Episode 3: How to build your audience, with Monique Zytnik

How will people know they can work with you if you don't have an audience?

In this episode of Reinventors, Mel Loy and Fady Ramzy chat with Monique Zytnik, a communication strategist based in Berlin. 

Monique shares her journey from working in Australia to freelancing in Europe, discussing the challenges and rewards of freelancing, the importance of building a personal brand, and the nuances of public speaking. 

The conversation delves into audience engagement, the significance of knowing one's worth, and the strategies for maintaining consistency in content creation. Monique emphasizes the need for genuine connections and the value of planning in advance to achieve success in freelancing and consulting.

Connect with Monique on LinkedIn here.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Setting the Scene
01:56 Monique's Journey to Berlin and Career Path
06:01 The Freelancing Experience: Challenges and Insights
09:47 Building a Personal Brand and Audience
13:45 Navigating Social Media and Content Creation
19:43 Public Speaking: Getting Started and Earning Opportunities
21:47 The Journey of Public Speaking
24:20 The Importance of Preparation and Expertise
25:36 Building a Consistent Content Strategy
28:44 Understanding Your Worth
34:13 The Impact of Pricing on the Industry
40:11 Lessons Learned in Freelancing

Connect with us on LinkedIn!

• Fady Ramzy
• Mel Loy

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Transcript

0:07

Hello and welcome back ladies and gentlemen, and everyone. Today, we are excited with a new episode of Consulting Conversations Over Coffee. I'm Fadi Ramzy. And I'm Mel Loy. Just in case, if it's your first time here. I'm Fadi Ramzy, and I've been working at the intersection of the internet and technology and the human behavior for the last 28 years. So specifically I help, um, consultants like yourself. I help, uh, leaders to build their personal brands online to shape their narratives and their stories online. How about you? Uh, I'm Mel Loy, as I said, and I run a little agency called Cuttlefish and we are specialists in change communication. So my secret sauce is bringing together behavioral science communications and change management all into one delicious, soupy mix. And, uh, I'm also have a little bit of an addiction to nice stationery. That's my fun fact to say, wait, wait, you said that soupy thing. You made me hungry really, which is currently my case. But today we have a very interesting guest and a very interesting, challenging topic of building and growing your community. Shall we jump in? Let's do it. So we are talking to Monique Zytnik, and if you haven't met Monique before, you're about to. She's amazing. She's Australian based in Berlin, and she's an award-winning global strategic communication leader. She's also an award-winning author of internal communication in the age of artificial intelligence. So if that isn't relevant, I dunno what is right now. Uh, as you'll hear, she's worked internationally. She's spoken all over the world, and her campaigns have been recognized by big names like Gartner Umbrella, comms Con and Digital Communication Awards, and she regularly shares her knowledge through industry, publications, blogs, and podcast. You might also know her from IABC and she's currently the EMENA representative of the IABC executive board. And honestly, she shares so much information in this that I think will be so valuable. What do you think, Fadi? Yeah. It was extremely and deeply valuable. Will, would, practical, actionable, you know, on the ground tips for, for, for everyone here. Yep. Absolutely. And speaking of which, make sure you stay tuned to the end of the episode, where, as per usual, Fadi and I share our three takeaways. But in the meantime, let's get into it. Here's Monique. Hello, Monique Zytnik, and welcome to Reinventors. Hi Mel. Hi Fadi. Thank you so much for having me on your show. We're glad to have you here with us today, Monique. Thank you for joining. Yeah. So can you tell our listeners where are you joining us from today? I'm actually in Berlin, Germany. Uh, you can probably tell from my Australian accent that I'm not a native German, and I've been living in Berlin for the past year, but it's been a little bit of a love affair with the city. So the first time we lived here was in 2010, and then later in 20. 20, which was an interesting year for everybody. Mm-hmm. I, I do believe. Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell us a bit about you then. What do you do? How did you get there? So. I am a communicate communications strategist, and I work globally. As I mentioned, we've had a bit of a love affair with Berlin. It was a case of packing up the house and taking backpacks back in 2010, quitting our permanent full-time jobs. I was working at Australian Unity, uh, as uh, heading up internal comms there and, um. Heading over to Europe and that was supposed to just be one year and it ended up being six. And with two kids we ended, we came back to Australia. So, and yeah. And then 2020 was a, um, interesting challenge. Thought was supposed to be one year, but we were locked out of Australia and it ended up being two. So that's where I, I shifted to freelancing the first time and, um, also, uh, continued to, yeah, continue to work