[00:00:00] 

Hala Taha: What's up, young and profiters? Welcome back to the show. And I've got something a little different for you today. Instead of replaying one of my YAP classics, I'm sharing an interview that I did on the So Money podcast with Farnoosh Tarobi. Farnoosh is an award winning finance expert. She's one of the top influencers in personal finance, and she invited me onto her show to break down some of the secrets behind my success with the podcast and my company, YAP Media.

Farnoosh and I talked about how I started my I started Young Profiting as a side hustle while working at Disney, and how I grew it into one of the top business podcasts in the world. We cover all the things that matter when it comes to launching and growing a podcast, like how to build an audience from scratch, how to grow your show organically, and how to monetize your content even if you're [00:01:00] just starting out.

You guys know that I love to get into the nitty gritty, the actionable stuff. So I also talked about the exact strategies I've used to help others grow their podcasts. The same strategies that took one show from 200 downloads a month to 200, 000. Whether you're a podcaster, entrepreneur, or just trying to build your brand, this episode can help take things to the next level.

I'm so pumped for you to hear it. Let's get right into it. 

Farnoosh Torabi: welcome to So Money. Are you ready to talk about money? 

Hala Taha: I am super excited to be on this show. 

Farnoosh Torabi: I have a sense it's one of your favorite topics.

Your podcast is called Young and Profiting. You love to dish about dollars and cents. But for our time together, Hala, you have so many gifts to give us so much to teach us about drive, about building a business, about Recovering from failure. I was learning a lot about you before our, our episode now. And [00:02:00] I love to start sometimes when guests have so much that's going on in their adult lives.

That's so admiring. I want to know what life was like for you growing up. What, who, who was Hala as a young girl and, and what were her visions? I have some follow up questions to that, but I'm just going to let you take that and, and, and see where you go with it. Because I, I just love to see if there's any dots to connect there.

Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. So as a young girl, I was really, really outgoing. So one funny thing that my parents always say is that I sang before I spoke. So I love to sing. And I would like break out into performance as a little like two, three year old. And then fast forward to elementary school, I was the lead in all the plays.

And so I was always sort of like, this really outgoing, bubbly, shining stars, the youngest of four kids, and so had a really bubbly, bubbly. outgoing personality. I also had a really strong entrepreneurship spirit at a young age, like very young age. [00:03:00] I would convince my cousins down the street to do lemonade stands, but then I would take it to the next level and we'd go to the park and make slushie stands.

Then in the winter, I would sell hot dogs. chocolate. I would have my cousins and my friends make artwork and then I would sell it to all the parents at the different like PTA meetings and things like this. And so I was always just like trying to figure out a way to make money. I would make bracelets and then sell them in the summer.

And I just always wanted to work. Uh, And as, uh, you know, a kid of immigrant parents, my parents were 100 percent Palestinian. My dad was a surgeon. They really cared about education and they actually didn't want me to work. And I had a job since 13 years old and I would, convince and cry and beg for my parents to take me to work, uh, and then allow me to work.

And so I had a job since 13 years old, and I probably had about 15 jobs before I got into college. 

Farnoosh Torabi: I can relate to that. My parents also immigrants and [00:04:00] prioritized studying over flipping burgers for sure. Um, I, I'm curious for you, what was the motivation to work at such a young age? There's money involved, but what did the money represent to you?

I, I grew up. feeling like as long as I had money in my bank account and a license, I was invincible. Because I saw a lot of women around me who didn't have money, who were even intimidated to drive on the highway. They always insisted that their husbands take the driving seat. And I thought, Well, that doesn't feel like freedom to me.

So, and this is again, my child brain deciding what freedom means, but like, what did work represent for you in terms of your freedom? 

Hala Taha: Well, my parents were pretty well off. My dad was a doctor, but I wasn't spoiled at all. Um, because my dad basically put all my nieces and nephews overseas through college.

And so, and my parents were, kind of grew up really poor and so they never wanted to buy me clothes [00:05:00] or like really, I wanted like all this fashionable clothes. I wanted cool bags. I, it was more about like me just wanting to pay for my stuff. So most of my jobs were actually retail jobs where I'd sell clothes and get a discount so that I could wear really cool clothes and like get makeup that I wanted or skincare that I wanted.

But it was really just to. fund me wanting, you know, to spoil myself. 

