How Women Succeed In SMMA And Why Gender Doesn’t Matter

(Plus, A Checklist To Succeed As An Agency)

When I signed up for my first SMMA course, I noticed something peculiar. Most of the students were like me, male. In fact, women only comprised of 15% of the group. That correlates to mostly male agency owners in the industry too. But should I be surprised?

A lot of industries are male-dominated, especially in the STEM fields. Look at big business. There are 33 of CEOs in the Fortune 500 who are women. That’s only 6.6%, but the number of women leading companies is growing.

Still, it’s 2020 and I find that pretty sad.

And it doesn’t make sense financially. A study done by Quantopian revealed a huge insight about women in top roles. They compared the performance of women CEOs running Fortune 1000 companies against the S&P 500’s performance for over a decade (2002–2014). This comparison showed that 80 women CEOs during those 12 years produced equity returns 226% better than the S&P 500.

Clearly women, as well as men, know what they’re doing in business. And for the most part, gender probably doesn’t even matter.

Value is value, revenue is revenue, and leadership is leadership. It can come from anywhere and anyone.

So for this article, I wanted to interview a few successful women who own SMMAs. I wanted to find out the details of how they saw this male-dominated space and if it got in their way of being a top agency. Through this process, almost everything I thought about it was wrong.

Wisdom Has No Gender

To start off, I connected with Katija Vlatkovich of Misfit Digital. Katija has a fascinating background in marketing and advertising that goes back over a decade. She pretty much started digital marketing when I did. She was quick to point out that “The internet changed the way that agencies operate.” This changed the game.

Katija Vlatkovich, Founder of Misfit Digital

In the beginning of her career, Katija recalls that she saw a lot of women being passed up for bigger roles. As usual, men were in charge and they hand-picked who held the top seats. It wasn’t fair, but it was the way things were back then.

Today is a lot different. The internet became the great equalizer. Women no longer have to work for male-dominant companies. You can set up your own shop any way you see fit, and it certainly doesn’t have to be a boys club anymore.

However, most agencies today are still owned by men. I think it’s this way because other men taught them the business. Most SMMA courses attract men, so more men end up creating agencies. Until more women get involved as course creators and hold industry leadership positions, they will most likely remain minorities in this space. However, it’s refreshing to see more men instructors going out of their way to make women feel accommodated in their courses by not making things like gender, race, or age an issue.

Luckily, there are some stellar women training the next generation of agency owners. In our talk, Katija mentioned her training from Cat Howell. Cat is one of the top SMMA instructors in the space, and she’s known for helping established agencies scale rapidly.

Cat just happens to be a woman, but maybe because of that the ratio of men to women is the most balanced out of any group I’ve ever seen. I can’t help to think that it was because in a way, being a woman might have made it more inviting and inspiring for other women to join. Again, I’m just making this up. Most people just see her as the go-to coach to learn advanced Facebook skills.

Unsplash | @merakist

Even though Katija sees Cat as an influential woman in the space, she shared how she has had many mentors along the way from both sexes. Her strategy was simple: learn from the best no matter who they are. And with these skills, provide incredible value to her clients. This strategy paid off big time. Today, Misfit Digital is one of the top digital marketing agencies in Australia serving several global brands.

Take Bold Action

Another rising star in the SMMA industry is Mariah Miller. I actually know her personally having gone through Iman Gadzhi’s course together. Mariah had a great advantage going into SMMA.

Prior to digital marketing, Mariah was the #1 salesperson at a large auto dealership. Her experience there helped her understand customer empathy and consultive selling. It’s quite the opposite of the car sales stereotypes from the past. Mariah decided to win business by being authentically friendly and helpful. Customers lined up to buy from her because of this refreshing demeanor.

With a skill set like that, it’s no wonder why she quickly ascended up the ladder of SMMA income. We came into Iman’s course as cohorts, but she quickly blew everyone away. In just a few weeks, she was posting up client success stories in our group. One week I saw a screenshot for a $14,000 a month client!

Mariah Miller’s SMMA YouTube Channel

In Iman’s course, any client that pays more than $8,000 a month is called a “whale”. A “shark” client is around the $3K-$8K mark. Over the months, I saw Mariah talk about all the whales and sharks she had acquired. In fact, within four months, she was making well over $20,000 a month with her agency. A lot of us in the group, still working on our first sharks, really looked up to her. It didn’t matter that she was a woman, we just saw results. That’s the kind of thing Iman emphasizes: agency and client results over everything.

I was curious to ask her what she thought about the inherent “bro culture” in most SMMA courses. She seemed to fit right in and didn’t think twice about it really. It was just when she took to the streets that she noticed something different with a few clients. As she recalls,

“Some [business owners] may not feel comfortable learning from or listening to a female. They might think that I don’t know what I am talking about or something, but my results prove otherwise. There is nothing wrong with learning or listening to a female for business advice.”

This should be inspiring to other women because she didn’t let those odd experiences get in the way of talking to businesses. On gender, Mariah said, “I don’t see myself as any better or any worse off than males in the SMMA space. We all have the same chances. It’s all about putting in the work and taking action, right?!”

With the financial success of her agency and truckload of field experience, she now offers an SMMA course of her own called Agency Takeoff. I asked one of her most successful students, Lejla Agovic, the same questions about gender and SMMA.

