Kyle Kaplanis: 0:00

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to BizTok it is your host Kyle Kaplanis. TikTok is one of the best places for connecting with new people. This guests that I have on is actually somebody I met through TikTok . Her name is Angela Proffitt. She's an award-winning eight figure entrepreneur and CEO of GSD creative. She is also the host of the Business Unveiled podcast, which you can catch me on her, , upcoming episode . Angela, welcome to BizTok.

​

Angela Proffitt: 0:28

Thanks so much for having me Kyle I'm so excited to be here today.

 

Kyle Kaplanis: 0:32

TikTok is such a great place , for connecting because we would not have been connected without it, .

 

Angela Proffitt:

I love it.

 

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's how powerful that for you page is. It's going to link you to the right people, and get you to the right audience, I'd love to know, what brought you to TikTok?

​

Angela Proffitt: 0:48

It's a funny story. So COVID, that thing COVID and I would say at the end of March of 2020, I typically am traveling way more. In fact, in quarter one, I had 12 different countries that I was going to speak to that got completely canceled. Not even moved online, just completely canceled because of COVID. And so with COVID came this duty of me being an aunt and I have five nieces and nephews, and two of the girls I'm very involved in their lives, like their gymnastics lives and just their day to day stuff that I used to do as a kid. I would help homeschool them. They were very much into TikTok but I had to get work done. I'm a GSD Queen, which is "Get Shit Done". And so I calendar block all my stuff, and I'm like, listen, if you guys will work for three hours with no talking that equals three TikTok's. I would learn the dances with them, and they thought I was like, the fun, cool aunt. And they're like, Oh my God, you really know how to dance. And Oh my God you can pick this up so fast. They're 10 and 12. So it started out with me just managing their accounts. And I'm like shoot, we can monetize this because they started to tell me about the Hype House and the Sway House and all these kids. So here I am on the business side of things, cause I've got the business entrepreneurial mindset. I'm like, we need to start a Nashville house. We need to start a GSD house. We have all these content creators, but it was COVID, that have amazing content more on the education side. I started to learn more and dig more into the business model of what the Hype House and the Sway House was. And then I thought to myself after about the first month, I'm like shit, I'm going to get a TikTok because this whole "Learn on TikTok" hashtag just started. That's one of the biggest things we do is educate people on how to be more productive and how to GSD. And it really was my nieces that drew me to it, but all thanks to COVID. It actually gave me the time to sit down, do a strategy, come up with things, start to study the algorithms, start to study what was working for other creators and just starting to do it. I love it.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 3:10

It gets addicting doesn't it?

​

Angela Proffitt: 3:12

Rabbit hole.

 

Kyle Kaplanis: 3:13

Right? It's so fun because you get to just authentically be yourself. You can just create really fun things, they are short and sweets, so you don't have so much pressure of I have to have a 10 minute video that's perfect and edited and studio quality, you can just just put it out there and go, I love that you brought up monetization because entrepreneurials are going to sit there and think, okay, if I'm going to come to TikTok, is there an opportunity for me to monetize? Is there an opportunity for me to market my business appropriately? And sometimes people might think, no. There's no way TikTok is just a kid's app, how am I supposed to do that? But there's so much opportunity there for sure. And I don't know if you've had experience yet because your content is business related, which is really cool. So talk to me a little bit about how that works for you and how businesses can market themselves on there.

​

Angela Proffitt: 4:03

One thing that I do love about the app though, is that , there are other platforms, but the expectation, like you just said is perfection. And so in the end, the other thing would TikTok is it's a little bit of fun. Mixed in with the business. I grew up as a dancer and as a performer. I can do a few dances and then put some tips in there and some business things. I feel like a lot of people that are on TikTok, at least people that I know their attention span is so short and I am one of those people. That was one of the things that was so attractive as a business owner is that, Oh my gosh, I can actually learn stuff on here. Like I'm not a cook and during quarantine and stuff I'm like, okay, I guess I need to learn how to cook some things. I got my recipes through TikTok. I was also learning because I'm an Apple feign with Mac and teaching people how to sync their stuff and put all their stuff in the cloud and be paperless that I love that you could use a music component without getting dinged or muted. Like I have been a few times on YouTube. You could actually say cuss words and not get muted. Like I have on YouTube and Facebook then have had a few videos banned and you can have fun with it. People are much more graceful and forgiving. ,actually taught me that short form content is still very powerful. It has taught me how to be more powerful in 15 seconds than I ever thought I would be able to do. And it did take a little bit of work, but it has taught me to take things in chunks. Especially for newer entrepreneurs that are trying to pivot, they need things in short chunks psychologically, so they can digest it because my old videos or some of the longer videos on YouTube, people will comment and say, this is great, but like you vomit too much information. It's so overwhelming. On TikTok, you can break it up and people can go back to it and consume it within those 15 to 30 second to 60 second chunks. And you can say, Hey, here's my favorite app for communication, it's Marco Polo, and this is how me and my team and blah, and say it in 30 seconds is what actually has taught me to be a much better speaker as well.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 6:21

It's so true. Like a video, I watch them on YouTube and you just want to get to one section of it. " Can you just quickly tell me this part?" You have to try to find it. We're on TikTok you can break a 10 minute spiel of the whole thing into different segments. So that way people can go pick the ones that they really want to see and learn more from within a quick time. Short form video is King. It's going to stay and maintain , throughout, history. TikTok has changed the game of video, and it's not going anywhere. Long form content, still will be there.

