March 19, 2024 • 58 mins
Congratulations, you’ve been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy for Black Girls University. Whether packing for a new year on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in a community college, or grabbing your stoles for graduation, TBG U is here to help you thrive at this stage of your life and beyond.
I don’t know about ya’ll, but whenever I’m at a party, dinner, or even just going out with my friends, it’s become habitual to post something about it on social media. And though there’s nothing wrong with keeping the girlies updated on my moves, in this day and age, it’s important to know what’s good to share and what could potentially impact your future if the wrong eyes see it.
To talk through this with me, I’m joined today by Brooklyn-based Gen-Z lifestyle content creator, Cedoni Francis. Cedoni has worked with a variety of brands such as Vaseline, Disney and Marshalls, and through sharing her journey — from tech girl, to laid-off tech employee turned full-time entrepreneur, and incoming MBA student. Cedoni is creating content specifically for women in her age range, empowering and inspiring them in the process.
In our conversation today, Cedoni shares her do’s and don’t’s for posting on social media, setting boundaries around what the public gets to know about vs. what’s kept private, and dealing with haters when posting online.
Where to Find Cedoni
HOMEWORK
- Get with your college’s career services office to see what internships are available
- Complete an audit of your social media pages to make sure you’re representing yourself in the best way possible
- Message someone you admire on LinkedIn and set up a call to learn how they got to where they are
Make sure to follow us on social media:
Interested in being a part of a future TBG U episode or suggesting a topic for us to discuss, send us a note HERE.
Order a copy of Sisterhood Heals for you and your girls HERE.
Our Production Team
Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard
Producers: Fredia Lucas & Ellice Ellis
Production Intern: Zariah Taylor
TBG University Host & Coordinator: Jayna Ellis
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Congratulations, you've been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy
for Black Girls University. Whether packing for a new year
on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in a
community college, or grabbing your souls for graduation, tbgu is
here to help you thrive at this stage of your
life and beyond. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm Sorria Taylor and I'm the TBG podcast production intern.
We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I don't know about y'all, but whenever I'm at a party, dinner,
or even just going out with my friends, it's become
habitual to post something about it on social media. And
though there's nothing wrong with keeping the girls updated on
my moves, in this day and age, it's important to
know what's good to share and what could potentially impact
(01:02):
your future if the wrong I see it. To talk
this through with me, I'm joined today by Brooklyn based
gen Z lifestyle content creator Siddoni Francis. Siddoni has worked
with a variety of brands such as Vasilene, Disney, and Marshalls,
and through sharing her journey from tech girl to laid
off tech employee turned full time entrepreneur and incoming NBA student,
(01:27):
Siddoni is creating content specifically for women in her age range,
empowering and inspiring them in the process. In our conversation today,
Siddoni shares her dues and don'ts for posting on social media,
setting boundaries around what the public gets to know versus
what's kept private, and dealing with the haters when posting online.
(01:48):
Here's our conversation, Siddoni, thank you so much for being
here with us. I'm so excited to talk with you
today and yeah, I'm ready to dive in. So you
are an influencer, content creator, tech baddie and the luxurious
big sister we never had. Take us back to the
(02:10):
very beginning. Where would you say your love for content
creation came from?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh my god, hilariously. So, when I was in college,
I don't know if you guys are familiar with the
brand ambassador programs that companies will do for colleges. Were like,
you know, they'll give you a couple dollars and like,
you know, you pretty much like promote the app or
something like that on campus. So in the spring of
twenty twenty, which was my last semester of college, I
(02:35):
was a TikTok brand ambassador. I was posting like the
dumbest videos. I only had like a hundred followers. It
was just my friends and people I went to college with.
And then obviously I had sue graduation unfortunately, and literally
the day I graduated from college, my cousin at the time,
she was like nine, I think, came over and helped
me record a TikTok where I just like it was
(02:58):
like set to Tom's Savage and it was like I'm
that girl and no girl stoda girl pretty much was
like the point of the video, and I captioned it,
when you graduate from Vanderbilt with honors, a full time
job at Google and no student debt. And I literally
just like put my phone down. I had no followers,
and I woke up the next day and I had
like almost ten thousand and that video had gotten like
(03:20):
three hundred thousand views, and I was like, wait, how
did strangers see this thing? And I guess from there,
it was always fun. It was just something that I
was doing. It was good vibes. And then twenty twenty
three rolls around, I get laid off from my full
time job and I'm like, well, I guess this is
what I'm doing now, this is my thing, right.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I definitely remember it felt like everybody was a brand ambassador,
whether that be for Pink Good molecules. It felt like
everyone on campus had content creation in their bag.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
When I tell you, I was a brand ambassador for
a million different companies, because it got to the point
where my mom was like, girl, I'm not sending you money.
Like you are twenty years old. You are able bodied
get outside and go do some work. So I had done,
Like I was a brand ambassador for like Natural Light
the beer when I turned twenty one, and that's what
(04:15):
paid my rent my senior year. Then I did HBO.
I did run the runway, bumble. I was like a
bumble campus leader, anything you name it, if they had
money for it and there was something free. Absolutely I
can go on campus and hand out these posters and
I can make an Instagram post not a problem. So
I guess the content creation has been It's been around
(04:37):
for a minute now that I think about it, since
like my sophomore year of college, for.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
A little minute. For a little minute, we know that
the content creators like Jackie Aina or the money Michaels
have turned their content into all encompassing brand. How would
you describe your brand?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I would say I am one hundred percent a lifestyle creator,
but I'm lifestyle for the girls that just want a
little more. You know, I feel like when I think
about what I create, I'm documenting my life, but I'm
also documenting the experience of someone in their mid twenties
in New York and you know, the ebbs and flows
of how life can take you. So, like I said,
(05:14):
you know, I started off vlogging about my life, you know,
as someone who was working in tech. I was at
Google at the time, and then you know, obviously they
laid me off, and it just kind of transitioned beyond that,
it got a lot bigger than me. It was this
is how I'm spending my time post layoff, or come
with me on my first brand trip. Let's talk about
my dating life, Let's talk about this insane story time
(05:36):
that happened to me at a club in Manhattan. You know,
it's just every single thing that is going on in
my life at this point has become content, and I
think with that it's given me the ability to just
relate to a lot of people to where it's relatable
but it's also aspirational because I'm twenty five, I live alone,
I've made something of myself like beyond my parents, beyond
(05:58):
my education, and I think is something that's super fun
to watch, which is why I also follow a lot
of creators that are similar to me, because I love
to seeing what the girls are up to.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
You know, let me know what you're doing right, Put
me in your life, tell me the story exactly. Tell
me your business, all of it and all of it,
and take me through all of it. We know the
word brand can mean several different things, but here we're
defining it as someone's company slash business and how the
(06:30):
general public US basically perceives someone. Is there anything you'd
add to these definitions? What would you say makes a
good brand?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I think, honestly, what makes a good brand is consistency.
Even when I think of it in terms of like
personal brand, or I think of it as products that
I use, consumer products, or even like B to B products,
it's consistency. Are you consistently delivering excellence and are consistently
delivering quality? I think that's what makes a brand in
(07:02):
my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And is there a difference between a personal brand and
a professional brand, and how do they intersect.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
One, I think your personal brand is who you are
at all times. I think that is your personality and
the way you know your experiences interact. I think your
professional brand is usually a lot more refined. It's usually
more polished and curated. But they do intersect, like, for example,
a lot of people who make career based content, their
(07:31):
professional brand becomes their personal brand and vice versa. But
then you'll see people leave that switch. Like for example,
one of my favorite creators, her name is Annie. She
went to law school, she was working in big law,
left that job. She'll still reference her time, and you'll
see her professional brand kind of move away and instead
of being you know, the lawyer and the buttoned up person,
(07:54):
she's still composed, but it's a lot more free as
she starts to introduce more of a personal brand. So
I think there's an opportunity to collaborate those two things
and bring them together. But for some people they'll stay
super separate depending on what they do. For others, they join,
depending on how you choose to move through your career.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Got it, Got it? Thank you for explaining that. Let's
go back to Sidonian College. Outside of brand ambassador programs.
What seeds did you plant on campus and internships and
career programs that contributed to your current personal brand?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Oh my god. Yes, So I'm a Posse scholar. So
the Posse Foundation is a scholarship program designed for student
leaders spaced in twelve different cities across the United States,
and it started in New York where Vanderbilt University was
the first partner because there was this woman named Debbie
Beale who was a teacher. She had a student who
was super promising, and then he went to an elite
(08:53):
university and dropped out and said he wouldn't have dropped
out if he had his Posse with him. So the
program pretty much puts you with ten to twelve other
people from your city and you all go to one
school together to be like a support system for each other.
So I was a Posse scholar at Vanderbilt. So going
into college, I knew that I'd received that opportunity because
I was a student leader in my high school, Like
(09:14):
I was the president of the Blacksoth Union, I played
sports things like that, So I knew that the expectation
was to come on campus and be impactful. When I
got to college, the first thing I did. Legitimately, in
the first week, I made two stops. Won the Black
Cultural Center because I wanted to meet the director. I
wanted to see what they had to offer there, and
to the Career Center because I had to leave with something.
(09:38):
I was going to have a job one hundred percent
by the time I graduated, So I spent a good
chunk of my time in college working on my professional skills.
So I'm from Brooklyn, like almost every single person I
know is like a healthcare worker. I did not want
to work in healthcare under any circumstances. I initially thought
I was going to be a lawyer. I thought I
(09:59):
was going to maybe work in political comms for a
little bit. And then I actually had a professor who
used to be the Vice President of the United States,
and he strictly told me don't do that. So from
that point on, I was like, oh, great, thank you
for telling me that your time was not good. I
appreciate you sharing that with me. So as I started
(10:20):
refocusing and thinking about what I wanted to do, I
switched my major like ten times. But throughout those ten times,
I kept going to the career Center. I kept doing
resume workshops and mock interviews, and I was doing everything
from investment banking and wealth management to like media internships,
and then landed at Google after like a series of
(10:40):
trying things and realizing that marketing was kind of like
what I wanted, but I knew I wanted to do
marketing in an environment where there was more than one product,
which is why I didn't go to like a traditional
ad agency. So at that point, I feel like I
developed the personal brand of being someone who's like incredibly dedicated,
like determination and will to get the things that I
(11:01):
wanted because I made sure that I was one networking
super heavy, but two also maintaining community in the spaces
that I was networking in. So you know, that would
mean if I saw one of my friends who was
interested in something, and I meet a recruiter at a
job fair who's looking for comp size students, but I'm
not a compside student, I'm sending that email like, Hey,
I want you to meet so, and so, you know,
(11:23):
I think a good portion of myself in college was
bringing other people along with me as I experienced success,
because people who were older than me and you know, Vanderbilt,
were doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That is so real. The first stop being the career Center.
I want to give a big kudos to you with that.
I did not think I wasn't thinking that far ahead.
I definitely realized I only went to the career center
one time or once in my college career during my
(11:57):
senior fall, and I realized very quickly how behind I was.
So kudos to you for being attentive in that regard.
Shout out to you. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So I went to the career center a lot, but
primarily because I was applying for things that inherently like
I had no reason applying for. I was a political
science major. I took a ton of theater and communications classes.
I was super artsy, you know, like I nothing in
my profile gave investment, banking or wealth management, but something
(12:30):
just told me to try it. My older cousin who
worked in banking, he was just like, I think it's
a good learning experience if you like it if you don't.
So I went to the career Center and pretty much
was like, Hey, how do I pivot my experience from
being a research fellow in the Latin America Research Center
where I'm like doing statistical analysis on governments in South America,
(12:51):
how do I pivot this into data analytics and financial
acumen for this investment banking position. And thankfully, you know,
the Career Center. They were great and they showed me
that research and like what I was studying was actually
super relevant, you know, even though I wasn't an econ major.
