Author: AJ Vaden

Ep 256: How to Build Your Own Audience with Dr. John DeMartini

RV (00:00:08):
Hey, my, my new friend, mark, Victor Hansen introduced me to somebody that you are about to meet Dr. John Demartini and mark and crystal who we had on the show several months ago, said you gotta have Dr. De martini on. He is incredible. They’ve known each other for 38 years. But Dr. Demartini is one of a, a world renowned specialist in human behavior. So he’s a researcher, he’s an author. He studied over 30,000 books, which I was pretty amazing. That’s just a, a wide on, on a number of topics, but that’s a bunch of books. He’s been on Larry King live, he regularly contributes to magazine and I’ve been just following him online here, recently tuning into to what he’s up to and getting to know one another. So anyways, Dr. Demartini, welcome to the show.
JD (00:01:04):
Well, thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to it. Thank you.
RV (00:01:07):
Yeah. So, so tell us a little bit about how you got started. I mean, you and I were just kind of rapping that you’ve known mark Victor Hansen for 38 years. So you you’ve been around the industry for a while. Would love to just kinda hear how you get started and then kind of like, what is your business model? How, and how is your business model, you know, did it begin and how has it evolved over the years in terms of like, you know, the different revenue streams that you focused on?
JD (00:01:39):
Okay. I had an arm and leg deformity when I was a child and speech impediment and went to a speech pathologist and specialist for that in first grade, I was told that I would never be able to read or write or communicate effectively, probably wouldn’t go very far in life for amount to much had to wear a dunk cap back in 19 0 59 60. I made it through elementary school by asking kids questions. What did they learn from the book? What did they learn from the class? And if they told me stuff, I would get enough to kind of, sort of pass.
JD (00:02:25):
When I turned 12, my parents moved from Houston, Texas to Richmond, Texas. We went to a low socioeconomic country area. They weren’t a bunch of smart scholarly kids. I didn’t have a team to help me. I failed, I dropped outta school and I lived on the streets, but I was okay in standing on a surfboard. I started doing that at nine, but Texas was not the surf capital. I didn’t wait for a hurricane to get new waves. So I made my way out. 14. I hitchhiked out to California and lived in Huntington beach for part of the summer, and then hitchhiked down to New Mexico and surfed California in Mexico. At 15, I left there and got enough money panhandling to go and fly to Hawaii. I lived under a command may highway, sunset bridge. Then I lived in EAI beach park under a park bench, then in a bathroom abandoned car. And finally a tent kept social climbing. I was riding waves and got pretty good at it. Got to hang out with some of the top surfers, got in a few magazines and me movies and books. And then I nearly dock at 17.
JD (00:03:45):
At 17, I was in the recovery of that. I was led to a little health food store and then eventually to a yoga class to try to overcome my neuromuscular problem that I had there. One night I met Paul Bragg and one night, one hour, this man who was inspired and a very enthusiastic man spoke and talked about what we can do with our lives. He talked about, we had a body of mind and a soul and a body must be directed by the mind. And mind must be guided by the soul in order to maximize our, our life.
JD (00:04:21):
When you spoke that night, he said that we need to set goals for ourself, our family, our community, our city, our date, our nation, our world, for and beyond for a hundred, 120 years, nobody ever talked to me like this and I could understand. And he was simple. And he, and he said that what you think about what you visualize, what you affirm, what you feel, what you, what you do and what you write, determines your destiny. And so that night was the first time in my life. I thought maybe I could overcome my learning problems. And I thought I could someday become intelligent.
JD (00:05:02):
And that with his inspiration at night, I set out on a quest to try to overcome my learning problems. I, I eventually left to Hawaii and I flew to LA and I hitchhiked back, Texas. And I prepared for a G E D and passed GEDs, a high school equivalency. I passed that and I tried to go back to college and I failed and I was distraught sitting on my living room floor and my mom and dad, you know, we’re encouraging. But my mom said to me that morning, that, that day when I failed son, whether you become a great teacher, like you dream about cuz at night I met Paul Bragg. I had a vision that I would overcome my learning and learn how to speak properly and be able to teach.
JD (00:05:51):
He said, whether you become a great teacher and travel the world, like you dream, whether you return to Hawaiian ride giant waves, or whether you go to the streets again, just wanna let you know that your father and I are gonna love you. No matter what. When she said that my hand went into a fist, I looked up and I said to myself, I’m gonna mass this thing called reading and studying and learning. I’m gonna master this thing called teaching, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I’m gonna travel, whatever it is since I’m gonna pay, whatever price to give sort was love across the plant. I’m not gonna let any human being or myself stop me now. And I got up and hugged my mom and went in my room and I got a dictionary out and I started memorizing 30 words a day and she would test me on 30 words a day until my vocabulary was strong enough to learn and pass school.
JD (00:06:40):
And I, I did and I eventually started to Excel and I’m now 18 and slowly but surely people started asking me questions, cuz I started to Excel in school and I started to have students asking me questions, mentoring. And it went from one to two to about 15. By the time I finished my first little two years in school, I went to the university of Houston. I started having a hundred, 150, sometimes 400 people a day under the trees and I would do my yoga and they would ask questions and I’d have a, a following of students. Wow. When I went on to professional school, I started doing classes seven nights a week. I would speed read books of by then. I was learning how speed reading it. But I was speed reading, read four to four to seven books in the morning and then do a presentation that night.
JD (00:07:33):
And that’s how I had paid my way through college in professional school. When I got outta school and I still opened up my practice. I was teaching every single night and I generated patience from doing talks and everywhere and anywhere I could find a place from breakfast clubs, luncheon clubs, you name it anywhere where there was a speaker might be used. I went to go and offered my speaking services and I generated patients from that. That led me to have a TV show on channel 20 on health, Dr. De Martinez health ends. And then I started doing that in my office. They’d film it live for my audience and we would talk about patients and care. And then I started doing more. And then I, and I figured out how to grow. My practice went from a little 970 square foot office to 5,000 square foot office from one assistant to five doctors and 12 a and people want to know what the heck did you do?
JD (00:08:34):
And all I did is I prioritized things and delegated things and stuck to what I did best, which was being a man on a mission with a message and speaking, and then engaging people. And then doing clinical work. And I prioritized my patients and got the doctors to do certain ones. And I did the most info and 10 folded my income. And then in different professions, they started asking me to speak on clinical practice and growing practices and things and mindset. And I was studying everything and anything I could get my hands on any possible thing that might help maximize human awareness potential. I was devouring and that reading, you know, sometimes 20 books a weekend, I was just devouring and devouring and devouring and learning everything I could. And speaking as every single time I could. Cause when you’re told, you’ll never be able to read and write or speak and then you find out you can, it’s pretty inspiring.
RV (00:09:34):
And what was your practice? So you, your Clear clinical psychologist.
JD (00:09:37):
I, I was a car. I, I was a chiropractor. I was a chiropractor.
RV (00:09:40):
Ah,
JD (00:09:41):
That’s where I met. That’s where I met mark Victor Hanson at a chiropractic convention in Las Vegas. There were about, I don’t know, 6,000 doctors there and I was a speaker there and that’s where he and I hooked up. And then we end up doing some things together. We created a, an Al them of what they called audio cassette album back in those days, how to build a, your practice. And that led me to speak into other health professionals and then other businesses. And then and I was, I started writing books at 23. So my first book was at age 23, I’ve written over, I don’t know, 200 book books now. And I call it, most of ’em are big textbooks that are going to different specialties, but a lot of ’em are, I got probably four of ’em. They’re about to do 10 more new books that are coming out. Publisher just did a 10 book deal. And so I write, I research, I teach every day of my life and you know, I, I just, it started to grow and I started to go from United States throughout all the states, all but two states I’ve gotten to speak in and then it went into Canada. Then it went into France and Spain and Italy and it started going to Europe and it just kept growing. And I, I, I kept getting opportunities and I
RV (00:10:56):
In the beginning. So in the beginning you were, you were, you started speaking, but you were making money from being a chiropractor. So you were speaking for free.
JD (00:11:05):
No, I, I, I, no, no, no. I, I, my first money that came from speaking started at the university of Houston. Okay. I started doing tutoring and I got paid very small amount. And then when I went to professional, I started to, I, I tried this love donation bit, you know, you put a bowl out and whatever you wanna pay kind of thing. Nobody loved me. So I, I decided to pay 20, make ’em pay $20. And the second I valued myself, so did the group and it grew, I started charging $20 for little evening talk and that kept growing. I just spread the throughout the city. And
RV (00:11:44):
So you’re
JD (00:11:44):
Over a hundred,
RV (00:11:45):
A public seminar model at that point. You’re like in professional school selling tickets.
JD (00:11:50):
Yeah. And I did I did over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 23 years old doing talks, which is pretty good back then and paid my school and I didn’t have debt and I could buy all the books I wanted cuz I just, all I cared about is buying books. I wanted to catch up and read and, and study. I wanted to study the greatest teachings on the planet. And so that I, my teaching model, I was paid from 23 on and I, I, I got paid even when I was in practice, I got paid to speak and then I got generated patients from it. So I got double paid and then I, they buy books and they buy, I made audio cassette tapes. I, I had, I had 900 audio cassette tapes by the time I was 20, probably about 29 30.
JD (00:12:32):
I had 900 to audio cassette tapes on different topics of health and and, and growth and personal development and made albums out of it. So I had tons of albums and things that was going on. And I just, every time I talk, I recorded it and people wanted a copy of it. I had a Mira recorder and I had a duplicating machine, two of them. So I could create six duplicating machines at the back of the room and they would get a live presentation. And then that was my advertisement. As I spoke, they would get copies of that. They’d tell it and I’d give ’em to the friends. And then I had the backlogs of all these other talks and they’d buy a bunch of those. So I had a, a revenue model and then they were coming in as a patient. So I had a good revenue model
RV (00:13:15):
And then
JD (00:13:16):
Expression.
RV (00:13:17):
So you were selling tickets to come to the event event, and then you are selling tapes at the back of the room and then you’re getting clients out of there for your practice.
JD (00:13:27):
And then I was doing consulting too
RV (00:13:29):
For
JD (00:13:30):
Companies. I was getting clients from that to consulting. Yeah, I was doing, I did a lot of the, you know, oil companies in Houston, Texas where we started and I did presentations to them on ergonomics and health, health, reducing healthcare costs and things. And then that was generating business too. Plus they buy products cuz I had I had a bunch of books by then and tapes and they were buying those and they didn’t have to pay me if I could sell. They had to, had to pay or they’d do a product sale, either one, I was prepared and that I never stopped that I still did that. And then in those days, you know, there was no internet and there’s no fax and all that stuff. And we just did, we, we sent out these little cards to notify these little mail cards.
JD (00:14:16):
We’d stamp these little mass mailing cards out and the people would come, we’d have, you know, hundreds of people coming to programs. And then I, I had other conferences once I had products, conferences could have me come on and speak cuz then they could do a revenue share and they didn’t the fees. They could afford the fees, cuz I’d have a fees and then they would split the revenues on the product and they’d get their feedback. So they, they liked me because I could, I could you know, make it cost effective. They didn’t really have to pay anything and they made money off me. So they, they didn’t mind me speaking. And I just kept those opportunities growing. I didn’t have any slick marketing. I just, I just made sure my dad said if I, if I deliver more than people expect, I, I won’t worry about business.
JD (00:15:02):
And I found that to be true. If I, if I deliver something that’s unique and present something that’s inspiring and meaningful and practical that they can use immediately to generate opportunities or money or a business or more fulfillment, then there’s always business. So I, I just found that that I’ve never been a slick marketer. I don’t really know all that stuff. I’ve hired people. I, all I do is research, write, travel, teach to this day. I, I live on my ship and I basically research write, travel, teach and do podcast all day webinars and write books so, and travel. So I, I never stopped that model. I just kept doing it. And I’ve spoken in 163 countries now and millions and millions of people. So I, I, I had a dream to travel and step foot in every country on the face of the earth. I still got a few more countries to reach and I I’ve held a vision of that since for 49 years, I’m going on my 50th year. This will be the 50th year of speaking.
RV (00:16:00):
I mean, this is just so, so wonderful. And it’s, it’s amazing to see so much of the path cause this would be so I’m in like, I mean the first time I got paid for a speech was like 2005. That’s kind of crazy to think. I’m not even in year 20. I, I started speaking for free when I was in high school, right. Coming outta high school, which was like 2000, 2000 2001. But the first time I got $5,000 for speech like really paid I think was 2004, 2005, something like that in. And you know, so I I’ve been in 15 years coming on 20. And so many of these concepts apply exactly the same. You’re speaking for free. And then you are selling at the back of the room and then you, you know, you know, people are hearing about you and I think it’s, it’s really amazing.
RV (00:16:53):
So talk to us a little bit about your business changed. I do wanna hear about the boat, cause I think that’s super interesting. You’re on a boat right now. If y’all, didn’t pick that up. Dr. D Martinez’s been on a boat for a long time, actually here the last couple years. So I wanna hear about that, but how did your business change or not change? So, so that happens, you know, in the eighties, the nineties, and then 2000 hits, the web comes out 2005, social media podcasting starts to come on the scene. Did you basically just like transition what you were doing to those platforms? And you know, it’s kinda like, oh, I was doing tapes and then I did CDs and then I didn’t B three downloads. And then I did learning management system or like tell us a little bit about how life evolved at post 2000.
JD (00:17:46):
Well, CDs in the nineties, CDs came in, audio cassettes, still sold. I still had some audio cassettes, but the CDs started coming in and then we converted to CDs. But you know, I learned at age 27, not to do anything, but what my core competence is, which is research, right. Travel teach. So I don’t do anything else. I haven’t driven a car in 32 years. I haven’t cooked since I was 24. I haven’t done administrator written checks or done any, you know, hiring or firing or managing, or I, I learned it to age 27 after reading the time trap by Ella McKinsey, not to do anything other than what is absolutely most inspiring to you if you want inspiring life. So I delegate everything and I’ll hire people that know what, what they’re doing to do that. And so if it’s time to go to CDs, I find somebody that takes care of all that.
JD (00:18:35):
And I just put them in place and I, to this day, still stick to that model. I don’t, I, so I haven’t really done anything except teach research right. And travel since 27, I’m 67 now 68 going on 68. So, so 40 years, that’s all I’ve done. I don’t do the other, I, I, my day consists of reading, writing, teaching, or doing interviews or movies or something. That’s, that’s it. I don’t do the, I don’t do anything else. I don’t make those other decisions. I learn that from Warren buffet and I, I don’t, I don’t, I do what I do my core competent. I know what it is. I stick to it. I don’t waiver from it. And but I surrounded myself with people. So if somebody, if we, if we need to go to CDs, we get some of the packages and organizes and does that.
JD (00:19:23):
If we’re going now to internet marketing, and then I get somebody to do that, but I don’t sit there and try to do my learning curve and do all that. I, I just hire people around me to do that. So to this day, I couldn’t tell you how it’s all being done behind the scenes. I just know I have competent people that take care of that for me. And my objective is to do as many podcasts and do as many webinars and do as many speakings and as many as many books and share as many insights as I can on this planet. That’s, that’s all I, I care about and travel the world.
RV (00:19:54):
I love it. So you’re now you’re living on a boat though, so you’re not, you’re clearly not doing in-person speaking events. You’re
JD (00:20:02):
Well, I, I did until I, I I’ve been living on this ship for 20 years, so I, I, I got this in 2001. So oh, so I, I, after nine 11, I was living in truck tower in New York, right underneath the Donald there. And we were up in the top of the building and, and but when nine 11 occurred, my wife said, no, this I don’t wanna be here in New York. Right now. We had some homes in Australia also. So we, she got a helicopter in the street and got out of there real quick. And and we, we got to Australia, but I told her, I said, look, I’m not scheduled to be in Australia, but four times, if you’re gonna live there, we need to come up with plan B. So I found out about the, the world, the ship called the world and which is a private condominium luxury condominium that, that sails around the world to all the countries.
JD (00:20:51):
And I, that matched my belief system, cuz I’ve said, the universe is my playground. The world is my home. Every country’s a room house. Every city’s a platform to sharer my heart and soul since I was 20, I’ve been internal dialogue. So it matched. So I, I bought that as an anniversary presence. We lived on here until she passed and I’ve been on here, but I’ve been traveling by, by flights. I still did 350 plus speeches a year by still flying and shipping. So if I’m on my ship, then I will go places. If not, I fly. So I’ll get on and off. But since COVID the flying has, and so I’m now just full time on the ship, just going place to place and doing much of it on zoom. So, or on these other mediums.
RV (00:21:36):
Well, and you’re not, but you’re not seeing you’re. I mean, clearly at some point the chiropractor patients stopped. And
JD (00:21:44):
Well, I sold, I sold the practice. I sold the first practice to two of my docs at the five. Gotcha. And I became financially independent at that time. And then I opened up another part-time consulting and practice. I did only for very special patients. I still did a little bit of practice by 1990 I, 89. I was not time practice. I was full-time speaking and consulting. And still to this day, I still consult. I still do consulting as it comes in. I don’t go out promoting it. Don’t do any marketing for it. Really. I just, it it’s on the website if people want to do it, but I still do coaching consulting. I don’t like to call it coaching, but just consulting with executives and various types of people, entrepreneurs, students. But I don’t, I don’t drive that. It just happens. You know, I I’ve done, I can do 300 in a year or I can do 200 a year something maybe, maybe more. But I, I don’t, that’s not my main business. I may do it and a half to that, on that,
RV (00:22:47):
On consulting.
JD (00:22:50):
But
RV (00:22:50):
Your, so your revenue streams now from, from the, you know, the ship for the last couple years is people will hire you to speak. You do virtual keynotes, you, you have private coaching slash consulting clients and then are, and then, and then what else? Like book deal like you, you know,
JD (00:23:10):
Web webinars, I have webinars. Most of my income still webinars. I have 80 different courses that I teach that I do pretty regularly. The one the break to experience, which is my CIG program. I’ve done 1,140 times. So I, I do that consistently. Donald told me that he says you, if you’re gonna do something brand and do it, build momentum, incremental momentum by doing it and over and over and over again until the people recognize it. So I’ve done that one. That’s my signature program. But I have a series of programs that are multi-day programs that I still do. That’s primary generation. I definitely have book royalties, but they’re not, that’s not, you know, major it’s, that’s secondary, that’s just added, but I I’m getting ready to do 10 more books. That’re in the making now. And then but most of it’s webinars, you know, the live webinars that I do or live. And that when yous that I do
RV (00:24:04):
Think is so is, so this is just so fascinating. So when you say a webinar, you’re saying people are buying an individual seat at a virtual event that you’re hosting and leading.
JD (00:24:19):
Yes. Yes.
RV (00:24:20):
So it, the same thing you were doing at the university of Houston under tree, people were paying money to come get tutored. They’re just paying 20 bucks per whatever. You’re still doing that more or less, just virtually someone buys a ticket comes to your event.
JD (00:24:36):
Yeah. But they’re not $20 anymore.
RV (00:24:38):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that, that’s the awesome part is the price just keeps going. It just goes up over time. But, but the, the part that’s fascinating to me is that, like you basically said, I’m gonna do these four things. And for the most part, your core model, it sounds like has been public seminar. What I would call public seminars. It’s it’s anybody from the public can buy a ticket and come, you know, you started doing it for free. You are mentoring a couple students. Then it comes to, into, you know, hundreds of people. Then it’s 20 bucks ahead. And now it’s whatever it is a price for, but, but your people are buying a ticket and then they’re coming to an event and anyone can pay their own admission to come and, and just learn from what you, you have learned. And that, that hasn’t really changed. That’s been the core through your whole career. And then out of that, you’ve gotten keynotes and consulting and you’ve sold some products. And you also had your practice that you sold off, but like just basically hosting public educational events. You basically, it’s been your main business, the whole career.
JD (00:25:43):
Yeah. I think I’ve made about a quarter of a billion dollars doing that. So I think that that’s been a good model, but I think
RV (00:25:51):
I would say, so you, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s not nothing a quarter of a million dollars is that’s a pretty good bit of coin.
JD (00:26:00):
Yeah. The, the thing is the, the speaking, you know, I, because I had a speech impediment speaking is probably the most inspiring thing I get to do. And because I had learning problem learning and delivering something that’s novel and unique to people, you know, it’s original information. It’s not something that’s canned from somebody else. I don’t copy people. I create original ideas that serve people and and synthesize and Ize information. So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done a lot of reading to try to make, distinguish that from just anybody out there it’s solid information. So that, that’s my core thing. I just do it every single day so that you, you, somebody, I have people sometimes coming back to a program multiple times because they, they want, they know there’s something new every time that’s that’s part of my model is just to continue. Even if I do the same program, it’s I keep refining and adding and building and, and educating myself. That’s my responsibility.
RV (00:27:03):
Huh. Yeah. I’ve always kind of thought of myself as almost like a Civ, right? Like as the reason people pay me is not for the time with me, they’re paying me for the time I’ve spent condensing information from other places and, and, and exactly. It seems very much like how, how, how you view yourself, how do you get people to come? I mean, at this point, I guess you’ve had the email list and social media for years and word of mouth, but like, but like literally, how do you get people to come? Do you just have a team that says, Hey, you know, create an online page and we send email blasts and drive ads to
JD (00:27:38):
It. I don’t, I don’t, I have no idea. I don’t say that I don’t do that. I just research right. Travel, teach their job is to help me spread my message across the world. That’s their, I hire people whose vision and mission are congruent with what I’m intending. And I tell them, and I inspire them to what my vision is and help me do it. Let’s go, go make it happen. So I couldn’t tell you everything that goes behind the scenes on social media. I know we’re in all those things, but I don’t do all that. I, I, all I do is if they want me to do a message on some sort of social media, they send me a link on a zoom and they tell me this is the topic or whatever. And I just do a dissertation on it. And then they take care of all that I don’t. No, I couldn’t tell you I’m I didn’t even have a cell phone till last year. I don’t deal with that.
RV (00:28:31):
I love it. Are these people, employees or contracts, like vendors that you hire or does it matter?
JD (00:28:38):
There are some that I guess you would classify as contract. I think there’s a little of all that, cuz there’s somebody that’s kind of does management and does things and they hire people and I don’t even know all the people cause I have a south African office and I’ve got for a while there, we had people in Tokyo and Sydney and South Africa and the states and London and, and so I don’t even know all the different people until I get there. And then I recognize them and I say hi to ’em, but I don’t, I don’t, I Don manage. So I don’t do all that. All I’m all I do is write, travel, teach depend. Yeah. I don’t know all the different prices.
