Butternomics - The Business of CultureButternomics - The Business of Culture

How to Build a Personal Brand That Commands Respect and Bigger Paydays with Jamé Jackson

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Published Jan 30, 2025, 2:06 PM

Butternomics the Business of Culture

Butternomics: The Business of Culture takes a deep dive into the intersection of business and culture, showing how brands, entrepreneurs, and tastemak… 
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In this episode of Butternomics, Jamé Jackson Gadsden breaks down the art of building a personal brand that commands respect—and bigger paydays. From mastering LinkedIn and video content to negotiating with confidence, she shares how showing up authentically can open doors to unexpected opportunities. Whether you’re a creative, entrepreneur, or professional looking to level up, Jamé’s insights will help you stand out, get noticed, and get paid what you deserve. 

Somebody says, like, you know, luck is when opportunity needs preparation, And I was always preparing.

I always stay ready.

So I don't have to get ready, and so then when the opportunity presented itself, it allowed me to then step up to the plate.

Stay ready.

A lot of people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs looking at what everybody else is doing.

You need to be preparing.

You need to be scripting, You need to be writing, You need to be testing out video. What are you doing now to educate yourself on AI and innovation? What are you doing right now to test out the new formats of video and storytelling? How are you trying to tap into your audience now? It doesn't have to be perfect and tech. We talk about a minimal viable product. Put up the basic version of it. Perfect it later.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of button Nomics. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter atl and today got a special guest in the building. Not only is she a multi hyphened I just learned that word to use it, you know what I'm saying. But not only is she an entrepreneur an actress, but She's also a community manager and podcast hosted LinkedIn Miss Jimmy Jackson, Jammy, how you doing today?

Blah blah, rand I'm have to stick you on tour with me. I want that introduction all the time. It's crazy that you just learned what a multi hyphen it is, because you too are also a multi hyphenant, so I don't understand.

So I'm just throwing up a mirror to you today. I'm just showing you who you are.

I just say I do a lot of shit. That's that's I just say, you know I do.

That's a multi hyphen it.

Of course, that's exactly what I would say, but I don't necessarily say that on my LinkedIn profile. But yeah, whenever you see you see the work, you see the receipts, that's a multi hyphen it.

We do a lot of.

Things, absolutely, and we're gonna get into that. You know, that'll be the only time nowhere, That'll be only the only curse word I say on this podcast because we have a profession very professional conversation today with Jammay about you know, just again LinkedIn and content and how people can be more successful. So those who don't know Jamaki you please give folks a rundown on what you do.

Yeah.

So, in all seriousness, really being a multi hyphenic kind of comes into my nine to five every single day. As a community manager, I am coaching literally thousands of people at scale on everything from video best practices to showing up more authentically on LinkedIn, to figuring out how do you tell your story in a way that helps you both build community but also hopefully get on the radar of the people who can put some money in your pocket. I work with everybody from sales and bizdev professionals to marketing, to people in the social media space to my fellow creatives right podcasters, and I really really just enjoy kind of showing people like who you are is enough and how you show up on social doesn't have to be cat like. I know a lot of people see LinkedIn and they think I have to present myself a certain way, but I always challenge, well, what is professionalism to you and how do we craft that narrative? So that's one part of my job. Then the other part is now being a podcast host. My amazing co host Gianna and I have a new podcast called Let's Talk Offline where we were really talking to gen Z in earlier career professionals and kind of answering those unspoken rules of work, things that you wish you had known.

Now, I'm not gen Z. Okay for all y'all listening, and you're gonna be like, wait, what happened? I'm not gen Z. I'm a millennium. But I think like what we have.

Learned by building let's talk offline is there's so many more similarities than differences across generations. If we all just sat down and talked to each other, and we're honest, we would actually get to learn a lot from each other. And so we come out with like weekly episodes and we really get to talk. And I'm just gonna tell y'all, I'm very chaotic on the show. I'm very cha on the hip, but it's all love, and honestly, I'm just really happy that, you know, it lends it myself to opportunities, including to chat with you like Brandon, you'd be doing some big stuff.

I see you.

Yeah, I'm out here. I always tell people I strategically pop out, you know, like now when I pop out, I pop out, but I strategically pop out out here. And these in these atl and in these social media internet streets. But I appreciate it.

I mean, Kendrick said it best.

Sometimes you really do got to pop out and show people because then they won't play with you.

Right now, I'm the first one to say, don't play with it.

Absolutely, Now help me Understandjama's night. And again you say you have all these insights around just LinkedIn, and I think again people have seen that. You know, over the last couple of years, we all used to think it was just you know, super professional, suited and booted, and you start to see people put more kinds of content on LinkedIn. I'm not gonna lie sometimes I'm like, oh, that's a little out there. I didn't know we were going that far with it. So, you know, but like, what's working right now from a content standpoint on LinkedIn? And like what should people be focusing on to create to help get themselves out there in front of people that they want to be noticed by.

I love that question.

So yeah, I mean, you know, there's definitely moments where I'm like, uh, maybe that could have been saved for the group chat. But I definitely think that what we're learning is that professional conversations can look many different ways. Like I remember I posted a video on LinkedIn maybe a couple months ago, and I talked about professional haters. I was dealing with somebody in my life who was just really hate even from inside a club, like bro, like you you with me, like why are you hating? And I did a video on that, and next thing I know, I woke up and we were over a million impressions and it kept going and going and going. And so I love to use that example because it just highlights that professional conversations are.

