Military Spouse - How Bianca Smith Leans into This Life

Deneen L. Garrett  0:02 

Welcome to another episode of an intimate conversation with women of color. I am your host Deneen L. Garrett. And today's guest is Bianca Smith. She is the CEO of simplified marketing services. Bianca, tell us more about you,

Bianca Smith  0:20 

everyone. Hey, Deneen. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. So it's the main set. I am the owner, founder of simplified marketing services. We help financial professionals so accountants, CPA, CFO, financial advisors, simplify their social media marketing. I'm also a virtual assistant and social media mentor, I kind of put that on hold for a bit. Because I have teenagers and kids in college and I needed to focus on agency and I'm going to be bringing that back in and 2023 and I am a mom of three. I have a junior senior and a freshman in college. So life is really fun. I'm a military spouse, and I'm currently stationed and Madrid Spain.

Deneen L. Garrett  1:04 

Yeah. So it's is an evening over there right now.

Bianca Smith  1:08 

It's eight o'clock at night. Okay. Yeah,

Deneen L. Garrett  1:11 

yeah, well, good stuff. So let's jump in. Let's talk about culture and marketing. So other than now speaking a bit of Spanish because I know that you are Puerto Rican. And I know you mentioned that you didn't really speak Spanish, but you're picking it up now that you're in Spain. But how different has it been as a proud Puerto Rican and black woman living in Spain versus when you live in New Jersey?

Bianca Smith  1:35 

Oh, so different. So you know, being a military spouse, we move every two, three years. So I've lived all over the world, and all over the US lived in Germany, and Cuba and all over the US. And it's interesting, because growing up my blood was a single mom, and she didn't speak Spanish to us. She was born in the US and my grandmother who was born in Puerto Rico, and my dad is African American. But my mother, I remember asking her like, why didn't you speak Spanish to us? She was like, I was just trying to survive, you know, and that's back then when you come over to the US. And you're taught to speak English, English, English. And so when we finally had the chance to move to Spain, I was like, wow, this is a chance for my kids to learn Spanish. And I remember someone saying to me one time, I think sometimes we blame our parents, like my mother didn't teach me Spanish. And he said, but you're old enough to learn on your own. And that was like, right, like, wow, like it okay, but be at my place. And I was like, You're right, I am old enough to find that I didn't grow up, I can learn it. And so moving to Spain. The first time over here, I remember just being around a bunch of Americans, and just knowing a little bit of Spanish. But this is the second time we've come back, and I'm going to take a chance I'm going to have Spanish friends, I'm going to take Spanish lessons. And when you do that, Spain were really opened up to you, if you any coach would do that. If you take the time to understand their culture, I understand their language, they will open up to you. But it's definitely different living in Spain being Puerto Rican and black because they all think I'm Dominican. Even at the Medicus they go into Medicare, and it's not and I hate to say this, but it's not a good thing. Because Spain, we have racism all over the world, right? But Spain for longest I kept saying, oh, there's some racism. But I wasn't getting I wasn't treated like maybe some of my friends who was from the Philippines or my church, the Nigerians in Morocco. I wouldn't treat it like them. But I was still a woman of color. And then it took somebody to tell me it was more of a classism issue. So why they thought I was Dominican. And their first reaction is to treat me like nothing. Once they heard the American, everything changed. Like they they're there, you know, but there was oh, she's American. And it was like a little bit nicer. Yeah. So that's just a difference in Spain. It's more of a classism issue. Where about where you from, you know where you live. It's, you know, it's just a little bit different. But what's interesting, I was in a Facebook group helping a woman of color she would think might come into Spanish with a little bit scared, because you know, she's African American. And she's like, I don't know, how are they going to set me? And I said, I experienced probably more racism living in Georgia, where my husband is from, they live in Spain. So yes, it's different.

Deneen L. Garrett  4:27 

So are the Dominicans like the domestics in Spain? I think Yeah. Yeah.

