Produced By - From Doctor to Content Creator: Building Credibility in a Noisy Space | 140: Sarah Rav

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Sarah Rav is a former medical doctor turned Positioning & Content Strategist. Born in Malaysia and raised in Australia, she has spent over a decade building an audience of more than three million followers across Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. After years in medicine and consulting, Sarah stepped away from traditional career paths to focus on helping professionals scale their business through content, positioning, and personal brand strategy.In this episode, we explore Sarah’s bold journey from medicine to content creation, the behind the scenes reality of building and rebuilding an audience, and how she recognised LinkedIn’s potential early. Sarah shares practical insights on growing a personal brand that attracts the right clients, building credibility as a professional, and creating content that feels aligned, even within a short time frame on the platform, without pretending to be someone you’re not.Connect with Sarah:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rav/https://www.instagram.com/sarahrav/Timestamps:00:00 – Writing content people actually care about01:15 – Introducing Sarah and her background02:14 – Growing up between Malaysia and Australia03:50 – Life in Melbourne04:28 – Why she chose medicine05:49 – The emotional reality of being a doctor06:39 – Interest in psychiatry and mental health08:26 – Why content did not feel like a real career09:56 – Choosing passion over a safe path11:04 – Early days of content creation13:11 – Rebranding, losing engagement, rebuilding14:57 – AI content and standing out16:31 – Why LinkedIn became the focus17:42 – Growing on LinkedIn in a short time18:32 – Adapting content across platforms20:30 – How she splits time between platforms22:07 – Creating content alongside full-time work23:51 – Finding repeatable content formats25:06 – Personal branding for professionals26:02 – Writing hooks that make people care27:52 – Why CTAs matter more than you think30:06 – Injecting personality into writing31:14 – Simple tools and content systems33:36 – How Sarah actually uses AI35:53 – Inspirations and community on LinkedIn37:37 – Music, family, and life outside content39:02 – Why she does not read many books40:30 – Big goals, legacy, and giving back42:12 – Launching a new LinkedIn offer44:09 – Where to find and follow Sarah45:06 – Final reflections and closing Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every time you post, ask yourself, why would anybody care about this? Every client that I start to work with and often new creators will post content that has a lot of in it. I did this. I achieved this. This is my system. This is how I do it. That's great because you should be sharing your personal experience.

It is your brand. But nobody's going to care about you. That sounds really bad to say, but people have a lot going on. It really is a reality. Like, if I started all my posts with, I have 3 million followers on. Instagram and TikTok, like, people would get tired of that. They'd be like, okay, like, great. Like the first time, they might be like, that's cool.

The second time they'd be like, I've heard this. I don't care. So you want to write your posts with a very, very clear reason as to why people should care. And for me, the best way to do this is opening with a hook that either states a pain point or states an outcome in their language. So for me, instead of saying, I posted one post and I got 10 clients, that's very eye-centric. I would say something like, Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button.

Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Sarah. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Hi, Tong. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Me too, Sarah.

And for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah. I'm a doctor-turned content creator. Over the last 12 years, I've grown my socials to over 3 million followers in total, with my main accounts being Instagram and TikTok. In the last year, I've recently switched over to LinkedIn to start my own business,

and I guess now you'll call me a LinkedIn creator. Before Sarah, we dive into this, I wanted to ask you, because I think beautiful aspect or potential of LinkedIn that people literally across the whole world can connect, which is you and me, and me being in Europe, you've been in Australia, I find it very exciting. It's literally, as we just discussed before the recording time difference. So can you tell us a bit more about your background, such as growing up in Australia, if there's the place you've always been in, and just tell us a bit more about your background?

Yeah, sure. So I actually was born in Malaysia. So I feel like I am a bit of an enigma because I was born in Malaysia. My dad is half Indian, half Chinese, and my mom's full Chinese. So I'm Malaysian Indian, Malaysian Chinese, and then I moved to Australia when I was seven, so I'm also Australian. So I've got sort of a wide range of backgrounds, I could say, each with their differences. Is there a particular country you'd like me to focus on, maybe Malaysia or Australia? You can tell a bit about both, because I was going to ask you about Australia, but I think I've never spoken with anyone from Malaysia, so I find it quite exciting as well.

For sure. So the one thing I say we'll say about Malaysia is that the food there is amazing. I'm not biased. Maybe I am biased, but Malaysia food is the best. And if you ask anyone who's been to Malaysia, I feel like they agree with me. But I have lots of good memories of Malaysia because I grew up with my family there. So, yeah, I would say it's a good place to visit if you have never been. Australia, I feel, is or was a really good place to grow up.

