Rethinking Consistency: A Business That Fits Mom Life | Maryia Ramanava

Manouchka: Hi Maryia. Thank you so much for joining me on the Hey Boss Mama show. I’m really excited about this because we’ve been collaborating since the beginning of the year, I think, and it’s been incredible to see how you run your business and how you always have that really upbeat attitude online.

I just love seeing your posts and everything that you do because it feels very fresh, and it also feels different. Like I told you before, one of the things that attracted me to you was your offer, the No Makeup Marketing Club. I just felt like this is different. This is something that speaks to me.

So please start by telling us about you, because most of our listeners won’t know your journey. Tell us how you started your business.

Maryia Ramanava: My name is Maryia Ramanava. As you already said, my main business right now is called No Makeup Marketing, and it has multiple offers because I love running a business with different sides to it. We’ll talk more about why I structure my business this way, because it might sound a bit counterintuitive for a person who has three kids. I have three boys.

Manouchka: Yay. My energy.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, exactly. Boy energy.

Basically, my business is structured around my family, and it has been like this from the moment I became a mother. Everything I do in my business is built in a way that lets me have the lifestyle I want. That is why I have to be flexible. It might seem exhausting or maybe a bit strange to some people, but I honestly understand what I’m doing.

For this reason, for example, I have a multiple-offer structure, but it all comes into this No Makeup Marketing philosophy. It’s more like a philosophy, actually. It’s very flexible.

If we go very far back, I started my business as a side hustle when I still had an academic career. I have an academic background, but I was always very visual and very interested in photography. When I was still working at the university, I thought having a side hustle in photography would be more for self-expression. But I think even then I wanted this feeling of being my own boss and being more independent. It’s maybe just a very personal thing.

When I became a mother, I discovered that I actually wanted to spend more time with my child than I thought I would when I was pregnant. When I was pregnant, I thought, oh fine, I’ll just continue my career, writing my PhD, teaching, working. I really loved my work. I loved my colleagues. I was very happy.

But when I became a mother, when the baby actually arrived, I was just like, no, actually no. Actually not.

Then there were some life circumstances because my husband got a position in a different country, in Switzerland, and we lived in Germany. So it was not only my wish to stay with the baby, but life also turned out in a way that I had to leave my job. It was a combination, but the decision not to go back to my academic career was mine.

Then I started my first business with a baby, and it was making toys. It had nothing to do with what I do now. It was still creative, because I’m also a very crafty person. I do things visually. I like to make things. Of course, I took beautiful photos of them and also created a big community, but the business was about making toys.

It was also in line with what sparked me at that moment because I had a baby. I wanted to make eco-friendly, baby-safe toys. I could crochet them and make them while the baby was sleeping, nursing, or playing.

When my child became older and I had another one, at some point I decided to become a photographer. I started as a family photographer, then it developed into brand photography, and later it developed into marketing because at some point I realized that I had already built several businesses, knew so much about marketing, and my clients were asking me all the time to help them with marketing.

So it was very natural. It all developed in this way. This is where I am now.

Manouchka: I think most entrepreneurs do not go in a straight path. There are often a few businesses in the back closet, things we started from passion or personal interest, and then maybe our interest changed, or we realized the passion is best kept as a passion and not turned into a full business.

Personally, I tried making handbags a few years ago and I used to love it because for me it was all about spending time behind the sewing machine. I love fabric and I love prints. Then I realized, oh wait, if I have to make a hundred bags this weekend because I have a market coming up, it’s not fun anymore. It’s actually turning my passion into a nine-to-five job on the weekends, which is not what I wanted. But it was an incredible experience.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, it was actually similar with me and my toys, because the toys were really cool. They were even featured in some designer magazines. It was developing into a successful brand and they were really unusual. But at some point I became a victim of my own success because I started getting so many orders that I could not keep up with production.

Then I thought, if I hire more people and start making it into a company, this is definitely not what I want. So I thought, no, I’m just going to make photography because I could imagine how that could be profitable.

