Author: AJ Vaden

Ep 164: Successful Self-Talk for Personal Brands with Jon Acuff

RV: (00:08)

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)

Well, yeah, every so often I got to get together with my pal, Acuff, John Acuff, and tell you what he’s up to and glean some wisdom from him. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the New York times bestselling author of seven books. His last book was a number one wall street journal bestseller called finish. Give yourself the gift of done. He’s incredible speaker. He’s freaking hilarious. He’s been doing a lot of research lately and conducting studies and just really fascinating. We’ll hear about that as related to goals and specifically today about overthinking, but he speaks for big companies, FedEx Nissan Chick-Filet he’s got well over half a million people following him on social and we’ve just been friends for years. He lives here in Nashville. And so we have known each other for a while and he’s got a new book that is coming out called soundtracks, the surprising solution to overthinking.

RV: (02:07)

And so we’re going to talk about what that is and specifically some of the mindset issues that need to be resolved to really build and grow and become an influential personal brand like Mr. Aycock. So John brother, welcome back. Yeah. Thanks for having me again, Roy. It’s always fun to see you. Yeah, man. So so tell me about soundtracks. What, what is this all about? Where did this come from? I know that you’ve been really diving into some of the data and some of the research here in the last few years. And so I’m guessing this is connected to that.

JA: (02:45)

Yeah. So I would say if you’re a personal brand and you’re going to launch a book, you’re going to do a product you’re going to do any sort of new endeavor. There’s three things to look for. That’s kind of my Venn diagram. The first thing is you look for a personal connection. Do I have a personal connection to this content? Second thing is, is there a real need in the marketplace? Can I identify a need? The third is, is there a hole in the market for me to put it into? So for me I’ve always been an overthinker. I learned some things about my thoughts and that I got to choose them in 2008 and it kind of launched my speaking career. And so I’d been working on choosing my thoughts, which turned into my actions, which turn into results for a long time.

JA: (03:28)

And then I said, okay, but I wonder if other people need that, are there other overthinkers? And so I have a PhD named Mike Peasley who helps me with research and we asked 10,000 people if they struggle with overthinking and 99.5% of them said yes. So I knew there was a need. And then I went to the marketplace and there’s some great books about overthinking, but a lot of them say, stop it, stop it, stop it. And my opinion was, why would I ever turn off this amazing machine? What if I just said it with good things were thoughts that pushed me forward up thoughts that pushed me back. And so that for me was the Venn diagram where I said, okay, I’m willing to invest a few years of my life into this idea. And I think it’s going to reach a lot of people and I’m deeply connected to it. So let me spend the time. That’s kind of the Genesis of why I decided to write about overthinking.

RV: (04:16)

So when you say overthinking, is that the same as saying, we’re thinking limiting thoughts about ourselves. Like we’re, we’re, we’re dealing with self doubt and insecurity and there’s like, like when you say soundtrack is like the metaphor here, is it the, it is the negative kind of tape rolling in our mind is that’s what we’re talking about.

JA: (04:41)

It can be at a hundred percent. Can be. I mean that, you know, one of the things we say is that in all the research, cause we took thousands of people through this. Like that for me has been the evolution as a personal brand, you know, early books. I didn’t understand the research side of things. Now I have ideas in this office, but if I send them out of this office, you know, who they help John ACOF, you can only, it’s a very narrow focus. But if I take all these ideas and I have the generous thousands of readers who go we’ll test those for a month, we’ll give you feedback. We’ll then I have 35 different stories where a stay-at-home mom, a CEO, you know, a college student can go, Oh, I see myself in that book because I’ve tested the ideas with other people.

JA: (05:22)

And so for me, one of the things we said was we never found somebody who’s problem was they over-thought compliments. We never found somebody. Who’s like, I just keep overthinking what a good mom I am. And it’s really causing problems in my life. But on a broader sense, I define overthinking as when, what you think gets in the way of what you want. And the difference between overthinking and being prepared. Cause that’s great. Natural pushback. Okay. Well maybe I’ll just prepare it. I like to be analytical. Being prepared, always leads to action. Overthinking always leads to overthinking. It always just leads to more thinking. So be, be analytical, just look okay, does this turn into action? If it doesn’t, you might be stuck in an overthinking loop. I call that a soundtrack, which is this, you know, kind of repetitive thought that you hear again and again

RV: (06:10)

And again say, and you say that again. You said being prepared, always leads to action, but overthinking just leads to more thinking

JA: (06:19)

Some more overthinking. Yeah. That’s the difference. So if you said to me, you know, as somebody who writes books, people come up to me and go, Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve been working on one for 10 years. I know that that’s too long. Like I know, you know that you’re, there’s the chance you’re overthinking that. Where if you say I’m working on a book, I’ve already finished four chapters, I’ve already submitted to the publisher. Like I can see actions. And so the goal of the book is to help you get new thoughts that lead to new actions that generate new results. And most people don’t understand that they get to choose what they think about. They think I thought of something. They have not something they hone. And what I, what I try to teach is your thoughts are going to come by choice or chance and choices so much better.

RV: (07:04)

So as it, as you apply this to personal brands and specifically yourself, you’ve built a huge social media following, you have launched New York times bestselling books, you have this great speaking career. What are some of the evolutions of like the soundtracks that you’ve had to battle in your own mind related to those different things? Or is there a certain part of your business that you’ve really struggled with it? Or is there like, if, is, has it been like a series of, you know, I had to overcome this hurdle and then this hurdle and this hurdle, and like talk to us about your evolution as a personal brand, as it relates to the evolution of the soundtracks you’ve had to like rewrite in your own head.

JA: (07:54)

Sure. Well, I mean, where I first discovered that it was powerful, impossible was 2008. I get an email from an event planner. Who’s been reading a blog. I had and said, Hey, would you come speak at our event? I’d never spoken professionally before. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I didn’t know. People got paid for it. I didn’t know how to do it. All I had was a thought, I had a new soundtrack that said, I think you can do this. I think I can do this. And then I, I threw overwhelming action at it. I worked on it. I did repetitions. I worked on it and it changed my life. Like the start of that thought was the start of me moving to Nashville was the start of writing. New York times. Best sellers was to start getting a speaker on the world.

JA: (08:33)

All I had no other evidence except for that thought. So that’s an example of where it worked well for me, where I said, okay, I’m going to listen to this soundtrack. I’m I’m going to make it true through action. And I’m going to see the results I get through that one that’s been more challenging is I’ve got a note right on my wall right here. I’ll pull it off. And all it says is ask for more. And I wrote that on 27th, 2020, because I found myself in negotiations, undervaluing my work. That’s something that every personal brand struggles with the idea of like, what do I price it as? I don’t want to price it as too much I don’t want to. And so I just, I needed those words. They’re not sexy. They’re not that, I mean, they’re not that catchy, but I needed to see ask for more because I found myself listening to a broken soundtrack, who are you to charge that amount of money?

JA: (09:19)

Who are you to give that advice? Who are you? And I think that’s something that every personal brand struggles with. So for me, when it came to specifically money, I needed to say, okay, remember, ask for more, remember, ask for more value. What you do remember ask for more, even if it takes, you know, people have said that before, like, even if it takes you an hour, they’re paying you for the 10 years of expertise. They’re not paying for you for the hour. So change that soundtrack. So yeah, I would say there’s been, for me, it’s been a process. And every time I find a new one, I go, okay, what, what do I want to do with that broken soundtrack? How am I going to change that? How am I going to use a new one to push me forward into my business?

RV: (10:00)

And is that, so that’s a great example. So negotiating fees, or just what you’re pricing, your various offerings that have there been any others in the journey that we’re like along the way that were big ones or as it just kind of been more like a series of small ones.

JA: (10:17)

I mean, it’s been like they come in all shapes and sizes and that’s the fun thing is a soundtrack can be a song lyric. It can be a question from a friend. It can be a paragraph you read in a book. It’s not that you have to sit down and come up with the next, just do it. Don’t put that pressure on yourself. So for me, another one that I recognized fairly big one was when I show up at a speaking event, I’m there to serve the client. Not there to look like a rockstar. I want the event planner to win. I want the CEO to look good. I want the audience to win. And that service switch changed everything. Because now I get to say to the event planner, I’m here for 45 minutes. You’re here all year. How do I make you look like a rockstar?

JA: (10:58)

What have I done that? My goal is you’re getting texts during my speech from your CEO that says, this is exactly the kind of keynote we were looking for. Thank you so much for that. And that mindset changes how you serve on the front end. Now I’m, you know, I’m having a pre-call interview where I’m really digging in and going, what are the needs? What are the challenges? How do I serve them? Versus I have a keynote. I want John AKF to look a certain way. I want to get X amount of applause. Like that’s not what I’m trying to do. And that changed my business because then an event planner goes, okay, this is like, we’re working together. Like this is somebody who’s on my side. This is somebody who’s going to be easy to work with. I want to book them again. I want to recommend them other people. So that’s another example of a, a big one for me that I would say, okay, that changed how I look at, you know every event I speak out.

RV: (11:47)

Yeah. I love that. I I think that is so cool that it’s healthy for your, for your mindset. And it is a massive driver for the business, right? For them, the moment they think of you as like their partner versus like a piece like a, it’s like a speaker as a table setting. It’s like a task on a checklist that you check off when you’re planning a meeting. Like you have to deal with this thing. But once you kind of come on that side of like, this is a partner, this is my asset. Now you’re like doing stuff together. Long-Term I love that. Now I know you get the question a lot because you’ve got such a big social media following about, I want to write a book. I want to do what you do. What do you think are some of the biggest negative soundtracks that you hear? Other people that are personal brands, like th that you think, gosh, this is one I hear, or I notice all the time that keeps people stuck from like doing it. Whether it’s writing the book, starting the podcast, you know, going live on social, starting the keynote business. So what are, what are some of the other ones that you feel like, gosh, I see these all the time for personal brands.

JA: (13:02)

Yeah. The results aren’t coming fast enough, you know?

RV: (13:05)

Oh my gosh, that’s so good. The results, right.

JA: (13:08)

Coming fast enough. I tried this thing. It didn’t work. How long did you try it for 10 days? Well, that, I mean, what could you have possibly learned in 10 days? You know, I have a friend who’s a YouTube expert and we always talk about that because that’s one of the challenges is that people will go. I know, I know, I know I won’t get instant monetization. I know, I know it’s not going to be like, they say that on the front end, but the reality is three months in. They go, Hey, how come? I’m not like making a million dollars on YouTube yet? And you go, well, like it takes time to grow the thing. It takes time to serve the audience. It takes time to be. So like, I always, you know, my soundtrack to that would be the positive version would be accept the gift of invisibility.

JA: (13:46)

Like you get to make some mistakes when you’re invisible that you won’t get to make when you’re public. So don’t fight that, like learn the things before everybody’s watching, grow the things, like get a structure, get a foundation so that when I ball show up, you’ve got something to do with them. There’s a lot of personal brands that a million people getting into your thing would wreck your company. Cause you couldn’t even handle that. So like learning to be patient with the results and gracious with the progress, I think is a, is a big, is a big soundtrack. And, and like focusing on the marketing before the craft. So I think like to take writing, for instance, people go, I got to spend a ton of marketing and go, well, did you spend any on editing? They go, no, I didn’t. It didn’t need to be edited.

JA: (14:30)

It was great idea. And I go, then it, it’s not going to have a long tail. Like you need to like, make sure the craft is good too. Not just the marketing. And you see this when people say, Hey, John, I need writing advice. I’ll go. Sure. No problem. Then go, which publisher should I work with? And I’ll go, is, does the book exist yet? Do you have a good concept? And it’s, and there, you know, there’s this to rush to the finish line versus go. I have to do the things that are going to take me a little bit to get better at and grow. And so, yeah, I think those are that. And then I’m trying to achieve a hundred percent acceptance of your idea. I’m thinking that’s possible. It’s not, they’re going to be people that don’t like your idea and that’s okay.

JA: (15:13)

And if you get distracted by them, we live in a culture that over focuses on small handfuls of people. So you read an article that goes huge backlash to dah, dah, dah, dah, and you read the article and it was four people on Twitter that each have 20 followers. And that was huge backlash. So as a personal brand, you have to go, here’s who I’m serving these three people who weren’t going to buy my thing. Anyway, don’t get to decide that I don’t do it. And so that’s another one is not talking about your stuff enough and consistently. So my example of that would be out in, you know, back before COVID I do book tours and say, I’d go to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I’d tell people three different times, three different ways, emails, Instagram, I’m coming to Lincoln or coming to Lincoln. Lancaster. I’d feel like I’m bothering them.

JA: (15:57)

And then the next day I’d post the picture of the event in Lancaster. And inevitably people would go, Oh, I wish I’d known about it. Like why? And so I was afraid of the random person who, by the way, doesn’t live in Lancaster, somebody in Dallas going, Oh, stop talking about your event. That wasn’t for you dude. Like, but I underserved the people it was for in fear of the one person. So I think sometimes keeping your focus on the people you’re trying to serve versus the people who just want to be professionally angry and are always going to do that anyway. Like they don’t even want to be happy. So don’t, don’t let them tell you how you shape your business.

RV: (16:31)

Yeah. Those are, those are, those are good. I mean that the, in the timeline, I mean, I couldn’t agree more. It’s just like, people get so discouraged. I feel like, I mean, frankly, I mean, how, how many years have you? And I know each other, I think it’s been like 10 years now. Cause I think I met you

JA: (16:47)

For coffee at Starbucks. And like, that was like 10 years ago.

RV: (16:52)

And it’s like, how many people? 10, 10 years ago. I don’t know. Like, so we’re in our early, early thirties then, right? Yeah. There were so many people that were like, Oh, I want to write a book. I want to do that. I really feel like 80% of the battle is just hanging around. I mean like you and I have been at this 10 years and it’s like, we have all of these ideas. Like if you do this technique and this technique, and it’s like, the reality of it is like, we just been here for 10 years. People start to hear about it.

JA: (17:21)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it’s so funny. I’ll have people go. I met somebody the other day. I was like, man, love your books, got a couple at my house. I was like, this is awesome. They said, when’s the next like, are you working on anything new? And I was like, yeah, I have a new book that comes out in two weeks. They’re like never heard of it. And so like, you just have to stay in the conversation. You have to try things, you have to experiment, you have to be, you know, willing to go, okay. That didn’t work and that’s okay. Like you can’t get your identity up in the personal, that’s the other thing, when your identity is a hundred percent wrapped up in your personal brand, now when somebody criticizes it, they’re criticizing you, not the thing that you’re creating and that makes it really hard to stay brave.

JA: (18:01)

And so there’s all these things where you have to be really deliberate. But yeah, I mean, for me, it’s, it’s, I think it’s really fun. I don’t think it’s too late. Somebody asked me that the other day I started a podcast this year and they were like, isn’t it a little late to get into podcast? And I was like, well, I mean, this is the time I have, like, I don’t know if the window was 2004 because I clearly missed that one. So I’m going to start it today. And so I think being willing to start something, regardless of the timeframe it can just be really encouraging to a personal brand.

RV: (18:31)

Yeah. And I mean, just to like to share a little bit of my personal story, it was pretty discouraging two years ago when I had to start all of my social media over and all of my podcasts over and then, you know, it took us a while to even get going. And then we started like my YouTube channel, like a year ago. And it’s like, man, I’ve been in this business since I was 17. I’m posting videos that get eight views.

JA: (18:57)

And I’m just like, Oh my gosh, dude, I’ll tweet five different times to 290,000 people on Twitter and I’ll have videos of like 30 views. And you’re like, this is like, like that. Yeah. So I, I get that. And then anytime you start something it’s gonna take time. Like I wish my podcast had a million downloads. I wish I had Lewis Howes audience, but you know what I haven’t done. I haven’t put in Lewis house work to my podcast. And so,

RV: (19:25)

And to your, to your point too, it’s like, even though it’s painful, I sure am glad I started my YouTube channel a year ago and didn’t wait until right now because it’s like, at least I’ve got, I’ve got it going again. Right. Like it’s starting to grow and yeah.

JA: (19:39)

And you developed a muscle. That’s the other thing you develop the muscle, like so much of this is like getting into the muscle so that you’re not afraid of the work. So like doing the writing, doing the speaking, doing the consulting, you know, putting your flag up. I think that’s the other thing is people say people aren’t booking me for whatever and I’ll go, well, do they know you do that? And a lot of times they don’t even, they can’t book you if they don’t know you do it. And so you have to talk about it. You have to talk about it beyond your comfort zone. And I think that’s challenging.

RV: (20:09)

So is the, is the strategy here basically recognize when you have one of these is that half the battle is just go recognizing, Oh, I have a negative soundtrack going on. And then basically just installing a new one and just going, what would be more, what would be more helpful? Like ask for more as you go, Oh, I’m undervaluing myself. I need to install a new soundtrack called ask for more.

JA: (20:35)

Yeah. So the, the process is really simple. I like to, you know, part of my job, I consider myself a handle maker. I try to put, handles on ideas so that people can take them with them. Like we have enough ideas in the world. We don’t have handles, carry them into Tuesday and next Thursday and a month from now. So the three things you do is you retire your broken soundtracks, you replace them with new soundtracks and then you repeat them. So often they become as automatic as the old ones. So you retire, you replace, you repeat. And if somebody said, well, okay, what do I know to retire? No problem. The easiest way to find a broken soundtrack is to think of something you want to do personal brand. You want to write a book, you want to start a podcast. You want to do YouTube, write that down and then listen to the first reaction. The first thought you have, because every reaction is an education. And so you write that down. And then now that you’ve got that, you ask it three questions. Is this thing that I just heard? Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? And if it’s not, if you can’t say yes to all those three things, you probably need to retire it and come up with a new one that you then repeat until you actually believe it.

RV: (21:44)

Yeah. I love it. Well this is so awesome. I mean, it it’s, it is such an important part. And like with personal branding, everyone’s like, well, give me the technique, give me the technique. And it’s like, it like everything. It’s more about the mindset. Like if you don’t believe you’re worth it, if you don’t believe you can succeed, like until you believe that you actually have value to offer the world, it doesn’t matter how many programs you take on social media strategy or building funnels or being good on stage. It’s like, if you don’t believe that about yourself, it’s nothing else matters.

JA: (22:24)

Nobody else will. Like your belief has to be here to get people to hear like it’s a sliding scale. And so for me, I always think about two things. I think about confidence and competence, like great personal brands have confidence and competence. So I have the confidence I’m going to like, I’m going to stand on the stage and believe I have a spot on that stage. And part of the reason I’m going to believe that is I’ve built competence. I’ve done the reps. Like the, like one of my favorites, kinda like, like little hacks, if you will, is I had a, a pastor say to me, John you know, I’ve got a new position where I read the announcements every Sunday and I’m nervous about speaking. And I was like, well, how, you know, how many times do you practice? And he said, I do at one time. And I said, well, you’re only getting one rep. So practice that 10 minute thing, four times each week, you’ll get four years of practice in a single year. So like, that’s the, that’s the competence part. And so I think there’s a lot of that where you go, okay, if I can combine those two things, there’s, there’s nothing I won’t be able to do.

