Speaker 1: Hey, hey, Hey, we're back. We're black ambition ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition.
Speaker 2: Hey manager, how you doing girl, I'm doing so much
Speaker 2: better now that I'm here.
Speaker 1: Yay, welcome back in the seal or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: We have a guest today.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. Yeah, Lockily and you're a badass business body
Speaker 2: which is hard to maintain.
Speaker 1: Both and if you kudos, so I'm gonna introduce these
Speaker 1: Halla our guests. Halla Taha, dubbed the podcast Princess, is
Speaker 1: the host of Young and Profiting yapp podcast, frequently raked
Speaker 1: as the number one business and entrepreneurship podcast across all
Speaker 1: the apps okay. Halla is also the founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of yap Media, a business podcast network with an award
Speaker 1: winning social media and podcast marketing agency for top podcasters,
Speaker 1: celebrities and CEOs. She is well known for her engaged
Speaker 1: following and influence on LinkedIn. Young and Profiting Podcast is
Speaker 1: a top one hundred podcasts globally, and Holla has interviewed
Speaker 1: starred studded guests from the likes of Matthew McConaughey, am,
Speaker 1: Alex Hormozy, I'm the worst, Deepak Chopra, We love depat Okay,
Speaker 1: David John, Seth Godden, who Seith Godden is like the
Speaker 1: man when it comes to marketing, and countless others. Her
Speaker 1: show was recognized in twenty twenty two as a webby
Speaker 1: Honoree Am You know we love Webb's around here and
Speaker 1: Holla has been featured in publications like Entrepreneur, Founder and
Speaker 1: The New York Times. She is an expert on networking, marketing,
Speaker 1: social media, personal branding, side hustles, entrepreneurship, and podcasting. Whoo
Speaker 1: hollow we call that what being Ah, you're a brown girl.
Speaker 1: How I'm gonna ask you where you're from?
Speaker 3: I am brown girl. Well, where I'm from is super
Speaker 3: relevant right now. I'm one hundred percent Palestinian.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'm one.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent first generation Palestinian. My family is still in
Speaker 3: the West Bank.
Speaker 1: So how are you navigating this really hard time?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's been really tough. It's been like the tough
Speaker 3: and I'm running such a huge company. I'm one of
Speaker 3: the few Palestinian voices, so I felt like I had
Speaker 3: this side hustle I never asked for, of just having
Speaker 3: to educate people. There's so much misinformation right now, so
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to just de escalate, and it's just
Speaker 3: a terrible situation. So I'm trying my best. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this sounds tough because there's a lot of misinformation going on,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of emotions, and to be quite honest,
Speaker 3: a lot of people have literally learned history wrong, right,
Speaker 3: and so Palestinians and Arabic people and Jewish people also
Speaker 3: are a lot of Jewish people are really aware of
Speaker 3: the actual facts in history and really against everything that's happening.
Speaker 3: There's literally apartheid in Israel. You know, this is proven
Speaker 3: by multiple human rights organizations. I even as a US citizen,
Speaker 3: if I go to Palestine, I'm literally treated as an
Speaker 3: oppressed person who has to drive on separate roads, who
Speaker 3: has to go through checkpoints, who somebody could kill me
Speaker 3: in Israel and literally nobody would be prosecuted, nobody would
Speaker 3: go to jail.
Speaker 2: Jim.
Speaker 3: It's crazy, right, It's literally crazy. But so many people
Speaker 3: don't know this information and they just hear like anti
Speaker 3: semitism or what like, you know, they just go red
Speaker 3: and they won't even listen to what other people are saying.
Speaker 3: So it's really high stakes right now. And as a
Speaker 3: business person, I'm so lucky because I remember when I
Speaker 3: worked in corporate I could never talk about any of this.
Speaker 3: I would, but it would be really looked down on.
Speaker 3: I still was raising money from Palestine. I always whenever
Speaker 3: something was going on, I have to say something. There's
Speaker 3: innocent people at stake and not and the media is controlled, right,
Speaker 3: so I have to put myself out there. But now
Speaker 3: as an entrepreneur, I feel really lucky. You know, so
Speaker 3: many of my clients are Jewish. So many of my
Speaker 3: friends are Jewish. They know that, like daily I advocate
Speaker 3: for everyone, all races, black, white, Jewish, doesn't matter. So
Speaker 3: my daily actions show that I'm a fair person who
Speaker 3: loves everyone. So it gives me a platform now to
Speaker 3: just be able to speak freely. So many of my
Speaker 3: clients are Jewish, and literally they're like, keep talking. You're
Speaker 3: educating me so much. So it feels good this time
Speaker 3: around that people are actually listening. But man, it's been
Speaker 3: a tough week. It's been a tough ten days.
Speaker 1: So for those people who are listening to our podcasts,
Speaker 1: who are business people and who want to say something
Speaker 1: but are not sure. To Mandy's point, when Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter came out, I mean, I'm black, Mandy is black,
Speaker 1: and so I felt more educated to be like, this
Speaker 1: is what's happening because this is happening to my community.
Speaker 1: Are well aware, But I feel like there are a
Speaker 1: lot of of people who want to say something and
Speaker 1: through their business, but are afraid because I don't know
Speaker 1: the history. I don't you know. I've watched a couple
Speaker 1: of videos and I'm not sure. I'm like, is this
Speaker 1: the right video?
Speaker 2: Is this?
Speaker 1: How does one one? Where can we find education? And
Speaker 1: then two how can we start to integrate that into it?
Speaker 1: For those who want to speak.
Speaker 3: Out, Yeah, I would say number one is seek out
Speaker 3: Palestinian voices. Go follow me on Instagram. There's so many
Speaker 3: people Sean King is posting a lot of stuff that
Speaker 3: gives people insight of what's actually going on on the
Speaker 3: other side. And you need to proactively seek out these
Speaker 3: voices because what you watch on TV and in the
Speaker 3: news is only going to give you one side. One
Speaker 3: side is literally controlled by propaganda and is basically paid
Speaker 3: for by the other side, right, And so if you
Speaker 3: want to seek out other sources, they have to be
Speaker 3: online on social media. Seek out. Human Rights Watch put
Speaker 3: out a report about the apartheid. Amnesty International put out
Speaker 3: a report about the apartheid. You can read through all
Speaker 3: those reports that will give you all the history, current
Speaker 3: and previous that you need to understand. And then there's
Speaker 3: lots of documentaries about Gaza that you can look up
Speaker 3: and watch. So I would say, seek out voices. The
Speaker 3: other thing I would say is like, you've got to
Speaker 3: refuse to be called an anti semit when you want
Speaker 3: to speak about human rights. So every post that you write,
Speaker 3: I'm not an anti Semite, I am allowed to speak freely,
Speaker 3: and I am pro human rights, I am pro peace,
Speaker 3: and then start off whatever you're going to say, you know,
Speaker 3: because that's the one thing that we need to start
Speaker 3: to isolate is that this is not a religious issue.
Speaker 3: This is a human rights issue. There's actually a lot
Speaker 3: of Jewish people. Jewish people storm the Capitol, Jewish Voice
Speaker 3: for Peace, if not Now or all, these are like
Speaker 3: huge Jewish organizations that three sixty five days a year,
Speaker 3: even before this conflict, are trying to work towards equal
Speaker 3: human rights from Palestinians in the region. Right, So there's
Speaker 3: just a lot going on, and I think the number
Speaker 3: one thing that I want from leaders and you know,
Speaker 3: we weren't expecting to talk about Palestine on this podcast,
Speaker 3: so I do not need to talk about this this
Speaker 3: whole time. But the number one thing that I think
Speaker 3: leaders should seriously consider is at least foster a dialogue
Speaker 3: in your business. At least recognize that the Arabic people
Speaker 3: and Palestine people that may work for you, they're not
Speaker 3: doing well right now. They need to be treated like humans,
Speaker 3: be given humanity. Their people are literally a genocide is
Speaker 3: happening in Palestine, and we're hurt, you know, we don't
Speaker 3: feel like our lives are valued. I think that we're
Speaker 3: in a very similar spot to how black people felt
Speaker 3: during Black Lives Matter, when everybody was screaming all lives matter.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile we are having a genocide, right so it's tough.
