Why This Serial Entrepreneur Went All-In on LinkedIn

Speaker A: And you did have a lot of businesses in Dubai, didn't you?

Speaker B: Most of my businesses. My first, my first legal business because I used to sell bootleg CDs. That's how I, I got into the making, um, money game. Um, that was totally illegal. And, uh, but you, what are you going to do about it? No, um, one can, no one can catch me now. Um, first legal business was in London. Second legal business was in Dubai. Till my 12th business was in Dubai. So number two to 12 were all in Dubai. Um, although I had, ah, exposure and offices in Southeast Asia, America, um, as well, and Europe, of course.

Speaker A: Uh, we're gonna see what made mo settle with LinkedIn instead of, uh. There's so many ways to market a business and why LinkedIn and how did actually LinkedIn lead you to freedom? That's, that's the most important question I want answered today. So let's see how that's going to work today. Major focus is everything you've learned from all your 12 businesses and how, how does that converge onto using LinkedIn for marketing? And how does that give you the freedom that you actually were looking for? How does that sound, Mo?

Speaker B: Sounds good. Where do you want me to start? Anywhere.

Speaker A: I just want you to say a few words about, about LinkedIn. What keeps you on LinkedIn still? Is LinkedIn your major marketing platform, and why?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think aside from referrals, all my money comes from LinkedIn. So please don't ban me LinkedIn and then, and then not tell me why you banned me. Please don't do that. But yeah, I generate all my leads, all my sales conversations through LinkedIn.

Speaker A: That's awesome. And why.

Speaker B: Truth is, I don't know. Um, and, and it's a funny story because you're saying, what did you learn? I only know what I learned in 25 years of business after I started to implement it on LinkedIn. Do you know what I mean? Like, only when I started to do things on LinkedIn, I go, oh, that's because of that. And, oh, yeah, that's because, oh, that's the same thing as that. So it's not like I learned and then came and implemented the learning. It's. I seem to naturally or organically pick things up subconsciously and then do things better and then go, oh, that's why that, that worked the dots and started, uh, well, and even better than that, it's only when I started to teach that I started to go, oh, yeah, I know, I know quite a bit about this. And, and then I started to read Books and go, oh, that's the theory. That's what that's called. Oh, that's what they call that. Oh, I didn't know they called that that, but I'd already done it. So it's like I kind of got the theory after the, after the apprenticeship I got the, I got, you know, after the experience, I got the learning. So lockdown. I lost everything for the second time in five years. If you want to know the story, you can ask me. But, uh, essentially, um, I got wiped out in lockdown because I built a hospitality consultancy and I'd invested in hospitality startups and they all got wiped out in London in lockdown. So I was moved back in with my parents because I knew lockdown was going to last. I wasn't one of these, oh, it's going to be a couple of weeks. It's like, no, no, this is. I was in, I was in Japan when it broke in Wuhan. And so, so I was like, I'm going to move back with mom because then I get mom's cooking and I get my clothes washed and I don't have to worry about being alone in an apartment. So I moved back with my mom stuck in the spare bedroom and I'm like, what am I going to do? So I started to learn the online game. I never did anything online. So I started to learn LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, email. And LinkedIn picked up quicker than the others. It's as simple as that. And I was like, okay, I'm going to focus on LinkedIn now because it's taking too much time to figure out the other ones. And that's the story. And it's worked ever since.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can see, I can see the why. Being on LinkedIn for a couple of years as well, I can understand the why, but. All right, I'd like to know more about that story. Like, uh, Hospital Out, a business and consultancy in England. So you were in England already.

Speaker B: So my, I had an offer, a very clear offer which was, I will help you make more money, guaranteed more profit in your pocket. And I targeted first time hospitality business owners who'd never run a hospitality business. And they had one venue and they were fully in, in full ownership of the venue. They didn't have any partners. They were, the only decision is like

Speaker A: hotels, uh, airbnbs, anything I could find,

Speaker B: okay, cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs. And I, and I went to my local town and I went and looked for all the independent outlets and I knocked on the door and I said, who Owns this place. Hey, I'm Tim. I own the place. How's business? Is this your only place? Yeah. How long have you been in business? Are you the only decision maker? Yeah. I have a proposal for you. I'm going to do a free audit, and I'll be able to give you an offer after the audit, and I'll show you how you can make more money. And if you don't make more money, you don't have to pay me.

Speaker A: All right, before we go forward with this one, what made you decide to do this?

Speaker B: I built hospitality businesses in Dubai, and no one ever buying. Yeah. And no one ever helped me with them. And I learned a lot, and I didn't want to. There was a. It was a traumatic experience how I got out of Dubai because I had investor problems, and we couldn't agree on things. And I couldn't get my way. They couldn't get their way. And at the end of the day, I threw it all down the drain. And I was like, I don't want to start another business. I want to help people. Never have to need an investor again. The idea was, you don't need an investor. You don't need a bank loan. You don't. I'll show you how to make money so you can be truly independent. That's actually how I started to define solopreneurship. I'm sure we'll get into that. But. But. So that's why. And I thought it was just really easy. I knew I had the credibility. I could say, look at these businesses that I built. And it was so easy to catch them because they're in the venue. They can't ghost me. They can't ignore my dm. Um. They can't ignore, uh, my. You know what I mean? I'm like, walking into their venue and saying, hey, I'm here again. Can we talk? So I found it really easy, and I went my. My local town. I didn't want to travel for work. I'm like, I'm just gonna walk 10 minutes to the town center and pitch everybody I can.

