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Hello and welcome to the show. Today is another out and about recording. So let's just get straight into it. OK? This is your first time I'm listening to the show. There's a bit of a preamble. I'm dealing with a series of conversations that I had with this guy Daniel, who reached out to me on LinkedIn. So I'm not using his full name to protect his identity, but I'm using his real first name just so that Daniel, when you come across this episode, you remember that this was about,
you know, you and me when we started talking. Also, it might be a good way to share some insights, some tips and tricks for people who try to do the kind of business outreach that Daniel is doing because there are people who do it every day. I receive these messages, maybe a dozen a week. And also a good reminder for Daniel so that he doesn't fall into bad habits. So, yeah, when you're done listening to this episode, this is your first time listening to the show, Just get back, listen to one more episode, get a sense of who Daniel is, how he reached out to me, the advice that I
gave him around how to do outreach on LinkedIn, especially when you're trying to get free tips from people whose business content you admire or like. Well, OK. Well, if you listen to the episode, you'll see that to be honest, you know, he wasn't even familiar about my body of work and things like that. He was just shooting in shot. So there was lots of advice there about how you follow people, engage, build some familiarity, throw in some flattery, offer something of value before you.
Now start going for the kill to try and get your free advice. So after listening to today's episode, yes, get back to the other one. If this is your first time listening, then you get caught up to speed. All right, now, the main thrust of why Daniel was reaching out was because he wanted to build a portfolio without experience. He did some online certifications recently around e-mail marketing, so he has the theoretical knowledge about how you go about helping businesses make money through e-mail marketing campaigns.
Now what he wanted to do, why he reached out to me, was he wanted to build a portfolio on Fiverr and Upwork and he wanted to do this without experience. And for those of you who listened yesterday, you remember that I told him to consider why they give economy, why Fiver, why Upwork, Why is it share shareware can't? Well, there's one of these ones based in Lagos, I think Lagos or Osho, one of these sites where you can go and put up your portfolio and say that, you know, you're good at copywriting, e-mail marketing,
whatever, whatever, all these sorts of things and then you get jobs through there. So I wanted him to have a frank. I wanted us to have a frank conversation about why looking at the gig economy and whether there are more proactive options that would be best suited to try and building a career in this space. Oh, by the way, sorry about my heavy breathing today because I am, I don't know, this one doesn't feel like a sore throat because my throat is fine, but maybe I'm, I'm have to go to the hospital.
Maybe I think it might be one of those upper respiratory tract infections or something. Yeah. So it's affecting my breathing. So just bear with me Tomorrow, hopefully I should be back to being 100%. OK, so on the question of whether you can build a portfolio without experience, I had to be upfront and tell him that, look, dude, you cannot build a portfolio without experience because the whole point of a portfolio, strictly speaking, is to say here is what I have done.
So there is no such thing as portfolio without experience. So for those of you who are listening to yesterday's episode and you are salivating, you are jumping at the bits, you are thinking, ah, correct. This guy's going to tell us how we can finally build a portfolio even though we have no experience. That's your answer. It can't happen. It's not done. It does not exist. There is no such thing as portfolio without experience.
Not possible. Ain't gonna happen, not going to work. Don't even try to deceive anybody around this. You'll come across as a fraud, so don't even bother trying. So your portfolio is an expression of what you have done. The only solution if you do not have a portfolio is to actually go out and do something. Oh, by the way, sorry about that. Like I said, out and about, you know, the wind looks like the rain is about to fall.
OK, let me see if I can wrap this up quickly and get out of here before I get wrapped. Where was I? Yes, so I was saying the solution is to actually go out and do something. If you do not have a portfolio, the easiest ways to do something is either to do something for free because people love free. So if you say let me go and do this for you in exchange, can I use it as part of My Portfolio? There are lots of people that will jump at that chance if you do it for free.
But remember, I have the conversation with them upfront. Now, look, I'm new, I'm starting off this thing. I'm trying to build a portfolio. I want to do this kind of work for you. This is the kind of results that I can guarantee. This is the kind of results that I hope we're going to get in exchange. I want you to write me a testimonial. I want you to do this for me. I want you to do that for me. And I also want, I want this thing to be part of My Portfolio.
So are we good? You have to have that conversation because there's some photographers, people who try to get to the wedding photography game. I don't know about now anyway, because back then when I was doing it over a decade ago, these are some of the things that we used to get into the industry. So you would do something for someone for free and then you put it up on Instagram. Then the person will start to rake. Like what kind of rubbish is this?
