Speaker 1: I'm so self conscious because Tiffany always sings in our intros,
Speaker 1: and then I have to do it when she's not here.
Speaker 2: Why I feel like you there with me?
Speaker 1: What did you say?
Speaker 2: I'm ready?
Speaker 1: Is all right?
Speaker 2: And to hear it now, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: It's time for the v a qa A the v
Speaker 1: a qa a v a qa a.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 1: Hey, Sam, thank you for being my hype woman right now. Carla,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: I loved it.
Speaker 1: You did great. I was telling Carla, I'm like, damn it,
Speaker 1: Tiffany's not here means I gotta do the intro stage
Speaker 1: fright starts to settle in. But listen, y'all so excited
Speaker 1: to have Carla in the studio this week. If you
Speaker 1: have not yet, what the hell are you doing with
Speaker 1: your life? Go back to Wednesday's episode, our previous episode
Speaker 1: where we had the wonderful podcast guru radio host Pivot
Speaker 1: with purpose entrepreneur goddess Carla will will Meris on the show.
Speaker 1: Check out that episode. She drops so many gems about
Speaker 1: how you can start your own podcast, and we go
Speaker 1: deep into yeah, everything we did right and wrong when
Speaker 1: it came to launching Brown Ambition and your show. You
Speaker 1: guys don't want to miss that, and Carla was generous
Speaker 1: enough to stick around for us to take some of
Speaker 1: y'all's questions. Okay, so we are digging deep into the
Speaker 1: BA mail bag to answer your questions around business, entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: and of course, because we have Carla here, we can't
Speaker 1: not talk about pivoting. Right If y'all haven't checked out
Speaker 1: Carla's show again, it's called Pivot with Purpose. You can
Speaker 1: check the show notes for links to all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: And just a reminder, if you want to submit a question,
Speaker 1: do not forget how go to our Instagram page. We
Speaker 1: are at Brand and Mission Podcast. Slide into our DMS
Speaker 1: there with your question, or you can email us directly
Speaker 1: if you're old school, Brandambission Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: If you would like a chance to actually be live
Speaker 1: in the studio with us, submit your question via IG
Speaker 1: via a voice note. You got sixty seconds to blow
Speaker 1: us away with your question. Okay. Our producer will then
Speaker 1: select some lucky audience members to join us live in
Speaker 1: the studio. But without further ado, let's get into a
Speaker 1: carl because we got some good questions, all right. First
Speaker 1: question comes from listener Kayla Kayla says this year, I
Speaker 1: want to make a career change from administrative assistant who's
Speaker 1: just making twenty bucks an hour to becoming my own
Speaker 1: boss as a LASH artist. I love my job and
Speaker 1: I feel guilty leaving because for my age at twenty
Speaker 1: three with no college degree, I do get paid well.
Speaker 1: I live with my family, so i'd have no rent.
Speaker 1: My car's paid off, so my expenses are pretty low.
Speaker 1: And did I mention I got no debt? Okay, Carl,
Speaker 1: I mean, Kayla, I was wondering steps. I was wondering
Speaker 1: steps to transition from a nine to five to being
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur. I have so much potential and feel like
Speaker 1: it's wasting away at my desk job. Please assist Kayla.
Speaker 1: All right, Kayla, this is a juicy one. First of all,
Speaker 1: guilty at just twenty three for making a change. Girl.
Speaker 1: If y'all can't do it when you're young, when can
Speaker 1: What does that mean for the rest of us?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Come on, what's your first take on this, Carla? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about her? Question? The guilt? You know?
Speaker 2: I didn't even the guilt?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Is it because I was like, oh my goodness? But
Speaker 2: her ambition literally of wanting more at twenty three. I
Speaker 2: feel like most twenty three year olds would be like
Speaker 2: twenty bucks an hours winning can't con here I come,
Speaker 2: you know, with their savings, especially living at home. So
Speaker 2: first of all, like amazing, amazing that at this age
Speaker 2: you want to do more and the world is your oyster.
Speaker 2: You already know what you want to do. And lash artists.
Speaker 2: Take that money that you got, which you have, you know,
Speaker 2: for you a lot, go invest into a really good
Speaker 2: lash artist that can teach you how to you know,
Speaker 2: certification of lashes and get your certification, get your friends
Speaker 2: to let you do lashes on them for free, get
Speaker 2: some content, start recording before do be afters, and start
Speaker 2: posting posting, posting about you are the new last artists.
