Author: AJ Vaden

Ep 252: Community Building in the Real World and the Metaverse with Tristan Ahumada

RV (00:00:08):
Y’all you are gonna have a great time with me as I introduce you to one of my newer friends, but a guy that I’ve really come to love and enjoy hanging around his name is Tristan Ahumada. And he has someone that do the real estate space. And his personal brand is now extending out of that. But he started as an agent. So when he was in his twenties, he was rookie of the year at century 21. And quickly became one of the top agents. And still today he’s in the top 1% of all realtors. Well then in 2014, he founded a Facebook group and a popular social media page. That’s called lab code agents has over 137,000 members and built a community all around this industry. That’s some of what we’re gonna talk about. And so he still does that. And then today he’s also the CEO and founder of a brilliant tribe where he does speaking and consulting on social media strategy and, and community building and various things. And so it was an absolute, no brainer. We got to meet through success magazine. We have a, a mutual friend in Glen Sanford who now owns success magazine. And anyways, Tristan, welcome from the show, man,
TA (00:01:24):
Dude, happy to be here, bro. I’m happy.
RV (00:01:27):
It’s great to see you. So talk to me about, first of all, how did you build a Facebook group of 137,000 members? Because that applies to all of us you, whether it’s Facebook group or something else, but I know like community building has really become like one of community growth community building. I feel like has really become one of your, your superpowers. And then also one of the things that you’re really known for teaching out there in the market. So tell us how to do it.
TA (00:02:02):
All right. So you get a whole by bunch of Russian hackers and I’m joking. You could do it that way too. I’m sure. But the, the way that I did it was and this is where we overthink things. I defined the group that I was creating from the very beginning with the one simple thing that I was great at and that I enjoy doing. And at that time it was online lead conversion. That was it. So when I created this, I was speaking around the nation for realtor.com and I kept on getting the same questions over and over. I looked over to my wife on a plane ride and she said, start a Facebook group. And I said over, okay. And I started a Facebook group and it was just solely on online lead conversion. So the name came about by me and my friend, and he’s still our lead coordinator for our real estate team.
TA (00:02:56):
His name’s Jacob Fry. We sat in a room for two hours and we came up with the name lab code agents because we wanted to show the real estate world that there is a science behind, behind creating better online lead conversion. And that was it. And so when I go to people or businesses and I say, look, it’s time create a community, but don’t necessarily build it on an area, right? Like I work in this area, I’m gonna build it here or, or don’t build it around a specific business, like all for, let’s say you’re talking to attorneys, right? Let’s build it on something you love. It could be as simple as kayaking. It could be as simple as cars or the beach, right. It, and what happens is, as you start bringing all these people together around this passion that you have, everyone knows that you’re in that specific business and that’s you overthink? We’re like, well, it only has to be about this specific thing for my business. Right. And that’s, that’s the challenge that I face at the very beginning.
RV (00:04:10):
Yeah. So I hear a couple things in that the first, like me, your wife is responsible for all of your success hundred percent. The other thing is that, and I think this is a mistake that I’ve certainly made is just going like, oh, I, I have to sort of like build a community around like me, my business, you know, what the thing I’m selling versus building, building a community around a topic of things that you’re interested in. And I think it’s it, that alone. I think that, that even as you talk like that mindset shift makes a lot of sense to me because it’s also disarming in, right? Like if someone’s going, oh, I’m gonna opt into this group. So someone can eventually sell something to me, that’s a completely different environment versus, Hey, I found a bunch of people who like the same stuff that I like and one naturally inhibits growth and the, the other accelerates growth. So I think that’s huge. So do you, do you truly approach it? Like when you advise people on this, do you really say, like, don’t worry about the business. Like, don’t worry about making money from this. Just figure out basically how to throw a good party.
TA (00:05:25):
That’s that’s it, man. I, I reverse engineered what I created. I never ever envisioned making millions from creating a Facebook group. Right. And never did. I think I was building a community. I just thought I was just giving back. And so I, I want people to, to take on this community building as, as the, here, this one thing, and that’s the ability to give back, right? The ability to give back on the things that you love, this is why I’ve actually been thinking I’m like, should I, I love journals. So I love buying journals and journaling, all that stuff. And I’m like, should I start?
RV (00:06:02):
I love buying journals, but I don’t need to journal.
TA (00:06:07):
Well, dude, you and I need to talk where you buy your journals first. Cause I’m always looking. But I’m thinking, should I, should I start a group or, or a community around journaling? Because I I’ve created so many groups now at this point for different companies and we can just grow them. Right. All along the belief that, Hey, you like this, I like this. That means I’m gonna get along with you. Right. And, and then here’s the second part after you define the group. So let’s say you do the, the journal one. What does the brand look like? Nobody ever stops to think about, well, what do I believe then this is your expertise RO the branding. Right. But what is it that this group stands for? And to take it up a little bit more, let’s think all the way. And this is what I did when I created lab coats. I go think all the way to the end. What would the logo look like on a hat and a shirt on a notebook, on a banner? Would people wear it right? And would people be proud to wear it based on what I stand for? And nobody thinks on that when you’re building, even if it’s a journal community,
RV (00:07:20):
It’s like a sport rep, a sports team, basically it’s like, we’re a Jersey or, or something that you take you take pride in. Now, when you talk about building groups, are you, are you talking pretty specifically about Facebook groups or are you kind of, so initially in general,
TA (00:07:35):
Initially it was. And then I, as I started growing lab code agents, I understood that it was just, it was beyond lab codes. Now it’s a big community outside of lab codes. So it, it includes Facebook groups. It includes newsletters, which are extremely powerful, right? Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, everything. You can imagine, even websites pod cast blogs, and we just bring it all together. So I’ve, I’ve created this team that allows companies to come in and be like, well, what are you missing? Or what are you struggling with? Let’s, let’s kinda supplement that piece with us and we’ll take it from there. So we help them. If they haven’t created one, we help them. If they have, we see where they’re at, what they’re missing and then we plug it.
RV (00:08:24):
Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. Like we talk about what we do. I mean, brand builders is very exclusive to personal brand strategy. We take a person and we go, we’re gonna build a brand around this, which I think is an evolution from historically branding has been, there’s a company let’s brand the company. It almost occurs to me the way you’re describing this, that this is like a, a different entity. This is more of like branding a topic like, or branding an area of interest mechanically. Like I would say personal branding. Like a lot of times I tell people, they go, Hey, will you come do this for the comp for my company? And my answer is no. We don’t work with companies. We’ll work. We’ll do it for your executive or your, your, your founder. But the principles we teach apply there. And I think it’s, the mechanics are very similar, right? You launch a podcasting, you have a YouTube group, but it’s very, like, it’s literally dawning on me as you described this. And I’ve heard you talk about it before, but it’s like hitting me in this moment that it’s like, you’re branding a topic. Like you’re building you’re, you’re kind of like putting a rope around. We’re the people who all like this thing. And so that’s it, dude, is that it is that right? That’s how you, yeah. And
TA (00:09:33):
You know, what’s funny, I’ve never done the reverse, which is what you do. I’ve never, I’ve never done it for a specific person. I mean, I’m thinking back, it’s like, we’ve got a virtual assistant company. We’ve got a lot of SAS companies. We’ve got brokerages, like big national brokerages. We’ve got, we’ve got companies that sell products tech. Oh yeah, dude. You’re right. Never a person. Interesting.
RV (00:10:01):
So well I think that’s a huge and, and even so, so just to be clear, let’s say whatever company, I don’t know, home Depot hires, you, you don’t go start a home Depot, Facebook group, Facebook group, and a, a home Depot podcast. You, your advice would be like, let’s start a DIY podcast. Got it. A DIY, you know, YouTube channel and a DIY Facebook group.
TA (00:10:27):
Yeah, dude, I’ll give you an example. So I was approached by a company called virtue desk. And I’m, I’m telling you this one, because it’s exactly what we did there, virtual assistant company. But I said, let’s not name it that right. Why don’t we focus on leverage right. On the leverage aspect
RV (00:10:46):
To that don’t name, the Facebook group, you’re saying you don’t wanna name the Facebook group
TA (00:10:50):
That you got it. So we named it leverage and then powered by virtue desk. Right. And then we, we started a whole, every, all around leverage. And now people understand when they’re like leverage. Oh yeah, of course. Right. What, what do we need staff to leverage and tech. And that’s what we did. We, we talk about staffing, we talk about tech and then inevitably people bring up virtual assistance. And that’s how we’ve grown them over the last year and a half. And now dude, they’re on the community. It’s like the community. Then we build the team, right. Because the other part to this is, well, if I’m building a community who do I need? Right. And I think that that’s a challenge because I’ve also seen communities fall apart. When you bring in, when you bring in people that are very ego driven, that they need to be the face of it over, Hey, let’s work as a team. Everybody’s got their part. You’re great. Over here. You’re great over here. Right. And that that’s a challenge sometimes. But when it comes to a company, Rory, what I found is that you target the best users, those users that are so proud to use the product. Right. And they’ll come in and they’ll do it for free. Wow.
RV (00:12:09):
So it’s like, you’re targeting the super fans and saying, Hey, you you’re basically like waving giving them the badge and saying you’re in
TA (00:12:16):
Charge. Yep. And that’s what we’ve done. So that’s the first question I get from businesses. So how many people are we gonna need to hire? I’m like, well, hold on. Because when you run the community, you use your super fans. You just give them, give them swag, give them, instead of them having to, by the merchandise, give it to them, invite them to events, make them feel like they are part of the inside group. Right. And then you see that it starts coming up. It’s like, whoa, this is amazing. I can’t believe they do this for free hell R I do it for free. When, when Glen reached out to me to run the success magazine thing with you, I, I was like, dude, I’ll do it for free. He’s like, no, I’m paying you. I’m like, okay, well I was gonna do it for free.
RV (00:13:02):
Yeah. Well that, it, it, it’s almost like the difference between, you know, like who wants to follow an account on social media that is from a company. Right. And it’s like, what are you gonna talk about? Like you’re staff meetings and your staff birthdays. Like, I don’t care about that. But if it’s, it’s almost like going, instead of having a, a, an account that’s based on your company, you go start a themed account, like a meme account. Yes. On whatever the topic is. Yes. It hit me like a light bulb brother. It makes a lot of sense. It also makes me realize that have been very, very bad at this. I don’t think I’ve ever like, you know, really, really GRA grasped this perfectly. So while I have you, I, I would be Remi if I didn’t ask you about real estate, because I I’m, you’re like the guy and we have I was talking, you sharing this with you.
RV (00:13:57):
Before that we started that there is a brand builders group. Like our clients are basically two groups. They’re the expert, newer types, the coaches, speaker, author, consultants, and then more and more, it is professional services type people. The doctors, the lawyers, chiropractors, the, and real estate specifically is we find ourselves attracting a lot of, of agents. And you know, we, we know some about the industry, but like, I just wanna ask you directly, how do you think real estate agents should be using their personal brand in the market it today? Like, how would you say this is how, if you’re a real estate agent this is how you should do social media. This is how you should do podcasting. This is how you do your YouTube channel. What
TA (00:14:50):
A, what a great question. So, one of the things that I got to do over the years because of lab code agents is consult Facebook and Instagram. So I was just, I was on the phone with them. Two weeks ago, we were breaking down everything and we were going over this exact thing. And when I was looking at where the world is, and they were looking at it with me, if you look at the five most visited websites in the world, it’s Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter who knew, and Instagram, those are the five most visited websites. Now TikTok is on the rise. It’s like number 20. And it could be like number 18 as of today, who knows. But when I look at this four out of the top five are social media, and this is the way the world communicates. This is the way it delivers messages.
TA (00:15:44):
This is the way it builds relationships and, and communities connect this way. And this is why I was talking to Facebook about this. And I’m like, man, this is, this is branding, right? The, if you want, if you’re looking at branding, where do you go to get the most out of what you want to do? You, you meet the client where they’re at and that’s Google YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok do it. And so now you have to come up with a plan that makes sense. And now you have to understand Facebook. Well, what do you have? You have groups. You have Facebook live. You have now reels. You have some stories. You have messengers, you have rooms and soon you’re gonna have, well, you better be buying an Oculus now because that’s gonna let you into the metaverse right next,
RV (00:16:34):
This, this is what I’m gonna ask you about next. So you, that’s such a great segue. I didn’t prepare you for it, but I’m gonna ask you about that next.
TA (00:16:41):
Perfect. All right. Next, you got Instagram. Same thing, feed stories. I GTV, which now shifted to, just to just video. And then you’ve got reels is where it’s at. Right? Reels is definitely where it’s at. And then same thing with TikTok. Tiktok only really got two, which is lives. And the up to three minute TikTok feeds on your feed, but what, what are you, what are you doing? Where where’s the world heading? Right. Well, right now it’s in short video, right? That’s why YouTube jumped on. That’s why Facebook has reels. Instagrams got reels talks on the way up, but what’s next? I mean, that’s where, that’s where look at the number one most downloaded app. What, what was the number one most downloaded app on Christmas day. Just on Christmas day, it was Oculus the Oculus I’m like what? I’m like, that’s where the world is heading.
RV (00:17:41):
Okay. That’s so I, I wanna, okay. I, yeah, we, I wanna talk about that for sure. So I love this, by the way, do rattle off Facebook, you were talking about what are all the things, because Facebook has a, like, you’ve got a fan, you’ve got a group you’ve got. Yeah. So
TA (00:17:57):
The main things feed, you’ve got groups you’ve got Facebook live, you’ve got the feed, you’ve got reels, you’ve got stories. You’ve got the page. So business, right. You’ve got rooms so much, which is the copy, the copy of clubhouse. And by the way, rooms are rooms are doing pretty good. Twitter’s got spaces, same thing as clubhouse. Right. And then you’ve got messenger. And then obviously you’ve got horizon, but you need in Oculus to go into horizon, which is there for form of the metaverse.
RV (00:18:31):
Okay. Now, before we dive into the metaverse in which we are going to do the content wise, if I’m an agent, and I want you to answer the question as an agent, because I think whatever your answer is, is gonna be the same. If you’re a financial or a lawyer chiropractor, I think 1%. So what is the content that I should be posting? Like what can make me care enough? Because real estate agents in particular, I think are a little bit tricky because I’m really only interested in talking to a real estate agent when I’m really at, it’s more like, can at need service. It’s like, I wanna sell. I wanna buy, or I wanna refinance, or I wanna invest. Is that what, what’s the content strategy? What, what should they be posting?
TA (00:19:22):
Content strategy is this. And, and this is from us deconstructing all the platforms and, and the best practices over the years, and then going to Facebook and Instagram and sharing it with them. And that’s a combination of, I’m forcing you here to find your pillars because you talk to all the influencers in, in, in the social media world, they have pillars that they alternate between. So in essence, I’m saying, Hey, these are gonna be your pillar that you have to alternate through until you find a groove and it revolves around this. You sell with a story. So Rory, whatever you’re selling, right. You’re gonna sell it to me, but in the form of a story, that’s number one. The next thing you don’t,
RV (00:20:08):
You don’t mean the stories feature. You mean when you sell, do it through the form, a story. Tell
TA (00:20:14):
Storytelling we got it. Storytelling. You got it. That’s it. That’s number one. So let’s say you were only gonna post two Facebook once a day. You’re gonna go sell with a story, whatever you’re trying to sell me, tell it to me with a story. That’s number one, number two, teach. Teach me something about your industry that I don’t know about because whatever your industry is, I can guarantee you that you take it for granted by not sharing it with more people on social. So that’s number two, teach number three. Here’s where it gets a little crazy. Number three is advice. So S T a a is for advice. Here’s where you give advice on something that you love, something that you’re passionate about. And R look at my background. I’ve got a storm trooper helmet.
RV (00:21:02):
I’ve got super Superman
TA (00:21:04):
Mo Superman, right? That’s my passion like dude, besides journals, right? That’s my passion. So you’ll see me on social every once in a while. If I order something like that, I’ll be on boxing it, or I’ll talk about it, or it’ll be a piece of tech. And that’s the advice I’m talking about. If you’re great at gardening, or you do amazing over here with cars, that this is your opportunity. You just
RV (00:21:27):
Shine. Could you call this hobby also? Is that kind of
TA (00:21:29):
Like, yeah, this is you give advice on a hobby advice on, on your side hustle, advice on something that you love. Okay. And this for a lot of us are where we’re gonna go viral and we never tap on it ever. Like, this is where my friends, where I’m like, Hey, dude, you need to be doing this. And all of a sudden, they get like hundred thousand views on TikTok and I’m like, see, yeah,
RV (00:21:52):
See. So that’s how Gary B beat up, built his whole freaking brand. Talking about wine. Like, dude, I mean, that was how he built his whole freaking brand. Is there another
TA (00:22:02):
Pillar? There’s a fourth one. And it’s it’s Y so it’s S T a Y it’s stay S C Y. Why is you talk about you? Show me, show me what’s going on at home. Show me what’s going on at, with your kids. Or if you’ve got a dog, if you’ve got, what, what are you eating today? Rory, you know, you you’re at you, you just finished an amazing event. I wanna know more about that. Where are you at? What are you doing? Right. I’m in my house today. I just got to interview somebody. Well, I should tell people about that, right? Or I’m about to drink whatever. But the point is, I’ve been doing it a lot more and people connect with me more because the one thing people love to know more about you, and I’ll give you the best example. And then we can shift over to whatever you want, the Kardashians. How many selfies can they take?
RV (00:22:50):
I mean, it’s crazy, right? I mean, people, people, people love it or just, just the whole concept of reality TV in general, right? Like we are watching other people live. Their life is surprisingly engaging. And from a, from a, from a videos strategy, it’s surprisingly retentive. Like it holds people’s unbelievable attention, right? I mean, how many people have bachelorette parties? Well, we got one of our, one of our, one of our clients is downstairs right now. And he was we actually have two clients that we actually have more than that, but we have one downstairs who was on the, on the bachelorette and that’s cool, you know, know, and they just, people, people love that. And, and they, they, he can’t go anywhere without people stopping him in the street and taking pictures because they, like, they feel like they know him because they had this like intimate experience of watching him live his life for whatever amount of time.
RV (00:23:47):
Okay. So I, I love it. So basically the selling with storytelling, I love that teaching. Amen’s what we talk about, you know, in your, your, your hobby and in your kind of your personal life. Talk to me about meta. All right. Because yeah, here, here’s my here, my thing on this, I was admitting this to our team. You know, I was in college when social media came out. I should have been early, but I was late to the party because I was so skeptical. Then I got on the bus, built the social media, but then we sold the company and I lost on my, on my social media when we exited our last company. I knew about out podcasting early, cuz I had friends that were in it. I didn’t get on board. I kind of joined later, built that up, had a nice podcast.
RV (00:24:34):
But then we sold, sold that as well. Now we have our new this podcast, which is growing quite nicely, but it’s, it’s a lot harder. Like we had to start over in 2018 with all new social accounts, new podcast, everything. It is a lot harder because there’s so much more noise. So I feel like in many ways it’s like, I feel like I missed the wave. You know, I missed.com because I was just still in high school, missed social media, missed podcasting, then missed TikTok for the most part. And so I’m like, I’m not gonna miss the metaverse, but I don’t understand it. So right. So tell me, tell us the metaverse and how do we build our community there? What should we be doing right now?
TA (00:25:22):
All right. So it’s, it’s very easy right now, right now it’s easy because imagine, are you familiar with Xbox live
RV (00:25:34):
Or, I mean, not, I’m not a gamer. Okay.
TA (00:25:37):
So I’m, I’m a gamer by heart. So let me explain it through games. We’ve all played video games or at least we know about them and we’ve all played video games with other people, right? So the metaverse in essence is it’s a virtual world where you can engage with other people. Now what it’s going to look like versus what it looks like now. Cause right now it looks pretty crappy. It’s like, there’s so many different metaverses even, even E X P right? Glen, Glen Sanford’s company got one. Right, right.
RV (00:26:10):
They’re all pretty basic. They have success world and they have E XP world. Like I spoke at, I, I I was the key, one of the keynote speakers at the E P global shareholders meeting, speaking to, I don’t remember what it was. I think 5,000 people who were nuts. I was as an avatar in E X P world speaking to 5,000 or 10,000 avatars who were all sitting in front of me. And that was like a man blew my mind. I was like, I can’t, I, this is so crazy. But, but so that’s a, that’s
TA (00:26:44):
A metaverse that’s the metaverse. So that’s a, metaverse now what Facebook is trying to do because they’re the ones who hold the actual tech piece, the Oculus. Okay. For, for the virtual world that’s been accepted. Right. They’re the ones who are ahead. So if I, I, I, I would recommend if you’re listening to this, go buy an Oculus and I don’t own any of Facebook. So what
RV (00:27:09):
Is in Oculus is the, is the, is the set of glasses go
TA (00:27:12):
Buy? Yeah. It’s a set of virtual reality glasses that you put on your head. And then you’re immersed into a world where you can choose to play video games, to meet with other people, to jump into other worlds. And I’ll tell you what the metaverse is going to be. It’s going to be the future of the internet. So Rory, instead of you and I going to amazon.com, we put on our headgear of whatever metaverse is, is the, is the main metaverse that wins. And then we go to amazon.com in the metaverse and we’re like walking through, like, if it’s a mall and then we pick things out and we’re like, oh, I want that. I want that. And you’re like, Hey, Hey, Hey, RO meet me at meet me at this shop inside of side of whatever metaverse it’s called. Right? And then you and I meet there, we sit, we have coffee, I’m having coffee here.
TA (00:28:11):
You’re having coffee there. And, and you’re like, Hey Roy, I, I gotta go. I need to meet a client at a, at a property. So I just switch over to a 3d world, right. Property. And I go in and my client and I’m like, Hey, Joe, let’s take a look at this home. You go through the home. And as you’re going through the home in this 3d world, the difference is I can tap on the refrigerator and be like, this is how much that cost. I can expand on certain parts of the house that I couldn’t do in real life. I can be like, you wanna replace the, this tile, hold on, let me check. And all of a sudden now to see houses in the real world, doesn’t make sense
RV (00:28:59):
Because you don’t have to travel there. First of all, and you have this enhanced functionality of these kinds of things, and you, you, that it’ll, it’ll advance quickly to the point to where it will basically feel like it’s real life or close enough to it, that we would all go. Why if Trista, you’re where you’re in California, right? You’re in Malibu and I’m in Nashville and going, we’re talking through zoom, but we could just hop into the metaverse and we would actually feel like we were sitting next to each other. Yeah.
TA (00:29:30):
Yeah. That’s, that’s how it’s going to be. Now. It’s never gonna replace the in person feeling, but look, if I can show a property and I can get all of the details, step outside the home, show you the school and just be there in an instant. You’re gonna be a lot more comfortable that you’re getting a lot more information to make a quality decision on buying a home. Are
RV (00:29:52):
You in that scenario, you just described, you’re showing a home in the metaverse are you demoing a, a home in the metaverse that is a replica of a home that you’re trying to sell in real life? Or are you correct selling virtual property?
TA (00:30:09):
No, you’re not selling virtual property yet. That that’s when NFTs and the metaverse combine. Oh my gosh. And that’s, that’s a whole different aspect to this. So I think for now the meta versus just the future of the internet, and you’re gonna see a, a good adoption rate, depending on who wins. I think since the Oculus is already accepted, they have a big foot in, right. This is why everybody I talk to I’m like, look, just do me a favor, go get an Oculus, jump inside, have a meeting or two. So you can understand where the world is heading. Is
RV (00:30:45):
That how you get in? I mean, so that’s, so here’s two questions. What are the main metaverses right now? And how do you actually get into one
TA (00:30:55):
Look? So the main metaverses you’re you’re gonna find that they don’t really exist. Everybody’s talking about a metaverse and they’re like, oh, this is a metaverse over here. I’m like, no, dude, there is no such thing as a metaverse the closest thing is Facebook’s Oculus because that’s the only one that has something fully built in where you can actually submerge yourself through the Oculus. That’s it? The other ones are, I mean, if you want to talk about E XP world, which is by ver Bella, right? Ver Bella built it out. That’s how everything else is. And you’ve got Xbox live. You’ve got PlayStation live, all of these things that we’ve been playing in for years inside of a community where we can play video games against each other. That’s in essence what the Mead verse is. It’s an online virtual world where I go in, I can participate with somebody else and then buy things. The difference is they want it to be decentralized in the future. So no one company owns it like the internet. It’s a, yeah, it’s a true play. And that’s why Facebook wants to jump in early. They’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do it. We can do it. But you know, they’ve had, they have such huge distrust with everybody right now. Right.
RV (00:32:13):
So, well, yeah. And so like fortnight and Roblox, these are, that’s a metaverse these are, but they’re independent. Metaverses but those are attached to a game then. Yep. What is, so then have you heard of sandbox? Yep. Okay. So the, I, I think it, I don’t don’t quote me on this. I, I, I am just learning it cuz I’m going, I’m not gonna miss this wave. Somebody there’s something about somebody bought property next to Snoop dog’s virtual house and paid like a million dollars to own the property next to Snoop dog’s virtual residence. Something like this. You heard of this. Yeah.
TA (00:32:54):
Yep. I did.
RV (00:32:55):
So what is sandbox is sandbox and, and by, and also by the way is Oculus the name of Facebook’s metaverse
TA (00:33:03):
No, Facebook’s metaverse is called horizon. So you can go and check that out. And the sandbox is an open metaverse, but I mean, dude, the it’s it it’s like E ex P world. Like it’s not, I, I can’t submerge submerge myself into it. So right now there are gonna be a lot of different companies saying, yeah, we’re a metaverse here, we’re a metaverse there. And the, the idea behind it is just to get as many people in there to build the community so that it takes off. And we’re like, Hey look, we are, we are the metaverse whoever that’s going to be. So right now there is no leading company that has the most people in it. It’s very, very startup. So what I would do right now, if you want to understand it better, the closest thing you can see as to what it actually should be, go by an Oculus and put it on because then you can start feeling what it actually should look like.
RV (00:34:01):
And then you will go into horizon, which is the name of Facebook’s
TA (00:34:04):
S horizon inside. It’ll give you an option, but it’ll also give you a whole bunch of other options. Like I can play video games. I can have a meeting with you, Rory. I can go into meetings. Right. Or I can go into the world, the horizon world, which then functions like the success world that you and I.
RV (00:34:22):
Okay. So if I actually bought a pair of Oculus goggles or glasses or whatever you call them, you and I, and you have a pair, then we could have had this meeting inside of horizon.
TA (00:34:32):
Yeah. We just can’t record it yet. Cuz it doesn’t work as well. So yeah, we’re, we’re already looking to starting we’re we’re starting to see if we can hold our podcasts, you inside of the Oculus. Yeah. And record it and then play it on YouTube. But so this
RV (00:34:46):
Is what I’m asking and this is what I’m driving to is how do I start building my community in there? Right. Because yeah. You know, one of the, one of the natural things to do is to repurpose your content, right? So all of us have spent years cranking out all this content and it lives this place in that place and going you know, like I remember when I went into success world the first time for those of you that don’t know I was the interim entrepreneurship editor of success magazine for the, for about a year, Glen Hanford was one of our brand builders group clients. He owns Bel NEX P world. They bought success. We had just met. I was an, and that was how I met Tristan cuz Tristan’s the P people, editors still currently active. And, and we met and, and ver Bella built a metaverse for success offices. And so I would go in and I remember going into the success world, going into their auditorium and they had like videos of Jim RO playing. And I said, ah, I could do this. If I had, if we had a brand builders group headquarters inside of a metaverse, there could be an auditorium with a screen that’s playing our content. And anybody else basically like a, a virtual movie theater is kind of how I was thinking about it. Yeah. But there’s no way to buy property or build a building like that. Not yet,
TA (00:36:05):
Yet. No. Imagine I just sent you a link to horizons so you can see. Okay. But what, what the future is going to be like is if I go into video game and I wanna upgrade my just in the video game, if I wanna upgrade my gear, like have a better armor or a, or a better weapon or shoes. Right. That’s how the metaverse is gonna work. Oh, you wanna, you want to have, this is why NFTs work really well with it. Right. I want to have a play said, I actually own right. A virtual place, a house. Boom I’m there. Now I can, now in my home I can have my virtual car because I’m in here all the time. I need to, I need to have a virtual car Rori.
RV (00:36:51):
Right. So people are making Louis Viton virtual handbag and, and you have an NFT and then you, you, your avatar is carrying a Louis Baton and people are already paying, paying for this.
TA (00:37:03):
Yeah. That’s, that’s the whole world that we’re heading into. But I think we’re, we’re very early on, but I think you and I, and people listening in should really start looking at what we can do in this world, in these, in this coming world so that we can have a presence there.
RV (00:37:21):
Right. And I gotta tell you, you know, I don’t, I never like social media. I did like podcasting. I don’t like going live. I didn’t like getting on clubhouse live. And I don’t like the idea of a metaverse especially, but one of our, one of our brand builders group clients are name’s Tori Gordon. And she she’s blown up huge on TikTok, like has nearly a million TikTok just interviewed her for the podcast. And she said something to me that hit me so hard. If she said the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And that hit me because I said, whether I like it or not, I think this is gonna happen. This is the freaking matrix dude. Like this is half a step away from the matrix. And I go, yeah, if there’s a bunch, if in real life, there’s a bunch of broken people who are discouraged and have anxiety and fear of COVID and you know, whatever else, if they can put on goggles and escape that and go into some other place and have more joy and more freedom and more whatever. I see people doing that and going, I wanna be in there shaping that world. That’s important. That part is important to me. And I’m glad to hear that we’re early on this because we’re not gonna miss this tri no,
TA (00:38:43):
We’re not. Don’t worry.
RV (00:38:45):
I’m you have to tell me, I get like you have to I’m messaging you. Yes. I’m holding you accountable to telling me like, all right, dude, this is the metaphor. Cause this it’s very similar to almost like how, when MySpace came out and there was like MySpace and que oo and Facebook and whatever, and they were all kinda like all that stuff battling. What I hear you saying is that’s kind of what’s happening right now is
TA (00:39:07):
Yeah. So on that, I I’ve asked Facebook. I’m like, I, as soon as horizons or the Oculus allows for our Facebook group to be inside of whatever you’re creating, please let me know because you better believe lab code agents is gonna be in there. And the only way you can jump in is with an Oculus. So yes, we’re, we’re on it. And I have meetings with them often. And so they’ll let me know as soon as it turns on. So I’ll be like, dude, you gotta jump on.
RV (00:39:42):
Yeah, this is, this is crazy. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy to think, but it’s, in some ways it’s like very wild and different. In other ways it’s going the mediums change, but people’s needs stay the same. And the way you build relationships with people stays the same. And the way that you add value to other people’s lives stays the same and the way you establish expertise and authority. And in your case, the way that you build community stays exactly the same. It’s just a different environment.
TA (00:40:11):
That’s it? That’s so true, man. That’s very true.
RV (00:40:16):
Did I have love this? Like always I, you, I, you’re fascinating and stimulating conversation and ideas and thank you for sharing. This has been so enlightening and, and just invigorating for me and, and tri wish you the best. And you know, I think it gives me hope as, as I look ahead and go, oh, okay. Like the metaverse is gonna happen. You know, at some point like this ship, it already feels like it’s gonna happen. We don’t know exactly what, but knowing that people like you and Tori Gordon and you know, all these other people and are, are making sure the good people get in there so that we can all shape that world to be an awesome one. And maybe it could be in some ways better than the real one that’s that that’s inspiring to me. So keep doing what you’re doing, brother we’re we’re fans.
TA (00:41:07):
Thanks bro. I’m a fan of you guys too. So keep going.
RV (00:41:11):
Sounds good, man. All the best. Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who
Speaker 3 (00:41:32):
Is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders group, do slash pod call brand builders, group.com/pod. We hope to talk to you soon.
Speaker 4 (00:42:01):
That interview blew my mind. Oh, wow. All right. So where did we start? Tristan AHU? What a powerful interview. I wanna share with you my top three takeaways and, and my highlights. And there were some big ones and I have to tell you like, but there’s been a few interviews here lately that have really caused me to change my behavior and start looking ahead differently specifically at web three and what is coming there. And this is, this is definitely one of them. So as I think back on that conversation that we just had with Tristan, you know, I’ve got so much respect for Tristan because I mean, he’s built one of the largest communities, if not the largest community of real estate agents in the world. I mean, and that’s pretty amazing, like and that’s, that’s pretty commendable, right? So alright, so here’s my top three takeaways.
Speaker 4 (00:43:03):
So number one, don’t try to build a community around a company, build a community around a topic. You don’t build a community around a company. You build community around on a topic that for sure is gonna be one of the most salient things that sticks with me. It already has been just thinking back, like ever since I actually did, had that conversation with Tristan is going, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. Like every company, even if you think out like having a, a, a page, right, like a, a Instagram profile or a Facebook page or something is like, nobody cares what’s going on in your company. Like other than the people in the company. But the, if you, if, if you can build your community around a topic, then every, you know, all sorts of people are going, are going to pay attention.
Speaker 4 (00:43:59):
And so I was thinking about specifically how this also translates into your content marketing strategy going right, that this would apply for personal brands. Just the same is to go. If, if all I post about on social media or on my public facing profiles is information related to the products and services that I sell. Nobody is gonna pay attention. So what you, you don’t your content. It shouldn’t be based around the products and services you sell. It should be a around the problems that you help solve and around the areas that you study and around the topic itself. Right? So, I mean, if I was always, if, if my social media feed or this podcast was just a constant, like advertisement for, Hey, here’s the next event that’s coming up and he, here’s how our coaching program works. And did you know, have you heard about this, this, this new feature that we rolled out to our brand builders members, like nobody would pay attention, but you build the audience around the, the topic of personal brand strategy and helping personal brands build better businesses and all the skills and content around that are, are needed for that.
Speaker 4 (00:45:11):
And then people pay attention, they engage, they’re interested. And then obviously our goal is like, Hey, oh, as you get to trust me more and you trust AJ more and you see like, hopefully the quality of the, the content we put out and the people we hang out with and things that you go, Hey, what do these, these, these folks actually do, maybe they can actually help me. And that is the big difference. And so, you know, I, I think that’s, it’s a subtle shift, but it’s a major change in like the downstream impacts of understanding this, this nuance don’t build. Don’t try to build community around a company, build community around a topic. And relatedly, I think the thing that I’m adding to that as saying, don’t create content around your products and services, create content around the topic, create content around the problems that you solve and, and that, you know, the issues that your customers face.
Speaker 4 (00:46:09):
You know, again, I think about like the home, this home Depot example, if it was just like, Hey, did you know that home Depot has 50% off this month? No one would pay attention. But instead their content marketing strategy is all like DIY videos, helping show you how to do, you know, your own DIY projects. And then it’s like brought to you by home Depot. So when you need some nails and you need wood and you need paint where you’re gonna go, you’re going to home Depot. So that’s, that’s a subtle shift, but boy, is it important to understand? And you know, if you’re not building a community, like if you’re not growing your following or you have a following and they’re not engaging, there’s a good chance. Your content is all about you and your life, which isn’t bad, but it’s a good marketing strategy because the only people that care about what’s going on, you and your life are people who are in your life.
Speaker 4 (00:47:00):
Okay? So that’s not how you’re gonna attract a bunch of strangers to pay attention. So if you’re not growing, there’s a good chance that your content is either about you and your life, or it’s all about your company and your products and services. Instead of it is around this topic that people are interested in, which happens to be a space that your personal brand and or business revolves around. And, and so big, big shift and super duper powerful. The second big takeaway for me in that whole conversation, which I don’t know why this hit me so hard, and I don’t know why, you know, I just never really paid attention to this is like that four out of the top five in the world, our social media sites, like four of the top five websites in the world are social media sites. That is crazy.
Speaker 4 (00:48:00):
And so to realize and go, wow, Facebook, Instagram Twitter, like these in to being, you know, social media sites. They’re the biggest websites in the world. And so what it tells me is that community is an inherent part of the human experience, right? Community is integral to what it means to be alive. Like we live for the idea and the opportunity to connect with other humans. Our lives have purpose to the extent like our lives have purpose inside of the context of what they mean with somebody else’s life. Like if I just live by myself, there’s not a lot of purpose to my life. I’m not interacting. I’m not helping anyone. I’m not affecting anybody. My life has purpose in the context of other people. And so that is like, life is about this community. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s very much affecting of course, how we spend our time online.
Speaker 4 (00:49:08):
And, you know, social media is, you know, when does social media really come on the scene? And in the early two thousands, I mean the mid two thousands. And so you’re talking about 15 years and these are the, the most traffic sites in the world. Meanwhile, you’ve got companies that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years that have websites and, and have had money and started a lot further ahead. And, you know, they’re not anywhere in the top five to, so that is pretty wild. And, and so I think it’s just understanding, like, to me, it’s not so much like, Ooh, social media, social media, as much as it is this grand epiphany of like this bigger level conversation that to be human is to crave community, to be human, is to define our life in the context of how our lives con connects and intersects with others.
Speaker 4 (00:50:00):
And so as you’re building your business, how are you creating these connection points? And this is something that historically, I don’t think I’ve done very well. I’ve always viewed social media as like a broadcasting mechanism. And even when we started brand builders group, like for our members, the first couple years have been really about curriculum and content, right. And it’s like, we’re teaching, like, here’s everything that we have learned and it’s broken down and hopefully it’s world class. We think it’s world class. We hear that it’s world class. And it’s really incredible, but, but brand builders group 2.0, which is where we’re at now and where we’re going. And that’s sort of like where AJ is leading us and, and our team is the community. And what’s so, what’s so incredible is like as good as the content is. What’s amazing is like, our community is in incredible.
Speaker 4 (00:50:49):
I mean, we’ve got people, so many people with hundreds of thousands of followers, people who sold their company for hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, we’ve got people who are on TV, we’ve got you know, professional athletes, professional musicians. We’ve got influencers like in every different industry. We’ve got people who are mul T seven figure earners and, and like just New York times, bestselling authors and hall of fame speakers. I mean, it’s crazy. They’re all sitting in the same room together, like literally sitting in the same room together. And that is so powerful. And so I think BBG 2.0 brand builders group 2.0 is gonna be about community where brand builders group 1.0 has largely been about content and curriculum. And, and so this is an impactful message for me to receive from Tristan relevant. I would say to the direction that, that we are, that we are heading.
Speaker 4 (00:51:42):
So related to that, here’s my third takeaway, get ready for this. The meta of our is coming, oh my gosh, what, what am I even saying? The metaverse the metaverse is coming. Yes, the metaverse is coming in a big way. And I think it’s coming faster than we think I do, because I think, you know, unlike, you know, the stodgy companies of old, the biggest companies in the world today are technology companies. They became the biggest by being adaptable and flexible. And so they’re, the leadership is much younger and the, the, the, the environment is more innovative and technological, and I think this is coming and I think it’s coming hard. And I think it is coming fast. I mean, did you hear what Tristan said? The number one most downloaded app on Christmas day was Oculus was the horizon which is the, the meta Facebook’s metaphor that goes with the Oculus goggles.
Speaker 4 (00:52:43):
And I went, I did, I bought ’em. I bought the Oculus goggles after this interview. I’ve been to church in the metaphor. I’m you know, creating my avatar. I’m trying to figure it out. And I’m also very much following the world of NFTs here and trying not, I mean, I’m trying to learn and understand all of this stuff. If you’re not following me on Instagram, you should go to my handles at Rory Vaden. By the way, there’s some fake out there. Mine is just my name at Roy Vaden. And I did a post about some glossary of terms for like web three. And, and so, you know, web three is, is the, this whole new era of, you know, communication. So it’s like basically pre there’s pre-internet and you know, and then, and then you have, and then you have web one, which is like the internet and URLs and websites, which are one way communications.
Speaker 4 (00:53:42):
And then web two is social media is exactly what we’re just talking about this, you know, in user U U U C G user user or UGC user generated content, which is like all these social media sites was web two and, and web three is what’s coming now. And most of what you hear in web three, just real quick, again, if you go, I did a full little video tutorial on these terms on my I GTV. Now it’s called Instagram video, I guess, but you know, you have web three to me, which is like the big conversation. And then inside of that, you’ve got two conversations going on. One is the metaverse and one is NFTs. The metaverse is virtual reality, right? So this is this is the idea that you can, you, you know either through your desktop, on your computer access a a, you know, a world and the, the big ones are, you know, OB horizon is the, is Facebook’s metaverse the other, there’s a couple other big ones.
Speaker 4 (00:54:46):
They’re San inbox and decentral land, which, so those are like, as I process it kinda like the three predominant meta versus that are out there. And, and so there’s different ways to access them. One is one is the Oculus goggles from Facebook, which I bought and, and experimenting with. So you have this whole idea that like in web three, we will be inside of virtual reality, communicating, doing very much what we would do in real world, but we’re not restrained by geographical limitations. And especially in a world where disease has obviously affected our everyday and, you know, maybe a part of the future, the idea of being able to sit in a room with somebody in San Francisco without having to get on an airplane and without having to run some of the risks of, you know, being in physical proximity to somebody.
Speaker 4 (00:55:40):
I mean, I, I think this is gonna be huge. The other big conversation that you’re hearing happen right now in web three is NFTs. And, you know, NFT is a non fungible token, which basically when you hear NFT, I just want you to think a digital, like cert certificate of authenticity or the parallel in the, in the modern world, like is a, a, a title, just like you buy a house, you get a title for it. It proves ownership. If you, if you buy a paint, if you buy a car, you get a title. If you buy a painting, you get a certificate of authenticity, something that says, this is the original piece of ownership. Like this is the original version of this thing, and you are the owner of it. So it is both a certificate of authenticity, and it is a certificate.
Speaker 4 (00:56:28):
It’s like a title that proves ownership, well NFTs the emergence of NFTs tees, give us a way to prove originality and to prove ownership on the blockchain. So when you hear blockchain, what is blockchain? Well, blockchain is just this, this ledger this like public, think of it as a, as a, as a public ledger of a transparent sort of like record keeping of who owns what, and who’s buying what and how much it is. It’s like a transparent, you know, record keeping kind of like, I process it as like you know, this, this, the city would keep you know, all the deeds and all the titles except this is public it’s available for the whole world to just see like this record of ownership. So the blockchain gives us the ability for all of us to see and go, oh, that was the original owner, because it’s hosted in this transparent, you know, way through this net, a network of computers, which is what makes up the blockchain.
Speaker 4 (00:57:30):
And so we can all access and, and, and verify who are the original owners and, and the, and, and which ones are the original digital things, which before now we’ve not able been, we’ve not been able to prove what is the original digital thing. Like if it’s a JPEG, no one could say, Ooh, that was the original JPEG, or that’s a picture, a copy of the JPEG. And that’s really important, right? Cuz there’s a difference in value between something that is original and something that there is a copy of the original Mona Lisa is worth hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions or whatever. The number is a picture of the Mona Lisa ISN worth much, maybe a few bucks. If it’s a really good picture, so it’s, it’s proving ownership and now NFTs give us the ability to track original ownership.
Speaker 4 (00:58:16):
And this is going to matter tremendously for you and me. There’s a few different use cases. So there’s, there’s a lot of different use cases that I see coming with web three. I’ll give you a few of them right now. So NFTs really are happening right now around artwork, whether you go well, if I’m not an artist, why do I care? Well, there’s a couple things. One is because you could create a piece of art. Like one of the things we’re gonna do is take our quote quotes and we will like, I mean, we’re not actively in this, but I am looking, I am on the hunt right now for a digital artist to take my quotes and create digital art out of my original quotes. So that it’s like, it’s, we’re creating a piece of art so that, you know, we can kind of put our stamp like, Hey, this is our thing.
Speaker 4 (00:59:05):
This is our piece of artwork. The other thing is you’ll be able to like share royalties and your fans can become your investors if you’re gonna release like a book let’s say where like there’s a music artist right now, NAS NAS. Who’s been around for years and years who just sold 50% of his royalties to his audience, to his fan base through NFTs. So he created some NFTs, you know, these digital pieces of art, but what they represent is an ownership in his new album. And so as he makes money from the label, 50% of whatever comes to him, he is sharing with the people who bought into his NFTs. Well, he raised millions of dollars by selling those NFTs. So he gets millions of dollars now in addition to whatever he got from the record label. And then as he earns money, 50% of that goes to the fan base who bought the NFTs.
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
But that also means that all of these people have a stake in making sure that album is successful. And so the fans are like owning a piece of the work. I mean, this is mind boggling. I can’t even believe the things that I’m saying out loud right now. And that’s why I’m going, this is coming faster than faster than we all think. So, so you’ve got that. You’ve got you know, basically being able to digitize your book or digitize something and, and show proof that this was the original version of it. Just like, you know, if you have the original Tom Sawyer, that book is worth a lot more than a copy of Tom Sawyer. And so the blockchain by way of NFTs is allowing us to track originals of, of digital creations, which is gonna have huge, huge implications. And then you also have the metaverse right as you’re going.
Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
If, if you do any type of events or even as you run your team team it’s only a matter of time. Like one of the things I wanna do soon is start having some of our internal company meetings in the metaverse. I wanna start getting our team familiar with what that feels like because our team is, our team is remote. And so if we can all be sitting in the same virtual room together, and it feels more like you’re in the same room together, then some other tools like Skype or zoom or whatever. And there’s some cool functionality you can write on a chalkboards and sh it feels like you’re in a room, right? Other than you look like an avatar but that technology will evolve and it’s so it’s crazy, but the metaverse is coming. I would recommend staying plugged here.
Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
I think one of the things we do is take all these complicated terms and try to make them simple. A couple other quick terms, you know, if you if you wanna buy or sell NFTs, you have to do that on a marketplace, right? So just like eBay is where you would like buy and sell used items. And, and it’s like a, you know, know a secondary market. Well, NFTs are the same way, right? It’s, it’s almost like if I had a piece of art, I have to go somewhere to sell that art. Well, in the, in, in the web three, that would be a place like open C is the big one that you hear open C is kind of like eBay for NFTs. It’s very much like eBay. It’s where you would resell NFTs that you own. Open C is a marketplace that happens to use Ethereum, which is a very it’s, it’s a type of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
There are other ones Solana. I think it is. There’s there’s like a couple other marketplaces that use different types of crypto, but they’re all based in this digital decentralized in world where we can keep track of who owns what, and it’s not dependent on government or banks, which why it’s decentralized and it’s, it’s crazy. It’s crazy stuff. So there are implications of this for personal brands, stay tuned to that. We’re learning aggressively. We’ll be trying to simplify that and make it make sense for you as we go. A lot of crazy things happening there, but the metaverse is coming. And so, you know, when I think about this whole episode, it’s going all right. Community is never going away. Right. It’s just the environment in which community happens is gonna change just like it’s happened in your life. Right? So when you think of the metaverse, you might go, oh, that’s stupid.
Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
Or I don’t like that, or I don’t. And that, or that’s dumb. Well, be careful because there were a lot of people who said that about the internet. Oh, that’s stupid. It’s a fad. It’s not gonna work out. Right. That’s dumb. Well, look at how much the internet affects our life. And then that happened. And so for me, I was in high school when that happened. And then a few years later in the mid two thousands, social media came on the scene and people say, oh, that’s stupid. It’s a fad. It’s gonna go away. And it’s like, well, look at how long it’s it’s been around it. And it’s, it’s, it’s controlling the world. I mean, it’s, it’s the top four of the five top websites in the world. This is where people are spending their time. Why cuz it’s community. And so I think the meta versus coming, I don’t like it.
Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
I wouldn’t choose to go. Yeah, let’s all learn a completely new way of life, but there are many reasons why I think it’s coming. I think it’s coming fast. And we wanna help guide you there and help you understand what’s going on and try to, as we try to figure it out ourselves and as always try to be valuable to you. But I think the principles that try and talked about a building community are not gonna change, but the practices in terms of the locations and the functions and the tactics of how very much could in a web three world. So keep coming back to the influential, personal brand podcast, stay tuned in and we’ll be, we’ll be learning right alongside you. That’s it for this one. We’ll catch you next time on the Joel personal brand.

