Produced By - Stories That Sell: Transforming Brands with Purpose | #61: Anthony Muhye

Starting point is 00:00:01 Hello and welcome to Produced Buy. Just quickly before we begin, if we enjoy the show, please consider supporting it by joining our Patreon. You can choose from a list of memberships and we'll receive some exciting rewards. Thank you and back to the episode. Hello, Anthony. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:22 Thank you for inviting me here and thank you for having me. It's so cool that we're meeting finally. Yeah, I agree. So Anthony, can you please introduce yourself? Well, basically, I have a very multi-talented, multi-background, you know, varied background. I come from, originally come from England, and I lived a long part of my life in Venezuela, and there I studied chemical engineering. So when I was studying chemical engineering, I imagined myself being an engineer for the rest of my life,

Starting point is 00:00:52 but things like life doesn't go as you plan. And what happened is a crisis. There was a very strong crisis in Venezuela. It's still ongoing. and eventually I had to decide, look, are you going to be an engineer making, I don't know, 50 bucks a month? Or are you going to be somebody who actually does something with their life? So I had to choose something else, which was my passion for writing. And what I took from that was I started ghostwriting, I started, I mean, I'm not sure if I'm expanding too much on this response.

Starting point is 00:01:22 No, no, it's all good. You can expect as much as you want. Okay, so basically what happened next was I was teaching English. and I was trying to find something to do. And a friend approached me and she said, look, you don't have to teach English. You're not earning enough. Here's something you can do, which I started, which was freelancing.

Starting point is 00:01:40 And I began with my passion for writing. I used it. I didn't have any training of writing or creating content. But I said, well, maybe this is what I can do. I started ghost writing books for children, ghost writing books about serial killers. There's no link there. As I say, kid books by day, serial killers.

Starting point is 00:01:59 killer books by night. And I eventually got work in technical spaces. Like I was hired by a, I'm somebody I'm very grateful to, he was a CEO in Arizona. And he had a chemical company. So he said, I need somebody to build brochures, to build our marketing materials, and to build my own personal brand. So I discovered LinkedIn through him. This was 2018, but I didn't start on LinkedIn then. I was just, you know, working for him. And I started getting more technical work and I enjoyed it. I realized technical work, it pays, technical writing work.

Starting point is 00:02:32 It pays well. The field is full of people who need you because they don't know how to write the content. And there is also plenty of different work. It's not boring.

Starting point is 00:02:43 You might think, oh, it's boring. You have to write technical. No, because there's so many spaces. Like even crypto is technical writing. So that's how I got to where I am now

Starting point is 00:02:52 and where I am building this brand around technical founders who need somebody who helps them. So that's my story, basically very shortened. But yeah, these days I live in Spain. I live in Madrid.

Starting point is 00:03:03 And in the first place, how did you get from UK to Venezuela? That's a funny one, yeah, because my dad, my mom is Venezuela and half of my family is Venezuela. So my dad, he said, let's go to Venezuela one day, just to travel. We went there and he fell in love with the country. He said, I don't want to retire in England because England, he said, not good place for retiree. It's cold, it's rainy. maybe we should go to Venezuela and invest. The situation was very good at the time.

Starting point is 00:03:34 There was a lot of opportunity and we thought this is a place for us. And we weren't wrong, but we weren't right either because within a few years, within the next 10 years, the country started going down and down. And within the next 15 years, I mean, even eating three times a day was difficult. Not only there was a problem with the prices of the food, getting the food was the problem. You didn't have rice, pasta, toilet paper, tomato ketchup,

Starting point is 00:04:03 anything. And can you expand a bit more what's the reason behind this? Well, I mean, without getting too political, I think it's simply a bad bad leadership, a lack of leadership. The government itself

Starting point is 00:04:19 has never been for the people. It pretends to be for the people, but the situation is just, they have been doing everything to fill their pockets. and corruption is being allowed by anybody. Anybody can be corrupt. Even if you are a local, just working locally as a politician,

Starting point is 00:04:34 you can fill your pockets because nobody will punish you, nobody will stop you, you know? And what's the situation like now? Is it getting better or worse? Arguably better, because we have, I say we, I still feel part of that, you know. We have many imported goods.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Because Venezuela used to be a big producer of corn, wheat flour, rice, all of these things. But when the crisis began, we didn't have anything. So these days, the importing importation of goods had allowed for that, has allowed for everything that we need to eat and to have everything, but expensive. So now, poor people are poorer than ever, but people who are middle-class, high-class,

