From $25 Google Checks to 7-Figure Exit: OG Influencers Reveal the Business Behind Personal Branding

Kathryn Finney: Okay. And this is also edited. if anything is like, if you need a moment or something, like don't feel like you have to, it's not live. So, so we'll get started. Marie Denée: Gotcha. Kathryn Finney: Welcome back to Build a Damn Thing, the podcast where we help underestimated founders use entrepreneurship to build the life and legacy you deserve. I'm your host, Kathryn Finney. Today we're joined by Marie Denae, creator of the Cravey Fashionista, a groundbreaking digital platform that redefined plus-size fashion. And as two OG influencers of the influence space, we're gonna dig into the business end of personal branding. Kathryn Finney: Welcome back to Build the Damn Thing, the podcast where we help underestimated founders use entrepreneurship to build the life and legacy you deserve. I'm your host, Kathryn Finney. Today we're joined by Marie Denae, creator of the Curvy Fashionista, a groundbreaking digital platform that redefined plus size fashion. And we're both two OGs of the influence space. And so we're going to dig in a bit today about the business end of personal branding. Hi Marie, how are you? Marie Denée: I'm so good. I'm so good. I'm so happy to be talking with you. Kathryn Finney: So I'm very excited to be talking to you as well. And one of the reasons is I think, you know, we're headed into this time period where people are going to have to be entrepreneurs, subsistence entrepreneurship. And there's a lot of folks who want to know how can I change or how can I turn my passion into profit? How can I turn this thing that's seemingly a hobby fashion, most people consider it a hobby or an interest. And how can I turn that into a business if I'm not someone who necessarily started out at Calvin Klein or Prada or whatever fashion house? And so I was really excited to talk to you about it. So let's go back to 2008 when you got started. Marie Denée: Yes. Kathryn Finney: What was it like to be an influencer in 2008? Marie Denée: Well, first of all, that word didn't even exist, right? Bloggers didn't even exist 2008, 2009. I think it was more 2010 where it was like, I am a blogger, right? That understanding like, okay, this could be something. This could go into something. It was very much, and I want to say probably even up until a few years ago, wild, wild west. There were no rules. There were no... defined paths. was, you know, it was just kind of for me. taking leaps of faith, like, okay, I don't know what's happening, but I'm gonna try this. There was a lot of experimentation that was going on. And one of the brightest memories I remember I had of you is when, cause we've known each other, gosh, since I've started TCF, it feels like, right. And I remember you asked me, is TCF Marie Denae or is TCF by Marie Denae? Kathryn Finney: Oh my goodness. Kathryn Finney: ever. Marie Denée: And you had asked me this question and I have held on to it since the beginning. Since you asked me that question because I always knew that I wanted to be the person who created, be the creator, but I did not want to be the site. I didn't want it to be just me. Right? And so there was a lot of, how do you say, experimentation. Like there was no... defined line of what to do. was just a lot of, let's see if this works. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, I think that the root of that question really is, is the business you? Is this the business of you? Or is this the business of whatever interest ran by you? And the reason why that's a big difference is if the business is the business of you, then it's really important that you make sure that it's really organic to who you are, because otherwise it's not gonna be sustainable. Marie Denée: Great. Kathryn Finney: if it's the business of you, it's gonna be very, very hard to exit. Like it's gonna be hard to sell. Not that it's impossible to sell, but it's gonna be hard to sell. And that's why you have like, you know, I just use the Kardashians, cause they're the perfect example of how they sort of separate the two. So you have Kylie who is herself, right? And then she has Kylie Cosmetics, which is a beauty brand Marie Denée: to exit. Kathryn Finney: buy her, but it's not necessarily her wearing the beauty products and that's what she gets paid to do, right? It's her product that she's promoting versus her getting paid to wear product on her Instagram. And those are two very different spaces. It's like one is influencer and one is business. And I think particularly around that time period, there wasn't very many examples of the melding of the two. Marie Denée: Mm. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: Right in 2010, 2012, there were no examples of people who are both influencer as one business who had multiple businesses. If you think of yourself as a holding company, right? Where you have a company and you have a whole bunch of businesses underneath. There weren't very many examples of that. It was either you were straight blogging, selling ads and doing whatever, or you had a product that you used your personal brand or your blog to promote. And so, how did people make money back then? Marie Denée: Right. Marie Denée: gosh, it was hilarious, right? Because I remember the first time I received a piece of, a brand had contacted me and wanted me to, wanted to send me a piece of clothing and they wanted me to write about it. And I was like, this is a transaction, but I am unfamiliar with what this is. Like, this is new to me. Like really you want to give me some clothing to write about? And I already love the pieces. Like, okay. Like I saw that as It was a phenomenon to me. It was something that I never seen. I had just finished my MBA in marketing. So I'm like, okay, they didn't talk about this in school. Like, what is this transaction? And the first thing that we had many conversations with just like other OG peers, we would have AdSense, which was not paying anything. Right. Kathryn Finney: That was Google AdSense, the little ad words. If people remember that far back, the little text ads from Google that used to be on every website. Marie Denée: Yes, yes, yes. And then, then you started realizing that brands would pay. You know, you would be like, well, this will cost $500. this would cost $1,500. And