Episode 9: The Farron Clark Effect

0:00Farron Clark: Farron, welcome to Pretty Busy. Thank you, glad to be here. You're actually basically one of the first guests. I'm honoured, I'm really honoured to be here. Very happy to have you. Now today, the main thing I want to get into today is the pivot into now becoming a creator. And such a successful start. Thank you so much. We all just love to hear your voice. Well, I like to hear my voice too, apparently. so before we do that career before the content did you always want to do this what what what was your dream as a young girl it's hard to ask like influencers and creators what their dream was because this did not exist when we were younger never thought of this like i actually even when i was in like nine to five would have always said i would have never have done this so yeah i it was never like a a plan to do this wanted to be a fashion designer when i was younger had like a mannequin pictures i'll send you some if you want some had like a short barbed like pin a load of ugly fabric on like a mannequin it was it was that for years very more creative than intellectual my teachers said so always had that like creative spark um didn't go to university didn't do anything like that which I think a lot of people don't realize and I think it's it's a good thing that I say to people even though I do do talks at universities now I'm like I didn't actually go to university um just wanted to be in something creative kind of knew social media existed because I was a big like YouTube follower like any beauty creators I feel like most creators or most people in this space watched a lot when they were younger and I feel like I watched a lot of different people a lot of American people um and then ended up I actually came out of sick form went into pensions and investments which is really rogue I didn't know what I wanted to do and I had to pay rent so I was like she needs to get a job um and then ended up finding one job online for a it was my first ever job called uh Jordana T-shirt cosmetics and yeah she wanted oh yeah you've got some stuff haven't you um what's the blah what's the blush a blusher duo it's casual yes yes yeah i remember um yeah she basically put a job out she was like a one-woman band kind of like hiring maybe there was like one before me social media exec before me um and i just went in like i went in with like an ipad presentation a video like tried to do the most remember like wagging work one day I was so paranoid because I'm the worst at like you know I never want to be late or like caught me wrong so um went in like all blazed up and met her at her apartment building and then she like gave me the job and it was that was my first job in social media I just thought I need to get my foot in the door because no one wants to give you a job if you've not got experience but then it's like I can't get experience if no one gives me experience um so then yeah it was there we did such great things there um and interestingly enough I actually obviously it was like minimum wage had no experience and then when we got into kind of like a few months in I'm sure she won't mind me saying this um when you're when you're a startup you can't really afford to pay obviously like competing salaries in the industry so we kind came to an agreement of um like a commission structure of if we saw the revenue increase through social media it would that's what my income would look like so rather than paying me a higher salary or paying me pay increases it was just dependent on how much work we did so like the better the brand did the better I did kind of thing and that's why it worked so well especially in the early days um how long that's a really good tip for like start up founders yeah I was just so hungry like I just wanted to incentivize is the role massively that's pretty much like an early bonus scheme right and it was the it was a rise of tiktok shop i settled her tiktok shop with her um and it was when it was the heyday of tiktok shop like the the big the big everyone was doing tiktok shop back in the day um and i think i was there for two years and then i thought i'm a bit of a fashion babe and i'm very much i tell everyone like get as many jobs as you can like in as many different fields doing as many different things as you can um so i got my first job in fashion as a um I think it was a the title was brand and social because it wasn't just social media it was everything around the brand and its reputation events and influence relationships so it's kind of like a broad a broad role and then was there for about I'm gonna say a year and a bit and then took the plunge I thought if I don't do it now I never will yeah well that's similar to me like I did like a year and a half at ASOS and was like you kind of need to take that jump when you're like young enough to be that you also need to be a bit delusional this is what i mean i was at asos like i could do this better than you guys let me just run with this but i'm like 29 now i would never think that now but yeah you have to strike when you're oh my gosh i've got the most insane sense of delusion ever yeah well you have to yeah nothing to me is if somebody else has proven that it can be done i'm like well if they've done it surely i can do it too if i look however long that takes just i'm like so certain yeah i think people always ask me about that and then i think one thing to call out in those two roles you had were small teams small team types amazing i always say to anybody looking to get into the industry everyone always wants to go and work in these huge corporate companies but i'm like if you can get on the ground in a in an up-and-coming like building it with them brand it's the best thing ever if you can you can really see like start to finish your work coming to life which i think is so rewarding more than these big companies i think it's harder to feel that and visibly see your work coming to life as frequently as you can in a small company but i love working in a small team yeah so do i i love it it's exactly what you're saying i also feel like it's the best experience like i've got girls on my team that have been with me for like five years that are in like more systematic marketing roles and they're able to just do their job now yeah but they'll never you know regret the days where we was all packing