#awinewith Iantha Yu
MEET Iantha, Founder of PicStudio.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Ian, welcome to Spark tv. It's so good to have you here.
Iantha Yu (00:11):
Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting.
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
It is exciting. I have been stalking your website before our chat because we haven't spoken before and it's so impressive and so beautiful, and I'm so envious of your aesthetic, so I'm like, oh, I can't wait to hear all about it. So let's start off just by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Iantha Yu (00:36):
So my name is Ian, you. I'm the founder of Pick Studio. We are a boutique marketing and creative agency. We specialize in storytelling for brands, whether that's through photography, videography, copy. A big part of my business now is actually brand building. So we work with people mainly in the beauty industry because that's what my background is. We specialize in building beauty brands.
(01:01):
So it's actually a huge market at the moment. Everyone wants to launch their beauty brand. I'm sure you've come up with situations where you're like, oh, I wish there was a beauty product that did X, Y, Z, or I wish this skincare product was just perfect for my skin. So a lot of Australian women are capitalizing on these sort of ideas and they're wanting to launch their own beauty brand. So through that we do consulting. So maybe nutting out a good business name, how many products to launch should my eye cream contain this sort of ingredient? How do you think I can differentiate my brand in market? What should my slogan be? So we nut out all these little details. We do branding and retail ready packaging. So barcodes, copy, Australia's quite strict in, for example, the font size that you need to have on your shampoo bottle needs to be legible. So we specialize in that. And then also that rolls into website creation, copywriting, photography. Basically it's the turnkey solution for anyone who wants to launch a beauty brand. So we can do everything from scratch and then hand you over the Shopify username and password and you run with it.
Danielle Lewis (02:11):
Holy crap. That is, so, firstly, I just got goosebumps because I do have an idea for a beauty brand, and I'm not going to disclose it on the podcast right now, but as soon as we used to hit stop, I am going to ask you about it, the chat. Yeah, yeah, totally. So I'm very, very excited that our paths have crossed. That's very serendipitous. But yeah. So talk me through a few things. So firstly, I want to backtrack to storytelling. So that was a really interesting thing that you said, storytelling through copy, through videography, through photography. What is storytelling and why would it be important for a brand to nail?
Iantha Yu (02:52):
So I just always think that in this whatever industry you're going into, whether that's wine, whether that's beauty, whether that's fashion, whether it's cars, literally any sort of industry, you are not the only player in the market. There's always going to be competitors in the market. So having a really strong brand story is important to differentiate yourself, but most importantly, emotionally connect with your audience. So that's the short way of describing why storytelling is important. And I think that comes from different touch points. So when you are reading words on packaging, whether you're reading words in a paid ad, whether that's a beautiful model holding a product, or maybe it's a video, or even if it's an influencer using your product in their own reel, that's all storytelling.
Danielle Lewis (03:37):
Yeah, that's super interesting because I love this idea that sometimes we feel like our industries are a bit saturated, and there's a really nice, I think it's a Marie Folio quote that it's like the world needs that one thing that only you have. And I was just having a chat to one of my mentors this morning and we were talking about that as well. It's like people will find you and connect with you and resonate with your story and see themselves in your brand. So when we have those moments of, oh my God, everyone's doing what I'm doing, it's kind of the storytelling that helps sets us apart.
Iantha Yu (04:18):
Totally. It gives you the background info about what your brand is about, but also what is your offering and also how do you use your product, so that really sets your brand apart.
Danielle Lewis (04:29):
Yeah, I love that so much. So you said your background was in beauty. Talk to me about before pick Studio, what was the deal?
Iantha Yu (04:37):
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so I'm 32 now. I want to go way back when I was about 17 or 18. This was when blogging was still a thing. Remember before, oh my God, I
Danielle Lewis (04:47):
Love this already. Yeah, I know.
