Welcome to how to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt and today we're talking Young and Profiting with Halla Taha.
That's right. We're joined today by Halla Taha and our conversation is going to be all about making money and getting paid. Hala is the host of the Young and Profiting also known as yapp podcast, which is a top business and entrepreneurship podcast across all the different apps, and she is also the founder and CEO of YAP Media.
It's a podcast network. They've got a full service social media podcast marketing agency for all the top podcasters out there, including celebrities and CEOs, and that might be a part of the reason why she's landed guests like Matthew McConaughey, Damon John, Seth Godin, just to name a few. But Halla is an expert on networking, marketing, side hustles and personal branding as well. She's a LinkedIn pro and so
we've got a bunch of questions in that arena as well. Halla, thank you so much for talking with us today.
I am so pumped for this conversation. You guys are so fun and I can't wait.
We're pumped to a lot to get to a lot of ground to cover. But the first question we got to ask everybody who comes on the podcast is what do they like to splurge on? Because Matt and I we splorge on craft beer. We're drinking a good one right now, and and sometimes craft beer costs, you know, a pretty penny. What's the thing that you spend more money than some people think of saying on while you're doing the right thing and you're saving and investing for your future.
It's definitely splurging on beauty expenses. I am dropping a lot of cash at Sephora every single month. I am getting facials, I'm getting my alashes done every week, my nails done, And honestly, part of my brand is to look young. And I feel my most confident when I feel my most beautiful, and I feel like it just helps me be a better, more productive person when I take care of myself. So that also includes a gym membership I pay for and oh yeah, yeah, just taking care of myself.
I love it.
Okay, So does that that technically means that these are business expenses?
Right?
I do get to expense some of it's going on my business card for sure.
Yeah.
It doesn't mean it's free, right, but it is at least helpful so that you're not like, yeah, yeah, you say some taxation on that stuff.
I love it, okay haala. So you said that you've had an entrepreneurial spirit ever since you were a little kid. I think since you were four years old. Where did that come from? And I mean, I guess specifically, I want to know if it was nurture, if it was a part of your family culture, or if it was more just sort of nature, if it's just who you are.
I think it was certainly nature. I mean I came from a family of doctor primarily and a family of immigrants where they really thought that the only path to success was to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, go to college and get a degree, take a test, and then like go on this like set track. And in fact, I was like the black sheep of my family because I was not going on that track. And I'm literally the only one out of my four siblings who did
not become a doctor. And I had cousins who lived on the street, three of them who were basically like my siblings, they all became doctors. So literally the only one in my immediate family out of the quote unquote kids that didn't become a doctor.
You're not alone in that, right. There's a lot of immigrants who have a similar sort of story. We brought just sing on the podcast. A long time ago I met from minority mindset. He said the same thing, like, he's been an incredible success and yet you know, his parents were like, you're not a doctor or lawyer, so it doesn't matter. So how's your family responded hat to you?
He said, do the black sheep. But seeing all the success you've had and the ways you've been able to kind of, like I don't know, create a pretty like almost like an a media empire. How how does your family think about you now that you're not a doctor or lawyer but you're still successful.
Now they're asking me, can we sleep on your couch?
You know?
So no, I'm like, by far the most successful one in my family now. So it all worked out, but it did take. It was really hard in those years when nobody believed in me. You know, there was probably like five six years where everybody, even though I was doing such cool things on the internet, nobody understood it, and I was really looked down and like I would go to the Thanksgiving and I feel like people were really condescending to me and didn't understand what I did.
And it was really only until like I really just had something to show for myself, that they started being proud of me and like accepting what I was doing.
Why did you keep doing it?
And was there any point you wanted to quit when you were kind of confronted with other people's disbelief along the way, I.
Especially your family, I did quit.
I actually started my career on this journey in broadcasting when I was nineteen years old. I quit college to take an internship at Hot ninety seven and become Angie Martinez's assistant for three years, and I didn't get paid
as cent. I made money like hosting hip hop showcases at night, and I'd have all these like outside online radio shows on the side to like hone my broadcasting chops, And then I started a blog for three years that became super popular, and I almost got to show on MTV and that didn't work out, and so I had a bunch of failures in a row, not getting a job at radio that I worked really hard for and worked for free for three years and then ended up
getting fired from my internship. Then I almost got to show on MTV with this blog that I basically again worked for free for three years just building this brand, hosting parties and doing all these like odd jobs to make it work. And then MTV dropped me and then I did quit. I literally was like, okay, I got to be a normal person. I gotta go, so maybe get my MBA, do something different and just get a
regular job. And for four years before I started young in profiting podcasts, I literally just had a normal corporate job and I thought I'd never get back on the mic.
You seem to have like a drive, like you're tenacious, and like, honestly, I'm curious to hear your take specifically on immigrants and specifically I guess second generation immigrants in Americas it seems like that they embrace and live out the American dream. I think more than almost any other segment in society. Do you think that's the case.
And yeah, Like I find purpose in work, and I do find a lot of people who are like American American, they don't they have more of a sense of entitlement about their work. And for me, you know, I'm Palestinian American, so really crazy time to be one hundred percent Palestinian.
So it's been a crazy time. But my dad basically grew up in poverty, grew up in a war, ended up becoming a doctor, ended up becoming a surgeon in America, opened up a medical set, and he had like enormous drive and literally came from nothing, had no electricity, had
like no running water, like literally came from nothing. So for me, it's just like, you know, I wasn't really spoiled growing up because my parents came from nothing, so they didn't understand like luxury and like that they and they donated a lot of their money, so like I wasn't spoiled at all, even though we did really my family did really well. But I saw like that anything was possible, that you could literally create a lot from nothing.