with European companies while I was away. So what sort of freelancing do you do? So, at the moment, I do everything from. Consulting in terms of communication strategy. Um, a lot of workshops and a lot of thought leadership and a lot of training. And that's mainly because I published my book last year in, um, may, end of May. And um, off the back of that, there was a lot of requests for speaking. I'd already done, I. I think I was averaging the years prior about 12 public speaking, uh, opportunities a year. So I've, I think I've hit well over 50 now, and so a lot of, a lot of my Thank you. A lot of my, um, my work comes from thought leadership, um, working with vendors and companies for, you know, blogs and latest opinions. Um, uh. Working with companies like DHL and, and doing, uh, keynotes for their offsites facilitating workshops. I'm working with Capgemini at the moment, actually to train their leaders to be better communicators. So a lot of bits and pieces, but around the thought leadership, around communication and around technology. Wow. That, that's really, really. Inspiring Monique because like a keynote speaker and an author, a consultant, like, that's really interesting besides being a mom for, for two kids and living abroad. So that's, that's an interesting package yet. The question here is that freelancing isn't always an easy game with all, all challenges that comes with the package. So why have you stuck with, with, uh, freelancing? Well, I think we're gonna have a really interesting conversation here. I've been freelancing, so I freelanced for a short bit during COVID and then was, uh, one of my clients decided to hire me. And so that didn't last very long. And then, um, this time round at, I started freelancing at the beginning of 2024. And that's prior to my book coming out and I wanted to do my book on my own terms and, and not, I was working with an internal communication consultancy I wanted to do to launch my book on my own terms. I've had a very interesting journey over the past two years, and around six months ago, I've actually decided that my place, or my next step is to move back in-house. So this is why we are gonna be having a really interesting conversation today about freelancing and who it is for, and who, who needs. Other options for me. I worked with an executive coach, Zora artist. She's amazing because I was, it was right after I'd got back from Slovenia, so I'd been flown to Slovenia, paid as a, uh, you know, for a keynote chauffer around, put up in beautiful hotel. Um, it was very, very nice. But I came back and I felt. Empty. It was like a, a moment of gratification. It's like eating that giant piece of chocolate cake and then afterwards you kind of want more, but it's not really satisfying and it's not sustainable long term. It's actually exhausting to be public speaking, and that's why you can't, you can't do it every week. It's like once every or twice a month for a big, big, big gig. So I sat down with my executive coach and worked out what I needed, like what? Me as a person, I need to feel fulfilled, what gives me fulfillment and. I discovered that I'm very high on relatedness. If you look at the scarf model, a lot of communication professionals would be familiar with the scarf model that looks at what motivates you as a human being. And, um, you've got things like status, certainty, fairness, um, a and. For me, relatedness was really, really important. I need to be around people. I need to work with people. I need to bounce off people, and I need to feel like I belong and. Freelancing can be really lonely. I've been lucky in the past, um, couple of months to be able to partner on projects, small projects with other freelancers. So I've got to that stage where I'm, I'm able to pull people into the projects that I'm working on and, and get them to, to, to help me out. And I help 'em out with other projects. But it is lonely sometimes. It is really. And again, it depends on the kind of person you are. My husband is very different. He's happy to go by several days without talking to any other human being or interacting significantly. Whereas me, I'm, I'm also finding it sometimes a little frustrating, um, that you are there to advise, you're there to be involved, but there's only so much that you can do. So. This is why I think this is an interesting conversation for your audience because you don't have to be a freelancer all the time. A hundred percent. You can dip in and dip out, and you can do it on the side as well for your business. So there was a period in Australia when I was freelancing and working permanent, a permanent role at the same time, which was exhausting because it was like. Monique, what time is it over there? And I'm like, it's one o'clock in the morning.'cause I was working with Europe. Yay. And then starting work at, you know, eight 30 the next morning with a permanent role. But yeah, it's a, an interesting discussion and there's not one size fits all and not one solution for every person. A hundred percent. And I, I kind of look at it. If you, if you are looking to get into freelancing, you don't have to quit your job and go all in. You can do that sort of half and half where, you know, maybe you do have a part-time job and do some extra hours on the side and, and test the waters, you know, do a bit of a side