WEBVTT
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.183
Hey, what is up?
00:00:01.183 --> 00:00:04.410
Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
00:00:04.410 --> 00:00:11.400
As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and you all already know how excited I get to talk about marketing.
00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:13.406
And here we are in the new year.
00:00:13.406 --> 00:00:25.632
We all need to talk about marketing, we need to focus on marketing, we need to let marketing be one of the growth drivers behind all of our business's success this year, and that's why we've gone out and found someone who's so incredible at what she does.
00:00:25.632 --> 00:00:34.787
She has built a very fun brand herself, and I love the way that they service their clients and they really focus on making marketing not only fun but effective.
00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:36.326
Let me tell you all about today's guest.
00:00:36.326 --> 00:00:37.786
Her name is Alicia Taragna.
00:00:37.786 --> 00:00:48.953
Alicia is the founder and CEO of Society Unlocked, which is a marketing agency focused on helping hospitality brands connect with audiences through micro-influencer campaigns.
00:00:48.953 --> 00:00:53.795
If you've never thought about that marketing channel, there's going to be a lot of food for thought in today's episode.
00:00:53.795 --> 00:01:01.704
With a strong background in marketing, alicia has built Society Unlocked around the idea of using authentic voices to elevate brand visibility.
00:01:01.704 --> 00:01:10.762
Starting her marketing career while studying at American University's School of Business, alicia gained experience across various roles that shaped her approach to brand building.
00:01:10.762 --> 00:01:15.712
After moving to New York City, she launched Society Unlocked at the age of 23.
00:01:15.712 --> 00:01:24.686
This is an incredible and young founder, establishing herself as a leader in the industry with a fresh approach to brand influence and customer engagement.
00:01:24.686 --> 00:01:29.594
So much good stuff that we're going to get into in today's episode, so I'm not even going to say anything else.
00:01:29.594 --> 00:01:32.629
Let's dive straight into my interview with Alicia Charania.
00:01:32.629 --> 00:01:39.450
All right, alicia, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:40.362
First things first.
00:01:40.362 --> 00:01:41.266
Welcome to the show.
00:01:41.968 --> 00:01:42.709
Thank you so much.
00:01:42.709 --> 00:01:50.972
I'm so excited to be here and so excited to share more about Society Unlocked and myself and just you know, get to know the audience a little bit.
00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:51.661
Heck.
00:01:51.661 --> 00:02:03.283
Yes, alicia, I will say I've got a soft spot for young founders, because I always argue that you have such a different perspective than what already has existed in the marketplace, whether we're talking about technology.
00:02:03.283 --> 00:02:09.123
Whether we're talking about technology, whether we're talking about strategies, you, as a consumer, you've experienced your own perceptions of marketing.
00:02:09.123 --> 00:02:15.139
So, before we get to all this good stuff and the strategies that you unlock for your clients, take us beyond the bio.
00:02:15.139 --> 00:02:15.801
Who's Alicia?
00:02:15.801 --> 00:02:17.568
How did you start doing all these cool things?
00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:19.454
yeah, awesome.
00:02:19.454 --> 00:02:37.379
So, basically, you know, you kind of gave a brief overview of myself and my background in the bio, but I, you know, started Society Unlocked when I was 23, a few months after I graduated from school, and I really have always had a passion for marketing.
00:02:37.379 --> 00:02:49.668
I think being able to describe and kind of service clients the way they want to be portrayed in real life is really, really important, and everybody needs marketing at the end of the day.
00:02:49.668 --> 00:03:00.093
So marketing is just such a cool concept that I've always wanted to be involved in, since I graduated high school actually.
00:03:00.093 --> 00:03:11.064
So I've had internships in SEO, in digital marketing, in content creation, influencer marketing, in social media all throughout college and I always knew that I wanted to work for myself.
00:03:11.224 --> 00:03:18.748
Also because I come from a long, long line of entrepreneurs in my family.