And for me, it's just like, well, I basically had a silver spoon in my mouth, and what's my excuse? So how am I going to make a big impact? And really what drives me is that there's really not a lot of other girls that look like me that
are in my position. So now what drives me now is the fact that all these brown girls keep messaging me like, oh, like because of you, I feel like I can be an entrepreneur because if you eve inspired me and I need to fill that gap because there's maybe there's like five other women that I can think of that are in my position right now as a brown person woman in America.
You mentioned your dad.
It certainly sounds like he's had an impact on you too, And is that maybe where you think your work ethic came from and your dedication is seeing him come from nothing. We talk about like self made in America, Like there's the myth of the self made man or something like that, and it's a lot easier to become quote unquote self made starting out on kind of the third base of being in a really rich culture like we live in versus actually kind of self made man. Like it says
like your dad was coming rising out of nothing. Yeah, what sort of influence did he have on you?
Oh?
He was the best. So my dad actually passed away during COVID and that was so tough on me because he was just like the best human in the world. And I think what my dad taught me was generosity because he got so successful and he never stopped chopping at sears. He like was just really humble and he really made it his life's purpose to help everybody around him, so he cared more about like his employees getting paid.
I remember, like if I had like a friend that wasn't doing well, he used to give my friends money when we'd go to the mall and not even tell me. And they told me years later, like, hey, your dad used to give me money to the mall, like you know, and like he was just like so such a nice generous guy. He put all my nieces and nephews through college and Palestine and like pulled my whole family out
of poverty. So he taught me generosity and even now, like I'm just like such a generous person, like anybody who knows me personally, Like I'm always trying to help my employee. Is like my goal of building my company as big as possible is actually not I don't really care about money, Like in fact, I invest almost everything I make back into my company because I just want to make an impact. I just want to help people. I want to inspire people to live their most fulfilled,
purposeful lives. And we need powerful people who have money to help improve our world. And like that that's my drive is like I just want to make the world a better place.
Okay, so you quickly ran through your early career and you kind of went through like the blog and then possibly the reality show taking off, But your podcast, it seemed like that basically started out as a side hustle. I think at the time you were working in marketing at Disney. Yeah, I guess what was the spark that made you want to actually start your own thing. Was it that desire to have an impact on the world or were you fed up with more the corporate nine to five type of raw.
Honestly, like everything that I've ever done that amounted to anything was always like like revenge, you know. So it's like I didn't I was like working at Hewlett Packard and I was doing great, and I actually thought that I was going to be so far behind in corporate because when I started my corporate career, I was already like twenty eight years old and I literally had never
had a real job. My resume looked crazy like I was interning at a radio station and I was blogging for a hip hop website called The Sorority of hip Hop. Like I had the craziest resume. But I was actually so talented. I was so tech savvy. I could hack any social platform, I could video edit. I had all these skills that I.
Had a jack of all trades to really like you know, get all those things off the ground exactly.
So it's like I knew how to do so many things. So actually when I got into corporate, I was like skipping over people twice my age. And I had my last job at Hewlett Packard, which was my first job. I was like the C suites pet like doing all the qbrs and like really rose up the ranks. And at the same time, I was the same person. I was the same haula interviewing the CEO and CMO at the town hall and going getting flown to all the
events and on the mic. I was still like on the mic all the time, but just in my marketing corporate role. And I actually became like the face of the young employees at Hewlett Packard, and I was president of this thing called the Young Employee Network and I did that for two years and it was basically like a side hustle within my main job that I worked
super hard on. And then I wanted to be the global young employee president and I was on the global board and I had all the credentials, and then they this lady who didn't like me, gave it to somebody who literally had never been a part of the organization, and they didn't even keep me on the board. And I was just like mortified because I was like, I just literally spent three years volunteering to become the president, and everybody thought I was going to be the president.
And then I realized. I was like, man, I did it again, Like I did it a hotday seven, work for free, not my own brand. I did it a you know, Strawberry want it was mine, but like whatever, And then this thing I was working for free and it didn't work out, and it was a gatekeeper that told me no. And I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. If I'm going to build something from now on, it's going to be for myself. And so I decided
I was going to start this podcast. If I couldn't lead the you know, seven thousand young employees at Hewlett Packard, then I'd go lead all the professionals young professionals on LinkedIn.
Hey there's millions there, you know.
Yeah.
So I was like all right, I'll just do the same thing I'm doing here helping all these young people. Now, I'll just do it for the public and make my own things. So young and profiting was probably inspired by the Young Employee Network looking back, and I started this podcast, and I started posting on LinkedIn, and then I became really quickly an influencer on LinkedIn, and then shortly after my podcast started getting some traction.
We have a lot of questions about LinkedIn that we're going to get to in a little bit. But how long before you ended up making money? And it's like talking hearing your story. A lot of years you're working your butt off, you're not really making much if anything. How long would you tell someone to keep at it before they decide to throw in the towel. When do you know that your idea is a failure or how do you know if it just needs more time.
