EP23 Sherene Perrier : Navigating Consultancy , Digital Marketing & Entrepreneurship :Know your worth

In this Episode 23, Sherene Perrier is a trailblazer extraordinaire and experienced Specialist in digital , ecommerce ,entrepreneurship and scaling businesses
. On our podcast, she invites us into her world, recounting her journey from her early beginnings in New York to pursuing a Master's in London, and finally venturing into the beauty industry. She talks about the digital marketing landscape and emphasizes the importance of analyzing customer behavior and being a generalist in this ever-evolving field.
She is a woman of many hats and she invites us to walk in her shoes as she discusses her experiences as a woman in the workforce, her encounters with gender imbalance in the music industry, and her transition to freelancing. She talks about her travels and how they have shaped her perspective, her foray into entrepreneurship with her co-founded shoe brand, Coix Shoes, and her advocacy for financial literacy , She is now a Consultant and navigating this space has opened her to new projects and opportunities
Together we explore Sherene's rich tapestry of experiences, skills, and insights. From . Sherene leaves us with wisdom on resilience, attitude, and the power of people. So, buckle up as we step into her story for an enlightening discussion on digital marketing, entrepreneurship, navigating the workplace as a woman, and much more.
Mentions
Lunchclub.com  connecting people
Alex Hormozi acquisition.com   great books , great tips
https://sobs.com/
Sherene Perrier    linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/shereneperrier/
@coixshoes
0:00 Intro
7:12 Starting a Business and Lessons Learned
20:36 Exploring Debt, Entrepreneurship, and Financial Literacy
26:38 Exploring Career Options as a Woman
35:35 Women in the Workplace
42:09 Balancing Creativity at a Music Startup
48:37 Finding Community and Pursuing Passions
51:03 Next steps for Sherene
53:41People want to work with People

Listen : to the audio version Apple Spotify .Amazon Music Google Podcasts
Watch and subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Thetrailblazersexperience
Follow Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thetrailblazersexperience/

Transcript

The Trailblazers experience : 0:10

So welcome to another episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast and on this hot and dewy day for those who can't see us, we are going in our melanin, but it's also hot. Yeah, I have the amazing Shirin, who I met a few a few years ago, oh my God. Yes, last year, this time last year, yeah, so our anniversary of meeting. But now we're meeting digitally and this is going to be an exciting episode Sherene is is a digital marketing specialist, freelancer, consultant. She's been in the game for a very long time over a decade and really keen to have conversation with her, to share her highs, her lows, her challenges and empower. You know some young lady woman out there who's also navigating the space. She's also a co-founder of a shoe brand which caters to sizes over a certain level, so we will talk about that too and just what she's up to next and navigating the next stage. So welcome, thank you.

Sherene Perrier : 1:17

Thank you for the introduction.

The Trailblazers experience : 1:20

It's always a pleasure to talk to women at different stages of their career, and I guess I just want to go a bit back and just talk about a. At what point did you, you know, decide in the early years that this is something that you wanted to do, going all the way back, way back?

Sherene Perrier : 1:37

Yeah, yeah, funny decisions. Things in life aren't always like very clear cut decisions, sometimes just kind of going with the flow. So when I was younger and in university, music is my first love. I can't play an instrument, can't sing with a lick, but it's always just been my passion and my love. So I really wanted to work in the music industry and at the time I was in New York. So during the summers I would intern at a venue called Sounds of Brazil. It's a really famous venue in New York on Houston Street. It's been there for years. A lot of up and coming acts have performed there before they got their really big claim to fame people like Kanye West, drake, et cetera. So I would intern there during the summers as a marketing intern and at the time it was a lot of MySpace, facebook, like social media marketing. Right, that's really dating.

The Trailblazers experience : 2:32

In MySpace, exactly.

Sherene Perrier : 2:36

Yeah. So I just love being around music. But then I realized actually I do like this marketing element of it being on social media, figuring that out. And then when I was in my junior year of university so in America you do four years, I know in the UK you guys do three so my third year out of my fourth year actually came to London to study abroad for a semester. I ended up loving it. I kind of knew I would love it before I even came here, because music was my language for me. So I searched and found out who's a popular artist in the UK right now. It's like Amy Winehouse.

Sherene Perrier : 3:12

At the time I listened to a lot of Grimes like Sway, baby Blue, stuff like that, and I was like, yeah, I'm going to like these people, I'm going to like the environment there, I'm going to love it. And so when I came here I ended up loving it so much that I came back, came and did my master's degree here and I decided to focus it on digital marketing at Middlesex, which is in North London at the time. So it just turns out that one of my lecturers when I was graduating he owned his own consultancy at the time doing digital marketing consultancy and he was working at the beauty company LMS at the time, which is a British beauty brand known for their anti-aging, like marine stuff, and they needed an intern and so I was like, yeah, sure, why not? I need a job, and so that was my first gig. I ended up working in digital marketing for LMS, the British beauty brand, and that kind of gave me my kickoff in that realm, because I've been working mostly in beauty for the last decade.

The Trailblazers experience : 4:14

And it's so interesting because, as you know, digital marketing has evolved in so many stages in terms of what's possible. It's one of those if anyone gets into marketing or digital, it's just open wide in terms of where your career can grow because it's constantly evolving, constant development and you sort of need to be on the pulse of everything that's happening as well.

Sherene Perrier : 4:37

Yeah, no, definitely, and there's so many different facets of it because there's so many different channels. So for what I do, I'm more of a holistic digital marketer in the e-commerce space. So when I work with beauty brands, I'm looking at the overall strategy. How can we acquire new customers through a myriad of channels? How can we retain those customers, again through a myriad of tactics, as opposed to someone who maybe goes into performance marketing and they're very, quite focused in niche, on meta ads and Google ads, or someone who's in affiliate marketing, which again is another channel, very specific and has its own world going on. For someone like me, I would oversee all of those channels, so I'm a little bit of a generalist. I go into all of those pockets and see how they work together cohesively to maintain the business goals that we have for that time.

The Trailblazers experience : 5:30

Yeah, I find that actually more exciting because if you're looking at it holistically, then you're not only just a data analyst but also behavioral analyst as well, because you're looking at the customer behavior and, as we know, customers are either creatures of habit or they are reacting to consumer events that are happening at the time. I mean, if I think about the customer behavior during the pandemic, the customer behavior now, it's so different.

