Episode 4: How to book your first client

So you're ready to start consulting ... do you know who your first client will be?

In this episode, Fady Ramzy and Mel Loy discuss the journey of starting a freelancing career, focusing on how to secure the first client. They share personal experiences, strategies for building a strong online presence, and the importance of networking and relationships. 

The conversation emphasizes the value of educating potential clients through content rather than overt selling, overcoming imposter syndrome, and the significance of social proof in establishing credibility. 

The hosts also explore the concept of identifying a niche and the three types of client conversions: immediate, delayed, and referral. They conclude with actionable takeaways for aspiring freelancers.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Freelancing and Personal Branding
02:51 Getting Your First Client: Strategies and Experiences
05:52 Building Trust and Visibility on LinkedIn
08:57 The Importance of Educating Over Selling
12:04 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Sharing Knowledge
14:51 Narrowing Your Niche for Success
17:59 Outbound Strategies for Client Acquisition
20:16 Understanding Conversion Types
22:44 Building Your Digital Presence
24:53 Leveraging Your Contact List
26:25 The Importance of Referrals
29:43 Creating a Consistent Client Process
32:47 The Power of Storytelling and Social Proof
35:51 Key Takeaways for Success

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• Fady Ramzy
• Mel Loy

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Transcript

0:03

Well, hello there and welcome back to Reinventors Conversations with Consultants over Coffee, or in my case, I've just had a cup of tea. My name is Mel Loy and I'm with Fady Ramzy. Hi Fady. Hi Mel. Nice to be here once again. Yes. So quick intro about our series. If you're just tuning in for the first time. This is a limited edition series where Fady and I are exploring what it takes to start freelancing, consulting, whatever you want to call it. And some of the conversations are just us and others. We've got some amazing guests on to help, you know, pick their brains as well. But Fady, maybe you can tell our audience if they haven't tuned into those episodes. Tell us a bit about you. So just in case, yes, you are, uh, here for the first time. My name is Fady Ramzy and I have been working in the intersection between the internet technology and the human behavior for 28 years, which means specifically I work as a consultant and coach for personal branding and executive storytelling with the passion for online personal branding on LinkedIn, uh, specifically. And besides that, I'm a adjunct faculty at the American University in Cairo teaching graduate programs. And I'm, I'm proud always to say that when I saw my students, the total number of students online courses, it's more than 6,500 people that I could help build their personal brands on LinkedIn. And for this reason, I'm considered like one of the 20, sorry, one of the top 200 people in my country, Egypt over LinkedIn, where there are 13 million people over LinkedIn. So that's me. How about you? That's amazing. Top 213 million. That's incredible. Well, I am not in the top 200 in Australia, and uh, look, to be honest, our population's a lot smaller, so I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. I haven't made it there yet. There's only 24 million of us here across the whole country. Uh, but yes, so I'm Mel and I'm joining from Brisbane, Australia today on the Lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal People, and I have been running my own business Cuttlefish for five years now. And I started off just freelancing by myself and have built this business over time and in my spare time I teach yoga and group fitness classes, so a lot of cycle classes, especially at the time of year when lots of people go on holidays, I am covering a lot of classes, so I keep telling myself legs of steel, legs of steel, that's what we're going for. That's amazingly interesting. Hmm. Well, we've all gotta have a passion project, I feel. Uh, so Fady, today's episode is about how do you get your first client, so you've made the decision to take the leap into freelancing, whether that's a full-time gig or part-time side hustle, whatever. And obviously you need a client. So how did you go about getting your first client? I, I think I was, uh, blessed to have good presence on social media. So I think I, I don't remember to be very honest, the first client, but I think the first client came to me because when you have a good presence over the internet that builds trust and positions you as the trustworthy expert, the first client will, will come to you. And that's what, what happened to me over, over LinkedIn, although I don't remember specifically the name or the first client, but it started that like. Inbound clients came saying, you know, we saw your post, we see your experience. Can you give us like a free workshop or like a minimal paid training. I think