Showing up as your authentic self across your social media creates opportunities you never dreamed of. In today’s episode I chat with the amazing, talented and very driven Alisha Marfatia from The Social Impact about the endless, absolutely amazing opportunities she has created within her business, both for her business growth, her connections, and personal growth. This episode will blow you away, so hold on tight and get ready!
Links
Alisha Marfatia Website
Alisha Marfatia Instagram
Alisha Marfatia Facebook
Hayley Osborne Instagram (Social Soul)
Hayley Osborne Facebook
Alisha Marfatia’s Bio
Alisha is the founder of the social impact. She’s an Instagram reels coach, and works with businesses and brand owners to help them utilise their social media platform to grow their brand and skyrocket their sales through Instagram. She’s also created a totally amazing course and community with Monique from the socialista called rise with reels. This course has been labelled by the Instagram creators page as the number one global cause for Instagram rails with 900 plus and counting students. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Alisha also has her own podcast called build your brand, and interview some amazing guests with a background in film, television and video production, as well as her absolutely amazing energy, which you will hear in today’s interview. Alisha has grown her audience of over 100,000 and counting. She has proven by showing up as your authentic self across your social media.
Transcription
Hayley Osborne:
Hello, Alisha and welcome to the Hayley Osborne show. As my listeners have already heard, I’ve read out your stellar bio amazing welcome.
Alisha Marfatia:
Hello, I love a chat and I’m really excited to chat to you today.
Hayley Osborne:
Awesome. All right, well, I’ve read your bio. But one thing I’d like you to do is I guess in your own words, Alisha, tell my listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Alisha Marfatia:
Okay, all right, here’s the test. Okay. So my name is Alisha Marfatia, I am the founder of the social impact, I studied film and television and went into the world of TV and sports and was feeling like I had very little impact on the world and decided to leave the nine to five with the help of some incredible mentors. And so I started the social impact so that I could start making my own impact every day. And from there, I went and started Social Media Management, and then all of a sudden realised that I was not my own boss. And I had created a beast that I did not like. So towards the end of 2020. After a very rough year because I had left my business if I’d left my nine to five job, my safe nine to five job as we were entering a pandemic, literally, literally one month beforehand. And so I ended up it was just such a bad time I was filled with guilt and thinking that it was the universal sign that I’d made the wrong choice. And it was just horrible. So it took me quite a few months to overcome a lot of things.
But towards the end of 2020 reels were introduced. And as I mentioned film and television, I have always loved video. I have absolutely loved being behind the camera, taking videos during transitions, all sorts. So when reels came out, it was just so natural and exciting for me to be able to use this platform that I was already helping businesses build their brand on to utilise video and look, I’ll be honest at the start, I had all sorts of people who I sort of looked up to that were telling me look it’s just a fad. Don’t put all you’re don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s, it’s just a fad. You don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot, you know. And it was really hard, especially having people that you sort of look up to telling you these things. But I loved the video side of it. And it’s not new reels wasn’t new. It’s not a fad. We’ve been watching video marketing for years. Why do you think ads work? So video ads on TV works so well, they’re short, they’re snappy, they leave a message, they create a feeling. And that’s what reels is that’s what short video marketing that we’re seeing on all our social media platforms now doing so I jumped straight into it.
I started to grow faster than I could imagine on Instagram. And people were loving it. And I gotta be honest, it was not natural. It was not comfortable. I had a lot of inner voices telling me oh, my goodness, why are you dancing like this? When you did dancing when you were younger you were always in the back! Alisha, why are you front and centre in front of the camera. This is why you went and studied film to be behind the camera, you are not a dancer, you are not an actor. You look stupid. Stop it. So there are all these voices telling me to stop. And I just started to get hooked on the power and the impact of what I was achieving by getting out there by showing my face by being vulnerable. So my business started to grow in a direction I was really excited about. And I connected with a beautiful human who was a complete stranger at the time. Now, Hayley, you’re probably sitting there being like, what was the question? Was it hey, how are you today?
Back to my life story. So I really, really felt quite alone during that period in 2020. So I started to reach out to other business owners, other female business owners who could feel could understand that feeling of being alone. And so there was one in particular who I could see she had a passion for video. And when reels came out, she showed more of a passion. I was like this girl, she’s in Sydney I’m in Melbourne. This is like we’re meant to be, So I slid on into her DMs I pretty much forced an epic friendship on her. And she’ll, she’ll tease me for it. But hey, we’re here today. So that was my what’s now my business partner, Mon. And so we hadn’t met each other. But we ended up creating a second business together, which is now the very first reels course. We have over 900 students together worldwide inside. We’re about to launch another course together. And so it just really started from there. It started when I started surrounding myself with the right people, new doors opened up new opportunities. And it was all because I started to put myself in front of the camera, getting vulnerable and showing what was really me.
