Romina Hakim: Red Lips Media

Tara Sands 0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Romina Hakim is the owner of red lips media. She's a radio host, audio producer and podcast coach. Romina went from being a shy, introverted kid to finding her voice through a DJ course and a small online radio show, which eventually led her to hosting her own show in Argentina. Today, we're going to talk about what's going on in Argentina, the cultural shifts she's experienced after moving to Spain, and how she overcame early challenges with her Argentinian accent to land her first big voiceover job with the meditation app com.com Romina also shares her smart Strategies for Growing a podcast audience, like putting the listener first, experimenting with creative formats and even connecting with audiences in person. Nothing beats face to face, don't you know? And now Romina Hakim, who is normally in Barcelona, joins me from her vacation spot on a small island in Finland, three hours outside of Helsinki. Romina, what was the first thing involving audio that made you think I'm going to be working in audio for a career?

Romina Hakim  1:19  
How I studied it was very unusual. It's like I always say that everything, audio and communication, in the end, found me. It's not that I was looking for it because I was very shy and introvert, you know, those kind of people that hang out with the weirdos, because you feel a weirdo. And I did a DJ course, and I became a very good friend of the teacher, and he had a very, very small online radio show, and I don't know, he just said, why don't you come and hang out? We do it on Saturdays. And I'm like, Okay, I have nothing to do on a Saturday, so why not? And I got to get involved more with music and more artists and meet other people. And then he made us present, all of us, like a small bit, telling about ourselves. And there was, like, something magical that happened in that moment. And I was like, oh my god, I'm I really like this. Like, I really like this. I sound good. And from that moment, he gave me, like a column of electronic music. And it was like 50 minutes, literally, of my runway, you know, and I prepared it with so much love. And from that, everything just opened. I mean, the doors opened very easily. And well, I started being a audio producer of my own radio show. And I also did, like thinking the music segments I went, I invited a lot of local bands, so I promoted a lot of music cultural it was very magical that moment. Give

Matt Cundill  2:47  
me a sense of what it's like to grow up in Argentina.

Romina Hakim  2:51  
It's wild, to sum it up, it's wild. But I always say that for me, was like a good degree, a master's degree in life, and then you use that knowledge to use it somewhere else. Because, I mean, you I live in Europe, which has been amazing, and it has given me a lot of opportunities. But sometimes I feel that when you have too much of everything given so easily, it's tricky, because you don't use so much the capacity of how do I solve this with minimal resources? And that, in the end, gets you creative. Many people get stuck on the oh my god, I don't have the latest equipment. I don't have the latest whatever, and they use that excuse to not do anything about it, whereas we have nothing, and we have to get very creative, collaborate with other people, exchange like skills. Oh, so you do photography, I can, I don't know, do your graphic design, and we make that work, and we support each other's dreams. So for me, it was very, a very cool experience. I think

Matt Cundill  3:58  
that's one of the things that really strikes me about you know, the things that you do is that you come equipped with so many things, and it's a lot of things that you picked up along the way, including doing radio in Argentina. So what's something that you could tell a North American like myself that is different about the radio that is made in Argentina?

Romina Hakim  4:17  
Argentina has a very cool and important, let's say the field of journalism, radio and communication in general is very good. So I think that the main difference is that Argentina has, like a lot of talent in journalism, communication in general, radio. So even if you grow up listening to that, you start to get feedback by all these inputs that you can get. And I think that that hunger of getting better and wanting to get better, no matter what is, what keeps us like moving forward in the end,

Matt Cundill  4:55  
and then you move forward, and you left Argentina, and you made. A decision to move to Barcelona, I believe, tell me how that decision came about for you.

