Structuring Chaotic Minds

Authentic Connections: Redefining Marketing with Empathy and Ethical Integrity

• Alefiya Khoraki • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Imagine waking up to a world where marketing isn't just about sales pitches and closing deals, but about building genuine connections and practicing ethical transparency. That's the landscape Alefyia paints in our latest heart-to-heart chat, revealing how the roots of authentic marketing can foster trust and loyalty among consumers. As she weaves her professional tales and personal anecdotes, it becomes clear that owning our errors and facing business challenges head-on isn't just cathartic—it's a cornerstone for establishing long-term customer relationships. 

This episode isn't your average marketing spiel; it's a candid look into the melding of career ambitions and life's rich tapestry, with Alefyia as our guide through the chaos and structure that define the marketing realm. She champions the art of crafting empathetic cold emails and non-salesy marketing that places customer needs at the forefront—a refreshing shift from the high-pressure tactics we've all grown weary of. Listen closely for nuggets of wisdom on how to maintain that elusive work-life balance, and how humor and authenticity can carve out your unique voice in the industry. 

Lastly, we don't shy away from the mental toll of marketing's fast-paced environment, discussing how sharing our most vulnerable moments can lead to empowerment and solidarity within our professional branding. Alefyia inspires us to reframe our offers, focusing on transformative life changes rather than the product or service itself. Join us on this journey of self-discovery in marketing, where authenticity reigns supreme, and the goal isn't just to sell, but to connect and uplift.


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Melissa Franklin:

Welcome back listeners to another episode of Structure and Chaotic Minds, your trusted podcast for finding balance in the professional world. I'm Melissa Franklin. Today, we're going to explore the honest side of marketing, steering clear of internet scams and deceptive practices and embracing strategies that are not just effective but also genuine and respectful. I am thrilled to introduce Alefiya, a marketing maestro known for her genuine and transparent approach. She has distinguished herself as a committed and ethical marketing marketer and she's designed impactful email sequences as well as driving business through growth of integrity and the proper relationship building and approaches. She's here to share her journey and insights. Welcome.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Alephia.

Melissa Franklin:

Super excited to have you.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Thank you so much. Thank you for that lovely, warm intro.

Melissa Franklin:

I love following your posts on social media and, honestly, just taking tips from you has helped us grow, so I am super thrilled for you to be here and help us decipher between the difference on what's real and what's frankly BS and we should just kind of avoid. So thank you so much for being here today. Thank you.

Alefiya Khoraki:

That social media part was humbling, but I'm sure you all are doing amazing at other places.

Melissa Franklin:

Could you tell us about your journey in marketing, so the audience can get to know who you are, especially what motivated you to be, I guess, a champion of an honest approach rather than the urgency and fake approach?

Alefiya Khoraki:

I wouldn't say it was very intentional. Melissa, I'm being very, very honest with you. That is something that the audience told me after I started sharing the real behind the scenes of my business. I used to share my success wins but okay, I got these many, I made someone $20,000 from a post and all that. But that would never seem real to me unless I shared the real struggles. I also used to share the struggles between me and my clients, which no one on the internet shares.

Alefiya Khoraki:

So I remember sharing how one of my clients was very set with me because I could not match her tone of voice. Even if we did two to three rounds of strategy calls, he spent like good three, four hours with me. And then I realized that that was my mistake and it was not the client's fault because she gave him time and even if her feedback might have been a little harsh, but it was because she was upset. And then what I did from that was I hired a tone of voice expert and then paid my money and then I shared this entire story on LinkedIn and that post really broke my community and I was like, how can you share this? And then people were in my DMs that like, aren't you like you could be afraid of your reputation? And then I've had people hire me because of that post. So you know it just keeps happening.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Because if someone reaches out to me, they say that I've been following you and the thing which I know is whatever you put out there is true. Like if you're saying you helped someone make $10,000 from one post, or $20,000 from in 24 hours, I know that it's true because you share the ugly side as well. It's not always rainbows and sunshine at your end. So that's where I found that okay, people are resonating if you throw the vulnerable side, Like if you tell someone that, hey, if you're in a debt, won't invest in my face or nothing will collapse.

Alefiya Khoraki:

If you don't buy this course right now, Like you can, I will still launch it next year and this will still open. The court will still open after six months. This is not the right time for you. Maybe take a pause, but even like, but if it's not not a right time for you financially, if it's not a right time for you, mindset wise, you're thinking oh, I have this life. Life never has a right time for everything, like life happens, and there will never be a right time. So this narrative makes much more sense. And, contrary to the narrative that, hey, the world will collapse if you don't buy this now I don't know if I'm launching this again take a debt or take financial help. I took $30,000 from XYZ. I was in debt and then, hey, I became an intern in the New Year.

Melissa Franklin:

Right.

