A conversation with Remi Leibovic, founder of RCL Media. Remi works with small businesses to help them develop their content strategy and direct their social media. Similar to my work with clients, Remi's strategy is hyper individualized to each businesses' goals and needs. If you would like to develop a financial plan unique to your goals and needs, please schedule a call: https://trueabundanceadvisors.com/lets-connect
Remi Leibovic is the founder of RCL Media, a woman Latina-owned social media agency based in northern New Jersey. Remi enjoys problem solving for businesses via social media and helping them tell their stories visually through content creation.
Remi shares her journey of growing up in a hardworking immigrant family, highlighting the sacrifices her parents made to ensure she and her brother received a solid education.
She talks to us about her transition from traditional graphic design to the dynamic world of digital content creation. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining a cohesive brand identity and the pitfalls of generic design choices. We discuss the creation and management of engaging social media content, the importance of audience interaction on platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, and the benefits of identifying niches.
Remi highlights the strengths and skills required to succeed in this field, the importance of networking, and the role of a strong support system.
“Social media for business is certainly not an overnight success and you need to approach it with a long-term goal in mind and you need to really be targeting your audience and building a rapport and a relationship with your audience. How do you do that? It all takes time and most of my clients see success within the three-month mark, but true success, like the true consistency, comes from the six-month.” - Remi Leibovic
Key takeaways:
- Limited financial resources can be an incentive to step up your game. Remi shared how she was laid off from her temp job, was unable to collect unemployment, and had just $700 in her bank account. She took her father’s advice and attended a chamber of commerce meeting - and left with five graphic design clients!
- Having a corporate “day job” can ease the financial stress as you build your business. Remi developed her coding skills and landed her first corporate job that blended programming with design for legal paperwork. She continued to build her business while benefiting from the paycheck and benefits of her corporate job.
- When engaging on social media as a small business, it’s as important to engage with others as it is to post content. Among her services, Remi provides a social media package for small businesses, creating, scheduling and managing social media posts in their unique voice. She stressed the need to engage the audience by posting polls, responding to comments and replying to messages, rather than just “posting and ghosting.”
About the Guest:
Remi Leibovic, MCM., is the founder of RCL Media, a Woman/Latina owned Social Media Agency based in northern NJ. She has been growing RCL Media since 2020 and has been in business for four years. In addition, Remi is a recent graduate of Rutgers Newark’s Entrepreneurial Pioneers Program Cohort. She is Cuban, Argentinian, and was raised and still resides in Northern NJ. What she loves the most about running RCL Media is that she gets to meet new people and be creative in her own way each day. She gets to problem solve for business’s via social media and tell their stories visually through content creation. She holds a Masters of Communication Management (MCM) from Rutgers University with a focus in Digital Media. For the past three years she attended graduate school, worked full time, and ran the business. She is 100% self funded and mainly gained most of her clients through networking. As of March of last year, she transitioned into running the business full time and has been gaining new clients and partnerships ever since.
Website: https://rclmedia.net/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/remi-leibovic-rclmedia/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rclmediaofficial/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rclmediaofficial
Resources: Remi's coach, Lynn Roe, LSR Consultants
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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment or financial advice. It’s for informational purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.
Remi Leibovic
Social media for business is certainly not an overnight success, and you need to approach it with a long term goal in mind, and you need to approach it with, you know, like I was talking about a certain type of industry. You need to really be targeting your audience and building a rapport and a relationship with your audience.
How do you do that? It all takes time. And most of my clients see success within the three month mark, but the true success, like the true consistency comes from the six month.
Narrator
Welcome to making change with your money. A podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves.
Now here's your host, Certified Financial Planner, Laura Rauder.
Laura Rotter
I am so excited to have as my guest today, Remy Leibovic, Remy is the founder of RCL Media, a woman Latina owned social media agency based in Northern New Jersey. Remy enjoys problem solving for businesses via social media and helping them tell their stories visually through content creation.
So welcome Remy to the Making Change With Your Money podcast.
Remi Leibovic
Hi, it's so nice to be on Laura.
Laura Rotter
I'm excited to have our conversation, and I'll start the same way I start all my conversations, which is, please share with us what money was like in your family growing up.
Remi Leibovic
So, My parents are, so I'm interesting cause I'm Argentinian and Cuban.