that that was the start. If you have like, you know, the, the, the needed presence over the internet, how about yeah. Uh, I remember my first client really well, because it was two days after I finished at my corporate job. So I, and in one of the previous episodes, I talked about my journey here, so I was made redundant from my corporate job, very happily so. But you know, when the redundancies are coming, the, the writing's on the wall for a while. So I knew it was kind of coming and I was, I was actively going for it too. And, uh, so I started putting the feelers out early. So I started just in the background. Uh, building a little website, which was terrible, but you know, it had stuff on it. Somewhere I could point people to, but I started really investing more time in LinkedIn and a few people noticed that and they're like, oh, I see there's an uptick in activity from you on LinkedIn. Anything you wanna tell us? I was like, not yet. Uh, so I really started doing a lot more on LinkedIn. So posting more regularly, commenting on people's things, you know, all that sort of stuff. Uh, and. When the official word came out, or the official redundancy letter came my way, uh, I started reaching out to people who I used to work with and just said, Hey, look, you know, from this date I'm gonna be freelancing. If you've got anything that you need a hand with or you know, somebody who does, can you let me know? And straight away I had two people come to me and go, oh, yes, we need you to do this and this. And so two days after I wound up my corporate job, oh, sorry. Fady, I can hear you typing. I am sorry for that. Yes, that's, that's, no, that's alright. I, I, I'll not do that again. Sorry. Yeah, that's right. I'll go back. Um, I just worry the sound's gonna come through. Yeah. Um, yeah, so two days after I finished my corporate job, I was running a couple of hour long workshop for a different company for their, for a team building day. And look, I completely undercharged myself and whatever, but I was so nervous. Get this. And this is part of the A DHD thing as well. I turned up a whole day early. I got the date wrong. Yeah. And I got there and I was like, there's nobody here. I double checked my emails. I was like, oh man. Better a day early than a day late, you know? Uh, but yes, that's probably why I remember it so well, was because I turned up a full day early and yeah, it was very quick. Uh, but again, it took sort of that, that background effort to get there. I, I think always having a one day more feels, feels good. That that feels better. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. One day early. That's, that's good. So I guess my own experience taught me, you've gotta put, you felt, feel is out there early, right? Even before you start freelancing, because otherwise you're just kind of yelling into the void. You've actually gotta have an audience to talk to. Um, to let them know your expertise. So again, like you were saying, building that trust first. So sharing expertise online and, and thoughts and all that sort of stuff so that you've already built a bit of a layer of trust. And I think what LinkedIn's really good for is keeping those relationships alive from previous workplaces. So I've had clients. Who were people that I worked with like 10, 15 years ago, but we've stayed connected on LinkedIn and they've been stalking, uh, I've been, you know, being active and those sorts of things, and they've reached out on the basis of the LinkedIn activity. So it is about having, do you have those good relationships already and have you already started to lift your profile? I think that's two key things to me. What do you think? Uh, I cannot confirm more because again, I have like a special passion towards LinkedIn. Stay connected with as many people who know you already as, as, as much as possible because for sure, across your journey, you work with several people, like clients, colleagues, uh, managers, everything. When you stay visible on their radar and connected with them, this is just like by itself, a source of. Incoming clients, whether it's your first client, second client, and, and so on. Being visible equals opening a door for opportunities because sometimes we are just confident that I know across my career like a hundred people, that that's fine. I have their, their context on my phone, or this is just like a fake self-confidence because they, they, they might forget about you or they might do not know currently what you are offering, but staying visible and saying, you know, this is what I'm doing now. This is, you know, my new journey. Putting that in front of the people that, that, you know, is like an amazing opportunity that sometimes we miss. We just assume people already know me. But that assumption is like a business killer for anyone starting the journey. If you agree to this. Oh, a hundred percent. It's like saying maybe in the good old days when you used to have your little phil facts of, of contacts and little black book of contacts, you know, uh, but that isn't how the world