Pitch Perfect, Persona Polished: Selling in the Digital Age

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I solve sales and marketing challenges. And I'm making today's recording from my living room. So expect to hear interruptions in the background, especially since the neighborhood kids are running, you know, all over the place. So you know, noise from both ends. Now, the goal of this podcast is not to tell you about my neighbour's kids. We're actually here to talk about business education.

So please spread the word so that friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of their choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, by the time you're done, you can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the podcast, we're going to look at listener questions and it's a couple of questions from Dave, who is a podcast listener.

He reached out to me on WhatsApp, I think on WhatsApp 1st, and he sent me a couple of questions and I promised I'd get back to him and I haven't gotten back to him. We tried talking and we didn't end up talking. So I told him, you know what, I'll just make a podcast recording and once it's up, listen, if there's anything I didn't address, send me a follow up question. If there's anything that I misunderstood, send me a follow up question.

So this is going to be me trying to answer Dave's questions best I can. But Dave Novaks, I just wrote out the questions and I wanted to restart on the answers. So it's not like I sat down and give this the fullest deliberate role. I say anyhow, sure, let me just go on and answer the questions. So let's see, OK, So I remember now, so a lot of the questions were around how to send direct messages, how to do sales pitches and let's see, OK.

And then previously on social media and on the Internet. So again, the questions that we're going to tackle around how to handle DMS, that is direct messaging, how to do e-mail prospecting as you're trying to draw more business by sending people e-mail. So basically just sliding into people's inboxes. Then how to make a pitch when you don't know anything about the person that you're talking to. Because of course, that's a situation that a whole lot of us find ourselves in because initially when we're doing business, you know, we're going to reach out to friends, family members and associates.

But we didn't like carrying like four or five months. We've spoken to everybody. We've spoken to all our cousins, our brother, our sister, current girlfriends, side piece, ex girlfriends, current boyfriends, Magas, Mugus, uncles, aunties, daddy, mommy, stepmother, stepfather. As we've talking, we've spoken to everybody. And so eventually we get to that point where we now have to start talking with strangers and, you know, we guess to that point where, OK, I want to go and see Chief so, so and so or I want to send an e-mail to this person or I want to send Adm to this person, but I don't know she she about this person.

So we all we all get to that point then previously on social media, all of us have some kind of accounts. We're all putting our content every day, but we do not realize that we're building up a treasure trove of information about ourselves. And so Dave is one of those people who listen to the podcast episode where I was talking about how I use Truecaller and Google to do research on somebody before I slide into their DM or before I pick up the phone and give them a call.

So he's one of those people if another person told me before Dave. So there's some of you who are just realizing. So he did a small search, you know, Truecaller, Google, and then he saw the amount of information on himself. And, you know, Dave shout, he said, Chai, now I see me, only me. So all the information that is out there. And so of course, he's worried there are more. There's too much information about me on the Internet.

You know, what will I do? So that one is normal because how will I put it? You know, this Internet thing is relatively new. So a bunch of us have been living on the Internet without thinking about identity protection, you know, identity protection, safety, you know, things like that as we're just leaving Shah and we don't realize all the things are cropping up. So we'll tackle some of that anyway. So that's just basically somewhere of all the things that we're going to do.

So now Dave had the question, yes. By the way, I'm not putting Dave's surname to protect his privacy, but I'm mentioning Dave so that you know Dave for those days that I've chatted with, if you're the one that I promised, you know, like 3 or 4 days ago that I was going to do this, then this is you. And then of course, you will know from the kind of questions that we answer that it's, it's you. That's why I'm not using the surname.

So first of all, how to send DMS. So he listened to an episode that I made around DMS and then his question was, does all this apply when it comes to emails? And the answer is yes, maybe I didn't say it on that episode and it's something I should say time and time again. But really, whenever you hear me, not just me or any other person talking about all these messaging things, you will find that in principle, whatever the person is saying applies to e-mail, to DM, to WhatsApp, to whatever, So long as it's business outreach, you'll find that in principle, it all applies.

The contexts, you know. Will you tweak it differently? But in principle it all applies. And I can't remember correctly, but the principles I've been talking about when it comes to reaching out to people sliding in through their DMS, number one is targeting and relevance. Targeting just means, How do I put it? Am I focused on the right person? Is this person my ideal customer? Does this person have a problem that my product or my service can fulfill?

