Lilach Bullock was the guest on The OneShot Podcast, hosted by Gautam Rishi, CEO and co-founder of OneShot, in an episode titled “Marketing, Tech, and Being an Accidental Entrepreneur,” published on YouTube on 21 August 2023. Gautam had just become a father for the second time, and the 45 minute conversation starts with how Lilach became a business owner because her employer would not let her work four days a week after her daughter was born. From there it covers the virtual PA business she sold in two years, the social media tool she raised money for and could not ship, becoming an early influencer on Twitter, and her view that timing beats strategy. The second half is about 2023: AI fatigue, the return to offices, a tough job market and what to do about it. The video is embedded below, followed by the key takeaways, a summary and a cleaned transcript.
Watch on YouTube: The OneShot Podcast: Marketing, Tech, and Being an Accidental Entrepreneur With Lilach Bullock. The show is produced by OneShot and hosted by Gautam Rishi.
Key takeaways
- She was an accidental entrepreneur. A training manager in London with a secretarial background and no degree, she asked to come back four days a week after her daughter was born, was refused, and became a virtual PA when there were fewer than a hundred in the country. She could not hire fast enough, had five women working in her kitchen, went to Downing Street for an award, and sold the business after two years.
- Her next move was a social media management tool, years before the category existed. She raised money from seven investors, put her own in too, hit developer delays, threw a sponsored launch party with the founder of Ryanair in the room, and eventually had to give investors their money back. It taught her subscription businesses, pushed her into consulting, and led to her digital marketing and PR agencies.
- Forbes listed her among the top social media power influencers in 2013. She had over 100,000 Twitter followers, was the most influential person in the UK social media space at the time, and Twitter drove around 600,000 visits a month to her site by posting high-value content four to eight times an hour, the opposite of what everyone advised.
- Timing is the number one reason businesses succeed, ahead of strategy and money. She says openly she could not repeat her success starting today, and that most successful people could not either. If 80 to 90 percent of businesses are not doing as well as they would like, following the majority means following the people who are not winning, so do the opposite of what everyone else does.
- Entrepreneurship is closer to something you have than something you learn: risk appetite, resilience, grit and a real need. She was the main earner, the only person in her family without a degree, and hated saying she was a secretary, and that hunger drove her.
- On 2023: AI is powerful but the flood of tools has produced fatigue and slowed adoption; writers who think they are safe are naive, but the shake-out will take longer than predicted. Hybrid work is disappearing because the economy needs offices. Tech churn means nobody has job security, which is why LinkedIn is bursting with people building personal brands, and she expects it to go pay to play.
- Hard times advice: put yourself out there, ignore the highlight reels, retrain if you can afford it, otherwise outwork everyone ruthlessly and strategically, and take pride in getting through, because whoever builds in a downturn never has to worry again.
The accidental entrepreneur
Gautam asked what she does today. Lilach described herself as a fractional CMO, mainly for tech companies, helping them grow and scale, with some done-for-you content, and before COVID an agency owner in PR and digital marketing and a professional speaker on social media, website conversion and digital selling. The origin story followed: refused part-time work after her daughter was born nearly 19 years earlier, she used her legal secretary background to become a virtual PA before social media and before offshoring made the idea common. Demand outran supply so fast she was ringing ten agencies for staff, then took offices, then trained other people to do the same, collected awards for the novelty, and sold up after two years. She calls herself an accidental entrepreneur with no qualifications beyond secretarial, and counts speaking at Oxford and being invited to Harvard among her proudest moments because of the stigma she felt about that. If that stigma sounds familiar, she has written about it in personal branding for founders with imposter syndrome.
The tool that failed, and the strategy that worked
With the sale proceeds she built a social media marketing tool, a Buffer or Hootsuite before either existed. Seven investors, her own money, developer delays, a launch party attended by the founder of Ryanair and people from The Apprentice, and no product. She refunded investors rather than raise a third round while burnt out, and says the experience taught her subscription models and pushed her into consulting, which became her first digital marketing agency and then a PR agency. She was strategic when it mattered: she skipped local networking groups, paid two or three hundred pounds for a lunch because Hootsuite’s marketing director would be there, asked to be introduced, and won them as a client. Her rule then and now is not being afraid to ask. On the influencer years she is matter of fact: a handful of people had that reach, she was the only one in the UK, IBM once flew her by helicopter to Monaco, and it lifted her clients too because she could get them featured. She still runs influencer campaigns, without the helicopters.