As unique as the people telling them.

And so I always say that if you can approach LinkedIn from the idea of I have a professional insight that I want to share with the world, and if you figure out a way in which to craft it that the audience can relate to, that's how you build community. With that being said, there's so many different ways that you can tap into your audience at LinkedIn night. Obviously, if you spend time on LinkedIn, you've seen things like you know, posts, You've seen probably articles or newsletters, which I always am gonna encourage. But a format that we really have been seeing a lot of success in is video, particularly short form video, So a short form video, I'm going to classify that as like a two minutes or less, think quick, actionable, snappy, and that like have a clear beginning, middle, and end. You got to remember a lot of people are consuming content, whether it's on LinkedIn or any other platform, on their phones, and so you want to be able to catch people's attention really really quickly, and you really want to give them something that makes them want to keep coming back. And so with LinkedIn in particular, because we are a professional platform, you have the ability to still be funny and quirky and fly and cultured and anything else, but you can still do it by sharing a professional insight that informs somebody else. And so one of the things if y'all take nothing else from this interview today, I'm going to tell you how on the video wave at LinkedIn, we are seeing uploads up forty five percent year over year. You know, we're seeing just so many people tap into it from all different industries, and really it's just as unique as you want it to be. There is no one rhyme or reason or one method of success. You have to just experiment and find what works for you.

Yeah, and I mean I've heard for the last couple of years. I mean, people like Gary ve talking a lot about the importance of LinkedIn and getting on there and just you know, finding places that have space. What is it about that video that went viral that you know made you think it went viral? Because as a person that creates content, I always tell people you don't know where the thing is going to be, so you got to kind of keep creating. But like looking back on it now, having a little bit of space and time between that, you know. And also I think too, when you look at things that do pop off, I love to read the comments because even in the comments you can kind of see different themes and whatnot. So just if you kind of reverse engineered that piece of content for a second, what do you think made it work so well?

I'm very much so the same in the sense that, like, I've been creating content online for over a decade, and so another video I actually did was about not chasing virality, because I've worked at different media publications where virality was the name of the game, and it's not sustainable for any creator, let alone for those of us who don't have teams, who don't have social media managers. We have to do all this on our own. And I think what made that video in particular successful was that I was just real, Like the video is me sitting on my bathroom floor doing my mate up, talking about these things and telling people like, you need haters in your life.

It's good for character development.

I think you need this because it helps teach you who really shows up for you and like who is really going to be there for you in your best times and your worst times. And those are things that you need because as you continue to kind of grow up through the ranks and as you continue to accelerate in your career, you got to be able to vet the people who say they with you and the people who just stay they're with you.

And I think people really appreciated that vulnerability.

They appreciated the realness, which is why I tell people all the time, like, you don't have to be anybody else but yourself, Like who you are, where you come from, how you talk, how you present yourself, how you interpret the world is more.

Than enough to build community.

And this is honestly something that we talk about a lot, even on like let's talk offline for instance, right because when the opportunity came for me to be part of this podcast. The first thing I thought I tapped into was my apost syndrome. I was like, nobody wants to hear this little black girl go off like who's had a very untraditional career path, who's worked tons of different jobs, you know, like if you look at my resume, it almost never makes sense. And I was like, that's not going to be serviceable. But then what I realized is when I got in the booth, that's exactly what people needed to hear. People needed to see somebody who looks like them, who was chasing an untraditional career path, speak on her observances of life. And also, particularly for our audiences of color, they needed to see a woman like me in these spaces. And so I say all of that to say that, like you said, you'll never know if something is gonna go viral or not.

But first of all, that should never be the intention.

You should just put the content out there because you wanted to affect someone in a positive way or inform or whatever you know your verb is. But then by showing up continuously for that audience, you start to satiate the itch that they had that they didn't even know they had, and soon you become the person that they always want to turn to to get that itch.

No.

You know, it's funny. I always kind of tell my team on the content creation side up with Butter and say, you know, if you ever watch somebody that's juggling the trick that juggling isn't catching the ball, that's throwing the ball. And so you know, if you watch somebody knows how to juggle the ball that they the hand they used to catch it doesn't really move. That's because their throws are so consistent. And I think it's the same thing when it comes to content, right, Like you know, you have to get just consistent and kind of throwing stuff out there because you never know what's going to be the thing. I mean, there's a piece of content that we created one time and it's lily like five chicken wings on a plate at the office, and you know, we posted it, made a little caption around it. When I tell you, Chrissy Tigan's out here reposting it, and now all of a sudden, Complex is reposting it. And now all of a sudden, the USA, what is it a morning show is calling us up and doing a whole segment on how to use your chicken wings. And I'm like, all this happened from like a photo that I just took on my phone in like ten seconds and just threw something out there, right, And so kind of putting it together is what it's about. But even to the point you made it about, even like making that content while you're doing your makeup in your bathroom. I think again, people have a lot of trouble sometimes separating out, like when they think about professionalism versus just authenticity. You know, what made you so comfortable with you know, your audience and the platform of LinkedIn to be able to do something like that where it wasn't superscripted or you weren't like in an office or like in a like overly business professional setting, because some people might think, oh, that's not for LinkedIn, you know, that's for you know, some other social platform. Like what made you comfortable in saying you know what, No, this is me and I'm comfortable putting this content out here, even on this professional network kind of social platform.

