The inside scoop on the Bachelor NZ, what life is really like as a content creator.

all right welcome to the podcast thank you for coming on yeah thank you for coming on here it's been a little while since we got to this point because we've been back and forth a little bit so thank you for being patient and getting into this point anyway why don't you quickly introduce to everyone who you are and why you're here y so uh my name is sabii j um I'm a Sri Lankan born kiwi I run a digital marketing agency very small one for the last five years um and I'm a content creator as well sometimes actor sometimes model cool love it all right so uh like I said to off camera I want to go back as far as I can to win

this journey makes sense so what came first the being a content creator or or the business um doing acting and modeling that came first y cool then started getting into content but I wasn't Zer in it nothing like that just piting and modeling come in 2014 so IED yeah so while I was at Uni I was acting and modeling I started putting up pictures people started liking it then I started talking about you know some social issues that girls have to face especially in my culture there's a lot of colorism there's a lot of racism there's body stigma so I started sharing that stuff started growing a little bit and I think around from that point till about 2018 um I was studying Finance so

making content trying to do modeling and like trying to get into the industry is a hard one to get into um and I was working for this lovely marketing guy um his name is Nick he runs SM dealers I don't know if you've ever heard I've heard the name yeah yeah yeah so they do all the social content for a lot of events and sports events and stuff like that so he gave me a good job when I graduated started doing more stuff I was like wow this is such cool industry um and he gave me really a really good role where I got to work very closely with all the you know head of sponsorship CEOs and stuff like that when setting up the

activations and I learned a lot of like hands-on experience from marketing um and there's only so much I could earn in that job I was earning pretty good for coming out of uni he compensated for travel food all of that but he said at some point this is you you should just start your own um and obvious not the same thing as him but you know something to do with marketing and uh when I was working in that job I was obviously posting all the jobs and I was doing cool stuff with like all blacks ASB jockey like all these cool Brands right that you wouldn't imagine you would get to work with just out of uni especially doing a finance degree and um some

of my friends who had small businesses they would just say hey can you do a little bit of marketing I was like yeah sure I'll just charge you like 20 bucks an hour that was I think that was just the minimum wage at the time I didn't know what I was doing I just went and did the Facebook certification were gole and was guess could do this and asking you know can you post on our socials and stuff like that and then eventually I transitioned from working full-time to part-time and my boss was very supportive so I was in a lucky position and then eventually started my own thing but when I started my own thing without that stable income that was quite hard in

2018 and up to that 201 189 I never earned a do from social media like I had about maybe like 10 15K okay it was a lot which platform uh only on Instagram not TI that was pre Tik Tok blowing up that was pre- Tik Tok and I never even received a free thing I had a New Zealand following but I think I wasn't in those circles that get PR and all that the most PR I got is if I worked at those marketing events and I might get a goodie bag or something and I looked at all these girls and I'm like what they have 5K of 15 how am I not can I come like what how do I get in here but

I didn't know how to network or do any of those things and then in um Mid 2018 then I officially registered my company left my job and started doing that and around that 6 months I was doing it all of 2018 and beginning of 2019 um I got invited as a plus one to a Huawei event okay cool and uh talked to the team and they saw and they're like oh wow you've got a following you're beautiful like can we send you a phone yeah and this is the first time I received anything it's like a $2,000 or5 $1,500 for right and I was like yeah what do you want and at that time it was a lot because I you know takes time to

realize what your value is and they're like can you do six infeed posts and all curated color matching curated posts so I actually spent like one week getting photographers my friends to help me there and like editing all of this for this phone and they so loved it um that they signed me up as a key opinion leader and I I did end up working with them up till last year so was 5 years and that first one was free and then after that I got nearly from then I started getting every device and payments and the payments got better and better and better love and that was the first time I got something yeah as a influencer or as a social media person and

then when that happened I think in 2019 maybe a few Brands sent me like a pair of leggings um a water bottle these are things I didn't really need um but I was like you know what it's free I'll take it and towards the end of 2019 I was invited to my first PR event know they and this was it was at Walker and which is and ie this little like wratchet like you know like this tiny little army shorts and like an army crop and I took Judy who you've met she wore jandals with like a skirt all the girls are walking in in like red carpet dresses and we're just there looking like we're ready for like a student night on a Wednesday

anyways the the owner the owner was so nice and she said get in touch if you ever want to do something together I didn't know what that means I just thought hey she's going to give me some products I have to make a post anyways I got in touch and I'd never pitched to a brand before and I just said hey this is what I do I also model I can shoot some content for your ads I can post on my feed I can make a vlog I already had pretty good skin and I had been using some of the Taylor skincare products for a few months um so and then she's like cool just let me know the pricing yeah and then I just

thought she was I was going to do it like I I didn't expect I was like I'll do it like I was like I just want experience um and they ended up I think overall I gave a quote I got in my friend who's a photographer her name's um their name they're not non non-binary they're like a photographer and makeup artist so I got them to just the whole quote was actually their cost so their cost to help me take the photos and give it to them for the ads and then their cost to um help me film a vlog because I I know I know you can do it on your phone but I wanted to do something good so I think I charged

about 1,800 and my well all I got was like maybe 500 bucks but I went all out I got like Judy to use our hands for the photos if you could have brought it up it would have been great like she used her hand isal it's on my socials on Instagram it's on Instagram Conor can try find out where we check um so it was it was all the it's quite down it'll be a picture of me in blue and you'll see Hands next to it um but that was the first time I actually got a I didn't expect to get paid but got paid and I had to finish the work and then I got paid and then that made me realize like wow

there is a chance but how do I get into this industry these two were flukes how do I really get into the industry and then obviously I'm running my company as well I've always only made money from my company or having clients um and then beginning of 2020 I got signed to an agency they approached me from seeing some photos of body hair one of the managers saw I did this photo that went really viral it was just like me like and I had like hairy armpits looked nice and I didn't end I didn't know it was going to go viral but it got shed on like all internationally um there was so many like random social Pages talking about it as well and then

she said oh we really like all this diverse stuff that you do we'd love to sign you and during 2019 Huawei did send me to another agency CU there was lots of agents at all these events um but they wanted me to do fashion content they said we'd like you to be high fashion yeah and my outfit right now is like $ right I think I own a Valentino B I own like you know a de bag but I'm not going to make a whole channel for [ __ ] you know materialistic [ __ ] when I have you know I'm like okay cool Dior bag but like there's racism and colorism and I wouldn't my parents came here as refugees like I'm not no one gives a [ __ ]

that I have a Dior bag like you know it just didn't feel right so when they said that all to me they seemed very keen and we got to the stage where they're like can we connect your insights to our software and then I just just didn't reply because I was like oh this is not right for me like I I'm not going to ever be able to be this person for them I have kind of become a bit more of that person now just sharing lifestyle and Beauty and Fashion but not high fashion and um I think why they suggested that was there wasn't many people of color in the high fashion sort of space um there is now which is great and so

this agency when they brought me in they're like we love your empowerment stuff we want you to do more of that you're so like full of purpose you can do more and more you just have to you know like just swear less and you know that's all they um and I was like cuz you know I'm the S of person that I literally like came in the NZ heral it was like me holding a sign saying [ __ ] Northshore Ken and then you got to kind of tame that down if you want to if you want to work with Brands um so they were they signed me and then I was with G C management for acting when they signed me now up to that point

