Transform Your Personal Brand, Transform Your Life - Shoaib Ahmed is RightOffTrack | Anya Smith

Anya Smith (00:01.552)
Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of RightOffTrack, the podcast where we journey through the lives of individuals who've dared to we're off the beaten path and found their way to success. I'm your host Anya Smith and today we have a guest whose story is as colorful as his LinkedIn profile can get. Meet Shoaib Ahmed, the founder of Yellow Hippo, a LinkedIn first personal branding agency.

Shoaib (00:15.161)
I'm going to turn it over to you. So, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Shoaib (00:24.922)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you. So, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you. So, I'm

Anya Smith (00:28.76)
In just 18 months, he's turned the digital landscape into his playground, generating multiple six figures in revenue and a whopping 120 million impressions. He's not just a LinkedIn whiz, he is a branding maestro. Now, if LinkedIn were a high school, Shaib would be the guy you'd want to sit next to in class, not just because he would help you pass, but because he'd make the class way more interesting. He's a Northwest Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2023,

Shoaib (00:56.207)
So, I'm going to go ahead and start the presentation. R.

Anya Smith (00:57.768)
And he's here to spill the tea, or should I say, the LinkedIn algorithm secrets. But he's not just all glitz and glamour. Shaheb's journey is a roller coaster of ups and downs, from being on furlough in 2020, to quitting his agency job in 2021, and then freelancing his way to recognition in 2023. He's a second gen Pakistani immigrant who's breaking the barriers and becoming the face for others who inspire to make it big in an industry where representation is scarce. So buckle up.

because today we're diving deep into the life of a man who's not just a rebel in the business world but also a mentor, a keynote speaker, and the host of his own podcast, fittingly called Rebels. Shiv, welcome to Write Off Track. So excited to have you here.

Shoaib (01:42.609)
Hello, thank you so much for having me. What an introduction. I feel like that's the nicest introduction I've ever had, so thank you so much.

Anya Smith (01:50.465)
Just replay this to start your day. Like dun dun!

Shoaib (01:53.64)
I'm setting that as my ring zone.

Anya Smith (01:56.812)
I love it. I love feel free to use whatever you like. I love it. And a shout out to our common friend, Jane. Jane, if you're listening, thank you so much for introducing us and also being on the podcast. And I am so inspired by you, not only as a fellow podcast host, but also somebody who on their profile and everywhere you share your knowledge, you're so genuine and real. Right. You share wisdom about how you got to where you are today. But you also keep it real. Like today's post, I think you're mentioning the struggles, the things that you had to reflect on and.

grow and kind of improve on to make this not just a journey where you're achieving, but also doing it a way that you're staying sane or trying to stay sane with everything that's, you know, all the pressures that come with it.

Shoaib (02:40.375)
I think that's so important. I think that transparency is key. When I started to yell

I didn't really know what I was doing, to be completely honest, and there were other people who had been so open and transparent with their story and their journey that I actually learnt the most from. It wasn't business books or business courses or marketing qualifications that facilitated my growth. It was actually other people sharing their stories online.

Anya Smith (03:10.08)
And I know that in just 18 months, you have had incredible results of Yellow Hippo. So selfishly, I'm curious, you know, what, was there a start before Yellow Hippo that led you to, you know, have this hit the ground running at moment with your new business?

Shoaib (03:24.802)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There was so I mean, to go back a little bit, I studied geography at university, very different to what I did. Very different. Studying like Middle Eastern conflict and energy poverty in southern Africa and loads of, you know, geographical topics, nothing to do with marketing. But what I did do was a placement year. So in the UK, there, I guess a year in industry where you take a year out of university and work for a company.

Anya Smith (03:30.78)
Of course.

Anya Smith (03:41.318)
Wow.

Shoaib (03:53.634)
So I did that for a marketing agency, a marketing and media agency. It was a very small company. There's about 50 employees. And I just learned so much in that process. I was sat next to the digital marketing manager. Behind me was the head of creative. To the right of me was the head of copy. So I was just a sponge, absorbing knowledge from every angle and learning as much as I could. And also asking, asking questions, asking for help, asking for opportunity. I think that's something that's very important as well.

Anya Smith (04:10.659)
Oh.

Anya Smith (04:23.449)
Yeah.

Shoaib (04:23.55)
So I did that, got an insight into the marketing world, went back to uni, finished my degree, and then came back after graduation, and I worked for a personal branding startup. So that's how I got into the personal branding space. I did maybe six to eight months as somebody else's first employee. So working very much from ground up, and then that business scaled, and I just had a different approach to personal branding, and I think my ambitions were just up.

Anya Smith (04:42.201)
Yeah.

Shoaib (04:52.742)
next level and I just wanted to you know get in and just do it so I thought right I either stay here and you know just stagnate or I take a risk take a leap see what happens and then yeah the rest I guess is history.

Anya Smith (05:06.428)
of it.

And I think I saw the other day you had a post where a former co-worker of yours said like, I believe that you're gonna do something big, right? And now she's working with you.

Shoaib (05:18.21)
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. So back when I was a placement student, actually, I was, I think, 20 years old then. So even a year before that, I had a part time job at uni and she was the person who hired me. And then I went to work for her company full time for a year. She was a digital marketing exec and so she was part of my direct team. So I worked with her for a year. And then on my kind of leaving day when I finished that year.

Anya Smith (05:23.65)
Oh, okay.

Anya Smith (05:40.751)
Oh cool.

Shoaib (05:46.594)
my leaving drinks, she just said to me whilst we were at the bar, she said one day you're going to have your own business and I laughed and I was like, I don't think so Sophie, I don't think so. Skipped two years and I do have my own business and she was kind of in an interim between two jobs and she was like, need a bit of work and I said okay, I've got an opportunity for you, come work for me.

Anya Smith (05:53.264)
Yeah.

Shoaib (06:13.778)
on a small kind of part-time basis. It wasn't anything, you know, mega, but it was a full-fledged moment.

Anya Smith (06:17.796)
Right, right. Oh my gosh. So guide me through this. Here you are. Hey, for anybody listening who's in the US, 20 is illegal drinking age in the UK.

Shoaib (06:33.451)
Which clarification?

Anya Smith (06:33.892)
as in most part of the world, most part of the world by that point. But I'm curious, so your focus at school was way different than marketing. How did you, like what pulled you in those direction in the very beginning and how did you find what you wanna do because I personally struggle like what the heck do I wanna do even through like my professional life? I was like, I don't know if I quite wanna do this but I don't know what my purpose, like what my passion really is. How did you discover that for yourself?

Shoaib (07:00.874)
Yeah, you know what, that's a great question, but because I'm still figuring that out, I'm still, you know, people say to me now, like, where would you, where do you want your business to be in three years, five years, ten years? I honestly don't know. I don't even know if my business will exist. And that's just, I guess that's something that people don't really admit, or they don't want to publicly say. But I'm somebody who loves getting stuck into things that I enjoy. And if the minute I lose enjoyment...

