From a Team of Unpaid Interns to a Successful Agency with Hala Taha

Be honest: have you ever felt so closely tied to something…

… and then it was just, well, gone? poof

If so, then you know it can feel like your identity is being stripped away from you, forcing you to start over...again.

This is what I’ve learned: if something is being taken away from you, it’s because it’s time for you to let go for something bigger (and more aligned with your future). It’s hard to leave situations (willingly) when they’re comfortable, familiar, and certain—so, sometimes you are forced.

This is precisely the situation Hala Taha, LinkedIn, and Podcast Expert, found herself in when she was let go from her Hip Hop show on Hot 97, and shortly after, her MTV show was canceled. But, because Hala persevered, she’s built a successful podcast and a profitable agency.

In this episode, you’ll learn Hala’s strategies for LinkedIn, business growth, and how she went from a $700-per-month client to a $30,000-per-month client.

Click play to learn all this and…

(00:01:26) How Hala started with a team of unpaid interns.

(00:04:35) The importance of aligning your content to LinkedIn's algorithm to gain popularity and visibility.

(00:07:13) Hala’s transition from a side hustle to a full-time agency.

(00:09:58) How Hala went from a $700-month client to landing a $30,000-month client.

(00:18:23) Overcoming self-doubt after rejection.

(00:24:56) Hala’s decision to start the Young and Profiting podcast after feeling the need to have “her own thing”.

(00:26:59) The pivot Hala made to a “white glove agency”.

(00:28:10) Hala’s strategy when it comes to testing something new and growing.

For full show notes, visit:

https://jasminestar.com/podcast/episode406

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I built my website with Showit because it gives me total design freedom.

If you’re ready to build a website that works FOR you—and not against you—head to JasmineStar.com/showit for a 14-day free trial + first month free when you subscribe!

Transcript

Jasmine Star (00:00:14) - Welcome back to The Jasmine Star Show, a place where y'all know we talk about life, business and everything on the in between. Today, I couldn't be more excited to have a LinkedIn expert and podcast professional queen that she is now. Hal and I have had conversations both in the podcasting space and then separately on LinkedIn, and I couldn't be more excited to see how much her career has grown. She is CEO of Yap Media. Y'all, we are going to be breaking down the best and the newest of what the top podcasters, what celebrities are doing in this space, how she's being able to create synergy and create a business around being a true professional and amazing at what she does. Hello! Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show.

Hala Taha (00:00:56) - I'm so excited to be here. Jasmine, thank you for having me.

Jasmine Star (00:00:59) - Ah, okay, so this has been a long time coming. Our paths intersected a few years ago, and for people who've been on the podcast and been around the block, you'll know that the people I bring on the show, or people I know have cultivated a relationship with, and people who I know are here to be in a place of service, like every objective for the podcast has been like, what is the one action item you could do or take away? And so one of the things we want to start off with, let's start hit the ground running and talk about an origin story, but let's start driving out some value.

Jasmine Star (00:01:26) - So one of the things I found the most inspiring about your story is that before you hired a team, you started with unpaid interns. Now I kind of just want to tap a little bit there, because the thing that I see a lot of times that stopping people from taking action is not having enough support or thinking that it has to look a certain way. And one of the things that I wanted to unwrap with you is like, if you are setting out to hit a goal and you're ready to take action and you need help, do you have insight on how people might do that?

Hala Taha (00:01:52) - Totally, totally. So I love this part of my story because it just goes to show the organic growth that we had. So basically, I had a lot of superfans that would reach out to me after they listen to the show when I first started, and they would reach out to me on LinkedIn because that's where I first started, and they'd be like, oh, hold on, hold on.

Jasmine Star (00:02:10) - Let's pause here.

Jasmine Star (00:02:10) - Let's pause here. Can you go back and give a little bit description? You're like, okay, that's where it first started. But like fill in that gap.

Hala Taha (00:02:16) - Yeah 100%. So in terms of the people reaching out to me and wanting to work for me, they actually reached out to me first. It wasn't me asking them. They were inspired by how passionate I was and the fact that I was doing everything for free as a side hustle, part time job. And I would talk about that on my podcast how like, you know, I'm just doing this with service. I'm not trying to make money. I just want to help people. And I would go on LinkedIn and I would put my podcast stuff on LinkedIn, and then I became one of the top podcasters on LinkedIn. And then I started to get superfans, and they would tell me how much I improve their lives, how much they, like, appreciated all the hard work I was doing, and they would be like, I just want to help you make this bigger.

Hala Taha (00:02:57) - I want to make sure that you're one of the top podcasters in the world. How can I help you? What can I do? So what I would say is, why don't you come on my team and I'll show you how to do everything that I do. So I would teach like one guy how to do my website because I was a marketer, right? I've been a marketer since I was 17 years old. Even before I worked a corporate job, I was, you know, interning at a radio station. I had a really popular blog site when I was just like 20 years old. Right. So I've been in this world for like a really long time. So I knew how to do websites, videos, graphics, copywriting, social media, all these different things. And I'd say like, hey, just come work for me for free. I'll teach you in return. I'll teach you how to do all these skills. Stay as long as you want. When you feel like you're not learning, move on.

