Transcript of Hala Taha: How to Turn Social Media Visibility Into a Revenue Engine | Marketing

It's probably the best decision I ever made in my life was to really just get started on LinkedIn. Definitely the most thing that I'm like, wow, I'm so thankful that I did that when everybody kind of rolled their eyes at me and that I just showed up every day and built it brick by brick.

You cannot scale to the elite level where like you are a household name, people know you, you're getting paid 6 figures to speak. Like you cannot scale to that without a team.

Your brand Enables you to get paid more. I was able to charge like the upper, upper limit of what somebody would pay for their social and podcast because I had the social proof. I'm really scared for young people in terms of like their inability to actually acquire skills. If you can acquire your skills online, I feel like that is the way to future-proof yourself. What's up, YAP fam? A little while ago, I joined Courtney Johnson as a guest on her show, Built in Public Podcast. And we had such an incredible conversation that I knew I had to share it right here on our feed. Usually I'm the one in the host seat grilling entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses, but this time around Courtney flipped the script on me and we talked about how I grew my personal brand and built YAP Media from the ground up. Now, I had an absolute blast recording with Courtney. She's one of my friends in Austin, one of my new friends, and this convo gives a really cool behind the scenes look into my own story that I don't always get to share. I don't always feel comfortable to share, so you guys are gonna like it.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this special crossover episode with Courtney Johnson.

Welcome to Built in Public. I am your host, Courtney Johnson. I've been a full-time content creator and a personal brand strategist for 7 years, and I've really built my career sharing the process, not just the outcomes of personal brand. Built in Public is about what it actually looks like to build a brand, a business, and to build real leverage in the creator economy. We're talking strategy, systems, audience growth, monetization, and that uncomfortable middle ground between I have an idea and this is actually working. I'll be sharing what I'm testing, what's working, what's not, and I'm going to be bringing on people who are building their careers and companies out loud too. If you want honest conversations, practical insight, and zero BS, you are in the right place. Let's build in public. Today I'm sitting down with Hala Taha. Hala built one of the biggest podcasts in the entire world. It's called Young and Profiting. She built it completely from scratch without industry backing and turned it into a major, major multimillion-dollar media company. Hala is a founder of YAP Media, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and she's someone who has built her brand by consistently showing up, taking up space, and owning her voice in rooms where she wasn't always expected.

Hala has grown an audience of millions, interviewed some of the biggest names in business, but what's most interesting is how intentionally she's built both influence and infrastructure at the same time. So today we're talking about what it looks like to actually build authority, to scale your platform, and to create opportunities instead of waiting for them. Hey, Hala.

Hey, Courtney.

Welcome to the pod. I'm happy you're here.

I'm happy to be here too.

We just had a great conversation. We're doing a little like swap cast situation today.

Yeah, we're here all day together.

We're here all day. We're spending the day at the studio and I, I wanna start with talking about personal brand. What is your personal brand origin story? Like, how did you start?

Well, I feel like I've been trying to make it online since I was literally like 18. Like I was so early to the game. Um, and I—

How did you know? Like, how did you know that this was a thing?

Well, I started my career in radio and, um, I worked at Hot 97. I was Angie Martinez's assistant for like 3 years, who was like the voice of New York at the time. This is like over 10 years ago. And, uh, I was really interested in radio and I was really interested in this like new, like influencer world. But at that time there was no word called influencer. Um, you know, nobody was really like famous online yet, and I was kind of like really early to it. So I actually started a blog when I was like 24 or something called The Sorority of Hip Hop after my radio days. And I had this, these like online radio shows before podcasts were even a thing.

Hmm.

And so like I started out like super young just trying to make it online and I was kind of like too early. Like my biggest platform was like Twitter and I had like 6,000 followers, but like that was a lot back then.

Yeah.

You know, I had a YouTube channel that had a couple thousand subscribers and like that was super cool back then because nobody, like there was no concept of like an influencer with millions of followers. So I just really wanted to be visible online and try to like experiment with the internet. So I was starting early on. Now, um, the first like big break I had, I think was LinkedIn.

Mm-hmm.

So in 2018, when I started my first like real podcast, like Young and Profiting, that, that's like a top 100 podcast today. I started in 2018 and I started posting about my journey of becoming a podcaster and interviewing all these cool people on LinkedIn. And that's when I first like really started establishing a brand. Where people knew me and, um, I had some sort of influence and audience. Yeah.

So you, yeah, a lot of our listeners are like kind of in that cringe phase and still feeling cringe of posting or maybe around a certain topic. Did you have that when you were starting?

I didn't have any reservations about what people thought about me because I was so used to putting myself online and, uh, so used to kind of peers or family looking down upon that or thinking that it like, you know, I was like the black sheep or that it was cringe Um, so I just like had the confidence to start posting online and didn't really feel like it was wrong to post online or that I would get in trouble to post online. I knew that that was something that I really wanted and wanted to figure out. So I didn't have a lot of like, uh, cringiness related to posting online.

Yeah. Your consistency is really impressive. I mean, you've been online for like 10+ years consistently, consistently posting. How did you maintain that consistency? I mean, that's really impressive.

I have to say, I didn't do it alone. I'm somebody who always recruits a team. When I first started my podcast, 2 months into it, I had 10 volunteers in a Slack channel.

Wow.

