Unknown Speaker 0:01
salary is the drug they give you when they want you to forget about your dreams.

Alessia Citro 0:06
Welcome to the corporate dropout podcast. I'm your host, Alicia Citro. If you're sick of the corporate hamster wheel and looking to feel inspired and empowered to live a high vibe life as your own boss, you're in the right place, dear to drop out in 321. Before we start the show, I want to tell you about the business I'm launching. Do you have a business idea but you don't know where to start? Or maybe you've started your own business, but you know, there are boxes you need to check when it comes to taxes, finance, legal protection, marketing and more. Same. That's why I founded Theia collective, named for the Greek Goddess of Light Thea was created to light the path for entrepreneurs. We have the community courses and connections that will help every entrepreneur quantum leap and avoid costly mistakes. Learn from experts across professions and get the blueprint you need for your business. Text biz, that's BIZ to 949-577-8709 or head theia dash collective.com to learn more.

Alessia Citro 1:10
Hello friends today i am interviewing Susanna summers. She is an entrepreneur and data analyst who founded bachelor data, which analyzes the bachelor using fun and engaging data visualizations on the hit reality TV show. She founded bachelor data Academy in 2020, helping Excel users learn how to become proficient in the platform in a unique and fun way. And spoiler alert, Bachelor data Academy is what enabled her to become a corporate dropout. So with that, Susanna, welcome, and thank you for coming on the show.

Suzana Somers 1:41
Thanks for having me excited to finally join the corporate dropout crew.

Alessia Citro 1:45
Isn't it like the best thing ever?

Suzana Somers 1:48
It is, like I thought it'd be liberating when I finally got my life back to myself and got to decide my time. But it was it was almost overwhelming. Like how liberating it was.

Alessia Citro 1:59
Yes. And then it's a matter of like, oh, wait, I don't have to be in my office all day anymore. Like I could go and get lunch or I could go and get a massage or I could go on a walk. And it takes a little bit of rewiring. Hmm.

Unknown Speaker 2:10
It really did. Like it was totally life changing. In January, it I actually like, had to really rewire my brain to understand this new life because I went straight from, you know, k 12, schooling to college to work immediately. And I was also in college and doing my student teaching internship to working. And then once I started working a few years later, I started a startup. And then I was working plus working. And I was just like, my whole life was focused on work. And now it's like it's focused on creativity and things that make me happy. And my family like I finally get to focus on my family.

Alessia Citro 2:45
Yeah, it's a novel feeling but such a good one. Yeah. So before we get into your full corporate dropout story, I love starting with the guests professional background, because one of the purposes of this show is for people to listen and be like, Oh, I have a background like that if she can do it. So can I. So I picked your LinkedIn. And I was somewhat surprised to find out that you had been a teacher for a while. So tell us about that career path from teaching to tech, and then also how you got into Excel and Google Sheets.

Unknown Speaker 3:16
Yeah, so I actually got into college through music education. So I was planning to be a music teacher. I was a percussionist, and I got tendinitis about a year into it and just couldn't do it anymore. And through a few career changes at the University of Texas, I landed back in education and went for it was basically early childhood through sixth grade as my focus. So my first job was a third grade teacher at the school I grew up that actually taught alongside teachers that were there when I was when I was a kid. And I was a teacher there for a few years before I moved to Boston and became basically like an ed tech coach specialist. And then that job morphed into a tech director role so I just left my job. My third job as a tech director, that I was there for about two and a half years and I'm now full time data analyst influencer I guess

Alessia Citro 4:14
I worked on your LinkedIn the headline was Excel influencer and I kind of giggled because I've never heard those two words together. But I actually am like one of the rare people that really likes Excel. So I enjoyed it.

Unknown Speaker 4:28
I had no idea how to use Excel. So that was that was really what catapulted me into this world. I mean, as a teacher, you're not really taught Excel, or even taught the benefits of knowing how to use Excel. And like I did have a spreadsheet that I knew how to use to put in kids grades, so I could just calculate their averages but I mean, I taught third grade and in my last year, I taught fourth grade so it wasn't really excel heavy. It was more project based learning. But yeah, I had no training in Excel and then like kind of fudged my, my resume when I was applying for my first tech director job after being promoted into that position at my previous job. And, you know, I put proficient in Excel, but like, all I could do was like equals some and like, drag some cells. And I was like, I know how to use Excel. And I did not, I knew nothing.