Starting point is 00:05:19 they can live normal lives, at least. And it's such a paradox that for people who don't know, Venezuela is rich with oil, right? Yes. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. I recently discovered about less than 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. And if we forget about these political things that caused the situation that there is, is it as beautiful country as your debt thought it is,

Starting point is 00:05:49 or when you visited what was your impression of the country? You know, even though I got to see a lot of Venezuela, I didn't see all of it, because I missed out, I didn't see the Angel Falls, I didn't see the West. The West is very special because it's like the plains, you know, it's full of nature and wildlife, amazing things like Capibaras and the crocodile, all of these things. So what happens is it's a beautiful country. I think what is wrong with it is that the national identity is not most people they value more what they see on the outside than what they see in the inside so they don't recognize we have a wonderful country you know it's always about oh I want to go to America I want to go to Colombia I want to go there to Brazil but they don't

Starting point is 00:06:33 think that they have all of this wonderful things in Venezuela and out of curiosity what is it like for the tourists these days do tourists go there or it's better not to go there because of the situation I think people are still going and I think people are still investing in Venezuela. They're still being like my father. They go there, they buy some land or they buy some apartments. It's not the best place to be, but there is a lot of natural beauty and there is the possibility of enjoying a real authentic vacation. It's not that you will go there and you won't be able to eat or have running water. You can go to a hotel and you don't find out about anything. I think that Cuba has

Starting point is 00:07:16 a similar situation. There is one Cuba for tourists, one Cuba for natives, and it's the same thing. And do still go back? No, I haven't gone back. I've been here in Spain for now three and a half years, so it hasn't been that long. But I don't see myself going back very soon in the country. There's a lot of, I will say, as it is, right, there's a few negative feelings. Like I feel that I should have had a more enjoyable life there. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like, why should I go back?

Starting point is 00:07:46 And then moving from there to Spain, what was the reason specifically for Spain? Well, that's another funny story, even though I said that before. I left Venezuela on the last flight in 2020. So they closed the flights from anywhere to anywhere on the 14th of December 2020. So that day, I left on the last flight and then they closed for like five months. you couldn't leave the country. Because of the situation? Or why?

Starting point is 00:08:20 The COVID. COVID, they were very strong with COVID. The government already needed to control the population, you know, somehow, because people are angry. So they saw COVID was a perfect thing for them. It allowed them to keep people at home, keep people inside their state, their streets, whatever. So moving here was, I came on that flight and it was a huge shift. I mean, being from the UK, even in the UK, very different from Madrid. And I think it's a case of getting used to their culture, because the Spanish people are very different, but they have some similarities with the Venezuelan people, which is interesting. And was there a reason for specifically going to Madrid?

Starting point is 00:09:02 I mean, you could have chosen different country or even different city? Yeah. Well, basically, I came to Spain because I'm my girlfriend. She lives here with me And her It's much easier for her to find the Passport, the Spanish passport So we thought we need we want to become Europeans

Starting point is 00:09:23 We want to become I'm British But being British in Europe is not a big thing You know it's not very How I call it? Very big privilege because of Brexit Yeah If we come to Spain we can have the ability of both becoming European And then deciding where we want to want to do next

Starting point is 00:09:41 because we have a very big vision of the future of doing many global things, such as travel, investment and other things. So it could be interesting for us. And what brought us to Madrid specifically, I have family. I have, I had, because they left now, but I have family here.

Starting point is 00:09:59 And we lived here. We were very close. But now they had to move. They moved to another part. So we are basically a little bit here. Yeah, that's interesting. And I'm always curious when someone moves from a place to place, were there any culture shocks that surprised you?

Starting point is 00:10:16 Or maybe still surprise you? Yeah, I think the biggest culture shock in Spain is people here, especially in customer service, like waiters, like cashiers, they're very direct. They're not like in Venezuela or in England when they say, oh, good morning, sir. How can I help you? No, they have like, tell me. What do you want? Don't waste my time.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Yeah, tell me. Yeah, go ahead. It's weird, it's so weird Because in Venezuela people are like, oh, how can I help? And, you know, England is same thing The language is the same, right? Spanish in Spain as well as in Venezuela. Yeah, we all understand each other,

Starting point is 00:10:58 but we have small differences that make big differences, you know, in communication. But did you know, find it, I would say, challenging to communicate or is it just like a different dialect? It's slightly challenging because, for example, there was one night, this is another hilarious story, there was one night we had a fire upstairs. We lived on the bottom floor of a building and there was a fire upstairs and the second floor. And I remember I was scared because I smelled the smoke. I saw the smoke coming in.

