18. Not Expressing Yourself Is Costing You Millions

Burhaan Pattel (00:00):

Welcome to the marketing stack podcast. And on this episode, I'm going to be talking about how not expressing yourself is causing you millions. It's costing you definitely, you know, building relationships if not money. And there are a couple of causes and these are things that I'm working through as well. But what I've noticed is a lot of people are not posting content online. They're, you know, overthinking it. They sometimes say that they don't have anything to say. They think that by posting videos, people are going to laugh at them or that they're going to get negative comments, or they just think that the internet is not the right place for them to market their business. And I want to say to you right now that I think that those beliefs are negative. I think those are false. I think there's definitely something to be said about posting online.

Burhaan Pattel (00:53):

If you look at people that you follow, you know, creators that that, that are online. I'll use an example like Will Smith, who last year I believe started a YouTube channel. And one of the reasons why he started it was because he knew, or he knows that his audience is online, not only his fans, but also new audiences are online. And he knows that, you know, in order to promote a new movie or a music video, or while he doesn't really do music anymore. But, you know, in order to create a buzz around movies that he's created, he is responsible for getting people to buy tickets, to go watch the movie or to open the Netflix app and actually choose his movie to watch. And so, you know, he knows that he needs to control his audience and Hollywood and all these sort of movie movie producers and movie companies are asking their audience, asking their actors, asking their alias actors, all their actors to build an audience of their own, whether it be on Instagram, whether it be on, on YouTube, whether it be on Tik TOK or wherever, to be able to gather an audience, because those are the big ticket players in the market, right?

Burhaan Pattel (02:10):

If you're in a high list actor and you're looking to land a role in the movie, one of the questions the producer's going to ask you is, well, what is your, what is your audience like, why should we even have you in the movie? Can you help us to promote and sell this movie? And while this may not necessarily apply to you, or you may think it may not apply to you, but building your own audience for your business, whether it be on YouTube or any platform is important. And of course I'm live on Facebook right now, and I'm starting off with YouTube with Facebook because that's what I've chosen to do. And so let me take you a little bit back to where I started and how I actually started posting more and why I started posting more. So growing up, I was brought up in, in South Africa in a very sort of conservative family.

Burhaan Pattel (03:00):

My parents had always asked me to not express myself much, you know, never to be too loud, never to shout, never to be expressive when I was angry. You know, we always had to sort of toe the line, so to speak. And when it came to celebrating successes or just being sort of open about, achievements, you know, my dad always encouraged us to not be open about it, to not be, to not show off, to not say the things that we wanted to say. And over the, over time, as, as I was growing up, I found myself very introvert, introverted as an extroverted person, right? Growing up, I used to play puzzles in the corner, I used to just sit with my toys and basically just sit in the corner and people thought I was introverted. And meanwhile, there was this inside of me that just wanted to express, just wanted to go out and, you know, do my things and say what I wanted to say.

Burhaan Pattel (03:57):

And so as I started finding my way and, and sort of breaking that norm for myself, I realized that, you know, in business, when I started my career as an audit manager at KPMG, I realized that when we're working with people, we need to be able to express ourselves. We need to be able to sh to tell our opinions, you know, when a client asks you, well, what do you think about this? You've got to be able to pipe up and say what your, what you believe in out of confidence. And so, you know, obviously I got some training through KPMG and, you know, a lot of coaching, by the directors, et cetera, in order to improve myself there. But it wasn't quite enough. It wasn't, it wasn't, I wasn't ready to hear it. I wasn't willing to work on myself. And I knew that if I wanted to make it out in the world, if I, if I wanted to break free of the salary positions, you know, the, the job roles that I needed to, and I wanted to build a business on my own.

Burhaan Pattel (05:00):

I knew that I needed to work with people. I needed to be able to sell myself. And I got to a point where I realized that skills alone would not going to generate the income that I wanted to generate. Sure. Skills can bring you a fair, a fairly good living if that's what you, if that's what you're happy with doing. But as an entrepreneur is somebody as somebody who wants to make an impact in the world, you've got to be able to express and show and tell your opinions. You know, you've got to be able to say the things that you want to say. And so I started myself on this journey and after my first divorce, I realized that there was something that I needed to work on myself. I had obviously a few failed relationships in the past. And when I got divorced, the first time I had went through a few more failed relationships, and I started working myself with a therapist.