Speaker 2: People will start, you know, to pay you, and you
Speaker 2: just have to start while you still have your job.
Speaker 2: On the weekends in the evenings, do lashes, post about it.
Speaker 2: Even if you get two people a week, you will
Speaker 2: have a couple of reels to do before and afters.
Speaker 2: You know, while you're doing it, you know, educate people
Speaker 2: on lashes as well, because it's cute that you're doing it,
Speaker 2: but educators too. For people like me who are like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe we'll just make me go blind,
Speaker 2: give us you know, things about lashes. I think you
Speaker 2: the way that I see she wrote this here, I
Speaker 2: think she's going to be an amazing entrepreneur. It's just
Speaker 2: getting those steps on how to promote, how to market,
Speaker 2: and literally you can get it. I think she's going
Speaker 2: to be a millionaire by the time she's thirty are
Speaker 2: way before.
Speaker 1: Okay, you heard it here first from carl You're going
Speaker 1: to be a millionaire. Yeah. I mean I think to
Speaker 1: your point about using this, like taking this opportunity, taking
Speaker 1: this shot while you're still working, I mean that can
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of a cushion, like you
Speaker 1: still have consistent income coming in and on the side,
Speaker 1: like you know, have that side hustle. You know, use
Speaker 1: your time after work. You're twenty three. You may mention
Speaker 1: nothing about babies or you know, relationships. You got free time, girl,
Speaker 1: use it while you got it, So Tea, you know
Speaker 1: you can be self taught, but like you know, showing
Speaker 1: off your work. I think what Carla said is so
Speaker 1: extremely important, and especially on platforms like TikTok and reels
Speaker 1: right now, ig right now, I mean that is your
Speaker 1: your audience, you know, the people who will want to
Speaker 1: work with you, like that's where they're hanging out. So
Speaker 1: I agree, it's like, how can you get how can
Speaker 1: you be doing the thing that you want to be doing,
Speaker 1: but sharing it with people they could potentially you know,
Speaker 1: hire you and want to work with you. That's really
Speaker 1: the key. And I feel like at twenty three too,
Speaker 1: it's just the first of probably many entrepreneurial ideas you're
Speaker 1: going to have, because start with lashes, then what if
Speaker 1: you become a whole esthetician. You know, what if you
Speaker 1: have your own lash studio, your own you sell your
Speaker 1: own line of lashes at ULTA three, is it still
Speaker 1: ULTI three aulta beauty whatever? You know? Imagine like what's
Speaker 1: the you know, and don't be afraid to to, you know,
Speaker 1: take those bigger steps like from one to the next.
Speaker 1: I also feel like this is maybe the time where
Speaker 1: like I could imagine going to my parents and being like,
Speaker 1: at twenty three, I want to make I want to
Speaker 1: do lashes as a living. If you're not in the space,
Speaker 1: like if you're not on TikTok seeing the girls like
Speaker 1: bringing home the bacon with makeup tutorials and things like that,
Speaker 1: you may have people who doubt you right or maybe
Speaker 1: like you were talking about Carla and our show from
Speaker 1: Wednesday just about how sometimes the haters will be the
Speaker 1: ones closest to you. So I think in that regard,
Speaker 1: my tips always find other people doing anything that you
Speaker 1: want to do, who have done it, who want to
Speaker 1: do it because they won't tell you, like it's out
Speaker 1: of reach, you know.
Speaker 2: And sometimes people project their own insecurities and their own
Speaker 2: limitations onto you so they feel like they can't do it,
Speaker 2: or they going to tell you you can't do it,
Speaker 2: and you can. By the way, this is written everything,
Speaker 2: So you mentioned lash studio for entrepreneurship. Honestly, I hate
Speaker 2: trading time for money. I feel like you can scale
Speaker 2: when you stop trading time for money. So become the
Speaker 2: best lash artists and then start training others on how
Speaker 2: to lash day and open up a studio where you
Speaker 2: can be where Tiffany is right now in Egypt, hanging
Speaker 2: out while it's making you money, because everyone you have
Speaker 2: six beds with people doing lashes all day long while
Speaker 2: you're hanging out in Egypt, or.