Iantha Yu (04:49):
I cringed at the thought of it, but I think it really set me up for the next sort of decade that I worked in Beauty. So I started off with a beauty blog. I just loved makeup and just trends and catwalks and backstage and that sort of thing. That led me to working a lot with beauty, Australian beauty brands or even international brands that had Australian offices. I think blogging was still a really new thing 14 years ago. YouTube wasn't even a thing. It was words in your own website. And then that propelled me into doing really cool brand experiences, having relationships with brands. From there, I worked in pr. I've worked in media agencies. My first media job was at Shop Till You Drops. I was Beauty.
Danielle Lewis (05:35):
Oh, cool.
Iantha Yu (05:36):
Awesome. Then became assistant there. I got made redundant there, which is a very common theme of media land. It happens all day. Media twice From there, I went to Women's Health. There's Beauty assistant. I was beauty editor on the carousel on the launch team of beauty crew, beauty director of Marie Claire. And then I got made again in April, 2020, and I was always itching to do my own thing. I was always curious about freelancing, about shooting branded content. And so that was the perfect push for me to do my own thing. This is also peak, so I knew getting a job was going to be super difficult. I gave myself a hard deadline and a hard budget. I was like, I think I gave myself two grand out of my redundancy payout. Is that all? Yeah, I gave myself $2,000 and I was like, you've got to set yourself up, do the whole agency thing.
(06:33):
Bought a URL, bought a domain, set my own emails up, and then just started my agency from there. And it is really interesting because when I first launched my agency, it's nothing like what it is now. I first launched my agency to sort of be like Flaunt, where you can access imagery, but we also shoot the imagery that didn't off. So we focused on shooting e-com imagery. I realized when I worked in editorial product imagery looked amazing. Swatches looked amazing. But why is it that when you go onto priceline.com au or David Jones or Adore Beauty, why does the e-com imagery suck? Why is it so different to editorial imagery? So that's what I wanted to bring together. So editorialized imagery that looked amazing for fashion, beauty, lifestyle brands.
(07:29):
So I started doing that and then that evolved into doing, hey, do you also do campaign imagery? Do you also do videography? Do you also do photos with models? Do you also do copywriting? Do you also do press bang, bang, bang? And you realize from, and you keep saying yes. You're like, absolutely, I do that. I'll figure it out. Yeah, it, it's all, it just snowballed from there. And it was all about taking the next opportunity. Yes, yes, yes. And then here we are three and a half, four years later. Wow. So how did you get from
Danielle Lewis (08:00):
Agency creative content to I guess building a brand from the ground up,
Iantha Yu (08:08):
So into a consultation process? So I'll talk to founders. They'll come up with some ideas. Hey, for example, oh, I've always wanted to launch a skincare brand that has this ingredient. I work a lot with, a lot of my family has this sort of skin ailment thinking about launching this brand. So we'll just sort of use the hour or whatever time to nut out what the problem is and then build a brand from there. It's a lot of consulting, it's a lot of back and forth. I just sort of see it as I'm just trying to make your dream come true. I can't apply myself and be like, that business idea sucks. I'm just trying to be like, yes, you are a hype girl. Yeah, I'm the hype girl. I'm the professional hype girl, and my job is just to tell you, okay, that's great, but have you thought about this? Or your competitive set looks like this, so maybe that in your branding you don't use that you use pink instead of blue.
(09:07):
So it's a lot of consulting. Some founders have a really clear idea on what their brand is, what their brand looks like. Some have no idea. So I think it's quite bespoke in the sort of advice that you give each of the founder. I'll have to say though, most founders lose steam. So it's not like a hundred percent of people that come through are like, oh my God, yay. We go from consulting to branding to packaging design to they do samples. We'll build them a website, photography. Not a lot of people make it from zero to a hundred.
Danielle Lewis (09:46):
I
Iantha Yu (09:46):
Would say 5% do.
Danielle Lewis (09:48):
Wow, really?
