Interview Spotlight With Yetty Williams

Yetty Williams is a social entrepreneur, parenting and abundant living for mums coach and neuro linguistic programmer practitioner. She has over 20 years professional work experience spanning digital media marketing, financial services, consulting, real estate, oil and gas. She is a graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bsc. in Economics (minor mathematics), She also holds an MBA with a focus in Finance and Strategy from the Yale School of Management and an Executive Degree in Strategic Digital Media Marketing from the University of Cambridge. 

As a life coach she helps women live their most abundant lives. Through her brand “Slay with Digital” she helps businesses grow with digital media using her proprietary “7C’s”.

As the founder of Nigeria’s premier and first parenting blog, LagosMums.com she has grown from passion, to purpose to profit and built a brand from scratch by following her passion and using digital media to create an engaged following.

Over the years she has worked with several clients on their digital media marketing strategy; some of which include SME’s and multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Friesland Campina, Nivea, MTN, schools such as Greensprings, Olashore International, Meadow Hall, CIS, several UK boarding schools and many more. 

Can you introduce yourself to us?

My name is Yetty Williams, and I’m the founder and CEO of LagosMums, which is a parenting resource based out of Lagos, Nigeria. With a mission to help parents and caregivers raise responsible digital citizens by providing them with the necessary tools and resources.

I’m a certified life coach and neurolinguistic programming practitioner. I’m also really fascinated by brain development and the neuroscience around making decisions and living the best lives that we can. 

As a digital media strategist, I specialize in helping small business owners develop and implement digital marketing strategies to grow their businesses. I have observed that some women are hesitant to use technology or may believe that they cannot leverage it for their businesses, which results in missed opportunities. I help them overcome their doubts and fears by walking them through a comprehensive digital media marketing strategy.

In my role as a coach, I work with many mothers to help them design a life of abundance and break free from their limiting beliefs. With the right support and guidance, women can achieve their goals and live their lives fully. I am passionate about empowering women to create fulfilling lives and reach their full potential.

Through my coaching services, I am committed to making a positive impact on the lives of parents, caregivers, and women in Nigeria and beyond.

Can you take us through your journey to where you are now?

My journey has been one of growth, discovery, and a passion for helping others. It all began 11 years ago when I became a new mother with a toddler and a newborn. I wanted to have it all and achieve work-life balance while being an intentional parent and raising my children in the best way possible. This desire led me to start my first company, a blog called LagosMums.

LagosMums started out as a simple community-based website focused on motherhood, family, and raising children in Lagos, Nigeria. I was frustrated with the lack of relevant information for moms in Nigeria as most of the research I found online was from websites based in the US and the UK. I knew there had to be other mothers who shared my struggles, so I created a platform where we could connect and share resources.

Today, LagosMums has grown into a resource for thousands and millions of families globally. We provide relevant and practical information on motherhood, parenting, and family life, not just in Lagos but around the world. Our audience is no longer limited to Nigeria, and I’m proud to say that we now reach out to the world from Lagos.

Starting LagosMums led me down a path of self-discovery and growth. I found that I not only loved sharing information and resources but was also interested in how we use our brains and optimize our lives and decisions. This realization inspired me to become a certified trained life coach and neuro-linguistic programming practitioner. I’ve also undergone extensive training in coaching, therapy, and various psychotherapy interventions and tools.

Today, my focus is on helping women live their most abundant lives and helping families be as intentional as possible using digital the right way. I’m passionate about making a positive impact on people’s lives and helping them achieve their full potential. It’s been an interesting and fulfilling journey so far, and I’m excited about what the future holds.

Since starting, have you made any changes to your business model?

When I first started out, LagosMums was primarily a blog focused on motherhood, family and raising children. But over the years, my business model has evolved significantly. I’ve moved away from just providing content to actually providing solutions, resources, coaching and tools that my audience and clients need to move from awareness to action.

Nowadays, I offer one-on-one coaching, group coaching, and even provide checklists and downloadable resources that clients can use outside of just reading articles on the website. My aim is to help women live their most abundant lives and families to be as intentional as possible using digital tools in the right way.

In addition to coaching, I also run webinars that teach my clients about different topics that they can apply to their lives. I use introspective work to help clients understand where they are, and then use my toolkit of coaching intervention tools to ensure that we are actually getting the transformation that clients need.

