Let’s hear how Shalma shares her journey of running a business!
Adele: Hello
Shalma: Hello guys, my name is Shalma Aina. I’m a fashion entrepreneur and TV host and I’m also a YouTuber.
Adele: I just found out like you’ve been running the business for 10 years.
Shalma: Yes.
Adele: We always say it’s easy to start a business, it’s hard to sustain it, it’s even harder to grow it. Let’s start off, you know, talking about your baby, your toddler, ten years is a toddler tell us a bit about that and you know, you are the leader.
Shalma: Business is not easy. There are times that every year. I feel like giving up I feel like macam,Oh my god, I can’t do this anymore. But I feel like when you reach to a certain point, for example, you achieve your target sales or you have all the support from the customers from your community. That is the sweet point where you feel like oh, no, I’m not gonna give up just yet.I studied fashion marketing management in Raffles. You know, when I was doing my degree in London, I did fashion styling promotion, as much as you have so much knowledge. But being in the business industry itself, it’s totally different. If you don’t persevere, if you don’t have the determination, if you don’t have the strength, then it’s hard to run a business. Knowledge is a constant thing that you can get anywhere.
Shalma: Even up until today, I’m still constantly learning. I feel like my purpose is more set and stone now. You know, last time when I first had the business, it was more of like a buy and sell more like, oh, it’s my dream to have a business. I want to sell this, I want to sell that, it’s all about branding. It’s all about storytelling. So I started as a family business, my mom is still involved in it, how we got the brand name SHALS is because from our names, I have four siblings and all of us are girls and we all have Shalma in front.
Adele: When I first started the business, it’s also more of passion. My background was blogger, I love to try, I love to connect with my readers, you see the story and brand and the way they define their brand in the world, the society. I think that that is just something that a lot of people don’t see people look at business owner and they are like, okay, you’re just selling clothes, right? I’m sure there are many, many challenges share with us maybe one that you can’t forget and how did you overcome that?
Shalma: With all these challenges, there will always be a solution It’s a matter on how you look at things. When certain people when they have a problem, they tend to react emotionally, therefore you will never find a solution. But if you take time and you just like okay, strategically plan, what’s your next move? There’s always a solution, first part for me as a leader at SHALS is human manage, because I feel like different people have different way of doing things or way of thinking. I need to know them personally to know which button to push. I know it’s called SHALS but I don’t treat it like oh, this is my brand. You are working for me. No, it’s like I’m working for the brand too. We are working together to achieve this goal together so we can grow together.
Adele: It’s like a puzzle, right? You know, people come and go.
Shalma: I agree.
Adele: My first year running Sevenvault, I had no office. I work in Starbucks, there’s this girl. She’s like my first stuff so I always remember, like, okay, she was there when we had nothing and now she doesn’t work with me anymore. I will always remember maybe the first invoice template, every single journey means so much to process of running a business.I think like what are some of the values that you hold as a business owner, maybe just business perspective.
Shalma: When it comes to business, you got to be strong, you have to like that. One thing that I believe in is like, do not give up. Because when you say you know, I’ve been through a lot, all of our staff have their own thing to do you know and they have their own journey that they want to go to, we can’t stop them, we can support them. But sometimes it can be really macam oh my god, do I have to start again? And like where do I find you or back to you? Giving up looks like so easy.
Tomorrow, I can give up you know, I want to close everything wah so simple. But yeah la, I don’t want to do that because later on, you will regret it because it’s something that you love so much.
Adele: Talking a little bit about your relationship with your husband, right? What do you think is the most important role when you’re doing enough, you know, marriage with your other half.
Shalma: We have that constant support towards each other in whatever we do. Especially in achieving our dreams or goals ever stop each other from doing that and then the most important thing is like we’re very transparent to each other that to a point that we’re like best friends that we can just share anything. So it’s good, it’s one thing to share and it’s one thing for the other person to care about then actually support you. I always believe in like whatever you do, you don’t need 100 people to believe in you just need that one person that can advise you when you’ve do something wrong. Yeah, so likewise, so he likes music, so I’ll be the one that cheer and push him you know what, you know, just just keep on doing music. You know, you know, you can do it because you love it first then you can think about the rest later on. But he’s actually an architect lah but I feel like there’s no wrong in trying other things. So having a partner to do it together having the same mindset, energy, basically energy I feel like that’s important.