So my mother is an exile and my father is an immigrant from Argentina. So what that means is my mother's family fled Cuba and then came here. So my grandfather basically had to restart his whole business, his whole identity, everything. And my grandmother had to work. So what happened is. They would work in the factory during the day.
And then my grandfather would go to NYU to get his accounting license and degree and everything at night. So that meant that my mother was going to obviously go to school, get caught, go to college and become educated. So she ended up working in professional. Banking doing procurement and international business for several big us banks.
And my father from Argentina, his parents. immigrant immigrants and they came to Queens. So my mother came over when she was eight. My father came over when he was three. So they both grew up very Americanized and assimilated and essentially like college was the answer. So my father went into environmental testing, which then ended up.
Into a career of construction and project management, and he's been doing project management in New York City for over 30 years with a little bit of work in New Jersey, but primarily New York City. So, my parents were always working. My grandmother practically raised me my mother's mother. She raised us, she would be over our house at 6 a.m. in the morning, prepare me and my brother to go to school, take us, drop us off at school, and then pick us up in the afternoon. So, my parents, I didn't really see my parents much during the week growing up because of the fact that they were always working. So it was a sacrifice that was made and that was one of the sacrifices was time with your kids.
Right. So, but later around eighth grade, my dad got really heavily involved in coaching junior varsity football and little league football with my brother. So he made time for that and, you know, every concert and every bit and Taekwondo belt test, my parents would be there and be championing us. But, you know, during the week they were always working in the city.
Yeah. So money was, you know, money was good. We were stable. We were middle class. We were, you know. very well off, but it came at the expense of, I didn't see my parents that much.
Laura Rotter
So what was the message that you took away from that? You will be educated.
Remi Leibovic
Your job is to go and get your education. No one can take your education from you and you will do well if you go to college.
That was the message.
Laura Rotter
Which is great. So education was very important to your parents and Important for them, I guess, to pay for your education.
Remi Leibovic
Yes. So I was very blessed to be able to be supported by my parents through my associates and my bachelors. And then they handed me the torch with my master's. I paid for my master's completely out of pocket while working a full time job in corporate, a few full time jobs in corporate, and also running and scaling up a business.
So yes, education is very important.
Laura Rotter
And clearly also gave you the message of hard work. You know, as you said, you were working while you put yourself through school, while starting a business. So certainly I'm sure you have an inner drive, but that also was reflected, as you said, in your parents who were always working.
Remi Leibovic
Yes. And I want to shout out my aunt Fiona. So she is a PhD in economics over at the Manhattan College and she gave me, I believe it was seventh grade, I got a sweater from Manhattan College from her. She got me a gray sweater with green lettering that was at Manhattan College and I for so long had thought I was going to go to Manhattan College and then my parents were just like, It's really expensive.
But like, that was the thing, right? Is that like, oh, yeah, this is what you're going to do. It wasn't a question of how or what school or where, but it was just that it will happen, you know.
Laura Rotter
Which is, I, I very much believe in the value of education. So I think it's a wonderful message that your parents gave you, Remy.
Did you work while you were in college? Because of course you just shared that you worked during graduate school.
Remi Leibovic
So I worked at the, let's see, my first job in college was a note taker at Bergen Community College. And what that basically meant was you got paid to go to class. Because people, you know, people needed extra help in class, they needed, maybe I could catch something that they didn't.
Maybe they needed special help in the classes or just that extra help to get them further. So what I would do is I would go into class and I would be a note taker and I would make, I think it was like, I'd make minimum wage, but it was great because it was just like, I'm getting paid to go to class. So it only self motivated me.
My professors at the beginning of every semester would be like, who wants to be the note taker for this class for this semester? I'd be like, me. And then I would be, and it would even help myself because it was, because I would be very thorough for other people. I would always want to be better for them.
Right. And then I became an English tutor and a writing tutor. And then I, You know, I would teach Taekwondo and then other than teaching Taekwondo, I then went into tutoring again and then working at Rutgers Camden at the Athletic Center for the gym. So I was always working and then I got a TA and then I was doing, I would have internships.
You know, so I would, they were all unpaid, but I would work at Storm King Art Center during the summer and depending on the shift that I took for that, you know, that season, it would either I'd be, I would be working weekends, right? So I had the entire week to myself. So I would go and work for different art internships.
