OnJaLee "The Connector" LaShay is the founder of Olashay Strategic Marketing Solutions, OnJaLee broadcasts the story of your business; She makes marketing simple.
BERMAN BLUEPRINTS is a video interview series with Berman Design's strategic partners and clients.
Transcript
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: Hi. I'm your host Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez with Berman Design today with Miss OnJaLee “The Connector” LaShay. How are you today?
OnJaLee LaShay: I'm great. How are you doing today?
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: Great! Could you give us a little intro?
OnJaLee LaShay: Thank you for having me. Yeah, so, I'm an event planner, graphic designer, social media manager. So, I do a lot of creative things. I'm always learning new things. I just added photography to that as well.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: Wow, that's awesome. And so, you have a business that's Olashay Strategic marketing, what do you guys do? And what does the best customer look like for Olashay?
OnJaLee LaShay: So good question. So we help small businesses with their marketing. I like to think of us as the marketing product for your small business, all businesses have different needs. Some people are at the beginning stages, some advanced people need beginnings age of things that were kind of skipped along the way, so we help find solutions, we look for the whole things that they're missing to make them better to make them successful, we help them find solutions and we deliver it to them a way that they can understand. We try not to make it too hard to where people are overwhelmed, sorry to where they won't even do it. So we try to simplify it and make it idiot proof but also make it fun and help you see the reason behind the need to change.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: So what do you see being the future of Olashay's, strategic marketing?
OnJaLee LaShay: So I would love it if I could have like anything I wanted a way to work with nonprofits where I can donate my services to start up. So not really donate where I don't do it all for free because it's a lot of work in social media management, graphic design all event planning, but find ways to get grants to gift these to businesses, who don't know. A lot of people focus, so much on, the walls going up, the architecture, the design of the space, the menu, the staff, and all that. They forget to market, they forget to go back and say We're here, this is what we do. This is how we do it. So, to work with organizations, that help me offer this services at affordable rate to people who don't know, they need it. So one, we got to convince them that they needed and help them see that they need it. But also, they have to find the funds for an organization that helps bridge that gap. So we can help them be successful breaks my heart. When I see going on a business science. Not long after a business open because they didn't market, no one knew.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: Wow, that's awesome so then tell me how you met Joel and Berman design.
OnJaLee LaShay: Yes, I don't know how Joe got invited to my event but I moved to Chicago. I don't remember that partner. I was doing all the things to tell the world come out into the things that I do. But I moved to Chicago as a singer and I got tired of singing. I didn't want to do that. So I got involved with the audience that would come to these events where there was, musics, a lot of them were entrepreneurs. There are people that didn't like every day activities. They liked different kind of stuff. So, most of the crowd was entrepreneurs on crowd, wouldn't start asking me to do events and work with them. So I started doing my own networking event, I had access to a venue in the South Loop. Can't remember the name. Probably don't want to say it. And he came out to support and he was only person in his industry. So I found it interesting that his industry. Talk to everyone in the room because everyone had a brick and mortar place. So it was cool that he could work with anybody in the room. it was also great about meeting Joel. Was that he kept pouring into me? He's always Give me advice to see what I was doing as more. I was so in it because I was doing it every week, it was hard to step out of it and evaluate how I could grow how I could elevate and how I could monetize this better. So he became a mentor. We never told each other that we never mentioned the words but always saw him as my mentor like an instant mentor.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: That's amazing. And would you say that's the nature of your relationship with Joel?
OnJaLee LaShay: Yeah, he's always for advice we don't see each other every year every day but we just pick up, Where we left off and I can always ask them anything and he's got a person for me and I feel like I can do the same so I love that relationship because we just take care of each other. If you need something, I'm gonna figure it out and find someone to do it for you and I feel like I can do the same for him. So it's not often that you have people that have that mutual respect to always be looking out for you even speaking good about you when you're not in the room I think as entrepreneurs we all need that. So to have that in Joel is a very special thing and that cherish that and our birthdays are like the same months. I already love him.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: What do you think makes Berman design different from other architects?
OnJaLee LaShay: So I like his style. I feel like he has a unique style. He has a lot of flavor from the designs I've seen. I feel like there's a flavor, a lot of personality that makes it exciting. When you go inside, it makes it instagrammable, which everyone is about now, but the visuals are always, very cool. And I feel like he is thinking forward as well when he designs thinking for it. So we don't have to do this in the next 10 years. something that is long-lasting, something that is branded well. I feel the brand very clearly from the to the inside. The floor, is the walls, the colors in the kitchen. I don't feel like anything is missed. sometimes you go to place. You feel like they're in there, then that brick and mortar temporarily. So your brand is kind of only here, but not really completely engrossed in the space. So I feel like what he does definitely is totally take over the space from forward to feeling like Fixtures are cool. And I feel like it's that an experience where you can keep going back to the place and you see things, you didn't realize you saw before. So I feel like there's so much layers to what he does as well in his design.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: How do you see Berman design and Olashay strategic marketing working together in the future?
OnJaLee LaShay: That's a great idea. maybe kind of if he's working with clients that don't have a marketing team, then bringing me on and then offering consultation to them. So we're all in alignment. So as he's building the brand visually and the aesthetics of the space I'm doing that on social media online on their website and things like that. So that would be a cool way to work in sync with each other, it for people for organizations that don't have a team in place when they start redesigning their space. Yeah.
Basam Mohamed El Sayed Gonzalez: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.
OnJaLee LaShay: My pleasure.
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