I didn't really have many industry contacts I think just prior to them signing me as well the another brand deal I got was for a massive campaign for Maybelline to be a model and then I was AC cross Farmers so outside of those three things that I just told you Huawei Taylor skin care and this Maybelline brand I'd not had anything I didn't know how to connect with people Huawei helped a little bit the team was really lovely um but I didn't know how to get in and at at first they just signed me and they're like okay let's do some pillars what is it cuz at that point I didn't have it was cute fits it was asspics you know I was like I

don't do that anymore but like you know there was like lots of bikini photos there was strong behind it on pillar yeah there's no it was then it was a lot of just talking about social issues and stuff like that not political but just things that affect women race issues that sort of stuff so then they just sat and they like made this weird triangle thing and they're like this is pillars you could talk about diversity here this falls into colorism and all this you can talk about this stuff here but why don't you do a bit of lifestyle and Beauty you've got good skin you've got you know You' got some you've got nice furniture just something there and then the last one was

like you know just make content yeah um around like mental health and anything to do with empowerment that sort of stuff and so I had those pillars and I then wrote this content plan and I just started then was the time they went from being like oh this just this Instagram thought or whatever just Instagram girl to making genuine proper content and then we obviously went into lockdown and Judy told me about Tik Tok yeah and we started just all we did was just I think if I went and scrolled up we were sending each other like 20 videos a day each we were in these holes um I think she she started Tik Tok slightly after me but we were in these holes of

looking at Tik Tok and I like oh I might make it I watched it for like six months before I was like actually I actually I never thought I would get in on the platform I just enjoyed watching I was like oh I have an idea y um and I had this old footage from me and Judy at we she took me to model for her in China fashion week so I did a jump at in my house but then I jumped onto the Great Wall of China awesome and was really bad transition like the music just didn't match with the jump the jump was like way off off from the beat it still got like 10,000 views and I think the max views I'd

had on any of my videos cuz this is before reals was like 60,000 um and that was for like the mannequin challenge uh if you oh I don't know if it's even in here anymore yeah um yeah yeah but yeah when when that happened I think that was the point um that I started making Tik toks and when the week I had 1K and it taken me years to get to like 25k on Instagram so then I started I don't know what came into me I had less work um you know with clients a lot of them had paused all their marketing um I started selling stuff in the house and I was like oh I'll just make you know Tik toks and I just

made stupid Tik toks like no sense behind them no strategy or purpose whatever came up on my feed whatever random Trends there were I just started posting and before I knew it and I made oh I made a lot about being Brown in New Zealand or being a person of color in New Zealand but comedy nothing serious no like yeah no political social undertones um and then one of those videos was about just in like someone said to me you can't call her auntie you're not a kiwi cuz I said I love Auntie Cindy and so I just like joked I was like oh I can't call her Auntie Cindy because I'm not a kiwi should I pack my bags and go back to where

I came from which is New Zealand that's all I said and the video just went viral and it ended up on in the Daily Mail and it just it went on The Daily Mail and then I think people expected me to keep doing an Indian accent and transitioning and I didn't you know there already basy doing that he does it really well I I was I was good doing it but I was like that's not there's so much more that I have to it's not that it's not the brand I'm fine doing it but I want to try talk about more important things or Inspire women of color and stuff like that um at that point the agency I was with they had no Tik

Tok strategy so I had this following on Tik Tok it wasn't transferring to Instagram um but it was just fun I was like hey look I have this audience on Tik Tok and I think at the time like maybe say I was getting um 100% of a fee for Instagram they're like oh she can Chuck it on Tik Tok even though and this is before stats was a thing on Tik Tok as well right she can just tuck it on Chuck it on Tik Tok for 20% of that yeah even though now it's like that's like the hugest fee right so this is still 2020 which is not that long ago and at that point towards the mid to end of year IG came in

with IG reals and my agency signed me up to be a Content partner for IG reals um and with that then I started learning about the differences between the software but also learning a lot about video content cuz I didn't have knowledge on video I had knowledge on taking hot or cute photos nothing to do with making good good video content but video content is about there's a whole strategy of how to make it which you guys already know with your you've got youve you've nailed it um so when I learned that I started doing IG reels as well and I completely moved away from making any infeed content that was static and I was like I only really want to make videos If a

brand ask for a photo great if I if I really have an amazing thirst strap once a year okay I'll make one photo you know take you know that's it that's about it for static um and when I worked with Instagram as a Content partner it actually made me realize a lot about the platform Y how much work goes into it how much you can learn cuz they gave you all this access to all these tools workshops creative spaces and I actually found a real love for video for video content and I was like you know I just want to keep making videos and all sorts of videos like yes I have these niches but I don't want to limit myself to that if I

want to go off and make some weird sus content with us gang I'm going to do it about you know [ __ ] him in the ass whatever we're going to make the video but then I'll come back and make you know make the other stuff um and then it was only really then when at that point that I got my first brand deal from that agency um and what year are we in now that we're still 2020 and it was the most amount of money I have made um it would have paid for all my acting school for 2 years 3 years paid for my trips to India and it was the most of money I'd seen and it was one day of work and then

the ad the it was for Tui yeah and they wanted to reuse the ads for socials it wasn't even an act commercial and even some of the commercial briefs I was getting from Gail Coen yeah was like $2,000 for 6 months usage right this was much much more much like yeah a a proper commercial a fee but it wasn't commercial ads yeah prop Talent fee proper Talent fee but like which is great was and then I one I was like okay this agency is good and at that point they'd said hey we can't get you much work until you start working on these pillars and show that you're a serious you're making daily regular content and at that point I'd started and I think it

kind of just rolled from there and then we're going into 2021 towards the end of the year someone just D me and like hey do you want to come on this dating show and I was like like um yeah I'm not doing anything in November I'm single you know yeah I'll come and then it ended up being the bachelor went on The Bachelor got kicked off very quickly um and but I also didn't realize what a big deal that was to me I'd never watched The Bachelor I've heard of it yeah of you know I know the bachelor girls cuz some of my when you know I started going into that content creator space and I met some of the bachelor girls doing influencer stuff

but I didn't realize it's like a big big deal and then you know they made us hide all of it and then the next year when it came out and it was was announced then I don't know what happened but even with the agency I was with they got they started getting so much more inquiries I started getting invited to like all these events literally I had to start um an Excel sheet to to for all the free PR I was getting and obviously at some point later on you realize you don't need all that but so I had to keep a list of all the pr coming through it was like stuff every day and I never seen that sort of yeah attention before

and then when I went on the show there was I love the girls were great came off we still thick as thieves still go and see them sometimes some of them live in Queen but what I didn't like about the show and I do didn't like going on about it is they really in when people discussing the Show online it's all about comparing the woman's looks it's all about comparing who they think should be there who shouldn't be there and I think the way I was portrayed and it's not actually what happened um was that I was talking way too much to The Bachelor yeah he asked me all these questions I just sat there and answered it to the best of my ability then

we come on off he sends me home and then you know it cuts to just looking like I'm talking with him ever responding and there all these random topics I'm like why would I go from saying I'm a Christian to talking about my sister to talking about that and it didn't look but you know if people have brains they know um and so when that happened that was the first time I'd ever seen like not anything mean I didn't get any mean comments but I went and read like The NZ Herald stuff right or whatever they're like oh she talks too much she's so up herself and I was like I mean I'm just answering the man's questions that deep you know and then there

was a lot of you know people trying to P the girls against each other and whatnot or speculating that this girl doesn't like this going to be honest we I personally liked everyone if I didn't like a girl or two we just didn't interact like it wasn't it was no drama like the way they make the show look drama and these girls drama these girls are sweet girls and so that was when when my first real Limelight yeah came out and um that was that was very interesting and then that whole year 21 went from like being a peak for me of getting all this attention to I think in just after the show in May 2021 yeah sorry I we am I just going

like [ __ ] questions so just keep going I'm going to come I'm going to bring you back you sure yeah yeah please give me the I'm almost done give me the oh we're in 2021 now yeah so 2021 um I had a car crash [ __ ] so I had a very bad car crash and car got total I hit my head quite bad and I didn't realize the impacts of it till for the until the rest of the year I had a very severe concussion and head traum crazy and a few weeks after my car crash and this might I don't know if you've had a story like this on the show um I went out with my friends i' been talking to this guy on Instagram

he was a public figure as well and uh we went to town and he assaulted me in a club and then more stuff happened is quite bad this is the first time I've actually talk people know I've been assaulted and it's on my platforms people don't know what happened and I've never really gone to detail cuz it's still under investigation a lot of and you'll see why this is important later and so those two things happened to me and I just didn't want to do anything I I didn't really even like want to live you know I was so in incapacitated I had migraines all day I had to drop all of my clients so at that point I had built a client list of