We also didn't have a business major at Vanderbilt, so
like almost everyone who's a liberal arts major trying to
(13:14):
do these things, and they were super, super helpful. And
I think for me, once I did that internship that
was at Goldman Sachs that was my sophomore summer. I
did it, and I hated it, deeply hated it. It
was not for me in any way. But I learned
a lot in that internship. So I took those learnings
and then applied to Google to be a marketing intern
(13:35):
the following summer. Got that position, and then stayed at
Google for about three years until the layoff, so started
postgrad and then was there until the beginning of twenty
twenty three.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I think a lot of people want to leave college
with a job in connections, but maybe unsure about what
they want to do long term. How can you build
a personal brand if you're uncertain about your preferred career path.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I think the biggest thing I can say in this
is kindness will be rewarded one hundred percent. I think
if you're uncertain, if you're switching your major, or if
you've sat four years in something and then you want
to pivot into something else, the way you treat people
when you first meet them will be what makes them
help you down the line. I've been in situations where,
(14:23):
even to this day, like some when I'm met in college,
there was a girl she was three years older than me,
just senior when I was a freshman, and we had
a class together. It was like an elective class, but
we did a group project and she got super sick
if you had like mono or something like you know,
standard collegiate illness. But she really couldn't work for she
(14:43):
couldn't do the work for like a week. And I
texted her. I was like, hey, like, I know you're sick.
I've handled it. You know, I really appreciate you helping
as much as you could. Thank you so much. That
girl is now like an account manager at Ogilvy in
the influencer marketing department. Almost every month I'm getting an
email from her like, hey, here's this campaign that i'd
like you to get on. And realistically, she's a huge
(15:05):
reason why I'm able to like earn a comfortable living
simply because it was kind to her when I was
eighteen years old, and you know, it's been like a
graduate in college four years ago. So I think the
way you treat people will be the reason that they
choose to help you, and that that's just being sincere
in your interactions. Like I think a lot of people.
(15:25):
I experienced this a lot when I was like Google.
People would just send me messages and be like, hey,
give me a referral. I'd be like, I don't know you,
Like I don't know what to write in this thing
because we haven't interacted with each other. I don't know
what to say here. But you know, the people who
have reached out and even today when folks are like, hey,
I see you're connected with someone at this company or
(15:46):
like you went to high school with this person, would
you be willing to talk to them? And you know
they come and they speak kindly, and you know they
make a genuine requests like yeah, of course I would
love to help you, because I would hope in the
future you'd be able to do the same. And I
think a lot of folks they look at networking as
like networking up, which I don't love the idea of that.
I think it's more so networking across like people who
(16:08):
are having similar life experiences, people who are you know,
your age or in your age range, who are trying
to do the cool things that you're trying to do.
I think those are the people to look to instead
of the director who's thirty plus years older than you.
I think a lot of my great experiences and things
that I've been able to do have come from like
(16:28):
folks I went to college with, or people I went
to high school with, or someone who I meet randomly
outside at an event, like I've been able. For example,
I'm starting a business venture that's launching this year, and
when I was looking for angel investment funds, that came
through literally someone who I met at a party at
another event, and I reached out and was like, Hey,
(16:49):
you know, I know you work in this industry. I
want to tell you about something that I'm working on.
Can you give me some feedback on my pitch here?
And instead of giving me feedback at the end of
my pitch, you gave me a check, so you know,
I think there is the opportunity to create and build
things with people who are similar to you, instead of
looking upwards or looking super super far outside of your network.
(17:12):
It's the person who sat next to you in that
sophomore English class is probably just disqualified to give you
advice as someone who has ten fifteen years of experience, I.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Think there definitely needs to be a shift of how
we approach like the networking up idea, just because I
don't know, I just feel like it was taught to
us like in college, like you need to network to
your professor's network, to the dean of art, like all
these people who are just not in our age range.
And there are so many qualified people, like you said,
(17:41):
who are doing similar work as us and who are extraordinary.
So I really love that gym. It's amazing. I love that.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Thank you. For example, I just flew to Nashville to
be like a guest on another influencer's book tour, and
when she gave me that invitation, one it was we
had randomly met three four years ago at a party
like a brand event, and she was super cool, so
we've just always kept in touch. But when I was
thinking like, oh, what am I gonna wear? What am
(18:10):
I going to do? Like the photographer that I brought
literally someone I've known since I was sixteen years old,
you know, like the person who styled me is the
friend of a friend who is trying to make her
name in the fashion industry. And I was like, yeah,
like I would love to work with you. What's your rate?
Can you help me out? This is gonna be big,
It's gonna be photographed, you know, things like that. So
ensuring that instead of looking at the you know, the
(18:33):
super famous stylists with one hundred and fifty thousand followers,
it's like, let me see who's in my network, who
creatively can do this, Like even with my own ventures.
My brand designer who did all my assets for like
the new upcoming brand. She's someone who I worked with
at Google, someone who I've known since I was nineteen,
you know, when we were interns. So I love the
idea of just keeping with the people that you know,
(18:55):
because I'm sure in ten years she's going to be
like the biggest name in design. But it's good to
know that when I was twenty five I saw that
and was like, yeah, I want to work with you.
I want the stylist to be the next law Roach.
It's like, yeah, I worked with this person way back when,
and it's great to know that you can support people
because these are the people who supported me. So it's
honestly love.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
With you, Wing, I love it. I'm curious how do
you decide when and where to share different aspects of
your brand, so your interest, hobbies, accomplishments, when you're known
for different things.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
That's a difficult one because everyone isn't going to love everything.
I think as you transition and you create different kinds
of content, you have to be willing one to lose
people who were originally there, but also knowing that people
won't say yes to you if you don't risk being
told no. And I think that's the philosophy that I
moved through my entire life with. So when it comes
(19:51):
to sharing things, for example, when I share that I
was applying to business school, I share that as like, Hey,
this is my next step in my career. I'm going
to go further my education, and I want you to
know that it's perfectly okay to be someone who is
self employed or working on your own venture and going
to school doesn't mean you're giving up on yourself. It
just means you want a bigger base to you know,
(20:12):
spring your launch from. But even within that, like I
haven't shared where I'm applying to school, I haven't shared
you know, like acceptances or rejections. Those are things that
I feel like will come later on down the line,
because there's a certain level of privacy that you do
give up as a creator. You know there are strangers
(20:33):
invested in your life, and thank you for being invested
in my life. But you know, at some point you
have to say what is for me. So like, for example,
I'll speak about dating, but like I'll never share my
partner or who I'm dating. I'll you know, talk about
like nightlife and like being out with my friends, but
only my friends who have explicitly consented to being recorded
(20:56):
are featured. So that's why you'll see like my best
friend Dante a lot more than you'll see like some
of my other friends from college or from work because
they don't want to be on camera all the time.
But he's super cool with being on camera. So you know,
it's just you have to have your limits and know
that even though it's work, it's still personal. So ensuring
that the people around you feel safe and in kind.
(21:18):
I think that's what creates an engaged audience, is they
see that you love your life and you love the
people who you interact with, and you know they want
to watch that and they want to experience that with you.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
No, I've always wondered how do those conversations go when
content creators have friends and they allow the audience to
view their friendship. So I love that there are boundaries
set in place in your friend groups and there are
conversations being had about privacy and just keeping that intimate
with your own experience. I love that my.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Friends are great, honestly, but they have their moments where
they'll be like, get that camera out my face, you know. Like,
and my friends alway joke specifically on my last birthday
trip we went to Arizona for a week and my
friends joke, they're like, one thing about you, We're gonna
record that cheers three times. And I was like, you
are absolutely correct. We're gonna do it in point five,
(22:14):
we're gonna do it in one, and then we're gonna
do it on my blog camera for the YouTube video
you are absolutely correct, but they're so used to it
because they're like, it's fine. And then you know, if
anyone ever does get like a little annoyed, it's like, hey,
you want to be my plus one to this movie premiere?
Like could come with me? Go it? Then it all works.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I love that it's hilarious. So a good brand is
one that is authentic. So how can college age women
share their true personalities online without jeopardizing future opportunities?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I think the primary thing I would say with this
is you don't want to work anywhere where you can't
present your full self, So use discernment to determine what
your full sete. For some people, that means they talk
about every aspect of their life, whether or not it's
deemed socially appropriate or not. For others, they have boundaries
(23:08):
where they're like, I won't discuss my sex life, I
won't discuss dating, I won't use profanity. Some people are
a lot stricter than others. I will say, this is
super dependent as to you know what career field you
want to go into. There are some fields that are
a little more conservative, like the law or medicine, and
then there are other fields like beauty or fashion where
(23:29):
girl put that on, put that whole outfit on it,
you take a picture because that, you know, beyond your resume,
your Instagram is part of what is going to help
you get hired. So I think using your discernment is
the best advice I have here me personally, I'll post
what I want because if someone is choosing not to
employ me or not to admit me into a school,
(23:49):
because my life is public consumption for someone else, and
that's okay, that's their loss. Because the way I see
it is I think of like content creations epically is
like a new field in marketing. It's direct to consumer
marketing is the best way I can explain it. You know,
you are creating brand love and brand loyalty for an individual,
(24:10):
and in kind, brands will hire you to you know,
promote their products or be a trusted partner for them
because people value your expertise. And I think if people
value your expertise, you've clearly proven yourself as a marketer,
as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. So someone else
doesn't take you seriously because they don't value the industry
or they don't value what you create, then that's their loss,
(24:32):
so post what you want to post. Like, I have
some things in my digital footprint where I'm like, damn,
I google myself. I see it. I'm like, oh, well
that's that. You know that was four years ago. You know.
I see things pop up from when I was in
high school or I'm like, shouldn't have said that, but
it is what it is. You would hope that with
age comes growth, and I will say, as I get older,
(24:53):
I'm getting a lot more wiser.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I will say that, Hi, I'm sorrya Taylor TBG podcast
production intern. We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I think partying and going out can still be seen
as a taboo on social media. What advice do you
have about balancing the desire to have fun with the
need to protect your personal brand.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I will say with this one, you don't have to
go everywhere. Everything does not require your attendance. And I
actually was taking to another creator about this and he
said something to me that has really stuck with me.
And he said to Smith a year ago, said, your
presence is exclusive. Who you spend your time with is exclusive.
You should not be for everyone. I think like going
(25:47):
out and enjoying yourself is super fun. But even in
a large party, that's still an intimate experience. You're still
surrounded by people. We living a digital age or being
watched things like that. Sometimes pick and choose what do
you want to set yourself at and when do you
want to stay home and relax. When do you want
to pour into yourself versus pouring into your community. And
(26:07):
I think that's the difference I feel like specifically me
like living in New York and being in Brooklyn. I
go out every weekend. I say the same people. I see,
the same people I've been seeing since I was about
eighteen or nineteen years old, since we were in mlt Cohorts.
I know these people. If I miss one party, it's
not going to kill me. You know, if I miss
one thing, it's going to be okay. So I think
(26:30):
you don't have to engage with everything. It's okay to
be exclusive with your time because you can cultivate community
five days out the week, but you have to take
some time for yourself. And that's why consistently every month,
I'm like the fifteenth rolls around. I'm like, most time
to stay in my house, lits to a face mouset's watch.
Some TV. You know, I'll watch a good rom come,
(26:51):
paint my nails, mindlessly, scroll on the internet, put my
phone away, things like that. It's like you have to
take care of yourself. And I feel like people want
to be outside and people think that time is super fleeting.
But I promise you not being in your twenties does
not mean that you're old. Like, if anything, you're probably
in the peak of your life when you get out
your twenties. So true, there is no rush, there's no
(27:13):
rush to be there.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Heavy on those get out of the mindset that your
twenties are the last years of your life. I'm really
trying to reemphasize that, and that you have to be
in everyone's face or just at every social gathering. There's
something about saving your energy that I've started to see
more post grad that I should have probably implemented a
(27:38):
little bit more during college. But I enjoy it. I
want to be in my bed, I want to be
my robe, I want to have my topicals. I'm ask
on I rather have it, actually, so I fully agree.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I agree wholeheartedly. I was that girl in college. I
went out six days a week. Yeah, you know, I
was in the books, but I was partying to the
point where my mom came to visit me my senior
year and she was like, girl, and I had just
gotten surgery. That's why she came to visit me. And
two days after the surgery, I'm like, okay, yeah, you know,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna go out. And she had
(28:12):
to sit me down and was like, baby, no, you're not.
