Business
Mpoomy (@MpoomyLedwaba): Becoming a podcast pioneer and trendsetter
In this episode of 'Making It,' hosts Hannah and Simmy chat with Mpoomy Ledwaba, a dynamic entrepreneur and content creator, about her journey on YouTube and the importance of authenticity i...
Mpoomy (@MpoomyLedwaba): Becoming a podcast pioneer and trendsetter
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Interactive Transcript
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Tell us a bit about the journey of like unlocking features of YouTube and actually using them to
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their advantage. Everything sort of starts in the Northern Hemisphere and falls down.
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What I say to those chants, the most valuable tool is I think that my message from this podcast
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will be that when you start a YouTube channel it really is a marathon, not a spring. My recent
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travel to London, I didn't know that our market in London was that big. I knew because of stats,
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but you know when you look at stats you just see 5% 10%, you don't see actual people until you
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like plague it and like hey this is not just the percentage, these are actual people who are
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living in a different continent. Hi I'm Hannah, Knight Online as Fabulous Hannah.
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And I'm Simmy, known online as Tamago 2474 and welcome to Making It, a podcast for creators by
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creators. We're by the YouTubers ourselves and on this show we talk with other creators about their
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journey to success and what they learn along the way. Today we're joined by Umpumi LaDouaba,
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whose focus on promoting wisdom and wellness has helped countless people all over South Africa
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and beyond. But we'll even begin when describing Umpumi. I'm going to have to just read it off
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right here. She's a serial entrepreneur, a public speaker, a podcaster, a writer, a YouTuber and more
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on top of being a wife and mother to two young children. We're also happy to be joined by her
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husband Brendan Prey, a multi-genre musician, pianist, composer, producer, as well as being the
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person behind the camera and in the editing bay who actually helped Umpumi get started on her channel.
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Talk about a power couple. Now one of the first videos you'll find on her channel is
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fittingly titled First Things First and as far as first videos go this one is pretty good. She's
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24 sitting in her bedroom having a casual one-to-one with what would soon become a very engaged audience
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and she's telling the story of her journey so far from her, you know, studying to be an accountant,
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to her deciding to pursue her true passion of starting a business. Umpumi and Brendan welcome to
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the podcast. How are you? She's one of an incredible introduction. I feel like every way I should take
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you with me everywhere and you should introduce me wherever I go. I'll be happy to. It sounds like a lot
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of travel. I'm Brendan, how are you? I'm very well thank you such an honor to be on this
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podcast with you guys and hopefully we can learn something from you guys. Absolutely.
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So you know just on the note of your first video could you tell us a bit about that moment
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deciding that you're going to upload and start this YouTube journey? Sure I think I'll probably
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bring and speak on the technical side but for me it wasn't even about that. I'm not, I wasn't a
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consumer of YouTube. I thought YouTube was just for music videos at the time. I know I was a little
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behind but my husband is, he loves research, he loves watching stuff so he knew what was happening
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in the YouTube world and a lot of the my audience on different social apps were like you should start
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a YouTube channel and I was like what am I going to say? How does it even work? And eventually
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Brendan convinced me that look you've got something to say I think you should do it and my condition was
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I will be in front of the camera. I will tell the stories. I'll cover for the content but I never
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want to touch or switch on a camera and I think five six seven years in I still haven't switched
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on a camera. I don't know how to order focus. All I know is to be in front of the camera and
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keep it going. So yeah and I think Brendan can see how his first video upload and shooting wins.