Alefiya Khoraki:

No, I heard the story many times.

Melissa Franklin:

I can't encourage clients to take out loans or do those type of things. So when I hear that, oh my God, it makes me itch. You got to be kidding me. I had a client who is actually most likely going to be coming on board as a new employee for us this coming week and I haven't even said that. So it's pretty cool, because this won't come out till later in January. We're recording right now in December, so it's okay. So find out then that I'm probably going to hire her.

Melissa Franklin:

But she started on a journey where she wanted that instant. Okay, show me what you're doing, let me do it. I'm like this didn't happen overnight, like there's some steps. Girlfriend, I'd be lying to you if I tell you like, sign up for my stuff, it's going to happen overnight. No, it's not. So I might not have that marketing approach or that piece to her. That's like, yep, I'm going to fix it in less than so many days, because it's not. It's really not.

Melissa Franklin:

But my programs will help people shift into a mindset that is a long term life choice and life change that helps them and reach those goals. Kind of like you. Like you're taking consistent steps and you build those relationships with people to where they saw the authenticity and they saw the struggles and that's the cool part because they can also see where you came from and be like man. She did it and she was there with me sometime back. I could do that too and that's empowering and I appreciate you sharing those struggles with people, because most people don't want to share where they fall, they don't want to admit I messed up.

Melissa Franklin:

But that to me, thinks like I think you're amazing for that, because most people don't take that kind of accountability. You don't want to say that's where I messed up, girl, you flipped it around real quick. You're like cool, let me get a tone cut, like that was awesome. You just there's a disconnect. I know I was genuine, I know what I was trying to do. There's still a disconnect, but it's on me, because I set it up and you owned it and that's proof of you're going to kill it past six figures. You're going to be well at the seven, eight figures because of just your ethic and your approach.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And I like that. I love that you shared about the mindset part, because in marketing and like as a corporator, we like if you're doing a launch, we tackle many objections. Some are financial, some are mental and some are emotional. But some marketers have made this whole mindset thing and turned it into into like business gimmick hey you, you aren't ready to invest in this program label because you have a mindset issue right.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Because you have money mindset problems, because you don't see that investing $3,000 will yield to $3,300,000. Hey, you have money mindset issue because if you did not have that issue, you would know that investing, making money, requires investing money. So you know, if people do have money mindset issues I did or because I am from India and I'll tell you a story about my employee I asked him to write some cold emails. This is a very interesting story. So I asked him to write some cold emails and the projects we were pitching were in the room of $10,000.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And he's a great, great, great writer and those pitches weren't just coming out great, like the writing was messed up. And then I told him like, hey, what's what's up? Like you're great at what you do, but this is just not something. Not something is missing or something is implying. And then he told me that if you're 100, he is Pakistan. So, like in Pakistan, all we can dream of is $100, $200, $300. When I, when I see the figure $10,000, it just makes me feel so small that I'm not the right person to write this email and that's why the words aren't just coming out. Now, that's the money mindset issue.

Melissa Franklin:

I love that. I think that's something that resonates with me when I was a teacher and I was in the classroom with kids, because here I was trying to empower and these kids believe that they could go and accomplish anything and everything. But I definitely had to struggle with the parents who would drop off the kids with me and then see them, like, take off to their jobs, says I'm like okay, but I knew I was making an impact, I knew what I was doing but I couldn't foresee the amount of money that was possible if I was the run running the system. And when I stepped away from education and started doing the business aspect, wow, because I can still impact kids and I can still work with them and I can still have that. But I couldn't process that because I was just grateful to have a job.

Melissa Franklin:

So for you to ask me to run a company years back, the people who encouraged me to leave and start my own thing because I'm like what you do is different, so it might not be supported, so you're going to have to find it, you're going to have to do it yourself, you're going to have to leave I was like y'all are crazy, I can't do that. I can't do that. I really couldn't believe I could do that. And then going through the systems and procedures and repetitive, I'm like, oh snap, I've been doing this, but it's a mindset, definitely. So then thinking about that in a field often feels with like deceptive tactics and challenges. How did you overcome the approach and actually stick to someone I really resonate with you as being a person who is really of principle and ethics and honesty? How did you make sure that you share that online, because it screams through your everything?

