Ep 67: Gratitude with John O’Leary | Recap Episode
AJV: (00:00) Welcome friend to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Man, did we need to hear from John O’Leary right now! AJV: (00:10) Seriously. He’s so awesome. He’s just the best guy. AJV: (00:15) I mean his attitude, his mindset if you haven’t listened to the purpose. So yeah, I mean his story is incredible. We’ve been friends for years. One of the most successful speakers in the world, truly. And just an amazing guy, but to hear, to hear his story, you know, it’s like you can’t, we were talking to him about how he’s built his career and everything, but you can’t, his career is built on gratitude and love. Like his secret is not some business process or something. And that, that was my first big takeaway and I had never heard him say this, but he said, you know, there is an ROI on love. And when he was telling the story about loving on the AV guys that are like backstage at a keynote that you know, nobody talks to and if they do talk to them, it’s like, Hey, get this done for me or get this put in. AJV: (01:02) Or, you know, why doesn’t this work or whatever. And having those guys refer him, I just like that is the epitome of him. And I just thought that was a good reminder for all of us. Especially now when things are difficult and things are hard. Like you’re never too busy to love on people. You’re never, you’re never too broke to love on people. You’re never too important to love on people. And the world is starving for that right now. And I teared up in the interview like I, I just needed it so badly. He’s so amazing. AJV: (01:35) And you’re a big seller AJV: (01:36) And I am a softie. It’s true. It’s true. AJV: (01:39) We might take on John like outside of the interview is that anyone who can capture the heart of a three-year-old as an inspirational speaker has got my vote. Our child, our oldest child, Jasper talks about John O’Leary. Every day and I don’t mean some days, every single day he said, daddy friend, mr John, I want to watch the video daddy’s friend, mr John. And I just, to me there’s something about like what is it about him that has captured this curiosity in even a three year old and there is this uniqueness about John, I really do help you watch the interview. But actually it’s very rare that I take notes but I have a lot of notes. It’s very rare. But there were just like so many good one liners and nuggets and just like you said, it’s really an era of needing messages like this. And this is kind of in line with what you just said. It wasn’t my first point. My points are kind of out of order cause I had so many. But I loved this and he said there is no such thing as a little job. AJV: (02:49) And I love that and I, you know, it’s like we very much have the attitude, it doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO, the business owner, the entrepreneur, you are also the trash taker, the cleaner, the window washer. It’s like at one point do you think that you have elevated among the above the jobs that need to be done? And I just really believe that a servant’s heart and a true leader never rises above that. If there is trash on the floor, you pick it up, right. If there is something that needs to be cleaned, you do it. There is never this concept of rising above. And I loved it. He talked about this story about Lavelle, the janitor, janitor, the janitor in his hospital room when he was in the hospital bed for six months after he had this horrific accident. Yeah, truly fighting for his life. AJV: (03:39) And he said, he said, I believe that Lavelle saved my life many times because I was so succeptible to the tiny viruses. A little cold or anything could have been what ended his life. And he said, but because Lavelle was in there cleaning his room and making it sanitary every day, that was a part of what saved his life. AJV: (03:58) There’s no little jobs. AJV: (04:01) I’m just even reading this and it’s like I’m going to have to like hold the tears back because he said that today in the midst of covert 19 he said there is never been a greater reminder in our country of how every job matters. AJV: (04:16) Yes, like the grocery store when he said delivery truck AJV: (04:22) Tricity internet. I mean imagine if we didn’t have internet right now, like that AJV: (04:28) Be a big deal. It would be interesting. That would be a big deal. Or just people who are willing to get up and go to the grocery stores and keep those open and people who are willing to get up and put their lives at risk to keep a coffee shop open or the restaurants open. AJV: (04:43) The nurses right to, Oh my gosh, of course the doctors, gosh, our first responders and all the people who you know, you just never realize like what I mean how critical that just delivering, getting mail delivered is like keeping the country running. Being able to get things at your house. The person who picks up a side job running to the grocery store to grab groceries that an elderly person can get groceries delivered to their house. Amazing. AJV: (05:11) So many things. I just love that in the midst of this and then just also talking about that story of lavel just putting a name and a face to, it’s like some people may see it as a janitor. He said, no, this man kept me alive. It’s just such a powerful perspective. AJV: (05:30) That’s powerful. Yeah. And you know, kind of playing off of what you just said, I think when he was actually telling the story of how they got started and, and you know when he went out and started speaking and it was totally by accident and then you know, he ended up going, okay, this ha, this is our full time thing. We have to make it work and we have to do whatever it takes. And I feel like you and I have been there in our relationship, like with our business where it’s like both, both times. Yeah. We didn’t have a choice. Like we had to make it, we had to make it work and okay, AJV: (06:03) But we did have a choice. We chose to make it work. AJV: (06:06) Yeah, well we, we chose to do whatever it took to make it work. Like you always have a choice. You can take, you can take a safer route. But to that point of like there’s no small jobs. I remember a couple of weeks ago this is a little sort of side note, but Mmm, there, there was chaos in our house and there’s chaos every once in a while cause we have two little kids and everything. And I was overwhelmed and I just scooted out of the room like, and I just went upstairs and, and then later that morning AJ was like, I could tell she was upset and not upset, but just like she was quiet and I was, you know, she kind of brought up like, Hey, you bailed on me. And I felt so bad in that moment because it’s like you have to be willing to dig the ditches. AJV: (06:56) Like you got to do the work of digging the ditches and whether it’s your spouse or your business partner or the people next to you, everybody has to be willing to dig the ditches together. And I think, you know, people use that analogy like who you’re going to be in the foxhole with and a fight, which I think is, you know, inspiring and if you’re a war person or whatever, but the reality is for most of us, the daily life isn’t a foxhole. It’s not a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of digging ditches. It’s a matter of who’s doing the work and are you staying in the fight? Are you staying in the battle? And Mmm, just doing the work it takes to make it work. And so I took that. That was one of my big takeaways was when he was talking about doing whatever it takes to make it work, which also ties to what you were saying about there is no small job. Yeah, you got to hang in there and you gotta you gotta dig the ditches AJV: (07:46) And just appreciate like I don’t rise above the small jobs like yeah, I just, I love that. So yeah, so I guess that would be my first point. I will, I’ll claim that as my first point. My second point, which I think is kind of connected to that a little bit, but I just thought it was worthwhile sharing is don’t be so had to read this so I get it right. Don’t be so arrogant to think you should get paid in year one. AJV: (08:12) Wow. AJV: (08:13) I was like, I am right. Because I think so many people are like, what should I charge? What should I charge? And like part of like what we do at Brand Builders Group is helping people set their pricing schedules and their fee schedules. And it’s a really hard sketch. A hard question. But I love to, the attitude of like, if you really went back and you said, okay, well how did we get started and what did we do? It’s like, okay, well we spoke a lot for free. AJV: (08:37) Yep. AJV: (08:38) I lot like, I mean for eight years I was still speaking for free. Like I was still getting paid to speak, but I was still speaking for free. And it’s like, remember AJV: (08:46) Still speak for free at certain events, like still to this day, AJV: (08:50) But it’s like really before your speaking career took off, you know, I was like, you spoke over 300 times for free. And it’s like that very first year that we really launched our first business. You know, I spoke something like 220 times for free that year. AJV: (09:04) Can we tell him how much you made? The first year we had this, this is, this is not in Brand Builders Group. You’re making even less than brand builders group AJV: (09:15) [Inaudible] everyone gets paid before. AJV: (09:16) Yes. but in our first, our first year in business, you made like in our first business, 30, 20, 40,000, 24,000, $24,500 rolling in it. That, and then, you know, by the end of our, I mean, okay, a few years later they were making that every month. And then, you know, a few years later you’re making that more like every week. AJV: (09:36) Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s really is amazing and I think that’s, you know, not to like broadcast, you know, what we make or anything. But in year one I was making $24,500 of speaking for free. AJV: (09:49) A ton, AJV: (09:49) Like every day. But then it was by year 10 you know? Yeah. I mean it was more like I was making that a week. I was making it that a week AJV: (09:58) And to put things back in context. Okay. So brand builders, we’re now about a couple of years into the business. So year one you made AJV: (10:07) $600 I think it was technically, I think I made 13 AJV: (10:11) Oh yeah, for delivery work. Cause you assisted on some delivery work but AJ is the CEO of brand builders group and she gets paid last. She only gets paid if there’s anything like leftover and it’s been AJV: (10:23) Virtually zero now for virtually zero other than the delivery work. Yeah, I do. Some clients do some of that, but I just, I thought that was so important and I guess it hit me because we get asked that so much and I think 12 years later into our professional lives and personal lives, it’s we forget that the reality is, is when we started speaking, we didn’t charge. We said yes to everything and that’s so much of what John was saying. He said, my business group has, has said yes. I just said yes. He said we were yes, led and mission driven. And he said, and don’t be so arrogant to think that you should get paid the first time you do it or the first year because we did it for years. We still do it like, like we are, you know, after the sell of an eight fair bit, eight figure business and all the stuff that we’ve done, it’s like we still don’t get paid and we’re digging, AJV: (11:19) We’re digging ditches right now. We’re, we’re brand builders. Even though the, you know, the clients are doing well and our T, you know, like we’ve been able to get our team up to good levels of pay. AJV: (11:28) But there’s just, I just loved what he said. There’s like this, this attitude of people get entitled. I was like, I deserve to make this money. My time is worth this says you says who? And I just loved his attitude of like, don’t be so arrogant doing that work. Yeah. I love that. I just thought it was such a good reminder of when you’re asking yourself, what should I get paid and what should I charge? Maybe the question is like, well, just how many times can I do this before someone says, can I pay you? AJV: (12:00) Great. Gosh, that’s such a, such a great reminder. Yeah. It’s again, just so powerful to hear this inspiration and, and here’s the thing. You may be there right now, right? Like, maybe you were a speaker or you were an employee or you were someone making a lot of money and all of a sudden, boom, covid hits, you know, some crazy things happens in China with a bat. And here we go. Like all of us have to just do whatever it takes and you rebuild by serving, figure out a new problem and start serving it and start solving it and start helping and don’t be above it. And then the money always follows, like the money will come back around. Mmm. Way more important than the money. And this is what he’s all about. And this was my third takeaway was just being reminded of how much life is a miracle. Yeah. Towards the end. And he was just talking about you know, like one and there’s like a one in 400 trillion chance or whatever it is of your, of your DNA coming together the way that it is. AJV: (12:59) And just like the fact that you’re here and, and then talking to somebody like John who’s so grateful for everything and go, go, you know what? Imagine if you didn’t have your hands right, like imagine if you didn’t have your hands or if you didn’t have your eyesight or if you didn’t have, like there’s so many people that are, you know, living with a lot of fear right now because their immune system is really weak and just really dangerous time for the vast majority of, of us. And, and perhaps you, we have so much to be grateful for. It’s, it’s so beautiful that we’re even here. We you know, as, as crazy as the current situation is of the quarantined world. It’s also pretty incredible how we’re able to connect and do business virtually and have our basic needs met and food delivered to our house. AJV: (13:50) And there’s, if this was, if there was ever a time in history to have this, it would be right now, like this has to have been the easiest time, the most medically advanced to ever have something like this. And it’s all about that perspective. I remember seeing something on Instagram about Covid where it said your grandparents were called to war. You’re being called to sit on the couch. You can do this. I posted, that’s right. I saw it somewhere and I’m always sealing AJ’s lines and but it’s true, but it’s true. You know, like we’re, we’re alive. We’re here and just don’t forget the miracle of, of that. The miracle of life. There’s so much to be to be grateful for. AJV: (14:32) Yeah, mine is probably my third point is similar to that and I think it was, it was probably towards the last half of the interview when we were talking to John about just how has this affected your business? What’s your attitude? What’s the plan on the go forward? And I just, I love that he said, I’m just so grateful for the season and I think it’s really hard for a lot of us to admit that openly because there are so many people who are struggling. There are so many people who’ve lost their businesses, they’ve lost their jobs, they’ve lost their lives, they’ve lost family members. You know, you’ve, you will look at New York and you’re going like, how can I publicly say I am grateful for this season when people are every single day on the front lines risking their lives, people are dying, people like they are suffering. AJV: (15:17) And at the same token, there is this amazing privilege that has been given to so many of us to be at home. To refocus and reprioritize. And I, I really honed in on what he said and he kind of like took this and two parts in the beginning he said, you know, in year one I speaking my speaking career started because our little girl scout asked me to speak at her girl scout troop and then a parent in the audience was a part of the rotary club. And then some was there was a part of Kawanna. So his first year he spoke three times all for free year two, he spoke eight times, all for all for free. Year three though, he started charging and making money. He spoke 60 times. But yeah, 14 years later he has spoken more than 2000 times to millions of people. AJV: (16:07) And many different continents. And he said, he said over the last, you know, two months, he goes, I’ve had 41 days in a row where I’ve been able to tuck my kids into bed. That’s never happened before. I’ve had 41 days in a row where I’ve gotten to make them lunch. That’s never happened before. I’ve had 41 day, you know, and he’s kind of goes on and on and you’re like, it’s interesting because the first half of our interview is very much about how did you get your speaking career started and what you can expect. And it’s like, it goes from girl Scouts to like literally millions of people being impacted by John’s story on multiple continents in 2000 times. And, but yet, but the the amazing part of this interview is like, I’m so grateful for the things that I never knew I was missing. Like being home for 41 days. AJV: (16:57) And you also, in the context, if y’all don’t understand, like for John, somebody who’s primarily a keynote speaker and their primary revenue, like the keynote speaking business, he’s gone all the time. But this pandemic is impacting speakers radically. I mean, our entire keynote business is basically on the course of three weeks. Over the course of three weeks. Lost every event. Yeah. You know, indefinitely disappeared. You know, some of them will come back at some point maybe, but it’s okay. AJV: (17:28) But for him to, to have that attitude, it’s not like he just has it all hunky Dory right now. Like it’s entire business bookings for the rest of this year AJV: (17:40) Just went out the door. AJV: (17:42) They’re like, this isn’t like, Oh, it’s this one thing. It’s like, no, that’s his entire business went poof. And yet he is still choosing to be grateful, AJV: (17:50) Choosing to consciously be thankful for the things you do have versus unconsciously complaining about the things that you don’t, or being entitled and thinking that you’re above facing the challenges that are in front of you and. AJV: (18:04) Or that you’ve somehow earned or deserved to not have to deal with difficulty. RV: (18:09) Or to not that you’re above, above the work. Just really, really great, great reminders. Loved it, man. We needed this. And go listen to it. There’s a good chance you need it. Even if you don’t need it, you need it. Go listen to John O’Leary and be grateful. Know that your work matters. There is no job too small. There’s, there’s no audience to serve. That’s too small. There’s no message that’s too small. The work is important. The world needs you. Go find them now. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 66: Gratitude with John O’Leary
Speaker 1: (00:06) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit call brand builders group.com/summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Hey, you’re about to meet one of my very dear friends and a man that I absolutely love. His name is John O’Leary, and he’s also one of the busiest professional speakers you know, in the world today. Although the world of professional speaking is changing dynamically, which we’ll talk some about, but if you don’t know John, he was in a very serious explosion with a five gallon gas tank when he was nine years old and he was burned on a hundred percent of his body. Over 80% of those burns were third degree. And now he is one of the most booked inspirational keynote speakers in the world. He’s the bestselling author of a book called on fire, seven choices to ignite a radically inspired life. He has a new book that is called in awe, which is a followup to that. And we just were sitting around chatting and it was like, man, we gotta get you back on the show to some talk, some shop and talk through a building a keynote business. So John, welcome to the influential personal brand. JO: (02:11) Rory Vaden. Thanks for being my friend. And on most podcasts when I hit record, we started going right away. You and I had 49 minutes before we hit record just to talk. So we really are friends first and foremost. But I’m glad to be on the podcast. RV: (02:26) Yeah, well that that is for sure. And you know this, cause I sent you the video that Jasper has been learning all about fire and every night he’s like I watched John, I watched John and so your, your, your story’s inspiring. Even to our little three year old man and just helping him, you know, learn about fire and gratitude and all that. So I, you know, I love you man. JO: (02:49) Well I love him. He’s a cute little guy and I think you learn about fire, you learn me something, you stay away from when you’re a kid, but as you get older you got to figure out how to harness fire. And that’s what I’m excited about talking with you during this podcast. Like how do you go from being repulsed by something or being driven by fear to being inspired and motivated to do something bigger in your life. And that’s everyone of your listeners. That’s what they’re striving to do in their own words. RV: (03:18) Yeah. Well, and so tell me about your, tell me about the, your, your keynote career. Like how did you go from, okay, so this burns happens when you’re a kid and a lot of people that are listening, you know, they, they, they want, you know, that that’s part of what they aspire to is go and, Hey, I want to stand on stages and, and inspire people. And so you’re, you’re one of those stories that just, you have an incredible story and You know, tell us how did you kind of move officially into professional speaking JO: (03:54) Haltingly awkwardly and painstakingly slowly. So that’s the truth. And I think it’s most of our truth for those of us who had at some point or another, made it in front of the stadiums and the auditoriums and the Rotarian clubs. It takes a while to elevate from where you are to where you want to go next. But what you need to know is it’s possible. It is absolutely utterly possible. There’s been many who’ve done it. So the best way to achieve success is to follow those who’ve done it before you. And for me, Rory, I got burned at age nine. The great goal of my life was not to be an international speaker, but to be ordinary. So my desire from age nine until about 28 was to fit in, which meant at age 11 I was playing soccer at age 16 I was trying to find a six