I don't even, like, you know, I have a 10-person team that runs my social media now. And, you know, you need arms and legs as you grow a brand, as you, as you grow a business, you can't, think that you're gonna keep doing the same things you were doing 10 years ago and that you can, you know, post every post yourself. At some point you need to scale with systems and a team, right? So I've always been of this mentality of like having people support me, and I've never been shy to ask for help, even if they were interns or volunteers, uh, especially when I wasn't making any money. I would literally put out posts like, hey, if you wanna learn how to post on social media, you know, come join my, my movement.

Mm-hmm.

For Young and Profiting Podcast, and I would just train people how to support me in my DMs, how to support me with my website, how to support me editing videos and posting online. And I basically would just recruit teams to help me until I actually had a business where I started paying people to help me post online and, and become more visible. So I'm not really afraid of asking for support, and I think that was a big help.

Yeah, I think interns is interesting too. Like a lot of people have to take an internship to finish a certain course or like a completion or learn a certain skill. And that can be a huge win-win. I love that. I love what you're positioning it as, because it is a win-win. It's like you're trained, like you're going out of your way to give this person training that they would have otherwise pay a mentor for or pay like a course for that you're giving for free. In exchange, they're helping you with, with content. That's a great place to start.

Yeah. So whenever I had any sort of like free labor, like a lot of people will give me crap about this. Like I'll say in an interview, like I had free interns work for me for 2 years and people will be like, how dare you?

Mm-hmm.

How dare you exploit people? When literally, if you talk to those people, they'll be like, Hala taught me everything. Mm-hmm. If it wasn't for Hala, like, you know, I, I was able to get X career. Mm-hmm. Some of these people have equity in my business now and are leaders and business partners with me, you know, 8 years later. Right? So there's so much opportunity in taking an internship. I myself interned for free at Hot 97 for 3 years under Angie Martinez and learned so much. I'm literally making millions off the skills that I learned from Angie Martinez now. Mm-hmm. And so I really am a believer of doing free work if you are learning something in exchange. And when it came to these interns, uh, you know, as soon as they learned something really like valuable and they were really good at it, I wouldn't have them keep doing the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

That's exploiting their labor. I would say, okay, now train that to the next person and let me teach you something new.

Mm-hmm.

And you, as long as you're able to keep teaching them, I feel like then it's like a, a win-win situation. As soon as you're not teaching them anymore and just getting work from them, Then yeah, you've gotta pay him.

Yeah. This is like the perfect level of, of spicy topic I love to talk about here. Um, yeah, I, I remember when I was in college, Gary Vee had this video that I saw and it was tips for college students. So I was watching this YouTube video, I'm like, who's this Gary Vee guy? And one of his tips from, for college students was like, don't be afraid to, to take on free work. Like go seek out free work from people you admire. And at the time I was like, That's such bullshit. I am paying for all this shit. I'm going into debt. Like, why would I take on free work? Fuck you, Gary Vee. I was like, I hate this dude.

Yeah.

Um, then I got an opportunity to work for, to, to take on a couple of projects for free and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do them. Oh my God. I learned way more than I would've even in a class. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, Gary Vee. So if I ever meet him, I'm gonna tell him that story.

And you gotta start somewhere, right?

Yeah.

If you are, if, if I'm looking for somebody that I'm gonna pay to do something, I want you to already have the skill.

Right.

I want you to, you know, do a better job than I could do myself.

Yeah.

But if I hire somebody for free, or if I have somebody for free working or for a stipend, you know, now I have a, a company and we give out stipends to interns, you know, so we're still, mm-hmm, we're paying them, but just not as much as a full-time role. It's like, I'm gonna have more leeway.

Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna like take my time with you and give you like that attention and in return not have to pay as much as a regular employee because you don't have the skills that warrants compensation. Mm-hmm. For a regular employee.

Another way when you're starting out, you can reduce your labor costs is doing trades. Like I used to help people, like I would, I would run someone's social media for like a month in exchange, they would build my website. I would, you know, give someone a social media audit. They would give me a like tax or shipping audit or something. So I'm curious, did you facilitate any of those trades early on?

I loved trading. Um, but I would trade to actually grow my audience. So I would trade audiences. So my first point of leverage was LinkedIn. So I remember when I first started posting on LinkedIn, I have like 290,000 followers now. The first year I posted on LinkedIn, I had like 60,000 followers and this was years ago. So that was like a pretty big following. And suddenly I could call myself like the biggest podcaster on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. You know, it's competing with like Jay Shetty and all these other huge podcasters, but just on the LinkedIn platform. So I'd reach out to all the different podcast tools that I knew, like Riverside, Sure. I'd reach out to all the different apps, Castbox, Player FM, Podbean, all my hosting provi— like all the different hosting providers. And I'd say like, hey, I'm the biggest podcaster on LinkedIn. I will post about your app, your email newsletter, your website in exchange for you promoting me in your, on your website, promoting me in your app, featuring me here.

Mm-hmm.

And then I got all these different features and it helped my podcast grow. And in return, I posted about their platform on LinkedIn. And so a lot of my growth strategies. have to do with trades, even just this podcast swap, for example. Like I'll go on your podcast, you'll go on my podcast and we'll trade. So I really like to trade to grow my platform specifically.

That is so smart. So for all of our listeners, maybe they're going to do a trade with a newsletter, maybe a podcast, maybe some sort of industry resource, um, in order to grow. That is so incredibly smart. I love that cheat code. Love. What other things did you do early on that, um, Maybe you get a little flack for?

