Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Fashion and Beauty Influencer Chriselle Lim

I recently interviewed Chriselle Lim on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is a leading fashion and beauty influencer and entrepreneur. Chriselle Lim is the founder of The Chriselle Factor, and the Bumo enterprise and a trusted voice for more than 5 million followers across social platforms. Chriselle, thank you for joining us.

Chriselle: Thank you for having me. I am very excited to be here.

Adam: I'm excited that you're joining us. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What inspired your interest in fashion and beauty and what compelled you to pursue both professionally?

Chriselle: Yeah, well, I've always had a fascination for fashion growing up. I grew up in a small town called Danville up north. My parents still live there. And I just had this obsession with fashion. I think it was mainly because I was one of the only Asian girls in my neighborhood growing up in my schools. And I felt very insecure in high school especially. And so I knew that I looked different, and so it was a way for me to fit in. And also to feel confident was to have really amazing clothes. So at a young age, I viewed fashion as almost my armor to protect me, to be able to make me feel a certain way, or to have people view me a certain way. So I've always had this fascination with fashion at a young age. And then of course, when I went on to college, I realized that this is something that I could possibly pursue as a career itself. And so that was how it all started for me.

Adam: You followed a pretty non traditional career path. And I've had a lot of guests on this show who have followed a very nonlinear path to success. And I'm a very big believer that the path to success is not linear, and your path has clearly paid off. Can you talk about some pivotal decision points that you've had over the course of your career, and how you ultimately made those decisions that help shape the trajectory of your career?

Chriselle: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a few that come to mind. And the very first one was when I was out of college, and I made the decision of okay, do I want to pursue this digital career as like a full time thing or do I want to go out there and look for a job? And that was one of the biggest pivotal moments for me because it was a risk, and obviously something that my parents didn't want me to do at the time because back then, there was really no digital industry, let alone influencers, and creators were not getting paid. And they were not really monetizing, making any money off of, the content that they were making. So that was something that I had to make a decision on. And I ended up choosing to go full time. I told myself, I will give myself at least a year. I have enough money saved up from all the jobs that I've had throughout my kind of high school and college years. And so I took that kind of leap of faith. And obviously, it has paid off. I mean, a little bit of right timing as well, because that was when YouTube was booming, and Instagram just started. And there was a lot of excitement around that era, that time. And then also another big pivotal moment was when I transitioned into a true entrepreneur. So this was not too long ago. This was about five years ago, when I had the idea of Bumo, which is essentially bringing fully licensed childcare to the workplace for parents, and obviously, you know, totally different paths. I've been in fashion and beauty and content creation for the past decade. But once I became a mom, I felt like there was this huge, huge gap in the market for working parents. And I felt like there were no options for working parents. And I felt like I had to choose either my kids or my work. And I felt like that was truly unfair. As a mother, I should be able to do both. And so that is where Bumo actually was born. And yeah, that was probably one of the biggest pivotal moments. I had a lot of fear because I've been a content creator for most of my life and I didn't really focus on, you know, I don't know how to fundraise. I did not start a business. I don't know how to make a business plan, like that was all new to me, but I decided to pursue it. And there we are. We are about to open up our very first location. Westfield Century City shopping center. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Adam: That's awesome. And I want to ask you a little bit more about that. How did you push past that fear? And what advice do you have for the listeners on how to push past whatever's holding them back? you've enjoyed so much success. And sometimes when you're used to achieving success, you can be afraid of doing something that might make you seem like a failure in the eyes of others. And you clearly were able to push back against whatever it was that was potentially holding you back to get out of your comfort zone and create Bumo. What advice do you have for listeners on how you were able to do it and how they might be able to do it as well?

