#awinewith Jaslyin Qiyu
MEET Jaslyin, founder of Mad About Marketing Consulting.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Jaslyin, welcome to Spark tv. It's so lovely to have you here.
Jaslyn Qiyu (00:10):
Hi Danielle. Thanks for having me. Spark tv.
Danielle Lewis (00:14):
Yes, I know a
Jaslyn Qiyu (00:15):
Glass of bele.
Danielle Lewis (00:16):
I know. So good. I'm like, I've got water today. I'm totally off brand. This isn't good.
Jaslyn Qiyu (00:23):
It's too, it's okay. I'm having coffee my regular.
Danielle Lewis (00:28):
Perfect. Oh, so good. So good. Alright, well let's just dive straight in and tell everyone who you are and what you do.
Jaslyn Qiyu (00:37):
Sure. Yeah. So my name's Jacelyn. I'm the founder of me about marketing consulting, which essentially is a marketing advisory and consultancy similar to what people think of when it comes to management consultancy, except that I work very closely with heads of marketing as well as startups in terms of the csuite, to give them an equivalent of A CMO service, which they could otherwise probably not be able to afford, just to help them to get started or to get their business reviews done and see if they are still on track. So basically, these are the folks I work closely you with.
Danielle Lewis (01:18):
I love it. I mean, I know everyone listening in right now would be like, I wish I had a CMO on my team. What does A CMO do? Because I know as startup owners, as business owners, we're all in there going, oh my god, I got a post on social media today. And that's about as far as we think. But what would A CMO do for a business?
Jaslyn Qiyu (01:42):
So if we all can afford A CMO and get to the level of a scale of a big organization, which I believe everybody would have the ambition to do, basically we are looking at bringing your narrative to life. So bringing your brand narrative to life essentially is more than just having a very nice looking logo, a nice looking tech line. A compelling tech line essentially is bringing your voice. What is the purpose? Why do you exist? Why should customers even care about you? Right? It's not about what you think your brand stands for, but why? How is it relevant to the customers that you're trying to reach? And then through that I help them to strategize what is the narrative that you're trying to say? What is the value proposition that you're offering? Be your product, be your service? Then who are you really targeting in terms of the personas, customer personas, you have to do a very detailed kind of mapping to make sure that you're addressing all of your pain points.
(02:45):
Because ultimately I think companies don't exist on their own. They exist because their customers, because there is a demand for your service or whatever they're offering. If it's addressing pain points, then you just need a really solid marketing strategy. Bring that to light, not just putting out one or two ad hoc posts on social or doing a one or two ad hoc TikTok. But it is a very comprehensive targeting plan, almost omnichannel kind of distribution strategy so that people know about you because even if you have a solid proposition, if you don't tell people, they won't know, they're not going to be able to find you so fast. SEO doesn't work that way. So then you also need a solid content strategy, and that's part of my forte as well, to help them bring their voice to life, help them to pave the way in terms of the channels that they should be using. It doesn't mean that TikTok is always the right channel for you. It depends on who you're targeting. So there's a science behind all the marketing. So CMOs I would say they are quite important, but it's just in startups, they almost have to be a CEO, A-C-M-O-A-C-O-O-A-C-O. All the Cs roll into one, which it is not sustainable. So they do need some help from where I am.
Danielle Lewis (04:12):
I love it. I love it. It's so true. I think as startup founders or business owners, whatever we like to call ourselves, we just need to wear all of these different hats. And it's, it's interesting because a lot of people go into business to solve a problem or because they have a particular skillset or their particular creative hat and learning every one of these hats and roles is just so overwhelming. I love this new thing that has evolved that is the outsourced CMO, because I guess that's what you're saying, it have to, you don't come in as a full-time, CMO, they don't have to hire a full-time employee. This means they get access to all of those services, all of the strategic advice, all of that, but in an outsourced kind of way
Jaslyn Qiyu (05:01):
For sure. I'm not looking to displace marketing teams for sure. So they still get to keep their jobs. If you have the person is say instead I'm like his or her partner in crime, if you want to put it that way, a sounding board.
Danielle Lewis (05:20):
I love it.
Jaslyn Qiyu (05:21):
They don't get too lonely.
Danielle Lewis (05:22):
So how did you get into this? How did this come about? How did mad about marketing get invented?