I feel like it's a very safe country. it's very diverse so you get lots of ethnicities here but I will say that I think because I was a Malaysian I always felt a little bit maybe different from like the locals but that's not I really honestly think that in moving here I was able to try and experiment with a lot of a lot more things like content creation that maybe I wouldn't have been able to do back home and the city that you are from is it like any of the big cities in Australia yeah I'm from Melbourne so we'll always make jokes about how you can experience four seasons in one day here or like one second it would be sunny and the next will be hailing and that's true that's not a stereotype it's true

I might be wrong but isn't it where Olympics are going to happen or is it a different city in Australia I think Brisbane is where the Olympics is oh Brisbane okay yeah it's my bet I've never been there so I get it mixed I'm sorry and then if we move towards your career you mentioned before and also something that I read is that you worked or studied medicine. So is that something that you've always been interested in this area? Yes, it's interesting that you ask that because this is something I've actually been asking myself a lot because, and I talk about this on my content on Instagram as well. I always thought that I wanted to be a doctor from a very young age.

So when I was in my, maybe when I was like seven, eight, that maybe. even 10, I asked my auntie what like a stable slash high paying job was and she said, doctor. And so then I think from then on I decided that I wanted to be a doctor without actually ever really knowing what the job entails, what it's actually like. As I grew older though, I learned more about it and I realized that I did want to help people. So in a sense, I wanted to be a doctor from a very young age. When I started working in medicine though, I realized that the job itself is not as it seems and there's lots of different sides to it that you don't really get exposed to you until you've committed to working as a doctor and you've done

however many years in medical school so yeah and i can imagine it's also quite a hard cutter path when it comes to learning everything and of course quite like a serious because you are obviously dealing with health of people so a lot at stake so quite a challenging choice It is. It is not an easy career. And I think to really do well in medicine, you have to love what you're doing or you have to be really steadfast in your purpose for doing it because it is their long hours, that's lots of study. And it's physically taxing as well. Sometimes you're on your feet all day. And as you said, and I talk about this in actually one of the YouTube videos that I did about why I left medicine, it is very emotionally challenging. And that's really something that I struggled with a lot as well. Yeah, I can imagine. And when we discuss medicine, is there like any specific focus that you wanted to pursue or that you focus on? Because obviously it's a large topic and large area, just so that we know it a bit more specifically. Yeah. So I, in Australia, you don't commit to any

focus area or specialty until after you graduate from medical school. So, I never committed to a specialty. I was interested in psychiatry and that's still like mental health is still a big passion of mine but ultimately just didn't end up going down that path. Okay, okay. And I guess this topic of mental health, it kind of, or you can see that it's quite important like in these days on social media too because I feel like that people still don't discuss it as much, but then behind the scenes it's still happening and not happy to say it, but I think it will become more and more relevant in the future. So I think I'm lucky because you know how the algorithms work?

If you train your newsfeed to show you stuff that you're interested in, I have a lot of sort of mental health and well-being stuff come up. So I think I'm lucky that I get exposed to that. But 100% agree that it could always benefit from more conversations and more awareness. I think so soon. and I like, for example, when I talk about with someone on the podcast, too, and they kind of open about it, because especially when you hear it from someone who's way ahead of you with higher following more successful, it just makes it more relatable and understand that it's natural to go through these things.

Yeah, I think I watched a couple of your episodes dealing with burnout and the breathwork stuff. I thought that was really interesting, so I like that. Thank you. I appreciate it. And then, Sarah, when, what was the moment that made you? focus or actually decide if you didn't want to pursue medicine, what else did you want to do? Was it like that you knew that you want to focus on content creation or branding or you didn't know? What was it like? It's really, yeah.

So I actually started content creation when I was 16. So that was in high school even before, well actually when I was 14. So when I was high school, well before I decided to go to medical school. And I was not bad at it. Like I had a pretty high following on Instagram. about 200k, I'd started my own business, sold an e-book, all that sort of stuff. But again, I think as I said to you before, I'd always thought that medicine was going to be the way for me.

