October 26, 2023 • 20 mins
On this episode, Amara shares what it takes to be a successful small business owner. From relentless dedication required to keep a business afloat to sacrifices one might have to make to stay on course, Amara gives listeners an inside look at worked for her as an entrepreneur.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Gang Gang, Gang Gang. Welcome, welcome to my show, your
show exactly a Mada. This is your girl, Amada la
Negra and this is the production of iHeart. Today, I
have a special guest, she's been with me a thousand times,
and this is my producer and friend Charlie. Today, I
want to talk about overcoming small business challenges as an entrepreneur,
(00:24):
as a businesswoman myself, I have had to you know,
start zero two one thousand. Everybody knows that I'm a
very ambitious person. I'm a go getter. I'm always looking
for the next big thing to do, how to become
greater and better in life overall, whether it is through
my personal challenges, but also in business. And I definitely
(00:46):
have overcome a lot of business challenges, especially with real estate.
Have you ever looked into real estate or any other
business like that you felt that you've had to overcome,
you know, challenges.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I mean, I've never had a quote unquote a small business.
I've always been very curious about it. My parents had
a small business when I was growing up, and so
I saw how difficult and challenging it was for them.
So I know that it takes a lot of work.
Especially if you're juggling a family or you're taking care
of family members as a woman, as a Latina, it's
(01:20):
even more challenging because you know, you walk into a
bank to get a loan, or you tell someone, hey,
I want to do this, and they're already you know,
looking looking.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
At you like you're mad.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So it's very it's it's always been scary for me.
But I will tell you this, that idea of being
independent and having your own income, that's very appealing to
me because working for others has its challenges for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
For sure. For example, in twenty twenty, life change for
everyone due to the pandemic. A lot of people saw
their finances disappear because of their jobs closed down and
you know a lot of people got fired. It was
a really hard moment for a lot of families. God
send Me is perfect because even those huge hits and
a lot of small businesses had to go through made
them become even more innovative and creative on how to
(02:11):
financially stay afloat. People had to figure out, you know,
home businesses to do in order to financially survive. Right,
we saw people that were innovative and creative and took
advantage of the opportunity when, for example, when COVID came,
you saw a hope unto people selling face mask, right,
we saw people being creative and selling hand sanitizers. And
(02:32):
that's part of being a small business owner is being
creative and not letting your business fall. You can always
stick to the strategy of this is exactly how my
business is going to work, this is exactly how I'm
going to go about it, because the word exact doesn't
exist when you have a small business. Sometimes you have
to be able to be open minded enough to you know,
(02:53):
work your way around the society you know, and society's needs.
In many occasions where out here selling things or doing
things that we personally love, which you should be passionate
about whatever your personal business may be. But at the
same time, we have to think about what is the
demand in the market. What can I provide for you
(03:13):
that you may need, right, and in many occasions is
you may just want it, and that is not necessarily
a necessity, but they make it to the point that
it becomes a standard in society and it basically levels
you out into what place you belong financially in society,
and it makes you want to purchase these five six
(03:34):
twenty thousand dollars back in bands and all these crazy things.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's interesting that you say that, because during the pandemic
I saw more.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Women, no offense men.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
More women in my life be creative with how they
were going to survive. I had a friend who started
her own da mail business. She started selling tamales. She's
a young woman. Her business is blown up and now
she gets orders all across the country. Another person that
I knew started her own pie business. She was baking
(04:04):
and cooking and doing all these things. And so I
will tell you that women have this entrepreneur We talked.
We've talked about this before because we're the head of
the household, because we know how to juggle multiple things.
We have that innate instinct within us to come up
with these creative, innovative things because it's already happening in
(04:28):
our homes. We just don't have the support system at
times to get out there. And the pandemic forced people
to really get creative so that they could survive.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We are natural multitaskers, right, You can do that. You
can give the same amount of jobs. So man in
many occasions they don't know how to manage all the
things at the same time. But women naturally are multitaskers
and know how to be creative in many occasions, like,
for example, during the pandemic. Here's another one. The pandemic
(04:58):
really put a lot of things in perspect there for us.