works now, and it's a very globalized world as well. So if you aren't getting online and, and sharing your thoughts and connecting with people, there's a huge world out there that you are missing out on. And so many potential clients outside of your circle that you could be potentially not connecting with. And like I said, you know, you're yelling into the void otherwise. So you've got to think about, well, if nobody knows you're there, then why would they come to you? And that is where, and I know you do a lot of work with people in this Vadi, I'm interested to, to get your thoughts on this and tease this out a bit more. You will have to get outside of your comfort zone a little bit and sell yourself, right? Like show what your, what the value is. Yeah. I, I get lots of debates here from, from clients saying, I'm not a showing off person. You know, I don't want to jump on LinkedIn every single day saying, this is what I do and this is what, you know, look at me. And I always say, do not say, look at me. I always say, look at this. Learn this. Teach people. Educate them because it's indirectly. That you say, this is my power. But when you educate them, you're getting closer, you are getting relevant. I always call it the relevant and relatable content so people see your expertise without selling anything. So, so that's the, the power of, and let me confirm something that we said also on a previous episode, especially for people who are working in the knowledge work area. Sky is not the limit even on, on LinkedIn because I always say theoretically you have 1.2 billion. Opportunities on, on LinkedIn. There are 1.2 billion people always, as you said, Mel, think about, you know, moving out of your own comfort zone, moving out of your own, let's say local context. I had a client like few, uh, weeks ago, and we started debating. He said, I'm a consultant in this area and in my country. He's one of, in, in one of the Arab countries. You know, I reached the top payment for this consultancy and I, I'm stuck. So I said, how many clients do you have abroad? He said, no. I don't have, I said, how many times do you de, do you use Zoom? Can you deliver consultancy over Zoom? He said, oh, I didn't think about that. I said, if you work globally, how much would you charge in terms of US dollars? He said, at least triple what I'm charging locally in in my country. I said, you answered your own question. You are capping your own potential. That was like an enlightening moment, so I cannot agree more to what you said, building a personal brand and reputation online. Can help you deliver your work globally. It's a global market that there is abundance of opportunities and money over the internet. I always say the internet is the largest marketplace in the, the history of humanity. Do, do you agree to this quote? Oh, totally, yes. And I love that idea of, you know, there's 1.2 billion people out there on that platform. You know, some of them are robots, I'm sure, but for the most part, they're all humans and everybody's got a connection. Everybody's got a story and. I really like what you said. You know, it's not about selling, it's about educating. I sometimes go put yourself in the shoes of, you know, when you are looking through LinkedIn, what are the things that you are attracted to? And it's not the selling, you know, it's not that stuff. It's the personal stories. It's the top tips on things, the the practical helpful stuff. Like if that's attractive to you, then that's probably gonna be attractive to other people when you do it. So it is, you know, I'm not, nobody's gonna buy something, you just go, Hey. I'm a consultant, you should hire me. That doesn't build trust, but sharing your expertise and sharing knowledge really openly, uh, I think being generous with your knowledge as well. I've heard this before, that people are worried about people stealing their ideas and their, their images and that sort of thing. Look, the fact is yes, sometimes that will happen, but very rarely and. If you are worried about that, put a watermark over it, whatever you want. But the reality is there are no really truly original ideas left anymore where we're kind of recycling and putting different spins on things, really. Uh, but don't be worried about sharing because it's that sharing that builds reciprocity. So you give something, people want to give something back to you, and I just think you need to think about, yeah, having a generous spirit with sharing. Your knowledge as well and democratizing knowledge in that way. And I've gone down a little tangent there, but it is something I hear people worried about, people ripping off their stuff. And look, I've had people take like very blatantly take images off my website, um, take some concept out of my book and turn it into their own thing. Uh, you know what, what goes around comes around, I believe. So eventually people will get found out and if they don't. Yeah, no harm done, I'll survive. Uh, but it really is just, you know, put yourself out there in a way that adds value to your audience. You, you