Produced By - How to Use LinkedIn to Boost Your Brand and Business | #79: Taz Burwaiss

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Taz Burwais is an experienced entrepreneur and marketer, and founder of Rocket, a B2B lead generation agency. With a background in Marketing and Journalism from Newcastle University, Taz brings years of expertise working across various sectors to help businesses build a sustainable sales funnel using primarily LinkedIn.  Born and raised in Scotland, Taz made his mark in the marketing world in London before moving outside the city to start his own agency. Passionate about delivering results, he’s built a reputation for creating tailored strategies that drive growth. In this episode, Taz shares his journey from employee to entrepreneur, offering valuable insights on how to attract clients, build lasting relationships, and standing out on LinkedIn.  Whether you're looking to grow your business or refine your marketing approach, this episode is packed with practical tips you won’t want to miss. Connect with Taz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tazburwaiss/ https://x.com/TazBurwaiss Rocket Marketing Agency https://www.rocketmarketingagency.co.uk/  Connect with Tommen: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠  Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠  X: ⁠https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠  Podcast: Links: ⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠  Support: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠  Produced (email newsletter): ⁠⁠https://produced.beehiiv.com/⁠ More: Trailblazed (marketing agency): ⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠  EpiXtory (podcasting agency): ⁠https://www.epixtory.digital/ Produced (LinkedIn newsletter): ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠  Produced By with Tommen is your weekly dose of inspiration where ambition meets creativity. Join us as we dive into the journeys of content creators, entrepreneurs, and other remarkable individuals who break barriers and redefine success. Each episode shares unique stories, challenges, and triumphs. From heartfelt struggles to incredible successes, these conversations will motivate you to push beyond your limits and chase your own dreams. Whether you're on a creative path or just love great stories, tune in and become part of a community that constantly strives to push the boundaries. Sit back, relax and enjoy. 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.

So now those people are aware of you. They might not be massively interested in you. But then you've got to try and turn the screw a little bit and you've got to try and make them interested in you. And you do that just by being consistent. And through your content and that's where the content is really important and just in terms of keeping yourself tougher minds and just trying to become a kind of likable person

and try and position yourself as an expert in what you do and just trying to be really crystal clear about what your service is, so that when they perhaps are looking to buy your service, you will be top of mind, and I think actually I know someone that does that, and they're pretty good. And then you just want to get up a meeting with them, get to know them, try and develop and grow that relationship with them,

and to a certain extent, try and become their friends. That's kind of when you hit the nail on the head, when they almost think of you as a friend. And then, like you say, you might not make the sale straight away. You've got to be patient, and, you know, you've got to, keep them in your funnel. 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 Tess, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So Tess, can you please introduce yourself? So yeah, my name is Taz Burwaze Burwace, the founder of Ropjeet Marketing Agency. I kind of founded the agency about a year ago. It's been a bit of a journey. The agency's kind of evolved over time, but now it's kind of just 100% focused on LinkedIn.

So it's mainly just all about LinkedIn, really just helping people maximize the power of LinkedIn and the network growth and network potential within LinkedIn. So, yeah, I mean, in a nutshell, that's a little bit about me. I'm not sure if you want to be. wanted to me to go into too much more detail than that. It's good for now.

We'll dive into it more later, but can you tell us where do you actually come from? So my parents are from Libya, originally, North Africa, but then they moved to Scotland and I was born in Scotland. And yeah, so I guess I'm originally from Scotland, from the UK. And then I kind of moved around a little bit. I went to Newcastle University, spent some time in the north, quite a bit of time in the North East. And then I moved to London for work. I worked in London, mainly working in marketing for quite a long time. And then I met my partner and we moved to Salisbury, which is where her family is from.

And that's currently where I'm based. And what did you actually study at university? Was it also marketing? So I did media and journalism when I was at university. So yeah, I did media and journalism and I was going to go into journalism. But at that time, which was quite a long time ago now, that was kind of round about the time when kind of social media was just taking off because of social. And because of all of that, it kind of, I kind of ended up transitioning into marketing rather than transitioning into journalism. So it kind of just fell into a career in marketing.

I started doing that. And I've kind of pretty much been doing that ever since. And did you know back then what kind of position would you want to have? once you finish education? When I started my career. When you started your education like at university, if it was just because you were interested in it, or you knew that you would be this and that?

Yeah, I kind of just jumped into university without too much strategy. I just picked that. Looking back in hindsight, maybe I could have picked a better subject. But that was the subject that I picked. And yeah, I was just interested in that. I guess it just came more just from personal interests.