Bianca Smith  4:34 

Yeah. They're the, you know, the Filipinos I know, like the from Latin America. And sometimes they're like the housekeepers. Yeah. And so for Spain, it's like, oh, well, there's just a housekeeper. You know, and so that's why they treat them like not all of them. Right. You know, but for some of them, yes. Yeah. No,

Deneen L. Garrett  4:50 

I experienced that when I was in Hong Kong. So I was in Hong Kong, and it was maybe a Sunday or whatever, and it was darker, complex people and I believe they were filled Penal, and they were like in the square, right? And it was their day off. So they were all just communing with one another. But you can tell the difference, right? Because they're all and he's Hong Kong or Chinese, they're Asian, Philippines or Asian, however, they're darker, typically, and then they were to domestic. So you can tell that in in, you know, in in you see that in different places and like you said, you know, the class system and whatnot. But yeah, so I definitely know what you're talking about.

Bianca Smith  5:27 

Oh, good. And it took me a while to get there I was I was actually having this conversation with my Spanish teacher, and she kind of had to break it down to me. And I felt like you know what? You're absolutely right. And I asked my husband, we don't we don't feel like we experienced most racism in Spain. But I lived in Georgia for three years, my husband retired from the military, and I'm like, oh, gosh, the things I went through there. I was surprised.

Deneen L. Garrett  5:47 

Yeah, I mean, it's it's everywhere is different. It's just different. And you know, and it's, well, they're all pretty much rooted in the same, in essence, but it's still different. So yeah. So you know, going back into the marketing, so how has your experiences shaped your business?

Bianca Smith  6:06 

So because we move so often, that's the reason I started my business. Whereas the last I come from the banking world, and we move back to Spain, and depending on where we live, it depends on if I can work or can't work. And if so, normally, overseas, I can't work because I can't work any economy, stateside, I can work so I come from the bank. So when we move back to Spain, my kids were no longer small. I was a stay at home mom when they were younger. And now they're like in middle school, high school. They don't really need, they can pretty much self sufficient. I'm not really volunteering much. And I'm sitting here with my husband like, Okay, I have a master's degree in accounting. I had to shut down my Etsy shop to move to Spain. What the heck am I gonna do? Like, I don't know, I go for my doctorate. I don't know. I started doing bookkeeping for Etsy shops. Because coming from E commerce, I couldn't do that. I was like, I saw the need for E commerce for bookkeeping. But that quickly burnt me out. And then a military spouse, or some Facebook groups that, hey, let's think about becoming a VA. And I was like, What is that like Veteran Affairs because I'm a veteran I did eight years in the Air Force. And I was like, Is that working for veteran affairs, I know a virtual assistant. And that was three years ago. And I went from being a virtual assistant solopreneur to now have a team of five and own a financial marketing agency.

Deneen L. Garrett  7:29 

Congratulations, congratulation. You are so welcome. I so talking about what are the four pillars of content marketing.

