Author: AJ Vaden

Ep 114: Top Secrets to Effective Speaking with Vanessa Van Edwards

RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) I am so excited for you to meet Vanessa van Edwards. We shared the stage at what I believe is the largest speaking event in the world is the, it’s the biggest one that I know of. It’s called the global leadership summit, and we got to share the stage. And you know, most of you know, I’m, I’m a nerd for technical speaking and built my career coming out of Toastmasters. And she got up and talked about her book captivate and some of the concepts that she studies as the she’s the founder of a company called the science of people. And her book is called captivate, the science of succeeding with people and she analyzes and studies body language and interpersonal communication and human behavior and relationships. And it was just so practical and applicable to everybody. The audience went nuts. I was, I was also tracking book sales. RV: (02:02) So I haven’t shared this with everybody. I was watching book sales with there’s three different tools that we’re using to monitor that. And I was watching Vanessa’s book, which was selling apparently from what we could tell was the top selling book from all the speakers who were there, which is exciting and also a little bit nerve wracking since our book was also for sale. But pretty sales. You got presales. Yeah. I’m I’m I’m sure. I’m sure. So anyways, the other thing to know about her in addition to being this bestselling author she’s very much into data, which I love and, and research and science and analyzing you know, her craft, but she’s also spoken obviously at the global leadership summit. She’s spoken at South by Southwest Google, Facebook, and she has a Ted talk as well. That is called, you are contagious. That also is gone viral. So she’s got over a couple million views on that within just a few years. So anyways, you’re, you’re talking to a pro and I was like, gotta have her, you guys are gonna love her. So welcome to the show, Vanessa. VV: (03:14) Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to talk and dive in. RV: (03:17) So I want to start with your actual work, like what you actually teach, because it’s super relevant to our audience. And you know, we’ll put a link to your Ted talk. You are contagious in the show notes. But can you give us, you know, a little bit? So, so a lot of our audience speaks all of our clients speak. We teach them that the spoken word is the number one marketing tool. There is. So whether it’s free webinars or free speaking, like I spoke for free 304 times, that was how I started my career. In that we eventually turned that into an eight figure business all by speaking for free. But you study a lot of, you know, a lot of your craft relates to speaking and you analyzed Ted talks. What are some of the things that you learned from the viral Ted talks, the successful Ted talks and then the not so viral ones? VV: (04:16) Yeah. You know, I was really intrigued as a speaker on why some Ted talks go viral and others don’t. And what I, when I was searching on the Ted website, I typically watch a Ted talk every day at lunch. I found that there were Ted talks, you know, like Simon Sinek, Tedtalk has millions of views. And I noticed, and I noticed when I was on the website, that there was a very similar talk that came out the same month of the same year. It was released the same on the same year on ted.com, a very similar topic, both 80 minutes, long excepted. Simon’s had millions and millions and millions of views. And this other top had less than 40,000. And I wondered why these were both experts, relatively unknown experts before their Ted talks, by the way. Sure. But something about Simon’s talk, it made it explode. It went viral. And so we decided to analyze thousands of hours of Ted talks. We looked at every Ted talk in 2010 and we split them up based on view count. So the most popular Ted talks versus the least popular Ted talks, RV: (05:19) You looked at weight, you looked at every Ted talk since 2010 in 2010. Oh, in 2010. Wow. Okay. VV: (05:30) I’d still be doing that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also by the way, this was maybe four or five years ago now. So we looked at every, to every Ted talk that was released in 2010, where there’s a limited number that go on ted.com and we didn’t know what we would find. Right. We were looking at all the variables. I was looking at color of clothing. I was looking at entrance. I was looking at smiles. We actually clocked the number of seconds that they smiled. And we found that the biggest difference, the biggest you could actually see it when you put these talks side by side, was that the most popular Ted talkers used an average of 470 gestures, 465 gestures to be precise in 18 minutes, whereas the least popular Ted talkers by view count, use an average of 272 gestures in 18 minutes, almost half. VV: (06:21) And when I looked at this, I realized there were sort of two things happening. One is hands show trust. They show intention. We like to see hands, right? The moment we can see someone’s hands. We feel like we understand them a little bit more, but the second thing was even more important, which was when we know our content exceptionally well. We can actually explain it on two tracks. We can explain it with our words, but we can also explain it with our gestures. And so the very best Ted talkers, it was like they had a two track talk, they had the verbal talk and they had the gesture talk. And what was amazing about it was that it allowed you to have sort of these memory hooks when someone said they had three ideas and they held up the number three, the brain would actually wait, you’d wait to hear all three. And that would also help you remember those three. So I think what was happening is that the really memorable, amazing Ted talks just make it easy to be understood. RV: (07:22) Interesting. And so would you say that Bernay Brown and Simon Sinek and you know, Jan pink? Yeah, sir. Ken Robinson, do they all pass that test or are some of ’em outliers? VV: (07:38) No. Everyone passed the test. The only kind of odd outlier in our data that we looked at was Jamie Oliver. So there is no, yeah. The chef. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s really interesting is most really charismatic speakers. They use hand gestures in a purposeful way. So if they’re talking about something big, they show you how big it is, beach ball big, or is it, you know what ball would this be like? RV: (08:06) Like a Sumo, a Sumo, VV: (08:10) How big is it? Or is it really small and little and just between the two fingers. Whereas Jamie Oliver, his talk is so passionate that he’s actually just making gestures for no reason. He’s just shaking. So that one, I found a little distracting. Now he had a lot of gestures cause he was literally just, he would walk off, he was pacing the stage and just kind of move in his hands. That was the one exception where I thought, Hmm, I think that we, we like the purposeful gesture, the distracted gesture, make someone look out of control. So whenever I teach hand gestures, I like to teach on a spectrum that purposeful is what we’re going for. Jazz hands is not what we’re going for, or even I created some hand monsters in my career and I feel very bad about this. So I taught this research and a couple of students in one of my classes, they thought that I meant like modern dance. So I saw their speeches after my class. And then they came on like this today. I want to talk to you about a big idea. And the sun is going to come out. I mean, it was like, it’s bitsy spider, you know, RV: (09:21) Dan just like interpretive dance, like full VV: (09:24) And so purposeful is good, but like we’re not talking modern dance. I think that with Ken Robinson and Bernay Brown and Simon Sinek, they probably didn’t script out their hand gestures. And I don’t think that we should necessarily either, but we should be so comfortable with our work that we’re able to understand it and explain it visually. RV: (09:43) So gestures. So that’s really interesting. Cause it’s like, what you, where you saw the pattern, wasn’t the type of gesture or like, yeah, it wasn’t like the type of gesture. It was the volume of gestures. And basically twice as many. So that, that, that tells us that that humans are, are nonverbal, which we kind of, we know instinctually, right? It’s like, of course we’re nonverbal. So for an audience of people who are speakers or aspiring speakers or potentially speakers in addition to gestures, are there any other big kind of salient discoveries that you would point to and say, Oh my gosh, if you are speaking a lot, here’s another thing that you really need to know. Like you can’t miss this. And I know, you know, in captivate you talk about voice and you talk about facial expressions. Like in the book, you go through a bunch of different ones, but w VV: (10:43) For many speakers, the book I’m going to give it to you. RV: (10:46) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us one. That’s not in the book VV: (10:48) Book. Is there, if you want to read it, that’s great. But I want to give one, that’s just for speakers. Cause I love talking to audience and speakers. So one thing that I noticed not only in the Ted speeches, but also in working with students is the really, really powerful speakers use the stage as a content aid. And this is a really advanced technique, but once you get it, I think it’s, it’s like you can immediately apply it, which is you want to know where you’re going to plant. And that’s really important. Where are you going to deliver your first line or your first impression? So your first impression happens either the moment the lights turn on at the moment you walk on stage, the more purposeful you all are with that plant. Like I’m going to walk right to the center of the stage that makes your walk more purposeful. I noticed that speakers who don’t have a plant, they kind of wander onto stage. They kind of wander and they’re a little awkward and they, then they don’t quite plant. They kind of, they kind of pivot back and forth. Whereas Vickers who walk out to that plant, that’s one of the reasons why that Ted talk red circle carpet is so brilliant is it just gives speakers. A piece of confidence is this is where you stand. RV: (12:00) Can you explain that? Not everybody knows about what the red dot mean, like what it is. VV: (12:04) Yeah. So in Ted talks, one of the secret ways, I think that they’ve had so much power with their videos is they have a small red circle. And I think that every franchise of Ted talk, they have to have a red carpet on stage or the requirement. And they even have a measurement that they like it to be. And it’s actually a brilliant Lee measured carpet. I think of the red, that circle carpet when I speak without it, like when I just do regular speeches because it’s a plant. So you have someone who walks right out on the stage, they plant in that red circle and then you’re not supposed to leave that red circle. So they really don’t like you to leave it for the cameras, for the lights. I think that Mel Robbins and her Ted talk, she not only left her circles, she actually walked out into the audience was very fair. VV: (12:51) It was a very, you know, avant-garde move and she wasn’t supposed to do it, but I think it worked for her. So the first thing is to know where you’re going to plant have an imaginary red carpet for yourself. And then you want to use the stage as a transition for your content. So for example, okay, I tend to deliver right in the middle. I typically go right to the middle when I speak. And then when I’m talking science or background, I typically go to the left side of the stage and I plant and I deliver the stuff. RV: (13:21) When you say the left side of the stage, are you saying stage left or the audiences left stage left? So to the right, the audience is right stage left. Okay. VV: (13:33) So I, I stand there and then when I’m pivoting or transitioning topics, I literally show the audience. I’m doing it with a physical movement. And then by the end, they know when I’m on the right side of stage, I’m usually telling a story, I’m doing something fun. I’m leading an interaction when I’m in the center of the stage, I’m delivering something super important. And I usually save my super important takeaway challenges. Remember this for the center of the stage and my science and background the other side. And I’ve noticed that it helps people as they take notes. I’ve noticed that helps with attention. I’ve also noticed you have certain people, you know, very warm people who like the stories better. And so everyone needs moments where they’re going to tune out and audience is going to tune out. I would rather it be based on their learning style, but not based on their learning style, I’d rather choose it. So what I’ve noticed is very warm people who love stories and examples, they perk up when I get to the right side of the stage and my science heavy, my high competent folks, my data heads, they perk up when I get to the left hand side. And usually everyone perks up for the middle. So it’s a, I, that’s one of the really big things that I think excellent speakers do to help their audience. RV: (14:48) Yeah. That’s, what’s interesting about, you know, using the stage, but in Ted talks, you can’t because of the red dot, but they force you to plant and be powerful by having that confined space. I think yeah, that’s super interesting. Is there, is there anything you did on the marketing front related to your Ted talk that made it go viral? Like VV: (15:10) Oh yes. So I, I really, you know, it’s a little, it’s a lot of pressure when you study Ted talks that go viral, then you give a Ted talk pressure. You have to then give a viral Ted talks. I was very nervous about it. And the first thing was the title and I argued with them about this, by the way, like we went back and forth on this a lot. Now it’s kind of funny because it’s your contagious, which right now in our current state of the world, it’s getting a lot of use for a different reason. So that ended up working in a different way. And you’ll notice that there’s a lot of comments, recent comments where people are like, I really felt this talk was about something else, but I really liked it. So anyway, in the beginning I wanted a command. I wanted a title that was a command. RV: (16:00) I have a bunch of people worried about contracting COVID that are buying the captivate book and just sitting at home, reading it. VV: (16:08) It’s okay. It’s perfect. Actually, captivate sales have been up a lot in COVID. And so I want, I wanted a command. I wanted to have like a you or like a personal pronoun. So I really wanted to have like a, you are contagious or you are confident or you can do it or you are powerful. I wanted something that was a command because I noticed that a lot of the Ted talks that were out there weren’t, they were very intellectual. They were very much like the future of leadership or how thinking will change the future of humanity. Like, there are a lot of like, talks like that, which is fine, but I just wanted to be a different rant. I wanted to have a different thing. So I wanted to use the word you, I knew that. And I wanted RV: (16:54) I analyze titles by the way or only the gestures and like the actual presentation. VV: (16:59) I didn’t, I did, we didn’t formally analyze titles. No, I should. I, that would be fun. That would be a really easy one to do actually with like just put them all in a big spreadsheet, look at them. That’d be super interesting. So yeah, so that, and then once it came out, not only did I share it, of course, across socials you know, YouTube has been a big driver of our business. I’ve been on YouTube since 2007 when people thought it was like, you know, a joke. And one thing that we’ve learned is playlists are really important. So we did a huge campaign on the backend to get my Ted talk, not embedded in websites that I didn’t care about as much, but to get it on people’s playlists. And so we reach out to influencers, but also just friends who watch a lot of YouTube videos and ask them to put it on a relevant playlist with other videos that we thought people would like along with our sock, with the right search engine title. VV: (17:52) So for example, I reached out to a friend of mine who has a podcast, and I asked him if he would add my video to his playlist called human behavior hacks. And he was like, sure. And then it was immediately placed contextually. So I know on YouTube, your best, you have two options for your, for your game. One is search and YouTube search is very different than Google search. We use a tool called H refs. And so when I’m titling my blogs, I use H refs for Google when I’m titling my YouTube videos and my keywords, I use H reps for YouTube because they have very, very different search. And so I knew what kind of YouTube search that I wanted for the video, but I also knew what I wanted it to be related to. So the second thing that you really like for you to, to elevate your game is watch this next or when your video is listed alongside another video. And so it’s critical to have YouTube algorithm know what other videos people would like. And so I had a list of a hundred or more videos that I thought were the perfect audience for my Ted talk. And so very quickly we were able to scale and we got thousands and thousands of views and then millions of views based on, I think, the placement of relevant videos. RV: (19:12) So when you found a hundred, a hundred videos, a list of a hundred videos that you thought were like your perfect audience, did you just reach out to those people? Did you reach out to those people at all? VV: (19:23) Not typically. Actually a lot of them were other Ted talks, but I wanted to be on the same playlists as those videos. So for example, like if I really liked Allan Pease LMPs is a wonderful author about body language and he has a great Ted talk. He also some great stage talks that have millions of views. I didn’t need to reach out to Allen because his videos are living out other people’s playlists, but I did want to get on to people who listed Allen’s video in their playlists. Does that make sense? So how did you, RV: (19:55) How do you know who, which people have Allen pees on their playlist? VV: (20:00) You can see it. So when you watch his video, you can see, it’ll say like, this is recommended for you. And then you can see that it’s actually within someone else’s playlist. RV: (20:09) Interesting. So just on the video itself, which is like a video you’re probably watching, cause you’re interested in it anyways, you would just go, Oh, okay. I see like other this other recommended video lives on, so, and so’s channel. And so that person is featuring this kind of content. And then you, so it was more like you didn’t contact Alan, you contacted the person that had Allen’s video on his channel VV: (20:33) And they never get contacted. Allen gets contacted all the time. Plus Allen doesn’t own his YouTube, his Ted talk. So it’s not even on, he couldn’t even control if he wanted to. So I don’t need to bother Alan with that. He’s a busy guy, but some of the people who created these amazing playlists who love looking for relevant videos on body language or human behavior or psychology, those are my people. And I love reaching out to them. And they’re also thrilled when I reach out to them. So that’s how we’ve grown our YouTube channel quite a bit since from the beginning. RV: (21:04) That is fascinating. What a super awesome tip. Well, and this is kind of what I wanted to get into as well was a little bit about how, how you’ve built such a great business, because it’s like once you, you know, have a bestselling book and you’re speaking at GLS and you have a viral Ted talk, like you’re checking off a lot of the marks of like pretty big time personal brands, which is, which is super exciting. Clearly the Ted talk has been huge. Is that how GLS found you? Do you know, did you ask him? VV: (21:36) I didn’t ask them. I think that they just knew about me from YouTube. I think they found me from YouTube. So I dunno if that was my Ted talk or other YouTube videos that I had. But that’s where they came to me from seeing those videos. RV: (21:49) Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting to me, to this day, the number one cold way that we book high paid speaking engagements is someone will say, I saw your video on YouTube VV: (22:00) A hundred percent, same as in here, RV: (22:03) Which is crazy. Cause you, you, you know, it’s almost like people put YouTube and Twitter in the same category in terms, and it’s like, they’re completely different, like completely different purposes, completely different audiences. Yeah. VV: (22:14) Yeah. And the way I like to think about it, and this is what I, what I try to talk to my students about is Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and even LinkedIn, our social media platforms, YouTube is a search engine. And that’s how you have to think about it. It’s yes, it’s relatively social, but it is a search engine. So you need to think about it just like you think of Google, you just study your keyword, just like you do for Google. You need to think about your content, like little mini blogs. RV: (22:44) Yeah. I mean, and that’s the other thing like literally is that content on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, the older it is the less valuable it is on YouTube and Google, the older it is the more valuable it is. Like it’s, it’s a complete inverse. That is such a, it’s such a key distinction. I, YouTube is something I’m loving you talking about this. Cause I feel like I’ve ignored you tube, like my entire career. And then, you know, we had a few thousand subscribers and then when we exit our last company that was gone. So, you know, like we had, we’re starting all over and YouTube is the one that I’m going, this is the one that we have missed the boat on. This is the one that drives like real big time revenue, big time credibility. And it sounds like you agree with that. VV: (23:36) Yeah. I completely agree with it. And the good news is you got time, you know, it’s still the wild West on YouTube. I think. I actually think it’s less tapped even than online courses. You know, I got into YouTube in 2007. It’s older. I got into my first online course in 2011, 2012. And even now I feel like online courses, a little bit tapped. I mean, there’s just a lot of opportunity there, but RV: (23:59) Launching an online course, VV: (24:01) Launching teaching, hosting. Yeah. Online courses, you know, like some of the boat has sailed, but like it’s, it’s an, it’s an existing ecosystem, right? Like it exists. You can tap into it, but you really got to work. It YouTube, I think is a lot of low hanging fruit. I think you have time, even though it’s an older, it’s an older beast, the way that people, the amount of video that people are consuming. And the, the bond that you build with people when they watch a video is incredible. And as a speaker and as a, as an influencer, someone who wants to change behavior or change minds, it’s like, you’re getting permission to go into someone’s bedroom, email box, you get to their desk, not as intimate, a YouTube video, you get into their bedrooms, even a podcast, you maybe get to their kitchen or their gym, but a bed is usually YouTube. I don’t mean that in a, in a weird way, but like, it’s so intimate when you’re with someone and you’re sharing a story that they really feel like, wow, I know her. I cannot tell you how many times I’m walking down the street and people are like, I love your YouTube. I feel like you’re my friend. No. And that’s, that’s a very special thing. RV: (25:08) Yeah. I mean, that’s interesting. So Mike, Todd was one of the other speakers with us. Did you get to see his speech and tell us, yeah, I loved it. I thought it was so great. And so AIG and I are watching his sermon series on relationship goals and we either watch it in bed or the living room couch. But to what you’re saying, both of those are that’s where you, that’s very intimate, that’s intimate a space and at different locations. And I’ve never really thought about that. I’ve always thought about the podcast being right in someone’s ear, which is very intimate. But you know, you, you don’t make a date to listen to a podcast, but you will sit down and like, alright. Or have you ever seen the show? The chosen on YouTube? Oh my gosh. It’s incredible. It’s a, it’s a TV series. That’s only available on YouTube and it’s free, but it’s like, we make a date to sit down and watch something on YouTube. VV: (26:02) Yeah. I think that that’s the difference, right? Like when I am listening to my podcasts, I am always doing something else. And even if I wasn’t doing smells, I begin to sweat. I fold clothes. I do laundry. I clean up the toys in the living room. Like I’m always, I’m like, it’s a thing where my hands are free. Not with YouTube. I’m going to watch a video. It’s my ears and my eyes. And there’s not much else I can do. I have to be locked in with you. And so it’s just a much more intimate and fulfilling experience. There’s a reason I haven’t done a podcast yet. I mean, maybe I will one day, but it’s because I also know that I, the biggest, so in our business, our revenue is sort of split between speaking online courses and then a little bit like ad revenue. And we don’t do any paid search. We only have organic search. And I know that the best way for me to sell courses is to get organic YouTube search that turns into an online email subscriber. It then turns into a, a buyer of our video course. And so if I want to sell a video course, the best way for me to do that is being on video. RV: (27:03) Yeah. So let me ask you that. This is so awesome. Okay. So when you say organic YouTube search, most of that is just basically like optimizing your video as a blog post on YouTube. So you’re showing up in search and then in the description, you’re driving people to a lead, a lead capture, which is gonna then nurture like a lead magnet. And then that will nurture them for the course. When you do, when you sell courses, do you do mostly like a video? Do you do mostly like video sales letters, like a video funnel, like yeah. Three videos and then buy on the fourth video or do you more like a one long webinar kind of thing. VV: (27:44) So we’ve tested all of them feels like all of them we’ve tested the three videos to a purchase. We’ve tested a webinar to a 60 minute webinar to a purchase, which so 20 minute webinars, no purchase. We’ve tested a six email written series. We’ve tested, sneak previews, we’ve tested an audio training. The one that doesn’t work very well is three videos. We have too much dripping in the funnel too much, too much loss when we find that when people want it, they want it. So we don’t want to make them wait. So the best thing that we found is either an audio training for 60 minutes right away, or like a webinar for 45 to 60 minutes right away video. RV: (28:23) Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. well, where should people go if they want to connect with you and like learn more, obviously they can get the book captivate, which is awesome. We’ll put, we’ll put a link to your contagious. You are contagious, Ted talk, where else Vanessa, if they want to learn more about all the stuff you do. VV: (28:41) Yeah. If you want to see our funnel and action I recommend going to science of people.com/join. That will be whatever our latest in is. And so you’ll be able to see if he, you go to that, like sometimes it’s our likability training, which is the audio training, which also eventually converts into our big course or you’ll get our one of our webinars. And so that’s a really good way to get kind of acquainted with some of our materials and our free courses. But also if you are interested in sort of the funnel of the backend of how we build rapport and build relationships and teach to sell, you can all see it that way as well. Love it. RV: (29:17) Science of people.com/join. You can go there. We’ll link that up in the show notes, Vanessa, thank you so much. You’ve been so generous and like tactical and just is such, such actionable stuff particularly for personal brands. So we wish you very much the very best VV: (29:34) Gosh, I’m so grateful. Thanks for featuring my story and thanks everyone for listening. [inaudible].