The Trailblazers experience : 5:56

So the analysis will tell you one thing, but you need to look around, isn't it the around the plate, isn't it to see the edge, to see what's actually happening? So you've talked about music and it's interesting because you've always been interested in that. What happened when you came to the UK, where you actually didn't go that direction in terms of your career?

Sherene Perrier : 6:18

Yeah, it's really funny because I really did think I was going to be like booking shows and like doing music festivals and that sort of thing for like my entire life. And when I did come to the UK for that six months when I was studying abroad, I actually did intern at a music label, but it was like house music, which really isn't my vibe, to be honest. But yeah, it was just to get the experience. But, honestly, what happened? Just with music in general? I kind of fell out of love with the industry from some of my experiences and in New York I was just like I don't know.

Sherene Perrier : 6:49

I think I can love this from afar. I don't know if I need to be in it to you know, express my passion about it, have a love and have it a fire for it. I don't think we need to be this close if this is what it looks like, this up close. So yeah, I kind of just said, okay, let's, let's see what else there is out there. So, yeah, I didn't pursue that in the end.

The Trailblazers experience : 7:10

Yeah, it's always interesting, isn't it? The business of music is different from the music business. It's completely two separate entities, and it's it's either you have the passion for both to make it work in in some way. But you know who knows where, where your thread might take you Exactly, I might loop back around, who knows?

Sherene Perrier : 7:30

And it's also you have to realize where you were mentally as a person at that time. At that time I'm quite a shy person, I'm not really well. People who know me now gonna be like why is she telling this lie? But no, at the time, like, I'm quite quiet, quite reserved, I keep to myself for that industry, you really had to have quite a grit about you and quite a persistence about you. You couldn't like, don't take no for an answer type attitude and that's just not who I was at the time as a person. So, like, maybe it just wasn't. I wasn't built for it at the time, right, yeah, fast forward 15 years, I'm in a completely different space maybe, but yeah, at the time it just wasn't a good fit.

The Trailblazers experience : 8:11

Yeah, and that's an important thing to talk about that the I wouldn't say the the ambitions that you had when you're younger, they, they change over time. Do you think your core values have changed over time, or are they still like the building blocks of the foundations for everything that you do?

Sherene Perrier : 8:30

I think at my core I'm very much still the same person. It's very important for me to put out a high quality of work like that. I feel like that very much reflects who I am as a person and I know that's tied to like validation issues and things like that, but like that's not going away. It's very core to me to like be a good person, to be kind to people, to be empathetic to people and to want to see that around me as well. I think those core things are the same. But I think you know, depending on the topic of things, things have fluctuated for me right as I've grown, as I've matured, as I've read up on different things and learned about different things, my opinions on things have changed ever so slightly. But I think core values wise, I'm pretty much the same.

The Trailblazers experience : 9:17

Yeah, talk to me about Koi and how that came about. Yeah, yeah.

Sherene Perrier : 9:23

So that's my baby Koi shoes. It's spelled COIX IX stands for the Roman numeral nine, because we do UK size nine and up. So that's equivalent of a size US 11, or like a EU 43 for people who know your EU sizes. But yeah, so when I moved to London, I became really good friends with a girl named Charlotte. She was also from the East Coast of the United States. She was also very tall, a little bit taller than me, but we wore the same shoe, size a US 13.

Sherene Perrier : 9:58

So we would always talk about, like where are you finding your shoes here? Where are you shopping? Oh, are you going back home to the States? Can you bring me some shoes from this place? Because there's always a few places that we knew that we bought shoes. So we always shared shoes and talked about fashion and just loved that and so, like, well, honestly, we just got fed up with the availability of what was out there. There was nothing that quite fit our style, our tastes, like. To be quite honest, it was either at that time when you were wearing shoes, you were either like a grandma, orthopedic styles, or it was like stripper styles, like six inch platform heels, like you know, for the girls, for the girls, but like I can't wear that to the office, there's nothing in between.

Sherene Perrier : 10:42

Yeah, there was nothing in between that was like classic feminine you know you could take, you could wear it in the office but then also go out for drinks after a go out on a day after in type of vibe. So, honestly, we talked about it for so long until we were just like you know what, let's take the plunge. And so my business partner, charlotte at the time was between jobs and she was like okay, I'm going to go to this area in the UK. Sorry, I can't even remember what it was called, but there's a man footwear manufacturing area in the UK where they still manufacture.

The Trailblazers experience : 11:13

They still do what you sure must be. So yes, yeah, yeah, now that rings bells, yeah.

Sherene Perrier : 11:18

They still deal with leathers and things like that. She was like I'm just going to go up there, pick some people's brains and like let's get this thing started. I said, okay, let's do it. I wasn't able to go with her that day, but she came back with like so much inspiration People were so nice with her and like giving her tips and of the trade and things like that so that kind of started off our journey in a very serious way.

Sherene Perrier : 11:39

And so, basically, through our network, asking friends, asking friends of friends we found a manufacturing area in Spain, alicante, elday area, which is just, you know, world renowned for making shoes, and we located a manufacturer that did the sizes that we wanted to do. So we went and visited a couple of times, actually looked at what they had in their roster, made some tweaks to some things, and that's how our first collection was born. So we did five styles, two color ways each. Obviously, because I'm in digital marketing and do all that stuff. I built the website myself on Shopify, we did a photo shoot, got all the imagery to get there and we launched in December 2018. So it'll be five years coming this December.

Sherene Perrier : 12:30

And then, yeah, brexit happened and we were like, okay, it's not really financially viable for us to keep making in Spain and have to pay import fees and stuff like that on shoes. So our second collection that we did and launched in 2021, we did three sandals styles with a Chinese manufacturer that we found and sourced. So, yeah, it's been quite an amazing experience. Honestly, I love wearing my own shoes. I love being able to tell people yeah, these are our shoes and it's great, and they actually fit me well and they're actually comfortable. So that's so nice.

The Trailblazers experience : 13:05

I mean it's amazing. You've just described the blueprint for starting a business. You know if investors are listening or looking. It's like you had a problem that you wanted to solve. Yeah, you identify that. You quickly found a source where you could make the product, had a small production run you know, did all your marketing, etc. You knew who your target audience was and you just went for it. So it's it's actually good to see. I think we need to get away from women thinking that they can't start anything. Sometimes you just need to have a problem that you're solving an idea, someone else, like your business partner, co founder, who also has the same you know inkling to solve this problem and and going for it. One of the biggest lessons you've learned in terms of a just over your career, but also as a co founder and a business owner what are things you learned about yourself that you didn't know before?