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I think it was a little more of a switch job on his side. Yeah it was very scary. I think
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the you know when you start you obviously looking at the people that are doing at the highest
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level and you're trying to learn and you're looking at what they say you should do and we realize
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we didn't have any of the equipment. We didn't have a camera, we didn't have tripods, we didn't have
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lighting. So we had to maximize on the natural light in the house. We had to shoot that sunset
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golden hour or whatever so the light wasn't harsh and it's all those things and we you know
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grabbed some shoe boxes and created our own tripod stand with that and yeah but I think essentially
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what it taught us was that at the end of the day it's about the content and um likely enough
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from Bumi's content was was good and sound and and it was already refined because her life was
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already sort of in a place where she had learned all these things that she was talking about and she was
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sharing from a deeper place. Do you know what I wish my boyfriend was more into YouTube I would
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love to not have to do any of the editing side of it so it all that out honestly it sounds like
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the dream team um so I'm interested to know that dynamic where obviously I'm putting your
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in front of the camera Brendan you're behind the camera and it's always been that way. How do you
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find that with obviously you're married as well um what's it like working together? Sure it is
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really really um it really really is hard but um I was talking to a friend yesterday and he actually
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gave me the stats that apparently couples who work together stay married um a longer or stay
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married you know the odds are this it's this is a favor um for working together but during the
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process it does get really hard for us to separate to work and um and home in the beginning it was
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easy because YouTube was a it was a fun thing it was just another thing that we were doing so there
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wasn't a lot of pressure Brendan had his career going I had my business my salon business growing
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and so a lot of things weren't dependent on my YouTube channel working until we saw the
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opportunity and the growth and I'm very interested in the business world and Brendan's very
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interested in production and the highest quality so now we've got two people one is an extremist
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in business and one is an extremist in production and quality and now we have to come together so
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the end product is magical but the process and of understanding it others working languages so you
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can imagine a numbers person versus a creative I'm a structure work starts at nine need to get
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it and then you've got a creative who goes with the flow and each person needs that I need my my
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my structured he needs his flow and on a bad day it doesn't work but on a good day it really really
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works so it is quite challenging um but we've been doing it for so long we've tried out working with
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other people and separating but I think it gives us a sense of purpose and it it helps us develop our
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other skills our EQ our communication skills and all of that so that it can work in the business
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because the business is meaningful the YouTube business is meaningful to us so yeah I'll say it's
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challenging but it's worth it Brendan do you share the same? Yeah what she said.
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No that's really cool because we have had creators on the past particularly Jade Beeson who
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mentioned that she sees there being two types of creators there are so the planners the more
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strategic people and then the more creative people and so it seems that you have found a way to
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you know combine those and really make a good team that works together for the listeners at home
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and the viewers could you tell us a bit more about your channel what you do and what your goals are
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for the channel in the content you create? Sure so um it started when I started there wasn't really
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this five-year plan of this is how it's going to be I think when I entered it was what is happening
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and everybody at the time was vlogging and um naturally I thought that well that's what I have to do
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but my first video first things first was an introduction which I guess it's the bread crumbs to
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what I'm doing now because it's I now have conversations and I didn't know it then at the time I just
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thought you know what let me introduce myself before I get into this vlogging thing and then I started
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vlogging and um it was fun to a certain extent but I never really it never really felt like home to
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me you know Brendan always had to be there if he wasn't there all my content was either blurry
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or at miss moments because I like being present and I had to start finding my own niche within the
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huge space because I was growing frustrated that this is what's expected of me but this isn't really me
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and I started playing around with let's have conversations together I think we did some Q&A's
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together which eventually became a docu series called our love journey um and then the wisdom
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and wellness podcast started as also conversations with other people that I would advise that I was
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interested in day journeys so each thing has built up and the way that I view my channel now I almost
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look at it as a a production house if I can call it that um for like a bit of phrase or better word
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where I come up with concepts and we create them like I said the I love journey docu series and
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the wisdom and wellness podcast and we've done some cooking shows so I've got this network network
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is the word this network where I produce these different shows and so verses trying to treat it as
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what other people are thriving in like I've seen vloggers who excel at vlogging and I can't get there
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and I decided while maybe limonore tried to fit in the in the box but how can I use this platform
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the best way that speaks to me that feels natural and comfortable for me but also serves my audience
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and makes the most out of the YouTube platform and so what you can get into your question what you
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can expect on my platform right now is a whole lot of podcast conversations where I invite people who
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are doing exceptionally well in their respective fields be it an actress be it a uh another creator
