Founder's Story - Crafting the Right Brand Message During Uncertain Times | Ep. 12 with Shama Hyder CEO of Zen Media

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

Shama Hyder is a visionary strategist for the digital age, a web and TV personality, a bestselling author, and the award-winning CEO of Zen Media – a global marketing and digital PR firm. She has been named the “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur. Please visit Pix11 or Fox5 San Diego for more details. Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. Hi everyone and we are live. Today I have here the beautiful Shama Haider. Hi Shama. Hi Kate. Thanks for having me. Yes so for anyone who doesn't know you, I don't know if anyone don't know you but can you briefly introduce yourself? You want me to introduce myself? Yes. Okay. Well, hello, friends of Kate and audience of Kate out there. My name is Shama Haider. I'm founder and CEO of Zen Media, author of the Zen of Social Media Marketing and Momentum.

I do quite a bit of media, I write for Forbes and Inc. And I guess overall, you could say I wear a lot of hats. And my work is mainly in the realms of marketing and technology and business. Yeah. I'm reading your bio here, Shashama. You're named as the Zen Master of Marketing. You're top 25 entrepreneurs under 25, top 30 under 30. And LinkedIn named you as one of their top voices in marketing and social media

for three years in a row. How did you do that? So that was 10 years ago. I know it's funny. The 25 under 25. So, you know, a lot of it is just consistency and it's people now look at that and they're like, oh, all these accolades. But part of it is just, you know, over time, the things that you're able to do. And I think what's important is being able to tell the story of what you do. And I remember when I started down the road of entrepreneurship, it wasn't nearly as sexy as it is today. And it's funny, you know, the pandemic times and whatnot. I started my company during the Great Recession. So it was like 07, 08,

as you might remember, Kate and folks watching. Hello, if you're joining, you might remember that those were very challenging times. And so I think part of it is being able to thrive in challenging times. I've enjoyed that. I think there's something really beautiful in moments of crisis that happens. And it just, it makes you perform,

like it forces you to perform at your best level. Wow. Wow. Now, Shama, before I'm going to ask you a lot of branding questions, and I have some questions here from a lot of people from EO and some of our friends and common friends. And so what was the city or town you grew up in like? So I actually had a split childhood in that I was born in India and I grew up in India until I was nine years old. So I do speak Hindi fluently. I actually did my first interview in Hindi or attempted it. You can find it on YouTube if you Google my name in Hindi, if you're so curious to see. So that was fun.

And then when I was nine, my family moved to the States. So I am not first generation. I am full on immigrant. And I don't know if that makes my son first generation because his father is not. I don't know how that makes my son first generation because his father is not I don't know how that works out but I am an immigrant and then we moved to New York did a short stint in upstate New York by Catskill Mountains and then we moved to Texas and Dallas had been home for me for many many years and it still is I still have a residence in Dallas my family still resides there and then as you know Kate I

married fellow entrepreneur and friend Patrick and I moved to Miami so I now live in Miami yeah yeah oh my god I was there when you guys first met okay so I still remember i was in you funny yeah i saw you and i saw you running and riding someone else i don't know who it was but i know i saw you running i know you tried it a few seconds or a minute and then you decided to ride someone else and that what happened there? So for context Kate is talking about snowmobiling and riding snowmobiles and yeah you know I'd never ridden a snowmobile before so as part of YAC when we were all up on that that mountain they I think Josh one of our friends asked like does anybody want to ride

with someone and I was like I'll do it like I I'm I'm not good with the two-wheeler anything I just not my strong suit and of course you know Patrick said well you can ride with me if you don't mind going fast and I laughed and I you know I love going fast I love speed I had an um an r8 at the time and so I told him I said speed's not's not a problem. Like, just don't fall. Just don't like crash because I can't afford to break my wrist. Like I got to get back to work. I have emails to answer. And he said, and then later I found out he never actually got on a snowmobile, but he does ride motorcycles. And so I was quite impressed by the fact anyway so I remember getting in trouble because we kept going off roads and weren't you lost on that trip yes I was lost for

like an hour I remember that oh my goodness yes okay so the funny thing is Dan don't know how to navigate his he got stuck in a corner so I bypassed him and I bypassed someone else and I went in the wrong way and I did my own journey for an hour well that's that's not a bad way to do it it's just funny because I remember people saying like we're searching for Kate and I was like but yeah it's hard to it's hard to keep entrepreneurs in line I think I think really hard to tell a bunch of entrepreneurs like stay in this lane it's just I don't know I don't know what they were thinking but they tried and yeah we had such a good time and you're right that that is where I met Patrick although if you told me that