She was like, you're gonna sit down. You go to
the same bar every week with the same people that
you go to college with. It's okay. You don't need
to do things like this. And I think for me,
as like I've gotten older, pouring into yourself is super
important because you can't pour from an empty cup. And
(28:33):
I think a lot of people like to over exert
themselves and it happens so naturally that you don't even
know that you're pouring from an empty cup. But at
some point that's gonna break. So you have to take
time to just relax. And I'll tell you one thing.
Me and topicals. We I got the faded serum on
my face, got my eyemasks on, I've wrapped my hair up.
(28:55):
Oh I'll finish all that. Sit down, pull out my
mirror and just start doing my makeup. I'm like, yeah,
let's let's see how this blush is looking. Let's see
how we're going to carve these eyebrows. Just for fun,
put on my favorite YouTubers and just watch just till
and make a good meal, something hearty in my house
or even you know, order something real greasy on uber eats.
It's like reward yourself for spending time with yourself. Like,
(29:20):
how can you exist and say you're going to interact
with other people if you can't identify what you like
about yourself and you don't like spending time with yourself,
you have to be alone at some point to understand
how to be in community with other people.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I'm gonna take that in for sure. But moving on,
tell us how important are LinkedIn and other professional and
social media platforms in building one's brand.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
LinkedIn is the goat. One thing about me, here's what
I'll say. When I was nineteen, i joined this program
called MLT Management Leadership for Tomorrow. It's like designed to
train you know, black and brown young people to be
like business leaders. And my coach, her name was Coach Stancil.
He said something to me in my first call with
(30:08):
her because she asked me what I wanted to do,
and at the time I didn't know. I told her
I had finance experience, I had marketing experience. I'd done
some social work, but I was interested in tech, music,
consumer baggage, goods, sports. I was like, I'll do anything
I like, because in my mind, a career is not linear,
like you don't start something and have to do for
the rest of your life. I was like, oh, I
(30:29):
can work this and then I'll figure out a way.
You know, if I wanted to go work for the
next Like I figure out a way to go work
for the next It's okay, you know, we'll get there.
And she said something to me where she was like,
you just need to start searching on LinkedIn. She was like,
search for the companies that you like, search your school,
search your high school. Search people who are connected with
your other friends. I would literally be in the search
(30:51):
bar like NBA, Vanderbilt University political Science, just searching like
who was a policy major at this school? And you
know you'll find people in a to act with people
were so much older. But I would literally be like, hey,
can I get fifteen minutes of your time to talk
with you about this, this, this, and this. I'm super
intrigued about what you do and I'm thinking about my
career plans. And a lot of those people responded and
(31:14):
were super kind, and I'd actually say the biggest person
who responded to me. I don't know if you're familiar
with the Creative Collective and like culture Con, but the
person who founded that Imani. She graduated from Vanderbilt about
eight years before I graduated, but I saw her on
LinkedIn at the time. He was a manager at NBCUniversal
working on publicity, and I saw she was working on
(31:35):
Bravos Up Atlanta, and I was like, oh my god,
I love that show. Like we send her a message.
I sent her a message. She hops on a call
with me, She's telling me about her career hilariously. Like
a year later, I ended up being on exec for
a club that she founded when she was a student
at Vanderbilt. We kept in contact over the years, you know,
(31:56):
just like hi, and by passing messages. And now she's
taken the Creative collective full time and is doing culture
Con and things like that. And I'm working as a
creative full time, and she's consistently inviting me to things
consistently keeping my name in conversation. I've gone to events
where it's like I'm meeting someone who the VP of
influencer marketing at Carol's Daughter and then telling her how
(32:19):
much I love the product. It's like, yeah, like my
mom's been using this on me since I was a kid.
And then I'm getting brought onto campaigns for Carol's Daughter,
like when they were doing the Color Purple movie launch,
And I think for me, it's like none of that
would have been possible if you just didn't have the
fear of rejection. Your fear of looking stupid is holding
you back, Like that's really what it is, because she
(32:39):
could have ignored it, and that would have been completely
fine if she ignored it. There's so many people who
ignore you, who don't want to help. But good people
will respond to you, but you have to put yourself
out there first for them to respond, for them to say, hey,
you know I'm doing this. And I think a lot
of people stop at the initial interaction. If you're a
college student and you connected with somebody who works that
(33:02):
job that you want in the end, keep them updated.
For me, it'll be like every semester I'd send a
message to anyone who was like super intrigued, and I'd
be like, hey, like, i just finished up my sophomore
year and i'm studying this now, but I'm working with
ESPNU on campus and a student government. We're doing this.
Keep me updated, like what's going on in your world?
And like, I think just having those conversations has really
(33:25):
done a lot for me, because I remember posting on
LinkedIn after the layoff, Hey I'm not looking for a job,
but if something pops up, that's excellent. I'm totally willing
to entertain this and the amount of people who sent
me messages and they were like, oh, I'm hiring here,
or like my team is looking for this, or consultancy
opportunities that have come through just like using LinkedIn and
(33:48):
people seeing what was going on there. I think LinkedIn
is truly the most powerful social networking app and people
don't even think about it in the conversation with like
a TikTok or a Twitter, but it's one hundred percent
just as powerful, and there's really good content and useful
information that you can find there that will truly help you.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So once you secure your dream job or opportunity, how
do you continue building your brand and communicating your wins,
interests and aspirations.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
So this is something that my older cousin taught me,
so for reference, he's seven years older than me, but
he's been working for a minute. But when I did
my first internship, which was in high school, at I
did at spray Ground Backpack, like a company that makes
really cool backpacks. And I got that internship because I
called their warehouse and I was like, hey, I'm a
(34:41):
huge fan of this brand. I want to work for you. Guys.
Who was in charge of your internship program? And they
were like, we don't have an internship program. This is
a company of four people. We do not have that.
And I was like, okay, who's your president, who's in charge,
who's the big man here? And you know, reached out,
(35:01):
sent this long I was sixteen, sent this long email
about how much I love the company and I see
it all the time and I have all these different
bags and I'm trying to learn these new skills. And
they were like, okay, well if you can get credit
from your high school, then sure. So I went to
my guidance counsel and say, hey, I need credit for
a work study, I'm trying to get this internship and
they're like, we don't do that. I'm like, okay, but
(35:23):
some's gonna have to shake here because I had already finished,
you know, the graduation requirements, and I wanted to do
this thing, so let's see, and you know, they figured
it out on the back end and allowed me to
do that. But when I started that internship, my cousin
told me, he was like, even though they're not paying you,
you need to prove that you're brilliant. So you tell
me accountability is the biggest thing that anyone seeks in
(35:46):
the workplace is knowing that someone will hold their own
when you need them to hold their own. So since
that internship, I've done the same thing, and I even
do it now as a creator. When I'm like looking
to recap or like I'm working with brands and stuff.
At the end of every week or every big milestone,
you just got to send a simple update. So how
I would do it. I would track it in Excel
(36:06):
or Google sheets, right, have every single deliverable that I
was working on, and there would just be a progress tracker,
like you know what step am I on? Have I
finished the deck? Have I done the research, all that,
and just a simple quick email at the end of
each week like hey, I've done this, I've done this,
and next week, this is what I'm working on and
this is what I'm building out from really helps you
(36:27):
so much. Keeping a running document of everything you're doing
with your manager or if you're self employed, just everything
you're doing because you got to write resume bullets, you
got to be able to advocate for yourself when it
comes time to go for promotion. You never want to
be not on the same page as your manager when
it comes time for you to get promoted. And if
you're not on the same page, that's your record that
proves that you did everything right instead of just flying
(36:51):
by the seat of your pants. So I think for me,
showing accountability has been the biggest thing that I've been
able to do within my time in the corporate world,
my time now as a creator, even now that I
work on campaigns, I literally have my manager send thank
you notes to every single person that I work with, like, Hey,
this was a joy. You know, even if things like
we're on the campaign and things are late and it's like, hey,
(37:14):
I'm delayed on this flight, but I'm going to get
this to you by the end of the day, but
it's going to be like eight pm. You know, just
be on the lookout. It's like, if you are holding
yourself accountable and you're being consistent, that behavior will be
rewarded and that will show that you've been able to,
you know, deliver good work, like you're a trusted partner.
And that is held up even now because there have
(37:36):
been times I've been on campaigns where things were late,
or things were out of my control, or they give
me twelve hours to bring back a concept and the
content from the brief that has three words and you're
just like, okay, well I got it. It's cool. But
because of that, they keep coming back and they're like, oh,
I want to keep working with her because I like her.
And I think a lot of people don't look at
(37:58):
consistency and account of ability. They want to have the
biggest project and have the most in your face thing.
But sometimes it's as simple as just maintaining consistent communication
with the person who manages you or you know, a
cross functional partner. That'll make all the difference and how
you're perceived in the workplace and how your reputation moves forward.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
That is I'm literally taking that like okay, Like no,
I need to be accountable and consistent. That's a huge
gym I think is overlooked. I think young professionals get
placed into the workforce, and I'll speak for myself and
that mentality of college of like grind and get it
done and just do it and learn along the way.
(38:43):
But taking a step back and just remaining consistent in
all that you do and holding yourself accountable and all
that you do can also go a long way in
addition to the grind, in addition to the hustle. So
I love that.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
That's perfect faith with that works, Like what's the point?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
What's the point?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Which point? Okay, where are we gonna go from here?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Right in your perspective, how important is someone's social media
account when finding opportunities? Can you confirm or deny the
idea that jobs, internships, and or colleges check their applicants
social media pages?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Okay, so this is a little iffy. I can say
yes and no. So I've been in situations where jobs
have checked it's part of like the background check. Then
I've been in situations where like working admissions and stuff
in college, Like if someone mentions that they're a creator,
you're like, Okay, well I'm gonna go look. And I know,
(39:41):
personally from my experience and applying to business school, like
my work as an influencer is on my resume. It's
listed as my job with metrics and partnerships and like
links to like all the stuff that I've done. So
I'm not shocked when, you know, in an interview someone's like, hey,
I watched like your last ten tiktoks. Tell me about this.
Tell me about that. I think some places that are
(40:04):
more conservative or you know, are more tightly laced. They're
checking to see if there's anything negative. But if you
are mentioning it as part of your story, they're checking
to see what you do. This is your job, this
is your passion. I I do like college application mentorship
through this organization in New York. And one of the
(40:25):
people who I was mentoring this past cycle, she was
a YouTuber and she maybe had like five or six
thousand subscribers, which had a really engaged community, and it
was something that she put on her resume, and she
was applying to all these schools and was like, hey,
you know, this is what I do for fun. This
is my main extracurricular activity. I don't play a sport.
I'm not a student government. I make content and there
(40:45):
are six thousand people who watch this content, and I
will continue to grow. I saw that, I was like, yeah,
they're definitely gonna watch the video. Like it's part of
your stories, what you wrote your essay on. So I
think if your content and the things that you put
out become part of your story and as a result,
become a part of your personal brand, it's the expectation
is that would be looked at and checked. But some
(41:06):
places they're just nosy. I'll tell you one thing. My
mom's a nurse. You know, when she's looking to hire
a new nurse, she's on that Instagram making sure that
there's nothing crazy on there. You know, She's like, are
you arguing with somebody on the internet? Are you saying
mean things? Do you have an uncaring spirit? You know?
Things like that. But I feel like most of the
time it's usually pretty chill because people aren't posting super
(41:28):
outrageous things. Now, god forbid, you post a tweet or
something that goes viral and you're getting heat. I've seen
that happen to people where one of my TikTok must rules.