Timing, resilience and whether entrepreneurship can be taught
Gautam, who wanted his own business from childhood but only started at 35, asked whether she saw a problem or a skill. Neither, she said: it was skills plus timing, and timing is the number one reason businesses succeed. She could not duplicate her success today and thinks 90 percent of successful people could not either, which is why she objects to the “business is easy” crowd on LinkedIn. She also thinks, controversially, that entrepreneurship is largely ingrained: risk tolerance, resilience, grit and a genuine need, which she saw missing in many of the people she coached during COVID. Gautam agreed from the founder side: paper rounds and side hustles from childhood, and VC-funded founders with great CVs who never built resilience. Her practical mindset material for that grind is in mindset for entrepreneurs when everything is hard and the ways entrepreneurs beat themselves up and what to do instead.
Content then and now, and doing the opposite
How did she build 100,000 Twitter followers? By using it as a traffic machine: four, six, eight tweets an hour, recurring, hardly engaging, everything the experts said not to do, but the content was high value and there was almost nobody else doing it. Conference audiences would hear her say the opposite of the previous speaker. Her key takeaway for Gautam’s audience: do the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing, because it is the only way to stand out and the only way to test anything. Everyone she talks to behind the scenes, influencers, big agencies, small companies, says it is harder now than during COVID, and if most businesses are struggling, copying the majority means copying people who are not winning.
AI, offices and the job market in 2023
Asked for predictions, she refused to go beyond six to twelve months. GPT-4 had caused panic, especially among writers; the human touch argument is partly right but AI can be pushed to sound human, and what it cannot do is judgement. The bigger effect she saw was overwhelm: hundreds of new tools a day, people sticking to one or two, and adoption slowing as a result. She uses ChatGPT to edit her own podcast transcripts instead of paying a writer, expects writing jobs to go eventually, and expects the tool glut to delay it. Her later, more detailed view of what AI can and cannot do for a small business is in AI agents for small business: what they can and cannot do. On work: the job market was the worst she had seen in 19 years, COVID-era solopreneurs were drifting back to employment, hybrid was disappearing because the economy needs full offices, and Israel’s tech scene, more unicorns per capita than Silicon Valley by her account, had been hit harder by layoffs than the UK. Two-year tenures are now good, so nobody has security, and that is why LinkedIn is bursting with people building personal brands and, she predicts, heading for pay to play like Facebook before it. Do not leave LinkedIn as your only channel.
Advice for hard times
Gautam’s last question was what to do if you are laid off or struggling to sell. Put yourself out there and find out you are not alone. Treat social media’s success stories with suspicion. If you can afford to, take time to retrain or pivot; if you cannot, work ten times harder than your competitors, be ruthless and strategic, study competitors and who they work with, look for joint ventures, and be proud of yourself, because anyone who builds a business or lands a great job in a downturn will never have to worry again. She added that she now thinks social media does more harm than good, a game where you cannot simply say what you sell and what it costs, and she would love to build something that removes the game.
Frequently asked questions
What does Lilach Bullock talk about on The OneShot Podcast?
How she became an accidental entrepreneur when her employer refused part-time hours after her daughter was born; building and selling a virtual PA business in two years; raising money for a social media tool that failed and refunding investors; running PR and digital marketing agencies; the 2013 Forbes listing and driving 600,000 monthly visits from Twitter; why timing matters more than strategy; entrepreneurship as something you have rather than learn; AI fatigue and which jobs are at risk; the return to offices; the job market in 2023; and what to do if you are laid off or struggling to sell.
What is Lilach Bullock’s advice for hard times?