Iantha Yu (09:50):
Or less. People always run out of steam. We have people being like, oh, I can't find a good packaging manufacturer. And then they just sort of lose steam or they have a family or they're like, oh, my husband's going to build a cafe instead. Or Hey, people just, wow. Yeah, I mean,
Danielle Lewis (10:09):
Look, I think about my hair-brained ideas over the years and the lists that I have in notebooks in Clickup and just all these things that I'm like, at the time I'm like, that's the most brilliant idea I've ever had. And then you put it on the piece of paper, get busy with everything else, and it's like, well, that never
Iantha Yu (10:29):
Happened. Totally. But I just always think everyone has 24 hours in a day. Why do some people have successful businesses? Why do some people completely take off? But it's just continual trying, oh no, that doesn't work. Okay, I might go into this other direction.
Danielle Lewis (10:45):
Yeah, that's like, oh my God, that is actually such an interesting thought. There are always going to be roadblocks. There are always going to be reasons why you can put something off or go, oh, well, that didn't quite work out. Like you said, I couldn't find a packaging manufacturer. I'm like, I'm sure at all of the brands you've helped, you could give them a couple of recommendations. People will just come up with reasons why things can't work.
Iantha Yu (11:11):
Exactly. There's always an excuse, but it depends on how hard you want to push. How badly do you want this business? Right.
Danielle Lewis (11:19):
Oh my God, that's so cool. And do you just do the, so the brand concept or do you get into the manufacturer or do you get them to do the manufacturer?
Iantha Yu (11:30):
We do everything called front end. So we do branding, colors, websites, packaging design. Then they will work and find their own bottles or jars or manufacturer. So basically we give the factory the design, and then we also work with a local manufacturer called Australian Private Label, and they are absolute guns in creating custom formulas or they can white label their existing formulas, whatever needs to happen with wet goods or powders or protein powders or shampoos, whatever. The insides happen there, and then it comes back to us to do the outsides, which is build a website, do a photo shoot, that sort of thing.
Danielle Lewis (12:10):
That's so cool. I mean, it is really interesting. I think it's so cool that these days you can have an idea and either put all the pieces together yourself, but also come to someone like you and it's like, yeah, look, we've done this a thousand times before. Yes, it's going to be bespoke to you because it's going to have your story around it, your bespoke ingredients and your whatever. But in terms of getting it off the ground and going from zero to a hundred, somebody can do that for you. I think it's so cool that someone could come to you and just have a business in however long.
Iantha Yu (12:44):
Totally. Well give us a call. If anyone,
Danielle Lewis (12:46):
Totally, sorry,
Iantha Yu (12:47):
I
Danielle Lewis (12:47):
Don't mean to be to be spruiking you, but I'm like a decade ago this, you started your business, you had to figure it out yourself, and same with us. It was just piecing everything together and it's like we have never lived in a better time to start a business. In my opinion,
Iantha Yu (13:06):
Everything is Googleable, literally everything. When I first started my agency, how do you connect domain name to Squarespace,
Danielle Lewis (13:15):
Google, Google instruction, even
Iantha Yu (13:17):
The smallest things. The other day I was like, how do I add a link to a PDF by step? Totally.
Danielle Lewis (13:26):
Someone has answered your problems on the internet. You
Iantha Yu (13:29):
Can literally Google everything.
Danielle Lewis (13:31):
Yeah, it's so funny. I love that so much. So what was it like for you going from being an employee? So you were working in these media companies, working for creative agencies. I guess you had the blog where that was kind of your own thing, but how did you go from that employee mindset to business owner? What was that process like for you?
Iantha Yu (13:53):
I guess my situation was a little bit different because I launched my business in Covid and I had all the time in the world, and so it wasn't like I was like, oh, I'm only going to spend a couple of hours on this, or I literally had all day to try and solve a problem or nut something out or put a proposal together or whatever it was. I think also with my mindset is failure is not an option. So I will work as hard and as long at something until we get it right. And I think that's the difference between being an employee and working for yourself is that everything matters. Every single email, every single touch point, every single detail matters. I think when I worked in a team, I had an editor and I had a director, and it went through several lines of people for approval, but the buck stops with me. So I really have to be very micromanaging and have all my systems in place to make sure we run efficiently as a business, but also maintain that really high quality.