RV (00:29:16):
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s okay. But I, I, I, I, I just, I paused the recording here. Y’all for a second. Cuz I wanted to ask, ask Dr. D Martin, if he’s comfortable sharing the prices, cuz I wondered, you know, how much char these and you know, it’s, it’s really, you’ve stayed so true to just doing your thing. But it’s fascinating because you know, identifying that through line is that you’re a teacher you’re doing exactly what you said you would, but you’re the teacher in your own classroom, you created your own school, your own events, people used to pay or they started out paying $20 per seat to come. How much do they pay now?
JD (00:29:54):
It depends. I mean, sometimes there’s just little webinars, a little simple webinar, they still pay small amounts. And then there’s sometimes one and two and three and five and 10 day seminars, two week seminars. It depends on what we do. And each of those go up in price, they could range from oh $1,200. I’d say a thousand to $1,200 up to $7,000. It depends on what we’re doing. And the, and the things now, since zoom has come down, we’ve been able to bring prices down because we don’t have the logistics of the flights and the venues and all that. So we’ve been able to keep those prices down. But so some of the higher prices are down a bit closer to the five, 5,006,000. But, but that’s, you know, it depends on the logistics and what we, we, we just take what I, what I have is my fee. And then we find out all the cost and we put those together and we calculate that and we pass that on.
RV (00:30:47):
Interesting. So that’s a interesting way of figuring out the pricing. So you basically take your speaking fee. Plus you take the cost of the event. You add ’em together. You figure out how many seats are available, divide it, take the total cost divided by the number of seats. And there’s your, there’s your price. But with zoom, you’re able to bring, bring that. And I just, I, I, I, I, I love this. There’s so many reasons that I love this, but your whole story is one of just being told you, you know, you can’t do it. You’re not gonna be able to do it. You’re not good enough to do it. And, and then you basically take into your own hands and completely defy that. And I know a lot of people that are listening to this show, Dr. D martini, they feel that way in the industry, right?
RV (00:31:32):
Somebody, they, they maybe aren’t struggling with a speech impediment or you know, the, the kinds of things that you were, but somebody is saying, you know, you’ll never be a great speaker. Like you’ll never get booked to speak on a stage. You’ll get a book deal. Like my company will never hire someone like you. And I think there’s so much of this industry that people go, Ooh, I got a book deal from a publisher. Or I got a company that hired me to do a consulting engagement, or I got a speaker’s bureau that decided I was good enough to pitch me to their client. And I got a, a speaking engagement through the, these third parties. We forget how much of the world is available to us directly. And when you look at mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, my personal mentor was one of ’em was Zig Ziegler.
RV (00:32:18):
You look at Dave Ramsey, you look, you look at Tony Robbins, you look at Tom Hopkins and Brian, Tracy, and, and, and it, all of these people and your story syncs up with that is going, you can find your own clients. You can hire yourself for your own speeches. You can, you can be your own publisher just by adding value to people’s lives. And whether it’s on a cassette tape or it’s in a venue or it’s on zoom, I just it’s, it’s inspiring to me as, you know, at least in this case, usually I’m starting to be the older guy in the room, but you’ve got many years on me in this industry inspiring to go that has worked. And it will always, it will always work
JD (00:33:00):
Well when the whys big enough, the house take care of themselves. As the old proverb says, when you have a big enough reason to get a message out into the planet. If the publisher I got rejected by publishers, I got night and gal KOAC rejected me three times. Now, they’re, they’re putting in products out. You know, that that rejection just means refinement. It doesn’t mean anything else. It just means, you know, they’re either not resonant or it’s time to refine what you’re doing, or just keep going and publish yourself. So I published many books on my own before I did the others. I didn’t let any of that. Stop me from my mission. My mission was to, I wanted to reach billions of people on the planet. And so we do so that’s we, but that means I may do find podcasts 10 podcast in a day, or, or go sit at the BBC and do 21 radio shows in a day.
JD (00:33:46):
I mean, I don’t, I don’t care. I don’t care what it takes. I just on a mission to get it done. That’s that’s, if you, if you have a, an attitude that there’s no option, we’re going forward, we’re making this thing happen. How do we do? And you’ll, you’ll, you’ll find the way you’ll find the people, the people, places, things, ideas and events will synchronize in your life and show up in your life. If you’re just committed to the outcome. All I wanted to do is study the greatest teachings on the face of the earth, by the greatest minds I ever lived, summarize synthesize Ize that gather that information devour, synthesize it, come up with something original out of it by the, a transcend awareness and deliver that in such a way that inspired people to go out and do exactly what they would love to do and show them how they can do it. I, I was told I couldn’t, I, I found out I could and they, they may think they can. And if they, if they all of a sudden follow some basic principles, they absolutely can. I, I, I, there’s no doubt in my mind that people can do something extraordinary their life. If they decide to do, it’s just, I’m just gonna pass the torch from what I’ve learned. That’s all.
RV (00:34:52):
I love it. That is so inspiring. Dr. D martini, where do you want people to go to connect with you? If they wanna like, stay in touch with what you’re up to or find out, find out more about your work.
JD (00:35:03):
All they have to do is go to Dr. D martini.com, D R D E M a R T I i.com Dr. D martin.com. They could spend the rest of their life on that, that website, cuz there’s so many interviews and YouTubes and things to read. And it’s an educational website. You know, people always said, you know, this is how you make it a sales website and stuff. And people buy stuff on there. But that wasn’t my intention. My intention was an educational website. So I get told that’s not how you’re supposed to do it. And I said, you don’t understand your mission is a sales before content I’m as content before sales, sales comes, take takes care of itself. If I do something that’s a value. So it’s an education and you’d almost have to believe in Buddhist reincarnation, cuz you’re gonna need a bunch of lives to probably be able to absorb what’s on there. There’s a lot of on there. So you’re gonna have to come back again.
RV (00:35:54):
Well I know, I know you are, but then it’s it’s like what your dad said, right? I mean, it was that idea. If your dad said it, basically if you over deliver, you’ll never have to worry about business. And that’s
JD (00:36:08):
My dad was correct. And I thank him for that. I had a, you know, my dad was an engineer and he had background in philosophy and he, he always, he’d never figured out how he could make a living on philosophy. And he said, but son, you figured out how to study the sciences and religions and philosophies of the world and psychologies and stuff. And you, you were able to do it. So he kind of, he used to come to my class and both, both my, the whole family used to come to the class and it was inspiring to see my dad and mom there. It was just lovely.
RV (00:36:37):
That’s so cool. Well thanks for sharing your, your, some of your personal story and your family and the background. It, it really is inspiring. And but your,
JD (00:36:48):
Can I share one more story? Can I say one more thing?
RV (00:36:51):
Yeah. I, I know
JD (00:36:52):
Where to go. When met Paul, when I met Paul brag in 1972, he had daughter named Patricia brag, a controversial background on that, but there’s, but that’s his daughter that took on and she took over the business when he passed. Well, it was interesting. I was speaking in Honolulu at Waikiki, the Hyat and I was doing my breakthrough experience program and in the back of the room in walks, Patricia brag. And after I, I, I took a break and, and at the break, she came up to me and she’s four foot seven. She comes up to me with this pink outfit on this hat and she comes up to me and she says, that was inspiring. And I said, thank you. And I knew who she was because I, I recognized her from Paul Bragg’s books and her books. And she said, you remind me of my father.
RV (00:37:46):
Amazing.
JD (00:37:46):
That meant a lot. And she then with my daughter, she sat with my daughter and she said, if you ever have an opportunity and you have an inspiration and it feels natural for you to want to carry on the work that your father’s doing. Just know it was inspiring for me to be able to do that with my dad. Well, my daughter is now teaching and doing insulting and doing this and doing and taking over. So she says, step aside, pop on taking over. So I’m still gonna be around for another 10,000 years, but I’m gonna be doing program. I’m gonna doing seminars with Wei boards in the afterlife. So that’s okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be selling Wei de Martin Wei boards probably that they can tap into. That’s
RV (00:38:27):
A joke. That’s that’s funny.
JD (00:38:29):
My daughter, my daughter is definitely up and coming and she’s, she’s on the, on the ball now.
RV (00:38:36):
Yeah, well that is, that is so cool. And you know, I, I, I feel very much connected to that lineage of just all the personal development teachers that have come before. And it’s, it’s, it almost just feels like an honor to sit, sit in that stream and that, that stream of consciousness as it flows from one generation to the next. And obviously at brand builders group, we serve mission driven messengers. And so we very much feel like this podcast is mentoring. Those who, you know, are, are where I was 20 years ago going, how do you become a New York times best seller. And how do you get in the hall of fame of public speaking and how do you make this your full-time business and how do you speak in front of thousands of people? And it’s just like, it just passes from one generation to the next and it’s, it’s, it’s an honor to just be able to carry some, some small part of that torch for some number of years was really, really, really great.
JD (00:39:33):
It, it’s a, it’s a great industry and there’s some, you know, some great people in there that have left great marks. I was chatting, we did a little thing with Dennis Waitley recently, you know, we did a, his I dunno you saw, I saw pictures or two ago when
RV (00:39:48):
I did, because Darren Hardy, I think Darren wasn’t Darren Hardy there too.
JD (00:39:52):
I don’t remember who all was there, cuz I just did an hour with him and and that’s fantastic. I think he may be trying to meet us up in, in Tahiti next week, this coming week. So I don’t know. I’m gonna see if I he’s gonna come on, try to hang on out on
RV (00:40:05):
This. Well, I saw pictures of an event and I recognized of course I recognized Dennis Waitley and then I recognized several people that were in the room and it was like, wow, that, that was a, was, it was a room full of legends. So that’s really cool. Yeah.
JD (00:40:20):
Well, I, I went to, I went to zigs class when I was 20 and I went and I went to Dennis Wheatley’s class back when I was about that age. So I, I remember him, I, we met way back then we, I spoke with Dennis Waitley in 1984 together in Chicago and also Wayne Dyer and you know, Deepak and all the characters.
RV (00:40:40):
Yeah.
JD (00:40:41):
And so I got, I had, I be, I’ve been blessed to meet a lot of great people along the way and yeah, they all add a little piece to the puzzle along the way we all do. Yeah.
RV (00:40:48):
Yeah. You know, that’s the other thing about this industry that’s really amazing is just, I mean, I guess it’s probably true for most industries, but it’s like, if you hang around long enough, you end up meeting all these people like it, there it’s, you know, you end up being at the parties, you’re sharing the stage with them. You’re in the green room. You’re, you’re on the TV shows you have book launches at the same time. You, you know, you’re on each other’s podcast these days or whatever. It’s it’s really fulfilling. Well, thank you for sharing part of that legacy and, and that history with us today and such, such an inspiring story. And I, I, I know that there are people listening right now who will go, yeah, I can just do this. I can just find people to help and love on and I can be in charge of my own destiny and put on my own events and just pour into their lives. And if I over deliver, I I’ll never have to worry about business. So we wish you the best Dr. John, and you know, make sure you hit Dr. D martini.com. If you get him, if you get a chance and, and go over there and check out some more about him and what he’s up to and, and his, and we just, we look forward to staying in touch and, and all the best.
JD (00:41:57):
Thank you so much for having me on your show and for asking questions and appreciate it very much. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:42:03):
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 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 in 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/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:42:50):
I had no idea that I was going to love the interview that I did with Dr. John D martini. As much as I did that interview was inspiring. It was informative. It was instructional. Like I thought that was so cool and awesome. And I mean, there are so many great lessons from that, and I’m gonna draw out just, just like always, I’m gonna share with you sort of like my, my top takeaways, my top highlights for you and how I’m gonna apply them to my life and how I think you might be able to apply them to yours and to your business. But the, the very first one here is the story of how he started his business. What was it? 40 years ago? 40 years ago, he spoke for free to generate clients for his practice. He spoke for free. Then he started charging $20 a seat.
RV (00:43:48):
And now today he charges $7,000 per seat. This is always the model like this is the model. And it’s like from 40 years ago to, to 30 years ago, to 10 years ago, to five years ago to two years ago, you gotta speak for free. You gotta you’re you’re you gotta get out there. I mean, we call this chicken on a stick in inside of our, our membership community. It’s like, you’re walking through whole foods and they give you chicken on a stick, or you go through the food court. They give you chicken on a stick. Why? Because people need to sample. They need to get a taste of what you’re about. They need to get an opportunity to know a little bit about who you are and to experience a little bit of benefit enough to where they go. That was fabulous. I want more.
RV (00:44:33):
And so that, that principle has never changed and it never will change, right? Like it’s the fastest way to take someone from a stranger, right? Why do they spend money giving out samples and stores? Because you know, I don’t know your brand. And, and it’s like, you rarely see it with big brands, right? Like if Doritos launches some new chip, they’re not given away tons of samples across the nation, typically because it’s Doritos. Everyone is like, yeah, I know Doritos. I’ll try it. Like I like, if you like Doritos, I don’t. But like, if you like Doritos, you go, okay, I’m gonna try this. Cuz I recognize the brand. But especially the newer brand, the younger, the brand, the, the, the more lesser known the brand is the more important it is for the sample. Right? And you go, I’ve never heard of this type of chicken, but you know, or this season, but you put it in your mouth and you go, oh my gosh, that’s incredible.
RV (00:45:25):
And in that case, it’s like, the product is selling itself, not the brand. And, and when you, when you’re just starting out as a personal brand, your product, your expertise, your content, like it is your content that people are buying. They’re buying the solution to per, to their problem. They’re buying your methodology. They’re, they’re buying the idea that you are an expert later, when you break through Shehan, while they’re buying you, they’re buying you because it’s you, right. That’s what everybody did with Gary. Vaynerchuck’s NFT thing with V friends, right? Half the people who bought it didn’t even understand it. They don’t even know what the heck it is. Like they still probably don’t understand it, cuz it’s like new and pretty complicated. But you go, why did they buy it? Because it’s Gary V because they trust him. But in the, but, but, but millions of people are sampling him every day and have been for 15 years.
RV (00:46:17):
What are you doing for people to sample you? They have to sample you. They have to have a free chapter, a free download a podcast, a a, a video of you, several videos on social, your blog, right? Like everything that we do in the relationship engine ecosystem is about creating these little mini assets where people can sample you. They are basically chicken on a stick and they occur as tweets and LinkedIn pulse and blog posts and medium posts and YouTube videos and Instagram videos. Of course, we use the content diamond, which ties that all together from, from just one main video a week that we repurpose. There’s a video on my blog, by the way, if you have, if you’re not familiar with the content diamond, if you’ve never heard me talk about that term, just go to Roy vain, blog.com and then search for content diamond.
RV (00:47:08):
And it will, it’ll, it’ll pop up. But like the point is you have to put self out there, not even yourself. Like you have to put your content out there, your expertise out there in a way that people can sample it because they’ve never heard of you. But if they like your content, it’ll override it, right? Like just cuz I’ve never heard of this type of seasoning. If, if I taste it and put it in my mouth and go, that was amazing. Like, or I’ve never eaten at this restaurant. If I taste it, I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna eat at this spot in the food court. That that’s how it’s done. And, and Dr. Demar has been doing this for years and it’s just another example of this timeless principle. And so, you know, don’t get lost in the tactics and the like, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if this is working and I don’t like this platform and I’m not like it doesn’t even matter really where it happens.
RV (00:47:58):
It can be a speech, it can be a podcast, it can be a video, it can be an article. It can be a tweet. It can be any of these things, but you’ve gotta put your expertise out there. You’ve got to add value and solve problems for people and answer questions for them so that they can sample you and build trust. That is why we do. I mean, that’s our whole content marketing strategy. That’s it. The second takeaway from Dr. D martini, which was interesting, cuz I’ve done this and heard a lot of this, but never thought about it quite in this way, which I, it was super sharp was he said, you know, I started speaking for free and then I had a fee and people would pay me. And then as my fee got higher, less and less people could afford me. But what several of the audiences did is they would do a revenue share with me.
RV (00:48:49):
And, and that is how the conference could afford me. That was how I could get my speaker fee. And, and that’s a really important way to think about it. I mean, especially if you’re beginning, you should be taking every gig you get, like you should be taking every opportunity to practice and hone your craft and, and get out there and, and, you know, rehearse your content, do that and build your email list and all those things. But the other thing is going, if you can make an offer from stage and you can sell something. And typically what we’re gonna say is, I mean, in world class presentation craft, which is our phase one course, three of our curriculum, we teach about the mechanics of what to say you to sell from on stage. And we talk about firm offers like our not firm offers, sorry full offers and soft offers a full offers.
RV (00:49:42):
When you’re asking for a credit card, a soft offers, when you’re just like offering people a free call or a free download when you’re first starting out, you, if you’re making a full offer, you, I would, I would say you probably wanna keep it under $200. Because it, it takes quite a bit of skill to sell to a room full of people, something north of $200 and not like, you know, turn a bunch of people off. But most of what our clients do and what we do is when we speak, we do soft offers. We don’t sell anything. We give away free calls. And then we do one on one calls and we do the selling there. And that, that is the way to do it. And, and even to this day, there are some events that I will speak at because they don’t have my fee, but they will allow me to do an, an offer.
RV (00:50:26):
And they will allow me to follow up after the event and get emails and do all this stuff. And we can, we can make our feedback in, in other ways, if it’s the right audience, if they’re, you know, perfect for us. So the revenue share from the sales that come at the events is another way that, that you can get your fee or maybe you don’t even have to do a revenue share with the event. Host. Maybe the deal is you go speak for free, but you get to keep, you get to make an offer and you get to keep all the money at the back. I mean, all of that is kind of like part of the normal negotiation, but don’t just turn away an event because they don’t have your fee, especially if they really want you, like, if they’re really your fans, they’re really your people.
RV (00:51:05):
They love your stuff. Hopefully, you know, and if you’ve been in our community, hopefully you’re learning ways to monetize. I mean, I know you’re learning the ways cuz we teach ’em to you, but like you have other ways to monetize other than just your speaking fee. And that also opens up a lot more opportunity for places that you can speak. Because even if you don’t get your speaking fee, you can, you can make the same or more by what comes at the back of the room or from free calls after or from getting people on your email list. And then you, you sell, you know, after the event is over and that’s huge. And, and again, part of why I love this conversation is one that’s sharp and kind of like a new way of, you know, just a really clear way of thinking about it, but the other is it shows you that this idea, this is a principle that has been around since the beginning of personal brands like that, that you speak for free, and then you’re selling at the back, and that is how you make your living.
RV (00:52:02):
And that is how I made my first dollars as a personal brand. I spoke for free and I sold myself published book at the back of the room. And then after that, I spoke for free and I sold tickets to a half day event at the back of the room. And then, you know, from there it evolved and evolved. And then, you know, one, we sold, we sold CD sets for a while, and then we sold courses and then we sold the expensive live event tickets. And then we sold coaching programs. And then you nowadays, we just drive free calls and then we talk to people and then we sell ’em whatever they need. And some of the stuff we sell is 99 bucks. We have, we have stuff that’s 25 bucks, 99 bucks. Most of the stuff we do is obviously our membership program. And we’ve got different tiers of that, that fit sort of every budget. So you can do it. People have done it. Dr. John D. Martinez has built this whole. We are doing it. It has worked, it does work. It will work revenue share from the back of the room. And then the third thing was something was when he was talking about what his dad said, and this is so simple, right? But it’s just so good. He said, son, if you always over deliver, you’ll never have to worry about having enough business.
RV (00:53:18):
If you always over deliver, you will never have to worry about having enough business that is so strong and clear and simple and profound and true and was true, is true and will be true to come. Like if you always over deliver, if you always give people more than they are expecting, if you always give people more than what they paid for, if you always deliver above and beyond what they need or what they deserve, like what, whatever the transaction is, if you exceed that, you’re never gonna have to worry about business because you’re gonna have advocates out there. I did. I did a reel on this, on my Instagram my handles at Rory Vaden. And I did a reel on this, about how to, how to select the right price. And, you know, my whole, my whole point is going. It doesn’t so matter.
RV (00:54:16):
It doesn’t so much matter what you charge. It doesn’t so matter. It doesn’t so much matter what your price is. What matters is that you always deliver more than the price that you’re charging for, right? You always deliver more than the price you’re charging for. So it could be a hundred million and you, as long as you’re delivering a billion dollars of value, it’s worth it, right? If it’s $10. And so we use the something that we call the rule of 10, which is price it at one 10th of what it’s actually worth, right? So, you know, if, if our goal, if we’re gonna, you know, let’s say it was $10,000, we wanna deliver a hundred thousand dollars of value that we go. Like, we really believe this is worth a hundred thousand dollars. This will, you will make a hundred thousand dollars from what you’ve learned here.
RV (00:55:02):
And we’re gonna charge 10,000. That gives you a lot of conviction that gives you a, a lot of strength that gives you a lot of enthusiasm when you’re sharing the price and talking about your program. And you don’t have fear because you’re going, this is, you’d be crazy not to do this, which is how I feel about brand builders. I’m just like, y’all, we are the cheapest, most insanely valuable education. There is. I mean, what we give to our members for what they pay is are tens of millions of dollars. Like we have proven it. Like we have made millions of dollars from these things that we’ve had to learn from 7,900 different sources and pull it together and give it to you step by step. And just going, if you haven’t requested a call with our team, like request a call, like go, go to free brand.
RV (00:55:54):
What do we say? Pod, pod call, whatever, whatever the advertisement is, you can go to free call.ro vain.com. I know that one works or whatever the ad is that we place on here. But like, if you’re liking this and you’ve been listening to this for a minute, you should request a call, right? Like it costs some money to do, to work with us, but it is extraordinary what people get and the experience and the results that people are having. And the, and the other people in the community alone. Like if you learn nothing, just being around the other members of our community is insane. Like our community is epic. I mean, you’re at an event sitting next to New York times, wrestling, authors and hall of fame speakers, and eight figure entrepreneurs and billionaires and people who’ve sold their, their companies for hundreds of millions dollars and people who are multi seven figure, you know, direct sales or network marketing people.
RV (00:56:46):
And you know, the top of their profession or their industry. And maybe you’ve never heard of ’em, but they just crush their industry. Like they’re the most well known in their thing. And they’re all just sitting. We’re like all in the same space. It blows me away. Like our members, our clients are the most amazing people, actors and actresses on TV. Obviously the, the author thing, there’s former pro athletes, tons of people with like hundreds of thousands of followers or tens of thousands of followers. And there’s like sitting right next to you at, I mean, our, our events are crazy. So, and that’s how we design it. Right. And it’s, it’s because of exactly what Dr. DM, our teen’s dad told him. And then he did. And so many, you know, Zig Ziegler was one of our mentors and he did it. And like overdeliver, overdeliver give people more than they expect more than they deserve more than they paid for.