you started kind of realizing like, wait a minute, there's real money here. There's like, there's something going on. I remember when I got, and social media was in its very infancy. mean, Facebook had just opened up to the public, Twitter. was a thing because it helped usher in Barack Obama and people are like, what's this platform? And I remember being on Twitter and I received because I was just out there talking to the void. I had received a tweet and they asked if they could DM me and it ended up being a campaign with Chevy and they were launching the Chevy Cruz at that time and they had wanted me to sign an NDA and it was an egg. Like back in the day, you don't talk to egg. mean, back in the day, you did talk to eggs. Nowadays you're like, you're a bot. But back then it was like, oh, you just haven't uploaded a picture. was no prejudice in those conversations or no assumptions. And so it ended up being a whole legit company, legit offer. And that was 2010, the fall, the December of 2010. And they brought us out to Detroit. And that's when I was like, holy hell, this is like a real thing. I got a car and I got a nice fat check. And I was like, okay. Like, let me figure this out. Let me pay attention. Let me lean in. And that's when I realized like, you know, folks are watching regardless of what you think you're doing or not doing. People are paying attention. And I think... It was so new that people came up like and people had really great come ups like people were just like sure Let's try this. Let's try this. Let's people were open to explore and You kind of learned as you as you were you building the parachute on the way down if you would Because there was there wasn't that structure yet I mean I think influencer didn't really the term influencer didn't really come around to like 2015 ish and Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Yeah. Marie Denée: And that's where like real money started being played and tossed around. And folks were like, Kathryn Finney: So how do you think about your business model then? So I'm a new influencer. I just started my TikTok or Instagram and I'm starting to get a little bit of a following. How do I think in terms of creating a business model behind this? Marie Denée: So I think what's really important is one, making sure you own as much as you can. In that regard, mean, own your domain because you already see how fickle these social media platforms can be. One day they're here, the next day they're not. They go down, you're kind of stuck. I think it's really important to establish and build this audience and build a relationship with the audience that you're serving, right? So that means get that newsletter, right? That means build that trust before you start trying to. build the business because you need that audience, you need that relationship. And it's really important to maintain and listen to what your audience is looking for, asking for, or wanting. Like I think it kind of goes back to your why. Why are you doing this? What are you providing? How are you solving? How are you, you know what I mean? Like that, what's your why? And once you have your why, that becomes your North star, no matter how far you go. Like even here, I'm turning 17 in December. I'm still, it's still important for me to provide and be of resource to the community. Like that is the driving force for me to be of resource. Here's this brand, here's how to connect with the influencer. Here's this resource. Here's this new X, Y, and Z. That is still core to me. And holding onto that core is what's going to help with that longevity because people know you, people will then trust you and they trust you. That is how you're able to then go to Brand X and be like, is my audience. This is what I offer. This is what the value is. This is what they can do. Because yes, you can be like, Brand Pay Me X couple of thousands of dollars, but can you convert? Do you know and understand what they're asking for and what they're needing and what they're looking for? Kathryn Finney: What do you mean by convert? Marie Denée: Convert meaning if they pay you X dollars and the brand is wanting some type of action, some type of ROI, whether it's awareness, whether it's sales, whether it's subscriptions or follows, the brand is looking for something. So this is like in the lane of marketing. So you spend some money to get something in return. That conversion is usually defined when a brand comes to you. They're saying, We're looking to share awareness about X, Y, and Z new product, or we're wanting to drive sales for X, and Z product, understanding what they're looking for and why they've come to you. If you know your audience, you know, for example, TCF's biggest strength is top of funnel awareness. We drive awareness to certain things that are happening. So if a brand comes to me for conversion, I'm going to let them know our strongest strength is awareness. And that's going to show up differently. That's going to be page views, impressions, subscriptions. It's not going to be sales. You know what saying? Knowing where that is. Kathryn Finney: Can you dig into that a little bit deeper? Because I think particularly for those who are trying to convert from influencer into now business, the difference between sort of the different ways in which you can deliver. Like, so you said top of funnel conversions, you said sales. Like, can you dig into each of those sort of categories so that people have an understanding? Because I think it's going to be very helpful to some of our audience to help them kind of place where their value is going to be. I think that's really important. Marie Denée: So what's really important is to understand the marketing funnel, right? A sales funnel. You can Google and find images of what a marketing funnel is. The top of the funnel is awareness, right? Then there's consideration. Then there's conversion at the bottom. Conversion is where most of these brands want to get to. Conversion is when that person buys the product. Conversion could be getting someone to sign up for the newsletter. conversion could be following them, driving people to like and follow a page. It's really going to be about what measure or what KPI key performing indicator that that brand is looking for. And so when you're having these conversations with them, it would be highly