Danielle Lewis (14:53):
Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? I was just thinking about chatting to one of my team earlier and they're like, I just need to get focus on this. I can get as much out by six o'clock. And I was like, oh, I remember the days when I coughed up at six o'clock.
Iantha Yu (15:07):
Totally. I miss those sort of days where I can just be like, great, I finished my day. I'm going to go off to dinner now. I
Danielle Lewis (15:13):
Know
Iantha Yu (15:14):
There's benefits, there's pros and cons to both situations. For example, this morning I went to a nine 30 Pilates class and I had to sleep in and I deserved it. There are days where I'm working until 10:00 PM. So yeah, there are definitely pros and cons to both situations, but I feel like, and I think you'd relate to this, now that I've had my own business for so long, I don't know if I can be employable.
Danielle Lewis (15:39):
No, I totally agree with you. I think I would just lose my mind to be honest. I think that I just couldn't sit there and just not play. I love coming up with an idea and being like, okay, that's it. We are doing this one and this is going to happen and it's going to be, versus I remember thinking back to when I was employee, I'm like, I just have to make sure all my emails are answered before the end of day, or I've hit this target for the month or whatever it is. There was no fun and excitement and creativity and failure. I love, I don't love it when an idea doesn't work, but I kind of do. It's like, oh, well, that was interesting, what I learned from that and what can I then bring into the next idea? And you don't get in trouble when it's your own business like you do if you're an employee, you kind of just go, cool, what did I learn? What did we, and you also have a risk tolerance, so you might say, yeah, we're going to put two grand into this idea, so therefore if it doesn't work, that's the worst possible scenario. But sometimes you can't do that when you're an employee, right? There's no one saying, yeah, sure. Just waste $2,000 on a brand new idea.
Iantha Yu (16:49):
One thing I really miss about working in a team though is that comradery and also hanging out with your team, maybe getting a coffee at 10 o'clock, going for a walk, getting lunch together, Christmas parties.
Danielle Lewis (17:03):
Oh my God. Yeah.
Iantha Yu (17:03):
I miss that. I miss doing silly things with my work family or my work husband or my work wife, and that is one thing I really think fondly about. But for now it's just me and my suppliers are all over. I've got one in Melbourne, one in Sydney, two in Bali, two in the Philippines. Everyone's just sort of everywhere, and it's working at the moment. So it's just the,
Danielle Lewis (17:31):
Yeah, and it's really interesting. I'm the same. My team is completely remote and we talk all day on Slack, but it's not the same. Some days I go, cool, I have not moved from my office desk the entire day. I think I got up to get a sandwich. And then it's like, yeah, I miss that. Going for a walk and grabbing a coffee. And if you've got a cranky email from someone being able to say, oh my God, can we go have a bitch so I can it out of my system and write a reasonable polite reply back to my customer. Yeah, it is funny. There's kind of no substitute for being in person and in that team environment is there
Iantha Yu (18:13):
For sure.
Danielle Lewis (18:14):
No, I love it. What about lessons? So over the past few years, creating your own business, any big business challenges, business lessons that you've learned that if you could make sure somebody else didn't do it, then you'd pass on?
Iantha Yu (18:29):
Ooh, I'm all about efficiency in my business. So on my website you sort of get an idea of what we do, the kind of services that we offer, but once we get in touch with potential clients, we have set menus of what we offer different packages. Photography package one has 12 images, package two has 20 images. This is the price for each. I just find because I am at the top of the food chain in the sense that I am running the business from an operational point of view, but also sometimes being on set styling or doing the copywriting, I am sort of like the puppeteer that connects all the dots in my business. I need to make sure that all my offering is very black and white. You're coming to me because you want packaging design. This is my menu. You can go with option one or option two.