Farnoosh Torabi: And so fast forward to today, when you think about your relationship with money, how has it evolved? Like when, you know, what is your why, I suppose, for, for scaling as quickly as you are, and we're going to get into the successes and so many of the wins of your, of your business.

Um, but what drives you now? Um, because I just did a bunch of episodes on the show about what is enough. You know, and that's a very personal question and answer. And I just want to know, like, what is your why today as you pursue financial greatness? 

Hala Taha: So I understand that life is limitless. I understand that things can scale really quickly if [00:06:00] you have the right idea and the right systems.

And for me, I'm trying to grow my company to be like a hundred million dollar company, right? So. That's my goal and it's really to help people in the process. I am the type of person where I always have teams around me even when I had volunteer groups that I couldn't afford to pay. I've always had teams of 20, people that help me with my mission.

Even working for free we can get into that. But I also really enjoy paying for people's livelihoods and having a big team and being responsible for people's salaries and seeing them grow and make more money. That really drives me as well. It's like growing my team and their potential as well really motivates me.

Farnoosh Torabi: So tell us about this. I see people calling it a media empire. Yap Media, you have your own podcast, uh, Young and Profiting, as well as cultivating and growing other podcasts via a network, your own network. You have an MBA, you have [00:07:00] background in marketing and consulting. So tell us about the current. operation that you have and what, what, tell us all about it. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. So I have multiple businesses. Um, number one is my podcast that I started five and a half years ago. That's in a business entity in itself. So we get lots of sponsorships. My personal brand gets lots of sponsorships. I punch way above my weight.

I'm a really large podcast, but I make as much money as the top podcasts in the world because I really understand how to monetize all my channels. And I've really mastered this whole monetization of the podcast industry. So that's my first. business. My second business is my social agency. So I'm one of the biggest influencers on LinkedIn, and I have a social media agency that's known as the number one LinkedIn marketing agency.

So I run a lot of influencers on that platform, like Marshall Goldsmith and Heather Monahan and Matt Higgins from Shark Tank, Kara Golden of Hint Water. So lots of CEOs, celebrities. podcasters, I run their social media, their LinkedIn, their Instagram, their YouTube, and I also do [00:08:00] podcast production. So we were, uh, the best podcast agency of 2022 and awarded that.

So I have a podcast agency. and a social agency. That's another part of my business. And then lastly, I have a podcast network. So a year and a half ago, I launched the Yap Media Podcast Network. It's the number one business and self improvement podcast network where I grow and monetize other shows. So the same way that I get sponsorships for my podcast, I also get them for about 25 top business and self improvement shows.

And then I take a rev share of their sponsorship. 

Farnoosh Torabi: So tell us the secrets. How are you growing podcasts to scale and making it super duper profitable? I have people all the time coming to me and saying, I think I want to start a podcast, but it's so crowded. I don't know. What's your advice to someone who's like, I want to, I want to be Hala.

I want to start a really phenomenal podcast that is sustainable as well as profitable because a lot of people quit. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Cause podcasting is not easy and there's really two ways to go about it. One way is you have money. And you can invest [00:09:00] in advertising and media buying. So all the different podcast players out there, there's about 70 different podcast players that make up the industry.

Spotify, Apple make up about 60 percent of all listening apps. And then the other 30 percent is like 70 different apps that you can advertise on. So you can advertise on 30 percent of the podcast players. So. Cool. That presents a really big opportunity. You want to advertise where the podcast listeners already are.

Instead of having to convince them from social media to listen to the podcast platform that you're soliciting, potentially download the app, find your episode. Instead, you just Advertise in the podcast player itself through banner ads through integrating yourself in the onboarding series and so on. So all these different podcast players have different advertising opportunities.

The other way that you advertise in the podcast apps is through buying commercials on other podcasts in your niche. guesting on other podcasts in your niche, um, and so on. So there's lots of different tactics to advertise within the [00:10:00] podcast players. That's one way. And basically, if you have money, a company like mine, I'm one of the biggest experts in terms of growing shows, I can put together a plan and exactly know if you're like, I want to get to 100k downloads a month.

I can say, okay, here's your three month plan. This is how much you're going to spend. Probably around 10, 000 a month. And I'll get you to 100, 000 consistent downloads per month with real subscribers and so on, right? Um, so that's one way. If you have money, you can just pay to play, right? This is like anything out there right now.