A Room Of Their Own

Lejla is another self-made woman with an impressive agency. I get the feeling that like Mariah, she’s passionate about helping others and serious about business. When I asked her about women in the SMMA industry, she said:

“I personally don’t think that gender plays a big role. It’s more about your confidence and how you position yourself. It’s definitely a male-dominated industry, but that hasn’t stopped me from closing clients.” —Lejla Agovic

Unsplash | Alessandra Onisor, @aless_onisor

This was refreshing to hear. Interestingly enough, when I asked her which women she looked up to in business, she mentioned Mariah of course, but also a couple others: Erin May Henry and Charlotte Tilbury.

I had never heard of these women, but after investigating them it’s clear that they built businesses around specifically empowering women and mastering the business process. It made me think that maybe some women just need their own space to flourish, but to the outside world you wouldn’t know this. All you’ll see are results.

Mindset Is Everything

“Anxiety and excitement are very similar emotions. The only difference is mindset.” -Vanessa Van Edwards, of TheScienceOfPeople.com

The last person I interviewed was Jamila Jelani of Liaison & Partners. Jamila is another successful student of Iman Gadzhi. I always saw her as the intellectual and creative person of the group. The more I questioned her on this male-dominated industry, the more she revealed how much it’s a non-issue, and that others might be asking the wrong questions. For her, it’s important to start an SMMA with the right mindset. She eloquently states that:

“To approach something new with resistance on the basis on age, gender, race etcetera is to operate from a place of lack, so it’s best to reexamine not the market but, your frame of reference. The same could be applied to someone who is nineteen, who thinks their age is a barrier of entry. To me these are excuses found in fear and you must move past them to purse anything new, like in this case starting an SMMA.” — Jamila Jelani

Jamila Jelani, founder of Liaison & Partners

As someone who has seen it all in various SMMA groups, I think Jamila hit the nail on the head. It really is about how you look at the situation and frame your approach. She goes on to say that agency owners need to know “how to provide value, as well as having the confidence in themselves.” And this confirms the pattern in my interviews with women SMMA owners.

Value trumps excuses and identity politics.

The market can be critical, but if you provide clients genuine value, nothing else really matters.

Do Women Have An Unfair Advantage In The SMMA World?

From my interviews with this group and many others, the answer is No. Well, 80% No. Again, gender might not matter. Success depends on the individual. However, I can say that having been brought up by a household of women, they do seem to be the great communicators of the world. That’s a generality of course, but in many cases it holds true. And since SMMA owners must be consultive, it makes sense that the women who can cut through all the noise to solve business problems with their agency win.

If I can get a little more subjective here, I’ve also been around a lot of middle-class single-parent families. I’ve taught personal finance to rich people and poor people. What I’ve noticed is that women — of any class — generally manage money better than men. This dovetails Hitha Palepu’s comment on Brittany Krystle’s podcast:

“I’m so bullish on women founders. They manage cashflow significantly better than men do because they’ve always had to do more with less.” (Beyond Influential, #106)

Whether this is true or not, I believe it. I’ve seen it countless times. If I were a small business and encountered a person (of either sex) that could save me money and increase cash flow, that would be a no-brainer deal. The women I interviewed don’t think they have an unfair advantage as agency owners, but I think they do. If they translate their communication skills and money-management skills into the digital marketing world, that’s a significant unfair advantage over men.

Conclusion

Statistically, it’s clear that marketing is yet another male-dominated industry. What I discovered in my interviews with successful women who own agencies was a bit surprising. I was wrong about my assumptions. Not one of them said that gender was a big issue when starting their SMMA.

We’re seeing the landscape change as more and more women enter the field as founders. With more women in charge, things are destined to change for the better. And since SMMA is an internet-based business, the sky is the limit with the kinds of talent and clients it attracts.

Overall, the industry has become a meritocracy. The best talent and the best results get the best clients who pay well. Like any good entrepreneur from any walk of life, it’s about creating value and communicating your services to others.

In the end, it’s not about men versus women, or women being minority leaders in the workplace. Entrepreneurship in a free market is a level playing field. Just give clients what they want (results), and you’ll be an SMMA superstar too.

Next Steps

The SMMA Quickstart Checklist

To succeed in SMMA like the women above, you have to focus on six things:

01. Start With Mindset — In the beginning, mindset is everything. Focus on the positive and commit to excellence.

02. Get Training— There are tons of great SMMA courses. Get the best training for you and apply it in the field.

03. Get Great Results — Great results are a byproduct of great training and plenty of field experience. You have to learn, test, recalibrate, and redeploy. Working with real clients on real projects is the only way to get the best results. If you hang in there long enough, the skills and results will come.

04. Focus On Sales — Get good at sales because it’s the lifeblood of your agency. If you have money coming in, you can always hire the best. However, without sales it doesn’t matter who’s on your team. Consistently connecting with prospects, learning how to read people, and genuinely helping business owners is the key to getting more sales.

05. Build Culture — As Katija Vlatkovich of Misfit Digital advises, “Get out there, make mistakes, and keep going. Focus on culture and building a great team.” Learn how to treat people right, train them well, and provide an environment where everyone can succeed. It doesn’t matter who or what you are, the best and brightest get rewarded.

06. Have Courage — Without saying it, you can find a clear pattern with the women interviewed here and elsewhere. To be successful with your SMMA you must have courage. Speak with confidence and conviction no matter who you are talking to. When you do, you’ll find that businesses are willing to listen.

Peyton is a brand advisor and writer from Portland, Oregon. To learn more, go to arliepeyton.com.