Or I would be working all like, you know, the whole week shift, which was Wednesday through Wednesday through Sunday. And then on Fridays, I would go into the city for my art for my sculpture internship in there. So it was, I was like an art student, like in graphic design and digital media communication.
So. arts and a sculpture minor. So arts, like I, I racked up all of the art internships I possibly could get, but also while supporting myself and paying my bills and saving up.
Laura Rotter
Wow. So I'm, I'm learning about you both at your athletic. Sounds like you've been involved in sports, not just your brother, who your dad coached his team, but you also are athletic and also your interest in art.
Can you please speak a little bit about that? You know, when did you realize that you had that interest?
I've always been creative and I think that going to school has just shown me that creativity comes in a million different ways. I'm not. a good drawer. I can't draw well, but I can definitely, like, I can't be like a fine artist, right?
With charcoal and line and all this other stuff, right? But I'm very creative in the sense of, oh, we have an art gallery coming up. This is what's the theme going to be. This is how we're going to organize the gallery. This is, you know, these are the artists that we want to target to get into the gallery.
You know, I was always driven towards art as a kid because I liked reading manga growing up, which were little Japanese comics. I watched a lot of cartoons and animation. And at one point I wanted to be an animator, so I was very, like, gung ho with art. And then, you know, when you go to college, you learn about the finer arts, and then you learn about sculpture.
And it's just incredible, you know? The art is, I think that everybody should try and get into art, because art is just so universal, and It will, it just makes your life better. Just, you don't have to draw, but you can go and admire, you know?
Laura Rotter
So did you ever do anything, any visual art on your own, or it was more an interest in other people's?
Remi Leibovic
I've done, so I was a animation major at Bergen community college. So I had a bunch of work that I did for. You know, the associates degree. I took, you know, drawing classes, painting classes, animation classes. And then when I transferred into Rutgers, I did graphic design classes. So I have a whole portfolio of like graphic design and digital artwork.
And I also have sculpture work and I love sculpture and I and I think that it was like a lot of my internships. We're, you know, revolving around, you know, sculpture work and making sculpture for urban environments. So, yes, with what kind of medium, what kind of, we did would, I got a grant. I got a Kirka grant from Rutgers Camden.
They gave me 300 bucks and I got grant money for plant money, as I'd say, and I got a bunch of, I made this thing called an eco ISO, which stands for ecological isolation chamber. And what it was, I made this little. I made this little bed that you could crawl into, and I covered it with plants. So the idea was that people in urban, that are in dense urban environments like cities, they could go into this thing and nature bathe and get the same Benefits as someone who lives out in nature.
Laura Rotter
Oh, I love that. As someone who I am sitting right now in a room surrounded by trees through the windows, I know that it really helps regulate my nervous system by being surrounded by nature and always seeing the outside. And I also want to share, I'm not a particularly visual person and from a group I'm involved with, I'm looking at a corner of my office that has watercolor paints, magic markers, crayons, A different pieces of paper that I can use to create visual art.
When I, I used to journal in the morning and I switched the journaling to actually spending five minutes to maybe paint the outside or draw, draw a picture of my cat. I am in no way. You know, our culture would say a successful visual artist. My son once saw what I drew and said, like, you look like you're in kindergarten, mom.
But I, I enjoy it because I never would do it before, right? Because when you're growing up, you do get critiqued by teachers and, and to just embrace that side of me and, and build that. part of my brain, use that creativity that I, you know, don't otherwise use has been fun. And, you know, so please let me know.
Graphic design, as I understand it, though, has become, as you mentioned, very digital. It's not really anymore putting pen to paper. So, you know, What was that like for you to study graphic design?
Remi Leibovic
So our school was really heavily involved in print design. So a lot of my portfolio that I made in school was all printed works and materials.
When I graduated, it quickly became You know, that's how I got into social media marketing because a lot of the social media marketer jobs all required graphic design skills. Now, is that a good thing? Not really, but we can get into that later, but essentially they were like, oh, we can hire, you know, someone that has graphic design skills and knows how to use Adobe instead of a whole designer.
So for the social media marketing, so they wanted one person to wear multiple hats. So it, it was physical for me at one point, and then it translated into digital.
Laura Rotter
Got it. And I'm, I'm thinking, and this is obviously a tool that many people use, but like Canva, right? It's a tool that even someone like me, though, frankly, I, I asked, I have someone else do it for me that can, you know, that's more easily usable for someone who, doesn't have a graphic design background.