​

Angela Proffitt: 6:51

Totally.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 6:51

It's still important, but the short form game, just to get that attention is huge. So many times I'm trying to make a video and I'm like, Oh no, I ran out of my 60 seconds and I'm like, okay, how can I make that information shorter. I actually had a podcast guest, Mike, he's the most followed attorney on the app. He said, it is very key to plan out your content and then get rid of any filler things as possible. Just put the quick tip, the fact everything you need, in just 30 seconds. He said, don't make it more than 30 seconds. And it does take practice. But like you said, what's great is people are forgiving on the app. So if you're just getting started, people aren't judging you. Your videos in the beginning might actually still do okay, it takes practice. I've made maybe a hundred and something videos on my BizToker account and I'm still learning. I've been part of the app for the last two years with my daughter's account. I've watched hers and I've consumed so much, but when you're doing it, you're still going to constantly learn. So don't take it like you have to be perfect right off the bat. Nobody is expects it. Have you gotten any response at all for your business?

 

Angela Proffitt: 7:55

So the thing that we primarily use it for is for a teaser. What we teach is even though that I've had to learn over time, how to chunk it up a little bit, it gives people little tips and also it gives people something to think about. We don't necessarily go in order, with all of our content. We've put a few like CTS on their call to actions. We have a free if you go to GSDsecrets.com. That's a free video funnel where people go through it and they watch free content on me making videos, but the videos are like 10 minutes long. I'm basically telling them the story about for example, in 2010, the whole reason I got into productivity is because in 2010, where I'm from in Nashville, Tennessee, our town flooded like buildings, homes, completely underwater. At the time I had a luxury event and wedding planning company, we had eight weddings displaced and a lot of my vendors and creative partners, they lost everything and they didn't have flood insurance, all their shit floated away. My whole thing was put your business documents and your client's documents in the cloud. I went to school to be a psychologist, EMR electronical medical records was being introduced and the government was mandating it. This was before I owned businesses and I was not an entrepreneur yet, but I saw the power of being paperless and putting things in the cloud. When the flood happened, even though I kept telling all my creative business owners put your shit in the cloud people, they would not listen. So it took a tragedy. For them to actually say, "Oh my God Ang you're right". So for free, I just started teaching classes on the weekends to help people and teach them how to sync all their Apple devices. Cause they had all the things. They really did, but they were like married to their pen and paper and their notebooks for every event we were doing. So it actually brought an opportunity for us to start doing productivity. I like to have fun with it. If I'm not having fun, I don't want to do it. I am that. ADHD entrepreneur, starting a new business every year girl and mentors help keep me grounded and keep me focused. But what I've learned, especially on TikTok, is there so many other entrepreneurs that are struggling and I don't say struggling meaning a bad thing, but we all struggle with the same things. It's like all these ideas and all these things, but how do we hire team members and how do we become more productive? Just drizzling little breadcrumbs and giving little nuggets people will come through our funnel by going through GSD Secrets. That's one way, the other way is I'm an app feign, I'm a software girl, and I'm a gadget queen. I have every gadget. I'd much rather have the best podcasting, the best Mac, the best, whatever, rather than clothes and shoes and purses, like I'm a tech girl. My audience knows that. So we are able to monetize by sending people to our Amazon store. I'm not salesy in my TikTok's. I'll post something, and then people are like, "Oh my God, where'd you get that?"

 

Kyle Kaplanis: 10:57

 

Exactly.

 

Angela Proffitt: 10:58

Oh my God, here's my Amazon store. So people will go and buy and it's a way for them to support us as content creators, getting the latest tech tools out there. You and I talked about this the other day, you have to have a thousand followers to go live. When you first get on, it's ah, it's going to take me forever. But with one video of me dueting, someone that was also in productivity.

 

Kyle Kaplanis: 11:24

Yeah.

​

Angela Proffitt: 11:25

That got me over that. Now I'm like, okay, now we need to get to 5,000, and now we needed to get to 10,000 to get into the creator fund. But even before creator fund stuff, like there's a lot of TikToker's I know they're not even in the creator fund, but they're monetizing it through their brand deals.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 11:40

Absolutely.

​

Angela Proffitt: 11:41

We just had somebody reach out, which is exciting. It's a new productivity energy drink, and it's all natural. They sent me some of the little shots and they're like, Hey, if you like this, can you make some TikTok's and, can we collaborate together? I'm like, this is so exciting, this is my first TikTok brand collaboration deal with this company. I'm like, I hope I like it cause I'm a juice snob, but it is really good. I don't want to say it has helped my focus and productivity cause I naturally wake up okay, let's go. People are like, are you on Coke? I'm like, no, my dad was an undercover drug dealer. I've never done drugs. I just wake up with a ton of energy and it's my brain never shuts off. That's just the entrepreneur in me. That's where late at night down the rabbit hole of TikTok, I have to set a timer. Otherwise, I will sit up all night, watching TikTok's after I posted my own content.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 12:33

Exactly.