all just doing everything like seeing like the impact and and that's still going on I mean odd news is still relatively small in the grand scheme of things well in the scheme of where it's going like you get to see that impact in what you're doing so like launch days we've got the screen yeah everyone's got their like little bit that they're doing and I would hate to lose that that's one thing I would always kind of like keep yeah definitely it feels personal as well and I feel like when you are in a small team not that it's your brand but you kind of feel like it is a part of you like your contribution to it feels so personal and especially when you're doing a job like social media and you are kind of helping build the brand publicly in my mind I was like everyone's what the success of this brand is partly people are watching me and kind of like waiting for me to do something with it as well as like everybody else in the team so it's yeah you feel so proud and what did you love most about working brown side the difference between doing what i do now and the thing i miss probably about being in-house brown side is if you have an idea especially if you've got a bit of the people trust you and a bit of responsibility you can carry it from like thought to final stages and you know see it fully executed and and whereas now in terms of more of like the consultancy and the conversations I do I can tell you what I think you should do but it's not up to me to do it whereas I love being like doing the do boots on the ground actually executing um brand size just like the pride you feel when when something that you thought of or like something the team have done actually works you're thinking oh my god that could have so easily not worked but there are any like downsides to working brand side other than like I mean the typical ones like you know it's it's it's it's long hours it is especially if you're social media brand side you don't really switch off but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing I think you just have to be a certain type of personality type to thrive in those environments and I love brand side I would always tell people to do it and it's great tell me a little bit more about what you're doing along the creator side so you you consult with other brands yeah so a lot of my work is for example it'll be a partnership where they'll ask me to come in either do some consultancy or advise on say they've got a project coming up and they'll be like we'd really love your opinion we'd love you to come in the meeting and like strategize with us and then they'll send me say like the influencer briefs that go out they'll ask me to review them give that very honest feedback or things they've got coming up or campaign concepts they've got coming up and they want like sometimes like an outside view when you're in it so much sometimes it takes someone who's outside like kind of like looking from a bird's eye view to give you what you need um and then off the back of that so they'll do all those consultancies and conversations and strategy and then they'll kind of want me to talk about it on social media from that point of view yeah so it's rather than me recommending the product I'm kind of being an inside outside team member yeah which is perfect for me because I still get to feel like I'm part of something yeah I don't think I could do full-time content creation if I didn't still have that because it's kind of what fulfills me in that sense like the brands I work with and I'm so picky are incredible but being part of like a project and that's that like start to end execution thing isn't it it's so that's what that's mainly what I do now I'm getting into talks talking to like university students and it's nice to have that like diversity in your job as well i don't think i could do it if i didn't i feel like i'm someone that needs to be like really busy and stimulated and yeah i thought it's been great so far and then moving into actually leaving i don't want to say corporate because it's not corporate but leaving like brand side what was was there like a defining moment where you was like was you working towards it or was it just like this data like with asos i was like kind of like i'm just it kind of like that it was literally just like a random it kind of felt like that i don't think it was so impromptu but it was like just a random sunday and i was speaking to my boyfriend and i was thinking when you're so in a job and i think this is that maybe one of the only downsides to working in in house when you are so so ambitious and so driven when you're in a in a job your whole life can become that especially if you're so passionate about it like they feel everything right am to pm do you know what i mean and i like that because i think that's how you should be you should treat it as if it's is not as if it's yours because it's not but that that energy i think is how i managed to be successful in the jobs i was in but you get so immersed in it that you can forget that you had other things you wanted to do and that's the only downside i think especially if you are someone that's very that's got a lot of big dreams and goals is that a lot of your time and as it should be like you you should be committed to your job i always say to the girls in my team because we can all get a bit obsessed with it we're like promoting healthy obsession like we want you to be obsessed because you love it and you love the brand you're you love seeing what's coming out in the next six months but you know we're not we're not saving lives we're not saving lives that's what i'm telling them all the time um but like healthy obsession because it can get like that when you're working at a startup brand because you you see everything come to fruition you also feel everything like you feel every knock back like the bad yeah like i've been in the office before where the telly's been up and launch hasn't gone well and i could see like all the girls face is just a straw i'm like it's okay don't worry i'm not i always say i'm not worried you shouldn't be worried um but healthy obsession is key but you do want those people that love the brand as much as you do 100 and i think one of the things now looking back Like I always say it's probably really great to hire those really ambitious people that are so hungry and want to be obsessed.