know what, Mel, you reminded me with something extremely important.'cause I see all those two opposite things. One is the fear of people stealing my idea or knowledge, or this is something that I deliver for money. So I don't want to put it openly over the internet on LinkedIn for free. And maybe someone steals it and, you know. That's a myth. Uh, my own humble opinion, my 2 cents here. I share everything openly.'cause I believe something because knowledge is abundant over the, the internet. Mm-hmm. I mean, as you said, you know, there's not nothing extremely genuine that anyone with all respect can share. But the knowledge, I mean the experience, the track record, the stories, the, uh, pitfalls, the, the, the do's and don't, the wrongs, the mistakes, all that. We have done this is where really people pay a consultant for not only for the knowledge or the information, because you know, AI is their charge, but is their Google? Yeah. Is there, but the track record, the journey with all the lessons learned, this is what you cannot easily and abundantly find over the internet. So if it's just like educational content information, just share it. Even if someone steals Personally, I'm happy when I see someone doing something, I'm happy with that. But even the more psychologically harsh thing is totally. The opposite. I see people on LinkedIn, we underestimate our own skills because on LinkedIn I see gurus like the top people. So who am I to talk about this point? I'm too tiny creature here. And that's a little bit of pressure that social media in general puts to us. And that's my my advice to, to everyone. Do not underestimate your own skills, your own knowledge, your own story journey. Everything. And do not compare yourself to people higher than you because they will always exist. Even if you are the, you know, noble award winners person in that thing, you might find someone higher than you. But I always remind myself and my clients saying, look at yourself five years behind. Talk to you earlier self who is like five to seven years behind you and think what type of content, knowledge thing that you can share and can enlighten this person and hopefully. This person, you know, can, can be a client. So think backward, think downwards, not upwards.'cause upwards will always be stressing. Do you find that that challenge with, with people that you work with there? I'm, I'm a tiny person online. Mm-hmm. Tiny person on LinkedIn. Have you ever seen this? Yes. And I think that plays into a little something we talked about in previous episode about imposter syndrome. You know, who am I to say this? I'm not the expert, I'm not the world renowned, you know, professor on something, something. It's like that doesn't mean you don't have valuable experiences and stories and knowledge to share that people will want to listen to. Uh, it's a matter of spotting those stories and and spotting those pieces of value. One way to think about it is what's something that people ask you about all the time? Ask you for advice on, ask you for help with, because that's clearly something you're good at. That is a strength of yours, that you could be amplifying more and you know, what are the things that interest you? And you don't always have to share your own ideas like you're saying earlier. Just share other stuff. Like there's tons of articles out there from reputable sources. Let's pick reputable. Uh, credible sources, but you've found a great article. Share it. Uh, somebody else has posted about something brilliant. Share it with your own idea. You know, build on the thoughts in that. You don't have to come up with something new every time, but just show that you've got that depth of thought to take that to a specific context or, you know, specific sector or the way of working. Um, and again, it's showing to those potential clients out there that you can almost adapt. To their situation. Because let's face it, there's a lot of consultants out there. There's a lot of people freelancing, a lot of people writing, a lot of people doing personal branding, that sort of stuff. So think about, and this leads to my next point around finding your first client is who's your ideal customer? Who's the person that you want to be reading this, and what value would you add to their lies? How would you help solve a problem they've got? I know you've got a good framework around this. The problem. Let's share it. It's a lovely framework. I love it. Uh, I I love it too. Thanks for, for mentioning this, which is called the three specifics. So always you should have a specific solution for a specific problem for a specific target audience. And this is drive from the popular concept of the riches are in the niches. The more you are, you know, the best want to offer a very specific niche solution for a niche problem for niche target audience. This is where you ate this area in terms of reputation, in terms of positioning, and this is always a psychological challenge as well. So sometimes when I work with, with, with someone, he says, do not lock me down in this