Sushmita Jain: Don’t Start With Ads to Build a Loyalty Audience

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

So Sushmita Jane, thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you? I’m good. How are you? And thank you for having me. Yeah, I imagine that I probably slaughtered your name. No, you actually said it correctly. So that’s fantastic. And just in case someone just wants a simple version, you can call me sush.
All right deal. So, Sush as you know, I like to start with two questions. Um, question number one is going to be, you know, tell us what you do. What are, what are we gonna learn from you today? So I am a business strategist and I, and make outsourcing agency where we have, you know, different team members who handle different things for different businesses.
So basically I’m someone who handles all of the business back in that it’s the strategy, whether it’s it’s implementation. So that’s what I do. All right. And we’re going to dig into that, but not until I ask you question number two, which is what do you suck at? Oh, okay. When it comes to that, I am really bad at actually boundaries.
So like, you know, I would be working a lot then rather taking time off and all of those things. So this is something which people see, I really suck at. So I’m trying to get better at that because I work a lot. Yeah. Workaholic. So the boundaries are just like within just yourself, your personal boundaries.
Yeah. So it’s like, I, I would rather work more than rather invest time more in, you know, like my personal relationships, spending time with my parents and stuff like that. So that’s something that I’m working on. Yeah. The topic, because I think, uh, you know, I’m going to ask you a little bit more about that because it’s important for our listeners who are largely entrepreneurs.
What, is there a moment where you realized that you had problems with setting boundaries and, and so that’s why you’re making a more conscious, separate towards it now. Yeah. So it’s more like I’ve had a lot of health issues because I am really bad with, you know, setting boundaries and stuff. So it’s like, you know, I would work a lot.
And then I basically don’t listen to my body, even though it would give me like, you know, different in different ways. It would let me know. Like I would either be feeling down or, you know, I would be having some of the other health issues from time to time. So it’s more. That I have to now make sure that I’m consciously taking more time for myself as well, then rather just, you know, being more flashy and happy about rather being a workaholic, because even though we love our work and that’s the reason why we are choosing to do what we do, we still have to.
At least give ourselves some time to recharge rebound, you know, do other things like maybe even small things like reading or, you know, just watching a movie or anything like that. So, yeah. So I have kind of a two-part question. Now, your, in, in your intro, I mentioned how you’re a business mentor and live stream enthusiast.
Do do those go together or is live stream enthusiast more on the personal side and business vendors, obviously on the business side or, or. No, both of them go together because it’s more like, you know, I do live stream a lot and I do a lot of prerecorded videos as well on my work. And actually I was someone who was really, you know, like literally terrified of being on video initially when I planned or decided to be on, to get started with live videos, one and two is, you know, just starting buzzing and building, but then the more I started doing it, like.
I remember my first live stream, you know, and I did it the first five minutes, or even when I was before I was about to hit that like button, I was like, oh my God. I have no idea whether I would even not to reward once I hit that go live button. And I don’t even know whether someone would come and watch the live video, because it was really very initially when I started doing live video, when it was just started within a Facebook and Periscope and all of those platforms.
So that’s when I started. And it was so amazing experience because I had like, 60 people watching me when I did hit go live for the first time. And that’s it, after that I’ve been unstoppable because now it’s more like, you know, I love having the conversation. So now I look at the camera as someone who’s rather a person who’s in front of me and I’m having a conversation with them and rather.
Like literally feeling like, okay, I’m just having a conversation maybe with a gadget or a device, or w when you did that, first one, you had 60 people watching. What was your audience? You’re offline, not offline audience, but before you went live, you obviously had to have some audience for 60 people to be able to.
Watch. So what was that audience like? How big was it audience? Was it, you know, was it business people to follow you for business for personal? Was it, what platform was it on? So it was on Facebook. I started with Facebook and it was a mix of goal. So it was like, so it was more about like, I had something like say 400, four 50.
The people as my friends on Facebook. So I went live for the first time on my Facebook profile. They’re not running a business page. And it was like four 5,500 people who are my friends. So they were more that’s my client. So it was a more mix of my time, current clients and my family members. So it was like, okay, if people have.
Oh God. And they are listening to me because I started with, when I did hit go live and, you know, back then the notifications and all of those things were crazy. So initially it started with like, say five, seven people who started when I started the live stream. And by the end, Like I said it was around 50, 60 people and they were asking questions.