Uh, what, what are some of the things that I did early on that I get flack for? I think, you know, when I first started posting on LinkedIn, um, and I started posting about my podcast, people would be like, this is not the place to talk about this on LinkedIn.

Why?

Because even back then it was like, LinkedIn is strictly just professional LinkedIn. Yeah. So, so back then, 8 years ago when I started posting on LinkedIn, it was so unheard of to like talk about something else other than your job. On LinkedIn. And so people would literally be like, what do you think you're trying to do? Why are you posting this on a professional platform? And that's literally the thing that got me noticed and got me popular on LinkedIn. Yeah.

For all the comments of people being like, what are you doing?

Yeah. So like now I get, sometimes I get flack for like the way I dress. Like I'm not dressed professionally enough for LinkedIn or even the topics that I talk about. People will say, oh, that's not appropriate for LinkedIn. And I'm like, well, there's no rules. Yeah, there's literally no rules. There's literally no rules. Like, so who are you to say that that's not okay? Um, I, I think something else that I've gotten flack for is like the concept of like engagement pods on LinkedIn.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So, um, I really understand how the algorithm works and in the first 90 minutes of posting, you really need to have an influx of engagement. And so with my like students or clients, I've got all these different engagement pods. Mm-hmm. Where basically like if you post something that day, everybody's required to like, like and comment on the post.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, some people are like, well, you know, that's cheating. It's totally within LinkedIn's terms of service.

Yeah, it's totally fine.

It's totally fine. Like LinkedIn likes it. They want you to take people from Slack or WhatsApp or Facebook or wherever and bring 'em onto LinkedIn, right?

Mm-hmm.

So they actually don't mind that at all. And it helps you with the algorithm. And when you bring people together that are like-minded, that, uh, all wanna win on LinkedIn, you end up creating a community that supports each other that might, you know, go to conferences conferences together, might hop on calls together and share tips and tricks, and you guys end up learning faster and you created a peer group. So I feel like there's so many reasons why engagement pods are awesome. I'm just totally against like AI bot fake engagement pods, but as long as it's all real people.

Yeah.

And especially if you like niche down where like you're all like in real estate or something supporting each other, there's so many gains that can happen, uh, with that. Um, I remember when I first started on LinkedIn, I found every podcaster that was popular on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. And I recruited them into an engagement pod. And then we had monthly calls and started sharing strategies.

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of those podcasters blew up and we're still friends to this day. And we've done, uh, you know, speaking engagements together and helped each other grow. So it's like, I feel like it's a really great strategy that a lot of people unknowingly, uh, like they don't understand the benefits of it and they just look at it as cheating. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Um, I, I have an engagement pod, like my content club is an engagement pod. Mm-hmm. Like at the end of every single session, we go and we comment and we like each other's posts. Yeah. And it gives it a nice initial boost. But I, yeah, it's, it's interesting. I feel like that's a, a question I, I get a lot. So when you started out, you did some trades in order to grow. You did some engagement pods and you had some interns, people that you were training. What does your team look like now that you're profitable?

I have such a big team. Like specifically when it comes to content. Okay.

Like your personal brand.

Um, so I have 60 people all around the world that work at YAP Media. So I have a very large team. My team specifically is broken out to, I have a social media team, I have a production team, and I also have a guest outreach team.

Mm-hmm.

That, that is just specifically to reach out to guests. So my social team, um, I've got a social lead, I've got engagement specialists who are real people who manage my DMs and comments. Um, and I've got a copywriter and basically my lead, Jaden, who kind of just manages like the entire strategy. Um, I have a content, uh, marketing support now to help me with all my webinars and presentations, 'cause I do a ton of free training, webinars, courses. I'm launching a new school program that's gonna require a lot of training and courses and, and materials like that. So I've got a content marketer. On the podcast side, I've got an executive producer. researcher, um, and, uh, you know, editors, video editors, all that stuff. I've got a, a pretty large, uh, team. Mm-hmm. And I think the reason why I was able to get such a large team is because I started a social media podcast agency. So I essentially am a client.

Mm-hmm.

And so I'm our biggest client at the company, essentially.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So for somebody that's like, you know, they're starting out, they're consistent on social media, they're starting to optimize, they're building their personal brand, and they wanna make their first hire or start to delegate. What would that first step be?

Um, my first hire was a video editor. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a really common path, especially if you're a creator, right? Video editing is extremely time-consuming. It's extremely hard to get good at. And unless you want to be an influencer in the video editing space, there's like no reason for you to really like learn that skill.

Mm-hmm.

So I'd say like video editing, audio editing was another thing that I, I quickly outsourced. Um, the last thing you actually wanna outsource is your original thought content.

Mm-hmm.

So the most thing that I spend my time on now, which, uh, you know, sometimes is mind-blowing, especially to new people in the organization. The most things that I spend my time on is like webinar content.

Mm-hmm.

And like the stuff that I teach and train, uh, which is like my original thought and frameworks because nobody else can really replicate that. And I don't really feel comfortable teaching somebody else's material. Right?

Mm-hmm.

