What's up? I'm Rachel Spiewak and this is Rock Your Tribe Radio where community, fun, social media and business collide. I firmly believe that parties are the answer to all of life's problems. Seriously. Building a community, bringing people together for a common purpose and serving them, that's your mission as a business owner. Let's make it happen. It's time to rock your tribe.
(00:28): Everybody. I'm Rachel SPE wack your digital community architect and Facebook power admin. I'm here with my good friend, Mila Bannister hates me a lot. How are you? Hey, Rachel, I have grandparents so welcome. We're going to talk about summits today.
(00:46): I'm excited. Ask me to, we are going to talk about Jameela is summit. That's coming up at the end of the month, the brand print summits. So good. Changed my life when I was a speaker last year, but before we get into it, let's get to know Jameela a little bit more feel like, can you tell us about yourself and about your business?
(01:05): Sure. Okay. So my name is Jamila Monistat. I'm a personal branding strategist, and I work with entrepreneurs, many entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs who are in transition from one stage of life to another, that they're ready to be and put themselves out there and get the reputation of their be more visible. I mainly work on three main areas, so I have them with strategy, confidence of it, so that they feel empowered to go there. We have them with their content so that they know they build a community online and put themselves out there and certainly have them be better with communication so that they can elevate their message on a mass level, through media, through networks. So it's all about brand visibility on being strategic on putting yourself out there. Amelie is to grow your business. You know,
(01:56): We love that and I love your work. I'm a big fan. And we came together last year. I think you sent me a message on LinkedIn. I think this is how it happened. I think you found me on LinkedIn.
(02:11): You asked, of course, you know, I do my usual LinkedIn stalking all the time. You know, I got my eye on somebody and I want them, as I said, I want a VAT person. I like what they are doing. And yes, yes. I did see Rachel to be very honest. I saw evolution through part of your careers to be honest. And when she kind of settled on the community, building elements of a career where she is now, and I think this is truly where she finds her most natural fit. But when I was probably in the summit, I felt that this was a really important part of building a personal brand on, especially the online piece that a lot of people kind of miss. So I said, you know what? I want her. So I did write on my smallest stalk and I reached out to her and I said, I want you, I, and what I usually tell we are still doing this thing together. So
(03:05): Theater, yes, here we are. So let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about your summit, the brand print summit. What is the mission of the summit? What's it all about?
(03:15): All right. So the brand, the prince summit, as a concept really arose out of a book I wrote called the Branford and the book is designed to give people actionable steps, to be able to take themselves and from invisible to impactful within a particular period of time. So I really laid out all the personal branding secrets inside of that book, you know, from strategy and mindset, et cetera. So when we developed the brand print summit, it really was bringing that to life. So last year was the first installment and I was new to summit. There was a summit of Virgin, so to speak even though not really, really well. And I'll get into that, of course, but now this time it has evolved and this year's theme is invisible to impossible in 12 months. So we want to help persons who are ready, looking to put themselves out there, who are persons who have been undecided as to whether I should do this, whether I shouldn't do this, or I am ready to do this, but I'm not quite sure what step I should take.
(04:15): This summit has been designed very, very, very strategically to help take you from invisible to impactful. So we moving through the stages that I would walk you through if I was working with you personally, you know, so from strategy, I mean even content and media with community building, of course, I mean, there was media and networking and then I'm going to tie it all together. It was a bowl and kind of show you how you can leverage that into driving live in your film business. So that is what we are going to be dealing with this year. So I'm really excited for that.
(04:45): It's a great summit. Should I tell the story about, you know, the story about how I blew it with my first recording? That's okay. And you know what, give me give both of us the opportunity to kind of grow me to be honest, because it was my first time hosting a summit, but I had a clear idea as to how I wanted people to learn. And, you know, I'm so glad that you were kind of open and receptive cause you know, some people are like, what, what does she think she is? No I'm telling you, this is very helpful on quite a few of the speakers who would have jumped on the summit last year, as well as this year are new to summit. Right? So like some people don't need, we'll put experienced summit speakers. And for me that's a little bit very narrow because you know, people can really develop and grow with you. I mean, we'll talk about that too. When you kind of spend a little bit more time, the relationships you build are immeasurable and they pay off a lot. So yes, Rachel came through the summit, come through like a G you know, and so the Wu-Tang, as you can see behind her, she can't, I think, I think you came with what you were used to doing, right. That's fine. But I think once you've got in there, you realize, okay, I have to change a big game.