Alessia Citro 5:22
Okay, so that's kind of how bachelor data was born, right? Because you're like, Okay, now I gotta figure this out. So tell us how that all came to

Unknown Speaker 5:30
pass. Yeah, so when I applied to that job, and I ended up getting it, I quickly learned in a job that I actually needed to learn how to use Excel. I mean, people were sending me spreadsheets all day, and I had no idea what I was doing. And my first major task was to analyze our state testing data, which is like the ugliest spreadsheet in the world. It's like hundreds of columns, none of the columns have actual names, it's all just acronyms, you have to like, look it up on this document that they don't even send you. So you have to find that to figure out what each column means and what the numbers are. It was just horrible. And it was, I mean, I got through it with a lot of help from people who actually knew how to use Excel. But I didn't really know what I was doing. So fast forward to December, I was a few months into this job. And I was home for Christmas. My dad is a power Excel user at work. He's an engineer. And I was like, You know what, like, I always see people talking online about Instagram followers around the show, but I don't see people like actually tracking it. Why don't I started tracking the Instagram followers for Colton season. So this was December of 2018. I went and collected all their Instagram follower counts. And then every night of the season, which was quite the commitment, I opened up every single Instagram profile, took their follower counts. And then I reported about it on this website called Reddit. And I did that there for a few years. And then fast forward to once I started to get my life back in the fall of 2020. You know, working as a tech director, when the world shut down, totally lost my life. And I was wanting to move it over to Instagram and I created it a few weeks before the world shut down. And I decided to start covering Claire and Tisha season more regularly. And it just blew up. It was I mean, within a year I passed, or a year and a half, I passed 100,000 followers. And it was just crazy to see how fast the community was growing and people who think about the data but don't necessarily want to calculate it themselves,

Alessia Citro 7:27
or don't know how to write, which is also exactly. So were you a bachelor fan before this. Is that sort of like the segue in or was it something like I see, we'll talk about this all the time. And that seems like a good opportunity, or maybe a mix.

Susanna Sommers 7:41
Oh, no, I was a diehard bachelor fan. I've been watching since like my, I was living in my dorm at the University of Texas as a freshman and I was bored one day. I think I was like sick and I couldn't go out that weekend and I was trying to find shows. And I found the bachelor it was Jake Pavelka season, which was like the most dramatic like I was such a good shows the villain, and then they had this dramatic breakup later

Alessia Citro 8:06
and Viana. I still remember I was like diehard on that season, too.

Susanna Sommers 8:12
And you know, we all treat her trash, right? Because whenever I talk to you about this, if they don't watch bachelor, they're like, Oh, that's not really my show. And I'm like, but you have trash that you choose to watch.

Alessia Citro 8:20
Yeah, they might be more like the Real Housewives train or something or like love is blind, I think is making a comeback again, right?

Susanna Sommers 8:26
Or like survivor or big brother, like everybody had like my brother watch his big brother. And that's what we watch together. And but yeah, it's a fun way to just you know, that you're watching the show. And you're watching these women get out on the first night wearing dresses, and you're like, oh, wow, a lot of the women are wearing red dresses, but there's no data out there on it. So that's what we kind of do around on our page.

Alessia Citro 8:47
So give us an example of the red dress, exiting the limo on night one what type of data you might pull around that? I know the answer. But for those of the listeners that haven't yet prowled the page, yeah.

Susanna Sommers 8:58
So we'll we'll pull basically, every season we'll go back on The Bachelor. We're all the women get out of the limo. And we just record what their dress color is. And then we basically make this rainbow graph for each season that shows the most common it shows all the dress colors, but then you can really see each season what colors stick out. And it was actually a storyline on Nick, final season, that a ton of women and that was the season I had the most red dresses showed up in red dresses. And I mean, clearly producer driven because especially all the all the contestants have come out to say the producers choose which dress they use that they bring. They're like, No, you should use this one, you should use this one. But you can see which dress colors stand out. And then that leads to so many more questions. So it's like, what's the most common dress color that the winners wearing? Or what's the most common dress color that the villains wearing? And it's really those questions that people ask that have helped me learn how to use the data because early on I would just post their Instagram follower accounts. And then I started to like see the comments on Reddit where people were like, oh, like, you know, they were pointing out how certain contestants who were people of color weren't getting the same number of Instagram followers as the white contestants. So that forced me to go into look at how to rank the amount of Instagram growth each, each episode to see who had the most Instagram growth. And then I looked at one on one dates to see was it really a difference when they had more screen time? And it was true, but it was only because people had commented with that information, those questions that I was like, Okay, let's go investigate that.