Hayley Osborne:
Can we just stop and have a moment. Now everybody, if you’re listening, maybe you want to actually like rewind that and listen to that again, because much like your business name impact. Hello, that was the most impactful introduction. Now for my listeners, like the one thing I like to tell people is that by not marketing yourself, and your business, you are wasting opportunities. I say that a lot. And I teach people all sorts of avenues for marketing. But you are basically the epitome of that like, but you have created by marketing yourself by sucking up that fear and just going for it, that you have generated so many opportunities for yourself naming a whole other business that when you started your business you probably never thought existed. And that’s what I see happen a lot with people that just go for it. It’s you don’t know what you don’t know at the time. But by going for it. There’s little gold mines and rainbows at the other end. And you’re one of them and oh my god I love that so much. There’s just so much passion in your voice and in everything that you do. Not just everything you touch. But before we go any further, well just tell people your Instagram handle.
Alisha Marfatia:
So you can come and find me come and hang out come and say hello. I’m at the socialimpact.co on Instagram.
Hayley Osborne:
So okay, that’s awesome. Now, one thing looking back through your Instagram feed, right from the very beginning. I’ve stalked you girl. Instagram was very much cookie cutter approach at the start, right? And you said, Yeah, and it clearly is nothing like your personality. Right? It’s bright and colourful, but you’re very, like Huzzah. Huge, just like magnetising. Okay, so at what was that? What was the point? I know, you said, like, there’s a lot of doubt, there’s a lot of people that said this would be a fad. But you just went all in, in lots of different ways. I wouldn’t say you had all your eggs in one basket, I’d say that, you know, spread them out. But what was the turning point for you like to decide to show up as your authentic self? And the reason I asked you that is because there’s a lot of people that subset that run businesses or that are thinking about leaving their full time job. I know they’re listening. That would be thinking and feeling exactly the same thing as you have something already on the side, but they know they can give more. Like, okay, you left your job. But what was that real pivotal moment where you were like, I’m going to swear right now. Fuck this. Yes. Yeah. I am doing this, or that’s it.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I’m very impressed. I have, I just checked, I have 343 posts, and you scrolled back to the start.
Hayley Osborne:
And I was just, you know, going quickly through on my laptop, let’s stalk this girl. That’s a really good conversation, because I see what you do currently. Obviously, you appear on my feed. Well, like I love everything that you do, but it’s nice to get the backstory because your backstory is probably somebody’s so your 20s Somebody’s one at the moment. Yeah. And that’s kind of yeah, I think it’s, it’s just empowering. And it’s motivating for a lot of people.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yeah. And look, if you Yeah, if you do scroll back, you will actually see that I had a gorgeous feed. They had a gorgeous feed that went from colour to colour to colour, it was beautiful. Lots of inspo photos. It was just it was a work of art. That is all it was, it was a work of art to look at. There was no value, there was no depth, there was no point. Yeah, it was literally just taking up space online. So it did, I started the business. And I didn’t go and study social media marketing. I didn’t go and study business. The most I studied business was in high school when I did business management, and I did not do too well. Yes, so and that’s actually that’s actually something I, sidenote, I do a lot of work on myself. In addition to working with my beautiful business coach Claire.
I also do a lot of work on myself. And that right there are is actually one big thing, I constantly have to quieten the voice in my head. Because in uni, I can’t tell you the amount of times people would say to me, Oh, you only study film and television? Oh, sorry, go and study a real degree, right? Like, hey, the business people are talking now. And so I have all these beliefs and stories in my mind that I am such an impostor. Because I’ve started a business. I didn’t study. I didn’t study business. And I’m just winging it. And so here I am. I’ve lost my story.But no, so when I started, I was really just going off what I saw other people doing, right. And there’s the problem right there. I was doing what I saw other people doing because I thought that was in quotation marks. Right. And I had this idea that I had to be professional to be taken seriously.
You know, I was, I was 22 at the time when I was looking to start this. And I was like, no one’s gonna take me seriously. I haven’t studied business. I’m a 22 year old. I haven’t studied social media management or marketing or whatever, you know, why on earth are people going to come to me? Why are people going to work with me to pay with me? Pay with me pay for me, right? So I really, really struggled with that. And so because of that I tried to hide you know, I was actually recommended. It’s not something I say on Instagram that often because I was like, I don’t want people to come at me with like things and like, I don’t want to talk about the subject. Because one time I did and Instagram removed it because they thought I was trying to promote fake followers.
