Appearance: "Speak up" series (إحكي يا خيرة)
Enjoyed a live with my graduate alma mater, Mohammed Bin Salman College (MBSC), about my journey since my MBA and what I do these days. Click here to go to @mbsckaec's instagram
Transcript
[00:01:09.140] - Abdullah
Fantastic. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and start now and let people start rolling in as we're talking. So let me quickly do an introduction. So welcome, everyone. My name is Abdullah Sawan. I am the head of the student's career office here at Prince Mohammed bin Salman College. And welcome to our final episode of the Ehky Ya series that we started for Ramadan where we invite alumni from MBSC to tell us a little bit about their story and tell us about their entrepreneurial journey today. It's really my pleasure to also end this series with Khayra. Let me just quickly give you a brief introduction. So Khayra is a graduate from Effat University with a Bachelor of computer science. We also have the distinct pleasure to call Khayra MBSC alumni. She graduated in 2019 with an MBA focused on entrepreneurship. And today she is a personal branding coach and expert. And she will also tell us a little bit about her career journey and the story leading up to what she's doing today. So thank you, Khayra, for joining us today.
[00:02:37.750] - Khayra
Thank you for having me. This is so cool. It's like I'm back on campus, kind of.
[00:02:42.520] - Abdullah
Yeah, absolutely. It's our pleasure. And hopefully maybe next time we do this, it will be on campus and we can do this live. Right. So as the name of the show, it's called Ehky Ya Khayra. So please tell us a little bit about your career journey.
[00:02:59.890] - Khayra
Right.
[00:03:00.110] - Abdullah
Tell us about your education back, a little bit about where you started, where you started in your career, how it progressed. And tell us a little bit about your role today.
[00:03:11.770] - Khayra
Awesome. So my career journey, I'm going to start really far back.
[00:03:18.810] - Abdullah
Yeah, sure. Start from your education. Tell us a little bit about why you went into computer science and how you ended up going to marketing. That's the stuff that I'm sure people are excited to hear about.
[00:03:28.000] - Khayra
Definitely. So I'm going to start at seven years old. I promise I won't make this long. But at seven years old, I remember I convinced my mom to keep making me cupcakes. I would take it to school every day, maybe for like a week. And she would give me these cupcakes thinking that, "Oh, my gosh, Khayra is just sharing it with her friends. She's so giving", but then what I would do in elementary school when I was in Jeddah Alkhasa is I would sell them for coupons. And that's where my entrepreneurial kick started, where I would sell them for food coupons. So I would have this little business. I got in a little trouble for it. So I've always had that let's do something extra in school or whatever. I ended up studying art when I was in the American University in Dubai and I switched to computer science in order to... Uh, it wasn't going well, art wasn't going well. It wasn't structured enough. Computer science was great in the sense that I knew a little bit about it. I loved HTML, I was applying it in my own hobbies. I was always trying to see how can I use my hobbies and use my passion in academia.
[00:04:45.510] - Khayra
Because academia wasn't my forte. In University, that's when it started where I was studying on the side I would always be doing something so I was always a president of a club, where I was always having side hustles freelancing. The way I was freelance is I would get people to start up blogs. Back in the day, people didn't know how to set up Facebook pages. So I was essentially helping them with marketing. But because it was so tech focused, it looked like tech. When I graduated,
[00:05:22.280] - Abdullah
This was like what, early 2000 are we talking about? Like early 2010 there?
[00:05:26.800] - Khayra
Yeah. That was when I started doing freelance for people and started opening up their marketing efforts. I didn't know it was marketing, though, because I was so focused on, "Okay, I'll just set up the tech," or "I'll just make it look pretty," or "I'll just make a logo for them because I knew how to use Photoshop". And then after computer science and I graduated, I got into General Electric. And that's when I started becoming a whole person and I started gaining focus. I was in the Information Technology Leadership Program, which meant I was a project manager for It projects. And yeah, after that, it was a two year program. I moved back to Jeddah.
[00:06:16.170] - Abdullah
The GE role or the GE program, was based out of Dubai at this point.