But there was a shortage of milk and a lot
of us, you know, when it came to like you know,
baby formula and having children, right there was there was
a shortage, and I was panicking. I didn't know what
to do. I took flights to the Dominican Republic to
bring milk. I did all types of things. But for
those women who financially couldn't do all the things that
I was able to do. When you're put in a
(05:20):
corner with no other option, your brain automatically tries to
figure out a way of survival mode. I saw women
doing almond milk. I saw we've been doing rice milk.
I saw women doing all types of stuff. And I'm
just saying that to say that when you're put in
a corner, you figure out ways to survive because of necessity,
and those things, in many occasions are the best things
(05:42):
that could ever happen. To you get creative when it
comes to your social media platform, talk to your friends
and family to promote things for you. There's many things
that you could do. And in many occasions, because of
our own fears, our own insecurities, we become insecure about
our own business. However, you want other people to believe
in your in your business and your project, but your
self doubt it. You have to have so much confidence
(06:02):
in what you do. And I'm saying that to say
that unfortunately, not everyone can be a boss. You can,
but it's maybe not meant not everyone is willing to
take the responsibility of being the leader of that hard role. Right.
It's a hard role because now not only do you
have your own business, eventually your own business may need
(06:25):
other employees. You have to guide that ship. You may
have to be the one to make those big decisions
financially and the direction that your business is going to go.
And that can go even from having to go to
the bank and ask for a loan. In many occasions,
you don't want to get yourself in debt because you
don't want to have to ask for a loan, because
you don't want the responsibility of knowing that you owe
(06:48):
somebody money. But if you believe in your project and
you know what you're doing, and even if you don't
know what you're doing, but you have faith and you
know the potential your business has, you have to be
able to make that big decision and say, you know what,
if I don't go ask for this loan right now,
everything I built can literally fall apart. Right So being
able to also have the right team when you have
(07:09):
a small business is important. And I'll say small business
people and I'm only i only keep saying small business
because it's it's it's a start. How you start up, right,
it's how you start. You need to have an accountant.
You should have an accountant. Get yourself an accountant. An
accountant can run every single thing financially for you, even
(07:30):
including your taxes. A lot of people get stuck afterwards
in those taxes because you didn't know how to do
your taxes properly, pay for things properly. Get yourself an accountant.
Things that I learn and I wish, I wish it
I would have gotten accountant way earlier on.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
You know that, that's one of the things people have
talked about this before. The education system here in the
United states. It's like you, you're teaching us all these
different things, but you don't even teach us how to
like invest our money you want. You graduate high school,
you graduate college, you're workforce, and you have no idea
how to even balance your checkbook.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I messed up a lot when I was starting to
invest in real estate a lot, and I've learned so
much and I'm always willing to teach and help people
about it. And like me, there's people that have even
more experience that are willing to do it. Whether you
have a clothing line, whether you want to start a
car rental, whether you want to start a restaurant, whatever
it is, there are people out there that have failed
(08:33):
so many times and got it right that are willing
to share that experience with you. Are you willing to
actually do the research to find out? So that's why
I say, Mauss, get with it. If you really want
to do something in life, you'll figure out a way
to make it happen. And then that's it. Right, There's
a lot of free marketing. There's a lot of things
you can do. And here's something else I also want
(08:54):
to talk about. Don't feel For example, we know that
social media is a really big platform when you're trying
to promote your business, whatever it may be. And if
you start your Instagram page, your TikTok page, your snap chat,
whatever it may be, and you only have zero followers
or five followers, and only those five followers are the
ones paying attention to the content that you're posting. Please
(09:16):
don't think that I got to almost three million followers
from one day to the other. It took every day,
me being persistent, me being content, me always pushing my work,
my brand, who I am, what I'm promoting, what I'm pushing,
who I am, what I believe in, me pushing it,
and little by little people start to add up. Don't
compare yourself to the people that have millions of followers
(09:38):
and are selling millions of products because they didn't start
off that way. Understand the journey, Understand the process. It
takes time to build a brand. It takes time to
make these sales. It doesn't matter if you're only making
one or two cells. At least you're making them. You're
starting off somewhere, and the closest that you can start
(09:58):
off with is your friends and family. If your friends
and family aren't supporting that alone, should let you know
where they stand in your life.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's an important point that you make, and I think
it's it's crucial that we talk about this. If you
want to start a small business, you have to be
able to ask for help, and you have to be
able to talk to your family and friends first. That's
where I don't have that bone in me. I don't
know how to ask for help. I don't know how
(10:26):
to go to somebody and say, Hey, I'm starting a
new business.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Can you check out my page? Can you be the
first to buy my thing?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I remember my mom telling me one time that when
she was a kid, my grandma used to send my
mom to lestiends to ask for like a layway to
like get a milk or whatever. And she's like, yeah,
I would always go to the store and ask for
like free milk that grandma and grandpa would would pay later.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And I never was embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I was like, oh my god, Mom, like I'm embarrassed
to ask for help.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Like I don't have that bone in me. Okay, now
let's talk about why are we embarrassed to ask for help?