Put yourself out there, because you are not alone and nobody is immune. Be careful with social media, where everyone claims things are wonderful. If you can afford to, take time to retrain or pivot; if money is tight, work ten times harder than your competition, be ruthless and strategic, study competitors and who they work with, look for joint ventures, and be proud of yourself. If you can build a business or land a great job in hard times you will never have to worry again, because hard times come round for everyone.
When was the episode published and how long is it?
The OneShot Podcast episode with Lilach Bullock was published on YouTube on 21 August 2023 and runs for about 45 minutes. The host is Gautam Rishi, CEO and co-founder of OneShot.
Full transcript
Cleaned and condensed from the episode’s auto-generated captions. Filler and crosstalk removed, obvious caption errors fixed, meaning kept. Lines are attributed to Gautam (host) or Lilach only where the speaker is clear.
Gautam: Super excited today to be joined by Lilach Bullock, who is a master in marketing. She has a really interesting career we are going to cover: how she got into tech, how she got into marketing, and some of the changes happening in today’s industries. My name is Gautam, CEO and co-founder of OneShot. Lilach, a quick introduction and then we can get stuck in.
Lilach: Hi Gautam. Thank you so much for having me today, I’m really excited to be here.
Gautam: Even before how you started: what are you doing today? Are you a CMO, a consultant, do you help startups? How would you describe yourself?
Lilach: Today I’m a fractional CMO. I work with companies, predominantly in the tech space but also other industries, and I help them with their marketing, helping them grow and scale, and a little bit of content creation as well, some done-for-you content. Before COVID my background was very much agencies. I ran agencies specialising in PR and digital marketing, and I was doing a lot of professional speaking, travelling all over the world talking about social media best practice, website conversion and digital selling. That is my background and where I am right now.
Gautam: And how did you get into all of this?
Lilach: They were my agencies. How I started was quite unique. Nearly 19 years ago, because my daughter is about to turn 19, I was a training manager in London before I had my daughter, and they wouldn’t let me go part-time. Back in the day they just said no. I asked for four days a week and they still said no. It incentivised me to set up my own business. My background is PA and legal secretarial, so I thought, I’ll become a virtual PA. This was when there were very few virtual PAs, not even a hundred in the country, and it was before social media, so nobody was outsourcing to India and places like that. It was very unique, and that is why I’m so focused on timing being integral to business, because I think timing plays a huge part in success. It grew crazy quick. At one point I had five women working in my kitchen and I was phoning ten agencies saying, send more people, because I couldn’t cope with the work. I had the opposite problem to most people: staffing challenges. We took offices, it was very successful, then I was training other people to become virtual PAs, which took me into the training market. I went to Downing Street for best entrepreneur of the year, I had quite a lot of awards at that time because it was so new and novel, and I sold the business after two years.
With that money I decided to invest in a tool. I was obsessed with tech and with being effective and quick, and social media had just started. I thought, this is crazy, there is so much to do, there needs to be a tool to streamline it, a social media marketing tool, like Buffer or Hootsuite before they existed. I raised a lot of money to do that, and it was an epic fail. I had problems with the developers, constant delays, and my background at that point wasn’t technical, I was an ideas person. In one sense it was so successful: I had a big launch party, all sponsored, the founder of Ryanair came, people from The Apprentice came, it was set to be the next big thing. And I had to give people their money back because I couldn’t get the tool off the ground. But what it did do was propel me into the tech space, and it helped me understand what it is like to build a subscription model business. People kept asking me to consult for them, and I kept saying no, I’m waiting for the tool. Eventually we got to the stage of needing a third round of investment, and I was totally burnt out, and I decided to give up on it and go down the consulting route. That led me to set up my first digital marketing agency, and from that I pivoted to focus a lot on online PR and set up a PR and marketing agency. All through this I was becoming, I hate the word influencer, I think we are all influential, but a perceived influencer, and I was written up in Forbes in 2013 as one of the top social media power influencers. It totally transformed everything. It meant I could command a lot more money and everyone wanted me to be their influencer. IBM flew me by helicopter to Monaco. It was surreal and fun and I’m so grateful for it. Even now I still do bits of influencer campaigns, though nobody is flying me out on helicopters any more or giving me free phones. It brought me into the speaking scene, and it helped my clients too, because I could use my influence to get them featured in different publications.