Is there some resonance there? Have I done some research ahead of time to be sure that there's some relevance? So targeting and relevance is basic. That one is foundational because there are people who keep sending messages and they say Good afternoon Ma. I mean, from Good afternoon Ma, you've lost me. I'm not a woman. So at Good Afternoon Ma, you have lost me. Now, of course, somebody like me, because I'm interested in sales and marketing and different kinds of marketing communications, I will open it because I'm trying to see what is the latest trend, how people send the messages, what is the thing that is going around now.

But the average person, once they say Good Afternoon Ma, all the men who receive that message will delete. Now people who are fierce like my wife or my mother-in-law, when they receive that message and they say good afternoon, Sir, or they say good afternoon Sir, Slash Mark or to whom it may concern, they will just select unblock. So targeting and relevance is foundational, whether it's Instagram DM or WhatsApp or whatever.

See, you have to at least form that you know who this thing is going to pretend. Make some small effort. Is this person a man or a woman? Get their name right. I mean, just all these simple, simple things targeting on point or segmenting. Because even though I keep talking about it, there are some of you who still want to wake up and send one message to 500 people and then say you've done work. OK, no problem. If you must send 500 messages, I

will argue with you again, but at least do proper segmenting. You have to arrange your broadcast list in such a way that that good afternoon Sir will only show up in men's inbox and then good afternoon Ma will only show up in females inbox. And please stop this. You know, good afternoon, Sir Slash Ma. As we've gone beyond that, that's what people used to do in the 80s and you know, was accepted business practice. You know, dear Sir Slash Ma Slash, to whom we may concern,

you know that time has passed. So stop trying to do what used to work in the 1980s. Stop trying to do that in 2025. That time has passed. So for those of you who insist you still want to be sending out hundreds and hundreds of messages, then OK, what you should be doing is segmenting. But the spirit behind what we're saying is this target your messages properly. Let it be relevant and let it speak to who it is getting to.

So there's some work there. I'll leave you guys to flesh out the particulars on your own because no matter how much I say make sure that the message is tailored, there's still those of you who would like to send broadcast messages. If you're broadcasting, make sure it is targeted. If you're going to do some form of tailoring, all you need to do is copy paste and then edit. I know it sounds like work, but it saves time.

Copy paste edit deletes name, put the new person's name. Make sure you now put something personal in the first paragraph. The rest of the message will still remain essentially the same. The call to action will still remain the same. Yes, it looks like it's work. But if you have a Bluetooth keyboard and you're doing copy paste edit, you probably can send, you know, 15, you know maybe like 1015 messages in a in a minute.

I know it looks like it's work, but anyway, let me stop. So yes, targeting relevance, yes, that applies. So whether is Instagram, whether is DM, whether is e-mail, that applies. Now brevity, brevity just means keep it short. Keep it short. That definitely applies to e-mail because most people are reading their emails on the fly and reading their emails on the phone. So as a default, if people have to be flicking through your messaging, they are not going to read it.

You want the thing to show up one time. If there's going to be a scroll, I'm begging you, let it be 1 flick. By the time you enter into two or three flicks, you know there are studies based on these things. The longer it is, the less people are opening are reading it. And for the people that read, the less of them are understanding what it is. And I getting the point. So for people to open it, keep it short for people to understand it, keep it short.

If you can let it just be one time. As in once you click on open, everything is just on the phone screen like that. You there must be a flick. Let it just be 1 flick, 2-3 flicks. Your, your metrics are beginning to go down. So the goal is not, did I send the e-mail to 1,000,000 people? The goal is of the million people who received it, how many of them opened? Of the min, Of the number that opened, how many of them read?

Of those that read, how many understood? Of those that understood, how many took action? That is the goal. So if you send a million emails and only 100 people read it and only 20 understood and only five took action, I'm afraid your campaign is 0, it is fail. But if you send only 10 emails, 8 of them opened, seven of them read and understood and then five of them took action, that is considered the pass. Some of you will say and what's the difference at the end of the day is only 5 people that took action?

No, it's about the conversions. How many people took the next step? Because this is the theory in the first case, the person who sent a million and only got 5, if you give that person access to everybody on Earth, 8 billion people, the person is still not going to do good with that. But the person who sent it to 10 and ended up with five, in theory, if you give that person access to a wider database, the person is going to end up getting more money from it because they have more conversions.

