Amanda Smith on Engaging the Community, Empowering Women With Her Events Biz

Hi, Amanda! Please share a brief introduction about yourself and your business:

Amanda Smith is the CEO of Dallas Girl Gang, a 50,000+ global community of engaged women connecting in career, business, and life. Amanda, also a former elementary music teacher of seven years, an expert in marketing, events, brand partnerships, and cultivating community.

Who are your customers?

Women who are looking to grow and develop their friendships, careers, and businesses. We mostly serve women in DFW ages 21-40, but as our trademark says, You Can Sit With Us!®️

What made you take the leap to start your own business?

I didn’t see what I wanted in the community and I fell in love with it. Teaching as my passion fell off and I knew I wanted to foster community for the women of DFW.

Take us back to when you first launched your business; what was your marketing strategy to get the word out and did it go as planned?

I have zero strategy! It was a passion project at first. After about a year and a half, a mentor approached me and helped me form a business plan and monetize what I had going for myself.

What is the biggest challenge you have encountered along the way so far and what have you learned from it?

Being very in-person and events-based, that is very challenging, especially when COVID rolled around. Shifting and adjusting to what people need paired with me and my team’s capabilities has been exhausting. But, we find a way and we are making a massive impact and large strides.

What accomplishment are the most proud of to date in your business?

The fact that I was able to quit teaching, pay myself full time, and reached/repeated six figures in revenue several years in a row.

So impressive, Amanda! Do you have any recent wins from the last year that you’d like to celebrate with our community?

I had a baby and created my own maternity leave as well as launched a marketing agency with a business partner!

We love to see that drive! What’s next for your business? What can we expect to see over the next few years?

We are aiming to expand throughout Texas and beyond in a couple of different ways. We also are always THRILLED for our Boss Vision Conference Sept. 21-22 this year!

What is your top productivity tip? 

Block the hell out of your time. Doing all your calls on certain days and then focusing on other days is incredibly helpful. It doesn’t work when you have calls every day of the week — no wonder we run around with a never-ending to-do list.

On the flip side, how do you avoid burnout?

Sometimes, I haven’t. I am actually in a period of recovery right now as I write this, but in a good way. I have been doing a lot of inner work and rearranging priorities and time to make it all more efficient. I now know my limits, how many calls to take, what kinds of things SUCK my energy, what I need to delegate, and how to recover.

What is your approach to work-life balance / integration?

Get help. Lots of help. Daycare, friends, family, your partner if you have one. ask for help and don’t feel bad. You do it so you can be PRESENT when it matters most.

Such important advice. What is one thing you wish you had known when you started your Entreprenista journey?

I wish I had known more how to brace for the changes that come over time in the future.

When hiring, what is your go-to interview question?

Tell me a time you made a mistake. What did you do and how did it get resolved?

Are you a Mamaprenista? If so, please share your best advice for simultaneously managing a business and a family:

Yes, I am! I have a 15-month-old and I kept him home with me full-time for 12 of those months, haha 🙂 We now are able to put him in daycare, but I wish I had invested in more help somewhere. I was drowning. I also know that the better boundaries you have with your work and the more you can lean on your “Village” or whoever you’ve got, the better mom, wife, business owner, whatever, you are.

Do you have a co-founder? If so, how did you find the right one for you and what are your best partnership tips?

In Playbook Marketing Co., yes! She actually approached me and asked what I thought about doing an agency together. It was great because we were too close of friends at that point for it to be too hard of a choice, but also we knew each other well enough to be totally honest. We got an attorney to mediate as we formed the company and we are also the BEST compliments of each other in our business and personal strengths.

What’s the one app on your phone you absolutely cannot live without and why?

Google Calendar and Walmart — gives me the freedom to know where I can work, play, and rest. and then grocery pick-up saves lives, haha!

What is your favorite business tool or solution and why?

I LOVE Zapier — automation is key if you want to save your brain calories and be efficient so you can do your best work.

What advice do you have for aspiring Entreprenistas?

Dream huge and then get someone to help you hone it into real plans!

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