RV (00:57:37):
And watch it come back to you, watch it, change your life, watch it, change your business, watch it radically flood your bank account. Like just do it for a while. Go, how can, what are people expecting? And how can I give ’em more than that? How can I constantly be pushing the envelope of adding value, adding value? And our team is doing this. Like our team is awesome. You know, I’ll, I’ll log into like our members portal and be like, oh my gosh, that’s so cool. Like, where did that feature come from? Because our, our team is just doing it and you wanna create that culture. And even if it didn’t pay off somehow in money, it, it, I mean, it always does, but like, it, it, it pays off an impact. It, it, it pays off in purpose. It, it pays off in this feeling that you’re contributing to the world and that what you’re doing is good and that you’re adding value to people’s lives.
RV (00:58:28):
And it gives you the conviction that other people should buy from you. And that is worth a lot. It’s worth a lot to you, especially if you have call reluctance and sales reluctance, like I’ve had for so much of my career, cuz I don’t wanna annoy people and I don’t wanna be pushy and I don’t wanna be aggressive. And so you gotta be convicted the value of, of what you do. And, and so use the rule of 10, use the rule of 10. It’s just make sure that the, the value you deliver far exceeds the price that you charge. That’s it make sure the value you deliver far exceeds the price that you charge. Because as Dr D Martin’s dad says, if you, you over deliver, if you always over deliver, you will never have to worry about having enough business. And I hope that you feel loved on as a listener of this show.
RV (00:59:19):
We would love to talk to you. So hopefully you, at some point, you know, request a call with our team or just keep tuning in like, and, and just keep tuning in or just keep tuning in. We’re here for you. It literally fills us up to know that you are on the other end every week, listening to this show. Like even if we never ever have any financial exchange, it is the greatest like honor and privilege to know that you’re gifting us your attention and your time, and you’re willing to allow us and our guests to be an influence in your life. And it’s just an honor. I mean, and we absolutely love it. So I hope we get to meet you in person at some point. But thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing this with your friends. Thank you for leaving your comments and your reviews on iTunes and telling people about this. And just please keep coming back and know that our heart is to overdeliver. And Hey, if you don’t think we’re overdelivering or if you have ideas about how we could leave that as a comment on iTunes, let us know because that’s, that’s the desire of our heart is to, is to really serve you in that way. That’s it for this version of the influential personal brand podcast, Roy Vaden out.

Ep 255: Scaling an 8 Figure Coaching Business with Casey Clark

AJV (00:07):
Hi everybody. This is AJ Vaden here. I’m the CEO, co-founders at brand builders group, but also one of the awesome hosts of the influential personal brand podcast. Of course that slightly by as I talk about myself, but I’m really so excited for you guys to meet my friend Casey Clark today. He is so awesome that he and I are newer friends, but we’re in a, a little two person mastermind. We’re gonna be meeting every month together. And I I’m so, so grateful that he was kind have to entertain being on the show today, but just a little bit of background. So you know who he is, cuz you’re gonna get to know him and his business really well over the next 30 to 45 minutes. But I even learned some really cool stuff. I did not know. But Casey came from a franchise background and when you left the franchise visit, I didn’t even know this, but you had 90, more than different franchise owners.
AJV (01:04):
And I had no idea that’s like a really massive accomplishment, but what I mostly know about is what Casey is doing now. And he owns a company called cultivate advisors and it’s one of the largest small business coaching firms in north America. And so that’s a huge part of what we’re gonna be talking about. And then just in 2020, he was ranked within the top 800 fastest growing companies on the Inc 5,000 list. And that is no easy feat. And so we’re gonna talk a lot about how you did that. And a huge part of our audience are people who identify as coaches or trainers or consultants or speakers which is why I wanted to have you on the show. So welcome
CC (01:46):
AJ. Thanks for having me excited to be here.
AJV (01:48):
Yes, it’s gonna be so fun. Okay. So to give everyone just a little bit of background, tell them, how did you get started in the world of small business coaching?
CC (02:00):
Well, it goes back to, you know, those franchising days, we were training first time business owners, how to scale a business and it was in the home service space. So it wasn’t as exciting of a space. Right. But it was, it was one of those businesses that allowed you to spend more time learning how to run and grow a business versus necessarily how to be amazing at the industry. Right. Hmm. And so through that period, we just, I kept starting up more franchisees. I, I kept going through that cycle. When I started seeing these patterns, I started seeing how people got stuck and where people would find these gaps. And I went, I wonder if this is the same in the outside market, if I were to go across, you know, hundreds of industries. And so, you know, started doing some research, started to kind of get into the coaching advising space. And within a few years it was very clear that what I had experienced was very similar to where most entrepreneurs were, you know, that stop gap where they get on that treadmill or they, they, they lose control if it’s growing too fast, you know, et cetera. So that’s kind of what got us into it. I got addicted to this idea of being able to help small business owners kind of take back their life per se and start to control growth. And that’s, that’s kind of what cultivate was built on.
AJV (03:02):
Oh, that’s so good. So I’m so curious. What was the industry for the home services, business
CC (03:08):
Painting, painting industry.
AJV (03:09):
So I have a huge past life as a consultant and I did tons of work with Iffa. So I’ve got oh yeah. Clients. but
CC (03:18):
I know Iffa I was certified with Iffa. Oh yeah. I’ve been panelists at their conferences in the past, you know, all that stuff, so.
AJV (03:25):
Awesome. Okay. So you get started in this now. How long, how long ago was it that you started cultivate?
CC (03:33):
We founded at the end of 2013, we didn’t do any revenue till 2014. My co-founder was one, one that kind of went full time. We have a fun story where he just called me one day and said, you know, that idea we talked about, we set up a, you know, an LLC for, I, I quit my job today. I’m gonna start doing this full time. I’m like, all right, I guess we’re doing this. And so I, I still had my other business. I was still working on that exit and, you know, working on that. So it took me about two years. So I was part time. He was full-time for the first two years I joined full-time really at the start of 2016, so, okay.
AJV (04:04):
So
CC (04:04):
Like I think that, what does that, what does that make that now? Five, six years maybe. I
AJV (04:07):
Mean that, but that’s pretty significant to, and I we’re gonna get to this, but to go from 2016 to what, what we call it first quarter of twenty, twenty two, like that’s pretty phenomenal growth and a short amount of time. So do you mind telling the audience, like how much are you guys doing in revenue? You don’t have to give us like to the, to the stint, but
CC (04:27):
No, you’re you’re all right. Yeah, yeah, no, you’re all right. We’ll, we’ll probably do you know, just shy about 16 million or just over this year. And we’ve got about 126 employees, so yeah. So it’s, it’s been a quick runway
AJV (04:41):
Five years and I think that’s really important cuz I know so many of the people that we talk to and that we work with they have the dreams of building and scaling something that’s beyond them, delivering coaching services and you guys have done something extraordinary in a really short amount of time. So some of these questions that I have prepared every cause I wanna know
CC (05:01):
I wanna know, get some, gotta get some dirt, get some ways to, to copy. I love it. R D Rob duplicate, wanna know
AJV (05:08):
Too. So that’s pretty phenomenal growth in five years. Right. And from somebody who also has been a part of building and growing an eight figure coaching business, like that’s not easy. So I wanna know it’s like, how did you guys do it? Like how has it
CC (05:22):
Grown? How long do we have AJ? How long do we have? Well back to the beginning. No I, I think I can distill it down to a few things. I, I think one is the, the quality of the output, right? What goes into that? It’s, we’re really specific who our advisors are. They’re only past business owners that have seen success. We’re very, very strict on that. We’re not the license or the franchise. I would, I don’t think you should franchise this, this industry licensing you can get, you can get away with. And if you set up the right structures, but you know, I think for us, we really saw this vision to say, we’re gonna create an employee model for advisors. Let them feel like internal entrepreneurs within our brand. And how we’re gonna approach is we’re only gonna bring in folks that have walked the walk before, you know, out of a, I, I, I, I read a stat the other day that, you know, it’s $11 billion industry.
CC (06:13):
This coaching industry is the average business is like 156,000 in revenue. That’s, that’s almost half what my average advisor does a year in revenue. Right? So it was just a quality play that we took out, say, we’re only gonna bring these folks. And I think that was step one. And just this relentlessness to measure the customer’s experience and not just measure, are they happy? You know, they give us a good net promoter score, good, you know, status action score. But more importantly, we started tracking really early on how many businesses are growing double digit revenue and growing double digit profit that we’re working with. And because we were niche in and we had that focus, it allowed us to prioritize. I think the third thing that really stood out and, and I, I don’t always agree with this, but it’s just what worked for us.
CC (06:55):
We kind of hit the marketplace at the right time. What we saw was that we did not need to be industry experts. We could be industry agnostic. And what we needed to do was fuel growth. And what we found is that a lot of business coaches had niched into I’m gonna help you with your sales or I’m gonna help you with this or this part of it. And that’s great. I mean, I, there’s no discredit to that. We just really saw the models that there’s nobody out there as a generalist that even go bring those people in on their behalf and truly meet them as a business partner. So I think a lot about how our model got created is that’s also why we’ve scaled so quick. When you bring on talents and entrepreneurs already that have ran a business, you go, you need to go find 10 or 15 businesses to work with. It’s not that hard for them to do that. And we can start to scale very quickly as we built the model. So those are some of the nuances that I think helped kind of scale at the end of the day, just chalk it up to a lot of hard work and a lot of really good talents of people that are smarter than me. Yeah. That’s how we kinda got over the line. We should
AJV (07:50):
Always be the dumbest person in the room that
CC (07:52):
Is try to be, try to be trying to be.
AJV (07:55):
So I think there’s something that is really unique about what you, and it’s this concept of building it in an employee based model, because I think that’s pretty contradictory in most of the consultant coach worlds, for sure. And so why did you go that way?
CC (08:13):
Well, I don’t know if it’s the easy way. I think it’s the hard way. It’s harder to get off the ground, but if you get off the ground, I think it’s ways than the second tier scale, right? Like our, a lot of our growth has happened in the last three years. We’re exploding and we’re, we’re set up to continue this really, really fast scale, really because we’re able to control the levers of growth because we’re all employees, we’re all, you know, guided towards the same north star that we’re driving towards. And it just starts to get this, this engine that you can’t turn off what I find when you’re in the, the non-employee model, which again, there’s nothing wrong with that. Right? We’ve got tons of clients in our portfolio that have built license or contractor programs. You just lose this element of quality and you lose this element of control.
CC (08:54):
And I shouldn’t say you, you lose it. It’s just harder to hold. It is probably the better way for me to frame that. It’s harder to hold that element of control for the, for scale, because at the end of the day, you can’t tell somebody what they have to hit and what they have to go achieve. You’re you’re only gonna go as far as the, the tenacity or drive of the individual. Yeah. In the other side of that agreement. Right. And you won’t get their full I endeavor. And so what really I’ll talk about what I think holds people back from this it’s it’s money. Like really what I find people in this industry, why they stay away from this is the cash side of it. Yeah. And, and we were in the same boat. We, we just, we just said, you know what, we’ll go bring on three and we gotta make th sure.
CC (09:32):
They’re all successful. And then we took all the and earnings from that. Now we’re gonna go bring on six. You know, this year we just started 15 in one class, we’ll bring on 30, this year, 35 this year, next year we’ll probably bring on 40 to 50 advisors. Right. And we just keep, we just keep taking the earnings and then you can afford to bring on more people. Cause we really don’t break even on advisor for almost 11 months. Yeah. So it’s a long term strategy that we’re playing for a long term growth. It’s it’s, there’s no shortness about it.
AJV (10:01):
Yeah. I love it though. I think one, one of the things that I love so much is it does give you that ability to create a more standard experience because yes they are employees. Right. I think that’s one of the hardest things is creating a, it’s not, you want it to be, you know, cookie cutter, but you wanna be able to set standard expectations so that every client has a somewhat similar experience, even if what they talk about is uniquely different.
CC (10:28):
Yeah. And I, and I’ll tell you, like, I don’t think a lot of our team members like really view, like I’m an employee of cultivate, you know, I hope they don’t. I think most, most, most people within our organiz are coming at it going, yeah. Yeah. I hang my shingle at cultivate, you know, but I have my own portfolio, my own book of business. We’ve created compensation incentives that create unlimited upside in every role in the organization. So they feel empowered. They feel that same sense ownership, but we’re able to maintain that standard. And again, our, our team members, you know, hit those standards easily and, and drive towards those standards without, you know, cause the talent we hire. But that’s the other thing too, right? Your talent pool totally changes. When, when you say I’ll pay you this salary, I’ll pay your benefits. I’ll give you a 401k match.
CC (11:07):
I’ll and I’ll give you unlimited upside for revenue share based on your output. It, you know, transparently after selling franchises for a long time. And then now offering money and really to write checks heck of a lot easier on the second part of that than it’s on the first. I mean, there’s a long line. You get to kind of sort through to pick the right person. Now we’re lucky in our industry, we haven’t been affected by the great, you know, resignation and we haven’t been, you know because we hire these past entrepreneurs. It’s, it’s just kind of a different niche we’re in. But so I don’t wanna be Des sensitive, you know, to what’s going on in the world right now. But it, it really is compared to my experience of franchising, I find so much easier to just go, I need to 10 people. It’s not gonna be that hard for me to go find 10 talents of people. I just have to do some, some hard work to, to pull ’em out.
AJV (11:50):
So for somebody who is in this world and they’re building this coaching business or consulting or training, right. Didn’t use any of those and they’re going, I just don’t have the money to do that. Yeah. Right. That’s somewhat of a mindset.
CC (12:02):
Oh
AJV (12:03):
Yeah. So what would you say to that person?
CC (12:05):
Three answers. One, get a partner who has money. Now you have money. You know, don’t hold the degree, don’t hold all the equity, you know, go after your, go after vision, see the reality, figure out how to buy out the partner later. Option two, start, start on the freelance. Start on the, the, you know, that’s what we did our, our first year and a half, the people we brought in, they were, they were all contractors set percentage, you know, and just, we were really lean. We didn’t over invest in anywhere except for talent. And we saved our pennies. We didn’t pay ourselves very well. Yeah. We, we intentionally held off to the best of our abilities while paying the bills. You know, we’ve got families and all that, but you know, we just really focused hard. So we were double dipping. We were advising full books of businesses in our, in our terminology, but we were also then leading a few advisors, each getting ’em off the ground.
CC (12:49):
So we had to play had kind of be that player coach there for a bit, but we had the site and we had the vision. We laid out the forecast. We knew exactly how much money we had to get to, to have the amount of money to invest. And we had ran the model to know what we had to invest to get. And then we flipped all the contractors to employee and then started to only bring employees. And we started growing at the speed. What was cash? Now our speed of growth is limited to the number of leaders we can promote. So how fast can we, people skilled up to where we feel comfortable putting in a leadership position. That’s now what holds me back in terms of the next chapter of growth of waiting for that element. So that’s how I personally, you know, look at the money side is get a partner, number two you know, set up as a contractor first, take those earnings and, and bootstrap this thing up. And the, the third, another option is just of the day, like create an equity program out of the gates. Like, you know, your first five or 10 folks like tie them in for being those early adopters. And you do something kinda a little different where they’re more of a partner and then the next batch, as, as you get 10 people up running full blast, putting, you know, deposits back into that bank, it’s gonna create the, the nucleus of money for you to then, you know, push out.
AJV (13:54):
Yeah. Love. That’s so good. So, all right. Let’s say somebody buys into this, they’re listening to this interview and they’re like, yeah, I’m not gonna grow. I’m not gonna scale unless I have more people. Right. Yeah. Be a very finite amount of clients and time that we can all do this individually. So where would you say, like, where’s your go to place for finding great talent right now?
CC (14:15):
I mean, it’s a honestly poaching LinkedIn. It really, it really is. I just you know, why, why though, like a lot of people just talk about it, like, I’ll give you the new, the new, the nuances of why you know, I can search CEO co-founder owner. I have the ability to search that on LinkedIn. So for that reason, I have the ability to find their right talent by, by putting those filters. I don’t really know of any other place online that allows me to search that. Yeah. I think you can search resumes on indeed now. And there’s a little bit of searchability in that, but it’s a different,
AJV (14:48):
It’s a different person.
CC (14:50):
It’s a different pool, you know, for us now, now I don’t think that I, my, my gut is not a lot of people necessarily for the niche or what you’re trying to get into always need past entrepreneurs. Right. So if I were to talk to, you know, we’ve got a, a very large client base and portfolio, I mean, indeed is really the number one job board still. I mean, nobody’s even touching it in terms of the amount of hires and, and what you get out of it. But I would really, if I worked with any, any company say, how do you get going on recruiting in a professional service environment, okay. In this type of environment, I would say three ways, LinkedIn poaching, you know, you’ve gotta have somebody, either a recruiting firm or somebody in house actively going out and trying to find the right people on getting them educated to where they wanna apply.
CC (15:36):
That’s the key don’t poach and say, would you like to have a conversation? Don’t do that. Like, I just wanted to introduce you to the role, go check it out, have some great videos on your website, let them apply. So they feel like they’re trying to earn the role. Yeah. Otherwise you just turn in just a negotiation of salary and that’s not, you’re probably not in that situation yet. Option two, make sure you have posts all over. Indeed. Especially if you can work remotely anywhere, open up your, open up your mind to talent across the country. That’s just the new way of life. Now, everybody we’re, we’re there. All right. The whole, I’m gonna hire people in my back door that in my backyard, that’s gone. So you’re missing out a massive talent if you’re gonna limit yourself. Yeah. The world’s changed. Right. And then option.
CC (16:11):
And especially in this industry, just don’t, you don’t need walls. You don’t, you know, you can work remote and then, you know, option three is, is, is really referrals. Like you think about your own network. You think about, get on the phone, do the hard work, get on conversations with people, you know, and go, I’m looking for somebody who is this background, who do you know, that has this background? And then as you start to get your first few employees, instead of a have conversations with them, like, how can I get three or four of your friends that are similar to you in this organization? What do we have to do to make that happen? And just, if you start with that intentionality, you’ll get outta the gates. And then once you get outta the gates, you have a following us, you know, we’ve got kind of an endless application pool that we get to work through now, but that’s because of our size and our, our success stories. Right. It doesn’t, it doesn’t start that way. It’s like, I remember being, you know, convincing people. I promise, like we really do know what we’re doing. It’s helping small businesses grow. I remember those conversations like yesterday, you know, oh, that’s now, they’re now the story speaks for itself. But,
AJV (17:05):
But you know, it’s, it’s so true. It’s like, you know, we recently just brought on five new, full time employee strategy. One thing about me is I, I take, I take advice quickly. Once I agree with it, I’m like, I’m on it. It’s like, I think we had our conversation like first week in December and it’s like January, we had five full-time employees. Right. And so a lot of it is
CC (17:25):
Ask how you’re feeling a couple months, that risk tolerance
AJV (17:29):
Been a little crazy, but you know, four out of those five, I got, I poached off a LinkedIn.
CC (17:34):
Yeah.
AJV (17:35):
One was a personal referral. Yeah. And one and four out of five, straight up just poached off the LinkedIn. But it’s, it’s knowing how to navigate. Right. But it’s looking, it’s knowing what you’re looking for.
CC (17:46):
Somebody, somebody told me this a lot of years ago. I can’t remember who I wish I could give credit. Cuz I share this all the time. It’s one of those things where it’s like somebody once said, right. But you, you should always employ the employed, not the unemployed. Yeah. Right. And so it’s, you know, the reason why I like LinkedIn poaching is I like to take people who already have a gig. I already have something going and I’ve gotta convince them that my gig’s better. It’s usually when you get the talent, there’s a reason why the person’s unemployed and now that’s not fair. Cause some people might be here and go, whoa, wait, I kind of got unlucky. Like don’t mean any disrespect by that, but just a general rule of thumb at scale, as an owner, growing a business, how are they employed? Not the unemployed.
AJV (18:23):
Yeah. It’s such wise advice.
CC (18:26):
Especially when you’re first getting started.
AJV (18:28):
Yeah. I think that’s yeah. Okay. So I love this. Right. And so then, so my next question comes around around. All right. So in order to get to the place where it’s like, all right, I need to bring on more talent. I need to make this happen. You gotta like have sales. Right? You gotta have some growth.
CC (18:41):
You gotta need some revenue.
AJV (18:43):
You gotta have some revenue. So I would say like, what do you think other than having great talent and doing all the things which I having great. Yes. That’s a given, right. That’s an expectation, right? Yeah.
CC (18:52):
If you don’t, if you’re not, if you’re not good at what you do, you’re not, you have no business scaling it anyway. You’re gonna lose yourself in it. Yeah.
AJV (18:58):
But so what’s your sales strategy
CC (19:03):
That I have to be careful what I should. No, I’m just joking. I think, I think there’s a few, few ways we view it. We kind of break this out. I mean, I’ve always believed that the fastest way to grow a business is that your number one marketing task, I’m gonna go to marketing versus sales. Cause I think as long as you have the leads and you offer a good value and your right price, you’ll sell, I mean, we can get into sales, conversion ratios. And I know you and your husband have an amazing sales background. You could, you know, teach at the end of the day of how to close. Cause I’ve grabbed my own strategies from watches your, your videos of the past. And, and you know, I think that I look at the marketing source where most people struggle is actually how to get the leads in yeah.
CC (19:40):
To then be able to sell. I think that’s actually where people struggle on the route. I agree with that. I agree with that. People can learn sales. It’s kind of hard to learn marketing. You can learn how to sell stories. You can learn how to set up your Facebook or LinkedIn profile. You know, these are all things you can do, but like how do you actually build an engine of leads that’s sustainable. Right? So that was really what we focused on. And, and now what we did is we turned all of our advisors that came in, we have them also generate their own opportunities. Right. So a lot of our advisors are bringing their own personal network when they come in. They’re in to do so, but it’s real, we’re really focused on a referral business. If you think about coaches, we’re no different than financial advisors or insurance brokers or lawyers.
CC (20:21):
How many times have you ever gone on Google and said, I wanna meet a lawyer. Not very often. Most people are like, they’re gonna get referred. Right? You’re it’s just so I, I call this the referral industry. You, you got how to be referred in. You gotta set yourself up to get referred in. So however you can build that engine, that’s how we approach it. And so knowing that that’s the model knowing that’s how we approached it. We just skill our advisors up, unbelievably on how to build this referral model. And a lot of different ways from building, running, speaking events, to partnering with different programs, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But I do have a full partnership team. That’s out, you know, working, setting up partners with people to where we come in and provide content and, and value to their organizations and all their, their you know, business owners within their network, depending on what the, the partnership is.