Hala Taha (00:03:41) - Or, you know, maybe, you know, down the line there's an opportunity where I can hire you. But for two years, it was just a volunteer group. And like I said, it happened super organically where people were asking me and I just had the idea, like, all right, let me pop everybody in a slack channel and basically just like, start a team.

Jasmine Star (00:03:57) - Oh, interesting.

Hala Taha (00:03:59) - And so I put everybody in a slack channel. And then I started, you know, having like monthly calls with them, weekly calls with them. And then slowly by slowly we turned into yep. Media.

Jasmine Star (00:04:09) - Interesting. Okay. That's fascinating. Now I had listened to a podcast that you were on and you were talking about creating post that aligned with LinkedIn's editorial agenda. So can you kind of bridge the gap between you're building out this internal team that's turning into an official business, not knowing it at the time? Can you explain what that editorial agenda means, and then how do people take advantage of it? Were you putting interns on it at the beginning? Talk to me about that.

Hala Taha (00:04:35) - Totally. So the editorial agenda really has to do with LinkedIn's algorithm. So LinkedIn's algorithm is four steps. Okay. So I can go through the four steps if you'd like. But the last step is what makes LinkedIn unique. Essentially, they're monitoring all the top posts of the day. And they have human editors. Not AI, not machines, human editors that are scanning through all the top posts of the day. And essentially they're trying to control LinkedIn's editorial agenda so that LinkedIn stays branded as this professional website for professionals, for entrepreneurs, for hiring, for recruitment. Because LinkedIn has a goal, you know, competing with indeed and ZipRecruiter for hiring and recruitment. And they also have a. Goal of keeping users online for as long as possible so they can sell ads. So those are their two goals. And so if you want to be popular on LinkedIn, you've got to align to those two goals. You've got to keep people for as long as possible on the platform, and you've got to align to LinkedIn's editorial agenda, which means that you've got to align to your topic plus careers, your topic, you know, and the intersection of recruitment, hiring and so on.

Hala Taha (00:05:37) - So that's what I mean by aligning to LinkedIn's editorial agenda. It's how you play nicely with LinkedIn's algorithm. So to your point, eventually, once I started having a team like the origin story was that fans were asking me to join the team, and at first I didn't know what to do with that. But then eventually I was like, okay, you can learn under me. And you know, before that, I was doing a lot of volunteer work. I was president of my alumni association, I was president of the Young Employee Network at Hewlett-Packard. I had this blog site with 150 female bloggers who worked for free for me too, in the blog In and Out for like three years. Right? So I've had all these experiences of like recruiting interns. So for me, it was like really natural. I was like, yeah, just come learn with me. Like, this is what everybody does, right? Like so. So that's how that team started. And then I started to formalize it.

Hala Taha (00:06:28) - Once I had my interns, I started doing like, like, you know, summer internships and started promoting that on LinkedIn. And then I like winter internships and I would put out videos. And because internships is a hot topic on LinkedIn because it aligns with their editorial agenda, that's, you know, probably why it picked up steam because it aligned with their editorial agenda, like you were saying.

Jasmine Star (00:06:51) - Okay, so it's been cool because the way that your frame of the story is a little bit origin story and a lot value driven, which has been pretty fantastic. So you start off with interns, it becomes a little bit more formalized. You're strategically aligning your objectives with the editorial agenda on LinkedIn. And then at what point do you say, okay, I now have a business.

Hala Taha (00:07:13) - Yeah. So really it was me paying attention to what my audience was telling me. Number one. And number two, it was me finding myself with more time. So the first reason why is because people like you would come on the show, and after they would come on my podcast, they were all celebrities, entrepreneurs and so on.

Hala Taha (00:07:31) - I had a pretty big podcast from the start in terms of notoriety, right? Not in terms of downloads. And so I had these guests that would, at the end of the show, be like, holla, who does your LinkedIn? How did you grow so fast? How did you grow so big? Holla! Who does your podcast? Could you do this for me? And I'd always say like, no, no, I'm so sorry, I've got this intern team. I have a I had a really cushy job at Disney and I was like, this is just like for fun. I just do this of service. I can't help you. And I really pushed people back for almost a year. And then Covid hit and it was 20 20th March of 2020 actually. My dad got really sick. He ended up passing away, and I found myself in my parents house while my dad was in the hospital. Have having so much free time because work was shut down. I was stuck at my parents house.