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or a business person and we just talk about the journey of life and uncover their purpose and
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tools that we can share with the audience on how to be the best versions of themselves and
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I should actually change it to wisdom and worlders but um for me the drugstore still
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still I love that personal branding one thing that I find really interesting about your channel
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and for me is the way I view it is kind of like a TV channel and then you've got like the different
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mini series the different programs for example I think when a lot of people start a YouTube channel
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they think they have to do one thing they have to fit into a niche they have to you hear it all the time
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I'm gonna find my niche when the final one has to do I think your channel's a perfect example if you
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don't have to do that you can spread your wings try out different things is that something that you've
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consciously tried to do to try and find what you enjoy the most or do you kind of see what performs
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best to know a channel and think okay I'm gonna run with that one I think it's the best of both
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worlds and Brennan will jump in here so he has he's got the gift of forecasting because he loves
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doing research so he can kind of tell where the industry is going where the YouTube world is going
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um for example I think when we start and when we're still doing um content long format was
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working but he quickly realized that um people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter and
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we need to adjust our content um to that you know so those are some of the things that we implement
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where we do our research what's working what's not working and then we implement it into our vision
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so personally I'm a risk taker and like trying new things um until I find the thing that works for me
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so it is a whole lot of that way I didn't know I have um interviewing skills um I didn't know that
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I can hold a conversation but through trying it out I realized okay I'm good at this this is a
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conversation that sparks me up and you know keeps me going this is more receptive but I need to add
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a little bit of this so it's a combination of trying out finding what feels home and natural to me
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but also listening to the audience and as much as we don't um what's this producers name Rick Ruben
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he speaks about the audience comes last and the whole concept of that is you yes we must
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take feedback from the audience but don't create necessarily for them it has to feel natural for
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you first so it's a combination of that what feels home and natural and easy and exciting for me
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and then also bringing in the audience at the end of the desk to have to serve them okay and then
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we bring in Brendan's forecasting skill so it's really a combination of a lot of things and that's
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why it's a journey so there's no stop saying hey I figured this out things are constantly changing
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and constantly changing and evolving my audiences so it's a combination of stuff that makes it work
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and sometimes it doesn't and we stop and sometimes it works and we continue yeah Brendan do you want
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to add on that yeah definitely I think I think one of the one of the things we try to do is really
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oh well my job is really to focus on how are we presenting the content so Bumi will obviously have
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all these ideas and and my job is to see how can we present these in the best way so that they can
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flourish on the platform because as you guys know the algorithm is it continues to change so you
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know the analytics are there to help us and for us to see what's happening and what's how how is
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the audience receiving the content and sometimes the issue is not the content it's the way that it's
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it's it's being delivered so it's our job to see and and to see to make those adjustments and to say
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like for instance we had gone more to like a back to slightly shorter content where we do like eight
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12 minutes but then you you put out a video for 22 minutes and you realize oh actually people are
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now starting to retain a lot of this content and the retention is a lot higher than it was before
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so maybe there's a shift in the algorithm so then you start to then work on that and now you
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put out your next few videos to be slightly longer and you see that there is a change so it's just
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about trying different things and being open like Bumi said to seeing one to make him mistakes to
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to having a video not do well you can't live on the analytics page obviously a lot of the content
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sometimes has to feel like you're doing important work it has to feel like you're trying to
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to contribute something into the world as opposed to just playing the game so finding a balance between
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really being on the known in terms of what's happening with the numbers and how are people
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receiving the content in terms of when are we posting it how long are they watching it but also
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is this something that we believe in is this something that's actually making a difference
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if we took off our content from the platform would people miss it and sort of striking that balance
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I think has been really the key thing for us to do. Right right I think it's super interesting what
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you just said actually about if we removed our content from the platform with people miss it
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that really gets you thinking about the purpose of your content not just uploading for the sake of
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it but actually trying to have that impact and I think that's really cool another thing you mentioned
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earlier is about you know there's the algorithm side of what does the algorithm like but you're also
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trying to keep in time with the audience trends not just in terms of what's popular but what did they
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actually like what are you looking for you mentioned that you started noticing longer videos were
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actually becoming a bit more popular and so you were more comfortable making those longer videos
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when it comes to actually noticing those trends what what tools do you use like in the analytics
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what specifically are you looking at how are you like sort of predicting okay I think this shift
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is happening in this direction so obviously YouTube studio is your it's your best friend so
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every time we put something out we look at how it's doing personally I'll go in there and I'll see
