661 Shinjini Das:

When we’re struggling as entrepreneurs, we can often make the mistake of letting our dreams… be constrained by our current circumstances.  It’s a trap that stops us from playing big, and my guest today – Shinjini Das  – shares how the unexpected growth that came from her Pandemic Pivot got her dreaming big again.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock, and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and here on Wings we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … on every business topic across every industry across more than 660 episodes now … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. Wings is all about women lifting as we climb, so share the love by sharing Wings with an entrepreneurial friend so they can accelerate their dreams! And check out our vault of episodes at MelindaWittstock.com

Today we meet a young and inspiring entrepreneur who’s been at it for 5 years … and is now finding her path in a new direction, moving from B2C to B2B serving large software companies with her content marketing and social media magic.

Shinjini Das is the CEO and Founder of Das Media Group, and she got her start advocating for what she calls her 15 million #GoGetters through real-time motivational media content marketing on her social media platforms to ‘go get’ their goals. Today we talk about her pandemic pivot into the B2B space, plus what has kept her motivated even when business wasn’t going according to her plan.

Shinjini will be here in just a moment, first:

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Shinjini Das’s media content has always been focused on inspiring people to make the first move to ‘go get’ their life and career goals, motivating personal transformations from dreamers to go-getters every day globally. She founded the Das Media Group at age 24, and 5 years later, it reaches target audience media markets of go-getters in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, with a key emphasis on helping people with no paths build career paths towards financial independence. During Covid she pivoted to serve B2B, B2C, and D2C business clients who need content marketing strategy and content execution to market their messages to specific media target audiences with monetization ROI metrics.

Today you’ll hear all about her pivot, how she went from $30,000 to $100,000 in revenue in less than a year, and is on target to 5X that next year. We talk about the psychological and emotional struggles entrepreneurs have when business isn’t going according to plan, how not to let present circumstances constrain your dreams, how to be open to new ways of doing business, and much more.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Shinjini Das.

Melinda Wittstock:

Shinjini, it’s great to have you back on Wings.

Shinjini Das:

Yes. Well, Melinda, you are such an inspiration, and you continue to inspire me. So, I am ecstatic to be back.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, well, thank you. So, there’s a lot that’s happened since we last spoke like just this minor detail of a global pandemic. And I mean, that was an opportunity, shall we say, to pivot businesses and necessity in many cases and also to start new things and I guess to learn along the way. What has been the biggest change in your company as a result of the pandemic?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, Melinda, great question. So, as a recap, because I know I haven’t been here in a while, but I started The Das Media Group at 24, I am 29 now. So, we are right about five years in which is very exciting. And I think when it is your first business, for me as a woman of color in the media, helping clients, businesses build content with motivation to essentially convert their target audiences, to identify and convert their target audiences, it’s just been really, really difficult because I was really counting on year four and year five to be our breakthroughs because we have been struggling, to be honest. In the beginning I think it’s just been really hard for me to breakthrough and get the right clients and get the right media exposure, be on the right outlets, because I’m also motivational speaker, I help dreamers become go-getters with my content.

So, I think the biggest thing that I did which was probably the smartest was just convert all of our operations to digital. So, the consultations that I was doing, again, they really have always been digital via the Google Meets of the world, via the zooms. But I really doubled down on that last year and this year, that we do all of these consultations, double down, triple down and they comprise the significant portion of our business now. So, I think that was a really good pivot and just digital product sales of my story. I wrote a memoir at 26 called Unapologetically Shinjini on apologeticallyshinjini.com and now we’re trying to find other distribution outlets for it for next year.

So just again, just doubling tripling, quadrupling down on digital media and digital forms of monetization. So, product sales, your sort of traditional client kind of service sales, locking in clients for content creation, monetization, having it be a completely remote work environment. I think that’s been the greatest thing that I’ve done. Moving forward, I get the question a lot, “Will you have an office? Will you be in person?” To be honest now, I’m just having so much fun and so much success being completely digital and being completely remote that at this point, I don’t want to break anything that’s not broken.

So, I think right now I want to stay digital, I want to stay completely online and kind of build out our client portfolios remotely, digitally. But of course, there will be a time when we meet them in person and we have our little, whatever, powwows and summits in person. But right now, we’re just digital and that has been, I mean the pandemic has definitely accelerated my push towards that domain because I had to stay alive.