You put my face there, you put my daughter's face, my wife's face, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you get to start having the argument. No, it's not that the person is being a Jackass. It's just that you didn't have that conversation. You didn't tell them that. Look, Bros, I'm covering this birthday party for you and I'm doing it for free. But to be honest, yeah, I'm trying to build My Portfolio. So these photos that I'm taking,
they will go up on Instagram. Are you cool with that? You need to have that conversation. Then the person will say Instagram care. No, I beg. I don't put my social life. I don't put my real life on social media. So if it's like that, just be going. And if the person says just be going, then please go and move on to someone else who is OK with the arrangement. So to build a portfolio, do something for free. Well, let the person know I'm making this part of My Portfolio and I want you to give me a testimonial and be specific.
Tell the person this thing will go up on Instagram. This thing will go up on my website. This thing will go will go into My Portfolio book when I'm showing potential clients, you know, I'm blah, blah, blah. So be explicit, have that conversation. That's one of the easiest way to do something. Now. Now, some of you who are going to disagree with me strongly, especially people from the artistic space who will say that you should never do anything for free.
That is the topic for another podcast episode. We'll have that conversation. So if you're one of those folks who feels strongly about these sorts of things, you know, matter of fact, it would help this way. I always give up my contact details after the show. So if you're someone who feels strongly about these sorts of things, then connect with me on WhatsApp, connect with me on LinkedIn, shoot me a message and say, look, Tavis Shima, this advice you're giving, here's the reason why it's a bad idea.
123456. Then I can now make a podcast episode responding to 123456 and I think we'll be able to have a more fruitful conversation that way. So option one, do something for free and let them know it's going to be part of My Portfolio. It's going to be part of my testimonial. This is how I'm going to use it. I'm going to print it on this place. I'm going to put it on my billboard. I'm going to use it on my Instagram. Let the person know.
So another way of doing something so you can build up your portfolio is to do it for a small fee because people also don't mind cheap or affordable and you have that conversation with them as well. This is me. I have the chops when it comes to photography. I have the chops when it comes to online advertising. I have the chops when it comes to e-mail marketing, blah, blah, blah. I'm about to get into business. I would like to do some work for your firm.
We're only going to do it for two weeks or three weeks. We're going to craft this campaign at the end of the period, hopefully we're going to be able to get these and these and these results. In exchange, I want to be able to use the results that you get to form part of My Portfolio. I want to talk about it as a case study on my website, on my, you know, whatever, you guys get the whole point. But apart from that, I want you guys to do me a small favour.
I don't want to show up for work every day and at least not have some in my pocket. So can we agree that I'm going to do all this work, me coming in here at the office, at least cover my transportation costs and a little something so I can have, I can eat bowling in the afternoon, you know, and snacks or something like that. Have that conversation upfront so that they know that you're coming in to the office, you're going to be there for three weeks.
This is how much is your cost of transportation. This is how much that is you expect for lunch every day or something. And it's a nice little marriage that's going to last for a while. At the end of it, hopefully you would have given them the results and you have all the collateral that you need to form part of your portfolio. So I told him that really this is just the quickest way to build your portfolio because for the business owner, for the person that you're going to work with, the advantages, the benefits that they're going to face are obvious because, well,
First off, they're not going to end up spending too much money. And if you do a good job, you're going to guarantee some results. If you do a poor job and you don't get any results, then really speaking the person has technically speaking, the person has not lost anything, especially if you do the free option. So that's why this is a good idea, this whole risk free option thing. So I told him if you're reaching out to five people every day for a week, you know, last last two weeks, you would have found a couple of people, two or three to take you up on your offer.
I also told him that you don't have to do this thing forever. It is just a temporary, like I need a portfolio sharp, sharp kind of move. So I told him about my own experience getting into wedding photography. I shot 8 weddings either for free or for a small fee, 8 including my brothers, then OK my brother and then one of my classmates in Scotland. So yeah, so that's how I got my first eight weddings. I now use the 8 weddings to develop a portfolio and My Portfolio was a physical book back then.
People are running around with iPads. iPads were really cool back then. You know, I notice now people don't carry tablets anymore. But but back then anybody who was everybody, you know, had an iPad. So everybody was doing the whole iPad thing. But I wanted My Portfolio to feel weighty, let me put it that way. So mine was an actual printed book. So what I did was I took the 8 weddings and I chopped it up. When you take one wedding, you can chop it up into different segments.