But with toys, I still love knitting and crocheting and thinking about funny, unusual designs. So it’s a very similar story.

Manouchka: So from the photography business, your clients were asking for marketing support. How did you decide to consciously turn that into part of your business?

Maryia Ramanava: I started having brand photo sessions because first of all, COVID was a big thing. I was a family photographer, and then there was COVID, and going into people’s homes, especially when they had newborn babies or little kids, suddenly didn’t feel safe to me.

I felt physically exhausted because a photo session is already quite exhausting, but when you cannot breathe, it’s even more. Then family photography clients needed photos for their businesses, so I started taking photos of mothers who had businesses, and it was really fun. I really liked it. It was quite a quick switch into brand photography.

Then they started asking me what to do with the photos, where to post, what to write. I was helping everyone on demand, and I was not charging for this. It became a bit of a no-boundaries, no-structure situation.

I think it’s like this for everyone. Sometimes you do something as a favor and you feel good about it until you don’t. You feel like you’re doing a good thing, you’re a nice person, you’re doing it for nice people, and it feels good. Then suddenly you are not feeling good anymore. You feel sad or upset.

For me, when that happens, it’s clear that the body is telling us this is too much. There’s a lack of boundary.

Manouchka: So it became one of your professional services?

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah. It moved from a personal favor into something else. Not exactly using you or abusing you, but something similar.

And it actually happens a lot in the business journey. Every time I have that feeling, because I learned to recognize it, I know that this should become a service. This should become an offer, or I should stop doing it.

With marketing, this is how it happened. First of all, I had the feeling I was repeating myself all the time. So at some point I said, no, I should bring people together and let them all listen to me at once. That was my first mastermind. I just took my photography clients and told them, girls, we are meeting every week and we’re going to discuss all these things.

Of course, organizing the meeting was hard because I had my kids, they had their kids, and sometimes we would meet at eleven in the evening, talking in low voices so no one would wake up. It was really crazy.

Then I said, okay, I should start recording it. So basically that is how it started developing into a more structured marketing business.

And I also saw that I actually really enjoyed it, because it was similar to my academic work, bringing all these skills into some structure, giving it a system. My academic background was in philosophy, so I helped people express meanings. Somehow I think that in marketing we do something similar. We have all these ideas, all this passion and vision, and we have to put it into words, into taglines.

I suddenly felt, oh wow, actually this is something from the past that I used to do professionally and now I can do it again. It was nice. Suddenly all this wild journey of mine started making sense.

So it was very natural. I never planned to be a marketing expert or a business coach or something like that. I don’t even call myself that very often. I think this is the beauty of the business journey when you are not forcing yourself into some particular role.

Manouchka: But would you call yourself a photographer first and a marketing coach after?

Maryia Ramanava: Oh, well, I don’t know. Photography is very important for me because it makes everything easier.

I help people basically bring their vision to life. People come to me and tell me, I can do this and this, I can help people like this, and I would love to earn my living with this. Photography is this catalyst. It just makes things so much quicker. People can understand it. It’s something I can do by myself and just give to my clients.

But on the other hand, photography alone is also not enough. Maybe now I can call myself something like a visibility midwife, I don’t know.

Manouchka: It actually feels quite rare to see photographers doing this kind of work because most of the time they are really focused on the image, the visual, whereas you are going a lot deeper with the work that you’re doing.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah. For brand photography, definitely.

I also do different types of photography. For example, for many years I was selling fine art prints. That was completely my inner vision. They were pretty depressive.

Manouchka: Okay.

Maryia Ramanava: It was talking about motherhood. There were many things to process because I had left my home country and was living as a foreigner, kind of disconnected. So there were many things there. That was completely my vision. It was super intuitive and purely aesthetic.

But with brand photography, I create brand photos only thinking about how these photos will sell this particular thing, or how they will help people connect with this person as an expert. So for example, I could photograph my clients as beautiful women, sexual or sensual, but I don’t do that. We need different images for different occasions in our life.