Speaker 3: And I think having open dialogue, not persecuting people for
Speaker 3: speaking out, you know, and advocating for people to have
Speaker 3: healthy dialogues with each other. This is the only way
Speaker 3: that us as a society is going to be able
Speaker 3: to move forward is if we actually have open dialogues
Speaker 3: and if people start learning new information on both sides
Speaker 3: so that we have like more empathy towards each other,
Speaker 3: and that takes dialogues, So not closing down comments when
Speaker 3: you put up a post, not persecuting people for speaking up,
Speaker 3: and again just like fostering this open dialogue.
Speaker 2: And often getting out of the way of people like
Speaker 2: yourself and letting you act.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how many people have.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't need to make a statement, Maybe I
Speaker 2: need to amplify a statement that you make exactly.
Speaker 3: And I have everybody who knows me personally they're like, holla,
Speaker 3: keep going, like we love you, blah blah blah. Then
Speaker 3: I have these strangers that don't know me that are like,
Speaker 3: you're an anti semi how like you're spreading misinformation and
Speaker 3: like harassing me. And it's like, bro, like I'm literally
Speaker 3: Palestinian and have lived the aparthead myself. Do not gaslight
Speaker 3: me about what is truth and what is not for me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's crazy when you come from a gro
Speaker 1: that is largely oppressed and then the world tells you
Speaker 1: like now you're not You're like, I'm sorry, I look
Speaker 1: like this every day that I know the feeling. I
Speaker 1: know what it feels like to navigate from a space
Speaker 1: of having less than for no other reason than you know,
Speaker 1: the origin of my birth, and so, you know, I
Speaker 1: just it's been really, really really and I just have
Speaker 1: felt hands tacked. I'm like, I'm not really sure because
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to say something. It's just I didn't
Speaker 1: feel educated enough to join the conversation, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I mean, but I know then murder
Speaker 1: is wrong, no matter what side, and I know that
Speaker 1: lives have been taken on both sides, and I just
Speaker 1: feel like, across the board, that's wrong, you know. But
Speaker 1: I also know, you know, from because I am black
Speaker 1: and visibly black, that for brown people across the world
Speaker 1: that often our voices are more easily suppressed. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing there was this I just was reading this
Speaker 1: morning on like ink dot com that there's this conference
Speaker 1: in that they do every year in Europe. I think
Speaker 1: it's called like the Global or something Summit, and the
Speaker 1: CEO or whatever, the conference leader, let me say if
Speaker 1: I can find it. He said something that just basically said, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like killing people is wrong and that genocide
Speaker 1: is not okay. Facebook dropped out of the conference. Google
Speaker 1: dropped out of the conference, and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: it is it wrong just saying to kill so he
Speaker 1: literally he didn't say I'm with It's just, hey, like,
Speaker 1: genocide is not okay, killing people is not okay. We
Speaker 1: should have peace, just that simple. And people are dropping
Speaker 1: out because like, what are we saying so it is
Speaker 1: okay to kill people? I just I'm confused about what
Speaker 1: the pushback.
Speaker 3: It's really crazy because at this point it's not about
Speaker 3: being pro Palestinian, it's about being anti genocide, right, because
Speaker 3: both sides like have done wrong things right since nineteen
Speaker 3: forty eight. I can give everybody a quick history why
Speaker 3: this all started. Right nineteen forty eight, after World War Two,
Speaker 3: Britain sent Jewish refugees from World War Two to Palestine. Okay,
Speaker 3: at this point Palestinians welcomed Jewish people with open arms.
Speaker 3: They even let them in their homes and everything was okay.
Speaker 3: A year later, the British armed Jewish people to take
Speaker 3: over Palestine. They forcibly drove out eight hundred thousand people
Speaker 3: out of five hundred villages. They killed fifteen thousand people.
Speaker 3: These are the descendants of the people in Gaza right now.
Speaker 3: They're refugees that were literally forcibly removed from their homes.
Speaker 3: People are still living in homes that they have that
Speaker 3: Palestinans have the keys to their homes. Their grandmothers still
Speaker 3: have the keys of their homes. There's Jewish settlers and
Speaker 3: people in Israel who literally live in the same homes
Speaker 3: that Palestinians used to live in. They have a saying
Speaker 3: they took it fully furnished, because they literally just moved
Speaker 3: into people's houses with their furniture. Okay. And so these
Speaker 3: people are now in Gaza as refugees and they've been
Speaker 3: blockaded for sixteen years. They're not allowed to leave. They're
Speaker 3: blockaded from Egypt and Israel, not allowed to leave. And
Speaker 3: these people Hamas who committed the actions on October seventh,
Speaker 3: have been under blockade. Most of these people are between
Speaker 3: seventeen and thirty seven years old, most of either their
Speaker 3: entire lives or most of their lives. Not even allowed
Speaker 3: to leave Gaza. Okay. They're trapped in an open air prison,
Speaker 3: A better name for it is a concentration camp. Because
Speaker 3: they've committed no crime other than being Palestinian. They're not
Speaker 3: allowed to leave a city that is the size of Detroit, okay,
Speaker 3: and it is blocked off by a wall, and that
Speaker 3: is one part of the occupied territories in Israel. The
Speaker 3: other occupied territory is the West Bank, and so the
Speaker 3: West Bank is a small piece of land that was
Speaker 3: given to the Palestinians. It is occupied. People have to
Speaker 3: drive on separate roads, their water is rationed. All this
Speaker 3: is all controlled. There's checkpoints and so on. And again,
Speaker 3: if somebody gets killed in the West Bank, there's no
Speaker 3: persecution of any Israeli that did it. And people are
Speaker 3: still stealing people's homes, demolishing homes, stealing land, and they're
Speaker 3: just taking over more and more of the West Bank.
Speaker 3: They don't respect the boundaries that they gave the Palestine people.
Speaker 3: Before this conflict, two hundred and fifty people were murdered,
Speaker 3: including forty seven children, by Israeli radical settlers. Nobody talks
Speaker 3: about this, right, so it was not unprovoked. It was
Speaker 3: seventy six years of oppression and literally like violence ongoing
Speaker 3: to Palestinians constantly. They're basically controlled. It's like segregation like
Speaker 3: how it was back in the day in America. Right,
Speaker 3: that is what's going on in the region. And so
Speaker 3: then this Hamas attack happened. Of course, nobody condone that,
Speaker 3: but we can't help for people to be radicalized if
Speaker 3: they're literally trapped behind a wall and have don't have
Speaker 3: equal rights, and there you know, family is killed, bombed
Speaker 3: every five years and whatever right, people are obviously going
Speaker 3: to become radicalized. They're not treated equally. So that's the
Speaker 3: root cause of the problem, and that's what people need
Speaker 3: to get educated on.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine. I mean, I don't feel like this
Speaker 2: just it lakes me so sad and heartbroken. Beyond the
Speaker 2: stories that I've heard, and there are some journalists out
Speaker 2: there who are working really hard to get in touch
Speaker 2: with Palestinian voices because like electricity is not you know,
Speaker 2: something that you can take for granted, there a lot
Speaker 2: of places don't have them. I heard that some people
Speaker 2: are using car batteries because they have anticipated power outages before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: car batteries just to charge their phone, solar panels just
Speaker 2: to get electricity. But anyway, it's hard to communicate. But
Speaker 2: the stories that I have heard of young twenty somethings,
Speaker 2: families who will just get a phone call and say,
Speaker 2: this is the Israeli Army. We're letting you know there's
Speaker 2: going to be a strike, get out now, and then
Speaker 2: they don't know if that's real, or if they need
Speaker 2: to like pack up and leave and that state of
Speaker 2: high alert, that state of fear, and I know that
Speaker 2: it's been going on for decades as you've described. That's
Speaker 2: for me, it's never okay. And I feel like we
Speaker 2: just don't learn from our own fricking history. I know
Speaker 2: it's crazy for I and a war does not equate peace.
