Quitting Six-Figure Position at Deloitte to be a TikToker & Coach - Victoria DAmbrozio

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian F. Victoria DAMBrozio, what's up, Rockstar?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Oh, I am doing fantastic. Thanks for being here. Um, you and I met like a lot of my guests on Instagram, but not how you would typically meet, where you see a post, it was funny, or a mutual friend, or somebody likes something, or the algorithm told you you should follow that person. Uh, but because I had seen an article on Business Insider about how you had quit your job in the middle of a pandemic and built a six-figure business. And I was like, what? Hold on a second. I know that it's totally possible. In fact, there's never been a more exciting or easier time to make that a reality, but it's it's not always common that we that we get the backstory of exactly what took place, unless, of course, we read uh the article on there. But we're living in such exciting times that I can read an article, find you on LinkedIn, find you on Instagram, which I did, comment on the post uh where you shared the article and information about it and where to read it, etc. And then I quickly invited you to be on the show because I wanted to know a little bit more and well, you know, pun intended one to go beyond the story of how that all happened. So uh I like to tell the story of how people got to present day and what they're currently doing. Uh so let's back up a little bit, add some context um to our conversation here on how it all began uh with you being able to, as you told us, uh told me rather before the interview started, rage quit in the middle of a pandemic and start your own business and scale it to six figures. So, how'd that all start?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, it's it's quite the story. So I think the first thing to understand is that I I rate so the timeline of my story is I, you know, quit back, it was January 29th, I believe, of 2021 was my last day. And it's August now when we're recording this. So it's very still pretty new. Um, but prior to all that, you know, I went to school for finance, for business, was doing the corporate thing, thought I was gonna be a, you know, corporate finance investment banker for life. But when I had graduated college and started it getting into the real world, I quickly realized that that's not what I wanted to do. I really was fascinated with the online business landscape, uh, specifically around personal branding, people monetizing their personal brands, not just from like an influencer standpoint, but from building your own business, becoming this digital CEO of sorts. And so for three years, I was just deep, deep, deep in the back end of learning about the online business world, because there's no class that you take, at least that I know of at school, where they're like, this is how it works. And so in that three years, I um really wanted to quit and start my own business. We can get into this part of my story later if you want. Um, but I was really paralyzed with what I later found out was perfectionism. That's something I talk a lot about a lot in my story because perfectionism, a lot of people think a perfectionist is someone who does something perfectly, right? You have all of your details set out and you live up to your potential and you never procrastinate and you just go get all these big goals. But in reality, that's not what a perfectionist is. A perfectionist is actually someone who is ashamed that they are not perfect and they self-sabotage as a result. They struggle with fear of failure and fear of judgment. So they'll actually hold themselves back withhold efforts on goals, have this all or nothing thinking. And so I was in this spot for three years where I really, really, really wanted to start my online business, but I couldn't because of my perfectionist perfectionism. Fast forward to 2020, I basically had enough of my own BS and got to this moment where I realized I had to just get over myself and start posting online. And um, that's kind of what happened today. I started posting in September of 2020 on TikTok, and things kind of moved faster than I anticipated. And I quit my job at Deloitte in January. Um, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I saw how I had monetization opportunities coming to me through my personal brand and business. And, you know, the whole rage quitting thing comes in because I could have, I could have stayed at Deloitte longer. Um, and some people would probably argue that I should have because my business was so, so new. I mean, it still is. There was no guarantee of anything. I mean, I had clients that wanted to work with me, but there was no, okay, I know I've been making, you know, $20,000 months for X amount of months. I had, you know, no back end to support this. Um, not back end, but I, you know, I hadn't really been in business that long. Um, but I quit just because I was a little over it and I was ready to go all in on my business. So that's a high, high level uh background on my story.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

It reminds me of that meme that said, um, she woke up one day and said, fuck this shit and lived happily, happily ever after, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah. I mean, it gets to that point where I had to look myself in the face and say, Are you are you okay never achieving your goals? Because if you don't get out of your own way, yeah, and you don't just suck it up and deal with your fear of judgment and fear of failure, you're going to live the rest of your life being stuck in this cubicle and being miserable. So miserable.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

