So first you know where I am today is that I have an agency that consultant for social media and digital communications, primarily working with large B to B companies, helping them with their strategy. Aziz, Well, as social media, governance and second Communications. But I started in a very different place. I went to law school and wasn't earning, um, and realize that I did not enjoy practicing law. So I went to work for, ah, large global corporation, doing legal work in house I enjoyed. But I was looking for something kind of different to do so in about 2009 or 2010 at that company took on a side project where I started, um, legal research Blawg, and started doing some social media activation around our legal research products. And that project became more and more interesting to me. And I was at the move through the company and took on a few different rules. And I got into marketed eventually, and I'm started doing social media kind of full time for about a decade. There. Find a waas, the barbecue Nic, a tions director for social media. So managing our global social media across the across the company. And then about two years ago, the company went through Ah, large restructuring and half of the company was divested and sold off. And I had an opportunity Teoh kind of taken exit and have some runway Teoh start my own. Think something I always wanted to do and decided to go for it and started my agency, which is lumberjack, social and then have had really great success. I go had been going on speaking tours pretty regularly up until the last few months were at work, but, um, gotten and kind of speak all over all over the country and all over the world. I was in Delhi last fall doing some speaking engagements and, um, working with great companies. So that's that's sort of how I got here. It wasn't. I'd like to say it was a grand scheme and plan that I always kind of wanted to this, But it was really just sort of, ah, you know, taking the next cool opportunity. And I've been doing it now for a couple years and really love it. You know, working for myself as a consultant, working with incredible audiences is awesome.

So I had, um, just sort of probably got into social media without any marketing, educational background, Uh, sort of similarly getting into this business world. Um, you know, when I found out that I was gonna be leaving the company or had this kind of opportunity, I went home and set up a website and set up on I'll see, uh, for my company, uh, basically. And they went to the bank, got the got that all the accounts set up, and so, in many ways, was ready to go inside of, like, six hours or something as far as like, technically, companies. And I wasn't really sure what to do next. And I wrote a link to an article where I basically said thank you and farewell to my former company, right that I had experience there. And in that linked in article that I wrote, I just made a passing reference to my plans. Teoh be a freelance consultant going forward, and I didn't really know what my own timeline looked like when I did that. Um, but within you know, the same day anyway, hasn't seen within 20 minutes. That might be an hour or two former colleague who was now working who was then working as CMO for a data security company. Uh texted me and said, Hey, if you're actually available with love to bring you on to do some work for us, Uh, and I was not expecting to have any clients for the first weeks or eventually months and I haven't even launched anything yet. I just kind of made this reference. I feel very lucky that I had this great network to begin with. I don't think had I not already had that sort of never been, it could have been much harder that network in place. So that was my first client, which was great. And we, you know, very kind of moves of friends. So sort of, uh, very casually was like, OK, this is kind of what I'm thinking about rates, because I had no idea what my rate should be or anything like that, Um, and have that discussion that I started doing the work and that went pretty well, you know, I kind of figured out what that kid's looked like and how to make it how to deliver work for clients. I mean, I've always been in house and company before, so it was think. And after a month or two, Um, I was kind of waiting for a check and was just like, uh, you know, there was a deal that I was gonna give you the work you're gonna pay me and way need an invoice. And we need, you know, a lot of things. Um oh, yeah. I mean, I had never even thought about that. So I figure out what I'm doing. So I talked to some other consultants, got some QuickBooks and others more pushing about other tools I've used. But I got some of those things set up. But that's how clueless I waas. I knew how to do the work. I didn't know anything about it in the business part of it. But that part, um and that was a lot of people for coffee, you know, people who have done similar things and people were very generous with their knowledge and timeto get me started

get it? Yeah. So for the basic kind of running of the business, financially, I use QuickBooks, which, um, I didn't have any counting kind of background or anything That is really straightforward. Took care of a lot of things that I needed it to do. Uh, so that was that was key. I started using, um So for what I do with social media, there's a couple of specialized tools. You sweet, a couple of social media listening tools. My clients have a number of different tools that I use for employee advocacy and things like that. How toe get those messages out through through their employers. But those air, primarily tools of my clients have values in terms of my business. I don't use a whole lot of other tools. I have the adobe creative suite that I use occasionally for putting things together. Uh, other than that, No, I don't. I don't have a whole lot of software that but I needed equipment kind of standard standard software that I use, but I don't have I don't use salesforce or, um, any sort of, uh, prospecting kind of system with thatYeah. So I just squarespace to my website, which I was able Teoh set up really quickly. I don't do, um I don't really do a lot of Direct s CEO. Like when I write for either my website or for LinkedIn. You know, I give that some thought my content. Um, but I don't really use specific tools. Tools for ASIO. For me, it's more of the social tools. You know, there's some social social media tools which are really handy. Even if you're you're not gonna have the enterprise thing, there's, ah, tool, autonomy, which is a really nice way to quickly take a look at, um, you know somebody's Twitter presence and for identifying influencers and things, which is part of a deal for some companies, that could be a really useful tool. Um, I used to know the Google sweet for a lot of different things, but, uh, not a whole lot of specific SDO The squarespace stuff for the website is probably as close as I can that