Speaker A: Makes sense. Yeah. And it's very easy to spot the problems as well, to audit them.

Speaker B: Just live there like that because you have. You start to get an eye for things. How come you've done this? And why have you only got one till? And why are you. And how come you haven't got any staff? And I came in and no one said hello to me, and I ordered the food, and it came a little bit thing. And you, uh, can charge Way more for this, the guy down the road. So it's very easy to get into a conversation. Very easy.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, then, uh, yeah, then what happened? Well, what happened? We all know what happened, Covid.

Speaker B: So I built that business based on the idea of I've got an identity that I'm targeting, which is first time hospitality. There was some nuance added to that later. They had to have been in business for a year, which means they've signed another lease and they've got over the first bump. Because most hospitality businesses disappear in year one. They, uh, would have had to have at least a year left in their lease so that I didn't start working with them. And then suddenly they got kicked out of their venue and they had to be operationally in charge, not just the owner, because I started to meet owners who didn't do the operations. So I looked for owner operators. First time with at least a year left on their lease and having survived at least a year's worth of operations.

Speaker A: I want to highlight this. This is very important. This is basically qualifying, uh, your, your ideal client. This is really, really important. So listen to what Mo's saying.

Speaker B: Yeah, so. So the first idea was hospitality businesses. And then I started to discover all the owners in his other space, or this is owned by this group, go talk to their head office. I was like, I don't want to deal with that. I want to talk to the decision maker. So then I figured out very quickly that I had to talk to people that owned the business. And so then I thought, what's the easiest way to find who owns the business? Well, I find them in the venue. Yeah, but what if they have another venue? Okay, so I want someone with a single venue because then they're always in the venue. So it was really just logically thinking through what's the best way to find a group of people. And remember, if I walk into your, your restaurant, let's say, or your cafe, and I say I work with first time hospitality entrepreneurs or business owners who have one venue, it's like you, when you hear that, you go, oh, that's me. Whereas if I just come in and say I'm a business coach or I'm a business consultant, it's like, yeah, there's a million of those. Uh, you know what I mean? So that's niching right at the end of the day.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: So, and then as I started to work, it's like, oh, my lease is up and, oh, we, uh, we haven't made profit yet. And, and I started to Dig under the bonnet. I started to realize, actually, the best client to work with is the one who's already proved that they're operationally savvy. Um, and they've got at least a year left because it took me about six to nine months to start seeing results from my work.

Speaker A: So that's how we're talking pain points now.

Speaker B: We're talking pain points. And of course, the biggest pain point of a hospitality, uh, based owner operator is I don't have time to go home. I'm at the ven. At this and that. And so really, my, My offer changed to. How many days do you want off? Two days. A week off. Okay. I guarantee you that in the next six months, you're going to have two days a week off.

Speaker A: Brilliant, aspirational.

Speaker B: An outcome. Right. Clear outcome. Like, it's not like we can measure it. Do you have two days a week off? Yes. Great. We've achieved our goal. There's no. It depends how you look at it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's amazing. Uh, again, I hope if you're watching this either live or recording, I hope you're taking notes. All right, so then Pandemic came and, uh, that's it. No more hospitality consultancy.

Speaker B: No more hospitality consultant. I built, I built a workshop as well for solopreneurs and entrepreneurs that I was running. So I was building that as well. And so I lost that because I was only doing that live. And so I thought, okay, I have to learn the online game now. Stuck in my mom's apartment, I'm like, okay, I have to learn the online game. And so I started to learn. So I, I logged into, I created my LinkedIn account, my Facebook account, my TikTok account, all this stuff. I had a Facebook account, actually. But, um, the others I didn't. I started to explore. I don't know how to do this. Watch a YouTube video. I don't know who, how to do that. Do I know someone who knows how to do that? You know, Jim Rohn says there's only three things to do if you don't know what to do. Try something, read about it, or ask someone. And I just followed that. Who can I ask? What can I read? Who can. What can I try? And I did that every single day until I learned how to do online marketing or online sales or whatever.

Speaker A: Here's the good thing, which you had an advantage over everyone else from my point of view. I'm, I'm, I'm very into going to the fundamentals of marketing. Marketing wasn't invented. When the Internet was invented and it didn't change, people think it changed, but it didn't. It's exactly the same thing. It's human psychology and behavior. You come from the fundamentals. You all understand the offline world. Then what you have to do is just bring the online and apply it to what you already know.