Sherene Perrier : 13:56

Yeah. So one of the big things for me is when starting a business and being involved in the business, there's no saying, oh, I don't like doing this, oh, you can't pick and choose. Right, if you're serious about the end goal, which is to make this business successful, there should be nothing you wouldn't want to do for it. Right, we were bootstrapping everything we couldn't afford to pay freelancers to, you know, run our social media accounts or you know, things like that, aside from an accountant to you know, run our books every year. We were responsible for everything. You know, I was maintaining the books until we got an accountant to do the year and accounts, doing all the financial stuff, figuring out what our margins are, how much we should charge for shoes. Couldn't pay for a developer, so I had to figure out Shopify template. So my own and just you know, just do it. Right. But like social media again, personally in my own life, not really on social media, like that, I've never really taken to it, but it's like it's something that had to be done and that's one big lesson I learned for myself because I still, even to this day, have not warmed to it. But like to be honest, that's a hindrance, Right Like, people like to see you in the shoes, they like to see you styling the shoes, they like to be able to envision themselves in it, and they can't do that if you're not putting it in front of them all of the time. And that's something I definitely shied away from. I did it from time to time, but I definitely could have, you know, stuck my hand in the clicky jar a little bit deeper in terms of that.

Sherene Perrier : 15:32

Also, in terms of, like, just working in general, just being more confident in my skills and abilities Right Like, I work very hard, I always give my best, but I'm always still, like, putting a question mark, like, was that good enough? Did I do that to the best of my abilities? And sometimes just got to go for it Like it is. You, you've done your best. Don't question yourself. Stop questioning yourself. Just do it Right, cause, to be honest, everyone is making it up.

The Trailblazers experience : 16:04

Oh yeah, we'll hit till, we make it. I mean yes.

Sherene Perrier : 16:07

Yeah, I wish I knew that sooner. Like, honestly, like, everyone is making it up, everyone is doing their best every day and figuring it out every day, right? Even if you're an expert in a field, like you said, fields move on, things change, technology changes you should always be learning, always be developing new skills to a certain degree, even if it's you know, inside your field or outside your field, right, there's always new things to learn. So, yeah, everyone's faking it, everyone's you know making it up, so it's fine.

The Trailblazers experience : 16:39

Yeah, have a little confidence about yourself, honestly and also, if someone asks you to do something you can't do, just say yes and then go figure it out. Go figure it out. It's like Google what, what did they ask? Okay, I got this. Step one. Step two find someone who's done it before. Ask them the question, and I think people are more responsive nowadays. I remember the early days of LinkedIn, where you'd reach out to someone for something and nobody wanted to share. But actually now, when you say hi, I can see you in a similar field. Can I just pick your brain on something?

Sherene Perrier : 17:09

Yeah.

The Trailblazers experience : 17:10

Can I, can I call you? And people are more responsive nowadays, can I feel? They just want to share, they just want to connect in a different way than before and realizing we all need each other, especially since the challenges we're facing, whether it's economically, with e-commerce, et cetera we're sort of like all in the same boat now, no matter what category you're in. Yeah, so it's like instead of dog eat dog, it's like okay, let's get together, let's understand what's going on. You learn from me, I learn from you.

Sherene Perrier : 17:37

So yeah, we need to. Yeah, definitely. People love sharing their experiences. People love being asked questions about their expertise. So, yeah, definitely agree, reach out to people.

The Trailblazers experience : 17:50

And also you talked about social media. I think the algorithms have just made it have changed over time where you have to keep on posting, telling your story, talking about your brand, and if it's not something that you're used to doing, I think you sometimes think it's, it's overkill. But obviously if you have an e-commerce shoe brand, you have to keep on putting it in front of people. So, with our short attention spans that we have on average yeah, I think I was looking at the metrics in terms of just people just have when they click on an ad, it's a millisecond or a few seconds and then they've lost it, they're gone.

Sherene Perrier : 18:22

Yeah, you have such a short period to catch people's attention and but then also keep it right.

The Trailblazers experience : 18:29

For them to click through. So your call to action, it's actually, you're right, okay, shoes, okay. What do they need to do? And not wait until the end of the ad? Or the overlay with the call to action needs to be immediate. Now I'm seeing lots of brands. They're overlays, are talking about the buy now, pay now. You know pay later. That's the call to action. You just think, wow, it's literally in your face. Because we are such short attention span, we're moving on to the next thing really quickly Swipe, swipe, swipe.

Sherene Perrier : 18:56

Yeah, all the time and I'm trying to be super, super conscious of that. But even with myself, like I noticed, like if a video doesn't grab me in like one minute, I'm off. Yeah, don't even care what you're talking about now. It's taking too long.

The Trailblazers experience : 19:08

I moved on. Get to the point. Get to the point please. Yeah, so that's amazing. I mean, what are some of the challenges that you found? So if we're have some founders or business people listening to the podcast saying, right, I've also started my business, you know, talk to me about how did you even raise the funds? Was it self funded? Did you do crowdfunding? What are some of the things that, if you want to impart some wisdom for someone looking to start a business, that you would give.

Sherene Perrier : 19:36

Yeah, so we're like 99% bootstrapped. When we first launched, we did a small little crowdfunding thing, but really was mainly just our friends and family. It didn't really raise that much friends and family.

Sherene Perrier : 19:48

Yeah, Thank you, friends and family. We appreciate you, but it didn't really raise that much money Like the majority of the funds for you know, the stock that we have maintaining the website extra, because I try have been through my business partner and I going 5050. And luckily, again we're working full time, we're in half decent paying jobs, so we're able to do that. The last like two years or so, the selling of the inventory that we have has been able to keep the business going. We're not in a position yet to like release new styles, but you know everyday fixed costs, like you know, Shopify, paying for the domain, all that stuff that's, you know, coming from the revenue of the business at the moment. So that's been fine.

Sherene Perrier : 20:36

I've always been, again, quite fearful of debt and taking out debt and taking out loans.