Anya Smith (07:11.152)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (07:15.043)
Okay.

Anya Smith (07:22.373)
Mm.

Shoaib (07:29.774)
then it's a different ball game. So when I started, when I kind of got into this, yeah, geography is very different, but I just, I thought marketing was just such a fun creative role. It merged the kind of creative aspect with also the technical, like the technical skills, whether that's editing, whether that's paid ads, whether that's Google Analytics and understanding data, but then also writing creative copy and design

Anya Smith (07:32.294)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (07:38.704)
Ha ha!

Shoaib (07:59.906)
thinking of innovative campaigns, so I thought this is the perfect thing to blend those two skill sets that I thought I had together. And every kind of business or company needs marketing. So I thought whichever industry I want to go in, in terms of the company I wanna work for, at the time obviously I was thinking as an employee, there is a marketing role there. So it's kind of a secure future in a sense.

Anya Smith (08:07.056)
Right.

Anya Smith (08:23.844)
Right? I love it. And so then you did this job, you know, at the uni or interim kind of opportunity there, and then you had the startup opportunity. What made you decide, hey, I'm ready. I'm gonna do this. And how was Yellow Hippo born?

Shoaib (08:29.922)
Mm-hmm.

Shoaib (08:40.082)
Yes, so a number of things just happen. I mean, it all comes back to what we do as an agency at Yellow Hippo. So we do personal branding and personal branding is how I started my company. And I 100% put the growth of my business due to my personal brand. So, you know, we help others do what I did for myself. So it's something I've been through and lived and I help others do the same thing and achieve.

to be fair, even better results than I did, even faster. So, yeah, it's...

me the question again it's just it's just last week ask me again

Anya Smith (09:21.664)
No, no worries. No worries. So how did you feel? When did you feel ready? Like what was the process of deciding, hey, I've done this, I've got the taste of it. I'm ready to do my own thing. And how was Yellow Hippo born?

Shoaib (09:32.85)
Yeah, so I was working with the other agency and you know things were growing within that agency. Again, it was just me and the founder at the time and it was growing. I was building my personal brand. I was posting on LinkedIn regularly and I think there was a shift about two years ago on the platform on LinkedIn. Very sudden shift it appeared to be where LinkedIn went from this kind of dull corporate professional platform in many people's eyes to a...

Anya Smith (09:48.54)
Mm.

Shoaib (09:59.906)
platform of opportunity for creators and writers and designers and creatives to actually leverage the opportunities that LinkedIn had in terms of network building, in terms of connections, in terms of visibility and launching businesses, you know, I've met hundreds of people who in the last couple of years have started business directly through LinkedIn and I was just one of those people and quite luckily I was one of the first movers in the personal branding space.

So I was able to do it quite quickly. I thought I was ready. To be fair, there's a story behind this, so I'll quickly tell the story. So I was kind of working in this role and it was a great company and they've gone on to amazing things and great founder as well. But I just felt we would, our vision was different, right? And that's completely fine, it's completely normal as well to work with amazing people but who you share different vision with.

Anya Smith (10:36.32)
Oh, please go, please go on, I love stories.

Shoaib (10:58.186)
So I was working at this company, I really wanted to build something amazing. I've always been somebody who just loves building stuff for some reason, whatever it is, a community, a page, a social media following, a podcast, whatever it is, I love building, something from scratch. So I was really ready to go. I was moving 100 miles per hour in my head and it wasn't my business. And so there's a kind of a clash there because I was...

Anya Smith (11:15.204)
Yeah.

Shoaib (11:28.266)
an employee. Anyway, I was growing, growing and I wanted to really accelerate my career as well. And at the time I, quite simply to put it bluntly, I asked for a promotion and I didn't get it. And I thought, okay, what do I do now? Because I thought, okay, I've put everything into this. I'm really giving it my all, but the business wasn't in the stage for me to kind of grow as fast as I wanted to.

Anya Smith (11:40.26)
Yeah. Mm.

Shoaib (11:57.614)
And so after that call, I sat down and I spoke to a few people on LinkedIn, again, the power of your network, and people start saying, we'd, you know, I'd pay you to do my personal brand. And then I spoke to somebody else and I was like, yeah, I work for this personal branding agency, but I don't know what to do next. And they were like, oh, well, I'd pay you, not the agency, but I'd pay you. And I thought, oh, okay. I've never even considered this before. Anyway, skipped two weeks and I'd handed in my notice and I was like, right, let's go, let's do it.

Anya Smith (12:03.918)
Right?

Anya Smith (12:22.299)
Wow.

Anya Smith (12:26.725)
Hoof, hoof.

Shoaib (12:28.098)
So it wasn't quite a big jump. I never really planned to start a business, but I saw this opportunity and I thought, well, if I don't do it, then I'll never know. And I'm not at my 100% where I am. So I need to get out of my comfort zone, try something different. Otherwise I'll never overcome that kind of fear of starting. And I think that's so important, that first step.

Anya Smith (12:38.039)
Hmm.

Anya Smith (12:50.469)
Yeah.

Shoaib (12:55.522)
So yeah, that's the story.

Anya Smith (12:58.312)
Wow, amazing. I love that you started and, you know, there's a true factor to it that it wasn't like, I was just so ready. There were these conversations, like you said, were happening to make you feel like, oh yeah, other people could potentially be doing this with me where there is this audience. So I want, I hope our audience is hearing and saying like, hey, maybe there's a process for me. Maybe I have something to offer where I could start reaching out to people who might find this valuable.

And seeing if, you know, again, we can collaborate. It doesn't have to be all or nothing from the start, but it could be this exploration of finding what you uniquely bring to the table. And can you create more of that space and more of these opportunities and build more confidence around that? Curious, now that you've been doing this for a while, the company has matured, you've grown your team. Are you reflecting back on like maybe your start or even this like fuller journey? What were some key learnings that you could share with our audience or things maybe you would do differently if anything?

Shoaib (13:38.359)
Thank you.

Shoaib (13:53.306)
Yeah, I mean, I think I had very quick growth, which is a blessing and a curse. So by month three, I think we had about, I had 20 clients. It was just me start managing 20 people's brands, almost putting a hat on each day. As you know, I was at 11am, I was a talent manager for one of the biggest influencer groups in the world.

Anya Smith (14:05.132)
Whoa!

Shoaib (14:21.514)
And then at 12 p.m., I was a supply chain leader working with Nestle and Nike and Adidas. And then at 1 p.m., I was a 21-year-old marketing founder. And that's because all my clients worked in very different industries, and I was building their brands, I had to tap into who they were, not just as people, but I had to understand their industries as well. So it was a lot. And I wish I asked for help sooner.

Anya Smith (14:21.755)
Wow.

Anya Smith (14:38.268)
Right.

Shoaib (14:50.166)
I wish I'd leverage my network. At the time, looking back, I had an amazing network, but I think I was so hungry to just build. And you know, when you're stuck in that grind mindset, you're like, oh, I'll do this, I can do this. Yeah, and I think I should have just slowed down a little bit and thought, actually, I'm working here like 18 hour days consistently. What if I...