Gautam: Super interesting. It doesn’t sound like you were trying to start a business to begin with. You had a child and were trying to reduce your hours to fit everything in.
Lilach: I was an accidental entrepreneur. I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur. I have no qualifications at all apart from secretarial, and I have spoken at Oxford University and been asked to speak at Harvard, and those are my proudest feelings, because I have always had a bee in my bonnet that I don’t have any qualifications. I have coached and mentored so many women over the years who also don’t have qualifications, and there is this whole stigma, which is very sad and still happening today. It breaks my heart. But I was totally accidental. I fell into it and was quite good at it.
Gautam: The emphasis on degrees is still there today. Twenty years ago, even ten, every entry-level sales job said must have a degree, and I have a degree, but you don’t need one to do any of it. And it is interesting because some people want to start a business their whole life. I did, from a kid, but I didn’t have an idea, and every few years I got a pay rise and got comfortable, until I was about 35 and thought I need to do this now. There was no light bulb moment. So did you see the problem, or did you think, I have this skill set? They are two different things.
Lilach: First of all, something that really gets to me: people talk about how easy business is, and there are a lot of people on LinkedIn peddling how easy it is to start a business. The truth is I could never have duplicated the success I had if I started today. It would be impossible. And I would say 90 percent of successful people today also couldn’t, and they don’t openly admit it, which really winds me up. There was no competition. You can’t compare having 20 virtual PAs in the country, if that, to hundreds if not thousands today. So it was purely accidental and purely on skills. I wanted to work from home, which was huge back then, because I wanted to be with my daughter, and I thought, let’s see if I can do my PA services virtually. I was very good at putting myself out there and I was strong in content, even initially. And I have always had this motto and I have never been afraid to ask. I still ask. I put myself out there. I knew nothing about business. It wasn’t strategic at all, and that just highlights timing. I honestly believe timing is the number one reason businesses succeed. Not strategy, not money. It is timing.
Gautam: You see great products and great teams get built and businesses fail because the demand isn’t there. It helps if you have a great product and a great team and the timing. And then your business blew up, and there were probably a lot of people in a similar situation who couldn’t get the flexible work they wanted after a child, and you were entrepreneurial enough to start your own business.
Lilach: I had to work. I was the main earner at that time. And I think, particularly for women, and this sounds very sexist but I think I can get away with saying it, you have to have a really strong need, because running a business is so hard. Much harder than being employed. The resilience, the grit, the constant up and down and stress, it is a rollercoaster, and you have to have huge hunger and a huge need. I have seen that people who don’t have that big need just don’t work as hard. I had multiple drivers. I come from a very middle class Jewish background where it is very rare not to be educated, and I was the only person in my whole friend group and my whole family without a degree. I hated saying I was a secretary, because everyone I knew was a professional. So I had a big drive to break that stigma and stereotype. And financially I desperately needed the money. And I was a lot younger then, though it is difficult bringing up a baby at the same time.
Gautam: We had our second child two weeks ago. I don’t know how anyone does it. Especially for the mother: the feeding, the getting up. It is exhausting 24/7. So you sold that business, and then it sounds like your next product was ahead of its time.
Lilach: Totally ahead of my time. I came up with a Buffer or Hootsuite before they did. I raised a lot of money, I had seven investors, and I was gutted it didn’t work out. It was high risk. We invested our own money into it as well; it drives me mad when people try to raise investment but won’t invest themselves. I took the risk and the gamble too. But it led me into digital marketing, and that is when I created the agency, and we had amazing clients, even Hootsuite, managing their content, which today would be a challenge for a relatively new agency to acquire. And I was very strategic. I remember going to a networking event and finding very quickly that the local groups, the BNIs and so on, as great as they are, weren’t right for my target audience. I wanted bigger companies. So I invested in very high-end networking. I paid two or three hundred pounds once to go to a lunch because I found out the marketing director of Hootsuite would be there. I told the organisers I would love to meet him, that I was a huge fan and would love to work with them. They introduced me, we ended up having lunch, and they became a client. I was very strategic when I wanted to be, and again it is not being afraid to ask and putting myself out there. And I made the most of being a woman in a space where there weren’t many women doing what I was doing at that time.