There's the getting ready segments. That is one. There's the portrait segment, that's another. Then there's a reception. You can break reception down into maybe couples dance, dancing in things like that. Let's see what else? What else, what else, what else, what else? But you get the sense you can take one wedding and chop it up into different segments. Now what I did for my 8 weddings was that I chopped them up into three sections.
Now 3 * 8, of course it's 24. So of course, by the time I was on My Portfolio, My Portfolio seemed weighty. It had some weight, it gave me some gravitas. You know, I was cheating in a way. If anybody sat down and actually counted the weddings and looked at the faces, you would have told her, hey, this is just the same 8 couples over over and over and over again. But most people would take it. You flip through, say, oh, nice,
you flip to the portrait section if that's your thing, you flip to the details section and you'll be like, oh, OK, this guy knows what he's talking about. Then we'll start talking about money. So for me, that's how it worked. So I told him you're not going to do this thing in perpetuity. You give yourself a time frame because you know what it is you're trying to build. So for me it was very simple. Why eight? I have no idea.
I just decided I was going to do 8 couples. So I don't know. You might decide 10, you might decide 15 or you might decide two, you know, so it's up to you. I just decided 8 arbitrary and I chopped it up 8 * 324, printed everything together. I had a lovely book. It was 50 pages and that's what I used to sell myself like, hey, this is me, I'm in the game, this is what I've done. See my skills, you know, So isn't a matter of talk, talk,
talk, talk, talk 'cause you could see these are the couple portraits, these are the detailed shots, these are the tried weddings, this is the getting ready photos, you know everything. So that's the scope. So that's the conversation that I had with Daniel. Now, the second part of the conversation was the gig economy. Why the gig economy? Because there are people who reach out to me and this fascination with five hour Upwork.
Now, five hour Upwork, they are not bad. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad. I'm not against it. I'm just saying that if you want to take advantage of the gig economy, you're putting yourself at the mercy of the algorithm. The problem with the algorithm is it takes a while for you and the algorithm to become five and six for you guys to become best friends and then the algorithm serves you up. Now the example that I gave to Daniel was this.
If you're going to be a, a taxi driver, a Cabo Cabo and you decide to load up on Uber and all these other platforms, then you know, the platforms where when somebody's looking for a ride, they show who is closest. And I think they prioritize those who have higher ratings and you know, things like that. So you just had the mercy of a bunch of other things that we're talking about algorithms. And sometimes it's maybe not the best way to start because Fiverr and Upwork, let's face it,
Fiverr and Upwork, they're going to want to show people who have been on the platform the longest, people who have a higher satisfaction rating. What else have confirmed delivery be deliveries and stuff like that. You're starting off from the beginning. You're definitely not going to be on page one and you're definitely not going to be the featured copyright of the week or any of that stuff. So I told him, if you're going to do this whole 5 hour Upwork thing, sure, no problem.
But then go and do some research and figure out how to optimize your profile, whatever the tips and tricks are, and then take dressing, do it accordingly. So if you figure out that this is how you ought to optimize your profile on Fiverr or on Upwork, I told him ChatGPT is your friend. ChatGPT is free for those of you who are Android users. Gemini, it's, you know, it's basic, you just get your phone, you start using it because you have a Google account automatically, You already have a Gemini account, you have access to it.
So go ahead, use Gemini, take advantage of these resources, optimize your profiles. So I told him, if you must do it, then sure, do that. But Mio, my advice, don't put yourself at the mercy of the algorithm. Not all the time, at least not on this early stage. So I told him, let's be proactive and not put ourselves at the mercy of algorithms forever. And Upwork, cool, optimize your profile, go ahead. But while you're doing that, you need to do some proactive outreach.
So just as you reached out to me on LinkedIn, pick your social media of choice and reach out to other business owners as well. Google online business directory. And he did well. We're having a call and a couple came up. The good thing about online business directories for those of you who are trying to sell services to businesses is any online business directory that you find, you know, just type in businesses in Lagos near me or something like that, you see a directory.
The beauty of the directory is that the name of the business owner will be there, the website will be there, the phone number will be there, the address will be there. Don't ask me how all online directories, how they get the information, I have absolutely no idea. I think it's something called, is it scraping or something? They take bots and they scrape the Internet. Sorry, forgive me, but they have lots of information.
