Who is Tamsyn Jack?
She is truly multi-faceted!
She is a writer, a scientist, an entrepreneur, a dreamer, a go-getter, an overcomer and, if I’m honest, a bit of a dork, too!
I’m the author of a blog, and one of my pieces is titled “The Power of Soft” – and if I had to write a book about who I am, that would be an apt title to use.
As ambitious as my dreams for my life and my career may be, I am ultimately at my happiest when I am serving others. I value compassion, humility and loving others well over success, intelligence, bravery and beauty.
There’s a LOT of power in being a loving and kind person, as counter-intuitive as it may seem.
Other than that, I try to make a point of not entertaining labels or boxing myself into any particular “categories”, because I believe that this closes you off to many opportunities in life.
The only aspect of me that is constant is that I am fully and relentlessly in pursuit of learning, seeking new challenges and becoming a better human being.
You run Pique Digital, what is it all about?
Yes! I hold a food science degree from the University of Stellenbosch, but made a major career change directly after graduating in 2019.
I started pursuing the idea of entrepreneurship, and what better place to start than with digital marketing? If you want to grow a profitable, scalable business in today’s world, you HAVE to be (or find) a master of digital marketing and online sales psychology.
I started Pique Digital after moving to Johannesburg to work with one of SA’s best digital marketing agencies and heading up the digital marketing for 2 luxury property groups.
Pique Digital is my very own digital marketing agency. She (it’s a girl, by the way) is only 8 months old, so still very much in the teething phase.
I work with start-ups, small businesses and brands, driving leads and/or sales via paid advertising strategies. Simply put – we take care of your entire sales funnel and ensure that you get a great return on your marketing spend, so that your business make profit on autopilot.
The world is changing and people are craving “realness” and authenticity. They don’t want to be sold to, they want to handpick products and brands that they feel are well-aligned with their own values. Therefore, the vision is for Pique to niche down into digital storytelling.
As a former scientist – I bring a unique perspective to digital marketing, which is known as a more “creative” industry, in the form of highly advanced research and analytical skills.
Why are you running for Miss South Africa?
Miss South Africa is the biggest leadership platform for a young woman in our country. This platform gives you a voice and amplifies that voice.
I’m a strong believer that you cannot LEAD if you cannot SERVE.
I want to be Miss SA because I want to serve the young girls in South Africa who do not believe that they are worthy and capable of overcoming their circumstances.
As someone who has battled with and overcome the trappings of a very serious eating disorder and has made life-changing career shifts and found success – I have a message to share with young girls on cultivating the internal strength to overcome hardship.
When I was in high school and in varsity, I was part of a group called the False Bay Rotaract Club, which was basically a group of young people who’d go out and serve in the local townships over weekends. It was here that my passion and heart for empowering young, underprivileged women began.
I now own my own agency and I am in the process of building capacity and financial runway to onboard two interns. I’d really like those two young ladies to be high school graduates from a local township. I want to up-skill them and pour of my time, knowledge and expertise into them so that they can eventually go on to become entrepreneurs in their own right and create financial prosperity for themselves.
I am also collaborating with Her Business Class – an aviation-themed online course lead by all-female industry experts. This course/workshop will teach aspiring entrepreneurs and existing small business owners the A-Z’s of starting and running a successful online business.
I will be running with their #mentorshipmatters campaign – where I will bring these workshops into high schools in underprivileged areas. We hope that we will be able to facilitate internships for these young ladies out of our existing community and database of female entrepreneurs.
Where would you like to see South African entrepreneurship in the next five years?
I’m sure it’s an easy guess, but I’d really love to see more young, female faces making BIG moves.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt while working with young women, and even experienced in my own life, it’s that a young girl only needs ONE person to believe in her potential. Just one.
Our country is one of the most unequal in the world. Where else in the world can you find a mega mansion only meters away from a township? How do we bridge this gap?
I honestly believe that if more established, successful entrepreneurs and business executives lent of their time, knowledge, money, resources and network to deserving, young people who do not have many opportunities at their fingertips, many problems in our country would be solved.
I’d like to see these two groups of people – women, specifically, connect with each other and serve each other.
What advice do you have for the South African youth?
I’m going to speak on something I have personally struggled with – imposter syndrome.
I didn’t even know this was an actual “thing” until I read a book called “Girl On Fire”.
Research shows that it’s incredibly common especially among women, to suffer from imposter syndrome. This term describes the feeling that you don’t deserve to be in certain spaces and that one day, people are going to figure out that you don’t belong.
80% of women admit to feeling this way!
So the reason why we wait around to be chosen is because if we are selected/ chosen, then, in a way, we feel like we have back up.
We have a title that ‘proves’ that we can take up space or put yourself and your ideas out there.
She interviewed a lot of women and EVERYONE said that once they attained this ‘permission’, they were left pretty disappointed, because it didn’t change the way they felt.
A lot of us are afraid- of being rejected or of being told we aren’t good enough… but really, when you look around, you’re going to notice people a lot further along in the process of materializing their dreams- NOT because they’re more talented, NOT because they’ve been given more opportunities, but simply because they got started while you were busy waiting around to be picked from a crowd.
You might never get chosen. Stop waiting for your big break. There isn’t just one right way to do a thing. Take it into your own hands. Anoint yourself. Crown yourself.
Don’t wait for permission.
Share three tips with us for entrepreneurs in South Africa?
- Less talking, more doing
I’ve gotten stuck in the trap of dreaming of ideas, but never actually taking action because of the fear of failure or judgement. There’s no value in an idea. The value is unlocked in the consistent execution of the idea.
There’s almost this entrepreneur/ “hustle” culture on Instagram and social media. It’s the “in” thing to be these days.
Truth is – posing in fancy outfits behind your laptop doesn’t make you an entrepreneur. Can we stop making huge announcements on social media start actually getting out hands dirty with the metrics and growth of our businesses?
Let your success do the talking for you.
- Test out your business idea
We sometimes grow so attached to our business idea that we forget that our sentimental ideas might not be what people want right now. We can’t get so attached that we aren’t willing to be malleable and teachable in our approach.
My advice is to first build your MVP (minimum viable product), take it to market, then let the market give you feedback on how to improve your product or service.
There’s also all kinds of strategies that you can use to test the validity of your business idea – i.e. Is this a profitable venture?
What I often advise people to do is to build an ad campaign and landing page with a “mock-up” of your service or product and see how much it costs you in ad spend to acquire a new subscriber or customer. Now minus this amount from your purchase price minus your expenses and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the profitability of your idea and whether it is something you should try to scale or not.
- Fail forward
It’s such a cliché at this point, but don’t be afraid of failure or rejection. It is an inevitable part of life, and especially in business. Welcome failure with open arms, because the truth is that you’ve still made progress.
Allow yourself to imagine that each “no” is an opportunity for you to build better, richer value propositions and become a stronger person.
Failure does not take away from your life – it adds to it. It humbles you and it equips you for the bigger opportunities awaiting you.
What is the one quote that you live by?
As an avid reader and writer, I love words. Every year I choose a motto for myself. Last year it was “Leave things better than you found them.
This year my motto is “Create the things that you wish existed” and that is exactly my mission for 2022 and beyond.