Starting point is 00:11:29 I ran upstairs and I said, is there a fire there? And the lady said, yes, there's a fire. And I said, is it coming out from the apartment? And Spanish people, they don't say apartment. they say piso. So instead of just saying, yes, it's coming from the apartment, she said, I don't think that's an apartment. I think that's a piso.

Starting point is 00:11:50 And I was like, I just like just answer the question, lady. I just want to know if there's a fire or not. Imagine just correcting me. Yeah, a serious situation like this. Okay, yeah, yeah. So after you moved it, can you tell us about your journey after it moved back to Spain? Yeah, well, basically I've had a job for the past few years, Well, not basic.

Starting point is 00:12:12 I've had a job for the past few years, which is in publishing. I work for a publisher, which is in language learning. So I'm one of the two main managers for the company, a bit like a CEO-o type of role, in which I do the hiring, the content management, the podcast. And what happens is I have recently begun to do things for myself because I want to build my own brand. So now I'm helping people in technical founders, people who are in similar things. to my background, which is in engineering, I can help them by presenting their messaging, by helping them communicate, building their story, writing their white papers, landing page things.

Starting point is 00:12:52 So it's a very interesting new journey for me, because I'm becoming more of a marketer type of person, marketing and sales than what I was before, which was management, hiring and management. And what is actually your background when it comes to education? So education is, yeah, I have a background in teaching. I use to teach English. So English was something I did on and off. It was like a side gig that I had. But since then, since I've been writing, and a lot of what I've been writing in the first few years of going independent,

Starting point is 00:13:23 which was around 2015, 2016, I wrote many non-fiction books. So I wrote books for Spanish teaching. I wrote books in, I wrote many articles, scientific articles, books about true crime, just about anything I can think of, the fitness. So this has taught me to teach. You know, taught me how to explain myself, express my ideas. But that's been a huge part of it. So maybe a silly question, but what language we were actually writing?

Starting point is 00:13:51 Was it English or Spanish? English, 90%, I would say, but there was some Spanish there was there was some translation as well. So maybe 10% of it was translation and writing in Spanish and 90% in English. Well, it must be then proficient with the language if you are even writing books like this. Yes, absolutely. I mean, Spanish and English, there are. my native languages, I was born in a bilingual household. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:18 And I would be trilingual, but my dad was lazy. Because he spoke Arabic. He passed away two years ago. He spoke Arabic. Sorry, too. Yeah, no problem. And he never told me. So I had to learn English and Spanish, but I didn't learn Arabic ever. And I've since learned Portuguese. So it's another language I added to my full box and instead of Arabic which would be quite a challenge you chose different

Starting point is 00:14:43 challenge to learn Japanese which is another challenging language it is it is a challenge and Japanese I think is because I've always loved their culture and I love their philosophy they are

Starting point is 00:14:59 very orderly people they are very respectful people quiet people I think this is what I like about them and the way that they behave as as a society. I think in the West, we could look at that a bit more because they don't go through life. Like, I am me and this is who I am,

Starting point is 00:15:17 and I'll go through life as myself. They go through life as I am part of this society. I will, what I do will benefit this society. And this is, I think, is a very wonderful way of thinking. And it allows you to be more empathic, sorry, empathic with everybody else around you and also respectful, I think, respectful with other human beings. I like that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Is this then the reason for you learning Japanese or is there, I don't know, maybe some ambitions with work or whatever? Travel. I think travel has been this year I have already plans to go to Japan and I will around October. So October I should be going there and there will be a life-changing experience. I've been a big fan of Japan for a long time. As everybody said, you know, anime, yeah, but not just anime. I think the culture itself is very interesting. Yeah, I agree.

Starting point is 00:16:14 I know you mentioned anime, but I was about to say that at least you've got some amazing films that you can watch and learn with, such as, you know, from Miyazaki or others. It's really good. That's true, yeah. And coming back to the podcast that you mentioned before, is that something you started with, your co-CEO, the company, or this whole idea, to produce educational podcast? Yes, actually, there was a time in 2021. Yeah, 2021. We were discussing, like, is there something else I could be adding to the company? Like, I'm helping with the books, with the hiring, but is there something else? And we had a chat because I was in Venezuela when just before I left,

Starting point is 00:16:56 I think it was late 2019. I started going to courses for public speaking, for, podcast, radio. So I was just trying to learn to speak because I wasn't that good. I was a bitch guy. Mumbles. So I wanted to get something out of my system, which was that shyness. So now, as you see, I'm very comfortable. But the podcast was one of the courses. And my employer, he said, I remember you did a course on podcast. I said, yes. How do you remember? Yeah, because I saw your status on Instagram, your story. So would you like to do a podcast? I said, yeah, why not? And we've been doing it since 2021. So three years, three seasons. And it's, it's for them. But the experience for me has been magnificent because even meeting you, for example, and you know the podcast. So we met through

Starting point is 00:17:47 LinkedIn without any relationship to the podcast. And you say, oh, I hear it. I listen to it. That's very good. That's very nice. I mean, it's like celebrity, mini celebrity status. It's just a little side note for the listeners. that we connected over LinkedIn. And I've been listening to the podcast without knowing you. And then I found out after we connected on LinkedIn. So for me, it feels like a surreal experience that we're actually talking. And I feel like I know your voice because I keep listening to it.