It's so this is such a great question because I feel like I'm so happy. I quit so many things when I decided to quit, Like I had to quit my job at one point to take my podcast to the next level. I had to actually shut down my blog in order to take on my corporate career. So I've had lots of points in my life where I had to quit and it made a lot of people upset. But you've got to look at yourself right and what's
the best thing for yourself and future. So, for example, with this blog, we were doing it for three years. We hadn't really figured out how to monetize the blog that well. We were hosting parties, but it was like three years of like scraping by, and I was like, I just can't see us getting out of this. Like the only thing we had was this TV show that could have given us some notoriety. Then we didn't get that,
and I was like, you know what, screw it. I could keep at this for another three years or I can. You know, for me, I had to find a way to sustain myself, and that was corporate. That was an easy like, Okay, I'm going to get a nine to five job. It's not exactly what I want, but this is what I need. I need to be able to afford my rent Ford, my car, and build some wealth.
Because I did experiment for a while and it was great and fun, but it wasn't sustainable, and so I actually had to do something I did not want to do in order to build a foundation. And then when I worked into corporate, I quickly got to six figures, like so quickly, and then I had a foundation finally, and that's when I started my side hustle. And actually I was very scarred for having a failed entrepreneurship experience early on that it took me a really long time
to actually quit my job and become an entrepreneur. Even though I was making like so much money and having so much success, I was scared to quit my job.
And those were overlapping for a decent trunk.
Of time, right, it was yeah, okay, So what was it then that allowed you to quit? Like was it a certain dollar amount? Was it a psychological state that you arrived in, Like when did you decide to take the leap and transition to YAP full time? Because it like it even sounds like you had like a massive business with like I think I read it right, you had over thirty employees by the time.
Yeah really quit, Oh my gosh, I really waited a long time. My second client was paying US thirty thousand dollars a month. That was my second client, and then I and then I got like two other clients that size. So by the time I quit Disney, I had thirty employees around the world and we were making well over one hundred thousand dollars a month. In the side hustle, I was qotcizing my podcast did I was just all
the podcast guests that would come on my show. They kept asking me for services, and then I just I had a volunteer team, so I offered them. I turned my volunteer team. This is actually pretty interesting, So I'll step back. When I started my podcast six years ago.
I started on LinkedIn, and I used to have super fans that would reach out to me and they'd be like, holl I changed my life, Like I've never heard like I never like even listen to podcasts before, and now I've done X, Y and Z, Like, how can I help you? How can I make this bigger? I want to learn from you. And again, I was this jack of all trades. I could write, I could hack social media, I could create websites, graphic design, video editing. I knew how to do all the steps and so I would
just like start teaching people how to. I just started recruiting these volunteers and interns, actually fans who would reach out to me and I put them in a Slack channel and for two years. This is how I was able to have a really big podcast for two years while working a very serious corporate job, is because I had twenty volunteers who worked for free for me for two years and super fans and they just wanted to
learn from me. And then once COVID hit and I found myself with a little bit more time, I started to just pay attention to what everybody was asking me because I started to not feel happy at Disney. I felt like HP saw me growing up and like I was like a rock start HP and really respected. When I went to Disney, I look about ten years younger than I really am, and I was treated like an intern and I just felt like I didn't have any respect.
I felt like I was starting from scratch again, and I was like, you know what, I need to just go out on my own because I know my own worth and Disney does not value me. And so I started paying attention to what my audience was asking me. And it was the guests who came on my show at the end of the every almost every time they'd be like, how did you go your LinkedIn, how did you go your podcast? Can you do this for me? And then finally one day Heather Monaghan, who was my
first client and still my client. She's a huge LinkedIn influencer. She wouldn't leave me alone. She was like, uh, your videos are so awesome, Like you have to do my videos. And then I told her like, hey, like I don't have time. You know, I've got this like really stressful job, but I can train you on the week I told
her I'll train her on the weekends. And so we started having these like Saturday sessions where I was trying to teach her how to video at it and she's like holla, like I'm not going to learn how to do this. She's like I just had a call with Gary Vee's team Vaynermedia. I can pay them more. I can pay you like you've got a company. You just showed me your slack, you have the team, Like I don't understand, Like I'll be your first client. You don't even like your job at Disney. She was like starting
to become my mentor. She was like just do it and I was like okay. So she was my first client and she paid us like nothing and then, like I said, my second client was a billionaire and I landed like a thirty thousand dollars monthly retainer with him for like LinkedIn and podcast production. And then I was able to start hiring my volunteers and paying them and
start hiring more people. And then before I knew it, six months later, thirty employees around the world, like super high level clients making over one hundred k month found out I was going to be on the cover of podcast magazine. And that's what true. I was like, well, I mean I probably made it. If I'm getting on the cover of podcast magazine, I should probably quit my job.
Now.
I love it.
Your story so inspiring, and I think there's a lot we can learn just from you telling it. But then there's a lot of specifics we need to get into as well. The jack of all trades I refer to, you know a lot about a lot of things. We want to talk about tips for other people starting their own business. We'll get to that and more right after this.
All right, we are back talking with Halla Taha, and we want to kind of talk about starting your own business. We want to talk about entrepreneurship before we transition to that I'm curious you quickly glossed over the fact that you that you went back to get your MBA. So, if I heard you right, dropped out of school to take that initial radio internship, but then somehow you ended up with your MBA. How did all that come together?
I have to say, my college career is a hot mess. So I got to college and I went to a very nerdy tech school and I was like miss popular. But you know, it was a new feeling for me because in high school, like when I was in high school, nine to eleven happened and I'm Arabic, and it was like really weird, like like the teachers were weird to me, Like I never really got opportunities, Like I tried out for the cheerleading team, I didn't make it. I tried
out for the volleyball team, I didn't make it. I used to be the lead in all my school plays in middle school, and in high school they wouldn't even let me in the talent show. And I literally had the best voice in school, but my hands down, it was really like a like they were really racist, Like I was one of the only brown people in school.