(19:20):
This is what everything includes. This is the price. So then there's no like, oh, do you do this? Do you do this? I think email back and forth is such a waste of time when we can just do an initial chat and then be like, okay, great. I think it'd be great for us to work together. I think we can work together on this. This is my menu for this. Here it is. So I'm all about efficiency. And then that goes right through to, for example, one of my biggest bug bears when I first launched my business was like, Hey, do you want to do a zoom meeting at 10 o'clock? And then it's the back and forth of like, oh, no, I can't do 10. Can you do three? Oh, no, I can't. Can you do Thursday? That killed me. And I get it because with your business, you've got Calendly. Calendly. It's a game
Danielle Lewis (20:03):
Changer. It's a game changer. Yeah,
Iantha Yu (20:05):
Totally. And it's like, oh, you want to have a chat? Okay, cool. Here's the link, and then if you want to reschedule, you do it on your end. But no, I'm just minimizing the useless back and forth when I can be using that time to work on my business.
Danielle Lewis (20:21):
And it's such great advice. And I also use that I love the, okay, whenever I'm doing something more than once or whenever something's annoying me, it's like, can I automate it or outsource it? And look, sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes there are things where you're like, no, that really needs to be me. I need to do the final QA or I need to write the words or whatever it is. But there are a lot of things that you can actually improve in your business and save yourself so much time. There is nothing actually, there's nothing that gives me greater joy than with these podcasts scheduled in. When somebody reschedules themselves, they don't even contact me, they just click on the reschedule and say, Hey, sorry, someone came up, blah, I've booked in for next week. And I'm like, I did nothing. I did nothing is brilliant. Exactly
Iantha Yu (21:09):
Why work so hard. Work smarter, not harder. Right,
Danielle Lewis (21:13):
Exactly. And I think it's interesting. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by our to-do list, we actually forget to step back and say, what can I improve and optimize? But it's so important to actually do that. I think I've actually been, I was listening to a podcast, which is on this topic earlier today, and it's actually got me thinking. I'm like, I almost need to dedicate an hour a week where I go, what's just one thing that I can just improve? And then it's like, it's not a lot of time. It's not like you've taken half a day or a day out of your schedule, but you've improved something. And it's like if you do that every week for a year, that's like 50 things in your business that you've improved and reduced your time. But you do have to be intentional about it. I think
Iantha Yu (22:00):
So too. And I think things can sometimes seem expensive. When I first looked at Calendly, I was like, oh, this is going to be an expense, but it actually makes perfect sense in the long run because that time that I'm saving, I'm actually making more money anyway to cover that. Right,
Danielle Lewis (22:18):
Exactly. It's like, well, if I can't be doing sales related tasks or client delivery related tasks because I'm just doing admin, then it's not cost efficient. I love that so much. That's so good. So what's next for you? What's on the horizon for 2024? Oh my
Iantha Yu (22:33):
Gosh. I was just redesigning my menus for 2024, which is super exciting. Super exciting. Just mainly fine tuning all of our offering, fine tuning. Particularly with shooting, I'm finding that our pricing is mainly, for example, campaign imagery, right? I'm starting to split that up into two different pricing. So one where the client is in the studio approving with us, and then another where we just do all the work and then we send you the images after. So it's just looking at what's been happening over the last two, three years. How do we fine tune this? Because I just want to make sure that both me and my photographer and all my suppliers, whoever it is, we are happy with whatever the outcome is, the work put into it. What else are we doing? I
Danielle Lewis (23:23):
Do love that it's such a good time of year whether people are listening end of 2023 or start of 2024. It's such a good time season to be reflecting, to be taking stock of what experiences you've had with customers and how you can improve and optimize offers. Yeah, it's interesting. I like that people are doing that right now, trying to set yourself up for a good 2024.
Iantha Yu (23:47):
Totally. I've been thinking a lot lately with pricing, and I think I'm quite firm in that. When I first launched the agency, I don't do retainers. I'm a big believer in that a business, their December looks very different to their February, which looks very different to their July. Every business is different. So I think having a business in a retainer situation doesn't really make sense. They might need more photography in one month, but they might need more copywriting in another month. So I did toy with the idea of getting doing retainers again for next year, but I've decided against it just because my business has been around for almost four years and we haven't done a single retainer. All we do is project work, whether that is a single shoot, whether that is an entire website, whether that's hours of consulting, it always works out. So I really want to continue working with startups with that startup mindset that we're not locking anyone into a crazy monthly price. And it's like, you just call me whenever you need me.