You guys you nailed it with the miserable part there. I don't know. I don't know a lot of people really ecstatic about life that are stuck in the cubicle. So if you're listening to this right now and you're looking for a sign, this is it. Yeah. So let's talk about TikTok for a second. I've had a little bit of success myself over there, me and my 1,500 followers, but I had did have a video that got like 205. If I still gets views every day, I don't even understand this algorithm. It's crazy. The video's three months old.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

It is bananas, but great platform to share content, get your message out, meet new people, et cetera. Let's talk about what your TikTok journey's been like.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah. So I started TikTok, like I said, back in September of 2020. So not that long ago. So if you're someone who has no online presence and you're like, well, all these people who have followings started years ago. I didn't. I, you know, I started just a few months ago. So this again is your sign to start. But I started in September and I really, you know, like I said, I've been studying the online business landscape and I was like, okay, I'm gonna start now, September of 2020, and just post content for a full year with no expectations because I know that it takes time to build a personal brand at least the right way. I didn't want to take shortcuts. I didn't want to compromise my values or my integrity with any weird brand deals to try to make a quick buck. Like I really was not about that. And so I gave myself a year of trying to find my voice, figure out exactly what I wanted to do because I had all these topics I was passionate about, not really clear on what one thing I wanted to start with. And so I started in September. And you guys can scroll back. I don't have so many TikTok videos that um, you know, you wouldn't be able to find it. And those videos are pretty cringy. I'm not gonna lie, right? But I the point was to just start. And so I started posting every day, I think even two to three times a day for some days, for somewhere between two to three months, and I heard crickets. Like no one was liking my stuff, no one was following me. No, I think I had 33 followers. It was not, and but I kept showing up and I just kept forcing myself to show up, even though it was so uncomfortable. And I remember, and I made a secret TikTok account. This that goes into the perfectionist tendencies where you might want to start your own business, but you're terrified of people in your real life finding you. So, like the typical advice of have your friends and family follow you. A perfectionist would never, you wouldn't want someone to see your early days because you'd be so embarrassed. Um, because we make our external uh, you know, accolades mean something about our worth, which of course they don't, but that's how we think. And so I remember the days where people in my real life found me and I wanted to throw my phone across the wall. I was so embarrassed and I wanted to delete my whole account. Um, that's another story in and of itself. But eventually, um, you know, after that two to three months of crickets, I had my overnight success with one of my videos going somewhat viral, got 10,000 followers from there. And then after that, things started to pick up to where I had about 30,000 followers by the time of quitting in January, when I started to be able to get um speaking opportunities, clients, brand deals, things along those lines. So I say that because a lot of people look at overnight success and it, yeah, maybe one of my videos went viral, but it was because I posted for two to three months every single day, multiple times a day, and I heard crickets for that entire time. So I think that's really important to point out as well that I did not just like come out the gate, like, you know, getting all these views and likes and comments.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So, what did you, what was your original content game plan? I mean, showing up's one thing, creating content's one thing, but actually knowing what to talk about is what I find my biggest challenge is because I sit and just stare at my phone and I go through a mix of should I do a funny video about podcasting or make fun of Clubhouse, or should I do uh, you know, a sappy motivational voiceover with some, with some, you know, uplifting music, uh, which by the way does the best on mine I've found is the are the sappy videos with motivational voiceovers. But how did you figure out your content strategy?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I my content strategy in the beginning was show up and just talk about something. And so I was in the business and like I was talking about business strategy for part of it, and then I was talking about mindset work and personal development for um a while. And I was just anything within those two categories, I was just because I didn't know at that point, right? I was giving myself that full year, just throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what would stick. And so I was just posting about anything that came to my mind that day, kind of like an Instagram story. I would just take a TikTok, talk as if it was an Instagram story for 15 seconds and upload it. Um, it when my first video that went viral, it was on perfectionism. And then after that, that's when the traction started, and those were the videos that did well. So from there, that kind of informed my strategy a little bit more after that. But in the early days, it was just talking about a bunch of things, analyzing what was performing well, also with what I enjoy talking about and kind of going from there.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Love it. Yeah, I mean, it's about showing up and committing to that consistency without being attached to the outcome. So fast forward, you've shown up, you've built a following, you're creating content. What's happened as a result of that?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah, I mean, uh as a result, I quit my job at Deloitte, which I would not have been able to do without TikTok and without my following because I wouldn't have had any way to monetize, right? I think that's really important because when you want to start an online business, I think this is something people don't understand is that you can't just show up on the internet one day and decide that you're I mean, you can decide, but it takes more than that to have someone actually hand over their credit card and say, here, I want to purchase your product or service. And so able to quit the job, work as a, you know, coach full-time, public speaking opportunities, hopefully uh gonna get a book deal soon. So, I mean, just in the course of a few months, my entire life changed. Like I was in a corporate consulting job with no online presence, literally none until September. I mean, my personal Instagram, but nothing of this caliber. And my career changed, where I live changed, like everything in my life got completely flipped upside down, but in the best way possible.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