For me, brand photography is absolutely a marketing tool. I only think about it as marketing, and I also plan the session with my clients only from the perspective of marketing.

That is why, for example, if you rebrand or if you change direction in your business, you need different images. Even if you still have very nice photos and you look good and like them, if your business changes, you need different imagery. Exactly like with website copy. You cannot just keep using the same posts and sending the same emails. People do not often understand that.

Many people, for example, use their corporate headshots for their business. It’s not doing the work. It’s better than no photos, but still.

So I don’t see myself as purely a photographer anymore. But because it’s such a solid thing you can create quickly, I still do it, and I actually really enjoy it, even though I don’t have much time to do it.

Manouchka: I’d love to get a bit more behind the curtain because you have three boys. How old are they and how do you manage the schedule? Mine is still in partial childcare. I have two days with a childminder. I want to know how it works when your kids get older, because you’ve gone through all those stages already.

Maryia Ramanava: My kids are now fourteen, eleven, and seven.

I started making toys when my first child was six months old. It was really more for my mental health, because I had to do something. Building that business, and also immediately building a huge community of toy designers, really kept me sane, I think. It helped me get through the first years of motherhood, which were really, really hard.

I opened my full-time photography business when I had two kids and one was one year old. So it was a four-year-old and a one-year-old. I had a very clear workflow, because I would take photos on weekends when my husband would be with the kids, since he didn’t work on weekends, and then I would do marketing and delivery during the week.

It was complete chaos because my kids never napped. Never. The only thing I can say about my kids is that they are relatively quiet. They are boys, but they are careful, reading books and doing quiet activities. Some children are very energetic. This is not my case. Maybe because I’m also not energetic.

But it was really hard.

For me, it was really important to switch the way I thought about focus. When you don’t have children and you work, you try to focus deeply. I think the main problem for people with children is that they cannot focus. First of all, it’s dangerous, because if you focus, you are not paying attention to your child.

So basically, I tried to teach myself that I should not fully focus on what I do. I should do activities that do not require my full attention, and I also had to teach myself that distraction is a normal thing. Otherwise you get angry every time. You try to focus, there is a distraction, and you get frustrated.

So I really taught myself that distraction is normal, and if someone wants something, I stop, do the thing, and then come back. I don’t know, maybe this is not healthy psychologically.

Manouchka: One of the things I’ve experienced too, that I found very difficult at the beginning, is the brain fog. There are all the hormones first of all, when you’ve given birth not that long ago, and then there’s the tiredness that accumulates. It’s very hard to stay focused, but also to have your thought process go smoothly.

When I hear some recordings of myself from months ago for the podcast, I’m like, how am I talking? The sentences don’t make sense. The grammar, the words, it all goes into a weird jumble. I’m like, oh wow. I just have to accept that there are periods where, when you have a young child, or when they’re not sleeping properly at night, or if they’re sick, it’s going to affect your energy and your ability to perform in your work too.

Maryia Ramanava: I think you can only do business with young children if you see the business as an act of self-care. Basically, you are doing this not because you have to, but because it gives you space for yourself.

That is why I think it is actually much harder to go to work and have a small child, because when you go to work, you are forced. There is pressure. But with business and children, it’s about your self-fulfillment.

That is why, for example, I think that if you are really in financial struggle and you have little kids, you maybe should get a job because otherwise it will break you really, really quickly. You have to be ready for the physical tiredness and not being adequate in many things.

Then of course you are completely unreliable in a way. I had to accept that I just could not have deadlines. Sometimes I could deliver something quickly, sometimes I could not deliver it at all. And it is actually still like this. Sometimes I still have periods in my business where I need much, much longer than I promised or anticipated.

At some point I was even telling my photography clients that I would deliver the photos sometime in the future. I was not even telling them in two weeks, or in three weeks, or in two months, because I didn’t know. Just in the future.

Manouchka: I want to come back on what you said about if you’re struggling financially, starting a business with young kids might not be the best idea. I find that’s a very tough one, because in some cases that’s the only way that parents can make it work. They need to have most of their time available for their kids and at the same time they need to be able to earn money. So how do you find that equilibrium where it actually works?