Alefiya Khoraki:

I've seen people tell me this, but I don't realize it because I don't have a strategy behind it. Even when people say this in my comment section like you're, someone is like I'm, like everyone is doing this. How am I different? But, to answer your question, I think something that is very rooted and why this comes off is because it is tied to my religion and spirituality. So be as Muslims, and I will not vouch for this on the basis of the entire community, but me personally. My religion is a pool of everything I do, and our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Alefiya Khoraki:

The thing was that, in our like, how we're taught to do business as Muslims is you can't do that. Okay, if you have goods, you can't put the good above and hide the bad ones beneath, because if you do that, that will lead you to. So you know you can't. You can't if you want something for yourself, want the same thing for your brother, even if that brother is a Muslim or he is a normal Muslim, wish that for everyone. So if I wouldn't want to be besieged, I would not want to be seen anymore or money, If I can't do something, I will either like I'm not saying that I don't do this I have done this many, many times that if I, if you hire me Melissa, suppose you hire me for longers and then you asked me to do website copies. I've never done that, but I might not even disclose that to you. So this is ethical on my side, because I will hire someone or I will take the right course to help me fulfill this job so I can add one more skill to my repertoire. So it's not like ethics there are.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I think it's just being genuine and delivering what you promised on. If you promise someone, you will hand hold them towards the entire force journey. Do that Try and over, deliver a little. So that's where these roots come from, come from very rooted within. And then when you talk on the surface, I've had, I've taken programs, but I've been born in the past. And when someone has been born in the past, you know. But then you feel because when you're starting a business, I started my business with $30. So I had to do everything from scratch. I did not have that strong money that I can test out. So every dollar mattered, every dollar counted. So if I'm putting even if I'm putting $27 in a program and they do not need that promise it's. It's like they've taken a chunk from my backup account that really mattered that month.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And if you're doing that with someone else, like I don't know, I don't want to be like very spiritual, but I do believe in Caroline, Like I have not delivered to. Yeah, if I've not delivered to clients, it's on screen. Okay, I took her valuable, hard earned money where she could have spent that on a trip. She could have spent that on Disneyland. And I'm not saying I don't satisfy, like I satisfy each and every client all the time. I just mistakes happen. But what I try to do is, after that mistake I'm like hey, I saw that you weren't satisfied. What can I do that will make this project worthwhile? What can I do to help you? How can we? How can we fix this? And then I try and fix that at the end.

Melissa Franklin:

Yeah, similar. I've never had clients that were in you with the program rather than they weren't showing up to do the work in the program. So I did change how I said things in my sales meetings after because it was a row eye opener. I had a client Amazing, she's still a friend and she was paying the high pricing for my one to one tickets and that's a commitment that I'm very aware of, almost as much as some people's mortgage, like it makes sense. I get it. She wasn't showing up to meetings.

Melissa Franklin:

I was like there's no way she's happy with my program, Like she's going to hate it, she's going to hate me, she's going to hate this. And when I asked for feedback at the end she told me she's like no, honestly, you did amazing, Thank you, you gave me everything I needed because it all made sense. But I just didn't show up and do the work and I was upset at the end of it. She wasn't. I was like she didn't get her transformation. So I had to change how I said things to people and be realistic. Like if you're going through other things and you can't show up to do the work or you're not available, that's okay. But let's be real, my program might not be for you right now. So I love that you share that.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I love that you do that, because usually we all like as operators and marketing, we do write that project, this is perfect for you. And then that is like the spammy marketers are trying to fit in everything in that section so that it looks like, oh, this is not like they're trying to put this in a box, but then they're trying to fit the whole world and that works. And then this is not a perfect for you. If you're an animal and not a human, you don't live in a zoo. I'm exaggerating it, but that part is not perfect for you. This is something that would not apply to anyone on the internet, so can you just stop taking around it here? It's funny.

Melissa Franklin:

I'm just going to ask you to elaborate on the philosophy of it being non-salesy in that marketing, and I think you kind of just like nailed it and you're stating that it can't be all up in your face and just like, right now, right now, because it's been real, it doesn't matter how much I want to do those things, if I don't have the time to do those things or have the finances to sign up for that program, I might actually be hurting myself. Like, realistically, I need to pay the mortgage that month and I want to take a diet program and you're trying to sell me on it. I'm sorry, my family is not going to be any more sustained because I went and lost 45 pounds that month. It's just not feasible and it's not logical. So I love that.

Melissa Franklin:

Thinking about it, then let's just say someone actually has the right approach then. And then they want to take your advice on. Okay, cool. Let's say I want to do what Melissa and I have here are doing and I'm going to be honest with you and say only when I'm ready to work with you About building funnels. And then that process what key principles and guide do you have when creating a funnel that still respects your audience but engages them?

Alefiya Khoraki:

So I've learned this recently and I'm busy of not doing this as well. So, in cooperating and marketing, what we've been taught is using the spring P-A-S, and that means problem agitation solution. So this is how I did it before Like, hey, melissa, I don't know why you're a seven figure business owner and you have all these nice things in the world, but your copy sucks. This is the problem. Your copy sucks because your program value is not being delivered and the sentence sucks. And the sentence sucks and the second sentence. And then, hey, hire me, and everything will turn into magic and gold.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And now this is how people approach it. Like if you go to a dentist, you will say hey, melissa, your teeth looks a little bit wonky, you have crooked teeth, your smile looks wonky and you look ugly and it could impact your sentiments. This is how people and even at one point I think, even I felt in this graph. And then, like, can you agitate someone with being human? You can, and that's when you empathize and empower that same person. And then the same. It's the same context. We're just flipping the script.

