TRANSCRIPT: Williams Bill Jr.

Hendrik: [00:00:00] So tell me Williams, what’s new with you. Since last we spoke I see you, you are regularly publishing podcast episodes.

Tell me what’s, what’s happening in your part of the world?

Williams: For last five months now, this year and late last year, I’ve been taking lots of courses; IT related stuff and I found I really enjoyed doing video, podcasts and stuff.

So I’ve been really working on improving the quality of the episodes we put out.

We are almost at episode 70 now.

So I do that every Friday.

Talk about different stuff really.

I enjoy IT and I’ve been focusing on, on the courses I’ve been taking it related to my work in it are almost done.

And by September, I’m gonna be a certified software engineer.

Okay. But that’s, that’s what I’ve been up to the last 6, 6, 7 months.

Hendrik: Role upskilling yourself.

That’s a, that’s a great way to  spend your time.

Williams: Yeah, it’s I really enjoy IT.

So and with the, with AI and all this new stuff coming out, I wanna make sure I, I stay on top of things.

So I don’t get left behind.

Hendrik: So where did you start out?

Didn’t you start out as a VA or am I mistaken when I say that?

Williams: Oh yeah.

When I dropped out three years ago.

I started out as a VA but I found that I ended up doing IT stuff because my clients, just because  I can’t ignore when someone is doing some, setting up something wrongly.

So I ended up doing IT stuff for free, including my VA work. So I thought, I just thought I’d change the whole scope of the business because for me, IT doesn’t feel like work and I really enjoy it.

So it’s gonna be, something I could like with, with knowing how hard business can be, you wanna be in something that you really enjoy doing.

That way it doesn’t, it kind of reduces the, the stress that comes with it.

Hendrik: I think. [00:02:00]

So, so what exactly are you going to, to do then, using all these new skills and, and learnings that you’ve, you’ve acquired?

What’s, how is your business pivoting?

Williams: We are looking now,  I have three people joining me in the business.

Before it was just me and now we are looking to go into different businesses and just what we are doing before buying larger scale and kind of off par IT support and form of packages.

So now Clients don’t just work with me one-on-one.

Whatever they need can be put into a package that they can subscribe to if they need.

Do they need to look at their systems that they use?

Because some people don’t really know if they’re using the right systems.

We come in, we look at it, and then we also have some partnerships coming up.

Recently just announced yesterday I partnered with the company that does process streamlining.

And so what, what I’m gonna be doing with that company is to help business streamline their processes and bring in the IT to make sure processes set up works.

So, yeah, that’s that’s what we’re looking at now, so.

Hendrik: So is this both hardware and software or is, or is it just one or the other?

Williams: It’s primary software.

I can do consulting on hardware, but I can’t be physically there to set it up.

But I can say, Hey, why you need to do this.

This is why you need hardware wise, and this is the best places you can get that from.

But I can’t be there physically to set it up. I can only guide because it’s all virtual.

Hendrik: Hmm. But it’s, it’s more the software side that you’re specializing in.

What, what kind of software are you, are you and what sort of clients are you looking,

Williams: Software wise?

Anything that has to do with work as strong as is not special.

Stuff like finance software, but, but anything that has to do with the day-to-day work, for people that work in teams, giving access to the company’s login.

And stuff like that.

 And just setting up a new, let’s say someone, you hire someone new, setting them up in your system and your CRM.

Just things you need to do, your daily work, automations and all that.

Hendrik: Yeah, I was, I was listening to a podcast the other day about businesses and they say We run several businesses.

We run this business for now that needs to make money today so we could eat tonight.

And we’re also running a future business where we, where we automate things and, and get ourselves outta the picture.

Because I mean, you know, if, if, if you’re gone and the business doesn’t work, there’s something wrong with your business.

So there are certain things you can automate.

And I think that’s where a lot of small businesses will, will need help that you think where we are just setting up, for instance, Mailer Lite to, to do automated email campaigns and so on.

And, and we’ve just been learning as we go along.

So is that the kind of thing that you, that you help your clients?

Williams: Yeah, that’s what I do.

Just like, this is how I work, right?

It’s just I set up if, if I start working with the business, because I like to start when they’re starting.

If I start with them when they start out, which is the best case.

But whenever I start anywhere, I try to get them to a point where they can smoothly work every day with the right IT tools, especially in software.

So when I get ’em to that point where now they don’t have they don’t have to worry about,

Hey, what do I use and all that.

Then if they’re gonna do new projects like, or what you said in middle, like sending out emails to customers and all that, we set that up.

We see how they use it. If they need automations for the emails and all that, we set it up as it goes.

