Chika Okafor | Todaydream: 10x Business Growth and 100+ Meetings booked through Outreach + AI Operations Consulting + Implementation in 12 months

Hello.

So, I'm Nahrahel Louis.

I'm the founder of Rebel Media Agency.

And I just wanted to introduce you here, Chika.

And really for everyone that might be watching, please tell us, who are you and what do you do?

Who do you serve?

Yes, my name is Chica Okafor.

I am the founder, CEO of todaydream, where a youth based organization.

Our mission is to empower the next generation by basically allowing schools, nonprofits, others to enlist diverse, inspiring professionals who we train to compelling share their stories and lessons with youth.

All right.

Yeah.

And essentially, while empowering the youth, empowering those schools and reaching out to them in order to make that happen.

So, we've been working together for a while now.

And first, I did want to ask, before maybe working with rma, what what was everything like?

and I know we have like in the way that we've been working together in both outreach and within strategy and just kind of like some of those deeper questions within operations and everything like that within the business.

How were those things beforehand?

What were you doing, on, on the end of outreach strategy and execution and then what has it been like since 360os and the catalyst consulting program?

So I'm a solopreneur.

So this was an idea, this company was an idea that I had for many years and I decided to move on it around the time of the pandemic.

And so as a solopreneur there were much less community of.

There wasn't a co founder to bounce ideas off.

There was no CEO, there was no cfo.

And one of the most valuable elements of working with RMA has been having a trusted thought partner to not only refine many of our processes around recruitment for our professionals, but also to do some of the more smaller and larger operational aspects of things, refining our processes, thinking about how to integrate AI in ways that makes our business more efficient.

with Yeah, it's been a very, very, very fruitful relationship that has helped us get much further along than we would have been otherwise.

Yeah.

And what were you maybe doing in order to outreach, to schools, and dream ambassadors, because you serve many different markets.

Right.

And how were you getting in front of those people beforehand?

Yes, originally, most of the outreach was through my own personal connections and professional connections.

So we would do either like sometimes texts, sometimes emails, trying to persuade, convince, enlist people in our mission.

And by the time that we had first engaged with rma, I think we had three dream ambassadors.

Yeah.

two of.

And they were.

One of them was myself and the other two were some of my closest friends.

And so our outreach strategy was early stage and also not wholly that successful.

Yeah.

And, and what has it been now since then, on the outreach side of things, for those numbers and then have been those conversations and then same goes for maybe the operations end.

How is the strategy and those frameworks that we've essentially not just said what to do but just building it in live time is really what we want to do.

Just catalyze the growth.

What has that been like?

We have a pretty baked out outreach process for.

And we've been able to attract for the first time people without any pre existing relationship with me.

to join us.

And this is a process that we refined.

like Nahrahel and the team helped think about what are the best scripts to use, the best processes, the best channels.

And it's a process we're still using and we've been able to integrate some of those processes independently.

like now that the system has been set up, and so as far as like the base outreach of the professionals that we recruited to support students, that has been very much refined, spearheaded and crystallized through our work with rma and operationally, again I mentioned that I'm a solopreneur and so, and I do have a business background.

I, I have worked in consulting and so, and I've also worked in like management positions.

So I'm not new to organizations and management.

But I think that as I suspect many of you know, entrepreneurship is very different than working in a particular role within an organization.

And so there was a lot of operational, opportunities for improvement that we've been working on and we're still working on to try to make sure that we have all the systems that play set in place so that I'm able to do the work and the mission of the organization while also tending to the other priorities and aspects of my life.

Yeah, yeah.

And essentially making everything break proof, bulletproof without keyman risk.

And how can we automate, iterate, productize and really just make processes so sharp, so that things can grow and ultimately more people, organizations, students in your case.

Right.

Impacted, from the work that you're doing and making the outreach really meaningful and personalized to those schools and those decision makers.

So of course, as we've done worked together literally across the past like year and a half now, really, it's been awesome to see everything like 10x from from where we started there and.

And now, Just a question and it's like, what do you think maybe like stood out to you, in our approach?

I.

I know I always say there's like tons of people always knocking on your digital doorstep, and essentially saying, hey, I can do XYZ and we'll, you know, get you a trillion billion leads and do blah, blah.

Right.

So what do you think has maybe stood out and stood the test of time now, with what army is doing and how we're doing it?

Yeah, sometimes I have reflected on this and I'm like, I'm very surprised that I responded to a cold outreach because I don't I really don't.

And, and I mean, it has turned out to be incredibly helpful for the work we're doing at todaydream.

and a part of me thinks that, you know, the kind of the proof is in the pudding.

The fact that it's cold outreach was what led to our conversation and ultimately led to our relationship, is actually, proof in point as far as what he had been able to help our organization with, as far as how we have been outreaching to professionals, who have never heard of me, have never heard of our work.

And so I actually can't fully deconstruct what it was about that initial email he sent me that led me to respond.

but I'm glad I did.

Amen.

Yeah.

And well, really, the last thing is, of course, if someone, owner of an organization, consulting firm, services.

Right.

with traditionally coming from backgrounds like, I've never received any leads or growth or anything in a cold market, it's always been from my network, many in your same exact position, what would you say to them if maybe they're on the fence, about what RMA does and, if they're on the fence about potentially working and, and doing this with us.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that if you can, I would just say try it out.

I think that for me, the relationship had saved an inordinate amount of time and I have, I have priorities outside of todaydream that I've been, like managing in conjunction with my role as solopreneur.

And it's very hard for me to envision what things would have looked like in the absence of the support that RMA has been able to provide.

And so if you can, I would say, try it out.

You're not.

You're not signing an agreement for life.

And, if it doesn't work out, then you can move on and, hopefully look for other opportunities.

Right.

So thank you so much.

It has been a pleasure and of course, upward and forward with.

To todaydream and what we're doing here.

And I'm so excited for what the next months, quarters and years has in store.

So thank you so much for your time here, Chika.

Thank you.