Jaslyn Qiyu (05:30):
To be honest, it took me a while to get here myself. I mean, I've always had an entrepreneur streak in me because my father was actually involved, an entrepreneur himself, but I was quite ambitious. I started my own online shopping business, selling imported fashion wear and accessories for women back in 2 0 5. After my first job in advertising, I kind of moved it into a pop-up concept in store, but it became very time consuming. And then I also had a full-time job back then and I wasn't ready to do it full time in terms of this business. And of course, honestly, it was not hugely successful by any means. I had limited resources and the market wasn't ready in terms of the scale, the technology to even support that here in Singapore without KV investment upfront. And I'm still starting out in my work, so I don't have a lot of money.
(06:34):
And to be honest, I also wasn't really thinking enough about my value proposition and I wasn't doing sufficient market research prior to launching it. I was focusing about what I like personally. And then I thought, okay, that if I like it, my customers should like it as well. They did it. So eventually I sold my inventory to someone else and then I just went back to focus on my career in marketing and comms so that I can get more experience. And I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunities to work quite a big brands including ey, Citibank, JLL and so on. And then these opportunities allow me to hone my skills, refine my skills in all aspects of marketing as well as MarTech. But then I still kind of got restless. So in 2013 I started helping startups and SMEs with their own marketing strategies on a seasonal basis as and when ahead the time and because ultimately what really drives me and fuel me is the ability to help companies to solve their marketing problems. And it's always been at the back of my mind, eventually set up something like that. And it took me about a year to finalize my value proposition and business narrative for metabolic marketing consulting. So here I am.
Danielle Lewis (07:58):
Wow, that's so cool. So what did you do differently? So you had the e-commerce business, so started the business, then went back to corporate and then started this business. What did you do differently second time over when you started?
Jaslyn Qiyu (08:12):
Yeah, so because I've had two decades working in different companies and then I start to take a step back, why is it that I enjoy? What is it I enjoy most on the day-to-Day working from different companies, especially even when I spent maybe one or two years in certain roles, what attracted me to those roles in the first place. And I found that a census essentially, I like to transform things. I like to create things, I like to solve problems. So then I started thinking, can I create a business out of this? Because obviously the companies hiring help them solve problems. So there are a lot of problems out there for me to solve. So that's kind like I took a year to refine it because I was conscious as well, what other people are offering traditional marketing agencies, what are they doing that's different?
(09:05):
And I want to be consciously different because I'm not trying to compete with them. I definitely, that's not the nature nor am I trying to compete with the likes of a management consultancy because they solve different sets of problems. So that's how I kind of carve out my own niche in a way. And the idea of a seasonal or fractional CMO, I think it's still new in Singapore and I know that a lot of the people who came out to do this, they are still coming up from the agency side. Not a lot of them are coming up from the client side and being on the client side before I can fully understand all the pain points or the hidden skeletons and the cupboard kind of situations that companies don't want to admit to, but I know what it's like he sold and I know how to solve them. So essentially that's kind of how I differentiate myself.
Danielle Lewis (10:01):
Yeah, I love it. I think that that's really interesting kind of carving out your niche in the marketing landscape. I think that's something that sometimes people worry when they start their new business. There's so many people doing what I'm doing and it's having that ability to be self-aware and take a step back and look at the landscape and figure out what you love doing, what brings you joy, and then kind of niching down and honing in your unique value there. I think that's awesome.
Jaslyn Qiyu (10:34):
For sure. I think ultimately we need to believe in what we're doing. We need to find joy. I think you said it like you hit nail on the head, you need to be happy doing what you're doing. Otherwise why don't you just go back to doing used to be doing.
Danielle Lewis (10:49):
It's so true. Oh my god, I always say that. I'm like, so I mean I shouldn't say it's easy to get a job in this day and age, but it's easier to get a job potentially than have a business. So I always say that if you're not happy either get a job or change. That's one thing I love about being a business owner is we literally have the ability to design our businesses the way we want them to be. And at any point in time I could hang up this podcast and launch a brand new product this afternoon. That's the power of being a business owner is you can do anything you want.
Jaslyn Qiyu (11:24):
For sure.
Danielle Lewis (11:25):
Mind you, sometimes that's bad. Then we get shiny objects in room and then we're like, I'll launch this. This is a good idea, I'll do this, I'll do this. And then we never quite get anything across the line. But it is what makes it, I think exciting. Being a business owner,
Jaslyn Qiyu (11:40):
You get a lot of distraction and of course you get a lot of people who want to give you advice, whether it's well intended or not, and you kind of need to be in a space or a stage, you know how to differentiate garbage, garbage out, that sort of situation. You can't take advice literally from everybody. So I think it helps to connect with other business owners to learn about their own challenges. If somebody who has never been business comes to you to try to give you advice, I'm like, okay, I'll listen with Finish of Salt because you have never been in my shoes. You won't understand. Versus somebody who has a successful business or even a failed business for that matter. I think it's worth listening to them.