RV: (23:21)

Yeah. I love that. We had John Lee Dumas on here a few weeks ago, like with his launch. And one of the things that really stuck with me was he said, you know, AAJ pick this up where we asked, is it quantity or quality? And he said, well, it’s the same because quantity is what leads to quality. Always. I mean, it’s just like

JA: (23:43)

Seinfeld says, it’s a game of tonnage. Like writing is a game of tonnage that you have to. And John Lee Dumas is a great example. Like I think his book, like his book has so many things in it, then I was like, Oh no, he’s right. And I’m not doing that. Like, I love how he simplified it. I love what he laid out. So yeah, I had him on my podcast too. And he was a really fun actually doing it interview. Yeah. Well buddy, where should people go if they w they want to learn about this new book is sounds soundtracks. The surprising solution to overthinking available wherever books are sold, but where should people go get it? Well, I mean, you can get it certainly Amazon, your local bookstore, whatever. But if you’re curious and you’re like, all right, I want to read the first chapter first, just go to soundtracks, book.com. You can download the first chapter, check it out before you actually buy the book. And then if you’re, you know, if you had a good time today, or like, I’d like to know a little more about how John’s doing his personal brand check on my podcast, it’s called all it takes is a goal. And it’s about goal setting because I believe that starting is fun, but the future belongs to finishers. And so I have a podcast that’ll help you actually finish the book.

RV: (24:55)

I love it. So we’ll put links to that and soundtracks, plural yall, soundtracks, book.com is where you go, buddy. It’s always great to reconnect with you. I learned so much from you every time I talk, and I’m just proud of what you’re doing. And it’s really, really wonderful and inspiring to see how you continue to grow and shape lives, man. So keep it up.

JA: (25:17)

Thanks for having me on, man. It’s always encouraging to connect and see, see where you are in your, in your Nashville experience.

Ep 163: How to Produce and Promote Your Self Published Book with Honorée Corder | Recap Episode

Let’s talk book launching

Welcome to the influential personal brand recap edition. Rory Vaden is your man. I’m here going solo tonight. AJ is not with us, but this makes sense for me to talk about because, Oh my gosh, I have been living

In book launch world the last

Several months. We actually have 2

Clients who are on the New York times bestseller list right now. I can’t I won’t tell you who they are, but we have been working in book launch mode and it’s a really apropos time to talk about this because just this year we have had so many friends launching books. So Donald Miller, I don’t, I don’t have his book in my hand right now, business made simple it’s actually up on my nightstand. And then You Do You, Erin Hatzikostas, Luvvie Ajayi Jones the professional troublemaker, John Lee Dumas, common path, the uncommon success, Mike Michalowitz this next, Jamie Kern Lima with a believe it David Horsager with the trusted leader and Victoria Labalme with risk forward are just a few of our, our friends, our clients, our colleagues, the people that we know really well, who are doing book launches right now.

And so as always, we’re living in this world of book launches. And so you know, technically this, this episode is a recap of my good friend honoree Corder that interview. And she’s just wonderful. I love her. I’m so glad that she is in Tennessee. We’re actually going over to her place for a crawfish bowl party that I’ve never been to one of those. My CE invited us to go, so we’re going to check it out. And I mean, she’s one of these you know, just like one of the Queens of writing and content and, and, you know, specifically like self published strategy and just orchestrating the whole thing at a, at a high level, a very advanced level. I think you know, like we had Chandler bolt on here, they’ve got you know, Chandler stuff is, is very much a process of, of kind of like teaching you how to do it.

And then Honoree’s is, is really more of one. If you want to just pay the money to have it done for you and done, right. That’s a big part of what her team does, both with the writing and the promotion of the book, which, you know, is a, is a big investment, but it’s worth a lot. I mean, it’s not uncommon that to start any company, any legitimate company, you, you typically have to invest, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars. I think one of the things that’s amazing about a personal brand is that you can get out of the gate for a lot less than that. I mean, even a few hundred thousand bucks would be a, a very large investment into starting this, you know, this as a business, if it’s even separate from whatever your current business is.

And the book is a big part of that. I mean, a book is a, is a business. A book is a business you’re launching, it’s not launching a book, it’s launching a business when we tell people. So we have an event on this. One of our courses is called bestseller launch plan. That’s specifically around launching books. And we, in that course, we talk about how to construct a book proposal and what should be in a book proposal. And what’s the timeline of getting a book deal and who were the players and how does the money work and how do you negotiate? And then how do you actually launch the book? But one of the biggest things is to know that a book proposal, isn’t an outline for a book. It is a business plan for how you’re going to sell that book. And that was a big mindset shift and mental mistake that a lot of people make that you got, you got to know.

And anyways, so we just been living in the world of book launches here. And although, you know, Honoree was talking both how to write the book and, and things you can do for promotions. I just think this is all been all been, been, been coming up a lot recently. So anyways, I want to break down that interview. I wanted to give a shout out to all these amazing friends and clients and colleagues who are launching books right now. It’s a wild ride. And I, I’m actually not jealous so many people are doing it. It’s, it’s a, it’s an emotional thing. If you do a book launch, right? I mean, it’s a big deal and you need to prepare for it. Unfortunately, a lot of people call us when they’re like, I have a book coming out in 60 days, what can I do?

And it’s not bad. Like it’s not wrong to get that phone call. But I would say you’re very, very late to the party. I mean, especially if you’re, you know, to do a New York times bestselling book, y’all, it’s not something that you plan in a few weeks. It, it is, it is a few years legitimately in almost every case. It is at least a year. And it is typically two years, that’s just a plan to launch and you gotta have a lot of the relationships already in place before that. Right. So anyways, wanted to, to, to make sure that y’all know that. So let’s talk about just three quick takeaways from honorary as it relates to book launches. And the first one is about writing the book, and this is important. So many of us struggle with imposter syndrome. We think, well, I’m not going to write this book because someone else wrote a book like this, or someone already wrote a book on that topic.

And the biggest thing that, that really sunk in with me and I got clarity about, and it wasn’t exactly what Honoree said, but it, something she said, lock this down for me in my mind, which is, it’s not that what you will say is different from what somebody else has said. It’s how you say it. That is different. And that is why you should write it anyway. It’s not that what you say will be different, but how you say it will be different. Your stories are different. Your your case studies, your anecdotes, your illustrations, your frameworks, the whole context and wrapper for how you put it together is different. And that is what makes it beautiful. I mean, take the stairs is basically hard work. I mean, there’s not a more on original message or but, but we, we, we put it through the lens of our uniqueness of, of procrastination and discipline, and we have this great metaphor of take the stairs.

And anyways, I just, I think that’s really important because some people will only be able to hear it from you. They won’t be able to hear it. Like even if we wrote the exact same book, they wouldn’t be able to hear it from me. They would only be able to hear it from you because of your style, because of the way you look because of your age, because of your stories, because of your background. And that is reason enough in and of itself for why you should write it. You don’t have to write the book for the million people. You have to write it for the one person like for the one person who will get it because of the way you said it, versus the way that Tony Robbins or Brittany Brown Senate. Right? And it’s not that there one is better or worse being a best-selling author is just surely about reach it often is, is not even that much about necessarily the quality of the book.

I mean, in the long tail, that certainly plays a part, but most of the books that hit the best seller list hit it in the first few weeks, because there’s this huge launch. And that’s because the person has a lot of either direct reach or indirect reach, but whether or not you can hit a bestseller list should not dictate whether or not you write the book, what should dictate whether or not you write the book as if you have something meaningful to say, if you have a message on your heart, if it can help one person’s life. And if you have that inside of you that have, and you have that calling, remember we, we believe that that calling on your heart is the result of a signal being sent out by someone else. So write the book for the one, even if it’s not for the 1 million.

And even if what you say would be similar, how you say it will be different, and that is a reason to write it. So that’s the first takeaway. The second takeaway is super short and tactical, but Honoree mentioned this, you know, she said you have to have an advanced reader team. And I couldn’t agree with this more. This is such an important tactical thing that anyone can do is to have an advanced reader team of people who buy your book in advance and they read it. And then they’re able to give you reviews. Now I’m going to change this language a little bit, and I’m going to call it the street team, which I’m not sure who coined that term. Originally. I think of Michael Hyatt when I hear that term, because I feel like he was the first person that I heard talk about this in detail, but a street team or, or an advanced reader team is basically an excuse to justify selling your book before it comes out.

Right? Like a lot of people don’t want to hear about your book like six months before it comes out. But if you, if you, if you wrap it, if you change the positioning from, Hey, buy my book, which people want to do, like if I buy your book, I want the book to be here, like within a, you know, a few days or a week or two. And so usually the buy my book positioning has to sort of wait until, you know, a couple of weeks before launch, even your fans, you know, you try to get them to pre-order the book in advance. That’s really going to happen like one month in advance of the launch, but to build a street team and advance reader team, you know, an early access team, however you want to position it. Those are people that could buy the, buy the book two, three months in advance and read it and go through it.

And so it’s a reason to sell books in advance, which shows you, you know, the industry, they start clocking those sales. Now all those sales will count on week one. And that’s why most books that hit the New York times bestseller list or any of them, it happened in week one because all of the pre-sales queue up. They all count on that first week, but this gives you a reason to start generating sales, you know, a month, two months, maybe even three months in advance. Like as soon as that book is up for pre-order on Amazon, and you basically make the requirement for joining the advanced reader team, ordering the book in advance. Now they’re not going to get it from Amazon. So you got to give it to them digitally. And you gotta work that out with your, you know, your publisher, but most publishers are happy to do it.

If you’re self publishing, it’s not a big deal at all. It’s your decision. You know, you get them, you get them the manuscript in advance. So you develop this, this groundswell, this, this warmup act, this, this group of, of advocates, ambassadors that when your book comes out or the week before, like the first couple of weeks, they’re out there championing and like, you know, pushing it. And so you get the advantage of generating the pre-sales. You got legitimate people who are verified purchasers to leave reviews on Amazon, which is really huge and important. Then you can get a lot of reviews early on. And you have this whole group of ambassadors that are there to help you launch the book in the first week or two. It comes out like, you know, you know, the prelaunch week and then the launch week.

And then, you know, usually like the first couple of weeks after like the big, heavy weeks. So you got it, you got to do this. And it’s, it’s not that hard to do. Like you can figure it out. I mean, we, we of course talk about the details in best seller launch plan, but most of it is just knowing, Oh, I need to have this. And I need to build this as a part of my launch strategy. So that you have, you have, you have more than just you, which leads me to the last thing. And this is so important. And, and again, it’s a mindset thing and becoming a bestselling author is much more about it’s about a mindset first, like so many things. And you don’t have to be a best selling author, like, but if you want to be, then you got to pay attention to the stuff.

And what I would say is what, what I would recommend is that even if you don’t care to become a bestselling author, you should want as many people to buy your book as possible. You should want to activate as much of your audience as possible. That really is important. And you know, so this is, this is, this was the takeaway. This is what Honoree said in the interview. She said, there’s no such thing as self publish. There is only team publish. There is no such thing as self published. There is only team publish. And that, you know, inspired me to remind you this, this, this something that we say in bestseller launch plan, which is this there’s the, there is a total fallacy of a bestselling author, right? Like they’re there, like the author is one person. And, and there it’s an important person, right?

A lot of the ideas stem from that person and a lot, they’re the catalyst for the movement, but you cannot launch a best-selling book by yourself. It is about a team. You need a team of people you need, you know, PR people and social media people, and copywriters and web developers and, and, and ad specialists and marketing automation specialists and SEO people, and a publisher and a literary agent, you know, and editors and printers and distributors. And, and like, no matter, even if it’s super small scale, it’s, it’s a people, it’s a team. You fans, you need fans. Like it’s a team. And so thinking about it as it’s just, you, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the wrong way to think about it. You’re, it’s, it’s, it’s not even like you’re an author. You have to think of it as you’re a leader, you’re the leader of a movement.

You’re the leader of a message. Your you’re trying to create and cultivate an army of people to rally behind this message that you’re passionate about in this problem that you want to solve in the solution that you want to advance in the world. And it, and the book has to become bigger than just you. And it doesn’t mean your face can’t be on it. It doesn’t mean your title, your name shouldn’t be on it. It can be, but, but the mentality is I need to recruit an army of people to help me because none of us know how to do all these things. No one, none of us can, can write the book and edit the book and do the graphic design and do the printing and do the layout and get it, get it up on Amazon and, and drive the ads for it and send the emails and build the funnels and create the graphic, you know, ads for social media and do the posting and research the hashtags.

And it’s like, and that’s what being a best selling author is, is it’s, it’s a thought doing a thousand little things, right? It’s, it’s, it’s not one big secret that like, somehow they know that you don’t know, it’s, it’s, it’s activating a community of people who trust you and who buy in to what you’re doing. There is no such thing as a best-selling author, there is only a best-selling team. So build a team activated team and, and pull together a team to advance your movement. And that is a team that we want to be a part of. We want to be on your team. We want to be, we want to be part of the people who set the strategy for your team. And that’s why we work with so many of you. One-On-One every month in our coaching program. That’s why we’re here with the podcast every single week. It’s why we bring you these episodes and all the work that our team of brand builders group is all about. So thanks for allowing us to be a part of your team. Please continue to allow us to be a part of it. Listen to the interview for Monterey and come back next week, right here on the influential personal brand.

Bye-Bye.

Ep 162: How to Produce and Promote Your Self Published Book with Honorée Corder

RV: (00:09)

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: (01:06)

Writing and getting books published and written and distributed and marketed properly is one of the biggest pain points that so many of you have. We know that and over the years, I’ve had an opportunity to interface with a number of different people who have different, you know, magical superpowers in the book, writing and publishing space. And today I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorites. She’s a longtime friend of mine. Her name is honoree a quarter and honoree, a first of all, she is worked very closely with one of my dear, dear friend, two of my dear, dear friends of Hal Elrod which many of you probably know she helped Hal turn the miracle morning into a whole book series. Honoree has written more than 50 books and not just with Hal, but lots of people, Phil Hellmuth, who was the world series of poker champion.

RV: (02:00)

Also one of our other dear friends, John Ruhlin and his book Giftology who we just absolutely adore John we’ve had him of course, on the show. And she just works as a strategic book coach to writers. And also, I would say a publishing specialist specifically for people who want to self publish and maintain all the ownership and the control and, and the rights, but to do it in a way that it looks and acts and feels and operates like a traditionally published book. So anyway, she just recently moved to Nashville. Well, not that recently, but a little bit recently and we reconnected and had to bring her to you. You’re going to love her honor, a welcome to the show. Hey, Hey, good to be with you. All right. My friend. So I want to start with the question of the, the, the writing process. Okay. So you’ve written 50 books. You’ve coached people through this. You’re teaching lots of people on, on the writing process. I feel like people get stuck at the blank page. Like they go, I want to write a book. I know I got a book in me. I probably got five books in me, but then they like sit down and it’s like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t come.

HC: (03:24)

What’s that Netflix I’ll do it later.

RV: (03:29)

So what do you, what do you, think’s going on there? What do we need to know about that stage in that moment and how do we kind of get ourselves past there?

HC: (03:39)

That’s a, that’s a great question. Thank you. And there’s a lot to unpack there. I think what people get stuck on is what goes in a book. Why am I the person to write a book? Other people have already written a book like the book I’m thinking of writing. Why should I write a book? And then how am I going to write it? How did I, how am I going to know it’s any good? And then once I’m done with it, what the heck do I do with it? Who’s going to read it. What if nobody buys it? So there’s a lot of static and a lot of head noise going on and, and without a process to follow. And without some clarity that they will stand to get stuck, even if they get past that blank page.

RV: (04:21)

Yeah. So let’s talk about the mental part of it then first, because I do think that that is that sort of self limiting belief of, you know, one I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough or more of the imposter syndrome, which is like, well, someone already wrote that book. Like, you know, I already read that book. I mean, do you find that that’s a pretty big, a pretty big part of this and how do you, how do we get ourselves beyond that moment?

HC: (04:48)

Sure. So yes, someone has probably written a book about what you have knowledge and expertise around semi-colon however, comma, right? They, there is no book written in your words, from your perspective, with your additional experience and you are the messenger that only some people can hear. And I love to use the example of like Brene Brown versus Tony Robbins in the motivational space for the people. Lots of people stand at the, at the the stage and watch Tony Robbins and think that he’s the best thing ever. And other people think he’s too big. He else’s teeth are too big, right? He’s it’s too much for me. And other people think Brene Brown is just the most wonderful thing in the world. And other people think she’s too quiet and she’s not commanding enough. Their messages are not the same. They’re similar.

(05:48)

And you could say, well, it’s motivational, I’ve been motivated. I’m done, that’s it. And yet there is that other option, which is what you bring to the table, your experience, your expertise, your knowledge, and your words, your approach, your philosophy, how you connect with people. And that is not in a book if you haven’t written it. So I like to get people past that, well, who am I to write a book I’m not experienced enough or who cares, or there’s already a book out there contextualizing them and saying, hold on, you have something to offer. You must write a book. Right. And then helping them to figure out what goes in the book and where and why, and getting started on that process because, and let’s go to all the way to the end and you’ve been there and I’ve been there. You get that book for the first time and holding it in your hands. And you’re an author. It’s kind of the coolest thing ever. It’s worth all of the trouble.

RV: (06:45)

Yeah. Well, and, and you get the first comment from a reader or Amazon review that are like, you know, that’s, it’s so powerful. And, and I, you know, I, I do use myself as an example on this. Cause I go look, take the stairs more or less as a book that about hard work. There’s not many more on original topics that, or messages than hard work. And, and as a 20 something year old kid, when I wrote the book, I was like, you know, I, I felt like, well, what am I saying? That’s different. But it was totally from my lens. And I think the beauty of me being so young was I knew nothing else other than to write it from my lens. And I wasn’t old enough to have as much self-doubt I think as sometimes people get in their thirties and yeah, it’s you bringing you to the table, contextualizing you, no one else can do that.

HC: (07:36)

Right? No one else has your voice, your perspective, and all of the other things that make you, you, no one else can write your book. And so I think you owe it to people. I’m just going to throw it out there. You owe it to people to write your book. And I read, take the stairs. And I sent you a screenshot of all the tabs and notes and highlights of re reading the book. And I had read every other book on hard work. Yeah. Hard work is not a new philosophy, but your perspective and that phrase, Oh, I’ll take the stairs. I’ll, I’ll do the harder thing. I can do hard things. I do this hard thing. And it builds that muscle and builds on top of that. Some of that book has never left me. It’s stayed with me. So if you hadn’t been that 20 something year old kid going, all right, I’m going to write a book and you did it.

HC: (08:29)

Then all the people who benefited from it would have missed out. And so now I’m just, I’m not talking to you, right. I’m talking to your audience and the people that are listening and are thinking well, but what would I say that would be any different. It’s not necessarily that you would say something different it’s that you would say something different that you would say it in your way. And the person who would have said, why am I going to take the stairs? Why would you take the stairs when you were taking the elevator? Might hear another message, your message in a way that actually moves out and transforms their life. And you’re right. Then the thing that is even better than receiving that first book is receiving that first letter in the mail, or that first email where someone says, I read your book and it changed my life. It inspired me. I am behaving differently. I’m doing something differently. I’m believing more in myself. There, there are very few things that are more fulfilling than that.