Alessia Citro 10:40
Wow. Yeah, very interesting. Okay. So tell us a little bit too, as you're starting this out, like, how did you grow it? And then how did the academy come out of it? Is it because people were asking for it? Or you saw the need? How did that all come to pass?

Susanna Sommers 10:57
Yeah, I actually, I was not the person who came up with the idea to even make it I had gotten some DMs of people asking about behind the scenes where I had posted a story or something of my spreadsheet while I was taking the data. And somebody deemed me and they were like, Oh, my gosh, I'd love to see your spreadsheets. Like, I'd love to learn how you do that. And then I started posting more screenshots about it. And then it was just one day. So it was like Thursday, somebody deemed me and they're like, I would love to have a course, where you teach me excel through the bachelor. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting idea. And I kind of thought about it for a few weeks. And I was like, Wait, that's a really good idea. And I've always wanted to go back to find who deemed me that, but I've never been able to go back to find it. But then the idea grew from there. So I started, you know, outlining the course idea. And as an educator, I'm really used to making a course outline, you know, like a curriculum. So I started to outline that and, you know, suddenly building it out. And then two months later, the course launched, and it was pretty much that week that I knew that I'd be able to quit my job.

Alessia Citro 12:04
Wow. Okay, so I have so many questions around this. So the first is, did you build the course before you sold it? Or did you sell it and then build it? Meaning like film sold it that.

Susanna Sommers 12:15
I sold it once it was fully done? So I didn't pre sell. I did have a group of about 10 people because I had people who filled out form saying you're interested. I did have some beta testers that were a godsend. I went back to go and rerecord a few modules once I recorded them because of their feedback. And Like Video Editing is a whole like it is a beast of a process. And then if you have any technical issues, you have to go back and rerecord and it's a lot and I got really efficient throughout the process. But no, I didn't pre sale pre sell it. It was all just day of launch.

Alessia Citro 12:52
All right, so but I like though the fact that you have the beta testers because I like the feedback I've gotten from other guests, as well as for my own business coaches, like do not make a full course and then sell it because maybe you made something no one wants. So would that be advice to like, make sure you have someone that's sort of helping you figure out whether or not this thing is good to go before you invest a ton of time?

Susanna Sommers 13:16
Yeah, and I also, I mean, I surveyed my audience, I tried to figure out what percentage were using Google Sheets versus using excel in the first course I built was the one that the least number of people use, because I didn't want to start with the bigger, you know, the one that would have more demand. And then I set up a Google form where I could basically just track or capture all of their email addresses. And when I saw how many people were interested in it when I pitched the idea where I was like, Hey, guys, like would you be interested in this, and I, my inbox got flooded with DMS. But then once I put the form up and actually captured, like names and email addresses of people that would be interested that I could eventually use, you know, in my course kit, so I could just go out in or not course, get ConvertKit to email everybody for my launch. That's when I was like, Okay, this is a good idea. I'm gonna invest some time in it. My boyfriend was out of town that summer for two weeks. So I was like, well, we're gonna try to do as much work as we can over those two weeks. Spoiler alert, it did not take two weeks. It took much longer than that. But yeah, that's that was basically how I launched it. But my beta testers were just I could not have done it without them. Because even when you're listening back and watching it, like you will miss all the problems, you'll miss the gaps like you will tune yourself out because I don't know me personally, I just can't listen to myself it I do not enjoy listening back

Alessia Citro 14:39
to my voice, or does that mean you're not gonna listen back to this interview? That would be so sad.

Susanna Sommers 14:45
It's so hard. And that's the hardest part too with like reels and tiktoks now is like, it's not just recording it. It's afterwards having to listen yourself on loop for like 20 minutes while you're editing it. It's a lot.

Alessia Citro 14:56
Yeah, I know. I feel like it gets easier or maybe it doesn't get easier. But you just get more used to it. But I definitely feel you on that. So I want to and I know we're actually diving in more to the digital course piece and the business tip mini episode that drops tomorrow. But when it came to your beta testers, I'm curious, did you give them preferred pricing? Or what did that look like? Because I feel like this is something that course creators, including myself kind of struggle with.

