It takes a village to raise a child.
This week’s episode, learn how Marie has created a community to help raise and support children especially with learning disabilities.
3:01 How Marie started helping kids and the community through marketing
14:57 self-esteem and learning disabilities
41:02 Marie’s journey from teacher to marketer
More Marie:
Website – https://libertyvirtualsolutions.com/
Marketing Mindset Mastery podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-mindset-mastery/id1515164191
Hey guys Megan here. Thank you for coming onto the show. Really appreciate you being here. So this interview is with Marie Mason Who? I don’t even remember how we got to talking honestly. But we had an intro call a couple of months ago, just you know, to shoot the shit and meet each other and just realized that we had so much in common and I really loved hearing her journey. You know, we were originally just talking about marketing and all the things that go into loving marketing. And she began talking about just almost as an aside about this book sereis that she was working on, and she’s been working on for a long time. That helps kids with dyslexia learn how to read and become more confident. I was totally blown away by this, and I was like, What? Why? Let’s talk about this. This is fascinating. And so I wanted to bring Marie on and talk about not only marketing because we love to talk about marketing. And you can’t stop us from talking about marketing, but also about creating a community in this world of overcoming a disability but also just finding a community and supporting it and raising each other up in this community so that you all win and feel better. And just like it’s, it’s such an inspiring story. I love it and I love Marie. I hope you will, too. Here’s my interview with Marie Mason all about creating a community.
Hi, I’m Marie Mason and I’m passionate about helping others share a clear message to attract their target market more effectively.
Beautiful, so Marie, you know, you and I were talking before and decided we were best friends. Kind of how that works when you talk to people, right? Absolutely especially in marketing. But what really fascinated me about your story was, your history with helping kids with things like dyslexia and things like that. And so I really wanted to get into that story, too. I just kind of, you know, talk about how you started that your book launches and all of those things and how you think we can all help kids, and then definitely, we want to talk about all of the marketing stuff behind that too.
Cool. Where do you want me? A whole different ball of wax.
Right. So I think that we should probably start. And you started thinking about this in the eighties, right?
Correct, I was in college when I started writing my book, and it was a class project called Go figure, because you know, those how those things go and it was for a literacy teacher who I absolutely adored. He was only there for one year, a semester even, I think. And I was so disappointed that he did stick around past a year, but he was there for, like, a whole year. And I think after that year he does. They didn’t want him in there for some reason, I think because he was one of those rebels and thought out of the box and like I thought that way. So we connected. And so he had this class project where he wanted everybody to write a Children’s book because it was for my early child education degree. Because that was one of the things I did was I have. Ah, so she has an early child education and a bachelor’s in human development just to give you a quick background story and so for one of my projects was and I don’t think it was my senior year project, it was to write a book. So everybody was supposed to write a Children’s book since we were all in the education field. And so we were all studying for that. So I wrote about dyslexia because based off of, ah, good friend of mine growing up, we would. He was actually the bully of the neighborhood in my school, and I hung around him because I felt safer around him. But I did rather risk it. I don’t know if he went to relate, and I was the one that was like pick down the most. So it was because I was, I had a learning disability myself. It was auditory perception. So and I felt like people were just misunderstood. Both teachers and parents and even kids were just totally misunderstanding what learning disabilities were on. I wanted to define that, and I wanted to make sure that dispelling the myths and also to kind of really focus in on acceptance is a choice. And the thing is, we have. People have got to understand we’re all unique. We all have different gifts and abilities, and we all could contribute in different ways. And I’ll give one myth. Sometimes people we’ll hear things like dyslexia or auditory perception or whatever it is that they hear here and hear with auditory perception, to think that I’m dead. No, I’m not dead. It’s auditory to me. Perception means that I just perceived things differently. So what I hear translates and comes out of my mouth sometimes differently than what I may hear someone say, Anyone remember the I’m sure we’ve had this discussion before, but the telephone game, you know, sure or the person that was at one end of the line would sit there and say sentence and asked everybody to repeat it. And it was always funny because at the end, they would paint it to each other, they would like whispers. The next person couldn’t hear it and inevitably, it always came out differently than what the teacher said. I always felt that was amusing, but, and so that’s why we can have fun and laugh about it. But that’s how the brain works with somebody who has an entree perception. It also is the same way that with anybody who has a learning disability when it comes to the word perception, because what happens is our brain hears things or sees things, or we touch things. And sometimes it translates into something else that is and then leaves with people learning to police. I know it’s not spelled right, but that’s how I see it, you know, and it’s in the book. I even describe Sorry, just it’s I scratch is just It’s just all the stuff to bear with me. But anyway, we’re all real people, long story short, though. The child in there, I think he talks about. You know how he sees the word. The Lost Dog is the name of the book that’s in the that he has to read the title of And he says, the last bog because he looks at the picture of the dog and sees the word bog. That’s how I dyslexic brain sees it. It reverses letters, sometimes words sometimes and and there’s even math dyslexia, then actually versus numbers. You know, there’s so many different variations of that one