All right, so let me move on. Brevity, keep it short is the same for e-mail. Then I also talk about how you should confirm whether people are interested or confirm if your unique selling proposition or your unique value proposition matches what it is matches their need. One example that I've given in the past is OK from my wedding photography days. I've told you guys about how it doesn't make sense. I can't keep peppering a babe with messages about wedding photography if Habbo has not proposed.

I'm just wasting time. Habbo has not proposed yet and she has not forced him to propose. Why am I peppering her with messages? If they have proposed but the family hasn't met and there's no time for a wedding date yet? Well, OK, I can be sending messages. But no, it's still arguable because the wedding train is not moving yet. So at some point, your messages have to be brief enough and you have to get to the point where you ask the person you know, are you interested in this?

Are you interested in wedding photography? Or research shows that X percent of people in this industry? OK, let me see. OK, Not Dave. I was talking to another Dave. And this Dave, what he does is websites. And Dave was worried about his e-mail outreach. And, you know, I told him at some point you have to get straight to the point. You have to ask them, first of all, do some basic research because some people already have websites.

So for the people who don't have websites, at some point you have to ask them and say, OK, most people who have websites, they do it because, sorry, I can't remember. What did we say? Again, most people OK, visibility. He has visibility. And then what? Again, closing deals. OK, that's what we came up with, visibility and then closing deals that you can use websites to help you close deals. So at some point you have to ask the person, you know, most people in your line of business who have websites, they do it because they want more visibility or they want to be able to close more deals.

Is this something that you're interested in? Bam, put it out. You know what your own unique value proposition is or your own unique selling proposition is. Put it out there and see if they're interested. Get straight to the point, keep it brief. The people that will ignore you, let them ignore. The people that do respond, you can see that you are engaging them in the conversation and moving somebody on to the next step.

So this works for e-mail too. At some point you have to put it out there. This is what I do. Are you facing this problem? Are you interested? I know it seems scary, but you sit down, listen to some material like mine or other people out there. You can take a few days, 2-3 days. You can come up with a framework and then you start testing it. You take Monday, you send it to like 10 people and see what happens. You know, maybe Wednesday, send it to another 10, see what happens.

You know, small, small, small. But the perfect script is not created in one day. It takes time, it takes iterations. And the good news is we have time. There are 52 weeks in a year. If you use five weeks to get your scripts in order, it's not a problem. That means you now have 47 weeks to actually use the script to get some work done. So it's not a rush, you know, countdown, let's get this thing. You know, what do Chinese people say?

They say measure 5 times and then strike once instead of cutting five times and you've now messed up the whole job. So relax. We'll measure, we'll plan. We will, you know, and then we'll get decisive. We'll take action. Then let's see what else. I also talk about seeking advancements. When you're sending DMS, advancements just means moving a deal to the next logical step or the next realistic step. The opposite of advancements is continuations, and that is where a lot of business people in Niger, that's where we end up,

continuations. Continuations is when you and the other person, you guys are having wonderful conversations, you're flowing, you're friendly, but The thing is you, as in you would not decide the next step. You call the person you G's the Big Brother, everything in tenable economy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, my guy, I'll call you later, but you would not decide on anything. You didn't decide on what the guy is going to do to move the deal forward.

You didn't decide on what you are going to do to move the deal forward. You just called and had a wonderful 7 minute conversation. You now say you're doing relationship building or you're bonding on your networking. As in networking how it's a continuation. You're wasting your time because every single time you call this guy or you call this babe, you will decide on nothing. You have wonderful gist, but you decide on nothing.

Even worst, if you guys meet up in the flesh and then you have ECA will pepper soup and then stout and everything, you're just wasting your money. You think you're making progress. You are not making progress because you're not trying to gain advancements. At some point you have to say OK, oh bro, OK, as per we've discussed this, we've discussed we've got this. OK, So in my own opinion now I think the next step is we have to move here.

You know, Bros how you see them. Your bro says no, relax, you're running too fast. You now know that, OK, there's stuff you need to revisit in the conversations, but at least now you know that there's some hintrance you have to deal with. And if boss or the customer, the babe says, yeah, sure, no problem. I think it's time for us to move to that step. Very good. You've now made an advancement. You've moved the thing forward.