Yeah.

I think I spent so much of my twenties trying to be somebody else because, particularly when I first started off in my industry. I was working in like the fashion and beauty space. I had started my business when I was twenty one, and there was an idea of how black women in the fashion industry showed up right, and it was very like magazine editor curated, like everything had to be polished in prim and proper. And I'll never forget I was at brunch one day because look, I'm a DC girl, so one thing I'm gonna do is find a brunch.

Okay, I know y'all be going up in Atlanta too.

We got so I remember being This was a couple of years in and I was out with some friends and one of my friends was like, you know, who you are online is cool and all, but that's not who you are.

And I was like, oh well, drag me over the mimosa. What are you talking about? And she was like, cool, you present online to be It's cool, and that is a facet of you, Like that's the fashion and beauty, colorful.

Side of you.

But you're not showing people your real person like your personality like talking through video or through other formats, and that is your superpower, Like you make people feel welcome, You make people feel included you make people know like it doesn't matter where you come from, like you are enough. And I really took that to heart where I started to ask myself, Okay, how can I show up more authentically online? And how can I show up more authentically not just with my immediate peer space, but also to people who ever come across any piece of content? And I kid you not, Brandon, I prayed, and I said, Lord, guide me in the way so that I can show up authentically in every space I'm in. Any room you put me in, when I walk out, they're gonna know Jamay was there. It's never gonna be a question of who was this girl? Whatever whatever else. Because if the room is meant for me, I'll succeed in that room. But if the room was not meant for me, I won't even get in there, or if I get in there by my own default, it won't work out.

And that's totally fine.

And so as I started to choose different career paths, or I really as I started because look, I loved journalism because there was no money. I was like, I was like, I'm expensive, I am a high cost woman. I like nice, I love oysters. I'm not gonna deprive myself of oysters ever, and I was like, I need money. And so when LinkedIn was building out really our community side, I said, you know what, I like talking to people. At the time, they were looking for someone, particularly in the fashion and beauty space, who could work with creators like the Tory Burchs, Rebecca Meekoffs of the world. So I was like, bet okay, cool, I'll come over. But over time, over these past few years, I realized the more you show up authentically in these rooms, the more other people can start to identify your gifts and talents, and then they can start to build things for you that you don't even see for yourself.

I never in.

A million years would have thought I would have had a podcast with LinkedIn.

Never, But you know who was it?

Somebody says, like, you know, luck is when opportunity needs preparation, And I was always preparing.

One thing about me, I'm always in the wings preparing.

I always stay ready so I don't have to get ready, and so then when the opportunity presented itself, it allowed me to then step up to the plate.

And I think, like for me, one thing I.

Always encourage creators of all industries, but particularly our black creators.

Stay ready.

A lot of people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs looking at what everybody else is doing. You need to be preparing, you need to be scripting, you need to be writing, you need to be testing out video. All right, cool? You just want to I don't know you just went to Afrotech, because I just came back from afrotech.

It was lit.

You know, you just went to afrotech and you saw all these panels up there about people talking about AI innovation. What are you doing now to educate yourself on AI and innovation? What are you doing right now to test out the new formats of video and storytelling? How are you trying to tap into your audience down? It doesn't have to be perfect and tech. We talk about a minimal viable product. Put up the basic version of it, perfect it later. And so I know that that was a super long answer, but I get so passionate about it because so many of the things that I have brought into my life have just been because I've just decided to be me. And particularly for let's talk offline, as Gian and I have crafted out these different episodes, everything from navigating you know, your first big boy, big girl job, managing a toxic manager, building work friendships like do you even need to make friends at work?

Like?

These are real conversations and at no point do we ever shy away from the truth. I'm not here to tell you what you want to hear. I'm here to tell you what I've learned through experience and what I think you need to hear that you can then take away and apply to your life. And so I just genuinely say, when you walk in your purpose and when you walk in your calling and you walk in the idea that you are dope, everything else falls into place. The opportunities fall because the universe can't do anything but respect the fact that you're standing on business.

You're standing on business by being yourself.

Yeah, you know, like they say, you know, be yourself. Everybody else is taken.

Period, and it's expensive to be everybody else.

I think we're in a space right now. All I'm not even think I know it because I've experienced in myself to where when you put out certain stuff in the world, you kind of create a POV a representation of you through the content that you create and the things you work on. People start to get an idea, and what happens is you never know who's got a problem that your specific skill set can kind of solve. Right, So, now all of a sudden you have people reaching out to you and looking for certain kind of things. You Know, what I wondered is when you had that moment and that kind of viral moment, that first video and even the stuff you've worked on now, like, what were some of the opportunities to start to exist or started to come to manifest that you didn't even expect based on just some content that you put out that you get like reached out to you by certain people or new opportunities, Like, what were some of the benefits of that so people can kind of understand were some of the benefits of creating and controlling your own destiny by creating your own content and putting your own stuff out there.

I love that question because, like you sort of introed me in the beginning, I'm also an actor. I previously was musical theater and theater, and then after the strikes of twenty three I really said I want to get into film and television. There's a unique opportunity to tell stories through this medium. And I started training, but I kept getting in my head a lot. I was like, Okay, what content do you even put out here?

You know what I mean?

