Angelique and Jeanne Louise both found liberation when they left their careers behind in the corporate world to pursue a life of freelancing and entrepreneurship, embarking on a journey together to discover how they can make a bigger impact.
As cousins and co-founders, they’ve built a foundation for their business based on the things they value most—family, creating balance, finding happiness, and making a difference. Tune in to hear how the dynamic duo manages to juggle it all as the co-founders of MV Media Lab.
Angelique and Jeanne’s website: https://www.mvmedialab.com
Jessmyn:
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories Podcast. I’m your host, Jessmyn Solana. As always, really excited to be with you guys today. And with me is actually a really cool episode because I’m interviewing two people. And I have with me Angelique and Jeanne. Hi, guys, how are you?
Angelique:
Hey.
Jeanne:
Hi, thanks for having us.
Jessmyn:
Of course, thanks for being on here. So to give everyone a little bit of a background of who Angelique and Jeanne are, they are actually cousins and co-founders of MV Media Lab, which is an agency that specializes in marketing funnels, design strategy, lead generation and conversion optimization to ensure your marketing message reaches through screens and settles into the hearts of strangers.
So either of you can go first, give us a little bit of a background of exactly what you do and some of the customers that you serve. Go ahead.
Jeanne:
[crosstalk 00:01:05]-
Angelique:
Yeah, so we specialize mostly in creating marketing funnels and optimizing a lead strategy for our clients, which typically are business coaches or wellness professionals, usually more in the conscious, passion-driven industry, because we found that that is the client we most resonate with and feel like we can actually help without feeling like, “This isn’t us,” type thing. So, yeah, typically coaches and wellness creators and course creators of that sort.
Jessmyn:
Exciting. Jeanne, did you want to add anything?
Jeanne:
No, that was pretty on [inaudible 00:01:48].
Jessmyn:
So you guys are co-founders. And what I found most interesting when I first found you online, I guess we found each other in a way. But when I first read your about on your website, I noticed that you guys are cousins. So what is it like working together but also being family?
Jeanne:
So at first, I was like, “How will this work? Will this not?” But eventually as me and Ange worked together, we actually found the soulmate partner in each other, business partner. We actually started working on a certain project together individually, we were subcontracted individually for a certain client. And then that’s when it started, where we were like, “We could actually partner up together and make an agency so that our impact would be bigger, and we could actually serve more people that we resonate with.” So yeah.
Jessmyn:
Okay. Did you have anything to add Angelique?
Angelique:
Yeah, so that’s essentially how we started and it wasn’t this big idea that we were like, “Okay, we know exactly what we’re going to do. This is the people we’re going to serve.” We were just like, “Okay, let’s come together, see what we can do together.”
And once we started signing projects together, we initially were just like, “Okay, are we going to be a social media agency? Are we going to be a design agency? Are we going to be a marketing agency?” We just said yes to every single client that came our way. But then eventually, we niched down and was like, “Okay, well, we can’t offer social media strategy, but also be building marketing funnels on the back end.” They’re two completely different things. And we were just constantly wearing different hats all the time.
So then, as the years went on, we just niched down into, we’re good at marketing funnels. There are other markets that we could offer. We know a lot about those industries as well. But does it make us happy? Type things. So we niched down to marketing funnels, running ads for those funnels and building lead generation funnels.
Jessmyn:
I remember last time we spoke to you, you guys mentioned that and you said a little bit, you wear different hats. So you guys do two separate functions in your business, right?
Angelique:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
And so how were you able to just come together and be like, “Okay, you take care of what you’re good at. I’ll take care of what I’m good at. We’ll come together and make it work,” without I guess getting into any arguments or fights over what the end product looks like.
Jeanne:
It actually never happened-
Jessmyn:
Nice.
Jeanne:
… [crosstalk 00:04:44] arguing about something. We just naturally are drawn to what we were good at. She’s been very good at funnel building and designing whereas I’ve been a paid ad specialist for the longest time. So naturally, we already knew what we were supposed to do. And then we just come together and just figure out the whole system for the client. How it starts from the ads to where the ad redirects to the funnel and everything, we even did email nurture sequences in the past where Ange had to write it too. So it was a lot.
We were basically doing everything for clients from the ground up, just to market their offer. So it was just exhausting, in a sense, but then we never had any argument about like, “Why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that?” [inaudible 00:05:36]-
Angelique:
I think also a big reason why there were never really arguments was because both of us naturally have a systems oriented personality. So we were just trying to figure out ways where we can streamline onboarding clients, passing over our work to clients, we were like, “How can we make that as efficient as possible, but also put us in the correct positions where we wouldn’t clash.”