Starting point is 00:18:18 And it's just crazy. I would never expect something like that to happen. Yeah, because I mean, if you had looked for me for the podcast, okay, but you met me just coincident. It's funny. but what I think should be the next step is for me to do my own podcast because now I'm three years in I have the experience I have the knowledge I know how to do it quickly now because before I used to take so many takes you know for one episode of 25 minutes I used to take like 50 minutes to record it it was just audio

Starting point is 00:18:48 and I was making mistakes making mistakes making mistakes now I'm just so comfortable it's 30 minute podcast I do 35 minutes that's it and if you start your own podcast does it mean that you're going to stop with this one or are you going to do both? I mean, I don't know where my next move is. I might stop. I might go ahead with, but this will be a different format. So I don't need the same time I use for my podcast. I wouldn't need for the other podcast. So I think it would be a case of finding time for both. Have you got idea what the new podcast would be about or you don't want to discuss it yet? No, I actually have mentioned it just a bit. So you're going to be the first I actually tell completely.

Starting point is 00:19:33 The goal is I am working now with climate, energy deep tech founders. So I want to connect founders in that space, those very impact founder spaces with the investors. So I want them, I want to help these people who are building businesses to change the world. And to be able to change the world, they need money always. It's the reality of life and of business. So I want to connect them with investors. I will try to get investors on the podcast and I will try to get founders on the podcast and maybe do something,

Starting point is 00:20:05 some kind of networking there. And if it goes well, I think we could be talking about a community, like a big community here, of listeners, of guests, people who don't have to, I don't want to have to convince

Starting point is 00:20:22 or beg people to join. You know, I want people to understand what is the purpose of this podcast. Why do they want to be here? and that's the goal. It's great and you can utilize all the experience that you've gained by working on the language podcast and now basically bring everything together and start big quality from the beginning.

Starting point is 00:20:43 Yes, and the curious thing is I'm not sure, I don't know much about the numbers of what makes a big podcast, small podcast, but our podcast has grown a lot, the language podcast has grown a lot without any very big market. very expensive marketing. We don't do ads, we don't do huge email marketing on the podcast. And still, since we started 2.5 years ago, more or less, a bit more, we have gotten 530,000 downloads,

Starting point is 00:21:12 which to me is massive because we don't do, we only do organic marketing and it's very simple. One day a week, marketing. If you want to boost your online presents, check out our digital marketing agency called Trailblaest.

Starting point is 00:21:31 You can also enroll in a skill share course called the 10 tips on how to succeed in your creative career, which was inspired by the podcast. Lastly, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Creative Spotlight to stay up to date with the show and more. Links are in the show notes. Thanks. And would you be willing to tell us more about the process behind the podcast? Just take us through the process of making one episode. Well, all of these episodes... You don't need to go too much into the detail, but to get an idea. All of the podcasts I scripted.

Starting point is 00:22:09 So the script must be written first. Our team writes the script. And I prepare the podcast. I look that way because that's my booth. It's my wardrobe, actually. And I stand there in my wardrobe with these towels and these. So I don't have a studio, professional studio. That's another thing which has made it very bootstrapped.

Starting point is 00:22:27 I've always been put it in the wardrobe, like inside, like standing there. and now I have recently bought a tablet, but before I used to put my laptop inside the wardrobe. It was a mess. It's a disaster, but we managed to produce a very high-quality podcast in a very good strapped way. And yeah, then we do the transcription, we do the translation.