But I was actually recommended when starting to be taken seriously to purchase another account. And, and look, there was very good, very good theory behind it. You know, it was other people, you know, giving me their advice, right? And pay it got like it’s I’m where I am today. Who knows, but it is a big regret that I have looking back. And it is something I underline highlight bold, everything, right? Do not ever do this, because I went and there’s actually a site that allows you to buy accounts. So people create the followers in quotation marks organically, apparently. And you can go buy an amount, right?
So I went online, I purchased this thinking no one’s going to take me seriously if I don’t have followers, right. So when online, I bought an account, I think they had maybe 6 or 7000 followers. And I bought that changed the name cool, I think was about maybe 400 or $500 for this, which at the time was right. But the biggest problem was I reckon I wasted about a year of potential growth. Because I spent that next year realising I was talking to a wall, a wall of accounts, right? Not people, not my dream clients, not my dream customers accounts. I was talking to a dead wall. So I spent a year trying to undo that by I was like I’ve already spent that money by not, you know, buying this account, I don’t want to just start a new one. But I’m literally I could be more successful with a brand new account and two followers than 8000 7000 crap fake nothing followers, right?
Hayley Osborne:
Can I interrupt you and say that I often say to my clients that it’s better that you have, say 50 authentic followers than 1000s. I said, if you were to get 50 sales overnight, you couldn’t cope. So like, let’s just reel it in. And raincheck that 50 followers equals 50 potential sales? If they are your audience. And that is actually epic for our business. And that’s one thing, I think that when we are looking on on social media, and you know, it’s all can be overly polished and very kind of fake. But I feel like slowly, slowly, just like reels has come to, I guess, showcase a bit more authenticity us as consumers of brands actually don’t want to see polished any more we are over it. And as a video takes over as the number one media that is being consumed. Because, hey, it’s also a little bit of laziness from consumers, because we don’t have to do anything. It just gets played for us as it takes over. People want to see real life things they don’t want to be like, fed the fancy, like filtered stuff.
Alisha Marfatia:
And that’s actually why I tell clients because I do assist clients with creating that reels. It’s something that I’m looking to get someone to assist me with so I can actually serve more, because there’s only so many hours in my day. But i’ve had some clients that are like, Oh, well, do you have a nicer camera than your iPhone? I’m like, Yeah, I do. But you I would not recommend it. Like if you want a videographer, great! You know, you can get that. However, one of the parts about tiktoks and look, especially reels is that people can cut through the bullshit these days, they can tell when they’re being sold to, they can tell by the quality, the production quality, right? Is this an ad? So one of the reasons I find that these fancy videos that are taken by fancy cameras, people see them and straightaway add next, right? So spot on with what you’re saying about you know, it can still be polished in a sense, right? It’s up to you and your branding. Yeah, but it doesn’t need to be this you know, Hollywood Cannes Film Festival movie or whatever.
Hayley Osborne:
I think coming from you as well having a background in actually doing TV commercials, too. You know, you are you can actually offer up both it is your choice to be more authentic to like for brands that you help. So in teaching people that want to actually do it themselves. That’s what you go to that’s your advice. Now in Okay, let’s jump to the next thing. Tell us about your course.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yes, which one?
Hayley Osborne:
Tell me about your newbie. Tell me about Insta Product Academy, please, because you’ve been kind of like teasing everybody. But I want to know what it’s about because it’s exciting.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yes. So I have been sitting on this for a while. Last year, I started to niche down further. And oh my gosh, it’s such a hard thing to do. And you’re constantly going back, it’s like leaving your nine to five job should know about bad decision, bad news. So I finally decided, You know what, no, my, I have such a passion when it comes to products. So it works really well. My business partner focuses on the other side, she focused on coaches in the service space, and I get to focus on my area of magic.
So my new programme, I have pretty much converted what I’ve been teaching inside a group coaching programme, the Instagram impact, I have taken the absolute best bits, and I have brought it into a self paced course, that I am now able to build up, build up with more resources, more templates, and have a growing community. I’ve seen the power of a community like we’ve seen in our rise with reels community, you know, the results have been life changing. So I wanted to put together a course and academy where like minded women who are starting product based businesses, or maybe they’ve started, they’re feeling lonely, they’re feeling confused. They’re feeling like they want to throw their phone at the wall. Fuck you, Instagram don’t want to do it. Algorithms for you all. Oh, they’re at this point. And this is the one stop shop for product based businesses wanting to see more sales on their Instagram.
