Hi and welcome to School of Hustle. I'm your host Sarah and this is the show all about what it takes to build the business of your dreams. Brands spent $22 billion in 2018 on social media marketing and are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing in 2022. Our next guests Stephanie Carton and Courtney Spritzer are the founders of Social Fly, a full-service social media agency dedicated to social media marketing growth hacking, media planning, content creation and influencer marketing. They're also the host of Entrepreneurship, a podcast all about female entrepreneurship. Welcome to the show Stephanie and Courtney. Thank you so much for having us. We're so excited to be here and share a story with you. Yes, I'm so interested in your story because you guys have a lot going on between the two businesses that you're running. Could you talk about why you decided to start Social Fly? Yes, so we decided to start Social Fly because social media really was a passion of both of our. So I'll take you back to the early days of Facebook. I was actually one of the first users of Facebook when it first launched. I was a sophomore at Cornell and I remember getting access to this platform and back then it was called TheFacebook.com. And as a college student, we thought we were so cool back then because we got access to this new platform. And I remember thinking back then, wow, this is really going to change everything that I'm learning about in school right now in terms of sales and marketing and how to reach people. But I wasn't quite sure how back then. And then when I graduated from college, I really just always stayed on the forefront of everything that was happening with social media. And I was working in sales and marketing in the hospitality industry. And I started realizing that businesses really needed to be using social media to grow their business. And this is back in 2009, 2010, before social media really was what it is today. You were really an early adapter of this. Oh, yes. Yes. And I just always knew it was going to be the way of the future. So friends of mine who were starting businesses, they were reaching out to me asking for sales and marketing advice. I told them, start using social media now. This is going to be the way of the future. And what they say to you at the time, were they like, what? How is that? How is that going to be the future? Yeah. I mean, it was tough. Like in the early days, when Courtney and I first partnered together and we were selling our services, we really had to convince brands and businesses why they needed to invest in social media back then. I remember they would say things to us like, oh, our intern can just do this or, you know, my daughter's home from this for the summer. She can help us with this. And as you see now, more than ever, social media really is your direct communication to your customer. And you do need professionals who know how to execute these campaigns properly. But we were definitely super early and Courtney can share, you know, how we met and partnered together. Yeah, I'd love to hear about that. Yeah. So we actually met maybe it was faith, but we met coincidentally in Miami, which I am now living in Miami. So I feel like I've come full circle with with Stephanie. And we happened to meet while we were both on vacation in Miami. And we quickly bonded over our shared passion of social media. I had graduated from NYU about a year prior to meeting Stephanie. And I was working in an insurance company in Massachusetts. And we stayed connected through, of course, social media and Skype at the time. And I had grown up in New York as well. And I really wanted to get back to New York. So I ended up getting a job in New York at American Express. While I was there, that I saw all of the amazing things that Annex was doing from a social media marketing standpoint. And that's when I knew I wanted to get into social media. I wanted to learn more about it. And I shared this with Stephanie and she said, well, why don't you join me in starting a social media agency because she really wanted to develop her the agency. So we started working nights and weekends on the side of our full-time job. After about 10 months, we put our jobs on the same day in May, on May 4th, 2012, and it's been an eight year journey. We have a team of about 30 people. We've worked with hundreds of brands and we've been working around the clocks for the basically for the last eight years. Wow. Well, social media has had tremendous growth in that time. So you definitely got into the right industry at the right time. And since then, there's been many, many social media agencies that have popped up as an influencer myself. I'm part of a lot of them. How do you how do you compete with all of the people that are popping up today as an early adapter yourself? We live and breathe social Stephanie and I practice what we preach. We do all of our own marketing, which most agencies don't do. And we often use ourselves as kind of the guinea pigs. The test teachers for the new capabilities that come out on social. And as a result, we became number one on Google for social media agency. And that's how our clients find us. And then we also wrote a book about social media back in 2015. Was that like love follow? That was it. Yeah. You have a lot going on from all different angles of this business. So I'd love to hear about what you did to get started on this. Today, you have so many different sides of it from content creation to influencer marketing to media planning and social media marketing. What was the first thing you did when you decided, yeah, let's go through with this idea. So we were very scrappy in the early days. And I would argue we're still very scrappy. We don't know. You look pretty polished at this point. Well, we you look we bootstrapped our business. So we are only seeing us in the top up right now. I have shorts on. You look great. Yeah, so we bootstrapped our business. So after Courtney and I handed in our two weeks notice, that was on a Friday. We went out and celebrated that weekend that we left the corporate world. And that Monday we got to work and started pounding the pavement and working on our business. So that Monday, the first thing we did was we put up an ad back then on Craigslist looking for a couple interns to help us for the summer. And then we reached out to a family friend of Courtney's who owns a printing company and still owns a printing company in New York City. And he offered to give us some complimentary space in his printing company. So we could actually have our interns show up there with us and not be working out of my small apartment on the Upper West Side at the time. So we found a lot of really scrappy ways to get started. And really the best advice that we were given was from Frank, who owned the printing company. He said to us, you guys need to join this networking group. It's a networking organization called BNI Business Networking International. It's an international organization. So there's chapters all around the world, specifically in New York City, where where we were starting the company. There was many chapters in New York City and essentially they do a breakfast meeting every single week where you go around the room and do your elevator pitch to everyone in the room. There can only be one person from each specific industry in the group. So it's a paid membership and it's not terribly expensive. So even if you're just starting a business, you know, it's a couple hundred dollars to join. And then, yeah, it's definitely a good investment. I mean, you get one client and you make it back right away. But I do remember thinking, how are we going to pay for this? But even in the beginning, when you start a business, there are certain investments that you have to make to be able to get to that next level, to be able to grow the business. I completely agree. And you said earlier, you and Courtney really became the guinea pigs and tried things for the first time. And I want to ask about entrepreneurship, because in many ways, that's exactly what you're doing there is you're being the guinea pig. You're doing content creation and sharing your stories. When did that come about and what was that process of incorporating that into a business that already has a lot going on? Now, we actually, entrepreneurista was the evolution of something we used to do on Facebook Live and we hosted a Facebook Live show for about two years where Stephanie and I talked about all of the latest things that you need to know from a social media perspective. And then we had guests and we loved it. It was definitely a lot of fun for us. And then when podcasts started to become more popular, we wanted to learn more about it and we wanted to continue to kind of use ourselves as the guinea pigs and really test out a new platform. And because you're exactly right, you know, running a business is time consuming. We can't be everywhere as much as we would love to be. And maybe out in this new virtual world, we can be in more places at one using technology, but we had to decide, you know, do we want to continue the Facebook Live show or start testing out a podcast? So we decided to test something new that you always have to innovate. That is part of the DNA of the company and we wanted to try something new. So we decided to start the entrepreneurista podcast. We had a brainstorm with our team to figure out, you know, what did we want our podcast to talk about? And for Stephanie and myself, we are so passionate about entrepreneurship and specifically helping other women entrepreneurs understand and realize that they too can start a business. It's a lot of hard work. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. Yeah. So you feel best and you learn from it and you move on. Yeah, exactly. So we wanted to inspire as many women as possible. And that's how the entrepreneurista podcast came to be. What I'm learning from you guys is your early adapters to many different things. And that's part of the reason why you're successful, because you're not afraid to just try it. We're definitely risk takers and always want to jump in and test things out and see what works and if it works great. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. At least you tried and you can move on quickly. Yes, totally. Now, along this journey, is there anything that you learned that you wish you knew in the beginning? The very first thing would be to when you incorporate your business name, be sure that you have a trademark and that you do a great trademark search. Have a great accountant, have a great business attorney. Those are definitely key elements. When we first started Social Fly, the name of our company was actually called Collective Media. And because our SEO was so good right off the bat, we got a letter from a company called The Collective a couple of months into us starting the business with a cease and assist letter. Oh, my God. And we were so young and naive back then. We're like, oh, my gosh, what does this mean? Like, are we going to go to jail? I mean, we didn't think that, but we didn't know. It's scary. It's scary because you've never experienced that. So you switched it to Social Fly. Why call it Social Fly? Well, it was a long brainstorm process. I think we had a certain amount of time to get back to the cease and assist letter to come up with a new name. So I think we were brainstorming for a good month or two and we were about to go with another name. And then one night the name Social Fly just hit me at night. I called Courtney. I said, I have it, Social Fly. And she said, yes, that's it. And, you know, we're social and we make businesses fly. And it just was catchy. And I think it's a much better name than our original name. So you can always make something good out of a situation that might not seem so great. You move into this warehouse, it sounds like. You have the interns and what do you do next? You start pitching businesses. You start going to these conferences. You're seeing quick growth. What's what's next for Social Fly at this point? Yeah, so that summer we had six interns. We just had such a great group of interns. We were very, very fortunate to have them on the team at that time. And because we had such a great group of people, we were able to provide really great work to our clients. Stephanie focused on going out and landing new clients. And at the time I focused on making sure that all of our clients got the services that they signed up for. I provided all of the strategy and coordinated with with our team at the time. And then by the end of the summer, they unfortunately had to go back to school. So we needed to hire a full time person. But of course, you know, we're a scrappy startup, so we started her out as part time just to test it out and it quickly turned into full time. And then by the beginning of next year, we needed we had two people full time on the team. We moved into a new office in 2014 that just seemed so expensive at the time. And it was much larger than we needed. I remember a few weeks ago looking at a picture, I was like, who do we fill up this office? And I remember how scared I was to take on this rent of rent because our rent had increased by five times at that point. But also you were looking at it carefully because your income was increasing as well. So it was a calculated risk at that point. Yes, for sure, but we still, you know, need to make sure that our clients were we're signing new clients. And that's something we're always focused on is making sure that we have a great pipeline of of new business. So when you're doing production, do you have a studio inside of your office space or how do you do that there? Yes. So we got more office space again. You keep expanding every year. We built a whole production studio in our office and we can do photoshoots, video shoots. We produced a PSA actually for the Girl Scouts several years ago. So the range of creative services we can provide is is very wide. So you don't have a special team, necessarily in content creation. It's just across the board. Social media content because we can do photoshoots and video shoots. It lends itself to other types of content that our clients need. Yeah. So at what point did you start taking influencer marketing really seriously? We were early with influencer marketing as well. What do you remember what year that was? I want to say it was also 2015. I think 2015 was like a very transformative year for us. That was also the year that we published the book. So it was around that time at the end of 2014 to what 2015, I think. So my question to you now is what do you think the future is?  So what what's coming? What what are the things that people should look out for? OK.  We are actually working on providing a package. So for any clients that want to be prepared for all the random things that are to come, we have our own predictions so they can sign up for that. And then we're also very much leaning into working remote. We think that more and more people are going to work from home and we will be providing solutions for that. And then on the social media side, a few things I would lean into would be thinking about your social media channels as a content destination. So how can you cultivate this community of customers? What content do they care about? That's going to want to make them come back to your account or that's Instagram or Facebook or Facebook group or community every single day and crave the content that you're putting out. So by having these one to one relationships with your customers and building real community and a content destination for them, you can build these long term relationships with your customers through social that will create this repeat business, especially for e-commerce brands. So speaking of growth, you've grown entrepreneurship to a very large following. Do you have any advice for those that also want to grow a successful podcast? Yes. So actually another thing that we did to test out the podcast, something new we hadn't done before was get a billboard to launch it. So we put out a billboard in Times Square the day that we launched our podcast. And what we learned from doing that was it gave us instant credibility and not necessarily because a ton of people saw the billboard in Times Square, although they did, it was really the picture of the billboard that we then posted on our social media that really got a lot of people's attention. And with the billboard, people just took it seriously from day one. I think it was really just the perception of having a billboard that just gave it that instant credibility. And there we were able to build an audience through the people that listened to the podcast, shared our content and actually by doing contests with different types of influencers. That's a great way to grow your following. And the other thing that we did was the exact advice I just shared before. We created this content destination specifically on Instagram for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs says. So every week, not only do we feature the founders whose episodes we're releasing, but we also feature all different entrepreneurs who want to share their story. So we'll either reach out to entrepreneurs and ask them if they want to share their story. But we also get so many requests every single day from entrepreneurs does who want to share. So we're featuring their stories on our account. And then when we post it, they're also sharing it with their audience. So then it kind of creates that snowball effect and people start to follow. Then they see the Instagram account. They see what entrepreneurs is about. We have the link to our podcasts and our bio, and then they click through and then we get new subscribers that way. So again, thinking about your social channels as this great content destination with content that your audience is really interested in is so important. And it sounds like you've learned so much from your experience and you've learned a lot from interviewing all these incredible female entrepreneurs. So my question to you is for each of you, what's one piece of advice that you would give to aspiring entrepreneurs? We ask this we ask this question to all of the times. No, really? So perfect, I'm turning the tables on you. My advice would be to keep going. There are so many challenges that that you're going to face. And there will be days, weeks where you just want to keep you want to give up, but you have to just keep going. Believe in yourself. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Learn from them fast and then just keep, keep moving, keep moving forward. And my advice before you keep going, you first have to start. So just start because I think when you're thinking about launching a new business, you can easily come up with all of these ideas or why it won't work, why you shouldn't do it, and then you just get stuck in your own way. If you have an idea, you're super passionate about it. You have the energy, you know, you can make it happen. Just start. You'll figure it out as you go along. There's so many resources that are out there. There's so many people that will help you along the way. If you just reach out, people genuinely do want to help others.  Well, thank you so much. And that is all for this episode of School Puzzle. If you like what you heard, please keep up with our other episodes on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts, or wherever you stream and listen to podcasts. And if you like what you heard, please leave a review, share with your friends and subscribe. We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.


What's up everybody? Welcome to SPM Buzz. My good name is Ms. Kithingi and right about now I'm hanging out with a star but before I introduce her make sure to subscribe to SPM Buzz. We are heading to 200k subscribers so make sure to leave that subscription okay. Thank you so much guys for subscribing and today I am hanging out with a star who has just released a new song and she's going to be telling us more about that but right here is Bananas Overdose. Hi girl. Hi, hi, hi. You look amazing. Thank you so much. So do you. Thank you, thank you girl. But let me ask you what do you have on your face? The art, nini, nini, does it have you know a meaning? Is it an inspo of something or is this you know just looking nice? Well it really started with Pinterest. Oh okay. So I saw a few arts on people's faces on Pinterest and I tried it and I went out with it and I felt amazing and I was like I think this should be my signature. Oh really? And I just went on yeah since last year. So you do that on a daily basis? Only when I'm going out. Yeah when I'm going out when when it's Bananas Overdose related. Yeah. Talk of branding I love that. Now I mean Bananas Overdose and I'm just asking myself why that name or why that name? That name. Good question. Alright so first of all I'm Ethiopian Somali. Yeah. But I lean towards my Somali side. Somali people love eating bananas. I don't know if you guys know that or not. Oh yeah yeah with pilau with everything. Exactly.  Yeah. So I just loved eating bananas all my life and speaking of bananas guys. Oh you have one. Yeah I got banana shots for you guys. Trust the handbands. Can you see the small ones? There's one for you. Okay. Oh it's the sweet bananas. And you get one too. Alright. Very nice. I love this. It's a banana shot. Yeah well so now the story started with me loving to eat bananas as a kid. Yes. And I never saw anything wrong with it. I grew up in Saudi Arabia and I went to an old Saudi girl's school. I was like one out of three black girls, African girls in school and I used to love bananas so much. I used to tell my mom pack me a banana school. I don't want no sandwich. I don't want no juice. Just pack me bananas.  And then girls in school started bullying me for eating a lot of bananas. Okay. And I was darker than Saudi girls you know.  They're like you're dark. You're eating a banana.  So they're bullying continued and continued to a level where they started making monkey noises. And I stopped eating bananas and I hated bananas. Yeah that's what it is. So now I hated bananas. I don't want to be associated with bananas growing up when I was like 18, 19. I realized that okay why do I hate bananas? It's because of the bullying when I actually do love bananas you know. So I started eating bananas and I started over eating bananas. Yeah. That's where bananas overdose came from. One day I thought I was gonna overdose because I had too many bananas. Yeah. It's a joke you know you can never overdose on bananas really. Yeah for sure. But I was like what if I overdose on bananas? I was like boom. I'm looking for a stage name anyways. That sounds great. And I went and I got a tattoo of a banana. Oh I mean it's totally an overdose for sure. Exactly. But now let me ask how did you get to the point of actually taking something that you were bullied for and making it your stage name. How did you go about that?  How did you get to that point? Well I would say I think I was in a space of my life where I was healing from a lot of trauma. So a lot of things were coming back to me. I was intentionally dealing with everything that I've gone through you know. And I've always had that mentality of never victimizing myself. I'm never a victim you know. So I was in a space where I was like I want to heal. So these things just kept on coming up again me. And when you're intentional about it actually just comes up even in your dreams you know. Yeah so it was just the space I was in I think. Beautiful space. Now growing up in Saudi Arabia like you've just mentioned I'm just trying to imagine how it was like at the time especially. How old were you? Is it like your entire childhood? How was it? What memories do you have of that though? A lot of bullying. A lot of it's not easy. Yeah it's not easy for women to live in that country and get being an African woman is even harder you know.  Yes. So coming out of that country gave me so much power. Yeah when I came out that's when I actually learned to myself. But I've always been a rebel. I've always been in trouble because I've always asked the questions that would get me in trouble you know. I was that type of kid that would get suspended from school because I'm asking religious questions. Yeah. Do you get me? Yes. Questions that you're not allowed to ask. Like why can't women lead a prayer? Yeah. Like why can't women go to funerals you know. So all these things you know but like at some point when I have gotten into too much trouble this is how I started doing music. I got into too much trouble. I was like okay Yasmin be normal. Yeah. Be quiet because every time you open your mouth you're in trouble. So I started writing. So that's how music came about really.   Do you consider yourself a rebel when it comes to that and how did you actually are you able I'm not sure if something it's something you still face still to date. How are you able to overcome that? Overcome what exactly? I mean the religious aspect of criticism. Yeah. I mean I really don't care. I really wake up every day and do me. I can't identify as a Muslim because yeah you know I was born a Muslim my family are Muslim and but I still do me because what is Islam? Any religion should be based on love and any religion that has love is love basically. I think my religion is love. I would say that you know. But yeah I don't really like to talk about religion. I'm always in trouble whenever I open my mouth. Yeah and like I'm always getting bullied cyber bullied by my people Somali people because of how I move and how I dress and how I talk and you know this is Haram this is Haram Haram Haram Haram.  Do you ever respond to their comments online? I do I do. I sometimes when I have time yeah on TikTok. I'm at war.  Let me tell you something about my people.  So because usually my signature hair is those platinum locks. So I would get there's a comment that's repetitive on my TikTok which is you are not Somali you are Bantu. You are not Somali you must be Kenyan. Do not claim us because you look too African for us because of my hair. So I think that's a bit you know that's that's that's disgusting and I think that's something that should change you know my people are very closed-minded and they think they're above other Africans which is wrong. Do you get me there's a word that they use and I hate it so much the word translates into into nappy hair it's called jered I don't know if you've heard this before or not it's translates literally to nappy hair but they use it to describe other Africans and I don't like that. So I'm the one that's exposing them that's where they hate me so much.  Oh my goodness I think I think I know something like Gurale Gurale is is that it's not Somali is that Burana? I don't know if that's right. Yeah I think it's used to describe like these other Africans or other just Kenyans I went to school with them so I know. So um now let's talk about because you know I mean being Somali we know I saw something that you it's things that you really fight for FGM and all that do you feel we are in a better space when it comes to FGM practices right now? I would say we when you say we are you talking about it's like the Somalis and the Kenyans because we have Kenyans what Somalis? Yes exactly. So I would speak for Somalis 98% of Somali women in Somalia until this day are getting cut. Oh really? Every 11 seconds as we speak there's a girl that's getting cut so we're not in a better space. No if we speak of Somalis no it's very sad yeah.  It is like I don't know how to explain this really like it just gets me overwhelmed thinking about it. What I would say is it's it's culture it's definitely not religion it's culture and I think nowadays you would think it's men that do this to women. It started with men because the FGM originates from slavery days when the Khushedic people used to sell slaves to the Arabs they used to stitch women up so women would sell dealer because when a woman gets pregnant she can't work so they would literally stitch the women up so she won't get pregnant so she can work so the Arabs would buy them that's where it comes from that's where it comes from but then they carried it but nowadays it's not men that are doing it it's women and I don't even blame them because hurt people hurt people when you're cut you would want to cut your daughters too. It's really sad you know I'm an FGM survivor but my mom when she did it to me and my other siblings she didn't know anybody then after time she had my baby sister and she didn't do it to her because she's learned so I don't blame my mom for anything you know she was doing what she was thought thinking that this is good you know but yeah man I think it's a very sad thing and it's heartbreaking you know like taking away from a woman to take away from her power because you're as a woman you know so yeah. Do you ever feel like you really want to do something about that? Well I'm doing what I can which is using my talents you know I use my talent and I use my story and I'm very open online and I think that's very inspiring to a lot of girls a lot of FGM survivors came and spoke to me so I created a safe space for Somali women to come and share their stories with me and I get to share their stories through my music and my art and my platform so yeah that's all I can do right now um yeah all right sure now let's talk a little bit about your music you know you um I saw you on your profile on your profile there is East Africa meets at the world like in a nutshell that is you what does that mean? Well I would say I'm very diverse I'm Arab because I grew up in Saudi Arabia um I grew up around Americans as well in Saudi Arabia and then I'm Somali and I'm Ethiopian and I've been in Kenya in and out for a while so I feel like I do represent East Africa. Ah yeah I mean yeah that sounds good for sure now Kenyan entertainment industry rather the music industry how did you get to meet fancy fingers guys in case you didn't know Banana Zoverdose has a new song with fancy fingers and it's called Ego how did you get to meet fancy fingers? Yeah it all started with a DM so so I did a song with before Fancy I did a song with Fadili Tulia shout out Fadili that's called Iftahli one of my favorite songs so Fancy Fingers isn't that same album that my song is in with Fadili so that's how he heard my voice then he sent me a message on Instagram he said your vocals are divine please let me produce for you oh wow that's how it started I was like yes please anytime boom when are you when are you in Kenya next I'm like when in a few weeks boom I came I came for so fast and he sent me an invite went to so fast in the day after we went to the studio boom and I mean you see we don't really get to see much of fancy fingers because he's always more like behind the scenes you know just with his guitar and all that how is it working with him wow I am blessed I'm honored he's an he's a wonderful person he's very professional I was like wow okay this is some next level you know he's an amazing person honestly like he's an angel I call him an angel he really is because as I just don't know he's he's different yeah and I'm very grateful for him to you know put me on and give me this opportunity you know to put light on my talents I really appreciate him for that it's been a pleasure working for him with him and I really want to do more work with him yeah generally I want to do a whole album with him if he's up for it if you're up for it is that a lesson that you'd say you know I picked this from Fancy Fingers I picked you know what's hanging out with Fancy taught me that it's possible to come across African men who are balanced masculinity and femininity balanced so I used to think African men are not you know but being around that guy I was like wow this is amazing he's a wonderful person yeah big up big up big up to Fancy okay did you get to interact with the rest of the Saudi soul members and I've been around them but not really I haven't interacted with them like that but we've met I went to the rehearsal before they went to the US for their tour it was amazing yeah I mean assuming you've really consumed their music I mean Saudi soul what are your thoughts you know just for them deciding you know um let's take a break and pursue solo careers what are your thoughts as a natist I would say whatever feels natural for them you know I think they're all amazing individually they're amazing people artists their live performances everything I'm sure nothing will change those they would still be as amazing you know yeah and that's where the journey is taking them right now I'm happy and excited for them yeah um ego what was the inspiration behind that ego listen that whole song is about a personal experience of mine okay so now when I was in the studio with Fancy he's so professional this guy sits down and then he tells me listen I've heard you sing I've heard you rap I want you to sing okay he's like you're gonna sing right now and you're gonna tap into your soul and I want you to use your languages everything I want you to be yourself and be vulnerable I'm like okay then he starts playing guitar a bit and he just gives me the tone the power was off so we couldn't create any music so he was just playing guitar and he was just telling me how to you know just giving me an idea of how to sing when the power was back we got into the studio he looks at me he's like so what are we writing about I'm like what what me no I don't know like he caught me off guard and then I was like I'm not in a great space right now okay um I'm thinking sad thoughts he's like tell me more I'm like okay from an artist to another let me tell you I had this experience with this guy that I thought is going to be my future husband who turned me down he led me on then turned me down and told me I love you but I'm not in love with you he's like who and then he's like I think you should start writing wait wait not not now wait and then he's like tell me more I was like uh I don't think it's a heartbreak though I think he was an ego bruise okay he's like start writing now then we start look we just continued he wrote so he wrote from the perspective of that guy and I wrote from my it was very painful to write this because it was fresh oh yeah but uh yeah it was an honestly like yeah that was like this whole song is healing for me you know yeah I mean someone who hasn't really had this song could you please just give them a verse just a verse okay my heart isn't broken but my ego is bruised I know you love me but this has me confused I was ready to dive in your life but now I'm drowning in this bottle of booze oh hey I mean it's the divine vocals just like fancy fingers say guys you need to catch ego you need to catch this song I love that song so much guys you guys should check out the music video too yeah so um I mean let me ask is there someone that you look also looking forward to do a collab with especially here in Kenya or just in South Africa who who is that I would want to work I want to like to own work with Waka Denali oh yeah yeah I want to do a song with Waka Denali no lie 100% these guys are I don't know what they're saying I don't even speak so clearly but I'm like I'm fucking with this you can jump you guys I mean I feel like Waka Denali has this community that they have built those guys don't even advertise their music I actually I'm trying to even pin names to faces and I was on their Instagram like I don't know who's who yeah I mean I was car yeah they don't even advertise their music they just put out their music and in one week's time it's a million views I love that song I love their music the energy energy never lies yeah so Waka Denali Waka go on okay now let's talk about you know the entertainment industry especially here in Kenya because I feel like maybe you have transphased and just interacted with lots of other artists across do you feel the Kenyan market embraces music the way our African artists would want to or rather just the audience do you feel the audience in Kenya appreciate music the way artists would like to because there's been a conversation online going on just the other day and you know people have been saying that we don't appreciate quality do you share the same sentiments don't appreciate quality quality music I would what I would say I don't really know much you know because I haven't been here for a long but what I would say is comparing Kenya to Nigeria let's do that Nigerians listen to Nigerian music everywhere they listen to Nigerian music they watch Nigerian movies they watch Nigerian series they watch a war show in Nigeria everything Nigerian is Nigerian in Kenya yeah like you Kenyans don't appreciate Kenyans yeah that's what I see so I'm like if Kenyans would appreciate Kenyans because there's a lot of talent in this country it's insane it's mind blowing the reason why I love this country so much is because of how expressive everyone is creatively everyone is creative and everyone is expressive with the way they dress their hair nails and that it's a breath of fresh air and that's why I love this country I pursued my music career in this country because I was like you know what this is a place where I can actually do it because everybody's doing their thing yeah so I'm like Kenyans should just love on Kenyans more boom okay okay I I I kind of agree with that because I also feel like it's the structures because in Nigeria like a media station it's supposed to play like I don't know 90 something or 60 something percent of their music or their content so I feel like you know Kenya here the structure messes up as well anyways please tell us where can we find your music is there something else you do that we can consume other than music um I have merchandise um I'm expanding on my merchandise but for now I have bucket hats you could buy them through my link there's a link tree account on my bio on my instagram you can find me everywhere at bananas overdose uh bananas not banana a lot of people confuse banana overdose bananas so bananas overdose everywhere check my music out jam to a stream it share it with your aunties yeah and that's it yes and what I would say what I would leave people with okay is and this one my lady's out there I always talk about this I think it's very important to stand your ground it's very important to know who you are and it's very important to get your nut okay okay we didn't see that coming but thank you so much for coming to espm bananas overdose we thank you and congratulations on a new song and we are looking forward to even more and more thank you all right guys that was bananas overdose make sure to catch her new song with fancy fingers of south is all on youtube it's called ego make sure to also leave a comment on how you found out songs and thank you so much for watching buzz it's taz my good name is miss kithingy until next time keep her espm buzz


Hi guys, welcome back to this channel and if you're new to this channel, support this channel by subscribing. Don't forget to press that notification bell, your worries be updated when we upload a new video. For the returning subscribers, thank you so much for the support. Thank you so much for coming back to this channel. By the way, did you know the probation period of domestic workers in Qatar? Most of these Gulf countries have different probation period for all workers in different categories. Let's be on the professional level, let's be on the level level, let's be on the levelers themselves, even domestic workers, each of these categories normally have different probation period. For any other reasons or any reasons that may be said by the government itself, reasons were known or reasons not known just to protection of the labour laws that may be put by a different country. Remember, in most of these Gulf countries, workers have different laws and have different rules and regulations that govern the labour laws or govern workers that go to their countries. And remember, when we look at domestic workers, it's a very broad category. Domestic workers, when you try to see the list of domestic workers, very many groups are packed up in domestic workers' group. But in today's video, we are going to see what is the probation period of domestic worker in Qatar. Remember, a decree was signed to extend the probation period of workers in Qatar from 3 months to 9 months. What does it mean? What does it mean by that? It means that the original, the probation period of all domestic workers in Qatar was 3 months. But a new decree was signed which extended the probation period of all domestic workers in Qatar to be 9 months. And what does it mean? All the recruitment agencies of domestic workers had to adhere to the new policy. How? They had to guarantee their employer or they had to guarantee their customers or clients that come to get the domestic workers a probation period of 9 months. What does it mean? It means that your employer can terminate you within 3 months in case you want to adhere to what is agreed with you. That is per under the new law that it gives your employer the right to terminate you in 3 months. Remember, the probation period was extended from 3 months to 9 months. Meaning that if your employer comes to recruit you or comes to get you from your recruitment agencies, wherever your recruitment agencies that you belong to, you are supposed to serve the probation period of 9 months. But out of the 9 months probation period, in the 3 months, if you don't prove such factory to your employer, the employer has a right to terminate you. And when your employer terminates you, who loses? You, the employer of the recruitment agencies, definitely the recruitment agencies will get lost out. Why? Because the recruitment agency where you are being recruited from, it is supposed to refund back the money paid by the employer to his account. That is per the law right now. So what does it mean? That the employer has a right to terminate you in the 3 months out of the 9 probation months that you are supposed to serve. And in case, in case the employer does not terminate you, what does it mean? That it means that the recruitment agency where the employer or where your madam or where your family recruited you from will have to take off 15% of the employer's money submitted to him. Let's say for example, this employer paid 17,000 kata riyal to get you or to hire you from your recruitment agency. In case he terminates you in the 3 months, the recruitment agency will pay back the 17,000 kata riyal back to your employer. He will refund back all the money. Meaning that the recruitment agency loses at that time. But in case too, if you get to serve of the 3 months or you get to serve the 9 months of the probation period, what does it mean to the recruitment agency? The recruitment agency after the 3 months, remember we have the balance of 6 months. After the 3 months, the recruitment agency will deduct 15% from the employer's money in case you finish up the probation period of 9 months. And each month, the recruitment agency where you got from, it will deduct 15% per every month from the employer's deposit money. Where does that money go? Part of that money goes to the recruitment agency as commission and another money will be paid, the other part that will be divided. There is some extra amount out of the 15% that is supposed to be paid to the government. Why does the government get part of that 15%? Reason, in case you refuse to work, the government has to get those dues out.  In case you get a colonico disease, you get unhealth, you cannot work anymore. So those are some of extra, they are called the extra incurred cost. That is why the government has to take the 15%, has to get part of the 15%, the recruitment agency gets from the employer. And what does it mean? It means that in case your employer violates his or her right. Remember in this case, your employer has more right than new domestic worker. Although you also have your right that in case the madam mistreats you or your employer mistreats you, abuses you, or mistreats you in any, or bleaches or she or bleaches any of the agreed in the contract. They say does not give you food, does not give you good housing, does not give you health medication, does not give you salary in time. That means this employer who recruited you from the recruitment agency will be violated by the government or his rights to claim the deepest money will be declined at one or the other. So many in this three parties we are looking at, look recruitment agency, we are looking at the domestic worker, we are looking at the employer and the government. Those are the four entities we are looking in this scenario. They all have to work hand in hand. That is per the new decree, per the new law that was sent. So many of them. The notice period of all domestic workers in Qatar was changed or was changed from three months to nine months for nine months of the probation period and you have to make sure that you serve all the nine months of the probation or if you don't serve the nine months then the recruitment agency will be where the recruited you formed will be fined by the government or will be fined whatsoever. And even still what you need to know is that your employer has a right to terminate you in the three months. He has the right to terminate you in the three months of the probation period. Hope I've tried to share something for you. Thank you so much for coming back to this channel. You should be a little bit very careful. Thank you so much for coming back to this channel. It's made for mixed creation. See again as we try to see more of domestic workers' rights and domestic workers' rights here in Qatar. Thank you so much for coming back to my channel. See again in the next video. As we try to discuss more of these interesting things that we need to share in one more day. Feel free to comment in the comment section. I'll always be more than happy to get back to you. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share this video to reach out to those that can really need it at a given period of time. Thank you so much.


Our taxi drivers who service the tourism sector have been hard to hit by the impact of COVID-19. We've been working closely with the sector on new protocols and they're also eligible for government's income support program. In addition, the government will be offering 100% duty-free concessions on vehicles for taxi operators over the next two years. Our government is also mindful that bus drivers have been struggling amidst the pandemic and 100% duty waiver will also be extended to our island's bus bus.