11:31Farron Clark: But I don't think you can think that they're always going to be there. Oh, 100%. And I think that's one of the things. Sophie is my prime example. Yeah. Of course, like I've got her back. But we definitely we definitely got like very obsessed with it. It was like it become as much as her life as it was my life. And I was like obviously distraught when she left. But I totally got it. Yeah. it can't be like an obsession to the point where it's taking over your personal life i was talking to my boyfriend one night and i always talk to him about everything that i want to do and he's like the biggest support he thinks i'm like the best like great um and i think he was just like well if not now then when because i don't have kids not married don't have too many commitments obviously like we rent an apartment and things but he's like you're only going to be this young once that's the best thing about having somebody like that is and you're so employable if this doesn't work out that's what he was like he was like do you think you're not going to get another job like yeah it's so fine you'll be so fine and he was like you built you've built yourself so publicly that it's not just like you've got a cv it's like a reputation of your name and in the industry and you're so fine but yeah it just i just had the conversation on a monday and it was just like i worked i think it works maybe like three extra months because it was near the end end of the year and I didn't want to put anyone in like a bit of a tough position especially like just like the last quarter of the year is always the the busiest so I'll work till the end of the year and then like January 2026 was oh okay so it's quite a clean slate clean slate new year started off yeah so you've only been doing it for like six months yeah just wow what a start I know it's been incredible it's yeah and I feel like there's so much as well that I could tell people but I'm so about the deferred gratification of it all that yeah when people are like oh my god you're so amazing I'm thinking just you wait like what we've got coming which is so fun I love that yeah but I always I always said that to anyone who leaves my team and like I can see it on their faces like they're a bit distraught I'm like I'll have you back like I always try and like when people are saying to me about leaving their jobs and I just feel like if you're employable like just I know it isn't like you have to be a bit more delusional when you think yes I know that there's it is actually quite hard to get a job these days as well but you have to like believe in yourself to the point where you are employable and you can get another job especially when you are young and you don't have these commitments like it's much harder to say when you've got a huge mortgage and you know children to feed but I think when you're young just try and you know just try and keep saying to myself like no risk no reward no risk no reward so I'm trying to take as many risks as I can without taking myself over the edge so did you like start to dabble a little bit in content creation and yeah so I don't use something like TikTok's going to work and stuff like that yeah so I had already I already had a kind of a management that represented me maybe before I even resigned from my last job so I was already in the works of and I think financially I actually wasn't reliant on my job I just did the job because I love the job which is a great thing but it's also a time thing yeah the day's gonna come yeah 100 % so I'd done a bit of content creation but hadn't really got I'm like big on strategy and hadn't really got into the strategy side of it was more just kind of like alongside my job like here and there brands that I love here's a list of brands that I love if any of them come forward like are and here's a list of the products that I love if any of them come forward wanting to do a partnership around my job because I always said that I was I didn't ever want to do it full-time I was like I would love to you know as a bit of additional income do it alongside of it and that was um I think it was like October November December I'd done that so I kind of knew I had a bit of a thing to not fall back on but there was a there was a second income coming in so like rent could be paid and that was kind of what reassured me I was like okay it's fine I'm and it builds builds a page everything else I can kind of work around um and then what happened was I kind of I think I had maybe about 80 ,000 followers when I resigned in I'm gonna say October didn't have 100k until this year and then at the start of the year at the start of the year I basically made a video that I'd been repeating for years and years I was like about getting up and getting dressed for the office and how I could really just make you feel better when you look better and then i did this one tiktok which now is ingrained in my brain because i hear it so often it's like when you look good you feel good when you feel good you're more productive when you're more productive you're more likely to achieve goals and dreams gonna get it tattooed like on my ass or something um and it just it went it started getting so much attraction but then people started quoting it as like a farron clark effect so it wasn't actually me that made that and everyone's like how did you do that it's so clever i was thinking it actually wasn't me it was having a niche it is exactly and it's kind of the repetition and then i think one people found me they could then scroll back and see like every outfit I ever wore to work and every conversation I ever had so it was as a starting point if you found me off that video you had so much content to consume after that that it then felt like not a bit of a reality show but you could watch it you could watch till I was like 18 on TikTok I've been posting for so long that people could scroll and scroll and scroll and see me kind of repeating the same thing see me wearing lots of different blazers and see me dressing and do my makeup and you could watch so much that when they called it like the fire and cloud big up to whoever actually first ever said that i've done me a solid there um we used to have that asos we'd call it the lawn locks effect oh and like whenever that woman more lawn it would be the lawn locks effect amazing it's it's an incredible thing um and it just blew up and that was i hit 100k at end of jan and we're hitting 200k this week so congrats it's been considering you're six months in full time that's pretty good going thank you thank you yeah it's been great and I think it's just a lot of learning along the way but it's been really fun and I think the more I like the team I have around me now I've got a management I've been with for about three months we're so big on like intention and strategy and the long-term career and they're very much not they don't really view me as like like an influencer it's very much like a brand that we're creating and that's how they view it I mean I have got a section on like the business of influence but I truly I truly feel like if you're I mean everyone wants to be an influencer everyone is an influencer like that is the reality but I truly feel like if you're coming into the space with your own niche and your own ideas and actually being strategic you can shine 1000 % the conversation I have with so many people and I try and have it and I tell everybody if you have an interest in starting social media you should because it's life-changing but I think I say to everybody if you play the long game with this and you don't accept the quick wins because the quick wins are not the quick wins but the things that come when you're starting out and you start to get a bit of attraction attention and everyone wants kind of all these brands want to leverage it and they come in with figures and partnerships that are are unimaginable when you don't come from a lot of money but if you if you hold off and play the long game and play it in terms of like you are a third party brand and that's kind of how me and my team view it it's like who is the girl that follows me what does she like what does she need from me if she's only found me now how would i speak to her if she already knows me how am i speaking to her and things like that you can be you can be so clever with it and i think it's the same way if you've come from growing an actual brand the perk of it is that's how you can you can apply the same techniques to growing your personal brand i think the key word there is long game no one wants to play the long game no one wants to play the long game no one wants to play i've done a video on this the other day about how like brands just like crucify influencers if they don't post like a gifted piece or they don't do it no one plays the long game anymore and i don't know when we stop doing that because that's just not how we're going to build relationships everyone kind of is thinking about it's like i always say like engagement is a bit like a drug like everyone's thinking about like that next viral hit yeah it is actually quite incredible that you've gone into this industry knowing that because i know i know for a fact when i first started like getting monetizing my personal brand i was like you want to pay how much like oh yes yes yes like and obviously it always had to be like products that i use and my main thing was it has to be it won't work i won't have the time on what otherwise it has to be what i'm using every day so i worked i work a lot with like tpm and like all all things that are genuinely you love tpm it's just in just love grace she's just brilliant at everything she does need to get on the pod um yeah the only way it could work if it is stuff that was genuinely in my handbag but i was still like oh my god yes this is amazing even when i think back to even the first because what i didn't realize as well as it's say you were to agree a collaboration in like i'm posting collaborations that i now that I agreed in January like it's it's not a quick thing so I think you've really got to and there's learning things along the way and even me as someone who came in thinking I'm playing the long game I look back now and think I'd have done that differently but it's very much about learning on the job kind of thing but no one wants to play the long game and I get it I get I get it to a degree because it's it's such an incredible world that that financially when that when these brands are saying these things and these figures it's it's so hard to say no to especially when And so for me as well, for the last five years, I've put every single penny into Odd Muse.