Melinda Wittstock:

The pandemic. So was a massive pattern interrupt for everybody where it makes everybody, especially in the lockdown part of it where you start to think, oh man, I suddenly have this white space to think a little bit differently, to figure out what’s actually important to me, what’s actually important to my clients.

But it was also something that accelerate existing trends towards digital, towards virtual, towards remote. So, in a way it’s a gift. I mean, it just made everybody have to go faster to get to that place. When you think of your clients though, and how it was impacting them, I imagine it’s a big opportunity for you because everybody now is in this digital, virtual, remote world. Many people continuing on with it, or at least in some sort of hybrid. So, all your clients are kind of in the same boat, yeah?

Shinjini Das:

Absolutely Melinda. I mean, my business has just exploded during the pandemic. I mean, we went honestly $30,000 gross revenue, to almost a $100,000 this year, and I think that the growth speaks for itself. And likewise, right? I am chief advisor to all of these different software companies on their digital transformation journey, right? And so what kinds of content do they sort of offer on their LinkedIn pages, in their emails? How do you frame case studies for their clients to sell more software, to sell more software subscriptions.

So, I think that has been just incredible because they, and by the way they tell me, they’re like, “We’re never going back into the office.” They’re in Germany, they’re in Spain and they’re like, “We’re never going back into the office.” So, I think I am feeling, frankly, a lot more comfortable with this way of working because I’m like, okay, I think this is here to stay. And these are companies that are 20 years old, that are 25 years old, it’s not that they started yesterday.

So, the fact that they’re taking these decisions and our sales force also had a pretty big announcement on this in terms of work patterns and hybrid work structure and everything. So, I think that I do feel like I’m in the right place at the right time. And then when you think about content creation and the demand to build content that identifies your target audience and converts them from a B2B perspective, every single business needs that.

And then now I’m like, okay, well, I mean, am I going to go to $500,000 next year? Because that’s a lot. So, I think I’m at that stage now where I’m like, okay, you don’t want to go too crazy just because there is this unlimited demand for content creation and digital media sort of content creation. But at the same time, I also want to grow, and so it’s a fine balance, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it’s an interesting one because the inherent scalability of all things media and digital allows for scale, so long as you have the operational systems that are going to create as much leverage as possible. So, can you create it once and sell it 20 times.

Shinjini Das:

Sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so when it comes to content, I’m a big proponent of content repurposing and just like working super smart. But you’re right, everybody needs it. Everybody these days needs to be a media company.

Shinjini Das:

Yeah. That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

If business is about relationship, which it is, the nature of relationships have changed. So, somehow how do you generate that great relationship on social and digital media through great story telling, through really hyper targeting all that stuff. So I only see the demand for that getting bigger.

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, I know, which is why I’m like, oh my God, it’s time to go. Because I think for, especially speaking to kind of your first time audience, business owners, because I know you have a lot of first timers listening, I think when you are sort of struggling for so long, it’s hard to think big. And so while I’ve always had just these huge plans and I want to do original content production, I want to do, have my own kind of TV channel, I want my own podcast, I want all these things. I think when things don’t really happen the way that you want them to happen, you sort of go, oh, I don’t know. I mean, are these dreams ever going to happen? And then this year happen and now I’m sort of at that six figure level and I’m like, oh my God, everything is actually not even possible, but it is more possible than it has ever been, right?

I’m having to reframe my perspective, and realize that, okay, all these goals, yeah, it took some time. It took five years for me to kind of get here and have these clients and now we’re renewing agreements and doing kind of annual agreements for the first time versus the quarterly and things like that for services for content creation. Now we’re venturing into like copywriting, like hey, “Do you want us to write your copy?” Because a lot of people are like, “I don’t know, advising is great, but I just need someone to write this.” I’m also just following the market, so copywriting was not something that I don’t think I’ve ever like explicitly done, but now I’m like you know what, I do see a great demand for that as long as obviously you’re crediting us, you’re making it clear that someone else wrote this copy on your behalf. As long as you do that, I’m fine with that.

