Cultivating Your Online Persona: Balancing Privacy and Business Growth

Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is going to be a very noisy one because it's the full house. Wifey is trying to watch that Bob Dylan movie and then my kids are just, you know, they're doing what kids do, just running all over the place. So apologies for the noise in the background. Now today's episode is going to be a follow up on the episode that I made concerning my research stack. You know, I made that episode just telling you guys about how I like to research some people,

you know, just sharp research. You know, 2-3 minutes before I hop on the call with somebody. I use Truecaller to get the name, use Google to, you know, see what else is out there, you know, websites, social media, you know, those sorts of things. Just to get a basic hold on who this person is before I call because, you know, if nothing else, that's the thing that will let you know how to open the phone call. Good afternoon, Sir, or good afternoon or bro, what's up or you know, whatever.

So just from doing some simple research. So it's a very easy way of humanizing the phone number or humanizing the e-mail before you reach out to someone. And that's just my basic research stack. And if you are involved in picking up the phone every day, every week to drum up business, I think it is irresponsible for you not to be using something similar. At the very least, everybody should be starting off with Truecaller.

Truecaller is free. Download the thing on your phone. Google is definitely free. Take advantage of it. So yeah. So basically, I'm just going to throw off a few ideas concerning this. Now, before we get into the details, I'd like to say, OK, I have to give shout outs. So shout out to Sandra Organks. Not sure if that's her real name. She left a comment on Spotify. Let's see, OK. And I think the episode that she heard made her much more comfortable with poking around with questions.

Basically, you know, you know how I keep recommending that whenever you're having conversations with potential clients and customers, you actually should be asking them loads of questions about them, about their context, about the problem that they're facing, about the vision they're trying to achieve. Because that is what is going to be able to make you to allow you to give the best possible recommendation. Whether you're an architect is by listening to someone that you'll be able to design the best house.

If you're a fashion designer is from listening to the customer that you're going to be able to design the thing that will best viable. The person you know if you're a doctor is from listening to the person that you're going to be able to give the appropriate medicine. If you're a business consultant like me, is from asking the person lots of questions and figuring out what's going on that you're going to be able to recommend the most appropriate course of action.

So, yeah, I'm glad that that episode has given Sandra some comfort that she is already on the right path. So if you're one of those people who likes to ask a bunch of questions with potential customers before you say, OK, this is how much or this is what I recommend, just know that you're on the right path and continue. So thank you very much to Sandra Organks for listening to the podcast and for commenting. Then also another shout out to Samanda.

Samanda Abbey. Yeah, in fact, that's the reason why I'm making today's episode anyway, because of my interactions with her. Now, Samanda Abbey also left a comment on Spotify and she now hit me up on WhatsApp because in that episode that I made where I was talking about my research stack, how I use Truecaller and Google to get some basic background on people before I pick up the phone. I give them a call. I put a challenge in the episode and I told people that look,

just to show you that this thing works, just, you know, use my own phone number, Truecaller, my number, Google, and then see what comes up. OK, By the way, my phone number is 08064662140, country code +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. Now don't just do this because of the challenge, but also do it in case you'd like to connect for a strategy session, a business audit or you have questions that you'd like me to answer.

I tried to respond to as many people as I can. I won't respond to you immediately, but worst case scenario, 24 hours, OK, let me say 48 hours. You would have heard from me, Shah. So where was I? So Samantha, I'd be if she listened to that particular episode and and she decided to take me up on the challenge. Sorry about that. My little boy just came into the room. Good thing I told you guys that there'll be interruptions today.

Where was I now? Yeah. So she took me up on the challenge. And then she sent me a WhatsApp message saying that, hey, I've tried like a challenge or this is what came up. I know somebody else's somebody else's name. And I was thinking like, that's strange. I was wondering like, did I just tell somebody to try something and the thing didn't work? And then I checked and I saw that, oh, she put in a different a wrong number because my own number is 080 was somehow she typed in 090.

So rather than first tell her that she got the number wrong, what I did was I decided to flip the switch and do it on her. So I took her number, copied and pasted and then I saw her real name Samantha Abbey because you show up on on, you know, when she was what's happening me, her full name was not there. I think there was like pretty Sammy or something like that. So I saw the full name Samantha Abbey. Now I took Samantha Abbey, put it in Truecaller and then a bunch of stuff came up about her and her business.

So I now I did the screenshot. Oh, by the way, is it I screenshotted or I screenshot. I'm not even sure what you're supposed to say. So when me and my wife are just messing around on these kind of things, I just say I screenshot the message and I sent it to you. So, so whether I screenshot it or I screenshot shot, I took a screenshot, I sent the message to to her. And well, anyway, first of all, she was surprised she because I

called her up later on and she said that she thought of herself as a private individual. And so she didn't think, she has just discovered that she's not as private as she thought. And in fact, I think maybe she was a little scared with the amount of information that I came up with. But anyway, I told her about how she got the number wrong and she now did the right number and she took a screenshot. So she screenshotted or screenshot and then sent it to me.