She goes to the TikTok that was like about the
former president and she literally lost her job because of
how up in arms people were about that she was
not employed. But that's also because her company was conservative
(41:49):
and they were unwilling to have that. Meanwhile, when I
was like, oo, why, multiple people be like, oh I
didn't like her TikTok of how the sister is report me,
and they'd be like, okay, I wasn't a company time
like thank you for sharing. So it depends.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Going off of that, What are some other immediate no
nos regarding what we're posting on our social media pages?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Okay, I would say the big no no is anything
that's illegal. People can tolerate your political views. They can
tolerate how you feel about a musician. You know, I
tweet almost every week that I don't like Drake and
Travis Scott. I'm like, I don't like it. It's not
for me, it's not fun. But you know, I know
the girls are throwing tomatoes. I don't throw to fanos everything.
(42:34):
I don't like them. I made a TikTok or I
was like Drake's concert was the worst waste of money.
I asked Amex for my money back. I didn't like
it because I'm a Beyonce fan. I want to see performance.
But no one's going to be like, oh, that's outrageous.
I don't like that she dis likes this artist, or
I don't like that she doesn't like this food, or
like things like that. The one thing people will one
(42:55):
hundred percent look and be like that's a red flag
if it's something illegal, drugs, things like that. That is
just like the biggest no no that I can give.
And I know, hilariously, Like, I had a conversation with
another creative about this recently, because I live in a
state where marijuana is legalized on the state wide level.
(43:16):
Recreationally walk down the street and see people smoking leed
and it's not an issue. But she was looking at
her numbers and she's like, yeah, like I smoke leed,
but I can't post that because a lot of people
who follow me live in Middle America and that's not
legal there, and I don't want to mess up my money.
And you know, she sat down and been like, that's
the line that she's drawing. Meanwhile, there are other creators
who have entire brands based on cannabis. I know someone
(43:39):
who his entire brand on TikTok is like advocacy to
get people of color into the cannabis space because we're
overincarcerated for cannabis offenses but underemployed in the industry. I
think there's ways to make something that isn't inherently positive
become positive. I think his spin is great, But one
(44:01):
of my friends, like, if my influencer friend was just like, oh,
I'm a pothead, she could just expect to not get
paid for that month because that's not productive realistically. Meanwhile,
what the other kid is doing is super productive, where
he's like, hey, we over index on incarceration for this offense,
but these new things are coming. You should apply for
your license if this is something that you did. For example,
(44:23):
New York vacated a lot of cannabis related convictions and
the people who were convicted for those offenses were able
to get priority and getting legal licenses to open up storefronts.
Post about that. Beyond that, it gets a little dicey
because that's the only one that's really you know, legal
anywhere else, Like, please your habits if you have habits,
(44:46):
you know, we cannot share those habits publicly with people
because that can turnish you on an insane insane level.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Hi, I'm sorrya Taylor and I'm the TBG podcast production.
We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
On the flip side, what types of content might one
lean into posting to their social media accounts to attract
brands or job opportunities.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
This is a great one. Finance is a huge one.
If you are someone you are about your money, you
maximize your credit card points, you talk about managing debt,
or you're young and you're trying to figure your money out,
that is a great, great thing to post about. I
feel like to my most successful videos have been this
is how I've managed my money as someone who's twenty
(45:40):
five and self employed and trying to do this. I
think beauty is long standing, you know. I think like
black women consume like trillions of dollars in beauty product
each year. That's always going to be something that's super
super relatable and it's evergreen. And in general, lifestyle, like,
if you are posting about your life, you are able
(46:02):
to bring in deals from so many different verticals like
I've done deals with food companies, like I have something
coming up with Burger Game. Then you know, like I've
done like cleaning products or like H and R block
for finances, airlines, things like that. You know, there's so
many different things to do if you're an everything poster
(46:23):
and you don't necessarily niche down super super niche. But
I would say those are the big three. But finance
is definitely the biggest one. If you are somebody where
your coins are together and you're on that Marcus app
or you're on that you need a budget app and
your money is right, share that with people because there
are a lot of people who don't have their money
right who are trying to figure it out and they're
(46:45):
struggling because they can't find the information that applies to them. So,
you know, if you have student debt and like you're
paying that off, I think that's valuable and that's important
to a lot of people, and that market is unfortunately
not very it's not very black, and I would love
to see more black people, more Black women sharing their
journeys and talking about that, like where is bad advice?
(47:07):
You know? I think that is really something that's super
helpful to everyone young, old, no matter what you identify as.
Everyone's trying to figure their finances out. So that's a
great way to build a community. And you can also
integrate a lot of other things from that finance perspective.
You can integrate lifestyle. You can talk about your spending
habits for personal maintenance. There's so many ways to make
(47:30):
that something impactful.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Right, So, we know you can't have a pop in
brand without haters. So how have you navigated negative comments
or animosity from others?
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Oh, I'm not gonna lie. I'm from Brooklyn, So there
are some things where I'm going to let it roll
off and I'll be like, you know what, I don't
really care. But there are some things I'm like, that
was so disrespectful and I'm actually going to get you
and I will address this deep because you are out
your mind if you think you can speak to me
(48:04):
like this. The one thing I always say to anyone
who's looking to create content is there's three things you
need to think of. One. Everyone wants to be an influencer,
but influence can't be manufactured. It's inherently innate. Are people
interested in you in your personal life? If so, go
ahead and post that video. Go ahead and post that video.
(48:24):
If not, it's like, maybe you don't need to work
in front of the camera. Maybe you're the production maybe
you're you know, the editor. Because every single person who
I know who has made like a career out of
this is someone who was pretty dynamic in their personal life.
The second thing, how thick is your skin? How thick
is your skin? Because if you're in front of the camera,
(48:46):
everything you do will be criticized. Like I have been
criticized for gaining weight, losing weight, you know, Like I've
literally have people say I don't like the way your
mouth moves. Do you have botox? I'm like, this is
my face. There's people who chat about you anonymously on
different forums and you have to just be willing to
take it. I've personally gotten to a point where the
(49:08):
only way to protect yourself from those kinds of things
is to not engage with it. So my comments are filtered.
I don't check anonymous forums. Things like that, but you know,
don't get to you at some point, And I think
every person has their breaking point, and there are some
that are stronger than others where they don't even entertain
it from the beginning, and then you know some like
(49:29):
me where you're like, damn, w don't you say that,
Like my feelings are hurt. That was not okay. I've
had to find that balance between clapping back and just
ignoring it. But I always say, especially when someone has
disrespected me and they're like, oh, well, you post your
life online, you know you should expect criticism, and I'm like,
this is not a safe space. This is my space,
this is my account, like we that's not how this works.
(49:51):
You don't get to just randomly disrespect people under the
cover of anonymity and expect that they won't respond to you,
you know. So, I think when that has been the case,
it's a little different. And I've I've been in situations
where people who I know in my personal life, I've
clicked the link and it redirects to their TikTok and
I'm like, oh, that's you. Why are you doing that.
(50:14):
It's one of those things where it's like it comes
with the territory, but it doesn't make it any less hurtful.
You just have to at some point develop a skin
that's thick enough to where it's not the top of mind. Freedom.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, I don't know the point of I guess expressing
negativity to strangers, I don't know. So I definitely agree
like keeping a thick skin and having that mindset over
anything else. It's a bit strange when that happens to
content creators and providing opinions about strangers' lives. So I
(50:49):
don't know. That's just what I've gathered from that.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I think there just comes a time where you have
to sit down as a creator and be like, what
is constructive and what isn't. I had someone, hilariously like
six months ago, send me the longest Instagram DM multi
I scrolled for what felt like four minutes about how
(51:15):
they don't like that me being a self employed person.
They feel like I'm no longer relatable to them, and
you know, they missed when I was like fresh out
of college and like going to the office and things
like that. And there were some constructive points in there
where they were like, you know, I'd love to see
you know your family again, I'd love to see your friends.
The things you're just doing. I don't want to see
(51:36):
you on vacation twenty four to seven. That was helpful,
Thank you. I will incorporate that feedback, but then you know,
other times it's like I don't like your face, or
you know, your hair looks crazy, and it's like, all right,
now I'm in my house, you know so. And I
think as a creator, you also have to be very
accepting of the fact that something you post on one
(51:59):
app could you reposted on another. There are multiple times
like a TikTok of mine has made us to Twitter,
and Twitter is ruthless. At that point, it's lock, they countdown.
We're in hiding what is what it is? Or like
knowing that someone will take one thing that you say
out of context and run with it and create an
entire perception of you in their head when they've never
met you, and they could point you out on the street.
(52:21):
But I think it's really important to know as a creator,
but also as a viewer that social media is curated.
You're never going to get one hundred percent twenty four
to seven of someone's life, and knowing that what you see,
whether you relate to it or you aspire to it,
through it all, it's entertainment. It's not one hundred percent
(52:41):
what that person is going through. So just acknowledging that
as a viewer but also as the creator has really
just changed how I feel about a lot of the
content that I interact with and a lot of the
things that are said to me. I'm just like, all right, cool.
If you're not entertained, then I'm sorry. You know, I
find somebody else entertain you.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
So where do you see your brand going in the
next few years?
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Oh my god, Well, I'm going back to school in August.
TVD where I'll be. But you know, fingers crossed don't
be my tough choices. So for me, I see my
brand moving backwards a little bit, going back to you know,
my student era, and going back to the networking and
the building that I was creating. I think as a creator,
(53:23):
no one knows how long your life SPAN's going to be.
I think the average is like three to five years,
and I'm on your four. If I make it past five, woo,
you know, I pretty much got the creator pension. I guess.
You know, it's like, this is lovely when I think
of like myself, I don't see this as a forever thing,
(53:45):
because you know, trend change, people change, I'll change. Who
knows what my life will look like in a few years.
But what I do see my personal brand continuing to
do is building community, whether that means online or in person.
Building space is inclusive spaces for people who want to
achieve things in their lives and for people who you
(54:06):
know are the builders and want to make the spaces
that they don't have. And whether that's through like my
upcoming venture, whether that's through social media, whether that's returning
to a traditional job and you know, another industry. When
I look at my brand, all I can see is
consistency and accountability, because no matter what I end up doing,
(54:28):
I know those are the two things that I will
continue to do, doesn't matter how flips I love it.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I'm so excited to see your school era. I feel
like that's going to be so exciting to see and
just sending you the best energy towards that. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Applying to business school has objectively been the hardest thing
I've done as an adult, between testing and figuring out
where you're going to apply, interviews, things like that. This
process will be over in a month, and I could
not be happier.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Well, we're celebrating, celebrating an advanced period.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
We are. I'm excited. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Do you have any recommended podcasts or social media pages
that we should look into to deepen our knowledge on
building a brand.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
I love Balanced Black Girl by Lez. I don't know
if people are familiar, but she does a lot of
stuff in the wellness space. But there's an episode in
particular that one of my friends, Kitlin Cooney, was featured
on and it was about your personal finances in your
twenties and how you know, build the dream life that
you want starting from the ground up with your finances.
(55:34):
And I think that is the biggest thing you could
possibly do for your personal brand, is make sure that
you are getting paid. You know a lot of people
don't necessarily think of finances as part of the brand,
but it's one hundred percent part of the brand. I
will stand on this. And then I love Go Offices
from Refinery twenty nine. I think every episode provides insight,
(55:55):
shows me something that you know, I wasn't thinking of. Particularly,
they did an episode of Joyofudu. She's a voiceover actor,
and she talked a lot about like her journey leaving
her corporate job to move into creative field. And I
think the idea of betting on yourself is super important
because if you can't bet on yourself? What can you
bet on? And those two podcasts have definitely made me
(56:17):
think and like really just deepen my connection with myself
and as a result, that's been a huge part of
my personal brand and how I look at myself and
how I'm growing. So those are probably my big two
that I could recommend now. If you just want something fun,
to listen to Sisters Who Kill. If you like true crime,
I love some true crime. That was just funny. You
want to turn your brain off, go listen to Maran
(56:39):
Taz talk about that.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Love true crime, love turning my brain off. Love both
of those things. So I love all of those ships.
So Sidoni, where can we keep up with you? What
are your social media handles and website?
Speaker 3 (56:52):
Yes so Soidnifrancis dot com is all thanks to Dony.