about 10 clients rosted on and off right and I had several people working as like writers um you know graphic design web developers all that I just couldn't even respond and I wasn't in a position cuz I was management I wasn't it like I I wasn't a good enough leader at that point to know how to um you know delegate everything and then eventually I just had to say look I can't delegate I'm trying it's not working cuz I was like the backbone right I didn't have a second in command and so they all had to go to different companies or some of them I was very lucky just said ah [ __ ] it we don't really need marketing at the moment just you just come

back to me when you're ready and some of them are still my clients but that happened and then obviously I was in bed for like 6 months uh the agency was still sending me brand deals I like for me when I send I'm very organized right they send me the brief I send an idea pcture to the moodboard storyboard they approve it I put a Content plan together shotless voic layers text overlay all that sort of stuff send it back shoot exactly to the point I might add a bit more creativity send it back so very organized and suddenly I was getting like information wrong like um if they said this you know this will last for 3 years I was saying it last for

seven then they come back and be like hey it lasts for 3 years this is what's in the brief then I'd go write 17 and send it back I don't know what was going on and what went from being you know usually one revision or no to like 20 emails back and forth my agency did say you know you could take a break or you know you could um but I wanted to try and during that period I just didn't I didn't post I didn't know what to say I had nothing to share um I lost you know I rapidly lost weight um I started getting a bit more like irritable online which is this is a big thing right this is a big mistake

I made is up to that point life had always been good yeah yes I'd had my experiences that were to share like you know my parents were refugees or whatever but when you're going through that personal issues that's like how to navigate that while still being a Creator I didn't know how to do it so for a whole year I never said that I was a Salter but it's was very obvious that I was angry at men cuz I was making lots of content on Fu boys lots of content on assault and stuff like that not all men obviously but men that are you know men these sorts of things yeah it's not all me but some um and I just think it was like

so like a demise for me during that period yeah 2022 was just no better me and um you know me and Judy got a house together um in St Hal like okay fine this is going to be an up for us she I can help her with her business I can work on my business we got a good space to shoot content we're Central I have a room for clients to come over so I can consult and we had all these issues with our landlord like massive amount of issues with our landlord went to court hired lawyers went on for months we we moved to another house now um so we stayed at the house for 6 months move moved out of the house and

we've stayed in this house we've just renewed our lease as well similar house very nice same thing um but we lost at the tribunal and somehow I don't know how Enid Herald got their hands on it and um they they posted it and they look like I did say they took a lot of I'm not going to say I behave the best way in that situation I was very angry at my I was very annoyed at how much money I'd put into this place and it was we had so many people coming through the house and I think there was a few heated emails in there where I did say something that I it wasn't the world it wasn't like go to die or anything

I just say you know I'm going to expose your like post about you out of them saying stuff to me me saying stuff back yeah at that point I also didn't realize what my profile is that you can't put stuff in writing you know it wasn't the worst thing to say it was the only thing I said which was I'm going to expose you online um but that was you know like the bolded paragraph on on Enid her sorry I just hit the mic and um you know they talked all all this stuff about um how we took our landlord to court for the pool which was it was many things including the pool but it made me look for the first time I think

I it made me realize okay now I'm now I'm I've gone on reality TV I have a nice house um I have following people are they don't know that I you know put myself through you know they don't know that I was on you know wins sharing a bed as a flat mate they don't know any of these things they because this is they have to scroll down to see that um what they see now is like a girl who's had plastic surgery who's you know live doing these things with other girls who also look like on the outside like Brett and I think that was the first time I had like you're bad yeah it was it wasn't bad cuz I was still getting

brand deals my agency still put me forward for stuff like it wasn't wasn't an issue um but during that time then also the way I started posting got very different like I was you know get angry saying stff calling out people all the sorts of things I wasn't in the right mindset right usually if you want to call out someone someone who really believes in soft power so I'm someone who will wait talk to them privately then when I share the story It's A Life Lesson it's not go [ __ ] yourself that sort of stuff but you know I was diagnosed with PTSD I wasn't in the right headset I should have just [ __ ] just stopped stopped posting taking a break and many times my agency

said why don't you just take a break I'm like no I can get through it but you don't know you come out of it right yeah you can't see the forest of the trees right yeah you can't and so that happened and that whole year just so much drama happened and it just unfilled and unfold and you know ended up on Reddit and threads and all that sort of stuff nothing cancelable just oh she's a drama queen right did I have a part to play like yeah I posted about it I talked about it you know I should if I just said nothing just left it would have been fine and I think I towards when The idh Herald article came out and when I

came back a few things more drama happened and I got shingles I don't know if you know what shingles is but it's very painful I got it on my face I was in the most pain and it's shocking that someone my age so turning 29 I was turn I just turned 29 last year to have shingles is shows that you need to have lifestyle changes and so that was the eye opening point for me um at that point I I left my agency left G Cohen management as well I was like I cannot commit to I cannot do anything for either of you um I'm not in a good head space most days I don't even want to wake up up I'm miserable um I've

got PTSD I'm angry I need to go sort myself out so I think that was like September October last year right and I was worried I was like am I not going to get brand deals anymore because of all this stuff I did wonder did will The nzid Herald article even if it's not that bad like I didn't do anything illegal or whatnot it's still bad press will Brands look at that and think oh sab's dramatic or sabii is not good with landlords um and at the time I did submit you you know bford and Thompson and other property managers gave their letters of recommendation but you know they post what they want to post right and I'm like also how do you think I

got this house in the first place or how do I have a house now right like it didn't matter right um and so I was so worried am I is my career going to be over like rise fall off rise rise rise fall massive fall and um yeah now we're here that's it that's crazy now you're here now you're here to have me on and laugh feel like I need a shut of whiskey or something after that [ __ ] that Journey that was intense yeah I don't know if it was too intense good I want to unpack some of it um it is a really interesting story of I guess for the way I sum it up is like um I I've had a lot in

my life too right and and the way I look at it is like this two Shall Pass right that that saying it doesn't matter if it's good or bad don't get used to it yeah like there's two sh pass right and which is a real interesting concept because like for a lot of young creators you think about where you were at that Peak it's like if you almost seem Untouchable at that point and you think it can only continue to be good all this good stuff but like a couple of things like a a bad crash which leads to bad decisions which leads to saying the wrong thing which leads to everything crumbling not crumbling to nothing cuz you've obviously not crumbled to nothing you've

just dropped off the peak of where you were but now you're on the yeah I I feel like your which was a very quick turnover in my opinion like quick turnover what I love about it what I think one of the reasons why we tell our clients to focus on personal brand fully rather than the business um the the business you can do but like personal brand is Paramount is that if you have a platform to speak on it doesn't matter what other people say like if the New Zealand Herald tries to ever say [ __ ] about us I lit have more eyeballs watching my brand than New Zealand Herald is well when that happened all I had was in either people laughing like what the