Sherene Perrier : 20:43

Again, as I've gone through this process and I've been learning more about what debt is and how you can use it to your advantage of kind of loosened up my thoughts around that, Because maybe it could have been something good and viable for us, especially at the time when interest rates were so low. That is not the case anymore. Yeah, that's something again if I were looking into a new business venture, seeing what debt structure could possibly be to my advantage. I would probably look into a little bit more. And then there's also things like grants, right, I mean, it takes a lot of effort to research what grants are out there, do the applications and things like that. But if you're really passionate about what you're doing and you really don't have the funds to bootstrap it yourself, and you know the interest rates don't make sense on loans that are out there, then that's the next best thing, right, Like spending the time figuring out what grants might be available to you and applying for them and giving that a shot.

The Trailblazers experience : 21:41

Yeah, you've touched on an important topic. Where does that come from? Because we talked about going into debt. Is that a historic thing, family thing? Where does that come from, that fear of, oh my God, taking out a loan for a business, a business loan? Where does that come from?

Sherene Perrier : 21:57

Yeah, it's definitely a family thing. So I grew up in a single mother home. My mother is great. She's a Jamaican woman, came up from Jamaica to the States. I'm one of six children. I'm number four of six, so I was actually the first of my siblings to be born in America. All my older siblings were born in Jamaica and my mom came and she hustled. You know she's a nurse. She was in business school when she was pregnant with me.

Sherene Perrier : 22:23

She started businesses, she bought a house, but I saw sometimes how not knowing how to handle debt was to her detriment, right, Like taking out a mortgage and then realizing, oh there's some crazy balloon payment at the end of it. That doesn't make sense. Like what's going on? She started a restaurant when I was a teenager and again she took out a loan for that and that didn't quite work out. I mean, she always bounced back.

Sherene Perrier : 22:51

But again I just feel like naturally I'm a risk averse person. So seeing that to me was like, ah, that doesn't look comfortable. I like to be a little bit more comfortable than that. See, that's where it came from. I feel like, for the most part because I've been so risk averse, I've always been quite careful with debt Like I've had personal credit cards but I paid them off quite quickly, particularly after university, right, Because we were all broke, we all had the credit card debt. But once I got into a full-time paying job, I cleared that up quite quickly and I've been pretty good with managing personal finances in that way. Yeah, but for the business.

The Trailblazers experience : 23:29

I was like yeah.

The Trailblazers experience : 23:31

They don't talk about financial literacy. I mean one of the stuff I've learned now. I'm learning now in my 30s, 40s I mean my 40s now and they don't. I wish they was in secondary school one-on-one on financial literacy, investing, compounding. They don't talk about it at all. And what you've learned from your mom is, first of all, you've got that entrepreneurial spirit, which is really good. But also when you talk about holistic view, you don't even realize you are always saying, right, let me look at the big picture, let me assess an analyst at heart. What are the pros and cons? You're doing that already and that's really from your upbringing. But on the other hand, you're like I never want to get into that position ever again.

The Trailblazers experience : 24:19

It's interesting. I am the oldest of eight and my dad moved from full-time employment to being an entrepreneur and I saw the highs of it when it was doing really well. But I also saw when the business was not doing well at all and it was just like financial difficulties from the family. And you know what I've always said to myself I never, ever want to be an entrepreneur, ever. I don't know how people do it. I have people who are, but if you understand the business of money and how to raise funds and what it means, you know to have a holding company so many things that you just think wow, you need to do things in a smart way as well, so yeah, we really do ourselves a disservice not teaching not even just children, younger people, about finances, how to manage finances.

Sherene Perrier : 25:07

It's a bit of gatekeeping, isn't it? But, like even myself, I'm so much into, like personal finance and finance, youtube, like figuring those things out Because, honestly, there's so many little tidbits of information that you just would never, you would just never know because you're never taught it. But it's out there, the information is out there if you go looking for it.

The Trailblazers experience : 25:26

Exactly, but shout out to our parents, for you know, giving us, giving us the skills that we thought we didn't need it but we're using right now as well. Definitely, so fast forward. You're now a digital marketing, e-commerce consultant. What have you learned? You know getting into that space being a freelancer.

Sherene Perrier : 25:46

Yeah, so I'm new to freelancing. I only just started this year a little bit out of necessity. I've been doing some traveling this year and was like I A needed a break from my last role. I completely burned myself out in my last role and, like, health wise, I just wasn't feeling good. I wasn't feeling well. So I needed that break and I needed something with a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more freedom. And also I just didn't want to come into the office Like I've spent the last 10 years schlepping it to an office, being there early, staying there late, you know all for the sake of you know, trying to advance my career, whatever.

Sherene Perrier : 26:25

It got me nothing. It got me a lot less than I thought it did at the time. So I said, yeah, let me just give my hand at freelancing. So I actually kind of fell into it a little bit. I don't know if you know of Lunch Club. It's an online website. It's a very networking website essentially, where it matches you with people to have one on one meetings based on your interests or what your objectives are.

The Trailblazers experience : 26:51

Do not love tech.

Sherene Perrier : 26:52

Yeah, exactly. So I met a couple of agency owners through that who needed support on different projects for you know, digital marketing, e-commerce projects at the time. So I was just like, yeah, let's do it, let's see how it goes. Sometimes I've been working like through these agencies with a myriad of different clients because my everything was like I don't really want to stay in beauty. I kind of just fell into it because that lecturer gave me the opportunity. Working at LMS was a great experience.

Sherene Perrier : 27:21

I did have a break where I worked in music technology at a startup for a bit, but I get my last role here care company beauty and I'm like I don't love it. It's not my passion. Like some of the people that are working in this issue. They're really passionate about it. They really love it. Yeah, I'm just here. Maybe I want to feel like that about my role, so maybe I should try something else. So, yeah, they had the opportunity to work in different industries through these different projects and now I'm in a full-time contract role, going in twice a week seeing what it's like.

Sherene Perrier : 27:57

But again, I feel like, on a positive note, I like having a very set on project, very clear goals, clear KPIs If you do that for them and that relationship is done, or they move you on to the next thing, which is really really great Loving the flexibility of it, loving the pay of it, because, again, as we're talking about finances, I set up my LTD. I pay myself very minimally. I'll start paying myself some dividends and just managing tax, as the wealth of people do, in my own little way, because they're very near wealthy. But yeah, on the flip side of it, though, I do realize, like trying to find new clients, having to sell myself, that's a skill that I need to work on.

