Ep 89: Building A Sustainable Speaking Business with David Avrin | Recap Episode
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AJV: (00:00) [inaudible] RV: (00:06) Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I’m so excited that you got to meet like my mentor, one of my, my real, real early mentors and best friends, you can see how much love I got for Dave. And yeah. You know, I hope if you haven’t listened to the interview that you go listen to it. If you want to know anything about where I started and you know, how it began for me began with Eric gesture and Dave Everyn that’s right. AJV: (00:36) The whole episode is basically just a bunch of bro love from beginning to end. It’s just both of them telling each other how much they love admire and respect and how much they’ve learned from each other, the whole episode. And there’s some takeaways, but there’s also a lot of love. RV: (00:55) Yeah. Well, you know, he’s made a big, yeah, I know. Well, and so I’ll share, I’ll start with my, you know, we’re going to do our top three takeaways. Um, and, uh, AJ came in with her glasses today, which I’m excited about talk nerdy talk nerdy too. Yeah. AJV: (01:12) Screen time, too much screen time. RV: (01:14) Um, so, so one of the things that was a big kind of moment, just a reinforcement, even for me to hear it again, was it just this idea of like, do you love the delivery of speaking and teaching enough that you’re willing to endure the prospecting part of it? Like, do you, do you want it bad enough to figure out a way to do whatever you have to do to generate the business? Now that may be that that might mean you’re the one that has to make the phone calls and send the emails. It might mean that you have to hire someone and pay them to do it. That, you know, there’s lots of things it could mean, but it means you got to figure out that part. And I’ve never met a speaker who was like, Oh my gosh. My favorite thing in the world is to just spend my time getting gigs. Like the reason you become a speaker is you want to be on stage or you want to be live on the webinar. Like you want to be in front of thousands of people, but there’s this part that you have to do. And it’s just the truth. The perspective of going look, what you see on stage is not what the life of a speaker is. It’s all the things. It’s the people and the team and the processes behind the scenes. AJV: (02:25) Uh, mine is kind of similar to that in a much more succinct version, but it’s speaking is not the business. Getting the speaking Gig is the business. That is a much better way of, I say AJV: (02:43) We had the same point. I’m not sure, but at brand builders group, if you’re a client of ours or if you’re just a listener or follow us on social or whatever it is, we kind of have this 13 phase in our 13 event process in four different phases. And we teach you how to craft a keynote, right? That’s a part of what we do in our business. We also teach you the business of speaking, right? So there’s two different topics that we cover. And I thought it was really interesting the way he said that, because there is so much of what we do. It’s called full Key, or it’s called CA what is it called? RV: (03:21) Keynote craft is she doesn’t teach world-class keynote craft is the event that I teach the art of speaking, which is what so many people are drawn to. Right? AJV: (03:32) And I loved what Dave said in the interview where he goes, I love how so many people tell you that you should be a speaker that have no idea what it’s like to be a speaker. You should go share your message. And it’s like, I have no idea what they’re talking about. That’s actually what we teach and what we do. And full keynote calendar, which is the business of speaking. And that is so much of what I loved about this comment is that speaking is not the business. That is the art, right. It is not the business. It is getting the gig is the business. And that is like any other business out there. You have to have marketing, you have to have a team. You have to have staff, you have to have technology. I mean, it’s not like anything else. I mean, it’s the same. So I just thought that was really a nice, succinct way of saying RV: (04:18) A better way of saying it. Yeah, absolutely. But that’s the, that, so two different versions of the same, big takeaway, AJV: (04:25) Second point. So I’ll go and then I’ll leave. I have no doubt. They’re probably similar. This was a very, very good interview for any of you who were like, okay, I want to start building up my speaking business. What are the, you know, behind the scenes behind the curtain? So my second takeaway was this concept of you need to be systematic, methodical in your processes, but very personal in your outreach, because we know so many people in the business of speaking where it’s all about, just put it out on social and do email blast and just do mass mailings and do it all as efficiently as it, but trying to be as effective as possible, but they have no staff. It’s just them or it’s just one person. So they’re really trying to do it as general and as masses as they can. Um, and he’s was saying, it’s like, no, be systematic and methodical in your processes, but be highly personalized in your outreach. And I thought that was a really good way. RV: (05:26) Interesting juxtaposition AJV: (05:27) Sum up. It’s like you can do things that are templative that still feel personal with a little bit of research, with a little bit of effort, with a little bit of like, let me pull this up, let me see. And my third point kind of goes into some of the things that I took away, but it’s not going to share those now, but that was my second. It’s like, you got to have a system and you need to be methodical with it. Right. There needs to be clear, checkpoints of do this, do this, do this, but then also take the time and effort to be personal in your outreach. So it doesn’t feel like another speaker that we’re getting marketed to. Right. I think that was really, that was really, RV: (06:03) Yeah. Yeah. I think that that really is a good, that’s a good dichotomy to understand and, and to be clear on, um, my second takeaway actually was, was different than that. It was a reminder of something that I struggled for so long in my career, and I still struggle with today. And I think it’s in a word it’s being self centered, not being selfish, right? It’s not about taking advantage of other people. It’s just, it’s just that you, as a speaker, it’s so easy to approach the world through what you think and what you do and who you are. And, you know, like what he said was, it’s not about what you do, it’s about what they get. And if you don’t tell people about who you are, tell them about what you can do for them. And that applies both to your marketing and to when you’re on stage, is that, you know, there’s, I think there’s, it’s probably safe to say that any speaker has some level of ego, some, you know, fair level of ego involved in, you know, just the idea of saying, Hey, I should be on that stage in front of all these people. RV: (07:08) Like they should be paying attention to me, which is good. You need, you need some, you need some real confidence to do this right. And pull it off. But at the same time, getting your mind switched to where it’s like, it’s not about you. It’s not about even what you’re passionate about. It’s about connecting your passion to their problem. It’s about connecting your expertise to what they’re struggling with every day. And your marketing has to communicate that your sales person, whoever, if it’s you, or it’s an agent or somebody, they need to be able to connect your expertise to the problems. And then when you’re on that stage in front of the audience, you need to be able to connect what you know, and what you studied and to how people can apply it into their lives. And David told me this exercise, I think when I was 20 something years old and it still to this day has stuck with me. RV: (07:56) When you write, copy on your website, go through and highlight in one color, everything that’s about you and then go through and highlight and another cover, color, everything that is written about your customer and your, you know, your prospect. And you’ll find that almost in every case, it’s a speaker is talking all about themselves and who they are and how great they are and what they’ve done. And very little about the problem they solve and how they help organizations and who is a right fit for them to serve. And so that was just another great reminder of something I’d heard over and over that you just can’t hear enough of. AJV: (08:33) You always know when Rory really likes something because he talks so loud. So she’s always kidding. RV: (08:42) she’s always kidding I’m gonna have me for like yelling and stuff, which is part of it. AJV: (08:45) I got in this tiny little room, right? Like one foot away. RV: (08:50) I got banished to the basement, by the way, I used to be upstairs. And I’ve been at one AGA tried to banish me to the wilderness. When we were building our house, she was like, what do you think about putting your office out in the forest? Which is we live in like a little wooded area. And I was like, you’re banishing me to the woods. We’re not even moved daily upset. Yeah, it was bad. So anyways, I’ve been banished to the basement. So this is my you’re in my yelling zone. Yes. I’m excited. AJV: (09:18) Dave actually talked about something in their interview that I thought was really good. He said, if you think that you’re going to get paid to get on stage and have some sort of cathartic experience, you’re severely mistaken, right. When people say, gosh, you’ve got to share your message, or you gotta, you gotta tell your story to some degree. It’s like, no, you don’t. It’s it’s how do they perceive your story? That would benefit them? What can they learn from your message that would solve their problem? And so many people, and I think you’ve said this, or you took it some somewhere, but it’s like this concept of an, an I focus story. You focus message. And I think that’s really important because you can tell your story, but it still has to resonate with the audience. Um, that was really good. That’s not my third point. My third, RV: (10:06) Well, that was a bonus tag onto my point. That was really similar. But yeah, that’s Craig Valentine. Y’all 1999 world champion of public speaking. Tell an eye focus story with a youth focused message. AJV: (10:16) Okay. My last point, um, and I just, it’s a combination of something that Rory said and something that Dave said, and I just kind of put it together. And I thought it was really good. Is that speaking, being a keynote speaker, right? Being a professional speaker is one of the best jobs on the planet. However, it is not a good business model because it’s not automated. It’s not evergreen. It’s not digital. It’s not recurring and it’s not scalable. It’s very limited. And it’s you on an airplane a lot, it’s you away from your family a lot. However speaking is one of the best ways of marketing your business. So let me say that all again. I thought this was really good. It’s like being a speaker is one of the best jobs on the planet for you for finite amount of time. But it’s one of the worst business models in terms of growing and scaling something. But it’s one of the best ways of marketing, a bit RV: (11:17) Paid marketing. You get paid to market. AJV: (11:19) That’s really good. And I think for all of you out there who were like, I want to be a speaker and I want to scale my speaking business. You also have to be asking yourself, what’s my backend. RV: (11:31) Yeah. If you want to build a business, otherwise you just, you have a job and you’ll go play in the plane, the plane, right. AJV: (11:36) Needs, age, 70, 80, whatever. You’re not going to want to do that. Or your wife isn’t or your kids. Aren’t like, at some point you don’t want to be gone 200 days a year, right. Unless you’re living the single live live in Lavita loca. Totally fine. But I would bet for most of you out there where this seems like a, uh, a passion and I loved, and this is last thing I’ll say, he said, just remember, like speaking is my job. It is not my passion. And he said, my passion is my family. That I’m not saying that it has to be yours, but speaking is my job. It’s not my passion. So it’s speaking a job for you or is it your passion and what does that look like in terms of growth and scale and money and how does that? RV: (12:22) Yeah, I would totally agree with that. It’s a job. It’s a great job, not a great business. Now you can like, like any job, you can work a job for your whole career and make enough money. And then, and then retire. And AJV: (12:35) We know plenty of seven figure speakers. You can make tons of money. RV: (12:39) Yeah. Just know that on the front end, like you’re saying, it’s like, that’s not going to be the way that you scale a huge business. Um, so my last one is actually, it’s an ageism, honestly, it’s from you. And there was something that Dave said that, you know, a lot of things he said that really reminded me of, I think, a philosophy that you carry, that I’ve always admired, that I have also found to be true, that I think you believe, and you practice really well, which is that everyone becomes a customer eventually. Like if you stay in touch, like they may not book you this year. They may not look us next year, but they’re gonna, if you treat them well and you care about them and you stay in front of them and you just follow up with them, everyone buys eventually. And I think that that is something that, you know, he was saying that just really reminded me of just like, yeah, you’ve got to have a process here, you know, the system and stay in touch. RV: (13:36) And just, especially in the speaking world, I feel like if you get really good, like if you’re following the brand builder journey stuff, and like, you’re doing the things we’re telling you to do in terms of crafting your positioning and building your marketing and all that sort of stuff, at some point, you’re going to be really good. And once you become really, really good, you know, if you’re not already, well, yeah. Some of you already are already. I mean, we can all get better. We can all get better. But when you’re really, really good, these meeting planners and companies, they need to hire you. They have to book somebody. And at some point, if you’re really good, they’re gonna go with you. If you’ve stayed in touch with them for five, six, seven, eight, 10 years, like at some point it’s just timing, AJV: (14:22) But that’s with any good business model, right? You provide enough value and have a good longterm followup strategy longterm. You know, I have this concept, which I guess I’m what you’re referring to is it’s not, no, it’s just not right now. That is my philosophic. Belief with all customers, with all prospects who don’t buy, it’s not, no, it’s just not right now. Um, and so, um, again, consent, she’s concise defying. RV: (14:52) She’s concise defying me. AJV: (14:55) Yeah, it’s true. It’s like you got to have a strategic and methodical plan when Dave talked a lot about that and gave lots of tips. Like if you want to build a speaking business, you need to go and listen to the interview of somebody who truly is at doing it for the long haul. He’s had a very consistent and sustainable speaking business for 20 years. Um, and he gives a lot of tips away. So you really do need to go check out the interview. We’re pulling out some of the things that we took away, but there’s so much that we did not cover. RV: (15:23) Yep. Very methodical process. And I would also say, you know, in a world of virtual keynotes, all of this still applies if not even more. And, um, yeah. So go check out the interview, get to meet one of my best buddies, Dave Afrin. Uh, thanks for listening to AIG and I banter and hopefully share some highlights that are useful for you. We love you. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye. AJV: (15:45) [inaudible].
Ep 88: Building A Sustainable Speaking Business with David Avrin
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RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) So you have an opportunity. You’re about to learn from one of the first people and one of the most important mentors in my life. And certainly in the trajectory of my career, David Avrin has become one of my closest friends and he was one of the first people I met on my journey when I was just a young kid with a dream. And so technically, so here’s what David does today. He’s gonna talk, we’re gonna, I’m going to interview him to share with you his process. He has a very systematic process for acquiring keynotes and growing a keynote business. And we’ll talk about why that’s important, but as a speaker, he is one of the most in demand customer experience and marketing speakers in the world today. And he speaks all over the world, Singapore, Bangkok and tour bueno Situs, Srilanka Brisbane, Johannesburg, I mean, London, Barcelona, Dubai on and on and on. RV: (02:04) And he’s speaking for companies like Harley Davidson, Remax, PPG ups, and he’s the author of a couple of books. Okay. so it’s not who, you know, it’s who knows you visibility marketing and then his latest book, why customers leave and how to win them back, which was named by Forbes as one of the seven business books that entrepreneurs need to read. So he has done it and he has spent a lot of time teaching people like myself. And it, those of you that are members of ours, you know, when you go through our phase one experience and we talk about the brand DNA helix, and I talk about questions, like what have you earned the right to talk about? You’ll hear me quote, that that is directly from David Avrin. What problem do you solve? What do you do better than anyone else in the world? These are, these are things that I learned from this man. So brother, thank you for making some time to come on the show. DA: (03:01) Well, I am humbled. I am honored and, and isn’t it ironic over the years that when we look back to that was decades ago, when we all started our friendship, our relationship and how much we’ve learned from each other over the years, I, I loved the idea when the master becomes the student and the student becomes the master and you were a kid and you no longer now you have kids of your own. And and I love seeing where you are. I love being able to have these conversations and then letting other people listen into what it is that we talk about, but we continue to learn from each other because the world is changing. And so how we do what we do has to change as well. RV: (03:40) Yeah. Well, amen to that. And I think one of the things in recent years, and this is, this is where I kind of, you know, I definitely want to step into the student’s seat here again, because I’ve been so impressed. I mean, you, you kind of like, we’re a marketing consultant. And so you were advising companies on that, and then you were advising speakers on that, and then you kind of stepped into becoming a speaker and then you built this really fast speaking career. And one of the things that I love about how, how you’ve done it is, is, you know, too many people teach the business of speaking like, well, Hey, you throw up a website or you, you do a demo video and people just come or Hey, you write a book and people just come, but it’s not that way. It’s never been that way. And most people don’t have such a systematic process that they follow and, and watching you develop that I think has been inspiring for me because I think it’s something that is teachable and it’s scalable versus, Hey, you know, you gotta become famous. And then you’re a speaker. DA: (04:47) I think it’s the only thing that’s scalable. I mean, that’s, that’s the whole point of it. I think it’s, it’s, I think the tragedy of our profession, whether you are a professional speaker or you just speak as part of what you do to share your message and build your audience, whether it’s consulting or otherwise as well. I think the big tragedy of our profession is all of the false information of what it takes to be successful in doing this. And we have, and I think you’ll agree with this one. It always makes me smile a little bit that I think we’re the only profession for those of us who actually do this for a living where most people become speakers, because they’re encouraged to become speakers by people who have no idea what it’s like to be a speaker, right? It’s like, you have to tell that story. DA: (05:29) You got to go and inspire people. And all of those people say, listen, I just want to touch people’s lives. I want to, I want to share when to help inspire people and sheer joy, you know, it’s like, yeah, don’t quit your day job. I mean, it doesn’t mean that we can’t do that. It doesn’t mean we can’t inspire people, but the reality is this is a business and meeting planners. Aren’t going to pay you $10,000 for you to have a cathartic experience on stage. They’re going to pay you $8,500 for you to live your life’s dream, touching people’s lives. However, they will pay you to solve a problem of theirs now in doing so you can live your dream. You can, you can, you know, indulge your passion, but this is a business and speaking, isn’t speaking, isn’t a business. Getting the gig is the business. DA: (06:14) And that’s the key that most people don’t realize you and I both know that most people will enter and leave this profession within two years, because they’re literally starving because they took it. I took a class on storytelling or hand gestures, and why won’t my phone raise like pick up the freaking phone. And so what, what you talked about sort of very quickly, I don’t know that it was quickly. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now. And I am a 20 year overnight success in that we spend a lot of time myself and my staff in learning what works and what doesn’t, and what doesn’t work is, is promoting your passion. And here’s what I, it it’s solving somebody’s problem. Now, if you can connect what you’re really good at and what you really love to do with a problem, somebody willing to pay to solve, you have magic. You have Nirvana, you have the chance of being successful in this business. RV: (07:08) I love that. I love that. What you said there about speaking, isn’t the business, getting the speaking gig is the business. And that’s like that one insight alone, I think, is just people overlooked DA: (07:25) Dramatically. We, we love inspiring people. We love teaching. We are by definition. I think all of your brand builders, of course, I’m part of your brand builders group as well. We’re all teachers, to an extent, aren’t we, we have something that we want to share with somebody. We believe something, we know something we’ve learned, and we want to impart that to others. And we can do it through consulting and online courses and books and everything else, but it’s not about us. And this is where this is where I will differ from some very big names who talk about it’s important that people buy your why. And I don’t think they buy your why. I think they buy their why. I think you have to be very clear on your why you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you have to connect it to their why, why are they buying? DA: (08:10) What is their problem? What is their challenge? What are they looking for? And not everybody has a problem. I mean, sometimes their problem. My problem is I just need a bigger flat screen TV than Phil does down the street. That’s an, that’s a, that’s a that’s my, my problem is I need a bigger snowblower than my, in my neighbors. But but speaking in general for no matter what you do, if speaking as a part of it, there is a process and the system. And, but don’t confuse that with automation. Cause I’m not an automation guy. I am everything for us. It’s very highly personalized. And I think part of our success in finding and converting paid speaking gigs is that we are very systematic in our approach, but very personalized in our outreach. Does that make sense? Say that again. You’re very say that again. DA: (08:57) We’re very, we’re very systematized in our approach. We have a process in this system that helps us be efficient with our time. It helps us to make sure that the activities that we’re engaged in are effective activities. They are strategic. We know why we’re doing what we’re doing and when we’re doing it, but how we’re doing it is not about how many can we do as quickly as we can. It’s very easy to get a list of associations, craft a general email and send it out to everybody in 45 seconds. And it’s the worst possible approach ever because you’re just going to be thrown in the bucket with everybody else who spams them with that information. So that’s super efficient, but it’s not effective. Part of what makes us very effective. And we are, is that we take the time to look up every prospect. DA: (09:52) That would be a good fit for what I do right now. I talk about customer experience as a meaningful, competitive advantage. I speak to corporate audiences and association audiences about how to achieve advantage over their competitors by being remarkably easy to do business with. And so as we call that list and go through and see which one would be an appropriate audience for me, like if somebody is in business and they’re in a competitive marketplace, it’s a great audience. So the national for the international glove manufacturers, which is a big deal, of course, during the Corona virus, it’s a thing I’ve spoken for them before. That’s a great audience for me, but the national society of operating room nurses, not a good audience for me. They’re not in business. They’re not competing against other amazing people, but not an approach for me. So strategically we would never pitch them because it’s wasting time. Cause they would never hire me. So we’re very selective in terms of we will buy lists or on the, on the association side, on the, on the government side, on the corporate side. RV: (10:58) So can we, can we, can we tell about that? I wanna, I wanna cause I wanna, I want to hit that part first. Cause I do think a lot of people miss that step and, and I think even that as a first step, there’s a lot of people that go, Oh my gosh, I didn’t know. You could do that. And then the ones that do it, they buy a list. They send a broadcast email to everybody, nobody buys and they say this to them. DA: (11:21) It didn’t work. Right. RV: (11:24) How do you get the list though? Let’s like, sure, do you, where do you go together? DA: (11:28) Let me back up. First of all, not only does it not work, but you’ve actually just poisoned the well for future outreach that you’re gonna do. So there’s listen. A lot of places. I will be honest. My staff does a lot of this. So I’ve got you know, Tiffany’s met with me for almost nine years. So there’s association list. You can look them online. A lot of them are free. The Hoover’s list, which is the Dunn and Bradstreet for of us who grew up in business dun and Bradstreet is probably the most current UpToDate corporate database of major associates or not association, corporate executives, personnel it’s updated constantly. And so the mailing list sort of part of that is called Hoovers. So if you look at Hoovers, it is not inexpensive. You know, it might be, I think as much as $3,000 or so for a year. DA: (12:21) But, but for many of us, that’s 15 minutes on stage with one gig, the advantage elite to sort of go through both of these. Cause I think this is really meaningful for those who are, who are listening the association side, they tend to pay a little bit less, but every association, every industry has an annual meeting or multiple meetings look around the room wherever you are right now, listening to this or watching this, everything you see in that room. Somebody makes that, and they have an annual meeting. So the lights and the switches and the, and the fixtures, everything you see there, a there an association and they meet every year, look them up. And here’s what we do. We go to one of the associations that we go through a little matrix. So with everyone we look up, we look up, when is their next meeting? DA: (13:06) We, we market in their, in, in our form. When was their last meeting, who were their speakers? So we’re you and I have been around the business for a long time. We know who’s basically making what, if you don’t know, just go online and look them up. You can get a general idea of what their fee is. So if I see some very big names, if I see a Rory Vaden or a Jay bear or a, or a Sally Hawk said, I have a pretty good idea of what they paid for that person. Last year, we look at when their, when their next meeting is coming up, coming up. So we get all that information phone numbers, everything else. And then that’s in our database and our CRM we’ll use that to craft a personalized pitch letter. Now we’re not writing them all from scratch. DA: (13:48) 95% of is done, but we will tailor their name, the name of their event. We’ll pitch me as a good prospect for it. And it’s about how many of those can we crank out, but they’re very personalized. They’re different one at a time and we’re sending them one at a time. But, but think about it this way. If you were able to do, maybe it takes you 20 minutes or so, and you could do maybe three an hour and you treated this like a job. Cause it’s a job that people sleep until noon. You know, I mean, success is being willing to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do. Where did I learn? Where did I learn that and take the stairs. And so if you treat this like a job and safe it four hours a day of just pitching and you could do three an hour. So that’s three times four that’s 12, a day, times, five days a week. That’s 60 organizations who now know who you are, who wouldn’t have known otherwise multiply that in a month. That’s 240 organizations. You’ve with a personalized, tailored pitch, which makes you stand out from others as well as somebody said to us, how are you converting such a big portion, big percentage of the pitches that you’re, that you’re sending out. I want to hear that quickly. And I, and I say, I don’t think we are, but RV: (15:09) Yeah. So, and I do want to hear about that process, but one of the things I think that stands out to me and what you described is there, isn’t a magic list. It’s not like there’s some secret list that you know about that no one else knows about it’s the same place you’d buy any lists, the business journal, you Google stuff like it’s, there’s not like a magic clean list that has it. And some of those lists are probably inaccurate and you’re sorting through some of that. And when you send the email, you get a bounce back and you got to call them DA: (15:38) While we do do some of the research, we look up something and think, well, that takes some time. Sure. And for what we get paid, we’re not selling widgets. You know, if you’re at, whether you’re at $7,500 or $15,000 for a keynote, we make a really good living for what it is that we do. It is worth that investment. If you’re doing that and you’re doing 12 a day or five a day, it’s more than you’re doing now. And you’ve got a hundred pitches. If you pull out three or four gigs in a month, that’s more than 99% of the people in the world will make, this is a job. You got to treat it like a job. And so, but you also have to be very strategic in how you pitch. When we craft our letters. For example, we give them an easy out at the end of the very first paragraph we say, I think David David ever would be a great fit for your, your event, blah, blah, blah. DA: (16:28) And this coming up on this date so that we know, they know we did some research. If you want to skip the rest of this letter, click on this link to watch his preview video. You’ll know in a few short minutes, why he’s one of the most popular customer experience speakers in the world today? We give them a digital link in an analog letter letter, essentially, right too. I’ll say that again, just because it kind of jumped down in case you want to take this quote, it’s a digital Lincoln, an analog letter that allows them to skip everything else to skip ahead. Cause everything we do is about getting them to watch my preview video. If they, that is our one key factor that is our leading indicator. People will watch my preview video, which is pretty good. It’s got me speaking around the world. DA: (17:13) If they watch that I’ve got a good shot of getting the gig. If they don’t watch it, I have zero chance. So there’s a whole bunch of other things that we don’t have time to go into in terms of what they need to make this successful. But in terms of our process, we will go through. Now, let me talk about the other side. So that’s the association site and it’s just it’s work. It’s being clear on who your audience is. Don’t pitch and waste time on ones that aren’t make sure it’s personalized. And your whole goal is one of two things. Either get them on the phone or get them to watch your video. And if you can get one of those two things, you got a good chance. Knowing the corporate side, they tend to have a bigger budget. The problem is, and this is the Hoover’s list and others is they don’t post anything in terms of their events because they’re not public. DA: (17:57) And so you’re kind of going in a little bit blind in terms of pitching a specific event, but we have a strategy for both of those. So our strategy is it’s timing, it’s followup. And I’m happy to give you some of what that is. I mean, there’s certain days that we pitch in certain days that we don’t write no pitching on Fridays. Cause even if somebody likes you, they’ll forget about you by Monday, it’s all trial and error. Friday is when we’re, we’re filling out RFPs, which is contrary once again to what most speakers will tell you don’t fill out