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in terms of growth how how how is it growing as a video again the retention time how long are
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people actually watching this video and so but I also I'm also subscribed to a lot of
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content creators that actually sort of do research on what the algorithm is doing and so they'll be
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in they'll sort of announce whenever there's an announcement because I don't know where these
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announcement happened but I follow a lot of creators who will say they've started doing this and
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they've started doing this and then I'll tell them put me I'll say hey Mr. Beast says
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so you know and then and then she'll be like okay cool let's do it because our goal like I
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said because we do podcast it also makes us quite versatile in how we can put out our content
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because you have an hour 30 minutes of footage you can go either way you can find really catchy
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hooks in the in the content or you can go in depth with it and it's just about where the platform is
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at that point what's working what's everyone else doing and and sort of slotting in your content in
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your perspective to to suit that but yeah it's about having your ear on the ground and seeing what
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other creators are doing how are they how are they innovating in terms of putting out their content
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and and when you see that you look at how it's working and how their page is growing and then
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you try and implement that into your own page for sure for sure I think one thing that's super important
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as a creator is actually watching content so you can have an idea of what's going on on the
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platform you know so it is very useful that you do look out a lot of content so that you're in the
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loop with that no definitely yeah something that I've found really interesting in one of our
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previous conversations actually Brendan was when you said that you watch kind of like US or UK
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creators to see what trends are coming up and then obviously because you guys are based in South
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Africa you use those trends to your advantage you may be sort of like even a year down the line you
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can kind of predict what's coming up so can you tell us a little bit about that research was I
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think other people listening to this podcast would find that so interesting yeah so we realized
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like a few years ago that everything sort of starts in the Northern hemisphere and then falls down
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especially technologically so whenever there is beta programs we don't have access to them but we
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know they're there because we are on the platform so we see it and so being plugged into what's
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happening in the UK and in the US it kind of really helps for us because we can see where everything
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is moving towards and and a lot of the content creators will share it and they'll say this is what's
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happening this is what we're doing and so whenever that happens we then just kind of get ready and
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prepare ourselves put ourselves in a position for whenever that feature is unlocked here we can then
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take advantage of it in fact it's not just in content it's actually just in everything
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right it's really interesting how you've been able to turn what some could perceive as a
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disadvantage having to wait to get access to features into an advantage because it gives you
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foresight you can see maybe what mistakes others are making and make sure to avoid those and you
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can see what things others are doing really well and you can make a plan of how to implement them
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into your own plans you know even on your channel and for me you make use of so many of youtube's
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features you know it would seem that you just had it locked in from the beginning we're going to
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make use of memberships we're going to make use of you know joining a partner program we're going
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to do all this thing but obviously as of every creator it's a gradual thing over time could you tell
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us a bit about the journey of like unlocking features of youtube and actually using them to
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their advantage yeah I think it it goes back to what Brendan's sharing watching other creators
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that we are with that we look up to that inspires us is very interesting and we researchers even though
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we research in different ways but we researchers and once you get into things because another thing
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with a lot of creators is we get stuck in the research and then we don't implement and then we
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just stuck with a whole lot of information and nothing's happening so for us in as much as there's
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a lot of research that goes into what we're doing we are building the plane as we fly it so I'm
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looking literally I'm literally putting out these podcasts but then I realize like now the world
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is changing in that when I have a guest for example a celebrity on my on my podcast there's
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certain things that I've created such a safe space that a person would share voluntarily however
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the internet is no longer a safe space like that so there's certain parts of a video where on a
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different platform it does it's a safer space but perhaps putting a longer video on YouTube people
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can just screen grab three minutes so then that's why now we have to look at where can we put
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exclusive content so that my my guests feel safe and so that next time I invite some of my podcasts
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they feel safe to come because their content wasn't just snapped at three minutes without
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context and then being spread you know we have to think of things like that so that's when we jump
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into membership so now on YouTube we probably have like 10 minutes of a video where we know that our
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guest is is is is safe is protected everything is in context but in membership people who are paying
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get to have the full thing but I also know that my guest is protected and also people want that
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community aspects I realized during covert a lot of us went into shells and I think a sense of
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community was lost and in the beginning with my channel it was all about my story my becoming
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my purpose how to do this and then post lockdown a year or two and I realized that my number one
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need that I'm fulfilling is a need of community people need a community a space of belonging
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like minded people together with and that's what membership offers it's like like minded people