Romina Hakim  5:06  
I was about two years and a half doing my own radio show. I was already recording at least once a week, advertising and commercials for voiceover. So I was doing what I really loved, honestly, but then I started collaborating with a marketing agency that they wanted to work with me as an influencer, creating content and everything. So I came up with some ideas, and I gather with one of the guys that did animation, and he said, Yeah, but I don't know. Nobody's going to put money on this. And that's when I had like a like a voice, epiphany, epiphany, yes. Like, a voice saying, like, What the f are you doing here? What are you wasting your time in this place that is so square? Like, I felt that that in a way, and I've seen it because I also worked in fashion, I worked in radio, and worked in several fields. And I always say, saw the same pattern, the three same people recommending each other and believing that they were the best. And I'm like, I'm never gonna grow like this. I need to go outside. And this came up. I mean, the idea of moving to Spain came up, because when we were kids, we lived near Madrid, so it kind of made sense. Then I took a vacation with a friend to the south to Patagonia, and I felt that epiphany even stronger, like, I don't want to come back. I don't want to continue doing the same. It's like, it makes no sense. I'm not gonna grow so I came back, and I remember that I was very scared, but I said, Okay, I'm gonna book that flight to Barcelona, and everything started to come together. The craziest part is that I was holding on to that decision and okay, maybe next year, maybe next year, and I was going to move in 2020 and I moved in 2019 so that epiphany literally saved me to make it a fresh start in a new country, and thank God that it caught me in Spain and not in Argentina, because I don't know what would have happened.

Matt Cundill  7:10  
I mean, Barcelona seems like a nice place to ride out a pandemic. Yes. And one of the things that you said, By the way, is that, you know, you said, Oh, things are a little bit square in Argentina, in the group that you were working with. But when I think of Barcelona, it is not square. Now, I have been to Barcelona a number of times. I know the city quite well, but for those who don't tell me why Barcelona is not square,

Romina Hakim  7:33  
what caught me is like how multicultural can be. So your truth is not the same if you live in your home country with people from your same country, because you will all have the same belief system, the same biases, the same judgment, everything. But when you go outside and you challenge yourself to a whole new different visions, and you realize that your truth is not a universal truth. That's when you allow yourself to not be so ego and grow and challenge your own ideas and also be more empathetic towards others, and that always brings, like a fresh, fresh beginnings in every and everything. So I think that first, Barcelona is very multicultural. You have a lot of fields that currently are growing a lot, besides the culture and well, it's Europe. So compared to Latin America, is is different. I mean, you get chances that in Latin America will never

Matt Cundill  8:35  
happen. You have a voice over career as you make this move. How did the move to Barcelona change? You know, the bookings that you got or the business that you have, for example, I know here you come from Argentina, you've got a Spanish accent, but you know, Barcelona, it's a little more Catalan. They will ask for a Castilian accent in cases, you know, for something that would be just for Spain. So did you find getting jobs a little harder different, or was there more opportunity?

Romina Hakim  9:05  
Definitely harder. I had to learn one of the biggest lesson that was, I mean, I worked so much and I loved what I did, but I was basing my whole identity on that, and I didn't see that coming when I moved so I had to learn that we are not what we do for work. We are not even though we want to trick ourselves into that. So when I came I knew that with my Argentinian accent, I wouldn't get so much work. But I still like I was talking, I became friends with one of the studios that I was working in Argentina, and he said, okay, but maybe they have clients outside try and reach this studios here. Gave me a list of 1520 I think so. I prepared a demo, I sent and nobody answered. Then I started like going and researching a little bit more, and I contacted a few more, and one gave me the opportunity to record. Or a demo, like with their own text. Nothing happened for over a year, and then they contact me because they wanted to test me for a client that didn't stay for who, but they said, We need you to make neutral Spanish. So for people who don't know you have neutral Spanish will be Latin that is commonly called Mexico, but without sounding Mexican, but it's a neutral. So I said, okay, but they just gave me two days. And I said, Yes, of course, I can do it. I hung up and I said, I have no idea how I'm gonna make it, but I'm gonna pull it off. So I started practicing a lot with YouTube, because once you get like, that radio experience and a bit of voice over, you have, like, some clues, you know. So I started practicing. I recorded the demo. I also sent, like, a meditation that I did myself for the pandemic, because I was bored and I wanted to help people, and I got it, and that client was calm. I don't know if you've heard but it's an app for meditating and sales for going to sleep and everything calm.com. Yes. So that was my first client when I arrived in Barcelona. It's been hard, of course. I recorded one month ago, two campaigns now for Latin America and Argentina and well, my next goal is like learning how to do the Castilian to get even more