RV: (09:22)

Yeah. That’s, that is incredible. And I, and I think another part of the fear, like, just since we’re talking about the emotional side of this, I do think there is this fear of like, well, I could pour my life into this thing and nobody’s gonna read it right. Or no, one’s gonna buy it. And then it’s almost like I have this, it’s almost like I have this public declaration that I’ve put out there that I want something to be successful. And if it’s not successful, then somehow it’s like this public reflection that, you know, my book wasn’t good enough and or something like that. And, and ironically, I think it’s, it’s it, when a book doesn’t sell, well, it is less often to do with what is written in the book and more to do with the promotional plan. And I want, you know, I know that that’s a part that you really kind of specialize in, is going okay, what are the things? So let’s say, if we get past the self doubt, we’re operating in what we would call our uniqueness, we’ll help people find their uniqueness. They create a great outline. They work with you or some, you know, somebody like you that helps them really like flush out and write it out. And, you know, we’ve got lots of people that we love to help. You’re one of them they get this book written, then what, what do they do to make sure that people find it

HC: (10:47)

Connecting the book with the reader is the $60 million question, right? How do you connect the reader to the book? And most importantly, the author and it starts actually with that blank page, with the questions that you’re going to ask yourself, when you’re putting pen to paper, the first one would be something like, where does the book fit into my business? And what is the purpose of the book in my business? What do I want the reader to do as a result of reading my book with taking the stairs, you want people to work harder, right? With you must write a book, which is my book. I want everyone to write a book. I want the right person to call me and say, I want you to help me with this process that they’re figuring out, where does the book fits into the business and where the book fits in with the author.

HC: (11:38)

And then everything else that you do actually is informed and influenced by the answers to those questions. How do people connect with you and how do they connect with you in their journey of reading the book? Do they like you more, as the book goes on and are you adding value to them? Are you helping them to solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity or both? And then how do they, how do they come to understand if they’re the person that you could help beyond the book? And all of that is linked into the marketing

RV: (12:11)

Surgically. Even thinking beyond the book to going, let’s say I write an amazing book. I market it, I get someone to buy it. I, they actually read it. They get to the end then what? So it’s kind of like thinking about how does this direct and fit into your overall kind of business plan and like, not just your business plan, but how can you service that person at a deeper level once they’ve been through the book and how are you pointing them in that direction?

HC: (12:39)

Right? So the, the, the trick is, and there’s no trick, but the trick is right. The question that you want to answer is how do I serve the person? So they feel like in exchange for their time and money, right? The time they’re reading the book and the money they’ve spent on the book, that they are getting value, that the question of the book has been answered because you buy a non-fiction book. I read limitless by Jim quick, because I want to be limitless. So Jim had a big Hill to climb with me. I had a lot of questions about how to be limitless, and those questions were answered in the book. But at the end of the book, there were a lot of other ways for me to take my limitlessness to be even more unlimited, right. There were ways that I could connect with him.

HC: (13:27)

And those had to be built into the book too. So there were resources in the book and options for connecting with the author before someone puts pen to paper, or even while they are thinking about what those things would be, how am I going to connect with my reader? How can my reader connect with me after they’ve finished the meat of the book? What’s the next thing for them to do? What’s the next stage in our relationship? And what does that look like? And how do we connect those dots? I think we live in a great time when it used to be that an author was a person that you didn’t know where they were. You’d never, you would never hear them interviewed or talked to unless it was on the mic MacNeil, Lehrer report or something. Right. and now or Charles Cronkite, right?

HC: (14:15)

Like authors were unicorns that were inaccessible and now authors are accessible people and have to think of themselves as accessible and readers love to know their authors, authors that you like, we want to know who you are and we want to connect with you right. As readers. And so thinking about that as an author, as an aspiring authors, how can I make sure that my readers know that I’m not inaccessible or not a unicorn? And I want to be connected with, and here is who the, who the person is that I want to connect with the most.

RV: (14:47)

So let’s, let’s talk about Amazon specifically for a minute. Cause you know, I, I know most of, most of your experiences, like really kind of dominating this, the self-published world and, and helping people promote, what do people need to know about Amazon that they, like, what do authors need to know about Amazon? That we don’t know? Like what, what as a first time author is not obvious to us about Amazon, that it’s like, well, you really need to know this. Like, in order since Amazon represents, I don’t know what it is. Something like 50, 60% of all sales. I mean, maybe even more than that whatever the number is. It’s it’s a, it’s a massive percentage. What are the things you think most authors go? Oh, I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know I needed to do that. I didn’t know. I needed an update that I didn’t know. I had to like do this or that for Amazon specifically.

HC: (15:42)

Sure. Well, not UN find-able information, not information that you can’t find if you’re looking for it, but understanding how to engage Amazon as a retail partner when launching your book and marketing your book is very important. And understanding that if you know how to engage Amazon as a retailer, as a retail partner, they will serve up your book forever. If you can prove to Amazon that your book is profitable, Amazon wants to sell profitable things. If you’ve ever opened your email, or like maybe 12 times today, you’ve opened your email. And there’s a name something from Amazon that says, well, are you done reading this book? Because when you’re done reading this book, you should read this book over here. Oh, did you buy this thing? Well, people who bought this also bought that right. There is a way to engage Amazon as a retail partner so that you can have them serve up your book.

HC: (16:44)

And it’s not with ads it’s free. It’s just knowing the process, right. Of engaging Amazon in such a way that they say, well, take the stairs is a profitable book. And so we’re just going to keep selling, take the stairs. We’re just going to keep recommending, take the stairs. Honorary, read the book. And honoree is like these 1 million other people. And so we’re going to send this email to these 1 million other people that are just like honoring, because they’ve read all the same books that Andre has, but not take the stairs. So they’re going to email those people on your behalf.

RV: (17:15)

And you’re saying, you can do something, you can do something proactively as an author. What are, what are like, what’s an example? Or like, what are, what are some of those things that we go, Oh, I didn’t even realize I was supposed to do that. Or I could do that. Amazon seems like this ginormous, like faceless enterprise, like that I think is something I didn’t even think. Like, I don’t even feel that way that it was like, Oh, I can, I should be doing these steps.

HC: (17:42)

Yes. So there is three things. One is having an advanced reader team that consists only of your ideal reader. So assembling an advanced reader team of of the right size and the right consistency, right? Having the right people that are the ideal reader for your book, as opposed to I’ll, I’ll give you the thing not to do too, which is don’t launch your book to everybody for 99 cents because that will kill your book. So specifically launching your book to the exact type of person who would read your book. So not telling everyone about your book, telling a specific group of people about your book and engaging them in such a way that it tells Amazon, Ooh, people are going to like this book. And these are the type of people that are going to like this book. And then the two other things are cheating.

RV: (18:36)

So I want, I want to get the other two, but before we do this, so when, when you go like find the ideal, right? I mean, that’s really powerful. So number one, don’t try to just go. I want to sell a million copies that are 99 cents. And just like, you know, set the market. Like, this is what my book is, where it’s 99 cents. You do get, you know, some people do that for the bestseller thing. And you know, there’s some value, I guess, to some of that, but the w how do you find these people? Is that just like, go look on other books in your category and see who’s reviewing those and reach out and try to like, reach out to those people.

HC: (19:11)

That is a strategy, but that is that’s pain and suffering. And I try to avoid pain and suffering. So there’s, I’m anti pain and suffering in every, in every situation. Your ideal client, your past clients, people, you know, who read books like those books. I bet you could tell me five books that are like, take the stairs. I can tell you five books that are like the miracle morning for entrepreneurs with Cameron, Harold. Right? So we went and looked for who are the other books that are like this book, who’s read those books. And those are the people that I want. The people who are the ideal reader for the book are who I want to talk to about the book,

RV: (19:51)

Which if you have an email list and like you do a lot of the things that we teach at brand builders group, what we call the relationship engine and all this stuff. So you’re basically saying it is those people. I mean, those, it is those people, okay. They’re not, they’re not hidden. Yeah. And then it’s other, other podcasts like yours and other authors like yours and other social media people like, you know, posting similar content.

HC: (20:14)

Yes. If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one, you know, this better than anyone, right? Identify who your avatar is, your ideal reader, your ideal client, they’re all the same thing. And put a group of those people together to be your advanced reader team and curate them and help them to help you engage Amazon and other retailers as your partner in your book marketing.

RV: (20:35)

When you say advanced reader team, you’re saying, give them a copy of the book before it comes out. Why is that? So that they can leave reviews early on, as soon as the book comes out. So I have a

HC: (20:48)

Process that I have authors walk with. Like, this is the day that you do this, and this is the day you do this. And this is the day you do that. So that you’re engaging the, the algorithm of the engine, right. Of the retail engine in advance so that they know who to market it to as well. So it’s, it’s, it’s a little Ninja, you know, behind the curtain under wraps, keep it quiet. Don’t talk to anybody about it. I say that a lot. Sip it. Dot com. Don’t tell anyone you’re engaging the exact rate and perfect reader. I know, I know this from experience and I have to say it a lot. You got to keep it quiet, even though this is probably the thing, one of the top five things, you’re the most excited about, right? You have a new kid, your book, and you want to tell everybody about your new kid, but you just can’t for a little while. You’ve got to keep it under wraps and only talk to people about the book who are your avatar, your ideal reader, your ideal client.

RV: (21:44)

And if you get those, those people that go leave reviews, and they’re very either whatever, a verified purchase, those really help. So, okay. So that’s awesome. So I don’t need a million people to read it. I need to find like a core group of a hundred or 50 or whatever, like, and just get them to actually read it, co foster that audience, get them to support it, to leave, you know, share it with whatever start small. All right. What’s you said there were three things we’re running out of time.

HC: (22:12)

Yeah. The other two are quick. The other two are quick keywords. What are the keywords that people search to find your book? Identify, identify your keywords. And it’s not a word. So brand builders would be a key word. So if someone were saying, how do I build my brand? What’s the best way to build my brand. Each of those is a key word. So you identify the keywords that people would use to find a book like yours. And those become your keywords.

RV: (22:42)

You’re talking about, this is similar to search engine optimization for like Google, but you’re, you’re talking specifically in Amazon, correct? You need to select your keywords, but then, but like for SEL, I can. Yeah. Where do you put them on Amazon? That

HC: (22:57)

In, in the backend, in, in when you’re, when you’re publishing your book or when I’m publishing your book, I identify the keywords and I, I put them in the, in the, I do the publishing piece. But there is a, the dashboard, right. Where you would go to upload the book cover and the book files, they ask you, what are your keywords? And you put in the keywords and then the keywords match.

RV: (23:19)

Yeah. And that, see what’s wild about that is when you traditionally publish, you have less control over things like that. I mean, this is, yeah, you do. As you know, it’s, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s so many great things about traditionally publishing and self-publishing, it’s like one of these, these balances, but, you know, procrastinate on purpose mist, the wall street bestseller list. Not because we didn’t sell enough units because the book wasn’t categorized in the proper category that the, that BookScan and Nielsen and that the wall street journal picks up. And it was like, what, like where, who was supposed to tell us that like

HC: (24:05)

Who’s gonna lose their job today. Yeah. So that’s actually, the third thing is, are the categories your book has to

RV: (24:12)

Look at

HC: (24:13)

That is the third one. Look at you being all star student and everything category is the next ones are key. So advanced reader team in the algorithms getting, you know, the team and teaching the team and, and teaching the author gotta do everything. And you know, at the right time, right, you got to, you got to marinate the meat before you make them put it on the grill, right. The right thing at the right time, then you have to understand what are the keywords and what are the categories and how to change them, how to see if they’re working and how to make sure that you’re making the moves and how to make the moves at the right time. So, like I said, it’s a little bit art, a little bit science.

RV: (24:55)

Where does the CA is the categories of backend dashboard? I mean, I know it’s like monitoring categories. This is one thing. And there’s different ways to do that in different tools in your, hopefully your publisher kind of knows some of that helps you figure that out or, or, you know, but like once you, you’re saying that it’s actually like monitoring it and then going, let’s change the category of this book to put it somewhere else. You can just log in and do that.

HC: (25:22)

You can ask, you can actually send an email to Amazon and ask them to put you in certain categories. Otherwise, they’re just going to put you in categories. If you’ve ever looked at a book and it’s like, this is a book on dog-walking and it’s in the kitten legwarmers category, just because it happens all the time. It’s just because somewhere in, in, in the, the computer, somewhere in there, something got off and it went in the wrong, it went in the wrong. Okay.

RV: (25:54)

So basically you just need a note notify Amazon, say, Hey, can you move this? My, can you list my book in this other category? If you’re self published, if you’re traditionally published, your publisher has to do that.

HC: (26:09)

One would help. Yes.

RV: (26:10)

Yeah. Okay. And then keywords is the same thing, basically like there’s some, there’s a backend part of Amazon where you basically re similar to how you would do with like meta-tags and H you know, like H one H two tags on a website. There’s a, there’s somewhere in Amazon in the backend where you, this dashboard, is it called a dashboard? Is that what you’re

HC: (26:33)

I called the dashboard. Yeah. Let’s see. It’s, you’re just logging in. So it’s Kendall digital publishing, kdp.amazon.com is the, is the login is where you create your account. And so you create an account and you upload all the files and the information it’s where you put in the title and the subtitle and all, and the, and the book description. And you’re right. You have to have HTML and a call to action and making sure that the font sizes right in the spacing is right. Otherwise it just looks a little jeopar walkie on the, on the retail page. And all of those things factor into whether your book appears professionally published.

RV: (27:12)

I know, I mean, again, with procrastinating on purpose, for some way are tight. Our original book cover got uploaded, and it had this like weird glitchy thing on the cover. And there was like a weird splotchy looking thing. And it was like, how does this happen? Like, how does that happen? And it’s just like, somebody uploads a file that’s wonky or something, and yeah.

HC: (27:34)

Wonky or, or corrupt or something. And, and then you have to change it and you have to get to the right person to make the change and all, all the things there’s, my checklist has 487 things on it.

RV: (27:47)

Yeah. Well, 487 steps to success. You know, but you, you, there are small specific things like this, that Matt that really, really make a difference. That’s, that’s, that’s wild. I didn’t even know that about, I mean, I guess I, it made sense, but as a traditionally published author, I don’t actually have control of my keywords and categories. I have to go through with the publisher because it’s all in there. They control the dashboard for it. Right. I presume, although I’m going to ask, I’m going to have this based on,

HC: (28:23)

They have access to the same. They have access to the same. There’s this, there there’s might be a little more robust than what they let you know, the common folk have. The traditional publishers probably have something that’s a little more robust, but they definitely have keywords and categories. But the thing is, yeah,

RV: (28:38)

I got to I’m depending on someone else to do the work of updating it, versus I can’t just log in and do it myself, which is one nice thing about self publishing is you can like log in and update the thing. Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s part of the partnership of publishing. Really interesting. So all right. Well honor. So, so I got one more question for you before I ask you that, where do you, where should people go if they, if they want to connect with you? I mean, you’ve worked with Hal, rod, John Roland, Cameron, Harold. These are all these, those three people specifically are close, personal friends of mine. I know you’ve done a ton with Hal and you know, we want, if someone wants help, like actually writing a book and, and I mean, I know you teach people to do it, but you also will do it with them. Where should they go, go find you and say, Hey, I found you on brand builders podcast, or like, where do you want them to go,

HC: (29:42)

Go, just go to my website, honorary quarter.com and send me an email, send me honorary honorary, quarter.com or go to my website and do a, a form and send it over. I get those. And Megan is my assistant and she will, she will get you on my calendar to discuss if this would be a good fit. I love it. I love it. And when you get your rights back on your books, call me you talking to me. Yeah. I’m talking to you.

RV: (30:14)

Oh, well, we should talk. We should talk off, we should talk offline about some things. But the okay, so Andre quarter.com. We’ll put a link to their honorary honorary quarter.com if you just want to email or and then, so the last little thing that I just I have for you here is you know, coming back to this mental side of things. Yeah. The fear that it won’t be good. The self doubt that I’m not smart enough, the imposter syndrome that someone else has already done it I guess, is there any last thought you would have as it relates to this emotional block? Because over time I’d become more convinced that the disk, the barrier between a mission-driven messenger, which is we call our audience mission-driven messengers. The primary barrier between a mission-driven messenger and actual published book in their hand is a whole set of emotional challenges that are much greater than the logistical challenges. So is there anything you would, you would say to that person who knows they should write a book, but they’re struggling to get their own, you know, pass some of their own beliefs?

HC: (31:37)

Probably a hundred things. So I’ll try to come up with a few that are impactful for right now. The first one is you have done something difficult in the past that you were unsure, you could succeed. So go back to those wins that you’ve had in the past and revisit them go to the people who know you the best, your encouragers, your coach, your mom, your therapist, your best friend, and ask them what they think. And when they encourage you, listen to them, they are right. Right. They know they have a line of sight to something that you cannot see. And also you do not publish a book by yourself. I mean, unless you crazy.

HC: (32:19)

And I must be crazy because I’ve done it myself a number of times, but for yourself and by yourself are different. And I have not ever published a book where I didn’t use a graphic designer to give me a good cover and the editor, or more than one editor to go through and make sure that my message was strong, right? So you’re going to need a proofreader and you’re gonna need a copy writer, and you’re gonna need this advanced reader team of people who are gonna read your book and tell you that what you have done is, is a beautiful thing. And writing a book really is a team sport. And so engage the right team of people, make sure that you do use an editor and make sure you do use a graphic designer who does understand book covers and that sort of thing.

HC: (33:05)

And once you have your team around you, you will feel less fear and less reticence that you might be running a marathon for the first time, but you got a coach, right? How many miles do I run today? Do I do strength training? Do I do yoga? Like, what are the other things I need to do? Listen to the other people that you have around you. And then also find some other people that have written books and have gone through the process who can give you some words of wisdom and say, Oh yeah, I felt fear too. And I’m going to add one more thing. And that’s what you touched on it before, when you said I was a twenty-something kid and I wrote, take the stairs. When I wrote my first book, it was kind of like, okay, I’m going to write my first book. I didn’t have that monkey mind either. I didn’t have those self doubts because I honestly didn’t think anybody was ever going to read it. So who cares?

HC: (33:57)

Right? So if you put the pressure on yourself of like, I have to write a book and it has to be a New York times best-selling book and, and, and ad, right. If you make it really hard to feel good about the success of your book and really easy to feel like a failure, you’re already starting behind the eight ball. So just give yourself easy wins. Oh, I’m going to, I’m going to sit down and come up with an idea for a book. Okay. I have an idea. I wonder if I could flush it out with an outline, let me come up with an outline. Okay. That’s a win, like, make it easy for yourself to feel good and make it really hard for yourself to feel bad, not just in book writing, but in life. But in this instance, let’s focus on the book writing so that the fear side and recognize that you’re not doing it alone. And there are a lot of books out there. There are a lot of inferior books in there, a lot of superior books and it’s okay, this is your book. And you get one spin around the rock, right? You better leave something for people to remember you by

RV: (34:58)

There. It is some, some Ninja secret, undercover, whatever you said, confidential tips just, just between me and you and a few tens of thousands of listeners on the podcast podcast. But it’s all about, who’s going to take action on it. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s it. So Honoree, so good to reconnect with you, my friend. And thanks for sharing some of your wisdom. We wish you the best. I know we’ll be staying in touch, especially now. You are a Nashville neighbor, so all the best to you.

HC: (35:36)

All right. Thank you so much.

Ep 161: Building a Trusted Personal Brand with David Horsager | Recap Episode

And we are back on the influential personal brand podcast recap edition. Today. We are breaking down the interview that we did with our good friend and struggle member, my personal mastermind, speaking mastermind member, David Horsesager talking all about the trusted leader. And here we go. AJ is with us. Why are you laughing at me? We just started struggling. It’s a verb, it’s a verb. And a noun. The struggle is our group. It’s be a Jason Dorsey and Jay Baer. I’m telling them. And it’s awesome. It’s awesome. And you can’t know because it’s confidential, what we struggle about.