Chriselle: Yeah, so I think fear is something that we all face, you know, no matter what type of business or industry that you're in, I think fear is something that we all have to face at some point in our, our careers, right? And so you just have to really think, okay, is this fear going to stop me from pursuing something that could possibly be something, but also, it could be completely a flop and be okay with that. And I think that is what I've learned throughout the past 15 years of working in this career in the fashion industry. And now in kind of being an entrepreneur myself, I realized that you have to accept that failure just comes with it, and you are going to fail hard, and you're going to fail fast. And you just have to learn from it and be okay with it. And so my number one advice is, know the big picture, like, know what you want, like in all of it. Like, if everything was gonna go according to plan, what would that picture be? What is that dream of yours, right? And then you have to scale it back down. Because that big picture vision, at least for me, even though it excites me, it also kind of freezes me from actually taking steps because it just seems like such a big, big task and a big mountain that I have to climb, right? And I think that's a lot of people. They kind of don't know where to start. And so my thing is, I always get back to like, what are the first three things and next three things that I have to do? So immediately, I always step back to the little things. And then every single day, I work on the things that I can immediately do. And I almost forget about the big picture, which sounds kind of silly, because a lot of people are always like, remember why you're doing this, remember your purpose, which is true. But at some point, you kind of have to forget a little bit about the big picture because you don't want the big picture to stop you from taking these little tiny steps to get you to where you need to be. So I think that's my biggest tip is, know the big picture and then what are the next three things that you can immediately do.

Adam: I think that's such interesting and important advice for listeners. And it really focuses around the theme of goal setting, which is a topic that I've heard from so many of the great leaders I've interviewed, Brian Tracy is one who comes to mind. And that's a topic that he talks about extensively and he and I spoke about extensively in our conversation on 30 Minute Mentors. And I love what you just shared, which is that it's important to set a big picture goal. And it's equally important to set smaller, attainable goals that will help you reach that larger goal that you ultimately want to get to. Rome wasn't built in a day. But if you want to build Rome, you've got to start building each and every day and put up one brick at a time. And that's your philosophy. And I think that's a great philosophy for anyone trying to accomplish anything significant.

Chriselle: Absolutely.

Adam: Along those lines, you've built a pretty massive social media following. What advice do you have for listeners on how they can build and grow their audiences, whether it's a social media audience or whether it's an audience of customers?

Chriselle: Yeah, well, my number one advice is don't put all your eggs in one basket, as in one platform. I think so many people are like, okay, it's Instagram. So I have to get a million followers on Instagram or right now it's TikTok, so I'm gonna focus everything all my attention on TikTok, or, you know, YouTube, whatever that is. And I think, for me, personally, how I've been able to build a sustainable brand for the past decade was really being able to do a little bit of everything. Obviously, I have my three top platforms that I've always focused on and it's ever evolving. So, kind of backstory is when I first started, I started on YouTube, and that was the start of the YouTube boom. Now I was one of the very first fashion creators on YouTube. And then naturally, I said, okay, I can't turn out a YouTube video every single day. So let me start a blog. And that was also when a lot of people were following fashion bloggers, it was just the beginning of this kind of fashion blogging era. And so I had my blog, and YouTube, and this is pre Instagram. And then I also said, okay, but I can't write a blog every day. So what if I do like a quick little email every day. I had these three platforms, and then Instagram happened, right? And once Instagram happened, it changed everything, kind of our focus and attention, to Instagram. And so emailers kind of went by the wayside for me, you know, it's still there, but I always have to focus on the top three, that was the most important, and I always had everything else kind of support it. And so this is a really good example of not sure if you follow kind of like that TikTok kind of drama during the, during the pandemic, but everyone was like TikTok’s going to shut down, what are we gonna do? And remember, if all of these faders break out, because they blew up on TikTok and they have no other platform, right? And so that is a very dangerous place because if you are relying on one social platform for your entire business, then you have no business. Your business is Instagram or your business is ticked off. And you really need to figure out what your business is outside of that. So it's really important to not put all your eggs in one basket, do a little bit of each, see what resonates, you know? See what feels the most natural, and then kind of invest your time there. And so that is probably my biggest advice to anyone that wants to build a personal brand on social media.

Adam: And I think that your advice is extremely applicable well beyond social media. And I'll give an example to you and an example, to listeners, which is, I run a couple of different e-commerce businesses and we were having a conversation with a member of our marketing team, just about this, which was, should we go all in on one platform? And the advice was, well, if you invest everything and bet the house on Amazon, what happens if there's a problem with Amazon, and you then no longer have your website that you can fall back on, or then you no longer have this other sales channel or that other sales channel? So the message, whether you're running an e-commerce business, whether you're running a business focused on your personal brand, and you're building up your social media audience, is you need to diversify, you can't rely just on one thing. Diversification is key.