Like, and anyone who's an actor, you're gonna understand this part because it's like you're waiting for someone to book you for the project so that you can have the clips to build your demo reel. Yeah, but if nobody's booking you, you don't have your demo reel. We're in a new market, we are in a new job market. This is something we talk about at LinkedIn all the time. You have to get very innovative and creative with how you get your stuff out to your audience. So you get a lot of actors nowadays, they're creating their own shorts. They're stepping into being a director, they're stepping into being a scriptwriter, they're getting into writers rooms.

And what I started.

Testing out, and I tested this out through LinkedIn at first, was well, what happens if I do just sit down and create a video recording you know, me doing my makeup, but it's not about the makeup. It's about me talking about showing up for yourself or believing in yourself or even video best practices and tips.

And when I tell you.

That, the op opportunities that started to come as a result of that where just something I hadn't even seen. I mean, first of all, internally, I became known as that video girl, like that girl who like creates this type of content. And this is where I say, our power can fall. You want a certain job in a company and it doesn't exist. You start doing what the work is of that job, and if you're good enough at it, you can start creating your own JD. You can start calling some shots, you can start advocating for yourself in a way where people know you specifically for that opportunity. Outside of the company. Casting directors started to hit me up. They were like, we see that you can be on camera. You know, do you have other clips? And by then you know I had things from the hosting spaces and all these other things.

Sometimes you just need to get your foot in the door.

And one of the things that we talk about a lot, particularly on like Let's Talk offline, is that you know, gen z is going through their own challenges of how they show up. A lot of them were in school when the pandemic happened, and then now they've positioned and maybe they their first job or two out of school, you know, they were working from home and now some of them are going into the office for the first time. They're meeting new managers. They have to learn on the fly. And so one of the things that like we always are encouraging through our episodes is how do you stand out and how do you do the thing that nobody else wants to do?

You know?

And I think that that's really sort of the power that you have, Like what is nobody else doing around you?

Well do that?

Do that, because then all of a sudden, you know what, you become indispensable. Nobody wants to let go of the person who does good work like they do not, and people will advocate for that.

So I just always say, put the content out there.

And the last thing I'll say on this it does not matter how many views, how many likes, how many whatever you get. Particularly when we think about video on LinkedIn. What has been so encouraging are the notes that I get from different creators. You know, they hop they hop in my emails or even some of them they find me on Instagram or whatever else because they're just so excited.

I'm like, okay, well that's fine, and they send me notes and they're like this.

You know, I was discouraged at first because I posted this video and I took your tips and I only got like five thousand views or whatever. But then a few days later, the CEO of this company hit me up. Or I got on the radar arm this person who went to school with this person and now they've connected me with this Or I got.

Booked for a speaking engagement because of this video.

And those are the success stories that we don't talk about a lot because everybody wants the virality moment. Everyone wants that big moment where all of a sudden, you became an overnight success. But anyone who knows anything about an overnight success is an overnight success takes twenty years to make.

So it may not take you twenty.

Years, but it is going to require you to be intentional and show up day after.

Day after day. Don't get caught up on the views, don't get caught up on the likes.

Look and see who's in your comments and culture and nurture that audience. That's something that everybody can take and something I even have to hold myself accout before sometimes I get real busy. You're never too busy for your audience, not if you want to make some money, You're never too busy.

No, absolutely, you know. I was talking to somebody the other week about just because they were looking for an opportunity to kind of get into the agency space, and what I was telling them is kind of very similar to what you said, was that the reality is you don't get a promotion unless you're usually doing the job already, Like nobody you don't usually wait until you get the promotion to start doing the job. Like if you're getting promoted, you're doing it. Same thing when it comes to content, like if you want the job, because this person didn't have a ton of experience in the area they were trying to get into, and it's that whole vicious cycle of where you don't have the experience but you want to get in. So how do you show your expertise and just your thought Because if you're coachable and you're trainable and people see that you have a good POV, they can show you how to do the job. So, like I told them, I said, look like you love strategy for example, like go find your favorite brands and start just creating like strategies and talking about it on social media and talking about it on LinkedIn specifically, and if you're good at it, and people can kind kind of see like the you know, the seeds of something better there, You'll never know who will reach out to you and maybe give you an opportunity to get in because you've already showed them the way that you think. I mean, you have to understand that for a lot of these companies, they can't take this. So take the risk of not knowing if you're going to work out ahead of time. Right, So by kind of doing that stuff ahead of time, you're kind of showing them this is how I think. This how I approach problem solving, This how I proach strategy. So if I was to come join your organization, you're already gonna seen that part. Now you can kind of train and mold me to kind of be more effective. Right. So that was a piece of advice that I gave somebody. But this is what I want to do. This is what I want to know. Something I've always wanted to do and want to do more of on this show is let's do a quick live brainstorm. So I'm not based on what you know about me? What should I be doing on LinkedIn? What kind of content should I create? You know, I run a social platform called butter Atl. I do my butter Nomics podcast. I've worked at agency space, I've been a technologist, Like, what are some things that I should think about creating on LinkedIn so that I can, you know, get that, get that big time next opportunity come into my way.

Well, I'm so.

Happy because you knew I was going to follow up, but you after because I was like, we have some things to discuss. So let's see a couple of things that I think that you already do well. Is you already are sharing, like you know, clips from your podcasts.

I tell people all the time.