So that's the thing that I spend my most time on is like research for my interviews, content for my webinars. Um, and then like, you know, sales of course, and offers, offer development, that kind of stuff. But everything else I just like try to outsource. Um, somebody else who's just starting online, I would say somebody to help with like DMs.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and like just like maintaining leads and things like that.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, so video editor, maybe DMs. I would also say like whatever you hate to do, like if you love video editing, like by all means keep video editing. If you hate it, like what, like what part of social media, you know, I would encourage the listeners to think what part of social media is the most like, ugh. You know, is it the graphic design? Is it the writing the captions? Is it the actual scheduling?

Yeah.

Is it like the tiny things of like tagging the location and the people? Like, like what is the most annoying thing and start there. And I think a lot of people might think it's like inaccessible or really hard. They're like, well, I don't have the money to hire someone full-time. Like, oh, what would it look like for our audience to make that first hire of a video editor? Like, I really want them to understand that it can be accessible.

It can be accessible. I remember, um, when I first started, um, with everything, I had no money. I was just in corporate. So first of all, we just talked about it. Interns, free interns.

Mm-hmm.

Volunteers. People are scared to ask for help.

Mm-hmm.

And people feel like it's cringey. If you learned something, if let's say you're creating online, you have some sort of a following, um, you have some sort of an offer, you, you can video edit, like you can teach those skills to somebody else who's like, you know, maybe younger than you and they'll be happy to help for free. So like number one. Maybe there's free resources. Maybe it's your niece or nephew or something like that, or cousin, right? So start there first. Number 2 is international resources. Mm-hmm. Right? So you can get somebody part-time for like $400 a month overseas. India, Philippines. Um, they also have like different platforms. I remember when I first started, I got signed up with like Video Husky.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, their whole thing was like unlimited videos. And so I started doing, uh, working with them and then they actually fired me as a client and they're like, Hala, like you're doing too many videos. Uh, you need like your own team. And I thought, okay, this was supposed to be unlimited videos. Yeah. $700 a month. Like I, I'm just doing what you told me. So then I went on LinkedIn and I'm like, who works at Video Husky?

Mm-hmm.

And I messaged one of the people and I was like, hey, I see that you're working on vid— at Video Husky. How money, how much money are they paying you a month? Mm-hmm. I was paying them $700 a month to get like 10 videos a month and they told me that was too much. She was like, oh, I make $545 a month. Mm-hmm. And I was like, cool, I'll pay you $645. Yeah. And work for me full-time. And she's my first hire. Wow. And then I got like, you know, 100 videos a month out of her.

Yeah.

Because she was working full-time instead of like on 10 different clients at Video Husky. And so then I started recruiting more video editors that way, finding them on Upwork, then finding them on LinkedIn and DMing them and basically recruiting them to my team. So if you get scrappy, you can do things like that and you also don't necessarily need somebody full-time. You can negotiate with somebody who has video editing skills overseas and say like, hey, I need 10 videos a month. Can you do it for $50 a video? You know, and you can negotiate with folks that way within your budget.

Totally. That's so helpful.

Yeah.

I also want our listeners to really understand that you cannot scale to the elite level where like you are a household name. People know you, you're getting paid 6 figures to speak, like whatever. You cannot scale to that without a Like, I think people think, yeah, they look at someone like Jay Shetty. Oh my God, how does he pump out so much content? It's like, he doesn't, he doesn't pump out so much content. And yeah, anyways, I just want our audience to understand, like, to get to those levels, you need a team. It is required. There's no way around it. Oh, but I'm a hard worker, but I'm disciplined. You still cannot produce that amount of structure.

I totally agree. You need systems to scale. And sometimes, you know, everybody has their core thing that they're really good at.

Mm-hmm.

Sometimes the core thing you're good at that is the content. And so you need to hire everybody around you so that you can actually do the content.

Right.

Right? And so you have every— everyone's doing literally everything else. Mm-hmm. Right? So I feel like maybe it is that the content is the core thing that you do and nobody else can replicate.

Mm-hmm.

But you still need systems and teams to do everything else so you have the time to do that.

Totally. So Hala, you're known to have like massive crazy-ass guests on your podcast. 2 questions. One, what's been like your craziest or wildest guests? And then what's your secret to getting these big guests on your podcast?

So from the start, I had like a really, um, great process and system for guest outreach. So one of the best teams at YAP Media and one of the oldest teams from when we were volunteers is the guest outreach team. And from that team is actually how I scaled the network where now we have like, I have the number one self-improvement podcast network and we do like $6 million a year in sponsorships.

Mm-hmm.

And it's the same like core principles of outreach that we learned, and it's basically just email outreach. So the way that I think about getting guests is that it's a volume game.

Mm-hmm.

And if you keep your standards high, your guests' standards will always be high. So when I first started my podcast, even though I was a nobody, I was a somebody on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. And I was a big fish in a small pond. So I would reach out to people on LinkedIn that I wanted on my podcast and they'd see my following and, you know, they would be more inclined to, uh, join the podcast. But even before I had any sort of following, I just shot for the stars. And I knew that if like one person, like I could reach out to 100 people, but all I need is one person to say yes.

Mm-hmm.

And then once that one person says yes, I can then leverage their name and like, oh, and Chris Voss came on my show.

Yeah.

Would you come on my show as well? I'm like, oh yeah, I know Chris Voss. If he said yes, I'm gonna say yes. Right?

Mm-hmm.

And so, um, I used that, that, you know, like really high standards and just, you know, came up with my dream wishlist and we just would follow up, follow up, follow up.

Mm-hmm.