Starting point is 00:22:48 So what happened is the website where this is hosted, not just Spotify or whatever, the actual website. It has a place where you can read the transcript. And when you read the transcript, you can translate each word, word by word. So that's an interesting part about the Learn Spanish with Stories podcast, it's cool. And you're able to read it in real time and synchronize it,

Starting point is 00:23:11 like start playing from here and start listening. It's very good. It's very useful for learning. Yep. And you said it before, but for example, how long does it take? Because I can imagine you must do a lot of research or research, prepare, you know, the story. Because as you said, it's a lot of,

Starting point is 00:23:29 about the stories, so there needs to be some work behind it so that it's true, so it makes sense, so it's engaging. So when it comes to this, how long does it take roughly? It takes a few days because we look for subjects that are very engaging, that are very powerful. You know, there are stories that they must have some kind of effect on the reader. Like, for example, we talk about the future of humanity in Latin America or the why the Aztec Empire fell or things like this. One of my first episodes, episode two was episode two of the first season it was about life in Venezuela but told from the first person view of somebody who was at the protests and the story is very

Starting point is 00:24:13 powerful I think it's one of the episodes I thought it would get like more views but I think it's because the the title is not very clear it's like what is it called I forgot you need to make it more clickbait like yeah clickbait like maybe it's it's three years all, but yeah. And what it's about is somebody, I can't tell, I don't want to spoil it, but it's somebody who existed. The person I'm, I'm narrating, the story I'm narrating is from somebody who existed in real life. And that person, he, he went to these protests and it was the last protest he went to. That's all I can say. So this person exists. I hope people who could listen to that episode, this episode two of this first season. I will check it out as well. You made me curious.

Starting point is 00:24:59 I'm not sure if I should be ashamed that I don't know who was it, but I don't know. No, it's fine. How do you come up with the stories? Or how do you decide what you're going to talk about? I think it's a brainstorm that we do. Basically, right now, it's a two-man team for the creative. So it's not man. It's actually my girlfriend and I, we work for the podcast.

Starting point is 00:25:23 The podcast is basically like our baby. So what he does is she finds and she writes these stories. At the beginning, I was a scriptwriter. But then I said, look, I have a lot of work to do for the company. And she said, I would love to do it. So what we're doing now is research. We've brainstormed the ideas together. And what we do is we put together these stories.

Starting point is 00:25:43 We make sure that it's the right, you know, the right messaging. Because at the end of the day, we need to keep it unbiased because we talk about things, even political things, like Che Guevara or Millet, the Argentina, So we have to be very careful with, you know, bias. So it's fun. It's fun to write. That is how we come up with it. Yeah. I highly encourage people to listen to it because I enjoy it. This is not any paid promotion or whatever, but I've been really enjoyed it. I think it's just amazing idea to learn Spanish and in entertaining and informative ways so that you actually learn something along the way.

Starting point is 00:26:24 So I think it's awesome podcast I recommend it. Thank you. And then to discuss your new career or the career that you now focus in on, do you want to tell us more about it? Maybe starting, why did you actually decide for this career change? Yes, I think it's because for the past few years, I've been on LinkedIn since 2022. And what has happened is I started working in green hydrogen on LinkedIn because I was building a startup. That's another story, right? I was building a startup in Web3 and Green Hydrogen.

Starting point is 00:26:57 It was like a mix. So I was looking to fund Green Hydrogen companies with Web3, like crypto, NFTs. But the NFT space and the crypto space, it went down. It collapsed in 2022. I lost quite a bit of money there because I was building the startup and, well, I didn't get even even $1 back. But the story is I started on LinkedIn to promote myself and to promote myself with a leader in Green Hydrogen. and I noticed that green hydrogen was very hard because people, they weren't that interested in green hydrogen.

Starting point is 00:27:26 So I said, let's see about freelancing, because I've been a freelancer for many years. I changed my life with freelancing, and I started getting so much virality, you know. I was getting like 120, 150 lights and all these people. My following was growing, and I said, well, I should stay here. So I stayed in good freelancing. But when it was 23, halfway, I said, what am I doing?

Starting point is 00:27:48 Because I said, I'm not a freelancer anymore. I now work for a company. I work for myself. I make a good income. I'm not a freelance. So what are you doing with your life? I thought. So you're posting every day.

Starting point is 00:28:02 Why don't you do something more specific? So I tapped into these abilities that I had, this knowledge of technical space. And I said, let's talk about a bit more about sales. I started to talk about sales, about consultancy, getting clients, high-ticket clients. But then I said even more so this year,

Starting point is 00:28:20 at the start of 2024, I said, why am I working with consultants? I asked myself another question. And I said, maybe I should be working with people who are actually changing the world in the spaces that I know. Climate, energy, chemistry, engineering. These are the spaces I know. So I started moving away from finances. So I'm currently on my journey, the most new part of my journey, which is working with the founders.

Starting point is 00:28:43 Because I think that we have a lot in common. Now I'm a founder of my own company. So this could be a story I tell. maybe in the future we have another podcast episode I will tell you that what I've achieved but yeah it's still new. Of course we'll do catch up and we'll have big expectations from you.

