Heart and Hustle: What it takes to make it to the top. Patricia Bright
and, a little while later, realise you’re done with it. For instance, you know that I used to style hair to earn money. I loved doing it, but eventually, I got to a place where I couldn’t even be bothered to do my own hair, let alone other people’s. My whole attitude was: I need a break from this. I realised that as much as I had enjoyed it in the past, styling hair wasn’t something that I wanted to do for ever or even full-time. Yes, I had the skills and even the potential audience – or customers in this case – but it wasn’t going to be the right grind for me. I’d thought it was something that I was really passionate about, but I certainly didn’t want to go on to train to be a hairdresser.
So it’s important to cast your net wide and see what sticks, and what you connect with the most. If you think you’re going to spend the next five years reviewing eyelash brands online simply because you’ve decided there’s an audience who want that content but aren’t being catered for by anyone else, it’s more than likely you’re going to be completely bored. That is unless you can bring the passion, skills and knowledge to back that up. You’ll need the willingness and enthusiasm to really explore that segment of the beauty industry, so you can become an expert – the connoisseur! – of lashes. And if you can bring all that, great! You can be the go-to girl for eyelashes – the only one whose opinion matters.
LIFE LESSON: Passion alone is just one part of the equation: find the thing you’ll be willing to grind on and dedicate every hour of the day to.
Start off as a multi-hustler
I never tell people to just quit their jobs and start a business. In the same way, I wouldn’t recommend that people with an Instagram account suddenly jack it all in to rely on their social media output as their sole source of income. If you can make that work, great, but that’s putting a huge amount of pressure on you and there’s a lot of risk attached. My approach was much more softly-softly. As I said, at the start I had no idea that my YouTube channel would become my career. At university it was a hobby, not a moneymaker. I still worked my weekend job and did hair as well. Later, I made a few career moves, and continued with YouTube on the side. It is totally OK to do more than one thing until you’re ready to go all-in on your side hustle.
WHAT’S YOUR GRIND?
Ask yourself these four questions to help you discover your grind before you start putting yourself out there:
> What could you talk about every day and not get sick of?
> What would you do, or be interested in, even if you didn’t make a penny from it?
> What are you doing or do you know about already that you could potentially share with others?
> What could you keep on doing, without it feeling like a chore?
Once you’ve figured out your grind, that’s when you can start identifying your personal goals.
In the next few chapters we’ll be exploring how you can build your influence to help you achieve those goals. We’ll be looking at the ins and outs of social media, building and owning a profile and honing your content. Ever wondered about embarking on the influencer journey, or growing a brand online? Read on …
3 | The importance of building a following on social media
The joy of building an online presence is that you get to share what you’re doing with people all over the world. Admittedly, it can be very daunting at first. When you start out online, you can wonder if anyone’s even listening, or if they care. So before you psych yourself out, I’m going to spill the tea on how I built a following and all you need to know about establishing your profile (and becoming an influencer, if that’s what you want) from scratch.
The year one thousand
Ya girl hit a million followers on YouTube in January 2017. Thinking back, I still pinch myself; it was an amazing moment, but amid all the excitement I still couldn’t quite fathom how I had got there. What that figure doesn’t reveal is the years of hard work behind that milestone. During that time, it sometimes seemed as if some people out there could start a channel from scratch and then … boom! Six months later they had got to a million subscribers already. I wasn’t sure how they had done it but, to be honest, it wasn’t a priority for me. I was focused on just creating what I wanted to create.
In fact, when I first started, there were no goals for me in terms of subscribers, and there were no YouTube ‘superstars’. I loved all things fashion and beauty, and I loved talking about them with other girls on forums. For me, going on to YouTube to talk about these things with even more people was just the logical next step. That didn’t mean I was instantly successful. It took a long time, just like most success stories do (yes, including the ‘overnight’ ones). It took me a whole year to get to my first 1,000 subscribers when I started out. And I had at least 150 videos out in the world before I had 10,000 subscribers. In a way, that was perfect: there was no pressure for me when it came to the numbers game. Instead, my challenge was to find my voice, learn how to create content for those that wanted to watch, and to keep making it better.
Momentum to a million
Soon after hitting 1 million subscribers I was on track for another million: I had picked up momentum and I was on a roll. In life, everyone has peaks where you’re fired up with enthusiasm, and troughs where you feel like you’re coasting, and that success gave me the boost I needed at the time. While it can take a long time to feel that momentum, once you’ve got it, it can propel you along a monumental trajectory. In my case, it took me seven years to get to 1 million subscribers, so you might have thought it would take at least another three to achieve the same again. Wrong. One year on and I’d increased my overall following by another 1.5 million, releasing products and working with more brands in the process.
I can’t tell you that building a presence in the world of social media is quick – that it’s easy. It isn’t. For me, the key ingredients have been heart, consistency, discipline and focus, to the point almost of obsession. It sounds super simple – and it really is – but what can make it hard is the application. The truth is, as with many things in life, a lot of us know what to do, but to actually get up, be consistent and follow up – that’s the challenge we must rise to.
The value of establishing a profile
I’ve made YouTube the foundation of my career, while you may want to do something totally different. However, I really do believe that pretty much everyone can benefit from building a personal brand online if they wish to: it’s a digital footprint that gives a positive impression of what you’re about to everyone you may or may not have met, but who one day might turn into a customer, client, employer, friend (or, yes, even a lover – I see you sliding into those DMs!). Maybe your ultimate goal isn’t to become an ‘influencer’, and that’s absolutely fine! That’s my hustle, but it doesn’t have to be yours. Regardless, there is merit in nurturing a positive virtual reputation that precedes you.
Similarly, being an influencer doesn’t have to mean being a social media star with millions of followers, or even that your platform of choice becomes your main source of income. You can have a few thousand Twitter followers, say, the majority being from your own industry, and still be influential. You can use your online presence as a way to put yourself ahead of the competition, attract attention and build your profile or product in your sector. You’re building a brand. And, to do that, here’s what you need to know.
You’re already an influencer
If I’m honest, the term ‘influencer’ makes me cringe. These days it brings to mind a whole host of associations, not all of them good. Yes, I happen to take photos and film content, and people might happen to like the things I wear, the products I try, or the things I do in those photos and videos, so by default I have influence … But if you really think about it, everyone’s an influencer or – the term I prefer – an ‘opinion-sharer’. (Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, I know!) If you ever say, ‘Mum, you look amazing in