​

Angela Proffitt: 12:34

And getting my own ideas. Some of my friends that I'm like, you've got to get a TikTok, a business account, so you can get your analytics.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 12:40

Yeah.

​

Angela Proffitt: 12:41

I did your idea the other day you were saying get a separate account.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 12:44

Yeah.

​

Angela Proffitt: 12:44

I don't know if you've talked about that on your podcast, but people listening, I went and did that after you said that I'm like, I need to get a separate account that I'm watching because that's not necessarily my target of what I want to see, like all the dogs and stuff.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 12:59

Exactly.

​

Angela Proffitt: 12:59

So it was a great idea.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 13:01

If you are a business entrepreneur and you're using TikTok definitely get a second account for your personal consuming. It will be completely different with what you're trying to target and you don't want to lose focus on the people that you're looking for and observing from, and wanting to learn, and seeing what the people in your niche market are doing. The thing I love about TikTok as well. You mentioned you're not salesy and that is so true. People are over it, people are done being sold to. I know I am. On LinkedIn, especially some people will send me messages, pitch me right away. I'm like hello. Hi, my name's Kyle. Let's just have a chat first.

​

Angela Proffitt: 13:32

I'm a person.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 13:33

Yeah, exactly. I'm over it. I will not read it. It could be the best business ever, but I just don't respond. On TikTok, you said it's like little trickles. You get to bring your personality and your human. So people are like, "Ooh, she's a human being, wow". They get to learn who you are. They're like, man, Angela is dope, she knows a bad-ass stuff about my business, I really love her personality, and that is really key. Then there's no selling there. Once somebody believes in you as a person, you don't have to do shit. You don't have to sell to them. You can just say, Hey, I got this blue Yeti on Amazon. If you're interested in getting it, go over there. People are going to be like, yo, Angela uses it, I'm going to go over there. I think a lot of people they're not thinking of TikTok as a little marketing bubble of short form content where you can trickle in people and they're going to be, long-term, they're going to actually go through your program. They're not going to open it and be like, nah. They're going to want to learn about it. They're going to want to come to your website. They're going to want to learn more. They're going to click those links, which is so critical. People believe in Pinterest, right? You're probably a huge advocate of Pinterest. TikTok is the same, it's like a video format of it really. Because the algorithm.

​

Angela Proffitt: 14:37

Pinterest, it's a love, hate relationship with me and Pinterest, because my first business in weddings and events Pinterest didn't exist. In fact, social media didn't exist at all. I didn't even have the internet at home back then. Okay, that tells you how long ago it was like, my ass was in the library. Cutting out magazines, making mood boards for people on girl scout poster board. Okay. So back in the day. When Pinterest was born, It was great because it was a paperless format. My beef with Pinterest is there's no education and how much it costs. So we would have these clients that build these boards. Then we give them a questionnaire. And it's how many people do you have for your event? How much do you want to spend? Blah, blah, blah. And then they're like I have 500 people, I have $10,000 and here's my Pinterest link. And I click on their link and I'm like that's cute. Do they realize that that one table arrangement is probably 10 grand. Because they're not educated on what things cost. So with Pinterest, for me, I had to take more of a therapist slash educator role on really making sure that I knew what I was looking at when someone had an inspiration board and then educating the client on what shit costs. Did they want to make that investment, which was fine. We're actually working on an AI program right now. I'm on a tech advisory board for luxury weddings where we're building it. It's very much Like Pinterest, but when you drag and drop the picture onto your board, you put how many people you have and then it subtracts it from your budget.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 16:15

Oh!

​

Angela Proffitt: 16:15

That's my beef with Pinterest . You blink your eyes and you've spent $350,000 building this dream. You can spend more than that. Most of our clients, we were in a luxury market, would spend half a million dollars and up. But typically that comes from the guest count because we have five, six, seven, 800, a thousand people. The more people you have, the more it's going to cost, but they don't tell you the table, the chair, the China, the flatware, the glassware, the vases, the candles, the flowers, every single itty bitty little thing. You're looking at about five to $650 per couple, for a wedding. So are they really your friends and are they really worth that much money? When you put it that way to people, they're like, "Oh, I don't like that anymore". So Pinterest is great, but again you've got to find the beauty in each platform. What's going to work for you.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 17:07

That just brought up a good point because Pinterest is a photo, you get drawn to you're like, that looks beautiful, I can envision that. But on TikTok, you could also set something up like that and say, Hey, look, let me show you the difference between the prices. This one's going to cost you $650 per couple, or here's an alternative to where it's more in your budget, and what that's going to look like. So people can get the actual idea, listen to you, hear it, learn facts, and they're going to learn more and they're going to connect with that. That's why video is so key for any business, right now. That's really cool that you brought that up. I notice a lot of people are putting their TikTok's on Pinterest now, and it's actually working . I know my daughter has gotten a ton of followers just by posting all her dance content on there.

