Girl Gang Craft Podcast Episode #74 “Becoming the Brand” with Andera Casanova

INTRO
Welcome to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast where we dive in deep to all things business, wellness, creativity, and activism for artists and entrepreneurs. We talk with impactful female driven companies and founders for an inside look at the entrepreneurial experience where you'll come away with tangible steps to elevate your business. Are you ready? I'm your host, Phoebe Sherman, founder of Girl Gang Craft artist and designer, and marketing obsessed. We're here to learn together how to expand our revenue, implement new organizational techniques, and cultivate best business practices as we work towards creating a life doing what we love. Let's get started.

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Girl Gang Craft, the podcast. It's Phoebe here. Your host, as always. Today we are talking with Andrea Casanova. She is a friend, a fellow Virgo. We only interview Virgos on this podcast. No, no, no, no, JK JK. I'm a Virgo sun sign. Anyways. Andrea, she's a fellow Virgo and fellow Adobe Ambassador. So we sat at the same table two Adobe Max's in a row, and we're going to talk about that a little bit in this episode. This episode is amazing. Andrea is so knowledgeable about really so many things and we dive into mental health, content creation, and like business structure, what works for you and what doesn't, and what worked for her and what doesn't. And hopefully you can take a little inspiration from that. But before we hop in to my interview with her, apps are open, so apps are open for all of our East Coast and West Coast events that’s Salem, Providence, Oakland, Sacramento, our new city. And you can apply to all our events at girlgangcraft.com/events, plus our Mother's Day gift guide which is also available to sign up for. And our Mother's Day guide, If you have any sort of product or service that is relevant to a mother in your life, or your customers life, go ahead and get on our Mom's Day gift guide. So really good opportunity to get in front of moms and folks who are gifting for moms for Mother's Day. Let's hop into that episode.

Andrea is a celebrity viral marketer born in Venezuela and currently based in Los Angeles. Her multicultural and youthful approach breathes a new life into global brands and successfully targets millennial and Gen Z audiences. A powerful keynote speaker and panel host, she has become the go-to source on storytelling and thoughtfulness in her community, sharing tips and tricks to help her followers and beyond level up in all areas of their lives. Let's get into it.

Hello. Hello, creatives. Welcome back to Girl Gang Craft, the podcast. Today we have my friend and fellow Virgo and fellow Adobe Ambassador on the podcast, Andrea. Welcome to Girl Gang Craft.

Andrea
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here. I know that this has been in the calendars for a while and I'm just so glad that we were able to touch base in the New year. New vibes new energy coming in with all my Virgo self this year.

Phoebe
I love it. I love it so much. So a little background. Andrea and I, have both Adobe Express Ambassadors for a bit, and we sat at the same table for two years in a row. And last year we made these little, like monsters, like whatever it was, I don't know

Andrea
Your your insecurities, your voice in your head

Phoebe
Your insecurities. I just immediately thought, anxiety monster. But that isn't for everyone, I guess. But mine was a little anxiety monster. Yours was like a little octopus situation.

Andrea
Yeah, mine was like a little octopus and actually looked kind of cute. I'm hoping I can find it so I can show you. But it was really cute. It was just, like, angry. Just because I feel like our insecurities are not getting deep already. Like, one minute in, but, like, I feel like our insecurities need to be nurtured a little bit more. Not so much demonized just because at the end of the day, if you break them down, it's like, yes, I'm insecure about something, but it's most likely because of past experienced reinforce that belief and who knows who I was during that time experience. It could have been a teenager or a child. Early twenties. I'm still well in my mid twenties now, but could have been in a moment where I was like really vulnerable. So I don't want to demonize those insecurities and whatnot. So that's why my little octopus was the cutest little thing, which is like a little angry.

Phoebe
I love that. And that's so interesting because for me, I think, well, I mean, I like cute things also. And like, I wanted mine to be pretty, but I wanted it to be a monster still because it’s so complicated, right? You want to, like, accept your stuff. You want to accept your anxiety for me. And then also, I kind of liked that we did the exercise putting in like a face to our trauma, our stuff or whatever, because then it sort of like it can be separate. And I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it.

Andrea
100%. I also think it was really interesting how it's like the personification of an emotion or insecurity or a thought or whatnot. It helps you separate it from yourself to the point that you are not so hyper critical because it's always like, I have imposter syndrome. I have anxiety. But what if it's just like a little entity that like, comes by and leaves? Like it doesn't have to be a part of you, even if it's like a result of an experience. I really like the exercise and I feel like it helped all of us bond at that conference and it was like, yeah, super cute.

Phoebe
I think I have pictures of both of ours somewhere, so maybe I'll just have them in the podcast notes.

Andrea
Must have them. Plus it was so cute and remember when I was trying to like share it with everyone, my phone didn't work or something like that.

Phoebe
You were on my phone, so I have to have it on my phone.

Andrea
And it didn't work because they kept showing on your phone, but it wouldn't show on screen. I'm like, Well, people are not ready for that piece of art. Yeah, but it’s what it is.

