How I Grew My TikTok to 9.9m Likes in One Year w. Jahan Kalantar

James Lawrence: I am here today with Jahan. Jahan. Welcome to the pod. 

Jahan Kalantar: Thank you, my friend. Good to see you.

James Lawrence: So we were chatting briefly before we started recording and I believe that Jahan is the first non marketer that we've had on the pod. So Jahan was formerly a barrister in New South Wales and is currently a partner at Executive Legal Group, where he heads up the Litigation and Dispute resolution teams. He's a former TEDx speaker and I think most relevant to the conversation today; Jahan jumped heavily into TikTok a bit over 12 months ago, and he's he's basically become one of the platform's most successful case studies in Australia. He currently has over 300,000 followers. His videos have attracted just under 10 million likes, and so I thought it'd be excellent to have Jahan on to talk about what's worked, what hasn't worked and his journey on the TikTok platform. So Jahan, welcome to the pod. 

Jahan Kalantar: Thank you so much for having me. I will uphold for all non marketers.

James Lawrence: You're going to have to put on your phone marketing hat and do a service on - for those of you that are listening and not watching, he just put a fake hat on. So I think it'd be just interesting for the listeners to hear what made you decide to start promoting your business on TikTok?

Jahan Kalantar: So, James, my practice is primarily in New South Wales, even though I have little teams everywhere. It really started in 2021 with the lockdown. So we had an initial lockdown in 2020 and that was really tough. The courts closed down, a lot of businesses closed down, there's a lot of uncertainty. But simultaneously the government released some money and sort of had some stuff in place. But in 2021, around June, July, there was another lockdown announced. And my business had 13 staff, I think over seven figures. Revenue dropped about 90-95% overnight because we're a litigation law firm, and if you can't go to court and argue, well, there's really very little you can do to generate income. And understandably, a lot of clients were concerned about money. And we we kind of took this step. So it was a really stressful time. And I got into TikTok not through, you know, it was purely luck. 

Jahan Kalantar: What was happening is at the time, Gladys Berejiklian and her office would bring out these daily updates, talking about how many people were getting sick and what was happening, and they would describe the situation in atrociously poor ways. They would not explain anything. There were terms like the single’s bubble, LGAs of concern, intimacy bubble which is different to a single’s bubble, and then very basically just nonsense. And I would sit there and rage at the television being like, this is just outlandish, how can they get away with this nonsense? We need something. So I started making TikToks for really just my own edification. And because I had nothing to do. And it was a way of me doing what I could, which is like explaining, yo, this is what a single’s bubble is. This is what an area of concern is. And really, that's sort of how I got started into it. There was no back end thought around, how is this going to help my business or grow? It was purely because I was basically stuck in my house and I needed an outlet. 

James Lawrence: Did any marketers that you spoke to at the time tell you that it wasn't a good idea and that it wouldn't help you grow the practice? 

Jahan Kalantar: I recall somebody having a conversation without naming….But to his credit, that particular marketer said it may work, it may just take a long time and that it should be part of a more wholesome marketing mix. 

James Lawrence: You know, for the listeners, Jahan and I are friends, and he kind of came to me and we're talking marketing advice, and I think you're being too kind. Think I said that's ridiculous Jahan! TikTok is not going to help you drive file openings in a legal firm. And I was wrong. 

Jahan Kalantar: No, no, no I don't think you were that callow about it. I think you were like, I think you should also look at these other things, which I completely ignored and have faced no consequences. So really, your advice on this one was off. 

James Lawrence: You're a good manager. So that kind of that explains why you got into the platform. And I guess the early days, what was the journey? Because it's kind of fascinating what happened. 

Jahan Kalantar: So it's really interesting. I had a couple of pieces of canned content that I'd made for other platforms. I'm talking the meta platform, so Facebook, Instagram and etcetera, and the acquisition cost of a client on Instagram and Facebook. I'd missed that whole boom. I'd completely missed it. So when I was there, you were paying top dollar for bad eyeballs. And I still think you are on those platforms, particularly in the services space. It is so expensive to differentiate yourself. I would put like $100 behind an ad and get maybe no leads, maybe 50-60 views. Terrible, terrible return on investment. But on TikTok I started posting them with just just posting them. Very simple. Me with a camera. This is the situation. And I started to get viewers and I started to get followers. And it was very weird for me because for me on Instagram, to get a new followers, so much work. But on TikTok I was getting 400-500 followers in a day. It was crazy. Now those are from all over the world. There's no verifying they’re good quality or bad quality, but just to see that you could get eyeballs at scale with the same content that suffered on another platform really inspired me to keep putting energy in. 