00:03:18.748 --> 00:03:32.701
My dad and my uncle actually moved to America when they were quite young and founded a jewelry business, and now they work in both jewelry and wholesale, and my mom is an art teacher who kind of created her own brand for herself.
00:03:32.701 --> 00:03:40.663
So I've been always inspired by the people around me and I knew that I wanted to be my own boss.
00:03:40.663 --> 00:03:45.933
I didn't think it was going to be, you know so shortly after college.
00:03:45.933 --> 00:03:51.111
But I am really lucky to be in the position that I am in and that is a little bit about me.
00:03:51.820 --> 00:04:01.242
Yeah, I love that overview, alicia, especially because you use a word and it shows up in your messaging, and I'm so fascinated by it because it seems to shape your views on marketing and that is authentic.
00:04:01.242 --> 00:04:19.146
I feel like that's not a word that historically I'll pick on decades before you and I entered the scene that when I look back at ads from Coca-Cola in like the 70s, the 60s, the 50s, so much of it is corporate centric, it is truly brand centric, and when they said brand, they meant the business itself.
00:04:19.146 --> 00:04:21.778
Coca-cola had a brand in and of itself.
00:04:21.778 --> 00:04:29.233
We didn't know anything about the people, but I feel like you and I came up in a world where we know Steve Jobs, the legendary founder of Apple.
00:04:29.233 --> 00:04:30.742
I mean, we got to see his face.
00:04:30.742 --> 00:04:34.209
He became a human voice behind the brand of Apple.
00:04:34.209 --> 00:04:43.889
Talk to me about why authentic factors so much into your view of marketing and how you perceive these trends when it comes to building an actual brand these days.
00:04:45.093 --> 00:04:46.218
Yeah, absolutely so.
00:04:46.218 --> 00:04:49.625
Authenticity is, I feel, like the cornerstone of marketing.
00:04:49.625 --> 00:05:13.047
If you are marketing something in a way that is not authentic to what your product or service or brand really is, you're going to have maybe a big rush of consumers based off of the marketing, but the consumers are slowly going to die down and they're going to know that this wasn't what I signed up for, this isn't what I thought was actually part of the brand or the product that I bought.
00:05:13.047 --> 00:05:22.170
And I think authenticity is so important because you want to not only make money as a company, but you wanna have a loyal following base.
00:05:22.170 --> 00:05:27.872
You wanna have a targeted audience that meets their needs are met through your product or service.
00:05:27.872 --> 00:05:46.315
So authenticity is definitely, you know, probably the most important part of marketing in my opinion, and if you think about inauthentic marketing, you lose your consumer base like this and it's just gone and you don't wanna promote yourself in a false light.
00:05:46.315 --> 00:05:51.367
I think is really important to be aware of as a company.
00:05:51.928 --> 00:06:24.552
Yeah, I once heard a quote I don't know where I heard it from, so sorry if it was a past guest or if it was a business book that I read it in but it said that your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room, and so that really opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, as much as we can try to define what our brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room, and so that really opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, as much as we can try to define what our brand is and what it is that we stand for, it's ultimately going to be the people, and that's why, when I look at what you're doing with Society Unlocked, I love the fact that you kind of take that power away from your clients and the brands that you work with, because you openly acknowledge let's let the people be part of shaping this message.
00:06:24.552 --> 00:06:31.345
Talk to us about that, because that's such a different approach than what most traditional marketing avenues have experienced.
00:06:32.307 --> 00:06:33.389
Yeah, absolutely so.
00:06:33.389 --> 00:06:41.362
As you kind of talked about Society Unlocked, it's a platform that connects content creators and micro-influencers with venues in the hospitality industry.
00:06:41.362 --> 00:06:44.771
So think restaurants, clubs, lounges, bars, that sort of thing.
00:06:44.771 --> 00:06:56.411
We bring in micro-influencers to enjoy complimentary bites and drinks and in exchange, they post on their social media and write reviews for the company that they are visiting.
