Jamal Ahmed was dubbed the king of Data Protection by the BBC . He is the author of the best-selling book The Easy Peasy Guide To The GDPR. And he is also the founder and host of the Privacy Pros Podcast which is the the #1 Privacy podcast and the podcast to launch, progress, and accelerate your career as a privacy pro.
Most people can’t find a dedicated audience on LinkedIn with a topic as new and complex as Data Privacy, but Jamal has made himself a champion of it. Through brand building and video marketing on LinkedIn Jamal has cracked the code.
Dive into the dynamic world of digital privacy and video marketing on the Cyberwhyze BrandGen Podcast, where we’re joined by Jamal Ahmed, dubbed the “King of Data Protection” by the BBC. As a best-selling author and the driving force behind the number one Privacy Pros Podcast, Jamal unpacks the intersections of privacy, technology, and personal branding in today’s digital landscape.
From founding Privacy Pros Academy to becoming a global privacy consultant, Jamal shares how leveraging video content and authentic storytelling has catapulted his LinkedIn presence, amassing a significant organic following. This episode reveals the transformative power of video marketing in not just reaching audiences but engaging them deeply, making complex topics like data protection accessible and relatable.
Jamal’s journey is a testament to the importance of privacy in our digital lives, exploring the ripple effects of AI and data privacy laws on both businesses and individuals. His insights offer a roadmap for marketers and thought leaders aiming to cut through the digital noise, establish trust, and build a lasting brand in the tech industry.
What You'll Learn:
- How Jamal Ahmed leveraged video content to build a top-tier personal brand and a substantial organic following on LinkedIn.
- The critical role of data protection and privacy in safeguarding democracy and personal autonomy against digital threats.
- Predictions on the future of privacy with the advancement of AI and the proliferation of data privacy regulations.
- Practical tips for transitioning from a career in security to one focused on privacy and data protection.
- How Jamal grew his LinkedIn following to 26,000 through strategic brand building
- Why video content has proven to be the most effective way of building trust with Jamal’s audience.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and be sure to hit the subscribe button!
Looking to build your cybersecurity brand and create more inbound demand without wasting time and money? Schedule time with us today.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Alano
Welcome to the cyberwhyze brand Gen podcast where we have in-depth conversations with business leaders in cyber, IT, and privacy, where we talk about growing your brand and creating demand for your business. I’m Alano. And today on the podcast, we have a highly regarded guest on the show. He was named the king of data protection by the BBC. He is the author of the bestselling book, The Easy Peasy guide to GDPR. And he is also the founder and host of the privacy Pros podcast, which is the number one privacy podcast and the podcast to launch progress and accelerate your career as a privacy Pro. Please welcome to the podcast, Jamal Ahmed.
Jamal
Thank you so much for having me. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.
Alano
It’s an honor to have you on the show.
Alano
I feel like I have a decent understanding of your background. You know, we’ve talked a few times. But if there’s anything that I kind of missed in that introduction, because I do know you’re operating two brands, so to speak with you two businesses, I let you give a little more of your background.
Jamal
Yeah, thank you. So I’m a global privacy consultant. That’s pretty much what we do at KZN privacy experts. And as part of that, one of the things that we found was the teams that clients had didn’t have the privacy education, the know-how. They might have had the legal degrees, the legal backgrounds, and the certification. But they didn’t actually know how to take that, and what to do with it. They knew what the requirements were about how to go and actually operationalize those was what was lacking. And so we have a lot of demand for people saying, can you make this easy peasy, can you help our staff to make sure they know what they need to do. And as consultants, we say the best way to add value is to make sure that we work ourselves out of a job. That’s how you know you’ve done a great job, right, you empower the client, you empower the team to do what they need to do. And so we started delivering really practical and pragmatic training. And some of the mentees, some of the interns that we were working in the case consultancy at the time, they really valued that there’s like we should offer this to more people. So we set up privacy pros Academy, which then takes that same pragmatic, tailored approach to training and privacy education. And we started offering it to other people. Now there’s a whole other story behind the privacy pros Academy, and the vision that trying to achieve and what we’re trying to do with the brand. And we can go into that a little bit later on. So we’ve got the training side, and we’ve got the consultancy side, and that kind of go really well together. So we can actually go in and look at the program help the clients with what they need. But then also make sure that their team or new recruits are empowered to actually then take over and make sure they’re protecting their reputation, making sure they’re meeting the expectations of the stakeholders and making a greater impact.
