Creating Authenticity in the Entrepreneurial World; with Multazim Zia

What if being authentic could be your superpower in the world of entrepreneurship? Multazim Zia, the 23-year-old founder of The Multi Path, is here to convince you that it absolutely can be! This episode sees me, your host, engage in a deep chat with Multazim, decoding the essence of building an authentic personal brand. Multazim, having established his enterprise at a tender age of 19, brings a fresh perspective to the table. Together, we unravel the crucial difference between authenticity and credibility, with Multazim illuminating the conversation with his personal anecdotes on maintaining genuineness in his practices.

If you've ever wondered how to navigate the world of social media as an entrepreneur, you're in for a treat. We pick Multazim's brain on how he has leveraged his experience as a speaker at Northumbria University to boost his personal brand. Multazim also unveils his unique social media strategy, explaining why Instagram is his platform of choice and how he diversifies his reach via TikTok and LinkedIn. You're guaranteed to walk away from this conversation enriched and inspired, ready to reinvent your personal brand and business. So, what are you waiting for? Tune in and step onto the path of authenticity with us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Building an Authentic Personal Brand
• 11:51 Speaker Applications and Social Media Strategy

Transcript

Jim James: 0:00

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me here in sunny Wiltshire in the southwest of England, jim James. We're going to bury in the northwest, just outside of Manchester, to meet Malthus Mziah, who is a really multiple enterprise entrepreneur. He's been an entrepreneur since the age of 19. Actually, only now 23, running a company called MultiPath. We're going to talk about how he's been building a personal brand. He's already done a TEDx talk. He's working with schools and he's got a lot of energy and enthusiasm and an amazing amount of experience with someone his age. We're going to talk about how he is using his skill sets to get noticed.

Jim James: 0:42

I think for anyone interested in building a personal brand, it's going to be a great show. Malthus M, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Well, pleasure is all mine, because it's great to meet someone who is so passionate about being an entrepreneur. But also what you're doing is building a brand from the ether. Tell us a little bit about MultiPath and what it stands for and how you're building this as a platform for your business.

Multazim Zia: 1:12

Perfect the MultiPath. I'll begin with what it's all about, because I think that's what makes the most sense. The MultiPath, in general, is about sharing authentic knowledge Now that a sharing authentic knowledge is in various different modalities and industries and just in general as well. It actually came to fruition through my understanding and experience through social media that there was a lot of people who pretended to be coaches, gurus, advisors, consultants that didn't have experience, qualification, education behind what they were preaching and a lot of times, they were gaining their attraction based on fallacies and falsifying information or misrepresentation in certain situations. One of the things I noticed was that someone had to make a change and, regardless how big or small you are, it had to be taken. This is where the MultiPath actually came into its own brand.

Multazim Zia: 2:09

Essentially, we started off mainly just as a personal brand where I would do more of my advertising for myself, who I was, basically what I'm about. Over time, as I naturally grew as a public speaker, as an individual, as a consultant, coach, I then made it more about what services I could offer. My social media all around this was to again share authentic knowledge. Now I use my qualifications and branding and experience all to, I guess, support and aid and assist my philosophy and principles of sharing authentic knowledge. That's essentially what the business and the brand is about. We offer various different services and a lot of them are based about how I grew as a person myself. Public speaking is on their writing services, on their PR work. There's so many coaching, of course, on there. There's so many different things that I tend to offer and that's exactly where it's come from, an authentic place of me, which then has now been imprinted onto my brand.

Jim James: 3:13

Well, I love that. Now I am going to challenge you just a moment, because you say there are a number of people in the marketplace that are, if you like, coming from a place that isn't necessarily credible. I mean, you said not necessarily authentic. There's a little bit of a difference, because authenticity can be sort of trustworthy, and credible is that they've, if you like, got the experience to back it up. You're 23. How do you differentiate between being credible and being authentic? Because, although it's a subtle difference, someone may say what if he's only 23,? How can he be authentic? How can he be credible?

Multazim Zia: 3:56

So the funny thing is, I actually thought of the same question and I think of the same question often, and just before this, we had a bit of a discussion about imposter syndrome, and this is something I challenge quite a lot and I challenge this myself personally. I challenge the idea of what's different between credibility, what's authenticity, and who can actually say they're credible and authentic and what qualifies that. What's the qualifier measures Personally for me, yes, the problem I have is I'm 23. And anyone that knows that, it knows and that knows me personally knows I've always found that a threat personally. So and I will come back to the to answer the question I'm not going to judge it.