00:06:56.411 --> 00:07:05.428
So it's really this win-win idea of the brand is getting this brand presence and brand elevation and the micro-influencers are getting free food and drinks.
00:07:05.548 --> 00:07:14.072
And micro influencers are interesting because they really they're defined as anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand followers.
00:07:14.072 --> 00:07:16.305
So they there.
00:07:16.305 --> 00:07:22.747
There's a whole range of people that fall under fall under this category and anyone can really be a content creator.
00:07:22.747 --> 00:07:48.463
So that's what we focus on at society unlocked, and the reason we do this is because the user generated content that these content creators and micro influencers create is much more authentic than being put in a position where you have to, you know, pay an influencer a lot of money and they are posting a reel or a story or anything that doesn't really necessarily drive traffic.
00:07:48.584 --> 00:07:57.872
But if you think about it in the grand scheme of things, how much more likely are you to visit a bar or restaurant based off of a friend or a coworker or a neighbor.
00:07:57.872 --> 00:08:17.369
You see they're going and they're enjoying and you're kind of more likely to go visit this place in comparison to a big influencer or a celebrity that is going to these places that might not be in your target demographic and it might not really even be great, because you know they're getting paid for it.
00:08:17.369 --> 00:08:26.944
And this trend in influencer marketing has completely shifted because there's this distrust that people have created with influencer products that are being promoted.
00:08:26.944 --> 00:08:40.293
So it's just, it's a really interesting thing to study and I've been looking into it for many, many, many months and that kind of is the ultimate decision behind me, specifically targeting micro influencers to use for society unlocked.
00:08:40.740 --> 00:08:50.205
Yeah, I really appreciate that approach and actually we don't really talk about politics here on the podcast, but I will say the one positive that I think from the last election that we saw was power to the people.
00:08:50.205 --> 00:09:00.735
Both candidates, both parties started to realize that if you want to reach the masses, you do it through appearing on podcasts, you do it through social media, you do it through going to the content creators.
00:09:00.735 --> 00:09:01.035
Why?
00:09:01.035 --> 00:09:04.278
Because content creators are the ones that captivate audiences.
00:09:04.278 --> 00:09:11.183
It's truly what they, what we do, and I think that that's important to recognize the power of that distribution mechanism.
00:09:11.183 --> 00:09:16.102
With that said, we saw both political candidates this last election cycle get in on that.
00:09:16.102 --> 00:09:20.539
But, alicia, I'm curious what the attitude is like in the hospitality industry.
00:09:20.539 --> 00:09:32.696
Are restaurants recognizing, yeah, this is a viable way for us to get out there, or do they feel like it's a little bit out of their control because they are so reliant on, you know, google ads and all the traditional ways that they've been advertising?
00:09:32.696 --> 00:09:37.801
Where are we in that curve?
00:09:37.801 --> 00:09:38.041
Are people?
00:09:38.061 --> 00:09:40.123
quick to adopt this or are you still educating them on a lot of it?
00:09:40.123 --> 00:09:40.783
That's a great question.
00:09:40.783 --> 00:09:41.845
I'm actually really glad you asked that.
00:09:41.845 --> 00:09:48.192
When I first started Society Unlocked, I knew this was such a new concept to restaurant owners club owners.
00:09:48.192 --> 00:09:58.990
They're very, very used to running ads and, you know, doing very traditional forms of advertising in order to market their places.
00:09:58.990 --> 00:10:01.596
But I quit my job because I know this works.
00:10:01.596 --> 00:10:08.186
I know that if you are using your target audience as the marketers for your company, you're going to grow.
00:10:08.768 --> 00:10:19.736
So at the beginning I got a lot of pushback from restaurant owners not understanding why someone with a thousand followers should get free food and drinks.
00:10:19.736 --> 00:10:22.750
What are they really going to do for their company?
00:10:22.750 --> 00:10:28.938
But I kind of had to navigate, pushing this idea of micro.