he would be my future husband I might not right you know what I to, I have to share your story right before that, right before the YEC escape. I remember seeing you in the Inc. 5000 in Palm, Palm Springs. Were you there? You were there. Dan recognized you because I think we, I taught, we talked one of your employee about Zen marketing and we're talking about video stuff and he saw you there and that same time I was hanging out with Patrick yes you guys were in the same building yes is that crazy I was just now remembering things like you were there you were one of the speaker you had a booth I remember remember that. And I was hanging out with Patrick and Michael, Sue, and Dan, and you guys were in the same building. Wow, right?

Yes. So I was speaking at that Inc. event, and I spoke, and then one of our clients is Chase Business, so I was doing something with them. And I actually, I don't remember this as well, but I was with one of my friends Nina Vaca and Nina is a very well-known entrepreneur in uh from Texas uh she runs Pinnacle she's she's just amazing and so I guess and I don't remember this fully so I guess Patrick came up and he like was talking to her or us and whatnot and he asked her some question and I was like just google her Nina was like no no let me I don't I guess I yeah I know so I think our paths even crossed but like we just didn't you know it wasn't a conversation or anything but um yeah it's it's funny so it's uh yeah like we were at the same event and god

knows how many other times our paths must have totally crossed but you know it just didn't it didn't it didn't click until that that day yeah yeah i know and that's that's it that that was a beautiful by the way your wedding is so beautiful it was a such an honor having us there thank you thank you so much it was it was very um it was really sweet like I originally wanted to elope and I thought that was like the perfect wedding and then Patrick said that if he promised his mom if he ever got married she could be there and I was like well you can't just have your mom like then it's just spirals you know then I gotta have my parents and then you cannot invite your sibling and so we were like all right we're just gonna do a big wedding it was a lot of fun i'm glad you enjoyed it i mean it was a lot of fun i enjoyed

that was like for three days it was three days right five days yeah yeah it was like a full-on indian wedding we had the henna night and then we had like the um the actual reception the cool thing was it was at the house i don't know if you recognize oh yeah it was yeah it was a beautiful house I mean it's not a house it was it was a a beautiful mansion oh thank you well we call it home but you know it's yeah and it was really I we looked at a bunch of places and then we realized we wanted to do it at the at the house because it just felt it was was very us. And it was nice to have like our closest, you know, family and friends. And I told Patrick, it felt like you have one of those dreams. And every time you turn around, you see someone that like you

care about and you're like, oh my God, you know, from college or different parts of your life. So it was a really neat experience. Yeah yeah it was really fun and I know you have your whole family there the music it was it was so colorful it was it was beautiful first I was excited because you guys are getting married and second that was my first Indian wedding experience so that really totally you know that was an amazing experience. Yeah. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad. Yeah. Now, Shama, what was your journey like to get where you are? Well, that's a very broad question.

I think like most entrepreneurs, it's been, you know, it's been a lot of strategic serendipity. And by that, I mean I mean you know putting something out there like when I wrote my first book I wrote the Zen of social media marketing I didn't have a publisher I didn't have an agent I didn't have anything I just I saw market demand and I was like I need to write a book that can help people and you know I couldn't scale myself fast enough to be able to help enough people and they thought oh there's not even a resource I can send them to. So I ended up writing the book. And then, you know, I ended up sharing it on

Twitter. It was like the first early platform. And that's how my publisher found me. That's how my agent found me. And so I feel like most entrepreneurs, that journey is very much that sense of, you know, you do your best work, you put it out there. And then a lot of it is, you know, you hope for the right time, right place. And I think like most entrepreneurs, that was definitely true for me. Wow. Wow. So do you remember your first client? Who was your first client? You know, I remember my most memorable first client. How about that? So it was a dog food company and I was so excited because I love my dog. And I say memorable because the dog I had back then just passed away this Saturday. And so, you know, like when you, anybody who's a dog person knows what heartbreak that is.

But I just remember that because they were a really cool dog food company uh called called canine cuisine back in the day and I remember you know I remember the call where they were like let's do this I was so excited I turned to Snoop you know like oh my god this is you know um so I remember that being the first client that I was really thrilled about. And we did such great work for them. You know, this was like early days before any of these platforms were really a thing. And I remember blogging for them, just a really, really fun client and something that, yeah, so I remember that distinctly. And how did you get into marketing?