frame. I want to be jack of all trades. I want to offer all solutions to everyone. And my immediate answer, then you will be competing for solution provider to everything. To everyone. So when, whenever you niche down, you just eliminate competition. You keep eliminating competition till it's your own. Area. So sometimes it takes a little bit of psychological challenge and, and figuring out exactly who is the ideal client and what's the best problem that I'm the best one at solving it. But let me add something. Well, because there is, here is where like 95% of the people fail getting their first client out of this, especially online, especially on, on a platform like LinkedIn, if I have like a perfect profile that talks to the ideal client and educational content and everything. And then I complain that, you know, there is nothing inbound. Well, I always say at first you should do some outbound and do not. Mm-hmm. Do it in the sales pitchy, dark message way. Always ask people, you know, whenever you come, I always say, whenever you see someone engaging with your account, just to send a direct message saying Thank you for engaging my content. How was that helpful for you? Yeah, you know, there is what, what we call currently the the pitch slapping, you know, just like dm. This is me, I'm the consultant. Thank you for engaging Pitch S. This is what I said, pitch lapping. It's like a slap on my face. Do not slap people. Say it's just like a genuine meeting. Hi, thank you for coming. And how was that helpful for you? And I always say this is like three types of conversion. One is immediate conversion, so the person will reply, this is exactly solving my problem. Uh, can we work together? Can I contact you? So this is immediate conversion. The other difficult one is a delayed conversion, where that person would say, thank you so much. Yeah, that was helpful. Thanks. That's it. And then there is nothing, but I can confirm this person will come after a few months, even after a year. I had clients coming after a couple of years when they changed jobs, when they were responsible for something else, saying, remember our previous conversation, now I'm ready. To work with you. So it's a delayed conver uh, conversion. And thirdly, which is more interestingly, and I discovered that, which is referral conversion. Mm-hmm. So I would say I wouldn't buy anything from you. I just learned from you. That's fine. Thank you so much. But you know what? My spouse, my wife, my husband, my partner at work, I want to introduce you to him or her because this is something that you can work with. So opening up conversations through dms without the pitch stopping, like genuinely, genuinely doing it. In any case, you get a conversion, but in three different ways. So that, that's another framework, the the three conversions. I love it and it does remind me, you know, the worst somebody can do is say no or ignore you. Realistically, what have you got to lose? Just. Ask, you know, start a conversation. As I said, the worst I can do is say no, or just ignore you. And that is okay. And look, I agree that, you know, and this is a benefit of having the experience I've had in house, working in house in big companies, stuff moves very slowly. And some of those companies, it takes time for decisions to be made. And you know, I've put out proposals to clients before and it's been, I've thought, oh, they've ghosted us. We haven't heard anything from them. Three months later, they're like, oh, cool, so we're ready to pick up that project. Now. I'm like, oh, okay. I don't have the staff for that, but let's fix that. Um, but I think, yeah, it's really important that you just do the reach out because, you know, again, nobody knows you're there unless you tell them. But I think this, this leads into another point around securing your first client, and that is apart from online content or LinkedIn content and, and those dms. There are other ways that we can be prepared and, and reach out to people. So one of the things I mentioned in, you know, uh, was that I'd built a really crappy little website, but again, it's kind of that online business card, I suppose. So I was able to send that link to different people as well. Uh, other businesses will often ask for like a capability statement, you know, like a one or two pager, and so get something like that prepared that again, it gives people more information. But it gives you a bit of credibility because you've got, especially if it looks good, uh, unfortunately people do judge books by their cover. Um, you know, that's a bit about your experience, you know, your qualifications, if that's important. But also, moreover, what do you specialize in? So back to your point, if you do something for everyone, then it's really hard for people to refer you because they're like, oh, I think she does this, or I think he does this and this and this. But if they can actually say, well, Mel's change comms. She's the one you wanna talk to. Mm. Then if you are specific in how you promote yourself, then people can be much, it's