Speaker B: Exactly. And I did that so subconsciously, Fran. Like, I wasn't. This is the offline world, therefore I should do this online. It just became. Came kind of natural. The other thing to say is also, because I was in hospitality, I understood human behavior because I'm dealing with people, emotions, stories, you know, creating trust, creating an atmosphere that's safe, that people feel safe to explore in how to communicate with people. And then when you're in hospitality so long, you start to realize people are all the same, really. Uh, you know, no one's unique. They might look unique or speak in a funny voice, but really we all act the same way. And we know that because of how we deal with customers in restaurants and bars. And also, and this is advice for any young person who doesn't know what they want to do, go and work in a bar or in a restaurant or in a nightclub, because you're going to be working with people from all kinds of backgrounds, educated, education. I love that. Yeah. So anywhere where you're dealing with different people in different. Where you're seeing their emotions. Poker, I think, is great education. Sitting on a poker table, you know, things like, so. So. But it all comes to what Fran just said. It's like human behavior. If you understand how we behave, why we behave. Emotions separate, you know, your perspective from theirs. Understand that everybody has their own worldview, and they are right in their worldview, and you are right in your worldview. And most of the time, the worldviews clash. I think you can learn that very, very quickly in the right environment.

Speaker A: All right, so one thing now, okay. You said that when. When the pandemic. Pandemic hit, you knew it wasn't going to be. How do they call it? The two weeks, uh, to slow the spread.

Speaker B: Wasn't it when Wuhan broke out, I was in Japan and the Japanese freaked out. This was January. And I was like, this is serious. Yeah. Uh, and. And so I was. I was really prepared for. So I was mentally prepared for it. And I knew. Or already strategized, like, I'm gonna go, I. I'm gonna learn the online m. The opportunity now is to get healthy, become a minimalist, which was on my mind. I wanted to sell everything I owned and to spend time with my parents because I hadn't seen them for a while and to learn the online game. So I was like, oh, my God, I got so much shit to do in lockdown. It was kind of, in a weird way, I was happy lockdown happened, part of me, because it gave me the opportunity to do things that I had been putting off for so long.

Speaker A: All right, so at this point, you don't have a business plan, you're just learning how to do it online. Right.

Speaker B: I had lost everything. I lost my investment, I lost my income, I lost my. I was on my way to. I was. April. I was supposed to be in China, 8th of April 2020, for a Jamie Oliver project, the British chef. And I was going to be there for 18 months. It was a very well paid project. Uh, everything covered, great team, and I was so looking forward to that. Gone. Just gone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So. And that's the other thing, by the way. A lot of people talk about niching as a problem. My niche led me to Jamie Oliver giving me a job opportunity. And Jamie Oliver had nothing to do with my niche. That's another important thing to think about.

Speaker A: Right, right, right. Mo one thing. So now, uh, you start learning about the online game and as you mentioned, like, uh, you, you realize that LinkedIn was the easiest way to master this online, right?

Speaker B: So, like, it was, it was a way that worked for me. Okay. I liked the fact that we could do different content. We weren't relying on video, we weren't relying on just image photos. I liked the LinkedIn profile was like a landing page. I was like, oh, I don't need a website anymore. I could put everything on my LinkedIn profile. Nothing else really has that. I like the fact that, um, it was an open lane. It wasn't flooded like the other platforms. So that twin and I really, I should have taken advantage way quicker with content because all these big creators that we see on LinkedIn now, they all got big between 2021 and 2019.

Speaker A: 2020. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And I'm. And this is live, right? You can all come and argue this with me.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Change your name and go and open up. Uh, you'll never fucking do it. Forget it. It's gone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I missed the trick with that. But I saw the lane, Fran. I was like, this is open. There's lots of, lots of opportunity here because everyone's here looking for work and everyone's lost their jobs. And so there's an opportunity here now to Start connecting with people. And whereas the other one seemed. Facebook seemed very saturated. Instagram seemed very heavy on imagery and I'm not the prettiest person to look at. So I was like, forget that TikTok, uh, was only video. I tried TikTok, actually. It worked pretty well for me and YouTube. I hadn't quite figured out what I wanted to do yet. So YouTube was like, I don't want to build out. So that's why. And Twitter was a cesspit for me at that time. Prefer it now. I'm one of those who prefers it now that Musk has made it a free speech platform. But, uh, that's a different story. Not. Not business related.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, all right, so, but you do see that LinkedIn, I, uh, mean that's, that's where I'm getting from what you're saying. Like you do believe that LinkedIn is a bit more overcrowded now, right?

Speaker B: It's saturated, but it's, uh, still think there's room, particularly outside of content. I think, I think the behind the scenes, the inbox and the outreach game on LinkedIn cash cow. I think I can build a one mil. That's my goal for next year. I think I can build a $1 million a year, one person business from the LinkedIn inbox.

Speaker A: That's interesting. I want to touch on that one for a little bit because now we have a little bit of a, uh, discrepancy. And I love that. That's beautiful. I mean, not that I don't believe in outreach. Obviously I believe in it. I just don't like it. It's not my game. Uh, I do the exact opposite. I'm an inbound expert. I build email funnels and I help people create a, uh, system that actually does the opposite. Right. So that people come to you instead of you having to reach out to them.

Speaker B: We should partner up.

Speaker A: I don't know. I don't see why not. There's always, there's always room for a conversation anyway. Where I'm going with this is I do see the potential of the LinkedIn inbox, but I'm starting to think that it's. People are getting burned of being pitched on the inbox. And I know there are pitches and there are pitches, I know there are conversations and relationship building and there are different ways of doing things. So. But I want to hear it from you. Uh, what is your take on this? Like, how do you believe that you can build a. You, you mentioned a 1 million. Uh, I don't know if you're talking pounds. Pounds. $1 million. Um, business based on LinkedIn outreach.