Alefiya Khoraki:

It has those simple, like the teeth example. It's like hey, melissa, I know, I think I can see that you broke your chip to your teeth because you're so fond of post-writing, you're not afraid, because you're an adventurous person and you're not afraid of things. But what's keeping you from getting tips? You know, I have this great doctor who does this, this, this, and it might be impacting your, because I noticed that you you don't smile with your teeth like before and it hurts me because you have such a beautiful smile and I would love to see that smile back. So would you be open to like meet me the software I could help you with the appointments and throw that being for you. You know like it's. It'll be done in maybe three days and you'll have your. I'll get smiled back.

Melissa Franklin:

I love it.

Alefiya Khoraki:

It's.

Melissa Franklin:

I like to. It resonates in two different ways. It resonates in and I don't mean to offend anybody, but more of a feminine approach, and it also resonates more like neurolinguistic programming questions, rather than, hey, you suck, so do something about it. Like it's actually it's a coaching process, pretty much. Do you want to change it? No, cool, I'll be your friend still over here in the corner. If you do want to change it, I am an opportunity for you to do that. I'll be here later and for me, that's just kind of how we've always done things. Like that's cool, if you would tweak that, you'd be even more sparkly than you already are. And it resonates with people.

Melissa Franklin:

But others it's like you know, okay, cool, we're not going to work together. Like I'm okay with that. I don't have to lie and say you suck because you're pretty amazing or I probably wouldn't have wanted to work with you in the first place. Like let's be realistic, no, I love that, I love the authenticity. And how do you do that? Then, in cold emails, how do you craft those sequences and actually create it towards captivating and not overwhelming? Because I feel like I've led people's emails when I'm like so you guys, hi, I'm here again Like what is your strategy to avoid those pitfalls?

Alefiya Khoraki:

You know, I think the most starting point for my business was when I started doing cold emails, and I'll name one of my mentors. Her name is Brevee Bird. I would recommend going to her cold email course Anyone wants to specialize in cold emails. So she taught me a method. But then I couldn't like 100% resonate with her method, so I added such a few words. So what I try in my full emails is to make someone laugh. But I think I really wanted cold emails to work for my business. I took mentorship here, course, there, and then Breeze method was what stuck with me the most.

Alefiya Khoraki:

But usually cold emails are like this hey, melissa, your VA is not doing what he's supposed to do, so would you want to replace your full time VA? But yes, or hey, melissa, your business is not performing up to the level it can perform, so let's do this. Or hey, melissa, you're leaving money on the table because you're not, you've not bought this. So usually you'd see that message in cold emails. What I found my style to be is first, if we have a common show, common book, common place, common language and common abstract. So I started cold emails with hey, ex, are you back from Hawaii? I saw that you took your wife to this. It's like it's coming from a random internet stranger, but it's so warm. And then I add their what's your children's name? Mine, yeah, yours, melissa and Brandon Okay.

Alefiya Khoraki:

If I were putting you, I would find it from your social media. And then I'm like your business requires a lot from you. But what if I could take a little bit off your place so you can spend more time? Or you can read this ex book to Alissa and they share. People share all this stuff on podcast. So what I try to do is, before I write someone a pitch, I go through one or two podcast episodes I like go through the last one or two months of social it's work again. It takes me six to seven hours for that pitch, but it's so warm that I get clients through that.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And actually I stopped writing before. It took me 70 emails to find my normal. No one hired me for the first 70 emails. And then I found myself and I'm like why? Because what I did before was hey, this is your sales page. I rewrote it for you. Hey, this is your sales page. I text this. Hey, I don't know why you're not.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Why does your coffee suck? Actually, my coffee was like that in cold emails before, but then I had the shift that I don't want to make them feel bad about their business. Maybe at that time this is the best they could do. They were already in business masterminds. They were already like let's try and feel their pain, like let me try and see if someone would be emailing me what would make me happy or what would make me feel safe. Everyone wants to feel safe. So if I'm saying that your coffee sucks, that means I'm diminishing their efforts. That put them in. So I want to make them feel empowered for their efforts, like this is the best you could do. Can I see these storytelling on it? I'm going to leave it at that, okay.