James Lawrence: And so at this point, are you putting any money behind the posts or it's all organic?

Jahan Kalantar: All organic. Yeah. 

James Lawrence: And so this is kind of July, August?

Jahan Kalantar: 20th July. I can tell you my first TikTok went live July 21st. I had 1000 followers by 2020, by July 24th. So in 3 or 4 days I had 1000 followers. 

James Lawrence: Yeah. And then what happened after that? 

Jahan Kalantar: Well, that's when I realised that what my audience wanted was less stylised content, and they wanted information quickly. So one of the learnings that I've had on my journey is that speed and relevance trumps video quality. For example, when Gladys Berejiklian or, you know, Greg Hunt or one of those politicians made an announcement, the faster that I've explained that announcement in plain English, the better that it would do. It was far better to give a terrible video of me, unshaved and looking dirty, explaining it in like the first hour, then it would have been for me to look perfect in front of a camera three days later. So it was really about demystifying the law and explaining those sort of things. And, really commercialisation of this was the last thing from my mind. It was purely, how do I get my information out there and help people? Because I was stressed out. I'm a blessed guy. I've got a successful business, lovely wife. Life is good. If I'm stressing out, people who've got real challenges, they're really stressing out. And I just wanted to see what I could do to ameliorate that. 

James Lawrence: And then talk the listeners through what happened, I guess, up until Christmas last year. 

Jahan Kalantar: So it's really interesting. It's not been linear at all. What will happen is there might be days or weeks where nothing meaningful happens and then you make a piece of content. So, for example, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing. I made one about how Squid Game, if you remember Squid Game, how Squid Game is probably illegal. And it kind of just hit the zeitgeist at the right time and sort of like went larger. And I kind of tried different things and bits and pieces that sort of worked and didn't work. One of the first times I went viral was when I made a video about Gladys Berejiklian resigning. I keep saying Gladys Berejiklian a full name, Gladys, you know, resigning from Parliament. And basically there was an announcement at like 2 p.m., I think about; “I'm resigning because this and that”. And there was an ICAC corruption inquiry in the background. So I was at a client who is a a manufacturing and construction concern. And I was like, guys, can I have two minutes just in one of these? And I went into a demountable. It was disgusting. Trash all around me, dirty room - loud. And I made a quick video that basically explained the Premier's resigning corruption allegations. This is how ICAC works. 

Jahan Kalantar: It was the worst short video. I've tried to track it down. It's hideous, but it gave the relevant information that people could easily understand the problem and it went viral. And then I realised, aha! So that's what people really want. They want information that simplifies things. That is just outside of their scope of Googling. I kind of made little pieces of content here and there. And I grew a pretty good organic following to about 70,000. I don't know how long that took, but it took a long time because there would be weeks where nothing would happen, and then boom, a piece would go crazy and you'd get all these followers. And what was really rocket fuel for me was explaining with specificity what was happening in the Johnny Depp and Amber heard case. That, to me, was the moment my content really went global. And it's bizarre. It's even explaining it to you now. It's bizarre that a suburban lawyer in Sydney was the authority for many people on litigation in a Virginian case between two Californian actors. Even saying it out loud. So I get that I'm 100% aware of me going well on this platform is like winning the lottery and being like, well, you should just invest in lottery tickets. It doesn't work that way. It was a lot of luck. But that was kind of the thing that shot me, I guess, into the stratosphere and really built up to, I would say now, a global following. 

James Lawrence: I think at the moment you've got about 300,000 followers, let's call it 10 million likes of you videos. If you get a hit with a piece of content and it does go viral, like how many likes or impressions will that particular TikTok kind of generate roughly? 

Jahan Kalantar: It really depends. So for example, recently I had a piece that went viral. There was this awful case in the US where this poor 17 year old kid and his friend are having some McDonald's in a car. Police officer comes up, tries to arrest them and then shoots at them. Horrific stuff that's got about 500,000 views. But, you know, it hasn't led to many followers, which is fine. There's very little link between the piece of content and followers and likes. Sometimes it's pure curiosity. Sometimes it's not. A piece I made about Optus being terrible and how what they've done is unacceptable. That got me tons of followers, but not very many likes. And they were very localised followers because they were people who were freaking out; they've lost my license, they've stolen my data. So you can't really say a like is equal to a follower, or you can't say that views is going to lead to likes. In fact, it's very, very common for a piece to go viral and that that creator not capitalise on it correctly. 