What was the story? So I actually, it's funny because I never thought about marketing as a profession fully. I did my thesis on Twitter, the network, when I had about 2,000 users. I was in graduate school. And I thought, let me explore this social media thing and write my thesis on it. And funnily enough, I ended up really falling in love with it that, you know, blew my mind how social media was going to change the world. And then this was during a recession. And I think an interesting thing that happens during recessions, enterprise companies often pull back. It's not the smartest move. I hope they've learned from that,

but they pull back because they're, they go into into this fear pattern. Let's not do anything crazy. Let's pull back. Let's be safe. What I found on the flip side was small businesses and even medium-sized enterprises are like, let's do whatever it takes to get customers in the door. And so for me, that gave me a playground of being able to really experiment and do great work. And so I'll always be thankful to those initial clients who trusted us. that was that gave me a playground of being able to really experiment and do great work and so i'll always be thankful to those initial clients who trusted us when i was 23 years old you know

uh and uh and and getting candid marketing budgets and so forth but i took that very seriously as i do now but that responsibility weighed heavily on me i was like okay gotta make this succeed they've trusted me but from that foundation came many of came many of our future successes and so forth. And to this day, so many of the things that we do have come from the lessons learned from those early experiences. Wow, wow. And Sharma, you're so young. You're 22 years old when you started your company.

What are the challenges back then as a super young female CEO? Yeah. Oh my God. I wish there's so much that I just didn't know, Kate. You know, it's funny. And I think sometimes it's more true for women than men. This is why I think women don't get as much funding because we don't ask for it. We don't think that big. Like I never thought, oh my God, I could have a massive agency. I could do these massive things. You know, my goals were, I would still look. And it's funny because Patrick and I both come from humble beginnings. And sometimes we look around at our own life and we're like, this is pretty cool. Like those kids would have never dreamt of having this in this community and this ability to give back and do such meaningful work that, you know, provides for us and the family. So it's really kind of, I think, heartening in that way.

I think the challenge part of it, big part of it was you just think too small. And I think at 22, any amount of success seemed like massive success, you know? but if I could go back, I'd be like, think bigger, right? Think bigger. Um, and, and why not me? I think I just felt so, I think there's a balance between feeling really grateful for your life and wanting more and realizing that wanting more is great because it allows you to give back more. And I think that was something that I, that I struggled with when I was younger. Gotcha. What advice would you, what would you advise for a CEO to stay connected with their

friends or their followers? What advice would you give them? So the advice I'd give any CEO, any C-suite is that you really, you know, it's not, silence isn't an option anymore, right? Like even if you're silent, it still speaks volumes. So even your absence is noted. And I think for so many CEOs, they don't, well, I wouldn't say so many CEOs, but I think there's a lot of the C-suite that doesn't fully understand that concept. So I think you have to step back and say, listen, the conversation is happening anyways. Just because you're on mute doesn't mean that people aren't talking about you. It just means you don't get to contribute. And I think in a day and age, like right now, Edelman did this study and I thought this was so fascinating. 75% of people

trust their employer over the government. They trust the employer, which is a big responsibility. And I think that's an important part to keep in mind. And, you know, and so if you have that responsibility, how are you showing up on these platforms? How are you, you know, what are you communicating with your stakeholders, not just your shareholders? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And which brand are winning right now?

Oh, boy. Yeah, there's definitely brands that are winning right now. In fact, I have a whole article, a column that I'm keeping updated on Forbes called Coronavirus Champions, where I've listed all the various brands that are doing amazing stuff and giving back in ways. I definitely think Microsoft came out strong, right? They refused to not pay the people that were affected by them not being in their offices. Google's done some neat things along with making their technology available. I will, you know, I'll tell you about a couple of our clients that are doing amazing right now. One is One Dine and they're a restaurant tech company. So as you can imagine, restaurants

have been so hard hit. They've been offering their technology for free to any restaurant that wants to offer contactless service. So you can do order, payment, pick up everything through their tech, and they can get you deployed in as little as 24 hours. So these are brands like I'm really, really proud of. Forbes is another client of ours. I'm so proud of them. We did a business resiliency summit with them because when South by closed, I talked to them and I said, you know, this is a really cool opportunity guys. Like here's, this is your moment. And, you know, as you know, Kate, I about those moments right the moments that you can leverage that you can um that that really dictate so much of of your history your your future um they tell of your history and they dictate your future and so i

went to them they said look self i got canceled you all these amazing speakers all these entrepreneurs who are hungry you serve these these entrepreneurs to Forbes 8. And they said, yeah, let's do it. So we created a remote summit for them, which was super successful. We had over 3,000 people attend. It's gotten over 6 million impressions. So there's definitely brands right now who are stepping up. And I think the ones that are really winning are saying, how can we serve our industry?