thing. But dyslexia is the most commonly known about learning disabilities, which is why I started with that. And I, like I said, I based it off my friend, who in this case wasn’t really being a bully but just was acting kind of like goofy. And, you know, out of disruptive kids we’re learning disability can get bored really quick and especially if it’s something that they don’t like to learn, so with that said, one of the things I have learned is that you have to keep them engaged in order, keep your mind focused on what they’re trying, what you’re trying to get them to do and if you’re if you’re putting them off What I saw even in 2017 when I was substitute teaching how people with disabilities or needed some special attention would put the people in the back of the room and my biggest. When I was working with them, I noticed that they were saying, What? We can’t see the board. We can’t hear the teacher. We can’t follow along because the teachers talk too fast And I heard other complaints from other parents with kids with learning disabilities or special needs. And one of the things that the teacher needs to do is they need to learn to slow down long enough for all of their students to catch up. And I know that’s gonna be hard, because you might lose some of the kids who wanna be fast paced. But you’ve got to find that happy little medium in between so that we can learn to teach them and reach more of our students because you’re losing some of these students that really need that extra attention. And the problem is, a lot of the teachers don’t even know how to handle working with them properly. That’s why they end up bringing in specialists because they want someone who’s gonna sit with them one on one and focus on their needs and how to work with but it’s and and integrating them into the classroom is a great idea, but at the same time, they need to be able to find a better balance and how to do that. I don’t know if that answers that other question, which is how do we work with that? But and all they all kind of seemed to know I went down a rabbit hole because I tend to do that. But they’d all blended together because if you think about it, look at how we teach people today. We’re using a Ludic technology which is a NASA set not a not a not a deficit, but at the same time use it in a way where the kids are going to benefit the most. That’s my suggestion. And don’t dismiss these kids who act up, because if they racked up, it’s usually because, okay, maybe they’re trying to figure out what you said before, and they’re trying to get answers because they’re trying to give you Get your attention to add Say it again, so repeating what you said may sound redundant to you as a teacher or the parents or whatever it is that you are in that role in their life, but sometimes repeating in a couple of times so that people can catch on. It also helps The people that are, you know, are not in that having that challenge because, you know, we may write fast as adults. But as kids, they may not write quite as fast, and they may not be able to grasp everything so quickly enough, even with regular learning abilities. You know so You have to understand that repeating the information you really want them to learn would be very beneficial to a student who’s dealing with Learning Abilities. Also keep the wording simple, especially when you’re giving instructions, because that’s something I learned while I was teaching, if you give too many instructions like you need to put this folder on this desk and that desk and X Y Z desk and and then sharpen the pencils and do this and give them, like a dozen different things to do that’s gonna have them shut down really quick and not be receptive to your request. No failure. Sure much. And that’s what it boils down to because and you said it perfectly, it sets them up for failure. You want to go for anybody who’s working with learning disabilities where your teacher, parent or whatever instructor, whatever it is, whether tutor, whatever set them up for success. That’s the what worked with me it’s for is with people who worked with me and they set me up for success was helping keep a simple instructions, repeating the instructions, making sure I understood the instructions and then, in my case, having it also written down Help is that way I can do like a checklist and just kind of go. But that’s how my brain worked. Everybody works it out differently. Some people are very good auditory and can pick it up. I need to hear it, See it and say it and I need to write it down sometimes, but sometimes, But if so, if it was written down for me, I could least do like a checklist and say, Okay, there you go. But everybody learns a different way and there’s nothing and and and the problem is that there’s so many people out there that have this misconception that we’re stupid. I’m going to spill that myth to we’re not stupid.Â
That’s such an unfair stigma.
It is and that’s one of the things that I kind of picked up on. Even as a child, I was told I was smart, but at the same time, I was told in a sandwic way time on and you know that cookie cutter sandwich, You know, like, uh, this is a positive with a negative and then a positive, which is also nice feedback. But, you know, at the same time, it does put a little segmentation on you when you’re a child. And then you was misinterpret thinking, Okay, I’m stupid, You know, that’s sort of what you get. You hear the negative more than you hear the positive. So with that sadness, I found out that focusing more on what they do, right, rather than what they do wrong and setting them up for success rather than for failure. Because when you focus more on what they do wrong and you don’t tell them how to change it. It’s not gonna help them if you tell them that they’re doing this wrong. If you don’t give them instructions on how to part, then what is not going to change. And that’s where I have had the biggest challenge in my whole entire life with people not giving that clear instruction.
And I imagine that especially with Children like self esteem, plays a big role in this right? And I imagine that it’s incredibly fragile for kids, but for adults, too. And so are there, like, cognizant steps that you think people can take to. And I know you’re saying, like, give them shortlists, actionable steps, Keep it, you know, don’t give them a million right. But how do you wait? I want to ask me, how do you check in on the self esteem of a kid with a learning disability? But also what are signs that you think people would have of like they’re having an issue with self esteem or with cognitive abilities. Or that’s a whole big question. So you can take from that. Whatever you want.