advantageous to look at them, you know, look at a picture of a marketing funnel and understand how your audience reacts to you. If you drive If you say hey, there's this new brand and a lot of people are like, I want to go follow them or I'm interested or they're cute. That's awareness If they're like, it's cute and I want to follow them or I'm gonna subscribe that's consideration But once they say that's cute. I want to follow subscribe and buy That is conversion and that is literally getting the customer all the way down to the bottom of that funnel and that is your role as an influencer, like depending on what your strength is, is to move the customer down the funnel. And there are different, you know, there's the awareness influencer and then there's the conversion influencer. And I think it's important to know where your strength is because what you don't want to have happen is a brand coming to you wanting sales when your strength is awareness and people follow based off of what you suggest. or you don't want to have a sales, you your goal be sales and you can't even reach the folks to get the sales to get the conversion. You need to make sure you know where your strengths lie and how your audience moves. But that's also why it's important to have your newsletter, to have your domain, to have something that you own so that you can cultivate, learn, test, and really get to understand your audience. Kathryn Finney: I Kathryn Finney: I I would have met you in 2003, 2002 when I started. Of course, there was like no one there. But I think this is really interesting because we've had a lot of conversations on the podcast about understanding the other side, meaning your client, your customer, your investor, understanding what it is that they need, right? How can you help them accomplish their goals, which I think is always the key to business success is understanding whoever your partner's is, what their goals is and what their needs are and how do they define success. so understanding that marketing funnel, you just described from an influencer standpoint, how they can understand what drives success for that potential partner. And probably I would guess, and please correct me if I'm wrong, this would also help a lot in maintaining and developing long-term relationship, which is what you want. repeat business. You don't want to have just a one-off activation with this particular partner or brand. You want them to come to you all the time and have this long-term relationship. Marie Denée: And it's like a, it's like a double edged sword, right? Because once you realize like what your strength is, you may miss out on some of those like lucrative, like sales driven deals because they don't align. Like for me, my journey was very like more businessy than it was influencer, right? So for me, I didn't walk, I didn't walk the traditional influencer path where I allowed TCF to be the influencer. So that was content. Right? That was articles. wasn't necessarily Instagram posts or TikToks. And now it's, it's a, now that I have formally kind of transitioned from blogger to digital media publisher, I'm like head down learning what it means to the business of media. You know, I'm watching what the legacy publishers are doing and what, how they're pivoting in today's AI Google search, you know, world, what are they doing? How are they adapting? And how can I adapt that to my brand? I'm always analyzing what the market is doing because that's what's going to help me. Um, I guess for lack of a better word, stay, stay in business. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. I think there's also an interesting risk for influencers, particularly when the influence is based on the individual, which is now we're seeing a rise of like AI influencers, like fake influencers, basically, AI creating influencers and people are following them. And now to just be a regular schmuggler influencer who writes about, writes, but takes pictures of yourself wearing dresses. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: that's not gonna be enough anymore because of the AI driven. There's an influx of that. And so how do you protect yourself or expand your brand so it's not as impacted? Marie Denée: I think it, I think it, I think you have to look at like the timing of when you enter the space, right? Because you do have like, and the art of the pivot is important, right? So it's like, I look at the plus size influencers, like the OG ones that I came up with, and then the ones who came up right after, and I watch how they are moving. They have representation, they're still consistent. They're still giving us looks. They're still speaking on panels. They're still delivering fashion and style, right? And so while fashion may have been like their entry lane, they may have now expanded into home, travel, motherhood, or other lifestyle elements that then allow for them to speak about other things than just the fashion side of it. So. but then you have some who have pivoted to a product base and that's what they do, or you have some who have pivoted to consulting and service-based options. So it's important to allow yourself the space to really find what drives you because being an influencer can very well be an entry point into you finding your passion, into you finding your purpose. You may have come into this as an influencer, but you realize, I like to write. I like books. I want to write books. And that's like, you know, because you've been exposed to this space, you know, that's a natural pivot and it's okay. And I think you have to allow yourself the space to explore and to understand where you're going. Like we, we added a new category to the site called curvy CEO, where we talk about the business of plus size. We talk about like the the business element because that's important for me. That is a, you know, these are conversations I'm having with indie designers or influencers or, you know, professionals that are needing an extra direction. So I go and tap the experts in those spaces. I'm like, Hey, would you like to write about these topics on CCF? Kathryn Finney: glad that you brought up plus size fashion. Plus size fashion had a bit of a moment a while ago where a lot of brands were starting to really expand into the plus size fashion space. And it seems like there's been an abrupt about phase to that