So we did that early on. And I think we’re really grateful that we have that natural talent. I know a lot of people don’t have that ability. But we were trying to think of ways where, “If we streamline this, it will make this process a lot faster when we onboard the next client.” So that’s the thing that we try to focus on whenever we take on new clients, we try to add a little piece to the puzzle to make that process a lot more streamlined, where we don’t have those conflicts arise.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, because I feel it’s always hard in a business partnership, where you both own I guess half of it, and it does come up. So I think that’s really cool. And it’s also interesting how you guys are related. And if anything, if I were in business and my cousin, I think we would fight all the time.
Angelique:
Yeah, we were really, really surprised with that. There were times where maybe we felt that someone wasn’t pulling their own weight, but it was often because we also understood the stresses that were going on in their life. So we were a lot more understanding of like, “Okay, I understand this is going on in your life, but we need to focus on this. Let me know how I can support you. And we’ll get over this little hurdle.” So it was never yelling and screaming, it was just like, “Okay, we’ll get through this together, but let me know what you need from me,” type thing.
Jeanne:
Also early on, we were very vocal about our boundaries like, “Hey, on Mondays, actually, I don’t want to work. That’s my rest day,” and stuff like that. So we don’t expect… On Monday she would work and stuff. So early on, just establishing those boundaries, helps us understand each other and how we work. Because Ange works differently than I do.
I’m a morning early riser, where she’s later on the day kind of worker. So it’s totally fine because I’ll answer the emails in the morning, whereas she answers and deals with the stuff in the evening, or late in the afternoon. So it’s a pretty good balance.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I love that. Because I think people who are solopreneurs, right? They have the flexibility to decide, “Okay, I want to work this time to this time.” And for the most part, they just have to figure out, “Okay, when do I have to actually talk to clients? what time does that look like?”And that already is hard. But you guys seem to find a balance really well working with each other.
My next question is just how do you balance out if one person is maybe feeling burnt out and the other one is like, “We have this huge project, we can’t do this right now.”
Angelique:
Yeah. I think it’s something that every business owner and entrepreneur faces, even anyone in their career, really, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur, you could just be anything.
Burnout is such a real thing that everyone faces. And I think just understanding that you’re not the only one that is feeling that. I think that was the biggest thing where we were like, “Okay, we feel burned out something is obviously pulling us too far in one direction.” So we sometimes take mental health days, we’re like, “Okay, today we’re not going to do work on the project. I know it’s a big project, but mental health and our health, happiness, balance comes first.” And we’re really understanding with that because we have been pulled so far in the wrong direction, where we don’t want to wake up, we don’t want to work and it gets really, really dangerous when it gets that far.
So when you feel those feelings coming up, we know how important it is to get out of the house, get out of the office, go to the gym, go in nature, do stuff like that, so that we can turn… I feel like the biggest thing that helps solve burnout is just stepping away from the work, you won’t be able to overcome it if you just consistently work, work, work, work, work.
So yeah, I think the biggest thing is just taking out time for those mental health days, which is really, really important.
Jeanne:
Also, when it started to happen, or it did happen a few times with us, we took a step back, and looked at the bigger picture. “Okay, what’s happening? What’s going on? What’s wrong? Which area are we really stressed out about?”
That’s when we realized that we were just saying yes to a lot of things. I know, we could do this. I know he could do that. But it was just like, “Let’s stop thinking about just saying yes, and getting a lot more and more and more clients. Let’s think about getting the clients that we like, which will eventually help us build where we want to be as an agency.
Also, in the past, me and Ange would have difficulty passing on the work to the people that we hired, outsourcing staff. We were a bit of a perfectionist, but then eventually we’ll be like, “It’s okay, Ange, the design is fine.” Or I’ll be like, “Okay, the [inaudible 00:11:33] is fine.” Also that we just had to stop being like a perfectionist, stop trying to do everything on our own. Because we do have help. We do have people under our belt, who could do it for us. And we just have to take a step back and try not to micromanage everyone.
So that’s also one of the biggest learning that we had along the way.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I love that you mentioned, I guess, to summarize be more selective of who you’re working with, in terms of clients. And I think if you do really enjoy what you’re doing, it’ll show up in your work too, right? And then it’s also the time that you’re spending on it is more enjoyable as well. So I think that’s awesome.
Is there a way that you guys figure out what that criteria is, in terms of, “Who do we like to work with? What do we want that to look like? And then our work will be better for it.”
Angelique:
I mean, along the way we had good and what you would say bad clients, they weren’t necessarily bad, they just didn’t match with us. And I always like to use the analogy finding clients is like dating, you’re not going to be compatible with every single client you work with. And that’s okay.
And so we have had those bad clients, but we’ve also had those great clients. And when we started to feel like at times burnt out, we pretty much built a customer avatar for our agency. And because we work with clients, both good and bad, we were able to pinpoint specific things we liked, specific things we didn’t like and moving forward like, “Okay, we need to be really crystal clear with expectations from the get-go.”