[00:06:20.500] - Khayra
Yes, but it was on rotation. So I got time to be in Bahrain. I got time to be in a lot of other places around the Gulf. I was having six months sentence of projects to do. And I was also really involved in their women's network. So in the company, they had a really strong presence, extracurricular activities. I can't get away from it. And then after that, I ended up in Jeddah and I was supposed to take a vacation. Never works. While I was on vacation, I ended up being on my friend's podcast called Mstdfr. I fell in love with the idea that they had a podcast. What's the word? I was a malgoofa, so I jumped in and I was like, how can I get as involved as possible in this? And I ended up co founding the Mstdfr network.
[00:07:22.330] - Abdullah
Okay, what are some notable podcasts there if you want to drop some names?
[00:07:31.250] - Khayra
Yeah, guys, Mstdfr podcast itself is really awesome. That's Mstdfr. I'm just going to drop it in the comments. There you go. They have a bunch of stuff. And it was cool because we started the network at the same time that Kerning Cultures, Dukkan media, a lot of the more well known Middle Eastern podcasts were starting up. So the industry was really gorgeous, but dum-dum-dum! I was the only person of the founders who took it as my full time job with no background in business. So I was always so confused, why am I giving so much time to this? And Where's the profit? What's going on? And then I ended up hearing about MBSC. I was like, well, I guess I need to figure out why I'm not making any money or why, like, we had so much growth. We had so many listeners, and it just wasn't turning into a business model. I didn't know what a business model was. So that's when I ended up in the MBA program and that shifted a lot of things for me.
[00:08:45.110] - Abdullah
So at this stage, at this stage, we're still talking about Khayra who is like the computer science background even, like, when you went to work in GE was still computer science and even some of your side hustles were still based on. But when did this transition to marketing happen? When did this transition to branding, marketing... Kind of take place?
[00:09:10.050] - Khayra
Thank you. Thank you for keeping me on track. You know what's funny? I literally studied art and computer science just to stay away from business. It was... My dad tried to convince me to take an accounting course and it was like, "no, I'll never sell out. I'll never be part of this consumerism culture. Never. Never."
[00:09:35.430] - Abdullah
It's scary for a lot of people.
[00:09:38.610] - Khayra
It's scary, yes. And also it seems more intimidating than it really is, and it seems useful that it really is. When I was in the Dutchworth and I was finally be coming to terms and confronting the fact that there was something I wasn't getting. I think it was one of the open houses where there was a class or something to know about MBSC, where it was a master class. That's what it was called. So I went to the master class, and in that master class, it was about strategy. And that's when it hit me that, okay, there's a language around this. I ended up doing the program, and in the program, that's when slowly I was like, "oh, there were so many times that I was applying marketing. There were so many times where I was trying to create a business model", but I didn't have the language around it. I didn't have the techniques to put it all together and to make it a whole image in my head. And that's why I was having such a hard time talking to sponsors, talking to investors, talking to anybody that could provide us the cash flow to get things going. Right. Because they had that business language. I didn't. They needed financials and information, and I didn't know how to give it to them. So it was probably in my second year, close to when we were graduating, that would have been in 2018, where I was like, I love this marketing stuff. This is what I've been doing. Every time I thought I was helping someone with their Facebook page or their website, I thought I was just giving them the tech. But in reality, when I was sitting with them, I was also convincing them that, yes, you are worthy of having a website. Yes, you can do this, you can learn. And I already knew that I really loved communication because most of what I did in my IT projects was communicating to people that, "hey, this is change. Change is good."
[00:11:56.850] - Khayra
Communication and marketing was always inside me. But I kind of took it for granted because it was so much fun. And then in 2018, I started just a really tiny page of, hey, I'm a personal branding expert because I was doing it for myself. I was going out, putting my resume out there, getting opportunities. I was getting leads for being recruited. And I thought, this is awesome, this is easy. I can help other people with this too, and make a little money on the side. And from there, that's when it really took off, where I realized that while I was sitting with people, me having the language of marketing and me having this whole background of how to convince people to be a little bit... I won't say louder, but a little bit more visible about themselves, a little bit less hesitant.
[00:12:55.230] - Khayra
Those two together, TA-DA! I can help them out with a lot of situations where who do you turn to when you don't have the confidence to be a little bit more visible? Who do you turn to when you don't know what you want to choose?
[00:13:14.290] - Khayra
Then at that point in 2019, while I was with Uturn Entertainment, which ended up becoming Webedia Middle East. I was in the marketing department and content and analytics. And on the side, I just kept on going with that personal branding expert title. And I joined a coaching program so that I can get the tools to really help people one on one.