Danielle Lewis (12:31):
I completely agree. It's really interesting because especially people who haven't been in business, they don't get it. They're like, why are you working so hard and why are you doing this? And what do you do outside of work for fun? And I'm like, nothing. I'm obsessed with my business. I have no life. This is my life.
Jaslyn Qiyu (12:52):
Yes.
Danielle Lewis (12:53):
So it is funny. I really like that piece of advice that make sure you are taking it with a grain of salt when it's somebody that hasn't done what you're doing or they're not in the trenches. And I love that as well. Even people who have had a failed business know what it's like. I think that we're getting a lot better now at looking at failure as a positive thing and understanding that it is lived experience, there are challenges and sometimes it's good. It means that idea didn't work out, now I'm going to try the next thing.
Jaslyn Qiyu (13:28):
Yeah, I think it's more important to never stop trying and never stop believing. As long as you know that you have a solid proposition and that somebody out there moves that it always starts from maybe one customer, it always starts from one and there's no way we can go downhill from there. It always goes up.
Danielle Lewis (13:51):
Exactly, exactly right. I love it. What do you think has been your biggest challenge in business so far?
Jaslyn Qiyu (14:00):
To be honest, building my own credibility as a business owner. Striking a balance in my daily schedule, especially when things get hectic, because when you're tied to a corporate title and company, our reputation is somehow closely aligned with the company's own reputation and ending. But then when we become a business owner, we have to start from scratch. We have to build that credibility without that corporate backing. Of course, I find that it helps to have our own personal branding and reputation based on our view of expertise aside from whom we have been working for over the years. But it is still a challenge. And then also I think I have to be very mindful of how I spend my time and invest my time as well as my resources because it's limited. I need to know, be discerning as to know when I should move forward with a certain project or partnership. When should I step back? And even who can I trust to partner with around me? There'll be people coming and say, Hey, let's partner to do this together. But then at the end of it, some clients they might not have really good intentions or they might even try to steal your clients.
Danielle Lewis (15:19):
Yes, totally.
Jaslyn Qiyu (15:22):
It can be quite competitive that way. So I think we kind of need to be careful with our judgments and capital. We've got time.
Danielle Lewis (15:31):
Yeah. Wow, there's so many good points there. I remember on your point about building your own brand for your business. I remember when I moved from, so I worked for a decade, 10 years at Telstra in Australia, and everyone knows that brand. So whenever I'd call anyone, it was like, ah, it's Danielle from Telstra, and I was a salesperson. And it was just so easy. Even if people hated Telstra, they knew the brand was credible, so they listened to you and didn't hang up on you. And then when I started my business, of course I was the person that took the sales role for scrunch my other business and Spark. Today I am the salesperson for Spark as well, but calling someone and Hi, it's Danielle from Scrunch, and they're like, where you can't even, scrunch is the worst name to say as well and scrunch up a piece of paper. And I was like, I'm like, what is this? It was just the worst time. I think you get so spoiled working under a big brand name and then you move to your own business and you're like, oh, nobody knows who I am. Great.
(16:39):
So it was
Jaslyn Qiyu (16:40):
Very soering. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (16:41):
It is. Oh my gosh. But it's just time. It is that process of building your brand and that means so many different things. I mean, I think you said it at the start, it's not just a pretty logo. It is all that whole brand story. What channels are we going to be on? How do people recognize us? Do we attach ourselves to the face of the brand? There's just so many things to think about when it comes to building a brand and it's definitely not something that happens overnight. I'm 12 years into scrunch and people are still just discovering us. I guess we have great clients and all of that stuff and we've built it up, but when you think about the size of a giant corporate, people will still just be discovering us until the end of time.
Jaslyn Qiyu (17:28):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's so many companies out there that actually we are not aware that are doing great things on their own in their field, but then we might not be aware of it. But it doesn't mean that they're not good.
Danielle Lewis (17:44):
Exactly. Exactly. But I think you're right. It's our jobs as the business owner to help people feel comfortable with us, that they want to spend their money with us,
Jaslyn Qiyu (17:56):
The credibility, the trust essentially.
Danielle Lewis (18:01):
Have you got any advice for say a woman in business who is going, I don't think anybody knows about me, and they're trying to build their brands,
Jaslyn Qiyu (18:14):
Talking about being a woman in business. I'm not going to miss my words here. Yes,
Danielle Lewis (18:20):
Give it to us.