pack of beer to split it with my friends. JO: (04:44) I was trying to be funny, I was trying to be cool. I was trying to fit in like everybody else, which meant also I was trying to be who I really wasn’t. And I did that for the majority of my young life. And then at age 28 a third grade girl scout asked, mr John. That’s me. If I would speak to her troop and man I, I’d never spoken before publicly, I had never told anybody how I got burned. I had no idea how to string a couple of sentences together or how to build a database of potential clients. This was not the goal, but in life, when an opportunity knocks, I’ve always said yes, whatever that thing is. Even if it’s helping a friend move on a weekend, my answer is yes. I just try to live in yes. And so I said yes to this little girl. I planned this talk for probably, I’m not exaggerating, 40 hours to deliver a talk to three third grade girl Scouts. JO: (05:40) And when I delivered, I bet you will be so underwhelmed by this. I looked down at several note cards. I never looked up and that’s my first talk. One of the fathers in the room was a Rotarian. He asked if I would speak to his group and I said yes. And then one of the members from that group was a Kiwanis club. So in year one I spoke a grand total of three times was not even paid with a box of Samoa. So I got no cash. You know. You did get some MOAs or no, I got nothing. No Do-sey Doe’s no Thin Mints, nothing. I got maybe a free lunch at a rotary club and then year two happened. I spoken maybe eight times, Nope, no cash, maybe a gift card to a shell gas station when I was still open. And then year three, it started to become a business. JO: (06:29) It always had been mission led. It had always been yes, led, but it all of a sudden began to take on the underpinnings of an actual business. I hired my first employee, I borrowed against our home actually to pay her salary. And this woman named Deanna and I started building this thing up from the ground floor and we delivered 60 keynotes in year three in the 14 years that have followed. I’ve spoken two thousand times, 50 States, a couple dozen countries, a couple of million people live. And a couple of cool things have grown out of that. But it has been a wild whirlwind of just saying yes to the next audience in front of you and showing up with everything that we had to inspire the people in the room, not to realize how great I am. Cause there’ll be bored by that, that message, but by how great they are. JO: (07:20) So how did you go and I wanna I want to talk about covert and how that’s affected your business and the like what your mindset is going in into some of this and a little bit but, but I mean to go from eight to 60, that’s a lot in that was really like your first year going after this. So, so what did you guys do then and how much were you charging and like how did that, like that, that, that, that was a real business, which you took a real risk. You took the loan, you got a heat lock. It sounds like you got all he lock and started the business. A hired your first person. Was she just out there emailing people and calling them or what was happening? Yes, to both. So I brought her on after already probably booked about 20 that year, add about averaging $1,500 a keynote or something like that. JO: (08:16) And so there was a little bit of cash coming in the door, but she was asking for more than I’d booked in the entire year. And by the way, I’m married, I have a mortgage, I have one child and another one on the way. And so this is not like, well, it was my part time gig and I was independently wealthy. Neither of those things were true. I had to make this thing work, which is also one of the reasons I think, in fact, it did work. We had to make a go of this thing. We better figure this thing out. And we were motivated not only to stay out of the broke house, but to keep people alive, keep people moving forward, make them recognize how beautiful their life is and their calling to do more for others. So we started off speaking for free. JO: (08:56) I’m begging you guys, if you’re just beginning and you’re just listening to Rory Vaden today for the first time and you’re thinking you want to deliver a message on a platform someday, don’t be so arrogant enough to think that you’re, you need to be paid right off the bat. There is a benefit to going into school houses and synagogues and churches and rotary clubs and serving. Many of these people that you serve on the front side will become your advocates downstream. And so even when we were just kind of showing up to love, I’d still walk out with everybody’s business card in the room and I would still Rory Vaden following your, your process man, I would still follow up with emails. We would still begin sending out a monthly at that time newsletter to encourage them to keep moving forward, but also to remind them that there’s a guy named John O’Leary who alive and well and ready to serve when they are ready. JO: (09:40) So even in the early stages of this business, when there was not a business model, so to speak, there was the beginning of a database, there was the beginning of a followup and there was the beginning of a long term dream of what it could look like. RV: (09:54) And, and, and is that, I mean, over the next 14 years, has that changed much? I mean does it basically just the same thing, build a database, go out and speak, contact people get like what? How has that change and were there any big breaks? Like were there any big moments where you said, Oh, when this happened. That really catapulted my career. RV: (10:16) So it’s a great question because you live this every day, your life. What I’ve always found at least in the first 15 years maybe I’ll find something very different than the next 15 is that the idea of big breaks is, is sometimes exaggerated. I’ll book a huge event in front of tens and tens of thousands of people and the right people in that room thinking now I’ve made it and the following day I wake up and I’m really not that changed. I’ll book a huge huge radio show or television show or podcast boom baby now we got it. I’ll create a book that is worthy enough to be a New York times bestseller, becomes a number one New York times bestseller and still I haven’t made it. And so you have a beautiful quote about when the rent is due. It’s like it’s due everyday man, get up and pay it again cause it is due every single day. We’ve had a lot of breaks but but none of them that have actually made us overnight successes. What have made us in quotes, overnight successes is showing up and going to work the following day. JO: (11:18) And so some of the things that have grown in the last 1415 years is the database. When you collect information over the course of years, we now have a couple of hundred thousand people that we we’ll get to love on every single week. Another thing that has happened is we started getting into social media. So now we have I think 300,000 or so followers online and then you ask yourself, well how can I serve them better? What if they had a really cool life giving book? And so I wrote a book called on fire. It became a number one national bestseller. It’s still selling now four years after it’s released at a high level because it’s about reminding people not only that they matter, but here are the next steps that you can take to impact. Even more lives through yours. After that release, we said, how do you touch more lives? JO: (12:02) We created the live inspire podcast. Rory Vaden has been a guest on this thing. We have a hundred thousand plus listeners every single month that checked out the millions of downloads. Now 2 million over 2 million downloads of a million downloads, and it’s awesome. It’s a cool way to get in front of people, not only the mass audiences, but it allows you to reconnect with a guy like Rory Vaden or a guy like John Gordon or a lady like Renee Brown or you. You name the person and now you get to meet these people one-to-one here, their stories. But my kids and I, cool story. We were watching Apollo 13 and they wanted to know when the guy died. This guy played by Tom Hanks when he died at the movies in the sixties so when did he die? It turns out commander Jim Lavelle lives in Chicago. JO: (12:45) He’s 94 years old. He’s been married for 70 years. He’s the world’s greatest failure just about everything he did in life. He failed except for the fact that he kept moving forward. And so he even failed to go into the moon except for the fact that they figured out how to Slingshot around the moon and come back safely. So one of the great stories I think of our society bringing this guy back with technology foreign figure to a cell phone and yet commander Jim Lavelle is alive and well in Chicago today through the efforts, not only of him and his two person crew, but through what we were doing in Houston. Yes, they had a problem with they redeem the problem. RV: (13:23) That’s amazing. That’s such a cool, that’s such a cool story. And I, I I mean one of the things that has always just blown me away, and this is, I guess part of what I would hope for people to capture from you is just like, you have such a genuine heart to serve. And we were, we were talking about some of the Covid stuff going on and how it’s affected your business and you were just, you were telling me that, you know, I don’t want to have the big high price thing because like my guy is the ups guy and the nurse and the teacher and the stay at home mom. Like your, your, your people are the people like just the, the, the people and how have you always had that heart to serve? Cause I have no doubt whatsoever that that is a huge reason why you have built such a successful keynote career. But I just, I guess I have a hard time understanding how do you go from almost dying just trying to just barely survive and just be normal yourself. Right. How do you go from that to where it’s like I can barely live. I don’t, you know, you lost, you know, a big portion of your hands. Right? And to, all I do in life is care about other people. Like that’s a big leap. JO: (14:39) So let me begin answer the question by starting with the end in mind. For the listeners that just want to grow their business. I can’t tell you how many speeches that have been referred to me through the AV guys. These are the folks who wear black shirts and black pants in the back of the room. That big time speakers like myself ignore because they’re unimportant. They’re only there to get the video up on the screen and the sound of the room, and besides that, they’re useless except for the fact I really love these guys. I like, I love them. And so I hang out with them. I’ll launch with them, I’ll hug them on the front side, hug them afterwards, thank them for their work. Stay in touch longterm, they refer me speeches because I don’t do this on purpose, but those guys then go on to the next venue the following day and if someone sinks, they’re like, by the way, you should meet a guy named John O’Leary. JO: (15:26) Mike, he’s so genuine. He blows away the audience. He gave me his card. In fact, I was texting them last time. Here’s this, here’s the number. And so we get, we get referrals all the time from AV guys. I received three referrals from guys driving town cars. These are the guys like why would you ever talk to a guy driving you, cause they’re completely unimportant except for the fact that I believe in the dignity of human life. And I see the guy in front of me having a far better story than the one I’m going to share from a stage later on. And so I’ve heard so many amazing stories, exchange cell phone numbers with these guys and then have been referred to future clients because of the chauffeur. And so is there an ROI in love? Yes. Okay. Yes. But your real question is why, why do you like people? JO: (16:10) Number one is I recognize that my life is a miracle and that’s not because I got burned and survived the unsurvivable, the likelihood of us being in the room, if you just look at the biology and we’ll have an after hours with Rory Vaden and chattel there if you want to get into the functioning of how we were reproduced into this position. But here’s, here’s the biology man. When you add up your mom and your dad and the likelihood of their DNA becoming one turn into Rory Vaden, the math is less than one in 400 trillion. So the very fact that Rory Vaden is in the room is one in 400 trillion just from mom and dad coming together. We were miracles and we get, we get bored by life and we act like COVID. 19 will be the end of us or recession’s going to break our back or losing a third of our portfolio has ruined what we wanted to do later on in life. JO: (17:01) And what I need you guys to do, listening, ladies listening, is to recognize that you’re made for so much more than this. Like you are a gift. You are miracle. You need to act like it. And once you can act like you can also recognize that the dignity of those around you. So Rory, I’m here because a whole lot of people showed up for me, but maybe the most important person in my story was the janitor. And this is the guy who came into my room as a kid when I was nine. He did his job, he did it for about minimum wage, and he did his job for the next five and a half months while I was treated in burn care. And if he had not done his job at a high level, there’s a high likelihood that I get some small little infection. JO: (17:43) COVID 19 as a reminder, it doesn’t need to be a missile that claims your life. It can be something you can barely see under a microscope that can claim your life. This guy’s job is to protect a little boy from that. His name was Lavelle. I believe he saved my life in the hospital. And I’ve never forgotten the fact that there’s no such thing as little jobs like that. They all matter and an epidemic. And now a pandemic like COVID 19 reminds us of the profound value of grocery store workers and truck drivers and nurses and custodians like their work matters. We just for too long have overlooked it. JO: (18:20) Wow. what a perspective. So, so what is going on with your business? How has [inaudible] affected you and what are you doing about it? And how are you thinking about it? Awesome. Gosh, there’s a lot of questions right there. So from a societal aspect, it’s breaking my heart because I recognize that people’s portfolios have been wiped out to a degree that many of us have become unemployed, that many of us have lost their lives and lost lost loved ones. And that help. The healthcare system itself is incredibly taxed during this time. So just as a citizen of the world I ache, I really hate it. It makes me sad thinking about it. But I also remember a conversation that I had with my grandfather, and this will get me emotional too, cause he’s my hero. My grandfather served in world war II. He was in the Navy for three years, came all married sweetheart, built an incredible life. JO: (19:19) And after September 11th we had lunch together on the 17th and I’m writing this story about this right now. So in September 17th grandpa and I met at a little pasta place down the street from his office. He’s near the end of his life. He’s certainly near the end of his working life. And I learned over lunch that he had just invested a large chunk of his savings into American airlines and United airlines, right as the market has come back online. And everyone who’s got any savvy at all knows what’s going to happen to the airlines after the bell rings and we get to sell or by no one’s going to be buying these two airlines. They’re the ones that collided into buildings and into th th th they’re gonna fall dramatically. And grandpa Bobby bought them heavily. So I say grandma, grandpa, I think he kind of made a mistake man. JO: (20:11) And he took a bite of his pasta then a sip of his tea in front of them and he said, John, do you know that they refer to our generation as the greatest generation? I just said, yeah, I’ve read that book Gramps. And he said, you know why? I’m like, tell me. He goes, it’s not because we survived the great depression and it’s not because we went off and we fought in world war II. And it’s not because we were the most productive group of all time for humanity. They built the nations. He’s like, let me tell you what it was. We never forgot the lessons that we learned along the way. And I think that’s really important to remember during this COVID 19 pandemic. What made the greatest generation, the greatest generation, I think back then and still today, is not what they did. JO: (20:53) It’s that they were made better because of what they endured. They were made better because of the depression. They were made better because of world war II. They were made better because of their great productivity. And so when this crisis happened on nine 11 six days later, when the markets reopened, he’d still remembered what his, what he’d lost, but also was taught during the depression, during the war and during the decades that followed. And so it’s why my grandfather, as a citizen was making an investment into organizations that he wanted to be around longterm. So what am I thinking about right now during COVID 19 I’m thinking about the lessons that I can learn right now that we can apply longterm. I don’t want to forget man, what I know to be true, Rory, this too shall pass. I don’t know if it’s next month or in 16 months, but sometime the pandemic passes, sometimes we’re back at work sometime the markets return and my, my great concern is we’re going to forget what we’re learning right now and I want to be like my grandpa. JO: (21:48) I want to be part of the next greatest generation that did not forget the lessons being taught during COVID 19 so what I’m remembering right now is I’ve had 41 dinners at home with my wife. That’s never happened since we’ve been married ever. Wow. 41 nights in a row, tucking my, my, my little girl, my three boys. And it never happened. Since I’ve been born, I’ve had 41 lunches. When you and I finished this podcast, I’m going to hang up race home and make them lunch again. 41 peanut butter jellies in a row, man, 42 tomorrow. But man, rather than cursing the fact that I can’t get on flights, personally, I’m extraordinarily grateful for this season because I know it will pass. I know it will pass. So that’s what I’m doing personally, professionally, I’m trying to pivot into the storm. I’m trying to raise the sail high and figure out what we can do digitally through the profound blessing, the technology to influence clients and influence last longterm starting today. And so this big ship of ours here at live inspired are pivoting into what we can become. And by the way, we would not have done this had everything in life gone perfectly the way we planned, but, but now we have this beautiful opportunity to become so much more significant and life giving than what we would’ve done if John O’Leary was on a plane today speaking to only a couple hundred or only a couple thousand. Now we believe we can influence millions of lives starting right now. Why wait? RV: (23:16) I love it man. I absolutely love it. Well John, where do you want people to go if they want to connect with you more and just kind of follow your journey and see what you’re up to. Of course, in all that book, that book is out like you all. Can you, can he, you can just feel this man’s heart and it comes through in his writing and so excited for y’all to get your hands on this new book. But where else did you direct people, John to connect with you? JO: (23:43) So thank you for your compliment. Like it is all hard. I haven’t been through media training. I probably said the wrong thing all the time, but it is heartled man. So where they can go to learn more about the book and about who John is as good a readinawe.com. So that’s read in awe.com you’ll learn about the book, you’ll learn about John, you’ll have the links to social media and the podcast. But the reason really I’m driving folks there is when this whole thing broke out, we recognize that there would be some collateral damage. And last year, Rory, 1.5 million Americans attempted suicide. And this was one life was awesome. You got nothing to complain about, no pandemics, no reset, nothing man. One and a half million. So on the front side of this, our team got together and said, how do we invest in people? And so we built a 21 day campaign. So just love them and encourage them and to remind them that they’re not alone and that there is a next step. So there’s a cool 21 day challenge somewhere on that website. sign up for it. You’ll benefit from it. You’ll realize you’re not alone. And you’ll also realize your best days remain in front of you. RV: (24:54) Yeah. John, buddy, I just, I can’t thank you enough for your, your attitude and your mindset and your heart. I mean, I’m sitting here almost in tears myself, just like being encouraged, being reminded of the importance of gratitude and then also just experiencing you living it through your life and through your lens. It’s, it’s so impactful to me and to, to everybody. So thank you for what you’re doing. I hope you are relishing the time with the family and you know, the world is, the world is still very much, very much a need of John O’Leary. So I hope you keep, keep inspiring virtually and digitally through this time. And we just love you and we wish you the best. JO: (25:43) Let me say one thing, man. I twice now, the publisher of my books have sent me back the first edition with my picture on the front of it and what I’ve always sent back to them as a reminder, read the book and then redo the artwork of the, of the book because that’s not it. And so on the first one on fire, there’s mirrored letters of flames that if you look at it just right, you actually see your picture of Rory Vaden and whoever else is reading on fire. They’re going to see their little image in the letters. And if you read on in awe, there’s this big brilliant blue sky with clouds floating past with a red kite flying high, reminding us what it was like once when we were kids and how we can return to that to day to day. And so you said the world needs more John O’Leary? I don’t. Thank you. I think the world needs more people who are fully alive. And do your exhibit a of that. So Rory Vaden keeps shining the light, keep living it out. And thanks for being my friend. Of course, brother, much love God bless you. Feel likewise. God bless. See you buddy.