Phoebe
Okay. Do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about who you are and what your business is about?

Andrea
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Andrea and I'm originally from Venezuela. I was born and raised in Latin America, and then at the age of 17, I came to the U.S. to pursue the American Dream, which quickly turned into a nightmare when my parents were just went bankrupt, they were struggling with money a lot. And because of so many visa regulations, you're not allowed to work. You're not allowed to do many things. And so I had to hustle and figure it out. And it was a very challenging experience to this day is still is figuring out the do's and don'ts of being an immigrant and obviously the many different processes that we have to go through and the many challenges that were thrown our way simply by existing. It's crazy. It's like we're taxpayers and we do all these things, employ Americans and whatnot, and it's somehow still not enough. And some it's been definitely a challenge, but it did teach me a lot on how to hustle, how to get myself into rooms that I normally wouldn't be in, how to get clients that normally wouldn't have answered a proposal just because I had to do a lot of work for free. But I strategize it in a way where I could get their names and get their brands as part of my portfolio, right. So with all that being said, I'm a viral marketer, entrepreneur and social strategist. I focus on how can we get as many as possible on the parts of your story that really connect people and convert customers. And I've been doing this since the Vine and YouTube days and now obviously TikTok, Rreels, Shorts, all that good stuff. I went through a journey of start ups, corporate, all that stuff. And then eventually in 2019, I started working at a company whose main client was TikTok, and so I got the chance to spearhead Tiktok's amplification program here in the US and in Europe and drive user acquisition, meaning downloads for them, which was really cool because it taught me all about vertical video strategy and how to onboard brands onto such platforms. So from there I was like, I'm going to do this by myself. So I left in 2020 and ever since then I've been initially started as an agency, as a scale that realized that it's just not the type of work that I want to be doing and then have been a solopreneur ever since. Just coaching brands, coaching creators, public speaking, doing workshops and yeah, it’s been a lot.

Phoebe
That's so exciting. I mean, first of all, congrats. you do such cool work and you've been doing a such– you’re actual business, for such a short time, so that's awesome.

Andrea
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Phoebe
Of course. And I didn't know the TikTok thing, so that's really interesting. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that's really fascinating coming from someone who's so like working with TikTok on a personal brand side and someone who is like in TikTok.

Andrea
Yeah, 100%. So back in 2019, this was pre-pandemic. So by then Musical.ly and TikTok had already merged and TikTok was an uprising platform within Gen-z, but the usual stereotype was there's a lot of dancing, there's a lot of banana breads, there's a lot of stuff happening in there that didn't really resonate with a larger audience at the time. Obviously, this was before the pandemic, kind of did our jobs for us and by our lives, the app itself and it became a place for connection. But in 2019 I was at this startup and I genuinely thought that I was going to be I don't know why because looking back, I'm like, why would I even think that? But I thought I was going to be there forever. It was one of those things where, like the startup world really put that in my head of We're building this together. We we we we we, right? Until the weak gets laid off. And obviously, at that moment, it was really scary for me because work in immigration processes are closely tied together. So you have to move quick. You have to get the next gig really quick within two weeks of getting let go, I got the job at the agency Sapphire, who is Tiktok's, one of I think, top ten agencies in the world, which is really cool and I had to work directly with the Beijing team, which is really cool because it was basically working with the team, the created Douyin, which is the original O.G. Tik Tok, and so working with Tik Tok on the behind the scenes was definitely a challenge. A lot of new things just thrown at us. This was at the time where meme marketing was really, really, really like big strategy for growth hackers, meaning we would partner with meme pages and whatnot, try to get downloads for the apps.
So we definitely had to hustle a lot. And I think that working with Tik Tok on the back end, really, especially in the beginning, helped me understand the direction where they're going. So I've had, like I wouldn't say inside scoop. There's no like information that hasn't spread it to me specifically, but just like being behind the scenes allowed me to just put two and two together and see what they're doing over there. Then now they're bringing over here, for example, livestreaming and now Tik Tok, having places here in the U.S. where people can go and film live streaming and sell products and whatnot. That's something that Douyin has been like doing for the past, I would say 5 to 7 years, if I'm not mistaken. So they've built a billion dollar industry off of that. So it's like over there they're usually a couple of steps ahead. So it's like being able to work with Tik Tok allowed me to really grab all of that knowledge. And now that I'm giving that some of my knowledge to brands and creators and whatnot, really, I feel like puts me at a competitive advantage.

Phoebe
So how did you take all that knowledge to grow your own business?

