PERSONAL BRAND DOCUMENTATION: Vintage, Airbnb & Web Series Strategy

She started filming flea markets for fun. One year later? Airbnb licensed her content for a global campaign.

This episode breaks down how documenting what you love can turn into four- and five-figure opportunities — without chasing trends.

Faye Whitaker is the Chief Brand Officer and founder of W Signature, where she helps creatives and entrepreneurs build meaningful brands through visibility, consistency, and storytelling. Her work focuses on building trust online and documenting growth in real time.

Book a 1:1 brand strategy video consultation focused on visibility, positioning, and building trust online. This session is designed for creatives and entrepreneurs who are building in public and want clear, actionable next steps to strengthen their personal brand.

Book here: https://intro.co/fayewhitaker

Follow Faye on Instagram & TikTok: @thefayewhitaker
Learn more about W Signature: https://wsignatureco.com

What You’ll Learn:
What you’ll learn about turning a niche passion into a monetizable media brand
What you’ll learn about using content as a funnel (without asking for emails)
What you’ll learn about attracting silent viewers who convert into high-ticket deals

Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
05:32 – Monetizing a Niche Passion
 06:18 – Airbnb Licensing Deal Breakdown
 09:08 – Using Short-Form as a Funnel Strategy
 13:00 – Content as Breadcrumbs (Not Just Posts)
 18:22 – Why Documentation Beats Perfection
 22:00 – How to Start Building Your Personal Brand

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📱 Social: @themichellepualani | @joanna_atwork
📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
🌐 Joanna: millennialmktr.com

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Transcript

Joanna Newton: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Click Tease podcast. Today we are actually highlighting one of our listeners so that she can come on our show and share her story about how she's growing her personal brand using some real life examples. So I'm really excited to dig into today and introduce you to Faye Whitaker, who's gonna share a little bit about herself.

Faye Whitaker: Hi everyone. Thank you Michelle and Joanna for having me on the Click Tease podcast. My name is Faye Whitaker. I'm the chief brand officer and founder at W Signature, and we are a brand strategy consultancy for creatives, executives, and entrepreneurs, and we help them identify their positioning within their market and help them craft their personal brands so they're identifiable and memorable in their market.

Joanna Newton: Awesome. That's really exciting. And we met on TikTok, um, and you found us through our content there and we started chatting and thought it would be really fun to have you on the show to come and share [00:01:00] a little bit. Of your story, I'd love to know, um, just as we're getting started, as you've been on this journey for a year, what are some of the things that you're doing that are helping most to grow your brand?

Faye Whitaker: Okay, so. decided since I'm bringing myself forward as a founder, I should start with a passion of mine, which is founding a brand called Antiquarian Diaries, and it's grown from my passion project to a Heritage Media brand. So I showcase sustainability through antiques and vintage. So that's my niche market.

Michelle Pualani: Awesome.

Faye Whitaker: I try different ways to create content, see what works, what doesn't, and see how to grow. business as a show and proof of what I can provide for clients.

Joanna Newton: That's awesome. And what have you been doing so far as you're creating that brand to get it going?

Faye Whitaker: So I identified four major pillars, but the two main ones that I do are, um, Ancra [00:02:00] Excursions where I go to arts and cultural events around the city. So I take people to museums, art galleries, and let them know about the cool, sustainable products and services that are available around the city. also I have one called Sustainable Shops where I. Visit local business owners and we interview them about their crafts or services. If they sell vintage or collect vintage, I interview them as well. So it's been really fun to showcase their work on the platform, and it's been slowly growing.

Michelle Pualani: Faye, I am loving learning about this business and the reason that you got into it is the passion for the antiques and sustaining, you know, furniture. From a vintage side of things, instead of just going out and buying something new. If you're trying to do interior design, if you're trying

Faye Whitaker: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Pualani: space, it's not just about gonna IKEA picking up whatever.

It doesn't have heart intimate value to it. [00:03:00] I love this as an example. You know, Joanna and I talk a lot about this on this podcast, and there's so much rhetoric in the online space about personal branding, marketing, content creation, and so many people think that you have to fit into an already designated either niche or audience, or you've gotta do this, you've gotta talk about this, or only this type of content is gonna be successful online.

But really ultimately. Whatever it is that you love and how you show up and what you're talking about is such an important, integral part of building that personal brand. And it can look like anything, you know.

Faye Whitaker: whatever you love, your, your people will find you, as I say, which is really nice. And there's a lot of them. I was

Joanna Newton: Yeah.