Ep 251: Trends in Personal Branding National Research Study by Brand Builders Group | Recap Episode

RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitcor anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/podcall, brand builders, group.com/podcall. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:53):
Welcome to a very special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I am about you break down the interview that just happened between me and AJ Vaden, who at this point you probably know is the CEO and co-founder my co-founder at brand builders group. She’s our CEO. She’s also my wife and has been my business partner for a long time. My best friend, just the, the most brilliant woman, like I just love being in business with AJ, obviously doing life together and raising a family and all that, but I, I love being in business with her. And so I’m gonna break down the recap of, of some of the things that I just learned from this interview. And I’m gonna give you my top three takeaways from from, from the inner view with AJ and the first, I mean, the first kind of key takeaway, just to make sure you got it is that this moment is the demarcation line for a change in the format of this podcast.
RV (01:58):
So I don’t know how long you’ve been listening, but what we have been doing is typically. I will do an interview every week, and that is like the first episode that comes out in a week. And then AJ and I do a recap, basically sharing our takeaways from that interview as the second episode every week. And we are changing that. So as of, of now going forward, what is happening is that every week I will do an interview and then I will do the debrief recap of that interview all as one episode, and then AJ will conduct an interview and she will do the debrief, recap, all of that interview or, or that episode. And so it’ll be, you know, more content, although we’re publishing at the same frequency every single week. So that is part of why we did this very special edition with me and her together as a way to, you know, draw attention also to the change in format.
RV (02:56):
And this podcast is growing tremendously. We are regularly in the top two hundreds of all podcasts in the careers category and across all iTunes and, and in the us and in several countries around the globe. And so we’re just excited about it. We’re putting more resources into this show and into the content that comes, you know, comes out and, and the prep for it and getting guests for it and just working really, really hard to make it more and more valuable to you. So that’s that, you know, related to that, obviously we talked about this a couple times, but this interview was based on a national research study that we can called the trends in personal branding, national research study. And this took us over a year. All in, it was, it was tens of thousands of dollars that we invested into it.
RV (03:49):
It’s been well over a year in the planning phases and the execution, and then creating this and we are giving it away for free right now. If you go to brand builder, group.com/podtrends, brandbuildersgroup.com/podtrends, you can download this entire study, which we believe is changing. The Fu that the future of marketing is personal branding. And that there is this transference, this tip happening where it’s less about companies and products, and it is shifting more towards people in the future, at least, you know, that’s what we’re banking on and, and, and we love, and, and we’re excited to be a part of it. So make sure that you go download that brand builders group.com/pod trends. You want to get your hands on this study. It’s beautiful. It’s really easy to flip through it’s 70 pages or something, but you can flip through the whole thing in probably 10 or 12 minutes, and there’s some extremely powerful insights that come right out of it.
RV (04:50):
So go, go make sure you grab a copy now in terms of the interview that happened. And it’s, it’s fun. I love interviewing my wife. I love learning from my wife. I love learning from her as my wife and my friend, but as our CEO, I mean, she is just extraordinary in her ability to run an organization and understand what an organization needs. You know, she has a lot of experience doing corporate consulting in the life that we used to come from at our former company that we, we started together her back in 2006, and then we exited in 2018 when we sold that company, a huge part of what she did was just do consulting with organizations. And so she understands, you know, big trends and, and how to move, you know, big ships and, and, and, and, and see what’s coming and see the way that things really should be.
RV (05:41):
And so I of learning from her and these are, you know, some of, some of, some of my biggest highlights from, from the from the whole interview. Okay. So the first one is that personal branding and, and this, this is something that you’re gonna wanna understand, and if it wasn’t super clear, make sure you, you grasp this personal branding. Isn’t really something new, personal branding is simply the digital of reputation, the digitization of reputation. And, and we also sometimes say the monetization of reputation. We talk about this as a hypothesis. This is something we tested in our national research report, and that this trends report, this national research study that we did, which is that personal branding is all about reputation. It’s just do people have, what do people know you for? And do they trust you? And what are the behaviors that you can engage in that will build you more trust that will help you become more well known that will help you have a greater impact in the world world.
RV (06:58):
That is reputation. And I love the way that AJ described this. When she talked about her small town, how even in the small town, everybody had a reputation. And it made me think about the, the small town where I grew up in Frederick. It’s not a small these days, but when I went to high school in Frederick, it was so small. We, we, I mean, we, we didn’t have a stoplight and it was like, everybody knew everybody and everybody had a reputation, they were all known for something. They all had certain characteristics. And it was just kind of like you learned the reputations as you went along and, and then you go, well, that’s just a tiny, small kind of farm community. And that is blown up to become what the, the world is is and what the, in like what the internet is and what will one day become the metaverse, which is just this digitization of your reputation is what are you known for?
RV (07:48):
How well are you known? Are you trusted? What do we look to you for? What do we look to you as the, the go to source for blank? And that’s what brand builders group is, is all about. We don’t brand companies, we brand people, we, because a, a, a person is, is, is simple and clear of like, this is you. And what do you want to be known for? What do you believe? What, what are you the expert in? And of course, one of our biggest philosophies that we teach is that you are most power positioned to serve the person you once were, you are most powerfully positioned to solve the problem for someone else that you have already solved for yourself. It’s the digitization of reputation. And so we are here as a company to help you become more well known and seeing the data a have been 74% of Americans are more likely to trust someone with an established personal brand.
RV (08:45):
Of course they are, because it’s just a new word for reputation, personal branding, reputation. They’re the same thing. Personal branding does not mean social media and video courses and bestselling books and podcasts, and, you know, websites and da, da, da, da. Those are just extensions of a reputation. It’s about you, your values, your beliefs what you wanna be known for your expertise, the path that you’ve walked, the lives that you serve, the, the mission that you’ve dedicated yourself to, and your, your, your track record of being able to help people do that. And, and your track record of being able to do that for yourself, that is reputation. All these other things are just extensions of that into sort of a, a digital world, which you know, right now is mostly websites and social media and content. And, you know, something that we see in the future, you know, now be eventually becoming the metaverse, but your reputation will follow you everywhere.
RV (09:45):
Whether you’re in a small town like Frederick, whether you’re in a big corporate company, a big global company, whether you’re online or social media on your website, or one day into the metaverse, your reputation will follow you. And so you have to build it and, and, and manicure it deliberately and professionally and intelligently and, and intentionally, and that is something that we’re here to help you do. So that was just huge, personal branding is the digitization of reputation. The second of thing, which is one of, one of my favorite things that AJ has ever said, and one of my favorite things that she’s ever taught me and one of my favorite things about her that she has done is she believes and has proven that it does not take millions of followers to make millions of dollars. It doesn’t take millions of followers to make millions of dollars.
RV (10:42):
And I think too often, we go, oh, well, you know, I, I can’t monetize my personal brand or personal branding. Doesn’t apply to me cuz I don’t have millions of followers or I don’t care to have millions of followers. I don’t wanna be famous, but that I think is an err in judgment because we all want to be more well known. I mean, we, if, if we wanna make an impact in the world, if we wanna make a difference in the world, if we want our life to count for something, if, if we want to be on our deathbed, looking back and saying, my life mattered, why did my life matter? Because I made a lot of money because I had a lot of followers. No, because I impacted a lot of people because the, the, the, the way I spent my hours in life will have an impact after my death, that, that my life stood for something, it counted for something, because it affected someone.
RV (11:32):
It helped someone, it helped many someones. It helped thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people to live a better life, a more enriched life, a healthier life, a more meaningful life, whatever your mission is, but that is why it, it matters. And that the, you don’t have to have millions of followers to, to make money from doing that. The, the, the look, the brand builders, we say that we serve mission driven messengers. The reason we say that is not because we don’t care about money. We do care about money, but it is subservient to the mission. The mission requires money. Money is a, is necessity of growing the mission. It, it takes a lot of people and, and resources and skill sets, and it takes a team to accomplish anything. Great. And so those people typically aren’t available to, to work for free. So you gotta have money.
RV (12:26):
And so money is a, a necessary component that we have to be able to deal with and generate in order to a, a good steward in fiduciary to grow a business and to accelerate our message, but the, but making money, isn’t the number one priority. It’s not the highest focus. The highest focus is, is the mission. It is making an impact. It’s making a difference in the world and you can make a difference in the world without having millions of fun followers. You can look the, the, sometimes you’ll hear people complain about the algorithms, right? Oh, you know, the algorithms is you, you, I, I can’t get enough reach cuz the algorithms are blocking me. Well, yeah. Sometimes that’s frustrating, right? Like if you catch the algorithm, right, it’s gonna expose you to new people. What a blessing, what a, what a tremendous opportunity. But regard, you know what the algorithm can’t stop.
RV (13:16):
It can’t stop you from making a deeper impact with the people that are in front of you right now, whether that’s one or five or 10 or a hundred or a hundred million people, the algorithm doesn’t stop. The impact that you have with the people who do see your content. It might, I prevent you from reaching more people. But here’s the thing. If you focus on serving the people who are seeing your content right now in a deeper way, the algorithm will push you to more people. So if you focus on serving the people in front of you like serve the person you have now serve the one view that you’re getting on your or video, like go all in on going, how can I help these 13 people that are following me? What value can I add to their life? How can I support them?
RV (14:04):
How can I lift them up? And, and what you will find is if you do that, you know, those dozens of followers will become hundreds and thousands. And before you know it, you don’t need million of followers to make millions of dollars. Like the money actually trails much faster than you would think. Like you might think, oh, I gotta have a million or several hundred thousand followers to make money. You don’t like some of the wealthiest people inside of the brand builders group, community. I mean, I’m talking about the people who sell their company for hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, or they’re, you know, multi seven figure businesses or multi eight figure businesses. Every single year, they’re making real money. They don’t have a ton of followers cuz they’ve spent their life building, building a, a, a, a company building a machine that actually makes money.
RV (14:49):
And they haven’t spent much time building, building their personal brand. So, you know, you, don’t the followers and dollars. It’s not a direct equation. Now we want lots of followers cause we wanna make impact, but you don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. You also don’t need millions of followers to make an impact. Every single person is an opportunity for impact every single click, every single view, every single, you know, share like comment, every person who subscribes, like instead of always being consumed and concerned with how many do I have? What if you became all in consumed infatuated, like just totally concerned with the idea of how do I impact the people that I do have in a deeper way, how do I become more valuable to them? How do I educate them better? How do I inspire them better? How do I coach them better? How do I love on them better? What do they need? How can I help? How can I be of value? How can I be of use to them?
RV (15:55):
And if you do that, you will make millions of dollars, even if you don’t have millions of followers. And so I just love when AJ goes off on that because it’s, it’s such a good reminder that the, the, the thing that we think we need is not the thing that we actually need and it’s not even worth. It’s not even the thing worth chasing. It’s not chasing I, our, our advice to you would be don’t chase followers and don’t chase dollars, chase impact, right? Chase making a difference. Chase mission, mission driven messengers means mission over money. Mission is greater than money. Money is subservient to the mission. Impact is what we’re after. And we believe not just believe we know we’ve lived. It we’ve experienced it. It’s it’s happened in our life over and over again in our friends’ lives. In our clients’ lives. We know 100% without a shadow of a doubt. If you chase impact, the money will come.
RV (17:01):
If you focus on making a difference, you will make money. If you focus on creating fans, you will create customers, chase impact. And so, anyways, that is huge. Inspires me when she talks about it. It, it just lights me up cuz that’s, that’s why we started the company like brand builders group is not even focused on, I mean, we have revenue targets and things, cuz they’re necessary to run the business and like, you know, pay people, a living wage and hopefully create exciting opportunities and incomes for them. But it’s like we’re after impact, we’re chasing impact. We’re not chasing dollars. And that’s how, you know, if you belong here, I mean, seriously, that’s how, you know, if you belong in this community is if you’re someone who goes, yep. I buy in, I will chase. I am chasing impact. I wanna make a difference. I, I, I feel like my life is meant to be used for something.
RV (17:54):
I feel like there is a calling inside of me, a message inside of me that I am supposed to deliver some message to the world, not how do I make, how do I double my income in 60 days? I mean, doesn’t mean we don’t wanna do that. We do wanna do that, but that’s not the focus. That’s the byproduct. That’s the byproduct money is the byproduct of mission. At least that’s our philosophy. And then the last thing, and this is just a quick one, but oh, it was so good when she was talking about the data of which industries do personal brands matter the most. Right? And it’s like, oh, of course. It’s of course it’s like, you would think it’s oh, it’s influencers and it’s authors and it’s musicians and it’s artists like you would think this is who we think of when we think of personal brands.
RV (18:39):
And yet the data says it’s doctors, it’s lawyers, it’s financial advisors, right? It’s it’s accountants, it’s service providers and it is coaches and consultants, but it’s it’s and, and here’s, here’s what the takeaway was. She said the higher level of trust that is required to do your job. The more value having an established personal brand becomes the higher level of trust that is required to do your job. The more having an established personal brand becomes that is so powerful. Right? And, and you go on the one hand, that’s a really interesting statistic. On the other hand, I go, well, no, duh, like of course I have to trust my doctor. Like if this is the person that potentially is gonna take a knife and cut me open, like if my heart’s on the line, like hopefully I, I trust them. Or, you know, the person that I’m taking advice and counsel from for my overall health and wellbeing, it’s like, of course I have to trust that person.
RV (19:41):
If it’s my accountant, it’s like, I have to trust that they know what they’re doing, but also trust that they have my best interest in mind, my financial advisor, I have to trust them, not just their competency, but the fact that they care about me. And that is where the, this differentiation is, is happening. It’s not just about demonstrating that you have competency. It’s about demonstrating that you have compassion. It’s about demonstrating that you care, not just that you’re able, but that you care. And that is why seeing your face on social media or a website or, you know, having a chance to access you is really important. Not just, you know, here’s our company, here’s who we are. There’s power in that too. But the, the evolution is going. I wanna know you, I wanna know the person, the other side of this desk on the other side of this camera, on the other side of this operating table, on the other side of, you know, filling out my taxes, like, who are you?
RV (20:44):
And do I do I believe in you, do we believe the same things? And do you know what you’re doing, but, but do you care about me? Do you understand me? Do you know what I’m struggling with? And can you help me? And that is personal branding. And the more that, the more trust that is required there, the more that the personal brand matters, right? Like the more intimate our relationship is gonna be. The more trust that is necessary, the more having a personal brand matters, not millions of followers, but just this, this authentic, this authentic connection between us, this, this transparent visibility into who you are and what you believe. And, oh, I just, this, having the data to back all of this up is just, I mean, it’s edifying and it is it’s convicting even, even more than we were before. So I hope you love the interview with AJ.
RV (21:37):
You’re gonna love the episodes, right? Like I, I know you’ve probably gotten to hear some of her on the debrief, but hearing more, I mean, she’s so astute and sharp and just the way she sees the world. And so we’re just, I’m personally excited for you to get to know her and really like hear more of her heart and, and see it come out in these interviews that she’s doing. I know you’re just, you’re just, you’re gonna love her more and more and more, the more you get to know her. And, and we wanna get to know you more, right? So I hope we’re seeing you like I mean, we love doing this podcast, love it. The trick is we never see you, right? We, we don’t even get much feedback other than, you know, if you can leave us a review, leave us a review, cuz we see those.
RV (22:17):
But if you follow us on social, you know, I’m most active on Instagram, AJ’s most active on LinkedIn. We’re also picking up our social media presence and, and trying like as more of the company gets more people in place AJ and are trying to like spend more time getting to know you and interacting with you. You know, come leave us comments and, and, and share with us what you’re thinking and what you’re struggling with and, you know, download the study. And also our team wants to get to know you. Like if you think, if you’re wanting to become more well known and make more of an impact request, a free call you know, come over and check us out free brand call dot com. What is it? I don’t know. It’s on every ad I should know off the top of my head, but just go download the study for now brand builders, group.com/pod trends. And if you do that, you’ll get a chance to request a call with us. But keep coming back here. Thanks for your belief. Thanks for your trust. Thanks for the opportunity to, to shape your life. Go check out this data, let the data speak for itself. Just know that we love you. We believe in you, and we’re gonna keep coming back to serve you in a deeper way so that you can go out and serve your audience in a deeper way. We’ll catch you next time. Bye bye.