Andrea
Honestly, this is going to sound so petty, but when I left my former agency and I love them so much, like I'm still very close to the founders, mentors and friends of mine, I just felt like I wanted more leadership and I felt like I wasn't really being seen as the leader that I could be per my skill sets and so I was like, You know what? Why do this for someone else? Especially for men? Why do this for men. So I just decided to take the leap and literally after my performance review, I was just like, Great, thank you, I will leave. Literally. That was just verbatim. And my bosses were very, very supportive. I remember them giving me even like two months in advance. They're like just in case. Know what I mean? Like, just take this. And my whole thing was, can I make as much revenue as they did on their first year? That was my whole thing. My friends thought it was petty. My accounting was like, What are you doing? And I'm like, I just want to prove that I can do that so that I know that I made the right move. And this is not to say that anyone needs to do this at all. This is like probably the worst advice I've ever given publicly. But I think it was just a moment of challenging myself and my beliefs. And obviously when you come at a place where there's a lot of people, let's say, given a promotion over you or a lot of broey-ness and whatnot, again, I absolutely love them. But obviously, like the pandemic changed a lot of behaviors because I couldn't go into an office as much because I have a household that's immunocompromised and whatnot. So definitely there was a lot of bonding that I missed out on. Obviously, that usually reflects on the opportunities that you do get to put your hands on, right? So for me, it's like I want to just prove that I can do this and whatnot. So I did surprise the revenue. the first year, which is really funny. We still joke about that. But then there I realized like, I don't like the agency world. It's that you definitely have to be built for it. And I don't want to say it was easy for me to scale, but I could scale it so effortlessly and seamlessly that at some point I was like, I just don't think of this like managing multiple employees and multiple clients and multiple asks and whatnot is going to be something that I want to have forever. And so 2023 in April was my last time offering a done for you service because I just kept like one client or two clients just so that I could keep that. But that was just my last time offering non free services. Ever since then, I've just been coaching, public speaking, content creation, and all that stuff.

Phoebe
That's so interesting really to think about the agency versus like the solopreneur style business structure. And I guess I’ll say I've been thinking about what it would be like to be an agency over here, and I've been thinking about it for a while. Are we going to go in that direction? I don't know to you all listening, but I can see how it can be. It's very like tangible to scale. You get a client, you can count on that revenue, which is different than what you and I do like our revenue is not dependable like at all. What does that look like to have that? And I'm curious about like more of some of the reasons why that didn't work for you.

Andrea
Yeah. And this is not to make anyone shy away from growing an agency because I think that it just works for some people and it just doesn't for others, period. Same way that my lifestyle probably wouldn't work for other people. But I think that for me personally, I'm highly sensitive. I'm a mental health advocate, so I talk a lot about my mental health journey. And agencies for me did require a lot of interpersonal relationships, right? You're learning how to manage a team, how to manage your own time, you're learning how to manage the team at another company. You're managing different budgets of clients from I remember I had a client that would pay me $400 a month, which was absolutely nothing. And I had others that were paying me $10,000 a month and it's like, yes, obviously there's packages and whatnot, but sometimes you sign a client just out of desperation and whatnot, and then you get angry at the expectations that you set in the first place. Right? So it's like it's almost like a mind game 24 seven. And in addition to that, a lot of brands saw the value in the beginning, had solid budgets and then truthfully, like content, and when it comes to like growing someone else's page and whatnot and getting them, people like UGC creators to create them and whatnot, like it's relatively affordable to them to just go to a creator directly and just pay them 200 bucks for a video image in perpetuity type of stuff, you know what I mean? And so for me, there was a lot of that where I just didn't feel aligned in my gut. I felt horrible. Like first of all, the margins were not being met because I genuinely wanted to pay these creators fairly. And I also didn't want to like the asking for someone's image in perpetuity or like this and that, you know, those are things that are a big no no for my values.
And it's just something that most actually, if not all of them would ask for. And I think that it just came to a point where it just was not aligning with my values. I'm making more money now with less time and energy being spent on something. So it just wasn’t for me, like the scalability of the model and whatnot. But I have other friends who are so happy with it and they can never see themselves doing what I do on a day to day basis. So I guess it just really takes a certain archetype to pull it off. And again, it's not hard in my opinion. It's just like it's a person's game, right? It's who you know, let's get one client's get the other, let's retain them, because that's something I also see a lot in this space. It's like, I'm getting techy clients and it's like, great, Do they stay on for one month or do they stay on for the six months? Yeah right. It's like retention is more important to me. So it's like, it's just a lot, definitely. So that's why that part didn't necessarily align with me.

Phoebe
What does your business look like today? Do you still have a team? I mean, here's three questions at once. I would love to know about your team, sort of like what your revenue breakdown is. You don't have to share numbers, but like what those revenue streams look like. Those are two questions. Let's start with that.

