For more information, visit the show notes at https://plutusfoundation.org/2022/rahkim-sabree-hubris Welcome to Series 6 of the Plutus Awards Podcast hosted by Michelle Jackson. Our community is filled with hundreds of stories from creators and entrepreneurs just like you. And through this show we share these stories of challenges and successes from bloggers to podcasters, from writers, speakers, and more. In this season we talk about a somewhat taboo topic — the deadly sins that personal finance (and other content creators) can make. We share lessons learned, how to avoid these mistakes, and the fact that we’re all human, putting our creative work out there into the world. This season’s conversation is about the inherent risks we’re taking in developing online brands, our own hubris, and the impact that how other people perceive us can make us or break our online brand. Today’s guest is Rahkim Sabree and in this episode we talk about hubris. Just because we built something doesn’t mean that our audience wants it. Learn the lessons learned from the mistake of building out a product without talking to your audience. We’ve all done it before and how Rahkim is avoiding making that mistake in the future. Rahkim Sabree – The Sin of Hubris: How to Use Insight From Your Audience Notes and summary from this episode Rahkim-I’m Rahkim Sabree, I’m an author, columnist, speaker and financial coach. Got into financial education about 10 years ago. I talk about financial empowerment, financial trauma and financial mindset. Michelle-How would you describe what your business is to other online entrepreneurs? Rahkim-It evolves part of me feels like I act like a consultant and stepping into an influencer role. My business model is definitely digital media. Michelle-This season of the Plutus Awards Podcast we’re talking about the 7 deadly sins that creators need to be aware of making in their businesses. We’re definitely talking about this with a lot of empathy. How did you even get into this space? Rahkim-I fell in by accident. A happy accident. I spent 10 years in the banking industry. And one of the things I realized was that there was a lot that I didn’t know about money. In my banking career I had to learn about the products in order to sell them. I realized what I wasn’t exposed to growing up. For example-the idea of homeownership. It didn’t occur to me that homeownership was available to me. I shared my knowledge with my friends and family because they also didn’t know. Michelle-What’s interesting around your brand and mission is that it’s positioned around firing your boss. Rahkim-The best decision I’ve ever made and the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I had to figure out how I was going to move forward and figuring out how I was going to survive. It’s been a liberating experience, but the biggest takeaway for me is that my mental health has improved significantly. The idea of “I fired my boss” is to take back your power. Michelle-What are some of the ways your building out your brand and components of your business? Rahkim-I like this question. When I first started I didn’t know what to do. A lot of the growth I’ve experienced is based on a combination of things. Being active on Twitter, reels, etc. But, what solidified my credibility was contributing to publications and being featured. People look at you as a thought leader. Michelle-You’re talking about building up your authority. What about building out how you’re making money? Let’s deep dive into the product’s conversation and the deadly sin related to product. Rahkim-Most of my money comes from solidifying that credibility. I do a lot of writing and the writing brings in income. I wouldn’t have gotten paid for my writing if I was writing for free first. I also do some social media management, get paid to speak and one-on-one financial coaching. Going into products I was approached by a coach to build out a course. I was like “oh, ok.” I’d never thought about creating a course and this should be easy. I was convinced to do it and paid the coach to help me with it. I drank the kool aid. I thought I was going to pay a high ticket price, etc. Then, I would invest in Facebook ads. I spent 4 figures in Facebook advertising no sales, 4 figures in retaining the ad agency, 4 figures for the coach. And the thing that I learned in hindsight I didn’t ask my audience is this what they actually wanted (from me). The difference between my content and the course is that it’s not sexy. It’s not “I’m going to bring your credit score to 850 in 30 days” I was advised to market it differently and I knew that I couldn’t because the content was about abstract topics and the psychology of money. Not sexy. I really didn’t test the market and I assumed that I knew best and that they would buy. Michelle-That’s a hard lesson especially because you developed a course and you have to factor in the ...