That in and of itself, Melinda, is a million-dollar market. So, I think I’m excited. I’m excited by what’s possible. So, I think that’s, I’m just following the demand. And to your point, we talked about this before we started recording, market share to me is so important, but also it is important for us to own the market. And so like right now we’re dealing with one very, very large software services provider. And so instead of me opening up other accounts, which I’ve heavily debated that I should just do that, I’m actually going all in, in this one company which is quasi the size of Salesforce, or maybe even larger actually.

And so, I am just going across geos, I’m going across departments and I’m just trying to build accounts internally. Because I think for me at this point, owning market share is a lot more important than, okay, let’s open up another one and let’s go over here and let’s go. So, you got to go deeper, you got to go deeper and you got to own verticals. And so I think for me, like I’m an engineer, having sort of that technology branding marriage, I think that’s really cool and a lot of tech companies struggle to sort of communicate their branding and I think that that is a huge leeway for us to open up other offerings because my whole ethos is motivational content.

Shinjini Das:

And so if you think about corporate trainings, HR related things, is there a potential for E-learning to motivate your employees and buy courses from us, and that is sort of another million dollar market. So, I think that’s kind of where I’m going with things is how do you own the market versus… Because I think my approach before was a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, banking is great and software is great and retail. But it’s like, you’ve got to…

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, this is something that a lot of founders walk through this because so many businesses start with, “Hey, we have a solution for everybody.”

Shinjini Das:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you might in time, you might become Salesforce in time where you’re relevant to everybody. But to begin with, it’s a matter of focus. It’s like doing one thing and doing one thing really well. And then refining the processes, the team, the operations, making that profitable and then hopping over to the next. A good advisor of mine once said, “Someone who’s trying to please everybody, pleases none.”

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, but there is a temptation to go really quick and try and do everything too soon. So, I think your strategy is really smart, especially coming from an engineering background, in a perfect place, Shinjini, to translate what those technical solutions are in a way that the everyday person kind of understands with a story so there’s some sort of emotional connection to that.

Shinjini Das:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you’re right, there’s a huge gap there. People don’t know how to do that. So, that seems like a great thing to do. And I also like your land and expand strategy, right? You just pick a company and you just keep growing within that company and it’s an easier sale because you already have internal champions.

Shinjini Das:

Absolutely, absolutely. And Melinda, I think it’s been really eye-opening for me because I’ve never had such an internal view of such a large multibillion dollar software services company. But it’s just been really, really cool to see like Latin America is structured completely different from the Americas, which is structured completely different from Asia, which is structured completely different from Africa, right? And not even just… Africa has multiple cost centers and Asia has multiple cost centers. So, I mean, I could be just busy for many, many years just with this one logo, right? And so, and not just that one logo, that one logo has multiple different clients who now we’re serving, right? So, it’s just been a very interesting view because I had never felt like this before that, okay. so let’s say you were work with Salesforce and now you’re working with Salesforce’s clients. That’s really interesting because that-

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s a great way to scale, right?

Shinjini Das:

It’s a great way to scale, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, this is the interesting thing about entrepreneurship, and we were talking about this before we turned the recording on, right?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Is that if we knew how hard it was going to be when we started, would we have started? And there’s a necessity in entrepreneurship just to be a continual learner, be constantly open to new ways and new learnings because with each setback, with each struggle, with each difficulty because they come, some of them you can control and some of them you can’t, some of them are beyond your control. But with each problem that you solve or each thing that you overcome, you get more confidence to be able to handle the next. So, as you’re building the plane, as you fly it, it’s just so important to have kind of forgiveness for yourself because there’s no way any entrepreneur can know everything going in.

Shinjini Das:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And every business is different. There’s no one roadmap, right? It’s different, it depends on what you want, it depends on all, there’s so many things beyond your control. It takes a while to really nail it down, right? And create those repeatable, you perfect something and then it becomes a repeatable process and can scale from there. But it sounds like you’re well on your way and it sounds like in a weird way, the pandemic, although hard, was kind of your friend. [crosstalk 00:15:37].

Shinjini Das:

Oh my god, oh my god. Well, and I think, and I want to be clear, I want to be clear, it’s not the pandemic that was my friend, Melinda, it was that it was the changes that it accelerated, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly, that’s what I mean, yeah.