Hala Taha (00:08:18) - I couldn't see my friends, I couldn't see my boyfriend because I had gotten Covid and at that time, March 2020, it was like I had, you know, the plague, right? Like nobody wanted to be around me. And so for like two months, I found myself with all this time. And Heather Monahan, who's still my client, she was my first client. She came on my show, she asked me, and I said, you know, I can't help you. And she kept messaging me on LinkedIn. Your videos are awesome. You have to show me how to do your videos. And I wanted Heather as a mentor because I looked up to her. She was like who I wanted to be in ten years. And I was like, I can't do it for you, but I'll teach you how to do it. And so I started scheduling these meetings for her on Saturdays, and we did like two meetings. The second meeting, I was showing her like my slack channel, my drive, my templates, and she's like, holla.

Hala Taha (00:09:00) - I just had a call with VaynerMedia and I can give them my money. They're great, but your stuff is better. You have a social agency, you just don't know it. You hate your job. You told me like, quit your job, I'll be your first client. You can't say no. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll try. And so I took her as my first client. No. What month.

Jasmine Star (00:09:20) - What month is this?

Hala Taha (00:09:21) - So now it is like June of 2020. Okay. I took her as my first client, and by July, I had a second client who was a billionaire. And it was a $30,000 monthly retainer. And then why did you.

Jasmine Star (00:09:34) - Charge Heather.

Hala Taha (00:09:35) - Like 700 bucks a month? Like nothing. And then I.

Jasmine Star (00:09:39) - Say, wait, wait, wait. Hello, hello, hello. I know that this is your story, and you have said this story so many times, but I'm like, can we just pause for the gravity of what happened? Because in a three month time period, while you're going through uncertainty in the world, the landscape of the world in March 2020 looked crazy for a lack of better words.

Jasmine Star (00:09:58) - You're dealing with the potential loss of your father. Yeah, and you're at Disney. But Disney closes down and you have extra time, and within three months, somebody decides to pay you $700.

Hala Taha (00:10:11) - $700 a month to start, like working on her. Like it was first videos. Then I took over her LinkedIn and did that and got the processes for that. And then I started taking over her podcast within like one month, and she still wasn't paying me a lot because she was like, my beta, right? Got it. And so but then I had a billionaire who came on my podcast. His name was Jason Waller, and he, at the end of the show was like, hey, do you do social and production? And now I could say yes. So I was like, yeah, sure, I do, I do, and I had no website, I had no logo. Me and my first intern, Timothy Tan, put together a PowerPoint. And I remember I presented the PowerPoint to Tim, and I had LinkedIn services for 3000, podcast production for 3000.

Hala Taha (00:10:51) - And then there was like, I think Instagram for 3000. And he's like, why don't we just make it 10,000 each? He's a billionaire. And I was like, yeah, you're right. Maybe I should do 10,000 each, you know? And so I did it. I presented to him, I had I have really good presentation skills. They used to call me the PowerPoint Princess before they called me the podcast Princess in the corporate world. So I made, like, an awesome PowerPoint. And at the end of it, he's like, let's do it. And I was like, oh, okay. And then all of a sudden I was making, you know, $30,000 a month for a brand new agency. I was able to start hiring some people and putting people on payroll. And then I got Kara Golden of water. I took over her social and water social. Okay. Yeah. So let me go.

Jasmine Star (00:11:32) - Back and, like, ask a couple clarifying questions. When you land a $30,000 a month client and you're still working with a $700 a month client, does anything change?

Hala Taha (00:11:41) - No.

Hala Taha (00:11:41) - And by the way, I was still working at Disney. It took me six months to quit Disney, and I was making almost $200,000 a month in my agency, and I had 30 employees around the world. And then I quit Disney because I was very scared to quit my job.

Jasmine Star (00:11:55) - Got it. So your third client, what are you charging her?

Hala Taha (00:11:59) - It was like, just like Jason Waller. I was like, now I was a white nose. Now I was a white glove agency, you know? And everybody wanted to work with me. And we were really good, right? I created a really awesome team. So then I was a white glove agency, and Heather would help me get clients and refer me. And I kept, you know, I always gave Heather still has the homie discounts, not the $100.

Jasmine Star (00:12:21) - Well, you know what? There's no tea, no shade. I'm so happy she found somebody took a risk. Just desserts for somebody. Like seeing, like, you know, a diamond in the rough.

Jasmine Star (00:12:29) - Okay. Yeah, I would pull back and there's somebody who's listening and what they're thinking or what they're saying is that must be nice. That sounds like it was easier for her. And if you were only looking at March of 2020 to, let's say, December 2020, somebody in that siloed amount of time might be able to say it was easy for her. Maybe. But what I want to point out was from that time in March 2020, how long have you been creating content on LinkedIn prior to that? For free? Giving back, building your brand. How long before that?

Hala Taha (00:13:06) - Two years. But before that I had a blog for three years, and before that I had online radio shows and shit for for another three years. So this was like ten years in the making. And by the way, I worked non-stop for four years straight. Every weekend, every Saturday, every Sunday I had a side hustle podcast, I had a side hustle agency and a really like executive corporate job where I was running a whole email marketing team at Disney, and I was doing all those things at once.