Remi Leibovic
Absolutely. And I've been to, you know, lectures and talks that were given by Canva employees. I can say this confidently, Canva is a great tool to use If you need to bang out something and you need to just post something, however, if you are a company or an agency, or if you have a small business or own a brand, you should hire a graphic designer to make a brand identity system for you.
So that's your logo, your colors, your fonts, everything. And then you can put that brand identity system. Into your Canva because Canva does have a brand kit and then you can start utilizing it and making assets that are in alignment with your brand, you know, guidelines, but to just wing it, I feel that one of the things me personally as a social media professional, I go on Instagram and it's like the same.
Five fonts with this everybody loves beige black and white. I don't know why There's a million colors on this earth, but they all love beige black white. That means you're professional. I'm like Why are we taking all these new shades? And so, you know, it's, it's very easy to use Canva, but it's also a double edged sword because it can make you just look like every single other person in your profession.
Laura Rotter
That's probably true. So what a great segue. So, can you just walk us through how you decided to focus your talents and skills on social media? Yeah. Content creation and, and, and from there, go on to who you enjoy working with and how you enjoy working with people.
Remi Leibovic
Absolutely. So I'm going to summarize this.
So I said earlier in this interview about parents who come from backgrounds where they immigrated and they had to make it in America. So. And that college was the gung ho answer. So when I had graduated, I didn't have a corporate job and I didn't have a full time job. So I, and I tried so hard. I started looking for jobs in.
I want to say January. So if I graduated in May of 2019, I started looking for full time work in January of 2019 and I went to every portfolio day. I went to every, you know, I, I was part of all these organizations with graphic design studios. And I was like, does anybody need help? Does anybody want someone, you know, internships, just anything right? And I couldn't find anything.
Laura Rotter
Are those the kind of jobs you were looking for? Graphic design?
Remi Leibovic
Yeah, I was looking for graphic design jobs because I had a degree in graphic design and digital media communications, right? So I was like, okay, graphic design is not working. I graduated. I'm done time to pivot to the other degree.
And let's see if I could do something with social media. I had been doing social media For all throughout college for things that I worked at the senator Walter Rand Institute, I would be designing like the graphic design. I would make for them was all going on social media. A lot of the graphic design jobs that I had as a student or all assets that were going to be posted on social media because this was before Canada.
Right? So you'd have to make it in Adobe. Same thing with all my summer internships, I would be making designs that would be being posted on social media. So, I already had that design for social media mindset, you know, big, you know, make the date big, make the RSVP big, the date, the time, the location, all that fun stuff.
So, I started applying for jobs as a social media manager in June and then I got a job in, I want to say at the end of that June. And I basically had been let go, but at that job in September, and I found out that in at that time in 2019, the summer 2019 that the social media manager position was kind of like entry level.
It was only really viewed as entry level. It was viewed as product based. It wasn't like project based, so it wasn't viewed as this long term thing, right? Social media was kind of being run by marketers and it wasn't like car It wasn't really carved out into a legitimate position with salary for all that fancy stuff, right?
So, I kept getting a bunch of temp jobs from September of 2019 into January of 2019 and essentially In January, in January of 2020, I had gotten, I was on my way to a concert with a friend in the city and I got called by my temp agency that they were, that I was not a good fit for the marketing position that I had taken fine.
Whatever. I hate Excel. It wasn't working out right and they had little to no patience. And so I was like, I have 700 in my bank account. I have no idea what I'm going to do. So my dad, you know, in January, like, you know, I'm making, you know, Valentine's day cards for people to send for like 10 bucks a card or something.
Like I'm, I'm really scrounging it. And back then, again, this is January, 2020 before the pandemic. Unemployment, it used to be if you got fired, you couldn't get unemployment. Unemployment was only for people who got laid off, or their position was dissolved, or it was this really complicated and long term kind of thing.
And so I was just like, all right, I got 700 bucks. And I need to step it up, right?
Laura Rotter
So yeah, it makes you more entrepreneurial when you don't have that much money in the bank.
Remi Leibovic
Yeah So I basically and again my parents are very you know, you went to school You're you have to something has to come from this, right?
So I was like, all right bet so he my dad makes a suggestion That I should try to go do graphic design for local businesses At the chamber of commerce. So I go to a chamber of commerce meeting. I get five clients I think that's February, like the second week of February in 2020, I get, so I'm like, okay, I got my clients.
