Paige McCormick

I would say never take criticism from someone who lives a life that you don't want. I think, especially in the social media world, it can be hard to get bogged down in the comments or what people want you to do, but if you'd never take advice from them, why would you take criticism from them? And I think that was really eye-opening for me early in my career of okay, I need to stay in my lane, and I know the people around me, and I trust them. I don't need to worry about these outside noises that I think a lot of people can get distracted on.

I would say make sure that you're supporting each other and uplifting each other as much as you can. I'm always the first person to call someone out for a win or support them, because I've been in a position where you are by yourself, and it's sad and it's scary, but the more you can support people, and the more you can make them feel confident about their work and empower them, the more your company is going to succeed. I always say rising water helps all boats. You're never gonna be set back in your career by supporting someone, so the more you can support them, the better you're gonna feel about yourself, the better someone else is gonna feel about themselves. And it really does go a long way if you're starting to get out in your career. Like, just start liking someone's posts that you're interested in their industry, and then DM them. Just go straight to the DM, because people are gonna know when it's fake. So building those relationships, even though they're parasocial, are really important.

I think now just how quickly it changes. For social media posts and trends, people used to schedule it out months in advance. Now we literally do it 2 weeks in advance, if that. It'll change day of, just depending on what's hot, what's trending, what promotions we're running. So it's always being on, but also communicating with the executive team of here's what's changing in the industry, because it is so new. We do a lot of UGC content creators, and keeping transparency with our executive team is the most important. I wouldn't say challenging, but because it is so new, they don't have Instagrams or social media, or they're just starting to get on it, so conveying sometimes what a trend is might not make sense to them, but it could perform really well, and I think that's been a fun challenge, and our team is great about just kind of letting me go for it.

I think the first one is transparency. I think just being upfront and honest with people is the best way to go. The truth is always gonna find its way back to you, whether that's a month from now, years from now, and I think just being upfront and honest about everything, even briefs as we're negotiating with influencers, usage rights, things like that. Even in my personal life, just knowing I can be super transparent with people is a really big part of my personal shift. And then another one is just doing the extra work. I think everyone thinks they're a hard worker, but being a student athlete in my background, I know the type of work that it takes to be super successful in something that you do, and it's not just the bare minimum. I've always been that way, of putting in the extra hours, doing extra research, and it's really helped me pay off to get this far in my career at such a young age. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. How are you utilizing that is super important.