hustle. I did the same thing, Monique, when I first moved back to Australia from the UK many, many years ago. I kept freelancing for a company over there, uh, and it was exhausting, but I got paid in pounds, so I was like, okay, it's worth it. Um, uh, but there are people I know who, uh, like you love being part of a team. I love, um, having those, that people around them, uh, want the stability of knowing that there's always a paycheck coming in and, and those sorts of things as well. Room to climb and those sorts of things. So yeah, there's absolutely no one size fits all. And like you said, I also know other people who are in house for a while, then they go on freelance for a few years, they come back'cause there's a great opportunity. They do that for a few years. Go back to freelancing. There's no rule book. There's nothing saying you, once you're in, you're in, you can test the waters. And I think that's what I found the most challenging when I was doing my coaching sessions with Zora, is to feel like I'd invested so much in my personal brand and my skills and building the business and then to turn around and think the next step for me is actually not continuing what I'm doing right now. Mm-hmm. And, and then I was very fortunate, and again, this is what I love about the community, the. The communications community, all the people that we know with the IABC with, um, internationally, they're there for you. And I had a lot of people who I highly respect, um, Howard Christ, for example, who I had a chat with, and he turned around and said, Monique, you've learned so much though as, as a freelancer, like you understand business. And I actually had a conversation. With a hiring manager yesterday. So, uh, keep your fingers crossed for me. Uh, so in Germany we do this because that means you're lying. So we do this, we press our thumbs. Good to know. Good luck. Yeah, this means good luck. Good to know. Um, uh, and he, he, he actually found it very, um, attractive that someone comes to a comms role with business now. Hmm. Understanding, um, the flow of business, the business cycle marketing, not just in terms of a function, but actually the sales that you need to drive through your marketing. Um, understanding how you need to deal with customers who maybe don't pay their bills on time. Like how do you, all of these intricacies that is the completeness of a business, but you get to do it at a small level. And I do think those kind of skills bring you a lot when you do go back to a business environment. Absolutely. I think if I think you go ahead. One of the, the, the previous, uh, one of the previous episodes we, we discussed the idea of pivoting or even changing. So I think we, we both agree that. You know, it's, it's, it's like different lanes on the same way, whether it's a freelancer or you get back to the job, it's no, no size fits all that, that's for sure. And even within the same journey, we can always switch lanes. And this is an interesting example, Monique, that, that you mentioned, but you mentioned something very important that, uh, we both always talk about, which is. Building your, your personal brand and building your audience. Now, getting back to, to, to this idea, because you have like thousands of followers on Link A and you built an audience also around, around your, uh, books and, and you, you have, as you said, you have invested a lot in that. How do you build that audience? What would be like a roadmap for someone as, as a freelancer or someone who is building an audience online? What would be your road roadmap for him or her? I would say number one, you need to be genuine and I, I feel, I originally felt very self-conscious sharing things on LinkedIn and I had to do a little bit of mental gymnastics and pretend I was someone else. But in the end, I, I share because if I have ideas and they could help somebody else or spark another idea. With somebody else. And so I see it as being selfish if you have something valuable to share and you don't share it, I also use it as a way to collect my thoughts. And I know I've read that Steven Bartlett, that's how he started, um, sharing on LinkedIn, um, and. So it's a com combination of consistently sharing and engaging with other people in a genuine way. I don't say authentic, I hate the word authentic, um, but genuine way, sort of with DM messages, commenting on their posts, but in with valuable comments, not just fluff or, or for the sake of, of commenting. And then it's something that. Happens over time with consistency. I've gone through me personally, periods of. Not doing any connection or outreach to anyone. I end up with 60 invitations in my invitation list and I'm like, oh, I've gotta go through and, and I, I try and filter so that I, I keep the people I'm connected with as a valuable people. Um, and if anyone tries to sell me stuff, um, that's in an inappropriate way, I'll. Uh, separate them out and protect my audience from them. Um, also I've had, yeah, you get people who write inappropriate. Uh, yeah, I've had people make passes to me and DM dms and stuff. Very inappropriate stuff. And you just get rid of, get rid of that. Um, and then just focus on the people who matter to you and your interests and. And there have also been times when I've deliberately reached out to people who, um, who are interesting or who