Anya Smith (15:02.429)
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Shoaib (15:15.734)
assigned this admin task to this person. What if I hired somebody to do manage my inbox, even just my emails, for example? What if I hired somebody to help schedule all the content, that in itself, three or three, four hours of my day, and I can then leverage that time from where I'm best, where I'm best suited. So I think one of the biggest lessons is don't try and do everything yourself and just accept help.

Anya Smith (15:31.129)
oof

Shoaib (15:43.234)
And then.

Anya Smith (15:44.247)
Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

Shoaib (15:45.806)
No, no, I was going to move on to a different topic, so go ahead. Okay, cool. So the other thing that I was going to mention is figuring out my purpose and what I was trying to achieve, like what I was trying to build and what I wanted to achieve. So I think I was, you know, working constantly, really, really hard. And I don't regret working hard. And I know there's a whole narrative now around.

Anya Smith (15:49.12)
Oh, you go. We're just going to like podcast at each other. Like, you know, you go, you go.

Shoaib (16:13.87)
hustle and hustle culture, which is very, very negative. And I agree, long-term 24-7 hustle is not sustainable, it's not healthy. But at that time, I needed to do that because it fast-trapped my learning by about two or three years. I worked hard, I failed, but I failed fast, and I learned really quick. And then I implemented those learnings to grow at a much faster pace. So...

I would say that figuring out my purpose helps me change that toxic hustle into an intentional hustle. And that was all around figuring out what I wanted to achieve. So I wasn't just working 24-7, I was working with purpose and I was working with the right type of clients. I was building the right culture and actually having a support network around me. I was creating a business that fit with my own personal objectives. And that was things around health.

Financial security, time freedom. I think a lot of people start a business for those reasons, right? Like to have to manage your own time and to be flexible and to work from anywhere. And actually I realized that's why I started. But where I ended up was opposite to all those things. I was working 80-hour days, not leaving the house. I'd put on loads of weight because I wasn't going to the gym. And I just paused and thought, wow, like you were supposed to go from here to here and instead you just dipped.

Anya Smith (17:17.818)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (17:29.814)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (17:34.031)
Yeah.

Shoaib (17:40.918)
Whilst the financial side of stuff is amazing, that was never my biggest goal or motivator. So I flipped the switch on that and thought, okay, what do I wanna achieve? Let's work backwards from there. I'm gonna let the business support that.

Anya Smith (17:41.327)
Mm.

Anya Smith (17:55.284)
Beautiful. And so you mentioned purpose a couple of times and that's a sexy but sometimes overwhelming word. So right now, like what are you, what's motivating you perhaps now? We mentioned the flexibility and time, but can you share anything more around that?

Shoaib (18:08.106)
Yeah, I think to be fair, my biggest thing right now is health. I've just recently been listening to a lot of really great podcasts around health and money, I would say the two kind of main things. And when I say money, I probably mean wealth more than that. And I don't mean wealth in monetary terms. I mean wealth in the whole spectrum. Like what is a wealthy life to be? And for me, that's time freedom, financial security.

Anya Smith (18:13.093)
Mm.

Shoaib (18:36.018)
independence, the ability to travel. I want to live a wealthy life and that doesn't mean like designer things or designer cars. I could not be less interested in any of those things but it's living a life on my own terms so I'd say that for me is very important. And then health, I really want to get fit and when I was a young guy I used to play football, I used to do long distance running, I was really, really...

Anya Smith (19:01.748)
Yeah, you're so old now.

Anya Smith (19:07.416)
in your early 20s, oh gosh.

Shoaib (19:09.615)
I feel like a business agency though, a business, having a business is definitely agency. But yeah, so like seven, eight years ago, I used to play football twice a week. I used to do long distance running. I was doing like a 5K every day. I was working my way up to a marathon and that never happened. But I would love to get back into that. I'd love to focus on my health because I think if you're healthy,

Anya Smith (19:25.754)
Whoa.

Shoaib (19:35.862)
That's your number one foundation. You can add as many blocks onto your health as you want, but if you don't have a strong foundation, such as in health, everything else collapses. Business, finance, relationships, everything. So for me, I'm currently doing the Hard 75 Challenge. I don't know if you've heard of that.

Anya Smith (19:52.86)
Was somebody was doing that? Who was that? Was that Jane doing that? No, I heard so. Yeah, tell me about it. Tell me.

Shoaib (20:00.482)
Yeah, so it might seem to me I have posted about it.

Anya Smith (20:02.612)
Oh, no, it wasn't Jane, it was Nicole. Nicole on my podcast, I think she was doing that. So mention that to me, explain it to us.

Shoaib (20:09.89)
Yeah, so it's just 75 days and every day, the set of things you have to do. For me, that's 45 minutes of indoor exercise, 45 minutes of outdoor exercise, 3.5 litres of water, I think it's equivalent to a gallon, reading 10 pages of a non-fictional book every day, something kind of mindset related, something inspirational or empowering, and then having a really selective diet.

So for me that's been amazing because what it's done, it's forced me to dedicate time to one and a half hours of exercise every day. It's forced me to be really strict with my diet and meal plan. And I think there's such a correlation between business and then health, mindset, all those kinds of things. I think without those you can't build a successful business. So for me both of them together have just optimised each other. They're really complimentary I've found.

Anya Smith (20:58.095)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (21:05.028)
Can I add just like that contrarian side to this for anybody listening? So I think, yes, having the structure is really helpful. What I also embrace in my life is not giving myself excuse not to do something if things are not perfect. So I love the idea like having this order and everything is planned out in my day. And to some degree, I try to make that happy. Now 5.30, I have a certain window when my kids are not awake. And then after that, all bets are off.

Shoaib (21:21.088)
Mm.

Anya Smith (21:32.036)
Like yes, you have a plan, but things are not gonna happen quite like that. But my point is that find a system that works for you. If it's that hard 75, awesome. But if you have a, like a demanding schedule, this doesn't have always the things that you're always in control. Like that's not an excuse to still not do something like build yourself some compassion, like we talked about, but still find ways to make progress. So if you can't do, you know, um, an hour and a half of workout every day, what can you do? Right. So it could still be like, that's my.

Shoaib (21:35.435)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you. So, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you. So, I'm

Anya Smith (22:00.516)
maybe not issue, but sometimes I feel people have this grand aspirations to starting from zero can feel so hard that people don't even bother starting. And so I encourage people to start where they're at now making a little progress and have that long term vision when they feel ready to jump into a big program to do so. So maybe that's just from my heart. I hope like anybody listening finds themselves in the process wherever they are, and not making excuses like if somebody doesn't seem manageable, realistic now, like from zero to 100. What's the number two? What's the three step to get to where you want to be?

Shoaib (22:12.62)
So, thank you. Thank you.

