Get Mic’d – Episode 3: How to Handle a Communications Crisis with Maha Abouelenein, Digital and Savvy – Transcript
Below is a transcription of Get Mic’d Podcast Episode 3 Hosted by Katie Zeppieri and featuring Maha Abouelenein, CEO and Founder of “Digital and Savvy”. Listen to the full episode here.
Maha Abouelenein is a renowned communication expert and visionary entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience. As the CEO and Founder of “Digital and Savvy,” a global communication consulting firm with offices in both the U.S. and Dubai, she has been instrumental in transforming the communication strategies of high-profile individuals, entrepreneurs, and brands. Maha’s expertise lies in effective communication and relationship-building strategies, making her an invaluable advisor to her clients.
A sought-after expert and speaker, Maha takes the stage to share her expertise on personal branding, reputation management, modern communications and the transformational power of storytelling. In 2023, she was honoured as one of the most influential women in Dubai, a testament to her impact in the field of communication. In addition, Maha Abouelenein is a member of the Global Board of Directors for The Associated Press, where she contributes to shaping the future of communication.
She launched some of the world’s largest tech companies in the Middle East from communications, policy, & business development perspectives – from Google and Netflix to Udacity and Careem (Uber) and more. She supported the largest IPO & the largest acquisition in Egypt’s history at Orascom Telecom. She also built sports marketing programs & strategic partnerships for the Olympics, NASCAR, the NBA, ATP Tennis, Golf, and the NFL at consumer product giant General Mills.
Maha is the host of the Savvy Talk Podcast, where she engages in thought-provoking conversations with industry leaders. Maha’s first book, 7 Rules of Self-Reliance, is scheduled for release on October 8, 2024. This forthcoming book embodies her commitment to self-reliance and shares insights from her lifelong journey of growth and success. Maha passionately advocates for the power of storytelling and self-reliance in the modern age, emphasizing personal branding as a transformative pathway to leadership.
You can learn more about Maha and her extensive work in the field of communications on her website. You can also connect with her Instagram.
Katie Zeppieri: Maha! Welcome to Get Mic’d.
Maha Abouelenein: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I’m so excited to be here.
Katie: I’m so excited to have you here. I’ve been following you. And I immediately was like, this woman is truly impressive. You’ve got a whole bunch of announcements coming up. You’ve got a new book, which is super exciting. I’m just excited to talk shop with you today.
Maha: I know! I rarely get to speak with communications professionals and you are one of the leaders in your field. So for me, it’s equally exciting.
Katie: Yeah, this is awesome. To kick off the conversation, how did a career in comms begin for you?
Maha: That’s a great question. So I was in college interning at the local CBS affiliate, WCCO, here in Minnesota. And that’s where I got the bug. I was in the newsroom and you have different roles and feel that feeling of being there. When you get information over the wire or incoming information comes in you have to package it up before you broadcast it and tell it to the world. That was when I first got the bug.
I loved the idea of storytelling and communications. And so I evolved my career from working as an intern at a news station to actually being on the side of telling those stories and putting them out.
I love the art of telling a story and how you communicate effectively to either influence, inform or get people to do something. And I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years now. And communications have changed so much throughout my career from what I’ve been witnessing and practising. And it gets more challenging and more exciting because, with the advent of the internet and social media, everything’s changed. But it’s been really fun. And anyone who has a career in communications knows you don’t have the same day twice.
Katie: That is for sure. And I think there’s a lot of terminology when we speak about communications and there’s so many different layers to it. We hear words like comms, marketing, advertising and PR. Now there’s social media, digital media and digital marketing. How do you think about the landscape of all of those pieces? Is there some sort of hierarchy in your mind? Is there something that’s at the top? And how do those fit for you?
Maha: It was always traditionally advertising and PR. Those were the two big bullets of how people did things. And they were always pitted against each other. Where advertising is creative, you pay for your spaces and control where it will go. You also know what the space is going to look like on television or a newspaper or a blog and you know exactly what space you’re buying.
PR on the other side was more the earned media, you earned the space in the newspaper or the blog, or the TV show or the radio show because you had a good headline and you had something newsworthy. The lines now have completely blurred because the way consumers act and consume information is what caused it to be blurred.
Now we consume a lot of content on socials through our phones and we don’t just have to wait for the media to give us information. We rely on friends, family, influencers, and other third parties to give us information. It has caused people to think about communications as a whole. Whether digital advertising, socials and PR, at the end of the day, it all comes back to how you tell a story really effectively. And how do you connect with your audience and connect with consumers?
Katie: That’s a really good way of looking at it. And you’re right. I think people who are coming out of school or were coming out of school, even five or 10 years ago, it looked very different for them.