Speaker B: You get all these Australians and Canadians going, I hit a million dollars. Like, yeah, that's like fucking 500,000. What are you talking about? Okay. Big love to Australia, by the way. I love Australia.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: So, two things. I think I'll give you a sports analogy. It's a bit clunky actually. I'll give you a restaurant analogy. I think it's probably more, um, we can go high end fine dining and serve Spanish food or Italian food, or we can go casual grab and go Italian food and they can both make money. Same way. I can go inbound or I can go outbound outreach and we can still make money. The, the trick is in the, the tactics. The sports analogy that I was going to give, I'll give anyway is you can play football a number of different ways and still win. You can play defensive, you can play offensive, you can play expansive. But every, everything has to fit that strategy. Where people fail is where they're trying to do this and they're trying to do that and they're trying to do this and they haven't got this right and they are not doing this properly and they're not consistent. That's where I see people fail. So if you're all in, if you're all like, if I like, it's. I always talk about special specialty, right? If I become the best steak chef in town, everybody wants to come to my steakhouse. But if I do steak and pizza and chicken and Italian and Spanish, it's like, who wants. No one knows what you do and who you are. And you can't even maintain the quality that way. You just can't. Right? So I think that's the first thing to say about. It doesn't matter how we catch our fish, whether we put a big net in the lake and catch the fish overnight or whether we go and catch them one by one, I don't think it matters. But get really good at that.

Speaker A: I, uh, 100% agree. I just, I actually especially see that in marketing a lot because I mean, in essence I'm a marketing strategist. Don't position myself as a marketing strategist because nobody hires marketing strategy. Right? But it's what you're saying. But you need a strategy to know what line to follow, right? But nobody goes. After all, I definitely need marketing strategy. Nobody thinks like this, right? So that's why, uh, for me, the basis of every good marketing is, uh, is a good email. Email marketing system. So that's why I start there, you know, and then I love.

Speaker B: Rest, I love. And by the way, we're all multifaceted. Like, like, I'm going to, if you pay me, I'm going to bring everything I know about personal development, human behavior, marketing, sales, finance, productivity. I'm going to bring that all. But you can't sell all of that.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: You know, the steakhouse has a chicken dish or a vegetarian dish on the menu, but they don't talk about that. They talk about the best steak in town.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And the second thing I wanted to say because you. It's a very important point about, uh, people getting burnt. I look for people that are in the shopping mall. No one goes to the shopping mall and then says, why are there so many shops here? Why are all these shops here trying to sell things? You're in the mall. So what I do on LinkedIn is I look for the people that are on LinkedIn looking for solutions. I don't look for the people that are not looking for solutions. And there are so many signs of this. Yeah, that's beautiful, what they're doing.

Speaker A: I think that's what most people are missing with their outreach strategy because they just go and pitch everyone in their moms. So that's the problem, uh, if you do your research beforehand. And now we're dividing. Like there's a marketing concept for this. Obviously it's the difference between, uh, warm, cold and audiences. Right. Hot, cold and warm. Yeah. Thanks. Uh, so a cold audience has no idea of the problem they have. Right. Then the warm audience knows they have a problem, they don't know the solution. And hot audience, they know they have a solution. They know there's a solution. They just need to understand that you could be their solution. Right. So that you go to those already looking for a solution.

Speaker B: Yes. And even, even there's, there's tactics. You talked about human behavior at the beginning. Right. So, um, again, let's say I walk into a shop and I know I'm not going to buy anything. I walk into a shop and you know you're not going to buy anything. Sometimes I get annoyed if someone comes and say, look, I'm just looking. Like, why am I annoyed? I'm walked into the shop.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, why am I getting annoyed with him? Because I'm like, I don't want to buy anything. How does he know that? And in retail, I used to do. I, uh, started in retail, actually, in my first business. We, we smile, we acknowledge, we might compliment. I like your shirt and welcome to the store. And then we might wait a bit, and then we might say, is there anything I can help you with? And you would say, yes or no? I'm just looking. Okay, great. He told me he's just looking. I'm gonna back off now. What happens on the LinkedIn inbox? I'm not interested. Yeah, but. I'm not interested. Yeah, but. Hello? Yeah, I'm not interested.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And that's the. That's the other problem. And I don't know if it's automated. I don't know if it's. I have no idea. Sometimes you can tell, but, uh, sometimes you can't. But look, if I like being pitched because I learn, I encourage the pitch. In fact, when people, um, send me inbound requests, the first message I send them is, thanks for sending out a connection. If you have something that you think can help me, let me know about it, because I don't want to sit there and listen to their. Or I might sit back and see how they. Especially if it's an obvious incoming pitch. I'll see how they do it. And I like this. And, um, I tell you why I like doing this. Because 99% of people don't know what the fuck they're doing. And it's like winning. And the 1% that know, I learned from them.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker A: So basically, your. Your LinkedIn strategy is. But you do content, and I've seen that. And you've, um, you have video content, text content, carousels. Actually saw that. You have a fun Pokemon carousel.

Speaker B: Pokemon. That's the Pokemon character.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, yeah, sorry. Uh, so. So how does. How does your content strategy fit in when it, like, how does it connect with your, uh, outreach strategy?