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who come together for the purpose of learning about wellness so with your audience in Piri
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are most of your audience based in South Africa or are they global I think my global reach is growing
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we have majority is South Africa but second on the list of God butzana our neighboring countries
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of God butzana I've got Namibia I've got Zimbabwe and we starting to have footprints in the UK
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I actually realized when I was there that a lot of South Africans moved from South Africa to become
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to to live in the UK so there's a huge South African market in the UK we're starting to penetrate
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the US market so little by little we're getting footprints all over the all over the world yeah
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but majority is still in South Africa are you guys kind of like planning a strategy to become more
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global to get more viewers in the US or the UK? Brendan, are you blushing? No because I don't think
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we're planning a strategy but like I think the world generally now is so much smaller because of
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social media so like in Pumi say there's a lot of diaspora in every country so everyone wants to
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feel that they belong and they want to get in touch with where they from and so that's a great
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way to enter every country's market is through people who actually you know are championing you
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and I find that a lot of like Pumi said a lot of the girls that move from here to the UK and you know
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they're obviously a culture shock their best friend would be in Pumi and Pumi's podcast that's
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how they keep to the ground and how they remember who they are and what they relate to based and
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then they share it with a friend and then that friend shares with their husband and then the
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husband's like oh she's got a husband he's her husband is a cool guy I'll watch this channel
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and it's it's just it's kind of like a ripple effect so it's not something that we planned but I
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think it's just the nature of growth if you can get to a higher level in your own kind of space
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then you start to infiltrate other spaces yeah I just wanted to add on with what Brandon saying it's
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exactly how it happened but my recent travel to London I I didn't know that our market in London
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was that big I knew because of stats but you know when you look at stats you just see 5% 10% you
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don't see actual people unless until you like plug it like hey this is not just the percentage
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these are actual people who are living in a different continent who are interested and so when I
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visited in when I was in the UK about two weeks ago I got so many DMs of people asking hey can you
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do a meet and greet can you do a meet and greet and so when I'm a friend they I'm like I should
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probably do a meet and greet chair you know because you don't think of it as actual people until
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you then you're like there's actual people here so now our strategy is gearing towards how can we
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start tapping in physically in the global global market so before we were happy with you guys can
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come here but it's why not go there why not tap into that and probably a long medium to long
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term strategy but now it definitely is a strategy it wasn't a strategy before it is always so
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interesting to actually be able to see how global your audience really is sometimes when I'm
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live streaming I'll ask people what time is it for you because I know people are tweeting in from
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all sorts of different time zones and I'll just realize wow I have people from Thailand I have people
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from South Africa I have people from all over watching the videos obviously you see it like you
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mentioned you see it in the stats but it's not until someone comes up to you and says hey I like
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your stuff that you realize wow this really is all over the world so yeah that's really cool how
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do you I mean you recently traveled yourself did you have any sort of experience like that or
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have you had that kind of shock of like wow people are watching from all over it was actually I've
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had a few people like when I've been a holiday and stuff and like a girl I was on a holiday with
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my mom and dad and I was in Cape Verde and this girl came up to me she's like I forgot I love
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your videos and my mom and dad could just sit there like we literally on holiday what is going on
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it's crazy but when you see people when you meet them and you can't you do just kind of forget when
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you see their use names you see the comments obviously it means a lot but when you see them in person
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you think oh my goodness it's actually my videos are actually making a difference to these people's
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lives and it might not be such a drastic difference but sometimes they might just need that 20 minutes
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or hour long podcast listen to to distract them from normal life and it is kind of like building
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a friendship with your viewers and one thing with you and for me that I'm really interested to hear
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more about is obviously you decided to dive into podcasts but I know before you did that podcast
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weren't actually very popular in South Africa and is that because you kind of realized that other people
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were doing it in different countries you decided actually I'm gonna do this I'm gonna start a
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podcast what are the benefits that you found from doing that and from uploading that long form content
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sure like like I said even in the beginning when I started a podcast I didn't know that there's
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such a thing as a as a as a podcast and Brandon had to break it down for me and there was a big
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deal that happened and he was like we should jump onto this it's blowing up in America and I
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know that in a few years time it's gonna it's gonna be a thing in South Africa and I was like okay
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dude it's fine like you've proven that your methods work out just get on to the content you know
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the trustful there. The trustful there. Yeah whichever platform you say we do it that I will
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I will come up with the content and when we started podcasting and I remember when we loaded
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our trailer we did like a little trailer that we had to to tell people that we're getting into
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podcast and people like what's a podcast and so we started podcasting in South Africa when we
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still had to introduce it to the masses so instead of click the link to go here it was like okay
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where am I going how does this work is it an app do I download where do I find it so we had to
