When you have a post that's going to take off and you see a level of Engagement that's moving the needle for me what does one need to do to continue to stoke that fire you need to make sure that you are consistent that you are showing up that when you're looking at that person behind the post what's there is there call to action on their LinkedIn Banner clear is there about section you know making sense with the Post that you've read and I think that kind of just goes back in general to this idea of
like consistency and ultimately like we have so many choices and like why you in a world full of choices why you my next guest is on the podcast for a very interesting reason and in full transparency I forgot why we're having this call and thankfully mercifully she told me how it is or how it is that we talked and what it is we're talking About she shared a LinkedIn post and something happened to it that was really unexpected and rather than me tell you that story avatal can you tell that story but before we do
can you first introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of a story about who you are and what you've done sure so my name is avatal um I'm originally from London and when I was 23 so now I'm 31 I set up an agency which brands thought leaders and small businesses that's a very Interesting Niche yeah how did you come to that place okay so I'll start from the beginning I grew up as one of three girls my mom is one of three girls and they had only daughters and my mom's sisters also had
only daughters and she was one of the first stock Brokers on the London Stock Exchange and obviously he wants to be like their mom so I was like adamant that I was going to be a stay-at home parent and uh got very into unexpectedly politics and American Politics specifically so when I was 19 I went on a program in my first year of college and I decided to intern in Washington um for a non-for-profit which Bridges the gap between Democrats and Republicans and so that was really where I saw my career going very much into
the political space and this was a life-changing internship and essentially there was like the American Summer is a month longer than the British summer so everyone got there before me and there Was 20 members of staff and 100 interns and it was just like chaos but like the best kind of chaos I go on the internship and I ared late and I'm like well how am I going to make my mark these people have had like a month extra than I'm going to have and they said that there was an event coming up which was
3 Days event and the first part was that they needed to get the most amount of citizens to the event and the second part of the event was that there was Going to be a donor dinner for the wealthiest donors to the organization so they said whoever signed up the most amount of donors to the most amount of people to the event essentially got to have a one-on-one with a CEO who was super busy was Clinton's 2008 fundraiser and I was like I'm going to get that so I signed up this group from London that
I had come with and I was like you've all got to be there and I won the competition and I said to her listen I Feel like you're really busy I might not have the chance to really have that lunch with you but what would be great is could I come to the donor event and she was like I don't know no interns are allowed we're only having a few members of staff and I was like okay but I really want to be there and she was like fine and essentially I thought it would be
this like Devil we's Prada situation where they go to Paris fashion week and there's this assistant saying don't ask You know anything about her husband they just got divorced or don't ask about the daughter that you know she's just got out of rehab so I prepared all these like random facts on the guest list and I just got got there and she was at Avatar Network like you've never networked before and it was like George Bush's Chief of Staff it was Senators congressmen amazing people essentially I just left the evening with all these business cards
and I went home to the Person I was rooming with and I went to throw all these cards in the trash being like what am I ever going to do with these I'm 19 years old you know they're never going to remember me and she was like you're going to write to every single person and follow up and ask for a one-on-one coffee so I wrote that email that night being like hi British girl following up was great to meet you would you have time to meet and so many of them said yes and I
ended up being The only intern from the program that was offered a full-time job um from this and I was still adamant that I was going to go back into politics I went back the next summer and even this time was paid that was exciting and then I realized I didn't really want to go into politics at all I came back and I went into actually like more of a venture capital space and I moved out to Israel and I went there with no contacts and I knew I wanted to go into value creation and
I Was like having 80 meetings and at the end of every meeting I'd be like thanks so much for the conversation who else would you suggest I speak to next and they were like semi or bio semi who you know and I'll connect you with a relevant person so I was like this is cool um and that was really how I got my job after 80 coffees as value Creation in Reed Hoffman the founder of LinkedIn um his fund uh in Israel so that was really where the career began and then Whilst I was in
that role I had people coming to me saying listen who how should we go tell our story who should we go to for our branding who should we go to for our website and I was like I'm 24 years old I'm going to set up an agency I've got nothing to lose and the only interest I would say at this point was that I was spent a lot of time in the states and I loved how like Lululemon Starbucks companies went into different countries and I was like how Do you have the same Vibe but
like my dad was a doctor my mom was in Investment Banking there was no room for like a creative career so I didn't know what to do with it and I my mom was like just just do it and I was like okay and I set up this agency that was where it began seven to six or seven years ago with a $100,000 client um that kind of signed straight away that's really how I got into the business yeah a little bit different yeah you gave us the the Speedrun version of that story so I
appreciate you getting that I have to Circle back on a couple different things you're a like a British transplant Coming to America to get involved in American politics like what the f I don't understand that okay and then the challenge was for you to sign up as many people as possible and you won I need to know how the heck did you do that I was came on the program with a group of people from the UK so I just said to Them listen guys I've got this competition and I want to win it and
you only need to show up to this event and I signed up the whole group and there were 40 of us and everyone else was coming to DC for the first time with no Conta ta and didn't know anyone so I was the only one that had like a group of people that I could bring oh okay so I when you said you had to to get as many citizens to show up I you thought like Americans they no one cared it was just like People there that would like be there when all these new
information was going to be released I see so you just enrolled the entire group that you came over with yeah and W were they not in the competition themselves no cuz they everyone was interning at different places like and also that was also funny like everyone else was like from Cambridge and Oxford I went to somewhere called Birmingham and essentially like they were wearing suits they were giving A Blackberry like it was a really legit thing and I was basically rocking up like there was no dress code definitely no phone given I was the one