You can just pay to play. If you don't have money, it's going to be a longer term game. Typically, you want to have at least one platform where you have an audience. You need to pull an audience from somewhere. You're not going to just put up a show and people are going to magically find it. That's not how it is.

It's not 2016 anymore. There's lots of competition. Okay. So having a social media presence and then really focusing on closing the loop.  So this is what a lot of people miss. They put up micro content videos, they put up social posts, and they promote a podcast episode. They have a link in their [00:11:00] bio, a link in the caption, whatever it is, and they really are expecting people to click the link, find their episode.

Maybe if you're smart, you might do a charitable, smart link to your direct episode, but most podcasters, like, they're not even that tech savvy to do that. So they're really expecting a lot. They're creating a lot of friction. You need to close the loop and that means one on one combat in the DMs. So you put up a post, anybody who likes and comments is raising their hand and saying, Hey, I'm potentially interested in this podcast episode.

You then need to DM them a link to the direct episode. Hey, I noticed that you engage on this post. I'd love for you to listen to my podcast. Here's the link. Then you follow up. Hey, did you get a chance to subscribe? And you do that all day and you promote and you bring people from social to your podcast.

Now that's a much longer game, but that's how you do it for free. 

Farnoosh Torabi: I may or may not have been taking notes, I'm just saying, um, that's, you know, I, I actually like noticed that I liked someone's post the other day on LinkedIn, on Instagram, it was a story and I immediately got a DM from them and I was like, wow, this person's [00:12:00] quick.

They're on, they're, they're, they're really, uh, scouting all their, you know, their engagement. I was like, no, it's an automatic. DM it was really, it was really well done. It was smart. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, you can use like MoneyChad or like there's lots of different softwares where you can sort of automate this, but I always recommend that like having a VA that does it manually where you have scripts and it's super like personal.

I think that always does better. 

 Now, I was listening to you, an interview of yours, you've talked about this on your podcast and other shows about how COVID was a real game changer for you in terms of just, I think for all of us, it was a, it was a time for at, at minimum reflection, like what am I doing with my life?

Farnoosh Torabi: Am I in the, going in the right direction? What is the meaning of everything that I'm doing? And I know that you went through a lot of personal hurdles and challenges, grieving during that, during that time. And I would love if you, to the [00:13:00] extent that you're willing to share, what was the, what was the impact of that?

It was like 2021, I think, was a really, you called it the hardest and the best year of your life. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, it was, it was 2020. So actually in March of 2020, that's when the pandemic really hit, at least New Jersey. And all my family's in New Jersey, and my family was one of the first to get hit by the pandemic.

So this was when nobody knew about it. It was really scary. if you had COVID, it was like you had the plague, like everybody, like nobody talked to you for months and things like this. So my entire, my mom, my dad, and my brother was visiting them all got COVID. and my aunt and uncle down the street also got COVID.

And so my family's doctors, so they, they got it all really fast because they were like in the hospitals and stuff like this. And so they caught it really fast. And, um, I ended up going home. I was living with my boyfriend at the time in Brooklyn. And, um, my sister basically called me up and she was like, holla.

You [00:14:00] know, this was in lockdown, like the first week of lockdown when I was working at Disney at the time I was working from home. She's like, Hala, mom and dad have COVID, uh, you've got like 30 minutes, let me know if you want me to pick you up, uh, I'm going to go take care of mom and dad. And I was like, well, of course I'm going to go take care of mom and dad.

So she picked me up, I didn't have a car at the time and I get to the house and, everyone is extremely sick. So this is like the first wave of COVID where it was like just really tough. My brother is like super fit, like. pretty young and he was like really, really sick. So it was very scary. Me and my sister were staying in the basement.

We were wearing like hazmat suits. you know, for, for a week I was just like really covered up. Um, and we were basically like not eating all day in the basement, like having like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before we went to sleep, like sleeping with like dirty, uh, old comforters on the couch because we just, nobody was prepared and like we just didn't want to sleep upstairs because we thought it was like really contaminated.

We didn't know what to do. So then [00:15:00] my dad got like very, very sick. and like we were, we were like trying to get like an oxygen machine for him and like do it. And everybody's a doctor. So we were like, just like, Trying to self, uh, like help him because we knew if he went to the hospital, like it would be really bad because the hospitals were really overwhelmed at the time and we knew that he wasn't, he wasn't going to get attention.