And did you enjoy the university or the course? Yeah, so, so, to be honest, I didn't actually massively enjoy it, if I'm being honest. You know, I kind of, it was okay. I enjoyed it. But yeah. So was it because, I don't know, didn't meet your expectations or you are not type of who likes to study or what was there? reason? I wasn't too happy with the curriculum. It was very kind of theory-based. It was very theory-based, and I would have preferred it to have been a lot more practical-based. Yeah, I completely understand.

So I think that was kind of the main reason why I didn't really enjoy it. It's too theory-based. And looking back on it now, you know, that theory stuff that I learned, I'm not sure how much it's kind of equipped me in the long term. Whereas, yeah, I'm not too big a fan of university in general. Looking back on it, you know, I kind of would probably, you know, recommend people to do more of an apprenticeship rather than a theory-intensive kind of university course. But I don't know, that's my two cents and that's another massive debate,

which is not really your question. I think the good point that you mentioned before, that I definitely agree is the focus on practical experience because university, of course, has many benefits, but if you actually don't get to practice what you study on, it's theory only, I don't know how much useful it is then once you graduate, so it was a good point. 100%. And that's kind of how the brain learns, is the brain learns from doing and actually doing stuff and failing and trying again and failing again and trying again and feeling again. And then eventually the brain, you know, through consistent kind of action, you start to kind of get experience and grow.

If you're just kind of standing still and reading all the time and not putting it into action, you're not really growing. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's a good point that you mention as well. It's like a, I don't know what is it called, but like a trap that you, for example, keep reading personal development books. And you think that it actually helps to improve. but then you actually need to put it into practice to reap the benefits of what you learned. So there was a good point you shared.

Yeah, no, I agree. And looking at the course that you studied, how relevant is the information that you learned before to, let's say, today? Because, for example, if it was with social media, obviously it constantly develops, you know, innovations, improves. So do you feel like that it's still up to date or it wouldn't be up to date these days? Or can you compare? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think to a certain extent it is relevant because although the technology changes, you know, the foundation, kind of what you're doing should always kind of be the same. So I think it's important to stay up to date with technology for sure.

You know, kind of strategy of whatever it is that you're doing is a kind of foundation. foundational and doesn't really change. That's so, yeah. So, and I guess that's what you, you know, at university you do. It was quite helpful in that it did make me a little bit smarter. It did make me a little bit more intelligent and did improve my kind of bigger picture understanding of things. So in a way that was, you know. And then after the university, what were your plans when it comes to entering a professional career?

So after university, again, it was a little bit tricky. I'm not sure if I was massively savvy in how I went about doing it. I kind of just wanted to get a job. Back then, you know, you don't have loads of money and you basically just need a job to start making money, ASAP. And that's the best way of getting a job. It took me a while, I think, to get my first job, because it can be very difficult in the beginning. when you don't have much experience. Did you underestimate it?

I think so, yeah. I think so. I think my mistake, and I was probably a bit of a stupid mistake, was in the beginning I was kind of applying for jobs that were too senior. Whereas I think I should have just gone for a really junior level job

just to get my feet in the door. And eventually that it clicked. And I was like, oh, actually, that's what I need to do. I need to just get a really junior level job and just start from the bottom and just slowly work your way up. Yeah, it's like you are applying for the jobs and then want several years of experience after you graduate. But how are you supposed to get those years of experience if we just graduated? Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. Which is why I think it's good to do an apprenticeship for something rather than going to university because that way you're just kind of getting your foot in the door immediately. And so, yeah, I don't know. I think definitely something that also helps you to stand out on your CV or cover letter. If you've got relevant experience, it's something definitely I wish I focused on during my university years as well. So then what was your first job after you graduated? So my first job was working in B2B marketing.

And yeah, I was working in B2B marketing. I was working at like an event company. And they did, you know, worked across lots of different. industries they worked in manufacturing HR pharmaceuticals so they worked in a variety of different industries and I was just a part of the marketing team and I was just you know and that involved LinkedIn actually that job I was doing a lot of activity on LinkedIn our main channels back then were you know LinkedIn and email marketing email marketing was actually our number one channel that we

used and then LinkedIn was kind of our number two channel that we used and trying to think what else did we do I mean I would just like I say I was just an assistant back then I wasn't really involved in any of the strategic stuff but I do remember that you know email marketing was our number one channel LinkedIn was kind of our number two and I can't really remember what else we had a blog as well but that was about it I think I'm a bit surprised that LinkedIn was big already back then or they were focusing on yeah yeah no it's a good point because I kind of forgot about that to be honest it was quite a while ago

And I remember what we focused on back then was promoting our events on groups in LinkedIn groups, which is something that I would never do now. And to be honest, it was never really that. I don't think it was ever that effective, but that was the strategy back then. It was like, okay, join loads of LinkedIn groups and just, you know, spam the LinkedIn groups. That was basically what we were doing. And that was the strategy. And I was just an assistant.