Sherene Perrier : 28:47

Outreach networking that's not my strongest suit, something I need to get better with. But also like, again, not having that quote unquote security, right, like I knew when I was in a full-time role, every month, that's the money that's going to be deposited into my bank account. I could budget, I could be very secure in that. Now it's like, ooh, do I know what I'm doing next month? They let me go today. Like what am I going to do? So, yeah, balancing that a little bit in those emotions, but yeah, I think I'm going to give it a little bit more time and see how it goes.

The Trailblazers experience : 29:22

Yeah, I mean well done for you for even just taking I know you said out of necessity, but the fact that you've plunged and taken the dive and gone in there, it's an interesting you know learn all about yourself. You learn a lot about who you are, what you will tolerate, what you will not and, like you said, if it's a project, you're sort of on the clock and you're working on that project, but you're also trying to find out. Okay, what's the next thing that I could be doing? You talked about traveling, so talk to me about that. Where have you traveled, what has led you there and how do you think that's going to define your next steps?

Sherene Perrier : 29:59

Yeah. So I've always loved traveling, and that's another thing I definitely get from my mother. She loved being able to see the world. She loved being able to take us when she could, to different places, and so I've always had a bit of a travel bug. The reason why I came to study abroad in the UK and even my university I went to a small business school. They very much encouraged us to travel through short term like course things, and they gave a lot of financial aid for it as well. So they put their money where their mouth is. So when I was in university I went to Malaysia on a spring course, I went to Ghana on a winter course and then I did London for a full semester. So this past year I actually went back to Ghana.

Sherene Perrier : 30:43

I've been spending a lot of time this year going to Ghana because, again, london's been great to me. I've lived here for the last 10 years or so, but I don't know if this is my forever home. Like it's been great, but I feel like we're not. We're not gelling the way that we used to. We're both in different stages now and it's not the same, so trying to see what else is out there. The world's a big place and I love to experience different cultures, meet new people, see what it's like. So, yeah, spending this year in Ghana has been really, really interesting, like because I've never spent this much time in West Africa Excuse me and it's a completely different world. It's a completely different set of things going on and I feel like I didn't realize how Western I was. So I went there Like I do want my things and I want them now and I can't get that.

The Trailblazers experience : 31:35

Oh no, when you're in any African country, you have to be a bit more relaxed. You know you need to take it easy. Yeah, yeah.

Sherene Perrier : 31:44

Everyone's on their own time, nobody is in a rush. And, to be quite honest, that's what I needed. This year I was low down, completely burnt out from my experiences last year. So the weather a hundred times better. I always I've always had low iron, so you know I'm always cold, but I felt great there in the sun. It was amazing, people were friendly and nice.

Sherene Perrier : 32:06

But yeah, just the way that things are structured, it's like the Wild West right, like there's so many opportunities but at the same time it's an uphill battle because there's no like government support. You know what I mean. There's like grants and things like that. If you're just starting up a business, at least not from within, a lot of the money comes from, you know, the outside foreign money coming in. But then also like infrastructure wise, the roads aren't that great. You know things like I'm used to being in London, new York, where there's parks everywhere. You can walk to a park, you can take public transport to a park. It's not, it's not that hard. Very little green space there. Everyone drives or takes taxis everywhere. No one's walking anywhere. So I was like, oh, my active lifestyle has become a lot less active now because I'm working at home or working remotely. I just in the house all day working, because where am I going to walk to?

The Trailblazers experience : 33:03

Yeah, you have to go and actively seek green, green space and it might be in people's homes. That is where the green space is. Or, if you, go out to Favare parks.

The Trailblazers experience : 33:11

That's where the green space is. It's completely different. And walking you know I walk a lot here is when people say what you walk it's it's considered not a great thing to do. If you can take a cab or a car, that would be better, that would be considered a faster way of getting around. But the nice thing is I think almost everyone is an entrepreneur in any African country because you just have to. The hustle just takes that. That's how you need to go. You need to pivot, you need to be entrepreneur, you need to think well, this is my paycheck, this is what's going to feed me. I need to make this work. So that hustler mentality has always been a very big thing and so many great ideas as well. I know a lot of them gone in and it's it's just a place where it's easy to get to and lots of a hub for lots of industries as well.

Sherene Perrier : 34:04

So how long?

The Trailblazers experience : 34:04

were you there for them?

Sherene Perrier : 34:06

So I was there basically for most of this year. I've only come back to London last month, at the end of last month, for this contract roll because they're in the office. Everyone wants you back in the office now. Like I thought it would be easier to find a remote role working in digital marketing.

The Trailblazers experience : 34:22

Yeah.

Sherene Perrier : 34:23

Yeah, it's not, but yeah, so I spent, yeah, basically a year.

The Trailblazers experience : 34:29

That's brilliant. Oh, that's amazing. So you came back and brought us some sun. Yes, for the meantime, talk to me about challenges that you faced as a woman and how you overcome them, because you know as much as we can see the many opportunities are being opened for us as women. There are still some shady shit going on, you know.

The Trailblazers experience : 34:51

excuse my language, but it is happening, and the whole idea of the podcast is to share experiences and what we've learned from them, as well also to humanize us, because our LinkedIn page always looks like we've done this, we've done that, we've started a business and it makes it all glossy and shiny and, like you said, we're sort of faking it till we make it. But what challenges have you had and how have you overcome them?

Sherene Perrier : 35:15

Yeah. So, like I kind of alluded to before, working in the music industry wasn't the most woman-friendly environment. Like you know, it's a mixed environment. It's men and women. I was an intern at the time and it was a group of us, right, but we're all doing the same work. We're, all you know, passionate about it. But, like, who gets the praise? Who do, like the artists acknowledge when they walk into the room? It's only the guys and it's like actually he didn't do anything. This time he's been on vacation for two weeks.

Sherene Perrier : 35:48

I'm the one who set up your whole show. It was out on the New York streets handing out flyers and it's just like I walk right by. Okay, cool, I guess, whatever, all the guys get a dab up and hey, how you doing, and oh, let's exchange numbers and let's do something after, and it's kind of like, after a while it gets a bit disheartening, especially if you don't have, like the heart and the grit for it. Like I mentioned before, like there were some girls who were like they're like, no, actually I'm here, please see me like not taking no for an answer. But that just wasn't my personality at the time. So that's why I kind of shied away from trying to pursue that industry more. But since I've been in London I've been mainly working in the beauty industry, which is actually quite woman led, which has been very interesting as well. Right, completely completely different. It's a lot more of a supportive environment, I have found, even when my leadership has been male. So, like I've worked in digital marketing departments where the head of digital or the digital director you know, those higher level positions have mainly been male, to be fair, but they've always been quite supportive, particularly of me. I can only speak of my experience. They've been supportive of me and my growth, I think mainly because they see how hard I work and the quality of the work that I do.