that like left as the whole program with the with the position and no one else had really got that far I got you there's some remarkable things about you and I want to bring them to the surface that people are like wait how what huh okay cuz you're very different than a lot of our guests for a lot of different reasons We'll get into all those things in a little bit so you then win the one one with the CEO but you don't want that I mean most people are like what you a good question
I I did want that and and actually was still in touch I think what I realized is like it was really hectic her life was really intense and at the same time like her Focus was on this event and I was like what's really going to bring more value I can have that one-on-one at any point And that's but this is a once- in A- lifetime opportunity to come to like the biggest donors to the organization and that would be like a much better use of my time and experience so you you ask hey I
mean according to the story that you just shared with us I'm just too busy or something's happening can I go to the donor dinner instead is the dinner or just a donor party it was like a donor reception reception okay so you're like can I do that and they're Like no it's not really what kind of gave you the go to even ask for that cuz here you are just young unpaid intern I honestly I wish I knew um I just was like I've got nothing to lose and I think that is like really one
of the biggest like mottos that has like pushed me forward in life which is like once you accept what failure really means and you're okay with what that means and you're able to kind of persevere and say I'm able to do that anyway and still I'm Willing to ask I feel like that's where the magic happens this is incredible synchronicity I I just spoke to my PR group yesterday about the courage to ask and if you don't ask the answer is always no and most people get stuck at that idea the fear of rejection and
the self story that brings but here you are it's like kicking down doors and taking names the next part that's remarkable to me is you go to the donor event the reception and you network with like a Like an animal like a like a Hollywood Insider not Hollywood a Washington Insider yeah literally what what is it about you your personality that makes you feel so comfortable to meet high-powered Executives important people in government and business what is it about you your upbringing that allows you to do that cuz that would scared the heck out of
me interesting uh well first of all why would it have scared you so much like growing up well cuz I'm an Introvert I'm socially awkward um my dad is not a doctor my mom what is your mom I investment banking I guess investment banker see so there's the pedigree there and we're refugees from Vietnam so I've never really felt kind of at home until more recently and it's been a challenge of mine the first thing I think in my mind is where's the exit and how do I get back to my hotel room cuz I
don't want to do any of this so clearly there are Stark differences between you and me So what is it about you that's just like yeah I'm going to go and network with people I think that like my parents are actually just celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary So at their 25th they they did a party and I remember being 4 years old and holding a bunny and going up to give a speech I just had the and everyone was like what like like and I just wanted to talk about it and I think that there
was also my siblings are older than me by 10 and 12 years and There was a lot of pressure growing up it was like if you wanted to have like you know something to say at the table and you wanted to get heard you had to make sure it was concise and to the point and there wasn't much room for messing around and I think that that always made me like very crystal clear on the point and also like just the message like I knew if I wanted to get heard and a bunch of adults
like I needed to make sure that I was you know Making sense and quickly and I think that that just carried me through like it wasn't like they took me to work events but I would say that they had a lot of people around they did a ton of hosting and I was always exposed to adults I naturally felt you know like always more comfortable with older people and gravitated towards them even though I ended up marrying someone 3 years younger than me that I would never expected to do but I think that that was
Really just there there was a lot of exposure and a lot of interesting conversation and I think people made me feel like my opinion mattered no one ever turned around and was like what like you're just a child and therefore like when it came to these sort of things I just was like again what have I got to lose if someone's not interested in talking to me okay and we'll move on what would you feel about people your age back back in the day did you feel Like they were not mature enough to talk to
you or why is it you're more connected to older folks than than people of your age I think that I just am like a bit of an old soul like I just always was very into like those kind of conversations I was very worried growing up about how I would balance being a mother and having a career almost obsessive with reading about like Good Housekeeping which which is kind of catered towards 60 year olds like just Like I felt very connected to just like where the older people were at and I but I did have
a lot of friends like my own age too and it wasn't a problem it wasn't like oh she's like only ever hanging out with older people but I I found like-minded friends and it worked okay so so take me back there you're 19 years old you're you're going to the donor reception Let's Pretend We're back there travel back in time a couple years here like I guess that's 21 years now or 12 years 12 years that's what it is 12 my ma I inverted the numbers okay so 12 years ago you're here there's all kinds
of Power people moving around and you see somebody first of all do you know who they are no no clue like like somewhat of an idea but mainly like I just was thought everyone was impressive that was kind of the end of it okay so who do you decide to talk to and tell take me through like maybe one of the first two or three interactions Literally just paint the picture for me cuz I I'm having a hard time imagining this okay you're I see all these fancy people suits and ties and dresses and form
attire I imagine all kind of pretty prim and proper you see somebody who is it that you see and why do you select them to go and talk to them so first of all the the starting point of the event is that there's a huge White House cake in the center of the table so that's like where people are gravitating Towards number one so it's like if you're at the cake and like that's also a good starter and I think that kind of not knowing exactly who was in the room was a really good thing
like I I I had read the guest list but I hadn't done as much as like putting the face with the name and in terms of who I spoke to it was just like if I saw someone hanging around they weren't speaking to someone else I was like hi I'm Avatar I'm from the UK I'm here on this IV league Program you know 20 of us were selected to work and I'm actually working for ncy and they were like wow you know how is that and I was like it's an amazing experience you know it's
really an insane culture and I would just talk about what I was doing and how I was working for and what I had learned in the short amount of time I was there and then I just said like and I'm going back to the UK and I'm hoping to enter American politics and they were like wow That's so interesting what's a brick doing so passionate about American politics and it was just it was really just that dang yeah God you got your pitch down and did that just flow from you or did you did you