We were actually having conversation related to more about, because when I started and did the first Glade, it was more about me sharing who I am and what I do. Then rather just talking about some things related to quality about my business, because I wanted to have a conversation with the people who are connected with me on Facebook.
So just more about my story and why I choose to do what I do because, well, my qualification I’m an engineer, but then I transitioned to become a marketer and then now a business strategist. So it is something. Which people don’t quite understand. It’s all like, okay, you are an engineer. Why aren’t you actually just doing a job?
Like any other engineer would do than rather going back to square one, learning everything about business and, you know, setting things up and growing them and then growing a business around that. How long ago was this first Facebook live? So that was, I think, around. More than four years or something like that.
It has been quite some time. And is that what you help other people with now is, is bringing their message to bring their message online. So we’ve worked on both, whether it’s videos as well as written content, because that is also something which people do struggle with, because it’s more, I mean, some people struggle with going more on video and some people find it even difficult to, you know, express out what they’re even working on.
Even the current projects to share the message out with businesses or even other people who they want to connect with. So for instance, like we have say maybe, you know, people who are coaches who are just working with other just normal people, then rather business owners, you know, they want to coach people to maybe just be self-confident than rather doubting themselves, but they find it difficult.
And then actually they have a mindset block of their own. When it comes to sharing the message as to why would people listen to me on Facebook? Or why would people listen to me on Instagram? How would I go and audience? So then we will convert, you know, getting them on video, helping them understand what they want to share and why they want to connect with those people.
So we understand them and we help them clarify their message and all of these bits and pieces. So, yeah, what’s the average timeframe, uh, when you work with somebody to build out or build all that out, So it depends. Some people have exploded and grown their audiences, even in timeframe, like say one month.
And some people it has taken say around, say five a month, six months, and some have taken around a year. So because sometimes it’s more of the pushing them more because some have more controversial topics to talk about, but they’re not actually okay to talk about them. So there are those start slow. With just first being visually present because they’ve never actually built a brand until now.
And then we slowly pushed them towards just, you know, not just being present, but talking about the controversial topics. And that’s when it hits in because now. They are triggering people. So some people are getting turned off when then they start doubting that, okay. People are hating us, whether we should actually talk about this, but then we make them understand that you are rather just, you know, segmenting your audience and making sure you are connected with right people that sharing.
The exact message, which you want to share then rather being generic and just being, you know, someone who is talking about something random, which maybe they could get anywhere on social media or anywhere on Google or anything like that. Yeah. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit more, because I know a lot of people, when they see certain influencers or people they fall on and they’re really surprised by topics they talk about and.
A lot of people don’t realize that that’s intentional and they are intentionally repelling people and they are intentionally trying to, as you said, segment their audience because that contributes to the brand loyalty, because yes, it pushes certain people away. But, but the people that it resonates with that it doesn’t push away, become more loyal to that person they’re following.
Yeah. Yeah. Because see what happens is. How I look at things is we have a lot of people who are connected with us, right? But then there are people who are just going to be looking around they’re people who are always want to engage with you. And then there are people who are just there to maybe find a certain moment where they can drag you down, you know, so they’re going to be all right.
All kinds of people, people truly able to support you like crazy and people who are just analyzing I’ve had clients who have been literally just, you know, following me and checking my content and, you know, just absorbing what I’ve been sharing. Well, even time period, like two years, and then they started working with me, then they are, they hit like a breaking point where they are like, okay, that’s it enough of this following this person, we’ll try that.
I want to work with her. And then that’s how I would actually get the results. So that’s how, you know, sometimes people take more time. So this is what exactly we need to focus on. You know, not just being there, present, but also making sure. So like for instance, when I talk about business strategy, I’m not just talking about the overall strategy I am talking about, you know, what you can actually do to trigger your audience, how you can psychologically understand your audience in a certain way so that you connect with them and you trigger them so that once they are your clients, they will also be loyal to you.
Because I mean, that’s also something which happens strategically, which people don’t realize when you have converted a client. You have to build a certain relationship with them with a certain strategy so that they would be working with you over a long time period. So like for instance, here’s an example.
People have a lot of people have product ladders value ladders, but how many people are they actually getting to purchase over the entire product ladder? How many people who did purchase or even grab the freebies are purchasing the entry-level product. I after the entry-level product being purchased, moving towards maybe the VA people product or, you know, so on and so forth, which people don’t focus on much, but the more we focus on that the client would have more results because now he’s not just working towards getting more leads, but he’s also making profits from those who are already part of his sales ladder or, you know, value ladder and so on.