Andrea
Yeah absolutely. First of all, what my business looks like nowadays, it's very purpose driven at the moment. So for me, something that I debated a lot with last year was, okay, I'm doing this, but why? It’s the kinds of questions, what am I doing this? And we are taught to have like some noble why of like change the world, do this, do that could be as easy as I want to make sure that the generations to come are financially free. It could be as easy as I just want to make sure that I have more time to spend with my loved ones. Right. So it took me a long time to figure out my purpose, and that's like a whole other conversation. But after that, I realized that I wanted to focus on a couple of things. One of them was coaching one and one. I love connecting one on one with people. Obviously, that's higher ticket just because you're getting almost like not necessarily a done for you type of thing where you are getting specific strategies like, yeah, I'm not executing but you are getting my help, and I'm holding your hand through the way. I mean, addition to that, I host workshops. I adore, my workshops are usually intimate, 5 to 25 people at most and their mid ticket. And those types of workshops it's from brand storytelling to planning your year. I just hosted my first one this month when it was all about how to plan your year as a creative and whatnot. So definitely a lot of pillars to pull from. I don't consider myself solely a brand strategy person because at the end of the day, brand strategy is a mindset game, right? So it's like I think that I can touch upon different no way shape or form. So when asked me, Are you a life coach? Absolutely not. I'm too messy for that. But I definitely consider myself a person who's just walked the walk, you know what I mean? So from vision boarding to planning your year to brand storytelling, those are things that I consider myself to be a master of. And so I think that from there I just kind of like put one in one area. I'm teaching brand strategy on a one on one. It could be that my workshop is vision boards. In addition to that, I am starting my digital product journey. I recently launched my $11 Vision Board mini course and I adored it because it was super simple to put together. Took me one hour to film and edit and people loved it. I think I am comfortable sharing this part of their revenue just because I want to show people how easy it is to put together a low ticket offer and get it out there. I used the leaped for this and I'm actually coming in as an advisor for them, which is really cool. And then I sold over $10,000 worth of that mini course just from December to January. And this was with content again that I was going to be making anyway. Like I love talking about vision boards, so why not go ahead and monetize a concept rather than thinking that I have to monetize a whole brand, right? I would say that those are my primary, my preferred sources of income, but the most consistent actually are public speaking and brand deals. Just because I feel like there's a lot of opportunities out there because the amount of brands that are just realizing the power of social media and the power of vertical video platforms is unreal. A good thing that we're too late. We're like super early in the game. So those definitely are very consistent. But from a business standpoint, the coaching workshops and digital products, consulting as well, and then from the creator, more personal brand standpoint, public speaking and content creation for brands.

Phoebe
And you have no team currently, just you.

Andrea
I actually did have a team. I hired my first employee, I would say eight months after I went full time. It was a big jump and whatnot and that went great. Eventually I just realized that especially last year, that I was operating from a place of zero. And when you're operating from a business area, you're not a good leader. And I never want to give people a subpar experience or what it's like to work with me or for me. Last year I have been working with my content producer for almost two years now where he's in charge of my podcast my nd videos and all that stuff. So I definitely did have some work on that end. I haven't done like I decided to just put that contract on pause since December because I'm really evaluating how I want to show up this year. And last year was really hard with my mental health, so I didn't want to be managing people and doing all of that stuff. But yes, solopreneur for now, again.

Phoebe
I love it. So. Okay, so what is your day to day look like? Like how do you organize your day? Because I know you're a Virgo and I know you have some organizational systems. Yeah, let's talk about that. How do you organize your day? What are your weeks look like?

Andrea
Yeah, absolutely. So actually, I'm in my investor slash revenue equity, girly era, which means that I'm coming in as an advisor and as a partner at a couple companies and exchange of equity and other cool things and whatnot. That's just to say the least, because I'm truly like just getting the hang of it guys. And I don't want to be giving you guys the wrong turns and whatnot. But as of recently I took on a partner role at a company called Sonic Gods and we develop TV shows. So it's like a whole new other part of my career that I'm super excited about and I'm coming in to grow their franchises and spearhead that franchise growth, which is super cool. And our first show we just wrapped up the taping of it comes out on a major streaming network. I almost just leaked it– a major streaming network in April, so I'm super excited about that. It's a huge opportunity and I've had the chance to work with the brands who are integrated within the show super closely. It’s a reality TV show for entrepreneurs similar to Shark Tank and all that good stuff. So I'm super hyped. But with that being said, there's a lot more structure now than there was before. Like if you had asked me this question back in November, I would say that I just wake up at 11 a.m. and just go with the flow. But as of right now, it's like right after this, I have to go and brainstorm with some of their clients at the office and all that stuff. So I would say that on a week to week basis, I try to map out what my days are going to be like for content creation and what my days are going to be like for business, because I don't like splitting my brain when it comes to like, okay, I am a creator, or I’m a creative versus I am a logical person at this moment. Because if I do both on the same day, it can get very chaotic. Now I know that not a lot of people have the privilege to be able to just have different days for that. So there's strategies that we can talk about. But as far as for me goes, definitely Mondays and Fridays. I like to chill. I like to call those my CEO days. I focus on admin tasks cus I'm able to get creative. I go ahead and do it and then from Tuesday to Thursday I dedicate it to clients or partners that I'm advising. And those days tend to get really hectic. Usually the first half of the day is always dedicated to brainstorming because that's where my brain is like the highest. Then middle of the day. It's usually meetings. Anything else that I need to do in addition to that. And then I am in also my let's go for coffee and lunch era with everyone since the entertainment industry have I would say 90% of it is just going on lunches and meeting other execs at other production companies and whatnot. So that is literally my life right now. Every single day there's most likely a lunch with someone and whatnot. So definitely a lot more structure than there was before.

