← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Build a Brand, Not Just a Business ft. Maha Abouelenein | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby
00:39:15
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- [00:00]
A
She's helped launch billion dollar brands, advised CEOs, world leaders, and yeah, she was the head of comms at Google and Netflix in the Middle East. But Maha Abulainen's real mission, teaching people how to turn reputation into currency. She's built personal brands for Gary Vee, launched campaigns across five continents and helped shape narratives for everyone from Chase bank to royal families. So, yeah, when Maha talks storytelling, you take notes. Today on Ko Fis, we talk about the real power of personal branding. Why it's not self promotion, it's survival. We get into the art of storytelling, how to grow your brand even if your product isn't sexy, and why reputation is the new resume. It's not just about going viral, it's about building something that lasts. This episode. It's a masterclass. Welcome to Coffees.
- [00:53]
B
You know, thank you for having me. It's the first time I've been on a podcast where people, you know, how to pronounce my last name properly.
- [00:59]
C
I know, it's. I can't imagine how difficult it is for an American to say Abu Dhainin. Like how do they.
- [01:06]
B
Abu Elanin is what they say, say. But when I came to do my book tour and just promoting it, like, everyone be like, so excited. Let's jump into the interview, let's go. And then they would look at my name and they're like, wait a minute, how do I say this?
- [01:17]
C
Yeah. And you know, looking at you and speaking to you, you don't sound or look like an Abulini.
- [01:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's the disconnect. And when I grew up in Minnesota, everyone's like, you know your name and you look Egyptian, but when you start talking, you're not Egyptian. And then when I moved to Egypt, everyone's like, oh, your name is Egyptian, you look Egyptian. But the minute you open your mouth you're like, so American.
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C
So American. You sound so American.
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B
Well, I grew up here, I lived here my whole life.
- [01:44]
C
So yeah, give the audience just a kind of a 10,000 foot overview of what you do.
- [01:49]
B
Yes. So I am a communications executive. I help companies and brands and people tell their stories. So I have a communications firm, consulting firm where we help people build their personal brands, tell their stories. I used to be head of communications at Google and at Netflix. Worked with the ruler of Dubai. And now I work with some of the most prominent names in communications, helping them with their stories, like a Gary V. Or we work with Chase bank and different people to help them build their brands, tell their stories, connect with audiences and build their Reputations.
- [02:22]
C
That's such a, like out of the box position for number one in Egyptian. Like that, like, because that's not like what our parents told us to do.
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B
Yes.
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C
Like, first off, how did you even get into that space?
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B
Yeah. So I'm born, raised in Mankato, Minnesota. Very small town in Minnesota. I went to school, undergraduate, graduate degree in communications. And I always had a pulse and a love for the news industry and like, information in general. So when I was a little girl, I was like, oh, I want to be a reporter. I want to be telling stories. And when I was in college, I interned at a news station. And that's kind of when I got the buzz for the feel of like information coming in through the wire. We would sit and have to package it up before we broadcasted it and told it to the world. And that's when I liked storytelling from a very young age. And so I was like, I want to do communications. But I didn't study mass comm in college. I studied marketing or international business. And then when I became, you know, know, into the business and I graduated and started working, I worked actually my. My career started in sports marketing for General Mills. I was like, I really want to learn more about PR and storytelling and how I can actually craft narratives and reputations. And that started when I got to Egypt in 1997. Long time ago.
- [03:38]
C
Wow. So what was storytelling like back then without, like social media and.
- [03:43]
B
Yeah, I mean, it changed so much and it's still changing. That's the nature of PR and communications. It's evolving a lot. So in the begin, back in 1997, when I started working in communications, it was like you had time to tell a story. Like you would craft a narrative, write a press release, put it out there, it would be published the next day or would be air on the news the next evening news. Like there the news cycle was days in advance. Right now, obviously, with the social media and real time everything, the news cycle is real time. Like, you can post something, put out a news release or put out information, tell a story, do an interview, and immediately goes viral or global the minute you put it out there. So it's obviously, you have to be able to manage rapid response. What's your message? How are you culturally relevant? How do you make sure you're thinking about what your audience the value is for the audience, what the audience looks like. Our attention spans are shorter, much shorter. So people have options to get information from anywhere. They used to get their information from the evening news or the newspaper. Now their source is TikTok or Instagram or Reddit to find out anything that they want in a moment's notice.
