, it's like, what if we got, you know, like a real job? Like, that's no fun. So anyway, that brought me to the season of life where I ended up applying for oh, my gosh, when I tell you I sent in 200 job applications, I think that's probably conservative. I think I probably sent over 200 job applications. And it was so hard because I felt like I had all these skills that were transferable. And you know, I felt like I had learned a lot in business. And I had a lot to offer. But it was so hard for me to be able to transmit honestly what I had done like six, seven years professionally, in an eight and a half by 11. Resume. And so I didn't get one interview, I did not get one interview. And it was really challenging. And so finally it was around Thanksgiving last year, I saw a listing come up for this position for an area director, which is what technically what my title is, but franchise owner and I saw it and I told my husband I was like, All right, like, it's for a magazine. Like I don't think that I want to do that. But I'm just gonna go see what this is all about. And, and honestly, I was like, I just need practice interviewing. It's been a while. And it's funny how these things usually turn out. But it turns out in that first round of the interview, I actually knew the lady that was interviewing me for I'm from Oklahoma originally. And I knew her from like 15 years ago in Oklahoma ad, she was a friend of a friend. Wow. Which is crazy. So it turns out that this magazine that I was very skeptical about has just become a really cool part of my life. And my story now and part of my like decision making process from a career perspective was I was really I was eager and itching to be my own boss again. And this company is a franchise. So it has the sophistication like the company's been around for 20 years. So it was a sophistication of a mature company, but and the safety of a big company, but it has the sort of like risk factor, excitement, you know, opportunity of a startup. So it was this perfect marriage of what I was looking for. And then from like the perspective of me actually getting to work with a bunch of businesses and be operational and have you know, a checklist that always has 50 things on it. The things about being an entrepreneur that I just like loved and missed all are available through me being able to manage my own magazine. And now I'm new to the Jacksonville area, I've only looked here a little bit over a year. And since I've started this process in January, I've already met with over now it's probably over 130 businesses. So what's happening as I'm getting to sort of, like web out and meet all of these incredible entrepreneurs in the area, and just expand my professional network in an area, I'm really new, new in. And so that's, that's kind of my journey of what led me to running and managing my own magazine, it's never something that I set out to do. But the more that I get into it, the more evident it is that it touches all these things that I love and that I'm passionate about. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a, it's a beautiful thing of what you've done. It's like mixing and matching. And I find that that's a lot of folks journeys. You know, and you're kind of pulling in the components that you love and expanding on, you know, the pieces that you love, like the neck, the networking, the connections, et cetera. It's really neat. So the magazine is called stroll, and it's very, very hyper local, is the term I would probably use because the publication is going to be you know, the footprint is small, but the I would say the impact is pretty great. Because, you know, it's really focusing on the people, the businesses, the different activities, et cetera. And I think that's one of the things that, frankly, I kind of missed about, you know, from being from a, not a small town, but like a, like a suburb town in Minnesota. We had kind of our own culture and character and things like that. And then we moved to Florida and kind of lost that tightness. So I think what the magazine does is pretty cool. Yeah, well, right, right, right. But really great. And okay, so what are your future aspirations? I mean, what do you think if you dream big, like, what does this? What does this become? Where do you want to go in the future? What are you hoping that you get to do? Oh, it's such a hard question. This is like, the problem with me is that sometimes I think too far ahead. But also, sometimes you have to protect the present. Because if I'm only so focused on where I want to be, then I miss out on building quality with where I'm at today. And so I think in some ways, I've protected myself from dreaming too far past, you know, the magazine right now. Honestly, my goal is just really to be all in all in with stroll in the sawgrass community, I really want to get to know and build meaningful relationships with the people and the area. I want to build a sweet community. I mean, there already is a sweet community that exists, I just want to facilitate with the resources that I have, I want to add fuel to that fire. I want to find ways to bring people together and new and fun and creative ways. And I don't know exactly what that looks like. But I know that it sort of like step one is getting the magazine launched. My next step is I'll be planning some social events throughout, you know, the years that I run the magazine and every single year. And so my next