Danielle Lewis (24:50):
Yeah, I love that so much because people do get hell, Ben, on recurring revenue, retainer revenue, scalable, scalable. Everyone kind of has this mindset that that's what you need to do. But I love that you said it always works out and when people are there, they need me. It's such a good, that's my sales philosophy because people often ask because I'm a salesperson by trade my career before having businesses. And I always just say to people, if you just build great relationships, tell people what you do when they need you, they will come to you. It's such a funny, you don't really need that hard sell or have to lock them in or have to contract them. And look, there are times when that's appropriate, but I love that attitude of as people need me, we'll be here. And your work speaks for itself. Your work brings them back.
Iantha Yu (25:43):
A lot of my clients come through word of mouth as well. So obviously I have an advantage in that I worked in the beauty industry. I have really strong relationships with existing beauty brands already, but it's just word of mouth. That's why I'm so set on having a menu for my business. It's like you would never walk into a restaurant and be like, what do you serve? And they're like, what do you feel like? So that's why it's like when people are like, oh, what's your agency about? I'm like, okay, so this is what I offer. This is my price font. These are the packages.
(26:13):
You'll always have people come to you and be like, oh, you are so expensive. Or, oh my God, you're so cheap. But it's like, this is my menu. This is what I'm presenting. You can take it or leave it. And definitely, I think our work speeds for itself in that there's so many people out there that can do copy, can do photography at a much cheaper price point, but we are drawing from our experience in premium content. We've worked with the biggest beauty brands in the world, and we are bringing that to startup brands here in Australia.
Danielle Lewis (26:40):
I think it's awesome, and I love that point about pricing because no one will ever, and not everyone will be happy. Your ideal customer will be the one that is happy, but there are so many people that come to you and say, you'll have the same price. And someone will say, it's too cheap, and someone will say, it's too expensive. And you're like, well, this is what it is. It is what it's totally, and it's funny that everyone has their own mentality about pricing. So that's where I always feel like if it's right for you and your business, just stick to your guns.
Iantha Yu (27:08):
You'd never walk into rock pool, for example, and be like, I can't. You're charging $120 for a steak. You should be charging $30 for a steak. And it's like, well, don't go to rock pool then go to a pub. If you want to say yes.
Danielle Lewis (27:22):
It doesn't mean
Iantha Yu (27:23):
That that stake is not as good. Well, probably due to quality, but there's just a different market for everyone. It's just your job as a brand to find the right agency to execute your project.
Danielle Lewis (27:33):
I love that, and I love that as great lesson for business owners when you figure out your pricing and people test, right? I know I've gone through so many different iterations of pricing for different products in my 10 years, and it's like you just eventually land on the one that most people are comfortable with, that your works for your business model. That's enough profit margin to keep things running that everyone feels comfortable with and then stick to it. And yes, there will be people on the outside that have a problem with it either way, but once you've got it and you've kind of tested it, just stick to your guns.
Iantha Yu (28:10):
And it's about being confident with your offering as well. I know how much effort goes into every single in a paragraph that we write or product descriptions or I think, for example, we do a lot of copywriting for beauty packaging, right? Anyone can do that chat, GPT can do that, but are they drawing from all the experience in that? I know I've got a snapshot of the entire Australian beauty industry. You can't say X, Y, Z because someone else is already saying X, Y, Z. You can't do it in this tone of voice because someone else is. So it's all about having that background experience in knowing exactly what the industry is all about and helping your brand be set apart from others.
Danielle Lewis (28:53):
I love that so much. That is incredible. Do you have any tips for people that want to have a go at that themselves? So that was just something really interesting you said, as in really understanding what you stand for and bringing that out through copy, images, storytelling. If someone wanted to just start the little exercise for themselves, any tips on questions they should ask themselves or a process that they should go through just to try and connect with their story more and have it come out through their stuff?
Iantha Yu (29:22):
As in a brand founder doing their own copywriting, for example?
Danielle Lewis (29:26):
Yeah.