[ __ ] is this people saying oh we know you're not like that or people saying hey I came to hate on your page but I love your page and I started following you and then there was a few you know Boomers like Boomers go back to your country Miss spice and rice like that sort of [ __ ] it was good Miss spice and rice was racist New Zealand I told you D when you got here bro we're still racist bro I put it in my B for a while like Miss spice and rice cuz I really like that really she kind like that one R that's [ __ ] up whoever that was I hope you're watching that was so good um but but no no so I wanted

to I wanted to First say that I think that's a good lesson for a lot of people that like if you're writing oh high it can all come undone really quickly but also if you're in the flip side if you're in a [ __ ] position right now you can also turn it around just as fast and that's the thing I was in a ship position no agencies right end of last year just came out of shingles had these bad article suddenly have to talk to Brands myself suddenly have to you know do all these things myself and then a huge worry am I going to just like be blacklisted or shunned or something I was obviously being dramatic it wasn't that bad but at the time

it feels like the the worst thing and I think for me exactly what you said it's at that point that I really realized the business is always going to be there I'm good at marketing I'm always going to have clients even if it's just one or two if I really work on actually building my personal brand right like actually put together content PL pillars higher like more consistent yeah post every day cuz in the last few years it was like once a week even when it was going good it was like three times a week post every day hire a publicist you know um get a website made get a get someone to write for you get even a private manager in the meantime if

you don't want to sign to an agency just do all what you can to build the brand and it's it's exactly what I did every time I felt upset about any of this and there was a few months where I didn't have brand deals but I don't know if it's got to do with me or if it's got to do with the market Market cuz at the same time a lot of amazing creators were saying I've got zero deals or one deal um so I spent that time working on my brand working on my profile doing things to improve and also I had to like give myself a different mindset I'm like okay moving forward whether it's my assault my mental health whatever it is

for the next year I'm going to say nothing even if people bring me like you know someone said something racist about this thing or that thing or whatever it is someone threw a party and there was underage girls whatever it is don't say anything stay out of it till you build your brand and then at some point when you are strong enough and when you're not impacted um then you can find a better way to talk about these things um because you can't have all of it going on at the same time when you have even whether it's unfair or not if you have something something dramatic come out like it did so in our business what we we have a lot of conversation around

this and all our training with our team is that as's a concept of Scar and wounds and people get themselves into trouble when they speak from a wound as opposing as as opposed to speaking from a scar a wound you're currently in the pain and when you're talking about these things you see stuff that's happening if you don't have the head space and the mindset to talk about it properly and be challenged on it then you're speaking from a wound so you should shut up you need to heal first when it's a scar it's different you got lessons you're you're you're talking from a place of strength at that point and you should wear your scars proudly but at a scar you're no longer um

affected by things and people say stuff negatively because you know you understand where they're coming from you understand where you're from you're able to digest it and then deliver back a really good response so when you get into those positions for everyone anyone listening and for yourself as well like and I think you probably already fundamentally understand this anyway it's like just I we always do this like we keep it in our head is this a wound or a scar if it's a wound shut up cuz it's not right and you're going to get ripped to sh in it and you're not going to know how tole it and and even like the tone you use to speak about it it's real hard you don't

get it right cuz you're speaking from Pain um and if you can get that right like there's like stuff like I I I I I don't mind saying whatever these days online because I don't really have a lot of wounds that I'm sitting in at the moment and so I can have these real tough conversations about scars and if I but they're like tough stuff like you know we've had the fire people in here we've had tough like losing clients and all sorts of different [ __ ] but they're not wounds anymore and so now that I speak about them a lot and and because I write about them in a way that like for LinkedIn at least I write about them in a way where I

understand where we went wrong how we had to improve and I and I always take personal responsibility for this [ __ ] because I've learned and grown from it the responses I get are awesome like always great everyone's like you know like I often he people made link din box just going like [ __ ] thank you so much for sharing that I needed to hear that today like I'm going through the same [ __ ] blah blah blah but soon as like let's say you had to fire someone on your team that can be a real negative post and you could sound like an absolute [ __ ] if you do that the wrong way and that will happen if you speak from a wound and then everyone be like you're a

[ __ ] [ __ ] stand like what a wanker like you should have been better blah blah blah but when I did write that post which I was real skeptical about writing I wasn't sure if I should yeah but I needed to because I share everything with my LinkedIn Community about our business growth when I did that everyone was like was on our side but also on that employees side too like it was real equal like they're like that's tough that's a tough thing for both of you had to go through but you both come out the other end it's probably better for both parties right so that Concepts like a real good one it's a real good lius test for you like if I'm I think I

had to live it I had to go through that in the last year I had to learn you know at the time you don't know what's the best way to handle it or you think you're handling it the best it's not right so I came out I was like you know what this all needs to go to the side I need to focus on the PTSD I need to focus on my health I need to come off meds you know I need to find myself again yeah and then what it didn't matter that I'd been pushed down a few times right everyone gets hit people do way worse stuff you know and they still have careers in the in the in the scheme of things

I was like you know I know I have an audience and community that really needs me or I think they need me because they DM me and say they love what I do I know Brands can really benefit from working with me and PR companies can really benefit from me talking about inclusivity so I have all these things I have to offer I just need to be in a better place to go and do that and so I I took the time and the response to taking the time and then coming back um has been like you know people don't I don't think anyone remembers anything really people don't man you can always build back like we've got clients who come to us with um

for reputation management right like they they've got their reputation in the marketplace is bad come to you like July last year I if I knew this was a thing yeah and it's it's we're the only company in New Zealand austral Asia almost who does does this sort of stuff it's not a big thing cuz people work with Brands rather than people right that's a normal thing there's only a couple companies in the world to do what we do but like it's super important and and there'll be more personal brandings agencies are growing more and more but um we have clients who come to us repair management who have like we got one particular client which I won't talk about his stuff but like he had

some really bad press in the paper after 2008 and all the stuff that happened there and so we've been working with them to like essentially push that [ __ ] down on Google so it lives on page two right the best place to hide a dead body like no one's going to find it all the stuff on page one is good and so now like the first three results when he put them up is just him and the work that we've done for him people will forget it he's already started to be offered some like like without saying what he does like the deals that he's been offered two two deals which will be the largest of their kind in New Zealand you know like that people

forget real quick they forget and also they they have to see how serious it is you know like is this a big deal is it not does it matter also do is the audience going to be offended if we use this person um and that's why I think I've probably still consistently gotten work but I'm sure I don't know what I haven't gotten that I was considered for and haven't gotten exactly that's the problem yeah so what I wanted to ask actually is that 21 period to now well then maybe even to the end of 2022 actually like financially how were you moving forward cuz like things were falling away you having to give up clients like was that a struggle financially to work through

that or were you quite good with money that you able to push yourself through I have a finance degree so I'm pretty good with money um I've been completely independent from my parents and I still actually haven't taken my ACC weekly compensation for that six months even though I was eligible I didn't take it I think what really got me through is I had a lot of brand deals so I was able to I wasn't earning to grow or earning to I don't know save or anything I was earning to survive so I had enough of that and I had enough not I had to stop doing monthly client work just doing little projects hey can I do I don't know like update your website

and it usually might take me two two weeks maybe now it will take me two months but do these little projects try to get through it when I don't have migr and that was enough to get me through it 2021 was still a good year like Financial year 20 I don't know if you're saying if you're talking about financial year final F Financial year 2021 was great financial year 2022 was eh it was okay I because I still there was 6 months before you know there's a huge period before my accident right um and then yeah last year was a joke last year was an absolute joke scrap by wiped out my savings really um wiped out anything I'd built or even any any money

had put away towards um like growing my brand cuz I was like I don't even know if I'm going to have a brand anymore if I'm going to survive like I might have to just go live with my parents or go stay in an institution I don't know how long this PTSD cuz you know PTSD I'm not I'm it's hard to explain but I could wake up little things could trigger me I'd be upset the whole day um I'd get very angry very upset very anxious like just a mess right I didn't know how to get out of it and which after shingles I had to figure out I need to just that's my pure Focus I can't manage all these so financially I got

through fine stayed in a nice place ate well lived well but that is coming from a place of I wouldn't say privilege like my parents didn't give me any money but I they probably didn't give me any money because I also went on a show in 2022 and said I was bisexual so after that I couldn't ask them for money anyway till they got they needed a time to get over it they're fine with it now but you know I I didn't even have that I just was too like they knew I was struggling but I didn't want to talk to them about it we didn't talk as much till they needed like a good six months to get over it and they're over it

now but you know I didn't want I'm old enough I didn't want a hand out for my parents so I'd say I got by yeah but I wasn't able to grow I wasn't able to save and now now is the point of like starting cool again but you can get through it with the BR deals even just selling some of the obvious I didn't get something and then s it straight away like PR product but there was heaps lying around lots of stuff in my wardrobe that I didn't need started doing furniture and I've got like a side hustle now of like flipping Furniture as well um that was a nice NZ hered article that was one that wasn't bad like girl flips stuff love