think about that beforehand or you just walked up and that's just how you did just I never thought about it I just walked up and also my mom I did a ton does a ton of public speaking and never carried notes so I always she had a big thing like if You're talking and you're giving a presentation there will be no notes so I always just felt like I just had to come prepared like that was it like there was no chance to like whip out a piece of paper ever and just be like oh
can I review this it was like you get one chance Make It or Break It You know you know it's wild because you are the living embodiment of what Daniel Priestley talks about and I want to share a little bit of that concept with You and then just to show our audience I know what happens in people's minds you've done work you've gone to a good school and you have a nice portfolio but you still feel really sheepish about who you are and what you do you're apologetic and you think oh if I had that
award or if I had that client I would be the person I'm supposed to be avvatar was walking in a room 19 years old like from another country you know just cuz she's passionate about this and What she does is she doesn't play small she plays big and she knows how to tell her story in a way that makes her separate from everyone else that's there she knows how to be different that's about branding you know different is better than better and here she is she's like I'm from the UK I'm really into American politics
I'm an intern here I'm from an IV league program I work for Nancy or whoever you said so she's saying all the kinds of things that she Needs to say so that someone on the other side's like oh you're a person of interest you're not this newbie person that's like helping out with wrangling guests or something you're you're not you're to be taken seriously and I think that's freaking pretty cool so all of you guys who are sitting back and having all these excuses about I'm not ready only if only if this happened then I'll
be ready just take a note from this conversation now she's coming with a Th000 watt of energy most of us aren't like that but forget about that part just look at the structure of what she's done okay so you're talking to this person at what point do you asking them like who the heck they are and how did you do that oh that's you got to be very smooth because I feel like the ultim the ultimate aim and always say this CU I now lecture like a lot of people that are about to start college
and I always say that first of all you can't make a Mistake with who you're speaking to in the room and the aim is to leave with one person who you can follow up with and they'll remember you people think the idea of a networking event is to network the room to master the room and to leave with a ton of contacts I did have this in this occasion and I will agree to that but in general I feel like going forward when you should think about networking events the idea is to make one solid
connection and leave Knowing that when you add that personal link linked in and when you email they're going to email you back and I feel like that really needs to be said in general about networking and now I can't remember even the question that you asked me which was like that's how I approach NW General oh so I feel like there's it's just it's talking and talking and then eventually they're like oh and I and when I worked for George this is what I did and I was like oh you Know could you just remind
me in what capacity you were working for him and he was like yeah I just was the chief of staff and I feel like because I was from the UK there was more of an ability to be like oh I might not actually know the exact role that you did like I didn't have to and then people were like do you know who you were just speaking with and I was like uh kind of and I think that it was like that kind of element which is like having the conversation and Getting them to really
be able to feel so comfortable that they're just like dropping all this random information about themselves that then it becomes clear again you're the outsider who you who leverages being an outsider as a means to not to know everything where the the same person I'm an outsider I have no right to be here I'm going to feel really small right now wonderfully well done this makes a lot of sense to me right now because now we get back to The original question here which is how the heck are we talking now it all makes sense
to me cuz you droing my DM on Instagram under your agency and you say hey this story might be of interest to you and it's like now I can connect the dots cuz this is kind of how you roll in the world you see somebody you figure out what you need to say so that a conversation can begin cuz for the life of me in full transparency I couldn't figure out how the heck we know each Other and I literally had to reach out to avatal and say Hey I'm I'm sorry how do we know
each other again and this is remarkable so you basically built a cold like you went from a cold relationship and turned it into next thing you know you're on our podcast which I have to hand it to you I'm not trying to Pat myself in the back it's not easy to do not easy to do the pitch the proof the way you show up the language it was very precise I really appreciate it so I Guess I'll give a little bit of background in terms of like LinkedIn and how that all happened essentially I always
I started when I had this internship actually at 18 I I started my first account like a LinkedIn account so I had it from the age of 18 and the way that I used it is that I would share when I spoke at an event I would share when I had like a new case study that was relevant and that was exciting and I would say like in the last three years As I have a one and a three-year-old I've been writing a lot about what it's like to run a business and you know manage
motherhood at the same time and that was peing a lot of people's interest I would have a lot of people coming to me and be like I'm really struggling with this could we talk about that more and I never thought to go in about thought leadership and to really give like the behind the scenes of running a business and then about a year Ago I was like what have I got to lose I went into a LinkedIn Meetup again I had the smallest following in the group and I was like right I'm going to write
about stuff and I'm going to commit to writing four to five times a week and I'm going to show up and I realized there were three people that were really kind of like three different audiences which is also against the rules because people are like you need to be known for one thing so I was like on the one hand I already have these like working parents that are interested about being a business owner and running a family and a young family and how did you do that that's one audience but I'm not going to
monetize that the second audience is ultimately them small business owners and I would speak to a lot of small business owners and they were like how do you do your pricing how did you do your proposals how did you make sure that you would get a certain Amount of money up front and I've done this for seven years and I started out myself I never worked for anyone else so I really hadn't seen anyone else do this and it was everything was learned you know just by doing and so I began offering consultations you know
Power Hour one-on once and my main audience is actually people that I do branding for so as I said there's the companies and then there's actually the thought leaders which is like a new thing even Though personal branding is like having its moment so ultimately I committed to writing four to five times a week and I had a situation about all all different things but under those three categories around the time of April I decided to book a consult with someone in the personal branding space what was happening is that I was becoming known for