Maha: Mass communications, in general, has changed. Everyone has the ability to broadcast an idea to the world instantly.
Who would have thought that somebody cared about hearing your ideas and messages? Everything from citizen journalism to giving you behind-the-scenes of what’s happening at the Oscars. That’s interesting. And that’s the content people care about.
Katie: You’ve done PR for a range of different types of companies and people, and you have a really interesting outlook on the nuances of how you do good comms for big companies.
You’ve worked with Google, Netflix, tech startups and high-profile people. Is there an overview that you could offer that summarises how you think about your comms approach to each one of those different groupings?
Maha: This is a way communications has also evolved, right? It used to be the CEO or the head of the company or the company that would put out communications. And now, we want to hear from the CEO, we want to hear from some of the employees, we want to hear from other people.
And I started my career working a lot in government rather than with companies. Now I work a lot with people and the biggest difference is people follow people, they don’t follow companies.
You’re interested in the story of Steve Jobs. You’re interested in the story of Elon Musk, you’re interested in the story of Tim Cook. You’re interested in the story of Sara Blakely, from Spanx, you’re interested in the story of Kim Kardashian at Skims. You want to know the people behind the business.
How did they come up with it? What are some of the strategies they’re planning? What are some of the challenges that they’re facing? In working with people versus companies, it’s much different because of their name, right? They have to think about how they conduct themselves professionally. How do they share what they share? Should they share everything or not share specific things?
I love working with people because I feel the storytellers are a big part of the storytelling. Who it comes from matters. Do they have the right credibility? Do they have a good reputation? You know, working with someone on a personal brand level versus a company means you really have to be intentional about how you talk about things.
You’re not hiding behind the veil of the corporate name, where you can just not identify who said it or what the story was. And you think of some of the big crises like Boeing, for example, as a company that’s facing, you know, versus someone from Boeing talking it makes a big difference when you hear from the company versus a real spokesperson.
Katie: It almost humanizes the company. It humanizes the brand to hear from the founder or a spokesperson.
Maha: 100%! And we can empathize when we see a human behind it. Some companies are good about putting their spokesperson or CEO or personal brand out there to try to say things like “You know what, sometimes we don’t always get it right”. And that empathy helps, apologizing matters. Companies who are good at that and have this personal brand of a representative out there talking about it can make a huge difference in the reputation of a company.
Katie: At what point in your journey did you decide, I’m ready to start my own agency?
Maha: Actually, I did it out of what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t wake up and say, “Oh, I’m ready to be a CEO or entrepreneur and start my own company”. It’s more like what I didn’t want to do, I didn’t want to be at the behest of corporate America.
I didn’t want to be at the behest of following rules. I don’t do well in that environment and it’s a lot of self-awareness. Am I going to be able to climb the corporate ladder and work within corporate confines? I just really did it because I wanted to wake up and choose what I got to work on every day. I had no idea how to run a business, how to run a company, how to do finances, how to do legal work, or how to do HR, but I figured it out along the way.
And I got a lot of help. I made a lot of mistakes. But I didn’t wake up one day and say, “Okay, I’m ready to be an entrepreneur.” I sort of fell into it in a way that I really cared about having an impact on specific clients or businesses that I felt I was uniquely qualified to help. Because some companies or clients, anyone can do it, but what is it that I feel if I tip my thumb on the scale, I could actually make a difference because I have either experience or I’m passionate about a specific area?
Katie: Was digital and savvy, which you now run and lead, the first iteration of your initial company that you started?
Maha: Actually the company in August of this year in 2024, will be 20 years old. It was called Organisational Consultants Inc. and is of a personal story. My father had passed away and he had a management consulting firm, where he used to consult for different organizations.
When he passed away, I really wanted to keep that name. And so I started the company, it was called Organisational Consultants. I used to consult different companies on strategic communications.
As the company kind of evolved, and it was sort of like a corporate name, I really wanted to get something more consumer-led. And I believe “digital” is a big piece of what we do and how we live. And “savvy”, I want people to be smart about their decisions and intentions for communications. Also be savvy about being a lifelong learner and how they approach their reputations in general. This is something I promote a lot of.
Don’t think that you don’t need to be proactive in building your own personal brand, or that you don’t need to be proactive in communicating. Focusing on how people can be savvy because the market changed so much. And there’s so much ebbs and flows that happen in the industry.
Katie: I like that because I think people have this idea that the name we hear today is exactly the name the company was when it started out, or it looks the exact same then as it does now.
Maha: Yeah, you have to evolve. You have to be willing to have those hard conversations with yourself about: What am I missing? What do I need to do? What do I need to change in terms of my brand or image of the company? What do I need to do in terms of the team and staff I have?