And then for me, what came up was my LinkedIn handle with my company name, my follower account, my bio, my YouTube, my Twitter, and a bunch of other things that I don't use. And I'm surprised that they're still up there because I was banned from Twitter. So I assumed that my account was going to be, I don't know, blocked. I'd be deactivated or something. Then I'm off all the other social media. So I'm surprised that all those things came up.

But bottom line, the reason why I'm making today's episode is this, just in case you are like Samantha, I be and you're a business owner. And after listening to this episode, maybe you go and try you true color yourself, you Google yourself and then you see that. Oh, the information that I have out there is for like, is plenty. Like is much like I'm trying to live a recluse life. I don't want people to know me, you know, that kind of thing.

So just in case you're like Samantha, and you're worried, today's episode is dedicated to you guys. So Samantha, if you're listening, this is advice that I would have given you this evening. But you know, we're strangers. We're talking for the first time. So this was not the time to go into a full length of our discussion. So this is what I would have told you if we continued having the conversation. If you're worried about the amount of information that is out there about you, the solution is not to cut, cut out or to fade and to start deleting stuff.

The solution is to optimize and be thoughtful about information that you put publicly out there. Because as business owners, because Amanda is involved in business, for those of us who are trying to build businesses, we actually, I don't think we should be contracting and shrinking. We should be making it easy for people to find us. So we actually should be expanding out into the market, expanding into the universe, making it easy for people to find us.

So we shouldn't be shrinking. So if you're worried, what you need to do is just curate what it is that you have out there. So those of you who listen to the podcast, you guys have a sense of whether I'm married or not. You guys have a sense of whether I had kids or not and how many kids. But my wife's name you'll find in public. You'll find my address in public. Yes. You know, I live in Abuja, What else? So the kind of stuff that you will find if you do this exercise on me is the kind of thing that I want you people to find and that I'm comfortable with other people finding my business name, my social media,

my YouTube, my phone number, my business interests, the kind of clients I serve, you know, all those sorts of things. So those are the kind of things that you need to make sure that you're putting out there. And that's one reason why, sorry, I'm not picking on women again. There's also one of the reasons why for women, I try and say, look, calm down on this whole authentic me something something and you're putting out content and you're talking about yourself authentically and challenges as a woman and talking about your family and talking about your kids and talking about your husband and all what not.

You know, The thing is with social media, these things, they live on the web and they live for a very long time and sometimes they take a life of their own. So like, in my own opinion, even for a man's self, you know, I always think like, like guy, calm down. You're, you're sharing too much. Like this whole thing is about business. And for me, I keep it strictly business. So yes, in the course of putting out content, you know, of course I'll talk about my family because I'm a human being, but I

don't put out names. I don't talk about quarrels that I have with my son. I don't talk about quarrels that I have with my wife. I don't mention her name. I don't mention her place of work, nothing. So when people search me, what they see is information that I'm comfortable being out there because look, for me, the whole point of all these things, I mean, people will say, yes, it's meant to connect the world and help us live our best life.

And look, in my own opinion, that's absolute bears. The reason why Zuckerberg and you know, the boys at Google and everybody, the reason why they hooked all these things up is not to unite the world so that they can make money so they can make ballet. In my own opinion, let's set this thing up and make some good money ourselves. After all, they're making money out of the data that we put out there. So only put out stuff that you would be comfortable with other people knowing.

And please don't put any private thing. So, you know, mum, preneur, mother of two, something, something living my best life, retired, my husband of 20 years married something like, I think that's too much, you know, but you know, life coach, life coach, serving entrepreneurs in so, so, so something, something helping them to achieve XYZ. You know, that kind of information. So when people search and see you, it's not husband, wife,

children, address, likes, dislikes. You should be who you are, the clients you serve, the products you have, the services you offer, you know, those sorts of things. So with that in mind, when we are now putting out content over on Instagram, over on Google, over on Facebook, over on TikTok, over on whatever, in my own opinion, we should be putting out audio, we should be putting out text, we should be putting out media or you know,

things that our potential customers will find valuable. Some of you are trying to be personable and you're trying too hard to be personable. Just relax, just put out a valuable content. In the purpose of putting out a valuable content, aspects of your personality will shine through. So don't deliberately try to mock up or put up, you know, throughout personal stuff out there. The personal thing will shine through. Like I'm making this podcast.

I would have to be a robot for personal things to not come out or personal opinions to not come out. So yeah, all when I'm good people trying to be authentic and everything, but just put out valuable cost content for your customers. Who do you serve? How do you help your customers? What are your services? What are your products? What is your UVP unique value proposition? Why do people do business with you? You know, all those sorts of things.

