Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Thank you so much for joining us today in another
episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. My special guest today is Malika
Malhotra, the brand CEO. She is an award-winning brand strategist, a mentor, and a speaker.
After years of working in corporate advertising on renowned brands like L'Oreal and Oil of Olay,
Malika now empowers women entrepreneurs to get clear on their brand message, define their power
niche, and become sought after experts. Welcome to the show, Malika. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here, Sheila. Well, I can't wait to share your story. So I understand your
friends and your clients call you the brand energizer because you encourage women entrepreneurs
to step out of their comfort zones, to take action, and to implement ideas. So share a little bit about
how you got to where you are today and why your friends and clients call you that brand energizer.
Yes, thank you. So as you mentioned, I started my career off in advertising, corporate advertising
for a few years and loved that, learned strategy and all the basics of creating campaigns for big
brands. But motherhood got in the way and I decided to pull out of the corporate workforce
and stay home to raise my kids like a lot of women do. And while I was at home, I still had that itch
to do something more and to build something using the skills and the strengths and my
degrees and all my experience. And that's when I started exploring entrepreneurship and creating a
business where I could have the flexibility of being at home, but also having something of my own.
And I started off doing photography with children and family photography because I had a young
family at the time that evolved into brand photography because I saw that there was a gap
in the marketplace. And it was in 2015 when people were starting to use social media and blogs and
blogging. And so we needed more than just a headshot. We needed storytelling, strategic imagery
to build brands. And so did that for many, many years and loved it. But I really found that going
back to that advertising career that I had, it was the strategy that was kind of my sweet spot where
trying to understand people's purpose and mission and their vision and their values and
tying it together with their point of distinction. And how do you package that to deliver your
expertise? That is what was kind of my zone of genius. And I shifted again into more doing
brand strategy and left brand photography. So fast forward to 2024. Most of my work that I
do now is in mentorship for female entrepreneurs where I act as that brand energizer and I help
them really look and leverage their strengths and skills and hone in on what they do really well,
that zone of genius and really build a brand around that. So part of that is finding their niche.
Part of that is building a foundational strategy. And then it's amping up that visibility so that
they show up as the face of their brand and as that go-to expert. So this is the work that I
love to do right now. I think helping women sort of stand in their power and really become leaders
and authorities is such meaningful work for me because I think sometimes as women, it's easy to
play small, right? And it's easy to let other people take the lead. And what I really try to
do is to help these women find out what they're so good at so that they have to scream it to the
world and share that with their audience. So when we talk about women entrepreneurs,
is there a particular niche because we are with a marketing expert. Do you have a particular niche?
Who do you serve? Yeah. So I work with women who are in service-based industries and are in crowded
markets, right? So talking coaches, designers, copywriters, nutritionists, you know that there
are so many other people that are doing similar things that you're doing. So how do you stand out
I call these clients the invisible expert because they are good at what they do. They have experience,
they have expertise, but for some reason they're getting overlooked, they're getting underpaid,
and they feel overwhelmed with how to articulate their value. And so I help them with the messaging
and the strategy and the visibility so that they become the in-demand brand and no longer the
invisible expert. Well, it sounds like I'm your target market. So we're going to ask for some
tips right here. I do know that many times us women entrepreneurs, we feel confused, we feel
overwhelmed when it comes to marketing and branding, and there are so many choices out there.
How do you help them gain that clarity, that brand clarity? Yeah, I think, you know, all of us,
when we get started, right, we don't know what the story is to share. We're looking at the marketplace
and maybe getting too much inspiration from our competitors, and then we risk looking like everybody
else. Or we're trying to people please, especially as women, we want to do all the things for all of
the clients instead of carving out a niche for ourselves that's laser focused. It's hard to get
to that stage where you're ready to take the leap and really building the brand. And in the beginning,
you're sort of experimenting and that's okay. But you hit a wall at some point, right, where
you become stagnant and you're tired of not standing out. And this is where I work with my
clients, do some of this self-discovery type of work, because your brand is within yourself,
really. Your brand is all about, you know, what do you believe in? What are your values? What do
you not believe in? Like what pisses you off, right? How are you different than everybody else?
Is it in your personality? Is it in your deliverables? Is it in your process? Who do you
serve? You're really not meant to work with everyone, even though we think we are. You're
meant to serve a certain targeted audience that you can provide specific solutions for them,
that leverage your strengths and your skills, right? How do you want your clients to feel
when they're working with you and what is the transformation that you deliver? And I'm not
talking features, right? You know, six one-on-one calls and a library of assets. Everybody can say
the same thing. I'm talking about what is the results? How are you changing people's lives?
And when you take all of those answers to all of those questions and you do like the deep
discovery work to sit down and try to define those, you'll find that that is the foundation
of what your authentic brand is because not everyone's going to answer the questions the same.
And then it's about baking that into your messaging and your brand and having the courage
to say, I might not work with all the people and I actually only work with this small segment and
I want to own that, right? Or I don't want to be a Jane of all trades and say that I do all these
different things. I'm actually going to go all in and say, I'm an expert in this. And that's when
your brand starts getting sticky and sharp and stands out from everybody else.