Multazim Zia: 4:34

So, just as a bit of an indication of how much I've thought about this is, when I was even in university, they used to make us use what they call a SWOT analysis so obviously strengths, your weaknesses, your threats and stuff, and every single time I always used to write being a student, being 21, 2019. They always just argued that should be your weapon, that should be your advantage. You're a student, you're learning, you should. You're younger, you've got newer ideas, you've got the more evidence-based knowledge I keep coming out of university. I still, I'll still push to that prejudice and stigma that you're too young for anything. And I thought really about what my educators used to say to me and I said that's true when I was working, compared to my senior clinicians or senior colleagues, I was the one with more, the newest and latest evidence-based practices. I was also the person who would go out there and want to learn more, not just be happy with what I had or just practicing the same recycled information. And then I think that that's where this authenticity, even just recently, came into my own mind of what is authentic.

Multazim Zia: 5:40

And authentic is obviously someone that says one thing and, I think, follows that same principle and it's truly, truly at one with themselves. Like and you have to know what you're about Not these companies, and you'll see a lot of companies coaches, gurus, general specialists in their areas per swing, say, quotation marks will have a philosophy or a principle. But then you also see a different side of that, where it's not following their philosophy, it's not following their principles. I think that's one of the main things, and their vision is one thing, their philosophies and principles are another, and the authenticity is what they actually do and who they actually portray themselves as, not on social media, but off social media, and I know this personally as well. I know coaches, I know consultants, I know people that say one thing to me on the phone, for example, but on social media they're a completely different person.

Multazim Zia: 6:29

And I think credibility comes into this, where credibility basically just comes from the simple fact of how are you backing up what you're saying? So if I say I'm a coach, if I say I'm a specialist physiotherapist, if I say I'm a public speaker, what am I backing up with? What evidence do I actually have as a clinician personally, as a clinical director personally, evidence is everything to me. And then that's where, regardless of my age, I still have accomplished.

Multazim Zia: 6:53

I'm not at the risk of sounding boasty and arrogant, but I have accomplished a lot more than a lot of people will will accomplish that want to be in the same positions. And that's because, purely, I'm chasing this credibility, I'm chasing this authenticity. I think that is the right word to use chasing and pursuing it, because it's not something that I would ever fulfill completely or entirely, because we're always evolving. So also, it was a bit for a kind of a cop out answer with an explanation, but I think that's that's basically hit the nail on the head from what I interpret as you know multi, so I think that that's great.

Jim James: 7:25

Of course, authenticity, as you say, is really about being true to your values. It isn't really age specific.

Jim James: 7:31

Yeah you know, and you know, credibility can come from experience, but it can also come from professional expertise, which isn't based on age, necessarily, but on application, which is what you've been doing. So you're actually a qualified physiotherapist, yeah right. And then you've built up a clinical practice where you've got people doing physiology and practices for patients. How have you built that brand? How have you got patients to come into the, to the clinic, to get treatment? Let's start with the simple stuff.

Multazim Zia: 8:11

So that was a trickier task because obviously being a clinician is much tougher, especially when you're so young. To break out those stereotypes off, well, you have to go through for example, in the UK you have to go through NHS to your rotations. You can never go private. You can never start private practice. Don't think about it. For 20 years, 15, 20 years I just can imagine I'm 20 to the year came out of uni as a normal age 21 and started my practice quite early on. So essentially what happened was I got experience, as I mentioned. So you get experience. I got my experience in private practice exactly where I wanted to work or where I wanted to be, and then I specialised in my particular field. So I was MSK Physiotherapy, so I'm mostly close to physiotherapists specialised in that area and obviously made my own clinic. And the way I started to get clients was quite tough because I initially started off and, to be fair, this is something that's quite important for entrepreneurs in general. It was a luck as well as hard work, of course, but a luck who had a lot to do with this. So essentially what had happened was I decided on my clinic to help friends, family. I knew a lot of people I could bring in during my free time, when I wasn't working and I could get extra cash on the side. And then eventually I started to speak to a few different friends of mine, colleagues of mine, acquaintances, and then some professionals in different areas so solicitors and insurance companies and I was speaking to all these vast array of people I started to speak to and then, as I was speaking to them, they were like oh, by the way, just drop us an email with the information. And I was like, cool. And you just think, look, I didn't have days, not a big deal, it's just dropping the information. So drop my information. But bear in mind as one thing I found critical the way I communicate is the way I communicate with people, especially over emails. I always have to make sure everything is concise but it's articulated in a professional manner. I sent everything over, friends or not, I sent it over in a professional manner. And then, luckily for me, a few of my solicitor friends, a few of solicitors I knew, some referrals went through and I landed some contracts with some solicitor firms and companies and a lot of my referrals come through then. So a lot of times they just send me clients, which has filled up a lot of my diary and then constantly through my business.