Hala Taha (00:13:37) - And actually, um, I would wake up super early in the morning and I wouldn't go to bed until like 1:01 a.m. and I would just like, work consistently through. And I was lucky because I was with a boyfriend at the time that also was super obsessed with his career. So we were just like, work side by side together and just, you know, grind it out. So I was hustling really hard and I actually lost like a lot of friends and like, people thought I was crazy. And then finally it paid off, you know, like, it really took off after like, two and a half years, and then you've even seen me like, it's been a slow growth and a lot of hard work.

Jasmine Star (00:14:08) - So I really wanted to what I like to do is like, I like to point out possible thought patterns that people might have and then just clarify it from the beginning. Now, one of the things that I have seen, and I can't speak to this to you with certainty, which is why I want to bring it up if you're talking about it is for so long you and I were cut from a similar cloth.

Jasmine Star (00:14:27) - Right? Like we're going to figure it out. We're going to work. We're going to do everything we can to figure out a way. Did you ever experience that work, becoming integrated with your identity, like what was happening during this time of like, something to prove, at least not for you? I can't say yet, but for me, I felt like I had something to prove. I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder. I felt like I just needed to get it done. And then it wasn't until I took a big step back and like, brought myself down that I'm like, oh, I'm mixing my identity with my professional career. Did you ever experience that?

Hala Taha (00:14:59) - Yeah. You know, I've I've had a lot of pivoting in my career. I first started my career as in radio. I actually dropped out of college when I was 19 years old to work for Angie Martinez, who is the voice of New York. She's like a huge radio personality at 97, which at the time ten years ago was like a big deal to work out hot in 97.

Hala Taha (00:15:20) - How did you how.

Jasmine Star (00:15:20) - Did you get connected with Angie?

Hala Taha (00:15:22) - I just worked my way up. I was an intern in the program department, and I was the rock star intern. And then I ended up quitting my job because she asked me, she's like, can you come work for me every day? And I was like, okay. And, you know, that was a crazy thing for me to have done at 19 years old, quit college and all my siblings were in med school. So I was like, totally the black sheep of my family and like basically got like, you know, kicked out for a while. But I did it because I was really passionate about it. And at the time I was singing, I've always wanted to use my voice to make a positive change in the world. And I took this internship originally at 97, because I was trying to push my music. I was songwriting, singing, and then I got to hot 97 and I realized like, oh, you know, I really like being an online personality.

Hala Taha (00:16:07) - They let me do commercials. I would do like online radio shows with the up and coming DJs on the side. And I was like, okay, like, I'll just be the next Angie Martinez. They're priming me for that anyway, so I worked there for free, zero money for three years, zero money. I made my money at night selling showcase tickets and like and hosting underground hip hop contests, basically. And that's how I would make my money. But I learned so much. I learned sales skills like radio skills, production skills, all this kind of stuff. So I don't regret it at all. But three years into it, I remember like really wanting a job. My parents were giving me a lot of pressure. I felt like a failure. And I remember waking up one day and they had given a producer job to one of my really good friends. We were like best friends. We had a radio show together and everything, and I texted him. I was like, hey juicy, I don't feel like going to work today.

Hala Taha (00:16:55) - You know? I'm really bummed out. If you want to learn how to be the producer, learn it on your own, because I was basically doing the job for free because, like, it was like an intern, period. And I was like, just pissed off, right? He showed the text to Angie because he was in trouble. He didn't know how to do his job, and he needed me there. And he was like, Karl is not coming in to work today. Angie got really mad at me. We made up since then and she fired me. She pulled the plug. She like, told everybody, nobody can talk to me. All the DJ's who were my mentors, like three years of my life, just taken away from me. And at that point I was like, devastated. And I was holla from hot 97. Everybody from college knew me. Holla from hot 97. My Twitter handle was holla hot 97 and I had like grown a following and I felt like my identity.

Hala Taha (00:17:36) - To your point. What? Your original question, right? My identity was stripped away from me because I had too closely tied who I was with the brand of hot 97. And suddenly I cried like somebody died because I literally thought that I was going to spend everybody at hot 97 spends their whole career there, even to this day. Almost everybody that worked there when I worked there still works there. And so I literally thought this was going to be my life. This was going to be my family. This is it. And she like, shut that dream down for me. Right. So at that point I decided to start my blog, but then something else happened. Similarly, where I was rejected. I did this blog for three years. We became super popular. Within three months, we were one of the most popular hip hop blog sites in the world. We were the sorority of hip hop and I was the president. Right? And so we would host events.

Jasmine Star (00:18:23) - Hello, hello, hello.

Jasmine Star (00:18:23) - Okay, so things stop for you at hot 97. Are you still working at night.

Hala Taha (00:18:29) - For, uh, selling showcase tickets and stuff? Yeah, all that died with hot 97. Okay, it was all. Start a.

Jasmine Star (00:18:35) - Blog. And are you living off savings? Are you wearing. How are you getting money to survive?

