Being excellent at your work and building a business around that expertise are two very different things.

In this trailer for Muhami Matters, Chris Adams speaks with Ros Conkie, founder of The Marketing Machine Works and author of The Marketing Machine: How to Engineer a System That Drives Sales and Growth.

Ros trained as a mechanical engineer and initially thought marketing was little more than creative "fluff". She soon realised that even exceptional products and services will struggle if prospective customers do not understand their value.

Hear Ros reflect on an unexpected lesson from sailing across the Atlantic and explain why marketing works best as a connected system that can be tested and improved, rather than a collection of tactics that are simply labelled successes or failures.

The full episode will be released on Monday, 12 October 2026.

In the full conversation, Chris and Ros explore:

• Why experts often find themselves running businesses they never planned to build
• Why selling can feel uncomfortable for lawyers, engineers and other professionals
• How relationships and clearer communication support business development
• Why a buyer's perspective matters more than internal marketing jargon
• Why bigger is not necessarily better for a founder-led business
• How to develop a logical, sustainable approach to marketing and growth

About Ros Conkie

Ros Conkie is a former mechanical engineer, founder of The Marketing Machine Works, fractional marketing director and author of The Marketing Machine. She works with technical and specialist businesses to make marketing more systematic and effective.

Website: https://rosconkie.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosconkie/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RosConkie

About the host

Chris Adams is the founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting. Drawing on extensive experience in the legal and professional services sectors, he advises firms and business owners on business development, marketing strategy and sustainable growth.

About Muhami Matters

Muhami Matters brings credibility and clarity to legal and professional services through conversations with trusted specialists, business leaders and experienced advisers.

Explore Muhami Matters and Muhami: https://muhami.ae/muhami-matters/

CJA Consulting: https://www.cjaconsult.com/

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the problem a business is trying to solve is only a symptom of something deeper?

In Episode 68 of Muhami Matters, Chris Adams speaks with Adrian Rhodes, founder of AR Consulting, about why leaders can become too close to their organisations to see what is really happening, and how an outsider perspective can uncover assumptions, overlooked stakeholders and unintended consequences.

Drawing on a career spanning advertising, qualitative research, management psychology and consultancy, Adrian explains how he approaches problems by challenging the client's original definition of them. The conversation ranges from policing and healthcare to retail, professional services and organisational decision-making, with practical examples of what can happen when the wrong question is being asked.

Chris and Adrian also explore the tension between analysis and implementation. They discuss groupthink, different approaches to work through the GC Index, the value of stakeholder mapping, and why a solution that meets 90% of the requirement can sometimes be more useful than a perfect answer that never gets implemented.

In this episode:

• Why a stated business problem may only be a symptom

• What outsiders can see that insiders sometimes miss

• How stakeholder blindness affects decisions

• The role of qualitative research in understanding organisations

• Groupthink and the suppression of challenge

• The GC Index and management psychology

• Strategy versus implementation

• Why "good enough" can sometimes be the right answer

• Managing AI with the same judgement used to manage people

About Adrian Rhodes

Adrian Rhodes is the founder of AR Consulting. His work combines management consultancy, qualitative research and management psychology to help organisations understand problems, stakeholders and decision-making more clearly.

Website: https://www.arconsulting1.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-rhodes-b101b64/

About the host

Chris Adams is the founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting. Through CJA Consulting, he works with professional services organisations on business development and marketing strategy.

About Muhami Matters

Muhami Matters brings credibility and clarity to legal and professional services, connecting listeners with trusted experts, respected industry specialists and practical insights.

Muhami Matters: https://muhami.ae/muhami-matters/

Muhami: https://muhami.ae/

CJA Consulting: https://www.cjaconsult.com/

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when the problem a business thinks it has is only a symptom of something deeper?

In this trailer for Episode 68 of Muhami Matters, Chris Adams speaks with Adrian Rhodes of AR Consulting about the value of an outsider perspective in business.

Drawing on Adrian’s experience across advertising, research, psychology and management consultancy, the conversation explores how leaders can become too close to their own organisations to see what is really going on, how groupthink can suppress challenge, and why overlooked stakeholders and unintended consequences can change the quality of a decision.

