Episode 82: Tamay Shannon

Tamay Shannon

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the pretty powerful podcast where powerful women are interviewed every week to share real inspiring stories and incredible insight to help women or anyone break the barriers, be a part of innovation, shatter the glass ceiling and dominate to the top of their sport industry or life's mission.

Join us as we celebrate exceptional women and step into our power. And now here's your host, Angela Gennari. Hello.

Angela Gennari: Welcome to today's episode of the pretty powerful podcast. My name is Angela Gennari, and today I am here with Tamei Shannon. How are you Tamei? I am doing well. Awesome. I love how vibrant your personality is.

We're going to have so much fun today. So Tamei is a, the go to guru for elevating small businesses and inspiring entrepreneurs in the social media landscape. With a decade of experience [00:01:00] and a unique approach, she calls where to start to may blends creativity and data driven strategies like no one else stay tuned to hear her actionable wisdom that you can apply today, trust us.

You won't want to miss this. All right. To me. So I am going to, um, dive straight in and say, what brought you into the social media world? And what were you doing prior to this? Because I mean, social media hasn't always been around. So, right. Where has your training and expertise come from? Yeah, so prior to social media, it was

Tamay Shannon: grad school,

So the lucky generation that when I got outta school, um, and I was ready to take the world by storm, there was a housing crisis. Oh gosh. So there was a contraction in the economy. And so agencies typically don't hire right? They, they lower their headcount. Makes sense. Recession, lower the head count. Um, and so my dreams of being mad men were dashed [00:02:00] and my mother suggested that I started a business and I was like, that's a really bad idea, mom.

I'm not, I'm not going to do that. I know you're crazy. Um, but six months it, it just sat, I just sat there. It noodled around, it made itself home. It got comfortable. And I was like, I can give this a go. Yeah. I to try this out. Mm-Hmm. . And so it's been 13 years of trying this out. .

Angela Gennari: Wow. Good for you. I love that.

Yeah. I know. Um, I, it feels like when you're an entrepreneur, it, it feels like it's been the longest time and the shortest time of your life. Yes. At the same time. And really slow all at the same time. Um, all right, well, so then you got out of grad school and you decided to go into starting your own business, which is a huge leap.

I mean, a huge leap, because I mean, that's like two skill sets. Now that you're pulling together, you have your expertise, and you have business ownership, which is not easy. Yeah. [00:03:00] So you're you're now combining two different skill sets, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, I try.

Tamay Shannon: It's, it's one of those things that, um, you know, Nothing like all the job training for being an entrepreneur.

Right? Because in the beginning I was super, super clear. I was like, no marketing, no social media. I could do this. And then it was like, Oh, running a business is something completely different, understanding, um, hours and work and workflow and prospecting and closing and baking bold ass. I was like, Oh, this is.

Okay, this is not what I was expecting. This time will fulfill work. It's like that one employee does,

Angela Gennari: you're a business owner. Well, and I can tell you from experience that sometimes ignorance is your friend because I can tell you when I started my business, um, I didn't know what I could and could not do.

So I just [00:04:00] did stuff. That I probably, you know, didn't fit the status quo, you know, like when I started my, my security company, we run our security company very different than other security companies. And the reason why is because I don't have a security background. And so, because I have a background in, in a different industry and that industry just happens to tie into security, I hire smart people that know what they're doing.

But, you know, when it comes to the vision of the company, it's going to look a lot different. And I think what is what helps an entrepreneur, right? Because an entrepreneur, you know, our job is not to create what other people have created. That's not, that's not any good. Right. And one of my favorite business books ever is called blue ocean strategy.

A marketing book. So I'm sure you probably have read it. Yeah. So one of the best books ever written. And I read this very early on in my career. Um, it's been around for a long time and, um, I have, you know, always taken the, the percept perspective of a blue ocean strategy, which is, you know, you got to do things [00:05:00] that nobody else is doing in order to create your own blue ocean, or else you're going to be in the red, bloody ocean fighting with all the other sharks.