- [04:56]
C
Yeah. It's incredible what, you know, where people are getting their news from. I feel like sometimes I'm a news reporter.
- [05:03]
B
Yes.
- [05:03]
C
On my content, like you see something.
- [05:05]
B
And you share it.
- [05:06]
C
Yeah. Well, lately I've kind of repositioned some of my content strategy to be more on brand with market updates, which is not like, you know, viral, you know, because it's boring.
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B
Yeah.
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C
But sell a boring product. Which is actually something I wanted to ask you about.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Like how, how can you craft a message for a boring product?
- [05:26]
B
Okay, first of all, it's not boring. You're adding tremendous value to people in their markets and their homes and their needs and their financial security of knowing how to have a home and how to deal with a mortgage and how to pay for it. But I feel like the beauty of the Internet is everybody has the ability to build a personal brand and monetize their expertise. So for you to say you're sharing market industry insights, that's relevant, like, I want to know your take on things. You have built your career doing this. So you have insights, you have experience that's lived experience that matters. For anyone listening to this show who wants to build their business on their own names, they should. Because you have lived experience, you have expertise you can share. You can give your 2 cents worth, or your thoughts and theories. Like if you were pulling articles that you see, you're curating information that's valuable because you'll find things that I wouldn't think are relevant or necessary or important. And then you'll tell me why I should pay attention to this. What is this going to change for me? How is this, bottom line, my pocketbook, how does this impact my home? Those are the reasons why you should share it. Because everybody has different experience that they can leverage and monetize based on their name and their expertise and their personal brands.
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C
And like, where do you know what to you is the significance of building a personal brand? Because I've been on a quest to build my personal brand. But, you know, you've been doing brand building for years. What really, you know, what really inspired you?
- [07:00]
B
I think it's just everybody has something to offer. And a lot of people think that personal branding is about self promotion. I'm like, it's about idea promotion. It's about thought leadership. And it's right now we live in a world, AI remote working environments. You are not just competing with people that live in your market or city, you're competing with anyone with an Internet connection, how are you going to stand out? You need to build your personal brand. And I think about taking the term personal brand and throwing it out that window and replacing it with the word reputation. You need to build and protect your reputation. And I think you care about your reputation because your name is the only thing you actually have and own. Right. And so when I think about why should people build their personal brands? Because they can't afford not to. You can't afford not to build your personal brand. It is what opens doors, it's what builds relationships. It's how opportunities will come to you if people know who you are and what you do. It's how you show up at work. If you work at a company and you don't have a strong personal brand, you might not get the projects you want or the promotions you want. So you have to know, how do you show up at work? Are you a team player? Are you a collaborator? Are you a good listener? Are you resourceful? Are you a go getter? Are you shy? Are you intimidated? Are you anxious? Like all of those are things that represent your personal brand and so you want people to say, hey, no, she's someone I can rely on. She's a go getter. She's helpful. She's somebody who I can depend on. If I ever need someone to help me in a crunch, she's going to stand up for me and show up for me. Those are all really relevant reasons why you need to build your personal brand.
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C
So like I told you before we spoke, and even in this interview, I've been on a quest to build personal brand for about a year and three months.
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B
Good.
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C
And I've been teaching my loan officers and those that work for our organization how to build personal brand and what steps they need to take. But it's all been primarily social focused. Now for me, like, what are some other attributes I can tell our agents and those that are listening outside of social media, some, some strategies that they can utilize to build their brand.