(06:03): I'll tell the story briefly. So it was my first summit, never did a summit before just said yes. Like it sounded like a cool opportunity. Didn't really prepare my talk for it. Most of the video that I had done up until that point was just live video, not really prepared kind of videos that were going to be recorded and then consumed by people later, you know? And so I popped on the zoom with you to record it and I just freestyle it top of the dome and it was not good. I totally bombed it was terrible.
(06:40): I was like, you want to give this another try? I don't think it quite caught charitable. Yeah. You were nice enough to say, okay, Rachel, you want to get it together and try it, but I'm so grateful that you gave me the space to grow and that kind of support because I have done so many summits since and mostly repurposed. The talk that I developed for you, I've been expanding on it ever since.
(07:10): Yeah. Wow. That's fantastic. That is amazing. That's really, really good. So yeah, being a summit speaker was really life-changing and I want to get into that. I might have, you know, our questions here. I might hop around a little bit. So being a summit speaker, what I experienced at brand print was we really built a community of summit speakers. Is that typical? For some, I know it was your first summit, so it might be kind of a hard question to answer, but how does community play into being a summit speaker
(07:43): Part of this summit? I do want to know I would have gotten my whole summer structure from [inaudible], but I'm learning from her. One of the things that she advocates is that you put your speakers into a community, you are in a Facebook group, easiest way to do that. And the reason for that is twofold. One, it makes communication with them really easy because you know how it goes. Sometimes, sometimes you may receive an email. It may go to your spam. You may not see it, or you may see it. Then you may forget to respond. It happens all the time. It even happens to me. But when you put people into our Facebook group, usually they will get the notification. And typically people click to see what is being said. Typically they click, it was a video with a live video. They will tap on that notification and then go on this one was supposed to make communication a lot easier, a lot more than it for this because, and the second reason is exactly that to build community, right?
(08:40): Because the speakers will jump onto the summit. You know, I was taught people, treat this like a trade show, you know? So when you go into a trade show environment, you are really there to network connect and you will have an opportunity to talk and build relationships with people and pitch what you have. Right? All the things you can find, whatever parameters is set by this summit host of course, but do not forget the opportunities. There are to network laterally, right? For the people next to you. You know, it's not just about getting new clients, but it's about establishing new relationships. So having that rule was really important. And there was some people like you, Rachel, who saw the opportunity and gauge with the speakers. You may not have engaged with every single one, but you certainly didn't actually work on, you know, build some relationships over the last 12 months. And it has manifested look, you're on this summit again. So it was a no-brainer for me to say, I need to reach out back. And when I heard some of the feedback from some of the participants, as you well know, there are people who truly appreciated what you shared and they don't let them into what getting your class, they bought stuff from you. So, I mean, when, when on the road,
(09:51): I want to give a shout out to Tamara Mon Louis, who is another speaker at the summit, and that's how it's Mara. And I met, she watched my talk about Facebook groups and that is barreled into 12 months of more working together, more collaborations. So it being stopped by you on LinkedIn and invited to be a summit speaker bombing my first recording, getting my act together and then meeting Tamara in particular, this has turned into so many more opportunities for
(10:30): Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And I know Tamara, I also met Tamara last year, 2019 about December. And we started working together in January, even having her as part of this summit, we, we started working together just a short time before, you know what I mean? But building a community takes time and it takes the real investment to kind of go the distance with people. And that is what the community allowed us to do. And being introduced to each other. I know we might try new things. You might say, Richard, can you check me on this day? Or I might ask for help with something else. And it kind of gives us the opportunity to spend time with each other. That introduction was so necessary. So I'm glad that everybody, at least the ones who took advantage of it can really see the food and shelter to tomorrow. As you said, we appreciate her so much.
(11:20): Just something for the members of our communities to think about when you're invited to be a summit speaker is looking at it like an opportunity to expand your network and really take the time to get to know the other speakers. I think that's one of the really big values of being involved in.