And that's a horrible thing. So the only way you can compete. Um, against these big sharks is if you have the same amount of, you know, now it's just a race to the bottom, you know, it's

Both: exactly

Angela Gennari: either have to cut costs or you have to throw more money at it, or, you know, whereas if you're an entrepreneur and you're doing things differently, you learn how to be creative in your solutions.

Tamay Shannon: Yep, exactly that. Yes.

Angela Gennari: So, okay. So then you start your business and you're out there, um, you know, kind of making your own way. So tell me what, um, social media to me is just so complex. Like we all use it for our, for our personal use, right? We have our Facebook and our Instagram and our, you know, Tik TOK and all of that.

And, and, you know, we, we are kind of, um, I say like spectators. We're spectators of social media because we watch it, but we don't really know how to get out there and lead [00:06:00] and, and be the performers. So tell me, um, tell me how this got your interest and how you look at social media in a way that's different than what I do, which is as a spectator.

Tamay Shannon: Yeah. So what I, what I've always found interesting about social media is that We can, I love words. Like I like the Oxford English dictionary. I nerd out. I'm like, Ooh, what is it? What does, what does this word come from? I love words. And so social media for me is just. It's, it's a world of words where we share thoughts and ideas and that causes people to take an action.

And I find that fascinating. I find that amazing. Yeah. Create a caption that I could type something and somebody would be like, Oh, well, that's interesting. Or let me take this action or let me do this thing. So that's how I got interested. And I think one of the things for entrepreneurs. That, that social media is really, really great [00:07:00] for is that you get to share you

Both: most

Tamay Shannon: people when they start a business, they're not like, I want to make a lot of money.

Yes, we do. Absolutely. But there is an impact that we want to see in the world. We want to see something done differently. We want to impact the community. There's something we want to see done differently that we're like, we could do that. Yeah. And so. We get to communicate that we get to communicate that passion that commitment that change to like this is how we do things differently.

This is why we are the one to work with and social media allows us to do that.

Angela Gennari: Uh huh. Absolutely. Amen. I think that's so true. Yeah, and I think Again, I don't know how to use social media to the best, you know, to, to its full potential. And so I still consider myself a spectator of it. You know, I'm a scroller.

I don't put as much out there as I should, and I want to get better at that. And I think, I think that that is the. The mentality of so many people that I know. I [00:08:00] want to get better. How do I get better? Right? Like, how can I come up with this creative content? And one of the things that has now become like, uh, you know, huge prevalent thing in our industry, in our world is AI.

So how do I use AI to, to help

Tamay Shannon: me with social media? So one of the first, um, the, one of the quotes that I love that I always share with entrepreneurs, because As an entrepreneur myself, um, I know that we can deep dive into a subject and really want to master it when that's not what's needed.

Both: And so

Tamay Shannon: this quote says, um, the goal is not to be great at social media.

The goal is to be great at business because of social media and it's by Jay bear. And so it's this idea that you don't need to master social media. That's not what you need to do as a business owner. You want to make sure that your business is running, collecting leads because of social media, but you don't need to be a content creator or an influencer or anything like that.

Cause that's like [00:09:00] mastering social media at a level that you don't need to do it at. Yeah. And AI can absolutely help with that because it can help you ideate, create ideas and be like, all right, I don't know what to do. Cause a lot of people say that I do sometimes myself. I was like, Oh, so you can literally go to a chat, GBT, a bard, a Claude and say, I want to do X.

I want this results. Help me create a strategy to achieve this result. So it could be like, I'm running a webinar. I want 100 people enrolled. This is my target audience. Create a strategy for, um, you know, for three, for three, it's three months away, create a strategy that covers a three months and how to make sure that I have a hundred people enrolled in this webinar, so I could be used like that.

Both: Or it

Tamay Shannon: could be used where. We have a lot of content,

Both: whether

Tamay Shannon: it's a blog, whether you've done podcasts, whether you've done newsletters, you [00:10:00] have all this rich content. So you have the opportunity to repurpose that content. So you can go to these platforms and say, Hey, take this newsletter and turn it into five Instagram captions, take this newsletter and repurpose it and turn it into a LinkedIn blog post, take this newsletter and do this.