And he actually said, like, Hey, if you send me to the hospital, like you guys aren't going to see me again. And that was the truth. So there was nothing we could do. He was basically dying. And so we called the ambulance at one point and he got like wheeled away to the hospital. And at that point I was working from home.

I ended up staying in Wachung, New Jersey for three months, because I basically couldn't go back to Brooklyn. I had got COVID myself, my dad was in the hospital at this time for about like a month and a half. I remember watching him on Zoom, I would have him on my Zoom. and work, and be like working at the same time.

He was pretty much unconscious. They traked him right away. he looked really [00:16:00] uncomfortable. It was like really mortifying to see him like suffering that whole time. And the worst part is that we weren't allowed to visit him because, at that time there was no visitors allowed. And even the nurses like barely went in his room and he could barely see.

And I feel like all he could do is hear. So I used to just sit there. And like, just try to soothe him. so it was a really difficult time, but I was also really bored because none of my friends wanted to see me. I couldn't see my boyfriend. I was working on, my podcast, which was like business as usual.

I had like 20 volunteers at the time that worked for me for free. So I was like doing my regular thing, working on my podcast, working on Disney. And at some point, You know, every time I used to end a podcast episode, my podcast was already like a top 10 how to podcast, that was my category at the time, I had big authors, my podcast was big, and I was already a LinkedIn influencer, but I was just doing it on the side, I wasn't making money yet, this was like about 2 years into it, and, the guests that would come on my show, they would always end and be like, Kala, Kala, Kala!

Um, I know that you're really big on LinkedIn and it's like super [00:17:00] impressive. Like, can you do this for me? Or they would say, Hala, you grew this incredible podcast, like, could you produce a podcast for me? I'd love to do this. And these were all really wealthy, accomplished people. And I'd always be like, no, I'm sorry, like, I've got this great job at Disney.

I can't help you. I've got a volunteer team. They just work for free. It's just a hobby. This is just a passion project. And I would always like kind of like push them off until one day a lady, Heather Monahan, who's still my client. It was three years ago. She basically, was stalking me on LinkedIn and every video she'd be like, Hala, I need you to do this.

Like, Hala, get it together. Like, run my social media. And I told her, I was like, Heather, I can't run it for you because I don't have the team. I don't have a company, but I'll teach you because I was bored. And I, and I also wanted her as my mentor because she's really successful. And so on the weekends, I started scheduling Saturday calls with her and I was like, I Taking her through my Slack channel, taking her through my templates, taking her through my video editing.

Cause I'm like a marketing jack of all trades. I can audio edit, video edit, copyright, like, [00:18:00] I'm like a marketing guru in my opinion. Not to like, you know, tell my own horn, but I'm really good. So I was like trying to teach her everything. And that's how I had a volunteer team because I used to teach them.

So they would just work for free for me because I would just teach them how to do things. And she was like, Hala, I just had a call with VaynerMedia. She's like, I can give them my budget or I can give you my budget. I'm more impressed with your stuff. I want to be your first client. And I, and this was COVID.

And again, my dad was dying in the hospital. I was bored and I was like, okay, like, let's do it. And so she ended up like paying me like 700 a month, like very little. And I started taking over her LinkedIn. I crushed it. Then I took over her podcast and her Instagram and I started taking over all her stuff.

Now the next month I had a billionaire. Jason Waller, CEO of Powerhome Solar, at the time was the fastest growing private company in the world. He invited me to his podcast. And at the end of it, he was like, can you do my, my social media, my podcast? And at this time I was like, yeah, [00:19:00] I could definitely do that for you.

And so I put together a proposal. I had no website. I had no logo. I had all I had was my team and a Slack channel that I just started paying because Heather was paying us like barely anything. And I put together a proposal. And at first. I had three services and I priced them 3, 000 each. LinkedIn was 3, 000 a month.

Instagram 3, 000 a month. Podcast production 3, 000 a month. I thought, hey, 9, 000 a month would be great. And I talked to Timothy Tan, who's now my business partner, and I sent him the number. She's like, Kala, this guy's a billionaire. Let's charge 10 grand. Let's charge 10, 000 each service. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Yeah. 