Shinjini Das:

Digital transformation was the buzz word. I mean, I saw it on LinkedIn trending, I saw it from my client counterparts. I mean, every single company wants to be a digital company now. And when you look at that, I mean, I have been waiting for that announcement for years now because when I started all of this five years ago, I mean social media even was not where it is today. I mean, I struggled to get followers to my own personal page, whereas now I mean I’m just blowing up without an end in sight. So, I think also to your point, I’ve learned the art of letting timing also kind of dictate your flow. That five years ago, honestly, I was probably early, which is not bad. I mean, I think that’s great. I mean, I would rather be early than late obviously any day, but I was early and that means-

Melinda Wittstock:

I know about that one, back in 2010, 2011, I created algorithms that were basically solving the fake news problem with social media channels because I could authenticate algorithmically the relevance and reliability of user generated content on social media. Okay? And that was an amazing accomplishment, like that, I sure wish blockchain was around then. But like actually pulling that off and innovating mobile UI at the same time, it was really, really and now it would make sense to be doing that business, right?

Shinjini Das:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, timing is so much of this in terms of… especially with entrepreneurial innovation because entrepreneurs, really like the visionary type of entrepreneurs who actually see an opportunity, and we don’t know how fast or how slow that that’s going to manifest, just that it is.

Shinjini Das:

That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

We’ve got to figure out how to stay in the game and not run out of cash.

Shinjini Das:

Exactly. No, no, I’m just, I’m so happy Melinda, you are articulating everything that I have been through, but because it is my first time, sometimes it’s hard for me, to be honest, to articulate it as well as you’re articulating it. But literally that’s exactly how I have been operating, that I know my time will come. And not just that for you and I, it’s sort of the female founder. 25 years ago, I mean, it wasn’t that common for even women to start business. I mean, let’s just be not at honest.

Melinda Wittstock:

No, not at all.

Shinjini Das:

Right? And so I think for me, even that was hard and then just being young, being a female, being a this. So, we, both of us have had to deal with… And to your point, and that was my dictate for myself day one, I was like, listen, I know there will come a time when everything will change, you’ll reach a tipping point, everything will change. But you have to stay in the game until that tipping point. And to be honest, this is our tipping point, the five year mark, the pandemic, all of it has been our tipping point. And exactly, you are absolutely right, I mean I have paid off every everything that I had in terms of bills and everything and we are fully profitable. I feel like we’re in a really good place now. I mean, have I made it? No. But I think that I am very like, it’s, I’m in a really good place to actually make it. So absolutely, I mean, everything that you’re saying is just like 1,000%, 1,000%

Melinda Wittstock:

And what’s interesting is that you hit milestones, but then there’s the next and the next and…

Shinjini Das:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think the interesting thing too is bouncing out what’s a near term necessity, of near term things that need to be done. Middling term… And then your long term north star. And along the way to get to the north star, there’s never a straight line. I think our minds play tricks on us and we think that we have to know how to get there, and we can’t possibly because there’s so many things beyond our control. I like the sailing metaphor, that it’s impossible to sail in a straight line because the winds and the currents are changing. So, you basically zigzag your way to your destination.

Shinjini Das:

That’s good.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so when we get obsessed about like, “Oh, I have to know exactly how and control every process,” that actually gets in our way. It’s like the most critical thing is the what and solutions start to show up, right? Just by asking the right questions, being open to learning and just continuing on. And you know what I’m going to say to you, being kind to ourselves, I think that is one of the single hardest things for women in particular to do.

Shinjini Das:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think we are so hard on ourselves, we demand so much of ourselves and that we put ourselves last, we over deliver. Do you know what I mean?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And at the root of that is, I don’t know, I think sometimes we undervalue ourselves and it shows up in not being kind to ourselves in that learning process. And if there’s one way to succeed is to just kind of remind yourself of that. Because there was something you said earlier in this interview that I thought was really interesting that we can also get easily constrained by our present circumstances and lessen, or I don’t know, lessen our ambition in a way and think… Because we can easily fall into the trap, I think it is, of making decisions based on current circumstances. When in fact we should not be constrained by the current circumstances. It’s understandable, but somehow as entrepreneurs we need to transcend that.