Burhaan Pattel (05:51):

And the first therapist I worked with, taught me to meditate, taught me to, to sort of think deeply about myself. And then I found another person, a guide. His name was Dave, who started showing me and started talking to me about expression, started talking to me about how we, we, we were meant to shine in the world. We were meant to actually be open. We're meant to be visible. We're meant to be, you know, we're meant to be able to, to express ourselves in a way that's kind, courageous, bold without actually offending people. Like there is a way that you can, that you can do it. And then of course, the internet came around. Facebook started, started up in 94, 95. I think it was in 97 is when I actually joined. I think it was. And you know, it, it became this online place where we could meet friends.

Burhaan Pattel (06:51):

And, and then there were other innovations that came up where, you know, the, the online space is huge. It's, it's a marketplace. It's, it's, it's, there's just so many people and there's so much going on. And so then I had other fears of, well, apart from like, what would people say now? The internet showed us that, you know, people were a little bit more vocal. They were a little bit more, expressive in a, in a harmful way, right? The toxic relationships that could be formed or people that are toxic and saying negative things. I often get comments about my eyebrows and how I look ugly, but you know what, I'm happy with the way I look, I think I'm pretty healthy in that regard. And I know that I'm not for everybody now making those statements right now, was a development process because as I grew up and as I realized that the internet was going to be my marketplace, as I started learning to become a digital marketer, I realized, and I, and I knew that building an online presence or, or forming communities or being part of, you know, different groups of people was a necessary thing I needed to do.

Burhaan Pattel (07:59):

And even when I registered on Upwork as a freelancer five or six years ago. I realized that in order to speak to my clients, in order to get my clients in order to make an income, I needed to get on the phone with them, I needed to, get, get on video. I needed to do video calls, you know, get on zoom. But back in the day we were using Skype a lot. And, and that was one of the main factors that I used, to be able to close my close my clients, you know, when somebody expressed an interest in something that a skill, even if they were just looking for some $20 thing, you know, help with something that only costs them $20, I would insist on getting a call on a call with them to have a, to start a relationship with them.

Burhaan Pattel (08:45):

Irrespective of whether they switch the camera on and on or not. I realized that that was something that I needed to do for myself, to build confidence, but also to, to just to get to know people and to make more friends. And so, you know, one of the, I mentioned that I, I got therapy. I started going out to meet people. I started joining, I joined a book club about two years ago as well. And I don't go to that anymore, obviously because of the virus and things. But the book club also helped me to find new people, new friends, helped me, you know, read better among other things. And, and it helped me mainly to start talk, talking to strangers. So, and that was in person. Most of my work is done online, but having, you know, relationships in person is also important.

Burhaan Pattel (09:34):

And so I had this plan, and I'm executing on that plan right now, by going live on Facebook is to actually be more visible and, you know, to, to get out to more often, to meet people in the street to join Facebook groups and actually comment on people's posts in Facebook groups. I also cleaned up my newsfeed. So I unfollowed all the groups and all the people that I just am not interested in in terms of how they could take my business forward. I knew that they could not. And so I unsubscribed for them and followed them on, on social, same thing with my Instagram feed, is I started following people who are really genuinely interested in and unfollowed those who I'm not interested in, unfollowed those accounts, who just show you a life that looks unattainable, or just looks too superficial, or just looks like it's too easy to have, started listening to videos by. And maybe many of you may not like him, but Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk and, you know, impact theory and, and these sort of channels, you know, P Peter McKinnon, Casey Neistat, you know, all of these people who are openly expressive and taking clues and just noticing how they're able to do certain things. Now, a bunch of other beliefs come up there where, Oh, I couldn't, you know, you might say to yourself, you couldn't possibly do or say what they say. Well, you don't have to be them. You know, be you, you're unique. You're, you're your own individual. You have your own experiences, you have own your own skills. And so start talking about those things start posting, going online. I also took sales courses. I also started reading books. I started developing myself. I found another therapist, two years ago. I still worked with every day, every week.