Alano
That’s awesome. And is there a particular industry or company size that you see yourself, you know, better equipped to serve, or is it more widespread?
Jamal
So earlier, we used to support the small and medium-sized companies, and we used to really go in and do a lot of the heavy lifting for them. But as we’ve grown, as we’ve matured, what we found is we actually work best with larger companies, let’s say 5000 employees plus, where they actually have teams already, or they have an existing data protection teams, or at least a person dedicated to that. And what we do really well is go and work with them to collaborate and support them and help them to actually develop that program, or come in and solve a specific problem that they might not be equipped to deal with. So that’s where we found is the best positioning for us. And to be able to help clients the most make the biggest difference is actually where they already have a dedicated team or dedicated person who is actually focusing on those, and then going and working with them and supporting them, rather than trying to go into a company where they don’t have the existing team or the existing structure there. And then trying to implement something because we can go and do the work. But when we leave, there’s no one really there equipped to know how to take that unless they actually bring on a full-time resource or a couple of full-time resources that we can work with, to really empower educate them. It kind of doesn’t help them to achieve what they want to achieve.
Alano
That makes sense. So the medium larger size businesses, and has there been a trend towards any particular vertical, whether it’s let’s say in healthcare, privacy could be a huge issue. Financial Services, or has it been across several verticals as well?
Jamal
A few years ago, it was mainly in the regulation space. So that would be working with companies in financial services, the charity sector, and other regulated industries. But we’re finding more and more we’re working in the tech space. So companies who are really looking to develop their apps, companies who are really looking to make the most of their websites who are doing crazy things with AI and amazing things too. So it’s more around the tech space now, that’s where the shift is moved to.
Alano
That’s awesome. Yeah, those are really great answers because I’m always curious, curious about you know, is there is there that niche that you’ve carved out besides privacy? How can we go you know, a mile deep, instead of just a mile wide, which a lot of security, IT, privacy providers probably do is they spread themselves too thin. It sounds like you have kind of carved out a niche in a lot of ways too. For the people that aren’t completely clear in the difference of let’s say privacy versus security where those spaces may converge. Can you kind of give us a layman’s kind of term breakdown of the differences between security and privacy? And maybe why do you lean more towards privacy?
Jamal
Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. Well, I don’t thank you for asking. So look, the way I see is data protection is like an umbrella. And underneath the umbrella, you have two sides, the security and the privacy. And the best way to perhaps explain this is to take you on a journey. So when you go home, how do you get through your front door, you have a set of keys, maybe you have two keys to get through the front door, right? What does that front door actually do, and when you put locks on it, that security, you don’t want people to come into your space, to destroy things, to take your belongings away, to mess up your environment, to take the things that are valuable to you. And you don’t want them to invade your territory either. So that security stopping people from coming in and taking things away, you’re stopping from coming in and causing damage. But at the same time, once you’ve shut the door, you go to your window and you do your blinds. What do you have blinds on the window? Why do you have different rooms in your house? And even in those rooms? Why do you have those? Why do you have a shower screen, it’s because you don’t want people to see the things that you have in the see the things that you’re getting up to. And that’s what privacy is all about is stopping people from seeing those things. So for example, let’s say you’ve got a house made of completely out of glass, it’s completely bulletproof. But everyone can see him, even when the planes are going up. If he’s a clear day, they can sit into your house. So although you would feel very secure that no one’s coming in, and no one can shoot you and you know, you’re very bulletproof, you still feel very uncomfortable, because everybody can see everything that you’re doing. And that doesn’t give you that sense of security, that peace, that tranquility that you need. So for us to be able to have data protection, we also we need that protection, to know that no one’s going to come in and take things away or destroy the things. But we also need to know that no one’s actually watching and spying and interfering with us and everything that we’re doing. So that’s what privacy is all about is making sure you have that confidentiality, making sure you have that freedom over your own space over your things. So only the people that you want to share those things with get to see what you’re doing with it. And that’s where privacy comes in. And the reason I geared more towards privacy rather than security is because when it comes to privacy, and you look at how we’re moving towards a more digital economy, the more you learn about somebody, the more damage you can do. And security doesn’t actually look at that. So for example, let’s say if I take