step is to sort of strategize with the businesses that are in the magazine to figure out how we can create meaningful social events for them and for the residents. So, you know, that's kind of where my head is in the short term future. I think if I were to say, in the next three years, um, you know, I really hope that my publication is something that's become a really sweet part of the community, I hope that I'll be able to look back and say, Well, no, I've met with 500 business owners and, you know, 200 residents, and, and, you know, look at what's blossomed because of the seeds that we've planted inside of the community. And I just have no idea how to quantify the impact and where I hope that will be, except that I hope that it will be large and I hope that people when they think of stroll and when they think of strolling sawgrass that it will be a publication that has brought unity and also has been a true reflection of the diversity of stories that exist within the community that may get what it is. So anyway, I don't know if I don't know. A but yeah, that's great. I mean, one of the things that kind of comes to mind that reminds me of something that I have done in the similar community. When I first I've told this story before I don't remember it on the podcast or just in my social but when I first started the restaurant in the sawgrass village shopping center, we had our First health inspection and it was perfect. It did tell you the story. Oh, no. But health inspection is like, oh, yeah, no, it's super scary. And when you're a brand new, you know, restaurant, you have to make sure it's perfect. Well, anyway, we were perfect, except for one thing. And we ended up getting a warning, because someone had their dog on our patio. And that at the time was a health code violation. And so I mean, I was furious, because you know, you, you go through all these acrobatics and hoops of building a pristine, perfect, you know, to help code. And then I felt, you know, it fell apart at the end because somebody had their dogs. So I ended up canvassing the community, similar to what you're in the process of, and I had all of the restaurants in the area, sign a petition. And then I took it to the city commissioner, and I got the policy changed, it turned out. Yeah, that the St. Johns County area had not passed an ordinance which would allow dogs on the patio at the discretion of the owner. So it's become the source of pride for us, because we were able all these years later to get the ordinance changed. They went back and reverse the warning. So record. Yeah, so it's like a really good, I'm very, very proud of what we've done. But, you know, things lead to things, in my opinion. And so when you're, you know, out there canvassing and you're talking to someone, they have a story they have needs, they have, you know, something going on. And it's it's a part of kind of this building of the community where you're able to make connections then of people from different parts of the country. I mean, just the fact that you met with someone from Oklahoma that had, you know, I mean, there's just, it's a small world. And I think a part of struggle, in my opinion is making it smaller, more intimate and more closely connected for the people that are inside of it, which again, I think was missing. So yeah, sure, there. This is kind of random but cool. But somebody was telling me that Thomas Edison's family or some of Thomas Edison's relatives live inside of TPC, sawgrass. Oh, yeah. And their family, they're all electricians. So they have some Electrician Business, which is crazy. But those are the sorts of things to that you're like, you just you never know who your neighbor is, you never know, you know who the person is all those 10 houses down and all of us just carry such a unique story. And I love I love that I have an outlet to be able to showcase and tell those stories. Yeah, that's great. Um, you know, I think that in the working world, you know, as I work with corporations across the country, and across the world, people are isolated now more than ever, and they're having such a hard kind of the mental health components, the implications on just even showing up as workers if it's a virtual completely virtual setting, or they're not speaking or talking to any other humans, it gets to be very, very again, isolating. And so, you know, I find that the sawgrass area is pretty closely linked, and we happen to be kind of the restaurant is in the middle in the hub. And so we get to know quite a few of the folks quite a few of the business owners and so I love that. Yeah, yeah. I've had a handful of meetings with residents, and about half of them have all been at Trask which is great. I love it. That's their go to Yeah, they want a great lunch place. And you know, foxtail is great for coffee, but we're like, want a little bit of lunch, like, where are we gonna go? Trust me. So I love also that, you know, even as I'm in the community that I get to connect with you guys in that way, too, is sweet. Like, that's all of those local things. They all add up and make a difference for that. Yeah, that's great. Tell me I'm going to switch gears for a minute. Tell me, you know, how has your experience been as a female leader, a female entrepreneur? You know, I think we both have probably some stories on good and bad, but tell me what what has it been like for you in this Northeast Florida area? As a female? Oh, my