Thrive Talks - from “no profit” to a profitable business
How the right business model can unlock your real potential
Farida Gilmore - Founder of Thrive.Talks
After spending a decade as a corporate communications specialist in the UK, Asia and Middle East, Farida founded Thrive.Talks, a series of live speaker events to showcase the personal stories and lessons learned of leaders, founders and emerging talent in the UAE.
“I founded Thrive Talks in 2018 with the goal to help entrepreneurs and executives to dream big through a series of inspiring live speaker events.I was 6 months into taking my events business seriously. I had built up a pretty strong, engaged community online and offline but it wasn’t huge.
I totally believed that I needed a large online following in order to achieve my business goals. My audience (offline) was growing with each event I created but I was impatient to reach at least 5k followers because I thought a larger online audience was necessary in order to succeed.”
This is the starting point of many small business owners’ struggles. They stress about not having a huge audience online, when in reality they have great assets offline that could potentially deliver more business. This was exactly the case with Thrive Talks. After attending one of Farida’s events I realized how powerful and big a platform she had created, no matter how many followers she had online. Through her live speaker events, Farida was creating a tangible, unique platform that could be attractive to so many brands out there. Instagram is not always the answer when we are talking about “business growth”.
“I met Giulia through a mutual acquaintance who had also worked with her and I knew she had many years behind her of managing and developing world-class brands.
This was important to me because I knew that there were many ‘consultants’ out there who claimed to have solid experience but actually didn’t (or it was very limited) but with Giulia it was 100% evident that she was an expert in her field and that filled me with confidence.
The only thing I was skeptical about was when Giulia, in our first meeting, challenged my beliefs by asking:
”Why do you need 5k followers to achieve your business goals? What if you already have everything you need to generate a solid income? I would sooner focus on an impactful media kit and pitching for sponsorship, rather than on growing your follower base.
This went against what I believed I needed and I cannot emphasise the importance of this enough and how it transformed my approach to the business. It marked a significant shift in mindset with regards to my business model, as I realized Thrive Talks was “ready” to partner with brands as long as I was going to market it as a strong events platform, rather than a just another online community”
“Giulia help me understand what brands really want to see when they sponsor events (she had first-hand knowledge) – absolute game changer.”
I still remember my first session with Farida and how relieved she was to know that she didn’t have to wait “to grow her online numbers” to start monetizing from her business. She already had everything she needed to become attractive for sponsors and my goal was to help her in this business model shift and to build a solid marketing pitch for Thrive Talks.
“Indeed, a few months later we got our first sponsorship deal with a global, super cool brand with just a couple of thousand online followers”.
“We have worked with several other brand sponsors since working with Giulia – honestly, her advice and guidance was transformational, and I look forward to working with her again. She is without doubt my go-to authority when it comes to marketing and brand strategy.”
What a great project this was!
And now I’m going to tell you a secret… it was after attending one of Farida’s events in 2019 that I realized I really wanted to start my own entrepreneurial adventure. Working for Thrive.Talks has been like supporting those great vibes and energy that, for me, were crucial in my decision to “go for it!”.