So that’s what we also do. Focus on. Do you have an example of, you’ve mentioned a couple of times about tapping into your audience and connecting with them. Do you have just an example or two of a strategy that tends to work really well? So like for instance, if we have to talk about if someone is maybe, okay, here’s an example.
So we have like maybe a brand strategist, right. And. When it comes to brand strategy, people are always gonna focus on the external aspects of a brand. They don’t focus on the internal aspect of the brand, but then we have someone who we work with who talks about not disclose, but also the other aspects of their entire journey as well, which I have.
Uh, certain parts of the journey, which have been interesting, which most of the people would stop and go share, but they are open about it, which literally gets more people attracted towards the brand than rather repelling them. So they have a mix of both audience and then the trolls come and literally try and drag them down.
Those who love the brand and the person who is behind that brand. Instead of even the brand owner supporting and defending themselves the audience by default gangs and defense, the entire person who is behind that brand, we’ve had people like that. And in fact, we are working with that person who I’m actually mentioning right now.
So this happens only when you have a certain level of brand loyalty among your own audience. And there’s one more thing. So like, All of the people from her audience and not her clients, you know, but they are right now audience. And at certain point of time, they are going to start chasing some of the other product and go to the other letter because she has the most interesting results because even when it comes to people entering her ladder, they do always climb up.
And then when they do the make, they are all, there are people who are in her membership for more than silica. Four years, three years by now. And they have still, they look forward to still being there because they love the entire community, the person behind it, and the newbies who are joining in Israel.
So yeah, Charles are an interesting topic. So what do you do? So that makes a lot of sense when the, the audience is loyal to the person and it will defend them. But do you have any advice for. Early influencers, early people that are early on in building their audience. They may not have a large audience yet, and they get hit with a troll in the early stage.
And understandably, that is scary and intimidating. Um, what would you advise to somebody that experiences their troll for the first time? So, yeah, that’s the thing when someone’s trolling you, because I’ve been trolled. So. Uh, huh. Like literally when we used to do, I mean, when I used to do livestream on Periscope, I don’t live stream on Periscope anymore.
So I used to get a lot of trolls there. And what happens is you can see the mindset behind what’s happened. I mean, the way the troll reacts, you can understand why they’re trolling you either. There’s a reason they are maybe somewhere, some. Some reason they stop on something else. And they’re just, you know, that anger is being unintentionally targeted towards you.
So it’s more, you know, it would be more better if you don’t disrupt them and just understand them and help them out. And I’ve had people who literally told me, and when I did have a conversation, even on a live video, just when they were commenting and trolling me and I was replying back and having a conversation with them.
On the live stream, they can go from being a troll to someone who now still is connected with me on Facebook, because we had that canalization then me rather just, you know, ignoring them. So sometimes just try and understand them by their trolling you, or if sometimes there are people who are literally like, you know, just trolling you because they don’t have anything else to do.
And that’s exactly what they do every single day. Just ignore them. There’s no point in wasting your energy behind those people who are not worth it, as simple as that. So just make wise decision as to who you want to invest your time in. Because when we are building an audience, we are still investing at time.
And that time is also precious for the person who we are investing that time in and for us as well as we got to make. And we should always make smart decisions about it. Is there kind of a rule for what platforms are better for different types of audiences. So depending on who you’re working with, do you usually start with one platform versus another?
So basically, yeah, it depends like if they are, or if someone is. Literally targeting more of, you know, like people who are in the age group of say 20 to 23. I mean, not 22, seemingly 30, 35. I would say start with Instagram first because this age group is most active on Instagram. So if you’re targeting people between that age group, Start with Instagram, the more visual, because obviously Instagram is more of a visual content and, you know, with the, and always when it comes to Instagram, you just don’t have to be visual.
You also have to be slightly entertaining. So whether you are creating stories, whether you are creating, now we have reels to short videos or whether you are creating even just images, have that. You know, so it’s more about not just grabbing the attention, but making sure that you can keep up with the attention you’ve grabbed.
Because right now, most of the people, what they focus on is just grabbing someone’s attention. When you know, the content is being scrolled on the feed, but then the quality should be there so that once they’ve stopped and they are investing or even see, maybe they’re investing five seconds, 10 seconds.