00:10:28.938 --> 00:10:36.565
Influencers are more influential than actual influencers because their, their niche is very specific to your demographic.
00:10:36.565 --> 00:10:46.679
It's very much authentic and it's very much you know you are the audience that is going to be in front of them.
00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:48.808
So it was.
00:10:48.808 --> 00:10:50.393
It was a lot of pushback at first.
00:10:50.393 --> 00:11:05.432
I actually offered a lot of free trials when I first started and I really made an effort to tell these restaurant owners, these managers, the social media people that I quit my job because I know this works and I just want to show you.
00:11:05.432 --> 00:11:08.004
You don't have to pay me If you like the service.
00:11:08.004 --> 00:11:15.950
We can talk about moving forward, but this is a no strings attached kind of thing and I want to prove this to you.
00:11:15.950 --> 00:11:17.735
So that's what I did at the beginning.
00:11:18.057 --> 00:11:40.990
I still feel like not everyone understands the benefit, but a lot, a lot of people, once they started using our free trial, they're realizing that, okay, this is a really great way to kind of put our name out there, and we're getting these Instagram stories with our venues name being tagged and we can repost them and use them as our own content and they're also being pushed out to all these real people.
00:11:41.472 --> 00:11:45.330
So it was a really great way to prove that this works.
00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:50.385
But, of course, these people have owned restaurants for 30 plus years.
00:11:50.385 --> 00:12:01.220
They're very set in their traditional ways and it's kind of difficult to um, you know, put that out there, but the more, the more I push, the better it turns out.
00:12:01.220 --> 00:12:16.230
And I think that if you think about, you know, looking at your Instagram as a consumer and you are tapping through people's stories, the ads are so oversaturated if you go anywhere in Times Square.
00:12:16.230 --> 00:12:23.134
If you pay someone to put a billboard up, you are putting so much money into that and it's so oversaturated.
00:12:23.134 --> 00:12:38.005
There's ads everywhere you look and it's not really an effective way anymore to get new feet in the door, and you know using micro influencers is a much more cost effective way to put your name out there.
00:12:38.547 --> 00:12:54.006
Yeah, really well said, and I think ad blindness is a real consideration this year, especially when it comes to our local geographic regions is that we're used to seeing what our friends are tagging where they're eating, where they're going for fun and ads just don't capture that.
00:12:54.006 --> 00:12:56.918
Because we know and it says big old, sponsored on there.
00:12:56.918 --> 00:13:06.198
And also on a more national level my local, for example, alicia I'll tell you this One of the things that went viral here in Tampa, florida, recently is a bacon, egg and cheese food truck.
00:13:06.198 --> 00:13:07.490
It's right around the corner from me.
00:13:07.490 --> 00:13:14.298
How's that brand ever going to compete with the 50 different national advertisers that I see in my newsfeed?
00:13:14.298 --> 00:13:15.547
They're not going to be able to.
00:13:15.547 --> 00:13:23.557
But when everyone started tagging it here in Tampa all my friends, all these micro influencers that I follow just to find cool local things in Tampa.
00:13:23.597 --> 00:13:24.298
I didn't grow up here.
00:13:24.298 --> 00:13:31.686
This is the vehicle through which I learn about a new city for me, and so you're right, it's more effective than traditional ads and it's cheaper.
00:13:31.686 --> 00:13:33.269
I think it's such a powerful way.
00:13:33.269 --> 00:13:46.970
So talk to us about that cost efficiency, because I feel like that's overlooked when you talk about these restaurants saying why am I going to give someone free food In my head where I go, just as a longtime marketer, I'm thinking if they bring two people in, you win.
00:13:46.970 --> 00:13:48.738
Who cares if they have a thousand followers?
00:13:48.738 --> 00:13:52.370
If they have 500 followers, they could probably get two people to come in.
00:13:52.370 --> 00:13:55.177
So talk to us about that cost efficiency perspective.
00:13:55.865 --> 00:13:57.969
Yeah, I mean exactly how you said.