Shoaib (22:29.61)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think that's such an important caveat as well. You know, I'm in the position that I'm in. I'm single, I'm 24. I had to think then for a second. I have good health and I have no dependence, right? So I'm in a position where I've got loads of time, got a lot of energy and I'm in kind of control. Nobody depends on me. So I'm in a position to be able to do that.

Anya Smith (22:41.731)
Ha ha!

Shoaib (22:57.886)
I love what you said about finding that routine that works for you because I'm not somebody who's religious about the 5am morning routine. I've never woken up at 5am unless I'm catching a flight to go on holiday. So for me, my structure and my routine is not perfect and nobody's is. I work with big entrepreneurs who might preach about this in their content and then actually I'm starting to call with them and they've just told me that they've spent.

Anya Smith (23:18.842)
Yeah.

Shoaib (23:27.75)
seven hours that morning working from their bed and I'm like well that's not the ice bath you know yoga green shake routine that you show on Instagram so I think you've got to be very wary of everybody has off days and nobody's even if somebody's created a perfect morning routine video on YouTube like I do this then I do this and then I do this nobody does that all the time everybody has days where they just like say fuck the schedule I'm just going to do a bit of me today I feel actually happy to have that

Anya Smith (23:37.817)
Right.

Anya Smith (23:48.154)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (23:55.609)
Yes.

Shoaib (23:58.074)
Like the other day I just binge watched Netflix. I worked for about two hours in the morning. So I'm watching a couple of things. So I'm watching Sex Education, the new series. And then I was watching a film that I can't remember the name of actually. It's the New J. Lo film on Netflix.

Anya Smith (23:58.159)
Yeah.

What were you watching?

Anya Smith (24:07.164)
Ooh.

Anya Smith (24:18.332)
I don't know. I don't know. I'm so bad. I'm so bad. But if you're interested, check out those two. Was it good? Is it okay? Say good. Okay. All right. Okay.

Shoaib (24:26.99)
It's good, yeah. It's all right, yeah.

Anya Smith (24:34.18)
So your point, it's okay to binge watch, it's okay to just take a day off, it's okay to question, you know, yes people have good examples on social media, but that's their on day, that's what they're showing you. They probably have off days too. So be authentic of yourself and your needs, is what I'm hearing. That's all right.

Shoaib (24:46.294)
Mm.

100%. Yeah. There's a another creator called Laura Acosta who taught me something. Yeah. She's on my podcast. Yeah. And she said something on my podcast where she talked about off season and on season. It's really stuck with me ever since. And she spoke about a time where some months of the year she's on season. So she's hustling, she's working, she's grinding those 12 hour days, she's building, she's

Anya Smith (24:56.577)
Oh yeah. Talk about Laura Lovett. She's also on your podcast, Rebels.

Shoaib (25:17.262)
she's got that burst of energy and she's really going for it. And then there's also her off-season time where she's reflecting and she might not post on social media every day. She might not be growing her business. She might just be stabilizing. And she uses the off-season time to rather reflect, do the inner work, kind of identify her goals, evaluate what's working and what isn't working and maybe take a little bit of a step back. And I think we're so pressured to be on season all the time to work like...

Anya Smith (25:30.743)
Mm-hmm.

Anya Smith (25:46.982)
Mm.

Shoaib (25:47.134)
Like if you take an off day, you're falling behind. That's the narrative. Whereas actually I love that kind of off season, on season. So when somebody asks me, what are you working on? Sometimes I just say, I'm in off season. So I'm just stabilizing. I'm not working on anything new. I'm just doing what needs doing. Because 99% of like business building is not that exciting. Like it's just doing the same thing, right? There's not like big crazy developments every day. So.

Anya Smith (25:50.085)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (25:59.496)
Oof.

Anya Smith (26:08.848)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (26:14.338)
Yeah.

Shoaib (26:14.73)
I think sometimes it's okay to embrace that off-season mentality as long as you're... as long as it doesn't last forever, you know? That's the caveat there.

Anya Smith (26:25.036)
Right, right. Recover, but don't get so comfortable where you're stagnant, right? I love Laura, again, she's an amazing Instagram, oh, not Instagram, look, oh gosh. LinkedIn, I get all my social media. LinkedIn creator who I also follow and she's done inspiring things and so follow her as well. One thing that comes to mind is, two point, absolutely agree, like so many of us have this pressure of always being on and I think about like, when is my winter season?

When do I allow myself to slow down, especially when I started a new business, what? It's month four, right? So it is very much a feeling where I have to hustle. But to your point, I finished the launch phase of the podcast. So now we're going to two episodes a week. And it's given me more time and I've had to reflect like, what are my values and where am I going against my values? That's something I haven't really thought about until another podcast guest was just mentioning that. And I realized that one of my values to your point is like having this work where it's flexible.

Shoaib (26:58.879)
So, thank you. Thank you.

Shoaib (27:10.966)
So, I'm going to go ahead and start the presentation. first item, which is the

Anya Smith (27:22.308)
where I'm creating content that feels energized, that feels authentic, and I realized that I was pushing to create content because I felt the pressure that needs to come out, which as a content creator, you have to do it, but it made me question, well, how can I do it more in alignment with my values to where it does feel authentic? So on Sunday, I kicked out the boys out of the house, I sat in a beautiful area of my house that was quiet, and I batch created content. But you need that point of reflection of slowing down and not...

going to this fear voice of like, you have to create it right now or you're going to disappear and be irrelevant to like, okay, like what's not working for me? And that takes slowing down. So the slow periods not only help you recover, they actually help you accelerate more. Although I say that, but very, very authentically, that's so hard for me to do. But I hope you normalize it by sharing your example, by sharing examples of Laura and mine if that's helpful too, that is necessary. And we're all trying to do that to grow.

Shoaib (28:05.729)
Yeah.

Shoaib (28:21.257)
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. I had a similar thing with my own podcast. We filmed season one, which was eight episodes. It was only ever going to be eight episodes for season one. And then I filmed and...

It was a studio-based podcast, so it was very time consuming. I kind of moved cities whilst we were filming, so I was travelling back to Manchester and to the studio, and there was a lot of movement and a lot of editing time. I think sometimes people don't realise how much work goes into creating a podcast. You'll know that it's like booking guests and managing all the comms, and then the editing, and then the filming, and the scheduling, and on top of all of that, I was building Yellow Hippo. We had...

Anya Smith (28:53.296)
Yeah.

Shoaib (29:03.946)
At that point, I think about 17 clients, I had full-time team members, and I was doing other PR work as well. So, I did season one, I'm really proud of season one. I think we've got some amazing episodes, amazing guests. However, I'm not in a rush to build season two. It will happen, but I think, you know, if I got stuck in that kind of content, keep going, keep growing mindset, I just would burn out because I have other...

I think sometimes you've got to pick and choose, like what do I need to focus on now? Where does my attention need to be? And not spreading it so thin that you're not able to optimize any of those things that you're doing. Pick one or two, really go in them. And then when you've got some free time, okay, now I've got the energy, the head space, the creativity to tackle that other thing and do it really well.