The company started in Cairo then I ended up moving to Dubai. Then I opened an office in Dubai and I ended up moving back to the States during the pandemic. And I opened an office in the U.S. It also kind of started in Egypt went to Dubai, to get to where I’m based right now, in Minnesota,
Katie: You are a busy person. You are flying back and forth. You were saying I’m living on a plane
Maha: I travel a lot. Actually more than I care for. But I just love what I do. And I just try to be really efficient with my time when I travel. I hit the ground running, built my schedule to do things and try to get back home as soon as I can.
Katie: I believe you started your company while you were living in Egypt. That is what I’ve heard you talk about. What did getting your first few clients look like for you? How did that sort of pursuit happen? Did it come to you? What was that experience like?
Maha: I mean, it’s hard to get business. Anybody who is an entrepreneur and has their own company has to worry about how do you bring in the clients. How do you bring in the money? How do you make payroll every month? It’s something that keeps you up at night to make sure you can sustain that.
But for me, I really do remember actually, my first client was Coca-Cola, which I’m so fortunate. I had worked with them previously in a different role. And so when I moved into my own business, they followed me and so I really spent time establishing a relationship with my client.
And really trying to be what I call sticky. How do I get them to stick to me? The big thing I always focus on with my clients, I’ve been working with Gary Vee now for eight years, is trying to add value. I constantly have to up my own game without them asking for it and me driving results and driving ideas and bringing value.
And that’s how I landed Coca-Cola, I continued to show how I could be a value add to their business and went above and beyond to make sure I could keep them and to grow them. And then once you have a name like Coca-Cola on your client roster, it becomes easier when you try to sell to people. To say “Listen, I work with big companies. Here’s one of the world’s biggest beverage companies.”
And they (Coca-Cola) had some really interesting things they were doing in the region that I loved, related to water and recycling and building schools and a lot of community activities. And I really believe that’s part of my DNA, to work with companies that have a mission beyond their sales and marketing plans.
Katie: I like that you talk about adding value. And you’ve spoken about this as a differentiator for your business.
And I like it because it’s not something that you would immediately think would be the answer to someone who’s achieved the success that you have in this industry. Oftentimes, I think people think of PR, they think of comms, they think it’s like an impression game, right?
Which agency is getting the most impressions, and which agency is getting the biggest reach. But you flip that and say, “No, I look at each situation and each experience that arises and I say: How can I maximize the value for my client?”
Maha: Yeah, it kind of scares me when I talk to people, and they don’t have a communications or a PR person on their team. It’s really important. We live in a 24-hour cycle of real-time everything.
People want information at their fingertips, a crisis can occur at any minute, and somebody could post something online that goes viral. So I always think about the value equation, given the context of how we live and work today. We live in this world that’s constantly changing and you have to make sure that you’re always trying to create value.
Because AI can take your job or because I’m not just competing with people in my market, because of remote working and online, I’m competing with people in the state next door in and in the country next door. If I’m not constantly thinking about what I need to do to create value, I might lose that business or that client to somebody else.
It’s an opportunity for you to think about how I am going to create value for these clients because they could walk out the door, or they could see something more interesting. I have to make sure I’m culturally relevant. I’m adding value. I’m bringing them the best that I can bring.
Katie: You’ve helped a lot of high-profile individuals. And I know you mentioned the main focus of Digital and Savvy, is personal brands. You’ve worked with people like Gary Vee, and Jim Kwik. The list goes on.
What would you say you’ve learned in your experience, as far with working with these personal brands? How much does PR, comms and strategy, influence their reach, influence their impact and their trajectory in terms of their careers and their businesses?
Maha: First of all, both of those names that you mentioned, are very high-profile people who have long-standing careers with effective businesses that precede me and precede any value that I will create for them.
Having said that you have to have a good storyteller, you have to have a good story. I mean, Jim Kwik is one of the leading brain coaches in the world. My job is to have a 10x impact and to tell more stories that people can learn from him.
You know, Gary Vee has his own machine in terms of social media and he’s a content machine. But what can I do to bring value to someone like Gary? Well, maybe I can help scale his ideas and get them in front of new audiences. And so that’s my secret sauce for finding how I can take their already successful businesses and brands and narratives and scale them to other people to hear them.
And I feel like a lot of it comes from knowing that when it’s a personal brand, it’s personal to them. It’s their name, it’s their reputation. And so they have to be comfortable and be authentic. And in whatever opportunities we bring them or that we share with them, they can continue to be themselves and continue to do the things that they love to do.
Katie: Personal Branding is thrown around a lot. Do you believe that everybody has a personal brand? And do you believe that people should be intentional about building it?
Maha: If you have a social media account, you have a personal brand. The answer to that question is, yes, everybody has one. Whether they think they do or not. A lot of people think personal branding is a lot like self-promotion. And I say a lot of times, personal branding is about leadership. It’s about idea promotion, not self-promotion.