Hala Taha (00:18:40) - Yeah, I had some money because I would do like marketing. I would like, do marketing for like hip hop festivals. I was always doing like side hustle marketing and stuff like that to make money. Right. Okay, okay. Yeah. So so that's how I had money. So I started this blog site and I went back to school and basically I was like, no one's going to blackball me. I'm going to make it no matter what. I still had so much fire in me and to be honest, like to be 19. And like I was dating Chris Brown at one point, like I was hanging out with like so many celebrities and so, like, I just, like, was so full of myself in a good way.

Hala Taha (00:19:13) - At that point, I had like a lot of belief in myself and that I could do anything right. I was obsessed with the Law of Attraction and like, I thought I could do anything. So hot. 97 fired me. Basically, I was devastated, but within like literally four days, I had this idea of starting something new to empower women in the hip hop industry that were being overlooked, like me. And I put out all these solicits on Twitter and Craigslist, and I was like, hey, if you're a pretty girl and you want to learn how to blog, like, you know, apply here and blah, blah, blah, teach you how to blog and I'll teach you everything and let's do this. Because I had been blogging on the side for the DJs at 97, like DJ Enough and Funkmaster Flex, right? So I had learned all this stuff and I was like, lemon juice came out. Time for a blog.

Jasmine Star (00:19:57) - Part one. Part? Yeah. When you're blogging, it's written word.

Jasmine Star (00:20:00) - So when you had said, if you're a cute girl, was it a visual and a written blog? What? How did that come into play?

Hala Taha (00:20:06) - I just was at the time I wanted to have like, this bad girl club, like, let's let's do a hip hop blog. And I actually wanted, like, literally wanted pretty girls on my team. Not everybody was like, drop dead gorgeous. But I wanted cute girls because part of it was hosting parties. We would host pod and that's how we would make money, our events. So we would host parties and concerts. And it was like girls that like one girl worked at iHeart. One girl worked at Def Jam. One girl, you know, everybody worked at all these different places. And I was the one that was like running the blog and building the website and teaching. I was like, the nerd behind the scenes, okay, that would like show up to the parties once in a while and like, and so on. So anyway, we were basically like semi-famous in the tri state area.

Hala Taha (00:20:50) - Everybody at hot 97 ended up like making up with me mean and she made up. And then the same DJs that didn't hire me back then started hosting me for all their parties. And then all of a sudden I would get like shouted out on the radio more than I did when I was actually, like interning for them and working for them every day because they respected me more, because I had did it on my own and they were like, whoa. Like I just did something on her own in three months and everybody's talking about it like, okay, like we've got to like, talk to holla again, right? Um, so it worked. I got what I wanted, and MTV actually reached out to us three months into the blog, because basically I figured out how to utilize Twitter in a really innovative way before anybody else was doing it. When we would put out a blog, I told everybody to act the celebrity name, and then I hooked up all the girls profiles to Twitter, where every time we posted a blog like you'd have 50 pretty girls like tweeting Drake at once, right? So what would Drake do? Retweet one of us, right? So we went viral all the time, and that's how we blew up right away.

Hala Taha (00:21:53) - So MTV reached out to us and they were like, holla! Like, let's do like a short pilot. So they came to one of our radio. We had radio show as well in the sorority of hip hop. They came to our show and like we like, you know, we're filming and it was like really nothing big and nothing came out of it. But to me it was like, well, what else is going to happen? Who cares? Right? Then two years later, after like, so much hard work, like barely surviving, imagine I had like 50 girls to feed. Like there was like no money to go around. We were broke as a joke, right? And MTV was like, okay, like for real, we want to do this. And they they filmed us all summer. They signed five of the girls. We were going to make like $5,000 in episode, and I thought I was rich and like, I was like, so excited. And two weeks before they were going to air, like, I'm telling you, Jasmine, we did like a dance show.

Hala Taha (00:22:42) - We had like a concert, like we did everything. They filmed us in the street, in restaurants, at our family's house. The whole summer. They got us a studio. I didn't even say this. They got us a studio on Broadway that was, like, all hooked up and like, it was crazy. Like the real world is what I felt like, right? I felt like I was in the real world. And it was right after Jersey shore. Okay. They pulled the plug after two weeks. They didn't even tell me why. It could have been because I was Arabic. It could have been like anything. Right? So it's like they pull the plug. They didn't tell me why. And this like totally broke my heart. And so suddenly, like the spirit that I had, I was just broken. I was like, you know what? Like I've been basically working for free for six years. Just like always trying, always trying to make it. And everybody always tells me no.

Hala Taha (00:23:23) - Even during this whole experience, I almost got a co-host job with sway in the morning on Sirius XM, and basically after two weeks they like, Let Me Go. And so it was like I just got like rejected from radio, rejected from satellite radio, rejected from TV now. And I was like, okay, this is not for me. Like, I better like make my parents proud, quit and go back to school, maybe get a regular job, be normal. And I did that. I shut everything down. The girls to this day, like many of them, really don't like me because I shut it down and they were very upset with me. I shut everything down and I went, got my MBA, got a 4.0 that gave me a leg in the door with corporate, and I entered the corporate world at like 27, 28, which is really late. And I thought I was going to like, really suck at it and that I was going to be like a lot of trouble.