And that was something we learned along the way, we didn’t automatically have this onboarding process for all of our clients. In our case, we were just like, “How can we prevent any miscommunication, but also, clearly explain what we expect from our client side,” where not everything is on us. It’s an equal, they have to pull their weight, we have to pull our weight to really get the outcome we need. So yeah, that’s how it evolved, really.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, that’s actually a really good way to put it. I, of course, have heard, “Figure out who your ideal customer is,” but no one ever talks about, “What am I actually enjoying out of this experience? And is it worth it for me?”
Angelique:
Exactly.
Jessmyn:
We always miss that part, right?
Jeanne:
I think the thing too, that people say, “Just find a niche or find your perfect client,” I think it just comes with experience because you really can’t figure out what you work best with if you haven’t even tried having a client under your belt, basically. So that’s also one thing, how could people understanding a niche or understand a client [inaudible 00:14:38], if they haven’t even tried or put their self out there.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I think that’s a huge thing just in business in general, right? You want everything to be perfect. So you think of all the ways that you can strategize this launch, but it ends up being pushback, because then you change your mind and you won’t actually know what worked and what didn’t work until you put it out there and start testing it out for however long and then from there, you figure out like, “Okay, this is what worked and what didn’t work.” So-
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
Oh, go ahead.
Angelique:
No, I was just agreeing with you.
Jessmyn:
No, it’s all good. It’s always hard when you’re recording and you have to try to figure out, “Oh, who’s going to say what?”
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
But I was going to ask you guys, so did you… Well, my first question to start this off with is where are you in your own businesses before you came together? Or you had corporate jobs?
Jeanne:
[crosstalk 00:15:41]-
Angelique:
So I… Go.
Jeanne:
[inaudible 00:15:44].
Angelique:
I had just graduated college actually, and after graduating, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to just do this soul searching journey through Asia and figure out what I want to do with my life.” Throughout college, I was always dabbling in owning my own business. I had a few clients freelance while I was in college, but also working different internships. So I always dabbled in businesslike activities, even in college.
And then when I did my backpacking trip around Asia, I was like, “Okay, well, what do I want in my life?” And I think I was really lucky to be able to have that experience, because I know a lot of people just jump into a career right away. But yeah, I just was like, “Okay, I’m just going to put myself out there and see what comes my way.”
I started offering to work for free, trying to get my hands on pretty much everything I thought I was good at. I was managing social media, I was building websites, I was working on paid ads. And just pretty much said yes to every project. And it was the same thing with Louise, she… You could tell your story. You could tell your story. [crosstalk 00:17:05].
Jeanne:
Five years ago, I was in corporate. I was the head of Google Ads management there. And then I was just like, “Oh, I could basically do this on my own and just get my own clients.” But it was a risk, though leaving my corporate job to try to build my own thing. So I did that. And I also…
Here in the Philippines, digital marketing is not as way up there as it is in America or the other countries. So me and my other colleagues here are on the first, the pioneers in terms of the people who knows how to do ads, who knows how to do Facebook and Google ads. So as COVID happened, that’s when I lost basically all my clients for Google ads.
So I was like, “Okay, whatever.” So I started to just do freelance work too. That’s when me and Ange also aligned in a sense, we’re, “Oh, you’re working for this project. And I’m working for this product too.” And so it just came together at that point.
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jeanne:
[crosstalk 00:18:23]-
Angelique:
It was never forced.
Jeanne:
Yeah, it was never forced. From building my own Google Ads agency here in the Philippines, to letting go of people, that was very hard because I knew those people had families to feed and stuff. But what can you do? The client had to pull out because their businesses are not functioning anymore. So we can’t run ads. And most of the people that we run ads for had brick and mortar businesses. So it had to really shut down, there’s no point running ads if they’re shut down, right?
So I tried holding on to them for a couple of months. But then the finances was also not coming in for me. So I just had to have the hard decision to let them go. And then that was just pretty depressing. So I just had to go back into this freelance independent contractor work. And then that’s when me and Ange eventually came together, basically. COVID.
Angelique:
But I think also, it was just the right timing as well. If I imagined myself a year before we decided to come together as business partners, I think there would have been so much conflict because I didn’t know what I was necessarily an expert in without the experience that I had prior.
And then similar with Jeanne she was working with clients and if she was working with her clients that she had on her own, plus we were trying to build an agency, it’s again, wearing too many different hats. If you’re half one step in one thing, one step in the other, it’s like you’re giving half of your energy to both things. And both of them won’t get to a point where you want it to go.