much easier for other people to advocate for you and to refer you on as well. Just, just to confirm what you said, you know, I always preach one concept. If you're starting your, your journey. Number one is figure out your three specifics so you have like a very specific solution. Clear Number two is what you just said, Mel, build like a digital. Card. It's just a landing page. You can create it like in in few minutes over can or something like that. Yeah. Build something that says whatever that you are good at. And then I always say the gold mine to, to get your first client is your contact list here. Even before LinkedIn, before anything. Yep. People who already know you start with, I always cha challenge my clients and they say, get your WhatsApp, open up all your contacts and get. Just three meetings this week out of, again, no pitch slapping, just connect with everyone saying, nice to connect back with you. This is, I'm starting a new journey. This is what I'm doing. What do you think about it? You know, get support from people. Do not pitch, slap people, and you'll be amazed. People will really help and say, you need to fine tune this or tweak this. Or people will say, oh, this is interesting. This comes at the right. Time, let's have a conversation. Start from your contact list with your, as you said, like a digital business card or a digital portfolio, something minimal and your contact list. That's it. That I can confirm 200%. That will get you at least the first two or three clients, not only the first one. Do you agree to that? Absolutely, and that's what worked for me. Like I literally just reached out. Uh, via LinkedIn messages, via Facebook messages with people who I'd worked with, and I was still connected on there and literally just said, so this is what I'm, you know, I'm doing, I'm starting this from this date. Uh, if you know of anybody that might need my support or, you know, you, you think of anything that, uh, could be of interest to me, I'd just love you to pass it on and. Again, it's just asking for a request to pass on to be, to be thought about, not to hire me, but two of those people straight away went, I need you. And another person went, oh, I know somebody who's looking for X, Y, Z, and they're people I know. And because of that, it's a trusted voice. Right. And that is in a referral sense, so important because why would you, you know, even entertain the thought of hiring somebody like me if. You didn't trust the person who was referring them. So having those trusted voices who can advocate for you is super, super important as well. And that is, you know, it comes back to relationships, keeping relationships alive, staying on the radar, checking in with people, you know, just kind of being a decent human being, I suppose. I think they don't have to do anything outstanding. Think that, confirm that, that confirms the idea. Your network is your net. Net worth. Always, always. Especially if you are a. A consultant or, or a solopreneur? I have an interesting story here that, that confirms the idea because I had several online courses with different entities online, but last year I decided to have my own thing. I'll create my own first course on my website. Uh, apparently it's a link in course, and before the launch I did exactly the same, just like all my contacts. And I said, here is the landing page of the course. I would appreciate your feedback or if you can refer it to anyone who needs that type of. Expertise and three amazing things happened. One is for sure some good sales, which made me happy. So many people said, okay, this is interesting. Let me, I, I, I know you, I know your expertise. So I, I joined the course and people started giving me feedback about the course. This is one. The other thing which was really surprising for me is the referrals. Lots of people share the course on LinkedIn. They were not the client themselves, but everyone got me at least like two or three, four clients with. A referral. Some people sent me an amazing testimonials because they attended the course and then got me testimonials, which I use right now as a social proof. The more surprisingly and interesting, Mel, the feedback, one of, yeah, let's say it's not a close friend, but one of the people that I worked with like long ago, the gentleman sent me a screen recording of. 1.5 hours of feedback on the homepage of, oh my gosh, he compared, he compared my course with Coursera courses, with everything he sent me like a 90 minute feedback video about the homepage. It was amazing. And when I implemented this, for sure, it delivered far better experience. So start from, from the contact list. You'll be amazed. You'll get clients, you'll get referrals, you'll get feedback, you'll get testimonials, you'll get everything. Your first client. Is inside this, this list? I can confirm this a hundred percent. I a hundred percent agree. And look, if you're struggling to describe what it is you do, like you, like we said about that niching down and getting really clear on what you do, um, you know, Tess, some of