Speaker 3: I mean, what happened is that people came over from
Speaker 3: World War Two after the Nazis and everything, and they
Speaker 3: came to Palestine like ready to do anything to just survive,
Speaker 3: and they put all that evil negativity on the Palestinians
Speaker 3: and then just did it. Did the same thing that
Speaker 3: happened to them, literally to the Palestinians. And we had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the Holocaust, right, So it's a
Speaker 3: I feel that the Palestinians have taken the brunt of
Speaker 3: the Holocaust, like all the pain and the terror and
Speaker 3: everything has just for seventy six years Palestinians have been
Speaker 3: unrightfully punished for something they did not do.
Speaker 1: So I remember I went to Jordan earlier this year
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't believe the separation, Like, oh, what
Speaker 1: is the river that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River,
Speaker 1: and I just remember being like, wow, there's literally like
Speaker 1: this line. And they made it very clear, do not
Speaker 1: I was in Jordan, on the Jordan's side, do not
Speaker 1: get close to this life. And the river wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of the river that was very wide.
Speaker 1: It wasn't as wide as a street, like you know,
Speaker 1: and like I just remember thinking like wow, like you know,
Speaker 1: for so many people, you know, like whether you're Christian
Speaker 1: or Jewish or or Muslim, Jesus is a figure in
Speaker 1: all three of those like religious whatever that figure takes on,
Speaker 1: whether it's a prophet or savior or whatever. But I
Speaker 1: just remember thinking, how sad is it that this important,
Speaker 1: beautiful place to these three religions is radicalized where I
Speaker 1: can be in the water that's clearly touching both sides,
Speaker 1: but I can't get close to this imaginary line that
Speaker 1: men have created. And I just thought, wow, it just
Speaker 1: seemed it was such a beautiful place Jordan, but this
Speaker 1: underlying sense of like impending violence, and I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: like it just seemed that part just hit me as
Speaker 1: really sad, Like yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think the craziest part of all
Speaker 3: of this, Tiffany and Mandy, is the misinformation going on.
Speaker 3: And like the bubble that Israelis have lived in. You know,
Speaker 3: they get their birthrate paid for the American Jewish people, right,
Speaker 3: they go over to Israel, and they don't see the
Speaker 3: occupied territories. They see the few people.
Speaker 2: There's like two.
Speaker 3: Million Palestinians or Arab Israelis they call them, that live
Speaker 3: in Israel that sort of have equal rights. So people
Speaker 3: teach them that, see, these are the Palestinians. They live
Speaker 3: freely with us. But it's really not the whole story.
Speaker 3: They don't show them the West Bank, they don't tell
Speaker 3: them about Gaza, they don't tell them. They're not even
Speaker 3: allowed to learn about the Nepka in like history in Israel,
Speaker 3: so they don't even know that happened. They don't know
Speaker 3: that like it started with ethnic cleansing, and so there's
Speaker 3: just all this misinformation and essentially me having an identity
Speaker 3: of being Palestinian, it is threatening to anybody who has
Speaker 3: an Israeli identity because it threatens their identity. So they
Speaker 3: want to act like we don't exist, or we were
Speaker 3: a lost people, or Israel was a land with no people.
Speaker 3: But in reality, we were ethnically cleansed, and even now
Speaker 3: gaz is being en cleansed with they forced a million
Speaker 3: people to move out of their homes and they bombed
Speaker 3: all their homes. Now those million people they have nowhere
Speaker 3: to go. They might end up going to Egypt or Syria,
Speaker 3: and they're just again like moving more Palestinians out. The
Speaker 3: last thing I'll say about this is that there's five
Speaker 3: million Palestinians still living in the occupied territories of Palestine
Speaker 3: which are now Israel, and there's like seven or eight
Speaker 3: million Israelis. It's like literally almost half the people are
Speaker 3: still Palestinian there, and there's like ten million Palestinians outside
Speaker 3: of there that basically are refugees now not allowed to
Speaker 3: go back. So it's a big issue. Like there's people
Speaker 3: who are alive today that both think that they're Palace.
Speaker 3: There's people alive today that believe there Israeli. We need
Speaker 3: to figure it out, we need to live in peace together.
Speaker 1: Yeah Nope, but thank you so much for I think
Speaker 1: it's so great to get a perspective. This was not
Speaker 1: our intention we brought, but I'm glad.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's just so crazy, like what I.
Speaker 1: Want to give you.
Speaker 2: I know you're so passionate about it, as you should be,
Speaker 2: and this is the moment, and I'm so glad that
Speaker 2: we have a platform we can share with you and
Speaker 2: that you're using your own for that. Yeah, like I
Speaker 2: feel like we need a little deep breath moment. How
Speaker 2: do you, I know, let's just take care of yourself
Speaker 2: and your Palestinian friends, you know, anyone who's affected by this.
Speaker 3: Where honestly, like it really sucks, guys, Like there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of us, not a lot of us with
Speaker 3: a voice. And literally I feel like I can't even grief.
Speaker 3: I can't even grieve. All I have to do is
Speaker 3: just spend every second I have just trying to educate
Speaker 3: and post and like battling harassment online for telling the truth.
Speaker 3: And like, thank god, honestly, like all there's two communities
Speaker 3: that are helping us. Black black the black community is
Speaker 3: helping us. Thank god. This is really the first time
Speaker 3: that like really the black community is mobilizing and supporting us,
Speaker 3: and Jewish people, Jewish people who know what's going on,
Speaker 3: and now we never really had other communities supporting us,
Speaker 3: and now we have these two communities really helping to
Speaker 3: amplify our voices and it feels like maybe there will
Speaker 3: be some real change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say, that's where I heard about
Speaker 1: the most, which I love because you're right, because as
Speaker 1: coming from a population that has also often been oppressed,
Speaker 1: you get to see you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And you know, if you know, especially
Speaker 1: black women, that's where I've seen so many because I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily I mean other than you, how I don't
Speaker 1: know if I know anybody else that's Palestinian, you know,
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the information that I've gotten
Speaker 1: have been from Black voices that have shared other Palestinian voices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like wait, and so as I'm reading
Speaker 1: and I'm learning about, I'm loving is that I see
Speaker 1: a lot, especially like the lack influencer women are posting
Speaker 1: for better understanding, and then you see people angry and
Speaker 1: you're like, well, she's allowed to say I don't know
Speaker 1: much about this topic if you can share respectly in
Speaker 1: the comments, because I'd love to learn, because I'd love
Speaker 1: to support humanity overall. And people get really, really really
Speaker 1: angry at that, and so that's very telling when you
Speaker 1: say I believe that people shouldn't be murdered, and people
Speaker 1: getting mad at.