Hala Taha: And so I was like, okay.

So I pitched him. I put together this awesome PowerPoint. Again, I had no website, no logo, really no incorporated company yet. And at the end of it, he's like, boom, let's do it. And I had my first real client, 30, 000 a month retainer. And then it just skyrocketed. I got the CEO of Hint Water. I got the CEO of 1 800 GOT JUNK.

And I started [00:20:00] running all these big CEO social media. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Giving VaynerMedia a run for its money. I love that story. 

Hala Taha: They call me the young Gary Vee all the time.

Farnoosh Torabi: Oh my gosh. That's incredible. Now, you're making 30, 000 a month off one billionaire. Was there a part of you that was like, I better not screw this up?

Like I think I would be really nervous to take, although for him it's a drop in the bucket, but you know, and 

Hala Taha: I crushed for him, I crushed for him because I am, I had built it. Here's the thing. I already. was doing it for myself. It was so, I had no idea. I literally had already built a company. I had 20 people working for me already.

I had all the systems in place and I had done it from, I was crushing on LinkedIn. I was crushing my podcast. I understood media buying. I took him from a podcast that was getting 200 downloads. A month to like 200,000. And then I started making him so much money. So I was paying for myself within like six months, [00:21:00] right?

So I, and I blew him up on Instagram and I blew a bump on LinkedIn and I got him huge celebrity guests. He was so happy with the results. He actually like went through some PR issues. So he's not my client right now, but he was my client for like two and a half years and very happy. So. Like, you know, when you can produce the results, you can, then I just realized like, wow, I'm really the best in the business.

So I'm keeping my rates like this and, um, you know, within six months I was still working at Disney. I had 30 employees around the world. Now I had like my first U. S. employees I was paying and like I had a creative team in the Philippines. I had my ops team in India and I had built this global team. A lot of them were the volunteers.

And I started paying them six months into it. I was already making almost 200, 000 a month from all my clients in my business. And then I finally quit my job at Disney because I was like, okay, this is not a fluke. I'm crafting it. I want to go all in. And that's when things really took off when I finally quit my job.

Farnoosh Torabi: Working from home probably helped, I'm going to guess, [00:22:00] right? Because you'd read these Wall Street Journal articles, like people putting down two, three jobs at a time, you know, full time jobs. And you literally had. I mean, it sounds like more than just two full time jobs because it sounds like a lot of work.

Hala Taha: It was a podcast. But here's the thing. I had created a company that was working for me while I was at work. I had already built that. So I, for two years, I was basically working at HP and then Disney and I had a team that would work for free for me while I was at work and I would just train them and they were just aligned to the mission and wanted to be a part of YAP.

So then once I started my side hustle, it's like, I still had this team that was working for me while I was It's working my job. They were just working on other clients, not just me anymore. 

Farnoosh Torabi: So now you've mentioned already a few times these 20 people that worked for you for free. And I had a question here just about like, for those of us who want to bootstrap and kind of get up and running and we don't have a lot of resources or money, [00:23:00] uh, how do you What are your, what's your advice?

But I kind of just, I'm curious about how you convinced 20 people to work for you for free. 

Hala Taha: I didn't convince them. They asked me, which is so funny. my story I feel like is just so different from everyone else's. 

Farnoosh Torabi: It is. 

Hala Taha: I was growing my profile on LinkedIn and I became a LinkedIn influencer almost before I became a huge podcaster, but I was the top podcaster on LinkedIn for a while.

I still am. And my fans used to reach out to me in the LinkedIn DMs and they'd say, Hala, your show transformed my life. I'm obsessed with Yap. I want to help. How can I help? How can I help? And it was very obvious at the time that I was doing this for free. That it was a passion project and I was pouring like every single ounce of me in it.

And like I said, I, I didn't talk about this on the show yet, but like before this podcast, I used to work at a radio station. I interned for free for three years. I also had a blog, so I knew how to blog, create websites. [00:24:00] Uh, create, great copy that converts, connect with people. I hacked Twitter. I used to be a Twitter influencer, then I became a LinkedIn influencer.

I had many different online radio shows. So I was very experienced even though this was my first podcast. I was like, had all the things to become the number one podcaster in terms of my experience and my skills. So this was very obvious to my fans. They wanted to learn from me. So I had one guy that was like from Estonia, I remember.