It was like totally like a really white town. And so when I got to college, I went to a really diverse college and then suddenly it was like an equal playing field, and I just was like overwhelmed with wanting to do every activity. So I was like in the radio club, I was captain of the cheerleading team, I was in my like on the board of my sorority. I did everything but go to class. Literally did not go to class. I never went to class. And I did really well working, but I wasn't good at being
a student. I was like obsessed with this job at Hot ninety seven and this internship, and I became like super obsessed with it. They asked me to start coming in every day. The way that it works in radio is you basically just pay your dues for many years at least a Hot any seven and it's essentially an illegal internship, right, so they just kept Angie was like can you come here every day? And I was like sure,
And then I just dropped out of school. And I was already I was doing really bad in school anyway, so I felt like, okay, I'm I'm failing out of school anyway. I think I had like a two points. I had the worst GPA, like a two point something GPA, like I was a hot mess. But I was doing amazing at hot ninety seven and actually I've sang my whole life, like I was saying. So I thought that I was going to be at Hot ninety seven and
I was pushing my music. I was singing and songwriting, and I was pushing my music on the DJs, and I thought that I was taking that internship to become a singer and make it. But then I fell in love with broadcasting and I wanted to be like the next Angie Martinez, and they had me doing commercials and then that's that's how I became, like this love of being what I do today, right.
You and Joel both with the love of broadcast.
Yeah, the radio background.
I used to fall asleep listening to talk radio, which is the weirdest thing. Like everyone thinks that I'm psychotic because of that, but I would fall asleep listening to to boring AM talk radio. I just loved it, and I loved that kind of medium of communication, long form audio. It just has a power to it that television doesn't even have. So yeah, I get it. I get it, and there is a bond a connection you can have
with your audience. I think when they hear you in their ear holes for like three hours a week or you know, a lot of our listeners it was like one episode out of three or whatever. But however much you listened to, you get to know us because you can't help, but get to know that person, which I think is beautiful about totally audio.
And then just like back to your original question and I'll be really fast. I know this was like a long winded answer, but I ended up getting fired from Hot ninety seven. So imagine getting fired from a free internship. Yeah, and I was like the queen of the interns, I please leave the Obviously they obviously valued me. But what happened was is that a paid job opened up and I basically texted my friend who got the job, and I was supposed to train him even though I was
working for free. They wanted me to go into work and train the person who they're going to pay to do the job that I was already doing for free.
It's pretty cold, yeah, it was cold.
Yeah, And so then I was like, sorry, guys. I was like, his name is Drewskie. Sorry, Drewskie. If you want to learn how to be the producer. Learn it on your own. I'm not going to work, and she cut off my key cards. She also didn't like. It was really cruel. She didn't let me say bye to anyone. She told everybody they can't talk to me anymore. These
were all my best friends, my mentors. I literally dropped out of school for them, and so it was devastating, and I just remember feeling like a part of me died because I had branded myself as Holla from Hot ninety seven. This is what everybody knew me as all my social handles were halla from Hot niny seven, and it literally felt like somebody died. But then I quickly thought of this other idea to start this blog. And at that point I went back to school and I
was a totally different person. I was a completely different person. All of a sudden, I was getting straight a's. I graduated my senior year straight a's. Now to get into my MBA, my GPA was still so terrible. I actually had to convince our director of Graduate Studies to allow me in the program. I lobbied myself and I would write her emails, and then finally she agreed to have coffee with me, and then I told her my story and she was in rest and she was like, okay,
I'll let you in the program. She's like, especially if you can maintain a four point oh. And I was like, all right, I'll do it. I promise I'll get a four point Oh. I got a four point oh, and I graduated number one in my class and that's how I got into corporate.
So nice.
Okay, this shows so much persistence and hustle and grind. And I guess I'm curious because there's been a lot of kind of poo pooing on hustle culture, you know, and they're to a certain extent, I totally see where that comes from. That it's possible to overdo it right And a lot of people are tired of hearing the hustle culture pitch. But you were, you know, grinding in all these side hustles you were, you were working without pay, and then you were also like, look what you did
to get your MBA. I mean, it's so impressive. What's your take on hustle culture? Is it overdone? Is it underdone? Like we have we kind of missed the same.
I think there has to be a point in your life where you are hustling. And for me and even in your twenties and Gary Visa's this all the time, like you can hustle and make no money. But for example, like my company's on track to make ten million dollars next year, and that would not be possible had I not worked for free in my twenties and learned all the skills that I did, had I not worked in the mall and learned all the skills that I did. Like so for me, it's like, there's like you need
to hustle because you need to get the skills. And that's the thing that I feel like is missing from all these young people. They're not taking the time to get the skills. They want all the shortcuts. But you build the character and the and the skills and the expertise through all the grunt work that you do. And so for me, it was like, I'm so thankful for all those experiences, even though they didn't pan out to anything,
because that's how I'm making millions today. It's from all the hard work that I did years ago and didn't get paid for.
That makes sense I hadn't. You know. It's funny because I feel like the hustle culture grinding it out that was. I feel like it really got big five, six, seven years ago and everyone was picking up side gigs. They're side hustling, and I feel like it's almost fallen out of favor to a certain extent because folks are like, who wants to do that? You know, folks are quiet
quitting now. But I hadn't thought about it from the standpoint that you are, which almost is more from like a social cultural side of things, like and even us me as an adult, like, our patience is not what it used to be. The immediate gratification that we can receive by how responsive an app is on our phone, the ability to post something and immediately see alike. That isn't good for our psychees, right. It erodes our ability to persevere, I think, And I think that's one of
the downsides of technology specifically. But I had not thought about side hustling as just a means of formation and the ability for youth, especially to I guess, to be able to learn from that.