your phone, yes, the security on that, which means I can’t get into it physically. But I can place a cookie from anywhere in the world, if you’ve landed on my website, or if you open my email. And with those cookies, I can actually start harvesting tons of information about you. And if I can actually see what you’re doing, how long you’re spending on certain websites, which apps you’re on how long you’re spending on WhatsApp, how many messages you’re sending, which groups you’re in who you’re sending those messages to how frequently you’re replying to some messages and how you’re not so frequent with others, I can build up a really good picture of you and really get to know you intimately. In fact, probably better than most of your friends and family members. And then I can use that information to manipulate your decisions to polarize your views. And I can start causing a lot a lot of I can have a huge impact and an influence on and shaping the way you think and the actions that you’ve taken the things that you do with you being completely oblivious to those things. So for me, privacy was so powerful, it goes way beyond security, keeping things safe and secure. Because when you look at what you can do now, and what you might be able to do with artificial super intelligence, a few years down the line. I was like I need to be part of the solution here and make sure that as we progress, and as technology progresses, we actually have our world class privacy professionals that are helping businesses do the right thing. But not just helping those businesses but empowering a team of people around the world where we’re all working together to make sure that you and I and all the people in the world. Every woman every man or every child has freedom over their personal information.
So the reason I move more towards privacy rather than security is because I could actually see where this is going. from a technological point of view, you can see more and more people are actually signing up to online platforms getting embedded in mind. More and more people have smartphones now they’re actually connected. And as we connect to our world as we connect to apps, and I was just consuming more online, that reveals a lot of information about us. The articles that we read the channels that we watch, the content that we consume, all of that reveals lots of information about you, which can be used to really get to have a intimate idea of who you are, how you think, the kinds of things that attracted you the kinds of things that repelled you. And if I did enough research on that, or if I took the data from that, I could really find a way of manipulating and influencing people towards making certain decisions. And a few years ago, you might remember that there was accusations of polarization of the US elections, where Russia was flooding with fake news. Now, they knew based on what people were liking on Facebook, how to actually influence them either to go and vote for the candidate that they wanted, or not to even bother turning up at all. So there’s two ways you win an election, right? One is to get more votes than the other person. Or the second way is to make sure the other person gets less votes than you by stopping the people who would otherwise support them go. So if you go in and throw this information, if you go in and talk about issues that you know, this person is going to be interested in show how that candidate is actually not for you, then it might just mean that you don’t even bother turning up at the ballot box. Right. So we can see that you can have a huge impact on democracy on society. As individuals, the choices that we make, the things that we choose to consume, all of those things have a huge impact on the way we live the experience that we have. And for me, it’s important. every woman, every man, and every child has freedom over the personal information. So they’re free to make those choices without undue influence. And what I wanted to do would be part of the solution as we move towards more evolving technology, as we move towards getting artificial superintelligence to make sure that individuals and companies alike are empowered to make sure that they’re doing those things ethically. So technological advancements are actually going to enhance our lifestyles, rather than taking us down a very dark place.
Alano
And if that isn’t already your your mission statement, I think it could be. That’s really awesome, right? Like having that vision and being able to carry that out. That’s I can see how that’s the driving force behind a lot of your efforts. Right, that’s huge. There’s going to be I think, a lot of developments in the artificial intelligence space, as we both seen, that are going to make privacy even more challenging, right, the algorithms are going to get smarter information is going to be fed to us in a way that’s so overwhelming and so addictive, that we can’t help but to consume it and it is going to shape our reality. I don’t deny that I’m guilty of that myself. When I talk to other people, and I’m like, bewildered that they’re not so aware of what I’m engaged with as if that’s everything around me. Right. That’s where privacy comes in, and kind of managing and monitoring how much of that we get served, and how invasive it can be it you know, we have to see we’re losing kind of autonomy or agent of our own reality, and living in these bubbles. Right. So that’s, that’s really interesting to hear. And when I’m kind of curious of what are some of the bigger developments now that you’re seeing in 2024? In this field with privacy in general, whether it’s, you know, related to AI, or any other technology that’s coming out that are going to really make a big impact this year?
