LightBox: Meet Esther Nkechi

Content Marketer, Entrepreneur and Personal Development Enthusiast

Nov 24, 2024

Welcome to LightBox, a sub-series of the 20 Something newsletter, where we interview twenty-somethings in hopes of learning from them.

In this edition, we will be speaking with Esther Nkechi, a content marketer and entrepreneur navigating life.

We will be discussing: building a social media career in your twenties (when you do not want to be an influencer), tips on how to start, the importance of personal development, and a few other things.

Let’s dive in!

Hey Esther, please introduce yourself to the class.

Hi everyone, my name is Esther Nkechi, and I own SMC, a social media agency that caters to female founders/CEOs.

I also run a community with a friend, where we carry out impact projects for underprivileged girls and women. In addition, I am very passionate about anything self-development, learning, and becoming the best version of one’s self.

You own a social media agency? How did that come about?

Well yeah — I mean, it’s expanded beyond just social media because we also handle content marketing for clients. So social media, emails, and blogs.

You know those old follow-for-follow trends? In secondary school, I knew all the strategies for growing accounts quickly and was always teaching others. So it was not difficult to see myself working in the social media space, though I knew that I didn’t want to be an influencer.

Then during COVID, one of my friends from secondary school asked me to come on board as an influencer manager. I was doing outreach pitches for her to brands, and within a few weeks, she was hearing back from them! It made me realize that I could do that for myself, and that's how my journey into social media management began. Initially, it was rocky because I just kind of went into it without doing a professional course. It wasn't until I decided to pay for my first course that things turned around.

The person I learned from showed me the possibilities. Around that time, she was earning 200,000 Naira, and I thought, “Wow, so you can earn this much money from this thing?” Then I was charging 15K, so after that course, I had a big mindset shift. I opened a business page, and gave myself two goals: to hit 500 dollars monthly within three months, and 1000 dollars within six.

By God's grace, I hit those targets! I always felt the business was going to be bigger, but it took two years of the process, and timing until I finally transitioned from a freelancer to an agency.

I love the self-belief. Have you always been that confident or was it something you grew into?

I don't know, the goals didn't seem crazily audacious to me, probably because I have always sort of thought with a global mindset. I also think before you can even accomplish anything, your mind first needs to be open.

Remember I mentioned how impactful the course was, and the possibilities it showed me? It’s like how before Usain Bolt broke that record, people didn’t think it was possible. But then as soon as he broke it, the mental limitation was broken, and athletes began to break his record anyhow. It works the same way. You need to first break the mental limitation in your mind to know it's a possibility.

So let's say I want to be like you. I want to have my own social media business, whether as a content marketer, or as a social media marketer. How do I start?

The first thing is the mindset.

You cannot achieve more than what is in your mind. So you need to invest in your mindset. You can't be saying, “Oh, I want to do this, and be successful in it,” but then in your mind, you're not taking it seriously. It's not going to work because you can't achieve more than what's in your mind.

Secondly, if you're a newbie, sorry to say this—but I'm not a fan of free courses. I believe when you want to take something seriously, you should invest in it with your money. There's something about investing your money that makes you learn on a deeper level. Free courses teach you the basics, but the experiences and insights you get from a paid course cannot be gotten for free.

So while you could start with free resources, when you really want to take a path seriously, you should invest in it.

The third thing I would say is understanding, and you can only get this by practical experience. If you're trying to work in the social media field, please build a personal brand. A lot of people run away from it, but it is the best way for you to test your strategies. There are some strategies that you may not have the confidence to test on your client’s account but can test on your own.

So have a page for testing things. Or ask a friend or a business owner whose account you can manage for a few months. Use it to build your portfolio and get reviews.

Thanks for those tips! At the start of the interview, you mentioned that you’re very big on personal development. Tell us more about that.

Oh my god, yes. I feel like if I wasn't on this path (social media), I would focus on personal development. I love it so much. It's crazy how much of yourself can be transformed through personal development.

Any tips on how we can develop ourselves?

Honestly, there's not one way. Something I always say is: “Lean into you.”

Maybe the reason why you're struggling with adopting certain principles is that you're trying to adopt somebody else's roadmap for success. You're trying what works for them, not for you.

For example, I'm a big planner. I cannot go to sleep without planning the day or even the week before. But somebody else may thrive in a system where they don't need to plan, but can still get things done. What works for me may not work for them.

Same with personal development. I like reading, but if you can achieve the same results by watching YouTube videos, or listening to podcasts, or attending conferences, then do those instead.

Stop trying to force yourself to learn through a method that doesn't work for you. Find what works and use that to develop yourself.

How would you say personal development has changed your life?

I don't think there's an area of my life it hasn't touched. It has helped me develop a mindset or resilience in business. With relationships, I used to be a one-friend person. I was comfortable with having only one friend until I experienced a terrible friendship heartbreak and closed myself off. Eventually, I realized that it was not a healthy way of operating. So, I had to push myself to develop new mindsets regarding friendships.

Looking back, a lot of things I struggled with, I now handle so much easier.