And lots of you are sending emails or sending DMS without putting, without trying to get an advancement, without putting any CTASCTAS call to action. There has to be some form of advancement. If you're interested, click here. Now that we are done with this, the next step is we need to book a meeting for whatever, whatever, whatever, book here for the meeting or the next step is we have to have an in in person consultation.

Does when? Wednesday next week does Wednesday next week 8:00 AM. Does that work for you? We have to be seeking advancement. Small, small, small. They should always be a call to action. If you send a message, you don't put call to action. You're not trying to seek advancement. The person will read, I'm like, oh, OK, I'll get to this later. And then things happen. Things happen. They will say, I'll get to it later. And then the guy's wife will come and say, oh, babe, have you seen this thing on Netflix?

And then he'll put his phone down and before you know it, you know his Netflix and chill. And then tomorrow, 50 other emails who enter into the inbox. Your own message is now buried down there. You will say the guy is ghosting you. No, he's not really ghosting you. There was no CTA. He wasn't quite sure what to do. He read the message, he kind of understood. But then life just happened. So there should be a call to action there.

So bro, I think the next step is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What do you think? Question mark or he put a call to action so that he's supposed to do something else. If you're not sure about what the next step is, your e-mail can be OK. We have achieved this disease. Is this in your own opinion, what do you think is the next step that we ought to do? Question mark, leave it. There's something that is hanging that this person has to get back to.

So for DMS, for emails, for WhatsApp messages, please always be seeking advancements, always be using call to action. In fact, as a general rule, I tell my clients that all your emails must end in question mark. I don't care how you're going to do it. The e-mail must end in a question mark so that there's something to reply, there's something to do, there's something shot that has not been that we have to get to. That's just my general rule.

All your emails must end in question mark. All your WhatsApp must end in question mark. This has to be back and forth. We have to be having a conversation. All right. I think I have overflowed that and let me see what else. OK, So yes, so all these principles that I've spoken about so far for direct messages, it applies to e-mail targeting and relevance has to be on point. We need to know who we're sending this thing to.

There has to be some sort of relevance. There has to be a match, some some of match here. If you don't want to do too much work, then at least do segmenting. The one that is supposed to go to men, let it go to men. The one that is supposed to go to women, let it go to women. Now stop this thing of you craft a message, you send it to 3000 people on your phone or you send it to 5000 people in your e-mail inbox. And then you say, dear slash slash ma, you know, stop it.

This is not 1980 anymore. Stop it. All right, and then plus now we actually have the technology to figure out whether it is a SAR or it is a MA that we are sending this thing to. So let's see what else? OK, now the question. Now the question you asked me is how do you pitch when you don't know who you're talking to? Now this is the answer. You guys listen up. Let me tell you the secret. This is how you pitch when you don't know who you're talking to.

Are you guys ready? OK, cool. This is the answer. You can't do it. That's a simple answer. You can't make a pitch when you don't know who the hell you're talking to. Just being frank with you, it's like in normal relationship, boy girl relationship, if I don't have some kind of semblance about who the babies, I don't know how the hell I'm going to start toasting her. Or you're a babe, you're liking a guy you don't have a clue about what kind of guy is.

You don't know how you're going to have to start you. You don't know how you start sliding into this situation. There's some guys that like the babe to be direct for that one. If you're playing koi and you're being a Mary Amaka, you've lost the plot. There are some guys who like Mary Amaka for that person. If you try to be too direct, you've lost the plot. It's the same thing with the guys. There are some babes who don't care about roses.

Like what are you buying me flower for? Flower will die and every week you're signing how flowers you've lost the plot. There's some babes who prefer speak your mind. If you're hanging out with that kind of babe and you're doing let's be friends, Let's be friends. You're losing the plot. It's the same thing in business. If I have no sense, OK, let's look at fundraising since I've been getting lots of questions about raising funds.