And I'm sorry, maybe missed it. But was it effective back then or it wasn't? It's a hard one to say because I don't think it was that effective, to be honest to you. I can't really remember. This day it's not effective. I don't think it's effective. Like, I never use LinkedIn groups. I just don't find them.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they are better than I'm making them out to be. But for me, it's just not a part of my strategy. I just don't even consider them. In any way, but maybe I'm missing a trick. I don't know. I'm probably missing a trick as well. I tried it, for example, to spread the word even about the podcast, not anymore, but a while

ago, but I flag it didn't help at all. But as you said, maybe I did it wrong as well. I don't know. And then as you worked on a LinkedIn with the company, back then, did you already have LinkedIn as well? No, back then I didn't. Back then, like, I don't think the whole kind of LinkedIn personal branding thing was much of a thing back then. This was about

10, 11 years ago maybe. I think I didn't know LinkedIn back then. Yeah, so I don't think it was a, there was much of a thing back then. Now the whole LinkedIn personal branding thing is you know, taken off

big time, I think. And did you then, based on that experience, did you like see the benefit or the potential which made you to start as well? was there like a gap and you started even later? No, I mean, I just, the whole kind of linked, the whole personal branding thing was unknown back then, I think. And it was unknown to me, really. I wasn't. It was never on my radar, to be honest to you.

There's never something I was thinking about. So, yeah, I think it's something that's really kind of come to light in the last few years. I think, you know. So, but it sounds like the job was good. to learn actually the marketing skills and the, you know, relevant experience after university? Yeah, I did learn marketing stuff. You know, I started to, you know, become a better marketer slowly, but surely, you know, once I was started working there. So, yeah, I became more interested in marketing and I started to kind of learn and, yes, you know, slowly, you know, grow as a marketing professional. So yeah, I think that's fair to say. And when did you get an idea to start your own business?

So I never was ever thinking about starting my own business for a long time. You know, I was always just thinking about going from one job to another job. And then at one point, you know, I was never really that career focused. I was more just about, you know, enjoying life and just spending time with friends and family. And that was kind of a bit more of a priority to me for a while. And then, but, you know, it wasn't really for the last two or three years that I became a lot more kind of career focused and started my startup my own business. So yeah, that kind of happened. And also because I moved away from London to be kind of closer with my partner.

And I moved out of London. And when you move out of London, obviously the job opportunities are a lot fewer. So that kind of changes things a little bit as well. So again, that was another reason. for starting my own business was that, you know, there weren't many companies around in this area that I could work for, so, you know, working for myself. And then COVID obviously hit as well, which was another kind of factor. So, yeah, there was a few factors.

And then I was just kind of passionate about wanting to do it at the same time. And as someone who lives in London, I would be curious to know what was your experience, living, working and staying in London. So, so it was expensive. I mean, that was the first thing. That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about London. The rent is so expensive. And there's the commute. I was never a big fan of the commute.

I was always on your mind. Like I was always trying to find a job close to where I lived, which is never really possible. It didn't really happen very often. Most of the time, you know, I'd be living in one part of London and then I'd have to commute, usually to central London and that was a bit of a pain you know because of like an hour there an hour back and so that was kind of one of the big things about starting my own business was having no commute and just just that alone saves two hours a day which you'd think you know is going to boost productivity just that by itself yeah I mean those are the main things and then

I was always kind of working when I was in London I was working Monday to Friday 9 to 5 and then you'd have your weekends but at the weekends you'd always be quite tired or you'd have a lot of like housework to do you'd have to do the laundry or whatever back then I was always trying to fit in exercise and going to the gym in the evenings and going for runs so it was always just busy and a little bit a little bit difficult I understand too and raised some valid points about what what is it like to live in London? And can you say briefly what job did you actually do when you lived in London?

I had quite a few jobs. Most of them were working in B2B marketing. I worked at a university as well, Suez University for a while, again in a marketing role. So it was mainly just marketing jobs I was working in. It sounds by now that you are really experienced marketer with years of experience, education and everything. Yeah, I mean, I think I've got quite a fair amount of experience. So, yeah, I've worked at different industries, different companies, different kind of roles. So I'd like to think that I'm fairly experienced when it comes to marketing.