Speaker 1: People buying your at home lash kits. Yes, looking at
Speaker 1: your lash tutorials that you've recorded and sell, like there's
Speaker 1: so many. Don't let anyone tell you it's not a business,
Speaker 1: because like, if you believe in it and people need it,
Speaker 1: then you got it. But and as far as like
Speaker 1: the career change, I feel like if you're an assistant
Speaker 1: and you're happy being an assistant for more than a
Speaker 1: few years, you are different. Like I almost worry about
Speaker 1: people who wouldn't feel start to feel itchy, because like,
Speaker 1: your whole role is to support someone else achieve their dream,
Speaker 1: you know, which is great and noble work. But also
Speaker 1: you deserve to have your own dreams and one day
Speaker 1: higher a sistant of your own and they'll follow their
Speaker 1: own path down the line.
Speaker 2: So what I will say, there are people that their
Speaker 2: purpose and their destiny is or the destiny is to
Speaker 2: be of support to others. Like there are some people
Speaker 2: that they truly feel like their purpose and they're the
Speaker 2: best assistants, they are the best secretaries. I remember Mama
Speaker 2: over iHeart in New York. She was there for like
Speaker 2: thirty plus years and she retired from there and she
Speaker 2: couldn't be any happier. So if that's where you are, cool,
Speaker 2: But it does not seem like whoever listens to this
Speaker 2: podcast and Kayla, who's writing that is hers. So since
Speaker 2: you feel uncomfortable, they go and lean towards that like
Speaker 2: uncomfortable feeling because you're bound to be an entrepreneur yourself,
Speaker 2: because you already have it in your mind.
Speaker 1: All right, Kayla, I hope that you feel inspired and
Speaker 1: good luck on your journey. Keep us posted. Okay, I
Speaker 1: want to know how you're last, so.
Speaker 2: Somebody sent me. Y'all gotta tell me about Kayla says
Speaker 2: when she got her own studio or becomes the whole,
Speaker 2: the biggest last artist wherever she's from.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you know, I'm Kayla. You gotta follow
Speaker 1: both of us. Okay, let us know how it goes.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much for your question. And all right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick breaking break and we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with our second question again. I am joined in
Speaker 1: the studio with the brilliant and talented Carla Wilmatics. I
Speaker 1: can't decide which is my favorite way to pronounce your name,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna do it both ways however I decide. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back. All right, Va fan,
Speaker 1: we are back in the studio with another of y'all's questions.
Speaker 1: This question comes from listener Chaney, who has a concern
Speaker 1: about turning off her clients and opening a new commercial workspace.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it all right, Hi, Mandy and Tiffany,
Speaker 1: as as savvy successful business owners that I respect and admire,
Speaker 1: I would love your input. I am opening a new
Speaker 1: commercial space for my photo studio, and as excited as
Speaker 1: I am, I'm also a little nervous because I've had
Speaker 1: to raise my prices. My concern is I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn off the clients I'm trying to reach. I had
Speaker 1: this internal battle of what's the win win price that
Speaker 1: will work for clients, that will cover business expenses, and
Speaker 1: that will support myself and my little one. My prices
Speaker 1: in the past have been much lower where it wasn't sustainable,
Speaker 1: and I heard, oh, you're too expensive. How have you
Speaker 1: or how would you handle this potential objection? Thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to read this O. This is
Speaker 1: a good one, Carla. I want to hear your take
Speaker 1: on this one.
Speaker 2: Well, she said, Mandy and Tiffany. I'm trying. I am now, Tiffany,
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Try your ocation a excuse me. I don't give you
Speaker 1: what Tiffany would have given you.
Speaker 2: I went through this myself, and I had a business
Speaker 2: coach that was like, why are you charging this? Why
Speaker 2: are you charging that? I think we ourselves put her
Speaker 2: don't see the value because we're with ourselves every single day.
Speaker 2: And then she said, you might turn off the clients
Speaker 2: you're trying to reach. No, you're going to turn off
Speaker 2: the clients that you don't need, or the clients that
Speaker 2: you have right now that are not When you're trying
Speaker 2: to reach a certain client, you will race your prices.
Speaker 2: And I started at forty nine dollars an hour. I
Speaker 2: now charge upwards of eight thousand dollars a month. And
Speaker 2: to me, I'm like, who is paying me? I have
Speaker 2: I turned around all all you said yes? When I
Speaker 2: send quotes and they say okay, I'm like, are you
Speaker 2: sure you want to do that? And I never thought
Speaker 2: anyone would. I didn't think anyone would say yes to that.