Now I have money coming in from that. I have money that is expected to come in from this, right? I'm going to go get a bank account and I'm going to set this all up. Because while I was at Rutgers, one of my professors, Kevin Kerman, um. He basically gave us a business of art class where we met with professionals and I knew that I had to have an LLC and that I had to have contracts through this whole class.
He brought in all these different professionals and I was like, and I still have his book with all of my notes because I was a good note taker. I have all the books, like the book was how to do it. And essentially I went out and, you know, we opened up the LLC and. I, you know, my mom gave me 50 bucks to put in the bank account to put something in there.
And then the pandemic hit, I lost a couple of those clients. I kept a few. And then essentially that's what kept me afloat because I didn't qualify for unemployment. Because of this whole thing, like it was, I got it. I ended up getting it, but until much, much later, and then I didn't get all of it because like I started working and I'm still in this weird tangle where I'm still owed stuff, but I'll figure that out.
Laura Rotter
So what kind of people like. Can you explain what you describe what you did when you went to the chamber meetings and what kind of clients did you sign?
Remi Leibovic
They were all small businesses. They were all family owned businesses. They were very, very, you know, hyper local, small brick and mortar businesses. And I kept one business with two different locations.
And, you know, the rest of the businesses that I had gotten, they basically had to, you know, write me off because the pandemic, they couldn't, they didn't know what was, no one knew what was happening. So. In so that summer, I was like, Okay, I don't know what's going on. I'm gonna teach myself how to code because tech is really important, right?
So and I already had taken like some coding classes for HTML and all this in college. So I was like, All right, Code Academy has a free course for six months. Let's try to bang out as much as I can. I got all these different certs. And I essentially found a graphic design job that blended programming with design for legal paperwork.
And that was my first big, big corporate job. And I stayed there for two years and I would run the business and gain more clients. While working that corporate job and essentially while I was at that corporate job, I made the decision to go to my master's program because I was just like, I don't know where what's gonna happen or what the future is going to bring, but God forbid anything happens and the whole thing sets on fire.
I have a master's degree and no one could tell me anything after that, right? Because only I think only 17 percent of the United States has a master holds a master's degree. For me, I'm in Northern New Jersey, right? Bergen County, Hudson County, everyone has a mask, everybody. Right. I'm
Laura Rotter
in Westchester, right?
Same thing.
Remi Leibovic
Right. So it's same thing where it's like everybody has it, but then you, you know, you go to different parts of the U S and it's like, Oh no, it's, it's a rarity. So I was living at home and I still live at home because I just graduated the master's program like three weeks ago. Congratulations.
Thank you. So I was living at home but paying rent and living at home and essentially the unemployment kicked in so I was in the summer like the middle of the summer so I was able to get unemployment. And then the unemployment was what was paying me until I found the full time job. And that just basically kept me afloat.
Laura Rotter
So Remy, can you describe for us again, like what you did for those small businesses and what you're doing now for people?
Remi Leibovic
Right. So for those small businesses, for one small business, I created a website. And social media assets that they could all go and post like a little content package for them to post on their own for the other small businesses.
I created and I still do this. I created a social media package where I go on site to create content for them. And then I schedule and manage and post everything myself. So they hand off and export their social media work and their social media needs to me, to RCL Media and my team. And then we go on site, we create the content, we write the captions, we schedule the posts.
We handle the social media so they don't have to. And I'm still working with one of those clients. Which was a restaurant. So again, it was really important back in the pandemic. We were using a ton of graphics and stuff, but now we go on site, we take pictures of the food, we post what specials are coming up, UFC fights, all that fun stuff.
So essentially we engage, we post, we create for them and we're able to, you know, have their social media platforms running. While they focus on their business because social media is a task all in and of itself And basically just needed like an employee set to it so That's where rcl media comes in for all these small businesses and now We serve restaurants, construction and lifestyle businesses, and we're starting to get more inquiries into medical.
So healthcare, private practices, med spas. So we've had a couple of talks with people about that.
Laura Rotter
Oh, that's great. So two questions. First of all, you said you engage. I'm wondering what you mean by that.
So on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, especially LinkedIn and Instagram, will hold polls, will hold, so engaging is like asking your audience questions, replying back to messages, replying back to comments.