I might have to pick that apart. I guess I’m not quite sure . Those were like almost three separate entities. I tackle the self esteem of a set stomach because that’s a really big key with learning disabilities and with anybody. Anyway and here it is. My suggestion is treat them with respect. Ultimately, regardless of who they are, what the learning disability is, what gender was what background? What ethnic background. I mean, what skin color I mean, regardless of what it is to treat everyone with respect and one of the things I am trying to kind of emphasizes is the signs that I’ve seen growing into the field of education and stuff like that and just teaching over the years. Try my brain thinks faster than my mouth sometimes e starter and well, just got to go with it. Anyway, I’m just saying I’m not perfect, but anyway, I just keep them working. That’s my disclaimer. But anyway, long story short, you need to be able to look out for these key signs when it comes to, I’m self esteem, look at their posture. Are they happy? Are they slumping down? Are they frustrated? Are they screaming and shouting, There’s a good clue. I mean, are they acting out of the ordinary, like, you know, being disruptive? You know, part of that is self esteem. If they’re being distracted to get your attention, it means that their self esteem is low. They need your attention to ask you a question on who and they need that one that interaction. And you have to figure out how to work with that interaction because everybody is different. Not always. There huggy people like me, most people are not so just letting you know, eh? So you have to kind of work with that. I’m just being upfront there. So I’m the warm, fuzzy type. Not everybody is. Some people are all the different personalities for a reason. Don’t ask me what the reason is. I’m still figuring that out two years old. So anyway, it’s a long story short, So I mean, there’s so many different ways to look out for self esteem. I mean, I mean, look at their interactions with their friends and how they’re literally just looking at their facial expressions, looking at how they talk about themselves. I mean, whether the words that are coming out of their mouth, that’s negative, you know, there are negative phrases that they probably hear here and then they regurgitate that information. I say that loosely, by the way, anyway, Onda. And it’s just because kids are one of those mimicking people. They loved to mimic anything that was here and see. So if you’re saying something negative or if they’re hearing it from another source because you don’t know what’s going on in their lives outside of school, so you need to understand whatever they’re hearing, they’re repeating it to you or to anybody else on what they’re saying and you’re gonna pick up on that. But you’re also gonna pick up by watching how they play with each other and how they play with their friends and how they interact with the students. And then you can tell, because the ones who are generally shy are going to be the ones that generally have more of a self esteem issue. The ones who are bullies are going to have a self esteem issue. The clowns want attention. They’re gonna have a self esteem issue that is mainly the normal people. Well, guess what. They may have it. They just hide it well, but they haven’t too. But you have to look for the signs. So I’m just saying, But those from different ways kind of pinpoint if you have a clown in your class and I know that we’ve been in classrooms, even those kids we can know and pinpoint. Okay, The ones who acted like the class plan ah, might have had a self esteem issue on and wanted attention. I hope you didn’t see the father just passed my screen. Gotta love it during my life. Accordingly, you never know what’s gonna happen. But anyway, long story short, those kinds of those were some of the signs that you could see and the behaviors that you couldn’t tell. But, I mean, I could go on and on about that, but I mean, those were just some tips that I mean, just literally look for the signs. Look for people’s pastures. You can tell when you’re slumped down. They’re kind of kind of sad. Sometimes they’re not even sad. Sometimes they’re happy, but they’re kind of deep in thought. Sometimes there sometimes they kind of got that frustrated look on their face. I mean, there’s so many different ways of doing it. I mean, you could go Google it. It will tell you all the symptoms and stuff and stuff like that’s my suggestion. But those were just only a handful of tips that I would suggest. I mean, hopefully that helps clear off that, but that’s just one area. So there was something else you wanted me to ask. And I know I couldn’t remember what?
The question was I can’t remember either now, because this is just so fascinating to me, maybe it’ll come back to us. Leave. Oh, no. After you know, Midnight. You know, I’m not the only one that thinks like that. Just watching these questions down. I love just talking and getting the free form because you find it so much good information and I want to go back to your book, though, and you’re turning this into a series right? You and this will kind of time with marketing to of So you wrote this book as an assignment and then you saw that it had value and was hitting an untapped market. Caso, how did you decide that You want to make this series? How are you getting this out? How are you? How are you finding ways to touch the people that were most in need of this?
Hey guys, At the end of every month, I’m planning to do a Q and A special answering all of your questions, either about what we just talked about or anything in between. I am happy to hear back from you and help you out if I can. If you could do me a favor and go to the beigehouse .com/ask Megan. You can leave your comment or your question there and I’ll be able to get it. I’ll be able to answer it on the next episode on the next Q and a episode again, the address is the beigehouse.com/askMegan, asked Megan is all one word. Thank you so much. I look forward to hearing from you.