And just like say yes. So I send outbound messages on email and then also DMs on LinkedIn. Um, the other thing is just like really positioning my podcast well. So like anytime I hit the top of the charts, take a screenshot.

Mm-hmm.

Anytime I had, like, now I'm, I got nominated for, uh, an iHeart Podcast Award for best, uh, business and finance podcast. Now that's in my outreach letter, right? So what are the big accolades that you have? What are your stats? So it's like really making sure that you're positioned to, uh, try to get these big guests to come on your show because they need something out of it as well.

Mm-hmm. Right?

Mm-hmm. I feel like, um, it's a volume game at the end of the day. If you're willing to do a hun— 1,000 reachouts, you can get 20 people to say yes, even if they're big names. You'd be surprised. A lot of these big names like Gary Vee, for example, he wants to give back. He'll go on like literally really small shows because he just believes in the person. He likes their, you know, he liked their pitch or whatever, and he, he wants to just give back. So a lot of these people also just wanna give back, and that's your opportunity.

I find that a lot of people too just want more content for their team. Like, I've had a lot of, um, big people on the podcast by positioning of like, I have a beautiful studio, I'm gonna give the raw files to your video team.

Yeah.

And like, any video team would love an hour of this person speaking.

Mm-hmm.

That's also a really great way to position it. Um, and then also like, think about the goal of these people. For example, there's an author I really love. I had him on my podcast. I knew that his goal was to to get his book in front of more Gen Z. So I can say, I can get your book in front of more Gen Z because this is my audience demographics. So really, if you can figure out— and for all the young people listening, like, that's actually like real, hey, I'll get you in front of Gen Z, is like really, yeah, really hot right now. But I love that. So I think, um, the referencing like, oh, I had this person on, so you should come on, is so good, especially like tailoring it to someone they probably know.

Yeah. And I remember, uh, Matthew McConaughey was of the biggest guests that I had on. Mm-hmm. And I had him on pretty early on. I was, uh, I interviewed him in my mom's basement.

Wow.

Okay. So this was years ago and my podcast wasn't that huge yet. And I remember like he was going to promote his book Greenlights.

Mm-hmm.

And so that's another tip. It's like, are these people in promotion mode? Right? Oh yeah.

Like I, I, I'm so strict about the podcasts I go on right now. I will, I'm saying yes to everything to promote my book.

Yeah.

Like every podcast.

People are, people are more likely to go on a podcast if they're promoting a book. So like It's like, go on, you can go on, uh, Penguin, Simon Schuster, whatever, and see what are their upcoming releases and then target those people, right? Mm-hmm. All those people are like ready to do interviews and a lot of people, they don't wanna do any interviews when they're like, like not in promotion mode. They wanna save it for when they have something big going on. So like what movies are coming out, what shows are coming out, like depending on your, your niche, right? Mm-hmm. So that's one tip. The other thing is I saw what shows he was going on.

Mm-hmm.

And they weren't like, my show's more popular than them.

Mm-hmm.

So I remember like we had messaged our team, they didn't respond. So then I, I came up with something scrappy and I basically was like, hey, you went on all these shows. And I took a screenshot of the charts and I showed them that my show's more popular than all these shows you went on. And I like circled the ones they went on and like showed like an arrow to my show. And I was like, I'd love for, you know, you come on YAP. Like I've got a bigger show than the shows he's going on to his PR team.

Yeah.

Uh, and then they said, yeah. So it's like basically me like showing them like, hey, my show's more popular. Here's the proof.

Mm-hmm.

Come on my show.

I also find that if you will show up to someone too, they're more likely to say yes. I was in LA all last week driving around the city because people are like, y'all come on your podcast if you drive all the way down to Santa Barbara. And I'm like, okay, I'll be there.

Right.

Um, so like making it really easy for them to say yes. And, and also for our listeners, like you can do this with, even if you don't have a podcast, maybe you have an interview series that's a 3-minute interviews on your Instagram. Maybe you have a Substack where you interview founders. Like there are so many ways to do this. Have you read the book Content-Based Networking?

Mm-mm.

It's really good. It's just about how to, like, if you have an interview series, it could be a podcast, a Substack, it could be anything. You can get in front of anybody you want. Yeah. You can start a conversation with anybody you want. So it says like, let's say you're selling to CMOs, start an interview series with CMOs. You interview them, you turn them into your client, which I know is one of your tips.

Yeah.

Is turning your guests into clients. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, so this is something that I actually just like stumbled into. Mm-hmm. Um, when I first started my podcast, I was working in corporate and, uh, I was growing my LinkedIn. I had this podcast, uh, the podcast grew, LinkedIn grew first, but within 2 years my podcast was like a top 10 at the time, how-to education podcast. And I would always like end these conversations with these incredible guests, cuz I just told you guys about my, I always had high caliber guests. Mm-hmm. And, and didn't like, you know, ever lower my standards. So they were really like rich, successful people that were coming on my podcast. And at the end of my show, I'd always get the same question. How did you grow your LinkedIn? How did you grow your podcast? Can you do this for me?

Mm-hmm.

And I'd always say, no, I'm so sorry. Like I've got, at the time I was working at Disney. I've got this job at Disney. This is just a hobby. I literally thought I would never make money out on my podcast.

Why is it? 'Cause you thought it was too obvious or too easy?