Jamal
Yes. So there’s so much happening, the biggest shift that we see is different parts of the world is bringing in data privacy and data protection laws. So for example, in the US even you have more and more states bringing in their own set of data privacy laws, because they fill up a waiting for a federal law. In California, you saw you had the CCPA. But then now you’ve got the CPRA that gives more rights to individuals. And what we’re seeing is the enforcement of that was meant to be delayed. But there was a recent court ruling that said, hey, it was the will of the ballot. So therefore, we’re going to overturn the delay on enforcement and the agency can start enforcing straightaway. So we can see there’s a public shift towards people actually valuing privacy more, so much so that companies like Apple and Amazon, they stop telling you about the feature, they’ve stopped telling you about how much or what the value for money is in the tech. They’re saying, hey, buy our product, do business with us because we value your privacy. So we can see it as a public shift towards privacy. But then when you have generative AI, which is you know, creating things and you have all of this stuff going on in the media with Taylor Swift and the deep fakes the adult content, you can see It’s actually causing real concerns for people. And even from a justice point of view, we now are confused with evidence, whether it’s actually real footage, or whether it’s something that could have been fabricated. So if you’re sitting there as a criminal, you were like, Hey, I just need to say that we can rely on this because it was aI generated. If you’re on the law side of law enforcement, it really starts setting up lots of questions for how are we going to make sure that we investigate crimes, and we actually prosecute them. And then on the other side, we have all of these great potential of what can actually be possible with these things, you can create videos now from the prompts, like, I don’t know if you remember, the old prompt was Will Smith eating a pizza, and it looked like he was eating his fingers. But if you look at how much that’s advanced over the last couple of months, it’s amazing. And that’s over a couple of months, imagine what it’s going to look like by the end of this year. And so what we can do with that is fascinating. But what’s concerning is, how is my and your personal data when we interact online, when we go and read a post when we put something out there? How much of that is actually being vacuumed in to this AI in this machine learning? And how is it being used? What decisions are being made about us? What biases exist? And if we don’t know who has that information? How can we have control over whether we want them to share that with 50 other different platform, but if we want them to share that data with people in different parts of the world, and we have no idea what’s happening with that information, for example, this video now, once you put that out on YouTube, somebody could take that feed into one of the products. And then there could be a avatar that looks exactly like you sounds exactly like you, almost a clone of you. And you have no knowledge or ability to have any say over that. And so that’s what we need to think about is how do we make sure that there is that balance between AI and privacy, and that’s the challenges that we’re working with right now.
Alano
That’s, that’s really information. And it’s a little scary to write, I think it’s the a open AI Sora technology where you could do some pretty wild text to video prompts. There’s pros and cons to it, right? Think of it like on the marketing side, you know, we have to spend a bunch of money today on B roll on stock videography. And it’s never really that accurate, right, if if I tried to create a bunch of B roll to kind of highlight everything we’re talking about, it’s going to be kind of hit or miss, it’s not going to really fit it. But when you can go in, you could type, hey, you know, create some B roll from someone doing a manual penetration test versus an automated penetration test, in a dark room in Beijing, you know, with blue lights, it can recreate that verbatim. So it creates a lot of opportunity. But I think all the bad actors out there see the opportunity on their side to do you know, pretty malicious things with that content. So it is gonna have to be I think, very highly regulated hasn’t really come out yet. We’re seeing kind of like little teasers of it. But it’s both kind of scary, and then a little exciting. And we’ll have to see how it all kind of rolls out. Now. Yeah,
Jamal: I mean, look, the key point is, AI is going to change the way we do everything forever, whether we like it or not. So the key is to be part of the solution and say, Look, we understand these changes are coming. But how can I do my bit to make sure that I’m putting a valuable contribution into how society and how the future is shaped when it comes to actually AI and that’s one of the key challenges, that not just cybersecurity professionals, but also privacy professionals, all data protection professionals need to solve now is making sure that ethics are built in to the design of all of those new, exciting advancements that we see.
