Meet Samantha March | Influencer & Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Samantha March and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Samantha, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I decided to start creating my brand By Samantha March after I ran an online challenge in August 2019 that was focused around healthy habits. I was starting to become focused on how to change my life for the better, and because I was already a social media influencer with a platform, I thought maybe people would want to join me. It exceeded my expectations, especially as a beauty-focused influencer, and I realized so many others were putting an emphasis on creating lives that they loved. October 2019 I started putting together my business plan. At the start of 2020 after trying to conceive naturally, my now ex-husband and I started fertility treatments and then March hit. The whole world changed, my job was even more unstable than usual as full-time content creator, and the fertility medication had me in tears daily. I looked online for products to help me through an extremely difficult time and when I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I pulled my business plan back up and set to designing my first launch, the Start Inspired collection.

What should our readers know about your business?
Work life balance has always been a struggle for me. When I was in college I worked three jobs on top of my school work and trying to have a personal life. I started my blog and wrote my first book while working two jobs. I started a side business offering marketing services for authors and wrote my next two novels while working full-time at a hospital. And now I’m currently struggling with taking days off because I’m so busy with all the platforms I juggle, plus my writing career and now By Samantha March. Finding work life balance tends to me a difficult one for me, but I’m currently tracking my days and utilizing my planner and notepads that I offer through By Samantha March to make sure I’m taking time off, decreasing my screen time, and scheduling more self-care days.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am from Dubuque, Iowa and I’ll say I never felt I fit in. In my friend groups throughout the years I was the one wanting more, more, more, trying to plan fun activities for us to go off and have adventures on, pretending we were filming TV shows and movies, and practicing accepting awards in my mirror. I look back now in my 30’s and can appreciate my upbringing, having the Mississippi River in my backyard and all the lessons I took away from living in Iowa until I was 34. But I also look back and understand that instead of going for my goals and thinking big, I let myself shrink and stay small for so long because I was called weird and different for talking about my desire to write books and my love for wandering the beauty aisles at Wal-Mart looking for the best lipstick. I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada after my divorce in 2021 and have never felt more at home.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I get asked this a lot, especially because of my career as a book blogger and author. And I always think I’m supposed to name “self-help” or motivational types of books, but those aren’t the ones that have the biggest impacts on me. One of the books that had the biggest impact on me was Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. Reading the novel gave me a desire so greatly to talk to other booklovers about the plot and what they thought that shortly after finishing it, I started saving that $300 to create a blog so I couldn’t do just that – connect with others who loved the same things as me. I think books you read that inspire you to make a change or start something new are the ones that bring the most impact – even if it’s “just” a rom com or thriller. Full circle moment – a couple years after starting the blog, I was chosen to be on a panel with other bloggers to interview Emily Giffin before the release of Something Borrowed, the movie. That $300 has been paid off and then some.

Website: https://bysamanthamarch.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marchbeautyword/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SamanthaMarch23