it and then I went to the comments waiting to say oh isn't that the girl who didn't pay her rent but there was no comments about that at all just just people forget so forget so fast yeah they're like but does she pay tax yeah yeah well that's true um yeah no of of course I'm I've got an accountant who keeps track of all [ __ ] with the text man this is not the country to [ __ ] with the text man like I you can't you can't um so I think I I got through yeah um is that where this came from the series that series came from seeing people around me really struggle women around me I didn't want women to look at me and find

my life aspirational like oh this is one day I'll get there I wanted them to look and I just randomly made a bie on a budget video in 2022 or 2021 just going to the Sugar Club and I said this is a B on a budget tip ended up getting like 5K likes I was like oh people like deals um and so this year I really thought you know now that I'm going through a new phase of saving and building a life again but I still want to have some nice things it doesn't have to be expensive I started that B on a budget series I'm so surprised that media has been interested in it brands are now wanting to be in it and it's

only 11 videos yeah yeah yeah I haven't added a few more but you know can I ask is that like is that your saying like who started bie in a budget um I said it no it's mine it's copyrighted no um it's it's I think it's an American it came from somewhere El say I wasn't sure if it came but not not saying you copied what I'm what I'm saying is actually real clever there is no series no one has a no one's got a brand I did check no one's got a brand or anything in it there was a couple of artic in America on very small magazines just saying how to be bie on a budget um I don't think it was really

a thing but now people come to ask me hey is it okay if I say bougie on a budget and I'm like $1 you know have you done anything in in ways of like solidifying it as yours like no the B on a the bie on a budget yeah the first video I made is uh May it's not it's quite new no no no I've watched him cuz I cuz I I think it's like C clever I was thinking a few things I was thinking I'd love to pitch it to some sort of magazine or whatever that every month colum give get a colum of like best tips or even like I noticed like I went to look at stuff for Barbie and there was

no Barbie tips on even anywhere you can drink pink drinks right something and I did a Barbie boj on a budget as well so like just something like that and I did think you know could be a great book could be a few great things not I mean I would but the thing is I just started it and I think in terms of solidifying that as something I would just have to figure out the logistics it come under go to um name.com let's see if there's domains you should buy it this won't go out no see no name cheap name cheat yeah this is going to take you to some porn website so you're just saying just buy the domain it's like six bucks 12

bucks what is what would you call it B on budget.com what would you call it no that sounds that could be a fullon just could be a porn site right there b just do it spell it out in total what it does is it gives you Providence and stuff like that so yeah just yeah be it comes off PG on a budget do cheap I like that oh it's register in 2015 um you should you should have a look in what difference what it does the reason why you do this and why you buy domains is it gives you you a place of saying I registered this on this dat I was first right and and then that helps later on you're not going to

go straight into trademarks and [ __ ] you're not going to pay a lawyer for trademarks and [ __ ] yet it's too much right but you buy getting like these things in place early that cost peanuts like like I mean this one's expensive CU they're they're selling it at 2K that's B that's bie budget but like actually they cost like6 to $13 a year to buy like just get it hold it um and it shows that no no I started this video series here I bought the website I did it with intent to make it a business you can't come in and take the business idea it just helps you later on someone totally will yeah and they will and that's why that's why I'm telling you to

do this because I will it's clever it's smart do it yeah yeah good um it just even if you don't do something straight away you've got it there you can figure it out later on um okay so K on so b a budget series came out that started going you've still got a lot of good brand deals that have keept you moving forward in terms of um at least paying bills and things like that but um when did this year start to turn around for you because you said you were saying before that things are getting a bit better now so where where did that start to happen I think you know December January everyone was kind of quiet and that time I I took

time for myself right I took time for myself really thought about like what do I want to do with my personal brand what are all the different things I can do from updating my Media Kit making a website hiring a publicist what all the things I want to do with my publicist put it into months yeah and then I just I had to change my whole schedule so like how can I now make a schedule where I'm working for my clients working on projects making content doing brand deals and working on growing my brand how do I suddenly fit this in every single day and so I wrote all these things that I want to do um and I think maybe I started on it

in February and February onwards it just at that point there wasn't much brand deals coming in I think February it started but you know December Janu was so quiet for me and I started everyone yeah so I started not just and then at that point also I said okay I'm going to commit to making working on videos every day it is hard to pump out a video every day especially you have to shoot one day and edit whatever so I was like okay I'm going to still work two three hours on making videos every day and I need to revamp my channel my Instagram engagement was like 1% because I'd barely been posting on there my Tik Tok you know my video views were getting

like 5K video views when it was like you know every video is getting 2030 and so I was like how can I just come back back in and and make it better um so I was like the only way is to make regular content there's no way around it even if you had one viral video your overall engagement is still going to be low so I started doing that and yeah I boosted my channel I think my engagement sitting on like 9% on Instagram at the moment Instagram that's huge yeah from 1% right in like three months Instagram's anything over one's massive yeah and is fantastic yeah and then on top of that I was like okay really need to um post more regularly on

Tik Tok to get back on that fyp yep and so then I did um and I did a range of content as well mix of what people want to see what I want to post which is always a balance right and then in between the niches and then when that's stuff started taking off of course more inquiries but I'd always been scared I hadn't done this since leaving my agency I made my own Media Kit and I put together my stats and my growth and whatever it was uh this was in March April and I the only people sent it out to so far as PR companies so I already had a massive list of PR companies reached out to you guys as well um

and I said hey this is my stats this is my engagement I'd love to work with you here's some Brands I'd like to work with um and that was received so well that I didn't then my next step was to go and reach out to all the brands I'd worked with h but from just doing that like something like that just introducing myself not even expecting anything just invited to a bunch of stuff put forward you know so many quotes all all sorts of things amazing that that's that side of it like having everything prepared and ready and then sending it out is such an easy win for young creators to have if they don't have the ego or the self-esteem or lack of confidence

to reach out like oh they should come to me no they don't know who you are you make yourself know people you need you go make yourself seen and not just even being seen but make it easy like having that Media Kit done and ready to go means that that brand can just be like cool I don't have to think here I know what it is the the the question for the brands now become do I use her or not not how do I use her the brand the deal is like okay cool yes we will use you for this thing and no we won't use you because you don't fit there and that's a you want to make the situation and the questions like

as simple as possible for brands or clients any clients like when we have um like in my sales process we're getting the client to that piece as well like my whole sales process is to sell them on the onboarding piece not not to worry about what are we doing post onboarding you kind of have a glimpse into it but it's just like yes or no do you want to do onboarding do you want a strategy for your marketing or not actually what I'm saying who doesn't want that everyone wants a strategy for their marketing so it's like yes I do and then the question is of all is it us or is it someone else as opposed to like okay how many things and how

many that it gets too complicated initially you need someone to commit first so that's real smart so it's real smart that you got that and so that's picked up now since March it's started the BS rolling since then there's all these platforms that you can join I had to go through all my emails DMS everything I've compiled like a brand I was like holy crap I've worked with a lot of Brands a lot of Brands inquired and it was just it didn't go through and I never nurtured them or went back to them for and you know even if they said no not this campaign next one or whatever it is so then I've put them together and I'm going to reach out but these

things take time you know um and I think not just that you know I did a lot of other things as well like I'm working on like a working on writing a website me and my publicist put down a publicity plan all focused on like op pieces on inclusivity so doing a lot of things to actually like build who I am and show who I show who I am but the biggest one the most timec consuming one was to revamp the channels so making daily content um how are you planning on making that happen daily given that you struggled to do it previously I struggled to do it cuz I had a car accident and all that right even before that even before that there

was just no there was never the mindset to do it there was like three videos agenes videos to do daily um I kind of have every day is either film write film shoot or edit and I'll give myself at least two hours The only days I will take a break from it is if I have a brand deal and I need that time and I you know depending on how much time I have for client work as well um but the goal is to eventually do this full-time and maybe just consult very lightly for clients as a you know I still love doing it so keep doing that but I think for me it's every day I commit to I've got an idea either I'm