21:08So despite the business doing really well, I've never really had financial freedom until I monetised my personal brand. So it is very exciting at first, but it's so important to get strategic.

21:20Farron Clark: And even that, when I left my full-time job at the start of the year, I said, I'm going to pay myself a minimum wage. And I'm like, even in terms of cash flow in your business and knowing that me and my accountant and my partner were like we're going to do it minimum wage see what the year looks like you know rather than I can imagine it's very easy to get into this though and all of a sudden like splashing cash and living but it's you've got to be smart with it and playing the long game with brands for me is even brands that I love but the partnerships and the briefs don't align with how I want to show up and I think because I'm known as a bit of a marketing social media girl if I do things that I wouldn't advise other brands to do or I wouldn't advise to post that on that platform if I do that it's kind of like contradicting everything I say so I mean my team say all the time it's like if that isn't what I'd recommend another brand to do or if I wouldn't recommend another brand to post that on that platform I don't want to do it because I'm like it actually threatens my marketing name in the industry yeah yeah no that is one thing I'm like learning off off my friends that do this is you do have a voice to like push back a little bit on briefs because we're all in it to get the most engagement out of this get as many people to see this as possible that's what they're paying you for and and obviously a brief is going out to everyone and everyone is very different so that's one thing I'm learning like two years into personal ground I'm like oh I can I do actually have a voice to say can we do it differently can we post this while I'm at Wimbledon or can we align it with stuff like that and that's how they perform the best they're my favorite types of partnerships and that's what me and my team are so big on is really collaboratively working I think my team are quite not shocked but they were very pleasantly surprised at how many brands were happy to give me now kind of like the ones that come in say over the last three months they're so happy to give me creative control and some of them won't give me a brief and some of them will just say kind of like can you let us know what you think could work well and that's my favorite type of partnership because I feel like when you're not a traditional because this beauty influences this product influences when you're not one of those when you post content like that and i've done it myself it can come across not in your tone of voice it's like that's not what they used to so it's like if now you're promoting xyz kind of like throws them off because like oh i didn't realize this is what she did no it still might do well but it probably could have done better if you did it in a way one of my favorite ones i'll give an example is i did an organic video about refi's um marketing when they did an influencer like no brief thing and all the influencers were like we didn't have to get this content approved this is the first time brand will be seeing this review of the skin base skin tint thing great product so i did a video basically saying how it was really clever and how from a customer point of view and how from an influence point of view and the industry and then off the back of that they then approached me they were like we'd love you to actually try the product do a follow-on from why you think it worked or like an additional and they didn't again didn't give me a brief and it worked so well the engagement was incredible but it's kind of because it was so organic and natural a follow-on from my organic content I think that's where brands I always say brands should be in their market not in their marketing that's where brands really get the most out of their money that they're spending it's like let me like tell you what will work I want it to work for you as much as I want it to work for me the brand if it doesn't isn't successful I take it personal because I'm like I know that your team are looking for a return on investment on me so like let's make this like mutually beneficial you kind of see yourself as a brand which I love what is the Farron Clark brand I think it's I always say I always want to be the perfect sweet spot between relatable and aspirational so I want to be I never want her to not be able to relate to the conversations that I'm having the thoughts that I have the things that I do but I never want to be too relatable and that she doesn't feel inspired by kind of like being virtual friends with me I want to kind of push her to think differently and grow and and be the best version of herself whether that's like getting up and looking good for work because that'll make her more productive or sharing things I think like I do from a big sister point of view so I always I was waiting for you to say that yeah it's me and Dom and I was speaking about that before you got here yeah big sister it's like my whole personality yeah um but I think it's that perfect balance between I would never want to be so aspirational that she can't see herself in me and see herself in my lifestyle but I never want to be too relatable and that I don't inspire her to be better her as in I say her as in like the girl that follows me when I say that some people if they've not worked around they don't get it like all the music customer will be in meetings like she liked this dress yeah yeah so it's like that perfect sweet spot is my content is it's not really I'm not really a product I would say influence some more I would I'll recommend a product and when I do they love it because they know it's authentic but it's very much like big online big sister that you kind of think is like a bit cool and like does cool things and gets to be in cool rooms but she'll come back to you at the end of the day she'll tell you about it she'll tell you what she thinks and she'll