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start by educating what a podcast is and it's taken a whole lot of time and what we realized with
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South Africa is we we are touch people I think in the States and the UK it might be different people
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okay with just having a podcast listening to it and that's enough but we realized that we had
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to make a video because people need to see us people need to see this whole thing happening
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because they didn't understand you know is it radio is it not radio and it's like no it's not
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radio okay but with the video so we had to make a way to we had to softly introduce it and now
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funny enough in my strategy because video obviously takes a long time but now and we we did a whole
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high production but now we've got it so comfortable with our audience understanding podcasting that
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we have a more relaxed sitting now so now it's no longer a big deal about the sit but it's okay
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we like the conversation but it's taken five years and even in making money because I know
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the first question was how do you make money on podcast we haven't made money for good five years
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directly from podcasting it's only now that brands in South Africa are starting to believe in podcasting
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they seeing the trajectory they seeing that okay this has value this is better the ROI is worth it
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but it's like for four five years you're just proving a point you're just proving that this is
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gonna work and you have to keep believing in this thing that you're doing even when others don't
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believe in and you have to keep building the numbers and it's it's it's once again that building
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that that airplane as you fly it and you're changing yeah and how does it adjust to the South African
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market yes this is working in the US yes this is working yet but is it working here where can we make
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some small touches and small changes and now I think we're starting to feel we even have awards
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now for podcast which I think started last year so you can see that there's growth but when we
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started we didn't know that we wouldn't award for podcasting it was like what's a what's a
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podcast so so yeah so that's been I hope answered your question but that's kind of been the journey
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right so in a way you have to like pioneer things you know there's no like proven road map
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within South Africa for it so you have to be like guys trust us this is going to work
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with which is a big deal because you know when you're doing something you say you're doing it for
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five years before the podcast itself was able to make money there has to be that kind of self-belief
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and believe in what you're doing in order to reach that point and I think the idea of introducing
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things to people is no small fee I mean if we go on to things like you know joining the YouTube
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partner program for example a lot of people don't know what the benefits are and so having heard
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you speak about that they'll be able to know oh this is something that would actually be
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beneficial for my channel you just have a bit about what it was like when you first got accepted
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into it and you think there was like a tipping point that enabled you to get accepted into the program
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sure getting into the program um firstly we have to be honest about money we need money to
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film this we need money for the camera is the camera I'm using now I bought it because of the
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partnership you know and that's what it's it's it's it's such great value to be able to
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up and level up your production but being assisted in that because a lot of people
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um in the beginning you're not making a lot of money but also you're looking at creators who've
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already clocked it and they've got the high quality and it's like how do I get there think at that
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time I wasn't so invested in my analytics it didn't really bother me I was just filming videos
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and and that's it but then you get monthly meetings and you get to learn and understand your
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audience um a little better and then the networking I'll always emphasize on networking having
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events monthly events or classes where I also get to share my share what I know I'm reading the
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diary of a CEO and Stephen speaks about that that if you want to if you want to be a master at
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something you have to teach it you know you you first learn it but the more you teach it you
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become a master at it and I think the class is and even this gives us the opportunity where you
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you feel like wow I'm getting more confident in this thing that I'm doing because people actually
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want to know about it so those are small value ads that you don't really consider but when you
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look in hindsight it's like that's where I got my confidence um from my confidence was built from
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that being recognized that I can actually educate um on the space and then there's the physical
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we I looked up a lot to Patricia Patricia uh and Patricia right right yeah Patricia right and she
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came to South Africa for for our India function and to hear from her she's one of those who spoke
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about the many ways you can grow and utilize your YouTube platform how you can create products from
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that digital products and physical products and she basically broke down her whole business strategy
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for as in person and we got to ask her some questions and it's just moments like they're that add so
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much of value when you put them together in your in your in your growth strategy I think the main
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message from this podcast will be that when you start a YouTube channel it really is a marathon
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not a sprint you really do have to be in it for the long run and there's so much good that can come
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out of running a YouTube channel you know um it's not just creating and I'm letting a video like you say
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there are digital products there are physical products um but I'm really interested because a lot of
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people I think there's actually around 11,000 channels in South Africa Kenya and Nigeria that are
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eligible for memberships but haven't decided to utilize that so what's your main piece of advice
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for those people in P. R. I feel like you're really good with the quotes you're good with the mindset
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I feel like you've had a really valuable mindset shift so what would you say to those channels?
