A YOUNG woman, who was fired from her job, revealed how she now makes £100,000 by teaching people how to become influencers.
Emily Valentine, 34, was made redundant from her role as a talent manager after her influencer job "conflicted" with her day-to-day job.
Emily, who comes from Waltham Forest in northeast London and has a journalism degree, started sharing her everyday life online, and soon gathered an important following.
The young woman was able to bank on her knowledge of marketing and advertising to secure successful brand collaborations with Dior, Estee Lauder, Channel 4 and Love Honey - earning her over £100,000 in just two years.
The influencer now uses her experience to teach others how to become influencers through her customised coaching programme.
Her advice to them? "Fake it til they make it".
"Overall, being an influencer is a super empowering thing," Emily told MyLondon.
"I love being able to create content off the back of a passion that I have and monetise it."
"Not only working with amazing brands but also helping my audience, whether that is discovering new skincare solutions or showing them how to style their outfit or generally advising them and empowering women in their every day lives - it is an amazing career to have.
"I have been in the influencing industry for around nine years, seven years full time.
"My coaching only started in the last year but I have wanted to do it for a while and share my experience as a woman in the industry.
"The industry is led by women but, it became apparent early on that I was charging a lot more than my peers and I wondered why that was."
This new career is a far cry from her first £17,000 a year job in marketing after leaving university in 2012.
"I had a really bad time working at the agency and handed in my notice after 10 months.
"I then moved to the city, later got a job as a talent manager and subsequently got fired."
About her lay-off, Emily said: "It was devastating at the time, I was 26 years old, I was living in London and I didn't know how I was going to feed myself.
"I was asking myself 'how am I going to make this work?'.
"I did want to go back into the industry again but I clearly didn't work well with the authoritative nine-to-five jobs."
As she was building her social media following, Emily said she started pitching to brands for up to 12 hours a day. She received an overwhelming response.
"My big break came a month after I was fired. New Look was launching a new beauty line and they wanted me to be the face of it.
"The firing was the biggest blessing in disguise in the end - even though it felt like devastation not knowing how I was going to pay rent.
"There is always that feeling of the unknown, we are freelancing in a way, there is that unknown but I want to encourage people to get out there."
After having worked in the sector for six years, Emily decided she wanted to help other young women like her and set up what she described as a "creator clinic".
During the one-on-ones, Emily would assist and support women who were struggling with certain aspects of the influencer life - namely being seen, securing collaboration with brands, and invoice and payment.
"A lot of my content was all about empowerment and I have been very vocal about women's rights and how that manifests in work.
"I thought how can I marry female empowerment with the skills that I have and the answer came in being a full-time influencer.
"I want to help monetise this amazing industry and then that lead to a bigger idea to launch a course where people can sign up to a coaching programme and I teach them how to become an influencer."
Emily said her next step is to launch an eight-week influencer course which includes six modules that will teach people how to pitch to brands, negotiate their prices and grow their own personal brand.