Speaker 3: That, well, it's just it's I think one of the
Speaker 3: biggest polarities in all this or like issues is that,
Speaker 3: like it's just call spade a spade. Palestinian lives are
Speaker 3: not valued as much as Israeli lives, and that's literally
Speaker 3: what's going on. You know, like fourteen hundred innocent Israeli
Speaker 3: civilians died and that's terrible, and now five thousand Palestinians
Speaker 3: have died, mostly literally children, like babies are just getting
Speaker 3: murdered and blown up, and everyone's so like they deserved it.
Speaker 3: It's retally like there's like, what do you We're defending ourselves,
Speaker 3: defending yourself from what from little babies who literally didn't
Speaker 3: vot for Hamas, Like we need to be fair and
Speaker 3: like just all human lives need to be treated equally,
Speaker 3: and that that's like I think what all the pales
Speaker 3: Studians are crying about. We don't we're not supporting Hamas.
Speaker 3: It's but we can't control Hamas. And until the occupation
Speaker 3: is over, Hamas is not going away because they're resisting
Speaker 3: against uh not having freedom right. So it's just we
Speaker 3: just need a bloodshed to stop, and I hope it
Speaker 3: stops because I need to focus on work.
Speaker 2: How is your family, so do you still have family there?
Speaker 3: I have family in the West Bank, So the West
Speaker 3: Bank there's lots of you know, violence and subtler violence,
Speaker 3: but they're not getting bombed like Gaza Is, so they're okay.
Speaker 3: Hopefully they'll be okay. But yeah, I don't have family.
Speaker 2: And Gassip their family, like your immediate family, are they
Speaker 2: here in the US. When did you come to the US?
Speaker 3: I was born in the US, so my immediate family
Speaker 3: is in the US, but like all my dad's like
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters and stuff, and my mom's are in
Speaker 3: Palestine and some in Jordan. To your point, Tiffany, a
Speaker 3: lot of Palestines are in Jordan.
Speaker 2: And what's one thing? Have you visited? I'm sure you have,
Speaker 2: But when's the last time you were able to visit Palestine?
Speaker 3: I have not been back in twenty years. I used
Speaker 3: to go every summer. We have a house there, we
Speaker 3: have land there. It's not safe for me, Like I said,
Speaker 3: I could get I'm treated like a Palestinian even though
Speaker 3: I'm a US citizen. Once I go there. So again,
Speaker 3: I'm like I could literally be killed by an Israeli
Speaker 3: settler and nothing would happen, And so it's just too
Speaker 3: dangerous for me. And I think I'd be targeted because
Speaker 3: I have such a big platform and stuff. I think
Speaker 3: they'd really give me a big problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you could share one happy memory or
Speaker 2: like a picture of your childhood, even in Palestine, just
Speaker 2: for people to sort of show like there was a time, yeah,
Speaker 2: when you were a child there and felt safe.
Speaker 3: Maybe I never I always experienced the hide, but it
Speaker 3: definitely was safer than now. But you know, I remember
Speaker 3: I would always like walk to this store. Like they
Speaker 3: had dirt roads, right, so it's like didn't have paved roads.
Speaker 3: And all my cousins were there. They're all my age,
Speaker 3: and everybody's like really open where you can just like
Speaker 3: I didn't ever call to go over my aunt's house,
Speaker 3: you know, I would just like wake up, knock on
Speaker 3: her door and she'd come make me breakfast, and then
Speaker 3: I'd go, you know, take a walk and like check
Speaker 3: out the olive trees and the fig trees with my
Speaker 3: cousins and climb trees and just be kids, you know,
Speaker 3: find like stray dogs and puppies and take care of them,
Speaker 3: or like little birds and take care of them and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So we were just like regular kids,
Speaker 3: just you know, enjoying the outdoors, and you know, and
Speaker 3: then in the meanwhile of all that, there'd be like
Speaker 3: a Israeli tank driving by, like and that was normal, right.
Speaker 1: I always think to myself, like, because I taught in
Speaker 1: Newark for so many years, in the area especially that
Speaker 1: I taught, and sometimes get violent where there might be gunshots,
Speaker 1: there might be And I always thought to myself, no
Speaker 1: matter where the worst of the world shows up, there's
Speaker 1: always kids, beautiful kids playing and laughing and somehow able
Speaker 1: to eke out some joy in the worst parts of
Speaker 1: the world. And that always gave me a little bit
Speaker 1: of hope, you know, Like, you know, that's why I
Speaker 1: so heartbreaking to see here what's happening. But it's just
Speaker 1: like it's just it's this strange juxtaposition that like it
Speaker 1: could really be this war torn area, and kids will
Speaker 1: find a way to play and laugh and enjoy each
Speaker 1: other in the midst of all the terribleness. They will
Speaker 1: find the little piece of joy available and then use
Speaker 1: use it up the most but so I'm glad you
Speaker 1: were able to have some good memories. I think maybe
Speaker 1: we should take like a cleansing mode, come back and
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about business.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna take a break, pay a
Speaker 1: couple of bills. Everybody, take a boossa, breathe them, bre that,
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. All right, guys, we are
Speaker 1: back from break. So we're gonna switch gears a little
Speaker 1: bit because HOLLA is like quite big time in business,
Speaker 1: right and we want to really lean into it. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have time to stay with us.
Speaker 1: We do. We also tape we call our BAQA where
Speaker 1: we answer questions about entrepreneurship, business and money. So we
Speaker 1: would love for you to maybe answer answer some business
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship questions. Yeah, perfect, great. So so yeah, so, I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard to switch on, Like my brain is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just so twenty twenty three. I have found how
Speaker 1: that has been. I would say eighty percent of my
Speaker 1: friends that are in business, including myself, had a harder
Speaker 1: time in twenty twenty three than like then it's been
Speaker 1: in a number of years, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: a hard business year. Have you seen that kind of
Speaker 1: like trend in your business and your business friends, and
Speaker 1: what can people do to kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: like what are your suggestions of what have you done
Speaker 1: to make sure that business still runs despite whatever it
Speaker 1: happened in twenty I don't know what happened in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, but I feel like there was a bit
Speaker 1: of a squeeze for most people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely think the first half of the year
Speaker 3: was really just slow and brutal for us. At least
Speaker 3: my company like rocked it second half of the year.
Speaker 3: So I would say, always be proactive in your sales generation.
Speaker 3: So for me, it was just trying to come up
Speaker 3: with creative ideas in order to reach for me with
Speaker 3: the sponsorships for my network, reaching out to as many
Speaker 3: brands as possible, and just coming up with unique ideas
Speaker 3: in order to get leads for our business. Obviously every
Speaker 3: business is different, but I would say putting yourself out there,
Speaker 3: creating a personal brand of course, was just something that
Speaker 3: I talk a lot about, and then just proactively generating
Speaker 3: leads rather than just expecting them everybody to just like
Speaker 3: find you. You've got to put yourself out there, create
Speaker 3: content and So talk about.
Speaker 2: Your type of business. So you're speaking about yat met yeah,
Speaker 2: which is smarily a podcasting network or do you have
Speaker 2: other types of media that yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, So yeah, we're a podcasting network where we sign
Speaker 3: on shows. We have shows like Jenna Kutcher's Gold Digger,
Speaker 3: Amy Porterfield, John Lee Dumas. So we've got a lot
Speaker 3: of big shows and we help people get sponsors and
Speaker 3: we also help to grow people's shows. So that's one
Speaker 3: aspect of my business. And then I have a social
Speaker 3: media agency where the number one LinkedIn marketing agency and
Speaker 3: a podcast production agency as well. So I've got social clients,
Speaker 3: podcast clients, network client and.