I give this example a lot because a lot of people say “Oh, there’s a million personal trainers out on the market. If I’m a personal trainer, how am I going to be different?” Well, because your personality is different, your approach is different. People follow the characteristics and personalities of people.
Think about the people that you follow. And why do you follow them? Or why do you share their content? Because there’s something about their personality that you like, and so that’s the personal brand. Whether you have a job and want to keep your full-time job and have no interest in developing a side hustle or no building your personal brand?
Because you think why do I need to have a job at my finance bank, or whatever I do? You have to be intentional about your reputation, you have to make sure that you own your name on the internet on every single platform. You have to make sure that any information you put out into the world is content that you want to be out there.
Once something’s out on the internet, it’s a whack-a-mole, you can’t get rid of it, right? Why don’t you make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward? You’re showing up in the world in a way that you want people to see when they Google you or look you up on Instagram or LinkedIn. Because people do look you up and so you want to make sure that what they find is what you want them to see.
Katie: For an entrepreneur who’s listening right now, they’ve got a social media account. They post fairly regularly, but what advice would you give them in terms of a couple of steps that they could do to really make an intentional effort to build that personal brand?
Maha: For entrepreneurs and founders, you guys are the ones that need to be doing this the most. How it helps your business in so many ways. One, it can help you recruit staff, people see what’s it like to work there, what’s behind the scenes, what’s your leadership traits, what are what is happening at the company, sharing that helps, too.
It helps you recruit customers, and people to see what’s happening behind the scenes of a business. It can help with reinvestment if you’re trying to invest or get an investor. I feel like entrepreneurs need to be thinking about using social media as a tool for recruiting, for investment and for building reputation.
I would encourage them to do simple things, like show what’s happening behind the scenes at a staff meeting, how you’re picking out a new product, the line name or packaging, or behind the scenes in a photo shoot, or going on a road trip to pitch something. I love seeing behind the scenes. And I know a lot of other people do too. It helps build trust. It helps get people connected to what you’re trying to do. And actually get them to believe in your mission and what you’re trying to achieve.
Katie: At what point would you recommend a startup hire a publicist?
Maha: One, not every startup needs to hire a publicist. If you want to put in the effort, you can do it yourself. And there are a couple of things you can do. Look at the publications or the media outlets that you really want to be in, and start following them on social media.
Find out what they cover. What kind of stories are they interested in? Perhaps DM them and say, “I’d love to send you an email to tell you about what I’m working on” and bring value to them.
Don’t just make it about you, make it about them. What value can you bring to their readers or to their viewers, so they don’t need to necessarily hire somebody, they can try to do it themselves. But I would say you know, the first hire in any company, if you have the means to do it, should be somebody in publicity.
It’s way more effective to get a publicist to help you get coverage than to buy advertising and spend money on digital campaigns and advertising. And any startup when you look at the trajectory in the growth of their company, it kind of hockey sticks up to the right, whenever a news article comes out about them.
Some of the world’s most famous startups, Warby Parker, Five Guys Burgers, and Spanx, tell stories like “One day we were just going about our business, the next day an article came out and then our sales just went off. Because people trust third parties. It’s credibility of me talking about you versus you talking about you. And it’s a big difference.
Katie: I think there’s this idea that virality is the main goal. A lot of people talk about wanting their latest post to go viral. That’s how we’re gonna get press and that’s how we’re going to really make it into the spotlight. What’s your sort of view on building strategies around creating viral moments versus consistency and showing up on a regular basis.
Maha: You hit the nail on the head. If your goal is to go viral, you missed the mark. What your goal should be is to be culturally relevant. If you put out a piece of content, a video, a story, or any news and you do it at the right time when people are actually listening and care about it, that can make a difference for your business.
Making sure you’re not tone-deaf to what’s happening in the market. Making sure that you are understanding some of the conversations that are happening and try to newsjack or hijack your story into that news cycle, because then people are talking about it.
For example, let’s say your business has something to do with food, candy or flowers, obviously timing it around big holidays matters. Because that’s when people are more interested in hearing about that story. Just make sure you’re listening to what’s happening in culture. And then anything Taylor Swift, obviously, just go for it. And you’ll go viral.
Katie: Yeah, any reel that mentions Taylor Swift does significantly better than all other reels. Let’s talk about the moments when a brand messes up when something goes bad. Crisis communications is an area of expertise for you and it can be terrifying. It can be terrifying when you’re a massive company and it is like “Oh, goodness, we have this PR crisis on our hands”. It can be terrifying if it’s a personal brand, and you say something that offends people. What would be the pep talk and advice you’d offer to somebody who has a faux pas with their brand?