Those kinds of things are really important because you can't just post a ghost. You can't just post something and have absolutely no follow up with it. You know, we make content for our clients that are unique in their voice to them. So we actually have one client that's a sports bar and. We understand all of the lingo.
So if there was something really funny that happened in hockey, cause right now it's the hockey season playoffs, we'll repost the meme and we'll get a lot of laugh reacts from that. So we're, we're keeping in line with what the business is and what they represent and really staying on trend with the current things like reels.
Right. I slapped some trending audio on a. Reel for one of my older clients. They're no longer with us, but we put trending audio back when reels first came out, we put trending audio onto this pottery reel, and now it has over a hundred thousand views. Right. So like again, it's just about staying current and really pivoting the strategy so that your clients can find the benefit from that.
Laura Rotter
And maybe you mentioned several niches that you focus on. What's the benefit of identifying niches other than, you know, other people hearing, Oh, she works with that niche. But in general, like for you, for the contact creation, how does that niche identification?
Remi Leibovic
So, We have several packages now where we're either, you know, the client gives us all the assets, the client, which is all the photos, the videos, everything.
We also have a package where we go on site once per quarter. And then we have a package where we go on site once per month, right? And these are different platforms that we post on, whether it be Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok. Whatever it may be, we have all of the, we have all the content. And when you look at restaurant construction and lifestyle businesses, It's their portfolio, you know, one of my clients is a, his name is closet Butler and they're based in the Wayne Thompson lakes area.
If anybody's familiar with New Jersey and basically, you know, we posted a video where, you know, he was talking about a mud room, right? A 15 second reel. Got him a huge project because the woman just called them up and was like, Hey, I want that mudroom. They're like, what mudroom are you talking about? The mudroom that was on Instagram.
I want that. And that literally was like two weeks after we had posted the real. So again, these are very visual industries. Same thing with restaurants. You need to post the food. You need to post the beer. You need to post the drinks that you're serving. Or how is anyone going to know what you serve and if it looks good to even eat there?
Laura Rotter
Yeah. So, so I guess what you're saying is visual industries work best with what you're doing. Yes. I mean, could you help us understand your strengths and your skills and how they're playing out in this business you've created for yourself?
Remi Leibovic
So as you can tell, I'm very sociable. So much of my business comes from that.
Most of my, my business comes from going to networking events and meeting people because there's nothing more creepy than getting a DM from someone saying, Hey, we'll do your social media. And it's like, am I getting, am I going to get hacked? Like what? So it's about building those connections and. Really explaining, you know, who I am and what I do and being able to show that level of creativity.
Laura Rotter
And what's the favorite, your favorite part of what you do?
Remi Leibovic
My favorite part of what I do is that I think that it's incredible that like, I built this whole thing with of course help from like many guides, sources, mentors, and people, but I built this whole thing. It pays all my bills. It covers my rent and It's only growing and becoming, you know, larger.
And now, you know, I'm about to take on my third round of summer interns. So I think that that's incredible. Yeah, I get a bunch of summer interns from Rutgers. It doesn't matter what campus you go to. I have a bunch of, you know, rising seniors, juniors, sometimes I'll have sophomores. If you have the tenacity and the grit, you know, I'll even take, you know, interns from Bergen.
If you have the tenacity, the ambition and the grit to go out and get your own summer internship, like, that is. quality enough to come and come aboard and work with me for a summer or for a fall and spring. My interns have had success with this because I am an agency, we do have clients, we do have, you know, newsletters, sales, jobs, everything else that a regular agency would do, but they have a shot at it.
And they're able to translate the experiences that they get with me into a resume that then goes on and you know, my one intern was telling me about how he got into one of his schools because they specifically highlighted the fact that they liked the fact that he was going for a master's in marketing and he had agency experience.
So, again, like, And I've been told this by several different interns. So I'm really proud that I'm able to give that to them.
Laura Rotter
That's wonderful. So a lot of my listeners are women who maybe have left corporate jobs and are setting up their own businesses. Can you, you know, speak to our listeners as to, you know, how your packages work and how, how you work with clients?
Remi Leibovic
So one of the things. That I will highly recommend is, and I'll give a shout out to, is my coach Lynn Rowe from LSR Consultants. She's a business coach, but she is no nonsense. She is very like, this is what you need to do and this is how you have to do it. And I also went to the Rutgers Entrepreneur Pioneer Initiative, Rutgers EPI program.
