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115: Success and struggles of building a regional brand with Genecia Alluora, Founder of Soul Rich Woman, International Progressive Women Award 2019 & Former Miss Singapore
Money & Me: Get anything you desire this year 5 Day Audio Program: https://www.soulrichwoman.com/money
The podcast features business leaders, celebrities and inspirational figures with guests including Gary Vaynerchuk, Sheryl Sandberg, Elena Cardone, Mary Buffett, Neil Patel, Kim Kiyosaki, Pia Wurtzbac, Gerry Roberts, Grant Cardone, Denise Duffield Thomas, Sue B Zimmerman, Jay Abraham, Robert Kiyosaki, Anik Singal, Blair Singer, Nas Daily, Dame Wendy Tan, Jacy Wee, Freda Liu, Carrie Lee, Success Resources Veronica Tan & Richard Tan and many more.
Hear more about amazing role models from around the world share their inspirational stories and practical tools for personal and professional success. In each episode, creator and host Genecia Alluora draws out the stories and deconstructs the strategies of remarkable figures making an impact. To Own & Love The F-Word: Being Fabulous, Having Freedom, Financial Independence and family.
Genecia Alluora is a former Miss Singapore, Cafe Retail Chain Owner and Southeast Asia Woman of Excellence 2010, 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 2019. She is the Founder of Soul Rich Woman, the #1 female entrepreneur network in Southeast Asia that connects more than 200,000 women across the region in the ‘Soul F’ membership program. For the past 17 years, Genecia coached celebrities, CEOs and politicians to be seen as a leader on stage. Today, with the Soul Rich Woman Blueprint and online academy, she mentors hundreds of thousands of women to bring their business and leadership brand online. With her coaching products, academy and membership, her vision is to support 1 million women to own and love the F-Word.
[00:00:00]
Genecia Alluora: The other one is the power of collaboration and partnership. So that one is about, you know, knowing that it's playing win-win. Yeah, it's not about, you know.
[00:00:10]
Dasmond Koh: It's never work, if you're thinking about leveraging on other people but you don't give anything. It will never work.
[00:00:14]
Genecia Alluora: It will not work. One slogan I always believe in is, alone you are strong, together we are unstoppable.
[00:00:19]
Genecia Alluora: A strong and independent woman is something to behold. She pays her own bills, buys her own things, and she doesn't let a man affect her stability or self-confidence. She is a Soul Rich Woman. Are you ready to be rich, doing what you love? Be on purpose and in control of your life again. And For Women Who Love the F-word Podcast, we will be openly talking about getting more clients online, getting recognition as the leader and female entrepreneur, and also the F word. Being fabulous, having freedom and financial independence. It's time to own and love the F word. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:09]
Genecia Alluora: Hello, beautiful. Welcome to today's episode of For Women Who Love The F Word show. And today's episode, I'm being interviewed by my friend, Dasmond Koh. He is now the CEO of Noontalk Media. Before that, he was an actor. He was a host as well. You know, an award-winning person, or what you call artist, in Media Corp. And I'm very, very privileged to get to work with him on this episode because he interviewed me about my struggles and success about building Soul Rich Woman as a regional brand. This gives me an opportunity to share with you what entails within this journey. I hope to inspire you to really step out of your comfort zone, to dream bigger than what you have before, and take the next step in your life because you are ready and you are deserving of your next step. I hope you enjoy this episode. And by the way, this one was done in the car. It was done in his car. He was like driving and we were chit-chatting. I really think that it's quite fun. Yeah, I hope that you really enjoyed this. Okay. Do leave us. Do leave us a review and yeah, let me know what do you think about this episode.
[00:02:36]
Dasmond Koh: Okay, we have seen a lot of people doing this and this is the first time that I'm doing an interview in a car. A setup like this. I don't know how it's going to be. Welcome on board.
[00:03:04]
Genecia Alluora: I don't know what to say. Okay. Hey, you have yourself light ah?
[00:02:36]
Dasmond Koh: Yeah. The most important thing, we have to go back to time, okay? That point of time when you started taking part in a pageant.
[00:03:13]
Genecia Alluora: Wah, that is like 10 years ago.
[00:03:16]
Dasmond Koh: Okay, so 10 years ago, how did you feel at that time?
[00:03:20]
Genecia Alluora: Why did I join a beauty pageant was one of the way out for me. Because my family, financially we were not sound. So we had to, I had to support myself through school since I was 14 years old. So when my friend encouraged me to join a beauty pageant, said that you know, it could be a good chance for me to do something about my life. I said okay, why not? So just go and check it out. And yeah, so I joined the beauty pageant.
[00:03:43]
Dasmond Koh: So why is it something like, you know, you have been thinking how you would be like painting all the pictures in your mind before you actually step into it?
[00:03:51]
Genecia Alluora: The whole process is that I had no experience. And because I have been a trainer for many years, I was teaching yoga, aerobics, line dancing.
[00:04:01]
Dasmond Koh: Oh, before that, you're already doing all this already?