- [09:12]
B
Yeah, first of all, every one of your loan officers has to be investing in their personal brand. And so, first of all, I'd love to do a workshop and do training for them because I think it's going to 10x your business. I think it's that important. But I think if I'm a loan officer today or if I work in any referral business where my name and my reputation depends on how good a job I do for them to get other people to bring them into the business. I think about a couple things. One is do you have a strong presence on social media that you can depend on to have people come to you? So a clear profile on LinkedIn, a way for people to contact you. Some people have great clear picture, clear understanding of your biography, but no way to reach out to you. So make sure you put your contact information because that's one of the reasons you're putting it out there, so that you can get that inbound or people can reach out to you. So having a clear social media presence is key. Second, what's your event strategy? How are you meeting people? How are you meeting people in events that you don't normally go to? So you can expand your circle of relationships so you can expand the type of people you can network or interact with. So having a good social media strategy, having a good event strategy is key. Third, your current customers are your best referrals because those are the people that when people come to buy a home or get something, they ask who did you use for your loan? Who did you use? So making sure that you take care and deliver for your current customers and leave them with a good taste in their mouth and having them feel good about you. So don't do the sale and then just ditch them. What is the service after the sale? How are you touching having those touch points with your customers afterwards to make sure that they can say, hey, this isn't someone who, once I finish my mortgage, they just walked away and I never heard from them again. Actually I bought a home a couple, couple years ago when I moved back to the States from Dubai and I, my, my mortgage lender and officer is still in touch with me five years later and she's like I love that, I love that about having that service at the same time. Well one, she, she has a newsletter that she sends me. She checks in on the value of my home. She checks to see if I want to recast or refinance or just anything that I have any questions about the value of my like she's always following up with me to see if personally.
- [11:25]
C
Or is this automated?
- [11:27]
B
No, she's doing it personally and automated. Like she has a newsletter which is automated obviously. But like any changes in the market if I want to stay tuned to what's happening. So I love that like I all.
- [11:37]
C
Of our loan officers to build a post close ecosystem.
- [11:40]
B
Yeah, I think that's a big part of building the personal is the post, whatever you just said.
- [11:45]
C
Post closed ecosystem.
- [11:46]
B
Post closed ecosystem. I think that's key. You know, a lot of people think building your personal brand only happens online. I. I feel like in person is even more important. What do you do to treat your customers? How do you treat everyone from the barista to your colleagues at work and to how you treat your customers? I think that's a big key component as well.
- [12:05]
C
Now you've launched billion dollar campaigns, not like individual personal brands. What are like some key strategies that you've noticed that just work in any vertical?
- [12:17]
B
First of all, I think, you know, bringing yourself to any approach is just being as authentic as you can, right? Trying to make sure that your brand is like, is what you see, is what you get, that people really do connect with you because you are who you are in person. You are in social media. So I feel like that matters, like, how do you show up for people and that authenticity. Think of your own behavior. Who do you follow? Who do you look up to? Who are personal brands or companies or CEOs that you really have worked with or connect with is because you really felt that they were who they are and that you didn't have to. You know, we live in a transparent world where we can tell someone is trying to pull a fast one on us. So I think the key is authenticity. For that is really, really effective for, for building a strong personal brand. I think the second element is, and I've seen this with a lot of the big leaders that I've worked with in my career are the people that are either clients or companies I've served. It's how do you treat your people? And I feel like that cascades like water everywhere you go. Like, if you treat your people good and if you build a culture that people are excited to be a part of long after you leave that company or long after you finish that sale, I think that always resonates. Like, are you kind? Are you supportive? Are you there for people? I think how you treat your people, the culture you build, is essential in your reputation and your personal brand for days, weeks, years to come.
- [13:40]
C
Yeah, that's something we really foster and embrace here. It's like one of our core pillars, one of our five pillars is community collaboration.
- [13:48]
B
So important.
- [13:48]
C
And it's imperative for growth here. Because if you're not collaborating, like, where are you growing? How are you growing? Like, for us, collaboration is one of the fundamental and key reasons why we continue to scale. Because this is a, it's a decentralized platform that everyone feels like they're a part of something much greater. You know, in a decentralized model, and it's becoming more and more important in a virtual world.
- [14:12]
B
I agree.
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C
And, you know, you touch on so many things, and it's almost like you're in the mortgage space. You should be coaching mortgage professionals, because I love it.
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B
I love this industry. So I think real estate finance, you.
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C
Know the mortgage industry.
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B
No, I don't know the industry that well, but I just know the principles of this industry that can 10 exit is that relationship building, that personal brand building, the storytelling, connecting with your audience, service after the sale. Like all that stuff matters.
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C
I'm on a quest, like I said, to build personal brand storytelling is something I feel like I need to drastically improve on. I wasn't a storyteller. I was, you know, not a comm major. I was a sociologist. You know, I. I just. I feel like I fail at storytelling. I. I suck at telling stories to my kids. You know, like, I need to be better at that. What are some. What are some core principles or ideas I can. Anyone can take away. Listen to this podcast. Go. Oh, that's some good strategies to implement in storytelling.