And oftentimes that does mean bringing in outside you know resources experts so forth I can tell you that I'm doing a ton more video now so it's funny like I've been doing my own let's take a moment with Shama a show every Tuesday 11 a.m. Eastern that goes across Facebook and social platforms and it's been you know it's something that I've been wanting to do but I hadn't gotten around to it and then this really kind of forces you to say, okay, what does my audience need right now? How can I deliver that? Yeah. Okay. So there's still a lot of CEO right there. I still have a lot of friends that really not into personal branding. Why is personal branding so important? So I think, let me answer it this way. I think the reason that people are scared or uncomfortable with personal branding is because they mistakenly think of it as self-promotion. And that's not what good personal brand is. Everyone has a brand, right? Like you have a brand and your brand is what people say when you're not in the room. It's that simple. So every CEO,

if I tell you Jack Welch or GE, you have some thoughts in your mind about what kind of CEO he was. If I give you Steve Jobs, you immediately have a picture, right? You don't have to build, you have a personal brand. The point is to really think about how do you want to curate that? How do you want to be known? What is the legacy you want to leave? What's, what do you, you know, and I think that's the beautiful thing. Rather than leaving it to default, you are able to step in and be able to guide that and not in a, you know, not in a narcissistic way. That's not the goal at all, but people need leaders. People need someone who steps in the spotlight and says, I will lead. I will,

you know, every industry needs someone who provides a beacon of light, who is, you know, the champion for that industry, who really helps them out. And I think that's personal branding, is can you be that champion for your industry? Can you be that face for your employees, for your team, so they can be confident and they can trust you, your consumers can trust you? Because by the time most companies need that, it's too late because they haven't built it when times are good, right? Or even in these times, like great opportunity for leaders to emerge. Awesome. Yet so many people aren't taking that opportunity. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you're very strong. I know we always think about those big moments.

Tell us about how important is storytelling to a brand? It's absolutely so important because, you know, as Patrick and I were actually talking last night, we were talking about the power of storytelling. Because this is how nerdy I guess we are when we talk about this at dinner. I can't wait. Is this a dinner conversation or an event conversation? It's a dinner conversation. And I just imagine when Archer gets older, he's going to be like, Mom, Dad, like, oh, you guys are the worst.

But, yeah, we were talking about this. And I think stories are how we connect with people. Stories are, at the end of the day, how people buy. It's the story that connects us. As humans, we need a narrative for everything. It's how we move forward, right? And at the end of the day, I think that the world really belongs to the storytellers. It belongs to the people who can weave these disparate pieces

and tell that story. A lot of what we do is help our clients uncover that story. They don't always realize this. They don't always have a, you know, they might not always realize the story because sometimes we're just too close to it. We don't recognize our own story. And a lot of times what we do with clients is help them find that, find that moment, find that story, and then really leverage that fully. Yeah. Can you tell me a campaign that you really push the storytelling and share me the success

of that campaign? Yeah. Oh man, we've had so many. You know, if you go to our site, you definitely check out the King Studies. But I'll tell you one that I thought was, that particularly is close to my heart, just because it makes me feel so proud

every time I think about it. And it has to do with our military. So NextCom is one of our clients, which is part of the Navy. It's the Navy retail base. So imagine if you're like a Costco or whatnot, but it's on all the military basis. It's the retail outlet for the military and their families. And we were doing a campaign and we, you know, usually it was a video campaign.

And usually what happens is the way the story is depicted, the military story, is of a guy leaving his family. He's being deployed. And we thought, you know, what if we take that story, but we spin it? What happens when a mom is deployed? Because there are so many moms and women who serve in the military. So we took that story, we did this video story about a son and a dad, and the mom is deployed. And every holiday, they save a little piece for her. So Christmas comes, and they save a little tree, and Halloween, and so forth. And then when she returns, she opens the door, and all the holidays are there in one. They've saved every holiday for her. And it was incredibly moving.