What they are is good. This could be another rabbit hole because there’s a lot of questions, so hopefully I can remember them in the order, but okay, so the point of my series is to have a teaching point, which is about acceptance is a choice, but about teaching them about what each the visible but being a clear definition of it and showcasing how you’re seeing it through the lens of the child. So whatever the learning disability is like in this case dyslexia, you’re walking through the day and seeing it through the ones of the child, and you’re going through their perspective. And here is why I wanted people to really understand that this is, what’s the word I’m looking for, that this is really it’s really about. How is the best way to put it? basically, it has a lot more to do with giving people a perspective on what a child is going through that has a learning disability. Because sometimes until we see what another person is going through and stepping into their shoes, we have no concept of what they’re dealing with on a day to day basis. I think that was what I was trying to drive at, and because we have that opportunity with these books with the book Siri’s I’m Putting Together we’re having that opportunity to see it through the lens of a child that’s going to give us a unique perspective. Interview your frozen, by the way. Hopefully, hopefully unfree soon there you go but hopefully the series, what the goal for the Siri’s is to do with each What I did with the first book in each learning disabilities gonna see through that Shetlands of the child so that we can experience what they experience and see the frustrations and kinda get a better understanding of how they are and why they’re like that in the in a clear definition of what the word means. So we can understand and accept. Okay, this is how they are. But this is how we can also help and the other part of it is, uh, everyone’s gonna every one of the books. They’re gonna have spelling words, only five. Like I said, keep it simple following that strategy there. So keep a few simple words that are little because it’s geared more for elementary school ages, but literally and even greet them so. But it’s too geared towards you know, let’s have a few more, you know, complicated words introduced to it and stuff like it might not know what Lauren Scalia’s hope dyslexia is as well. You know, for example, I might introduce the name of a specialist. Define what that is and simple, simple terms not necessarily written down copied from from a dictionary thing, but just literally simplified forms of definitions so they can have an understanding of what the meeting’s are, too. Because one of the things I did wish some of the childrens books I read growing up had were the definitions for some of the book is criminality, because I was like, having to go look it up. This saves you from looking it up, so you know what I mean? But it’s also good for using in the classroom and the homeschooling environment or whatever it is that you’re using for whether you’re a tutor or whatever, it’s also a good tool to use for learning for that as well. And I’m also using like I also created a handout so It’s like, uh, what’s the word? Like a worksheet, so the first one is gonna be about, you know, the deal sexy and how it’s like a matching game and they have to correct the correctly spelled word with the UN correct spelling word. Incorrect spelling words. Sorry, my terminology is off today, so it just kind of learned to do like a draw line to match its simple easy, like I said, simple directions. Easy to learn. Maybe I don’t think there were more than 10 of them there, but might have been less. But anyway, the point is, though, it’s to get the concept reinforced. This is how the child sees it. And I have a Facebook group, too. That’s also a special problem. So we go in there and I’m building a community there to help parents and teachers to support that. So go onto Facebook. Look for a double Bears special problem, and it should say membership group. So they’re that way. Just just I think there’s another one out there so that they might be distinguished from others. But I’m building in the show notes, too, so that people can get, that’ll be perfect. And it’s free right now it’s a free membership group for right now because I only have a couple of local parents in there, but I actually haven’t done a whole lot with it. I gotta add some things, but what I’m doing is I’m finding articles. Not literally one’s I’ve written, but ones that other people have written in showcasing what the different learning disabilities are and then I’m gonna be putting my worksheets in there and eventually doing other cool things in there too, as we grow our community. But that’s it for now, because I have too many other projects into right now. I want to keep it simple and not too time consuming for me, but still be able to give and help that community of people that you know. And eventually we have to get some moderators to group something, but when we grow it, I don’t have very many, but it’s something I’m working on building. So I would love to be able to have more members in it because I wanna be able to give support to the teachers and to the parents who are dealing with Children who have learning disabilities and purpose, fight them as much information and connect them with people who might be able to help them. Because I had tons of people linked in and some of them, which I’ve reached out to that talk about different learning abilities. And some are for dyslexia and some of her autism and some of her different areas. So I could have resources for people to reach out to if parents and New York teachers need help with those resources. So I want to be able to create a bridge and bring it like a bridge and give that and bridge the gap between that kind of community so that people have, like, a resource to go so. It’s like I said, it’s my way of giving back to our community because I talked like I said for 20 years. So anyway, that’s an interesting experience in itself, but that’s why I did the book series because I thought I was going into it when I started the book. I’m now re-capping a little bit. When I started the book, it was because I was going into my teaching career. Now that I’m finally finished with my teaching career, I’ve actually spent 20 years learning about all these different learning disabilities and seeing what these kids have been going through and understanding more about it on DSO, I’m able to now go back as you know, someone who’s teacher has had the experience of working with and I could go back and come in with a different fresh perspective, so and provide that perspective for parents and teachers and so forth so and the students themselves. So that’s why I have that. And I probably didn’t finish covering everything, but I came over all of what it was on is not an age thing. I just It’s been that way since I was a kid, so just saying I’ll walk into I don’t know if you’ve experienced it, but I’ll walk into your room and you’re like, So what? That was coming in here for you. And then I’ll come back out here like now I remember the local Beckett. There’s that phenomenon of something about door frames and how your mind just no more, it goes right out the window. It comes right back in when you, Yep its Association thing, too. I think so. I can’t explain it. I Think it’s a phenomenon. I even watched my teenage son do that, like, in the last three months. And I’m like, Oh, so I know it’s not an age thing. I even go with this generation. I feel better, okay and that has nothing to do with disability money. That’s my disclaimer. I think that’s just everybody, that’s we could well be linked to having those temporary moments of forgetfulness, like So what was that? Okay nothing to do with our topic, but oh, it’s free form.