Maryia Ramanava: I think that, at the moment when I started my first business with a baby, I didn’t have to make money. We really had enough money. We were not super rich, but it was enough.

Also, for the first maybe four years in my business, it was not only not profitable, it was probably even putting us into a worse financial situation. At the beginning of the business I absolutely did not think about money, and I was very bad at business planning because I did not know anything. I was a philosopher. I had no idea what I was doing. I made so many mistakes that now I can successfully show examples of how you should not do it.

Manouchka: That’s how we learn.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, exactly. But on one hand, it was a privilege that I didn’t have to make money. On the other hand, of course, we saved an incredible amount of money on childcare, which is really, really expensive here, and that is also something someone can consider. Do you want to spend all this money on childcare or not?

For me it was a really nice journey because at the beginning I did not have that pressure. At some point I just got very ambitious and I felt it was not right that I was not earning money with my business. So I wanted to start earning money, not because of financial pressure, but for my own self-esteem.

It was this situation where you do something and you enjoy it, and suddenly you don’t. Then I thought, I will either make it profitable or I should do something else because this is not bringing me joy anymore.

At some point my husband lost his job.

Manouchka: Okay.

Maryia Ramanava: And I became the main breadwinner. But by that moment I had already figured out how to run a profitable business. So basically I got lucky in a way.

I don’t know what I would do if I had that financial pressure from the very beginning. I think I would still consider maybe a part-time job, but definitely not a business. Not a business, because it’s too much.

Manouchka: I find there’s a lot in terms of what we picture starting a business is going to be like, and then when you are actually doing it day to day, the whole setup of how you do things and the confidence of going through it, even when it’s difficult, when you have to figure things out, that’s a lot.

It’s true, I still have my moments of doubt. Am I doing the right thing? It’s part of the journey, right? We always have to come back to our purpose. Why did I start this? What’s the end goal?

And yes, there is that aspect that it would be so much easier if I just had a nine-to-five job.

Maryia Ramanava: No.

Manouchka: But wait, that’s exactly what I don’t want because I want the flexibility. I want to be able to create my life and to be as present as I decide to be in my child’s life. I also have to accept that it’s going to take more time to build certain things.

I’ll admit that’s one of my issues right now. I have all these ideas and I’m like, okay yes, let’s go and run with this. Then I’m like, shit, I should have planned more in advance. I should have built systems better. I should have done this and that. And then I’m like, okay, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just go with the flow because this is a learning experience anyway. And like you said, I’m also in a position where I’m lucky that we’re not depending on my income, so it gives me a lot more freedom to experiment with my business.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, definitely. I also think that I always saw business as a creative getaway.

It was funny, always being in the park when my children were small. I spent I don’t know how many years on the playground, and you talk to other mothers there and they start discussing all these things they are doing for themselves, like going for a massage or a weekend with girlfriends. They ask me, what do you do for yourself? And I’m just like, I work.

I think that is really the only reason I was able to grow to the point I did and really enjoy the ride, because for me, business, working with clients, writing marketing copy, making websites, thinking about promotion, it was really my creative getaway.

And when I work with some people and they tell me, oh, I hate marketing, I’m just like, how do you do it then? Because getting clients, getting out there, getting visible, if you don’t like it, then it becomes like a job. You have some elements in your business you do not enjoy.

I think this is also important. Always try to tweak your business in a way that lets you actually like everything.

Manouchka: Because it’s a healthy challenge, right? A healthy intellectual challenge and a social challenge that is beyond the baby routine. I think this is also a big thing for parents.

Maryia Ramanava: That they become underwhelmed in many things. They become overwhelmed with some things, but underwhelmed in others. There is no balance in it.

That is why I think if you can really allow yourself to take your passion and put a bit of ambition into it, because a hobby is nice, but I don’t think a hobby will save a young mother from depression or from really feeling that she lost herself. A hobby won’t help. But business can. Business can help.