That's amazing. So, speaking opportunities, brand deals, are these people seeing your content uh on TikTok and going, hey, we saw your content and we want to do a deal with you or we'd love to have you speak at our next event, or how does that how does that usually work? Because people don't really understand how those things usually come together or coordinate. I can never explain them because I'm like, I don't know. They did it just happened.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah. So I for it's both. There's both inbound and outbound. I would say for brand deals, if I do them, they're inbound. That's not really what I focus on. I'm more focused on my business, not the influencer business of being an influencer. I'm more focused on building out my coaching business and my public speaking career. So any brand deals that I have are inbound. There are ways to pitch to brands, but that's not my expertise. Um, but in terms of like other opportunities, speaking opportunities, things like that, it's a combination of people have seen my content and I've gotten those deals, or me reaching out and then having the following and the credibility to back it up that has given me indirectly those opportunities, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it's it's twofold.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So if you like the brand and it's something that fits within your business and could you it's useful to you, it's worth a pitch. Otherwise, you're not in the I'm totally an influencer and I can tell it talk about your brand because I have 200,000 followers.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, no, it's more like a brand will reach out to me. And if it's not aligned, and there's things you could stretch, but I'm not gonna like I've gotten things like for pimple patches. I'm like, I've never even used a pimple patch in my life, and also like that's not even my brand at all, right? But then there's also a company reached out to me with blue light glasses, and I use blue light glasses, and I think it I'm on my computer all the time. Yeah, so that's more aligned. I'm not gonna do and I always test out the product first. I'm not gonna recommend anything that I wouldn't personally purchase. And I broke the pair that they gave me, so I ended up buying a new one. But you know, like uh, because I sat on them, they're still good.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