Anya Smith (29:39.289)
Right.

Anya Smith (29:44.335)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (29:54.88)
Yeah, I am not perfect this, but I try to start by thinking, what is the most impactful thing I want to get done versus just things that need to get done for whatever fear like pressure and differentiating those things is very important and dedicating your time to the things that are going to impactfully grow or like aligned to what you want to do is going to be a game changer. And that's something I fail at, but I try to do more and more of in my life. One question I had, you mentioned that you started and you already had, you know, what?

Shoaib (29:59.875)
Hmm.

Anya Smith (30:23.9)
20 amazing clients, 17 amazing clients pretty early on. And then for the Rebels podcast, you had amazing guests like top influencers. So I'm curious, how did you build trust with these amazing clients and guests and again, influencers so that they collaborate with you or work with you pretty early on overall?

Shoaib (30:44.048)
Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So I put a lot of it down to, well, it obviously comes back to my personal brand and I was building, creating content, I was spending a lot of time engaging with other people. I think if you're commenting on people's content, you're, you know,

downloading their ebooks and talking to them about their stuff. People are, you know, they're much more likely to have that conversation with you because you've put that effort in. And I was doing that. I was doing that every day with the top people in the kind of LinkedIn creator space. One thing that I think was really strategic, which looking back was a really good move by me, and it feels weird to say that, like I did something really good, but I think it was a very strategic, smart move.

back when I first started is I created an ebook, ebook that I gave out for free, and it had about 40, 50 pages full of advice for creators to grow on LinkedIn. Now, within that guide, I thought, okay, so I've got maybe 4,000 followers on LinkedIn, but I've got experience working at an agency, because this is before I started my own business, building brands for clients. I have the knowledge, and I think I have some of the expertise to share.

but I don't have an audience there willing to receive it yet. So I thought, how can I scale, like the value that I'm sharing to hit a wide audience? So I reached out to some of these creators I was starting to have conversations with and said, I'm creating an ebook. I'm going to give it away for free and it's going to be big. And I didn't know it was going to be big at the time, but I promised it was going to be big. I said,

Anya Smith (32:05.241)
Right.

Anya Smith (32:25.02)
Love it, love it, sell it.

Shoaib (32:29.302)
You know, I'm working with a few big creators. I wasn't at the time. I didn't have anybody signed on. I would love to feature you in the guide. So a page dedicated to you, you send me, ask me some questions, send me some answers. I will brand it. I'll put the content together. You don't have to do anything. Just send me some thoughts. Even if it's a voice-through. I took those voice-throughs and did it. And then a couple of big creators came on board. And then I said to the other people, oh.

Anya Smith (32:51.195)
Yeah.

Shoaib (32:57.638)
So and so is involved in this ebook and so is this person. And they're like, oh, immediately. They're like, oh yeah, I want to get involved. And so I had eight quite big creators. I think across the board at the time, there was about 300,000 followers from those eight creators. So my 4,000 audience had now become 300,000, 304,000. And then when I created and put it together, I created like a marketing campaign for it, built a bit of hype.

Anya Smith (32:59.468)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Anya Smith (33:11.088)
Wow.

Anya Smith (33:17.756)
Wow.

Shoaib (33:25.578)
And then all those people, because I was building this relationship with them like every other day, chatting to them, engaging with their content, they all shared it on their own profiles. I didn't even ask them to, but they were willing to share it because it's a quality piece of content. What happened in the next two weeks is I picked up about 4,000-5,000 followers just from their audiences. About 1.5k people downloaded the ebook and I picked up about 7 clients. So I think that one...

Move, like collaboration, I guess, is the key here. Like collaboration, like exactly what I guess you're doing with your podcast, like speaking to amazing people in my industry and networking and just, I guess, I was learning from them, but then they were also giving me access to a huge audience. So that was one, like, example of how I realised I had a skill, I guess, but I didn't have the platform. So I just fast-tracked it through a few smart moves.

Anya Smith (34:07.961)
Right.

Anya Smith (34:11.439)
Bye.

Anya Smith (34:23.228)
Oh, brilliant. I'm stealing that. What I love about it is like having the vision, the importance of having a vision and building one step at a time, right? You're saying, hey, I have this vision and I can add value to you, make it as simple as possible for you to be part of this. And then you're being personal along the way to showing, you know, I care about you, you're engaged in the content. And those things build up to where everybody wins. And that's what I want also everybody to hear is that you don't have to be

Shoaib (34:45.966)
Mmm.

Anya Smith (34:51.632)
competing against the world and fighting for yourself and clawing out the space for yourself, it could always be a win-win collaboration where people can add value to you. Even if you're starting relative to speaking out, you can add value to the creators as well by sharing them in a positive way. It all can be a win-win. So again, where can you add value to others? How do you make it as simple as possible to help you and look at it as a win-win versus you competing against the world to be the best?

Shoaib (35:18.727)
Yeah, it really is that abundance mindset. I think out of all the people who featured in the guide, I think seven of the eight were technically competitors for me.

Anya Smith (35:30.776)
Mm-hmm.

Shoaib (35:31.946)
But I think for the first time people were like, why are like eight competitors getting together and collaborating on the same thing? I think it was such a surprise to so many people. They were like, oh, well, if I trust all these people in their own kind of respective fields and they've all come together around this guy's schwaib that I don't know and I've never met, he must be an interesting person to follow or there must be something in this. So I think not, yeah, not seeing other people as a threat but seeing them as.

Anya Smith (35:38.716)
Uh-huh.

Anya Smith (35:47.629)
Yeah.

Shoaib (36:00.654)
helpful aids where you can share industry knowledge with and expertise and also friends. Like they will understand your business like most other people can't because they operate in the same industry with the same audience. I'm friends with all my competitors and we actually refer clients to each other all the time like every other week because what you do is gonna be different to what somebody else does. Even if you're in the same industry, you have a certain style or way of doing things.

Anya Smith (36:19.321)
Amazing.

Shoaib (36:28.834)
So sometimes the client might not be the best fit for you, but it might be for that other agency because they do things slightly differently and vice versa. So if you lead with that mindset, opportunities will come.

Anya Smith (36:40.836)
Oh, shame. 100%. It was funny because of this network. And honestly, it's just been a referral to referral. Like my friend Earl Tabin is just a heart person to me. Like we're on WhatsApp all the time, brainstorming. He introduced me to Jane. Jane introduced me to this amazing community. And now we're doing, you know, audio events. We're doing collaborations. And so people will be like, oh, you're part of this network that I admire. I want to have you part of my network because you're part of it. Like, oh, that's flattering and really great. But I'm not honestly doing as much there as I could be.

because I do things on the back end that I'm kind of growing. But it is impactful to see like the network that you're part of can help you grow, even if you don't anticipate that sometimes on my end.