Speaker B: So there. There's three reasons why I created content. Number one, I want to be heard. I have this desire to be heard. I have things I want to say, and I want people to listen. And that's. That was the first reason is ego. You can call it ego, but it's genuinely. I have some ideas that I'd like to share. The second thing is I wanted to find a way to communicate. I wanted to be better at communicating. So I wanted to learn how to say things, use metaphors, like these restaurant metaphors I'm giving you now. How do I use the right metaphor? How do I use the right language? How do I simplify it so anyone can understand? So that was the second reason I did it, and the third reason I did it. Was to grow my audience and get more connections and more followers. I didn't think about money at the time, I just thought about those. And if I get those three things right, I'll get rewarded somehow, financially. What ended up happening was when people engage on my content, that for me is the warm lead. For me, a cold lead is I find someone and I, and I, and I send them a connection, A, uh, connection request, a warm lead. Someone's who's engaged or viewed my profile. Engaged with my content. Like my content followed me, signed up for my Masterclass or my LinkedIn line.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's it.

Speaker B: And so, but it's still outreach. It's very rare. And maybe this is because I'm shit at doing this, but it's very rare that someone says, hey, Mo, so your post, here's my credit card. It just doesn't happen with me. So instead, uh, maybe. I don't know, some people. Well, some people claim that, oh, I made a post and I got 16,000 inbound leads. And it's like, yeah, fucking, you know,

Speaker A: yeah, arguably, when, when there was no one posting on LinkedIn and you were looking, you were actively. What do you mention? Like there's people who are already actively looking for a solution. And back in 2019, 2020, when LinkedIn was completely empty, if you were looking for someone to help you grow your LinkedIn account, then the guy who's actually claiming to, who you see that has like a bunch of engagement and who's claiming to. Now everybody does that. I mean, you join an engagement pod and you, you do the same, you know, like, so, yeah, I would say that it doesn't happen anymore like that because.

Speaker B: Fair LinkedIn. I don't know, Fran, because I don't run anyone's LinkedIn accounts, but let's just say I'm just shit at it. Okay, Whatever it is that. All right. All right, so. So if someone engages with my, with my post, I know that that's a, ah, warm lead. And so it's always an opportunity to go in and say, thanks for engaging. And I checked out your profile and it looks like you're doing this. Have I got that right? And then if they respond, then you can take the conversation forward. And here's, here's the other thing. It's like if I checked out your profile, Fran. So I came and I said, hey, Fran, checked out your profile. Very cool. You can anchor. Oh, you're in Portugal. Um, I'm, I spend time in Portugal. Like, you find something that, that says, hey, I know A little bit about you and we're connected. And then you look into their profile. And when I say look in, I'm talking five minutes. I'm not talking about five seconds. Oh, I see, you're a marketing guy. Oh, I see. Uh, you, you know, you, you worked for Amazon. It's like, any dick can do that. AI can do that. So it's like, look into the, look at their post, read their about section. Look at their website, look at their recommendations. Find something where you're. I'm showing Fran that I've taken the time to look at his profile. Five minutes. Set your timer. If you haven't spent five minutes researching, don't fucking bother sending them a message. That's the other thing, right? Okay, so I've now personalized the message. You're. If any of you listening, look into your LinkedIn inbox. How many fuckers in your LinkedIn inbox sent you a message where they spent five minutes looking at your profile? Zero.

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker B: Zero. So it's an open market. Personalization wins because you're standing out immediately from everybody else. Immediately. And then I send voice notes and I send GIFs and I send videos. That's another way of disrupting the normal, the normal sequencing. You send messages line by line instead of in bulk. So it shows. So it shows that it's not automated. So, okay, so now I've done all of that, Fran, Human behavior. He's said hello, he's given me an anchor, a reason why we're, we have a connection. He's looked into my profile, he's complimented me. You're going to naturally want to reciprocate with just a thank you. Okay, so you said thank you to me. Now I can ask a question. You're welcome. By the way, I see that you're a solopreneur, so am I right? Do you use LinkedIn to make money? Simple yes or no question. Because that's what I'm angling for. I'm going to show you how to use LinkedIn. So just a simple. Now if they respond, you can take the conversation or if they don't respond, no problem. They haven't responded. They're not interested. No problem. They walked out of your shop, go to the next guy in your shop.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think that there's something. Let's, let's backtrack a little bit or stay on this topic a little bit because you said a few very important things. So one, you mentioned the, the fact of the personalization so to try to connect with the person, like, on a human level. It's like even saying this nowadays because the people parrot this information so much on LinkedIn that even saying it feels wrong. You know, it feels great.

Speaker B: Agreed, agreed.

Speaker A: But it's the truth. Like, you want to connect with someone on a human level. That's what. That's what you were describing right now. Like, find something that you have in common and talk about it. That's how you start the conversation. Right? That's how you distinguish yourself from everybody else, saying, hey, I'm a designer and I can help you. Right. Big carousels, right? I don't give a. I mean, okay, thanks. But there's a lot of them, you know.