Susanna Sommers 15:19
I gave it to them for free. And I had a lot of people that were interested in beta testing, but these 10 people that I chose were people that seemed like they would have the time commitment to go back and listen to hours upon hours, you know, and re recordings and everything. And honestly, not all 10 beta testers actually followed through with the commitment. It was, you know, it was a chunk of that did but, you know, some people fell off the radar because of things that happened in their lives, and I can't fault them for that. But I gave it to them for free, because I asked a lot from them, you know, listening back finding problems. And, you know, sending me their feedback on it was even small things. Like I'd say, Hey, guys, and it was they were like, well, you need to realize, like, a lot of your audience are not men, so maybe more gender inclusive. Greeting. And I was like, Well, that makes sense. I was from Texas, and I stopped saying y'all when I moved to Boston, but we'll get back to y'all.

Alessia Citro 16:16
I know, I like y'all, and I'm not even from the south. But I too, have been trying to say you guys much less, but that's hard. It's like deeply ingrained in our vocabulary, isn't it? What would you say to be really useful? Now, I love that feedback. And so what would you say to like, what were some of the biggest challenges and learning curves you had, as you were getting this thing off the ground and then expanding it? Whether that was scale or anything that you can think of?

Susanna Sommers 16:41
It it was it was a lot of things. I mean, again, I feel like I just kind of winged this I had some like digital marketing influencers that I followed, but I didn't take any courses on, like how to launch a course honestly, because it was way too busy with work. Even though you know, a lot of people hear educator and they think summers off, I was a tech director. So I was a year round employee working 40 hours a week, in a 40 hour week was a short week for me, especially with the projects that we had going on last year. So for me, it was a just putting the course together because I went ambitious, I went for a pretty big course that's about eight hours all together. And then I guess the thing that I'm trying to tackle now is really how to sell is the next piece because you know, the people that came were people who were really excited about it, but now is, you know, how do I market this out? So people understand what the product is?

Alessia Citro 17:39
Yes? And is there like a live launch component? Like there's so many ways to get a corpse off the ground? And I'm, I'm in the thick of that right now, too. So I have a lot of compassion because there's so many moving pieces, like between the social media and like, do you make a free group where people can go and get information? And then and then it's just it's a lot. So I'm excited to dive more into that on the business tip episode after this. So let me ask you to like what do you why do you think the need for this course even exists? Like, I'm seeing so many people leaving their jobs, because they hate them? And they're realizing whatever they learned in school actually wasn't that marketable? Like, do you what would you say is sort of your thought in terms of proficiency around basic stuff, especially as an educator, do you think the need for this course is because people aren't taught it in school? Is it that they were taught and they forgot or talk to us a little bit about why you even think that the market is like the way it is for digital courses?

Susanna Sommers 18:36
Yeah, I think well, first things first, digital courses just make learning accessible to people. It's not this drawn out process of having to apply to a college program and be accepted and jump through all these hoops. It's, Hey, I found somebody that it resonates with me, and I'm gonna go buy their course and do it on my own time even had I remember, there's a mom who deemed me who was watching my course breastfeeding after having her newborn, because, you know, she didn't have the time to sit at her computer. Like it's accessible, right? You can watch it on your phone, you can watch your laptop wherever you need to. And it's self paced to the majority of digital courses are they don't, they don't have too much of a live component. And the ones that do, mine doesn't, but the ones that do typically have recordings afterwards. So it makes it accessible to people. But I think as far as Excel, what a lot of people are realizing is that it is a very useful tool. Regardless if you have a hobby or if you have a job. It is a tool that can save you so much time and get things done not only more efficiently, but correctly, you know, it's calculating things or even realizing like, I when I used to do my taxes, it was this like drawn out process and every you know, everybody complains like, oh, it's tax season. I'm gonna be so busy. I mean, now, my taxes are the easiest thing. I just export a few spreadsheets and I run some formulas and I send it to my accountant and I'm like Well done, like, if my numbers just run them

Alessia Citro 20:03
your accountant.