Sherene Perrier : 37:07

But one thing I realized, like just working in a corporate environment, particularly when I was younger, I was always afraid to ask for my worth and ask for more. And again, I don't know if that's something particular to me, is that something that's a trait of women? Not to generalize, I don't know, but like I really struggled with that and I noticed, like my husband, he works in a completely different industry, but I just noticed his trajectory and what he does. He just zoomed and is it because he's asking for more in the beginning? Is it just because he's a little bit more bullish? And I'm not, I don't know. I've never like dissected it to that degree, but that's something I definitely say as a woman, particularly starting out young in an industry ask for more, even if the number sounds big and outrageous. Obviously, do your research, find out what the average salary is, but ask for that plus a little bit more.

Sherene Perrier : 38:08

Because once you're in the role it gets really hard to negotiate and go up. You just have to find yourself moving around at that point, leaving jobs. And I was in a slightly different situation when I started working here because I was on a work visa, so I needed sponsorship. So I was always quite afraid of like moving roles because it's like, okay, what if they don't sponsor me or what if the sponsorship thing doesn't work out? So I stayed in my first two roles for like four years each to make sure that I went through that sponsorship track and I was able to get my UK citizenship at the end of it. But for someone that doesn't have that on their back and you're just free to move roles, ask for more and if you don't get it, start looking for somewhere else. No loyalty, that's what I tell everybody now no loyalty there's no loyalty.

The Trailblazers experience : 39:01

You know what these streets are loyal, it's true. I mean touched on a very important point. I think the thing is, as women, we just win the room. We need to PR ourselves more, demand our seat at the table, talk about all the projects that we've done, all the things we've achieved, and of course, it depends on your circumstance. If it's the work sponsorship that's the key thing, then that should be the focus and the drive.

The Trailblazers experience : 39:26

But you're right I think there was a survey someone's talking about it about how if you're a consultant and day rates, men will add plus 20% on whatever they're and they usually get it, whereas women are like, oh, I think I got a bit lower because, just in case, where it's actually, you need to demand your worth, yeah, and just be like you said, be a bit more bullish with what you want. And it's good to share that experiences that you've had, because I'm sure there are so many women out there that are doubting themselves. They are in the room but they're not seen because it's the men being acknowledged and we need to change that. Like, everyone in a room is equal and everyone demands the respect that they need, especially if they're achieving those targets, those goals, et cetera. It's like hello, I'm here, I've done this, you know, acknowledge me. And we need allies.

The Trailblazers experience : 40:17

Like you said, your senior management was a man, but he was a really good ally, supporting you, encouraging you. We need the men out there to support us. So thank you for sharing, for being vulnerable enough to share your experience to help someone. What are you proud of? You know, looking at your career, what do you think are some of your personal and professional achievements that you would say you know, I'm really proud, I did that.

Sherene Perrier : 40:44

Yeah, so many things actually. Like I've worked for aside from LMS I've mainly been working for like small startup founder led businesses. So you work quite closely with founders. There's always a lot going on and not enough hands to help. So I've project managed quite big like projects, like complete website redevelopments and redesigns, you know, things that at larger companies they outsource to an agency and internally all you have to do is manage the agency. No, I am the agency, I'm the internal contact. We're doing everything. I'm helping merchandise, I'm helping QA, I'm helping tests to do everything like that. And it's just like in the beginning it seems so daunting like these large scale projects, but being able to like actually see that through, see the team through, you know, keep positive energy, keep it light in the room, even when it's getting quite heavy, that's been a major accomplishment for me and I've done that on two occasions now. So like I can, you know, wholeheartedly say I can project manage a whole website redevelopment in migration and look at that.

The Trailblazers experience : 41:57

Girl, save it again.

Sherene Perrier : 42:00

Yeah, Listen, you know what I mean. Like some people, a lot of people haven't done that, you know, so that's been great when I was working at. So I was working at a music technology startup called Rolly Again, very, very small teams. The digital team was really only me, the digital director and like social media person, you know what I mean Just kind of grinding it out there and it was a super, super cool product, very, very much ahead of its time when I was working there.

Sherene Perrier : 42:30

But they developed a second counterpart to be more like a consumer version of that product, because the original product was very much for professionals.

Sherene Perrier : 42:39

You know, like film composers would use it, music producers and they wanted to do something that kind of democratized music in a way I made it more accessible for people.

Sherene Perrier : 42:50

So they developed a product called Lumie, which is basically a little keyboard that accompanied with an act. It would teach you how to play the keyboard and play the keys through lighting up the keys on the keyboard so you would know which note to play and et cetera, and build up your skills and do that. And we actually did a Kickstarter for that and then launched the website into pre-sales and that entire experience, because that actually went really viral and did really well for the business and really turned it around at a pivotal time when the business was struggling. And being involved in that project and again seeing how leadership managed that, I learned a lot from them to be able to take into my next roles and things I did after that. But also like being involved in that process and having a lot of my ideas that I pitched to be put forward and be successful, that was really good for me as well in my career.

The Trailblazers experience : 43:47

Yeah, so if someone asks, was to ask and say what's your secret source? What are the key top things about you? We should know. What would you say.

Sherene Perrier : 43:57

That's a good question. I would say for me I'm half creative and half analytical, like equally. Like I know in all my roles I've been with people that are like afraid of Excel. They're like I don't want to touch that, I don't know. Yeah, no, but like I actually enjoy doing that. I enjoy running pivot tables. I like being Google Analytics and again try to figure out what's going on.

Sherene Perrier : 44:24

But I also enjoy the creative elements that go into having a business and marketing. Like I love branding, I love thinking up ideas for ads and how we can make ads more creative, more punchy, that sort of thing. I love website design how can we improve the customer journey and experience Like what little design tweaks can we make? And that sort of thing. And I think that's one of my most positive attributes is like I can do both. I like actually being involved in both things and I think that's the pivotal, particularly for working in startups and smaller businesses where you know there's just not that many hands to go around. But then also for me, just as being a work colleague and being involved in working in teams and working with other people, I try and be really, really empathetic. I try to be really really supportive of other people.