James Lawrence: Interesting. And talk to us about, because I think there's two sides to this all social media, right. Whether you deem TikTok a social media platform or not, but you've kind of got the paid side and you've got the organic side. This conversation is firmly on the organic side. What are your learnings like? What are those TikTok 101s that will help listeners if they are focusing in on trying to build, whether it's personally or for their for their brand, reach, to get the likes, to get the following and the engagement?

Jahan Kalantar: So I've explored with paid as well. And there's a couple of strategies you can use to do that effectively. You don't want to put paid behind copy or content that doesn't do well. The most important thing I think, for short form video content is firstly, it is so new and so different. You can't really ascribe traditional well, you can use always the same traditional marketing principles, but it's different. It's a new, and the medium informs the message. So when I talk about TikTok, I know TikTok can do ten minute videos now, I know it can do three minute videos. There is a place for that. YouTube is ten minute videos and three minute videos. There's other channels that make more sense for it. TikTok is trying to capture the entire spectrum and it very well might. But for now, when I think of TikTok, I think about a five second video, probably do about two minutes. That's really the length that I think people spend on TikTok. 

Jahan Kalantar: And the first and most important message with any social media is; it’s a microphone. You cannot loud people into caring about what you have to say. If what you're saying is banal or irrelevant or doesn't connect, saying it loud is not going to change that. Same with comedians. You can give a comedian the best microphone in the world. The joke's not funny, the joke's not funny. Saying it louder and amplifying that isn't going to work. So people come at it with the wrong perception. They come at it with, how am I going to get followers? How am I going to grow? Don't look at it like that. Say, how do I create amazing content? How do I make the content amazing and how do I get this in front of people who want to hear it? And then the followers will come naturally. The pyramid. Most people that I've spoken to who really want to follow, follow fast. The pyramid is inverted. You've got to invert the pyramid. You've got to think about how do I make amazing content? 

James Lawrence: And I think that's something that brands struggle with, right? Because I think they come at it either rehashing content from other platforms, but the nature of the platform is that it is different. Right? And I think the creative has to be presented in a way that it hasn't before, and it has to push the envelope with a lot of style guides and tone of voices, and some organisations are just unwilling to do it. So they come in with this clearly brand first kind of message, and it just doesn't resonate. 

Jahan Kalantar: I think that's right. So, you know, the best example is Instagram. Now Instagram is trying to become like TikTok by putting in reels which are interest based. And you know, you like a cute photo of a dash, and then they know a little bit about you and various other bits and pieces. But what worked on Instagram was highly stylized pictures, a beautiful picture in trying to become the video platform, I think it's sort of mixing its message, and it's obviously upsetting for all of those people who've got like 8 million Instagram followers, because, you know, that would be devastating to have a following of that size but no longer be relevant. It's same, I'm sure, with people who've had Facebook pages. But with Instagram, if, let's say you sell tanning lotion, you can put your tanning lotion with hunk A, B and C, and babe A, B, and C, hypothetically. And that's nothing weird about that, because people will see and because it's based on your profile, you will get access to a B and C's profile and ABCs audience and babe A, B and C - forgive the vulgarity, but we're just using simple rules.

James Lawrence: Yeah. 

Jahan Kalantar: That's right. The 4000 people who want to see us boil, that does not work on TikTok. You need one avatar that is the brand that speaks with an authentic voice. Because what TikTok is doing differently, is it wants genuine relationships to be created with the creators. It wants an authentic voice that is not by me, by me, by me. I don't talk about myself. I don't think I've ever talked about my services, what they cost and what they are. On my TikTok, I just I said, I give the information away for free and I'm pretty upfront about this. I said, I'll tell you how to do it. If you want me to do it for you, you've got to pay. But I give the information away for free. And with brands and stuff that I see, the only exception being Duolingo, who killed it on TikTok because they created a beautiful, irreverent image to go with their brand. But usually, it's garbage. It's just nonsense. It's like, oh, look how fun where we work is. Rah rah rah.