might have different viewpoints, who I'm wanting to, to connect with. And um, and that's how you build slowly over time. So I've been very sporadic. I haven't been methodical in textbook like, and I. Do have friends who are big thought leaders and have 20 5K and more. And Fadi, you've got a huge amount of, of, um, people following you as well, who are much more disciplined than I am. Um, but it's, yeah, for me, I love doing the work and the thought leadership sort of. A personal brand comes second. Hmm. Do you use any other channels other than LinkedIn? Not really. Um, maybe WhatsApp, but that, that would be it. I don't use Facebook. I, I get surprised. I had my Instagram for my book promotion. I was using Instagram a little bit. Um. Um, and it was set to automatically publish on Facebook. And then I started getting surprised'cause I got all these pings from Facebook that people have been commenting. And again, the thing is, if you, if you're doing something interesting, if you're writing a book, if you are, you know, you've got a podcast that, that is valuable. People wanna support you and they want to, mm-hmm. Cheer you on as well. And, and that's where you get a lot of your connections from and conversations as well. So again, trying to put the good people and surround yourself by good people, interesting people, people who are supportive and not worrying about the big numbers or the masses. Who, who, yeah, who you, you can't contribute to and who. Might not have. Yeah, a va a value to, to your time and energy.'cause it is time and energy. It is lot, lots of time and energy. Let, let's say it's, it's lots of energy and I totally agree with you, with the, with the concept that after certain period of working, we have lots to share. Sometimes we underestimate this part because this is like my normal daily life. But when we share this online. Uh, we really inspire people. We empower people, and I always say never. We are posting something special on LinkedIn. Think about myself like five years earlier. So someone earlier in, in the journey. So this is very true, but this brings to the us to the, to the customer. You, you mentioned sometimes WhatsApp or other channels or Facebook pinging you. Again, if I'm starting my, my journey here. How would you advise me to prioritize those channels? Because there, there, there are laws, it can be like link it in X other social platforms. Starting my own blog, starting my own newsletter, jumping on WhatsApp. It, it's, it's a bit overwhelming. How can I put this into the right priority and order? Uh, there are two key things. One is what you enjoy and gives you joy because you've gotta be consistent and keep going. And if you afford, if it's like, oh, again, I need to do this or have to do this post, and then that post on that channel, you it, it's'cause it, it's, it's there to share your thoughts and also is linked to business. And you've gotta have time to do your business as well. And, and so choose channels that. And number one, where your audience are, number two, that you enjoy or can at least live with posting and sharing on. So I, I do enjoy blogs, but at the moment I'm, I'm working with a lot of, um, partners and I get paid to do blogs. So my own personal blog is less of a priority because the client work comes first. I have a question. Uh, just going back to, you know, building this audience and you mentioned you've done a lot of speaking off the back of your book and obviously doing Speaking builds an audience. Yeah. How did you get started speaking though, because that's where a lot of people sort of, you know, they wanna get into that space. Maybe they've got some really good thought leadership, really good content out there. But actually getting started as a speaker who gets paid because, you know, there is the freebies you do to, you know, for a client here and there and that sort of stuff, but actually being paid as a speaker. Where did you start with that? I was, I was, I, I've trained CEOs and coached leaders on public speaking for a very long time. I remember back in 2010 when I had my first in-house job in Berlin. And there comes a point where I felt like I was being a bit hypocritical.'cause I was, I was giving feedback, I was telling people, um, what to do and not to do, but I wasn't brave enough to stand on the stage myself. And then I was really fortunate, um, when I was working at the Australian Taxation Office, um, one of Australia's largest government departments. I had an amazing manager and I said to him, I. You know, I'm the shy girl in the library. I'm petrified of public speaking. I would like to do it. And at that time, um, only the very top senior leaders, so the exec level were allowed to speak, but I had an opportunity and he supported. And I prepared and rehearsed, and my manager also gave me feedback on the presentation. I had like this team of people around me, even I remember speaking to Rita, Rita, um, Soni, who's another well-known IBC member, and she gave me advice and then you, you do it, and then you just keep. Getting opportunities and you keep doing it and you keep trying to be better and you keep pushing yourself and you need to do a lot of freebies, so to speak. And it's best if you've got the opportunity to do them when you're in house because then you are representing your company and your