So. You don't have to, once you spend time creating this long form content, use it, repurpose it, really, really, really get all the juice out of it.

Angela Gennari: Oh, I love that. I love that so much. So there are just some people who are really good at social media. Like I imagine that you are, um, you know, one example I can give you is, you know, when you're talking about repurposing, like this stuff never occurs to me.

Like I'm the person who will put, you know, 80 photos from my last week's trip to Cuba all in one, like, Hey, had a blast, blah, blah, blah. That was it done. Well, one of my colleagues, um, she is a real [00:11:00] estate agent and a social media maven. Like she's got a huge following. She's an influencer. She has taken the same pictures that I took.

Like we were on the same dang trip together. And she has made about 20 different Instagram posts and they're amazing. Like they're like, she's like loving the day and like just the coolest stuff. And I'm like, Oh, why can't I be that creative? She is so good at it. So when you're saying repurpose, like things that we think of as, I'm just going to throw my 80 photo album up on Facebook right now, and that's the end of it, you know, she has learned how to recreate that, that content to, to be meaningful and to spread out over a long period of time.

And I think that's the key. Right.

Tamay Shannon: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and not only spread out over time, but also reuse content, you can reuse content, like literally, you get copy and paste and reuse content, because if you [00:12:00] think about it, Ads, those are reused content. We, there's a Cadbury ad that comes around everything, every Easter.

We know what that ad is. We know exactly. It's not different. We know what it is and yet we still enjoy it. And so when you have high performing content, content, that's done really well, reusing it a month later, there's nothing wrong with it because let's be honest, nobody's going to remember it. Word for word is what, do you remember the content you saw yesterday on Facebook?

Exactly.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. That's amazing. Okay. Very cool. So, so how do you, um, as a content creator and a social media consultant, how do you recreate, how do you use AI to work to your benefit?

Tamay Shannon: I use AI to help me recreate and repurpose content. So, you know, for example, let's say you have a standard webinar, you have the topic, you have the breakdown, And then you want to present it to a different industry.

So I [00:13:00] use AI to help me customize that standard webinar for this industry. So I can create examples that are relevant to them that they care about. So I use it for that aspect. Um, and then I also use it to, like I said earlier, jog my creativity. Cause there are days where I'm like, I don't. I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to do. Oh my gosh, what is happening? And so I'll literally go to Claude or any of these AI platforms out there and say, like, oh, I'm trying to accomplish X. What are some suggestions to accomplish X? For example, um, I'm running, I have the opportunity to run a banner ad. I was like, I haven't done a banner ad in a while.

I don't know. What? Oh my gosh. I was like, Hey, this is the freebie that they're going to be driven to. What are some creatives that will encourage them to click this banner ad and enjoy the freebie?

Angela Gennari: So just like that. Okay. Very cool. All right. So, um, I'm learning a lot already. Thank you [00:14:00] for that. Um, okay, great.

So if I have a new business and I am just getting started, what do you think is the most important things that I need to be putting out on social media?

Tamay Shannon: Yeah. So if you have a new business and you're getting started, I would say the most important things are that you are a business. And that you want people to call you.

Um, so this is not the time to play coy and to be like, Oh, look at all these things that I'm doing, or look at this. And this is what I do, but really you want to make sure that you are asking people to set up discovery calls for you or however your funnel works or however it works for you. But that first step, you're asking people to take that first step.

And the reason why it's important is because you're collecting data.

Both: If

Tamay Shannon: you're new in business, you're, you're probably not exactly sure what resonates with people and what doesn't. So if you have a call to action at the end of your post, and you notice that [00:15:00] every time you talk about this problem, people are like, yes, oh my gosh.