Shoaib (37:20.306)
Yeah, there's power in association. Just like if your brand, if I'm speaking on stage with, on a panel of people with a much bigger audience than me, but we all sat on the same four stools on stage, people are gonna give you kind of equal footing and attention, so yeah, I think, yeah. And also be ambitious with who you want to connect with, I would also say. Just because somebody has a shiny brand online.

or has a recognizable company name in their LinkedIn about section, it doesn't mean they're untouchable or unreachable. Like the DL way.

Anya Smith (37:55.96)
Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I wanna also, I'm a professional recruiter before this. I worked at Metta for like, so I'm reaching out to people. But what I 100% guarantee to you is that if you keep reaching out to people in this authentic kind way, don't just say hi or start selling me quickly, but in authentic kind way, people will respond. And people that don't respond, they're probably really busy, it's not personal. And focus on the people who do.

Don't worry, you're starting to go, oh, that person didn't respond to me. It's against me. Focus your energy on just building and trying and reaching out to more. Make it a habit, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. And amazing things will happen. Today, the episode on right off track, this is September 26th, when I'm recording, is of somebody I admire, Constantinus, who owns the Simply Digital GR brand. He talks about digital marketing and AI innovation. And he has...

2.1 million followers on TikTok and half a million on Instagram. Amazing, amazing individual in all rights and respects. And he failed his first startup. And he talks about taking that and getting to the next level. How did I contact him? Through a referral. Who was on my podcast? Who I met randomly on threads. So things can happen when you just reach out to people, you give them a good experience, you ask them for referrals, and then, again, you just offer people an opportunity. Some will say no, but others will say yes, and amazing things can happen.

Shoaib (39:19.676)
Yeah, I love that. I totally agree with everything you just said.

Anya Smith (39:24.502)
Can I be like, this question has been in my head and I wanted to ask, so Yellow Hippo, how did that name, the brand, the image all come out? I haven't seen a post about that. I probably didn't dig further and like deep enough, but how did that whole brand come out for you?

Shoaib (39:39.866)
Yes, you know what, I should just do a post about this because I get asked all the time, I should write a post. So it's, I mean, this is two sides of it. One is the boring story and then this is a mock sad story that I tell, that's the way I tell people. But the boring story is yellow is my favourite colour and hippo is my favourite animal. So I thought, okay, let's shove the two together. And there was a little bit of logic behind it. When I started out, personal branding was just kind of taking off.

Anya Smith (39:50.08)
Okay.

Anya Smith (39:59.203)
Aww.

Shoaib (40:07.65)
And there was a lot of people saying the word personal branding, but not a lot of people knew what it was or how to do it or what it meant or what you could get from it. So I thought I wanted it to be kind of quite disruptive in that space. So I thought, Yellow Hippo, if somebody hears the brand name Yellow Hippo, they're going to be like, what is that? So I thought it was an immediate way to stand out. But also it kind of encapsulates what we do as an agency and how we're different to other agencies. So a lot of the...

Anya Smith (40:27.14)
Yeah, yeah.

Shoaib (40:35.21)
personal branding we do is very much storytelling and very, I say it's very personable but fun as well. It stands out just like a yellow hippo was. And then the other story is it kind of coincidentally, one of my friends made me a jumper. I should actually put this as a picture for the post.

Anya Smith (41:02.517)
Okay, okay.

Shoaib (41:03.17)
She made me a jump, it's a yellow jump and she hand drew a hippo on it and then it's got like a rainbow going across the arm She hand-handed it, hand-drew it, hand-painted it and it was like a birthday gift and anyway, I was on LinkedIn and maybe two years ago it was one of the first posts that I did that really took off and I was wearing that jumper and it was the first time I'd been really personal in my own content so that

Anya Smith (41:10.55)
Oh cool.

Shoaib (41:29.518)
But that's what I was wearing at the time. So I thought, well, that's the moment I think my brand shifted. And so to kind of mark that moment at what was I wearing at the time. And yeah, Yellow Hippo kind of came from that as well.

Anya Smith (41:43.632)
So why is, why are hippos your favorite animal?

Shoaib (41:46.858)
I just think that citrus is an underrated animal. I feel like I could talk about this for hours, so you're not gonna wanna be.

Anya Smith (41:53.088)
If you want to connect with Shave, tell him that you like hippos too. DM Hippo.

Shoaib (41:58.802)
Yeah, it's like a hippo. When I was younger I used to play a PC game called Zoo Tycoon where you build your own zoo basically. It's a computer game. I was never into shooting games or FIFA. I just wanted to build my own zoo. Like I said, I love building stuff. So I was there after school. I'd be sat there and hippos was for some reason on this game.

the hardest animal to make happy. And I was like, I'm gonna make you happy. I'm gonna nail this. So it's a challenge. And ever since then, I'm like, Hippo is just the animal to me.

Anya Smith (42:29.98)
Uh-huh.

Anya Smith (42:39.548)
I love it. Okay, so one thing I also pick up, your podcast is called Rebels. You talk about being a rebel. And the other thing that I picked up from a lot of influencing people in my life is that when they create content, they focus on not just doing it, but also having fun. And to me, there's kind of a rebellious side to having it. So what does being a rebel mean to you? And why is that important?

Shoaib (42:43.874)
Yes.

Shoaib (43:01.998)
To me, a rebel is somebody who does something differently and goes against the grain, regardless of whether it looks cool or whether it's the right thing to do in terms of society's eyes or whether it's the thing that people encourage you to do. But doing things your way because you believe in it and you have fun and you enjoy it and you'll make a positive impact on those around you. So I started Rebels, the podcast, purely because I thought there's so many amazing people in my network who have these really non-traditional career stories.

And I think it's really cool to get them to hear from those voices. And we, you know, we get this traditional kind of path to success that we taught, especially growing up in like a very academic kind of household and being taught, you know, you have to do this after you go to school, you have to do certain subjects even at school. You have to go to a top 10 university and you have to get a first class degree or like a really high grade. And, and actually.

I think at the time 70% of my clients didn't have a degree. Three of my 12 clients at the time hadn't even gone to college, two had got kicked out of college. And I thought, how are these people building these amazing things, but they haven't done nothing that I was taught to do? So that was the reason for our buzz. It's like, OK, let's hear from those people. Why did they do so well without all these...

building blocks that apparently you're supposed to have. And the process of showing was just so enlightening. I learned so much because I realized it's not about the certificates, the grades, the qualifications. It's about who you are, your mindset, and your ability to dream big and not fear embarrassment or failure or humiliation, but just to go for it either way. Because the worst thing that can happen is it fails. So what? Move on to the next thing.

Anya Smith (44:49.858)
Yeah.

Shoaib (44:55.494)
And so I was really inspired by those kinds of stories of people that achieved amazing success, but started with little.

Anya Smith (44:59.94)
Absolutely.

Anya Smith (45:08.564)
And let me know if you can hear me okay. It's cutting out a little bit over here. One question I also had is, we talk about storytelling and you all have this different approach. Can you maybe share some of the common things that you do with your clients if you're comfortable? What is the common process that you do to help people tell better stories or build their brand? And here, feel free to just show off and talk about the amazing stuff you guys have done recently.