Melissa Franklin:

I love that. I think for me, usually when I see that type of thing, I'm just kind of like if I want services, I'll find you, and if you reached out to me, then that means like there's some reason. You found me and I didn't find you, so it's okay, like it's perfectly fine. So the cold emails usually don't work unless it's doing something. I think you asked about my background. I can't remember what you did, but it was something about my LinkedIn background and I was like okay, cool, and it just created a genuine conversation to where we got to chat more about each other's backgrounds and it made that connection and I think that's something a lot of people missed.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Can I add something here? Yeah, Sorry, sorry, Because you mentioned that. You know, Melissa, the thing which you can't fake online is curiosity. So curiosity is the other name of authenticity. If you're genuinely a curious person, if you're genuinely interested in knowing someone's background because I have a thing to read people's past experiences, because it's so fascinating how, what they started with and where they ended and there's always this work and I'm drawn towards those stories. So what you mentioned, I was genuinely interested. But if you're not genuinely interested, people can feel that Even if it's like it's a text message, Even if it's like a stranger from 12 miles apart or traveling from on the other side of the globe, people can feel authenticity through curiosity. If you're kind of taking it just for the sake of starting a conversation, it will be same. So do it when you genuinely feel that, okay, this is the person I want to know more about. Don't just do it for business.

Melissa Franklin:

I'm only smiling and laughing because you're answering the next question where I say like quality over quantity.

Alefiya Khoraki:

What would you suggest?

Melissa Franklin:

So literally just gonna ask you can you share an example of where you focus the quality? That made a significant impact in helping your client avoid those internet marketing scams. But it sounds more like you're really saying the curiosity and the authenticity instead of just marketing everybody.

Alefiya Khoraki:

When you say hmm. Now, when you say marketing, I would say that there is an importance of quantity as well.

Melissa Franklin:

Now.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I'll give you an example. Like what we were initially going to touch upon is when we are doing pre-launch campaign in a launch or funnel. A pre-launch campaign is something that you see in before you officially announced your program for business. Who doesn't know what a pre-launch is?

Alefiya Khoraki:

But if you say that I will write pre-super highly quality, very, very good quality blogs or posts, emails, it's great, it will work. But it will not work at that level where you wanted to hit your sales goals or you wanted to get fully booked out because guess what, your quantity matters too. Like if you're saying that I will only write this short sales page and will make it very qualitative, the maybe the quantity matters, you need to touch upon all the necessary objections. If you've not fulfilled that, if you've cut down on the quantity of that, the quality of the outcome will matter. So when I said, even in the pre-launch funnels, if you say only three emails, it can have a great impact, people will resonate a lot with those quality, that good quality three emails. But it requires a lot more to have this involved.

Melissa Franklin:

Right.

Alefiya Khoraki:

No, I love that, even with.

Melissa Franklin:

LinkedIn. I think it's funny because I've had some. The same one that I just mentioned, that she's probably going to be working for us very soon was literally just telling us. She's like you're everywhere now we see you everywhere, you're on every little app I can pull up. But you've heard of me for the last two years, like I talked to you about this on the phone. What do you mean? She's like no, no, no, you don't get it. Like you're all up in my face now, like I don't know.

Melissa Franklin:

I really don't get it, but it's just more the consistency of how much I've been posting, not posting a different message, not posting a different quality, just consistently posting that much more. So they're seeing it everywhere and it's funny because they would have signed up for the things before and I realized that now, but they're saying the same thing that you said, like there was still some questions or there were some pieces that it just kind of needed to be represented or brought up again. I love it. How do you balance demanding, like your career, with your personal life, because I know we've chatted about it before that it may look different from one person to another, but giving ethical practices and stuff, how do you balance all that?

Alefiya Khoraki:

I really struggled with it because last year when I started my business, I was in my final graduation year and that's when I started my business. I had exams, science work, and I've been like an ace in all my life. I'm very confident when it comes to my study and that was being neglected. But when the exam time came, I was really struggling because I was working these long hours studying. I hardly remember at that time if I watched anything online, like on Netflix or anything like that. And then I don't know, I had this idea that I don't deserve any sort of entertainment because I'm crazy about fiction books. I stopped all that. Now I only deserve to read nonfiction, only deserve to see webinars course really good.

Alefiya Khoraki:

