How Laura Roeder Started a Successful Social Media Consulting Business

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• September 30, 2011
• By Jaclyn Schiff
• 14 Comments

So there’s this awesome job, the sort of job you’d just die to land (and tell your friends about)! But the awesome job isn’t nearly like the job you have now. So how do you make it from current job to awesome job?

In our podcast series, we’re hoping to provide insights and answers to that very question. We talk to young people who have amazing jobs or are doing something really cool and interesting and ask them how they did it. So listen along for good information and some inspiration, too.

If you have ever dreamed of making it big in your own social media business then today’s interview with Laura Roeder is sure to inspire. Laura left her web design job at 22 to start her own business. That company has evolved over the last few years and today, Laura has a staff of six and offers strategic social media consulting through videos that are available for purchase on her website.

In the interview, Laura explains exactly how she started out and how and why she changed her business model over the years. Here are some snippets from the interview, which have been slightly edited for context.

On why she decided to start her own business:

“The big driver for me was seeing how long it would take to climb the typical ladder. When I was working at my job, I was a designer, I was a junior designer, and I liked doing design, but I also really loved marketing. I really liked being able to be involved with the clients on the bigger strategy and the bigger campaign. But in the agency world, designers are sort of siloed. … I saw that in order to really have the role that I really wanted to have, I would have to advance to maybe an art director or a creative director … even if I was a total superstar, advancing job after job after job that was probably going to take about 10 years. And basically I didn’t have that kind of patience. And I realized that if I started my own company then I would get to do everything that I wanted to do right away. So I did.”

On getting the confidence to jump into her own business:

“You know, I just always think, what’s the worst that can happen? Usually our fears … are really totally invented. The worst thing that could happen with starting my own business is that I wouldn’t be able to make any money and then I’d have to go find another job. And I already didn’t like my job so finding a different job wouldn’t be that bad.”

One thing you can do right now to get business and opportunities to come to you:

“One of the easiest things to do that almost no one does is to pitch yourself for interviews just like this one. Online and offline, I’m talking about blogs, I’m talking about newspapers, any sort of media outlet needs to fill up content. … People are looking for experts. They don’t care so much what kind of degrees you have, they are just looking for something interesting that their audience is going to connect to.”

Laura Roeder

Download the podcast or listen right now:

Jaclyn Schiff is managing editor of Brazen Life. When she’s not Brazenly thinking about careers, she can often be found writing or tweeting about obscure diseases or media trends. 

Brazen powers real-time, online events for leading organizations around the world. Our lifestyle and career blog, Brazen Life, offers fun and edgy ideas for ambitious professionals navigating the changing world of work.