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B
Yeah.
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C
What are some key fundamentals?
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B
So think about, out of all the things that AI can do, it can't build and tell your story or build and protect your reputation. Right? One of the most important skills that.
- [15:23]
C
AI, or maybe it can't.
- [15:25]
B
No, it can't. It really can't. One of the most important skills that everyone listening to the show needs to know how to do in any framework, even with AI, is to know how to communicate, is to talk to somebody, to tell your ideas, to tell stories. So if you want to be good at storytelling, think about yourself as a consumer first. What are the stories that resonate with me? Did it have an emotional connection? Did it make me smile? Did it make me laugh? Was it something I shared on my social media? You want to develop a story that's worth sharing, that you want to share it on your feed or share it with a friend or put it in the family chat. Like something that's worth sharing. So what is it that's worth sharing? A story that connects or moves us. A story that resonates with us because it's super relatable, or a story that inspires us to take action or educates us. So if you want to be good at storytelling, I want you to think of a couple of things. Even with your personal brand or as a CEO of this company, because a lot of CEOs are awake now that they could be good at business and good at results. And if they're not good at storytelling and communicating. They've missed the mark. It is the most important skill that they have because you have to communicate down to employees, you have to communicate to shareholders, you have to communicate to the media, you have to communicate to partners, you have to communicate to investors. So understanding how to do that is key. So storytelling comes in many formats. Just to answer your question, what you could be doing. So, a couple things. What's a day in a life working like as a CEO of this company? What are some things that you noticed in the industry that are going to have a profound effect in the next. Profound effect in the next week, two years or months to come? What are ways that you run your business? What about the culture? What about your team? What do you look for when hiring people? Where do you think the mortgage industry is going? Like, there's a whole vast variety of topics that you can be storytelling around, from how you run the business to the industry to the culture and the team of building your business and your journey as a CEO. All of those are effective stories that people want to hear. Just a lot of people don't take the time to do those.
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C
And, like, when you curate content, are you curating it like a day in the life or like, you know, because when I'm creating content, it's not like storytelling about anything, you know, Like, I'm not creating content around that. It's like some giveaway content or some, you know, market news content or some.
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B
Yeah, but I think it's all good. I think you just need to think about documenting versus creating, right? What can you document?
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C
Like, oh, that's a good strategy.
- [17:58]
B
Documenting versus creating. And that's what I did. Like, I was like, oh, I just got here. I'm about to do a podcast. Like, I'm bringing people on my trip. What am I doing today in California? What am I up to? Who am I meeting? I'm just sharing what it's like to be an author, to sell your book, to talk about your ideas, to tell people about the importance of communications. I think that's a key is a lot of people are overthinking and thinking they need to have a team. And production is like, start documenting. Just put up your phone, take a thing. If you don't want to be on video, you don't want to be on camera, you don't need to. Faceless is also working. Write your ideas, write letter or write blog posts, or write on LinkedIn or write a note, take a picture of it and post that. Like, you don't have to be overthinking it. I think a lot of times when it comes to storytelling or building your personal brand, a lot of people are just afraid of how people will judge them if they put themselves out there, or fear will people will say, well, who does she think she is? Why is she doing that? So I feel like it's really important that you spend time doing something that's authentic to you, that you feel comfortable doing, so that you can do it consistently.
- [19:06]
C
Now with all the campaigns, like, let's say we're going to launch a story. What's one campaign that you launched? And it like just took off.
- [19:18]
B
I can't think of anything specific now because I'm trying to think of a client where we did a campaign. But I feel like the key to any successful campaign is did you build a community? Did you move an audience? Did people take action? And so I can think. I mean, you want me to give you a specific campaign? I'm like trying to think now. Of course I'm. I launch a lot of books. I launch a lot of books for clients.
- [19:41]
C
I got a book launching.
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B
You do? Okay, maybe we can help you.
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C
Rising from this hand.
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B
Yes. That's cool. What's it about?
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C
My story. So coming from like the, the poorest of the poor in Cairo and then, you know, and now like the picture of the book, it's like sand and then like the image of Newport beach waterfront, you know, like, I came from dirt poor and now I'm on the water in Newport Beach.
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B
That's beautiful.