Faye Whitaker: shocked to find them, but they're there, which

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Another really great thing that you've baked into this strategy is like a sort of a natural shareability, right? Because when you're visiting stores, when you're visiting local [00:04:00] business owners, when you're talking to other people, they're gonna be excited to be featured, right? So what does that mean? They share it with their friends, they share it to their stories. They share it on their social media. So there's this automatic reach boost from what you're doing.

Faye Whitaker: Exactly. Exactly. And there's a, there's a tight-knit community of vendors, so they all reach out and say, Hey, have you met Faye? You should speak to her about what you're selling. You sell, um, 19th century Asian antiques, where as I sell vintage jackets from the seventies. So you guys should speak to each other and you just keep growing the network that way is really nice.

And, um, very easy. I wanna say it's natural.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Yeah. There's this natural growth

Michelle Pualani: I feel like a lot of people, when they're starting out in their content creation journey or they're building a personal brand, there are these insecurities and doubts and kind of fears of, you know, the type of content that you're creating. Putting yourself out there, talking to these vendors, like how do you feel like you [00:05:00] approached that sentiment?

Faye Whitaker: Insecurities, I've experienced it, especially being a niche and looking at the numbers. When you start looking at numbers, it can ship you up. So please stick to your niche. Um, know that this is something that you would do anyway, so I'll always have my phone out anyway on a Saturday at a flea market. So it was just taking that content, adding a voiceover to it, and then translating it into a strategic placement online is something you would do for free.

Something that you love and something that you can pivot to, um, you know, help you make some money and, and take care of yourself, which is really nice over time.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Speaking of making money, I think in our conversations about this episode, you started talking about how you're starting to monetize this channel, and I think that's something that a lot of creators struggle with, right? They might be able to make the content get out there, but then how do you start turning. That content or that channel into mon [00:06:00] monetization, and that's something you're starting to do. Wanna talk a little bit about that?

Faye Whitaker: Yes. Yes. So when, because I'm a strategist, I knew this, that I wanted to have certain things, like I wanna have some partnerships, I wanna have some sponsorships from brands and things like that. But then what kinds of brands, so ideally. Maybe a museum might reach out to me and say, Hey, we're having a panel.

Can you come host? Or um, a vendor might say, Hey, I'm at a flea market this weekend. Can you plug my booth? Like those kinds of smaller partnerships. But for me, recently I did an inter crane excursion and Airbnb actually reached out to me and licensed one of my images for their global 2026 marketing campaign, which was out of the blue.

So there's a lot more things that are coming my way that weren't even in my, um. Brief strategy that I wanted to do, which is really exciting, and that was a four figure paid deal, which is nice. Another opportunity that came through is I noticed [00:07:00] because I'm a media brand, people. Are there for amplification of their own businesses.

So they're not really commenting too much. They might give you a like, but it's more like, Hey, post my business, share my business. So I'm more of the connector between other people. So I'm not really expecting too much commentary, but I did reach, get reached out to by historical home owner who's putting their home up for sale and they would like me to create a video for them for their historical home website. And that's a five figure deal that I, um, proposed to them and that's in discussion. So things like that from a silent viewer that never commented, never even liked the video that they referenced, which is insane, but, you know, just keep doing your posts.

It might not show up in numbers, but you get the real tangible results in the back end, which is nice. 

Michelle Pualani: Yeah. What a great way to think about it is that for one, you are creating content and you don't always know who's watching that content. Joan and I talk about this all the time. She lands clients who don't engage with their content [00:08:00] online, but have seen it, have validated her, have, you know. She's built trust and authority through that space.

And for you, having that focus, having that niche and consistently showing up, demonstrates things to the people who are looking for it. And when you have that, again, very clear focus, people are gonna reach out to you for a very clear reason. Airbnb homeowner, like what great opportunities to come your way, even if you didn't necessarily plan on that to be the case.

Faye Whitaker: Very thrilled.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and it's amazing what. Opportunities you can get just by putting yourself out there. I think so often as creators and even as we're all strategists in this room, right, like we can get really caught up in wanting to have the, the perfect strategy, the perfect hook, the perfect, you know, video, whatever that is. But there is

Faye Whitaker: what's

Joanna Newton: something to just picking it. Picking something, doing it, putting it yourself out there, and then the right people are going to find you, right? You just never know [00:09:00] what's gonna happen. If you actually share things with the world, then share things you're passionate about. 

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, well, I love that monetization and how things are coming forward. Are we gonna look at a few different pieces of content and talk about how they've been effective?

Faye Whitaker: to.

Michelle Pualani: Okay, great. Which one should we watch first?