Phoebe
Our schedules are very similar. I also do Monday CEO day. Fridays like finances for me and like, let's be real, I just sort of like keep on putting that off. So it's like next Friday I'll be a finance Friday. I actually I'm going to just finish up task Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, same for me clients and community and Wednesday content.

Andrea
yeah I also do sometimes Wednesday contents and some of my friends like do Monday content I also just like if I feel like in the moment like I just want to get something out, I just go ahead and shoot it. But otherwise, definitely I like Wednesdays too. It's like a little fun addition to the hump day.

Phoebe
Yeah, I agree. My sister's also in the TV world, so she is always going to lunch or drinks or coffee with someone and that's her job. She does other things.

Andrea
It's definitely a new learning experience for me, just because I hate asking for things. That's another thing. It's like for my year is like so a year of asking because you never get what you don't ask for, right? It's like, let's go to lunch. Okay, cool. Let’s meet these other execs at these other companies and pretend I know what I'm talking about and hopefully some partnerships able to happen. So definitely an interesting journey that I'm embarking on.

Phoebe
I would love to hear a little bit about your brand partnerships because like you said, that's a huge part of your revenue, a huge part of your time. And you also mentioned being on the other side of things only paying UGC creators $200 and asking for their images forever. And I guess I want to say on a personal note, last year brand partnerships were hard for us, like it was hard to get a lot of at least new brand partners I think. Our like brand partnership relationships that we had before like were able to continue. This year, I already feel that it's going to get easier, Like people are already like more excited about things. I don't know what that is, but yeah, maybe a little bit about your brand partnership strategy and what that looks like.

Andrea
Yeah, so last year was an interesting one, right? Because the second the entertainment advertising revenue just pauses, everything else pauses because of the strikes lasting nearly the whole year, like, obviously there's going to be a lot of compromises on that front. It didn't just affect, obviously the majority of the damage was done to actors and the crews and all of that stuff, but it also affected a lot of the branding and marketing world because obviously so much depends on that type of advertising.

Phoebe
Honestly, I never made that connection. That's so fascinating. Know you're in that world and you're in L.A. and so like, I'm getting secondhand information from my sister and stuff too, but like, those things, like, never really connected for me. So that's really interesting.

Andrea
Yeah. I mean, if you even think about it, like when it comes to recessions, the recession is really cost like at the end of the day, if you break it down, it's like people pulling spend and being super conservative about it. It's more the fearmongering. And obviously this is a systemic issue. People should be paid more, etc., etc.. Like I'm not taking away from the big guy and how they're responsible for that. But I also will say that, like it's the moment that all of us go, we're not going to spend any money because a recession is coming, that’ the recession, in my opinion, that's the whole recession. It's the with the second that you like decided not keep swiping those cards because as we interrupt the flow of money, it's the same thing with when it comes to like big advertising revenue. I mean, think about Barbie having like, I forget what it was, but it's millions and millions. Was it a hundred million?

Phoebe
I don't know. I want to say 26 million, but mean you're just pulling that out of my mouth. Maybe that was their film budget and maybe their marketing budget was 100 million or something like that.

Andrea
Yeah, 150 million. On marketing for Barbie.

Phoebe
I think their film budget was less.

Andrea
Which is more than their 145 million budget used to produce the movie. Yes.

Phoebe
I don't know where the 26 came from.

Andrea
Imagine that across the board like I think that Barbie just came out like the week before or something the strikes started to happen more in-depth because the writing strike happened first then the actor strike. And imagine that amount of money just like paused across the board. That also affects a lot of the creatives because a lot of like red carpets or events, where they go hand in hand with that obviously are canceled. So definitely a lot of things. There's so many things attributed to last year being a freaking crappy year to say the least. For me it was a similar experience where there was maybe not a lot of new partners, but I will say my partners that have had for the past three years that I have been content creating, they were really consistent.
So I did still hit revenue goals on the brand front. So I want everyone to know that they’re still possible. My year was great. I actually am so grateful for that because since my mental health was so hard last year, this is the revenue that kept me going because I didn't want to be hosting workshops or doing one on ones and whatnot. I just couldn't do it. So I'm so grateful for the brands that did support me in the process. Those were Nationwide, Adobe, Google, like Google Pixel. I'm blanking on a couple more, but there were definitely a lot of brands who like supported me in the process. And as far as my brand strategy, honestly, I focus on long term collaborations as much as I can. I am managed by Wadler, which is a very powerful creator agency, and it's just on the rise. And I do appreciate that they do try their best to get the best deal for both the brand and also the creators. So I will say that my numbers look differently. When I was pitching well, I never pitched really, but when brands would reach out to me, I was like, can I get paid like $1,000 for this TikTok or whatever? And that has exponentially, I would say, even 10Xed or something along the lines because of my managers being a little bit more savvy on how they present. And it's also less awkward because I don't have ask.