​

Angela Proffitt: 17:48

That's awesome. Wash, rinse, repeat that stuff.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 17:51

A hundred percent.

​

Angela Proffitt: 17:52

And on Reels. And then I've had a few creators, they're so funny, they're like, you can do this, and this, and get the TikTok logo off for Instagram Reels, and I'm like I don't really care. You just get to a point to where I don't care if the TikTok logo is on it. I was on a call with a guy yesterday and he's "Oh, the Chinese government, I won't touch that app". It's really unfortunate what Dateline and what the media has done to some of it, if you're doing something that illegal or that private on your phone, that you don't want the government, I guess if if you had my dad's job or my brother's job, which is like undercover private investigation, HIPAA shit in healthcare. If you want to spy on me on my camera teaching productivity , dancin and my pajamas, chillin with my dogs , cooking and burning cookies with my nieces, have at it . Kyle Kaplanis: My life wouldn't Those people that are afraid, you might as well, not ever use a smartphone and you might as well move it off the grid because they're watching it. That's another thing too, like Facebook . First of all, yeah, I rarely use it. If I go on there it's just to use the messenger app because I'm so sick of it. I just mentioned something, it's too specific this is why it creeps me out. My wife's British and when we first moved, we live in Canada , currently, even though my office is in LA, we moved here and we were just talking, but all in the feeds of all the ads, it's British now living in Canada with my Canadian husband shirt. It's too specific. The other day we were just talking about Dachshund dogs and then she logs into Facebook and all the ads are about that. They're always listening and then people are afraid of TikTok like, are you kidding me. As a marketer though, exactly. I love it. The funniest thing . New year's Eve, me and one of my business partners went to my mom's cabin to hang out with her because my whole family had COVID at the time. It was me and the dogs, and one of my business partners and one of my online businesses, her family got COVID and I'm like you can come hang with me and my mom it'll be fun. We're sitting there and all of our TikTok;s are so incredibly different, but my mom was so cute. We like chopped up some strawberries and put them in ice cubes with basil and said, Santa his favorite drink and had vodka and Champaign. My mom's are you going to do this for content? And I'm like, yeah, mom, do you want to be in it? She had these jingle bell shirts with jingle bells, and she was like, so excited to be on it. We were sitting there talking, and doing these taste testing things. Then we saw a game on TikTok where you lay out the dollar bills and you roll the beer cans. We use soup cans cause we didn't have beer. We were still playing fun drinking games with my mother. Okay. And she's Oh, let me take my flipper out. And so my friend, my business partner is what the hell is the flipper? And she like takes it out of her mouth. And she's Oh, I have a fake tooth. It's like a retainer with the tooth. She's I want to be able to taste the alcohol. The next day she goes on TikTok, my friend, and she screenshots it, and she's I've never heard of a flipper in my flipping life. We're like even TikTok is listening because there was a lady with a video making fun of herself on how she had to take her flipper out for new year's Eve. We were just laughing Alexa is listening and Facebook is listening and she's and TikTok is listening. But again, as a marketer I don't really care. It's if we're talking about something or saying something, I'd rather be fed the ads of the shit that I want. If I'm going to drive a Porsche or a Lamborghini, I would rather see that stuff than a Ford. I'm not going to drive a Ford, that was my high school car. I've graduated from that since then. I like fast cars. We talk about cars a lot. I get fed a lot of cars, but it's I don't mind it because that's the stuff I like. So I don't know why it freaks people out so much.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 21:30

It is true as a marketer and marketers listening are like, Kyle, shut the hell up because this is exactly the type of algorithm we want, we want our shit to be seen by the right people, which is totally true. I think the reason why I love TikTok, even though they might be listening I do believe that their algorithm is actually based off of what you're saying and seeing I think it picks up all that stuff. but I do miss the human element, and that's why I love TikTok more. On Facebook, you see these businesses and it might be specific, but it's I dunno, that brand. It would be great to hear it from them and see if it's true or accurate, or if it's something I want to support. That's something about Gen Z . Gen Z is pretty smart, they're really smart demographic. They've been raised from ad since the womb. My youngest is seven. When she even was three years old, she knew exactly where that skip button was on YouTube. So like they're conditioned to be , Oh, they're over it. So to market to that generation, you have to be smart. You have to make it seamless now. You have to really fit it in. You have to be human. That's why I'm so grateful for TikTok in that regard,