Maha: As I said earlier, we will live in a 24-hour news cycle, something’s gonna go wrong. We live in a cancel culture where these things just happen and people need to react to it. I think for any company or business that’s listening to this podcast, or even as a personal brand, if I have a crisis with something that happens on social media you need to just react quickly.
The key to the game is rapid response. The longer you leave an echo of no feedback, apology, or nothing, the worse the crisis can be. Number one, I would say rapid response, making sure you gather all the facts and information to respond as quickly as you can. Two, if you made a mistake, do the hard thing and apologize.
Apologies matter. Empathy matters. Showing that you made a mistake and said, “Mia culpa” that matters and it gives you some credibility. It might not buy back time or fix the problem. But it shows the human part of you. And as a business, or as an individual, apologies matter.
The longer you wait to apologize, the more you’ll probably be attacked and criticized for it. And the last thing when it comes to crisis communications is to ask, what did you learn from this? How are you going to change? What policies are you going to implement? Because this crisis hit us, we learned some lessons, we’re never going to make this mistake again. Here’s what we’re going to do to fix it.
Katie: What about culturally significant issues? Culturally significant issues, world issues, political issues. This is something that I’ve really come across. And I think it’s hard to navigate. Because if we are putting forward personal brands, you should show up as your whole self, you should speak about things that are of interest to you that you’re passionate about. What’s your take on how to manage how much someone should speak about these types of issues?
Maha: A lot of people get into trouble because they do this wrong. So first things first is don’t bandwagon. A lot of people feel like “something happened in the news. I need to post about it. I need to say where I stand.”
No, you don’t. You know, unless you have a vested interest. You don’t unless you’re very educated on the topic. No, you don’t. People move too fast and they don’t have all the information and then the story starts to reveal itself and unveil itself, and for a fluid situation where there are a lot of changes, then they already put themselves out there, it’s really hard to retract it.
My first piece of advice, because I do work with a lot of clients who are like “Oh, should I post about this issue”. Everything from George Florida to Israel, and Palestine. Don’t be emotional.
Don’t post when you’re emotional, take a step back. You feel the need to say something or to do something, you need to see the whole story and the whole picture. And it’s so hard, it’s so hard to wait because you feel like everybody else’s or everyone else has taken a position in a stance.
Unless you are absolutely 100% active in politics, and this is your lifeline and what you do for a living, I would stay out of it just because you want to make sure what you were saying is intentional.
It’s something you can back a day from now, a year from now. And without knowing or acting too quickly, a lot of people tend to overreact. And the hardest thing to do is to wait.
Katie: That is true. I also always consider the fact that we put a lot of emphasis on it. Talking about exactly how we feel about this issue right now. And that’s the best way to make a positive impact on something that we’re passionate about.
Maha: It’s true.
Katie: I kind of fall back on that’s one way to influence. But there are so many probably more effective things that you could be doing for that cause behind the scenes.
Maha: Exactly, I think a lot of people feel if you didn’t post it on social media, then you don’t have an opinion, you don’t care. But you don’t know what conversations I’m having privately, you don’t know about things I’m doing to volunteer, you don’t know about things I’m doing to donate.
I mean, there’s a lot of ways for people to be engaged, and social media is one of them. But certainly not the only thing that’s out there. And even when it comes to talking about your personal brand, or building your reputation or using PR, I speak all the time about how important it is for you to be very active offline not just online.
You can’t just be this online persona that stands for something but offline you’re not actually executing on it. Make sure that you’re networking offline, you’re talking to people, how you treat people. Those matter just as much as the online interactions, as the offline interactions.
I feel like your point is 100% valid, and not all things are black and white, now things are just on social media. Everyone needs to take a pulse of what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it and be intentional about it.
Because I just care so much about authenticity because we can see right through it. Are they just saying it because they have to say it or did their publicist write that statement? Because I can see that they didn’t do it. I mean look at what’s happening right now with Kate Middleton.
That’s just a nightmare. Was that really her when she wrote that post? Did she actually say it? People don’t trust and there’s a lack of credibility. So this is a good example, Katie, of the vacuum of information when you don’t respond quickly enough.
The rumour mill goes wild and people fill in the gaps. The faster they can shut it down, the more control they have over the story in the narrative. And also they can start to put out the information they actually care about sharing, not this wild conspiracy theory.
Katie: We got to bring it into the moment for people who are listening. It was Mother’s Day in the UK, Kate Middleton shared a picture of her with her children. And it’s so funny. I saw it before the scandal and I just scrolled past. I said “that’s nice”. I think I liked it or something. But since then there’s been a lot of analysis done to say this photo has been completely doctored.