Can I, can we talk, can we talk please? Then you know, okay, great. That is what I should build some content around. So you won't always be selling, but you'll be able to create content that addresses a pain point that, you know, is very important to people so that they will then share your content, be engaged with your content and be like, Oh no, this is the expert in this area.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, and one of the things that I tell people to because like I have managers that run different states for us and they're like, I don't know what to put on social media. I don't do social media. I don't know. You know, I don't have anything to say. And what I tell them is then share people's thoughts.

other people's stuff, right? Like share other articles, share other quotes, share other videos, because it still allows people to engage with you, even though they're not technically engaging with you. They're not, it's not your content, but [00:16:00] you're sharing it. And then you may actually be able to benefit from somebody else's audience.

Tamay Shannon: Yeah, yeah, and it's and it's that that's the thing about share your expertise is that it doesn't always necessarily come straight from you, but you as an expert have a viewpoint and an opinion that are not expert would never see. So you might be like, oh, You. Yeah. It's just, it'll allow you to really share, um, and curate content that makes it easier to consistently stay out there.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. Well, and you know, the way I look at it too is, you know, I may not have written the article that I'm sharing, but, you know, some of my audience, like we, uh, I share, you know, we shared a, um. An article that was about hotel violence, right? Cause we used to do so hotel violence is increasing and you know, worldwide, this is something to be concerned about.

Well, a lot of my, my, my past was events industry. So we have a lot of hotel years, whether they're on hotel sales, hotels, you know, uh, management. [00:17:00] And so my security and my hotel people can merge together and benefit from this. this article. So I just feel like some of that stuff can be very relevant, even if you feel like your audience isn't necessarily there.

Um, you know, they don't have the same expertise. It just, it does open the door for them to learn, because I think we all, we love to learn. And if we can gain some knowledge from someone who may bring some different perspective to the table, I think most people are open to that.

Tamay Shannon: Yeah, exactly.

Angela Gennari: So when you, um, so when you are going out there, you have, you have a quota, you have, uh, uh, a thing about memes in your bio.

So, so how, how good are memes to share? Is that something that we should do or not do? Like, is it a waste of time? Is it, is it at least the engagement?

Tamay Shannon: So memes are like. They're the 21st century hieroglyphics, right? They're a way that we communicate a full range of feelings and [00:18:00] experiences in an image. Um, and that's why they're so powerful because, uh, like the cat one, uh, the pointing cat one, like that's an old classic where it communicates an idea.

You don't have to explain it in long form. And like, well, this is how I feel about this. This is like you share the cat meeting and people like, okay, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so. Cat. So memes in general are really great to share and build a relationship with your audience because They're frustrated about something.

And when they understand that you understand the deep level of their frustration, they're like, Oh, okay. They get it. Yeah. I feel, you know, I feel seen, I feel seen. And so memes are really great for people to feel seen and connect.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. Well, and I think it also shares a little bit of insight about your humor, right?

Because I think that social media has done for us. Um, you know, and I'm in the generation of. You know, pre social media, but I, you know, I think what social media has done is it [00:19:00] has allowed us to be vulnerable and connect. Um, so, you know, like in, in my previous world, you know, if I were working and I was 23 and we didn't have social media.

Nobody would know what my son looked like, unless I had a picture of him at my desk and nobody would know that I went to vacation last week. And nobody would know, you know, all the things that I'm doing and my interests and my hobbies and social media connects you, um, as long as you're being honest and transparent and authentic about it, but, but I think the more authentic you are on social media, the better, exactly.

So, you know, I think that that has brought that level of trust, I think, to the table. Um, So where do you see social media going in the future?

Tamay Shannon: I see it. It's I think it's a I think it's actually a cycle where it balloons out and then it contracts in and so what I'm seeing now is a hyper [00:20:00] local hyper interest aspect of social media where people are a part of Facebook groups or subreddits that deal with, you know, peak horses in the Midwest.

And there might not be a lot of people who love pink horses in the Midwest, but this group loves to talk about them and how to take care of them and all of those things. And so we're gathering around our interest and we're like really, really creating communities and, and, and these deep fields of like esoteric things that, you know, there might be five people in your town who like it, but when you expand it to the world, there's like everybody who gets just as geeked about this thing as you do.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, people, I, I tell people all the time, they're like, what business advice can you give me? And the first thing I say is find your tribe, find the people who get you because they're going to be able to advise you better than anyone, right? Like you have your own personal board of directors and that starts with finding your tribe and, you know, having people that have the same vested interests, whether it's your [00:21:00] business, your industry, you know, hobbies, whatever that is.

