RV: (00:07) Welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Something exciting has happened. AJ and I have agreed on exactly two thirds of what we’re going to tell you. AJV: (00:19) I should make this shorter, but we’ll see. RV: (00:21) Yeah, well, it will. And we, we always have different viewpoints that we drive, but today, separately we came up with yeah, always on separate, but today we came up with, we each had two of the same top three, so yeah, kick it off. AJV: (00:38) My first one, and again, as a reminder, always, if you haven’t listened to the full interview, I highly recommend it. It’s really good. And it’s applicable to anyone. If you’re building a personal brand, if you’re not building a personal brand, it applies to all humans all the time, all out places. So I would that my first one was this concept of a love bomb and what I just love the concept let’s just drop some love. And I just loved that in general. In fact, you know, Rory and I have been recently talking about, about all of the challenges that are happening in the world today with, you know, racism and sexism, and there’s just so many things. And if you really think about it, there’s just one really simple solution and it’s, and it’s love. But it’s, it’s really hard. AJV: (01:27) That’s not an easy one, but it is simple. And this whole concept of a love bomb, it’s just dropping massive, just unexpected love and attention and intention on the people around you. And I thought this was really important, this kind of whole concept, he said, he said why don’t you try to do the extra ordinary for a few versus the ordinary for many. And I just loved that. And I, I think about so often things that we do and it’s like, we’re trying to include everyone. And that just gets really expensive. So you kind of like the more you include, it’s like, okay, well, we can’t do that. And okay, well, we can’t do that. And okay, well, we can’t do that either, but what if you said, well, what are the most intimate people, the most intimate clients, the most intimate family members or friends or whomever, and do something really extraordinary for them. And he tells as, as well as Rory, this really amazing thing that he did at our house, but I’m going to hold that to make you go listen to the full interview because it’s worthy of a listened to be like, why would you do that? And the answer is because he just wants to share the love bomb. RV: (02:42) Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, there’s not much more, I would say to that. You know, if you didn’t pick this up, so if you haven’t listened to the interview yet, John Ruhlin is an expert on like client loyalty and retention through gifting. And so he talks about strategic generosity and gifting and you know, so I would just, I’m going to springboard off that and say, my second big takeaway was a term that he used return on relationships, return on relationships. And you know, not just return on investment, not return on time, but just return on the idea of pouring into people and loving on them. And, you know, part of the mindset shift for me was going just like what you were saying, take what you would spend on like a lot of people and just spend it on fewer to create this more extraordinary impact, this deeper connection. RV: (03:38) And so that was big, but, but the other, the other part of it that I thought was going, how come we’re willing to buy Facebook ads or something like that. Right. And we’ll spend thousands of dollars advertising to a bunch of random strangers who have no desire to hear from us, right? Like we’re interrupting the life of a normal human minding, their own Telemark. And and, and like, what have you just took a portion of that and spent it on appreciating the clients you have appreciating the referral partners you have and knowing like that is marketing. Like it’s gonna come back to you in referrals and it’s a twofer because you’re loving and appreciating the people you have, and they are likely to give you more clients. Plus they are client, you know, if they are clients, they can more powerfully refer you than a cold traffic thing. But we don’t think about like a lot of us don’t think about that. So return on relationships. That was my second. AJV: (04:39) Yeah. And I would just add one tiny thing to that. And I thought this was really powerful and it’s not something that he says that he necessarily tracks and numbers, even though there is strategy. A little bit of it is by faith by doing good deeds. And by sharing the love, like the love naturally will come back to you. There’s this intrinsic thing and human beings that want to return goodness. Right? Yeah. There’s law of reciprocity. That was a tangent. That, wasn’t what I was kind of saying. Well, I was gonna say is this whole concept of return and relationships is wow with the unexpected. And that, that is so true. And he talks about all these concepts of like, it’s one thing to do things when it’s expected anniversaries Christmas, birthdays Valentine’s day. Right. but what are you doing? That’s really unexpected? How do you create this wow factor with the unexpected? And what he did at our house was that, and it’s funny because it’s almost been two years and we still talk about that evening and we made friends there and it’s just like one of those experiences. And that was something else he talked about. What are you doing in experiences? Not just in things. And wow. Will the unexpected. So that’s all I would add in my third one. And I’m actually gonna read this on, because your RV: (05:58) Second one tied into my third one, which was planned randomness, which is what you just annexed. Well, that was what I, what it was for me is the unexpected, like the timing matters more than the gift itself. So AJV: (06:12) I’m going to read, I’m going to read my last one because I actually like write this out and I want to get it right. And he said, cause I was capturing this as he was saying it, it was a handful of people that help launch millions of revenue. You don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. And that is so integral into everything that we believe at brand builders group. And if you are building a personal brand, you’re playing with the comparison concept of, well, in order for this to work, I’ve got to have hundreds of thousands of followers. And I’ve got to have millions of downloads in my podcast and I have to have this many of this. And it’s like, that’s not true. And I think the great example that immediately came to mind is Jesse Itzler. And if you guys don’t know Jesse, Jesse, Itzler, he’s a mega entrepreneur. AJV: (07:03) He owns the Atlanta Hawks. He started, but here’s what I want to talk about. That’s what I’ve got to talk about. So, but I think this was amazing because he started this pride. It’s the largest private jet company in the world, billions of dollars. And there was two ways of going about this, right? You’re going to rather sell in volume and have a low price, or you’re going to have a teeny tiny niche audience and have a very magnificent price. And he built a billion dollar company by selling to only a few people, a couple hundred people. I think it was like a thousand, right? And that is proof that you do not need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. It’s how targeted are you with your core target audience? Do you know them? Do you have something that they want and how do you reach them? AJV: (07:54) How do you market to them? How do you appeal to them? Because you don’t need millions to make millions. And that was just like this, gosh, that’s such an important thing for us all, to remember as we’re building courses or making funnels or speaking and all the things that you can do to build your personal brand. It’s like, you don’t have to reach millions. You can, and I’m sure you want to, but just remember, you can make a very great business and a really good living six, seven, eight, nine figures by selling to the niches right there. What’s that saying? You make riches in the niches. And I just thought that was like this aha moment of, wow. That’s just a really great concept to remember and to hang on to, RV: (08:36) Yeah. I’ve never had this thought until you were just talking, but I was, it’s so ironic because he married Sarah Blakely and they did like opposite business models. She so sold a low price point to tons of people. And he sold a high price point to a few people. So they can both work, but you know, particularly you have a high dollar offer. It’s like, you don’t need that many people to buy in and beyond the money. It’s like, you only need a few people who believe in you. You need a few people. Yeah. AJV: (09:05) Yeah. That’s right back to what he said. He said it was a handful of people that help launch millions of revenue. And that’s because I loved on him and I had attention and intention with every single one of them. It doesn’t take a ton to make it time. Loved it. Go listen to it. RV: (09:21) I listened to it. Go love on your people. Find a few people to invest in. Who’ve made a difference to you, make a difference to them and watch how forced back into your life. We’re so thankful for having the opportunity to impact you. So stay tuned and join us. Every single week. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.