Then it makes complete sense to me, starting your own business. Can you then introduce more? What's your business, like introduction? What do you offer and just tell us more about it? Yes. So basically the business is, it's a LinkedIn. Well, as I mentioned before, it's all 100% focused on LinkedIn. The idea is that it's like a leads generation.

So that whole idea of leads generation is basically taking a complete stranger online on the internet and then turning them into a client. So that's kind of the goal to put it simply. You're trying to turn someone from a complete stranger into, you know, someone that likes you, that trusts you, that understands you, that's aware of you, and is interested in working with you. Maybe not immediately, but perhaps, you know, in the future. So that's the idea of leads generation. It's about it's a funnel in which you kind of take people from being a complete stranger to becoming a client.

So that's the idea of the business. And why did you actually decide to focus specifically on LinkedIn with your company? Yeah, I think I kind of just made the decision to focus on LinkedIn because I just found it, I think it find it to be one of the most effective channels. And yeah, I wanted to create like a system where it's like inbound and outbound. So you're doing the content, which is important for building kind of trust. And at the same time, you're doing the outbound stuff, which is important for, you know, raising awareness and building relationships. And so by combining those two things, that's kind of high. how the funnel works and that's how you take people through the funnel and i just found that linkedin to be kind of effective channel to do that yeah i think the question that i should have actually asked you is what was actually the point when you discovered linkedin like to focus on it to build your brand on it as well well i don't know i just i've always been kind of into kind of social media and using Twitter and I've never really been too much into like Instagram and

TikTok I kind of I've always been more drawn to kind of written content rather than you know images and video content so yeah I think I was just naturally drawn to kind of Twitter and LinkedIn so yeah it just seems like that was more suitable to me and when did you start or when did you discover the potential because I assume or at least that's what I feel that most of us used to treat LinkedIn just as online CV where you post once a year or in a few months that you've got a new job or something. So do you remember what was the point when like it switched for you as well that it's something more? It's a good question. Yeah, I mean I became like I said like maybe two or three years ago I decided I became more career intensive and more you know

intensely focused on building my career and building my business and LinkedIn just seemed like the natural place to be to grow your network. You know, this seems like the natural place to be. So I just became interested in that kind of stuff. And that's just where I decided to hang out on LinkedIn. And I started following people and started slowly, started to gain the confidence to actually post content. And then I just got the ball rolling and there was a bit of a snowball effect. And, you know, when I started, I wasn't very good, but slowly as I started getting more consistent and doing it over and over again, it just became, and now it's just like routine. You know, I've just got a routine that I just do it week by week. I don't even think about it.

And back then, when you started, do you remember any well-known creators or creators that you used to follow back then? just the usual really there's a lot there's a lot of big creators out there I'm not sure if I'm going to name names but just the usual big creators

I'm trying to think of you know there's a lot of if it's like a big name I guess you can name them because everyone knows them and maybe even expect those names I mean there's there's loads of people

you know and just all the kind of big creators I kind of followed all the big creators there's you know There's loads on there. Yeah. And usually it's the marketing people that I followed. Usually it's the marketing people that are most vocal on LinkedIn.

Naturally and because I'm a marketing person as well. And I tend to find those the most interesting people on LinkedIn. It's the marketing and media type people like yourself, for example. And those tend to be the most kind of savvy, interesting people, you know, copyrighters, marketing people, B2B. I'm mainly interested in B2B marketing people that's the main people that I'm interested in these days.

And if you are willing to share, can you tell us more about your strategy on LinkedIn, such as what type of boats you share, what's your frequency, what I don't know, just strategy behind it? If it's not a secret know-how that you don't want to share.

No, no, it's not a massive secret. I'm just trying to think what you put me on the spot little bit and I'm just trying to give you a good answer. So yeah, I mean in terms of the strategy, it's basically, as I explained to earlier, it's that kind of funnel, taking someone from being a complete stranger to then becoming a client and it's just building that funnel and optimizing that funnel. Very basically what, in my idea, what that funnel looks like is you, at the top of the funnel, people aren't aware of you. So, you know, the first step is to actually make people aware of you.