He helped me with my website. So I teach him how to build websites, teach him how to update the website, and that was his job. Then I had one guy from Atlanta, Parth, who was really into the show. He wanted to learn video editing, so I taught him how to video edit, and then he was responsible to do all my micro content.

Then I had other people that would help me with research. That's what they wanted to learn. Then I had a guy, Hisham, who's still like on my team. He wanted to help with guest bookings, so he helped me with all the guest bookings. I would help him create email campaigns and taught him that. So I would just teach everybody the little things.

things that you have to do, and then everybody was responsible. And some of these people now [00:25:00] have grown into team leaders that are managing 30 people, and so on. So that was the first phase. It was like fans that wanted to be volunteers, and I was just smart enough to put them in a Slack channel, create a community, we'd have like quarterly calls, but everybody just worked like two hours a day because there was just one podcast and they weren't getting paid.

Farnoosh Torabi: It's like an apprenticeship. You were running a school. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Really. 

Hala Taha: And really, it's like once they felt like they learned enough, some people would leave, some people would stay, and then once we got paid, I started paying everyone. Then, once I got paid, I couldn't not pay anyone. But when nobody was making money, it was fine.

And actually, it was easier to motivate people when there was no money involved. Because it was just, we were all aligned towards this mission. 

 I'd love to pick your brain in terms of like, where do you see the next, the next platform, the next, you know, so you've, you've conquered LinkedIn and [00:26:00] podcasting and social media.

Farnoosh Torabi: What is next? What are, I mean, you can talk maybe about AI or whatever. I just feel like you have such a, an ear to the ground and you're so much at the forefront of trends. Where should we be investing right now our time? As creators, I should say. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, this is a great question. So I believe in terms of podcasting, uh, podcasting is no longer audio only.

Even advertisers are no longer thinking about it as audio only. It is cross channel. So people are listening to podcasts on audio, on YouTube, on live streams. So I'm really into trying to build my live stream presence because that's also where a lot of conversions happens because there's two way communication.

You can actually communicate with your audience. So live streams, in my opinion, is the forefront of podcasting. So LinkedIn Live, IG Live, YouTube Live, and whatever other platforms, TikTok Live, that, that enable it. So that's a big one. AI in my space, um, I think that AI is [00:27:00] obviously going to take over everything.

For example, with with my podcast and my network, one of the things I'm thinking about is like, how can we basically have AI create our audio commercials? Because a lot of my time is like recording intros, outros, audio commercials. You've got to refresh these commercials every month. So like, My idea is let's put all of our content in an AI engine and then have it like, you know, somebody else speak it and they can replicate it in your voice.

Sort of like how people are creating like Drake songs. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Yeah. 

Hala Taha: Because there's so much Drake content, you can do the same thing. Even like photo shoots, you can put in like, if I have a photo shoot, I can plug in all the photos from that photo shoot and then ask it to generate More photos in the same outfits in the same scenery, but just more photos.

So it's like everything's just going to scale. Um, and there's going to be more competition with content and more noise because everyone's going to be able to 10x all their content from their existing content. And everybody who has a lot of content is at the [00:28:00] advantage because right now I can plug in all the videos that I have.

From Yap and essentially recreate interviews without me even being present. 'cause I already have the content, I already have the pictures, I already have the audio. So anybody who's starting from scratch and doesn't have that content is gonna be behind and everybody who already has that content is gonna be able to start using it to replicate themselves.

Farnoosh Torabi: I tell you, um, after this, we're going to talk. Yeah. I, I, uh, it's overwhelming though to hear about it. You have such a drive. It is, this is very you. I don't, I don't know if this is in everybody. How do you stay focused, I guess? I mean, you have obviously team and you have many people working on many different things.

Hopefully so scattered, but how do you, how do you stay focused in a world where there is just so much distraction, so many shiny objects? 

Hala Taha: Yeah, 

Farnoosh Torabi: I just signed up for threads, you know, obviously when it [00:29:00] first launched and, and I've given up on it already, like 

just be like, I like 

Hala Taha: it's already Deb, it's dead.

Right, okay. It's not just me. I like, it talks about it on my podcast for like two weeks and I was like, I wish I never even brought it up, up , you know? 