Speaker 2: What about the team?
Speaker 1: So what.
Speaker 2: I was trying to get a picture of the team
Speaker 2: that supports you and do you and which arms of
Speaker 2: those businesses do you feel like has been more you know,
Speaker 2: contracting in this past year where you've had to be creative.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I have a big team. I have about
Speaker 3: fifty people who work at YAP Media, A big team
Speaker 3: for the social side especially, and I think the most
Speaker 3: difficult thing was in the beginning of the year we
Speaker 3: lost some social clients because everybody was basically hurting in
Speaker 3: their business, and one of the first things they're going
Speaker 3: to pull is the marketing budget for something like social rights.
Speaker 3: So we lost a lot of clients. And unfortunately, the
Speaker 3: social side of the business is really talent heavy, and
Speaker 3: so that caused me to have to like let go
Speaker 3: of some people, which was really tough because it was
Speaker 3: nothing with their performance, but it was just because we
Speaker 3: didn't have a lot of clients, and I sort of
Speaker 3: had to consolidate and restructure the social team so that
Speaker 3: it would be more flexible as clients leave and come
Speaker 3: and so on. Now we're like fully stacked. I'm hiring
Speaker 3: again and all this stuff. But it's scary because again,
Speaker 3: if the economy goes bad again, people are going to
Speaker 3: pull out and I'm gonna have to, you know, downsize
Speaker 3: my team. So agencies that are talent heavy are really
Speaker 3: tough in these economic times because you're always having to
Speaker 3: scale down talent scale up talent. The network side is
Speaker 3: really scalable. I have like a five person team, and
Speaker 3: whether we have like twenty podcasters or fifty podcasters, it's
Speaker 3: really the same size team. So that's a little bit
Speaker 3: more scalable, and that's one of the reasons why I've
Speaker 3: been moving toward and focusing more on growing my network
Speaker 3: because it's not so talent heavy, understood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they're not actually yeah exactly, they're not on
Speaker 2: your payroll necessarily, they're not w two workers. And is
Speaker 2: it that often the podcast that you acquire sort of
Speaker 2: have their own develop their own production team already. They
Speaker 2: just need that addition exactly.
Speaker 3: So with ads, we just do the sponsorships, and it's
Speaker 3: like the bigger the show, it's the same amount of work,
Speaker 3: but we get paid a lot more money because you
Speaker 3: get paid per download, per commercial. Right, So if I
Speaker 3: sign on a huge show, it's the same amount of
Speaker 3: work if I sign on a small show. And so
Speaker 3: therefore it's like a very scalable opportunity. I just have
Speaker 3: to keep signing really big shows and not necessarily having
Speaker 3: to hire. Like every time I get like three new
Speaker 3: clients for social, I have to stand up a whole
Speaker 3: new social team where I could hire or bring on
Speaker 3: like twenty podcasters and bring on one per to support
Speaker 3: them or something.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So, Holly, you said something about being the number one
Speaker 1: LinkedIn marketing team, So like what does that mean? Like,
Speaker 1: what does Lincoln Marketing? What is that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So we're the number one LinkedIn marketing agency. A lot
Speaker 3: of the influencers on LinkedIn, like Marshall Goldsmith, Matt Higgins,
Speaker 3: Heather Monahan, myself, it's my team actually behind the scenes
Speaker 3: running their whole LinkedIn and so.
Speaker 2: Thanks for just telling me that they ain't doing it alone,
Speaker 2: because I.
Speaker 1: Need to hear that.
Speaker 3: My clients don't do anything like We do everything like
Speaker 3: a to Z and that includes creating the content, posting
Speaker 3: it up, responding to comments. And then the real secret
Speaker 3: sauce on LinkedIn is the DM direct message campaigns. And
Speaker 3: so we're doing all these like direct message campaigns twenty
Speaker 3: four to seven driving ROI initiatives for ut.
Speaker 2: It's called DM campaign. So do you have like a
Speaker 2: bot that or do you have people?
Speaker 3: So we it's people mostly virtual assistance in the Philippines.
Speaker 3: I have about twelve people in the Philippines whose full
Speaker 3: time jobs are just dming people on LinkedIn, and so
Speaker 3: we do all these different campaigns like so, for example,
Speaker 3: with my podcast, we send out about one thousand dms
Speaker 3: a day to entrepreneurs to listen to young in profiting
Speaker 3: soliciting our new episode, and then if they respond positively,
Speaker 3: we then ask them to write us a review. So
Speaker 3: that's like one example of a DM campaign. Another one
Speaker 3: would be like, let's say one of our clients has
Speaker 3: a new book coming out. Every time they put up
Speaker 3: a post about their book, anybody who likes and comments,
Speaker 3: we then retarget in the DMS. Hey, I noticed that
Speaker 3: you liked my post about my upcoming book. I'd love
Speaker 3: for you to check out the pre order. You can
Speaker 3: get this free thing x y Z Here's that's such a.
Speaker 2: Good tip, even for someone like me who has one
Speaker 2: admin to like as a task, just look at my
Speaker 2: comments and if people like it. Oh yeah, sounds so simple.
Speaker 3: Well that's called permission based marketing, right, So they took
Speaker 3: the first action. They're essentially raising their hand and saying
Speaker 3: you have permission to reach out to me. If you
Speaker 3: ever reach out to any one saying hey, I notice
Speaker 3: you engaged on this post, they'll never be like, screw you,
Speaker 3: you spammed me because they took the first action. So
Speaker 3: it's a great way to establish common ground and get
Speaker 3: the conversation going.
Speaker 1: So what does it look like to work with you
Speaker 1: like this? Does it like? So? Because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of like, especially entrepreneurs, you know, they're thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: I might want to work with an agency, but I
Speaker 1: don't have any money, you know, or like I don't
Speaker 1: have enough of a budget. What does that look like?
Speaker 1: Is it largely like sponsors pay you, so they're not
Speaker 1: paying and you kind of just split this profits. Is it?
Speaker 1: Are people really paying out of pocket?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What does that look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so for my social clients, they're paying out of
Speaker 3: pocket and we're like a White Glove award winning social
Speaker 3: media agency, so we're not cheap. So it's usually really
Speaker 3: big CEOs influencers, and our minimum retainer is ten thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a month and that's just LinkedIn, right, if you
Speaker 3: add on Instagram, it's more so we're typically not able
Speaker 3: to service most people because we have such a high
Speaker 3: ticket offer and I essentially need to hire five people
Speaker 3: to run someone's account. It's really intensive, right. But I
Speaker 3: have a LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. The next one is Decemmer
Speaker 3: thirteenth and fourteenth, and basically I have a two day
Speaker 3: training where I take everyone through what I teach my
Speaker 3: team about how to hack LinkedIn. So we go over
Speaker 3: creating a personal brand, copywriting design, and then day two
Speaker 3: is all about the algorithm, engagement hacks, DM campaigns, and
Speaker 3: I basically teach the same thing that I teach my team,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people will like send in their
Speaker 3: social lead or send in a couple team members and
Speaker 3: then they're literally up to speed. And I've created influencers.
Speaker 3: I started this about a year ago and there's been
Speaker 3: like dozens of influencers that have come out of this program.
Speaker 2: Is that the goal, like you're teaching them how to
Speaker 2: then become have a bigger platform, grow there, you know, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get engagement, increase their sales, start a personal brand.
Speaker 3: And like I said, like literally have created entrepreneur influencers
Speaker 3: from scratch.
Speaker 2: Who had how much of the work at the two
Speaker 2: day workshop?