Speaker B: Good for you.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So that's one. Like, connect with someone on a human level. And I believe that the reason why most more people don't do this is because of the second important point I think we need to highlight is what you said at the end. Like, all right, if it doesn't resonate, then okay, I'll move to the next one. That's it. Like. Yeah, exactly. So, because people have focused on this idea of numbers, so I need to do more of them. I need to do more of them. They don't. They skip the first part, which is the research. They're trying to connect, so they just send the pitch.

Speaker B: It's like, imagine I walked into a networking event. Imagine I walked into and I saw Fran standing at the bar. And I come up to him and I just go, by the way, I'm a LinkedIn coach and I can do. It's like, what the fuck? Get the fuck away from me. What are you doing? I would come and say, uh, I. I like the accent. Is that from Portugal? I lived in Portugal, too. Or Fran. Is that short for Francesco?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. And then you. You just open. It's the same as what we do.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: But here. But here's an important point, Fran. Uh, it has to be genuine.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You have to want to know about this person. You have to be curious about this. If you're not curious and you don't care and you're just trying to make money, then you can't complain when that person's not interested in you.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Where?

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker B: Why should he be interested in you if you're not interested in him? Why? What kind of entitlement is that?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker B: AI is going to fuck this up, too, because AI is going to come up with a way to personalize really well, very it could probably be done already. And it's like, so you're not even interested. And look, I'm going to work with you closely, probably for six months. I want to know as much as I can about you. Of course. Yeah, but why would I take time to know Fran, if I don't know that he's going to pay me and work with me? Why would I take time? Yeah, that's why you're a broke ass motherfucker. That's why. Because you have that attitude. You have an attitude of entitlement. You want the gold medal without the training, uh, and you're gonna lose and more money for me and friend.

Speaker A: All right, so you just explained very thoroughly why outreach, uh, is not overcrowded on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: I think it's wide open, Fran. Honestly, I think it's wide open.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. But you said something really important that, uh, goes into one of my fundamental values in marketing. You said, I send them gift. I love that because that's where, that's where what I do starts, you know, like, start from the principle of give before you ask, you know, so that's why, like, give them something of value that brings them closer to you, brings them to your world. So that's why I do the email marketing. Right. Give them the. I'm even afraid of using the, the, the concept of lead magnet nowadays because it's been so, I don't know, it's. The words seem to be losing their meaning nowadays online. But a, uh, lead magnet is basically if something that you would sell that you would make money off and you are willing to give away for free someone to help them on their journey and to help them discover what the right solution could be for their problem. They're, on the one hand they're, they're raising their hand and saying, I have that problem. And on the other hand, you're helping them move closer to the solution. And you're probably the ideal person and the closest person to them right now to offer them that solution.

Speaker B: Agreed. Uh, there's a couple of things on that. The first thing is, um, if they don't engage with me, then I'm not going to give them a gift. That's, that's a bit like trying to speak to a girl at the bar and she's completely ignoring you and then you go buy her a drink. It's like, oh, yeah, what are you doing? That's just creepy. So when they engage with me, if they say to me, there's a, there's a problem. I might be able to help them. I might even just send them a post and say, I wrote a post about that. Actually, here you go. Or here's a link to my video. Or Matt Lakayev does this really, really well. For those who know him, he sends. He does a YouTube video explaining how to solve the problem, puts it on his YouTube channel, sends it to that person, and then he sends it to anybody else that has that problem. So he's created one video that he can send multiple times. Just a simple. Now, I used to get a lot of. Hey, Mo, I, uh, checked out your website, basically, and it sucks. And so I've rewritten the landing page copy. Would you like it? It's like, first of all, you didn't fuck. I don't even know who you are. And you're sending me a fucking. Usually a chatgpt fucking.

Speaker A: And you're saying your website sucks.

Speaker B: And you're basically saying your website sucks. And I didn't even tell you I gave a shit about my website. Like, how do you know I even give a shit about. And so this is the, this is the numbers game that we were talking about. It's like I'm just going to keep. I'm just going to keep throwing shit at. So again, it comes to the principles of human behavior. I worked in advertising for advertising companies. Not two, two big ones. Mehmet Ogilvy in Dubai and Matt in New York. And they have a simple philosophy. Everybody who buys needs to feel seen, safe and stimulated. So if you think about. It's the easy, easiest way to break down human behavior. How do you make someone feel seen? You acknowledge their presence. I like your shirt. Nice name, nice accent. Thanks for dropping by. Thanks for your connection. Thanks for saying hello. Thanks for welcome to my network. Anything that acknowledges them. Like when you walk into a store and they simple nod, not on a smile, you're happy they saw me, Right? Okay. So you have to make them feel seen, then safe. How do you make them feel safe? You show them that you understand their world, that you recognize something about them or that you understand what they're looking for or that you. Right. That's what makes me feel safe. Oh, Frank gets it. Yeah, he gets it. He gets it. Yeah, he knows. He knows what you know. And then the stimulation is through questions where you get them to think about their challenge. Everyone has challenges. What their challenges are and how they're solving them and, and, and how they might think about it. That's all we have to do is do that. And so, and so these guys are coming straight for the stimulation. Hey, face, your website sucks. Here's a solution. It's like, I didn't ask you for that. I don't even know you are. Yeah. And so that's, I think, the biggest problem people make in outreach when they're trying to give gifts. Gifts away.