So I never, ever viewed content creation as an actual career. I also think that unless you're in it and you're already doing it, the general public's opinion of content is like, it's not serious, right? It's just a hobby or it's, you know, a frivolous idea. So I think that perception impacted me as well. Like I kept saying to myself, oh, but it's not serious. It's never going to get to anywhere, so I'm not going to do it. And so what I decided to do instead after medicine was consulting,

which is more of a broader sort of general strategy and management consulting. And that was no really good fit for me. But I think ultimately, even after a couple of years of that, I realized that there's nothing I'm as passionate about as contact. like no matter how good work was and how much I was achieving and progressing my priority and like my thought was always in what am I going to post that day you know am I going to be in a film this weekend yeah yeah I like it because it's like pursuing your passion and what you enjoy the most because having fun is I think ultimately one of the most important things because it helps you

just to keep going no matter what and you enjoy it at the same time 100% and I'm slowly learning now that there's not a lot of hobbies that you can't make a career out of. Like if you have a special interest in something, there's probably a job out there for you or a way to monetize that you can make it work. That is true. It's even for example on LinkedIn. Sometimes I see people that focus on specific areas or specific topics. And I'm surprised, wow, how can this work?

But clearly there is like a niche or area or like audience for a list. cherry anything. 100%. And as you said before, that you started quite young with content creation, what was it like back in then? Because I'm sure that many people started like a bit later or maybe recently when it's kind of growing, developing and the whole content creation economy becoming bigger and bigger. But what does it like for you? So I would say that it was very much the classic Instagram with all the filters and the motivational quotes and the pictures and the square, the square posts. That's exactly what it was.

And all I did was find pictures on the internet and post it. I never posted my own face for a long time. And I was a kid, so I think that kind of checks out. But I would say, actually, that a lot of that skill probably came from Tumblr. So I had Tumblr when I was even younger than that. Oh, wow. It's really just like choosing nice picks to post on your Tumblr, exactly the same as Instagram, like choosing pictures that you think are

impressive or helpful and posting that on my Instagram. And I started with sort of fitness and motivational content. And I would say it was very experimental. But I would argue that it's almost still the same. Like, even though the content that I make is much higher quality, much higher value, everything ultimately is just an experiment. Like you try something, see if it works. And if it doesn't, you try something else. That is true and I agree. That's something I try to follow and kind of tell people too because, yes, it might work for one person,

but it doesn't mean that's necessarily going to work for you. And the best way or the only way how to find out is try, experiment and then adjust based on the result. 100%. That is a cost I will die on. It is all about finding what works for you. Because like you can copy a video word for where, but we don't have, you know, like if something missing. Maybe you don't speak the same way, you don't have the same energy, like it just might not work for you. Exactly. And a great point that you also said is since you started

a bit earlier and you amassed large audience already, for example, on Instagram. I was honestly impressed when I saw your following across other channels too, but Instagram as well. I think it's also perfectly shows that you need to play the long game because people often look for, you know, shortcuts and they see, oh, one million followers are even more. I'll get their too, but they don't see how much work there is behind it. Yeah, I think one thing that I have learned from 12 years or almost 13 years of doing this is you have to be able to like rebrand yourself multiple times. And even better now, there are lots of people on Instagram that teach this really well,

is like you make yourself the niche. So where I started with fitness and motivational content, nobody knew who I was, I would not do that again because if I stopped being interested in fitness, all my followers are gone. So really bringing yourself into the picture is a big thing and also being uncomfortable with like going through the highs and the lows because I did study content for five years and I was getting millions of views on every video. But then I know I graduated and I'm like, well, now I'm not a student anymore. So it doesn't make sense for me to do this. and then almost overnight, you know, my engagement dropped as I was trying to find a new niche.

But I know with time it will pick back up, I just have to write it out. I like it, yes. And also algorithms are changing, trends are changing. There is new competition all the time. For example, we can see it even on LinkedIn, new people emerging. So we need to keep evolving. And I think even more relevant now in the age of AI. Oh, 100%.

I'm so interested to see how AI will change. content and platforms. Me too. What's then your experience like with LinkedIn and AI? I don't want to bring the topic, but of course we use it for the content creation and everything, but I don't know. For example, with the comments, sometimes I feel like it's not evolving that well. And I'm afraid that in the future it might be even worse like with the commenting.

But what's your experience like? Yeah. I find that a lot of my feed, I can mostly tell when something's been written by AI and it happens way more often than you would think. And it's weird because some of those posts will get lots of likes and those people might have lots of followers. You know, I would never want to take that away from someone, but it just makes you question like, how do you stay differentiated in something like this? Or how does somebody who's using AI so blatantly differentiate themselves? I think the comments, sometimes I don't know if it's AI or it's just like a person trying to support my

post but really doesn't have anything to add because like sometimes I'll just summarize my post and I'll be like that's great thank you and I like I appreciate you commenting like I appreciate you commenting but then I find myself responding like sure 100% agreed I'm like I don't know what else inside of this I feel it's the same honestly I feel the same but I think just people don't have to overthink it I feel like for my experience even if it's someone sharing their experience of you having fun or adding something fun. It's just more than one long paragraph that summarizes the whole post. Yeah. Yeah. Or even like, that's cool or like emojis. On Instagram I got a lot of emojis, just emojis. So that's not bad. But then I don't have to reply to that as much.