So it’s just getting you to that point where in your business, you don’t have to worry about the IT, you just worry about doing the business.

So if you wanna set up something new, you just say, Hey Bill, I wanna do this.

Can you set things up for me to do that?

I’ll be like, yeah. And then if you say, if I notice that there’s something in your business as I work with you that you keep repeating that can be automated, then I come in.

As an IT guy and I automate it, so you don’t have to spend time worrying about anything IT related.

All you have to do is just  do the business and contact Bill whenever you, you have any it related stuff you wanna about?

Hendrik:  Yeah. And, and the people on your team, what, what do they do in your business?

Williams: They just make, they just there to ensure that we can save more clients because, and also I don’t enjoy doing the marketing side of things, so someone else has to handle all of that stuff.

Hendrik: So tell me a little bit about the podcast.

You say you’ve got so many episodes already.

How, how’s it been going?

What, what are the challenges and what are rewards you getting from it?

Williams: I think the challenges is just finding getting most, most people listen to it, don’t replay.

So I think the, the challenge there is getting people to catch it live.

So I think the work days actually marketing it, marketing it, and then having someone to cut this long episode into short clips that can be put elsewhere, which is something I’ve not been able to do cause I’ve been actually focusing on the  business.

And the podcast is just something I like, I do for fun.

So I’ve not really thought about it, but now that I’m really enjoying it, I think the kind of conversations we are having on the podcast, I think it’s gonna be really valuable for people to listen to.

And so I think getting it to more viewers to see this content, I think yeah, that’s the, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.

Hendrik: Well, of course, you know, that’s what we do is we are the podcast people who we do everything podcasts.

So if need some help there, give us a shout, see what we can do.

So are you formally registered as a business?

What’s your business called?

Where do, where do we find you?

What’s your marketing avenues there?

Williams: It’s the name of my business is GALI IT Services.

The website is currently getting redone longer than I would like.

Personally, I don’t enjoy handling my own website, so mostly cause overthink things, so I’m having someone do it for me.

So we are getting the website redone.

So you’re gonna see the website in one or two weeks at GALI IT Services dot com. but you can find me on LinkedIn.

Everything you need to know about me, it’s gonna be on there.

And if you wanna speak with me, you can also reach me with my links on my profile on LinkedIn.

That’s virtually anything you need to know about me is their recommendations and all that stuff.

But in two weeks, you can find a website.

Hendrik: Okay. Fantastic.

I know how long it takes to to get a website up and going, you know.

Just when you think it’s finished, there’s still 20 things you, you haven’t thought of or it still needs work?

Williams: Yeah. Yeah.

That’s why I don’t do my website myself, because I’m gonna end up overthinking.

So I think with someone else handling it, I can just focus on other things and then I trust them to do the best and launch it when it’s ready.

Hendrik: Fantastic. Yeah,

I know we’ve also just, just launched ours, and yeah, it took much longer than expected, but it came out very well, so very happy with the l atest version.

Maybe you’ll go and have a look there baird.media.

So great catching up with you and generally business in Nigeria, and then your side of the world.

You’re in Nigeria, right?

Williams: Yeah. Nigeria just we just you know, greater than our new president and governor locally here, and yeah, it’s gonna be wild.

I don’t know what I expect, to be honest.

Just two days in today liquidation and for price is already almost doubled. Y

eah, but since most of my business is done virtually around the world, mostly in the UK and South Africa, I don’t feel it much, but I feel for the people that get directly affected by all this stuff here.

Hendrik: So, and these are the challenges I think we all face at the moment.

Let’s see if we can, if we can business our way, entrepreneur our way through those challenges.

It’s part of the solution.

Williams: Yeah. It’s gonna be interesting, I think this weekend I’m gonna, the episode we’re having on the [00:10:00] show on LinkedIn is gonna be about Nigeria because Nigeria is In the tech world, Nigeria is one of the most promising countries.

So I’m having a fellow Nigerian friend of mine, come on.

We’re doing an episode about it, how the tech field looks here, how Nigeria looks on the inside, and yeah, how people can invest in Nigeria they want to and all that.

So that’s, we’re gonna be doing this this Friday on the, on the show.

Hendrik: And we can find it on LinkedIn then.

Williams: Yeah. 5:00 PM GMT plus one, that’s West Africa time.

There we go on, on Fridays.

Hendrik: Okay. Fantastic.

We will, we’ll give it a listen.

Thank you very much. Cool.

So nice catching up with you and, and, and so, so happy that you’re growing your business and, and your skillset and, and sort of specialize in there. I think there’s, there’s, there’s a big future there for that, as you say in in the country and for yourself.

Williams: Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Great catch up again. Cool.