What causes us to feel embarrassed?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, I'm embarrassed because what if I get rejected. What
if they tell me I have a stupid idea, or
that they have other that they can't spend their time
with my I don't know with my silly concept.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Do you think this? Sometimes we're too much into our
own heads. We're already in our minds, We're already assuming
what someone may say without us even giving them the
opportunity to listen. And it's happened to me in the past,
and that's why I'm saying it. There's no worse feeling
than regretting not having done so. Therefore you do. I'd
(11:45):
rather you to tell me it was a stupid idea
and I don't want to do it. But you never know.
If you actually open your mouth, it might be like, oh,
you know what, that's cool as hell. Let me support you.
I got you. What do you need me to do?
You need me to post, you need me to promot?
How much is it is? Fifteen dollars, twenty dollars, one
hundred dollars? I can do it. You never know. But
sometimes we're so caught up in our own head of
(12:06):
what we think people are gonna think of us. And
I think that also, society has put a lot of
pressure on us. Social media has put a lot of
pressure on us. The lack of support of our own
family makes us doubt ourselves. You know, I'm not just
gonna blame us for feeling that way. Sometimes it's just
your circle, and that's important too. If your circle is
not supportive, then you need new friends. And that's another
(12:28):
reason why my circle is really small. When you are
a small business and you're trying to start something, you
don't need any type of negativity. If you have your
little boyfriend that calls you dumb or stupid, or you're
wasting your time, get rid of him. That's the first
reason why you won't succeed. If you have your family
members complaining about what you're doing, You're spending too much money,
(12:50):
Why are you doing that? Get away from them, don't
share with them anything. Change your circle. If you want
to succeed in life, you have to change your circle.
You have to be in the same frequency your friends
and you have to be in the same frequency. We
all want to succeed. We're all supporting each other. I
think that what you're doing is great. I love what
(13:10):
you're doing. You know what, if you don't want to
go to the club today, or you can't go out
because you're working in your business. I respect that. I
understand that go for it. If you have people that're
like hessamiena lead that you could do it tomorrow, do
it later, don't do it now. Wrong person to be
around with. If you look at people like the creators
of Amazon and Facebook and all these big business McDonald's
(13:31):
and all these big blasins, they had to sacrifice their
time in order to make their brand succeed. And that's
another thing. I mean, we could talk about this for days.
There's so many layers into becoming a successful brand or
becoming a successful business. You have to learn how to sacrifice.
You can't always go out. You can't always buy yourself
(13:51):
the nice thing that you want to do. You can't
always go out to dinners, you can't always do the
things that you wanted to do because you have to
think about the bigger picture. The bigger picture is you
want your business to succeed, and if that means you
can go out with your little stupid friends that add
no value to the purpose that you see for yourself
in your future, then you have to go ahead and
(14:14):
do that. Every single person is born with twenty four hours,
It is up to you to know what you're gonna
do with your twenty four hours. We have people that
are only sleep four hours. And I'm not saying sleep
four hours. You do whatever you think is best for you.
But there's people that sleep four hours because they feel
that the rest of that day they have to invest
it in their business in order for it to succeed.
(14:34):
But if you want to be sleeping eight hours ten hours,
and out of that, you have to take another hour
to shower, another hour to eat, another hour to hang out,
another hour to take a nap, another hour or two
for four per Instagram and social media, and then you
want to complain because your business is not succeeding. Whole's fault,
is it?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It's like you mentioned, it's a lot of work. And
most people see a successful person or a successful business
and they're like, ah, that's easy, and then they get
down to the new gritty and they realize how much
time and effort it takes to actually make a business successful.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
It really requires you to have stamina and long term, like.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You this discipline, you have to be able to be
planning ahead of the game, long term, have goals, have deadlines.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's very stressful.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So if you want, if you really want that, you
know dream, if you have a dream of opening up
a small business and that really is your dream, it
is going to require work. No sta facin. That's that's
expression right. The biggest challenges are the best in the
long term. So in that sense, that's part of the
deal that you need to make with yourself. Okay, I'm
(15:45):
going to open this small business, but I have to
acknowledge that is going to take a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm passionate about these conversations. I'm going to tell you why.