And I forget to ask you, Sarah, you've been on other platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, but when actually the LinkedIn come? What was the moment that made you focus on it? Yeah, so I, as I said before, I was going to a bit of a rebrand. So I wasn't sure, I didn't want to post study content anymore, but I wasn't sure what I should post. So in that moment, I decided that career content, like, you know, how to progress fast through a career, how to stand out, how to be a top performer would be a natural progression from study content because most students will have to graduate and enter the workforce at some point. And then I thought, where can I find professionals?

Like, what's the most obvious platform for that LinkedIn? I'd also heard from other people that LinkedIn was like blowing up or sort of in the early stages that Instagram and TikTok once were. So I thought that would be a good thing to test. And it was right. Like that intel was correct. LinkedIn is a great place to be. But I learned that career content doesn't actually make much sense for me because I quit my

job. So again, similar to the study thing. Like I'm no longer a student. I no longer am employed. It doesn't make sense for me to do it. that and that's when I pivoted to personal branding. Yeah, I like it. And roughly, do you remember, like, for example, when you started just to give us a bit of scale? How was it? I think June or July last year. It's been about five months. Oh my God. I was expecting longer, to be honest,

judging from your online presence and everything. Really well done. I, um, so I've had LinkedIn for a long time because I made it when I was in med school, but my very first post was probably about June or July. I think I'm, I don't want to say I'm lucky because I need to stop saying that, but I think I'm blessed to have the experience from Instagram and TikTok, which I think is a much harder or much, which are both much harder platforms to grow on because making videos is a lot harder than writing a post. Yes. And with the content that you share on LinkedIn, because of that, did you also change the content

that you share on those other platforms? Slowly. It happened over time. I was sort of posting. And again, like the last year for me, the last six months has been very much an experimental phase. I was moving out of that study content, trying to find what my new thing would be. And so I experimented with the career thing.

And then on LinkedIn, personal branding took off straight away. People were so into that. So I was like, it makes complete sense for me to talk about this because I can talk about this in my sleep. On Instagram, I wanted to try something different because my audience is definitely a lot younger. So I thought about doing more just like big sister advice or real talk. Sort of touching on that mental health topic, but not so in debt.

And that was okay. But it was really hard for me to come up with content for that. because I don't live and breathe it. So one day, when I was in the US on a holiday, I was like, why am I try talking about personal writing on Instagram? If it's popping off on LinkedIn, surely it would pop off on Instagram as well. So I just pivoted. But for some reason, it took me a long time to come to that conclusion.

But I believe that everything happens at its own pace when it's meant to happen. So now we're here. And you never know, maybe it takes a bit slower. because personal branding is very big on LinkedIn and maybe it takes a bit slower but as we are recorded down maybe in a few months or years it's going to be a big topic on instagram as well yeah 100% i think there's lots of people that talk about building an instagram account whether or not they call it personal branding is another story and then of course on instagram i'm still fighting that algorithm that thinks i'm posting study content right so i know that it will take longer

than LinkedIn, which is fresh and new. But that's okay. And how do you then devote your time among the platforms? Because you are on many, you've got large following, so it must be hard to juggle everything. I would say that LinkedIn is my baby, so I probably spend more time on there. It's the one that gives you the most joke to me at the moment,

and also brings in the most leads. So it makes sense to dedicate most of my time there. So I spend my Mondays, filming content and editing for Instagram. And then I spend probably half a Friday morning writing my LinkedIn content. But every morning, every day of the week except Sunday, I post in the morning. And I'll probably spend 30 minutes on Instagram and maybe an hour on LinkedIn. But that also includes like commenting, sending DMs, responding to DMs, that's all stuff.

There's a lot I don't share on the podcast. bits, the real life behind the mic. That's what the vlog is for. It's called Behind the Produce Buy and it lives on the same YouTube channel as this podcast. If you like seeing how creators usually build things, you might enjoy it. I remember Sarah, I read that when you are building your brand, you work, of course, in the medicine, did maybe some work outside, but I believe that I read that you worked like 70 plus hours or I don't know what was the number. No, no, but there was like a high number that you worked.