building people's personal brand when we think of personal branding today we think of LinkedIn and we think oh Someone's going to write my post and that's going to be like building a personal brand and when I think of personal brand I think brand strategy a tone of voice a brand identity all the things happen before you do any sort of marketing and I was like feeling a bit frustrated because I was like there's a disconnect I'm I've built my own brand and I have a strong personal brand but I can't do that for that's not
what I want to offer for other people I want to do The stage before so I wanted to speak to someone it was like a direct question and I was like I think I have the right person in mind and I had written them an email earlier in the year theyd never responded and I was like fine fair enough they want me to pay so I paid $250 for a 15minute consult and 5 minutes before the consult was due to begin they cancel the appointment and then they asked me to reschedule and so I reschedule
for a few hours later I get On the call and there's no apology you know no so sorry I had to reschedule 5 minutes before even though I'd like sorted out a babysitter for my kids my husband was working at the time like it was an intense situation I was paying a high price point I get on the consult before I'd had it I had to submit my website and what my questions were and we get on the call and she's like oh so here's my story this is where I've been and we're 10 minutes
in and she says oh Can I see your website um and I was like a bit confused cuz they'd ask asked for that sort of information before she did look at my website which was not related to the question and said oh your about section could really tell your superpower a little bit better and I said great thanks so much and then a popup appeared on the platform and said would you like to extend by $150 for another 15 minutes and I was like No And then they wrapped up the call and said Looks like
we're coming to an end thanks so much please leave me a recommendation um and that was really where the call ended I did nothing with it I was frustrated I told a friend about it and again like really just was like what am I going to do with this like really and it just didn't stop playing on my mind and a few months later this was around the time of July I decided to write about it on LinkedIn really short to the point the hook was you know I paid $250 For a 50-minute consult I
did no I didn't tag anyone I did no image and essentially it got 2.7 million impressions went absolutely wild the adrenaline was almost like having another child um that kind of like just like wow this is insane and yeah so I guess that we could pause there yeah that was the story yeah so that was the story you were sharing this experience with basically really poor customer experience from a supposed like expert In The Branding space and you're kind of left in a tailes being like huh the The Experience did not live up to what
it's supposed to be 15 minutes not a lot of time but the time should be focused on you and not on the person that's holding the call for you it made no sense and I suspect this is probably how a lot of people run their businesses everything that you buy is a funnel to buy something else and and something that's more expensive and at certain point you Get C up and all that stuff and I find that those practices are despicable but that's the story for another day so this post blows up what did you
learn what is it that you want to share about this I think that that really captivated two audiences one was people that had gone through the same thing so there was a lot of people writing in the comments got over a thousand comments you know 4,000 likes T you know we'll go out the other bits in a second but like the General comments on the post was like outrage and also sadly this has happened to me you know I paid for a course from a top voice on LinkedIn I invested in this person and it
was really underwhelming that was really like a strong message that came through the other thing was ultimately I'm a con was from Consultants saying this is really poor I do things differently and it was a chance for I think them to promote how they do things and that's why they Really felt connected to the post to be like wow this is why you know this is what differentiates us so a lot of people were outlining how their process was different some people tagged other Consultants being like wow you should really speak to this person and
the thing that really surprised me was I would say about 40 thought leaders um on LinkedIn wrote on the wrote in the comments really sorry to hear about the experience that you had please DM me to Set up a time to speak and I'd be happy to discuss your question free of charge those people were all every single one which is really surprising was brilliant and so I just spent the time afterwards having back toback five calls a day with all these people essentially they might want personal branding you know I thought they would be
interesting people to me you know always looking to build my network in general think I got nothing to lose from it And it was mind-blowing like the conversations what people thought about it and all the different ideas that it kind of spurred and that was like one thing that really was exciting from it just all the different people that reached out being like how can I help and then I had a lot of people who were ghost writers being like this is this can't be real like you can't monetize this nothing's going to happen from
this like you you're a one hit wonder and I Was like I I think something will happen from this thanks and then I got invited on to three podcasts this being one of them and I also uh actually got three people reaching out for consults like the one-on-one Power Hour and three people reaching out like a y combinator graduate being like I saw your story I'm really impressed with how you do things and ultimately you know could we discuss a branding project and I think that that was like you build this brand behind the Post
and actually it's not just a one hit wonder and I thought that was really powerful so it's kind of interesting you you you have been able to capture on orders of magnitude more than the $250 was it $250 yeah yeah the $250 that you spent on that call and this is something I try and to tell people the difference between successful people and not successful people or struggling people and successful people is successful people take life's bumps and they turn Them into gold and the the struggling people look at the bumps and they keep tripping
over the same bump over and over again for really really long time so although you didn't know what to do at the moment you turn it into post this is why like in in my in my case at least most of your bad experiences can be turned into wonderful learning opportunities and if you spin it the correct way you can take straw or hay and turn it into gold and that's Literally kind of like what you've been able to do with the the the appearances on different platforms and also being able to use it to
generate new leads and new net network uh opportunities where you're able to connect with top voices and thought leaders in the space well done I think what you said also about failure is you know you're looking at now the business seven years in and you're saying oh you know wow she's killing it and I get this all the time Like how did you do this how you know and I think what we don't realize is just there was so so much failure at the beginning you know like having to give clients money back because I