Shoaib (45:35.814)
Yeah, so to give a summary in terms of what we've achieved, we work with founders, creators, entrepreneurs, freelancers, anyone who wants to build a brand, basically, and who has a story to share. And we help them ideate, create, construct LinkedIn content, written and visual and video. And we help them share that in a way that is engaging. It amplifies their digital visibility.

it helps them align with their values and showcase their story. But for most people, what's really important is how it impacts their business, how it positively attracts leads, how it attracts talent, how it attracts investors and all those other things. Because when somebody knows you as a person, they're much more likely to invest in your brand or your business. And we know that through successful marketing campaigns as of recent.

If you've got two businesses and one of them, the founder is active on LinkedIn and they're sharing these amazing personal stories that you can relate to and that you see yourself in, they're talking about their product or service and they're really showing that authority and expertise on that subject. And then you have another founder who's just completely absent on LinkedIn. I know which one I would go for that service, right? So that's what we do, we help.

We don't create authority or industry authority because I think you have to have that or at least a bit of that before, but we help them take their authority in the real world and put it online just because they can then massively and exponentially grow their audience and increase the number of people they're hitting and the benefits of that are crazy. It's just some examples like with one, one of my first clients actually ever, we worked with them.

since my first day, January 2022. And since then, they've grown from a team, I think of seven people to 25 in years. They are on track for 4 million revenue by the end of this year, annual revenue. And thank you. I mean, I don't know why I'm saying thank you, it's their business. However, however, a third of all their revenue comes through LinkedIn and that comes through.

Anya Smith (47:34.797)
Woohoo!

Anya Smith (47:42.768)
Congratulations!

I'm sorry.

Anya Smith (47:52.971)
Wow.

Shoaib (47:54.078)
the work that we're doing on their personal brands. So there's one example. And across the both of them, they've gained about 50,000 followers. Sorry, no, like 80,000 followers across the both of them. And their reach across their content in the time we've been working with them has surpassed 44 million just on two accounts. Now...

Anya Smith (47:56.944)
Wow.

Anya Smith (48:06.94)
amazing.

Anya Smith (48:20.228)
Wow.

Shoaib (48:21.058)
That kind of gives you a snippet of the potential of your brand and what it can do. Now, since then, based on the brand, they've won business awards, they've grown their team, they've opened a second office internationally, and they don't spend money on recruiters because their personal brand attracts talent to them. They don't spend a lot of money on marketing because they're getting, I think last month, they got 22 high quality leads directly through LinkedIn. So...

Anya Smith (48:37.785)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (48:44.837)
Wow.

Shoaib (48:47.362)
That's the potential, I always say that, and it probably sounds to some people at last like I'm gloating. But I say that all the time because it shows the potential. I always think big. If one person can do that, why can't you? That's my approach to things.

Anya Smith (48:57.613)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (49:04.328)
You're reading my mind in the podcast. I sound like in the description says if they can do it Why not you what somebody asked me because I was on the podcast yesterday and they mentioned How would you how would you motivate other people to think big? Do you have any advice around that? I know what I said, but

Shoaib (49:19.759)
Great question, great question. I think you have to surround yourself with the right types of people. Just through the conversations you're having, when you have a conversation with someone, are you leaving that conversation energized and inspired and ready to go? And a couple of years ago I wasn't in that headspace. I'd have a conversation and leave it thinking, feeling just a bit low.

Anya Smith (49:26.832)
Hmm.

Anya Smith (49:36.153)
Like this one.

Shoaib (49:45.302)
Like we didn't, that was not a productive conversation. It was, it didn't help either of us. It was quite negative. And so I strategically started finding those people who were building something, who were, you know, like-minded, I guess, but also connected with people who aren't like 10 years ahead of you, because they're unrelatable. You can't see yourself in their journey, so it feels almost untouchable. So find people who are maybe one to three steps ahead of where you are.

So if you wanna make 5K a month through whatever it is you do, find somebody who's done 10K a month, because they're gonna be closer to that touch point, so they're gonna be able to remember the steps they took and teach you. Whereas if you went to somebody making 10 million a month, they're probably at a different level of thinking. They're not gonna be able to... They probably won't have the time to impart that knowledge on you. So find people who are at your level, learn from them, and then find people who are a little bit ahead.

Anya Smith (50:34.885)
Right.

Shoaib (50:44.702)
and study them, study why they've achieved that success. I think for me, that's a really big one. You have to see it to be able to achieve it.

Anya Smith (50:55.004)
100% that was the inspiration for this podcast. So this whole podcast to me was this idea that I always felt a little bit crazy and alone thinking, well, I wanna do all this stuff, but I don't see this around me necessarily. And I don't know how to get to these people, connect with them, build that inspiring network. And so I created this podcast with everybody listening because I wanted people to share their stories and the real side of it, the things that were hard, the things that talk about how they started and not just how things are going well right now.

And so if you're listening and want more inspiration, check out all the episodes we have. They're selfless, shameless self-plug right here. All the episodes of people doing their unique journey doesn't have to look like me or Shoaib or anybody else. It can be your own journey, but just see that other people are doing it and it's possible to embrace your unique journey, to fail, to learn, to struggle, but make it happen and have a life that's more fulfilling than maybe where you're feeling right now.

Shoaib (51:41.07)
Yeah. Yes, yes. And just to add to that, there's another great person to follow, by the way, is Sophie Miller. She's the founder of a community called Pretty Little Marketer, which has just completely taken off over the last couple of years. And she was also on my podcast, and she said something. Another line that's really stuck with me is, instead of thinking what's the worst thing that can happen?

Anya Smith (52:06.681)
Yeah.

Shoaib (52:10.082)
think what's the best thing that can happen and lead with that mindset. Because if you're already thinking of like things that could go wrong, you're putting out that negative energy, you're almost admitting defeat before you've even begun. So think what's the best thing that can happen? Okay, how do I get there and work backwards?

Anya Smith (52:22.776)
Right, right.

Anya Smith (52:28.48)
Oh, I love it. Speaking of negative energy, if you don't mind me asking, what were some of the big quote unquote failures you had to overcome on this journey to get here?

Shoaib (52:39.51)
Yes, where to begin? So I think growing too fast meant at times, very early on, I wasn't delivering to the potential that I knew I could. And that to me, as someone who's quite a perfectionist, that for me wasn't great. Seeing a result for a client and thinking, I can do better than that, and getting really frustrated at myself. It wasn't a bad result, as an industry standard.

Anya Smith (53:09.595)
Right.

Shoaib (53:09.602)
But because my expectations were so high, I was like, I can do better. And I know why I didn't do better, because I took too much on. I saw the financial numbers ticking up and up and up, and I was like, oh, I'll say yes to this and yes to this and yes to this. And I completely overwhelmed myself. And so to me, that process in itself was, I see that as a failure, but when I realized quickly, and so it was actually a huge benefit in hindsight. Other failures, I'd say how...