The full episode also looks at the balance between strategy and implementation, including Adrian’s view that once a solution meets around 90% of the requirement, it may be time to stop perfecting and start implementing.

The full episode, The Outsider Advantage: Solving the Problems Leaders Can’t See, will be released on Tuesday, 29 September 2026.

Adrian Rhodes is the founder of AR Consulting. His work spans management consultancy, qualitative research, strategic facilitation and management psychology,

helping organisations identify underlying problems, understand stakeholders and make better-informed decisions.

Connect with Adrian:

Website: https://www.arconsulting1.com

Chris Adams is the founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting. Through CJA Consulting, he works with professional services organisations on business development and marketing strategy.

Muhami Matters brings credibility and clarity to legal and professional services, connecting listeners with trusted experts, respected industry specialists and practical insights.

Muhami: https://muhami.ae

CJA Consulting: https://www.cjaconsult.com

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do good businesses so often struggle to explain clearly what makes them different?

In this trailer for Muhami Matters, Chris Adams speaks with Steve Woodruff, the “King of Clarity”, about the power of clear positioning and why effective communication depends on brevity, simplicity and vividness.

Steve explains why the first 15 to 20 seconds of an introduction can determine whether a message lands, and what founders and professionals can do when their message has become too complicated, vague or difficult to remember.

The full episode explores how businesses and professional services firms can become easier to understand, easier to remember and easier to refer. Chris and Steve discuss clear positioning, communication, differentiation and Steve’s concept of referral-ready “Memory Darts”.

About Steve Woodruff

Steve Woodruff is the founder of Clarity Fuel and describes himself as the “King of Clarity”. He works with founders, leaders, consultants and expert-led businesses to simplify their message, sharpen their positioning and communicate what they do more clearly.

Connect with Steve:

https://www.clarityfuel.com

https://www.stevewoodruff.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/swoodruff/

About the host

Chris Adams is the founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting. Through CJA Consulting, Chris works with professional services organisations, particularly lawyers and law firms, on business development and marketing strategy.

About Muhami Matters

Muhami Matters brings credibility and clarity to legal and professional services, connecting listeners with trusted experts, respected industry specialists and practical insights.

Muhami: https://muhami.ae/

Muhami Matters: https://muhami.ae/muhami-matters/

CJA Consulting: https://www.cjaconsult.com/

Full episode available Monday 14 September 2026 at 8:00 pm UAE time.

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you leave a successful corporate career and suddenly have to build a business around your own name, expertise and value?

For many experienced professionals, leaving employment is not simply a career change. It can bring a much deeper transition.

Who are you without the organisation and job title behind you? How do you put a price on years of experience? How do you become comfortable being visible? And how do you turn professional expertise into something people understand, value and are willing to buy?

In Episode 66 of Muhami Matters, Chris Adams speaks with Emily Dorschler, Founder of NurtureWorks, about what Emily calls the “corporate hangover”: the habits, expectations and ways of thinking that can follow experienced professionals out of employment and into entrepreneurship.

Emily works particularly with women who have left long corporate careers and are building businesses of their own. Drawing on her own journey from corporate life through virtual assistance and online business management before establishing NurtureWorks, she helps clients work through questions around identity, self-worth, money, visibility and confidence.

IN THIS EPISODE

Chris and Emily discuss:

• Emily’s journey from corporate life into entrepreneurship

• What the “corporate hangover” means in practice

• The identity shift that happens when a job title disappears

• Why experienced professionals can struggle to recognise and price their own value

• The relationship between self-worth, confidence and money

• Which corporate habits remain useful and which may need to be unlearned

• Why confidence develops through action

• Why visibility is an unavoidable part of owning a business

• How to communicate the problem you solve rather than over-explaining your methodology

• Why building a business should still be a joyful journey

A central theme of the conversation is that professional expertise is only the starting point. Being excellent at what you do is not the same as knowing how to package, position, market and sell that expertise.

ABOUT EMILY DORSCHLER

Emily Dorschler is the Founder of NurtureWorks. She works particularly with women aged 35 and above who have recently left long corporate careers and are building businesses of their own.