17 is right. Yeah. Yes. And on top of it, of course, you managed to grow your brand, your socials and everything. So for the people, I think it's quite common excuse. Maybe sometimes it's not excuse. It's hard to do it. But like your advice or tips, how to manage it on top of, for example, doing 9 to 5 life outside

but still manage to build your brand. Yeah. So I will say I'll share three tips. The first is that you have to schedule. when you're going to make content in your week and you have to protect it. So for me, that was Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning I would film. And then in the mornings before I went to work, I would post.

So those times were times that I knew that I was going to post or film. And therefore, I wouldn't schedule anything during those times. So I protected them. The second thing that saved me is batch filming. So planning out, say, five to ten videos at a time and then filming them all at once. That was probably one of the things that let me do that well. The third thing is to double down on what works. And I like to call this finding your repeatable format. So if you go back to my videos when I was posting study content

and, you know, growing by 100,000 followers a week sort of thing, you'll see that there's a very common format that I use, which is me sitting at my desk and like lip singing and like pointing at the ceiling sort of thing, and there's words appearing above my head. Those videos would take me 20 seconds to fill. And then all I would have to do is like think about what text is on the top of the screen. So once I worked out that that works really well, I doubled down on that and that was sort of my main focus. That's what I'm going to recommend if you don't have a lot of time. But for any creator, I would say that once you've found your repeatable format, double down on it, but make to your testing new format still, because as you said before, Tom, the algorithm evolves and what

used to work for you might not work for you in six months. So you want to find something else in that time. It's actually such a smart idea what you described through those videos. I like it. Well, similar to what you said before, what might work for one creator might not work for the other creator. For me, the same repeatable format doesn't work in my new niche because it's a different audience. My old audience were students. They were young. They wanted, you know, quick, easy to understand. My new audience probably is older and thinks that that's probably a bit childish or, you know, a bit younger than them. So again, like, I'm the same person, but the same format doesn't work for me in two different niches. I think perfectly proves the point about what we

discussed. And the great point you said before was because when I looked at your Instagram on TikTok. I could see so many videos. And I was also thinking, wow, how she manages to do so much. But it's so smart. Just batch film it and then post it in upcoming dates. I think it's a great idea. Yeah. Save my life patch for me, honestly.

And then Sarah, if we move towards what you focus on on LinkedIn, such as personal branding, can you just maybe tell us a bit more about, because there are many people who do this, like a personal brand in LinkedIn. I feel like there are new emerging ones all the time. but can you tell us more about what you focus on and just introduce us to it a bit more? Yeah. So my particular focus on LinkedIn is for people who want to find clients on LinkedIn and specifically professionals. And the reason why I am better suited to talk to this as your general run-of-the-mill content

creators because I have worked in various professional industries. You know, I worked as a doctor. I worked as a consultant. I know the difference between being an influencer. and being or developing a brand as a professional. So what I share are tips on how to grow your LinkedIn followers if you're a professional, but also use your content to find clients and bring in those clients. Yes.

And of course, we could have the whole master class and spend much longer discussing that. But can you share some tips? I'm sure you get DMs regularly like Sarah, how to grow, how to go viral. so can you share some? After three in Trend as a consultant. The first one I would say is every time you post, ask yourself, why would anybody care about this? Every client that I start to work with and often new creators will post content that has a lot

of I in it. I did this. I achieved this. This is my system. This is how I do it. That's great because you should be sharing. your personal experience. It is your brand, but nobody's going to care about you. That sounds really bad to say, but people have a lot going on. Yeah, it really is. It really is a reality. Like,

if I started all my posts with, I have three million followers on Instagram and TikTok, like, people would get tired of that. They'd be like, okay, like, great. Like the first time, they might be like, that's cool. The second time they've like, I've heard this, I don't care. So you want to write your posts with a very, very, very, clear reason as to why people should care. And for me, the best way to do this is opening with a hook that either states a pain point or states an outcome in their language. So for me, instead of saying I posted one post and I got 10 clients, that's very eye-centric, I would say something like, you've been posting for over six months and you've landed no clients. If somebody's reading that,

they would be like, oh my goodness, that is me. This post is talking to me. I need to fix this. or it might be something like use this hook and your next post will get five times more impressions. Then people want five times more impressions, so that's why they'd care about the post. Yep. Yeah. Yep, that's a good one. That's what? I have two more.