Chriselle: Absolutely. I agree. And one thing I would like to add as well, I think you asked earlier, what does it take to really build a social following. And I think that storytelling is so incredibly important, no matter who you are, what your product is, at the end of the day, this story will sell, obviously, the product has to be good. That's number one. First and foremost, you have to have a strong product in itself. But after that, it's the storyline. And so when you're on social media, and you're trying to build up a social following, whether it be for your personal brand or for your business, you have to tell the story, how I view social media is, okay, I have my own platform. This is like Netflix for me, right? Or this is my own TV show or a pilot. What are the things that I want to showcase on this, right? What are the most engaging, exciting ways for me to tell these stories that people want to keep coming back. And so I think that's the key is that you have to kind of create, you have to look at these platforms as your own place to share stories. So instead of just like posting up beautiful photos, which is totally fine, I get it. There are photography influencers and influencers that just focus on aesthetics, but I think beyond those few people, it's really about storytelling, and being able to tell the story about your product and even beyond your product. It's like, okay, what did it take to actually build this product, you know, what were the failures, what were, you know, the beginning days like and even though it has nothing to do with the product in itself, it strengthens this story and the brand and people can connect to it. And so I think that's really, really important when you're trying to build up a social following.

Adam: Clearly, so much of your expertise and focus is around branding, whether it's personal branding and the ability to create such a successful fashion and beauty brand yourself, or whether it's your years of experience writing about and commenting on and providing this platform for your followers to engage in other brands that you've been able to make accessible to millions of other people. What advice do you have for listeners on the topics of branding and personal branding? What can companies do to more successfully build their brands and what can listeners do who are thinking about building out their personal brands? What advice do you have?

Chriselle: Sure. So I think, on the personal side- I'll start off with that. I think collaboration- actually this could fall into the category of both brand branding for a product and also personal brand as well. So collaboration was 1,000%, how I started off building my personal brand. In the early days of YouTube, collaboration is something that could not just amplify your brand, but it could really accelerate the growth of your brand. So let's say for example, on a personal side, let's say that you wanted to grow your fashion presence on Instagram or on YouTube, then you would find other people kind of in that similar category, and reach out to them and say, hey, look, you know, I think we have, you know, similar interests and similar audiences, what if we collaborate and we create a really exciting video, and we could, we could actually grow our audiences from this. And that's exactly how I grew my personal ad. In the beginning days, I will just collaborate one after the other with other influencers with other brands. And that is really how I started off because we have to remember that in the early days, there was only one platform that everyone was really focused on. And that was Instagram. And so that's what I would do on Instagram, and also YouTube as well. And as far as branding goes, this is something that we've been actually doing for a while, my company. Not only do we work with other influencers that fit kind of the boomer persona, which is the parent, the millennial parent, but we also collaborate with brands. And so brands that have a similar messaging target audience, the millennial parent that has kids anywhere from ages one through seven years old, right? So maybe it's a toy company, maybe it's, I don't know, a diaper brand. Maybe it's a skincare, a baby skincare line or a mommy's skincare and we actually co-create products and co-create exclusive merchandise, and that allows our brands to cross pollinate. And that has been extremely successful for us, and how we've been able to grow the audience on our product as well.

Adam: That's great advice. And, again, another great tip that is universally applicable, which really focuses on the importance of collaboration. And it leads perfectly to my next question, which is, you're now focused on building businesses. And I wanted to ask you, in your view, what are the keys to building a winning business and what are the keys to building a winning organizational culture?