We won actually two awards for that campaign, two gold awards for that campaign. And more importantly, I think it really touched the customer base. I think it really touched that military audience and moved them to feel. And I think that's what stories allow you to do. It goes from logic and whatnot to really feeling it. Yeah. Okay. So how did you get all that idea? Is that, where did you get that inspiration?

I mean, is that from the team work? I mean, tell me, like, you just think outside the box. I mean, I think I've seen some of your commercial. You handle Chase, right? Yeah, we do work with chase business yeah and the story it's just like some of those moments that it just capture your heart and makes you fall in love with the brand and that's really hard even with video even with now that's really hard to capture yeah i agree and thank you for the compliment i i think it's a combination of things, when you do this day in and day out, just like any other exercise, that muscle, the creativity muscle is strong. Like you could give me any brand and I can tell you where there's a moment. It's just something when you do a day in

and day out, it becomes second nature. So I'm the person who can constantly look and be like, oh, that's a missed moment. Oh, that's a really good moment, right? Like I just, that becomes your lens. certainly i think the team is such a big part of it like how could you execute anything without without a team i know i certainly couldn't and so the team is amazing um you know coming up and finessing ideas and really working on the creative and i think you know as equal as important as the team is the client when you have leadership like you know i love equal, as important as the team, as the client, when you have leadership, like, you know, I love working with Chase Business.

You brought them up as an example. When you have leadership that is open and, you know, when, for example, we talked about the business will be able to chase, they were like, cool, let's do it. You would think an organization of that level, there'd be a million amount of red tape. And then there would just be such, you know, upheaval and waiting and no, but actually the best projects are one where the leadership is very decisive. They're very trusting. They, they, they feel like you get it and they're, they want to, they want to do it, you know? So I can't,

I feel like none of my work would be, would be possible if we didn't have clients, if we didn't have leadership in these places, regardless of industry or whatnot, that said, let's do it. These optimistic, positive clients who are decisive and get that you have to experiment and try things and are open, that's where I think we see a lot of our success. Wow. Wow. Wow. And how do you gauge a marketing campaign? What's your metrics for that? Yeah, great question. So the metrics are set before campaign and they're the client metrics. Sometimes the client says, I want, like we work with clients where they said, you know what,

we really need help attracting more employees of this caliber, and we need to better showcase our culture. Those metrics are going to look very different, dramatically different than when a client says, I want leads. Just very different metrics. And so we measure campaign success based on the KPIs that were set up with the client. Wow, that's amazing. Shama, I have to ask, what's something you would do even if you'd never made any money? What I do now? You know, boy, yeah. Like I, at some point the money becomes a, it's a wonderful, like, you know, it becomes a really nice currency, pun intended, to be able to do more things and make a greater difference. So it allows us to hire even more creative people, it lets us do neater things. And so it becomes a tool, it becomes a vehicle, it's not an end all

and be all. So I think, you know, for me, it's not about the money. Like, it's cool and it's fun, just like I view all the campaigns and everything. And, you know, to a certain degree, it's necessary to pull off some of the things that we do. And, you know, my team matters to me a lot. Like, that's kind of where money plays a role. But I wouldn't say that it's the greatest factor that drives me even if someone said okay everybody gets the same amount of money what do you want to do I'd be like this I like it you know I love it I'm passionate about being able to help brands get their message out there to find those moments like there's something there's definitely an adrenaline kick where you see a campaign go

viral or you see something cool and you're like yes you know I think for me that is sort of the fun being sort of like is there such a thing as like a marketing adrenaline junkie because that's that's how I describe it which campaign did it went so viral that you're not expecting it to hit like that? You know, I think for almost all our campaigns, I always aim with our team. We want things to succeed. But I think almost every campaign we've had has surpassed my expectations. And I think part of that is I tend to be conservative. So I try not to tell clients, oh, this is going to go viral. This is going to be so huge. I try to temper those expectations. So I would say I'm pleasantly surprised every single time. And I think that's just power of social media. Like the other day, I sent a tweet out

about One Dine and the technology for restaurants and what they were offering. And, you know, within hours, it had like 700, 800 retweets. Wow. I wasn't expecting that. Which I think just the power of technology today can accelerate things way beyond what we might expect. Wow. And which one is your favorite platform? Social media platform? Which one is your favorite?