LinkedIn doesn't have to just be a place where finance, healthcare and tech people thrive. If you are a creative creator, you need to be posting. We all know about showing your receipts, and LinkedIn is a wonderful place to do that because you can build that community with your friends, with your church folks, with your mama and them. But you're also going to do it with your future employer. So I would definitely say that what you do well is sharing parts of your podcast. Now where I would love to see more is, for instance, you just take in a camera and less branding, you know, outside of the podcast, but you even just sitting down and like sharing like those actionable like you know, here are three things I wish I had known when I first started out in a game, or like here are three things that you need to be successful if you want to do X, Y and Z, Like these are action oriented, insightful pieces of content that people can say, Okay, I can take this right now and I can apply it to my life and I can better it. Obviously, you have a team, so like even you talking about you know, what are things that you wish you had known before you started managing your team? Or you know one thing I love to see because I always think and try to think it headlines.

It's like five things you need.

To do before you hire an executive assistant, because everybody thinks the first thing you do when you start making money is building the team. You're building a team and you have no infrastructure and you have no money.

You have temporary money, but you need money.

So I always say, and we've talked about this repeatedly, like put yourself also in the shoes of the person who is watching or reading or consuming that piece of content.

What does your audience want to know?

What are the questions people ask you on a day to day basis, like how can you kind of rebuild that?

And how can you share that? Particularly in a video format.

I definitely think that we all have an opportunity to sort of elevate our video storytelling and such a unique way.

And look, I get it nowadays.

You know, I've been in the game so long with this that I've seen all the different iterations of video creation. There used to be where you just like shot it on a basic camera, and then there was like that wave where everyone had the DSLRs and then you had to get the ring lights and the tripods and this and that, And now we've kind of gotten back to this whole Like your iPhone or your smart or your smart device is enough on LinkedIn.

That's more than enough. Like people are.

Doing so well with the bear remember minimal viable product. It's the storytelling that matters. And what I would say the storytelling on LinkedIn differs from other platforms is that other platforms, Okay, you just post a dancing video. That's fine, it's for entertainment, right. LinkedIn is different in the sense that one where an SEO optimized website. So your post copy should still be optimized that if someone was searching X, Y and Z on Google, they could find it through LinkedIn, but also share enough that, like, people could depend on the post copy and not watch the video. I always say, in a perfect world, you would have a really strong post copy that could operate outside of the video, and you would also have a very actionable video that could operate outside of the post copy. When you marry those two worlds together, you get this really really great piece of content that people just kind of get to know and love and so like that would be kind of honestly where I would say start and then let me see, I'm going to look right now, because I'm gonna hold you accountable, Brandon. Some people are like thanking you and saying nice things in your comments, and I don't see you writing bad.

Didn't you talk about.

This, We didn't talk about it. You gotta get on me. I gotta do better with that.

Yes, if someone is thanking you, then you gotta find oh off up.

So that's that's another thing. Yes, engage in.

The comments, engage in the comments, engage elevence the comments are so important. I tell people, comments to me are liquid gold for LinkedIn, and I'm gonna tell you why. So you and I connected on LinkedIn or whatever else, and you post a piece of content that I find really awesome, and you know you've added a call to action a CTA at the end of your post, you know, being like, so what are your thinking?

You know, what are your thoughts? X Y and Z.

That's another thing that you can add to your posts moving forward. I'm looking like, click the link to listen is good, but it's not. But we want to get people to engage in the comment. So, Okay, you've put out this great piece of content. Whatever you've asked me, you know, a call to action than you know, So what do you all think about x Y and Z. Now I'm chiming in on the comments and I'm sharing you know how I feel about it, x Y and Z. Our algorithm is now saying, Okay, Jimmai liked this piece of content.

Who of Jamay's followers or in.

People in her orbit and community like similar things that she likes that now we can show Brandon's piece of content too. So that is how if you've ever looked in your LinkedIn profile and you're like, who is this person who is now on my feed? That's how they're getting there because you've, at some point or another interacted with a piece of content that's gotten there, and then it's gone around.

It's like it's like the solar system.

I don't know how to explain it, but everything kind of goes into orbit and it comes back around. So I say all of this to say, when you post a piece of content, engage with the comments, get people to you know, don't be click baity, but like get people to engage in the comments, and follow up with them, ask them follow up questions because ultimately, outside of that with the algorithm, what you're also doing is you're priming your audience with information that and once they kind of respond, you can use that information for future pieces of content. Nowadays, a lot of the videos that I create personally on LinkedIn are spurred from someone else's comment on another video, Like someone's like, oh I love that you talked about this, would you be able to talk about this next time?

And I'm like, cool, bet log it in the back pocket.

And at some point or another I get to it, so you know, definitely see this as like as a machine in a vehicle that you can kind of always ask yourself, what can I be spoon feeding my audience, But as your audience is engaging, what is your audience asking of you that you can then create more content for?

Okay, well, now I got another question because I not you know what, First of all I hear and receive the feedback. Something I do not do well is turn the camera on myself. And I got stuff to say. Trust me, I got like a whole little notepad of stuff that I would make videos about and say. But on the flip side, let's say you make a piece of content, and especially on LinkedIn. Something I've even thought about myself is when people disagree with your perspective or to disagree with your point of view, right, and like you don't want to feel embarrassed and they say, you know, I don't. How do you kind of handle that situation not to call them haters, cause again, like people would have a difference of opinion, but in a professional setting and somebody says, you know what I see in them tips, but I don't think this is right? Like, how do you kind of handle those moments and what advice you have for people that are creating content that are experiencing you know, that kind of engagement.