at the stage of I can write shoot and edit it today or at some point all three things are happening um and it's done so at least I'm pumping out four to five videos a week minimum sometimes seven yeah okay can we um can you just in the background kind of have one of these any of these videos plain so when you think about like just any one of them um yeah maybe yeah that's a barie tell me when you when you do these like you're saying write film edit like what what does a typical like conceptualization process take for something like this for you what what's your process you work through okay so first I have my pillars and my nichs and I think

in a in a week I want to do some B on a budget I want to do some lifestyle maybe something funny or Trend whatever it is and there's one day that it can be whatever I want so when I've spaced out my B on a budget ones a lot of these I need to book you need to book tickets places restaurants whatever it is and I need to also find people to be in the video with me cuz I want I love collaborating and I want people in it so I have to book people you know months and advs like I've just booked like him Crossman and Brody Kane for videos and stuff like that we've already just had the chat about it not

even started writing so once I've done all that the first part is like booking the day booking all the stuff then I'll write how do I want what what will be the value for my audience I'll write okay I'm going to start by um I'm going to visit these two places find the cheapest drinks that's what I'm going to that part then there's going to be a part of um using it whatever uh and then the beginning or end will always be what is the total price for them what is what is the benefits and any screen shots and any adding things that I can find online once I've done that then I will go and shoot so when I'm shooting I have intention I

know exactly what shots I need to get that also lets me live in the moment so when I go and say do bougie on a budget I just have to film at the beginning film quickly in the seats film The cocktails phone away go back to like living my present life um because I only need x amount of footage 90 seconds maximum um then I'll compile it all on my phone y um go through my script again I'll cut it down cut down as much as I can put the hero shots do the intro and hook which will be a summary of the entire video take all the best parts put at the beginning hook you know put a title and then I'll go through

and edit all the pieces with the voice over um and with that I'll also add in like a little bit of effects I'll go in and cut the shots in so that no one's staring at one thing for too long each shot is maximum a couple of seconds even if it's the same shot I zoom in to it so it's quicker um think about the caption hashtags and then I post it so with all of that I think the biggest process is the writing at the beginning the shooting is like 10 minutes um and the editing can take up to 3 hours if I want the video to be really good and I try to do it for every certain series the B on a

budget I will put a lot of effort into the Vlogs you know I might cut out a few of the steps and if it's like a little Trend then [ __ ] that's like half an hour right there um so there is a lot of thought that goes into it I like it so I was thinking about it like I don't know how you thinking as we're going through that kind of like do you want to put up a better one like this one no no no like it's not the style like what you know I think that you and your friends you these collabs that you do you should find four or five of you who think differently in their content production who have got better

skills in each piece and create a super team and then that super team should go I will do all the writing I will do all the shots I will do the editing or whatever and you make and then you all do content together but you specialize in areas that you're the best in because like I can already see you doing all of this stuff as like so time consuming because you're having to switch gears each time you you're you're best at one piece of it not at all of it you'll be good at all of it but you're best at one piece yeah you know what I mean so it's like how do you find the people who are better at the other bits and

how do you collab together and like have a consistent collab what are you saying like create like a separate Channel n you'll make videos for each of your channels right but you know what I mean like you go you go guys look how do we turn out more content and better content like who's best at each of their pieces like a David do Squad type thing exactly right like who's best at each of their pieces like work like the funny one who's the one that gets pranked who's the and they all have their own pie someone might in your in your team might just be like a pro editor on Premier Pro just do on a computer and take it way faster but then they

don't want to shoot I think look this all sounds great I'm not having doubts I can do it I want to do it but finding people at my age all of us have kids husbands they also for them content is just I don't know if they'll put as much effort as I do into content which is there's nothing wrong with that they do the photo so finding the people finding the people is I'll start it's finding the people it's like so you know the difference is it's like taking our approach like we like but I pay my guys to be my collapse pays us to be as friends it pays us to be as friends I have to fly him all the way from Canada

so he comes hang out with me um no but like yeah we're business it's different but if you think about the way that we strategize plan produce post- produce and everything like the team do it collectively when when Joanie Janie who runs our attention Le at Tik Tok when she becomes the lone wolf that Janie is because she is a lone wolf in the way that she works when she does that our Tik Tok flops it goes real badge she doesn't put much out it goes nowhere we get into this real dark space with it when Janie starts to go expand her thinking and say go I need you guys to do this part Don you edited the last ones right the um confession cams

and stuff like when we all are dissecting this process together you're better at that you're better at this you're better I mean now she's tunning [ __ ] out right and she's able to then step up and go what is the one video that will blow up so we've got consistency what we call um our terminology is like fan acquisition and fan service the fan acquisition content is the content it's usually JY doing the presentation stuff to me that's outan acquisition millions of views people of followers right yeah and you can't do them all the time we tried doing a lot of them like one every week to see how it would go and they started to deteriorate so we knew we couldn't just keep doing that

but then we have all the fan service content which is the Deep lore of it teaching people heaps of stuff about us they get they really start to love us they might not will follow either they're just getting to know us and then when you go and hit them with a big one [ __ ] it goes crazy right like like what happened over in the last yeah 5 days right spend like 150,000 followers off one video Yeah and but you can only do that if you built all the law beforehand by putting out quantity so I think you're right I think quantity is is the way I think you should think about it like we have a meeting on every Friday afternoons from 3:30 to 5

it's called our 10x meeting and the reason it's called 10x is that when you 10x what you're going to do you have to fun mentally rethink the way you do it you can't just incrementally fix it right so you going from three or four post a week to seven as an incremental increase it's like yeah I can just do this and then I'll get the bush down but if you said to yourself I need to put out five a day like right now you'll get like anxiety and be like what the [ __ ] how do I do that I know I would have to hire people or find other people who want to do it it's not even necessarily hiring so it's easiest to get more

people but there are other ways like to think about it as well like you break down the thinking like do you watch Al Earl do you watch her do you know who she is can you put up Alex ear she's my go-to I [ __ ] am worth so much of her no whatever she's [ __ ] massive Alex ear in October last year was half a million followers and now where is she 5.6 what did she do you guys are the same lifestyle like no but what did she do to scale so her way of scaling is she you can see her pillars really clearly she's got get rid of me she's got vlogs she's got Trends um she's got uh like fit cheick sort of stuff right

she's got about five of them and then she's got like party girl because she's like this party girl too um she's obviously got uh management who have the same as your management with your Instagram and told her this is what you need to do and they've helped solidify it but actually she's been doing it from day do as well she's been very deliberate of her strategy and the reason I show her is that if you go through and really watch her stuff what she figured out is if I am doing this one thing like I'm going to Coachella okay coachella's happening I need 40 bits of content from Coachella from the one thing so she's planning way more so she's doing to get ready with

me she's doing her fit check she's doing the Vlog on the way there the Vlog there so even her Vlogs are broken up into multiple stages she puts up six to eight a day far on her own and then what happens is you get one of them blows up she'll get a 5 million everything around it goes up that's what's been happening with me yeah it's the way it always happens same with a smaller scale but yeah yeah but but it's just because you haven't done the level of quantity that she's doing she is like one of the um the best examples of this happening the right way where she's at now though I I will to say this she's F she's neutralized a little

bit her followership is somewhat stabilized around the 5 and a half million and her post to stain there she will have to go if she wants to grow again she will have to fundamentally think of something else to go up but where she started was just like I'm really clever here she's very good at telling a story to camera when she does it get r with me she's you just get hooked into these stories and you don't know why you're watching them like I've watched [ __ ] me watching two minute long get ready with me footage I'm like why the [ __ ] am I watching this sure it's the story mate it is a story there's plenty of hot chicks on [ __ ] Tik Tok to watch you

know the reason I've watch this you get sucked into the story and that's how I first got to know her and then there was um people like COC loo and all these other people who started to analyze what she did or Cookoo whatever her name and I was like [ __ ] and then I started watching her I followed her and I was like [ __ ] I can see it happening now and this is what I I always say to Joanie is like when because Jan's Target is to get up to 10 a day yeah we all know we all know right but and she will get there she's we've got a strategy for it like and I can show you later off camera on am if you