gosh, that is a great question. That is a great question. So I would say overall, I since as it pertains to the magazine. I haven't had I haven't had any negative interactions or I haven't had any. I don't have anything negative to say in terms of me being a business owner as a woman. I think in terms of external I think internally is probably been more difficult for me than externally in this specific region. And what I mean by that is when I talked to some when I talked to some men that are literally their magazine owners in the same position, for example, like when it comes to negotiating or discounting, like some of some of their negotiation tactics, or even their ability to be like a little bit more, crass isn't the word that I want to say. But that's sort of the word that I want to say, like, just more straightforward and upfront, it's like that kind of comes, like, easier or a little bit more naturally. As opposed for me, like I just sales has never really been a part of anything that I've done, honestly, I've just kind of stuck to operations, I've stuck to, you know, the HR component. And obviously, sales is such an integral part of a business. And so, I would say the most challenging thing for me as a woman right now, in a role that is highly sales oriented, is, is having the confidence and the ability to, to know what I am worth, and what the product is worth, that I am, you know, that I'm offering to people, and, and really sticking to that. And that is probably been the most difficult thing for me, because I just like, I just want to, like help everyone and, you know, I'm like, tend to avoid conflicts rather than to jump in it. And so I just have to be careful to be really confident. And then the other thing I would say is, man, how do I wear this, like, a pivotal thing, a pivotal thing, for me, that's changed my mentality that has given me a lot more confidence as, as a woman, that's owning my own business, is honestly my mentality of that. So when I'm approaching people, you know, I from an advertiser perspective, people are paying for an ad inside of my magazine. And I can come across as one of two ways I can come across as a solicitor, which is annoying, or I can come across as a real person that has a real product, who owns their own business that has value in what they're adding. And if I come across with a perspective of like, Oh, please, like, Please buy an ad for me. Honestly, I lose respect to myself, and I and it honestly takes away confidence. But if I approach it from a perspective of this is my business that I own, and I care about it. And in from that fuels, my ability to converse with people to have a true and honest discussion, when it gets to the end to talk about closing and sales and pricing, the more confident I am, of starting out a meeting, you know, with the fact that I am that I am an odor. And even if there's you know, somebody else on the other end that their business is, you know, already in its 10x growth stage, and they've been around for 1520 years, regardless of whoever sitting on the other side of the table will be I can look at them and say, Hey, owner to owner, we're having a discussion here that has been pivotal for me to have competence. So I know it's a little bit long winded. But I think to kind of answer your question. I honestly, I haven't really faced anything externally up here. Not to say that I've never faced that in any of my other business endeavors. But up here, nothing really external. It's been much more internal for me in a sales role. I think that's great. I mean, I happy to hear that, you know, you haven't faced anything that has been too offensive. And I would say, you know, sometimes as women, we are our worst enemy, on that kind of imposter syndrome, having the confidence or, but I was gonna say, I think you do a beautiful job of bringing your vulnerability and just being really open. And it makes people want to work with you. So whatever you're doing, I think it's working to say, Yeah, I'm so okay, let me ask you on the just kind of platform that you've chosen. I mean, the interesting thing is, you know, printed mail became fun at one point, because email was the norm. I think print media has become fun, because of course, digital media has become the norm. So a little bit about like the print publication, and why did you choose to go with a print version? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. So the first thing and I talked about this with all my potential clients and with, you know, the people that advertises me, but the first thing that you kind of have to ask yourself as a business is, who do you want to reach like, who is your ideal customer base? And then once you can delineate that then the next question is, how do you reach that customer base, and for every single bit Notice that looks a little bit different. For example, if I'm a roofer, maybe I want to cover 25 different areas, you know, whereas if I am a doctor, I might be more limited to like a three to five mile geographical circle around where my offices, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to advertise to somebody in Daytona Beach. You know, if I'm a pediatrician here in Jacksonville. So as you start going through all those questions, and you ask yourself, Who is my ideal customer base? How do I reach them? Then you have to ask yourself the question, what is the most effective medium for me to reach them? And