[00:13:43.790] - Abdullah
Right.
[00:13:44.770] - Khayra
And then in 2020, I went full into it. I was really excited about taking my business to the next level. I had too many clients for me to just call it a side thing anymore. I applied everything that I learned in the MBA to my own business model and setting that up. And the rest is history. In the first year, quarantine worked out really well for me because everybody was stuck at home and they had an issue with this new life of being visible online where they didn't mean to. Networking was gone. They finally had time to think about those goals that were in the back of their heads. Like, "oh, I've always wanted to get out there in a big way, start a YouTube channel." So they were at home, they had time for the first time, and then it took off.
[00:14:42.350] - Abdullah
So in 2019, you just decided, you know what? I'm leaving this corporate world. I'm leaving Uturn. I'm just going to focus on my own personal business. At this stage.
[00:14:51.490] - Khayra
The contract was up with Uturn for the year.
[00:14:54.270] - Abdullah
Okay.
[00:14:54.720] - Khayra
So at that time, you know what it was? And I keep crediting the MBA, but really, it was such a mindset shift for me. I was finally resourceful, so I finally saw the resources at hand. So I was at the end of Uturn. I already had this business that was making cute money. I had maybe like two or three clients a month, and it was covering itself. And I had the coaching program that I was in that I still needed to keep being in. So it was kind of like, well, those are the resources I have. Why don't I just go in this direction? As opposed to... The other choice would have been for me to apply to other corporate jobs. It wasn't a single decision. Like it wasn't one day of "I'm done with corporate" because, actually, I really love corporate and I still hang out with people, especially folks that I was colleagues with. I just love learning about what was happening there, the hustle and bustle, the bigness, the amount of projects. I'm a big nerd when it comes to that stuff. And it was just very smooth, actually, to get into my own business. And then Quarantine happened. So whether I wanted to or not, sure.
[00:16:17.740] - Abdullah
So I think this... You mentioned a lot how the MBA helped you, kind of equipped you with the tools somehow and how it got you focused. Tell us a little bit about that, about your experience. I'm sure a lot of people want to hear about how your experience with MBSC. What are some of the things that you benefit a lot from? What are some of the things that... Not just the previous alumni that we've interviewed on this live stream here. It was also like when you talk to any alumni actually from MBSC, they always mention a lot of different things. One of them is like the network or some of them are the SLE, how they implement. I want to hear from you. What are the things that really helped you or you feel plays an important role in your own personal business and in your own career?
[00:17:04.270] - Khayra
Yeah, definitely. So quick Disclaimer. I was of the first full time cohort, so I don't know if you guys have new words for a lot of the things I'm going to refer to, feel free to–
[00:17:17.590] - Abdullah
Yeah, it's fine. Just be comfortable, use your own words. Yeah, it's fine.
[00:17:22.660] - Khayra
Great. So the biggest thing you guys, I mentioned my art University. I mentioned being in computer science. I was not a great student. I was a terrible student. In the sense of a GPA in the sense of everything, everything that got me into MBSC was definitely because of my entrepreneurial efforts and the practical things that I did. When I got in, I was so not looking forward to a Master's. But then I was amazed because the way it was structured was the SLE ended up working with all the courses. So every single course I took, for the first time in my life, I ended up writing papers about things that I was actually learning about. It wasn't just research that I threw in a paper and sent it into the professor. It was genuinely me understanding concepts through experimentation, hands on experience, and then putting that into a paper. And that was just such a game changer for me that I can take the idea of research– of really careful structuring, understanding principles– and put it in real life, which I think was the huge disconnect before in all of my other academic situations. And the way it was structured was every semester was a different phase of the business.
[00:18:58.760] - Khayra
So the idea was that you would take a business, pull it through all of these gorgeous courses, refine each and everything through the lens of business and marketing and finance and leadership, and by the end you would have a finished project. So that was such a game changer for me. It was such a pleasure to be part of a cohort that... We were all risk takers. Right? Because we were really open to a new experience, because we were the first cohort. So there wasn't any tradition to live up to. We were kind of creating the traditions as we were there. And it was a small enough group of people where we were really close to the building of MBSC. It was a lot of inception. We were building MBSC, we were building our projects, we were building our community and all of this and that initiative, that start was really invigorating. It had a lot of passion in it where I didn't feel the need to have any side hustles during MBSC, and that's saying a lot.