Burhaan Pattel (11:27):

And so, you know, as I go through and build my confidence and build my self-esteem and start posting more online, I'm seeing people more regularly, you know, I'm interacting with more clients. I am relating my personal stories to my business. And so at that point, you might be asking yourself, well, how, how does all this relate to your business? Well, it relates a whole lot because if you're expressing yourself to your fullest potential, if you are living your life out, you're living your purpose out and you're expressing that and you're showing the world and you're showing the people who are important to you and you're showing your kids and you're showing your, your staff, you know, your employees, you're, you're showing your colleagues, you're showing your, peer groups that you can actually do the thing that you you want to do. And you're expressing yourself, it's going to impact your business in one way, or the other people are going to see you online.

Burhaan Pattel (12:24):

And you don't need lots of views. You don't need a lot of followers or subscribers on any of these channels. The most important thing to remember is the view that counts on the other side is the client who's going to contact you or the person who's going to contact you and say, Hey, I liked what you said. Like let's get together. Let's let's form a relationship. One of the examples I have was when I first got, cut to Bangkok, I went through a bunch of failed relationships and I didn't let those relationships perturb me or, or, you know, affect me in finding the person that I really wanted to find. And I continued posting myself online on various platforms and started talking to people and started expressing myself and started being open and honest about what I was looking for.

Burhaan Pattel (13:11):

And lo and behold, a beautiful Thai woman, you know, contacted me. We, we, we matched on one of the apps we got together in person, and she's an amazing, lovely, supportive human being. And we just kind of became friends. And that was the whole initial thing, was if I didn't post, if she didn't post, if she didn't put her profile up, we would never have found each other. And so when we're trying to go out there, when we have the right intention and we have the right message and we are open and honest and expressive, then you know, you could get all your goals. You can reach all your goals that you want to in your life, whether it be through an online medium space, online medium, or whether it be, in-person. But what I'm saying in this video is that online, posting yourself online, putting your business out online, posting content, you know, blogging, doing videos on YouTube, doing posts on Facebook, doing live videos on Facebook, doing, Instagram videos, doing Instagram posts, like doing all of these activities is important.

Burhaan Pattel (14:19):

And the reason is because one it's, it's a form of creative expression. It's a place where you can actually say what you want to say. And yeah, people are sometimes going to be trolley sometimes, but you can ignore those. You don't have to read all the comments. You don't have to react to every single situation that comes up, right? You're in control of your feed. You're in control of your videos, you're in control of your audience. And so if you have those points in mind, you can pretty much double or triple your business in a year. Like I've done and you can do it with very little effort without really, really knowing what to post. You can come up with a topic like I did just now for this video, within five minutes of you going live, like it's not impossible to do. And every single one of us has got a message has got something that we want to say, has got something important that we want to contribute to the world.

Burhaan Pattel (15:14):

We want to help each other in, in, in various ways, whether you're a business coach, whether you're a health coach, whether you're a doctor, whether you're a dentist, whatever it is that your profession is, right. You could even be a construction worker. The online space is here for you to express yourself and it's free, right? All it costs you is a bit of time and maybe a little bit of equipment, but then to not even, I'm using some fancy computer and a fancy camera and my fancy microphone, but you could do all of this from your iPhone or from a phone, right? You don't need anything major, anything fancy. So that's my message for you today. If you liked this video, like it, if you enjoy this content, if you want to see more, you know, follow, follow the channel, follow, follow the page and comment below, and let me know what's causing you to not post online. You know, I'm, I'm curious to know what you're going through internally, externally, that's causing you to not actually post what you want to post. So with that being said, thank you so much for watching my video and listening to my story, comment below. Follow again like the video, if you like that, and I will see you on the next video. Thank you so much. Take care and God bless. Bye.