James Lawrence: It's a good point. And we had Katie Richardson from UNiDAYS come on recently, and the topic was basically marketing to Gen Z. And we kind of got to that point, which was if you're not going to engage properly with that demographic, don't come in at all, like don't come in and try to overlay content and collateral that has worked on other platforms and speak in a way to mimic the voice of the generation because they just smell a phony. And I think that's what we're seeing from a TikTok viewpoint, which is, if you're not willing to play the way it needs to be played, just don't engage. 

Jahan Kalantar: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that fully. I mean, I think that's a really good way of putting it out there. If you're not going to play properly, don't play. Don't come in there. I mean, these are people who have been lied to their entire lives. They've been told myths. And I understand Gen Z and Gen Z have an understandable dislike of the establishment. I can understand why the planet they've been handed is garbage. The economy they've been handed is garbage, and now you're going to tell them that you're going to sell them the same old slogans. Don't do that. Just don't play. Just don't play better than like, you know, whenever I'm thinking of a piece of content that's gone wrong, the ultimate example to me is the former Prince Andrew giving that PR speech on Newsnight where he went on and gave that interview where he said, I don't sweat, I'm a Pizza Express. So all of this nonsense that it's better to say nothing than to go in and do something that will devastate your brand. And a lot of people on TikTok are making this corny content that not only doesn't help them, but people mock it and the brand equity drops. 

James Lawrence: It's a really good point. I think we've talked about TikTok privately together. I think just interesting for you to talk about how it's based on interests. I think you're so knowledgeable on the platform, even though you're technically a lawyer. So I think it would be interesting for listeners just to kind of to hear your perspective on how the actual algorithm works. 

Jahan Kalantar: So the algorithm itself is beautiful. And there was actually, I think, a study done from the University of Basel, if I'm not mistaken, which said that TikTok is so good at predicting what you like, it can actually detect your sexuality before you do. A lot of users were finding out that they were being served content that appeals to, you know, LGBTQI stuff because they like it. Even they are not aware that they like it because of the way they interact with it. So TikTok has something called the For You page. The FYP. And the FYP determines content that's going to be shown to the masses, kind of like a scrolling TV channel. You've got your following, which is what you'd have on Instagram or something else, but you got the FYP and it's based on a whole myriad of things. The ones we know for sure is how long you watch, how you interact with it and do you share it. Bookmark and slash have something else with it. 

Jahan Kalantar: Now, TikTok is unique. I mean, reels is similar now, but TikTok was unique and I still think is unique in that it is based on interests, not profile. So let me explain. You can be a nobody creator and make a piece of creative that goes absolutely viral and it's seen by millions of people. Even though you're a nobody creator now, that doesn't mean that they'll follow you, doesn't mean they'll capitalise on it, doesn't mean anything, but your content can stand on its own merit. So a 15 year old who makes a stupid movie has just as much a chance to go viral as someone who's like a film studio, putting in a lot of work that is fundamentally a shift from all other networks, which are; hey, I'm Jahan, you like Jahan? Jahan makes content. Here's Jahan's content. 

Jahan Kalantar: Yeah, that is why it's taken the world by storm. It is because of that. Anyone can do it and anyone has an equal shot. Obviously, as more people have flooded to the platform, it's harder and harder for your creations to get on the FYP and be shown to the right eyeballs, but it's still so easy compared to Insta compared to any of those other platforms which reward physical beauty. They do. They reward physical beauty. They reward stylizedness. They reward I guess the the highlight reel of your life. TikTok is more like just the just the everyday existence of it. And I found I've spoken to a lot of creators, and what has been interesting to me is an average looking guy with a good vocabulary, is that the amount of beautiful creators that are like, I can't get anywhere on TikTok because they have nothing to offer except their looks, has been profoundly interesting because there's that many beautiful people on TikTok. Unless you're adding something additional to that, it's very hard to kind of break out. 

James Lawrence: The nature of the algorithm kind of rewards relevance, right? Relevance to the end user as opposed to any kind of construct around that. And I think it'd be for those listening, definitely worth checking out Jahan’s content on TikTok. Jahan, what's the handle? 

Jahan Kalantar: @Jahanofficial

James Lawrence: And it is interesting like a lot of your videos are quite low fi, as you've kind of mentioned, and you do shoot them when you're walking on the way to work, or late at night when you're at home, or when you're at work. And it is that kind of responding quickly to topical things as opposed to high production values, overstylized, it's very much just about really relevance, isn't it? 