So yeah, I think it was all just organic, natural timing type thing. And our collective experience in our past is what made it work for both of us.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. And it’s really cool because how you were saying, right? You had good and bad experiences, you take those experiences, and you figure out your own niche, like what kind of clients you want to work with. But you’re also able to do that with your work apart as well like, “Hey, here’s what I tried, here’s what I’m good at. And let’s make something out of this.”
Rather than, most of the time, I feel like when I hear business partners come together, it’s like, “Oh, I want to start a business. Do you want to start a business? All right, let’s just do it.” There isn’t this plan, I guess in place yet. And it’s really interesting how you guys did it backwards in a way, or I guess, sideways, I don’t really know how to explain it.
You had these collective already experiences and opinions and you were like, “We can do better, rather than just coming up with something and seeing if it works.”
Angelique:
Yeah. I think that was the beauty of it. We saw the gap in the marketing industry, really. At the time when we started, at least the marketing funnel side of things, was heavily influenced by men. And so we were pretty much like, “Okay, we’re not attracted to big red buttons, the sleazy marketing tactics.”
We were more focused on building that connection and authentic way, whether that’s your marketing messaging, whether that’s your videos, whether that’s through a funnel that looks as beautiful as it is as how much it sells.
So that was the gap, we were filling. We wanted to make beautiful funnels and market those. And at that time, it wasn’t really a thing. So we pretty much came together closed that gap, obviously, not entirely, but came together and that was our goal. We wanted to close that gap to make marketing, not this thing that people felt uncomfortable doing. We wanted it to feel natural, we wanted it to feel organic. And we wanted to focus on the connection aspect of building that relationship with your clients, as opposed to just marketing just to market.
Jessmyn:
Yeah. I love that. I say it all the time about how, I think what’s changing now is, especially our generation, we grew up with the TV and with cable, and it’s just commercials yelling at you everywhere. I like to say yelling at you, because that’s what it feels like. But I know they’re not actually.
And then on top of that, with the rise of the internet, we get all these ads of just clickbait, not even really giving the value of what you’re clicking on. It’s just like, “Click here, do it now.” All these big bright lights. But I think that’s awesome. As you guys go into this industry, right? And you start to see this gap. You want to fill it with something new, something different, and something more I guess human in a sense, less clickbaity, what were some of the things that you found challenging in that, as you were trying to also create an actual business out of this?
Angelique:
I think early on some of our clients did not resonate with that, because what worked for building their businesses were things like those funnels with big red buttons and that marketing sales language that doesn’t sound nice, but works. The thing is that stuff maybe doesn’t resonate with us, but in analytics, they’re constantly shown that they work.
So a lot of times at the beginning, the clients we were already working with were like, “Okay, we can try it, but we’re not really sure.” When we decided we wanted to go down the organic, authentic type marketing path. We realized that we actually started to attract the people who didn’t want to sound super salesy.
And that was the beauty of it. Because once we started communicating like, “Oh no, the way we market is organic. We want to sound like you as much as you do. We don’t want it to sound inauthentic. We want you to feel excited about it,” because otherwise there’s something that’s missing, there’s something that’s wrong.
And what we noticed was that people we were attracting also felt the same way about marketing. A lot of times people were coming to us and they were like, “I want to do marketing, but I don’t want it to sound sleazy. I want it to be beautiful. I want it to sound beautiful.” And as we decided to focus on that authentic language, that’s when we started to attract clients who also wanted that same thing.
So it wasn’t something that naturally came to us. At the beginning, it was like, “Okay, we’ll pitch this idea. We don’t know if they’ll want it.” But then eventually it led down the path of people are coming to us because we offer this specific thing.
Jessmyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Can you give us, for people listening, I don’t know if timeline is the right word, but how much of trial and error and talking to the wrong people did it take for you to finally find that nature of people who were like, “This is exactly what I was looking for.”
Jeanne:
I think the first six months was the roughest. Because we had clients that already signed on, that we were like, “Ah, this is really not working,” or, “This is actually too much.” Until I think we just came to a decision that we have to let this client go. Because if you don’t close this chapter, then we can’t begin another chapter looking for the clients that we already resonate with.
So we had to let go of that client, and then start looking for the clients that we already have similar clients to them. So that’s when it started, I think. But then all throughout the year, we still would get those clients and, “Oh, this is not working,” and stuff. But I think even now, we will still get that, but at least now we have a clear vision of what we can offer or what we want of you.
Angelique:
Yeah. I think also it was a chain reaction. One of the first clients that we felt like probably the most compatible with is probably the person that also referred us the most. Because we didn’t just think of our clients as just a working relationship. We saw them as friends, we talked about life, we talked about what was going on during the pandemic. We were just as human to them, and not just a person behind a screen that’s working for them.
