Event review: Grow Your Business and Your Personal Brand

The room was buzzing with anticipation as international students, executives, freelancers, entrepreneurs and CEOs alike waited for Tim to share his insights into using LinkedIn to build real-world, local networks with relevant professionals.

ESEI students and Barcelona professionals headed to the Movistar Centre in Placa Catalunya this week to watch Tim Cakir’s talk titled Tracking N Hacking: Grow Your Business and Your Personal Brand. The talk was part of ESEI’s Guest Speaker series and proved a popular topic, with around 50 attendees in total.

Tim Cakir’s talk

Tim considers himself to be a global citizen – having been born in Turkey, lived in UK, the United States, and now Spain. After spending nearly a decade in London, working as a music producer and promoter, he stepped into the world of growth marketing.

When he finally settled on Barcelona as a place to live, he needed to start from zero and build a network of relevant local connections. Through a clever combination of bot-assisted connection requests and messages on LinkedIn, Tim was able to set up several hundred coffee and lunch dates. He spent his first few months meeting and greeting, wining and dining executives and founders in the local startup and business scene.

And it paid off – Tim started working as a consultant for several startups and has recently launched his new “full stack” growth agency Tracking N Hacking.

After speaking about building a personal brand, Tim went on to give his insights into developing a growth mindset and leaving behind the fear of failure most of us have. His takeaways were to experiment more and to fail faster – so that learning and success come quicker. A message I think we can all agree with.

What the attendees had to say

Sara Armoul told us why she enjoyed Tim’s talk so much.

“Tim’s extensive knowledge about growth hacking was very fascinating,” she said. “Also, what surprised me the most were the insights he provided the audience with regarding several programmes that can boost a startup or company’s performance.”

She went on to say, “Talks like this can benefit MBA students as they can direct those who already have the business mindset, but lack insights and guidance.”

“Experts like Tim can not only share their knowledge, but also give the audience insights that can be of great value to the audience. I encourage all MBA students to attend more events like this because they can also network and meet people that can help them develop their ideas and transform it into real business,” she continued.

Trevor Keeney told us about his experience.

“Coming as someone who doesn’t have much of a background in business, I found there was quite a bit of interesting information – for example:  learning how to properly use LinkedIn for networking purposes, how he was able to communicate with thousands of employers/contacts, and how many opportunities that opened for him,” he said.

“It was also very intriguing the way he was able to use his prior knowledge of networking and his current skills in Hacking and Tracking, to reach out to many new individuals based on their social networking interests.”

Trevor went on to tell us why he thinks ESEI’s guest speaker sessions can be so valuable for people.

“Events like these can be beneficial to many different people because as technology improves and times change, so does the way business functions. I recommend that any professional or student attend events like this because there are always new skills out there to be taught, new perspectives to be seen, as well as potential collaboration opportunities to take advantage of.”

The future of learning

We are very excited to be able to offer our students and community the chance to participate in events like this. Our expert speakers come from all professions and backgrounds, offering a deeper insight into their fields and in the local business scene – something we can all learn from. And the events also provide valuable networking opportunities for students and professionals alike.
Not only can our students get career advice from people who work in their areas of interest, but they can also find interesting internship positions or even future employers.

Are you interested in attending the next ESEI Guest Speaker Session? Follow us on Facebook for updates or contact us now  to find out more about the programme.