 Aw, what's up everybody, it's Brandon, man, Shawn, and I got a snippet once again from a very special guest, Lady J. You may know her as Lady J. Bookums from our popular Instagram page at Lady J. Bookums. I usually don't do two snippets before I drop an interview with people, but she has so much value and I think the women will get a lot of value out of this particular topic. It's networking as a woman within the music industry. I did one video about that before, but I promised that I would get a woman to actually discuss the subject because what better expert to speak on their own experiences. So let's hop right into this interview. First of all, I always tell people like, people are going to treat you the way you treat yourself. Okay. So, you know, if you are a female and you step into the room treating yourself a certain way, and when I say that, I mean, you know, the way that you look, the way that you carry yourself, the way that you're speaking to people, people will judge you off of that and determine how they want to treat you based off of those things. Now, this is not even just with women. I tell artists in general, you know, I get a lot of artists that contact me. I never respond to people who curse in their message. Like, you don't even know me, but you're cursing while you're emailing me or texting me. That lets me know that you're not professional. You know, I curse on my personal time, but you never see me curse on my videos and everything because I want you to have a certain standard for me. So you're going to treat me the way you see me treat myself. So I think for women, it's very important to treat yourself, walk through the door with a certain aura. You know, not like bougie, like, you know, I'm bougie or whatever, but it doesn't matter what type of man you are. It doesn't matter if he is super hood, super professional, whatever. People will see your aura off that and they will treat you accordingly. Now, I mean, certain circumstances where it is just is what it is, but I've been in this industry around nothing but men, way more men than female. And, you know, as a female, I don't even think it has nothing to do with you being an attractive female. I think, you know, you're just a female, so you're going to get all kinds of stuff coming your way, you know, but I think it's all about how you present it. I never, never have men disrespect me. Every time someone meets me, it's always just, yo, she is just too, she cool, you know. So it's like, it just eliminates everything. I think it's about how you carry yourself, man, how you present yourself, how you talk to people, you know, your body language, how you touch people, you know, a lot of that comes into play. And I think with females, you have to be real careful of how you present yourself, you know, even down to what you're wearing. If you come in with something super short, even I'm going to look, you know. So it's like, you have to, you got to expect certain things, so if, if you're talking about networking, you're going to a network event, you need to dress accordingly, act accordingly, speak accordingly, talk accordingly, have, have things already ready and people will look at you like, oh, okay, she about business, you know. And then you got to just practice on how to curb people professionally. You got an example of that? I would, I would love that. Right, you know, so when I'm out and people say, you know, network events or whatever and people are like, you know, well, can I get your number? I said, no, thank you. So they don't know how to take it because you said, no, thank you. Like some people just be like, no, no, no, you know, you guys said, you know, you guys said what it's now and I just say, no, thank you. And he'd be looking at me like, that just threw me off, you know. But I'm like, let's follow each other on Instagram. That's the new phone number. Like, if you hit people back with a joke, you know, especially men, because men feel, you know, you turn them down, they kind of feel away. But it's just like, you got to learn how to curb people in the right way. You don't have to be angry because somebody is trying to approach you on some other stuff. That's just life, you know. You just got to learn how to curb people. And the more you network, the more you put yourself out there, the more you will learn. Okay, you just got to get out there. Start having certain things that you want to talk to people. When I go to a networking event, it's already certain questions I know I can ask everybody. What do you do? How can I follow you? You know, are you performing? It's just general questions that are like openers. So I think for artists, when you go to a networking event, you need to have a set of general questions or general topics that you can bring up with everybody that you meet. You can always ask somebody what it is that they do. And based off of what they say, oh, I'm an artist. Next question, okay, well, do you sing a rap or both? And then they'll say that, okay, well, you got some music, where can I find you? You know, it's like those opener questions that will take people's minds off of how you look. You know, I want to talk to, you know, it gets them back into the business frame of why we're here in the first place. Okay, perfect. I love that answer, man. That was like, what I think is interesting about what you said is one, just kind of holding in on the fact that when you're networking, you're marketing yourself out to people, right? So really you're branding yourself. And that's the same thing we basically tell artists. So a brand is essentially, you have to put out the expectations of how people perceive you, right? So that's the first piece. Like you got to brand yourself, right? Treat yourself how you want to be treated, I guess you as you say. And then that's it. And I also recommend for people to speak to people first, especially females, don't wait until someone approaches you. When you come into a network event, just go up to people first, because if you let a man approach you first, it's normally gonna be about because of how you look or you know, something like that. But if you go up to someone first and you start that conversation, you say, hey, my name is such and such, you know, it's a networking event. So we all must be an artist or something like that, you know? So you start the conversation first, have a business card in your hand, you know? And pass them a business card, like start it off first, so you control the conversation. Control the conversation. Yeah. Okay. So control the conversation on top of branding yourself, how you want to be perceived. And then also make sure you have a curve in the chamber, but when you- Right, a kind curve. Yeah, a kind curve. Right. Let him do some pillows to fall on. Right. Okay. All right, all right, as always, I hope you got a lot of value out of that. The full interview will be dropping soon. If you happen to be watching this video after the full interview has dropped, then the link in the description below will become active and you will be able to watch the full interview. If it doesn't work, then you know the full interview has not dropped yet. Just stay tuned. We have a lot of good content coming up on this channel. One last thing I would love to hear from other women and their experiences, maybe some other tips they have in terms of networking in general, but specifically within the music industry. Of course, that would be extremely helpful for all of those who are reading the comments. Other than that, if you liked this video, go ahead and hit the like button. If you like it, might as well share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe button.