​

Angela Proffitt: 22:33

People are so much more humanized. I saw a TikTok recently, a guy was like, these celebrities on TikTok that have their people doing it, that's not what TikTok is about. He's but you content creators that are making stuff in your bathroom and It's just so real, and it's so funny. It is one of the only platforms where, it got me back into social media. Cause there for awhile, I was so busy on traveling and focusing. Like I'll create the content. I'll talk to the camera all day long. But then when it came to editing it, or actually posting it, or having a strategy, or managing some of the comments cause it becomes overwhelming. It becomes a whole other job. But with TikTok, I enjoy it. We do have a business TikTok, but I don't do it, somebody in the company does it for GSD Creative. My personal TikTok, nobody's touching that. That's me in the comments. It got me back into Reels a little bit too. We're just repurposing all of that, but it really does humanize. I also love seeing how some of the people, I know the other day Lizzo, I'm sure you saw it on your for you page, where she did this really funny content. Another creator, did this whole thing, like I'm fat, I love my snacks. All these magazines and blogs went crazy thinking that it was Lizzo, but it wasn't. She was lip singing to someone else. And I've also seen it a lot, with some of the Sway House people and the Hype House people where people think that it's they're singing, they're dancing, they're not, they don't tag the creators. But people will roast your ass for it. And that's what I love the accountability. It will get back to that person and they will fix it. I love that. , it humanizes everybody, we're all on the same playing field over here.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 24:24

No, it's so true. With a writer or a blog that copyright infringement, it's the same with video content and ideas, they will find you and they will tag the right people. The cool thing is, though, if you do that, all you have to do is write in the comments like, Hey, I didn't know who originally created it. I'd be glad to put it in the comments, credit buy. It's okay to reuse or recreate content you saw. That is okay. The app is geared and designed for that is to be collaborative and take ideas and make them your own. Even if it's very similar, all you have to do is either tag them in the description or in the comments. People don't mind, as long as you shout them out and saying, Hey, video idea by Angela, tagged her. Boom. All good. But if you don't, they'll come for you.

​

Angela Proffitt: 25:06

They do. The thing is too, I think people look at it differently. To me it's very flattering. If I inspired someone else to go do something. That's how I was raised. If someone goes and copies our floor plans , and I'm like they're not copying I sell my books like we did at first. It's not a big deal. A lot of people never saw it that way. And I feel like TikTok has totally changed that mindset, no matter how old you are, no matter what generation you're in that it's like, Oh, cool I inspired you to do something. People just want credit. I think that's really what it comes down to.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 25:37

It really is that. My daughter, with her 2 million followers, she's created some original dances that people were doing like mad. Last year she credited a dance called the D.A.N.C.E . I think it had 600 and something thousand videos created to it, which is mad. She was pumped about that because people were doing, her dance. Some people didn't credit her, but everyone knows it was her. That's more powerful versus no, this is my content nobody can ever do this dance. I wish people would look at dance with your regular content as well. It's a huge, honor for people to be like, man, your idea was dope, I loved it. You know what you said too, and this ties into a little bit more about GSD, is you said it brought you back to social media. It could be a little bit overwhelming and I know that's what you're GSD creative is about, is helping people stay focused and productive. Talk to us more about that.

​

Angela Proffitt: 26:27

Yeah, it really is. And really what it comes down to with the whole let's get shit done is, always had that hustle mentality. For about the first decade that I owned a few businesses, it was really unhealthy. Not that it caused my divorce, but I couldn't stay married to the guy that had a "normal job". It was just so different and it was just an unhealthy, almost like an addiction of I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I put everything in front of myself. Finally, my mom's if you don't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of anybody else? And you've got to hire the right people . I was introduced to something called catalyst, which is part of the entrepreneurial organization, which is a global organization of about 15,000 entrepreneurs. And when I joined that group, I found my people and I surrounded myself with the right people that helped bring a little bit of structure to my life and stop saying yes to everything because you can't be everything to everybody. What do you actually want? Because no one had actually asked me that I was just doing what I saw my parents do, which is actually not what I wanted to do. With your story, we're very similar where it's we'll go out on the limb and take those risks and chase happiness because we know what other people are doing. That's cool, but that's not for me. I've really learned from a psychological angle. If you have the right people in place, And you hire the right people for your team to support you. No matter what industry you're in. A lot of people right now, they're coming to us, they see us creating consistent content and they're like, how are you everywhere? How do you do this? I'm like, I have the right people. I have the right processes. That's a strategy that we do quarterly. We have the productivity and the software and the right automation. There's a fine balance between scheduling and automating. We used to use more chat bots and I used to use more AI and actually TikTok helped me humanize it a little bit more where I'm like, you know what, I don't want to do this mini chat thing anymore on Facebook. Yes, it is me because I do want to automate task. But when it comes to social media, I don't look at the numbers. Every single number is a person there's a human. There should be a human, unless people are paying for followers, but there's a human behind that. And a lot of humans that we come in contact with they're broken, they're hurt, they've been screwed, they've had bad business deals and they're pissed off. And I want to be that as cheesy as it sounds the positive light for them to know that you can own a business, you can be a bad-ass leader and you can be present in your everyday life, but you have to have the people, the processes, the right software to be productive. And the most important thing is making sure that your business is actually profitable. Which for a good 10 years, we were doing over 250 events a year, and when I finally hired an accountant and a business manager, and they looked at me and said, honey, you got money in the bank, but you were not profitable this year. That hurts. Yeah, it hurt bad, especially when they're like you did 37 weddings for free. Then I look at the clients and I'm like, and they were the biggest assholes. It helped me change my business model. It helped me understand that we really need to get focused. It took us two years because people would book us 12, 15, 18 months out. Then we went from doing 250 ish saying yes to everything doing partial, day of, and some design, some planning to only full service. Which was really hard because I said no, a lot more than yes. So people would have to get us on the very beginning. But what it allowed us to do is do what Virgin, what Richard Branson did. When you go to Necker Island, his car picks you up. You get on his airplane with his trained flight attendants, with their food, you fly to a little Island, you get on their ferry boat. The entire customer experience is controlled and I became a control freak real quick .When I'm like, I don't want to be a control freak. I really don't. That's not what I want, but somebody's got to do it. And when you can create a luxury experience for people when they're best friends and they're in love, and they're just trying to get married. I wanted to be that girl. Now, it wasn't going to last forever because then TV started to ruin some of that and the reality stuff. So now we're onto content and education and a lot of people come to us for that and we will help them, but we will not take your money, and help you do what you're asking, because what you're asking for is not obtainable. So you have the right people in place. You've got to have the process and the strategy, and there's a little bit of a foundation and a leg work that you really have to think about when you're going to start building a new brand and putting content out there. When I started doing content, I'll never forget my brother's, he was in college at the time. He was like, there's this thing called Facebook, but you have to be in college and you're too old. I was like six years older. Then when I could get on it, he's Oh my God, now you can like, get a business page. Everyone's Oh, Facebook tricked us to give us all this free stuff, and then they feed us with ads. I'm like, no, Facebook is actually brilliant. It was probably like a 10 year plan. It's amazing from a marketing perspective, the engine that they have built and the fact that Facebook's done a lot of great things, my brother owns a P.I Company and he has a human trafficking division that is just serviced off of Facebook because there's so many fake people out there doing some really bad things, but then they can track you down through Facebook and through facial recognition and all of this stuff. It's done a lot of great things, from a business perspective. From a social perspective to just get on there, it's not fun anymore. It's just a bunch of ads. I don't think TikTok would ever get that way because they started the platform fun first. Have fun first. Yeah. It's so much more than dancing and singing, but it's done so much good to help find missing people and missing animals. I know you and I both love the dog TikTok's. But I love that side of social media too, that there is a positive side of it. That it can help you in so many ways as a business owner. Yes, we want to help people get shit done and make sure that they have, I call them the four P's people, processes, productivity, and profit, and their business. And TikTok is just a tiny component, to give us an opportunity to feed people some of our fun content to show you can still be productive and have fun and make money doing it. There's nothing wrong with making money, doing your passion.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 33:15

