00:00what's up everybody what's a hot girl summer when you can have a rich girl summer i'm miss
00:11diddy and today essence fest and coca-cola have gathered some of the most successful
00:16and brightest women entrepreneurs in the country who have not only found success in
00:20male-dominated industries but they are redefining what it means to play like a girl here to help
00:27us find generational wealth at the end of the rainbow please welcome dia sims
00:36and welcome aaron harris hi ladies hey
00:44dia i'll start with you you are the first ever president of combs enterprise and now you've
00:50teamed up with lebron james and diego to launch lobo 1707 tequila mezcal
00:56what business decisions did you make early on that helped you to navigate to where you are right now
01:03yes well we cannot skip over the fact that we're having a whole celebration and reunion with miss
01:08diddy as listen you part of this rock story by the way so thank you for all that you did as another
01:14uh powerful amazing beautiful and brilliant women to help us build uh what became a two billion dollar
01:19retail value brand over at ciroc um so yes i'm i'm excited to be here we you know i was with combs
01:26enterprises working lockstep step by step with aaron harris um almost 14 years and then now um just
01:35privileged to work with diego and lebron at lobos 1707 um tequila and mezcal and to the question around
01:44like what what were some of the early decisions i think a few things i'd like to think were helpful
01:50and and one is just around not not being scared to take risk uh early in my career i um worked for
01:58the department of defense i was actually trained in negotiations and it came in really handy in terms of
02:03like understanding the worth understanding how to articulate your worth and negotiate early on so
02:10when i started working for puff as an example as his executive assistant i was very thoughtful about
02:16what's going to be next what's going to be next and not being scared to come back in a few months
02:19and saying like here's what i've accomplished this is the money i'm what's the next thing so that i'm
02:23eventually becoming first uh the first president of com's enterprises it starts with the way you're
02:28thinking about it as an executive assistant right um and then the other thing is get to the money
02:34and everybody has to do what they love but for me i want to understand all parts of the business
02:41right so human resource is incredibly important marketing is incredibly important no matter what
02:45your role is accounting but understanding that really nothing happens until a sale is made
02:51and like get close to that sale and or understand your financial impact on the business because truth
02:57of the matter is we are at when we're at work we're at work and if you're not in the business of making
03:01money then it's a hobby that is you just ran down a whole word for me seriously i mean erin you and dia
03:11are also uh part owners of saint liberty whiskey what advice would you give an entrepreneur a young one
03:18regarding finding the right partnerships well i think it's uh i think it's a couple of things right
03:25i think dia actually framed it up pretty well about get to the money and or follow the money or follow
03:32the trail and i think in order to get to the money you really have to understand your self-value and
03:38your self-worth and what you're bringing to the table and what your proposition is so i think you know
03:44i always have this little thing that i say it's called ready aim fire and essentially you know you have
03:49to get prepared you have to understand the dynamic of what your business needs and what the strategic
03:54partnership is that exists out there that can that can fill that void so that's kind of getting
03:59prepared so understanding the landscape having the knowledge knowing your business and then the aim
04:05part is getting focused so i'm terrible at this and dia will tell you i have a finance background but
04:13i'm super creative so i try to balance the two and it's extremely hard so the focus isn't always there
04:20but i think in order to be a good entrepreneur you have to be super seal team focused targeted what
04:28you want and how you're going to get it and then the fire part of it is probably i think where most
04:33entrepreneurs fall off is that you just have to do it so like nike is on to something
04:41do it just go out and do it and i think um failure is the biggest learning lesson so if you
04:48you know you got to just pull you know pull up your bootstraps and keep it moving so the recovery
04:52is what's what's really important i think one other advice piece of advice that i would get to
04:57entrepreneurs is understanding the force and the power of amplification so another thing that i
05:04haven't done really well but amplify your successes if you're going into a strategic partnership
05:09be proud of that partnership be proud of this union and figure out how you can amplify it and get