I thought if I missed it, I was like, oh, no, I did not. No, you didn't, you didn't. The second one I would say, and this is specifically for people who are trying to build a business, is include a CTA in your posts. A CTA does more than just telling people what to do next. Like, yes, in its most obvious form, a CTA tells you to follow or tells the audience to follow you or to join your newsletter or whatever. But I find that CTAs actually have a much stronger benefit of pulling all your content

together. What I mean by this is if somebody sees your post, post for the first time. Like, let's say somebody sees one of my posts and it's about how to write a good story. They'll read the post and they'll be like, that's interesting. And then they'll see my CTA. And my CTA is usually like, I help professionals build profitable personal brands. That one sentence tells that person, oh, I understand why she posted this now and what she

stands for. Whereas if I didn't have that CTA, they just see this one post and they'll be like, that's cool, going to keep scrolling because I don't know where that sits into the puzzle. But that CTA tells them exactly where I fit and that post fits into the puzzle. Just a little addition to interrupt. For example, sometimes I feel like that you are posting regularly and that you keep repeating yourself and audience knows you. And sometimes I got maybe, I think that it might be annoying or repeatable. But as you perfectly said, you never know if there is like a person who sees you for the first time,

who sees your content for the first time. So I think it's always a good reminder that all the moment. you might think that people have heard it or seen it many times. You never know if there is someone who's seen your content for this first time and doesn't know anything about you. 100%. And I would add that even people who have seen your content repeatedly probably don't pay as much attention as you think they should.

Yeah, they're too. Right? Like I won't test you, but I could probably ask you like, what is my CTA? And you and I comment on each other post every day, but like it'd probably be hard to remember, right? So what seems... to you is often not repetitive to other people because they're scrolling through hundreds of posts every day. So yes, 100% agree with that point. The third point I would say is to, and this comes back to what we talked about with the AI, but the opposite. Inject your personality

into the posts. So there's lots of different ways you can do that. One of the easiest ways to start is to record yourself speaking instead of typing for your very first post. because when you speak, you have a lot more mannerisms and personality as you do when you write if it's your first time. And an example of that in my content is you'll see that I sometimes put lots of brackets. Like it's kind of like me providing a little side note or I sometimes write words in capitals. And that's me like emphasizing a word as I'm doing in real life. So those are like my little quirks that help people recognize my writing as mine. Yeah.

I like it. That's a good one because it helps you to differentiate yourself from others, because there's like people who use emojis, people who don't use them, people who use cap words, people do who do so. So they share it for everyone, find something that makes unique and recognizable. Yeah, exactly. And then Sarah, what will be some of the tools that you use for your content creation, whether it's favorite ones or any recommendations? Yeah.

So my content creation system is very systemized. Like, as I said before, I have strict days where I film and where I edit, where I write. But the tools that I use are actually very basic themselves. So to capture ideas that come to me during the week or when I'm scrolling, I just use my notes app on my iPhone. I literally just have a running list of ideas that I want to do. And then to plan out my posts, I use the next. sales spreadsheet, which I only started doing when I left my job. Before then, I was just choosing whatever I wanted to write that week and just winging it. But now I have an Excel spreadsheet just

for a bit more structure. And then I write my posts in the notes app as well. And then I just like date when I'm going to post it. So I'm telling you, like, all of this costs me $0 to do. It's just all in my notes app. I do have Canva if I felt like making a carousel or some infographic. But otherwise, it's like, take copy and paste from my notes app, find a picture, upload. No, but I think that's what's beautiful about it, that you don't need fancy tools, big budget than anything. And literally, you do it consistently. You put out quality content and you just have like a basic, simple ones.

So don't overcap it. Yeah, I will always, always say that simpler is better. You know, I've looked into notion and all those other tools. and I feel like the more I complicate it, the more off-putting it feels. Yes, and I know it from my experience when, for example, I wanted a new tool or explore something for something new. And I was like, oh, should I try this one or this one or that one? Then I overthinking it and spend so long thinking about which one to use. And it just gives you a headache and you waste so much time on it and it's not really worth it in the other.

Yeah, 100%. Like I would only think about incorporating a new tool if my current process was broken. You know, if I wasn't posting it all, then I was like, okay, I probably need something a bit more. Yes, yes. And when it comes to AI, have you got any favorite tools, LLIMs, or you don't use it at all? I use chat GPT. Like, I will be honest, I use chat GBT. I use chat mostly for like a do-over before I post. So I write everything on my own. And then before I post, I'll paste it into chat and say, like, are there any spellings? errors or any grammatical mistakes or anything that doesn't make sense.