Hala Taha (00:24:10) - But I ended up doing amazing in corporate and I stayed at Hewlett-Packard. Was my first job. I stayed there for like four years, and after four years, I never thought I was going to get back on a mic. I was doing very similar things at HP, like interviewing the CEO at the town halls, and like I was still the same hollow, right? President of the Young Employee network. I was still the same, but just different. And then four years into it, I didn't get an opportunity that I wanted at HP, and I was really disappointed. It was one of those another situation where gatekeeper told me, no, I wanted to be the president of the Global Young Employee Network and I totally earned it. But they picked somebody with no experience. And again, I found myself in a situation and I was like, you know what? I'm never doing this again. I'm never going to work on something that's not my own. I need my own brand. I need my own thing.

Hala Taha (00:24:56) - And I'm no longer going to put my free time into somebody else's brand. And so I decided that instead of leading, you know, at the time, I wanted to lead 7000 employees at HP that maybe I'd lead 7 million young professionals. And I started Young and Profiting podcast. So that's how I started the. Podcast. And that's the story of me kind of getting rejected and losing my identity and eventually finding myself with Yap.

Jasmine Star (00:25:21) - And so it's at this time that you start the podcast, but you transition. If I understand the story correctly, you transitioned from HP to Disney at this time.

Hala Taha (00:25:29) - Exactly as also when I started the podcast, I was very upset with HP that I. Then I moved to Disney.

Jasmine Star (00:25:36) - Got it. Okay, so if somebody were to be like above your life line, they're seeing that you have a skill set of being able to gather people around you to believe in something bigger. You have this really scrappy, technical know how of taking disparate pieces and putting them together. And then you have this embodiment and a skill set that you know how to be in front of people and talk to people.

Jasmine Star (00:26:00) - And so you're aggregating a bunch of lessons that then you say, I am starting a podcast, and I'm at Disney, and this podcast is just to share lessons that I've learned. That is your ambition at the time.

Hala Taha (00:26:13) - Basically what happened is like I finally was making like well over six figures and I was basically somebody who had entrepreneurial experience, who failed, who also ended up making it in the corporate world. And so I was like, you know, I can speak to both people, and I still want to learn from people. I want to start a podcast. And at the time, you know, six years ago now everybody has like a podcast, entrepreneurship podcast. Right? But back then it was like really unique. And everyone's like, I can't believe you're doing this. Like, what are you even doing? And I just wanted to learn from other people and help other people because I knew how hard it was to make it.

Jasmine Star (00:26:47) - Mhm. Okay. So what I have seen this conversation take is like two paths and now they're intersecting because we started off with this version of you that we see and it's like wow, it's so impressive.

Jasmine Star (00:26:59) - And somebody looking at that it must be easy. And then what happens is you start the path at a different point in the story to say anything but honey. And so now there's this intersection where you have this podcast, and then you have this white glove agency where you're helping build and extend social brands, and then talk to me about what happens as the next pivot for what you're currently doing. And okay. And I just kind of want to take a second and bring the listeners and the viewers. From my perspective, I have seen somebody iterate and then refuse to stay down. I have seen somebody take what they're currently doing and then being able to upsell, offer, continue to white glove this experience, and to enter into the white glove service world is one thing, and then to continue it over years is an entirely other thing. But then to continue it over years and then add other elements is really fascinating. So I really wanted to bring you on because you're a very unique case study, and I want listeners to say like, whoa, like she started off at 700, moved to 30 grand, continue to iterate.

Jasmine Star (00:28:03) - And that's kind of where I want to bring this story now with, yeah, taking what you've been learning and then offering this new subset for podcasting.

Hala Taha (00:28:10) - Yes. So one thing to note is that my whole strategy with all of my businesses, even starting with my first client, Heather Monahan, is I do it for myself first. Really, really good. I am my client. Oh, I do it for myself really, really good. And once me and my team can do it for myself and we get results, we then figure out how we can standardize it and roll it out to our clients. And we do that with every single service, starting with LinkedIn. Then it was Instagram, then it was podcast production, then it was media buying to grow podcasts. Then it was sponsorships, which is why now I have my podcast network. Right? So that's basically the evolution. I would do it for myself. Then I would do it for like my core clients, and then if it made sense, I would like, you know, advertise it to the world.

Hala Taha (00:28:56) - Right. So so that's basically how I've grown my agency. And then now I have a podcast network that's actually making more money now than my agency is. It's growing super fast. I've got a podcast network called the Yap Media Network. I've got the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. I've got Jenna Kutcher signed exclusively to me, Amy Porterfield, Julie Solomon, John Lee Dumas, Trent Shelton. And so we run all their podcast sponsorships and we host their podcasts, and we help them get sponsorships across their podcasts, social, YouTube and so on. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:29:28) - And so for a listener who's unfamiliar with perhaps the genre of what we're speaking. Yeah, into, you have your agency that is an extension of LinkedIn social brand building, and then you have a separate agency that's built for podcasters where you will do production sponsors, ad placements. Do I understand that correctly?