Alano
Absolutely, absolutely. And I’d one more question down the kind of lines of privacy before we get into talking about brand and marketing a little bit is if someone is in security today, and they’re thinking of going more down the path of privacy, because it’s really interesting to them. And there’s a lot of opportunity, obviously blossoming. How could someone insecurity maybe shift more towards privacy? And what would the best way to get started for them?
Jamal
That’s a great question. And we’re seeing more and more security professionals, people with background with a really strong technical background, getting more and more fascinated into coming into the privacy ops and the privacy engineering. So I think the first thing to do would be really to start looking at the OECD guidelines, have a look at the GDPR and really understand the basic principles of privacy. And if you look at different privacy laws around the world, you’ll see all of them are inspired by either GDPR. But the GDPR was actually inspired by the OECD. So with OECD guidelines, they’ll give you a really good understanding of the principles that you need to apply. And one of the principles that you find is confidentiality, integrity and availability. And that’s your CIA triad from your cybersecurity background. So you can add some real value and work with privacy lawyers, privacy engineers, privacy ops guys, to really bring what you already have to the table, add the privacy, regulatory know how on top and you can really position yourself as an expert, someone who’s actually goes beyond the privacy lawyers who know the legal stuff, but not the technical stuff. And that Guess what you can say that’s where you come in at the intersection of security and privacy ops. And that’s where you can carve out a niche. And we need more great people like that in the market today, there isn’t enough great people with that technical know how? Well
Alano
The benefit being that security people usually have a really strong work ethic, because they’re working around the clock, right? Sometimes they’re burnt out. And that’s why they’re looking at a new way to kind of you know, transition into a new space, but not letting go of all of that technical experience that they have as well, too. Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about what interested me initially in reaching out to you, which I was really intrigued by, which is the personal brand that you built for yourself, which is a brand you’ve built for your companies, and the following you’ve amassed on LinkedIn, and followings are equivalent on LinkedIn to like an email list that is been like opt in. People look past the fact that a LinkedIn following is an opt in, people are surrendering their anonymity and saying, Hey, Jamal, I’m John Smith, I have now followed you, you can now serve up content to me, it’s going to show up in my feed organically, you don’t have to pay for that. So I wanted to get a little bit of background first on what you define as a brand, right? Whether it’s your personal brand, or your company brand, and then how you built it from zero followers to where you’re at now, which is 26,000. Organic LinkedIn followers.
Jamal
Yeah, so to me, when I think of brands, what I think about is what do I want people to think about when they think of me or my personal brand. And that’s how people feel when they think about you. So that’s what branding means to me is how does somebody feel when they hear your name, when they think about your when they think about your company for talking about company brand. And I think that’s the most important thing. And regardless of who you speak to, what you’ll find is brands that build trust, other brands that are gonna lead the way in the future, and the brands that are going to stick around. So how do you create a brand that is actually trustworthy? And that’s what you’ll see, more and more people are focusing towards individuals, rather than what we saw in the 80s, and 90s. And maybe even the early 2000s, by just having a big name was enough. People are no longer interested in big names, especially with the Gen Z’s and the millennials, they’re more interested in the people behind the brand. Right. And so that’s why you see more and more companies, pushing the senior stakeholders, their boards to actually show up on LinkedIn to get that organic following, which is the way to build trust, because ultimately, people do business with people. You might do b2b, you might have b2b businesses, but no b2b entity has a life of its own, where it can actually go and do business with somebody else. It’s people that do people with business, sorry, it’s people that do people with other people. And they bring those two businesses together, right. So you have to be somebody that magnetically attracts the right kind of people so you can add value to them. And that’s what I think branding is all about focusing on a brand is creating assets, creating opportunities for people to gravitate towards you who would be a great fit, and to repel the ones that don’t, it’s just like magnets, right? You have the right ends, they attract that you have the wrong ends, they repel. And that’s exactly what you do. You want to attract the people that you can add value, and repel the people that wouldn’t you wouldn’t add value to or that would actually take away from you.