It's not so easy when you don't have support, an expert like you by your side. I personally,
you know, have done that process. I've even had to ask my clients, right? Like, why, why do you
like working with me? Because somehow I struggle identifying that within my own self. I need that
feedback. And that's why I think, you know, finding that support, having that coach is so important
because they can help answer your questions. I had as a business mentor, a mentee about a month ago
and she has a tea shop and a bookstore here locally. And it so happened to be that a client
of 18 years walked in as I was there. It was a Saturday afternoon. And I said, wait, here we are
like trying to, you know, look through the business plan to see what you're going to change. Let's
just invite this client to answer some of the questions for you. And it turns out she had so
many more ideas that were wowing us, but why? Because she understood her. So here we were like
trying to, you know, brainstorm and everything. So I think having the support and having
a coach is priceless, right? Yeah. I mean, sometimes you're in the weeds, right? You cannot see
the macro level of your business because you're just in that minutia of your business and what an
outside person is going to give you are the insights, this new perspective, they're going to
connect the dots, see commonality, see patterns that sometimes you can't see when you're doing
the business day to day. And that's where the strategic mind and the creative mind are going
and the creativity kind of integrate together for you then to kind of learn new things about
your brand or not even new, maybe things that have already been there, but you haven't even
leveraged, right? And also looking at the data at hand. So many of my clients in my community forget
to look at who are your last 20 clients? What can we learn about these clients? Are they all in a
certain industry? Are they all in a certain season of business? Did they all ask you to help solve a
specific problem? Did they all have the same transformation? This is the intel that you need
that's going to help you carve out the niche, it's going to help you build the brand. So let me ask
you this, what is your next milestone? You've been in business for over 20 years. You started with the,
you know, kids clothing line, and then you moved on to the photography, which by the way, if you
can't see her backdrop stage, it's just spectacular. You're definitely creative. So what's your next
milestone? Yeah, I know it's a good question. And it's something that I always ask myself, like,
what's next? And when you've been in business for over two decades, and you've done so many things,
and you've pivoted your business so many ways, you know, it's something I don't take lightly,
because I really want to think about what is the next strategic move for me. And so I think, you
know, I do a lot of speaking right now, but a lot of it is not paid, it's more of like a brand
awareness tool. And even though it scares me to death, to think about getting on a big stage,
like in person or go to a conference, I think that would be a wonderful sort of milestone for me to
be able to deliver my expertise, my authority, my leadership in a way in person, that I think will
really next level my business and brand. You know, for a while, we couldn't do this in person stuff
because of the pandemic. And I've been very safe on my virtual stages. And I think if I want to
grow as a person, as a brand, I really need to explore pitching for some of these bigger
conferences, and sharing what I already know I'm an expert in, right, these signature talks, but
bringing them to a bigger stage. So that might be my next milestone. And it feels like getting
goosebumps. It like scares me even just to say that out loud. So we'll see. Let's see if it happens.
It's gonna happen in six months. I'll be your coach. How's it going, Malika?
Yeah, accountability. Yes.
We have so much in common. I'm also in that same stage. And we had before the podcast,
how I told you, like just holding a phone and trying to record myself, I'll get stuck. But when
I have a conversation, I feel good. So there is a local Toastmasters. I don't know if you've heard
of Toastmasters. Yeah, I think I'm going to join it. And I'm seeing who wants to join me. I do have
a friend doing it. And I've met people that have done it. So it seems like a great way to, you know,
be involved in the community with other like minded people looking to speak. I look forward
to hearing you speak. So before I let you go, what one key advice can you give our women
entrepreneurs today so that they take action to work on their brand?
Yeah. So what I would advise your audience, your listeners is, I want you to think about who you
want to be in the next five years, and really put pen to paper to think about that person. What does
she feel? How does she wake up in the morning? What is she wearing? What is she doing? And I want you,
after you've defined that, I want you to start acting like her now. Because, and this is a
practice, this is an exercise that I've done for myself. When I started acting like the woman that
I wanted to be, that is when I saw change happen. It made me feel uncomfortable. I got out of my
comfort zone, but it made me make different decisions for my business. Yes, I was going to
invest in a coach that was out of my price range. Yes, I'm going to do that because that's the woman
in five years that I want to be. And by doing those things now, that's what's going to create
the momentum and the progress and the change in your business. You're going to next level quicker.
Instead of staying in a safe place where you're doing just the minutiae things to grow your
business and nothing's wrong with that. We all do that. But if you can change your mindset and
start making decisions in the place of who you want to be, you'll start seeing changes quicker.
Now you made my hair stand up. I love it. So where can my audience find you?
Yes, thank you for asking. So my website is malikamalhotra.co, which I know is a mouthful,
but I'm also on Instagram at malikamalhotra.co, very active on Instagram. Would love to connect
with you. Would love to hear about your branding and your niche struggles and support you in any
way. This is something that I feel passionate about and just helping women really create
powerful brands so that they can be seen as confident leaders in our communities.
Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And I hope we stay connected because I've been
fascinated from the moment that I turned this on. So I look forward to staying in touch.
Same here. Thank you so much, Sheila.