was messing up on projects you know or not taking money up front and then you learn you know obviously you need a really large percentage up front and I think that that's why I I do so much public speaking because I'm here to say you're looking at this success story and you Don't realize how much failure there was and I'm here to save you from making the same mistakes but also be aware that you will make your own mistakes it's okay and like you just said like so many people wrote in the comments as well
like wow you've like made such a you know you've learned such a great lesson cuz I kind of ended the post saying actually I did learn something exactly how not to lead my own consultations and I just think that like that's that's Going to be like how you do life you know mistakes don't just happen to you so if they do you've got to make the most of it and be like what can I learn from this and that's like a bigger picture of just being obsessed with feedback and reviewing and processes and always wanting
to just be like I want to be the best me so if I need to go through a few failes to get there I'm down there's something else I I want to ask you about because I feel this way When you have a post that actually does well not everything you do is going to be fire but if there's fire fires need things they need fuel and they need oxygen so when you have a post that's going to take off and you see a level of Engagement that you're you're like wow that's that's moving the
needle for me what does one need to do to continue to stoke that fire interesting so I guess prior to this the most viral post I had had was actually about how I manage my Week as a working mom and what my non-negotiables are so like I don't take any work from 3:30 to and I always have dinner with my husband things like that and Linkedin themselves picked up on this and really it went viral as well like not to the same extent but like it was a very like impressive post that people resonated with
and I think when I got this much traction I was like right what sort of message do I want to send next so I thought either I can sit Silent for the next month and just watch this continue to spiral as such but I was like actually there's a few things that now I've got this kind of caliber of audience and you know 2 and a half thousand new followers let's share a few new messages that I think are really important so the first thing I Shar said was that I had a friend at the
time who was a single mom of five and going through a divorce and she really needed a job and thankfully you know alongside Working with so many great clients you build a network and I've worked in you know many different countries and she needed a job in marketing and the center in Israel of all jobs really is telev that's like the Hub and she needed to be in Jerusalem and I just was like right and I put out a feeder to my network and I said listen I have a great girl she needs a job
in marketing she's really senior and needs to be this kind of salary and essentially she got a job she Got three offers through me one of them she came back to and was like listen they're offering the salary what should I do and I was like you're going to go back to them and you're going to say I'm going to ask for more and she did and they agreed and I basically wrote this post saying like we tell ourselves that like magic is making such this you know difference online and you would think that the
highlight of my week would be getting this many Impressions but Actually true magic happens when you make a difference offline to real people and I felt like that was like really resonating with people being like oh this girl's like morals are in line you know like she's not just here for the hype she actually wants to talk about what it means on a practice iCal level to help people out so that was the like the second thing I did with it and then about a few weeks later things settled down and I wrote a post
essentially Saying like you could say oh well it was a viral post but actually what you need to do is invest into your brand you need to make sure that you are consistent that you are showing up that when you're looking at that person behind the post what's there is there you know call to action on there LinkedIn Banner clear is there about section you know making sense with the post that you've read and I think that kind of just goes goes back in general to this idea of like Consistency and ultimately like we have
so many choices and like why you in a world full of choices why you which is like essentially what I do with my clients but also like why me as a person why do these people you know when they can clearly click unfollow a few months later why are they all still there why are they all still interested in what I have to share and I think that really comes from honing in on like I'm someone that shows up with a lot of integrity And I'm here to do the best for my clients at whatever
cost even if that means giving money back because I've messed up and I think people don't have that level of Integrity in business and I think it's something that you focus on a lot you wrote a story or shared a story a while ago about something you've had like an interaction with someone where you really let them down and they caught you on a bad day and they were like not getting to their question and You were like if you're a real fan you would have read this about me you're clearly not a real fan
and it like ended badly and they wrote a comment being like met Chris and you know he wasn't so great really a disappointment when you read your meet your fans in real life and I think like when you really want to make a difference you understand that essentially like hey we all have bad days and I still think about this consultant that I have like it was a bad Day I think they had the knowledge I don't think they were frauds I don't think they're a bad person I'm not here you know the amount of
DMS being like who was this you know we're here to take that person down that's not what it's about and I think like genuine you know Authority and being confident in what you're doing and just being like okay people make mistakes is something that we all need a little bit more kindness yeah I like that that although you were Really disappointed and frustrated with the result of that call you gave Grace because you say to yourself we all have bad days we're not always perfect and we still believe in the goodness of people and this
could be the one time in which they effed up and that's okay we're not letting them off the hook but we don't need to burn their whole house down because of one instance and I I like that the other part that I want to pick up on is that social media attention can Be great right and you write about this and it was one of the messages you send over to me but it's like what do you do with this fame or this audience that you have your whole point should be to help people to
either serve your clients or to serve people in your network to say if I can use this platform to connect you to someone in my network then I've done a good thing with my my fame or the reach that I have and I I like that that's really beautiful and it resonates With me the question I was asking you is when some something starts to take off and a lot of creators do this they hit and they run they they make the post and they just leave and they're expecting all this engagement and they don't
do anything with it what is your strategy when when you make a post like what is your approach to this so I think I responded to every single comment I'm not someone where this happens every day in of my life and therefore like I first Of all I understood what these people do go through and and I'm not envious um because I think responding to that level of comments as I'm sure you would say you know is a little bit insane um and exhausting um but I felt on this occasion it was worth it to