Speaker 3: Usually with we give promo codes, so it's about like
Speaker 3: seventeen seventeen hundred dollars, it's two thousand dollars, and then
Speaker 3: we usually give like thirty If.
Speaker 2: You work for a company and you're in marketing, like
Speaker 2: I would take that, you know, like your company would
Speaker 2: take that for it, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's and people don't use their professional development funds enough.
Speaker 2: They just don't think about it. And they also may say,
Speaker 2: like oh, I just have a I heard I have
Speaker 2: a cap of like five hundred. Well make a case,
Speaker 2: you know, a case for it.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm happy to give you guys a promo code
Speaker 3: and you can get a referral fee for anybody who
Speaker 3: signs on who listens to this podcast if you want.
Speaker 2: Maybe even have done that before. I'm just like it
Speaker 2: sounds good.
Speaker 3: We haven't done that, yeah, okay, oh yeah, it's the
Speaker 3: promo code that you want.
Speaker 1: Ooh, brown ambition.
Speaker 2: We usually use brown Ambition for our.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we use brown Ambition together. All right, if you
Speaker 3: guys want thirty five percent off, you guys five percent off,
Speaker 3: you could go to yap Media dot ioslash course and
Speaker 3: use code brown ambition all.
Speaker 1: One word and we'll do We'll put the link in
Speaker 1: the description.
Speaker 3: Okay, perfect, I have it.
Speaker 1: And you said December, when is it again?
Speaker 3: December thirteenth and fourth virtual I'm assuming Okay, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: all virtual, but it's me teaching live and guys, this
Speaker 3: has gotten like twelve out of ten raving reviews. I've
Speaker 3: had maybe three hundred students go through and never had
Speaker 3: a refund. Everybody has said it's been like one of
Speaker 3: the best master classes they ever took. And so I
Speaker 3: know anyone who takes it is gonna really like the class.
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds great. Yeah, So what was your first
Speaker 1: like what was your kind of hero business like? For me,
Speaker 1: it was a budgeanista. I used to teach one on
Speaker 1: once when you first got into to business, like, what
Speaker 1: did that look like? What was the first thing that
Speaker 1: you started with?
Speaker 3: Well, I had a crazy You didn't ask anything about
Speaker 3: my background. My background is crazy. I had a crazy background.
Speaker 3: So I started off working at Hot ninety seven when
Speaker 3: I was in college. For three years. I was Angie
Speaker 3: Martinez his assistant ooh New York. Yeah, unpaid assistant for
Speaker 3: three years, so I was essentially a glorified intern. That
Speaker 3: was like the point of the internecondn't.
Speaker 2: Do that anymore.
Speaker 3: That's illegal now, But that was like what everybody did
Speaker 3: at Hot in ninety seven before. So I thought I
Speaker 3: was going to be the next Angie Martinez. I ended
Speaker 3: up leaving because they didn't give me a paid job,
Speaker 3: and I got upset. Me and Angie orrifye now and
Speaker 3: I started a blog site called the Sorority of hip
Speaker 3: Hop dot com Strawberry Blunt dot com. I was a
Speaker 3: bad girl back then and the podcast, sorry, the website
Speaker 3: blew up. It was like in twenty ten when like
Speaker 3: blogs were super hot. We were like, you know, up
Speaker 3: there with rap radar and all those other types of blogs.
Speaker 3: We almost had a show on MTV. They filmed me
Speaker 3: all summer. I was going to be the lead of
Speaker 3: a show right after they ended Jersey Shore, and I
Speaker 3: was like hosting parties at the time with this blog
Speaker 3: site and everything like this. MTV backed out two weeks
Speaker 3: before they were supposed to air the show. I was
Speaker 3: devastated because by then I got rejected for eighty seven.
Speaker 3: I also was swaying the morning's co host for two weeks,
Speaker 3: and then they fired me after two weeks. And then
Speaker 3: I didn't get MTV, and so I had all these
Speaker 3: at bats but didn't make it. So then I got
Speaker 3: like sort of thought, all right, maybe this isn't for me.
Speaker 3: Let me go into corporate. I worked at HP than Disney,
Speaker 3: and I started my podcast young and profiting about four
Speaker 3: years into my corporate career when I just felt bored
Speaker 3: and wasn't doing it for money. I was just thought,
Speaker 3: you know, I know how to do this. Podcasts are hot.
Speaker 3: Now I had all these online radio shows working on
Speaker 3: the side of Hot ninety seven and when I had
Speaker 3: the blog site, so I knew a lot about radio
Speaker 3: and production, right, Okay, let me just do this, And
Speaker 3: so I started this podcast. By episode two, I had
Speaker 3: ten volunteers in a Slack channel. I had all these
Speaker 3: fans on LinkedIn because I started my LinkedIn journey at
Speaker 3: this point that would reach out to me and be like,
Speaker 3: I just want to help your show change my life.
Speaker 3: And so I knew how to do all these different
Speaker 3: things audio editing, video editing, social media, blog posting, building websites.
Speaker 3: I knew all this different marketing stuff. So I started
Speaker 3: taking these volunteers and then teaching them things. I taught
Speaker 3: one guy how to do videos, one guy how to
Speaker 3: do a website, one girl had to do my social
Speaker 3: Then fast forward two years later, my show is like
Speaker 3: really big, and all the guests that are coming on
Speaker 3: my show are these rich CEOs, authors, influencers, And at
Speaker 3: the end of my show, I kept getting asked the
Speaker 3: same question, how did you build your LinkedIn? Can you
Speaker 3: do this for me? How did you grow your podcast?
Speaker 3: Can you do this for me? And I had all
Speaker 3: these volunteers, and I would always say like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: I just have a volunteer team. I've got a corporate career.
Speaker 3: This is just for fun until COVID hit and I
Speaker 3: found myself with all this free time and a couple
Speaker 3: of these guests on my show were being very persistent
Speaker 3: about being my clients, and then I just started taking
Speaker 3: my first clients. My second client, guys, was a thirty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars retainer a month. Oh, my second client. And
Speaker 3: so within six months my company was already making one
Speaker 3: hundred grand a month. I had thirty paid employees around
Speaker 3: the world, quit my job, and just the rest is
Speaker 3: his story. Now I'm like, you know, my company is
Speaker 3: making probably almost five million dollars by the end of
Speaker 3: the year this year. So it's been an awesome journey
Speaker 3: of just lots of struggle until one time it hit,
Speaker 3: you know, and then I just kept rolling with it.
Speaker 2: CEO like, do you have other executive level support alongside you?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: I do. I'm definitely the CEO and founder, but I
Speaker 3: have Jason who is one of my executives, and Kate,
Speaker 3: and so Jason helps me run the network, Kate helps
Speaker 3: me run the social media agency. I'm really in charge
Speaker 3: of like at this point, sales new business, I recruit podcasters,
Speaker 3: closed sponsorship deals, and close social deals. But other than that,
Speaker 3: I just have everybody doing everything else and I just
Speaker 3: kind of think of new ideas.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you've gotten to that nice place where
Speaker 2: instead of doing everything, you can sort of like focus
Speaker 2: on your zone and genius. Is that right? Is that
Speaker 2: how you feel? I?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of my key reasons for being
Speaker 3: so successful is my ability to delegate, because even because
Speaker 3: I had started this podcast as a side hustle, so
Speaker 3: from the start, I've been delegating to all my volunteers.
Speaker 3: So from the start, I always had a remote team
Speaker 3: and people to help me, and I just I'm really
Speaker 3: good at just like letting go and teaching people and
Speaker 3: then letting them take it on and elevating them.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I love me. So what's inn Did
Speaker 2: I talk over you again?