Manouchka: So if you have mental health issues, start a business?

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, I think so.

If you feel unfulfilled with just cooking healthy lunches and going to the children’s park and that whole routine, then yes. It took me maybe six years to get used to playgrounds, because every time I was there, I thought, I’m dying. I really thought I was just going to die there.

So it was really hard for me to integrate into this children lifestyle.

Manouchka: And so now, what would a typical week look like in terms of the organization you have? One of the things you help your clients do is get more consistent with their online presence and the way they show up. So how do you create that rhythm while still being so flexible, obviously with the no-deadlines thing, so that you are able to create consistency for yourself?

Maryia Ramanava: Now of course everything has become much easier when the kids started proper school and they have their school rhythm. So now I always work, and plan to work, when my kids are at school. It became a very, very clear structure.

The only thing is that because I have three kids, almost always someone is sick.

Manouchka: Okay.

Maryia Ramanava: So in theory it’s like, oh yeah, they all go to school. But they don’t.

But as I said, they are a bit bigger now. Even if someone is sick at home, if it’s not the little one, the youngest, I can still be on a call and record things I want to record.

So I have these times, which are not many. My kids come back for lunch every day. They don’t eat at school. The little one doesn’t have school on Wednesdays, because in France they only have four days. So basically I have four days when I work.

Another thing is that, as I said, I have multiple offers, which actually let me accommodate different things. For example, school breaks. I have some offers that I would only run when it’s normal school time, and then I would have more passive offers or just more fun offers during school breaks.

For example, I could not deliver a group program during summer break. I mean, I could, but it would be really overwhelming. This is why I think it actually feels easier to have different offers, even though some people think it is harder. But this is what you do when you have kids. You juggle. This is the whole thing. So I basically started doing this in my business too.

I have offers that I can fit into different life scenarios and also into different roles and energy levels. Sometimes I really feel that I want to do something live, meet people, get on calls. Sometimes I’m just like, no. And then I have to sell digital courses, and that was a good decision.

At the end, I find that it’s easier because I’m more flexible on all levels of the business.

Another thing is that I have this No Makeup Marketing philosophy. It has core ideas that I can easily reuse in different things, even for different offers and different media like emails, blog posts, and social media posts.

I think this is also very important, to have a core that you can reuse. I never have to create from scratch. For example, I can now come up with a completely new offer, which I’m actually doing right now. Before I got on the call with you, I was thinking about what I can do during summer break. I have a nice, fun offer to roll out. This offer I never did before, so it is completely new, but I already have content because it is still in line with what I do.

I usually call this your content library or your core content, so that you can be flexible. No matter what you offer, you will still be talking about the same thing more or less. I also think it’s important that you talk about the same things because it creates brand recognition.

All my business ideas are tied to my personal values. That’s what I believe in, and it’s not changing so often. I think this is very important, but it requires a bit deeper work on your business, which not everyone is doing.

Some people are just creating these very surface-level sales pages and that’s it. Of course then it becomes very hard because you think you should always write something from scratch, and you don’t have to. If you do this work once, you can then easily reuse things.

So for me, content creation is really easy now.

Manouchka: One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how you see the big names in online marketing. They are constantly using the same spiel, but they know how to add a little salt or a little twist to it depending on what they are selling at that moment. They are always super consistent with what they are talking about.

Because my business is also something I’m figuring out at the moment, I didn’t think I would start a business for mom entrepreneurs a year ago. But I’m starting a podcast and then other things happen, and so I’m still like, okay, I feel like I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit because the more I evolve with this and experiment, the more I think I need to be very clear about the values of my business and what it is that I help people achieve.

But I do not feel like I’m there yet. I’m still figuring out exactly what it is that I want to create with this. At the same time, I have to be careful because one of the issues we usually have as entrepreneurs is that we’re never satisfied and we need to know where to stop. How many times are you going to review your landing page? How many times are you going to redo your Instagram bio?