Have you ever had a mentor? If so how has this benefitted you either personally or professionally?

Having a mentor or coach has been instrumental in my personal and professional growth. It’s important to have someone who can guide you, identify your blind spots, and help you achieve your goals. My first mentor was pivotal in helping me operationalize my ideas for my company, LagosMums, and create a plan for scaling and growth. She helped me as I moved from being a professional nine-to-five career person to really being clear with my ideas about what I was trying to do with my first company called LagosMums. 

I have a coach myself and he has been very, very instrumental in helping me, learn how to be a good coach and instrumental in helping me develop my coaching skills, learn new interventions, and refine my coaching process. Coaching is not just about identifying problems but helping clients move through resistance to achieve transformation and thrive. When it comes to an integrated coaching model, which is what I use, I’m able to pull on the right resources to ensure that my clients really get the transformation that they need, because it’s one thing to help somebody understand that they are stuck or see a problem or identify a resistance, but when it comes to moving them through that resistance to the transformation for them to start to thrive. That’s really where a lot of the work comes in. And it’s great to have a coach who understands that and he’s able to help me to continue to refine and improve my process.

Overall, having a mentor or coach can help you go further, faster, and more consistently and I highly recommend it for anyone looking to grow personally or professionally.

Marketing is a crucial part of my business strategy and I employ various outlets to maximize my reach. Social media is a significant component of my digital marketing strategy, and I have built a strong following of over 150,000 on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Whatsapp. I create a content plan to ensure a cohesive message across all channels and use clear call-to-action prompts to encourage engagement and drive traffic to my website. Maximizing links on social media is also a key strategy for providing my clients with easy access to my products and services.

Another important outlet I utilize is my newsletter. With over 30,000 subscribers, it is an effective way to connect with my audience and deliver content that is relevant to them. I send out newsletters weekly or bi-weekly, depending on the topic, to keep my subscribers engaged and informed. By providing valuable content, I increase the chances of my audience sharing it with others, thereby expanding my reach.

Word of mouth is also an effective marketing tool, and I encourage my clients to refer others to my business. Lastly, I have a weekly radio show where I discuss topics such as parenting, digital parenting, intentional parenting, motherhood, and family. The show allows me to add value to my audience and offer solutions to their challenges. At the end of each show, I encourage listeners to engage with me on social media, which helps me expand my network and reach a wider audience.

In summary, I employ a range of marketing outlets to promote my business and increase my reach. From social media to newsletters, word of mouth, and traditional media, my approach is strategic and geared towards providing value to my clients and audience.

What or Who has inspired you most recently?

what has inspired me most recently is actually getting back to my love of books I’ve always loved to read and between being busy with motherhood, building a business and so many things. It’s difficult to find the time to read but one of the things I set for my new year goals was to read more and I’ve been really amazed at how much I’ve been reading and picking up different themes and patterns and connecting different things. I like reading autobiographies, memoirs, and books on neuroscience, psychology, and coaching, and getting a lot of insight into research when it comes to well-being and mental health. Some books that I’ve read, recently have been “where your children take you, by Zane Asher, Anything but my phone Mum by Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler, Spare by Prince Harry, and I am currently reading learned optimism by Martin Seligman. 

What is the best piece of business advice you have received to date?

One of the best pieces of business advice I’ve received to date is to focus on the end result – the transformation – rather than the process. As a coach, what you’re really selling is the positive change that you can bring about in your clients’ lives. It’s not about the number of sessions or courses you offer; it’s about the tangible benefits that your clients will receive from working with you.

To make this clear to potential clients, it’s important to explain why they need this transformation and how it will help them thrive. While it’s important to have a process in place to deliver the promised value, clients may not always understand or internalize this process until they are actually in the coaching program. Therefore, it’s crucial to communicate the end result in a way that resonates with your clients and makes them feel motivated to take action.

In reality, the key to successful coaching is to focus on the transformation, communicate it clearly to potential clients, and deliver on your promise by implementing a solid process. So it’s really important that you’re able to make it clear why they need the transformation and how the transformation is going to help them thrive. If people don’t understand this, it is very difficult for them to plug into your coaching programme.

How do you create an evenly balanced work and personal life?

Creating a balanced work and personal life can be a challenging task for many people. However, with some intentional planning and prioritization, it is possible to achieve a healthy balance. As a coach, one of the things that I teach my clients in Designing your life for Abundance coaching program is the importance of being intentional with their time and recognizing the season of life they are in.  time is valuable and finite, you know, we’re not going to have more time is 24 hours a day and very important that we’re clear on the season of life.