Hala Taha (00:29:49) - Yeah, it's it's slightly different. So I have a social media and production agency that's like one everything is all yep, media. It's all my company.

Hala Taha (00:29:56) - Everybody's in the same slack channel. Like there's some cross teams, but everything's pretty much two businesses. I actually got three businesses. So there's explain that.

Jasmine Star (00:30:03) - Explain that because I find it fascinating here. Okay. So we have that meta as the as the social.

Hala Taha (00:30:08) - Yeah yeah. Media umbrella. Then I have my social agency. We're known as the. Number one LinkedIn marketing agency. We do LinkedIn, Instagram, podcast production, YouTube production. Right. So it's all of like our monthly retainers, social and podcast services, simulcast services to actually produce and publish content, right. And create brands and all that kind of stuff. So that's one that's a huge part of my team. Most of my talent makes up this team. I have like 40 people who work at my social agency. Right. So so that's the social agency. Then I have my podcast network. This is a newer business that I started about a year and a half ago. Essentially, I had grown three other podcasts to about my size, started selling out my shows, selling out their shows, and then I realized, hey, I could create a podcast network.

Hala Taha (00:30:52) - I know how this works. I did it, and I'm crushing because I'm the only podcast network with a full service social media agency that's focused on podcasts.

Jasmine Star (00:31:01) - Interesting.

Hala Taha (00:31:02) - So it's like I can offer other services to my podcasters. So then my podcasters become my social client, like so Jenna Kutcher, for example. It's like I'm running her LinkedIn and I'm doing all her podcast sponsorships and all works together, right?

Jasmine Star (00:31:14) - Awesome.

Hala Taha (00:31:15) - So that's kind of how it works. My podcast network, we do sponsorships. So basically what that means is all the different commercials like Jasmine, I'm sure you do podcast commercials where you're like reading.

Jasmine Star (00:31:26) - I don't.

Hala Taha (00:31:27) - Commercial, you.

Jasmine Star (00:31:27) - Don't I know, I you know, I know that there's a tie.

Hala Taha (00:31:31) - I will make you so much money. Like today, I will literally make you so much money. Let's talk.

Jasmine Star (00:31:37) - Um, okay. And so that's the third arm of the business.

Hala Taha (00:31:41) - Now that's the second. The podcast network's the second arm of the business. The third arm is the App Academy.

Hala Taha (00:31:46) - So now I have courses. So, so for people it's very expensive to work at our agency. It's minimum $10,000 a month. And that's just for LinkedIn. Right. So my course is is a way for people to learn about LinkedIn and eventually podcasting and do it for themselves, much cheaper. And then I'm able to accomplish my dream, which is to help other people like level up, not just like, you know, the rich and famous.

Jasmine Star (00:32:09) - Ah, this is fantastic. So we hear so much about we see and hear so much about what you're doing professionally. And so when I hear and see another ambitious, amazing, brilliant, kind, smart woman do this, I sometimes ask myself a big esoteric question. And so maybe I'll toss it your way. Okay. When somebody is looking and seeing all of the things that you're doing, is there the elusive enough like enough with a capital E, like when on the outside does somebody look at you and be like, okay, Paula said she's done enough, made enough, or does that exist for you?

Hala Taha (00:32:43) - I am really ambitious.

Hala Taha (00:32:44) - Like I'm trying to grow this to like $100 million company. And I like, see the light, like everything is just like downstream momentum right now. So for me, I want to impact as many people as possible. And that means I need to make as much money as possible. Not for myself, but really so that I can make a big positive impact in the world. I want to help people, you know, make money, hire more people. Like when I think about like, what is success? To me? I always think about like a big team, right? That I'm like, everybody is making money, everybody is elevating in their careers. And also like helping all my clients and helping all my students and just helping people live better lives. Now I will say, like I'm Palestinian, right? So there's like a lot of stuff going on in the world. And now I feel this new calling all of a sudden that I always said, like, hey, I think I'm going to get involved in politics.

Hala Taha (00:33:32) - I always had that in the back of my mind, like, yeah, maybe when I'm older, I get involved in politics. Now all of a sudden everything is so clear that, like, I have to get involved in politics. And so like, I'm like, just figuring out again, like new side hustle on the side, like, what am I going to do to figure out how that I can start this path so that in ten years, when I sell my company, I'm ready to do this next thing? Oh, and live my life of service.

Jasmine Star (00:33:55) - I had no idea whatsoever that that was the answer that I was going to. I never shared.