If I don't know anything about chief so so, so and so like, how am I supposed to start the conversation, introduce my brilliant idea that I want to raise funds for or something when I don't know the kind of person he is, his investment philosophy, the things that he likes, whether he even drops money for other people's businesses. I have to do some kind of research to find out something. A1 single something, you know,

sales, his work. If you don't know anything about this person, then don't, don't pitch. Well, if you want to pitch, especially if you're doing through e-mail, then yeah, sure, go ahead. Just know that yours will be one of these campaigns where you send 5000 messages and it is ignored immediately by 98% of the people who receive it because you didn't do any small research. Do some small research. Research. If you don't want it to be tailored to a specific person and you do some small research and do segmenting so that the different versions of pitches that you're sending out, you know that OK, this e-mail should be received by men between the ages of this and this who live in Abuja and this one should be received by women between the ages of this and this who live in this part of town or something.

But you have to do some sort of research and then segment your messages or tailor the messages. When I say tailor, I mean you're sending it to one person, segmenting, you're sending it to groups of people, but don't be throwing out pitches when you don't know anything about the person. Do small research. That is precisely the reason why I made that podcast episode where I spoke about how, if nothing else, I take the phone number and put it in Truecaller and then I run search.

Truecaller will give me the person's name. I'll now copy and paste that name. I'll throw it into Google. It's not. I won't ask anything of Google. Just take the person's name and put it in Google and then hit send. And then things will come out. The person's LinkedIn will come out, their Facebook will come out, and then from there I will get a sense of see, if nothing else at that stage, I know that it is good morning, Sir, I'm going to send or good morning,

Ma. If I didn't learn anything at all, at least I know how to start. That will start. Good morning, Sir. Good morning, good morning, Ma. From the things that I see online, I'll now get a sense of whether I will say, hey, what's up Trucudi, how you did or good afternoon Bros or I don't know, just go ahead, do this process. You will see what I mean by the way you see somebody's profile, you see their profile picture, you see some of the things that they put online, you see some of the causes the person is interested in.

It gives you a sense of, OK, this is how I will start this outreach with this person or this is how I start to enter into the situation. And that is some basic research that is free. There's plenty of paid stuff that can be done. I don't even talk about the paid stuff because I don't even want anybody to tell me I don't have money. So this is the reason why I only talk about the free stuff so that there's no excuse. When you become a Don with the free stuff, you can now start looking at paid opportunities,

paid things that give you much more, much more information. But right now, Google Truecaller social media, at least it's enough to give you some information that you can go on now that is not available. Of course, you know that before Internet there was always face to face. So before if you wanted to get a meeting with with deaconess, Deaconess Akubiru, but you don't know how one-on-one you go to church and you ask somebody that have been thinking of meeting this big auntie, I want to discuss this that that I be.

What do you think? What kind of person is she? So in the old days, that's what people used to do. I beg, can you introduce us? I mean, simple things like that. But on pitch, if you don't know who you're talking to, go and do some kind of research. If you continue to pitch and you don't know who it is that you're talking to, just know that your results are will be hit and miss. And a lot of the times it will be miss, right?

Let's see what else. Now there's something that, so 1 moment, there's something that our tech brothers and our tech sisters like to call data enrichment. Data enrichment just means how do we find more information? So basically what I'm just saying is this, whenever you're about to reach out to someone, first of all, you get the contact detail. Your next assignment now is data enrichment. Whether you're going to do online or whether you're going to ask one or two people about data enrichment, what other information can we find?

But one thing that you guys ought to know, we can't do this data enrichment. We can't do this exercise in perpetuity. If you spend one hour researching somebody, you are wasting too much time. I'm talking about knowing one or two. I'm talking about research you can do in three to 5 minutes and then just start your basic outreach. Because remember, we still don't know if these people have a problem that our product or our service, you know, can solve.

But we just need to know enough that the message seems targeted and relevant to them. So that's the answer to that question. You can't pitch if you don't know who you are talking to then. OK, Finally, OK, 30 minutes. Let me wrap this up. So if you're like Dave now and you did this, my assignment, you decided to check Truecaller and then you saw that Truecaller has your full government name there as it appears on the birth certificate.

By the way, I don't know how this thing is done. I'm thinking maybe it's because, you know, you go to MTN, you go to Glow, you register your new number, you put your name there. So maybe that's how Truecaller and all these people, maybe that's how they get our real name. I really don't know how it works. I'm not a techie, but The thing is, if you go there and you find out your full name is there as it appears on your birth certificate, you copy and you paste it in Google.