Website:

https://nurtureworks.uk

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-dorschler/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/nurtureworksbusiness/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@nurtureworks

CORPORATE HANGOVER QUIZ

Discover how much of your corporate thinking may still be influencing the way you are building your business:

https://nurtureworks.uk/corporate-hangover-quiz-1

BEYOND THE CORPORATE HANGOVER

Emily also hosts Beyond the Corporate Hangover.

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/beyond-the-corporate-hangover/id1896709939

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/033hFE6UnicfuLU9Kp7k7h

TrueFans:

https://truefans.fm/beyond-the-corporate-hangover

ABOUT CHRIS ADAMS

Chris Adams is the host of Muhami Matters and Founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting.

Through CJA Consulting, Chris advises professional services organisations, particularly lawyers and law firms, on business development, marketing, positioning and sustainable growth.

https://www.cjaconsult.com

ABOUT MUHAMI MATTERS

Muhami Matters is where credibility meets clarity in legal and professional services, bringing together trusted advisers, respected industry specialists and practical insights for professionals, founders and business leaders.

https://muhami.ae/muhami-matters/

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you leave a successful corporate career and suddenly have to build a business around your own name, expertise and value?

Leaving corporate life is not simply a career move. For many experienced professionals, it brings a much deeper transition.

Who are you without the organisation and job title behind you? How do you put a price on years of experience? How do you become comfortable being visible? And how do you turn professional expertise into something people understand, value and are willing to buy?

In this trailer for Episode 66 of Muhami Matters, host Chris Adams speaks with Emily Dorschler, Founder of NurtureWorks, about what Emily calls the “corporate hangover”: the habits, expectations and patterns of thinking that can follow experienced professionals out of employment and into entrepreneurship.

Emily works particularly with women who have left long corporate careers and are building businesses of their own. Drawing on her own journey from corporate life through VA and online business management work and ultimately into coaching, she helps clients make the transition from thinking like an employee to stepping confidently into the role of business owner.

In the full conversation, Chris and Emily explore:

• Why being excellent at your profession does not automatically make building a business easy

• The identity shift that can follow leaving a long corporate career

• Why experienced professionals can struggle to recognise and price their own value

• The relationship between self-worth, confidence and money

• Why waiting until you feel “ready” can hold a business back

• The corporate habits that may need to be unlearned

• Why visibility is an unavoidable part of business ownership

• How to communicate the problem you solve rather than over-explaining your methodology

• The importance of experimentation, resilience and learning from mistakes

• Why the journey of building a business should still be a joyful one

One of the central themes of the conversation is that expertise is only the starting point.

As Emily explains, there is a significant difference between knowing you are a great professional and translating that expertise into something you can package, market and make appealing for people to buy.

Chris also reflects on a lesson that applies particularly strongly to consultants, lawyers, advisers and other expert-led professionals: clients are rarely interested in every detail of how you reach the solution. They want to understand the problem you can solve for them.

ABOUT EMILY DORSCHLER

Emily Dorschler is the Founder of NurtureWorks.

She works primarily with women who have recently left corporate careers and are building their own businesses, helping them move beyond the “corporate hangover” and develop the confidence, self-trust and entrepreneurial mindset needed for their next chapter.

Website:

https://nurtureworks.uk

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-dorschler/

ABOUT CHRIS ADAMS

Chris Adams is the host of Muhami Matters and Founder of Muhami and CJA Consulting.

Through CJA Consulting, Chris advises professional services organisations, particularly lawyers and law firms, on marketing, business development, positioning and sustainable growth.

With nearly two decades of experience working with professional services organisations across the UK, Australia, Asia and the Middle East, Chris brings a commercial perspective to conversations about how expertise is positioned, communicated and turned into meaningful business opportunities.

CJA Consulting:

https://www.cjaconsult.com

Muhami:

https://www.muhami.ae

ABOUT MUHAMI MATTERS

Muhami Matters is where credibility meets clarity in legal and professional services.

Hosted by Chris Adams, the podcast brings together trusted advisers, respected industry experts and thought leaders to share practical insights, strategic perspectives and actionable advice for professionals, founders and business leaders.

Full Episode 66, The Corporate Hangover, will be published on Monday, 31 August 2026.

Visit www.muhami.ae for legal knowledge and to connect with lawyers who can solve your legal issues.

Visit www.cjaconsult.com for marketing & business development services catering to professionals

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.