I mean, they all have different ways that, you know, I'm a fan of, but I would have to say like right now, LinkedIn is one of my favorite platforms just because they feel like the engagement is solid. I've made some great connections there. I have a global audience on the platform. I feel like LinkedIn has been doing a lot to evolve itself right into a professional platform. So I have to say I'm sort of a LinkedIn fan right now wow yeah Dan has been working with that and he got excited yesterday I had 10,000 followers he's so excited I was like yes yes um Shama what advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur oh boy um aspiring entrepreneurs My advice would be, you know,

entrepreneurship is not for everybody. That's the first thing. I think right now, there's definitely a glamour to entrepreneurship where it's cool to be a boss and I think there's a lot of glitz that pulls people in I mean you see these entrepreneurs and they use that loosely because they'll pose with their Lamborghinis and models and I think there's a whole generation that feels like that's aspirational and it's really disappointing to me to see that because one that's not you and I both know Kate that's not a reality reality at all you know like please and so not that you can't have those things and not that you can't enjoy nice things I often just find that to be um I just don't find that to be very authentic and so I think when you have to ask yourself are you wanting to be an entrepreneur

for the right reasons which means you you see a problem, you want to solve it. Like there's definitely an entrepreneur mold that's not for everybody. So I think you've got to ask yourself some tough questions. And then two, I think you've got to be able to, you know, you've got to be able to push through challenges in a way that's smart. I mean, you know, we both know people who've been aspiring entrepreneurs for 10 years and whether that's fear that stopped them from taking action or they're worried what other people will say. I'm amazed at how much of that fear is real, by the way, people like think are so scared by what other people will say. They, they don't do it, you know? And it's like, that's the worst. If you, you know, you don't want to ever stay an aspiring entrepreneur. You either are, and you're working every single day or you're not. And there's no bad answer. I think right now, it's like, you know, we shame people who are not entrepreneurial, but that's, I don't think that's

right at all. I don't think it's for everybody. I think you have to, I honestly think you have to be a little nuts to be an entrepreneur. It's a crazy crazy the day-to-day that you have to do it's yeah yeah I think you just you have to be a little nuts like it's not sane people don't enjoy this amounts of stress or challenges like if you are a completely normal, sane human being, this is not a profession you are attracted to. Like the idea of, Ooh, what can I solve today? What fire can I put up today? It's just, it's not for, it's not for most normal people. Right. Um, so I think in some ways you, you gotta be a little off to do it. yep because we we like that stress we like that challenge and uh you know uh you feel it in your nerves when you're so anxious especially at this

time but hey we still not giving up we we love doing it like we're pivoting everywhere and that's i think that's the biggest thing kate i I think as an entrepreneur, you have to, you have to love solving things. Like, I think that's the biggest thing. If you don't like problem solving, this is not the path for you. Because the one thing I can guarantee, regardless of what job, you know, what, what industry you choose or how you choose to be an entrepreneur, at the end of the day, the only thing that it comes down to is how happily do you take on challenges? And if that's not your ideal, like you don't want to wake up every day and be like, what problem do I want to solve today? This is not the field for you. Yeah. And Ashama, how do you balance your life now with a baby which congratulations is thank you um with a lot of help

you know I think anybody who says otherwise is such a liar I mean you've got to have help like there's no you know whether it's your whether it's a spouse that you should give a standing ovation to every day or whether you know and so we we were very lucky I had help. He absolutely loves his nanny, which is really sweet. And she's, you know, and, and I, you know, obviously working from home, it's nice, because I'm still there, I feel like for all the key moments. And, you know, I work in life for just such a, especially with having two entrepreneurs in the house. It's such a part of our lives. Like, I just think Archer is going to grow up and this will be his normal until he goes to school and makes friends and realizes like,

oh man, my parents are not normal. They're talking about KPI at dinner time. He's going to go to school and he'll be like, ROI. And they'll be like, no, it's ABC. And he'll be like no it's abc and he'll be like no yeah it's it's definitely funny i have a i have two kids one is definitely an entrepreneur and he knows about franchise and margins and it's funny and the other one is like oh no i i don't have any social skills i just want to do this like but the other one he's listening to every conference call. And I have him engaged. I think he enjoys it. He definitely, he will definitely be an entrepreneur because he doesn't want to do his own work. He's so rebellious.