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C
So it's, it's kind of a crazy story to fathom that someone like, you know, can, can like just rise from that economy that really didn't provide any real way out of there. Yeah, you know, there was, there was no way, like, what are you going to do in Egypt? It doesn't matter if you became the highest ranked doctor, you were still going to live in Cairo in a poor part, maybe a middle class poor part. But you're, you're not going to make much money.
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B
My dad grew up in Mansoura, a very, very small village on the outskirts of Mansoura. And really just was like, the only way I'm going to get out of where he was living was to get an education. And he was like, got fought and crawled to get into Cairo University. And then he's like, there was a scholarship program to come study in America. Him and his buddies applied for it, they got in, and then the rest was history. He came to America, he built himself and my mother and had me and my sister and became the dean of the business school in Minnesota and, you know, had an incredible career focused on academics and built it in the academic, you know, academia world.
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C
But that's what Egyptians are good at, building an academia. But the name Abulayin, like, how did it become prominent in Egypt? Like, was it because of your father?
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B
There's a very. No, there's a very famous Abulayinn family in Egypt that. The Muhammad Abulayinin is Cleopatra Saramika. It's like a ceramics company. It's a multi billion dollar company. Yeah, that.
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C
That's not you guys.
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B
That's not us. No.
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C
Okay.
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B
I'm not in the ceramics business.
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C
Yeah. Because I was talking to my priest yesterday. He's like, oh, that family is very well known.
- [21:43]
B
Yeah, that's not my family, though. I'm not part of that one.
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C
But still, your dad came to America, still lived the American dream, went back to Egypt and dominated there. That's what my parents wanted me to just go study in academia. Like, telling them I'm gonna do mortgage and start a company that's not even.
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B
Like, yeah, being an investor startup, that was not it. It was like, you go to, like, he told my sister, you either go to like medical school or engineering school or law school. Like, it was like the parents was like, yeah, yeah.
- [22:09]
C
It's just those three.
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B
Yeah, you become a doctor and engineer. That's. Your parents had these, like, rules of what you could be when you grew up. And.
- [22:16]
C
Yeah, I still, in my mind, I still want my kids to go to med school, like, but then start their business. I still want them to go to med school.
- [22:27]
B
I'm sure they're like, dad, we don't want to do that.
- [22:29]
C
What I see happening with failure in every vertical that we launch is execution. Right. And execution is like, beyond strategy. Yep. So what's your process for building a marketing plan and then making sure that it gets executed?
- [22:49]
B
Yeah, I think the key, like you said, is execution in anything that you're trying to approach. But you got to have the right team. The only way you can execute a plan is if you have the right team to do it and the resources to do it. So thinking things through, looking at the market, making sure you're culturally relevant. If you have a marketing plan, but you want to execute it during a time where the market's not ready for it or the environment isn't ready or you haven't done the homework to build the right strategy to talk to your audience and meet them where they are, that's a way that execution can fall flat. So are you thinking about your audience? Do you have the right team to execute against that strategy? Did you put in the proper planning and resources to do that? I think those are some of the key things that I think about. When we think about executing anything for a client is like thinking it through, having the right team in place, looking at the market to make sure it's culturally relevant and then doing all the planning in advance.
- [23:38]
C
Yeah, but then how do you pick the proper team members to make sure that you know, they can execute? Like I myself fell at that.
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B
Yeah. So it's. I have a consulting firm so like I'm very careful about taking on projects that I know that we can really deliver against. Like I wouldn't set a self up to just take a client because they'll bring in money or an opportunity where we can't deliver and actually execute to the 10th degree. Like it's my reputation on, on the line. Right. For every client that comes to us and we're in the reputation business, we have to make sure we can deliver that. We bring them the results. And it's 30 years in my career so I know what works and what doesn't and what do we need to do to execute. And I won't let a client come through the door unless I was 100% sure we could over deliver for them.
- [24:23]
C
So what's your vetting process for that team members?
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B
It's a process I think about first and foremost. How good are they at writing? Because if you can write well and you can communicate your ideas written in a written format, you can probably articulate them verbally. So I always like give people writing tests so I can see how do they organize their thoughts, what are their ideas, do they think in strategic elements? Do I. So I always give everyone a writing.
- [24:53]
C
Test and I feel like now with AI, like are you watching them with the writing test?