Alano
That’s a really great definition. I like the fact that you said trust, right at whether it’s it cybersecurity privacy, that is the hallmark term for this space, it’s trust. And the irony behind it all, is security, whether it’s it or privacy is really unique from a marketing perspective in the sense that it has been historically this space that has not marketed where they can wear, let’s say case studies on their sleeve, and where customers are willing to talk about the solutions that they’re using. And the bad actors like that, because they’re like, hey, people aren’t going to share the information that they’re using to stay secure. Because they’re afraid of, you know, people becoming aware of that. So there hasn’t really been great communication within these industries about what’s working and what’s not people keep it under wraps. And secondly, like you said, it’s usually been this, Hey, we’re the C suite. We’re engineers, we’re product people, we have all this technical knowledge that the market would benefit from hearing, but then it’s passed off to marketing, who may not have as much of a technical background to communicate at all. And we’re saying here at cyberwhyze, take the C suite, whether it’s your CEO, head of sales, head of product, get him on video, and we’ve got companies like Lenovo putting their head of product or head of sales for a particular business unit to get on camera. And um, say let’s be human, let’s vlog, right. Let’s get that on YouTube. Let’s do some cross, you know, social retargeting, and people appreciate that human element more than anything else. Right. And, you know, that definition which I used to think brand was very esoteric. It’s hard to give a specific, you know, there’s there’s not a hard science to it. Really, we’ve kind of looked at it as three core pillars and I’ve I stole this from Chris doe, who’s a really phenomenal guy and branding space. A brand is how you look how you sound, and how you position. And a lot of people focus on the how you look, the logo. And they could sometimes get the sound like the voice tone for the brand. But then the positioning is usually lost, and they start stealing value props from everybody else. And I can tell you know, in this conversation and just following your brand, that you have figured out your positioning, your messaging, your mission, and that is that third core pillar of a brand that’s essential to really kind of, you know, get out there and to get people to trust you. Like I said, the other and last question I had really had in regards to how you have got traction online after you have built this following. How do you now see leads coming in? Has it changed from the traditional? Hey, you go to our website, we ran an ad. And now you’re gonna fill out a form, I have to imagine having the brand that you have people are knocking on your door in all different types of ways. So how do you see business start to materialize? How do leads kind of come in for you? Yeah,
Jamal
it’s been an actual game changer. The more trust you build, the more value you create, the more people know that you actually know your stuff, and they resonate with you, the easier all of those things become right? And so I remember when I first started my career with consultancy, I was knocking on doors saying, Hey, we can help you. And we can even help you for free and everyone’s like, go away. Who are you? Why should we even listen to you? Right? So I couldn’t even give away my services for free. In the early days, people were like, well, who are you? Why should we even listen to you like you don’t know nothing. We’re not interested go away. And so they would go for a big brand, right? They would go for a big four companies, they were going to work with us. But the more I started working on my brand, the more I started sharing valuable information, my unique approach while I’m doing why I’m doing those things, the more it’s easier it’s become to actually do business. In fact, it’s got to a point now where a lot of the business is actually inbound. One of the things that you’ll notice is none of my brands have actually ever paid any money in paid advertising. Right we haven’t needed to so far is because we’ve been very busy with the inbound leads and the kind of organic conversations that we’re having. And that’s all driven by that trust. That’s all driven by people saying, Hey, I resonate with you, I want to work with you want to find out a little bit more about what you do what you said was really interesting, we’re looking for someone to come and help us. Can you help us? Can you come on? Do you know somebody who could. So it’s a complete game changer when it comes to actually creating those relationships that then lead to an exchange of values, where you can go and serve somebody and provide some value or they serve you. But what’s really been the catalyst, if you will, is other people recognize the value that you bring, and they say, Hey, how would you like to come and speak our conference, we’ll pay for all of your flights, we pay for all of your hotels, all we want you to do is come and engage our audience and talk about this topic for an hour or two. And so that puts you in front of lots of people. And the moment you get in front of a stage, the moment someone puts a microphone in your hand, for whatever reason, whoever’s in the audience, your authority shoots higher. And so these opportunities now were in the past, I might have, you know, really had strong desires and chase doors in the head for an opportunity just to get a line in an article. Now you see people inbox every single week with an opportunity for something. And that was got to the stage where I have to say no to some things, to focus on the ones that are