And then your whole life story, you know, comes up, including, you know, the girl that you broke up with or the time that you had some police trouble or something like that. And now you're scared. What do you do? Well, first of all, realize that well, First off, it's not that bad because at this stage, so 1 moment, so our message came in, I just wanted to see was urgent. So at this stage, you haven't blown yet. So it's not as if you're you're not your prime target yet.

So just relax. You know, it's not as if you have blown. You're now like like a big movie star like Ramsey Noah or you know, the head of Access Bank or something. So don't worry, you're not a target. People have not started targeting you yet. So this time, So what you're now going to do is you're going to start curating information that is online about you creating just means you are now going to be deliberate about the information that is there.

You will now start deleting stuff and you now start restricting stuff. So if your Instagram profile was open before, you will now put on restrict so that Google cannot check it freely. If there's stuff on your LinkedIn profile that you don't want people to see, you delete that. I don't know if you can restrict your LinkedIn profile, but sure, you just start curating. Start deleting all those embarrassing pictures on Facebook.

Start deleting them now, now, now, now, now. See, by the way, some people say nothing that you put on the Internet is ever truly gone, you know? Yes. But The thing is, sure, you can do your best and start curating. For those of you who are listening to this and you are based in Europe, the good news is that in Europe, the EU is now trying to push this thing about people's right to data is a kind of people's right to data and the right to data.

So I think it's called the rights to be forgotten. Sorry, forgive me. You know, I've been out of the legal system for a very long time. So I think it's called the rights to be forgotten. And the right to be forgotten is part of a right of previous privacy and data and then all of that. So in the in Europe, you actually now can tell Google that look, Google all these pictures you have of me and everything. I don't like it.

Stop this rough play, delete all my pictures. So that is going on in the EU. So for those of you who are in the European Union, good news, you now have more control. So do some more research on the right to be forgotten. So you know, use ChatGPT or Google or whatever. So Google it and then begin tell Google that look, stop that roughly. I didn't like that picture. I'm not the one who took that picture. That picture doesn't put me in the right light.

Delete that thing. So it's going to be a while before this thing which is America and which is Nigeria, but who knows, maybe one day we'll get there then. So curate information is out there. Start deleting things, start restricting your profiles, especially things in the Facebook family. You can restrict your profiles, you can restrict your Facebook, you can restrict your Instagram. I don't know about Tiktok. Then as a general rule going forward, personal information,

do not put personal information out there. I don't put my personal information out there. I talk a lot, you guys know I'm married. You kind of get a sense of who I am. Some of you can read in between the line and figure out how many kids that I have. But you don't know my wife's name, you don't know where she works. You don't know the number of kids, you don't know the school that I go to. So you know, I'm just being real.

I'm you know, I'm flowing with y'all, but I'm not dropping anything personal. So going forward, please don't drop anything personal. There's somebody that I follow on LinkedIn and she's been having issues with, you know, baby daddy. And so she put up information there about how she and even now tagged the guy, put his name about how the guy should honor the agreement of the courts and should drop child support and stuff like that.

I know what not. And of course people are healing her and talking trash about the guy. And in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, as a sister, I understand you because it's somehow when you know you and the guy, you thought you were five and six, you thought you were ride or die. The guy has now done you shady, especially since he's in government now because he's not a big boy in government and he's not paying school fees.

I understand that school fees is on your back, but The thing is dropping all this thing on on on LinkedIn. Well, you get a lot of support, but ultimately all this crap does not help you if you're a woman trying to project a professional image. Like does everybody need to know that you have baby daddy drama? We're trying to protect project a professional image here on on on LinkedIn. So let's be careful. The things that we put, we put out here, especially since personal things, they trend very well, very, very well.

They really, really that kind of thing or personal stuff, it really, really trends or please resist. Do not put personal information out there. That's the reason why I talk on this podcast a lot about educational content. I really think educational content is the best way to go because people will now feel you. They'll feel your area of expertise, your personality ma will even shine through. There's no how you can hide your personality.

You're not an actor. Your personality will come out. So don't worry. Stop trying to forcefully project your personality and try to be likable. Just keep making the educational content. After a while, who you are will come out. Like who I am is coming out on the podcast. I can't hide it except if I'm a professional actor. But personal information, stop putting personal information on the Internet. Stop. Please stop bio data,

biographical information, please don't put down info on the Internet at all. Date of birth, blah blah blah, all these things. I mean of course you have to put it to get your social media accounts. But these things normally when I open up my Facebook account long time ago they then they used to give option whether you can hide the information or not. Please take that. It is not supposed to be visible. So bio bio data is not supposed to be visible.