Speaker 2: But there's a client tele out there. And one of
Speaker 2: the best things my business coach told me was like,
Speaker 2: stop looking at things from my own pocket. Stop looking
Speaker 2: at it from your pocket, and what you would pay?
Speaker 2: What would that clientele pay for what you're offering, and
Speaker 2: you're saying it's a photo studio. I will tell you
Speaker 2: there are some pictures that I've taken with some for free,
Speaker 2: and there are some studios that I've paid for pictures
Speaker 2: where I.
Speaker 1: Was like, why am I paying this much?
Speaker 2: But the final product is what gave it to me.
Speaker 2: So don't you're just doubting yourself. Get it done, and
Speaker 2: you will have to go into a different pool of people.
Speaker 2: But you did not need to find or restructure your
Speaker 2: customer avatar and say, hey, where do they hang out?
Speaker 2: You know, it might not be the tiki TALKI like
Speaker 2: I call, It might not be with the kids. It
Speaker 2: might be someone that has a little bit more money,
Speaker 2: or it could be on sextout. You just find out
Speaker 2: where they hang out this specific clientele and target them.
Speaker 2: You can no longer target, you know, people that are
Speaker 2: looking for fifty dollars pictures. Now you have to look
Speaker 2: for different people and that's what you're gonna market to.
Speaker 2: But girl, raise the prices you and your kids deserve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and Tiffany's not here, but in her spirit,
Speaker 1: I will say she shared multiple times how she approached
Speaker 1: raising the price of her signature program, the Literature Academy,
Speaker 1: and her method has always been, you know, if you
Speaker 1: if you're an early you know, if you're an early
Speaker 1: customer and OG, then you will get grace. You'll get
Speaker 1: grace of notice that prices are going up. And sometimes
Speaker 1: she'll eve an honor the price for you if it's
Speaker 1: like a subscription or whatnot, you know, for the next time.
Speaker 1: So if you want to, you know, give your existing clients,
Speaker 1: you know, who have been loyal to you and have
Speaker 1: worked with you, like give them something to make the
Speaker 1: pain feel a little bit sweeter, Like, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 1: to honor your special client price. You know, you can
Speaker 1: have for the next couple of months, or I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it to you for the next shoot that
Speaker 1: you booked with me and then forever more. You know,
Speaker 1: we're going to have the prices raised. I've had to raise.
Speaker 1: I've had a business coach too, Carla, who has still
Speaker 1: tells me I don't charge enough. I launched my academy,
Speaker 1: the Mandy money Makers last year, been about a year
Speaker 1: and I have I have simplified my prices. I used
Speaker 1: to offer like three different you know levels of price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tiers Now I offer one and still business coaches like, okay,
Speaker 1: you could be offering more. What has helped me and
Speaker 1: will help you too, Shane, I think is when you
Speaker 1: focus on the value, on the transformation that you're offering
Speaker 1: your customer, your perfect client, and when you were able
Speaker 1: to articulate their pain points and tell them how you
Speaker 1: were going to help solve them. To Carla, like you
Speaker 1: said earlier about how when you're like one of your
Speaker 1: superpowers is you're able to sell without making it feel
Speaker 1: like selling. I think that's the key. It's because you
Speaker 1: have so like you have so deeply identified this person's
Speaker 1: in your thoughts and feelings, their doubts, their pain points,
Speaker 1: their struggles, and illustrated your value to them and how
Speaker 1: you can help transform, solve their prop transform whatever they're
Speaker 1: trying to transform. And at the end of it, they're like,
Speaker 1: take my money. You know, that's when you know that
Speaker 1: it's not about the price point so much. It's about
Speaker 1: is your value clear and is it like a no
Speaker 1: brainer for them because they recognize I can only get
Speaker 1: this from her, this is the value that they're bringing.
Speaker 1: So what does that look like for you? You know,
Speaker 1: as a photographer, you know have I wouldn't go I
Speaker 1: would not send an email to your email list, being like,
Speaker 1: the studio is more expensive now you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to raise the prices because the bills are getting higher.
Speaker 1: And that's the equivalence of like what I take about.