There is that level of being like an artist with a canvas. You need to know when to stop, where the last paint stroke is, because otherwise it’s never going to be over and you’re never going to be satisfied. You have to leave good enough alone.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, so on one hand, I never stop tweaking because for me it’s fun. If I want to launch a new offer, creating a sales page and tweaking it a bit gives me energy. It excites me.

On the other hand, I always have this, I’m sending this today. You know it, because you work with me. When people ask me what my business secret is, I say, a timer. A timer is the secret.

I really make myself mad, but I put a timer on and say, I am tweaking my sales page and in thirty minutes I am publishing it.

If you ever go to my website, it’s such chaos. It is terrible. I know that most people would never publish a website in such a state, but I publish it and I still get clients from this very chaotic website.

Manouchka: I do apply the timer method too, more and more. The thing is, when we started working together, I think in January, I remember I sent you my website and told you, this is a work in progress. This is the bare minimum because I knew I needed to have something and I was not going to make it perfect.

So I agree with the tweaking. But there is also that phase where you have to feel good with what you did and accept that it is fine the way it is, because people are not looking for perfection and we are always going to be the first ones judging ourselves in the work that we do and the things that we put out there.

That is one of the things that I appreciate with the way that you show up on social media, and it is something I’ve learned to do since I started Hey Boss Mama. It’s okay not to be perfect.

Maryia Ramanava: No, I think perfect is fear. It’s just a different word. Perfect is fear. Every time you have the feeling it’s not good enough, you’re just afraid. And who wants to live in fear? No one.

Usually my time is fifteen minutes for almost anything. Then I check, am I still doing it? Am I making progress? Am I just fed up with this and don’t want to do it anymore?

I always kind of check in with the time because I have very little time. When the time is over and I have a sales page, I will go and send it to my list because I have a very big email list. Usually at least one person will buy. If one person buys, I’m like, okay, it’s working. If no one buys, I might come back to it and start tweaking.

You put it out there and see if it’s working. If it is working, it’s perfect. If it’s not working, you can keep tweaking it. If it doesn’t work after that, I usually give my clients about two weeks for an offer. If the offer did not sell out despite tweaking, then maybe you should go and do something else.

I think this is also part of being a business owner. I have one workshop where I call it a mad scientist mindset. Basically, you keep experimenting until it works, because it will work at some point.

Sometimes I really feel sad because I see people who stick with one thing and keep tweaking it, and it’s not selling because it is probably not for their audience. Or maybe it is not really in line with what they want to sell. Maybe they think they should sell it, but they do not really want to sell it.

There should be a bit of a playful, more open attitude.

Especially for people who had jobs, they think their business should bring this constant flow of income like a salary. They think they should be making five thousand per month, ten thousand per month.

Manouchka: And don’t forget all the influencers saying, look how much money I made without doing anything.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, exactly.

People think sustainable business means getting the same amount every month. You can do that if you have a subscription or membership model. But in business, sometimes you can earn almost your year income in two months.

So if you actually stay with it, keep tweaking, keep experimenting, and do not let fear or yourself get in the way, you might sell it out and earn your year income in two months. This is very hard to accept, especially coming back from a job. And if your parents were not business owners, you won’t know it either.

This is also something I had to learn. I usually do a big sale at the end of the year. I would basically earn half of my year income just from one sale.

Of course I have to get ready for it. I have to have an audience. I have to have warm people. I have to create excitement. I have to be excited myself. Everything should be laid out. But I also think that the expectation of steady salary-like income is what ruins it for many people. They give up too soon, or they keep tweaking something they should have let go of five years ago.

Manouchka: You have to accept the fact that depending on what kind of services or products you are selling, it might get very seasonal. But at least you have the control of saying when the seasons are, and you can adapt that to your life. That is a luxury in itself already.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah. I also think having kids teaches us flexibility. Some day they start brushing their teeth, they start taking a shower, they start using the toilet. And when you are in it, you think it’s never going to happen. You think you will spend your life with diapers.