with a lot of brands, again, removing plus sizes from stores and putting them online again. I wanted to know, especially as an expert who's been in this space for like almost 20 years now, is this a cyclic thing or is it a change now in terms of plus side? Marie Denée: see it as cyclical, right? So I think about, I think it was like the early nine, the late nineties, the early two thousands where we had Fin Fin and where we had like this proliferation of like diet pills and then the fashion also reflected it with the Uber dropped low jeans that like barely like covers your, your hoo-ha or your crack, right? You know, so it's like. Kathryn Finney: my goodness, I hated those. Marie Denée: you have it's and those that style is like trying to come back again, right? And it just happens to also be paired with the GLP ones. And so you see this like it's cyclical. And what I am curious to see is this new crop of influencers. How do they learn their voice, own their voice and push and challenge because The first time, like for a lot of us, we were learning that we had a voice and we could have these conversations and we're like, no, this is not who we are. Like we want this. Like we were able to leverage our voice and speak and come together, right? The growth and the interesting part where a lot of people don't realize is like the growth of plus size fashion is directly correlated to the growth of social media. Like social media democratized fashion in a way where it gave groups of folks who were like not at the table, it gave us a seat. And for many people, it gave them the opportunity to build their own table. And so now it's a matter of, you know, how do we continue with that audacity to challenge, push and require that continued voice, that continued seat, that continued conversation. And so yes, it may seem that you know, the industry's constricting or contracting, but at the same time, it's also expanding into new spaces and places where in the US it may, I'm about to get all nerdy on you. Like in the US it may, right, it may constrict here, but if you look internationally, any designers are growing double the rate. Any plus size brands are growing double the rate in the UK. You've got, Kathryn Finney: We like nerds. Marie Denée: growth happening over in in Japan, China, and Korea in ways that have not happened before. You're, when you look at like the industry as a whole, it is still growing. Canada is still growing. So while people don't know necessarily how to, may not know how to reach talk or attract the plus size consumer in the U S they're going elsewhere. They may have left it's size 14 and higher. Kathryn Finney: And what is plus size? which is pretty much the average size. Marie Denée: 67 % of the US population of women. Kathryn Finney: Is he average size? Is he buzzed? Yeah. I mean, you're going back to the space in the democratization that social media has really allowed, not just to fashion, but into many different areas. And you were talking about building a table. Like I built my table because of social media, particularly the internet. So not really social media, because I'm such an OG. Oh my God. But it's okay. It's okay. Marie Denée: Yes, you did. Marie Denée: It's okay. It's okay. Kathryn Finney: But yeah, I I think it's hard for people who weren't alive during that time period or at least not, you know, sort of in the streets during that time period to really understand how much of the wild wild west it was and how there wasn't, I mean, there was no business models. When I started, there wasn't even Google AdSense. There was not AdSense. I remember when AdSense got created and was super excited because I got my first check for like $25. Marie Denée: right? Marie Denée: Mm. Mm. Marie Denée: Listen. Kathryn Finney: I like, am gonna go out to dinner with this. Yes. Marie Denée: Okay, and then then they raised the payment threshold to like a hundred dollars So you were waiting like six eight months and you're like, my god. I got a hundred dollars. Like I remember that Kathryn Finney: Right. Yes. And then I just did another podcast where I was talking about glam, glam media. Yes. Which was one of the first networks. mean, ad networks, influencer networks, whatever you want to call it. They were one of the first and, just the amount I used to get CPM for remnant ads. This is the. Marie Denée: my god. Yes. Marie Denée: that works. Kathryn Finney: the stock ads, not even like the good ads. It was $12 CPM. mean, I mean, the money I made and I remember being in a meeting now being in the venture capital space and being in investment space. You know, there's a tendency to dismiss women, black women in particular, but anyone who didn't do anything that was considered Marie Denée: I mean we were like we were jamming. Kathryn Finney: Highbrow like you weren't in finance. You didn't work for a certain firm and I remember someone being really dismissive about my little blog and I was like Do you know how much money I made like do you have any idea of? It's like there are several years that I made well over seven figures It's like many years and it's like you guys have no idea Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Marie Denée: I believe. Kathryn Finney: And I really believe now about talking about money publicly. cause I think one of the reasons why we get in situations like we currently are now in our, in our economic world and our political world is that we don't talk honestly about money and for people to know what's out there. And so saying to someone, you know, I would do, and you, you've probably done these, sort of satellite media tours and satellite media tours. For those of you don't know, it's like you go into a studio. It's like a little room of studios, almost like a podcast studio or what have you. And it's this camera and you go on about 20 morning shows in like maybe an hour, two hour time period. Right. And you're like, hi Sacramento, it's Kathryn Finney. And I'm here to talk to you about today's spring fashion issue and the hottest trends. And, you know, they'll be sponsored by Tide or, you know, Marshall's or Nordstrom's or whomever. Right. There's a sponsor of it because they a brand couldn't get on television without paying unless they had someone like me talk about them. So it was more cost effective for them to be integrated into a segment that I was doing versus having to buy a 30 second, 60 second ad on the Today Show, which was very, very expensive. So that's why they had people. So I did a satellite media tour. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: It was like, you know, just talking into a nameless, I could even see people's faces. It was just like a camera. Now they do it a little bit differently. You actually can see the people, but back then you couldn't see the people. Technology. And I got paid 50 K for two, well, it maybe four hours of work because we had hair and makeup. So 50 K for that one day. Nice. Like two hours. It wasn't even like hard. And I had friends who made more than that. Marie Denée: Right, right. Technology has changed. Marie Denée: Nice. Marie Denée: Nice. Nice. Kathryn Finney: who were making 75, 100 for like literally four hours of work. was just, and if you were smart, you could stack brands. So because Tide wouldn't care if Nordstrom's was also included too in that segment because they're not competitors, right? So you could have Tide and you could have Nordstrom's in the segment and you can make, you know, a hundred. I had friends that were making bank. And so, you know, and it's not that way anymore. Well, if you influencers, Marie Denée: Right. Marie Denée: I'm going to go. Kathryn Finney: can make that much and some of make even more per post depending on how much follows or you have. Marie Denée: like I had someone talk to me about a 30k deal and I was like Kathryn Finney: Yeah, it depends on where you're at in the funnel, right? Where you're at in the funnel. If you can, and so you can make a lot of money. And I just use it as an example of just, you know, and you do maybe two of those, three of those a month, you're making, you know, significant amounts of money. I think now it's a bit probably harder because there's so many people who have, the market is larger. There's a lot more, distribution channels and options for brands, right? There's a lot of people who have a hundred followers and influencers. And so how does one, how do you separate yourself from all the folks? Cause there's so many people being influencers is very hard to determine like the difference between folks. How do you, as an up and coming influencer who's looking at this from a business perspective, not just you want people to like you in validation, but you actually want to make some coins. How do you, Marie Denée: Right. And influencers. Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: Think about defining yourself in a way that sort of separates you from the past. Marie Denée: think it's really important not only when you find your why, but to really define your how. How are you going to show up? And how does that differ from everyone else? Or what is it that you have to say that no one else is talking about? Finding that niche, that missed conversation, that opportunity. For me, I talk about the business of plus. Right? I write about it. Like for me, my avenue is through my words. I'm being challenged, being told I need to show up on social more. So I'm like, okay, well, how do I do that? Or what do I do? Or like, okay, I need to figure that out for myself. Because to your point, Kathryn, like the space is different now. So how do you show up? So a lot of it is consistency. First of all, the first thing is showing up one. Second is consistency. Are you someone that people can look to to see what's going on today or how they what are they talking about today or how what am I going to see and how is it going to help my life? Right. And so when you go through the you know, this is your why this is what you're going to say. This is the how I'm going to say it and how I'm going to show up. It's really important that you do some homework and research and find folks who Especially now because we didn't have that when we were coming up. We didn't have examples, but now there are a ton of examples like Research builds your ecosystem, right build your your network your ecosystem so that you can learn and understand, you know, for example watching The New York Times or Vogue go behind a paywall or a subscriber wall. What will that mean for you? What do what will your reader how will your readers? you know, adjust if you were to do that, you know, or if they've been doing it. So watching what's going on in the space will allow for you to Marie Denée: I don't know if the right word is take advantage of but leverage those changes to your audience's benefit. know, people are like, oh my God, New York Times put the games, the crossword, put the mini crossword behind a paywall. What am I gonna do? That's an opportunity for X, Y, Z publisher or X, Y, and Z game player, game platform to solve that issue, right? So it becomes like. opportunity and you just have to look and seek out those opportunities if you are a Where to what you were to work influencer and you notice that nobody is talking about today's dress codes and What is a dress code for today or let me teach gen Z how to dress for the office? like that's your lane and own it because It's easy to get to compare so and so is doing all of these things, but that's for their lane. You don't know their journey. And like they say, comparison is the thief of joy. It truly is. Like it's easy to get caught up in, so and so has so many followers. Well, how long have they been going, been going at this? How consistent, how hard in the paint? Do you have the dedication? Do you have the discipline? And do you have the audacity to see this success through? Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Yeah. And do you have the voice that sets you apart from everyone? Because I think what can happen, you know, especially now we're being an influencer is just so much about you. You know, it's not so much about what you have to say or, you know, I think back in our day was more service based, meaning. Marie Denée: Hmm? Kathryn Finney: We were writing pieces that people read that they applied to their job and there weren't pictures of us. It was just, if you go on the way back machine and you look at the very first article of the budget fashionista, Lord help us. If you see what that design looks like, it was hot. That was a hot design in like 2002. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Marie Denée: Listen. same. had a cursive i was in had a cursive writing it was chocolate brown my god like i yes girl throwback Kathryn Finney: Yes, right. But it was more about the content. It wasn't so much about who I was as an individual. And I think now it's so much about who you are as an individual. And so the question you have to ask yourself when you think of the business of this is, are you as an individual special enough to stand out with all the other folks? hard question to ask yourself, you know, like, I, cause maybe I think I'm that girl in my space, in my, you know, home, my town, I'm that girl, but in the larger ecosystem, I might not actually be that girl, right? And, or, and so asking yourself that, and that's what you ask yourself as a business, right? Like as a business, if you have a product, you ask yourself, how do I do Marie Denée: Right, right. Kathryn Finney: Well, you asked yourself this question of what problem are you solving? The product market fit, right? You actually have to take the product market fit concept and apply it to yourself. Meaning me as a product does, is there a market for me as a product? Right. And is that market moving towards the product? Are they buying me? Cause that's what I'm selling is me. Marie Denée: Or what problem are you solving? Kathryn Finney: Are they buying me? Am I getting new followers? Do I see people clicking? And I know there's so much in Instagram about here's how you get people to react to you and get followers and stuff like that. But that's not building community. That's just getting them to react to a certain video. Like you have to ask yourself, and I would advise people to go through the same startup steps. I talk about it in my book, Build a Damn Thing, but like apply it to yourself too. Like whatever your business is. Marie Denée: Right. Marie Denée: You have to. You have to. Kathryn Finney: as an influencer, your business is you, you are the product and think does your product have product market fit? And so what would be your tips for that? Like somebody who is like, wanna determine whether or not my voice and my business, like my specialty, is there a market for it? Marie Denée: And you know what? Marie Denée: So one of the things that I went through an accelerator program in 2023 and my mentor, Alfred Edmond of Black Enterprise, like. Kathryn Finney: I know Alfred very well, Bowtie. I love Alfred. I love Alfred, yeah. Marie Denée: Right. Yes. So he had said to me, he was like, Marie, you have been creating content to create revenue. You now need to create revenue to create content. And I was like, Kathryn Finney: What did he mean by that? Marie Denée: So we were talking prior, the context before that is I was talking about how many of us in our cohort are OG content creators, right? OG publishers. So we came up in the blogging space where at that time when Google was giving all of the page views, when Facebook was giving all of the page views, that model, that business model was like the more you write, the more revenue you received, the more page views, the more revenue. And the revenue came from whether it was ad sales, affiliate, or sponsored content, right? And so naturally I'm like, okay, the more I write, the more content. But now that he was like, now that you are a digital media publisher, you have to think about the revenue first. So then it started opening my mind on the business side of things. So now I'm looking at every avenue, I'm looking at every input. What is that ROI? How does that impact, you know, what tools that I need to get to then drive the revenue? If that means a contributor, if that means a social media tool or something, you know, whatever those things I need to focus on the revenue side of things in order to be able to create the content. So it shifted. my mindset and it really opened my eyes and really allowed for me to see like the I guess for lack of a better word like the updated business model of of media that at the time like a 2019 ish I remember trying to figure out like I knew I needed to grow and I knew that I'd outgrown being a blog in the way that I was growing but I didn't know what that next level was like I would try to be like what What category is who, what, where? What is refinery 29? What is the Zo report? But I couldn't find the industry it belonged to. Because digital media is still fairly new in its definition, right? Digital media publishing. Now, because you knew there were publishers, but Google was giving me book publishing or social media. So I didn't know where to go and how to grow at that point. Marie Denée: And so for the next few years, was trying, I was testing all kinds of things to figure out and I didn't have that ecosystem or that framework to be able to understand. Now, like once I went through that accelerator program, it was like, boom, like now I knew digital media publisher. Okay. Now there's, you know, I follow, SDP and it's, state of digital publishing is the, website. And they're talking about all the things that are going on with publishers. Now there are other industry trades that are just dealing with digital media publishing that I could then learn and pour into myself to understand what's going on, what tools I need, what resources. And so you have to be that, that tenacious and that diligent in finding those resources, even for influencers. mean, hell. Impact, which is a affiliate company, has really great resources for influencers right now. Like they're talking about averages based on following count, how to set your pricing for image rights usage. Like there are now resources that are available for influencers that we didn't have growing up. Kathryn Finney: Not at all. Marie Denée: So you have to seek out those resources. can't say, I don't know, or I can't find, because now these resources are here. And many of them are literally still coming up, popping up every day. Kathryn Finney: When should you start thinking about the business? Like the business of you. Marie Denée: quite frankly, this year, the business of me. For me, I had gotten so used to focusing on the business of TCF, but I didn't prioritize myself. I did not think about where I sat in the business. was just, TCF is by me, right? Like that's all it was. And I was like head down, trying to research, trying to learn, trying to figure it out, right? And I refused to give up. you know, I felt very... feisty or like