give you the down low on it like that's kind of like the fire and clark brand i love that and how is it different from what most people would think it's not all smiles and rainbows no some people when i left people like what are you gonna do all day i don't think i've had a single day that like i've not had loads to do but i think that's because me and my team keep me very much all day that's a good one what people asking you what you're gonna do it's not a busy job yeah like i i genuinely there's not a day where i sit around and lounge around and don't get me wrong the beauty of this industry and people say i don't know it's a beautiful job in that you've got so much flexibility and freedom but if you do it right you can keep yourself very busy if you if you don't want to be busy the beauty of the industry is that you don't have to be busy you could do a couple labs and keep yourself thinking but if you're a very like ambitious strategic person that wants a lot out of their personal brand and wants to give a lot to their followers you can be very busy especially with me and my team will always say like I want to be boots on the ground I want to be in the marketing conversation so so I still want to be like this week I'm in a company on Wednesday and we're doing a team a talk with the whole marketing team having like a brainstorming session so I'm kind of like still in the marketing rooms and I still want to be at the marketing conventions and like there's something coming up called creator fest and that's what i'll be talking about and holding a panel for and still very much boots on the ground in the marketing world so we keep so busy but what's so what's surprising about the industry um there is what surprised you the most that you wasn't expecting just the just the money that's in the industry to be completely honest i just had no clue like i've never i've been brought up incredibly and never gone without but it was never never had a load never had a load never had a load of money or never yeah like my parents worked so hard and like had a very normal gorgeous upbringing but like to to know what you could earn and the scope of what you could earn is insane so whenever anybody says to me like oh I want to start social media I'm like it'll change your whole life like if you are passionate about creating a social media and want to get on there like there's actually no downsides to it or give it a go like what you're gonna think it's embarrassed every everyone's embarrassed yeah so everyone thinks it's cringe when you start out look embarrassment is the price of success is what steven gotler told me exactly no it is like you just gotta be comfortable with being embarrassed because like no one thinks it's embarrassing now life is all about making decisions sometimes you make questionable ones like buying a new tv that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive.

28:48You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. How important is it to carve out a nation and industry like this?

29:04Farron Clark: I think, you know, when you see videos of kids and they're like, I want to be an influencer when I grow up, I think that that term's got lost because I think influence is trust and I think it's people having trust in you so it's like what are you giving them in exchange for their trust and I think when you carve out a niche for yourself it's that they can trust that they're going to come back every single time and you're going to still be kind of talking on the same topics and like you're not going to start one thing and then start another and then they follow you and that's why I always say virality isn't actually your best friend because i don't think you want to be viral because people i've had conversations recently with influencers and creators have been in the industry for so long had virality during say like covid for example now their audience they've really struggled with that engagement with their audience it makes the the job so much easier especially when it's one that you actually want to do it feels very natural it does make the job easier it does it's so true when you and when it's something you're passionate about so like my niche is i always say i want to be like a on a more of an online personality online brand so that if they heard me talking about a love island debrief one night they wouldn't be surprised and if they heard me talking about what I was doing in terms of marketing they wouldn't be surprised because they know that I'm the person that will kind of give them the inside scoop and what I'm doing my niche is that I'm like in great rooms but I tell you about the rooms and I'm in great conversations but I'll let you in and I'm having these thoughts but I'll tell you about so it's it's my niche is that in between of again aspirational but relatable and if you don't have a niche you can feel very lost and you can feel like you're trying to do a million things and you'll do get ready with me's and then you'll try and do like a someone said they want to see a food shop from me but I actually don't want to see my food shop like a because I don't do it um I'm like in little Tesco every single night like I'm not the house you come to when if you want to go in the fridge and see like a fully stocked fridge like we've got meals every single day but it's that's not my my niche isn't that sort of relatable like and I think there's so many amazing people that you can see like that's that relatability from my niche is more the relatable that i want to be doing really great things but i want to bring you along with me and i want to tell you about them that's my version of relatable um but it makes it so much easier when you kind of kind of like you know who you want to be you know what you want to give your audience like i know what i think she wants to see from me i know what i want to show her lean into it and And then how important do you think your, say, two and a half, three years out in the working world was important?

31:34Because everyone wants to jump right in.