And what that was, was from April through December, you know, every week we were in a class where they were talking about sales, business administration, marketing, all these different aspects about running a business. Because the thing is, Is that starting a business is the easiest thing you can do.
Maintaining it for the longevity is hard. So to those women that are currently in corporate positions that have income, I would highly recommend that you number one, get a business banking account. If you establish your LLC, sole proprietorship, B Corp, non profit, whatever it is, establish yourself. And then get the business banking account and work at corporate and Work on the business during the weekends or at night or whatever it is And I and this i'm not gonna lie to you It will be very hard and it's very isolating and it's very lonely I can in 2021 I can count not actually no not 2021 in 2022.
I could count The number of times on my hand that I hung out with my personal friends. I saw people I was networking with more than I saw some of my best friends. And that is a boundary, but it's, again, it goes back to that sacrifice of either. I'm going to hang out with my friends this weekend, or I'm going to go and get content this weekend, or I'm going to do this for the business, or I'm going to hang out and do this.
I would highly recommend that you establish if you can't afford a business coach, if you can't look into a business coach, that's fine. There's plenty of people online that talk about setting up a strategy for yourself for business goals. And I'll just tell you the easiest thing that you can do. So I would have my business goals set alongside my corporate goals.
One of the things I will tell everyone right now is that LinkedIn is amazing to get business on. However, if you are working in corporate America, everyone and their mother is on LinkedIn and you will not be able to advertise your services while on LinkedIn. So. There is going to be this need for separation because sometimes in the corporate world, like one of my first corporate jobs, there were all graphic designers on my team.
So it was pretty well, it was an unspoken, but it was well known that everyone was a freelancer on the side, right? So even my supervisor, he was an illustrator, right? So we all had that understanding. But in my next corporate job, It was completely quiet. I had to be completely quiet about it, and I couldn't talk about what I was planning or what I was doing or where I was going on LinkedIn on Instagram.
I could talk Facebook. I could talk, but on LinkedIn, where there were people that were finding me specifically from that corporate position. Could not talk.
Laura Rotter
Yeah, that must have been frustrating.
Remi Leibovic
It was so frustrating, but like it did teach me a lot about social media and corporate company culture and how integrating social media and participate and for the women that are questioning, should I go off on my own or should I still try to climb?
Networking within your organization can be done through, you know, teams, right, or your emails or whatever, or asking people to have one to ones via teams, or it could be done, like, let's say you want to get into a certain department or branch, add people on LinkedIn and start having conversations and gaining friendships, because honestly, when you get, there's a certain part of corporate where there's You just start your network starts getting you jobs like my mother for many years was only able to get all of her positions because she had a boss and a mentor who was just like, Hey, we're all jumping to AIG.
Come with us. Okay, we're all jumping to Citibank. Come with us. Or, hey, we're all jumping here and It kind of, and to this day, she has the position that she was able to get through her network. So don't think because you're not an entrepreneur that you shouldn't be networking. Networking is great for everybody.
Laura Rotter
So true. So if Women are listening and thinking, you know, I really do need social media help. What exactly do you offer?
Remi Leibovic
So we have different packages where again, we go on site to create content. If you're not in the state of New Jersey, no worries. I have a net, a vast network of people that I can call on from across the U.S. because I belong to several different networking groups. And. What we offer is we offer platform management, posting, content creation, and marketing. So we do both paid ads and organic. And I will say this to everybody, before you go and spend a ton of money on paid social, you need to have a consistent organic presence in order to.
Laura Rotter
And what do you mean by organic presence?
Remi Leibovic
Organic means just. You know, posting without boosting like content that you create in order to post.
Laura Rotter
And so do you do one off projects or it's an expectation of an ongoing relationship?
Remi Leibovic
It's an expectation of an ongoing relationship. We ask our clients commit six months to us because honestly, you're not going to, social media is not an overnight success.
Social media for business is certainly not an overnight success. And you need to approach it with a long term goal in mind, and you need to approach it with, you know, like I was talking about a certain type of industry, you need to really be targeting your audience and building a rapport and a relationship with your audience.
How do you do that? It all takes time. And most of my clients see success within the three month mark, but the true success, like the true consistency comes from the six months.
Laura Rotter
So that's also a great segue to, as we get to the end of our conversation, the question I like to ask, you've used the word success.