But you can find me on TikTok and Instagram at
Francis and then you can find me on YouTube with
my government name Saddani Francis. It's all. It's all the same.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Thank you for being the big sister that we never
knew we needed. This conversation was amazing. I appreciate you
so much for talking with me, and again, congratulations on
applying to business school in that venture. I'm so excited
to see it.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
I'm such a big fan.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Of course, I want to thank Sadoni once again for
joining us for this episode. Classes over for now, but
before we dismiss, take the following notes from my conversation
with Sidoni home with you. Get with your college's career
services office to see what internships are available. Complete an
(57:49):
audit of your social media pages to make sure you're
representing yourself in the best way possible. Message someone you
admire on LinkedIn and set up a call to learn
how they got to where they are. To learn more
about the work Sedoni is doing, or to do more
research on this topic, be sure to visit Therapy for
Blackgirls dot com slash tvgu This episode was produced by FRIEDA. Lucas,
(58:12):
Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing is by Dennison L. Bradford.
Congratulations, you've been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy
for Black Girls University. Whether packing for a new year
on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in a
community college, or grabbing your souls for graduation, tbgu is
here to help you thrive at this stage of your
life and beyond. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm Sorria Taylor and I'm the TBG podcast production intern.
We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I don't know about y'all, but whenever I'm at a party, dinner,
or even just going out with my friends, it's become
habitual to post something about it on social media. And
though there's nothing wrong with keeping the girls updated on
my moves, in this day and age, it's important to
know what's good to share and what could potentially impact
(01:02):
your future if the wrong I see it. To talk
this through with me, I'm joined today by Brooklyn based
gen Z lifestyle content creator Siddoni Francis. Siddoni has worked
with a variety of brands such as Vasilene, Disney, and Marshalls,
and through sharing her journey from tech girl to laid
off tech employee turned full time entrepreneur and incoming NBA student,
(01:27):
Siddoni is creating content specifically for women in her age range,
empowering and inspiring them in the process. In our conversation today,
Siddoni shares her dues and don'ts for posting on social media,
setting boundaries around what the public gets to know versus
what's kept private, and dealing with the haters when posting online.
(01:48):
Here's our conversation, Siddoni, thank you so much for being
here with us. I'm so excited to talk with you
today and yeah, I'm ready to dive in. So you
are an influencer, content creator, tech baddie and the luxurious
big sister we never had. Take us back to the
(02:10):
very beginning. Where would you say your love for content
creation came from?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh my god, hilariously. So, when I was in college,
I don't know if you guys are familiar with the
brand ambassador programs that companies will do for colleges. Were like,
you know, they'll give you a couple dollars and like,
you know, you pretty much like promote the app or
something like that on campus. So in the spring of
twenty twenty, which was my last semester of college, I
(02:35):
was a TikTok brand ambassador. I was posting like the
dumbest videos. I only had like a hundred followers. It
was just my friends and people I went to college with.
And then obviously I had sue graduation unfortunately, and literally
the day I graduated from college, my cousin at the time,
she was like nine, I think, came over and helped
me record a TikTok where I just like it was
(02:58):
like set to Tom's Savage and it was like I'm
that girl and no girl stoda girl pretty much was
like the point of the video, and I captioned it,
when you graduate from Vanderbilt with honors, a full time
job at Google and no student debt. And I literally
just like put my phone down. I had no followers,
and I woke up the next day and I had
like almost ten thousand and that video had gotten like
(03:20):
three hundred thousand views, and I was like, wait, how
did strangers see this thing? And I guess from there,
it was always fun. It was just something that I
was doing. It was good vibes. And then twenty twenty
three rolls around, I get laid off from my full
time job and I'm like, well, I guess this is
what I'm doing now, this is my thing, right.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I definitely remember it felt like everybody was a brand ambassador,
whether that be for Pink Good molecules. It felt like
everyone on campus had content creation in their bag.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
When I tell you, I was a brand ambassador for
a million different companies, because it got to the point
where my mom was like, girl, I'm not sending you money.
Like you are twenty years old. You are able bodied
get outside and go do some work. So I had done,
Like I was a brand ambassador for like Natural Light
the beer when I turned twenty one, and that's what
(04:15):
paid my rent my senior year. Then I did HBO.
I did run the runway, bumble. I was like a
bumble campus leader, anything you name it, if they had
money for it and there was something free. Absolutely I
can go on campus and hand out these posters and
I can make an Instagram post not a problem. So
I guess the content creation has been It's been around
(04:37):
for a minute now that I think about it, since
like my sophomore year of college, for.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
A little minute. For a little minute, we know that
the content creators like Jackie Aina or the money Michaels
have turned their content into all encompassing brand. How would
you describe your brand?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I would say I am one hundred percent a lifestyle creator,
but I'm lifestyle for the girls that just want a
little more. You know, I feel like when I think
about what I create, I'm documenting my life, but I'm
also documenting the experience of someone in their mid twenties
in New York and you know, the ebbs and flows
of how life can take you. So, like I said,
(05:14):
you know, I started off vlogging about my life, you know,
as someone who was working in tech. I was at
Google at the time, and then you know, obviously they
laid me off, and it just kind of transitioned beyond that,
it got a lot bigger than me. It was this
is how I'm spending my time post layoff, or come
with me on my first brand trip. Let's talk about
my dating life, Let's talk about this insane story time
(05:36):
that happened to me at a club in Manhattan. You know,
it's just every single thing that is going on in
my life at this point has become content, and I
think with that it's given me the ability to just
relate to a lot of people to where it's relatable
but it's also aspirational because I'm twenty five, I live alone,
I've made something of myself like beyond my parents, beyond
(05:58):
my education, and I think is something that's super fun
to watch, which is why I also follow a lot
of creators that are similar to me, because I love
to seeing what the girls are up to.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
You know, let me know what you're doing right, Put
me in your life, tell me the story exactly. Tell
me your business, all of it and all of it,
and take me through all of it. We know the
word brand can mean several different things, but here we're
defining it as someone's company slash business and how the
(06:30):
general public US basically perceives someone. Is there anything you'd
add to these definitions? What would you say makes a
good brand?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I think, honestly, what makes a good brand is consistency.
Even when I think of it in terms of like
personal brand, or I think of it as products that
I use, consumer products, or even like B to B products,
it's consistency. Are you consistently delivering excellence and are consistently
delivering quality? I think that's what makes a brand in
(07:02):
my mind.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And is there a difference between a personal brand and
a professional brand, and how do they intersect.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
One, I think your personal brand is who you are
at all times. I think that is your personality and
the way you know your experiences interact. I think your
professional brand is usually a lot more refined. It's usually
more polished and curated. But they do intersect, like, for example,
a lot of people who make career based content, their
(07:31):
professional brand becomes their personal brand and vice versa. But
then you'll see people leave that switch. Like for example,
one of my favorite creators, her name is Annie. She
went to law school, she was working in big law,
left that job. She'll still reference her time, and you'll
see her professional brand kind of move away and instead
of being you know, the lawyer and the buttoned up person,
(07:54):
she's still composed, but it's a lot more free as
she starts to introduce more of a personal brand. So
I think there's an opportunity to collaborate those two things
and bring them together. But for some people they'll stay
super separate depending on what they do. For others, they join,
depending on how you choose to move through your career.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Got it, Got it? Thank you for explaining that. Let's
go back to Sidonian College. Outside of brand ambassador programs.
What seeds did you plant on campus and internships and
career programs that contributed to your current personal brand?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Oh my god. Yes, So I'm a Posse scholar. So
the Posse Foundation is a scholarship program designed for student
leaders spaced in twelve different cities across the United States,
and it started in New York where Vanderbilt University was
the first partner because there was this woman named Debbie
Beale who was a teacher. She had a student who
was super promising, and then he went to an elite
(08:53):
university and dropped out and said he wouldn't have dropped
out if he had his Posse with him. So the
program pretty much puts you with ten to twelve other
people from your city and you all go to one
school together to be like a support system for each other.
So I was a Posse scholar at Vanderbilt. So going
into college, I knew that I'd received that opportunity because
I was a student leader in my high school, Like
(09:14):
I was the president of the Blacksoth Union, I played
sports things like that, So I knew that the expectation
was to come on campus and be impactful. When I
got to college, the first thing I did. Legitimately, in
the first week, I made two stops. Won the Black
Cultural Center because I wanted to meet the director. I
wanted to see what they had to offer there, and
to the Career Center because I had to leave with something.
(09:38):
I was going to have a job one hundred percent
by the time I graduated, So I spent a good
chunk of my time in college working on my professional skills.
So I'm from Brooklyn, like almost every single person I
know is like a healthcare worker. I did not want
to work in healthcare under any circumstances. I initially thought
I was going to be a lawyer. I thought I
(09:59):
was going to maybe work in political comms for a
little bit. And then I actually had a professor who
used to be the Vice President of the United States,
and he strictly told me don't do that. So from
that point on, I was like, oh, great, thank you
for telling me that your time was not good. I
appreciate you sharing that with me. So as I started
(10:20):
refocusing and thinking about what I wanted to do, I
switched my major like ten times. But throughout those ten times,
I kept going to the career Center. I kept doing
resume workshops and mock interviews, and I was doing everything
from investment banking and wealth management to like media internships,
and then landed at Google after like a series of
(10:40):
trying things and realizing that marketing was kind of like
what I wanted, but I knew I wanted to do
marketing in an environment where there was more than one product,
which is why I didn't go to like a traditional
ad agency. So at that point, I feel like I
developed the personal brand of being someone who's like incredibly dedicated,
like determination and will to get the things that I
(11:01):
wanted because I made sure that I was one networking
super heavy, but two also maintaining community in the spaces
that I was networking in. So you know, that would
mean if I saw one of my friends who was
interested in something, and I meet a recruiter at a
job fair who's looking for comp size students, but I'm
not a compside student, I'm sending that email like, Hey,
I want you to meet so, and so, you know,
(11:23):
I think a good portion of myself in college was
bringing other people along with me as I experienced success,
because people who were older than me and you know, Vanderbilt,
were doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That is so real. The first stop being the career Center.
I want to give a big kudos to you with that.
I did not think I wasn't thinking that far ahead.
I definitely realized I only went to the career center
one time or once in my college career during my
(11:57):
senior fall, and I realized very quickly how behind I was.
So kudos to you for being attentive in that regard.
Shout out to you. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So I went to the career center a lot, but
primarily because I was applying for things that inherently like
I had no reason applying for. I was a political
science major. I took a ton of theater and communications classes.
I was super artsy, you know, like I nothing in
my profile gave investment, banking or wealth management, but something
(12:30):
just told me to try it. My older cousin who
worked in banking, he was just like, I think it's
a good learning experience if you like it if you don't.
So I went to the career Center and pretty much
was like, Hey, how do I pivot my experience from
being a research fellow in the Latin America Research Center
where I'm like doing statistical analysis on governments in South America,
(12:51):
how do I pivot this into data analytics and financial
acumen for this investment banking position. And thankfully, you know,
the Career Center. They were great and they showed me
that research and like what I was studying was actually
super relevant, you know, even though I wasn't an econ major.
We also didn't have a business major at Vanderbilt, so
like almost everyone who's a liberal arts major trying to
(13:14):
do these things, and they were super, super helpful. And
I think for me, once I did that internship that
was at Goldman Sachs that was my sophomore summer. I
did it, and I hated it, deeply hated it. It
was not for me in any way. But I learned
a lot in that internship. So I took those learnings
and then applied to Google to be a marketing intern
(13:35):
the following summer. Got that position, and then stayed at
Google for about three years until the layoff, so started
postgrad and then was there until the beginning of twenty
twenty three.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I think a lot of people want to leave college
with a job in connections, but maybe unsure about what
they want to do long term. How can you build
a personal brand if you're uncertain about your preferred career path.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I think the biggest thing I can say in this
is kindness will be rewarded one hundred percent. I think
if you're uncertain, if you're switching your major, or if
you've sat four years in something and then you want
to pivot into something else, the way you treat people
when you first meet them will be what makes them
help you down the line. I've been in situations where,
(14:23):
even to this day, like some when I'm met in college,
there was a girl she was three years older than me,
just senior when I was a freshman, and we had
a class together. It was like an elective class, but
we did a group project and she got super sick
if you had like mono or something like you know,
standard collegiate illness. But she really couldn't work for she
(14:43):
couldn't do the work for like a week. And I
texted her. I was like, hey, like, I know you're sick.
