IAM693- Founder Helps Others Create Unforgettable Brands

Sabah Ali is the Founder of Unforgettable by Sabah, she is an entrepreneur, 2 time TEDx speaker, consultant, best-selling author, and on a mission to help others create unforgettable brands people recognize. Known for her branding work, she has helped passionate business owners clarify their message and story to attract more clients and gain authority through organic marketing strategies. Sabah’s work has been featured in publications such as NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX News.

• CEO Hack: My nighttime and morning routine – meditation, affirmations, writing down my goals reading, journaling
• CEO Nugget: Clarity comes from action not thought
• CEO Defined: Leading the life I want to live

Website: http://sabahali.com/

https://sabahaliconsulting.com/home

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesabahali/

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:30.10] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Saba Ali of Unforgettable by Saba. Saba, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:39.50] – Sabah Ali

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so stoked.

[00:00:42.79] – Gresham Harkless

Definitely stoked as well too, and I think we will cover some really awesome things. But before we kinda jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Saba so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Saba is the founder of Unforgettable by Saba. She is an entrepreneur, two-time TEDx speaker, consultant, best-selling author, and on a mission to help others create unforgettable brands people recognize. Known for her branding work, she has helped passionate business owners clarify their message and story to attract more clients and gain authority through organic marketing strategies. Saba's work has been featured in publications such as NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Saba, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:21.09] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. I am ready. It's

[00:01:22.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to, I guess, kinda start more in the beginning. So I wanted to hear what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with the business.

[00:01:32.29] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. For sure. So, oh, that goes way, way back. But, I'll kinda start by, like, growing up. So growing up, I was always interested in entrepreneurship, but person, super introverted. So I still am introverted, but, like, shy from, like, not being able to even, you know, talk to people and not speak on stage. None of that at all whatsoever. Mhmm. So I grew up shy. And, actually, throughout high school, high school is kind of, like, the lowest point in my life. The reason why I share this story is because there was a lot of, like, pain and trauma I had to get over and get through in order to get to where I am right now. So in high school, I was in a terrible four-year toxic relationship from the ages of fourteen to eighteen.

[00:02:21.69] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:02:22.09] – Sabah Ali

And during that time too, my mom unexpectedly passed away when I was fifteen. And so with the combination of being in that bad relationship and losing my mom, you know, you can imagine my confidence pretty much just, like, fell flat on the ground, and I didn't have a vision or self-esteem or an ambition to do anything successful in my life. So luckily, when I graduated high school, I did get out of that toxic relationship and I went to college. And then, of course, you know, I  had so much freedom to do whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, in my first year of college, I kind of went down the route of not going to classes, and hanging around with people partying. So I was still really lost, and I didn't know, you know, what I wanted to do. And it wasn't until I was nineteen, I was a sophomore now in college, and I actually went to listen to a speaker for extra credit in one of my classes. And  I hated speakers. I hated to listen to them. I just thought they were always so boring. But when this speaker came on and started to share his story, and his journey, he was also an entrepreneur.

I instantly got hooked. And he was looking for interns for an event that he was throwing in Iowa, which is where I was located at the time. So long story short, I interned with his company. He exposed me to his entire world of entrepreneurship, and that's when I got into sharing my story and documenting everything I was doing throughout college, working with my mentor, going into writing my book, and people started to notice. So pretty much what happened was people started to come to me asking for help and how do you create content, how are you branding yourself, how are you doing videos, you know, how are you putting yourself out there? So now it's been it'll be two years, you know, this upcoming since I graduated college. And, yeah, since then, I've been working with business owners, helping them clarify their message, and their branding so they can get a lot more clients for what they're doing.

[00:04:19.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And, obviously, sorry to hear about that, you know, that period, when you were younger. But I think that you being able to kinda get through that and then, of course, being able to kind of, be around, you know, that entrepreneur that that, you know, showed you so many different opportunities. I think so many times we don't realize what we can do or even what's available to us. But when we have those experiences, those people that are in our lives, it starts to open up so much to us and it starts to, you know, build our confidence, build our relationships in everything that we're doing. Mhmm.

[00:04:49.50] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. Yeah. Completely agree. I mean, if it wasn't honestly if it wasn't for my mentor that coincidentally, you know, I ran into or I went to go listen to him speak, I probably would not be doing anything that I'm doing right now.

