We recently connected with Sahla Cook and have shared our conversation below.
Sahla, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Honestly it took some time. When I first started my marketing agency I was not so confident because I was new to the space. The 1st thing I did was get a mentor and our first lesson was overcoming exactly this…. imposter syndrome.
She helped install a level of confidence in me that I really did not know existed. My 2nd mentor taught me the same thing. I remember one thing both of my mentors told me and that was, “Don’t think anyone is above you or smarter than you. If I can do it and your age, then why cant you?”
By simply having people in my corner that were my age, doing what I wanted to do, helped me overcome imposter syndrome. I went from working with small start up brands to 7-figure brands in a matter of months because of my confidence alone. Once you overcome your own mental blocks, you open your mind up to limitless possibilites. If I told the average person my goals, they would think I was crazy. I think it comes down to surrounding yourself with like minded individuals in your personal and professional life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’ve always had an eye for marketing since high school and I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I just didn’t know how it was going to all play out for me. During covid is when I started doing free-lancing marketing projects. After I got my first mentor, that quickly switched over to an agency model.
I run and operate a digital marketing agency where our focus is scaling women-owned clothing brands with advertising efforts. All of the Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Google ads you see on your timeline…. my team puts those up. Being a women of color, this started out wanting to help grow women of color owned brands. I work with a handful of very established brands simply because I reached out to them. I started to realize there was a gap in this industry as multiple women of color brand owners expressed the same issue to me, that many agencies did not know how to market them properly. From there, I found my lane and just continued to expand from word of mouth. I started putting myself out there to this big brands and quickly realized, the sky is the limit. You can literally create a name for yourself once you understand exactly it is what you want to do.
I have some pretty big goals for next year, one of them hopefully being hosting a fashion show for these brand owners in Los Angeles. I’m very excited for what’s to come!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Disciple, Confidence, and Networking
My advice for people who are early in their journey and improving in these areas are
1. Get a mentor/business coach that’s doing what you want to do. By doing this, I had someone that held me accountable for 3 months straight. I was able to develop the habits I needed to continue on in my entrepreneur journey and also have someone to continue to install the confidence that nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
2. It sounds clishe but surround yourself with like-minded people. The energy you surround yourself rubs off on you, whether you like it or not. In the past year, I had to seriously evaluate who was in my close circle. You have to be selfish with your energy when it comes to reaching your full potential
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
I think one of the current challenges I’m facing is releasing control. As my business continues to grow, I’m learning I have to install new systems into place that will improve our current efforts. The systems I had a 5-figure business are not the same as the systems I’m installing as a 6-figure business.
It can be challenging releasing control of aspects of my business but it’s also important to bring people onto my team that are experts in different areas of business and that is truly the only way you will grow. I tell my team all the time, I do not know everything and lean into each in every one of them and their expertise.
I heard this quote and it says there’s a difference between a CEO and a business owner. A business owner can’t walk away from their business without it falling apart. A true CEO can step away and the business will still operate at the same level it was before. So, it’s challenging getting to that part of my business but I’m learning to release control so that our agency can continue to scale to 7-figures within the next 6 months.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.snc-media.com
- Instagram: sahlanaasira
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahlacook/
- Other: Calendly link to book a discovery call: https://calendly.com/sahla/30min