Faye Whitaker: Oh, this is a sustainable shops vendor spotlight. And this is Peach. I met her at Chelsea Market downtown in Manhattan on a Sunday. We were actually shooting the trailer for something I'll tell you about later, which is our. My major goal is to have a web series where I feature these vendors and creatives in long form content.

So I would like to have a YouTube channel, um, web series, and hopefully it get picked up for like discovery or the History channel in the future. But right now I'm starting with short form and I met her at the, at the market where we were shooting the trailer for that, um, for promotional purposes. And I did our first vendor spotlight [00:10:00] while we were there.

So it was really nice to meet her. And she sells vintage, a rare vintage jewelry.

Michelle Pualani: I love it. All right. Like let's give it a watch. If you're in Manhattan this weekend, stop by and visit the wonderful vendors at Chelsea Flea Market. I met with Peach, who sells Rare Vintage. Let's hear from Peach. I have my collection of vintage jewelry. Um, it's a lot of airs from the eighties and the nineties here.

Mostly things that I'm attracted to myself is what I, if you're in Manhattan this weekend, stop by and visit the. Love it. Okay, so we've got a bit of a B roll with voiceover kind of introducing what's gonna happen and what you're gonna talk about in the video. You've got the vendor featured here, and then you pop two audio of actually being present and the vendor speaking peach And this is at the Chelsea Flea market. So you're setting the location, you're talking about what you're talking about. You're showing some beautiful closeup shots of the [00:11:00] actual vintage jewelry, um, and talking about it. And this has great engagement. You know what, one thing that Joanna mentioned is you are in partnership with these vendors, so.

You have already, from a media perspective, you have already started by collaborating and leveraging other people's audiences, so you're not just in isolation trying to do your own thing, which is not. Bad, but by already going in it with this collaborative mindset, pulling from their audience, pulling from their trust and authority.

You know, this is someone who's probably been in this space for a long time, who knows a lot about vintage jewelry. Mm-hmm. Um, so this is, you know, it's using a lot of really regularly great tools. I really love that. It's also very clean. You don't have a ton of text on screen. It's not overwhelming. You've got this kind of sweet, jazzy background.

It's, um. It's simple, it's to the point. Um, and it leaves you wanting a little bit more. [00:12:00] Like, now I wanna know more about Peach as the vendor. I wanna know more about the jewelry because it's looking beautiful and, and anything I feel like vintage, you're right, comes with like a story, a history.

Faye Whitaker: That's what

Michelle Pualani: Um, so yeah.

Love it.

Faye Whitaker: we're documenting. Yeah. Because the audience, which is fun, they don't know that I'm studying them up for a future web series. Right. So. I'm giving them these short clips with these vendors to then later on, bring them on for the long form 10 minute interview where I go to where she keeps the vintage go with her shopping one day to collect the vintage.

Like I want the whole background to how she ended up in Chelsea that day. So that's what the premise of my show is gonna be, which is really exciting. So I'm giving them small tidbits online and hoping to gain engagement and a following to then show that to producers in the future and help them to grow even more, which is exciting.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and you're always like in your content, finding ways to funnel attention. Something that I've been seeing is so [00:13:00] important these days is to really start to think about your content as a funnel. Instead of just, here's some content. Sign up for my thing. Here's some content. Sign up for my thing. You're creating. Content of breadcrumbs, right? What's the piece that's gonna get pushed far and wide and find new people? What's that piece of content that's gonna take someone farther in and farther in and farther in from you? They don't even have to give you their email address to be in a funnel because you can. Put them through content strategically in a funnel, right?

You're a little, your little snippet, they'll get to know all of these people. So then when you produce that long form piece of content and say, go check out Peach's whole story. People are like, wait, I remember Peach. I want her whole story.

Faye Whitaker: Yeah. That's really nice. Mm-hmm.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, and this thing you said about documentation is that we're really in the era of documenting, like content creation is not about how much you're producing and [00:14:00] going over the top, but those, like from a business owner perspective, from a coach perspective, from a content creator perspective, we're really in the behind the scenes.

The documentation, the just capturing it as we go and as we experience and telling that story, which I love. Okay. Next one on our list. If you could give a little bit of background on what we're gonna look at next.

Faye Whitaker: was a vendor market where they have fashion designers, Joey vendors, people who have, um, handmade goods from, there's a, a vendor there from Brazil who. with refugee women and give them sustainable fabrics to create back. So there's so many different stories, and I interviewed a few vendors from there and helped them amplify their businesses, small businesses, which is really nice. Mm-hmm.

Michelle Pualani: I love it. All right, let's give it a [00:15:00] watch.