For me personally, I have found it helpful to be intentional about what is most important during a particular season. This means being mindful of my limitations and being very careful with what I choose to say yes to. I have found the book “Essentialism” to be particularly helpful in this regard, as it encourages readers to control their yes’s so that they are not forced to say no to the things they really want to say yes to.

I also believe that it is important to schedule time for self-care and to be intentional about the things that make us happy. I believe self-care is very important. But for you to be able to have time for self-care, you need to plan for it. 

For example, I make sure to put self-care activities on my calendar and prioritize them just as I would any other important task. I also make a point to be fully present when I am spending time with family or working. This means working hard to set boundaries and not carrying work tasks over into personal time or vice versa. 

I’m very conscious and I’ve gotten better with very being very careful with what I say yes to because if I say yes to something I’m saying no to something else, so I believe in being flexible, but I also believe in realising my limitations. I only have a certain amount of hours per day, and depending on you know what I’m trying to achieve in a season, I need to be very careful what I choose to do so that I can indeed have time for my family for my work for myself. And one of the things I do is to put lines in place and not carry things over to each other. 

So if I need to be at a child’s play, then I’m going to be at a child’s play. I’m going to block it out in my calendar, I’m going to go there with no guilt. And I’m going to focus fully on the play. I’m not going to be at the play and also be taking the business call or trying to finish a business proposal during the play. I’m going to try to fully be intentional and give my full self to whatever I’m doing and vice versa when I’m at work. When I close I close for the day, because as an entrepreneur if  I’m not careful, I’m constantly working around the clock which is not good for me. I build in moments of rest during the day and week to get rejuvenated and to connect with loved ones.

Ultimately, achieving balance requires some flexibility and ongoing adjustment. It’s important to recognize that balance will look different for everyone, and it may require some trial and error. 

Name a seminal point in your career so far?

I would say a seminal point in my career so far was when I founded my first company, LagosMums. Before that, I had worked in a variety of industries as an employee, including in investment banking, real estate, as a consultant, and in oil and gas as a business strategist. Starting LagosMums was a major change for me because I became an entrepreneur and created a platform for mothers to connect and find work-life balance.

After running LagosMums for a year or two, I realized that providing solutions for women was not just a passion but also my purpose.I uncovered what I call my 3 p’s – from passion to purpose, to profit, I realized that I wasn’t just doing it because I was passionate about mothers living life fully and having work-life harmony but that I really love to provide solutions for myself and for other women. And that was where I went on the journey of learning to become a coach and learning how to create lasting transformation for my clients. This pivot from being a nine-to-five professional to becoming an entrepreneur and coach was a pivotal moment for me because I discovered that passion and profit can coexist. that was the first time I realised that passion and profit can actually, you know, coexist. I used to think they were very separate, but I’ve realised that what you’re passionate about, can also be a source of income can be a source of wealth.

All my previous experiences as an employee have proven valuable. I bring a wealth of skills, such as setting KPIs and conducting 360-degree assessments, to my work as an entrepreneur and coach. I believe that all our experiences come together to make us who we are, to make your unique story even more unique and that’s why I value my journey from employee to entrepreneur.

What gives you ultimate career satisfaction?

What gives me ultimate career satisfaction is really being able to make an impact and create lasting transformation for my clients and audience. I particularly have a lot of satisfaction when I work with a woman who feels that she can’t have it all or she has some resistance to certain things. 

A common thread on this resistance tends to be around managing time, and achieving work-life balance or for business owners knowing how best to use technology and digital to optimize their brands and their businesses. The biggest satisfaction I feel is when I work with somebody who’s in that state who feels she can’t achieve her goals to the point where she looks back and says you know what, I thought I couldn’t do this, but because of the series of coaching sessions, I’ve had with you; I’m actually on the path of staying consistent. Or a client who said she is able to catch herself when she starts to go into a disempowering state. So for me having somebody go from a state of I can’t to I absolutely can and continue to stay in that state…Gives me the most satisfaction. 

I really have a soft spot for women because of how we have been socialized.. And I believe that there’s so much that we need to unlearn and relearn so that we can thrive

Are there any leading entrepreneurs or SME leaders that you admire and if so, why?