I just thought it was a hobby. It was a passion project. Mm-hmm. I was never in it for the money. I literally just wanted wanted to help people. I thought I was just like starting this movement. I had a free volunteer team. Nobody was getting paid, including me. And I just never thought that we would make money. I just thought we were gonna help people and become like an online brand at the time. Um, there was only very few popular podcasters like Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, and I thought that could never be me. I could never. Meanwhile, like last year I made $1.5 million in sponsorships on my podcast, right? Mm-hmm. So I was totally wrong. I just didn't know. I didn't know the industry. I didn't know how to So anyway, these guests would come on my show and they'd always ask me this question, how did you grow your LinkedIn? How did you grow your podcast? And I'd always just say like, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you until COVID hit. So once COVID hit, I was working from home and I found myself with like so much more time.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, I started to, uh, think about taking my first client. So Heather Monahan came on my show. Do you know who she is?

Yeah, she's great. She's like also OG LinkedIn.

Yeah, she's OG LinkedIn. I looked up to her so much. So when Heather Monahan was like, hey, can you have such awesome— she, she loved my videos.

Mm-hmm.

On LinkedIn. She's like, you do the best videos. Like, and she kept after the show, even though I said I can't help you, she kept commenting on my post and was like, teach me how to do video. Like, you know, stop being stupid. Like, you know? And so I was like, I'm not gonna do your videos, but I'll teach you how to do it. Mm-hmm. So I, I told her like, let's have like Saturday calls where I'll teach you how to edit videos and, and make these videos. And so I had a call with her on one Saturday and we only ended up having like one training call, 'cause it, she turned into my client. And basically I showed her my, my Slack. I showed her my processes, how we do things, Canva, whatever. And she's like, Hala, I just took a call with Gary Vee's team. I can be your client or I can be his client.

Mm-hmm.

Let me be your first client. And I, at this time we were like starting to be friends, so she knew I hated my job and she was like, just, she's like, just give it a try. You have a whole, you have 20 people that work for you. Like, mm-hmm, just give it a try. So I did it and I remember she, uh, paid me $700 a month for her videos. That was my first client. And then, uh, the second month I get on a call and I actually got, uh, invited to go on this billionaire's podcast.

Mm-hmm.

He had like the number one private growing company in America. And at the end of the podcast, he was like, hey, you're crushing it on LinkedIn and podcasts. Like, can you do this for me? And I was like, yeah, I can. I didn't have a website. Mm-hmm. I didn't have a logo. I didn't even have a company name.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, I ended up pitching him and it was a $30,000 a month retainer.

Wow.

And we won it.

That's amazing.

And then I ran his LinkedIn, his podcast, his Instagram. I blew him up. Like he started making tons of money on his podcast cuz I had figured out sponsorships. And then I got like the CEO of Kara Golden, $27,000 a month, the CEO of When I Heard a Gunshot, and I was working full-time in corporate.

Wow.

And then 6 months later after I was making like $100 grand or more a month on my agency, I quit my job.

Mm-hmm.

And I started like paying everyone and hiring real employees. But yeah, it was It just happened super organically.

Yeah. I think that really goes to show you don't need a website. You don't need a logo. No. You don't. And I think a mistake people make is when they're starting their company, they're starting freelancing or whatever, they're like, I need to invest $10K on a website and I need to invest all this on a logo and I need to invest all this on a strategy. It's like, just solve one person's problem. That's all you need to do and everything else will unfold perfectly. The first step is not your website or your name. Yeah. Or whatever. The first step is solving that first person's problem.

Yeah. It's to your point, it's like the skills, it's the social proof. Like I had pre-sold them. I had sold, pre-sold them from my brand on LinkedIn, pre-sold them from their experience on the podcast. So like they were already so ready. Mm-hmm. Networking with them, spending an hour with them and doing such a great job with the questions and, and trying so hard. They're like, I want this person to work for me. Right. You know? And so it was so easy to close them. And then the other thing is like your brand enables you to get paid more.

Mm-hmm.

I was able to charge like the upper, upper limit of what somebody would pay for their social and podcast.

Mm-hmm.

Because I had the social proof. Right. And then the other thing that was really, you know, uh, looking back is like, I wouldn't have ne— I would've never have landed that $30,000 a month client had I not learned how to create awesome presentations.

Mm-hmm.

In corporate.

Yeah.

And present to executives and like present ideas clearly and visually, you know, pleasing in a visually pleasing way. That's why I landed the client.

Yeah. Wow. That's so, so powerful and inspiring. So I love to inspire our audience to build their personal brands, and I love just to ask our guests, what is some of the craziest opportunities that have come from your personal brand?

Oh my gosh. I feel like my personal brand gave me my dream career.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I feel like I was able to essentially design my perfect career. Career, uh, with all the things that I love to do. So right now I have like a couple different like revenue streams. I've got my podcast, which I get sponsorships for. I've got my social media and production agency, which I've really stepped outside of that business now, and I have, uh, my business partner really runs that team, uh, but you know, I, I'm like involved on the sales side of that. And then I have my podcast network where I grow and monetize like 40 other podcasts and I'm responsible for like all the sales and marketing of the network.

Mm-hmm.