Hayley Osborne:
I love this. And you are scheduled to give this to the world when?
Alisha Marfatia:
So the doors are going to open up on the 21st of April. I look like I don’t do things really that I don’t do things half hearted you know, I’ve got the I made an Instagram. I was like, you know, I don’t know how I’m going to use it yet. But I don’t want anyone else to take it away. Got the branding for the course specifically, I’ve got you know, all these ideas that when someone completes it, you know, can I organise pink Academy hats to go out? You know, like, I’m just thinking of all the things and this is my baby and I’m so excited.
Hayley Osborne:
That’s so great. You do sound excited. And you know if I was just starting out a product based business video would be where I would go to learn. So, I think obviously. Yeah, everyone listening. Stay tuned for this mastermind here. She is coming in hot. All right. I love it. I love it. Now, I want to ask you, is there one thing or one person that has been most influential in your business? Now you don’t have to say if there is just one or if there’s many, but that is the question that I love to ask everyone that I interview on the podcast.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yeah, I love that. I think I think it’s really hard to nail it down to one. I reckon. I reckon if I’d say one and probably actually be myself. Honestly, because I just I consistently doubt myself and then managed to remind myself of how much I’m actually capable of and you know, that it’s not just it’s just it’s not just your knowledge that people are coming for it’s you know, the energy you give the feeling you provide the magnet you know, like you said the magnetic sort of drive and everything so look, that episode one, I’m gonna go there, I’m so proud of me.
But in way of my team around me, I am so incredibly supported, if I sort of had to nail it down to my absolute could not have gotten here without I’ve got naturally my parents are crazy supportive. And to the point where my mums already said she’s like once I finished you know, once I’ve finished with this, I’m going to come on as your EA and she’ll be the dream, but I’ve got a very driven father. So that’s where my work ethic comes from. But I really did not know the power of the business coach.
Hayley Osborne:
I love this so much, I agree with you.
Alisha Marfatia:
Like I probably rolled my eyes. I was like business coach, like, you just go to business school or something right?
Hayley Osborne:
You know that you need it right? It’s in your gut, but you don’t know how powerful before you actually go down that path.
Alisha Marfatia:
Absolutely. And you just take a look at people who have worked with a coach. Right? It might not be specifically a business coach. I mean, I have a Hypnotherapist, Saara. She’s like, life changing for so many reasons for me as well. And you know, so there could be other specific coaches, but just investing in a coach, I never realised how incredibly powerful and needed it is, for those quantum leaps, like, I invested and that was the scary thing. I was like, Well, okay, yeah, cool. I want a business coach, where do I start? Where do I go to? Who do you trust? And I did some sort of calls with a few people. And I just got icky feelings. I was just like, no, like, I just feel like you just want my money.
Hayley Osborne:
It just doesn’t vibe with your vibe. That’s always a two way street. Right.
Alisha Marfatia:
Spot on. And so I was really fortunate to come across my business coach Claire, and, and oh my gosh, like, like, She’s family to me. Honestly. Here’s the thing is that to have someone who constantly just questions, your thoughts, you know, okay, you want to price it that. Tell me why you’re like start talking. Like, hang on a second. Just, you know, you just in my head.Oh my gosh, so no, that’s really powerful. And so if looking back, regrets wise, you know, like, there’s probably a few that maybe regrets like, I know, we say you no regrets. It wouldn’t have happened this way if I had it anyway. But probably not finding my business coach sooner.
Hayley Osborne:
That’s the one thing you because my next question. Hello, you’re jumping ahead here. What’s the one thing you’d wish you’d done sooner in your business is get yourself a business coach.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yeah, that all I was absolutely petrified. I’ve had a lot of mindset issues. And I really did just roll my eyes and my mindset as well. I’m like, you know, just do the work. Realising mindset was the work and, and so I had a horrible money mindset. I’ve always struggled to let go of money. I always struggled. When I was 15, I think I’ve five different jobs.
Honestly, I was like Yeah, yeah, gotta make it gotta make it you know, since 15, right? So I’ve always loved working but I’ve always struggled to spend the money. So for me when I started I was petrified of investing petrified and I made the same mistake over and over and over again that that’s where my regret lies from because I did not learn from the mistake or the lesson of buy cheap buy twice so not with you know, I’m not referencing I know i’ve just jumped across from a business coach No, no, no, not that I’m saying buy cheap buy twice, you know, getting my website done straight to you know, the cheapest option I could find call not happy find another one, find another one I ended up you know, spending that much extra money because I went the cheap option. So my issues with investing really ended up costing me a lot because I constantly was going for the cheaper option and ended up losing time energy and money.
Hayley Osborne:
Even when you’re so young just starting out you know you probably need someone in your corner. You don’t want to invest the money but the catch is and I feel like this is what a lot of people don’t understand is the catch is you invest that money you will make that money back 10 times quicker if not more than where then if you didn’t do it in the first place. And then you’ll spend two years dicking around when you could have just done it in the first place and you would’ve spent two months and then you know you’re like you said before the quantum leaps actually become not as hard as you think that they were because you have the support of someone in your corner now. I understand like if you’ve got a supportive family that’s great. I do love it but it is nothing like having a business coach nothing sorry Clare we’re just like talking about you here.
Alisha Marfatia:
I know I know she’ll be like and just cop all these best bits put that into a reel but no in that spot on right so I’m as I said I’m really fortunate to have people are around me, including my dad, who’s, you know, started his own business young went through a lot of it, but it’s very different business. Yeah, very, very different business. It’s a very different time as well. social media back then.
Hayley Osborne:
Can I commend, I don’t know, your father, but I commend people that did start businesses back then. And I do even talk about this now is that they had letterbox drops, they had word of mouth, and they had print or TV now, TV was out. Because if you’re starting a business, you don’t have like, $100,000 to spend on a TV, so they did it tough. Now we’re complaining because we have this free tool at our fingertips, that reaches billions of people, but they were too scared to put ourselves in front of the camera. And now like, hello, you’re proof that you can have humongous impact in doing what you love putting yourself out there. Who cares what people think. And it comes back a million times fold?
Alisha Marfatia:
Absolutely. I’ll be honest, like I am continuously working on this idea and, and the queen of confidence. She has her hashtag FW hashtag FW OT, fuck what others think. Right? And I would love to have that much confidence. Right? That I do not care what other people, right? But little bit by little bit. These concerns and fear of judgement are outweighed by the impact and the results I’m able to achieve by doing the things. So I remember checking my story views, and I’d see people from my past and I’d be like, no, nothing else today. Should I? Oh my gosh, they’re gonna be sitting there, they’re gonna be making fun of me. And I was like, hang on a second, hang on a second. Why am I doing this?
I’m doing this so that somebody out there a female out there who started her business, who’s struggling with this, she’s gonna find you know, power in there, she’s going to be able to take the next step. And so I’m gonna let the potential for one person who’s potentially saying something about me, stop me from doing this. So like, I’ll say I say now and constantly, I get oh, well, it must be easy for you. And I’ll well it doesn’t come naturally like it does to you. And I say like, hello, whatever our beliefs are, where we came from whatever. There was a time in our lives, where whether we cave people whether we were people who just didn’t have a phone, right? There was a time when no one had the option to get out their phone and say, Hey, guys, I’m jumping on stories. today. I’m putting my face on. That is not what is natural. From our history as human beings. You have to start to train yourself to do it.
Hayley Osborne:
I love this. You are an absolute inspiration. You are a motivation. And I wish you like the most abundant success in your business. You are awesome to chat with. This has been so great. I have loved having you on here. We’ve been chatting for a while now and I reckon we should wrap it up. I look forward to you joining me. In a few weeks time to deliver an epic masterclass to my signature course soulful marketing, I cannot wait. Everyone is going to benefit so much from your specialisation. All right now, I’d love you to tell our listeners again, where they can connect with you online and learn more about what you do. Amazing lady.
Alisha Marfatia:
Yes, so yes, definitely, definitely come. Let’s say hello. I’m at the socialimpact.co on Instagram. So you can come find me there. I also talk off my head every week at my podcast with Nova, which is called the build your brand podcast. Come say hello.
Hayley Osborne:
Yay, Alisha. It’s been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the Hayley Osborne show.
Alisha Marfatia:
Thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for letting me have a chat.
Hayley Osborne:
Bye for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode. If you have hit subscribe so you don’t miss any new episodes released every Tuesday. And while you’re there, leave me a review. I would absolutely love to read it. Also, don’t forget to tag me over on Instagram at Social Soul Media and share this podcast with your audience so they can get learning too. If you want more, head over to hayleyosborne.com/podcast for today’s show notes and links. I’ve also got an awesome free eBook waiting for you on my website. It’s called The Ultimate Guide to building a six figure business through Instagram. So while you’re there, grab that and download it. And I’ll catch you next week for another episode of The Hayley Osborne show.