Ep 250: Trends in Personal Branding National Research Study by Brand Builders Group

RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free. And while wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call, call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/podcast brand builders, group.com/podcall. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
Oh man, I’m so excited. I cannot, I cannot wait for you to meet Tori Gordon. Tori is someone who has become just one of my favorite people that I met in the last couple years. We met her through brand builders. So she is, she’s a brand builder. She’s one of our clients, but she is extraordinary and she’s been doing huge things long before we ever got a chance to get to know her. In 2021, she actually has been one of tos, top 100 female creators. She has over 800,000 followers on TikTok. She has transitioned that into a fantastic coaching business. Speaking, she’s doing brand deals. There’s a number of things that she’s doing. And her content is really around helping people overcome their suffering and find perspective. And it’s just super inspiring. She is also a trauma informed breathwork facilitator.
RV (01:54):
She’s been featured in outlets like NBC and Fox news and CBSs and Yahoo business insider. And she hosts a podcast called the coachable podcast, which is in the top one and a half percent of all podcasts globally. And it’s fun to see that taking off for her and just so many different things that she’s working on. And obviously she’s an influencer. So she’s, she’s doing brand deals with big companies like can bud and better help, et cetera. And just inspiring a lot of people more than that. We just think she’s cool. And and she’s someone even like so many of our clients, even though she’s a client, it’s like somebody that we look up to and we learn from and just felt like you gotta meet Tori Gordon. And she’s got some awesome stuff to share with us. So anyways, Tori, welcome to the show.
TG (02:41):
Thank you so much for having me that was such a warm intro. And it’s just fun to be here and have this conversation with you. You’re somebody that I very much you and AJ are somebody people that I look up to admire and have learned so much from. So it’s, it’s fun to have this come full circle and get to chat while we record. So I’m excited for the conversation.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. Thank you, buddy. I mean we, we totally believe in you. You’re easy to believe in. I mean you have just built, you know, a, a such a phenomenal and loyal following which we would describe as quickly only because we’ve been around for 20 years. And you know, it’s taken you less time than that, but tell us the story a little bit. I, I mean, I wanna hear, I wanna hear about TikTok and how you’ve built that, but, but before that, tell us a little bit about your personal story. And you, you know, how you got started and how you figured out what, you know, I know that led to how you figured out what type of content you were gonna start producing.
TG (03:48):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great place to start. I think for me, I never would’ve anticipated that I would be having this type of conversation or be doing the work that do with clients or online ever if you’d asked me, you know, what, what would my future look like a couple years ago? You know, I’ve, I’ve been doing this full time for less than two and a half years. And before that I was in corporate sales, outside sales, and then I was leading a sales team of about a hundred people in five countries teaching and training them in sales training and onboarding and performance management, and was really kind of growing my, my career in that, that traditional way. And for me, I grew up in Alabama in Tuscaloosa. And so and I grew up in a family of educators and teachers, my mom and dad were both professors at the university level.
TG (04:47):
And so it was really always instilled in me the value of education and learning and being a student of life. And you know, I never really had a clear idea though, growing up of what I wanted to do. And so fell into sales. Like I fell into a lot of things early in my life, looking for other people to tell me who to be and what to do. I got my degree in social work at the time because a friend of mine said, Hey, it’s easy and it’s interesting. Come get this, you know, this degree, it’s an easy a and it was in college that my sister was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She’s 21 at the time. So I was for the first time experiencing a lot of upheaval in my life and just felt kind of lost at that season about who I was and what I wanted and felt like I needed to stay close to home to cuz of everything that was going on.
TG (05:43):
And over a couple of years, you know, I lost my sister, lost her battle with cancer. We lived through a massive F four tornado that came through our hometown in Tuscaloosa. And then my mom was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and wow, those losses just kind of piled up on each other to the point where after my mom passed away, 10 days after my 27th birthday, I kind of looked at my life and I looked around this beautiful house that I owned at 26 and the money that I had had made and all of the things, all of the boxes that I had checked that I thought were gonna make me happy and I felt alone. I felt empty. And I didn’t know what if I were to have been the one to, to have died genuinely like would I have left behind?
TG (06:39):
Would anybody care? Like, did I make an impact? Did I, did I have a powerful influence on people in a positive way? And obviously my, my mother and sister did in so many ways, not just on my life, but so many other people. And it put, set me on this path of really trying to figure out what my legacy would be. What did I wanna be remembered for and how did I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. And so that required me to do a lot of personal healing and get to know myself in a whole new way and give myself permission to do things I’d never done before. And so my journey really started from a selfish place of, of really trying to, to figure out my life path and purpose and what I needed. And it, it began with starting a podcast just to talk about the things that I was learning personally in my journey and that evolved very quickly. I actually got a call from my corporate boss and her boss right after I launched my podcast back in 2019 saying the first thing they said was we saw that you launched a podcast and were disappointed.
RV (07:45):
Really.
TG (07:46):
Yeah. And they told me, you know, we, this looks like it takes a lot of time. How do we know you’re not, you know, doing this on the side, we want you to be fully committed to this company and nothing else. And it was very clear that they hadn’t listened to the show because they had no idea what I was talking about on it. And they made a lot of accusations. And so it was clear then I think my life started to open up this natural path of saying, if, if you really want to pursue this, you’re gonna have to have a deep commitment and current to do something new, but you need to learn how to trust yourself. And so after that conversation, I put in my two weeks notice and I started on this entrepreneurial journey that I’ve been doing the last two and a half years, but had no idea was one of those jump out of the plane and build the parachute on the way down kind of thing. Wow.
RV (08:37):
I mean, so I, I wanted to share that story for so many reasons cuz it’s just, it’s such a powerful story. And there’s, I think when people think of like, you know, oh, TikTok or they’re a talker, you know, it’s easy to go, oh, it’s somebody who, you know, just wants fame or just, just, you know, waste their life away in video. Or like we have all these really stupid preconceived notions of like what that means. And we, I think specifically for brand builders and our community of mission driven messengers, I mean obviously we of the things that we say all the time is you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, your story is such a beautiful, one of going, you’re just using the tools of the day to help people walk through pain that you have already experienced. And I think it’s really important for people to catch that it’s like, it’s not vanity it’s, it’s not, it’s not even entertainment. It is. You’re, you’re just using a vehicle to reach a lot of people to, to try to help those who are going through something like what you’ve been through. I mean, to lose your mom and your, and have a, a tornado that magnitude all within a few years. I mean, that’s crazy. That’s, that’s crazy Tory.
TG (10:03):
Yeah, it was a lot. And I didn’t, you know, mention the three grandparents and the uncle and all the other people who passed in that time. So there was a lot that was going on. And, and to your point, I think a lot of people do we have these, these ideas in our head about what it means to be on social media. It’s funny. I was having a conversation in a discord channel the other day with a venture capitalist who was asking me about TikTok. And I was saying it would be an amazing opportunity for him to, to get global exposure and just to become kind of known as an expert in his space. Even if you’re not, you’re not selling, you know, your services on, on the platform, you’re just letting people know who you are. And it’s funny that no matter where people are in their journey, there’s all of these ideas that people have about, oh, people would think of me, what he said is people immediately think I’m phony.
TG (10:59):
People would think what he is really saying is people would judge me and I’m afraid of that. And the other piece is how many of us don’t think our, our ideal client is out there. And for me it was really, you know, before I was even thinking about selling to an audience or converting people that watch my content into clients or anything like that, it was just, I have a story and a message that I feel like can help somebody. And if I had had somebody, there were people in my life that I listened to that really encouraged me to, to do the work on myself that I needed at the time. And my, my goal was just to be a voice, you know, that would encourage people to to live a life that they were proud of and to, to stop avoiding things that they were, they were trying to run from.
TG (11:52):
And I think, yeah, practically, it’s just a, a smart strategic move because there’s millions upon millions upon millions of people that are on this platform. And the funny thing is when I got on TikTok, it wasn’t really strategic. It TikTok actually reached out to me and they said, Hey, it was in the middle of the pandemic. It was traditionally known as a young kid’s platform with that. A lot of kids were on dancing and doing trends like that. And they noticed a need in the market that there are so many people that are at home that can’t go anywhere and we wanna educate and inspire people through our platform. So can we bring content creators to create educat inspirational content across all these different industries? And I was one of ’em and then I just, for the first 30 to 40 videos was completely doing something I’d never done before, but it, there was this huge permission slip there because no one I knew was on TikTok at the time. So I just was doing something that was a little bit new and I a little bit fresh and ultimately resonated with people. Mm-Hmm
RV (12:59):
so, so let’s do talk about TikTok a a a, a little bit in terms of why do you think you grew so quickly? What can people learn from that? What do they need to know about it? I mean, obviously, yeah. I mean that, it started as a dance thing that there it’s, it’s still very dance driven. Mm-Hmm there. Music is still very musically driven in, in a lot of cases. And so one of the reasons that I love highlighting your story is you, you don’t do anything close to that. You, your, your videos are moving and profound and deep. Like they, they are, they are, I mean, you’re talking about deep issues to trauma and mental health and like these, these kinds of things. And so, you know, you, your, your profile is evidence of proof that it doesn’t have to be a certain type of content. Right. yet I know that you’ve also put a lot of thought and work into it and probably made a mistake here and there. So can you just like walk us through that a little bit?
TG (14:03):
Yeah. I think definitely early on, I was trying to figure out what my voice was gonna be on this platform, because the thing about TikTok, if you’re coming from Instagram or any other social media platform TikTok at the time, really required me to think differently about how I was gonna share my message. And what I knew was my sweet spot was, was really just talking authentically to the camera. And so I started doing that like on my daily walks during COVID, I would have no makeup on, and I would just like be telling, you know, sharing a, a snippet of, of my day or something that you know, had just listened to in a podcast or something that inspired me. And I think the thing about TikTok is it feels really relatable and raw and real, the it’s built in such a way that you can create content on the fly and really document your real life, as opposed to what we had been traditionally kind of conditioned into, which is perfect feeds and perfect photos.
TG (15:03):
And this highlight real. So people were really hungry for authenticity and, and something that genuine. And so regardless of, of the type of content, I think the thing that helped me was just pulling, allowing myself to like put down any mask I wore on any other platform and just show up as me. The thing that really, really does well with, with audiences on TikTok is feeling like they know the person that they’re watching that you’re part of their life, or you’re part of this journey that they’re going on. And, and just telling a story is of one way to really engage an audience and take them on, you know, that journey. But yeah, we talk about deep topics and, and the thing that I’ve realized is that trauma doesn’t discriminate. You know, everybody has experienced something hard in their life and they’re all seasons that, that we need support in and can relate to.
TG (16:07):
And that’s the kind of content that moves people. It’s either funny, it’s emotional in some way, whether it, it causes you to laugh or to cry or to, to feel something think about all the, the videos you’ve seen of dogs or, or the, you know, pet of the week. And it just like makes you wanna cry. But I just talk about, you know, personal stories. And I, that’s what I encourage other people to do is let people get to know you on a deeper level that they might not see on other platforms.
RV (16:39):
So I, I have that question for you. So clearly that has been your strategy on TikTok. That’s worked really, really well for you. The, you know, and, and if y’all, don’t already follow her, if you don’t know. So if you it’s coach, coach Tory, Gordon is her TikTok handle. You’ve got videos of you crying and on camera and stuff. So do you think that other, do you think that that approach doesn’t work on other platforms? You know, just kind of like the raw authenticity thing, do you think it just especially works on TikTok? Do you think that other platforms are migrating that way now, or they’re not did it, did it really just work cuz you were early to the platform mm-hmm like, do you know just like I guess subjectively what’s your sense of that?
TG (17:34):
Well, I’d say since Instagram has rolled out reels a lot of the, the things that you see do really well on TikTok are starting to do well on Instagram several months later. So I think there’s part, I don’t think it’s necessarily only on TikTok, but for those who’ve been on Instagram for a really long time, there has been a way that we’ve been conditioning used to seeing feeds and content there. So TikTok was for me, the first platform that kind of was this permission slip to be more vulnerable on social media. But I think that’s the way it’s trending in general, across platforms. People want realness. They want to see that they’re, we’re tired of that kind of fabricated airbrushed look all the time. And I think that showing up on Instagram different ways, whether it’s through video content or through other types of posts, but ultimately when, what I’ve experienced in trying to build a personal brand is people want to know you and TikTok makes it super easy to just post you can post a large quantity of content so that people can get to know you quickly as opposed to feeling like I can only post one post a day on Instagram.
TG (18:57):
Right? it it’s sort of like taking your Instagram stories and actually posting it. So it doesn’t go away after 24 hours. So those little snippets into your life that you might post on your, your story, people actually can go back and kind of track your history and see the things that you’ve done or the things that you’ve talked about. And, and there gets to be kind of this, this theme of what is this person’s content about? Is it, am I gonna go there and I’m gonna learn something, am I gonna go there gonna be entertained? Am I gonna go there? And I’m gonna be inspired. Am I gonna laugh? And people start to, to go to your profile cuz they’re looking for a certain type of content. And so the thing I love about TikTok is very quickly O the audience will tell you the, the kind of content that they wanna see more of. That’s just how the algorithm is built. There is so that anybody starting out, even if you have zero followers, you can get organic reach and the TikTok audience will tell you if they like it. And then you can do more create more of, of that kind of content, which is invaluable feedback to get
RV (20:14):
Mm-Hmm . And so the do you think that, like, in terms of the mechanics of the platform, the way the videos are edited, the, you know, like you’re talking a lot about the kind of content and sort of the overall feel mm-hmm in terms of the mechanics of what, you know, functions you need to be using, are there certain things that you would recommend for that? Or is it really just about posting consistently staying, you know, kind of like on a topic, let people see you and, and that, or is, is there also some technical things or strategic things that you go actually, like if you’re gonna do it, here’s some things about how you wanna do it. Mm-Hmm functionally speaking.
TG (21:03):
Yeah. Definitely record in the app. That’s make it native to the platform. It’s a something that they really, really like when it comes to the algorithm, they they’ve built the platform in such a way that it’s easy to record right there in the TikTok app, as opposed to recording you know, with your HD camera and then uploading it. And having this perfectly curated video. It’s, it’s almost better if it’s not a lot of my content has been terribly lit, you know, when I’m walking my dog in the middle of the night or sitting in my car before going to meet a girlfriend for dinner, and it’s just like, I just whipped out my phone and I press record record, and I just started talking. So I wouldn’t over it’s it doesn’t need to be overproduced. The other thing I’ll say practically is, is definitely use the, the text overlay feature because the TikTok algorithm picks up on the text.
TG (22:02):
That’s written through the app and those key words show up show the algorithm who to show that piece of content to. So that’s really helpful. So if you have keywords such as success or motivation or mental health or anxiety that that’s gonna dictate kind of who gets to see your piece of content first, and if they like it and they watch it for a significant amount of time, that population gonna grow getting people’s attention early is another thing. So just practically doing something that kind of hooks people in. And, and this is something that’s talked about on a lot of PR platforms, but especially on TikTok, if you’re just a user of the platform, you’re gonna start to notice the types of that really gets your attention. There’s something that happens in the first couple seconds that makes you intrigued. And that can even just be a shift of, of the camera, like the camera angle that you have or a sound that you make.
TG (23:05):
So using the, the video, like for feature within the app, using the text overlay and using keywords and now I think actually it’s becoming sort of SEO driven and keyword driven. So it’s actually, your videos will show up in Google if you search for certain keywords. So it’s similar to what YouTube has done. When you’re thinking about titles or, or kind of click baby word choices, that’s gonna help people to, to click on your your content. So that’s one thing you can be thinking about, but ultimately I say people really like to be taken on a journey. So if you’re thinking about the type of content, think about either something you can teach or steps to a process something like that even, and it can be around just anything and everything. Whether it’s, Hey here, 10, 10 best things to do on a date or the 10 things you don’t wanna do on a date that can be 10 pieces of content right there, and people will come back for more. Do
RV (24:16):
You, how long does it take you to make a TikTok video?
TG (24:20):
I, the be the shorter, the better traditionally so around, I would say five minutes if you’re editing and everything that I would tell people to do 15 seconds or less, less for a TikTok, if you’re just getting started. But there’s a three minute feature now and I sometimes use that and those have done extremely well, two but ultimately I don’t overproduce my content. I really I try to make it as raw as possible because that’s kind of my, my thing and how people know me, the more edited, the more transitions there are. It actually just doesn’t do as well with my audience. They, they know me for just sitting there and talking to the camera spilling my heart out and then you know, letting that be that be it, I don’t really overthink it when I, oh, it comes to producing the content itself.
RV (25:22):
How do you make money from this? Okay. So this, that, this is a question I think that people have, right? Like you know, you start doing this, you’re incorporating it into your rhythm, even if it only takes five minutes. And of course, when you’re first learning how to use the app, like, what are all the buttons do? It’s there’s, you know, learning curve. Sure. The it’s a lot of time, there’s some risk. I mean, you’re putting yourself out there. I mean, I think to the, to, to the fear of to, to the fear of you know, that VC, that person that you were talking about earlier being judged, I think you will be judged. I mean, you will have haters. Like you will have some people who, who show up, but like, so you, you do all of this. How does it turn into money? So talk to us about that.
TG (26:11):
There’s several ways. One is just creating content on the platform. Once you have reached, I believe it’s still 10,000 followers. You can join the creators fund, which will pay you based on the number of views that you get. And you just get paid simply for creating content that gets viewed. That’s one way you can also
RV (26:39):
That’s really cool by the way, cuz that no one else has none of the other platforms have that. I don’t think of just like mm-hmm we just pay you money based on views alone without an ad running on your video or something. Yep.
TG (26:52):
So that’s and that’s available for any and everybody. So that’s one super easy way. The second is if you have a thousand followers, you can start to use their go live feature. That’s one of the best ways to create a real community, having some kind of cadence and consistency around going live so that you’re really building relationships with people and on your lives, people can pay you so they can pay you through coins. They can tip you just on your videos, on your channel in general, there is an option to add tips. And so people will just, if they like your content, they’ll, it’s basically like being able to support an artist or something that you like, but you can support a creator through tips. So
RV (27:37):
It’s like a band, like a band playing at a bar or something and you just like drop the money into the tip chart.
TG (27:44):
Yep. And it will interesting surprise you the other day. I just actually added that feature and I never thought, you know, anybody would, would do it. And then I looked the other day, somebody had tipped me a hundred dollars and I was like, wow, that’s so amazing. So I really felt compelled to reach out to that person and start a relationship with that person. Just thank them for their generosity. But you’ll be surprised. You know, I think especially as content creators, we forget how much of an impact we really do make on people and how one piece of content can be the thing that inspires someone to quit a job or leave a relationship or start a business or ask for help or whatever it it is. And people feel indebted to you when, when you’ve been kind of that voice, that, that was guiding them in a time that they really needed it and they want to give back and they want to say, thank you in the ways that they can.
TG (28:39):
So whether that’s through lives or tips that’s one way that you can monetize it. Then as you grow, there are so many brands that want to collaborate with content creators on TikTok. It really is. Video is the next, the next thing that’s, that’s really being pushed on social media. We moved from, from photos to, to video and now into whatever the metaverse will be in the future . But right now TikTok is, is the best place for, for small businesses to really grow their audience and their business, but also bigger brands to, to connect and collaborate with, with content creators. So there’s lots of ways you can monetize as a person or as a small business. Just by promoting and talking about your product. If you are a small business, I’ve seen so many people just completely blow up to the point that they can’t fill orders because they started to share about the story behind their business, why they started it, you know, the, the struggles that they were facing, the process of, of creating something as unique as, you know, glass blown ornaments or, or metal work or just whatever your uniqueness is, you get to really show that off and people wanna support what, the types of content that they, they enjoy watching.
RV (30:11):
I love that. That’s, I mean, that’s simple, but that’s, that’s, that’s a lot of different things. I mean, you’ve got the creator fund, you have the tip function, you’ve brand deals, and then you have basically just driving your audience to buy your thing, which is kind of the world that we live in mm-hmm at brand builders group is going like build an audience, add value, develop trust, and then show ’em how you can go to the next level. Right. The to that point. So just real quick, how did you find brand builders group? Like how did you find us? Why did you reach out to us? Like tell us a little bit about that, about that journey?
TG (30:51):
Yeah, well, like, like I said there are people in our lives that kind of point the way and show us, I always look to people who are, are doing the thing I wanted be doing. And as many listeners of the show know like Lewis houses is probably one of those people for many of us who we’ve watched and admired and, and listened to. And I remember hearing you on Lewis’s show and seeing all the things that he has built. I, I wanted to work with somebody who could guide me in terms of all of these opportunities. I was kind of naturally getting anyway. I didn’t know where to focus my attention or my time or my energy. And it had felt like in, in a year and a half or two years of doing this, I had been piece it all together and trying to hire somebody for, you know, a website and hire a branding person and hire somebody to help me with ads or whatever it was.
TG (31:55):
And what I really needed was a mentor. What I really needed was somebody who could, who had done it before and then could provide me with the advice and the, the guidance and the, the network that I needed. And when I heard Lewis talk about it, obviously, I, I checked you guys out, got on a call and it was an immediate yes, for me. I didn’t know any other business model or company like brand builders existed before. And I really don’t think that there are many out there that do that, do it at the level that you guys do it. But it was one of those things. I was like, how quickly can I get involved and start to, to get in be part of this community, because I could see the, the value in it from the start. And it’s only allowed me to accelerate the growth that, that I’d already built up into that point and see a longer term vision for how is this gonna be sustainable over time?
RV (32:59):
Yeah. I love that cuz I think that’s one of the, you know, some people we work with are like brand new in their journey and it’s like, help me get clear on all this. Somebody like Lewis is obviously way far down the path and it’s more of like help me sort out my options. But I think with everybody, we’re always trying to play that long game and go like, how do you make this substantive? Not just viral or, you know, a flash, but like a true sustainable career. You know, when meeting people like you and hearing your story is just, it’s like you, you should be, I mean, there’s such a need for, for what you’re doing. And it’s been, I think, you know, aging, a heart and, and, and mine in our teams like has been the first couple years of brand builders group, I think have been a lot about the, the curriculum.
RV (33:48):
You know, we’re just trying to formalize, like you’re saying like how have we built what we’ve built and helped the people that we have and like turning it into a process that I think the next generation of brand builders is really about . And it, I love when I was chatting with you just before we started. And you’re like, I just saw Hillary and I just saw Anton and like I was trying to connect with you. I was like, I missed you when I was in Atlanta. But like I think that that is potentially, you know, gonna be a big, you know, really where the power is going, going forward. So I think it’s awesome that you’re humble enough to wanna be a part of that. And then to see you reaching out to people, Tori, and like building relationships with the other members has been, has been awesome.
TG (34:32):
Yeah. I mean, when I think about investing now, as opposed to when I was initially investing in coaches or, or mentors or programs early on on the motivation has definitely shifted a bit. Now, obviously I care about the curriculum, but I really care about the people that are in, in the community. Who am I networking with? Who, who can I learn from? Who can I support and how can I collaborate with them? That’s really so much value that you guys bring on top of everything else that you teach is just attracting really powerful purpose driven leaders together. And that when you get people like that together, there’s just synergy. And so many idea is that, that form and how can we do this? And and that’s really exciting for me because as a entrepreneur that has built an online business, it can feel super isolating. And like you’re the only one. And you only get to connect with people, you know, via the internet. And that’s great. And sometimes you, you wanna go deeper and that’s what we get to get to do and what I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to do with other brand builders, which has been really amazing. I love
RV (35:51):
That. Yeah, that’s that, that fill just fills me up and you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gotten no doubt. Like, you know, if I could buy stock in somebody, I would buy stock in Tory Gordon, because it’s just like the trajectory of where you’re going and, and the people that you’re hanging out with inside our community. It’s like, you, you can, you quickly spot the ones who are willing to do the work and willing to spend the time and get to know each other, speaking of the future, just while I have you. I do wanna, I know we got way over time, but, but you mentioned the metaverse, this is something I’ve started paying attention to a little bit. You know, I was late to the game with Facebook. Definitely missed the boat on Instagram, missed the boat on TikTok. Podcasting was the one thing that I kind of caught the wave early, but then we ended up selling the podcast when we sold the company.
RV (36:39):
And so that disappeared, you know? And so mm-hmm, , we haven’t been in position to kind of catch a wave in a while. And one of the things I’m starting to look at is the metaverse and as much as I’m like, oh, I don’t know if I like this. I don’t, I don’t know if I understand it. I can’t help, but go. I feel like this might be something we need to pay attention to less. We missed the boat again. And so just mm-hmm because you’ve been riding that wave out there. Yeah. Like what do you have any thoughts on what’s ahead and what you think’s coming like a little bit about that?
TG (37:14):
Like you, I have my, my hesitations and my fears around what, what the future holds, but I am also, I have learned to follow where the young people go and I’m not I’m I know I’m still young, but the, the kids are kind of on that cusp of what’s coming and what’s new and it’s, they it’s to crypto and it’s the metaverse and it’s NFTs. And I actually heard an interview that you did with, I think Tom bile talking about NFTs on success of successes page on Instagram. And that kind of got my, my wheels turning. And so I started to do my research and we just invested in our first NFT. And metaverse project over the weekend. I’m really excited about because the truth is I, I do think that’s where we are headed. And like you said, it it’s about getting in early and really adopting the, the technology and just accepting that this is kind of where the future is headed.
TG (38:20):
That the sooner I can accept that and get on board with it, the sooner I can also help to shape it and what that’s gonna look like. And so if we’re gonna be, you know, meeting virtually in the future, then that means I can help to create a safe space for people to do that and to, to connect and engage in a way that is nourishing and is supportive. And that, that’s the things that really excite me is being part of something that’s being built so that I, I can have a hand in part of that conversation. And, and what, what does that look like in the future? And typically in my experience, the, the kids are the ones that are leading the charge on that. And so I’m gonna kind of keep my eye out for where they’re headed and what they’re, what they’re into and do my research. Like everybody else. We, none of us really know, but I’m, I’m learning along with everybody. Just like you
RV (39:21):
Love it. I love it. Well, Tori, that is that’s enlightening and, and just yeah, I mean, that’s how I feel. It’s like, I, I used just for so long, I’ve been, I was always the youngest, the young guy, the young kid, the youngest one in the room and, and, and I look back and go, wow, I’m not that guy anymore. And pretty soon I’m gonna start being the old guy and the oldest person in the room. And and so I just admire how you’re learning and growing and just like, even what you’re saying, looking to the, looking to the young people. And yeah. So thank you for, thank you for your trust. Thanks for the chance of, of an, the opportunity for letting us shape, you know, some of the direction of what you’re up to. We know it’s gonna be huge, huge, even huge than it is . And you know, where do you want people to go to connect with you if they wanna like follow you and say in touch with you and see what you’re up to? Yeah.
TG (40:14):
I’d love to connect with you guys. I’m on social Instagram, TikTok I’m coach Tory Gordon. You can also go to my website, Tory gordon.com. Find out all about me. And we’d love to give you guys access. We’ve been talking about a lot about success and how to get there, but one of the things I really teach a lot about is, is how to make that sustainable long term. And so I’ve got a free training if you guys are in should you can grab that on my site and we’ll, I’m sure we’ll put it in the show notes or something, so you can guys can get access, but to gordon.com is the best way to learn more.
RV (40:48):
I love it. Yeah, we will. We’ll link up. We’ll link up to all of that. We’ll be following you on the TikTok. And maybe looking out for you in the metaverse here at some point hopefully seeing you at a brain builders group event live, we, we got about half our events live in person next year, so that’s good. And we just, no matter what, we’re just know, we’re, we’re, we’re polling for you and praying for you and wish you the best. Thanks so much for sharing your story. Thanks
TG (41:13):
For having me, Rory