(11:38): Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think people shouldn't as this administration sleeper now definitely take advantage of that. If you're in a group interrupt, even if the group doesn't have a lot of interaction, which other people individually look at their presentation, I said, listen, I love what you said about XYZ. You know, I definitely want to connect, see who they are. Can I put them on LinkedIn or wherever you can connect with them? I think it's really important that you take advantage of the potential relationships that lie among the other speakers. For sure.
(12:10): So let's go back to the beginning of brand print summit because a lot of the times when we have big visions for things that summit is a big vision, we start with an idea of what we think it's going to be and what we think we want to accomplish. And I'm really curious if that's the way it panned out or if it turned into something else or evolved into a different kind of experience than you expected.
(12:34): Well, when I decided to do brand prince summit, it's kind of funny how that happened because I had a small online event called 2021 in April of 2020. Wow. Since Australia just a year ago that this happened, it was a 100% live event. That was two days was aids because on my, my meals are free the entire time because it was a 100% live event. So a short time after that, a friend of mine sent me an email about the summit. I attended the summit. I thought it was so good. I'm like, wow, this is such a great event. Nothing was live, everything was pretty recorded. And that's where I was introduced to the concept of using summits, really to drive engagement and to build community and to build a mailing list and everything, everything, it doesn't mean it's an all in one funnel, right?
(13:22): So when I decided to do it in the back of my mind, I just want it to be it, but to find an opportunity to kind of generate some revenue. So that was kind of went into it. But the process, it completely changed me as, as a business owner changed the way I approached things. It forced me to spend a lot more time strategizing, how exactly is this supposed to play out on the other side? So when is this over? What do I want to hop on for people find the process really allowed me to kind of re-examine my entire business structure, so to speak. So Kevin's had an empty into this event. I know I wanted to monetize some of the things I was doing, but it expanded my network and kind of regroup me in terms of thinking as a strategist to really plan, what do I want people to learn from this event?
(14:14): It introduced me to a whole bunch of new potential people. It allowed me to connect other people to each other. So, I mean, yeah, we made some sales and increase my mailing list done and all those kinds of things, but it really did deliver a whole lot more. And it allowed me to, I mean, I become a digital event producer in a huge kind of way. I mean, I had none that in real life, but you know, I didn't, I hadn't done it in a metal way as I did with this event. And of course I went, I had to be extra. They tell you more than 20 speakers as a first time, I have to do 30 something because I'm extra like that. But it was a great event. And it really did. We shaped my mind from a business development point of view and it expanded my network for sure. So I didn't get to reposition my brand too. That was great. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
(15:05): I think it's a huge authority building kind of thing to do. Yeah, it is. And then of course I preached postnup branding and our authority building. And I saw this as an opportunity to kind of put me into a different space because they know what I am based in Trinidad and Tobago and summits as they are. And the way I produce them is not very common. They have a very common most people, they know they have an event and then you pay an entrance fee and they have a whole bunch of speakers. But my summit is designed in a way to literally train you on the spot. You don't pay an entrance fee and you invest in actual tools to have to get the job done was a completely different concept. A lot of people are like, wow, this is free. Wow. Oh my God, I can't believe you're doing this for free. So it puts me in a completely different category, but everybody else in my space. Totally. So now everybody's like, you know, buzzing about my Stamets and it's pretty cool. I have to say, you can brush your shoulders off a little bit,
(16:16): Rocking a digital community. That's the future of marketing. Do you want to get ahead of the curve? Let me show you how to use real life, community building strategies to grow your brand, your authority, and your army of marketers. Head over to rock your tribe.com to send me a message. Let's get this party started. I love
(16:35): All of this. You know, I went from being a real life event person. Not only have I DJ'ed for a living, but I was also a nonprofit founder co-founder and director. And I put together all of our, our benefit events. It was a pay what you want bicycle repair shop. So we did, we did these big, like bicycle race, scavenger hunts around Atlanta that would end at a party. And so I would book the talent. I would book the venue. So there were a lot of there's a lot that goes into event planning. So I feel you on it and being able to convert real life event, planning into the digital space is an interesting experience, but a lot of fun, because you can take it international, which is exciting.