00:13:57.969 --> 00:14:00.533
Right, these micro influencers.
00:14:00.533 --> 00:14:12.312
If they even bring in one to two of their friends and come visit the same place they went on a Society Unlocked event the venue that is bringing them in is actually making their money back.
00:14:12.312 --> 00:14:19.070
So, the way you know, especially in the restaurant industry, it's such a low barrier to entry.
00:14:19.070 --> 00:14:27.471
The way unlocked works is because your cost is really, you know, the cost of the food and drinks.
00:14:27.691 --> 00:14:45.950
You barely have any loss at that and because, especially because in the restaurant industry the profit margins are so high, and especially in the in the drink aspect of things like the profit margins are so high, there's so much room for that to be effective.
00:14:45.950 --> 00:14:55.155
Rather than, if you pay an in a big influencer, thousands and thousands of dollars, how do you know that that's actually converting into leads and into new feet in the door?
00:14:55.155 --> 00:14:59.155
So it's, it's definitely much more cost effective.
00:14:59.155 --> 00:15:06.537
And you know, these micro influencers are so much more relatable, they're so much more authentic and they are really bringing in new customers.
00:15:06.537 --> 00:15:11.866
And even if they're not bringing in new customers immediately, they're building your brand awareness.
00:15:11.866 --> 00:15:23.057
They're building that brand presence for your venue, which is so important, especially with how oversaturated New York is, with the restaurants and the bars and clubs and everything.
00:15:23.118 --> 00:15:31.211
So yeah, yeah, I can only imagine, in New York City, how competitive that landscape is, especially in that world of everyone's on social media.
00:15:31.211 --> 00:15:33.037
We're all looking at a million different things.
00:15:33.037 --> 00:15:47.970
So, alicia, I want to ask you this, because I would imagine this is scary for business owners thinking about going the micro-influencer route and I'm sure they've asked you this and that is what are these people going to post about my business?
00:15:47.970 --> 00:15:48.392
What's that content?
00:15:48.392 --> 00:15:49.034
Are they primed and prepped of?
00:15:49.034 --> 00:15:50.080
Hey, this is the messaging that we're looking for.
00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:52.006
How's the actual content come to be?
00:15:52.950 --> 00:15:55.375
Yeah, so we actually offer our clients.
00:15:55.375 --> 00:16:03.999
If there's something specific they want to promote, we're happy to ask our micro influencers and our content creators to post specific things.
00:16:03.999 --> 00:16:11.133
But again, we have to use the disclaimer these are real people, this is authentic posting and this is what you're going to get.
00:16:11.133 --> 00:16:16.177
You're going to give them free food and drinks and you're going to get authentic posts.
00:16:16.177 --> 00:16:26.505
We are not, you know, encouraging them to post things that you know are not beneficial to the, to the client at all.
00:16:26.505 --> 00:16:27.969
That's, of course, not what we mean.
00:16:28.089 --> 00:16:36.183
But if you want us to promote this specific food and you give them this specific food, then that's most likely what they're going to promote, right.
00:16:36.183 --> 00:16:42.722
But if you say you want to promote that we are a specific brunch place but you invite them to come in for dinner, that's likely not what you're going to get in terms of posting.
00:16:42.722 --> 00:16:46.251
Promote that we are a specific brunch place but you invite them to come in for dinner, that's likely not what you're going to get in terms of posting.
00:16:46.251 --> 00:16:53.375
So that we kind of really use the disclaimer of we use authentic people and you get authentic posts.
00:16:53.375 --> 00:17:04.056
If there's any kind of specific messaging you want us to encourage them to post, we're happy to do that, but at the end of the day, they're going to post what they're going to post, because they're real people.
00:17:04.684 --> 00:17:17.182
Yeah, and I think, again coming back to ad blindness, I think that the marketplace is smart enough at this point in 2025 that we recognize when people are pushing someone to say the same things, and that's something that we, as consumers, it's just.