So that's what I use chat for. There are times very rarely where I might be writing a list of like three things that I'm trying to make a point about and I need another example. So I'd be like, hey, can you give me another example similar to these ones? So it's definitely in there, but I don't rely on it heavily. I've tried because I've seen on LinkedIn people talking about how they generate AI images of themselves, like speaking on stage and on the news and all that sort of stuff. I tried Gemini for that, but the pictures always come out a little like wonky,

so I've never posted any of them. Sometimes you get like six fingers instead of five. Yeah, or like I'll tell them to replace the face with a new photo, and then they just like crop it out. It's so bad. So sometimes it's, I recently did one. I was trying, it was just a joke, like a funny post, and I wanted to replace this thing on my hand. And I was like, make fingers to look realistic. And there was like a finger. It looked

like as if a B, you know, it was, did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was so funny. I was like, I'm done with this. I posted it and it was as a joke, but I thought I'm, yeah, it's so funny. It's so, I know. But sometimes see people that have like really, really good images generated. And you're like, How did they do that? But I think they like spend a lot of time perfecting the prompts. So, you know, yeah. That is true. And sometimes it's also over-polished.

And it looks so over-polished that then it doesn't look realistic in the end. You know, you're kind of chasing the perfection and in the end, it doesn't really help in my opinion. I, 100%. I agree. And Sarah, what about some of your inspirations, whether it will be like people on LinkedIn, Instagram or even other platform from outside that inspire you or motivate your you like? Yes. So on LinkedIn, it's really funny because there are many big creators on LinkedIn.

And I would say that they're all inspiring in their way like Yasmin Alec, Lara Acosta, Fatima Khan. Like they're all people that I followed very early on and draw a lot of inspiration from. But I would say that the people that inspire me the most are probably the people. that I've been connected with from the very beginning. So when I first joined, had no idea what I was doing, I connected with some people in, you know, one of them's in Pakistan, one of them's in the UK, one of them's in the US, like all over the world. And we've just been commenting on each other's posts for the last six months.

And to me, that's really special because, you know, they don't have hundreds of thousands of followers, but they've been there for me from the very start. and they are the ones that gave me the courage to keep posting. So I'm kind of inspired by them, if that makes sense. Yes, and I think it's actually really nice because I've got such people too because I started when I was like a small, a few followers didn't know what to do. And there were people that you met and you've been engaging with throughout the whole journey. And over time, it's been like, I don't know, months or years and you're kind of still growing together.

And it's just nice to see each other grow. So it is and you feel like you know them and you feel like you're like your besties because you've just been following each other on this journey even though you might never have met in real life. Yeah. Exactly. That is true. And Sarah, then just to be aware of time, I like to ask kind of lighter or funnier questions in the end. So what is it that you like to do in your free time or what are some of your hobbies? Yeah. So I'm really bad at hobbies. Everybody says I need to get more hobbies. I would say I really like music. So I'm a big, big music person. So one of my favorite things to do is go for walks and listen to music. Usually it's Taylor Swift.

It's so funny because when I go, when I travel or when I'm really busy, the thing that I crave the most is just a nice morning walk, completely undisturbed with my headphones in. Like, there's nothing better in the world. I'm a big family person. So you may have seen, and especially on my platforms, I talk a lot about family and giving back to family. So whenever I have spare time, I'll always try and hang out with my mum or my dad or my extended family.

Yeah. That's really nice. And with the music, do you only listen or do you also produce or sing or something? I sing really badly, much to the dismay of anybody who's around me at the time. But my partner is the lead vocalist in a heavy metal band. So I'm like one removed kind of. I actually seen on Instagram, but now, as you say, that you've listened to Taylor Swift, and it's like heavy metal.

It's a nice contrast between the Swift. Yeah. But finally enough, he likes Taylor Swift too, so it's not a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one. And then Sarah, do you read books? And if so, have you got any recommendations? Unfortunately, and I'm quite ashamed of this, I haven't read a book for fun since, like, high school.