Starting point is 00:29:01 But it makes sense to me and of course something that is meaningful and something that you will enjoy so it sounds great. And as you said you started on LinkedIn what was actually the reason for you to start on LinkedIn or focusing on that a bit more? I think it's because LinkedIn is a very serious platform.

Starting point is 00:29:19 You know, people they see LinkedIn. Some other people outside, they say, no, it's cringe. Because, you know, people are celebrating, bragging. But every platform does that, if you think about it. I've been on TikTok until recently I was testing TikTok. I don't think it went too well. Because I don't know, the audience is not so much more. I mean, I had a TikTok and I never took off.

Starting point is 00:29:39 On Instagram, I feel there's so many people competing for the same things. So that might be eventually I get there, but I'm not interested right now. And Facebook to me is finished. Facebook, I don't want to, I don't know what people think about that, but I don't want to be on Facebook. So on LinkedIn, I found it was growing. People were getting lots of views. This was 2022. It was different time here.

Starting point is 00:30:01 And the creator economy is new. So you have opportunity there to start today. And then by six months from now, you are doing well. On the other hand, on TikTok, six months from now, you might not be known, even six months. So what I did was I started and I said, look, this is what I do. I'm in green hydrogen. and this, I mean that. So I wanted to build authority. But then I got some, I will be very honest.

Starting point is 00:30:24 I got some imposter syndrome. I met some people who are PhDs, founders of 10 years, companies of 10 years, you know, professors at university, I was like, this is not my crowd. I have to, you know, so I sabotage myself a bit and I went down to freelancer. But now I'm going back because I say, okay, I've learned a lot. Now I know how to post much better content. I am talking with founders all every day. And this is something I can do.

Starting point is 00:30:53 So I will focus. And that's what I'm doing. I'm focusing. So do you post now actively, like regularly on LinkedIn and, you know, keep engaging and keep growing there? Honestly, I'll give some advice, personal advice that I've been doing this for now for three years. If you are posting, I would not recommend posting every day anymore. This was something you could do in 2022 or... 23 maybe. But now posting every day is not worth it. Like it says, diminishing returns.

Starting point is 00:31:23 You know, if you post every day, you are basically killing the post from the past day, for the past days. So when you post a new one, it stops showing the past post. I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself well. Yeah. So you are hurting yourself. You are sabotaging yourself. So what I do now is I post every two days. I make sure every two days at least. Engaging has lost a lot of its power. Before, you used to engage like crazy, and then you had a lot of impressions. Now, the goal is to contact people directly through outreach. Because LinkedIn, I always say, LinkedIn is not a social platform. It's a networking platform.

Starting point is 00:32:00 So you shouldn't focus on content, focus on meeting people, send messages. Today, I send a message just to add a funny story. A guy who followed me on LinkedIn, he's a founder, but not in climate, something else, finance. And I saw that he had his cover page, his band. sorry, his banner was a bee. And then I saw that his company was a bee. And then his past company was a bee as well, the logo. Although this guy likes bees.

Starting point is 00:32:27 So I looked on Chad GPD. Give me some facts about bees. I wrote on chat GPD. And the chat GPD game is, in fact, I copied one and I rewrote it. And I said, hey, it looks like you like bees. Did you know that some of the bees make plans to communicate? And he accepted me. That's smart actually.

Starting point is 00:32:48 Yeah, now, you know, get a strategy how to connect with people in interesting and meaningful way. Go ahead, use it, yeah. Yeah. So is it also something that you kind of see the future in that you're going to continue using LinkedIn more and growing there? As long as I can contact people directly, yes. I mean, for posting, we will see because posting, I will keep posting at least once a week. but I don't know

Starting point is 00:33:19 I think I'm having so much fun now talking to people directly that posting has gotten like a chore you know like oh I have to post I post at 1pm so oh it's 1pm I have to post so I'm now focusing on meeting people you know interesting people

Starting point is 00:33:34 so as you said can you say more about it you are meeting people but what is it that you actually do I know you said in what area do you want to work support your future, but I'm not sure if I know what specifically do, actually. Yeah, good question. I'm working right now. My profile says social revenue generation for climate

Starting point is 00:33:56 and energy founders. But what that means, because I like to create like mystery, like social revenue generation. I mean, people have come to me and they say, what does that mean? So I start a good conversation starter. You need to have that in your profile, by the way. Conversation start. So what happens is I help people through their story, through the story of their business, generate more business. So we can talk about clients, partnerships, investors, attracting people to your profile so they can take next steps. Like, for example, booking a call or buying your product or signing up for your email list. So now I'm doing more things like events. I help people organize events. I'm working right now with a company that's in hydrogen.