Ep 249: Tips for Growing on TikTok with Tori Gordon | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
I gotta say, Tori Gordon is becoming one of my favorite people to hang out with. I just think she’s so cool. And so smart. And, and so mission driven. I mean I just, you know, it’s, it’s people like her that when they become clients that I just feel lucky and like how humbled, because it’s, it’s just an honor to me to be associated with people who care so deeply about their audience and for them to trust us, because I see how, how much they work to serve the, the, the people in their community. I mean, just amazing. And, and, and we learned so much from them and I learned a ton, right. So obviously I’m welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I’m, I’m sharing my top three takeaways from the chat that I just had with Tori Gordon. And man she’s built over 800,000 followers.
RV (00:56):
She’s one of the top creators on all of TikTok and she’s, she’s, she’s amazing. And I love the content that she does, the way that she does it. The consistency, the, the care that she has for her audience and just getting a chance to know her. I mean, you got to, you know, experience a little bit of her personality. I just think she’s doing a lot of things. Right. And I, I think I say, look out for Tory Gordon and y’all like, look out for Tory Gordon. She’s, she’s gonna be huge. And she’s obviously enough right. To, to, you know, I think it’s funny her, she has the coachable podcast, what she talk about and she’s super coachable, right? Like here she is like part of our community learning from us and, and teaching us and networking. And I mean, just watch out, watch out world for Tori Gordon.
RV (01:38):
So if you didn’t listen to the interview, go listen to it. But there’s, I learned, I mean, one of the things that she said has, has been ringing in my head now for like the last couple weeks, since I, since I actually did the interview with her in a really, really powerful way. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell you what that is. So first of all, first, my first takeaway actually is super tactical. I did not know this. It makes so much sense. It’s kind of like, well, duh, Rory, like where, why would you not, why would you not figure this out? And it’s, it’s a very, very pragmatic thing it’s, it’s related to, to TikTok, but also I believe Instagram reels and, and I’ve been doing it and it’s working and it is put keywords in your text overlays.
RV (02:30):
What does that mean? It means that, you know, like when you post a video a reel or, you know, whatever, a, a TikTok, if you’re on TikTok, you can put titles on your videos. Well, whatever you title your video, the app is, is reading those just like the way that a Google, you know, bot crawls websites and reads the headlines of a website to tell you what that page is about. It’s, it’s informing that. And there’s all these kind of parallels between search engine optimization and, you know, like app optimization for all these social media sites. And it’s kind of like where search engine optimization was 10 years ago is where a lot of these apps are right now. And so just like, you know, one of the things that we say a lot is hashtags are social media. What keywords are to search engine optimization, right?
RV (03:22):
And so that’s part of like, when you’re doing your hashtag strategy. Well, when you’re also doing normal search engine optimization, one of the most important things you do is the headlines. What are your, biggest lines, meaning font size on a page, and the words that you put it in those headlines, make your site more indexable, more findable for those terms, whatever the terms are that are in the headlines while the same is true. This is what she’s saying. The same is true with your little, you know, videos that you post on social or your pictures. If you’re putting titles as text overlays, the apps, the algorithm, them can read those. And so that is an indicator to the algorithm. What that content is about the same way as a headline is to a Google like a crawler about what the website is about.
RV (04:13):
So it’s the same thing. And it’s like, well, duh. Yeah, of course it can read the text. Why didn’t I think about that? So instead of calling my video, you know, one thing I was thinking about today, which is like, nobody is searching that you say you, I did this this morning. I did a video that was like the number one secret to extraordinary customer service. And now I know that by putting the word term customer service in that headline, it, it’s not line, it’s a, it’s a title text overlay, but it’s the same as what a headline would be on a webpage. Now, people searching for that term or people who follow that term. The, the, the app is more likely to serve that content up to them. And it’s like, well, duh, right. So you have just like, you have keywords and headlines for search engine optimization.
RV (05:01):
You have hashtags and text overlays for social media content, duh. But I didn’t never thought about it until she said it. And so brilliant. So, so, so simple. Now the second thing sh she said to the, the, my second takeaway is the thing that she said to me that really, like, I’ve been thinking about this a lot and it’s actually impacted my behavior a lot. And, and I think she kind of just rattled it off, but it really hit me hard. And it was when we were talking about the future of social and content and like the, you know, the metaverse and all that kind of stuff. You know, and I think I was kind of lamenting about how it’s just like, I just don’t like this stuff, like I’ve, I’ve not, I’m not super social, like in real life. And I think that’s a little bit why I’m like a little, you know, slow to social media and picking it up.
RV (05:58):
And I don’t, I don’t love the idea. I don’t love the idea of living such a big part of my life, not in real life. And that’s an issue I’ve always had with social media, even of going like, well, if I’m spending time over here, that means I’m, I’m maybe not spending time with like people in my real life. And so I’m not sure, you know, there’s some parts of it. I mean, there’s some parts I love and some of the best relationships I have some of my very best friends in my life. I actually met, you know, online. And so, you know, that’ll be in another part of the future with the whole metaverse conversation, which I suspect will be talking more about because I’m, I’m gonna be diving into trying to understand what does it all mean, but here’s, here’s what she said.
RV (06:41):
So just to get, to get to the point you, you know, I was saying, I’m not sure I like this. I, Im not sure I like the technology or where this future is, is heading. And she said, the sooner I can accept it and get on board with and understand it, the sooner I can shape it, the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And y’all, that really hit me hard because I realized that this whole idea of, I don’t like the idea of a metaverse, I don’t like social media, media is a very self centered view, right? It’s not selfish. It’s not like you’re hurting anybody, but it’s, it’s, it’s a self centered view. It’s saying this is about me and what I think, but a true service centered view would be to go, there’s a bunch of people who need help.
RV (07:39):
I gotta go to where they are. Right. It’s, it’s kind of like going well, you know, I’ll you know, I’ll, I’ll give to needy people who, you know, show up in my neighborhood, but it’s like the most needy people might not be in your neighborhood. You gotta go to them. You gotta go to where those people are. And the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And just that idea of going, you know, what all these people they’re gonna be there. And when I think about the metaverse, I go, this is happening. I can see it. Right. And it’s, it scares me cuz it’s, it’s literally a half step away from the matrix, like the movie, but I can see people going, number one, if I don’t love my life in real life, if, if I have a hard day or I, you know, I don’t like where I live.
RV (08:25):
Maybe I don’t like my house. Maybe I don’t like the people in my house or my neighborhood where I just don’t feel good or I, you know, I go to a school that I don’t love or a good job that I don’t love. And I have this negative experience when I come home, the idea of going somewhere where I can feel loved and cherished and important, and people of course, people are gonna do that. Of course they are. That makes a lot of sense. The other part of this that makes a lot of, a lot of sense to me is that a lot of our best relationships are, are no longer in physical proximity. Right? So even if I love my life, I still go, my best friend lives in Texas. And you know, my other, my other friend lives in Florida and whatever, right.
RV (09:13):
They’re not here. So you have that amplified by COVID and all this crazy, like we’re working from home, we’re not sure. And we’re, we’re back in the office, we’re not back in the office and you know, so this idea of going, yeah, let’s just hop in there and connect. I, I mean, it’s gonna happen. Right. And, and I was following Zuckerberg on Instagram and he’s, you know, show in these videos of him playing with these gloves, these haptic gloves, where he’s like fencing with this Olympian fencer, and he can feel this, the virtual sword hitting against her virtual sword. I mean, so the technology is gonna be there and I, I don’t love it. Right. I don’t, I dont don’t want this to be the case. I don’t like, I, it’s not how I would design things, but to what Tori said, it just really hit me.
RV (10:05):
It’s like the sooner I can accept it, the sooner I can understand it. And the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And you better believe that if there’s all of those reasons for people to be in that metaverse, then you can be certain that there’s gonna be lots of bad influences in there and all sorts of, you know, negative things and all sorts of needs because there’s still people, there’s still real people inside there. And they have real hurts and issues and self-doubts and insecurities. You know, there’s a whole newness of a whole new metaverse. So those people need hope. They need help. They need encouragement, they need education. And that whether I like it or not, it feels to me like this is happening. And so I wanna understand it because the sooner I can to understand it sooner, I can shape it so that, you know, thank you for that Tori that really hit me hard.
RV (11:02):
And I think affected me in a, in a profound way. And that leads me to number three, which was you know, probably my favorite reminder, although it it’s one that we talk about a lot and it just, it’s just cool to hear her Edify and to see somebody like her, who’s such a rising star going, this is how she’s thinking. And, and seeing her win going, this is the attitude we’re talking about, right? Like you don’t, you, you can, you can be mission driven. You can be service centered, you can be audience focused. You don’t have to fake it. You don’t have to, you know, flaunt everything. You can, you can just be in the service of others and, and win. And she said, instead of thinking about how many followers you get, or how much money you make, spend more time thinking about what do I wanna be remembered for, right? Like what do you want to be remembered for? You might not even need social media to make money. You might not even care about marketing or personal branding, but it is an opportunity to leave behind something, right? It is a, it is a, it is a, a historical record of your life, which is means it’s a historical record of your philosophies and your beliefs. And thus, it is a chance for you to leave a trail of what you believed in.
RV (12:27):
And that’s, to me, a powerful reason enough to at least consider doing this. I mean, the idea that that Jasper or Liam might one day listen to podcast episodes that I recorded years before, or watch a YouTube video of me doing a Ted talk back in 2000 and whatever year, it was 15 or read a book that I wrote in 2012, that is super inspiring to me. And to go like for those who that don’t know, those are my kids, those are our kids Japer and Liam and, and go, yeah. And also your team, right? If you lead a company, you go, it it’s a chance for your team. Like you don’t, you don’t necessarily get to see or have conversation with every person team, especially you have a big team and go, this is a chance for them to you understand, like, this is what we believe around here.
RV (13:20):
This is how we operate. This is, this is what we do. You know, this is who I am. This is what our company’s gonna be about. That’s super powerful. And thinking about what do I wanna be remembered for? And also the idea like, you know, I, I think of about, of course Ziglar was one of my, one of my, my dearest mentors, the idea that people watching Ziglar videos on YouTube every day. That’s awesome. I mean, people listen to Jim row tapes. Like, I mean, there’s these, you know, Charlie tremendous Jones, there’s Dale Carnegie. I mean, there are legends of this industry and space who are still massively impacting the world today because people are consuming their content. You know, and it’s, that’s a really, really ripe opportunity. And so don’t forget that, like, don’t forget that this isn’t about metrics and money and, and followers and, and credibility. And like, this is impact. And there are more tools than ever before in history for you to, to make an impact on the world, right? Like you, you sit and go, oh, what do you wanna do with your, I wanna make an impact. I wanna help people.
RV (14:43):
All the tools are in your hand, right? You’re one button away, right? You got a hundred different apps you can use to do it. Impact people, change their life, make their life better. Do it like pour into people, share the thing that you have on your heart and share it. Because I, I know this, there’s a lot of people out there promoting a lot of trashy stuff and bad ne messages. And there’s a lot of meanness and negativity and harassment and horrible stuff going on and the good people of the world, the mission driven messengers, like we gotta step up and we gotta, we have to pump good out into the world to combat some of the bad we have that chance you have that chance. I have that chance, even if we don’t like it, the sooner we accept it and we understand it sooner, we can shape it and we can make an impact on people and be remembered for something pretty cool.
RV (15:46):
So thank you for the compliment of tuning in to all the stuff that we put out. That’s amazing. It’s the coolest thing ever. And you know, there’s a chance you and I haven’t met yet. And I just love you. I feel so grateful and honored that you allow us the opportunity to shape your business, your mind, your life, a little bit. What a privilege to compliment. We love doing it. We cherish it. I hope we get to continue doing it. I hope we get to meet in person and give you a hug, not just in the metaverse, but in real life. . So keep coming back, talk to you soon on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 248: Tips for Growing on TikTok with Tori Gordon

RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free. And while wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call, call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/podcall. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
Oh man, I’m so excited. I cannot, I cannot wait for you to meet Tori Gordon. Tori is someone who has become just one of my favorite people that I met in the last couple years. We met her through brand builders. So she is, she’s a brand builder. She’s one of our clients, but she is extraordinary and she’s been doing huge things long before we ever got a chance to get to know her. In 2021, she actually has been one of tos, top 100 female creators. She has over 800,000 followers on TikTok. She has transitioned that into a fantastic coaching business. Speaking, she’s doing brand deals. There’s a number of things that she’s doing. And her content is really around helping people overcome their suffering and find perspective. And it’s just super inspiring. She is also a trauma informed breathwork facilitator.
RV (01:54):
She’s been featured in outlets like NBC and Fox news and CBSs and Yahoo business insider. And she hosts a podcast called the coachable podcast, which is in the top one and a half percent of all podcasts globally. And it’s fun to see that taking off for her and just so many different things that she’s working on. And obviously she’s an influencer. So she’s, she’s doing brand deals with big companies like can bud and better help, et cetera. And just inspiring a lot of people more than that. We just think she’s cool. And and she’s someone even like so many of our clients, even though she’s a client, it’s like somebody that we look up to and we learn from and just felt like you gotta meet Tori Gordon. And she’s got some awesome stuff to share with us. So anyways, Tori, welcome to the show.
TG (02:41):
Thank you so much for having me that was such a warm intro. And it’s just fun to be here and have this conversation with you. You’re somebody that I very much you and AJ are somebody people that I look up to admire and have learned so much from. So it’s, it’s fun to have this come full circle and get to chat while we record. So I’m excited for the conversation.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. Thank you, buddy. I mean we, we totally believe in you. You’re easy to believe in. I mean you have just built, you know, a, a such a phenomenal and loyal following which we would describe as quickly only because we’ve been around for 20 years. And you know, it’s taken you less time than that, but tell us the story a little bit. I, I mean, I wanna hear, I wanna hear about TikTok and how you’ve built that, but, but before that, tell us a little bit about your personal story. And you, you know, how you got started and how you figured out what, you know, I know that led to how you figured out what type of content you were gonna start producing.
TG (03:48):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great place to start. I think for me, I never would’ve anticipated that I would be having this type of conversation or be doing the work that do with clients or online ever if you’d asked me, you know, what, what would my future look like a couple years ago? You know, I’ve, I’ve been doing this full time for less than two and a half years. And before that I was in corporate sales, outside sales, and then I was leading a sales team of about a hundred people in five countries teaching and training them in sales training and onboarding and performance management, and was really kind of growing my, my career in that, that traditional way. And for me, I grew up in Alabama in Tuscaloosa. And so and I grew up in a family of educators and teachers, my mom and dad were both professors at the university level.
TG (04:47):
And so it was really always instilled in me the value of education and learning and being a student of life. And you know, I never really had a clear idea though, growing up of what I wanted to do. And so fell into sales. Like I fell into a lot of things early in my life, looking for other people to tell me who to be and what to do. I got my degree in social work at the time because a friend of mine said, Hey, it’s easy and it’s interesting. Come get this, you know, this degree, it’s an easy a and it was in college that my sister was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She’s 21 at the time. So I was for the first time experiencing a lot of upheaval in my life and just felt kind of lost at that season about who I was and what I wanted and felt like I needed to stay close to home to cuz of everything that was going on.
TG (05:43):
And over a couple of years, you know, I lost my sister, lost her battle with cancer. We lived through a massive F four tornado that came through our hometown in Tuscaloosa. And then my mom was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and wow, those losses just kind of piled up on each other to the point where after my mom passed away, 10 days after my 27th birthday, I kind of looked at my life and I looked around this beautiful house that I owned at 26 and the money that I had had made and all of the things, all of the boxes that I had checked that I thought were gonna make me happy and I felt alone. I felt empty. And I didn’t know what if I were to have been the one to, to have died genuinely like would I have left behind?
TG (06:39):
Would anybody care? Like, did I make an impact? Did I, did I have a powerful influence on people in a positive way? And obviously my, my mother and sister did in so many ways, not just on my life, but so many other people. And it put, set me on this path of really trying to figure out what my legacy would be. What did I wanna be remembered for and how did I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. And so that required me to do a lot of personal healing and get to know myself in a whole new way and give myself permission to do things I’d never done before. And so my journey really started from a selfish place of, of really trying to, to figure out my life path and purpose and what I needed. And it, it began with starting a podcast just to talk about the things that I was learning personally in my journey and that evolved very quickly. I actually got a call from my corporate boss and her boss right after I launched my podcast back in 2019 saying the first thing they said was we saw that you launched a podcast and were disappointed.
RV (07:45):
Really.
TG (07:46):
Yeah. And they told me, you know, we, this looks like it takes a lot of time. How do we know you’re not, you know, doing this on the side, we want you to be fully committed to this company and nothing else. And it was very clear that they hadn’t listened to the show because they had no idea what I was talking about on it. And they made a lot of accusations. And so it was clear then I think my life started to open up this natural path of saying, if, if you really want to pursue this, you’re gonna have to have a deep commitment and current to do something new, but you need to learn how to trust yourself. And so after that conversation, I put in my two weeks notice and I started on this entrepreneurial journey that I’ve been doing the last two and a half years, but had no idea was one of those jump out of the plane and build the parachute on the way down kind of thing. Wow.
RV (08:37):
I mean, so I, I wanted to share that story for so many reasons cuz it’s just, it’s such a powerful story. And there’s, I think when people think of like, you know, oh, TikTok or they’re a talker, you know, it’s easy to go, oh, it’s somebody who, you know, just wants fame or just, just, you know, waste their life away in video. Or like we have all these really stupid preconceived notions of like what that means. And we, I think specifically for brand builders and our community of mission driven messengers, I mean obviously we of the things that we say all the time is you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, your story is such a beautiful, one of going, you’re just using the tools of the day to help people walk through pain that you have already experienced. And I think it’s really important for people to catch that it’s like, it’s not vanity it’s, it’s not, it’s not even entertainment. It is. You’re, you’re just using a vehicle to reach a lot of people to, to try to help those who are going through something like what you’ve been through. I mean, to lose your mom and your, and have a, a tornado that magnitude all within a few years. I mean, that’s crazy. That’s, that’s crazy Tory.
TG (10:03):
Yeah, it was a lot. And I didn’t, you know, mention the three grandparents and the uncle and all the other people who passed in that time. So there was a lot that was going on. And, and to your point, I think a lot of people do we have these, these ideas in our head about what it means to be on social media. It’s funny. I was having a conversation in a discord channel the other day with a venture capitalist who was asking me about TikTok. And I was saying it would be an amazing opportunity for him to, to get global exposure and just to become kind of known as an expert in his space. Even if you’re not, you’re not selling, you know, your services on, on the platform, you’re just letting people know who you are. And it’s funny that no matter where people are in their journey, there’s all of these ideas that people have about, oh, people would think of me, what he said is people immediately think I’m phony.
TG (10:59):
People would think what he is really saying is people would judge me and I’m afraid of that. And the other piece is how many of us don’t think our, our ideal client is out there. And for me it was really, you know, before I was even thinking about selling to an audience or converting people that watch my content into clients or anything like that, it was just, I have a story and a message that I feel like can help somebody. And if I had had somebody, there were people in my life that I listened to that really encouraged me to, to do the work on myself that I needed at the time. And my, my goal was just to be a voice, you know, that would encourage people to to live a life that they were proud of and to, to stop avoiding things that they were, they were trying to run from.
TG (11:52):
And I think, yeah, practically, it’s just a, a smart strategic move because there’s millions upon millions upon millions of people that are on this platform. And the funny thing is when I got on TikTok, it wasn’t really strategic. It TikTok actually reached out to me and they said, Hey, it was in the middle of the pandemic. It was traditionally known as a young kid’s platform with that. A lot of kids were on dancing and doing trends like that. And they noticed a need in the market that there are so many people that are at home that can’t go anywhere and we wanna educate and inspire people through our platform. So can we bring content creators to create educat inspirational content across all these different industries? And I was one of ’em and then I just, for the first 30 to 40 videos was completely doing something I’d never done before, but it, there was this huge permission slip there because no one I knew was on TikTok at the time. So I just was doing something that was a little bit new and I a little bit fresh and ultimately resonated with people. Mm-Hmm
RV (12:59):
so, so let’s do talk about TikTok a a a, a little bit in terms of why do you think you grew so quickly? What can people learn from that? What do they need to know about it? I mean, obviously, yeah. I mean that, it started as a dance thing that there it’s, it’s still very dance driven. Mm-Hmm there. Music is still very musically driven in, in a lot of cases. And so one of the reasons that I love highlighting your story is you, you don’t do anything close to that. You, your, your videos are moving and profound and deep. Like they, they are, they are, I mean, you’re talking about deep issues to trauma and mental health and like these, these kinds of things. And so, you know, you, your, your profile is evidence of proof that it doesn’t have to be a certain type of content. Right. yet I know that you’ve also put a lot of thought and work into it and probably made a mistake here and there. So can you just like walk us through that a little bit?
TG (14:03):
Yeah. I think definitely early on, I was trying to figure out what my voice was gonna be on this platform, because the thing about TikTok, if you’re coming from Instagram or any other social media platform TikTok at the time, really required me to think differently about how I was gonna share my message. And what I knew was my sweet spot was, was really just talking authentically to the camera. And so I started doing that like on my daily walks during COVID, I would have no makeup on, and I would just like be telling, you know, sharing a, a snippet of, of my day or something that you know, had just listened to in a podcast or something that inspired me. And I think the thing about TikTok is it feels really relatable and raw and real, the it’s built in such a way that you can create content on the fly and really document your real life, as opposed to what we had been traditionally kind of conditioned into, which is perfect feeds and perfect photos.
TG (15:03):
And this highlight real. So people were really hungry for authenticity and, and something that genuine. And so regardless of, of the type of content, I think the thing that helped me was just pulling, allowing myself to like put down any mask I wore on any other platform and just show up as me. The thing that really, really does well with, with audiences on TikTok is feeling like they know the person that they’re watching that you’re part of their life, or you’re part of this journey that they’re going on. And, and just telling a story is of one way to really engage an audience and take them on, you know, that journey. But yeah, we talk about deep topics and, and the thing that I’ve realized is that trauma doesn’t discriminate. You know, everybody has experienced something hard in their life and they’re all seasons that, that we need support in and can relate to.
TG (16:07):
And that’s the kind of content that moves people. It’s either funny, it’s emotional in some way, whether it, it causes you to laugh or to cry or to, to feel something think about all the, the videos you’ve seen of dogs or, or the, you know, pet of the week. And it just like makes you wanna cry. But I just talk about, you know, personal stories. And I, that’s what I encourage other people to do is let people get to know you on a deeper level that they might not see on other platforms.
RV (16:39):
So I, I have that question for you. So clearly that has been your strategy on TikTok. That’s worked really, really well for you. The, you know, and, and if y’all, don’t already follow her, if you don’t know. So if you it’s coach, coach Tory, Gordon is her TikTok handle. You’ve got videos of you crying and on camera and stuff. So do you think that other, do you think that that approach doesn’t work on other platforms? You know, just kind of like the raw authenticity thing, do you think it just especially works on TikTok? Do you think that other platforms are migrating that way now, or they’re not did it, did it really just work cuz you were early to the platform mm-hmm like, do you know just like I guess subjectively what’s your sense of that?
TG (17:34):
Well, I’d say since Instagram has rolled out reels a lot of the, the things that you see do really well on TikTok are starting to do well on Instagram several months later. So I think there’s part, I don’t think it’s necessarily only on TikTok, but for those who’ve been on Instagram for a really long time, there has been a way that we’ve been conditioning used to seeing feeds and content there. So TikTok was for me, the first platform that kind of was this permission slip to be more vulnerable on social media. But I think that’s the way it’s trending in general, across platforms. People want realness. They want to see that they’re, we’re tired of that kind of fabricated airbrushed look all the time. And I think that showing up on Instagram different ways, whether it’s through video content or through other types of posts, but ultimately when, what I’ve experienced in trying to build a personal brand is people want to know you and TikTok makes it super easy to just post you can post a large quantity of content so that people can get to know you quickly as opposed to feeling like I can only post one post a day on Instagram.
TG (18:57):
Right? it it’s sort of like taking your Instagram stories and actually posting it. So it doesn’t go away after 24 hours. So those little snippets into your life that you might post on your, your story, people actually can go back and kind of track your history and see the things that you’ve done or the things that you’ve talked about. And, and there gets to be kind of this, this theme of what is this person’s content about? Is it, am I gonna go there and I’m gonna learn something, am I gonna go there gonna be entertained? Am I gonna go there? And I’m gonna be inspired. Am I gonna laugh? And people start to, to go to your profile cuz they’re looking for a certain type of content. And so the thing I love about TikTok is very quickly O the audience will tell you the, the kind of content that they wanna see more of. That’s just how the algorithm is built. There is so that anybody starting out, even if you have zero followers, you can get organic reach and the TikTok audience will tell you if they like it. And then you can do more create more of, of that kind of content, which is invaluable feedback to get
RV (20:14):
Mm-Hmm . And so the do you think that, like, in terms of the mechanics of the platform, the way the videos are edited, the, you know, like you’re talking a lot about the kind of content and sort of the overall feel mm-hmm in terms of the mechanics of what, you know, functions you need to be using, are there certain things that you would recommend for that? Or is it really just about posting consistently staying, you know, kind of like on a topic, let people see you and, and that, or is, is there also some technical things or strategic things that you go actually, like if you’re gonna do it, here’s some things about how you wanna do it. Mm-Hmm functionally speaking.
TG (21:03):
Yeah. Definitely record in the app. That’s make it native to the platform. It’s a something that they really, really like when it comes to the algorithm, they they’ve built the platform in such a way that it’s easy to record right there in the TikTok app, as opposed to recording you know, with your HD camera and then uploading it. And having this perfectly curated video. It’s, it’s almost better if it’s not a lot of my content has been terribly lit, you know, when I’m walking my dog in the middle of the night or sitting in my car before going to meet a girlfriend for dinner, and it’s just like, I just whipped out my phone and I press record record, and I just started talking. So I wouldn’t over it’s it doesn’t need to be overproduced. The other thing I’ll say practically is, is definitely use the, the text overlay feature because the TikTok algorithm picks up on the text.
TG (22:02):
That’s written through the app and those key words show up show the algorithm who to show that piece of content to. So that’s really helpful. So if you have keywords such as success or motivation or mental health or anxiety that that’s gonna dictate kind of who gets to see your piece of content first, and if they like it and they watch it for a significant amount of time, that population gonna grow getting people’s attention early is another thing. So just practically doing something that kind of hooks people in. And, and this is something that’s talked about on a lot of PR platforms, but especially on TikTok, if you’re just a user of the platform, you’re gonna start to notice the types of that really gets your attention. There’s something that happens in the first couple seconds that makes you intrigued. And that can even just be a shift of, of the camera, like the camera angle that you have or a sound that you make.
TG (23:05):
So using the, the video, like for feature within the app, using the text overlay and using keywords and now I think actually it’s becoming sort of SEO driven and keyword driven. So it’s actually, your videos will show up in Google if you search for certain keywords. So it’s similar to what YouTube has done. When you’re thinking about titles or, or kind of click baby word choices, that’s gonna help people to, to click on your your content. So that’s one thing you can be thinking about, but ultimately I say people really like to be taken on a journey. So if you’re thinking about the type of content, think about either something you can teach or steps to a process something like that even, and it can be around just anything and everything. Whether it’s, Hey here, 10, 10 best things to do on a date or the 10 things you don’t wanna do on a date that can be 10 pieces of content right there, and people will come back for more. Do
RV (24:16):
You, how long does it take you to make a TikTok video?
TG (24:20):
I, the be the shorter, the better traditionally so around, I would say five minutes if you’re editing and everything that I would tell people to do 15 seconds or less, less for a TikTok, if you’re just getting started. But there’s a three minute feature now and I sometimes use that and those have done extremely well, two but ultimately I don’t overproduce my content. I really I try to make it as raw as possible because that’s kind of my, my thing and how people know me, the more edited, the more transitions there are. It actually just doesn’t do as well with my audience. They, they know me for just sitting there and talking to the camera spilling my heart out and then you know, letting that be that be it, I don’t really overthink it when I, oh, it comes to producing the content itself.
RV (25:22):
How do you make money from this? Okay. So this, that, this is a question I think that people have, right? Like you know, you start doing this, you’re incorporating it into your rhythm, even if it only takes five minutes. And of course, when you’re first learning how to use the app, like, what are all the buttons do? It’s there’s, you know, learning curve. Sure. The it’s a lot of time, there’s some risk. I mean, you’re putting yourself out there. I mean, I think to the, to, to the fear of to, to the fear of you know, that VC, that person that you were talking about earlier being judged, I think you will be judged. I mean, you will have haters. Like you will have some people who, who show up, but like, so you, you do all of this. How does it turn into money? So talk to us about that.
TG (26:11):
There’s several ways. One is just creating content on the platform. Once you have reached, I believe it’s still 10,000 followers. You can join the creators fund, which will pay you based on the number of views that you get. And you just get paid simply for creating content that gets viewed. That’s one way you can also
RV (26:39):
That’s really cool by the way, cuz that no one else has none of the other platforms have that. I don’t think of just like mm-hmm we just pay you money based on views alone without an ad running on your video or something. Yep.
TG (26:52):
So that’s and that’s available for any and everybody. So that’s one super easy way. The second is if you have a thousand followers, you can start to use their go live feature. That’s one of the best ways to create a real community, having some kind of cadence and consistency around going live so that you’re really building relationships with people and on your lives, people can pay you so they can pay you through coins. They can tip you just on your videos, on your channel in general, there is an option to add tips. And so people will just, if they like your content, they’ll, it’s basically like being able to support an artist or something that you like, but you can support a creator through tips. So
RV (27:37):
It’s like a band, like a band playing at a bar or something and you just like drop the money into the tip chart.
TG (27:44):
Yep. And it will interesting surprise you the other day. I just actually added that feature and I never thought, you know, anybody would, would do it. And then I looked the other day, somebody had tipped me a hundred dollars and I was like, wow, that’s so amazing. So I really felt compelled to reach out to that person and start a relationship with that person. Just thank them for their generosity. But you’ll be surprised. You know, I think especially as content creators, we forget how much of an impact we really do make on people and how one piece of content can be the thing that inspires someone to quit a job or leave a relationship or start a business or ask for help or whatever it it is. And people feel indebted to you when, when you’ve been kind of that voice, that, that was guiding them in a time that they really needed it and they want to give back and they want to say, thank you in the ways that they can.
TG (28:39):
So whether that’s through lives or tips that’s one way that you can monetize it. Then as you grow, there are so many brands that want to collaborate with content creators on TikTok. It really is. Video is the next, the next thing that’s, that’s really being pushed on social media. We moved from, from photos to, to video and now into whatever the metaverse will be in the future . But right now TikTok is, is the best place for, for small businesses to really grow their audience and their business, but also bigger brands to, to connect and collaborate with, with content creators. So there’s lots of ways you can monetize as a person or as a small business. Just by promoting and talking about your product. If you are a small business, I’ve seen so many people just completely blow up to the point that they can’t fill orders because they started to share about the story behind their business, why they started it, you know, the, the struggles that they were facing, the process of, of creating something as unique as, you know, glass blown ornaments or, or metal work or just whatever your uniqueness is, you get to really show that off and people wanna support what, the types of content that they, they enjoy watching.
RV (30:11):
I love that. That’s, I mean, that’s simple, but that’s, that’s, that’s a lot of different things. I mean, you’ve got the creator fund, you have the tip function, you’ve brand deals, and then you have basically just driving your audience to buy your thing, which is kind of the world that we live in mm-hmm at brand builders group is going like build an audience, add value, develop trust, and then show ’em how you can go to the next level. Right. The to that point. So just real quick, how did you find brand builders group? Like how did you find us? Why did you reach out to us? Like tell us a little bit about that, about that journey?
TG (30:51):
Yeah, well, like, like I said there are people in our lives that kind of point the way and show us, I always look to people who are, are doing the thing I wanted be doing. And as many listeners of the show know like Lewis houses is probably one of those people for many of us who we’ve watched and admired and, and listened to. And I remember hearing you on Lewis’s show and seeing all the things that he has built. I, I wanted to work with somebody who could guide me in terms of all of these opportunities. I was kind of naturally getting anyway. I didn’t know where to focus my attention or my time or my energy. And it had felt like in, in a year and a half or two years of doing this, I had been piece it all together and trying to hire somebody for, you know, a website and hire a branding person and hire somebody to help me with ads or whatever it was.
TG (31:55):
And what I really needed was a mentor. What I really needed was somebody who could, who had done it before and then could provide me with the advice and the, the guidance and the, the network that I needed. And when I heard Lewis talk about it, obviously, I, I checked you guys out, got on a call and it was an immediate yes, for me. I didn’t know any other business model or company like brand builders existed before. And I really don’t think that there are many out there that do that, do it at the level that you guys do it. But it was one of those things. I was like, how quickly can I get involved and start to, to get in be part of this community, because I could see the, the value in it from the start. And it’s only allowed me to accelerate the growth that, that I’d already built up into that point and see a longer term vision for how is this gonna be sustainable over time?
RV (32:59):
Yeah. I love that cuz I think that’s one of the, you know, some people we work with are like brand new in their journey and it’s like, help me get clear on all this. Somebody like Lewis is obviously way far down the path and it’s more of like help me sort out my options. But I think with everybody, we’re always trying to play that long game and go like, how do you make this substantive? Not just viral or, you know, a flash, but like a true sustainable career. You know, when meeting people like you and hearing your story is just, it’s like you, you should be, I mean, there’s such a need for, for what you’re doing. And it’s been, I think, you know, aging, a heart and, and, and mine in our teams like has been the first couple years of brand builders group, I think have been a lot about the, the curriculum.
RV (33:48):
You know, we’re just trying to formalize, like you’re saying like how have we built what we’ve built and helped the people that we have and like turning it into a process that I think the next generation of brand builders is really about . And it, I love when I was chatting with you just before we started. And you’re like, I just saw Hillary and I just saw Anton and like I was trying to connect with you. I was like, I missed you when I was in Atlanta. But like I think that that is potentially, you know, gonna be a big, you know, really where the power is going, going forward. So I think it’s awesome that you’re humble enough to wanna be a part of that. And then to see you reaching out to people, Tori, and like building relationships with the other members has been, has been awesome.
TG (34:32):
Yeah. I mean, when I think about investing now, as opposed to when I was initially investing in coaches or, or mentors or programs early on on the motivation has definitely shifted a bit. Now, obviously I care about the curriculum, but I really care about the people that are in, in the community. Who am I networking with? Who, who can I learn from? Who can I support and how can I collaborate with them? That’s really so much value that you guys bring on top of everything else that you teach is just attracting really powerful purpose driven leaders together. And that when you get people like that together, there’s just synergy. And so many idea is that, that form and how can we do this? And and that’s really exciting for me because as a entrepreneur that has built an online business, it can feel super isolating. And like you’re the only one. And you only get to connect with people, you know, via the internet. And that’s great. And sometimes you, you wanna go deeper and that’s what we get to get to do and what I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to do with other brand builders, which has been really amazing. I love
RV (35:51):
That. Yeah, that’s that, that fill just fills me up and you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gotten no doubt. Like, you know, if I could buy stock in somebody, I would buy stock in Tory Gordon, because it’s just like the trajectory of where you’re going and, and the people that you’re hanging out with inside our community. It’s like, you, you can, you quickly spot the ones who are willing to do the work and willing to spend the time and get to know each other, speaking of the future, just while I have you. I do wanna, I know we got way over time, but, but you mentioned the metaverse, this is something I’ve started paying attention to a little bit. You know, I was late to the game with Facebook. Definitely missed the boat on Instagram, missed the boat on TikTok. Podcasting was the one thing that I kind of caught the wave early, but then we ended up selling the podcast when we sold the company.
RV (36:39):
And so that disappeared, you know? And so mm-hmm, , we haven’t been in position to kind of catch a wave in a while. And one of the things I’m starting to look at is the metaverse and as much as I’m like, oh, I don’t know if I like this. I don’t, I don’t know if I understand it. I can’t help, but go. I feel like this might be something we need to pay attention to less. We missed the boat again. And so just mm-hmm because you’ve been riding that wave out there. Yeah. Like what do you have any thoughts on what’s ahead and what you think’s coming like a little bit about that?
TG (37:14):
Like you, I have my, my hesitations and my fears around what, what the future holds, but I am also, I have learned to follow where the young people go and I’m not I’m I know I’m still young, but the, the kids are kind of on that cusp of what’s coming and what’s new and it’s, they it’s to crypto and it’s the metaverse and it’s NFTs. And I actually heard an interview that you did with, I think Tom bile talking about NFTs on success of successes page on Instagram. And that kind of got my, my wheels turning. And so I started to do my research and we just invested in our first NFT. And metaverse project over the weekend. I’m really excited about because the truth is I, I do think that’s where we are headed. And like you said, it it’s about getting in early and really adopting the, the technology and just accepting that this is kind of where the future is headed.
TG (38:20):
That the sooner I can accept that and get on board with it, the sooner I can also help to shape it and what that’s gonna look like. And so if we’re gonna be, you know, meeting virtually in the future, then that means I can help to create a safe space for people to do that and to, to connect and engage in a way that is nourishing and is supportive. And that, that’s the things that really excite me is being part of something that’s being built so that I, I can have a hand in part of that conversation. And, and what, what does that look like in the future? And typically in my experience, the, the kids are the ones that are leading the charge on that. And so I’m gonna kind of keep my eye out for where they’re headed and what they’re, what they’re into and do my research. Like everybody else. We, none of us really know, but I’m, I’m learning along with everybody. Just like you
RV (39:21):
Love it. I love it. Well, Tori, that is that’s enlightening and, and just yeah, I mean, that’s how I feel. It’s like, I, I used just for so long, I’ve been, I was always the youngest, the young guy, the young kid, the youngest one in the room and, and, and I look back and go, wow, I’m not that guy anymore. And pretty soon I’m gonna start being the old guy and the oldest person in the room. And and so I just admire how you’re learning and growing and just like, even what you’re saying, looking to the, looking to the young people. And yeah. So thank you for, thank you for your trust. Thanks for the chance of, of an, the opportunity for letting us shape, you know, some of the direction of what you’re up to. We know it’s gonna be huge, huge, even huge than it is . And you know, where do you want people to go to connect with you if they wanna like follow you and say in touch with you and see what you’re up to? Yeah.
TG (40:14):
I’d love to connect with you guys. I’m on social Instagram, TikTok I’m coach Tory Gordon. You can also go to my website, Tory gordon.com. Find out all about me. And we’d love to give you guys access. We’ve been talking about a lot about success and how to get there, but one of the things I really teach a lot about is, is how to make that sustainable long term. And so I’ve got a free training if you guys are in should you can grab that on my site and we’ll, I’m sure we’ll put it in the show notes or something, so you can guys can get access, but to gordon.com is the best way to learn more.
RV (40:48):
I love it. Yeah, we will. We’ll link up. We’ll link up to all of that. We’ll be following you on the TikTok. And maybe looking out for you in the metaverse here at some point hopefully seeing you at a brain builders group event live, we, we got about half our events live in person next year, so that’s good. And we just, no matter what, we’re just know, we’re, we’re, we’re polling for you and praying for you and wish you the best. Thanks so much for sharing your story. Thanks
TG (41:13):
For having me, Rory

Ep 247: How to Get People to Pay Attention with Peter Sheahan | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Such an honor and thrill to get to talk to Peter Shehan about a concept that he originated and we adapted and then a memorialized in his name called Shehan wall and man, Peter is just a genius and he’s, he’s been someone who’s been an important mentor for me and just what a great, what a great moment to get, to sit down with him and just, and just have this conversation. Of course, I’m breaking down the recap of that interview here and talking about Shehan on that, if you haven’t listened to the interview yet again, or if, if you haven’t heard us talk about this, this is one of the, one of the, the very first frameworks that we introduce to people. Just even as we’re talking about personal branding, like before we even talk about brand builders group, which is there’s, you know, this simple idea that there’s two groups of people, world, like in any industry in any vertical, there are the unknown.
RV (01:07):
And then there are the known, and there there’s this huge invisible wall between the two where those who are relatively unknown are trying to break through and become known. And what most of us do is we throw a lot of stuff at the wall and we look at the people who are on the other side of the wall and all the stuff they’re doing go, oh, I wanna do all of those things. Right. And a lot of those people, you know, I can think of the rock because he’s, he’s a rapper and he is an actor. And he you know, obviously like now he has a tequila line and he is doing all of these, all of these different, these different things. And you go, gosh, I wanna do all these things. But the problem is when you do too many things at once you bounce off the wall when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.
RV (01:58):
If you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. It’s that simple. And most of us, most early personal brands try to emulate these, these very experienced, well known, popular personal brands. And don’t realize that these people have large teams and large budgets. And, and, and in some cases, you know, millions and millions of dollars in, in terms of sponsorships and, and these huge platforms behind them, and you can’t break through the wall by trying to be all things to all people, you know, especially, and not in all the places. And so the way to break through the wall is to become known for one thing. And this was a concept, you know, that was originally inspired by Peter, is this, this idea that if you could become, if you ask yourself, what’s the one thing in the world I could be known for and you break through on that, then once you’re on the other exci, once you’re on the other side of the wall, then you can expand into other things.
RV (02:54):
But until you break through the wall, you are, you’re bouncing off the wall, you’re creating noise. You’re part of the noise you’re consumed by the, the noise. There is just this like indelible difference of, of who you are versus everybody else. And so that’s the, that is, I guess my interpretation, as I remember it you know, it was interesting to hear Peter say that it had been years and years and years since he had even really like, thought about that in, in terms of like that concept, especially like specifically in its application to personal brands. I, I think you said if I remember, right, like the last time I talked about it, you know, in the, in the context of personal branding was at the meeting that I heard in that, which is like years ago, but, but still powerful. And, and so that’s what we’re talking about here.
RV (03:41):
And, and I wanna, I wanna couple this concept as we move into the, the recap of like my takeaways, you know, now kind of years later getting a chance to sit down with Peter and have this conversation. Again, I wanna couple this with another concept that if you’ve ever heard me or AJ on podcast, if you’ve been one of our clients, or if you have followed this, our podcast here that we talk about lot, which is from another mentor, which is a, another this is a quote that was not ours. This is from Larry Wingett. And Larry said, the goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service, us of others, find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. And oftentimes we couple these concepts together when we teach them one, just cuz they’re, they were important moments in like the timeline of our personal brand and like me specifically like my personal history of, but, but they also work together of this idea, you know, Peter and Han’s wall, of course he didn’t name it, that we named it that as we, you know, applied it specifically to like personal brands and the narrow focus of what we do at brand builders group, but we named it after him cuz it’s concept inspired by him.
RV (04:57):
But visually he shows, you know, this kind of trying goal coming to a point right at the wall, which hits the wall in this very narrow way versus this kind of like you know, more diluted way of, of just throwing a lot of stuff at the wall. Well, couple that with Larry wing it’s concept of finding your uniqueness is going, what is that thing? How you know, or your, your uniqueness is that point, we would refer to your uniqueness as the point at which you can break through the wall. It is doing the thing that only you can do finding the thing that nobody else can quite do, just like you can do and owning that and dominating that. And that really, really being the magic. And so I think one of the reasons when we started brand builders group, I, oh I think one of our goals was to go, how do you do that?
RV (05:57):
How do you find your uniqueness? What, how does one person discover that? And that became our brand DNA, which is our flagship. You know, we’ve got, we have 14 different events or courses. And that is our, our flagship curriculum. I guess, you know, we call ’em topics internally that make up, we’ve got 14 different topics that make up our curriculum. And that became our sort of first one and flagship was helping people identify their uniqueness and creating a process to help them discover what is this one point that you can own and you can break through and it, it starts with clarity, right? So first of all, you, you’ve got to get, you have to get clear. And then once you have clarity, then it’s consistency. And so you say over and over and over and over again. And, and I, you know, the example I’d love to use is, is Dave Ramsey.
RV (06:53):
Dave is someone who has changed my life AJ’s life. I mean, they made a huge impact on, on our career, but also personally, before we ever knew Dave, we were students of financial peace university. And Dave has been saying basically the same thing on the air every single day for 30 years, right? Debt is dumb. Cash is king follow these seven baby steps. And he has built this multi nine figure business around consistency. And so if you wanna break through the wall first, you need clarity. Then you need consistency. Then you need velocity, you need to add speed and power. And that is, is how you break through the wall, but it all starts with clarity. And this is where most people get really stuck. Even in, if you understand the concept of Shehan wall, even if you hear the quote from Larry and go find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others, I love it.
RV (07:46):
It still leaves the question, okay, how do I do it? How do I, how do I break through? And so getting, you know, to talk to Peter about that was, was really fun and, and kind of circle back on this. And so, you know, in terms of my, I, my three takeaways for this, and we’re gonna talk about how do you find your uniqueness or kind of some of, some of what I gathered from Peter about about he does it, of course, brand builders group. We have our formal brand DNA helix. It’s, it’s six questions that we take every person, every client through. And it’s these initial six questions and all the exercises that go with them that tell us exactly what your uniqueness is. But you know, having Peter speak into that now I had some really great takeaways and here, here was the first one and this applies to me, this applies to so many of our clients.
RV (08:31):
And my guess is this applies to you. He said, don’t try to include every thing you’ve ever done as per part of your story. That’s really, really huge. That’s really, really important because I think, you know, a human is multifaceted. We’re, we’re, we’re complex. We have a lot of ex different experiences. We have a lot of different desires. We have a lot of different you know, interests and skill sets and knowledge. And, and I think when, when you try to kind of create a personal brand, and again, one of the ways that we define personal branding is personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation, the digitization of, and so when you go, when you go through this exercise of saying, I want to codify my personal brand in a digital form and sort of package it up into this commodity that people can see and sort of get their hands around and understand the natural tendency is going okay.
RV (09:33):
I need to tell my entire life story. I need to sort of share every, every part of me. And I think I hesitate to call it a mistake because I don’t think it’s a mistake to share who you are by any means. But I think from a, from a strategic perspective, it, the more like it, it’s almost us, like the more you share the harder it is to understand what your one thing is, right? Like if I only share with you one thing about who I am, you only have the one choice, which is to think of me in, in that one way. That’s all that I’ve made available to you. But as I, as I feel this need to like tell you everything about me and everything I’ve ever done and everything I’ve ever known and everything I like and everything I, you know, do, then all of a sudden it creates this conf this confusion, or just this obscurity in terms of like, okay, well, what’s the one thing you can do for me.
RV (10:29):
Like, what’s the, the, the, what, what are you really an expert on? And if you study like memory training and, you know, memory experts, a lot of times they talk about how the human brain is like a mental filing cabinet. Well, when we talk about exploiting your uniqueness in the service of others or breaking through the wall, it’s about occupying one piece of a, another person’s so that when they have that need, they recall you, they, they, they immediately think of you or when their friend has that need, they, they say, oh, you need to talk to my friend, Rory, a another, you know, great quote from another mentor here is Scott McCain. Once said, mind, share precedes market, share mind, share precedes market share, meaning you have to work in your marketing efforts and in your branding and in your positioning to occupy a space in people’s minds.
RV (11:30):
And the more different spaces you try to occupy the less effectively you occupy any one space. As we say it, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results, but the clearer you are, the more narrow you are, the more likely you are to recall that space. What’s an example of this, right? It’s like, if I need a plumber, who do you call? If I need a lawyer, who do you call? You know, if I need, I need basketball lessons, who do you, you call, if I, if I want to go, you know, on a camping trip, who, who do I call? If, if I have a question about whatever the Bible or nutrition or what, like, these are all things that happen in the human experience. And it’s like, who’s the name that I recall in that category. Right? And if you’re trying to be a speaker, which was obviously how I built career is like, when there’s a room full of people sitting around going, we should have a speaker at our event.
RV (12:18):
Have any of you seen a good speaker? I need them to go, oh, Roy Vaden, right? Like that is it. Or, you know, these days it’s more of like, when there’s a group of speakers sitting around talking amongst each other, going, how do I get to the next level? We go, oh, brand builders group, or AJ or Roy or whatever authors, or, you know, professional services or whatever. But anyone going, how do I build my personal brand? Oh, brand builders group. We’re working very deliberately to occupy that space. And I think Peter’s permission. And I never really heard anyone say it so clearly. And that’s why it struck me is going, look, you have permission not to share everything about you. And it’s not only permission. I would say from a strategic perspective, it’s an encouragement not to share everything about you, because the more you share the harder it is to, to kind of wrap it in the way that you need to wrap it for, for the, the edible consumption of other people, for them to quickly understand it.
RV (13:20):
Now, you know, as people get to know you, of course, they see more and more. And that’s why I think it’s also interesting with social media, like how this shows up tactically, you know, people always say, well, you know, what about your content strategy? One of the things that I’ve always done and not everybody does this. And I’m, I’m certainly not the, you know, the person with the most followers on social. But one of the things that’s always worked well for me is like on Instagram, for example, my, my, the way I do it is that my feed is what you do. And this is my encouragement. Your feed is what you do. Your stories are who you are. And I mean, the feed function like when someone hits your profile, it’s like basically business as usual, I’m teaching, I’m in coaching. I’m giving you a chance to sample my expertise.
RV (14:04):
If you wanna know who I am as a person, then you go look in the stories and you have to click in that functionality, which is sort of a, a, a more intimate, deeper, you know, portion of the platform and, and of my profile. And that’s where you see pictures of my kids, et cetera. But if you’re a stranger visiting my profile for the first time, and all you see is pictures of my kids, even though they’re really cute, you probably don’t care cuz you don’t know them. And, and they’re not important to you and they don’t add any value to your life. Whereas if you see the professional things that I offer, you can extract value from that and you go, yeah, I’ll follow this person now, before you ever buy, you might go, who is this guy? Like, do I even like this?
RV (14:46):
Like, like I think I like this guy. And then you start clicking on stories and you figure out and you go, oh yeah, I really like who he is. Or maybe you don’t, but, but on the surface, right, I’m, I’m, I’m occupying a slot in the world’s mind and, and I’m working very hard to do that. And for years it was take the stairs. It was, you know, we wanted R’s name to be synonymous with the metaphor of, of take the stairs. That was part of how we broke through the wall, was the success of, to take the stairs book. And you know, that being really like my first keynote and first brand and et cetera, et cetera. So anyways, all of that I say to, to, to say, you don’t have to include every single part of your bio in your life, into your personal brand.
RV (15:31):
Now it can be a part of what you share on social, but like you, your website, your homepage, you know, the, the show notes, your, your professional bio, it doesn’t have to all be in there cause people don’t initially care as much about that. They wanna know what can you do for me? And then they they’ll get to know you after that. The second thing which I thought was really fast was specifically, how do you find your uniqueness? And so, you know, I having a chance to an ask Peter that question, which is really me asking Peter his thoughts on the quote from Larry Wingett to see what, what he would say and to see how it might be similar or dissimilar from how we would answer it and for, or the most part, it was really close. So you know, like when, when somebody comes to, to our brand DNA event to the very, very first, you know, training that we do, we say there’s four things we’re gonna help you get clear on.
RV (16:24):
We’re gonna help you get clear on what problem do you solve in one word who exactly do you solve that problem for? How do you solve that problem in one sentence? And then how do you make money solving that problem? What is your primary business model as we, as we call it? And those are the four things we go, we’re gonna help you get clear on it. And then we take ’em through, you know, these set of six questions to help find their uniqueness. Well, the way that Peter answered that was what is your value like, which to me is kind of close to, what problem do you solve for people? Who, who I want to bring it to, right? Like, so what is my value proposition or what is the value I have? Who do I wanna bring it to?
RV (17:07):
Which is very similar to us, who do I wanna solve that problem for? He said, what is your business model, which we would phrase as how do I make money solving it? And then the only part I think, where we were you know, a little bit different was we, we would add, how do you solve that problem? And he said, what is your modality? Which I think is, you know, kind of related to, to business model. But I thought that was interesting to hear the way that his brain process on finding your uniqueness. And so I guess here’s the salient point from this part too.
RV (17:43):
The great irony of your personal of personal branding is that your personal brand is not about you. Your personal brand has value in the context of what it does for other people. And that’s what people I think get really mixed up and confused on and, and sometimes insecure about like, why would anyone care about me? And like, why should I post pictures of my myself? And it’s like, well, they, they don’t, I, they don’t care about you. They, they care about what you can do for them. And so your personal brand, your personality matters as you put it in context of what you can do for them. What value do you bring to whom and, and how do you, how do you serve them? So the, the sooner you step out of going the, how do I present who I am to the world? And, and, and the sooner you move out of that and into what use do I have in the world?
RV (18:40):
How can I be useful for people? How can I be helpful to people? What knowledge do I have that would make other people’s lives better? Or what talent do I, that would make other people’s lives better? And the sooner you step into that, the sooner you have con more confidence and clarity and direction and momentum, and you can just like move forward, you know, building your quote unquote personal brand, it’s just extending. And this is where I think it’s so connected to your identity, because you’re basically extending the value. You have the experiences that you have, the, the, the insights, the wisdom that you have developed, and you’re making that available to the world. And that is personal branding. It’s the digitization of reputation. It’s this kind of insight out. It is. It is your knowledge and all the stuff that is internal to you, that you spend a lifetime ACU.
RV (19:31):
And then it is extrapolating that and presenting it and serving it on a platter to other people and say, this is, this is what I have to offer you. This is, this is how I think I can be helpful to you. Here’s what I have learned. Here’s the mistakes I’ve made. You know, here’s the insights that I’ve gathered. Here’s the inspiration I have for, you know, here’s the entertainment I have to offer you. And in that context, there’s this very communal exchange that happens where other people go. I like you, you help me, you add value to my life. Therefore I follow you. Trust you, recommend you share your stuff, and then eventually do business with you, right. And, and buy from you. So that is, that is, that is it. And I think, I think, you know, sometimes when people hear that phrase uniqueness, they get lost in like, what is unique about me and that isn’t really how we’re using the phrase.
RV (20:25):
It’s not what is unique about me. It’s going, what unique, what is my unique take on solutions I have for the world? Or what unique expertise do I have to offer you? Or what unique art or what unique talent do I have to offer you? Not so much what makes me different from everyone else? The part that really matters is what do you have to offer to other people? And when you, when you center in that, that is your uniqueness. It’s one of the reasons why we always say your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were because to that person, your uniqueness is most relevant, the unique way that you solve that problem is highly relevant to someone else going through who’s going through what you’ve already been through. And, and when you focus on that, you’re not trying to manufacture something that isn’t, there you are, you are literally translating the value of your human experience and existence in the benefit of another person.
RV (21:35):
And that’s tremendously unique. I can’t add value to that. Person’s life in the same way you can, because I haven’t walked the same path that you have walked. That is your uniqueness. It’s not so much what makes you different? Oh, you’ve got a different slogan or a different like, like headline, or you do a different style of videos, or, you know, you look a different way. It’s that you’ve lived a different life. And so the more that you can, you can highlight a and add value to other people’s lives, kind of through the lens of your own. That is your uniqueness, but it’s in the context of serving other people. That’s where all the magic is. So anyways, just a rich, rich, rich conversation. And then the last thing for sure, I mean, this was, this was a quote directly from Peter from the interview.
RV (22:27):
And this is, this might even new quote from Peter Shehan that that really sticks with me is he said, the clearer you are, the easier decision making gets the clearer. You are, the easier that decision making gets. That is so true in every area of your life. Like the clearer you are about what your values are, the easier it is to select who you hang out with and who you hire and who you, whatever, like who you vote for and where you go to eat and where you spend your time. Like, because you’re clear on the values that you have, the, the clearer you are about your goals and your vision and your dreams. Like as soon as you’re clear on you want, and you, you, you capture it and you codify it and you think about it and you go, this is who I want to be.
RV (23:17):
This is what I’m doing. The easier your decision making gets, right? Like you go, I wanna build a personal brand, great brand builders group is the place to be, but you go, I wanna run a marathon. Brand builders group is not the place to be, right? Like, we can’t help you with the that’s that’s, that’s not our uniqueness. So as you get clearer, your decision making gets easier. And then I think the nuance that I would add to what Peter said is the clearer you are, the faster you go, right? Because as part of decision making gets easier, it’s like, it’s faster to make the decision. It’s also faster to take the action and go, yes, I should work with this person. Not this person I should be. I should be reading this book. Not that book. I should spend my resources, you know, building this, not that I should spend my time doing this, not that like, and it all goes faster where people get stuck is there is dilution.
RV (24:12):
They are unclear, right? That the biggest issue is they’re unclear on their uniqueness. They’re unclear on what they want. They’re unclear on how to build their brand or unclear that they even wanna build a brand, or they’re unclear on who they’re serving UN. And so it’s like, get clear. You have to get clear. You have to do that. Work of getting clear, which will ironically feel oftentimes slow and painful. But in reality, that is the fastest, you know, next step is getting clear. And so, you know, I just, I love that is he said that, you know, the, you are the easier decision making gets. And if you go look at all the testimonials on most of our testimonials that we showcase on brand builders, group.com on our website and stuff are from people who came through our very first event, because we show all the testimonials from our later events to people after they come through the first one and they kind of see the whole journey, but you’ll see the Nu number.
RV (25:06):
One thing that people say after that first event is I got clear. I got so much clarity because once you’re clear, then the easier decision making gets and the faster that you go. So do whatever it takes, take the time to get clear, and you will move much faster, put your uniqueness in the context of other people and keep coming back go listen to the episode with Peter, if you haven’t, Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, give Peter some love, like on, on social, share this interview with someone who needs to see it. And you know, just, you know, Peter has made such an impact on our company and our team and my personal career and our clients. And so you know, just let, let, let him know that you appreciate the work that he’s done and, and keep coming back as always, we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 246: How to Get People to Pay Attention with Peter Sheahan

RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming, uh, at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call we’ll someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/podcall. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:53):
So I am over the top excited to introduce to you someone who I legitimately considered to be one of the smartest people on the planet. Um, in fact, if I were running a very large corporation, or if I had a good friend that was like a fortune 500 executive and they were looking for consulting advice, leadership, I would refer them to Peter Sheahan. He is, uh, when, by the time he was 30 years old, he built not one, but two multimillion dollar companies. He has spoken, uh, more than 2,500 times in 40 plus countries around the globe. And I believe might be the, I think only him and I are two people that joined the professional speakers hall of fame in our thirties. Um, and he’s a hall of fame speaker. He, his client list is, I mean is crazy apple Chick-fil-A at and T.
RV (01:51):
Um, and he’s just absolutely brilliant. I I’ve known him from the speakers world for a while. Um, and the real story here is if you’re a brand builders group member, like one of our clients, or if you’ve ever heard me on someone else’s podcast, you know, that we teach this framework called Sheahan’s Wall and it is named after Peter Shehan. Now he didn’t name it after himself. We named it after him. I saw him speak one time randomly on this. He drew this diagram and then we lost touch. Um, and we just recently reconnected and he told me, he’s like, mate, you know, I wrote a book on the topic of this diagram, which we call Shehan wall. The book is called making it happen. Um, it’s all about turning good ideas into great results. And so I was like, I dude, you gotta come on the podcast, like you’re a celebrity our people are gonna go nuts. So anyways, with all that, welcome to the show, Peter,
PS (02:53):
Hey, SwRI you wanna know my side of that story by the way, tell me, because I got like three random texts one day, all in, probably in this face of a week, actually going, Hey, I heard this, you know, R Vaden guy get interviewed on this podcast. He was talking about you and Sheahan’s wall. And I’m like, what do you mean Sheen’s wall? I’d never heard of this thing. And I’m like, I’m just gonna have to call R and find out what the heck’s going on. And so, um, you know, I often make this joke that I’m more famous for being in other people’s work than I am for my own work. And so I, you know, PR proud to be associated with your brand mate.
RV (03:22):
Well, dude, I, I, um, thank you for that. And, and I it’s been, it’s been awesome to have this book and I wanna talk to you about the original concepts of it and, and going, going through the book, I realized there was something about the way that you presented it to me, where I, I feel like I heard it a little bit different than what you’ve been taught, what you actually, the way you teach it in the actual book. And so I was like, let’s talk about it. Yeah. Um, now, so can you describe what, uh, so for those, the people who don’t know what we’re talking about, if they’ve never heard me or seen, seen Shehan wall, or if they’ve never read your book, can you, can you explain what the diagram is? What it represents? Like how did you put it together originally?
PS (04:06):
Yeah, look, here’s the biggest challenge. Most people who are trying to get a business moving and off the ground are struggling to get the attention of the audience. They most need to influence. Now in my world, that’s a very small group of people who run very large companies in your world. It’s thought leaders and people with a message who are looking to build out their personal brand, you know, insert audience here. But none of those people wake up on any given day, trying to necessarily go looking for you or trying to necessarily, you know, bring attention to your value proposition. You are offer your services. You are literally to interrupt them or get on their radar. Um, and you, and about 4 million other people on any given day. Right? And so the underlying concept of the model that underpin that book is that you are better off being very, very tight and targeted in what you do.
PS (04:58):
And the value proposition you are bringing forward to that market to grab their attention before you try and sell them everything you could possibly do. Right? So, you know, when, think about when you and I got started in our business as well, there were probably 15 things we thought we could do for our clients, maybe 15 things we thought we could do for our members, but trying to sell ’em all 15 on the first date is not a great idea, right? You’re better off picking the one that’s most likely to grab their attention and, and get super, super targeted on that one thing. And the more targeted you get, the better chance you’ve got a piercing, what I would call the mental barrier or the attention barrier. Once you’ve done a piece of work, which
RV (05:37):
Is now formerly what she is named as she heads all, is she
PS (05:40):
Okay? So you get through, she, you get through she well. So I struggle to use my name in the third person, if that’s all right with you, right? So we get through the proverbial, she, and wall. But once you have that trust, there’s almost no limit to what they might allow you to do and the services you might bring. Right? Mm-hmm . And so in my case, you know, I might do a speech and do a really good job of that at a corporate retreat or an executive offsite. And then the CEO will say to me, Hey, we really need help around the topic you talked about. Then I can get into a conversation about selling them consulting. And I mean, I’ve literally turned single speeches into, you know, 50, 60 million, the revenue opportunities over 10 years, right. That all started with one speech. But if I had gone in and just tried to sell the 50 million opportunity, I would never have got, I wouldn’t even got the meeting, let alone the opportunity.
PS (06:28):
Right? And so the point being, here’s a simple metaphor. Let’s say you meet your life partner, the person you wanna make your life partner at a bar, you don’t go up to him or her and ask them to marry you in that first interaction. You go up and say, Hey, do you mind if I buy you a drink or something, you know, something small and easy to say yes to that’s the real underlying premise. Um, there are other pieces to the, to the model, you know, this idea that mental energy is as scarce currency as time. And we can get into some of those as well. But the core idea is that no one got outta bed this morning, thinking about you, you’re trying to get on their mental menu in order to do that. You’re better off being tight, not broad. And then once you have the relationship expand from there. So
RV (07:10):
Yeah, I mean, that’s so good. And, and the visual for those of you that, you know, are, you’re trying to picture this. It’s, it’s sort of like, I guess triangle it, uh, I mean, we kind of think of it as like, you know, it starts broad and then you go narrow and then that’s, that’s how you break through the wall versus bouncing off the wall is being narrow. And then as you’re narrow, you break through the wall and then once you’re on the other side of that wall, then you can expand. So to zero in on the concept a little bit here, what is the wall?Is, is it, is it mental? Is it attention? Is that what the, is that what the wall is? Is, is that what is representative of the line that
PS (07:56):
Separates? I’d primarily say it’s attention and attention can get expressed in time. Attention could get expressed in my level of engagement. Attention could be expressed in the level of research I might be prepared to do about you before I meet you, anything where I’m gonna invest something I have as a currency into understanding you and what you want to do. That’s what’s on the other side, meaning like once you have my attention, I will express it in any of those currencies. Right. And, and here’s the deal like before this podcast, or I had eight back to back calls. I mean, one hour after another, after another, I didn’t have time to be pitched a new idea. I’m not gonna read spam on any given day. And I sure say, I’m not gonna sort of listen to someone that says, Hey, I can do anyone of 4,500 things for you, which of the 4,500 would you like?
PS (08:42):
But if you are targeting me on the right day with the right problem in a very clear value proposition, I might actually give you the time of day. I might say, you know what? I really am struggling with that. Um, let’s take 15 minutes and now you ha now you’re on the other side of my wall, right? You are on the other side of my, you know, you’ve, you’ve broken through the attention barrier. Yeah. And what you do with those five or six minutes is up to you. And I know, or you teach a lot of your members how to position themselves, understand their brand, what the bits about them that are unique. I know you talk to a lot of about how do you converse and engage in a way that’s influential. They’re all super important skills once you’re through the wall. The bit that comes before that, which I know you also teach around positioning is, you know, don’t be kind of so abstract and broad that no one really knows what you do with the value you’re gonna bring, or you never get my attention
RV (09:32):
Uhhuh . And I wanna, I wanna, I do wanna talk about that, cuz I do feel like that’s the, like the, obviously the core of this and it’s, it’s a, it’s amazing to me, you know, I heard you speak, it was at an NSA event that I, I had heard you speak and it was so powerful that it stuck with me and you were drawing, you were drawing it. You probably remember on like a little digital pad. And it was just, you know, it was like a line with two triangles. And I was like, that is so powerful. Um, is it is trust. What is on the other side of the wall? You mentioned that word trust earlier, you know, and like in this microcosm of an example, you go, okay, if you get my intention, you’re on the other side of the wall and you might have like five minutes or 15 minutes, which represents kind of how that triangle builds on the other side, it’s you, it starts, you’re kind of there, but you only, you still only have a little bit of time. Is that, would you think of that side as in general, as sort of like trust,
PS (10:26):
I, I would say trust builds as you move. So let’s assume this is on a left to right model in the walls, in the middle. Um, as you move to the right of the model, you’re at a higher and higher level trust, cause you’ve likely done more and more things together. And if you’ve done them well, you’ve created more and more value over time. But when you are just through the wall, it’s not about trust. It’s about opportunity. You have got for the first time, an opportunity to hook that person’s interest to get them interested in what you might want to do. Next. It could be to attend an event. It could be to join a membership year. It could be to, to do corporate consulting. Like it depends on what you sell. It might be to try your restaurant out, you know? Um, and so no, I would say immediately on the other side of the wall is just an opportunity and it’s probably a very fleeting and short opportunity. So you better know how to position your value in that moment. You better make that interaction memorable. You be incredibly clear what you’re gonna do for that person, that buyer or else you, you’re never gonna get to a place of trust. So trust is further out in my opinion, uh, in terms of on the right side of that wall. Gotcha.
RV (11:31):
Okay. And I, I think, you know, one of the thing that is like the way that you kind of describe it here is in a, is in a singular instance, sort of like a singular encounter with an individual person. We’ve always thought it, we’ve thought we’ve thought about it as more general. Like you, nobody knows who you are. And then breaking through the wall is like, you know, you reach this point of like mass critical mass where it’s like, okay, now you have enough credibility. So it, it, what I hear you saying is it’s like it applies in both the granular and at the high level, um,
PS (12:13):
The way you’re describing it, RS spot on, like I could do my whole career. I could literally map my career on that model. Right? Like I started going into high schools and doing these speeches to kids on how to transition from school to work. I originally hit a brick wall where there was no, no one was willing to gimme a chance. No one was gonna gimme an opportunity. And then I heard about this thing called school to work funding where public schools were given X dollars a year to teach their kids about alternative career paths. And so I massively narrowed the offer of what I was trying to bring into schools, to target school, to work. I used all the buzzword and all the language that were in the funding application schools needed to be allowed to spend the money this, and then I’d start calling a careers advisor.
PS (12:56):
And instead of saying, Hey, do you want motivational speaker in your school? I’d say I have five specific offerings that match the school to work curriculum and framework. Um, and you know, here is what they look like. We’ll do it during a career period. We’ll do it for year 10. And so it’s like so tight, what the offer is now that’s a single interaction, right. But I, you know, after six months had got like six of those after another six months, I had 180, I did 485 speeches in schools in my second year as a public speaker. Right. And so now all of a sudden I could go back to those same buyers and go, Hey, you know, I, I know I was doing this school to work stuff, but I have this whole motivational thing as well. I have these like what we would call HSC Australia might call the S SATs here S a T prep work.
PS (13:40):
And, you know, I would start having kids join an ongoing course. And all of a sudden I’m doing all these other things that I wasn’t able to do before I had credibility and a track record. Now I could do the same model if I step out again, which is the next. So I wrote three books for that market. And then I was writing a book on what we would call the millennials or generation. Y was the, the frame I used back in the day. And I went to my publisher and my publisher was like, well, you know, that’s a, that’s a small market. And I think you should write it on all four generations, cuz there’ll be a much bigger addressable market there. And I’m like, but I don’t know anything about baby boomers or the silent generation or gen X. I know these younger people gen, why are these millennials, let me get really targeted and fo so I did the exact same process.
PS (14:28):
Again, got really tied in my value proposition and what I, what I, and, and by the way, stayed true to my actual expertise, right? Mm-hmm like I was talking about something I truly knew. Now you fast forward five years. And I wasn’t doing a single speech on gen Y and millennials. I was doing speeches on disruption and the impact that had on business models and corporate culture, because what the millennial whole millennial thing was about was not about young people. It was about the fact that there’s a whole new way of interacting with brands of understanding business and from paid media to earn media from you. Tell me what your product’s about to actually I own your brand through the way I interact with it. Like all that was what the millennial change represented, but I couldn’t go, I, after that market, I was 25, 26 years old, you know? So I wrote a book about a really targeted thing. It was a very good book. It sold phenomenally around the world. And with that opportunity I built about
RV (15:21):
Disruption.
PS (15:23):
Um, no, the book was essentially the gen Y book, the millennial book. Oh, you’re
RV (15:26):
Talking about, oh, you’re still
PS (15:27):
Okay. I’m still in the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And what I was able to that was build multiple companies off the back of that one piece of work, you know? And so yes, it’s an instance, but I actually think I could define my whole career actually using that same model. So
RV (15:44):
What’s fascinating about that is, is, uh, the way I hear you describing it now is not how I’ve actually ever thought about it. Like, um, there’s a, there’s an expression. You probably heard this, we use this in the us get your foot in the door. Yeah. Um, what as I hear you describing that now, like with a company or in an industry, it’s almost like, Hey, I’m using this to kind of get a foot in the door, which is interesting. Cuz visually it repre, it looks like a wedge almost like you would like kind of wedge into something and then once you’re in, then it’s like, okay, now more opens up inside of that company or inside of that industry to do other ancillary, other ancillary work,
PS (16:25):
All, all Rory inside of the entire marketplace, cuz your reputation is established. Yeah.
RV (16:29):
And that’s how I, and that’s how I always processed. It was more like your overall reputation is no one knows who you are to now everybody knows who you are and they want you. And so your fee, your fee goes
PS (16:41):
Up and, and the number of things that you can sell goes up as well.
RV (16:46):
Yes. Um, totally. So I get so, so I, I,
PS (16:50):
We’re just, we’re just talking about it at multiple levels and it’s the same metaphor and the same model for a one-on-one interaction. It’s the same model for a client relationship as it is for the entire trajectory of your personal brand, your co you know, your company brand, depending on what you’re representing and the reputation you now have in the marketplace. Right. And so you’re right. You get it right. Your fee goes up, but here’s what happens to most people worry, they crash against the wall and never get known by anyone. And they’re scrambling and hustling for scraps from people who figured it out, you know? And so you are talking about the right way. It just exists on multiple levels.
RV (17:24):
Yeah. And I think the, you know, what’s, what’s interesting is you, it’s like you’re playing the big game of your reputation always. Yep. But even, you know, you have some number of relationships where you’re already through the wall. There’s some number of people who trust you, there’s other people who’ve never heard of you. And it’s kind of like, you’re, you’re at the beginning of that model kind of like working your way in the door, almost like you could think of content in this way of like somebody is paying you whatever $20,000 a month for a retainer, because you’re on the other side of the wall, someone else is just reading your very first tweet for the first time. And it’s 144 characters and they go, Ooh, I like that tweet. Let me go read their blog post. And now they read a blog post and then they go, oh, let me subscribe to their newsletter.
RV (18:08):
Ah, show up for their one hour webinar and then da, da, da kinda. So it’s like each individual person. So, so here’s the, here is the thing that everybody struggles with. How do I find my thing? Like, you know, the, the whole concept, which is so powerful and brilliant is go be known for one thing. Uh, you, you you’ve described it here as being tight, like be extremely tight in your offer. How do you know which thing to do? Like if you can talk about leadership and you can talk about sales, like, what do you think? How
PS (18:47):
Do you know? Well, this is gonna rub some people the wrong way mate, but you and I have spent our lives surrounded by people who wanna make up the answer to that question. Right? As opposed to the answer should be pretty clear. What are you actually world class at? What are you an expert in where you can bring some unique contribution that other people can’t bring? Where are you capable of creating the most value for another human being? That’s where I would start that conversation. Don’t start that conversation with, well, what do other people want? And then let me see if I can pretend to be an expert in that space or, you know, you can do, you can do that, but it’s gonna be a long journey as you start to build capability. Right. It’ll be like, it’ll be like you reading a survey. Right. Now’s wow. The number one thing on fortune 500 CEO’s mind is alignment of their executive team to accelerate transformation. And you’re be like, right, I’m gonna go sell that. Well, okay. I think speakers
RV (19:41):
Do that all the time, all the time,
PS (19:43):
But you know, the time then, then they go mono or mono with me or Pete Fuda or McKinsey and they get their lunch eaten. In fact, they don’t even get it out of the conversation cuz they don’t have real expertise in that space. Right. And so I would start from a place of authenticity, really like a place of genuine credibility. I have this unique thing, right? So for me, if I go back to my example, I shared for me, it was, I knew young people. I had 300,000 kids on a database. I was able to survey them about their values. What cared about the careers. They’re interested in, why they weren’t interested in others, what they thought of alternative career paths and not going to college. So when I write a book on the millennials, which was basically the first book in the world from a business perspective on the topic, it comes from a place of deep research and deep credibility.
PS (20:27):
Now it just so happened that the market really needed the insight as well. So you do want to give that consideration, right? Which is all right, what are my authentic, true expertise and skill sets. And then where do they meet a need in the market? That’s not being satisfied or not being satisfied in the way I think I can meet that need. And you find the overlap between those two things and now you’ve got magic, right? Better, still find the overlap between those two things and what you really love to do. And now you live in the dream life. I can’t remember. What’s the name of that Japanese model? They’ve got a fourth circle. It, I can’t remember. There’s there’s like ancient models for understanding what we’re talking about right now, guy.
RV (21:06):
Yeah. I think it’s got, I think it’s Ika guy or something. Something like that. Yeah.
PS (21:08):
Yeah. In other words, we didn’t make this up, but um, funny that we stumbled on something that’s, you know, been, uh, in philosophy for thousands of years.
RV (21:17):
So to that, to that question, how did you come up with this model? Like, you know, um, and, and, and what you, what you, what you call it is just the making it, is it, is it the making it happen? Master model? Is that, I mean, that’s how you refer to,
PS (21:32):
I, I don’t know what I call it. I’d have to go back to the book or that was a few years ago, mate. Um, do you know, the last time I spoke about this model was the speech you went to in 2009.
RV (21:41):
It’s so funny. What year was it? What year was that?
PS (21:45):
Oh, it’s gotta be oh, nine, two and 10. Something like that.
RV (21:49):
Oh my gosh. That’s so funny. Yeah. I mean, it was a long time ago and I never, that’s why I never knew you had a book. Like I never, I never heard you talk about it ever again. I had never, I never heard it anywhere else again, but
PS (22:00):
It was just, you know what, there’s a lesson. There’s a lesson in that though. Right? So all my market momentum is with corporation. Right? I wrote this book cuz people were banging my door down on a daily basis going, how did you get breakthrough? What, you know, teach me how to do what you did. And I was like, you know what, I’m gonna write it in a book. This is, this was my recipe. And so as for how I came up with it, I’m sure it, the origin of it is not entirely original. Like it doesn’t seem to me like a ground break idea to teach people, to get tight and focused in what they take to market. So they’re easy to, so not only is it easy to grab attention, but you can be better at it. Right? I’m in the middle of a strategy project right now.
PS (22:39):
And I’m telling you, the business partners are so far on, they are on either sides of the spectrum, right? Like wanting to do everything for everyone, for the rest of humanity. And it’s like, good luck. Like that’s not gonna work. So the, the, the, the underlying disciplines of this, of making it happen are really sound in corporate strategy as well as personal brand strategy. Um, and so there, but the there’s a lesson in the fact that I don’t talk about it. And that’s the, that’s not my space. That’s not where I play. And you know what? I bet you, if you and I sat down and had a beer, we could find 20 other things that you could be world class at on top of what you do now and are already world class at, you could totally build your, you, you could totally build businesses in all these other areas.
PS (23:21):
The problem is you end up spreading, not just your time and energy so thin, but all of a sudden you confuse the market. Like they don’t know what your reputation is for. And so you don’t wanna go too wide. Now, the beautiful thing is once you have a reputation and you have a critical mass, you can go much wider than you started that process with, but not so wide that all of a sudden people dunno what you stand for or what you do. And so I made a really deliberate decision to not build my brand and reputation around making it happen, despite it being a pretty successful book, by the way, um, actually in some countries, not in all in a couple countries, not in most is probably more accurate, um, because I wasn’t gonna speak on it. I didn’t wanna do public seminars. I didn’t want to be selling to individuals. I, I like single buyers that write really big checks. That’s just my preference. I don’t wanna be known by that many people. There’s only about a thousand people in the world that I actually need to know who I am not a hundred thousand or AME, you know? And so it was just not, it was almost an anomaly in my body of work actually.
RV (24:22):
Mm-hmm yeah. Mean, uh, you know, you describe it as discipline. I mean, that was, you know, my first book take the stairs was really about discipline in general. And the, you know, one of the things that we said in the take the stairs book was if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. We never thought we would shift into personal branding. It was only when we exited our company a few years ago, and then it was like, okay, well, crap, we can’t do sales anymore. We’ve done sales our whole life. What are we gonna do? Like, oh, I guess we’ll do personal branding. We know something about that. And then it was like, the, this, this idea is the same discipline is of going. I’m gonna narrow my message. And what I, what I think is really true. And, and this is probably why you and I, I haven’t touched paths is because we serve different markets. Like you’re saying you want one person who, uh, who writes really big checks. We literally think about it, the opposite. We literally go, we want a whole bunch of people who can write a small, have a small monthly payment, right? Like it is, is totally, totally different. But what I hear in that is that narrowing the market of who you serve is also a part of this in addition to narrowing how you serve them or what you do for them.
PS (25:43):
Yeah. Let’s talk, let’s break it down. Right. I think the real key to narrow first is clearly articulating the value to whomever and whatever market you wanna serve. Right. Like to not be so all over the place with that, that people don’t really get it. You know, like Roy, I don’t really understand what you mean by personal branding. What is that actually gonna do for me? Like, you don’t want that response to your positioning or to your content or to the way people refer you. You want people to refer you, like, I’m gonna put you in touch with my buddy. Rory has a monthly membership. And if you want to accelerate the time to profitability and high revenue on the back of your personal brand and reputation, he’s the guy to talk to. That’s, we’re gonna edit that.
RV (26:26):
We’re gonna edit that clip and put it on the website, make that a testimony. Yeah. The testimonial.
PS (26:30):
But literally it goes all the way down to referral, like how I set you up, determines how successful your conversion would be. Right. Mm-hmm what you don’t want me to say is, Hey, let me introduce my buddy to R I don’t know if it can help you, but I dunno, you guys sort of sound like you want the same thing. Let me make the introduction. That’s the worst introduction in history, right? Like now, once you are clear on the value, then you can start asking yourself the question, well, who do I wanna surf? Right. Um, in my case, it is senior executives and it’s only really senior executives. Right? I get speaking offers all the time to do all hands events. And most of the time I’m like, you know what, I’m probably not your guy. You need someone who’s way more gen like got way more appeal and charisma, and you know, is better at that audience.
PS (27:11):
And I’ll refer them to one of three or four people that I know and trust, you know? And so I am narrow on the audience. And then the second, third question is, and now which you raised, how do I wanna serve them? I don’t do one on one coaching for executives. It doesn’t doesn’t create enough change in my opinion. Right? Not only that there’s thousands of executive coaches. And so they’re driving the price down. I wanna do something way more difficult, which is to drive alignment at a team level, much harder to do than get an executive to realize they’re showing up like a, you know, uh, not person am I allowed to swear
RV (27:47):
In your podcast? You know? I mean, you can.
PS (27:48):
Yeah. But, and so there’s three, but there’s three layers of the clarification process. One is what is the value? I wanna bring two, who do I wanna bring it to? And then three, what’s the mode. Well, what’s the business model that I want with that. And then the fourth is probably what is a of modality, right? So what’s the value who do I wanna serve? What’s the business model. And then what’s the modality. Now the business model is the question. People almost never ask. Right? But you just raise it. You said, you know what? I really want a large number of people writing a, a, a really reasonably priced check for the amount of value they get coming to together that forms a community that I’m a part of, not just leading where it’s self perpetuating a subscription model. I don’t have to start from zero every three months. Like that’s a beautiful business model.
RV (28:36):
Yeah. It’s interesting. We, you know, when we started brand builders group, we actually said in this two, two, as of right now, we’re three years in, we want a thousand me, we want a thousand people who we can, who, who will invest a thousand dollars a month, which would be about, you know, it’s a million dollars a month and that’s a business where we’ve operated a business of that size before. And we are just like, not only we did, we narrow who we wanted to serve. We, we know exactly how many of them we want. Right. We only on a thousand of these people. Um, and yeah, the business model is like, we realize one-on-one coaching is where we can really differentiate. And it’s, it’s interesting to just, even as you talk to go, like, man, if, if, if a, if a, if a, if a senior executive called me and was like, Hey, Roy, I want you to be my coach. I would, I would literally tell them, not your guy like that. If you wanna write your book, I’m your, I mean, I’m your freaking guy. Like, uh, you, you wanna turn your career into a, a, a speaker. You wanna build your following, whatever I’m like. Yeah. But, but if they’re like, Hey, I, I want you to just talk to me one on one
PS (29:41):
About how to structure my company, blah, blah. I’m like, oh my gosh. I’m not your guy. Yeah. And knowing that’s great, by the way, the great irony of this is I, as you know, I, uh, teamed up with Josh ner, Seth Madison, Ryan ESS. And we are now basically building a model, you know, not, not dissimilar to the brand builders model, but with a more targeted audience, specifically, people that wanna speak. Yeah. You know, and, and we, I mean, we have all, we have all the distribution relationships, we know all the buyers, we know what they care about. We can take someone from a 10 year journey and make it two years, you know, and it’s a different model. Now. It’s not a business that I, that, you know, I’m not doing all the oneone coaching or whatever. I still to executives and do that work, you know?
PS (30:23):
And so in some ways I’m gonna have to, I’m gonna be calling you in a few months ago. Tell me exactly how you did that thing at brand builders. Right. Cause I’m used to one, you know, I’m used to large checks. Yeah. Right. Single buyer, complex buying process, sometimes a long buying process, but one large check. And, you know, literally we used to set have this goal, um, which was alright, get your first thousand dollar check, get your first $10,000 check, get your first million dollar check, get your first $10 million check. And the largest single contract over Sams about 57 million. And I was like, right. That’s not bad for one client. You know, that’s a good deal. You know, now that was over, like that was delivery of that work was over a series of three to four years. Right? Like it wasn’t, it wasn’t all in one, three month period, but it feels pretty good to get a check that big, you know, or to get a commitment that big as it doesn’t quite work like that you get the check over time.
PS (31:15):
But the point I’m getting at is that’s a totally different business. You know, for me, it was maximizing the size of the check for you. It was max, the number of people who’d write the check totally different path. Yep. But think about this, Roy and this is, I think is the takeout for your, for your listeners, right? The clearer you are on these answers, the value you bring, who you bring it to the business model, which is the bit we’re talking about now in the modality, you know, things like coaching podcast, that’s a modality in my mind, right? Yep. Totally. The clear you are on those top three things and, and, and the fourth as well, but particularly the top three, the easier decision making gets like, it’s not hard to say, no, that’s not my client. Or, you know, you sit and you listen to this podcast and you’re like, man, you know, Pete had those three great ideas.
PS (32:00):
They might be dumb ideas for you because they don’t match the value you wanna bring. They don’t match a business model. You’re building. Then that’s the audience you wanna serve. Like in my experiences, no such thing as a good idea and a bad idea in our, like in this kind of learning space, there are aligned ideas and misaligned ideas. And that’s how I assess them. Is this a aligned idea for what I’m trying to create? I think what the, one of the most beautiful about the way you serve the, the market made is that you help people get clear and the clearer they get, the easier will be to make decisions. And by the way, the easier will be to get through the metaphorical wall. Right. You all over the map as well. No, I still can’t. Can’t do it in the third person, but yeah.
RV (32:41):
Okay. So, all right. So honest, honest, open thing here. I, I really want your, your wisdom on this. So okay. In our, in our former life, we did one-on-one sales coaching. It was super clear, right? We coach sales people, you know, B to C salespeople, real estate, financial advisors, how to sell. We scaled that was straightforward. Then brand builders group starts. We do personal brand strategy. So we do, you know, we, we coach experts, primarily speakers, authors, coaches, consultants, and then entrepreneurs like professional services, still how to build their personal brand brand builders group, super clear growing. What I personally am struggling with at this very one thing I’m struggling with at this precise moment is we have the Rory Vaden who built his career on self-discipline overcoming procrastination. And that was take the stairs. And then my Ted talk, how to multiply time, which got a couple million views.
RV (33:45):
That was how I built my career as a speaker. Then we built a company on sales coaching, and now we have brand builders group during personal brand strategy. And I’m struggling a little bit with how to tell the whole story, not with what brand builders group to us that’s straight and narrow, but what does Roy Vaden do? And I get calls for speeches, right? Not for, you know, Hey, can you come talk on something random, but it’s more like I saw your Ted talk. Will you come speak on this? But there it’s to an audience that’s not personal brands, which is what our core business, this is focused on now. And so some of that, you know, I’m trying to be like, you know, where does my personal brand sit at this point? And where am I at on Shehan wall? Cuz to, to the point you were talking about earlier about how it works on a granular level, like for an individual relationship.
RV (34:36):
And then also like at an industry or reputation level, we’ve also started to describe it really it’s a series of walls at a high level. So you, you know, you dominate your local market, then your, your, you know, your regional market, national whatever. And so I’m trying to wrestle a little bit with like, what is the story of Rory vain.com at this point in my life? Should I just go, all I care about is personal branding, ignore everything that I’ve done. Just let it go. Or, or is there some way that it all sits, sits together and I’m, I’m genuinely interested in, in uh, free consulting
PS (35:12):
Are we still on the podcast or did you just get 30 grand the coaching for, uh, nothing. Um, I have very two very strong opinions, especially. I agree that, that I didn’t think of it as multiple walls, I think, but the more the wall keeps moving, right? Like you, you’re always looking to get to the next level, the next space. And in some ways, you know, you’re the flavor of the month at one point and then people have had you, they know you they’ve moved on to the next flavor and you have to find a new way to get back on their mental menu. Right. Um, here’s my first piece of advice. Don’t try and include every part of everything you’ve done in your story. People don’t care. Okay. Like I, I, I own a SAS company called educator impact it’s suicide prevention and wellbeing tracking for kids in schools.
PS (35:51):
It also does 360 degree evaluation of teachers. It’s an incredibly successful and business and you’ve never heard me talk about that once. And I’m sure in your researcher didn’t come up. I don’t need it to be part of my story. It just confuses the buyer. I don’t need to confuse the buyer. Right? Like at our peak, we would’ve 40,000 workshops a year before. In fact, this isn’t in the company I sold to Ernston young for 1.2 million people around the world. And it never once was in my buyer because it was about community investment strategy and helping to elevate the reputations of companies in the market. But that’s not what Peter sheen was spending his personal time on. I just haven’t own that company cuz long, long story. But um, it came out of a, a client delivery. I had, I knew how to solve the problem.
PS (36:33):
I built a company around that. I don’t need to confuse my brand positioning with all of that material. Does that make sense? That’s I am great. It’s like, so the, the answer to the question, Rory, the, the easiest answer to the question is what do you want to be talking about? right. Like where do you wanna spend your time? What’s your highest order contribution. What’s the biggest impact you have and then which bits of your story lend credibility to that? You’re the, you are the only one who will be worried about how it all stitches together. Everyone else is just, Hey, I’ve got a problem. I saw your Ted talk and I’ve got 35 grand, 40 grand where you come and do a speech like don’t overcomplicate it. My advice to you, however, is the more aligned RO vaden.com is to brand builders. The, the less spread your personal energy will be.
PS (37:24):
Right? And so, you know, here’s the biggest mistake speakers make in terms of building a company, right? They look at their speaking fee, let’s use easy numbers. Let’s say you’re speaking fees, 15 grand, right? They tell themselves the story, they get paid thousand a day or $15,000 an hour, but they don’t. Cause they only get 50 speeches a year or a hundred of their lucky. And really they’re working like as a low price lawyer at about 500 bucks an hour. You know, you’re not anywhere near as valuable as you think you are. Right. It’s just that your modality is a short burst for a high fee and you don’t get a lot of deliveries. Right. And so I would look back and go, where is the most value gonna get created? Is it in R Vaden doing speeches or is it in R Vaden building the message of brand builders and increasing the subscription model?
PS (38:12):
Because I can tell you now the enterprise value of brand builders is gonna be way substantially higher that the enterprise value of R vaden.com is here’s the, here’s the reason that matters. One, once it gets critical, mass build starts building itself. And it’s less about your personal exertion two, if you ever sold it, not that, that’s what you’re saying. You want to do. You only pay capital gains on that rather than personal income tax. So immediately you’re 25% better off. And when someone buys it, they’ll give you a multiple on future, on your discounted future cash, which means they might buy 13 years of profit off the table at half the tax rate that you pay. Right? Like now I’m not saying that’s what you should do, but there’s, there is a value decision to be made. And so I would start with, what do you want to talk about? I would then put it through the filter of, is this gonna support what I’m really trying to build here? And what’s more important to me. And then I would say your answer shakes out of that and the closer and more aligned, those two things are the more leverage you got get.
RV (39:08):
Yeah, well, and basically what’s happened is for three and a half years, I have just ignored Rory vain personal brand because it’s been all in, on brand builders group because of exactly what you said going, at some point we will get this AJ, my wife, she’s our CEO and we’ve been business partner since 2006. We already know that at some point it will gain enough critical mass. It will start to grow. And now it’s, we’re starting to kind of turn that toward, towards that direction. Yeah. And, and so now this is coming up again and, and to what you’re saying is going, gosh, the, the closer that my personal brand is, um, anyways, that’s awesome. I think it’s super powerful for me, even to just hear don’t feel obligated. Like you have to make sense of everything you’ve ever done and share it all and make sense of it in your story. Like your customer only cares about their problem. You only need to share whatever parts of your story are relevant to solving their problem.
PS (40:08):
Yeah. The only people worry who woke up this morning, thinking about you, AJ, your wife, your two kids, yourself, and the people who are trying to steal your business. That’s a, it, everyone else woke up with their own problem and you either have positioned your value to solve that problem. Or you don’t, you either positioned in a way that appeals to that individual buyer or you didn’t, you either positioned the, the business model to serve that person in a way that they actually, you know, are willing to prescribe to and write checks for. And you’re either doing it in a modality that suits them, or it doesn’t like, it’s really that simple, you know, and that hard at the same time.
RV (40:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Um, man, this is so awesome. So the book y’all making it happen, turning good ideas into great results. She hands wall named by us created by Peter sheen. um, uh, the, a lot more detail in it. And I’ve, uh, I’ve learned a lot today and I, I would say very much there are, there are, there are way there’s, there’s things that have come out of this conversation that were not a part of how I, you know, thought about it. And, um, it really, really is really is cool, man. So, um, what, where should people go if they want to connect with you, Peter, like, um, you know, what would, what would you have people, you know, knowing, knowing that you did this, basically as, as a, as a helpful favor and a buddy to like talk about something you haven’t talked about since 2009, uh, um, but, but
PS (41:33):
Live every day, by the way, but live every day, you know,
RV (41:36):
Live every day. Yeah. What, um, how do you want people to think about you? Where should they find you? What, uh, what should they refer for you, et cetera?
PS (41:47):
Yeah, I would, I hit me up on LinkedIn. That’s probably the, the safest place to stay in touch. Um, you can follow me on Instagram. I’ve posted about once every three years. And so, you know, maybe into 2023, you’ll see a post from, and I get, this is such a, we should actually get at this at some point in
RV (42:04):
Again, different audiences though. Like I don’t hang out on LinkedIn very much. I hang out
PS (42:09):
Instagram, but neither is a CEO of Pepsi. You know, he’s not on Instagram looking for corporate consultants and, you know, someone to facilitate his executive offsite. Like it’s just, it’s different audiences drive different decisions. I would go after LinkedIn is a great way to stay in touch. Um, I would get on free ring, circus.com and maybe join the mailing list there. And you’ll learn more about the work we’re doing in speaking development. And, and yeah,
RV (42:34):
And we had one of your business partners, Josh Linkner. We had him on this show, another world class speaker, one of the very, very best we interviewed him that you guys are business partners in three ring circus. So yeah,
PS (42:45):
Josh is a badass. I mean, that guy is a production machine. Like that guy can market, like he would not believe. And so that’s where I’d go. Um, I think there’s a place on my website, Peter sheen.com to sign up. Um, we don’t communicate to that list a lot, but when we do, but if you’re on it, when we have something interesting, we’ll let you know.
RV (43:03):
Yeah. Um, well, man, I love this and I, I just, I guess I just wanna say like, thank you while I have you, um, you know, some times people kind of make the, the comment like, oh, you, you know, you can’t change a life with a, with a, with a 45 minute keynote. And I would say, I used to think that, and, and I think of it less because of things like you, you know, I haven’t, I haven’t talked to you in 10 years and that one thing that you put up at that one moment hit me in the right way at time, stuck with me, changed my career. And now, you know, we’re trying to pass along your legacy to people and go like, look, this is look at the power of this thing all from a one random talk that you did. Yeah. 10 years ago, you don’t even make money. You don’t even talk to those groups anymore. And it, it’s made a huge impact, man, really, really powerful. And, um, and it’s been not just for me, I mean, definitely for me, but for a lot of the people that we talk to, and I’m glad they’re texting you going like, dude, I , what is she hands wall? Because it’s so impactful.
PS (44:13):
I, I was the one asking them, what’s she hand the wall? Look my you’re firstly, you’re welcome. I appreciate, uh, you saying, thanks. Anyone that underestimates the power of a single presentation to change a life is outside of their mind. 45 minutes with Jim RO transformed my life. And I built a company that worked with millions of kids, you know, on important life skills. I built a corporate consulting company that transforms, you know, we brought Microsoft and apple during there, like turnarounds, like it, that all came from that one day in the Horton perve in Sydney with Jim run on a platform. Right. And you know, I, you, you have other versions of that. I’m sure in your life where you something change the way you saw the world. And so I’m a deep believer in the power of what I call that a catalytic experience. And I’m, I feel honored flattered, and I take it very seriously, the responsibility we get to do that on a daily basis. Wow.
RV (45:04):
Well Shehan, uh, she hands wall, everybody from the source, Peter Shehan go grab the book, making it happen. Let’s see if we can sell some more books for him. uh, you know, read, read about this directly from the source. Um, brother, we just, we wish you the best. Uh, it’s an honor to be a colleague, uh, to be a, a mentee, a student of yours and, uh, really appreciate you carve some time out and, uh, and thanks for the free consulting. You’re you’re welcome to do that. Anytime you want
PS (45:31):
Brother take care.