Anya Smith (53:19.759)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (53:24.965)
Yeah.

Shoaib (53:37.994)
The business overtook my life. I was working 18 hour days. And that sounds like an exaggeration, but it was consistently 18 hour days for three solid months. And I was having Red Bull and Monster energy drinks, like two or three a day, which is completely disgusting and unhealthy. And I was living off Domino's. I'd have like Domino's. My flatmate at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anya Smith (53:40.239)
Tach.

Anya Smith (53:49.2)
Cool.

Anya Smith (53:55.614)
Ugh.

Anya Smith (54:02.836)
The pizza the pizza company right Domino's yeah

Shoaib (54:06.154)
Yeah, and my flatmate would come home from work, because he used to do night shifts, and he'd get home from work and it'd be like 9am, and he's like, why are there two large Domino pizza boxes in the kitchen? And I was like, oh, that was from last night, and then the second one, that's for my breakfast today. Like those kinds of, that whole place I was in was just not great. Financially, amazing, right? But there's more to it.

Anya Smith (54:22.073)
Oh.

Anya Smith (54:28.591)
Yeah.

Shoaib (54:31.878)
life and finances and my health was deteriorating, my happiness was deteriorating, I wasn't seeing my friends, I wasn't like, I wasn't myself. So I see that maybe as another failure and I think failure often people see as like business failure right or like financial failure. But I think also if you start something, whatever those goals are, for me it was health, time freedom, financial independence, all those types of things.

Anya Smith (54:47.278)
Yeah.

Shoaib (54:58.246)
If you're not achieving those, no matter how great your business is, you've become distracted from your end goal, and that in itself I think is a failure that you have to quickly recognise.

Anya Smith (55:10.328)
You're amazing. I love this, but I want to be respectful of our time to wrap up this conversation What are the big things or little things that you are now working towards that excite you and yellow HIPAA right now?

Shoaib (55:13.623)
Yes.

Shoaib (55:21.694)
Yes, so I'm currently just finalizing the new website, which is something I have been building myself. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's just we've updated our services recently, and I've never actually spoken about all our new services and the stuff we're doing for our clients that I haven't publicized. So, yeah, so no, I can share. I mean, obviously people know us for LinkedIn content, but we also...

Anya Smith (55:27.038)
Ooh!

Anya Smith (55:41.776)
Do you wanna share? Or will that be a post?

Shoaib (55:50.158)
creating e-books for some of our clients and lead magnets. We are supporting them with their wider company marketing. We've done some, I've done some one-to-one coaching as well. I've started doing just based on demand and some team workshops where I'm going into companies and training them and some off-limits speaking. So there's different ways now for people to work with us and get value without paying for a monthly retainer. Cause you know, not everybody.

Anya Smith (56:11.385)
Yeah.

Shoaib (56:18.702)
can afford that or not everybody wants to commit long term. So I've kind of created different services to support that. And then we're launching a, I've never said this, but I'm gonna say it on your podcast. Anyone who listens gets like insider info here. YellowHood is releasing an ebook. So the ebook I created two years ago, that was a free ebook and

Anya Smith (56:38.348)
Ooh.

Shoaib (56:46.75)
It was kind of my initial entry into the world of personal branding. This ebook won't be free. Sorry. However, this ebook comes with two years worth of data that nobody else has access to because it's within our agency. So we've written over 6,000 LinkedIn posts and we are number crunching to show you the best performing hooks, the themes that really resonate, the best styles of writing.

And so Rolly Making and Rolly Valuable, I've started working on it. It was supposed to be like a 30 page document. We're already on 120 pages. So this is like the ultimate Bible to building an epic personal brand. It sounds like very in depth, but a lot of it is like fun diagrams and examples and imagery, so it's very digestible. But yeah, very excited to hoping to release that before the end of the new year.

Anya Smith (57:27.484)
Wow.

Anya Smith (57:42.14)
I can't wait. This is definitely coming out before that. I'm so excited for you. I'm excited to check it out. I think money worth well spent is on educating yourself and getting better from people who know their shit and who have the numbers to prove it and give you that insights as well. So thank you for doing that. Really excited for this. Okay. Last thing, we wrap up with three short bit questions, but before we dive into that, where should people find you? Obviously, we'll have you linked in post. What's your website? Podcast.

Shoaib (58:08.291)
LinkedIn podcast is called www.rebelsbyschwaebarmend.co.uk. So that's the website. But if you search on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, podcast, whatever, it's just Rebels by Schwae Barmend. Connect with me on LinkedIn and then obviously yellowhippo.co.uk.

Anya Smith (58:24.429)
Okay.

Anya Smith (58:29.468)
Okay, beautiful. Okay, three rapid fire questions when you're ready, and then we will let you go.

Shoaib (58:35.645)
I'm ready, I'm ready. Hit me.

Anya Smith (58:39.395)
Okay, let's do it. No, just kidding. What's one word your friends would use to describe you?

Shoaib (58:44.402)
Ooh, ambitious.

Anya Smith (58:47.016)
Okay, I can see that. Okay, if Yellow Hippo were a superhero, what would be its superpower?

Shoaib (58:53.462)
Oh, that's a great one. I say like lightning speed, because when we have an idea in our agency, it gets actioned fast. Like we are moving at a hundred miles per hour. We don't let anything sit for too long.

Anya Smith (59:03.627)
Ooh.

Anya Smith (59:07.2)
Oh, brilliant. I love that. Okay, last but not least, in the positive context going off track is

Shoaib (59:16.214)
Oh, going off track is one of the biggest benefits and one of the best things you can do. Because I believe the whole point of Rebels, the podcast obviously, was started for people who didn't follow the traditional path. I think if you do something differently, you're immediately ahead of everybody else in your space who's trying to achieve something. But because you're doing it differently, you want to stand out. So.

Anya Smith (59:41.412)
Oh, I love that. Well, my friend, thank you. Sorry, it's my move, I love it. Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. And to everybody listening, I just wanna share again that our mission of Write Off Track is to inspire people to live more fulfilling lives and to embrace their unique journey. So if that resonates with you, I would so appreciate if you took just one moment to share it with somebody else who would find this interesting, inspiring on their unique journey. And Shai, thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom. I love your content, I love just interacting with you like this, this could go on for.

more and more hours because this was so much fun for me. But thank you, I really appreciate our time together. And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for coming off track with us. This was a fun adventure and I look forward to having you next time.

Shoaib (01:00:22.223)
Yeah, thank you so much. And can I also just add, this has been one of my favorite podcasts I've done. So credit to you, because I've had so much fun. And I'm going to go back and I'm going to watch the rest of the episodes now. So I feel like it's going to be a lot of value in there.

Anya Smith (01:00:23.964)
Mm. Yeah.

Anya Smith (01:00:35.67)
Oh, you're amazing. Thank you, my friend. Okay, till next time, my friends. I appreciate you.