Ep 113: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod | Recap Episode

Hey, welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We are here breaking down the episode with Hal Elrod. AJ was just making fun of me before we started. And so that’s why I see he’s chuckling, but we’re going to give you our top three and three takeaways, and I’m going to go first this time. You know, I have so much respect for how I think you probably hear that in the interview, but from a technical perspective, in addition to his personal story of dying and coming back to life, which is incredible. He also is an eight self publishing success story, probably my favorite self published success story. And everyone thinks you have to traditionally publish. And there’s a lot of advances. There’s a lot of advantages to traditionally publishing, but you know, he tells the story about for three years, he tried to ride it and he thought he had to traditionally publish.

And then finally just realized that actually the publisher doesn’t do that much to promote your book. And so you have to do the promotion anyway. So why not self publish? And he does it and boom, 2 million copies tell, I don’t know of anyone that sold 2 million copies, self published, and it’s just incredible. And to me inspiring that it’s not just traditional publisher. Self-Publish it’s what is your dream? And what belief are you allowing to hold you back? What, what wall are you allowing to be there that you’re, you’re acquiescing to? When in reality, there’s not even a wall there and you can just blow through it and figure it out yourself. You don’t need to get a TV show. You can launch your own show. You don’t need to get a traditionally book published deal. You can self publish, like you don’t need to be on national radio. You can launch a podcast. So many limits just exist in our own mind. And I just, I loved that. It was inspiring to me it a long rant. That was not that long. Hold on, pause the recording. Let’s go look. I don’t think it was though.

It’s felt long, been a long day, but I think is really pertinent to this particular interview. And as you can tell, this is a, not a shower day for me. This is my mommy day. And Rory, actually,

For those of you watching this on YouTube, those of you listening to the podcast,

I sound just as like normal

In full makeup and full hair and her nicest outfit.

Oh, well, yes, but I will tell you it’s, it’s kind of interesting because we, we came in through, from a weekend trip yesterday and didn’t have time to record our recap when we typically do. And Tuesdays are always my mommy day where I’m just full time mom, all day long with my two toddlers. Which means I don’t usually get a shower or hair or makeup or do anything for myself. Maybe I get to eat. But Rory was like, Hey, I really want you to listen to this. And I’m like, Oh, you can just record this one. And then I listened to it and I’m like, Oh, now I know why he insisted that I listen to it. Cause I had a really couple of negative moments of like, I’m so overwhelmed. There’s not enough. There’s not enough time to go around.

No one’s looking out for me. Kind of had some of those moments and he was like, Hey, are you going to listen to that podcast? And I’m like, okay, well now it’s all clicking and I’ll putting together. And I think that was one of the things that was really important to me listening to this and why all of you should listen to this as much as you’re going to learn about your personal brand and self publishing and traditional publishing for that matter and building a community. I think the first half of the interview is worth listening to whatever you, you gleam from the rest of it is awesome. But the first half is just such a great reminder, no matter where you are in your personal brand journey, you control how you feel, right. You control. If you think you’re succeeding or not.

That has a hundred percent to do with your perspective and your perception of what is impact to you. Is it one person? Is it a million persons? Like why does that matter? It’s like, why do you have to have a hundred thousand followers versus a hundred followers? If you truly believe in what you’re doing and what you’re called to do. And that, I just feel like that more than anything else is why you should listen to this interview and follow Hal and read the book and do all the things and why I really needed to listen to this myself right now is that great reminder of, I have nothing to complain about. I have everything to be grateful for and so do you, right? If you have the opportunity to share your message to even one person that is worth it, it is not about your follower count.

It’s not about six, seven, eight figure advances, even though those are awesome, right? Those are amazing byproducts of just doing what you believe in and what you’re called to do. And I just think if you just focus in on what are you called to do and what are you passionate about and what are you grateful for and how does that just exude from every part of your being, this will work out for you at some point at some time in some way, this will work out for you. And how is a great example of, I’m not gonna wait around for anyone else to do this for me, I can just go do it myself, because I feel that called to the message to the mission and to getting this out there and I’ll do what I gotta do. And sometimes that’s what we gotta do. So that’s why I really think this is awesome.

Yeah. And that, as I would, I would count that as my, I was actually going to save it for my third takeaway. But since you brought it up the first half of the interview, if you haven’t listened to it yet is his personal story about how he died. Came back to life, died again, came back to life, made it through this whole bout and then had cancer and just this inspiring outlook on what it means to be alive. And and how you are in control of what’s going on inside. Like there’s a lot of thing, a lot of things externally that we don’t have control over, but everything that’s going on inside, you are in control of your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, what you choose to be grateful for, what you decide to spend your time on and to hear it in the context of someone that has gone through so much challenge is just inspiring.

And I, I agree with you it’s that his personal story is just so moving that it is it’s beyond all the wonderful technical details that he shared, you know, things about how self publishing works and how do you do it and how did the advances work and how does the money work? He was super transparent. But you’re in charge of what’s going on inside of your head. And I think as influencers or personal brands we are, so we’re so used to being the teachers or the messengers, it’s easy to forget how we also have to be the students and getting to learn from other people like how and go, wow. Like I’ve got a lot of personal development work to do myself, in addition to all the business work I need to do on my, on my brand. So it was, that was awesome. That was my second takeaway.

Yeah. And I think one of the, I think one of the more technical components of this as it relates to building your personal brand and, you know, writing and speaking and publishing and all the things that he talks about. But I just really love this, this whole concept of people talk about this a lot in the space of you can’t really make a ton of money selling books anymore. A book is more of like a business card. We’ve even said that well he proves that very, very, very wrong, and I think that’s awesome. Like you need some people to step up and go, no, you can. It’s just, you’re not. And I, that was like a really good like, Oh yeah. Like you really can make a lot of money. I mean, you’ve got plenty of people. Who’ve, you know, you know, you’ve got, you know, the Twilight and Harry potters and all of those ends of the world.

But then, but then like when you come to like the real personal development and business space, it’s like, you’ve got those two, you’ve got, you know, like Dave Ramsey and how L rod on the self publishing route like that, that is worth noting. And I just want you guys to like, pay attention. It’s like he has sold 2 million copies self-published and average retail price is around $20. And let’s just say he even gets to keep half of that, which I think he said it averages a little bit higher than 50%. I’m on print version. Y’all at $9. And I just low balled. It like is $10 would be 50%, but at $9 at 2 million copies, you don’t have to be a mathematician to do this. It’s $18 million. You can make plenty of dough selling your books that you self published. And there is all kinds of talk in the industry about, well, if your book won’t just won’t be seen as credible, or it won’t have the same distribution. Well, that just ain’t the case here. And that just proves all of that wrong of, well, no, you can write, you can do that, but you gotta hustle and you gotta do it and you gotta be committed to it. And I, I think that was a great reminder of, you know, you can just, most people aren’t,

Right. Yeah. If you sell a million of any set and you’re going to make money, right. Like matter what it is. And that’s really good. And, and yeah, I think it’s, you know, John Gordon and John Maxwell are people who traditionally published, who I have sold a lot. They have make plenty of money from just book sales. And the Andrews makes plenty of money from just book sales through traditional route. And then you have hell rod. And then, you know, of course, Dave Ramsey’s self-published stuff and then traditionally published and gone back to self publishing. So yeah, I, I love that. And to your point about the hustle, I was just looking up the notes the first year, he said he did 140 interviews, 30 podcasts interviews did 36 speeches and sold like 13,000 copies. He’s strong, which is super strong, but it’s also not the one where you go, Oh, they sold 50,000 units on opening week. And you know, this is, this is the next book that’s going to sell a million. It was 13,000 copies over the first like year and a half, but then he did it consistent and it grew

Not consistent. It totally multiplied because it went from 13,000 in year, one to six years later, 2 million or a million,

Six years, six years to reach a million,

18,000 to a million in six years is like pretty aggressive.

That’s amazing. Well, and so that was my third point is this Facebook group that, you know, and here’s what I think the point is is that if you build a community around your message, then book sales naturally flow out of that, right? Like most people think, how can I build a community around my book when I have a book launch in order to sell my book. And it’s like this one time thing, how wasn’t doing it out of marketing, he was doing it out of impact. He’s like, I want to create a place for people to support one another in cheer each other on and get them to meet me and I can meet them and to answer their questions. And, and it’s the, the Facebook community that he built that, yeah. You know, when you have 250,000 people in your Facebook group every day, talking to each other, of course, they’re going to like the topic of conversation is around this thing.

That is your book. Of course, those people are going to buy, and they’re not just going to read it and forget about it. They’re in there all the time. It’s like having 250,000 salespeople for your book. And that flew flow out of flown out of it, grew out of it. It came out of a mission to serve and build a community around a message, not build a community around a book. And we actually use house book in our bestseller launch plan, which is one of our phase three events. There’s a, there’s a window of that event that we talk about the long tail sales plan, like the perennial bestseller. And we talk about building a community around you know, a movement, not just around a book and how is this great, an example of that? And you can do that today. Even if you don’t have a book, you can build that community now and pour into people and then it will sell books.

Well, you can tell Roy is very passionate about this particular topic. And now there’s a lot of hand movements, a lot of hands movement,

Youtube. You’re seeing my hand movements come aggressively at the camera.

There’s a lot, there’s a lot of hands moving over here. My third point is somewhat similar to that, but I think that I’m not going to say it’s easy, but how really deep details out the plan of, it’s not that difficult to get your book self published and get it distributed. Right. And he really lays out like, well, here’s the company that does this, and this is how you do this. And this is how you get an audio and here’s on Kindle. And it’s like, I’m not going to say it’s easy because that’s still work. But it is simple. It’s not rocket science. And we just have so many people in our network. And if people who are clients that are just baffled and stuck about what do I do, and it’s like, just do something right. If you’re waiting around to decide if you should get traditionally published, it’s like, I think he made a great point.

It’s like, ask yourself how big is your platform? And if it’s not going to sell itself for you, then you should go ahead and self publish. And here’s what you do, right? Here’s how you set up your distribution with Amazon. This is how you set up your Kindle. These are the percentages, and then you do the deal and then you go out and you sell it. You get on podcast interviews, you go speak and you the pants off of it. But if you really are trying to go for that traditional route, it’s just a great reminder of publishers. Aren’t trying to sell your book. It’s your job to sell your book. So do you want to sell it via a publisher and their distribution or sell it via yourself and use all the other distribution channels that have developed over the last 10, 15 years. That really weren’t there back in 2010, like these are all things that have exponentially made this process easier for people to get their messages out there, which is you. And you don’t have to be traditionally published to make tons of money and to be a super credible author these days, you’ve got tons of examples of that. It’s just how bad do you want to do it?

Absolutely. Amen. And you can find a way you can figure it out, by the way, if you’re looking for tactical strategies on how to actually market your book. I mentioned this already. We have an event called bestseller launch plan, which specifically teaches you tactics to market the books. And we use, like I said, how as a case study, another thing that we address in there is when to self publish versus when to traditionally publish you know, a quick tip on that just to rough, a rough guide is we usually say, if you have a platform where you think you can move 10,000 units in the first four to six weeks, that’s a good signal that you’re ready for traditional publishing. And that it probably makes sense. And if you’re not there, or even if you are there, you still need to take a good look at self publishing because of all the reasons that he was talking about the cool 18 million of them, if you got a calculator so anyways, go listen to the interview. Thanks for being here, knocked down the walls, let us know how we can help you. We’re here to support you along the way. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brands.