RFPs. They’re just for breakouts. Nobody pays. I made six figures on RFPs last year, six figures, but we have a template. So we just cut and paste. Here’s our takeaways. Here’s the, you know, what are the three takeaways from session, outcomes, outcomes, all stuff. DA: (18:47) And so we just cut and paste and we’ve got it now. Cause we’ve done so many. If it’s a healthcare organization, if it’s retail or restaurant or, or financial services, which we do a lot of, we can cut and paste and get those in. Some of those have turned into keynotes, but what else are you doing on a Friday? Now, granted, there’s a lot in, in, through the brand builders group. Of course you, you teach a lot of great systems and processes, but the best way to get in front of people as you build your audience, as you build your visibility is to treat the speaking part as a business. And we do so, and we’ve had good success because of it. RV: (19:21) Yeah. You know, and I think that’s, it’s really interesting. I say this a lot to people as much as we’re virtual and you know, automated and scalable and all these things that we talk about, the there’s still, nothing does such an effective job as converting someone who is a complete stranger, never heard of you to an absolute lifelong raving fan in one hour as being in the same room, physically with you watching you do a P a well-polished crafted and delivered keynote, which there’s a lot to it, but that is the shortest distance between stranger and raving fan. Now we try to emulate that with a webinar experience online DA: (20:09) And you can to an extent, and I do that as well. We use all the vehicles in venues that we can, yeah, RV: (20:15) It does. It does to some, some, some fraction or percentage of that. But I think that the tricky thing about the speaking business, like what you’re saying that I really love is I go, it is a job. You have to treat it as a job. And the bomber is that it’s not super scalable. Like you have finite inventory. Now you could still make a couple million bucks. DA: (20:37) Maybe I can be a one stage at a time. I can be on one airplane at a time. But that said, the effectiveness during that interaction is, is Speaker 4: (20:48) Infinitely greater than the, you can, you can have 10,000 people on a call or you can have 500 people in an audience, but the impact you’re going to have on those people is going to be that much more so. And nobody knows that better. And I’ll brag for you for a minute. Then Rory Vaden, who at a very young age, as a young kid was top 10 in the world for world championship of public speakers. The next year, he was second in the world in the world, like 25,000 people started, but there’s something about charisma and there’s something about about communication and that, and yet you’re not equals. Here’s the other thing that that is so beneficial for what we do. When you have an opportunity to get that stage, you are not equals, you are not meeting Ida. You are elevated both figuratively. Speaker 4: (21:33) And literally they’re seeing somebody who is a passionate messenger for whatever it is that they’re espousing and you have a captive audience and they’re listening to you and if you are practicing and it doesn’t mean that you’re overly rehearsed, but you know what you’re saying, you’re teaching what you do. There is a power in that. And if you are, as we are generally, pardon the gender specific reference. If we’re the good guys and we’re teaching something that is important, that’s going to help them and benefit their lives. There is a power in that and it’s, and it’s, and it’s using that power for good, as opposed to using those super powers for evil. But in terms of galvanizing them as followers, as somebody who wants to know more, that’s why people line up for us afterwards to get a signed copy of our book and to take a picture with us. Speaker 4: (22:23) It’s surreal, right? It’s not real. Most people don’t have jobs where people clap for them. At the end of the day I come home and my, my beautiful wife is like, Hey, big deal, go take out the trash, like planting trees, my backyard yesterday. But that moment there is something surreal. There’s something powerful. And it certainly energizes us. And I am passionate about what I do, but this isn’t my passion. It’s my job. My passion is my children. I love what I do. I’m doing exactly what I should be doing, but my passion is my family. And so that, that part of, as sort of dovetail of what you were saying of being able to be on stage, it’s a really effective way to deliver your content in a way where everybody is touch. You, you can’t sit back in your office and throwing a tennis ball against the wall during a, you know, during a webinar. That doesn’t happen when we’re on stage. RV: (23:19) Yeah. And, and I, you know, I was processing it too, is like, I think speaking is the greatest job in a world, but it’s not a great business because it doesn’t actually scale beyond you, but it’s the best form of marketing for a business that ever could be it’s. So it’s like you have this great job on the front end and Speaker 4: (23:42) Treat it right. It feeds into whatever the, whatever RV: (23:46) The business is on the backend. That is the scalable, that is the scalable thing. But that front part of it, of just going, it starts, it starts with a list. It starts with figuring out who to reach out to, and then tell us about the followup process a little bit, Dave. So you have that first outreach, your first outreach, there is a, is a, is a tailored email. That’s what I hear you. Right? Speaker 4: (24:10) We actually have a schedule and I don’t mind sharing it with you. We have a video series that we weave to do a, a live bootcamp that we just don’t do any more than we recorded it. But here’s our basic process we pitch on on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometimes on Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday pitches might go out. It’s the first email. And as soon as we do in our CRM system, as soon as we send that first email, we set a task to follow up in two weeks with another one. If we get no response, we’ll follow up in two weeks, but here’s something different than we do. So on Friday we actually send a hard copy brochure letter, follow up saying, Hey, we sent you an email last week. We send them on Fridays for a reason, because it’s a hard snail mail. Speaker 4: (24:55) It’ll arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week. So now we’ve gotten two touches one week apart, one virtual, one physical. If we get no response from them in our CRM system, we’ll get a tickler two weeks later, that will say follow up with so and so, so we have a second email and here’s, what’s interesting. Our response for the second email is three times what it is for the first email, to an extent, I think people go, Oh gosh, I was going to get back to her or whatever, because we get, we all get overwhelmed every day. We try and work really hard to make sure it’s not spam, right? So the second one emails are very simple. One, Hey, sent you a pitch, but David ever would be a good fit. Let us know if there if we can find a time to talk and, and we’ll get response, it doesn’t mean they all say yes. Speaker 4: (25:42) Some say, Oh, I’m so sorry. We’re not meeting till whenever or something else. If they don’t respond to that, we do not reach out a fourth time. So it’s two virtual, one physical, and it’s all within a two week period. If we don’t hear back, we don’t reach out again. We just put them back in there and we set a responder for the following year. Now here’s the most important part, and this is our big secret that I’m going to give out to everybody and I’m not selling it. Oh. And, and this is people who paid thousands to come to our boot camp, which we don’t do anymore. It’s the win because our business tends to book eight to 18 months out in the U S overseas. They’ll do a shorter time period. When I’m, I was just in Mumbai India, we launched our book out there. Sometimes they’ll book six weeks out, but here we generally do that. So RV: (26:32) 17 to 18 months, that’s what he’s 18 months Speaker 4: (26:35) Sort of when the window book out. But here’s when they start the process. This is the important part. If we look up an organization and let’s just pretend people are listening to this right now, and it’s may, and their event is coming up in July, they’ve already got their suite. We’re not going to pitch them. Now if their event is in July or August, because don’t forget about us. So what we do is we always give them 60 days from their last event before we pitch this, honestly, for those of you listening, who will do something, this is worth a hundred, $200,000, just this tip of knowing when to pitch them. So if we reach somebody and their events coming up, we just put a tickler in the system for 60 days. From that date, it’ll pop up on our screen. We know into pitch them. Speaker 4: (27:21) If we pitched them too soon, they forget about us because they’re already in the throws of their event, scheduling take a monk off. And then they’ll start thinking about when to form their committee to work on the following year. And so it’s been very successful. We’ve learned it’s taken nine years to, to decipher this part of it. So whenever their event is 60 days from that is the day that we pitch where sometime within the next couple of months after, but never before that. And that alone gets us so many more responses. And everybody’s in the system. Our goal is to get them to click on my video. And then once, if they say within that two week period, if they come back with any kind of interest, this is about taking a contact and turning it into a lead and a lead into a prospect and a prospect into a paid speaking gig. Speaker 4: (28:11) And we know what influences each step of us. Initially, there were contacts or just somebody we have in the system. The minute we email them, they become a lead. And if they respond in any way, other than how did you get my information, please stop emailing me. They become a prospect. And so if they say, yeah, we’re interested, send us some information. We’ll then, then all the rains are offering and we love them up. We send them a signed copy of the book. We set up a I’ll do a virtual, a BombBomb video email message to them. We will send them a try and set up a followup conversation because here’s the reality. I can’t let everything be equal when I know I’m a finalist. I don’t cross my fingers because my competition is guys like Rory Vaden it’s it’s it’s women like Connie Podesta and Sally Hogshead and Peter sheen and just amazing speakers. Speaker 4: (29:07) I can’t let everything be equal because my competitors are phenomenal. So that’s when we really, when we know somebody has an interest, we send them information. I do a video email that tells me where I can talk to them specifically and tell them what I know about their industry. And when I do a BombBomb video email, for those of you understand where bomb bomb, it’s a horrible name for a company, but it’s a great service because we can track the email. We’re over 80% success in landing the gig. But at that point we’ve already know that they have an interest in me. You’re saying if they’re, if start opening your video RV: (29:42) Emails, then you’re like, you’re Speaker 4: (29:44) No, no. I’m saying those who I record a BombBomb video email and send it to a prospect, consort express, some interest, we convert over 80% into paid speaking gigs because I’m granted, they’re already interested. The point is we are methodical about our process. But we’re very personalized in how we do what we do. We just need to be efficient with our time, because most pitches I don’t get. But even when, even when I don’t and they said, we’re going to do you for next year. And my staff will, you know, cause to what extent their part of their compensation is, is a commission and they’re frustrated. It says, okay, I need to pay my mortgage next year too. We play the long game to create a sustainable business in this business is absolutely rare. But to do so and much of what I’ve learned from Marie and AIJ in terms of process, we have to, we treat this like a business and we get, I get up every morning and I look at my beautiful wife and my, my, my absurd house and my high-maintenance children and I get my butt. RV: (30:57) Oh my gosh. That’s so funny. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s probably the, the, the, the, it seems like the big, consistent part here is methodical about the process, but personalized about the pitch. And that is, that is so powerful. And then, like you’re saying playing the long game, I mean, the one thing that AIJ always says that I found to be so true, particularly in the speaking business, not just personal brand at large, but in the speaking business is like, if somebody engages with you, like if you get to that point that they’re engaging with you and you send them a book, if you just stay in touch with that person, they will eventually book you. It may not be this year. It may not be next year, but if they have engaged with you at all, it’s like, eventually that person is going to book you just because at some point it becomes easy for them to do it because they trust you just for the sake of the matter that you have been around forever. Speaker 4: (32:05) Right? Well, and sometimes those people book you and they no longer work for the same place that they worked before. You just rubber organization. And then they book you. RV: (32:16) Yes. When they book you and then they move and then they book you again for the exact same. Speaker 4: (32:21) We had a thing last January, not this January a year ago, January, I did. I had two gigs that Tiffany and my office had been working on for three years. And it was just, it was weird, but literally three years that she’d been working on both of them and two very big organizations, and it’s not like she was bugging them. It’s just, she pitched them. We didn’t get the gig and put them back in the system. We pitched them again the next year, sometimes it was a tweak or it was a new keynote tide or something else. And ultimately it booked and she made the point that she’s not like I’m going crazy. She’s like just, it comes up in my system. We do a crafted pitch and we don’t get it. We pitch them again next year because the organization isn’t going into wasn’t going away. Speaker 4: (33:03) So I get down to Phoenix. I’m, I’m speaking for this organization. I walk in the door and the guy says to me, he goes, your assistant is a pit bull. And I just, she has persistent. And of course it went great. And they booked me a second time since which is, which is wonderful. But I, and to be clear, I love what I do. You love what you do, but the only way I get to do it, as much as I want to do it is by treating it like a business. And so the delivery part of it is the part that we all love. Even when I, when I’m there and they’re asking me like, well, how much more for this? And Tiffany in my office, she tells client. She says, Oh, you’re just paying for him to leave his kids. He loves it. He’ll, he’ll do as much as you want while he’s there. You want him to facilitate your lunchtime panel discussion. You want to break out, even though he loves this, but, but the fee is for him to leave, to leave his family, but he loves doing this. So we very much treat like a business and have been able to grow and scale in terms of the the other offerings as well. RV: (34:08) I absolutely love that. So I got one more question for you before that. Where should people go if they, if they wanna learn about Dave Avar? And if you have a video, I mean, if you have a video course somewhere, we’ll put a link to that. Speaker 4: (34:22) Sure. Here, my speaking and consulting, look, we have a David [inaudible] dot com and it’s a V R I N. David alburn.com and my, my greatest initiative and part of what I learned from Rory Vaden, as well as I, every wonderful subscription model initiative that I’ve launched, I think is the most powerful work I’ve ever done. If you look at customer experience, advantage.com, you can see some samples, great URL, just customer experience, advantage.com take a look and and reach out. I’m not hard to find and look my name up online, and I’ve got videos and, and everything else, but I appreciate the opportunity with my, my little brother, my best buddy, for all these years. I’ve loved watching your success and in holding and squishing your babies. And I couldn’t be more impressed and proud with of what you’ve done and who you are. So there’s me sucking up to you a little bit, but how fun is this when you think about where we were 20 plus years ago? RV: (35:29) I mean, it’s, it’s crazy, Dave, and, and I’m so grateful for you. I mean, I, I literally just in so much of what teaching now is built upon the tenants and the principles and foundations that you shared with me that, you know, I paid you in chips and appetite, Speaker 4: (35:48) Nacho cheese. Yeah. I was to say, RV: (35:52) And that we now sell for thousands of dollars. Speaker 4: (35:58) We’re all helping each other, but isn’t that, isn’t that the best part about the brand builders group and everything else that you do is there is a, there’s a community of people who are learning and sharing best practices. And some of them will ultimately become best practices because they’re new practices. And until we realize what works and what doesn’t, but what a perfect time to get into this business, but what you do and what UNH and your team do is you help people slice 10 years off their learning curve and to be able to, to share their message and their, and their brand and build all of that and do it in a shorter period of time, it gets them to the port where they can do the work that is impactful much, much sooner. And and I applaud you for that. RV: (36:47) Well, thank you. And so here’s, my last little thought is if, if, if there were somebody listening right now, right? Think of me, think of me 20 years ago, or even yourself, you know, 20 years ago, in many ways it was like just stepping into the industry. Now they kind of, they have the dream, right? Like Speaker 4: (37:05) What, you know, what, what is the, RV: (37:08) What is the one thing that you feel like they, you know, they need to know, or they need to, they need to hear in terms of, you know, being able to go, this can become a sustainable way to feed your family and make a difference in the world. Speaker 4: (37:27) You know what I, I, and I, I want you to listen and take this in the right way, because it will make sense. It’s not about you, but it’s not in lieu of you. Does that make sense? So it is about them. It’s what can you do for them? But it’s what is special in you? What you’ve learned, what you can do, your unique gifts and how you can apply that to better somebody else’s life or their business. So I think the biggest mistake people make is they get so caught up in their own story and who they are that they forget. There’s an old exercise that says, take everything you’ve written about yourself and your sales sheets, your brochures, your website, and look at all the content and everything you say about yourself. You highlight in green and everything you say about your customers or clients or prospects and their life and their business. Speaker 4: (38:16) And when you highlight in yellow and they’re supposed to be more yellow than green, but there never is. Cause we do most of our time talking about ourselves. It has to be about them, but it’s not in lieu of you. So it’s not just what is there, what is your unique way of helping them, your unique that you can apply to better their situation or life. So they’re both very important. The challenge that most have is, are so focused on their passion. You, I just want to impact people. I just want to spread joy. People are going to pay for that, but they will. If you can do that in a way that helps them. So the advice I would give is, is, is uni clarity on the front end? What are you really good at? And how does that impact somebody else in a positive way? Speaker 4: (39:04) And that’s the key to the messaging is what do, it’s not what you do. It’s what they get and how you do it is important. And some people will be too, there’ll be too stringent in through this thing. It’s not about you. It’s all about them. It’s not all about them, but it is about them. But, but it’s, it’s what you can do. So don’t focus all on. You. Don’t focus on them, but it’s, it’s be clear on the front end and feel free to, to work with others in online chats, with your social group, your, your mastermind groups and others to try things out. But ultimately it has to be, what’s slipped down to what it is you provided. I love it. Well, thank you brother. We appreciate you. And I appreciate you as well to you and your family and your lovely, amazing kids and yours as well. My friend [inaudible].
Ep 85: Using Elevated Realism to Build the Visual Identity of Your Brand with Nick Onken | Recap Episode
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Speaker 1: (00:06) RV: (00:06) Welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We’re breaking down our friend, Nick on kin master celebrity photographer. I don’t know what else to say. Photographer guru photographer, extraordinary, extraordinary. The champion of all or so rent photography. I don’t know. Amazing guy, super powerful interview. And of course joined by my wife, our CEO, AIG Vaden. Why don’t you, why don’t you kick us off? What did you think? AJV: (00:37) Yeah. And I’m actually going to refer to my notes because this is one of those interviews where you kind of just get lost in the conversation. Nick is so conversational, he’s just just kind of a wealth of knowledge. And so I’m going to refer to my notes. I had five main points try to fit, but I’m going to try to fit them and still make them all fit. So my first one is just that great reminder that people connect to you through seeing photos of you and this digital landscape that we live in and the virtual atmosphere and how most of us are interacting today. It’s a, that the pictures of you that you post on social media is how people connect with you. And, you know, I know so many friends and, you know, professional and personal colleagues who say, well, I, you know, social media is just not for me. AJV: (01:23) Or I just do it for personal, or I only do it for professional. And we’re in this really interesting time where well kind of digital is the way, and that is how people connect to you and see you as human. Like this is the human interface and that is that personal dialogue. And you know, it’s interesting. I was at a friend’s house this weekend and she, she had her friend over there who I had never met before. And she said, yeah, I told her to follow you a few months ago. And she said, I know that you post like tons and tons of stuff about personal branding. And I was like, Oh yeah, you probably haven’t seen any of that. All I really post is pictures of my kids. And she said, actually, I really enjoy just getting to know you and your family. She goes, I love the fact that I’m meeting you for the first time. And I actually feel like I already know you. RV: (02:18) I didn’t know this. You didn’t, I didn’t real. I missed this. AJV: (02:20) Yeah. We were in the kitchen and she said, actually, I’ve seen your kids kind of grow up over the last six months. And you know, I have a one-year-old and we have a one year old, I had a role in it. You did. And it was just really interesting to me. I was like, man, I’m behind, I’m behind the game here. I’m behind the eight ball. I, I don’t know you. And I don’t know your three kids. And I felt really behind because she was like, yeah, I’ve been following you. She goes, I love the pictures of your kids. I love seeing your family. She goes, your kids are so cute. And she already knew so much. And it’s like, we all, it was like almost gave us a launching pad for this new friendship, for this new conversation. And I had never really viewed it through that lens before. And I actually felt like I was missing out because I didn’t have that same background knowledge on her. And it was this very weird aha moment. And so when Nick talks about in the interview of, Hey, we connect to people through seeing pictures of them, it was this great aha coming to fruition and this very first encounter of wow, that really, that really connects, that really makes RV: (03:30) It’s almost like it accelerates the relationship and so many ways. And I think it’s funny cause our feeds are probably completely inverse. Mine’s almost entirely business. I share. I do share personal stuff in stories, but not even that often. And yours is almost entire, your feed is entirely personal. So like many things, when you add a Rory in an ADJ, you have a great, you’ve got a great thing, but yeah, well, that’s super powerful. I, you know, Nick said that the camera sometimes adds a few pounds to 10 pounds. I’ve never met a camera that had less than 20 pounds to me, but I wasn’t upset by that. And my biggest takeaway from, from him, which is, I think what his thing is all about is elevated realism. And it reminded me of what Kristen Giza said a few weeks ago about TV. RV: (04:20) I think she called it heightened authenticity, the similar, like it’s like be yourself, but bigger, like you know, and a simple tactic in just that phrase, I think is super powerful, elevated realism. And when you look at his photos of Justin Bieber or of, you know, any of the people that he’s taken, you, you see this like, Oh, that’s what it looks like. I think of Louis behind the hot air balloons, Louis, they did a photo shoot. It really did. I mean, well, and so this was a tactical point that, you know, for someone I’ve never put a lot of stock stock in photography pun intended I have, but as someone learning a lot more about it and placing a much higher value on it, a simple tactic of make sure the background of your photo is a part of telling the story. And I thought that was just a super simple thing that like, you know, it’s, we underestimate, it’s like a very subconscious thing of what’s going on in the background, but particularly when you’re, you’re, you’re doing elevated realism and you’re, you’re producing an energy and an emotion with a photo that sort of faded background, but like whatever it is contributes a lot to that. And I thought it was both a tactical tip tip and also like a very artistic tip for how to do that. So that was a big, big one for me AJV: (05:45) Positions into my second, third, fourth point. I’ll put into one, which is make sure that your pictures and your captions make sense. RV: (05:54) Oh yeah. That’s really simple. Hashtag what was it girls with? Irrelevant captions. AJV: (06:01) Well, how’s it gotta be just girls Nick, come on. But yeah, I just, I think that was really an aha moment. Cause you know, I spent a ton of time looking at pictures and reading captions I’m in social media by trade quite a bit. And I just thought it was really interesting and you know, so I started actually going back through some of our teammates profiles while I was like listening to the podcast and I was like, Oh yeah, make a note. I’ll make a note there. And it was like one of those like aha moments where it’s like, okay, if you’re fully dressed, standing by the edge of an ocean or by the edge of a pool. And it’s like, great, first of all, that makes no sense to me. Why are you in a suit by the ocean? And then too, like reading the captions and I’m like, Oh, okay. AJV: (06:42) Yeah, I totally get what he’s saying. And I already knew that where it’s like, Hey, if you’re in a bikini or if you’re shirtless a shirtless male why are you like, you know, posting about deep thought and you know, soul searching. And it’s like, is that, are you finding your soul easier? Cause you have no shirt on, I’m not sure like what’s happening there, but it’s like, how are you making sure that your captions in your post connect in an authentic and real way? And are you just picking pictures you like, or do they actually help project the contents? And I thought that was a really good way of looking at it. It’s you know, and I think you could start either way. It’s like, what picture do I have that’s representative of this content that I’m trying to post, but then also what pictures do I love and what does that tell me to say, what does that prompt me to say? RV: (07:33) Well, even the story of that. AJV: (07:35) Yeah. Like what feeling does it, you know, kind of create in me. And I think you could go either way, right? You could start with the content and find the picture, start with the picture and create the content. But I just making sure they connect was a big aha. Yeah. Not necessarily a new one, but Oh yeah. Need to make sure we do that. RV: (07:53) Yeah. Just the little conscious, conscious things like this that will make a huge difference. And I think that it seems like it would be easier to find to, to, to find a picture that you love and then tell a story from, from that. But yeah. So anyways the, my big second, my second big takeaway, which I totally understand with physical products, but didn’t necessarily connect so clearly to personal brands is that different packaging results in different pricing, different packaging results in different pricing. We all know that like the way, you know, when you buy a Coke, like Coke or coffee, or you, you can go, what’s the difference between a Starbucks coffee and a seven 11 or a, you know, whatever air Jordans or what I grew up on, which was air Jordash. Like there’s, there’s certain things that you expect in the packaging, right? Apple has real. Yes. Well, it’s called Jordache, but I called it air door dash, but it was from Payless shoes. AJV: (09:01) Oh yeah. [inaudible] RV: (09:03) I call it air Jordash cause I wanted air Jordans. This is the whole story of my life. All of my ambition comes from the fact that I could not afford air Jordans when I was a kid. And so I wore air Jordache and then I was like, one day, I’m going to be able to buy your Jordans and you still don’t have any, I don’t have any, but, but Jasper got some what’s your sweet anyways. Yeah, Nordstrom rack. I’m on discount. But so your pictures, your photography as a personal brand represents a huge part of your packaging. And it’s, it’s, it’s funny because on the one hand you go, how come this photographer will charge me 500 and this photographer will charge me 5,000, but that’s also probably the difference between you charging 500 and you charging 5,000 for whatever the thing is that your doing. Yeah. And at least making a connection in your mind to go, my photography is directly correlated to the price that I can charge an excellent photography allows me to charge more. It enhances the perception of my credibility. And that was just a really important connection for me. AJV: (10:13) Yeah. Well again, great transition to my next one, which was, I’m literally reading my notes because I tried to capture this. You are creating the perception of what you want people to see you as right? Your pictures, your imagery creates the perception of how you want people to view. You see you as you’re creating the lens and which they put all of their thoughts around you. And I think that to your point, it’s a really big deal. It’s the way that you project yourself and your imagery. It is the perception that people have and you actually have influence over that. All right, these are your pictures. And I think that is a big deal and that is really important. And I really love that. It’s like, Hey, if people see you as one way, well, you can change that. Yeah. Post different images, post different pictures, create different content. AJV: (11:07) You have that power use it and you can do it through your images and your story. And then the other thing that I had kind of noted in this area is that people want to see you as human, which is why I post so many personal, personal pictures. I’ve decided Nick’s interview it’s because I have the human element. That’s, that’s what I’m going with. But I think that’s really important. And, and actually it was really interesting because as I was listening to his interview and I was like looking through my own feed of like, okay, okay, I’ll see how that connects. And I see how that connects. And as I asked myself, I was like, how do I really want people to perceive me? And I think for me, it’s like, yes, I’m the CEO and cofounder brand builders group. And I do all this stuff work-wise but more than anything else I want to be seen as Jasper and Liam’s mom like that truly is, it’s like, that is my number one priority. AJV: (11:58) It’s my number one, calling all thing and breweries wife. Right. You know, I’ll take that child of God all the things, but, you know, I think that was really, it was like an aha moment, the personal things in general. Yeah. Like that I would, I would much rather be seen as a human being versus I CEO or this or that. It’s just, just me. And I think that too is very reflective of what you get in my feet. And that was completely unintentional. Now I will put some intention to that, but it also was an aha moment of RV: (12:34) It could be good to put a business call to action in there every once in a while. AJV: (12:37) I do, I tied it in occasionally. But then I just, you know, that it’s a completely different feed than you would have found two years ago. RV: (12:47) Yeah. And it’s funny to me, cause people will comment on my profile or they’ll message me and they’ll say you have a beautiful family and I’m going, Oh, they must follow AJ. Because I don’t post a ton of the pictures, but like, or they’ll see us and they’ll be like, I love keeping up with your family. And I’m like, Oh, you’ve been following AJ. So, AJV: (13:08) But again, I just thought it was like very interesting.