Susanna Sommers 20:04
Love you. Yeah, I mean, but it's because of the knowledge around excel in it. A lot of people just don't realize that it's a tool that can really help them save time. So I think the other piece about that is people realize that they need Excel, or they're thrown into a job where people are always throwing them spreadsheets, and they're terrified every time they open their inbox. But I think it's also just the lack of learning tools out there. I do have a gripe whenever people are like, I didn't learn how to balance a checkbook in school. And it's like, you kind of you probably were, but it also wasn't relevant to you at the time to learn how to invest until maybe, you know, high school, but maybe you didn't choose to take those courses and stuff. But, you know, Excel isn't taught in schools for the most part. And the YouTube videos out there are pretty horrible. Is they really, actually a gift that these it's the majority of men can speak in monotone with absolutely no inflection. Like, I've tried to do it. And it is really, it's the mental Olympics to be able to take inflection out of my voice. So it's pretty boring. And most of the data that's used in those videos, it's just stuff that people don't understand. So the the joy of The Bachelor data Academy is that people, it's just looking at Instagram follower accounts and screen time. But that can relate to if you have students, if you have sales territories, if you are, you know, whatever your hobby is, if you work on Etsy, like it relates to it, because it's numbers and variables, and that can go anywhere.

Alessia Citro 21:36
So out of curiosity, what is your favorite feature of Excel?

Susanna Sommers 21:42
Oh, gosh, I think there's two. So the first one is pivot table.

Alessia Citro 21:46
I was gonna ask you about tables. Yeah, I had a feeling okay.

Susanna Sommers 21:49
Because that takes away the need to write formulas, which is typically why people are so scared of Excels, because they don't understand formulas and functions. But my other one would probably have to be VLOOKUP and X lookup. And it's basically a formula that allows you to merge together information that's not together. So like, if I had a ton of students in there, absent rates, and I had another spreadsheet with students, and then their test scores. Like I would have to copy and paste those over what VLOOKUP and X lookup does is you just do it in like two seconds and merges them itself.

Alessia Citro 22:24
How long did it take you to learn how to do VLOOKUP and X lookup, I never heard of X lookup before this and I had spent a lot of time figuring out VLOOKUP. So I'm curious what that was like for you.

Susanna Sommers 22:36
I learned VLOOKUP first, and it was actually my dad who taught me because I watched so many YouTube videos. And I was like, I don't get this. And the problem was, it wasn't that I didn't understand VLOOKUP it's that within the lookup, you need to understand another concept called absolute referencing. And that was something that every single YouTube video failed to explain. And whenever I tried to apply that formula to a whole data set, it would break and I was like, I don't understand why this isn't working. And, you know, luckily, I had somebody I could go to, you know, my, my dad is really proficient in Excel. But the majority of people and what I even saw when I tried to ask people for help in the workplace is that you feel like you're a burden. And especially as a woman, where I was surrounded by men, I it would make me feeling superior, you know, to have to ask for help. And you know, it's, it's tough, like, you don't want to feel like a burden on your colleagues feel like you need help. And like, I'm not gonna go comment on forums online, because like, I need to, like, show my data. And my data is all student testing data. So I can't post that. And, you know, it's, it's tough, but I think the what I tried to do with the curriculum is build off of the concepts. So when you learn these really complex formulas like VLOOKUP, or x lookup, you've already had a lesson on absolute referencing, but then that concept has been included in so many lessons leading up to it that you feel confident when you get to these harder formulas.

Alessia Citro 24:11
I feel like I'm pretty good in Excel. But then I probably need to take your course because it would save me a lot of time. So let me ask you something like even just the way that you're speaking now, how big of an advantage do you think your background as an educator has put you at to now teach a digital course.

Susanna Sommers 24:26
I definitely it helped me with the outline in terms of building the knowledge. But part of the curriculum is following my own roadmap, like my own journey not to sound like the Bachelor of how I learned my concepts. Like I learned how to format cells. And then I learned Conditional Formatting, which is where you set up rules to format had I tried to learn Conditional Formatting before formatting that wouldn't have made sense, right. So I tried to build it off also of my own knowledge in my journey of how I built up those skills.

Alessia Citro 25:00
Yeah, just the way that I can even hear you like explaining things and looking at it foundationally I feel like that is likely a pretty big advantage for anyone that's taking your course is that you actually did it in a thoughtful way that's laying the groundwork every step. Okay, on a scale of one to 10. How valuable Do you think Excel proficiency is? If you are an entrepreneur running a business?