Jahan Kalantar: All I'm trying to do is demystify the complexities of the legal landscape for people. And that's very hard if you're not a content creator yet, it's okay. But if you are a traditional content creator, your content was; I'm beautiful or I'm interesting, look at how I interact with this context... TikTok's kind of turned that on its head because a beautiful person eating a sandwich is not as relevant as, say, the guy who makes the sandwich. You may be gross, but you can explain the sandwich really well. And it's really interesting because there's always a place for arousal and attraction in any social media. It's always going to be the case. But the rise of the subject matter expert, the SME in this space has just been amazing. Because I'm watching TikTok today and it was like, hi, I'm a fourth generation laundromat owner and I'm going to teach you how to do your laundry because you probably never learned. I was like, yeah, I've never did learn why do we separate our colours? Well, you know, if you wash with cold water, this etc. And I'm just, like, fascinated by this. Or I'm a hobbyist beekeeper. Let me tell you about how honey has made these interesting things. 

James Lawrence: That's where I wanted to steer the conversation next, because I think you've obviously changed my perception of how TikTok can be used in a B2B context. Right? And B2C and B2B for yourself. But I think there is this misconception out there. Firstly, a TikTok is a platform for kids. Yeah, maybe it works for B2C brands, but probably only a small subset and is completely useless for B2B. But I think just to kind of unpack that, I think there's a really interesting case study of a lolly shop down at Circular Quay that basically relied heavily on tourist trade coming into the store started doing pretty similar approach to you, just pumping out videos of them making candy or lollies, and it just got went completely viral. Blew up in the States and kind of beautiful kind of as Covid kind of ripped in and lockdowns and border closures killed their retail trade, their online e-commerce just completely boomed. Just by showing the kind of behind the scenes look at how they make confectionery. But just any other examples around businesses using TikTok to build audiences and eventually revenue?

Jahan Kalantar: There are so many. I think it's called stickies lolly shop, if I'm not mistaken. And that's exactly what happened. Stickies was a brick and mortar retailer that relied upon tourists coming and actually is quite beautiful to watch being made. You've got the taffy being pulled and somebody's like da da da da da and pushing out all the pieces. And I think it was the daughter of the owner was just filming them, putting it online, and people watched it and thought, that's cool. And then it kind of got into the zeitgeist. Snoop Dogg actually purchased the bunch. And I'm sure we'll talk about this later, but the ability for creators to kind of connect and create relationships is quite profound. But there's more than I can tell you about a B2B context. The answer the first thing is, yes, it did start up as a young person. It definitely started off as a young person's platform. That's no longer the case. I think somewhere like 12% of the world uses TikTok daily. That's crazy. If you think about it, many people that are older, I can't tell you the number of retirees or people in their 50s and 60s who've reached out to our practice saying, I'm getting divorced. I know you do. Family law. Can you help me? It used to be kids getting caught with like a little bit of, you know, naughty stuff. Now it's it's that which is really interesting to me to see that the thing is exploded a little bit in that direction, and we are. 

James Lawrence: But we've had TikTok come out to Rocket and you look at the demographic change just in the past 12 months, I think it was 46% of users 12 months ago, I think maybe 18 to 23 or under 23. And that number has dropped, as you see usage through the higher the upper age demographics move through. So it's definitely like the data backs up exactly what you've just said.

Jahan Kalantar: And it's also for a B2B context, like there is a lot of subject matter experts on there who; this person sells large machinery to other machinery concerns and talks about just, hey, this is my machinery and this is how it works. It's going gangbusters. It's going absolutely gangbusters. Professional services is a great case study for TikTok. And it's because of this in the office that I occupy in town, there are other lawyer practices just like mine. They can all do basically the same thing. We all argue your case, we fix your problem. The difference is the people inside that practice, that is what you can showcase exceptionally well in TikTok. If you're prepared to put in the work and create that kind of avatar and create that sort of relationship. But fundamentally, professional services, if accountant A and accountant B can both fix your books and in a perfect world would come up with the same number, right? Why pick accountant A over accountant B? If you've got a digital relationship with accountant A, you've seen them help so many people through their problems. You get to account name versus accountant you know nothing about.