So how do you define success for the work you do with your clients? And then by the same token, Remi, how do you define success for yourself?
Remi Leibovic
So success to me is for my clients is when clients can tell me And they come back to me and they say hey That post that you did Led to us getting business, which is very hard to do on social media unless a client, unless a customer specifically states that they found the post and then that's what inspired them to buy.
But again, like a lot of my business is primarily a lot of my clients are doing B2B and only some are doing B2C. So when those B2B clients, those business to business clients come back and say, Hey, B2B. We got a job based off of this that really propels, you know, me like forward. And it's like, Hey, what I'm doing, my knowledge is actually helping somebody and it's helping someone be driven forward success for myself.
It's very hard to define success for yourself because again, like. I'm so at the helm in my head. I think that one of the best things that Lynn, my business coach told me was that at the end of every week, write down the things that you have achieved, right? And that will help you to reflect and be like, Oh, I actually was productive this week.
Oh, I'm actually going in this direction. I think that. There's, you know, a lot of people are obsessed with 30 under 30 and 40 under 40 and all these, all these lists and things that you have to, you know, all these lists and stuff that you have to do. I think that I'm. majorly successful because of the support of others around me and also like my own ambition and tenacity and drive to.
Laura Rotter
Yes, I can definitely hear that. Yeah. So you have a good sense for yourself of, of what it means to succeed. And is it. Primarily a financial goal, a number, or more specifically, how were you defining it for yourself?
Remi Leibovic
Well, I live in Northern New Jersey and anybody who pays taxes out here knows that it's not cheap to live out here.
So my goal right now, my financial goal is I would really like the business to be making 200, 000 a year. If the business can make 200, 000 a year, that means that I could be making 80, 000 a year, same thing. If the business makes 500, 000 a year, you can make 200, 000 a year, but it's really about, again, those goals, like writing them down, that might all seem like very woo woo ish, but it's all about putting your energy into a direction.
Following it because essentially a coach like she's set up SOP work and all that other great stuff. But at the end of the day, she's primarily my, she is primarily my accountability. She's the person that keeps me on it. You know,
Laura Rotter
So Remi, we're at the end of the conversation and I'm wondering if you, if there's.
Anything else you want to make sure that you mention and how the best way for people to get in touch with you.
Remi Leibovic
The best way for people to get in touch with me is to follow me of course on social media. I'm at Remi Ljubovic on LinkedIn and then I'm on Instagram. I'm at rclmediaofficial and then on Twitter.
Facebook. Same thing. RCL Media. And on LinkedIn. I'm also at RCL Media. So I love to meet new people. I love to talk to people. I'm very, you know, open and about the process. And again, like you, when you work with someone who does your social media, it is paramount that it. You work with somebody that understands you, your business, your values, and is able to convey that onto your platforms because at the end of the day, your social media presence is your mission statement in action.
And if they can't tell, if your audience members can't go to your platform and tell what it is, who you are, what you're about, and where you're going, then you definitely need to redefine that definition.
Laura Rotter
Thank you, and I, I love the passion that's evident in your voice that you bring to your work, that you really, it seems to me, are mission driven, you enjoy people and working with people, and it's been a pleasure getting to know you, Remy.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Remy Lebovic, founder of RCL Media. And some of my takeaways are limited financial resources can be an incentive to step up your game. Remy shared how she was laid off from her temp job, was unable to collect unemployment, and had just 700 in her bank account. She took her father's advice and attended a chamber of commerce meeting and left with five new graphic design clients.
My second takeaway, having a corporate day job can ease the financial stress as you build your business. Remy developed her coding skills and landed her first corporate job that blended programming with design for legal paperwork. She continued to build her business while benefiting from the paycheck and benefits of her corporate job.
And my final takeaway, When engaging on social media as a small business, it's as important to engage with others as it is to post your own content. Among her services, Remy provides a social media package for small businesses, creating, scheduling, and managing social media posts in her business's unique voice.
Remy stressed the need to engage the audience by posting polls, responding to comments, and replying to messages, rather than just posting and ghosting. Are you enjoying this conversation? Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss the next episode. And if you are really enjoying the show, a rating and a review would be greatly appreciated will help others just like you to find it.
Thank you so much.
Narrator
Thanks for listening to making change with your money. Certified Financial Planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organize, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning. Go to www. trueabundanceadvisors. com forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.