Ep 65: Everything You Need to Know to Make Brilliant Online Courses with D’Arcy Benincosa | Recap Episode
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, welcome to the influential personal brand recap edition. We’re breaking down our episode with D’Arcy, Beninicosa who I feel like is one of our new favorite friends. AJV: (00:11) Yes, we love D’Arcy D’Arcy. D’Arcy is so cool. She’s so cool. And she’s so interesting. It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t on this interview because I’d have been like, so tell me about your favorite place you’ve ever traveled. Tell me more about this upcoming book. So tell me more about your fabulous self. RV: (00:29) Yeah, we were focused and down to business on video courses, which it’s kind of funny. We haven’t had anyone actually come talk about this directly, even though so many of us and so many of our clients do them. And what happened was D’Arcy, so she’s one of our clients, she was in one of our events. She was in, I think it was our captivating content AJV: (00:50) and everyone wanted to learn from her, RV: (00:51) everyone was like, I want to tell us you stealing the show. And so they were, you know, she was like spending time with people and she was like, well, why don’t I just come on? AJV: (01:00) we were so excited about it. RV: (01:02) So if you’ve ever been curious about video courses, how much they cost, how to do ’em, how long they have to be, this is a really, really key interview. And I think that was my first takeaway was it’s not about the number of videos that determines the pricing. You know, she has a $50 course, which is like 15 videos and then she has a $1,500 course, which I think was like 24 videos. It’s not about the length of the, or the duration of it. So much as it is about the monetary value of what your teaching, in other words, how is what you’re teaching going to directly or indirectly affects the person’s income. And if the skills that you’re teaching directly affect somebody’s income, then you can charge more for those. Which like is the definition of value, right? It is. What is the value of the expertise that you’re providing? Not the quantity of information that you’re providing. And that was my first one. AJV: (02:02) Yeah. Which is interesting because that’s how everything should be priced. But so many people are like, well, it’s only one call a month. And I’m like, well what are you covering on that one call a month? RV: (02:12) If you get one idea that saves you from making a hundred thousand dollar mistake, which a Brand Builders I think is a lot of what we do is where we’re not only teaching people things that help them make a lot more money, I mean, but to prevent a lot of stupid money AJV: (02:28) and also just wasted time. But I just think that’s a good lesson in general. It’s not how many videos or how many calls are necessarily what’s included. It’s the price is more indicative of the content in which you’re teaching and you know from someone has in their life. Yeah. So from people like us who have a background of selling things that were as little as $20 for a book or seven figure consulting deals, I just realize it’s so much of application and content, not just what’s included in terms of how many hours. And anyways, that is a great one and mine isn’t all that off for my first one, which is I thought this was just a really important aha for anyone who is creating a webinar or video course. And it’s that the bonuses are almost as important as the course itself. Yeah, that was a good one. So what you include as your bonuses to get people to move to action are many times equally as important and need the necessary thinking and consideration and planning as the actual course itself. RV: (03:35) Yeah. And, and, and when you think about the, the pricing and the offer structures, so for those of you that are, uh, you know, come to our stuff in phase two and we talk about offer structure in getting people to actually pull out their credit card and make a purchase. You know, we talk a lot about how the total retail value should be maybe usually three to 10 times the cost of what you’re actually asking for in charging for. And driving up the real retail value has a lot to do with the bonuses. So the creating quality bonuses that are legitimately valuable and, and spending time to make them polished so that they have a high dollar value, not only does it help them implement the course more effectively, it also is going to help you sell more. So that was, that was really good. RV: (04:20) Um, on the, on the topic of marketing, I was blown away at the funnel even though this was for her $50 course and about how simple a funnel can be. I mean, we overcomplicate, you know, it’s such an intimidating concept sometimes the funnel of like, Oh well what technology do you use and how many emails? And like, how do you know, how far are they watching the video? And a lot of that stuff we teach cause that stuff really works and we believe in it. But for her to just go, no, I just took the first video in my course and listed it for free on YouTube with a link to say, if you want the rest of the videos, click here and there are for sale. And you know, she’s not, she’s not buying Maserati’s with that money, but I loved what she even said, AJV: (05:03) buying groceries every week. RV: (05:05) I’ve been paying for my groceries for since 2017 like that is totally meaningful. That’s totally valuable. So that was, mine is just that a funnel doesn’t have to be complex, complicated architecture. It doesn’t have to be long. It’s just a thoughtful process about how you can give value for free, create the law of reciprocity, and then offer people a chance for how to get more. And it’s that simple. AJV: (05:33) Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s my big second takeaway was the importance of prepping your audience before a launch. And she’s, she talks a lot about her methodology and she’s got a very scientific, like, this is what I do, this is when I do it. Which I think for anyone who is just starting out, that’s exactly what you need. Oh, this is like the weeks leading up. Yeah. Just give me the formula and let me execute it. Right. It’s like baking. Tell me how many scoops, how many drops, how many eggs? Like that’s all I need and I can do it. And that’s really what she’s outlining for you in this interview. And she said that, you know, I know that the six to eight weeks before I launch of a new video course or a webinar that, um, all of my content is going to be circulated around that exact launch. So people know that, Hey, this is all she’s talking about. This is, this is new, this is what I’m going to find on her feed, this is what she’s going live about. And then pop there goes her new course, there, goes her lunch, but she’s prepping the audience weeks in advance with a soft content, soft content, providing value, providing value before she comes out and offers the course. RV: (06:40) Yeah, there’s a, that makes me think of a book that’s out by Robert Cialdini who wrote the book influence, which sold like 6 million copies. Right. But he wrote a new book called Pre-Suasion and it’s all about setting the context in advance. And when she was talking about that, uh, I was thinking about that book and also just like, it just makes so much sense to kind of prepare people’s minds for like, this is the direction that we’re heading and tee them up. So, AJV: (07:07) but then also just makes your life easy. Like if you know, these are the launches I’m going to do this year, this is the content I’m going to launch. Or relaunch. Yeah. It just makes your life easy. Okay. Well I know that January, February, and part of March, this is what I do for my content. Okay, great. Now we launch. Okay, now in April, this is what I do. That it actually makes your life easy if you have a plan. RV: (07:27) Yeah. And it also prevents you what she said, that mistake, one of the biggest mistakes was I was launching too many things at once. But it’s like if you plan out the calendar, you don’t, you don’t find yourself in that spot because you go, Oh Hey, there’s a conflict here. So, um, that was really good. My last one was, it was just getting on live with your audience. And I don’t know why this was such a light bulb for me, but AJV: (07:51) probably cause you’re an introvert who works in a dungeon in the basement and never likes to see the light of day. RV: (07:56) No. Well that’s just, that is, that is, that is true. I don’t, I don’t, um, what do you mean I have to talk to people? Yeah, I mean I, that is absolutely true, but, but the, the idea of, I think at least the way most people seem to process like a webinar is they process it as like a one time event. And it is, it is an either or. It is either you do it live, uh, or you do it as a recording. But the live part of it, I think people process as like you only could do it live once and where she said do it live six weeks in a row of just doing it over and over again so you don’t feel like, Oh my gosh, all my eggs are in this one basket, this one hour. Like get everybody there. And if the tech goes down like, Oh, it’s so risky, but to just go, no, you’re going to, you’re going to do this live consistently, which is the best practice, right. RV: (08:50) Do it live and do it live for a while and then take whatever was the highest, uh, video and turn that, make that the recording that you make into your evergreen. Um, of course we just, we build a lot evergreen from the beginning, but just take the pressure off of you of going, I got, I got multiple shots and, and just be with your people. Like just say it’s, it’s not like, Oh my gosh, everything has to go perfect. It’s like, no, just hang out with your people. Like these are your friends, these are your friends, your fans. Like, hang out with them and give them a chance to like talk to you and just share with them what you have. And I think that it’s easy to get scared and intimidated by, you know, the webinars. AJV: (09:33) Oh, very scary there. So my last one was just something she brought up just kind of casually, but I really launched, latched on to it was the importance of not launching too soon. And so many people out there have this Jones’s mentality of, well, everyone has a course and everyone’s doing a webinar and everyone is this and every I gotta I gotta I gotta and it’s like, yeah, maybe, but not too soon. There is a huge danger of doing it too soon when your audience isn’t ready for it. And she talked about how she spent two years providing value to her audience before she came out with a course. And then her first course was 49 bucks and it was very niche and it was very specific. But there’s, there’s immense value of not rushing to do this when you haven’t primed your audience to be ready to buy from you. AJV: (10:22) And we have a recent customer from Brand Builders group that this really resonated with me and it was a, I’m an a gentleman who heard about us from Lewis Howes. Okay. What I’m talking about and my friend that this is like really resonated with me because he, he requested a free call with Brand Builders Group about building his personal brand. He heard about us on Lewis’s podcast and then he said, you know, I’ve been listening to Lewis for 10 years. And to me that just is like so much to what Darcy said, it’s, you know, Louis had been nurturing and building this relationship, this online relationship. Well this person for 10 years before he was ready to click and buy something and there’s so much value into not rushing it and just providing value. Like if you’re truly, truly trying to build a personal brand and it’s all about money, then you’re already not going to win. AJV: (11:18) People can smell it. You’re already not going to succeed if it’s just about that, you know, we always talk about mission over money. Yeah. But it’s, you know, if you’re on the mission of serving and providing value with real expertise that you have, which I think is what Darcy talked about in this tire and entire interview, it was if you have something worthy of sharing with the world than just do it. Like what are you the expert at? Where’s your real expertise and experience? What do you have results in that you could actually help someone else improve their life, their business, their systems or their mindset and actually get out there and do it. And it’s amazing how many people need that and are willing to spend money $49 or $1,400 for someone to be their guide to show them how to do it. And I love that. Um, I have a bonus topic that, RV: (12:06) so before you bonus your topic, just on that note, because one thing that she also said was she was like, and if you’re struggling with that, you should go back through phase one. And that was as a seven figure earner who has a lot of experience for her to say, I had to go back to phase one for my new thing and how like how challenging it still was and how important it is. That was, that was, AJV: (12:30) yeah, so make sure you go back and listen to the full interview specifically the last five minutes when she talks about how everyone needs to work with Brand Builders group [Laughing]. RV: (12:38) Yes, for sure. Now we have a bonus tip, AJV: (12:42) so I’d have a bonus topic where I really need everyone to figure out how do we go back through this process of getting remarried so that Darcy can come shoot our wedding. RV: (12:54) Oh yeah, AJV: (12:56) yeah. If you’re not following Darcy, you need to, in addition to being an amazing photographer, and here’s one of the things that I love most about her. What you guys did not talk about at all is at Darcy’s not one of those photographers who does all the filters and she comes back and she fixes everything. It’s like, no, like help me capture you and your natural beauty. Let me capture the essence that is you not let me bring it back to my photo studio and do all the airbrushing and fix every blemish. It’s like, no, like, let me capture the real you. So I want to know how do we get remarried so I can have Darcy come do my photo. RV: (13:33) Honey, will you marry me on the podcast? How romantic was that? How much romantic? A spontaneous reproposal right here on the podcast. I had confidence, I would say not because we have undying love, but because we want additional wedding photography from Darcy bidding process to go with our already amazing wedding [inaudible] AJV: (13:58) like, no. Oh my gosh. They’re incredible. They’re incredible. But what I was going to say is like in addition to that, her authenticity and her fun vibe and her personality and her confidence are just absolutely contagious. So if you are just listening to the recap, you are truly missing the best part, which is the interview of Darcy. So go check it out.
Ep 64: Everything You Need to Know to Make Brilliant Online Courses with D’Arcy Benincosa
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit call brand builders, group.com/summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Oh my gosh, I love D’Arcy Benincosa. You’re gonna love this woman. She is so fun and so cool and so intelligent and a true professional. So she is, has been, I think one of the most sought after destination luxury wedding photographers in the world. But out of that, she’s also become a very well renowned business coach, specifically for creatives. And that’s part of why we brought her on here today. So she and I met through a mastermind that she was involved with and then she became a client of brand builders group and I’m always kind of like, why are you a client? You’re so amazing. But she’s so humble and she’s such a student that way. And then she was in one of our events and everyone started asking her all these questions and it was like, Oh my gosh, we have to just get D’Arcy in front of all of you so that you can learn because she’s done a ton. RV: (02:00) Okay. So she’s as a photographer, I mean, she’s been featured in so many different things and as, and as kind of a a business coach or teacher she’s been featured in HuffPo, ABC, NBC, the view, Upworthy, I mean, her photography has been in every major wedding publication like Martha Stewart. And Harper’s Bazaar and style me pretty like so she’s got a master’s degree, so she has that interesting balance of like classic education. Like me, I have a master’s degree but also really am more of an entrepreneur. And anyways, I’m just excited for you to, to meet the energy that is D’Arcy, Benincosa. So welcome to the show. Oh my gosh. It’s such a privilege to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for that introduction. I’ve done a lot in 40 years. Well you don’t look forward to at all. RV: (02:57) And so I guess there’s so many things I want to ask you about, but I, I think that the place that we should start just to like get right to what is probably most relevant for our audiences is I think that of all of our clients, you’re one of the people that is really well experienced with video courses, creating them, pricing them, launching them, promoting them. And so like, I think maybe we just dive in with that. So, so how many courses, like is it w give me an idea of what percentage of your business come from courses and how many courses do you have? And like just give us like the overview of what courses mean in D’Arcy’s world. DB: (03:41) Yeah. So for a long time I was just shooting weddings. I think a lot of us just offer a service, right? I was out shooting weddings, doing brand shoots. I was so good at storytelling. And of course is always happens when you get really good at some thing. People who want to be good at it start inquiring, Hey, can you teach me how to do that? Can you teach me how to do that? And I realized as a business person, yes I was tied to photography, but I knew I didn’t want to be shooting weddings when I was 70 so I thought this is a great new Avenue of another client I can serve. So I started creating the education and creating ways of helping photographers, book clients. So at first it was about 0%. Then I would say the year I finally decided to launch a course, it became a third. DB: (04:37) I launched a course audience. If I had a six figure launch my first time launching something because I really didn’t launch until I had served my audience for a couple of years. And that launch was huge for me. I didn’t do any paid advertising either. That was my mind. So all my clients were just ready to buy what I had to offer because I had been serving them. And I think making sure you don’t launch too soon before you’ve served them enough before they want, you know, there’s so many laws to marketing. Talked about the law of reciprocity is a big one. Make sure you’ve given so much to them, but that by the time you launch something, they are just ready to buy from you because you’ve served them so well. And I think that’s what happened with my first course. And then I got really zealous and right after that I created another one. And I think I did that a little too soon. But then I started listening to what they were asking and I, I started creating things that I did really well that I didn’t realize people would pay me to learn. Like I thought, Oh this isn’t a big deal. And then it turned out to be something everybody needed help with. So I have a lot of courses, I’ll be honest, I have probably more than a lot of people recommend, but they do really well. RV: (06:04) Interesting. Okay. So so that when people hear course like how many videos, I know this is such a basic question, but like how many videos are in a course, how long do they have to be? How professional? Like how professionally shot do they have to be like, you know, do you have to rent a studio and go do it with like full lighting? Can you do it on your phone? Like just give us a sense of of that. And maybe maybe correlated with price points. Cause I’m sure it’s like the answer is, it depends. It can be all those different things. But just since you’ve actually had so much different experience, like how would you kind of price, you know, different modalities and volumes and that kind of thing. DB: (06:50) So let me tell you my lowest price course than my highest price course. So my lowest price is $49. It includes 15 videos that are each about six to 12 minutes long. RV: (07:03) Say that again. How many DB: (07:04) 15 videos that are each six to 12 minutes long. Okay. And it’s a very niche course. It’s teaching photographers how to shoot a meter film. Do you remember film? RV: (07:19) I do remember film, but I don’t know what meaner film is. Is that like filming? DB: (07:24) Yeah, most people shoot digital, but film is making a comeback, especially with hipsters. I’ve always, I’ve always shot it. So I’m teaching people how to meet her light for their camera to shoot film. Okay. I do it really quickly, really succinctly. And it’s a $49 course. I put it cheaper because it’s really easy. It’s quick to get through and I wanted them to have an experience with me so they could see how I was as a teacher. And that one, I just have one video from the course on YouTube. It’s the most searched YouTube term by photographers. You guys might not get it so don’t get lost in the language but it just says how to shoot a meter film and that’s exactly what they type into the search bar and I don’t know RV: (08:14) The title of your video. Okay. DB: (08:16) That’s the title of one of the videos in the in the course that I put on YouTube and then I have a link to buy the $50 course and that, and I sell a couple of those a week. They’ve paid for my groceries. That course has paid for my groceries since I put it up in 2017 and the awesome thing about that content is it never changes. Shooting film is a thing that is always the same. How to do it is always the same, which is awesome to have as a course. RV: (08:46) So your whole funnel, there is one of the videos in the course you made publicly available and then you have a link in the description and like a card that comes that slides out. DB: (09:00) If you want to learn more in depth, this is what I cover. Click here to buy the course because there are a lot of other videos on YouTube like that, but mine is the best. I’m a really good teacher and I did my research well and I made sure I was very clear. And and so it’s a, it’s a 12 minute video. It has almost a hundred thousand views and people are watching it every single day and it, it goes. Yeah. And that’s one of the, RV: (09:29) One of the funnels. And so it’s not even like, it’s not even really a marketing, it’s the actual video in the course itself. And then if you want more boom and you click and you go to a sales page that tells what’s in the course or do you go straight to your shopping cart? DB: (09:42) Yeah, pretty much too. I think a landing page, it could Jobie that then tells what’s in the course and they can just buy it. RV: (09:49) Got it. And did you shoot it on your iPhone or, I mean you’re a photographer so you have a little bit of an advantage with the production quality. DB: (09:59) So I used to make a ton of YouTube videos and I would rent out a studio for like 300 bucks and pay my friend 300 bucks and he would come in and we would shoot all day long, 12 hours a day. We were in a studio that had light and then he would go and edit all of the, all the videos. So I created that course in about two hours. I just wrote down everything people need to learn. I got up, I taught it. I didn’t need a lot of cue cards for that one. I had my meter, I had my camera and that one was really easy and I could run paid ads to that if I wanted. I just have other things that I run ads to. So that one I had just, I love seeing how it performs on YouTube. RV: (10:43) Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So what’s your most expensive one? So my most DB: (10:47) Expensive one is a, the one without me. So I do coaching with me, but without me, it’s 1495. It’s 1,495 it’s called the marketing map. And it’s basically how to market yourself as a creative with really tried and true services. If you are just a service because so many of these things that teach you are like, you have to have a product or a course or anything like this. And this is basically like I have a service if I was a photographer, you know, so these are photographers, different kinds of creatives that have one service to offer. How do you market them? And it goes through very in depth how to market that. And that I launched I did RV: (11:30) So hold on. So one thing just for y’all listening, cause this is interesting because in our phase one event, we talk about five ways to monetize a personal brand and we call them the paids PA IDs. But then you know, the S is services and we talk about how the fastest path to cash is a service is your time for money, but it’s the least scalable. And I think that’s really, really unique because you’re right, everyone teaches you how to sell one of the other ones, but to actually get more gigs if you’re a senior or get more bookings if you’re a photographer. So that’s really specific. So how many, so what’s, what, how many videos are in it and how long is it and all that. DB: (12:10) Yeah, and I will say really quickly, most people come to me with only knowing how to sell their services. And what I teach in the marketing map is, yes, here’s how to sell your service. But then I also give them a lot of ideas for how to eventually bring in passive income. Because the way I serve my clients is let’s monetize your service. Let’s get you making six figures at least because everybody’s working way too hard to not least be making six figures. And then let’s open up your mind and let that creative genius flow for how you can eventually change your business model to not be so service-based so you can not work so hard and you know, but a lot of people at the beginning of their businesses service-based. I think that’s where we all kind of start. And then we learn what our gifts are. So that one is six maps. So it’s six, I call them maps instead of modules cause I’m a destination wedding photographer, travel all of that stuff through it’s six maps. And in each map there are four videos. And then I update that with very good masterclasses about every quarter. So I have genius SEO people come in genius, you know, Google analytics, people come in, blogging people things