Because I come from an immigrant mother. You know, I
come from an immigrant mother that crossed the Mexican border
to get here so that one day when she had me,
I could have a good future. And I refuse to
let her down. I refuse for her to see me
like go exact fiso that I had to go through
for this girl and she's doing nothing with her life.
(16:20):
I refuse to be that. I want to be a
success story, not only because of my mother where we
come from, but for my daughters, for the next generation
to come. I want to be a success story, and
I know that requires me to put in the work
and I have and I've proven it. And not only that,
but now as a single mother, I do my podcast.
(16:41):
Thanks to you guys for supporting me. I do love
and hip hop. I'm filming whenever they require for hours
on a day, I'm doing another reality show. I just
finished doing another one. I also take care of my daughters.
I put in the work like I don't sleep at night,
not only because I'm exhausted and I put in all
the extra hours of work, but because I also have
(17:02):
two babies that are one years old and I'm still
putting in the work. And even though I do have
my days like yesterday, yesterday was one of the toughest days,
because you know, it's hard also when you see on
social media. And I'm gonna go a little bit off topic,
but I know that in many occasions, when you have
a small business, you also have your own personal life
to live, and your personal feelings can get involved in
(17:24):
your business, which can make you lack right. I'll go
to the shower, I'll cry myself off till my eyes
are coming out of my face. I shake it up
and I get right back to it. Because we all
have moments, but you can't stop like nothing can allow
you to stop. And I was just having a moment
because it's hard to be a mom in the process
of this. It was already hard enough to do it
(17:44):
when I didn't have children and I was still pushing,
but then now to also be a good mother in
the process of this and not, you know, miss out
on important moments for my daughters and do all those things.
It's a lot of work. Shout out to all those
single mothers, to all those single fathers, because there's others
out there too that put in the work. Shout out
to you. If you're out here being the best you
(18:05):
can be and you're also being a good parent, I
give you all the credit in the world because it's
a really tough job and it's a lot, but you're
doing it, you're accomplishing it, and I just want to
take a moment to let you know you are amazing.
You are doing such a great job. You deserve it all.
And I know that it's hard, and I know that
it's tough, and this is almost what you can take
(18:25):
home with you. But be disciplined, be focused, be determined,
don't allow anything to stop you from accomplishing your goal,
keep your eye on the goal, on the vision, on
the purpose right, become educated, never stop asking questions, any
opportunity that you have. When you feel that you're bored,
go on YouTube and watch a documentary. Go on Netflix,
(18:47):
watch documentaries. Watch things that are going to educate you,
that are going to inform you. You know, learn that
in order to succeed, you must sacrifice. Sacrifice your time,
sacrifice party, sacrif financially, it's a sacrifice in order to succeed.
There's just so many layers to this, and I'm so
passionate because I love to see people succeed. I love
(19:09):
to see people put in that hard work and then
zero to one thousand make a name in a brand
for themselves. Because you're also doing this to support your family.
You are breaking you know, generational curses by becoming successful.
And I know everybody wants it, but not everybody gets it.
So when you do get it, because you will get it,
you're gonna know that you did it because you put
(19:31):
in the work. And that is so important. Put in
the work. Cry it off, jog it off, work it out,
do whatever it is that you have to do, and
get back to it. You know, have your job and
on the side, also invest time for your own business
and your own goals and your own dream. Don't let
your paycheck stop you from achieving your own personal goals.
(19:52):
That's very important. Arlene. Thank you so much for joining
in today. I am so grateful for you as usual.
Thank you guys so much for being part of exactly
a Mada. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for giving
me those five stars. Thank you for being always in
tune and hitting me up on Instagram at amaraa Ale
and making sure that you follow me and tell me
all the great things that you love about the show.