I mean, the first time I found my details on an online business directly, I was, I was shocked. Back then I was a wedding photographer. You know, the address that I put was there, the phone number was there, the website was there, the Instagram was there. I was like, I didn't submit my name to anything. How did they find me? So anyway, just to say that online business directories, they work. So social media of your choice pick reach out to business owners online business directory businesses in Lagos near me,
businesses in Abuja near me, online business directory national state, wherever your location is, just that's what you Google and or you just go on Google and type local businesses near me. OK, No, now I've covered that. OK, yes. And then I also told him that you can also do leg work. Leg work also works. You come outside your house, most definitely there's a business not far from you. So you look left in your estate,
you look right, you see some businesses, you see somebody that's running a cyber cafe, maybe another person who is running a laundromat, another person who does photography, another person who maybe sells bread, What else? But I'm just saying, if you come out of your house, you look left, you look right, There are options. They're businesses, so you can also talk to people as well. So those are the options for being proactive.
Take your social media of choice for those of us who like to play around on LinkedIn, start using LinkedIn. For those of you who spend most of your time on on Instagram, start chasing people on Instagram. The reason why I say social media of your choice is because if you start using the social media app that you're not familiar with, you won't actually do the work. You'll be like, man, this is stress and you will stop.
So this whole thing of which is the best social media, something, something, something, don't get involved in all those arguments. Just start with the one that you're using first. So if you start with LinkedIn, you're getting results on LinkedIn and you're encouraged with what's happening on LinkedIn. That's why we give you the ginger to say, OK, now let me try Facebook or let me try Instagram. So start off with what you're familiar with.
So I told him you are going to, for him, he likes to play on Instagram, if I remember correctly. So for him, I told him like, you're going to look up different profiles on Instagram and then you try and hit business owners up in the DM. But before you do that, you have to craft a compelling message that summarizes all these things that we've talked about so far. Like, hey, this is me. I've had a look at your business.
I have certain skills that I think can double your profits, you know, whatever do so and so results. I'd like to offer my services for free or for a fee in exchange or like a testimonial. And I want to be able to use the results for my marketing collateral. And yeah, so that's it. That was the gist, basically. But I told him that, look, all these things we're talking about, take all these things, use it to create a prompt, throw that prompt into ChatGPT, that ChatGPT will arrange all these things we're talking about in a much more.
Readable in a much more what's the word cha cha GBT will package it much better because if you've been paying attention so far, you know, I've used a lot of words and if you're going to type it as I've been saying it, that would be 1 lengthy e-mail and especially since he's into e-mail marketing, he said that he wanted this thing to be between 50 and 125 words. Why? I have no idea. You know, I'm not a, I'm not a, the, what's it called e-mail marketing professional, but I'm sure you know, they have their reasons why they want mails,
e-mail outreach to be that specific length. So that's what we did. That's what he did. Rather, I gave him the assignment. And so he did that, wrote out what I said, threw it into Charge GBT, told Charge GBT to craft an outreach e-mail that will serve as a good template limit with no more than 50 to 125 words. And he's passed something out. And I must admit, I looked at it and I was like, hey, correct, Not bad. The e-mail thing was not bad.
But of course, I told him, tweak here, tweak here, tweak there, put your name here. We're good to go. Where tomorrow start reaching out five people before 2 weeks. Definitely you'll find some, find some takers. So that was it. And that's the same sort of thing I'd recommend to you guys. And remember, for proactive outreach, 3 places I'd recommend for you to start. Pick the social media you like the best. If you like Facebook the best,
start with Facebook. Google online business directory. Once you do it, know how, know how you see a list of at least 20-30 businesses there? If you're messaging them 55 every day, the 30 businesses there, that's enough for you to tackle in week 1. Let's not worry about Week 2 for now. Let's just do what we can in Week 1 then what else? OK, Come out of your house, look left, look right and start talking to the local businesses that are near you.
That's also an option. So those are the conversations that we had that I had with Daniel updates. So far he hasn't gotten anyone really. It's only been two or three days, but the response has been good. That is the most important thing. So long as you seem to be getting traction on your activities, that is fine. Continue. Use the traction as motivation to continue. Don't worry about the results. Results come eventually.
We're not in charge of the results. We can't guarantee any results. All we can guarantee is the level of activity and the quality of activity that we're going to put in. So long as we're getting engagement, it means we're on the right track. If we're not getting the kind of results that we would like, it just means that there's stuff in the process that we need to tweak, that we need to optimise and then the results will come.