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Sure I think the most what would I say to those channels the most valuable tool is community and
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another thing with community when people are in a space when you create a safe space for people
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like minded people where we know okay we come together because we like cameras or we come
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together because we like wellness when people are grouped together with the similar interests they
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more likely to achieve their goals and when someone achieves their goals because on Bummi's membership
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once I joined Bummi's membership my goals were achieved they more likely to tell the next person
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and that's how your membership grows the best form of marketing is word of mouth so in doing that
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and even what's also valuable in having a membership is having the feedback but it's not now feedback
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from critics because when you open it up to everybody you get a lot of critics some people just have
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something to say and they've never done it before or they don't care about you they've never
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complimented you but when you create a membership you create a safe space where these people are
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willing to spend 20 bucks to listen to you so when you ask them hey guys should we add A or B
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they give you such valuable feedback that you can put back into your membership to add more value
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back to them so it's just like value value value value value from them value from you and this
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community space continues to grow and so whichever direction you choose to grow in your
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in your in your career whether I decide to open shop I've already created this close
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knit of people who believe so much in what I'm doing that in whichever direction I go into they're
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my first people that I go to when I'm trialing something when I want to test out whatever I want to
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introduce they the first people I go to because it's safe to make mistakes they it's safe to try out
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things they it's safe to grow there so I really encourage membership it's a great learning curve
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it's a safe space and it's exciting to watch your your own members grow for example when I
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just speaking on membership when I started one of my challenges which is a running challenge called
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I run november where we run about a hundred kilometers a month and you can run it a walk it
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I invited a few people some who had never run in their lives and three years later one of the
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ladies sent me a picture of her finishing a marathon and she said this started with I run november
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and it's like whoa I've never even run a marathon before but I share that it's so encouraging it's
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just it's life-long achievements that add so much generational value to someone's life so yeah I
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want to know it's definitely it's definitely worth it but be clear about why you're doing a
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membership if it's to create a community be honest I just want to create a community if it's to
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I want to test things out be clear about that so that you can prepare service based and also be
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honest with your audience people just want clear communication and then your people will stay and
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your people and the ones who are not your people will go and you'll be able to enjoy memberships so
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obviously when you run a YouTube channel community is such a massive part of that and that
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especially comes with memberships as well I think it's kind of like a circle of trust you trust
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your viewers you trust the people that come in and watch our videos and they also trust you in your
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opinion and the information you're giving them and that's a really big factor when it comes to working
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with brands so in theory can you tell us a little bit about which brands you work with how you
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navigate that and then it'll be about working with brands on YouTube yeah so working with brands
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actually the way it happened was so organic it was I still had my salon running and it wasn't really
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a thing it wasn't a thing where people put their jobs to do it you know and I was was during the
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natural hair era and I had just cut my hair so on my channel I was sharing that journey of how I
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take care of my natural hair and educating but not educating in a sense that I'm the expert but
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let's journey together and while doing that a brand came to me like hey we would like to work with
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you and at first I was like oh yeah free products you know you're just happy to receive products and
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then they offer money and it's like hold up this is the entire career and it started like that
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and the more I created for that first brand the more other brand saw what I could do and I just
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want to emphasize on this that it doesn't matter how little you're getting paid or even just if
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it's a product exchange you need to do everything to the highest quality oh with excellence the
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best way you can because people are always watching and the more I created for this one brand the
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more other brand started hopping on and how I ended up closing my salon after lockdown was when
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I had one month and I got a brand campaign that I could do in a sitting in my house that paid me
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then an entire month of a salon obviously considering the overheads of a salon the expenses
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I was like I can do this in my house and make this amount of money but obviously it doesn't just
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start that way it's how much value can you give and because my community trusts me they trust
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my recommendations I'm certain of my ROI like that I do bring a return and investment for brands
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so working with brands has been amazing it started by getting a script and this is what you do
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but now it's evolved my brand partner over the last year or two has been dev and I call it a
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brand partner because we are we're working together they are coming into what I'm doing and I'm
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coming into what they're doing and we're making the visions work together but that comes with
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long-term building of having a community that hears you having a community that trust you
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and having brands that also trust you and plug into your vision so it's been it's been an evolution
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of how I work and partner with brands now that's fantastic to hear because I have a lot of creators
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nowadays especially seeing how other creators are doing it do aspire to work with brands and stuff
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so to hear that you haven't only worked at brands but truly become a partner where you can help