Exactly. I don't know why back even just a few years ago, how marketing and business, you couldn't have fun. I worked for so many corporations. I'm actually writing a piece right now on how working in corporate ruined me as an entrepreneur. Because you have different mindset, you almost feel like you can't be fun. You're just a number, but I wish that corporations would learn to have fun too. It would make things so much better. Your employees would be better. The company culture would be better. I do love that about TikTok is it's changing that for businesses and even TikTok is always telling people, look, don't make ads, make TikTok's. And I love that. They're like, you can make an ad, but it needs to be fun, make it trendy, make it cool, make people want to watch it. Be human, be real, be authentic. I talked to them as well on my brand side, I help my influencers and I've heard them speak to brands and saying things like, Hey. It's really important that if you're going to do a brand deal, that we're going to talk about your content strategy and we're going to make it fit well within the app so it performs better. You can go through and you do see some crappy ads to be honest on TikTok. When I opened the app, I'll go through and I'm like, Oh, that's an ad, but you do see a really good one that fits in. Or there's influencers who do make added content, and you won't even really notice it was an ad. Then you're like, man, that's dope. There's so much great things that are coming from it. And I'm glad they've made the change for social media for moving forward, because I think this method of having fun and just being authentic needs to be the way it should be.

​

Angela Proffitt: 34:45

It's so much better. When I first started creating videos, it was for a YouTube channel specifically in the wedding space, B2B, educating. I was a robot. I actually had people say and full disclosure, my boyfriend at the time owned a production company. So for years when we were together, I had the best backdrops and the best lighting the best editing the best audio, the best everything. I was very robotic. I changed clothes, my hair was perfect, my makeup was perfect. And then there came a day where we broke up and I'm like I want to continue to do videos. I'm like I have an iPhone and I'll get a ring light. I don't have my hair makeup done every day, so I'm just going to be me. I'm going to put my hair on top of my head in a bun and chill with my dogs. Our ratings in like just sent our email list alone in the first month, went up 300%, like our watch time. And so we actually pulled the audience and we're like, Can you see a difference? At the time, I wasn't a hundred percent comfortable talking about it, like why the sudden change. It took me a few months to get over the breakup and the boy. I'm like here's the real reason. But then people were actually like, Oh my God, you're a real person. You're not trying to be a perfect Barbie doll. I'm like, yeah I wasn't trying to do that, but that's what I thought I had to do.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 36:03

Exactly.