Speaker A: I agree. I agree. I mean, you used, uh, a very important, interesting analogy, which is the, uh, trying to pick up a girl at the bar. It doesn't matter if it's a girl or boy. It doesn't matter. But I use that, I use that analogy a lot in marketing. There's this marketer, Ryan Dice. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He. He was the founder of Digital Marketer. He, he has this comparison between how humans build relationships and how the, the marketing, um, the customer journey should be mapped out. Yeah, yeah, he actually mapped it out on a napkin. And it's, it's related with the 12 Steps of Human relationships. Like, and the perfect analogy is the meeting someone at a pub, at a bar. Like, you see someone in a bar, the first thing you do is you look at them. Right. If they look back at you, that's the first signal. Right. It's, uh, the first connection I've been seeing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You don't, you don't just look at someone. You like the way they look and you go to them and you say, hey, would you like to come to my house? You're going to get slapped. Right.

Speaker B: Or would you like to get married? Which is, which is probably closer to the, to the metaphor. Yeah.

Speaker A: To the sale. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.

Speaker B: It's absolutely right. And this is. You said it right at the top, Fran. You said market. This is not, not about LinkedIn and online and offline. It's about understanding human behavior. Yeah. Understanding how to connect at the human level. How to listen. How to have empathy. How to build rapport.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How to build. We learn this from kids. We learn how to say the thing to our mom so that she gives us a bit more chocolate or get our friend to give us their toy. We learn this from young.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How to do this shit.

Speaker A: That's why I think if people, a lot of people get lost in. There's like a sort of a barrier between the online world and the offline world. And if they're able to compare to the offline world, they will realize how ridiculous what they're trying to do is.

Speaker B: Ridiculous. Well, it's the same as, you know, when people trash Talk on the Internet. It's like 100. I'm, um, 100% sure that if you meet that guy in the bar, he's absolutely friendly and normal and there's nothing wrong. But. But they come on to keyboard warriors, they call them, right? They're hiding behind their keyboard and no one knows who they are, and they have an avatar and they start turning into fucking Satan. You know what I mean?

Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, Dan Kennedy says something really interesting and, uh, it comes in connection with what I see a lot on LinkedIn. A lot of people say. I'm, um. My LinkedIn business, my link, you listen. You don't have a LinkedIn business. You have a business and you use LinkedIn to market it. So that is a very important distinct distinction. You know, like LinkedIn is just.

Speaker B: It's like saying, my hotel holiday, right? It's not a hotel holiday. It's just a holiday and you're in a hotel. Yeah, it's exactly, Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, LinkedIn is just a platform, and if you give it more importance than this, then you're. Then you're screwed. Then you're. And if something. What if something happens and I think we. We have. We have a common, uh, contact who recently got their LinkedIn accounts, uh, suspended and that.

Speaker B: And, uh, no reason given.

Speaker A: Yeah, that. That hurt. That hurt the business like crazy, you know, like it shouldn't. Because if you look at LinkedIn only as a platform to distribute, to have a voice, and you have. And you own your own, Your own channel, like having your email marketing behind, uh, behind it. Use LinkedIn to reach more people. Absolutely. But don't depend on it.

Speaker B: I will add to that having an email list, of course, is important. I got banned from my email list, by the way. Fran, maybe we need to talk about this. My email provider. I won't. Shall I out them? No, Fuck them. Um, and they.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: I don't want to give them free advertising. Um, they. They were stopping your account. Here's your refund. Why? We're not telling you.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but here's the thing, Mo. This can happen. They can. They can. They can stop your account from distributing, but they cannot take the list away from you. So you can always export the list.

Speaker B: Where is LinkedIn?

Speaker A: Somewhere. Yeah, exactly. That's why we call it as a known audience, because you own it. You can export that list, bring it to another provider and start emailing it.

Speaker B: I love it. Same as phone numbers. We collect phone numbers if anyone wants to book.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: I ask for your phone number. Okay, so that's one part of it is to have you multi channels or different lists, but also to own, which is what Fran's point is, which is to own your network, own your uh, your, your, your audience. Great. The other side of it also is learn skills. Because if you can't sell and persuade and knock on doors and engage, if you can do that, it doesn't matter. Even if you don't have an email list, you can do what I did. Uh, go door to door on your high street and pitch. Yeah. And that's the other thing. It's like safeguard your business. Yes, but if you don't have the skills, go learn the skills.

Speaker A: Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. And that, that is really important because skipping that step is what makes a lot of people go. And it again, they go back to that ease of online and trying to, to, to beat the numbers. Because I can just send a few messages on LinkedIn. No, but the people receiving the messages are still people. There's still the same people that would receive them offline. You're just unaware of how they are receiving it.

Speaker B: It's like CEOs. All CEOs are this type. CEOs are human beings. Investment, uh, bankers are this. It's like they're just human beings. What do you mean? They're just a human being with probably young kids and a wife. And it's the same like your parents, like you. Just human beings.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Feelings, they have feelings. They feel offended sometimes. It's okay, no problem.

Speaker A: All right, so a bit more about you, Mo. Now, you do basically teach people how to m. Make how to make money money online. Like uh, but solopreneurs, am I right?