05:14it out to the world yeah again it's so jam-packed though you know what i mean and yeah amplifying
05:25your success is being proud of your successes i think oftentimes in our cultures on our culture we
05:30try to kind of dummy it down and uh attempt to not act feel like we're boasting about something
05:37right but there's power and saying hey i'm proud of myself i did make that milestone and what is next
05:43like uh speaking to what uh deal was saying as well what what is that next moment and being proud
05:49of that and being proud of yourself so thank you guys so much for that you know i do want to ask this with
05:55both of you guys honestly ladies you know you guys are family women you're strong entrepreneurs
06:01you're in partnerships you're traveling you're everywhere but how do you balance play business and giving back
06:08to the community because i know they're all equally important to you guys dia so i think i hope the
06:15future changes but the way it stands right now the idea of balance is a mirage and you will die of
06:22thirst on the desert um trying to balance it all looking for it i think um i i i often say this right so
06:30people say how do you juggle it all and i'm i'm a wonderful husband a beautiful daughter you know
06:35across the board everything i can do i try to do the best i can but i'm not in the business
06:40of juggling juggling is what clowns do right i'm in the business of trying to be in a batting cage
06:45so whatever in front of me i want to knock that thing out the park and the reality is when i'm
06:49knocking that thing out the park i might not be doing a great job of something else but in that
06:53moment because that's all i have is that moment i want to kill what i'm doing in that moment that's the
06:58best balance i think we can hope to achieve at this level and i hope our great great granddaughters
07:03maybe have a better system for right now we're just like the test generation of this i can't even
07:10please because that is just everything for me and it's so true it's what's right in front of you
07:14this is what i'm going to handle and i'll kill this and this is going to be overly amazing and
07:20then i'll get to that in a second and that's okay too it's like learning that that's okay that method
07:24is fine aaron please speak to it on listen dia dia hit it on the head but i think one of the
07:31things to try to get closer to the balance is to set up a support system and we kind of create a
07:39team that can help you and i think that comes with a lot of vulnerability right for dia to say you know
07:44i may not be doing it well over here but you know what my husband got that or my friend has that or
07:50my aunt has that or so just thinking through like you know who are the people closest to you and and how
07:56can you you know embrace them to help you and to and to get you to the next level because i think we
08:01don't we don't do it on our own so we're hitting stuff out the park and we're we're doing it great
08:05but it's somebody else that's kind of picking up the slack for us to to get us to that next to get
08:10us our next threshold erin that's a good point at one point we were building ciroc it was growing
08:15crazy over a thousand percent so we're bananas and about two me and aaron and two other people we
08:20worked with that diaja we were all having kids at the same time so we still had to go to like
08:26conferences events all over the country all over the world at some point and we would do things like
08:30work together to coordinate like i'm gonna bring my nanny and then we're gonna make sure we split
08:34it all up we're gonna share you know i mean resources we're gonna book we're gonna all travel
08:38together and you know make sure we support one another and then we go out of our way if we knew
08:42another employee like listen i know you have kids we're gonna bring do you want to work together
08:45on this so that we can support each other um as a you know as an extended team
08:49collaborative you know that collaborative energy and i think um aaron you spoke to something really
08:55powerful too is vulnerability because in leadership roles there's a sense of i'm not sure if i can be
09:00vulnerable in this moment because i do need this help right and i do need you this support and how
09:05does that look and um i thank you for saying that because that's that's a word also that i think is not
09:10spoken to in leadership roles in particular which both you guys you you women um are huge leaders which
09:17is different than just being a boss right those are such gems and such takeaways um ladies it's
09:23truly a pleasure you know that personally it's a pleasure um for me but i'm sure for um all the
09:29amazing um young entrepreneurs coming up to listen to you guys speak as well um thank you use hashtag
09:36essence fast let us know how you plan to build generational wealth there's always more there's always more to come
09:43and essence festival culture sponsored by coca-cola
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