So going back to I love that you started talking about the community, building behind it and, you know, for marketing that’s really important. But also, I think, just in terms of, like, the actual altruistic reason of having people connected together to help solve things. And so, how did you start doing that? Like, methodically, Or did it just kind of fall into place?
It sort of fell into place because I had people ask me, I want to get in your email. I had no email for that time. And I’ve gotta actually, I have a list of context that I need to get in touch with and say we have this Facebook group and I now have a software that can handle that kind of stuff, so I do not need to get them on the separate list. But, man, it’s just like I have to be other projects to think about everybody able to get to everything. But the key thing was, was I wanted to build that community because I have people reaching out to me. So how do we connect with you? How do we learn more when we and I keep pushing back the project deadline and when we’re gonna launch the book? Because my publishers in the separate subject and the Philippines and so Philippines have had so many disasters from natural disasters with their, you know, flooding in all sorts of other crazy stuff going on between October and March and then between March in June or about March and may, uh, maybe even even in February, they literally, like, shut down. It was 14 by neighborhood because of the covid situation. So I have a 19 and have changed the world. I think literally in the in, like a moments notice. So interesting concept, but anyway, but the point was, we had to put the project on hold because his Internet connection wasn’t always available to get him, worked on the project with me. So sometimes you have to put things on hold and revisit it, and hopefully we’ll revisit it. Uh, this month and hopefully we’ll get it written up because it’s halfway done. It’s most of the way done technically, but I got a new illustrator and got some tweaks done to it. Now I’m just getting the wording. I’m a bit of a part time perfectionist. Good isn’t always good enough. I don’t know if anyone who is the perfect just can relate to that. But anyway when it comes to putting you on the first book, some people say I’ll just get it done I say but I want to get it done in a way where it’s going, makes the best sellers list without having to have too many conflicts of like, well, dispelling Word was wrong or this concept was wrong. And I mean, I’m not sending out a crappy project, okay? That’s just if I’m gonna put money in time, I want a good product. And if it’s not going to be a good product, I’m not gonna put it out until it’s ready, because that’s just because it reflects me. It reflects on the brand. And if I’m gonna generate the first book, it better be darn good. Polished. And so we’ve had a few little hang ups with that. With the piece of that, we’re just trying to tweak things and get things all lined up perfectly with illustrations and the wording and all that kind of fun stuff. So long story short, but it’s coming together. It’s hopefully launching in August, but we haven’t quite been able to get back together and talk to my publisher, and hopefully we’ll get that straight. But anyway but I mean literally. The final thing is literally getting the wording done and everything polished. And then it’s literally golden once everything is all polished up. But I think love is going to have to be on my end to get it all. So it’s worded and stuff, and I’ve had enough proof readers with eyes on it. So now I just gotta get it all with the pictures and the words so that all blends together some here like and then sends off the copy to my illustrator to my publisher. But that’s after the taxes e until after the 15th. I’m sorry. I am limiting the manage distractions between now and the 15th.
I Believe in your Marine. Like I said, you could do it.
I’m not worried about where I’m going. I had to say that because that was going public. But at the same time, it’s like I have to get it done. It’s like I don’t want a choice anymore. It’s like we’re all deadlines in here, so I don’t know about you, but when I have a deadline, I meet it as much as I can.
In the same way, except that I will do it the 24 hours before the deadline.
Well, I have, like, at least a week’s worth of work to get to that point, so I can’t wait to like the very last minute because mine’s not like an easy peasy thing. I have to itemize and all that fun stuff. Not fun. But anyway, for those who are non tax people, some people love the numbers and geek out over that stuff. I love people like that. I cannot be like one of them.
They are a fascinating unicorn. They’re just Oh, totally.
I appreciate everyone, especially during taxis. My hat’s off to you all for real the crunching numbers and get it to look right? And Oh, my gosh, you guys air Phenomenal. I mean, we admire you don’t anybody who has their niche, whatever that maybe that’s listening. I don’t know who your audience is, but I mean, if they’re listening and they’re got a different niche, we admire anybody who has a different niche than us list because you know, we all can work with together collaboratively. You know, I cringe when people say, Oh, it’s competition. Not really. It’s collaborating. It’s called Let’s work together because you never know. Somebody might know somebody you might want to work with, and it might benefit you. So it’s all about collaboration. I guess it’s a good lead in for marketing.
