Welcome back to another episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast with the special episodes for the BrandUp Summit here in Montreal. I am very happy to have an amazing entrepreneur named Babik with me. He has 2 companies that we're gonna be talking about. But, first, he's gonna do a quick introduction about 30 seconds. Go ahead, bud.

Yeah. For sure. So my name is, Babak, and I'm an entrepreneur. I'm born an entrepreneur. I have stories that my mom tells me that I used to do things that I don't even remember, so it's not like an overnight type of a thing. I do have 2 brands, yes, companies. One is a marketing agency, which probably, like, everyone has. I think everyone is a marketing agency now.

So I focus more on the brand that is more unique to me and that fits with my personality. And if I wanna create a personal brand, would be the one that I would put my face on, which is called Official Artists. And, this brand is basically like a Linktree, Patreon, OnlyFans and a lot of different other apps made but for music artists.

Oh, I love that. Supporting those artists. We need more music Yep.

In the world.

We need to find that next Beyonce. Yep. But I'm curious, what inspired you to start this brand and not stay with TrueMark?

Okay. So again, everyone has a marketing agency and, I had a lot of projects overall in my life, like little projects here and there that maybe just a project or it turns into a company, but I really wanted to be comfortable again having my personal brand or my image and actually build, academy around it, build courses around it, build my image around it, and, I think, the marketing agency wasn't really fitting. It's really corporate, really suit y, like, you know, you gotta wear a suit and you gotta look like a big shot. Or I tried to work with real estate agents, for example, but even that, like, I didn't really it didn't even really click. What I what I think really fits with me is really working with music artists because that's my environment. My friends are music artists, my friends are artists. I I've just also grown in art. But yeah, I have the opportunity to kind of merge tech, marketing and art and yeah, that's I don't know if that answers the question.

I went to a lot of places but

You went everywhere and anywhere. Yeah. And it arrived at the

I sound like a politician.

Yeah. Exactly. You were saying words.

Yeah.

But they they did resonate. Unlike politicians, they did resonate with you. So you're not not you're better than a politician, so that's great. Yeah. Right? And you did you spoke about what inspired you. You wanted something that was more aligned with who you were as an individual, and art or artists are very authentic. With with what you've done so far, is there a a turning point or a milestone that you would like to share that helps solidified who your brand is?

Can I take a quick, yeah? I had a specific I bought it for the

Don't? Bro, trust me. I I I do virtual, so usually the Internet goes down by now, so it's good.

So what was the question?

It's the, what, what, no. Not different. Turning point or milestone that helped you?

Okay.

So what turning point or milestone, that you care to share helped you develop your brand?

Yeah. So, I think as soon as you switch the way you view clients, instead of seeing them as leads, really see them as friends or as people that you can help, that really, really makes a big difference in business because then suddenly a conversation is no longer, lead trying to close a deal. It's more of a friendship and trying to help that person. So I think as soon as I made that shift, really seeing people as people and people as friends instead of leads, it really, turned the business around in how much I was able to close or how, impactful I I I was. So I think that the the tipping point is really just realizing that I'm dealing with people and and, yeah, emotions, people and all that. So just a little shift in mind.

I like that. That little mind shift can do so much for everybody involved in businesses. I'm just curious because you run a marketing agency, and everybody and their uncle has one, apparently.

Yeah.

How do you differentiate yourself? How do you stand out as a brand so that you can get those clients, both for your marketing agency, but also the agency you run for client for, artists?