Matt Cundill  11:27  
definitely, one of the first things you did when you got to Barcelona was you got to be on the radio. You'll have to tell me a little bit about your show. But also the station is one Oh 7.3 which I believe is English or multi language. Tell me how you got involved with them when I arrived.

Romina Hakim  11:46  
Well, Barcelona has like a big community of Argentinian so one of the things that you do like to get to know somebody is meeting with peers. And I met a girl that she was a columnist in that very small local radio. So I came, I did a few shows I wasn't feeling like aligned with the goals show, because I didn't feel so much represented, because it was more politics, economics, and I vibe totally with culture, music and other stuff like vibing and flowing even more. So I quit that, and they offered me to make my own show. I did it a couple months that's when red lips came live, and I did the same like I tried to replicate the same formula that I was doing back in Argentina, to bring creatives and artists from Barcelona. I met very interesting people doing cool stuff. Some of them are my current friends, actually. So that's one of the things I love about radio and also podcast. So yeah, I had fun, but then I had this sense of I had more possibilities with my own equipment and my own audience. It wasn't bringing me new audience or opportunities in any sense. So sometimes you have to be sincere with yourself, analyze a little bit and know when to stop something and boss and pursue other other projects.

Speaker 1  13:10  
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Matt Cundill  13:43  
How did podcasting come about for you?

Romina Hakim  13:46  
I miss radio so much. I miss the microphone. I was doing my podcast from 2018 aside from the radio, but I love the power when you connect with your truth and your mission and what you really want to share with people that I wanted to help others unblock that. I mean, if you look maybe in Google or whatever, one of the biggest blocks that people have and will have, because it's an evergreen problem, is how to communicate better. Most people don't. They don't feel themselves when they're talking or communicating or expressing, we just feel that we are a copy of a copy of a copy. And sometimes, I mean, it starting to happen that in podcasts. So I want to challenge people to own their features, their personalities, their humor, how they are as they are, without makeup, and go with that, because that is what is going to make you different, despite the critics like, who cares? Why do you think

Matt Cundill  14:47  
people are uncomfortable with the sound of their own voice? That

Romina Hakim  14:52  
is a classic. One that I get is a classic. I think that because one, we don't have the same voice. But from the outside, from where we are talking, I don't know if I I'm explaining myself, but I mean, we are in our bodies, so we sound different. But I think also it's because most people tend to believe that they have to have, like a radio host voice, like the big and it's not about impersonating. If we are really honest, there's only a bunch of annoying voices, but also that if you go like to a vocal coach or someone that can help you, you can train it to be even better. But also because we're focused, I mean people that don't feel secure about their voice. I think it's just another like block that Diego wants to put, but it's fear of judgment, of rejection. In the end,

Matt Cundill  15:51  
what's an ideal client for you to take on as a podcast coach?

Romina Hakim  15:56  
Oh, I like this one for me, would be someone that I can have fun with, because I'm if I'm not having fun, I don't want to do it. I want someone that can feel free curse, make jokes, be spontaneous, be open to new ideas, because I like to suggest different formats ideas. So if they are open to that, we can explore it together. That is ideal, someone that is generous in their content, in how they approach, honest that is very important and consistent with their words and with the show. Like committed to

Matt Cundill  16:40  
it. What are some of your favorite podcast tools that you recommend the most? You already mentioned a microphone. You miss being around microphones. But what are some of the tools that you like to use that you really recommend, and maybe some people can't afford it, but you still love it and you want to recommend it anyway. So what are some of your favorite podcast

Romina Hakim  16:59  
toys? I love the broadcaster Pro, because it makes me feel like the radio so and it's way less complicated, of course, that would be one of the goals, the microphone. Of course, you don't have to miss the

Speaker 2  17:11  
headphones. Do you have a favorite microphone, by the way?