Starting point is 00:34:35 So I'm back to the beginning, right? And I help them organize events. Need events have hundreds of people join. So it's perfect. them, perfect for me because I get some case studies and experience. And for them because they get potential leads, collaborations, they get sponsorships from that. So I'm working with multiple people, but that's the most relevant. The events are very powerful. I made a post about it today. I can't say the dates.

Starting point is 00:35:01 I don't know when this is growing out. But I made a post about the events today. It's an interesting read. We'll search your history. And do you focus on, do have specific demographic? or is it international within the industry? Yeah, definitely the biggest climate players right now are in Europe, UK, US and Australia.

Starting point is 00:35:25 And Australia is a funny one because it's a very different time zone, very different geography, but they are very big now on hydrogen, on clean energy. So that's a big thing that I'm talking about now. And I like working with people from all over the world, honestly. If there's somebody in India, they want to talk with me, I will talk with them happily.

Starting point is 00:35:44 Because I know in Venezuela, when I was in Venezuela, getting the attention of U.S. clients, it was tough, you know. So I don't discriminate too much because I know that there are some amazing people everywhere, Africa, India, Pakistan, everywhere. So people, see, also make sure to reach out to Anthony after this and so. Thank you. Is there enough of people to speak with, I guess, or can you tell us what is like the situation or the potential?

Starting point is 00:36:11 I guess it's going to grow in. the future but is there still enough people so that you know you've got enough of business yes oh yeah that's a good question and yes there will always be enough people if you are not in a very very very specific space like for example i don't know knitting for anything on organic material i don't know something's great but if you were in something like climate i would suggest niching down for example i don't talk about all of clean energy like solar energy i don't play much with solar energy, but I talk about green hydrogen, natural hydrogen, you know, electrification. These type of things are very, very relevant to me.

Starting point is 00:36:52 But will there be people to talk to? Yes, but you have to do research. I think that's a big part of what people ignore. They just look on LinkedIn, like founder. Oh, founder, United States. That's not enough. You need to be looking on Google, Reddit, all of these things. Twitter, well, it's not Twitter anymore.

Starting point is 00:37:10 Now it's X. This video ain't that old. So there's a lot of people you can look for there, and then you can look for them on LinkedIn. What I'm doing, if this helps, is I work with somebody on Upwork. Upwork.com, and I ask them to research for me, and she loves researching, so I don't love researching. So I hire her every month to bring me leads. Not leads. I mean, people I can reach out to.

Starting point is 00:37:38 And I can create leads. Yeah. So it's a good way. I mean, it's one of the best ways. you will be able to start more conversations with people. I mean, this week, last week alone, and it's not looking for a way to brag, but it's a way that I talked with four people, four conversations, four chats.

Starting point is 00:37:57 And three of those became opportunities. Not necessarily, oh, now they're paying me each 100,000, no, but one of them he offered me a commission job, the other one he offered me an opportunity at his company, the other one he wants to work with me in the near future. So, LinkedIn is so powerful. Do not ignore the power of LinkedIn. Yeah, I agree. I spoke recently with you people from kind of LinkedIn sphere.

Starting point is 00:38:24 I don't want to say influencers, but people who are present there. And all of them basically said the same, that there is a big potential. You know, don't ignore the platform. And just start there, see if it works for you, how it works for you, and give it a try. Because before I had also the opinion that it's kind of corporate platform, your CV, just when you want to get a job. But it's changing. It's going to be different. It has changed a lot.

Starting point is 00:38:51 And now they're introducing videos. So people, especially people like you who are hosts of video podcast, is going to be amazing for you. Because you're going to be able to build your brand. Not only put your CV on LinkedIn, but now build your whole brand on LinkedIn. And you won't be seen by, I mean, I don't want to attack TikTok again, but you won't be able. be seen by kids like TikTok, you will be seen by CEOs, you'll be seen by founders, you'll be seen by consultants, people with money. So that's your advantage. So stick to it and you see where it takes you. I agree. Something I was curious to ask you, just for your opinion, no judgments,

Starting point is 00:39:26 but it's one thing because we discussed the whole this like environmental side and then we also discussed Twitter or X. What do you think about Elon Musk or what's your opinion about Elon? I'm a big fan. I mean, I've been a big fan for the longest time. I think that it's unfair to ask this question to me because, I mean, I'm not complaining. But it's unfair because I've been following him

Starting point is 00:39:50 since 2012, I think, around that time when he was still crashing his rockets. All of his rockets were crashing. They came down and exploded, exploded. It was a joke, even a meme, you know? They used to say, well, they pay him to explode his rockets. But now you can see the results of exploding those rockets. Now he's sending them, they're putting them in orbit.