Gautam: A lot of entrepreneurs self-start on resilience and the ability not to give up, and a lot of people don’t have that. I see people in our circles who worked for great companies, so when they raise funding the VCs say, you worked at Revolut for five years or Google for ten, here is five million in seed. Some are incredibly successful, but a lot rely on that background, and they have never had resilience built into them. The fundamentals of entrepreneurship are just really hard. You fail 363 days out of 365, and they don’t teach you that.
Lilach: They don’t, and it is a great shame. We ended up home educating my daughter in England because I was frustrated with the system; when we moved to Israel she went to a private school. And this is a bit controversial, because a lot of people believe entrepreneurship can be taught, and I’m not sure it can. I believe there is something ingrained inside you. You have to be able to take risks, and the bigger the risk the bigger the payoff, or the bigger the epic fail, as I have also experienced. There are a lot of mindset things: you have to grow resilience and grit. During COVID I was doing a lot of coaching, because I had to pivot my business a lot, and the number of people who simply don’t have what it takes to run a business surprised me. A lot of that is mindset.
Gautam: I agree. Entrepreneurs have it from an early age. They typically haven’t come from huge money, they are probably all a bit weird, and they have tried entrepreneurial things as far back as they can remember. I did paper rounds and washed cars, not because my parents told me to but because I wanted pocket money, and by 15 we were selling PlayStations and working at golf courses. I see people now saying, I’m trying to get my kids into this thing, and the kids don’t want to do it, and I think, they probably won’t be entrepreneurs, because they haven’t got that burning desire deep down. Not that you can’t be successful without it. Now, the content side of your career. You were an influencer before influencers, on professional networks. I only started creating content six months ago, so I’m fascinated by people who were doing it five or ten years ago. How did that happen?
Lilach: Forbes catapulted it, and it was Twitter, really. I had over a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, which was seen as very influential back then. There was a handful of us. And because I was in the UK and female, at the time I was the most influential in the social media space in the UK, male or female. Most of the influencers were in America and I was the only one in the UK, so that was pretty huge as well. The truth is I don’t know what I was doing. I was producing content. I had a blog, and my website drove a lot of traffic back then. I have had a blog for years, even with the virtual PA business, and back then posts were 300 words, which is nothing. I have always been obsessed with content and with being different from everybody else, and it was much easier to differentiate yourself then. Today it is so hard, and a lot of it is gamed, with pods and everyone liking and commenting. Back then it wasn’t as sophisticated, and there were so few of us that it was much easier to stand out.
Gautam: It sounds like you did the fundamentals really well: not gaming the system, not a trillion dollar idea, a good idea executed, content you are passionate about and have expertise in. What were you posting on Twitter to get to 100,000 followers?
Lilach: Back in the day I was using it as a traffic machine. Twitter would drive something like 600,000 visits a month to my website. It was insane, and you just don’t get that today. And I’ll be honest, I was hardly engaging and I was doing everything they say not to do. I was posting four, six, eight tweets an hour, recurring, recurring, recurring. But there were fewer people posting, and the content I was posting was really high value, educating and teaching people. Now everyone is doing it, so you can’t compare, and it highlights how strategies have to change quickly. Everybody at the time said, no, you mustn’t do that. I would speak at conferences and everyone would say the opposite of what I said, and I would say, no, try it. I’m a great believer in testing and experimenting and going against what everyone says, and this is probably the one key takeaway for your audience: whatever everyone else is saying, do the exact opposite. It is the only way you can stand out, and it is the only way you can test, because everyone else is too scared and following the pack.
Gautam: I love it. As a growing company we ask, do we do what everyone else is doing, because it seems to work? But everyone else is doing it, and everyone coming up is doing it, and it gets saturated and boring.