Tamay Shannon: Yep, exactly.

Angela Gennari: That's awesome. Okay. So, so tell me a little bit more about, um, you know, when you, when you're posting videos, when you're posting memes, how can we do it as a strategy? Like, is there, I hear all the time, like there's certain days you should post or certain times you should post or certain how many times per day, like what is the strategy with social media?

Tamay Shannon: So when you're looking at social media, especially you want it to be like effective and useful in your business and reach your goals, you want to step back and you want to look at the underlying numbers that you need to reach your goals. And then you create a strategy of action plan around that. So instead of saying, all right, uh, to get the, I'm going to post it Tuesday at 5 PM, you want to look at, all right, I need to get this much traffic to my website to have this many people book a call.

So if you know, your conversion rate [00:22:00] is 25%. And you want to book four calls a week. And it's like, all right, I need to get 12, 12 people to the website. I need to get 12 people to the website. Cause I know 25 percent of them will book a call. All right. If I'm gonna get 12 people to the website, then what am I going to do?

I'm social that will have people click through. Well, every time I talk about this topic or I share this thing, people are super engaged, but they don't click through. All right. What do I need to post to click through? So the strategy. Really maps the actions to your end goals so that when you finally create a post, create content, create a video, and you put it on LinkedIn, you put it on Instagram, you have a reasonable expectation of what's going to happen.

Both: And so

Tamay Shannon: you'll know that. All right. This is the week that I'm going hard because I'm launching something. This is the type of content I'm going to share. This is, I'm going to go live. I'm going to do this. I'm gonna do that. And I [00:23:00] expect these results. And then because you've done that, you'll be able to look back at the effectiveness.

So you'll be able to say, all right, this is what I projected. This is what actually happened. What worked, what didn't work. And then next time you launch next month, you fine tune based on that data that you have.

Angela Gennari: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So what would you do like if I don't have a lot of time? Like, I think that's one of the things that holds us back.

Like, I don't have a lot of time. I don't know how I can do this. Do I have to hire someone? Do I have to bring somebody in? And I mean, we, while I would definitely say hire Tomei, Let's, let's, you know, send it to her, handle it. You know, if I'm a, if I'm a startup entrepreneur and I'm like, you know, getting through payroll and I hope in a prayer and, you know, I just want to make sure that I can pay rent mortgage this month, um, what do you say to get, to get started?

And for people who don't have a lot of time to devote to it,

Tamay Shannon: when you don't have a lot of time, and this is just an anything you [00:24:00] got to focus when you don't have a lot of time, you just got to focus and you have to be ruthless with your no. And ruthless with your yes. So you have to say, all right, like you said, I got to pay this mortgage.

I got to be payroll. So what I take, what I do actually is they got to produce results. So you've got to look at it, understand the analytics and the platforms that produce the most results. So you notice that LinkedIn is producing the most results, even though Instagram is doing really well. Focus only on LinkedIn, dive deep, go hard, make that happen, make it produce the results you need.

And then when you have more time, you have more resource, you can expand back out to adding Instagram in or again, and all right, and take talking again. But ruthlessly, you've got to focus in on when you don't have a lot of time looking at the analytics, deciphering the data, see what is giving you the most results for your business and focus on that platform.

Angela Gennari: [00:25:00] Hmm. That's brilliant. So what are your top platforms? What do you, what do you feel you get the most, um, engagement from?

Tamay Shannon: It all depends. You know, I love a good, I love LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really great. LinkedIn is evolving as a platform. Um, and it's where people go to do business, right? It's, it's not weird.

If somebody is like, Hey, let's have a virtual coffee. I love to figure out how to collab. That's not weird on LinkedIn. It'd be weird on Facebook. It might be somewhere else, but it's not weird on LinkedIn. Um, so I enjoy LinkedIn for that. And then obviously love a good TikTok, uh, cause that's just fun scrolling, but it's also TikTok and Reddit are wonderful, wonderful places to do customer research.