Ep 84: Using Elevated Realism to Build the Visual Identity of Your Brand with Nick Onken
![](https://brandbuildersgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/NickOnken_1080x1080-1024x1024.jpg)
RV: (00:01) You are about to meet one of my favorite friends, one of my most creative friends, and in, in in some ways one of my most famous friends, but I think it’s like he’s, he could, he’s like the,, the person that is still in some ways undiscovered outside of his trait, which he is a legend in a Nick Onken. And I just think Nick is the coolest guy, has the coolest brand. He’s a world renowned photographer, so that’s his trait and he is a legend in that space. He has photographed personalities like Justin Bieber and Tom Hanks and little John and Jessica Alba. He’s done shoots for global campaigns for international brands like Nike and Coca Cola and Adidas. His work’s been published in magazines like Conde Nast traveler. Cosmo Marie Claire. Like he’s also the host of NION radio podcast where he’s interviewed people like Usher and Scooter Braun and Donna Karan. RV: (01:06) He’s been featured in Fast Company, Huffington post, MTV, and literally his work has just been featured everywhere. He’s also traveled to over 60 countries, seven continents. He’s an author, he’s the author of the travel photography book called Photo Trekking. He is, you know, probably the primary, I guess I would say primary photographer for Lewis Howes, of course, a close friend of ours. And I think yeah, Nick’s just entire personal brand is devoted to inspiring the world to activate their creativity. And it’s like he’s just amazing and you’re about to, you’re about to meet him. So, Nick, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Nice to meet y’all. So buddy this is one of, one of the, one of the many reasons why I love you is I feel like you’re really good at something that I don’t consider myself naturally very good at, which is just the visual identity. RV: (02:03) You know, not even just photography, but the visual expression of a brand. And there’s a concept that you shared with us. Well with me about elevated realism. Can you talk about you know, and you know, we don’t have to just stay in the lane of photography, but I’m kinda thinking about just, you know, the, the people listening their, their personal brands and just like building their, their visual presence, whether it’s online or in print or everywhere. But I think one of your uniquenesses is this concept of elevated realism. Can you just explain what that is? Yeah. So, and this is great because I think this is kind of a concept that we, that I’ve used a lot in advertising for big brands for like Coca-Cola and you know, in that world it’s called lifestyle photography is certain to NO: (03:00) A certain extent where you’re kind of manufacturing this, this aspirational world, but lifestyle, like you’re still kind of doing everyday things. And then you combine that with celebrity portraiture in editorial and, and you kind of get this mix of like elevation. You get this mix of, of, you know, authentic realism. So I kind of translated that over to the personal brand from just from doing all this work and what I learned throughout working with all these people. And so, and these brands. And so elevator realism really is that creating an aspirational look which you’d find in a magazine or an ad but also feels real. It feels authentic because you know, as you know to be, to build your personal brand, you want to be guiding people through a process. You want to be seen as a guide and you know, you want, you don’t want to be too far out of reach, but you also want to be relatable. And so that’s kind of the idea of elevated realism is like you’re creating an aesthetic that’s aspirational but yet relatable at the same time. And you know, for me, I, I like, I create storytelling assets around this. So we build, it’s usually driven around a concept of who you are and your brand. So after they’ve worked with you to develop you know, to develop these, these ideas, these concepts of who this person, you know, who they are authentically, then we kind of, we come and create the the creative from that. So RV: (04:27) Interesting. Yeah. So do they come to you like, like one of the exercises we do with people in phase phase one of course you’ve been to our phase one event that we at the very end of phase one, like post that phase one event, we go through brand characteristics lists and we just kind of come up with like words that sort of capture the essence of a person. Is that kind of what you’re talking about here is like, like how do you capture, or what exercises do you go through or take someone through to kind of like clarify what, what energy or what emotion or what they’re trying to convey. And it sounds like you do that first and then you figure out how to stage the shoot. NO: (05:11) Yeah, absolutely. So I have a story diagnostic sheet that I start with, which is probably about 10 to 15. I think it’s 10 to 15 questions that the client fills out and it’s, it’s everything from around like what’s the, the message, the vision, the mission, the message, how do you help people. And it kind of gets people thinking within that. And a lot of times sometimes they’ll work with your team or you know, if they’re working with other people or they’ll just fill it out themselves. It kind of depends on who. But then some of the other questions that come into it are like, you know, what are your activities? Do you love? Like what what kind of locations, tell your story, what kind of props help tell your story, what kind of, you know, one of them is like, what’s your favorite emoji? Like just cause they get people thinking expression, you know, some things. And then we kind of take that sheet and we’d go over their answers and then we build a week, RV: (06:03) Build the creative of the shoot out of that. So say like, see, like I mean with Louis, with our, our last shoot was in Turkey. Yeah. With all the balloon, the hot air balloons and stuff like, and the HELOC was the helicopter helicopter. I mean y’alls freaking shoots are Epic dude that the Iceland shoot. I mean he still uses pictures from that Iceland shoot from a few years ago. And that the Turkey shoot with the hot air balloons was so NO: (06:30) Just like magnificent. Thank you. Thank you. And the whole idea behind that was like rising to your greatness. And I pitched him that kind of, you know, he was like, we’re going back and forth around it. And I was like, well what about the idea of shooting with you in capita, Nokia with all these hotter balloons in the background? Because the whole concept of rising to your greatness is really up yet obviously you know him. That’s like who he is, helps everyone rise to their greatness. So that’s, that’s the concept that we pulled out of that. And then, you know, we did some other Epic James Bond type of stuff with the helicopter and things like that. But then, you know, I had, you know Bo Easton? RV: (07:04) Yeah. NO: (07:04) So, yeah, he hired me to do a shoot and we did, you know, his whole football thing. But he’s also got as busy, you know, he’s more his business and like his, his thought leadership now. So one of the concepts that we created, cause like family is so big to him. Mmm. And so we were like, okay, well let’s shoot you with your family on a football field. So we’re not like saying, Oh, I’m like fuck totally football, where like hinting at that background, not story element, but we’re focusing on him with his family. And so we kind of, you know, and he was the hero of all the shots and in a certain sense in terms of like what the focus was and how we were, you know, composing the shots and how we were organizing and how I was directing everyone within the shots. And then, you know, so they’ve used a lot of those to kind of like show that family man concept that, that story that we’re telling. With that. So, you know, it really comes down to simple. RV: (07:58) It’s like as simple as that. Like you’re, I mean that, that’s just such a simple idea of just like you’re telling a story of who the person is or like what, like who either who they are, what they’re about, just sort of subtly like with the background or where the location is. And you know, like the kind of props maybe that show up in there. NO: (08:18) Yeah. So the, the location and the props are all kind of just hinted in the space in the background while the focus remains on the person because obviously like the person is the product and the hero. So we, we we focus on that, but we utilize the environment to tell that story. So say for instance, like Chris harder, he’s a super book nerd. He loves books. And so we had, I came up with this idea, it was like, let’s pull all the books off of like all of the shelves and put them in his, in the living room. And we just books all around him. And then we just had him sitting there reading reading books, reading one of his favorite books. But then, you know, I’d have him look up at, so it was like RV: (08:55) We had this like eye contact, but he’s surrounded by books. Right. So it’s still focused on him. And that’s one reason why Chris and I get along, we share that, we share that, that passion for learning and reading. I love, I love Chris. What a cool, that’s so cool. Yeah. So you know, and that’s kind of a big piece of, that’s the elevator realism that I’m talking about. It’s the, you know, the way that I shoot it also comes through in like the lighting that I use, the way that I direct, the way that I, you know, there’s all these little pieces to it that come together in the moment of the actual shoot. So you have the prep and then you have the actual shoot. I mean we’ve worked together so like you’ve been able to experience kind of the of bro and like, and this is crazy. RV: (09:37) Like, I mean, the photos you took of me, we’re so good. I mean, I, I, I don’t know why. Like, I don’t, I don’t have a trained enough eye to go like, Oh this is the difference between my shot with Nick and my shot with other photographers. But it was just like somehow you captured like my energy, my personality. And it was like businessy but, but, but conversational like it just just blew my mind. So talk about directing the shoot a little bit and you know, not everyone’s going to be able to work with you. So, so I mean if some of y’all are listening, if like if you can, if you can do it like just freaking hire Nick, it’s unbelievable. But the concepts here I think are also like you could shoot it with your own, you know, like some people are just starting out, they don’t have a ton of money or whatever. RV: (10:29) Like you have a process here that I think it’s cool about the story part. And then when you get to the direction, talk to us about the direction and, cause here’s one thing and I’ll share this tip with everybody. I mean I’ve done, I’ve probably done at least a few dozen photo shoots in my life. Maybe a hundred, you’re the first person ever that put music on during the photo shoot. And I re that stuck with me as such. A simple like that is such a simple, was such a simple part of directing where I was like, you are such a pro of just going like, what’s the music that captures the energy that you know, you’re, you’re wanting to like give off. So talk to us about direction a little bit. How do we do that for ourselves? Or how do we direct our photographer to do it? RV: (11:15) Or like what are just some of the things you think about? Yeah. Well, I mean that’s, that’s such an interesting question because there, I mean, it takes a long time to become, to understand how to direct and I’m still learning, I’m still getting better at it. But that’s one thing with, you know, hiring the right photographer, you’ve got to kind of see what, like their, you know, see their subjects in their work. I mean, as with anything to see what they’re pulling out of their subjects first. But when it gets into directing, you know, for me, I like energy. I like this, this constant flow of energy. That’s why I bring music into it because it loosens people up, it gets them moving and once they get moving, they start to get out NO: (11:54) Of their head. And then once they’re out of their head, then you know, then you can really kind of move. And the thing is, is everybody’s going to take a bad picture. You just shoot a lot more and then we just delete those. So, you know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll a lot of times just get people moving, get people doing different things, even if it’s not a good shot. Because in, in that respect, if, if you’re moving, once you get people into that flow state of just being, getting used to being in front of the camera it gets, they get, they get, they’re able, they’re more comfortable able to, you know, feeling free enough to move. I also try to use a lot of positive reinforcement as I’m shooting as well. Yeah. And then, and then I also have to keep in mind what I’m trying to like, how to compose the shot, what lighting I’m trying to use and what the lighting’s doing. NO: (12:40) And so I have like a thousand things going on in my head as I’m clicking that camera. As I’m looking through that, the lens and thinking of like, okay, composition, motion, action. You know what, I don’t want this. What action do I want this person to do and do I want to look into the camera? You know? And so it’s like I’m constantly throwing different things out at PM. And that just takes practice. You know, for me it’s taken, I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’ve worked in, everybody’s different, every subject is different, you know, different people have different energies. Some people just like walk on and they just like bring it and like bring all the energy. And I’m like, not even really doing much, but then there’s other people who are not as experienced. And so can we talk about that? NO: (13:20) I want to talk about that cause that, that fear of being in front of the camera, like that’s a real, that’s a real thing. And I don’t know why, but it’s like, why do we have such a fear of being in front of the camera and what can we do, whether it’s on a photo shoot or if it’s just like, you know, doing a video blog or, or, you know, shooting a selfie that we’re going to post on Instagram or something. Like what are, why do you think, why do we have that fear? And like, do you have any ideas for how to move us past that? Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is the fear of being seen right? And the fear of being like almost in a vulnerable state. And especially because the camera captures who we are, right? And in this state. NO: (14:03) So I would say first thing is just like, you know, take care of yourself and you know, the camera’s going to, I typically add like a, like 10 pounds, a few pounds, I want to say 10 pounds. That’s a lot. But just the way he is. So that’s why you say like no baggy clothes because they look super baggy, you know? That’s what I’m saying. You know, it’s like if people don’t feel comfortable with the way they look, they either got it yet either just rock the way with confidence, the way that you look or do something about it. You know, I, I, you know, I can only do so much of capturing, you know, we can do stuff in posts, but then it gets, starts to get like inauthentic if you’re like heavily retouching things. So, you know, I think it’s just like thinking about what, you know, really getting down to what makes you fearful of being in front of the camera. NO: (14:48) And I think so pick it outfit. Just don’t pick your newest outfit necessarily. It’s like pick an outfit that you feel confident in and like pick an outfit that you like the way you look, like something as simple as that. Yeah, absolutely. And if you really want to go to the next level, hire a stylist to help you revamp your wardrobe. And if, you know, if, especially if you want to take your personal brand to the next level, it’s like you got to think about all these things because all the aesthetics say something about who you are. So if you’re just like schlep, you know, wearing sloppy stuff, you know, what is that going to say about you in the photos? You know, what is that going to say about you? I like the way that you’re, you make decisions the way that you care about yourself, the way that, you know, what are you preaching in comparison to that? NO: (15:31) So talk about that. Like the energy part. Yeah. Anyways, so just to, just to comment on that last thing that you said, I remember this blew my freaking mind when I don’t remember where we were. Somebody asked Louis this question, what is your number one secret to building a huge brand? And I was like, that’s an interesting question. I had never asked him that question. I was like, I wonder what he’s going to say right here. And I’m thinking, you know, like yeah, funnels or webinars or digital marketing or like networking. He said photography, he said photography is my number one secret of how I’ve built up a brand. And you know, it’s, it’s interesting cause I think of photos as like what you’re wearing and how you look. But the way that both you and him talk about it is it’s like, it’s more about the energy that you’re giving off that you’re capturing. NO: (16:32) Like it’s, it’s like it’s more about the energy than it is. I like the look. Yeah. Yeah. Because we all want to connect with somebody. Right. And photography connects you with that person. Like we look at, you look through magazines, right? And you see these celebrities that are, you know, they have like eight page editorials of them and you know, of photos like high, high end imagery of them, and then you feel more connected to them. I mean we see that everyday on Instagram. It’s like we get, we connect to people through photos of them. Right. And I think this is a very subconscious thing. And you know, the psychology of both, like graphic design and photography is, is huge as well. I was a graphic designer before I was a photographer and I went to school for visual branding and things like that. NO: (17:15) And you know, it’s the reason that we buy Coca Cola versus the, the the generic brand, you know, they might even be the same product, but branding different, different packaging. Well allow you, you know, make dif make the difference between the choice that you make. So photography plays a huge part of that. Graphic design plays a huge part of that. And when you project, you know, you’re basically creating the perception that you want people to see you as and you have that choice, right? If you’re not conscious to that creation of the brand and what you want people to perceive you as, then you’re not thinking about that stuff. That’s why photography, that’s why Lewis says photography is such a, one of the biggest key key things within his within his brand is that he’s creating this image that people want him to view him as. And so we create this higher level imagery. But like, he still feels super relatable. Like you would just, you know, it can be friends with them just from seeing them online. And so it’s, it is that elevated realism that really portrays him and like creates the elevation within, you know, and makes people want to follow him, makes people want to do, you know, have him as their guide kind of thing. RV: (18:30) Well, and it’s just like, it’s interesting to me because if somebody would have said like, if it, if it weren’t you and Louis, like if somebody said, I’m going to do a photo shoot with hot air balloons behind me, I’d be like, that’s the cheesiest idea that I have ever heard of. Okay. But the way you do it, it’s not that at all. And, and it’s, it’s almost like what you’re describing to me here, Nick, is like, that’s where the magic is, is it’s, it’s like do somehow tell your story if it’s authentic to you somehow you tell that story. Like how do you balance that? Like, Hey, there’s a place for creative genius here versus, no, that’s stupid. It’s cheesy. NO: (19:14) Yeah. I mean that all comes through the eye of the photographer. Right. So that’s the way that I see when I do photography. So every photographer has a different different point of view. But for me, like I’ve always seen things with this authenticity but also like this kind of cool, elevated edge. And so whenever I, when I’m out shooting, that’s the magic that happens within the moment is that like I can see from the lighting, the composition, the things that are happening within the frame that make it feel real and authentic and not cheesy. You know, that’s just the way that I’m built. That’s the way that I see. That’s the perspective that I take on photography. And that’s where the photographer actually really the vision of the photographer is, is what you’re also looking for. Cause it’s like somebody else could take, take these concepts and like shoot somebody with books and, and, and whatever. NO: (20:04) Totally. It’s in the moment. It comes down to the lighting, the photographer, you know, the, what they see, how they direct, how they envision it and how they pull out of pull, what they need out of the subject out of the the personality and the energy and all that stuff. And then, then it comes to post to like the coloring, the composition, you know, just in the backend, you know, creating an aesthetic look as well. So that’s, that’s kind of like the components, but that’s what it comes down to the photographer at the end of the day. So you want to hire the right photographer by looking at their portfolio and seeing like, Oh, do I see myself in their photos? Do I want the sustetic do I want, you know, am I, do I feel like I would be comfortable with them? RV: (20:48) Yeah, that’s a good question. Do I see myself in their photos like that? That feels somehow easier to me than do I like, cause like to me it’s like I can’t tell like I don’t, I don’t have like when you say how you see, when I see, it’s like I look at, I almost think I look at every photo I go, Ooh, that’s really good. Like that’s good. But then I see one of yours especially of me and me, like gosh that is so different somehow, but I don’t know why, but and do I see myself in their photos I think is super cool. I want to come back to what you were talking about a minute ago about you said something where you said that we connect to people through photos of them and that the more you see someone, the more you feel connected to them. RV: (21:38) And I’m having a light bulb moment here. I’ve always resisted posting pictures of myself on my social media feeds because not because I’m a F I’m self conscious of how I look because I’m self conscious of coming across as overly promotional or self centered or like arrogant of like, Oh Hey, here’s a giant feed of, you know, here’s a bunch of pictures of me. But the way that you said that was interesting where you’re like, no, it’s like, it helps the audience feel connected to you. It’s not about like promoting you. Have you ever heard anybody have that weird fear that I’m sharing and like what? Like what’s your initial thought on that? Cause that literally, I never realized that until you said that. And I was like, I hate posting photos of myself, but not for why most people do. Which is like, Oh, I think my, you know, I think I look silly. I don’t care. Like I’ve always been like, this is who I am, but NO: (22:41) I don’t want to be overly promotional. Yeah. Necessarily. Got a couple, like a couple things came to mind on that. RV: (22:48) A free coaching session between Rory Vaden and Nick on. Ken, if you’re just joining us, I’m getting free consulting advice here from Nick NO: (22:56) 105 so absolutely. So the first thing is, is this is kind of funny because like, so I was like four or five years ago I was at scooter’s wedding and we were all riding and Justin was there and Justin Bieber for that, for that. My friend Justin was there, so we were driving, we were riding around in the, in whatever his SUV and scooter pulls out as the scooters, like you’ll just need to follow Nick. And I was like, okay. I was like, sweet, awesome. And then Justin Luke pulls up my Instagram and he’s like, dude, why don’t you have any photos of you on there? And I was like, ah. I mean, I don’t know, I just like posting photos that I take. RV: (23:38) He still followed me for a couple of years, NO: (23:40) But that kind of stuck with me after a while. And this is kind of before really personal branding on Instagram was like kind of big, right? Like, this was just, this is kind of the earlier days of, of Instagram. And so I kind of started, you know, a few years ago, I’m just looking through analytics and things like that. I was looking at like the engagement of photos on my always highest on your personal photos. Yeah. People, you know, I get more likes on photos of me than photos that I take on my main account. And especially because it’s more like behind the scenes stuff or it’s conceptual stuff of me. And like they just kinda took me back to that moment of like, and then, you know, I was like, maybe he unfollowed me cause I was posting pictures of me. I don’t know. NO: (24:26) I mean he had followed everyone, but but you know, it’s, it’s, you know, you just got me thinking of like, okay, you know, people are following, like, especially with social media, people want to see what you’re up to. People want to connect with you as a human. I think that’s the biggest thing is they want to connect with you as a human to feel that human touch. And so I think that’s why photos of you putting foot posting photos of you on your feed really help people to connect with you. I think there’s also an element of like what story are you telling with that photo and how does it connect with that photo. So whenever I’m, I’m posting on Instagram a photo of myself, I kind of, I want to make the caption link to, you know, have some sort of context as to what the picture is. NO: (25:09) Hmm. And the story that I’m telling through that picture just to connect everything cause then you get into like the whole there’s, there’s a hashtag called girls without irrelevant captions and it’s like, it’s hilarious cause they’ll put you, it’s like, it’s unreal. They’ll post like a photo of them in a bikini by the pool and then have some sort of like really like esoteric, conscious, loving like quote. And it’s just, it’s just funny. It’s, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not congruent. It’s not. And then that just kind of like pulls away from authenticity of like, what are you talking about? Like you just want to show your, show your assets and get more validation through that versus like actually conceptualizing and telling a story through the photograph and aligning it with the caption. So I think that’s highly important. It’s like congruency and all the stories that you’re telling from your photography. NO: (26:02) Then stuff that you post online to the stuff that you post to the captions that you write. And I think, you know, when it comes to, you know, the imagery that I build with people is like the high level like website banner stuff and you know, stuff for press. Like people use, like Lewis is like put my, use my photos of him in like success magazine and like all these different magazines. So you have like an an arsenal of assets to use as like high level stuff, but you can also put them into your Instagram feed. Well, mixed with other things. Like your Instagram feed doesn’t have to be all photos of you, but I think if you pepper them throughout, you’re kind of still helping build that connection for people to you. RV: (26:45) Yeah. So how often this is, this is going to be like, like if you do like how many shoots a year, if somebody was really like doing this, you know like I get, I get the idea of going, Hey you need to do a shoot for your website. One of the things we’ve gotten clear with our process of helping people build their websites and do their overall brand strategy is we take them through phase one. Okay. Which you’ve been through, right. Finding your uniqueness and then what we realized is pretty much the next thing that needs to happen is photography because you need to be able, you know, photography and copy cause you need to get the pictures before you design the website cause you have to be able to design the website around the pictures. That was something we always screwed up, which I feel like we’ve gotten more clarity on is like go get the pictures. So anyways I realize now and go okay you know the importance of photography. Sure. With your website or a book, you know like a book launch or something. But other than that, if you’re just like looking to like create a connection with your audience and like pepper, your Instagram feed, how often should we be doing this? Like where we’re hiring somebody to [inaudible] photos of us. Yeah. I mean I think NO: (28:00) Couple of times a year. It kind of depends on like the packages that you’re getting, who you’re working with and all that. And like how many different final images that you can get out of a shoot. But probably two, I would say probably two to four a year. Okay. Just to kind of once a quarter fresh. Yeah. Once a quarter. Keep things fresh. You know, you can keep your, your high, your arking over your high level imagery like on your website and stuff consistent for like a year. But like when it comes to like more social media stuff, you can probably do two to like one a quarter, I would say. RV: (28:33) Interesting. Okay. Man, there’s so much, I can’t believe how fast this went by. Like there, there is so much here. And like I’m saying, you know, if you can hire Nick and have him come shoot you, there’s other photographers we have in our community as well that, that, that we liked. But it was, it was really wild to experience a shoot with you. And the, the difference of just, I mean, I, you know, I’m not going to post any of these pictures, but there was a time back when Rory was in his early twenties that I did some commercials than I did. I did some modeling shoots. I might’ve even had some abs that I was showing off back in those days. And you know, so I’ve, I’ve, I’ve worked on sets, I’ve, I’ve had photographers, but you know, the shot with the doing the shoot with you was truly different. So where should people go if they want to just follow your work or just connect with you or like see some of your photos what’s the best way to connect up with you? NO: (29:32) Yeah, I mean Instagram is kind of the, like at Nick honkin on Instagram is kind of the hub for everything. So you can get to my, like my website photography website, my hats, my, I have a photographs by Nick honkin Instagram account. It’s just photography. So everything stems from, from there. RV: (29:54) Huh. And what’s your photographs by Nick on kin? Is it, is it that long handle? NO: (30:00) Yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s photographed by Nick honkin.com at the Instagram handle as well. And that’s just strictly photography, like curated portfolio. RV: (30:10) That’s, it’s incredible. Y’all like go look at this stuff. I’m telling you. It’s really, really, really wonderful. Well Nick, I really appreciate you sharing some of your secrets and just like helping us find the right photographers, ask the right questions, you know, prepare ourselves for the shoe, what to be looking for. And then overall, I just think, you know, a big part of your uniqueness is just this elevated realism is just like bringing, bringing our best to a shoot and drawing the best out of your subjects. And I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re extremely talented, my friend. I used to have like a really rare gift and I just appreciate you sharing it with us. NO: (30:45) Thank you. Oh, and one other thing, I do have a free ebook on how to elevate your personal brand visually. It’s Nick honkin.com/personal brand and it’s a free ebook. Talks about a lot of the stuff that we talked about today and a lot of visual examples and, and all the goods. RV: (31:02) Nick anakin.com/personal brand. I’ve walked through that ebook. It’s awesome. Super tactical and and useful. So we’ll put links to that in the show notes. My brother, we wish you the best until I can get back with you and get a shoot going, NO: (31:19) You know, best. Until then. Let’s do it. Thanks.