So let me see. OK, I think I made some notes after talking with her. Well, let me see, where are my notes? Where are my notes? OK, yeah. So having a look at some of the stuff that I found, not just her, because like I said, I do this for everybody. So if you've been reaching out to me to say, oh, love the show, love the podcast, you know, I've definitely done this before I called you. And and then, like I said, humanizes the phone number,

makes it easy to have a conversation with somebody because I already have an idea of who it is that I'm calling. And then that guards the conversation. So there's some of you that are putting up lots of personal stuff on your LinkedIn bio, your Instagram bio, your, this, your, this, your, that, your, that my own opinion, all that personal stuff, just, you know, remove it. People don't need to know that I'm a husband and I'm a father and let's see what else and all that kind of stuff.

It'll come out when I'm interacting with people. Whatever you need to know that. So when it comes to the bio, LinkedIn bio and all these bio, you know, bio, bio stuff, all the headers, so excuse me, just put stuff there about your business, put stuff there about the clients you serve. Then there's some of you that reach out to me and we're talking and stuff like that. I do this thing and I notice that your profile is private.

But like I said at the beginning of the show, please, let's get real here. You know how they say people do business to people that they know, they like and they trust. How can you be in business? You have the social media assets. You now come and put it on private. Private what the goal is to make sure that people can find us. It is only when people find us that they can know us, like us and trust us and then end up doing business with us.

So in my own opinion, you can have a private profile because like my wife has a private profile and is limited to just her and people that she knows, you know, So family people, you know, my brother, my sister-in-law, you know, family members, you know, that kind of thing. But she doesn't have a public profile. But then there are some people who have public and private profiles. Like let's say for instance, you're one of these people that you're here in Niger, but maybe all your siblings are abroad,

you know, that kind of thing. And you want people to be able to see pictures of the children, things like that at hand. So now on private profile, no problem. So that after birthday party, you put all the children's photos there. Grandparents can see it in the villa, brother can see it in America, sister can see it in Australia, you know, that kind of thing. But then you should have a business profile that is open that people can see so that if somebody Googles you, they can find the profiles and have access to the profiles and figure out who you are.

Because remember, like most people say nowadays, the name of the game is know, like and trust. So people guys know you before they can like you before they can trust you and then do business with you. So all this private profile thing. I'm not saying private profile is bad though. In fact, keep the private profile so you can be sharing stuff to family members, but there has to be a public business profile as well. Back when I was on Instagram, I

had three profiles because I was trying to test out a few things. One profile was the photography profile because even though I stopped I never took it down. Then another profile was to promote the podcast and then the third profile was I figured, let me try doing some voice acting. So I set up another profile for that. So you can see that you can have multiple profiles. I hear that for Instagram you can have as many as five, I

think, but I'm not sure. Don't quote me, but I know that for Misha, my own, I had three. So private profile, no problem. But please get a business profile because if I'm Googling you because I want to know who you are before I place a call through to you. Potential customers might also Google you as well. At least let them find something that gives them some information about who you are before we can now get to know like and trust.

Then let's see, let's see, let's see, let me see. OK. And then on somebody's LinkedIn, OK, there's somebody who reached out to me recently and the person has 0 connection. Yeah, zero connections on LinkedIn. So for those of you who have LinkedIn handles, I beg it doesn't look good when somebody does the social media thing and then your name comes up LinkedIn. And then on LinkedIn, it shows 0 connections, 0 followers. And I think it doesn't look good.

And somehow all those people that try to run scams on LinkedIn usually is people that have zero connections, 0 followers. So I don't know about for the rest of the world, but for Niger, it's not a good look when somebody tries and then they see that oh, OK, your name comes up Kunle at ABC and then they say AH0 connections, 0 followers. It's not a good look. So you should be sending out connections. Who are the kind of potential customers that you like to work with, be sending them connections, be sending them connection requests, friend invites, all those sorts of things.

What are professional buddies that you like to be associated with? You know, follow them on LinkedIn. Maybe you know some of the exco. Send them connection requests. Don't just set up some of these profiles and leave them empty. Let's see what else? What else? Sorry, I made a list of all these things. I'm running through it anyway. Let me just leave it on that. I don't want this to be a very long episode because after all,

my wife is watching that Bob Dylan movie. Let me just go and join her and then let's finish the movie. Oh, by the way, so far, excuse me, the movie looks like it's a good movie, but you might not like it if you don't like American folk, folk music. So it's tough about Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, who again, you know, all those, you know, people that you would consider Ancient of Days. When is good stuff. But online. The reason why I'm making today's episode is just to say that Samantha Abbey and other people who might try out this exercise and then you see that or more, there's plenty of information about me.