Speaker 1: Don't ever go to your boss and ask for a
Speaker 1: raise because inflation is inflationing and bread and eggs are expensive. No,
Speaker 1: what is your contribution? What is your impact? And why
Speaker 1: are you now worth more than you were before?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: So make that abundant and clear. Have you won awards
Speaker 1: for your work? Present your work in a beautiful way
Speaker 1: with pride. The cestimonials got to be poppin', you know,
Speaker 1: from people that you have worked with. But make your
Speaker 1: value undeniable and people will continue to show up.
Speaker 2: And is that even you said one where you like
Speaker 2: people will say like I can only get this from her.
Speaker 2: I would even say they can get it from anybody else,
Speaker 2: but they'll want it from you. With the way that
Speaker 2: you serve it to them. It's like I can only
Speaker 2: get this from her because she's who I want to
Speaker 2: do this for me, And I never sell necessarily what
Speaker 2: is in my program. I sell their results like let
Speaker 2: me Exactlyness, you're having a really hard time recording this right,
Speaker 2: and you can't put it out every day in the
Speaker 2: same day. You don't know how to bog record. You
Speaker 2: can't even come up with a strategy. What if I
Speaker 2: told you that I can. We can launch your podcast
Speaker 2: and manage it and produce it and all you have
Speaker 2: to do is show up for an hour a week
Speaker 2: and that is it. When you wake up on Monday morning,
Speaker 2: it's posted with everything and all your they're like, where
Speaker 2: do I sign up? I want to sign up right now?
Speaker 2: And that's because that's the people's pain point. So that's
Speaker 2: what you have going on over there as well.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, and I bet your client's pain point is
Speaker 1: you're sick of paying, like taking the cheap route going,
Speaker 1: you know, for the Sears photo package and not being
Speaker 1: happy with the results, like you know, or seeing someone's
Speaker 1: cute pictures on Instagram and then booking with them and
Speaker 1: realizing this is horrible, you know, or this is not
Speaker 1: what you want? So how can you solve those pain
Speaker 1: points for them? But unapologetically move forward understanding your value
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, like Carlo said, selling not what you're
Speaker 1: actually the physical thing or the digital thing that you're selling,
Speaker 1: but like how you are solving their problem, how you
Speaker 1: are making your.
Speaker 2: Life photos is like that if my daughter was she
Speaker 2: was one, so sixteen years ago, it was a serious
Speaker 2: photo shoot that I have, man.
Speaker 1: See real my son would have had he couldn't leave
Speaker 1: the house when he turned one. It was a pandemonium.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. But now that I look at it, I'm like,
Speaker 2: this is really was serious because I can do this
Speaker 2: with my iPhone now, so right, the quality that a
Speaker 2: studio can give you, it's totally different than when an
Speaker 2: iPhone can give you, which is what I got here
Speaker 2: and I phone picture.
Speaker 1: All right, Shaney, Well, thank you so much for your question,
Speaker 1: thank you for the kind words for us and for
Speaker 1: the show, and of course mucho mucho thank you to
Speaker 1: Carla for joining me and actually listening, you for having
Speaker 1: in the hot seat with me. I know we didn't
Speaker 1: even like warn you that we were going to make
Speaker 1: you answer questions today, but that's all you do is
Speaker 1: just drop gems. So this is totally natural for you.
Speaker 2: I literally talk for a living. Sometimes I'm like can
Speaker 2: I should? My daughter is like can you shut up now?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, fine, are you an introvert, though,
Speaker 1: do you have to go plug yourself in afterward like
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. So I was very much so an out
Speaker 2: uh more like an ambivry. But I've in my thirties,
Speaker 2: I've become a lot more of an introvert, like I
Speaker 2: really need to recharge, and I've become very socially awkward.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for being candid about that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: make sure I have an hour before the show and
Speaker 1: an hour after the show blocked, because if I can,
Speaker 1: if I have to go into something else, I just
Speaker 1: it's going to be horrible and I'm going to be cranky.
Speaker 1: So you got to save your sparkle, you know, for
Speaker 1: these moments. Thank you so much for sharing your sparkle
Speaker 1: with us. Hey, ba Fam, we could not do this
Speaker 1: show without your support or the support of our team
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. The Brown Ambition podcast is produced by
Speaker 1: Imani Crosby and Dennis Stimplinsky is our in house tech guru.
Speaker 1: I am your co host Mandy Woodrif Santos, and we
Speaker 1: will see y'all next week. Ba Fam.