Yes. Okay. My first point and, and, you know, this is very similar to several different interviews that we’ve had over the last few months, but noteworthy, nonetheless is using data, using information, using research as a competitive advantage, a core differentiator of what really sets you apart because it’s no longer I think, or this is my opinion. It’s validated, it’s nationally research. It’s proven, it’s statistical, it’s all these big fancy words to the U S census. It’s all those things. But I think it just adds a whole level of clout and credibility and insight when it’s not just your ideas, but it’s your ideas and your thoughts that are then validated in the marketplace and then to take those statistics and then to use those insights, to further the information, to further the education, to help people see the things that they can’t see that’s right in front of them.

And I think that’s a huge part of, what’s just missing with so many thought leaders today is it’s just that it’s just their thoughts. And it’s like, well, is there really any credibility or validity to what you’re saying? And this, this really creates this layer of trustworthiness hence his brand is all it really does. It really does create this enhanced echelon of credibility and makes you be like, okay, so this is statistically valid. Let me see what it says versus just another inspirational motivational leadership thought.Um and I just, I, I, I’m a data nerd. I love statistics and I love information that’s proven. So maybe that’s a huge part of why I’m, I just love that. But as data as your competitive advantage, loved it. Yeah, I think that’s

Cool. I, I noted the data point too it’s and just so you know, like this, these interviews really affect us. We, we actually just conducted a national research study based on stay tuned. But based on, you know, just some of the things that our guests are saying and kind of how we want to position our, our company and that have really had an impact. But one of the things that I loved that, that we kind of got into on that data, on the differentiation part was that that David said thanking your past clients is a point of differentiation. You know? So it’s like, there’s all of these things that you can differentiate by your, your content, your experience, the audiences you serve data, things like that. But, but even your, your client experience and as a speaker specifically, which, you know, his, his business models, mostly like speaking plus training.

And I think, I just thought it was cool to hear him kind of talk about and emphasize how far he goes to thank his past clients. And I think for all of us, whether you’re a doctor or a financial advisor or real estate agent, or, you know, an influencer of some kind, it’s so easy to make the sale and move on and never even go back and talk to your past clients, let alone stop and just say, thank you. And I really love that. And it was a good reminder. So for those of you brand builder clients that are listening, thank you for being awesome. We love you, and we appreciate you and we, we better be doing a good job of thanking you. Yeah,

That’s good. I love that. All right. So my, my second one is Abby first in the space and he talked a lot about this, and this is a very similar to another recent podcast interview that we did where I was all up on this topic. And it was so interesting that he said it to, you said, you know, 20 years ago, no one was talking about trust and leadership and trust in sales. He goes, that, wasn’t a thing is that today you hear about it all the time. But when I started in this space, it really owning the word trust. I was kind of the only one talking about it. And it goes back to again, what are you talking about? That’s truly unique and a way that no one else can compete with it. And if they do, they’re only second to you.

And I just, I, again, just kind of want to harp on that one more time. And it’s not just being first in. It’s like really using your unique perspective and your uniqueness and not looking around at what are your competitors doing and what is the market say? It’s like, who cares what your competitors are doing, what the market says, what do you say? And that’s a huge part of like how they get started in this. And he owned that space. And that has really propelled his career of just being first in the space of living into his uniqueness that no one else was talking about, but it was,

Yeah, I think you and I have, have developed a lot of clarity about the idea that we care less about what competitors are doing and all we’re all in on an individual’s uniqueness and just doing what they were designed to do. And David’s a great example of that. I think my second takeaway was really about the getting speaking gigs. I remember when we had Dave Avar and another one of our long-time mentors on, he said, you know, for those of you interested in speaking, you have to realize, speaking is not the business, getting the gig is the business. And when we got in such a great line yeah. And I’d never heard him say that before that interview, but, but when we talked here with David and it was like, okay, how do you get the gig? And he said, well, it’s a mix of three things, great content, great delivery and great marketing.

And I loved that and I was mapping it to the brand builder journey. And when we take people through captivating content that is creating great content, which is what is your unique body of work, your unique philosophies, great delivery is what we would call world-class presentation craft. And it is exclusively dedicated to the art of presentation skills and then great marketing, which is full keynote calendar, which is the, the, the, the actual business mechanics of getting the gig. But if you’re not getting more gigs it’s because one of those three things is off and probably more it’s either great content, great delivery or great marketing. And I think that applies even beyond speaking, it would be the same for like writing, right? You have to write a great book. The premise, the ideas have to be good. The writing has to be good and the marketing has to be good. Like you need all three of those. So just kind of ask yourself, which of those three are breaking down for me and which ones am I doing really well, that was, that was super practical to take away from me.

I had to contain myself so strongly not to pipe in and be like, Oh, I know what that one was. That was cultivate content.

You were going to be like, Oh, your calendar. I know it. I know it.

I love when I know the answers to questions, but yeah, it’s so true. It’s just, I think that, that’s a great point. It’s like, which one of these is your weak point

And yeah. Yeah. Just to, and just to say directly to Edify what we’re talking about once you identify which one is, is your weakness reach out to us for a call because we have separate dedicated courses and curriculum that nail each of these, these three things specifically.

Oh, okay. My next one, my last one is expand your business model off of your existing body of content. We work with so many clients at brand builders group where they think they have to have 15 different sets of curriculums in order to have different business models. And they’ve got a leadership thing and a sales thing, and a diversity thing in a, at a customer service thing. It’s like, you don’t need all those things. You can actually take one body of content and multiply it exponentially. And David talks a lot about this. And it’s a lot of what we do at brand builders group, but it’s, I think it’s just a really amazing cause like you take the same curriculum, that would be a book and a keynote, turn it into a consulting program, turn it into a training program and then turn it into a certification program.

It’s not new content. Y’all, it’s taking the same content and just creating different delivery mediums that expand your business models, expand your revenue streams. But with way less work on you trying to create brand new content and topics and curriculum that aren’t necessary. It’s like, why are you getting a book is different than a keynote, different than a half day training, different in a consulting retainer different in a certification program, but you can have all of those things, plus a course plus a podcast plus more stuff off the same body of content, the same exact curriculum that you began with. And I think that’s just really, really important for anyone who is out there going, how do I diversify my income streams? How do I grow revenues without having to start over with like a whole new topic or a whole new book? It’s like, well, you don’t, you can take the exact same content you’ve had for five, 10, 20, 50 years, and just expand the different ways that you deliver that content and grow your business. And he’s David’s business is a great example of how he’s built three very diverse revenue streams off the same car.

Yeah. That’s so that’s so good. And you think about Dave Ramsey, you know, most of it comes back to the seven baby steps, which is one book you got. I think a Verne Harnish basically has has two books that are very much in the same vein and some of the biggest personal brands in the world. It’s just taking one book and extrapolating it. It’s kind of like when we say people don’t pay for information, they pay for application, you know, organization and application help them. That’s the different business model is just applying the stuff you’ve already created. Well, related to that, you know, one of the things I really admire about David’s business mom, and he’s amazing on stage. I love the trust edge book. I think it’s, it should be mandatory reading for every high schooler. I really do. I just think it’s great.

I, I will make our kids read it. I think it’s just, it’s a great universal, you know, kind of success principles book, but the, in his business model, I love how he does the like the certifications and it’s not just a volume game of like, how can I get more and more people paying to be certified. But it’s really asking the question, how can I support people better? How can I make each person that is certified on my content, more likely to succeed? How can I make, how can I help them make more money? How can I make it easier for them? How can I make them look good? And that is something that, you know, we, we’ve never really done training per se, we’ve done training, but that we’ve always had like strategists and consultants not train the trainer model. So we’re brand builders, a little bit of a hybrid, I guess, of, of a train the trainer model.

But most of, most of what we do is one-on-one work with clients, not with corporations. So typically train the trainer is like a B2B model, but we’ve worked with coaches, strategists, people. We would even call trainers and we’ve always, you, you have to stay locked in on that question. How can we help them make more money? How can we help them succeed faster? How can we help them help the clients get faster results and not just how do we get more and more and more and more people certified. And I just, I thought that was a good reminder and he does a really great job of, of supporting his, his strategists

His trainers. So

That’s it. That’s a wrap. So go out, check out trusted leader and trust ed, your friend, David, horse soccer. Dave, we love you, man. Thanks for, thanks for showing up and thank you for being here and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 160: Building a Trusted Personal Brand with David Horsager

RV: (00:07)

We say around Brand Builders Group a lot that reputation precedes revenue and reputation effectively is an unconscious calculation of how much people trust you. Do they trust you? Do they trust your brand? Do they trust what you are saying? And it only made sense that I would bring to you one of my very best friends David Horsager for an interview, and I’ve purposely been waiting for you to meet him. He is one of my most trusted friends. We are super close and he is the guy on trust. He owns the topic of trust. He is the CEO of the trust edge leadership Institute. He wrote a national bestseller called the trust edge. He also every year puts out a study called the trust outlook. And then he invented something called the ETI, the enterprise trust index, which kind of measures trust inside of organizations and things. And he is a hall of fame speaker. He works with companies like the New York Yankees, FedEx Toyota, global governments, department of Homeland security and just really, really world renowned. And so he’s here to share a little bit of his story about how he became the guy on trust and how he built the business he’s got today. So brother, thanks for being here.

DH: (01:28)

Hey, Rory, it is a treat to be with the brand builders and just playing with you and what a journey, great to be in a friend group and mastermind group and just doing life. So yeah,

RV: (01:41)

Thanks. We should mention, we should mention that, right? That you and I, and Jay Baer and Jason Dorsey are in a, a true peer colleague, unpaid friend, friend, supported mastermind. We call it the struggle. We have been together five or six years,

DH: (02:00)

I think at least something like

RV: (02:01)

That. We’ve had all, we, we, what people don’t know, every single one of us, we for back-to-back-to-back years were inducted into the professional speaking hall of fame and where you first or was Jay.

DH: (02:16)

I was, I think, yeah.

RV: (02:19)

And then me and then Dorsey. That’s right. So the power of surrounding yourself with amazing people, but I want to hear your, I want you to share the story of how you started, right? Because somebody’s listening out there right now are going, gosh, I’d love to speak. I would love to work with the New York Yankees. I’d love to have a, you know, a multi seven figure business. I’d love to do these things. How did you start?

DH: (02:47)

Yep. So I, it goes back, you know, I grew up on a farm in the poorest County in Minnesota and, you know I was a youngest of six kids and I, I definitely had kind of vision for great things, grateful for my parents to be the great leaders they were. And mom and dad are still 91 now and still run the farm. And actually just sold about 750 acres. So they’re thinking about how they can give away money these days. But I basically, after after college, I went to be on staff with the youth and faith and the organization. And after that, I, I later became director and I built a little bit of leadership curriculum for kind of college students do youth, whatever, move back to Minnesota. And this is how it started. We put every penny we had into that first organization.

DH: (03:35)

I have to tell my kids, this is back in the 19 hundreds, you know? But we moved back to Minnesota. I had one booking for $500. One thing I’d booked. I moved back, moved everything from living on a golf course, down in Arkansas to back to Minnesota. I, and so we jumped in and, and I, I thought, how are we going to save money? How are we going to do this? So we found not, not really an apartment, the basement of 86 year old Clara. Miller’s no windows, no bathroom, no kitchen, black mold on the walls. And that’s where we started this. And we lived there for two years and actually we we started with nothing. And by that October, I don’t everything we had into marketing and videos, all this stuff. And we add a dollar 40 to our name, 60 cents in the business account, 80 cents in the home account after paying her urgent bills, that’s all we had. And at the time we figured if we could just make 700 bucks a month, I could pay my urgent bills. And I think my, I think my, I think my statement that year from the IRS was that I made $2,000 or something. So for the, for the year. So anyway, that, that was the start. And I’ll tell you, it’s not

RV: (04:53)

Fast start a dollar 42,000 bucks your first year.

DH: (04:58)

Yup. 2000 in profit, 2000 in profit, not revenue. Okay. So and that was half a year in, you know, so all we had was a half a year to work with her, but basically we started with call, call, call, call, call, and working till 11 at night. And making calls people that say that phone calls don’t work anymore. I just don’t where we we still make calls. But anyway that was, that was how we started. And we’ve shifted things, you know, several times the grad work was a big launch pad. Obviously all my work around trust became interesting to people, more famous than me. The book.

RV: (05:36)

Yeah. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about trust, right? Because you, you know, that we, we talk about she hands wall with our community and being known for one thing and breaking through the wall. You are one of the best examples of that. Of just, just owning one thing, one topic, one issue, one problem of trust. How did you decide that? How did you land on that? How did you choose it? Did it choose you kind of a thing? Like what was that?

DH: (06:07)

It was a mix. And I think I was, I had been kind of sharing this leadership work, got asked to speak to the us coast guard Academy, a few other things. And basically I still remember where I was. I was at it was not that it was some big spiritual epiphany, but I was, it was before we had the four kids and all that. And Lisa and I were traveling together and we’re at an event down in, I think it was Tucson, Arizona. I just remember it was probably the most expensive place we’d stayed at till that point. It was the Lowe’s resort. After a day of this, at this business conference, I just turned thinking the problem they think they’re having. I don’t think it’s real problem. It’s not a leadership problem. The reason people don’t follow that leader is trust. I think that’s the problem.

DH: (06:47)

They think they’re having a sales. It’s not a sales issue. The reason people don’t buy as trucks and, and, and it kept going, and this was just intuitive. This was not grad work. This wasn’t research basis. It was just, Oh, that’s a trust problem. That’s a trust issue. That’s just me now. Fast forward. I believe everything genuinely is a trust. I believe you. I believe most people are not solving the root issue. It’s always a trust issue at the core. It’s not a leadership issue. It’s not a sales issue. It’s not an innovation issue. The only way to increase learning issue is increase trust in the content that the teacher or the psychologic saving the environment. It’s not a diversity issue. The only way that, that biggest Harvard study shows diversity on its own pitch to people against each other, the only way to get the benefits of it is increased trust, which is our many with trust.

DH: (07:29)

So, so, but back then, so I press into it a little bit. I started thinking about it, more sort of reading. There was, by the way, Rory back then there was nothing written on trust and leadership. There was no research. I mean, a lot of people are talking about trust the last decade to deck over two decades ago. Nobody, almost nobody in business and leadership was nursing psychology stuff. So I decided at the time now speaking some already, I kind of had enough going on that way. It wasn’t like I had to, but I thought I just had gone away for this one weekend. I thought, I think it was just to get my bachelor’s degree. So I just look at colleges and turn up the one that I graduated from. Usually you want variety in your grad work, but I just decided, Oh, I can get right in.

DH: (08:14)

And they have my transcripts and they had this organizational leadership degree and I put every bit of my research and my final dissertation, everything on trust. And that became interesting to some people. And that led to my passion, that then led to us using that framework in organizations. And it worked, we saw tripling of sales. We saw retention reduce. We actually had something real. So I think one thing that I will differentiate on the two people that are just brand builders is I’m big on, and I know many of your people are, but I’m just saying I was, it was real for me. It was, I was genuinely passionate. This work changed me. So I would just argue with people, find one thing, but something that is and true to them because now my work has been used on six continents. We just had an outside university triangulated, revalidation, revalidated, the work as the framework that builds trust globally. So I mean the research added passion, the books added passion, the scene change in people and organizations that passion. I just, I should walk over to the other side of my desk. There’s I just got a postcard from a guy that said five years ago, you were here and helped us with this. And it changed our organization. And here’s how and whatever. So, you know, that was the, some of, you know, there’s a long, there’s 20 years in there, right.

RV: (09:33)

But it’s connected to your personal passion, personal belief system. And then you mentioned the grad work, and this is something I wanted to talk about. You know, we’ve had, we’ve had Dorsey on Jason Dorsey came on you know, the, our, our audiences, you know, a little bit familiar with that. But one thing that you, you do, he does, and Jay Baer does, and we’ve not really done, which we are in the middle of is really doing more data driven research. So you started it in PR in grad school, and now you do an annual study. And so talk to us about why data, how data, how does, how does that happen?

DH: (10:14)

I remember at the core, I love story. I love keynote speaking, but I thought was different. I saw speakers that were kind of motivational with no depth or value. And, and we said, instead of putting money into marketing, we’re going to give value. And really our research study became a way of showing value. That was a marketing play. We didn’t mean it to be, but that’s, that’s kind of what happened. So so the, we do the annual study to be on just the cutting edge of thought leadership around trust. You know, we call the trust outlook. That’s what it’s called. Trust, outlook.com. You can see our last several years, we had done one way back, you know, called trust trends in 2014 big study, I had done a course, my grad work, we put out some different studies over time that weren’t so deep.

DH: (11:00)

Like w w I remember we did one at the Obama Romney election to judge trust between those two at the time. So we, we did some other studies, but basically, and now we even had a tr revalidated by an outside university that, and they said, this is the framework for building trust globally. So it’s, it’s costs. It can be costly, but it’s the way of being authentic thought leaders in your space. And so we do use that data. Of course, it gets out on social media. You know, the trust outlook out of the trust edge leadership Institute puts this out and, and all that. And then, you know, I can start, you know, whether it’s in a boardroom or, or with 5,000 people in front of me with something very fresh and relevant to them. And even my, I know you have certified folks, my certified certified trust ed coaches around the world.

DH: (11:49)

There’s a whole part of the platform that we offer that has research slides. So you have trust and leadership slides. You have trust in sales, trust, and culture trust in policing. We have people dealing with our trustworthy for corruption issues and needs to Africa, you know, so, so it gives them grit and beef, and it serves them well, to be able to start with research, I’ll give you a one in one research I’m finding last year, the number one reason people wanted to work for an organization ahead of being paid more ahead of more autonomy ahead of a more fun work environment with the pink bunk table. Number one, they wanted to, they wanted trusted leadership. And really that just points to our whole, the whole new book, trusted leader. Like people either want to be a trusted leader, or they want to follow leaders. They trust and more than anything else. So that just backed up. You did take that one piece of data that can show 92% of people said this or that or whatever. And all of a sudden it backs up what we’ve been saying, and it gives grit to it. And people people want more depth than ever before. If you’re going to build a brand, you know, they want to feel like you genuinely do. It’s not just some idea pulled out of your head, you know?

RV: (13:03)

So when you, you mentioned the money part of this, and it also, you know, kind of makes sense. Like if you’re the trust guy you’re doing research and pulling data and all that stuff, it helps, it helps it be trusted. That’s very aligned,

DH: (13:15)

Huge differentiator by the way, huge. Because if you know who else in my space, that is a big, big name and whole family has a big name for years. The difference between us as I as far as trust goes, our book, our first books came out about the same time, but we have done all this, you know, proprietor

RV: (13:35)

Anybody, right? Like, like, yeah. I mean, just anybody do you know this data, which, you know, if you didn’t listen to the interview that we did with Jason Dorsey, you should go listen to that interview about how data is the differentiator. Now you mentioned the cost, right? So I thought that was interesting that you said, instead of putting it all into marketing, we put it into this and it kind of ends up also be marketing. Are these, you know, to pull off a study, are you talking thousands of dollars, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? Like, I mean, what’s the,

DH: (14:09)

No, it depends. So for us, I can remember the first time I did study for maybe it was only, I don’t know. Well, not the first time, the first time I did the trust, outlook way of doing a study, it was, I don’t know you know, I don’t know, 30,000 or something, we’ve done them 10 hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands. And I did it only on the us side. And then I’m sharing the data. I’m at a massive conference up in Toronto and I’m like, Oh my goodness. Each piece of research says us the worst. I was so embarrassed that I said never again. And we went to global and global it’s much more expensive generally, but now we do it in house. So we do it in numbers that aren’t aren’t figure like those, like one year we were up toward almost, you know, a six-figure study there

RV: (14:57)

Just a field, the study. Then you got to like, produce the assets and like do the infographics and it’s, and the time, I mean, there’s a bunch of time to write the questions and all this stuff. Huh.