So can you tell us more about your friends? I'm so happy to be here today. I'm so focused on vintage tapestry, vintage textiles that I use for my business. Amazing. So look at that. Each of each of the courses that I create, I create from various vintage textiles that I source all over Europe, and then I've cycled them and create my first sales.

And when did you start this? This brand? So my brand I started nine years ago. Amazing. So it's been a journey for me. I love that. Love that I'm here with Kai. You talk about your brand. So this is, we work with, we've been making bags for. Seven, eight plus years. So solid cycle ladder is all, all the banks are hand stage back.

Community of migrant women coming from Venezuela, Haiti, they all based in Brazil. They all work from home and Y all, they all signed the back. [00:16:00] So you can connect a little bit with the maker. Fun. And what made you get into sustainable upcycling? I, I think it came from like seeing a lot of waste in the fashion.

Yeah. Um. Okay, I'm gonna pause and chime in. So this is a little bit of a longer video because it's interviews with multiple people throughout the shop. So the first one that we had was the woman who did the vintage corset style. Um, again, super simple. I love the clean, simple look. There's not a lot of cuts in it.

It's got a simple text on screen for the captions, so we're just focusing on like what's being said by the vendor. One thing I already noticed about these videos that I think is really positive is you are using mics and so the audio, although you know we're not in a production setting, is much cleaner than if we were just using the phone.

So you're already starting like a bunch ahead, which I think a lot of people mess up is like clean audio [00:17:00] is. Is very important and sometimes you can't help that. It's not great 'cause of whatever happened, but, but yeah, this is, this is great. Now you've featured multiple people, so you're able to collaborate and they're sharing it again out to their audiences.

So you're sharing that authority in such a big way.

Faye Whitaker: That was more strategic.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, absolutely. And you're tagging them

Faye Whitaker: they,

Michelle Pualani: in the caption, you're referring to them. Yeah, and so far we've already got these two brands. They've been around for eight to nine years, so these are not just like, you know, people who are just coming to the market.

They, that already shows me and demon shows to me and demonstrates to me that there's some long staying reason that they've been in business. And so I'm gonna pay more attention to you because of who you're aligning yourself with.

Faye Whitaker: And they deserve because they're

Michelle Pualani: Joanne, any comments?

Joanna Newton: Oh, you're good. No, and I [00:18:00] love, I love too, just the idea that you're getting out. And talking to people in real life. I think so often in digital and content creation space, we think, how can we do it virtually? Obviously like this podcast needs to be done virtually. 'cause Michelle is in California and you're in Manhattan and there's like a need for virtual meetups and things like that.

But if you're struggling to make content, sometimes just. Getting out, going, talking to people, that helps with that documentation process. If you're just staying home alone in your house every day, not with people, what are you gonna document? Right?

Faye Whitaker: exactly. Exactly. And sometimes if you're like me, for example, I have a larger vision, right? I want to have a show on tv. But then I might say, oh, well I'm, not for me. I'm not gonna get out and interview people. But if I don't show the work and show myself trying to, [00:19:00] Make my vision come to life, then how would investors want to come and work with me if they don't know what I'm doing?

So I'm not gonna have a full finished product right off the bat. People have to

Joanna Newton: Yeah.

Faye Whitaker: what I'm doing and grow with me. And I noticed that people don't usually say, oh, I just found your video yesterday. You have a million views. They say, I remember when you just started and you only had two followers. And I was one of the first.

Like, you want those people that invested in you early. And I think that's really, um. A great strategy to have when you're trying to do something bigger and you have something bigger in the back of your head. Just start small and do what you can.

Michelle Pualani: Yeah, you wanna think about. Absolutely. You wanna think about bringing people along with you. What does that journey look like? So on that note, we'll finish this video and take a look at also your presence in the video. So a lot of times, obviously the interviewee, we are paying attention to, like what they're saying, but you are representing yourself in a certain way.

So let's take a look real quick about how you're representing yourself in these videos. Like do our part right.[00:20:00]

Yes, fine. Uh, so we do fine, uh, jewelry vintage, so we do a lot of in Sterling silver and also gold, and we basically curate pieces that are. Current, like it feels current with the trends. It's vintage, but it doesn't feel like you're wearing something that's like outdated. It's modern but not dated. Yeah. So you're one, presenting yourself in a certain way is like, we do have to think about, and we talk about this a little bit from a brand perspective, is that how you're portraying yourself?

Whether that's online in video, even when you're meeting people or say you do sales, like showing up to that. Impressions matter and visual impressions matter, and the way that you're presenting this yourself, the way that you're holding yourself is beautiful. Also, the way that you're responding to her, your focus is on the interviewee.