Ep 83: Unlock Loyalty and Strengthen Your Network with John Ruhlin, the Guru of Giftology | Recap Episode
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RV: (00:07) Welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Something exciting has happened. AJ and I have agreed on exactly two thirds of what we’re going to tell you. AJV: (00:19) I should make this shorter, but we’ll see. RV: (00:21) Yeah, well, it will. And we, we always have different viewpoints that we drive, but today, separately we came up with yeah, always on separate, but today we came up with, we each had two of the same top three, so yeah, kick it off. AJV: (00:38) My first one, and again, as a reminder, always, if you haven’t listened to the full interview, I highly recommend it. It’s really good. And it’s applicable to anyone. If you’re building a personal brand, if you’re not building a personal brand, it applies to all humans all the time, all out places. So I would that my first one was this concept of a love bomb and what I just love the concept let’s just drop some love. And I just loved that in general. In fact, you know, Rory and I have been recently talking about, about all of the challenges that are happening in the world today with, you know, racism and sexism, and there’s just so many things. And if you really think about it, there’s just one really simple solution and it’s, and it’s love. But it’s, it’s really hard. AJV: (01:27) That’s not an easy one, but it is simple. And this whole concept of a love bomb, it’s just dropping massive, just unexpected love and attention and intention on the people around you. And I thought this was really important, this kind of whole concept, he said, he said why don’t you try to do the extra ordinary for a few versus the ordinary for many. And I just loved that. And I, I think about so often things that we do and it’s like, we’re trying to include everyone. And that just gets really expensive. So you kind of like the more you include, it’s like, okay, well, we can’t do that. And okay, well, we can’t do that. And okay, well, we can’t do that either, but what if you said, well, what are the most intimate people, the most intimate clients, the most intimate family members or friends or whomever, and do something really extraordinary for them. And he tells as, as well as Rory, this really amazing thing that he did at our house, but I’m going to hold that to make you go listen to the full interview because it’s worthy of a listened to be like, why would you do that? And the answer is because he just wants to share the love bomb. RV: (02:42) Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, there’s not much more, I would say to that. You know, if you didn’t pick this up, so if you haven’t listened to the interview yet, John Ruhlin is an expert on like client loyalty and retention through gifting. And so he talks about strategic generosity and gifting and you know, so I would just, I’m going to springboard off that and say, my second big takeaway was a term that he used return on relationships, return on relationships. And you know, not just return on investment, not return on time, but just return on the idea of pouring into people and loving on them. And, you know, part of the mindset shift for me was going just like what you were saying, take what you would spend on like a lot of people and just spend it on fewer to create this more extraordinary impact, this deeper connection. RV: (03:38) And so that was big, but, but the other, the other part of it that I thought was going, how come we’re willing to buy Facebook ads or something like that. Right. And we’ll spend thousands of dollars advertising to a bunch of random strangers who have no desire to hear from us, right? Like we’re interrupting the life of a normal human minding, their own Telemark. And and, and like, what have you just took a portion of that and spent it on appreciating the clients you have appreciating the referral partners you have and knowing like that is marketing. Like it’s gonna come back to you in referrals and it’s a twofer because you’re loving and appreciating the people you have, and they are likely to give you more clients. Plus they are client, you know, if they are clients, they can more powerfully refer you than a cold traffic thing. But we don’t think about like a lot of us don’t think about that. So return on relationships. That was my second. AJV: (04:39) Yeah. And I would just add one tiny thing to that. And I thought this was really powerful and it’s not something that he says that he necessarily tracks and numbers, even though there is strategy. A little bit of it is by faith by doing good deeds. And by sharing the love, like the love naturally will come back to you. There’s this intrinsic thing and human beings that want to return goodness. Right? Yeah. There’s law of reciprocity. That was a tangent. That, wasn’t what I was kind of saying. Well, I was gonna say is this whole concept of return and relationships is wow with the unexpected. And that, that is so true. And he talks about all these concepts of like, it’s one thing to do things when it’s expected anniversaries Christmas, birthdays Valentine’s day. Right. but what are you doing? That’s really unexpected? How do you create this wow factor with the unexpected? And what he did at our house was that, and it’s funny because it’s almost been two years and we still talk about that evening and we made friends there and it’s just like one of those experiences. And that was something else he talked about. What are you doing in experiences? Not just in things. And wow. Will the unexpected. So that’s all I would add in my third one. And I’m actually gonna read this on, because your RV: (05:58) Second one tied into my third one, which was planned randomness, which is what you just annexed. Well, that was what I, what it was for me is the unexpected, like the timing matters more than the gift itself. So AJV: (06:12) I’m going to read, I’m going to read my last one because I actually like write this out and I want to get it right. And he said, cause I was capturing this as he was saying it, it was a handful of people that help launch millions of revenue. You don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. And that is so integral into everything that we believe at brand builders group. And if you are building a personal brand, you’re playing with the comparison concept of, well, in order for this to work, I’ve got to have hundreds of thousands of followers. And I’ve got to have millions of downloads in my podcast and I have to have this many of this. And it’s like, that’s not true. And I think the great example that immediately came to mind is Jesse Itzler. And if you guys don’t know Jesse, Jesse, Itzler, he’s a mega entrepreneur. AJV: (07:03) He owns the Atlanta Hawks. He started, but here’s what I want to talk about. That’s what I’ve got to talk about. So, but I think this was amazing because he started this pride. It’s the largest private jet company in the world, billions of dollars. And there was two ways of going about this, right? You’re going to rather sell in volume and have a low price, or you’re going to have a teeny tiny niche audience and have a very magnificent price. And he built a billion dollar company by selling to only a few people, a couple hundred people. I think it was like a thousand, right? And that is proof that you do not need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. It’s how targeted are you with your core target audience? Do you know them? Do you have something that they want and how do you reach them? AJV: (07:54) How do you market to them? How do you appeal to them? Because you don’t need millions to make millions. And that was just like this, gosh, that’s such an important thing for us all, to remember as we’re building courses or making funnels or speaking and all the things that you can do to build your personal brand. It’s like, you don’t have to reach millions. You can, and I’m sure you want to, but just remember, you can make a very great business and a really good living six, seven, eight, nine figures by selling to the niches right there. What’s that saying? You make riches in the niches. And I just thought that was like this aha moment of, wow. That’s just a really great concept to remember and to hang on to, RV: (08:36) Yeah. I’ve never had this thought until you were just talking, but I was, it’s so ironic because he married Sarah Blakely and they did like opposite business models. She so sold a low price point to tons of people. And he sold a high price point to a few people. So they can both work, but you know, particularly you have a high dollar offer. It’s like, you don’t need that many people to buy in and beyond the money. It’s like, you only need a few people who believe in you. You need a few people. Yeah. AJV: (09:05) Yeah. That’s right back to what he said. He said it was a handful of people that help launch millions of revenue. And that’s because I loved on him and I had attention and intention with every single one of them. It doesn’t take a ton to make it time. Loved it. Go listen to it. RV: (09:21) I listened to it. Go love on your people. Find a few people to invest in. Who’ve made a difference to you, make a difference to them and watch how forced back into your life. We’re so thankful for having the opportunity to impact you. So stay tuned and join us. Every single week. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 82: Unlock Loyalty and Strengthen Your Network with John Ruhlin, the Guru of Giftology
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RV: (00:01) John Ruhlin is one of my favorite dudes. He’s one of my favorite guys. I would like a real life friend. And there’s several things that I love about John, which I’ll tell you about. So I’ll give you the officials first. So he’s the founder and the author of Giftology. He’s been featured in tons of major news outlets, Fox news, Forbes, fast company, and he is also the, the number one performer historically all time out over one and a half million sales reps for one of the world’s most recognizable brands and direct sales companies. And you’ll hear, you’ll hear a little bit about that as we talk. And so he speaks at big corporate events really about customer loyalty, about referrals without asking about just kind of like creating connections and relationships and trust. And the reason I’ve asked him to come talk about it is one because his expertise is really brilliant and it’s unique and it’s very different from something you would hear someone talk about. But the other thing is homeboy drinks his own Koolaid and he has built a massive personal brand and continues to be like this rising star, I think among influencers because he does what he actually teaches people to do, which is always like my number one litmus test. And so anyways, John, welcome to the influential personal brand podcast. JR: (01:31) Rory, thanks for having me, man. I wish we were hanging out in your place in in Tennessee, but this is the second best right now. RV: (01:38) Totally, totally. So yeah, tell, tell me first of all, what is Giftology? All right, so let’s start, let’s start there with like your normal expertise and, and, and why does it matter? And, and then we’ll talk about how do we incorporate this as a part of our strategy to building, you know, an influential brand. JR: (01:58) Yeah. Well people necessarily care about gifting like nobody, like wakes up in the morning and says, man, I gotta become a better gift or, but everybody cares about relationships. Everybody, every business rises and falls. Every brand rises and falls on relationships with clients and employees, partners, joint venture event planners. You name it. And most people, if they’re honest with themselves, they suck at showing gratitude and appreciation and a very meaningful way to those important people, whether it’s at home to your significant other. Most people just aren’t very good at that. And so the core of Giftology is really just a systematic marketing process. Makes it sound very calculated. But there are, it’s a recipe on how to stand out, be memorable. So if you want to drive access with people, if you want to drive referrals, there is a formula to it that’s been really followed for thousands of years. And I think in our transactional Western culture, we forgot what those triggers are, what those things are. And, and you know, there’s been a lot of people that have done studies on it, Robert Cialdini with influence and we’re just tapping into the psychology of things and do it in a way that’s not manipulative that in a way that really honors relationships and plays relationships for everybody says they play the long game, but most people it’s days and we play the relationship game for decades. RV: (03:16) Yeah. And so just to jump right in on this, like to give people a real life example of how serious you are about this. Hopefully you don’t mind me sharing. And if you do, I’m going to share it anyways. You, you, you, you’re a brand builders group clients. So we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re proud to have had opportunity to team up with you cause we believe in you. But the thing that you did that nobody has ever done or asked to do since you was, you, you know, you came to our house, you were one of our early clients and you know, we are doing stuff here, you know, in the, in the, in the work room at Vaden Villa and you threw a party. You were like, Hey, can I throw a party while I’m at your house? And so you invited, you invited. RV: (04:00) So, so tell people about this party and tell like, I’m convinced that you spent, you had to have spent more on the party than you spent with us, or close like close to it for a one night party as you did on the actual strategy. And now what I realize is you weren’t really interested in our strategy. You were really just trying to rent our house. And I got two for one deal out of it, but now I understand. So like tell us, tell us like, just as that night as an example, you know, I was just, it was so powerful to me. JR: (04:36) Yeah, well I think that there’s so much noise right there and, and, and a lot of times people will, you know, they do the same dinners, ball games, rounds of golf, like everybody re builds relationships the same way. And for us, like I would rather do a once in a lifetime experience for a group of five people than to do a mediocre experience for 5,000 people. And that’s what most people do. But they, they, they’re like, Hey, we throw a big party. The more the merrier. And it’s like mid tier, you know, wine, mid tier alcohol, low tier food, you know, like trinkets and, you know, a low tier band. And, and so when I was, I was like, man, I’m going to be with you. There’s a lot of, you know, this is kind of like the Nashville mafia and your area, like all these great influencers and people that are either friends or people that I would love to hang out with. Not with an agenda just to hang out with. And even people outside, they’re just looking for an excuse to to hang out in Nashville. And I wanted to connect them to you cause I wanted to, RV: (05:32) Yeah, we got great relationships out of it. I mean there were really awesome people there. JR: (05:37) Yeah. So most people would have their dinner at Morton’s or someplace like that and you know, they’re like, Oh, $150 a ahead. And I’m like, what if I’m going to throw an event? I want it to be something that people are talking about a decade later. Cause now like the story starts to transfer. Like if you want to become known, you have to do a once in a lifetime or I call it like a love bomb. Like something that’s like, it has RV: (05:57) Love bomb. JR: (05:59) Yeah. Like most people that shoot bullets, like I want to shoot, I want to, I want it to be an atomic bomb. And, and I was like, you have a beautiful house. What can we do that would be amazing. I’m like, everybody loves wine. And one of my friends is the first master SAMO yay ever in the U S there’s only like 220 of these guys globally. And it’s harder to get this certification than it is to become a doctor and a lawyer together. [inaudible] It’s crazy. And so Eddie Australis teaches people how to use food and wine as a competitive advantage. He calls it power entertainer. That’s what his book is. And to get them to come in and speak normally, like American express will pay 25 grand for him to come in and orchestrate a food and wine experience. And then that’s on top of the wine that you need to have that’s unique and the food that needs to pair with it. JR: (06:42) And so I’m like, Eddie is a good friend. I’ve opened up a bunch of doors for him. He’s a client. And and so we flew Eddie out to your house. We coordinated with the top caterer. We had Eddie reach out to his wholesale wine relationships to get some wine that nobody else would have access to. And because of that, Tucker max and guys from Texas and other places said I want to, I’ll fly in just for 24 hours Mark Tim just to hang out and be a part of this, this gathering. And so rather than opening it up for 200 people and have it just be okay, it was like what 22 people you know in the house. Like it was a very small group of people. But I would rather my, here’s my thing, I’d rather spend 20,000 hours on one relationship that is like a Cameron Harold who you know is literally like hit the 20 grand I’ve invested in him, which sounds crazy. Over 10 years that’s not at one time has turned into seven figures. So it was a 50 X ROI. People are ER, like brag about their three X ROI on Facebook, which is fine on ads. But I’m like the return on relationship. If you’re willing to do it the right way, played the long game for decades and do it with no strings attached. So there’s no manipulation. Like Jeff [inaudible] asked me afterwards, he’s like, dude, RV: (07:53) You didn’t ask me. There’s no pitch. You just did that just because you didn’t, you didn’t haven’t said this. And I just want to make sure people don’t understand. So first of all, RV: (08:01) Okay, so is that our house, which you didn’t have to rent, but you did pay us, you know, our normal handsome fee for private strategy session. So again, it was either rental free and it was worth it. And you flew this us, this master Somali AAN from catwalk, California bought all this wine, which was crazy, like amazing wine paid for this, you know, incredible like caterer, like all this like great food renting ch tables and chairs, like renting all the stuff and people to come and clean up and all this. And you didn’t see, nobody got charged. You didn’t like this was just a handful of people that you invited and no, you didn’t ask anyone to share. There wasn’t like pass a basket. There wasn’t like, Hey, can you have me on my podcast? You’re just going like, when I want people to really grasp what’s here. RV: (08:55) Cause it was like 20 grand. Is that, I mean it was maybe 10 grand. I mean it was, it was probably, it was at least five grand, probably 10, maybe even more than that. It was more than half. Yeah. So Mmm. And, and it wasn’t like, Hey, who can I be on their podcast or how, it was just like dinner. It was a love bomb. There was not, there wasn’t even, people didn’t even know who you were. Like some of the people didn’t even know you were the one throwing the party. There were people I invited and they thought I threw the party, which was awesome. And I was like, yeah, we, we, we spent, we spent for you, but so it is the thing that blows my mind is to go like, it’s one thing to go, yeah, you should do this. But to witness it with my own eyes of like, you going, this is like a big swing for the fence, but yet you’re not actually swinging. There’s no ask. It was like, it wasn’t like, Hey, I’ve got a business opportunity for y’all. It was just loving and friends and people flew in for it. It was nuts. Yeah. That was how I met Tucker max. I never met him. I mean there were some people there that were incredible. JR: (10:05) Yeah, well I think that’s the thing. I think in general, everybody says their first class best in class, world-class. Everybody says they’re, you know, they’re a plus this or their, their, you know, their bestseller of that. And I think that, you know, look, look at your calendar and look at your pocketbook and they’ll tell you what your priorities are. And you know, for us, you know, we make it, you know, like if you’re a person of faith, you reinvest 10% you know, as a tied back into your faith, into the church because that’s what God has called us to do, to multiply and to trust him. And, and I think that for me, like you should be doing that with your relationship. You should be reinvesting a percentage of your profits because if you’re not, you’re not reinvesting back into the people that allowed you to have a business. JR: (10:46) We’re a opportunity anyway. And that’s just silly. Like why would you not take 10% of your profits to reinvest back into clients and employees and partners and to keep them as a relationship to grow them. And hopefully the secret sauce is, is that I’ve done this with enough people, people like John, how many sales reps do you have? And I’m like, I have thousands. And they’re like, how do you afford thousands of sales reps? And I’m like, well, I take a percentage of my profits. I reinvest them back into guys like you or Cameron Harold or other guys that I couldn’t, I couldn’t afford you as a sales rep for a million dollars. And yet with being strategic, with my generosity and my gratitude and being thoughtful with it and doing it the right way, I get a thousand X ROI over time on the backend because I have people like you and others that I could never afford advocating for me in the corners of the world I would never get access to. And that’s, you know, we’ve been doing that for 20 years. I started when I was 20, I just turned 40 last month. And the people like, where did you come from? Like your overnight success. And I’m like, dude, I’ve been, yeah, I’ve been modeling this for 20 years and now some of the seeds I planted a decade ago are fruit. RV: (11:54) Yeah. I mean you were just on this virtual summit with Sarah Blakely and Dean Grasiozi and Daymond John that Pete Vargas put on and it’s like your face is right there with like all of these incredible people and it’s just awesome. It’s that concept. Return on relationship is such a, it’s such a cool idea. But yeah, like talk to me about the manipulation factor cause it’s, it’s like I really liked the power of that, but it also, not to misconstrue what you’re saying, you’re not actually measuring it. You’re not actually tracking the referrals that come from somebody. You’re, you’re not, you know, it’s not like a Facebook ad where you’re actually going, yeah. How many leads came directly from this ad or that ad? This is like by faith. JR: (12:48) Yes. Yeah. Well there is strategy to it. What I would say is that I will you find out over time who’s a giver? Who’s a taker, who’s a Matrixx. So Adam Grant’s concept of there’s givers, takers and matchers. I tend to surround myself with guys like John Hall and you and John Rampton and Bob Glazer and Pete Vargas, guys that are givers. Because I don’t have to keep like those types of people. I call it the light, the out-give effect. Like everybody’s trying to one up each other. But with generosity and when you hang out and surround yourself with and pour most of your generosity into others that you know, or whether they pay it back to you or they pay it forward, you know, like there’s going to be a positive ripple effect from that. And so I do think that there are times where I’m like, you give a few times, you’re like, gosh, that person’s yeah taking and they’re not generous and they’re kind of a douchebag. I will pull back in certain areas because I’m not tracking referrals, but I’m seeing well who they are as a person. I’m seeing what they’re up to. I’m seeing how they’re resigned to people. And so it’s not that you’re just like shooting shotguns of Willy nilly. Like we invited, you know, 22 people to your house. RV: (14:00) Yeah. You’re not going to the bar and man like drinks for everybody. Hey, come on over you. JR: (14:05) You know, you’ve got a boss. So there is thought put into it. But the thing is is that you’re not like when you put strings attached or you have expectations after that that somebody better have you on the show or better do this or do that. Like I think Robert Cialdini has proven it with enough research over 30 years that if you do nice things for people, like God’s woven it into our DNA to want to reciprocate. Now sometimes that plays out. Now, sometimes they’re in a position of power or timing a decade from now and you don’t know how that’s gonna play out. My original mentor, Paul, who is like this Rainmaker of an attorney, he was incredible because he like, he did this for 40 years. I saw him when he was 60 and I’m like, I want to be him when I’m 60 and he just did things naturally because that’s who he was. JR: (14:49) And as a poor farm kid was like, I want to be Paul when I’m 60 and I’m 20 at the time. So I got 40 years to get there. And so there is strategy to it. It’s not, you know, their strategy on the amount. They’re reinvesting in their strategy and who you’re, you know, who you’re targeting. But the, the, the kicker, the most people ruined it is with expectation and trying to give and then get give and then immediately ask and Vaynerchuck’s talked about it for decades. You know, it’s, it’s jab, jab, jab, right hook. It’s not jab, right hook. It’s, it’s give over and over again. Maybe you earn the right to ask after you’ve done it over and over and over again. But most people, they, they, they shortchange themselves and ruin the relationship by asking too quickly or, or with expectations. RV: (15:38) I want to talk about time of when to give actually. Because I think this is one of the things that you know, like you’ve taken this concept and built a whole career out of it. The book is like the book, the concepts, your keynote is fantastic, right? You’re, you’re, I always joke on this show that you’re one of the people I actually referred it to to clients and stuff and tell people, Hey, you should, because it’s really, really quality. Like of just your story. One of the things that jumps out to me is the concept of when to gift. And you really opened my eyes to this. And so can you talk about like when’s the raw, I mean, call it the wrong time or just like when, when do you recommend gifting and when do you not? JR: (16:26) Yeah, so when we walk people through our process and step-by-step, most people want to start with what they’re giving. And that’s like the seventh step in the process. Timing. Timing is just as important, if not more important than what you’re giving. And so most people, their whole focus is on what’s cool and sexy. And why I tell people is, you know, the timing, it has to be no ABC gifting. So no anniversaries, no birthdays, no Christmas. And really what that means is you’re not giving gifts out of obligation or expectation. So if you take your wife, for example, if you only did gifts on AOL Valentine’s day anniversary, you know, birthday, Christmas, like those are table stakes. Like that’s just gets you an even. RV: (17:06) Yeah, that’s what you do to not get fired for your marriage. You’re not getting promoted. That’s what you’re doing to not get fired. Exactly. JR: (17:16) So with clients or referral centers or joint venture partners, like most people, it’s like, Hey, I have a, I have a launch coming up. I better send a gift a week before that’s, that’s a tit for tat. Oh, I just closed a big deal. I better give a gift. Well, they give you a million dollars, here’s your $250 Starbucks gift card. Like it feels very transactional. And most people, if they’re honest with themselves, they consider themselves a relationship person. Not a transactional person. But most of the gifting that they do is, it’s Christmas, I need to send a gift. So I tell people it should be planned. Randomness. You should send gifts for two reasons. One is just because in wa when you do that, you set, you pick a time like you know the middle of July and you send out gifts to your top, say 20 relationships or top 200 relationships because you didn’t tie it to any sort of transaction or deal or trigger. JR: (18:02) You send it just because the other person. That’s how people are like, Johnny, you send all these knives. How do people not like, how does it not get old? And I’m like, well, when I, our clients send out knives to people, it’s not tied to Christmas or holiday or birthday. It’s sent out. Hey, I was just thinking of you. We’d love to carve out some time to be with you, blah, blah blah. So the person who receives it, even though there might be 200 of the same gift that went out, the person who gets it, it’s like, I can’t believe Roy was thinking about me. And it’s so there’s a, the timing makes it a surprise and delight. And so we, when we walk people through our process and lay out a plan, a relationship plan, everybody has a financial plan, a marketing plan, a health plan, an eating plan, workout plan. JR: (18:40) Nobody has a relationship plan. One of the things is I’m like, here, you need to have one to four times a year that the other person you’re sending the gift to is never that expecting it. And you’re not asking them for anything. You’re just sending it out as just because the only other time I’ll say that a gift makes sense is that asset. And the commodity that we’ll never get back is when you take somebody’s time. Like that’s the most precious asset. And yet most people were like, I want to pick your brain. Hey, I want to do this. I wanna do that. It’s like you want to waste my time and I, and that could be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour. So if somebody gives me five minutes of their time, I’ll send them sometimes a $500 gifts and the other person, even a billionaire, I’ve had billionaires reach back out and say, John, your note, your thoughtful note and your gift after you, I gave you five minutes was nicer than what some of my relationships that I do $10 million deals with has ever sent me. JR: (19:30) And now guess whose phone call they will take six months, six years from now? Mine because I appreciated their time, their most valuable asset that most people waste. So the timing of surprising and delighting people. Like when we did the thing at your house, it wasn’t Christmas, it wasn’t our anniversary, it was theirs. I’m in town, I’m with my buddy, Rory. Let’s do something fun. Like it wasn’t tied to anything other than let’s do something cool. Let’s be generous. I’m grateful that Roy is pouring into my team. We’re all together. Why? Why don’t we celebrate? And I think that’s where people are like, Hey, I gotta wait till a 50th anniversary before I throw a party, before I got to wait until somebody leaves my company after 20 years to throw a party. Think that’s so old school and idiotic. It makes no sense. Like let’s, let’s be more proactive and find reasons out of the blue to love