CC (21:08):
We focus on, you know, we we’ve for a little while we land, we ran a LinkedIn program, but that’s really become saturated. You’re not really gonna get a lot of sales outta LinkedIn with these days. You know, really it’s always come back to the root, can we get 40 to 50% of our clients every year from more client referrals? That means you’re doing an amazing job. Yeah. Right. If you can grow 50% year over year, just because of the num you know, one in every two clients give you a referral client, go figure that out, ask the clients for referrals, be active, then figure out how to get the connector. What we call kind of the connector referrals, the outside influencers, people, you know, connecting your, referring you and then use your own personal network from all the business owners where you’re essentially going, Hey, I wanna work with you in your business or whatever, you know that your niche might be. We’ve really kept it simple. And we just, we follow the goals, follow the KPIs. And we
AJV (22:00):
Deliver you say it’s simple, but for most people they’re like, wait, what?
CC (22:04):
No, I know, I know this is what we do every day though. Right? I don’t wanna give away too much cuz this is what we say it down. And help people do is like, let’s figure out how to build a sustainable lead engine. Because that’s usually the biggest, here’s what, here’s what I find people either struggle between, you know, sales and marketing on the growth side or they struggle on the capacity side, which I consider leadership and recruiting. Yeah. Like those are the two. And I think of like financials as in the middle, right? You gotta have financials locked down, otherwise you can’t scale. So once the financials are solve and I don’t just mean you have money, I just mean cash flow price per widget margin per, per widget, future performance, stress tests. You know, now I’m just, you know, sharing a bunch of random terms, but all these things are vital to be put in place. And then it’s, we just find business owners, Teeter, totter back and forth. Like, do I need to drive the sales and marketing? I, or do I need to drive the leadership in recruiting? And you’ve gotta build an engine for both. And once you have it, you get this really nice. We call it the propeller. You just start taking off, you know, flying to wherever your destiny is. Whenever you have those two things running at the same pace.
AJV (23:04):
Yeah. We, it’s so funny. We talk about that all the time. But it’s like, if you only have one of ’em that’s growth, but you have to both to have scale, you can grow on both sides. Right. But you have to have both to really have scale. And I, and I love that. And so, so I have two, two quick follow ups on this and I’m watching the clock too. I promise. I’m not gonna keep you here all day. No,
CC (23:24):
All good.
AJV (23:24):
But you have this one thing, which I don’t think is confidential. So hopefully I’m not like
CC (23:29):
No, no. It’s okay. Yeah. What is it?
AJV (23:30):
This concept that you have of enterprise affiliates.
CC (23:34):
Okay.
AJV (23:34):
Right. So I think that’s pretty revolutionary and not something all that common in this industry. And I don’t know what report you were reading, but I was probably reading the same report just a few weeks ago, talking about how the estimated market net worth of the coaching industry is about 11 billion, right. That is estimated over the next 24 months to reach 20 billion. It’s
CC (23:55):
The second. Yeah. It’s growing a
AJV (23:57):
Growing industry in the world, but here’s the part that’s crazy. It’s totally unregulated. Right? There’s no regulatory body that’s governing this no industry. So it really does come down to who’s being referred. Who’s most trustworthy who who’s got these connections. And I think that’s really substantial because that’s ultimately what we do brain builders group. Right. It’s how do you establish a personal brand? It’s how do you build your reputation? How do you become known as the go-to person for X, Y, or Z? And so this concept of being able to multiply this referral concept within an entire organization or association, I think is brilliant and revolutionary, and it might, may seem like duh, that’s what we do. But I think for most of most of the world, but I’m sorry, what are you talking about? What is an internal,
CC (24:48):
Well, you made it, yeah, I was gonna say you made it sound really fancy. I don’t even, I don’t even say that those words together the enterprise affiliate, that’s what I call it. I’m gonna steal it and go into my team from meeting next week and go, it’s time to talk about our enterprise affiliate program. What I, I just, I just call strategic partnerships, right? This is, this is about the idea of a one to mini model, right? You could spend your time selling a single business owner and are, and I’m using in my language, you know, whatever your end user is for, for you, whoever’s listening. And then, or I could go sell the person and create value for the individual, to, for them to bring me in to as many of their clients as possible or their network or their association.
CC (25:28):
And so this started back. I mean, we were, we were one of the, we were one of the companies that came out of the WeWork, boom, you know, WeWork went up next to my house. We got our glass box that we sat in for a few years when we got our start, before we moved into other offices. And when we were going through that, you know, I, it was right at my fingertips. I’m just, I’m working with the community manager of the it’s local WeWork. So just remove enterprise. Cause I think if people go after enterprise, they may, they may fail quite a quite quickly. I we’ve got a lot of enterprise partners now, but I didn’t start by going after enterprise partners. I wouldn’t have got time a day. Right. You have to get to a certain scale to, you can keep up with the enterprise partner.
CC (26:03):
So I would share that openly. So people don’t get just misguided here, but think about what is enterprise for you, right? Think about who’s your type of strategic partner. So this cowork space, really simple example. When we got started this community manager, I’m talking about going, how do I help you keep your clients here? What’s your biggest issue? Oh, your, your business is coming for a year and then they don’t renew. What if I could help you double that renewal rate? What would that do for your, your depart? What would that do for your job? Your role here as an employee, like you would do this like great. I wanna put together an education series and I want your help to go around and get all the businesses to come meet with me. I got like 13 clients outta this one, WeWork by just doing a couple simple little tactics of focusing on that partnership.
CC (26:43):
Another example is, you know, we figured out the financial advisors they make more money when they have assets under management, the more assets they have. So let’s go have a financial advisor, introduce us to every business owner that they know, because we know we know how to make the business owner grow. As they grow more assets under management, financial advisor wins, we win accountants accountants when they grow their, their, their book of, you know, the business that they’re leading as a tax accountant as they grow that, that, that business grows, right. They have to bill more, it gets more complicated lawyers. They get to bill more, the larger the business becomes. So we just started going around telling our story and going, this is the type of growth rate we’re getting it kind of a no brainer. You should probably just introduce all your clients to us.
CC (27:24):
Let’s figure out the right way to do that for you organically, that doesn’t come off as a sale and instead just pure added value. And we’ll be your partner in crime. And by doing that, you know, they’re gonna stay with you as a lawyer and accountant and they’re gonna keep growing. And so there’s just a pure belief in that. And we teach our advisors do that on the individual level. And then, you know, my partnership team’s going out and working with what you call these more enterprise levels now where we get these massive partnerships and yeah, for sure. It’s, it’s helping us scale. So yeah.
AJV (27:50):
You know, it’s interesting because a huge part of our business comes from our affiliate partnerships, but all of our affiliates are individuals, right? Yeah.
CC (27:58):
But that’s where you gotta start, but that’s where you started. Right. And it makes sense that you going, I gotta go to enterprise now. I think I’m getting up. And AJ, you guys have had a huge successful ride. Right. So I get it. But other people just starting, I just didn’t want them to hear like, yeah, I’m gonna go have a conversation with Amazon. I’m like, Amazon’s tough. I’ve had that conversation. Well, you knowing, cause
AJV (28:17):
Like I left that conversation and I literally went to Roy and was like, we have to have an enterprise affiliate program like that, like move my head and immediately went and
CC (28:25):
To how corporate you made it sound overnight. Yes. So
AJV (28:29):
But it’s like one of those things where it’s like for anybody it’s yeah. It doesn’t matter if it’s your local chamber chamber of commerce or your business journal or it’s, you know, a national association it’s like, where can you create strategic partnerships? And one of the things I love is I think a lot to people naturally today when they hear marketing, they automatically think of digital marketing and there’s a whole world of offline marketing that surprise still really works.
CC (28:58):
It does. I, I, I, I’m so glad you brought that up. I mean, you know, look, we, we do digital marketing, you know, we’ve got marketing companies out there supporting us and helping us drive and, and all of their different niche, you know, and they all tell me they’re gonna be my best lead source. They’re not like client referrals is still my best lead source. But you know what? You have to look at it when you’re in a professional service base. I put all of us in a professional service. Okay. So that’s how I just view the category of what we’re at. And if you look at it, you rarely hear about a profess service scaling because of digital marketing. Now that’s different than brand reputation. You need Google Yelp reviews. You need people to understand reputation, you need success, or you need an awesomely built website that does SEO rank that does allow Google to find you.
CC (29:40):
I mean, those are just the that’s any business. Now, if you wanna be relevant and you wanna have a chance of growth these days, you’re gonna have to have a nice, you know, online footprint, right. But then there’s this outbound, you know, digital marketing approach, HubSpot will say, it’s the inbound, you know, put out content, get people to follow you. I, I personally find that unless you’re gonna go at scale that it’s really hard. And, but you need to put out content because you actually just wanna help and tell your story and help, you know, towards your mission of whatever niche you’re in. So use that as I view digital marketing, more so as competency as how you like help support conversion as people meet you, it tells your story on the footprint when they’re like, oh wow, look at all these things they publish or look at all these content piece is they’re obviously an expert at what I’m trying to solve.
CC (30:24):
Instead, get out pound the pavement, get into conversations and get people to refer you in. And you know, if you, if you pass that five to 10 million line, all right, go hire a big digital marketing firm and PR firm. Like I have to go do what I need to do to get additional scale, but I pay five to six times the acquisition costs per client on the digital marketing space than I do to get a referral. So, and that includes my, my employee’s salaries to manage partnerships by the way. So it’s not free, right? It isn’t free. There are other costs associated. It’s just that it, it just comes out so much cheaper than the digital marketing scale, especially now, right? All their algorithms changing. It’s just more and more expensive to play in that space. And it’s and this industry so busy, it is so busy.
AJV (31:09):
Yeah. Well, I think one of the things and why I wanted to pop this up is again, it’s like, I just think about all the questions that our community and our clients ask us and a constant one is how do I get more clients? And I’m like, well, step one, it’s not gonna happen from your Instagram count. Most likely
CC (31:26):
No, but
AJV (31:27):
Probably where it will happen is in your local community. So let’s not forget about the importance of that offline brand, that offline reputation is offline efforts. And it’s not one or the other, it’s both. Right. But I love the, hear, you just reinforcing the power of doing great work and getting good referrals. Right. I think that’s huge. And then if you can build those start small, maybe not enterprise, but those small strategic partnerships, Right? It’s like, if you believe in what you do enough, then go say, I’ll do a free workshop. I’ll do a free training. Just invite people
CC (32:02):
For sure. We get we of all day. I mean, every, every single person, you know, every business owner we meet, you know, if we feel there’s somewhat qualified, we’ll sit down and give ’em two hours assessment. We’ll, we’ll blow their mind by the time they walk outta to our meeting, this
AJV (32:13):
Is the next thing I wanna talk about. You think this is normal, this is not normal. So I talk about, so cause I would say this is a part of your sales strategy.
CC (32:22):
Right? All right. Fair enough.
AJV (32:23):
This is part of your sales strategy. So walk everybody through it. Like how do you acquire a customer?
CC (32:29):
Sure. I, I can’t go into all the detail, but I can share this. You know, what we believe is that there has to be a partnership formed for a coaching relationship to happen, right? Or a speaking relationship or whatever it is. And so often what people wanna do is come, you know, have us pitch, what can we do for them? And we just refuse to do it. Our perspective is no, every business is different. Every, every way we approach this is gonna be slightly different. Yes. We’re gonna use the same type of resources, expertise, and all that to help move you. But it has to be tailored. That’s just, you know, a foundation of a, our values. And so when we meet a business owner, we are always quick to say, you know what? Let’s just cut the crap. Let me sit down for two hours.
CC (33:06):
Let me bring third party. Let me start ask, just show you what we’re capable of doing and how fast I can connect. Some things you probably have not connected in your own business. And that usually peaks everybody’s interest to go. Well, now I’m curious, right? We sit down and we’re, we just bat a really high average when we do those two hour sessions where people go, if I had you by my side, I’d know I’d be going way faster. And then we have to deliver, right. People start to measure how much they’re growing. We make sure they know how much they’ve grown since they’ve joined us and to reinforce it. And so way we go, I mean, and that’s just, we’re, we’re very quick. And, and if we got to the end of the first two hours and they weren’t blown away and oh, we’d probably give another two hours. Cause we’re confused. Why they’re not blown away. You know, if we really thought there was an opportunity you know, and so we, we, we prove it. We prove it, right. We let the Google reviews speak for themselves. We let the, we let what we could do for them, you know, and let them experience, prove it versus ever showing them a deck or explain to them how amazing we are. Cause we just don’t think any of that matters. I feel like there’s too much noise.
AJV (34:03):
So good. It’s like one of my favorite saying is why tell if you can show, right? It’s like, yeah.
CC (34:09):
Why show’s tell all day? Why,
AJV (34:10):
Why are we talking about this? Let me just show you. So I think for everyone listening, like here’s the main takeaway that I really want you to grasp onto. It’s like, if you know what you do works, if you know, what’s gonna change someone’s life. If you know, it’s gonna make a difference, then give as much of it away for free because people will sell themselves. Yeah. They, they will sell themselves. If you can provide something, that’s going to help them. Right. And it’s like, make it so good that people are like, how do I buy this? Like, can I give you my money? Like how do I have more of it?
CC (34:41):
But Phish in the right pond, that’s also really important. Right? Because be, you know, sometimes I see people like go on Instagram or Facebook cuz they like, I just laugh. Sorry. I was laughing earlier when you’re like, they think they’re gonna grow by doing this, my favorite comment. And some somebody says, I need to re update my website. I always just love on how many people have seen your website, you know? And they’re like 500 and the last six, I’m like not your issue. That’s not need to spend your time. Yeah. That’s not where your time should be spent if you wanna grow. If you’re solopreneur trying to scale that next chapter. But you know, I, I, you know what I always, what I always think about is these, these folks that, you know, they’ll put out the, the ether go offering free sessions. We would never do that.
CC (35:20):
Notice how I said, I said, if you qualify, yep. Right. We’re always willing to take a quick call, but we’re just gonna ask you a couple questions. We know when it makes sense to work with us, when it doesn’t we ask just a couple questions, just tells us a little bit before we would then commit our time and what we always tell people before we set that free assessment, you better treat this as paid. Otherwise we’re not interested. Yeah. You better come ready, you know, to learn. And so it’s all about how you set those expectations and where you fish, meaning what type of leads are you pulling in that will, you know, meet, be your qualified type of you know, ideal client
AJV (35:49):
And what’s your filter. Right. So I think you said you guys call it an assessment, right? Like take our,
CC (35:54):
We call an assessment. Yeah. We, we do a two hours assessment to break down the business. Yep.
AJV (35:58):
And then it’s like, so we, we do something similar, right? It’s like we offer a one hour free brand strategy call, but you have to apply. So like we actually have you go through an application and if you don’t fit, we give you a bunch of free resources and say, come back when you’re ready until then. Yeah,
CC (36:14):
Exactly. It’s not, it’s not the right fit free
AJV (36:16):
Stuff. But I love, I love this concept and I don’t, I don’t remember if this is what you call it, but when I talk about what you do, I call these the tribe before you buy it calls. What do you mean? Okay. Yeah. What do you call ’em?
CC (36:28):
We call ’em a free advising session. I mean, you can, you can call you, can you like to you’re you’re the storyteller though. AJ you’re you’re the, you’re the one that teaches people how to manage your brand. So ill run with the way you designed the words.
AJV (36:39):
Listen, I have literally constructed our entire team about your in enterprise affiliate program.
CC (36:45):
Yeah. I’ve never used those terms together and
AJV (36:47):
Your try it before you buy it program and
CC (36:51):
Love you just, you just turned it into a widget for yourself and put it into the business, which I, I was joking earlier R and D everybody listening. I mean, this is how you grow business. Right? How did I learn all this stuff? I’ve just robbed it from other people that’s right, right. Just R and D Robin duplicate. So duplicate.
AJV (37:05):
Oh, that is awesome. Okay. So one last question. And then one of the things that’s so cool for all of you guys listening is I’m gonna provide a link in the show notes where Casey and his team are gonna give you guys the chance to take this assessment. And if it’s a fit, then you’re gonna get one of these two hour business consultations with his team, which I think is so awesome. So thank you for that. I’ll have the link in the show notes. But my last question, before we are going, all right, actually I wrote this down, right? So if there was one thing that any, I’m gonna say, coach, that any coach needs to do in order to grow their business right now, current day, like present tense, what would you say is like the number one thing to do? If it’s only one thing, what’s the one thing they should do,
CC (37:54):
Help your clients tell your success story.
AJV (38:00):
Love that. That’s why I love you.
CC (38:02):
Figure how to do that. You’ll scale. You’ll grow.
AJV (38:05):
Oh, this has been so good. Thank you so much. So insightful. So enlightening, so many great takeaways. I love the concept of really just focus on building an employee model building strategic partnerships, focusing on client referrals, getting away from this trendy thing of digital more, not that it’s not important, but there’s other ways to do it. It’s it’s not, you know which one it’s just how much of each one? Yeah, so good. Casey, thank you so much.
CC (38:34):
Oh, you’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.
AJV (38:35):
And then last but not Lisa, if people wanna connect with you directly. I know I’ll put this link in the show notes, but it’s connect with you directly right on LinkedIn.
CC (38:43):
Yeah. Best way to get, get in touch with me.
AJV (38:45):
Yep. On LinkedIn. I’ll put all the links in the show notes. Casey, thank you so much.
CC (38:49):
You bet, AJ. Thanks so much. Bye-Bye
Speaker 3 (38:52):
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 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/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (39:39):
All right. Y welcome to the recap episode on my conversation with Casey Clark one of the founders cultivate advisors, and this is all about how to build and scale and enterprise coaching business which they have done exceptionally well. And it’s just a exploding on so many different levels. So what are we gonna do on this recap episode? I’m gonna talk about two or three different things that I learned from Casey that I think as a as what I consider myself a coach, right? Of how to really build and scale your coaching business. All right, these are things that I think are fascinating and I think are really important. Number one, an employee model versus contractor. It is such a temptation of, of an as an entre entrepreneur to go. And there’s so much risk involved with bringing on employees, especially in that start, those startup years of going.
AJV (40:32):
There’s just too much risk, so I’ll contract the workout. But I think to his point, it’s like if you’re really building a business and a company where you wanna influence the experience more and you wanna have people bought into this business, like it’s their business employee model is the way to go. And that is not the norm for Mo most coaching practices. But when you look at the scale of cultivated advisors compared to maybe other firms around the country like that I think at the results speak for themselves and I love what he said. It’s like, I hope they don’t feel like employees. I hope they feel like partners because that’s really what they are for us. And so it’s building a culture where people aren’t working for you. They are people working with you, right? This whole concept of two is more better than one.
AJV (41:17):
And five is better than two. One of my faith quotes is an old African proverb that says you can go if you go alone, you they’ll go fast, but if you wanna go far, you need to go with others. And this concept of bringing people in but with this employee model, it’s like, there’s a win-win benefit of like, they’re committed. They’re in, you got all their time, all their interests, all their commitment and vice versa, right? So there’s this partnership mentality of like, no we’re doing this together to get everyone on the same page and to create a, a unified experience and to be build something together. And I just think that’s abnormal. But very much worth looking into if you really wanna build and scale a coaching business. So we we’ve done it both ways.
AJV (42:02):
So I have personally been a part of companies where we built and scaled our coaching business with contractors and now one with doing with employees and it is drastically different. And so you gotta figure out what works and what, what your risk tolerance is, but knowing that you can do it that way and perhaps that’s the way to go for you. So I thought that was really insightful and not something you hear so many people talking about in this industry. Second thing is not what he calls it, but what I call, what he does is a lever, the strategic partnerships and what I call enterprise affiliates. I just, I heard that wrong in my mind and made up a new term for him. But strategic partnerships is really what they are. Right. but creating organizational relationships where it is a one to many referral relationship.
AJV (42:51):
And I love what he said. He does. We do a lot of digital market and we do trade shows and we do a lot of things. Like they’re a healthy eight figure coaching business. He said, but I’ll tell you where the majority of our business comes from referrals. Right? And it’s like, what is your system for generating referrals? Right? Cause if you’re waiting on all inbound leads or you’re just banking on SEO or paid traffic, that’s, that’s a long and very potentially expensive game. Right. It also takes a lot of other people to make those things work. And those are a lot of assets where really to get a referral, it just takes you to do a really good job. So what is your referral system, right? Yes. Should you have SEO? Yep. Do you need social media? Yep. Do you need content marketing?
AJV (43:33):
Sure. You do. I’m not saying those things. Aren’t important. I’m saying, do you put as much time, energy intent, focus, resources on generating your referral system as you do all that other stuff? Because I tell you what, there’s a lot of trendy conversations around digital marketing. Are you listening to as many of those conversations around human relationships and human connections, just asking for a good old fashioned referral from the customers who actually work with you and the people who work with you and your suppliers and your vendors and your friends and your family and networking meetings and all the things. Right. so referrals, like, don’t forget the importance of those and doing that on a one to one, but also one to many. So it’s asking yourself, it’s like, what organizations can I go out and serve to create some strategic relationships with that?
AJV (44:20):
Perhaps what I do would be of benefit to the people that they serve. Right. And it’s finding complimentary partners. Right? I think these are great examples. And he gave a couple of them. He goes, Hey, it’s like, you know, we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna talk to a financial advisory company where we have one or two people and it’s like, I’ll go out and do a free workshop. And it’s like, this is how I can help you build that business. Or maybe it’s a local association where they need speakers and they need content, but it’s like, yeah, you can promote your services to our members. You, but it’s like, what, and who are those organizations and people in your local community or your virtual online community that you could create some strategic partnerships with and create a one, one a win win relationship on a one to many scale.
AJV (45:08):
So again, just that emphasis on, on where do you wanna put your time and energy? Because it can easily be diluted in a lot of different arenas. But I just fundamentally believe it’s like, if I need a coach, I’m not going to the Google. I’m not going there. I’m gonna reach out to my friends, my entrepreneur, friends, associations, I’m a part of masterminds and I’m gonna go, who have you used? And who do you recommend? And that’s word of mouth marketing. And we need as much time and intent on that. I E building our reputation, shameless plug, building your personal brand, as you do anything else. And so who are those people and what, what relationships are you nurturing to build those strategic partnerships? So great reminder, right in the gut number two. And then number three, is this concept of sample calls of going, if you believe in what you do, then why not give some of it away for free, like prove it, right.