Phoebe
That’s huge, congrats.

Andrea
So thank you. But there's definitely a lot of long term partnerships. So the more that you're able to prioritize long term partnerships, the better. I will also say that I think that the conversation about brand partnerships is something that we're going to have to pivot eventually just because the creator economy, there's a lot of buzz around it, right? The billion dollar industry blah blah But at the end of the day, we are not seeing the levels of impact that we used to see from like an influential, impactful person. Maybe we're seeing it from a group of people like think about it nowadays. It's like these group of creators are hyping up this product versus before it was like it took one YouTube video for one product to blow up. And we're still seeing some phenomenons like the Alex or Liz Michael. But that's changing in a digital environment, you know what I mean? Like everyone's valuing digital space is a lot more and whatnot. So that's not to fearmonger, but more to help you understand that you should prioritize becoming the brand over only working with brands. This is a moment where think about what you can offer other people. Is it a course? Is it a webinar? Is it workshops, is ita public speaking? Is it going into entertainment? I think in the future, honestly, a social media will, at the end of the day, be entertainment. It's a cycle that comes back around. And so I think that it's just prepping for those moments where times are slow, you know what I mean? And you don't have brand partnerships coming in, how can you make sure that there's additional things that you're working on?

Phoebe
Yes, yes, yes. I mean, in a lot of the community listening, we have a huge product based business focus, and we do have also a lot of people who do both. And so I do both. And also some graphic designers, photographers, etc.. And one of the main things that I always say is diversify your revenue streams, even if you're just a product based business, like how can you tap into some of the service things? How can you tap into brand partnerships? I think the entertainment factor is so interesting and such, like a– It feels so far away. I feel like maybe it's closer to you because you've literally already stepped your toes. You're living in L.A., but people who are not living in L.A., it feels far, but it's also so close because right? On Tik-tok, on Instagram, it's an attention economy that you're trying to take up as much attention as possible.
And hello, that's TV, right? The ads, like our social media, is just becoming a network or a TV network like ads, content, it's the same thing. So like the steps are there and I mean, thinking about turning yourself into a brand and even like extending how much attention you're taking up right, moving into longform video, even if it's just 2 minutes or 3 minutes, how can we start to integrate that onto YouTube? How can you take up 45 minutes? How can you take up like a feature film? It's right there. And I think the entertainment world has so much money. These brands have so much money like the Super Bowl. I mean, that's such a far example, right? But like, it's close, it could be really close. Like, how can we think big? How can we tap into these areas that have money while also serving that $11 offer?

Andrea
Yeah, 100%. That's the balance of it, right? I never thought I was going to have an $11 offer considering the one on one’s are are between 5 to $10000. But it's just one of those moments where I realized this is not part of my core identity. Like vision boarding is a content parallel that I'm passionate about, but it is not like I wouldn't most likely not put out. Who knows? I'll change my mind, probably, but I would most likely not put out something on like a whole course of storytelling for $11. I might put out a little downloadable and whatnot because that is where I created a lot of my trust with my audience. So obviously I don't want to jeopardize that sort of trust with them. But it's one of those things where, like if you're passionate about X, Y, Z and you've created about it, and it’s a content parallel, right, like vision boarding, it's dream mapping, it's business mapping, it's content mapping, right? So it's like it makes sense, like when you think about it, it makes sense. And so it was accessible and allowed me to also grow my newsletter. So it's just one of those things where like, we need to start hustling a little bit more. Honestly, I don't know about you, but I feel like this year, like last year was a year of effing chaos. Sorry, chaos.

Phoebe
You can swear. You’re allowed

Andrea
But this year to me just feels like, okay, get up, let's go, let's go. Like, you got enough. I wouldn't say rust, but I definitely got enough of a slow season so that I can come back and be like, This is the year. For me my three words are radiate like, I want to radiate everything that I do from the depths of my heart, my soul, and my connection to source and faith. Everything that I do has to come with a purpose. The second one is ask like, I don't even want to share details right, because it's still in the works. But I got two major opportunities to be featured on major outlets simply because I just asked, Hey, can I just be featured on this? And they’re like yeah. I'm like, Okay, cool. It was that easy. I've had this on my vision where for five years, Okay, cool. I didn't know that I could just ask. And then the last one is just like water the seeds that you've planted, you never know what seeds that you've planted years before. Even if that was a conversation with someone else. Like if you are thinking about someone right now, as I'm saying this, it's almost like we sign that reach out at them and water that seed go for lunch ask how you can support them and whatnot. And that's this year for me is diversifying all of that and also watering those seeds.