Ep 112: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod

RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:04) My day is just better. When I look on my calendar and I see an appointment with Hal Elrod I have grown to love this man. Truly love him. And it’s like, John O’Leary, you heard me, I’ve interviewed John O’Leary before. These are two of like people that most inspire me in a profound way personally, in terms of what they’ve overcome in their life, the attitude of which they’ve overcome it. And what, how has been able to build in terms of a community is just inspiring. And it makes a difference in the world. Like he is someone who is a mission driven messenger. He’s a classic example of what we’re trying to help people become in his book. The miracle morning is what we actually uphold in our bestseller launch plan event, as sort of like the ultimate pinnacle of a, of a self published work. RV: (01:55) It has now sold over 2 million copies. There are multiple derivatives of the book for, you know, different groups. He released another book called the miracle equation, not too long ago and how, and I saw each other again, and we shared the stage at an event, one of the best speaking events in the world advisors Excel in early 2020, it was like one of the last human events in person events. And I got to see him speak which was such a treat. So anyways, how brother welcome to the show. Good to see you, Rory brother. It is, it is a pleasure man. And I’m I’m excited to to dive into that. So I want you to tell the story. We want to hear the story of the miracle morning community, which is amazing 270,000 people in this Facebook group. And I want to hear how you built a quarter million people in a Facebook group and sold 2 million copies of a self published book. But for people who don’t know you, can you just tell us like a little bit of your personal story of like, what happened and, and, you know, you survive this near death experience and then how that kind of led to you starting your, you know, as an, HE: (03:12) On a personal brand. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all have wake up calls at different times in our, in our lives. And they usually come from adversity, right? Some sort of adversity challenge tragedy. When I was 20 years old, I was driving home from a Cutco sales meeting. I sold Cutco cutlery and I gave a speech that night at this conference and driving home that night in a brand new Ford Mustang. My first new car, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And my car spun off the drunk driver. The car behind me hit me at 70 miles an hour in my door. And I broke 11 bones on the left side of my body from the side impact. And that night I bled to death. It took the paramedics and the fire department and our to use the jaws of life and cut me out of the car. HE: (03:55) And so I was just bleeding with 11 broken bones in the car. And that night I was I died on the helicopter. I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes while I was taken to the hospital. You know, heart stopped beating, wasn’t breathing for six minutes and then six days in a coma. And I flat lined twice more. He came out of the coma to be told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And I always joke that my wife will about for the brain damage, but I did learn to walk again. And you know, and, and went on to, and not really did launch me into like, even in the hospital. I’m like, I felt this sense of purpose. Like I’m meant to overcome this in the most positive, proactive way. I can, as an example for other people. HE: (04:39) And I didn’t know who those other people were. I didn’t know if those were just going to be my future kids or my circle of influence or my family or the world, but I did always want to be a, a keynote speaker, motivational speaker. I called it back then. And I remember I told my dad, I said, dad, you know, he, he was the doctors were wondering why I was so positive. And I said, look, I’ve always wanted to be motivational speaker, but I had kind of a normal life. I never had anything good to talk about this. Maybe this is why this is happening. So I have a story of overcoming that I can share with others and, you know, turned into be exactly that. And and then in 2008, when the economy crashed, I crashed. RV: (05:18) So you actually, so you died clinically died three separate times and, and that, that’s how this all started. HE: (05:26) Yeah. That’s where, yeah, that, that, that was where that adversity, that wake up call of like, Hey you know, it really taught me what I think right now is so important year. What year was this? Two a night, December 3rd, 1999. Okay. And yeah, so 99, so 20 little over 20 years, right, right. Over 20 years ago. And and just taught me that our, our outer world what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with other people what’s going on in our government, what’s going on in our job. What’s going on in the economy is not determining the determining factor of our inner world. You know? And, and I really that’s what I learned is that the, the, the world can be falling down outside of me. And I will choose to be at peace, happy and grateful, no matter what’s going on around me. HE: (06:12) And that for me, I applied three years ago with diagnosis of cancer, a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. And, you know, as a doubt, I mean, you know, when you’re, when you’re sitting there looking at your 11 or your seven year old daughter in the face and your four year old son and the doctor just told you that day, that you’re most likely going to die. It’s a hardest, that’s the hardest thing, you know, to deal with. And and I have, I had the same, the same decision. The day I was diagnosed with cancer. And given those grim odds, I called my wife. She was out of town and I had to tell her, and she in buttoned tears. And I said, sweetie, I promise you one thing, I can’t promise that I’ll beat this, but I promise, I believe I will give it everything I have, but I said, I will promise you, I will be the happiest and the most grateful and the strongest I’ve ever been while we endure the most difficult time in our lives together. HE: (07:02) And it was by far the most difficult time, but but I was, you know, there’s video of me, you know, in pain and, and no hair and then chemo. And, but just genuinely, like, I’m not letting my circumstances dictate my emotional wellbeing. And I think for all of us, we, we, we’ve been conditioned to think they’re mutually exclusive like, Oh, bad things happening in the world. And in my life, I feel bad, good things happen. I feel good. But, you know, I think that the most important thing that we can adopt is it doesn’t matter. What’s going on outside of me. I am always in control of what’s going on inside of me. And from that place, we can find joy, happiness, motivation to create the circumstances that we want in our lives. RV: (07:42) Gosh, brother, that is just so powerful and meaningful and needed, I mean, in the world. So, so how does, did the community start first or did the book start and like, did you try to traditionally publish and or did you just kind of go like, cause basically, so miracle morning was the first book, miracle equations, the new book, but miracle morning is this story. And then it’s also a morning routine and set of set of practices that you follow and help people to live this. Did you so, so talk to me about the book. Like when does the book come on? How does that come about? HE: (08:22) So miracle morning, it was, it was never a book idea. It was in 2008, when the United States economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. And after like a six month downward spiral of losing over half of my clients losing my, you know, having to foreclose on my house getting my body fat percentage tripled, like I, I was, I was, I was in debt. I was depressed. I was kind of a mess and a series of events and some advice from a good buddy of mine. John Burgoff do you know John Bergoff? I don’t know John Bergoff and that’s all right, I’ll introduce you at some time. But I said, John gave me advice. He said, how you should go for a run every morning and listen to self-help. He said, put yourself in a peak state, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and listen to something that will enhance your mental and emotional wellbeing. HE: (09:07) And I’m like, Oh, okay. You know, like I need to make money even. And I don’t, I don’t say that’s gonna make me money, but, but it basically led me to realize that how I start my day was the single most determining factor in the state that I begin the day in and thus carried out the day in and thus created my results. And so, in other words, how you start your day sets the tone, the context and the direction for the rest of your life. And so I started practicing this and it changed my life very quickly. I went and told my wife, after two months of doing this, I said, this morning routine feels like a miracle. You know, we’ve doubled our income. We have all these amazing results. And she goes, it’s like your miracle morning. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And then that’s when I started teaching it to people, my clients, and in speeches and RV: (09:53) Quickly that the most successful male authors in the world are simply plagiarizing from their wives. Yeah. Yes. HE: (10:00) Our wives or our muses. Yeah, no, she, she, she came up with the title and even though, again, it wasn’t a different book title, but so I finally was like, I have a responsibility because it changed my life and it was changing all of my clients’ lives. And I went, none of us were morning people. So the, this, if this could change our lives, this could change anybody’s life. And I felt a sense of responsibility to write a book about it. And it took me three years. And during that time to answer your question on the traditional versus self publishing, I thought, okay, I really want to change millions of lives with this book. So therefore I have to traditionally publish to be taken seriously and for it to get any distribution. And then as I kept writing the book and doing my research, I went, Oh, that’s not true. HE: (10:42) Like the publisher doesn’t do much to market your book unless you have a household name and they know that it’s going to give them, you know, give them a nice ROI. I realized that if you traditionally published, you’re lucky just to get a deal and then you still have to do all the marketing. So I thought, I believe in this concept, I’m going to self publish. I self published the book on 12, 12, 2012, so 12, 12, 12. And it didn’t have a huge, you know, I didn’t have a big, I wasn’t an influencer. I wasn’t like Tim Ferriss. I didn’t have a blog. I, you know, I wasn’t well known. And it’s about a year and a half of, of promotion. The first year I did 150 podcast interviews. I did 50 of my own podcasts. I get 36 speeches. HE: (11:24) I was on 12 TV shows. Like I did everything I could. And I sold like 13,000 copies. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I was committed for as long as it took to get the message out. And it took six years, six years to reach a million, a million copies sold. And in that time, the book was translated and traditionally published in 37 different languages. So once it got fractioned being self published an agent reached out, I got an intro to an agent and said, Hey, this, you know, this things like the trajectory of this book is, is, is going off, you know, was on fire. We think that traditional publishers would be interested and publishers. And so, yeah. So then, so it’s, it’s still sell published in the U S and it’s traditionally published in 37 other countries. So RV: (12:14) Do you have to traditionally publish a book to make money from writing a book? HE: (12:19) No. I would say 90. RV: (12:23) That was a short, complete answer there. HE: (12:26) No, no. Tell us about it. 95 to 99% of authors I would say would be better served self publishing. I have 13 books or so, and all of them, except one is traditionally published. And that was last year. And here’s what I learned. The only thing that a publisher cares about, I shouldn’t say the only thing, their highest priority is the size of your platform. That’s it? That’s what you get paid in, advance on. It’s not on how good your idea. Everybody thinks I have the best idea ever. They don’t care because the best idea, if you don’t have an audience that you can reach that, that book too. That’s why anybody that’s on the news or has a talk show, Anderson Cooper, whoever, right? Like Oprah, they get a multimillion dollar band because the publisher knows that it’s a guaranteed success, right? It’s a business. HE: (13:12) So if you have a large platform of, you know, let’s say a hundred thousand followers, then it’s worth shopping around to a traditional publisher and seeing what kind of advance you can get. But the big difference is you’re going to get, you know, let’s say on average, 10, 12% of the royalties are of the book, the profits from the book, if you traditionally publish, when you self publish, you get anywhere from 70 to 90% of the profits. And so in the long game, you’re, you know, you’re almost always better off to self publish. So, RV: (13:47) So I love that. So thank you. Thank you for that. It’s funny you use that 100,000 number. We use the same number. We say once you have a hundred thousand followers, that’s about the time to start, look at traditional publishing. And when you can move 10,000 units, when you feel like you can sell 10,000 units on opening week, that’s when it’s time to think about bestseller, you know, like bestseller, New York times wall street journal, kind of a thing, but the money here. So can you talk to us about how the money works? Like, we don’t need to know how much you make or anything, but like, I think a lot of people don’t realize that, like people say, you know, you don’t make money writing a book. It’s just a business, HE: (14:28) Which, yeah, RV: (14:29) It is a business card, but you actually can make a truckload of money from doing this, but can you walk us through, like, how does the money work? Like where does it actually, like if you, if I type a book, if I write out a book on my computer today, it took you three years and then I go print it and put it in Amazon, or I use create space, or then what happens? And where do you, where does, where do all the sales come? They come from Amazon. I’m assuming a lot of them happen in Amazon. HE: (14:59) Yeah. So all of, I mean, so all true. All self published books. So I self published through it was CreateSpace now it’s called it’s Kindle direct publishing, which they just took over create space. It’s all, they were all, it was an Amazon company. And and so that when you publish the book, you just check a box if you want it on Tindall right. So paperback, Kindle and then Amazon owns a company. I don’t know if it’s changed since I started doing this, but it was a C X, the letter, a letter C X acx.com. And that is what that is there. Audio book publishing arm. So audio book, self publishing. And so I, you earn on your traditional books. So my traditional, my paperback is or on my self published paperback it’s the retail price is 20 bucks is what I haven’t said at 1999. Amazon sells it for whatever they want, which usually ranges from 15 to 18. And I think I earn just under $9 per book compared to a dollar or two per book, if it was traditionally published. Right? So you sell you know, a thousand copies of the book, right times, you know, that’s, that’s what, $8,000 in income now on Kindle you price it at nine 99, you were in 70% yearning, $7 per book sold on Kindle. Okay. Sorry. Hold on. Sorry. Kindle. RV: (16:22) So, so like on paperback, you’re getting like 50% HE: (16:25) Ish. Yeah, yeah. 50% ish and 70% on, on Kendall. RV: (16:30) Got it. Okay. 50% paperback and then 70%. HE: (16:33) And it’s not an exact formula it’s based on the cost of printing based on how many pages you are. Right. So, so, but, but let’s say yeah, you know, 40, 50% and then on audible I got lucky when I signed on the audible, they used to have a sliding scale where the more books you sold, the higher your percentage jumped up and it stayed there forever. So we are now at 90% for audible. So we are nine on, but now that’s not the case anymore. They changed that model. It’s now a flat 40. So you had 40% of all your books sold an audible. When you go through the, the audible exchange, the ACX company, you can find a narrator, put up, put up, you know, a word, a PDF of your first chapter of your book. You can have people audition for it and then choose one and then either pay them a split or pay them upfront. RV: (17:21) Wow. I mean, that’s pretty simple. I mean, really like, that’s, it’s really pretty simple. And then you’re just basically like doing social media and emails and speaking, and webinars and like, whatever, like all the usual stuff, people go to Amazon or Kindle or audible, and then they buy books and, and then get, HE: (17:40) Yeah, you get a direct deposit in your bank account every month. That direct deposit every month. Yeah. Towards the end of the month. Okay. RV: (17:46) That’s so cool. I mean, and 2 million copies is, is all in for paperback, Kindle and audio. HE: (17:54) So 2 million copies, a half of that roughly is self published us and the other half are those other 37 foreign publishers. So the other half are across the other countries, which by the way, I think a million are in Brazil alone. That’s been the biggest, I think we’ve sold more books in Brazil than in the United States. It went crazy there. Wow. RV: (18:15) That’s so funny. I mean, it’s random how that stuff happens. And then, so talk to us about the, the community, the community. Yeah. Like w w w when did you start that? I mean, this is like, this is way before Facebook groups where like a strategy, you were just, I remember the first time we met, I can’t remember. Maybe it was probably John Ruhlin who interviewed, introduced us, or maybe, actually I think it was Peter Vogue actually, who introduced. And I think the first time you interviewed me, it was actually maybe in the community. I don’t even know if you had a podcast back then. I don’t know if that’s right, but, you know, anyways, tell us how did it start? HE: (18:54) W w where did this come from? So it was an 11th hour deal where I had sent the, my almost finished a manuscript for the miracle morning to a handful of my buddies. And I was like, Hey, will you guys read this and give you feedback? And Jon Vroman was like, Hey, have you thought about creating some sort of online group, any, and this was yeah, 2011, right. Or 12. He said, somewhere, he goes, it feels like this is going to be a lonely venture for a lot of people. Like, if they’re the only morning person, their family they’re by themselves. And there’s nobody to, to connect with and be held accountable to. And he goes, I could see them sliding backwards. I was like, Oh, that’s a great idea. You know, he goes, yeah. He goes, I go. And so I started looking like Kajabi. HE: (19:34) I’m like, maybe I’ll create like an online form. And he said, dude, if I were you, I would just do Facebook groups. He goes, don’t, don’t give people another place to log into because they don’t have that as a habit. You’re trying to get them to create a new habit. If they’re already on Facebook, they’ve got notifications built in the functionality of the group has already, he goes, I would remit the wheel, I’d go to Facebook. And I’m like, yeah. Great idea. So I started a Facebook group called the miracle morning community with me, my mom, dad, John Broman, my sister, right. Like, you know, a handful of us. And I put in the, in the book in the beginning, a special invitation join the miracle morning community to, you know, to, to get accountability and encouragement, swap smoothie, recipes, learn new meditation routines, like whatever. HE: (20:19) And I was the only one in there. I would just check in every day and put quotes and means and add value and right in there and this and that. And as the book sold, right. I mean, as the, you know, so in the beginning, the Facebook group mimicked the book sales because that’s where people found out about it. And and so it started out with, you know, grew to a few hundred people and then eventually crossed a thousand and that particular year, you know, and and then and then it just, it just kind of scaled up. And, and now there’s 270 some thousand members from over a hundred countries. And and they support each other. Like, I don’t, it doesn’t run on me. It’s, it’s them logging in every day. And it’s, we’ve really created this culture of people who are waking up every day and dedicating time to fulfilling their potential with their miracle morning. HE: (21:05) And then they’re, they’re lifting each other up, they’re supporting each other and you get in there, people that, you know, that will celebrate, you know, Hey, today’s day 100 of the miracle morning, and then you’ll get somebody that’s like, Hey, I’m brand new. My friend told me about this group in this book, but I’m not a morning person. Should I do it? And don’t get 150 people for an hour. And they’re like, dude, I was the same, I wasn’t a morning person. Like it works, you know? And, and then they’ll give it a try. So yeah, it’s become really, really, really, really a special, special place, RV: (21:35) Man. That, that is so awesome. And so just a technical question here, you know, like normally when you post on Facebook, a very small fraction of the people, see it when you posted in the Facebook group, like at that scale 270,000, is that similar that only a fraction of those people are seeing it? Or is it, is it, is it because it’s a group it’s a little, it’s a little different HE: (22:01) No, it’s still true. And it’s really, really frustrating. Right. I mean, it is what it is, but and we’re, and we have explored, you know, going with a different platform, like mighty networks and yeah, but it’s just, it’s this, it goes back to John Bowman’s original advice, which is like, you know, are they people really going to log into a different thing? And so we’re, that’s still ideal. We want to take the control of that, but to give you an idea yesterday, one of our admin Stephanie Blackbird, she runs the group in terms of the admin for it. And cause we get, you know, hundreds of new requests every day, somebody’s got to, you know, vet those. And she, but she posted, where are you from? And in less than 24 hours, we had over a thousand comments. You know what I’m saying? I’m from, I’m from Belgium, I’m from France, I’m from America, I’m from Russia and from you just all over the place. So I would imagine out of the 270,000 people, maybe 2000 saw it, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s, it’s definitely tough. RV: (22:59) Yeah. Well, I mean, whether you’re sending emails or you’re doing social media or, I mean, you’re always, you’re always dealing with that, but how cool that this community has taken a life of its own and and then it’s like, it just, it’s just growing, like it’s just this asset that just keeps making a bigger and bigger impact in the world. HE: (23:20) So like what else RV: (23:22) Do you do other than the book? I mean, the cool thing is if you have one great book, self published book like this, like you could actually make a pretty fine living just off of the book and then, and then you speak and any other parts of the business model that you’re working on or have been doing that you’re super excited about. I mean, obviously I know you’ve you were dealing with cancer here for a while, so that’s been, you know, that’s got to have been. HE: (23:46) Yeah, well, yeah. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the Mo the miracle morning movie is coming out on 12, 12 to 2020, and there’s nothing I’m more excited about than that, but I will share what I turned before. I I’ll, I’ll get to that in a second. It was that when the book came out I, you know, I, then I started, I was a college speaker and I always wanted to be a keynote corporate speaker and be able to raise my fees and Reno reach more people. And so I used the book to plant the seed in there that, you know, when I was speaking at this event, when I was speaking at this event, you know, I can, you know, I’ll bring the miracle morning to you guys. Right. And and so almost every speech I’ve given in the last, you know, whatever eight years is some leader that read the book and wanted me to bring it to their people. HE: (24:30) Right. So it did, it might, my speaking career launched off of that. The so that was a speaking career. And then we started doing live events every year, and then God, last year, because I was having trouble with the chemo and depression and anxiety, I decided to take a year off of the event, which is this, it would have been this December and who knows what headache. It would have been trying to deal with the hotel and re refunding 500 tickets transitioning to LA, you know, online, who knows. So, so we did have live events. We did have a mastermind right now it’s it’s, I just do virtual keynotes, which are not the same as you know, I’m sure. And so, so, but books and virtual keynotes, and then, yeah, we were making a documentary called the miracle morning movie about five or six years ago, we started making this and I started going around and interviewing, you know, world-class influential people, Muhammad Ali, 18, or Mohammed Ali’s daughter, sorry, not Muhammad Ali mom and all these daughter, Laila Ali she’s in it, her morning routine, you know, Brendon Burchard, his morning routine Lewis, Howes, Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma. HE: (25:40) We started interviewing all these world-class individuals, their morning routine. And that was the movie we were making. And and then I was diagnosed with cancer and I called our director and I said, Hey we gotta put the movie on hold, man. I’m, I’m fighting for my life. It’s not looking, it’s not, it doesn’t look good. And he said, you know, being a filmmaker, he said, actually, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to film this journey and, and, you know, come to the hospital and film you going through this. And Holy moly kind of caught me off guard. And thank God we pushed for it because the, the, the first hour of the movie is what we intended it to be. And the last 30 minutes is the most unexpected inspiring, you know, me fighting for my life, with my family, by my side, a wall, I’m still traveling the world trying to spread this mission. And yeah. And so that, that, that’s what I, my main focus right now is just launching this movie to the world on in December. And and then, and then I’ll take a breath and see what’s next from there. So did you so the, the, RV: (26:44) So the movie is that like, self-published too, like, did you pay for it? Did you get a film? You just got your own film crew and a director and said, Hey, I have a vision for a movie. I’m going to make my own fricking movie. HE: (26:56) Yes, yes, my buddy. So my buddy, Nick Conedera is a director. And a few years, like six years ago, he was at my house for dinner. He said, dude, we should make a movie about the miracle morning. Cause he’s in the miracle morning community. And he does it himself. And he would see these people, you know, this guy, Mike Keaton posted how he lost it. And he lost 90 pounds, six months after he started the miracle morning. And he had been obese his whole life. And he attributed to my miracle morning. And so Nick is goes, dude, we got a feature, all these stories of people overcoming depression and starting businesses and all the sudden you’re good morning. I was like, that’s a great idea. I said, but I don’t even know what that looks like, dude, like, right. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. HE: (27:34) Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I don’t even like talk to me later and he kept bugging me about it. And like a few months later, he, he, he found the angle and he called me and he said, how, what’s your mission in life? And I said to elevate, or actually back then it was to change millions of lives one morning at a time. And I said, why? He said, what percentage of our society, you’re trying to change the world. What percentage of our society read self help books? And right away, I kind of got where he was going. And I went, I like 1%, maybe he said, what percentage watch movies? And I went, you’re right. If we’re going to reach, if we’re going to reach the masses, it has to be in another format. And so that’s when we started making the movie and yeah, I funded it. We had a few producers, but I, for the most part, I funded 98% of it. And he, and then I started just meeting people that became part of the team that just kind of God put them in my life. And it was like, perfect. You know, RV: (28:31) That is amazing. How buddy, you are, you like, you are amazing and your, your life is been used for so much. Good. And then continues to be used for so much. Good. And I just buddy, I’m so grateful for you. Where do you, where should people go if they want to connect to you? Obviously you’ve got the Facebook group. Where else would you direct people to? HE: (28:54) Yeah. Miracle morning.com is the best hub. You can find all the books from there. You can join the community from there. You know, you can join the join, the email list. We don’t the movie isn’t for sale yet. We’re working on getting the site up and stuff. People can buy tickets for the world, premier, which is gonna be really cool on 12, 12, 20, 20, we’re doing the miracle morning movie experience, the world premiere. It’s going to be the worldview of the film followed by an immediate, like, how do you implement this? So like, okay, you just watched a movie, you were all excited, you know, about the miracle morning, how do you start it tomorrow morning? And I’m going to teach how to do that. And there’ll be like a live Q and a with me and the director and the team. And then there’ll be a 30 day challenge that people will be able to join, you know, for free. And so yeah, so go to miracle morning.com. And if you join the email list, you’ll get my weekly podcast. You’ll get that way. We don’t RV: (29:42) Sell anything really to you. It’s just, we just try to add value. And until the movie comes out, I love it. Well, we’ll put miracle morning.com in the show notes, rather, thank you for what you do and for your story and your faith. And just for keeping the fight for yourself and your family. And obviously for the message, we, we appreciate you and we pray for you and we wish you the best. Thanks brother. Appreciate you, man. Keep doing what you’re doing.

Ep 111: The Foot Traffic Formula with Stacy Tuschl | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) Hey, it’s the Influential personal brand recap edition. Although it’s just me this time I’m filling in for momma CEO. AJ who is out today and I’m going to be breaking down my new friend, Stacy Tuschl interview, which I loved. And here’s why I loved it. I loved it because more, probably than any other interview that we have had, she talks about the intersection of digital marketing, marketing, online marketing, in other words, and offline marketing, this intersection between the offline world and the online world, which is where the magic happens. It’s it’s not about either, or it really is about both now, specifically. I think more of the angle that she takes in her business and in the interview, if you didn’t listen to it, go back of course, and listen to it. But, um, is she’s really teaching online marketing strategies for brick and mortar businesses. But if you listen closely, she’s really teaching both just online marketing and offline marketing, which is the story of my life. RV: (01:25) That is the story of our companies. It’s not free traffic or paid traffic. It’s both, it’s not, uh, offline or online. It’s both, when you’re launching a company, when you’re building a personal brand, you have to do everything you can possibly do to get the word out about what you do, right? Like it, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you do all the things at once. It means you, you, you know, obviously if you’re one of our members, we teach the brand builder journey. So we teach a specific sequence and how you build this. But the thing you got to know is it’s, it doesn’t matter how advanced you are, how big you are. Like we have to over the course of time, master as many marketing strategies as we possibly can, like build in as many as, as we, as our team can handle and that we can, we can run effectively. RV: (02:23) And that is just important, right? It’s, it’s important that you know, that it’s important that you hear the truth, that nobody built a business on just going viral. And nobody just got lucky where people just showed up. Like that’s not a strategy and it’s not the truth. The truth is that every great personal brand hustled, they built one channel at a time and then the next, and then the next, and then the next all as ways of reaching out. And I think that’s just, you know, something that we can never, we can never hear enough of. Right? Because when you look online and you go, Oh my gosh, like I don’t have the followers that she has, or I don’t have as much engagement as he has, or my videos aren’t as cool as hers. That’s what we look right. That’s, that’s the thought process that we have, but you, you can’t compare your chapter one to somebody else’s chapter 25 and you got to remember that, right? RV: (03:31) You can’t look at what Dave Ramsey’s doing and be like, Oh my gosh, why? You know, like I’ll never be able to do that. Well, sure. You will. It might take you a while though. I mean, it’s taken him him 30 years, but he’s been slow and steady and consistent, and you can do the same thing and that’s marketing you all. Like it’s a, it’s a grind, it’s a hustle. It’s a battle. I mean, I I’m reminded of, you know, shark tank, you know, shark, shark tank has all these famous investors. And you would think, how do the sharks have a company that fails? Like, aren’t they famous enough that they can just like, you know, make a video post about anything and it’ll just turn into success. And the answer’s no, they’re not like it helps tremendously, but they can still fail. They, the companies still fail because, uh, you, you need a marketing system, you need a marketing plan, you need a marketing strategy. RV: (04:32) You need mechanisms that reinforce your message and are constantly working to, to tell people about who you are and about what you do. And that’s, that’s duplicatable. That’s, replicatable, that’s, that’s something that can grow all this other stuff, you know, going viral and all that. That’s just luck. That’s not something you can, you can reproduce. That’s not what you want to build your company off of, even though it’s worth aspiring to do that. So anyways, it was a great interview for that reason. I’m going to give you my three highlights, but that, that was the message, I guess, that was on my heart for me. And for you of just knowing that, Hey, this it’s all online and offline and we got to do everything we can do to tell the world about what we do. And that’s the truth of every successful business and successful personal brand. RV: (05:26) And so Stacy was a good reminder of that, but, um, all right, so here’s my top three takeaways. So first, first of all, she says directly in the interview, my traffic comes from three places, Facebook ads, Google search, and our referral program. Bam, like there, she is sharing her secrets two decades here of a successful brick and mortar business of where her traffic comes from. Facebook ads, Google search, I E search engine optimization, I E Google ads and referral program. So here’s my first question for you. How many of those three things do you have running in your business? Facebook ads, search engine optimization and Google ads and a referral program. It’s possible that you have zero. And if you’re not experiencing the kind of traffic that you want to be having, it might be because you don’t have any of those three things, things running. RV: (06:31) Now we teach all three of those things. Facebook ads, Google. We would break apart into two. We would call search engine optimization. One part that’s free Google. And then we, we, we have Google ads, which is paid traffic, which, um, specifically YouTube and, um, Google ads, which are both the Google ad network. We would actually kind of treat those as two separate things and then referral program, which we would call affiliate marketing. It’s just another word for that. Um, all four of those traffic sources we teach in our event, high traffic strategies. And there’s a reason why now that’s a phase three event and you go, well, Rory, why would you wait all the way until phase three brand builders group has four phases. We have three, two day experiences in each, each phase, right? So this would be like event number nine out of 12. RV: (07:24) And people say, well, Roy, why do you wait that long to teach traffic? I mean, isn’t traffic important. Yes. But if you don’t have, if you don’t have clear positioning and you, you don’t have a clear offer and you don’t have a clear business model and you don’t have your revenue engine, what we call your revenue engine set up for all your lead capture and all your funnels traffic is, is worthless. Um, but when, once you have all this stuff built and you go, bam, let’s go light up the traffic, the traffic ways, um, three of the six that we teach in our high traffic strategies event, you know, sh she’s doing the same thing. So there you go. Like you’re looking for the secret, like there’s the secret, like that’s what to do, um, how to do it is a different story, but that’s what to do. RV: (08:09) Facebook ads, search engine optimization, Google ads and referral program. And how many of those do you have set up? And if you don’t have any, or you only have half of them, well, the good, the bad news is that’s probably why you’re not seeing the traffic you want. But if the good news about that is, Hey, there’s a lot of room to grow. And, and, and it works, right? You’re not, you’re not yet doing the things that other people are doing that get traffic. And that’s why you don’t have traffic. So that’s a good thing. You’re, you’re clear, at least if you’re listening to this episode, you’re, you’re clear on what will drive traffic. Um, now there’s a whole bunch of things that we do for free traffic. And then our favorite traffic of all is what we call get paid traffic. So this, this category, Facebook ads, Google ads, and affiliate is in what we call paid traffic. RV: (09:02) We have another form of traffic that we teach in phase two, which is another reason why these are in phase three for us, which is free traffic. Um, and then our favorite traffic of all, which she actually didn’t talk about is what we call get paid traffic, which is where you get paid to be put in front of someone else’s audience, uh, which is the number one traffic source we have, of course, for us, it’s speaking, um, where you learn how to get paid and get put in front of an audience, which is amazing and book deals. But, um, anyways, there you go. That’s, those are the things you need to be doing. If you don’t have traffic, that’s why, why you don’t have traffic. You’re not doing those things. Um, and the, when is important, that’s what we would add to it, right. And brand builders group. RV: (09:47) So anyways, that was really edifying for me just to hear her go, okay, we don’t have a brick and mortar business, but even in a brick and mortar business, that’s what she’s doing. And that’s powerful. All right. The second thing is that she said brick and mortar is faster. In other words, offline marketing is faster. I believe that is true. What, wait a minute, Roy doesn’t brand builders kind of specialize in, in, in teaching like digital marketing strategies. Yes. We also specialize in teaching offline. Why? Because funnels and traffic and social media and podcasts. These are slower, longer term, more scalable solutions to traffic, but they are slower. So they’re more scalable. And, and in the longterm, they’re, they’re more valuable, right? Cause there’s only so many phone calls you can make in a day. Maybe not. I maybe wouldn’t say more valuable because you can build a team of people, but from you personally, as a one person, as a one man band or one woman band, you can only make so many phone calls. RV: (11:01) But remember our background, I knocked on doors for 80 hours a week for five summers. Then I tell them marketed in corporate enterprise sales. Then we did business to business sales for 12 years in our former company. And then we did digital marketing. And so that’s something I want you to know, like if you’re just starting out Facebook and Instagram and you know, funnels probably isn’t the fastest path to cash. It’s not what we teach. We actually have a, uh, in our virtual training, even for our virtual members, the very first training we put people through is what is called the fast cash, uh, the fast cash formula. And we talk about offline marketing because it’s people that, you know, it’s, it’s your customers, it’s your friends and family getting referrals from people that you know, and your clients. And it just people who trust you, that’s the fastest path to cash funnels and ads and, and, and social media and podcasting and publishing books. RV: (12:08) Those are all great things. They’re amazing things. They’re, they’re important things. They’re life changing things, but they’re longterm things. They’re longterm things, right? If you need to go sign up top 10 customers tomorrow to pay you a thousand dollars each, and you’re just starting out, getting on Instagram is not the fastest way to do that. You gotta get it through your, your friends and family from referrals and from your first clients, even if you do it for free so that you get testimonials and you can get referrals. Offline marketing is the fastest path to cash. Typically in the short term, unless you’re a celebrity, unless you have a huge following, then it’s, then it’s different. But for most of us, offline is faster. You can go knock on someone’s door. You might have to knock on 50 doors to get one person to buy from you, but you can get a credit card in a day versus, you know, it can take six months a year to get a funnel launched in some cases, depending on how much, you know, what you’re doing. RV: (13:10) Um, but asking your, your brother-in-law for a referral, emailing someone and being on a phone call tomorrow, you can collect a phone, a credit card by this afternoon or by tomorrow. So you work your offline relationships, your offline relationships are just as important. Um, and especially in the short term, you know, brick and mortar, I mean human humans. And by the way, those of you that have done, like if I speak in front of a live audience, we might see a 30% conversion. But if I do a webinar funnel, we might see a 3% conversion. So it’s a trade off. Now the good news about a webinar funnel is that we can have an infinite number of people without adding any time in my calendar. So, uh, a one to 3% conversion works as long as I have enough cash to last for six months while we get the thing built and launched and tested and tweaked, but you’re gonna see lower conversions online than offline. RV: (14:11) And it’s going to take typically a longer runway online than offline. And then finally, the last thing, this was so simple, um, was she just said, and this was just powerful, but she said, you have to scrap how you used to do things. And instead ask, how would I do things if I would just starting today in 2020? Right. So what I used to do, you know, it’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant unless it’s still relevant, right? Like doing something because that’s what I used to do. That’s not a reason to keep doing it. The reason to do it is to go, isn’t the best thing to do today, IR, regardless and separate of what I used to do. But so many people are living in the past going, well, we didn’t, we’ve never done that. That’s never worked. I don’t know how to do that. I w I, we never used to do that. RV: (15:09) So I don’t know how to do it. Great. Learn how to do it. Right. The question is not, what did you use to do? What you used to do is irrelevant. All that matters is what do you need to do? What do I have to do right now? What do I want to do? What do I have to do? And I have to do, I have to learn whatever I have to do. And I have to do whatever I have to do, regardless if I want to do it or like to do it. It’s, it’s kind of what my mom used to say. Entitlement, you know, is, is interesting because enjoying it, isn’t a requirement of doing it, enjoying it. Isn’t a requirement of doing it. And that is true when it comes to marketing. So it’s, it’s what do I have to do more than, what do I want to do? RV: (15:58) It’s not, what did I used to do? It’s what should I do today? And some of those things from the past can still work and other things you need to let leave them behind. And in a lot of cases, you need to reinvent or supplement your traffic strategy with some new skill sets. And you can do that. And you can learn those. Some of those things right here on these podcast interviews, you can learn a ton of them from our team at brand builders group. But no matter how you do it, you got to pump your message out there into the world as fast as possible in many, as many outlets as you can keep up with. Uh, so that people hear about you because excellence is never an accident. People don’t accidentally find you and you don’t accidentally grow your business. So online marketing and offline bring it together. And that is where the magic happens. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye [inaudible].