Lilach: And you don’t know behind the scenes whether it is working for them. Things are hard now. I have had so many conversations behind the scenes, with influencers, big agencies, smaller companies, and everyone is struggling. A lot of people say it is harder now than during COVID. Think about the numbers: probably 80 to 90 percent of businesses are not doing as well as they would like. So if you follow the majority, you are following people who are not succeeding as well as they could. Even more reason to stand out and do things differently.
Gautam: Who are the companies doing well, and what did they do? They probably went the other way. That is why so many companies are making layoffs: they followed what everyone else did with VC money and now companies aren’t spending. So, the present and the future. You have been ahead on the virtual PA business, on the product, on Twitter, and now the rules have all changed and AI has just started. What do you think happens in the next few years, and what will successful people and companies do?
Lilach: Great question. Periodically through the year I get approached by the BBC and others for predictions, and the truth is it is really hard to predict right now, because things are evolving so quickly. Anybody predicting the next couple of years is being ridiculous. Six to twelve months is fairer. We have seen huge shifts with AI in three or four months. When it first came out everyone was panicking, particularly with GPT-4, because it is so powerful, head and shoulders above ChatGPT 3, and particularly in our space and for writers. On one hand people say it will never replace jobs because it needs the human touch, which I partly agree with, but you can push GPT-4 to be much more human. What you can’t make it is judgemental; it can’t make the right judgements, and that still needs a human. But what we are starting to see, especially in the last month, is that people are totally overwhelmed and frustrated. There are thousands of tools, hundreds of new ones a day, and people have AI fatigue. There is so much to learn and do that it is turning a lot of people off, and they are sticking with one or two tools. My podcast, for example: I now edit it with GPT-4. I used to have a writer or rewrite it myself, and now I plug in the transcript. So it is valuable and helpful. I do think we will see a lot of jobs go, particularly writers, and writers who say no, no, no are naive. But I think the predictions that it will happen so quickly will be slowed down by this influx of tools saturating the market. For now most jobs are safe; in the future, as tools get weeded out because there are just too many, we will see the change. And the job market is dire right now. I have never seen anything like it in 19 years. During COVID people loved working from home and decided to start their own businesses, and many are struggling and looking back for work, or part-time or contract work. Lots of people are being laid off and thinking, I’ll start my business. In the next 12 to 18 months I think we will see a lot of people who started businesses because of circumstances go back into the job market once it picks up, and the market for small businesses will get better again. Right now it is at its peak, bursting, and about to pop.
Gautam: Nobody can predict it. In January the general public didn’t know about ChatGPT, GPT-4 wasn’t out. Now my dad, who is 77, sends me new ChatGPT travel apps. Everyone knows the name and every company is using it, but nobody knows how it plays out. VCs ask about defensibility, because whatever you build can be copied in weeks. You will see companies at a million or two ARR with churn through the roof. And the rise of the solopreneur, but everyone is going back to the office.
Lilach: The only thing keeping people running their businesses is the flexibility and freedom. From what I’m seeing, most solopreneurs could earn more working for a company, and they are opting for the flexibility. And on hybrid, I always predicted companies would go back, and I think the hybrid model will disappear soon too. Look at new jobs being opened, in England and in Israel: the majority want you there. Anyone new, they want on site, and eventually they filter out the hybrid and remote.
Gautam: When we started we had no money and no customers, so we were remote because we couldn’t afford offices. Now, as we build a team in London, especially with graduates who have no workplace experience, I think the office environment is really valuable: mentors, people to talk to. You can create that remotely, but you have to invest in it. The banks are all bringing people back because they can’t train interns.
Lilach: I have been remote for nearly 19 years; the offices were for a year or 18 months. It depends on the talent you hire, and there is a massive trust thing. I personally get more done from home, because I’m a bit chatty and there is nobody to chat to here. In offices I spent hours chatting, and this was before social media and even email, when you had to walk round to give people things, so there was any excuse. But I think it is a shame in a way, and it is an economy thing. You can’t have all these empty offices; it affects the restaurants, the coffee shops, the travel. I always said it would come back, everyone said no, and lo and behold it is. The economy needs offices.