It happens.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, it happens.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So yeah. So are so when these are these brand deals usually, because I've in my experience, you know, a lot of times they they have they've got a budget and they say, Hey, this here's the campaign, here's much, here's how much it pays. But a lot of the times too, they're like, well, here's your affiliate link. Um, have you experienced that at all with with working with brands?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah, I'll get that a lot. The affiliate link or commission based. And again, like I said, the brand deal part of my business is so minimal. Like so minimal. I do think later I'll probably expand it. But like I said, I'm not focused on it at all. I really don't even want to do them. So unless it's something that I'm very aligned with, both, you know, from a product perspective, values-based perspective, and a financial perspective, for me, I'm not gonna do it. So generally when they're like, here's your affiliate link, or you get commission and it's something that I'm so so, I just I won't do it because that's not that's not my main business model, similar to, I know people are probably um wondering about monetization opportunities on TikTok. There's the TikTok creator fund ways to make money just through your videos. These are ways I can make money and I do, but my primary source of income is through my actual business and the services that I provide. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Let's talk about those.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah. So I my again, so I work with people primarily one-on-one who want to start and grow an online business. I started mostly as a mindset coach, um, really working on, you know, I reframing your mindset and doing subconscious reprogramming to help you overcome and get out of your own way to be able to achieve these goals. Because I saw what happened to me when I was finally able to do actual deep mindset work, not just this like think positive. Like, no, like how do we reprogram your brain, like using these techniques and really change your habits so that they're you're you're working for you, your your mindset's working for you, not against you, because your subconscious mind influences 95% of your reality. Most people think it's mostly your conscious mind, or that, well, if it my conscious mind thinks it, then my subconscious mind thinks it. And so everything's aligned in reality, there's often a huge misalignment. Um, so really helping to reprogramming your mind for success. But what I've recently realized because of my business background, um, and because of, like I said, when I was sitting on those sidelines for three years, I wasn't just sitting on the sidelines just wanting an online business. I wasn't putting myself out there online because I was afraid of what people would think. Um, but I was doing a lot of work and research on the back end on how to grow and monetize an online business. And so recently what I've realized is there's a lot of people online who want to start an online business, but they don't understand the business behind it and the the monetization of it. I think people will slide into my DMs all the time. They're like, I just want to inspire people. I'm like, that's great. We can inspire people, but we also need to figure out how you're going to make money. And so from now, now I'm really more focused on yes, the mindset part is so huge and I'm very passionate about it. But also, how do you create a sustainable and profitable business? Because there's these people, for example, you want to start a health coaching business, right? You want to help people be a personal trainer online, right? Your expertise is in personal training, but you don't know that now you also have to become a marketer and learn direct response copywriting and all of these other things in order to get clients. And that is where I come in now, where it's the mindset of it, but then also the business strategy behind it as well, so that you can start, scale, and grow quickly. Cause I don't want you sitting around waiting three years to get your first client. Like, let's get that first client as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Amazing. I love it. So if you're listening to this right now, you're thinking, hold on a second, I need that. I want to inspire people. If you're doing, you know, if you want to inspire people more than just posting a motivational quote that's been posted 952 times, you definitely need to get in touch with Victoria. All of her links, you can follow her on Instagram and on TikTok, of course. Connect with her on LinkedIn. I'll post the link to the article on Business Insider where her and I originally met on here. Make sure that you connect further and see what's possible on there. I absolutely love what you're up to, Victoria. I love that you said, you know what? I'm stuck in this cubicle if I allow myself to be stuck in this cubicle. And until I get out of my own way, then I'm never going to be able to get to exactly where I want to be. And I see it on a daily basis. I see it happen so much, especially in the world of podcasting. You can imagine I go what I go through in an initial phone conversation when that inner critic starts to go Rambo with my client on, you know, I'm going to sound like crap. It's going to be like nobody wants to talk. Who's going to listen? I don't even know if I'm a podcaster. And if we allow that inner critic and that voice to continue to ramble, it will. It's nonstop. In fact, I you'd probably agree that it's on automatic because we as human beings are interpretation machines, which means we make shit up constantly. It's on autopilot, which is the craziest part. So we've got to be selective with how all that process works. And it's just so encouraging to see an individual like yourself that said, you know what, the cubicle's not for me. I'm quitting. I'm leaning into this whole thing, and I'm going to do the work that Victoria needs to do in order to get to where I need to be. People missed that one component there. I told myself that uh I I'm blessed to have had that happen about seven years ago. I had that nudge, which was, hey, Sebastian, you need to become who you need to be for this brand, otherwise you're going to mess it all up. So you got to figure out Sebastian, we got to go all the way back. We're going way back and it's ugly and it's messy and it takes time and it takes as long as it's going to take. But when you go in and figure these things out, you're able to really repair your mindset and shift it. I hate to say shift your mindset. It's almost as common as you're able to pivot. But uh you you you really are when you're willing to get in and do the work. And once you've done the work, then you've got the real foundation bill, then you can get in there and build something meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you said it's like a filter, because it is a like there's a part, I don't won't go too into detail, but there's a part of your brain, it's called your reticular activating system. It's literally your brain's filtration system. And it will filter, it will delete, distort, and generalize information based on your subconscious program. So if your subconscious programming is saying you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, it's gonna be really hard, it's not possible for you. You are literally going to find evidence of that, even if there's evidence to the contrary right in front of your face, you will not see it. Your subconscious will filter it out. Like it is insane. Um, I could, oh man, I ramble on. I mean, I do ramble on for days about it. That's what I do for a living. But I just love that you say it because it's so, so true. When you get that foundation, you need that foundation first before all the business strategy. Because without that, the business strategy, I can tell you all the business strategy. You won't implement it because you don't think you're good enough to do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

I couldn't agree more. One more time for the people in the back. So, well, you're gonna have to come back. You're a wealth of information that's clear on here, and you got plenty of stuff to talk about. I'm sure you and I are gonna stay connected here. I want to know more about your podcast and what you're up to. Uh, and that's the beautiful part about podcasting is that it is it is a bridge builder, it is a relationship builder. And um uh I look forward to seeing you continue to just crush business and life on here. Congrats on all the success you've had thus far. And uh, you're clearly doing work that matters. You're leaving people different than how you found them, and you're allowing your story to play out as part of that process. So keep doing what you're doing. And thanks so much for your time, Victoria.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Come back soon.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.