Hala Taha (00:34:03) - That before because it's all new information. It's like I'm just like, I just feel like the world is so broken, and I feel like so few people are willing to stand up, and I just feel like I don't have a choice. I never even wanted to do it. I just feel like I literally don't have a choice.

Hala Taha (00:34:17) - And I know that I'm good at this kind of stuff. I know I can mobilize people, I know, I know that I could like, I this might sound mean, but I saw Jill Stein's social media and she has 40,000 followers. And I was like, we're screwed. Like, I gotta figure this out. Somebody's gotta step up to the plate. So it's just like, I just feel like I have a lot of skills that would help me win, you know? I don't know, maybe become a congresswoman one day. I don't know, uh, I never thought it was possible, but now I feel like I don't have a choice, so I feel like maybe I'll change my mind. But right now, that's all I can think about is, like, how do I just, like, figure out how to start this path, at least?

Jasmine Star (00:34:55) - Interesting, I am I'm excited because who knows? And yeah, eight years and ten years and 12 years in 20 years, like you're going to have a documented clip to say that the side hustle started a decade because you didn't go after it.

Jasmine Star (00:35:09) - It came to you in the same way that you had side hustle a myriad of. Things and then brought them to life, and it ended up being better than you had expected. I'm really happy that we get to document this at this time in 2024, to see you perhaps sitting in Congress, speaking your truth, mobilizing people. Um, so, I mean, there's a big lesson. I don't even know where to go after that. I was just.

Hala Taha (00:35:28) - I have a big lesson that might help you because it ties everything together. When I first started my podcast, when everybody asked me where I would be in five years, I used to say, I'm going to have the biggest podcast network in the world, and I had no idea what I was talking about. I had no idea what that even meant. And then I took this path of like, you know, my audience told me they wanted a social agency. So I made a social agency, and I did all this stuff, essentially.

Hala Taha (00:35:56) - And then after five years, I ended up with a podcast network, and I basically didn't even try to make it. I just ended up being like, whoa, I have a podcast network. And then suddenly, you know, five years later, it's like exactly what I said it was going to be. It's like I put that seed in the air, and I just did the hard work, and I just followed my gut, and I just followed the yeses and I just followed, you know what I thought was the right thing to do at each and every moment. And, you know, I ended up with what I had basically manifested years before. So this is very like this. Now, what we're talking about of me saying, I want to get to politics, I think it's going to be very similar. I think it's going to be me slowly, like figuring it out and just naturally figuring it out until I get to that point. And again, it's like, you've got to just follow the signs.

Hala Taha (00:36:41) - I never thought it was going to be this soon. I really never did. But I'm like, okay, this is already happening. I just did a fundraiser. I raised $50,000 like this. I got like a thousand emails of people who are aligned to this cause and I'm like, okay, like this. I guess this is a start, you know? And it's going to go for it.

Jasmine Star (00:36:58) - So, you know, when we hear this and you lay it out that way, I honor it. But one thing that I don't think was mentioned as significantly as it was, was that you didn't stay down like you chose to get back up, because what happens is, like the narrative on the outside is like, she's persistent and she manifests it right. But none of that exists without the ability to continue to rise up after we've been knocked down. And so that's been been very clear in your story. And I just wanted to take a second to highlight that and also honor that. And so, you know, as people, obviously, I know we're probably going to give a plug to your LinkedIn, but there's a group of people who are like, I want to know more.

Jasmine Star (00:37:37) - I want to see what she's doing. I want to get into her head and see how she works. Where do you tell people to go to, like, really get to know you?

Hala Taha (00:37:45) - Yeah. So first off, I would love for you guys to follow me on LinkedIn. I give a lot of, you know, I'm one of the biggest influencers on that platform. And so I give a lot of personal insight I'm posting every day. It's me really posting, right. So I'd love for you guys to follow me on LinkedIn. Young and profiting is my podcast. I put my heart and soul in it. I've interviewed amazing people, from Matthew McConaughey to Daymond John to Seth Godin, you name it, to.

Jasmine Star (00:38:10) - Jasmine Starr.

Hala Taha (00:38:11) - Jasmine Starr. Yeah. Um, and of course, if you guys want to learn about LinkedIn, I have the number one LinkedIn course. It's a two day workshop that I do about every other month. If you guys want to learn more about it, I'll give you a discount with Jasmine's name for 35% off.

Hala Taha (00:38:27) - And you can go to Yap Media Slash course, and we've got a bunch of sessions coming up.

Jasmine Star (00:38:33) - Ah that's amazing. Let's go. Hello. I want to take a second, knowing how busy you are and how much you're trying to change the world, the fact that you would take time to generously share your experience to connect disparate dots. You are a person who does that so brilliantly, and you share the behind the scenes, and you become a symbol and a sign of what it means to have the odds stacked against you and continue moving forward. So it's been an honor watching your journey, and I think it's been so much of an honor for you to share the journey and your story here. So thank you 100,000 times over. For those of you who are listening and watching, thank you for being here, being a part of the story and sharing what you have learned. Thanks again for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show. My.