Romina Hakim  17:16  
The Sure, but currently, I'm using the RODE NT rode. It's been like a very good companion for me for a long time, of years.

Matt Cundill  17:26  
Yeah, I have a theory, by the way, that Rode Microphones just work so well with a female voice like better than any others. I was using a Rode microphone for a long time, and it didn't really do me any favors. It made me sound a little bit boomy, but I've suggested it and recommended it for a number of Female voiceover talent and always great results.

Romina Hakim  17:45  
And now I'm very curious to test that idea. I've never heard of it, but could be, could be,

Matt Cundill  17:51  
oh no, I make stuff up all the time, and I generally do it on the show. So we'll have to see. What do you think the future is going to be for podcasting and growing audiences. There's a lot of talk about video and the need for video. How do you keep your clients sane from not being too worried about one over the other? How do you handle that?

Romina Hakim  18:15  
There's a lot of talk about video. Is true. It's not true. However, that video will solve audiences problem, and magically you will have from 10 listeners to 1000 that is not true. First of all, I think that we have to think in terms of like doing reverse engineer of the audience. First of all, we are all busy. We're all very busy, and we have a lot of trouble and responsibilities dealing all day long. So instead of thinking like, oh, I need to do more and do like, interviews of an hour and a half, maybe the whole idea or the next steps would be like, How can I come up with something that is not being made. Why do I talk about the same topics that are out there? Because people say sometimes, oh, but there's a lot of podcasts, yeah, but there's not a lot of great podcasts. There's a lot of okay podcasts. There's room for improvement. There's room for new ideas, and you don't have to spend like, 1000 bucks on anything. But I think like getting creative in how to make it beyond only two people talking, like getting people involved outside the podcast, because it's not just we have this conversation. You listen and then I don't see you and we don't hear each other until next week, so it's just about giving a better experience for them and getting very, very, very picky with that. Do you still DJ in the clubs? Yes, but I decided that I want to pursue and put my attention fully in podcast, and it. Flooring, more formats for the agency and new things that we have to work on. So as much as I love music, and I love it so much, I don't resonate now with the format, because sometimes you end up DJing for the plans, you know, and that is that can be a little bit depressing, and also, because DJing is like an expression. It's a creative expression. And though you have to read the scene and people, if they're having fun, if they're vibing, sometimes there's a big mismatch, and it's like they only want to hear people. And I don't DJ people. So I want to step back with that

Matt Cundill  20:40  
I really loved, actually, when you said that the way to grow an audience is to reverse engineer, you know, right back to the user experience. So and you and I, by the way, we've, I don't know if you even remember, but the only time that you and I have interacted before, we were in a course about audience growth and, you know, we're, I guess, trying to solve all the problems. But today, what do you look at? Are some of the really key fundamentals that a podcaster needs to do to grow an audience?