Ep 239: 400k TikTok Followers in 40 Days with Hilary Billings and Marshall Seese Jr. | Recap Episode

RV (00:01):
How in the heck, did she grow 400,000 followers in 40 days? That was the topic of the interview that we just finished with Hillary billings and, uh, her boyfriend Marshall talking about how they do, you know, a, their TikTok strategy. And, oh my gosh, what an amazing interview. These two, these two are freaking brilliant. Like they are so creative and, and intelligent and systematic, but artistic and just like insightful, but also intuitive. I mean, it is amazing. And that is a hundred percent true story. She grew 400,000 followers and 40 days on TikTok that’s that is, is gnarly. So if you didn’t listen to that, go back and listen to the interview. Uh, of course this is the recap edition here. I’m gonna be breaking down this, this interview with Hillary and Marshall and, uh, I’m learned a ton. I’m gonna boil it down to my top, my top three takeaways here for you, but oh, so powerful.
RV (01:10):
And, um, and really cool. So, so first of all, one of my biggest takeaways is at a macro level, there is a major, major shift that is taking place that you at least need to be aware of and mindful of. Um, and that is that entertainment, like the entertainment, uh, you know, like actors enter entertainers in Hollywood, like it used to be who can bring the talent, right. It was like, okay, you know, if, if you’re gonna even, even I think this is gonna apply to sports and it’s like, okay, if you’re gonna get a scholarship, you know, to come play at some college, you know, who can throw a football or who can, who can shoot a basketball or whatever. Um, and it was like, you know, if you’re gonna get on Broadway in New York, it’s like, who can sing? Who can dance, can act?
RV (02:04):
It’s all of these different things, right? It used to be who can bring the talent. But the major macro shift that’s happening right now is it’s not just who can bring the talent it’s, who can bring the audience, who can bring the audience. Right? The Logan, all of the world are getting these huge acting deals. This is what Hillary was talking about. Um, and that it’s it’s it’s because they bring their audience with them. They have this built in audience. And in a way, this is what, how endorsement deals have always worked. Like whoever the famous actor is, gets the big or act gets the big endorsement deal, because they know that so many millions of people know who that person is. And if that person says it’s good, then they’ll buy the thing or sign up for the thing or whatever. But, but it still that they had to become famous initially by getting some role, doing something, usually based on their talent.
RV (03:04):
Now it is based on their audience who has a huge audience. And it’s almost like, I mean, in a weird way, I think just the value of talent is changing because it’s almost like, well, what is your talent worth? It? It’s it’s going well. One of the, the measures of what that talent is worth in the marketplace is how many people pay attention to it. And because there’s sort of this equal playing field of us, all building our own audiences, you go, well, you know how many people are paying attention to it? How many people are following it and liking it and subscribe to it and engaging with it. That is a, is an indicator. It’s a market indicator of not just how talented someone is, but, but what is the appetite of the market for that talent right now in real time, you know, in, in compared to everything else that’s happening in the world.
RV (03:55):
And you go, man. So that, that, that is why the number of Allers you have it, it does matter. Like people say it doesn’t matter. It, it does matter. We’re just, you know, we, we often talk about, Hey, don’t, don’t, don’t put yourself esteem in that, like, you create what you create and you should be focused on, but, but you should be focused on growing your reach because it matters, right? Like you, your ability to monetize is gonna be directly related to your reach. That’s why we talk about the reputation formula. Don’t forget what the, the brand builders group reputation, formula results, times reach equals reputation, results, times reach. So results is like the talent, right? How good are you? But reach is a huge part of it. And that’s just a monster shift that’s happening in the market. This, by the way, is something I realized early on as a speaker.
RV (04:44):
Um, if you know anything about my story, right? Originally my dream was I wanna be a speaker that was like the path that I was on. I never thought I would end up doing what we’re doing now, but it was kind of like I realized early on that the best speakers in the world were the people who won the world championship of public speaking for Toastmasters and the hall of fame speakers, uh, for the national speakers association, they were the best speakers in the world. When it came to mechanics delivery, the art form, the craft, the using the, the stage, the stories, the structure, the, you know, the jokes, but they were not the highest paid speakers. Why? Because they didn’t and bring an audience with them. The highest paid speakers are former presidents, right? And they’re celebrities. And they’re, you know, a lot of times they’re, they’re whatever their, their icons of industry, because they’re more well known.
RV (05:35):
Well, why is a meeting planner willing to pay more for that person? Because the reputation of that person being associate with the event increases the value of the event, the perceived value of the event, it increases the credibility of the event. And because that person is a draw, if it is a public event or any type of event where people aren’t, you know, forced to be there like employees, but any type of event where you’re trying to get people to, to opt into coming or paying all or some of their way to come, people will pay to come see someone they’ve heard of. They will not pay as much to come see someone they’ve never heard of. They don’t, they don’t, you know, they need, they don’t know why cuz they don’t know who the person is yet. So used to be about talent, who can bring the talent.
RV (06:18):
Now it’s about who can bring the audience. I mean, it’s still about talent, but it’s about both. And so this is a big deal and I’m not saying I like this. In fact, I, I, I’m not sure. I, I’m not sure that I prefer this, but on the one hand, there is kind of a, a beautiful part of this, which is the equal playing field of so media to go, we’re all playing with the same algorithm. We all have the same opportunity. Like we can all build our own audience today. We all, you know, for the most part, have an equal opportunity there to do that. And it allows people with great talent to get discovered or, or not even to get discovered. It’s like they discover themselves because their, their audience lifts them up versus have having some, you know, executive have to choose, choose them out of a hat, so to speak.
RV (07:02):
So you gotta realize this, this is what’s happening. And there is a lot of economic value in the fact that you have your own audience, not just cuz you can monetize that audience, but it makes you more valuable to everybody else because everywhere you go, some portion of your audience goes with you. That’s a really, really big deal. Um, you gotta really understand it. And uh, anyways, I, I think in some ways I’m a little bit late to the game. Ironically have, have been late to that game over over the years. Um, so that was huge. Um, the second way I had was such a simple, simple technical tip, which, and this is just cuz I don’t use TikTok really to I am on, I am on TikTok and uh, we’ve been, we are, um, focused on, on, we’ve been focused on growing Instagram and growing my Instagram reels.
RV (07:56):
And so we will at some point start moving that over to TikTok one as we could do it consistently. Um, but we’re not really on TikTok cuz we’re not able to, we don’t have the bandwidth to like keep up with it yet, but we’ll be there. But um, anyways, the discover tab in TikTok will tell you the tags that, that the platform wants you to use right now. right. So here’s another switch you gotta flip. And, and uh, what they, what uh, Hillary and Marshall were saying, which was so smart was they were talking about how like Twitter will te tell you the trending hashtags and, and the, the paradigm shift or like the mindset shift that needs to happen here is you have to shift from being a consumer, to being a creator. You have to shift from thinking like a consumer to thinking like a creator, right?
RV (08:46):
When you, when you pro I assume you let me just speak for myself when I am thinking as a consumer and I look at the trending hashtags on Twitter, I almost always go, those are so weird. Like why are people paying attention to these stupid hashtags, right? That’s me approaching it as a consumer or maybe I go, oh, that’s really cool. I wanna see what that’s about. But if I flip the switch and, and approach this as a creator, I go, this is a, this is a roadmap. This is an instruction manual. Like this is, these are the keys to the kingdom right here. The platform is saying, this is what’s hot right now. This is, this is what everyone’s paying attention to give me fuel for this thing that has already taken off. Basically it’s like this train has already left the stage, jump on while you can.
RV (09:38):
And it’s, it’s, it’s the most clear direct roadmap. I mean, this is so simple, but so massive to just go, okay, if I’m on Twitter, let me look at the top training hashtags. Um, I’m sure there’s a way to do this on Facebook. I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about that. But on TikTok specifically was what we were talking about is it’s the discover tab. Uh, you can also do this in Instagram, on the, on the explore page, right? And you can run searches with like, what are these top performing hashtags? And then you go, this is approaching it as a creator rather than a consumer. As you say, what piece of content could I create? That would be on brand for me, but that would speak or, or plug in or tie in or draft off of this hashtag that’s such a simple shift, but it’s massive.
RV (10:26):
Right? Everyone, you know, we all go, man. I wish the algorithm would help me more. I wish I could go viral. And yet every single time, every single one of us logs into one of these platforms, it tells you what’s going viral. If you wanna go viral right now, create content on these topics. And yet, as a consumer, when I have my consumer hat on, I, I basically like, it goes, it flies right past me. But you know, these professional creators like Hillary and Marshall, I mean, these people are genius at the same time. It’s also kind of simple, right. And going, duh, like open your eyes, pay attention. It’s right there. Like they’re, they’re serving it up to you right on the silver platter. Like this is the content that’s hot right now. Create content for me on this. Oh, it’s so simple. Um, it’s so simple and, and it’s also helpful to go instead of having to create a thousand content ideas yourself, what if you just logged in and said, what’s trending right now.
RV (11:28):
What piece of content could I, could I create that would align with what is trending right now and then right that way. And I’m just going, man, I am an in honestly, I’m going like, how have I missed this? I don’t know. I don’t know. But I somehow, somehow I have, um, all right. The third takeaway from this interview again, like go listen to it, man. Y’all these interviews are killer man. Every single one of these interviews that we have like is so good. And I, I love, if you haven’t left us a review on iTunes, please go leave us a review. Like if you’ve been listening, you know, to at least a few episodes, um, reviews how it bus so much, it’s like the number one thing that you can do as a listener. I mean, short of requesting a call from our team, and maybe we can, maybe we can be become part of your team.
RV (12:22):
But like outside of that, leaving as a review is, is one of the most helpful things that you can do. And you know, if you are listening to these episodes, they’re, they’re just powerful, full, right? Like, I can’t believe the amount of, of free advice that all these guests are given away and stuff, and hopefully you get value outta these recaps. So anyways, the third thing was just the mindset, um, in how Hillary and Marshall approached this, right? Like, and I would put them in this kind of professional creator category, right? They’re they’re true creators. I wouldn’t even call ’em influencers. It’s not that that they’ve got like millions and millions of followers and people buy whatever they say. I would put them in the creator category. They, they are specifically in explicitly understanding how to manufacture virality in views. And so how they think is really important to go, how could I adopt more of this?
RV (13:17):
And, and this was one of the biggest takeaways is they simply said, if you wanna be a great content creator, you have to approach it with an experimental mindset, an experimental mindset. And, and this was one of the, one of the lines. I can’t remember if Hillary said this or Marshall, but you know, they create a lot of this stuff together. And, um, they, they’re definitely a team. And, and they said, don’t base the success off of the videos. Think base your success off of the systems, don’t base your success off of the, off of the videos, base your success off of the systems and, and going, you putting your self esteem and your pride and your focus into like, okay, I’m, I’m creating this production company and there’s this set of processes that we run. And there’s these, there’s these certain things that we monitor and we measure and we account for, and we tweak and we test and, and, uh, and that is what that, what sort of like the value is, it’s not, oh, we got lucky or we feel really good cuz this one video went viral. And did you hear what she said? Like about the video that she made about the parallel parking? She said that video didn’t perform on Facebook. So she had this, this video about parallel parking that she posted on Facebook that didn’t perform. And then it got 40 million views on TikTok. That’s insane. Like it went, it blew up on TikTok. How did it get 40 million views? Well, you know, there’s a couple lessons there. One is, it
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Shows the lesson of, of posting content on multiple platforms, right? Like the audience on each, platform’s a little bit different and you know, so the content that you think tanked over here might be useful over here. If you have the team, uh, who can help you do it. So be experimental in your mindset, in your approach and just keep going, just keep going. Just keep going, keep coming back here every single week on the influential personal brand podcast we love having ya. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.