31:35Farron Clark: Oh, my God. If I hadn't have come to the conclusion I'd come to of doing it, I think I'd have happily stayed in work, in the workplace brand side for another three, four years. You will never learn as much as you will on the job. like and that's why me and my team say it's so important for me to still be in the rooms and in the conversations because I never want to be out of it there's no point me talking about marketing and talk about socials but never actually getting involved in it on the ground now and I feel like you lose a bit credibility when you're not on the ground and it changes so fast and there's so many things that you learn from different people you meet like I could organize an e-com shoot and a trip now or all of this but I could never have done that before say my like my last job and you honestly the best thing i could ever say is try and get as many jobs as you can and just learn and absorb all you can yeah and then apply it all i agree like just do the most everyone wants to jump right in but even whether it's wanting to be an influencer wanting to start your own brand but i mean i would not have been able to take odd news without them a couple years at asos no 100 percent no and what makes you say no to a brand loads I say no we say no to about 80 percent of the work that comes in more because if I wouldn't do it in two years time I'm not doing it now and that's something that me and my I think that's really important because going back to what we were speaking about even you know when I first started the first two years I just I feel like you just don't know you're kind of like right yeah of course you can say no yeah you can say no and also again because i think people view me from a marketing point of view if i'm like if that if if if they're not gonna gain something from that if they're not gonna that's not gonna be received well for her it might benefit me financially but i'm like in the long run her trust is so much more valuable to me than this quick win so what what would say no is if i didn't think if it was a product that i didn't think all my audience could use like say like a shade range i'd say no i'd pull back on it um if it was a brand that i didn't think was nice to work for i say no if i've heard like rumors in the industry that like they treat their staff badly i say no um if if i just don't like what they stand for if i don't if i don't think we align brand to brand like as in my personal brand and their physical brand i just yeah if i'm putting my name to something there's so much power in like what that means and the associations that you tie to your name so it's like every brand I work with I'm tying their associations to me so I say we say no to a lot.

34:15Going back to what we just spoke about very quickly brand trips what do you think of them personally I'm terrified to go on one and I'm terrified to host one.

34:22Farron Clark: It's um there's a really clever way of doing it and I think me and my team have this conversation a lot um we have basically now kind of put together like a bit of a document that we speak to brands about in terms of what they want out of the trip the guest list is the guest list completely representative of your target customer and variations of what your target customer could look like and sound like and show up like um brand trips can be done really well brand trips can be done really badly and i think there's in terms of like from creator side i think it's really important to have those conversations to ensure that the brand trip you're going on is an accurate representation of what you believe in in terms of brand side i think it can be done really well i think it can be done really badly there's i don't know why there's such an influx of trips at the minute i have had i can't say the trips that i've been on were actually i actually we actually have said no to a lot of trips there's about four other trips i could have been on even like now there was one that came in next week there was like two i said no to last month but i'm also thinking i actually don't think my girl wants to see me sunning it up living it up i might so if it isn't benefiting my audience what's it who's it benefiting yeah me obviously and it's amazing to have these incredible opportunities but they're inviting you as in creators on these brand trips to get through to your audience that's what that's why i'm there is because they think my target audience is their target audience so if it isn't actually benefiting my target audience if it isn't being received well to my target audience you're not getting what you want i'm not getting what i want it's an incredible opportunity and like in what world do you actually get taken on free free holidays it's crazy yeah as a brand like i love what you do with wimbledon i think that's so chic so sophisticated yeah we love Wimbledon yeah it's one day it's a gorgeous day but I'm like I've just I'm just terrified of them to be down on this brand side and would you want to do one without news we will eventually because I have a marketing team that really want to do one and I need to serve them but um it's just figuring out how to do that where that would be um but I'm not obsessed with the idea just from more of a personal level like I'm such an introvert like I even get terrified for pretty busy filming days so I just need to build myself up a bit more but yeah they are Wimbledon's where it's at for us at the moment maybe next year we'll do like a three-day thing where we go for the week whole weekend I don't know write me out an obvious brand trip I'm gonna get something really chic and I'll give you to do like a late coma or something really beautiful and elegant or where else is Monaco would be very on brand Monaco if one get the yellow yacht get it or muse yacht do you know what i mean my finance director will be like

37:04um what's next beyond brand deals

37:09Farron Clark: what do you ever have a brand one day don't everyone always asks me this everyone always never say never never say never however i think i've got a lot to learn and i want to absorb as much from the industry as i can so that i would be very well as well equipped i feel like you're never well equipped 100 but as well equipped as possible to handle everything that can be thrown your way i think especially if you are somebody that creates a brand when you have a platform you've got to do it right and you've got to i always say everything i'm doing is priming for everything that i'm gonna do so everything i'm doing now in terms of say like all the associations and all the brand deals i take now need to align with say if i was to start a brand would it be a contradiction to everything i've done or would it make so much sense that it feels like such a lead up to that thing um what's next outside of partnerships oh sorry outside of brand deals is more for me partnerships where it's so collaborative in that brands really bring me on board yeah um and i'll kind of be like a part of their team part of my team but really get to bring people i really want a face of brand face of brand and i really want to show them behind the scenes loads of people will say to me like i want to start a business but i don't want to put my face to the brand i don't think you necessarily need to but it's it's nice to have a face doesn't need to be your face yeah your face or that face but a face is quite important i just think people tend to buy from people and more than people don't really buy products we all know this people buy stories people buy into something and it's like what are what does it mean to be a girl that wears odd news like that's what they're buying into they're buying into if they're wearing that out what does it say to other people about them when you wear a brand um i would maybe i would to start a brand in the future i think i just want to get really good would it be like fashion beauty everyone always asks me to start a fashion brand but that ain't as easy as it looks evidently to do what you've done even just seeing it from like brand side this it's unbelievable what goes into a fashion brand i bumped into sarah ashcroft the other day and she started doing uh sunglasses and i was like what's it like to not have to size your skus literally that's what we're talking about the f1 never had to do a fit session yeah she's like it's great there's only like one code per item i was like that is i've got them in my bag she's done great oh i need to get myself a pair of them really great but yeah there's so much that goes into it and it's also starting up and and trying to be as inclusive and and get it right immediately and make sure you have the right team there's a lot of things that go into it initially especially if you start it as somebody with a platform you've got to really do right um and make sure you know who your target customer is and you know what you want your brand to stand for and i think when you've already got a bit of an online personality or reputation there's even more pressure as there always should be to make sure you get it right yeah so if i was to ask you what a five-year plan is i i never i still can't answer this question because i feel like if you've got five-year plan And you're almost like limiting yourself a little bit.