Ep 110: The Foot Traffic Formula with Stacy Tuschl

ST: (00:06) RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) I’m so happy and excited to be able to bring you a little bit of a discussion from brick and mortar land from one of the women who is really one of the experts and is also kind of a new friend, but we’ve known of each other for like the last couple years, her name’s Stacy Tuschl. And I met her at a couple of different masterminds. I spoke at and through mutual friend, Julie Solomon, some of you know, and she’s amazing. So first of all, she’s a bestselling author and speaker, she’s the owner of multiple seven figure businesses. She’s the creator of something called the foot traffic formula, which we’re gonna talk about. And she, one of the things that I love is she has a real good focus and balance on just not making work, everything always all the time, but like having the personal life and being, being a family, a family woman, or a family, man, I guess you could say two of ’em those of you that are, you know, trying to raise a family. And, and, and in addition to the business recently she actually became she got the Wisconsin, small business person of the year award from the SBA, which if you know anything about like local business, that’s a big, a big freaking deal. And Wisconsin is a big state. So I’m excited to introduce you to her. We’re just going to chat and hear some of her stories. So Stacy, thanks for making some time. ST: (02:36) I’m excited to be here. This is going to be fun. RV: (02:39) So you have 18 years, you five years of doing online business. Yep. Which we’ll talk about that too, but really you’re 18 years, like a true brick and mortar business owner. Like, can you tell us a little bit about that and like how, what you were doing and how you got started? Yeah, so I actually started right out of ST: (03:00) High school. The summer I graduated. I was a dancer in high school, kind of late to the game. So I knew I wasn’t going to do it professionally, but I didn’t want to stop. So I decided while I was going to college, I went to UWM Milwaukee here in Wisconsin. While I was going to school, I decided I was going to teach middle school dancers. And we held classes in my parents’ backyard. Talk about strapping. And I had 17 girls start that first year. Within three years, we had a hundred kids still coming to the backyard. And then thankfully I grew up in a small business. So my grandfather started a construction business about 50 plus years ago, so older than me. So I grew up in that and my family saw the dancers, saw what I was doing and said, I think you have a business here. ST: (03:50) Like, I think we could start charging and you could do this for a living. And like just blew my mind because even though I had grown up in that world, it was very different. I mean, construction, dance classes, it just didn’t feel like this could be something I could do. So in 2005, I officially incorporated started charging, rented a space. Today we have now two locations here in Milwaukee. I own both of the brick and mortar, like commercial buildings that we house the dancers in, and I’m about 50 employees. So it’s a pretty well oiled machine. I no longer teach. I strictly work here in my home office on the business. And then about five years ago, people started to say, how are you doing this? Can you teach me? And that’s kind of the birth of our, my online business. RV: (04:39) Huh. So this is like, so it’s a dance studio effectively. I mean, that’s, that’s what this is. And there’s a whole community dance studios is it’s fascinating. Clint Salter is a, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him ST: (04:54) Spoke at cleanse event in January before we all were shut down. RV: (04:58) Oh yeah. I love that guy. And you know, so, but, but one of the reasons that I thought this would be cool to talk about is cause everyone talks about online business and, and I think there’s a good overlap, but foot traffic formula was originally designed. Tell me if I got this right. Specifically for more of those brick and mortars about how to drive more revenue. And so, you know, I kinda think of three things going on here. There’s sort of strategies for, for those of us that are using a personal brand to drive a brick and mortar, then you go, how do we supplement this with online? And then we go, how does COVID interrupt both of those things and marry them together? So that’s kind of how I want to like talk about this, but in a non COVID world for a second, I feel like we never produce content for the people that, that our clients are like, you know, they either have a dance studio or a fitness gym, or they do salons and spas, or we got jewelry designers and they have like boutiques. So if I have a retail business, how do I get people to come in? Yeah. ST: (06:02) Okay. So I love this and here’s what I want to tell you too. Even if you were an online business owner, listen, because business is business is business, right? The strategies I’m using online, I’ve used in my brick and mortar. But the biggest thing that I, I, the difference I should say with brick and mortar is we can get them faster because we’re in person, it’s a deeper connection, right? So sometimes you’ll hear online marketing and they’ll talk about these email drips and spending how many emails, you know, getting them warmed up in the brick and mortar world. I I’m running Facebook ads directly to a free trial or a book, a call or things like that. And we’re getting people on the phone that day and possibly in our building that week. So it’s a little bit different and how fast we can do it because a lot of times our people are searching for us. They already know they have a need and they trust us a little bit more because we are local down the road. We’re one of those neighborhood businesses. But our typical funnel looks like Facebook ad to some way to not just collect their name, their email, but also their phone number. So we get to go a little deeper on our landing pages than a lot of people do in the influencer world. Not everybody’s collecting phone numbers, but in local brick and mortar, it’s more normal. Like it’s the regular everyday thing. RV: (07:20) Yeah. Well, and, and one of the things you said there to me, which is like such a big delineation for people to understand, but whether you’re online or brick and mortar or some combination of the two is when I think of local businesses, that’s like intent based search. Someone is searching for a plumber or a dance studio. And there’s a whole world of digital marketing related to that, which my mind also goes to Google because like the Google network has really like intent based search, which is different from the online world where it’s more like I’m trying to create intent. I’m trying to drum up interest like, Hey, check out this ad, meet me or this piece of content. And then kind of like rope them in versus capture them. Is that, do you see it that same ST: (08:09) For sure. I feel like the intent based marketing is a lot more we spend more time on it. So Google, my business is a thing you want to make sure it’s updated. It’s maximized because people really are searching for us using search engines like Google. So that’s huge for us. It’s absolutely one of our number one resource or sources of new leads. However, we are doing paid traffic to look alike audiences, people that, you know, we’ll upload our current customer base into Facebook and we’re doing lookalikes in this area. So that is an intent. We’re putting it in front of them, hoping, okay, maybe this will be a good fit. Right. So we do a mix of both in our brick. RV: (08:51) Yeah. So, so just so everyone understands, you kind of brushed through that real quick, but it’s like, you actually took your customer, your customer database from your brick and mortar store export it, it, theoretically you could use a plugin, but you export it as a, as an old school CSV file, upload it to Facebook. You could show ads to those people, but then you’re allowing Facebook to create a look alike off of that, knowing that those people are all from a demographic, like a geographic region. And so is going to pick that up and show ads to people like that. ST: (09:25) Yeah. And one thing we do too, to get a little bit more advanced too, is if you have a software where you can say, who is not currently active, that used to be active, like, could we get a reengagement campaign? Could we get them back in the gym? Could we get them? So you don’t, especially with COVID. If, if people have taken a break from you, how do we go back to our inactive list of customers upload that into Facebook and see who we can target. Like that’s another great way to get them back in and engaged. RV: (09:56) And then the other thing. So I love this cause you’re, you’re advertising to your customers. This is like the intersection of digital and brick and mortar you’re advertising to your customers. Like in some that are inactive, you’re advertising to look alike audiences, which are people who Facebook says, looks like these people. And then do you also run ads? I mean, when you’re the one thing about brick and mortar is you go, can I run ads to people who like the ice cream shop right down the street from my studio? Do you do that kind of stuff? ST: (10:25) So it’s a little harder because a lot of these little local brick and mortar businesses, we can’t, we’re not big enough to say like that they like this person, you know, do this. So it’s a little harder, but we will find, you know, for my ideal client, she’s a typical mom who likes target and certain brands. So we can grab bigger companies that are more nationwide that she’s going to, like that would still be a good fit for us. Like if we’re looking for the soccer mom, right. The dance mom, we can find out some of those interests, but it’s, it is harder to grab like the little ice cream shop or the gymnastics studio down the road. RV: (11:00) Gotcha. Okay. So that’s really powerful. So would you say that again, we’re talking brick and mortar, but we’re talking digital strategies for brick and mortar. Do you think most of the, you know, kind of like the primary ways you drive traffic or controllable traffic to your store, is that coming on the digital front and that’s pushing people into your store or are there still a bunch of things that you’re doing that would be like offline advertising that is really moving people into your physical location ST: (11:35) Is definitely pivoted much more digital. I mean, I’ve been around since pre social media. I always tell people, my first memory of marketing was I would walk in subdivisions and hang door hangers on people’s doors. Like Facebook ads was like the most amazing blessing that I’ve ever, that I didn’t have to go walk in some divisions anymore. So I mean, we’ve been doing it a long time. I will say one of our best sources to this day is having a referral program. And I know you’re big on that too. So we, we do kind of like the direct TV model where, you know, the friend gets something as well as the person they refer and we are very public about our referral rewards and referral program. So that’s huge for us. I mean, they’re either coming from a Facebook ad, a Google search or a friend referred them. I mean, those are the three big things we’re finding. RV: (12:25) Interesting. So Facebook ad a Google search or a referral. Yeah. So we had brand builders is that way, right. We have a very public lifetime referral fee. And then Amanda tress, who I know you also know who’s also a good friend of ours. She was on the show, I don’t know, a few weeks ago. And she, you know, her whole business like blew up with all the referral program and she’s talked about that whole thing. Okay. So you talked about Facebook ad, you mentioned, you mentioned Google, my business and then the referral program. Is there anything about else about Google search that we kind of need to know or key in on? And I, I guess this would apply again for brick and mortar, but I think, I feel like we hear a lot of people talk about Facebook ads. But we don’t hear that much about Google for personal brands. And so could you, is there anything there that you feel like we should know? ST: (13:20) So Google my business and Google, right, just in general, SEO is definitely brick and mortar. People are searching for you there, right? We want to make sure that you’re ranking high. Now, if you’re in an area where you want to get on that homepage, but if you have tons and tons of competitors, it can be really hard to fight for a spot on that homepage in the online world. It’s going to be very difficult to fight for that homepage because there are a million people doing something very similar to you. That’s why I think there’s a big difference in people. Don’t really talk about Google and SEO as much online as they do in the brick and mortar world. It’s just less saturated. Right. but I will say with Google ad words I think Google ad words work great for brick and mortars. ST: (14:06) The one thing that I will say is watch your market. So I don’t run Google ads right now because nobody in my area runs Google ads and I’m at the top of Google. So if you Google like Oak Creek, Wisconsin dance classes, I’m going to be right there at the top. So I don’t feel the need to run ads to get higher than myself. If that makes sense. If my competitors started to do it, then I would probably have to consider it. I also know it would totally push me in the game and I’m afraid that if I start proactively, it’ll just push them into the game. And then we’re just going to be outbidding each other when let’s just stay free. If we can. Let’s just say, RV: (14:45) You’re the one that if, especially if you’re the one at the top, ST: (14:49) Yeah. It was still reason to get the Google game. RV: (14:52) We’ll make sure that this podcast isn’t seen by anyone in Wisconsin. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll ST: (14:59) It’s just kind of like my strategy right now, but you may be in a different situation. You might be not even on the homepage, like number one, and you may have a lot of people running Google ads that you might want to think about time to pay to play. Right. There may come a time that I’m going to have to start doing it. It just isn’t right now. RV: (15:18) Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, one of the things about brick and mortar, one of the things about Google in general, that’s amazing is you can actually see how many people are searching for a specific term. And, and then how much it would cost to bid on that term. And so when I think of brick and mortar, I also think about hyper localized search. So like the name of a community or a small, you know, like I’m a Nashville, you know, it, you wouldn’t be going for like personal branding Tennessee, or you could do personal branding Nashville. I mean, it doesn’t really fit for us cause we don’t have like a retail location, but you might use like Oak Hill or green Hills or whatever the name of the community is. If it, if there are people, if there is a lot of, a lot of pain going on, you could like narrow the geographic niche. ST: (16:11) Yeah. And I think there’s different phrases that somebody local is looking for. Especially if they’re typing in Nashville, they might be typing in marketing agency, right. Consulting, like they’re looking for phrases like that. And then that’s something you absolutely could be doing keyword wise, trying to get people to see you, but people that kind of get this whole online world and that there’s gurus out there. Right. They may not be going to Google. They’re probably going to Facebook and kind of going down that rabbit hole. RV: (16:39) Yeah. well, that’s interesting. Okay. So that now this whole context of this conversation was brick and mortar strategies, everything, including the referral program applies to digital as well. Are there, are there things okay, so the foot traffic formula originally, it was kind of targeted at brick and mortar and but all of these things would apply just as you said, in the beginning to any digital business, is there any other sort of advantage that a digital business has that your, you would say is like, you’re seeing a lot of traffic that you really don’t, you can’t do or benefit from and in the brick and mortar world? ST: (17:18) I don’t, I don’t think so. I mean, for the most part, when I started my online business and I was struggling in the beginning, I had to go back and go, well, what did I do in the first business to become successful? And I truly was duplicating a lot of that online. That’s why I always go back and say like, this is just marketing. You know, this is not something brand new. It’s just a transitional period of what our marketing looks like, what business is now turning into. And 2020 has been a slap in the face to say like time to update, you know, your business model if you’re still living in the past. RV: (17:52) Yeah. Well, and like, just even using that as an illustration, like the door hangers, I mean, a Facebook ad is kind of like the equivalent of a door hanger. I mean, you’re going to see it, the diff the difference is you often don’t have to pay for a digital impression where you would have to pay to physically print that. ST: (18:10) Yeah. I paid for everyone. I had to manually put them on every single door, whether somebody took that and just threw it on the ground or threw it in the garbage. Right. but it looked just like a Facebook ad. Would it had a graphic, it had a headline, a call to action with a link. I mean, it took them exactly like you would do it right now in 2020. RV: (18:30) Yeah. I mean, that’s like, you know, when, when we’re trying to teach personal brands about like a webinar or something, we’re going look, the way I built my whole speaking business was I went and spoke for free. And I was on stage in front of live people with humans and they get to sample me. And then that was how they buy the stuff. A webinar is exactly the same thing. Except I think what you’re saying is true. You got to realize in the digital world, it’s, it’s slower, a lower percentage than, you know, kind of like in that physical world. So on the topic of the digital marketing, are there any places, so Facebook and Google, is there any other place that you’re looking or spending time, or you have your eye on right now in terms of online traffic sources beyond Facebook and Google ST: (19:13) For my brick and mortar or online or both? Both. Okay. So we’re definitely, we’re, we’re trying to do Facebook and Instagram, both. So when I say Facebook, I also mean Instagram and we’re definitely starting to look more into LinkedIn and YouTube for our online business this year. We’ve been doing it, but I’m talking like getting really serious and using the platform and maximizing it. RV: (19:38) Yeah. But not for brick and mortar per se. ST: (19:41) I’m not for brick and mortar. I actually thought about with my brick and mortar, I thought about doing a podcast, like a local podcast, and that will be happening. It’s just with COVID things that definitely changed the game a little bit. And that’s something that I is a little different. I don’t see a lot of brick and mortars having a podcast, but I also see podcasting just getting bigger and bigger. And I kind of want to start that trend in my area too, for just that extra credibility. Yeah. So I’m really excited that it would have been on my, to do list already pre COVID, but now we’ll, we’ll be doing something soon which is exciting. Like I love doing something experimenting. Like, let’s see if this works, let’s see what happens. RV: (20:20) Yeah. And we did an interview with a guy named Rick Steele. Who’s has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Google advertising. And one of the things he was talking about was with the YouTube ads, you can choose to run an ad in front of any specific video, not just a, a channel, but one video. So if there are videos out there that are like getting a lot of views that are somehow for a local market, I mean, it’d be to see, yeah. It seems like the battle there on YouTube and Google land is developing more and more in LinkedIn too. Although I, you know, I hear pretty consistently at LinkedIn feels very expensive to get to people. So let’s talk about just COVID real quick then. So you, you you’ve mentioned COVID for our brick and mortar people. I mean, what do you do, ST: (21:14) Where do you start? RV: (21:15) I mean, yeah. Where do you even start with? I mean, obviously stores, you know, some of them are getting to open up the nail salons and stuff, or start open a little more and more, but what, what was the strategy? I mean, here you are an 18 year vet to brick and mortar, and I’m guessing that for some period of y’all, must’ve got shut down. ST: (21:33) Yeah. We were closed from about mid-March until June 1st. So for us you know, we didn’t have anything digital. We had never been doing anything like that. We, the good thing is because I already was in this world and I, you know, I’ve been on zoom a million times. Like this is where we live as an entrepreneurial online. I was able to go into my brick and mortar and that day say we are immediately going virtual. We are going to have zoom classes. And it’s funny because my entire team was like, what is zoom? We don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are these videos going? What are you after you do the video? Where does the video go? Like, it was just, they were so like, I couldn’t even believe that my team who’s incredible. They just, they didn’t live in that world. ST: (22:18) So what was exciting was I realized, okay, they’re so confused. And this is what’s happening right now for my competitors. They’re doing this whole thing, but they don’t have me going guys. I live on zoom. My mum’s zoom all day long. I’ve got this right. So we were the only ones in my area to pivot virtually. First of all, we pivoted within two days, we opened up on like a Tuesday and said, here’s what we’re doing. And we kind of held it over. We kept, I think we were at like 90% retention that first month. Wow. So we were really like trying everything. And then we got to open back up June 1st, but we’ve actually kept, you can come to us in person or you can stream virtually at the same time for those that don’t feel comfortable. So it’s definitely changed the way we’re going to continue to do business for a little while. But what I realized was we can’t have all of our eggs in one basket in one type of product. Like, all we do is service based businesses in person. That was scary when I realized like, that was a lot more fragile than I realized it was. RV: (23:24) Hm. ST: (23:26) Well now we’re, we’re asking ourselves, what else could we do? Cause I think there’s some people that say, yeah, but I do live of like, like I have a customer that is in live event, promo. They do swag for live events, right. In person events, they’re gone. Right. And they’re so stuck on like, but that’s what we used to do. That’s how used to make money. And you have to just scrap how you used to do things and ask yourself, how would I start again today in 2020? What could I offer that would still work in this market, you know, in the online space per se. RV: (24:02) Yeah. That’s powerful. That’s a powerful question. What did you do to like when you stream? So I was actually curious about this. So we are streaming classes, your dance classes. How are you connecting the camera to zoom? Like, what are you, is that where you using zoom to stream it? Or were you using something else? ST: (24:20) So we were just using zoom. However, some people did not have great computers. So we bought them little webcams that hooked up to their computer. RV: (24:28) Oh, okay. So, so people just, this is your, Oh, that’s right. Cause your instructors are not at the studio either they’re at home or wherever they are ST: (24:36) Correct. Even when we opened back up and they were streaming with it, now they’re in the building, but they all have to have their own computers. We have to have, we have like, I don’t even know maybe seven classrooms going on at the same time. So I need seven computers, seven cameras, seven microphones. Like I needed all the equipment. So that was, that was a process right there. RV: (24:56) But you’re streaming. You basically got a U S like a, an external USB camera that plugs right into the computer. And then you’re just setting that camera wherever you need to film the instructor. Correct. And then how are you miking up an instructor? ST: (25:11) Yeah. So that was a challenge. And that was something I’m like, you know what, no, one’s going to know that, no, one’s going to know they’re going to need good audio. I knew video needs to know. RV: (25:19) I know that. But like these mikes we’re talking on you, can’t like, if you’re teaching dance, you’re not just like, ST: (25:25) I wish I could show you, but there are fitness. Mike’s like, if you Google like fitness microphones, they’re wireless, they plug in your back pocket. So you can actually hook up a headset. And my, now my instructors have these fancy ones that go like around their neck and they sit right here. So they’re talking into the microphone. So there are options for people that need even us, if we want it to walk around and do a whiteboard back here, I could be 10 feet away writing. And you could still hear me with the wireless mic. RV: (25:51) Yeah. Yeah. So the, but it’s Bluetooth, Bluetooth technology basically. Yeah. wow. Well, look at that. We’re getting, we’re getting a few secrets again. We’ll make sure not to run ads to anyone in Wisconsin to promote this episode. And if you’re from Wisconsin, I’m sorry. You just have to ignore this episode. Particularly if you’re in the dance dance business, but I’m not thinking we’re reaching a lot of people in that market, Stacy. So I think, ST: (26:15) And here’s the thing. I really have that abundance mindset of even if they go to do X, Y, Z, I’ll always be one step ahead. Right. I’m always looking and investing and researching, and that’s what you have to do because there are competitors everywhere. Right? So you’ve got to stay on top of your game. They make me stronger. RV: (26:32) Yeah. And I mean, so many of these things, it’s like, they’re simple, but nobody actually does them. Like, there’ll be such a small percentage of people who actually go do something. And it’s, and it’s like as simple as exporting your customer list, uploading it to Facebook and running ads to those people. Who’ve been inactive that could change your business. But only 5% of people who hear that idea will probably ever actually even attempt to do it. ST: (26:58) Right. Cause somebody is thinking, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know where that would be. I don’t have the software to do that. They think of excuses. Why they can’t instead of just making it work and figuring it out. RV: (27:09) Yeah. So are you, you, you’re still loving the brick and mortar. Like you’re, you’re doing, you’re finding the hybrid. I mean obviously teaching people, brick and mortar. So foot traffic formula is an online business that teaches brick and mortar people, how to use online to drive their brick and mortar business. Right. So you’ve got an online, but you’re still brick and mortar. ST: (27:32) I am. And you don’t, people will say to me all the time, like, why don’t you sell? Like, why don’t you get out of it? And here’s the thing. When you build a business that runs like a well oiled machine, there’s no reason to get out of it. I don’t feel trapped. I don’t feel underpaid. I don’t feel exhausted by my brick and mortar. And when people tell me, like, get out, sell, do this. I always think you probably had a bad experience managing a team. You probably didn’t have consistent paychecks. You probably had a lot more chaos than I’m experiencing. So for me, I don’t have plans to sell my brick and mortar at all. Like we’ve been doing this, I haven’t taught a dance class in over 10 years. I haven’t worked in the building for about seven years. And I plan to keep, to keep running them. RV: (28:17) Wow. Well, and isn’t that the truth? I mean, when you understand the way businesses are valued, all you’re doing is getting an advance on future earnings. So it’s like, I’m just, I’m just giving up an ATM machine that I’ve built and in exchange for a onetime payment, it’s like, well, I kinda like my ATM machine and it’s, as long as I think it’s going to keep running, I’m probably just going to hang on to that. Yeah. That’s awesome. I mean, really, really cool. And just something you just don’t hear every day. So I mean, Stacy, where do you want people to go if, if they want to connect with you or learn about foot traffic formula or, you know, some of the stuff that you’re up to. ST: (28:53) Yeah. So you can just go to my website, Stacy, social.com. I know that is a lot to spell. So I’ll have you look that up on [inaudible] podcast, but yeah, RV: (29:04) L it’s not a big deal, but it, you know, until it’s, you know, you might go Tuscaloosa to show just to shul, but to USC AHL, but yeah, we’ll put a link to it, of course. ST: (29:16) But yeah, I would say my podcasts, foot traffic, and then everywhere on social media, it’s just at Stacey social. RV: (29:22) Yeah. I love it. Well, thanks for sharing some of these secrets. This is a very unique space. I think you’re, you’re one of the earlier people for sure, into this space and I love that you’re doing it. I love that. You’re like running the brick and mortar doing it as an active, not teaching stuff you used to do, but like, you’re actually, you’re doing it. It’s really good. ST: (29:44) I think that was one of the big differences with COVID. We had an influx of people coming to me and it’s because I’m still running it. I’m in the thick of it. That was a crazy mass in March. And when they could learn what I was doing in real time, that was helpful. So it actually showed me the importance of keeping the brick and mortar to truly be able to teach in real time what’s going on so we can continue to strengthen our skills as well. RV: (30:10) I love it. Well, we’ll link up to Stacy tuschl.com. Thanks for being here. We wish you the best and we’ll talk to you again.