[00:05:02.69] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's it's so, crazy kinda how the world kinda works in a way to kinda direct you exactly where you should be. So, I know you focus a lot on, you know, branding and helping people find their voice and how best to kind of speak to that. Could you take us through a little bit? Tell us a little bit more about that and also, like, how that experience goes working with you.

[00:05:23.10] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. So when it comes to the word like, the term branding, it's so broad. You know, first of all, a lot of people think branding is just the external, like the colors, the website, the logo, the tagline, and how you visually represent yourself, which it is. You know, that's a portion of branding, but the real core branding is how you identify your business or your brand depending on which one you're focusing on to create that sort of connection with your consumer that develops a feeling and experience. So branding is all about, like, the feeling and the experience that you take your consumer on.

Right? So especially nowadays, you know, people are just leading with their product or their service, so they're jumping straight to marketing or sales. They're skipping the entire branding portion of it all. So, you know, when I work with my clients, when people go through that aspect, it's more so asking yourself and your business a series of questions and how you want to show up in your clients and your audience's eyes. So it's a lot about, you know, identifying what your identity is, so what your values, beliefs, and missions that you stand for, going through and understanding how your audience is perceiving you right now because odds are it's not in sync with the identity you have created for yourself or if you haven't even created an identity yet. And then it's going into positioning.

So how are you showing up either in the online space, offline, or wherever your business is actually at? So, you know, those are, like, the three core fundamentals of branding. Having a good brand is identity, knowing how you're being perceived, and then positioning. So, you know, incorporating those different types of elements in your brand really does create not just, you know, hey, buy my product, but this is a long-term relationship that I'm building with my clients.

[00:07:28.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense, and I appreciate you for speaking to the feelings and the experience because I think as you said, you know, so eloquently, I think so many times people kind of gloss over that factor. They jump to, oh, what colors are we gonna have over my logo? Or how is my website gonna be designed? Kinda forgetting that feeling and experience as that North Star and how it manifests itself in those three different aspects that you talked about. And or the exercise, I guess, you go through to make sure that you're able to to have that be in alignment with what you wanted to be in in in a deeper even deeper level who you are.

[00:07:59.39] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I even I even messed up on this in the beginning too because in the beginning, when I first got into my business, I didn't specifically focus just on branding. I was kinda just doing social media management for businesses. Mhmm. But I remember focusing on myself, like, oh, I need to have, like, the perfect website. I need to have, like, my colors in order. And what happens is a lot of people kinda get stuck on just that phase of making everything perfect Mhmm. Which is pulling and resisting them from actually taking action to get clients. Mhmm. So, you know, if you understand what your offer is, what your message is, what your package is, then you can actually go out and serve it first, and then, you know, clean up and do, like, the colors and the logo and everything to make sure everything is cohesive.

[00:08:43.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And then I guess the saying is kinda like imperfect action, and sometimes you don't have to have it there. But, you know, I usually always say, like, if I'm working on something and something isn't right where I want it to be, I'll just call, like, the one-point o version or something like that just so that people know, you know, there's more to come, you know, for everything that you're doing. But I appreciate you for, again, kinda highlighting that aspect that I think so many times too, we can sometimes get caught up in the color or the way something looks, and that could be us kind of not doing the essential work that we need to do. So we could be spending time there because we don't necessarily wanna do that essential work that'll help us build our business and move it forward.

[00:09:22.00] – Sabah Ali

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:09:23.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and it could be for yourself your business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:09:35.29] – Sabah Ali

So me personally or what I would tell, like, my clients to do?

[00:09:39.60] – Gresham Harkless

You personally first.

[00:09:41.20] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. So personally, the main thing that sets me apart is my empathy towards my clients and my business. So that's one thing that I struggled with a lot because, you know, as I was growing and as I was working with coaches and mentors and as I was looking and studying successful people, I always thought empathy was like a weakness, and I didn't feel what they're going through. So when I did do sales calls and when I was writing copy for my posts, I could include that emotion with it, so it's easier for me to also attract my ideal clients. So for me, like, you know, I've had people tell me, like, oh, you shouldn't show up that way.