We really tried to figure out all possible ways where we can build their business up, but also again, be that authentic person behind the marketing. So that’s how it evolved. Initially, the clients we were getting, we were ourselves, we just weren’t compatible, I guess at that time. But then once we started going down that route, the referrals started to come in from the clients we were just naturally ourselves with.
And we were really lucky for that matter because we really didn’t have to do that much outreach. In the end, clients kept coming to us because people were referring us based on their past experience and work with us. So that was the beauty of it as well, what came out of just being real, being authentic, and not forcing anything upon anyone and just realizing that, “We want to help the business exceed, we like you as a person, we like your message, we like your offering, how can we add our areas of expertise to support you?”
And that was the language we went into every single business partnership. And it’s done well for us.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I love that. I like that a lot. I was going to ask what are some of the ways that you can keep that natural and organic relationship with someone when it’s all over the computer and calls and then even their business is online. Right? So how do you keep that human connection while also accomplishing the goals that you need to?
Angelique:
Yeah, I mean, I think our calls naturally will just flow, where before we talk about anything, business or work or scalability related, we always have 10, 20 minutes catchup like, “What’s going on in your life? What’s up? Where are things? How are the kids? How’s the family?” They are always those conversations that we have prior to talking about work. So it’s like a work hard play hard type thing.
We know you’re a real person, we know you go out on the weekends. And we want to know about that stuff. Because also knowing our clients in an authentic way also helps us market them in an authentic way as well.
Jessmyn:
[inaudible 00:30:15].
Angelique:
So that was the biggest thing where we’re like, “Okay, if we know the person, the client as much as we can we understand their values, we understand what they’re doing on the weekend.” So then, when we do write things like sales copy, we can pinpoint those specific things happening in their life because we know it’s real, but also use it in a way to market in authentic way.
Jessmyn:
I love that.
Jeanne:
Yeah. I think the first thing that we always ask our clients is their story. Like, “What’s your story?” And then based on that, that’s where we organically flow from. Just understanding your story, what’s their pain points in the past, or how they started and stuff like that, what’s the vision of their business? That’s really where we pull our content from, where we try to get to know them from the start from that.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I like that a lot. And it’s cool that you guys do that because that is how I start off my intro calls for this podcast. I don’t know if you noticed when we hopped on our call, but I decided that you can’t get the real story or you can’t get someone’s true, I guess personality, if it’s just very structured, you have really specific questions. But if you hop on and you’re just like, “Hey, how are you doing? Where are you? Where do you live?” Even just something as simple as that.
I hopped on a call once and we talked about the weather for 20 minutes. And it’s just such a cliché small talk, but it still works, right? You can still get a feel for who they are, you can get a feel for what they like, what activities do they do in the summertime when it’s hot? And that’s where the conversation can go. I think that’s really cool that you guys do that a lot. So-
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
Oh, go ahead.
Angelique:
Oh, no. I was just-
Jessmyn:
One of those just agreeing.
Angelique:
One of those, yeah.
Jessmyn:
All right. I wonder what this will sound like in audio just because we have [inaudible 00:32:24] people before, but I think it’ll be good.
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
I remember you guys also mentioning on our last call that you’re in two different countries. And I just wanted to follow up with what is that like running a business in totally separate places?
Angelique:
We’ve made it work.
Jeanne:
[inaudible 00:32:49]-
Angelique:
I mean, constantly, and we’re like, “Once borders open up, we’ll be in the same place, definitely.” But our business was born amidst the pandemic. We started January 2019ish. And there were days where we were brainstorming business plans and working on client projects, and you’re on Zoom for probably majority of the day, as if we were together.
I think that’s the beauty of Zoom and the internet and technology is that it makes it possible. Most of our clients are either in the States or England or Europe. And so even time zones was a big thing that we had to become accustomed to. I feel like now all the time, I know exactly what time it is in California and New York and Florida and England and Thailand and the Philippines. And that’s not someone…
I think getting accustomed to the fact that time zones are a real thing. It’s something we have to deal with when we choose to live in this side of the world. And Zoom makes it really easy, honestly. And I think also just creating roadmaps for the projects we’re working on, what needs to occur this week, what needs to be accomplished this week, how can we delegate those tasks to the team so that they’re on schedule for the projects that we’re working on. And it’s worked.
The time zone for us really isn’t a big issue because for us, it’s only an hour difference. And I wake up later anyway, so it’s fine. But yeah, technology has made it pretty seamless.
Jeanne:
Of course, at times we think about like, “Oh, it could have been way, way easier if we’re together,” and stuff like that. But what can we do, right? We have to make things work with what we have. And then that’s just like… We also just missing each other very much. But I think that when we go on Zoom for four or five hours, because we’re cousins, it’s not exhausting, but I think if it’s just random, if it’s my boss or around a business partner that’s not my cousin, I would be exhausted talking to that person.