Sherene Perrier : 45:17

In my last role it was my first time like managing a team, like having direct reports, and I built really, really great relationships with those people where they felt like they could be honest and open with me and also know that I would be supportive of them.

Sherene Perrier : 45:34

Like I've had friends that have been in roles and they're like I can't stay my manager, I can't talk to my manager, I can't wait for them to leave, or if they don't leave, I got to go, sort of thing, and I just I never wanted to be that type of manager, right, I always wanted to try and be a better example, like and lead by example. Well, not always lead by example, because sometimes I was working too hard and I'd be like, don't be like me, please go on your lunch break, please leave on time, like we work hard. But also you have to have balance and you also have to show that right. You can't just be telling people that they want to do what they see. You do not just what they hear. You say yeah, so yeah, I would say those two things.

The Trailblazers experience : 46:20

Yeah, it's like a nice combination, because you've got the entrepreneurial.

The Trailblazers experience : 46:23

You know, bootstrapping, launching your own business with a co-founder and then working with startups. I mean, that's I always say to people that's actually a good way to start, because you're doing everything, yeah, and then suddenly it accelerates, you're now getting investment, structure etc. And then also working with companies that you know maybe are a bit bigger. It's actually a good way to learn and hone your skills, Whereas if you've always just worked for corporate organizations and suddenly thrown into a startup, you're just like, oh what, we have to write this report ourselves. Yes, there's no data analyst. I know At a click I actually have to then get from different data sources and then some people are really shocked that they have to do the work themselves.

The Trailblazers experience : 47:06

But I say to my teams I want to empower you that wherever you go, you've taken some sort of you know new skill set in your toolbox, your toolkit that you can use elsewhere. So if you want to really develop, it's actually best to be cross functional. So understand supply chain, understand IT, understand distribution, because you'll be a better forecaster if you understand if those can be delivered across all the things and they're like ah stressful, but we'll do it.

The Trailblazers experience : 47:36

It's good to know. Talk to me about self care. What do you do outside all of these great professional things that you're doing? How do you take care of you?

Sherene Perrier : 47:45

Yeah, so I didn't do a great job of that last year, not a great job of that last year, but what I do normally just enjoy outside of work is music. I've always still gone to festivals, still gone to concerts. That's a great thing about living in London, right? Every artist you can imagine and love will book a show here, have a date here and you can go and see them and enjoy that. And like my taste in music is so varied and wide, like sometimes I just go by myself because I know I do that too.

The Trailblazers experience : 48:16

Yeah, like I'm going to enjoy it. I have been to a few concerts where I've just said there's really no point in trying to ask people because they'll say they can't do it. It might be too last minute. That artist may have just said I'm only doing one show only, so I'll just go after work, or and they're like, oh, you went on your own. I need some really interesting people who are doing the same thing. They're just like I can't be bothered. I found my tribe. This is why I miss my space.

The Trailblazers experience : 48:41

Yeah, exactly, I mean I'm feeling very old school, but I don't know if there's some community out there. Someone tag it and tell me if there's something similar where you can see a music interest, have a group of people and imagine how cool you could just meet up with them and do the same thing, whereas I know there's meetup, but on meetup it's not posted saying I'm going to an Ari Lennox concert. Who wants to go? And that's what I missed, because you could find your little communities and be like, oh, we're meeting here and there were no cell phones at the time. It was like you're meeting there, that's where you're meeting. That's why I missed that. But yeah, I do the same too. I'm just like, look, too complicated to ask people if they're going, if they can go, and in some cases I do also now have a concert buddy, who I just say she's also interesting in music. She used to go by herself too.

Sherene Perrier : 49:32

And.

The Trailblazers experience : 49:32

I just ask the same girl do you want to go as well? But yeah, that's pretty good. Have you been to some interesting ones in Ghana?

Sherene Perrier : 49:41

Yeah, actually I went to the Chance the Rapper Black Starline Festival. Oh my God, I'm so jealous. That was really good it might have been too many acts. We were there literally all night. We were there from like 1030 to literally like 6am Chance the. Rapper was like literally bringing the sun up for his film yeah sunrise, no curfews like here.

Sherene Perrier : 50:06

Exactly no curfews. I mean Eric Abadou was on and a full moon Like that is so rare, so good. Her voice is so magical, it's so beautiful. It was a great lineup, great experience, great time yeah yeah. Definitely.

The Trailblazers experience : 50:21

So you're finding yourself, isn't it? Because you said you burnt out at your last, but you've been like in a soul searching, coming back to you.

Sherene Perrier : 50:28

Yeah yeah, and I like to read. I'm in a. Well, I was in a book club here in London, started in the pandemic, like virtually, and then once doors opened again, we started meeting and people would actually read the book and come with conversation. So I loved that, love doing that. And, to be fair, I do love being active. I do go to the gym, but I'm not really a gym person Like I prefer like to play a store or to like dance. I love dancing, love, love dancing. But, yeah, just like to move my body however I can. So those are normally the things I do to teach us. Yeah, and traveling when I can just get out.

The Trailblazers experience : 51:12

I mean after the pandemic, anyone who says they're not traveling. Now I'm like did you not learn anything?

Sherene Perrier : 51:17

Yeah.

The Trailblazers experience : 51:18

Get out, yeah, get out. We, we, we outside read them. So that's important. Fast forward two to three years. Where, where do we see you?

Sherene Perrier : 51:30

Okay, so I'm thinking, like I've been thinking really deeply again. I keep saying, like I know for sure I don't want to stay in beauty. Okay, shareen, so what do you want to do next? What does that actually mean? And fashion has always been a passion of mine, like kind of bubbling under the surface, like I've always.

Sherene Perrier : 51:45

When I was younger, I used to there was a show on TV called full frontal fashion, where they would just show the runway shows and I would watch that and like do my little sketches. But I never thought I was creative enough to like be a fashion designer or anything like that. But even now, having my own shoe business, I love the designing aspect of that coming up with the styles, picking with fabrics, like looking at the details and stuff. And I just love looking at fashion content. Honestly, all my YouTube recommendations are like fashion influencers and fashion YouTube, like it's just what I love. So I would love the opportunity to work in fashion and see what that is like.