So actually to connect with people, send out outbound messages and just to kind of build that relationship up. And so you want to kind of grow your network in the beginning with the people that you want to grow your network with. And then as you move through the middle of the funnel, so that's kind of the top of the funnel. As you move through the middle of the funnel, then that's all about creating content and your personal brands and trying to get people to, and just trying to keep yourself top of mind with those people. So now those people are kind of aware of you. They might not be massively interested in you. But then you've got to try and turn the screw a little bit,

and you've got to try and make them interested in you. You've got to try and make them like you a little bit. And you do that just by being consistent. And through your content, and that's where the content is really important in just terms of keeping yourself tough of minds and just trying to become a kind of likeable person and try and position yourself as an expert in what you do and just trying to be really crystal clear about what your service is

so that people know so that when they perhaps are looking to buy your service, you will be top of mind and I think actually I know someone that does that and they're pretty good at least seem like they're pretty good at it. And then you just want to kind of set up a meeting with them, get to know them, try and develop and grow that relationship with them. and to a certain extent try and become their friends that's kind of when you hit the nail on the head is when you almost think of you as a friend

and then like you say you might not make the sale straight away you've got to be patient and you've got to keep them in your funnel and if you're just willing to kind of you know keep adding new people to your network at the same time nurturing the people that are currently in your funnel and that's kind of how it works and then eventually at the bottom of the funnel

you know they become a client and if they're not a client hopefully they become a friend so that's kind of how it is yeah i can say that as someone who's been connected with you and following for a while i can confirm that you are consistent you've got good quality posts which are relevant to the field that you operate in so just for the listeners i can say that they can follow and learn from you and what you say that it's true so you're doing it also i appreciate it Are you looking to elevate your online presence? Check out Trailblazed, our digital marketing agency. Whether it's standing out on social media,

crafting a stunning new website or developing impact visuals, Trailblazed has got your back. Visit Trailblaest.digital and reach your online potentials a day. And from your journey, what would be some mistakes that you did before? Maybe you wish you knew earlier to focus on to avoid mistakes when it comes to to LinkedIn in general you know such as I don't know low to know engagement or posting on irrelevant posts or something similar yes it's a it's a hard one to say I mean sometimes I kind of get the

feeling that I don't know want to kind of say that like when you're creating content for me When it comes to creating content, it's about the user experience. So thinking about, like when I create content, I like to try and keep it as simple and straightforward for the end user. I think sometimes people try and overcomplicate it and try and make it more about themselves, whereas I like to prefer to just keep it really simple, and it's more about the end user than it is about yourself.

So that's one thing that I've been thinking about recently. it's just so that that's one thing that I would say I'm not I'm not trying to think of a better answer for you you can look at it from the perspective as advice for because you've got obviously experience on LinkedIn you know some success on LinkedIn as well so what would you advise to someone who wants to start or who's been there for a while and is struggling well you've kind of got to be strategic about it It's important to have a strategy, which is why I want people to work with me, because when you work with me, I will give you the strategy. So, yeah, you've got to be strategic about it. So that's quite a big point, is having that kind of strategy.

So, yeah, and at the same time, you know, strategy is important. What else is important? I think the strategy is a good one, because, for example, I remember, like, in a while I, I, was posting, I feel like maybe just for the sake of posting and didn't really see the reason behind it. So it's a good point and advice to actually have a reason or know why you are posting, what you are posting and not just randomly to post something for the sake of posting. Yeah, 100%. I mean, once you have that strategy in place, then like I said earlier on, you almost go into autopilot. You don't think about it too much. And then everything is kind of,

you're clear as to what you need to do. And then you can be consistent with your messaging. So it's really important that you have that kind of strategic positioning at the beginning. Yeah. And if you are comfortable sharing, if you don't want to name, you don't have to, but are there any creators that you follow now, whether it's for inspiration or you like to learn from them? Well, I follow a lot of people. There's loads of people, really, in B2B marketing.

A lot of people I tend to follow are from the US rather than the UK. Is there a lot of reason for that? I'm not sure. I just think the US kind of B2B marketing, when it comes to SaaS, for example, you know, software as a service, I think there are a lot more on it, you know, with the technology over there is better. I guess the innovation and

the innovation take it a bit more seriously I think over there as well when it comes to marketing and careers in general not to say that the UK isn't good as well there's a lot of very good

UK creators as well but like to say my main area of interest is B2B marketing and technology so I tend to migrate a lot of the Americans I think are leading the way yeah and then when it comes to

your business, to your company. The question is if you are looking for the client from, let's say, your personal profile, such as you as a task, or are you doing as a company or both? Or what's the strategy behind this, if you know, what I mean? It's a good question. It's a little bit of both, but usually I try and lead, you know, myself, my personal brand, TAS, rather than the business rocket. But I'd like to obviously keep Rocket in the background so people know.

that it's actually, there's a larger kind of organization and team that are kind of managing the operation. So, and I'm kind of the founder of the organization. And I'm kind of pulling the strings. And so I kind of lead, but I want to try and build that relationship initially as a personal relationship. So to build that trust that actually I'm taking care of this for you, you know, if you become a client, you know, I'm, I'm kind of personally managing it. I'm, I'm, overseeing everything, but I do have a team that are kind of running around doing the legwork. Yeah, you're like the mastermind behind. I suppose so, yeah.