But just start. If you're getting traction, it's good, you're on the right path. The market is showing that there's room there, that people are digging this thing that you're putting out. So if and when he succeeds, I'll be sure to let you guys know, and I'll be sure to let you guys know how Daniel is doing. But in the meantime, if you are like Daniel, you're trying to get advice from people for free over on social media, listen to the previous episode and learn how to go about it.
Because some of you, the way you start this conversation is like you just end up insulting us all, people running around looking for free advice. So listen to previous episode. You know how to suck up to people online so you can get free advice out of them. Then the whole thing of building a portfolio without experience. Daniel is not the first person I've seen who wants to do that. And I know he will not be the last person I'm going to come across who thinks you can build a portfolio without experience that you can build.
In fact, I don't, I don't even know where this idea comes from or where the expression itself comes from. So those of you people especially, I know this seems to be young men. I haven't come across any woman who wants to build a portfolio without experience. So young men, please bear with your thought. There's also a thing as portfolio without experience and fake it till you make it and all that crap. If you want to be able to flash something to say this is me,
this is what I'm capable of this, you know, then go out and actually do something. Another benefit of actually going out and do something is that it instills you with confidence because I told Daniel if you go and talk to anybody now and say I want to do e-mail marketing campaign for you blah blah blah blah blah. You pay me 600. Ki told him. Your mouth will be shaking because you have not done anything before that is worth 600K.
Like the way you call the 600K, the person will hear it and know that this guy has never tasted 600K before. And the person will feel it and the person will know and the person will just free you. Like this boy is trying is, is talking faster than his mouth. He's trying to run faster than his shadow. The thing about actually going and doing something else is to give you confidence. Like for me, there's some people that I talked to and I say, oh,
OK, yeah, it's going to be this amount. I can see the amount confidently because I know what I've done and I know what I'm capable of. So this whole thing of do something first, it's not just an ethical something, it's a very practical something like it will give you the confidence to say what it is that you want to say. Like I told Daniel, my first wedding there sure was 50K. When I called that 50 Ki was stammering as I said 50K.
But The thing is, by the time I was done with the wedding and I saw what I did and I realized that I charged these people 50K, but I spent 47 K to execute the whole wedding. And you heard me correctly. I charged them 50K. It cost me 47 K to run the whole thing. So in other words, the thing I entered into my pocket was three Ki thought OK, no, no, no, no. This thing, you know, makes sense. But I also saw the quality of work that I was capable of,
capable of doing. So with the next person, when I said 150 Ki was able to say 150K with my full chest because I saw what I did with 50 Ki, saw how 50K is unrealistic and not worth the stress. And this was not, I mean, I had My Portfolio of eight weddings and then I had this wedding that I did for 50K. Like those, I had some confidence about me. So anyway, 30 minutes, let me just round it up. Young men especially, please take note of all the things that I'm saying, please.
Young men especially, we found out that women don't seem to be affected with this plague of portfolio without experience and fake it to you make it and all of that anyway. So connect with me on LinkedIn. If you disagree with anything that I've said so far, I'd love to hear your opinions. My name is Tavish Shima Ayede, I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're listening to this episode.
Then also reach out to me, connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 080, 64662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. So we're done with Daniel. I think next thing will be I'll upload the material that I created for Nigerian LMSS that is learning management systems. The idea behind the learning management system is something like Udemy.
That's for those of you who use LinkedIn a lot. So you go to Udemy, you create your account. If it's a paid service, you pay, but then we'll give you access to loads of courses, courses on all kinds of things, leadership, sales, development, marketing, software design, I mean, all, all kinds of things are there. The only course I haven't seen on and LMS is Yoruba economics or agriculture economics or something. I haven't seen any of those types of courses there.
More other courses, they're there. And LMS Learning Management system is also a great way for personal development and skill acquisition. So you guys should think about that as well. I don't have an LMS. Eventually I will set one up. Maybe in another 20 years or so when I'm getting ready to retire, I'll set up an LMS. Yeah. So I'll catch you guys at the next recording. And most likely it'll be a recording that is obviously taking from a larger course that I uploaded onto an LMS.
So if you hear me like I'm talking to a classroom or something, it's because I actually am. So yeah, that's it. So you guys have fun and I'll be back with you soon.