Susanna Sommers 25:24
You need Excel, it's like a 41 year one to 10 scale. Yes, it is. So it doesn't matter if you're an Etsy entrepreneur, or if you have a startup where you're doing one on one coaching, like even if you are so disconnected from tech, like let's say you do, like, you know, phone calls, or you do podcasts or something like that, where it's not even anything that requires technology, like people are listening on their phones or something. It is so it's so needed, like it's Excel, people think is a numbers thing, but it's more it's tracking information, which we all track information on our clients, on our products on our sales on our taxes it you will find use in Excel and being good at it will save you time and not make you scared every month of doing your finances or, you know, it just it for me, it's not a thing anymore. It's like, Oh, I was curious on the Oscars. Like, I'm just like, copying, pasting in like import HTML for functions. And it's like, oh, I'm all set. Like I have the data I wanted on movies from the Oscars.

Alessia Citro 26:34
That's so fascinating. Okay, so the day that we're recording this, it's the day after Oscar Sunday, and you actually have another account called Pop Culture data. So this is in addition to bachelor data, and you were tracking how many followers Will Smith, Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith had gained since the slap heard around the world. So tell us a little bit about like, you know, how do you even go about finding these data points? Do people ever come to you with things to look up? Like, just tell us how the whole pop culture Peace Studies? I think it's really interesting.

Susanna Sommers 27:09
Yeah, so I started the secondary account, just because people were asking me random things that just didn't make sense about the bachelor. And I was like, Well, let me just go put on this page. So it doesn't get lost in all the bachelor content that I do weekly. And it's a mix. So my posts either come from literally me sitting on the couch, after watching that happen on the Oscars, and just refreshing the Instagram be like, Oh, wow, he's gaining a lot of followers. And just thinking of it myself, versus I also have just people who will DM me and be like, Hey, are you tracking this, like, this would be really interesting. Now, naturally, I was not tracking Well, Smith's Instagram follower accounts for the last week or two. So I actually have a tool that I work with the company for, it's like built for marketing agencies that are trying to hire Instagram influencers, and they pull all that data. So I try not to use that for my bachelor data, mainly because with my bachelor data, I'm very, you know, specific about the Instagram data being taken at 8pm. Eastern every night whenever it's taken. But for these types of things, which are more like global events, or like, my carries Spotify, like, I'll just go to a different place online to find that.

Alessia Citro 28:21
Okay, so I have to get your opinion on this. And I need a look when this airs, everyone will have forgotten about the slap around the world, probably by the time this drops. But out of curiosity, do you think that it was staged? Or do you think it was legit?

Susanna Sommers 28:34
I mean, I thought it was staged the first few seconds I watched the unedited version first, like from Australia, I think,

Alessia Citro 28:41
yeah, I was watching some Japanese version where they didn't get the audio.

Susanna Sommers 28:46
But then, when it got to the point, the point that they did cut, I was like, Oh, this does not feel staged. I know a lot of people are like, Oh, this is a ratings ploy. But like, this is going to destroy Wilson, a screw. I know a lot of it's like, mixed where and I'm trying not to have an opinion on it. Because, you know, I think that conversation is very much reserved for the black community. And I have my perspective as a white woman. And I don't know if it necessarily fits into the conversation. But I do think that this is going to impact people's careers, possibly in a negative way. And yeah, I don't just because of that, you know, I just I don't think that it was staged. But also there have been things that have been staged in the past at the Oscars that they own up to pretty quickly and this has not been one of them.

Alessia Citro 29:35
Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I'm curious. I'm like he won Best Actor right after that. Like no one seemed like affected by the fact that he got up and hit him and they were all cheering for him when he won. I don't know. It's very odd. So I'm reserving judgment. I'm just kind of observing. But yeah, it's interesting, but they've gained a lot of followers just so y'all know. So it benefit. Yeah. Well,

Susanna Sommers 29:54
he just passed a million new followers, which he had 57 million to begin with, but like A million new followers in less than 24 hours is wild. But I do think what's more interesting about what the Oscars is doing is that they're actually starting to bring in influencers. So, one of my favorite influencers from Tik Tok is straw hat goofy, who reviews movies, and especially Marvel content. He actually went to go do an appearance on Good Morning America, like they're starting to bring in influencers to be a part of these events. And I think that is something that they're actually doing for ratings, like, you can actually see that that's targeted to get people to try to watch this.