I've handled it. You know, I really appreciate you helping
as much as you could. Thank you so much. That
girl is now like an account manager at Ogilvy in
the influencer marketing department. Almost every month I'm getting an
email from her like, hey, here's this campaign that i'd
like you to get on. And realistically, she's a huge
(15:05):
reason why I'm able to like earn a comfortable living
simply because it was kind to her when I was
eighteen years old, and you know, it's been like a
graduate in college four years ago. So I think the
way you treat people will be the reason that they
choose to help you, and that that's just being sincere
in your interactions. Like I think a lot of people.
(15:25):
I experienced this a lot when I was like Google.
People would just send me messages and be like, hey,
give me a referral. I'd be like, I don't know you,
Like I don't know what to write in this thing
because we haven't interacted with each other. I don't know
what to say here. But you know, the people who
have reached out and even today when folks are like, hey,
I see you're connected with someone at this company or
(15:46):
like you went to high school with this person, would
you be willing to talk to them? And you know
they come and they speak kindly, and you know they
make a genuine requests like yeah, of course I would
love to help you, because I would hope in the
future you'd be able to do the same. And I
think a lot of folks they look at networking as
like networking up, which I don't love the idea of that.
I think it's more so networking across like people who
(16:08):
are having similar life experiences, people who are you know,
your age or in your age range, who are trying
to do the cool things that you're trying to do.
I think those are the people to look to instead
of the director who's thirty plus years older than you.
I think a lot of my great experiences and things
that I've been able to do have come from like
(16:28):
folks I went to college with, or people I went
to high school with, or someone who I meet randomly
outside at an event, like I've been able. For example,
I'm starting a business venture that's launching this year, and
when I was looking for angel investment funds, that came
through literally someone who I met at a party at
another event, and I reached out and was like, Hey,
(16:49):
you know, I know you work in this industry. I
want to tell you about something that I'm working on.
Can you give me some feedback on my pitch here?
And instead of giving me feedback at the end of
my pitch, you gave me a check, so you know,
I think there is the opportunity to create and build
things with people who are similar to you, instead of
looking upwards or looking super super far outside of your network.
(17:12):
It's the person who sat next to you in that
sophomore English class is probably just disqualified to give you
advice as someone who has ten fifteen years of experience, I.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Think there definitely needs to be a shift of how
we approach like the networking up idea, just because I
don't know, I just feel like it was taught to
us like in college, like you need to network to
your professor's network, to the dean of art, like all
these people who are just not in our age range.
And there are so many qualified people, like you said,
(17:41):
who are doing similar work as us and who are extraordinary.
So I really love that gym. It's amazing. I love that.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Thank you. For example, I just flew to Nashville to
be like a guest on another influencer's book tour, and
when she gave me that invitation, one it was we
had randomly met three four years ago at a party
like a brand event, and she was super cool, so
we've just always kept in touch. But when I was
thinking like, oh, what am I gonna wear? What am
(18:10):
I going to do? Like the photographer that I brought
literally someone I've known since I was sixteen years old,
you know, like the person who styled me is the
friend of a friend who is trying to make her
name in the fashion industry. And I was like, yeah,
like I would love to work with you. What's your rate?
Can you help me out? This is gonna be big,
It's gonna be photographed, you know, things like that. So
ensuring that instead of looking at the you know, the
(18:33):
super famous stylists with one hundred and fifty thousand followers,
it's like, let me see who's in my network, who
creatively can do this, Like even with my own ventures.
My brand designer who did all my assets for like
the new upcoming brand. She's someone who I worked with
at Google, someone who I've known since I was nineteen,
you know, when we were interns. So I love the
idea of just keeping with the people that you know,
(18:55):
because I'm sure in ten years she's going to be
like the biggest name in design. But it's good to
know that when I was twenty five I saw that
and was like, yeah, I want to work with you.
I want the stylist to be the next law Roach.
It's like, yeah, I worked with this person way back when,
and it's great to know that you can support people
because these are the people who supported me. So it's
honestly love.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
With you, Wing, I love it. I'm curious how do
you decide when and where to share different aspects of
your brand, so your interest, hobbies, accomplishments, when you're known
for different things.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
That's a difficult one because everyone isn't going to love everything.
I think as you transition and you create different kinds
of content, you have to be willing one to lose
people who were originally there, but also knowing that people
won't say yes to you if you don't risk being
told no. And I think that's the philosophy that I
moved through my entire life with. So when it comes
(19:51):
to sharing things, for example, when I share that I
was applying to business school, I share that as like, Hey,
this is my next step in my career. I'm going
to go further my education, and I want you to
know that it's perfectly okay to be someone who is
self employed or working on your own venture and going
to school doesn't mean you're giving up on yourself. It
just means you want a bigger base to you know,
(20:12):
spring your launch from. But even within that, like I
haven't shared where I'm applying to school, I haven't shared
you know, like acceptances or rejections. Those are things that
I feel like will come later on down the line,
because there's a certain level of privacy that you do
give up as a creator. You know there are strangers
(20:33):
invested in your life, and thank you for being invested
in my life. But you know, at some point you
have to say what is for me. So like, for example,
I'll speak about dating, but like I'll never share my
partner or who I'm dating. I'll you know, talk about
like nightlife and like being out with my friends, but
only my friends who have explicitly consented to being recorded
(20:56):
are featured. So that's why you'll see like my best
friend Dante a lot more than you'll see like some
of my other friends from college or from work because
they don't want to be on camera all the time.
But he's super cool with being on camera. So you know,
it's just you have to have your limits and know
that even though it's work, it's still personal. So ensuring
that the people around you feel safe and in kind.
(21:18):
I think that's what creates an engaged audience, is they
see that you love your life and you love the
people who you interact with, and you know they want
to watch that and they want to experience that with you.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
No, I've always wondered how do those conversations go when
content creators have friends and they allow the audience to
view their friendship. So I love that there are boundaries
set in place in your friend groups and there are
conversations being had about privacy and just keeping that intimate
with your own experience. I love that my.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Friends are great, honestly, but they have their moments where
they'll be like, get that camera out my face, you know. Like,
and my friends alway joke specifically on my last birthday
trip we went to Arizona for a week and my
friends joke, they're like, one thing about you, We're gonna
record that cheers three times. And I was like, you
are absolutely correct. We're gonna do it in point five,
(22:14):
we're gonna do it in one, and then we're gonna
do it on my blog camera for the YouTube video
you are absolutely correct, but they're so used to it
because they're like, it's fine. And then you know, if
anyone ever does get like a little annoyed, it's like, hey,
you want to be my plus one to this movie premiere?
Like could come with me? Go it? Then it all works.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I love that it's hilarious. So a good brand is
one that is authentic. So how can college age women
share their true personalities online without jeopardizing future opportunities?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I think the primary thing I would say with this
is you don't want to work anywhere where you can't
present your full self, So use discernment to determine what
your full sete. For some people, that means they talk
about every aspect of their life, whether or not it's
deemed socially appropriate or not. For others, they have boundaries
(23:08):
where they're like, I won't discuss my sex life, I
won't discuss dating, I won't use profanity. Some people are
a lot stricter than others. I will say, this is
super dependent as to you know what career field you
want to go into. There are some fields that are
a little more conservative, like the law or medicine, and
then there are other fields like beauty or fashion where
(23:29):
girl put that on, put that whole outfit on it,
you take a picture because that, you know, beyond your resume,
your Instagram is part of what is going to help
you get hired. So I think using your discernment is
the best advice I have here me personally, I'll post
what I want because if someone is choosing not to
employ me or not to admit me into a school,
(23:49):
because my life is public consumption for someone else, and
that's okay, that's their loss. Because the way I see
it is I think of like content creations epically is
like a new field in marketing. It's direct to consumer
marketing is the best way I can explain it. You know,
you are creating brand love and brand loyalty for an individual,
(24:10):
and in kind, brands will hire you to you know,
promote their products or be a trusted partner for them
because people value your expertise. And I think if people
value your expertise, you've clearly proven yourself as a marketer,
as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. So someone else
doesn't take you seriously because they don't value the industry
or they don't value what you create, then that's their loss,
(24:32):
so post what you want to post. Like, I have
some things in my digital footprint where I'm like, damn,
I google myself. I see it. I'm like, oh, well
that's that. You know that was four years ago. You know.
I see things pop up from when I was in
high school or I'm like, shouldn't have said that, but
it is what it is. You would hope that with
age comes growth, and I will say, as I get older,
(24:53):
I'm getting a lot more wiser.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I will say that, Hi, I'm sorrya Taylor TBG podcast
production intern. We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I think partying and going out can still be seen
as a taboo on social media. What advice do you
have about balancing the desire to have fun with the
need to protect your personal brand.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I will say with this one, you don't have to
go everywhere. Everything does not require your attendance. And I
actually was taking to another creator about this and he
said something to me that has really stuck with me.
And he said to Smith a year ago, said, your
presence is exclusive. Who you spend your time with is exclusive.
You should not be for everyone. I think like going
(25:47):
out and enjoying yourself is super fun. But even in
a large party, that's still an intimate experience. You're still
surrounded by people. We living a digital age or being
watched things like that. Sometimes pick and choose what do
you want to set yourself at and when do you
want to stay home and relax. When do you want
to pour into yourself versus pouring into your community. And
(26:07):
I think that's the difference I feel like specifically me
like living in New York and being in Brooklyn. I
go out every weekend. I say the same people. I see,
the same people I've been seeing since I was about
eighteen or nineteen years old, since we were in mlt Cohorts.
I know these people. If I miss one party, it's
not going to kill me. You know, if I miss
one thing, it's going to be okay. So I think
(26:30):
you don't have to engage with everything. It's okay to
be exclusive with your time because you can cultivate community
five days out the week, but you have to take
some time for yourself. And that's why consistently every month,
I'm like the fifteenth rolls around. I'm like, most time
to stay in my house, lits to a face mouset's watch.
Some TV. You know, I'll watch a good rom come,
(26:51):
paint my nails, mindlessly, scroll on the internet, put my
phone away, things like that. It's like you have to
take care of yourself. And I feel like people want
to be outside and people think that time is super fleeting.
But I promise you not being in your twenties does
not mean that you're old. Like, if anything, you're probably
in the peak of your life when you get out
your twenties. So true, there is no rush, there's no
(27:13):
rush to be there.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Heavy on those get out of the mindset that your
twenties are the last years of your life. I'm really
trying to reemphasize that, and that you have to be
in everyone's face or just at every social gathering. There's
something about saving your energy that I've started to see
more post grad that I should have probably implemented a
(27:38):
little bit more during college. But I enjoy it. I
want to be in my bed, I want to be
my robe, I want to have my topicals. I'm ask
on I rather have it, actually, so I fully agree.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I agree wholeheartedly. I was that girl in college. I
went out six days a week. Yeah, you know, I
was in the books, but I was partying to the
point where my mom came to visit me my senior
year and she was like, girl, and I had just
gotten surgery. That's why she came to visit me. And
two days after the surgery, I'm like, okay, yeah, you know,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna go out. And she had
(28:12):
to sit me down and was like, baby, no, you're not.
She was like, you're gonna sit down. You go to
the same bar every week with the same people that
you go to college with. It's okay. You don't need
to do things like this. And I think for me,
as like I've gotten older, pouring into yourself is super
important because you can't pour from an empty cup. And
(28:33):
I think a lot of people like to over exert
themselves and it happens so naturally that you don't even
know that you're pouring from an empty cup. But at
some point that's gonna break. So you have to take
time to just relax. And I'll tell you one thing.
Me and topicals. We I got the faded serum on
my face, got my eyemasks on, I've wrapped my hair up.