company are paying for the time and effort.'cause a presentation a good one, takes a long time and takes a lot of rehearsal. But then as time goes on, there comes a point where you ask what's your budget? And you talk money. And at that point, um, that was, so when I was working for the internal communication consultancy, I did a lot of public speaking at the part of their marketing, so. Um, for like globally, but after that, when I started freelancing, it was, you know, this is my time. I have over 40 under my belt. Let's talk expertise here. And I still spend a lot of time. I try and particularly if it's on stage, I pretty much memorize my. Presentation. You create and craft the presentation, you write the speech in a compelling way specifically for that target audience. You rehearse, you rehearse, you refine, you memorize. It's, it's not, you know, how many hours you are on or 20 minutes on stage. It's all of the hours of preparation and it's the experience that you bring as well to the stage. And that's what. Anyone who wants to be paid for their expertise and work needs to keep in mind is it's, it's your, not only time in preparation, but your expertise and your, your knowledge that you are sharing. You, you just highlighted something extremely important. Um, here, Mon, it's your expertise and let me add, and lots of time preparing. You mentioned that, building that presentation on PowerPoint, Canva, whatever, and then rehearsing and then. Memorizing because sometimes people, they just assume you have this charisma on stage. You just prepare a few slides and just you hit the stage and, and that's it. Laura, it is just like a magical land. No, there are lots of work and homework done behind the scenes. So let, let's say content creation for, for public speaking, that's lots of work content creation for blocks or for Lincoln in, that's lots of work. Moreover, I always preach this idea saying content is king, but consistency is his queen. So even consistency is more work. What strategy is Queen Fadi straight from my book. I, I go for that strategy is is the queen with with the consistency. Yeah. And consistency is where I wanna ask you how to maintain consistency with all this. Lots of work in. A consistent strategic way because this is overwhelming. So again, if I'm starting this journey of content creation for different platforms, for public speaking, what would be your advice for me to maintain the quality as well as the consistency and build a strategy? So it's, it's about planning in advance, which is all about, that's what strategy is, is planning in advance and being flexible around that. So some of the people I know who are, uh. Top podcasters, a friend of mine, um, does speak like a CEO and, um, yeah, he's, he has amazing guests. He, um, batch records, so he will, he will have once a month where he records four episodes back to back, and he also gets support with some of the research he does. The reading and everything, and also production support so that you are focusing on the actual content and you as a person presenting. Uh, and I mean, if we look at Stephen Bartlett, he's got his entire team, I think, of 40 people for his podcast. And so it's about, it's about batching so that you can scale. Um, then I know people who I'm, I'm actually not a good example with LinkedIn because. I use it to collect my thoughts, and I usually write it on the day and publish it on the day, but it's actually much more effective to, and I know a lot of people do this, they sit on the Sunday and they create their posts for the week or into the future, and they'll create several, say carousel posts of the same type, or they'll create several. Billboard posts and then space them out so they're really strategic about the way that they think about producing the content and also how and when, so what day and what time and and, and, um, all of those elements. Um, in terms of public speaking, I try not to do more than one in person a month because it's actually physically exhausting if you travel. Um, and Mo glad, who I highly admire as a public speaker, I think he, I heard he only does 12 a year in person events, but the goal is to escalate the type of event and escalate obviously the, um, your, your, your fee as a, as a part of that, and. That's, that's where you have to say no. And that's my challenge at the moment is I like to say yes a lot of the time, but I have had on several occasions where I've said yes to a, um, so this is just before my book came out. I remember a particular occasion, I said yes to a unpaid. Opportunity and then had to say no to a much better opportunity because I'd already committed. So you've gotta be very strategic about it and be comfortable in saying no. I've, um, yeah, I've, I've, I think you've gotta know your worth as well, and that's been a challenge for me and that's maybe something that we should talk about as well, is. Is understanding your worth and under and being comfortable in asking for what you're worth. Yeah, we are. Uh, we've set aside a whole episode on pricing and proposals because, uh, I was with you. Same thing in that, uh, I, I look, to be honest, I felt uncomfortable about asking for as much as others works. I'm like. That seems like a lot of money. Uh, and realistically it was not a lot of money. Uh, but it was again, like you were saying