Yeah. And I think if you remember when you started the agency, obviously it's never that easy when you start your own business. So can you share some advice for people who are maybe starting and struggling or want to start their own business, what to focus on, what not to underestimate? right? Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult one because usually you have to like learn through experience and through just trying and failing and figuring things out yourself. At the same time, it can be really useful if you find a mentor that's really that you trust and it's really crystal clear as to, and they give you the blueprint. And then obviously that's ideal. I never really had

much of a mentor when I started out, I kind of just learned myself just through picking things up here and there and putting pieces together. But if you can find a mentor that's kind of been there and done it, it's willing to kind of give you the blueprint and you can kind of just copy what they're doing and then slowly you can build from there. And ideally that's kind of what you want to be doing. I think that's a great advice. And I can relate to what you said. If you find a mentor, it can be a great shortcut because you benefit from someone's experience and it can save you time, save you money, save you a few headate, save you just a lot. Yes, 100%.

And so we discussed LinkedIn and you said you are also present on Twitter or X, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So, yes. How much emphasis do you put on that platform? Not much, to be honest with you. Although my business is pretty much 100% LinkedIn, I am slowly. trying to think about how I can add other channels to the campaigns. So like, for example, email and Twitter, I'm slowly trying to add these things.

But I don't want to, you know, overstretch. You know, overstretch myself. Rather just focus on LinkedIn and doing LinkedIn really well. And I'm still, you know, learning. I'm still, you know, growing. I'm not perfect. I am still optimizing and trying to improve. But with it comes to X, I like to kind of just share my thoughts on X,

and I just have that consistent. That's kind of the style that I like to go for is just being very consistent with my thought leadership ideas, because that's going to help build trust so that if anyone is interested in my service, I'm kind of thinking that they might check my website out, and then they might check my X profile out. And that might be a part of what they do when they're kind of researching and scoping me out and thinking, do I want to work with this person? Because like I say, in the beginning, you're just a stranger. They're just a stranger online.

Yeah, yeah. And you want to take them through that funnel of turning them from a stranger into someone that they think, actually, I quite like this person, I quite trust this person. I would like to meet this person and get to know more. And that's kind of what you're doing in the beginning at the top level of the funnel is you're just trying to say, this is who I am, these are my. ideas, this is kind of my personality, and that's going to attract them to kind of set up that meeting, which is kind of an important first step within the funnel. And how is it going, actually, the growth or building your name on Twitter? Because from my experience, it feels like that it's going well. Maybe it's because I don't spend much time there or don't

engage. But what's your experience like? Well, like I say, I don't spend much time on Twitter. I spent hardly any time. on there basically it kind of recycle like oh repurpose my basically repurpose my content from LinkedIn to X so and then I just kind of keep it really short so the best kind of short stuff so for me what X is all about is really just fine-tuning your ideas into one short sentence I mean that's kind of what I wanted to do with X is just to keep it really short snappy tweets. So whenever I come across a cool idea, a really short kind of tweet, I will then just

kind of save it and I will then just use a tool to automate those tweets regularly so that there's just a consistent feed of my ideas. Ideally, I should be networking on X to grow on there, but I just don't have the time. I don't have the, I don't really have the budget to hire someone to do that as well. It might be something that I do in the future, but I don't, know how big a priority it is you know you don't just want to be doing things for the sake of it you want to be doing things for does it actually fit in the strategy is it actually helping yeah i completely agree and i know we discussed it a bit before but are there any other platform that you plan to explore or plan to start in the future well i'm doing x not amazingly but i'm

doing it and i'm thinking about doing more email stuff incorporating more cold email. It was something that I was doing at the beginning where I launched my business was cold email but then I decided to kind of put on the shelf and just put a pause on that for now and just like I said it's a small organization that we're managing very small team so we can't do everything we kind of just have to focus on doing the core things you know very well and then once we perhaps become experts in that and perhaps as a budget increases then we can start expanding. So I'd say at the moment LinkedIn is keeping us more than busy and perhaps we might start adding code email into the mix as well.