Shinjini Das:

Exactly. Well, and I think that’s hard, right Melinda? And I also want to say, I did go sailing for the first time in Seattle this year. And so everything that you’re saying, I actually experienced it and you’re so right. I mean, not just not in a straight line, but the winds are changing, the currents are changing. I mean, everything is changing. So, but to your point, what I have been doing which has been working really well is your goal doesn’t change, right? Your process may change, but your vision doesn’t change and your goal doesn’t change. And so as long as you’re just hitting that, which is why like for me, I mean, did I wish that this all happened three years ago? Sure. That would be great to get to six figures in two years, but that didn’t happen and so-

Melinda Wittstock:

But look, but you got there. Take time to celebrate that because what I’m going to say is that, getting to six figures, it’s harder to get to six figures than it is to get from six to seven.

Shinjini Das:

I know. Listen, I thought that. I mean, not that I would know, but I did think that because I’m like, it’s just so hard to go from the bottom. So, because actually I didn’t really struggle so much to go from zero to 30,000, or zero to 40,000. In fact, it was actually pretty, pretty good to where I was like, oh my gosh, like 40 to 100 Melinda. I thought I was going to a die, because it was just so oppressive and just yeah, so many rejections, timeline was an issue, obviously cashflow is an issue. I really, I was like, this is ridiculous, this is insane.

But now like, 100 to 250, I’m actually very confident. 100 to 500, I feel very confident. A million? I don’t think I’m thinking so much right now, but even when that time comes I feel like that will work itself out. But I mean, 40 to 100 or whatever, 40 to 94. It’s just been, I mean, just very, very, difficult. And I think to your point, in those times, to me sitting there going, “I will be at 500,” sometimes you do feel crazy. You’re like, “This is crazy,” because right now you’re at 40, and I don’t know if this is ever going to be 500. So, I think I also-

Melinda Wittstock:

I have that with my team. I have that with my team, working with [inaudible 00:23:40]. Like okay, “When are we going to be in a million downloads?” So, the end of the first quarter, people get really nervous. Like, “How could we get there that quick?” You know what I mean?

Shinjini Das:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

But if you don’t set the goal, you can’t get there. You don’t necessarily know how long it’s going to take, but setting a goal is great, and you have to have those, and then it’s motivating your whole team to see that it’s possible. So, in our case I had to take people through, I’ll just say, “Okay, well, how long did it take Instagram to get to a million downloads?” Say, okay, four months, five months, that was breakout success. No one replicated that yet.

Shinjini Das:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Facebook took, I don’t know, 14 months, right?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

You kind of go through all of that. You say, okay, and so, and then what did they do? Okay? What if those things worked for us? What would we have to actually do to get there? What are a whole series of plans, or what kind of, how could we get there? And then you start getting some really great ideas of how to get to those goals. But you have to put them out there.

Shinjini Das:

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think Melinda, my new strategy, it’s interesting because I think now that clearly you’re at a tipping point, we’re at a tipping point, I’m at that stage where I think things can happen a lot faster now, right? So, I think the first five years, or the first decade for some people, frankly. I was just listening to another great female founder, she started this amazing jewelry brand and she said that it took almost a decade before she got venture funding to actually scale nationally and have about 100 stores plus and et cetera, and kind of the retail world.

And so I think for me, I’m at that stage now where it’s like things can happen pretty fast now. I think the first five years were very difficult, very [viz 00:25:37], but now kind of with a combination of ads, messaging, whatever, I know that we can get to our goals fairly quickly. So I think for me, my sort of projection from year five to 10, right? The decade, completing that decade, I think is a lot brighter than zero to five and I think my timelines are a little bit shorter because now I’m like, okay, I know how to do this, right? Kind of working ads, working maybe influencer partnerships, influencer marketing, we can get to where we want to go. Whether that’s followers from my personal account or once we come out with the podcast and this and that, downloads, I think you also learn the game. I feel like learning the game takes time.

And so for me that was definitely a big part of it is like, how do you sort of go viral on TikTok? I mean, how do you do these things, right? These are actually skills if you think about it, right? It has to be a certain type of content, it has to speak to a certain people and likewise with my clients, what are their goals? Okay, they want to like drive sales from this one company, great. Who are they targeting? Okay, what is he into? What is he like? I mean, is he on LinkedIn? Is he even looking at pro…

I mean, so I think you just have to learn kind of the game and I think now my timeline estimates are a lot shorter because now I’m like, we don’t need five years to do this again. So, I think that’s also a sign of growth, right? Is like once you kind of hit your maybe 200,000 downloads you’re like, “Okay, I get this, I understand how this works.” And then to your point, that target audience identification, whether you’re a media platform or in my case kind of service clients, I think that’s been really, really huge for me, Melinda, just figuring out who are you serving? What do they need? Where are they? And then in my world, how do you get unlimited people like that?