Multazim Zia: 10:17

At the moment, we're innovating, we're trying to find new ways, because a physiotherapy clinic isn't new. It's everywhere in Mary. There's like there's, there's I think there's six around my own area, but I have my clinic, so it's not. It's not a such a niche thing, it's quite common. So then it's about innovation and creation and I think that it will tie back to the multi path a little bit, because it becomes personal branding. People like seeing the same clinician, people like seeing people that that they feel are authentic and are honest and true and have credibility behind them. So that's essentially where I got my clients from, how they how they started to come in in quite large volumes.

Jim James: 10:56

Okay, interesting. So some social and personal networking, following that up professionally and then getting in and serving them well, and then and then that's been a referral network. That's fantastic for you. Now I see as well that you've been building your personal brand with, for example, a TED Talk. Do you want to just tell us how you went about that and what was the impact on your business of doing a TED Talk?

Multazim Zia: 11:27

Yes. So a TED Talk is something I wanted to do for a while and some of the I still chase after not actually I still go look at it for now but when I initiated the TED Talk, it was more of I was trying to find a way to share some knowledge and experience, increased my accessibility to a larger audience other than my own social media following. So as I was going through different speaker applications, speaking to, again speaking to different people, I saw an opportunity, a random news popped up as I was going through you know, different speaking and conferences Obviously I follow a lot of conferences as well and it came up that they wanted a speaker and they wanted a speaker in a specific area. So mine was doing at the Northumbria University and you can see it there actually. So Northumbria University. I thought, perfect, that was like destined for me, just because, a I got the experience of speaking to students, but B it's also a bigger platform where it gets published on YouTube and it's I think this was straight off the back of just COVID happening as well. So it was like last year in June time it happened, I think, and it was on the back of COVID people coming out of university, having studied through COVID, and as I did that talk, it was all about how to achieve what we want to achieve and those practical steps of how to apply for jobs, how to make the most of your experiences, how to actually do some research behind what you need to be doing for a job or a business, or just your life in general, especially as a student.

Multazim Zia: 12:55

But as just and the main point I made, right, there is a student of life, which is a philosophy I still stand by. You're never going to go to stop. Being a student, not entrepreneur, will say I'm the best in the world at what I do. We're all students. No one's really an expert and and the way that helped my business was because when people like yourselves with those platforms where they're trying to share knowledge and entrepreneurship and business advice, you look at certain areas of that person.

Multazim Zia: 13:24

And one thing that people tend to look at I look at from me, as well as my qualifications obviously people don't know my age. Many people don't know my age. People don't know what I achieve. They'll see TEDx and I think boom, that word credibility hits their mind. Tedx, boom, we know. We know that's an authentic platform. We know that's credible. It's got a reputation behind it and it has some of the biggest speakers and the best share the idea shareers that are on the planet really to go and give their tech talks. So it's helped my business incredibly from a even a clinic point of view, but a personal branding point of view as well, with Multibath.

Jim James: 14:00

Right, oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, and congratulations on doing TEDx. Thank you as well. Let's just talk about the social media side of Multism, because you know your age group you know in the early 20s are consuming content differently to my age group I'm obviously my 50s now what has been your strategy in terms of content creation around your personal brand, because we can see quite a lot on your website. I'd love to hear your strategy behind that.

Multazim Zia: 14:32

Yeah. So strategy behind the Multibath, in particular this one, it again transitioned. It morphed into different areas of my life. So at first I just started off where I was just sharing physio. There would be content, but the more I grew in the wider coaching and public speaking, a platform to share those knowledge not the strategy behind that was a lot of it is currently at the moment as well, trial and error.

Multazim Zia: 14:56

So I didn't want to just keep following trends where you post, you know, silly, tip top silly videos, you know comedic type videos, because, to be honest, that's not the person and the image I was trying to portray. However, why I did try to do what I did want to portray was how to share the knowledge and experience I've got, but in a more engaging and, I guess, emotive way. That's what I wanted to basically do and that was my strategy. And if you obviously can see a bit of my video clips there and some social media posts there and it will try to mix elements of my life, but following the social media algorithm, because an algorithm is a massive thing nowadays, so that dictates half of your social media following engagement, reach platform. I think that's where a bit of a flaw comes in with the algorithms because obviously it favors the ones that have do have Celia TikToks and videos and posts and the ones that do pay for adverts all the time and stuff or have big, you know budgets for social media marketing and things. So it's actually my little trick is I try every single time with my posts and the things that seem to be working, I'll keep replicating, obviously, the common thing you do if you're not broken, you don't fix it.

Multazim Zia: 16:07

But that never has deterred me as an entrepreneur. I think this is a vital point as well. Even if it's not broken, you don't necessarily mean you're trying to fix something. You're just trying to innovate something, create something, do something different like that nobody else is really doing or sharing, and make it again back to you if you're not the person that's comedic, even if they're. For example, you don't want to make a Celia foolish video and social media is demanding it, don't make it. Who guys assume?