Nobody needs to know that you are, you know, 6 feet 3 inches and that you were born on the 1st of January 1972 and none of that bio data, please remove it. Your name, yes, should be there because for business purposes, you know, we're all trying to build businesses here now. So there's no problem with people knowing your name. So your name should be out there. Your career should be out there and your career history because it's important.

The projects you've worked on should be there because it's important. Like there's somebody who we're just chatting. He's not a client. What he wants to do is he wants to, he wants to open up a plant to do marine engine oil. He has to produce marine engine oil, but before he does that, he's having it produced in India now so that he can ship it in. And then first of all, test the market to see how the thing moves first before he sets up his plant.

So for that kind of person, now your name has to be out there. People need to know who you are and they need to know your career that you graduated from. So, so, so and so university first class in mechanical and liquid something, something engineering. You should be out there. The projects of you've worked on and your career history should be out there. You worked in Shell 1970 something to this. You worked on the Red Sea in the UK, 19 days to this dot dot dot.

You've worked in Chevron Texaco in America, 19 days to this. This is the thing has to be out there. It's part of the positioning so that people see your career trajectory and they see that you're a pro. They are not a jam bite that you know this thing so that when you finally release this line of engine oil is not as if you are nobody who's just trying, trying their hand. You see that you are a seasoned professional coming into this thing.

So these sorts of information, I know it's uncomfortable for some of you, but really we're trying to make money here or trying to build carriers here. Let that kind of information fly. But apart from that, people don't need to know anything else. They don't need to know how many houses you have, whether you're divorced, how many kids you have. Please, in my own opinion, stop. Don't talk about personal issues. Don't. So the more business or career oriented it is, put it out and push it freely.

And then you also have to be deliberate now about the content that you produce. Like me, I'm very, very deliberate. Business content. Only the questions that I tackle, I'm very deliberate about that. I don't just put up things anyhow. Anyhow, I don't put up anything on the spur of the moment. We go to parties, we go to class Hangouts, people take pictures, you know, stuff like that. You know, I, OK, I'll send it to everybody because I have no control about who's going to put what on social media.

But me by myself. I'm not going to put up any picture of any class hangout or, you know, if you don't believe me, go on Google me. You see lots of information about me. You see one or two pictures of my face, but you're not going to see me in any other context because I'm very, very deliberate about that thing. So be deliberate about it. And this is one of the reasons why I talk about a content strategy or a content calendar.

If you don't have a content strategy or a content calendar, you're going to be putting things hit and miss and freestyle and that's where accidents will start happening. No personal thing is going to come up on my content because there's no part in my content calendar where I say today, talk about your family and be more relatable. It's not going to happen. So summary for Dave, don't worry, there's not a problem. You have time, especially since you are young.

Go and start restricting profiles. Go and start deleting stuff. It's a hard conversation to have with your babe, especially if your baby is the one that feels as if, you know, if you love me, you will show me off to the whole world. But yeah, you need to have that conversation that you know, babe, you know what? I really, really love you but. I'm worried about the amount of information that I put out there. And, you know, after we get married and we have the kids and everything, there's a certain measure of privacy that I just want.

I beg. So babe, you know, to be honest, I love you, but I can't be, you know, WhatsApp status, Instagram staycation photo. Like I really can't do that anymore. And then the other way around too, because sometimes women also have issues because there's some men who are really, really proud. I want to put up everything, you know, my fine wife, my Assam pity, my all and all my this, my, this. So have that conversation with your hobby we had.

But they will understand. And then come up with a content calendar so that going forward next week, you're only posting things deliberately that are aligning with a certain kind of strategy. All right, so it's 14 minutes. Let me just bring this to a close. So Dave, if there's a question that I didn't answer, let me know, Send a message. If there any particulars I needed to know before I answer any of the questions, let me know.

I'll OK, I will make a follow up episode, but OK, that one you and I will, will, will chat when eventually we have the conversation. So let me see. OK, so that's all. So that's all folks remember, if you'd love to connect with me, then the number to call to SMS or to WhatsApp is 08064662140. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.