like that where I’m always serving that audience by, by recording new masterclasses as well. RV: (13:33) Oh, okay. So that’s kind of you, you include them in like a growing archive of just specialty classes. How many, so, but, but then the set part of it is for, you said it’s six modules or videos. So it’s 24 videos. How long are they? DB: (13:52) You know, I know most people say only do like 10 minute videos. I think you need to know how compelling you are. And I happened to be a really good storyteller so some of my videos are up to 25 minutes long, maybe 30 I didn’t plan them that way, I just had so much to share on that. But I try not to overwhelm. So they’re very well organized. They’re very much by topic and they very much lead on a journey. Now I could have included another 40 videos of content, but you want to make sure you don’t overwhelm your audience. And one thing you really want to make sure with courses is that people can finish it because they feel successful when they finish it. And I have a very big mission to help people finish their courses with me because how many of us buy a million courses and don’t finish them? I have been guilty of that. And so I like to make my clients feel very successful. So very much like I led them on a very targeted journey that all over the place. RV: (14:53) Well. Well I think the thing that’s interesting to me as you go that one is 24 videos, right? Your other one, the $49 one is 15 videos. So it’s not really about, it’s not really about the quantity of videos, it’s more is it’s priced more upon the value of the information to the person about what, how, how translatable this information is into helping someone make money from what you’re teaching them. DB: (15:20) Yeah, I think so. Cause with the, how does she meet her film? I’m TA, I’m teaching them one basic skill. That skill could or could not bring them in, come into their business. It’s more like this could be a hobby, this could be something. I just want to learn for fun. The marketing map, if they follow what’s in there that teaches them how to have a half a million dollar photography business, which is, and, and they could scale it to even more. But that’s basically where I’m coming at it from because you can’t make more than half a million if you, if you only offer services. That’s my opinion in photography because you’d be shooting all the time and you wouldn’t have enough time to edit and all of these things. So it’s basically how to scale to that with the idea of, Hey, if you want to, then after the services bring in passive income and stuff, it hints at that, but it doesn’t niche to that. RV: (16:13) Okay. So then the, so the four, so for this one, let’s talk about the marketing map or just the one that’s 1497. So how do you market it? And you said you had a six figure launch, your first launch, like, so part of this, I guess as you go, okay, what, what skill set do I have that I can teach people your outline, the course. I mean, this is what we do in captivating content, right? In our event, we’re kind of like, okay, let’s outline it. Let’s block it all out. Then you come into a studio, you’re going to shoot, you’re going to shoot it, you’re going to have to edit the videos and eventually you’re gonna have to upload them somewhere, whether it’s Kajabi or Thinkific or it could be YouTube, unlisted if even if it was like your first, your very first course. But like once you have the course done, how do you sell the actual course? Like what are all the things that you, well, let’s talk about what you did in that first one and then what you do now because you didn’t do any paid acquisition before. DB: (17:10) And I will say in the marketing map, you only see me during the welcome video. The rest of the time it’s PowerPoint presentations with my voice because I created it all at home and my neighbor’s dog barks a lot. So I had to create these videos at like 1:00 AM so I was in my room, which hoarding with my voice, I would mess up. So if with ScreenFlow you can record your whole screen, I would have a PowerPoint. If I didn’t like how something sounded, I’d stop, rerecord it. And then you can edit everything out, you can edit out your ums, your mistakes, you know, you get really close to a microphone. Suddenly every breath you intake sounds so loud so you can edit all of that stuff out. So the way that I did it is I did webinar, a webinar funnel first, and I had read everything, Jeff Walker’s launch book, everything that said like do a 10 day, 14 day launch. And I just knew that wasn’t enough time for my audience. So I actually launched for six weeks and every week I would teach a live webinar because I’m really good live and I wanted to serve them out, answer all their questions. And so I would Mark it the live webinar on Instagram, which is where most of my following is. And to my email list. And every week I got on and did a live webinar and I closed some of those webinars at $40,000 at the end of it with people buying the product. RV: (18:40) And so that was it. That was, you’re saying that’s the same webinar repeated six times or six different? Yeah. DB: (18:47) Okay. Nope. Same webinar and I just got people on there live. And here’s the crazy thing, you guys, I didn’t have the course created at the time I started selling it because I think all of us have a course or something inside of us, but it is always takes the back the back, you know, we just always put it off in terms of other work and I knew if I had sold it, I would make it. So I not only sold the course for six weeks, it, I took six weeks to make it. RV: (19:20) Oh, so you were making it during that time that you were selling it? Yeah. DB: (19:22) Yeah. And I got their questions like I had it outlined, I knew what I was doing, but with more of their questions, I was like, Oh, I should add that in. Oh, that needs to be added in. And then I would just create videos and content every night. Like it was crazy. It was crazy. RV: (19:36) And your webinar. Okay, so your, so your webinar, so this is like classics and this is classic phase two brand builder stuff too, right? It’s like we’re all about the webinar funnel. You’ve got some traffic sources, you drive them to a webinar, you rock their world, like give, give, give, and then you tell them what you have available. Like it’s not rocket science. If you know something and you serve people and you create reciprocity, like you’re going to sell some of these. If you, if, if you’re, if you’re teaching on something that you should be teaching on, like something that you know something about, but the webinar itself, did you create like fancy slides for it and all of that stuff? Did you, so you take the time to create like a nice webinar slide deck. DB: (20:23) Yeah. Here’s the thing about photographers and knowing your audience is so helpful. Photographers are very much about aesthetic, so I don’t do like these masculine click funnel type things. Mine are very beautiful. They’re very much photography heavy. They all have a strong brand. From the way I present my fonts, like I feel like the visual identity of my brand is of the top that I have seen and it’s very consistent. So my slides are gorgeous and they show compelling images. I talk about, you know, how I took these images, you know, working with Harper’s Bazaar and Thailand and all of these things that people, you know, not to brag but to show this is what you can do when you build your business in this way. So yes, I had beautiful slides and I really taught something in the webinar that wasn’t in the course but very much served them and made them want more. And it really gave them the experience of, Oh my gosh, if I just got this much information off of D’Arcy off 60 minutes, what could I get from an entire course? And that’s the way I’ve always wanted my run my webinars is I want people to feel like what they got off my webinar. They would have literally paid at least $300 of information for RV: (21:45) Yeah, that we feel the same way. Like it’s, our philosophy has never been teased them, don’t give them anything and make them buy. It’s the inverse. It’s, it’s like over-deliver. And in fact, we, you know, for us, you know, grant Cardone has his 10 X rule for us, the 10 X rule that I think about is deliver 10 times the amount of value in advance of what you’re asking them to pay. And then, you know, it’s like exactly what you’re saying when they’re gone, man, I’ve gotten so much already. Like how could I, how could I not buy from this person? So, so I love that. But that, that was it. It wasn’t, there weren’t Facebook ads. Like in your case, you had an organic audience between Instagram and email that you had built up and you just said, Hey, come check this out. So you, the, the, the only thing you really designed was like that first slide deck. And then you had the outline of the course clearly. But, and then you were designing the course on the fly as you went along. DB: (22:43) And I think, I use my sense of humor in Instagram stories. So I called it magic marketing and I photo-shopped myself in the pitcher of magic mic, which, right. We did not know this movie, but I know that with a lot of my, I was, I was almost cast for it as I could see that they weren’t willing to pay me enough money for my abs. So I was like, so I think I use my hands humor, I use my, my compelling newness. You know, I, I went online and invited people there, made sure that they won’t want to miss it. And that’s the one thing about my audience. You know, everybody can create a course, but I think once you sell a course and people do not give good feedback and you kind of missed your boat or you didn’t know over-deliver or you sold the course, you had no business teaching and you didn’t have enough experience. DB: (23:34) There are a lot of people in the industry and when people buy from you, they’re like, Oh I’ve been burned before. You know, and I, I really think having a high standard, if you’re going to become, like you said, your reputation. So I make sure every course, I don’t make sure it’s perfect cause then I never put it out. But I make sure that like it is what I know. I can teach that I’m very good at it. I’m organized. Organizing the information is huge for people as you teach. And I’ve learned from you making sure you have organized information that is easily obtained, you know, and ingested by people so they can take it away and change a behavior that I learned that changed behavior from you at your captivating content. I have been doing it. I just didn’t realize I was changing a behavior. And that’s really key for courses. You want people to come away transformed. RV: (24:30) Yeah, I love that. I mean it’s, it’s kind of like the best marketing ever is when your students actually change their, their actual behavior because then they’re thinking about you and they’re doing things in there telling people. So I really, really love that. So, so, so that was how you launched the first one. Now what happens after that? Like how do you, how often have you launched, do you, you know, do you do paid traffic now? And I mean, yeah, I mean 1500 bucks. Like you don’t have to sell too many of those things, you know, most people to in order to quit their job kind of a thing. You, you could, if you’re good at building an audience and doing it consistently, like so, so what happens after that first launch? DB: (25:15) Yeah, so I think what’s really important after that first launch is to understand your content calendar. So at the beginning of each year, I map out my exact sell dates, like what am I selling so that I can preplan the content that I’m putting out that goes along with it. So for example, my next big course that I’m launching, it’s a new course. I’m launching it in may. That means everything from March and April is content that helps people see, Oh my gosh, I will eventually need this course. So I think planning out your content, selling three to four times a year, not being afraid to sell. I was on a coaching call with actually some people that we know about courses and somebody said I don’t want to be annoying when I sell. And you know, women are the only ones who asked me that question. DB: (26:10) No man is ever like, I don’t want to be annoying when I sell. And I think, you know, if you’re really offering a service then selling is part of that. So I make sure I sell about four times a year and a mistake that I made was trying to sell too many things at once. I remember I had a course, I was launching a group coaching program I was launching and an in person retreat and I needed to sell them all at the same time. That was a horrible thing. It was really hard to sell any of them. Well, and I did that last year. I was like, Oh my gosh, we plan too many launches at once. So this year we’re very careful. I have exactly the dates where I’m selling things. So from that you can keep selling one signature course if you want. DB: (26:58) Like Marie Forleo’s model, she sells B school every March. She then does live calls with it for six weeks and the rest of the year she’s putting out free content that drives people to trust her to then join B school. I love teaching, so I have a lot of courses. I put out one that was cheaper. It was one 49 and it answered a very niche question. It was how to prepare proposals. I do custom proposals for all my luxury clients, how to prepare those to make sure that you book that client, how to give them like you call a compelling offer to make sure you book that client and how to make sure that proposal speaks to them. And that course has been really, really powerful. And so yeah. RV: (27:52) Okay. Are most of your courses towards that lower or are most of your courses like South of a couple of hundred bucks or is it just kind of like all over the place? DB: (28:00) Yeah, I have. So with my product value ladder, which is how do your courses rank? I have one 49 I have two one 40 nines and then I have the 1400 so now I’m creating the four 97 and I think a four 97 course is a really sweet spot because people, we’ll be willing to spend that much. It’s not a thousand, right? So many people talk them selves out of selling a thousand. But it is enough that you can make a really good launch out of it. And those are, that’s the one I’m putting a lot of paid ads. I haven’t put paid ads behind the 49 and I haven’t put paid ads behind the one 49 when we relaunched the marketing map, I had hands-off did nothing. One funnel with Facebook ads and launched it again, RV: (28:50) The 40 this is the 1497 one you’re talking about. So and then give us a sense of that. Right. So, so yeah, and one reason, you know, like we would tell people it’s, it’s kinda hard to run like an evergreen paid ad campaign on a course that’s South of maybe 200 bucks because the cost per acquisition, the price is so low. You know, it’s hard to break even now when you look at the lifetime value of that customer, if you’ve got that kind of sophisticated tracking on the back end, it could still make sense cause you’ll escalate them over time. But just on that one funnel alone, which is really what we want to do with paid paid acquisition is if we can at least make money on that very first buy, then everything from that point in the future is gravy. And and you know, it’s like you can spend as much you as fast as you can to acquire new email addresses and stuff. So, but the 1497 one, that one is super valuable. You’ve proven that you’ve got a webinar that will sell that. So give us an idea of like, what do you expect from like a closing percentage? Like, how many people register form one of these webinars? How many show up, how many actually buy, how long does it take? And then, you know, like at the end of the day, what percentage of people might actually buy something at that price point? DB: (30:15) Yeah. So the rule of thumb is that you will sell from eight to 12% of the people who are on the webinar. I, I remember, I think it was Russell Brunson said if you sell over 12%, email me right away cause I need to know what you’re doing. And he sells a lot of things. So I have a really high close rate. So I have had a few webinars. I know why when I do live I sell better. That’s why I like to do six, five or six lives because then I choose the one where I really nailed it. And that’s the one I put for the replay. So when we relaunched the marketing map a year later, well actually we did it six months later. I think we needed to do a year because my audience hadn’t grown enough. But we relaunched it for 10 days and it made 60 K in 10 days and I only put a thousand dollars behind the ads. DB: (31:07) So that’s not too bad. That was like, you know, a nice 10 day thing and I did nothing for that one. But I closed it about 12% I would say I’ve had one webinar and I CA, I think it was just a really engaged audience where I closed at 15 and then I had one webinar where I closed I think it eight and that felt like the biggest failure. It’s really hard to feel like you know how to pick yourself back up after a webinar because you do put so much into it. So you have to give yourself RV: (31:41) Now was this eight out of a hundred people or is this 80 out of a thousand people? DB: (31:46) Yeah, I usually have about 500 people on the webinars. RV: (31:49) So that means like a thousand of registering. DB: (31:52) Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was going to 1400 and then they’ll, and then they’ll rewatch about about 20% rewatch, maybe 15. Not rewatch, but watch it. They don’t come on live, you know, they, I don’t sell as well on the replays. Because you know, you want to give those bonuses live. So when they’re watching it live or the first time they see it, give them access to bonuses. And I’ve heard that the bonuses are almost as important as the course. So making sure you have bonuses that truly are what your absolute ideal client wants and cannot say no to. RV: (32:38) Yeah, for sure. And I think yeah, so just so you have like 1400 register, 500 show up, and then so 10% would be 50 people. So you might sign up somewhere around 50 people out of that live. Then you’ll have another 20%, so maybe another 200 people watched the replay and then you’ll get like some smaller, DB: (33:01) Like 10% of them as well. Yeah, eight to 10. Yeah. RV: (33:06) And then did that, and these aren’t evergreen, so these aren’t always running. You’ve always done like a couple of launches a year and you’ve done like a launch model. DB: (33:16) Yeah, the profitable portfolio, which I’m creating now, that one will be my first evergreen because it’s the perfect formula for evergreen. It doesn’t need a big emotional hit to buy. It’s a very tech technique based course. And I think sometimes we have these technique based courses that sell really easily. Like I’m teaching editing, I’m teaching this. Whereas some people try and sell mindset or grand ideas or these bigger kind of things and that I think you really do need that one to one connection with your client. So the profitable portfolio, you could know me or not know my reputation and still understand the value that’s being led here. Just from seeing my work and my accolades. You know, my list of publications already show this woman is qualified to teach this. When you get up into 1500, 2000 my group coaching is 4,500 a person. They really need to have that experience with you. And most of my coaching clients have been following me for a while and really know and trust me. RV: (34:24) Yeah. and then Facebook ads and stuff. So are you doing a lot of that now or is that more like you’re learning, you’re learning that space in terms of driving? DB: (34:33) Yeah, I’m really good at Facebook ads. I know when to launch them. I haven’t run them full time, but we did recently starting in January start a lead magnet that’s really great. It’s for teaching people how to have an Epic website, 10 things to have 10 things not to get rid of immediately. And that’s my website. I relaunch it every single year. It’s a launch that, you know, having launches in your business that people look forward to I think is something that can really build your brand and get people who may not have bought from you previously to buy from you because they get really drawn into the story of your business and how it serves them. So we do that as a lead magnet that we’ve started since January. And and then with the profitable portfolio, I have a budget usually around three to five grand a month for where my business is and how I want to scale it that I’ll be doing ads for. And this one, I’m going to do the launch and everything straight off the bat with ads. RV: (35:35) And that’ll be so like for six weeks, just like three to five grand over the course of six weeks maybe. I would say three to five grand a month. Yeah. So if I go into six weeks, I was planning on doing it for a month and then I’m taking it into the, into the evergreen funnel and see how that does. Gotcha. yeah. Well I know I’m excited. Cause you haven’t been through our phase three event yet. I don’t think I need to sign up for that one. That’s the one. That’s the one where we get into all of Facebook ads and Google and.
Ep 63: Putting A Stake Through The Sacred Cows of Your Industry with Mike Dillard | Recap Episode
RV: (00:00) Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Mike Dillard, a real life entrepreneur, network marketer, information marketer, doer of many, many things, investor, and really a breath of knowledge and wisdom to, to learn from. So we got our, our top three and three were both aligned in what our big takeaways were and we just want to summarize them and give you the, give you the highlights. So, babe, why don’t you AJV: (00:29) Yeah. My first one is really short and simple, but is the utter importance of copy. Knowing how to write it, knowing what to say, knowing how often to say it, knowing in what formats to say. I just think that hitting that was no doubt, an ongoing aha moments for anyone who is trying to build a personal brand. And I love the way that he put it. And he said, it’s, it’s your sale and writing. It’s the conversation you would have in writing. And I love how he talked about how he was an introvert and direct sales, very similar. He said, but he became a millionaire, right? Like making millions of dollars every year, not over many years, every year. Learning how to write really amazing copy because to some degree he was a little too shy to do it in person, which I thought was really fascinating. So he was forced to learn how to do it, but boy did he, he learned. RV: (01:24) Yeah, copywriting was the big thing for me. And you know, he used that illustration, which is been around for a while in direct marketing, which is you don’t sell the drill, you sell the hole, you sell the finish the finish product. We sometimes say, don’t sell the journey. Sell the destination. Right? No, she says it’s the climb. That’s totally different. That’s not what we’re talking about. Well then listening to Hannah Montana, well, I’m not saying that I haven’t been listening to Hannah Montana, but that’s not the lesson here. Is, is just, you know, sell, sell the white sand beaches and the, mai tais in this beautiful sunset, not the, Hey, we get up and we loved to the airport and we stuffed our suitcase and we paid baggage fees and we wait in line. And so you know how many modules it is and how many lessons now many courses, like that’s not what people are buying. They’re buying, they’re buying the result. AJV: (02:19) Financial freedom, security, flexibility RV: (02:23) Case, its reputation, it’s reach, its influence, its impact, its income. The fact that we put you through a nine phase process, this with detailed exercises and tons of education, you’ve got to learn. It’s like that’s, that’s the hardware. So don’t, don’t sell that car. Don’t tell him that part. Tell him, tell him what the results. AJV: (02:41) Yeah, but I just, I, I just know for us at brand builders groups, so many of our clients really struggle with how to write copy. What should I be saying? Just even getting the process started and it’s one of the one probably singular main reasons outside of design that we even started our brands implementation services that we do for our clients is it’s, it’s a real challenge for people to learn how to write. Sales copy is a challenge. So that was my big first takeaway. Yeah. RV: (03:08) Marketing copy copy. Copy. Copy. All right. The second one for both of us was, it’s funny cause the AJ is a big believer in this about where does thought leadership come from and well against the grain is that a lot of, a lot of times you know it’s like, you know, if, if to be remarkable as Seth Godin says, is, is being worth re worth being remarked about than what is remarkable. It’s the things that you don’t often hear it either in a captivated content in that whole event and area we talk about what can you say that either forwards the thinking or is sharpens the thinking or is somehow different from what has been said. And Mike was a great example of that. I mean it sounds like he was disrupting, you know, early on he was disrupting the industry that he was in in terms of network marketing. He was one of the early people to go, Hey, you can do this digitally and that positions you as a thought leader that that makes you outstanding. It makes you remarkable is what can I say that’s, you know, counterintuitive or different or unique or advancing somehow what’s been done or what’s been said? AJV: (04:23) No. Yeah, and I, I think for me, I think you’ve probably heard this for years, the whole concept of look around, see what everyone else is doing and then do the opposite. Like we probably hear that. I don’t think many people let it sink in and then actually do it because it’s so easy to look around and see what everyone else is doing and be like, Oh, I gotta do that. I had to do that too. Everyone has a course. I need a course. Everyone has email marketing. I need to do that. Everyone’s on Instagram, I need to be on Instagram. And all of a sudden you look around and it’s like you’re doing all this stuff and none of it is really true to you. Yeah. Because you did it just because other ones were. And he really said that, you know, he took a look inside and said, I wanted to see what everyone else was doing