​

Angela Proffitt: 36:03

It could not be the furthest thing from the truth where people just want you to be a person. No, one's perfect. I just have a conversation with me in the camera sometimes. Once you do it over and over, you just get used to it and it becomes normal. Just be authentic and be real. I'm so glad I'm like living in the age of being real and authentic instead of robot, because that's, so wasn't me.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 36:29

I feel that. I hate that and that robot feeling is true. That's what put me off social media before, too. I probably would have had large followings cause I'd love having fun. It's my jam. I just love being me and being positive, that robotic feeling, Oh man, I need to be this perfect thing. I was like, nah, that's not me. You compare yourself to others who do look this perfect picture self, and you're like, No, I can never be like that cause that's not who I am. Then TikTok comes along and you see somebody waking up in the morning, wearing a dressing gown , and they're drinking a coffee and they're talking about an experience and you're like, Oh, I just woke up and I'm drinking my coffee, I could tell an experience too. I don't need to take a shower and get ready. I can just say right now how I am, because that is so relatable, and I'd love that. We touched base a little bit about dog TikTok, but I would love to know what else has found on your, for you page?

​

Angela Proffitt: 37:21

So on my for you page, I would say it's mainly marketing tips. There is All the dances. I am a dancer. Definitely the dogs and then a little bit of comedy. There's one guy and he's always thank you for coming to, McDonald's gonna take your orders. He's hilarious. And he just does these funny skits. And it also changes a little bit. When things were political and I'm so not a political person. And that's the thing I learned real quick is don't stay on it and watch it and don't tap it in. It's like just, keep going, if you don't want politics at all. That's what I loved about the algorithm is it went off. Weeks ago I got COVID and so my mom started sending me all these funny. In fact, I shared one with you. I'm like this guy in his COVID and praying. Cause my mom is like Ms. Catholic. My mom's TikTok is so different than my TikTok, but then I started to watch some of those, like literally praying to God please don't let me die of COVID because I still have a lot of things that I want to do in my life and people that I want to help and make an impact. I'm just not ready to go yet. COVID was really bad for me, you guys. Then I started to get funny prayer things. I'm better. I'm like, I still pray every day, but I don't need to see COVID shit every day. It's so different from everybody else's like in my family. I would say that, that pretty much makes up my for you page, and you're on there a lot too.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 38:48

You're always on mine to be honest, which is so cool. That's what's fun too, when you find an account that you really love, they do show up quite often. You'll be fed content that you enjoy. That's why it's so addicting. Whereas on Facebook or Instagram, you scroll and content that you might not enjoy because the algorithm isn't as good as TikTok's. The plus side is the opposite. If you may contact it will be seen to those who are looking for that content, that's why it's powerful . Your followers will come and they'll be the right people. Not just some people that are just following you for no reason. So it's really dope . Do you have a favorite TikTok account?

​

Angela Proffitt: 39:23

Oh my gosh. I have a couple I really enjoy watching and I think it comes from my nieces too. Just like half of the world. I love Addison and Charli and the whole D'Amelio family. Feel like I'm like invested, sucked in because of my nieces, but on the side of that, I love how those families, normal everyday people have taken the money and they've invested it into products. So when the D'Amelio family was like, okay, we're going to do a show, and then we're going to do a makeup line, the two girls. One of them is a singer. And then Addison and her mom started a podcast. People are like, Oh my guy, those kids, I'm like, they're actually, I don't know if it's their management companies or who's doing it, but I really enjoy watching their content on why I enjoy watching their dances. I like learning the dances, even though they're probably not their dances. I have to like, get my phone and look to see who my favorite people are. There's just, there's so many. The one thing I will say though, that I don't do, if someone follows me, like typically on Instagram, if you follow me and we're in alignment, I'm going to follow you back and I'm going to DM you and be like, Hey, thanks for the follow, let's GSD together.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 40:38

Yeah.

​

Angela Proffitt: 40:38

It's a conversation starter. People are like, what's GSD. I'm like, get shit done. Why'd you follow me? Did you not read my little bio, but whatever, I just opened my TikTok and there you are. Consistency is key. Be very consistent, that's important. Love shark tank. , I love all the shark tank people. One of the funniest though, is this guy right here? Lubalin. I don't know if that's how you say it.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 41:02

I love him so much.

​

Angela Proffitt: 41:03

Internet drama. Yeah. Makes it hilarious. About butter and you stole my broccoli casserole and y'all I'm from the country. Okay. So this stuff is so relatable where these churchy women are talking about what still my broccoli casserole recipe and I can so relate to it because of the small town drama that I grew up with. And those are the things that I think are so incredibly hilarious because it's a little bit of a break from like work and thinking about, productivity all the time. I do love the guy. I think it's Nash something. I got to find him on here where it's like, he goes from McDonald's to Comcast, to Chick-Filet where he's Thanks for coming to McDonald's and he's Oh shoot, I'm at Chick-fil-A now. I upgraded and then he got fired. It's all made up, but I really enjoy the comedy side of things as well, because come on, we all need a good laugh. I love the Triller house kids because they're all gymnast and I was a gymnast. Ah, I wish I could still tumble like that. This guy, he's an actor, he's hilarious. He does real estate stuff.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 42:19

Okay.

