A Goal Without A Plan Is Just A Wish.
Meet Sweta Sridhar, a Digital Content Creator Helping Entrepreneurs Pursue Their Passion!
Written By: GoalSetters International
My goal is to help my clients shine their story in the best light possible and share authentically what matters the most to them. Whether it’s their family or the business they’re starting in their home garage, I want my clients to know they can pursue their passions and maximize their full potential similar to myself.
Sweta Sridhar
Founder:
Sweetathansugar
Thanks for speaking with us Sweta. Looking forward to learning more about your business and your journey.
Can you tell us what type of business you run and how long you've been operating this business?
JEWELRY BY SAEYRI | IG: @SAEYRI
Thank you for this amazing feature! My name is Sweta Sridhar. I am a Digital Content Creator with over 55K (and growing MoM) followers - (known as ‘Sweetathansugar’ across social media platforms) and Career Coach based out of the San Francisco Bay Area and have been running my business officially for the last 3-5 years. Over the last two years, I have grown the client base by 60% and revenue stream almost doubled even during the global pandemic.
Prior to that, I did take on clients on an ad hoc and freelance basis based on bandwidth and specific client needs. As a Digital Content Creator I influence and support the development of crucial brand marketing campaigns and strategy across Top Fortune 100 lifestyle brands. This includes brands in the travel, beauty/skincare, and food/drink space.
As the pandemic hit, my strategy shifted towards supporting many small local businesses as well to directly support as much through difficult times. As a Career Coach I support the growth and development of recent-college graduates and young professionals (primarily womxn) through customized coaching services mainly within the product marketing and management space in the financial services/technology industry. With that being said, I have had clients applying to law school, PhD programs, architecture students, ex-military personnel, etc… also seek my services.
My goal is to help my clients shine their story in the best light possible and share authentically what matters the most to them. Whether it’s their family or the business they’re starting in their home garage, I want my clients to know they can pursue their passions and maximize their full potential similar to myself. To summarize, the type of business that I run is a career coaching business and a digital content creation + social media marketing business (essentially a “one-woman” agency). My clients are young professionals, aspiring influencers/content creators, and brands that fall under industries I am focused on supporting.
Can you share with us some details about how you got started in the Digital Creation & Business Coaching Industry?
As an undergraduate university student, I had the opportunity to intern for and join multiple on-campus ambassador programs which got me interested in design, photography, modeling, writing/blogging, and other creative elements of influencer marketing.
During the time that I started off on social media, I was extremely insecure about my body image, mental health, and felt extremely “lost.” The work that I started off doing really helped me have a sense of pursuit (purpose). with confidence, and helped me connect with like-minded individuals online that shared similar sentiments in their specific fields. This then motivated me to take various courses and interview experts in the space to pursue this more seriously as a ‘side hustle’ beyond my corporate 8-5 role.
My passion for business coaching came from my part-time role as a career coaching assistant at Empowerly Inc. and on-campus mentor for first-year undergraduate students. Overtime, I realized that there were many experiences and struggles that I faced in the job-seeking and application processes that I wanted to share with others. The lack of resources at many US universities made me realize that there is a clear gap that I can fill through my knowledge in the space and as someone who recently went through these experiences not too long ago.
The common thread between these two experiences/roles beyond my corporate job is that I genuinely enjoy helping and being a voice in underrepresented communities and mentoring those who lack opportunities I was privileged to have growing up/through my education.
During our talk you mentioned that you organically grew your Instagram followers to over 40,000. You have had monumental growth in only a short time period. How do you feel that you have grown the most as a creator, editor, and even as a brand?
There are three ways that I feel that I have grown as a creator, blogger, brand, and business. Growth did not happen overnight. In fact, there were many moments where I felt that I was ‘stuck’ and did not see ‘tangible growth’ or what society generally defines as success/growth in space.
First, I really leveraged my network and community to build my online presence. This included going out of my comfort zone and connecting with folks in organizations, online platforms/communities, friends and acquaintances I had lost touch with, coworkers, families, and other accounts I followed.
Over time, I realized that there were certain types of content that resonated more than others, so I began to focus my energy there. Second, collaborations and partnerships validated my legitimacy as a brand with other brands (small and larger), and other creators/celebrities/public figures in the space. I felt that as someone new to the space, there was still a powerful and meaningful narrative that I could share while supporting the value propositions and storytelling approach that other brands I focused on.