DH: (15:08)

But we, but nowadays it’s, it’s so worth it. I mean, we make, it’s such a differentiator that in an hour, you many people could do a study for, you know, that 20 to 30,000. That was actually quite, you know, I don’t know. It depends on how much of the globe you’re going to reach, but we, you know, one year we took the top, top GDP, peak country on every continent. So it wasn’t like every, every country, but then you have seven or whatever countries that we decided to, to go after. So you had some relevant, you know global data, but we’ve done them different sizes. But I think today you better do global, not just us generally unless you’re doing a specific area, like we did a specific executive edition. That was just us. And we also added interviews of those CEOs.

RV: (15:58)

Do you think this is part of what leads to this has led to speaking engagements is basically just publishing this kind of thought leadership. You know, we all hear, you know, we hear YouTube, LinkedIn podcast, blog, you know, book. We hear that pretty often. And then this is another whole piece is like, Oh, the study. And then is that the, I mean, are those the things that drive your speaking or is there some other like secret formula to getting speaking engagements?

DH: (16:26)

Well, the secret formula in speaking is in the mix, but I will tell you something I can tell you you know, when we make beautiful, real magazines, like I could grab one and show you across the room actually. So, you know, just trust, outlook that, you know, the whatever and, and you can see it

RV: (16:47)

And you print it, you make it as a magazine and print it. Okay. Okay.

DH: (16:50)

Yeah. And you can see the data in here if you’re watching, or I just said, you know, pie charts and whatever, that’s makes it interesting and fun to read and this many of this or whatever. So I’ve had someone hire me for a tens of tens of tens of thousands of dollars by opening up the page and saying, building trust in crisis or building trust in the midst of change. I’m like, Oh my gosh, it was this article right here. And that person hired me for a, you know, tens, tens, tens, tens of thousands of dollars a day. Because they’re like, this is what we need. Come spend a day with our executive team. We need to build trust in the midst of this change so that that’s not always you know, I’ve had, I mean, you go to the book and you go, you’ve written some amazing books that I love.

DH: (17:39)

I mean, that is another part of it. I had someone pick up the book of high powered, you know, Senator to pick up the book in the Denver airport. And that’s why I spoke to Congress twice. I had the president of Procter and gamble pick up the book in a, on a Sunday with his, when he’s with his daughter at a Barnes and noble. And that’s why I spoke to Procter and gamble. So th th there’s, there’s some kind of anomaly type things that, that, but th the, the book, the research for us, as far as speaking it is, you know, doing a great job and by the way, and you’ve done so well at this from back to your Toastmasters data, everything, you know, but I’ve had mentors on like I’ve hired comedy, I’ve hired, you know comedians to look at myself.

DH: (18:26)

I had helped me. I’ve had, I’ve hired speech coaches. I’ve hired improv. I’ve heard all these things. I’ve had you look at my speech before I gave my hall of fame speech. If you remember, because I’m like all of the mentors on being great on stage the book piece, the research piece you know, there’s social media pieces that we’ve gone more all in on than we ever were before too. But I would say something about the speaking piece, a big differentiator for us by the way is how we think people, huh? That’s, it’s, we’re just better at thinking everybody. And then many, like, I can’t even believe all the people that say, you know, the other 25, 35, 45, $55,000 speakers. I never got anything for having them at our conference. I couldn’t believe how you followed up and thanked us, and we send a big package and all this stuff. So I think, you know, there’s all, all kinds of little things that can make it, you know, build your brand

RV: (19:26)

Well. And, you know, I’d take that in investing into your business and investing into your trade, both the, both the message part of it and the depth of the thought leadership, and then as well as the presentation of it, you onstage, which seems like all the way back to those very early days, you’ve always been investing into it and growing. So, so you started in 1999. I’d love to hear just a, kind of just a couple minutes on your business model today, right? So this is 20, over 20 years later. Now you’ve got a team, you’ve got these great websites, these great demo videos like you, you, you, you can see how over years it has built up. And, and I’d love specifically for you to talk a little bit about like the train, the trainer model and the certification business model, because I think you do a really great job of, of taking your curriculum and having other people be able to teach it, you know, and that’s, I think that’s a scalable model for what, you know, a lot of people can learn from.

DH: (20:31)

So it sounded the research, the ways we fulfill the mission of developing trusted leaders and organizations around the world, remember we think that’s helping to deal with the root cause. So we’re, we’re training, leading leadership events, sales events, all these kinds of things, but are all these different problems, but there’s three business units. One is speaking and training from us. That’s me speaking a hundred events a year. Now we have a five camera studio right here, 20 yards from rehab producer. Full-Time I mean, we’re doing that. Whether that’s onstage live or virtually, we’re doing, you know, that’s, that’s a kind of, that’s a one and done though, right. Then there’s, then we have the consulting piece. And that is, you know, I had built several assessments in my grad work and was overseen by the, the guy that wrote the book on three 60 gap analysis.

DH: (21:16)

So we have an enterprise trust index it’s built on 50 years of Accenture data and, and, and my grad work and its way of measuring trust in big organizations and closing gaps. That’s consulting. I have consultants subcontracted on my team to do big. Those are big, significant issues. We’re working with the global pharmaceutical that you all would know right now, trying to pill trust globally with the vaccines going on all this stuff. Okay. So that’s, that’s really customized part, our biggest push right now. And the love is this certification part. And that is we certify independent coaches and corporate trainers inside of companies to use our content, but we don’t just certify them. We support them. So they pay monthly or annually. And we heard a lot of people say, well, I’ve got this one. We, you know, I got certified and then I never got support, or I got certified.

DH: (22:07)

And I just got these five, you know, 20 videos and worksheets. We give them everyday, my 21 years, we took and built ourselves and coded and created a beautiful platform that has everything that we heard they wanted. So it has, you know, research-based content and courses they can use on their people. It has assessments unlimited. They can use these assessments. They can see the cool, beautiful pie charts and everything, and how they can close gaps. They CA it has community. So I’ve got, you know, I’ve had the Dean of Penn state and the Dean of university of Nebraska that are certified the police to the seat, Las Vegas, and the, you know, people in Uganda, Kenya, Quebec answering them one of the former heads of, you know Nike is one. So you have this group really cool group of learning pros, whether the inside of companies or independence that then monthly, we support, they, they have the online community built kind of a, you could say a Facebook, whatever, right. In our site. And then we have monthly calls where they get to share ideas and sharpen each other. And, and yeah,

RV: (23:17)

So they pay up, they basically pay a fee to get certified. And part of that includes access to this library of stuff they’re in this community. And then they have the ability to like, reteach your content, effectively

DH: (23:33)

Assessments on limit. They can make so much money, you know, to using our content and having our support. And they get real people in my company when they need help. And they get these monthly calls and they get our annual event with it. So they pay an onboarding fee and then they pay monthly or annually, whichever way they choose on the support and ongoing we’re updating the site all the time. It’s we had some, we’ve had some big companies come and look at it. Like they heard about what we’re doing. Like, what are you doing? This is, you know,

RV: (24:01)

I mean, they pay, they pay a one-time fee at the beginning, and then monthly after that is basically how it works

DH: (24:07)

Or they pay the one-time fee plus annual, and then they can use it for you. But they pay either, either they pay that one time fee, plus they’re paying monthly, or they play the one-time fee and an annual, and then it doesn’t get again until another year.

RV: (24:21)

I gotcha. But, but, but, and so that is, that’s a model that you guys are doing, where basically you can certify and train and support other people to go out and teach your content, which you make money from. They can make money from, and it helps you spread the mission.

DH: (24:38)

And, and it’s so fun. Like I had a, I was at a banquet with John Maxwell and I got seated up, you know, I didn’t necessarily do it over. I just got to be seated with him. Anyway, we you know, he said he said, David, you’ve got to stop just letting corporate dudes. Cause I used to do train the trainer only like you buy this big pack, you know, three ring binder, and then you can you buy the workbooks? And the annuity is in buying the workbooks. And the thing is today, people want it flexible. They want to teach one-on-one one on a thousand. They want to be able to do all these things. So we said, well, if we can support them, I mean, it’s cool. What’s happening. This one, one of our corporate trainers, our trainers in Indonesia, she’s using our work on banking and oil executives. And she’s using our work in this foundation with girls that are coming out of sex trafficking to rebuild trust. I mean, how fun is it to see the mix of use of, of, of these coaches that are making money with it and making a difference with it?

RV: (25:35)

Yeah, really, really cool stuff. It’s a long way from your dollar 40 11 in the basement with no windows.

DH: (25:46)

There’s a lot of people like you, like, you know, mentors, God’s grace, my wife, I mean, this has been a journey. And you know, thankfully it’s been amazing

RV: (25:59)

Well and influential leader that the trust edge, if you will, you’ll want to, one of your first books is to me a book that is, I, I think of it, like take the stairs. It’s a book that every single person should read. No matter your age, your position, your title, like you should read the trust edge. I fully plan on having our boys read it. Like as soon as they can. It’s, it’s, it’s just like a solid staple that everybody should read.
We have the trusted leader, the brand new book coming out about how to apply this inside of organizations and to apply it to your own life, to develop a culture of trust. Where should people go if they want to get trusted leader, you know, right now I know you’ve got bonuses and all that stuff at the time, this is coming out. So where should people go to connect with you?

DH: (27:30)

The best place where we have some special guests for all your listeners is trusted leader, book.com/rory, R O R Y. So trusted leader, book.com/rory. Otherwise you can find everything at trust, edge.com and all kinds of things, but you get a bunch of free resources. If you just go to trusted leader, book.com/rory,

RV: (27:54)

I love it. So go there trusted later. Book.Com/Rory pick up the book. I’m telling you this is quality stuff. Not, not just the, you know, the watching clearly the way that they do what they do is super valuable for you as a, as a, you know, someone as a personal brand, but also the actual substance of the content that David and the team they teach is absolutely extraordinary. Incredible. It’s made such a difference in my life, our marriage, our kids, how we run business, we are just huge, huge fans of the trust edge. And so excited about the trusted leader. Now, applying this and helping our leaders go through it. So go to trusted leader, book.com/rory. David, thank you for being here, brother. We wish you all the best. Thank you.

Ep 159: How to Launch a Powerful Podcast with John Lee Dumas | Recap Episode

Hey, welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. AJ is back.

So enthusiastic

You’ve been mom and hard and working hard and all the things she’s been CEOing and momming, but she’s back for John Lee Dumas, but which is great because she’s going to share with us her top three highlights from the interview as am I. And why don’t you go first my dear?

I will gladly go first. So my first take away from the podcast episode with John Lee Dumas is the whole concept of the first mover advantage. And I think that is so interesting because nobody really talks about that. That often in terms of being first in the space means a great deal. And I love he talks about this later, so it’s one of my points down the line. So I won’t get too much into it, but you don’t have to be the best if you’re the only one. I think there’s a lot of merit to just really thinking through it’s like, what’s really missing out there. Like what, what is the space people aren’t filling and fulfilling that people need. And that’s what John did. And he looked around, he said, there is no one who is giving daily content to the everyday entrepreneur. It’s just not there. And so he filled that space. He was the only one and he self-proclaimed that he sucked for a long time. I don’t know if that’s accurate. But he’s been out of our long time. And I think the biggest point there is that it means a great deal if your first, right, it’s that early adopter syndrome, you’re filling a space that no one else is filling. So you don’t have a lot of competition. It’s just you. So you don’t have to be the best if you’re first.

That’s good. Yeah. It’s worth it. It’s worth, it’s worth a look of, of, of knowing that. And there’s, there’s places, you know, like clubhouses happening right now. And there’s a lot, it’d be like, you know, you see certain people going all in on clubhouse trying to like take advantage of the first, first mover thing. So well that’s really good. I, you know, you pointed out the fact that he went to a daily podcast, which really was the first person and still to this day, I think the only person that I could say that I know personally that has consistently done a daily podcast. And you know, that was my first takeaway was just getting the raps. Like he’s done 3000 episodes and the, the reps count for a lot. I mean, I love, you know, I did martial arts when I was younger and there’s a famous Bruce Lee quote that says, I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. Once I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. And it’s like, well, yeah, you’re going to get good at hosting. Yeah. You’re going to have a good process at booking guests and promoting when you’ve done it so much. Yeah. So that was just a good, whether you’re a speaker, you’re a writer or you’re a video editor or you’re, you know, whatever it is, you’re trying to get good at that the volume, you know, counts, counts for a lot. So that was a good reminder. Yeah.

Yeah. And honestly, that is a great intro into my second point. And I’ve loved this. I’m totally gonna steal this example, this story from this interview, and it was this pottery examples. If you haven’t listened to them, I won’t do it justice. They go back and listen to it if for no worries, a reason to just like steal the story and use it. And I loved it. But the short, the short of it is there was a a class and a professor divided the class. And he said for the first half of the class, I’m going to solely grade you on the best piece of pottery that you can create over the semester. That’s it? I don’t care how many you make, just the best one. Then the second half of the class had nothing to do about the quality of it. But it had everything to do with I’m solely going to grade you on how many pieces that you make quantity, quantity. And at the very end there was no surprise that the people who had done the most actually had the best. And I love it because you had asked the question like, okay, like, let’s talk about it. Like what’s really more important quantity or quality. And I loved his response. And he said, it’s both because quantity always leads to quality,

Like drop. And that was my takeaway.

And it was like very similar to like the first mover advantage. It’s like, if you’re the first and you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, like you will be the best. And it’s you know, back to the Bruce Lee example, it’s like, it’s about getting your reps in and quantity leads to quality, but you’ve got to get those reps in and there’s, that’d be that consistency and you just gotta be out there constantly and it will make you better. And I love that. So that was my second.

It’s great. It’s great. I, for me, the second, the second thing is funny. Cause I’m going to, I’m going to quote some Gandhi and Bruce Lee in the same episode. But you know, Gandhi said be the change you want to see in the world. And you were kind of talking about this earlier, where it was like John created a podcast that he thought the world needed, but also that he wanted, that he would have wanted. And I feel like brand builders group is a lot of that way for, for us. I mean, at least, yeah. It was like, why isn’t there someone who can just spell out how all of the steps building a personal brand fit together, podcasting and speaking and writing books and digital marketing and you know, and media, and, you know, I had a paid advertising and like, why is nobody coordinating a strategy?

And I think that is what brand builders has been for us. And when, when you hear us say you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, that’s kind of what we’re talking about is, is going, what is the thing that you would have helped? What is the thing that would have helped you succeed faster? What is the thing that you would have wanted more of, or that you would’ve wanted to discover sooner? If you can create that, not only is it going to, you know, serve a market that you understand, but you’re going to do a really great job. You’re going to have a strong, visceral connection to those people because you’re just, you’re just living it. So, so create the thing that you want to see. And, and we cannot tell you what this is, but Aja and I have been dreaming up a TV show for,

I think it’s more, Rory has been

Driven up with TV show for

A while. I have been entertaining ideas.

Yeah. But that’s not that dissimilar from lots of our relationship. I’m always like throwing out all these crazy dream ideas, but, you know, anyways, if that ever happens, it will be because it’s like, man, I can’t believe that nobody has done this show yet. Like this is the show that I want to see. And

You might be the only person who wants to see that,

But even if, so that is a great reason to do it. Like if you go, I, I would love this. I would watch it. Then somebody else probably would too probably. And that’s what D you know, that’s kind of what he did. So anyways, that speaks to your uniqueness more than like a hole in the market. More of like what you’re passionate about moving onto my third. Okay. With that let’s transition to AJC.

And this was very, very much towards the end of the interview and completely separate from my first two points, but just, I loved the realness of him walking through his offer for his new book, which I love just uncommon success. I think that’s such a cool like concept. And but just, I love it was Vic so simple as you guys were actually talking through what he’s doing and how compelling it was to just be direct, honest and personal. I think that it says a lot of like the honest truth is I want to move a lot of books. And if you buy lots of copies of the book, I will have higher results on Amazon. And it’s like, thanks for just being transparent. And it kind of makes it easier to be like, yeah, I feel, yeah, I want to help you out versus like, Oh, he’s only doing this because he wants to, it’s a good, so much better and easier to be like, Oh yeah, he’s coming right out with it. Like no shame, no beating around the Bush. It’s like, this is what it is. It’s honest, it’s direct, but it’s also personal. And that’s what every offer should be because it doesn’t make anyone be like, Oh, well, wonder why they’re doing that. Or I wonder what that’s really about, or is that really authentic? And it’s really hard to argue with just honesty.

Yeah. That was my third takeaway too actually was w it wasn’t even related to what he said on the interview where she did it. He did a direct ask, like, Hey, go, you know, it really would help me out if you go buy my book. And I love what you’re saying, that it’s like an offer. Doesn’t have to be this like crazy thing. That’s all intimidating. And that you like spend years preparing for you just go, Hey, here’s what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. And here’s how you can help me. And it’s short and clear, but he also did the same thing behind the scenes when he asked us, Hey, can I come on the, can I come on the show? Will you, will you help promote, promote the book during its launch? And that’s, it was, he sent a video. It was like a, it was like a 92nd video. And it was super, it was personalized. He like, he used our name and he just said, here’s what I’m looking to do between these dates, will you help? And it was like, it was so clear and it was easy to say yes. So just tell people what you’re doing and, and, and offer them a chance to help and do it honestly. And clearly just exactly, exactly. As you said. So we had this here, look at that. We do have, we have things in common.

Well,

That is awesome. Our friend, John Lee Dumas said, Hey, support his book, check it out. I think you’ll get lots of, of, of worthwhile timeless principles and nuggets. And he’s just one of the masters of, of this space. And he’s built a really great personal brand and helped a ton of ton of people. And hopefully that in story, that story inspires you to go out and do the same. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. Buh-Bye

Ep 158: How to Launch a Powerful Podcast with John Lee Dumas

RV: (00:07)

Hey brand builder 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: (01:05)

Well, you can’t really have a conversation about building a personal brand and specifically about podcasting without talking to and about my man, John Lee Dumas, I mean, EO fire entrepreneur on fire is a podcast that is like, he’s like the godfather of podcasting. Certainly one of them his show now has over a hundred million total downloads. He gets like a million monthly listens. He’s interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Seth Godden, all these other legends. And I’m excited because you probably know, or if you don’t know, you need to know him for his work and what he does at EO fire. But he also has a book really his first official book just coming out right now called the common path to uncommon success. John and I have known each other for years. I feel like it’s amazing to see everything that he has done.

RV: (02:02)

And you know, I was lucky to be, I’ve been on his show several times, three times, I think, and now honored to have him on mine. And he’s just a solid dude. So John, thank you for being here. Rory, whenever I get to hang out with you, whether it’s on entrepreneurs, on fire, your show, wherever that might be in the world, it’s a good day, man. So I’m excited to be here. Yeah. Well, and I appreciate you doing this. I know you’ve got a passion for the, for the entrepreneurs and specifically you understand our mission driven messengers, you know, that is our audience. And you know, I think when I, when I think of the common path to uncommon success, I feel a little bit, and maybe you can tell me whether or not this is true, but when you look at your success as a personal brand, in a podcaster, it’s pretty much been that it’s been a, a straight forward path. But you’ve had uncommon success because you’ve stuck to some core fundamentals. And so I’d love you just to take us back to in the beginning, launching the show and from there to a hundred million downloads, what are the most important principles that we need to know to be growing our brand?