Starting point is 00:40:07 He's putting the satellite, the Starlink, now he was finished. All of these things he's doing. And, of course, he has a very immature social personality. Sometimes he's ridiculous with his posts, on X. I oversee them and I say, this guy's 50 plus, what is he doing? But you know that that's his social face. But what he's doing in other parts, which is investing in electric vehicles, in space travel,

Starting point is 00:40:36 in free speech, finance, all of these things, democratizing finance for everybody and all of these things, I think that he's a true visionary. And as much as we might think, oh, he doesn't pay his taxes,

Starting point is 00:40:51 that's what they say. I think you need to look at the part where people like him, we need them. Even if you don't agree with what he says, even if you don't agree with how he does things, if you don't agree with him carrying a sink into, I don't know. He's doing something we need for the future.

Starting point is 00:41:09 I like the opinion and I pretty much agree because I feel like that these days people, I'm not saying all of them, but often have negative opinion. But I haven't been following him for such long time as you did, but I've been following him, I would say, for a while before he got as famous or popular or just viral as he is now. and to read the books about him,

Starting point is 00:41:34 not just the one from Walter Isaacson, the recent one, but even before, and have been admiring him. So I feel like it gives me a different perspective, not just having the knowledge of what he's done recently, why he's all over the news, but also knowing what's in the background and what led to it. So that's how I feel like that I can relate to your opinion,

Starting point is 00:41:55 and I'm glad that there are people in such opinion, basically. I love it. I love this coming bit, communication with you because it is we have to be open-minded. I mean okay, if you lean to the left or if you lean to the right, it doesn't mean you have to hate the people on the other side. It has to be

Starting point is 00:42:10 open-minded. I've been for my I don't know if I can speak about politics here but for the longest part of my life I've been a centrist so I trained myself to look at both sides and even though, even in Venezuela I had very bad experience with socialism

Starting point is 00:42:27 I don't hate socialism now because of that. I mean it's One bad experience, very long experience, but just one. So now I'm still open, you know, there's still very, a lot of things to see, a lot of opinions to listen to. If you don't listen to more than one opinion, you will be stuck in an echo chamber for all your life. Exactly. I totally agree with you. And just to be aware of time, is there something that I should have asked you and didn't ask or something that you would like to share?

Starting point is 00:42:57 Well, basically, one of the best things. that's going on right now is I'm building an agency called Gravitate. It's like gravitate, but with an E, because we want to attract revenue. So it's gravitate. So what we want to do with that is we want to help the founders who really need to transmit their message, who are struggling. I've met so many founders who are people who are millionaires and they can't speak, even, well, not all of them are millionaires, but the common problem is that they can't communicate their subject matter. It's too complex. So they don't know how to speak with clients, they don't not speak with investors. They don't have to speak with the general public. So what I want to do is to

Starting point is 00:43:33 help them transmit this through storytelling, content writing, video. So this is what I'm doing. I'm offering this to people. Even now, I'm just talking to people for free, just giving them an idea of what they need. And if they want to work with me, great. If they don't want to work with me, it's good, because I can still give them something. If there's anybody out there, especially I was looking for, not exclusively, but if there are female founders who don't have, female founders, they don't get, they don't get an invested in, you know. VCs, they don't look for female founders. Only 6.7% of female founders in climates got funding last year.

Starting point is 00:44:08 The other 93.3% mailed. So female founders are in a very bad place right now, so I can help, even for free. That's my message. That's my message for people who want to work with me. That's what I'm... Yeah. And of course, listen to the podcast. to the podcast

Starting point is 00:44:28 I think that's all then thank you so much it was as I said before huge pleasure I feel like I feel like we've been knowing

Starting point is 00:44:38 each other for long time because I know your voice very well it was nice inspiring chat thank you so much for your time I will stay in touch

Starting point is 00:44:47 and as you mentioned before I will keep following you and happy to catch up in the future again thank you Thomas and I mean, especially because you came out of nowhere, you waited for me, that I appreciate that a lot.

Starting point is 00:45:01 I mean, I hope I wish you the best, and I will engage with you whenever you post or whatever. Just let me know. I mean, we can talk all the time. Don't worry. There's no need for us to plan anything. We just can talk anytime. Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate it, and we'll stay in touch.

Starting point is 00:45:19 Take care. Thank you for listening. If we enjoy the show, please leave us a five-star review on your favorite. podcast app, get in touch to provide your feedback or share any ideas for future guests. Thank you and see you soon.

Produced By - Stories That Sell: Transforming Brands with Purpose | #61: Anthony Muhye

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