We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Temima Shames. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Temima below.
Temima, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
For me, to my benefit and detriment, I am someone that goes for it and then does deeper thinking later on. I am big on learning from mistakes and troubleshooting as I go. When I started my business, I just dove in deep with managing a client. I woke up one day, set up a call with 3 potential clients and gave them my pitch. At the time, there were a lot of people in the industry making promises and I got on and said: “honestly, I don’t know what I am doing but I promise to learn with you, grow with you and find the right relationships to build a proper career.” This helped most talent feel comfortable and cared about. Each day after that, I would wake up and say to myself “what can I do to provide value” and then build relationships that would support that trajectory. It was keeping detailed notebooks and notes on what each talent was doing, what deals they had and connecting with at least 50 new people per day. It was using my relationships in the music business to get talent sound promos and then doing a lot of cold reach out and Linkedin messaging to new brands. I had been managing for a few weeks when I knew this was going to be a long term build. Unlike most people, I just sort of locked myself in my room and did everything on my own. No mentors, no guides.. just a lot of reading, watching YouTube, studying and learning from daily mistakes. If I reached out to a brand, and didn’t get a response, I pivoted.
I then went and set up my LLC on LegalZoom, set up a Chase business account and credit card, got my brother to help me create a logo and had a website designer build a temporary website just until we had enough capital to get it done properly. I invested into the company a few thousand dollars to start and then let everything run its course from there. Early on, I realized I needed help with the business structure and ensuring I had everything written and organized so I hired a business consultant to meet with me weekly and hold me accountable to ensuring everything was done properly. Following creating a mission statement, and annual goals, we started to bring on employees including my assistant being the first full hire within the first 3 months of operating. Within 3 months, we had 7 clients and had 6 figures in gross revenue. From there, it was learning every day on how to set up payroll, get a proper accounting team, etc. While it is constantly a learning phase and changing things that aren’t working, we were able to keep things as smooth as possible.
For those trying to start a business, I always say, you are never going to feel 100% ready and there will always be things that happen that disrupt the steps you planned. First step should always be to get the legal entity and set aside money in case there are additional fees that arise. It is super important to set up a business account and separate your business and personal finances in order to allow for an easy/organized tax season. The next step would be to create a business plan. What is your mission statement? How do you want people to feel when they think about your business? What is the impact you want to make and what are your financial goals? All those “dumb” worksheets on business that your teachers made you do in college or high school, do have a very positive implication as it allows you to take the time out of your day to think.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Temima Shames and I am a 24 year old entrepreneur and founder. I started a talent management company called Next Step Talent, which now has a team of 9 full time employees and 25+ clients with over 6 Billion views on Youtube alone. With a focus on analytics, storytelling and long term growth, we aid talent in taking their business to the next level. In the next few months, we will begin offering additional talent services, so stay tuned! I am also in the midst of launching a second company called Next Step CRTVS that we are working on behind the scenes. It will launch before the end of the year. This company is focused on helping artists and brands to understand social media algorithms, as well as shifting their perspective to use social media as a storytelling tool. Prior to starting Next Step Talent, I interned at various record labels including Atlantic Records, and Apex International and then I worked at Visionary Records in Influencer Marketing. When quarantine hit, I started an organization called Women PowHer Music alongside my friend, Danielle Gray, to empower women to keep pushing during their down time. I remember while everyone was complaining about everything being shut down, I would wake up, eat, work out , do yoga and then message as many people on LinkedIn as possible to set up informationals. When 5-6 PM would hit, I would sit and watch panels and take notes. Eventually this led to me starting Next Step Talent as I learned that many talents didn’t have people they could trust in the industry and as someone who loves psychology, and has a goal to help as many people as possible, I wanted to be that for them. When thinking about what we do, it is important to remember that management and consulting in entertainment is not linear. We help our talent grow in any area of the industry, empower them to keep going and create creative Business opportunities. The thing I am most proud of when it comes to my business, is being able to work with people who truly care about their craft and don’t just focus on “being famous”. They want to make an impact on the greater world and create something different that has never been created before. When it comes to my team, I am proud of the community we have built and the constant support each employee provides to each other. For me, life’s not about “living to work, or working to live” but it is about surrounding yourself with people who want to make an impact whether that be in a given day, or overall.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
My favorite marketing story was probably “My Crown” by Brooklynne Webb. One day, my client Brooklynne Webb, a body positivity, advocacy creator, and one of the smartest marketers I know with over 12M+ followers called me and the team and said “I want to make a song, and impact the internet by showing them how far hate can go”. As someone who has seen hate on the internet many times, it was a good way for her to show fans that just as far as hate can go, so can positivity. Music was never something she was focused on and so at first, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. This was extremely risky as we needed to ensure it went mega viral, but we decided to dive in. It was over a year of planning where we sat in meetings, planned who was going to record the music and carefully crafted the song, music video and strategy as a team. Through understanding the algorithm, we were able to ensure that each aspect would get a reaction whether positive or negative. The campaign started with Brooklynne going on livestream and signing daily. It was an hour-long livestream with a karaoke microphone. The idea here was that she knew fans would want to make a comment. This was during the time when many influencers were releasing music and viewers were getting annoyed about it. This went on for months with people taking screen recordings and posting it forming a buzz. Each post of people making fun of the singing, we would comment various things like: “thank you for the support”. Then started posting videos teasing the song. To sum it up, the song and music video released and charted #7 on Spotify first week with no ad dollars or TikTok campaign and is now over 10M+ streams. The following week, we released an album of remixes which is how we showed everyone we were joking. Each song, labeled something different, had dramatic remixes that got people talking. The week after that, we released a video where Brooklynne talked about the meaning behind this campaign and encouraged people to spread love instead of hate. It was super awesome to be a part of such an impactful campaign.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We take a family approach to our company so we talk to each of our clients everyday. It is important to me that all the employees at the company at least know and have met each client. I pride myself in ensuring that Next Step Talent is a place where clients feel comfortable opening up about their mental health, and we make changes to their workflow accordingly. We have a groupchat with each client and the team so that way everyone stays involved in what the other talents are doing. This allows everyone to provide input and insight in larger team meetings. For us, brand loyalty is about providing value and trust and building a strong yet professional relationship with our talent in an industry where it is hard to establish boundaries.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nextsteptalent.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextsteptalent/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nextsteptalentmanagement
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nextsteptalent/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nextsteptalent_
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nextsteptalent?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1