So, I think this one company has been a huge, huge example for me that there are just so many subdivisions in this one company that need exactly what we’re doing, right? And so one proposal can easily become 25 proposals, each for five figures, each for five figures, right? Because at this level any budget is like minimum five figures, right? And now I’m really excited, I’m like wow, this is like actually happening, right? So, I think that is also kind of a very critical piece of advice, right, is who are you targeting? Whether it is your personal Melinda Wittstock personal Twitter or your business? I think I was struggling with that a lot, Melinda, because I didn’t know who was following me, even as a motivational speaker.

I was targeting very privileged people before, lawyers, doctors. They were like, “I’m fine, I don’t need motivation.” I’m like, “Great.” This is clearly not my target audience. So, who is my target audience? And then I sort of came upon the underprivileged sections of society, Africa, India, Malaysia, Philippines and I mean there are unlimited people in those countries. And so now my following across just my personal social media is just off the chain, it’s amazing, right?

And each of those people, listen, maybe they can’t pay, a lot of are struggling, but they would download an app if I came out with an app and it’s a free download, and that sort of contributes to our metrics, right? And so I think I just had to really figure that out because I was really, really struggling with like, who are my followers and then with the companies, who do I get into that will actually make me a million dollar media company, right? I think that was just really, really difficult and I finally figured out a path. Which is why I say, I don’t think I’ve made it yet, but I definitely see the path for the first time.

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm-hm (affirmative). So, what are biggest lessons that you think that you learned, what were some of the challenges that you didn’t expect and what did you learn?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, I mean, I think that the principle challenge, Melinda is whatever your content is on social media, because that’s what everybody’s trying to do now, right? Everybody’s trying to build a brand. I mean, I don’t know a single person who is not trying to build a brand on social media. So, the challenge that I was facing is okay, I’m creating this amazing content and obviously people are inspired by me. I’m young, I started a media company at 24, I’m an engineer, I’m just, I’m truly walking representation for a lot of people. Great, fantastic. So, I’m publishing all this content on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on this, but the results are not really matching up, and when I did a deeper dive analysis I realized that these are not my followers. I mean, if you are just immensely privileged, you are growing up in America, probably white college educated, lawyer, mom is a surgeon, I don’t know if my content is for you in that way, right?

In the sense of I’m trying to motivate you, go to the next level, go get it, you’re a go-getter. Maybe this is not what you need because in your opinion, and this is the pushback that I got, they were like, “I’m already a go-getter.” And I think for me it took a couple of months for that kind of feedback to keep coming to me to realize that this is not my target audience, because if you’re trying to sell, I don’t know, jewelry to someone and she’s like, “I already have jewelry.” Then you’ll be like, “Maybe you should not buy more jewelry.” Right? And so I think for me that was a huge wakeup call that this is a problem.

If all of these people are coming back saying, “I don’t need motivation,” I should not be targeting them, I should not be following them, I should not be reaching out to them. And so I did a complete overhaul on my strategy I would say in the past year of really going deep within myself to figure out me as an individual, because all of my social media accounts are speaker Shinjini, it’s me as an individual, motivational speaker, helping dreamers become go-getters. And I realized that my DNA is sort of the zero to hero story. Somebody in India, somebody in Malaysia, somebody in the Philippines who wants to come to America, wants to live the American dream. I am a walking example of that, India, Malaysia, America. And so they see themselves in me, and so that is when I started targeting following just whole bunch of accounts on Twitter, on this, in that sort of young person of color, struggling in underdeveloped countries, my life has never been the same.