Ep 245: How to Know if Writing a Book is for You with Tia Graham | Recap Episode

AJV (00:03):
All right. This is the debrief from my interview that we just had with Tia Graham, who is a brand builders group client. She’s a long time client. She’s been with us for over two years. And over, over the last two years, she’s been through the somewhat grueling process of writing and publishing and launching her book that comes out this, this month, January, 2022. So I wanna give you a couple of the quick highlights of some things that she said that I think are really important and really good. So this is your cliff notes version of this podcast interview with myself and Tia. Here’s the first thing when we were talking about social media, I loved what she said, because I hear it so many times right now it’s create content that’s unique for the platform that you’re putting it on.
AJV (00:50):
Right. And I think there’s, there’s a time and a place for duplicating content so you can maximize the use of every piece of content in a variety of different ways. And you can still do that. I just think addition to that, there’s a lot of power in going, I know the audience that I’m trying to reach on X platform and in her case she’s got a huge B2B audience. And so LinkedIn right. Is a huge platform for her. But actually going, it’s like, okay, what is the mindset of someone who is on LinkedIn? Right? So they’re in the work mindset, it’s career oriented, it’s business oriented and being really intentional about the type of person and the mindset that the person on this platform is in while you’re creating content for that platform is so good. It’s like, it’s so common sense, but it’s so good because we don’t do that all that often.
AJV (01:47):
It’s like, what would it mean for your social media following or engagements to actually go, no, I’m gonna curate content that is really unique for the people who spend time on this platform. So I know if they’re on this platform, this is what they’re looking for. So I’m gonna give it to ’em on this platform. I love that. I thought that was awesome. And I love to hear what she said about all the growth she she’s had on LinkedIn. And I could just say for me personally, in the last three months, I’ve made some huge shifts and how I produce my content actually producing. It was one. So back in the saddle for me after like a three year hiatus but it’s it’s being so super intentional about what platforms you’re creating for. And one of the things that I’ve been doing, and I, I learned this from several different interviews that were on this podcast.
AJV (02:35):
So yeah, I listen to our own podcast. It’s really good. I encourage you to go back and listen to some episodes too, is really telling your audience what platforms go to for what? So, like, for example, like if you want to learn about me as a person, like a human being, like you wanna learn about my awesome husband, Rory Vaden, you wanna learn about my awesome two little munchkins Liam and Jasper you wanna learn about what I like to do on the weekend or what I like to eat or where I like to go me as a believer. It’s like all these different things go to Instagram. It’s just about me. It’s like, it’s me as a human being. But if you wanna learn from me, you wanna learn about personal branding, entrepreneurship, leadership. You want my content, you want educational value go to LinkedIn, cause you’re not gonna get a ton of that on Instagram.
AJV (03:23):
And you’re not gonna get a ton of the personal side on LinkedIn because I’ve gotten really clear on how I build and create my content and for what platform and what people like. And I, I love Tia’s comments on that. And I think those are great takeaways for all of us of taking a deep hard look at how am I creating content for each platform. So that would be my first big takeaway. And I love that. I thought that was awesome. So that’ll be my first one. The second one that I think is so awesome is around the book. And I think this is a great reminder. So my second and third are both around writing book. So if you’re out there and you wanna write a book or you wanna write another book, right? Or maybe you’ve done a self-published book, and now you wanna do do a traditional published book or vice versa.
AJV (04:10):
It doesn’t matter. It applies all the same as one is be prepared to do the work. I think we live and time of, I want it and I want it right now. And if it takes longer than three months, then something isn’t working or if it doesn’t make me an immediate return on investment, this was a waste of my time and my money. And that’s just not true. You guys, weren’t privy to this conversation that I got to have with Tia after I stopped hitting record, I should have hit it again. But I thought this was like a great reminder of, you know, what it has been two years of learning and hiring experts and working with coaches and a lot of accountability of like, no Tia, don’t do this other thing, stay focused. This is what you’re doing. This is what you’re doing.
AJV (04:59):
Don’t, don’t get distracted by all the shiny things that we see happening out there, stay the path. And I think it’s really easy to just go and this and this and this when we don’t see the results that we want immediately. And one of the things that Tia said in our debrief discussion is she goes, I know I’m not gonna see an immediate return on all the investment I’ve made or over the last two years. But I know that the investment that I have made is going to keep going for years. So maybe I won’t recoup all of it in the first six months or even in the first 12 months, but I already see the amount of sales that are coming in and the consulting opportunities and the speaking opportunities that this is going to pay for itself and a whole bunch more.
AJV (05:43):
And I think we all have to have the perspective of that. Our investment is going to be worth so much more if you just stay at it, don’t give up and keep going. And don’t think because it didn’t hit the New York times and opening week that it’s not gonna be a huge raging success. That does not mean that it’s just keep going consistency over, you know, the flash is always better. So I just love that, just that re that reminder of like, it takes time, but if you put in the time and you do the work, it will come back and, you know, it’s like I can use our books as examples, you know, you’ve got take the stairs and procrastinate on purpose. It’s like we still get steady royalty checks for those every quarter, or I guess really twice a year now.
AJV (06:32):
But you know, officially in 2022, which seems so crazy, take the stairs launched 10 years ago, this year, it’s out for 10 years. And so when we think back about those original investments of time and money and resources of going, man, is it worth it? It’s like, man, we’re still getting good, healthy royalty checks 10 years later. And the amount of consulting and businesses and speaking engagements I’ve come from that is extraordinary. Now it did all happen in the first two months or three months, but it will continue to go. And that’s a beautiful thing about writing a book is it’s got a very long shelf life. So just be patient, that would be my takeaway is be patient. And then my third takeaway was I also connected to the book, but was something about the actual content of the book itself, which I just think is such a good title.
AJV (07:26):
And it’s so relevant and makes me wanna like go read it the whole thing tonight be a happy leader. And I love one of the things that she said in the interview about what is one thing that every single person should read that’s in this book and it’s about the importance of owning and sitting with your emotions. And I think that’s really important because so often it’s like, you know, we hear, we literally hear the phrases. Don’t be emotional, don’t get emotional. And Tia is saying, no, get emotional, be emotional, feel, accept, and deal with all of the emotions. That’s a part of what makes you happy. It’s like if it’s anger, figure out where it’s coming from if it’s sadness figure out where that’s coming from, whatever it is, it’s like, you’ve got to accept and actually interpret and sit with those emotions.
AJV (08:13):
That’s a part of being a human being. So pushing ’em down, isn’t gonna make you happy, but actually explore them and discovering them and figuring out where they come from makes us happy. And ultimately when we’re a happier human, we’re a happier leader. So I just, I love that around happiness, doesn’t come from having hardcore deadlines and lots of stress and overwhelm. Like that’s not happiness. Happiness comes from, there are things that bring excitement and we experience all of the emotions. And so it’s like, how do you become more happy? Right. Happy at work, happy at home, but how do we create more happiness, more joy, more fun, more excitement just more peace and what we do, because when we’re happier people, we will be happier leaders. And I think a lot of that has to do with falling in love with what you do. So how do you do that? Right. I don’t have the answers for you. Those are, those are in Tia’s book. be happy leader. So go to happy leader, book.com as a reminder to pick up that book such a great interview. So excited to have Tia on the show. That’s. Those are my three highlights from the interview with Tia Graham stay tuned, we’ll see you on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 244: How to Know if Writing a Book is for You with Tia Graham

AJV (00:02):
Y’all I am so excited to have our guest on the influential personal brand podcast today. You will, if you’re watching this on video, you’ll see her lovely face. If not, you’re about to hear from her. I am so excited because we have the opportunity to not only know miss Tia graham also get to work with her. She’s a client of ours at brand builders group. She has this amazing upcoming book. Again, if you’re watching, you’ll see me holding up a book, if not you’ll just hear me talk about it, but it’s called be a happy leader and who does not want to be that, but I think one of the reasons that I wanted to have a team on is this really cool divide and combination of how do you use your personal brand to grow your existing business while also extending the parts of your personal brand outside of your existing business, which I really love. And I also, I just love this whole concept of using happiness as a science to have more productive team members and leaders and humans as a whole. So Tia, I’m so excited about this. Welcome to the show.
TG (01:15):
Oh, thank you. I’m honored to be Here
AJV (01:16):
Oh, this is gonna be so great. So, okay. So we’re gonna keep this a little casual and as we go throughout the interview, I do want people to tell I want you to tell everyone a little bit about the book that’s coming out later this month. It’s very exciting. And then I want you to make sure you can tell people where they can get a copy of the book because it’s launching soon. Right. So, alright Tia. So you’re a guest on this show today and we don’t typically have a ton of our clients on the show for whatever reason, but I thought this would be a really great opportunity for someone who in your words would say that you’re maybe in more of the beginner mode building your personal brand, but also established in your business. And so I’m curious, what was it about you and what was it about it in general that says, yeah, I want to build my personal brand. So tell me how did that come about for you?
TG (02:12):
Sure. Yeah, so I was very intentional when I named my company and created my company, which is called arrive at happy. It’s not called Tia graham. And because I, my intention is I want it live on way past me and, you know, continue to grow and, and help people, you know, pass past my life is, is definitely, is definitely part of my intention. But I also is very cognizant that so much of arrive and happy right now is, is Tia graham. And I, I, you know, now I’m an author, but I speak, I do professional development with leaders, very active on social media platforms, et cetera. And the way, one of the main ways that I’ve built my business is through relationships, relationships with Tia Graham . And so, so, you know, when I, when I connected with brand builders and was learning a lot about sort of building your personal brand, I just became very aware that, you know, I wanted to focus on both it’s, it’s growing, arrive at happy, but it’s also this focus on Tia Graham, which supports arrive at happy.
AJV (03:17):
I love that, you know, and it’s something the, that we talk about all the time with our community and, and even on this podcast around everyone has a personal brand, IE, your reputation. It’s just some of it build it more proactively. So I’m curious. So how would you say, because you do have this really awesome combination of both B2C and B2B opportunities here, how would you say that you have seen building your personal brand actually help you grow, arrive at happy?
TG (03:49):
So I have, I would say the number one way is strange what I call strangers, right. I just said, I built my business through relationships and people that I’ve worked with in different companies over the past couple decades, but by focusing on building my personal brand, I’ve seen an increase in amazing, wonderful strangers reaching out to me, you know, people from different types of organizations, different locations that have found me because of my personal brand growth and the are interested in wanting to work with me, partner with me. And the, you know, whether it be because of videos that I’m creating or articles that I’m writing are all of these different things that I’m doing to to push out content that is, that is valuable to people. I think that’s the, the number one indicator that, that I measure. It’s not just people I know, it’s like, you know, as I said, loving strangers that then become clients and friends because of the focus on my personal brand.
AJV (04:53):
Ah, that’s so good. So I’m curious. So I think this is interesting, cuz we ask this all the time. So when you talk about your social, you’re putting out content, you’re putting out videos. What would you say, have you seen as when you get these loving strangers, which I love that. But what would you say, what types of content do you most often find that people are going, Hey, I saw this video and wanted to connect or this really resonated, like what type of content are you seeing? That’s really getting the most bang for the buck for you. Yeah.
TG (05:24):
It’s actually aligned with something that R said recently. I see the same. So it are it’s shorter videos, like I would say sort of in the one to three minutes, not edited, not even though I do have those, you know, edited videos, but the ones that just feel very natural, very native. And I’m speaking from the heart and truly answering questions that, and, and sharing content that I think will really help people. And when, when the people watching videos feel my energy and feel my emotions, those are the ones that get the most engagement comment, shares people reaching out to me re really thanking me and then wanting more.
AJV (06:13):
Oh, that’s so good. I know this has a whole thing that if you guys, if anyone listens to the show on the regular, like we literally have been diving into this with every single guest because we’re so fascinated, but yeah, we’ve seen the exact same thing in our company’s feed and our own feed. It’s like the more production value, the less engagement. And it’s like the more it’s like just you know, your phone out the, the woods or, you know, in the gym, it’s like, that always gets the most engagement for us right now. So that’s really interesting. You’re seeing the same another question about social media platform is what do you find like for you since you’ve kind of got this like unique combination of you do lots of different things that all fit in the personal branding world, right? You’ve got this book now, which you’re so excited about. You’re speaking and you have all these different things that you’re doing. So what would you say, what platform, when you think about LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all the things. What platforms are you using that work for you and with your more professional audience? Yes.
TG (07:21):
So for sure, number one by a long shot is LinkedIn. Although I ha I do focus and continue to focus on other platforms because not as of right now, really 90, 95% of my business and my revenue is B2B. I work with corporate some nonprofits, but really it’s it’s corporations. And so LinkedIn, whether it be for direct connections conversations doing LinkedIn lives, of course, and then, you know, pushing out relevant content. That one is, is definitely the one that, that I’ve seen the biggest ROI on. And even for example, for press like I’ve had journalists from, in, in north America and even like Australia, find me on LinkedIn and wanna interview me. So definitely number one, LinkedIn,
AJV (08:14):
I love that. So I have a question for you then about that. So was that something that you discovered organically or was that this intentional decision of I’m gonna analyze all the platforms and see which one’s getting the most engagement, or is it something that you just kind of fell into? How did you decide which platform that you were really gonna go all in on?
TG (08:34):
So it was really intentional. My background is leading sales and marketing teams in luxury hotels. And so I’ve actually been very active on LinkedIn, my whole career, just in leading sales teams previously to, to having my own company. And so already I was living in that, you know, B2B sort of corporate space. And when I started the company and was, and was growing arrive at happy, I put a lot of time and investment and intentionality towards that. So, so yeah, I think it was, is a continuation from my corporate life and as, but then also I was intentional in growing other brands. Like in Instagram, I put a lot of focus on over the last four years and, and successfully grown that, and that was, that was new. I wasn’t doing that in my corporate life before.
AJV (09:23):
Yeah. So you already had like a good established connection with your LinkedIn. And so it’s just really building that over the course of time and just transferring the content and the business. Yes,
TG (09:34):
Yes, absolutely.
AJV (09:35):
You know, we we had Jasmine star on the podcast a couple months ago. Yeah, let’s do that one. And she said something, but I probably have said like a hundred times since, so I’m gonna totally steal this, but I’ll give her credit. So I think it’s fine. But she said there’s really two types of content that you have to consider. When you’re thinking about posting social media, there’s a platform that you consume content on and then there’s the platform that you create content for. And I thought that was a really good distinction cuz very similar to you. It’s like my previous life was a B to B sales consulting, leadership consult. And so it’s like I had all these different connections and established on LinkedIn. But then when we started brand builders group, I kind of forgot about LinkedIn because in this kind of like personal branding world, it’s everyone is talking about, you know, YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and, and it’s, it was one of those interesting things where I kind went this amazing platform that I had built for 12 years of going all right now I need to expand.
AJV (10:45):
And it wasn’t only until here recently, really when I heard that interview from Jasmine and star, that I really started pulling back up my LinkedIn and realized I have a gold here, gold mine, gold mine. What have I been doing with myself for the last three years? So super refreshing to hear that. Cause I don’t feel like you hear as much conversation around LinkedIn when it comes to this world we live in, but I would totally attest to what you’re saying. It’s now that been really just since October, really back active in producing content for LinkedIn and curating for that, I’ve seen an incredible boost of, you know, anything from media to speaking requests, to just engagement. And so I’m curious because you do have such a B2B presence what would you to someone who really is building their personal brand, who has a really large B to B you know, kind of machine going mm-hmm, , what’s the best way that you have seen to use LinkedIn that you think is really working?
TG (11:52):
Well, great question. So I think posting, like we going back to what I said before about creating, creating native videos, but also being very cognizant that it’s not Instagram and it’s not Facebook, so it shouldn’t be exactly the same that it is more of a corporate business environment. So that, those regular videos that, and thinking that I’m speaking to people who are in a community that are thinking about work that are thinking about career and all of that. Right? So, so that’s one for sure, to be very intentional and authentic with the way that you communicate with people. So there are so many people that reach out in a very inauthentic copy and paste fake salesy. I mean, I just wanna use the word icky way that it’s complete turnoff and you just want like delete, I never wanna talk to this person. And when I think about LinkedIn and say, for example, there’s a CEO or there’s a VP of sales that I would love to be working with a company that I would love to be working with.
TG (12:55):
I really look at LinkedIn as how can I start a conversation with this person? And I don’t go at it, you know, I wanna sell, or I wanna tell them what arrive at happy does, or I want them to book me as a keynote speaker. No, it’s about, you know, doing some research, looking at what’s going on in their company and really starting conversations or that they post something commenting in a, in a really off way and having conversations with people and those conversations, ideally then turn into zoom meetings and the zoom meetings then. Okay. Yes, you’re moving along. So those are the, those are the two strategies that I’ve used consistently that have been very successful of just, you know, those, those native videos. But again, you’re speaking to professional audience and then really having, having real conversations with people.
AJV (13:41):
Mm that’s so good. I want everyone to make sure that you paid attention to this native video comment of make sure that you’re creating content for the platform that you plan to put it on. I think it’s so easy in this world of feeling overwhelmed with like, I’ll just make one video and I’ll put it everywhere and it’s like no create native content for the platform that you’re curating it for. That’s so good. That’s so good. All right. I’m gonna switch gears a little bit because I really wanna talk about, be a happy leader. And I wanna talk about this book. I want you to tell us what the book is about, but I also wanna know why in your journey of building your personal brand and your business, why did you think, or why did you want to write a book?
TG (14:26):
So I very early on realized there’s a, so many people in the world and I’m not gonna be able to get to all of them. And I wanna help as many people as I can with, with the, with the lessons and, and the learnings and insight that I, that I have. And through speaking and, you know, doing leadership retreats and everything, you could only hit so many people in a year. And so I have this vision of, you know, there’s, there’s a overworked tired executive in Sweden. There’s another person in Australia and books have that power, right books, whether it’s audio books, print, ebook, et cetera. So really it was, it was impact. And that’s essentially my word for 2020 is impact of how many people I could reach. So that was one big reason for writing a book. And also I am very cognizant that it adds credibility. It, you know, and, and I I’ve seen it, you know, with, with clients and, and they’re like, oh, great, we want your books. So and, and being a part of the national speakers association, I’m very active there. Of course, there’s a lot of talk about books. So those were the two main reasons on the reason why I wanted to, and I really hope to write a lot more.
AJV (15:38):
Hi, so it’s reach and credibility reach and credibility. And I think that’s really important. I, I love what you said, cuz I don’t hear a lot of people phrase it that way where it’s like, I can only reach so many people at once, but it, like with this, it’s like I could be reaching, you know, a person in LA and a person in Sweden and a person over here. And I think that’s so true and it’s, and I love too just the reminder that if you really wanna write a book, you better have a de hearted passion for the message because you’re still in the thick of it. It, and I want you to tell everyone about the dirty, hard behind the scenes work yeah. That it takes to write a book. So for the person out there who has never written a book, but fills that tug on their heart or that longing of, I want a message that lasts beyond me. I wanna create this legacy and wanna expand my reach and I wanna help as many people as I can. And of course I want more credibility and more money, but, and you better have those first reasons cuz this is not for the faint of heart. I would love for you to just go, all right, here’s the behind the scenes truth of what it’s gonna be like to write a book. Yes.
TG (16:51):
Yes. So for short, you don’t know, you know, until you’re in it and you’re like, oh my. So one piece of advice that I recommend to anyone that asks me writing a book is to hire a writing coach. So I actually had a coach who I invested in and of course also writing a book and launching a book it’s an investment time and money and your heart and soul. So that helped me in terms of researching and designing and then writing the manuscript. But I will say, I believe writing the manuscript and actually writing the book is the easy part, which for a lot of people that seems like a big undertaking and it is, but if, if you wanted to it right and, and really get it out to as many people as possible and, and make the mark and have the reach, of course there’s the marketing and the promotion piece that comes after it.
TG (17:44):
So as soon as I finish the manuscript and all the editing and I mean, it’s like work, it feels like never, ever ending. You know, you’re also, there’s the piece and some people do this before. And so do it after depending if you want traditional publisher self-publishing hybrid publisher, but there’s the proposal piece, which is the business plan for the book. And I actually found that, and I’ve written business plans for 20 years for major hotel companies. This was more work for me in terms of how to do, you know, all of that piece. And then in a di then there’s the execution. So looking at whether it’s social media list, building the PR the influencer marketing, in my case, doing bulk sales to companies the retail sales partnerships speaking, all of it. So yeah, under the hood is a very, very big detailed engine of, of all the pieces. And I’m two years in and I, I mean, it’s launching now and I’m very aware that it’s gonna continue, you know, for, it’s not like it, it does as an end. And so you AB going to your piece about the heart, I have a mission statement that when I was writing the book and through all the work that I continuously look at on it’s the why, and, and, and the why needs to be more than money to keep you going. It needs to be more than I wanna make a lot of money
AJV (19:12):
And I wanna make sure I don’t neglect the fact that you said it’s been two years, two years, y’all one, two, right? This idea of like, Hey, I’ve got this idea and I wanna have this book published in the next six months. Sure. It can happen. But this has been two years and I think would be worthwhile of going in and talking about the book proposal process. As you know, this is something that we talk a lot about at brand builders group. We have an entire curriculum built around bestseller launch plan, how to launch a bestselling book. And it was one of the biggest mistakes that we made. Right. And it was one of the hardest lessons that we had to learn of what makes a successful book proposal because it is, it’s a full business plan with sales and marketing and content for the book. So I’m curious how was doing the book proposal different from actually writing the book mm-hmm and what would you say what made one easier or harder than the other?
TG (20:12):
So I believe that for me, writing the manuscript, writing the actual book was easier because it is, it’s your planning, your research, your ideas, and most people are very intimate and close with the format of books and how books flow. Right? I’m an avid, I like devourer book, so it wasn’t foreign to me. Whereas the book proposal, this was the very first time that I had ever seen one before. Like I said, I’ve done, you know, hotel sales and marketing plans, but this book proposal is very, very different. This business plan is very different and there are very specific pieces of the proposal that you need to follow. It’s not like you could just, you know, get super creative and no, you need to have, like, what are the competing titles? You know, all of, all of these different sections. And you have to be very in with every sentence, every word you knowing that these are going to publishers, knowing that they receive the huge volume of how do you have yours stand out.
TG (21:16):
And it took me so much longer than I thought. I mean, I allocated okay these days, these weeks. No. I mean, I think it took me five times longer. And, and also I there were several people, several professional people that I were, was going to, and they were giving feedback saying, no, Tia scrap this, do it again, not good enough. . And that feedback of like, oh, do it again, you know, which I think, yeah, you guys had similar of like, you know, keep, keep wanting to do it. So and yeah, and, and I obviously, you, you continuously, you know, the, the next one will be better than, than that one. Yeah.
AJV (21:53):
I think that’s the gift of feedback. If you’re willing to receive it, it’s gonna make you better. It might be painful in the process, but it’s gonna make you so much better if you just take it and go, what can I do with this? How does this apply? Yeah, but it, it, I think we went back and forth with our book proposal for two years. so way ahead of the game from us. It’s one of the reasons that, you know, we started brain builders group is how do we expedite this process for others? And how do we make it simpler and more seamless? But yeah, you know, it’s, it’s all those nitty gritty things when, and I loved what you said too about the, why has gotta be greater than the money, because it’s gonna be painful and it’s gonna be expensive.
AJV (22:36):
And all the things that you don’t think it’s like, oh, I’m just gonna get this huge advance and we’ll take care of everything. It’s not how it works. Right. Not how it works. Yeah. all right. So now I want you to tell us, like, tell us about, be a happy leader. This is specifically for my own selfish knowledge. I wanna talk about this science of happiness and how do you apply that to what you do, and then how does that apply to the book? So give us a, give us some insight scoop of some of this amazing content you’ve been working on. Sure.
TG (23:07):
So be a happy leader is about every single day as a leader, choosing your own wellbeing, choosing your own happiness and using the science of happiness and neuroscience research to make choices, to really be the best version of yourself. And it’s also about really focusing on the happiness of your team of the organization and having a beautiful, rich life where you’re not working all of the time. You know, I say a happy leader also has time to sleep time with their family time to exercise. And so it’s in my eight step methodology that I’ve put together based on my leadership experience in the hotel industry. And then all of the happiness research I’ve been doing over the last five years and the science piece is really the research over the last few decades coming out of Harvard and Yale and Berkeley. And it’s the research that teaches us what makes humans thrive.
TG (24:08):
So how you can increase those great emotions like excitement and joy and pride and, and have more fulfillment and purpose in your life. And it’s also the research on when you’re going through challenges when you’re extremely stressed, when you’re really over when you are having, you know, whether it be, you know, personal relationships or, or professional relationships, just life’s challenges. It’s also about this resiliency toolbox. And I think the science of happiness is even more valuable when you’re going through the challenging times. And so I’ve put a lot of tactics and, and tips and research in there that people can use, they can apply right away. And it’s all research based on, on how to be a happier human.
AJV (24:55):
Yeah. I love that. And who does not need that? Yeah. Who does not need that? I know, especially right now, especially as a leader you know, like my gosh, there’s plenty of things to be stressed out about in the world, but we have the choice to choose to be happy. If there was one thing in this book that you think every single person should read, what would it be?
TG (25:20):
Oh, great question. One thing that every person should read is the, this section on emotional wellbeing, I think, and this is something I wish I learned when I was 16. And I learned about it when I was, you know, closer to 40 is having a really healthy relationship with all of your emotions and being very accepting of all of your emotions and being, being curious about them, seeing, seeing them as teachers, whether it’s your personal life or whether it’s work challenges that I think that is a very, a very crucial part to being a happy leader.
AJV (26:01):
Oh, I love that. All the emotions all the time. I always tell Roy Roy says, babe, don’t get mad and I’m like, I’m not mad. I’m passionate. Don’t mistake. My, what you think is anger for passion. It just comes across in an aggressive way. And it’s always, this is ongoing theme. He goes, why are you so angry? And I’m like, I’m not angry. I’m passionate. All the emotion, anger
TG (26:28):
Is a anger is a teacher. I really, you know, anger’s telling you something, whether it’s passion and anger or not. So keep, keep, keep
AJV (26:36):
Feeling it. I love that, but I think that’s so good for everyone. Building a personal brand, building a business, just being a human it’s. We all wanna be happy. Right. And we all search for happiness in the wrong places. And I think too, it’s like, we all, we try to shut out the emotions because they’re they’re time consuming or we’re told, comfortable them out uncomfortable. Yeah. It’s like, I don’t know what to do with all these. I love this. I think everyone should come out and get this book. So Tia, can you tell everyone where they should go to learn more about you and how to get a copy of be a happy leader? Aw, thank you.
TG (27:14):
You can learn more about [email protected] and for the book, happy leader, book.com. And thank you so much for, for having me and for all of brand builders support in building the brand and helping me, helping me spread
AJV (27:28):
The message. Oh my gosh. I hope every single person across the world from GU to New Zealand to Sweden gets hands on this. And it’s happy leader book. Yes.

TG (27:43):
Happy book