(20:13):
Catch my show by searching for MICRODDA podcasts on YouTube
and clicking exactly Amata and remember that this is a
production of Ihearts Microturda podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite show. This has been exactly a maa.
Bye amadaa
Gang Gang, Gang Gang. Welcome, welcome to my show, your
show exactly a Mada. This is your girl, Amada la
Negra and this is the production of iHeart. Today, I
have a special guest, she's been with me a thousand times,
and this is my producer and friend Charlie. Today, I
want to talk about overcoming small business challenges as an entrepreneur,
(00:24):
as a businesswoman myself, I have had to you know,
start zero two one thousand. Everybody knows that I'm a
very ambitious person. I'm a go getter. I'm always looking
for the next big thing to do, how to become
greater and better in life overall, whether it is through
my personal challenges, but also in business. And I definitely
(00:46):
have overcome a lot of business challenges, especially with real estate.
Have you ever looked into real estate or any other
business like that you felt that you've had to overcome,
you know, challenges.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I mean, I've never had a quote unquote a small business.
I've always been very curious about it. My parents had
a small business when I was growing up, and so
I saw how difficult and challenging it was for them.
So I know that it takes a lot of work.
Especially if you're juggling a family or you're taking care
of family members as a woman, as a Latina, it's
(01:20):
even more challenging because you know, you walk into a
bank to get a loan, or you tell someone, hey,
I want to do this, and they're already you know,
looking looking.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
At you like you're mad.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So it's very it's it's always been scary for me.
But I will tell you this, that idea of being
independent and having your own income, that's very appealing to
me because working for others has its challenges for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
For sure. For example, in twenty twenty, life change for
everyone due to the pandemic. A lot of people saw
their finances disappear because of their jobs closed down and
you know a lot of people got fired. It was
a really hard moment for a lot of families. God
send Me is perfect because even those huge hits and
a lot of small businesses had to go through made
them become even more innovative and creative on how to
(02:11):
financially stay afloat. People had to figure out, you know,
home businesses to do in order to financially survive. Right,
we saw people that were innovative and creative and took
advantage of the opportunity when, for example, when COVID came,
you saw a hope unto people selling face mask, right,
we saw people being creative and selling hand sanitizers. And
(02:32):
that's part of being a small business owner is being
creative and not letting your business fall. You can always
stick to the strategy of this is exactly how my
business is going to work, this is exactly how I'm
going to go about it, because the word exact doesn't
exist when you have a small business. Sometimes you have
to be able to be open minded enough to you know,
(02:53):
work your way around the society you know, and society's needs.
In many occasions where out here selling things or doing
things that we personally love, which you should be passionate
about whatever your personal business may be. But at the
same time, we have to think about what is the
demand in the market. What can I provide for you
(03:13):
that you may need, right, and in many occasions is
you may just want it, and that is not necessarily
a necessity, but they make it to the point that
it becomes a standard in society and it basically levels
you out into what place you belong financially in society,
and it makes you want to purchase these five six
(03:34):
twenty thousand dollars back in bands and all these crazy things.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's interesting that you say that, because during the pandemic
I saw more.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Women, no offense men.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
More women in my life be creative with how they
were going to survive. I had a friend who started
her own da mail business. She started selling tamales. She's
a young woman. Her business is blown up and now
she gets orders all across the country. Another person that
I knew started her own pie business. She was baking
(04:04):
and cooking and doing all these things. And so I
will tell you that women have this entrepreneur We talked.
We've talked about this before because we're the head of
the household, because we know how to juggle multiple things.
We have that innate instinct within us to come up
with these creative, innovative things because it's already happening in
(04:28):
our homes. We just don't have the support system at
times to get out there. And the pandemic forced people
to really get creative so that they could survive.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We are natural multitaskers, right, You can do that. You
can give the same amount of jobs. So man in
many occasions they don't know how to manage all the
things at the same time. But women naturally are multitaskers
and know how to be creative in many occasions, like,
for example, during the pandemic. Here's another one. The pandemic
(04:58):
really put a lot of things in perspect there for us.
But there was a shortage of milk and a lot
of us, you know, when it came to like you know,
baby formula and having children, right there was there was
a shortage, and I was panicking. I didn't know what
to do. I took flights to the Dominican Republic to
bring milk. I did all types of things. But for
those women who financially couldn't do all the things that
I was able to do. When you're put in a
(05:20):
corner with no other option, your brain automatically tries to
figure out a way of survival mode. I saw women
doing almond milk. I saw we've been doing rice milk.