Gautam: Israel has one of the most vibrant tech communities outside Silicon Valley, unicorns per capita almost at Silicon Valley levels.
Lilach: Per capita we have more than Silicon Valley.
Gautam: A friend there says the startups do free lunch spreads and beer tabs to get people back in. Do you think that disappears?
Lilach: The tech companies here are already on site now, very little hybrid. And there have been huge layoffs here, far more than in the UK, because it is predominantly a tech scene, so it has been hit really hard. It is a tough market right now, tough for small businesses and tough for people looking for work. My only bit of wisdom is that everything changes, nothing lasts forever, and you have to wait out this time, do the very best you can and remember it will get easier. Right now nobody is immune. And something we have definitely seen in tech, which drives me crazy because I build up these amazing connections, is the churn. Staying in a job more than two years in tech is good now. So there is no security, and that is what we are seeing on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is bursting because so many people realise they need to build a personal brand. You are competing with small businesses, employed people, job seekers and personal brand builders. It is so noisy that I think we need to create something else.
Gautam: Final questions. You have started your own business, gone the investor route and had it not work out, run agencies. Right now the market isn’t great for job seekers or for companies selling, and there are layoffs all the time. It is temporary, but nobody has a crystal ball. If you have been laid off, or you think you will be, or you are struggling to sell, what would you recommend?
Lilach: First, put yourself out there, because you will find it reassuring to know you are not alone and nobody is immune. Be very careful on social media, where a lot of people are saying how amazing everything is, which can be disheartening and make you feel like a failure. Depending on your financial situation, if you can afford to take time out to study, retrain or pivot, go for it. If you can’t and money is an issue, you are going to have to work ten times harder than everybody else in your space. Do things quite ruthlessly and strategically: hijack marketing, study your competitors, see what they are doing and who they are working with, and really put yourself out there. If there are joint ventures or opportunities with other people, embrace them. And be proud of yourself, because I’m a believer that if you can get through the hard times, you can go and scale a business. I had huge success and it was easy, the timing was incredible. If you can create a successful business or get a great job during hard times, you will never have to worry again, because this will happen at some point in all our careers.
Gautam: Sound advice. Social media is so noisy, so many people desperate to build a personal brand, creating content for likes rather than to help people, and people listen to them. There are mental health ramifications too.
Lilach: I’m at the stage where I think social media is more damaging than good, and it is a stupid game. You can’t say, I do this, this is how much it costs, come and buy from me. You have to give this whole spiel of advice and tips in the hope someone notices, and God forbid you put a link, because that drops your reach. It is a pathetic game, and it is exhausting. I would love to come up with something that takes away the game element, because everyone is selling and not enough are buying, and sometimes you win and sometimes it deflates you.
Gautam: That is how the system breaks. Look at SEO: mention the keyword more times and rank higher, and every article became junk. It should be about high quality, legitimate content. Social media will get there eventually.
Lilach: I predict LinkedIn will adopt what Facebook is doing and become pay to play. Facebook reach is really hard now, fan pages are pretty dead unless you run ads, and LinkedIn is so saturated it is waiting to burst. Reach is down and only a select few gain from it while everyone else battles. So I think it will eventually become pay to play.
Gautam: They have already started with sponsored posts, and they can change the algorithm. If people rely on it as their one channel they will struggle. If you haven’t diversified, it is a mistake: look at other channels and invest in them. Lilach, I appreciate the chat, so much good info and sound advice from someone who has been there rather than made-up stuff on the internet. How do people get in touch?
Lilach: I’m on LinkedIn, and my website is lilachbullock.com. Twitter, Facebook. And very few people can say this: you can put my name into Google. I’m the only Lilach Bullock in the world.
Gautam: Apart from Sandra Bullock. If you type my name in you get random Indian gods. Thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed it, and there are a few points here people should listen to. Speak to you soon.
Lilach: Thank you for having me.