Romina Hakim  21:09  
For me, would be getting very crystal clear in who you're talking to, what are you offering? Why are people listening to you? I always think this question for me and my clients, remember that people think, why do I care? And not something for you to feel like, oh, imposter syndrome. No, no. Just why people should care. So you have to give them a reason to care. And for example, now we're starting to see that interests are being cut. So you go straight to the topic, no more chit chat. How's the weather? How are you? How are you feeling? Yeah, nice. Oh, I put this sweater. No, cut it. People don't have time for that. You can spark with curiosity, like, like an open loop, you know? You can start with the question, and you don't unveil it until the middle, almost the end so people can stick to the episode, because if they hear the full episode, it's very important, but we have to make it so as as we see, we have ideas that we can implement without having to spend in video or in anything. Basically, also it can be like, I don't know, sharing, like practical guides, sharing, maybe, like gamifying a little bit. Oh, the keyword of this week will be vitamin C. I don't know. Comment this week. I don't know. And then you play with social media on that I'm doing something, for example, with with my listeners that is helping a lot. I make them choose based on four titles, which one is their favorite, and which one would they pick? Will they listen to the episode if they picked a specific one? And that is very helpful. So I mean, I would implement that and make people participate a little bit more. Other thing would be trying to go a little bit more into IRL in real life events, even if it's a small meetup, gather a coffee, something like that, because people are craving contact with other physical I'm starting to see a lot that we're fed up, especially now with AI that we love AI because we're a podcaster, We can find a lot of views, but the counterpart is that there's a lot of fake content and growing in massive numbers, so that that shows you that people are craving, also for authenticity, for someone that makes you laugh, that we don't hear marketing bros anymore. We don't want to listen to the hustle culture how bad you're doing things. So I think that when I say that there's room for improvement, is very helpful to see what people are commenting on, maybe threads Reddit is also very helpful, and use that to your advantage.

Matt Cundill  23:59  
So I was going to ask you a little bit about social media, and I was going to ask you about it, because the best advice that you just gave is like we got to get out and see each other, make contact with people, eye to eye contact. Yet we're doing this from two different countries, far away, but we're still having eye to eye contact through a camera, which is totally fine. But you did mention threads, and you did mention Reddit, and I think those are some pretty good places to be hanging out to do social media, to make contact with the people that you will hopefully one day meet face to face. So Reddit and threads, two good ones. Are there other social media platforms that you would recommend? I would say

Romina Hakim  24:36  
Pinterest, even though it sounds like not many people value it so much, but there's a lot of power in that. The big quote of users are women, and a lot of women listen to podcasts also. So if your podcast or the topics of your podcast go aligned, you have a very juicy audience over there. But also. Like giving value and giving conversation, because also a pattern that we can see is that we are liking post, but we are not commenting. We're not like hiding a little bit because I'm scared like to say something, no comment, even if it's you have to do a little bit of work, but take your time, because you never know and how you can gain listeners even through the most wildest actions. A couple months ago, in winter, I had this song of Phil Collins in my head because my dad used to hear a lot, and I remember the chorus, and I was like, I'm having one of the moments where you have to listen to that song repeatedly, like 15 times and sing it in your kitchen, you know, with passion. So I was looking for it, and I typed and said, Who is listening to the chorus, top volume singing in 2025, and that that got a lot of likes and everything. And a guy saw that comment, and he went to my profile, he started listening to the podcast, and he left a comment saying, I came up here because you left a comment of Phil Collins video, and now I'm hearing this episode that it has touched me profoundly, and I want to thank you so also YouTube, I think it has one of The best communities, most loving ones. And it's weird to say that in times where everything is so looks so violent and there's a lot of bots and hate, but it is true, especially some channels, you can still find them. What did you love about Ozzy Osbourne? A lot of things. But Well, like I said in my last episode. I don't believe that every artist are perfect. They're far from it, but I want to stay with the part that inspired me and it touched me, and I like that he was very authentic and loyal to himself, so he only did what he wanted to. We're talking about the 70s. I mean, we're talking about a moment in music that there wasn't too much opportunities. Everything was so expensive to record and master. If you actually listen to the first albums, they sound very bad, even when they remaster, they don't sound good, but it's what he wanted to do. He also came like a very poor place and depressing working place, but that didn't stop him from doing what he wanted. So I think sometimes we get caught up in I gotta pay my bills, I gotta make ends meet or whatever, and we know what we don't want to do, but we don't know what we want to do, and that is very sad, because you're giving away your life to the system, and then when you realize it's maybe too late. Romina,

Matt Cundill  27:52  
thank you very much for doing this. I really appreciate you taking the time, especially like you're on summer vacation in Finland, and taking a moment from that to join me here.

Romina Hakim  28:00  
Scores, it's been a pleasure. And yes, thank you for the invite in this lovely conversation.

Tara Sands 28:06  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at soundoff podcast.com you.