I saw women doing all types of stuff. And I'm
just saying that to say that when you're put in
a corner, you figure out ways to survive because of necessity,
and those things, in many occasions are the best things
(05:42):
that could ever happen. To you get creative when it
comes to your social media platform, talk to your friends
and family to promote things for you. There's many things
that you could do. And in many occasions, because of
our own fears, our own insecurities, we become insecure about
our own business. However, you want other people to believe
in your in your business and your project, but your
self doubt it. You have to have so much confidence
(06:02):
in what you do. And I'm saying that to say
that unfortunately, not everyone can be a boss. You can,
but it's maybe not meant not everyone is willing to
take the responsibility of being the leader of that hard role. Right.
It's a hard role because now not only do you
have your own business, eventually your own business may need
(06:25):
other employees. You have to guide that ship. You may
have to be the one to make those big decisions
financially and the direction that your business is going to go.
And that can go even from having to go to
the bank and ask for a loan. In many occasions,
you don't want to get yourself in debt because you
don't want to have to ask for a loan, because
you don't want the responsibility of knowing that you owe
(06:48):
somebody money. But if you believe in your project and
you know what you're doing, and even if you don't
know what you're doing, but you have faith and you
know the potential your business has, you have to be
able to make that big decision and say, you know what,
if I don't go ask for this loan right now,
everything I built can literally fall apart. Right So being
able to also have the right team when you have
(07:09):
a small business is important. And I'll say small business
people and I'm only i only keep saying small business
because it's it's it's a start. How you start up, right,
it's how you start. You need to have an accountant.
You should have an accountant. Get yourself an accountant. An
accountant can run every single thing financially for you, even
(07:30):
including your taxes. A lot of people get stuck afterwards
in those taxes because you didn't know how to do
your taxes properly, pay for things properly. Get yourself an accountant.
Things that I learn and I wish, I wish it
I would have gotten accountant way earlier on.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
You know that, that's one of the things people have
talked about this before. The education system here in the
United states. It's like you, you're teaching us all these
different things, but you don't even teach us how to
like invest our money you want. You graduate high school,
you graduate college, you're workforce, and you have no idea
how to even balance your checkbook.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I messed up a lot when I was starting to
invest in real estate a lot, and I've learned so
much and I'm always willing to teach and help people
about it. And like me, there's people that have even
more experience that are willing to do it. Whether you
have a clothing line, whether you want to start a
car rental, whether you want to start a restaurant, whatever
it is, there are people out there that have failed
(08:33):
so many times and got it right that are willing
to share that experience with you. Are you willing to
actually do the research to find out? So that's why
I say, Mauss, get with it. If you really want
to do something in life, you'll figure out a way
to make it happen. And then that's it. Right, There's
a lot of free marketing. There's a lot of things
you can do. And here's something else I also want
(08:54):
to talk about. Don't feel For example, we know that
social media is a really big platform when you're trying
to promote your business, whatever it may be. And if
you start your Instagram page, your TikTok page, your snap chat,
whatever it may be, and you only have zero followers
or five followers, and only those five followers are the
ones paying attention to the content that you're posting. Please
(09:16):
don't think that I got to almost three million followers
from one day to the other. It took every day,
me being persistent, me being content, me always pushing my work,
my brand, who I am, what I'm promoting, what I'm pushing,
who I am, what I believe in, me pushing it,
and little by little people start to add up. Don't
compare yourself to the people that have millions of followers
(09:38):
and are selling millions of products because they didn't start
off that way. Understand the journey, Understand the process. It
takes time to build a brand. It takes time to
make these sales. It doesn't matter if you're only making
one or two cells. At least you're making them. You're
starting off somewhere, and the closest that you can start
(09:58):
off with is your friends and family. If your friends
and family aren't supporting that alone, should let you know
where they stand in your life.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's an important point that you make, and I think
it's it's crucial that we talk about this. If you
want to start a small business, you have to be
able to ask for help, and you have to be
able to talk to your family and friends first. That's
where I don't have that bone in me. I don't
know how to ask for help. I don't know how
(10:26):
to go to somebody and say, Hey, I'm starting a
new business.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Can you check out my page? Can you be the
first to buy my thing?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I remember my mom telling me one time that when
she was a kid, my grandma used to send my
mom to lestiends to ask for like a layway to
like get a milk or whatever. And she's like, yeah,
I would always go to the store and ask for
like free milk that grandma and grandpa would would pay later.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And I never was embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I was like, oh my god, Mom, like I'm embarrassed
to ask for help.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Like I don't have that bone in me. Okay, now
let's talk about why are we embarrassed to ask for help?