40:14I like, I'm like week on week. I'm like. Yeah.

40:18Farron Clark: I'm like this week, next week. I think I really, really want to be a voice in the industry and a voice. I think, I think presenting. I was going to say that. Yeah. Presenting, having conversations online, being someone that people want to hear the opinion from. So we need a TV gig. oh okay something along those lines but just getting in my thing is I want to be in the rooms that are tough to get in and I want to be I want people to be able to be in the rooms with me by watching me do these things but not so much from like a journalistic point of view but more because I get I get to be like the fly on the wall and show absolutely show the people that follow me or show the people that want to watch these places and these conversations and these rooms that are hard to get in but are so great when you get in them and you can have such great conversations yeah and then random from me you just seem so like confident everybody always says tell me it's where does it come from how do people get it are you selling it a lot of it i feel like is the way you're raised like yes my parents have always been very much like there's nothing you can't do like if they can do it you can do it kind of thing and i think that's something that I'll take into raising my kids it's like that pure self-belief I just very much think if other people have shown you that they can do it from somebody who's like never been to university very much self-taught like I don't have there's not a load of people around me that have like businesses or I don't come from like money money or anything like that I just think there's so much information online that's how I've like how I've managed to that's how I've managed to get my job and get in my career is just genuinely like watching youtube videos because i did it when i when i was in school like i'm not naturally clever i'm i still can't spell to this day but like self self-learning self-taught i literally will google and everyone's like what's your favorite podcast but i'm more just google as to like what i think i need to know so like yesterday i was googling like how how do i need to run a business from an accounting point of view and i'm watching it on youtube you know to like make sure that i'm doing everything right and let's just type in things in in terms of social media like literally sales the psychology of selling the psychology of customers and everything like that fake it the whole fake it till you make it thing is it's just to act as if and it's kind of like the whole look good feel good it's like if you show up and you like start acting as if and looking as if and trying to make yourself feel as if you you've got it together you can be productive today it's all like the small knock-on effects of like look good feel good is such a funny terminology now but it's it basically is it's true though it's so true but it's more in terms of not just like the vanity aspect but it's it's showing up for yourself feeling up and like when you look when you look good you do feel good you have a pep in your step and it's like when you look gorgeous on a night out like the way you would like walk or like dance you have such energy about you do you know what i mean like you just you have such a good night when you look good the same way when you don't look good you just you just feel terrible and you don't you don't have the best night and you it's like an energy thing i'm so big on energy that i think i always want people to want to enjoy being around me yeah and i think it's very clear that you along the way have always kind of enjoyed what you've done a hundred percent like it's always been my dad always used to say to me because i always used to watch people on youtube and he'd be like you could just do that like just do it and i'd be like i can't literally can't you know when i was like 14 but i can't he'd be like they're doing it why can't you do it i always like the gift of the gab thing like if anybody tells you you've got the gift of the gab like you need to find something that leverages that because that's what my dad's always said to me i can just talk to anyone you like talking to adults as a kid or talking to parents and it's just always been just a professional gift honestly thank you it's i always say like i'm an introvert that like forces myself to be extroverted like before filming or anything any shoots i am literally terrified like ask anyone in my team like they're like you why do you act like this this is like your 60th shoot right now why are you so anxious i'm like i just can't i just can't help it i don't know to be fair i think one of the things that anyone close to me will say and my friends will say and my boyfriend and my family i am i don't know what personality type it is but i lead with logic every time over emotion like i bizarrely i'm never emotional really yeah like i'm only ever nervous if i've never done something then once i've done it once i'm like okay it's fine yeah it's evidence that i can do it and then i'm never nervous again yeah like that's but i've got a lot of people around me that do that we complement each other so well because we balance each other out so they'll like raise certain emotional things with me and i'll raise certain logic things with them and it's a nice balance i think it's always like a the one thing you have in common is you want to get it right yeah like that's all that is from is that you just want to get it right and you want it to do really well whether it's a video whether it's a shoot whether yeah you want the result to be successful yeah do you remember the first video you did that went viral on your personal socials yeah i was i was literally like 17 and i had i wasn't even in it and it got like 1.7 million views and it was like remember those little potato tots you got as a kid and like this was the video that went viral when i was like it wasn't of me i put salt and ketchup on them i was like these are great that was the first video i ever did at 17 i was like everyone needs these tater tarts like that was the first viral video i ever did um how did you initially find the jump from working nine to five hours to working for yourself i mean you're just busy i love i love routine love being busy if i feel like i don't know what i'm doing this is why i love productivity method because i feel like it keeps you a bit accountable do you know i mean i'm like it tells me everything i need to be doing is written down yeah um i love the little like when it's like that should you put in the five minute thing and it actually takes like 20 and you're like no I need to be quicker yeah a bit of accountability I think I just needed to keep busy I think if