JLD: (03:25)

So, I mean, Your brands is really building your life. I mean, how are you building your life? I mean, I’m from Maine, very small, tiny town spent the first 18 years there went to college and an army scholarship. So post army, you know, I did a 13 month tour of duty in Iraq actually while I was deployed. So I kinda got like the real deal, Holy field army stuff, not just like I’m playing army. And I went through six years of struggle. Post my military experience from 26 years old until I was 32. I knew nothing about building a brand. I knew nothing about building a business. And I tried a bunch of things. Law school dropped out corporate finance, commercial real estate. Like none of it works. One thing I finally did right towards like my fifth and six year during that six years of struggle, the sort of listening to great content, reading, great contents, you know, the right business books, the right podcasts.

JLD: (04:20)

And that led me to, to find these podcasts, you know, many that you’ve been a guest on Rory that, you know, interview entrepreneurs. And there were some great shows that were out there. Unfortunately they thought it was the right move to have one episode per month or two episodes per you know, per month that were going live on their feeds. And I was just, just voraciously consuming these content, this content with, you know, interviewing entrepreneurs and their stories. I was learning so much from them, but there were so few of them. And so I remember saying to myself, I’m just going to go find that daily podcast, that interviews entrepreneurs. So I can just have a fresh episode waiting from each day. So I went home, loaded up the Apple iTunes back in 2012, searched all the way through it. And the show did not exist.

JLD: (05:09)

And it was literally like, like Paul McCartney waking up and being like, wait, the song yesterday doesn’t exist. Like I just, I had a dream about it and it doesn’t exist. I can just make this hit song from a dream. I was like, this is like a dream. I can’t believe a daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs doesn’t exist. Cause that’s like, that’s the show that I want, that’s show that I need. And so I said, Hey, let’s follow Gandhi’s advice. I read about it somewhere. Like be the change you want to see in the world. And I said, I’m going to create the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. So the day I launched Rory back in 2012, entrepreneurs on fire was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the only, and so like I built this brand entrepreneurs on fire that one because I was the only game in town delivering a daily podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs, it’s called the first mover advantage.

JLD: (06:07)

I had the first mover advantage I won as a result. Was I good? No. Was my interview style good? No. Did I bring on good guests? Yes. Thankfully like they made the show good, like listened to ball. And then I put in the wraps and I got a little bit better. Every single time I did that. And like, that’s the story of entrepreneurs on fire. So I challenged people who are building their brain right now. We can take this in any direction you want. But I challenged people to like, look in the mirror and say like, how am I being the best at one thing that I’m doing? Like, how am I being the only, like the quote that I love is the higher, the barrier, the lower the competition, a daily podcast is a flip and high barrier. I had no competition. I built a moat around my business and I won as a result. I’m the quote unquote godfather of podcasting. Not because it was the first, but because I was the first person to go all in daily, seven days a week. Now you and I are talking, as you mentioned, the intro 3000 episodes, a hundred million listens, 1.4 million listens every single month, eight years in a row of a multiple millions in net profits, all from that one big idea.

RV: (07:19)

Well, and you know what I love about one of the things. I mean, there’s so many things I’ve always, always loved about you. Not the least of which is you being a military man, which I always have much love and respect for, but I is, and, and I don’t mean this to sound bad at all is to go. You didn’t try to even compete so much on my quality. You just went for quantity and that’s that you don’t hear about that as a strategic decision that much, but to go well. Yeah. Where else were people gonna go? You know, like that, I think you hear so, so do you believe in quality over quantity? Or do you think it’s quantity over quality or is it both

JLD: (08:04)

Question? Cause there’s, there’s different circumstances. There are absolutely times when quality is going to win. Period. End of story. The highest quality product is going to win a lot of the times. Then there are times you look in the mirror and you say, well, I can’t be highest quality because I’ve never podcasted before. I’ve never interviewed somebody before I am going to period. End of story. Stink as a podcast host for the foreseeable future. So I’ve got a win some other way. I’m going to win on quantity. Do you think the person that just went actually there’s actually, I’m gonna back up. There’s a, there’s a fantastic, fantastic, like real case that I’ve read. And one amazing book. Maybe, honestly it was even years. I was like this, this pottery class and the professor divided them into two separate sides of the room.

JLD: (08:52)

He said the left side. I’m only you on your best pot, just one single best pot. That’s all it means. So just take the whole semester, but only present me one pot and give you a grade on that one pot. He goes to the second half of the class. I don’t, I’m not going to grade you on any quality whatsoever. I’m only gonna grade you on the amount of pots you finish. That’s it just the quantity. And guess what? At the end of that semester, not only were the best pots, all from the people who did the highest quantity, but the people who just had to do one good pot, none of them were good because they was just trying to get one good pot. They weren’t putting in the reps, they weren’t actually doing the work. So I was a really bad podcast hosts for like 480 episodes.

JLD: (09:39)

Like that’s really the number that I look back at. I was like, okay, four 81. I was kind of good that episode. It took a year and a half of daily podcasting to put in the reps to become a quote unquote decent podcast, or just like it took those students 50 pots of just cranking it out. Cause they could care less. It’s like, I’m only getting graded on the quantity, but then they started getting good almost despite themselves. Cause they already even trying to get good. It didn’t matter if they were good, but they became good because they put in those flipping reps and this one person trying to create the best pot ever. It was just one they stunk. They never put in those wraps. So as both sides of the equation, listen, I buy the best products because I love the best, the highest quality. But if you, as an individual, can’t be the best, the highest quality step day one, step one. How are you going to get there? You’re going to put in the raps, you’re going to put in the quantity and you’re going to get it.

RV: (10:36)

Yeah, yeah. I mean that is, that is my story of, of professional speaking was like, I was in my twenties, I spoke 304 times for free, like back of a Perkins restaurant, two people in the restaurant, me on a Friday night, like doing my speech and, and you know, and now people see me on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people and they’re like, Whoa, you know? And it’s like, no, you don’t understand. Like it was quantity like quantity is so underrated. It is so underrated. Now. What’s interesting. One of the things I love about podcasting sometimes, like I actually think I enjoy being a podcast host more than I like being a podcast guest. I actually like the role of being the student and the interviewer more than the teacher. And you know, it’s interesting about podcasting is the nature of it is someone else can be the star. Like you can be the host and, and it’s like, you’re bringing in the stars and you did that right away from day one. You always had great guests, like from the very, very beginning. So you also kind of had a both situation going. Yeah. So that’s

JLD: (11:54)

Exactly my mentality. I said, Hey, if the spotlight’s on me, this podcast is going to fail because I’m not good. But if I can bring a guest on, I can ask them four or five really meaningful questions, quickly turn the spotlight on them and just step back and shut up. They’ll make this podcast listen to bowl. So Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, you know, Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran. Like I brought them on. I ask a question, I step out of the way and I shut up and boom, they took it off and they crushed it. And that’s what they do. They were great. They had put in the reps for years. I knew how to ask a question and I stepped out of the way. And so that’s how I got my feet wet. That’s how I put in my reps. That’s how I put in the work. So would you,

RV: (12:40)

When you talk about quantity, so of course, you know, your book is just coming out and this is your first book, common path to uncommon success. Do you feel like quantity and reps? Is that a part of that story? That it’s just, it, no matter what you’re doing, that, that ties in

JLD: (13:00)

100%. So this book, the common path to uncommon success, it is a combination of these 3000 interviews I’ve done over the past nine years of again, interviewing people like Rory, Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, and just sitting down. And this was in late 2019. I sat down and I literally like wrote down, like, what are the core foundational principles that Rory has that Tony has that Tim have that these successful entrepreneurs have, that they possess? What are the similar touchpoints that they’ve all gone through on their journey to uncommon success? And I wrote them all down. You know, I matched up the ones that were identical and I got rid of the ones that didn’t make any sense. And I was left with just 17 core principles that every one of us and by us, I mean successful entrepreneurs that we have as foundational core principles, I put them in chronological order, step one to step 17.

JLD: (14:00)

And then I sat my butt down in 2020 and for two hours every day for eight months, I wrote this book 71,000 words, 273 pages is my first traditionally published book. It very well could be my last, I mean, I’m not saying I want to write books for a living. I wrote, I needed to write this book because it needed to get out there. This book is the book that people need in their hands. And they’re looking for financial freedom and fulfillment. But man, I put everything in there. I got nothing left. I don’t have any illusions of grand jury. Like, this is what you need. If you have a question, there’s the answer crashing.

RV: (14:38)

Keep your energy up. I mean like 3000 is a flipping ton. 3000 of anything is a ton. Like I don’t know that I’ve been on stage 3000 times. I definitely I’ve done close to a thousand interviews. But like every time I listened to one of your interviews I’ve been interviewed, like I know that you’re doing a ton of interviews now as a guest, like somehow you have this energy that is always turned on. Like where does that come from? How do we do that? And is, is that a part of, of this you think like, is that a part of the 17 principles here?

JLD: (15:24)

Absolutely. It is a part of the 17 principles. In fact, it is principal numero UNO. When you see Rory Vaden onstage, guess what he is living in his zone of fire. He is living in that zone of fire. When you hear me in a podcast, whether I’m being interviewed or interviewing somebody else, I am living in my zone of fire. That is it. So guess what? Step one chapter, one of this book, identify your big idea. So few people have identified their big idea. They don’t know what their zone of genius is, what theirs on a fire is, and they’re not living it every single day. That’s why I have so much energy because I feed off of this. I’m an extrovert. I love having these conversations. I thrive in them. This is my big idea. It’s not everybody who’s watching. This is not your big idea. What I’m doing, what Roy does, this is not. But your big idea is out there. It’s up to you now to find it. So that’s step one, chapter one. And Roy is my video coming in. Okay.

RV: (16:30)

Yeah. So I think you are a great example of like living your truth there and being the zone of fire and you feel it. I mean, it’s it that conveys it transfers through, through the interviews. One of the other things that I’ve always admired about you personally, I actually don’t even think I’ve ever told you this. I’m gonna use the word transparency. He is it, it is a couple examples of this. You have always posted your income your income statements, your Mo what’s it called the Mo it’s a monthly, monthly reports, monthly income reports, right? You you’ve always been so trans a trans parent with how you’re making money and what’s going on. The other thing is, is with your, just this launch that you’re doing for this book you know, you sent me a video and I know you sent it out to some others of just a very direct two minutes.

RV: (17:28)

Like, Hey, this is what I’m doing here. Here’s, here’s a few ways you can help me. I’m just asking for your help. And it was amazing as the recipient, you know, I’ve always like been in launch mode. How powerful, the just clear, open, honest ask it. Wasn’t like buried within something there wasn’t like some like, you know, Hey, help me and I’ll help you in there. No, it was, it wasn’t pushy though. W at all, it was, it was just very like, and so I feel like there is some strength about you that you’re willing to just like, be open about your intentions in what you’re doing. How did you get to be that way? How do you think it helps you? And then how do we get to be more like that?

JLD: (18:20)

I think life is short. Life is short. We’re here on this earth for a blip of time. And I’m here to have fun, to make an impact, to add value to this world. And when I write a book like this, where my heart, my soul, my blood, my sweat, my tears, I poured into it. And I know with a hundred percent certainty, and this comes to confidence, and this is something we can talk about later, cause this is a huge part of it. But when I know the a hundred percent certainty, a hundred percent confidence that this book is going to help. So many people, basically every single person that reads this book and genuinely falls the principles and takes action is going to have a massive impact positively on their life. I’m not going to be shy or I’m not going to, you know, kind of come at things in that.

JLD: (19:07)

Half-Ass kind of way. Like I want to be direct and honest, and I’m gonna say, Rory, you have a great platform. I’ve had, I have a great platform. I’ve had you on my show. You’ve rocked the mic. I’ve helped you, you know, promote I’ve helped grow your brands and build your audience. Now it’s time to flip the tables. I would love to come on your show. I would love to share with your audience, the value this book will bring to their life. By the way I want you to, pre-order not just one but multiple copies of this book.

RV: (19:34)

Well, and you did.

JLD: (19:38)

Why? Because Amazon bases their bulk order off of my pre-order. So pre-orders are so, so importance. And that even went forth. And I said, Hey, I actually want you to consider a bulk order because I have amazing bulk orders starting at 12 books, going up to 1200 in a bulk order will help me cause that’s how HarperCollins basis their print run off of bulk orders. And lastly, and then that was the last part was all about. I’d love to find a way to get on your platform and your show in front of your audience, because you built an amazing audience. And it was a personal video. I recorded only for Rory. You know, I started by obviously saying his name and giving a couple of personal examples of, you know, things that we’ve done in the past together.

RV: (20:15)

I literally was, I was like, what technology is he using to do this? Cause I was like, it was, so it was called sit down and record a personal video for your personal friends, doing a personal ask. And I was so blown away as, as just the recipient of it, John, I forwarded it to some of our clients and I was like, this is how this should be done. Correct? Honest, confident, not arrogant. And like a personal ask. Like it

JLD: (20:48)

Was so powerful. Did you say, and by his book, that’s my point though, is that like, I literally was just like, Hey, this is what I’m asking of you. And I gave the reasons why though, too, like, I didn’t say, can you prepare some copies? Like, I think it’s important to give people reasons and clarification. Like why, you know, you tell the story, like the story’s huge. It’s like Amazon will base their pre-orders of my book based off of pre-orders. Roy knows that he’s a very successful author. And when I say that, he’s like, Oh, I get why John’s asking for not just one order. He’s not like being greedy because he knows I’m not making money from these books. You know, sales. I mean, I’m with Harper Collins, you know what? It’s not this isn’t a money play. This is, I want to get this book out, ranked high, as many sales as possible so that I can help as many people as possible. And in fact, we can talk in a second about a way that I’m losing a ton of money on every pre-order literally, but that’s not the point like this, isn’t a financial play. Like I’ve made my money in other ways, over nine years, this is, get this flipping book into your hands. Yeah.

RV: (21:52)

And you, you know, this concept of give value, you know, give you build relationships like before you ever need something, you’re doing that with the book. You’re I know that you’re, you’re giving away like hard cover bonuses. Like isn’t it. Three, is it? It’s all three of your journals.

JLD: (22:10)

My mastery journal. I am shipping you my freedom journal and my podcast journal. These are $150 of journal value that I’m shipping to everybody’s door. Who pre-orders one copy. Like most people like order. Pre-Order 10, 10 copies of my book and get all three of my journals. Pre-Order one because I just want you to get one and read it. If you want to get two and three, I’m not going to stop you of course, but I want you to get one of these books, read it because you’re going to love it. And you’re going to tell your friends about it and it will spread organically that way. And by the way, these are fantastic journals. So I’m going to ship them to you, to your door with one single pre-order. And I hope you love them. And it’s going to cost me a lot of money to do so, but that’s not the point.

JLD: (22:52)

The point is, how do I make this a no brainer for people that I know need my book? Cause I know there’s a lot of people out there that are like, like this is $16. This is $28 a hard cover. This is a $17 audio book. That’s not insignificant money for a lot of people. And I don’t take that lightly. So I want to make this a no brainer value for you. So that’s just one bonus. I have four other bonuses. I won’t bore you now, but well let me, yeah. Yeah. Here’s what I want y’all to do. Go to where

RV: (23:20)

We go to uncommon success, book.com and here’s the thing one you should buy the book. Like I, I believe in John, I love him and love what he’s doing. Th you know, he’s done all of these interviews. He’s put this together. The bonuses are incredible. The other reason why every single one of you listening to this specifically should go is because you should go to uncommon success, book.com and look at how launch is done.

JLD: (23:46)

This is a great example of the bulk bonuses that are laid out. You’ve got links off the, Oh, it’s very clear. It’s very simple buying in bulk a personal message from you. It’s just a simple clean website. And it’s like, this is how a book launch should be done. So even if you’re not going to buy the book, you should go to uncommon success, book.com to see a real life example of someone who has spent years developing an audience, thousands of episodes, hours and hours of reps living in a zone of fire, pouring into people’s lives, being transparent. And now that culminating with a, with a traditional book launch, which is exactly to a formulate T what we teach, build the audience and then release, release the book. And I just, man, I’m, I am so proud of you brother. And I’m just grateful for you.

JLD: (24:42)

And I hope this book just crushes it and that you just keep doing what you’re doing. Well, listen, I don’t take this lightly. I, I really appreciate, you know, our friendship and, you know, your kind words, they mean a lot. And, and you know, this is one thing that I hope people that are watching and listening really take note of is when you’re building your brands, like your network is your net worth. Like you got to find ways to connect with the right people. Like there’s a reason when, why, when Roy is on my show, I end each episode by saying, Hey, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with Rory and JLD, so let’s keep up the heat. Cause I want you to realize that’s how I went from this 2012 law school dropout kind of loser to, you know, a year later making a hundred thousand dollars a month.

JLD: (25:29)

And now I just crossed my 89th month in a row of net profit, a hundred thousand dollars a month. And I’m not saying it’s all about the money and all about this and all about that, but it is about financial freedom. It is about fulfillment. It is about living in your zone of fire. And those are all the things that Rory’s achieved that I’ve achieved, that other people have achieved. The you can too. And why not make it easy on yourself by learning from others in the common path to uncommon success. It is the book that will get you there. I’ve bought and read every one of Rory’s books because they’re awesome. And I know if you’re watching this, you likely have as well. That’s smart. Keep educating yourself, keep investing in yourself. And that’s not just money. I’m much saying like invest enough and buy this book. It’s the time it takes time to sit down and read a book and really, you know, apply its principles. But that’s what winners do. That’s what I did in 2012. And I was struggling. This is what you can do today. The common path, the uncommon success is the name of the book. Uncommon success book.com is the URL. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes, buddy. We wish you the best. Keep kicking butt and stay on fire brother. Thanks Rory.

Ep 157: How to Unlock Your Hidden Genius with Victoria Labalme | Recap Episode

Forward from my good friend mentor, buddy client Colleague Victoria Labalme

You know, Victoria, I have to tell you, I remember, gosh, I remember being at like some of my very first NSA national speakers association meetings when I was 20 years old, maybe 22 years old watching Victoria onstage or watching videos of her and just being like, Oh my gosh, this, this woman is a whole nother level. And she really is. I mean, her performance it’s, you know, it’s one of those things on a podcast that you go, gosh, I wish you could, how do I, how do I showcase this? But you know, if you go to Victorialabalme.com, you can check it out, you know, see some of, some of her stuff on stage, but you know, this book for her is really interesting. I mean, risk forward is unlocking your hidden genius. What a great concept of unlocking your hidden genius. And, you know, she kinda marries this idea of, of her past, which is performance and not just like presentation skills, like speech, mechanics, but everything presentation, the art of the stage and the gesture and the facial expressions and, and just how to, how to use every asset.