What causes us to feel embarrassed?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, I'm embarrassed because what if I get rejected. What
if they tell me I have a stupid idea, or
that they have other that they can't spend their time
with my I don't know with my silly concept.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Do you think this? Sometimes we're too much into our
own heads. We're already in our minds, We're already assuming
what someone may say without us even giving them the
opportunity to listen. And it's happened to me in the past,
and that's why I'm saying it. There's no worse feeling
than regretting not having done so. Therefore you do. I'd
(11:45):
rather you to tell me it was a stupid idea
and I don't want to do it. But you never know.
If you actually open your mouth, it might be like, oh,
you know what, that's cool as hell. Let me support you.
I got you. What do you need me to do?
You need me to post, you need me to promot?
How much is it is? Fifteen dollars, twenty dollars, one
hundred dollars? I can do it. You never know. But
sometimes we're so caught up in our own head of
(12:06):
what we think people are gonna think of us. And
I think that also, society has put a lot of
pressure on us. Social media has put a lot of
pressure on us. The lack of support of our own
family makes us doubt ourselves. You know, I'm not just
gonna blame us for feeling that way. Sometimes it's just
your circle, and that's important too. If your circle is
not supportive, then you need new friends. And that's another
(12:28):
reason why my circle is really small. When you are
a small business and you're trying to start something, you
don't need any type of negativity. If you have your
little boyfriend that calls you dumb or stupid, or you're
wasting your time, get rid of him. That's the first
reason why you won't succeed. If you have your family
members complaining about what you're doing, You're spending too much money,
(12:50):
Why are you doing that? Get away from them, don't
share with them anything. Change your circle. If you want
to succeed in life, you have to change your circle.
You have to be in the same frequency your friends
and you have to be in the same frequency. We
all want to succeed. We're all supporting each other. I
think that what you're doing is great. I love what
(13:10):
you're doing. You know what, if you don't want to
go to the club today, or you can't go out
because you're working in your business. I respect that. I
understand that go for it. If you have people that're
like hessamiena lead that you could do it tomorrow, do
it later, don't do it now. Wrong person to be
around with. If you look at people like the creators
of Amazon and Facebook and all these big business McDonald's
(13:31):
and all these big blasins, they had to sacrifice their
time in order to make their brand succeed. And that's
another thing. I mean, we could talk about this for days.
There's so many layers into becoming a successful brand or
becoming a successful business. You have to learn how to sacrifice.
You can't always go out. You can't always buy yourself
(13:51):
the nice thing that you want to do. You can't
always go out to dinners, you can't always do the
things that you wanted to do because you have to
think about the bigger picture. The bigger picture is you
want your business to succeed, and if that means you
can go out with your little stupid friends that add
no value to the purpose that you see for yourself
in your future, then you have to go ahead and
(14:14):
do that. Every single person is born with twenty four hours,
It is up to you to know what you're gonna
do with your twenty four hours. We have people that
are only sleep four hours. And I'm not saying sleep
four hours. You do whatever you think is best for you.
But there's people that sleep four hours because they feel
that the rest of that day they have to invest
it in their business in order for it to succeed.
(14:34):
But if you want to be sleeping eight hours ten hours,
and out of that, you have to take another hour
to shower, another hour to eat, another hour to hang out,
another hour to take a nap, another hour or two
for four per Instagram and social media, and then you
want to complain because your business is not succeeding. Whole's fault,
is it?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It's like you mentioned, it's a lot of work. And
most people see a successful person or a successful business
and they're like, ah, that's easy, and then they get
down to the new gritty and they realize how much
time and effort it takes to actually make a business successful.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
It really requires you to have stamina and long term, like.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You this discipline, you have to be able to be
planning ahead of the game, long term, have goals, have deadlines.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's very stressful.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So if you want, if you really want that, you
know dream, if you have a dream of opening up
a small business and that really is your dream, it
is going to require work. No sta facin. That's that's
expression right. The biggest challenges are the best in the
long term. So in that sense, that's part of the
deal that you need to make with yourself. Okay, I'm
(15:45):
going to open this small business, but I have to
acknowledge that is going to take a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm passionate about these conversations. I'm going to tell you why.