ready to like, I'm gonna figure this out, you know, even questioned if TCF was something that was that could get an investor, right? I questioned what are those next steps? went through, interestingly enough, I had a brand that had a plus size retailer who wanted to acquire me. They had me on hold for 10 months. It literally damn near bankrupt me in 2022. And I was so grateful that I got into the accelerator program like two months later after that happened that allowed for me to focus on the rebuild and to be able to create foundation and positioning. You know, now that I know I'm a digital media publisher, I could look at all these other digital media publishers and seeing what they're doing, their scalability. They're all VC. They're all invested that they have investors, then I'm like, okay, well, how can I position TCF? Because even though that didn't have that acquisition didn't happen. I now know that I am working with something extremely unique that has the capability for scale that has this, you know, I know that now like, you know, I took that hit, and it devastated me. But like, I didn't allow for it to derail me. Kathryn Finney: Why did it devastate you? Was it like an NDA you couldn't work with other folks while they were trying to figure out to do? Marie Denée: It was an NDA. It was an NDA and I didn't really understand the processes. And when I would ask questions, like because they were a plus size retailer and they were like, we're going to go to the board and vote. And like, was always like presentation, voting, presentation, voting, weight, presentation. And I didn't want to jeopardize relationships with other brands. Like For example, they're like, we're about to vote to move this to the next step. I didn't want to go to Brand X and be like, hey, let's do some work together. And then the news gets dropped and they're they're left holding the bag. I didn't want to sour any of those relationships or put someone in a position where they're like, well, why didn't you know about this type of thing? so, and I remember by the time I had asked them, how do I navigate this? Like their response was like, it looks like you're taking your foot off the gas. And I'm like, I'm just trying to figure out how to navigate while I'm under this NDA. you guys have, I was from January until October, they had me on hold. And so it made it really challenging. And it was weird because I didn't recognize my power at that time. I didn't recognize, and I didn't have the ecosystem that I do now that I knew I could just easily ask someone. You by the time I started asking, I reached out to Nicole Kane. I was like, girl, help me. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. And, and at that point, by the time I reached out to her, was already like six months in that I've been on hold. And it like, and it killed, it killed me. like I lost 70 % of my business that year. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, I think it's really important that we talk about things like this. Having having sold a company, a digital publisher, you know, and just going through the process of it. And I talk to people about selling a company is not easy. Someone reaches out to you and says they want to buy you. That's the first step in a very long process. And one of the things is to make sure that you have excellent legal representation that Marie Denée: You Kathryn Finney: has done merger and acquisitions before, who have actually been a part of legal representation. Accounting is less of a concern, more so legal representation, who have actually been through the process of someone buying a business. It's helpful if you're a digital influencer or whatever, that that person has experience in that space, but at the very least they have an idea and have actually walked with someone through the process of purchasing or selling a business because there are layers there that you just don't even know. I remember the contract, the initial contract was like when I sold TBF, it was 11 pages, like 10 point font, no space. I was like, this is some, because there was some IPs and trademarked, was, you know, there was an Marie Denée: Wow. Kathryn Finney: some IP attached to it that was not just the website, it was other IP. And then of course, we had to negotiate TV that had to be carved out. The book had to be carved out. Because the book was in my name, I didn't put the book in the budget fashionista's name. when the company was sold, the book still remained with me, but it's named how to be a budget fashionista. So we had to do a whole big, I mean, carving out what rights I had in regards to that and what I could talk about or what I could not talk about and you know, all those sort of things. And so when you're going through this process, it's so important that you have really strong legal representation and that, like you said, that you have others you can reach out to. I think sometimes in our communities, we don't know that we can or we can get very, and I'm not saying this is you and definitely it wasn't me, but I do get this feeling because I've had Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: I've talked to a number of people who many of us would know who are very, very famous. And they've reached out for advice and I'll start to ask very business questions, you know, not trying to steal their business, don't even care. And they would get clammed up like, I can't talk to you about that. Or you have to talk to my business. And I'm like, but you asked me for help. I don't need your help. I didn't ask you for anything. I'm over here in Chicago just chilling, being myself. Marie Denée: Ha ha ha ha. Kathryn Finney: And so sometimes as a community, get like, don't want to share because we're afraid or we're afraid that someone's going to take this or, and it's like, and then we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because we don't get the advice that we need. Marie Denée: And especially when you know that you're under an NDA, you're like, okay, like you, you know, there was so much that I didn't know. And it was so interesting because everything's always in hindsight. Cause I had a, another brand like it was like, Hey Marie, we want to talk acquisition. And I was like, I wasn't ready. Cause like, I had just come through that devastation and I was in my rebuild phase. And I'm like, now that I know, for example, how much I was being played by the, Kathryn Finney: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, you should have never signed an NDA unless they have a real substantial offer that was already voted on by whoever needed to vote on it. It didn't need to go through all of that. Like they could have... Marie Denée: multiplier that they. Marie Denée: Right, also, right, but also even just knowing the multipliers, right? Like they were trying to play me, dude, when I learned after the fact, like, and I'm all, okay, now that I know better, you know, they say man's rejection is God's protection. I'm grateful for that because it was a lot of hard lessons that I had to learn and I'm grateful that it didn't derail me. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Marie Denée: Right? Like I took my licks and I kind of, you know, went inwards to regroup, re-strategize, but I think what was even helpful is going through the BoMisi accelerator program. And that was, and BoMisi is literally the, a black-owned digital media publisher network. And they had, and it was underwritten with a grant from GM. I went through and learned and upgraded my tools. So, you know, that I can. be able to put myself in a better position because that is my plan for an exit is to get acquired, right? Or to sell, that is my plan. Kathryn Finney: But you have that. And I'll say this as someone who's been on both sides in investment. You have the possibility of an exit because you built a brand that exists outside of you. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: And I think that's a really important thing that particularly those who are really building in the influencer space specifically, you're building an influencer space where the product is you. It's very, very hard to exit, meaning sell your company to someone else if the product is you. If you are the primary product for many, many reasons we can list why that is, right? Marie Denée: Yep. Kathryn Finney: TCF is not, if something God forbid was to happen to Marie, right? TCF could still exist, right? Or if you just decided you just don't wanna do this anymore, you wanna go move to an island, live in Fiji for whatever. And like, it could still exist versus if it was Marie Denae, the Instagram account that shows you wearing clothes. Marie Denée: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: pictures of you wearing fashion and stuff every week or every day, that's very hard for someone to come and take that because if you are not involved in it, then the product doesn't exist anymore. And so as people are building out these platforms, know, continue to focus if you want you to be the initial product, there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's amazing. But you need to start thinking of like Marie Denée: Exactly. Kathryn Finney: What are the other products? Like what happens if I don't want to do this anymore? Maybe I don't want to be taking pictures of myself. I don't want to always be online. Like what are the other products? Marie Denée: Yes. Marie Denée: You see it now. see it. You see it now with like, I have a group, you know, you have like these different influencers who would talk about burnout, like they're, you know, they're, tired of taking images. So some of them have pivoted. They have, you know, again, introduced a product, whether it be a journal or a clothing line or something, they have leveraged their audience into something else. And Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Marie Denée: That's when I said at the beginning, like to allow yourself the space to kind of explore what your true passion is. This can literally be a gateway, just like how modeling is a gateway for some people. And they realize like, I really like want to be a photographer. And you know, they, this was just like their entry to that space. You can, if you look at being an influencer as an entry into the space and allow for you to see the different ways and things that you can also bring to that table, that would then help. You kind of bigger picture of yourself as the brand. Because like Martha Stewart, right? Like Martha Stewart is Martha Stewart, but she got a whole bunch of products. She don't have to show up on Instagram every day. Her products do. And her products are being sold by other influencers. So it's like that kind of way. Kathryn Finney: There's an interesting story about how she, when they were doing the Martha Stewart magazine, they initially wanted her to be in the cover all the time. It was gonna be kind of like how old magazine always has Oprah. And Martha was like, nah, I'm good. Like I'll show up when, she didn't say it like that, but you know, basically I'll show up when I need to show up, but it's much more scalable, right? If you use other, photos or if you use photos of the actual products or things that we're making versus me, and that's a lot on me. And she always got the business side of things very clearly. And so it's interesting that you say that. So and how do you I think one of the things I hope that influencers get from this podcast episode is some real strategies about how to not only get started as an influencer, but also pivot and expand past Marie Denée: Kathryn Finney: Just you as the product. Marie Denée: yourself. Yep. And it's going to be crucial because again, we're already seeing it, right? So you the writing is literally on the wall, like you have a good run, and then you get burnt out. And then like, how are you going to pivot? How are you going to continue? How are you going to build off of what you've built? For me, my passion when I initially started was like in showcasing the the resources or the the brands that were available in the plus space. Now the things that get me excited are helping brands connect with the consumer and build those relationships with the consumer because, you know, they don't know. Kathryn Finney: on that now we'll end the episode. If this episode gave you life and some strategy, make sure to hit that subscribe button and if you're building your own lane in business or media, leave us a review and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Thank you, Marie. It was amazing. And to all you listening until next time, show up, stand tall and keep building the damn thing. Marie Denée: Thank you, Kathryn.