I don’t mind. I just have that natural flow of conversation, I guess.
No. Let’s dive into it.
So what do you want to know about the marketing part? Because I’m not sure where you’re. The question was for that.
So the question was about the methodology of building your community to help them, but also to promote your books.
Okay, so for helping build the community on Facebook and doing, like, email and stuff like that. Okay, So basically, the community is there to support the parents and the teachers who are caregivers of anyone who’s working with learning disabled students. Because there’s babysitters, tutors, specialists, you name it. There’s a whole 10% of support for people who have that learning disability and or disability. And my whole preference is to make sure that I provide, help with the parents and help and connect the parents and the teachers. And the resource is and literally makes it more so that they have resources that are at their disposal. They can connect with each other and also ask questions to each other. Because would it be nice if you had a teacher that you didn’t even know from your school system. And they can ask him and, you know, in a safe community Oh, blah, blah and well, that and they were like, Well this has been my experience and blah, blah, and they could give each other and okay, I’m doing the cartoon version of blah, blah, blah thing. Anyway the point is, though, they could give their insight into a situation that would be different than what their teacher is. But at the same time, it’s more like, let’s just learn from one another and help each other through life’s hurdles when you’re dealing with situations and in Children who were going through struggles and let’s figure out what we could do to help them to move forward and to grow academically and personally, making sure we take the social and emotional aspects of that, too. And not just the academic part, you know, Look at the whole person. I mean, even in my marketing, I’d look at everybody as a whole person, not just as a number. I want to dress all sorts of different topics just because my radio show is all about that, but anyway, that’s a different story. But the long story short is building a community where we could literally support each other and help give good information and feedback because we can learn somebody has. One perspective is different than ours could help us, view a child or view a situation differently and maybe change the direction of where the child is going for a lifetime. Just having a small role in that and just orchestrating that is kind of pretty much a blessing for me. It’s more like I want to be able to like what I said, to be able to give back to the teaching community and to help parents. And when I’ve talked to parents and teachers are all like, we need this. So I know I’m on the right track and that’s the right time because I wrote it over 30 years ago and I’m dating myself, but it’s okay already, so that’s 52. But nobody age is a number just saying I’m just the youngest I’ve ever felt by the way for when I’m sick and then I feel like I’m each in history, which is very rare, by the way. I’m getting older. I’m getting healthier. I don’t get that, but that’s just the way it is s Oh, there you go. But there’s something to be said about that. So some of us are getting the opposite of a Professor like me. So anyway, long story short of it is that I, they just wanted to be able to provide support and to help them get the right information, maybe be ableto communicate with each other, just to get feedback and information and insight to something. Share Information is the key thing, because we’re literally there to help and just really help those Children succeed. And in whatever ways and means we need to do it. And sometimes with the way that things are with covid it and we’re not sure how the Falls, even Virginia still deciding whether we’re opening up for the fall and we win that we still don’t know, especially each county and community is different. So each state in each country is doing it a little differently. And what that looks like to use it would be different, you know, So we need another Resource is to tap into, so I want to be able to provide it. Like I said, provide those resources for the teachers and the parents and be like a supportive community for those Children and the people working with those Children. and that’s really what it boils down to.
That’s so your full time is marketing, right? So did you find your passion for that through like the projects like this? Or was it teaching like, how did you get from teacher to marketer?
That’s a wild question. So long story short, I talked for like I said 20 years in the futile and off and on because, you know, I never was in a job for more than a year or two or 2/5. I think it was the most I’ve ever done and then I did my home daycare for five years, and I think one of the things I did was while I was doing my home daycare. I had to market my own business, so I had to figure out ways to do that. So that was one way I did direct marketing for a health and wellness company for 22 years because I don’t want to get into trouble. I don’t want to name the name and try to promote the business. And I’m not. I’m there on paper. I’m not actively building it right now because I’m focused on my marketing and business in my book and my podcasting, so I really don’t have a whole lot of time to do that right now, but it is a great company. And I learned a lot of my marketing skills. My basic leadership condom. What’s the word I’m looking for the most? I can’t think of another word, but he went over my leadership skills and thought, process and mindset. I learned from them as well. I’ve learned I take a lot of those basic concepts and put them into my business. The differences: I don’t do direct marketing in my business but I’m still kind of doing a similar con. I mean, so to take the similar leadership, basic fundamentals, you know, leadership and I apply it into my business because I do lead a team in my marketing team, so we’ve been a marketing and production team and phenomenal group people from all over the world and so going from it, teaching background into marketing, I was going to own my own company, and I learned a lot from that other company for 22 years. But after a while, it gets stale, even though they do bring in fresh methods here, and they are trickling in and new products to learn. But it just wasn’t exciting to me anymore. And I was getting more and more frustrated because I was dealing with people’s personalities, and they were different than mine were in. Didn’t always work well together, to be pulling so I decided it was time to find something else. And it wasn’t anything reflective of them or anything that anyone did. But you say it was more okay, this is the time for me to move on, so I took all my experiences from my education. I did a really big deep dive. Evaluation back in 2016 to 2017. And while I was job hunting because you kind of have to figure out You know what? You’re good at it. So you could showcase that when you’re job hunting. Okay, so I got tired of job hunting, and I found it, but I was at the point where I had to put myself out there. So I went on this job site they wanted you to have. It was for virtual assistance, and they wanted you to have a website where? And they want you to pay for their job board. Uh huh. I have no money to pay. That was jobless. Right? So, like, that wasn’t gonna happen. But I thought about the website. Well, if I’m going to spend all this time creating a website for them, why don’t I just create it from my own company and start my own stuff? Mhm. And I was gonna make it free for the people who are working for me. They weren’t gonna have to be paying me because it doesn’t make sense to pay somebody to work, to get a job.