And so I feel like I'm literally living my dream job. I get to do my podcast, uh, get sponsors and, uh, my strengths are really like sales and marketing and I get to like just do that. And I've designed like this entire career around my strengths. Mm-hmm. And everything else, I've got like a team that supports me. And so first of all, I think my, my personal brand enabled me to literally just design my perfect dream job.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's the future. I don't think that regular jobs are really gonna exist, uh, the way that they have in the past. And like, things are changing so fast that like everyone's gonna have to be creative and think about their dream, like their dream career and how do they design it through having an audience and, and creating content essentially, because that's the only way that you can really acquire an audience.

Mm-hmm.

Just creating my dream job, um, speaking on stages I never thought that I'd be able to speak on. I got invited to speak at Funnel Hacking Live last year in front of 7,000 people, which is like like a stage that I've like dreamed about since I started my, like, I couldn't believe it. I never thought that I'd ever get an opportunity like that. Getting pitched, we were talking about this offline, like to write my own book.

Mm-hmm.

Not me going out to the publishers, but them coming to me and me being like, okay, like I guess I'm gonna do this because all these book publishers want me to write a book. Right?

Mm-hmm.

So just, just so many opportunities. Um, it's probably the best decision I ever made in my life was to really just get started on LinkedIn. And it, it's definitely the most thing that I'm like, wow, I'm so thankful that I did that when everybody kind of rolled their eyes at me. Um, and that I just showed up every day and built it brick by brick.

Yeah. It gave you an inbound life where you're getting opportunities inbound and you are creating rather than having to be under the constructs of somebody else's role for you or somebody else's like life for you. That's really, really powerful.

And, and audience I think is the biggest leverage that anybody can have right now. And I feel like if you can build an audience. You now have leverage that is so hard to replicate and so hard, you can't buy it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's, it's so, um, it's so valuable.

Yeah.

And it's, it's just, you can unlock so many opportunities, so much potential, literally your fucking dream.

Yeah.

What advice would you give to someone that's like actively posting, they're building their personal brand, but they feel stuck? They feel like they're hitting a block, like it's not progressing as it should. Maybe it's not going as fast as they should. What advice would you give them?

I think really you've gotta think creatively and think outside the box.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so there's like a few ways that you can do this. Like how can you get in in a unique way?

Mm-hmm.

Because it is so hard to compete on the plat— like if everyone's like, you know, just do reels. It's like everybody's doing reels.

Mm-hmm.

How are you gonna stand out? Um, I'll give like one example of like what I did when I first started with my podcast. It was like Apple's the only game in town.

Mm-hmm.

And in my head for years I was like, if I'm not a big podcaster on Apple, I'm a nobody. Like, you know, that was so important to me. And I would always like look up at like Jenna Kutcher and Amy Porterfield and like, how can I be as popular as them? Like, they've got 10,000 reviews and I only have 500. And like always comparing myself against them. And until like, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make it no matter if I'm the biggest podcaster on Apple or somewhere else. That's when everything started to unlock.

Mm-hmm.

Because then I became the biggest podcaster on Castbox, which is like, I've like 600,000 subscribers on Castbox, which is like the number one Android app. Mm-hmm.

Right.

So like, I like focused on like, where can I win? Yeah. I became, I started posting LinkedIn Live podcasts. Then I was the number one podcaster on LinkedIn. People don't automatically think like LinkedIn podcasts, but guess what? I literally get paid to podcast on LinkedIn the same way that I get paid on Apple and YouTube and whatever. I, I sell it as impressions to advertisers. Right? Mm-hmm. So just thinking creatively, like how can you get what you want in a creative way? So it's like maybe it's early adoption on a platform. Like I'm super bullish on Skool.

Mm-hmm.

Because I feel like, okay, I could probably become the number one creator on Skool. I'd much rather focus on that than trying to become the number one creator on Instagram.

Right.

Because that's gonna be really hard. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I'm gonna focus on Skool. That's one way. The other thing is like your top edge.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, this was really eye-opening for me. Um, I'm Palestinian, and I, um, you know, my brand right now is super business professional. So, like, I didn't feel comfortable, like, going all out posting about all the political stuff that was going on. But it's an extremely hot topic that so many people are obsessed with.

Mm-hmm.

I started an Instagram page that literally gets millions of views. views, and it's my same team.

Mm-hmm.

It's the same people running it, and it's the topic that changed. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Entrepreneurship is only gonna get so far on Instagram.

Mm-hmm.

It's just not a hot topic that people wanna like share and feel like it's just not a hot topic. I love it. It's, it's my like passion. I'm gonna do it forever. But there's other topics that people care about.

Mm-hmm.

What are the topics that people care about that you care about too, that you can attach yourself to? Mm-hmm. gonna do, it's gonna be such a downstream experience because even if you don't have the best videos, the best whatever, people just wanna talk about that thing. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So it's like politics are just so, it's just such a hot topic. There's certain topics that are just so, like even like stuff like health. Mm-hmm. Is extremely popular and people wanna talk about it. Like peptides, everybody wants to talk about peptides. Mm-hmm. So it's like, what do people actually wanna talk about and can you attach yourself to That, because you can always branch out and change later on. But how can you actually attach yourself to a topic that everybody wants to share and talk about? That's going to make your life so much easier. And that to me was like just super eye-opening because I was like, damn, like maybe I should switch my topic.

Like, it'd be a lot easier. Yeah, I think that's, that's really actionable because it's like, what is going on in the zeitgeist of the world that you can, um, that you can pull into your content? So that might be like is something is, is going on with a celebrity and this celebrity is like what everyone's talking about right now. Like Bad Bunny. Yeah. Like right now in mid-February, everyone is talking about Bad Bunny. Can you make a post about Bad Bunny that relates to fashion? Because that's what you post about.