Chriselle: Yeah. So on the business front, I think, one, obviously, product, I am a true believer in- investing all of your early stage money into perfecting the product, right, because at the end of the day, the product is what's going to gain the consumer and the market share. So that is number one, hands down product, product, product. Number two is finding people in your organization or even a co-founder that could complement what you may be lacking. So for instance, there's no way that I would be able to successfully pull off Bumo to where it's at today. And that's because I am very, very honest and real with kind of my lack of abilities in certain areas. I am a marketer, I am not an operator. I always, I always tell this to my team, and just be upfront with them. And I think that's also a way to win. Building a winning organizational culture is just being very transparent about strengths and weaknesses, but also having a solution for your team, as well. So going back to the business. I knew that I needed a co-founder and my co-founder, Joan, is probably the best operator that I've ever, ever experienced. And I knew that I needed her because she has an educational background and because we are an educational company, that was very important to me, that we had the best in class curriculum. And so Joan brings that but also, the thing is that she is an incredible operator, which is my weakness, and that allows me to focus on my strengths, which is marketing and creative. And that is where I really can flourish and bring value to the company and growth to the company. So team building a winning business, you have to understand and know what you're great at, because it's quite impossible for one person to be great at everything, I understand that there are unicorns out there, I sometimes think that my co-founder is a unicorn. But if you just have to be very, very upfront with yourself and your team. You have your ability, and are open about that and going to build a winning organizational culture. It's just that it's allowing people to really focus on what they're great at, you know, in the early stages of our company, because we were bootstrapped. And we were, you know, really focused on, you know, getting the bang for the buck, because we had to be very careful with our spending, we kind of had everyone doing a little bit of everything, right, including myself. But we knew that in order for Bumo, to get it to the next iteration and the next phase and where it needs to be, we needed to hire the right people. So within the past few, actually the past year, we've four times our team, because of that, and now people can really focus and hone in on their strengths.

Adam: Chriselle, my neck is sore from all the nodding that I'm doing because I cannot agree with you more. Something that I tell audiences that I speak to is I'm a firm believer that most people in life are bad at most things. And I'm bad at so many things, I couldn't even tell you how many things I'm bad at, because this is a 30 minute podcast, and it would probably take 30 hours and you’d probably still won't even get through the full list. But we're all good at a few things. And we all have that one thing that we're exceptional at. And the more quickly you could figure out what it is that you're great at, the more successful you'll be in life, the more successful you'll be in business, the more successful you'll be as a leader. And to that point, I want to ask you, in your experience, what do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader and how can anyone become a better leader?

Chriselle: I think one of the biggest characteristics of a great leader, and I'm going to think of the leaders that I've had throughout my career in the past decade, is showing strength and showing that they have a vision. So someone who is a visionary. And they have big picture thinking because for me, I want to follow someone that has big ideas. And I could follow along with them on that journey. Right. But also kind of going back to what we talked about earlier is that they have the ability to understand that they actually have to do the work as well. And I think it's really important that leaders not only talk but they actually do as well get dirty. And of course at some point, you know, I mean, I'm sure Jeff Bezos at this point is not like throwing out the trash, right? So like, it's not like you have to do everything just because you're a leader, but especially I'm talking about early stage startup companies, where Bumo is at right now, it's important that the leaders are willing to do the dirty work as well. They're not the ones that are just like, you do this and you do that and, you know, and they don't do it themselves. It's really important that they get down and dirty with you. And that is what I'm looking for in my leaders as well. You know, the people that I look up to that you know, their thing, we're going to go there, that they're going to actually walk and climb the mountain with me and they're not just going to tell me to climb it myself. And so I think it's a delicate balance of, you know, being a billionaire and getting people excited about where the possibilities and where you can go, but also doing the work itself.

Adam: That's great advice. And there's that famous picture of Jeff Bezos when Amazon was in its early days. And I'm pretty sure that if the trash wasn't taken out, Jeff Bezos was probably taking it out or was making sure that it got taken out because I can tell you and you could tell listeners that when you're running an organization, if the office isn't clean, you have to make sure it's clean, or else, it's not going to be clean. It's not going to get magically cleaned up by itself. So it's an example, but it's a very important example, because at the end of the day as a leader, the buck stops with you.

Chriselle: Absolutely. I 1,000% agree with that.

Adam: I want to make sure we have enough time for a couple of really important questions that not only do I want to know the answers to, but I'm sure many of our listeners want to know the answers to. And the first question I want to ask you is relevant to not only our female listeners, but our male listeners. That is, what is your best advice on the topic of skincare?