Speaker 3: You? Okay?
Speaker 1: No? I was just going to say that, like, so
Speaker 1: what you know? Know, So you have these businesses, these
Speaker 1: kind of successful, successful subsidiaries of the original business, Like
Speaker 1: where do you see yourself? And then that's like five
Speaker 1: to ten years, Like, what's what's the desired outcome for
Speaker 1: when it all shakes out well.
Speaker 3: Building this podcast network. We're already just one year in.
Speaker 3: I've signed like huge podcasts, Like I told you, I've
Speaker 3: got Jenikatuer, Amy Porterfield, Trench Shelton, Like, I just got
Speaker 3: all these huge names. We're crushing it. I want to
Speaker 3: be as known as like Wondery is in this space
Speaker 3: in terms of a podcast network, right, I really think
Speaker 3: that's going to happen within the next year. We're already,
Speaker 3: you know, up there with all the major networks. Already
Speaker 3: I'm writing books. So like, personally, I'm going to put
Speaker 3: out a book in twenty twenty five hopefully. So I
Speaker 3: don't have a name yet, just getting started now. So
Speaker 3: like I just signed a contract and thank you, thank you,
Speaker 3: So going to be writing a book, going to be
Speaker 3: putting out I'm sure I'll put out a podcast course,
Speaker 3: But really it's just honestly growing my network. And we're
Speaker 3: the only network that has a full service social media
Speaker 3: arm so we're not just monetizing people's podcasts, we're monetizing
Speaker 3: their YouTube, we're monetizing their social branded content, and then
Speaker 3: we're able to execute on all of it on their behalf.
Speaker 3: So it's a really innovative approach, and there's no other
Speaker 3: networks that are really even competing with us in this space.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to LinkedIn because I love
Speaker 2: it so much and I'm actually I have a have
Speaker 2: a community of women called the Mandy Moneymakers Women of Color,
Speaker 2: and it's career coaching and my specialty as negotiations. I
Speaker 2: live for the high and the thrill of a negotiation.
Speaker 2: I would love to know, though, because it seems like
Speaker 2: with LinkedIn your sort of maybe working with people who
Speaker 2: are using it for their businesses or for their brands.
Speaker 2: I work with women who want to use it to
Speaker 2: amplify their career and maybe build a brand. Do you
Speaker 2: have any keys to LinkedIn that you can share?
Speaker 1: I'm curious.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you know some stuff even I don't know.
Speaker 2: So I want to learn like three keys to maximizing
Speaker 2: LinkedIn right now that we can sort of take away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so three tips for LinkedIn. LinkedIn right now is
Speaker 3: prioritizing meaningful content, uh, which means that you want to
Speaker 3: focus on your keywords. You want to make sure that
Speaker 3: your profile has keywords that are aligned to your niche
Speaker 3: that people would be searching for that keyword on LinkedIn,
Speaker 3: and then you want to make sure that your posts
Speaker 3: also include those same keywords that might be found in
Speaker 3: your first connections following that have those keywords in their profile.
Speaker 3: That way LinkedIn can basically match your post and serve
Speaker 3: them to people who have those keywords in their profile.
Speaker 3: So again, LinkedIn is looking for experts. So if you
Speaker 3: put up a post and it has a keyword, like
Speaker 3: let's say you're in real estate, you put up a
Speaker 3: post that has the real estate keyword, your profile is
Speaker 3: validated that you're a real estate expert. You've got that keyword,
Speaker 3: You've got people who have like put skills related to
Speaker 3: real estate on your profile, and so LinkedIn can validate
Speaker 3: through their algorithms that you're an expert. Now LinkedIn is
Speaker 3: going to serve that real estate post to other people
Speaker 3: who have real estate in their profile in their first connections.
Speaker 3: If those people engage on your posts, they're going to
Speaker 3: share it with those people's followings who are likely in
Speaker 3: the same industry niche, and then you'll have more visibility.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: The second thing to note is that shares is really
Speaker 3: where it's at on LinkedIn. Every single viral action on
Speaker 3: LinkedIn is actually waged differently, so alike, for example, is
Speaker 3: one point, a common is two points, a share is
Speaker 3: four points. So if you want to go viral, you
Speaker 3: always need to optimize for shares, and that means that
Speaker 3: you want to have shareable content. Most of the shareable
Speaker 3: content is typically inspirational or motivational because they're most relatable
Speaker 3: to the broadest audience.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Educational content is also really sharable. It's not as sharable,
Speaker 3: but it will be shared in a more targeted niche way, right,
Speaker 3: So you always want to optimize for shares. So that's
Speaker 3: the second point, and the third point is you want
Speaker 3: to understand all the different engagement hacks on LinkedIn and
Speaker 3: the little nuances because on LinkedIn, it's not really about
Speaker 3: your content. It's about how you post up your content.
Speaker 3: That's more important than the actual content itself. So, for example,
Speaker 3: in your caption, if you're trying to go viral, you
Speaker 3: should not link out to an external third party link
Speaker 3: because LinkedIn's goal is to keep people engaged on the
Speaker 3: platform for as long as possible, So you never want
Speaker 3: to bring them to like YouTube, for example in the caption,
Speaker 3: because LinkedIn will suppress the post. There's also all these
Speaker 3: different like other spam filters that you need to avoid,
Speaker 3: such as like chunky paragraphs. People like to skim because
Speaker 3: everybody's reading on mobile, So you want to have like
Speaker 3: line by line content on social media. A paragraph is
Speaker 3: really one or two sentences, not three to five sentences, right,
Speaker 3: So you want to have paragraph breaks and make it
Speaker 3: more skimmable in terms of your caption and as short
Speaker 3: as possible. Also, you want to make sure, like I said,
Speaker 3: that you have got keywords in your posts. You want
Speaker 3: to make sure you're using hashtags correctly. Three hashtags max.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people put too many hashtags. It's
Speaker 3: not Instagram. You'll actually hurt yourself if you put too
Speaker 3: many hashtags. You shouldn't tag people who aren't going to
Speaker 3: engage on your posts. So there's so many different like
Speaker 3: little nuances and hacks that you need to learn when
Speaker 3: it comes to LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, that's I mean, that's some great takeaways for now,
Speaker 2: and I feel like that's always changing. So when it
Speaker 2: comes to following those shifts. And for example, I used
Speaker 2: to work in SEO marketing, so we were constantly obsessed
Speaker 2: with what Google was doing and thinking and feeling all
Speaker 2: the time, and they would like put out these reports
Speaker 2: once a year on like their eight score, which is
Speaker 2: expertise off. I forget all of them. I haven't been
Speaker 2: in there in a minute. But anyway, So where are
Speaker 2: you tracking the trends of LinkedIn? Are you just seeing
Speaker 2: it because you're in it so much?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm an influencer myself, and because I'm running most
Speaker 3: of the influencer accounts, I see the trends right away.
Speaker 3: We have all these social dashboards where I can see
Speaker 3: like the assets, hype, the engagement and so on, and
Speaker 3: so I can see right away. For example, polls were
Speaker 3: really popular, then they became unpopular, and now they're popular again,
Speaker 3: and I can see those fluctuations. Right, Hey, we put
Speaker 3: out a pole and everybody did good this week. Let's
Speaker 3: keep testing poles and see how they do. Right, So
Speaker 3: I see the trends really quickly because of that, and
Speaker 3: can validate things like that.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 1: So I feel it's so crazy because you know, when
Speaker 1: LinkedIn first came out, it was like this is where
Speaker 1: you go to get a job. Yeah, right, and so
Speaker 1: like what if you're you know, and if you're someone
Speaker 1: who thought that that's all LinkedIn could be good for
Speaker 1: So what are the other ways that people can LinkedIn?
