We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leilani Wells. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leilani below.
Leilani, appreciate you joining us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
Both of my parents went against societal norms throughout their lives. They each tried their hand at different entrepreneurial endeavors and believed in dreaming. When I was a young adult my mother opened up her own acting studio. For years prior to that, I had watched her go to classes and get jobs in the industry here and there. When she branched out and opened her own studio it was inspiring, to say the least. I remember her successfully getting work for her students, as well. The work that I do now in many ways mirrors some of the work my parents did, as my father was also an actor.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’ve always had a love for sales. Sales and marketing are two different career paths, yet they’ve always gone hand in hand. When I was too young as a teenager to get a job, I was able to sell things. I would go to neighbors and get cash for odd jobs and babysitting, for instance. Then at 14 years old I convinced a family-owned pizza place to hire me under-the-table for a bit. When I reached the legal working age of 15 I began a job I would keep for years. It involved quite a bit of sales and I worked my way up to sales management. From then on all my jobs afterwards would either have an element of sales and sales bonuses or I was in sales management.
Here’s the thing about marketing. The ultimate goal of marketing is to bring your potential buyer to you. From that point you must sell them and turn them into a buyer. I saw all the connections of business, branding, marketing, and sales. I wound up getting a business degree with a concentration in marketing, however, the social media landscape was what opened my eyes to it.
As a single mother, at the time, I saw an opportunity using social media to gain my time back and sell to more people. Market to more people. Help others market their products and businesses to more people.
It just made sense to me.
My company and I now offer visibility and marketing services to many types of brands and businesses nationwide. We offer both done for you and done with you services to generate visibility for our clients both online and offline. Currently we do this through a group membership program, my courses, one-on-one consulting services, speaking engagements, and my current favorite content experiences.
My content experiences are by application only where I fly out to the client and we get an entire years worth of content together. There is a 3 month consulting period included with the process so the client knows what to do with said content. I train their team how to schedule it out for that year or the client pays a premium for our team to do it for them.
All of this is done with two goals in mind. One – omniprescence. Let’s be visible consistently across 5 or more major platforms. Two – let’s get back to the business of our businesses and have social media running in the background instead of it running us.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When Facebook first came on the scene, so many people saw it as a way to socialize for fun. I immediately saw it as an opportunity to get in front of more people and sell with ease. At the time, as a single mother, I really was looking out for a way to make more money. I needed a way to do it with less of a time-investment. I wanted more time at home with my son and didn’t want a second job.
I decided while I was at work to start adding friends on my work breaks at record speed on Facebook. I then started understanding social media more and more. From that point on it began creating opportunities for business and eventually led to me starting the business I now run.
Any advice for managing a team?
For me when it comes to team management I am consistently inquiring about my teams needs and perspective. How do they feel in their own endeavors outside of my business? Does our company support their lifestyle? Are they happy and do they want anything changed about what they are doing for the company?
It’s important that I never lose sight of the fact that this is my baby. My company and not theirs. I cannot ever expect them to care as much as I do about its success. I can however continue to be clear about the vision of our company and make sure it aligns for them. I can always show I care about their experience and continue to be clear that they can feel good sharing with me when they see room for a better experience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://leilaniwells.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leilanimwells/
- Facebook: https://twitter.com/leilanimwells
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leilanimwells/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/leilanimwells
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7-zaS1i4e0BUvX7vDoHt6Q
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@leilanimwells Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/leilanimwells/ Podcast: https://leilaniwells.com/podcast/
Image Credits
Caitlin Baker of Caitlin Baker Photography is the professional photographer used for the professional photos. I have ownership, and you are welcome to credit her for the professional ones.