James Lawrence: And to your point before, it's every single Australian that earns income lodges a tax return, every Australian business lodges whatever else. And these are things that we're not experts at that can be difficult to Google the problem. And if you create content that actually helps people in their day to day or solves problems, you're going to get traction, right? 

Jahan Kalantar: Absolutely. And look, like I said when I started, the interesting thing for me, for TikTok in my funnel, it's yes, there's awareness. It helps. Of course, there's a few leads that come in there, but to me it's far, far, far more useful in intention and consideration. The difference for me has been back in the day, before I was big on TikTok, people would waste my time. They'd make inquiries that wouldn't go anywhere. They would say, I'm coming for a meeting and not show up. I haven't had a no-show for the last year because people are like, I want Jahan, I want to work with him. I know this guy. They formed a relationship with my avatar, which is very similar to me. I'm on TikTok about 10% more than I really am. I'm just a hammed up slightly version of myself. But all of this content is real. Like a little bit more emphasis on certain parts of me, but fundamentally the same. They like that person. They want to work with that person. I imagine that TikTok has driven a ton of people away from our practice who didn't know about it, but they were never going to be the clients we want to work with. So that's been really helpful in that. For me at least, it's clarified who wants to work with us. And it's created a really good holistic approach to who wants to work with us. 

James Lawrence: Can we talk a little bit about the impact on, I think you personally, that personal brand of yours? Being stopped on the street. And then also just how it works in terms of opening up new files and new matters for the firm?

Jahan Kalantar: Yeah. Being completely up front, it's still bizarre to me. I was at a wedding on the weekend. Somebody came up to me and said, I love your content. Can I get a photo with you? I'm like, I'm just some guy. And it's interesting because as a subject matter expert, I've been a lawyer probably about 8 or 10 years now. That's 7 or 8 before TikTok. I've toiled in absolute obscurity, running these cases in rural courts or filing applications about stuff overseas. No one cares about that whatsoever. And it's really cool because what I believe I have done is I used to think people just didn't care about the law. And I now realize that was misconceived. People have never had it explained to them in a friendly manner. And what I think, what I'm doing, and what other legal creators are doing is creating an education piece. Around here are your rights. Here's how rights work. There's this thing called the Constitution. Constitution says this, but the Constitution doesn't cover state stuff. State stuff's different. And really kind of simplifying it and giving civics in little bite sized chunks. And I think it's incredible. 

Jahan Kalantar: You know, I think it's given people an improved quality of life. And for me personally, it's really nice, it's more around young people who've come up and said, hey Jahan, I never thought I'd be a lawyer because I have this or I have that, but you talk about how you've got ADHD and anxiety and you're doing it and, you've been so open about that. It's really inspired me. That's, I guess, been the really cool part, that just telling my story. 

James Lawrence: Yeah, but it has had commercial impact, right? And I think the other interesting thing is, is often the partner of the person that's been done with the traffic violation or the drug possession charge or whatever. Think maybe unpack that for our listeners. 

Jahan Kalantar: Sure. So it's funny, my audience now skews highly female to male. And I believe that's for a few reasons. One is because my content tends to be salacious in nature and talks really about things like celebrity breakups and stuff, which is more interesting, generally speaking, to a female demographic. That being said, I have heaps of male fans. 

James Lawrence: That's right. 

Jahan Kalantar: More importantly, I think that as a general proposition, there is more interest in understanding how things work from women. I believe that to be the case. Men just want the problem to go away. I'll pay you. Fix it. Women, on the other hand, want to understand their options. They want to have things understood in a way that makes sense to them, and they may be a little bit more. They do more research in the buying process. What has happened when it used to be men, they just call me up, young guys, hey, I got caught. Help me now. It's like, hey, my husband's in more serious trouble. Can you help us? These are the factors. You have to create your content in a slightly different tone. There's a different tonality than speaking to a speaking to a 35 year old professional who might be married to a professional who's in trouble, versus that of speaking to a 25 year old tradesperson, or an 18 year old tradesperson who's male. The tone has to shift and change. 