Speaker 1: Not just coming here to look for a job? That's great,
Speaker 1: but what are the other things like you can oh?
Speaker 3: LinkedIn is awesome, So let me give you a step.
Speaker 3: There's one hundred and thirty five million active daily users
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn that are looking at content. Guess how many
Speaker 3: people are actually creating content? What percentage of that one
Speaker 3: thirty five million do you guys think are creating percent?
Speaker 1: What do you say is right?
Speaker 3: Five percent? Five percent of people are only creating content.
Speaker 3: So there's so much like room to grow. There's there's
Speaker 3: not a lot of competition, and if you know the
Speaker 3: engagement acts like if you took my class, for example,
Speaker 3: anybody who takes my class from the first week, they're
Speaker 3: getting three hundred likes on their stuff, like they're doing
Speaker 3: really well and getting a lot of visibility because there's
Speaker 3: not a lot of competition, especially if you sort of
Speaker 3: know how to leverage the algorithm to your benefit, so
Speaker 3: you can become the dominant person in your niche on LinkedIn,
Speaker 3: and that can give you a lot of leverage. The
Speaker 3: other reason why it's a actually great for business owners
Speaker 3: is because it allows you to do really great proactive
Speaker 3: lead generation. You can send out an unlimited amount of dms.
Speaker 3: There's a couple different hacks, like, for example, you can
Speaker 3: join a group and on LinkedIn. You guys, if you're
Speaker 3: not really LinkedIn savvy, you may not know this, but
Speaker 3: you're only allowed to DM your first connections, right, But
Speaker 3: you can unlimitedly DM your first connection. So let's say
Speaker 3: you get up to the limit of thirty thousand first connections.
Speaker 3: You can DM those thirty thousand connections about one thousand
Speaker 3: or two thousand a day and generate leads just through
Speaker 3: those thirty thousand connections. So it's always a goal to
Speaker 3: try to reach and get those thirty thousand connections with
Speaker 3: people who are in your target audience for your business.
Speaker 3: Right outside of that, you can join groups that have
Speaker 3: your target audience, and once you're in that group, you
Speaker 3: can then DM everybody in that group. So, for example,
Speaker 3: when I'm soliciting my LinkedIn masterclass, I'll join all the
Speaker 3: social media groups and I'll be dming people to join
Speaker 3: my and I get so many leads in business and
Speaker 3: business folks that way. The other thing that you can
Speaker 3: do is just understand the titles that you're looking for
Speaker 3: who typically buys from you and then proactively invite those
Speaker 3: people to your network and then again DM them and
Speaker 3: start a campaign with them. So there's no other platform
Speaker 3: like that that you can like search. LinkedIn has all
Speaker 3: these different search attributes. You can search by locations, title, company,
Speaker 3: you know, so many different search factors, and also by behaviors,
Speaker 3: the events they sign up for, the groups they sign
Speaker 3: up for, the people they engage with, and then you
Speaker 3: can retarget them in the DMS, which is really different
Speaker 3: from any other social platforms. So when somebody comes to
Speaker 3: me for social media and they are like a coach
Speaker 3: or they have some sort of B to B business,
Speaker 3: anybody who basically offers a service that's not necessarily like
Speaker 3: a product, right, products don't do that well on LinkedIn,
Speaker 3: but any services do. I'm always like, LinkedIn is where
Speaker 3: I'm going to get you ROI. Let's start with LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: I'll get you ROI. Then you can go onto other
Speaker 3: platforms because that's it's the easiest place to make money online. Honestly,
Speaker 3: it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at my LinkedIn because I never want
Speaker 1: I've never gone I don't and I'm looking I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've got twenty thousand followers, I'm leaving a lot of
Speaker 1: money on the table. Huh h.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we could tenx that if you want of anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I'm like I wouldn't. I guess I haven't
Speaker 1: really thought about like what do I send them, what
Speaker 1: do I need from them? What do I you know,
Speaker 1: like like yeah, it just would be thinking about like
Speaker 1: what what's you know, what's the product?
Speaker 3: Well, like your podcast would be a good one to
Speaker 3: get people to subscribe and review your podcasts. And then
Speaker 3: don't you have a course or something like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do. I have an online school deliveratory academy.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not that we don't have, it's just
Speaker 1: that I never thought about. You know, I'm on there
Speaker 1: and you know we have our but I just you know,
Speaker 1: people will ask to connect and be a part of
Speaker 1: my network, and I'm just like sure, you know, I
Speaker 1: just looked. I was like, there's twenty thousand shores.
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: I use LinkedIn heavily for my business as a career
Speaker 2: negotiation coach. It makes so much sense. And I use
Speaker 2: not as much from the to DM people that's really smart,
Speaker 2: to like DM people who follow you, but a lot
Speaker 2: of leads that come into my even my freebie, you know,
Speaker 2: my negotiation scripts come from LinkedIn. And then also I
Speaker 2: think second to that is reels. You know, reels are
Speaker 2: super powerful. Do you help with like other platforms as
Speaker 2: well or just LinkedIn?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, Instagram, YouTube, threads, Twitter, but really it's
Speaker 3: LinkedIn and Instagram is the main focus in terms of growth.
Speaker 2: What I love about LinkedIn too for people because I
Speaker 2: deal with a lot of women who are like I
Speaker 2: want to make it. I don't want to learn the
Speaker 2: new TikTok dance and do the reels to get business.
Speaker 2: It's like the new blog, you know.
Speaker 3: And also the best performing asset is a picture and
Speaker 3: a story, right, So videos don't even work well on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: We didn't talk about that. So videos don't even work well,
Speaker 3: and that's the most time consuming and most expensive thing
Speaker 3: to create on LinkedIn. You just need photos and like
Speaker 3: meaningful content, educational content and stories and you'll do great.
Speaker 1: Have me looking at LinkedIn, like, hey girl, you might
Speaker 1: see me a little more well. We want you know,
Speaker 1: we want to respect your time because we want to
Speaker 1: have you on for our b a qa cool. We
Speaker 1: just want yes, thank you so much, holler you one.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being so vulnerable and open, you know,
Speaker 1: as a Palestinian about what's happening and just giving us,
Speaker 1: you know, educating us on some which I'm sure so
Speaker 1: many of our listeners have never really known or heard before,
Speaker 1: and maybe you have, but to hear from someone who
Speaker 1: gets to experience it, you know, from that group, I
Speaker 1: think is really critical. So thank you for sharing your
Speaker 1: voice in that way. But also thank you for being
Speaker 1: this amazing business woman that was able to pivot and
Speaker 1: then share like all this insights about what does it
Speaker 1: look like to market yourself, what does it look like
Speaker 1: to grow a business, and you know, what does it
Speaker 1: look like to pivot? When you get so many knows,
Speaker 1: it'd be so easy to give up, and you didn't.
Speaker 1: So we really thank you for sharing all parts of
Speaker 1: yourself today.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you, guys, appreciate you. Tiffany and Mandy, thank
Speaker 3: you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, So, if you want to go to Hollands,
Speaker 1: hopefully this comes out before him sor will Emani. If
Speaker 1: you want to go to Hollis, take Collice course. Remember
Speaker 1: it's thirty five percent off for y'all. If this is
Speaker 1: the link will be in the description and Brown Ambition
Speaker 1: all on word to get a discount. We've never done
Speaker 1: that before, so I'm gonna use it. I'll see yay,
Speaker 1: all right, y'all, We will see you on Friday for
Speaker 1: b a q A