Sherene Perrier : 52:23

But I'm also thinking maybe I do that through freelancing, like maybe I start working with, in particular, I would love to work with like black independent brands, like I love seeing what brands like Kai are doing Hanifa is doing. I got put on to a few Ghanaian brands like Christie Brown out there and I just love their work and love what they're doing and everyone always needs help with digital. Everyone always needs help with e-commerce. So, honestly, just reaching out to people, like you said on LinkedIn, reaching out to people, see what people have going on and see if I can get my foot in the door that way, I think that's my next step and if that's successful, in two to three years Shereen will have her own little marketing agency specializing in digital and e-commerce for fashion brands.

The Trailblazers experience : 53:13

I love it. And I think, with your experience, that you've encompassed also you as a person. People want to work with people. Ultimately, yeah.

The Trailblazers experience : 53:21

This thing, I think that we of course, the experience that you have, but it's all about people, your attitude, your character, your resilience, your understanding, the big picture. That is what's you know, takes us further, actually, than we was like. All those things you know our parents were talking about good manners and behavior and etiquette. Yeah, yeah, being considered but still being hardworking. It's all those things that are one on one to just getting around and progressing. Those, those are the things that will bring us further. It's all about people. So I'm really confident that all those things you've talked about it's not just about manifestation. You're a woman of action there. They're going to happen, sure. Thank you, Trailblazer takeaway tips. Now, we've talked about a lot of things, but you know, to inspire, if there were three takeaways that you would love to share, what would they be?

Sherene Perrier : 54:20

First one, like we already mentioned, everyone is faking it. Everyone is making it up as they go along. Just have confidence in your ability to figure it out right, or gain that confidence in your ability to figure it out. I just started listening to a lot of I don't know what's his name Alex Hermosi.

The Trailblazers experience : 54:40

He does that like acquisitioncom guy.

Sherene Perrier : 54:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, listening to a lot of his little tidbits and he has a lot of good nuggets. One of the things that he mentioned that really resonated with me is that you don't just build confidence for confidence sake, like that. That doesn't work. You need to build evidence that you can do it right. So you know right, it might feel scary in the beginning if you say, oh, I want to do this really really big thing. Break that down to something small and just start building the evidence for yourself. So you know, build the evidence that you can problem solve right. Take little, small problems in your life or at work and just figure out processes and ways that you can figure it out and build that confidence right in yourself in that way and that that will take you very far.

Sherene Perrier : 55:23

That's definitely tip number one. Tip number two ask for more. Add 25%, add 20% on whatever you thought you were going to ask. Because even to this day myself, like when I was figuring out what I would charge for freelancing fees, I was kind of like, oh well, maybe, nope, nope. I asked my husband. I said what would you charge? He said this amount is very certain about it. No quibbling, no. I said, okay, I need to be like that, I need to do more like that.

The Trailblazers experience : 55:56

I think that's definitely a woman thing, honestly are just like hesitant. Would it be nice? It's actually no men decisive. This is my rate and that's it yeah exactly.

Sherene Perrier : 56:06

So I've definitely taken that to bit from my husband to ask for what I'm worth and then still add on 20% and then go from there, because most times they're not. They'll say yes and if they say no, it wasn't the working relationship that you wanted anyway. You weren't going to be happy in it anyway because you feel undervalued. And then, number three, just from again, my personal experience in the last year find a way to have a healthy work life balance. And I know we all say that. There's all the articles on it and it's like oh, what does that actually mean when I work nine to five and I have to travel into the office, so that's extra two hours a day, and you know, you know some people have kids. I don't even have kids I. How do people with kids do this? I don't know.

Sherene Perrier : 56:55

It's a lot, but like find a way to detach yourself, particularly if you are in, you are an employee. There's no loyalty in these streets. Detach yourself. There's no need to go above and beyond, particularly for an organization that does not have reciprocity, and say listen, I see Shireen is doing a lot for us. She's really helping trailblaze in her role, help mentor her peers, etc. Let's try and put her on a track to increase her salary, give her a promotion, give her more responsibilities and titles. If they're not doing that for you and they're just, you know, just giving you more work for more work sake, that's really all great work gets in. A lot of companies is just more schlep work. Just get out of there. So yeah, trying to find a way to have a work life balance that's healthy and keeps and prioritizes you and your well-being is really important. Whatever that means for you, whatever shape that has to take for you, really do the discovery to figure that out. I think that's really, really important.

The Trailblazers experience : 58:04

Sherene ireen drops the mic. Yeah, I think it's so important to share these things and, you know, I just want to say thank you so much for taking care of me, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. That's the whole idea is we want to share real women's stories, and you've had a really eclectic experience of being employed, entrepreneur, working for yourself, startups, and that is the journey of life, that is the circle of life. It's not linear and great for those people who've only worked in one organization for 20 years good for them. But I think we need to just expose and show that there are different ways to success and there are consequences when you overwork too, which is not good for yourself either.

The Trailblazers experience : 58:50

But you just need to pivot and say, right, what am I doing next and what's passionate, what am I interested in? And it feels like you're in a good, good space, good direction. We're glowing, yes, yes, glow, glow and yeah, this has been brilliant. I'm sure it will inspire, it will shape someone's trajectory in terms of what they were thinking and the great thing is, you know we are accessible. People can reach out to us on LinkedIn and to yourself too, if they have a question.

Sherene Perrier : 59:22

And yeah, thank you so much, yeah thank you for having me and thank you for even starting this podcast. I think it's a really great, really great thing.

The Trailblazers experience : 59:31

Yeah, I mean, we are all faking to make it. I need to talk about my first podcast that I edited myself and, oh my God, I was just like, can I do this? But I've learned so much. I can now edit a podcast in less than 30 minutes and post it, upload it, and it's brilliant. But the first time I did it, my son was like are you sure this is something that you want to keep on doing? And then over time, he's actually said you know what? You're actually pretty good at this, and I was like, yeah, I'm trying to solve a problem, I'm trying to empower women.

The Trailblazers experience : 1:00:03

There's proof of concept and I can see you know the contacts, even the DMs that are just coming through on LinkedIn saying I'd really like to do this because I think it's an opportunity for me to share my story in a. There's no affiliation. You know you don't need to ask your business to be on a podcast. You can just talk about you and if you want to talk about the company that you're working for, how great they are brilliant. But if you just want to generalize and just focus on yourself, you can do that too. So it's interesting and I love talking to interesting women, so you're one of them, thank you. So this has been the Trailblazers Experience podcast. Subscribe, share, follow and see you next time.