Bianca Smith  7:38 

So when it comes to content, marketing, social media marketing, email marketing content as a whole might the name of my business is simplified marketing services. So we always try really hard to simplify our marketing, I think that we can make marketing so complicated than what it needs to be. And so I've been really trying to educate people on simplifying, simplifying and simplifying. So we do focus on four things when we're working with our clients when it comes to their marketing. It's one, knowing who your audiences we had a call last week with someone who wanted to work with us. And I can say, You know what, you're not ready. Because you don't know who your audience is, who do we market to? Right? So you can't mark it if you don't know who you're marketing to. And just having a really strong content marketing strategy, I think that's one thing people struggle with, too, is how do you market your business? You know, we automatically sometimes go straight to social media. But that's just a smart piece of content marketing, right? We spend a lot of time helping people repurpose their content. So like this podcast, for example, we will take your podcast turned into a blog, turn that blog and send an email out and say, hey, check out this week's blog, check out this week podcast. And then we would take that that blog and turn it into some social media posts. So we'll be having a sitting down and we'll be having a content marketing strategy and figuring out where do I want to market my business. But if you're new start out, like in one place, majority of time is going to be social media. Because no matter if you have a podcast, blog, email, everything's going to go back to social media, because you're going to tell those people to then go check out that. So having that strong content marketing strategy and starting with social media, then developing a strategy for like each of those pieces of marketing. So for example, I could do that this weekend, I was redoing my strategy for 2023. And I was sitting down and I was saying, Okay, this is where I'm going to show up, right? I'm going to have social media. I'm going to blog one times a month, I'm going to show up my social five days a week, stories about three times a day, I'm going to send an email out one day a week. But now that we know what our content marketing strategy is, now we need to break each of those pieces of content down even further. Okay, so for example, social media, how often will you post so for me, it's three days a week, two rails? A carousel, a tweet and so believe just sitting down and breaking each of those things down, and what type of content you're going to produce and being realistic and being consistent. So I will say that, that that consistency, and then really understanding like your numbers, so I'm an accountant, so and all my clients are accountants. So I think we spend a lot of time on analytics. You know, what are the insights telling us? Because your, your, your insights, they they tell a story, right? I don't think we've spent enough time on that. So aside which posts are performing well, who's consuming our content, so even though I'm in Spain, I sometimes put United States New Jersey, from New Jersey sometimes, because people that are looking at my concert, sometime could be in Spain, but I want to target people in the US. So making sure that I put that in there, and then adjusting as needed when we're doing the same, you know, so we aren't doing the same thing over and over and over again. And it's not working. And then wondering why it's not working, we just had a client come to us, she's like, nothing's working, I was like, I see you're using the same hash tag on every single post, I could tell that just by taking two minutes on your Instagram feed. So she ended up switching over to come work with us. And social media is always changing, right. And I think like last month, last month, last year, Instagram made so many changes, it was just ridiculous. But those of us that do social media, we survived. And then I felt like once you have all that figured out focusing on on those things like your audience or content marketing strategy, developing the strategy, piece of marketing, and then your numbers, you can really sit down and now really focus on that that form of content, and it should align with your your mission, your vision, your values, so you can really start to attract that ideal client. And then we like to focus on just a little bit further, because we do like to focus on like those pillars, right, like educating your audience. So no matter what platform, you are making sure that you spend time on education, even if that's an email, people want to learn, I think we all do, especially I'm just a natural learner. And so for example, you know, five ways to grow your Instagram account. You want to focus on promotional content, because while we are on social media, right, we're there to be social, to be honest with their for business. Like when I just hanging out what Well, I'm gonna be unless you want like doing your own personal stuff, like tick tock and just having fun on social media. But I don't attend times, if you have a business's social media account, you are there to sell your services and to promote your product. So you want to make sure that you have a good balance of that. So people aren't always on your show. And you're not always selling all the time, because you want to have that good mix to people like oh, she's always selling, you know, there's, I don't want to be sold to people I want to be sold to on social media, you really want to build a community on social media. So going back to, sometimes we have taken a social ad on social media, and are always trying to say as far as social media for a reason, and using social media to really connect with your clients and not your clients, your ideal audience. And that could be commenting on their posts, liking their posts responding to their stories. I do this for like an hour a day just having that engagement. And then you want to entertain right entertainment is there because you know, in a world of tic tac, we like to be entertained. And you can do have to like stories and rules. And I love stories and rules because it's so long, and people get to actually like see you and know who you are. So yeah, we just try to find ways to take all these pieces of content marketing and make it simple. And try not to overcomplicate it,