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B
Yeah. I mean you can tell if something. I think I can tell if something is written by chatgpt. I can tell. On social media I can tell when people are using it versus copy and pasting. I can tell. I think you can too. I think everyone's smart and adapt to that. But I think the assignments we give them are very specific to our work. So they would have to really do their own homework and thinking to get to a place where they would not be able to rely on that for their ideas, but maybe for their structure or their scaling or something like that.
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C
So you give written exams not Written.
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B
Exams, but we give writing tests. We're in the communications business, so we have to make sure you know how to write a. A pitch to a journalist or an email to a client. So, like, a lot of our communications is written. So I have to make sure you're able to formulate your ideas, think about a strategy, come up with something creative, and write it in a way that moves an audience or gets them to take action. So it's not a written exam, but it's just. I have to see a core tenet of communications is how do you write?
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C
Now, one thing, and we talked about this, but, like, how do you gain attention to a boring product through strategies.
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B
How do you gain attention?
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C
Yeah.
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B
For a boring product.
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C
Yeah. Like mortgage. Again, like. Or anything that's. Anything that's kind of like, not. Because what we sell is debt. So gaining attention to debt. What I tell people is like, people don't care about the mortgage. They care about the house. And that's like.
- [26:20]
B
Yeah, they care about, dream about the dream of what they have. Owning a home and the memories they create and the purpose of having a home and the warmth of having a home and like, the comfort of having someplace to come back that is your own. The pride that comes in being a homeowner, you really, really need to focus on the emotional benefits of being a homeowner, because that's an accomplishment that so many people strive to have. That's where you connect with the audience on an emotional level.
- [26:50]
C
That's how you gain attention to any.
- [26:51]
B
That's how you get. Yeah, it's the person behind it or the idea behind it is the emotional benefit. Yeah.
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C
That's where I think many of us lack. They talk about like the Fed or they talk about like, no one cares.
- [27:03]
B
No, no, no. Take out. Put at the human in the picture. Put the person in the home. Let them have that emotional feeling of what it feels like to be walking through that door, making memories in that home, cooking those foods, enjoying the holidays in that home. That's the emotional part that I think it gives me a means to an end to have that mortgage, to be able to have all those things I would do in a heartbeat.
- [27:24]
C
That makes so much sense. And it's like when you get requests from your clients.
- [27:31]
B
Yes.
- [27:32]
C
Like, what are the strategies use to listen to the audience there?
- [27:38]
B
Oh, we ask a lot of questions. So we, you know, a lot of times in, like helping coaching people build their personal brands, like, the first thing people say to me is, like, I don't know what I should be talking about or how should I do it or what's my narrative or what's the thing about me that's interesting? So we spent a lot of time in the beginning trying to help them do that, like how to find your positioning, how to find your values, how to find the thing that's unique to you that you should be talking about. And so we ask them a lot of questions. We go through a process. I have a coaching program, an online coaching group coaching that I do where I walk people through this process. Finding your narrative, what's, how do you build your visibility and authority? What are the things that you should be doing if you want to get press coverage? What are the things you should be doing on social media? How do you really get good at networking and doing it in this kind of remote and hybrid in person environment? Like if you're on a zoom call, how do you build relationships with those people?
- [28:30]
C
Give us some great quick tips on that.
- [28:32]
B
Yeah, I mean, just like I want to help people and this is what's in the book is how do you take a dm? How do you, how do you send a proper DM on LinkedIn, get that DM into an email and email into a meeting? And I teach the secrets in the book of how to do that. But it's being specific with your ask. It's not asking for a lot of their time. Like if I DM'd you and I said, joe, I'd really like to get five minutes of your time to talk about personal branding. I've given you how much time I want, I've told you what's the purpose. And I asked for a very limited, small lift of an ask. Are you going to say, no, I don't have five minutes for you. You probably are going to say, I got five minutes, I can talk to her for five minutes. And the topic is interesting. It's something I want to learn more about. So that's how you can do a masterful dm. So you can get into a dm, into an email, and email into a meeting. So knowing how to do that, knowing how to network in today's environment, if some people, so many people are introverts, So I give a playbook. If you're an introvert, how do you go to an event with a room full of people that you don't know and feel confident in yourself and in your style of communications and being that you can actually benefit from networking at big events. So just learning how to do things like that I think is important. The number one thing I teach in the book is you have to know how to rely on yourself to build relationships. The seven rules of self reliance is not about teaching you how to be independent. It's like, what are the skills I need to have that I need to rely on myself for before going out to reach out my hand to help somebody? I need to know how to create value for other people. I need to know how to build relationships in my own network. Imagine how valuable would be for you as a CEO of this company, if everyone in your team came to the table into the company with relationships that were going to help you and the company and the business. It's valuable. If I go to any employer and I say, hey, I'm walking in with relationships, that's valuable for anyone, for a job prospect. Are you good at building relationships? Are you good at networking? Because if you're not, it's a critical skill you need to have. You need to know how to do that. How do you network through zoom? How do you network at events? I give you the playbook on how to do that, and it's preparing in advance before you go to this event. There's a whole checklist of things that I go through.