It's almost like you're a Swiss Swiss army knife of a human being too, because it's all these like disparate skills that you pick up along the way and you're like, well, this one in and of itself isn't tear valuable, but when it's combined with these other four things, it makes me like superhuman and now I can run a podcast network.
I mean, And I think that's what we fail to maybe see in the moment sometimes is that each one of those skills, as we're acquiring them, is going to lead to something bigger and brighter, even if it's not like the one thing we're going to coast on for the rest of our lives.
I will say. So.
The difference that as well, between the side gig apps and what it is that Halla is doing is that she's like, you were pursuing things that were incredibly meaningful to you, were that would hopefully lead to something bigger. You weren't just trading your time for money.
Yeah, And there's so many things that I want to say. One thing related to what you guys said is like, this is something that Jason Pfeiffer taught me, and looking back at my story, I always did this. You have an opportunity set A and an opportunity set B and everything that you do. So for example, when I worked at Hewlett Packard. My opportunity set A was the job they paid me for. Opportunity set B was all the
other stuff that I was doing. I was president of the Young Employee Network, planning the holiday party, planning the summer picnic, going to all these other events. When I worked at Hot ninety seven, my opportunities at A was being Angie Martinez, his intern. But on the side, I had online radio shows. I was blogging for DJ and off,
I was hosting showcases at night. So it's like I always looked at like, not only the opportunity that they're paying me for, but what are the opportunities to learn and grow?
You know, you probably don't get the opportunity to do some of those radio shows.
Without being the intern, right, Like that is the foot in the door to get the extra opportunity. And so yeah, I did an unpaid internship in radio as well. And some people would say that's unconscortable to make somebody work free, but are you kidding me?
Like it gave me the opportunity in so many ways.
It could give me the connections and the working experience, and it was crucial to who I am. Now let's
talk about marketing. Okay, your podcast is great, and the product is of course crucial to success, but given the amount of noise in the podcasting space, like even a great podcast could wallow in obscurity, I think, and a lot of times these days, just given how many there are, talk to us about the marketing piece of the puzzle, and maybe then how we can extrapolate that to everyone else out there listening who doesn't have a podcast but
has something marketable, whether it's themselves or a business they owned.
Yeah, so really it's all about like creative problem solving. Right When I first started in podcasts, for two years, it was like very slow, steady growth because I just kept doing the same thing that everybody else was doing, like trying to rank on Apple. All I cared about was Apple because it had like seventy percent of the market share, maybe it was sixty percent of the market share,
and that's all I paid attention to. And then I started thinking about, like, what are the other ways that I can be a successful podcaster, Like does being a successful podcaster mean that I have to be the top of the charts on Apple or could it mean something else? And then I started realizing, well, there's seventy other apps out there. There's Spotify, there's Google Play, there's cast Box, there's player from there's all these other apps. What if I reached out to them and see if they want
to collaborate. Because I had grown a platform on LinkedIn, I had grown an audience on LinkedIn, and I thought I can leverage LinkedIn in order to grow my podcast. And that's how you have to think. If you have any sort of business, you can trade audiences with people. And the key to do that is to have one thing that you can leverage. And this is the mistake that people make. They go omni channel right away and they're like, Okay, I'm gonna be on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok,
email list da da da da. When I first started, all I cared about was LinkedIn. I didn't even post on Instagram. I was like, I'm going to be the number one podcaster on LinkedIn. And I figured out how the algorithm worked, I figured out how the features worked, I figured out out how to build a community proactively, and then all of a sudden, I figure that out before podcasting even and so suddenly I had sixty thousand followers. Now I have way more. But back then I had
sixty thousand. That was something that I could now trade.
Why'd you choose LinkedIn? Like, for anybody who's out there listening and they're saying, I thought LinkedIn for was like my dad's suit photo?
Why guys?
Yeah yeah yeah to why linked it just seems so the hot places are TikTok and Instagram tala.
Don't you know that? Like why LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is so great? There's one hundred and thirty five million active users on LinkedIn, and only six percent of them are original content creators, so there's very little competition. There's lots of eyeballs on LinkedIn. It's also an amazing place to be an entrepreneur because people are primed for
sales conversations. It's a professional platform. People are actually using LinkedIn LinkedIn in their research for their buying journeys, and because it's branded as this professional network where people are going to learn and solve their problems, having a sales conversation is really welcomed on that platform, where if you try to have a sales conversation on Instagram, it's a little weird because it's so personal. Right, Lincoln is a professional platform that does have a feed and has a
social algorithm just like any other platform. So LinkedIn's absolutely amazing and it changed my life, Like, I'm so thankful that I started my journey on LinkedIn. And then the other reason was just pure luck. I was shadow band on Instagram for because a Palestinian. They've been shadow banning Palestinians for years.
That's crazy.
Yeah, fascinating to hear so much adversity that you've faced, I mean, starting in basically high school.
Yeah for you.
But I mean I really do want to hear more about LinkedIn though, and specifically it makes so much sense because it's fertile ground for business transactions to take place.
And so we're going to take a quick break.
But after that, we've got a bunch more questions about LinkedIn and we'll get to all that right after this.
