The Brand CEO: Mallika Malhotra

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I have with me in the studio Mallika Malhotra, who is the Brand CEO. I'm fascinated to learn more, so thanks for coming in.

Mallika Malhotra: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I'm excited to have you here. So the Brand CEO, that is intriguing. You've hit the brand very well, just starting off right there. So tell me what that means.

Mallika Malhotra: I've branded myself.

Lisa Belisle: Great job.

Mallika Malhotra: Yes. So it means that I am a strategist. It means I'm a mentor for female entrepreneurs, also a speaker and an author. All wrapped up in one, all of my skills would make me the Brand CEO.

Lisa Belisle: So let's parse this out a little bit. You've been doing this for a while.

Mallika Malhotra: Yes, 20 years as an entrepreneur. And then also a background in advertising in the corporate world. I worked with some startups as well. So lots of different experiences under my belt. But most of the time as an entrepreneur, I've loved having the freedom and the flexibility to create a business while also being home with my three boys.

Lisa Belisle: And when you say that you're an author and you are a speaker and you're a mentor, how do those all weave together for you?

Mallika Malhotra: I think it's through the idea of branding. So I work with female entrepreneurs, women owned businesses, and what they struggle with often is, what's my story? How do I stand out? How do I convince customers to choose me over somebody else? And so what I do is I work with them to find out their strategy, to find out their story, and I mentor them so that they have a guide who can help them with shortcuts, can share skills and tips for them so that they can accelerate their business faster. I have resources like books that I've written or courses that I've taught that they can use also to help supplement the experience.

Lisa Belisle: I can hear from what you've already said what your professional story is, but I'm interested in your personal story and how you even got to the place where you started doing this work. Let's start with when you were younger. Did you think that this was the work you were going to be doing?

Mallika Malhotra: That's a great question. I think when I was younger, I was super shy and the idea of leading and mentoring other people was probably something I could never even envision for myself. But as life goes on, you have different experiences. You go to school, you evolve into a different person. I think now, on the other end, being in this role as a community leader or a champion for helping them have a voice, because maybe I felt so shy and didn't have a voice, that it is the work I love to do most.

Lisa Belisle: Did you have any mentors yourself, as you were coming up through?

Mallika Malhotra: Yes. My parents were immigrants and they came to America from India and the Philippines. They're both in the health field, so doctors and nurses. So mentorship, not probably in the way of the career path, because what I chose was very different and almost confusing for them. In our culture it was doctor, lawyer, engineer. Those were the options. And so to pick something like advertising and marketing that was creative and business oriented was very foreign to them. But they were role models in the sense that they were hard workers. They didn't have a safety net here. They were very focused on education and very focused on taking risks and building a hard work ethic in order to seek opportunities. And so I think about those things often as I run my own business. They were mentors in some sense, but I really didn't feel like I had people that I would say, I want to look like them, I want to do what they're doing. I didn't want to be a doctor, didn't want to be a lawyer or any of those things.

And I joke because I think my mentor was actually, I don't know if you watched the show on TV, but Who's the Boss with Angela Bower. I don't know if you remember.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, of course.

Mallika Malhotra: So she was an advertising executive. She had the corner office and wore nice fancy suits. She had the manny at home doing the laundry, Tony Danza. She was living the life that I wanted, working in New York City. And so she was really an inspiration to me of like, maybe I could work in advertising one day.

Lisa Belisle: It sounds like initially, although your parents were supportive, they were maybe a little confused. It didn't necessarily line up with the way that they thought about their own lives. But over time, did they come to understand why this was important to you?

Mallika Malhotra: A hundred percent. They wanted the safe route, something that was familiar to them, that they knew that I would be able to have the tools and the skills and make the money that would make me stable and secure. And so doing something that was not what they knew about made them nervous. In some ways I felt like I was really blazing my own path. I had to find my own contacts and find my own jobs because it was nothing that they knew about. Their whole network were doctors in all different fields and they could help you figure out how to get an internship or a summer job, but I didn't want to do any of that stuff. And so I think it teaches you leadership, resiliency, grit, drive. If you really wanted to do it. And I think for me, because they weren't familiar, I had a lot to prove, like I could do something different, and I could do it my own way and still find success on my own terms.