again, even that looks a little bit different. So in me choosing print advertising, it is a real solution for a handful of companies. It's not the answer for everyone. And, and I totally understand that it's one of the things that that's the reason why I meet with everybody beforehand, because I don't want to I don't want somebody to be an advertiser with me if it's not a good fit. But it is a real solution for some companies. So for the companies that said, sawgrass TPC is my ideal neighborhood, those are my ideal customers. That is my that is the geographical region or a geographical region that I want to target. So then the next question that I always ask through and we work through right is, okay, so that's your ideal customer base. Now, how do you reach them? Well, what we know is that a lot of these gated communities are very hard to reach, you can't solicit in them, you can't go put flyers up, you can't go stick a yard sign, because the HOA will, you know, find you and find you. So the question is, if that is your ideal customer base? How do you really hone in and target them. So when you kind of start looking through all of your different medium options, well, you could take a digital approach, but chances are, it's going to be more of like a geographical, it still isn't as like fine tuned as the specific neighborhoods. So you know, you could cast a one to three mile radius or a zip code. And it's going to be able to hone in to a group of people there. But you still don't know if those people that you actually want to see your product or actually or your ad are actually seeing it. So then you have to ask yourself the question. Okay, how do we get even more niche? What if we do that with like a TV advertisement or with radio, while you still kind of come over to the same question? How do we know that those people are actually looking at my ad, so then you get down to the print advertising format. And when you say magazine, when you say print advertising, that also can mean 25 different things, because you and I know there are 25 different types of magazines from, you know, you have like a home magnet mags money pages, which is 100% ad sent out to 400,000 homes, you have a magazine that's sitting on the shelf of Barnes and Noble, you have a magazine that's sitting inside of doctors offices. So again, you know, you have to ask yourself the question, is this MAC Who is this magazine going to? So the reason why I love stroll, and why I think that it is extremely effective for some businesses is because it is a magazine that goes specifically to one target designated area, a specific neighborhood. So it checks the first box of being able to effectively target. And then the next thing is, if people are throwing it away, it's pointless. Like they see it for half a second, and then they pitch it. But if people are engaging with it, then it is worth everything. Because people are actually seeing your brand. And the thing about stroll. The reason why I chose this specific print advertising format is because people actually read it. Because the stories, the content, the front cover, it's all about the residence. So if your kids are inside of the magazine, if your family is on the front cover that doesn't get thrown in the trashcan, it gets framed, and you know, put on Facebook and handed out in the carpool line. So the reason why I chose this format is because I think that it is extremely effective. And it is a it is a good solution and answer to certain businesses that are trying to hone in and target a very specific market. It that cuts through a lot of distraction of other advertising in a really, really unique way. That's great. Well, I think I am looking forward to your launch. So congratulations on that and I did it's right around the corner. You are a wonderful example of a small business owner looking to make a big impact and if there's anything that me or point in release can do. You'll have to let me know I know. You know the track of business will be you know, closely linked, but really appreciate you coming on and just talking about your journey. I wish you the best and a very, very long run of say Seth, so, thanks for being on the show with me. Thanks for answering all of my questions. And I shall look forward to having you on again. Hopefully someday in the future. Yes, of course. Well, thank you so much for having me and I we didn't really mention this, but I'll be doing Oh, yeah, did the social events, I am very much so looking forward to having some stroll traffic or social events in the future. Yay. But yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure getting to talk to you and share. So thank you. Yes. And Amy, I know we just put up the information if anybody wants to contact you that's here. So thank you again. Yes, of course. Put it in the show notes too so that they can find it. All right, well, if you're out there and have a small business and need help, point NE is always here and I Sarah Frasca am here. So Amy, thank you. Thank you to our listeners today and I hope you have a great rest of the day. Goodbye, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of level up your business with me, Sara Frasca. If you have a problem in your business that's keeping you up at night. Please join us in a future episode so we can help get you unstuck. Just clicking the link in the show notes and send us a message. Please remember, stay innovative friends