really want to look at it yeah happy to share it it's not secret happy to share it but what the idea is is like how do you make content at scale how do you take one concept and do get heaps of videos how many videos did you get out of that one shoot um heaps of them right over 10 right yeah like every question had like there was like 10 or 20 maybe 10 or 20 and it was probably like each person in the team had 10 minutes of filming so we all jumped in this room 10 minutes you might have seen the confession on we did but like 10 minutes of filming per person so 160 minutes and like there's 15 20 Clips out

of that so it's like few few hours of filming and there's a concept right of like what we did and that's everything like that's how we do all the stuff like even when you think the the presentation video that blew up over the weekend she did that but while she did it she filmed her making it and then she put out that video yesterday so she's already thinking like that and then the third piece is okay what's the followup to that video which needs to go up today um which I railroaded cuz I bought him in from Canada but like she'll have that for tomorrow so I guess what I'm saying is like when you think of these things in isolation like Hey we're got

to do the Barbie on bougie it's like okay here's one this is the Vlog of Barbie and bougie on a budget for Barbie what else can we do is there a trend we can do with Bobby is there another story I can talk about for about bobie about some interesting fact that people might not know about people of color and how Barbie brought that out or something you know that aligns with your pillars um is there inside there you can already see there's like you're doing so much in the one Vlog like you've got like four stories almost being told in that one Vlog like how do you break that up into four videos you know now you've just got now you've just multiplied it

just by rethinking the one concept and going how do I drop out 10 videos out of one look it is something I've wanted to do is just more figuring out you know I will never make excuses this is something I want for myself but hey I just got out of all this stuff I still have to make money from between clients and I still have to make consistent content to be considered then got a I've finally got a personal manager to start managing brand deals which is a huge huge relief no more emails right but how do I with say let's just say What's it easy amount for someone even if they have a full-time job is 2 to three hours a day right how

do I do I either drop the quality or do I have to hire people and I do want to hire people but there has to be at a point where I'm earning enough that there's an extra amount of Revenue that either I put away and save or I put it into GR which I will and at that point do I on top of you know just got a publicist on top of that um can I find someone to eat it in that time the other thing is you said can you find other people do you know how hard it is in this country especially this country people don't want to collab people only want to show their [ __ ] face on their content they're so self-centered

and self-absorbed the fact that I'm able to even find people to collab is a big deal and it's not common here cuz when I call them like let collab they have no idea I have to call them explain this is how we're going to collab you're going to say this and this you're going to R from your perspective from my perspective we take a photo together they've not done this in New Zealand before it's not a thing that they do so even that aspect I have to take the lead because they don't know how to collab one of the few people I think I've collabed with well over the years is us gang we both take turns he shoots I shoots I edit he'll go

and take it edit it himself put up or he edits sends it to me and I put it up and that's worked really well but he is dedicated like I am he is dedicated to content for them you have I have to go have to go and find other content creators not influencers I need to find content creators and I think um content creators who have time like no family no kids or if they do have a family and kids and I know you've got a partner congratulations on getting engaged I know everything from socials um how can they balance doing that it is a real hard thing and like if it there's guys doing it but it's all it's an all boys club like

100% yeah that's they only make dude content they don't really need a girl in there anyway so and also if it was easy everyone would that's the other thing which means that you those challenges you're facing mean you have an opportunity and that's the better way to think about it right because like if it was real easy then you wouldn't be anything special so actually you've got the opportunity that it is real hard the issue is finding those people I mean the one thing that should be happening which I mean she I've been trying to have the same conversations with her Judy needs to get her content going again you've got a great housemate to work with her cuz she knows how to [ __ ] get

people to watch videos she's a brilliant when it comes to content creation so there are people who could do it and who could support but it's hard right so I get that I'm not saying I have helped her on her old videos but it's also like coming she's just taking a break from it you know when she comes back whenever she wants I'm right there you know so that's it like I I think that it's not about going you're no good blah blah blah yes it is hard I think the thing is is like everything in life that's worthwhile is hard to go after and it takes time and I don't think there is a didn't fix so what do you reckon do I just

put up a story and say does anyone want to make videos together I Think It's a Grind I think it's a grind and I think that's the problem like St sping as an example has we started this October last year right first started something like that yeah October first started episodes and it took so long to like get people to commit to come in it was probably not until leis and Lisa Perez came in that then people like okay there's like there are there actual people um but even then it was a grind to like book people to come into this thing and actually do it which is why now like every time someone says yes just get them man we'll just backlog it instead

so we don't get into that position cuz the same thing happened like we're getting all these creators who were just like oh I'm not really sure I don't know if I want to be on it I don't know if I want to share my story I don't know if I'm going to make content with other people and then you get on here and they're like oh I'm struggling to make content like you're literally like I going to the other question I have for you right cool I'll go out and find people I'll find people who have a for videos so then it doesn't matter about money but it's also finding people who are happy to share the Limelight with other people right so find the

right people make a sad make videos together or even right now my thing is like yeah I'll make one or two videos of myself but this week I have three collabs which I think is pretty good for all with uh you know is it Terry the foodie girl matai oh one one's with her and then is IT Tech yeah yeah cuz it's also like an Indi Indian word as well I'm like the it goes like gets mixed she yeah but when I called her I'm her first caller to call her to take her through it and so I want to do more let's say we get that done how much do you think a content creator cuz someone like Mr Beast he puts all his

money into it right I don't know if he's like living off like on the streets or something when he started Liv in a studio yeah but do you know what I mean when he started I I guess he was living with his mom so he put all of it in it but how much do you think a Creator should put and this is probably a good question for everyone right you're earning brand deals M even if it's 300 or if it's 2,000 how much of that money do you think the person should take and as a ballpark and put it towards gr and then take the rest of the money if they want to save live on it live within your means is what I

tell that yes I could go right now with my next brand deal from shark or whatever buy a Gucci belt sure not a Gucci belt maybe something else right but I would I've put that money towards my website like saved it towards my website so how much do you think creators should take and reinvest so if you take me as an example Le because you look like you do 100% I do yeah so this year we will do probably 3 mil 3 and a half mil in revenue and me and my partner are taking 96 Grand out total and 30% of they will go tax yeah I pay myself minimal it all goes back in h these [ __ ] I pay these guys they get paid

more than me these two together their celeries are worth M more than mine and clears like yeah look I don't we just add more value though yeah no no no no but they do no they do and he's not wrong like I hire these guys because they help us produce more they help us do more I'm trying to grow now should everyone follow my lead yes well yes if you want the growth that I'm looking for but not everyone does can you still grow without taking like putting it all back in yeah 100% plenty of businesses do most people look at people like me and go [ __ ] like I want to go on to that but actually like I think it's 5% maybe less of

businesses in New Zealand turn over more than a million that's nothing so you don't have to turn over a million dollars to be successful for me it's not about money it's about the ability to make the sort of videos I want to make I agree and also be able to put out the messages I want to put and if I'm earning enough from a couple of Brands who believe in me I don't have to worry about being familyfriendly politically correct to you know be able to appeal to a wide range of brands agreed and that's what I want but the reason I say about money in that concept is that like everyone's trying to like go you ask me should how much should they reinvest

right that was the question well it depends on what they want most people in New Zealand if you earned a quarter of a million dollars a year if that was your Tome you're crushing it like crushing it like you're in the top couple percent in the country maybe top one in terms of income right and so you don't need to reinvest everything back into it for a long time I mean if that's all I wanted I could have stopped in 20 20 reinvesting and just like sucked it up and just kept working the way I was but I we're going for global domination like we're on a whole another Journey right like not on not if I'm there but no but you get what I

mean so that's that's what I'm trying to do now I don't expect everyone to do that and I don't think everyone should and I don't think everyone can I think it takes a very special type of person to be able to deal with the pressure of that because it's a lot but where a lot of people um what happens is they'll get some money and they'll want to then like you don't do this cuz I can tell by watching your stuff is that they'll go and buy the Gucci bout straight away when really what they should be doing is paying rent you know what I mean so they don't get their finances right so Claire and I are only able to pay ourselves so little