Lisa Belisle: Just curious, do you have brothers or sisters?

Mallika Malhotra: I do. I have an older brother who is the golden boy, of course. He is a doctor, he's a spine surgeon. Did the path of going to medical school and going to a great school and is very, very successful.

Lisa Belisle: So that's even more pressure on you. Not only are you going to follow your own path, but you have to be really good at it.

Mallika Malhotra: I know, right? For a long time we joke about it because I always felt second best, when you have someone who's the favored child or naturally does stuff really well and doing what is expected. But now fast forward to, we're in our fifties now, we're so supportive of each other and success can be defined in so many different ways, and we respect each other and want only success for each other. But there were moments. Sibling rivalry is a real thing, but I think it also was more fuel to my fire.

Lisa Belisle: I mean, competition isn't always a bad thing, right? As long as you use it the right way.

Mallika Malhotra: Healthy competition.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, healthy competition. So in reading through some of the material you provided, you talked about having had all this corporate experience, but then really making a dramatic decision and going in your own direction. Was there a moment where this became clear to you, that that's what you wanted to do, that you now had the experience you needed and it's your turn to make your own way?

Mallika Malhotra: I think motherhood had a lot to do with that. I liked working in the corporate world. I liked the path and the direction that I was in, but you've met my husband, who is a surgeon, and his path was very long and rigorous. When we decided to have a family, I knew it wasn't the vision that I saw for our family. So my personal decision was to opt out and stay home as we were moving every few years for my husband's specialties and residencies, moving to cities and states that we didn't have a family around us. And I used to dream about what I could do that was more entrepreneurial, that had the freedom and the flexibility. I had a few businesses that I did that sort of failed, probably more like hobbies. I had a handbag business, I had a t-shirt business for children.

And it wasn't until I had a camera in my hands and I was taking photos of my own boys. I only had two of the three then. We were living in California, we were living far away from family. So I used the camera as a tool to tell the stories of my boys, and it opened up this whole world for me. It was like this door to creativity for me that filled something. I loved being a mom, but I also wanted something more. And that camera gave me a lifeline where I could tell stories and I could connect with my family that was living on the opposite coast. And the next thing I knew, people were like, will you do our holiday card, or can you be the kindergarten photographer? And I was like, yes, yes. And that evolved into having this family photography business.

That was in 2008. And so since then, obviously my business has pivoted and shifted a ton, because now I'm on the other side. I don't do any children and family, especially because my kids are older. I'm not running after anyone else's kids anymore. I did a lot of brand photography, which was more business oriented storytelling, photography for websites and social media. I wrote a book about that in 2017. But when we moved to Maine, I found it was harder to do the photography here the same way I did it in New Jersey, in terms of the price point and having a stylist and hair and makeup. It was a different culture in Maine a little bit. So I had to adjust. And then of course we had a pandemic, and so no one was looking for photography, and I thought really hard about what I was going to do. I pivoted more into the strategic part, which is portable, and I can do Zoom calls with clients from all over the world. And it worked out actually much better for me in the long run for my business.

Lisa Belisle: How do you attract the women to your business? Apparently you have a wait list for now. As I was reading through it, it's very impressive that you've managed to create such success for yourself that now you're like, nope, this is the cohort, and now we're going to have a different cohort. Because there's so many people who want to do this, you've done a great job. How do you do it?

Mallika Malhotra: Networking is key. In person, online, joining different groups, showing up, doing Zoom coffee chats or pitching myself to speak at different groups. That converts people into warm leads for me really fast, when I have an expert topic and I go and I teach and I share my knowledge with a group on how to build a brand or how to find your niche or how to be visible. So I have a few key topics that I just keep sharing over and over. And if I don't get asked to speak, I create my own communities and my own platforms so that I can bring people together. So I think it's really visibility, showing up, networking, building relationships, and then you'll find that you build this momentum. And referrals are huge. So of course referrals come when you do the job well, when you're actually working with clients and they're getting results and they're feeling seen and heard and valued. So I design my programs really so that people don't feel like a number and that they're in this container where they feel like they have the resources and a mentor that's always cheering them on.