As I continued to do this, I received opportunities to collaborate with some top brands that I've idolized since a young age that propelled my growth at a faster rate. Last but not least, my mindset. As cliche and simple as things sounds, I have become a much more confident, strategic, and vocal human over time. The space has taught me how to be stronger, pursue what I am passionate about, and get creative even during moments of ambiguity and chaos. This naturally allowed me to grow and also embrace my unique identity further especially given that there is such a saturation of information in the space.
There is no magical formula to social media’s algorithm.
There has been lots of buzz online on how to “game the system” and from my experience, it is really a lot of trial and error. For instance, the same piece of content can perform well one day versus another and there are endless possibilities on what impacts that. Long story short, performance is not necessarily a measure of growth, however, it is an added bonus and can support the development of opportunities when it comes to brand partnerships, expanding your network, visibility in the industry, and overall brand trust. I am excited to continue exploring various growth strategies!
If you've had some challenges and roadblocks along the way, Can you share with us what some of those challenges have been in regards to starting or running this business and how you overcame them?
There have been several challenges and roadblocks that I have faced from the start of my journey and continue to face even till today. As it relates to starting my hustle as a Digital content creator, there have been three specific challenges. First, the ability to gain and retain engagement from my audience.
Because I do discuss such a variety of topics and content across my platform, it can be difficult to connect with an audience so remote from me and new to my brand. Testing and figuring out what resonates with different audience personas and segments over time has been a challenging, but amazing learning experience. Secondly, dedicating time, energy, and expertise to figuring out my niches.
Although industry professionals recommend that it is key to not put “all your eggs in one basket,” I do feel that it is crucial as an influencer marketer on what your focus areas are and value proposition when communicating with brands. It has been challenging to narrow down the scope of what I represent and then leverage that information to source net new brand partnerships. Because there are SO many options out there and opportunities, it is difficult to figure out the intersection between what you enjoy and the value you bring to your community, and then integrate that into what a specific brands’ messaging/story focuses on. Lastly, it has been extremely challenging to expand and grow across various social media platforms. Instagram is where I started with my personal account, which then grew into a business/creator account over many years of hard work.
What I have learned is that each social media platform serves a unique purpose and also has a unique approach to curating content. It still continues to remain a challenge to explore new platforms and convert or engage with different audiences on those given my comfort zone and the types of opportunities I have been focusing on recently.
As a career coach there are many day-to-day challenges that I face from balancing multiple client needs that are so different from each other to optimizing a great user experience for my audience so that they easily sign up and reach out to me regarding specific services. Because I am earlier in the stages of officially launching my career coaching business, there are a lot of nuances and specific details that I need to iron out.
Is there a form of content that you have been wanting to try on your channel, but are hesitant to?
I have been wanting to try more “get ready with me” unfiltered lifestyle content of my day and life every single day. My audience seems to be very eager and enthusiastic to learn more about how I balance multiple involvements, however, I have not had the bandwidth or capacity to film and share this.
Given that my content and strategy for both my coaching business and content creation are planned so far in advance, I have not been able to be as spontaneous as I would ideally like to. Moving forward, I hope to be able to be a bit more intentional about my posts, but also “go with the flow.” There is so much beauty in speaking to your audience on social media as though they’re your best friend. This level of relatability in content garners more engagement.
Let's talk about the services you offer, who do you help, and how do you help?
There are two types of coaching services that I offer: social media and career. For social media, I offer services on how to grow your social media platform(s), how to personally brand yourself, brand partnership and collaboration 101, goal-setting templates, and so much more! As a career coach, I offer resume reviews, interview prepping and coaching, business plan support, and general mentorship chats.
All of my services regardless of the category are customized to the needs of my client. Generally they come to me with specific areas that they need support with based on my experiences and expertise and then we set up a plan of action to tackle moving forward.
What drives your passion to inspire women of color in business and give them hope?
As a little girl, I remember seeing a clear lack of representation in the media and corporate space of others that looked like me. I felt out of place and wasn’t extremely confident if I could get to where I wanted to be.