You know, I think discourse is healthy.

I don't think you should ever want everybody to agree with you, because if everybody agree with you, then you luke more like you don't really stamp for nothing, you know what I mean. That's that's kind of how I feel about it now. Obviously, there are some opinion you have that are really really strong, and then there are some opinions that you're like, eh, okay whatever.

But like instance, before we started recording, we were talking about football.

Teams, and I have a strong opinion about my football team and you have one for yours.

But under the guise of the Lord and all of his children, we love each other, but we also understand the difference.

Right now, I could take that and be one of those like, oh, no, I would Brandon say you this well a lot, But I'm also like, nah, he's sharing his own opinion, and I can do the same. I think what LinkedIn does really well is we provide the platform. We have over a billion members, so more than likely if you are creating and if you are sharing your story, at some point or another, somebody is going to disagree with you, or they're just.

Not going to see you for ie for eye.

That's actually wonderful because if you share your own personal idea or thought process or how you've done something and somebody comes up and they're like, yeah, but like I've also done it this way, well, now you've also done an exchange of knowledge. You've learned something new, as long as everybody.

Keeps it cute, right, and now the other people.

Who are also in that comment section or engaging with the content is now continuously being informed. I think healthy discourse is necessary, and honestly, when you are putting yourself out there to be a storyteller, to be a creator, you have to get comfortable with being misunderstood, with being misinterpreted at times, and for people not always agreeing with you. You know, I think, like, for instance, with let's talk offline, Gianna and I are we have two very different lives, two very different career paths, two very different entry ways and life experiences, and there are times where what she may say and I say, like on the surface level, could appear like they are contrasting each other.

But What we're really saying is your.

Viewpoint and my viewpoint are both right, and they both actually reflect our audience and the people who are listening. Some people, on some days, they may see more like I'll give you an example.

We have an episode where we talk about work.

Friendships and Gianna is very much so like, I want to make friends at work, and I'm like, go home, get your check, and go home. Like there are some people who, yeah, like I've had my wedding and you know whatever else that I'm cool with. But I've also lived through experiences where I've seen how that can get sticky. So we're not telling you you got to make friends or you don't how to make friends. What we're saying is you have a viewpoint. I have a viewpoint. Now we can share it together and anyone listening can now take that and they can kind of make their own informed decision off of it. And I personally think when you present information like that as a this is what's worked for me and this is how I've seen it, instead of this is prescriptive and this is the only way you can do it. You invite more people to the table, and honestly, when you think about the diversity of thought. That's really what I'm encouraging people to do. And that's why I say, as I've said repeatedly, you being yourself is what matters here.

You don't got a sugar coat it, you don't got to spice it up.

Uh, you just got to be yourself and you're gonna build the audience that you need to because people are gonna see it and they're gonna relate to it, or even if they don't, they can respect game. And that's it.

All right, let me start making these videos and start making this content before you start sliding in my email checking me real quick, you know I will.

I'm gonna be like, hey, Brandon, so where's the video for this week? Where's it at in the drafts?

What's up?

I'm gonna start working on those. I'm gonna drop and get ready coming soon y'all. It's gonna be all over your feed. And one of the things you also talk about is just the idea of like negotiation and kind of like setting boundaries of people. You know, why is it important for you know, creatives and millennials and gen z to like you know, who like really have challenges advocating for themselves. Why is it important to kind of speak up in those in those professional situations.

Man, Negotiating is one of my favorite topics.

But if you would ask me five years ago, I would have literally just like started having like heart palpitations. We have an episode actually when we talk about negotiating and the reason why it's so important for us to talk about it, And I say this in the episode, people will try to play you.

There's no other way for me to say it.

If you get people an inch, they will take forty miles, they will run.

They will just keep going.

And as much as you could like look at it and be like, yo, why would you do me like that?

Why is this?

You didn't set boundaries? Boom, You didn't set the boundaries. You didn't figure out okay, where is my line? And I tell people all the time, negotiating doesn't just start or stop at the nine to five. You have to figure out ways to negotiate everything in your life. And if you struggle with that, starting with small things can help too. Like, for instance, I negotiate what I want for dinner. You want one thing, well, I might maybe I want something else. Let's figure out how do we comp from us right, or you know I have I have an assignment.

You know, I have a project do this day, but I can't because I have X, Y and Z.

Also, let me sig fix, sit down with my manager and figure out, Okay, how can we reprioritize or negotiate maybe a new deadline. And I think a lot of people get nervous because one maybe there the fear of rejection is there, like you're afraid, like, oh, if I ask for what I want, people gonna say no. Well they were gonna say no if you didn't ask anyway, So yeah, you don't have anything to lose, you might as well ask.

You know what I mean? And I and that has only come from being an entrepreneur.

This is why I think so many more creatives should work corporate jobs. I understand the whole. I want to be an artist and I want to be celebrated from my work. Well, we have bills, if we have bills to pay. And one thing I have learned is that these corporate corporations want creatives.

They want our minds, they want us to come in.

But it was by being an entrepreneur, being that young blogger or host or media personality who had to figure out how do I negotiate my own contract because I don't even have money to.

Hire a lawyer. I had to learn all of that on my own.

And this was before the chat GPTs were out there, so you really were deep there.

Yeah.

Yeah, you were asking your friends or personally, like how much would you do this whatever? Try to figure out, you know, tally it up in your head like a calculator. And I'm so thankful for that time because it's made me so bullish now about making sure I'm good.