and then just be like, but you don’t have to, it doesn’t have to be that way. And he found ways of really doing what worked for him and his own uniqueness and then made it really apply to the business. And you know, it’s interesting cause Roy and I were even been watching the series with Andy Stanley who is one of our favorite pastors of all time in Atlanta. And Buckhead church is the church, if you ever want a two nets RV: (05:27) Bible for grownups is the name is the name of this. AJV: (05:29) Yeah. And I just, I think this is an amazing parallel as one of the things that Andy Stanley was talking about. He said the Bible itself is only in existence because something outstanding happened that was noteworthy, right? The, the Bible is not this chronological documentation of everything that happened. That’s not, that’s not what the Bible is. The Bible is a collection of personal letters and proof that was passed down from person to person for years and years documenting and outstanding event that happened. Not all that different than how we would document something today. Right? There is no doubt that the Corona virus, which is very prevalent and all of 2020 I will be documented in a variety of different ways. When I think about this all the time when Sully landed on the Hudson, it was documented in a way because it was something that was unique and outstanding and noteworthy. And I just, I liken that to this RV: (06:31) Being remarkable, doing something remarkable. And you know what Andy was saying is if just if Jesus died, there’d be nothing to write about that happened, but that people saw him in the resurrection and all that. You know, whether you believe that or not isn’t necessarily the point right here, but it’s going. So many people saw him. It was something that happened. So many people wrote about it and that later became a collection of documents. But it’s like something big happens and it’s outside of the ordinary and that’s part of how you break through is like it’s, it’s, again, I think it’s in our context, it’s about what are you doing that is unique to you and how is your message, how does it separate itself from the crowd? How does it stand out? What is unique about it in one easy place to say is, can I be counterintuitive? That’s one place to look. In addition to, into some others. AJV: (07:27) Well, I think too, just on that, and I’ll make this really short, it’s, it’s truly looking at does it have to be the way that it is, right? If this doesn’t feel right to me, if this isn’t the way that I like to do things, it isn’t easy for me. Do you have a new and better way? And if so, why not employ it? You know, why not teach it? Why not instruct it? Which is exactly what he did. RV: (07:50) Yeah. So the critical, the critical thinking of not just accepting what is. Yeah, I like that. So then the other part I think was ads was talking about how do you do the ad spend and you know, running, running ads and that was a big part of the conversation. And the thing that was edifying for me to hear because this is, you know, Mike and I have met a couple times, but this was the first time that we’re really like we’re talking shop in detail was the way that he was talking about one of the strategies that we teach at phase three, which is when you get into paid ads, everybody thinks about just like buying an a lead for an ad that will convert. And really you almost, you want to almost separate that in, split that into and say, I want to buy an ad that helps me build an audience that helps me build trust that that first I know this is someone who’s interested in my content because they’ve looked, they’ve watched, they’ve liked, they’ve commented, they have engaged and then I will serve up the ads or the things that convert those people only to those people rather just walking up. RV: (08:56) You know, the, the equivalent would be selling to a stranger. And so going, no, I’m gonna use, there’s a two part two pieces here to how we use paid ads, build the audience, build a trust first with no real call to action other than engage with my content and then come behind it and create the conversion. And you know, that’s, that’s how you lower the ad costs and you know, spend less money and have more results. AJV: (09:20) Yeah. And also not look completely salesy to the external world cause that’s all you’re doing is your reputation. Cause I feel like that’s a huge concern that a lot of our network has as well. I don’t want to look like that person. And that’s just a strategy behind it. I also loved on this and we were somewhat aligned when this, and you know, you hear so many people talking about Instagram and Facebook, but I, I have heard this more and more over the last few months and I don’t know what it is. Maybe you have insight. I don’t. But Mike brought it up again and he said, yeah, well we’ve been doing the Facebook, Instagram thing, but our focus is shifting towards a Google and YouTube. And I know that we’ve learned some really cool things from our ad partner lie and spa about some unique YouTube strategy. So you want to share some of those? RV: (10:04) Well, yeah. Well, and also we have, we have an interview coming out with Rick steel here in a couple of weeks. That is freaking mind blowing around Google and, and paid ads. But yeah, I mean there’s a lot of cool things you can do on YouTube as an example, one of the things that we didn’t really know is that you can run an ad on a specific video, even if it isn’t your video. So like my Ted talk that has millions of views, we’ve never run an ad on that video, which is dumb. There’s millions of people who are literally watching me that we never have a way to connect with. And knowing that we can run an ad on that video, even if it’s not our video, is a game changer. AJV: (10:44) Or even at running ads on our own videos. RV: (10:46) Yeah. To our own stuff. Just to say someone, just somebody sitting here watching this video right now to introduce them to some things go and say, Hey, how can we, how can we move them off of this video into one of the funnels? Because you can target so specifically down to each individual AJV: (11:04) And YouTube advertising right now is so much less expensive. Yes. The wild, wild West. I just think those were just really interesting things that we keep hearing and popping up. And he brought that up. He also shares tons of really interesting investing ideas and he, as we were, he said is it’s a wealth of knowledge and there’s a lot of different things covered on this interview, so, well worth checking out, RV: (11:27) Check it out. But you know, look, there’s a sign to this. There’s a, there’s a structure and you hear people like Mike who clearly has been a student of the game for years and years and years. He’s learning, he’s getting coaching, he is reading and then he’s testing and he’s executing and he’s experimenting. He’s trying it out. And it adds up over the course of time. So we’re glad that you’re here. We feel lucky to be a part of your personal development and business development journey specifically around helping you build and monetize your personal brand. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 62: Putting A Stake Through The Sacred Cows of Your Industry with Mike Dillard
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit call brand builders group.com/summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Well, I’m excited to introduce you to somebody that I’ve known about for years, but it’s been some of those like at a distance, at a distance. And then finally we had a close friend that we both share a mutual friend connect us and be like, you two got to know each other. And I have to say as I’ve gotten to know more and more about Mike Dillard and has spent some time really learning about him online and I was, had a chance to be on his show. And I just really, really love this guy and I love what he’s about and I love in many ways the diversity of his knowledge, but also his central thesis thesis of being focused on helping entrepreneurs succeed, which is a story that he has lived several times, which you all know is of highest value and importance to me. RV: (01:48) Somebody teaching what they’ve actually done. And that is who we bring to you. So, as a personal brand though, so he’s had several successful companies and he started in network marketing. He’s done investing, he’s done online marketing all sorts of different membership and kind of training programs. He has a thing called ever grow, which I really, really love. We’ll probably talk about that. But in terms of a personal brand, you know, he’s had over 5 million downloads of his podcasts. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, hundreds of thousands of you know, online followers. And anyways, he’s, he’s gonna [inaudible] tell us how he did all that in 20 minutes. Appreciate it. Yeah, man, I I was so excited. So I wanted to start with the network marketing thing because I started in network marketing. My mom was a network marketing. I was raised by a single mom who sold Mary Kay. And so, now. I consider that, you know, an important part of my journey. And then I got into network marketing. So was it, it was in, you were at Texas a and. M, what was it? What company was a MD: (03:00) One of a dozen. Okay. You did a bunch of them. Well, you know, you, I’m in, I’m in college. It’s 1996 to 2000. So it’s a web 1.0 days where there was no social media. It was crazy to see a video online back then. Yeah. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and really the only option at that time it was network marketing. If you want to start an entrepreneur and start a business and become an entrepreneur for, you know, two or 300 bucks, which is all I could afford as a college student. That was basically the only gig in town. And so that’s where I got my start. Unfortunately, I failed at it miserably for five years. I jumped from business to business to business trying to figure out, figure out what I was doing wrong never succeeded in tell a very smart mentor of mine. MD: (03:44) Finally kind of slap me across the head, if you will, and gave me a piece of advice that changed my life. And he said, Hey man, this hasn’t been working for you for 12 different companies over five years now and do you want to know why? And I said, absolutely. He said, because if you want to get [inaudible], Hey, you’d like a professional like myself. And he was making about 50 grand a month at the time, which for me it was just [inaudible] this massive lifelong goal [inaudible] you have to become a professional. And for me, I hadn’t done that. I just gone from opportunity to opportunity thinking that that’s what was going to allow me to achieve success and make money. And that was a life changing light bulb moment for me where I was like, okay, yeah, everybody who’s walking across the stage and getting a check has mastered a specific skill when it comes to this industry and they are a true professional with that they have value to offer. MD: (04:31) I was like, I don’t have any of that. All I have is an opportunity that 20 other distributors have in the same company. Okay. And so at that point I dove in, forgot about the business and just started honing my craft, which specifically became copywriting and essentially salesmanship in print. I was the worst salesman on the planet. So I needed to figure out how to sell something without actually talking to people. I was super shy at that point in my life. And so I spent about a year and a half reading every book I could on copywriting and ended up learning how to essentially apply attraction marketing to the network marketing industry. I ended up writing a book called magnetic sponsoring that transformed that world. I became a public hero in a public villain overnight. Half the industry loved me and half the industry hated me because I was challenging an old paradigm. Right? Nonetheless, I became one of the biggest personal brands in that industry. I put attraction marketing on the map. I introduced that world to internet marketing and within 18 months I went from waiting tables to making my first million dollars at the age of 27 built a list of, you know, hundreds of thousands of email subscribers that turned into a multiple eight figure company and then left that business about four years later. Wow. Are you well able to share the company or no, it’s called magnetic. Yeah. RV: (05:58) Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Today. So that wasn’t it. It was an education company that served the network marketing or the direct sales like industry. And I taught myself MD: (06:07) How to generate leads and how to sell my business through a sales page and a capture page and emails. I ended up building the largest download in my next company. So I went from zero to the number one residual income or in that business I wrote magnetic sponsoring as the training manual for my team. It kinda got circulated around other groups and they’re like, Hey, can we thr [inaudible]? And I was like, yeah, let me make a generic version of it. So I started selling copies of that online for $39 a piece. And within, you know, two years I was selling $6 million worth of essentially marketing courses to that industry. Mmm. And then had the, the distributor ship and the primary company. And after doing that for about four years, I’d really accomplished everything that I [inaudible] could ever have, possibly imagined in that industry and kind of lost my excitement for it and decided to move on to a new challenge. RV: (07:00) Huh. So that skill set you know, writing copy, yeah. As you described it, basically, you know, selling on paper. Is it still as relevant today as ever or less relevant or MD: (07:16) More? For sure. I mean, you know, if you think about it, everything we do is basically online today. And so we’re, we’re not communicating one-on-one unless it’s a rare occasion like this when it’s live. But 99.9% of our communication is what we’re saying on Instagram or YouTube or a blog or email list. And so copywriting a to me is the language of the internet. And if your business is on the internet and you don’t understand copywriting, then you really don’t know how to talk to anybody in your audience. So if your message is getting ignored, if nobody’s buying your product, if nobody is paying attention to your calls to action, it’s because you have not learned how to communicate effectively through a one to many type of format. And that’s essentially what the skill of copywriting is. RV: (08:00) Interesting. So if you [inaudible], is there something, was there like a big light bulb? Like a, I love what you talked about. If you wanted to be paid like a professional, you need to act like one. Was there a big moment, like you had like that in your copywriting career as well, where it was like a big light bulb that said, Oh my gosh, this is the, this is the key to copywriting that I have missed, know well, over the years of learning this and doing it, MD: (08:26) If I could sum it up into one sentence, the one thing that when I first went down the copyrighting rabbit hole, that was just a massive light bulb and turning point for me. A lot of people have probably heard of this, but it was a quote that says, nobody wants to buy a drill because they want a drill. They buy a drill because they want a hole. And what I had always done is whenever I would try to sell something, I would sell it on, Hey, here’s how cool it is. Here’s the price or the discount or the features RV: (08:56) Or the, you know, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, nobody’s ever buying your product cause they want that product. They’re buying your product because they want the result that is going to come from that product. And unfortunately, unless you’ve had this kind of training or epiphany, that’s counterintuitive. And so if you want to sell a drill to me, you’re talking about how easy it’s going to make your life, how fast it’s going to drill a hole, how much time it’s going to save you, how it’s going to save you from injury and all of these other things instead of, you know, talking about the drill itself. So that to me was the big was the really big light bulb. Yeah. [inaudible] well I love that. So, so now fast forward to here a little bit into entrepreneurship. So you know, brain builders, we have these phases, you know, phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four and our phase four section we call eight figure entrepreneurs. RV: (09:49) So it’s really about, yeah, phase one is brand identification and figuring out what your brand is all about. Phase two is creating all the assets. Phase three is optimizing and starting to run paid traffic and looking at data, et cetera. And then phase four is really scaling that, that, that brand to a real business, which is one of the things that I feel like you’ve done really well, that a lot of [inaudible] have it. And, and I think you’ve also had some failures along the way. So. Mmm. When you think about scaling, what do you think is the, is the, the difference between the personal brands that scale and you’ve done this with different brands, right? And the ones that don’t, which to me, it’s also, it’s not so much that they fail, like a lot of personal brands to me don’t, it’s like they fail and go bankrupt. RV: (10:39) It’s like they just get lost in this sea of noise. They, they can’t ever make it their main thing. They never get totally clear. So what do you think is the difference there going against the grain? Both of my most successful businesses were built on initial ideas or concepts is that when, again, the socially accepted norm. And so with magnetic sponsoring, one of the first headlines that I wrote for Google ads when I was promoting that and headlines on the product was only suckers buy leads. Okay. And if you were in the network marketing industry, you have to ways you build your business, you go to your warm market and then if you burn through that you buy leads. And so for me to come out and say, only soccer’s buy leads, Mmm. Planting a really firm flag in that ground, in that industry, that’s going to be quite controversial. And so my thing was, you’re a sucker if you’re buying leads, when, when you can attract them to you, when you can reposition yourself as the expert and as a value provider instead of running after people, chasing them, twisting their arm, trying to convince them to join your business, RV: (11:53) When instead MD: (11:54) You can provide value first, position yourself as an expert and just have the world’s come to your doorstep. And the challenge with that is that in that industry, things had been done the F the F previous way for 50 years. Oh. Like, yeah, longer. I mean that, that the direct sales industry and the, and the whole thing relied upon, do follow the follow the plan, like follow the system, do not buck the system. So I came out and I said there was no such thing as duplication and I, and I said, you’re an idiot if you go after your warm market. Like you want to go after people who are buying opportunities, you want to go after people and sponsor people who have already built a successful network marketing business. That’s how you would treat this as a real company. You’re not going to go after. Yeah. You know you know, vegans and try to sell a mistake and convince them that steak’s healthy for them, which is what a network marketer would typically do, you know, for three hours until the person capitulated or left. MD: (12:50) And so all of those were sacred cows, if you will, in Seth Goden words. Yeah. That I put a stake through and that’s what put me on the map. Robert Kiyosaki did this as well with real estate. That’s what put him on the map. Okay. When it came to my second business the elevation group, I launched that after the crash of 2008 I was fascinated by investing. I just watched everybody get burned in that crash and I was like, okay, I don’t know what to do with my money. I’m certainly not going to go do that and I’m not going to listen to those people, but what do I do? And so I was like, let me go interview and learn from successful entrepreneurs who’ve made tens, hundreds of millions of dollars that have also turned that into real wealth and passive income and who got rich during the last economic crashes. MD: (13:37) I’m going to go learn from those people, listen to those people. So that was the core concept behind that business. The tagline was learn how to invest like the rich, and this is after the crash of Oh eight. So you have to imagine where people’s heads, where they’d just gotten burned. They don’t know who to trust anymore. And for me, I went out and I bought and studied every existing financial education product out there. The Motley fools, the Agoras, the Stansberry research is all of them. And I basically said, I’m going to do the exact opposite of what they’re doing. So they’re all focused on stocks and they’re all in a written newsletter and they’re all using these technical, technical terms. I’m not going to talk about stocks at all. It’s not going to be a written those later. It’s all going to be in video and it’s all going to be using language that your next door neighbor would understand. So, so before you go on, are you going against the grain just because you think that’s a great way to attract a lot of attention or are you going against the grain because you feel like there is some real secret truth to doing that, that you know, if everyone’s going one direction, then there, there has to be an opportunity over here, both both of those businesses were inspired by my own personal problems that I could find a solution RV: (14:52) To [inaudible]. And so I’m like, Hey, the stuff that’s out here is not working. At least for me, I need to figure out a way to make this work for me. And that in involves some new ideas and new approaches that were counter intuitive to what you know, currently existed at the same time. Yeah. You have to think of ways to break through the noise and the best way to break through the noise is to go against what is typically held as a commonly held belief or what’s always been talked about as a given and go against that. And again, Kiyosaki’s just such a great, a great way to do that. Yeah, his friend [inaudible] and my buddy Tom real ride who does his tax stuff [inaudible] his book is tax free wealth. It’s a pretty interesting concept. Tim Ferriss, same thing. Put him on the map before our work week. RV: (15:47) Yeah. That goes against the grain, right? So these are all examples of challenging the conventionally held wisdom and by doing so, people just plant themselves on the map. To me that’s the ultimate nuclear bomb, if you will, if you want to build your personal brand is if you can find that counter intuitive approach at the right time. It’s a guaranteed just rocket ship. Yeah. It’s interesting. I remember with my Ted talk, you know everyone had been talking about managing time, managing time, managing time and [inaudible] we said, Hey, there’s a way to multiply time, which is to spend time on things today that create more time tomorrow. Yeah, it did play well. I mean it has done, it’s done really well. I mean the talk went viral, the book w we call them [inaudible] procrastinate on purpose, which unfortunately we should have called it multiply your time. RV: (16:36) But what came out at the time about the same time as my book was essential ism and the one thing and those books have done much better than procrastinating on purpose cause they’re even like a degree, like [inaudible]. I feel like multiplying time was more accelerating the direction people were going in versus the one thing in essential as, I’m like Wenthe opposite direction. They went the opposite direction. It wasn’t like accelerating productivity at the highest level. It was like do the opposite. Yeah, yeah. We’ll figure out condo. Right? Yeah. So Marie condo though the, the life changing magic of, of tidying up, tidying up [inaudible] so is that your stuff? Yeah. Yeah. You know, stop buying stuff, which is American typical American cheeseburger. It’s the opposite of that. And, and, and, and just to I, I’m not necessarily, I’m not, I’m not a I, I’ve, I don’t not like Robert Kiyosaki, but I don’t know his stuff that well. RV: (17:36) You know, I’ve read rich dad, poor dad, but I think that’s it. I have read tax free wealth interesting enough. And I thought in that book was really, really interesting. You’re saying he redefined the real estate space, how his, yeah, his original came out and he was, he was the first person to say, your house is not an asset. It’s a liability. Ah, yes. For sure. Yeah. Okay. That just got him vilified on every economic news show you could imagine, but it’s what put him on the map and it’s true. So for him to come out and challenge that status quo is what built his career. Yeah. Yeah. So that specific kind of concept. Yeah. That’s cause it doesn’t put cash in your pocket. It takes cash out of your pocket. So all right. I’m following you. I’m following you. So I’m interested in some of the investing stuff given the state of the world, but both before we go down that, that path, cause I also see an interesting connection between investing in entrepreneurship. RV: (18:29) I wanted to talk to you about reach a little bit for a second because one of the things that I, when I S as a, as someone who doesn’t know you all that well look back at your career, I go ah, you were ahead of the curve on copywriting and on web based business and then you were ahead of the curve on video courses and you were like one of the first, you have huge video courses and membership sites and then you are one of the early podcasters like [inaudible] some way you have been able to kind of like always be out there in the front. [inaudible] [inaudible] RV: (19:06) One of the things that has happened to me which I can’t go into too much, but I’m in a situation where I’m having to rebuild all of my social media from scratch, which is what a lot of our clients are doing. And I am going, wow, it is really different and much harder today because like when I did, when I did the first go round. So what are some of the things that you’re kind of looking at or seeing about the, I’m in the same boat. I’m in the same