Chriselle: Oh, my goodness, yes. The men who really listen in on this, because I mean, for the life of me, my husband still won't do his skincare like I have to literally lay him down and do it for him. I'm like, come on, this will literally take you less than five minutes for yourself. So yes, men, listen up, please. My best advice number one is sunscreen. I'm sure you guys have heard about this. And the importance of this, and I don't know your sister, wife, girlfriend, mother is always like, you know, telling you to put on sunscreen, but it's so true. And my husband is now seeing the effects of not wearing sunscreen, at this age in his life. And now he's like, oh, I wish I wore more sunscreen. But sunscreen is number one. And number two is it's not complicated. Like, I know, if you're looking at your wife, so your partner's skincare routine, and she has like this crazy, 10 step routine, don't like don't be bothered by that. You really only need like two to three steps, which is usually a serum, and a moisturizer. So as long as you have your go to’s, and something that works for you, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. It's just consistency. It's like anything else that we do in life, whether it be business or you know, working out, you just have to be consistent, and over time, you will see the results. And especially at some point if you stop using it, you'll be like, oh my God, my skin, like I can't believe my skin can feel that because your skin is a muscle and it's one of the largest organs in the human body. And it needs to be, it needs to be nourished, and it needs to be hydrated and needs to be loved. Or else you know, you're going to age 10 times faster.

Adam: Will you give that same advice to female listeners? Is that your best advice on the topic of skincare, universally?

Chriselle: Yeah, I think so I think for women, I think they're a lot more aware of the benefits. And the lack of skincare really. So I don't think I need to preach upon that. But I think for women, all I have to say is that just because it's expensive doesn't mean that it's a great product. And vice versa. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It goes either way. And so you just have to really understand ingredients. You just have to understand ingredients, you know, the basics and the fundamentals, and you just have to, you know, test some things out and see what works. And you know, you don't have to spend so much money on all these fancy products.

Adam: Anyone who knows me knows just how deeply, deeply fashionable I am. So this question obviously doesn't apply to me. But what are your best fashion tips for women and for men?

Chriselle: I say have a uniform, and that sounds really boring. And I think you would appreciate this, if anything, is I really, really like some of my best biggest fashion icons. They've all had a uniform, and it's not because they took crazy risks with different trends and such. But it was simply because they knew their style. They kind of stuck with it. So having uniform especially if you're a busy entrepreneur, if you're a busy parent, you're always on the go. I say if you have a blazer that you love that just makes you feel like a million bucks and it's like, go get that blazer in every color. Same thing with jeans and pants. Like if you go into my closet, actually, a lot of my friends, when they come over, they're like, oh, wow, like, I thought you would have a lot more than this, which is actually a compliment for me because I can not function with too many options. I hate having too many options. But I have a lot of the same thing in different pictures and colorways. Because it's like my go-to and it's just, I don't want to have to make another decision. And because you know, we all have decision fatigue. So even when it comes to dressing, it's just having a uniform, like your go-to outfit that makes you feel good. Mine is usually jeans, and like an oversized blazer. So my closet is filled with jeans and oversized blazers.

Adam: That's great advice. And it reminds me of the big controversy when President Obama wore a tan suit. And the biggest controversy in his eight years in Washington, because presidents are really only wearing dark suits. And the thinking behind that is when you're the president of the United States, there's a uniform you have to wear. But even beyond that, you have big decisions that you have to make. And one of the decisions you want to take out of your daily routine is what to wear, let's have a uniform, and have our minds focusing on other things.

Chriselle: Yeah, but that also brings me to another point, which is like, yeah, have a uniform. But if you want to, like President Obama, you know, test out some other things and you want to wear something that makes you feel really good. I think what you wear, it directly reflects on how you perform, because if you feel good in the outfit, if you feel more confident, or if you feel attractive, you could actually perform and accelerate in your work. And I'm a true believer in that. So I'm all about President Obama and his pantsuit. And also, really, if you want to kind of go outside of your uniform, totally fine. But do wear something that makes you feel good, because we all know if you wear pajamas all day, I mean, yeah, you could probably still get your work done. But it's probably not going to be your most inspiring work, you're probably just going to kind of get through the day like, get your work finished. But I'm talking about feeling good. I get dressed up every single morning. I mean, I don't wear heels and stuff because I'm in my home, but I still dress up because when I feel good about my outfit on the outside, then it also strangely kind of reflects how I feel on the inside. And it also shows in the work that I do.

Adam: President Obama, I don't know if you're a listener of this podcast or not, but if you are you can now feel better about that decision around the tan suit. Chriselle, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for all the great advice. Thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Chriselle: Thank you for having me. I had so much fun chatting with you.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

Follow Adam on Instagram and Twitter at @adammendler and listen and subscribe to Thirty Minute Mentors on your favorite podcasting app.