[00:03:03]
Genecia Alluora: I started teaching when I was 14, 15 years old. I was the youngest instructor in Singapore. By the time when I arrived at the point where I, you know, I could join a beauty pageant, my girlfriend said you should just go ahead and try it. So I said okay, I went ahead to try and then it really worked.
[00:04:17]
Dasmond Koh: And you won!
[00:04:18]
Genecia Alluora: And I won! And it changed my life! Changed my life because beauty pageants do provide opportunities to travel overseas, have a lot of girlfriends, you know, Miss Hong Kong, Miss Malaysia, I Miss Philippines. And up to today, more than 10 years moving forward, we're all still very good friends. Yeah, so that's really, really quite cool.
[00:04:39]
Dasmond Koh: I think when people got into pageant, it's like what you were saying earlier on, it's the experience after that. So was that what you were actually looking forward to or you didn't know that this part would come with it?
[00:04:50]
Genecia Alluora: It's something that I was looking forward to. Like of course, if you want to join a contest, you better win. I mean, really, the experience, the journey is important, but winning it has really opened up the horizon. And I was flown to Paris, to Italy, to Germany. I even see an IPO, a person actually listed his company in Germany. So I have a lot of these experiences throughout my entire journey as Miss Singapore. And it was not within just the one year that I won. I think a lot of times it's the way you brand yourself, the way you carry yourself, the way you talk about what your vision is, and how people could help you to achieve what you want to do.
[00:05:34]
Dasmond Koh: And of course, I think everybody's seen the growth in you from there then until now.
[00:05:39]
Genecia Alluora: Horizontal or vertical?
[00:05:41]
Dasmond Koh: No, no, no, I mean really spiritual, okay? Because to a lot of people, I think you have become a role model, inspiration in some way, because you started a company, which is Soul Rich Woman. So what is this about that you wanted to bring forward?
[00:05:56]
Genecia Alluora: Actually, I've been doing image consultancy for many years. So in 2012, 2013, I was going through like a mid-life crisis, like a quarter-life crisis. I was like, okay.
[00:06:07]
Dasmond Koh: That's very young.
[00:06:08]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah, I was like, okay, I'm not going to be like this, doing training all my life. I mean, nothing wrong with doing training, but I want to leverage my time.
[00:06:17]
Dasmond Koh: And do something better or even bigger.
[00:06:19]
Genecia Alluora: Do something online. More scalable. So I was looking for an answer, went online, I took a lot of courses. And then I meet this guy who was my student in image consultancy. His name is James, James Wee. And he was the one who said, hey, come and join me, you know, do this online business together. So that was when I opened up my eyes to the level of what you call the e-commerce. I understand what is online business. And it took me a while to figure it out how exactly it was done. So after, you know, in a corporate world, there is always what we call senior executive or what you call the, you can climb, yeah, you can climb the ladder and then someone to mentor you. But in business, not really. You don't really have that.
[00:07:03]
Genecia Alluora: So I feel that there is a gap in the online entrepreneurship world. So I set up Soul Rich Woman in 2013, 2014, but back then it was not called Soul Rich Woman. It was called You Are Possible Academy to put the women together and great minds together, like a lot of the mentors together to help these women to shortcut their journey. So many times people go the wrong way or long way. Even for myself, I also go the long way and the wrong way before I achieve success in the online world. Yeah. So it was not easy. That's why I want to help women to shorten their time, because if I can do it, so can you.
[00:07:48]
Dasmond Koh: I think you brought up a very interesting point just when I was hearing about the impossible thing. A lot of people will think, no, it's impossible for me to do this. That's why they don't even embark onto the journey of doing something. So now it's creating the belief that you might think it's impossible. But in fact, the inner strength that you have might be able to make you accomplish certain things.
[00:08:10]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah I feel like For women It's all about tearing down the limiting beliefs. Because somehow in Southeast Asia After I travelled so many countries. I realised that a lot of women are still holding back because of you know our family, traditions, and culture where women are naturally, you know in the what we call in the kitchen. or you know as a mom.
[00:08:28]
Dasmond Koh: No, no, no, I always think you all should go out and earn money.
[00:08:30]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I also think that we should go out and earn money but what I'm saying is generally the perception and a lot of the women give up their dreams. Sometimes when they have children nothing wrong with that, you know. Having kids is also one part of some of the women's dreams as well. But what if there could be a way for women to have it all.
[00:08:52]
Dasmond Koh: Balance it.
[00:08:53]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah. They could have a way to still have a family And then Through a network Or a platform they learn and acquire the skills easily. The question is, is it sustainable? Is it duplicatable? Is it easy to pick up? The answer is yes. So we want to provide through Soul Rich Woman this platform for women to be at home or at work. And still be able to have a side hustle or what we call some business to do so that they can make some income, extra income. Yeah. So the vision of Soul Rich Woman is to empower one million women to make money online with at least about a thousand dollars a month. You can't imagine if you have one thousand dollars in Vietnam, one thousand dollars in Philippines. One thousand dollars in Malaysia. What kind of life changing moment can you help a woman who is at home or at work to change their lifestyle or help their children or help their family. You know it can change their life. Yeah. It can change their life that's what I'm saying.