Har we're back. We're still talking with Tala Taha.
We're talking about building a podcast, building a brand, marketing, getting the word out there. And it is one thing to create a great product, and that is difficult in and of itself, to create something consistently good that people want to listen to or that people want to engage with. Holly, you're talking about using LinkedIn to actually reach your audience, and for a lot of people, that's the toughest thing.
And it feels like especially social media, man, if you strike it, if you strike gold, you can hit the algorithm right and you'll be rewarded and you might help they might help you find your audience. But you're saying that LinkedIn was the place for that. How okay? Talking about maybe through some of the nitty gritty what are you posting, how are you engaging? What does it look like for you to actually grow your podcast on LinkedIn.
In terms of like right now? I mean, my strategies were really different. Right. So, initially when I was trying to grow my podcast, what I did is I traded my audience. So what I did is I reached out to all the different podcast players out there, all every single tool I used, my hosting provider, my like recording platform riverside that we're on right now. I literally reached out to every single podcast, brand player or not, and I was like, Hey, I'm the biggest podcaster on LinkedIn.
I'd love to write a post about you in exchange for you posting me on your website featuring me and your app, putting out an email blast for me. That's when my podcast blew up because suddenly I was getting all this exposure outside of LinkedIn, and I was trading my audience. So that's the first way that I grew my podcast. Now, you know the best way to grow anything, forget about a podcast, let's just talk about any business and anything that anybody has, is to re target your content. Okay,
so what does that mean? You put up a post and it's about your podcast, or you put up a live stream of your fully edited podcast, which is my favorite thing to do on LinkedIn. Anybody who likes comments or shares is basically raising their hand and saying like, you've got permission to dm me. I took the first action. I took the first behavior here, and you have permission to dm me. And no matter what you say, you're not going to be spammy or salesy because I took
the first action. So you would say something like, hey, I noticed that you just engaged on my live stream. If you want to check out the full episode, here's the link. We'd love to hear back from you, you know, then they write back something positive, Oh, thank you so much. Can you copy and paste that as an Apple podcast review. Really appreciate it. So creating all these drip campaigns are called where you retarget your posts. So you could do
this with anything. If you could put up a poll on LinkedIn and say, like, let's say you're a real estate agent, you could say, are you in the market for a new house?
Yes?
Or no? Anybody who says yes, you can say, hey, I noticed that you engaged on my pole that you're looking for a new house. I'd love to help you. Here's a free resource and you can drive them down your funnel. So retargeting your own posts is a really great way to drive sales and momentum. And yeah, like I know everything about LinkedIn, so happy to talk about algorithms, engagement wherever you want to go.
I'm curious to know do you think everybody, regardless of what they do, should everybody have a LinkedIn profile? Because I'll be honest in presence right like, I don't. I'm not up there at all. You never even created I think I've created a profile, but I cannot remember the last time I've logged in there.
So I've created all. I don't think I've ever posted and raked me over the coals yeah.
I mean, if you're not going to bother posting or taking care of it, don't bother at all. You know, like you're not going to get any traction if you're not going to invest the time. So I would say, like, until you're ready to start posting at least three times a week, I wouldn't even bother because you're just not going to get anywhere.
Okay, So you need to post regularly.
What else do you need to do to drive engagement if you're looking to kind of yeah, grow your presence, grow.
Your reach there.
Okay, so a couple things. Let's talk about utilizing the features. So every social media platform has different features that they're prioritizing. Okay, So on LinkedIn, it's actually not a video first platform. It's not trying to compete with Instagram and TikTok and so video content actually performs pretty poorly on that platform. So the assets that do perform well are typically pictures with like some sort of story that goes along with it, a quote card that's like a really easy to read,
skimmable quote. Okay. Live streams work well on LinkedIn. Polls Okay, So it's understanding the features that work for every single platform.
That's super key. The other thing to think about is people are on their phone, okay, so when it comes to your assets, video or graphic, you want to make them vertical and take up as much real estate as possible so that when people are scrolling in their feed, they're scrolling through about nine posts that you're actually taking up a lot of real estate on the feed a crowd everybody else out exactly, so it's going to draw
more attention, people have more to look at. You actually get ranked based on how much time people spend on your posts, so it's like they've or to look at, So it's really important to do that. The other thing is, you know, being skimmable. Okay, if you look on LinkedIn, you'll see a lot of the influencers are doing this like line by line copywriting. It's called brow atry, and
that's actually on purpose. LinkedIn's algorithm is actually scanning for formatting, and if you have big, chunky paragraphs that are really hard to read, nobody wants to do work on social media. That's like being the boring person who's lecturing at a party, right, So being skimmable right is really important. And the last tip that I'll give is that keywords are becoming increasingly important. So LinkedIn's moving away from just basing things on engagement.
So in the past, anything motivational inspirational would go like skyrocket on LinkedIn, like you could be like, you know, sky's the limit, get a million likes, you know, like it was just like anything motivational did amazing, right, And now it's all about experts and interest relevancy. So they're basically doing a lot of keyword matching, so you've got to have more. It's more seu.
It's like linked sounds like it's turning into Google exactly.
So it's like you need to infuse your profile with keywords that might be found in your target audience's profile, and then you need to infuse those keywords in your
actual posts. And then LinkedIn is doing a better job of matching people who want similar content with your content, especially if you're somebody that they've identified as an expert in the topic that you're talking about, so you might have that like LinkedIn top voice badge, or even if like your past job history has the same keywords, or you've been like recommended for skills in that area, they'll identify you as an expert and start serving your content
to people who want it. So keywords are becoming increasingly important, very cool.