Angela Gennari: Really? Okay. I would not have guessed that. That's amazing. Okay, cool. Um, yeah, and like the way we use our social media is we generally use Instagram and Facebook to engage with our employees and we use LinkedIn to [00:26:00] engage with our clients because our clients are on LinkedIn and generally our employees are following us on Facebook and Instagram.

I'm still, I'm still evolving into tick tock. I haven't gotten there yet. I posted like one video, but I'm, I'm going to get there. Keep, I keep threatening it. So one of these days I will, but it is a great source to, for expertise. Like, I don't know what other people follow on tick tock. I think everybody's tick tock, you know, the.

The algorithm is very, very different. Cause some people will say, Oh, I saw this on Tik TOK. I'm like, that would never come across my screen ever. Like, there's no way that would ever come across. And so, yeah, so I think it just all, it's an, it's an algorithm. So, yeah,

Tamay Shannon: totally.

Angela Gennari: Um, so what obstacles and challenges have you had throughout your journey?

You know,

Tamay Shannon: it's, it's the, it's the most annoying obstacle and I, every time it comes up, I'm like, again, but it's. It's [00:27:00] my mindset. It's hands down. It's my mindset and me defeating myself that hands down has impacted. Really? Yeah, hands down without a doubt. Because when it's been a technical thing, like, Oh, how do you run a Facebook ad to do this?

How do you target this? I have a place that I can go to. There's typically a process I can follow. I was like, you do a, then you do B, then you see, boom, we're done. But when it comes to mindset, one, it's so insidious because sometimes for me, mindset comes off as facts. It comes off as like, that's just how it is.

That's just how the world works. And so I don't argue with how the world works. That's just how it works. And then I'm like, Oh, wait. That's mindset. Okay. That's something I can dismantle. That's something I can change. That's something I can actually shift and have an effect on. Um, so, but yeah, that's where all my challenges arise out of is, is me saying, no, I can't do that.

Or, oh, that's too big for me or [00:28:00] whatever the mind trash, the mind gremlins are doing today. That's, that's where, yeah, that's where it is.

Angela Gennari: I can totally relate to that because I feel like I create bigger issues in my head than exist out in real life.

Tamay Shannon: The amount of times I will rewrite an email and it's like, you know, it's fine.

The first time it's fine. There's that word is okay. It's fine. It's in. It's okay. Um, but yeah, so I totally, yeah, that's where it is for me.

Angela Gennari: I have agonized over emails. And finally, I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to send it. And then no matter what, like, I feel like even though I revised it 20 times, somebody would be like, you know, you're a little harsh in that email.

That's because I overthought that email so much. I should have just hit send, you know, 30 minutes before it actually was done. Because it was fine then, and then I overthought it and then I went long winded and then I felt like I should say everything. And then it was like the whole kitchen sink is in that email now.[00:29:00]

Tamay Shannon: That is exactly. Yep. That's the

Angela Gennari: process.

I can relate to that so much. So who inspires you?

Tamay Shannon: Say, um, I think my mom is pretty cool. Um, I think one of the cool things about growing up, um, is that as you get to know your parents as like adults and people outside of being a parent, it's like, Oh my goodness, you're really cool. Oh my gosh. You have thoughts and opinions?

This is

Angela Gennari: fascinating. You're not just an old lunchmaker. That's amazing. Right? Exactly. Who wouldn't

Tamay Shannon: get it? Um, so just knowing, um, you know, that, These people that I thought just had it all [00:30:00] down also had fears

Both: also

Tamay Shannon: were struggling with things and they managed to create a life that I was like, Oh, this is awesome.

I enjoyed it. Um, so it's, it's that it's, it's that realization that despite the fears, despite stuff coming up that you can still have a really magical life, um, and, and make it through.

Angela Gennari: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Our parents don't get enough credit, do they? Yeah. Our parents don't get enough credit, but they, they really are pretty amazing.