on people. And that’s where people are like, I can’t believe you did that. Yeah. That is wild. That, that, that is, that that is the part. And it’s like the timing is a lot of times it’s like whether it’s a $5 gift or a $5,000 gift like Mary Kay used to have, you know, my mom sold Mary Kay and they used to have this saying they were like a $5 gift but a $50. And RV: (20:48) They would say that as just like, it was a $5 gas card, but they would present it in this bag with like glitter on it and stand in front of the room and it made people feel special. It was like, it’s all about making them feel appreciated. Like you’re saying. So how do you use this as like a business? Like you’re using this to get keynotes or only as thank you gifts, like in a business setting, what are you doing? You know? Yeah. Like how does this, how does this play out in a, like you’re trying to get clients or you know, when clients are JR: (21:24) Whatever. Yeah. So, so we have clients of all sizes and shapes and we have half a million dollar authors, you know, too fortune 500 companies. But at the end of the day, people, you know, when we spoke at Google, they’re like, John does this work in technology? And I laughed. I’m like, are there human beings here? And they’re like, well, yeah. And I’m like, well then it works. I don’t care if you’re a solopreneur that you did a hundred grand last year or whether you’re Google, like if it involves human beings, it works. So, so one of the things that we take all of our clients, whether it’s professional service firms, financial advisors, speakers, ma, you know, widget manufacturers, I’m like, let’s do a 360 degree view of all of your relationships, your suppliers, your clients, your joint venture partners, your investors, your mentors, your board of directors, anybody that has allows you to either have a business or that you need to build a relationship with in order to grow your business. JR: (22:16) So from a speaking perspective, most people when they get hired to do a keynote, you know, seven years ago I was begging to speak for free and we just did a deal in and Australia with books and travel was an 85,000 our keynote. So seven years, we went from free too with guys like you pouring into us and understanding things. But part of that reason that that happened was I built relationships and poured into I gift other speakers I love on other speakers and people like, aren’t those your competitors? I’m like, no. Those are other people that are interacting with amazing stages. And if I do a great job and I love on those people and they bring me up in conversation, they become a sales rep for me. They have their tight, tight relationship. The other people that we’ve done gifts for for a long time, most people are like all of the CEO of the company that I’m speaking for. I got to send him or her a gift and I spend as much, if not more on the assistant and the event planner. I call it the inner circle. Why? Because the event planner oftentimes gets only the accredit if the event goes bad, you know, it’s oftentimes a person who is working their butt off and yeah, RV: (23:22) Yeah. They’re the one doing all the work they’re actually doing. So, so JR: (23:27) The event I speak on, I do these I surprised the event planner with this thousand dollar mug, like a thousand dollars per mug. I’m like, it tells, it’s, it’s, it’s like tells a person’s whole life story. And I just gave one to a group called forum 400, which is like all these top insurance brokers and I gave it to the event planner. I’d never met her before, but I heard she was amazing person, person of faith, and did the research to find out about her. And from the stage I gave her this mug and her name is Amy and she came up, I ugly crying in front of everybody, gave me a hug and I didn’t realize she actually works for an association management company and they literally represent a thousand associations and she’s become my biggest cheerleader and advocate because she was so blown away by how I treat her now. JR: (24:10) I didn’t ask for anything. I didn’t even know she worked for an association management company. I just knew she was working her butt off for this group and I thought she was employed by the group. And so what I would say is that if you can take an inventory of all the people that are important to you and then go out another layer deeper into their inner circle, you know, I started out when I was in college investing $500 a month in gifting and that was a lot for a college kid at 20. That’s six grand a year. This year our gifting budget will approach 600,000 for the year personally, RV: (24:42) 80%. I think we should throw a half million dollar party at Vaden Villa. If that’s the budget. Do I have a half million dollar party at Vaden Villa? Just putting that out there. Rounding error leave a hundred grand. 500 grand for JR: (24:57) Yeah, we could do a, yeah, I mean we could do a heck of a bash there. RV: (25:00) We got to get past that JR: (25:01) [Inaudible] 19 though because we yeah, we got to have bunch of people. Yeah. I’m, I’m not, I’m not afraid to push the envelope there, but we, that’s another conversation. So, so, so what I’d say what I’d say is 80% of of your relationship building budget or your marketing budget, your business debt budget. Think about the people that are important to you through review though more important than what you’re giving. So identify those people and then who’s their spouse? Who’s their assistant or chief of staff? Who’s the event planner? Who are the kids who are pets? Yeah. That’s okay. That’s where when people are like, dude, you still send stupid knives. And I’m like, as last time I checked, most people are married or have a significant other. Most people have a kitchen. Most people are foodies or cook or entertain. We’re sending more knives than we ever have. JR: (25:42) Like when the New York times interviewed us, they thought I was joking when I said the knives are our number one gifts. And they’re like, that was your college thing, right? And I’m like, we sell millions of dollars knives, because people still crave that practical, unique out of the blue. Something that includes their family. And so what I would say is focus on the event planners. Focus on the people that are lower in stature because oftentimes they’re treated like crap. And if you can honor them and treat them with respect and treat them like a peer, that’s how we landed the Orlando magic is a big client was not because of the CEO. He made the decision to sign off on the first order, but it was the assistant Cheyenne who became my internal sales rep and helped us land our first six figure deal with an NBA team. It was not, it was the person below that. I love Don for years and not in a weird manipulative way. It was just honoring the relationship. And she went and became my internal sales advocate. So I would say, do you want to build a personal, realize that there’s the influencer CEO’s, those are great, but take care of the people around them in a way that’s not weird or manipulative. And if you can do that consistently over time, those people will start to look out for you and start to open doors that you can. RV: (26:58) I mean, and this is just, this is so, this is just so true because like if somebody is nice to AAJ like they’re in, they will like if they’re, if they’re mean to Aja or worse, if they don’t, it’s like, it’s worse to not acknowledge her. I mean, she’s the CEO of arc, like she’s the CEO of brand builders group, but it’s like she decides where we go, what we do, who we spend time with, where I go like [inaudible] and and she’s a softie. Right. So you’re, you’re just, that’s just so true. It’s like that is, I is, is taking, taking care of their inner circle makes them feel special and it’s also in a weird way like, you know, if it was like the CEO and assistant, I think it actually makes the CEO feel good that somebody else is loving on their person. JR: (27:49) It makes them feel like the hero. They’re the King, they’re the queen and because of their hard work, other people around them are benefiting. Like any leader loves to see the people that they care about. Yeah. Kids, their spouse. Because oftentimes you feel guilty when, you know, like I travel away from my family and I’m at like pebble beach drinking, no nice bottles of wine and my, my wife is taking care of our little ones and they like the flu and yeah, anytime somebody can honor my wife or my assistant or my team or my kids, like I win too. So it’s, it’s such a simple concept, but yeah, RV: (28:22) So again, if we got, we have, we have to wrap up here, but like this is, this has worked so well for you. Like even, and I’ve known you now for, I dunno how many years, but it’s been many years and to see how you’re like, this is, you know, advanced your own personal brand. Like you’ve always been great at business. You’ve always been moving tons of knives and like building relationships with people. But some years ago you were like, I’m going to become an author and like I’m going to become in this community. And like now here, here you are sharing the virtual stage with Daymond John and Sarah Blakely and you know, all these crazy people. Because of your relationship with Pete and how much Pete, you know, adores you and loves you. How much money, how do you figure out, like if you were going to it, you said it’s a system, which is one of the things I also liked that even though you’re not like measuring the ROI, there is a system here. So, you know, you mentioned you had a budget. How do you figure out what the budget should the, like is it roughly a percentage of profit or percentage of sales or like just just as a starting point? JR: (29:30) Yeah, so what I’d say is we’ve perfected it over almost 20 years now and it, you know, starting with the who, the relationships, the, when, the while that kind of stuff like you to map out and identify the pool of people first of who that is. And every business, some people, it’s 10 people, some people, 7,000 people. But it’s still just human beings. We charted a lot of money to walk people through that process. Cause that’s the, you don’t get the foundation right, of who you’re going after budgeting properly. Like what you’re going to send and all the other stuff like is meaningless. And so if your tribe wants to go download the entire process of what we charge thousands to do, if they, if we do it, walk them through it personally and then go to Giftology system.com and download our entire ecology system.com Giftology system.com. JR: (30:18) All one word, all one word Giftology system. But the budgeting question, every company is different as far as what their margins are in general. I don’t care what somebody’s revenue is, I care what profit is. And so, you know, sometimes these companies, mortgage companies where it was like, Oh, we did 40 billion in revenue last year, but we did 4 million in profit. I’m like, okay, let’s work with a $4 million number, not the $40 billion. And so for us it’s a percentage of net profit or a percentage of gross profit, but we’re in the 15 to 20% realm. I think a good baseline is 10% of whatever your, your net profit is. So if you make a thousand dollars on a relationship, you know, reinvesting a hundred dollars back into them to say, to show them near that, Hey, you know, you were thinking of them, obviously you’re never going to send something to somebody that’s a high level person that they couldn’t go buy for themselves. JR: (31:07) So it’s not about the item, it’s about the thoughtfulness that goes into it. That’s why the engraving of the personalization, that’s why the handwritten note, that’s why all the details around it. People will say, John, I’ve done Giftology and it doesn’t work. And I’m like, what did you follow the recipe? And they’re like, why kind of did? And I’m like, it’s like baking bread either. If you don’t put yeast in, you don’t get bread. And so people forget the little details around it and they think they’re doing what we’re doing. But really they’re sending stuff from Amazon with a type letter and they’re like, the person didn’t even respond. I’m like, well, do you think you can automate relationships? Do you think something showing up from Amazon is going to work like that feels different than if it came from one human sent to another human. JR: (31:46) So the budgeting, so that’s not in the plan. Don’t send it from Amazon, from Amazon, send it to your house and then package it and then send it. And people are like, well that’s a lot. I’m like, why? Why do you think our agency exists? Like if it was easy, everybody would do it. If it was like, yeah, they’re there. It’s not that people don’t know what to do when they hear the recipe, they’re like, that’s it. And I’m like, yeah, that’s, that’s all we do. Like we do this, this, this, and this was like, well that doesn’t sound that hard. And I’m like, if you do it for one human, it’s not, but if you want to do it for a dozen humans consistently or for two dozen, and so the budgeting, figuring that out and saying, Hey, I make a thousand dollars, I’m going to reinvest a hundred or 10% of net profit is a rough, like, yeah, you can go higher than that. JR: (32:32) Like some of our clients were like, John, I’ll invest 20% like I invest 18% in, in revenue and expenses. Like if I can invest a percentage of profit back into my relationships and turn them into a referral source. So like, you know, like these speakers are like, man, my, my average stages, you’ll $12,000 like I would gladly do a grand or two if it ain’t even turned into three years from now another speaking deal or another consulting deal or another whatever. And so I think that’s where people don’t understand is they, they want the immediate, I invest the dollar, I immediately have to make the money and they’re not willing to, to build the re, you know, they’re not willing to plant the acorn that becomes this massive Oak tree over the course of five or 10 or 15 or 20 years. Like they want to put the money in. JR: (33:18) And so the budgeting, I tell him like, you don’t have to spend all of your marketing dollars with gift allergy, but if you take your entire pool of money of what you spend on building your business, just take a sliver of it and redirect it towards coring back into all of your people and do it for three years and do it with following the recipe and come back to me and tell me it didn’t pay. The biggest dividends of anything that you’ve ever invested into is to me the relationships are where like, especially in a Valley, we find out who has our back. We find out when we’re backed into a corner, you know, I know when I went through 2008 and almost lost the business, it was a handful of people that allowed me to survive. And I think that people forget that. Like you don’t need a thousand. It’s like, you know, Tim Ferriss has concept like you don’t need 10 million people. You need a thousand true fans. And I think you even need less than that. Like if you need, if you have 10 or 20 or 30 people that are raving true fans, like actively loyal you get those kinds of people behind you. Like it’s amazing what we can accomplish with a small handful of of people that are in our army and really willing to go to bat for us. RV: (34:26) There you have it. Friends Giftology system.com. This is John Ruhlin, author of Giftology. You can check out the book, follow him online, or go to Giftology system.com. John, thank you for being here. Thank you for this fresh perspective. And thank you for making me feel like crap for how bad I am at gifting as always. See, yeah.
Ep 81: What Its Takes to Make It On Television with Kristin Giese | Recap Episode
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RV: (00:00) Hey, welcome to the influential personal brand recap edition. It’s your favorite married couple and personal brand strategy, Rory and AJ Vaden. Probably the only, well, I guess there’s not that many married couples that do anyways. So we’re highlighting the interview that just with Kristin Giese, which you know, shared a lot of back story about how we found her through a cold call. And we just want to give you our top three and three, the first one we both shared. So babe, I’ll let you kick off. What was your first big takeaway from Kristin? AJV: (00:34) Yeah, and it was a takeaway and an aha moment and. I’m not sure I’d ever want to be on TV at the same time, but just the importance of it’s kind of almost like entertainment over information. And I think she talked a lot about, so I don’t think RV: (00:52) The topic of the interview was how to get booked on TV if you haven’t listened to the interview. AJV: (00:59) But I think to me that the part that really stood out was it’s not really about the information as much as what do you do with the information to entertain the people who are watching. And that’s where I naturally have a conflict because it’s like, I don’t want to create drama when there doesn’t need to be so much of TV today and not saying it’s good nor bad. I’m just saying it is what it is. RV: (01:27) That’s what I heard. I heard you saying it was bad, but we’ll leave that to you. AJV: (01:32) But I, I just think that, you know, that it’s really interesting. It’s about emotion and the entertainment value of, Oh, the shock. And I can’t believe they said that or, you know, can’t believe this happened. And I’ve heard that and tie what I want in my life. So that was kind of like a really good, clear real. RV: (01:48) Yeah. And you probably don’t know unless you’ve listened to every single episode is Aja doesn’t watch crime movies. She doesn’t watch anything sad, anything with whore, anything with drama, pretty much she watches romantic comedies and animated feature films. AJV: (02:05) And I don’t even watch those are my kids really. It’s just romcoms, that’s it. If it’s not, I’m not into it. I don’t want to be scared, sad, and angry or cry. Yeah. So I think that part was just really interesting is that you’ve got to bring a lot of entertainment value to even media interviews and getting pitched. And you’ve just gotta be an entertainment value to it. So almost more important than the information in of itself. It’s how you’re delivering it. And I think that’s really important. RV: (02:36) Yeah. And, and so that was my first big takeaway. I wrote down entertainment, not enlightenment. I didn’t process it in, in such like a negative way, but more of a, of a, of an insightful going, if you want to be in TV, you gotta realize that you’re in entertainment, not enlightenment, which if you’re building a personal brand, a lot of times it’s like, you know, the essence was information marketing, not, not for everyone. That’s that’s information marketing and personal branding are not the same thing. Information marketing is a subset of some personal brands, but if you’re an author with the video course, it tends to be more about like teaching. And like you’re saying information and TV is, it’s not the goal. Isn’t to be high minded people don’t watch TV, they watch TV for an escape. They watch it to laugh. They watch it to be engaged and entertained, not necessarily to learn. RV: (03:35) And so per se, you know, there’s some, there’s some caveats to it, but yeah, anyways, so that’s that, that’s it. So that was the first one. That was for me, for me too. So that was the big one. All right. So my second one, which is kind of connected, but I actually really loved this concept. She used this phrase a couple times heightened authenticity, and I wrote it down. You should write it down because whether you’re trying to be a reality TV star, or you’re just trying to host an interesting podcast or be an author or have great videos or just, yeah, just be a great writer. It’s heightened authenticity. It’s it’s it’s. And this is an interesting balance between being real, not being fake, but creating kind of that entertainment value in. And, and it’s like in speaking, I was always told that speakers have a license to embellish. RV: (04:33) You don’t have a license to make up, but you have a license to embellish to accentuate the salient emotions of a story or of a bit. And I think that’s really important, especially if you’re on TV, but look, if you’re on YouTube, you’re on TV. You know, if you’re going to have a podcast you’re, you’re on the, you know, you’re on the radio or whatever, it’s, it’s, you’re a host. People are looking for that. And specifically, you know, what do you do with that practically? I think she said, don’t tell me who you are, make me feel who you are, make sure your delivery creates emotions, which we talk a lot about at our world-class keynote craft events, sort of the magic of how to do that. And it was just a great reminder and I had never heard that term heightened authenticity. Yeah. AJV: (05:20) Oh really? That’s really good. My second one is something she said towards the very end. But I thought, wow, that’s probably, probably, we need to like push that up to the front as a good reminder to everyone who is trying to get pitched for a media interview or even a podcast interview TV show, whatever it is, talk, show whatever. But it’s like social media is today’s resume. You don’t need to tell me all the things you talk about. I can go and find them myself and it better match up. And probably this was strike two against me because if you went to my social feeds, AKI would learn about me is I know how to make really cute kids. RV: (05:59) And she’s not hireable for that in case you’re wondering that’s, that’s not an available service, AJV: (06:05) But you know, it’s, again, it’s one of those things where, you know, how many of us have some sort of pitch deck or there’s a media kit, a speaker kit, whatever kit. And it talks about, well, here are my talking points and here’s what you did, the dah dah dah. Then you go to your social media and none of that is represented there. And she’s like, social media is your resume. It’s not about what you’ve done. It’s, you know, what are you doing? And is it current tense and two, how many people are you doing it for? And I thought that was a really good aha reminder. Cause I know so many people who are like putting together pitch decks and writing these long emails and got this kit. And it’s like, really well, they need to do is go to your social. RV: (06:45) I kind of do that. Yeah. AJV: (06:46) So is that representative of who you are, what you talk about, what your brand is about. And I would say for a lot of people, it’s probably not including myself, RV: (06:56) But you’re also clarifying, you’re not trying to sell a TV show and you’re not trying to get booked on media. So that’s okay. AJV: (07:02) No, but maybe my brand shouldn’t be more with my passion and interests, which are children. So that, you know, again, this is all those things I’m like, do you align with actually what you’re passionate about putting out there into the world? Are you putting anything out there? All those things I thought were really an aha moment. She shed something really quick. But if you take a moment to let that sink in, it’s like, Oh, let’s take a look at that. Let’s realign some things and make sure that they all match. RV: (07:32) Yeah, love that. So my third one was a simple, a simple thing. She actually didn’t say this, but it reminded me of something that I have held as a philosophy in my life for a long time that I need to be reminded of, which is that everybody is a somebody somewhere. Hmm. Everybody is a somebody somewhere. And I must’ve had that first. That thought when I was probably, or my early twenties, was that everyone that you sit next to on a plane, there are somebody somewhere. They can get you the hookup somewhere, right. Even if it’s just a place to stay at their house, when you traveled to their city or they work at some type of job where they hire speakers or they know someone who’s a podcast host or they’re friends with a big social media influencer, or they are a TV producer or they’re the assistant to a producer or, you know, they can get you free passes to the waterpark. RV: (08:28) Like every single person you meet, everybody is a somebody somewhere. And to Christine’s point, you know, because she’s not a personality, like she’s not trying to get on shows. She’s not her feed is her career kids. And if you just looked at social media, you might not realize that, Hey, by the way, this woman has booked dozens of people for Oprah. So she might someone you want to know, you want to be nice too. And the truth is everybody has connections and, and, and things that you could benefit from. So if you’re a jerk and can’t be nice to people for the sake of being nice, just remember everybody is a somebody somewhere. So that’s a reason to be nice to everybody also. AJV: (09:15) Yeah. I think that also is indicative too, of people’s like relying too much on their social feeds because you forget to realize like, these people probably do have professional lives and they have this and they have that. And without doing the necessary research, which I, I find that people don’t do today, there’s so much, they’re not sharing it’s, you’re not really sure how to connect with a great example of that. But I think all of those things really do. I think tee up something that she didn’t say so clearly here, but it’s do your research. Mike, you want to get on a certain show. What types of people do they interview? What types of content is really popular? Who is the audience? Who is that do the necessary research instead of copying and pasting the same email. And you’re saying, you know, attachment and send, all right, you’ve got to do the necessary research to see where you fit and how do you fit. And who’s the right person and what have they done. And that all takes time, time and effort. RV: (10:12) Well, and your, your, your third takeaway was started related to that general. Oh, okay. Well allow me to interrupt your transition. AJV: (10:20) So my third takeaway is it’s making it not about you, but what are you doing for the audience, right? It’s not just, Hey, I’ve got this great insight or this great perspective, or I’ve got this great plan or whatever you have. It’s what are you doing for the audience with that? So how are you making this relevant to the people who are listening or watching that they can then take it and apply it to their life, to their business, to their home and do something with it. So what are you doing for the audience? And one of the things that I think is really important for our audience is your audience in this respect are the people who are booking people that is your audience. So what are you doing for them? What did they want? And are you doing it for that audience? In addition to the actual audience that you would be doing an interview for, or podcast for, or TV show for a it’s two fold, and you’ve got kind of a primary audience, which is a person getting you on the show and then the secondary audience, which is the people who would be watching it. And that goes for podcast and all. So that was my last one. RV: (11:28) Yeah. So there you go. I mean, quick takeaways, powerful interview. If you’ve ever thought about pitching your own TV show, or getting just booked on a talk show or being a talk show, host an absolute must listen to Kristin Giese. As always, thanks for being here, we’re breaking it down. We’re trying to make it practical. We want to help you build and monetize your personal brand so that you can make more impact, make more income and just make a big difference in the world. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 80: What Its Takes to Make It On Television with Kristin Giese