look at every person that commented to see who they were to reach out if it was relevant to follow up via DM even if they hadn't offered and say listen thanks so much for liking and commenting You know would love to take this further and set up a time to speak speak and I think that actually that is really where LinkedIn is magical because it's actually being able to take that connection one step further and to have walked away with 40 to 50 calls of like you know just interesting people like what could be better
than that so I feel like it's actually showing up and showing like in the same way that I knew you were going to respond to me via Because you are someone that actually monitors the Instagram and is there you know and cares about the DMS and I feel like people see through that and we're in this world right now where there's so many Bots and you're hearing like even on LinkedIn in you know there's so many groups and everyone's like you know tagging each other and it's not really genuine engagement anymore and actually when you
ask these people to speak at a conference and it's completely flat or You meet them in real life and they're just not the person behind the brand you lose your faith in the same way that like that's what you don't want from people that's like every Creator's worst nightmare meeting Their audience and just being like actually the audience turning around being like they can't really live up to the hype and so I feel like that's really so much of a part of building your personal brand is making sure that you're really genuine in my Happiest
thing is when people message me afterwards and they meet me in real life and they're like you are exactly like I expected you to be you know your values the way that you hold yourself you know the things that are important to you it comes across straight away in every talk you give in every client interaction you have and in the way that you handle business because essentially integrity and reputation is everything going away and being able to look at yourself in The mirror and be like I like the person I am I like how
I handle this business interaction what could be more important than that well you said you comment you look up the people profile so you understand who they are so there's context for the ones that are that warrant this you jump into the DMS and you have a more conversation and I don't know if you literally talk to 40 people but that number sounds overwhelming to me I absolutely did in in two weeks I Had 40 meetings wow okay and so that's a lesson to everybody whether you have 100 followers or 100,000 followers or more I
think it's really important for you to set aside some time to interact with the people because we want them to interact with with our content because like if you make a post and no one makes a comment it kind of feels like okay something was off this is not compelling to anybody and so what you want them to do is to comment but then if you don't Comment back and you don't answer any questions it becomes a pattern and eventually I think people start to check out that's not to say that you need to be
online 247 answering every single comment but there should be a little window and I encourage people maybe and and like an hour after you post go in and check and just give feedback answer questions that way people know that you a human a real person is is addressing whatever their concerns are now you Alec Also says that by the way like in that episode that he did with you by the way like that was like his gold thing he was like don't post and ghost stick around for the comments his whole thing is growing on
LinkedIn not by creating posts but by commenting so he's a b believer in that like high value comments you mentioned a couple of times and I want to make sure we're able to to talk about this what's it like running a business as a mom of two girls and Preserving your energy and your time and how do you manage all these things what have you learned what can you share with us I think that a lot of it is about having those boundaries in place so my model is that I take on eight clients a
year who pay quite a premium price and I take on two clients a quarter that is like a very bespoke service and the feedback I get from that I would say mainly from men is well how do you scale how do you make money while you sleep And I think that we don't hear the word enough that it is enough I am happy with making this sort of money at this stage of my life with growing my family with taking a maternity leave where I am not thinking about other clients because I have realized that
I don't need a client right now you know and once you actually are es scaling to the size you're running an agency you are 24/7 when you want to grow to that level and maybe that time will come but right now when My kids are young it is not the time and so I feel very passionate about that and I don't think that's something that people say enough that like there is a time for everything and maybe my 30s won't be that but there will be time afterwards and I'm okay with that and I think
that I hustled hard in the time that I did get before I got married and had kids and I think that I have no regrets about how hard I went in that time because it really was like the Essence of the business and I think now I I really feel like it's just doing things differently so when I had my first baby um what I really saw was either people going going back to work full-time very quickly or people becoming stay-at-home months and I was like well I'm not either of that so I decided to
bring on a nanny two days a week um and that's really where I had like all of my face-to-face meetings with my clients and on the other days There was no meetings booked but there was work done you know when the baby nap things like that and I managed to make that work for about nine months and actually the team I went back to after three months was an all mail team and we did the brand strategy kickoff at my house for 7 hours and I was like nursing you know my baby at that time
she wasn't bottles and they were absolutely great they were like we'll have it at your house you know we don't need to have it In a bougie office and you know whatever you need to do when you need a break to nurse just tell us if you need an extra lunch break and at one point the baby was crying and they were like bring her in and they all wanted to hold the baby I wrote something about that like there's something magical in being able to ask for what you need and I really felt that
and being confident in like what your yeses are what your Nos and what your non-negotiables are and so I've always kind of like tried to say that there isn't one way to do it and that there's a way to like think outside the box so that is something that I've been very passionate about and also like when I've been given Keynotes I've seen I've seen women actually hold the baby in a sling and and give Keynotes like that but I find that very stressful so actually I was asked to fly in for a conference in
America and I was like listen I'll come I you know like a I Need like quite a high standard of travel B I'm bringing my baby and c I need you to help me find a babysitter to cover me and they were like absolutely who would have thought to ask that people would have just said no my baby's 2 months old I can't be there I was like I'm coming I'm bringing my baby you're going to cover that thank you so much and I think that there's again like it's just this constant thing of like