00:17:17.182 --> 00:17:21.132
We are the social media generation and we can spot that from a million miles away.
00:17:21.132 --> 00:17:24.137
Alicia, I want to ask you about industry, because it's fascinating to me.
00:17:24.137 --> 00:17:26.252
I see it firsthand as a consumer as well.
00:17:26.252 --> 00:17:27.347
When I scroll through Instagram.
00:17:27.347 --> 00:17:35.958
The hospitality industry seems like it's made for this type of stuff, whether it's travel locations, excursions, food, beverage, all these things that you've talked about.
00:17:35.958 --> 00:17:40.636
Does this go beyond that, or is that the most perfect industry for it?
00:17:40.636 --> 00:17:42.412
I'd love to hear your industry thoughts on it.
00:17:43.265 --> 00:17:44.369
Yeah, that's a great question.
00:17:44.369 --> 00:17:49.837
I think that this service can really be used in almost any industry, right?
00:17:49.837 --> 00:17:55.478
Google reviews and Yelp reviews are something that almost all service providers want.
00:17:55.478 --> 00:18:03.671
So, whether it's in the beauty industry, in the hospitality industry, I'm sure there's a lot of different models that this can replicate towards.
00:18:03.671 --> 00:18:20.759
Just because Society Unlocked specifically right now works in the hospitality industry, it's not that we're opposed to, you know, expanding to do spas and nail salons and hair salons that want this elevated brand presence and the Google reviews.
00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:26.315
So it's definitely something that can be replicated in any industry, in my opinion.
00:18:26.797 --> 00:18:31.617
Yeah, I guess the biggest question at that point would be where the heck do we find these micro influencers?
00:18:31.617 --> 00:18:32.663
Probably a restaurant.
00:18:32.663 --> 00:18:34.553
Obviously, that's a large gap that you plug.
00:18:34.553 --> 00:18:39.189
I'd love to hear some insights there, because business owners are probably thinking who am I going to find?
00:18:39.189 --> 00:18:43.076
How am I going to know who's real and who has a following and who's going to get people to come in the door?
00:18:43.076 --> 00:18:45.486
Tell us about how you navigate that side of the world.
00:18:46.167 --> 00:18:54.431
Yeah, I think that's obviously one of the pain points of making sure people are real and they're not fake profiles that are applying.
00:18:54.431 --> 00:19:06.575
But we, you know, rely a lot on word of mouth because, again, I don't feel comfortable running a million ads when I know that the research I've done tells me that ads don't really work anymore.
00:19:06.575 --> 00:19:24.998
So we've I've personally met a lot of people since living in the city for over a year and a half and kind of talked to them about this concept that I was planning to start and I had over 100 girls apply just in the first two months of me marketing myself.
00:19:24.998 --> 00:19:27.300
Society Unlocked.
00:19:27.464 --> 00:19:32.684
So it's not hard, in my opinion, because everybody wants free food and drinks.
00:19:32.684 --> 00:19:39.253
Why wouldn't you want to get free food and drinks in exchange for posting a couple times and writing a five-star review?
00:19:39.253 --> 00:19:53.851
It's, it's a super easy task, but really making sure our algorithm can analyze each person's profile when they apply and make sure it's a real profile, they have real followers, they're not paying for followers and and things like that.
00:19:53.851 --> 00:20:09.211
It's definitely a tricky space to navigate because of, of course, we've had a lot of applications come in that don't fit the criteria we're looking for and unfortunately at that time we wouldn't accept those people.
00:20:09.211 --> 00:20:28.711
So it's definitely a challenge, but, again, I think, growing word of mouth, when girls are getting free food and drinks and they're coming in to be content creators and micro influencers for Society Unlocked, they're spreading that word to their friends and they're having their friends apply, and then they're, you know, attending these events as friend groups and it becomes a lot of fun.
00:20:28.711 --> 00:20:32.732
So it's, it's a challenge, but it's not that big of a challenge.