earlier, um, you're not just giving your time. And that's the thing. Like, because I have 25 years of experience, I can do that much faster than, you know, this particular task much faster than maybe a newbie, a grad, but you're not paying me for that hour. You're paying me for the 25 years That led to that hour being the best hour of your, you know, of that. Project. So, um, I had to reframe my thinking a lot around the value and not just the value I bring, but the value I generate for the business. So if I do this work for you, what value does that deliver? Well, mitigates your risks around change and around, you know, um, poor communication, those sorts of things. It helps the change get done faster, which reduces costs. So it's all those things that actually there's business value to what you do, and that's what I try to bring into that. I, I just wanna jump in here, Mel, because you saw you said something very critical that unfortunately, like 90% of the consultants, at least people that I know, they do not realize that, especially when raising prices is always challenging and fearful, I might lose the next client. So this is all always the myth. But thanks to the gentleman Hormo, Alex Hormoze, this idea is extremely important whenever you are doing your pricing. Look at the impact you are creating for the business, as you just mentioned, because when we put ourselves in the customer's shoes, they are willing to pay to solve this pain point. We just look at ourselves, my pricing, my hourly rate, and we forgot totally the amazing opportunity of how would the client invest in solving this problem. So flipping the other side round makes it really totally different in terms of consultancy business if, if you agree to that. I absolutely agree, and I have to say it's something I've been struggling with and I don't know if it's a, a, a female thing or, or what, because typically, typically males do on the speaking circuit, do earn higher and, and, um, I actually had a, a friend of mine who. Uh, literally sat down and talked to me about pricing and said, this is what you should be asking for and this is how you should ask for it. And I was very much like, oh, I don't know, you know, kind of thing. And I'm, I'm really glad that I had that support. And it's exactly what you're saying. Melon, Fadi, I, again, I, I'm openly confessing to all the people who are listening and, and watching us that. It wasn't so like six months ago I quoted for a project for someone that I knew quite well and they asked for a mate's rates and I made a discount'cause I wanted to help them out. And then they, they booked a certain amount of hours and I used 60% of those hours. And they've never come back for the rest of the hours because I think they realized that I was just so much faster and so much more efficient than they expected me to be. And I think they felt a little bit embarrassed about asking me to drop my prices. Uh, so I, I think that's, that's something that I'm personally taking and gonna take and remind myself to. To stay firm, but it, it's, it is hard because you want the business particularly. So I'm in the second year now. Um, you, you do want the business, you want to, to be doing work.'cause I love what I do. I, I enjoy working. And, um, it's hard. It is hard to, to stay there and sit there and say, no, actually this is what I'm worth. Yeah, I totally agree. Uh, but then I think, I don't know about you, but my personal experience has been after a while you, I built confidence in asking and built, uh, the backbone, I suppose to say, because there were clients who try and screw you down, keep screwing you down. It's like, no, no. This is the price. Um, and if you don't like it, find someone cheaper. That's okay. I don't, I'm good. Uh, you're not gonna hurt my feelings. That's totally okay. Uh, so I've, I've just had to learn Yeah. Just to grow up that backbone basically. Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's about courage a little bit, and experience brings courage. So I think it, it's, it's a cycle. You know, it's, it compounds whenever you have the experience, a little bit of courage, and then you build on top of that. And I, I totally agree with, with Monique saying, you know. It's a muscle that you build the power of saying no, you know, sometimes you're skeptical, sometimes you need to train this muscle. But, uh, I think it, it all compounds. And the other thing is we are doing other people a disservice if we're underpricing as well, it's not just us. And that, that, that also hit home, hit home to me. I mean, at the moment there's a bit of a, a crisis in the UK in the comm space and. I, I'm constantly seeing, um, people in the, my friends in the UK complaining about how jobs and things are, you know, now being offered a significantly less amount simply because people are desperate. Mm, yeah, you're right. It's supply and demand too, isn't it? Mm-hmm. So, uh, and when we drop our prices, we drop everyone's prices. When we lift it up, we lift everybody up. And I don't see a lot of other professions dropping their prizes. Uh, no one, you know, you wouldn't see dentists dropping their prizes. Nobody's, um, so I do feel, yeah, I, it's in very interesting space to play in. Uh, and you're right, it does set this precedent. I remember I was quoting probably about six months