- [30:46]
C
Nice.
- [30:47]
B
It's important.
- [30:48]
C
These people got to read this book and hopefully or listen to it on audible. Are you the author?
- [30:52]
B
I read the audiobook myself.
- [30:55]
C
Okay, cool.
- [30:55]
B
Yeah.
- [30:56]
C
That's awesome. I love it when the actual author reads the book.
- [30:59]
B
Yeah.
- [30:59]
C
Because they know how.
- [31:00]
B
It was actually very hard. It was very hard. If you listen, you'll see, like, in the beginning, I was still kind of just getting warmed up to, like, it's like reading out loud. How hard can that be? But when you're reading for eight hours a day, you know, we're trying to read the chapters and explain it and have tone and interesting and make it personal. It takes work. I get good. Like, after the first chapter, I was okay, and then I got better as time went on.
- [31:25]
C
Yeah. Because you have one shot.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah. Well, they want you to sit for two full days. You have to go in the studio, and then they make you feel like, you know, you have to eat apples so that you're not, like, you know, making noises with your mouth to kind of absorb the. It's a whole process.
- [31:40]
C
I didn't know that I'm gonna. Because I'm gonna have to do that, too.
- [31:42]
B
It's harder than it seems. You're like, what? I can just sit and read? That's not hard. But, like, you have to really focus on the sentence and the audience and think of the reader or the listener and what they're listening to and making it interesting. And they don't have the book in front of them. So how do you explain the chapter headings? And you have to visualize. It's much harder than I thought it was going to be.
- [32:03]
C
It's good to know.
- [32:04]
B
Yeah. It is good to know.
- [32:05]
C
Yeah. So seven rules.
- [32:08]
B
Seven rules.
- [32:09]
C
Of the seven, which one packs the biggest punch?
- [32:12]
B
The biggest chapter in the book is how to build your personal brand. How do you treat your reputation as a currency? What's its worth and what's its value? Your reputation is the most important thing you have in your power that you can build and bring opportunities to yourself, leverage your expertise and make money from. So I want to teach people how to do it.
- [32:31]
C
That's awesome. And then what do you mean by stay low?
- [32:34]
B
Oh, the rule number one of the book is stay low key moving. So stay low means stay focused. Doesn't mean stay low profile. It means with all the distractions we have in the world, obligations from work, from family, from social media, distractions, comparisons. If we just sit and get caught up in all the noise, we're never going to get to what we actually care about doing or being. So stay low means stay focused on your goal. Stay low profile to get not low profile, but stay low and stay focused on it. And then keep moving. Because despite setbacks, economic downturns, any kind of bad day you're having, just anyone who's self reliant knows, hey, I got to stay low and keep moving if I want to achieve what I want to achieve in this world.
- [33:15]
C
Yeah, social media has really blurred that.
- [33:18]
B
Yeah. And it's so distracting.
- [33:20]
C
It is.
- [33:20]
B
It's so distracting and tiny sucking if you don't focus. Like I can sit on Internet for hours or I can put it away and go focus on achieving my goals, writing my books, getting that deal, building my business, creating more wealth, building something for my family, building more relationships. Focus on what matters.
- [33:40]
C
Yeah, I myself get caught up in that. Like, oh, I put out this video. Like I didn't get the views I wanted or who cares I wanted move.
- [33:47]
B
On to the next one.
- [33:48]
C
Then I'm like, I'll put out another post in an hour like that one. Then like so it, it get, it gets blurred because social media has such an impact and I myself like hate seeing that on my own. I wish everything can go viral. Why is this creator get getting every post viral? But that's just the way life goes and at least I got 20,000 views.