Right?
I mean, just to me, that made no sense. So I don’t post jobs on my website. But I do offer virtual assistance to come to me and talk to them. And to interview them. I get their background to get their skills and I could check on their personality. I’d like to make sure they understand my concept. They understand what I’m trying to accomplish and that if we are a good fit to work together and then if I do, I bring him on board. I trained them in my methods, and I do have methods. And I do have stuff like that. I like to do it. So they’re gonna learn on. They learn a lot of free stuff. I don’t do the page stuff as much as I. Whatever I have that’s available to me, they are available to include any of my mentorship. They have availability for that, too. So they get that, and in exchange, we do an internship with them first to test them out and then we work with them. Once we get clients, they also can if they want to make extra money, they can also become the generators and learn our process, which is really super simple. People make it more complicated, their minds and most people deal with it, and I’m not like it’s not that complicated, really. technically speaking, and I keep it simple as basic as possible. and I’ve been where we’ve been doing ah, doing on launching of that this week, and I’m super excited about the results. So we’ll see the end of the week. We’ll see what the results are like. What it’s tomorrow. I can’t believe tomorrow’s right anyway, so we’re gonna see how our launch is going and to see how that works. But it takes. But people need to be clear about one thing. When they’re doing marketing, it’s not a one and done, it’s not. Set it and forget it. You have to be consistent in really putting yourself out there, even when you’re working with people like if you’re a service based industry because I work with coaches and speakers and business owners, most of them are service face, especially the coaches and speakers. So when you’re dealing with a service based industry, you have to still be able to market yourself because you never know when the client has to go away. Covid’s hit. That’s all pretty hard, so you have to constantly put yourself out there daily. You have daily habits, weekly habits and weekly and monthly and, like 16,90,60 the 16,16,90 day habits in quarterly six months, year long habits and also goals. We need to plan all that out. And here’s why. You need to have a short term goal midterm goal in a long range goal. And then you’re the short term and midterm goal. Need to connect with your long term goal. What is it you’re trying to achieve? So start with the end of the mind, which is your what? Long term goal. Work it way back down to what you need to do daily, whatever you’re doing. Daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly and then six months a year long and then two years or whatever it is. Whatever that looks like to you needs to tap into that long term vision that you have everybody who’s learned goals. No, this is not unusual. This is not new. This is normal, but you need to be able to really start at the top and work your way backwards. And then that’s going to dictate what you do on a daily, weekly and monthly, because you have to have these daily habits. Pick the five daily habits. 3 to 5 doesn’t have to be five, but I would recommend not more than five because our brains can’t really go past five and keep consistent. I know what kind of content I need to do out on a daily basis on a weekly basis on a monthly basis. And I keep that illness, and I get to measure it every week to month and stuff. So I mean, you just need to be able to track that, and you need to be able to make sure you have a specific date at the end of that. I know I’m probably going down two different rabbit holes that you plant.
That is but not only marketing that, like those for any goal setting. And I think that’s great you know, like if you’re not a marketer, but you still need to accomplish something like that’s That’s the method you should use. And so take those marketing tips. Yes. Take this, marking tips and just use them in your own life. But in any area of you.