Ep 109: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey | Recap Episode

AJV: (00:06) RV: (00:07) Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We’re breaking down the interview with one of our best friends, Jason Dorsey about him and his wife and business partner, Denise, via dr. Denise via and their new book Z conomy about generation Z and how they’re going to affect the future of the world of business and all things, personal brands. So babe, what were some of your big takeaways from listen to our friend, Jason, in the professional setting that we do? AJV: (00:40) Now, it’s always so great to get a chance to listen to friends. Cause you forget. Wow. Really smart friend. Wow. You’re so smart. Like you have all these amazing skillsets. So I think that one for anyone who has a cause it’s so fun to get to interview people that you’re actually really close to in life, because as friends, you don’t really get to know all the intimate details of their professional lives sometimes. And this is just such a great chance to be like, wow, like I’m so honored to like get to be in your life because you’re so good at what you do. So anyways, that’s just a major kudos to Denise and Jason for just for being so smart. So cool. We love you guys. So here’s one of the things that I wrote looking at my notes here is that I thought this was so fascinating and I knew this, but it had never really clicked before. AJV: (01:35) Jason talked a lot about, he said the more research that we did over the course of time the more data we collected the more just information that we gathered, the more in demand we became. And I thought that was really fascinating. And he said that what they started to realize is that research, it was their uniqueness. It was what really differentiated them in the marketplace and really set them apart and thought leadership. It wasn’t just a motivational speaker or a funny speaker or a really great speaker. It was like, no, this is founded in data. It’s founded in research. That that means something to how you recruit and hire and lead and train. And in his case, millennials now moving on to gen Z, but that research was their uniqueness. It’s what set them apart. It’s what got them on TV and all these national media spots. It’s what helped them increase their fees is they became true thought leaders in the millennial, the generational conversation that has really been really big for the last 20 years. And now they’re changing that ever so slightly to be on gen Z, which will keep them very busy for the next 20 years. RV: (02:51) Yeah. And you mentioned research it’s, it’s interesting. I don’t think their expertise is so much on millennials. I’m just thinking, Speaker 3: (03:00) Thinking not so much on millennials, but it’s on research, which means that it makes them timeless in terms of it. And, and a Z economy of course, is the new book that is all about this next era and this wave. So that was my big takeaway too, is just the power of research. And it was, I felt a little bit of a permission to when they said that there’s, there’s different levels of research. And so you can start with something basic and then kind of like work your, your, your way up. But I loved this quote when he said success is when competitors have to cite your study because your data is, is so good. So that’s something for us to aspire, aspire to. Yeah. So that was the same takeaway for me. AJV: (03:45) Yeah. I thought it was just so good. And I just, I thought this was good to just kind of sum up that point. And he said that research is what separated them in a crowded market. Right. So for those of you who feel like you’re in a crowded market, looking at research and data as a competitive advantage, I think is is really unique. Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and do your second one? Speaker 3: (04:06) My second one was really just understanding this was more of a generational thing than it was you know, how they built their business, but related to where they were saying, well, Jason said a generation isn’t changing. They’re just bringing who they are into the marketplace. And so you need to know them and that’s that’s just a quick like pivot you need to make in your, in your brain. And as a personal brand, you gotta go, okay, who are these people? I have to know who generation Z is and I need to adapt to them. It’s not that they’re changing for me. It’s just, they grew up in a different world with a different set of belief systems and, you know, politics and technology. And so knowing really who they are and, and not being frustrated, like there’s somehow changing from you, but also realizing, gosh, in order to stay relevant in the next generation, I have to adapt some of the things that I do, some of my content, some of the ways I deliver content to reach that generation. And that was just a, AJV: (05:09) Yeah. Can you talk specifically around video? These people are so used to absorbing information through video that if you really want to reach them, it’s gotta be in video. It’s not photographs, it’s not static post it’s video. I think that was, there was a great discussion around video. So if you’re, you know, a little video shy to talk about who is your demographic and here are you reaching. And if it’s in this younger, you know, at this point, you know, gen Z is all the way up to age 24, right? So they’re in your consumer market to some degree. So yeah, I thought that was great. I’m going to read this a little bit. Cause when I listened to it, I took some really tedious notes. AJV: (05:51) So a couple of other things that I put down here if say this is, I thought this was really smart. The data isn’t quite good enough, you have to be able to translate the data into a story that connects with your audience. And I thought that was really smart. And I think so, so often you think, okay, I need data. I need research. It’s like, I need numbers and I need charts and diagrams. And that’s what you think about with data. And he’s going, no data alone is no good. Nobody just, nobody emotionally connects to numbers. And he didn’t say this, or this is what I heard, but you need an emotional story tied to the data that people can connect with, that they can relate to, that they can see themselves or their company or their audience in. And he said that, you know, just even a media, right? They don’t want you to talk about numbers. It’s what are the numbers mean? Like who are the people? What are they buying? Right? What, what, how does that change? How you do business, that those are emotional things. So the data alone isn’t good enough. It’s how do you take that data and turn it into real life stories that have an emotional connection. That is what will differentiate you. That is true thought leadership. It’s not just getting numbers on a piece of paper. It’s translating those things into real stories with real emotion. Speaker 3: (07:19) Yeah. That’s cool. Thought that data is the starting point of the story and really what people are after is the story. So my third takeaway you actually already mentioned was that gen Z specifically was their language. Their native tongue is video. And I was thinking about those of you that are writers going, okay, well, what does that mean for you? If maybe you’re, you don’t want to be on the camera, you know, or you don’t like to be kind of front and center, but it’s going okay, how can I still adapt? And this came up actually in one of our events, somebody asked this question specifically and there’s some really good collaborative discussion. And what came out of that discussion was going okay, well, if you’re a writer and you don’t like to be on video, you can write and then read your writing and overlay it on top of still images or stock Royal, you know, royalty, free footage. And if you don’t want to read it, you can get a voiceover, you know, like you can get someone to voiceover it, but you can still take the written form of content and produce it into video, which if you’re going to connect with gen Z, that’s probably something you should look at doing so that, you know, hit me. It was like, we gotta go video. Everything has got to find a way to be on video because that’s, that’s who they are. AJV: (08:38) That means more showers or having to do Speaker 3: (08:45) More hairspray. Yes. More hair. AJV: (08:49) Okay. My third one you kinda mentioned it earlier, but I’m just going to touch on a little bit more. I said, you don’t have to hire a research firm to start getting data rich, right? You don’t have to go out and spend thousands of dollars to have your own data to have data. He said, one of the first things that you can do is just start compiling all of the research studies that have already been done in your space. Third parties citing them. But then talking about that as you know, one of your core differences is like, Hey, you base it on this research, you base it on the studies, you base it on this data, you base it on this X, Y, and Z. And that you don’t have to be the one to foot the bill to do all of the research that other people are doing research. AJV: (09:34) Just so other people like you we’ll use it, we’ll cite it and we’ll give them credit for it, which is fine. I just think that was really also insightful of going, Hey, have your trying to create real thought leadership. It has to be more than just a personal story, right? It’s got to be a personal story, tied to data. That’s been connected back to a story and that’s really forwarding the message where it’s really concrete and substance, but you don’t have to pay for it. There’s plenty of research studies and data out there go and compile the most credible ones. He talks a lot about how do you know which ones are credible? It’s, it’s definitely an interview you want to listen to not just to learn about gen Z, which is fascinating. But also just like, okay, well, how do I get in this research game? And what does that mean? And what does that look like? And how can you start dipping your toes in it without spinning? RV: (10:34) Yep. So there’s at least two reasons to go buy the Zee economy. Book one is so you can learn about gen Z and know who the heck they are and how you can reach them. And two is to watch one of the best in the business in terms of Jason and dr. Denise via Jason Dorsey and dr. Denise via who’s his wife and business partner and how they make data, become a part of their brand and learn about it. So that’s what we got for you. Thanks for tuning in buys economy, and we’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye [inaudible].