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shape the campaigns as well is very aspirational another aspirational aspect of what you do is that
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you've managed to build your channel build your business to the point where you have a sort of team
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of people that help you produce the videos and produce the content they produce because you do
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produce a lot of content you have the podcasts you have the videos you even have events he hosts
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can you tell us a bit about how you went about growing that team because that's something a lot of
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creators struggle with like where do I even begin it is hard it is hard to wake you go to team but
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you know I've had to kiss a lot of frogs to kind of find my my prince oh my princess team and I've
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had to develop also as a leader that it's not just telling people what to do but you want people who
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are who are the way in which I've grown my team I want I work with people who are leaders in their
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own space and rights and who are content with the role that they play in what's important with
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running a team is getting people who understand the nature of our business we are it's almost like a
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first generational business where there's a very little reference to how you run a team in a
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business like this you know and we are learning on the go and you want people who understand that
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and who are leaders in their own rights and who are willing to stretch themselves the roles even though
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we may have a role given but it far extends you know you you you do whatever is necessary but a
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team is great but I would always advise when building a team one step at a time higher slow fire
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fast obviously you are literally a powerhouse of a creator but not only that you're also a mum so
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you've got two beautiful little children is that one of the reasons why you wanted to hire a team
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do you find it gives you more downtime um yeah and also I mean I think we my work the way in which
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I work my slogan is lean and efficient um let's keep it here but it's the what's the quickest way
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of doing things and Brendan and I could have still continued to do things just the two of us but for
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our goals we needed other other other other brains other um people who know better and my my my
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strength is in sitting in front of the camera and sharing a message my strength is not necessarily
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in design and once when my when my when my attention is split in things that I'm not good at then
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I can't give 100% to what I am good at so it's important as you grow to understand what are my
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strengths what are my weaknesses and then let me focus and focus on strengthening my strength and
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then have people who who are strong in my weaknesses and so yeah so that's kind of being the
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strategy um but even with my children it allows me time to spend more time um with them as well
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yeah right right I think um you know making time for yourself as a creator is something that's
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very important because it can be a job we are wearing so many hats that you can sort of neglect
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the other things so it's good that you've been able to find ways to make sure that you make time
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for those other things something that you mentioned earlier when he came to your content
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strategy is that you know you were seeing that vlogs were doing really well but you didn't want
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to necessarily have to broadcast your life so you were trying to find other things that you could
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make content about so you can provide value that isn't just look at me you know look at all the
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things in my life that I perhaps don't want to share would it be accurate to say that you're
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somewhat of a private person it comes to what you share online yeah actually very very private
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and it doesn't seem like it because I talk a lot and I share a lot but I just learned that there's
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certain parts of my life that I want to enjoy and keep to keep keep keep to us sacred um initially we
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we would share our family and I think that's important representation of a black um family I
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thought that was important but we got to a point where I was like actually this is a part that I
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want to I want to keep to myself um growing online comes with growing criticism and there's
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certain parts of my life where I'm mature enough to take the criticism but when it comes to my kids
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I don't know how I might act so rather let's take it off and so it's important to have a
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south awareness that are you willing to take if you're taking compliments you have to be open
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to taking the criticism so when with my kids I'll take the compliments but I wasn't
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willing to take the criticism and even in our family dynamics um we have to protect that so
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I have grown to be a way more private person and sharing what I know adds value without stripping
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away from me I always love hearing perspectives from creators here or a mum because I would
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I dream of having children one day and I'm so undecided on whether or not to show them online and
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finding that balance between work and family time and where it kind of merges but your perspective
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has been really interesting to hear about that in Poo Min it just shows that you don't have to decide
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something and stick with it obviously you can show your children and then you can decide actually
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I'm not sure I want to do this anymore and I do want to separate it so yeah I feel like this has
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been a really great chat thank you for opening up with us thank you thank you so much no it has
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been incredibly useful so thank you and thank you Brendan as well for sharing the more technical
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side of what you do I think having this balance between the two of you has been like invaluable
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to the viewers that thank you so much if you want a deeper dive into the topics we've covered
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today we've included some helpful resources in the description below and there you'll also
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find a link to Impumi's channel so you can check out her awesome content and don't forget you
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can also listen to this podcast on the guy you can subscribe to the youtube creators youtube channel
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or you can listen to the making it podcast on youtube music or wherever you find your podcasts
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thanks again to everyone for joining us on this episode of the making it podcast we have to see
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you again soon it's been great see ya all right see you all see you guys bye bye