And life was sucked out of me and sometimes even my husband was so frustrated with me and I used to sit in front of the laptop till 10, 11 pm, starting work at 9 am, ending at 11 pm and sometimes nothing came out. Like the whole day went. I was working but I did not know what was the end project of it. Did I even get something out of it? But just that thing that? Okay, all the successful people are working 18 hours a day and I'm a very lazy person, I'll tell you. I'm a go-getter, I'm very resilient, but I'm very lazy as well. So if anything feels like too much work to me, I will outsource it, and I'm very creative in terms of outsourcing. So I do commission basis, I do bonuses and I do a lot of things that motivate my employees or subcontractors to do the work and get paid as they're worth it. But I usually don't do like this. Is your fear right? Because it might not motivate you. I found the people who balanced with me there, so I subcontract and hire a lot, so that has helped me balance.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Now, like me and my husband, I think we were on trip yeah, we were on trip and then we were walking down the street. It was very late at night and we had this conversation that when you think, like our marriage life and our work life is all gone because of this work, because we were working from home, right, we have no boundaries, and this time we live in a small house, so our bedroom is our office as well. Right now we are moving, so we'll be creating a different office, and then we remember that, okay, this is too much, like we've had enough. We'll end work at 6 pm, like this is the latest, we can stretch ourselves. But if we have like, because we work around the clock, like my clients are in US, sometimes there are exceptions, like today we have to take calls at night. We might have to take calls a little bit from the morning, like our mastermind calls are sometimes at 5.30 am. We take them lots of things. That just shows that, okay, we care and some exceptions are okay.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Now we end work at 6. We have one hour or so in the gym in between. Some days we even start our day with board games because we are not in that zone right now. So you're like okay, it's okay to do all that, as long as you're not taking work from home, as some people like my husband had this mentality too Like this is freedom, right. So even if I want to work three hours per day, I don't really I'm not someone who follows that school of thought, because I feel everyone has to work and they should work at least four to five, six hours a day.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Come lazy, like what would you do if you're not working, if you're spending time with your family or working on a bigger cause, reading what has to be, if you're just looking to work three hours a day so you can sit and watch Netflix all day. I feel we're here in the world for a bigger purpose than that. But that also doesn't mean that you have to work like 18, 19 hours a day where you sacrifice sleep, entertainment, family time Because it's not healthy. You cannot give your best to the work as well, right? So I guess I have a question, sorry.

Melissa Franklin:

No, I was gonna say I agree with that, so that someone who does wanna think about marketing because they wanna start working for themselves and they want that freedom, but they also understand okay, cool, I'm still gonna have to be invested, I guess. What advice can you give to them to make sure that they still adopt ethical marketing efforts but move forward towards making progress, so that way they can still have a balance?

Alefiya Khoraki:

My number one thing which I would say is, if you're just looking to enter marketing because you feel that digital marketing is easy money, because it is so much work that if you love it to the core, it's worth it, instead, there are many, many other niches or many other industries that will pay you much more. And if you love marketing, I would say be honest to what you feel like. Write down 10 to 15 products that you've bought and map out your customer journey with that product. If you need water, if you need a care product, what were the thoughts going on in your mind? And then that will help you find out which type of a marketer you want to become.

Alefiya Khoraki:

What frustrated you on the way that company dealt with you? What did you like about that company? How was your customer experience? So that is something that you would want to create, that sort of customer experience, and that is how I found out my niche, which is humor-operating. And how I find that out was because, when I was writing this colleague, I was like I want to be someone who can sell while bringing a smile to someone's face or while making someone laugh and then just making marketing fun and even if it still converts, like pushing a joke here and there and saying things in a way that has never been said before. So it will take time, it will take experience. I think it took me like 14, 15 months to land on this. I was trying testing every week or every 10 days my LinkedIn profile for the new hub light Because I was testing things. That's okay. If you really love marketing and if you want to find a place here, test it's great.

Melissa Franklin:

I noticed the same thing. There's some days that my profiles are counting it this week Everything's great, and then other oh man, but it was a lot of client calls or different things, and it's finding that pretty balance or that pretty flow of things. Are there any books, tools, resources that you would recommend to someone who's aiming to enhance their marketing skills with that honesty as well as transparency?

Alefiya Khoraki:

So we're talking to a special marketer here, or post credits or someone in the online business Pretty much anybody.

Melissa Franklin:

So our audience will be any individual who's just trying to balance life. So, as they're getting to that point to decide their steps and they want to move forward and say, hey, I'm just going to make some extra money or whatever pieces, but they want to learn about marketing, because they know nothing about marketing but they know about coaching or they know about sales, they know about creating courses because they were educators at one point, or maybe they've worked for somebody forever and somebody brought in the clients for them, so they don't understand the marketing pieces. What type of things can you recommend so that they can still stay honest and transparent but learn and grow those skills?

Alefiya Khoraki:

I think on a surface level. Alice Hormuzzi's books are great.

Melissa Franklin:

He's pretty great.

Alefiya Khoraki:

If someone has no idea about marketing, he walks them through that. But then my second advice would be something very different from conventional marketing. If you find what niche you are on, if you're a doctor, read fictional books on where doctor stories are at all or what stand up comedies that has related to like that has something around medicine. Or see lawyers for taking who are fighting for doctors, or see speeches where doctors are talking to other doctors. Why do I say this? When you take these snippets from proper conventional Hollywood or books, fictional books or lawyers or speeches, there is so much which you see.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Because now if you read marketing books, you will say, hey, your health is suffering, take my offer or take my treatment. But when you watch it from movies or books, then you see that if someone is suffering from this thing, what are the beneath the level emotions they are feeling when you see someone making jokes on stand up comedy? Stand up comedy is the best example of specificity or steroids, because they can go as specific as they want and they're so specific. So sometimes all comedians go so deep where we usually don't go. They just go deeper and deeper and that's what's funny. It's not funny because it's funny. It's funny because we never go there it becomes relatable so when you touch marketing at such deep layers.