Ep 108: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey

Speaker 1: (00:05) [Inaudible] RV: (00:07) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) You’re about to meet one of the smartest people that I know, one of my best personal friends, someone that I learn a ton from, and I admire tremendously. Jason Dorsey is truly one of the, I think, most respected, true thought leaders in the world. Somebody who’s work defines our world and helps us redefine our world. So he is the leading generational researcher. I think in the world he’s been on 60 minutes. He’s been on the today show. He’s been on the early show. He’s been on over 200 shows. I mean, he’s on national TV on almost a weekly basis and him and his wife. Okay. So Denise via is the CEO of gen HQ and they are a research firm that helps huge companies conduct data driven, you know, empirical analysis on the trends of how generations are buying, selling, working. And they have a brand new book that’s coming out called Z economy. RV: (02:09) How gen Z is going to change the future of business and what to do about it. So this affects you as a personal brand. We’re going to talk a little bit about how Jason and Denise have built their careers up to where they are at now. And Jason was recently inducted into the professional speaking hall of fame. He’s had over 1000 standing ovations and there’s also one of the most dynamic onstage presenters that I have ever, ever seen. So Jason, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you. Just thrilled and honored to be with you. And I just want to say thank you for all that I’ve learned from you about brand building and developing a platform and really being able to leverage ideas and to influence. So thank you so much for having me on and for your friendship. It’s truly an honor to be with you today. JD: (03:00) Of course, brother. So I think hopefully don’t mind me sharing this. You’re one of the highest paid speakers in the world and specifically among speakers who are paid a lot of money who are no offense I would put in the non-celebrity Speaker 4: (03:16) Non-Celebrity yes, definitely a non-celebrity over here reminded about that, JD: (03:20) But my nine year old daughter every day that I’m not a celebrity. And when I think about why, okay, we talked about a lot of the reasons why, you know, being amazing on stage, you have been in this industry a long time, but I think that your super power is probably research. And of course, Jen HQ you, you the center for generational kinetics is actually the name of the firm, right? So you guys do real research and so can you just talk about like, what do you, what do you do there as a research firm and how do you think that that shapes, you know, or has shaped your speaking career in terms of what separates you from other speakers, authors, thought leaders, you know, et cetera. Yeah, it’s a great question. And so I think maybe to go back a little bit, I got into this when I was 18 years old and I didn’t have a resource like you or, or other groups that could sort of help me to figure out what my path would be to become an author and speaker and a consultant and eventually a board member and so forth. JD: (04:22) So I had to sort of stumble my way through as many of us do. I ended up sleeping on the floor of a garage apartment when I was 18. I was $50,000 in debt. I had 5,000 books that I had self printed and no idea what I was doing, which is probably a good thing. Cause I may not have gotten that if I do what I was doing, but, but out of that, I sort of took the traditional path of in order to be an expert, I should write a book, which I still believe is one of the absolute best ways to get out there. It’s not the only way, but it’s a great way to do it. It shows depth of understanding and, and sort of a body of work or around a question or strategy or topic or something. So I wrote this first book and then eventually I started speaking for free. JD: (04:58) And then eventually I started getting paid a few hundred dollars and then more, and then I guess it was two or three years later, I was keynoting event. It was me and Barbara Bush, 5,000 people in arena, fireworks, going off. And, and to some degree I sort of thought I’d made it, you know, my mom was there. So that was really helpful. So that was my mini celebrity moment. And then after that, I realized that people would pay me to speak and that there was actually a business here to be a brand at that particular time talking about my generation, which we eventually called the millennials. But back then we did, and it was just young adults. And so I would go when I would speak and write and do all that. And I did that for many years, wrote a bunch more books. And then I ended up on 60 minutes and it was sort of one of those watershed moments, certainly for me in my career, but also around the topic of generations. JD: (05:46) Because until then it wasn’t nearly as hot of a topic, but that 60 minute episode really got the attention, particularly of executives, entrepreneurs, baby boomers, frankly, people that had money and influence and were makers. They then called me up and said, you know, we’ve hired your generation, Jason, they’re terrible. Their pants are falling off. You know, their moms here, they won’t work on their birthday. Like, you know, what’s wrong with you. And so I sort of became the flak jacket if you will, for my generation. And in doing that, I’m speaking at all these corporate board events and just, you know, doing what I do. And I’ll remember distinctly, I was at this one boardroom and I was, I was meeting with the board and the CEO of this public company. So it’s publicly held company trades on the New York stock exchange at the time basically said that millennials were terrible and head and they just had all these problems with it. JD: (06:34) So I not knowing any better when afterwards. And I asked their head of HR, I said, would you mind sending me the data so I could understand the problem that we just heard about because I want to make sure I can contextualize it. Cause then maybe I can try to, to solve for, to come up with some ideas. So they sent me the data and I looked at the data. I’ll never forget it. And the data didn’t match what the CEO had just said. And that was a huge deal because I, you know, I’ve served on the board of a public company. I serve on lots of private company boards right now it’s unusual that a CEO would make such a bold claim that isn’t grounded in their own data. Right? And so I went through the niece, my wife, who has a PhD, and I said, Denise, this is the strangest thing. JD: (07:16) You know, it just was with this company. They’re amazing. The CEO said this, I got the data set. And then the data does not match what the CEO just said. I said, what do you think we should do? And she said, we should start a research company. She said, because then we can give people great data, accurate data, and then they can make better decisions. And if we control the data, if we, if it’s our data, then we’re the people that they’re going to keep coming back to in order to help them grow their business or whatever the problem is you’re trying to solve. So that was how we created the center for generational kinetics. And Diddy’s being a professional researcher, became the CEO, ran up all of our research. And then we started doing more and more research. And we started doing research in the U S and then we started doing research outside the U S multiple languages and what ultimately happens. JD: (08:00) And I think this is so important for people who want to build their brand is the more data that we collected that was our own. The more people came to us for that information, for that context, for that insight. And so when you want to separate yourself in a market, one of the things I’ve learned to do is to be unique or different from everybody else that now I may not be better. I happen to think in most cases, our solutions are better, but I’m certainly different because we’ve now done more than 65 generational studies around the world. We’ve worked with over 700 clients, including many of the biggest brands in the world. And every time we work with clients, we get their data. And you can imagine now when somebody comes to me from, I don’t know, pick an industry life insurance and says, Jason, you know, can you help us think about the generational impact on the life insurance category and what our sales professionals need to know? JD: (08:46) I can say absolutely. In fact, I know exactly what works to sell life insurance, to millennials, gen X and boomers, and why one generation tries one technique to sell and that work with this generation of customers and vice versa. But then I can take that and apply it to automotive. I can apply it to physicians and healthcare. I can apply that to technology B2B enterprise company. So all of a sudden what we did, and it was not intentional. What we did is the more data that we created, the more research we did, the more we stood out in the market and you asked, you know, how do we charge the fees that we get that we receive? It’s because people are hiring me because we bring this data. This research has insights to everything that we do. So even if I don’t do a study for someone, the fact is I’ve already done 15 studies in automotive. JD: (09:28) I don’t have to do that. So they already know what it was, and I’m still getting data from all these different sources. And so for me, like when we wrote this economy book, what I think makes it so powerful. So we have all this data about gen Z. Who’s now 24 years old, as they relate to, let’s say millennials and gen X and baby boomers. And so for people out there, let’s just use the book as an example that wanted to let’s say, recruit or motivate or retain gen Z. They don’t have time managers out there to go try a whole bunch of stuff and see what works. They want to know what works. So we’re able to give them that, cause we’ve already proven it same with marketing or sales or building trust or driving influence. And that’s what people pay us for. They pay us to bring context and data driven insights and help them solve a specific problem. Right? I’m not a raw speaker. I’m not, you know, I, wasn’t a coach of a professional football team. I don’t do that. I help people understand how to solve tough generational challenges. And right now, like in our case, gen Z and millennials are upending. Every major industry, huge issues being created and they need to be solved so that leaders can move forward, grow their own personal brand, but also move their business forward. And so that’s how we got into this. And what was left RV: (10:33) You think for you that they’re all causing ruckus. Cause that’s key that keeps you in high demand, screwing everything up JD: (10:40) For everybody. Well, and that, so let’s take that comment. Cause I think it’s a really good one. So, so the perception we hear from executives all the time is, you know, Jen’s Dean, they’re driving all this change or just all of this change. They’re creating all this problems. And argument is no, they’re not. They’re just doing what they’ve always done. It’s all they’ve ever known for them. This isn’t changed. This isn’t new. This is indifferent. This is purely all they’ve ever known in terms of how to communicate what their work styles are, what their motivations are. What’s important to them. And they’re bringing that into an environment. The environment sees it as change, but gen Z and even millennials, they don’t see it as change. It’s all they’ve ever known. Why are you calling me, send me a text. You want me to do bring a checkbook? JD: (11:23) I don’t have one. You know, like these sorts of things are real deal. And so in the book in particular, we try to humanize with a bunch of Jensey stories, but also have managers who are sharing their personal stories, working with Genti marketers, talking about how they’re using social media and why certain things work and certain things don’t. And I think that’s the biggest issue for me. So we’ve sort of built our brain on the idea that we separate generational myth from truth. That’s really the key, right? We separate myths from truth and that’s what most people want are smart. If they can just get the truth, they’ll make a great decision, but they don’t know who to trust, where to go for the information so forth. And so we can bring that to them. So as a brand, you know, my brand evolved originally. JD: (12:04) I was a writer, writer wrote my first book and then I became a speaker. I didn’t become a speaker out of strategy. I became a speaker cause nobody bought the book, but I could eventually I got offered a free lunch to speak. And then I got offered dinner to speak. And then I got paid on a hundred dollars, whatever. And so, so all of that. So I went from author, really being passionate about a subject to being a speaker and then trying to figure out how to communicate well, right? 3000 talks around the world to all kinds of audiences. I mean the same kind of big stages you speak on. And then from that going into research and every time I’ve done that our fees have gone up, demand has gone up, influence has gone up the media, calls us all the time because we have the data. And so for me, when I think about building a brand, for example, this economy book is the way we’re going to base our brand for the next 10 years, gen Z is not going away. So do this and put it out and build on it. RV: (12:53) I want to talk about gen Z specifically in a second, because I think it’s, it’s you know, they are a massive force in the world, which is going to affect all of our businesses before we do that though, in terms of research. Okay. So, so let’s say that I’m, you know, I’m not a generational speaker, but I speak on something marriages or health or money or something. JD: (13:20) What, what does research, what does research mean? RV: (13:23) Like really mean and how can I, how can I do something semi substantive at lease and semi, you know, like I think there’s gotta be different levels of research, right? Like one thing is like, Hey, I did an Instagram poll to my followers. Another might be, Hey, I actually conducted a survey and I found some audience, another level might be, I hired some research from, and then maybe the next level is I hired an actual researcher that was on my team. Like, can you just walk us through like the varying levels of like what counts as research? And, and, and to what extent we really need to be able to do it in order to kind of cite it as fact and truth and not just like, you know, my Instagram poll. JD: (14:07) Yeah, absolutely. So I think there’s a, a pretty big difference between data and research. And so a lot of people confuse the two. And so for let’s take your Instagram poll. I actually think social media polls are great way to drive engagement, but they don’t represent really anything other than the people who happen to follow you more than likely or you’re advertising to, and then sub some subgroup of those that happen to be so entice that without being paid any money and they have nothing else to do that they’re actually going to complete the poll. Right. And so if you think about who it represents, I would argue probably doesn’t even represent your followers. It represents some subgroup that at that moment was interested enough and didn’t have something else going on that they wanted to participate and receive nothing in return for it. JD: (14:47) Right. So it’s helpful. It’s interesting. You want to share it and it’s a great data point, right? It’s, it’s really interesting. And you’ll probably find a lot of things that will help to inform future things. We wouldn’t consider that research, but we will consider it interesting. And I wouldn’t say that it’s wrong or bad. It’s just one source of data. But I think the problem is people do an Instagram poll or a Facebook poll, or they email their list and then they put it out as infantry search. And that I think is where you, you can, it’s a very slippery slope for us, generally speaking quantitative research, which is primarily what we do. We’re always looking to have a very low margin of error usually plus, or minus 3.1 19 out of 20 times. And so if somebody comes to me and says, Jason, I want to know your methodology. JD: (15:29) I want to know your sample. Then I absolutely want to be able to share that with them, help them to understand it. And I always say in my talks, if people are citing data, but they don’t tell you where they got it from, or they don’t tell you the methodology and sample be very leery because they could have just pulled their friends. They could have just asked their family. They could have asked a group that they knew was going to answer in a very specific way. So sort of on your, your hierarchy, if you will, of what you provided. So, you know, polls and things to your friends, which by the way, that’s a great way to understand your list and a great way to understand your followers. There’s probably even, Speaker 5: (16:00) Yeah. There’s other uses there’s other uses for that data point. JD: (16:04) Absolutely. And if it’s for internal insights in particular, I think that’s fabulous. What you don’t want to do is go start publishing that as if it’s research because anybody who’s an actual researcher, we’ll, we’ll fight, we’ll poke holes in it and that’s it like somebody like us, we have to be careful. We have PhD researchers because other PhD researchers are looking at our research. Right. And so we know that that’s sort of the, just the way it works. So you have the poles like you talked about, and then you could say go up. Like, here’s what I would do. If somebody came to me, cause we work with lots of big name celebrities and we do this for lots of companies that the easiest way to understand what’s going on in an industry that you want to be an expert in is to go and aggregate third party research. JD: (16:43) What I mean by that is you go from find research from all different sources where they did actual studies and then you put it together. And now you sort of have your one page five page, 10 page, 50 page source document of all this great research that other people have paid for, but they’ve released it publicly. Like for us, most of our research, we never released publicly because our clients want to use it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And then we have some that want to be really positioned as thought leaders. And so they want to release the research and bring something different to that conversation. And we help them get tons of media and get on TV shows and all this kind of jazz. But, but if we’re going back to the personal brand side, then what I would say is you want to start with this sort of landscape research where you take whatever you can find out there. JD: (17:27) And if you have no budget, you just find all the free stuff and you sort of synthesize it together, you cite it correctly. And now you’ve got this foundational piece of information, right? That you can then refer to going like a step up from that. You could join, let’s say a syndicated study or some other study where there’s a whole bunch of people chipping in, in order to do a really great study. That’s pretty common. And then you can jump up if a mortar, which is to what we do, which is customer. And we do quantitative research, qualitative research, we do mixed method, all kinds of things. But the key there is I like on the quant side, we’re doing pretty large studies, a thousand completes 2000 completes 5,000 complaints. We’re doing it around the world. We’re waiting it to something like the, let’s say the us census for age, gender, geography, and ethnicity or whatever it is. JD: (18:07) And then we’ll do like maybe I just want to find out about people who I don’t know started college, but didn’t finish or people who are small business owners that are millennials and female, right? Whatever those are, I would do studies built around those. And so, as you want to, frankly, as yet to spend more money, you can do much more complex studies. You can do more complex analytics with the data and so forth. But fundamentally what I would say to somebody can mean said, look, Jason, I got no money. Where would I start? I would say, great. What I would do is I go find all the publicly available research. You can put it together in some source documents, cite everything correctly, which is really the key. And then you can start to talk about it, cause it doesn’t have to be your data as long as it’s released publicly and you cite them appropriately. JD: (18:48) I mean, our research gets quoted all the time and that’s how we get so much media. It’s shocking how many other people use our research and their work. I mean, part of the reason we even did this economy book is because we do this study called the state of gen Z. We do it every year and have done it for many years. And that’s really sort of the source study for people trying to understand gen Z. And it was getting so much publicity that we ended up doing this economy book in many ways, because we wanted to go really deep around those core questions and strategy. So I personally believe that research is one of the best ways to separate yourself, particularly in a crowded market. And like there’s, there’s competition everywhere. It doesn’t matter what your topic is, motivation, strategy, generations, leadership, whatever. Right. And so anything you can do to distinguish yourself in a credible way, particularly through research, I think is very valuable. And I believe that if you want to work with executives and entrepreneurs and people that are making big bets, the more data and research that you can bring, the more you’re going to have trust with them because they will know that you know what you’re talking about. And I think that’s really important, even more so where do you RV: (19:50) Nine? I mean, that’s really a powerful, that’s so practical and powerful is just to like, even for your own confidence that you’re not just sharing random thoughts off your head, but it’s like, Hey, this is based. Okay. JD: (20:02) Some, some statistically valid RV: (20:05) Work, even if I, if, even if it’s not my original work, where do you find third party research? You just go to like Google and type it in or is there JD: (20:14) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What I always suggest to people. So we do customer research. We do custom research for brands who do it for companies who do it for lots of big institutional investment groups. We do it for tons of people. So that’s our core business, but if somebody wanted to not use us, so let’s say, I, you know, they say, I don’t want to work for the center for generational kinetics. I’m not interested in, you know, whatever the topics are, where we specialize. I want to go hire somebody else. I would just go on Google and would always tell people is get three bids. You’ll be stunned, how different the pricing will be for the same exact thing, dramatically different pricing. If you’ve got five, you have five. And so then you sort of got to work through and say, okay, what’s going to get me what I want. JD: (20:56) What would I have confidence in the deliverables they’re going to provide? Are they going to help me to understand it? Or do they just write a survey and send me the answers? Then I got to go figure it out. Like our specialty is we write really great questions, but that’s what, that’s what we have so much business. And then we turn it into really powerful deliverables. And so what happens is you can do a great study, but if you can’t tell a good story based on the data, then it doesn’t matter how great the study is because people won’t be engaged to it. So you really got to be able to write great questions, have the right sample do all the things that you do and sort of good research hygiene. And then from there, the next step is turning it into that story based in the data that connects with the people you’re trying to reach. JD: (21:36) Maybe those are executives. Maybe those are entrepreneurs. Maybe they’re meeting planners, whoever it is they are, but they need to be able to understand why that, that research is important to them. Why do they need to take action on it? Why should they engage with you? And that I think is where it starts to get very powerful. I think people very often go cheap on research because they think, Oh, I just need to do a study. And I’m going to throw a few thousand dollars at it or something. And then they’re frequently disappointed. They say research doesn’t work, but it’s sorta like you. And I joke about, well, if you pay for, you know, an inexpensive speaker and you’re not happy with them, you probably got what you paid for. You know, that there’s not always a direct correlation, but oftentimes there’s enough, particularly if they’ve been around for a long time, but then RV: (22:15) Aggregating third party stuff. Like you’re saying that you can just search like the state of gen Z. You guys make that available just on your website and stuff like, so you’re saying you can find credible third party research just to help you understand your own space just by basically searching around and then looking for in their citation. What’s their margin of error and their sample size and that kind of stuff to make sure you’re looking at a valid JD: (22:40) Peace. Yeah. All great research will share their methodology. So if you go on our website, which is gen hq.com, GE and hq.com, you can click on state of gen Z. You’ll see our state of gen Z research studies there for those who are still sort of unsure what this looks like. You can see lots of research done for other clients. And so anytime something’s publicly available on the web, it usually says, you know, here’s our methodology, but also says, here’s how this can be used. If you want to use it, make sure you cite us. You know, if you’re going to publish it, make sure you link back that kind of thing. And by the way, you want to do that because that’s the right way to do it. And so yeah, I would go with the third party research first. I think that that’s statistically valid, put it together and provide it to people in a way that’s very helpful for them to understand something. JD: (23:20) A lot of times people think that research is about solving problems. Like we happen to use it for solving problems, but it may just be understanding a situation. Sure. If you don’t have understanding, you can’t drive towards that resolution, you can’t innovate. And so it brings a different perspective. You know, I’ll use millennials or gen Z as an example, lots of our clients say they know gen Z or millennials, and then they start to describe them. I’m like, well, that’s your kid or your grandkid, but that’s not the 80 other millennials, you know, in the U S or RV: (23:51) That’s not a statistically valid sample. It’s not, JD: (23:54) It’s a sample of one that, you know, you happen to have a lot of emotional tie to. And so we always joke that, that a lot of our clients have a proxy for the generation and that representative of the generation is their child or grandchildren. And usually the one that’s most frustrating for them. And so they’re stunned when we say, you know, gen Z is the fastest growing generation in the workforce. Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, millennials outspend every other generation last year, millennials were the number one generation to refer their friends, gen Z or the key group of trendsetters right now for the first time, the youngest, which is gen Z. RV: (24:29) So let me, let me stop there. Cause I wanna, I want to officially transition here to the, to the, to the Z economy book and to gen Z, because I, I think that, you know, this expertise and the data you’re talking about. So if you put your hat on, so let’s just steal a little bit of free consulting from Jason Dorsey as personal brands that are, you know, communicating about a variety of topics, but we’re kind of like establishing thought leadership and things. What are, what are the things that we need to know about gen Z, that the data is telling you that you go okay, if you’re trying to reach this audience and why we either should or should not care about reaching the audience, but just like, what are some of the macro trends? I mean, obviously that’s what Z economy book is all about is like in the state of gen Z report. But I think if, as you apply that to personal brands, what are some of the things you think we could be on the lookout for? JD: (25:25) Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll show you, I’ll share with you some things that you should do and what to avoid. So in terms of things to absolutely do, like for us, we know a gen Z, they’re very values driven in terms of how they engage with brands and they don’t just engage. They join a brand. And so if you’re going to go out and you’re going to promote whatever it is that you’re, you know, is your personal brand or your larger brand, it’s very important. You share the why behind what you do. And I don’t mean like the Simon Sinek, why, I mean the, you know, how are you going to make the world a better place? How are you helping your local community? How are you working to combat some of these social challenges that gen Z is very much connected to this and we’ve seen it over and over and over in our research around the world. JD: (26:04) So it’s very important to have that mission, that thing that you’re owning, that you’re saying you’re tied to, it’s not just about making money. In fact, gen Z is more frugal than millennials. Gen Z has a higher savings rate. They’re looking for coupons and discounts are entering the workforce later than ever before. They’re going to graduate college there than ever before. 12% of them were already saving for retirement at age 22. Like, I mean some pretty staggering numbers for a generation so young. So if you want to message to them, and again, this is 24 and under you want to be very thoughtful that you’re in alignment with their values, whichever ones, you know, obviously they gotta be your values, but you want to make sure that they’re in alignment and you’re talking about things that are going to resonate with them. And then you to walk the talk on that, you can’t just say it. We saw so many brands over the last 12 months get completely blown up on social media because they said one thing and then they didn’t do it, or, you know, and so that lack of alignment gen Z will call you out so fast for that. So I think that’s really important. The second is RV: (26:59) They socially aware, is that like you would say, they’re kind of like socially aware, JD: (27:04) Well, they’re, they’re aware of social causes, right? They want, they want to know that you’re about more than just making money. And so much of personal branding unfortunately, is like, here’s how to make money or get rich or do this. And then people turn around and try to sell that. Like that’s interesting for gen Z. In fact, we would argue that gen Z would prefer to a side hustle versus trying to Steven start their own business. There’s a bunch of reasons for that tied around risk and money. But, but the idea here is you want to be really clear what you stand for so they can understand and decide if they, if it resonates with them. The second we know is they are very much into video and not into reading. That doesn’t mean they don’t read because they do read. But in terms of them taking the effort to engage with the brand videos where they start, that’s where we see things like ticktock doing so incredibly well or Snapchat and even Instagram. And obviously you’re the expert on videos. So that the video is what pulls them in and drives that sense of engagement reading for many young people is work doesn’t mean they don’t like to do it. It’s just work. And they’re used to just getting so much content through video that if you’re not providing a video, you’re missing them, all the posts with photos and all this stuff. Interesting. But you really want to pull them in. RV: (28:08) Oh, so not even phone, not even photos, you’re saying like donate, don’t think of photo and video is the same video is different. JD: (28:16) Definitely. Yeah, absolutely great distinction video. We find much more effective than photo or an image. They don’t like Photoshop things that are fake things that are perfected. That’s why you see brands like Arie who’s in this economy book doing so well with gen Z, where they’re showing like real images of real women, these kinds of things. So that a real desire for sort of rawness, I think is very strong with them. But we also see when we look at gen Z is if you are trying to sell them something, they need to know they’re getting a good deal. Now that’s important because they are very fiscally conservative or practical with their money. We see that they use coupons, they have this high savings rate, they get money for their birthday. They put it away and then ask their parents for money to go buy stuff. JD: (28:54) They really there’s a lot of that in the book. Does that mean that it reflects all gen Z? No, because our belief is generations or clues and not a box, but they’re powerful clues that do three things. They allow you to connect with build trust and drive influence. And if you can do that at a high level, you can grow your brand faster, but we also see what gen Z, if you want to engage with them, you have to understand their life stage. Remember they’re doing everything later than previous generations. That’s getting their driver’s license later in any other generation and into the workforce later RV: (29:22) Boggles my mind, my, my niece, like she waited like a year to get her driver’s license. And I’m like, everyone I know. Was there the day JD: (29:33) That you were eligible for a driver’s life RV: (29:35) That blew my mind? JD: (29:37) Yeah. Well, th that the concept of freedom, which is underlying that the, that for other generations, your driver’s license was your passport to freedom. Lose your ability to leave your home. Well, gen Z, we find don’t need that for a variety of reasons. We could go into all those take the rest of the time, but, but fundamentally they don’t attach the same thing to a driver’s license. And so if you have a different view of it, then you’re engaging with is different. Even owning a car, sounds like work and expense, but you don’t have to do it in a lot of places. So all of that, that’s why I say, you know what? Work with millennials. Tell brands this all the time, but we’re moving millennials. Doesn’t work with gen Z because they’re not millennials 2.0, I mean, they are completely different. They don’t remember a time before social media. JD: (30:16) They’ve always been able to do everything through, by sliding a finger on a screen. I mean, it’s fascinating. They’ll never write a check. They’ll never have a landline at home. All this stuff that’s sort of millennials started and was new and different gen Z doesn’t remember anything, but that in fact, gen Z does not remember nine 11. And that was one of our biggest discoveries. And that’s when he got here. So yeah, I mean, this generation is so different, more diverse than millennials. So in the book, a NC economy, we talk about this because if you can bring this accurate context, then you can figure out what to do. But the problem is so often we start with our own and then we apply it to them. And that’s where we misspeak. RV: (30:55) That is fascinating. I mean, yeah, just some of those things that you just said, like nine 11 and driver’s license. I mean, those are, you know, these like capstone moments in our life that don’t even, they’re not even on their register. So the way that we live and think is completely different from how they live and think, and it’s not that they have changed. I love what you said early on about they’re stepping into our environment. They’re not changing. It’s who they is, who they have been. Awesome. So Jason, this was like, man, I have to have been listened to this, like several times, just to pull out the part about how to do research and think about that. And then also gen Z, where do you want people to go to connect with? You obviously does economy book is coming out, you know, about this time. And so you can go find that and learn more about how we can take our personal brand and connect it to the trends that are coming with gen Z. But where should people go if they want to connect with you personally? JD: (31:56) Yeah, sure. Definitely. If you want to go check out the book, if you buy it on Amazon and you email us at [inaudible] dot com, we’ll send you all the free video courses that we put together. Denise, neither really, really good in terms of connecting with us personally, you could find me easiest way to find me is on Twitter. You can also just join our newsletter. That’s when we share all of our best research every month, you can sign up for [email protected]. And if you want to read more about the book and different things, you can go to Z economy, Z C O N O M y.com. I really look forward to connecting with everybody. You know, if people are part of your tribe, Rory you know, I I’d love to connect with them. So please feel free to reach out. RV: (32:36) Yeah, well there you have it friends. That, that is what it sounds like. And looks like when you have real data backed insights as research. Jason, thank you so much for, for this. And Kurt, you all go follow Jason, check him and Denise’s books, economy. We’ll link up to that in the show notes. Jason, we wish you the best. Thanks for being here. My man. Thank you, Rory. Congrats.