Um, uh, so, so as women, we give our power away all the time. So like there's, you know, whether we give credit to somebody or we, you know, whatever the situation is, can you tell me about a time that you've given away your power and then maybe another time that you've stepped into your power? Yeah,

Tamay Shannon: yeah, yeah.

Okay. So. I would say there's, um, and I'm better at catching it, but it still happens. It absolutely still happens. [00:31:00] Uh, but I would say where I noticed a place where I routinely give away my power is not offering up my expertise.

Both: When

Tamay Shannon: nobody asked for it. So let me illustrate it. It's like, so you're in a conversation, you've been invited to the table, you're networking and there's conversation free flowing.

And with it, I know that what I have to say will impact this conversation and change how it goes. I know it because I'm like, Oh, well, obviously you do this, this and this, but I don't offer it up. Because I'm like, Oh, but nobody wants to hear me being right. I'm bragging or I've done it and like all those thoughts.

And so I won't offer it up, but you can see the conversation. Like, Oh, that's not a, that's, that's not going to end. Well, I don't want you to do that. That's not going well, but I don't say nothing. And so that is a place where I routinely give away my power is when I'm in environments where it's a free flowing conversation with business owners and I know that I can impact something and I just don't share.[00:32:00]

And so that is something that I've. Take it on that. I look at that. I make sure to like stop it. Um, and say something and I don't know. I'm not always successful. There are days. I'm like, yep. No, there are days. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't like, I don't know what to say. How do I say it? Oh my gosh, it'd be weird.

Like all those thoughts. Um, so that is a place where I routinely give away my power and then a place where I totally own my power is, um, on sales calls. Um, yeah, I'm, it, well, no, I didn't start off like this. I did not start off like this. Um, but no, I'm finally at a place where I absolutely am confident in my expertise.

What I have to offer and how I can support people. And so for me, it's less of a, do you want to work together and more of a, when do we start?

Angela Gennari: Yeah, yeah,

Tamay Shannon: yeah. I

Angela Gennari: like

Tamay Shannon: that.

Angela Gennari: Very cool. Yeah. And you know, when you're, when you [00:33:00] were saying you give away your power when you don't say what's on your mind. Um, I've done that so many times too, but you know, and, and as somebody who would be on the other side, you know, I think maybe one of the hesitations is if you're in the conversation with us, and even if I have questions about marketing, I'm afraid to ask you because I don't want to put you on the spot necessarily.

But also I don't know if you would be like, well, if you want to know that you got to hire me, you know what I mean? Whereas like, right. You know, like I, I would probably feel like, well, I don't want to exploit her, her knowledge, her expertise at this moment. Whereas, you know, generally the people that I do choose to do business with is because they've shown me their expertise.

They've given me a little nugget. Right. And that has led me to, you know, I could really help, you know, you could help me just come in and do it. Just do it for me. Yeah, exactly. So really just lending those little bits of expertise and that little knowledge might spark something where they're like, Hey, you seem to know what you're doing.

Why don't I just turn this over [00:34:00] to you? Right. Because if you already have thoughts, right. Because I went through a thing recently where they were trying to match me up with the consultant and I was like, Oh God, no. Like, okay. First of all, have you been a business owner? Cause if you haven't been a business owner, you don't understand.

Like, and so like, I'm, I'm probably harsher than most when it comes to stuff like that, because I know how, um, I know what my expectations are and my expectations are already pretty hard, right? Like I'm, I'm a pretty tough customer, but, um, I need to know what you bring to the table and I need to know that you have ideas.

And if you don't have ideas and it's gonna, like, I always say, if I have to spend more time telling you about how to, you know, make me happy, I would rather just do it myself. Right.

Both: that part,

Angela Gennari: but , like, I don't wanna spend more time instructing you than I'm getting out of it. And so that, that, that, that's my thing.

So if you do, you know, offer your, your expertise, [00:35:00] I'm sure people will be incredibly grateful and, and it would likely lead to them hiring you and, and bringing you on because they're like, Hey, you get this. You get it. Yeah. What my problem is you understand why I'm frustrated. Just come in and help me.

Just come do it. Um, so what advice would you give to your 18 year old self?