AJV (46:08):
It’s what I I’ve been telling our team that they do at cultivate. It’s called try it before you, right. You don’t know if this is a fit for you. You don’t believe us. So that’s all right. We’re hap we’re happy to give you in their case, a two hour consultation to show you what we do so that, you know, if it’s a fit for you and if it’s not, the two hours are yours and if it is then we should work together. Right? And it’s like, I think so many of us us are afraid to give anything away for free. Well, why not? Like you can find any information that you need out on the internet for free people. Aren’t paying for information anymore. They’re paying for guidance and application. They’re paying for organ organization of the information and application of actually the how to not just the, what the, how to, and it’s like, I’m so much inclined to go, right?
AJV (46:55):
I’ll try this for two hours and prove that that it’s good. Give me the confidence. Show me. You can help me. I’ll happily give you my money versus going, man. I don’t know. I hope so. I think so. I guess I’ll try it, but I don’t wanna sign a, you know, like a long term. I don’t wanna sign my life away. Like what do I do here? So what are you doing to help increase the confide of your perspective? Buyers of making it a, a very easy answer so they know what they’re getting into. They’re getting value up front. And it’s making the sale a whole lot easier because the quality of your service sells itself. So those are three core takeaways. I thought this was such a powerful interview. It’s like, if you are in the coaching industry, if you are a coach consultant trainer, you must listen. To this episode, it is a sure way of helping you build and scale your coaching business. So until next time we’ll you later on influential personal brand.

Ep 254: NFL to Shark Tank to Ecomm with Chris Gronkowski

RV (00:07):
So excited to meet for the first time ever myself, Chris Gronkowski. If you recognize that name, he is one of five brothers the Gronk brothers, and he played in the NFL. You know, their, their whole team is a big team of professional athletes and big guys, and they are so fun and they do a bunch of stuff together as brothers. But I wanted to talk to Chris for a couple reasons. Well, first of all, one of the three teams that he started for in the NFL was the Denver Broncos, which is, I’m a huge Broncos fan and grew up in Denver, back in the Ricky Nael and Stevie winder, and like Steve Atwater, the eighties, like golden years for the Denver Broncos. And so that’s cool. We have that connection. But what I love about Chris is that he has parlayed his NFL career into a personal brand.
RV (00:59):
And I think a lot of people don’t understand what that life looks like. And so I thought, Hey, let’s talk about it. The other thing that he did part of that was he launched a, a product that is called ice shaker. And this is a product that he launched in 2016. Within the first five months, he was able to generate about $80,000 in sales. He then got on shark tank pitched a deal on shark tank and ended up signing a deal with mark Cuban and Alex Rodriguez. And so he’s been growing his social media following. He’s got several hundred thousand on TikTok six figure following on Instagram, he’s building this business. And so I just thought, Hey, this is a cool story. We gotta hear about it. So anyways, Chris, welcome to the show.
CG (01:44):
Yeah, man, I like the intro. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me today.
RV (01:48):
Yeah, I, I, I do, man. I think it’s, I think it’s super cool. And so let’s, let’s start with your exit from the NFL. You know, at brand builders, we work with a, you know, F a growing number of athletes. I feel like because I feel like a growing number of them are waking up to this idea that, you know, Hey, you have to work after professional sports. Most of ’em and you have this sort of limited window where people still kind of know who you are and, and parlaying it into something. And I, I think you’ve done an awesome job of that. So talk to us about what, what is it like transitioning from your whole life of sports? You make it to the NFL, you play for several seasons and then it comes to an end.
CG (02:34):
Yeah. And it does. And that can happen at any time in your career as well. No matter how good of a player you are, you’re one injury or way for never playing again. And what most people don’t realize is none of the contracts are guaranteed. So when I entered the league, I was undrafted I signed a three year deal. It didn’t matter. It was that it was a three year deal. If I got hurt that first play, that was the last game I would’ve got paid for. There was nothing guaranteed after that. So a lot of these guys, they make it, or they get drafted, you know, they might play for a year. And after that, it’s done, you know, it’s over, but they’re planning in their thinking that they’re gonna play forever. So a lot of that, money’s already gone. Once you leave, you leave with whatever you made.
CG (03:13):
If you’re on the roster on a Wednesday, you get paid that week. If you’re not, you don’t get paid, you’re done. You’re going home. You know, you’re trying to find a new job. So that, transition’s hard. You, you only know one thing, you know, for the most part, you don’t have a job besides what you did, you know, growing up as, you know, newspapers and umpire and, you know, worked for my dad, stuff like that. But having that actual experience with a real job doesn’t come until you’re done playing. So really the only thing, you know, up until point is how to be a football player. So once you leave it, it’s, you know, you don’t have the skills yet. You’re older. Most people aren’t looking to hire older. And you know, it, it’s, it’s just this whole mentality that, you know, I was making all this money.
CG (03:52):
I was a football player. This is my identity. You know, it’s hard for me now to go start over at 50 grand a year or 40 or 30, or even if, if it’s 90, you know, which is great for someone coming outta college. But when you’re making that per game per week, it’s definitely a, an ego check and it’s hard to start over. So a lot of guys struggle with it. It becomes an issue for a lot of players and there’s a lot of programs in place now to help guys transition because it is a, it’s a tough process.
RV (04:19):
Yeah. well, that’s awesome. And I just, I think people aren’t in tune to that, cause we don’t hear that much about it and go, Hey, this is someone making tens of thousands of dollars a week to go in. Hey, you’re just like everyone else in the workforce trying to, trying to, trying to figure it out. So, so you leave the NFL. How long is it been for you come up with the physical product idea and then talk us through like, what’s that, what’s that timeline like?
CG (04:49):
Yeah. So I had a, I guess I would say unusual transition. After my third year, my wife was living with me. She had to get three jobs in three years, so she had to go, you know, interview every city I went to, I went to four different teams in four years. So by the third year was Denver. And when she got to Denver, she said, I’m not, I’m not going for another job interview. I’m gonna find a way to work from home. So she actually started an online business on Etsy. At that time it was hand painting wine glasses after Denver was my, the end of my career. So her end of my first contract, a three year contract. So I was looking for another team and I had some downtime. So started looking to her business, realized there was a great opportunity there.
CG (05:29):
And I started buying different commercial grade. Laser engravers started sourcing different products. And you know, pretty soon we had this all out business out of our house ended up then start signing with the chargers going there for about five months. I got hurt in can up and I got released. So I went full time into this business. And within the first year we were actually making more money in her business than I was playing in the NFL. So for me, super unusual transition that, you know, had no clue that’s what I was gonna do had no idea about the industry, but kind of just fell upon it because my wife, so I ended up doing that for five years after five years really came to the point where when people would ask me what I was doing for a living, it was kind of like, you know, I wouldn’t even tell ’em I never posted about it.
CG (06:12):
It wasn’t me. You know, I was this macho football player. I was always in sports and fitness and now I was custom and graving wedding gifts. So when people asked me, it was like, yeah, I’m kind of just doing my own thing. Wasn’t super, you know I guess wasn’t super into it, but it was making me a lot of money. So I kept doing it. But after five years thought of the idea for the product ice shaker and realize that it was a great opportunity for me to get back into the sport sports and fitness that I love doing. So when I thought of the idea just started as a side hustle was selling it outta my house after work and you know, had the opportunity to get on shark tank. And that’s when it really exploded and became a full-time business for me.
RV (06:50):
So before shark tank, you know, like if you have an idea to make a physical product and you, in your case, you go, Hey, I wanna make this ice shaker for like sports drinks or just whatever, drinking around the office. What do you do? Like how do you, what’s the first thing in terms of creating the product? Like where do you go? Cause I guess you go, I gotta get plastic from somewhere. Or somehow I gotta like have the little ball thing that’s in there, like a lot of ’em do. And, and do you just like start Googling like manufacturer plastic cup and like, is that pretty much how it starts?
CG (07:25):
So I, I didn’t know what to do at that time. You know, this was, you know, this was six years ago as well, so it’s easier now or there’s, there’s more resources now to do it, but back then I was lucky because we were already sourcing products with my wife’s business, we already had connections. We already had manufacturers. We asked them for help and they helped us find another manufacturer. So that’s how we did it. Now what I would recommend doing is going and getting a sourcing agent, you know, just find someone that does it for a living, you know, ask them for the help. It’s gonna be expensive though. You know, that’s a huge barrier to entry and you also have to know what you want. You know, you have to go get some, want to make you a CAD drawing, a 3d drawing so that, you know, you could present it to a, a manufacturer and say, Hey, this is what I’m looking for.
CG (08:07):
On top of that, you gotta research and you gotta know what you’re getting into. Like you said, the little ball that little ball is patented. So we couldn’t put a little ball inside of our cup. So then you try to figure out other ways to do it. And it was one of the hardest problems for us to solve and became one of our biggest assets, because we now have a patented twist and agitator that breaks up the protein powders, but it also ended up being a way to strain out ice. And it has all these other different benefits. And we’re now launching a, a twist and fruit infuser now as well for it. So it ended up being this huge problem for us, you know, how do we mix up protein without a ball? And then we realized this ball is really annoying, especially inside of a metal cup and it’s patented, so we can’t do it anyways. So let’s find another way to do it. And, and we did. So yeah, that initial process is the hardest part. You know, you could think of a great idea, but actually putting it into play is where everyone gets stuck.
RV (08:56):
So how much money are you invested in before you sell one?
RV (09:04):
Yeah, a Lot, right?
CG (09:05):
Yeah, for sure. So you know, at this time I wanted to be a comfortable level for me, so I wasn’t, you know, all in, I wasn’t getting loans. I had a, you know, decent chunk from the NFL, but my wife’s business was doing really well too. So you know, for me at that time, we invested about 50,000 into it. Okay. That was for, you know, the mold fees to get the first run of product going and then, you know, a website and that was pretty much it. And then I was also set up on Amazon, which, you know, was like 30 bucks a month. So that was the start. So it really to start, it was about $50,000.
RV (09:36):
Okay. So you, you get someone to draw it up on CA you have the idea, you draw it up in a CAD and then you make, you get a mold made so that you have something you can hold up and say, Hey, this is what it is. And then you have a website to start selling it.
CG (09:51):
Yep. And now they do 3d printing as well. So that process of actually getting up a prototype in your hands is a lot easier and a lot cheaper than it used to be. Cuz they could actually 3d print it where before that wasn’t happening. So 3d printing has come a long way and that’s also helped a lot to get a product made.
RV (10:08):
Yeah. I hear that. I hear your kids in the background. You got, you got three, three kids. I, I mean, so my wife and I, you know, we exited our first business. We built it for 12 years. We exited it in 2018 and then we, we basically started having kids right then. So this new business we’ve been building while having kids, that’s a, that’s a whole rodeo in and of itself like doing, doing that at the same time, you got three kids and one on the way,
CG (10:34):
Three kids, one on the way. And I tell people this all the time though, it was probably one of the best things that happened for business because I was so competitive. I was trying to do everything myself. When I started the business and it came to the point where, you know, I would work a hundred hour weeks easily. It didn’t bother me. I’d work every day. Cuz that’s, that’s kind of how I was born and raised. That’s kind of how football was, you know, work hard, put your time in, but with business at the end of the day, if you want to, you wanna scale, you have to build a team and you have to, you have to put processes in place. You have to delegate responsibilities because no matter how good I was at it, I didn’t have enough time in the day to do every single task.
CG (11:08):
So once I had kids, man, things slowed down and you have to figure out how to build a team at that point. So that’s really when it, that. And then COVID, you know, COVID really pulled me away from everything because I couldn’t physically be there. We had different shifts going on. And at that point it was, Hey, we need a solid team. We need solid processes. So if I can’t be here, this thing still runs. And so that’s, that was huge, man. Kids, it’s hard as it is as much you know, time and effort. It is you know, to raise kids. It’s it’s also, so one of the best things that ever happened to me because I’ve actually finally figured out how to run a business, the correct way without having to be there 24 7.
RV (11:47):
Yeah. So, and, and so, so now you’re 50,000 in, you have this mold, you got a website. How do you sell the first batch of people? Cause you all sold like $80,000 of this thing. Yeah. Like pretty, pretty quick. Is it just on social media talking about it or what?
CG (12:06):
So everyone thought it was social media or the fact that I had a following or my brother did and that really didn’t help at all. I thought it would, I figured, Hey, if I could get 1% of my following to buy, I’d be raking. That didn’t happen. My first post, I think I sold zero. I didn’t know how to build an audience at that time. I didn’t have a personal brand. I had a following just because I was an NFL player, but I never engaged, you know, I never hit people back. There was no reason for anyone to trust me or buy from me because I never did than anything to, to build their trust. So I realized that really quickly that a following doesn’t matter, unless, you know, you actually respond to them and give ’em value back as well. So I learned that later on and have continued to build on that. But at that time it was all about first making friends and family buy it. Every friend and every family member had to buy it, had to leave a review. And then for me, the biggest thing that I did early on, I got
RV (12:57):
Amazon, you were talking about. Yeah.
CG (12:59):
Yeah. So I, yeah, exactly on Amazon get, get as many reviews as possible. And then I, I borrowed their audience. You know, you borrow someone else’s platform audience, at least at the beginning. So with my wife’s business, it was Etsy before we built her website and built her email list for me, it was Amazon. You’ll go to Amazon, go to the biggest platform in the world. If it doesn’t sell there, you should probably stop trying because if you can’t sell on Amazon, you’re not gonna sell anywhere. So got on Amazon really had never been on Amazon before, but I just sat there and research and said, Hey, why am I not the first one on Amazon when I type in shaker bottle? And how do I get there? So I sat there, I studied every single other top ranking listing on there. And I looked at it and said, Hey, they got eight pictures.
CG (13:41):
These eight pictures highlight these eight things. These are the keywords you’re using. This is how many times the keywords show up. I’m gonna do exactly what they do. And let me see how high I can get. So within the first couple months, I added up getting to the three spot for shaker bottle, which was the highest row living keyword that I could rank for. And at that time I started selling about 25 to 30 a day, which was, was pretty good for, you know, just paying for zero ads and being a new product as well. That had only been established for a couple months. So that was my first way to sell. The second way was just going to trade shows. I started doing a lot of just different body building shows and I would show up and just, if you walk by my booth, you were gonna hear every single thing possible about this product.
CG (14:22):
And I was gonna try to get as many people to stop and, and talk to ’em about it. And at that time, you know, there wasn’t a ton insulated cups yet. So I put one bottle a plastic shaker with ice in it and I put my bottle with ice in it and I’d hand it to people. And the second they had both in their hands it was game over cuz they, they would, every time they opened it, they would say, no, there’s no way there’s ice in here. And they would open it, there’d be ice in it. And it was boom. It was a, it was an automatic seller because they just couldn’t believe how well the bottle was insulated.
RV (14:49):
That’s like classic infomercial stuff, which makes it a great, is a great, is a great fit for shark tank. Okay. So how do you get, how do you get the call to go on shark tank? Like did you apply, was there a casting call? Did you have a friend? Like how’d that how’d this happen?
CG (15:07):
Yeah. So that process can be pretty tedious. I, I was lucky because 2012 I was with the Broncos. I got an email from my agent. He sent it out to every single guy on the roster and it just said, Hey, ABC shark tank is looking for any current or former NFL players. If you want to come pitch on the show. So they were looking for a way to build their audience, you know, bring some some new new fans into the show. And so they reached out to my agent and that time I didn’t even know how to use email. And I had nothing to present, but I loved the show. I watched it pretty much every time a new one came out. So I started and I said to my wife, I’m like one day, we’re gonna come back to this email.
CG (15:43):
I’m gonna hit her back with something. Cool. So fast forward, like five years later, I think it was four or five years later. I finally emailed it back and she didn’t work there anymore, but she quickly passed me on to the girl that did. And I said, Hey, I got this great idea. Would love to present it to you. At that point, like you don’t have to go to all the trade shows where like you pitch for the first time they just said, Hey, send a video submission over. And if we like it, you know, we’ll get back to you. So I knew at that point, you know, I had a decent chance as long as I had something to present of value. And I did have value at that time I had about, I had about $35,000 in sales. I had a product, you know, we were selling now.
CG (16:24):
I, I knew my brother was crushing it at that time as well. So that would help as well. So with all that, and then this one shot, I just made it super entertaining. I’m like, Hey, let’s make this video ridiculous because I know it’s an entertaining show. They’re looking for entertainment. So I’m, I’m sitting there, you know, ripping my shirt off in the gym, you know, showing my touchdown, passes, all that and submitted it to them. And a couple days later they hit me back and said, you know, we’d love to move on to the next steps with you.
RV (16:49):
Wow. That’s crazy. So then, so then you go on this show. So, so what happens? So basically they’re like, okay, so you go through a couple rounds of screening or whatever. So you send a video, they say, we like the video. We like the idea. You talk to some people on the phone, I guess. And then what you, you, you, at some point you go, come on the show and you’re gonna like enter into the shark tank and we’re gonna film this.
CG (17:11):
Yeah. So it it’s actually about like, like six months of diligence that they do. And they check on everything. They it was, it was crazy. I had, I had one thing from the state of Indiana and paid my taxes or e-filed it, for some reason they never got the e-file. So they, they put something on my record. So I had to get all that cleared. I had to call like, everything has to be perfect for you to get on the show. So they’re gonna check everything and then, you know, they wanna make sure you’re prepared too. So, you know, they don’t want you showing up and just putting on trash. Like they want it to be a good show. So they make sure that, you know, you’re ready, you know, your product and you know, you’ve watched different episodes. You kind of know the, so they get you prepared for sure.
CG (17:50):
So you get there. What’s crazy is for most people you don’t even know if you’re actually gonna record when you get there. So there’s a chance that you still don’t record, even if you make it to the hotel, because if they get enough good submissions, they’ll just cut the last couple people out. So the first thing I saw when I got, there was a guy pacing back and forth at the hotel. And second I walk up, he’s like, Hey man, you here to pitch, you know what, you know, what’s your company name, all this stuff. I’m like, who, who is this guy? And they’re like, oh, he was here last year, but they didn’t, they didn’t film him. So he is freaking out about it, like going, going crazy about it. So I’m like, man. So I, I made this to the hotel, but I didn’t, you know, didn’t really know 100% sure if I’d even recall. And then when you do record, you know, there’s another chance that they don’t even air it. So a lot of times they do, they record it. And you know, if they don’t like the episode or they don’t think it’s entertaining enough or you don’t get a deal or whatever it is, they’ll cut it. And you’ll never air. So
RV (18:45):
Definitely. How long is the filming? Like how long is the, how long are you actually in there pitching your deal?
CG (18:49):
So I was in there for probably close to an hour and then they’re gonna cut it down to eight minutes. But at the end of the day, like they’re, it’s, it’s real, like it’s, it’s no joke on the questions they’re asking you. They’re not in there. Kind of just throwing you softball questions, they’re drilling you on everything. And they just don’t show that stuff. So, you know, they knew what I did growing up. They knew my first job, they knew what I did in high school. They knew what I did right after college. And you know, they, they hit me on all that stuff. They want to know what my parents did everything. So really at the end of the day, they knew everything about me, but then they just show the entertaining stuff. You know, the actual, the actual offers us playing flip cup that, you know, the initial pitch, the chess bumps, you know, stuff like that. But really at the end of the day, you know, they’re, they’re drilling down on you, you know, it’s the real deal it’s of money. And when you think about it, all the diligence and everything they have to do afterwards, especially mark, he’s been doing it for 10 years. He’s not just gonna pick up some scrub company cuz it it’s more work than anything for him. So, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s really vetting companies out and making sure he is getting something that’s worth his time.
RV (19:48):
And so after that happens, like, so then, so then you record and while you’re so you record and nothing happens cuz no one has seen it. And then at some point it comes out several weeks or months later. And then is there an instant like boom,
CG (20:08):
Boom, boom, Shaka Locka, really? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s huge. I mean, when you’re a new company, especially, you know, that that influx of sales is, is massive. You know, you get the money from the shark. You know, that takes, that takes a couple months of diligence, but they, you know, they then wire that money over. But then that boom, I is huge and all that money is also, you know, you’re not spending mark dollars on it. So it’s top margin. So there’s, there’s a lot of profit there and it, it spikes massive and it doesn’t just spike massive for the day of, you know, now because everyone records everything and then you get articles written about you as well. You really get like this month long tale of, of really good sales. So the first couple weeks is great. The first week is huge. Then the next I’d say the next three weeks is good, but for us it was October. So we went right into November, which was holiday season, black Friday, all that into December. And then January for us is new year’s resolution. So we had this massive wave that then it in February and when February hit, it was like, yo, what the hell do we do now? Like I, you know, I gotta figure out how to run a business now because all that extra traffic and, and sales that came was gone.
RV (21:18):
Hmm that’s wild. So it’s really like the minute the show airs, you start, it just starts popping. Yeah.
CG (21:24):
So we sold out on Amazon in in 30 minutes on Amazon. So the strategy at that time was to try to build our audience. You know, I, I initially used Amazon to, to start the business. But at the end of the day, you don’t know who you’re selling to. You’re not getting any information. You’re not building your own customer base. You’re not getting emails, you’re not getting SMS. So, you know, it’s cool to start and prove yourself there. But if you don’t get off someone else’s platform, they own, you, you know, for the rest of your, your life really is what it comes down to. And if they don’t like your product or they wanna knock your product off, or if someone wants to knock you off, Amazon’s not gonna protect you. You know, they, they don’t care about IP cases. You have to take that outside of Amazon.
CG (22:02):
So if you want to own your audience, you have to build your own list. So our game plan was, you know, get our old stuff on Amazon. So we put all of our old stock. I came out with a new product right before we aired, sold out everything on Amazon within 30 minutes. And it was a decent stock. I wish I put some of our new stuff on there because we probably would’ve quadrupled ourselves. But the strategy really was to build our own customer base and build our website up. So that’s what we stuck to.
RV (22:27):
And then how much do you see, like how often do you see mark Cuban or Alex Rodriguez or even talk to him?
CG (22:35):
Yeah. So Mark’s done a great job of building mark Cuban companies up. So he brought in a, a bunch of employees that their job is to help out the Charan companies. So I think he has 10 around 10 people in mark Cuban companies. Their job is to help out around 80. I think he has about 80 shark tank companies and other investments as well. So I have an advisor signed to me his name’s John and I talk to him almost every week,
RV (22:59):
Really
CG (23:01):
That, so I can reach out really for anything what’s cool about it is they’re there to help and they’re not there to take over the company. So, you know, Mark’s in it for the right reason. He’s not trying to, you know, make a ton of money off me or force me into anything. He’s there to help if I need help, he’s not gonna come in and take over the business. He’s not gonna force me to do anything if I want help. If I want suggestions, he’ll give them to me. If not, you know, and we’re doing well, he’s just gonna let me keep on running it, how I’m running it.