Ep 107: From Mentors to Millions with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) Hey, we’re back with the recap edition of the influential personal brand, breaking down this interview that we did with our good friends, Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm about their new book, which I’m excited. It’s coming out right now this week. If you’re listening to this live as this episode airs, so let’s get right into it, babe. Why don’t you kick us off with your, your three takeaways? Well, one, and then I’ll do one and you know, AJV: (00:34) I know how it works. Yeah. So my first and biggest takeaway is that your personal brand is a business. And if you don’t treat it like a business, it will never be one. And I think so many people, at least that we interact with come into this, that they have this passion, I’m going to have a message and they want to build a personal brand, or they want to grow their personal brand. Without the context of that is a business like you are now entering into the world of entrepreneurship, which means you have to know how to acquire business. I E sales and marketing. You have to know how to collect payments. You’re going to have to know how to outsource staff. You’re going to have to know how to create content. You’re going to have to have a backend system, which means you’re going to have to have technology. I’m not to mention there’s going to be an investment, right? There are all of these things to create the infrastructure of how a business runs. And that is the same thing as building and monetizing your personal brand. And I loved how they talked about it. And they’re like, they’re, they’re the same, a personal brand is a business. So you must treat it like one. RV: (01:44) Yeah, that’s good. And, and it’s interesting to see someone so successful at business, Kevin now investing so much into his personal life for his own personal brand. And I mean, my first big takeaway, clearly, obviously the whole discussion about their book is about the power of mentors. And I think specifically, I thought it was so cool. You know, when Kevin listed off these mentors, it was listing off big ones, but then, you know, he talks about us and he talks about Russell Brunson. We’re both younger than him. And so I thought that was so cool. Just his open humility about the idea of having a doesn’t have an a and I mean, I feel honored to do it cause he’s, he’s incredible. And then also, also Mark, Mark is also a client of ours and also somebody that I would view as a, as a, as a mentor, but who is mentoring you like who’s pouring into your life right now. Who’s teaching you that is outside of your spouse. Somebody that’s like helping guide you AJV: (02:52) And believing in you RV: (02:55) And challenging you and, and warning you about things to look ahead and inspiring, you know, part of your vision. So you got to have a mentor and I, I actually think, you know, that’s kind of like what our business is in a way. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s coaching and strategy, but so anyways, I just, I love that. And I thought that was super humble. AJV: (03:15) Yeah. That’d probably stuck out to you because you have tons of mentors. RV: (03:19) Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I’ve my whole life has been since you were little. Yeah. I mean just mentor, always multiple mentors at any given point. That’s a good, that’s a good point. Yeah. I mean, I am who I am because I’ve had so many mentors. AJV: (03:35) I think it’s really hard to find mentors. Right. I Rory talks about having mentors all the time and I am when I turned 37 this year 37, just a couple of months ago, RV: (03:48) Chicken you’re my young spring chicken. AJV: (03:50) Yeah. Well that was for as long as possible. And I thought it was really interesting too, because I knew that you were going to say that because you’ve had so many mentors, but I gotta be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever had one solidified mentor in my life. And I’ve had a really hard time about finding people that I want to be mentored by. And maybe that’s just because I have a mental block about it, or I haven’t tried hard enough, which is probably part of it, but I’ve instead invested so much more into like conferences and courses. And it’s like, I’m at the point in my life where it’s like, I really want a mentor. I was like, I’ve gone to the conferences and seminars and courses. And I love those. I actually really, really enjoy that. But I also, I know that I need a mentor. AJV: (04:33) So I’m actually really genuinely excited about this book and some of the resources that they’ve offered, because it’s like, actually I’m going to investigate that. And I think that takes really intentional effort because I don’t think you can just find one. I think there is a process to finding something and some one that is worth investing your time into, because it’s not just your mentor’s time, it’s your time as a mentee as well. It’s both people’s times. And I think so often we talk about the mentor, but Hey, the mentee is also has to be committed into investing all this time and energy into it. And perhaps, maybe that’s why admin, I haven’t had enough time or been willing to give enough time into it. But I think that’s something that you do really, really well side note, RV: (05:20) But that’s good. Yeah. That’s interesting to have, I would say we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum and how number of mentors that we have had like yeah, AJV: (05:30) Yeah, yeah, totally, totally separate there. Which is interesting because my second point was the value of having a mentor, but what to look for in one. And that is really what I picked up on. And I loved what he said, and I had never heard this exact color quote before, and I loved it and I wrote it down and it, he says, Ziglar said this, and I think it was Mark. He mentioned this on the interview. He said, you do not by falling in water, you drown by staying in the water. And I thought that was just really, really good. And he said, he said, that is really important that you find a mentor who has experienced failure. That was awesome. And I love that because I think so often we searched for the people who’ve always done it. Right? And it’s like, well, one that’s impossible. AJV: (06:22) You can’t have, you cannot be Uber successful and have always done it. Right. And if so, I would just caution that. And I just, I am more interested in learning from the person who’s been to hell and back. I’m more interested in going, what happened? How can I make sure I don’t do that? So tell me what tips and tools and techniques and mindsets and tell me what to do to make sure that doesn’t happen as well as what to do, but then to also have the emotional and mental capacity of resilience and of just grace and fortitude and all the things that come with struggle and hardship and failure. And also by someone who lets you fail, I’m going fail. Failing is a part of the process and it’s okay. And in fact, I encourage you to fail do it more and do it often and then learn from it. AJV: (07:12) What do you do with a failure? But I feel like you can really only do that. If you are learning from people who are willing to say, I failed, I fail all the time. It’s a daily occurrence for me in some arena of my life and that’s okay. And it’s okay if you fail too, it doesn’t have to be perfect and right, the very first time that you do it. And I love just that whole concept of you need mentors who have failed that have not always gotten it right, but who have figured it out along the way, because you will not get it right every single time. And that’s okay. I just thought that was right. RV: (07:48) That’s great. Yeah. I mean, having someone there to give you perspective to help you pick yourself back up when something goes wrong, cause you know, it will. And that was really, really cool. So my, my second takeaway which I, I actually talked a little bit about in the interview is, is from Mark, Tim of, of just, you know, he actually incorporated his family, which I thought was interesting that it’s this mindset that you run your home like a business, because here’s the truth. Anyone who runs a household runs a business like running a household is running a business. There’s a constant, never close. Yes. Just a daily flow of things that happen in cyclical nature over and over. And it needs strategy and it needs systems and it needs money and it needs, it needs resources. It needs time and planning and, and some of y’all out there like, you know, mostly me, I’m gonna say mostly, I’m going to say mostly you mom’s like, you’re running, you’re running at least two businesses. RV: (08:51) Like if you’re managing a personal brand and you’re managing a, and you have a job, like you got three businesses going on, like you, you have to get help and, and think about it in that way and have permission. I think, to think about it that way. Because sometimes we think, Oh, it’s just like my home life, but it’s like, no, it does take so many people and resources. And, and to have them say it directly like run this like a business, do what you would do the way you would organize a business, do that with your family. And I just thought that was powerful and really a good reminder and just clear permission. AJV: (09:32) Yeah. Well, I feel like if husbands and wives, or even if you’re a single parent, but if you guys treated it like that, I feel like maybe that would incline more men to step into what are the functioning roles of running a household. Maybe if you were able to relate to it more. And that’s what Mark talks about. He goes, I was having a hard time. I was giving my best to work until I realized no, it’s like, my family is like running a business. My household is like a business. So how can I take what I learned at work, what I do at work and bring it home to better improve our home life and family life and all the things. And I thought that was really good. I love that. I knew. Yeah. I knew like way back when that was something that he talked about, that we were just in awe of then, and still now. RV: (10:19) And I think there’s a lot of men that would go, ah, run a family kids. Like I don’t know what to do, but if you go, Oh, run a business and just apply those things at home, you go, Oh, okay. I see that. I could do that. Yeah, he did. He’s looking at him here. I’m sitting here realizing I’m like, crap. I have a bunch more stuff I could. AJV: (10:39) Yeah, no, no. Not at all. Keep going. Yeah. So my third one is the concept of collaboration is this as something that Kevin talked about, kind of close to the end of the interview. And he, I think you asked him like, what’s one thing that you would tell to aspiring personal brands. And he said, collaborate, like, don’t forget the power of a borrowed audience. Don’t get, don’t forget the power of the indirect connections that you get. Don’t forget that the power of two is better than one and five is better than two. And I, he talks about all these collaboration projects that he has been on and is on RV: (11:18) This whole career is basically one giant AJV: (11:21) Collaborations. He is the prime example of what that looks like. And I think that hit it home to me because collaboration is one of the core six values that we have here at brain builders group. And I hope our team doesn’t mind me sharing this publicly, but over the summer with our core team, we did these what we call core value check-ins and they rate themselves and we rate them and we say, all right, well, how are we doing on our core values? And collaboration was fifth out of six, was down on the list. And everyone self identified, like I’m not good at collaborating. Like I’m not, I’m not good. I’m a doer. I’m a, you know, I’m a high D task-driven a Thai person get stuff done. And it was like, I’m just a, let me Mark it off Melissa, go, go, go. And it was a very big aha moment to us to be like, Whoa, we have a, we got to slow down and create the space and time for synergy and collaboration and conversation and brainstorming and strategizing because that is what it is. AJV: (12:28) And it’s the concept of somebody else seeing something that you can’t see. And quite honestly, that is why Brett brand builders group exists, why we exist. It is the whole reason that we exist. And yeah, we can act like mentors and coaches, but really we’re collaborators on your personal brand. And it is time to step back and go, what am I missing? What am I not seeing? Or how do I do more of this? Or how does someone else do it? Or why does it feel like there’s some secret out there that everyone else knows that I don’t know, like who hasn’t filled me in on this. And I just feel like that is what we do, but yet our own team would be like, yeah, we suck at this. We need to do so much better. And I just kind of feel like for everyone, like if you’re not collaborating with someone, why not? And what are you missing? Because you’re not. RV: (13:23) Yeah, that, that is so huge. And it kind of comes back again to the power of mentorship and partnership. And that was my thing too, was, was partnership because it’s interesting. You’re talking about it from clients at brand builders, like as part of what we do is collaborate with you, but also brand builders exist because of our collaborations with our affiliate partners, like a huge percentage of our revenue, like 60% or 60% of our revenue is 50 to 60, 50 to 60 comes from someone else introducing clients to us. Like we go on their podcast or they do an email blast or some other campaign that we do. And because we offer one on one coaching, most of our affiliate partners, don’t like, they’re not in the business of one-on-one. And so we’re able to bring something to them and their audience that they can’t provide. RV: (14:14) And because we started the company from scratch, we didn’t have an audience, we have we’re, we’re rebuilding our audience. So they’re bringing the audience. And I think this is Kevin’s whole thing, which is always stuck with me is he said, the keynote negotiation is a win, win, and he will actually turn down deals because people are giving him too much of a percentage because he’s going, if you’re wanting me to take that much percentage, you’re expecting me to do more than I can do, and you’re not getting enough reward for what you have to do to make this successful. What I mean, that is a, like just a different way of thinking. And that’s why he’s like, you know, he’s, he’s not really a shark. I mean, it’s ironic that he was on the shark tank because he’s, he’s a collaborator. He’s not really like a shark in terms of where that term comes from. He’s he’s going, how can we partner to create something bigger together where we both win and what a simple philosophy that has AJV: (15:14) This concept of, you know, being equally yoked in the sense of, Hey, we have equal risk and equal responsibility and equal reward or relevant risk to are not equal per se. And yeah, but it’s like equal in the terms of, we’ve got both. We have something to win or lose here. We’re in it together. Yeah. It’s fair. I love that RV: (15:35) Anyways. I mean, it’s not every day you get to talk to someone who’s like sold billions of dollars of stuff and been on shark tank. AJV: (15:42) I’ve been a part of hundreds of companies hundreds. RV: (15:46) Yes. And then Mark, talk to me upon so listen to the interview, really, you know, some great wisdom in there, you know, you can tell how much we endear them or are in yeah. Endure them. AJV: (16:03) We’re talking about my life. And so I’m like, I’m personally so excited about this new book mentor to millions. They’ve got awesome resources. So make sure you check out all the links and just, you know, go, go get a mentor, RV: (16:20) Go get a mentor. Thanks for being here. Catch you next time. [inaudible].

Ep 106: From Mentors to Millions with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm

Speaker 1: (00:04) [Inaudible] RV: (00:07) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) So honored and excited to bring back to you to have people that I would consider mentors and to friends, to people that we have worked with. Kevin Harrington, most of you probably know because we had him on, when we originally did our influential personal brand summit, he was the original shark on the show shark tank. He is a co founding board member of EO entrepreneurs organization, and really the inventor of the infomercial, which has led to him selling over $5 billion in global sales. You know, these are products like Billy Mays and Jacqueline, Elaine, and Kim Kardashians and 50 cent and George Foreman. And he’s just amazing. And then my other friend, Mark, Tim, who you’ll, you’ll hear his story right now, we’ve Mark is someone that we met through the Ziglar family, and I know that’s how him and Kevin met and he is a serial entrepreneur himself. RV: (02:01) He has started more than a dozen companies. Several of them have grown and been sold. He has spoken professionally for more than 25 years. And I consider Mark a personal mentor because of the way that he runs his family life and the way that him and his wife and just, you know treat their family like a business. And that’s probably the biggest thing that I have taken from Mark over the years. So the two of them have teamed up to write a book here that is called mentor to millions, which has we already know has pre-sold thousands and thousands of copies. It’s a fantastic book from two amazing people. So guys, welcome to the show. Hey Rory, thanks for having us. It’s great to be here. Thanks buddy. So let’s talk about how y’all met because obviously, you know, this book is really interesting. You write it from you know, about the power of having a mentor. And I think in this relationship, Mark plays like the mentee, Kevin plays the mentor. But how did you guys meet? Because the three of us all share sort of a, an unusual, Cool and unique bond MT: (03:07) Yeah. So I’ll jump in and do that because we actually met through our mutual mentor. So I had Zig Ziglar as a mentor when I was a young man and Kevin had Zig Ziglar as a mentor, as a young man in guests who else had [inaudible] better than you Roy. So so this is the, the book wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for zigs mentorship. So we, we, we owe a lot to him and Tom Ziglar wrote the forward, but that’s the why we had to write this book because the, the, the book’s title is mentor to millions. That’s not millions of dollars. That’s millions of people impacted. So I didn’t know, I didn’t know Kevin. Okay. I didn’t know you, but because of our mentorship of Zig Ziglar, even after his passing from the earth, we all knew the children Zig Ziglar. MT: (04:00) And it was the children of Zig Ziglar that introduced me to Kevin, that introduced me to you. They introduced Kevin to you. And so you see impact of zigs legacy is now rippling on, you know, way past his passing on the earth. So that is how impact, that’s the kind of impact that we’re talking about, the exponential impact of mentorship. And that’s why we had to write this book because that’s the secret that crazy awesome successful people have is they had mentors in their lives. And would you say that, so, so Kevin for you who were RV: (04:34) Of your other mentors. So like, I know Zig you talk about cause secrets of closing the sale and you, you know, you guys have done a lot with that, you know, who are some of your other mentors in addition to Zig? And did you have a lot of mentors growing up? I know you’ve been a mentor to so many. KH: (04:50) Yeah, good question. And I think I go all the way back. I kind of joke a little bit, but it’s it’s for real, that I had my first mentor when I was 11 years old happened to be my father Charlie, because my, my father was, was a bartender. I’m one of six kids and there wasn’t a lot of money and, and great surplus as I was growing up. And, but my dad said, Hey, I’ve saved up enough money. I’m opening up my own restaurant. Harrington’s Irish pub. So I was in there at 11 years old, not just washing dishes and serving trays of food. I was in the back with him counting the money at the end of the day and looking at the suppliers. And it was pretty amazing how he brought me shoulder to shoulder with him. We’d go out and pick up supplies. And, and, and of course I was going to school also, but grade school at the time, but make a long story short. My dad was, he mentored me to start my own businesses when I was young. So I started a business when I was in high school and then another one in college and, and et cetera. But so as I KH: (05:58) Got out of, out of getting into the, the TV business and sold some of the businesses I started during high school, one of the first big mentors for me was, was somebody that I needed desperately. Cause I built a business in this SMTP space. I had a lot of orders that were sitting, but I couldn’t fulfill them because I didn’t have the inventory. So I needed capital to have inventories. And I went to bank after bank people say, Oh, go to the bank and get lines of credit, get financing. Right. Well, there was no assets for them to lend against. I was a young entrepreneur. This is 35 years ago, but I got a former bank president who was retired that came in and said, let me tell you the deal I’m going to do. You got five banks that turned you down. KH: (06:48) I’ll get you financing probably from one of those banks that turned you down. I’m going to get you a $3 million line of credit, which is what you need. And then after that’s all done, there’s no cost. That’s straight mentoring me, helping you because you deserve it. You need it. I want to help you. And then at that point, if you want to do some business with me, we can sit down and talk about it, but I’m going to have brought you an amazing gift in the process. 90 days later, 3 million bucks in my account, we took that and grew the business. I mean, we went 10 fold from there and it was just unbelievable because I was a great marketing guy, but I needed cash. I needed capital and inventory. So this, this was an amazing step for me. And of course, beyond that, people don’t know that before Russell Brunson ever started ClickFunnels, I was in this as seen a TV business. KH: (07:41) And I said, I’m losing all my viewers TV viewership is dropping. So I reached out to Russell and Russell gave me some great tips on digital marketing. And I, I actually came out of that meeting with Russell and sold a bunch of my at semen TV assets. Cause I realized the handwriting is on the wall. This is a business I’m on TV today. But now I say today, that was 10 years ago today. It’s digital, it’s Facebook, it’s Instagram, LinkedIn it’s you know, so I’ve had some great transitions from Russell Brunson to Zig Ziglar to my father, to the banker that was retired to even getting a, a couple of days with Richard Branson down at the famous Necker Island. He gave me some really powerful advice. So mentors have been near and dear to me. And to this day I still have quite a few in my life. So RV: (08:35) Let me ask you about this, Kevin, cause this is interesting. You mentioned Russell Brunson you know, and he’s younger than you and he’s much younger than you and you also came to Veda years, I think that’s right. Well, you and your son and your team and Mark came to Vaden Villa for a day of strategy stuff with us and you know, amazed me was, which is, and it amazes me to hear you say it now that you’ve not been afraid to have mentors younger than you. So, you know, how do you pick a good mentor? Cause I know this is part of the book, the book, again, mentor to millions. What are some of the things that you guys use to, to pick mentors? Cause age obviously is not necessarily the key criteria. And I’d love to hear from both of you on that. KH: (09:24) Mark, go ahead and I’ll give you my thoughts from, from my perspective, MT: (09:28) you know, when, when I looked at Kevin, he, it doesn’t matter. The age matters. Do they have wisdom and experience in an area that you need? And, and more than anything, Kevin can speak a lot on the mentor side, I can speak a lot on the mentee side as well, because you know, Kevin is my mentor and that’s the journey we take in the book. But one of the things that you should be looking for in a mentor is number one, have they failed? You know, because it’s hard to learn from somebody that hasn’t had some failure in their life. Wow. And that’s big. We talk a lot in the book about failure and how you respond to failure and you need mentors that know and have failed because you’re going to fail, but you need to know you can lean on them and they’ll pick you up and they’ll help you learn from that process. MT: (10:13) It’s not about failure. It’s about how you respond to that failure. You know, our mutual mentor Zig said, nobody drowns from falling in water. They only drown. If they stay in the water, you know, he knew you’re going to fall down, stay there. And so you need mentors to pull you up. So you’re looking for someone that isn’t a one hit wonder that doesn’t just have one way. And the other thing you look for in a mentor is do they listen because you need them to hear you out. What are you trying to accomplish in this world? What’s your unique gift to the world and let them listen long enough to then know how to really pour into you. And so when that happens, again, it doesn’t matter if they’re younger than you or older than you. I have to tell you right now, I’ve got younger mentors that are mentoring me in technology. MT: (10:56) I mean, I, you know, I just, I can out myself right now and say, I didn’t have a cell phone at 25 years old. I was in my late twenties. I got a cell phone. So the things that are happening in technology are just intuitive auto Metronic for these young people. And so I have young people that are mentoring me to be able to use technology in a much more robust way to get the message out there. So it’s really do they know something. And one of the other things that people look for in mentors are getting a lot of phone calls right now from folks that are building up a little business. They’re getting some sales on Amazon and some places, and now they’re like, Oh, okay, we need capital. Or maybe we should exit. So finding a mentor, that’s been through a few exits because too many people would come on shark tank and they just want a lot of money for this teeny little percentage of their company. Right now I own equity and a private may never KH: (11:54) Be able to get my money back. Right. So finding an exit or a way to, you know, to monetize your investment is an important thing in today’s world. So and there’s a lot of roll-up companies that are buying up the Amazon type entities and things like this. So there’s a lot of good folks out there that, I mean, I, I know a neighbor bought a house and came in and found out, Oh, he’s a lawyer and he’s 35 years old. And he, and he used to work for major league baseball, but he’s selling, he’s starting Amazon businesses, buying Amazon businesses and crushing it. So he’s in his fifth or sixth acquisition right now. So there’s a very smart, young mentor that could help a lot of companies that are out there in the marketplace of, of monetizing an exit strategy. Well, and so most of them RV: (12:48) People listening here are our entrepreneurs in some sense, right. It might be their side hustle or something, but do you think mentorship applies directly to like personal brands and people specifically that are like in this space? Cause a lot of, I think a lot of personal brands are like both of you in that they achieved something and now they’re kind of moving into more of like a teaching role. So do you, do you think that this message still applies directly to them? Or, or how, or is it, is it different from how you would mentor someone in a corporate environment or just in a classic kind of entrepreneur entrepreneurial setting at all? KH: (13:30) Well, you know, I think certainly personal brands, it is a personal brand is still it’s a business. It has, it needs customer acquisition you know, metrics. So you’re building funnels, you’re acquiring followers customers. Yes. So and, and again, you, you mentioned my age, so, you know, it, it Russell Brunson’s way younger than me, but here a lot of the, the younger generation has tuned into the world of digital and much more powerful way. So, so yeah, I do believe that even on the branding, I mean there, there are, what are the outlets that personal brand should go after me now there’s something new with LinkedIn, LinkedIn live and there’s obviously Facebook live came and was very powerful for, for quite a bit and still is so you know, so one of the questions for personal brands is where is the best place to spend your time focus your energies? And if you do have some dollars to invest to invest. So you know, it, I try to keep myself on the cutting edge of what’s happening out there in the world. And I, you know, from artificial intelligence to virtual reality type things, I’m already KH: (14:52) Starting to explore ventures like this that will you know, maybe be a little bit pioneering where you get your legs, blood running down your ankles kind of thing from, from being too early in the market. But I like experimenting with things like this and I think sometimes mentors can help steer you in certain directions. RV: (15:15) Yeah. Yeah. And so Mark for you specifically, you know, in terms of mentoring, personal brands, like it’s interesting cause being a personal brand, it often happens like in the cracks of time, in your day, like in between meetings, you’re checking social media or you’re like, you know, you don’t often have like blocks of just days at a time unless you’re writing a book. But outside of that I find that there’s this real temptation to have it creep into taking over your whole personal life. And one of the things that both of you have done is not just scale businesses, but you know, like I know Mark specifically for you, you study this a lot about scaling your, your, your life and running your household like a business. Can you just share with us, that’s been a one way, I think that you’ve mentored me directly. Can you share a few thoughts on that? And you know, if it’s specific to personal brands or not, but just that we have this temptation to always be like on social media, doing DMS, doing comments, doing posts during dinner, you know, and after hours and in bed and like, how do you, how do you deal with some of that? MT: (16:26) Yeah, it’s a challenge. And so, and I gotta tell ya, just to be candid with everybody listening, I got it wrong longer than I got it. Right. I can only share what it feels like to get it right, because I know what it feels like to get it wrong. And I was there building the brand of company, a personal brand, 24, seven, always on my family saw me and you know what they did, they resented what I did. The book starts out with me at the end of my driveway, having one of the most pivotal moments of my life, a driveway moment where I realized I had everything upside down, that I was giving my family and my last and my lease instead of my first and my best. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I just knew it was wrong. And I was always searching like all these entrepreneurs and brands for this perfect work life balance. MT: (17:10) And then I figured out it’s a myth. There’s no such thing as work life balance. You’re never in complete balance of work and life, but you can integrate. And that’s what we talk about in the book. What if your family becomes your most valuable business? What if the business you’re going home to is the most valuable business you’ll ever own ever operate everything and be a part of what is the most valuable brand is your family. Okay. Then versus the one you’re going to. And by the way, I took it to the next level. That day in that driveway, I came home, I incorporated my family. I actually created a brand out of my family. We have a logo, we have a mission statement. We had meetings on Sunday nights. And what I did was I started taking everything I knew to do in business and started applying it at home. MT: (17:56) So if you’ve got a great personal brand, create a family brand, one of the coolest things we ever did was do a family logo cost is $99 on 99 designs. And we had 185 designers submit designs for our little family logo. It was Epic. And we were sending surveys out to aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, and they were voting on it. And the family was so proud when it was done and we had this common ground. And so the bottom line is if you’re building a family brand and it’s all consuming, integrate your family, involve them in that family brand involve them in your personal brand, tell them what they’re doing, what you’re doing, integrate what’s happening. Let them be a part of it, be transparent with it. And they’ll not resent. It they’ll want to dive in and help you do it. And that’s a huge difference. And that’s where we want to be as moms and dads, husbands, fathers, wives. We want our family to embrace us as a business and brand not resent it. Wow. RV: (18:59) I love that. And I mean, being at the book is about being a mentor. You’re actually mentoring your family first. Like by the, by the, by the work of doing that is, here’s a real, this is funny. So a few nights ago, AJ and I are putting Jasper down for bed, you know, Jasper has now so Jasper’s three, like three and a half. He was baby last, basically the last time when you guys got to meet him. And he said you know, basically he was like, what are we doing tomorrow is tomorrow family day. And we said, no, tomorrow is Workday. And he said, Oh, okay. I go to work. And AJ said, do you think you want to work with MT: (19:39) Best in the business one day Jasper? RV: (19:41) And he says, yeah, but I’m going to need a cell phone for that. RV: (19:48) So he’s negotiating his package already, which I love. Kevin, last, last little question just for you. What are some RV: (19:59) Things that you, you know, advice that you would give to personal brands? I mean, you’ve been on TV, you, you like, you’ve played this, you know, such a big role in the world, 30 last kind of parting thoughts that you’d have for anyone that kind of aspires to have the kind of worldwide impact and reach that you’ve been able to have. KH: (20:16) Yeah. So let me get this pandemic has shown a lot of interesting developments and what happened at the very beginning, I started getting a lot of phone calls, people wanting to collaborate and, and because time to challenge you hunker down, but reach out, talk to your mentors, talk to folks. And I, I believe that collaboration is good, venturing together, doing things together. So I’ve been, we’ve been doing Mark and I outside of the book. We we’ve been doing KH: (20:48) A lot of things together, but I’m also with other organizations with Roland Frasier war room with Joe Polish’s genius network and Mike Calhoun at board of advisers, you know, these collaborative efforts and even writing books. I mean, Zig Ziglar created amazing content, you know 30 some books and dozens of languages. I collaborated with the family to relaunch some of those books in, in partnership. So so in fact, with, with this one, Rory, but this was a book that was rereleased secrets sale with Kevin Harrington shell. And by the way, Zig has 4.7 or 4.9 million followers on Facebook. So you know, when you collaborate, you tie in to the network of the followers of the collaborator that you’re collaborating with. So if I just, I believe in, in creating lots of content, putting it out there, joining groups, LinkedIn groups writing books, writing lead magnets, and, and just continuing to push and build the brand. But this is a great opportunity to be able to reach and collaborate into some really powerful networks followers with other folks. I love it. RV: (22:09) A mentor to millions is the name of the book. Where do you guys want people to go? You have some amazing bonuses and stuff. MT: (22:16) Yeah. We have a lot of amazing bonuses and stuff that they can do as well. But the biggest thing we want to share, if they go to Kevin mentor.com, Kevin, and I want everybody to develop the habit of mentorship. So we’re giving away 30 days of mentorship and that’s above and beyond. The other bonus is just something Kevin and I came up with and said after 30 days of seeing what it’s like to have mentorship, and some of that will be library. And so, you know, so we’re 30 different areas of mentorship in their life. We know after those 30 days, they’re going to want to raise their hand and say, I need a mentor in my life always. And so Kevin mentor.com go there. That’s where your mentorship journey. RV: (22:56) Well, I love it. Collaboration, mentorship. I’ll never forget Kevin. One time told me that the secret to negotiating is to make sure it’s a win for everybody. That’s how you know, it’s going to be a healthy partnership. And we appreciate you guys so much. We’ll put links to all that. The book has mentor to millions. Y’all go get it. Let us know on social. What you thought about these guys, guys. We wish you the best. KH: (23:19) Thanks, Rory. Always a pleasure

Ep 105: Get Your Foot in the Door and Kick it Down with Paula Faris | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand. I am Rory Vaden. I’m filling in for my wife and CEO. AJ Vaden. And I’m rolling solo on this recap edition, which is cool because I got a chance to meet Paula in person. You know, we spoke at the same event here recently and you know, I just, she’s a new friend. And, and so it’s cool to get a chance to introduce you to her so quickly and such a high-level performer, I mean, in terms of hosting, right? Like it doesn’t get much bigger than being a host on good morning America and the view. So I want to just share with you my three biggest takeaways, which I think are pretty clear in the interview, but I specifically want to talk about them as they relate to you as a personal brand. RV: (01:02) And I think the, you know, Paula talked about hosting, right? And that was sort of the direction that the interview went was how to be a great host. And of course, you know, as always, if you haven’t listened to the interview, go listen to it. But I think the, the biggest things that I took away from her interview are really just about you on camera in general. And so that’s my first big takeaway is to be conversational, even when your rehearsed be conversational, even when you’re hurt rehearsed. And you know, this, this thing that she was talking about, where when you go on camera, because we find that a lot of our clients are struggling with this is, is yeah. How do I, what do I say on camera? How do I, what personality am I when I turned the camera on? And yes, social media gives me the ability to like reach across the globe instantly, but I still gotta like, turn the camera on and overcome that fear. RV: (02:04) And when she said, just speak the name out loud of the one person that you’re talking to on the other side of that camera, I think that is so powerful and so useful. That is a technique we teach in our captivating content event about the secret of writing is that you don’t write to people, you write to person, you pick one person in your life and you write at that person. And she was saying the same thing on camera, which I guess I’ve never thought about so directly, but hearing her say it. And it’s interesting to write at that high of a level. That’s the kind of simple thing that they’re focused on. She’s focused on her audience. She’s focused on one person that she’s trying to serve. And there’s a good chance that if your nervous, before you get on camera, you’re not thinking about the person you’re trying to serve. RV: (03:03) You’re thinking about yourself, right? You’re thinking about is my hair out of place. Just do you know, do I look, do I look good? Do I look weird? Is my face funny? Is there something in my teeth is what I’m saying? Valuable. Like you’re so consumed. It’s so easy for us to become consumed with ourselves that we immediately disconnect and, and, and lose contact with the person on the other side of the camera. And that simple idea is the difference between everybody in the world. Like she hands wall, right? Everybody who’s consumed in the noise and the alarming majority and the few people that break through the wall, even as a host. And so I just thought that was so powerful. And it allows you to be relaxed. It allows you to be comfortable in your own skin because you’re not putting on a facade. You’re not acting, you’re not even performing. You’re not pretending you’re just serving. RV: (04:15) And if all you have to do is serve, if all you have to do is help, you’re not so freaked out about it, right? It’s like, you know, maybe this is silly analogy, but if you go into like a soup kitchen, and this is not the same thing, but just, if you think about serving at a soup kitchen, like you probably don’t care so much what you’re wearing. And do you have designer clothes on and is your car clean? And, and, you know, does everybody there know how great your job is? Like, you don’t care about any of that stuff. You’re just there to help. Like you’re just there to contribute and you’re not worried or afraid of being judged. And that is the power of being focused on your audience. And I think that’s the key to being conversational, even when it’s rehearsed. So it’s like, you’re thinking a little bit about what you’re going to say, but you’re, you’re, you’re really just being in the moment of trying to serve. RV: (05:13) And I think that’s, so that was my, my biggest thing, which is a lesson that I feel like I’ve, you know, learned, but always, and always want to be reminded of, but never had really thought of as a host. And it was just powerful for me to go, wow. The biggest hosts in the world are doing the same things that we do as speakers or that we do as authors. And to hear that from Paula was, was just really incredible. So that was the first thing. The second thing was actually what she talked about that she learned from Whoopi Goldberg, which is this idea of save it for the table, save it for the table. And what is she talking about there? Well, you know, when they would talk about topics in the pre meeting before the show of like, which topics are we going to cover once they could tell like, Oh, this is going to be heated, or this is going to be funny, or there’s a lot of energy or emotion around this topic. RV: (06:13) Let’s not talk about it now let’s save it for the camera. And I think that’s so wise and that’s, you know, obviously Whoopi Goldberg has had a very famous career. You know, I don’t know, you might have different views about what you think about her views or whatever, but like you can’t, you can’t refute that. The woman has been very successful at building a lot of reach and being in TV for a long time and movies and lots of movies and, you know so she knows something about that medium and for, for her to say something so clearly like save it for the table. Here’s how I interpreted that. And here’s how I think that applies to you. I think it’s easy to over rehearse so you can over rehearse. And what happens when you over rehearse is you lose the rawness of the emotion when you deliver it on camera, because you’re so focused on delivering what you practiced and you’re delivering from a place that you have been practicing rather than delivering from a place of just raw emotion and authenticity and what you’re feeling. RV: (07:36) And so you need to have a little bit of this rehearsal, right? So that you’re not just babbling off in a, in a random direction all the time, but you’re not saying you’re not just reciting everything verbatim that you’ve already kind of mapped out. You’re allowing the natural evolution of your emotion to come through and to portray how you’re really feeling, save it for the table, you, which, you know, in the view that meant save it for the live production, save it, save it for the TV, save it for the cameras. That’s what she’s saying. And I think the same could be true for you even as like a speaker, right? Or as, as a webinar, like I think scripts can be good to the extent that they reduce our fear and they give us an idea of what they, of what to say. But I think we can over rehearse. RV: (08:28) I think we can, we can put too much pressure on ourselves to say every single word. And it’s not that each individual word is magical. What’s magical is the raw human experience what’s magical is you and I connecting as humans. What is, is, is magical is you feeling the energy and the emotion and the enthusiasm, the power that when I give you something, this idea will change your life. This product will help. This coaching program will, will, will shift your career. And if you’re too rehearsed, you don’t have it. So save it for the table. In other words, save some of it for the camera. Don’t over rehearse. I thought that was just really, really huge and really helpful. And again, hearing it from Whoopi Goldberg or hearing it in this case, third party through Paula, that was, that was cool. I thought that was, that was pretty cool. So like you get to hang out with these people who are on national television so much just, you know, any day of the week to figure out what they think about it. So that was really good. But my favorite thing about Paula’s story was when she said, you’ve gotta be willing to kick down the door and prove yourself. RV: (10:02) You gotta be willing to kick down the door for your dream. And she’s she told a 13 year story of going from this like production assistant, earning nothing to being on, to like weaseling her way into local TV to, and even though she got on camera, she wasn’t even, she didn’t get a raise. She just had more work and more responsibility. And it was a 13 year journey to go from there to good morning America. And you know, you look at her and you go, gosh, she’s young. Cause you know, she looks young like she’s young, but you go, when you hear her story, it’s like 13 years. And this drives me bananas because people spend 18 months, 12 months, six months trying to launch a business or a personal brand. And they go, you know, it’s just not working. I’m not making money fast enough. RV: (11:07) Like none of this stuff works. I’m overwhelmed. Like I don’t get, I don’t get upset that people get discouraged, discouraged as a natural part of this. What was frustrating is how improper the expectation is about how soon you would succeed. And it’s not that I’m mad at the person that’s experiencing this. I have empathy for that person. I have been that person. I am that person I’m constantly struggling and frustrated with things. I’m trying to figure out constantly. I’m frustrated with the way that the world operates and that the messages that you’re receiving is that like, if you’re not making six figures, you know, within the first six weeks failing or that if you don’t have a million followers you’re failing, or if you don’t have a a hundred million downloads on your podcast, you’re failing. Or, you know, if you’re not fiving and are flying around in a private jet, you’re failing all of that. RV: (12:06) First of all is crap. Like in terms of you can impact one life today. And that is what matters. And the other thing is none of those people did it in six months. None of them did it in six weeks. Like, because none of them did it in six years. They did it in 10 years, in 15 years, in most cases, 20 years, 25 years. So when you’re struggling and you’re getting your face kicked in and you’re like beat up because you’ve been at this for two years and it’s like, it’s not happening for you. It is happening. Like you’re doing the right things. You gotta stay that. You gotta stay the course. The question is the challenges. Are you willing to kick down the door for your dream? Are you willing to sit there and kick and kick and kick and cut and bang and chisel and drive like, have you made the resolution like, have you actually come to the decision that no matter how long it takes your going to be successful, that’s the decision I want you to make? RV: (13:21) That’s the commitment I want you to make. That’s the place I want you to stand. I don’t want you to say, I’m willing to give this a try for six months. I’m willing to give this a try for a year. Like what is try? Like if you are a mission driven messenger, if you were called to this profession of being a personal brand, whatever that looks like for you, whether you’re in direct sales or you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re a corporate executive, or you’re, you know, more of like an influencer author, speaker information marketer, type of whatever, whatever your personal brand is about. If you have been called to do that, your life will get easier. The moment you decide that you will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes for that dream to come true, that’s it, your life will be difficult when you are living in the world of going GAF. RV: (14:25) I get results. I’ll stick with this. If I see enough likes, I’ll hang in there. And most of that happens on a subconscious level, right? Like we go for, you know, a year we go for a year and a half and we were like, gosh, it’s not working. It is working. It’s working. It takes time. It takes time to build, you know, the Dubai tower, the Burj Al Arab, like you gotta dig deep the ground before you get to, before you, you gotta build the foundation. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta lay the groundwork. And this is the truth of every story. And I just, for me, it was so cool to hear Paula, because it’s, it’s the story of a host, which is not a story that we hear that often we hear about authors. We hear about speakers, entrepreneurs, information, marketers, like all these people we have had here on the podcast. RV: (15:13) They tell them that story. But this is also for a world-class host. And it’s just the more we do these interviews, the more we meet these people, the more we share the stage with them, the more it’s like the truth of success is take the stairs. It was our first book from so many years ago now, like, it’s that simple? Have you made a decision that you’re going to kick the door down for your dream? Have you made the commitment that you’re going to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to like keep your day job or, or, or have a corporate gig and build something on the side or, you know, start small and work your way up. I mean, it means different things for different people. But if this is what you want, if this is what you feel called to do, you can do it. RV: (16:02) You can do it. I mean, particularly if it’s in the world of personal brands, like we can teach it to you. Like we’ve studied this stuff. We know how to do it. We know the truth of, you know, if there is a shortcut brand builders group, is it like, this is all we do. It’s what I’ve spent my personal life, my whole career studying. Like how do you, you build your audience and build your reach so it can be done. But the thing we can’t do for you, we can’t teach you is that commitment, that fight that hunger, that drive that desire to be scrappy and to go, you know what? I’m going to, I’m going to go for 13 years. I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I will take the hits for 13 years to get to where I want to go. So it’s like, you know what, call me after five. RV: (16:59) If it’s not like, if you’re, if it’s not working, keep doing it for five years and then call me and tell me it’s not working because it is working. It is working. You are building the foundation, but nobody sees the foundation, right? When you drive around the neighborhood, you’re like, wow, that house flew up. No, it didn’t. They spent, they spent a year doing permits. And then once they got permits and saving money and then finding their architect and their builder, and then, and then they got the plans and then they finally started digging and then they laid the foundation and then they had problems and then it rained. And then dah, dah, dah, and then one day you’re driving by. And you’re like, Whoa, look at that whole thing is framed and flew up. Where did that come from? The same is true for you. So just decide, decide that your dream matters, decide that you’re willing to kick down the door. RV: (17:51) Because if you feel that calling on your heart, we believe that it is there for a reason that it was divinely placed in you, which means you can’t fail. You can’t lose. As long as you keep serving and you keep fighting and you keep going. So do that and keep coming back here, hanging out with us and the influential personal brand podcast in Kali. As soon as you can, if you’re not already get into our coaching program, let us talk to you every month, come to our events. We can help you. We can help you reduce the pain. And I hope I get to see you there. If not hang out here as long as you have to, we love you. And you know, hopefully we get to meet you, but in the meantime, just keep kicking butt and helping people. We’ll get you next time on the influential personal brand.