Sharing this for like the 5th time as I think it's relevant for every thread and I'd imagine new people are joining the threads (Also Grace continues to post her daily schedules which make me want to be sick through my eyes), but can be deleted if mods think it's too much:
I don't know if it's been brought up recently but thought I'd share some explanation of Grace and her companies, after again claiming she works so hard and is a full time CEO to 2/3 different, extremely successful companies. I just find it extremely disingenuous and harmful.
Let's imagine that anybody (use yourself as the example) made a viral post on instagram and suddenly woke up with a million followers. Loyal followers who trust what you say and look up to you. (Grace grew her audience pretty organically, but just for context)
A large company realises you have a large, impressionable audience and email you and say "We create companies for people who have an audience, let's talk."
You have a meeting and they say, "Look, you have a million followers, we want to create a jewellery line for you. We have all the contacts, we have the manufacturing, we have the supply, we have the factories, we have the designs and we have the brand and logo all ready. You'll be the CEO and you can make decisions, but we'll do everything for you, the product, the marketing, the shipping, and we'll split the profits 50/50, how does that sound?"
You don't know very much about jewellery and even less about starting a jewellery brand, but.. this sounds perfect. You get to "OWN" a company, you get EVERYTHING done for you and you can promote it on your page and make a ton of money, so deal agreed.
You promote your new line, you sell it through huge advertising, scarcity marketing, influencers and you sell out your launch as you have a lot of loyal followers who couldn't wait to buy it.
You are now the CEO of a successful jewellery company.
You didn't need to do anything. You and a larger company profited off your impressionable and loyal audience and they got a product and to support someone they look up to. Everybody wins.
The next launch is next month. There is a meeting to discuss the colours of the next pieces of jewellery, they present you with some options. (Business meetings!!!) The options are blue, gold, red, silver. You choose silver and red. (Note: Grace calls these "approvals" or "strategising" or whatever nonsense for choosing pointless differences between basically the same products)
You are now a CEO who is making decisions and who is running the company. You upload to social media how hectic it is and how you have meetings and emails and so much to do. It's time for a holiday. (Grace does her daily schedules and pretends to be doing actual work)
You promote the next launch again and it sells out.
You win a business award for your successful company.
The larger company is earning a lot of money from you and your audience, so they want to keep you 100% happy. They give you teams to talk to, they throw you parties and send you gifts. You are as involved as you want to be. You can do nothing. You can be cc'd into every email. You can go on holiday for 6 months or go one holiday every other week and pretend to work through email once a day. The work is being done, the products are being created and marketed and sold either way. Though as it's your audience, it's helpful if you post and promote obviously.
You can portray your company and involvement however you want on social media.
That's basically the formula for these influencers and their brands. Some take the 'entrepreneur' title further than others.
TLDR: Grace was handed a company because she has a large, loyal following and another company does ALL the work for her. Grace's job is basically still an influencer. She goes to photoshoots and sits in on meetings, makes "decisions" or as she calls "approvals" which is super unimportant for the success of the business. The business would be exactly the same if Grace did absolutely 0 but post about it once or twice a day for 5 minutes. That's all she needs to do. Any other schedule or meeting or thing she does is just fake ceo'ing.
Grace grew her following extremely well, in the early days came off as extremely likeable and obviously has her head screwed on in terms of opportunities and money. I'm not trying to totally discredit her work or social media/influencing as that would be unfair, and it's also possible another person in the same position wouldn't have done as well or would even bother going to meetings etc, but I feel she massively misrepresents her days and I feel that's extremely harmful for a lot of people, especially young people who look up to her.
)