I think it’s similar with business. You think this offer will never bring me income, and suddenly it does. So for me it is really about testing and giving yourself a very clear plan. How long will I test it? How many times?

Before I decide not to do anything with an offer, I have to share it at least a hundred times. In different places, not on the same Instagram account with twenty people. For me it’s helpful because it creates a clear plan. I’m not panicking, I’m just doing the thing.

Manouchka: Going back to the type of advice that you give your clients, one of the reasons I joined your program about consistency is because I thought, yes, this is one of the things where I need to push myself a little bit, and it’s nicer to do it with other people too. What are the top things that you tell your clients about consistency and how to get there?

Maryia Ramanava: The first advice about consistency is to relax. You cannot do anything under pressure. I mean, you can do something under pressure, but you cannot do anything for a long time under pressure, and consistency is about the long term.

So the first thing is that you should leave yourself alone a bit.

I often say that consistency is not about discipline and not about willpower. Especially for parents, you already use all your willpower just not to freak out.

Manouchka: Yes. To keep your cool. It’s okay.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah. Just not to start screaming and breaking dishes. That is already your willpower working there.

People often talk about habits and all these things, but I really do not think that is what consistency in business is.

For me, consistency is adequate action in particular areas, action that is not forced and not necessarily constant.

For example, if I talk about how I show up, I do show up consistently. I have consistent visibility. But if you go to my Instagram, my Facebook, or my LinkedIn, you will see that I do not post every day.

I show up in a way that I can show up in particular moments of my life, in the areas where I can show up. It is still flexible, but I will show up. I have no doubt or fear that I will stop showing up. I have been showing up in my business for twenty years.

I do not try to make it rigid, especially with my lifestyle. I know that I cannot show up twice a day. Sometimes I try to go live in my Facebook group every Tuesday, but I know I will not be able to do it for a year. I can do it for a month. This is also what I work on with my clients. If we are talking about taking action, what exactly does it look like, and for how long?

For example, I have this rule of a hundred. I will show my offer a hundred times. I do not tell myself I will talk about this offer every week until I die.

Doing something consistently does not mean doing something constantly. It does not mean doing something in a forced framework and worrying that if you did not show up, you failed.

Manouchka: It has to be sustainable.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, it has to be sustainable.

For me, consistency is maybe eighty percent automated email sequences. I would always put more effort into creating something that will keep going by itself.

Another thing that really brings me a lot of return is being a guest expert in offers from other people. I record some training and it becomes part of a membership, part of a mastermind, part of a bundle, or part of an online conference.

The people who create those offers are building a library of trainings. They have it there, my training is there, and people join my email list, download my workbooks, and enter my automatic email sequence.

This is really something you do one time and it works for you for a very long time. Another thing I should be doing is a YouTube channel, which I am still postponing. It is a lot of work, but it is meaningful work. Or having blog posts on your website optimized for Google search.

People think consistency is posting Reels three times per week. Maybe for some people, but not for me.

Consistency is about creating places where people can reach you all the time, but you do not have to show up all the time.

So this is consistency for me. Basically, being present without constantly doing something.

Sometimes I make sales and I do not even know the people. If I go into my email system and see how they joined, I see that they came from a bundle I participated in three years ago, and they still found my offer somewhere. This is nice. It is a very solid system.

Manouchka: Definitely. What I love about this vision of consistency is that it is flexible according to your needs, your business needs, but also your schedule and your life.

Creating something that works for that, and that fulfills your business goals first, because otherwise what’s the point, and then that you are able to keep maintaining, that is not always easy to figure out at the beginning. It might take a little trial and error, but if you have the reflection for it, if you take the time to think about what’s working, what you should prioritize, and where you should put all that effort, it changes everything.

I think one of the issues a lot of business owners make, especially at the beginning, is that they think social media is so important. I have to be super active there and I have to really put my face there. And then they’re like, oh wait, where is my business actually coming from? Is it from social media and should I really be spending all my time there?