(17:21): Oh yes. I love that element of it. I love the whole idea of us scaling effort. 10 of us sitting here in the Caribbean, that is not something that'd be do a lot. Usually you find the persons who do that are the ones who may have left the country for some period of time, lived in the us, lived in the UK, experienced life outside of the country, I'm their back. And they can really apply those concepts here. But just from a growth point of view, it is impossible to rely on. I mean, I live in a country with 1.5 million people. I mean, that's less than many states alone in the United States, right? So when you want to grow just from a numbers game, you have to expand internationally. You have to grow on a summit, even if you went in the S or any UK.
(18:09): I mean, I bought things off of summits and I'm not in either one of those countries. You know what I mean? So the international scaling of it is great. My love, the fact that you are now an international event producer with a summit, you know, I had really, and has a totally different orientation. When you think about it, you know, get that media coverage internationally. So many things just completely change when you do that kind of event. So of course, for the people who are involved in the event, you also benefit with the journey from, from that you are exposed to a whole new market. You are, you know, you're seen by a whole new group of people, you find that, you know, all of a sudden that you're in like 10 countries and you didn't even cater for that in the beginning. So Rachel, you know, we are a special bunch. I just have to say
(18:54): Your summit is really special. It really is. It is. Yeah, definitely. As a summit speaker, there's a lot of work that goes into it as a speaker. Oftentimes you get yourself into a situation where you're like, oh, I got to send all these emails and I got to get a freebie together. There's quite a number of tasks to do as a summit speaker, but you make it easy. I try
(19:20): My best to, and I think I like to say, I like to romance my speakers. You know, if somebody is trying to coach you and you want them to remind, to make you feel nice and make them feel good, I'm not kind of thing. Because even in the, the system that I used to run summits, right? They give you some advice in terms of how to speak to speakers and that's fine, but for me, relationship above everything else. So I like to put my speakers on display. I like to interview them. I like to write about them. I like to expose them to my audience because as much as you engage them, that's how much they will be engaged in the event. Right. I don't want anybody to be peripheral. Naturally they will always be those who are more engaged at others and that's fine, but there's a part of me that thinks it's very important to romance the talents. So I do that as much as possible. And it's good because it has better relationship as well. And the speakers bring the most to the event. And the value just increases tenfold. When you do something like that, I take that approach with most things I do in terms of involving people. And it really does pay off in the end. Yeah.
(20:26): Romance, the speakers. I hope everybody wrote that down. Romance, the speakers tip, everything comes back to relationships every single time, no matter who I talk to about any element of business or social media or branding or anything at the end of the day, it all comes down to building relationships, not just the interpersonal relationships, but the whole community, the whole ecosystem of relationships associated with the business or the event. And you, you do it the best when it comes to summits. Yeah. I try my best,
(21:05): My best, one of the other things that but I find really, really helpful in terms of just, you know, engaging the speakers and helping them to is kind of bringing them up to speed. As I said, I love her summit speakers on this platform. I knew some people only want speakers who have experienced big meaningless for me. That is not what I am about. Right. I know you will get there at some point. And I want to be able to kind of get in with you, at least if I have to kind of shoot you in, that's fine too. So I like to do that as well.
(21:35): So if somebody came to you and said to me, teach me to be a summit speaker or teach me to be a summit director, is that something you would do? Well, you know, I have been really considering it because this year I really did spend a lot of time helping people like a few people have to like rerecord their stuff. You weren't the only one that's that's okay, Rachel, you wouldn't even let me one. And it was because the clarity in the presentation wasn't there and I'm like, you know, I am confused. I'm not sure what you are saying. So do this. I kind of give them a few points as to go back to the drawing board and fix it on chalk and cheese. I tell you when they came back, it was like chalk and cheese. So I would definitely be that's something I'm definitely considering. And I'll create them some sort of cost just to get speakers prepared because you do have to prepare and it pays off for you at the end of the day. I mean, yes. I want you to come in there and represent my brand. Well, I represented your brand well, too, because it pays off for everybody in the end. Trust me, long story short. Yes, yes, yes.
(22:34): As a summit speaker, I think this would be a really great service, especially if you could teach us how to make sure that we are monetizing our speaker experience. Cause I think that's one of the things that thumb summit hosts kind of the carrot on the stick, right? You're going to get clients, you're going to sell stuff. There's a summit shop. We're going to promote you, but it's not that easy.