Alefiya Khoraki:

So take marketing inspiration beyond marketing books. If you have a very basic idea, and that we can from Alex's books. There are many resources, many, many resources, but it will just keep getting complicated. If you want to write your own floppy, if you want to be political, take inspiration from your industry, from many various areas.

Melissa Franklin:

I love that. I think Alex Hermosy and Leila both of them, just their approach and the honesty and the upfront and in your face that you took off to put in the work is kind of what I meant by. It's funny because he might come off as masculine but in my opinion he takes like a feminine approach, even though he gives you everything because it's still nurturing you and it's growing you. Whether you're going to buy anything or not, it's still waiting on you. Now it's that unconditional love, like I'm going to help you be better, whether you're going to show up or not, whatever you want. I love that. I really love that.

Alefiya Khoraki:

He is genuine.

Melissa Franklin:

Yes, you can feel it and it resonates and it makes you want to show up and say hi again. So, thinking about that, then, alephia, let's kind of like recap and actually summarize the marketing practices. What I've heard has been the first thing is making sure that you build authenticity and you've tried to find your voice. The other thing that I've heard is making sure that it's like a consistent type of approach but at the same time that it doesn't become misleading or pretending like I can give them something that I can't. And then, finally, sticking to making sure that I have a balance and that I'm not just about the job. 24 seven. Can you kind of summarize in your own thoughts?

Alefiya Khoraki:

Yeah, I would actually like to add like two, three different things. When you say balance, people in marketing are always the experiment. In terms of social media, people will say, hey, don't just share about your friends, share about your vulnerability, which has led to all those Now, I don't want to say fake, but all those crying posts on social media or like that are whining posts about who's at jobs, because that just gains sympathy and then posts go viral.

Alefiya Khoraki:

So if you only use vulnerability to go viral, go ahead to that. But actual vulnerability is think of things who people are not sharing online. It doesn't need to be you sharing things about your family or how you're going through a divorce or how something, if you don't want to share things about your personal life, but share things that people are not willing to share. Share that. How many times did you fail before you got that successful project? Share how many times you fail to wake up 5 30 am in the morning, even if you set your alarm every day. And how does that make you feel as a business owner? Do you feel that all the others are resilient and you're not? Make sure about that. Share what makes you feel guilty. If you're a mom and if you're seeing everyone else around, you do do stuff and you feel you're missing out on things. But come on, share what you feel like sharing. Don't share what you feel will gain people's sympathy and reaction in the name of vulnerability. Use as my marketing tactic.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I love that you said that it will gain you Because that will gain people traction. But that will not gain people. Try. They will not build their tribe around. They might get traction no, try.

Melissa Franklin:

No. That's the hard part as far as in mind, because minds of picking and choosing, like how much should I share and how much shouldn't I, and most of the time I'm trying to show like have it together. But I do worry, hey, if I show everybody that I'm losing it today because I'm completely in a manic state now and I just can't help it. I'm crying. There's nothing wrong right now, I'm just overstimulated because it's my mental wellness issues. But then I overthink and I worry.

Melissa Franklin:

If I share this and I post this, is someone going to think I just want attention or someone actually going to realize, dean, I'm suffering right now and I need someone like myself to be aware and know it. So I feel like I have a safe space and I think that's that's the balance that our audience will wonder. But I think at the same time, just don't plan it, make sure that it's genuine is what I'm hearing you say. So I appreciate that, because it makes a lot easier to share those mistakes and not be scared that they're going to be thrown back in your face. Any final words about?

Alefiya Khoraki:

good, yeah, let's, let's just talk a little bit more about about mental health. If you're mental health factors and you actually want people to make it up, so you know, if you're sharing your vulnerability post, and you know some posts are just like hey, this is me crying, I lost it today. Think of those posts like will it help anybody? Will it make a difference? If you're, if it's not helping anybody and and you just want to share everything out there because that's your personality, that's fine. If it's not helping anybody, it is not part of your prime. That's what I'm trying to. People have misinterpreted this whole mental health thing, like everybody is hearing that it's not part of your brand. Why do it Exactly? It's not helping anybody. If you're short, if you're a mom who is going through some form of changes and that's affecting your business and you want to talk about because no one else is, then do it, because one voice, your voice, might be a reason for someone to go and go and like have a word with the therapist.