Lisa Belisle: So when you talk about building a brand, and you're specifically for a woman building a brand, what are some of the first questions that you ask that person as you start to work with them?

Mallika Malhotra: So when you're building a brand, the first question I ask really is, why are you doing this in the first place? Beyond your products and services, what is that juicy why that makes you get up every morning? When you're an entrepreneur, it is 24/7. Often we don't have teams. It's usually a solopreneur and we're doing this work. There are highs and lows. It's a whole rollercoaster ride. So you have to have this strong commitment and sense of purpose of why you're doing that, and that should be the foundation of your brand. The second question I ask is, what do you believe in? What are you willing to put a stake in the ground for? The guiding principles that help you make your decisions. When you're thinking about launching something, that's the filter, the lens. What are things that you don't believe in? That's just as important. If you don't believe in that, that should also be in your brand. The third is, who are you meant to serve? Often I see with a lot of business owners, they want to serve everyone, especially women business owners, they want to help the whole world. We are not meant to help everyone. We're meant to help a certain person. Our skillset is matched to help a certain person in a certain way. It's okay to be selective. So I help them really get targeted in their audience. And then the last piece is, tell me how you're different. What's your secret sauce? What's your superpower? That's the hardest thing for people. They don't know what sets them apart. Instead they might be looking at what everyone else is doing, maybe using that as inspiration, or they're downplaying, playing small and not going all in on what makes them different. Women don't like to brag, but it's not bragging in my mind. It's really building the brand based on your strengths and your skills so that people can see what you do and it will resonate with them. It's like an invitation that says, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is how I'm different. And if we're in alignment, let's go.

Lisa Belisle: So when you talk about finding your niche, and you're right, I think it is hard for people to give up on this idea. Everybody wants to appeal to everybody. Anybody could be a client, a friend, a colleague, whatever. How do you drill down on that with people?

Mallika Malhotra: So niching down is my absolute obsession. I am a big proponent because I think when you niche, it means that you can stand out from the competition, because you're actually going all in on something. So I have a framework that I use with my clients, it's called the Bullseye Branding Framework. And we talk about your area of expertise. What would you say you're a specialist in? Why are people coming to you? Have you looked at your testimonials to read and see if there's some common themes or patterns? All these people who want to pick your brain, like they want to sit with you, what are they asking you? Can you look at that data and start to see, actually I'm a specialist in this. And then have the courage to say, you know what, I'm going to go all in on that. So that's part one.

Part two, again, is you're not meant to speak to everyone, so let's get specific. If you are a fitness trainer, are you really meant to speak to moms over 40 who have different needs than young moms who just had a baby? So getting very specific on who you're talking to, so that all of your correspondence, it's almost like a love letter specifically written for them. The third is, again, how do you stand out? What is that point of difference? What's your competitive edge? Could it be your personality? Maybe it's your process, maybe you have a framework. Like I have a framework, and that's the tipping point. And then the last is really, how do you solve that specific problem? Is there a vehicle, technology that you use? Do you have a certain accreditation or some kind of formula that you use that can also set yourself apart? When you can do the work on those four steps, you're going to see how you go from being broad and generic to becoming more focused, more precise and more specialized and more niche.

And it will allow you to actually speak to the right people very clearly. You must have been at a networking event and someone comes in, they're like, I'm a business consultant. Well, I have no idea what you do, who to send your way and what results you give to people. Instead you can say, I'm actually a business consultant that focuses on personal branding for women in C-suite that want to advance in their career. And I work with them through a special framework, a three-step framework, and we do this in 30 days. Super specific, precise. It makes it memorable, it makes it instantly recognizable, it makes it referable. So all the good things happen when you niche, in my opinion.

Lisa Belisle: It sounds like you yourself have spent quite a bit of time honing not only your own niche, but also creating this framework that I suspect probably took you a while to get to. All the years of experience funneled down into a structure that then you could bring back to other people. Was there a creative process that you followed in order to get to that place?