Like, I didn't know my husband's name is there. My wife's name is there. My children's name is there. My place of work is there. My address is there. My likes are there. My interests are there. My social and religious affiliations are there. If you're worried about all those sorts of things, then yeah. Excuse me. No problem. You can go ahead and delete some stuff, but the goal is not to shrink and disappear. We're trying to expand, we're trying to blow up, we're trying to go out because we are business people, so we should be putting out more stuff there.

Just pipe low on all that personal stuff. And please, my sisters, I'm begging you. Yes, being a woman in business is hard, but I don't think people really need to know that for your first five years in business you are quarrelling with your husband for 6 1/2 years and like just. You know, it's my opinion. I think it's unnecessary. You go and check some people and you know, that's the first thing that comes up. And anyway, just keep all that personal stuff out of it.

If you want to be relatable, you want to be personable, that's not a problem. As people that are interacting with you, everything will come out. If it is important to you that you have been a struggling female entrepreneur, female CEO, whatever, As you're relating on people one-on-one, you know the whole thing is going to come out. Except if you want that to be a deliberate part of your brand, you know, but keep stuff from private.

Then put out valuable content for your potential customers, for your potential partners, for your potential stakeholders, your potential investors, your potential XYZ. Continue to pump that content and be very, what's that word? Be very deliberate about the kind of content that you're putting out so that you have a curated online presence so that when people Google you, the thing that they will find is precisely the thing that you want them to find.

Like me. If you take up the challenge like ABA did, again, the phone number is 08064662140. If you take up the challenge true call on me, take the name, paste it in Google, you will only find stuff about me, my company name, my YouTube, my LinkedIn, my follower account, services that I services that Ioffer. Let's see what else. And it took some time. I was, now I've, I've now been finally able to bury the photography content because for a very long time, if people Googled me, the things that will come up first will be the photography thing.

It would say wedding photographer, this, this, this da da, da, da, da da. But of course, since I was making a transition, I didn't like that. So I was trying to bury the photography thing. So this whole thing of actually even putting out lots of podcast episodes was part of my deliberate strategy that if I've had a career of over 10 years, close to 15 years doing wedding photography and I'm switching to become a consultant, I guess bury that history online.

I have to cover it up with something. So part of my content play was making sure that when the algorithms and the Googles and you know, when the algorithms are scanning the Internet, the thing that will predominate would be my business consulting practice, not my past photography experience. So where was I? And so that's just a summary shot. If you find out that there's a lot out there, don't worry, don't be afraid. Curate what you're putting on out there from now on, but don't shrink.

Please expand. The goal is for people to know us. The goal is to blow up on the Internet so that people can find us. Let us leverage the Internet, the free exposure and the free publicity to be able to find new clients. Let's take advantage of these algorithms. It makes life a whole lot easier, trust me. My preference actually is to go to people's office, go and meet somebody, go and have a meeting. But I'm telling you that if you're able to get this Internet thing working, if you're able to get your algorithms working,

you're able to get your content flywheel working. It's a lot easier when once in a while somebody reaches out to you to say, bro, I heard this, I heard this, I heard this. You'd be like, say anything makes sense. How far can we do some work together? Are you available? How much? Those conversations are a lot more easy then the whole thing of you see somebody, you chase them down, you send proposal you, you respond to RFP, you know, things like that.

So the goal is to blow up over on the Internet. So if you check, don't be, don't be afraid, you know, keep putting up more, more content, curate everything. Please leave all that private stuff out of there, both men and women, and everything should be OK. So if you'd love to connect with me for a strategy session for a business audit or you want me to answer some questions, the number to call 08064662140, the country code is +234.

That's my WhatsApp number. Then connect with me on LinkedIn. That's the only social media I have. Even if you see all those other things on Google, I'm not there anymore. I've deactivated all those accounts. So on LinkedIn, that is Tavishima Aede. Then also have a YouTube channel the same name, Tavishima Aede. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys with the next recording. And again, I want to shout out Sandra Organs and Samantha Abbey and by extension, the rest of you who are listening, who are commenting, who are sharing,

particularly those of you who share. I don't see when you guys share because like somebody sent me a screenshot, maybe a screenshot, the person who screenshotted me or screenshotted me about how he was in another online community and that's when people are sharing my stuff. So for you guys who are doing that, I think it's absolutely fantastic that you guys are supporting me and putting out the love. I really appreciate you guys,

even though sometimes they're sharing it in places that I'm not a member of and that I can't see. I really appreciate you guys and I appreciate the encouragement and my prayer is that God will also raise people who also help promote your businesses too, and also help you to expand into the desires, into the dreams and the good life that you want for you and your families. So thank you very much for your time and attention.

I'll catch you guys at the next episode.