RV (23:28):
Wow. That is such a cool thing. And so how’s it been since? So when was that? When did, when does the show you, when did you, when did you go live on Amazon the first time? When did you do the show?
CG (23:41):
So the first product on Amazon was ready at the beginning of 2017. So January, 2017 was probably when we got our first product on Amazon aired on shark tank in October, 2017 went from that 80,000 range to, we did over 3 million in sales in the next 12 months.
RV (23:58):
Oh my gosh,
CG (23:59):
The company
RV (24:00):
That’s nuts. That is crazy.
CG (24:02):
Took off. And then we did get the update too. So we got the second recording of shark tank as well. In 2018, we aired again in in November. So that was a nice little boost. And now we get the reruns for both episodes. So they’re always rerunning on CNBC now. And every time we do at this point, we’ll get, we’ll get a couple thousand people that come to the website and then we usually get a decent chunk of people that go to Amazon as well.
RV (24:29):
Wow. just from a rerun
CG (24:31):
Reruns, man, I love reruns. They, they like it, I guess, I guess we’re rated one of the top 10 episodes in the shark tank history. So we seem to get a lot more reruns and they seem to be in prime time as well. So it’s it’s a nice little thing we got going on.
RV (24:47):
What are you doing outside of that?
CG (24:50):
So sales outside of that, how we’re getting getting people
RV (24:53):
Into the yeah. Now, right. So that’s kinda like you did Amazon got a shark tank, got that, kind of have this little annuity of customers coming in from that, but then you start and then, and then what did you start really layering on your personal brand? Or are you at like, where do you go from there?
CG (25:09):
We, we push hard into Facebook marketing. So we’re spending over a million a year on Facebook ads. At one point that’s significantly fallen off because of the iOS updates and we’re not seeing results there anymore. After that really built a sales team up as well. And then we, we, we built out a retail strategy too. So we’re national with vitamin shop GNC lifetime fitness. We’ll actually go into Walmart in February this year into 1900 locations. We’re in grocery. So we have a pretty decent retail presence. Now at this point we actually held off until really the goal was, was 2020, but then COVID hit and everything got crazy and really pushed off until, until now for retail strategy. But we’re in, we in a lot of gyms as well. We, we do a lot of work with CrossFit too, and we also do a lot in the promo space. So anyone that’s looking for customer gifts or employee gifts or event gifts, anything like that, we actually have the ability to turn custom bottles with in three to five business days because that’s my wife’s business. So I took all that. I integrated it into ice shaker as well. You could buy a one off bottle on our website. We’ll probably make it the same day and ship it out for you. Or you could buy thousands of bottles and we’ll ship those out within three to five business days.
RV (26:25):
Yeah, that’s really, really cool. And so your purse brand, then you still talk about, you know, like I saw one of your reels recently was talking about like the way that retirement and pension plans work for formal NFL athletes. So you’re, so you’re still kind of like, just out, trying to just be out there talking about, you know, whatever, obviously talking about the product and just but talk’s really blown up for you.
CG (26:49):
Yeah. So I, I mean, I went to you’ll kind of try to figure out social, I didn’t know what to do at first. So I just kind of just started posting and really what it came down to was I had to find a way to bring value to people. So to do that, you know, I started talking about NFL. I started answering questions that other people were asking. And when I did that, I kind of led down this, this, this track of just answering NFL questions from there, I then became, you know, someone that people trusted, they would ask questions to, I would answer ’em I’d engage. And from there I’d then weave in different ways to also answer questions about product. So people would ask, Hey, your NFL career is out over now. What do you do now? So that was a great opportunity to answer this question, bring shark tank into it.
CG (27:30):
And it came to the point where I actually, someone then asked, you know, what is it like to have the sharks on your team? I did a TikTok about that. It drove more traffic to my website than shark tank airing did. So I drove more, more views to my website from one TikTok post than the live airing of shark tank did for the first time. And I got on all my calls that week and the different companies that we work with said, man, what, what happened? And in this 3d day period, and I said, oh, I put out a TikTok about, about shark tank. And they were like, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. So that video got about 6 million views. It drove a close to 50,000 clicks to our website over three days from one TikTok post. So it just shows you the, the actual power of it.
RV (28:17):
6 million views and 50,000 visit visitors.
CG (28:21):
You had about 50,000 visits to our website. I mean, it, it was hard to distinguish where they, because it won’t tell me directly from TikTok, but, you know, we had this massive influx over those three days. So my TikTok then over just a 30 day period, when I first started I would reach about 50 million people. So video views was at about 50 million. I now average on a weekly basis, I average about 5 million views on TikTok a week.
RV (28:46):
That’s amazing. And they’re just, they’re just all these little short clips, basically the same as an Instagram reel,
CG (28:51):
Same thing. I then also put it on Instagram reels now as well. And that, that, I mean, that’s what everyone’s pushing. So Instagram’s pushing it, TikTok, pushing it, you know, you can then do YouTube shorts. You can then do Pinterest. So I, I try to hit every platform that, you know, I will post that same video throughout all of them because, you know, there’s an audience there that wants to see it and they want you to post it on their platform. So those four have, have taken the same style videos for ’em done pretty well, but Instagram reels and TikTok by far are driving the most engagement most sales, most, most everything. And also for me, me personally, I make a lot of money off of brand deals as well because I’m, I’m an influencer now. And it’s hard to find guys that are influencers is what it comes down to. You know, it’s, there’s a lot of females I would say it’s probably 80% female. We actually got accepted into a, a Facebook affiliate program that Facebook was doing and it was 95% female. And I’m like, what’s going on with that? So I think I get a lot of brand deals because I I’m a, one of the few males that they would consider an influencer. That’s growing a profile.
RV (29:58):
When did you start going all in ONT to
CG (30:02):
So it was man, I got challenged. I have a podcast and I got challenged on the podcast by a kid who was a college dropout and a TikTok expert. And he was like, man, I got 600,000 followers. You got 10,000 and you got all these cool stories to tell why don’t you go on there and tell ’em. So I did. And, and that’s that first 30 days I through 350,000 followers by telling, you know, NFL style, unique stories, shark tank behind the scenes, stuff like that. But I started that, I would say midway through 2020.
RV (30:32):
Wow. that is cool, man. And, and you just post how often you posting.
CG (30:38):
So I was committed and the challenge was the post. Once it day, you know, post once a day. Really for me, I got it down to using about 10 minutes a day. That was it. You know, go through when I had extra time, I’d sit on the couch and I’d pull a bunch of questions, I’d save them and then I’d answer ’em and, and what’s cool about TikTok and now reels has copied it is when you answer a question from a previous, previous post, it links ’em. So you’re driving juice to both of them by answering a previous post question. So I
RV (31:08):
Saw that a comment, someone’s asking you a question in a comment. Do you have to use like a question feature on the first one?
CG (31:15):
So no they’ll comment. And then you reply back to the comment and it will link the two posts for you. So it kind of gives juice to both of ’em and then it just becomes like a rabbit hole for people to follow.
RV (31:24):
Oh, this is like a, a video response to a comment video
CG (31:28):
Response. Yep, exactly. And what I noticed as well is that you then give people you know, the ability to ask a question and, you know, you have a, they have a chance for you to actually answer it. And because of that, people are gonna continue to ask questions, ask questions, because you’re actually engaging and you’re actually answering the questions.
RV (31:47):
Interesting. So it’s just a normal, it starts as a normal comment. You just post a I GTV or a reel or whatever. Someone puts a comment and then you just push some button that’s or like a reply to their comment, real
CG (31:58):
Reply. Yep. Just, just a video reply. And Reel’s just started doing the same thing because it it’s a powerful tool. It it’s super powerful. And it, it helps the creator a lot. And then the last thing that I did, and I did it a lot when I first started and I stopped and I started again is just actually doing a CTA. So call to action, ask people to follow. You, ask people to ask a question and the difference is insane. But what it also does is your watch time. The biggest thing on, on all the platforms is watch time. You know, how long is someone actually sitting on your video and watching it? So if you can get that time to go up, they’re gonna keep pushing, pushing, pushing, it’s gonna go viral. So by asking them to ask a question while they’re asking and typing out the question, the video’s still playing, you know, and when you ask ’em to follow you, they actually do as well. And especially after you show up a couple times, people will be like, Hey, I’ve seen your videos three times. And I like, ’em you always ask for the follow, I just hooked you up. So I saw immediately by asking for a follow and asking for a question that my, my all audience would start growing. I would grow 1% a day, you know, sometimes 3% in one day, you know, thousands of followers every single day, just by asking people to actually follow or ask a question at
RV (33:09):
The end. So basically you do a video and then you do that at the end. Nope,
CG (33:12):
No, I do it before I answer the question. So they have to listen to it and then just also gives me more watch time. So I’ll say, Hey, you know you know, Hey, RO so thanks so much for the question today, before I answer this question, don’t forget to ask your questions down below. Don’t forget to follow me here. So that, that just adds to watch time, because I realize if I did it at the end, people would ex out it, it would actually hurt me because then it would cut my watch time. You know, the average watch time down because they would X out the say, second, I started asking for the, for the question or for the follow. So I would, then I then boosted it up to the first thing that I said, they have to sit through it to get the answer as they’re sitting through it, it’s adding watch time. And then they’re also asking questions and then I answer it and they have to wait till the end for the answer. So and
RV (33:56):
Then after you answer, after you answer the question, do you say, if you want a question answer, leave it, leave it down below in the comments or something like, how do you tee up the next one?
CG (34:06):
No. so I, I asked them it before that, but then it loops, so once I finish asking it, it will loop start
RV (34:13):
Over.
CG (34:14):
Yeah. So it’ll do back. So strategy, a good strategy on reels and TikTok as well is to make it seem like your video never ended. So once you’re done talking, it clips it, or the ending looks like the beginning. So people don’t realize they’re watching it twice and then you get more than a full watch out of it. And your watch time goes way up. So just another, a lot of strategy, but the whole strategy is shares. And watch time, you know, if you watch times, you know, more than what your video length is, they’re gonna keep pushing, pushing, pushing, and you’re gonna go bar,
RV (34:42):
Wow, Chris, this has been awesome, dude. I, I, I just, I love it. I, I think it’s so cool. And I think you know, there is an opportunity here for anybody who is an athlete or, you know, we have, we have we’ve got clients who were, you know, formally movie stars or TV stars. You know, there’s like this window of opportunity that if you play your cards right, it parlays, like you’ve parlayed it into just a really great following in a business that will last you the rest of your career and you keep building. And this has been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing with us. Like just kind of the transparency of your story, where do you want people to go to, to follow you and connect with all the stuff that you’re doing?
CG (35:26):
Yeah, for sure. So I’m, I’m, I’m pretty much every platform. So besides Facebook, I haven’t mastered Facebook yet, but I’ll work on that. Follow me, Chris, Kowski Instagram TikTok, definitely the, the most engaged on those two check out the website. I sugar.com and I guess last but not least, we got the, the channel, the YouTube channel with all the brothers at the Bronx. So we’d like to have fun on that channel, not that active during the season, but off season, we should be bringing some heat on the, on the channel as well.
RV (35:56):
I love that you guys are branding yourselves as the, as all five of you together. I think that’s got a lot of mileage and legs long term that’s, it’ll be cool to see how that shakes out
CG (36:06):
For sure. For sure. That’s, that’s the fun stuff.
RV (36:09):
Yeah. Well, man we appreciate you making some time and look forward to staying connected and just wish you the best.
CG (36:16):
I appreciate thanks so much for having me today.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
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, 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 brand builders, group.com/pod. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (37:07):
Gro gro Chris, Grotowski one of the five Gronk brothers. What a cool conversation. This is another conversation that, you know, we do this podcast we’re learning right alongside of you. And this was one that was super tactical, like way, way more tactical in terms of what has changed my behavior immediately since doing this interview with Chris and it was pre it’s pretty awesome. And it’s cool to see what he’s doing. I think it’s, it’s inspiring to see how he transition and you know, his career in the NFL into a great personal brand. And I’ll tell you this. One of the things that I got clear on just in talking to him was going, oh, I got clear clarification on some of our core target audience, like some of our avatar at brand builder group brand builders group, because we work with athletes and stuff.
RV (38:01):
And it was like, oh yeah, well, you know, college athletes and stuff like that. And, and, and the whole, like N I name image like this, maybe we should be trying to reach out to college athletes and, you know, and get in with some pro athletes and stuff. And then it hit me like, oh, our market is not athletes. Our a, our market is former athletes. We’re one of the ways where we can be useful. And, and if, you know, a former professional athlete, you should introduce them to us because we can help them, like leverage the following that they built from sports or whatever to create, and, and, and turn it into a long lasting career as you know, a personal brand, an educator, encourager, entertainer, whatever. And it’s cool to see Chris do that and hear his story about how he, you know, went from being in the NFL and then became an entrepreneur.
RV (38:50):
And now he’s like building his personal brand really, really cool. And it, it makes sense to me cuz we have a lot of athletes in our, on our community and people who play in the NFL, et cetera. And it’s like, oh, they’re all former athletes, which makes sense. Cuz when you’re in the NFL, you should probably focus on not getting killed and win in a super bowl. Right. And like doing your thing. But after that it’s D story. So that was a, that was a, you know, an insight for me just to share with you that even as we do this, every one of these episodes, we’re learning stuff, new constantly that we are applying to our business. So that’s not one of my top three formal takeaways. I’ll I’ll go into those now. So the first one my first formal takeaway was where it was so simple.
RV (39:38):
He said do video replies to the questions that people leave in your comments. That’s so cool. Right? Like what a simple, easy way to create community, engage with your followers, have video content, a a add, add valuable content like that, you know, that, that, that people are interested in is yeah. Anytime somebody asks you a question as a DM or as a comment, answer the question as a video and say, you know, Hey, this question comes from so and so, or you don’t have to name ’em and just go, got this question the other day. Here’s the answer. I mean, this is the formula that we teach our brand builders. Like all of our paying members, as simple as we go every week, you you’re going to take at least one question and answer one question with one answer and then give a call to action.
RV (40:31):
Like that’s it QAC question, answer, call to action. It is a simple formula for how to effectively do social media marketing, content marketing YouTube podcasting. I mean, what are we doing on this show every week we’re bringing on people who do a component of personal branding really well or that we think do it well or that we wanna learn from, and then we’re highlighting it and showcasing it for you is to help you get questions answered for how you grow your business. And, and we use that as a way to like build trust and hopefully to get an opportunity to meet you and have a free phone call with you at some point, and then see if we can understand what your, your vision is and see if the process that we teach that so many of these people use to build their personal brand is one that we can help apply for you.
RV (41:16):
But the Genesis of that relat is answer a question, be useful. And one of the exercises that we have our members do is we have, ’em make a list of 52 questions that their audience has. And then you answer those one at a time and that becomes basically your content calendar for a year. Well, you know, your, your audience has way more than 50 questions about what you do and you, you definitely know more than 50 little tips or nuggets about what you do if you’re truly operating in your uniqueness. And so paying attention to the questions, people are asking you and the comments and the DMS and, and, and then making that into is just so smart. Right? So, so if you’re gonna answer a question, answer it as a video because then you’ll never have to answer that question again. Right? You have that video there and it creates content and it’s just so, so simple.
RV (42:08):
The second thing that Chris does, and I went and looked on his TikTok profile and I was like, this is crazy. He actually does this. And he said, it makes a huge difference. And I started doing it. And guess what? It makes a huge difference like is to do a call to action where you deliberately like articulate the words like in your video to say, follow me, click through. And you know, I’ve been saying, click click through to my profile and make sure you give me a follow. He’s, he’s mostly focused on TikTok. So he just points at the follow button on his TikTok videos. It doesn’t allow him to repurpose on Instagram, which is, you know, kind of a bummer, but whatever Instagram or TikTok where he’s focused and he points and he, you know, follow me here, which is really short.
RV (42:56):
And you know, you see his finger and then you go click right there and you follow him. And it’s like, of course, that works. People do what you tell them to do. I mean, this is crazy, but this is the whole point of calls to action in general is like tell people what to do if you go back and listen to the Tom episode. So Tom Rath wrote strength finders, which is the all time bestselling nonfiction book, like the bestselling nonfiction book of all time on Amazon, it sold 10 million copies. And I asked Tom in that interview, I said, Tom, how do you sell 10 million copies? And he said, simple, give people something to do, tell them what to do. And here it is again like that, that same dynamic, that same principle coming up where he’s just saying, you know, make sure to follow me on my profile.
RV (43:41):
And, and it works like what a, what a difference. So we’ve started doing this. I’ve started doing this with my videos and it totally works. Like, it, it, it, it’s not like suddenly we’ve got millions of followers overnight, but just noticing how the follower count is growing proportionate to when we were not doing this, it is a noticeable difference. And it’s so simple. And so you gotta be thinking of these increasingly committal calls to action in general. Right. You know, if you liked, if you agree with what I had to said, make sure you like this, or share this with a friend or leave a comment down below or, or, you know, tell me your thoughts or click through and follow, or, you know, click the link in my bio and join my, you know, download my free lead magnet. These are calls to actions where you’re literally verbatim telling somebody what to do.
RV (44:33):
People need to be told what to do, why cuz their brain doesn’t have much space or time to figure it out themselves. So you make it easy for people when you tell them exactly what to do, help them take the next step by making the step painfully obviously excruciatingly clear and then tell them what to do. So they don’t have to think about it. They can just do it. And now they’re on your email list. Now they’re following you. Now they’re sharing your content. Now they’re commenting below. They’re subscribed to your YouTube channel. They’re they’re rating and reviewing your podcast, like tell them what to do so simple. And I’ve just never done that. Yeah. I’ve always felt kind of weird about it. Just like, Hey follow me. But you know, there’s I still feel a little bit weird, like I’m pandering. But it makes a difference and you go look, if those people are gonna follow me and now I have a chance to change their life, cuz now they’re gonna see my content again.
RV (45:27):
And again, that’s a worthwhile thing, right? So I can, I can feel stupid silly if it’s for the sake of going, I’m gonna get another opportunity or several opportunities to impact somebody’s life versus, you know, I get to feel cool. And then this is the one time they’re gonna see a video of mine and then I’m never gonna see ’em again. So I can live with that. I can live with that. I get it outta my comfort zone there a little bit. And that’s one thing that I’m, I’m working on the third takeaway from Chris, which you hear this, right? This isn’t totally new. I mean, it’s not new information, but is if you go live specifically on TikTok, it’s huge right now because TikTok pushes you out to everyone that is huge, right? Like that is very different. If you go live on Instagram, it’s more like it’s pushing you out to your followers, which you may not have a bunch, but TikTok is in the, still the season of growth, right?
RV (46:28):
So there’s so much traction to still be made there. And going live is the way to do it. Now. One of the things that I discovered unfortunately, is that you have to have a thousand followers to have the go live function on TikTok even available to you. And so I was like, shoot we’ve been ignoring TikTok for the most part. And so now we’re kind of like trying to pick up our game a little bit and, and get into it because I feel like we’re late to the game once again on social. And I think if we can get there while this is still happening, or if you have a thousand followers going live on TikTok, you should do it, right. Like you’re at, there’s this harvest season that, that we’re in right now where you’re getting a disproportionate amount of a, of a tension and impact and reach.
RV (47:19):
And you gotta kind of play those seasons cuz you don’t know when they’re gonna come up. And TikTok is in one right now. If that matters to you now we’ve got other friends that go, I don’t trust TikTok. I don’t like it. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t believe in it. You know, it’s owned by the Chinese. Some people have issues with that or whatever. Like you gotta make your decision, but like if you’re into reaching people, this is your chance. Like this window is, this is happening on, on TikTok and, and it’s huge. And I’m learning a ton from TikTok. Like there’s a bunch of people that I’m following that I’m, I’m learning stuff from. And so pretty incredible. So, you know, you’ve got going live. And then the other thing is using the discovery tool on TikTok. We talked about this with Tory Gordon a few weeks ago, she’s got a huge TikTok following.
RV (48:11):
But just going to look at the discovery page and it tells you which hashtags are trending. Like it just tells you right there. This is the content that people wanna see right now. And this is the content that we’re pushing out. And so paying attention to writing the wave, right? Like that’s like here comes the wave and it’s telling you, this is the wave right now. And if you wanna hop on you just like create content that fits inside that wave and you catch, catch the wave. So this is that window, right? This is that this is that window. And you see the opposite happening on Instagram. It’s like every, every few weeks the reach just goes down and down and down and Facebook like organic reach, just like dead. I mean almost virtually dead like zero. I’m shocked at how little, our content, you know, even videos that are awesome and it’s like they get 20 views.
RV (49:06):
We haven’t put a ton of time into Facebook either, but this is why is this? Like, it doesn’t work very well anymore. Organically. So, or at least we’re not, we’re not putting in the work. It takes to really make it work. There are plenty of people making it work. You know, if you go back and listen to the episode with Hillary billings and Marshall, Marshall CS about you know, they’re getting hundreds of millions of views, like there’s a way to do it. And we talk about it in that episode. But right now this is the, the season is TikTok. It’s the one that’s here, it’s right in front of us. And we are we’re, we are late to the game. And you know, still in some ways, not, I mean in a lot of ways, not in, on it, not all in on it, but we’re, you know, we’re taking steps direction and I would like to experiment with going live on TikTok.
RV (49:55):
So we’ll see how that happens. But there you have it practical tips from, you know, a guy who, I mean, Chris, Chris is, you know, Gronkowski is a really well known. I mean, obviously his, his brother is one of the, the, the greatest tight ends of all time. And Chris had a very solid NFL career, which, I mean, anyone who plays in the NFL is amazing in my opinion. But it’s, it’s not like Chris had millions and millions of followers. He doesn’t have millions of followers now, but you know, he had a, he had something that he achieved. He was the top of his industry. He was in the NFL, but then it was over and it was like, what are you gonna do with it? Right. And so you might be at the top of your industry, but you’re transitioning it and going, how am I gonna use this to impact lives and to build an audience and to become well known?