Then they read it. It’s so interesting. And it’s so triggering. I mean, the word trigger to be really too has a lot of negative connotation with it, which rather it’s more positive. So when I say trigger, it’s not that I’m meaning someone literally gets triggered in such a way that they are angry about it, but trigger means a certain neurological response that we want to stay.
You want to read the more they come across the content from that certain person. They want to not just follow them, but also engage with them because getting a light is easy. Maybe someone reading your posts once, twice thrice is easy, but to get them to comment on your content is something which needs a lot more effort now than it used to need.
Maybe some time prior for now. And then to those who have a good audience on Instagram, a very. So Facebook has similar audience to Instagram as well. So those who have the audience on Instagram can next move towards Facebook to build the audience. And if they have budget ban and run ads, because sometimes people think you are just getting started, maybe just get started with running ads and you would build a lot of audience.
That’s not how it works when you’re running ads. And you don’t have an when engaged posts already, which is running an ad or which has been shown to people, people are not going to react to it. So always have your first, like inner audience built up, then run ads, whether you’re running them on Instagram, that you’re running them on Facebook because that’s how more people would look for it because.
There’s always that fear of missing out, oh, this is on my feet. This already has a lot of engagement. Let me check what exactly it is. And then people will decide whether they want to engage with it, whether they want to sign up for the freebie, whether they want to check out the virtual summit, which ad they are maybe checking out at the moment.
So there’s always a lot of, you know, questioning that’s happening in someone’s mind before they would take any decision, whether it’s a free purchase. And even if someone is grabbing a baby, I look at it as a bird chase because it’s simple. They chose to get that product from you, whether it was even for free, because we don’t want clutter on an email list.
Right. I mean, we choose to subscribe to something for a reason, or if we don’t. Then that’s something which did not excite us that much. And that’s the reason why we did not subscribe for it. So we should look at it as a purchase as well is what, how and how I look at it. And I tell my clients to look at it as well.
So back on, on the audience thing. So what you’re saying is it’s better to have enough. I forgot to talk about LinkedIn. Sorry. Sorry to cut you off. So when it comes to LinkedIn, it’s more like an also when you are on LinkedIn, people think that it’s more, that you have to be polished and you have to present yourself a certain way.
I don’t think that’s how it is because it’s more about you presenting yourself the way you are. I’ve seen people with pink hair billing, amazing brands on LinkedIn and being on TEDx stages and actually, you know, Literally growing like an amazing seven figure eight figure business. So they are on LinkedIn.
They are building their brands. It’s not that you have to present yourself in a formal, certain way to be on LinkedIn. It’s just that if you are on LinkedIn, Make sure that you have that certain audience who you are aiming for. So whether you are being specific and if you’re just targeting for maybe corporates, then, you know, make sure you are connecting with corporates.
If you are on LinkedIn to just maybe, you know, go for more PR and connect with people who are in VR. So then focus on that. So it’s more about, what’s your focus for LinkedIn? Focus on that, connect with the people according to that and build relationships to better. Any platform you’re present on that space, whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s LinkedIn, it’s all about building relationships.
The only social media platform. Where I see people get amazing results without having any relationship with the audience is interesting because it’s more of a search engine than rather social media platforms. It works slightly differently than other social media platforms. And that’s the reason why the results there are different.
And even the strategies there are different than other social media platforms. Yeah, that makes sense. Because on Pinterest, like you said, it’s a search engine, so they’re just looking for a solution. Now, what I was going to ask about audiences was, um, so it sounds like, as you said, don’t necessarily go straight into ads because if you have an audience first, they will engage on your ads more, which will give you a bigger reach for lower costs.
Is that right? Yep. Okay. And it would connect with, and it would reach the right people as well, because it’s, when you are setting ads, you have the option where you can make sure that those were already engaging with the posts. Similar audience is already been reached. So you can set that up. So, you know, you get that similar subset already being attracted and the ad gets a literally.
Shown by the algorithm to the right people because already right. People are engaging with your content. So that makes even more sense. And as a larger ROI, because now we have a reason to engage and they are getting the right content, which they need at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. All right. So Sushmita Jane.
I want to thank you for your time. I want to give you the last few moments to tell our audience how they can find out more about you. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can connect with me on Facebook as well. I mean, all I have is, you know, these amazing platforms where we can start amazing conversations and get to know each other.
Very cool. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. Anytime.