if you never ask the answer will always be no And ultimately I've just been here to kind of spread a different message and just say having a baby does not need to be something that holds your career back and every time I've done this now twice in three years it's really like grown the business it's given me time to think like you said as well that you went on some trip for a month I think it was back to where you were born in Colombia Y is it Colombia and you and you like Viet not
colia and you took the time off And you were like that was brilliant and I think that there's again like this power of just like it's okay to take a break and also like as an orthodox Jew I have that for like 25 hours from Friday to Saturday evening and like that 25 hours is sacred no phones you know no technology and it's like all kind of leading into the same message of just being able to say it's okay to say no it's okay to sit back and not constantly be hustling I'm a hustler don't
get me Wrong you know like you can see I I I really go for things I I'm super happy with that but I'm also that 3:30 to 7: I want to be doing it with my kids I don't want to hear about their day from anyone else I want to be the one doing it and that also needs and the amount of DMs I get from women just being like I am petrified to tell people I can't take calls and I guess because I've always done it it's not really you know been a question for
me well this is very Interesting as an orthodox Jew there's a period of like no technology and you're you have a pattern of being able to unplug and finding out that the consequences are just fine fine I mean there's no real negative outcome and so you're used to that right so you can say well this works in my own life why wouldn't it work in my professional life I love that you said you have to have the courage to ask and know what your yeses are what your NOS are and what the Boundaries are is
that what you said something on the boundaries that I remember yeah on the boundaries so this is very interesting because I was trying to figure out well wait how does that all work together you gave an example so I want to highlight that so when you were asked to speak at at something in in the US you said well it's yes but here are the boundaries yes on these conditions and people are not always clear that they can ask for this cuz They assume well why would they make an exception for me or these are
the rules to the supposed rules you have to be willing to ask because then otherwise you're not really saying no they're saying no to themselves because in order to get me and I want to be there I'm saying I want to be there we have to have these things done now here's the crazy thing just a couple months ago I spoke at an event and there was a woman there was a cradle or stroller in the Back and someone was taking care of a baby I'm like who this what what's going on I've never seen
this before and the baby I think had like some ear muffs or something little earphones yeah yeah I was like this is pretty cool you know it's not that loud back here but still if the baby's sleeping let the baby sleep and then she was able to manage and first of all she looked amazing I was like is that your child I don't even know what you're doing here what a super Mom and then she rocked it she went on stage and did her thing and then scooped her her baby and left just like that
so it's really neat to see that having a child or something else that you think prev vents you from accomplishing what you want maybe in some instances just because you haven't asked for what it is that you want right and I would also say that as someone that has you know both me and my husband's parents don't live in the country like so it's really Essentially on us and I think that like there's also even more of a need for boundaries when it's all on you it's like kind of understanding that like you need to
step up and be responsible if you're the only Soul if you're the only one that's going to be able to manage it and I think that that is like again like it's not and I think this also comes down to Leading a business which is like you can look at the competition and be threatened or you can say absolutely not Like and I've always had this like head down focused approach of like I want to do the best thing for my client and actually when I we didn't really speak about it in terms of like
how I started the business but I mentioned that I had this like very high-paying client and what I was Finding in terms of giving money back is that I didn't have the brand strategy experience and I was finding that I just wasn't asking the right questions and I was telling a Friend and he was like listen you're not going to believe this but about a year ago a friend of mine un fortunately passed away he was saying this and he was like and he wrote all his questions as as a website and he gave me
the password no one else has access and I'm going to give you his brand strategy questions and I was like this is wild and he handed over these brand strategy questions and I was like this is insane and that really became the way that I Led brand strategy and every time and every time I work with a client I tweaked it and I would fill up with the client three months after the process and say was anything missing and no one ever tells you to do that no one ever says to be like obsessive about
the feedback but that is how you grow or you can spend your time reading up on other brand strategist and how they do it but really everyone has their own way of doing it and so the best way to do it is By doing it yourself and learning on the job even if you do your first job for free the more you do the better you get at it and that was how I created these questions and how I became a brand strategist my background was in politics my degree was in politics you know I
was not going out to open a branding agency and this has become my business what I'm known for you know and what I'm really good at and I think that we don't speak about that enough just being able to Stay in your lane to stay focused and instead of being like there is so much competition how can I make a mark just be like actually if I have my head down and I'm really focused what do they say about like 10,000 hours or all of that that that's really how it happens I have a parenting
question that's related to your ethos of the way I see it yeah let's take us into the Future Let's go to the Avatar household and you're at dinner and your daughter's a little Older than they are now what are you doing as a parent to recreate for them this idea that your words matter that you can speak to an older audience so that they're as comfortable as you are as a 19-year-old in Washington doing their thing because I think we come from vastly different cultures and upbringings and I just want to be a fly on
thewall and kind of see how you manage these young women into becoming a version that they can follow Their mom's footsteps not maybe in your career path but in terms of your confidence your gumption whatever it it is that you have I'm curious how you construct this so first of all I think that it comes from such a young age I would say like my daughter now is three and there is we moved into a new neighborhood and we went to the park for the first time and she picked up nearly every kid's water bottle
and was just like I'm going to drink from this and Like in American the world that is just like completely unacceptable in the Middle East it's like a little bit more manageable but I feel like there was just this absolute confidence and she would fall off walls and people would just be like she's the ninja of the group she would just get back up and I think that that was just from like understanding that like you know when she was walking up the stairs for the first time I was going to stand behind Her but