- [34:09]
B
Yeah. But the, I think the way to think about it is what's the value for the audience? Like that's what you need to step, step into and keep. Be consistent with anyone who's building their personal brand. Won't do it overnight. Everyone starts with zero followers. You have to keep doing it and doing it and doing it again. There are no such things as overnight success in business or even on social.
- [34:31]
C
Yeah.
- [34:32]
B
That you got to put in the reps, you got to put in the years and daily grind of it and you will see success. Yeah. That's the time to start was yesterday.
- [34:41]
C
You're right. One thing I noticed and someone told me this is, you know, it's not just, it's not just about consistency. It's about being disciplined to do it all the time.
- [34:53]
B
Yeah. I mean it's hard to adopt it. Very, very important that you invest in this. The Internet is for free right now. Someday it may not be for free. Do you know that you can build your brand and make money off your brand if you invest in social media? It's, it's not a joke. It's a tool that everybody has access to it. The playing field is equal to everybody. All the differences is are you willing to put in the effort? Are you willing to put in the work?
- [35:20]
C
Before we adjourn, what are, what's like some tactical advice someone can do immediately. I know we talked about this. To start building their personal brand.
- [35:29]
B
Okay. So one of the rules of the book is to. To invest in yourself. Rule number four, and I want you tactical, practical advice today is to be curious. Be curious about what are the platforms that lend to your behavior and well being. Like, are you good at video? Do you want to do something on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram? Are you more into writing and want to do things on LinkedIn? Are you into threads? Maybe writing threads and growing? That's a huge platform. You should just pick. Be curious about the platform that fits your personality and style that you can be consistent on. Second thing, I would say tactical advice. Follow me because I give tons of free tips. I have a newsletter every Thursday that comes out with lots of free information. I do a lot of free. I give away my content for free because I want everyone to know how to do this. So that's practical advice that I think everyone should take advantage of. Go to my website, join my newsletter, buy the book, take the free workshops. I'm doing a free webinar on April 9 for an hour where I'm going to take questions live from anybody who has a question about how to build their personal brand, how to be good at networking, how to be good at storytelling. Those are the three things that I focus on and I think start to look at your base presence on social, do a little audit of yourself. Do you have the right things up there that you want people to see? And be intentional about how you show up in the world because you should do it for yourself, not other people. Do it for you.
- [36:58]
C
Love it. Now a couple last questions before you join here. It's a. It's about goals. What is a personal goal that you have for yourself and a goal that you have for your business?
- [37:08]
B
So personal goal I have for myself is I want to scale this for as many people as possible and to help as many people as possible. And so I'm trying to find new ways to do that. Free tools, webinars, online coaching, group coaching, that type of thing. And then for my business, we're really doubling down on helping people build their personal brand. So there's corporate things we can do for companies, but we're really like all in this year on helping as many CEOs and founders, Solar entrepreneurs, moms at home that want to build their businesses if they don't have a craft to do that. So we're really focusing. 2025 for us is all about building personal brands, helping people build them, scale them, grow them, define them because it will bring you more money and more opportunities. Simple.
- [37:59]
C
I absolutely agree with that.
- [38:00]
B
Yeah.
- [38:00]
C
And I'm doubling down on that.
- [38:02]
B
Good.
- [38:03]
C
I'm doubling down all my efforts on coaching people on that myself.
- [38:06]
B
Good.
- [38:07]
C
And last question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going.
- [38:11]
B
To tell you that Meha was showed up for people. I think I was generous with my time and I show up for people. I helped a lot of people and I want to help a lot of people. It's part of who I am.
- [38:25]
C
That's what it's about. Ma, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they find you?
- [38:28]
B
So follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn. My name, you can find it in the show notes if it's not available. Easy. And that's it. Join my newsletter and I do online coaching and free webinar on on April 9.
- [38:42]
C
Drop in the show notes here, guys. God bless you. I hope you hit all your goals.
- [38:46]
B
Thank you guys.
- [38:47]
C
Make sure to follow Maha Alba. She is a beast. Amazing. Personal brand builder, company builder. You're awesome. Thank you, Ma.
- [38:54]
B
Thank you for having me. All right.