The ability to really impact those who are generations away from me and also make a difference in shifting the narrative (even if it’s in the smallest of ways) is what inherently drives my passion. I hope to continue to give younger girls like myself hope and also normalize the story that it IS possible to be a corporate professional in the financial services/technology industry and also be creative. Especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where I am from, there was always a huge emphasis on STEM-related educational routes, so showing others that there are other options that are equally amazing to pursue is another goal of mine on “WHY” I started this all.
The unfortunate reality is despite us progressing as a country, there are still many verticals where women are underrepresented, treated unequally, and apparent discrepancies. Although my work may not entirely shift these issues, I hope to shift perspective on fundamentally how we as consumers view interactions with brands. From the messaging, colors, and so many other aspects of their campaigns, it is important to diversify content and represent all types of colors, body shapes, voices, stories, sexuality, etc… to accurately portray the world that we live in.
I am grateful to coaches and creators who came prior to me who paved the way for aspiring macro-creators like myself. The interesting piece about this question is that there are so many common threads I’ve been able to observe both across social media, but also in the corporate culture. This has only inspired and motivated me to continue to work harder and keep at my goals for many years to come.
How important is it to dream big and believe you can accomplish what you desire?
With all that you've accomplished so far, did setting goals contribute to your success so far?
Yes, I did set different types of goals based on the specific places I wanted to be at. This includes a daily task list of micro-goals as well as long-term goals. I am a HUGE believer in setting SMART goals to achieve what you put your mind to. There are so many great virtual resources and mentors out there that really helped me take these goals to the next level.
Finding a source of inspiration and support who you aspire to be like can really help you understand what types of characteristics and qualities you hope to embody. So many people who helped me out along my journey became dear friends and I continue to stay connected with them till today.
While I do believe that it is crucial to set goals, I think it is also important to be open to ambiguity and change. The pandemic taught me that a lot of plans may not go as you initially conceptualized, however, taking learnings and applying them to what “success” looks like in your eyes is what matters the most. For instance, at the start of the pandemic, I was so caught up on garnering a certain number of followers on social media, but then I realized it is more so about the impact I made on my community and consistently showing up for them. While this may be my personal opinion, it is what really caused me to be happy and content with my lifestyle as a digital creator.
Here at GoalSetters, we like to say " A Goal Without A Plan is Just A Wish", what's your advice on the best way that people can go about accomplishing the goals that they set?
Two pieces of advice that I have around accomplishing your goals is 1) to really make the time to prioritize your goals because if you do not do so in the status quo it may never happen. It is so easy to miss opportunities, so putting yourself first and really sticking to the vision you have set forth by developing a tangible and actionable goal plan is important to avoid feelings of being overwhelmed and actually driving interest in pursuing it.
The journey can be tough and challenging, but keeping your goals in mind along the way serves as a great source of inspiration. 2) Hold yourself accountable every single day. It can be very easy to lose track of things, get distracted, and then other factors influence the decisions that you make. I chat with clients who frequently express and share that they have set goals, but never actually end up pursuing them.
Ensuring that you actually chase after what you want and find a way to remind yourself of it is key. The way that I do this is by rewarding myself every few days and also continuing to put it at the forefront of my mind. Even though other personal matters pop up and need to take priority, goals in all verticals of your life should be consistently seen somewhere every day where you can be reminded of WHY you started and WHERE you want to get to… the HOW is what should be broken down into micro-tasks over time.
In closing, for those that may require your services or may need mentorship, how can they connect with you?
The two best ways to connect with me at this time are via Instagram (@sweetathansugar) and email at contact@swetasridhar.com . On a case-by-case basis I do provide my corporate number to clients to directly content me to develop a more personal connection.
I am a HUGE believer in-person or face to face interactions (as close as we can get), so would love to set up time with folks who are interested! I am excited to announce that in the Fall (September 2022 tentatively) I will be launching my official website which includes my full suite of services as part of my brand and business known as www.swetasridhar.com .
This will include detailed resources, guides, and call to actions to stay connected and regularly subscribe to what I offer. I am happy to always connect with folks casually looking to say “hi” and who are interested in learning more about the “behind the scenes” of my career journey. I am so grateful for all the AMAZING clients that I have been able to collaborate with and excited to meet more beautiful faces!
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