Mallika Malhotra: I think, and it's funny because this is what I teach my clients now, is how do you build that process, that methodology. So it takes working with clients, multiple clients, and then doing a brain dump of what were all the steps that I actually did with all of these clients. What are all the stages that we had to go through to get to the result? What's the intellectual property that I brought to this solution? What are all of the offerings that I might have? And putting it all on the table to see, again, what are the common threads? Are there any patterns here, or are there any steps that are repetitive that I keep doing? Can I categorize them in three or four ways so that it makes it easy for a prospect to understand the value that I give them. I think every business should have a branded framework because it will differentiate you from other people. It will make it easier for your prospects to understand what you do, and it will probably be the trigger that helps them want to open up their wallets or book you, because they know that you have a proven methodology that's going to get them the solution they want.

Lisa Belisle: One thing that I heard you say with regard to your early experience was, when you had moved past the point where your children were the same age as the people that you had been working with, you were like, okay, now I'm done with that.

Mallika Malhotra: Yes.

Lisa Belisle: And I think it can be hard for people to let go, and I think it's more than just women, but women in particular. Especially women like me who have children who get older, and you just remember with fondness those early years. But there is always this letting go, and I'm guessing there probably is a letting go with regard to the work that you're doing, trying to convince women you don't have to do that anymore, you don't have to be that person anymore. So how do you help them through that letting go process?

Mallika Malhotra: I think it's, what happens when you don't let go of all the things, you have burnout, right? Sharing with them the negative things that can happen. It's hard to sustain your business. You just can't. And showing them examples, and then showing them the data you already have, the data at your fingertips, which is telling you already that you are probably an expert in this. It's just a matter of mindset or imposter syndrome or fear that we have to get over those humps together so that you can see what success can look like on the other side. Often my clients, they already have this gut feeling that they know that they should pivot, but it's scary. And that's where having a mentor comes in handy, where you have someone who's already 10 steps ahead of you that can say, listen, I remember this too.

I used to do children photography, brand photography, seniors, I was doing Instagram workshops, I was spinning out of control. But what made a difference, what was a game changer for my business, was I cut out all the stuff that didn't resonate with me, that didn't pay as much of the bills that other things did, that I wasn't passionate about and that my clients didn't even want anymore. And when I did that work of really looking at the data and deciding, okay, I'm going to go all in, and for me it was going all in on brand photography at the time, and saying no to all those families, which is heartbreaking. They're like, what about all those family photos? And you're like, I'll refer you, I have a network, I'll refer you. But all of a sudden I felt liberated and it was easier. Because how many messages, it's almost like I'm having multiple micro-businesses, it's not sustainable.

Different audience, different offers, different price points, you're kind of spinning out of control. Once I cut it all out and I picked a lane, I felt more strategic. I felt like a leader, I felt like an expert. And that kind of energy is very contagious and people see that, instead of, I do this, I do that. If I had a business person go to my website and they saw senior photos for high school students, they'd be like, absolutely not. I'm not going to invest this much money for someone who's not an expert. So I think more is not always a great strategy. We have to do less so that we can stand out more.

Lisa Belisle: Is there also a letting go of other people's expectations of us? I mean, you've described letting go of your parents' expectations of you when you were younger, but I think it's pretty common for many people to continue to want to be part of the group, so they agree to the roles that other people have assigned to them. Is that part of the process that you go through as well?

Mallika Malhotra: I think it's a confidence thing. It's like creating boundaries for yourself, letting go of things that might not be working for you and having the confidence to do that, and it's okay. And often it becomes a choice. A lot of my clients are like, I just don't want to work with this one person. It doesn't mean you have to, it just means your messaging is targeted and focused and there's clarity. If someone else comes to you that resonates with you, you can make the choice to work with them. It's just that you don't want to be confusing, because a confused mind never buys. So having that confidence and the courage to commit to something and go all in, I think that's going to accelerate your business much, much faster and just make it more enjoyable for you, so that you don't feel like you're spinning out of control with one business and the next business. It's not sustainable. I see it all of the time.

Lisa Belisle: What are some of your favorite success stories with people that you've had a chance to work through this framework with?