boat and that’s a big priority for me. But I let my, well, one, I’m an introvert so I’ve never really enjoyed social media or made that a priority for me too. I’ve always relied 100% on paid advertising to build all of my companies. Interesting. And I like that because I can control it and I can scale it. RV: (19:54) And I don’t, you know, I’m not at the mercy of Facebook or Google’s algorithms and I’ve always looked at building up the social media. If you are, in some ways whoever spends the most gets the most traffic. So that’s a simple, a very simple algorithm, but at least I have like there’s, I know, yeah, I made facetious cause it’s, it’s like you totally control the algorithm by how much money you’re putting in the machine. Yes. And so I’ve always avoided it, but now, now I don’t think you can’t avoid it anymore. I think you have to be on there. So now the question is, okay, how do you strategically grow it as quickly as possible? And so for me, this year I’m focused on, you know, really putting out a consistent, I think consistency is very important. A consistent amount of content on a weekly basis. My goal is three, you know, let’s just say 10 minute training videos a week with the pod, the podcast being MD: (20:48) At least one of those doing the podcast and everything else in video moving forward. Just finished a YouTube studio in the house and the house across from me last night. Oh. And then it’s just systematic distribution, right? So how do we take that 10 minute video, splice it up for all of the different platforms, format it, but the footers, the captions, the headlines, everything else, and just really systematize that process and just turn it into a machine. And luckily there’s a ton of great resources and companies and agencies that’ll do that for you quite easily. So that’s taken care of. And then at that point, I think it’s just a matter of time when you combine that with paid advertising and you can use retargeting to put a conversion based advertisement or offer in front of the people who are consuming your consuming your organic content, will then your cost to acquire that customer comes down dramatically. MD: (21:41) 80, 90%, versus going super wide with a broad message to a very broad audience. And so that’s the approach that I’m taking moving forward this year. And in many ways it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s catching back up to, you know, what’s been working. I’ve, I’ve been kind of working on the hydroponic system and some other big ventures over the last three to four years. So I’ve really been out of the spotlight for the past couple of years and, and now my goal this year is to kind of reestablish myself in the, in this space, if you will. So RV: (22:14) [Inaudible] yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. For those of you listening so that, you know, we, we have a thing called a content diamond, which is our process for taking that content repurposing basically across all the platforms from that one video. And I think but one of the things that I think you do also Mike, that is rare because we know a lot of the big influencers and social influencers and a lot of them have, they have, they caught the early wave of organic reach. Hmm. But they don’t do the paid stuff. And over time it’s like you get in the habit of going, yeah, I don’t want to learn to do paid if I can’t do for free. But to what you’re saying, it’s like the, the, the key to predictable revenue is [inaudible] the paid version. So you’re marrying the two with basically like retargeting. So you’re just going to build custom audiences with free content and then come back and retarget those people on. Are you going to, and are you, are you focused more on like Facebook, Instagram or more like Google, YouTube or a little bit of both? MD: (23:19) Both. Yeah. Previously we’ve been Facebook and Instagram only for like the last seven years, eight years. But now we’re going to move to Google and YouTube cause Facebook just got too expensive two years ago. Like our cost to acquire a customer to use ago like tripled. And so, you know, a $300, we used to sell a $1,500 course so it would cost us three to $400 to acquire a customer. And then all the way it’s shot up to a thousand. MD: (23:42) And so the, the retargeting of the organic audience has been the solution to that problem, right? But at your organic content and build rapport, build a relationship. And the way I look at it is it takes about an hour. You have to spend about an hour with someone in any capacity. That can be a podcast, a video, Instagram feed, whatever it may be for them to feel safe enough to buy, I spend about a thousand dollars with you. So we often see that on a webinar. If I have a 90 minute webinar, I know that I can sell a $1,500 product. If I have a two hour webinar, I know I can sell a $2,000 product. And so let’s just equate an hour of quality time and content with an $1,000 purchase. Mmm. And so if you’re doing that 10 minutes at a time through YouTube videos, by the time you, you’re ready to make that offer, they know you, they like you, they trust you, they’re ready to buy. And so the sales pitch doesn’t require an hour and a half long webinar anymore. It just requires a 10 to 1520 minute video. Here’s what it is, you know here’s what it’s going to do for you. Here’s how to get it. And so the, the selling becomes much easier, frankly, once you put that process in place. RV: (24:56) Yeah. And that’s that, that, that is awesome. I’ve not thought about it so clearly. I like that. But you know, kind of our standard thing is we’re going to, we’re going to have everyone set up for each product one video funnel, which is going to be basically three short videos and then a sales video, right? So you add that time up, that’s going to be somewhere around 80 60 to 80 minutes or one long video webinar funnel, 60 to 90 minutes. And it’s like, you know, $2,000 would be the high end, but typically it’s like around a thousand dollars. But it’s interesting to think about breaking that up into 10 minutes chunks on social for an impression, which you could buy for much cheaper and then drive him. So are you thinking that [inaudible] are you going to focus on building that audience on social first before you move them over or are you going to try to move them directly into a, you know, it’s your environment. So it’s all [inaudible] MD: (25:51) Both. So the way that we’re going to do it is the cheapest paid to traffic you can get today is let’s just say Facebook and Instagram is views and engagement. So I’m going to set my ad, you know, campaigns to convert for views and engagement and I just want my content consumed. So we just put a brand new video out this week that’s kind of seven lessons that I’ve learned after going through economic crises like this, right? And so it’s about a 25 minute long video. It’s just value. There’s no, there’s nothing for sale in it. And I want that video consumed by as many people as possible. So we’re going to pay to get people to watch that video on Facebook and Instagram. Anybody who watches a certain amount of that video, let’s just say you know, half of it, 30% of that, and we’ll go and retarget with another content video. And then anybody who watches that will great. Now we’re going to put a call action ad that’s going to RV: (26:44) Send them to a capture page and a sales pitch. And so the only people who will ever see our offers are the ones who have gone through at least one or two levels of engagement, which also helps protect your offer from being, you know, from burning out, which is one of the biggest challenges that I’ve experienced or lessons learned that I’ve experienced. Cause I’ve had offers that have gone, let’s just say global, but offers that or I’m everywhere all over the internet and you know, we’re doing eight figures a year in sales of one single product and I’m being recognized everywhere I go. The more successful your offer is, the faster you’re going to burn through that target audience and then your cost to acquire goes up and eventually it’s not going to be profitable anymore. And I would say if your offer offers super, super just, it’s just taken off like a rocket. RV: (27:38) It’s shelf life is about 24 months at the most. And so, unfortunately a lot of people in the education space are having to reinvent and find a new offer to replace that every two years. And a lot of times you can’t find you want or come up with one that’s going to be just as successful as that lightning in a bottle offer that you previously had and then you’re in real trouble. And so a way to get around that is to just show content at the top. If I’m releasing three videos a week, I’ve got three brand new ads and brand new pieces of content that are, I’ve never been seen before to show my audience and to continue to build it. And then the product that I do have, I’m only showing it to the people who are really engaged. It’s never going to burn it through the marketplace. RV: (28:22) And so it really becomes a, a much longer shelf life at that point, which is you know, critical to building a business. I love it. That’s, I mean we’re spending more of our budget every month on just that top part of the funnel. Just getting the content out there and less on a percentage on a percentage basis must much less actually showing the offer to the people cause it’s a more, a more qualified group. One thing to share with everybody. You, you may already know this Mike, but we spent a couple thousand dollars boosting a video, a couple of series of videos on Facebook to build this audience. And I can’t remember if it was auto placement or I think it’s called extended network where we, we we ran it, the video to the extended network. I don’t think it’s auto-placement I think there’s something else. RV: (29:14) But anywheres it’s somewhere in were you in, where did the ad set where you’re determining who you’re going to show it to and it was just like a checkbox. It was like, okay, let’s do that. And it, it screwed up the whole strategy because on the extended network of Facebook, they can’t actually track how long people watch and so they don’t allow you to retarget that audience based on other percentage video views like you’re talking about. And I was just like, I mean it was literally like, it was basically like we took $2,000 and threw it away because then at that point it was just vanity views. We didn’t actually build the audience, which is the whole point is warm up an audience, basically build an audience of people to show an ad to. And anyways, that was a painful lesson. Just, you know, forever isn’t it? RV: (30:02) Yup. It’s crazy how one thing like that can be, can cost you a couple grand. Well at least it was only two grand and not 20. Right. You know? Yes. It’s all I found it and didn’t say, Oh my God, nothing’s working anymore and pivoted some way. You know, and then you don’t really know. Yeah. Why? Because, well, and, and the way we found it was, cause we were, we were, we were showing ads that were supposed to be to that audience and the cost for the per acquisition to that audience was, was showing less. It was, it was costing more money to convert them dent to convert a cold person. And it was like, something doesn’t make sense here. Yep. So anyways in the spirit of opportunity and challenging times and stuff, I, I don’t want to let you go without stealing some free investment advice for you. RV: (30:50) Given the state of the world as, as we’re recording this, you know, Corona virus is, is out there. I know you know a lot about investing [inaudible] Mmm. I’m interested to hear what you kind of think about investing, but the part that I really wanted to highlight is why do you, what do you think investing has to do with entrepreneurship in general? Like why is investing a skill? Because investing, if you’re a big company, you have a finance department and they’re investing in, they’re doing that stuff. But if you’re a small company, it’s like, I’m busy running my business all day. Why do I need to also be learning about investing and what do I need to be learning about investing in? So that [inaudible] is something, again, you seem to have always Ben passionate about and had an eye on and an affinity for. Yeah, he, I mean the, the, the affinity for that was you know, it was making millions of dollars in my late twenties and I was buying cars and houses and toys with it and frankly flushing it down the toilet. RV: (31:47) And I realized by the time I had 30, I was like, okay, I need to figure this out. And so yeah you know, it was a, it was kind of hitting that new chapter in life that really inspired me to to go down that rabbit hole. But yeah. There’s a couple of valuable lessons that I’ve learned and that is that the, the concepts of making money and keeping money or completely the opposite. Hmm. Personality traits that are going to allow you as an entrepreneur to make a bunch of money, are they complete? Are they, are the same personality traits that will have you blow all of that money when you try to invest it? Because we typically have high tolerance for risk. Entrepreneurs are very comfortable with risk and so we’re like, Oh, okay, I’ll put all those chips in there and yeah, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go make more money. Yeah. MD: (32:38) That work after a while. You know, I’ve, I’ve gone through that phase and it’s not very fine. And so for me, investing when it comes to entrepreneurs is MD: (32:49) Really learning about money management and becoming aware of your own personal personality traits and your emotions and how you’re wired to handle money. You know, for me, I noticed whenever I had a ton of money in the bank, I would immediately go find something to do with it. I’d invent a new product, I’d start a new company, I would invest it in a new and new place, but I would always deploy it somewhere. Sometimes that worked out a lot of times that didn’t. And so for me it’s been more of a journey or more of a, an emotional lesson than, than a financial lesson. Mmm. Yeah. So I think, I think that’s one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned. Profit first, Mike McCalley was, his book is fantastic when it comes to this. This is a problem Ryan Deiss has talked about. Mike talks about, I talk about, and so it’s a very common issue with people with our personality types as far as investing goes. Now RV: (33:47) It’s one of the absolute, so hold, hold, hold on, hold on. On that part. So before you transitioned into that one, I think that’s super fascinating, but that sounds like a great book that’s in there. Sorta like the emotional, like almost like the person, you know, how there’s like the five love languages and you have like disc and stuff. It’d be like what are the personality types of money, you know, would be something like I’m seeing a quadrant and something that could be super duper powerful. The emotion Ambler. Yeah. Like personnel assessment and quiz and you know, $100 million business right there if you need it, if you need any other ideas. I think that’s really a cool concept. But Mmm. The other thing that I was going to say here is I just was curious. Okay. So it’s interesting. I’m a Dave Ramsey, not like Dave Ramsey. I came up with Dame JMZ also follow grant Cardone and I, I see them on like two ends of the, on the of the spectrum, right? Like absolutely no debt, you know, paid off home mortgage. Right. And then grant Cardone, like mortgage is the worst. You know, owning a house is the dumbest thing you could ever do. Have all of your money deployed rent where you live? RV: (35:05) Do you follow in the middle or do you like MD: (35:08) To understand why each of them are saying what they’re saying? And grant is saying that because that’s what his truth is and what works for him. So he’s trying to be an integrity and tell people, Hey, this is what works. Same thing with Kiyosaki. He says the same stuff. And then you’ve got Dave who probably understands that nine out of 10 people did not have the financial intelligence or emotional intelligence EEQ RV: (35:38) Okay to make investments like that and they will just end up losing everything. So Dave is like, no, we’re going to keep people out of trouble and just give them security and go that path. And so I see the benefits of both and it really just depends on on the audience member and which one they’re attracted to and what their education level is to what you were saying about emotion. But Dave Ramsey even says that like, I know it would make more sense to pay off your highest interest credit card first, mathematically or logically. The problem is we’re not logical, we’re emotional, right? And so we don’t pay off the highest interest rate. We pay off the lowest balance first so that we get momentum and feel like we’re winning. Which is, you know, in align with what you’re saying. So okay, well that’s just interesting. RV: (36:26) So, yeah. So before, before I let you run off, I’ve kept you, kept you way too long here, but the right now, you know, Corona virus at the time of this recording is like everywhere on the news, you know, in the house and, and, and all that sort of stuff. And do you know, do you have kind of any general sort of thoughts towards investing? Is it, is it one of those things where it’s like, you know, what, what is, what do you, what do you think about that? Yeah. entrepreneurs specifically. Well, I mean, I mean, I would say this to anyone. You know, be greedy when people are fearful. Okay. You know, I mean that’s, that’s it. And so for me, I have like been, I’ve been a big investor in crypto since 2013 I bought Bitcoin when it was $70. RV: (37:15) Right? So that’s a really high risk category. You know, it’s very speculative, but I put a small amount of money in that and every time there’s a huge dip in crypto, I buy more. Right? When it dropped down to $3,000 last year after hitting 20 K, I was telling my audience, Hey, if you’re in a crypto, he might want to buy some right now. I’m buying some right now. And then it went up to 12 grand again. Right? And so whether you’re in the stock market or real estate or whatever, we’re going to see and any and every kind of asset on sale now. And I think in that sales going to get even better here in the coming months. So this is the time to buy, whether it’s again, your, your, your favorite flavor of investment. If it’s on sale, buy it when it’s on sale. RV: (38:04) This will go away, this will pass. At some point, things will go back to normal there throwing literally trillions of dollars into the economy right now just like they did after Oh eight. And all that’s going to do is in flight. The stock market. Yeah. And everything else you know, it, the, the dollars devalued. So that’s my biggest piece of advice is get greedy when people are scared and people are scared right now. It’s time to get greedy. Yeah. It’s an interesting, interesting crazy times. Hopefully you can tell the, the both, the width, the breadth of Mike Dillard’s expertise here and experience as an entrepreneur from everything from the, the nitty gritty of copywriting and digital marketing to the high level concepts of investing and managing a business. That’s why we, we had them on Mike, where do you want people to go if they want to follow you connect up with you and see what you’re doing. RV: (38:55) You know, the best thing that I’d recommend right now is just Mike, excuse me, Mike Dillard to help.com and we threw this site up literally this morning and it’s just a little survey where people can go specifically during this time and answer a few questions so I know where you’re at and what your problems are, what you need help with, and then we’ll have some specific resources based on exactly where you’re at, whether it’s sales are going down because of the virus deal or [inaudible] you know, general preparedness or security, whatever it may be. We’ve got some great resources for everybody. So that would be it. Yeah. And not to mention a great course on, on actual physical preparedness that you did with a Navy seal, which is [inaudible] apropos timing for that. So we’ll put a link to Mike Dillard, health.com. Y’all can check that out. Mike, thanks for encouragement, man. RV: (39:42) You’re encouraging literally millions of entrepreneurs as you have, you know, did done all of these experiments and adventures in and out of different types of business models. And it’s, it’s like I’ve had so many people that are just like longtime friends come to me like, Hey man, I heard you on Dillard’s podcast. That’s pretty cool. And what was impressive to me was like the reverence in which they spoke about you as if they had known you and they had followed you for a long time and that they trusted you. And you know, that’s not the kind of thing that you build with an ad overnight. That’s the kind of thing that you build with a reputation over years. So that’s great to hear. Appreciate it man. And we wish you all the best. Thank you brother. Thanks for having me.
Ep 61: Deeper Audience Engagement through Unscripted Keynotes with Connie Podesta | Recap Episode
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder. Welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Connie Podesta is a hoot. I said she’s a hoot. Aj said that I was a hoot. I’m not sure what that is all about, but I said, isn’t, isn’t Connie a hoot? And AJ said you’re a hoot…because she was making fun of me. Why don’t you tell them why you were making fun of me? AJV: (00:23) Because Rory starts out this entire interview with this wonderful build up of Connie and then she’s awesome indeed, but then says, well, you know, here’s how you know she’s really awesome as that I’m willing to refer her to my clients. But here’s why that’s a big deal. Because my clients have come to be accustomed to a certain level of performance that’s alluring to his magical performance back to his clients have become accustomed to his incredible delivery. And RV: (00:58) Now some of that you added some of that you added. I’m not saying, I’m not saying that I didn’t think that that was true, but I didn’t say that. I’m not necessarily saying it now either. Well, I am. I’m awesome because, and Connie is too. AJV: (01:12) Do you do, I didn’t think it was hilarious that as you’re introducing someone else, you’re like, well, you know, they’re awesome because I’m awesome. Right? RV: (01:20) I’m also extremely humble as is Connie. But here’s what I, here’s what I, here’s what I love about, there’s so many things I love about Kanye. I talk about it in the interview, but when I think of myself as a speaker and her, I couldn’t think of our style, like our being more different, AJV: (01:40) Basically everything she said denote story as completely answered. RV: (01:46) Yeah. Like the most boring speaker. I’m irrelevant. I’m outdated now. She does speak more than I do like, so she speaks a ton. It’s actually a really good interview. Yeah. And I think, you know, here’s the thing that she really inspired me in this interview particular is just this, this concept of planned spontaneity. I think I have, I have a hard time, you know, like my logical brain is just freaking out with all the stuff she’s talking about, about just don’t have a plan and like just, yeah, go off the cuff and interview everybody. And I’m like, what are you insane? But Mmm, really, I actually think it’s brilliant. What she’s actually doing is she has set up like a giant, choose your own adventure and she, she knows where all the paths are going to lead. But [inaudible] it appears to the audience. And it is, I mean it’s, it’s very engaging and spontaneous, but she’s not up there just winging it with no plan. It’s what comedians called planned spontaneity. It’s, it’s allowing for the appearance of spontaneity and it is spontaneous, but it’s, it’s sort of like there’s this plan that you have, AJV: (02:53) But also I think one of the things that you’ll learn if you go listen to the full episode is that she is not relying on some huge adventurous, a story that she had. Right. And you guys talk a lot about this and one of the things that I really loved in the beginning of this interview is that you both called attention to that. Both of you don’t necessarily have that incredible story in terms of the framework of how you teach, right? Didn’t climb Mount Everest, you didn’t lay right. RV: (03:20) Like neither of us are actually that exception, AJV: (03:24) Do these things. And so I think what I really love is that both of you are great examples of truly successful speakers without these truly unique stories. Now of course you have unique stories, but it’s not the basis of your entire book ability as a speaker. And I think that’s really inspiring for everyone out there, including myself, is that you don’t have to go climb the seven top peaks in the world to be a incredibly successful speaker with high fees and book calendars. And I loved that what Connie talked about in the very beginning and she said that her sales pitch, which I think this is also really [good], RV: (04:02) She also talks to all the people herself. Yeah. But that, Whoa, Whoa, sorry, sorry. She says maintain control of the mix so that if they ever talk, you take the mic back AJV: (04:15) Listening to her advice. And but I think it’s really good because she said, when I’m talking to meeting planners or whoever’s booking the speakers, I go, well, do you want your entire meeting to be about the speaker or to be about your audience? Boom. Because I don’t make it about me. I make it about you. And I make it about them. And it’s like, all right, let’s, you know, turn the switch. Right. I think that’s really amazing in terms of like, just a quick change, a perspective, how so many people think, well what’s my story? What’s my uniqueness? And she goes, cares about you. Nobody cares about your story. Right. It’s what about the audience? RV: (04:53) Yeah. And I would say her and I are very aligned on that point, which was kind of my second big takeaway was that even though it’s interesting cause it’s like we’re very different from most, not most speakers, from a lot of speakers and that we don’t have like this amazing life story. But then we’re, Oh, thank you sweetheart. But then we’re, we’re very different in our delivery style and our preparation method. But then we’re also very aligned philosophically on the unmaking, the audience, the hero. And she said, you know, the goal is not to make yourself look good. The goal is to make the audience look good and feel good and feel inspired. And I, I couldn’t echo that that more. And I think that that is inherently one of the biggest things that speakers struggle with. And one of the things that personal brands struggle with. RV: (05:40) I know, because this was also me. There’s you, there’s a level of ego that is involved. And when you start, it’s like it’s all about you and I, you gotta, you gotta sort of get past that. In fact, it applies this this last week I was, I was doing a thing for Lewis Howes for his inner members and we were doing like a copywriting training for them. And I [inaudible] I said this thing that I’d never really said and people really latched onto it, which is that copywriting is not about telling people what you do. It’s about telling people what you can do for them. And that’s the same shift as a speaker. It’s like, it’s not about you or, or what you’ve done, it’s about what you’ve learned and how that can help them. And [inaudible] especially if you don’t have some incredibly compelling personal story, you gotta make it all about the audience and it’s just, you gotta be there in service and [inaudible] AJV: (06:31) So we share that perspective. Yeah. RV: (06:33) Hold on. I’m not done yet. It’s still my turn. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now AJV: (06:37) Fast off is complete. Well I think the second thing that really hit me as that she talks about how she doesn’t rely on this story and she really wings it and it’s like, yeah, I mean kind of. She does that kind of, she doesn’t really, and I think what she really relies on, what she’d give confidence to everyone who is listening to this episode is that what she really is relying on is her expertise and her knowledge and that is what you got to own. It’s like the reason she feels comfortable we need to get [inaudible] is because she has an idea of exactly what they’re going to say. I guess she’s done this enough times. If she’s seen this, she’s seen this enough times to know there’s only one or two or three outcomes from this question, so I know exactly how it’s going to go. AJV: (07:16) So it’s that scripted non-scripted approach in terms of like if you’ve done something enough and you’ve done enough research and you have enough personal results and experiences, you know kind of where it’s going, which allows you to be up on stage feeling like you’re winging it, which in turn is really just relying on the years and years of your personal experience and your personal results, which is why that’s so important from the beginning. That’s what we talk about in the foundation of building your personal brand and our phase one finding your brand DNA is, you know, what do you have to hang your head on? What do you have research in? What do you have results in? Where is your experience? Where’s your expertise in your designated lane? And that’s what she’s saying. She goes, you know, she talks about how she doesn’t really have a plan and to some degrees because she doesn’t need one because she has all of this years, years and years of experience, firsthand experience to know exactly how this is going to play out. There’s no question she knows where it’s going to go. And that’s allows for this feeling of on the fly, even though it’s RV: (08:22) Pretty expected. You know, as you were talking, it was making me think about how when you see, you know, if you watch a live, one of the late night shows, you know, Jimmy Fallon or whatever, Jimmy, you know, whatever the late night show, Jimmy Fallon is the best one. And but there is the comedians that’ll come on there and they’re so funny. So funny, so funny. And you go, gosh, they’re so funny. They’re coming up with jokes on the spot and it’s like, no, they have been on stage so many times. They have all these little bits and pieces and they’re just as the, as the interviewer asks them a question, they pull on something that they’ve done before, they, they weave together this kind of beautiful, seemingly spontaneous thing. But it’s, it’s actually very well, well rehearsed. So anyways, the last one for me, the, the, the last kind of point, which I think was sort of the obvious point of what she was talking about was asking myself, how can I create more interaction with the audience? RV: (09:16) Yeah. It’s not, should I, it’s not, do I do interaction or not? Like for me, I’m a slides guy. I’m not going to be abandoning all my slides and signature stories. Like I’m just not going to do it. But, but I, I also, it was so compelling to say, okay, how could I create more interaction? And then even deeper than that, like I don’t think that her point was so much, Hey, you should do interaction. I think what she was saying is she’s like, that’s who she is and she allowed herself to be who she is and an actress and an a teacher and on the fly. And she is funny. And so she, she said, I’m willing to leave the slides behind so that I can be who I am. And so I think, you know, there’s that really important permission and principle and power to say be who you are and then you know, at the same time like I’m a slides guy, I’m a logic guy, I’m like efficient. RV: (10:11) I’m going, Hey how many points? That’s who I am and I’m also going, what could I learn? What could I take away from this to make it more fun? Even though I’ll probably never be the guy up there with no, no plan and no, no slides because that’s being who you are, right? Yeah. That’s who I am. But I think some people listening, like you might be listening going, gosh I didn’t even know you could do this and not have slides. And that’s so empowering, right? Cause slides are free in pain. They also, they also create technical challenges and you know, glitches and things that do happen. But all of us go on, what can we do that’s more fun and how do we also not rely on slides and the plan, but go, let’s rely like what you were saying on the depth of our expertise. Let’s sit in the comfort of what we really know, not just the mechanics of a manufactured and rehearsed presentation to where it’s the same rote thing over and over time. Yeah. AJV: (11:09) And that’s kind of similar to my third and final point. And I really love the example that she gave ran. She talks about how Hmm her, her desire and her need for having audience interaction really came from her years as a teacher and a counselor. And it just hit me in the moment of like, yeah, imagine just for a second that you were a high school teacher for behaviorally challenged inner city kids in Chicago. Just for a second, pretend that’s your audience. Imagine how a slide deck would go. RV: (11:44) Okay. AJV: (11:44) Imagine how a 60 minute lecture would go. And the point is it wouldn’t. And so she said, from that experience I realized the depth and that came from audience interaction because I was in front of an audience every single day for years and years of people who didn’t want to be there. And let’s just be honest, many of your audiences didn’t select to be there. They were told to be there. They were mandated to RV: (12:09) Depending, I mean if you’re in the corporate for sure. I mean if you’re more entrepreneur, it’s a little bit different, but yeah, AJV: (12:14) Right. At some point you’re going to have someone in your audience who was like, how long can I check Facebook before someone notices? All right, this is a little bit of reality and I think what’s interesting is she said, that’s where I’m going to start as F as if I didn’t have an engaged audience, as if I had an audience who wasn’t going to pay attention and how can I change that to enforce that they are paying attention and they are engaged and they do leave with something. And I just love that approach. And that doesn’t mean your whole thing has to be around interaction, but it’s more positioning yourself. It’s not around just your information, it’s how do you get your information and across the way that people will actually use it. And it’s, for me, it’s like I tell her, wear this all the time. I’m not an audio learner. I have to see it and do it in order to learn it. And I have, I would say borderline photographic memory. And it’s like, but if I don’t see it, I don’t do well. So I was actually one of those kids that I never really went to class and high school or college. Actually. RV: (13:16) Hold on, let’s have an honest confession here. How did you become the CEO of brand builders group? Tell us, tell us what makes you qualified. AJ Vaden, AJV: (13:27) That’s for sure. But the point is is I didn’t learn anything from the lectures. If it, if I heard it audio, it just is like, there’s like too many things going on in my brain. So instead of going to class, I knew that if I just read this and did this, like that’s how I learned. Like I realized that very early on. It’s like I went at a pace faster than my classes, right? And I learned that and then I got really bored and for sure wasn’t paying attention. And so I think it’s like, you’ve got to just say, it’s like, all right, there’s all these different learning types out there, right? They’re visual learners, there’s audio learners, there’s application learners, there’s tactical learners. What am I doing to appeal to all of them? Because if you are just a stand and deliver speaker, then you’re missing at least a third, if not a fourth of your audience. Just by the simple way you deliver it, regardless of how good your content is. And I think that’s what I really took away from Connie was how do you engage people? So they don’t just see slides, they actually learn the information enough to actually do something with it. RV: (14:26) Love that. That’s so good. So good. So another great interview. Definitely worth a listen. And w one of the best keynoters on stage really in the world from a mechanics point of view. So go listen to Connie Pedesta hear what she’s got to say. It’s, it’s exciting and, and it’s a hoot. Let’s just say that. So, wow, that’s a hoot. Have a hoot yourself and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 60: Deeper Audience Engagement through Unscripted Keynotes with Connie Podesta
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that@brandbuildersgroupdotcomslashsummitcallbrandbuildersgroup.com slash summit call to talk to you soon on with the show. You are honestly so lucky to be listening to this right now because you’re, you’re about to learn from one of the best keynote speakers in the world. RV: (01:12) And when I say that I really mean it. And here’s how you know, I mean it, Connie Podesta you know, she’s a hall of fame speaker. She’s written seven books. She’s been in the business for a long time, but she is one of the people that I actually refer to my speaking clients. So after someone has had me and you know, there’s a certain expectation level they have of what they’re going to experience it over time. It really becomes hard to find people well who you feel like, man, I really trust someone to come behind and do a great job for my clients. And that is Connie, she will make you laugh, your face off and then kick you in the pants. And you know, she’s spoken for all the, you know, the big companies, Microsoft, Harley Davidson, blue cross, blue shield, Cisco. She’s also something that I very much am not, she is a great MC and that’s something I tried to avoid at all costs. But she is just so anyways, so Connie thank you for making some time here and I’m just so excited to pick your brain a little bit about, you know, kind of the keynote speaking career. CP: (02:26) Yeah. Someone called me a legend a while back and I said, I think most legends are dead, but I’ll take it. I’ll take that. Cause I think I’ve been speaking longer than almost anybody still out in the circuit. So I do have tons of things and I always say that everything I’m going to tell you about speaking is totally true for me. Okay. Doesn’t mean it’s true for everybody else, but I will be very transparent and authentically honest about what over the past 30 years has worked for me to keep me in the game for 30 years. RV: (02:59) Yeah. And that’s what I want to hear. And I, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this. I mean, this is a compliment and not in a, not offensive in any way, but as a speaker, I view myself as pretty like normal, right? Like I didn’t win a Superbowl. I never climbed Mount Everest. I wasn’t a Navy seal. Like I’ve never been a CEO of a fortune. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s like, you know, I have stories of course, like my, you know, I have some parts of my life and things that I shared in that, but, but it’s, I’m not the guy that people go, Oh my gosh, she landed the airplane on the Hudson. I got to hear that story. And I feel like you’re kind of the same way. It’s, it’s really based on like thought leadership expertise, delivery on stage and not so much like your celebrity yet you’re, you’ve gotten to a place where you’re earning fee, you know, you’re in a in a higher, a very high fee range and have had those, a wonderful career. And so I think a lot of people listening, you know, I think that’s inspiring as much as it’s inspiring to hear those people as well. It’s kind of going, if you’re just sort of like a normal person, how do you be, how do you get to your level in this business without, you know, having one of those amazing stories? CP: (04:22) Well, first of all, I think that’s kind of one of the problems is the people for example, that come to me for just coaching. Not I don’t charge for coaching, but just comes to me for mentorship or coaching, you know, they’re always like, Oh, okay, I’m trying to figure out my story. And I go, well just stop. I’ve never had a story in my life. I’ve never done anything unbelievably outstanding, like you said, scaled a mountain or landed the plane. And, and the way I explained it to my clients, because I’m often up against a speaker who has this amazing [inaudible] RV: (04:53) Right in your fee range. CP: (04:56) Yes. And my fee range. And they’re trying to decide between the two. And the way I always explain it to both my mentorees and the people I’m talking to people now in your audience is, there’s two ways to look at this. One is you can have your story and, and it becomes mostly about you. You may kind of connect it to leadership or to sales, but you have done something so traumatic, so adversarial, so impressive that your goal is to tell that story. Hopefully that other people will be motivated. But I always tell my clients when I’m up against someone, well, what’s your end game? Do you want their story or do you want me and I will make it about your audience’s story. I have no story. So because I’m not focused on myself, it’s not about what I did great or horrible and I want them to learn. CP: (05:51) My entire focus is on the audience and my goal is to dig into their story and help them take that and add strategies and tools and all of this thing. And because I’m a psychology person, dig kinda deep inside their brain. So I really teach the speakers that come to me. Forget your story. Forget thinking. You have to have a story. Forget that you need a story. In fact, there’s it don’t even try because there’s people out there with stories far bigger Roy than you and I are ever, ever go. So for us to even try to do that, and instead just say, be honest, I don’t have a story. However, your audience has a story. So you can either get somebody with their own story or you can get someone that makes it about your audience. What would you like RV: (06:43) And would you, is kind of that like the positioning of that too is like, it’s not so much about me, it’s about what can I share that’s really useful for your audience and being direct direct to them. CP: (06:56) I just said yesterday too, where it was me and another type of speaker and I, and they said, well what would you say you’ve done? That’s really amazing. And I said, my goal is never been for an audience to think I’m amazing. My goal’s always been for them to leave that King, they’re amazing. And there’s two different, you know, that’s two different points of view. So do we make it about us or do we make it about the audience? And there’s no right or wrong. It’s great to have people up there that have a story. But I would like the people watching this to realize most of us don’t. But most of us can deliver the tools and strategies about sales or leadership or whatever it is that when they go, their brains are on fire. Like what am I going to do next? CP: (07:44) Where am I going to go? And I love it when my audiences, they leave and someone might say, what was the name of your speaker? And they go, I don’t remember. That’s okay. That’s fine with me because they’re leaving texting and if you ask them what they’re texting, like I’m texting my boss cause we have to have a meeting and I’m texting my wife cause it made me think of this discussion we had and I’m texting one of my other departments because I think I know how to close a deal. I don’t care if they remember my name. Okay. If they want to hire me, they’ll go get it off of Google. I want them brains to be so on fire with what they can do. What they can accomplish, what they can go back and change and behaviors and attitudes and mindsets that I’m irrelevant to them. I that’s fine if I’m irrelevant to them because watching them believe what their text and and calling people on the phone, that’s all the feedback I need. RV: (08:31) Like you’re irrelevant as a person. But it’s the information that has been super duper relevant to them, CP: (08:38) Not the information is so, and I do some things interactive that they will be talking about. I tell my clients, I said I’m going to do some things with them that will create an energy in your audience that will not stop. I mean it is going to change the next two or three days. How they approach every breakout, how they respond, how they react, whether they’re open and more engaged. So I don’t just see me as an opening keynote either. I see. And I tell my clients one of my goals and one of my responsibilities is to hand you back. And I’ve said this, people call me what they say an audience Turner. And what that means is not only am I delivering a presentation, but my endgame is to turn the minds and mindsets of the audience a bit to a place where I can hand my client back. CP: (09:32) And that’s what I say to them. I have the ability to hand you back an audience that’s not the same. And that’s why when people say, you know, we want you for a closing, I go, well what a waste. You know, mostly Chris wanted to be the closing cause they’re thinking of them. Most speakers are kind of thinking of them a lot. So if you’re thinking of yourself and marketing them, being a closing is great because everyone’s leaving with me on their mind. I don’t want to be at a closing, I don’t care about that. I want to be the one that starts it. And I want to be known for handing the client back an audience that will never be the same. So then every breakout, every session, every lunch, every networking opportunity has been altered for the better as a result of hearing me. And if you’re good at doing that, then they aren’t just talking about you. When they leave. They’re talking about you for three days and they’re talking about your material and they’re applying it and the event planners see them talking about it, applying it, using a calling, texting, raising their hand and breakout, asking questions. And by the end of three days, that’s the event planners fees, how valuable and viable all the things you offered were. Then it comes back to you. RV: (10:46) I love that. That’s a great, what a, what a great mindset to approach it. So I, I want to shift to you. You brought this up, the indirect Tivity because that’s another thing, you know, I think that you do so well. It’s like you don’t have the story, but you’re really, really dynamic on stage. And I kinda think of humor as a part of it. But another thing is the, is the interactivity. So can you talk to me about working the audience? Like how important is it to work with the audience? Cause it, it, it terrifies me. I personally have never done a lot of it, but it’s like, you know, you never know what’s going to happen. You kind of lose control of whether or not it’ll be funny or staying on task. But how important do you think it is to like interact with the audience? What do you do with the audience? How do you prepare for it? Like just talk a little bit about your strategy for like the actual interaction with the [inaudible]. CP: (11:48) In terms of how important I think next to being a professional person that does a good job, it is the absolute most important to, to see a speaker that’s not interacting with the audience. Absolutely drives me crazy. And I think it goes back to my background. You know, a lot of speakers started in corporate and training and HR and all that, but I didn’t, I w I taught high school and I taught behavior problem kids. And then I became a therapist because my students were so in trouble and well, to be honest, their parents were needed therapy a lot more than students. So taking this site ICology. And I’ve always been funny, thank goodness. I mean that just I was born with. And so when you look back on my training, you know, whether I had students in my class or I had clients in my therapy office, it could never be about me. CP: (12:42) The students don’t care about me. They don’t care about my life. They don’t care what I did. Amazing. And my clients don’t care if, if you came to me for marriage counseling, you don’t want to sit and hear my amazing signature story about my marriage and how we were down in the depths and went bankrupt. And now look at what all you want me all students want and all clients want in therapy. Is it to be 100% about them? But I also learned in teaching high school that I can’t lecture. I could not stand in front of the class for 45 minutes and write or use overheads or use slides and expect to keep the attention of a young person. So I learned early on that I hardly ever wrote anything or ever used back then overheads or slides. I just, I would talk and then I would go to a student and then I would bring them up in front of the class and then we would tell a story and then we would do a role play. CP: (13:37) And then we would add, I mean, I had to, in order to survive in a high school in South side of Chicago, I had to become full of change and full of variety. And I learned to act out different voices. And if I was teaching English or history, I would, I got them into acting things out. And so when I became a speaker and people started, you know, and I started speaking just to promote my private counseling practice, but I would do the same thing in the beginning days when you’re in the rotary club. I would bring guys up and I do this. And before you know it, everyone’s like, she’s amazing. And now, you know, if someone comes to me for coaching, I take away their slides and I take away their signature store and I take away their level or Mike and give him my hand till those are the three things I do. CP: (14:27) And I tell them, I’m not saying you can’t go back to your lava Leer slide show, you know, stand on stage and talk and don’t involve the audience. I want you to experience what it’s like to not do what all the other millions of speakers do. And it’s amazing worry because once they let go of the mind, the lava Lear, once they let go of all the slides, once they let go of just standing there and and vomiting information and you know, 67 steps, here’s what we do. Once they get into the audience and start bringing people up, it’s like now I say, okay, well now you can go back to your signal. Oh no, no. Oh my God, this is more fun than I’ve ever had in my whole life. And it’s one of the reasons why I don’t do slides because slides means that I’ve already decided months ago what I’m going to teach this audience. CP: (15:22) Okay. Or yesterday or two weeks, I never know in, you’re right. I love the fact that when I bring people on stage, I have no idea what they’re going to say. Most of my great material came from somebody on stage saying something so out of the blue that I never expected forcing me to have to think on my feet and improvise and come back. And then all of a sudden I’d leave and it’s like, that was amazing material. Oh my God, I can’t believe I’ve never done that. But I would never have thought of it had I not been pushed into being outside of my comfort zone and having to react in front of 2000 people. RV: (16:04) So how do you prepare for that? Like do you, and and like how much do you, but like do, you said you literally walk on stage with no plan of what I mean, surely you have a plan of some type. CP: (16:17) I do. I do a thing with personalities. I kind of know how I’m going to start. I kinda know how I’m going to end. Yes, I have a plan, but I’m not seeing what I didn’t like for me. And don’t get me wrong, all of you watching that use PowerPoint, bless your heart. There’s no good or right or wrong and speaking, it’s what works for you. So again, I’m just sharing what works for me. I used to have slides. RV: (16:41) Yeah. Cause I’m a, I’m a PowerPoint guy and I’m sitting here going, this is terrified. Like the idea of doing what you’re talking about to me is absolutely terrifying. I’m going to teach you how to do one role play. And you never ever teach me CP: (16:59) Slides. I had slides and I left them on the plane. This was like 20 years ago. Okay. When we had the slide deck, the carousel, that’s how old I am. And I get in front of 2000 people and here I am. I’m an actress, I’m a comedian, I know all this. But you know, slides were in and everyone had their slide deck and I announced the 2000 people. Oh by the way, I left my slides on the plane and they all just started cheering like yay. And I was like, wow, you know, I’ve never asked myself. I know I thought it was cool to have slides, but I never once asked my audience, what do you think about it? So now I’m getting the feedback and that was an amazing day. I had no slides, I didn’t have structure C PowerPoint to