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Speaker 1: (00:00) It is very, very rare that this happens. What you are about to experience, which is that we bring on a guest who is neither a client of ours, nor somebody from the industry that I know personally, but somebody who cold pitched us for our podcast. And I’ll explain why we accepted this person. You know, in our podcast power event, we talk about you being the host and we talk about pitching yourself to get on other shows. And we get pitched, I would say four to five times every single week from different PR firms. We turn almost every single person down, but there’s a couple of things that happened here that I want you to understand right up front as we dive into this. Okay? So first of all, you’re, you’re about to meet Kristin Giza who is becoming my new friend and you’re going to love her. Speaker 1: (00:53) But the reason I had her on the show is because of exactly what we talk about in podcast power. There’s, there’s two things. So first of all, what are your results, right? Like leading with the results. And here’s what Kristen has done. We’re going to talk about TV, we are going to talk about TV shows, how to get on them, how to pitch them, how does the world of TV work for personal brand specifically? And her team tailored their pitch specifically to our audience. They showed that they cared, that they knew what our audience was about and she was relevant because she speaks on something directly to y’all and you know, to why to why you’re here. So she is a talent manager and an executive producer herself. She’s worked with miss USA, the bachelor, the bachelorette, real Housewives chefs, hairstylists. So all these personal brands. She has sold shows, TV shows to NBC TLC in Bravo. She sold the talk show with Oprah. She has 79 times booked Oprah show bookings. And she has launched products that have been into target and HSN. And so this was a specific niche, a specific expertise that was relevant to our audience that their team TaylorMade and she had the results to back it up. And that is why Kristen Giza is here and I’m so excited for y’all to meet her. She’s great. So Kristen, welcome to the show. Speaker 2: (02:24) Thank you so much. You know what, I feel like hearing that intro, I feel a bit like, and when you parked too close to the car next to you at the mall and somehow you miraculously get the door open just enough to slide in and get behind the driver again. Cause it’s like you can’t, you can’t open the door wide enough and yet somehow you’re like, I’m going to fit in here. I’m going to get in this car and get out of this mall at Christmas time. I hate all these people. That’s what I feel like when you intro me that way, that some, Oh I opened it just enough to integrate in. So I appreciate it. We suck in and we slide into that door Speaker 1: (03:00) And then you get into the car and you’re so comfortable. So I want to talk about TV because one of the things that y’all, your team pitched me with, which I agree with, is that everybody wants to be on TV, but they have no idea what it actually takes and why they are not ready. So tell let, can you talk to me about that, right. Like everyone that’s listening here is a personal brand. They are somebody that is building an audience. They have an audience of some type. Why aren’t most people ready for TV and what does it, and now we’re not talking about actors, like most of our clients are not actors we’re talking about, you know, their dream is to, you know, to be like shark tank or profit or it’s reality TV of some type. Now we do have clients that have been on the bachelor and we have some reality TV shows, but, but what does it take to be on reality TV and what does a person need to know about? Like how do you get selected for that and what do you need to be if you want that to be you. Speaker 2: (04:00) Yeah, I think the interesting thing, first of all, I’d like to say right off the bat, television is not a vanity project. So people spend a lot of time ruminating on this high-minded desire of what they might like to do on television and how they’re going to change the world. By what they can bring to television and how they are so far evolved from anything that is on television. And when is the last time that you turned on television and thought this is so high minded and so such documentary dial level, like, you know, you’re watching like duck dynasty, you know, so it’s like you have to stop thinking about television as a vanity project for yourself and really think about what television means to the audience. You know, when you talk about those Oprah bookings and all those shows that I brushed up against with the Oprah Winfrey show the magic of Oprah being in Chicago was that she had an amazing crowdsourcing to what many people in the middle of America were wanting and tuning in for. Speaker 2: (05:00) And she was listening and then she was delivering upon the deal that she made. Excuse me. What the audience. Oh my goodness. And so if you’re not doing that, then you’re not going to find your way onto television. I like to say, you know, when you drive out into the desert or into the country, wherever you’re on a road trip, and they have a giant paper, Mashiach taco or dinosaur, like the one on Peewee Herman, like that big giant dinosaur that’s just in her middle of nowhere and everyone, it’s so kitschy and everyone gets in their car, especially nowadays, and they drive out there so they can take their Instagram pictures with the dinosaur and throw up their peace signs and they’re on this amazing road trip and it’s kind of tacky, but it’s kind of art. It’s kind of cool, but it’s kind of weird. Speaker 2: (05:55) That’s what television you need to think about in your brand. What is your big pink dinosaur that is out in the middle of the desert that would compel people to want to drive out and visit it? That’s what is a seed of an idea that will work for people then to tune into. And because you come up with your big giant dinosaur and it’s just tacky enough and it’s just spectical enough and it’s just interesting enough for people to engage in. That gives you permission then to have the cool town down the street that has the cool cafe and the cool art gallery and all the other elements of your brand that are a bit more of you and a bit more rooted in the core of your brand. But this is the spectacle part of your, Speaker 1: (06:44) So if I understand your metaphor there, you’re just saying like, Hey you, it’s, it’s sort of like where you have to, it’s almost like you have to play the game of what is in order to be able to have the benefits of, of, of, you know, the other ancillary benefits that would come to you. So you’re saying directly that Hey, yeah, television isn’t inherently to be high minded. It’s not to be like evolutionary, it’s not to be this like, you know, really profound level of thinking. So if it’s not that, what is it like you give us the sobering reality of like, this is what TV is specifically. I think we’re probably talking about reality TV because I think that’s what applies to our audience, right? We’re not actors, but we are, you know, Marcus Limonus like what happened with the prophet blew up his career. Speaker 1: (07:35) Mel Robbins has her talk show coming out right now. She’s somebody that a lot of us know. You’ve got you know, even though the talk show host, Oprah Winfrey would be a good example. What’s happened with the shark tanks. The people on the bachelor and some, you know, we have, we have one of the mega stars from the bachelor that’s in our roster. But then it’s also like, he’s trying to parlay that into a real sustainable career. So what is it, if it’s not high-minded, like profound thinking, what would you call it? Speaker 2: (08:06) Yeah, I mean, first of all, it’s entertainment first and foremost. And in any good entertainment, it touches us, moves us, or gives us some level of takeaway. And so of course there’s television, that timeline, they’re 60 minutes there, CBS Sunday morning, there’s documentaries on HBO. There’s all of that, and if that’s the space that you’re in, absolutely. If you are that, that next version of Anthony Bordain that somehow gets the golden ticket to sort of do something that feels really elevated, then keep striving for that. But largely television is built in ensembles. It’s normally not just a solo venture, so there’s a lot of shows where you’re going to be partnered with someone else. Most shows, with the exception of talk shows that you work on where it might be helmed by that person, which, which let’s be real. There is a very large graveyard of talk shows that fail. Speaker 2: (08:58) There are more dead bodies in that graveyard than there are success stories and it’s, it’s very, the air is very thin up there for the people that actually make it all the way down the line to get what it is to, to develop an actual talk ship where it’s solo led, like Oprah or Ellen or Ellen or something of that fact. And it normally for, for a studio you’re talking like they’re, they’re already like $40 million in when they’re trying to launch a new talk show. So the chances of someone unexpected getting a talk show, which we hear a lot in our, in our business, I’m the next Oprah and it’s like, I don’t know, I’m not so sure, but okay, if that’s true, you better recognize all the journey that it takes to get to that level. So talk shows are so challenging on so many levels, largely talking about reality. Unscripted. Speaker 1: (09:53) Yeah. So just to pause on that right now too, because it’s like, talk shows to me, it’s kind of like traditional book publishing. You go to them when you have a platform, like, like Kelly Clarkson is a new one, right? And it’s like, because she’s Kelly Clarkson, she’s already bringing the audience to the show. And even Mel Robbins, I think she would be kind of a lower level of that. But going, she built this monster social media empire. She’s not just some random person out of nowhere that’s going to show up and be the next Oprah. She spent decades building an audience that’s following her to talk TV. Right, right, right. Speaker 2: (10:31) 100%. Right. And so when you look then at scripted and at versus unscripted, which is a space that we’re talking about, a lot of unscripted television could work as scripted. You know, when you look at real Housewives, you can almost here the versions of desperate Housewives, which was on ABC that Martin Jerry created a decade ago. You can feel the nuances of character and content in an, in an ability for the audience to plug into those personality. So like anything that you’re developing in your own brand content is King, character is queen and forever shall they reign. If you have content but you don’t have the character, your personal brand on Instagram isn’t going to take off, let alone getting on television. It’s the same on television. You have to have the character and the ability to know who you are and be authentic and be heightened as well, to heighten your authenticity, to heighten your charisma, tightened your personality in these bolder ways. Speaker 2: (11:35) Just like the camera adds 10 pounds, the camera also diminishes personality unless you heighten it and ratchet it back up. Which is the large part because everything is edited down. So if you’re not high energy the whole time you’re doing it, the three things that they cut out of your and, and, and edit down, suddenly you’re like, you’re less energy because you didn’t sustain that high energy the whole time. You have to be thinking of all of those things from a character perspective and from a content perspective, just like anything you would do in your brand, you have to think about what is the audience getting in this bargain that we’re making with them? What is the takeaway? Is it just engagement? Is it or entertainment? Is there an emotional engagement? Is there an element of learning? And how then are we adding the lens of entertainment? So you have to think like a producer. I think that people think well that’s what a production company is for. They’re going to know what I should do. That never works. Just like when you want a client to pay you to put money in your pocket to hire you for your coaching or your personal chef duties. If you don’t tell them exactly what you should mean and why you should matter, they won’t know what to do with you, not even TV producers. Speaker 1: (12:59) So, okay, so that’s, that’s so good. Like the, the, the heightened authenticity. And we talk about that even with podcasting, that the, the energy transference through the microphone, there’s a drop of like 50%. So it’s like if you’re not bringing the heat on, your show’s gonna suck because it’s boring. Like and, and so the key, I want to talk about the character thing though because I love that phrase that you use heightened authenticity because it’s still authentic. Because at some point you’re going to burn out if you’re in authentic. But it’s also, it’s also amplified. How do you find that balance and how do you know what character you should be? Like you said, you said something about you have to realize the, the, what is the ability of the audience to see themselves in those characters? What does all that mean and how do you, how do you kind of go, Oh, this is the character I am like, this is, this is the character I should play. Speaker 2: (14:03) Yeah. Well, we, we fuel everything that we do through our three E’s. So every project that we touch, it needs to feel elevated. And I’m talking that that pink dinosaur in the desert can still feel elevated based on the experience that you give to people when they get there. So there needs to be an elevation to what you’re doing. The audience needs to feel empowered by what you’re doing and they need to feel emotionally connected to what you’re doing. And so even in that, I think this, to me, this applies to everything that you do. Whether you’re writing a book, whether you’re going on the today show, whether you’re going on a podcast, you are delivering on these three E’s consistently and in television you better deliver on these three E’s. You better find the way to elevate within you’re doing. So that way you can get noticed on camera. Speaker 2: (14:53) That way what you’re delivering within the exchange is important. That, that how you’re contributing to the cast feels of benefit. You know, there’s a difference between someone that can play well in a group of an ensemble and contribute in a way that furthers what’s happening. And then there are people that are just constantly trying to contribute and get in and get in and get in and they become a detractor. You’re ultimately going to get edited out because you’re just trying to get in on the goods as opposed to sort of being that really elevated heightened authenticity that you, Speaker 1: (15:26) You’re talking about like the bachelor there, like that kind of a thing of like, are you just trying to get into the camera? Right. So there’s a difference between I’m playing well with others and I’m a part of the scene and then I’m just trying to be in like I’m just trying to be famous and be in it versus someone who’s being heightened authentically. That it, it, it raises the whole, it moves the whole group forward. It moves the cast forward, it moves the show forward. Speaker 2: (15:53) Correct. And I think you can feel, I mean, one of the, one of the biggest deals I guess that we had that we should talk about is ego. And I don’t, I’ve never met a single person who has said the phrase, I think I want to be on television that does not have some level of ego invested in what that is. And so you have to find a way to harness that. So the ego, your ego isn’t what leads you into the room. Sometimes you will get casts because here you go leads you into the room. As a producer, we need people on camera whose ego is completely out of whack because that gives us drama. Speaker 1: (16:30) You need conflict. Yeah. Speaker 2: (16:33) And all of that is relevant and important and the audience needs it to further the story. You know, that is art and PS, anyone who’s been on television knows this. We’ve already identified and arc of where we think the characters will go within the episodes based on what we’re doing. So sometimes that is surprising and they go other ways and sometimes there’s mechanisms that encourage them to go certain ways. In reality television. So there’s that whole side too, depending on how you’re looking to join the game. You know, if you’re going to be cast on a show like bachelor, there’s definitely going to be mechanisms that are imposed upon you in order to create that drama. If you are going to be the next Martha Stewart and you are bringing about a heritage cooking show, it’s a different type of mechanism that you’re working with the producers to develop that, the stakes of what’s going to happen in that show. Speaker 2: (17:29) But there’s always going to be mechanisms in stakes that we’re creating as producers to bring that about. But you know, so you’re, to go back to your question, you know, you are looking at that heightened authenticity. You’re answering these things for yourself. You’re aware that you’re going to be edited in some capacity. You’re aware that you’re going to become a part of an ensemble and these other people are going to be pushing and pulling you in different that way. And so in every situation without it being obvious to the camera, because you’re still have to be present in, in it and participating, you have to find a way to, to deliver on those three E’s, to elevate and be of importance and, and to have, take up space in the best possible way. You have to find a way to emotionally connect. And that doesn’t just mean that you share something for the sh the sake of sharing it because you think this is my hook that’s going to get the audience. Speaker 2: (18:27) You are legitimately emotionally connecting to the situation. And then most important, almost everyone that you think about on television that you enjoy somehow empowers you or gives you something that you feel you’re invested in them and you’re giving yourself permission to be invested in them because of how they are changing you in some way. Oprah certainly did these three E’s exceptionally well. You know, we tuned in for that hour and there was a bargain we were going to show up as we were cooking dinner and we were going to have an experience on all these levels. And it’s the same for every show. It’s the same for bachelor. It’s just a different bargain. It’s just, we know that the exchange of currency is a bit more drama and a bit more salacious than if we’re tuning in for 60 minutes. But every show makes this bargain with the audience and it’s always about the audience. That’s the thing. Speaker 1: (19:35) Yeah. And that’s the same about speaking, which is I was my background. Like I am a, I’m a hall of fame speaker, so classically I, I am a stage performer. I know you did your first comedy set last year, which was, which was cool. I saw that. You know, I was, I was doing standup comedy in early two thousands when I was in grad school, not because I ever wanted to be a comedian, but because I wanted to be a, you know, a business speaker. And I knew I had to be funny, but that, so, so coming back to the character, you talk about Oprah, right? And just this concept of heightened authenticity, which I think is super, super powerful. How much of heightened authenticity is natural versus learned? Cause it’s not acting, but it’s a, it’s an intentional choice of like, Oh, I’m going to play this character, I’m going to play this role. Speaker 1: (20:31) Versus just like blind luck. Like, you know, like you talked about the ego person. I, you know, I’ve never been a producer of a show, but I have to think if I was going to produce the bachelor, I would be intentionally grabbing some of the most outlandish characters just because they’re completely self unaware of how insane they are because that creates the drama and the conflict for TV. Like nobody wants to watch grass grow, we need conflict like we have. And so I’m grabbing that person who’s like self unaware deliberately. So, but then you go, I don’t think, you know, like is Oprah playing a character? Is she just being herself? Like was a lot of that coached into her or was it just like that was just who she was coming out? Speaker 2: (21:13) No, I think the people, well who do, who are truly able to find to find that, well, when I say heightened authenticity, you’re tapping into that, you know where it is and you know where the on and off switches. It’s not a different room with a different light every time it’s the same room. You just know where all the switches are and you know how to temper it. So you know, you’re in charge of, of that muscle so to speak. Oprah is one of those. I mean, there is a lot of truth then don’t meet your heroes because like I could tell you stories of people that I’ve met along the way where you’re like, I am good at this or isn’t as not nice. They were so mean to that server and I loved them. And X movie, you know, and it, it just brings you to your knees. Speaker 2: (22:00) But Oprah is exactly who you need her to be, who you’ve always known her to be for you. That is who she is because she is my wife in real life. She is, she is one of those rare people that means so much. Open means to me is different than what she means to you is different than what she means to my aunt Susie. She has meant something and touched us again. And that emotional content connection and that empowerment connection, she has empowered him, fueled each one of us differently. So when we arrive in front of her, she rises up to that version of herself every single time. I’ve, I’ve rarely seen something like it and, but the thread of what that is, the talent that I’ve worked with the most that have meant the most to their audiences have always been the talent that have something special. Speaker 2: (22:55) And it’s, it’s almost unquantifiable. But when you stand before them and they look at you and they speak to you, you want to be the person that you think they see when they’re looking at you. And that’s a very powerful thing when you are speaking with someone that your belief when they’re looking at you is that they see something special in you that you feel more special because of their gaze. It’s so powerful. And Oprah has it other amazing celebrities that we all know and love. They have a way of just in their personal power to hold space with someone that’s more about the person that they’re holding space then about themselves. And that is a skill that you can actually build over time. It takes the requirement of moving your ego aside and picking up sort of an energy frequency with the people that you were with in the most powerful performers. I have ever met have the capability to do that. Speaker 1: (24:07) Yeah. And it’s, it’s like a, it’s, it’s a skill. It’s, it’s, it’s almost like developing a character trait. It’s selflessness of going like, okay I see something in units. You know, there’s a beautiful phrase, I don’t do hot yoga anymore, but I, there was a season in my life when I did Bikram yoga and they, they have this, Mmm, no, I’m a stay. Right. Which it means the highest in Macy’s, the highest in world. Correct. And that is like the essence of what we’re talking about here. Right. Which is ironic because what you’re saying about ego, there is the enemy where it’s like, I’m not trying to too, I’m not trying to be in the camera. For me, I’m trying to draw the best out of you, which is the audience is like, I’m trying to create the best experience for the audience, not for me, for the audience. Speaker 1: (24:59) Okay. Correct. So I, I love that. And I, and I, and I love that this applies, you know, you mentioned probably most of the, most of our are most of our people, our tribe, you know, we call a mission driven messengers. That’s, that’s who we serve. Most of them are probably more likely to just be a guest on a show, you know, like they have a book launch or something. And yeah, you got on Fox news or the today show or something like that. Mmm. More than just pitching a show and just cause that’s a smaller number of people. But like would you say those three ease and being that heightened authenticity, is that part of what makes you a great guest? A great pick to go? Yeah, we can have you on good morning America because you have something empowering. But we also, you also have to still keep in mind that a part of what I’m doing there is I’m entertaining people while I’m there. I’m not just let me tell you about my book. I’m entertainment. Speaker 2: (25:53) Correct. And I think that people forget that there’s a lot of publicists. And that’s, that’s where I cut my teeth. That’s the roots of where I, where I grew up in, in entertainment. And a lot of publicists will tell people right out of the gate, you gotta be working your points. You’ve got to get in that you’re there to promote your book. And as an audience member, when the first question is, so you’re here in New York and you’re a, we heard that you have new show that’s going out and tell us about it. And the person says, well, I told you all when I wrote my book that came out as an audience. You’re like, Oh, gropes you know, and as the producer, you’re like, I’m not booking this person because your goal here was to deliver upon what we’re doing here. And that is putting on this show that is about the broader engine of the show. Speaker 2: (26:43) So it requires you, if you’re going to deliver on these things, cause you’re doing it all the time, it requires to hone the skill of how to do it. You know, there’s an important state, I’m saying in a Gar, salesmen taught me this, that I don’t want to sell you a car. I want to make you want to buy a car from me. So I’m about the car. I’m telling you everything about the car and you now are invested in me and you are invested in the story. I’m telling you about the car. Now you want to buy the car that is different than me selling you the car. And if you’re going to go on, tell me and do these things. You want people to want to buy the car. You’re not trying to sell them the car. And that is such an important it’s like flipping the other side of the coin and in, you need to practice that skill of, of the coin flip in order to get it right every time. Speaker 2: (27:37) Cause it’s hard. It’s hard to be there to deliver upon what they want you to deliver upon. Instill, get your messaging in. And the thing that we is the cornerstone of, of how to do it well is that you are never, not for an instant have I ever sold products or properties. I have only only ever sold philosophy. So all the years of selling product lines into target, moving shows on to television, launching books and publishing books, I was never selling any of those things. I was only ever like the master of the ShamWow selling you, evangelizing you on the power of the words, of the philosophy, of the belief of how this will elevate, empower, and emotionally support you. And when you connect into those things, that is the Trojan horse to want to go buy the publishing, the property and the product. Speaker 2: (28:43) And if you can learn how to do that, well, there is not a single room that you can’t walk into and nail the pitch, get the property, sell the project. It’s, it’s just the cornerstone because you’re not, you’re never beginning a conversation, but it never begins with, I have this thing that I want to sell to you. It always begins and ends with, I have this thing that I want to share with you, and the selling becomes then the byproduct of that, and that’s where the power is. I think in anything that you’re going to do, whether you want a producer to buy into an editor to buy into you or whatever your mechanism is. To me that’s the power source. Speaker 1: (29:24) So yeah, I love this so much. The, the yeah, you mentioned ShamWow and I was laughing for a second. So Kevin Harrington is one of our, one of our clients who was like, [inaudible] works, Speaker 2: (29:42) You know, I’m just going to show you this thing over and over and you like me and now you like this thing and you’re debating 10 years later I’m like, maybe I should still buy that sham. Wow. You know, and I know the name that just shows you, it affects you on these different levels Speaker 1: (29:58) Now as the producer. Okay. So you’re, you’re, you’re a producer. Like I mean you’re an author, right? You, you do, you’re doing these things, you have your own personal brand and stuff, but, but your daily, your J day job right now is like you produce shows, you pitch ideas to networks and to production companies. And, and when you sell a show, a part of what your role as a producer is, is selecting the talent who comes on the show. Speaker 2: (30:25) Gosh. Oh we could, we could unpack this for another three hours. Speaker 1: (30:28) Well here’s my question. Here’s my, my big question is how do you spot it in someone and what do you look for, right? Like as the producer, cause you’re kind of like, you’re the director, you’re the orchestra, you’re like the conductor. You’re the one that’s like got to pull all the pieces together between the audience and the talent and the production company. Right? Like that’s what you’re doing. Speaker 2: (30:50) I don’t, I don’t spot it. I feel it. So every single person that calls me that wants to work with us as talent management or production and they’re telling me who they are, they better make me feel who they are. And for every time that you tell them, feel free to cut that as a tweet it that that is what it comes down to. I need to feel you in, in the way of of what it is that you are bringing into this unit versus, and I mean I’m talking you could be honey booboo and that’s okay. If I feel it, what it can be, then we’re going to the dance. If you sit in front of me and first of all, don’t come to me and try and just talk at me or tell me or or proselytize to me who you are. Listen a lot more than you speak and find the way to help navigate through what we are looking for to then tell, to encourage us to have that connection with you. Speaker 2: (31:57) So many people come and sit before us and they just start telling me all the things that they are and the whole time maybe I’m thinking I feel something else for them that could get them to the dance, but they’re so busy telling me that all they want is a talk show like Oprah. And I know that those are all on the decline and they’re so adamant about what it is that they’re want that they want, that it starts to feel a bit like an unreal hell that you’re trying to talk into doing their homework. It’s just a battle that you don’t want to have, so I find it’s sometimes much better to begin with the question, so to say, let’s talk about the things that I am bringing into the world and let’s have you tell me a bit about what does that mean for the world? Speaker 2: (32:45) Is there a place for that in the world? How does this apply to the world? There’s a conversation that we could be having that a lot of people skip right over that and go to, whether it’s their brand, whether it’s television or whatever it is, they make it a vanity project. They sit in front of you and tell you what it is exactly that they’re going to do, and that’s for your vision board. That’s for your book on your bedside table that you write down every day. I’m going to be a millionaire and I’m going to, I do it too. I’m right there with you. We can compare crib notes all day long. I got it. We’re all vision boarding. I’m in it, I’m in it deep. But there is also when you vibrate at a frequency of I am pulling people into me that are going to inform where I’m going next. You actually have to connect energetically, hear from them, learn from them, and then apply maybe. Okay, now we’re going to go down this path and people miss that beat altogether. Speaker 1: (33:41) I love that. I mean, and that, that don’t tell me who you are. Make me feel who you are. I mean that is gonna is such a such a capstone of this conversation. I love this so much. The, the, Mmm. So real quick, I know this is, this is like a little bit off topic. Like we’ve been going so deep into like the character and the role that you play. Can you just give us a broad and like, I can’t believe this has gone way over time. But this is so good and I think unique. I think you have, you have such a unique perspective of, of what, you know, I think of what people normally see Kristen of just like living in this world for your whole career. And so if you were going to pitch a show, what are like, just the mechanics of that? Speaker 1: (34:35) Like what, you know, like if you get a book, like if you want to get a traditional book deal, we have a whole, we have a whole event, we call it bestseller launch plan, which is all about like, here’s how it works. You create a book proposal, you have the book proposal, you have your plan and the book proposal. You go to a literary agent, the literary agent says yes, they shop you to a publisher, publisher signs a deal. You get a contract. You know, it’s like there’s a, there’s a process that more or less as generally fall, I followed, I feel like TV for most of us is this like mysterious black box of like, we just think of it as like this lucky break of like you’re walking in the mall and somebody goes, Hey, you’re the next Oprah. But there’s, there’s a process to all this and, and for, for people like you who’ve, like you spent your life doing it. It’s second hand nature, but just like, what’s the high level, Hey, I got an idea for a show. How does that, how does that materialize from there? First of all, Speaker 2: (35:30) There’s hardly any new ideas. So that’s the first thing. Production companies have a very hard time making money right now because it’s so hard to sell shit. There’s so many shows that don’t actually get to air. It used to be that they bought 10 episodes, now they buy eight, sometimes they buy less. I would say by one they tested, it takes a year, then it doesn’t get the ratings, so they don’t buy the rest of the show. It’s basically the smell of desperation. Fear and failure in entertainment is like be prepared. You know, I don’t know, I’ve never been in a morgue, but like get the menthol ready because it is not pretty. So be prepared for so many nos. Be prepared to be violently unrelenting in your desire to pursue it. If there’s any part of you that’s like, I’m just gonna see what happens and