You have to communicate from any type of platform. And so she’s taking that performance and she’s also she’s also combining that and wrapping that with her business expertise and personal development and leadership. And I just, I just love this, the idea that conversation that she was, where she was talking about her mentor, Marcel Marceau. And I, I forget how you say and, and French, but, you know, he said, well, and, and let me, I guess, just jump in and clearly, you know, I’m, it’s just me, it’s just me on this recap is not here with us, but my number one takeaway is I think, what is the central message of her entire book, which is take creative risk, take creative risk. And I mean, that’s such a simple message. It speaks to, by the way, like so many of our clients, this is what we help them with in phase one brand DNA, which is kind of our flagship, which is one of the events that Victoria has been through.

And, you know, it’s funny like walking a client through that, but then interviewing her as a receiver going, Oh my gosh, what a powerful message. These, these three words, like take creative risk. It’s, it’s so important. And Marcel Marceau was telling her, I think, you know, the, the actual French translation of what he said was go forward with your heart open, right? Like leaning, leaning forward with your heart open. And, you know, I think this, this hit me personally, because so much of what we do at brand builders group is we try to make it a science. And those of you that have actually been through some of our events and courses and things like, you know, this, we try to turn what is a fairly abstract and OBS skier concept of personal branding which has like a thousand different parts, all these different topics, no random, no order or sequence.

And we try to use data and experience and corroboration from successful clients and friends and colleagues to, to create straightforward systematic frameworks and, and checklists and step-by-steps and exercises and templates that people can follow. And I think that’s one of the things that frankly we do really well. I would, I would go so far to say, we do that as good, if not better than anyone in the world. I mean, that’s all we do. And, and yet I think the, one of the reasons that I loved her message is it’s such a good reminder to not get so caught up in the science in the system and the structure that you forget to take creative risks. One of the things, and we actually tell our clients this in world-class presentation craft, which is our it’s a phase one event. It’s, it’s the third course in phase one for us.

And at the very end, you know, we teach all these mechanics of the psychology of laughter and how to tell a story and how to develop characters and how to create a plot in conflict and how to sell from stage without feeling salesy and how to, you know, what’s the, what’s the structure and the outline of a, of a world-class presentation that, that separates it, you know, and, and gets higher fees than most presentations and all these things that we do, which are really awesome. And then at the very end, we say, remember, but, but here’s the thing, never let the science get in the way of the art, never let the science get in the way of the art at the end of the day, personal branding, leadership, just being a messenger in influencer, changing the world, it’s art. It is art and like all forms of art painting music, which I happen to not know much about, but I know enough to say this.

They all have rules and systems and structure that you must learn and operate within. But then at some point, once you’ve mastered those, the art is about transcending that, and, and that is part of what I was really inspired by for me personally, and for our clients at brand builders to just go, gosh, that’s so great. We’re, we’re kind of creating the science and the systematic structure. And the real goal is to get people to that point and then to have them transcend it, to do their own creative things and be, and be willing to take those risks. And I, and it actually left me wondering, frankly, as I assess my own personal brand going, I wonder if I’m not taking enough creative risk personally. Like I wonder if I’m coloring too much inside the lines, just being that that’s what we do and what we preach and what we teach and go, and where, where can I step up and step out and, and, and take a risk.

So, and there’s definitely things that we’ve done with that. I mean, when I think about when we launched the take the stairs book, you know, and one of the things that AIJ and R and I, and our team did was we did, we did a bus tour. We like got a tour bus, which you don’t see happen that often, anymore, even, even back in those days. And, you know, that was super creative, but we, we made it into a fundraiser and, and looking back, it was so powerful. We did 23 events in 31 days, went from all the way from New York to Washington and to San Diego and everywhere in between, and traveled the country and met and shook hands and met bookstore owners and connected with our fans. And it was just, there wasn’t like a playbook for it that we were following at that time.

We just did it. And it was, it was so powerful. So that’s one of my takeaways. And I would turn that to you to go, where have you kind of mastered the fundamentals that you could afford to take some creative risk? And I don’t think it’s impossible to take creative risk in from the very beginning, but I do think it’s kind of like, at least my personal experience has been one where it’s like, learn the rules before you break them, master the game, and then change the game. And is most of, I guess the paradigm of how I’ve operated, but that’s not to say that’s the only way to do it, but either way, whether you’re just like a wild gunslinger and you’re going to take creative risks early on, go for it. But to me, the part that really, what really spoke to me is once you have the systems, the structure, the fundamentals, the basics, you know, in place, and then going, okay now, like how can I add to it?

So take creative risks, lean into something you feel called to do, especially if it’s different from what other people do. This reminds me of one of my all time, favorite quotes from one of my all time, favorite people, Sally Hogshead, who Victoria also knows, and she’s she’s at NSA or so we, you know, the NSA crew, eventually, if you hang around NSA long enough, you’re going to meet all a bunch of these people. And particularly in the, in the speaking world, the legends of speaking, so to say but, but anyways, Sally Hogshead says different is better than better. Different is better than better. And that is so powerful. It makes me, makes me think about this. So that was my first takeaway. My second takeaway from this interview, which is not something Victoria said, it was something that the concept of risk forward and, and it was something, it was catalyzed by what she said, but I don’t think I’ve ever had this thought so directly and succinctly, as I did in the moments following this interview and kind of digesting the conversation.

And here’s, here’s what my premise is. This is what I realized. Being an entrepreneur is being an artist, being an entrepreneur is being an artist. Business is art. It’s not just numbers and financials and projections and, you know, sales talks and, and policies and procedures and systems. All of that put together is art. And I would say that, you know, the starving artist is, is, is a really unfortunate term. One of one of my good friends, Jeff goings wrote a book called real artists. Don’t starve, which I just loved the premise of that because, you know, the indulgent artists says my art is so good. People should have to find me, right. And who am I to tell you? You shouldn’t have that belief. But what I would say is experience tells me that’s not a very profitable belief to have, right? You can say that, but you’re probably not going to end up with much money.

There’s a lot of people that are amazing artists, amazing writers, amazing, amazing singers, dancers, speakers of like just authors comedians that I’ve met in my journey that you have never heard of. And that the world will never hear of because they have this belief that if my art is so good, people will find it. And what they’re missing is the realization that marketing is art. Marketing is artistry. There is art just like there is the art in the creation of the work. There is art in the promotion of the work. We have so many friends in book launches right now, Victoria being one of them John Lee Dumas being one of them, the Jamie Kern, Lima Luvvie Ajayi. Both of them just hit the new times bestseller list and, and their, their work is art, but the marketing is also art. So there’s two parts of the, of the artist and two parts of the business owner.

There’s the, the logic and the structure and the processes and the systems and the policies. And then there is the creative. There is the innovation. There is the new thinking. Being an entrepreneur is being an artist. Marketing is artistry. Customer experience is artistry. The one place there’s probably not room for much artistry is in your financial in your don’t, don’t take this too. We don’t want creative accounting practices. So I w I wouldn’t translate it there, but I would definitely say the way that a conductor orchestrates a symphony is the way that the entrepreneur conducts the company is the way that the leader or the executive conducts the huge organization that is art and leadership. And you have to realize that the art is not just in creating the work, but also promoting the work and, and helping the work flourish and, and having that work, see life and make an impact.

And a difference in the world being an entrepreneur is being an artist. That was my second takeaway, inspired that one inspired by Victoria. And then my third takeaway, which was directly from her, which is funny, because I’ve never heard her say this, and I’ve, I’ve never really realized the power of this quite the way that she said it. And basically what she said is don’t be afraid of uncertainty specifically in your decision-making, right? She said, what a lot of people do is we’re so uncomfortable with uncertainty that we rushed to make a decision, just so that we can have clarity and not have to live in the discomfort of uncertainty and what there’s a beautiful part of that. I think of where she’s saying, you know, kind of allow yourself to navigate that window for a moment, allow yourself to sit in that space to go.

I need to neither go forward or backwards. I can just kind of sit here for a minute and digest. I can allow for things to matriculate or to propagate. I can just kind of process on things for a minute, and that that’s a beautiful space to live in too. It’s almost to allow for a breath to allow for a moment of creativity or innovation to show up by not just rushing immediately into the next thing and moving from one thing to the next, but to actually to, yeah, just, just kind of I guess, digest and, and process, and you know, like have a gestation period of which you sit in uncertainty and that beautiful art can come out of that. And that, I think as another thing, this was eye opening for me, because I think I am a, I’m a driver, I’m a straight shooter, I’m ambitious, I’m focused, right?

And so it’s always like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, you know, like next, next, next X, X, what’s the next thing. And go, and Hey, is there a spot? Are there opportunities in my life that I am skipping past an opportunity for brilliance for the sake of rushing into clarity versus, I mean, this would be one place where procrastinate on purpose. I mean, you know, my book title that I wish I would have called how to multiply your time. But if, because the premise, the procrastinator purpose book is really about how to multiply time. That’s what the book is about. But that one, that one section, which is about procrastinating on purpose procrastinating, strategically, that actually isn’t what most of the book is about, but that’s kind of it’s that concept is relevant here to what she’s saying is like, wait, like sit for a moment and just kind of allow yourself to feel that uncertainty, because brilliance can come out of that.

And that was like, Whoa. So just powerful, powerful stuff. And I, I think unlocking your hidden genius is such a, such a great concept. I think it’s such a beautiful concept for her. Of course, the the title of her book is risk forward. And then she dropped that into the subtitle, embrace the unknown and unlock your hidden genius. And I th I just think that unlock your hidden genius is such a great concept and take creative risk is such a clear message. It’s profound. It’s going to be something that sticks with me. I hope that it sticks with you. Thanks for being here. Keep coming back. Lots of great, great insights coming from our guests. I’m so inspired by them. I hope that you’re inspired by them. I also am inspired. Our team is inspired most of all by you and who you are becoming and what you are being prepared to do. So keep coming back, we’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.

Ep 156: How to Unlock Your Hidden Genius with Victoria Labalme

RV: (00:00)

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)

I love when I get to introduce you to some of my oldest friends and mentors and people that I’ve looked up to for years. And that is the case with Victoria Labalme. She is a hall of fame speaker, which is how I know her from the national speakers association. Someone that I admired for years and somebody that I would say is truly one of the best platform presenters on the planet. And it all speaks to what she does. I mean, she was a performing artist who was originally trained directly under the world, renowned Marcel, Marceau. She is magnificent in keynotes. She, she has she’s the creator of programs that help people with this. But the reason that she’s on the show now is because she is releasing her first official, traditionally published book is called risk forward, embrace the unknown and unlock your hidden genius. And so we’re going to talk about building your personal brand in a world of uncertainty, accessing your energy genius, and just hearing her story about how she has built this extraordinary reputation and personal brand. So Victoria, welcome to the show.

RV: (02:13)

Hello, Rory. And hello everyone. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

RV: (02:18)

Yeah, of course. Well, you know, we’ve got so many interconnectivity points you’ve been to our events before, right? So I it’s, it’s, it’s the people in our community should know about you and should meet you. And, and so I, I wanted to, I wanted to just kinda like start off with a little bit about your, your, your personal brand and the, the unlocking your energy genius or unlocking your hidden genius. Which is, I think one of your, one of your taglines of subtitle of the book. And I want to talk about the presentation part of things, because that, to me is like, you know, part of where you came from you and I have that shared interest in, and a lot of people listening, they’re either doing, you know, virtual webinars, virtual keynotes and stuff like that. And I think when it comes to making that pivot from onstage live in front of humans, to now virtual keynotes and webinars and things, how do you, how do you make that transition and what are some of the things that we can do to just kind of like still over deliver as presenters, even though a lot of what we’re doing these days is virtual.

Speaker 3: (03:32)

So great question. It’s really, how do we create the virtual experience to have some of the pizazz that we are used to? Well, it all begins with taking creative risks. I have a session I do call risking forward on camera. And, you know, if you think about what you can do on stage, what can be translated and there are all kinds of ways, you know, those are a lot of technology out there. The people are using E cam and green screen and different camera angles and different mikes and music and instruments. And part of what I like to help people do as well though, is really take what’s within them, their hidden genius and bring that out. So that’s your content and your creative expression that only you do in the way that you do that distinguishes your brand. That’s part of what risking forward is.

Speaker 3: (04:21)

How can you create and communicate with the unexpected twist, the unexpected twist that distinguishes your brand. And that’s a core tagline of mine because, you know, everyone can put up a green screen, but what can only you do and how can you do it in your own way? So that starts with your personality, your past your passion. I call it the prison effect in each of us is a full spectrum of colors. So one of the things that make you distinct and different, you know, what stories, what props, what examples, what physicality, what expressions, how do you pull? So you don’t look from it, look, look like everyone else from everyone else’s perspective.

RV: (04:59)

Yeah. And I, you know, that’s interesting in terms of, it’s not so much an external thing of like a camera angle or lighting, or, you know, something fancy I’m doing on the screen, but you’re talking about accessing the internal uniqueness or you know, one of the terms we use around brand builders group all the time, which I originally got from you is through line. And this, this idea of the through line of your, of your message. We usually talk about that term related to your content. But like when you say a take take that, you know, take a creative risk, what is the thing that only I can do? How do I find that? Or is it just asking, okay, what stories can I tell that are unique to me? What props can I use? What physicality does it basically just come by asking myself those questions and then base it, then, then just giving myself permission to just go, yeah. Let’s act on that crazy idea. I mean, is it as simple as that?

Speaker 3: (05:58)

Well, yeah. I mean, part of it is trusting that the, the things that are different and weird about you are often valuable. I mean, Sally hogs had our good friend has a whole phrase called you know, different is better, you know?

RV: (06:14)

It is better than better. I love, I love that. Yeah, that is such a great line. Different is better.

Speaker 3: (06:19)

Oh, you meant different as being better for a long time. And it’s just, it’s true. Not, you know, not in a terrible way, but it there’s so much value. And what happens is, and I talk about this in the book risk forward. And I talk about this in my program, rock the room is we shave off parts of who we are to fit into a mold. So for me, I’m extremely physical and, you know, they’re all kinds of things I can do with my body, but other people are more visual, you know, and some people have instrumental skills and some people have comedic skills. So it’s really access to what’s unique and different to you. And bringing that out in terms of taking those creative risks. I always encourage people to do what I call is a micro risk, because you don’t want to go out in front of a thousand people on a zoom or on a video recording or a webcam and try something new for the first time.

RV: (07:05)

Oh, this I’m glad you’re saying this. Cause I was going to ask you about this. So you’re, you’re, you’re not testing it out in front of like, you know, the largest audience you’ve ever been in front of them.

Speaker 3: (07:15)

Right? I mean, any comedian will tell you two things. Number one, and this is my background is a performing artist, a comedian and a movement artist is that, you know, you’re either going to do one of two things. You’re either putting new content between two time-tested pieces of material. So that if it sags, if you tank your out quickly, so you put it in there and then you recover. But more importantly than that, the first time you do it should not be in front of your biggest, most important audience comedians tour their work across the country, in small clubs before they bring it to Broadway, same thing with shows. And it’s the same for us as presenters. What we do is we try it out with a few friends. We tried it with a couple of colleagues. Is it working? We refine it over time and we increased the size of that audience.

RV: (07:59)

Yeah. I mean, it’s funny cause I, I literally my, my original Toastmasters club, which is where, you know, like my speaking journey started cherry Creek Toastmasters. They last night I sent them a video. They asked, they asked if I would do a video of what, 15 years later, how it shaped my life. And I told them that my best jokes today are the ones that I originally wrote. The first renditions are versions for my icebreaker speech in front of eight people at my, like my local Toastmaster club. And you know, I think that’s interesting. I mean, you’re, you’re saying that as like every comedian knows, but I that’s a good reminder even for me. And I’m sure some people listening have never heard that, like don’t put new content, like put it in between two things so that you can recover and don’t test it out, like on, on the world’s biggest stage.

RV: (08:54)

So think that’s, I think that’s handy now on the topic of risk in general, risking is risky. And so I think, no matter if it’s even just writing a book or even doing a virtual presentation or maybe talking about a different topic or going live, like is a big thing right now, like it’s risky to go live on social because you don’t know it. You can’t add it. Talk to me about the emotional side of dealing with risk or managing risk. Even it could be in a business like, Hey, I wanna, I want to launch a new funnel or do something I’ve never done paid advertising. All of these concepts are, there is a fear of uncertainty, which I know is more about what risk forward is kind of about. So like how do I navigate the emotional side of, of uncertainty?

Speaker 3: (09:48)

Right? Well, I’ll start by explaining where the term risk forward was born. Years ago, as you benched in my introduction, I studied with the French mime, Marcel Marceau, and people love to joke, Oh, you’re a speaker, but you studied mine, which is a stupid joke. You want

RV: (10:08)

It actually took me a second to get it. I was like, what? Oh, Oh, okay. Okay. Now I see now I see.

Speaker 3: (10:14)

Yeah. I always tell people, be careful not to say the obvious because you lower your status. It’s like, if someone’s laughing,

RV: (10:21)

Right. That is so funny. I’ve never heard that. I love that. That’s funny.

Speaker 3: (10:27)

Yeah, no, it’s true. If someone’s really tan, don’t say you’re really tan. If someone’s last name is hamburger, don’t make a joke about it. Like, cause they’ve, they’ve guaranteed. They’ve heard it. So have I heard mom jokes? Yes. Do I need to hear them? No, because when I do, I’m like, okay, you’re now in the category of a certain

RV: (10:45)

Type. You’re that guy. You’re

Speaker 3: (10:46)

That guy. So you don’t want to be that guy. In any event. I studied with Marcel Marceau and there was a type of movement. He called he scab, they schema. And it was, it was a way of being almost like the sale of a boat. You know, you were arched open with the wind, your body. And for those of you listening, who can’t see me, I’m my body is arched open, like the wind. And it was, it felt very exposed, a little scary. And I’ve come to think of that as a philosophy for how we approach our work in our life. And I returned it risk forward and trademarked it years ago. And it’s really how do we go forward heart open, even if we’re a little off balance because the mistake that we each make and part of what I address in the book is that we think we should always be clear.

Speaker 3: (11:35)

We think we should always have a plan. We think we must have a goal if we’re going to succeed. And having worked with so many people from top executives at Starbucks and PayPal, these are my clients, the C-suite at these companies like Microsoft Starbucks, PayPal entrepreneurs, running multi-million dollar brand. Speaking on Oprah’s stage artists from Hollywood. I’ve learned that many of them didn’t always have clarity or a plan. And so while it’s good to have some idea, sometimes you can meet with great success without always knowing where you’re heading and we all have that experience in our lives. And that’s what risking forward is about. And it’s lots of stories and examples and tools and principles from the arts to help you navigate through that. Not knowing through that period of uncomfortable near miss discomfort to find your best way forward. And so whether it’s to your point, you know, you’re launching a new funnel or you’re putting together a new blog or podcast, there’s a ton of unknown. And what we do is often as we grasped for like the, the, the simplest the most convenient way out or what everyone else is doing instead of finding what’s original to us, even if it’s not been done before.

RV: (12:52)

Hmm. I love that. And the, the, that con that was re re is the translation of what Marcel used to say, is it, does it translate directly as risk forward or is it not really the direction?

Speaker 3: (13:11)

Not really. I mean, it was my interpretation of it. I mean, this is obviously risk and Evonne means in front of

RV: (13:17)

Huh. Huh. Yeah. But that’s,

Speaker 3: (13:20)

If all means before or in front of, so huh.