Jahan Kalantar: The good thing about TikTok is, I mean, I would love more data, but the data it gives me is sufficient for me to understand how those things work. Is there more leads? Yes. But is it so? Are the leads sufficient to justify the additional workload? They are not. They really are not, because there's a lot of extra work you have to do in being an influencer, particularly if you do the kind of stuff that I do. It really is a lot of work. But for me it's the consideration piece. It's the fact that people now take me seriously as a subject matter expert. I mean, yes, there's a commercial benefit. There definitely is. My accountant has said, hey, your marketing spend went down, but you know what happened here? We pinned down. It was TikTok. It was when I started my TikTok, like about 5 or 6 months into, hey, something's happening here. I don't know what it is, but it keep doing it. But for me it's less commercial, but more like I've got to sit at the table now, when it comes to things that are important to me, like drug policy, when it comes to things like mental health challenges when it comes to things like refugee and First Nation Australian rights. People actually approach me and go, hey, you talk about this. What do you have to say? That's, to me, far more useful having a platform where I can voice my thoughts and have them taken seriously. 

James Lawrence: You've built a quite significant personal brand, right? Like you've been picked up across lots of mainstream media as a result of being the TikTok lawyer and whatever else. 

Jahan Kalantar: I'm very lucky whenever the press decide to indulge me in a story, it's not always good. Like, it's so funny. I don't really do a lot of editing, but, I think I was on the Daily Mail and the amount it was put up on the Daily Mail and it was like slow news day or this guy who does small claims traffic matter and he thinks he's Atticus Finch, my friends in the law all forward to me because they're all jerks. But it is just this interesting thing that, you start to get a reputation as being that person who's doing that sort of stuff. Sometimes the press misquote you. I've had people misquote me horribly, and it's had bad consequences for me, but I take the view that not all publicity is good publicity. Fundamentally every piece of content I make, I think, how is this benefiting someone? Who am I speaking to? How do I get this in front of the right people, and how am I using it to make someone's life better? I'm not in the business of making content for anything other than that. 

James Lawrence: I mean, you've reached literally millions of people, right? And the reality is kind of conventional old school media land, it'd be kind of like being on TV and broadcasting it to half the nation, and you're going to have segments of the population that don't respond well and don't like you and whatever else. That probably parlays into the next kind of area I wanted to go into. We've talked about some of the downsides or some of the the hurdles that you've had along the way. I think it'd be interesting for listeners because it isn't all just create great content that puts the viewer first and goes viral and suddenly you're inundated with work. There are some challenges to operating in the TikTok ecosystem. And so maybe just talk about those for a few minutes. 

Jahan Kalantar: I think that firstly, it's a lot of work. If I knew how much work it is, I don't know if I would do it again. Creating evergreen content, coming up with innovative ideas, thinking about things, responding to things, answering messages. Because, you know, I'm sure maybe there are creators that I can't outsource the way that I speak to people. You know, if I get a desperate message, hey, Jahan, I'm really stressing out. I'm worried. Help me. I feel compelled to call that person back. Like a system, somebody's leaving me comments. I feel a need to reply to them because they've created a personal relationship with me. And I'm sure at some stage it will become unruly to do that. But it just a ton of work. So if you're entering this journey, it's not like I'll post once a day, I'll post five days in a row. It's going to be a lot of work. Prepare yourself. 

James Lawrence: Yeah that's good. And I think the other thing being the penalty system, makes TikTok a little bit unique there. How that kind of operates?

Jahan Kalantar: TikTok's got an interesting terms of service. They may not like this, but I think it's really arbitrary when they give you strikes. Over time, as I've become a bigger creator, it's kind of slowed down a little bit. But certainly in the early days, if somebody reports your content, it's shoot first, ask questions later, so they will just penalize you. Shadow ban you, which is reduce your access to the for you page, stop you from posting for several days, stop you from commenting, stop you from going live as a way of saying don't do this even if it's unjustified. In many cases it is. There's an appeals process. Sometimes they deal with it incredibly quickly. Other times I've got an appeal pending from September. Crazy stuff like September last year, if your entire presence is on a single platform and you get deplatformed, you're screwed. That's always a worry for me. If I get deplatformed, it's over. It's done for me. I've got like 5000 followers here, 5000 followers there. But compared to the 300,000 I have, it's nothing. Right? So the arbitrary nature of it really concerns me, particularly since I'm speaking about controversial topics, which is inherent in the law. You know, Brittany Higgins is controversial. Tthere's no way to talk about that without it potentially offending somebody. There's no way to talk about the uprising in Iran without potentially offending somebody. These topics, by their very nature, are controversial and interesting. And so when you discuss those matters, you always run the risk of on off. 

James Lawrence: Are you verified with TikTok? Is that a thing that exists in TikTok? 