00:20:33.173 --> 00:20:41.718
Yeah, alicia, I'm going to interject there that it's easy for you and that's obviously a very important gap that Society Unlock unlocked plugs in the marketplace.
00:20:41.718 --> 00:20:46.319
So super grateful for the work that you're doing and it's really cool because you've recognized.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:50.395
This is what I really admire about your business is, you've recognized both sides of that coin.
00:20:50.395 --> 00:20:57.772
As you've said, I want to build this network of trusted and authentic micro influencers and really I mean it's it's partially just matchmaking.
00:20:57.772 --> 00:20:59.701
You're finding those clients that it makes sense.
00:20:59.701 --> 00:21:03.612
You already revealed the big spoiler alert, which is it's a win, win, win.
00:21:03.612 --> 00:21:05.277
Everybody wins in this equation.
00:21:05.336 --> 00:21:07.663
So I absolutely love hearing about the work that you're doing.
00:21:07.663 --> 00:21:15.132
I want to transition a little bit and talk to you not only as the founder of Society Unlocked, but also as a fellow entrepreneur.
00:21:15.132 --> 00:21:18.444
You talk about the fact that you knew you wanted to work for yourself.
00:21:18.444 --> 00:21:21.130
You quit your job, alicia, and you went all in.
00:21:21.130 --> 00:21:22.372
What did that look like?
00:21:22.372 --> 00:21:28.944
What were those considerations for you to say, okay, now's the time I'm actually going to do this, I'm going to take it seriously and do it full time.
00:21:29.866 --> 00:21:32.292
Yeah, I that's a great question.
00:21:32.292 --> 00:21:35.803
I honestly always knew that I wanted to.
00:21:35.803 --> 00:21:39.988
My end goal was always to have my own company and be my own boss.
00:21:39.988 --> 00:21:50.970
I graduated in 23 in May and worked full time at a company that did digital marketing and and PR and communications.
00:21:50.970 --> 00:21:56.285
So I kind of had my toe dipped in these different things and I was learning a lot.
00:21:56.285 --> 00:22:05.789
But I quickly realized that it wasn't for me and I quit my job this past April and started Society Unlocked in May.
00:22:05.789 --> 00:22:08.648
So it was a really quick turnaround time for me.
00:22:08.648 --> 00:22:11.848
But I knew that I wanted to be my own boss.
00:22:11.969 --> 00:22:32.301
As I mentioned before, like my family is one of entrepreneurs and I knew that working on someone else's schedule wasn't really for me and I kind of just decided at one point there's a certain point where you are done learning everything you can from a job and you're putting in more than you're getting out.
00:22:32.301 --> 00:22:43.394
So when it came to that, I realized that it didn't make sense for me to stay at my job and I wanted to be out on my own, and I knew I actually didn't know that I was ready.
00:22:43.394 --> 00:22:48.732
So I actually struggled a little bit at the beginning because I was like why did I do this?
00:22:48.732 --> 00:22:49.845
Why did I quit my job?
00:22:49.845 --> 00:22:50.964
Was I ready to do this?
00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:59.349
And my parents were, luckily, very, very supportive of me and are actually the ones who kind of talked me into going out on my own.
00:22:59.349 --> 00:23:07.446
So I'm really, really grateful for my family that was there for me, but I didn't have the perfect time.
00:23:07.446 --> 00:23:14.083
I didn't have, you know, the right timing and the right everything lined up.
00:23:14.083 --> 00:23:20.442
It was really just more of I needed to take the plunge and I did, and I'm so grateful that I did.
00:23:20.442 --> 00:23:24.182
But it's definitely been a journey and it's going to continue, with the ups and downs.
00:23:24.182 --> 00:23:30.347
So I think that's the most important thing to remember is that it's never going to be a perfect opportunity.
00:23:30.347 --> 00:23:38.048
It's more of what you create in order to make it the perfect opportunity for yourself yes, very well said.