Because I come from an immigrant mother. You know, I
come from an immigrant mother that crossed the Mexican border
to get here so that one day when she had me,
I could have a good future. And I refuse to
let her down. I refuse for her to see me
like go exact fiso that I had to go through
for this girl and she's doing nothing with her life.
(16:20):
I refuse to be that. I want to be a
success story, not only because of my mother where we
come from, but for my daughters, for the next generation
to come. I want to be a success story, and
I know that requires me to put in the work
and I have and I've proven it. And not only that,
but now as a single mother, I do my podcast.
(16:41):
Thanks to you guys for supporting me. I do love
and hip hop. I'm filming whenever they require for hours
on a day, I'm doing another reality show. I just
finished doing another one. I also take care of my daughters.
I put in the work like I don't sleep at night,
not only because I'm exhausted and I put in all
the extra hours of work, but because I also have
(17:02):
two babies that are one years old and I'm still
putting in the work. And even though I do have
my days like yesterday, yesterday was one of the toughest days,
because you know, it's hard also when you see on
social media. And I'm gonna go a little bit off topic,
but I know that in many occasions, when you have
a small business, you also have your own personal life
to live, and your personal feelings can get involved in
(17:24):
your business, which can make you lack right. I'll go
to the shower, I'll cry myself off till my eyes
are coming out of my face. I shake it up
and I get right back to it. Because we all
have moments, but you can't stop like nothing can allow
you to stop. And I was just having a moment
because it's hard to be a mom in the process
of this. It was already hard enough to do it
(17:44):
when I didn't have children and I was still pushing,
but then now to also be a good mother in
the process of this and not, you know, miss out
on important moments for my daughters and do all those things.
It's a lot of work. Shout out to all those
single mothers, to all those single fathers, because there's others
out there too that put in the work. Shout out
to you. If you're out here being the best you
(18:05):
can be and you're also being a good parent, I
give you all the credit in the world because it's
a really tough job and it's a lot, but you're
doing it, you're accomplishing it, and I just want to
take a moment to let you know you are amazing.
You are doing such a great job. You deserve it all.
And I know that it's hard, and I know that
it's tough, and this is almost what you can take
(18:25):
home with you. But be disciplined, be focused, be determined,
don't allow anything to stop you from accomplishing your goal,
keep your eye on the goal, on the vision, on
the purpose right, become educated, never stop asking questions, any
opportunity that you have. When you feel that you're bored,
go on YouTube and watch a documentary. Go on Netflix,
(18:47):
watch documentaries. Watch things that are going to educate you,
that are going to inform you. You know, learn that
in order to succeed, you must sacrifice. Sacrifice your time,
sacrifice party, sacrif financially, it's a sacrifice in order to succeed.
There's just so many layers to this, and I'm so
passionate because I love to see people succeed. I love
(19:09):
to see people put in that hard work and then
zero to one thousand make a name in a brand
for themselves. Because you're also doing this to support your family.
You are breaking you know, generational curses by becoming successful.
And I know everybody wants it, but not everybody gets it.
So when you do get it, because you will get it,
you're gonna know that you did it because you put
(19:31):
in the work. And that is so important. Put in
the work. Cry it off, jog it off, work it out,
do whatever it is that you have to do, and
get back to it. You know, have your job and
on the side, also invest time for your own business
and your own goals and your own dream. Don't let
your paycheck stop you from achieving your own personal goals.
(19:52):
That's very important. Arlene. Thank you so much for joining
in today. I am so grateful for you as usual.
Thank you guys so much for being part of exactly
a Mada. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for giving
me those five stars. Thank you for being always in
tune and hitting me up on Instagram at amaraa Ale
and making sure that you follow me and tell me
all the great things that you love about the show.
(20:13):
Catch my show by searching for MICRODDA podcasts on YouTube
and clicking exactly Amata and remember that this is a
production of Ihearts Microturda podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite show. This has been exactly a maa.
Bye amadaa
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