It's driving me crazy managing it now with business being shut down and my son is not doing his homework. It's hard. You know, I definitely, I think in that way, we're really lucky because Archer's only eight months old. So, you know, a bag of peanuts keeps him happily occupied. You know, it doesn't take a lot to distract him. And I do, I really feel for all of you who have older kids,

where, because, you know, it is hard. It's hard right now for, for people across the board. I don't think there's any other way to say it. And whoever is helping with that, with family and stuff, I just hope you're giving them all your gratitude because how could you possibly do any of it without them? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And how do you manage your time between you running a company and Patrick is running his what if both of you stress at the same time how what is that conversation like you know this is where I'm talking about like we're an odd breed yes we have a lot going on but neither was I would say stresses

about it like if if there was a superlative contest they'd be like who's the most likely to not freak out if their house was literally on fire and that would be us we're just sometimes you know Patrick's like man both of us are missing a gene because um yeah both both of us are missing a gene and I think you know like especially when you have your first kid I'm told that people freak out and they were like, oh, just you wait till you have your kid, you'll be so, and none of that was true for us. And because both of us are missing some sort of gene, our kid is like running. And so people see him and they see me with him. They're like, oh, this can't be your first kid. Like, you know, this must be like your third or fourth,

because we're just so hands off and we're just so laid back wow but I don't know to answer your question about managing it all I think part of it is realizing like you know one of the habits that I got into that's been very helpful is because we're both late like night owls I list out like the absolute few things I must do the next day and And that's been very helpful. Because I was finding that even though I would do all these things, I would just feel like at the end of the day, man, I wasn't really productive like I wanted. And I think part of it was because I was getting de-energized by all these activities that weren't meaningful to the business. And so I think ever since I've tried to be more

proactive and say, okay, it doesn't matter what else I get done in the filler. This is what absolutely has to get done. And realizing that really in any given day, there's only three or four things you can do well and get them done has been important. It's been freeing because I think for me, at least I felt like, oh, I should be able to do 50 things in a day. And that's just not, it's not, it's not healthy. It's not conceivable. And, you know, it doesn't necessarily, doing three things that are important to your business are a lot better and they move the needle a lot better than doing 50 things kind of haphazardly just to get them done and crossed off the list.

But they're not really making a difference in your business. Yeah. And so, Shama, your team are all remote now, right? Like, you've always been operating that way? Yeah, we've been remote for 11 something years, 11, 12 years, ever since we've been in business. I've never had an office, mainly because our clients have been global. And, you know, just like at home, I'm not a, I'm not a control freak with work. Like I don't care where people sit to get their job done. You know, all I care is that we deliver for our clients. We do good work. So I don't micro, I don't like micromanaging. I don't do it at home. I don't like to do it with my employees. I think if anything, leadership wise, if there's something I could work on,

it would be to add a little more hands on because I tend to be so hands off. And I, you know, I really like trusting people. And if they have a question, they'll come to me and I'm here. And so I'm, I just, to me, it's the remote has never mattered. Again, I feel like if someone can deliver, then why force them to work out of it? Like, I don't see the purpose in that because I don't work that way. For me, it's, you know, today I might be better working here or tomorrow I'm on a plane. The next day I'm in like, you know, Beijing and I need to. So for me, it's always been a remote lifestyle. That's wonderful. What are the things that brand has to really be careful not sound so

insensitive at this time what is the right messaging if you're running a campaign at this time you know that's a tough question because i think a lot of it depends on your audience certain brands have more leeway like if your brand voice has always been funny and you can be a little tongue-in-cheek like k KFC for example can get away with a lot of things that um you know let's say that Chase couldn't get away with right because it's a different industry and so I think this is important for storytelling you have to tell stories in a way that is respectful of your industry and audience and so even when we do campaigns we don't just like this is the most creative thing you've got most creative thing. You've got to look at your, you've got to look at your constraints. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I've been trying to really be careful with my messaging at the hotel in the

Philippines, but that sounds so like, you know, so that's actually a very good advice. Shama, how do you want to be remembered? That's a good question. And it's something I think about, about every day. I hope that when people think me, they think of someone who added value to their life, that somehow eased their path, made things easier. I think that's sort of what I would like to go for, you know, as someone who helped their lives with all its complications and everything going on, just be a little easier in its own way. Wow. Well, thank you so much, Shama. I had so much fun and I learned a lot and I think our audience appreciate it. So I appreciate your time and I can't wait to see you guys in Miami very soon. All right. Bye Shama. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe and visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode.