Essential Wisdom for Working Women, with Otegha Uwagba
"I think I've just always been interested in feminism, and was always really career driven, so this felt like a really natural marriage of the two" My guest this week is someone I've considered a role model in business and branding since I first discovered her work via her book for working women, The Little Black Book. Otegha Uwagba is a bestselling writer, brand consultant and podcaster, and founder of Women Who, a community for creative working women. I called her up to find out how her business began, how she developed her admirable confidence and self-possession, and much much more.
Hashtag Authentic - for creatives, dreamers & business owners online · Sara
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Show Notes
Things we talk about in this episode:
- Why Otegha left her career in advertising for freelance life
- Starting a business by following interests and opportunities, instead of by intent
- When your personal brand is your real self, and how this can help weed out inappropriate clients
- Not worrying about being liked by everyone - and not putting everyone else's needs above your own
- Reclaiming words like 'marketing' and 'entrepreneur', and the different ways to build a business that balance personal and commercial imperatives
- The changing metrics of businesses, and the things small business owners are nailing over bigger businesses
- How small businesses and entrepreneurs benefit from being more nimble and agile - an essential skill for the digital world
- How Otegha self-published her first book as a special project, through a Squarespace website, promoting it entirely by herself
- How the book got picked up by a publisher, and the transition from self-published to being represented by a bigger publishing house
- Otegha's upcoming book, a money memoir, and what we all need to talk about money
- Why we're all scared of talking about money, and the shame, guilt and baggage we all secretly carry
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Women Who -"a URL and IRL community for creative working women" (love this tagline!)
- Roxanne Gay - Bad Feminist
- Otegha's book, The Little Black Book: a toolkit for working women
- Otegha's upcoming money memoir, We Need to Talk About Money
- Dear Sugar's podcast episode with Oprah Winfrey
- Something I wrote for Stylist mag about how becoming the breadwinner changed my marriage
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