Whereas me and Angelique would be on this five hour calls, but then in the middle of the call, we’ll talk about life, and not just work. So there’s little bits of breaks in there. And then we’ll go back to being on a serious note, and then laugh and then joke and stuff like that. So that’s good fun too.
Jessmyn:
No. Yeah, I think that’s super interesting because I totally get what you mean by being on calls and just being tired from it when it’s work related. I don’t even know why that’s a thing. But it is real. So I think that’s super cool. You mentioned working in completely different time zones as in your clients, how do you prevent yourselves from becoming overwhelmed, working weird hours? And then on top of that, is it both of you always together? Or is it here and there? Do you take different days?
Jeanne:
So [crosstalk 00:36:26]-
Angelique:
Yeah, sometimes.
Jeanne:
From the get-go, we established expectations from your clients that we won’t work within your office hours, obviously, we won’t work in US hours or London hours. From the get-go, we tell them that there’s a timeline and expectations in our onboarding process, that our team and me and Ange will work while you sleep, we’ll set up your ads, your funnels while you guys have your weekend and while you sleep. But then we do have biweekly calls with them, biweekly or end of the month calls with them.
So we did have times that we had calls in the middle of the night for us, but it’s [inaudible 00:37:08] for them but it’s fine because it’s just a few calls in a month, rather than having to work within their hours, which is too much. Ange.
Angelique:
Yeah, I mean, I think the hours was something that we just became accustomed to. If we are onboarding a client in California, we know that time is going to be different. Working with clients in England, it’s fine because it’s a six hour difference. So we’re taking the calls in the evening, which I feel like for us works because we get all of the hard work, deep work done in the morning. And then we have our calls.
With places like California or anywhere in the US really, we communicate from the get-go that we’ll try to reduce calls, but also increase the amount of communication. So [slack 00:38:08] is a big thing that we always communicate over with our clients in the States, just so that they always know what we’re working on. Because isn’t realistic for us to jump on calls every day, especially with clients in the States.
And so that is something that we communicate from the get-go. And then also just those every other week calls or end of month calls are also super helpful, especially when it comes to marketing campaigns because that’s when you have a great amount of data that you can analyze. You can’t really analyze data over one day, two days. So those end of month calls or every other week calls is really what drives most of our business and marketing decisions, is the data over the span of months.
Jessmyn:
So are you guys able to still work normal working hours, eight hours a day, even with that?
Jeanne:
More.
Angelique:
Sometimes more, but I feel like also it’s fun. A lot of people always ask me like, “Well, oh, how many hours do you end up working on your business?” As business owners, I feel like it’s almost impossible to completely shut off from your business. It is your life. You’ve chosen this career. But for us, we went into it as a passion project, really. We were like, “Okay, we enjoy doing this. How can we add this to other people’s businesses in their lives?”
It depends, it varies really, some weeks I’m working like, I’m like, “What did I do this week? Nothing.” And then other weeks, I’m like, “Oh, I’m super… There’s so much work to do,” and we just do it. But that’s the beauty of having a business, being an entrepreneur is you have this flexible schedule that you work with. And if some weeks you want to work 10 hours and then other weeks, you want to work 60 hours then awesome, I feel like that’s just working in your flow state and if it works, it works.
Jeanne:
True. That’s why I don’t [inaudible 00:40:20] people say, “Oh, you should just work four hours.” Or, “If you’ve run a business, you should just work less than the usual than being in a corporate job.” When in fact, when you are an entrepreneur, you work more hours than a normal person. Because it’s your business, even though when we were on vacation, I still think about things of how to make our process better or our systems better. Like what Ange said, “You never really shut off.”
Jessmyn:
Is that tiring to never shut off? Or-
Jeanne:
[inaudible 00:40:58]. You basically want to make a system work.
Jessmyn:
Yeah.
Jeanne:
Just [crosstalk 00:41:04]-
Angelique:
It’s more exciting [crosstalk 00:41:05]-
Jeanne:
Yeah, because in the long run [crosstalk 00:41:07]-
Angelique:
… [crosstalk 00:41:07] I’d say, than exhausting.
Jeanne:
Yeah. So in order for us to step back from our business, then we have to really build a system and a process that’s systems based rather than people use. So when we step back, or when people leave, and everything, the business will still thrive. It will be like, “Oh, our social media manager just went, what to do now?” But we just replaced that person. And then that person just follows the system that we’re up and running again.