[00:20:19.030] - Abdullah
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you were part of the founding cohort. I mean, it was a huge everybody was learning from everyone, and everybody was adventurous, like you said, it's kind of an interesting energy, right?
[00:20:37.080]
So we haven't really dug deeper into what it is that you're doing today as a personal coach. I went on your website on WhatsApp it looks great. It all looks great. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what are some of the clients that you serve, what are some of the things that you're doing? I noticed that there are workshops, there's a few things that are interesting there, and maybe as well tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you are facing when it came to starting that kind of business and how you kind of overcame them.
[00:21:16.310] - Khayra
Definitely. So what I do is I'm a personal branding coach. What that means is I work with overthinking or overdoing professionals, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs speak to their dream audience, and there's so much gunk that gets in the way of that. It seems that it would be a no brainer of, "hey, if you want clients, just go get clients," Right? But what I learned in marketing, especially the way it's taught at MBSC, is there's a lot of empathy that's needed. There's a lot of customer discovery that's needed. When it comes to marketing your message, if you're trying to talk to everybody, you're not really talking to anyone. And what I do specifically... Because I work with professionals and entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, they already know how to market because they have products that they market. I have a lot of clients who are salespeople. At this point, I think I've had 60 clients, not including who I've served in my workshops. And what I see time and time again is they know this stuff. They know everything about how to promote themselves. There's just a barrier that happens when they forget how valuable they are.
[00:22:36.090]
And where that comes from mostly, is things that come easily to us seem like it's not that important, even though that's exactly the most important. Being in our strengths, being resourceful about what we have on hand. Be it our skills, be it our hopes, even our dreams. A lot of people think that, "oh, I have a dream to do this, but who would care?"
[00:22:59.740]
A dream itself or a passion itself can be really intriguing as a message. It doesn't just have to be proof that you've done something. Having potential is really attractive. So what I do is I work one on one with clients. I have a really intensive three month program. I also have a community of people who don't have the time to be in an intensive program so we get to talk together. I provide insights and information. They can book special times with me so that they can work out some of the guns in their head as to where their hesitations are coming from. And then finally, I do workshops and talks. The more recent one I did was about Procrastination in Ithra. And I also talk about empathy marketing, how to bring your humanness into your marketing and promotion. And I'm just really passionate about understanding, getting clarity about what's on your insides, getting clarity about who you want to talk to and then getting it done through productivity.
[00:24:13.470] - Abdullah
What are some of the... Because like you mentioned, you deal with entrepreneurs and you deal with overthinking people and that kind of profile. From your perspective, what are some of the things that entrepreneurs... The leading thing that entrepreneurs that you always help them with? What is the key thing, the Gap, or whatever you want to call it, the area of development that they always need to work on, that you have noticed consistently that you always do.
[00:24:41.850] - Khayra
Entrepreneurs cannot tell the difference between their brand and their company's brand. They're meshed together. And what entrepreneurs do again and again, which is so harmful to talking to investors, it's so harmful to talking to their teams is they will use their company, their baby, their product. They'll use their product to hide behind. And that's the worst thing because that's where you lose credibility. That's where you lose trust, and that intense connection with investors and your teams. That's probably the biggest thing to remind entrepreneurs that, "hey, you have a brand as well. You have value, and you're trying to present messages about your value just as much, maybe even more than your company."
[00:25:37.110]
I'm really blessed that everybody I've worked with were really great at their job. So they've already gained a lot of success in their entrepreneurial ventures and then transitioning that into themselves. And understanding that they can experiment just the way they experiment with their business. They can experiment with their own message. They can experiment with their own forms of leadership. They're a lot harder on themselves than they are in their business. Their business is a lot more fun in their mind.
[00:26:11.010] - Abdullah
Sure. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, I guess. For our last question here to close, as we're approaching the last few minutes, I wanted to ask and this is something an area that I always come across, and this is something that always comes to mind, and I'm sure it's going to be helpful. Transitioning from a science-based computer science– and it doesn't have to be just computer science, right? It could be someone who has an engineering background or something very technical, right– and into a kind of different function or a different area like marketing and personal branding and things like that. How were you able to accomplish it? And what advice would you give to someone who's looking to transition. They're done with being an engineer, for example. They're done with being a site engineer, and they're passionate about marketing and they want to go into marketing, for example.