Speaker B: How to make money. I teach them how to make money. To your point, I do it on LinkedIn so you can learn from me, but you can copy this framework by email or by Facebook or by door to door or by cold calling, it doesn't matter. Same framework. So I show you how to. Here, here's a better way of thinking about it. Everybody has value to give. If you're useless, I can't help you. But if you're useful, you have value to present to the world. And so my job is to show you how to package that value in a way to get maximum return for it, right? Okay. So then people say to me, well, how do you know what my value is? Okay, there's a simple test. How much are companies willing to pay you? What's the salary you're going to get if you go get a job? Uh, a hundred Thousand dollars. Okay. That means you're worth at least $300,000 to the company. This is a fact. It's at least three times to the company. The way they, they. Yeah, that's why, you know, people complain about these salary ranges where they say between 50 and 80,000 is the salary. Why are you saying between 50 and 80? Why don't you just give, give me the salary? Well, because they're trying to figure out your value because not everyone who applies for the job has the same value, has the same network, has the same skill set, has the same experience. So they're trying to determine that. But they know that it's at 80. They know it's, it's not worth more than that to them. You're not going to bring in more than $240,000 worth of voucher. It's not worth it to them. So, okay, so if I'm going to get paid 100,000 a year, I know I'm worth 300,000 in the market, not to that company. Uh, in the market. Okay. 40 hour work week. Great. Split your work week. Any however hours you want to work. Half has to go to business development and half has to go to delivery. This whole thing about I'm busy with clients, I don't have time to, to do my business development, my marketing, and my lead is you're going to, you're going to fail. That's like saying I don't have time to sleep or I don't have time to eat. It's like you have to eat, you have to sleep. You have to generate leads and sales conversations. So half your time. So if I get paid 100,000 for 40 hours a week work, and I'm worth 300,000 for 400 for 40 hours a week work, uh, but I have to spend half that time selling half the 300,000. So you're now worth 150,000 as a solopreneur. Fact not and M, by the way, or more, because it could be three, four, five, six times eight times the value. It's not just three, three times the minimum. So I know as a solopreneur, you should be making 150,000 just from the fact that a company's willing to pay you a hundred thousand. And so my job is to show you how to package your value, your experience, your competence, your skill set, your network, your skills, your, your abilities, your brand, your, uh, personality, uh, in a way where you can get that 150,000

Speaker A: from the market worth of your value. Yeah. Beautiful. I love it. Uh, I noticed that you have a, uh, live event coming. Do you want to talk about it?

Speaker B: I have a live event on the. It's a while away. It's 20th of August, so, uh, just over three weeks away, but I would. You can find it how to make $15,000 a month as a solopreneur on LinkedIn. You can find it on LinkedIn events. I can also, I don't know, I can make a comment, um, afterwards on the. On the event page and leave the link in there. That's the best way to understand how I work and who I work with and the results that I got and the framework that I use. A lot of the stuff that we talked about today, I give you the structure to it. So that would be the best way to learn about me the quickest. Or follow my content on LinkedIn and, uh, I pretty much share everything on there as well. Or send me a dm. I will reply.

Speaker A: All right, so that's brilliant. So basically, um, we will, uh, you'll find in the show notes, you'll find Mo's LinkedIn profile, and from there you can reach everything. I noticed that you have the link to the event in your LinkedIn profile as well. So they can get it from there.

Speaker B: I forgot about that.

Speaker A: I do.

Speaker B: Yeah. There you go. Thanks.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's it. I think that's it.

Speaker B: I just want to say thank you for doing what you do and, um, thank you for being yourself and, um, just doing the. Doing it the way you did it. I really appreciate that. I actually have nothing to say about how you've delivered it, which is unusual because I usually have an opinion on everybody's podcast, so I really enjoyed that. And also, um, if you come up

Speaker A: with something, please let me know, because I'm always eager to improve.

Speaker B: I loved it. I loved it. And what I want to leave everybody with this one. One idea was ego or pride, whatever you want to call it. I didn't like asking for help. I didn't like doing it. I didn't. I felt like I was. Something was wrong with me if I asked for help. I felt like no one cares about me and no one's going to help me anyway. It's absolutely not true. The minute I started asking for help, I started getting some real results and it really, really helped me. So ask. If you don't ask, the answer is almost always no. No one's going to just offer up solutions unless they want to rewrite your shitty landing page. No one's going to just offer up solutions for you. Right? But ask, uh, there's some amazing people on LinkedIn. Amazing people, and you can see what they're about. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to figure it out. You can see what they're about, message them and say, hey, I know that you're good at this, or I know that you're. You understand this? Can you please help me? I've got this particular problem, and I guarantee you more people than not will help. And so ask.

Speaker A: Everybody likes to talk about themselves and what they do. So if you.

Speaker B: Everybody, everybody and everybody. And they'll see you as a lead and they'll sing, ah, maybe I can make money off them. Great. Leverage that. Leverage the fact that they think you're a lead and get the information you want off them. Because I'm telling you, you can find everything that you need on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: It Great advice. If you want to find the summary of this episode. We have, we always have a written summary, so you can find it on, uh, createandearn.com sm and in there you'll also find all the episodes with the summary and the video. Everything's there, so feel free to go visit that and yeah, thanks a lot for coming, Mo. I mean, this was an absolutely blast of a conversation. I really enjoyed it. So thanks for joining me, man.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. Huh?