Yeah.

That relates to personal brand, cuz that's what you post about. That relate to this or that. And I've seen 500 posts about Bad Bunny of all different topics.

Yeah.

I've seen like literally peptide Bad Bunny and I've seen fashion Bad Bunny and I've seen politics Bad Bunny. Literally anything. But, but yeah, you're so right. Like, is it politics? Is it news? Is it celebrity? Is it news that's going on in your industry? Is it a certain person? Like, for me, when I post about Oprah's personal brand, Sarah Blakely's personal brand, Gary Vee's personal brand, I'm like kind of riding the, the wave of people talking about Oprah at the moment. Right. So yeah, I, I think this is a great tip. So what do you, how our audience can implement this is think about what's in the zeitgeist around your topic or not.

Yeah.

And talk about it.

Yeah. It's like, what's your end? What's your end to your dream?

Mm-hmm.

You, you can't just keep doing the same thing and expecting like something to change or somebody to like, like we were talking about my podcast, like someone's just gonna like pluck you out and give you your dream. Like that's not gonna happen. So like, what's your end? What are you gonna do differently? Yeah. To stand out. Um, and to get noticed and get visibility. Yeah.

And what, what strength do you have too? Everybody has their own unique little strength. It could be something I, I had a client one time whose grandma lived on a farm with a bunch of like really weird cows and like the cow, like you have to go film in front of those cows. Like, like your grandma having a farm is like your unique thing, right?

Yeah.

Maybe it's that someone has like really beautiful hair and it always looks really crazy. Like everybody has that unique thing. For me, I actually got started because my house is like a tree, a treehouse has a tram, like a funicular. You have to ride to get to my house.

I was, I went on it before. Oh, you did?

Yeah, you got It was so scary. That was fun. So I like rode that for a long time. It's like, oh, this is like a really unique thing. And for some people it might be like, yeah, your crazy house, you have a weird background. Like there's something really unique about you. So also like lean into that. Yeah. Your story too. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, another one of my clients, like her background, she's like this beautiful, like, like woman and her background was like really intense military and it just doesn't go together. And I'm like, you gotta bring that in. Like, this was me in the military and like, it just is. It's like, oh, it makes you double take. Like, what? That's crazy. Um, so culturally relevant, unique things. Love it.

Totally. Yeah.

Okay. One more question. What is your prediction for the future of personal brand?

Oh my God, this is a good one. What is my prediction for the future of personal brand? So I think personal brand is gonna be more important than ever. Mm-hmm. AI is making it so easy to post online, but AI is it's, you know, it can replicate what humans do, but not quite. Like, people are gonna crave human experience. People are gonna crave real people, real stories, things that AI cannot replicate.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I think that's gonna become more and more important. I also think in terms of like livelihood, because AI I think is gonna take over a lot of entry-level jobs, I feel like the people who are gonna stay in corporate are gonna be like the 30-year-olds now, the 40-year-olds, and who have the experience that are gonna be able to train AI agents and like lower-level AI basically to do what they would've hired somebody younger for. So I'm really scared for young people in terms of like their inability to actually acquire skills.

Mm-hmm.

And I think if you can acquire your skills online and, uh, you know, with content creation and becoming a creator entrepreneur and designing your dream career based on your passions And building your own audience and having an audience-based business, I feel like that is the way to future-proof yourself.

Mm-hmm.

Especially if you're younger, because I do feel like AI is gonna make it really difficult for people to get these entry-level jobs and kind of like grow in their career. So it's like, again, like how do you get what you want?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, on your own and not having to navigate through the gatekeepers.

If you wanna avoid all of this, just build a personal brand. Although it's helpful for personal brand too, but I love it.

Yeah.

Fuck the gatekeepers. Personal brand is your It's your golden ticket around the gatekeepers to whatever your dream is.

Yeah.

So beautiful. Well, Hala, where can people find you and follow you? And I wanna, um, I want you to share about your, your podcast course too.

Yeah. Um, so if you guys wanna follow me, you can check out Young and Profiting Podcast. It's on Apple, Spotify, Castbox, wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also, uh, check out my new, uh, creator course on Skool. So if you wanna check it out, it's on Skool. So basically what I'm doing is, um, Um, a community on Skool where I give exclusive webinars on how to like, uh, scale, build a creator-led business.

Oh, love that. So beyond podcasts.

Beyond podcasts. So it'd be like how to grow on LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube, and how to monetize it all.

Oh, that's so great.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, thank you, Hala. Yeah, this is so awesome. Thanks, Courtney.

I do have an ask for you guys before we go. If this podcast has benefited you in any way, if you have gotten A tip that you've really loved and you've implemented it, if it's given you some sort of inspiration, if it's given you some sort of motivation or clarity, my ask is that you leave a 5-star review. I would appreciate it so much. It helps spread the message. It really helps the show grow and it helps more people get access to this information. My deepest desire is ungatekeeping shit. I want to ungatekeep information. So anybody that desires to build a personal brand, to build a business, to create this success in their life and to live their dream. I want them to have all of the information and I don't hold shit back on this show. Okay, we are not holding shit back. So in order to get this message to more people, in order to get these resources and tips to more people, your reviews go a long way. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.