I do listen to podcasts and like audio books, but very rarely. I find that a lot of the information that I get is from my Instagram and TikTok feed and LinkedIn. So I always feel like I already have so much noise coming in that self-help books and sometimes podcasts don't help. What I really need is like silence rather than more noise. Yeah. I understand. I felt like before it, I was. Maybe I don't really read the books. I listen to audio as well. I thought I did. I was maybe consuming too much, but I wasn't really applying that. So I thought, okay, I feel productive because I listen to it. I read it. But then do I actually apply it was the point of doing that. So I felt

maybe a bit similar before as well. Yeah. If I'm just sitting there listening to an audio book, but I can't apply it, I get anxious. I'm like, I should be doing this. Why aren't I doing this? But you can't do it while you're like listening to it. So it was almost detrimental in that sense. Yeah. And I think sometimes it might also feel like a race because you finish one book and you're like, okay, I finish this one. I'm going for the next one and then the next one. But it's like a less chase.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Sarah, what can we expect from the future, such as have you got any specific goals, ambitions or the plans? Yeah, so there's a really big ambitious goal that I have and I'm not afraid to share it with you because as you know, or you might know Tom, like everybody's talking about building in public nowadays. So I'm thinking of starting a new Instagram series that's called, like, day in the life of a 27-year-old content creator trying to make a million dollars in 2026 to retire her parents. So I've just set myself like a big number. Whether or not I hit it is a different story, but if you don't set yourself the goal, you're never going to hit it. But the reason

why I want to do it is because I really want to give back to my mom and my dad and just give them the life that I hope, that they deserve. But part of that series is just like following me through the day and the life of what I do every day as a content creator. And specifically, this new business idea that I'm launching or service that I'm launching, which is positioning and ghostwriting for LinkedIn professionals or for coaches and consultants on LinkedIn. And so what I've learned from my time on LinkedIn and my interactions with a lot of

of LinkedIn users is that they use LinkedIn to get clients, but they are, one, not getting the number of clients that they want, or two, they're getting clients that aren't willing to pay their prices. And so the service is intended to specifically position professionals as somebody that will attract and is worth premium prices. Is there any specific date you've got in mind when you want to launch it? Or are you already working on it or just plans? Yeah.

So I already have a few clients that I've trialed early on with. And the responses have been really good. So I am working my butt off to try and launch by end of next week. And then it'll be like a soft-ish launch. Like you'll see my profile change and my headline change. And then maybe after that I'll write a post about it and send out like a newsletter. but like small changes, but it's ready to go if anybody asks about it, I suppose. Of course it sounds great.

And please, I hope you do those series from your life building. That it sounds really exciting. I was just about to say that it's really important to have a strong why behind what you do. And when you said that you want to give like a nice life to your parents, it was really nice and I hope it really works out. Thank you. I have this thing where it's not really a thing, But my sort of goal in life is to do something that people can look at and be like, wow, she did that.

To me, what I'm chasing is this idea of legacy and impact. I don't actually so much care about the money. Like, I could make the euro dollars from it. But if I did something that people were like, wow, she did that, that would be really cool. What I found, though, is that what people tend to aspire to most, especially across social media and nowadays is like that big dollar figure, right? Like this creator made $5 million in three months or like a seven figure business,

which is why I've put the $1 million in there as like a sort of like a shock factor. But to me, I actually don't care if I make $10 or a million dollars. It's more just about like, can I build a successful business that actually benefits other people and can I look after my parents? That to me is the important thing. I really like it and I'll be excited to see and follow. And can you then, Sarah, please summarize where people can find you, follow you and promote any of your services?

For sure. So best place to find me and to get in touch because I'm on there all the time is LinkedIn. My name is Sarah Rav. I'm sure Tom will put the links in the caption. But otherwise, you can also find me on Instagram at Sarah Rav. Send me a DM on LinkedIn, not Instagram. I'm more than happy to chat. I love a good chat. Yes. As you said, I will add any links to the show notes.

And also, as you mentioned before, keep an eye out for Sarah's new offer. And then very last question, Sarah, is there anything I should have asked you and did not? Anything you would like to share before we finish? No, I nothing that I think you should have asked me. But I will just say that I'm very, very honored to be featured. I love the podcast. I love the wicked thing that's going on here. That's the pink and green for anyone who's wondering what I'm about.

But yeah, I'm so glad that we connected on LinkedIn and I'm super excited to get supporting you. So thanks, Tom. Thank you, Sarah. It's much appreciated it. I encourage people to watch on YouTube because, as you said before, I think it's perfect, wicked branding. And I just want to say to people that like kind of a backstory between me and Sarah that we didn't really know each other. Then we somehow connected. And it's just, you know, being authentic, nice and genuine with people.

And we just enjoy talking to each other. And that's how this episode comes together. So you never know who you might meet on LinkedIn if you are just nice and chapped. That is true. So Sarah just want to say one more thank you. Really enjoyed it. As I said, I'll be excited to see the series. I really hope it works out.

Thank you once again for your time. And I wish you all the best onwards. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Produce by with Tomen. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.