(28:55):
Oh I'll finish all that. Sit down, pull out my
mirror and just start doing my makeup. I'm like, yeah,
let's let's see how this blush is looking. Let's see
how we're going to carve these eyebrows. Just for fun,
put on my favorite YouTubers and just watch just till
and make a good meal, something hearty in my house
or even you know, order something real greasy on uber eats.
It's like reward yourself for spending time with yourself. Like,
(29:20):
how can you exist and say you're going to interact
with other people if you can't identify what you like
about yourself and you don't like spending time with yourself,
you have to be alone at some point to understand
how to be in community with other people.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I'm gonna take that in for sure. But moving on,
tell us how important are LinkedIn and other professional and
social media platforms in building one's brand.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
LinkedIn is the goat. One thing about me, here's what
I'll say. When I was nineteen, i joined this program
called MLT Management Leadership for Tomorrow. It's like designed to
train you know, black and brown young people to be
like business leaders. And my coach, her name was Coach Stancil.
He said something to me in my first call with
(30:08):
her because she asked me what I wanted to do,
and at the time I didn't know. I told her
I had finance experience, I had marketing experience. I'd done
some social work, but I was interested in tech, music,
consumer baggage, goods, sports. I was like, I'll do anything
I like, because in my mind, a career is not linear,
like you don't start something and have to do for
the rest of your life. I was like, oh, I
(30:29):
can work this and then I'll figure out a way.
You know, if I wanted to go work for the
next Like I figure out a way to go work
for the next It's okay, you know, we'll get there.
And she said something to me where she was like,
you just need to start searching on LinkedIn. She was like,
search for the companies that you like, search your school,
search your high school. Search people who are connected with
your other friends. I would literally be in the search
(30:51):
bar like NBA, Vanderbilt University political Science, just searching like
who was a policy major at this school? And you
know you'll find people in a to act with people
were so much older. But I would literally be like, hey,
can I get fifteen minutes of your time to talk
with you about this, this, this, and this. I'm super
intrigued about what you do and I'm thinking about my
career plans. And a lot of those people responded and
(31:14):
were super kind, and I'd actually say the biggest person
who responded to me. I don't know if you're familiar
with the Creative Collective and like culture Con, but the
person who founded that Imani. She graduated from Vanderbilt about
eight years before I graduated, but I saw her on
LinkedIn at the time. He was a manager at NBCUniversal
working on publicity, and I saw she was working on
(31:35):
Bravos Up Atlanta, and I was like, oh my god,
I love that show. Like we send her a message.
I sent her a message. She hops on a call
with me, She's telling me about her career hilariously. Like
a year later, I ended up being on exec for
a club that she founded when she was a student
at Vanderbilt. We kept in contact over the years, you know,
(31:56):
just like hi, and by passing messages. And now she's
taken the Creative collective full time and is doing culture
Con and things like that. And I'm working as a
creative full time, and she's consistently inviting me to things
consistently keeping my name in conversation. I've gone to events
where it's like I'm meeting someone who the VP of
influencer marketing at Carol's Daughter and then telling her how
(32:19):
much I love the product. It's like, yeah, like my
mom's been using this on me since I was a kid.
And then I'm getting brought onto campaigns for Carol's Daughter,
like when they were doing the Color Purple movie launch,
And I think for me, it's like none of that
would have been possible if you just didn't have the
fear of rejection. Your fear of looking stupid is holding
you back, Like that's really what it is, because she
(32:39):
could have ignored it, and that would have been completely
fine if she ignored it. There's so many people who
ignore you, who don't want to help. But good people
will respond to you, but you have to put yourself
out there first for them to respond, for them to say, hey,
you know I'm doing this. And I think a lot
of people stop at the initial interaction. If you're a
college student and you connected with somebody who works that
(33:02):
job that you want in the end, keep them updated.
For me, it'll be like every semester I'd send a
message to anyone who was like super intrigued, and I'd
be like, hey, like, i just finished up my sophomore
year and i'm studying this now, but I'm working with
ESPNU on campus and a student government. We're doing this.
Keep me updated, like what's going on in your world?
And like, I think just having those conversations has really
(33:25):
done a lot for me, because I remember posting on
LinkedIn after the layoff, Hey I'm not looking for a job,
but if something pops up, that's excellent. I'm totally willing
to entertain this and the amount of people who sent
me messages and they were like, oh, I'm hiring here,
or like my team is looking for this, or consultancy
opportunities that have come through just like using LinkedIn and
(33:48):
people seeing what was going on there. I think LinkedIn
is truly the most powerful social networking app and people
don't even think about it in the conversation with like
a TikTok or a Twitter, but it's one hundred percent
just as powerful, and there's really good content and useful
information that you can find there that will truly help you.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So once you secure your dream job or opportunity, how
do you continue building your brand and communicating your wins,
interests and aspirations.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
So this is something that my older cousin taught me,
so for reference, he's seven years older than me, but
he's been working for a minute. But when I did
my first internship, which was in high school, at I
did at spray Ground Backpack, like a company that makes
really cool backpacks. And I got that internship because I
called their warehouse and I was like, hey, I'm a
(34:41):
huge fan of this brand. I want to work for you. Guys.
Who was in charge of your internship program? And they
were like, we don't have an internship program. This is
a company of four people. We do not have that.
And I was like, okay, who's your president, who's in charge,
who's the big man here? And you know, reached out,
(35:01):
sent this long I was sixteen, sent this long email
about how much I love the company and I see
it all the time and I have all these different
bags and I'm trying to learn these new skills. And
they were like, okay, well if you can get credit
from your high school, then sure. So I went to
my guidance counsel and say, hey, I need credit for
a work study, I'm trying to get this internship and
they're like, we don't do that. I'm like, okay, but
(35:23):
some's gonna have to shake here because I had already finished,
you know, the graduation requirements, and I wanted to do
this thing, so let's see, and you know, they figured
it out on the back end and allowed me to
do that. But when I started that internship, my cousin
told me, he was like, even though they're not paying you,
you need to prove that you're brilliant. So you tell
me accountability is the biggest thing that anyone seeks in
(35:46):
the workplace is knowing that someone will hold their own
when you need them to hold their own. So since
that internship, I've done the same thing, and I even
do it now as a creator. When I'm like looking
to recap or like I'm working with brands and stuff.
At the end of every week or every big milestone,
you just got to send a simple update. So how
I would do it. I would track it in Excel
(36:06):
or Google sheets, right, have every single deliverable that I
was working on, and there would just be a progress tracker,
like you know what step am I on? Have I
finished the deck? Have I done the research, all that,
and just a simple quick email at the end of
each week like hey, I've done this, I've done this,
and next week, this is what I'm working on and
this is what I'm building out from really helps you
(36:27):
so much. Keeping a running document of everything you're doing
with your manager or if you're self employed, just everything
you're doing because you got to write resume bullets, you
got to be able to advocate for yourself when it
comes time to go for promotion. You never want to
be not on the same page as your manager when
it comes time for you to get promoted. And if
you're not on the same page, that's your record that
proves that you did everything right instead of just flying
(36:51):
by the seat of your pants. So I think for me,
showing accountability has been the biggest thing that I've been
able to do within my time in the corporate world,
my time now as a creator, even now that I
work on campaigns, I literally have my manager send thank
you notes to every single person that I work with, like, Hey,
this was a joy. You know, even if things like
we're on the campaign and things are late and it's like, hey,
(37:14):
I'm delayed on this flight, but I'm going to get
this to you by the end of the day, but
it's going to be like eight pm. You know, just
be on the lookout. It's like, if you are holding
yourself accountable and you're being consistent, that behavior will be
rewarded and that will show that you've been able to,
you know, deliver good work, like you're a trusted partner.
And that is held up even now because there have
(37:36):
been times I've been on campaigns where things were late,
or things were out of my control, or they give
me twelve hours to bring back a concept and the
content from the brief that has three words and you're
just like, okay, well I got it. It's cool. But
because of that, they keep coming back and they're like, oh,
I want to keep working with her because I like her.
And I think a lot of people don't look at
(37:58):
consistency and account of ability. They want to have the
biggest project and have the most in your face thing.
But sometimes it's as simple as just maintaining consistent communication
with the person who manages you or you know, a
cross functional partner. That'll make all the difference and how
you're perceived in the workplace and how your reputation moves forward.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
That is I'm literally taking that like okay, Like no,
I need to be accountable and consistent. That's a huge
gym I think is overlooked. I think young professionals get
placed into the workforce, and I'll speak for myself and
that mentality of college of like grind and get it
done and just do it and learn along the way.
(38:43):
But taking a step back and just remaining consistent in
all that you do and holding yourself accountable and all
that you do can also go a long way in
addition to the grind, in addition to the hustle. So
I love that.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
That's perfect faith with that works, Like what's the point?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
What's the point?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Which point? Okay, where are we gonna go from here?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Right in your perspective, how important is someone's social media
account when finding opportunities? Can you confirm or deny the
idea that jobs, internships, and or colleges check their applicants
social media pages?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Okay, so this is a little iffy. I can say
yes and no. So I've been in situations where jobs
have checked it's part of like the background check. Then
I've been in situations where like working admissions and stuff
in college, Like if someone mentions that they're a creator,
you're like, Okay, well I'm gonna go look. And I know,
(39:41):
personally from my experience and applying to business school, like
my work as an influencer is on my resume. It's
listed as my job with metrics and partnerships and like
links to like all the stuff that I've done. So
I'm not shocked when, you know, in an interview someone's like, hey,
I watched like your last ten tiktoks. Tell me about this.
Tell me about that. I think some places that are
(40:04):
more conservative or you know, are more tightly laced. They're
checking to see if there's anything negative. But if you
are mentioning it as part of your story, they're checking
to see what you do. This is your job, this
is your passion. I I do like college application mentorship
through this organization in New York. And one of the
(40:25):
people who I was mentoring this past cycle, she was
a YouTuber and she maybe had like five or six
thousand subscribers, which had a really engaged community, and it
was something that she put on her resume, and she
was applying to all these schools and was like, hey,
you know, this is what I do for fun. This
is my main extracurricular activity. I don't play a sport.
I'm not a student government. I make content and there
(40:45):
are six thousand people who watch this content, and I
will continue to grow. I saw that, I was like, yeah,
they're definitely gonna watch the video. Like it's part of
your stories, what you wrote your essay on. So I
think if your content and the things that you put
out become part of your story and as a result,
become a part of your personal brand, it's the expectation
is that would be looked at and checked. But some
(41:06):
places they're just nosy. I'll tell you one thing. My
mom's a nurse. You know, when she's looking to hire
a new nurse, she's on that Instagram making sure that
there's nothing crazy on there. You know, She's like, are
you arguing with somebody on the internet? Are you saying
mean things? Do you have an uncaring spirit? You know?
Things like that. But I feel like most of the
time it's usually pretty chill because people aren't posting super
(41:28):
outrageous things. Now, god forbid, you post a tweet or
something that goes viral and you're getting heat. I've seen
that happen to people where one of my TikTok must rules.
She goes to the TikTok that was like about the
former president and she literally lost her job because of
how up in arms people were about that she was
not employed. But that's also because her company was conservative
(41:49):
and they were unwilling to have that. Meanwhile, when I
was like, oo, why, multiple people be like, oh I
didn't like her TikTok of how the sister is report me,
and they'd be like, okay, I wasn't a company time
like thank you for sharing. So it depends.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Going off of that, What are some other immediate no
nos regarding what we're posting on our social media pages?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Okay, I would say the big no no is anything
that's illegal. People can tolerate your political views. They can
tolerate how you feel about a musician. You know, I
tweet almost every week that I don't like Drake and
Travis Scott. I'm like, I don't like it. It's not
for me, it's not fun. But you know, I know
the girls are throwing tomatoes. I don't throw to fanos everything.
(42:34):
I don't like them. I made a TikTok or I
was like Drake's concert was the worst waste of money.
I asked Amex for my money back. I didn't like
it because I'm a Beyonce fan. I want to see performance.
But no one's going to be like, oh, that's outrageous.
I don't like that she dis likes this artist, or
I don't like that she doesn't like this food, or
like things like that. The one thing people will one
(42:55):
hundred percent look and be like that's a red flag
if it's something illegal, drugs, things like that. That is
just like the biggest no no that I can give.