Specifically, you're talking to content creators, folks who might be trying to gather together an audience. Do these same tactics and utilizing some of these same features. Does that also work for someone who's basically looking for just a great paying job with a like more of a corporate gig. Does that Does it also translate?
Yeah, So a lot of the people that I work with, I have a LinkedIn masterclass, and most of them are entrepreneurs, coaches, They've got some sort of small business. But then I do have a lot of corporate professionals. And what happens is that it gives you more stability in the corporate world. I even started my journey on LinkedIn in the corporate world, and I remember immediately that, like I started getting more opportunities, more exposure. I was getting noticed by higher ups and
even somebody today. I have a mastermind. Her name's Anita. She was telling me that she in her job that like everyone now is taking notice and asking her about LinkedIn, and she's getting more visibility from higher ups because of everything that she's doing on LinkedIn. So a lot of people get scared of using their LinkedIn for their own
personal benefit, But that is a transferable asset. You've got to think that if you're in corporate you might want to switch jobs one day, you might want to start your own thing. This is your way to start building that foundation while you have the stability of a full time job. So I always encourage people to start building their personal brand. You need that more than ever now. Even when people are looking to give you a job, they want to see you having some sort of personal
brand and presence. So I think it's a win win for everybody.
Yeah, taking some time to be regular, to kind of become a thought leader in your industry, it's only going to be good for you. It's only going to bring you connections and potentially job offers as well. Question for you when you're posting on somebody else's site, especially one of these tech companies, and the algorithm determines what everyone's
going to see you're alluding to it. That can change, right, and so it favors one thing over another at different times, and it can diminish your voice too, and it can really after you've spent years building something, it can kind of pull the rug out from under you. I was talking to someone the other day and they built up a pretty substantial Twitter following and then boom, Twitter changes the algorithm and it feels like their post is yelling
into the void. So how do you think about And I think that's why people have prioritized newsletters because it's this direct connection to your audience. Full control, Yeah, nobody can really take away. So how do you think about building and spending so much time creating on the platform that you don't have as much control of.
It's a really good point, and it's something that you know, I've been thinking about a lot because even I'm LinkedIn's like one of their top creators, and they've even done like some shadow banning with me recently because of like the whole war that's going on or it's tough, and I am a really big advocate of email lists, so I've been like driving all of my following to webinars where I'm collecting everybody's email and like rapidly growing my
email list. Because it's true these platforms can change. They can also decide to specifically target you based on your beliefs, which is really crazy, Like one day we're going to look back and we're gonna we won't be able to believe that all of this was legal. To be honest, it is really really messed up what they're doing to people based on beliefs, which is like totally unfair.
I think it's amazing how a few people working at a tech company can have such a domino effect on all the rest of us and we just think, oh, this is the way the technology operates, but no, there's human control and human input into how it operates exactly.
But long story short, and this is actually going to be the topic of my first book, is that algorithms always change, but human behavior doesn't. So algorithms change all the time, but a lot of the stuff that I teach in marketing and and my classes and stuff is human behavior because human behavior never changes. And LinkedIn literally has a goal to make sure that when something goes viral, they are actually studying it to find out how that
happens so it doesn't happen again. They don't want like, you know, just one percent of the creators having all the impressions. They want it to be more flat, where it's just like experts delivering content to people who want it, right, So they're actually not wanting people to go viral, but they can't control at the end of the day, what makes people click the share button. Yeah, they can try
all they want, but human behavior doesn't change. Right, So it's just like understanding what are the things that I need to do that are evergreen that no matter what platform might go on, it's going to work because human psychology doesn't change.
I love the things that serve and help people selves, Like a promising book is what us sounds like? Yeah, okay, okay, So on your podcast, you always ask folks what is the secret to profiting in life? Oh, so we're gonna actually turn the tables back on you a little bit. We're curious to hear your response. What is it that allows folks to profit the most of life?
What is the secret to profiting in life? I think I'm going to tie it back to what we were talking about earlier, and that's I think the reason why I've been really successful is because I fully absorbed myself in whatever I'm doing. When I started a podcast, I didn't just learn how to be a good interviewer. I didn't just learn how to put on the recording software and figure out the equipment, and I looked at everything. How can I grow, How can I monetize, How can
I you know, create a business out of this? I looked at every single nook and cranny and figured it all out. And that's how I became successful. I wasn't the best podcast host. I'm still not the best podcast host, but I'm literally like number eighty seven podcast in the world. Why because I just figured I figured out what I am good at within the whole realm of podcasting, and I just milked every little inch that I could and
figured it all out, you know. So it's like I meet a lot of podcasters now, for example, that like don't know how to monetize or don't and to me, it's like mind boggling how they didn't learn their entire industry, even if they're not the best at every single part, but like fully understanding the landscape of what they're trying to play.
In, right.
And I think a lot of that has to do with like absorbing yourself, not being afraid to learn, like, you know, being willing to roll up your sleeves and do the nitty gritty, like eventually you can outsource things, but you should know how to do everything yourself first, you know, So it's like learning the skills, really absorbing yourself, not being afraid to learn, and just again like learning things A to Z and not trying to find shortcuts to your success.
That's great advice, Paula, thank you, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can our listeners find out more about you and what you're up to?