And on top of that, Kate has been kind of MIA. We know there’s some sort of health concern going on, people don’t have the full story. So Maha I know, they haven’t called you yet. I think they will, especially after hearing this. What would be your immediate actions? If you were brought into a situation like this if you are on Kate’s team.
Maha: I would put Kate on a video on Zoom. I would put her out there and just say “Here I am!” Because that’s what the people are worried about. Where is she? Why isn’t she appearing even if she’s sick? I would put her out and just say, “Hey, everybody, thank you so much for your concern. I’m fine”. Just show her and put all of this to rest.
Katie: I feel like that’s not something the royal family usually does and maybe they should do more of.
Maha: I think it’ll help their reputation. The more they let the story go, the more it is going to continue just to take on legs of its own. And that’s hard to pull together all those balloons and bring it in. If they just show her this thing would go away, and we’d be moving on to the next thing.
Katie: Yeah, I love it. And I really like your directness, in terms of how to handle these kinds of crisis situations. My last question in this lane before we switch to something else. If you’re negative comments on your social media. Or comments such as, why aren’t you talking about this world issue? Why aren’t you speaking about it? How should one respond to that? Or should they?
Maha: That’s a very valid question. You are posting things on your social media to build a community and to engage with your audience. That means you need to take the good with the bad. You can’t just take all the accolades and all the great comments and not react to some of the questions or comments that they have.
On comments, unless they’re being offensive. All comments should remain on your page just like answer the questions and the ones that you feel like you have really good answers for and you want to address.
I always tell people don’t block negative comments. In fact, it’s healthy dialogue. It’s healthy discourse. When people have expectations about what they think you should or shouldn’t talk about. Or what you should or shouldn’t comment on. Or people put on your comments or message you privately, “Hey, you’re not speaking up against this issue or that issue.”
You don’t need to cater to every person’s point of view on what they think you should or shouldn’t do. You need to be authentic to yourself, you need to post what you care about and what you’re passionate about.
I politely answer questions, but I’d never feel the need, I always advise my clients, don’t feel the need to respond to everything and everybody. Because that’s kind of how the internet works is people use it as a public opinion board, and let them post their opinions.
That doesn’t mean you need to react to every single one. And you will never satisfy, especially if there are different viewpoints on those opinions. And I think the healthy thing to do is to honour people’s opinions. Be open for everyone’s opinions to be voiced. But know that you don’t emotionally need to react to every single one.
Katie: I love that. That’s such good advice. I want to pivot for a moment to talk about you and your personal brand. You do not get to the level that you’re at working with the types of high-profile companies and people that you’re working with, without knowing how to recognise your own value of what you have to add.
But knowing how to communicate that, how to tell that story and how to get people to believe in you. What are some of the key traits you have? What are some of the key actions that you have taken on a regular basis to contribute to your career success and business success?
Maha: This is a very hard question. But I always try to create value for people. I’m always thinking of that lens of what am I doing to bring value to these people Because otherwise they’ll walk away and find it somewhere else.
I’m a very long term player. Like I don’t think about short term gains, or short term contracts or short term results. I always think long term and that’s hard, right? Sometimes I might work with a client that doesn’t pay what I really want. But I know I’ll get some experience. And I always talk about in life, in any job, you either need to be learning or earning.
So if I’m going to learn a lot, then that really compensates for what I might earn. And if I’m going to be earning good money, I might not learn as much, but I might have an objective of I need to do this because I need to cover expenses and I need to earn. The first thing is value creation.
Second thing is the long term player and thinking a lot about the sacrifices I need to make. And what kind of bets do I need to make on myself to like to play long term. I need to decide I’m gonna play the long game here, I know I can deliver results.
It’s going to take a little bit longer, but there’s going to be a payoff at the end. And the payoff I’m looking for could be financial or relationships or it could be something else that’s going to be in the market that will lead to other stuff. So I’m always thinking about the long term.
The third thing I think a lot about is reputation. And what do you need to do in this day and age to be very good at managing your reputation because it’s changed. And I spent all my waking hours thinking about that. What is it that we can do and treat your reputation like a currency and worth its value.
How do you get good at reputation building? It’s not just doing good publicity, it’s doing a lot of things well. How do you treat your employees? How do you treat your customers? How do you treat your vendors? How do you show up on stages? What do you do on a podcast? What do you do in the press? How good are you on social media? How good are you in dealing with your customers? It’s multiple things that make up a reputation. I really spend a lot of time talking with my clients and my team about that.
It’s not just putting a bunch of deposits in one bucket and calling it a day. You have to be thinking about multiple things. And it’s hard to be good at many things. So how can you just take small steps to just drive progress in the areas that you can?
Katie: I like that, and I like that you’re talking about reputation being your currency. And that matters, whether you’re working up the corporate ladder, that matters whether you’re building a business. That matters in life, right? People are going to remember you by how you made them feel and the interactions that they had with you.