this stuff out with people as well during these conversations, you know, so I'm going to talk this way. What do you think? What does that mean to you? So these are conversations that also opportunities. To test your messaging, to test your branding, you know, get some feedback in real time from people who might be your potential clients or, you know, represent your potential clients in the future. So think of it also as an opportunity to learn, uh, like you were just saying, you just got 90 minutes of feedback, which is incredible that somebody invested that much time for you. Uh, but these are opportunities as well. You, you mentioned something very important that I just need to underline. It's easy. It's easy to get your first client. Again, if you have like this digital footprint, whatever it is, and the contact list, you'll be amazed from the clients and everything, but once you get your first client, make it a consistent process. For the rr, I love abbreviations, but with every client, whenever you deliver something and the client is enlightened, they are happy. Get from them a recommendation so that it's a social proof that can get more visibility and the referral. Every single happy client gets from them recommendation and referral, and this is how to build a flywheel, how to build a snowball effect. One client gets the other one client gets the other one client gets recommendations. That gets many others. And then it's almost, almost, I wouldn't say on autopilot, but it's not that much of effort after getting your first, second, third client and then the bull gets rolling. Do you agree it's that easy or am I a little bit more optimistic? Over optimistic a little bit? I think you're always optimistic, Fady, but I love that about you. Uh, look it for me, it, the work that I do for some clients is really sensitive. So especially around crisis comms, they don't wanna put their name out there to say. We had to hire a, a comms person to help us clean up this mess. Right? Um, so in some cases I will just leave it alone and word of mouth gets around anyway. They, they'll hear about something else going on and go, oh, we got mail in to help us with a similar situation for other staff, uh, there's sometimes commercial reasons, like they go, oh, well, our company doesn't like to do testimonials. Mm-hmm. So you might come up against some of these blockers. Sure. What I have done is said, look, I'm happy to de-identify you and just say you're a happy client from this industry, rather than give the exact name and role and business. And a lot of people are happy to do that because you know it's still, uh. It's harder, it's, it's not as powerful as having a name and a, a person attached to it. But there are ways around some of those blockers, depending on the work that you do. As I said, with a lot of the stuff where you do, it's very sensitive. Uh, sometimes it's crisis comm, sometimes it's icky people restructures and all that sort of stuff. But again, if you, you can find ways around it. I, I love how you, how you, you just. Found the solution because yes, for sure if you have a case study with the client name, situation, challenge, and then your solution, that's like a, a, a clear thing. But the other way around, as you said, maybe it's a little bit of storytelling without revealing the client identity. People love stories equally just like a case study. So if you craft a story without any confidentiality issue still, that would be a recommendation or referral, but like in a little bit in disguise. So still it works. The, the, the concept, I mean. Showing people your expertise through someone similar to them in their shoes, in their challenge. And this is how I solve it, whether with structure and facts or with story. It's just like the social proof is one of the most, you know, powerful tools to get a consistent flow of, of clients. So the, the storytelling and, and social proof is, is a tool. Do you see how many people. Using the power of storytelling and, and, and the social proof. Is that concept like you see popular people are using it? Not yet. How is that? Yeah, I think, I think, you know, my thoughts on this stuff, uh, you know, storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have in our toolkit. Our brains we're wired for stories. We won't wired to read emails, and that's how we passed on information for year, you know, hundreds of thousands of years before people even started getting somewhat literate. So. I think, yeah, we need to tap into that storytelling and like you said, you know, I've done the same thing where I've written case studies, just haven't mentioned the name of the business and you know, changed a few things, but told the story of how we got to a good outcome for people and those sorts of things really resonate. And social proof, you know, humans are social creatures. We tend to follow what. Everybody else is doing. It's why, you know, you might have two coffee shops side by side and there's a huge queue outside of one. And even though you've got absolutely no idea if one is better