I used to be very shy. If you schooled in Unilag, (shout out to Unilag) at the back of FSS, there is a block that I couldn't walk alone. I was so self-conscious that I couldn’t walk if someone was not beside me. I also couldn't speak in public. Recently, someone said to me: “wow, you seem like a natural public speaker.” And I was like, “oh, are you serious?”

When you invest in yourself, people start calling you a natural. But bro, I'm not. This thing didn't come to me naturally. I have developed myself into a person that can do it!

And I think it's just exciting when I compare myself to who I used to be. You then realize that you are the only one who determines who you're going to be in life. There's no such thing as “this is how I am.” It's who you are because you've chosen to remain like that. After all, you are born a baby, and it’s your environment and society that shapes you into who you are. So if society and the environment can shape you, then you can reshape yourself to be literally anyone that you want.

It may be an uncomfortable process, it may take a long time, but you can surely shape yourself into who you want to be and accomplish what you want to.

So what is Nkechi on a good fun day?

The name of this publication is 20 Something? Right?

Yes. 20 something.

Guys, I’m a 20-something-year-old that needs to get a hobby and a life.

(Laughs)

Before I was so keen on work, work, work, work, work. Then in recent years, I have improved by going out and living life more. I love being in nature. I love talking to my friends. The beach is one of my favorite places in the world.

Books you love?

The Mountain is Us by Brianna West. You see that book? When you're ready to change your life, go pick it up and read.

Another really good book that has helped me this season is The Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. It talks about how your ego is kind of getting in the way of your success, and how you need to learn how to be a learner.

Thank you so much for the recommendations! Any fun projects are you working on currently at the moment?

Yeah, so our agency, SMC, has expanded into SMC Société

I have had a lot of conversations with social media marketers, content marketers, freelancers, and agency owners about their challenges. From these conversations, I started launching templates and coaching them.

The major aim of SMC Société is to help take and manage more clients with ease. Some people struggle when managing clients. The endless deadlines, and not being able to sleep, can be very overwhelming, especially as you grow and expand your business. So we are developing products that help people manage their clients with ease.

The second aim of the agency is to help people attract higher paying clients because we all need clients who pay more and stress us less! We also want to help you have a life outside your business. Because freedom is living life on your terms. So it's very important that your business is not taking over your life, and you can have a casual brunch with your girls, without thinking of the endless tasks on your mind.

So if you're looking to attract higher-paying clients, and grow without feeling overwhelmed, we provide the organization, the structure, and the systems to do that.

We plan to expand to courses in the future, but for now, templates are available. It’s super exciting. And it's something that I have enjoyed working on.

Get SMC Société

Use the code 20SOME for 10% off on all the products.

Before we end the interview, do you have any advice for anybody interested in social media? Or looking to earn money, build a business, and develop themselves?

Like I mentioned earlier, lean into you. You don't have to do what other people are doing. Everybody's path is unique.

Then bring down your ego. Your ego is probably the biggest thing that will hinder whatever you want to accomplish. Thinking you know more than you do, and not being able to ask for advice or help, can definitely hinder you.

I will also say, embrace failure, embrace hard times, embrace the struggle. The journey is not always going to be easy. And I think being on social media gives us this illusion that life is meant to be easy, and success comes overnight. But you need to understand, that if you're in a season where things suck, and everybody around you looks like they’re winning, they've probably also gone through a season where it wasn't working out for them, and they had to struggle. So lean into the struggle.

Ask the universe the lessons you're meant to learn during your journey, the person you're meant to grow and develop into, and let those struggles develop you into the person that you're meant to become.

And then block out all the noise.

I liked the last one. This was a very insightful conversation. Thank you so much for sharing, Nkechi!

Thank you for having me, Tres.

Treasure’s Corner.

Entrepreneurs are so cool man, I don’t know how they do it. This was a really good conversation and I hope you guys enjoyed listening to Esther Nkechi. If you’d like to get to know more about her and the work that she does, check out her Instagram.

Been thinking a lot about friendship lately and the next newsletter will probably be on that. For now, here are some pieces of media I consumed in the past two weeks.

Watched

Sex and the City (the series): My feelings for it are very ‘comfort show.’ I like the structure of the show, each episode revolving around an article of Carrie’s, and I wish I had watched it when I was younger. I don’t have a favourite character yet, but when Samantha cried in the ladies’ room about James’ dick being small, I died of laughter.
Deadpool vs Wolverine: Hated it. Not very fond of how capitalism fuels the movie industry—well Treasure, it’s always been like that. I KNOW. It has just gotten a lot worse in the past five years with remakes and features and live actions and origins and spin-offs. There are no new stories, just different versions of an already told story. Hated this movie, hated how gimmick-y it felt, hated the cheap plot device that is “multiverses,” and hated the dog that kept licking Deadpool’s face.

Read

Zadie Smith’s Swing Time. Zadie just unspools me from within. A fantastic novel that inspires a weird kind of longing in me. Weird, because none of the characters in this book have enviable lives, and yet the colour and nuance they are written in makes me want to reach out for them. Nobody writes like Zadie Smith.

Listened