So that’s constantly basically online and thinking on systems and processes for us. And think of the other things with the vision and the client acquisition and everything and the designs and stuff. So we really have our own roles and responsibilities within the business.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I love that. I was actually just talking to somebody the other day where they were pretty much saying something similar that it’s better to set it up so that like you said, if all hell breaks loose, I guess, you have something in place, it’s easy to pick it back up or for whatever reason, you do need to step back, it’s still running, it’s still going rather than it not. But I think it’s super interesting because you love it so much, you’re still able to relax, but think about your business at the same time.
Angelique:
Yeah. I think our best visions and decisions have come when we’re away from work. When I’m relaxing, getting massage, I feel that’s when it clicks. I come out of whatever relaxation thing I’m doing. And I call her and I like, “Oh my god, I had this great idea.” And it snowballs. So I always think whenever I’m feeling uninspired, I just step away, focus on myself, do the thing that I feel like will rejuvenate my energy. And usually it does.
So yeah, most of our best decisions have come when we’re technically away from work, but you don’t really ever stop. We don’t really ever stop thinking about ways to grow the business or the business in the future. Because we always know, we have just a clear vision of what we want to create for us, for our future, for our future families type thing.
And so yeah, it’s like a game. Really, it’s like, “Oh, how can we make this better? What are we missing?” And so yeah, I think we’ve just gamified owning a business. And it’s enjoyable.
Jeanne:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, because, I mean, I hear it all the time, right? Where people are like, “Oh,” I mean, I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with focusing on profit versus actually enjoying what you’re doing. But I hear it all the time where people, they want to push out some kind of course or they want to have this huge launch. And they’re just so exhausted that it’s no longer fun for them anymore.
So how do you make sure that you guys still stay true to your brand and making sure that you enjoy what you’re doing and that you’re actually also still providing the service that you want to provide to people?
Angelique:
I think just for us, we don’t necessarily focus on the profit-
Jeanne:
Profit.
Angelique:
… of everything that we do. If we create passion project for ourselves, creating a program or working with clients, if we create those passion products, or we do it for fun and don’t put so much pressure of like, “Oh, this is going to make X amount of money in the next month,” we don’t put that pressure on ourselves.
And I think that also helps with the creation process. It makes it more enjoyable, more creative, more fun. And we’re not doing anything just for the money. And so I feel like for us, not putting pressure on the profit side of things, and putting more excitement into, “How can we create? How can we cultivate all of these different things to work for our clients?” It makes it more enjoyable in that sense, when there’s not this outside pressure of, “Well, that coach launched a program and they’re doing this so I need to do that.”
We don’t put that pressure on ourselves because it doesn’t excite us, it doesn’t motivate us. The things that motivates us are the things like, “Okay, I feel like I could do really good at this. This is going to be my game plan to create this. I don’t know when it’s going to be done.” Yes, I’ll have soft deadlines. But the pressure of making money quickly, isn’t there. So I think it helps.
Jeanne:
That’s when it started too. When we started saying no, we had to realize that when we say no, we will lose a lot of money because we’re being selective in a sense. But because we got rid of that pressure of just thinking about the money, the money, the money, the money, it allowed us to become more creative, more authentic, and go to the direction that we really want to because obviously me and Ange would also love to…
We are also creating courses and stuff. But we’re not in a sense like, “Oh, we should finish this.” So you could launch and get this money or get this fame or whatever. We’re actually doing it because we want to help people learn those things, learn those specific skills and services.
I for one, wanted to create courses for Google ads because, as I said in the Philippines, a lot of people doesn’t really know how it works, or the technicalities of it because digital marketing on this side of the world is a little slow. So just being able to teach that to them, even just an overview or a crash course, is already super rewarding on my end.
So when me and Ange does create stuff like videos and courses, we think about the rewarding feeling that we get just being able to help out and being able to transform other people’s lives, rather than thinking about the money that we get from them. So I think that’s one of the most important things that we’ve learned too along the way.
Jessmyn:
I love that. That’s awesome. And I like how you guys give yourself room to breathe, rather than, I just like how you kept reiterating, “We don’t put pressure on ourselves.” Because I think that’s a big thing, right? And people get really caught up in those stories online, where it’s like, “Oh, I made six figures in one month after doing this crazy launch that took me a million hours,” and so on and so on. But take that pressure away, and you can actually still accomplish what you want to accomplish and everything will fall into place from there.
Angelique:
Yeah.
Jeanne:
And we-
Angelique:
Yeah, we-
Jeanne:
… [crosstalk 00:48:29] each other like, “Hey, how’s the thing?” But it’s not like, “What’s going on? [inaudible 00:48:34]” Little check-ins here and there. It’s already is a lot, whenever Ange asks me about this, I’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, I should do that.” [inaudible 00:48:44].
Angelique:
Yeah. We do quarterly meetings, where we set goals at the beginning of the year, beginning of the quarter. And over the year, we’re like, “Okay, what of those goals have we accomplished? What needs to roll over into the next quarter?” So those quarterly check-ins for us have been really helpful because we’re reminded of the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year.