00:23:38.147 --> 00:23:39.832
That's the real stuff, alicia.
00:23:39.832 --> 00:23:46.090
I'm so grateful for you sharing that with our listeners today, because you just outright said it about your own journey and story is.
00:23:46.090 --> 00:23:52.463
I'm not sure if it was the perfect time, because there is no such thing as the perfect time, so I love that real life insight, alicia.
00:23:52.463 --> 00:23:58.688
I do want to go a little bit deeper there into your journey, though, because not only fresh out of school, you quit your job in order to do this full time.
00:23:58.688 --> 00:24:11.847
It sounds like New York was a newish city to you, so you had so many new beginnings, and obviously a large part of your business is based on relationships, relationships to find clients, relationships with micro influencers.
00:24:11.847 --> 00:24:13.826
Talk to us about that relationship building.
00:24:13.826 --> 00:24:16.028
It seems to me you and I are both connected on Instagram.
00:24:16.028 --> 00:24:23.161
It seems to me like that's one of your strong suits is that you genuinely love the human aspect behind marketing, behind building a business.
00:24:23.161 --> 00:24:25.527
Talk to us about how you've built those relationships.
00:24:26.470 --> 00:24:28.080
Yeah, absolutely, I think for me.
00:24:28.080 --> 00:24:35.565
I've always liked putting myself in uncomfortable situations and I've always enjoyed pushing myself in that aspect.
00:24:35.565 --> 00:24:42.607
So when I first moved to New York, I obviously, you know it was a new city for me and I knew people here and there but I didn't have very many friends.
00:24:42.607 --> 00:24:48.301
So I did a lot of things by myself and I think that that is not really the hard part.
00:24:48.301 --> 00:24:52.119
It's sometimes easy for people to just go do things they want to do by themselves.
00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:57.152
But what really made me uncomfortable was just talking to people and networking.
00:24:57.152 --> 00:25:04.160
And I I really put myself in a lot of situations where I just went and I just tried to talk to five new people in different settings.
00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:21.246
So I would go to, you know, restaurants alone, I would go to bars and clubs alone and with the intent of, ok, let me make some good girlfriends and really try to find out why New York is so fun, why does everybody love New York so much?
00:25:21.246 --> 00:25:22.463
What's so great about the city?
00:25:22.463 --> 00:25:27.320
And there was a lot I got to do alone in a lot of uncomfortable positions I put myself in.
00:25:27.320 --> 00:25:36.008
But I grew so much from them and I learned a lot about myself and I was able to build those connections by just talking to people.
00:25:36.087 --> 00:25:49.839
I think that being comfortable with yourself comes only from putting yourself in so many uncomfortable positions, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do that when I first moved here, and that is really how I built those relationships.
00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:59.535
And people are a lot more receptive to, you know, making new connections, than you'd think.
00:25:59.535 --> 00:26:20.318
People are not as standoffish as I first imagined them to be, so I think that when I just, you know, put on my brave face, was really friendly and tried to get to know as many people as I could, it was really rewarding and I was able to build connections with micro influencers, content creators and and people in the hospitality industry in general.
00:26:20.318 --> 00:26:21.961
That turned into long term connections.
00:26:21.961 --> 00:26:27.733
So just putting myself in uncomfortable situations, I think, was the main thing that I did.
00:26:28.339 --> 00:26:31.631
Yeah, it's important, not just business advice, but life advice.
00:26:31.631 --> 00:26:36.079
The only way that we're ever going to find comfort in that discomfort is by being in those situations.
00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:39.705
You don't get better at something by not doing it, so I love those real-life stories.
00:26:39.705 --> 00:26:42.107
Alicia, I can relate to your story in so many ways.
00:26:42.107 --> 00:26:56.351
I moved from Boston to Los Angeles in my mid twenties and I was in a brand new city and, just like you, one of the greatest cities in the entire world and trying to make my way through it socially, business, wise, understanding all the fun things that are available to do.