RV: (13:24)

So, but that, that concept of, of, of even just applying these principles of the arts to the way that we live and the way we make business decisions is to kind of like, be willing to almost like listen to the way you feel pulled in the direction and not necessarily just what is clear because it’s of what has been done before. And that’s why, I mean, in a COVID like in a world of COVID, I mean, this is our life. I mean, our, everything, like in this moment, at the time of this recording, which is before your book is coming out, we are living in a complete world of uncertainty. Like nobody knows what’s going to happen next month or in the next six months, it’s just like, this is the world that we, that we live in. And so it seems like somehow, and I would say this about you as a friend that you you’ve been able to give yourself that permission to just kind of like explore the wonder of that rather than to fight against it. Is that yeah. Would that be accurate to say

Speaker 3: (14:30)

It is accurate to say, and my life is I I’m pleased and humbled to say that my life has been extraordinary. The career I’ve had, the successes I’ve had, the personal successes I’ve had have led so many people to say to me, how’d you get to where you are? What was your plan? And I always say, I didn’t have a plan. You know, I did what was next. And I learned that in my life for my parents. And I’m here to tell you, I am living proof. And the people in the book are living proof that there are all kinds of other ways forward and it’s freeing to people it’s freeing. And I think it also depends on what you value, because if, if you know, if what you’re after is status you might not take as many risks and it oddly it’s the risk taking.

Speaker 3: (15:20)

That’s going to get you there. You know, and same thing with finance. You know, if, if you’re trying certain mechanisms to generate a ton of sales, but the word, my word back to the, your through line is not pure. It’s not going to last long. And so we’re always coming back to what’s, what’s truthful, what’s that inner current, and this may sound woo, but I have worked with the top executives, as I mentioned, and this translates and it is redirected companies. It is redirected teams, it’s redirected entrepreneurs and artists of all kinds to come back to that because it’s the pure path forward.

RV: (16:02)

You know, I would, I would second that, yeah, there is one of my friends here in Nashville is a guy named Jerry Jeremy coward, who is he is an artist. He is one of the best photographers in the world and shoots Taylor Swift. He shot the Pope. I mean, just amazing. And I remember one time you know, he liked did this, there were some fires in Tennessee and he went and took pictures of the houses that burned down and just to like showcase to the world, like how devastating this was. And I asked him, I was like, dude, where did you come up with the idea to do it? And he said, he said, I just felt it. I just had it. And he said that everybody has those crazy ideas. The difference between me and everyone is I actually listened to them. That’s right. And, and Jeremy is an artist. And I would say, right right now I have two personal friends that are billionaires which is a recent thing. I’ve, I’ve interviewed several of them, but there’s actually two that I now know personally and interact with on a fairly regular basis. And I would say these are business billionaires, like business. And I would say, this is true about them. Yes. They

Speaker 3: (17:12)

Literally, in both

RV: (17:14)

Cases, they were both told that what they were doing was stupid. It made no sense. It was ridiculous. It would never ever work. And so it’s like, there’s not that much different know. I think being an entrepreneur is being an artist.

Speaker 3: (17:31)

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the argument I make in the book and exactly that the successes we’ve each had. And I think anyone listening can think back on their lives, some of the most extraordinary successes that you’ve had happened when you were following that. And there are many, many stories of that when you took that creative risk, even though you didn’t know where it was going to lead, but it felt like the right thing to do either morally ethically, or just creatively curiosity wise. And that, as I always say to my clients, one of three things will happen when you risk forward. And they’re all good either. You’ll discover the ideas. Terrific. And it’ll come out to be something like your friend with the photographs. Yeah. Number two, it will be the step that leads to the next one. And so you’ll realize that wasn’t quite it, but it took you down the right path and you wouldn’t have seen the right path.

Speaker 3: (18:22)

Had you not taken that step. For my case, it was doing standup comedy. I thought, Oh, this is my thing. This is many, many years ago. I took that step forward and I realized that wasn’t it. But it was actually my trying to get into a comedy club show. It was, I was trying to audition for the HBO Aspen comedy festival. And I was in a comedy clubs thinking that was my path. And someone from the speaking world saw me and said, Victoria, you should come and be a speaker who would have thought, so it’s following that steps. That’s the second thing. And the third possibly the most important of all is that they say the number one regret of the dying is that they didn’t take more risks. People say, I lived life on other people’s terms. I didn’t take the risk I want, and I never tried X or Y or Z. And you don’t want to die. Wishing you taken more risks. So risking forward is all about finding what’s ahead by stepping forward into it. Even if you don’t know.

RV: (19:21)

Mm. How do you balance this idea of having a plan? Cause that’s something we do. I do this in my life. We teach people to do it as like we do set targets. We do have goals. We do, you know, we have a budget for our company that we have to operate by. Like, you know, there’s, there are KPIs and there are, you know, new initiatives and we have project management and you know, these are things we do that have helped us scale at least to where we have been. How do you balance the idea of goals and planning, but also what you’re saying, which is more of, of risk-taking. And I, I, you know, I, I think an intuition or creativity, like how do you reconcile these two? Or do you, do you think one is right and one is wrong? Or do you, do you think there’s some type of a balance and how do you, how do you find your way there?

Speaker 3: (20:17)

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s a, it’s a both and type of scenario. I’m all for goals and plans and clarity. And I have that with this book. I have this with projects in my business and in my personal life, what I’m addressing is the in-between when we’re between moments of clarity. So let’s say you’re coming up with the plan for your year, or you’re coming up with how you want to approach your new podcast. Are you new speaker demo or your new blog as you’re in what I call in the book, the fog of not knowing it’s how you embrace that fog embrace the unknown. As I say, in the subtitle of the book that will determine your success. And most people are so uncomfortable with not knowing that they want to make a plan as quickly as possible. And that’s where we screw up.

Speaker 3: (21:07)

So in a personal life, it’d be like the woman who’s 29, who says she has to get married by the time she’s 30 looks around, sees her two viable candidates and picks one, even though it’s not right, that’s you see that happen all the time. I have many friends who got married because they were scared and they wanted something in place. And 10 years later they’re divorced and it’s messy. The same thing in our work. We don’t want to be in the phase of not knowing people are afraid. So they make a decision really quickly. I’m going to go this direction or we’re going to do that. And when we make that commitment, the potential for loss opportunity, cost stress, money, time, creative expression that goes down the tubes. And we’ve all had those moments in our lives where we’ve committed to something out of fear, because we want to look clear and everyone else is doing it.

Speaker 3: (21:55)

And then two years later, or two months later, we realize what was propelling us forward was not something from within and something that lit us up, but something that we thought we should do from the outside. And that’s what I want to help people save themselves from, because I have seen it around the world and I’ve spoken around the world and Japan and Brazil and France, there’s so much that’s lost and there’s so much sameness homogeneity and you see it in all industries and this is risky for it is all about breaking through that and doing it the way only you can.

RV: (22:29)

Yeah. I mean, I think this message of taking creative risk is going to stick with me. And gosh, there’s just so many examples of this in, in my life. And it it’s such a relevant time for this conversation. Cause we like are living in such uncertainty right now. And yet that’s why like there’s more millionaires made in down markets than ever before, is all these opportunities emerge. And if you just kind of like listen to it and step in that direction. So I wanna, I want to tell everybody this, all right now this won’t apply to all of you because we’re releasing this episode before Victoria’s book comes out. And if you happen to hear this in this, this little window, so your book, your book comes out on March 16th. And if you, if you go now either way, you’re going to get some good things.

RV: (23:24)

But if you go before March 16th if you go to risk forward.com forward slash book, there are some incredible bonuses that she is giving away. Both here on the emotional side related to, you know, like working through uncertainty, but also there’s some real practical things related to some of her in terms of being a physical performer, which are just extraordinary. So if you go to risk forward.com forward slash book, by the way, if you’re international, you can also order, which is rare. She’s got an international thing set up. If it’s after that date, it’s totally fine. You could still go there. You’re going to get some bonuses and some extra resources that she has included. But if you get this before, you’ve got a little window to go to go check it out. So risk forward.com forward slash book is where we will, we will put it.

RV: (24:16)

I am, I’m giving a shameless plug here for my friend that I’ve known for years who you can see just her, her wisdom and, and how graceful and in touch she is with exploring this artistic side. And I believe that it will help you unlock your hidden genius. And that’s why I want to encourage you to at least go check it out. Right. plus it’s a great opportunity as always to go see how someone is executing her pre-launch and doing her launch and how she does her book website. So other than that, Victoria, is there anywhere you would point people to or anything you want to leave us with?

Speaker 3: (24:53)

Yeah. Well, that’s it, that’s the website. We have an amazing video up there. That’s one minute and 40 seconds, which shows a bit more of what the book looks like, because here’s the thing. This is not a typical book. It breaks the mold of what a book is. It’s an experience. Every page is different. You can read the book in any order. Each chapter is unique unto itself. There isn’t a book like this that I’ve seen. It is my ability of bringing through. And this is what I want you each do for yourself. Take your different sides. I took my background in arts and in performance and in poetry and in business and an entrepreneurship. And I put it all together into a book experience. That’s my style. What’s your style? How do you do it? Not like me, but like you. And so check out the book, not to copy it because that would be a bummer.

Speaker 3: (25:42)

Cause it wouldn’t be you, but to do what you do in the way only you can and that’s, what’s going to distinguish you. So this is all about, as I say, in the book at the edge of not knowing, cause I didn’t know how I was going to do this book in the beginning, but then it became clear as I stepped into it. So at the edge of not knowing is the beginning of the extraordinary. So trust yourself, risk forward, put those ideas out there. I have tons of tools in the book for how to do that. I’m so excited if you’re ordering this before the book launches, we have a book team that you can be part of you get inside behind the scenes of what’s happening. But thank you worry for having me. I’m so happy to be here. You’re a stellar human being. Love it.

RV: (26:25)

Thank you, Victoria. We wish you all the best with your launch and far, far beyond. And you know, we’ll be, we’ll be watching closely. So good luck. Thank you.

Ep 155: SEO Secrets for Personal Brands with Neil Patel | Recap Episode

One of the things that I love about podcasting and being a podcaster. I mean, I enjoy being the guest, right. But I really love being the host because I love being the student. And what’s amazing about podcasting is the people that you meet like Neil Patel. Okay. This is welcome to the recap edition. I’m breaking down the interview that I did with Neil Patel. I’m rolling solo tonight. I’m filling in for a CEO, mamma AJ, who by the way, quick shout out to those of you, those of you out there momming hard. I mean, momming is no joke. It is, it is unrelenting, right? The work is never done. It never stops. You’re never caught up to babies. Always need ya. And just for those of you, if you’re listening and you are a mom, man, we see you. We see you. So I am filling in for mama CEO AJ tonight.

And back to what I was saying, getting a chance to meet people like Neil Patel through your podcast. I mean, what an amazing honor. And I think, you know, it’s one of the things that’s so cool about this industry. I used to be in w when I was coming up as a speaker, I spent a lot of time in comedy clubs, and I quickly realized that speak comedians, the culture for whatever reason is they don’t, they don’t help each other. They view each other more like competition, at least in the comedy clubs that I, I went to, but, but speakers and influencers and thought leaders, there’s just this, this air of, we want to help each other. We’re open, you get to meet each other. And, and the more years you’re around, the more amazing people that you made. And so what a great time to interview Neil Patel, some of you maybe don’t know who he is, but he is pretty much the godfather of SEO.

I mean, one of the, one of the, truly one of the world’s thought leaders and most recognizable authorities on search engine optimization. And so getting a chance to chat with him was really, really fun. I’ll obviously go back and listen to the interview, and I’m going to give you, I’m going to give you my three biggest takeaways, like always, but that’s, that’s kind of a bonus takeaway and brand builders. One of our courses and events is called podcast power. And we talk about, you know, how the mechanics of launching a podcast, how to run them, how to grow them, how to get great guests. And, and one of the things we say is that one reason just in and of itself of why you should do a podcast is because of the extraordinary networking opportunity. And this certainly was, was that for me in every episode, I mean, it’s amazing the people that we get to meet, but in terms of the tactical takeaways, and this was a super duper tactical topic, you know, search engine optimization for personal brands.

And for us, this, for those of you that are members of ours, you know, that this falls under phase three course, one high traffic strategies, which is where we introduced the introduced search engine optimization. So we, we kind of tell our clients, you know, this is something you shouldn’t really worry about until you’ve got your stuff built. And, and this is more of like the icing on the cake than it is the cake itself. But over time it can be the real game changer. So it’s a SEO, typically is not one of those things that you make a lot of money with short term, or you don’t drive a lot of traffic short term, but it’s like, long-term wealth. It’s not like a get rich quick. This is, this is the longterm wealth building part of personal branding and is super, super critical.

So here’s my first takeaway, which boggled my mind, because you got one of the most advanced thinkers in the world on SEO. And what is his number one tip? What is his number one, if you know nothing else, you know, I asked Neil Patel, if you have, if you know nothing else about SEO search engine optimization, what is the one thing you must do? And I thought he might say keyword research. He didn’t say that. I thought that he might say you know, site loading speed. He didn’t say that. I thought he, he might say links. He didn’t say that the number one thing that he said, keep posting content, keep posting content. The most advanced, one of the most advanced thinkers in the world on SEO sharing his number one tip, which is keep posting content. This is it. Y’all like how many people do you have to hear it from before you, you buy in to this idea of, of what we call the content diamond and the relationship engine and all the systems and strategies that we teach of posting every single week, weekend, and week out and breaking that content apart, repurposing it, pushing it in to as many places as possible, and just pumping your content and your ideas out into the universe as fast as you possibly can because you reach more people and it drives everything.

It drives speaking, it drives book sales, it drives followers. It drives media interviews, right? Like it drives your email list. It drives your recruiting and, and it drives your search engine optimization, keep posting content. As, as Neil said, it is a few things done with discipline consistently over a long period of time. I mean, it’s take the stairs. I mean, this is it. It just, it keeps come. It always comes back to the fundamentals. And I think it’s like, we get so star struck or we go chasing, you know, we’re like chasing stars trying to find this, you know, this magic pill and the secret potion and the hidden formula. And, and th the truth of success is it’s right in front of your face. It is obvious. It is basic. It is simple. It is fundamental. And the biggest personal brands in the world just deliver week-in and week-out on the fundamentals.

Meanwhile, everyone else is wasting time looking for some hack or some secret pill or, or some, you know, trick that it just isn’t the core of, of how it’s done. And, you know, have to CA had to highlight that. Cause that’s what stuck with me. Like that’s what stuck with me is every time I meet these top top level influencers, how they always just bring it back to the fundamental. So keep posting content, keep pushing your ideas out there, produce it as fast as you can, and as slow as you have to. So, you know, if you can increase the speed, do it, if you can’t that’s okay, just start with what you have, do what you can and put as much content out there in the world as you can, but keep posting content and your search engine rankings will climb as a result, second tip, which was very tactical and this one was more advanced, right?

So if you’re looking for the like, well, what was the, what was the, you know, what was the real technique or the strategy? I thought this was super helpful as he said, start narrow, but do it inside a big market. So go after narrow terms, I would summarize this as go after niche terms in broad topical areas, right? So for example, I mean, personal branding is, is, is that’s a pretty niche term still. But you know, even anything with personal branding is probably niche and marketing is a very broad topic. There’s a lot of search volume there. And specifically what he said is when you start start with any term that has more than 500 searches per month and an SEO difficulty rating of under 40, all right. So I thought that was handy because there’s all these different tools. You know, he mentioned his tool Uber suggest we use that.

We use Google, Google, Google has its own search console, where can it has its own goop, the keyword, I think it’s called the keyword tool that you can use. And we use a plugin, a Chrome plugin called keywords everywhere, which is amazing. And it costs a little bit of money, but it’s amazing for what it does. And, and you know, we’re always kind of going, Oh, well, how many, how many is the right? Like, what’s the right difficulty to go after? And what’s, you know, what’s enough search volume that it’s worth doing, but not so much that, you know, you’re going to get squashed by competitors. And so I thought that was, that was super practical start with any term that has at least 500 searches a month, which I interpret. And I, you know, he said explicitly is that if it’s less than 500, it’s almost not worth optimizing for that term.

There’s not enough traffic. There’s not enough people searching that term every month for it to be worth your time to kind of optimize for. So go for something that is over 500, but less than a 40 on the difficulty ranking. So it’s, it’s like a term that is searched, but it’s not super highly competitive. But what that will do is that allows you to kind of draw in traffic and start building site authority and start building your email list, which helps you grow more traffic. And if you do the stuff that we teach in the relationship engine, like set up your RSS feed, that’s automatically emailing your new subscribers. Every time you post a new blog or a new podcast to your blog, then you’re, you’re, you’re starting this upward snowball like this upward spiral. And I think that’s, you know, that’s super powerful.

And then he said after a year, after a year of doing that, you can start targeting terms that get more like 5,000 searches a month and have more of like a difficulty of 60. But, you know, he doesn’t have any like magic FAC, like other than that, which is still pretty basic. There’s not something stuck, some Ninja voodoo trick that he does. That’s like magic potion. That, that, that works. It’s consistency. It’s some basic fundamentals. Do some keyword research, you know, be mindful of, of the topics that you’re writing, but put out value and put it out, put it out consistently. But you know, that, that rule, that’s a handy little rule. So 500 go for at least 500 with a difficulty of 40. If you’re just starting out, if you’ve been, if you’ve been posting consistently for longer than a year, then go ahead and start going after terms for 5,000 with a difficulty of 60 or under.

But, but I w I would say, even if you’ve been, you know, blogging or, or podcasting, or just posting content to your blog specifically, which is, you know, another kind of underlying part of this, which is why we talk about, you know, we love social, social media is important, but social media is like very short term. Everything long-term is web, which is your blog. So you need to like, take, make your, make your blog, the home, the headquarters of your digital footprint, make your, your articles and your, you know, specifically text, right? The, the, the, the crawlers, the search engine, like bots, these crawlers, they can crawl text easily. Whereas video and audio, it’s, it’s not, it’s not as crawlable. It’s that technology isn’t as much there. So it’s like, what, how much text can you get on your site? And specifically that usually lives in your blog.

So when he says, if you’ve been blogging longer than a year, go after search terms with a volume of 5,000 or more, I would say, make sure that you go back and optimize all of your, your, your earlier posts first, right? So, because if you, even, if you have more than a year’s worth of content, let’s say 52 articles. That’s what, that’s, what we teach people to do is one, one every week. Even if you have more than that in the past, make sure you go do the work of optimizing every single article before you start playing more aggressively, because you need those. If you have a bunch of articles, but they’re not performing, then your site isn’t really getting the traffic or building the authority to compete for the higher volume search terms, the more competitive search terms. So make sure that you’re optimizing for the lower ones.

Now, if all of this, it sounds like garlic and like another language to you. Number one, I would encourage you to check out our high traffic strategies event, where we teach, you know, search engine optimization Google ads, Facebook ads, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, and you know, kind of a little more of these advanced, but that’s why it’s in phase three. I mean, this is a phase three event for us. It’s core it’s course, one in phase three, but if the, if the standard brand builder curriculum, our standard curriculum is a one curriculum that’s divided into four phases, and each phase has three courses. This would be number seven out of 12, just to give you a reference high traffic strategies is number seven out of 12. Now we actually have more than 12 events because we have some other ancillary ones as well, but our core curriculum is 12.

And we teach this in number seven. So I’m saying that to point back to going, Hey, optimize your posts. And if you, you know, if you’re all brand new to this, you know, the basics of how you optimize any page. Okay. So, so first of all, is you want to, you want to do some keyword research, figure out what, what terms do I want every single page or every article on my site, top two to rank for. Right? And so you, you be deliberate about that, figure that out, and then you want to optimize that page by including those terms, if you can.