Deneen L. Garrett  14:00 

and that we need because I'm like listening to you. And I'm thinking like, oh my goodness, no, you know, and it's stuff that I've heard before. And I'm like, Oh, wow, that is definitely time consuming. So unless you're really into that, you definitely would want to get you know, support, right, you know, reach out to your services, someone such as yourself to help in that area. And also just thinking and reflecting back on what you shared as far as the four pillars. That number one knowing your audience. So that's something that I have niching down so I've been niching down since I will say probably June, which is when I launched my business Deneen consults. Initially it was gonna be consulting, then it was, you know, it was always podcasting and speaking then it was gonna be coaching as well. And so I'm like, Okay, those are like four major areas that I really wanted to hone in and so I had to pull it back. And, excuse me, so I pull it back. And number one When it's like the podcasting and speaking, and then leveraging that for the coaching, and then the consulting, if it comes about, but my focus is the podcasts, and the speaking part, and really just diving into that, and, you know, again, honing those skills, you know, becoming, you know, doing all the things that I need to grow that and level up, you know, to where I want to be. And so, definitely, without knowing your audience, right, because, again, I'm saying, No, I'm doing all these things well, okay. But it's a lot. So get clear about what you want to do. And then along with your audience, and another thing I wanted to say is thank you Spain for representing because, you know, I am paying attention to my analytics, and I'm you so my number two, or my number two international countries. It's Singapore, Belgium and Singapore. And then I do you have some, some listeners from Spain. So I'm gonna say, Thank you, to you. Well, you know, not to brag or anything, but you know, I've been International. But no, Spain. So thank you. So I definitely know at least one who's who that person is, right? Because I'm just like, oh, wonder, you know, who's who's tapping in from those areas? And so now in there certain countries I know, well, Sabine. And, you know, Germany, Petras and Slovakia, you know, some countries, I definitely know who it is. And so I love that. So, you know, this podcast is about elevating the voices of women of color. So thinking about women of color, thinking about your experiences us internationally, your business, what strengths have you drawn on in any of them, and all of them to tap into your power and a voice, things that other women could do?

Bianca Smith  16:56 

I'm very vocal.  I've always been that way. I think how my mom raised us. And I raised I have two daughters. And they're very vocal. They are the only African American kids at their school. And so sometimes, like saying things like, oh, so we can celebrate Chinese New Year, but not Black History Month, you know, and being able in a school was like, Whoa, you know, now there's this whole diversity training, right? Because if my kids just sat back and said nothing, right, this would continue, you know, or when the Spanish because if somebody says something racist, like, like, they don't they say that I don't think that they're saying what is racist and educating them? So I raised my kids to have a voice and to speak up. But you don't have to be confrontational either. And I, what is President Obama? What did you say? Something louder voice, your voice can change a woman, it can change the world. And so even with my girls, it's, even though you are there, and I know, I know, it can be hard, I know, it can be hard for them. But it's, you know, knowing who you are, where you know who you are, but you have more power, you know, what you stand for. And I know that they would be to your values, and you gotta have like, really strong values, because they are, you know, the beliefs that, that govern our lives. And when something goes against your values, you have to speak up. And this is when my kids sometimes have to speak up like, wow, I'm not gonna be your token black kid, you know, as the only African American kids at the school that sometimes they ask my kids to do things that they don't want to do. And then another thing that we've been telling my kids since they were like, oh my god, we tell them this every day. I was like, ever since they were like, small, because they struggle living all over the place. They always stood out. And they were saying things like, I remember one day Oh, broke my heart. Oh, Mommy, I want blonde hair and blue eyes. I'm like, Whoa, no, like, you're beautiful. You don't have an invalid and like, like Tina books are so like their hair. They didn't. I grew up in Georgia, I grew up with people that look like me. There's a lot of mix people up north, but they didn't. And then we moved to Georgia. And I'm thinking like, oh, well, I'll be fine. I'll be around some. And it's predominantly black where my husband is, but they still somewhat stood out a little bit because again, they were the only Puerto Rican kids. So it was like, no matter where we move, it was they were always dealing with something. And so it was always like believe in yourself, you know, believe that you have a voice believe that you have the power to change things. Like my daughter is she's just killing it at her school. She's like President of Model UN. She's actually in Amsterdam this weekend. And you know, they were in student council so they can have that voice to be able to make that change and make that difference. And I think sometimes I know my son one time was like, Oh, well, what's the point? And it was like, oh, no, don't say that. You know, because it's when we don't say or do anything about ascension. ration where we can't have change. So, you know, it's it's interesting that question because I always like, go back reference like my kids because of the way that they're growing up and I want them to have that voice and to know that they have that power of change.