Your lifestyle is so fun. You’re asking why we follow the people that we follow. Maha, when I came across your page. I’m like here’s somebody who’s an exceptionally talented person. Here’s somebody who’s a very hard worker. And here’s somebody who’s living, just an incredible lifestyle.
It looks just like you’ve got such a balanced approach to your life. You’re travelling lots. You’ve got these offices, one in the east, one in the West. You’ve got a lot going on for yourself. And I’m curious to know, what does the best day for you look like in your role? And what does a hard day look like for you?
Maha:Thank you for the question. I sleep, I really prioritise my health. One of the biggest things I focus on is getting seven to eight hours asleep. I don’t I don’t skimp on sleep. I feel like I’m not going to produce or perform or productive or be happy, or be a pleasure to work with if I haven’t slept.
I always block my morning. So my morning is mine, like I prioritise that I workout first thing in the morning to send a signal to myself. If I don’t prioritise my health, if I don’t put it first and put it to the end of the day, that means that I don’t matter. And I always put those personal deposits in myself to help me give to others.
That’s like a big thing about how I structure my day is making sure that I have mornings to do that and not booking myself first thing in the morning. I had a call this morning at 6 am but it was with Dubai and there were circumstances.
I do sometimes do early morning calls but really trying to just how I structure my day around: I got my workout in and I got my sleep. I don’t work late on purpose, like I work when I’m in all day.
I pedal to the metal and try to be as really productive and effective as I can. I love spending time with my family, I play a lot of tennis, I do Pilates and I play with my dog. You have to make room for other things in your lives in order for you to be good at what you do as a career.
I don’t work five days a week, I do work seven days a week, but I am balanced so I make sure I do work on the weekends and not every weekend. I make sure Sunday nights are no-brainer for me. I have to get ready for the next week, I will spend some time writing and I do a lot of reading on the weekends. Like I read a lot of books. I try to make sure that I’m taking an input from a lot of things if it’s a podcast, if it’s a book like.
I want to learn from other people and so I’m always trying to stimulate myself with that meaning. That is how a good scenario would go. Obviously spending time with my team fuels me. I love spending time with them and learning from them. I love talking to them and helping them unlock a problem.
I think the bad side is that all of this travel is horrible. I don’t like living on the road and I don’t like travelling a lot. The time zones, the jetlag. I’ll go to Dubai for a week at a time and be gone. I’m focused on what I’m doing there. I’m not like working in Dubai from nine to six and then at six o’clock start US work till four in the morning.
I don’t do that anymore. I would make calls at 2am and work US hours in the Middle East. I won’t do that anymore. I feel like the days where I can’t be balanced or if I can’t move or I can’t eat properly or I don’t like to travel. I think that’s the killer if it’s too much.
I’m on the road a lot this month, which is just circumstances of me needing to be in different places. That’s the thing that I don’t like because then you’re constantly just catching up on personal stuff. I will be catching up on email, and not eating properly, not seeing my dog and not sleeping in my bed. All the things that make me function are off. That’s kind of in a nutshell,
Katie: We need our routines, that’s for sure.
Maha: Routines matter. They help make us structured and productive. They make us happy. I have to see my friends, I have to see my sister, I have to talk to my niece and nephew, those things matter to me.
I’m always “Hey, what are you guys doing?” And they say “Hey Aunty Maha. What do you want?” Like? I just want to say hi and I am checking in. I like to watch sports and I like to see what’s happening in the news. And so it’s kind of fun for me.
Katie: I love it. You have a new book that you just announced. Congratulations! The 7 Rules of Self-Reliance, it’s coming out in the fall. I’ve pre-ordered it already.
Maha: Thank you! Every book sale matters to me. I care and apparently pre-orders matters which I am just learning. So if anyone listening to this, pre-orders the book, tag me and and I’ll message you back.
Anybody who wants to learn how to invest in yourself and own your future. The tools you need to rely on yourself. I don’t mean rely on yourself and go it alone. It’s having that self awareness of what are skills I actually need to have to function and grow in today’s environment?
And then where do I go to get that help? It’s things like how to build your personal brand? You rely on yourself, you need to know how to build your personal brand. It’s how to be a long term player, what does that actually mean? How do I actually do that?
It’s things like building your own reputation. It’s things like having the tools to not wait for someone to validate you. You can go out and create those opportunities. A lot of the clients I worked with—Gary Vee, Jim Kwik, and with Google and Netflix—they didn’t just come to me, I had to create those opportunities and go knock on their doors and create value in order to get them to even talk to me.