Melissa Franklin:

Yeah no, I think I appreciate that because I've had recent individuals or people that have left the workforce and reach out and say similar things that my pieces made them realize, darn late, I'm not taking care of my mental wellness. Some individuals have just got diagnosed in the last year and have lived their entire lives not realizing that they've had these issues, but they've been desensitized or convinced by society that there is no issue and they're not supposed to complain about it. Yeah, no, I agree with that. But at the same time too, if I go and I just sit on that platform and I complain about all the stuff rather than actually talk about the empowering things behind it, it's not helping anybody. I can totally see what we're saying on that. Any final words or advice for our audience in staying true in the marketing world?

Alefiya Khoraki:

I think my final words would be if you want to say it through, stay true. Stay the things in a way which no one has ever said it before. So if everyone in your industry is making claim that sign up and I will help you make $1000 per month, think of how you can say that in a different way. This is what we're talking about. If your offer is genuine and you genuinely help people make $1000 a month, that's your USP. You're genuine about that. This is the conversation. So what does $10,000 worth of money In Africa? We could, because that's where I lived for eight years before. I'm currently living in India. So there you could buy a penthouse in a year if you had $100,000. So it could be like, just talk to them, like, what can they do with that money? What would $100,000 mean? Don't just say that. Keep promising them when came one. Then, if someone is selling them last skin thing and you've heard that messaging again and again think of how you can say it in a different way. What message? Have they not heard it before?

Melissa Franklin:

I hear you saying like don't sell products rather than sell the results, and actually like have them focus more on what they're going to get instead of yeah, but everyone says that Don't focus on the product and focus on the result.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is don't say what has already been said before. I see. So now you'll be saying that if, like, toothpaste job is to make white teeth or that's white gloves, but if you just be creative and think of in which other ways you can say it, because if you say it in other ways, it generally comes out as genuine because they've not heard it before. If they've heard it many times, it becomes a red flag.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Because, if it, does not work, it becomes a red flag. Now, if I see a skincare product and it says that all yours it's will go away and we have glass skin, maybe when I heard it the first time it was a fairytale promise for me and I wanted to do that. But now that I've heard it 100, 200, 300 times, it's a red flag for me. If I say fairytale, don't buy this product.

Melissa Franklin:

Pretty much with all entrepreneurs too. When we get invited to a webinar, we get invited to a free class, we get invited to like hmm, I don't know about all that. No, that makes sense. So just make sure that it's introduced into the brain in a different way so it doesn't come off as a trigger.

Alefiya Khoraki:

I'll give you an example of this webinar. You mentioned One of my amazing mentors now she calls her free in the pre-launch funnel. She calls her webinars in four sessions. So now the customers can expect that this will be an info session about the course. She's not trying to sell like she's actually trying to. She's not trying to sell me, she's just trying to walk me through what it is. So she's not even trying to have that keep off. You will get so much value out of this.

Melissa Franklin:

Right, You're not even anonymously. You should literally just telling you what you're going to show up for.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Yeah, that's the best sort of marketing. If you tell people that, hey, I'm going to sell things and that's what I'm selling is to obviously make a living out of my for myself. This is where you can find the free information. This is how much time it will take you to do go through that free information. If you don't have the budget, you can do it. If you just want I've spent so much time, I'm feeling like expertise you want some extra help? Go ahead and sign up for that. Sign up like right and I can help you. But even without my help, you can. You can have everything on their internet. Like, let's face it, people who say that you can't Google the stuff or this is something on Google, that is because they've added their own opinions and their own strategy to it. But the basis, the foundation, is there on the chair. What's the struggle is there is so much on the internet that it's over the. That's why we need experts who've taken things, implemented it and now they have worked with the whole stuff.

Melissa Franklin:

Right, Filtering it all out so you don't have to go spend the work trying to figure it out. I think that's kind of where it's. We'll pay the expert because they've done all the reading and the work and the other stuff.

Alefiya Khoraki:

Yeah, actually it's that.

Melissa Franklin:

That's your result. Yeah, now that makes sense. Huge. Thank you, alephia, honestly. Your wisdom and insights. I appreciate it too, because it gives it a different aspect to what I want to do with my marketing. So thank you so much to our listeners. Thank you for joining us on Structure and Chaotic Lines, and remember that embracing genuine strategies is key to your professional as well as your personal life balance journeys. Stay tuned for more insights and stories in our next episode and have a fantastic day. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. To catch up on the rest of the season, StrucuturingChaoticMinds. com visit or take a quick browse on your current app to see which episodes resonate with you. If you struggle with your own mental wellness or even just balancing life, we have a team of individuals at our site who can help. You can visit StructureInnovations. com and find a coach or mentor fit for you. Thank you for joining me once again, Melissa Franklin, on this episode of Structure and Chaotic Lines. Stay structured and smiling.