actually going to help me in line with the mission, the vision, the purpose, the audience that we want to actually talk to. So that in itself is the catalyst that then drives all of the other things. So the more speaking engagements that you do, the more public appearances that you have, the wider audience you reach out to. And if something resonates with you something clicks, they then come and have a look at your LinkedIn profile or your website. And then when they come there, what are they going to find? If like most people, they just see you reposting generic stuff. And every two years you’re celebrating you got a promotion, or you got some kind of certification that is gonna make you stand out. But if they come and see, oh, wow, this guy’s been all of these media interviews. He’s got this many people following him. But look, he’s creating valuable content and actually resonate with what he’s saying. And I resonate with some of the stories and you know why, and when it comes to the technical stuff, that’s also quite interesting, then it makes you stand out, it puts you in a market of one where you don’t actually have any competition. You have very little competition. And one of the things that one of my mentors, talks about Daniel Priestley, he talks about, look, there’s functionality and there’s vitality. And that’s the difference between having a compelling brand and not compelling brand. Let’s say for example, buying a car, every car does the same thing. Right? It gets you from A to B it functions, but why do some people who could buy a let’s say a NASA and for $20,000 Why would they go and spend to 10 times the amount on a Rolls Royce, it’s because of the branding the positioning is because of the story that it says it’s because of the way people that Rolls Royce carry themselves out and what they say, and what the customers say about them, you get that status, right. So once the both functional, they both do the things that they need, you have to do, but one of them breathes life into that journey. One of them breathe life into what it is that you’re doing. Now, let’s bring that back into data privacy and data security. Most security companies do very similar things is designed to protect the bad guys and keep them out or to detect when the bad guys are in. And to make sure that you stop them doing whatever damage when they are in. That’s the basics of security, right? And there’s lots of companies that do that. But why would I choose one company over another, the functionality is very similar, you can’t compare them on functionality. If you start comparing on functionality, it always becomes who’s the cheapest. So you could be the company that’s, you know, scraping the profit margins and just trying to do cheap business. Or you could be the company who actually breathed vitality into what you do, who gets people excited about the opportunity to work with you, because they buy into your story because they buy into your mission, your vision, your purpose. And they can see that, hey, there’s some great people behind this brand. Let’s work with them. Let’s support them, let’s go on the journey with them. Because that’s what people get excited about. They can see you’re going somewhere, they’re excited about getting on that journey with you. And I think that’s probably been one of the most powerful things is a lot of people know some of the stories behind what’s driving me. We don’t really have time to go into that today. But I lost three children. I had to bury three children. By the time I buried my third child, my my life was over like it was darkness, it was despair. And the only way I got out of that was through doing some kind of charity work, which really helped me. But I didn’t want to go into the charity sector, I still want to do philanthropic work, but I wanted to have an impact. So when I go and meet my children in the hereafter in the afterlife, when they meet other people, I can tell them how I’ve had a massive impact on the world, and how I enjoy that every woman, every child, and every man on the planet now enjoys freedom over the person information in their legacy to their day. So that’s how I started off it was I was compelled to make changes. Because helping people took me out of my disruptive cycle. And everything that I did as a legacy to them gave me peace, he helped me to recover, it helped me to rebuild. And then I was blessed with my daughter who’s No, it’s got to be two in a few days time. Amy, right. And now it’s all about her. So where is she going to go in the world, and what’s going to happen with her information I want her to be to have the freedom to say she can go anywhere, and that she knows she’s going to be safe, not just safe from a protection point of view, physically, but also safe from a privacy point of view that her information, the choices that she makes, the things that she consumes aren’t going to be used in a way to influence her, or to be used against how to manipulate her. And so I have such passion about making sure that I’m actually working towards that. And I realize I can’t do that by myself with the consultancy. It’s just a drop in the ocean, it doesn’t matter if I work with meta, and the 6 million users they have across the world or whatever it might be, it’s still a drop in the ocean. And what I can do though, is I can create a community of world class professionals who are empowered to be the best in the game. And if we bring bring together enough people, we will have world class privacy professionals in every company, every government organization across the planet. And together, we will actually create that vision where we have a world where every woman, every man and every child enjoy freedom over their personal information.