because we have so little expenses we're Smart in that the business pays for a lot of core expenses like they pay for our phone and you know all the basic [ __ ] that we have and the and and their business expenses so we don't have to pull all that out but like so many people go in they'll get all this money and then they'll just spend it all straight on to stuff whereas I spend all my money on um buying time and shoes oh and shoes un choose but not that much in a scheme of things um oh yeah and all my like my money my personal money even when you think about my shoes I probably I don't know maybe have 30 something pairs of

shoes but I've been running this business for like 48 months so it hasn't even been one pair a month what a shoes like 200 bucks 300 bucks it's not even that much in scheme of things right but that's my guilty pleasure is like shoes and coats um I I spend all my money on buying time back so I'm hiring these guys to buy time back I don't want to [ __ ] edit this clip I don't want to run my socials I want to do my piece that I do and then let everyone else do everything else I don't want to deal with the customers that I bring on board I want other people to have to manage them because I want all that time back but

when you're young or you're starting out or you're fresh you don't have that luxury sometimes so you just have to put in the work and do it yourself but yeah every do that you bring in if you're wanting to grow fast you need to take as little as possible out for yourself and put it back in and what you're doing is like you said I don't necessarily need lots of money I just want to make great videos well the way I try to look at it is just flip the script on there like yeah I want to make great videos to do that I need the best people around me to have the best people around me I need money and so yes I do

need money I mean when I said that I a lot of M money for my lifestyle I know exactly what you mean and I just want to get thing I think people look at a lot of content creators me say spoiled right um I I think this is the first I bought this for the podcast by the way $20 it's the first piece of clothing I've bought in six months and that's the thing I'm I get all collabs for nails Rodney Wayne ambassadorship for Hair Skin everything all that's one of the great things about being a content creator is you can maximize to minimize maximize your sponsorships to minimize your expenses as well some of them are really valuable um to as a woman especially

to like makeup Beauty all of that stuff so for me in the end all it is is really paying rent bills and most of the other things is like subscriptions to like Tailwind squares space all that sort of stuff is the main expenses for food I eat minimal and then no takeouts and just coffees if I go out and if I want to have a special dinner I can but what I've started doing is doing it for bie on a budget so I take someone for that so also so you're making content out of it content out of it so I think it becomes a business expense it becomes yeah of course um yeah it is so I think more the thing is people especially

in this country to think like you they do really struggle to even I do is like um yes I had a lot of Staff before after my accident it was very hard and it was very hard for me to then also have to pay out of pocket cuz I couldn't finish projects so I had to pause the projects they went to someone else they hadn't paid for the projects so I had to pay all the stuff out of my own personal money fine it happens but it's the fear of um hiring someone that feels like a burden right so how do quickly did how did you manage to I think how do I get out of that set of like yes even if I hire

for someone 5 hours a week or 10 hours H there's lots of ways to hire people you don't have to hire them full-time and salaried and stuff like that there's upw work there's um people for hire there's Freelancers there's people who will come and do work to build their portfolio there's all sorts of different things that you can ways of hiring I suppose what you have to do is you got a finance background so you've got the idea is that you need to be able to forecast you have to be able to forecast you have to understand how do I sell and how fast can I sell and if I really go out and sell what can I bring in and also how can I

keep um money coming in each month like how can I get things on retainer or ongoing sponsorship deals build a cash flow forecast and just understand like I know where our cash flow will be from a forecasted perspective which gives me the confidence to go out and higher because I'm like I know where will be I know that I can afford that has also got two or three months before it could be a problem if I don't do a certain thing and I know what I can do in two or 3 months from a sales perspective so there's some confidence in that you know how to sell or you know what your sales looks like you know the Cadence of which you can bring in

more money and you also know where that cash is going you right and most people suck at that bit most people suck at cash flow forecasting that the fact that you got a finance background means you probably can do that better than most I do forecast monthly but it's also I'm aware that I'm only taking enough money or accepting enough work for my forecast I don't go above but if I went above then I could cuz I managed to forecast and then add a publicist so then now I have a manager who will take what percentage then the next one for me is that's the next question I had for you it's all questions for um as a content creator what is the the natural

steps of who they should hire so I know first would be an agent is the best one depending on your following right to bring in more work but to actually scale the work and grow even more who would be the next person and then I I would say if you've got a public profile then publicist is pretty good to keep growing it but for the dayto day work who is the next person they should hire a VA social assistant so it's a hard one because um I wouldn't say a publicist was first however in second for me or second I would say that for you potentially publicist might be the right move given the history of where your Brands come out of and yeah you

know TV show and stuff and newspapers uh however these days publicist are becoming less and less relevant because you're your own publicist because you have your own brand yeah I get so much articles just DMS yeah that's it so I don't want to say you shouldn't have a publ because I don't want to put them out of work but like no but like everyone else yeah for everyone else I don't necessarily think of public I think that you should definitely have a brand manager who helps you navigate your emails if you don't want to have to deal with that for sure if that's not where your way inclined if you're a Creator first and foremost that's the thing you're best at then figure out which

part of the content creation you're best at and hire all the people you're not best at so if it's editing find some dude who can edit this super fast for you at a low cost you know and just start there and even if what you do with them is they give you working files or whatever it might be you might I don't know it depends on how you edit um but like these days even on phone on like iPads for instance you can use D Vinci resolve and things like that and they can send you working fils and all sorts of [ __ ] so you can clean it up your end and then put the Finesse on and publish but I would be going in and

hiring creatives first to help you produce more because it's top of funnel your whole business model is determined on how much you can put out and so the easiest way for you to scale your businesses put much put more out and the easiest way to do that is have help have people around you can help you do that which is what we do my goal is to have as many people in this team who can help us create more and do more which means the top of top of funnel is better which means everything else at the bottom will come and work its way out and then so I now in a I'm in a battle now of top of funnel and operations that's a

very different thing for me whereas you in your business model if you move away from the digital marketing side of stuff and you focus more on you as a brand and whatever your operations is the content creation yeah right so you only have one team to battle with which is like what creatives do I need to help me you don't have to hide them fulltime you can find some dude on up work for like7 to $15 an hour who can do the type of editing you need them to do or she do and just find them and brief them really well take some money like you've got to test them like Conor just hired a guy off there recently for some stuff that we need

to do yeah work and he went through a few but this guy had trial him for a few bits and he's like cool okay Stan and I said give him a twoe trial so he's paying him fulltime for two or 60 hours over two weeks give him some stuff if he delivers it then we'll put him on a full-time contract and we'll just run with it but he's like seven bucks an hour $7 an hour I mean it's pretty lowlevel editing what he's doing it's not Vlog style stuff like you probably that's still very lowlevel editing there's no special effects or anything you can you can get people doing this kind of stuff for well under 10 yeah well under 10 bucks an now USD

yeah yeah us you just like upload all the footage and give a brief and that's it just get a one drive drop or however you want drop box or whatever easy and give them a brief and if you've got a whole bunch of videos as reference material they they they know how to edit they'll just go oh okay cool that's the thing I'll do this or hire through Tik Tok yeah yeah you're too expensive you hire him through Tik Tok yeah he came off one of our biggest videos yeah we hire them through it's been a crazy ride out how we found on um look in terms we're going to wrap up because I've got a meeting that started 4 minutes ago um this one

went over that's okay it's fine um but what we should do is off camera you should uh we should show you through some of how we strategize stuff I could probably get joury to show you through show you through a few things on how to make content at scale with your strategy no matter what strategy is you need more content so you need to figure out ways to do that better and and don't do it with SP buying people just yet maybe editor maybe depends on I don't know you well enough to know what part of the creative process you need the most so then that's probably what you need just the time cool well let's wrap up we'll have another conversation but thanks so

much for sharing your story it was a bit of a whirlwind for me because I didn't I didn't realize as much of it so that's great also you're the first person I've talked about NZ Herald multiple people have asked for opinion on it never given an opinion and I've also never given about my essay so you've got exclusive we got an exclusive scoot there cut that one up this felt a bit safer there thank you so much for coming on Cheers