[00:09:53]
Dasmond Koh: So much about the big picture now come back to you what do you think you have achieved over all these years?
[00:09:58]
Genecia Alluora: What have I achieved?
[00:10:00]
Dasmond Koh: Yeah or things that you wanted and then you have gotten it now. Of course there's much more things that you can do.
[00:10:07]
Genecia Alluora: Wow. This is a very good question. Actually for me one of the things I feel that I've achieved is depth in terms of my thinking. I think the coaching and mentoring from James is really very has really tremendously changed my life. Like it helped me to see, you know. How to become a better leader as a woman and also sometimes because of him, he guide me, how does a man think as well. So when I look at a perspective it helps me to balance views. Not just in life but also in life and business. Because I'm dealing with women. So sometimes women have very, we have sometimes our own viewpoint in a certain direction. But we always want to also hear from the men what exactly are they thinking. So that there is a balanced viewpoint. So anyway, coming back to the point that you've just asked, I really have grown in terms of looking at things and really considering from multiple perspectives at a deeper level. Yeah. So I'm more daring to continue to move forward to chase my dreams.
[00:11:09]
Dasmond Koh: And I believe the other thing is because you actually got in touch with a lot of entrepreneurs. Also you know startups or even they have dreams that they wanted to do certain business. And I think all these people might have in a certain way exchanged certain knowledge or let us learn certain things from them.
[00:11:24]
Genecia Alluora: And overall I have met a lot of great entrepreneurs like for example I've interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk and his message was you only live once. You know. If you really think that your life is what it is right now, go to the elderly home and look into the eyes of the old people and ask yourself what do you see? Do you see regret? Do you see joy? Do you see, what do you see? So do you want to live a life that you want or be dictated by other people? So my story is always don't be a victim of your own circumstances. Step out of your comfort zone. And go towards the dreams that you've always desired and wanted to achieve. Yeah, because you see I come from not a very rich family. I come from an okay family But to work and support myself through school I work for more than 20 years now. You know. So it's not easy and my brother is big now And I'm very happy That everything is going well.
[00:12:21]
Genecia Alluora: So now it's like I want to tell other women you know. Don't be restricted
to your own comfort zone. Meeting other entrepreneurs does help to open up my mindset and my horizon but most importantly is to see my family help me out.
[00:12:39]
Dasmond Koh: For the next lep maybe 5 years, 10 years. So is there any goal or target that you want to set for yourself like okay next 5 years, maybe I want to?
[00:12:49]
Genecia Alluora: So, yeah. So few things first thing, I want to grow Soul Rich Woman to 20 countries. Then the other one is to public list the company in 5 to 7 years. Yeah.
[00:13:00]
Dasmond Koh: It's not impossible.
[00:13:01]
Genecia Alluora: It is possible.
[00:13:02]
Dasmond Koh: Yes. It's not impossible.
[00:13:04]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah, yeah. It's possible so just that you just have to set things right now. I think that when you do things right. Walk straight, walk straight step on the ground. Step by step. I think can get there.
[00:13:16]
Dasmond Koh: Yes and if you really do it with heart. I believe a lot of people will see and feel that the synergy everything will be combined. And then you will achieve a bigger thing.
[00:13:26]
Genecia Alluora: Partnerships are very powerful. Everybody have their own role. Just have to respect each other's position and do the best that you are good at and what you're good in. So that when you come together all of us come together, right? It's like a very powerful force. So that's one thing that I learnt. The other one is the power of collaboration and partnership so that one is about, you know. Knowing that it's playing win-win. Yeah. It's not about you know.
[00:13:16]
Dasmond Koh: It's never work lah If you are thinking about liberation from other people but you don't give anything.
[00:13:56]
Genecia Alluora: Ah, yeah. It will not work. One slogan I always believe in is, alone you are strong, together we are unstoppable.
[00:14:05]
Dasmond Koh: Wow. You're most right.
[00:14:10]
Genecia Alluora: Yeah, that's something that I really believe in. Because in the end we still have to help more women. Because we want to achieve the F word. The F word. It's called being fabulous, having freedom, and financial independence. So whenever our community helps women in different countries in Southeast Asia achieve the goal of the F, we are very happy.
[00:14:39]
Genecia Alluora: Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so honored that we are connected and I hope that I can continue to serve you as you build your dreams. And if you love this episode, and I hope that you did, please share it with your friends and family. This has been a Rated Five star show. Give us that glowing review because it will helping more women around the world finding the Soul Rich Woman podcast. Alone you are strong, together we are unstoppable. Now share this with every woman who needs it because this is how we are changing the world one woman at a time. As always, get out of your comfort zone and go towards the dreams you always wanted to achieve. For women who love the F word, being fabulous, having freedom and financial independence. My dear soul rich woman, sending you my love and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.