(22:58): Yeah. Yeah. It's not that easy. And I think it's important and this is especially important for my people from the Caribbean. If you are listening, it's important. But when you are presenting and you give a presentation for a summit that you give a meaty presentation doing present on the whole back because the audience can tell when you're holding back information, give people information that will help them. It doesn't mean that you have to give away, give away the whole farm or whatever the case may be. I don't expect you to give away your whole life. But what I'm saying is that the things that you do teach on a summit platform, it's critical that it helps people get at least some level of transformation, right? It's important that even if they can't implement it fully themselves, their perspective shifted enough for them to have clarity.
(23:48): So they are like, oh no, I know what I need to do. This is why it wasn't working before. And I want people to understand that, you know, because sometimes I run my speakers, come in on, you know, I do ask a lot of them and I mean, all speakers aren't paid, but this is a trade show, right? This is a trade show. And I think it's really important that you bring your best self because I tell you, I don't mean rich and you can attest to this. I tell you, once people get that taste of you, it's like my gosh it's was like, oh my gosh, I can try. And they want more. They want more, they want more. But it means that you really do have to put a decent effort into speaking to them though. Don't squeeze and hold back and be selfish with the information as you like to serve each other free to infer. What do you say?
(24:32): What do I say for the instant, the information free information free. That's what you've got to do. And you would still come back to tenfold. So don't be selfish with your with your knowledge. And don't be, you know, don't shortchange people give them something that they could use on workplace and you will see a tremendous difference in the way people engage with you.
(24:53): This is great advice as a summit speaker. I mean, I'm so glad that I got my first taste of being a summit speaker through your brand print summit last summer, starting off, or you started me off on the right foot with that. So thank you for that. So have any new opportunities come your way because of the summit, because as a director of the summit
(25:20): New opportunities, well, now I kind of leverage this summit as a tool to show companies locally, what they can do to kind of drive leads into their business. So, I mean, it's certainly drummed up some conversation with people saying, oh, wow, this is a concept I never really thought about, or this is something that I could really leverage and to driving leads to my business and you know, the expansion of my network and things like that. So it's really as a slow build in terms of kind of wanting it out, but in new opportunities, it definitely has allowed me to have conversations with some pretty happy. It says locally, I would say, and kind of explaining the concept. It is a relatively new concept to this market, as I said. So with that in mind, and I show people the potential, I haven't read a lot of them actually to this version of the summer so they can see how it looks for themselves and they can understand. So hopefully by the end of it, you know, we have some people saying, take my money, produce one for us. And we want to see how it goes.
(26:18): I think we just put that into the universe. Yes, the yes. And you know, there is a gap in the market. It sounds like you could corner the event planning market in the Caribbean. Yeah. I mean, there is, you know, I mean, now we are getting interspace because they know we always like, you know, five years behind everybody else, you know, that's just, you know, we are here, but more people now are coming to a space where they realize, I didn't know, doing for 25 is the default more than, you know, it's not, there's not the exception to the rule anymore. It's like, you know what, we, we can't do this. That's just. I mean, some of the logistics of the events, a lot of people still don't have down. Like I attended another event locally recently and it was, it was really, really good, but all events from a run live. So most of it, I didn't see, you know, as a risk management strategy coming into the event, I know there are things that I do to be able to let people know, well, here's what, this is a better way to run this because you don't want anything to happen and possibly cut you off from your feed or possibly have some of the aspects off on their feed. And then everybody's wondering, well, what is going on? So, you know, just to kind of implement some, some better risk management, some a better way is to sell, to pitch without people feeling that you are being aggressive on coming on to them in a way that is kind of gross. You know, people want to feel drawn to you and it takes some planning and strategizing for people to feel drawn as opposed to feeling pulled and pushed, I should say, you know, so people want to be Jordan. You know what I mean? So, yes. Okay.