Alessia Citro 30:35
Yeah. Which makes sense, because I feel like everyone used to talk about the Oscars, and I forgot that they were even on until I saw someone post about it. How long do you think we can have to wait before you end up being like on The Bachelor on ABC giving commentary on data? Have you pitched him yet? No. Susanna, you got to do that I would love to hear you chime in with with the facts and the numbers.

Susanna Sommers 31:01
You know, I try to only analyze stuff that's publicly available, because also I don't want to get in trouble with legal would there have been bachelor people in like people who cover the bachelor world who have been sued by ABC, and I don't, I don't want to get in their bed, on their bad side. But I also think it's important to stay unbiased when it comes to covering the data. So a lot of people feel like they need to hire you. And it's like, that would be the worst thing for the data. It's like when pharmaceutical companies review their own drugs, it's like, you can't trust that, like, you need to have non bias data that isn't being paid for by the source that's trying to promote something. So and I don't think that they could really give me anything that would be worth. I mean, maybe if I could get access to like casting data, but I don't know if that's necessarily data that they want publicly out there.

Alessia Citro 31:48
I don't know what I think you need like an agent or something like that to help you because I I definitely see this for you. You being a commentator or something like that, because it's interesting. Okay, so some fun rapid fire questions to close this up. So first thing I got to ask who is your favorite bachelor of all time?

Susanna Sommers 32:07
Oh, gosh, just bachelor or is that include Bachelorette, bachelor? Oh, man,

Alessia Citro 32:13
I can narrow down to like two if you can't pick one.

Susanna Sommers 32:16
I think Ben Higgins, but it's, it's less about the lead for me. And it's more about the cast. And I that was the cast that I really started to start following on Instagram to like, want to follow them after their season. So I think that's why I really identify with him being my favorite lead that was more about the cast. I mean, he was a great lead to and we got the drama at the end, where he told two women that he loved him, and it was the first time that I had ever happened. Yeah, I think we've had a lot of really great leads I'm really interested to right now. You know, I learned a lot in the last year, especially 2020 and 2021. Through covering the first black bachelor, you know, and especially challenging my own beliefs that, you know, my my own, you know, environment growing up, you know, I'm learning a lot and I got to read an excerpt from Matt James's book and thinking about, you know, how I covered his season, but also now reading his perspective on what was happening for him behind the scenes. I think I also I identify him as a lead that I really enjoyed, because it's challenging my own beliefs now and how I covered it. And I think it's more like, remembering there are people behind these numbers, like you have to remember there are humans there. And yeah, I'm really excited to read his book.

Alessia Citro 33:41
How about favorite Bachelorette?

Susanna Sommers 33:44
Joe? Joe? Yeah, me too. Not for the same reason that I liked ben season. I actually really didn't like her cast at all. But I think she was a really fun lead to watch. Yeah, she was one that I really enjoyed. And then also Claire, and Tasha season, were just a blast. It was just, it was the first real shake up to the franchise. And I'm really excited now with the bachelor franchise having to leave like, as fun as it is to be able to have this data that I can cover where it's like, let's look at the last 15 seasons and how literally, nothing has changed. It's like, no, we want to see change. Like we want to keep this show relevant. And, you know, change it up a bit. So I'm excited.

Alessia Citro 34:24
You know, speaking of Jo Jo, I obviously, you know, worked out for her picking Jordan. They're still together, I think, right? I haven't been paying attention lately, but I was using her bachelorette party right now. No kidding. Oh, well. Shout out to you, Joe. Joe. Hope it's a blast. All right, who's your favorite couple from the franchise?

Susanna Sommers 34:45
Oh, gosh. I don't follow enough of these people to have one.

Alessia Citro 34:50
I think you don't have to have an answer. I

Susanna Sommers 34:53
love JoJo season but then her Instagram account really frustrated me because she would just basically like disappear from the face of the earth and come back Don't be like, hey, look, it's my dogs. And by the way, here are some ads, then I was like, I'm like, I want to see your life like I care. Like I really liked your season. Um, let me think who's even still together.

Alessia Citro 35:11
G and Dylan is

Susanna Sommers 35:15
an interesting one to follow. So I started following her because I just wanted to know what her highlighter was that she used on her Sisa. And, I don't know it's really interesting. I mean, she's, she's making a ton of money. But it's also interesting to see like, she launched an app for like, photo editing and seeing like, how she's maintaining her brand and and trying to grow it in a time that it's really hard to grow on Instagram. So and she's also one of the first bachelor people who made the jump over to Tik Tok. And there were, there was a lot of criticism on the forums about how content was cringy and everything, but it's like, she's, she's doing pretty well over there.