Alano
Absolutely. And I mean, you just hit on a very big thing right there in terms of being willing to be vulnerable. To an extent, people don’t realize that there is a convergence between the human behind the professional, and then sharing and being vulnerable at times there is a degree by which everybody should do that. Because that’s where people get to know you truly and either relate to you if they’d been through a similar situation. And too often people draw a line in the sand into like, well, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m not going to share certain kinds of information. We’re not saying turn it into tick tock. But being willing to put yourself out there much like you would if you’re at a trade show and grabbing a drink with someone, that’s where the relationships are built. And that’s the power behind a lot of what we’re doing. And we’ve talked about which is the video content. When people are on a brand’s website, they’re reading static content and text, the message isn’t getting conveyed the same it would in person. So the next closest thing you could do is to do it through video where they can hear your story, see the whites in your eyes and really feel that conviction in hearing what it what it is you’re talking about. Trust is built so much quicker going down that path. With that said Jamal, I wanted to I wanted to wrap it up by asking whether you go ahead and get
Jamal
a lot out because you see Powerful and I don’t think enough people appreciate it right. Let’s talk about that functionallity and vitality back for a minute. So when you’re writing something, when you’re sharing something technical, when you’re sharing a how to guide, a seven step checklist, yes, it’s useful. But just reading those words isn’t materially different from anybody else’s or any of your competitors. But the moment you go on video, then people actually get a sense of how you hold yourself, the tonality that you use, how you come across, and people actually connect, because we’re emotional beings, you’re breathing vitality now into that same seven step checklist, but you’re putting your own take to it. And so people are like, you know, I like the way you describe those things. Well, I like the way you don’t use those complicated words, and you make it easy, because, you know, we’ve got about 10,000 people, and we just need somebody to come and break things down. So we can actually make sure that, you know, we were much more comfortable that we’re actually protected from the risks that we’re trying to protect against. And you give people an opportunity to get to know you and your brand and breathe that vitality in, because they’re going to make a choice anyway. Why would they choose you over somebody else, because you stand out, you stick out you resonate with them. And at the same time, you want to push away people who you don’t want to do business with, because those are the things that become the ones that drain all of your energy away from moving towards the goal that you’ve set out for yourself.
Alano
That’s such a good point. And I tell people who are a little apprehensive and you know, intimidated to maybe get on video, you don’t need a fancy studio, you could do it from your phone. But when people are more concerned about well, is the market going to receive my message? Well, are people gonna like me, I tell everyone, even if 99% of the market is completely turned off by you. But there’s a 1% that likes you. And there are loyal community or loyal following even point 1% The market, so abound, that’s more than enough opportunity. And maybe that means that you’re being a little polarizing, in some cases to get your message across. But sometimes you really need to shake people in the privacy space in the security space to get them to wake up. And so I just say, assume that if you’re true to yourself, and you’re honest, and you’re trying to deliver value, you’re not going to turn off more people than you actually get interested in is what it is that you’re talking about. And you do that very well, you demonstrate that well. And that’s why it’s fun collaborating with you with content, because you put yourself out there. Right. So that said, I wanted to kind of wrap it up and let people get the opportunity to reach out to you if there’s something that you can help them with. So whether it’s someone that may be insecurity or just get into privacy as a first leg of their career, or a business looking for a consultant, what’s the best way to get in touch with you, Jamal?
Jamal
The best way to get in touch with me is reach out to me on my LinkedIn profile. Have a look at some of the things I have to say. And if that resonates with you, then just drop me a DM or just click on one of my links and let’s have a chat.
Alano
Awesome. Well guys, thanks for joining us on our episode with Jamal Ahmed today. Leave a comment below to let us know what you learned or any insights you found interesting. And share this with a colleague if you found it valuable. And do me a favor, subscribe to our show to keep connected and to get notified for more information that can help your career and your company. See you in the next episode.