ago, uh, I had a potential client come to me and say, look, we wanna do a, I think it was a full day workshop. Um mm-hmm. And so I did my normal quote, which, you know, it's, it's not small, but it's, I feel like it's reasonable for a full day workshop, plus all the preparation that goes into it, all that sort of stuff. I've sort of mapped it all out. Well, what that all looks like. And she's like, oh, I got two other quotes. And one of them, like, they were like a 10th of what I was asking and I was like, well, if you pay peanuts, you're probably gonna get monkeys. You know, let's be honest. But. It just felt like, who are the, I, I'm not sure who the other people were. Maybe they're brand new, maybe they didn't really understand the scope. I don't know. Uh, but it really felt like they were very much underpricing their services. Like I just don't know how you could run a full day workshop at the prices they offered and still make a profit. And I think that's one thing people don't necessarily understand when they're first getting into freelancing is. What the time it takes you to create and deliver. When you price that, that's just your cost base. That's how much it costs you to produce. Then you've gotta have a profit margin on top of that. So you've gotta think about, yeah, okay, you, maybe it took you 10 hours and you've priced that at let's you know, arbitrary number, a hundred bucks an hour. That's just the cost of doing business. Are you making a profit? Put 15, 20% on top of that to be able to do that. And it's just understanding the numbers, I think might be challenging for nobody, for somebody who's never freelanced before and never had to be had that mindset. And it's also the marketing and all of the external, the, it's not just your time, it is all of the additional costs that you need to factor in. And, um, I actually really value my experience working with various agent, like in, in an agency because. Uh, there was one agent I've worked for a couple of agencies. One I worked for, um, we knew that the he head sales guy would underprice everything and he knew that he would go in with a client about halfway through the project when the client had enough to kind of see we could do our stuff and renegotiate. Ah, so, and I, I hate that tactic. But that's how, that's how they get business. And also with bigger agencies, a lot of the work just gets given to the junior people who, or interns who aren't paid particularly much. And then it doesn't really matter how long things take. Mm. Yeah. The, the quality might matter. I have to jump in here with a super funny story you just reminds me. I would love to hear with this because this is really a lessons learned. Uh. A year ago, I got a, a anonymous call from one of the universities here in, in Cairo, and the ladies had, uh, I hear a lot about you and you empower, uh, entrepreneurs with personal branding, storytelling, blah, blah, blah. We have a program for entrepreneurs and we would like you to train them on like personal branding and digital storytelling and, and everything. And we discussed, you know, we went immediately into the details. And then she said, what's your hourly rate? My mistake is that I kept till, till the end, and while we were talking, I, I could hear the lady sipping some coffee or, or tea or something. When I mentioned, when I mentioned my, my rate, I hear the shock in her voice coughing, sneezing, like throwing up what, what she was drinking. Literally it was like 20, 30 seconds of total silence between spitting what she was drinking, coughing, sneeze. I, I felt total guilt, a hundred percent guilt. I, I said, are you okay? I didn't mention. Uh, this to ruin your day or make you feel, are you physically okay? And then she, she had to hang up and called me back again and she said, you know, this is way far. Then my expectations. I never thought of that number. You mentioned, I know you, I know, uh, I heard about you. I know the value that you are bringing, but this is way beyond the budget. Long story made short. One year later with the third cohort of that program, the lady was smart to get funding from international entities to fund the program. She paid the budget and it was super successful that everyone started posting. About that, and it was the happy ending for everyone. But I always remember this, what did you say? How much was that? And then it went fine. So that's a quick, just a story, a funny story here, but let's, let's conclude. Monique, we, we always have with every episode, like three quick questions as as a wrap here. So my first question to you would be, if you could wave just your magical wand and change anything about freelancing and consulting, what would that be? I, I would say for me, working, working alone. Hmm. Yeah. And I do know people who do struggle with that, and so. Uh, that's where like I, B, C and those sorts of things can be really helpful to build a bit bit of your community, um, or working in-house as an consultant, you know, with a team if it's a long-term gig. But yeah, it can be quite lonely as well. I absolutely agree with that. Second question, who is a freelancer or consultant you admire and why? I admire. To both women, uh, Jenny Field and Rachel Miller because they have business now. I've been out to dinner with them. This is, can I tell the funny story? We, we, we