And I know, hilariously, Like, I had a conversation with
another creative about this recently, because I live in a
state where marijuana is legalized on the state wide level.
(43:16):
Recreationally walk down the street and see people smoking leed
and it's not an issue. But she was looking at
her numbers and she's like, yeah, like I smoke leed,
but I can't post that because a lot of people
who follow me live in Middle America and that's not
legal there, and I don't want to mess up my money.
And you know, she sat down and been like, that's
the line that she's drawing. Meanwhile, there are other creators
who have entire brands based on cannabis. I know someone
(43:39):
who his entire brand on TikTok is like advocacy to
get people of color into the cannabis space because we're
overincarcerated for cannabis offenses but underemployed in the industry. I
think there's ways to make something that isn't inherently positive
become positive. I think his spin is great, But one
(44:01):
of my friends, like, if my influencer friend was just like, oh,
I'm a pothead, she could just expect to not get
paid for that month because that's not productive realistically. Meanwhile,
what the other kid is doing is super productive, where
he's like, hey, we over index on incarceration for this offense,
but these new things are coming. You should apply for
your license if this is something that you did. For example,
(44:23):
New York vacated a lot of cannabis related convictions and
the people who were convicted for those offenses were able
to get priority and getting legal licenses to open up storefronts.
Post about that. Beyond that, it gets a little dicey
because that's the only one that's really you know, legal
anywhere else, Like, please your habits if you have habits,
(44:46):
you know, we cannot share those habits publicly with people
because that can turnish you on an insane insane level.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Hi, I'm sorrya Taylor and I'm the TBG podcast production.
We'll return to Jana right after the break.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
On the flip side, what types of content might one
lean into posting to their social media accounts to attract
brands or job opportunities.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
This is a great one. Finance is a huge one.
If you are someone you are about your money, you
maximize your credit card points, you talk about managing debt,
or you're young and you're trying to figure your money out,
that is a great, great thing to post about. I
feel like to my most successful videos have been this
is how I've managed my money as someone who's twenty
(45:40):
five and self employed and trying to do this. I
think beauty is long standing, you know. I think like
black women consume like trillions of dollars in beauty product
each year. That's always going to be something that's super
super relatable and it's evergreen. And in general, lifestyle, like,
if you are posting about your life, you are able
(46:02):
to bring in deals from so many different verticals like
I've done deals with food companies, like I have something
coming up with Burger Game. Then you know, like I've
done like cleaning products or like H and R block
for finances, airlines, things like that. You know, there's so
many different things to do if you're an everything poster
(46:23):
and you don't necessarily niche down super super niche. But
I would say those are the big three. But finance
is definitely the biggest one. If you are somebody where
your coins are together and you're on that Marcus app
or you're on that you need a budget app and
your money is right, share that with people because there
are a lot of people who don't have their money
right who are trying to figure it out and they're
(46:45):
struggling because they can't find the information that applies to them. So,
you know, if you have student debt and like you're
paying that off, I think that's valuable and that's important
to a lot of people, and that market is unfortunately
not very it's not very black, and I would love
to see more black people, more Black women sharing their
journeys and talking about that, like where is bad advice?
(47:07):
You know? I think that is really something that's super
helpful to everyone young, old, no matter what you identify as.
Everyone's trying to figure their finances out. So that's a
great way to build a community. And you can also
integrate a lot of other things from that finance perspective.
You can integrate lifestyle. You can talk about your spending
habits for personal maintenance. There's so many ways to make
(47:30):
that something impactful.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Right, So, we know you can't have a pop in
brand without haters. So how have you navigated negative comments
or animosity from others?
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Oh, I'm not gonna lie. I'm from Brooklyn, So there
are some things where I'm going to let it roll
off and I'll be like, you know what, I don't
really care. But there are some things I'm like, that
was so disrespectful and I'm actually going to get you
and I will address this deep because you are out
your mind if you think you can speak to me
(48:04):
like this. The one thing I always say to anyone
who's looking to create content is there's three things you
need to think of. One. Everyone wants to be an influencer,
but influence can't be manufactured. It's inherently innate. Are people
interested in you in your personal life? If so, go
ahead and post that video. Go ahead and post that video.
(48:24):
If not, it's like, maybe you don't need to work
in front of the camera. Maybe you're the production maybe
you're you know, the editor. Because every single person who
I know who has made like a career out of
this is someone who was pretty dynamic in their personal life.
The second thing, how thick is your skin? How thick
is your skin? Because if you're in front of the camera,
(48:46):
everything you do will be criticized. Like I have been
criticized for gaining weight, losing weight, you know, Like I've
literally have people say I don't like the way your
mouth moves. Do you have botox? I'm like, this is
my face. There's people who chat about you anonymously on
different forums and you have to just be willing to
take it. I've personally gotten to a point where the
(49:08):
only way to protect yourself from those kinds of things
is to not engage with it. So my comments are filtered.
I don't check anonymous forums. Things like that, but you know,
don't get to you at some point, And I think
every person has their breaking point, and there are some
that are stronger than others where they don't even entertain
it from the beginning, and then you know some like
(49:29):
me where you're like, damn, w don't you say that,
Like my feelings are hurt. That was not okay. I've
had to find that balance between clapping back and just
ignoring it. But I always say, especially when someone has
disrespected me and they're like, oh, well, you post your
life online, you know you should expect criticism, and I'm like,
this is not a safe space. This is my space,
this is my account, like we that's not how this works.
(49:51):
You don't get to just randomly disrespect people under the
cover of anonymity and expect that they won't respond to you,
you know. So, I think when that has been the case,
it's a little different. And I've I've been in situations
where people who I know in my personal life, I've
clicked the link and it redirects to their TikTok and
I'm like, oh, that's you. Why are you doing that.
(50:14):
It's one of those things where it's like it comes
with the territory, but it doesn't make it any less hurtful.
You just have to at some point develop a skin
that's thick enough to where it's not the top of mind. Freedom.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, I don't know the point of I guess expressing
negativity to strangers, I don't know. So I definitely agree
like keeping a thick skin and having that mindset over
anything else. It's a bit strange when that happens to
content creators and providing opinions about strangers' lives. So I
(50:49):
don't know. That's just what I've gathered from that.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I think there just comes a time where you have
to sit down as a creator and be like, what
is constructive and what isn't. I had someone, hilariously like
six months ago, send me the longest Instagram DM multi
I scrolled for what felt like four minutes about how
(51:15):
they don't like that me being a self employed person.
They feel like I'm no longer relatable to them, and
you know, they missed when I was like fresh out
of college and like going to the office and things
like that. And there were some constructive points in there
where they were like, you know, I'd love to see
you know your family again, I'd love to see your friends.
The things you're just doing. I don't want to see
(51:36):
you on vacation twenty four to seven. That was helpful,
Thank you. I will incorporate that feedback, but then you know,
other times it's like I don't like your face, or
you know, your hair looks crazy, and it's like, all right,
now I'm in my house, you know so. And I
think as a creator, you also have to be very
accepting of the fact that something you post on one
(51:59):
app could you reposted on another. There are multiple times
like a TikTok of mine has made us to Twitter,
and Twitter is ruthless. At that point, it's lock, they countdown.
We're in hiding what is what it is? Or like
knowing that someone will take one thing that you say
out of context and run with it and create an
entire perception of you in their head when they've never
met you, and they could point you out on the street.
(52:21):
But I think it's really important to know as a creator,
but also as a viewer that social media is curated.
You're never going to get one hundred percent twenty four
to seven of someone's life, and knowing that what you see,
whether you relate to it or you aspire to it,
through it all, it's entertainment. It's not one hundred percent
(52:41):
what that person is going through. So just acknowledging that
as a viewer but also as the creator has really
just changed how I feel about a lot of the
content that I interact with and a lot of the
things that are said to me. I'm just like, all right, cool.
If you're not entertained, then I'm sorry. You know, I
find somebody else entertain you.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
So where do you see your brand going in the
next few years?
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Oh my god, Well, I'm going back to school in August.
TVD where I'll be. But you know, fingers crossed don't
be my tough choices. So for me, I see my
brand moving backwards a little bit, going back to you know,
my student era, and going back to the networking and
the building that I was creating. I think as a creator,
(53:23):
no one knows how long your life SPAN's going to be.
I think the average is like three to five years,
and I'm on your four. If I make it past five, woo,
you know, I pretty much got the creator pension. I guess.
You know, it's like, this is lovely when I think
of like myself, I don't see this as a forever thing,
(53:45):
because you know, trend change, people change, I'll change. Who
knows what my life will look like in a few years.
But what I do see my personal brand continuing to
do is building community, whether that means online or in person.
Building space is inclusive spaces for people who want to
achieve things in their lives and for people who you
(54:06):
know are the builders and want to make the spaces
that they don't have. And whether that's through like my
upcoming venture, whether that's through social media, whether that's returning
to a traditional job and you know, another industry. When
I look at my brand, all I can see is
consistency and accountability, because no matter what I end up doing,
(54:28):
I know those are the two things that I will
continue to do, doesn't matter how flips I love it.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I'm so excited to see your school era. I feel
like that's going to be so exciting to see and
just sending you the best energy towards that. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Applying to business school has objectively been the hardest thing
I've done as an adult, between testing and figuring out
where you're going to apply, interviews, things like that. This
process will be over in a month, and I could
not be happier.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Well, we're celebrating, celebrating an advanced period.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
We are. I'm excited. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Do you have any recommended podcasts or social media pages
that we should look into to deepen our knowledge on
building a brand.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
I love Balanced Black Girl by Lez. I don't know
if people are familiar, but she does a lot of
stuff in the wellness space. But there's an episode in
particular that one of my friends, Kitlin Cooney, was featured
on and it was about your personal finances in your
twenties and how you know, build the dream life that
you want starting from the ground up with your finances.
(55:34):
And I think that is the biggest thing you could
possibly do for your personal brand, is make sure that
you are getting paid. You know a lot of people
don't necessarily think of finances as part of the brand,
but it's one hundred percent part of the brand. I
will stand on this. And then I love Go Offices
from Refinery twenty nine. I think every episode provides insight,
(55:55):
shows me something that you know, I wasn't thinking of. Particularly,
they did an episode of Joyofudu. She's a voiceover actor,
and she talked a lot about like her journey leaving
her corporate job to move into creative field. And I
think the idea of betting on yourself is super important
because if you can't bet on yourself? What can you
bet on? And those two podcasts have definitely made me
(56:17):
think and like really just deepen my connection with myself
and as a result, that's been a huge part of
my personal brand and how I look at myself and
how I'm growing. So those are probably my big two
that I could recommend now. If you just want something fun,
to listen to Sisters Who Kill. If you like true crime,
I love some true crime. That was just funny. You
want to turn your brain off, go listen to Maran
(56:39):
Taz talk about that.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Love true crime, love turning my brain off. Love both
of those things. So I love all of those ships.
So Sidoni, where can we keep up with you? What
are your social media handles and website?
Speaker 3 (56:52):
Yes so Soidnifrancis dot com is all thanks to Dony.
But you can find me on TikTok and Instagram at
Francis and then you can find me on YouTube with
my government name Saddani Francis. It's all. It's all the same.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Thank you for being the big sister that we never
knew we needed. This conversation was amazing. I appreciate you
so much for talking with me, and again, congratulations on
applying to business school in that venture. I'm so excited
to see it.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
I'm such a big fan.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Of course, I want to thank Sadoni once again for
joining us for this episode. Classes over for now, but
before we dismiss, take the following notes from my conversation
with Sidoni home with you. Get with your college's career
services office to see what internships are available. Complete an
(57:49):
audit of your social media pages to make sure you're
representing yourself in the best way possible. Message someone you
admire on LinkedIn and set up a call to learn
how they got to where they are. To learn more
about the work Sedoni is doing, or to do more
research on this topic, be sure to visit Therapy for
Blackgirls dot com slash tvgu This episode was produced by FRIEDA. Lucas,
(58:12):
Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing is by Dennison L. Bradford.
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