Marketing, you could do it. Any business, you could do it in any kind of goal. Whether you wanna learn? the cello, for example. Not that I ever planned to, but I have a sister who did. And she learned that she has a business around now, so go figure. But long story short, though. I mean, whatever your goal is, I mean, what if you wanna learn Japanese, You know, Was that what it looked like to you? Take that long term goal. Why you wanted and the long term goal really is your Why? Why is it that you’re accomplishing this, then work your way down to the list, and then it will narrow down to those five daily habits that will help you achieve those goals and we even have a workbook on that too. So I could give you that link as well, but yeah. Yeah. So I told that to but anyway, long story short, though. I mean, know what you’re No. When you’re doing marketing, you need to know what your why is you need to know who you won. You need to know what it is you’re offering. People make sure it is a problem that you’re solving for them, not just what you’re giving out, They’ll say It’s all about me. It has to be more focused on them. This is what I hear about lots of professional marketers. Let me know when his time’s up. So when you’re getting to that point when you’re ready to market, make sure you know what problem you’re trying to solve for that person. Make a clear statement, then also make sure you know who your target market is. I mean, get really really focused. I mean, not just great. Geographically. What is it that person looks like to you? You know, get real. There’s two different aspects to it. And I think I’ve got several things that could help with that. I have marketing. Of course it’s on that too. And welcome a marketing workbook. Anyway, the court and that gets in a deep dive on that. And then I’ve got. What else is there? Oh, you need to make sure. Okay, let’s recap. You need to know what the problem you’re solving. What it is that your target is who your target market is. And then what do you do to solve that problem? If you know those three aspects of marketing, and you also need to know the tactics are. Okay, but you need and creating the hook is OK and everything, and that’s all pieces of it. But you need those three first and make sure you focus more on them and less on you. You’re gonna have a lot better reach. But when you need help with that, then turn to marketing agencies or companies or people, individuals and then talk to them and see how they can help you, because there’s different strategies to do that. There’s different ways and methods of getting that marketing out there. But you need to find out what work method works best for you, and whether or not you’re ready to outsource it to someone like myself or like a team, or like I have a team is, well, so it just depends on where they’re at at that point. But the key thing is, if you need those three pieces to really define what your marketing is, what your marketing goals are, so hopefully that helps a little bit. I know we’re like almost an hour. We can’t believe it’s been almost.
Why just start talking. I just started so I guess let’s finish up with how can people find out more information about you?
Do you want me to give you the What do you want to give you? My Facebook group community. I mean, just give me an idea what you want. What does that look like?
 Like your website so you can talk about your radio show.Â
Okay, so if they go to I heart radio and just look up. Marketing mindset, mastery. That’s the name of the radio show or Marie Mason. They will find my show up there. Also. It’s on Pandora, you know, to look it up on Pandora trying to think of what else? I hear radio, So I’m gonna feed myself. So I listen to Pandora, Spotify and even on apple. And it should be on there. I could go wfourcy.com and actually look me up. I actually have a really cool poster in there and they have a page on there. I don’t have much on there right now because I have to go in there and update, but I wait until after Texas, they’re done because it’s just too much stuff to get done right now. So there you go and then if you go into bubble Bears membership, it is a private group because I want to protect people. Unfortunately, there’s only four members in there, but that’s okay for members is a good start, and I don’t post much right now. I will be after the 15th. So as we get closer to the school year, I’ll be posting more stuff. Just so you know, one day, then they’re going to be There’s going to be its units in there in the group, and those units are gonna be talking about Resource is for dyslexia. Auditory processing is in their thesis, risk elect Clue Kia And I’m probably really butchering it. I think that the math dyslexia there’s a resource is on a d. H. D. Right now, there’s gonna be more stuff articles going in there, like I said later after the second half of the summer. So because I’m like I said, good, wrap up some important stuff first. So anyway, not that that’s not important. But it’s a small group right now and small groups air. Could we just start just saying And I love everybody that’s in there Just so you know, sure that we’re a small group. But we’re willing to grow, and we’re going to grow and provide support to the teachers and parents. And people are working with our disables students because we want to provide that extra support for you because everybody needs that little extra. So it’s like, What’s the phrase? It takes a village to raise a child? It really does. It also takes a village to raise a senior. I found out because my category so that’s a whole different subject matter for another day. But anyway and I tease my VA community, my virtual assistant community with the A stands for not Virginia. But anyway, because I’ve had people ask me, Trust me. It was an interesting conversation today, but the long story short is, I also have this. It takes a village to raise a virtual assistant. So there I’m not doing that phrase, but my website is Liberty virtual solutions dot com. That’s a solution within us and they’re welcome to go in there. I am actually in the process of updating my services and my pricing points of what you see there is not currently what’s going to be available. I have PDS hands out for those who are interested in the services. I had them in different packages and so each of them have different pricing points so If they want to discuss it with me, they could get a discovery call. It can leave dot come forward slash Marie v Mason. And they’re welcome to get on the discovery Call with me and learn what that is when we can find out what we could do to help them see if we could work together.Â
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Marie. Really appreciate it.
It’s my pleasure. I appreciate you coming and having me on the show. That’s kind of fun. And okay.
Hey guys, Megan here before you go, I would love to ask a favor of you. It’s so helpful to have reviews on new podcasts as it really helps iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify. All of those guys find out that you’re really enjoying it and that they should show it to new people. So if you wouldn’t mind just leaving a quick review about what you think about the podcast, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much again. I’ll talk to you next week. In the next episode, there was an endless reserve of support coming from somewhere for everybody who needs it. But there’s a lot of resentment, I think, attached to the responsibility of parents, especially if you were not shown that as a kid. And that’s something I wanted to kind of dive into a little bit for people who are going to who apparently, if the child isn’t here yet or people who already have the child. What sort of signs do you recommend people look for that signify I’m gonna have to have a conversation.