went out to dinner and the service was appalling and, and, um, RA Rachel wasn't there, but Jenny had no qualms. In, in, in, in sorting things out. It was, no, no, this is, you know, this is the issue. What are you gonna do? Let's get results type thing. And I really admire that. And you've probably heard from my. Stories and things that I'm still struggling with that, that value sense in my first two years of freelancing. So I admire that very, very much. Jenny, and congratulations, you're an inspiration to me, as are you Rachel Meller? That's, that's interesting. But, uh, business now. Yeah. So this, this conversation, this podcast is consulting conversations over coffee. So, Monique, what's your favorite coffee or tea or choice? Decaf coffee. Why lazer? From our own coffee machine here at home. What is the coffee like in Berlin? As as an Australian, I am a coffee snob, so. It's terrible unless there's an Australian behind the coffee machine. That's a good answer. And the, and the great, great and un unsurprised. I did find that, uh, in Canada, Vancouver Whistler great coffee, but it's because it's overrun by Australians. You go to Toronto and it's. Very hit and miss. It's 2D sides of the country. I remember at the uh, world conference in New York, there was actually a local New York coffee bar that advertised that it was an Australian barista. Oh. Oh wow. And, um, here in, there's certain cafes that are Australian run. Hmm. We know what we like. And so there's a coffee cart, there's a thing called a coffee cart where they have a coffee machine on, like a bike, a cargo bike that's at, um, so the best of Berlin, but there's always. And Melbourne. I usually, it's usually someone from Melbourne sitting behind the coffee machine, whipping out the best coffees. We're slowly taking over the world, one coffee at a time. Well, Mike, if people want to know more about you or connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that? LinkedIn is always easy and I'm always happy to chat. Exchange ideas. As I said, if we share, we might spark something in someone else, and I'm very, very open to new ideas. Love it. Well, Monique, thank you so much for joining us on Reinventors. Thank you so much. Thanks. Well, Fadi, that was probably one of our longest conversations yet, but so valuable. What did you think? I loved it. Yes. Long, deep, and very interesting. And let, let's jump into the three key takeaways, because for me, Mel, number. Was the idea of being visible online, especially on LinkedIn and creating content is lots of work. But, uh, the inspiring thing was preparing batch content, like sitting once and writing the content, developing different formats. So batching the content creation is a system that, that makes things easier. So that was number one for me. And I think, I know you and I both give that advice a lot, like just sit down on a Sunday afternoon. Write a bunch of stuff, schedule it all in, then you don't have to think about it for another couple of weeks. Uh, my, I think the second key takeaway for me was the value of being genuine on LinkedIn or any platform you're on. Really, uh, people pick up when you're not genuine. People have a pretty good BS radar, I think, and. You know, we're so OI think a lot of people are just over that sort of influencer culture anyway. But when you're genuine, you do actually democratize knowledge. You sh you're openly sharing, you're not holding stuff to yourself. You're not saying, oh, I came up with this great idea when it's actually somebody else's idea. Uh, so I think that being, just showing up as you be you, and that doesn't mean. That you have to give everything away. I think that's one thing people might get a little bit. Hmm. I don't like putting myself out there, or it doesn't feel safe. You don't have to give away your life story or your address or your phone number. You know? It's just all the credit. Give away an idea. Yeah. All the credit card details, just give away an idea. You're gonna, you know, it's, that's fine. Just leave it at that. Yeah, I, I totally agree. Even something rare, you can share your, your own stories. Even failures. Failures are extremely rare, but people can, can learn. Ev everyone on LinkedIn especially are just showing muscles, you know, this is my success. This is what they did. No, just be genuine. As, as you said, Mel, this is really, you know, the, the, the whole thing. Be real, be genuine. Chair. They're very comfortable. Well, and this brings me to the third point, which is, was really an eyeopening, which is choosing the right channels because it's always overwhelming with tens of social media platforms, blogs, et cetera, et cetera. So choose the channel that you are comfortable with. It's not a burden, it's not additional stress that I should post again today. You know, you enjoy it, you love it, and there are, you know, your ideal audience where you can really, genuinely add value to them. So it's totally. Win-win situation. You are enjoying it, you're sharing experience and your audience, the right audience are learning from you. So that, that was number three for me. Yeah, so be visible, be genuine, and choose the channels where your audience are and that you enjoy using. Sounds like a pretty good advice to me. Awesome. Yeah. All right, Fadi. We'll see you on the next episode. See you.