Alessia Citro 35:54
I mean, isn't all content kind of cringy? Like, I mean, us doing dances and lip synching, it's all kind of cringy if we're being honest, you know,

Susanna Sommers 36:02
I feel cringy like now having to make videos. I'm like, This feels so weird making this content in this way. Like it feels cringy and, but it's you have to go out there and it's like, just got to ship it.

Alessia Citro 36:15
Yeah, it's like don't get perfect post paralysis is Brock Johnson closet.

Susanna Sommers 36:21
Okay, my like my best performing posts have been the ones that I make on a whim. Like, this day that I grew my account. 14,000 followers in one day, was literally I was in bed. Like, it was when Loki was on the Marvel series. So like, I was all over that. And I pulled the music from it, and I made it on a whim. It performed the best. And I was like, This is gonna be so cringy but it like blew up.

Alessia Citro 36:46
Yeah, it's always the ones that you don't think well, or that took you two seconds to make Wait, like without fail. So funny. Okay, final bachelor question. If you could only watch one, would it be a bachelor bachelorette or Bachelor in Paradise?

Susanna Sommers 37:02
Oh, hot take. I actually like bachelor more than a Bachelor in Paradise. So for me to find the right income. Bachelor is my favorite because we get to see the women. And then Bachelor in Paradise is my favorite because we get to see so many relationships form. And then my least favorite is Bachelorette. And it's not because of the leads, it's because I just watch all the men and I'm like,

Alessia Citro 37:27
Yeah, I'm waiting on that.

Susanna Sommers 37:30
Turn into being men who tried to be like, Hey, watch me workout. And it's like, that didn't work for you before the show. It's not gonna work for you now.

Alessia Citro 37:41
I love it. Okay, so you were kind enough to extend a promo code to our listeners for anyone that wants to enroll in the Bachelor data Academy. So tell us a little bit more about that, how they can save $100 off and any plugs you want to make plug away?

Susanna Sommers 37:57
Yes, I'm so excited. It is going to be a $100 of code for the course. And the code is corporate drop out. And it works on either the Excel edition, the Google Sheets Edition or the bundle. So if you're a person who has to use both for your job, which I'm sorry, if you do, it's really hard to use both. Our course you can do a bundle. And it shows you specifically in each tool, how those work. And within each course it talks about the differences between the two platforms.

Alessia Citro 38:29
Oh, okay, that would be valuable. Let me ask you just real quick, what's your favorite? Do you like Google Sheets or Excel better?

Susanna Sommers 38:37
I like Excel better. I mean, so Gee. Well, actually, so my OG was Google Sheets, because I was in education. And the majority of school districts use Google Sheets. But the problem was, as I was learning how to use things in Google Sheets, I quickly discovered that it works much better in Excel. So Excel has to be my favorite, just because it has more tools. And it's just, they go a little bit further with how sophisticated the tools are. But Google Sheets also has the added bonus that you know, it's easy to share things and but I mean, Excel has come a long way there too. So, but yeah, there's pros and cons on both.

Alessia Citro 39:18
Okay, well now I'm interested in doing the bundle so I can get the differences. Well, this was awesome. Okay, so share with us where can people find you? Where can they connect with you? Where can they sign up for the academy and all the things?

Susanna Sommers 39:29
I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok under bachelor data, and you can either go to my link in my bio to find the course or it's just bachelor data.thinkific.com

Alessia Citro 39:41
Thank you so much for this. I'm excited for the business tip that will drop after this. So if you are a digital course creator or want to be Be sure to come back for that, and we'll see you back here tomorrow. This episode was brought to you by Theia collective the learning community I found it for entrepreneurs text biz, that's BIZ to 949577 8709 or head to Theia dash collective.com That's THEIA dash collective.com to learn more. Thanks for listening to the show. If you enjoyed today's episode, please help me get the word out about the corporate drop out by screenshotting and sharing this on social. I would appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and leave a five star rating and review as well. And I do this show for you and I want to hear from you. So tell me what is it that you want more of text me at 949-541-0951 or slide into the DMS at corporate drop out official or Alesia Citro with two underscores until next time