You make sure you're good.

That's not selfish because when you are good and whatever good means for you, whether that is financially, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, whatever, then you can.

Show up and do your best work. But you can't do that until you know you're good.

And when it comes to negotiating and boundaries, it's just a conversation. It's just a conversation that we're having. And like I said, I the people are gonna agree and then they're gonna give it to you or they're not. And then at that point, now you have the leverage to decide do I walk away or do I say And I just think we need to get more comfortable with advocating for ourselves because again, what do you have to lose?

And I always and I love this a lot because particularly when.

You think about, you know, when you get that first job offer or any job offer, people don't want to push back because they like, they gonna take the offer. And I've said this in the episode that we talk about for negotiating, If you're that girl, they're not gonna take the offer away, like for real, for real, like if you really, if you really are that, if you are the person who you say you are and who you think you are, like, they're not going to take the offway. Now, if you go ask and ask for like you know, Oprah level money on a job that's gonna cap the like ninety five bands, Like okay, that's different. But if you really can back up what you're saying and you can kind of show why you're asking for, what you're what you're asking for, if you can show your experience, if you can show, as we talked about earlier, transferable skills that you have amassed over your jobs, you build a.

Case for yourself. And let me tell you, even when I have.

Gotten rejected from brand deals or from opportunities or jobs. I still go to bed well at night knowing that at least I showed up for myself.

All you have in this world is yourself and your word. You got to show up for yourself.

No, one hundred percent. I mean, you know, I think people will vary a lot of times, hesitant to negotiate or pushback or ask questions. And I tell folks, one, you're not taking any money out the hiring manager's pocket, like they don't get to keep the money that they didn't offer you. And a lot of these times these companies have pay bands. But like you know, I've had a role before. I literally negotiated my offer for almost a month. I mean at a certain level, at a certain level, when you start getting certain levels of job offers and you start getting like employment contracts, and it's like, oh, I need my attorney to review this, and all of a sudden, by the time your attorney looks at it, and then their attorney looks at it, like a month is gone by, and guess what, the job didn't go anywhere.

It's not gone.

But I was so happy that I went through that process because now when I land, when y'all got into the same place, got same same and everybody was happy. I got what I wanted, They got what they wanted. It's all written in stone, and I'm like cool, you know, versus the alternative, which could have been, oh man, I'm so happy here you go signed it, and now all of a sudden, I'm you know, giving things away or leaving things in right, So you have to be comfortable with kind of you know, being able to have those convers Now. You can't do it all the time. I got to be honest now, like you say, you can't do with everything. But I've just learned that there are certain roles where it's just kind of an expectation at a certain level that you know what, I need somebody else to look at this, and there's gonna be a little more more conversation around what's all quite required in here, because there's a lot of other considerations at certain levels, you know.

Yeah, And I.

Think sometimes where we make the mistake is we're just so thankful to be in there.

You're just happy to be here. Yeah.

And I've said this before.

This is an exchange of goods and services, Like let's keep it a stack, Like can you love your job?

Yes.

Can you feel fulfilled with the work you do? Yes, But at the end of the day you stop performing. All that love, family stuff go right out the window and you about to be over there likes it's not personal, and I think, like we got to take the personal out of it, like this is not personal, like you said, like that, you're not taking money away from somebody else. And I have learned the first job I got where like I was pushing like money. I was like, oh wow, I was so starstruck by the number I didn't even negotiate. Now afterward, I was like, Okay, cool, you know that's fine because the number was still I think the number was still like thirty thousand dollars more than what I was going to even ask for. So I was like, oh, I'm good. I get into the role. And the guy who does the exact same job as me, who starts the same day as me, I find out later on he's making like twenty thousand dollars.

More than I am.

And I was like, see, you were sitting here and you were so excited to be in the room and you didn't want to shake the table that you didn't advocate for yourself, and what you've now done, is you set yourself up that as long as you stay at this company, you're always going to be a certain perce percentage behind him. And he wasn't black, so you know, he probably just said the number and he just sat with the stillness. We got to get comfortable in the silence. Ask for what you want and be still. Don't try to do the whole no, no, Say what you need to say and be quiet. Go sip some water or something. Let them ruminate on it.

And here's a fun fact people that don't know. Yeah, your entry salary sets the baseline pretty much for everything else is going to happen for you at that company. So again, if you come in at a number, just to be totally honest, even when you get promoted or you know, reviews come around, there's just there's only so much you can jump if you're at a certain level, right, So you might as well do the work to try to come in around the number that you want to come in with, because so many other things are dictated based on that. Down the road that you don't want to sit here and be mad like I left money on the table. Especially you start to find out more about the company in the organization. So you got to be able to speak up for yourself in those situations, you know. Now, another question I had is just you know, you've built your own brand, You've built the blonde misfit, you do all these different things right, but like, how do you maintain authenticity, especially in spaces that weren't necessarily designed for you know, people to look like us?

Mmm?

You know, most of this world was not designed for us to succeed. It's sad, but it's true.

You know.

I think a lot about America and the state of America, and I was like, America was not built for black people to succeed, at least not from our origin and how we got here. And when I think about that and I reflect on that, I think to myself, I have a due diligence to show people that your dream life is a life worth fighting for. Like we could sit down and we could chop it up one day. But a girl like me, who comes from where I come from, who has seen and experienced the things that I've seen and experienced in my life, shouldn't be in New York.