I'm not busy I feel I can get I can feel unproductive which then feels like I'm unsuccessful so if I feel like any productivity makes me feel successful whether that's like a few meetings throughout the day or looking at the long term me and my team I've got a really great team and we have a Trello board where we keep everything so at any point I can go in and I can see what needs to be done I can see any comments that need to be done all my all my weekly meetings with my team get written up get a to-do list after it like they're they're on it it's amazing it's like my love language is that cello board no it's incredible I'll show you after um so just yeah feeling productive and that's why the whole look good feel good thing is so funny but I just need to do things even if they're not huge momentum like great things in my career like feeling productive is how I keep saying when do you feel the most creative time of day certain place oh my god obviously wear it like feel good look good but time of place certain place it's just when like whenever I should not be thinking is when I think the most I got a massage this week right not really ever had a massage and they were like they put like this lavender under my face and they're like just relax and switch off I had incredible ideas when I was there like my brain was like whirring and I think it's when you are meant to not be doing it that you should be doing it so like creativity I actually can't force it it just comes in yeah in my own time so it's like in the shower when I'm like doing it's it's it's kind of like when what's it called like habit pairing or something right or something like that but it's when I I'm doing other things that my brain thinks are the best things or I think creativity gets I get inspired by watching and consuming so I have to consume and listen or watch and be around other things for that to get my thoughts going and my creative processes going so if I'm just like sat watching something that isn't really thought-provoking or isn't sparking anything I don't really feel creative but it's when I shouldn't be thinking that I think that yeah I'm like that at night I've just started getting out of bed again like I used to and just writing things down what are your top five brands are absolutely smashing it now social community activations rebrands like what top five are calling out to you at the moment oh it's a great one i mean i love anything burberry do in terms of their campaigns i think they are incredible i think they're so creative and really entertainment focused they lead with entertainment every single time they never leave with lead with product i love how they always bring it back to like just british heritage it's amazing um love watching everything that they do i love seeing luxury brands just have a bit of humor oh my god it's incredible this you don't actually need to be i did a i did a video on this the other day um about a fashion brand that used like a trending sound that was going on about them and they were asking all these incredible celebrities on the runway and it was like such a tiktok conversation that they brought to like the side of our runway yeah i thought that these brands again like if you're in your market and not so focused on like marketing and how it looks if you're actually in the conversations and where your brand's name is being said in its community and in its customers that's when the marketing is the best when you oh my it's like oh my god our conversations have got back to like the brand do you know i mean and that's when i think is it's the most successful do you know who i love bays you know the suitcase brand in america yes mitchell i think she does it really really well so great who else it's always the little the little random ones i think do really well i even like the way people like personal brand themselves and then like have you seen that girl on tiktok that's like charcuterie boards she's called francesca no but i'll definitely get oh she's just like yeah but it's like every it's like charcuterie board from i'm just obsessed with this girl who's like stranded in london at the moment have you seen her oh my god she was on what show was she i'm like where is she i'm like shall i offer her like top floor up on the street store that is actually a really good move again yeah again like in your market of like what else is your market looking at what's on their for you pages and how can you like yeah be quick and reactive with it i think that's my favorite thing though is when brands are really quick and reactive love what refi do you think they're really great from a community point of view love their founders really can't wait to see i thought we're going to see more of the behind the scenes of their founders this year yeah love that what's your sleep back routine sophie oh my god yeah it's um this is for sophie yeah it's a smooth company brush big up smooth company they're really really great a smooth is any hair mask i'm using one currently called cc which is like a natural a natural one that my friend and i beat there has just actually launched it's really great it's like silky mask all the way through it's tight there's like four bubbles in here it's a serious like don't expect i think people go wrong with a slick back when they expect to be able to wear your hair down the day after like this would stay up if i took the bubbles out it's so glued to my head um a hair mask a good slick back brush i use two brushes i use one bristly brush then one slick back brush and i'm pulling i'm yanking it's it's serious business up there there you go so there you go um and lastly before you go i have to ask you what's keeping you pretty it's rose glazing milk yeah i use it every i just got the bronzing one yesterday oh i want that one i've had every single pr parcel other than the bronzer one i thought that's not gonna stop me i thought i went to sephora yesterday i was like i'm gonna get it myself got the bronzer got the glazing the bronzing glazed mug it's just great like if you love to look like a glazed donut yeah amazing and what's keeping you busy oh god everything my team my team i've got a great team um of people around me and some of them work on like the day-to-day some of them work on events some of them work on like long-term partnerships and they're just really we're really intentional about getting in like getting on boots on the ground marketing conversations amazing well thank you so much for coming on i thought i could chat all day i know we could be half hours a little bit after but thank you so much for coming thanks for having me thank you so much for joining me for another episode of pretty busy we will see you on the next one and make sure you watch on spotify