​

Angela Proffitt: 42:20

He has multiple accounts. I enjoy learning about real estate, but then he acts like a girl, you're like puts a towel,

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 42:26

like a towel on his head

​

Angela Proffitt: 42:28

I've noticed a lot of people started doing that. It actually gave me an idea. I'm like, I should act like my mom and then have conversations with myself, cause I love Laura Clery, I think is how you say her last name. Yeah, she is hilarious. And even though it's a little inappropriate sometimes, like for Christmas, she's sit on Santa's lap, and I made my whole family do it. You run with the reindeer, run with the reindeer, pause, freeze and it was still family friendly. So a lot of the stuff that I really enjoy too is a lot of the comedy stuff. There's a ton of entrepreneurs on here that I enjoy following and learning from a few of the singers. Conard Maynard is awesome. I love Jason Derulo. I love the real estate and the small business tips. But the thing is, I'm picky at who I'm going to follow back. If you follow me and I go to your page because I look at everybody every day and if you don't have any content, why would I follow you? I'm confused. I want to make sure people are giving value. I love Gary V he's fuck. He's great from an entrepreneur perspective. I follow under 200 people right now, which is not a lot of people, but I know, and I like every single person, some of the Peloton people Sean T who you still, I used to do, all this kickboxing stuff with, and it's really fun because it's like him and his partner, they've got two little kids and it's I feel like I know them. Feel like I knew you know from TikTok. I love Twitch and his wife, Alison and usher. J lo, fitness marshal. And a few dog things on here. The girl that says I love this outfit, but I can't wear it. I couldn't wear it. I couldn't wear it. Like with all the little dogs dressed up, I don't know her name, but I follow her, but I'm really picky because if I'm going to look at people's content and who I follow, like I want it to be stuff that I enjoy. That makes me smile. I don't want to waste my time.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 44:32

Exactly. That's how it should be too. There's some people that are like, why aren't you following that many people? Because I'm following people, I want to follow. You follow whoever you want, don't you judge me. You have your own account. I could do what I want. I want people to know that too. It's okay. If you only choose to follow five people. That's your account. You can do what you want. You can follow as many people as you want to. But if you are strategizing, don't just follow everybody either. There's some accounts they have 50,000 followers, but they're following 20,000 people I've seen accounts like that and yeah. , no, I'm just like, okay, that doesn't work. Your account is pretty much a waste. It's almost cancels each other out. Even, I get it. I only have 1300 followers on mine, but I've gotten I'm not following you because you don't follow that many people back and So then don't follow me, I don't care.

​

Angela Proffitt: 45:16

You're on there teaching, giving tips. And this is something I learned from Instagram a long time ago. I would rather have a thousand engaged people that actually are learning who are using the content and getting something from me, which typically turns into some type of conversion of a buyer, whether it's through an Amazon store or an online course or consulting, but. I want people who actually are going to watch it. So I'd rather have a hundred serious people than a million people who were just following and not engaging with the content. And I'm not doing anything for their lifestyle, exactly. Point to the content.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 45:56

Exactly. A hundred percent. The rest of the numbers are all just vanity metrics at that point. You want to be valuable and it's true. I'd rather have, like you said, a thousand people that are just going to be pumped. You make a video that might not be educational and people just follow cause they'd love the content, but they're not coming back because they might've followed you and then forgot about you. I'd rather people slowly trickle in that are going to keep remembering me that I've impacted. I'm not too big about that stuff because so far already TikTok has opened up so many opportunities for me in many ways. I've talked to tons of people who have less than 5,000 followers who it's already impacted them in massive ways. And have actually been able to monetize . You don't have to have these crazy numbers to have success at all. It just takes the right person. Even Gary V said he once was on a podcast that had eight listeners and he was like, look, I don't downplay any time I'm doing something because one of those eight listeners ended up becoming like a million dollar deal for him. You never know who's watching. So even if your videos views get 50 views, you don't know who that one person might be, that's going to change your life or help your career. Look at it like that, you never know.

​

Angela Proffitt: 47:01

Quality over quantity.

​

Kyle Kaplanis: 47:03

Absolutely. Angela, for those who are listening right now, what's the best way to follow you.

​

Angela Proffitt: 47:09

Yeah. On TikTok, Angela Proffitt, two F's and two T's, and there has to be an underscore because somebody has my name and they're not even using the account, which just gets on my nerves. why would you reserve your name and your handle, and then not do anything with it, but whatever. And then I'm on all the social platforms. You can go to Angelaproffitt.com, two F's and two T's and everything is listed there. If you are listening and you want to be more productive, you can go to GSDsecrets.com. We have a ton of free content, lots of free content on YouTube and yeah. Lots of fun tips and series that we do on TikTok as well. Awesome. Thank you, Angela. And those of you who are listening to make it even easier for you, just go to the description of this podcast or on YouTube, and you'll find all the links to find Angela and definitely go check out her GSD. The I'm doing it myself because there are times where I feel I can be productive and I'm just overwhelmed with something so simple. So I'm going to go check it out myself. Thank you Angela so much for your time in and everyone listening. I appreciate you sticking around and definitely leave a review . That's a huge way to give back to me and I appreciate it.

 

Angela Proffitt:

Thanks for having me Kyle, bye y'all.

​