I’m literally living in Dubai, and reaching out to Gary Vee saying, “I’m going to work for you, and this is what I’m going to do for you.” He doesn’t know me from Adam. He has never been to Dubai and I’m Egyptian. Who is this woman and why is she coming into my world?
Then I just stayed like you’re gonna see why you need me and what I’m good at and what you need me for. I think this book tells a lot of those interesting stories and all the work I’ve done with clients. But also gives them the playbook – AI, layoffs, pandemic, what are the skills that we haven’t been taught that we need to know how to do?
Katie: Where can people go to pre-order?
Maha: On my website. It’s mahaabouelenein.com. You’ll see all the different retailers and it’s available in Canada, on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble. There’s a bunch of retailers on there. And I just would be grateful if when you preorder the book, I’d love to hear what lessons stood out for you guys the most, when you get the book. It’ll be out in the fall. But I’d be really grateful for any feedback.
Katie: I totally recommend everybody listening, get your copy, pre-order your copy. So it’s going to be mailed to you in the first week, and it really does help an author out. And be sure to send Maha message when you order it.
Maha: Anyone who if you order it and you listen to Get Mic’d. Tag me and Get Mic’d. I’ll do a special private webinar for them on how to build your personal brand. So there we go. Little surprise!
Katie: Love it. Thank you! Maha, to round off our conversation today. We’ve got a lightning round that we do on this podcast. It’s five quick questions, to really get to know you better and get some of your best recommendations quickly. Are we ready for this?
Maha: Okay, I’m ready, go.
Katie: To me building a notable brand means…
Maha: Being authentic.
Katie: What has been a memorable micdrop moment for your brand?
Maha: I would say the difference between a waiter and being a creator. I had an AHA! moment in my life where I was like I have to stop waiting and I need to start creating. Somebody called me a waiter. There’s a story about my book, somebody said to me, “Oh Maha, you’re a waiter.” And I was so upset that he called me that I immediately flipped it and became a creator.
Katie: What’s one brand you admire and why?
Maha: This one’s easy. Emirates Airlines. They are a notable company that has consistent excellent service quality. Every time I see that sign in the airport I immediately get happy.
Travelling can be such a painful experience. Emirates always makes me feel good. I have consistent service. I love everything about the airline from the booking experience to the on-flight experience to everything. So Emirates is hands down my favourite brand in the world.
Katie: What are the three resources you’d recommend to someone looking to build their personal or corporate brand? It can be books, podcasts, apps, or articles. What comes to mind?
Maha: First things first, everyone should buy this book called Smart Brevity. It’s something that I love. It’s a very small book, but it talks about how to be concise and brief. If you’re writing emails, posts, or anything for your personal brand, please get this book. It’ll be a game-changer for you. I can’t tell you how many people I recommend it to and everyone’s like, “Oh, my God, I love this book.”
The second thing is to build a personal board of directors. So Katie, two or three people that are in your circle, it could be a mentor, could be a family member, it could be a colleague. Someone that’s going to give you tough love, someone who’s going to keep you accountable. But develop a personal board of directors and meet with them like a board, like once a quarter get together, talk about your goals. I love this tool. And it always works. And it always keeps people on track to achieving your goals. So write like a founder’s letter at the beginning of the year or the beginning of the quarter. And then four quarters later, kind of see how you did based on your personal goals.
The third thing for people who want to build their personal brands is to ask themselves some questions like am I good at taking pictures? I now have my personal brand as pictures. Am I good at audio? Do I want to do a podcast?
Find a type of format that works for you that you can do consistently. So in the beginning, I never wanted to do videos. I was like “Oh my god, I’m too fat.” Or “I don’t like my hair. I don’t want to look how I look. I can’t get the right lighting. I’m not gonna hold up the camera.” It’s not me. So then I did a podcast. Find the thing you think you can do consistently. That’s key in building your personal brand.
Katie: What’s next for you?
Maha: The book, the book, the book, the book! Just talking about the book, speaking about the book. Helping people, inspire people, teach people, do more workshops. My mission in life is to help people communicate better. And I want to really play an active role this year doing that.
Katie: And where are the best places where people can find you? I know you’ve got a whole new website, which looks amazing.
Maha: Thank you. @mahagaber on Instagram, and then from there, you can get on my other platforms.
Katie: Maha! This has been such an incredible conversation. I know you’re a very busy person. I so appreciate your time. Really amazing, tangible insights that I feel like people can implement right away. Thank you so much.
Maha: Katie, thank you for having me. I’m a huge fan of your work. Toronto is lucky to have someone like you and I’ll continue to follow your journey as well.
Katie: Can’t wait. Thanks, Maha.
Maha: Thank you.
Katie: Thank you for listening to Get Mic’d. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We’re excited about continuing to bring forward more conversations with thought leaders on what it truly takes to build a notable brand.