Azalee Maslow is a Personal Branding Coach, Virtual CMO, and the Founder of PrettyAF. PrettyAF is a philanthropic lifestyle brand, podcast, and community for female entrepreneurs.
Learn more at AzaleeMaslow.com.
Here we sit down with Azalee, to know a bit more about her journey as personal branding coach.
Q. What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
Azalee: When I was a child, I would look at people like Oprah and list out all of the different businesses she had. Then I’d circle the ones I wanted to do too. Not because I wanted to be rich, just because it seemed like fun. I always knew I was meant to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur, but somewhere along the way people convinced me to take the “safe” route and that those dreams were unrealistic. Luckily, my “safe” route wasn’t so safe and I ended up here anyway. I hope to be proof that your dreams aren’t unrealistic and they’re always worth chasing.
Q. How did you get started?
Azalee: Everything I’ve created has either been because someone requested it or because it’s something that I wish I had. I went from working as a news reporter to working in digital marketing to building musicians’ personal brands online, to now building female entrepreneurs’ personal brands online. Every time I’ve made a shift it’s because I stopped being excited about what I was doing. So I just keep choosing the most fun path that’s also valuable to who I’m serving. A lot of times I felt like my current experience didn’t make sense for where I knew I eventually wanted to be, but looking back, everything I’ve done could not have prepared me better to serve who I want to serve.
Q. What was your biggest startup challenge? What steps did you take to overcome it? What did you learn?
Azalee: From the beginning, and at each new level, I’ve faced massive amounts of mindset blocks. I’ve questioned if I’m good enough to do this, if I deserve the success I want, and if I’m crazy for thinking I can do this. But then I think about my clients (past and present) that are literally living their dream life because of our work together. I want my future children and future generations to have massive amounts of evidence that their dreams can become a reality and to grow up surrounded by people that love their lives. I keep a list of results, positive feedback, and compliments on my phone for when I start questioning myself because I don’t want to pass my fears on to them.
Q. What is the Most Memorable Thing You’ve Done Since you Started your Business?
Azalee: One of my Virtual CMO clients is an author and a speaker who has been trying to step into becoming a best-selling author and a paid keynote speaker. Within the first year of us working together, he became an Amazon best-selling author and consistently sells $7,500 keynotes. He had been after these two goals for the 10 years prior and the work we did to build his personal brand online made it possible in 1 year.
Q. What is one book you recommend, and why?
Azalee: I love Audible and learning all the things but I used to just learn everything and not implement anything. I’d also be learning about things that I couldn’t implement at the moment because they had nothing to do with where I was currently at. So, my recommendation, instead of a specific book, is to figure out what topic you need to master right now and learn about that. Then implement what you learn.
Q. What are your top 3 favourite online apps, tools, or resources and what do you love about them?
Azalee: I’ll share 3 that will help you build your personal brand online if you’re just getting started:
1 – Canva.com – Easily create graphics, videos, PDFs, presentations, and more. You can add your brand fonts, colors, and logos so that your graphics have a consistent style and stay on brand. We still use this every day.
2 – NameCheckr.com – Having the same username across all social platforms and your website URL is usually ideal. So with this website, you can easily search what’s available where so you don’t have to waste time searching on each platform before you snag them.
3 – IFTTT – The app, “If This Then That”, is great to help automate things when you’re not ready to go all-in on digital marketing but want to start showing up a little more consistently. There’s a ton you can do with it, but two of my favorites are; making it if you post on Instagram, it will automatically post the same thing onto all of your other social media platforms, and making it if you change your Instagram profile photo, your profile photo will also change on all other platforms.
Q. In terms of legacy, what is the mark you’d like to leave on the world?
Azalee: I want to convince everyone that the things that light you up, do so for a reason. Life is meant to be a joy and you deserve to be truly happy. I hope the world is a happier place when I leave than when I came into it.
Q. In one sentence, what’s the best advice you’d give to someone just starting out on their entrepreneurial journey?
Azalee: If it’s on your heart, it’s meant for you…go for it.
To keep up to date with Azalee and her journey, connect with her on Facebook, and Instagram.
