An Interview With Jannelle So: One of the 100 Most Influential Filipinas in the U.S. (Filipina Women’s Network)

Q: Could you please provide our readers with a brief introduction to your
amazing talk/magazine show?

A: SO Jannelle is a talk/magazine show for Filipino Americans and Global Filipinos,
hosted by Jannelle So, one of the 100 Most Influential Filipinas in the U.S. (Filipina
Women’s Network). The show features issues, current events, and highlights a
variety of aspects of the Filipino lifestyle in North America — from fashion to
politics, to sports and community affairs.

Q: Can you give us your take on working for a company versus owning a
company?

A: So I was thinking, the station was paying me a salary to host and produce the
show for them and then they were giving me a commission for selling advertising to
my show. And when I left the show, took a break, when I was ready to do something
again, along the lines of what I used to do I thought to myself you know why don’t I,
like I said earlier entrepreneurship is the way to go you have to own in order to
maximize the return, so I was doing that anyway and so I thought maybe I’ll own my
own production I will self finance and self produce my own show and then I will sell
it to advertisers which I used to do anyway, but this time I own it.
So I bought airtime, I was buying air time from different channels in order to recoup
my investment and maybe earn and get a little profit as well. So there were a lot of
struggles because obviously I didn’t have a business background. I was doing
marketing and I was doing hosting, I have a degree in journalism and
communication arts but obviously did not know about business, how to set it up,
just some technical things, so there was a setback in that and there were also some
rookie mistakes. Just some stuff like for example, you know when I was selling for
the tv station I would maybe talk to an advertiser and go “okay so, this and that, this
and that, for this monthly fee” but my airtime I’m paying for them per week, and
there are some months where there are 5 weeks in a month. So I only realized that
when I was doing my math and I was like this doesn’t add up because I’m having to
pay more, what 5 months out of the year when there’s 5 weeks in a month, but at
that point I already had contracts from advertisers paying per month.
And so you know these things you learn I didn’t have to contend with that before
because as soon as I got the contract I would give it to whoever’s taking care of it
and I would get my commission, and I have to worry about like oh but wait there’s
an extra week this month.
So thats one, and then also you know, managing people, I didn’t have to manage that
many people, before I was doing it myself. If my sales were slow it’s still fine
because I still had a monthly thing for hosting. But this time it’s my business, and I
have people relying on me for their income, so if my business was slow I couldn’t
just stop, so I had to take money out of my own pocket out of my savings in order to
sustain what I have because these people rely on that income and I didn’t really
think of that, I just thought “Oh, I know how to do this and how to do that, I do it
together and I’ll do it myself.” But I didn’t realize all these things, and now I’m slowly
realizing.

Q: Can you share with our readers some inspirational and game changing
quotes?

A: “Entrepreneurship is the way to go, you have to own the company before you can

maximize the return.” – Janelle So
“The hard work is yours, but the success is also yours.” – Janelle So
“You don’t fail, you only learn.” – Janelle So

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Influential Filipinas in the U.S.
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