She shouldn't be in tech like I shouldn't even probably even be here. You know what I mean.

And I have always dedicated that as long as I have breath in my body, I am going to show people that you do good work. You'd be good to people, and you not just your heart and your passion, but you follow what you believe you are put here on this earth to do. You not only free yourself from whatever shackles others want to put on you, but you help free others too. Like, some of the most rewarding things I ever get are those messages from people, particularly like you know, younger black women or even men who come to me and be like, I, you know, I didn't know how to do this, but then I saw a video of yours, or I listened to the podcast, and you know, I've never thought that, like I could talk so freely about this. Or you know, there are young women who come up to me in the office. Now mind you, I'd be having my big headphones on because like I really be spaced out my own world, but they come to me and they're like, oh, I just saw you presented at this big company event, and like I just never thought I would see like a curvy black girl with like long nails and lashes, like holding space like that, and that's what that's what I do it for. Like when you have such a front facing job, a lot of people start to see you, but they don't understand that when I don't do what I'm supposed to do on this earth, I don't jeopardize just me. I jeopardize everyone who God has assigned to me. And I take that assignment very seriously. And the good thing about it is whatever you feel like your appointed assignment is, you can do that through so many different mediums. And so for me as a storyteller, I can do that through community management. I can do that through being having a podcast. I can do that through writing. I can do that through acting. And so I always say, whenever I leave this earth, which will.

Be long, long, long, long long for now, I don't want.

To leave this earth with any of my gifts. I want to have emptied out the bag and shaken it and gotten down.

To the end.

I want to have poured it all out, and I wanted to have blessed other people along the way and have equipped other people. You know, I think it's pac who said, like, I may not change the world, but I'm going to inspire the person.

Who will Yeah.

And I think if we all kind of take that universal idea that we all have a voice and we all can share something that can impact other people, I think the world can kind of continue to evolve in a place that does create space for us unless we certainly not least I'm always just gonna be black and black like at this point, like you know, I can't really walk into rooms branded and people be like, Oh, I wonder what is she? I think you're gonna see quickly that this is a black girl. And I want us to celebrate that. I want us to celebrate our blackness. I want us to celebrate these spaces that we build for ourselves. I want us to support our black owned businesses. I want us to support our black creatives and our black tech professionals. And everything about us that has made us socially resilient people is worth telling. And the only way we tell that is by showing up for each other and building that community, not seeing ourselves as competition, seeing ourselves.

As collaborators and as community, and understanding.

When you win, I win, When Brandon wins, Jamay wins just by proxy of I'm just happy to see a black man Win, you know what I mean. And so I think like we have to kind of continuously show up not just for ourselves and understanding our appointed gifts and how we can give that out to the world, but then how do we take those gifts and how do we help other people in the process.

No, absolutely, Jamay, look learned a lot. I'm definitely gonna start cranking up my LinkedIn content and getting my stuff together because I don't want you coming for me, you know, So I'm gonna start working on that. But before we get out of here, one last question for you. If there was a Jamai Jackson billboard, we can put it in DC, you know what I'm saying. We can put it wherever you want to put it, put it in Times Square, wherever you want to put it at. But if there was a jama Jackson billboard, what would it say? What piece of advice, what lesson? What would you put on that billboard for the world to see.

Oh that's a really good question, because you know what, I actually have it down. I'm manifesting up billboard one day. So look, it's twice now. I wrote it down, I prayed about it, and now you bringing it up Okay, all right, right.

Let's see.

I definitely think that the billboard would say, uh, sort of what I've I've always deemed my tagline to be, which is your dream life as a life worth fighting for?

And it is.

It doesn't matter if you've never seen anybody in your family do it. It doesn't matter if you don't know anyone who's doing it. In many ways, I don't know a lot of people who are doing exactly what I do.

And that's okay.

Get over the fear, build the community, put one foot in front of the other, because you're going to figure it out.

Like you're going to figure it out.

You have to have that unshakable, unwavering faith in yourself that you can do this. And when you understand that whatever it is that you want in this life you deserve as long as you're willing to work for it, it's yours.

I love it. I love it well, Jamy. Before we get out of here, please, how can people connect with you? Find you, support you all that good stuff?

Yeah, y'all, don't be shy.

I am at the blonde misfit across all social media on linked In, I'm Jamay Jackson Gadsden that is j A M E J A C K S O N G A D S D E N. Don't worry, y'all, Brandon and and the team gonna make sure y'all get all that because I know that's a lot. And then definitely make sure you check our podcast out. It's called Let's Talk Offline for Gihon and I talk every week to jen Z and early career professionals and you know, come by swing by. We don't bite. I do get spicy, but I don't fight, I promise.

Well, yea, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for pulling up on the pod. I hope everybody's learned some good stuff. I know I've learned a ton about how I can get more active on LinkedIn and get our stuff out there. And again, Jamaye, thanks for all the work that's doing on the LinkedIn side and everything else you're working on. And uh that's the pod, y'all.

We out appreciate you.

You've been listing the button nomics and I'm your host, Brandon Butler. Comments feedback. Want to be a part of the show, send us an email today at Hello at butterdomics dot com. Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by Ramsey, with marketing support from Queen and Nike. Music provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never miss an episode, and be sure to follow us on all our social platforms at butter dot at L. Listen to button NoMix on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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