she wasn't going to know that I was standing there you know she was going to feel like she had this and this was hers to experience and I think that putting your children in situations which they can manage and letting them potentially fail and also asking them about failure you're at that meal what went wrong today what would you do differently how can you do how can you do differ and normalizing that failure I think makes such a difference it's just Being it I I felt like I was brought up with that this understanding of
like absolutely fine to fail you just got to learn a lesson from it and we don't talk about that enough just like understanding that like failure is not only okay it's the making of you so I think that's really how I expect to lead my dinners being able to say tell me something that was great tell me something that really didn't work out and how would you do it differently Failure is not only okay it's the making of you as my friend would say that's a bar that's a bar so normalizing failure I love the
attitude I love the idea that if you're going to be there to protect your children and don't let them see it don't let them know about it because they need to experience the world they can't be afraid of the world if you want to create leaders and entrepreneurs and people are going to change the world for the better they have to start at a young Age I was a little confused about this whole thing about your daughter goes to the playground and picks up all the water bottles I'm like okay good Samaritan she's going to
throw them and she drinks from other people's bottles is that what you're saying it was outrageous and I was super embarrassed but I'm saying it was this idea of just like inner confidence that like she just didn't care and I'm you know and I'm there to be like okay there are rules And this is how we're going to do it but it made me kind of realize that like there wasn't this fear about her and she's now you know she was two at the time how do you raise a kid to be that Fearless to
just literally go up to be and take the bottles and not cuz she didn't think there would be consequences just to feel like actually like I don't really know but it just I felt like it was something different and it was something that like I wasn't in instead Of feeling like this is such an embarrassment I was like this is how you know it was a bit embarrassing you know for me but I was just like okay she has this inner confidence and I'm going to I'm going to work with that and also reain her
in a bit and say like this isn't how we do things and I understand why you would think that would be okay to you know take someone's bottle but actually you know there's something called hygiene and this is how we do it Right so you random example yeah yeah it wasn't like this is how we do things okay all right because my inner germaphobe was like oh my God what is he doing yeah yeah because you're American what well tell me the differen is there why is it America is like freaking out over this stuff
and why BR AR no I I think okay I don't think it's as much about the British thing I think it's a little bit more about the Middle Eastern thing so like you know you're it's just It's just I don't know people aren't as obsessed with like germs and I don't know I run a very clean house like every person walks into my house and it's like this is insane like I'm not saying that I'm not into hygiene I just think there's a little bit more of like a you know there's a bowl of hummus
and like everyone's kind of putting in their spoon as opposed to like you know just a bit of a different color ch you know I know I know I can't I can't I can't I Just can't say right now I Jud people for like yo did you double dip I'm not inviting you back next time let me just tell you no I'm just like no shame own it yeah okay this you're like I'm never coming I need to get your house like is that what I'm yeah I mean listen yeah I feel strong in my
hygiene levels but I'm just telling you what you know is acceptable in the culture yeah I get I get okay so you're seeing Your daughter do this and the first instinct is I'm embarrassed but then you're like that's about me and my daughter justes not feel embarrassed I'm not going to project my rules onto her and when appropriate I'm going to say hey we we might not want to do that for a couple of reasons right yeah not a big deal so you don't want to program in her this kind of harsh reaction like no
don't do that are you kidding me do you know how I look and so you allow her to Explore the world in the most beautiful way and I commend you for that but let's get back to this hummus and in the spoon thing oh my God oh my God we're not we're not going to have dinner together on the spoon I say I do that I just it's too late it's too late I already know I already know okay you're done okay we have a conversation but it'll be across the internet but no here's the
thing I was at a dinner party and there are shared things like a crud and there was Like some I don't know some dip with oil is delicious and there's vegetables and then being the Asian this is not even American this is my Asian germophobic thing okay I made sure to put a share spoon right centrally located for each thing and I watched each person so as soon as someone double dipped I just stopped going I was like yo observe protocol even the 25-year-old kid is observing protocol what are you doing protocol you though like
does do most People feel that that's like a serious no or most people are like ah they're my mates what do I care I don't know where my mate's mouth has been I do care some of them are discussing I know but I'm asking you which one is more normal is are you are you the more like on a societal level I just would be interested to know okay I don't even care if it's normal I'm okay with being abnormal but here's what we're going to do you own it here's What we're going to do
if you're listening to this podcast there's nothing you can do but if you're watching this on YouTube I'd like for you to comment dip or double dip and I won't even remember what this is about just write in the comments dip or double dip double dip means we don't care live life love peace everything is good and dip means one dip per mouth and that's it okay keep it nice and hygienic and That's all that's all this is not where I saw the conversation going but uh no complaints you know what I'm going tell you
something I didn't even share food with my kids what does that mean we'll just leave it like that that's just the way this ep's going to end I'm just telling you it's super consistent meaning you have your thing I have my thing that the only person I share food with is my wife and that's It that's it okay you should did you ever ask your sons how they feel about that no because I'm an authoritarian it's my rules or your rules and you go to make your own house and you have your own rules no
we just say you know hygiene hygiene I don't know where everybody's mouth has been that's all and you know the crazy thing is in America I see parents mostly Caucasians and their kids are literally rolling around on the dirt floor of whatever Gross place and the in me I'm like o but they must grow up really tough and germ resistant that's what I tell myself it must be the case yeah yeah must be the case must be the case they're very resilient those Americans okay it was wonderful talking to you avao thanks for having me
I loved it yeah I I I went on a journey with you I'm impressed by your world view I'm impressed at what you're able to accomplish and I have yet a lot to learn Even though I'm 20 years your senior I have a lot to learn from you and so I appreciate you reaching out doing what you do and sharing your story with us thanks for making it such a great conversation even though it ended kind of weird Everybody dip or no dip let me know dip or no dip [Music]