go from there, you are never going to make it off the ground level because it’s going to fail and fail some more and fail and fail again. Speaker 2: (36:32) That’s, that’s first rule. Second rule, you were the driver like anything in your life. Show them what you can mean already. Start collaborating with friends already start creating content on Instagram live already. Start creating. Even YouTube show you the people who make it the furthest are the ones who are already creating the content that gives the roadmap for how people would use you. So find friends to collaborate with. Start doing it. Start dreaming up. Start trying new things. Show people what you could mean on a larger scale. Become an expert at understanding what all’s happening on television and what networks are buying and what they aren’t buying, so you can actually have a conversation with producers because a lot of the shows that people come to me and say, Hey, this is a show that I want to do is actually only a seed of an idea that would be a segment on a TV show. Speaker 2: (37:23) You actually have to think about how does this sustain for one whole episode and for 10 whole episodes in a season and you don’t make any money in season one, so how’s it going to get to a season two? Where are you going to go in it? It’s all of those things that you should start thinking of so that way it can go beyond just that one small five minute. This is how I would do it on, on the Rachael ratio. It needs to actually feel expandable and like I said earlier, a lot of ideas that work that are successful in television. You can see a version of them as a documentary, like the tiger King that then can become a film that we would all watch and get invested in. That could also become a series of a show with these really great characters that could also be a reality show. It can it like any good idea, you can mold it and fit it for the different formats and platforms that exist out there. So think in those terms. If it’s something that only applies to you and only you could do it, you’re going to have such a hard time selling it. Think in terms of does this idea and contract and then write your pitch, build your deck, get a Canva account, make it look sexy. You got to do all the things to sell it. Speaker 1: (38:45) So, okay, so just real quick on that. Okay, so that was you hummed over that. So yeah, the, I mean obviously the psychology is way more important. Functionally speaking, you’re going to write a pitch, just like a book proposal or a speaking proposal or any other proposals like show me something in writing and with pictures that kind of gets, helps me understand and articulate the concept. Correct. And then who do you send that deck to? Do you send it to a producer, to a production company, to somebody else? Is it just like, I mean, I know it’s kind of like send it to Frick and everyone and anyone who will listen to you until you like find the right person, but is it, who’s the gatekeeper there? Speaker 2: (39:24) I mean there are so many gatekeepers. That’s part of the problem. So you’re building those connections and networking and having conversations. If it’s truly a seed of an idea that is stealable, which they kind of all are, you’re going to want to be careful about how you talk about the idea. You know, so that way you can kind of try and protect it. I mean, I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been told no on a show pitch. And then a year later I see the same production company that I was pitching out there with a similar show, you know, so, and who’s to say maybe they had the idea at the same time. Again, there are no new ideas, so it’s, it’s really about how you layered in, but everything comes down to relationships in any industry and television is the same. Speaker 2: (40:09) Every connection, every business card, the number one thing that I can say, whoever decided that no one should have business cards anymore should be interrogated beyond. Because the number of times that I have said to talent that I actually am curious about like, hi, I’m Kristen do you have a car? And they’re like, you can find me on Instagram. I know that when I DM you, you probably won’t see it in DME back and now I am a lost connection to you and you never know who someone is or how they’re going to help you. And if you don’t find a way to concretely connect with them, don’t make me search for you because that is how doors don’t open. So be prepared at every turn for actually how to get ahold of someone. Speaker 1: (40:52) Totally. Well, and I, I hope you don’t take this as a slight, but like, you know, if I go look at your social media right now, I wouldn’t see millions of followers. But if I was sitting next to you on an airplane and be like, Hey, this is someone who’s booked 70 people on Oprah, it might be worth the conversation. And you just, you just don’t know. You know, on social media, everyone’s like drawn to like, you know, all the people with lots of followers. But it’s like, usually those aren’t the people who open the doors. It’s their assistant, it’s their talent manager, it’s their agent. Like those are the people who control the doors. Speaker 2: (41:26) Correct. And when you delve deeper into someone’s following, and then you start to see, Oh, that’s the head of, of this, of HSN. Oh, ahead of target. Oh, that’s ahead of that. And then you’re like, you have no idea who those people are because when you go to their feet, it’s just them with their kids. You don’t know that the people in my orbit and you’ve already discounted for whatever reason and it’s like you just lost one of your greatest leads, you need to great at such a high frequency of I am compelling these people into my orbit and then actually be smart enough to take advantage of that. You know the number of times that I’ve sat next to someone on a plane and later someone would be like, how’d you sit next to the head of development for HBO? And it’s, how’d that happen? It’s like I made that happen. I vibrated at such a high energy all the time at every turn. In order to make that happen, you have to vibrate at that level too and be smart enough to take advantage of it when it happens. Speaker 1: (42:23) So. Okay. I have one other question before we let you go. Before I do that though, where should people go if they want to connect with you, Kristen? Like if they want to like, you know, learn more and all that kind of stuff and just kind of like get plugged into what you’re doing. Speaker 2: (42:38) Yeah. All Moxy on Instagram. A. L. L. M. O. X. I. E. Speaker 1: (42:43) Okay, very cool. I think we’ll probably have you back again at some point or maybe we’ll just do a training for our members on like specifically TV pitching and stuff. But this is so, so powerful. So my last question for you is, is TV dead or dying? Like should we all be going the heck with a production company? Take your show idea and fricking make it yourself and build it on YouTube. Because that’s sort of what I’m starting to think is going by the time I would build the relationships and get to the people and make the pilot and get the first episode. And did we get the rating? It’s almost like, should we be thinking more of just like just build it, build it on your own or, or do you go now, you know, you really need to, like it’s still, it’s still TV. I think it’s a bit of both. I mean if you build it, they will come, right? So if you start doing it on, you prove that you have traction, then it will open. It speeds it up Speaker 2: (43:42) In creativity. Just again, having clever, you know, the first thing that we do with clients is say your Instagram, your social media is your resume. So show people exactly the types of cleverness, content, creativity that you have. So by the time they come to your page, now the alarm bells are going off. Now we’re connecting the dots of how to use you. That is, you know, it’s a paint by number, right? You’re over here shading in the lower corner there somewhere you don’t know. And somewhere all of a sudden you both arrived at the same spot and it all clicks. It’s like, Oh, this was the missing piece to this butterfly painting that we were making of your brand. And it comes together and you eventually, for as much as you can say like television is changing. Is it dead? Absolutely not. It’s not anywhere we, especially now we are all working from home at home, our connection to entertainment, sharing and watching television together, it’s, it’s going to get stronger again. It’s just that now we have to find more clever ways for us to bridge together and come together in the middle. So it’s a bit of both. Speaker 1: (44:50) I like it. I like it. Such a fantastic educational, stimulated conversation. My friends, I don’t know, you know, where else you would find Kristin, and that’s why she immediately jumped out to me as someone you had to meet. And I think my instincts were fully justified because of her spirit. And this has been so generous, Kristin, and so informative and honest and empowering and I think just insightful and anyways, we’ll help to stay in touch with you. We wish you the best. And thank you so much. Speaker 2: (45:22) Thank you. And forgive my moving boxes. I’m just still getting settled. It’s not normally the shabby around here, I promise. Thank you so much for having me.
Ep 79: Going Pro with Digital Marketing with Angie Lee | Recap Episode
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RV: (00:00) Hey, it’s time for the influential personal brand at recap of the Angie Lee episode. And I’m going solo on this one with AJ out and wanted to share my thoughts on the interview. I did with my, my good friend, Angie Lee, and you know, first thing in terms of the recap that I hope you hear when you, when you listened to the interview is the part where she says it took two and a half to three years to really even get started. Right? So two and a half to three years to even get started, like, but before she even started to see traction, and I hope you don’t skip over that, I hope you don’t miss that because, cause this is, this is the real deal. Like no matter how many of these techniques, and there’s a couple of great ones that we’re going to talk about here that we share that we, you know, that we teach you, you know, those of you that like, if you’re one of our clients, we, you know, we teach you the best of the best that we can. RV: (01:05) And on these interviews, like we try to draw out the most that we can from our, our network and our friends and the people who are actually making stuff happen. But the reality is just, you gotta, at some point commit to just be in here. Like you got to just commit to going the distance. And if you can’t be here for five years, like if you’re not in this for five years, then just go home. Now. I mean, like if, if you’re not willing and prepared to pursue this dream for at least five years, then just stop now because it takes three years to even get going, like to even just get out of the Gates of, of just hustle and work before people even understand it. And I think, you know, our pod, this podcast, a good example, like I’ve already hosted a podcast that had millions of downloads and starting over. RV: (01:57) We’re just now getting to about 50,000 downloads. And we’ve almost been doing this for already like another year and a half. And that it’s like, that’s a slow build for someone who’s been there before, but we’re walking this journey with you. And I don’t mean that to be, you know, discouraging. I mean that, to be encouraging, to throw the gauntlet down, to help you realize that this takes time, right? So like if your first email blast, didn’t generate millions of dollars for you. Like, you know, you sometimes see on social media and people over promise, like don’t be discouraged, stay committed to your mission, to your vision, to the dream of making an impact, be focused on impact and influence and income will come. It will come. Like the stuff that we teach at brand builders, it absolutely works. Like it works, it works, it works, but it takes time. RV: (02:50) There’s not a way to do it with no time. And anyone who tells you otherwise, they’re just, they didn’t really do it. And it’s not sustainable like that. You, you, you, we bring on people who are doing it, have done. It are the real ones making it happen day in, day out. And you know, so that’s just hopefully encouragement to you. Don’t be discouraged if you know, it’s not all happening right away. Like you just came here. That message enough. So beyond that a couple takeaways for me from my my pal. So I think that was, you know, that’s, that’s a big one, but a simple nuance. The Angie didn’t say so directly, but it, it, it kind of inspired me or it was something she said that reminded me of this idea that it’s, it’s important. It’s really important to lock this in your brain. RV: (03:43) And this is an important sales, marketing strategy, technique, mindset, whatever you want to call it, don’t tell people what you do, tell people what you can do for them. Don’t tell people what you do, tell people what you can do for them. Like when people ask you, what do you do? Don’t say I’m a real estate agent say, aye, how people sell their homes, right? Like don’t, I don’t tell people I’m a personal brand strategist. I tell people I help people build and monetize their personal brand. And that is a simple and important and clear demarcation line. Don’t tell people what you do tell people what you can do for them. And that just really stuck out to me was something to remind myself of and to make sure that you just nailed home, that you, you think about that always. Cause that’s the mistake is we tell people what we do. RV: (04:53) We tell people like this, this is, this is what I spend my time doing. And they don’t really care about that. They care about what you can do for them. So make sure you make that change mentally. And, and also literally in your copy in your videos and you know, anytime you’re communicating in various forms, the next thing and I think I love this was something I really did take away from me and G in terms of, you know, selling and marketing, I think it’s like a lot of times we see people when they, they feel almost like they love putting out content, but then they have to go into like sales mode and that’s where they freak out or, you know, they love teaching. But then when it goes into like asking people to buy or something, they, they freak out because they have like this, like a gear shift, like there’s this mode where they think about, okay, I’m being myself normally. RV: (05:50) And then there’s this moment where I go into marketing. And when Angie was saying is like, don’t do that. Just, just be the same person talking passionately about what you believe in like the, the, the tools that you use, the products that you buy. And they don’t even just have to be your products. Like she, she was saying, you know, she, a lot of times she tells people about tools that she doesn’t get an affiliate fee for. She just, she just in that mode because she doesn’t delineate between like, okay, I’m in sales mode versus I’m in like teaching mode, it’s just learn to, to be genuine. And, you know, like a verbatim thing that she said, which I thought was interesting was she said, integrate your ads into what you’re doing. So, right. Like you think of ads. It’s like, okay, I’m going to create my ad. RV: (06:37) And then I, and then I have content, but in Corp, if you think about it more as incorporating your ad into your content or that your content is an ad, you know, it’s teaching, but it’s also an ad for something that’s sort of representative of this mindset shift here of, it’s not like, there’s you as a, as a mid, as a messenger. And then there’s you as a marketer, it’s like, it’s the same thing and do them together. And just talk about it that way. What really, really helped you. Or another thing that she said was, don’t think of how can I sell more, but think about how can I be more intimate and vulnerable and authentic about telling people what I believe in, Oh, I love that. I love, I love that idea. And, and, you know, I think of it as being more of like a promoter I’ve talked about this a lot is, is just, if you were going to tell your friends about a great movie you saw, or a great restaurant, you went to you, wouldn’t like put on your sales mode and become like robo salesperson. RV: (07:45) You know, you wouldn’t write out a script and be like, let me memorize the script. You would, you would just tell your friends all my gosh, like this movie is amazing. You have to see this movie or you have to listen to this song, or, you know, like you have to go to this city that I visited, the way that you promote to your friends, the things that you love and believe in is the same way that you should promote your own products. And you should have the same level of conviction in your own products that you’ve created as you do in the products that you use that are created by other people. And if you don’t, then there’s some disconnect. Like you need to work on your product. More like there’s something about your product that you’re insecure about that you don’t love it, or you don’t believe in it, or you didn’t design it in a way that it feels authentic. RV: (08:31) And, and the more you can do that, the more comfortable you’ll be the more persuasive you’ll be. And the less salesy you’ll be, because it’s, it’s like, you won’t be just, you know, regurgitating this, this, this script. So, so don’t do that, like just promote and speak and teach from the heart and be intimate and vulnerable and authentic about what you believe in. And that’s a important tip. That’s one of the things that I love about Angie. I think, you know, she’s always encouraging people to market and promote, but to like, not in ’em, you know, just, just in an honest way, like being congruent with who you are. And I love that. And she’s also telling the story, which was my point number one, about how long it really takes and the work it really takes. So those were my top two takeaways. RV: (09:17) My, my third takeaway, which is another tactical point, which has kind of come up before. But another thing you can’t hear too often is that remember, or just know in your mind that Instagram is not an SEO friendly growth platform, because social media in general is the opposite effect of, of search engine optimization. Like when you put content out on the web and, and, and, and so, so it’s almost like I think about it this way, your website, I E your blog specifically. Okay. So your blog, your YouTube channel and your podcast, those get better over time. The longer the content has been out, the more reach you have, the more traffic, the more valuable it is, the more new subscribers, like it’s like a fine wine. It gets better with age and those assets. That’s one of the reasons why those assets are so important and really, probably in many ways, the most important, I mean, yeah, your blog, your website, your YouTube channel, they get better over time. RV: (10:24) Social media is like she said, it’s better for, it’s just a nurturing platform. It’s a way to just keep in touch with people. But over time, the value of social media goes down w a piece of content on social media over time, goes down a piece of content on, you know, basically call it Google. Well, I mean, is there a podcast, your YouTube, or your website, your blog, it goes, the value of that goes up. And so they’re more SEO. They’re more SEO, friendly, and older pieces of content carry a lot of weight and they get, you know, they get more traffic and more reach over time. So you just need to understand that. Particularly if you’re someone who has a huge following on social media, but you have no email list, you have no, no blog traffic. You have no podcasts. You have no YouTube channel. RV: (11:12) It’s like, you are, you are one algorithm change away from your whole brand disappearing overnight. And all of the work that you’ve done to build an audience on social media, basically becoming worthless. So you better be migrating those over to these other platforms, YouTube podcasting, and your blog quickly, which is what, you know, we, we teach that in our relationship engine, our whole phase two is all about building your digital platform, your digital ecosystem. So make sure that you’re doing that, make sure you’re always doing those things. Social media is important. It’s a great way to get a lot of reach quickly. You know, you can go viral, you can nurture people. It’s like but it’s not the center piece of your personal brand strategy. It’s more of an, an outlet or redirect. It’s a tributary to your stream, which really should be your blog. RV: (12:08) And then, you know, you’re dropping your podcast and your videos from YouTube on there as well. All things that if you follow the brand builders group way, like if you’ve come to our phase two event, you know, if you’ve been through phase one, you come to phase two or you’re, you’re in our monthly and more, we’re teaching you the relationship engine. And you’re just, you’re building that out. We’re doing these things organically, but every time I do one of these interviews, I’d become more and more convicted of like, yeah, the process we’re teaching incorporates. So many of these things, these real, the real influencers are doing. So I hope you’re doing that and pulling that away as a tip, most of all, you just got to stay in the game. You just got to stay in the game. You just gotta keep going. You gotta keep pushing. RV: (12:48) You gotta know that every single day, there’s someone out there waiting to hear from you. And that most of this game is a matter of staying power. And it’s the person who’s committed to being here for the long term, that’s going to win. So I want to encourage you and invite you and challenge you to commit, to be here for the longterm, commit that this is your craft. This is your mission. What you’re doing with your personal brand is going to be the rest of your life. And when you do that, you’ll you’ll quickly go, right? So there’s a bunch of steps I need to take, but I got the rest of my life, you know, to work towards it. So we’ll just, we’ll just start plugging away. And that’s what we want to help encourage you to do. Whether we get a chance to call, hopefully you’ll do a free call with us. If you haven’t. At some point, we want to talk to you. Hopefully we get to see you at one of our events, or, you know, if for right now, just stay plugged into the podcast and follow me on social at Rory Vaden on Instagram and most of my other platforms and just, just stay connected so we can encourage you along your journey. Thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 78: Going Pro with Digital Marketing with Angie Lee
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RV: (00:00) I am so excited to introduce to you to someone who is a newer friend of mine who I really, really respect. Angie Lee is, she has millions of podcasts, downloads. She has one of the best personal develop events for female entrepreneurs. It’s called, pays to be brave. She’s releasing a book called ready as a lie. She’s built hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. And she is someone that was just told, Hey, you couldn’t do this. You shouldn’t do this. It’s not going to work. It’s a waste of time. You’re crazy. And yet here she is in her young years just crushing it. And I want, I wanted to invite her on to tell her, tell for her to tell us and tell you exactly how the heck that she does all that and give us all of her marketing secrets. So here she is, Angie Lee. AL: (00:51) I’m so excited to be here. Let’s do it. I love geeking out on all things, branding and marketing. So, RV: (00:57) Yeah. Well and I feel like you’re like one of the case studies of like, Hey, like you’re someone who’s just done it through. So, so tell us first of all, like how did you kind of get into building a personal brand and like how did all that, you know, how did you even start? And then we’ll talk about why you think it’s gone well and how to do it. AL: (01:17) Yeah. When I started this, I was 19 years old, 10 11 years ago, I didn’t know I was building a personal brand. I didn’t, I didn’t know what creating content was and I really was someone who just genuinely loved to share my life with people. I genuinely love to give tips. And at the time it was health and wellness. And so I was on campus in school and my first year of college and I hated college. I hated school. Typical entrepreneur selling lemonade on the corner since I was little and school was a cage for me, it was jail. So instead of going to class, what do you do? You start videoing yourself working out and you posted on my space and you share with your friends or you, you I was creating recipes and, and smoothie recipes and health tips and I went all in and I became obsessed with creating content. AL: (02:04) And what happened is through that I realized that there was this whole world of digital marketing and I became obsessed with how do I take this passion that I have for wellness online and get women to purchase eBooks or have ad space or do coaching programs. And so it kind of all evolved from me starting this blog. And then what started with three to four readers, one of them being my mom that eventually became women telling their friends and their friends’ friends. And I just stayed really consistent. And this is crazy to say, but I think in 10 years of creating content, I’ve maybe taken 10 to 20 days off in a sense of creating some sort of piece of content, whether that’s written, visual, auditory. I’ve just been obsessed with connecting with people every day and sharing with them. And then when I realized I could turn this into a business instead of becoming a dietician and making $20,000 a year working 80 hours a week in Buffalo, Idaho, which is what I was going to school to do, I realized that there was, there was something here, and I can still remember the day that a woman paid me $60 for a wellness ebook. AL: (03:05) And I remember thinking I was loaded. I was like, I’m rich. I have $60 I, I’ve made it mom, don’t worry about me. I’ve got it, I’m good. I got a woman paid me $60 from across the country for an ebook and then a day later this company paid me 40 bucks for ad space on the blog. And again, you know, I was 19 you’re broke, you’re broken college. A hundred dollars is like you are set for life. And so I remember being like, this is it. I’m going to make it. But I do remember that moment and I think every entrepreneur remembers their first digital sale because it’s such a beautiful moment of if I can get one stranger on the internet to find value in what I do, who lives all the way across the world or country, I can get thousands of people to do this. AL: (03:52) And once I realized that it’s been game over, and that’s what I’ve been committed to, showing up, creating content and finding all of these different ways to be, Hey, to be a coach, a teacher, an educator, influencer, and it’s evolved. You know what started as health and wellness then evolved into marketing coaching because women started to ask me, how did you turn this into a business? How have you made this a full time gig? And through that I found out, which probably isn’t one of your steps of your process, that my biggest passion really is, is marketing. I love marketing because as you know, marketing is communication. It’s the most beautiful form of communication. And I think if you understand humans and you love understanding humans, you can become a phenomenal marketer. So man was started as a blog about pushups is now this crazy career. RV: (04:36) Well, and I just, I love that idea that it’s like if you can just get one person, it’s like once you get that one person and you go, gosh, I can recreate this and I can scale this. One of the things that I love about your posts and Mmm, you know, I actually, I don’t follow a ton of people and I actually follow you a particular on Instagram is, is because you don’t sell the dream that it’s easy. You sell the dream that it’s possible and you talk about consistency and you lay out like you just did. Like it’s not the, Hey, I’m going to throw up a website and run some Facebook ads and be a millionaire overnight, which you see a lot of. And I’ve never figured out a way to do that. And none of our clients have ever figured out a way to do that. RV: (05:20) And none of my friends who are very successful, I figured out how to do that. I feel like it’s that true story of consistency. And so can you just help us understand like what was the timeline like how long from the time that you were like, ah, I’m a thrown up some weird blog. I’m just basically trying to avoid being in class in college too. When it was like, okay, I’m really going to do this seriously, and then what was the timeline between that moment and then the moment where it was like, Hey, I’m actually starting to make real money and then it’s like, Hey, this is full time and like, Hey, this is awesome and like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m being paid as much as I’m being paid do this. So like what’s that horizon look like? AL: (06:00) Yeah, I would say 19 to 2122 was, I have no idea really what I’m doing, but I’m going to keep showing up and making side money here and there and other jobs. Of course I was still in school until I dropped out because I hated college. But RV: (06:16) Years you worked. This was like a just a total like side hobby kind of a thing? AL: (06:21) Yeah, I would do it in between classes late at night instead of going to class. I remember being in chemistry tests, which are very intense. You guys are very dense answering to my blog readers because I was just obsessed. I was like, Oh my God, I need to talk to these people because they have questions and I didn’t really know yet if I could monetize it, but I won’t lie to people. I’ve always been a business woman. I’ve always seen the world through the lenses of a marketer and a business woman and I’m always thinking of ways to create something and sell something, share something. And so within about two years I started Googling what is digital marketing and sort of watching these corny videos from probably caught who was like the big digital marketer. Then I don’t remember who it was. I would watch these videos up late at night and I remember I would tell my roommate, Oh my God, look at this. AL: (07:05) You can set up a funnel and people will opt into it and then they’ll buy your shit. Like this is crazy. She’s like, okay, whatever. Just go get a job. That sounds really weird. People aren’t going to do that. Nobody’s going to pay for space on a blog. No one’s going to pay you to podcast like I don’t think you really should because this is right before social media really built. And it was almost as if I anticipated what was going to happen and this huge economic shift of the technological revolution as you call it. And so I started to get these ideas of like, no, this is how people are going