Farnoosh Torabi: But you never know. I mean, you, I was, I was sort of bearish on, but. I, I am no longer, but I was bearish on Instagram for like the first two years or three years of Instagram.

I was a private account. Cause I was like, what do I want to share photos for? 

Hala Taha: Well, yeah, yeah, you were wrong on that one. Yeah, it's really, I think it's going to be really hard for new social media platforms to break out, but it's possible. I mean, look at Tik Tok. It's relatively new. It's crushing it, but because it's not an American company, it might go away and all this.

all this time and energy that people spend on it might be for nothing. So you got to be careful about what platforms you spend time on for sure. Um, but what was your question exactly? 

Farnoosh Torabi: How do you decide where to invest your time? You know, when you're looking at, like, what's the calculus? Like, okay, I think that [00:30:00] this channel is where I'm going to go because I see the, I see these data points.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, I am slow to adopt new channels. I definitely experiment, but in terms of like putting a lot of resources or investment, I'm slow to adopt new channels. So for example, like threads, like it's like I'm on it, but I'm not like doubling down on it. I'm offering it as a service, but I'm weary and I'm not going to like, I'm still doing the things that work.

I know I can get ROI from podcasts. is going to be the platform that I want to invest most of my time on. So I'm not just like jumping on every new shiny object, because I do realize that if you want to be successful, you need to leverage on certain platforms. So it's like, I'd rather be the number one person on LinkedIn and just maintain that than like be kind of popular on Instagram, kind of popular on threads, kind of popular on TikTok.

No, let me be the number one person on LinkedIn so that I can leverage that and grow the other platforms. So like, for me, it's more important to get a lot of leverage. Like, so for example, I invest a lot of my podcasts and a lot of my LinkedIn, and now YouTube. And that's what I'm [00:31:00] focusing on. Um, in terms of like my business, everything works together.

So like my podcast is part of my network. The same sales that I get from my podcast, I'm able to get from my network. My agency clients also like. Everything is like one ecosystem, right? A lot of my podcasters are my agency clients. A lot of my agency clients launch podcasts. I have a LinkedIn master class and it's all the training that I give my team for LinkedIn.

And as I learn new things, I update the class, right? So it's like, there's nothing that's outside of the ecosystem. The other thing is that like, I know which parts of the business that I'm scaling. My agency is boutique agency. Agencies are talent heavy. So, The amount of, you know, sense on the dollar that we make on the agency is a lot less of the network.

So my main focus is my network, growing the impressions, growing the sales. And at me as a CEO, because that's the newest part of our business, that's like 80 percent of my attention and all the other stuff I've been having for three years. So I've trained really great people to help me. And then I just show up for like [00:32:00] strategy calls and things like that.

So it's like I manage my time really strategically. And my team is really on point. Like we have daily huddles. We have quarterly, we have like quarterly planning, all of our big objectives are outlined, like it's just really plans, like there's nothing in the quarter that I'm doing that's not in our plan, uh, unless something really like threads comes out and we've got to like sort of like add that, but like, we really, you know, typically state a plan.

Farnoosh Torabi: All right. Well, last question, and this is softball. Because we've talked a lot about work and business and entrepreneur culture and strategies and operations. What does HALA do for fun that is unplanned? That, uh, you take the wealth that you've created to do something for you. Like when you're just, if you had a free Saturday or if right now someone said, clear your schedule, go do something fun, what would it be?

Hala Taha: So, I love getting facials, I love getting massages, I love walking around New York City with my boyfriend and [00:33:00] trying new restaurants, I love to work out, um, those are the things that I really enjoy doing, just spending time with loved ones, sitting at the pool, going on vacation, I love to dance, so, I actually have a lot of fun, um, for a long time.

Farnoosh Torabi: You do have a lot of fun. Yeah. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, but now I have a lot of fun, like, I, my, my life is very fun. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Well, you're fun. You're a fun guest. I so appreciate connecting with you. By the way, I live in New Jersey. I did live in Brooklyn. I would love to bump into you and, um, share, uh, I don't know, a stroll or something, but yeah, it's important to get out.

I know I feel like make me time. It's gotta be intentional. 

Hala Taha: 100%. 

Farnoosh Torabi: Halataha. Thank you so much. And come back anytime. I can't wait to be on your show. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. So much fun. [00:34:00]