Yeah and with LinkedIn have you got any specific plans or goals for the future or just continue growing and getting the clients? Yeah no major goals you know sometimes I've in the past I've been one of these people that I like to at the start of the year I like to pick my end of year goals, you know, my goals for the next five years. And what are my long? But at the moment, I don't have any long-term goals at the moment. I'm just focusing, like, basically almost week by week. You know, it's my focus.

It's very short-term. So I'm just really thinking short-term at the moment. I'm kind of thinking long-term a little bit. You know, long-term is on the back of my mind, but it's only in the back of my mind. My main focus is always on the short-term. and just improving things week by week. Yeah, completely understand.

Then important or interesting topic is your content creation and AI. Is AI actually something that you include regularly or actively in your content creation or workflow? Yeah, we do use AI in our workflow. So I think most people these days are using AI in their workflow. So yeah, it's something that we do as well. We use AI. It speeds up the process. And it's the sort of thing that you don't want to ignore

because it is the future, in my opinion. And that's the reason. So you can't really afford to ignore it. So it's almost like, for me, it's like how social media took off maybe 10, 15 years ago. That's what's happening with AI. It's just starting to take off. And it's the future.

And who knows how it's going to grow in 10 years' time. Have you got any favorite tools? I use clods. That's maybe my favorite tool. I came across a new tool called Goblin, which I've been using recently. I've never heard of it. Yeah, I don't think many people have to.

To be honest, you, my partner uses it. What does it offer? Well, it's good. The reason why it's meant to be for people that suffer from ADHD. So if you suffer from ADHD, it's like a tool that you use that can help you, people with ADHD try and make life more kind of simpler and easier to, you know.

So it's designed for people with ADHD, but it has some quite cool features on there that I kind of sometimes use as well. That's interesting. I like when there are use cases like this that actually simplifies work or makes life easier for people who need it. So it's not good. And out of curiosity, why do you prefer a clot over a GPT or Gemini or something else? I use Gemini as well sometimes

I use perplexity as well I like perplexity I like perplexity as well it doesn't always give you super accurate information like sometimes the answers are not always spot on but usually it is pretty good and I kind of prefer it to Google search now yeah it's just faster and makes your life easier

and of course it's always AI so you shouldn't rely on it 100%, but it's a good shortcut to make a good shortcut. It is a good shortcut. It is a good shortcut and I do use it quite a lot. But I don't really use chat GBT. I don't know why, but yeah, I kind of just

for some reason I just prefer Claude and perplexity. I'm not a massive AI expert. I use it and I am trying to get a little bit better at it. But I'm not it's not really my niche. There's a lot of AI experts on LinkedIn. I don't really categorize my

myself in that category. I'm more of a B2B marketing leads generation type person. Yeah. And outside of social media or marketing, do you read any books, for example, when it comes to personal development or something like that? And if so, can you recommend any? Not really, to be honest with you. I'm on LinkedIn. You know, most of my reading comes from LinkedIn and there's lots of personal development stuff on LinkedIn. So that kind of ticks that box for me. So I'm always into personal development. You know, it's a big thing for me. LinkedIn is full of personal development

stuff. So there's almost no need to buy a big on personal development. Which might have not been the case maybe three or four years ago. Back then, maybe I would have bought a bit on personal development and I would have been interested in reading it. For now, you know, because of LinkedIn,

I do most of my learning on there. I guess it's about what type of content you consume. So if you consume quality content, you don't need it. If you consume some garbage, then you get information that you consume obviously. What then do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies? It's difficult because I work a lot. You know, I do work a lot.

Work takes off a lot of my time. Then when I'm not working, I will obviously just try and spend time with my partner, with, you know, friends and family. Block the dog quite often. so I do a lot of walking every day. I don't really do much exercise these days. Most of my exercise comes in the form of walking. And I enjoy, you know, a lot of the kind of the normal things like, you know, into football, movies, music, that kind of thing.