Maryia Ramanava: The funny thing is that most of my business really comes from social media. Now I have many photo sessions and even group photo sessions, and when we all get together, people start asking, how do you know Maryia? Everyone knows me from social media.

I actually have, I don’t know how many followers, maybe three hundred. I have a super small following.

Manouchka: I heard about you the first time through a Facebook group.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, see? You also know me from social media.

Manouchka: That’s also where I get a lot of clients and contacts. A lot of my networking now happens through social media groups because first of all I live in the countryside and it is not that easy to go meet people in person, but also because there are a lot of exchanges that happen there.

What I mean by people spending too much time on social media is more like creating the perfect Instagram, for example.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, exactly. You can have a few posts, but you can just chat with people. You can participate in discussions. You can comment.

I get many people coming to my Facebook group or starting DMs with me just because I was helpful, because I was commenting on their post or replying to a comment. So basically it is networking. It is online networking.

But if you look at my social media feed, it is clear that sometimes I post consistently and sometimes I don’t. I usually schedule my posts on one day of the month, and sometimes I schedule only five, sometimes I schedule twenty, but it gets done because I have a timer.

So it is very different. Sometimes it is more, sometimes less. At this moment in my business, it does not really affect much how often I post.

For example, my family photography business grew just by posting in Facebook groups. I would make promotional posts with a couple of photographs and say, next month I have five slots open, who wants one? It was very simple marketing, but I was doing it consistently. It was a very realistic effort.

Manouchka: I have one last question for you, and it’s not exactly business related. One day, when your three kids are all grown up, what do you wish they would say about you?

Maryia Ramanava: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I have a very, very close relationship with my children. My children are my favorite people. I’m always really excited to spend time with them. We talk a lot. We talk about everything. Of course we have some fights, and now they are getting into the teenage years and becoming grumpy. But I really feel like I am living my best life as a mother, so I cannot imagine better motherhood for myself.

I hope they will see that anything is possible and that you can really do what you love. That is the big thing. My husband is still in academia. That is how we met, at university. He is also doing what he likes.

Now he is in a different country because that is where he found his position after being unemployed for some time. So we live a little apart, but when he comes, we have a really nice relationship.

Basically our children are growing up with parents who are not really doing things the way people think you should do them. It is very unconventional.

Our income is also not like a salary. It is not like you get this paycheck every month. But sometimes it can be a surprise. You suddenly earn much more money than you thought you could. That is also a nice part of business. Sometimes you can surprise yourself and think, wow, I did not know I could do it.

I think they will see that you can actually do something you really like, because I am very passionate about what I do and my husband is very passionate about what he does.

Maybe they would say, she always did what she wanted. She didn’t listen to anyone.

I actually think they already see this, because when they dream about what they would like to do, they do not even settle on one thing. They say they want to do this, this, and this. I think this is because they really believe, why not?

Manouchka: When you have examples of parents who live to their own beat, you also see that it is possible.

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah, exactly. Maybe hopefully it will not be, she always looked at her laptop.

Manouchka: That’s a tough one, right?

Maryia Ramanava: Yeah. Or, she was never at home on weekends, she always had photo sessions.

Manouchka: Where can everyone find more about you and what you do? What are your upcoming offers?

Maryia Ramanava: My main offer, if someone wants to discover what I do, is the club. The membership would be the best place to start. It is very affordable, it is nice, we have weekly activities and trainings. It is also one of those things that is not very rigid. I try to develop it in a flexible way. I listen to my members. It is a bit of a creative space.

I think it is also interesting to see how you can have a flexible, evolving offer. Instead of selling only a digital course, I wanted to have a place where I can test things and have more flexibility. It is like a gentle testing community, and I hope it will grow. So the club would be a very nice place to start.

Manouchka: Amazing. Thank you, Maryia. I love that little glimpse into your world. I am one of your clients, we have collaborated together, and it is just amazing to see the energy behind all of it and how you set all that up. So thank you so much for sharing.

Maryia Ramanava: Thank you for inviting me. It is really lovely to chat with you.