Mallika Malhotra: So I have a client who's in New Jersey. She is a nutritionist, and of course health, wellness, nutrition, very saturated. There's so many people. And so when we started working together, we were looking through her data of who her best clients were. Where did she get the most income from? What did she feel most passionate about? So for a while she was like, okay, maybe I will do nutrition for pregnant women. So I'm like, great, that's a great niche, let's go all in there. And so she did it. I said, you have to commit for six months. So she did it for six months and then she came back and she said, I'm not sure if this is the right one. And I said, okay, so what's not working? So we went through it. You can find a niche, but if in your heart you're not passionate about it, it's never going to work.

So then we went through, what are some of your own history, your own personal experiences with nutrition that maybe we can leverage to pull into defining this niche? So she started talking about how she used to have all of these migraines herself, and now, being a nutritionist for herself, she figured out the foods that she should have, the recipes. And I'm like, this seems to me like a great idea. Do you have any clients that are also migraine sufferers? And she said, actually, I have a big percentage of them. And then we did more research with her audience that says, how big is this opportunity? Would you hire someone who was this specific? And they said, absolutely. Because having a migraine is debilitating. It is a big problem. You want to make sure the problem you're solving is big enough that there is a market for it, that people will be willing to pay for it.

So after all that research, and after going through her own pivots and evolution, now she is a nutritionist for women who suffer from chronic migraines. And she gives them not only meal plans, but recipes, but she helps them holistically with movement, with mindset. And she's making a name for herself. She is on podcasts that have to deal with migraines. She's being invited to panels where she's a specialist about health and wellness and migraines. So I think what happens when you really niche down and you build your brand around something, it just helps others to find you. It helps others to refer you, it helps others to build partnerships with you if it's the right synergistic fit. And so it just means that there's more access to opportunities.

Lisa Belisle: As you've been working through this process yourself as the Brand CEO, and you've really focused all of your attention on this, you talk about this energy that's been building, and you talk about attracting like-minded individuals into your sphere. Does it almost feel like a multiplicative process where it's not just one plus one plus one, it feels like it's burgeoning and booming? And at what point do you reach the point where you're saying, oh, I might need to actually have some other people in here to help me out with this?

Mallika Malhotra: So scaling is a big thing to think about. But I also think you kind of have to define success in your own terms. And so for me, scaling, I don't want multiple junior coaches underneath me. I don't want a huge team. I want to keep it very, very simple. In this stage of my life where I have children going to college, I have my parents that I want to see more often as they're aging. And so I have tried to keep my scaling very, very simple. Which also means that because I have programs where I only have 16 seats, they do fill up fast and there is this energy and momentum of, when are you offering it again? So it's been very intentional, especially in the last couple of years, the business model behind what I do, because there were years where I was doing it all.

I was doing photography and I had a mastermind, I had a membership, and I was burned out. The capacity thing. So when you're thinking of scaling, you hear people scaling all the time, I'm scaling, I'm hiring, but is it right for you, for the life that you want, when you're thinking of your business and you're thinking of your lifestyle? And so I've really reflected on that in the past year. And for me, I don't want a lot of people on my team. I want to keep it simple. I want people to know when they work with me, they get me, I'm in their back pocket, I'm invested in them. So that means maybe my price point is premium, because they have that access. And so right now that works for me. I don't know what'll happen next year or the year after, but I think that energy and that buzz that you're talking about, a lot of that has to do with the intimacy of the program and the accessibility and then the collaborative nature of having a program where everyone actually knows each other.

And not only am I invested in them, everyone's invested in each other. It becomes a collective. We have calls weekly, we do hot seats. I just led my first in-person retreat two weekends ago in Maine, which was very exciting. It has been a big goal of mine. And all of my mastermind clients, not all, half the mastermind clients came and half were Maine business women that I had just met. And it was like merging these two worlds. But everybody was hungry for that connection. They wanted to share their experience, share their stories. And I found that there was so much magic in the room. And I think it was really very, very special. I think now I'm like, do I need to do more in person? Is this something I have to add to my business model? It was a lot of work. So I'm not sure if maybe next year, but that I think also adds to that energy.

Lisa Belisle: So as you're talking about your own personal brand as the Brand CEO, and you're talking specifically about women, I'm intrigued by the fact that you have three boys. So how did you decide at some point, no, no more testosterone, I'm just going to focus here professionally?