So, yeah, it's just a busy time for me because obviously I've just started a business recently. That just takes up. When you start up a new business, it does take up a lot of your time. So that's kind of my main focus. at the moment. And out of what we discussed, have you got any like a business advice because you shared some advice from LinkedIn and when starting the business, but something you learned along the way? In terms of business advice, I mean, I think I kind of mentioned it already. It's just a case of you have to put yourself out there and take that first step and actually just get started

and don't procrastinate and be disciplined and just, you know, discipline is a really important. you know, thing. You've got to kind of be passionate about it. You've got to want to do it. And that's kind of what drives me is that, I don't know, I just seem to be naturally passionate and naturally disciplined. And I just crack on every day. For some people, it might not quite be the same. So, yeah, you've just got to be passionate about it, disciplines. And as I mentioned in the beginning, you've got to have a strategy and you've got to try it out. And it's quite likely, you know, you won't be successful the first time around. When you start a business, your first business idea might not work.

But it's quite likely your second business idea will work. So for me, quite often I kind of think, try something out. You might fail. But if you fail, it's not the end of the world. Although it might feel like the end of the world, you might feel like, oh, you know, I've just spent six months on this business idea and it's just completely not worked. And you look back on it and you think, what, a waste of time. But it's not really a waste of time because you probably learn a lot in that journey.

And then it's not the end of the world to then just rip it up and start again. But when you start again, you're going to be a lot more focused and a lot more kind of determined to get it right second time runs. Exactly. It can be actually priceless learning opportunity. I agree. And when it comes to showing up on LinkedIn, do you actually enjoy it or do you see it more as a part of the job? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's a hard one to say because I'm so busy at the moment.

When I first started on LinkedIn, it was enjoyable. I would just do the networking. I would read. I would network. And it was just enjoyable. Now it's becoming a little bit of like a chore in a way because it's just one of those things that you have to do. You have to show up. So it depends on where you are in your journey, I think, you know, how much time you have.

because it does take up a lot of time, you know, being active on LinkedIn. I recommend that you need, if you want to grow on LinkedIn, on your own, you probably have to spend two or three hours a day. You know, I can just networking. Yeah.

It's enjoyable, but it can be a lot of work at the same time. I guess that's important to have systems and processes in place to streamline certain activities and try to make it enjoyable for ourselves because obviously if you hate it and you force yourself to show up every day,

it's probably not going to last for long. 100%. I mean, you've got to enjoy it, you know, because that's a part of the personal brand, as you want to, you have to be authentic. And if you're saying, look, my personal brand is mainly on LinkedIn, then you've got to enjoy it. You've got to be authentic because that's what's going to attract your audience

and build your audience and potentially attract prospects as well. So you've got to enjoy the process. you've got to be authentic. It can't just be something that you just, you know, a checklist that you just tick off. Yeah. Because that's not the vibe that you want to be giving off. And I think also what helps me or help me is

when you show up on LinkedIn and you interact with people regularly, you feel like that you are almost speaking with your friends because you engage like almost on a daily basis. So then it's, I'm not saying that I'm excited, but I at least kind of like it and I'm going to speak with the people that I feel like that I know. So it's kind of fun. So maybe a tip point to make it more enjoyable. 100%.

100%. It's a bit of an art to how you grow your network. It can be a bit of a strategic thing in itself. You kind of want to be growing your network. Usually the way I kind of see it is your network is divided into two parts. As your kind of your peers, the people that you know, you have natural things common and that you're just naturally drawn to. And then there's your kind of prospects, your people that perhaps you don't have so much in common,

but you're potentially going to be your clients and you want to kind of build that relationship with them as well. So it can be quite a strategic tactical thing at the same time. I agree. And this is we will be finishing soon. I know we've discussed it a lot, but where can people find you, where can people follow you or use your services? Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn.

That's probably the main place to find me. That's kind of the number one place to find me. I have got an email address, which is Taz at hellorocket.co.uk. You can email me. I always check my emails. So usually those are the two best ways to contact me. You can send me a connection request. You can DM me on LinkedIn.

You've been connected me on X as well. And you can email me. So, yeah. And are you still looking for the new clients? I guess you are. I'm always looking for new clients. What a question. That's the number one question.

Yeah. So, yeah, always looking for new clients. But there is obviously a cap to how many clients I can take on. So I am currently looking to onboard new clients. It is about getting that balance between how many clients you can actually fulfill and how many clients you can take on. I mean, I would say at the moment my capacity is probably six or seven is kind of my maximum capacity, but we'll see. Yeah.

As always, I will add any links to the show notes. I think we can then finish this. I want to say a huge thank you. I feel like I've known you. Thanks to our interaction on LinkedIn. So it was my pleasure to actually have a chat and find out more about you. Wish you good luck. and I will keep supporting.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to Produce Bye with Tomer. Check out show notes for all the links. And don't forget to like, subscribe and leave your feedback. Speak soon.