And it’s not just followers, right? I mean, this is not just about followers, it’s really about these young women messaging me saying they’re in Nigeria, they’re in law school, they decided to not drop out of law school because of me. And these are the kinds of stories that to your point, it’s so hard building a brand, building a this… I just, I wasn’t feeling the same energy from my audience, Melinda. And to be honest, how can you build a brand and I don’t know, sell ice cream or markers or whatever, to people who don’t give a shit? And just, it felt disrespectful because I know how much… I’m busting my self to sort of build all this content every day across my social media platforms and the result was just not really there.

And so I think that motivated my complete overhaul, even on LinkedIn now, if you follow me, you’ll see just pretty much all of India at this point follows me, all professional, all educated, but all somewhat struggling with mental health, with just feeling like they lack positive energy in their life. And now every day I get messages saying, “I decided to start a business because of you. I’m a go-getter. I’m from Kolkata,” which is where I was born. “I’m a go getter.” Now I’m like, okay, this is really working. This is what I’ve been wanting to do. And then likewise with my services clients, I was targeting media companies, I was targeting banks. I’m not saying banks don’t need digital content, I’m sure they do. In fact, I’ve worked with a couple of banks, I’ve worked with some financial institutions. Great results, great relationships in terms of building content to identify their target audience and monetize their target audience.

But I mean if you really look at it, do banks really need this? I mean, and I don’t know if the answer is yes, right? And then when I thought about technology companies, again, kind of going into myself and figuring out who I stand for, who I am, because I’m the founder. I’m like, I’m an engineer and I am in the media, that is my niche, right? And that’s when I started doing these digital transformation panels online. And that’s when I got connected with this multi-billion dollar software company. And again, my life has never been the same because even he was like, “You’re an engineer, you understand our struggles. We’re struggling with internal brand alignment. We’re struggling with the DevOps team not understanding sort of the marketing team, not understanding the user acquisition piece.” How do we build messaging that brings us all together?

And I mean, who better are than me to solve that problem? And so now I just, I’m in a very, very different place than I’ve ever been where my social media platforms are popping, the results are there. Because that media platform is a very critical part of my business, a lot of people think they’re like, “Why are you on Instagram? Just for fun and giggles?” No, that’s actually part of my business, that’s part of my brand awareness piece, motivational speaker, that’s my product right now. My social media platforms are my product until the time that we have the app and all of these other things that I want to build, my social media platforms are the product.

And so, I think I was feeling a little bit disrespected with the results that I was seeing, because I’m like, “This is not it.” And then of course the sales on the other side, they’re like, “We have a $3,000 budget for…” And I’m like, “Come on. How are we going to get to where we want to go with a $3,000 budget?” So, I think finally now I’ve understood my niche and I think there’s no turning back now. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what are the biggest mistakes that you think when your clients come to you, what are the biggest mistakes they’re making in their communication strategies and what are the biggest changes I guess, that you make in their strategy and their execution?

Shinjini Das:

Yeah. No, that’s a fantastic question, Melinda. I appreciate you asking that. It’s not something that I’ve ever been asked, but yeah, that’s my first step for anybody who comes to me. Whether it is an individual, a small business or an enterprise, because we function with three different levels. I think that the first issue is, was my issue, that there is no target audience, right? It’s not that it is the wrong target audience, there’s no target audience. And so a lot of my clients, even just some of the small businesses selling T-shirts, selling apparel, when I ask them, “Hey, who are we targeting?” There is no real answer. And that to me is a huge problem because if there is no target audience, guess what, there is no messaging strategy, there is definitely no conversion strategy, right?

And you’d be surprised how many businesses, they have great products, mugs, shirts, whatever, but they don’t know who they’re selling to and it’s a problem that is a lot more common than you think. Because I thought there’s no way that this person has no idea who they’re trying to target, but as I’m having these conversations and now we’ve worked with upwards of, double digit small businesses, so many different enterprise clients, I think that’s been really eye-opening that they really don’t know who they’re targeting, right? And so I think a lot of my work with them advising now is sort of figuring out, what is your personal mission, who are we trying to target, why are we trying to target the… Who is this person? And then we develop messaging accordingly. So, I think that’s the number one problem.

The number two problem is that there is no repeatable messaging framework, right? And so they’re getting very overwhelmed. They have to produce all of this content all the time. Obviously they’re not maybe that good at it, it’s not their core area of expertise and they’re just struggling and they’re like, “What? I don’t even know what to do.” And so that’s when I come in and we’re building frameworks for these clients, right? So it’s a lot of framework related activity, not just, “Hello. Here are four posts, have fun.” Because even I know that once those four posts run out in 24 hours, guess what? They’re back to where they started. So, I think our unique value add sort of as The Das Media Group, as we’re building out kind of our website to show kind of these case studies and stuff, is frameworks.