Your attention is there. You're encouraging. [00:21:00] It's a really wonderful way to have a presence and and to set the stage for the tone of the video that you're also trying to create.

Faye Whitaker: Mm-hmm. I wanna share. that as well, because for example, as I'm preparing for a vintage outing or antique outing. I wanna make sure I have on natural fabrics. So that was a linen dress and a linen jacket, because that's the world that they live in. I'm learning about their world, but I want them to invite me into it, and I wanna have respect for it. So I don't, I might not wear linen home handmade things all the time, but if I'm in that space, I should, um, acclimate my mind and be mindful intentional about how I'm showing up in their space because they're inviting me.

Joanna Newton: And when we're presenting our brand, it is the whole picture, right? The clothes, the outfit, the makeup, the way we show up, the way we speak, the words we're. Saying, it's not just one piece, it's the feeling that we evoke when we're on camera. And it's so important [00:22:00] to curate that. And you might not figure that out on day one, right?

Like you might go do an interview, watch that interview, and then think, oh, you know what? When I put my hair in that style, you can't actually see my face. So next time when I go out, I'll pin it back. Or whatever that is. Right. We learn by doing and we learn by going through that process, and when we have that mindset, we're just gonna get better and better and better every time we show up.

I'd love to know for from you, you're, I think you said you're about a year into this journey as you're, you're creating this, you're building this world. What advice. Would you have, for someone who's been thinking about starting to post on social media and start to create that personal brand presence, what would you say?

Someone who's like just about to start, what advice would you give them?

Faye Whitaker: Uh, go in your room, take out your notes and write down all the things you love to do. [00:23:00] What do you naturally do? What do you, how do you spend your time when you're not at work? And then see what you can talk about. Honestly, for three minutes straight without any additional information and that you love speaking about it, see something that you want to learn about.

So I'm not an antiques expert, but I'm positioning myself to connect myself to people who know so I can learn, and as I learn, my audience will learn. So you don't have to know everything upfront. You can be a teacher, you can be someone who wants to learn, or you can be someone who wants to discover and explore your neighborhood.

Maybe you. Lived in New York for a long time, have you never been to the Statue of Liberty? That's something you can take others along. There's just so many ideas, but get in, get some time by yourself in a quiet space and brainstorm and think about what you really love. That's how you can start.

Michelle Pualani: Beautiful. When you start translating that and it becomes your persona. One thing I was thinking about while we were chatting about how we're presenting ourselves is your value system and the values that you [00:24:00] bring to your brand, and how do those show up? You know, I have a non-alcoholic beverage brand.

And although our product is designed for the sober curious, so that would be someone who still drinks. Lots of our customers still consume alcohol, but maybe they want something different. But if I was someone who was going out every weekend and taking shots constantly and waking up hung over and drinking, you know, daily or going to happy hour, that would be in direct opposite.

From a value set perspective to my actual brand. And so, you know, authentically and to be relatable and for people to actually trust and believe in the brand, the product that you're bringing to. The market is, like you said, showing up in clothes that represent, that actually loving and wearing and purchasing vintage for yourself, demonstrating how you've done it in your home, you know, aligning all those things so that [00:25:00] your brand, your business is a representation of what you believe in and therefore what you want people to believe in, in order to either purchase, take the next step, or engage with you in some way.

Right. So I think it's so important to maintain that authenticity, that sense of continuity in how you present yourself, what you're talking about, and all of those things. So, so important. Uh, Joanna, do we wanna start to kind of wrap up the combo or should we watch one more?

Joanna Newton: I think that we've sent a lot of great content and it is about time to wrap up. I'd love to know Faye from you, how can our listeners find you and connect with you and follow your journey?

Faye Whitaker: Sure. So, um, I'm everywhere at ans Korean Diaries for the media brand, but for my personal brand as a founder, I am, um, the Faye Whitaker. So. I think I've shared that with you guys as well, and you can find me everywhere. And I also have an offer, uh, a one-to-one [00:26:00] conversation, consultation, excuse me, starting over. I also have an offer for your listeners and a one-to-one consultation to help them build their personal brands and answer any questions that they may have as they're starting out, which is really nice. 

Joanna Newton: We will put all of those links in the show notes so that if anyone wants to connect further with Faye, they can find her on social channels or through her one-on-one consultation. You so much for listening to this episode. I hope that Ev you're welcome.

I hope that everyone who listened, learned something and got something from Phase Journey. Um, if you did, please subscribe, share this with a friend, and we will see you next time.