And we’re like, “Oh, yeah, I did have that as a goal of mine to accomplish this year, I should start focusing on that now.” And it’s not this big pressure where, “By May 1st, I need to launch this thing.” It’s more of like, “These are all of the things I want to accomplish. How can we support each other so we can accomplish those things personally, but also in a business sense?”
So those quarterly meetings for us help us stay on track without the pressure of deadlines, deadlines, deadlines for us to launch a thing.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I love that. We’re coming up on time, guys. So thank you so much again, for coming on our show with us today. I do have two last questions that I wrap up every episode with, if you’re up for it.
Angelique:
Yeah, of course.
Jessmyn:
Okay, cool. So, second to last question, what are three things that most people wouldn’t know about you?
Angelique:
Um-
Jessmyn:
Sorry, I sprang it up on you.
Angelique:
I’m like, “Mhmm.” Let’s see. I feel like because we’re so transparent about our business journey that most people know most things about us. I’m trying to think of like, “Okay,” maybe people might not know that after graduating college, I just flew to Asia from Chicago. But that’s something that I’m very vocal about all the time.
And then the thing that we’re cousins. Actually, a lot of our clients don’t realize we’re cousins when they work on our onboarding call, and then you tell them, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” But yeah, I feel like we’re really transparent in terms of our work and our lives that I don’t think there’s much that people don’t know about us as an agency or even us individually.
Jeanne:
I think they don’t know we traveled together the year prior to COVID. We were just having fun. And we went from just sibling, cousins bonding time to business mode to building something [inaudible 00:51:39]. Because I think there’s a few people think about me Ange were just like, “Hey, let’s just start this,” when in fact, it didn’t happen that way.
As we’ve talked about early on in the show, a lot of people doesn’t realize that it wasn’t really force. It was more of it just happened, the stars have aligned [crosstalk 00:51:58].
Jessmyn:
Those are always the best stories, though, where it just fell into place, no plans, nothing. [crosstalk 00:52:06].
Angelique:
Yeah. Because I even remember when we were traveling together, we were doing brand photo shoots. And I was like, “Oh, well, you can’t be in my pictures because everyone knows you’re my cousin. I don’t want it to look like my business is just my cousin as my client. That looks weird.”
We were both like, “Oh, yeah, definitely that makes sense.” And then a year later we’re talking about that exact photo shoot we did together and we’re like, “Why didn’t we just take pictures together?” Because now we can’t because of COVID. So it’s just this funny thing that we never planned to go into business, it wasn’t this thing we had growing up, where we were like, “One day, we’re going to start a business together. It was more like, “I don’t see us…” We started our business basically out of just naturally organic stars aligning.
Jessmyn:
Love that. So my last question for you guys is, what is a single piece of advice you would give to yourself at the start of it all?
Angelique:
I think just trusting that everything would fall into place. There were so many times… I think being an entrepreneur and starting a business is scary. And at times, you’ll doubt yourself and other people will doubt you as well. That’s just something that comes with it.
And I’m very lucky that my brother’s an entrepreneur, my family is super supportive. So I was always very vocal about days where I’m feeling down or scared of the future. I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should just go back to Chicago and go to the corporate world, because it’s a lot less pressure than building this business on the other side of the world.”
If I told myself then, the biggest thing would just trust that if you continue to focus on what you’re passionate about, what you love doing, what you enjoy doing, things will naturally fall into place. And for us, they really did.
Jeanne:
Yeah. And on my part, I think it’s know that it’s okay to make mistakes. Because along the way, those mistakes will become your strengths because now you know better, now you know what your worth, what to charge, whether you’re an independent contractor or a freelancer? Or if you’re starting an agency…
In the past, we didn’t know how much are you going to charge? Or how much value are we… What’s our worth? And so just know along the way, you’re going to make mistakes, but then you’ll learn from them anyway. So I think that’s the most important bit. Don’t beat yourself up too hard because like, “Oh my god, I did this,” or, “I didn’t deliver for this X or for this client,” and stuff. It’s just all part of the process. And as Ange has said, just trust the process and surrender to the universe [inaudible 00:55:07].
Jessmyn:
I love that. That’s awesome. Well, thank you again for hopping on. Before I forget, can you let everyone know, especially for those who are listening, where they can find you online.
Angelique:
So you can follow us on Instagram @mvmedialab. It will also link to our individual profiles there Angelique Vestil and @itsjeannelouise or you could check out our website mvmedialab.com to find out more about the services we offer and getting contracts about that.
Jessmyn:
Perfect.
Jeanne:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
All right, well, thanks again and thanks to those of you who are listening and we will see you next time. Bye.