RV (50:41):
Not for the sake of me being well known, but for the sake of making a difference in the world. And I love at Chris has done that and he’s turned it into a great business and great relationships and great partnerships and he’s adding value and he’s, he’s, you know, cool. And you can do the same thing. People wanna know you and you have an opportunity to help them and just figure out how can I answer their questions, give ’em clear calls to action and, you know, pay attention to some of the natural ways to grow your reach and do it consistently. And you know, that’s how it happens. So it’s simple, it’s simple, it’s doable, it’s all doable, right? Building your personal brand, building your influence, building your reach, making an impact, making a difference, becoming more well known, all doable. So many of those things are learning right here every single week. So keep coming back we love having ya. We’re learning right alongside you. And and then also hopefully modeling and showing you the way in some ways we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 253: How To Build and Scale Your Speaking Business with Molly Fletcher

AJV (00:07):
Hey everybody welcome to a new episode on the influential personal brand. This is AJ Vaden here. I’m the CEO of brand builders group. One of the co-founders and one of the co hosts of this show along with my sidekick partner husband, Rory Vaden, who is not here today. But y’all, I am so excited today because not only do I get to share this awesome individual Molly Fletcher with you guys? But y’all like one of the, I was literally just talking to her before the show started. So if you wanna go read all of her amazing accolades and accomplishments, and there’s a lot, I would encourage you to go read the show notes, but I’ll tell you one of the coolest things about this is when you find people. And in my case, another woman who is equally excited about your success as they are their own success.
AJV (00:59):
It’s one of the biggest gifts in the world. And, and I had a chance to debrief with Molly before we hit record. And I think one of the things that I love so much and why I’m so excited to introduce her to all of you guys listening, is that she’s one of those people who gets genuinely just excited about seeing other people thrive and succeed as she does herself. And it’s one of those things where it’s like, it just makes you wanna be around her more. And I just love her. I think she’s so awesome. She’s a total badass and in so many different respects personally and professionally, and I’ll tell you one thing one thing on the professional side that I think you should know about Molly before we get in is I was at a a joint group meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, that Molly was at, and some had said you’re like the Jerry McGuire of the sports industry, cuz Molly has an extreme past as a very accomplished sports agent. And I started thinking this morning, I was like, she’s not like Jerry McGuire. Jerry McGuire is like Molly Fletcher, what are you talking about? There is no other Molly Fletcher there’s no comparison here. It’s like you’re Molly F and Fletcher, no, Jerry McGuire up in the mix around here. But so many amazing things that we’re gonna talk about today. And so I’m gonna kick off. I’m just gonna welcome you to the show, Molly, thank you so much for giving me some of your time this morning.
MF (02:21):
Hey, it’s an absolute honor. I love you and Rory and the whole BBG family. So I’m, I’m honored to be with you. I really am. Thanks.
AJV (02:27):
And this is gonna be such a great conversation. And one of the reasons why is, because I know that so many of you out there are wondering how do I go from my full-time profession, whatever it is that you’re doing right now, and how do I actually make a transition into a full time personal brand? And so Molly give people just a little bit of background on what your professional journey has looked like from the beginning to where you are now.
MF (02:57):
Sure. Wow. Well, you know, I think I wish I could say it was scripted out and it was perfectly planned, but the truth is it really wasn’t. I, you know, I was a sports agent, as you mentioned for over 15 years and I loved every minute of it and had incredible athletes, 300 athletes, a team of agents, et cetera, helping us serve, serve them. But, but what would happen, AJ? This is interesting is I would have all these young people reach out to me who wanted to be sports agents because people sort of think, oh my gosh, that’d be such a great job. And so I’d have all these young people meet with me and I would meet with these kids because I believe you need to love what you do every day. And so I would be meeting with these young kids and then simultaneously, like I might go to an event and I’d meet a, a 30 year old who said, oh, you know, I always wanted to be a sports agent, but you know, it was just kind of really hard to get into.
MF (03:47):
And it’s super competitive. And, and so now I’m doing this, but I don’t really love it. And now they’re in this kind of job that they don’t love and they’re sort of boxed in. And I thought, well, that’s a bummer cuz you work a lot and your life and you should love it. So I would meet with these young kids and my boss would walk by my office. He would say, oh, who’s that? Is that a short stop for Georgia tech? Is that a golfer for Georgia? And I was like, oh no, it’s this really nice young kid outta Georgia tech. Who’s trying to get into the sports agent business. And, and by about the third or fourth meeting like that, I mean, he’s a pretty driven guy. He looks at me, he goes, look, I am not paying you to a mentor. All these kids out of Georgia and Georgia tech.
MF (04:24):
And I said, okay, so and so simultaneously, right? I’m recruiting lots and lots of athletes, which to me is not too dissimilar to getting in front of tough people that you potentially maybe wanna work for one day. So I started to see all these things aligning at. I thought, you know, I can’t meet with all these people, but I wanna help ’em cuz it breaks my heart. When I meet these 30 year olds that hate their jobs. So I thought I’m gonna write a book about it cuz I gotta help ’em and I’m just gonna write a book, staple it together and give it away if I have to. So I would go when I was pregnant with our first to this coffee shop every day and I’d write and write and write. And so it took me about a year and a half to finally have this book ready to go. And, and I thought, well, let me see if I can publish it. Like, let me just see if I can find a publisher and I could have wallpapered my apartment with rejection letters from publishers. Cause we, we both know that’s a quirky space. Finally, I get somebody that kind of bites. I fly to Indy pitch this whole boardroom of people on this book and they bite and they published the book, which was my first book. So then come university started saying, Hey, will you come and talk,
AJV (05:29):
Pause right there though. You wrote the entire book while you were still like full-time working.
MF (05:35):
Yes, great point. Right.
AJV (05:37):
But I think that’s a really important distinction. It’s not why you jumped ship and said, I’m out. It’s not like this was what I was doing when I had extra time, extra hours, extra minutes.
MF (05:47):
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right, AJ. I would do it at night. I would do it on the weekends. And so that book got fully published and, and I had thankfully the support of my boss to do that book, which was wonderful, cuz I was very transparent with him that I wanted to help these kids. It wasn’t gonna impact my day job and whatever. So then I was speaking to all these schools for free, for fun. Just
AJV (06:10):
So were they finding you or you finding them?
MF (06:13):
They were finding me because of the book it was sort of out there. And so professors started reaching out saying, Hey, would you come and talk to 30 kids or 50 kids or, and I did. And so then
AJV (06:27):
For free
MF (06:28):
For free,
AJV (06:29):
I think that’s important. Like,
MF (06:31):
Yeah, these are great. I’m glad you’re calling these things out.
AJV (06:33):
These are not like most of us who are in this world of speaking and authoring and it’s like, Y it didn’t start with money. Right. It’s like we were paying, it’s like, please I’ll pay you. Can I please come? Exactly, exactly. Right. and I think that’s a really important reminder for everyone. Or anyone who is all on this personal brand journey or who wants to be, it’s like it has to come from an deep rooted passion of, I have a message that I, I cannot contain it. It must come out of me. However I can do
MF (07:05):
It. That’s really well said, AJ. And, and I think, and you say this, I mean, you’re so good at, you know, it, it was something that broke my heart, was watching these people work 82,000 hours of other life or something like that, that it adds up to and hate it. And I thought that’s not right. And, and I grew up with a father who’s amazing, but he hated his job. And I thought, I don’t wanna hate my job. I wanna love it. Yeah. I wanna, as the, you know, I think it’s a Luke Bryan’s song, right? Like do what you love and call it work. And
AJV (07:37):
I love that. So,
MF (07:39):
So that book, so to your point, I would go to these schools and I would speak for free. But one of the things that I think’s important for your listeners is it was also, Hey, as I started to do more and more of it, I thought I gotta record these things. Like I gotta record these so that I can grab recordings of this. Cuz I like it. And if I can do this in other markets, maybe one could get paid. I don’t know. So then it was interesting, AJ. I, I was also, then I sort of, that came out. I was doing that still full blown as an agent. And then I started working with, you know, Billy Donovan and Thomas and Ernie Johnson and John Smoltz and all these athletes and coaches.
AJV (08:18):
I didn’t know any of those except for John else because I’m a brave fan. There you go. Yeah. That
MF (08:24):
One that’s right. Well that’s OK. And you don’t need to. And you know, and so I started to go, wow, the way ISO’s wired, isn’t too dissimilar to Ernie Johnson. And the way smolt is wired, isn’t too different from, you know, Laven. And so I started to, to kind of see the way that peak performers behave their mindset. And I thought, I think I got another book here that I really want the world to know the, the level of curiosity and discipline and belief and, and, and energy man and all these things that went into the best. So I, I reached out to a friend of mine and said, look, I, I think I wanna write this book. And, and then she helped me a bit connecting me with her son who was sort of a ghost writer. He helped me write it with his literary agent who then took me on, pitched it to publishers. And that book was birthed, which is called the business of being the best. Now that book was a little more focused toward business people.
AJV (09:28):
Interesting. Again, wanna pause really quick? You said two things that I think are really unique and important. So I have a, a random question for you.
MF (09:36):
Sure.
AJV (09:37):
How many people do you think actually have a book within them, but they don’t value their own insights enough to publish it
MF (09:48):
A hundred percent of people in the world. I mean a ton like a ton.
AJV (09:54):
I agree.
MF (09:55):
Yeah.
AJV (09:55):
Like to your point, I think the difference and what I love about you is like you saw something and you’re like, I have to put this together and share it to the world. Right. I think all of us have those insights and those intuitions and those things. We just, whether we don’t think other people would care or we’re not sure how to put it together. And you did, and you were still doing it full time working of going, oh, I see these commonalities. And I think there’s something here that would really help other people. And I think, I think it’s really important. So what was it about you that made you go, this is good enough that I think it would help other people like innately inside of you kind of gave you that, no, this is it. Like this is gonna help other people.
MF (10:46):
Well, I, I think I saw so clearly this connection between peak performers and I felt like, and, and I lived in a world where complacency has no room. I mean, chipper Jones woke up every day and, and, and could see the stats of the guy in AAA that wanted his job. Smoltz could see all the guys in AAA that wanted his job. And I thought, wow, this is a different mindset. This mindset of wanting to get better every single day. And, and I just felt like it was something in my heart of hearts that could lay right on top of business, people’s mindset and belief system. And they could deploy it in a way that could help them too, have more drive up their game, all those things. And, and I think I grew up too with a belief that no is just feedback.
AJV (11:40):
Yeah,
MF (11:40):
No, isn’t no, it’s just,
AJV (11:43):
You gotta write that down.
MF (11:44):
It’s just a data.
AJV (11:45):
No, it’s just feedback. No, it’s just feedback. Ooh, that’s so good. I’m gonna highlight that. It’s gonna be tweetable moment of this show. No is just feedback. Right? Well, I think, and I think the reason I wanted to call that out is because so many of the people that we talk to and that we work with at our company brand builders group, it’s like, they, they know they’ve got something, but they don’t have enough conviction and their own ideas to push them out into the world. And it’s like, part of it is like, you’ve gotta have enough belief that no, it’s like, I know this can help and enough confidence of going, I don’t care if it helps one person it’s worth doing it. But then the second thing that you brought out is I found someone who had a son who was a ghost writer and he would say, it’s about people. It’s about relationships. It’s about connections. So talk to us for just one second.
MF (12:35):
Yeah. So you know, wonderful. You know, he helped me and his mother was really one of the first and, and what happened was we, we, we wrote that book and that book, you know, got, got out into the world. And, and then I think this is sort of part of the story and, and that relationship and how important it was. So when, when that book came out again, it was more focused on business people. I, I started getting asked to come and speak, you know, at, at businesses, right. At, at conventions at things. But I was still grinding it as an agent, like full time, 24 7 deal. So if it was really convenient and really, really easy, I could do it. So one day literally across the street from my office, there was this convention and they asked me to come and do one of the breakout sessions.
MF (13:21):
And I mean, AJ, it was pretty bootleg, right? Like it was literally, I can still see the room. I mean, it wasn’t very big. There was these black drapes, there was probably 20 people. It was one of those where they walked in, could see the list of different speakers and they, you know, enough people thought, well, this chick sounds interesting. I’m gonna go sit in there. So I sit, I give kind of a keynote around the book and the common threads I saw and you know, it was probably 30, 40 minutes. Well, at the end of that, this woman comes up to me, whose son was the ghost writer. So that’s where I’m going with this. And she came up to me and she’s really cool. And, and she said, you need to do this. And I said, what are you talking about? She goes like, you need to do this.
MF (14:01):
I said, do what she said, speak. And I said, well, girl, I’m running back to the office. I have a one 30 lunch, a three o’clock call. I’m going to game tomorrow. Like, what do you, I can’t do this. She said, no, no, no. I’m telling you, you gotta do this. I’m taking you to lunch. So we go to lunch and she said, okay, here’s what I want you to do. I want you, she goes, how much are you charging? And I said, nothing. She goes, you don’t charge anything for your, I go, no, she goes, you need to be charging. She said do you own your domain name on your website? Do you know your, I said, no. She said, go buy it, go buy Molly fletcher.com. And she said, do you have recordings of your keynotes? And I said, well, I got a couple.
MF (14:39):
Right? And she goes, every keynote you give from now on, I want you recorded. So she sat with me. I’ll never forget it. And basically said, here’s all the things I want you to have a website up in, in, in a less than 30 days, video bio, you know, all the things that, you know, anyone who’s listening can, you know, if you Google any speaker, you can go and you can kind of see the same things that they have on their websites. That whether it’s through a speaker bureau or a client is looking for. And, and she sort of told me what she thought I could charge and sure enough, the phone started. Right. And it, you know, which was a blessing. And so, you know, and then I started speaking and Marilyn hired me and all these different. And so it just sort of evolved, but I’ll pause there in case something’s coming up for you,
AJV (15:23):
You know, it’s interesting. Your journey is so different than mine because I’m pretty, pretty sure I had to like cold call a thousand people before I ever got paid to speak. I’m pretty sure, like if I went back and counted the amount of free workshops that I did in front of sales teams and sales organizations, it would be in, it would be close to a thousand, but I did four free, right. Begging it’s like, I’m, can I pleased and talk to your three? I will do this for you for great. I’m pretty sure. But it’s, you know, it’s interesting because every journey looks different and that’s the point And you wanna know, it’s like, how do you do it? And it’s like, every journey looks different. The point is you just have to start, you gotta start.
MF (16:09):
Right. I mean, it’s like, I don’t know if it’s a BG line or, but the more you speak, the more you speak,
AJV (16:14):
Always
MF (16:15):
Like the more you speak, the more you speak and, and, and, and, you know, I mean, just to, and, and we had a lot of those, I mean, I’ll never forget when she told me to get more video, my husband and I went to the Ritz Carlton here in Atlanta, and we snuck in, we found a ballroom and my husband’s wonderful. And we find this ballroom and it’s got this beautiful mahogany background. He’s got our camera. And I am like changing clothes four times in the ballroom. And he’s filming me and I’m talking to nobody, I’m talking to nobody and he’s filming me. And then I found, you know, somebody that kind of spa slice it up and turn it into a speaker reel and all that. So, you know, it’s a bootstrap deal out of the gates.
AJV (17:00):
It, and I love it cause that it’s, you gotta be scrappy. It’s like, there are only a few people. And one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on the show is you’re a little known fact is like, Molly’s one of like the highest paid speakers. Who’s not a celebrity who’s out there. Right? Like Molly is doing this full-time multi seven figure, like, like she is doing this and doing it extraordinarily well. And I think for a lot of us, as we think, oh, well you had this X, Y, Z. It’s like, no, like we, we were speaking in empty ballrooms with our husband’s speaking. Like I remember it’s like, for years, it’s like I was doing meetings and living rooms, backyards tax sales, doesn’t matter what it was. I was like, I’ll be there. I’ll be there. Right. So one day you have someone who sees you and they go, you could do this for a living. That’s how it works. And then you could speak, but it’s like, the more you speak, the more you speak, you just have to start. And so I’m curious at what point did you go, okay, this is like, my personal brand is now my full time career. Yeah. Like when was that?
MF (18:07):
Well, I certainly didn’t think of it candidly as a personal brand, obviously now more so, but I, what, you know, what happened truthfully was I love, I loved being an agent and I loved my players and I loved it all like immensely. And I’ll never forget. I landed in like Pittsburgh or New York or somewhere for a keynote. I think I landed in New York for a keynote and, and my players never went to voicemail. I mean, they never went to voicemail. So I get I land and I’ve got like three voicemails from three guys. Well, I, I start calling ’em back and I’m on the phone with one of my guys. And he goes, where are you? And I was like, cuz we’re incredibly close. And I go, oh, I just landed in New York. He’s like who you seeing? And that was the moment when I went uhoh I don’t feel authentic right now.
MF (18:56):
Like I do not feel authentic right now. And I said, you know what, actually, man, I’m given a keynote to a group of, you know, I think it was financial advisors. And he said, oh, wow. Huh. Really? And, and that was the moment when I went, I’ve make some decisions here and you know, it made AJ no sense. I mean, I think I had 17 keynotes on the books, you know, for not a lot of money. And I had a nice situation as an agent. And, but I remember coming home to my husband. I said, honey, I think this message is resonating with people. I think it’s helping people. I think I have an opportunity to have a whole lot more control of my schedule, but more importantly, make a bigger impact on the world than I am now. Like, and I, I was at a point in my career where, you know, I felt like I’d done a lot of incredible things.
MF (19:47):
I’d helped a lot of athletes, but I remember thinking, do I wanna go to my grave and say, I’ve negotiated a hundred million in contracts or do I wanna go to my grave and say I changed a hundred million lives. Mm. And what became clear to me was I, I wanted to change hearts and souls and, and, and, and not just checkbooks and, and bank accounts. That wasn’t what I was about. And that was, and thankfully I said, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna jump. And, and you know, you talk about kind of relationships. And so one of the guys who was my trainer, when I was a student athlete at Michigan state, he became a speaker and is a speaker. And I reached out to him and I said, Hey, this is what’s going on. And, and he said, you know, you can use my booking agent.
MF (20:35):
She books me. I pay her a fee on every booking. But if you wanted to give her a fee, she could take in some of these incoming calls for you that you’re getting and she could navigate it. And of course, I believe it’s helpful to have somebody in the middle of those conversations. That’s what I did. And I saw the benefit. Yeah. And so I, I put, so this, this woman was fantastic and she would take, she knew how to navigate these. She, you know, and then we built the contract and the bio and all the stuff that happens, but she was able to take in these incoming calls, negotiate these fees and manage my speaking, ke tell it, got to a place where I needed a full-time person.
AJV (21:11):
So, so interesting. Because I think that right there, what you just said is, so, so wise of you need a middle person. Yeah. So, and that’s what you did. Like you did that so successful for all these athletes for 15 years. So like to sit here and, and go, oh yeah. It’s like, that is what you did. Right. Right. So I would love for you to share with everyone, like, what is the benefit of having someone book you on your behalf? Like, what’s the, you know, it’s like people can call, ’em an agent bureau, whatever. Right. But what’s, the benefit could be your spouse. It
MF (21:43):
Could be,
AJV (21:44):
But why, why?
MF (21:47):
Well, I, I, I mean, I think, you know, no different than I saw with my players. I mean, it, it becomes very hard for an athlete to sit in the room with a general manager and say, look, all the other second basemen are at X. Here’s my RBIS. Here’s my slugging percentage. Here’s my on base percentage here. And I should be at Y. And here’s why, because it can get, yeah. And I think when you are saying, well, for me to come and talk to your people, I’m worth X. Well, our budget is why, well, I mean, that conversation is a lot harder for you to do yourself now. It’s not impossible though, because we know that people have to do that in their careers for Ray and things like that. And that’s okay. And we need to, as human beings, I believe, know how to have those conversations. But I think when, when, when we’re trying to negotiate our fee and our time at the core, it, it is, it is, it is someone else that can brag about you that when you are doing it on your own behalf, it’s just odd. Like, oh yeah. Like every time I got a standing ovation, people love me. I mean, you can’t say that. Right. But you’re, but your booking can. Right. So I think, I think they can tell your story as your advocate
AJV (23:08):
Right.
MF (23:08):
Better than you.
AJV (23:10):
Oh, I think that’s the word. It’s, they’re your advocate. Yes. They’re your advocate. I remember there was a point in our business that I told Roy you are no longer allowed to talk about money with anyone
MF (23:25):
Ever,
AJV (23:25):
Like, you are not allowed to talk about your fees, stop it. Cause like two, that point it’s so much easier for him as the individual. Who’s getting booked to go. I mean, okay, I’ll make it work or sure. I’ll stay and I’ll do this. Sure. I’ll add on another one. Cause he felt guilty. It’s like, and is like having an advocate that middle person removes the emotion makes it so purely logical. And one of the best, best lessons we ever learned as somebody had said. And I remember getting this advice from someone at the national speakers association is just remember, they’re not paying you for an hour of your time. Yeah. They are paying you for the years of experience and expertise and original content. And data they’re paying you for a lifetime of information that you have condensed in two, one hour.
MF (24:18):
Yeah.
AJV (24:19):
And that, that changed the way that we negotiated from that point on.
MF (24:24):
Yeah. I J I remember you saying that at an event I was at that you were leading and I, and I was like, that is so well said because it’s so true. I mean, they are. And, and, and, you know, to your point, it’s easier for someone else to say, no, it’s easier for someone else to justify. I mean, the, you know, when I was an agent, I mean, that was, people ran around with business cards, you know? So all my athletes had stacks of my business cards and I can’t even count the number of times that a guy would call me or a gal would call me and say, Hey, I met John Smoltz at Walgreens. And he said, he would love to stop by the school, on my son’s birthday and wish him a happy birthday. And I’m thinking, okay, dude. And like small tea and I, or any of my guys.
MF (25:10):
I mean, I, you know, John can’t do that for everybody. He meets of course. And, but, you know, and I’d say, oh, okay. And I’d take the call and I would listen. And, and, and then I’d, you know, hang up and wait three days and call him and say, Hey, I’m really sorry, but John can’t do that. He’s pitchy that day or whatever the thing was. Yeah. But that, that helped John and all of my players so much. And we, you know, we need, I mean, I’m so blessed and grateful. We get 500 speaking requests a year and do 80. And so I need somebody in the middle of all that to filter through the right fits the stages where we think we can truly make an impact.
AJV (25:47):
How, oh, good. I think that’s such a deal of like, to that point, it’s like, it would be very easy to try to say yes. And then simultaneously just burn yourself into the ground now.
MF (25:57):
And I’ve made that mistake, AJ. I did.
AJV (25:59):
Yeah. As have we, and it’s not one you wanna make again. And so, okay. So, so let’s talk about two things here, one all these for requests, right? So how are you for the person who is maybe speaking already? And they’re like, how do I grow my speaking business? How do I scale it? Where are all of these requests coming from? So how have you AMAs such this amazing business where people are just calling you and then it’s you deciding which ones you’re gonna go to? How did happen?