[00:27:13.490] - Khayra
I think this era makes it way more beneficial for you to actually jump from one thing to another. Right? Because there's so much disruption in all the different industries, it makes even more sense for you to jump into a different area– with foresight, with care. What I noticed about myself is when I went from computer science to when I was doing the small side hustles of helping people out with their marketing, the industry of digital marketing was just rising. So it made sense. It was a total no brainer in retrospect that someone would get into that. And there are today so many tech companies that are basically marketing companies. Right? So what I would say to anybody is take care and... Trying things out. Experiments on a small basis, take the risks that feel at ease, take the risks that won't... Don't quit your job and quit everything in one day so that you can pursue one way. Don't start from the bottom if you don't have to. So if you can do something on your own, or if there's someone that can support you with placing you in an alternative industry, try it out. Nobody will hold it against you.
[00:28:44.960] - Khayra
It'll just look like you're interested. As long as you can stay consistent in what you're doing until you make a full transition, that's all that matters.
[00:28:54.110] - Abdullah
Fantastic. I think that was great advice. So Khayra, as a last thing before we wrap up here, is there anything that you want to kind of share with us? Tell us this is your opportunity to kind of close and give some kind of final word or advice and tell us where people can find you on your social media platform, on your website and things like that.
[00:29:20.810] - Khayra
Yeah, definitely. So at all times, my biggest, biggest priority right now is my community. I love my community. It's quiet during Ramadan, but it's going to be picking up soon where we have talks, we have weekly lives, we have connections, we have exercises that we take on to our private discussion board about visibility. So this is perfect for anybody who's curious about how to be more visible. If they feel like they're hesitating, if they feel like they don't really know how to show up to their managers, their potential employers, their leadership, their investors, their own team, people that they're trying to mentor. It's a great place to figure out what's going on on the inside. And we have events. I post all of the different things that I do when it comes to workshops. I have a productivity workshop that's going to be coming in May, Might be June, don't know yet, and keep in touch on LinkedIn. That's where I'm the most active. I'm always open for DMs. I'm a little bit more quiet on social media these days, because I'm focusing on my community. And they can find out all of that and more at khayrab.com link is in the bio, but it's khayrab.com.
[00:30:49.990] - Abdullah
So if people want to join the community or want to learn more about this community, they go to the website, right?
[00:30:54.550] - Khayra
Yeah. And there's a big button that says, hey, check out the community. There's a pop up that says check out the community and when they're there, they'll learn about more of what it's like on the inside. There's an application form that's really quick and sweet and we'll continue the conversations from there. And if they'd like one on one time with me, I have intro calls. I do have a full capacity right now so I'm not taking it as easily. But please DM me if you're interested in that and we'll try to make it work out.
[00:31:31.050] - Abdullah
Very good.
[00:31:35.110] - Khayra
If you don't mind me interrupting, I have a shout out to a community member that vouched for me, Waseem!
[00:31:45.320] - Abdullah
It's good to see members of your community here. Well, Khayra, I think it's been an absolute pleasure having you. I think you've shared with us a fantastic story and it's a pleasure to talk to you again and connect with you. And thank you for your time and for sharing with us your journey.
[00:32:02.940] - Khayra
Thanks for this platform, thanks for making it happen, Ramadan Kareem, and so glad that I got to help close out the series.
[00:32:11.870] - Abdullah
It's our pleasure and thanks for everyone for tuning in. Please, if you want more to hear more information or to keep up with the MBSC, you can follow us on our Instagram account, you can follow us on our Twitter account and also you can go on our website to learn more about our programs and about our MBA programs. Executive MBA, the Masters in Management and Masters in Finance and even executive Education as well. Again, thank you.
[00:32:40.070] - Khayra
I also vouch for the Executive education programs. The really short workshops.
[00:32:46.760] - Abdullah
Right, so you said digital marketing one, right?
[00:32:49.000] - Khayra
I did! I did the digital marketing one. That was a huge game changer for my mindset as well.
[00:32:57.050] - Abdullah
Khayra's not just an alumni, she's a satisfied customer of the Executive Education courses. Fantastic. Again, thank you for tuning in and have a wonderful rest of your night. Thank you. Bye bye, Khayra. Thank you for your time.