Tamay Shannon: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Um, so the advice I would give to my 18 year old self and the advice that I continually give to myself coming from an 80 year old in the future is, um, you are enough. Whatever comes naturally lean into that.

Both: Yeah.

Tamay Shannon: So instead of trying to learn a different method, well, everybody says this method is really great. Or everybody says doing it this way, it's just the way you have to do it. If there's something that comes naturally to me and it makes it easy for me to do, there's nothing wrong with that. Something coming easy to you [00:36:00] is that doesn't mean that it's devalued or that it's not worth it or that you've got to get better at it.

If it comes easy to you. Take the easy road. You don't have to struggle all the time. So that's what I would tell

Angela Gennari: my younger self. That would be brilliant. I wish somebody had told me that because I tend to think if it's, if it's too easy that I'm not doing it

Tamay Shannon: right. Right. That's exactly the thought. And that's a crazy thought because that means that our innate capabilities and skills and things that there are certain things that I'm like, Oh, obviously you just do it that way.

And people are like, Oh, that would have taken me forever to do.

Both: That

Tamay Shannon: means that I devalue what comes naturally to me because I haven't struggled for it. Why is struggling a necessity to make something worth it? If I'm good at something and I enjoy it, why do I, why must I add struggle to make it worthy?

So

Angela Gennari: that's so brilliant. Yes. Amen to that too. Um, all right. [00:37:00] So, um, as entrepreneurs, what, what advice would you give them if you're going to get started today? What, what is it? What do they do to get started today with social media

Tamay Shannon: today? I would say. Start creating your personal content library. So your personal content stock photo library, so you might go to Unsplash, you might go to iStock or Deposit Photos to get pictures.

Start taking pictures of yourself. Start taking pictures around the work site, at your office, and they don't even have to be perfect, and you don't have to have a purpose for them. But, when you are having a rainy day, or you're having a day where you're like, I don't want to be on camera, you will have pictures and video content that you can assemble for your social media, without having to hurry up and get ready to take a picture of yourself in that moment.

Angela Gennari: Oh, that is so good.

Tamay Shannon: Yes,

Angela Gennari: because I think that's what holds us back. We're like, well, I would post something today. I don't have anything to [00:38:00] post or I don't have anything to say. I don't have anything to do, you know? And so I think just having that little library, I think that's a huge start for everybody.

Awesome. So this has been really, really enjoyable and I have loved talking to you, but, uh, one more question. What do you wish more people knew?

Tamay Shannon: I wish more people knew that you can create a life you love. And it doesn't, it's something that you can actively create. You can actually have what you want. And it, it, it, whatever it is.

And it might be the road less trodden. It might be, I want to go off the grid. It might be, you know, I want to live six months in Europe and six months in the US. And nobody's done it in your family before, but you can do it. You have the power to actually make that happen. You have the power to create your life from the ground up.

Angela Gennari: Yes. Great advice. Absolutely. Stunning. I love it. So thank you to May. You have [00:39:00] just been such a delight to talk to. I've really enjoyed it. I love your vibrant energy. I just, I just loved it. So thank you so much. Um, so

Tamay Shannon: how can people find you? The coolest, easiest, best place to find me. You can find me on LinkedIn, Tamay, T A M A Y, Shannon.

There's only one of me, so it won't be that hard. Or if you're more of an Instagram person, you can find me at W2Smarketing.

Angela Gennari: Awesome. Well, thank you to me. This has been such a pleasure and I am wishing you all kinds of crazy success. So, uh, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and our audience today.

So I hope everyone has the most amazing day and you could always check us out on pretty powerful podcast. com and we will make sure that all of today's information is on there as well, so that you can link up with her. So thank you guys. And thank you to me.

Both: Thank

Angela Gennari: you. All right, everybody. Have an amazing day.

We'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks. Bye bye. [00:40:00]

Intro: Thank you for joining our guests on the Pretty Powerful Podcast, and we hope you've gained new insight and learned from exceptional women. Remember to subscribe or check out this and all episodes on prettypowerfulpodcast. com. Visit us next time, and until then, step into your own power.