Phoebe
I love it. Let's talk about mental health and how you take care of yourself. I know you've been public about taking care of your mental health. Do you want to talk a little bit about that journey?
Andrea
Absolutely. So TLDR A long story short, I've been struggling with my mental health and not struggling actually. Let me reframe that by like more living with a different mental health experience. And I didn’t realize how different it was until I started taking medication. I'm like, Wow, I just live like that. Like, that's crazy to me. People could just like, go through the day not panicking. But with that being said, ever since I was really young, I knew that I was just highly sensitive and there was always a disconnect because obviously I don't want to generalize, but in Latina community, we usually have families that just don't believe in mental health. They don't believe in therapy. Like I remember at some point, my parents used to make fun of me for going to therapy. It was definitely really hard growing up like that because I never understood why I was feeling a certain way. Even like digestive system issues, my stomach always hurting and I always just thought like, I'm probably eating something. But in reality it was my anxiety manifesting through my digestive system, which are highly connected. Your gut health, your mental health, both very similar. Well, both come from the gut. It was very challenging growing up like that. I would just definitely had a completely different experience of the world. And as I moved to the U.S., obviously that year came another layer of feeling unsafe because of my immigration processes, being scammed by many lawyers facing so many challenges. It's just like it was a lot. It was definitely a lot that I am now processing after years of being here and obviously it's been great, but these are things that behind the scenes are just affecting you and you don't realize it until one day. I love this quote. It's like grief how do you manage grief? And it's by running from it until it finds me in the middle of the day on a sunny street, something like that. It's the same thing with mental health. It's like, how do you deal with mental health running from it until one day it just finds me in the bean aisle from the grocery store and suddenly I just have a mental breakdown there, you know what I mean? So that's pretty much how I dealt with my mental health. I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which is the inability to self-regulate and the inability to keep a consistent self-image. And I've been going to therapy for it for that since I got diagnosed two years ago. And it's been life changing for me. I go to hypnotherapy in particular. It's done wonders for mental health. I truly just like I'm so grateful for my support system. And last year came with a different set of challenges. I was explaining how last year just I felt like broke me down into little pieces so I could build myself back up in a way that made more sense to build like a stronger foundation. Last year, my year started with my dad almost dying and literally spending weeks in the hospital and then losing his leg. My immigration processes were becoming tough to navigate and finally, that's all out of the weeds. So thank God. But it was too hard to be dealing with my dad dying, taking care of them financially, taking them with them mentally. After that, my husband had an arrhythmia where his heart went over 250 and his heart was literally minutes away from running out of oxygen. So he had to end up being put a defibrillator in his heart, which was crazy to go through that. And amongst so many things, I feel like I was always on the border of grieving something. And I'm like fog. Like, I really hope nothing happens. And, well, thank God nothing happened. But it did put me down in the dumps. It came to a point where I just didn't even know what I was crying about anymore. And obviously that affected my work. It affected my deadlines, and that's why I'm so grateful for all my brand partners, because I was late, like months with videos or whatnot, and they would just send me flowers and like, keep me in their thoughts, even renew contracts for the future. So I'm genuinely, genuinely thankful for them. Never think for corporations unless it's like the people that are in there are great people. But it was just one of those years, girl. And in November I remember that I just sat on my bed and I'm like, I really need help. Like, I think this is what will define whether I stay on this earth or not. Like, that's how bad I was. And I remember I received a call with some bad news about a member in the family and my heart spiked up and I went to the E.R. and I sat there crying the whole time until they came to me. And they're like, Hey, your heart seems fine. We do want to see you back in one week. And I think that that was just their way of saying or like keeping you on watch, because this is weird. Why are you just here crying and your heart's like, spiking? And so I went back a week later and this is my first time getting a primary care doctor because it's my first time having insurance in the U.S. for a while. And she was so lovely. She made me feel so comfortable and she was like, Andrea, I know you're not fond of medication, but would you just try it? Because I feel like you really need it right now because I walked her through my whole again, like things that I've been going through the years. She's like, That's a lot, baby girl. Like, could you just try this for me? And I was like, You know what? I don't think I can go lower than this, so let's just try it. And I tried it and I remember her coming in with other doctors and they're all talking to me about like, Please don't hurt yourself. We're here for you. And I'm like, I don't have time to think about that.
Y'all. Like, I'm just really busy. I just have to, like, keep going through it. And so I ended up taking medication when I tell you that I immediately felt a relief within five days. Insane. And a lot of people were commenting like, No, you cannot get because I've been documenting my journey publicly. And they were like, No, you cannot feel the effects and we're not. bullshit.
First of all, women process medications differently than men. Actually, we do feel the medications before men do. Second of all, did you know that studies show that psychiatric medications have not been properly tested in women until, I believe, like the past decade or two. All the history that we have on psychology and psychiatry and medications and whatnot have prioritized men so much that obviously we don't know the full effects to how it could affect a woman. So, of course, I feel it differently. It was not placebo, obviously came with some little side effects, you know, brain fog and feeling a little jittery. But the rest it was just relief. I'm like, wow, I can finally process emotions differently. So I've been on Lexapro since November. No side effects really. And yeah, that's been my little journey with mental health. I'm open about it, I'm happy about it, and I'm glad that I didn't let the stigma of, oh my gosh you’re on medication keep me away from getting help.