Mallika Malhotra: I love to work with women because I think sometimes in the branding sphere, when I was doing photography as well as the brand strategy, women have a hard time sharing their voice. They have a hard time being visible. They have a hard time claiming space that says, I'm really good at what I do, I'm an expert. And I have these issues too. It's been an evolution to build that confidence and to build that leadership. And so I want to help those women. I think men have no issues with that. They come in and they might even have the experience that the women have and they're just owning it. They're not dancing around their price points and feeling bad if someone says they can't afford it. No, they have no issues with that. So for me, to empower women to really stand in their power, use their voice, get paid what they're worth, is deeply my why.

That's the work I do. Mastermind retreats, books, those are just the vehicles. But really it's about helping women uncover and unlock what their skills are and go all in on them and claim space and say, I'm an expert and get paid to be an expert. Because if women get paid money and make money, then better things happen. They invest in themselves, they invest in their children, they invest in their communities. So for me, I'm not interested in working with men, to be honest. People come to me and I'm like, I'm sorry. Even when I did photography, not interested, I only work with women. That's my niche. I want to work with them, I want to connect with them, I want to empower them. I want to support and mentor them so that they can seek success on their own terms.

Lisa Belisle: Are you finding any generational differences with the people that you have mentored and worked with?

Mallika Malhotra: So I'm in midlife. I turned 50 last year. I think I attract a lot of women that are in that 40 and 50 range, because I can relate and resonate with them. And I think what I hear from them often is a feeling of, I feel like a dinosaur, and I have to be on social media and I have to be on TikTok or Instagram stories and all the things to enhance our visibility so that people see us as expert. Where the younger generation, it's all they know, they're very quick, tech savvy. They can whip up a graphic in Canva in no time and post it and be on to the next best thing. So I have these two groups that have different paces for visibility, but all want the same thing. They all want to make an impact. They all want to be seen as an expert. They all want to be generous with their expertise and actually change someone's life, be it for health, be it for business, be it for interior design. So that commonality is amongst any of the generations. But I think the older set, it's hard to show up and be really visible all the time when you see these younger people that just do it so naturally and effortlessly.

Lisa Belisle: And as a result of that, do you think that you see a generational difference with regard to confidence?

Mallika Malhotra: A little bit, but it's interesting because once we do the work together in their brand, what the older women have is they have experience. And so I have to remind them of that experience, life experience, professional experience, relationship experience. That is what we have, that's gold that you can't even compete with in some ways. And so it's unpacking that for them and having them see that. And then I'll see that light bulb go up and they're like, okay, so I can pitch myself for the podcast. I can try to be on the speaking gig even though I feel vulnerable for the visibility, but I know my stuff. I've done the work, I worked in corporate, I had a business for many years. So my job is to have them unpack it, and then how do you leverage that into the strength of your brand?

Lisa Belisle: So it sounds like the confidence for the younger women is maybe just that they don't have as many years behind them, but they feel good about the visibility that they already know how to have. So you're just dealing with different ways of looking at confidence.

Mallika Malhotra: Yes. And what's great is when we work together in my masterminds, this collective is that we're all sharing experience. So we have some of the younger women who are so tech savvy and so social media savvy, and they're giving pointers to the older women. And then the older women are sharing their life experience of maybe some mindset issues or how to handle relationships, because we have more of that under our belt.

Lisa Belisle: Well, Mallika, I very much enjoyed our conversation today. It's very thought provoking, and I'm glad that you have built your own brand as the Brand CEO, and it sounds like you're sharing your wealth of experience and knowledge with lots of people. So I'm very grateful to have had the time to talk with you today.

Mallika Malhotra: Thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. Really, really happy to speak with you as well.

Lisa Belisle: And how can people find you if they would like to learn more?

Mallika Malhotra: Thank you. So they can visit my website, and then also I love Instagram. That's where I hang out the most.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I encourage those of you who are intrigued by this conversation, as I have been, with Mallika Malhotra, who is the Brand CEO, to go and learn more about the work that she does and maybe spend some time thinking about your own brand, your own niche. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching Radio Maine. Thanks for coming in today.

Mallika Malhotra: Thank you.