Jahan Kalantar: Well, it is. I put in an application. It didn't come back for some reason, I don't know. Yes there is, there's the blue tick. I imagine if I get that I would feel a lot more secure. But hey TikTok, if you listen to this with James Laurence, verify me baby.

James Lawrence: We'll see what we can do. \And do you have as a creator, do you get access to anybody at TikTok in any way in Australia? 

Jahan Kalantar: Uh, I have a friend who happened to work at TikTok and that was sort of useful. But no, but then the question becomes at what level? Like, I would think 300,000 is a lot. Or Australasian like I thought that would be enough to have someone give me a call and be like, yo, I'm Jack TikTok. How can I help you? But I'm probably small potatoes. You people would make like 47 million followers, right? Maybe I'm a big fish in a small pond. Or maybe I'm not even a big fish in a small pond. So I'm sure at some stage that will happen. I'm not there yet. Interesting. 

James Lawrence: Jahan, it's been a great journey. I mean, what's the plan? We're going to continue creating content and building that. The following and the reach within Australia and abroad?

Jahan Kalantar: I'm going to continue to talk about things that are important to me and that I think are interesting to my audience. And I'm going to keep educating on the law. A couple of things that are going to be really, really cool is I've just opened a consultancy that helps businesses understand TikTok. So if you want to talk about that, reach out - more than happy to help you on your TikTok journey. I'm preparing some online courses and other materials that I think will be really helpful. And just to kind of make the implicit explicit, so as a non-marketer who's come at it from a different angle, it's really interesting because I've got a lawyer's brain working on what is fundamentally a marketing question. And so I've developed, I guess, a lot of structure that's probably standard in your world, but to me is very foreign. How do I get that in and off people's hands? Because the reality is the world needs more subject matter experts. The era of asinine banalities. Past people want people who can explain things and who get things and who are passionate. It's really this guy talking about laundry today is passionate about laundry, that's contagious, man. It's contagious to watch this guy talk about; this is how I keep my socks from splitting up, by the way. You put them in a mesh bag. Such a simple thing. 

James Lawrence: You could diversify your stream into some laundry stuff as well as the legal.

Jahan Kalantar: Absolutely. Here I am talking about how to launder.

James Lawrence: Hopefully we can rip that as the soundbite that we are teaching people how to launder launder. That was a good yarn. I guess first of all, with that, how do people get in contact with you in terms of the TikTok side of things. 

Jahan Kalantar: Feel free to reach out to me at Jahan Kalatnar Executive Law Firm. I've got to get to some of the above. Should probably speak to you about getting some branding and marketing for it.

James Lawrence: I'm glad we came first to mind. 

Jahan Kalantar: Yeah, well that's right. I hadn't thought about it until now. But seeing you there. Possibly path of least resistance. You can reach to me on any of my socials. I'm pretty good at getting back to you on LinkedIn. And just to talk about TikTok and how it can help your business grow. 

James Lawrence: That’s awesome. One last question I always ask everyone that comes on to the pod, what's the one piece of marketing advice you'd give to listeners to the pod and happy for it to be general marketing advice, or as it pertains to your learnings in TikTok? 

Jahan Kalantar: I think the best piece of marketing is that you have to be authentic and you have to be yourself, and you have to speak in your own voice. I'm very lucky in that when people imagine a lawyer, they do imagine someone a little well, they either imagine someone quite lugubrious, sad, off the snow walls, or they imagine someone quirky, ostentatious, who goes to court and says large words and has a bit of a mustache and has a bit of a personality. I'm very lucky that what I present as to the world is sort of the perception people might have of what lawyers are and do, but that's not deliberate. That's just happens to be who I am. I have found, and this happened when I started my business years and years ago, if you pretend to be something you're not, you may grow, but you're going to grow in the wrong ways and you're going to hate yourself. Just be authentic. Like, really be authentic. There's a place for that. If you're a grumpy, miserable jerk, there's a place for that. There's actually probably someone who will find that very endearing. But you have to be honest. Younger generations are so good at sniffing out dishonesty because they've been served a bum deal so often that they have a finely tuned detector, and you're never going to get past them. 

James Lawrence: Good advice. Jahan, thanks so much for coming on to the pod, sharing your journey and spending your time with us. 

Jahan Kalantar: Thank you so much for having me. It's truly a pleasure, man.