Thanks guys, I really had a great time. Young and Profiting is the name of my show. I interview the brightest minds in the world, and it is a fantastic show. You can listen, learn and profit over there. You can also find out more about my company at yapp Media that's Yapmedia dot io. And there you can find out about my social agency, my podcast network, which is the
number one business and self improvement podcast network. I've got podcasters like Jenna Kutcher, John Lee Dumas, Amy Porterfield and my networks, so it's really growing fast. And then if you guys want to learn about LinkedIn, I have a two day workshop. You guys can actually use code h TM for thirty five percent off at Yapmedia dot Io. Slash course that's.
Right, and we'll make sure to link to all of that in our show notes. Halla, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Thank you guys so much.
All Right, man, that was a good one. There's a lot of good take Owa.
I was like talking to people who do stuff that's outside of my area of expertise and like LinkedIn are linked, I'm on there have I I don't know if I, like I said, ever posted a single thing, So I think I exist in the ether there.
I think I did at one point and it was literally it's funny enough it was. I think it was for SEO purposes and this is like fifteen years ago, but just as far as getting certain domains registered, not domains registered, but accounts registered, just to be able to point to certain resource. But like she mentioned, it doesn't really matter unless you are active. It takes it takes a rolling up your sleeves and doing the work, which and she's the kind of person lose to my takeaway.
So that, yeah, go ahead.
I think my big takeaway has to do with the fact that she was honing in on skills there at the end, like for her, that was that was going to be the secret to profiting and life and going back to internships and kind of doing the grunt work. A lot of times folks are looking for the shortcut. They're looking for the easiest way to arrive at the destination, and oftentimes that's a high paying position. But by taking the shortcuts, you've missed out on so many different opportunities
to learn skills. And these are skills that are going to come in handy all throughout your life. I guess I really and I commented on that during our conversation with her, but I really appreciate her view towards hustling and working hard just as a way that we learn in and how we're formed as individuals. I thought that was really important.
Yeah, Basically, I mean what you're referring to is it's kind of it's known as talent stacking, and I think it was the author Scott Adams that came up with that term. But that is it's a powerful thing to be able to say, oh, all these disparate things, well they randomly come together and make me really successful at
this thing. And so you might already have a bunch of different talents, Well, it's wise to sit back and think how can I put those together in a way that's going to help me maybe do more with these talents that I'm currently doing. So lots of times you have the talents and you never know how they're going to come together. But it is Yeah, you're right, like putting in the hard work to develop those talents and then trying to fuse them into something maybe that's never been done before.
Yeah, it has a multiplying effect, but at least in that way. Yeah, which I totally agree with what you're saying. But I guess my point though, is, don't be afraid of the hard work, especially early on when like we have visions of what success looks like. And what's hard to keep in context is the fact that the folks who arrived at that point, it took them a long
time to get to that. It makes me even think of like our parents, think about the cars that they drive or the home that you grew up in, and you go out on your own and you think, well, I got to at least have something like that, except for you forget that it took them like fifteen or twenty years to get to that point, and we want it instantly against the peep of cryptocurrency, right, yes, yes, it's just it's the shortcuts that get rich quick schemes,
and there's not enough being said about putting in the time and doing the hard work.
Yep, all right, So people, I like when she said that you absorb yourself in the thing that like it was probably a lot of trial and error on LinkedIn for her to get where she is, but it's kind of the thing that anybody can do. You just have to absorb yourself in it. You have to really go after that task and you know, and fail sometimes in
order to see the ultimate successes. So and Holla isn't afraid to admit that she failed a bunch of times along the way, or that she at least had some really tough times, had some years that she put in a lot of work and then didn't feel.
Like she causted failure. Yeah, she was fired from her internship, like that's that's rough. Yeah, yeah, or failure in school and then going back and succeeding.
So I don't know.
I love this stick to itiveness. I love that she was absorbing yourself in in everything that she did and and willing to I like to it's not just the job, it's those secondary opportunities that came along. Whether it's in a professional career, whether it's in an internship, it's if you do the bare minimum, guess what, you're not gonna
be rewarded in an incredible way. But if you're willing to go above and beyond and jump into those other things, it's not only potentially going to make you more visible within that work work environment, but it's also going to be adding to those talents you're developing too.
Most most definitely, yeah.
The opportunity set A, but don't forget about opportunity set B as well as lurking like right around the corner right there for you. But all right, man, let's quickly introduce the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode was how do you say that? Chakaua? Yeah, Chakurra chak Rua. It's a barrel aged Imperial stouts and this is by a Moat Mountain Brewing Company in collaboration with
Tamworth Distilling. Evidently because it was Asian and rye whiskey barrow. Yeah, that's must that must have been where they got their their barrels. So this beer was donated to the show by Todd who is in our old neighborhood.
Lives literally right down on the same street that I lived on, literally.
In between I think, in between you and me down there in Ormwood Park.
Yeah, awesome, dude. He brought back a few beers from his trip to I want to say a New Hampshire.
Is where this was from. I think, So, what did you dig it? I did?
I really enjoyed it, so tasty. What's better than you know, a Rye whiskey barrel aig styt It was and Rye whiskey adds that pepless peppering right and a little spice action, so I feel.
Like it offset the sweetness that you would typically sometimes is a little too much when it comes to an imperial style like this, Like obviously you've got the toasty, roasty notes, but sometimes with a higher ABV it can be a little sweet.
But yeah, you get a touch of that rye a barrel.
It just adds, adds so much more depth and flavor. It was fantastic.
Yeah, thanks Todd, appreciate you, man. But that's going to do it for this one, Matt. Until next time, best friends, our best friends out.
You can't fool