Jim James: 16:33

What has worked? When you say trying things, what has worked, for example, because I see you've got LinkedIn, you've got Instagram which one is working for you best?

Multazim Zia: 16:43

So the thing that's working for me best is Instagram. I think so, so I've worked a lot on LinkedIn and I try to do my best for the LinkedIn, but LinkedIn I don't feel like is the right target market for what I'm trying to hit First of all. Secondly, instagram works for one main reason is because a lot of my work that I've done, which is posting content such as reels, posts, motivational quotes they tend to work well on Instagram and the fact that you can split between different type of posts so you can do a real or you can do a normal post and you can put highlights up. Those are the things that help people see your page and find some sort of general relationship or interaction with it. Now, the opposite that happens on TikTok is that you can only really post videos. It doesn't really make sense to post pictures and you can't post pictures on TikTok, whereas with, again, instagram, you can show different areas of your life and Instagram has this nice thing where it has a bit of a strategy to it. So where on Instagram, the reels would always increase your reach, whereas your post and pictures and motivational quotes would always help with your likes and following and building a bit of a post repertoire and then you have your carousels, which is basically where you slide your posts and those are the things that will help people come to your page and learn more about you and increase your engagement as well.

Multazim Zia: 18:02

So it's quite a nice way of actually building what I want to build more for a overview of what my business is about on a social media platform, whereas Instagram TikTok sorry doesn't permit that. Really, I don't think YouTube is really good for things like podcasts and videos and short clips, but again, it's the more entertainment based, I think. And lastly, if you're looking at, linkedin is a professional network. People don't really want to see what you're about. They want to see how we can help each other grow, and I think that's where LinkedIn is perfect if you're networking, but it's quite difficult if you're just trying to build a brand. That's my main three platforms I use.

Jim James: 18:40

Multism, thank you for that analysis there. Now, coming up to a sort of semi final question what would be something that hasn't worked? So in terms of sorry, in terms of visibility, From a visibility point of view, this is all about getting noticed. Can you give us sort of one thing that you tried that you would recommend people don't do?

Multazim Zia: 19:00

Yes. So what I recommend people don't do is they're both linked together. There's two points, for the both link together is I pay for a lot of social media marketing, but then I also paid for marketing in the sense that I had a social media marketing team at one point, but I also had a. I try to employ celebrities to do my sophomore marketing for me.

Multazim Zia: 19:20

Now, I did all that without actually understanding what each portion or part of that would help or what element of my business. So I didn't know what would factor in, like what they were supposed to do, what they weren't supposed to do. And as a child I realized I spent a lot of money in paying for social media marketing teams and celebrities. I was spending a lot of money or close to spend a lot of money as well in trying to get noticed for a visibility point of view, and all it did was, I think, depleted my resources slightly as well as limiting all the actual opportunities I could have pursued had I just did some further background research into exactly what I was trying to target, because I didn't have any knowledge of what I was trying to target.

Jim James: 20:07

I was just hoping they'd be able to sort out, which obviously was in the truth, so yeah interesting, yes, and not giving the social media agency a tight enough brief right and then and then, the market is just too big Maltism. If there's one piece of advice to our fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs from Europe relatively short but still deep amount of experience what would it be?

Multazim Zia: 20:32

I would say, if it comes to anything that's important in your business is try to get the right and authentic exposure, and by that I mean going on platforms and it doesn't have to be huge platforms, but going on platforms that actually share the same values that you have or your business has, because that will tap into different parts and offer you different opportunities, just like I was offered with my network and connections as well.

Jim James: 20:58

Maltism's here in very the Northwest of England. Fantastic to have had your wisdom on the show today. If you want to find out more about you, where can they do that?

Multazim Zia: 21:08

So there's a few places, of course, in my website, themultipathcouk. You can contact me there directly. Either my team will direct it to me or you can answer myself. My social media platform is the multi path. That's my handle, and my other one is just Maltism's here, which is my name. Any of those, perfectly fine. Drop me an email message. Whatever. I'm more than happy to help you in whatever way possible.

Jim James: 21:30

Thank you, Maltism Zia, for coming on the show today, and what a lot we've got in to a very short amount of time. Thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Multazim Zia: 21:38

No, honestly, thank you so so much for having me. I feel like this is something I needed to share, basically more to my values.

Jim James: 21:44

Well and you've certainly done and demonstrated. You've got wonderful values and I'm sure you're going to have a massive future ahead of you. So thank you, Thank you for those of us that have really enjoyed this show. Do please share with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur and if you've enjoyed the show, please rate it. That really helps me and helps the players like Spotify to know this is a show worth listening to. And until we meet again, I encourage you to keep on communicating and once again, thank you for listening.