Like, I'm I'm very front end on my business. So it's all about, like, my brand. That's how I attract people. So, you know, I will be posting about my personal life, me, like, having fun on the weekends, like, just doing stuff that maybe not the typical business owner would do, but that's how I built up my brand and my business. So I think that the main thing that sets me apart and makes me unique is I am not afraid to be vulnerable and allow my clients to do that as well.

[00:11:01.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So that could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:11:13.29] – Sabah Ali

Oh, definitely my routine. I have a really good nighttime and morning routine, but it pretty much includes, like, my six non-negotiables. And every single day, I do this, and it fits somewhere in my morning or my nighttime routine. So it's I meditate every single day. I visualize. I do my affirmations. I write down my goals. I journal and I read. So every single day, I have to do these things, like, no matter what. Like, I'm not going to bed without doing them, and you can see how none of those things have anything to do with my business. But me doing those performs a lot better and effectively in my business.

[00:11:56.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client. It could be around branding, personal brand, or this might be something you would even tell your younger business self.

[00:12:10.50] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. So I say this a lot, and I tell my clients this repeatedly. Clarity comes from action, not thought. Mhmm. So there's so many times we, you know, we consume content, we take it in, and we we think about it. Like, okay, what, like, what do we need to do right now? We need to make things perfect before we actually take action. But what happens is, you know, we just sit there and we overanalyze, we overthink. And once again, I used to do this all the time. But, you know, once you take that first step, then you'll figure out, okay, this worked, this doesn't. Now let me take the next step.

So if you sit there in your thoughts, you're not moving at all, so you're gonna continue to sit there in your thoughts. But there will only be, like, a right and a wrong and a path once you take that first step. So even if you don't know what to do at all whatsoever, like, the first thing to do is, like, write down your thoughts. Like, that's still taking action. And then from there, maybe you will see, okay. I wanna start my own business. How do I do that? Let me first actually go to YouTube and watch some videos. Maybe from there, you'll get an idea and then, you know, figure out the next steps you need to take. But, yeah, like, clarity comes from action, not thought. Like, yes, you need to think about where you want to go, but if you just sit there for too long, it's not gonna go anywhere.

[00:13:24.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have a different quote-unquote.

[00:13:36.20] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. The definition of being a CEO for me is pretty much living my life how I want it to be. Like, I don't believe you have to have, like, ten or twenty or a hundred employees under you to be a CEO. Like, for me, I have VAs and assistants. Like, I do have a small team, but, like, I'm the one who shows up in my business. Will I build my team out eventually? Probably. But my goal isn't to build, like, a hundred-member team. Like, I don't wanna build a gigantic business. I wanna get to a point where I'm helping people that I love to serve, and I can, you know, have the time and freedom to spend time with my family. And eventually, you know, when I do have my own family spend time with, like, my kids and my husband and everything. So for me, being a CEO is more like leading the life that I want to live.

[00:14:31.00] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that, and I appreciate that perspective and that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

[00:14:46.39] – Sabah Ali

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So if anyone wants to connect with me, I'm very active on social media. So my Instagram is at the Saba Ali. You can also find me on Facebook just under my first and last name, Saba Ali. If you do wanna connect with me more on, like, a professional level, you can contact me through my website. So once again, just my first and last name dot com, Sabolie dot com. And I think the last thing that I just wanna leave people with, it's the quote that's actually on the back of my book and something that I live by to this day, is know you can do anything in life.

No one is going to stop you besides yourself. So, you know, you can tell and look at the external, like, oh, I can't do this because, but it's mainly, like, it's a reflection of you. Right? So once you understand that you can be building that business or quitting that job or marrying that person that you want to, you like, it all just comes down to the actions that you take. So, yeah, that's it. I love to connect with people, and I'm pretty responsive. So, yeah, if you message me on any social media platform, I will be more than happy to connect with you.

[00:15:51.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I appreciate that, Salwa. And we will have the links and information in the show notes. But, I love the quote on the back of your book and that reminder as well too because I think so many times I say, like, you know, we're kind of the artist of our lives, of our business, and you get to paint the picture and the portrait of whatever you hope to see, but you take the action to do that, not, you know, fighting with these external factors that sometimes can't we think can influence us more than in what reality it can. So I appreciate you for echoing that as well too and reminding us of that, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:21.00] – Sabah Ali

Thank you so much for having me.

[00:16:23.50] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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