Deneen L. Garrett  20:16 

Absolutely. And you know what, and I really love the younger generation, right? Well, I guess it will be the Generation Z. And Millennials probably have a bit of this as well. But I love them because they do they do use their voices. Hey, you know, like, this woman told me the other day, it was an event that, that I was attending, and the person who I had invited, she didn't register in advance. So it's the day of the event. And while I already noticed, you know, everybody's heads down working on this event. So I emailed her and texted her. And so she, you know, got the woman and but later when I was talking to it turned out, which was so crazy, that the woman was her principal. So from when she was in high school, it was her principal. So I was like, oh, did you know who that was? When I sent the name? And she told me, you know, you did something that I that I hate for people to do. And I'm like, hey, you know, she picked me up like, I mean, you I know, I know. And I didn't blame because it wasn't my thoughts. So but still, you know, I took the blame. I took the heat, but I love it speak up. Because if you don't, who will?

Bianca Smith  21:29 

Speak up to me, but in a respectful way. Okay. So I know this probably gonna sound for some people like what? So I'm gonna go ahead and say it. So my, like when we tell like our kids, like, Hey, can we do this? And we're like, No. And by the time my kids say why? They're like, mom, like me, like, I'm going to just have a deeper conversation. And what was the reasoning behind that? No. And so sometimes, sometimes no, could No, it's no, yeah, sometimes it's like, because I don't want to have to pick you up at 12 o'clock at night. Whenever, you know, I'm talking about like, oh, well, can I say that in my friends? Or maybe we're together, you know, but it's like, they don't have that fear. But they don't have such a respectful way. You know, that? How many of the know behind that? Why it's like because of that, so. And it's just a tiny thing that is so fixable. But I do like that they're not scared to question things and save things, but not be disrespectful about it.

Speaker 1  22:27 

And you know what, and it's also problem solving. Someone had on LinkedIn yesterday about his three or four year old they were traveling, so he left, he empowered his son to take charge, he empowered his son, here's the boarding passes, you know, navigate getting from the door to the gate, you know, for those reads for that person shoes for the child to experience those things, right to learn how to do all of that stuff. And I thought that was brilliant, right?

Bianca Smith  22:54 

And that's kind of power hand movement. Oh Lord, do you not be living to sit out just drop my kids off at the Metro my favorite app you get lost call me and they're like, What and I'm like, but you know and so because when you go to other countries when you guys are traveling other countries you guys been to Greece my daughter's and she went to London last month I said the tube and when you learn how to use the Metro in one place, not at a 10 times if you're in Europe, you can use that other places. So yes, use that, you know, teach your kids you know, when we're driving we're like, Hey, can you tell us how to get home or like that four year old you know, learn how to use your passport and and how an airport works and things like that.

Deneen L. Garrett  23:30 

So pivoting a bit. I honor my late sister, author and poet sold true by asking about dreams differ which is the title of one of her books. He share a dream suffered moment.

Bianca Smith  23:49 

Oh this is interesting, because I do. I feel like I'm living like my best life. And I'm honest. And we talk about dreams deferred. I had to really think about this. Because I remember my daughter and her yearbook when she graduated. She said she helped me to slump down with ball. And she said Thank you mommy for teaching me to live my best life. And you know, I run a six figure agency I travel I have an amazing been married for 18 years. We have three amazing kids. And I live in Madrid and so I'm thinking like, Okay, what if I wanted to do something I've always done it. You know, if I wanted to go to school, I went to school when I wanted to travel somewhere. I traveled somewhere. And so I felt like there was nothing that really stopped me from living my dream. I'm very proud, but I'm very persistent. I have I'm like a dog with a bone. But the one thing I would say would be I want to do a mission. And I've never been able to go on a mission because I have kids so If there's one dream of mine, and not even a dream, I feel like it's a calling actually, is to. Yeah, it says to do a mission that will never be the only dream of mine that I have yet to say Africa I haven't accomplished.

