I remember exploring Lower Lonsdale earlier this summer and discovering a co-operative store, where several small business owners shared rent and each occupied a space of the shop selling their goods. While speaking to one of the business owners, she asked me what I was studying in school; as soon as I mentioned marketing, her facial expression turned sour. She only got halfway through talking about her own frustrations when dealing with her previous marketing agency, before another business owner piped in talking about her not-so-pleasant experience working with a marketing specialist. As I conversed further with these business owners, I realized their anger stemmed from initially being locked into unaffordable contracts and then excluded from the entire planning process. In that co-operative store, I saw an opportunity to change the owners’ perceptions of marketing and help grow their business in ways they could not on their own.

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to embrace uncertainty, break rules, and challenge myself. I wanted a job that allowed me to be creative, encouraged me to run with my ideas, and empowered me to help others. My desire to become an entrepreneur led me to social media marketing.

Social media marketing facilitates a conversation with those who want to have a conversation. It lets true fans engage with a brand that has a real voice. After seeing those small business owners operating out of one shop, I realized that too often powerful ideas are lost because they aren’t shared with the right people. Hence, Idea Guru, a social media marketing and consulting startup, was born out of a project last semester for Entrepreneurship 101.

At Idea Guru, our mission is to find, build, and engage an audience who cares about what you do. We’re not here to simply advertise your company through social media—we’re here to help you build it.

Idea Guru does not take the common approach of asking what content you want posted online (we’re value creators after all). Instead, we work with you to find out what your company objectives are and what you stand for. We look to build an audience with high lifetime value—that is, customers who do more for you than increase the number of likes on your fan page. After we develop an understanding of your company and the people that want to associate with it, we “start the conversation.” That is, we begin executing an action plan based around strategic posting, customer loyalty, brand awareness, and engagement. To date, Idea Guru has worked with family businesses, multi-million dollar real estate firms, and most recently, Miss World Canada—a part of the Miss World pageant family, which remains the oldest and largest in the world.

I am fortunate to have the small business owner I mentioned striking conversation with earlier as a client of mine. When I first started working with her, she didn’t know how long she’d be able to afford her rent at the co-operative store in Lonsdale. With a strategic marketing plan in place, sales took off and I’m now helping to launch her very first store later this month.

Making money for the first time is definitely fun, but the best part is seeing the impact you’ve had on a client. Not only is it a business you helped grow, but also a friend, and that far and away is the most satisfying part of being an entrepreneur.