Adele: Talking about you know, this energy and colours when it comes to fashion, I mean you run a fashion brand right. Are there any fashion staple that will never run out of fashion?
Shalma: no matter how fashionable we are, we always want to be like comfortable. So having like an oversized t shirt,you know, just a plain tees oversized blazer, this for me la I feel like macam it’s important or you can just have like that one favourite jeans no matter what era, no matter what genre you can still pile it and rock it with accessories.
Adele: So, let’s talk a little bit about like you, you know, the brand new year and everyone is gearing up to like, wow, new year,this year, Raya is so early, Chinese New Year is so early. I think like when I was buying Chinese New Year clothes, I see some website selling Raya clothes already. What is something that you set up for yourself? What are your plans this year,
or you know, any new year resolutions that you can share with all of us.
Shalma: I used to have the set of the lists that I want to achieve when I was 30. 2022 is all about planning what I want and manifesting and yeah, thank god everything came through and I’m so happy but this 2023, I feel like I’m all about experience.I feel like I want to be more present because I had a few trips last year when I was travelling with random group where we went for the trip, it became one of the best trip that I’ve been to because I feel like I needed that so much like being where I was like going to events. Yes, it’s nice to see people but it’s even nicer to see new people when you get to meet new people new energy, new place, no matter how hard you work like money and stuff like that. This is like money can buy kind of thing. These are the experiences that I want to have more of in 2023. Like the other day, you know, when it was new year, normally I would travel so what I did was we just drove to Seremban and have a nice meal with my friends. So I feel like we should do more of this because our life has been so hectic like here and there here and there and sometimes we forget to think like that’s why when I went to Australia I was like wow, these people here are very damn chill. Like, why are we in KL like so fast paced? Where are we going? You know, so it makes me reflect back in life. Like, yeah, you want to achieve, what you want to achieve. Okay, you go for it, you want to be successful, go for it. But don’t forget this kind of thing. This is what makes life LIFE.
Adele: I was just telling my husband the other day like oh, let’s go travel, let’s go travel. And I realised that it is not the travelling that I want but the new experiences. So if I live in like like if I live in KL and I have not been to say Cameron Highlands, so I want that plucking strawberry experience.
Shalma: It will make your soul. So happy because when I was in Australia, I was like, okay, or because the trip is, it was at Perth so it was under AirAsia. I was like, okay la Perth. But when I look at the itinerary I said, Okay, its okay, I’m just gonna give you a go, you know, because I always love going to new places, okay, let’s go. So when I was there, we did like all this stargazing under the sky, we went and see the pink lake, I was like, Oh my God, these are the things that I feel like, yeah, I feel energised my energy, then I can work well. Try to know who are the energy givers, who are the energy drainers. If you feel like this kind of thing. It drains my energy. Now I’m not gonna do that. Malaysia, sometimes we take it for granted, We have so many things that we can do here.
Adele: Come to the end of the podcast, I just want to ask, is there any advice that you have heard from someone that is so good that you would love to share with all of us today?
Shalma: I feel like with social media and everything that’s been going on, let it be the new generation or even our generation, if you’re going through a tough time figuring who you are, or thinking like, that person is doing better and I’m not really I feel like. Do not ever compare yourself, I feel just be unapologetically you just be yourself because that’s the best version and nobody can be you never doubt everything that you guys believe in your intuition or what you want to do Just go for it because we only live once. Let’s make the best out of it. You know, life is very short.
Adele: Thank you so much Shalma. I really enjoyed this session with you. And for all of you who have never checked Shalma out go ahead and follow her social and like this podcast and share it with your friends and I’ll see you guys in the next one! Bye bye.
Shalma: Thanks, Adele.
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