Iantha Yu (29:27):
Yeah. So I would look at what your brand is offering. Is it that it's, is it that it's washable? Is it that it's completely natural? Whatever your criteria is for your brand and your products, write that down. I always do a competitor analysis with all my consulting work that I do. So particularly in the skincare industry, you hone into, okay, let's look at other natural skincare brands. Let's look at other Australian natural skincare brands. How many products are in their range? What is their price point? What does their website look like? What does their branding look like? Let's copy and paste some of their homepage copy. How is theirs different and how are we going to set ourselves apart? So it's just about seeing what's in the market and how do you make it different. There is no point in this day and age to do a carbon copy of someone else's brand because everything is Googleable. Going back to what we were saying before, someone will always be like, you've copied your branding or your messaging or whatever you are doing to this other brand. People get called out for it. So it's super important to be original. And to do that, you need to be very clear on what your competitors are doing and how to set yourself apart.
Danielle Lewis (30:46):
I love that. That is such great advice. So speaking of advice, let's leave the beautiful Spark community with one last little nugget.
Iantha Yu (30:55):
So
Danielle Lewis (30:55):
Reflecting on your time in business, has there been a piece of advice or would there be a piece of advice that you would give another woman in business to help her on her business journey?
Iantha Yu (31:09):
Going back to basics, I would say don't ask, don't get. So when I was working in publishing and then moving into having my own agency, I did a lot of cold call, emailing, texting, outreach, just basically being like, Hey, I'm no longer working at Marie Claire and I'm now doing my own agency. This is my offering. And then I remember when, who did we first start shooting with? We shot with Akira, we shot with Boost Lab. This was all when their brand started launching and they reached out and they were like, oh, this is crazy timing because we're about to launch this beauty brand and we need X, Y, Z. We need X, Y, Z. So good. If I didn't do those initial cold emails, they would never know that I exist and that I had the offering of X, Y, Z. I still do it three and a half years on, I still cold email, whether that's with new suppliers, whether that's with random beauty brands on Instagram, just being like, Hey, just letting you know we exist. This is our offering. I'm not pushy in that. I'm not like, Hey, this is my pricing, blah, blah, blah. This is my offering, this is what we're about, sort of like a portfolio, if you will, and if you need me, I'm here. And it just always works out.
Danielle Lewis (32:26):
I love that. It's so good. It's the best advice because so many people think that sales has to be salesy, but it's not. It's just like, Hey, I'm here and just letting you know and the time is right. Chat to me. You don't have to be like, follow up, follow up, follow up. This is it. Get on a call. Be that sales process. I hate sales processes. They drive me nuts. Yes, but you are right. If more people know about you when they need what you have, you'll be top of mind.
Iantha Yu (32:58):
And then just maintaining that high quality work that we're doing. Word of mouth. I spend very little on paid marketing for my own business. I do it myself. I think I spend under $50 a month on paid on Google ads. I don't do any paid marketing on Instagram. Literally everything has been word of mouth for the last three and a half years, which is super cool. That is so cool. I wonder whether I'd be a lot bigger if I did put a little bit more money into spend, but I dunno if having a bigger agency means less quality control. I haven't figured that out yet. So yeah, let's see what the next year holds, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (33:38):
Yeah, no, I love that. And it's just a testament to if you do good work, people will naturally share. And if you are courageous enough to reach out to people you'd love to work with, then naturally when it's the right fit, it happens. It's just you can grow really intentionally and nicely. It can feel good.
Iantha Yu (34:02):
Yeah, and I think that's just my vibe. I think I'm not pushy as a person. I'm not hard sell as a person across my socials or my business or whatever it is. It's just like, Hey, I'm just here. You need me.
Danielle Lewis (34:16):
I love it so much and everyone should take that piece of advice, just be you. So good. Totally. You are incredible. Thank you so much for your time today, IHA. You have been phenomenal sharing your journey and wisdom with us. I know everyone in the Spark community would've gotten a lot of value out of that. So grateful you came on the show.
Iantha Yu (34:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
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