Phoebe
Thank you so much for sharing. That’s so much. How do you take care of yourself in those moments when you're not feeling good or you don't want to show up at your desk or? Do you have any wisdom to share about that? Or maybe not? I don't know.

Andrea
Yeah, 100%. I'm really honest with myself and also with my support system. Like I have the best partner and the best friends in the world. Like, I'm just so grateful for them because they just get it. I've had situations– So Borderline, for example, the usual thing that you'll hear people with Borderline talk about is that we always ask people if they're mad at us because we can pick up on such quick micro expressions and micro cues. So even from the way that you text us to the way that you talk to us, if there's a slight change we perceive it, which I think honestly is what makes me a great marketer too, because I'm able to perceive and like I can close a contract on the spot because I can read microexpressions so well. But on the other side, it's like if you're having a bad day and it has something to do with you, in my head, it's still my fault. And this also comes from like living in an environment where you always had to predict people's emotions. So that's where my borderline comes from. And so obviously I'm trying to like work through it and whatnot and honestly gotten so much better. But I remember having friendships where I would be like, Hey girl, are you mad at me? She'd be like, this again? No, I'm not mad at you. It just felt so invalidating and so hurtful because I'm like, I can't control it. I'm trying my best, but I can't control it. Whereas now, I have besties and I just go, Hey, And they immediately know. They're like, No, baby, I'm not mad at you. I love you so much. I got you, let's talk tonight, blah blah. So definitely surrounding yourself with good people. Like if you are at a place where you think you're the bad character in your life, before making assumptions, just make sure that you're surrounded by really good people first. Because for the longest time I thought that I was genuinely a bad friend because I was always asking like once a quarter or whatever, which in my opinion is not even that much. Like I'm just asking you a couple of times a year of you're mad at me, and I had to cut away a lot of those people from my life and take those tough decisions. It ended up being the best decisions of my life because subconsciously or consciously, I'm not sure I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. There's people that are just energy vampires and that are just not rooting for you in the way that you would want them to. And it's not their fault, but it's their responsibility to deal with it. So that's the first one, is I make sure to surround myself with really good people. It took me a while, but I finally, through discernment enough. The second is I do everything that I can to accommodate myself. Like last night, a friend really, really needed me at one of his performances. I'm a good friend, so I was like, I'm going to go. But I didn't stay through all of it. I like went watch 20 minutes of it. I know I need to be up by six in the morning. I need my 9 hours of sleep. I got to come back. If I know that I'm going to be like, anxious because I have a lot of meetings in between. Sorry. Regardless of all the money you're offering me, I have to take the break in between. So it's like I just know my baseline. So that's always something I recommend everyone to do is like, know your baseline. What are the things that you can actually do without hurting yourself or like even getting close to making your body or your mind uncomfortable and really understand what those are.

Phoebe
Yes, yes.

Andrea
Obviously lots of therapy, lots of movement.

Phoebe
Therapy. Movement.

Andrea
Believe it or not, sunlight and movement actually do help.

Phoebe
So sunlight helps, as I say, from my January snowy window over here.

Andrea
At the L.A. first, like first time it's rained in a while, horribly so. Yeah.

Phoebe
I was just in California last week or two weeks, and it rained the whole time. And I was like, okay.

Andrea
Oh my god you shoulda let me know!

Phoebe
I mean, I was in San Francisco area.

Andrea
Oh got it got it.

Phoebe
But yeah, I'll let you know when I'm in L.A. next.

Andrea
Yes. Yeah I’d love that.

Phoebe
Okay. Well, this has been amazing. Is there any, like, last minute advice that you want to graciously bestow upon our listeners?

Andrea
I mean, yeah, I would say I'm not going to give the usual like trust yourself, believe in yourself, Listen to your body, intuition, blah blah. We're kind of tired about that. I would say like if there's anything that you take away from this is follow up with people that you probably ghosted or they ghosted you even. Just follow up with them as much as you can. Annoy them. It's okay. Get just the bravery to just reach out and ask for lunch because you never know how any of that is going to pan out for you. Like the fact that this week already got offered being featured in two major networks. It's just like unreal to me that I could have always just ask and I never did because I didn't feel good enough and whatnot. But here’s the thing. It's like there's people out there that are less qualified than you have less knowledge, less time in the space and whatnot. They just found the right angles. It's not even that they just got the bravery to do it. They just found the right angles that work for them and for the other person. So definitely anyone crossed your mind through this episode, As long as it's not a toxic ex, reach out at them and be like, Hey, I love to grab coffee, I'd love to grab lunch. And if you are an influencer and you are based in L.A., there's definitely a lot of events that we're going to be hosting. So definitely slide in my DMs if you are interested in that. But yeah.

Phoebe
Yeah. Thank you so much. This has been an absolute gem of an episode.

Andrea
Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. I was just so, so hyped and I'm glad that we finally made it happen because I've been excited to be on for a while.

Phoebe
Yay

OUTRO
Thank you so much for listening to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast. Head to Girlgangcraft.com/podcast for shownotes and more. See you next time.