I’m really giving you content frameworks to identify yourself as a go-getter. Kind of dreamer to go-getter, just somebody who takes action, who’s moving forward, and those frameworks are personalized to your target audience, to your just stuff that you’re selling. And build that connection, like you said, with your target audience, because your target audience has to feel like you know them. And I think that’s probably the third mistake, Melinda, is that there is zero emotional connection. Not a little bit, there’s zero, because I think my clients are sort of your traditional apparel companies or software companies and they feel actually awkward to bring in emotion. And so, so much of my discussion on a day to day basis, on calls and stuff is like, “Hello, please sound like a human.”

Shinjini Das:

It’s crazy how much I have to say that because they’re like, “I’m in technology, I don’t want to talk about paternity leave.” And I’m like, “Hello, do you know that that is like a very, very hot topic right now?” Why wouldn’t you want to talk about being a new dad? This is not bad, it actually makes your story a lot more human as the VP of DevOps at insert company. So, just things like that I think I’m having to really work very hard to break through with some of these people because obviously as you can imagine in the beginning they’re not having it. They don’t want to talk about being a new dad, they don’t want about their vulnerabilities. They don’t want to talk about the time that they were almost fired and had to start another business or whatever it is that they’re trying to do to build this content to sort of sell to their target audience. They don’t want to do any of it.

And so my first initial sort of consultations with them is like, “Hello. Are you happy with your current success?” “No.” “Great, fantastic. Do you agree that we have to do something different?” “Yes.” “Okay. Fantastic. Can you please follow me and do what I’m saying?” It’s kind of difficult because they just don’t want to, they just don’t want to change.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Absolutely right. Do you have any kind of special offer or anything or how would be the best way for an ideal client to get in touch with you about maybe helping them with all their social media?

Shinjini Das:

Yes, yeah. Social media content outreach, all of it. Yeah, I think the best thing right now, Melinda, is to follow me at Speaker Shinjini across all of my social media platforms, whether that’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, again that’s S-P-E-A-K-E-R S-H-I-N-J-I-N-I. We are building infrastructure to really become kind of a more consumer facing business now. So ,kind of what you’re talking about like offers and consumer offers, I’m all up on that. I want to do that, I will do that, but it requires a little bit of infrastructure to get to that point of insert code Black Friday for new content deals or whatever. So, but I’m excited, I’m excited and I’m just being patient with our growth. So, definitely keep me in mind and us in mind as you’re kind of building content and inevitably you’re struggling to kind of create content that works for your business. But yeah, no, no, I’m excited.

So, I think at this point let’s get our website up and running, I think that’ll be a great first step up and then we’ll sort of iterate on that model. But I’m just trying to keep a very, very tight focus on my audience from a consumer perspective of the media platform as well as sort of potential clients. Because I think if that relationship is tight, they will follow me and us on the website on the retail offers, on the stores, once we have merchandise and all that. But that relationship has to be just rock solid and so I think that’s something that I’m just working on every day because that’s free, right? To your point, building a relationship doesn’t require money, right? So, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, congratulations on all your progress and thanks for putting your Wings on again with us Shinjini and no doubt we’ll talk again. I’m anxious to see where you are a year from now.

Shinjini Das:

Thank you, me too, me too Melinda. And likewise, I mean you’re such a mentor for me and I just, I want to stay in touch with you and I want to make you proud, I really do, because I feel like you’ve-

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s sweet.

Shinjini Das:

Yeah. I do think you’ve sort of paved the path for me and it’s been really hard. But again, I just, I feel very confident about where we’re going now.

Melinda Wittstock:

But you’re getting there.

Shinjini Das:

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, thank you so much for a great interview again and wishing you happy holidays and obviously a wonderful, nice maybe seven figure 2022.

Shinjini Das:

Oh, I, let’s, oh. I would… Yes. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Go for it, girl.

Shinjini Das:

Loving this energy, loving this energy, yes, thank you so much, thank you, thank you.