Deneen L. Garrett  25:15 

Well, that's nice a mission.

Bianca Smith  25:19 

Why? Wow, yeah. And I was telling my mom's my mother came to visit me this summer. And she said the same thing, because she was a single mom, she went back to school, got her Master's, she's retirement to focus on social work. And she was talking about that stuff. But what we haven't accomplished and that got me thinking, like, I don't think she was like, Really, and she was very proud of that, like, wow, you you she's like, are you really have like you served your country, you've done what you said he was going to do. I said, separate the mission, I do want to go away for six months. So you however long I feel like that calling is and I want to serve, you know, and that's the one thing I do want to do.

Deneen L. Garrett  25:55 

Well, that's beautiful, and you know what? And so you talked about how you are living your best life. So let's go ahead and dig into that. So also, I empower women of color to live a dream lifestyle. So what is what is a dream lifestyle? To you? Let me ask that first.

Bianca Smith  26:14 

A dream lifestyle. So if you're like, happy and at peace, almost like this, this contentment, I struggle with that where last year like at what point do we reach to this level of contentment, but that was more business. And I sometimes I got my husband, I'm doing things during the day. And I just think to myself, Oh my gosh, I love my life. So I think for everybody that's different. Maybe for you, that's no kids, and you're just traveling the world usually just truly, genuinely content and happy. And maybe for you that is eight kids and a white picket fence and all the kids surrounding you. And so I think we all have that level of happiness. And so we can reach that. I think when you reach your dream lifestyle and your choice, I think content and happy. I like that.

Deneen L. Garrett  27:02 

And so for me, it's travel and event. So number one is travel, right? And so I love to travel, that's my core, and then you know, and of course it it evolves, right, it could change. So that's what it is for me. And you already talked about how you're living your best life, right? So you're already living a dream life. But what is, you know, you share several things. But what is the number one thing or way that you do love dream life?

Bianca Smith  27:33 

The number one way is average, I don't know I want to say freedom or that the normal way of living at is the freedom to choose what I want my day to look like the freedom to decide, I don't need to work today. I can work today the freedom to design my daughter last month like hey, I'm in a volleyball tournament and we made it to the finals. And the parents were allowed to come but they were allowed to the final note jumped on a plane that morning, six o'clock in the morning that night got my ticket and the freedom to be able to do that to go see her and she was just like so so so the freedom to make the choices that I want to make. Is is big for me.

Deneen L. Garrett  28:18 

I love that absolutely love that. So before we wrap What would you like to leave the guests with, the audience

Bianca Smith  28:22 

So I spent in this this whole year. I felt like this year I want to sit and silence. I love the beach of Oakland a Jersey Shore and we live when we lived in Cuba our spend almost every morning at the beach with a cup of coffee. And I haven't felt that that piece in a long time. Meg really we live in a city I run a business I was a stay at home mom then. And I want to take this year to to quiet everything. I feel like we live in a world of noise. We live in a world of social media. We'll listen to I feel like listening to podcasts and TV, the noise around us actually just came back from spending a whole whole a weekend in a hotel. I just needed to get away and just go to the spa and just have me time without mommy and my husband and the business. And I would just tell you guys just to take this year to be still you know I'm also a religious person. So you know is that be stolen? No God. So it's like just to really just be still take, take time for you cut out all the noise in so if I was on the social media agency, you don't have to be on social media all day every day. You don't have to post every day. That's what you got to really understand your analytics and where your clients are coming from. It is not social media, then are you there all the time. You can actually reduce it. And yeah, just take time to just think and just be

Deneen L. Garrett  29:51 

I love it. I love it. Bianca Smith, thank you so much for lending your voice to an intimate conversation with women of color, and enjoy the rest of your day. Hey

Bianca Smith  30:00 

all right thank you so much for having me on

Transcribed by https://otter.ai