There’s so many leading entrepreneurs and SME leaders that I admire. And, gosh, I don’t even know where to start because I’m a big reader. And there was a period in my life when I read almost all the books on the Big technology companies, Amazon, Google, Apple. I spend a lot of time reading, not about the companies per se only, but about the founders. I really think it’s important to go into the heads of founders and to understand people that have made a global impact and that have disrupted industries, how do they do it? I love understanding the how, not just hearing about the success stories. 

I read a book called the messy middle by Scott Belsky, the book basically talks about how when it comes to intrapreneurship, there’s something called the messy middle. At the beginning when you start you’re excited you’re fired up by just the sheer newness of starting a new business, and the middle can be messy. There’s no love or excitement but trying to figure it out and Maybe pivoting. 

You know, when you’re changing your business model, and what you thought would happen isn’t what has happened. There’ll be surprises along the way, challenges, and opportunities, it can be messy, right at that middle point, and then sometimes you come out at the other end with the successes. 

And usually what most people hear about when it comes to entrepreneurship is the beginning. Because the start is exciting. And again at the end when there’s a huge big splash in the media or the news because something big has happened. 

But that middle you’re trying to really go through the grind and trying to figure it out can be tough. So for me, I learn from people who have just stayed the cause, who made mistakes along the way but keep going. 

Someone else I love and am inspired by through her books and content is Oprah. And I really just think it’s amazing how somebody with the background she has and all the challenges she faced, built this global media company and has continued to evolve, while really being focused on what she’s doing through different expressions. It’s my dream to meet her one day. 

For me, it’s about a varied set of people who provide solutions, innovations and start movements while sharing insights into how the journey is hardly ever linear.

How do you define your own success?

When it comes to success, you know I feel it’s something that is very personal to everybody. One of the things that drive me is that If you don’t ask you will never know so what’s the worst that will happen? I’m a person of faith and I really do believe that I haven’t seen everything God has in store for me so it’s really for me to press in because God is unlimited. You know you can do anything you put your heart to your mind to but you got to do the work.

the second thing that drives me is not to put my ladder up against anybody else’s wall. But rather to put my ladder up against my wall and climb it. And you know that is especially true in this day of social media and everybody else is posting their lives on social media. If you’re not careful, you can really fall into that trap of comparing yourself and thinking that they seem to be doing better faster or flashier than you. it’s really important to always step back and put your ladder up against your wall and do your best for yourself. 

Where are you? What are you trying to achieve? What do you need to get there? If you find you’re stuck then being okay to ask for help. I don’t believe I have to figure it all out by myself. So I think it’s very important that everybody has their own yardstick for success. 

So Success for me is that I’m growing. I’m moving. I’m achieving my goals and I’m taking steps to get there and reminding myself that where I was six months or one or two years ago, is not where I am today. I continue to intentionally measure my success. And to see that I am growing. I’m moving, I’m building relationships, and my family is doing well. I am healthy. I have good relationships and friendships, and I am able to give back and make an impact in the world. So for me when all of those are chugging along nicely, I feel successful. 

What to expect next 

Now in terms of what you can expect from me next, you know, I started entrepreneurship as a mum with with a baby and a two-year-old and I just dabbled in this area of a passion of mine and started a blog called LagosMums. But now I call myself Lagos to the world because so many things have changed from 11 years ago, and I started Lagosmums to provide a platform and community for mothers.

So what next? First of all, I’ve recently relocated to the UK. I’m going through my accreditation process as a coach here in the UK. I’m starting a company in the UK which is focused specifically on helping families create a family digital well-being plan. As a parenting coach, majority of my clients are increasingly global clients and a lot of them face their biggest challenges around screen time. 

To be an effective parent, your parenting style needs to be in sync with your child’s love language. When this is in place then you can tackle screen time challenges, otherwise, It’s just a recipe for disaster. I will focus specifically on that and help parents understand that when it comes to digital parenting and digital well-being, it is a process, especially for parents who are analogue-minded. They need to get up to speed need to unlearn and relearn how to raise their digital natives, who don’t know a life before digital. 

Through my new company, Digital Savvy Parenting (DSP), my mission is to reduce that tension. I am saying it here for the first time, and that’s part of why my interview was delayed, I wanted to be able to announce it when this new direction was fully fleshed out and ready to launch.

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https://www.yettywilliams.com