Jaslyn Qiyu (18:21):
There's an elephant in the room when it comes to this. It's a big one, to be honest. It is tough as it already is for women in corporate world. And personally as an Asian woman who has worked in large corporates and industries filled with men, it's even harder to actually have a voice sometimes. And I find that when it comes to business similar to corporate, men tend to have wider networks and stronger networks. Not because they're more capable, no, but simply because they're bolder, they're more confident in networking, they're more confident in putting themselves out there and just pitching for business whether they can actually deliver. They just pitch and then they worry about it later. But women, we tend to worry about everything, whether we can do it before we even try. So that is the key difference. So I actually had to learn the hard way over the years to get the confidence.
(19:27):
And I'm still learning today, to be honest, networking in open settings, it's not my favorite thing to do. But as a business owner, you just have to do it. But the important thing is that you do it without losing your sense of true self. I think that's important. Staying true to ourselves as a representation of our own values, the way we work, which then will also translate to our business value. So that's why I think Spark is such a great initiative to help women business owners with networking, learning, and even funding. It is really rare.
Danielle Lewis (20:04):
Thank you. No, and you are spot on. I remember even so my first business scrunch, so 12 years ago, and it's a tech company and walking into tech networking events, and it was just literally a sea of guys and oh my God, I remember. It's so funny. I remember, yeah. So literally my first networking event that I ever went to, this man who is very well known in the Brisbane startup ecosystem here in Australia, and it's the end of the night. Everyone's had a few beers. Of course it's just beers and pizza, what happens at men's tech deck working events. And he's talking to me and I'm talking about my startup and he's like, when people have had a few drinks and they don't intentionally spit, but they're spitting as they talk, and this man is basically spitting on me telling me how I'm never going to make it because I'm a blonde woman in tech.
(21:01):
I'm like, I walked out of that network and I'm like, I will show you. I imagine that has been the fire that has driven the growth of Scrunch for the last decade, but it's so true. As women of course. Why would we want to walk into a room like that? I can understand how women are like, this landscape sucks. And exactly, you're right. Why we do have Spark. We're like, no, we need to foster environments where women can get more confident, put themselves out there, be more bold, be more connected with people that can lift them up. Yeah, I just think you're right. Networking, peace and getting yourself seen as a woman in business is so important.
Jaslyn Qiyu (21:46):
Yeah. I mean the boys can do it. We can do it even better.
Danielle Lewis (21:50):
Yes. Oh my God, I'm all about that. I love it. Oh, that's so good. I love it so much. Amazing. And what's coming up for you this year? What's something exciting that you are working on?
Jaslyn Qiyu (22:05):
So I'm working on a few events with a few business partner, women, business partner, consciously helping other women to succeed that way. So I'll be organizing some, like a seminar actually on the 20th of September. And I'm also part of a community called Trans Talks. I'm the Southeast Asia advisor, so we're going to bring some seminar together in August and then I'll be participating in a few of my own to showcase my business in Singapore. And then importantly for the Spark community, I have a startup package just for you guys and the winner for the funding. We'll also get a prize that I'm happy to sponsor. I work closely with whoever's the winner to help your business succeed.
Danielle Lewis (22:55):
That is so cool. Literally, so generous. And we have your masterclass with the Spark community. Heaven knows when this podcast will go live. So if you are a part of the Spark membership, we have a June masterclass with you, but if this goes later, this gets published later, it's in your masterclass library, so they all get recorded and uploaded to the Masterclass Library. So it's so good. And you generously donating your services to the winners of the smart Women in business grants is just epic because obviously a lot of the money that people are requesting is for marketing services, but for some people it's like they've chosen equipment or operations or whatever. So giving them that extra level help with their marketing is just so awesome. I'm so grateful for you.
Jaslyn Qiyu (23:51):
Not at all. It is really my passion.
Danielle Lewis (23:54):
So good. I love it. I always love to wrap up our podcast episodes with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her journey?
Jaslyn Qiyu (24:13):
I think basically just do it. Don't even regret. Don't think about the why if you don't do it. You'll always be wondering about the what if. And also don't start a business simply because you want to make money out of it or because you're tired of working for others. Be clear about your objectives, your purpose that should be meaningful to your target audience. And then of course, don't underestimate the power of a solid brand narrative, the power of your Go-to market strategies.
Danielle Lewis (24:47):
I love it so much. Just do it, ladies. You've got this.
Jaslyn Qiyu (24:52):
Just do it.
Danielle Lewis (24:53):
Yes. Oh, so good. Thank you so much for your time today and sharing your story and insights and wisdom with the smart community. I'm so grateful for you. You are incredible.
Jaslyn Qiyu (25:04):
Thanks. Thanks. A pleasure. Is mine.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