MF (26:30):
You know, the, the truth is it’s, it’s really been referrals. I mean, it’s people in an audience who leave and go to a different company who I gave a keynote yesterday here in Atlanta. And a guy came up at the back of the room and goes, I need, you need to do this convention that we all go to in the technology space every single year, who do I contact on your team to, to get your stuff in front of them? So it’s, it’s been primarily referrals. We do work with bureaus lots of different bureaus. I’m not exclusive with any bureau and, you know, and, and that evolve by people who had heard maybe me keen, or they had moved to a different career or a different company. And then they went, they let’s say just automatically booked through bureaus. So they went to the bureau and said, Hey, we want this.
MF (27:16):
We’d like to explore having this woman, Molly come and speak. And the bureaus like who’s that I have no idea who she, and then they kind of figured that out. And then that was kind of how our bureau thing went. Was clients backing into an ask and then the bureau coming back to us and saying, we have a client that wants to book you, who do we, who do we work with? So, you know, I’m feel very blessed for that. I’m very grateful for that. It’s, it’s really been all, you know, all the word of mouth, but I would say simultaneously, you know, we have all the tools and things. We have all the, the things in place that allow somebody to get familiar with you. You know, one of the things that you and I know, and it’s wonderful for people to, to, to know is that, you know, nobody’s gonna book you on a main stage, big event, keynote without seeing you speak.
MF (28:05):
And, and not just, I would argue that the best of the best, the spliced up, you know, six minute video reel, that’s just you and all your best moments and the crowd standing and clapping, and you gotta make, get, give ’em a hot, good, solid piece of extended content of you on stage speaking, where they can go, okay, there’s a big clump of time and she’s okay, she’s good. Like we can do this. So that’s, to me really important to having, you know, I would tell every speaker, go get your YouTube channel, get it populated, get stuff on there, have your website with your video real, but have longer clips too. So people can see you for an extended period of time. Because the thing that, you know, I take real really seriously is there is an organization when you really boil it down, it’s an organization hiring a perfect stranger to stand up in front of the most important people in their world.
MF (29:04):
From a business perspective, either it’s their key clients or it’s their employees. Those are incredibly important people and they are hiring a perfect stranger. So you’ve gotta make sure you offset their already anxious feeling. Yeah. That’s so putting a stranger in front of the room. So you gotta make, ’em feel really safe with that decision. And, and so, you know, to me, those are the things that I think are important. Like I’m a big fan of getting into the head and the heart of the people that you serve and saying, you know, like one of the things I always say to people who on a, a pre-call before any keynote, I, I do a call with the client and, you know, I always say to ’em look, you’ve got thousands of things to worry about. The last one I want you to worry about is me.
MF (29:48):
All I want to happen is that you have a line of people after that, come up to you and say, dude, where did you find that chick? That was exactly what I needed to hear that. That’s all I want. You got AV people, you got music, you got customers, you got box lunches, you got dinners, you got awards, ceremonies, you got other speakers, you got panels. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there early. I’ll crush it for you. People will say, thank you so much. And I wanna be super low maintenance and, and, and over deliver.
AJV (30:18):
Yeah. That’s so good. So I love that. It’s like, if you think about it in terms of reality, it’s like, you’re right. It’s like, you’re asking someone to pay you. Who’s a complete stranger and they have no real idea. What’s gonna come out of your mouth and then you want them to put you on stage in front of their most important people. And they’re sitting in the back of their going, please don’t mess this up. Please. Don’t mess this up please. Right. So how do you eliminate those fears? So I have a question. If you were gonna tell people, here are three things that you can do to be less of a stranger to your audiences, what would they be?
MF (30:52):
Well, number one, I, I would say video on your website and on your YouTube and not just short form, but long form. I mean, that takes a lot of angst out and lots and lots of video. The more, you know, early in your career, the more that you’re speaking get, ’em all videotaped, different outfits, different backgrounds, different stages, authentic, real stuff, and get that up there because that will give him a, a sense of she’s done this, he’s done this, and they’ve done it a lot in a lot of different circumstances. Okay. That would be one, you know, two testimonials. And you talk about this age. I mean, you talk about this a lot, and I think that’s a really big deal to particularly early to say, look here, here’s, you know, you have your list of printed testimonials on your site or wherever, but also, Hey, look, and I did this as an agent.
MF (31:37):
When I was recruiting a player, I’d slide my client list across the table and say to any young player, Hey, look, I can sit in this boardroom and tell you everything. I know that you wanna hear, but call John smoke, call anybody, call these guys or gals, ask them. Yeah, because what I’m telling you, we’re gonna do, we’re gonna do it, but feel free to call anybody. So testimonials to me are absolutely huge. And then the other thing I thinks really important is get on the phone with the people that are hiring you before you speak
MF (32:11):
And, and, and, and get in their head, get in their heart, ask questions, understand what those hearts and souls in that room are worried about. I, I know lots of speakers that say, oh, I do the same keynote every time I’m not changing it. I’m not doing a pre-call cuz it isn’t gonna change. And I’m thinking, number one, like I could personally not do that because I need to know what the people in the room are worried about. What are they excited about? What’s what’s on their hearts and minds. What did they hear before I went up? What are they gonna hear after I gotta get in their head and heart? So pre-calls are really powerful because AJ I’ve probably given, I don’t know, 700 to a thousand keynotes. And, and I mean like paid over the last, like when it, when I did it as a, now in my world and nobody’s ever canceled a pre-call like nobody, because they cannot wait to get, and they have seven, eight busy people on these calls. It’s, it’s a, it’s like, you are the seventh person on the line. And they have like all these people and, and they want you to know their world and it matters. So I would say that’s a really important step that I think people sometimes underestimate that really matters really matters.
AJV (33:29):
Ah, you know, and so much of every single thing that you’re saying comes back to two things that you’ve got kind of said throughout this conversation, which I think are really important for people to grasp onto is one, the more you speak, the more you speak, right? So if you really want to be a speaker or build your speaking business, make sure you’re speaking, that could be for free. Most of us started that way. Eventually you’ll get paid for it. Doesn’t matter if it’s five people in a room or 500 speaking is speaking. Right. And then the next thing it’s, it’s relationships trust, right? Yeah. Build relationships. The people who are inviting you in do a really good job. So they refer you to other people get testimonials that increases trust, you know, get to know these audiences. So they know that you really understand them, but it’s build relationships so that you can build trust.
MF (34:18):
Yep, yep. Right.
AJV (34:20):
Universal.
MF (34:20):
That is absolutely right. And I think for a non celebrity speaker, I mean, I’ve spoke at an event recently with magic Johnson and I was getting micd up with the AV guy and, and I, I said something about his magic doing in Q and a and he goes, oh, they wouldn’t give us access to him before the event. We, we, we, we have no access to him. They are micing him. We have, and you know what, he’s magic Johnson,
MF (34:44):
Molly Fletcher. Can’t do that. I’m like, Hey, I’ll be down there 30 minutes early. Right. What do you want? You know what I mean? So I think, you know, it, it is, it is such a rewarding space to, to be in. But I, but like you said, AJ, I mean, be patient be gentle on yourself. Right. Honor, the people that you’re getting in front of and, and make it, you know, feel like it’s your first and it’s the most important one for you over deliver. All those things are so important. And, and to your point, I mean, I spoke for free a lot and you did too. And you know, the keynote that I gave early in my journey is very different from the one I give now. And, you know, with the more you speak, the more you grow, the more you see what lands and what doesn’t, what people re resonate with and what doesn’t, what people come up to you after and go, boy, that story about whatever was really powerful that you start to see, what’s, what’s really clicking. And then you can blow, you know, add on to the, so if it serves you and them in, in so many ways, it’s, it’s so important.
AJV (35:50):
Ah, I love that. I have love this conversation. I know that we’re almost at a time, so I wanna just do two, two last quick for the person who is listening to this, this show and this interview, and they’re going, man, it’s like, I’m not into the speaking business yet, but I have this message on my heart. I feel called to like share, this is what I wanna do with my life. Where do I start? Right. if you were to go back and, you know, tell your, you know, however long ago it was of like, this is what I would’ve done differently to expedite my journey. This is what I would tell that person today. What, what would she say?
MF (36:30):
You know, get out there more and speak more truthfully, like you said to three exterminators, if you have to, to your dog, in your office, to your husband, to your partner, to your, just keep refining, refining, refining, and playing with it. Okay. And, you know, and, and, and figure out your unique style. You know, I mean, there are so many wonderful speakers in the world and everybody has their own style and, and they land in their own way. And so be true to who you are, you know, don’t try to, to be anybody that you’re not. But to me, those are important things for people to keep front and center, but I would just say like everything in life, right. I, I, I, you know, I didn’t get, I didn’t, you know, when I was playing tennis, I had to hit a lot of floor, right.
MF (37:20):
A lot of bag. So just, just keep doing it, keep getting the wraps in the more you get the wraps and the better you get. And then I would also say what I didn’t do enough of to, to, to boil your question out more deeply is watch yourself, watch your videos of yourself and look at your, look, watch your own videos of you speaking and, and critique the heck outta yourself. You right. Really beat yourself up. The other thing I wish I would’ve done earlier too, is, you know, I have a few people who, what, what happens after a keynote is, is even if you were horrible, people go, oh, that’s so great. Oh, thanks so much. That was awesome. I mean, and so you think you’re really good?
MF (38:00):
Sure. You have some people in the back, like I have on my team or my husband who go, Hey, you totally missed the point in that story. Or you walked too much or you didn’t, or this or that, or you had lipstick on your teeth or anything, but have those people in the room early so that you can really work out some of those kinks that are gonna give you great feedback. Because at the end of every game of like, you can tell if it really, really landed or if it didn’t, but nobody’s gonna walk by you when they’re leaving the room and not say anything. Most people say, oh, that was awesome. And you don’t, maybe they mean it. Maybe they don’t. So you gotta have some people that are telling you the truth.
AJV (38:35):
Yeah. And I love what you said too. It’s like, because how many of us have heard a good speaker, but then never remembered them. And it’s like, it’s one thing to be good. But you said it’s like, you actually, you need to figure out what makes you different. What, what makes you unique? I’ll share this from my girl crush, my celebrity girl, crush, JLo JLo. I love what she says. She says that everyone is good. It’s no longer good enough to be good. You have to be different. So what are you doing to be different? And that’s the beautiful part about all of this is you are already different. Whoever you are. It’s like you are already different in the world. Has your life experiences, your unique brand, you know, your unique DNA. They do not have your brand message. They do not own it.
AJV (39:22):
They do not possess it. And then we try to look around and blend in and it’s like, it’s not good enough to be good. You’ve gotta be memorable. You’ve gotta be different. Yeah. So figure out what is it that makes you really different. I love that. I love that. Okay. So then, and I promise, I’ll let you go. So you recently had a awesome new Ted talk that came out called the secrets of a champion mindset. So I know for so many people out there, something on their bucket list or one of their goals is to do a Ted talk, right? Yeah. So give us just your 62nd. Like if I were, if I were gonna teach you or coach you or help you get booked for a Ted talk, like, what would you tell somebody, like, what do they need to do to get out there and figure out how to go out and deliver a Ted talk?
MF (40:07):
Well, can I tell ’em the truth, AJ?
AJV (40:09):
Yes, absolutely.
MF (40:11):
I called you, I called AJ and I said, AJ, I wanna do a Ted talk. And she’s said, okay, well, and you help me thankfully. And Rory with kind of what that uniqueness is and all those things. And, and, and, and then you were so kind, and I know, you know, you’re incredibly busy, but you were so kind to sort of connect me with some people that had delivered some Ted talks. And, and then I connected with some of those folks. And one of ’em said, you know what? You, you’re in Atlanta, you’re in Buckhead. Let me connect you with the people that, that manage that Ted talk. And so I, I did and they bid, and I delivered a Ted talk a couple months ago secrets of a, of a champion mindset, which is, you know, clipping away. And I think helping a lot of people, which has been really fun.
MF (40:58):
So my advice to people is lean into, to the relationships that you have. I identify, you know, a stage. I mean, the good news is now there are so many TEDxs, there are so many Ted talks there’s there, there are some, I would say too to people that are better than others, there are some events that are more well managed than others. So I, I would encourage people to get really clear on that and make sure that you’re positioning yourself consistent with the brand that you wanna put out into the world. And so it was, as you, as you talk about it, as Roy talked about, it was about relationships. And then it was about leaning in and establishing those, helping them and, and they were kind enough to help me,
AJV (41:37):
Oh my
MF (41:38):
Gosh. Find a good fit.
AJV (41:39):
I totally forgot that. I even did that.
MF (41:41):
Yeah, I know. And that’s why I was like, can I tell the truth because your phone might blow up.
AJV (41:46):
I think like do that. I love that. It’s like, don’t try to do it on your own.
MF (41:51):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
AJV (41:52):
Like, like you said, it’s lean into relationships. It’s you know, seven degrees of Kevin bacon. Right. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, but put your dreams out there, put those goals out there. And it’s amazing. Once you’re willing to put something out there, then someone goes, I could probably connect you with someone who could probably connect you with someone. Sure. So it’s just never be afraid to put it out there and ask
MF (42:16):
Well, yeah. And, and, and also don’t be afraid to go right to the source, right. Go right. To me, there’s so many Ted talks now, Ted acts, whatever, go, go to some different markets and, and, you know, put a compelling theme out there. I mean, I think a, a book that I recommend to people who are considering a Ted talk is the red thread, who is a woman that I, I, I met through a woman, that’s a BVG friend. And, and, and that was a really it’s, it’s all, you know, cuz Ted talks are different and, and my Ted talk is different at some level, a little bit than what I deliver from a main stage. And, and that was really, that was a helpful book to identify what is that one thing that, that is gonna really, that gonna be really that thread through the whole thing. What’s that one thing people will lift up and extract from it and then maybe, you know, process deploy, think about it in their own lives. So that’s an important thing too, to recognize that the, the Ted talks that go viral, that Ted talks that are really, really good study those look at those. What, what in your mind made them good and, you know, lift that up and authentically apply it to yourself.
AJV (43:20):
Ah, that’s so good. I love that. And if you guys wanna go check out Molly’s new Ted talk, it’s secret of a champion mindset. We’ll put the link in the show notes. You can also just go check it out on YouTube. I’m sure it’s out there. You can also go to Molly fletcher.com, right. And Molly, if people wanna connect with you and stay in touch, where’s the best place for them to go.
MF (43:44):
I would say go to Molly, fletcher.com. That’s the best place. And, and, and from there they can source all of our social handles, all that kind of stuff. And
AJV (43:51):
Molly, you also have an awesome podcast which I think is helpful. You had amazing. Yes, you are such a great interviewer. I actually, I I’ll share this with everyone. I, I, hands down, I’ve been doing a ton of podcast interviews here lately promoting our national research study by far hands down. Molly has been the best interviewer that I have done on a show in a really long time. So major crew to you. So everyone go check that out. Thanks so much for listening, Molly. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. We love you. Everyone else. We’ll talk to you later. Catch the next episode of the influential personal brand. So
Speaker 3 (44:31):
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, 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/pod call we hope to talk to you soon.

AJV (45:14):
So welcome to the recap episode of my interview with Molly Fletcher on how to build, grow, and scale your speaking business. All right, y’all, I’m gonna keep this super high level, but really, really important because to me it doesn’t matter if you are thinking about being a speaker, if you are currently on that journey or if you are already an established speaker and you’re just trying to figure out how to do more of it or do less of it with higher fees this conversation is for you. So these are three big highlights. Three big takeaways from I got that I got from my interview with Molly Fletcher. So here’s the first one. And I said this probably five times in the interview, but I’m gonna say it again for the sake of all of you who are listening to this recap episode and you are not gonna listen to the full episode.
AJV (46:04):
The more you speak, the more you get to speak. And I don’t think we can say that enough. It’s if you wanna be a speaker, if you are a speaker and you do more speaking, if you’re currently doing a lot of speaking and you just wanna raise your fees, whatever it is, the formula is the same. The more you speak, the more you get to speak, or the more you speak, the better you get, right? The more you speak the higher your fees can be because you get better at it and more people see you. And then it becomes a conversation of supply and demand. I, I loved what Molly said is that, Hey, in the beginning it was, you know, one, you know, one event she was doing for free for some students. And then it kind of grew from there, but now they get over 300, 500 requests a year and she’s picking and choosing because she’s only gonna do 80.
AJV (46:51):
And I say only eighty’s a ton, right? Because in a speaking engagement, you’re probably gone for two days. That’s 160 days. That’s 50% of your year. That’s a ton. That’s a lot of days. But at the same time, it’s, they’re picking and choosing because they have such a large supply of requests. Why? Because the more you speak, the more you get asked to speak, and the more you get asked the pickier that you can do, right? Just because you get invited that that’s, that many times doesn’t mean you have to do it. But I love that because it’s such a great remem reminder for all of us and a great thing to remember from even me of going, it doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen if it’s what you really wanna do. And that means you need to be willing to do it for free in the beginning.
AJV (47:38):
Very few of us actually start with fees from the very first time we do it. Why? Because we actually need the practice right before we say, Hey, I’m good enough for you to pay me to do we need to know what we’re gonna say? What impact is it gonna have? How am I going to differentiate myself? What is my message? And you need to get good at it. Right? And I, I love that. And it kind of leads into the second thing. It, it’s a great thing to put in perspective of right? The more you speak, the more you get to speak. And the more that you will speak because you better, more people see you all the things. But the second thing I think is a really great aha for me. And I never heard anyone say it this way is you have to remember that what what’s really happening here as an individual on the behalf of a company or an organization is inviting you a stranger to come and get on stage in front of their top client or their top employee employees.
AJV (48:33):
And they’re gonna pay you and hope what comes out of your mouth is good. That’s kinda a big risk. Especially when you’re paying a lot of money because you’re going, man. It’s like the words that come out of your mouth could really detract from our business could really set us off. So how do you, as a speaker, as an aspiring speaker, create more confidence and trust so that you don’t feel like a stranger to the people who are looking at you or talking to you or considering you, or even for the ones who have booked you. And I thought Molly gave some really good tips. There it’s one. You need to have tons of video footage. And guess what? Y’all, you can only have tons of video footage. If you’re actually out there speaking a ton, the more you speak, the more you get to speak.
AJV (49:21):
So one, I have tons of video footage and not just the highlights, not just the sizzle reel, not just pictures of standing ovations and people standing in line to meet you, but people need confidence and long what she said, long form content, 10 to 20 minutes of going, Hey, I just, I was able to watch you for 10 or 15 or 20 minutes. And I have confidence now that you do know what you’re doing and you will deliver a good message and you do it in a good way. That helps you become less of a stranger, right? It’s confidence inspiring and helps build some credibility and trust even before they’ve ever met you. So make sure you have tons of videos, create a YouTube channel, have long form videos, have short form. You need both. It’s not one or the other it’s both, but have lots and lots of video footage.
AJV (50:05):
Right. Other things she said is do pre-calls right. Actually get to know these people, don’t just show up and go help. It goes well. No, like do your due diligence figure out why are they having you? What’s the theme of their conference? How can you compliment the message that they’re saying internally to their team or to their clients what would make it a home run for them? What are the biggest things that they’re running into? Why did they decide to book you? How does this fit in with the other things they’re discussing at this meeting or throughout the year, those are all things that will help you line up to make sure that you compliment whatever they’re doing. And it fits very seamless and no one’s gonna say, Hey, it was great, but it felt really disconnected to everything else.
AJV (50:46):
That’s our job as speakers is to actually come in and do that due diligence and do that research to make it feel like I made this program just for you. And you don’t have to completely change everything you do every time. But have the opportunity and elements with each part of your speech. That is like, this is where I could tweak it and tailor it just enough so that it really resonates with each unique audience. So help yourself become less of a stranger. I think other ways you can do that, make sure you have a website, even if it’s a one page landing page with a bio and a link to a video, but someone needs to be able to go AJ vaden.com and go somewhere. And for all of you who are just getting started and like even mine right now, my website is in progress.
AJV (51:30):
I, I just have it redirected to my LinkedIn, right? Cuz on my LinkedIn, I can have media clips. I have recommendations and testimonials like just redirect it. There’s always a short term solution to the long term end result goal that you’re after. So even me right now where my website’s in construction, I just, you direct my LinkedIn profile because you can get media clips, you can get testimonials, all the things that I need are there. So become less of a stranger. And then the third thing which I loved, and it’s such a great reminder for all of us in this business. If you were trying to build a speaking career, you are also in sales, right? Right. You are in marketing, you are in sales, you are in customer service. That’s what are doing. And she talked about the power of referrals.
AJV (52:12):
She goes, I have built most of my speaking business. Most of my, most of my speaking contacts are referrals. They were people who were in the room who saw me speak, which goes back to the more you speak, the more you speak, but they were people in the room who said, Hey, have you ever spoken into this event? Or I think you could be great at this or what about this? So it’s making sure that you’re mindful that every audience you go to, it’s an opportunity to get invited to a new audience. So what are you doing? What is your message from stage about how like, this is actually what you do as a profession, right? Talking about other events that you’ve spoken at the are simple, easy ways for you to seamlessly add that in so that people in the audience go, oh, this is what you do.
AJV (52:58):
I wonder if I’m a part of any other groups or associations that would like a speaker like you. And that’s our job to figure out how do we very seamlessly weave that in so that it, it reminds entices the audience to refer you to other organizations. So very simple things that you can be doing to build, grow and scale your speaking business. I love this interview. I love her. She’s got such a heart for her message, which just oozes out of her. And there’s no, there’s no doubt in my mind, the reason that Molly gets booked so much so often is because she’s got a heart for what she does. She’s got a passion for the message. And you can feel that in her interview. And that’s a huge part of what we gotta do. This cannot be a job. This gets, this has to be something that you love to do.
AJV (53:48):
And it’s what you get to do full time. Right? And when that happens and it’s all about the excitement and the passion, everyone else catches on, right? Enthusiasm is contagious. So how can you, refall in love back into what you do that makes it so contagious. Other people are like, I need some of the at energy, some of that enthusiasm, some of that passion on my stage to reinvigorate my audience, right? People are looking for the emotional parts of us as speakers, as much as they’re looking for the content. So just remember at the end of the day, this cannot be a job. It gets to be a passion that you get to do full time that it’s not just a job. So thank you for listening. Go check out the full episode, go check out. Molly Fletcher, Molly fletcher.com. She’s amazing. This interview was incredible.

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.