to learn fitness and business and this is how people are going to buy stuff. So maybe I can position myself as someone who could teach fitness, but do it online so that I don’t have to work at a gym or go to go to a dietetics office, right. Or a hospital. And so it really became this obsession with digital marketing. But it did take probably two and a half, two, three years until I was making a part time income enough where I could actually see that this could be a real thing. Like wow, I have real steady clients. Whether it was group coaching, one on one coaching, ad space eBooks, downloads, that RV: (08:11) We were also doing it part time then as well, like it took, so it, it took you two and a half to three years to get there to a part time income. But you were also doing it part time as well. It wasn’t like you were doing it 80 hours a week and then it took three years. It was like you were kind of dabbling and doing different stuff, but like once you, once you said like, okay, so I’m going to go after this. So was that like right after basically you dropped out of school and said, okay, I’m going to do this as my job? AL: (08:42) [Inaudible] Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. It was a burn the boat situation because I didn’t want to go work in corporate and whatever I did, I always felt like I was lost and I felt like I didn’t belong there and my ideas were too creative and I wanted to make own hours and I was getting clear signals from the universe and God that it was not meant to be an employee of a large company. And so that’s when I really doubled down. And you guys know listening when you are against the wall, that’s when you make it happen. And I think that’s what’s really beautiful about the time we’re in right now. I think when you know you have to do it, that’s when you do. And I realized, Hey, I’m a hundred thousand dollars in debt from college that I didn’t really go to. I’m passionate about digital marketing, digital marketing. I’ve made 30 to $40,000 here and there. If I can make that, I could go full blown and make this a full time business. And that’s what I became obsessed. Like I tell you with studying digital marketing and figuring out how do I take something I love and make money from it online and and I studied revenue streams and man, once you open up a business woman to digital marketing who wants to work from home and not have a boss, it’s game over. RV: (09:48) So how long did it take? So how long did it take then to go from, okay, first two or three years it’s like it’s, it’s a hobby and I’m making hobby income and then you go, okay, my back’s up against the wall. Either need to get a real job or I’m going to do this and say, okay, I’m going to do this. How long does it take to like make real money, make six figures, that kind of a thing. AL: (10:08) Yeah, I was 25 I would say when it became really real, so five years ago, so bright in the middle, five years, hardcore. That’s what I realized. Okay, six figures, multiple six figure launches really started to double down on my organic funnels, my marketing affiliate marketing. That’s when things started to get a little bit more smooth. But still ups and downs on every launch was amazing. And then 25 to 28 still flustering my ass. I mean, the whole process was busting my butt and it wasn’t actually until to answer your other question, it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I’ve had one of those moments of, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that this is my job. I’m paid to speak on stages. I’m paid to host a party as you’d like to call it. I’m host to share about other people’s cool products and make multiple six figures from these launches. AL: (10:55) I mean, last year was insane to know that I was paid to be an affiliate marketer. Like it’s also really surreal to me, but it all comes back down to brand. It comes back down to that very first post I made when I was 19 years old and it was about burpees and pushups and green juice. Like that’s where it started if you think about it. But now eight, nine years later, I really feel like, Oh my gosh, I feel safe in this. I feel like I, for the rest of my life, I’ll have a personal brand and we’ll be able to play in a few different spaces. Jesus. But that was not a fun eight, nine years. A lot of it, you know, ups downs I had done in the beginning, I was confused. I didn’t have a lot of coaches. I should have hired more coaches. I kind of just Googled a lot. I Googled a lot of stuff because you know, I was nervous to invest in myself, which wasn’t always smart and now building a bigger team. And so it’s crazy that now I feel like it’s finally all in all came to fruition. RV: (11:46) Huh. So let’s talk about the digital marketing for for a second. What is, what are some of the things that you, you know now that are very clear that like you didn’t know then. So you know, you’re coming out of college and you’re kind of like, okay, I’m going to do this. And then you start Googling stuff and you go, dammit. Like, if this took me like I can think of in my life, I can think of, there’s like two or three lessons that were, they took me a few years to learn and it’s like I can teach them in five minutes, but it took me a few years. What are some of those big moments for you? It’s specifically like, I think a lot of people listening here, there’s probably less people listening that are, you know, in college going, Oh I want to do a side hustle. But a lot of people go on, Hey, I just got laid off from my job, or my income got cut, or my husband or my wife’s income got cut. Or you know, and it’s like, I need to like figure something out. And I don’t really know anything about digital marketing. So what are some of those big, big lessons do you think? AL: (12:42) Yeah, you guys are gonna love me and hate me for saying this, but there are rules, but there are no rules. And what I mean by that is AL: (12:52) Beating to my own drum is that the saying, beating my own drum, doing things a little bit different than most marketers do has actually been a benefit. And so in the beginning I tried to follow all the scripts, all the funnels, scripts, all the downloads, all the sales call scripts, and I think I was obsessed with following someone else’s blueprint and that actually hindered my authenticity. And as corny as it sounds, it’s, it’s the truth when it comes to building a personal brand. The more you are you, and maybe sometimes that’s weird, maybe that is your emails have some spelling errors. Maybe it’s you, you want to craft your email the way you want to craft it. You don’t want to follow the rules you learned in one specific webinar. I believe that that is going to shine and stand out more than anything. I think that the world right now is creating real and authentic and I wish I would’ve started being that way sooner because the moment I was authentic was the moment this brand built, this brand grew and I built super fans. AL: (13:45) Like I have fans that are not just, Oh I’ll buy from you there, I’ll buy from you for life and whatever it is. And the w the reason I was able to do that is because I woke up one day and realized I have to, I have to fully be me. And sometimes that’s imperfect and it’s weird and, and they’re noticing that when they read my emails where they consume my content, it’s a little bit different than what most girls in the space are doing and it’s one day cause I blinders on and two, it’s because I made the, I finally stopped doing what I did in the past, which was I don’t follow specific scripts. Even as an affiliate marketer, I don’t follow the copy swipes and you can, I’m not to say these things, not to say these things don’t work for some people, but I excelled as an affiliate marketer last year with a few different people in their launches and they all wanted to know what was the system, what was the strategy, what was the thing? AL: (14:28) I’m like, guys, there wasn’t a thing. The thing was I show up on video, I talked to my people like they’re my best friend. I give them value and they feel like they know me and they trust me. And that one, it wasn’t a specific email sequence. There wasn’t one swipe copy I sent and Ooh, it got them in. It’s just at the end of the day that stuff can work. But nothing can replace being a human and speaking to another human and just being real with them. And you know, as all of this is growing, consumers are becoming smarter. So they know when they see an ad, they know when they hear an ad, they know what you’re doing. So the more that you can be genuine and the more that you can integrate in your ads or your sale into what you’re doing, the better it. That’s been my saving grace. I tell women that all the time. I’m like, I, I haven’t been as scripted as most people and I think that’s actually been a benefit. So for you guys listening, follow your own damn rules. If it feels like the right thing to send or right thing to say. RV: (15:22) Oh, so that is awesome. I love that. So what you just said there is you said you know, if it feels like the right thing to send, that reminded me of something that emotionally there, you know, there’s a big fear here, particularly if there’s people who have been successful in something, but they’re newer to digital marketing and it’s like, Oh man. Or just marketing in general. And this is another thing that I really love that, cause you talk about it so much as I think some people have that psychological barrier too. I don’t want to be seen as a marketer. I don’t want to be seen as a spammer. How do you overcome some of those feelings of like, well, if I send emails to a bunch of people, doesn’t that make me a spammer? And like, you know, like the, the mindset I guess of the balance of serving the audience but also generating revenue to provide for yourself and your staff. AL: (16:21) Yeah, there’s longterm. And then there’s short term, right? And sometimes you have to do what you have to do for the short term. But I believe if you hold out a little bit in your patients and you focus on the long term of having a personal brand that can last you, I mean I’ll probably be doing this in my sixties you know, I’ll just be on those live videos, chatting with people, writing books, speaking on stages. I don’t know what I’ll be doing. I’ll be doing something fun. But I’m in this for the long haul and I’ve known that since the beginning when it started to get real as you asked, like when I really started to make money and realize this was a thing and starting to get people, we’ll say it, Oh my God, I love your work. And getting that first email back from the blog saying, Oh my gosh, I need to hear from you. When I realized it was real is when I realized that I have something valuable in front of me and if I am the asset of this company in this business, I cannot burn out and fizzle out AL: (17:09) Immediately. Or this is going to crash and burn. So I am very delicate of when do I directly sell and then when am I simply just brand, building or nurturing. So I do have a flow, I guess you could say that in the beginning it was more structured and now I organically can feel it and I feel like as a female and we’re very intuitive with a lot of the things we do in business. So I’ll feel out the push and the pole and that’s what marketing and sales is, right. Push and pull. And so I’ll feel out, okay, am I in a season of, I’m spending the next six to eight weeks of pure value of no pitch, no strings attached and just throwing value at them. And then am I or am I in a season of, okay, I’m making more asks, but when I’m delivering, so value for months on end or as a majority or for the majority of the time when I do make the ask, it’s not a big deal and they’re not weirded out by it. AL: (17:56) So I think one, it’s knowing what season are you in? And knowing their seasons of push and their seasons of pole and there needs to be that nice balance of you showing up for them with no strings attached. Like one of my best tips for people on Instagram stories is, you know, as someone who’s also an influencer and paid by ads to to do work, there’s a lot of times I’ll share a resource or content or books or podcasts that I have no affiliation to. There’s no dollar amount, I’m not connected to it. Maybe I wish I was a little bit, but I just share it to share it, to show, Hey, you guys are my friends and I’m going to share things when I’m not paid obviously. And by building that trust, then when I do make a sale, they know it’s genuine because it’s coming from a place of, listen, I’m not trying to always sell you. AL: (18:34) So I do think there is a delicate balance, but I also believe that’s again, you got, you have to be obsessed with what you’re selling. So for me, I won’t share something or create something that I don’t genuinely love from the face wash to a book, to a course, to an affiliate thing. I just, I can’t, it’s just not in me to not be genuine. And I believe that that genuineness is what leads to sales. And that genuine passion for something is what leads to sales. So I would really encourage you guys listening. You gotta love what you do. You’ve got to be obsessed with it because listen, if you’re not obsessed with the pencil, you can’t sell it to someone else. You know, I see women being like, buy this. It’s great. I’m like, you’re not excited. I’m excited. So I think it [inaudible] can go a long way, but it has to be genuine. RV: (19:17) Yeah, I think that’s awesome. And I think that’s a really cool illustrations you’re using there of like, make sure it’s not the only things you’re promoting are the things you’re getting paid to do. Like, make sure you’re promoting things that it’s like, Hey, this is what I actually use every day. I think that’s, I think that’s awesome. So I want to actually talk about Instagram cause you’re, you, you’ve, you’ve built a really wonderful Instagram following is super engaged. As I mentioned. I follow you personally. And Mmm. What do you, what do you think, what do you think creates growth on Instagram platform specifically? Mmm. And I’m also interested in what do you think creates growth on your podcast specifically and sort of like what’s the difference between kind of those two platforms in terms of like what types of content and frequency and that kind of stuff? AL: (20:07) Yeah. Whew. I’ll keep this as short as possible. So this isn’t a 10 hour webinar, but I geek out on this stuff so I could go forever. But growing, here’s the deal. You guys, Instagram is not SEO friendly growth platform. Youtube is, podcasts are a little bit more so because of keywords and search. Instagram is a nurture platform. It’s a place where you have already, yep. It’s a place where it’s a place where you’re nurturing your current people. And I’ll give you a hack on how you can grow on there. But it’s more of a place to nurture and go deep with your current people. And then places like YouTube or podcasts or more of the funnel to get to Instagram. I believe Instagram is your party. And then you know, to get to the party first have to hear about the party from YouTube, from YouTube or podcasts. AL: (20:51) So it’s really about those two places being more SEO friendly to drive the traffic then to Instagram. So when it comes to Instagram growth, shareable content is everything. And what I mean by this is a piece of content. An infographic and educational posts are really heartfelt. Post a funny video, something that someone else will read or consume and say, Oh my gosh, this is funny. Entertaining gave me some sort of value. I’m going to comment because you asked me to engage. It’s so valuable. I need to share this onto my wall. I’m going to tag three of my friends in this because this is so funny. Or this is so educational or this is so interesting. Or it’s a, it’s a belief system that I also share. So by me sharing it, I look smart because I shared the quote knowing human psychology and why people share things. AL: (21:38) It usually comes down to a few reasons. It was funny, it was interesting, it was valuable, or they have the same shared belief as you, so they felt the need to share it. So for me, I have this nice balance of what I call intimate content or storytelling. So I’ll just have a picture of me and then I’ll infuse the story. And then what I’m infusing a lot in 2020 is growth related content, which is shareable content. So today I’m doing an infographic and then another day, maybe I’ll do an IGTG ITT. These are great for growth right now because people reshare them or comments. So the best way to grow is to get someone to comment their friends in the comments or for them to share it onto their stories. And then people say, Oh my God, what’s that video? That video looks so interesting. Bob just gave the top five tips to blah, blah, blah. I should go check it out. I need to learn more about that. So that’s the only way to truly grow on Instagram as it’s a platform that doesn’t have SEO capabilities to it. Now RV: (22:28) Typically speaking there, just to, to pause on that for a second, cause you go like from a tactical standpoint, the best way to grow there is for someone to share your post to their story. They can’t share it to their feed, which is sometimes annoying, but they could share it to their story, which is going to be where their most engaged audiences. So now all of their most engaged people are going to see that. And or to actually physically get your followers to comment on your post and tag one of their friends or followers in that post. AL: (23:04) Yes, yes. So before I’ll post, I’ll know is this a nurture intimate storytelling piece of content or is this to bring in new people and it’s a growth piece of content. So I’ll do a nice 50 50 blend on there. And when I’m creating a growth piece of content, like a quote or an infographic or an interesting ID TV, I’m created with the intention of Susan commenting, Sarah and Becky. So then her friends see it and maybe they share with their friends. They share with their network marketing team and that’s how it’s grown organically. And that’s honestly how the podcast grew organically. Because I’m, I’m again a marketer, I don’t run ads. So for me I really have to focus on shareable content. What would be so good or so valuable that a girl would say, Oh my God, this is so sometimes it’s funny, I just like being weird. AL: (23:43) So I’ll say what’s so funny that she’s to tag her friend or what was so educational that she felt the need to share this with her network marketing team or her friends who are also entrepreneurs and business and small business owners. So for me it’s like education and humor. If I, if I constantly vacillate between those two, I’ve seen that my growth we’ll do really, really well. So again, it’s, it’s more about not creating always what I want to create, but what they would find interesting and then they would post. So that’s how you grow on a platform that’s not SEO friendly yet. I hope it is one day, but it’s really smart as well to have a podcast and a YouTube and mentioned Instagram in those two places. So you can then drive the traffic from those SEO friendly places back to the podcast, which is, or back to Instagram, which is your home to nurture them and really get to know people. Because as you know, stories is like such an awesome place to convert to the sales for a lot of people because it is so intimate. RV: (24:35) Yeah. So I will talk, I want to talk about stories in a second, but so I actually want to share. So this is one of my things that I struggle with. I feel cheap asking people to comment below. I so, so when I was in comedy training I was, one of the people that I was coach was a guy named Eddie Brill who was the talent Booker for the tonight show. And he used to call that pandering where comedians would be like, Hey, how’s everybody doing tonight? And it’s so weird because it was like I took this one class from this guy years and years ago and for some reason that’s like the one thing that sticks with me is like, and I feel like I’m pandering when I do that. Yet everybody that grows does this. I mean, Trent Shelton does it all the time. Jay Shetty does it all the time. Gary V does all the time. Grant Cardone, like these people, these monster followings that are not celebrities, but they’re like personal brands and they’ve kind of become celebrity personal brands. They’re always doing it. So do you, have you ever had that reluctance or like where do you, like what do you, what would you, is that just stupid? You just go, well, who cares? Like just do it anyways. Or like what, what would you coach coach me on this? AL: (25:46) Yeah, it does feel a little corny and weird because everyone’s doing it and it’s like, eh, comment below. So what I’ll do is I’ll say to myself, okay, I do need to ask them to engage because if I don’t ask them, they may not do it. So it is smart to tell you and train them, but I’ll, I’ll try to make it a more interesting question or something that I actually think is funny or, or, or quirky or weird or who would you choose? A or B or you know, make it something where it’s a little bit more interesting for me versus just comment because they’re like, what do you want me to say? I make it easier for them and say this is what you should comment. Like do you like this or that or do you, but you know what I’ve noticed if something’s good because this is how I am and I think, okay, if my girl is a lot like me on social, then she’ll do the same thing. If something is funny or interesting or educational or valuable, I will tag a friend because I want her to see it or I will or I will and or I will share it on my wall. So I actually don’t think you need to always ask them to. I think if it’s good shit it will spread. Like good shit always spread. So I think it’s really smart. You can be the signature. AL: (26:53) It just does. I’m so committed to creating such good content that Susan can’t not tell their friend, go check it out because she’s the only girl. I know. Teaching marketing like this, like that has been my commitment and my obsession. So when I create something and I’m like, I’m going to teach it in a way where this live IETV, which guys get on ITB, it’s so good for engagement right now. It’s amazing. It’s the favorite child of Instagram. I don’t even say comment in it. They’re just like, Oh my gosh, I shared this with my team. It was so good. So I think if you’re a smart content creator and if you’re someone who’s valuable and has value like you do, I think it’s easy for you to pump out things that people would say, Oh my goodness, this is good stuff. Like I needed that tip today. So guys would always go, it comes back to good quality content and giving away value or entertainment. So people want, you know, and so I do, I don’t like these super corny like, yeah, you could tell they just posted it. RV: (27:40) No, but that helps. Like Timmy, it’s to me different where it’s like tag, it’s different between just kind of going like tag a friend who needs to see this and more going like, who do you know that is struggling with this thing in your life? Shared this with that person. Like just like what would be interesting to me or, or, or to go, you know, who’s somebody, you know, that’s a leader, tag them so that they can see this like, or, or who is someone, you know, that’s really good at this versus just saying, Hey, tag a friend so that I get more, more views. Like making it more meaningful. That’s actually really helpful to me. I like that. AL: (28:14) Yeah. Being selfless with it will always pay off. You know, it might take a little bit longer, but it’s so worth it. RV: (28:20) Yeah, totally. So all right. So I do want to ask you about the stories, but before we do that, we’re running, run low on time. I knew we would go fast, which, which we have here, the where should people go if they want to learn more about Angie Lee and follow you. And also, you know, kind of who is, share a little bit about who your perfect person is so that they know they know who they’re going to, who you’re looking for. AL: (28:45) Yeah. I mostly help female small business owners, so online coaches, online network marketers, wellness coaches, life coaches, beauty coaches, fitness coaches, women who have a small DTC brand. So it’s women who essentially want to tap into the personal, the personal brand space. And you guys can check me [email protected] or listen to the Angie Lee show on iTunes and I’m hanging out a lot on IgE stories and on my podcast. RV: (29:10) Yeah, so actually, and I want to ask you about the podcast just really quickly too before stories, a top tip for growing the podcast. Just cause that’s been a monster for you. Like you have millions and millions of downloads of all your platforms. Like, if you look at web traffic, social, YouTube, blah, blah, blah, your podcast is really like the thing that feels like it’s jamming. What do you, what do you think that comes from? AL: (29:36) I love that. I don’t have like one strategic answer. So cause as you get it was intentional but not intentional. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes that’s the way it works when you really, really love it. But here’s what I’ve been good at. I’ve been good at creating hype and excitement around it. Going back to the passion or the obsession, I’ve been good at building sub-tribes in my community who cheer for me and tell their friends about me so that I don’t have to spread the word. And that’s the epitome of sub-tribes, right? Is creating your subculture in your personal brand. So your people are telling their people to go listen to you because Susan can tell her Becky’s to go listen to me better than I can tell the Becky’s because they’re two away from me. So two steps away from me. AL: (30:14) So the way that I’ve done it is one creating the sub-tribes and the excitement too. I’ve done a good job at teasing pre and post show, and I haven’t done this in the last year as much and I may start to do this again, but I treat each episode like an event. So for an example is I used to get on Facebook live and I would tease the topic and say, guys, if you want to hear the other three tips, you have to go listen to this episode. Go check it out on iTunes. And it was almost like I had a pre party or an after party to the show and then they wanted to go listen to the rest. So that has been a really awesome way for me to spread it. And then I treat it like I’m affiliate marketing in a sense where I find tribe leaders, so women who have a community or women who have a network marketing team and they share the podcast to their women. AL: (31:00) So for me it’s been interesting to see how it’s spread really through other people spreading it to their networks. Right. And as an organic marketer, literally, I don’t run ads. I’ve had to rely on almost my community being the outreach. So one, get your people to cheer you guys on more than anyone to create hype and excitement around it. Whether this is getting online or stories, pretty graphics and exciting things to get people excited to listen. And I think making sure the topic and the name is niche specific. In the beginning, you know now it’s my name, but I think in the beginning, let’s say you guys have a show on beauty or wellness. I think having it be something specific so people know what it’s going to be about and you teach on this definitely down getting focused on something, becoming the best at something. It’s like Dave Ramsey, the reason his show blows up is because people were searching for the word finances or debt. So have a searchable term, know what the problem is you solve, create a show around that and then as your brand grows, you can teach on whatever you want and have a little bit more flexibility. But I think it’s really important in the beginning to have it be a niche specific show. So then there is more searchability to it on, on iTunes. I mean it’s all good. RV: (32:01) Well sure. I mean it all. Is it all? Is that something that you do? Alright, so one last one last thing. I’m going to steal one more tip. Using IgG stories to promote. How important is it? What do you do? How do they fit in or why are they so critical to the overall like monetization strategy? AL: (32:22) Yeah, to give you guys some real life data here, I used IgE stories, which is a completely free platform and obviously I was very consistent on it. They’re on there for a few years, as soon as it came out, but I used it to sell out my last live event of 1500 women, zero paid ads. That was all I did. I a bunch of ID stories everyday just talking about how exciting it’s going to be, how amazing it’s going to be. You need to be there. We had affiliates sharing it on their ID story. So in addition to my stories, they were sharing it as well. We had a whole affiliate system of tried leaders and you guys, the power of video is irreplaceable. The way that someone can feel within 15 to 30 seconds of seeing you on video, just speaking from your heart saying, Hey, go check this out, or you need to be there. AL: (33:03) It’s irreplaceable. You know what I mean? You can have the most beautiful sales page in the world, but if people have not seen your face, your mannerisms, or heard your voice, I don’t feel like they’re as pulled to buy or to work with you cause they don’t know you yet. People need to hear you and or see you. It’s just so important for the sales process. So for me, I’m all about the intimacy game. My question isn’t how can I sell more? It’s how can I get more intimate with my people, which maybe sounds creepy, but I’m always asking myself, how could I be a little more intimate? How could I be more intimate and vulnerable and authentic? Well, how could I be more intimate, vulnerable and authentic and especially serving women. The more I focus on that, the more my business lows up, which just shows they wanted to get to know me and trust me before they made the decision to buy for me. AL: (33:42) And there’s no better way to do that than video and guys, 15 second video that keeps you engaged. There’s engagement features, there’s music, just weird stuff. I mean game over, it’s like YouTube but you don’t have to do all the crazy editing. So man, it’s my favorite thing. I think it’s the most fun and it’s a nice way where you can have this, it’s a place where you could have this beautiful blend of teacher and friend, friend, Hey this is my life. I’m farting around and being weird. This is my dog, this is my cat, whatever. And then I can also show that I’m an expert and have a level of expertise and say, Hey, this is what I also know and then here’s what I’m going to teach you. And I think that that blend does really, really well on ID stories of friend and teacher. RV: (34:20) I love it. Angie Lee, my friends, check her out, check out her podcast. We’ll put links to that in the show notes. Angie, thanks for your consistency. Thanks for your honesty. And I think it’s just inspiring to me and empowering to hear you not selling that the dream is easy, but selling that the dream is possible. So we wish you the best. AL: (34:43) Oh, I think, sorry. This is amazing.