than the other, you're probably gonna join that massive queue and waste a lot more time just because, well, everybody else is going there, so it must be good. And, but it, that's how it works. And marketers have been doing this for years with different products and services. You know, they've, they've understood this for. Five or six decades, uh, I feel like we're just kind of catching up when it comes to B2B and personal branding in this space. What do you think? You just reminded me with a very popular code that I fell in love with saying nothing sells better ever than a long queue in front of your shop. That says, that says it all. Because yes, as you said, we are human beings. You know, we, we, we like to. Follow what worked for other people. So that queue or that social proof, that list of, I always preach to everyone, build the list, the longest list ever of LinkedIn recommendations on your profile. If you have like an amazing profile as a consultant, and then there's like three recommendations from people 15 years ago. I wouldn't both are contacting you or sending a DM or anything rather than like. 200 recommendations and the latest one was like couple of days ago with a very similar case like mine. That's a totally different story. So yes, nothing sells better than a long queue in front of of Mutual. I think that that, that says it all right. Absolutely. That's all you need to say. Well, Fady, uh, we've certainly covered a lot of ground, so three key points that we can leave our listeners with. What might be your first key point? Hmm. Do not underestimate your skills. Do not compare yourself to, to any other. Just focus only at least at the beginning on the, on your three specifics. Love it. The three specifics for me, it's put the feelers out early. So like I said, do the groundwork. Build your digital footprint or start building it. Uh, start being active on LinkedIn. Look at your contacts like you were saying, and get out there early. So that you have somebody to talk to when you do actually launch your business. Yeah. And the last one, let me confirm again, your first client lies here. You know, with, with the three, three conversions, either immediate conversion or a delayed conversion or a referral conversion. But just contact them. Contact the people who already know you and trust you. That's, I think, that summarized all, and like we said, the worst they can do is say no. You're gonna be okay. The world collapse, spinning, collapse, that's it. World will not collapse. I can guarantee that. You can wake up the next day and you'll be still alive. No, no problem with that. I have been here and I'm still alive. Things are gonna be okay. Now this is called Conversations Over Coffee. So Fady, I haven't asked you yet. How do you take your coffee? Uh, I think, let me show you. That's, that's my first coffee, like Turkish coffee, harsh Turkish coffee, like triple espresso in condensed thing. And that's the my second. One is just like I woke up three, three hours. Now it's morning in Cairo. So I start with like a slap of coffee. It's a caffeine slap. I start my day with a double caffeine slap. How about you? Uh, yes. I have one coffee a day. If it's, if it's a. Very, if I'm very tired, like I've had very little sleep and been up very early to go to the gym, then I might have a second one mid-morning. But, uh, I am a flat white girl, so us Aussies are coffee snobs, let's be honest. But we do have some of the best coffee in the world. And so I love a flat white, but on almond milk because real milk and I don't mix very well. Uh, and then later in the afternoon it's a cup of tea and then a cup of tea before bed as well. So I'm, I'm. You know, more of a tea girl. I did actually give up coffee for a very long time, about 10, 15 years. Uh. Yeah, from my early twenties, because uh, I'd had some health problems and I noticed I felt sick after having coffee, so I stopped drinking coffee. Turns out it was probably the milk. But anyway, um, I only started drinking coffee again when I got a promotion at my job and things got really hectic and. And stressful. I was like, oh, it's kind of self-medicating, I suppose. Welcome to the caffeine world again, and I haven't looked back, uh, but thankfully things are a lot less stressful and horrible these days and uh, I can just enjoy the coffee for what it is. It's a nice morning treat. Although it is getting expensive, it's getting a lot more expensive. Unfortunately. So sometimes it gets like, at least for me, some positive vibes, like early morning sunrise with a cup of coffee with a little bit of breeze in the morning that brings some, some vibes. And then. The second one, and then I start my day. So it, it's becoming, I have to admit and confess it's a bit sort of caffeine addiction, which I'm happy with. I'm, I'm happy to confess that, look, if that's the worst addiction you've got, I think you're doing okay. I, I, I keep telling myself, so I, I say, well, Fady, thanks again for another great conversation. See you on the next one. Thanks to you. See you. See you all.