(28:03): Well, I think these are great skills for any community leader to have, whether you're a director of a summit, you're a Facebook group, admin, no matter what it is that you're doing, where you're organizing other human beings, being able to manage the the risk management side of things, you know, to protect the event and to make sure you deliver what you set out to deliver and keeping all of the players involved, organized, and contributing to it without them feeling like, you know,
(28:35): This sucks for me, you know? Yes, it is. It's very much a balancing act, which is why I'm relationship is so important for me. Because once I have that relationship with people, I don't have to drive them. They do with themselves. And it really is like almost like advocacy in a sense, right? So when you kind of build up that relationship with people, they know they deliver, they share the email, you know, I don't have to like put out so much energy trying to push them to get things done. So it's really important as you, and I see you over there agreeing nodding your head and everybody, you don't have to push them so much. You know what I mean? So it's really important that as somebody leading, as you said, any type of event or any type of community where you need other people to fall in line and get it together and do what they need to do, the relationship with them is key. So that's what we try to advocate. And I tried to do that through example,
(29:31): It's just like that and managing a Facebook group too. We know what we want the outcome to be. We want engagement, we want growth. We want sales, but you can't make people stuff, but you can create an environment conducive to them doing it themselves. And when people do it themselves, it's more impactful. They feel empowered and it's less energy expenditure for them. Oh yeah. For sure. Well, child and energy expenditure is a big one on my,
(30:01): Yeah. When you're in the business of organizing humans, I didn't know between the tactical things that we have to do to prepare summit. And you know, you just, I mean, you literally have to pick a struggle. I can't, I'm struggling on the human side. On the technical side too. Somebody has to start actioning themselves and the machines are going to move themselves. I have to deal with those doors. So with people, I mean, I just have to send them on a path and say, okay, listen, this is what you gotta do unless set them on the path. So, yeah. And that's
(30:29): Why I'm outsourcing more of my tech. I'm better with the people side of things. I'll start seeing the tech. Yeah. So where can people find you and how do they sign up for the brand print summit?
(30:41): Okay. Once I find me Jameela Bannister, you know, of course you, you connect with me on LinkedIn, Jimmy [inaudible] at Jemena and stuff, or check out the gym and stuff, running.com. I'm the sign up for the summit. Visit Brandon, the print summit.com grab your free tickets, take the quiz. So you'll know which summit presentations are, the ones for you. So of course, all of that is going to help you streamline or strategizing you think of everything on these ends. And of course grab your visibility to get, because as I listed, as wanting to come in and get a whole bunch of stuff for free, which is great, I mean, it's there for you and I want you to come and see what, you know, transformation doesn't happen in four days. The transformation means that you need to spend time going through things with a fine tooth comb.
(31:31): Sometimes you may need to rewatch things over and over again. Let's think of yourself. If you go to YouTube to learn something right. And when I was teaching myself video editing, I remember I would watch one video on YouTube and then what should I get? And then go back and watch some uninformed and then go and implement and then pause it and go and implement. And that is what the, the visibility tool that is going to give you an opportunity to do, to go back and watch and pause and implement, except you don't have to go sweating through a big ocean of things. You have a nice curated library of training that has been designed just for you, along with the tools to help you execute your vision. So grab that visibility took it while you are there in a free is good, but you know, that toolkit is going to be amazing and in the fast track. So that is what you get aside from the community. And that's how having fun. And that's what I pulled a bunch of amazing things that ready can transform the way you do things. You know, I want you to grab that ticket and grab that toolkit
(32:38): And we get to hang out with, and you get to hang out with us, with Rachel, with myself and with all the other speakers who will, of course there. Do you have any shout outs? What am I shout out for having such an awesome show? I thank you so much for having me on, and I want to shout out all the persons in the audience who may be listening to this right now. Thank you so much. And I hope to see what the summit, I shut it off. Cause all of the speakers who agreed to take their time and to commit to being a part of this Robyn summit. I know you're telling me I run a tight ship and I have a, like, I have a weapon, but it's love. Trust me. And everybody feels good on the other side of the process and they feel so much better. So I just want to shout out those people, of course.
(33:25): Okay. And now we're going to do the podcast outro, but then after that, we'll say hi to everybody who left us a comment. So this is like, we're prerecording the end, but it's not the end of the video. Okay. So I'm going to say my thing and I'm going to kick it to you and you're going to say you rock. Okay. But we're not going to actually end the video. Sorry. I don't want to pick out. Okay. Okay. So thank you so much for being here and as always you rock,
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