is like being in a cage because now I’m structured, I have to do this slide, next slide and this slide. CP: (17:55) And if you do go off track, God forbid now you have to click through five slides and say, Oh, I don’t have time for those with no slides and PowerPoint. You can be whoever you want. The audience can be whoever they are. And so I’m very in tune to the audience. So if I’m starting a path that I had outlined and planned in my mind and I can see the looks on their face and they’re not quite there yet, I just dig a little deeper. If I try something and I can tell by the looks on her face, they got it, it’s in there. I just skip it and I don’t do another story on it and I move on. So when you have no structure, you are forced to have to look at them and look at their eyes and see the looks on their face and read their interaction and read their feedback and you’re forced to go with the audience, let them direct you rather than you directing them. So it’s very much forces you to give up control. RV: (18:59) So totally. Yeah. And I see that so, so I see that on the macro level. And, and it’s like this fun thing and you’re reading the audience on a micro level. How do you interact with one person in a way that doesn’t become a waste of time for the other 2000 people? Like how do you, CP: (19:21) Because that for me is the structured part. I know exactly through trial and error because I had lots of things happen on stage that I was like, Ooh, I don’t need to ask that question that way. Because then, so now I know and it does come through practice. I know exactly how to word it and a couple of things. Number one, a lot of speakers to do role plays on stage. The audience is the one that looks foolish or silly or dumb or doesn’t, I don’t do that. I’m the one, they audience person is always the one in control. I set it up like that. Like Rory, you’re so and so you’re doing this. I am the employee. I came in late, I have no idea what I’m doing. Let’s take it from here. So that’s a really big key is to never make the audience look stupid or foolish. CP: (20:11) Always have it be me. I’m the one that came late. I ask questions very directly. Like if I were five minutes late and I didn’t even come to you and say anything and you came to my desk, what would you say? So you have to ask questions that are very narrowly focused. And I have people say things that I never expected and then I’ll turn to the audience and say, how many of you would have said that? None. Okay. Where did you get that from? And then it just takes off from there. And then we just, we explore that. But no, you’re right. I never know what anyone’s going to say. They absolutely love the fact that their peers are involved in something and engaged. I go into the audience, that’s why I use the handheld. I use a hand tote. I, when I see a speaker as a lavalier, I’m like, they’re not interacting at all because they can’t be having people talking into their chest. CP: (21:08) When I see a speaker with a lot with a handheld, I’m like, they’re going to do it because you never want to hand the microphone to a client. Never. You keep the microphone. So if I had brought you up on stage and I asked you a question, I would hold out my microphone and you answered, you start to answer in a way. I don’t want, I just take it back and go, Oh, no, no, no, no. I don’t buy that at all. So with a handheld, you keep control of what’s going on. But I would say they they are interacting about 80% of the time. RV: (21:39) So, so you know what questions you’re gonna ask a person, like you kind of know, okay, this is the point I want to talk. Let’s talk about how do we treat people who come to work late as a leadership principle. And so, you know, there’s some principle you want to draw out that’s related, CP: (21:57) But I do, I would bring you up on stage. I would say, Rory, you’re the boss. I’m the employee. I came in 35 minutes late. You have two choices and I always do that if you have kids. Okay? So we’ve learned as parents, right? You don’t say what you want for dinner, you say, or snack, you say, would you like an Apple with peanut butter or would you like we learned early on and that’s what I do with my audience when I’m asking for their feedback. They always have a couple of choices. RV: (22:27) Oh, are you going to finite? A finite list. A finite list of options. Yeah. CP: (22:32) So are you going to come up to me and talk about it or do you think you’re just going to ignore it? Because I’ve never been late before. And then you’ll answer one of those two. I know where to go no matter which of those two you answer. RV: (22:43) Yeah. So this is really a choose your own adventure game. This is really a choose your own adventure game. CP: (22:49) Yes. So I’m always asking questions where there’s a couple of answers. When they answer that, then I ask something else with a couple of answers. So I never know where there’s always a myriad of choices, but I’m in control and that’s what people, but you, if you’re going to interact well it has to appear that you’re not in control, but you are. RV: (23:14) Got it. Okay. So you have like almost like a decision tree. If you were going to be a nerd like me and map this out, it’s like a decision, right? CP: (23:21) Right, yes. RV: (23:23) Huh. But, and, and, and so, you know, and basically, you know, kind of like a Plinko board or something, you know, that all of those routes eventually lead back to the point that you want to make that’s related to your content. And then it’s just, it’s kind of like fun, CP: (23:38) Don’t, if they don’t lead, if they answer so weird or so strange. I just looked at the audience that go, do any of you even get this human being? And they’re like, no. And I, and I’ll say something silly like what? Birth order? And they’ll say a youngest and I go, what? Yeah, that’s what, RV: (23:54) Wow. CP: (23:57) Then mine, I’m also a therapist. I have all this psychology. So I also have the ability that if it’s not going bright to kind of bring it into psychology and why we do what we do. And the other thing it helps, Rory, is I am really funny and you know when you’re ready. RV: (24:13) Yeah. So, so I want CP: (24:16) You can get away with so much. RV: (24:18) I know. I know. And so I want to talk about that for a second. Cause that’s the other thing, right? Like people like me who are not naturally funny. The only way you are funny is when you have written jokes and you’ve got stories and slides that lead right into a, you know, a plan thing. CP: (24:34) Ever told a joke. RV: (24:36) How do you be funny in this like completely abstract like world, this is stressing me out. Speaker 4: (24:43) [Inaudible] CP: (24:43) Well that part is very structured. Like I do a part with personalities and I have this one group stand and I say, you know, let’s give him a hand. This is the absolutely psychologically the hardest working group right now in your company. Well, the people standing, I won’t even go into it, but no one in the audience is gonna think that. And so everyone’s kind of clapping and then I add according to them. RV: (25:15) Yeah. CP: (25:16) And then it’s, then it’s, then they’re all like, Oh yeah, okay, now. And I go, look, you all, you do work hard. But nobody knows it. You don’t tell anyone. You don’t share. If you don’t, you’re not great team players, you know? So if you’re going to work this hard, let’s get a little credit for. So those little one kind of liners like according to them, you know. But again that’s a funny line. According to them, everyone laughs. So it allows me to really get to the point that this group of people don’t share and they don’t open up and they’re sitting there nodding like you’re right, we don’t. But because I’m funny if that was somebody serious and they said, yeah this group thinks they work hard according to them. I mean they don’t do any, if you, if you were serious and no one was laughing, that could be very hurtful. RV: (26:12) [Inaudible] So that’s also kind of planned spontaneity though. Like just from experience and doing this and you kind of know like you have like a series, you have a series of little moments to pull from like this catalog in your head that you can draw on CP: (26:28) When the, when the slides and PowerPoint are gone. And the signature story of how you overcame amazing things is gone to me. And that’s why I do that with my speakers. At first I said, you can go back to it, but to, and this is just me, if you cannot engage an audience and get tons of word of mouth feedback without a signature story and without a PowerPoint presentation, then I think you haven’t truly come to grips with what your message really is. Because those two things, the signature story of what we did and the PowerPoint, which is all graphic and this and that, and those two things, I believe as a therapist is what keeps us from really being authentically who we are in front of an audience of people. If we strip away, that doesn’t mean you can’t come back to it, but I’d like to see my speakers, the old school standing with a handheld Mike, looking at a hundred or a hundred thousand people and having a conversation with them, not to them, with them watching their looks, watching their faces, walking into the audience, being accessible and, and again, for all of you watching, I’m not saying I hope, I hope to be honest, Rory, every other speaker uses slides. CP: (27:58) I hope every other speaker has a signature story. I hope every other speaker never wants to engage her. RV: (28:03) This is part of your uniqueness. CP: (28:07) Yes. I mean my number one selling book is how to stand out from the crowd. When my clients call me now, they start out with, first of all, they’re like, you called me back Connie. Yeah. I don’t have a gatekeeper. Don’t have an agent. Don’t have it. No one. RV: (28:22) Right. Can you talk to clients directly? CP: (28:25) You’re, you’re going to have my cell phone. Yeah. You and I are in a partnership. I’m not having somebody else out there but, but number two, you know, I, I, I want them to know that I want to model to the people in the audience how they want those people to be with their clients. How they want their salespeople to sell, how they want their leaders to lead and manage. So I have to model being accessible and being accountable and being in the present and being authentic. And so I’ve got to show them that it’s possible to strip away all of the stuff and just literally have a thousand people think that your just talking to them and when people call me they’re like are you the one that doesn’t have any slides or PowerPoint? I go, yeah, and they go, okay, you called me back. CP: (29:20) No slides. Our audience of sickest so I’m getting calls where that’s their first question. You are the one without any slides and when no one was using slides I use them because that’s how I could stand out. Now that everybody’s using slides I’ve stopped using because that’s now what makes me stand out and I do think one message, whether it’s slides or comedy or all of you watching have to be your own unique person, but I go to watch other speakers to learn what I should not copy or not do. I don’t go to watch them to learn what to do. And I think if we’re going to stand out now we have to look at what almost all speakers are doing, which means that’s what audiences are used to. And all I use is word of mouth. I’ve never made a cold call. I don’t ask for referrals. I don’t ask for testimonials. I don’t collect business cards. It’s totally word of mouth, which means that I’m left with that. What I do on stage is my only marketing. It’s my only business card. It’s my only cold call. Everything is that moment on stage. So it has to be different than anyone else or no one’s going to remember it. RV: (30:37) [Inaudible] Well that is, I mean that is, it’s very, it’s very incredible. And, and it’s, you know, this has been super interesting to me because I’m trying to go, you know, how do you, how could you duplicate it and, and what’s, you know, the science behind this play in spontaneity and still being able to like, you know, cause it’s planting [inaudible] native cause they’re, they’re still paying you to deliver a lesson and a message and you’ve gotta you’ve gotta make sure you, it’s not just going up there and Jim or John for an hour about nothing. CP: (31:07) It’s a lot of you know, one of the things I say to them and I say the speakers, I can you talk about this, you know, if your goal is to connect with the audience and create this relationship, one-on-one relationship, every time you use a slide, Roy, just think of this. They have to stop that connection with you and they have to turn and look and you have to stop your connection with them and to everyone’s now looking okay and no one can psychologically read and hear at the same time. It’s impossible for a brain to do so. They can’t hear what you’re saying. They’re just reading this slide and then when you want the slide to be done and come back, you have to reestablish that connection. It takes 1520 seconds to do that and so that’s the problem. RV: (31:50) Okay. See there’s one that’s one of your clients calling you right now, Connie, because they’re going to talk to you directly. Okay. CP: (31:57) You know they’re going to say, you said you were accessible and now you didn’t even ask. RV: (32:01) Yeah, CP: (32:02) But, but I do want us to end up with, I want ever, I don’t want you to get any emails like I think slides are great. I have a story. Here’s how I want to end. All I shared with you is what works for me and I want everyone watching. If slides work for you and you love it, use them. If a signature story works for you. Oh my God, lucky you because I don’t have one. So I just want everyone to listen to an alternative option. There are all sorts of ways to be successful in speaking. You and I have very different delivery styles and both of us are very successful and our audience was love, both of the things we do. RV: (32:42) But and you know, I, I think I do think that very much that it’s like I am very much a slide and a plan joke and story after, you know, like everything leads. But the reason for doing that is so that I know that so well that I can depart because what we both have in common, even though it’s like I do a lot of, and I do slides and I do stories well, we both have in common is an absolute focus on the audience, not on ourselves. And, and an absolute focus on creating a meaningful connection in the moment, not just powering through some like preplanned set of information. And I, and I think that you really do that brilliantly. And this has been really empowering for me because you and I’ve never talked about this is to go, I think I could do some things that would be be be more lively and engaging with the audience because knowing like, okay, if I set this up right, there can be some structure to it that still allows for a lot of fun, playfulness CP: (33:45) And, and I met her and you don’t need a mentor and my God, you’re super successful. But yes, if I had someone like you, I would not take away slides. Not that you’re, you’re doing great, you’re doing awesome. Word of mouth, you’re doing amazing. But if you came to me and said, Oh, I would like to just explore. RV: (34:04) Yeah, do something fresh, do something fun. CP: (34:07) And I’ve done it with a lot of speakers they don’t want, they love their slides, they love everything and that’s great. I always hate it when people start emailing me and defending why use it and I go, no one has the fence. I’m, I think every way is amazing. However, if there’s a little piece of you, Roy, that would just like to have a five minutes, just a little something different that you’ve never tried, then that’s where we would start. I would probably take one of your stories or one of the things that you do right now and you’ve always done it a certain way and show you how maybe going into the audience you could do that same content, that same material, but engage somebody in a way that would just be, you know, and just the fact that you might walk off the stage and talk to someone in the audience is a change of pace for you. And I think the more we can all change our pace, the more variety. We, one of the reasons why I use the handle is because I can talk really soft. I can do different voices. I mean the handheld gives you a lot of experiential advantage in terms of voices. RV: (35:17) The voice control. Yeah. The voice control component of a handheld is really, is really wonderful. CP: (35:22) Cause I do role-plays. They, they need to be heard and it’s not good. RV: (35:27) Yeah, for sure. But that holding you, holding you, holding the mic is, that’s a, that’s a super helpful tip is like you, you hold it out to them but still you still have it so that if you need to rein it back in then, CP: (35:42) Well, and I have lots of psychological sentences, things I do on stage when they’re going to end it. So I would say a sentence and not say the last line. And all I do is hold out my mic and the whole audience yells the word back. So the fact that I hold out my boss Mike, they know that’s there and they yell it out and they participate. So that’s participation too. Just having them be engaged. But I don’t do silly stuff. I mean they’re not dancing on stage. That’s one rule is if you’re going to participate with your audience, they have to look cool and professional. Cause I’m, I pull up a lot of leaders and these are their employees and they need to look really smart and really professional and really good. So we can’t ever use our interaction. Well sometimes I make fun of people, but that’s where the comedy, RV: (36:32) Well this is so helpful just to kind of get into the mind of, of how you’ve differentiated yourself and some of the things. And, and I, I really liked the way that you said that there’s a lot of things you’re talking about, which is an alternative view to maybe the things that you always hear about. And I think that’s super refreshing to be like, there’s multiple ways to make it in this business. CP: (36:55) I have so many speakers. No say, yeah, I don’t have a story so I can’t speak. Oh my God needed to do I or well, I just not comfortable with slide PowerPoint. Well that’s fine. I think speakers sometimes think that there’s a certain, RV: (37:10) It has to be a certain, yeah, CP: (37:12) No, here people, well, you have to like, I have never had a niche, every niche niche where there, I’ve never had one. I’ve never gone exclusive. You know, I don’t have an agent. I answer my own phone calls. I don’t Mark it. I mean, these are all things that the average person, you know, you have to stay on your lane. My lane is if they’re breathing and have my feet there, that’s my lane. Okay? RV: (37:34) Okay. CP: (37:35) I, I would never want to be in one industry, but that’s me. So I love taking what all the other people say speaker has to do. And this is my authoritarian rebellion authority issue person. I like listening to what other speakers say, you have to do this and then just do the opposite. I think that is so much fun. And it gets noticed. And thank God that there’s events time. There’s out there that are looking for the speaker that does it totally different. So for all of you listening that have that little rebellious streak, and you don’t want to just do it the way everyone tells you to, I just want you to know that’s okay. It’s fine. And there’s, there’s room for us in this crazy speaker world. RV: (38:23) Well, there it is. My friends. Connie, where do you want people to go? If they want to connect with you? We’ll put a link of course to Connie, pedesta.com and anything else you want CP: (38:31) Connie pedesta.com you’ll have mysel we’ll talk, we’ll become friends. The latte will speak. It’s no big deal. Just anything is fine. RV: (38:43) Well thank you for sharing your heart and I think given us permission to go an alternative route, giving us permission to ditch the things that are rigid, giving us permission to engage with people, focus on them, not ourselves. And just kind of the permission I think to have fun and, and also like as speakers to always be pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone and not just telling everyone else to do that. So CP: (39:07) Hello. I also giving them permission that if rigid is comfortable and doing what they’ve always done feels right to them. That that’s okay too. Okay. RV: (39:19) Do your thing. [inaudible] CP: (39:21) Right. Do your thing. Do you be you? So RV: (39:24) I love it. All right. Thank you so much Connie. Always great to be with you and just awesome to get to get to a little bit of a look inside of your mind. So we appreciate it. And we’ll talk to you later. RV: (39:45) [Inaudible].
Ep 59: Selling to the Government with Jack Siney and GovSpent | Special Edition | Recap Episode
RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, welcome to this special recap edition of this special episode on recession proofing your business and recession-proof revenue. Talking about government sales. This was not on our radar. AJ made it on our radar. And what, what, what did, what did you think this was? This was your call to push our friend Jack up in the queue. AJV: (00:30) I did while I was on the, I was on a call, a client call, he’s one of our clients last week. And when I was going through all these data statistics that he had provided around the importance of [inaudible] gaining government contracts and your business, I just said, yeah, but that’s not really for everyone. And he goes, it most absolutely is. And as soon as he said that, a trigger went off in my mind of how many people are in our audience out there, you who were sitting there going, well, I could never sell to the government. Yeah. And I said, probably all of them, RV: (01:05) Including us. Yah. AJV: (01:07) So we need to have Jack on to demystify this concept that, ah, the government doesn’t buy what I do. I can’t be of service to the government or it takes too long or it’s too complicated and he totally De-mythed, all of that with some really simple resources. I think it’s very timely and it’s, it’s I think just really important because one of the two things that wasn’t necessarily a part of the interview today, but I think that are really pertinent is that in the midst of what the media shares, which is typically always negative there is also [inaudible] a counteracting of positive and good things that are happening that just aren’t as newsworthy. They aren’t as popular or trend worthy for whatever reason. And I think Jack was such a great example of, in the midst, over the last three weeks where so many people are like, WTF am I gonna make payroll? Is my business gonna make it? There are other businesses that are booming. They are exploding. They’re experiencing double, triple 10 times growth in the last three weeks. RV: (02:11) Yeah, well we’re, we’re, we’re having, we’ve had parts of our business struggle and then we’ve had parts of ours literally, boom. AJV: (02:19) So I think, I think one, it’s just that reminder that there is an opportunity in any market to be successful. Bill Gates has this long quote that I keep talking about over the last few days. When he talks about in a time like this, how you view the market is exactly what will happen to your business. If you view it as an opportunity, you’re going to find a way to be opportunistic and gain market share. If you view it as woe is me, I’m, I’m out of business, that’s probably what’s going to happen. And I think Jack’s take on how are you adjusting your skill sets, adjusting your services AJV: (03:00) To be applicable to what one of the biggest vendors out there is looking for either government, RV: (03:06) No, the biggest, the biggest, the biggest, the biggest spender. AJV: (03:10) At least a minimum of $2 trillion out there for spending. What are, what are you doing to give some effect? Like that is why I wanted to have Jacqueline. Yeah, I think that was huge. RV: (03:22) And I mean even just that idea alone, like forget about covid, forget about economy, recession. Just go look, the number one spender in the world is spending a bunch of money. Are you aware of who it is and what they’re doing and what they’re spending the money on? And for the answer, most of us is no, which is insane. Like in any other normal private business usually like you would know who’s spending money and you and you would go there. So I think that that was one of my big takeaways was that there’s always people spending money. RV: (03:53) You’ve got to figure out who and in this case, yeah, Jack is bringing to this some great resources and things around the government. I mean that that website is like literally people trying to spend money and they’re just posting it on the site. AJV: (04:07) I think too. And it’s just knowing what to do and I love that his website govspend literally gives you who the person is, what their title is, what their phone number is, what their email is and their purchase history. Yeah. Everything they’ve bought ever before. RV: (04:24) And you can search, you can search it by those terms, which is super, super powerful. And then one of the things I actually that you said in the interview with Jack as you know, AJ doesn’t do all the interviews. This was one if you didn’t listen to what goes into it because we did the interview together. [inaudible] RV: (04:42) Was how you need to be Abel, you know, particularly if you’re struggling, right? You need to be willing to adapt and modify and pivot a little bit. And we’ve been talking about with our, with our members in our monthly membership, we’ve been talking about getting in the media and one of the things we say is you need to tailor your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle. And that’s how you get in the media is connect what you do to what is happening. Yeah. Well this was really similar. This is like not just for media attention but for survival. Connect your skillsets to what is needed, like to what people desperately need and, and be willing to pivot because there’s, there’s opportunity. So that was, that was my second big takeaway was just watching you kind of process that. Like in that way, I think for anyone who’s out there listening, and that would be our team included, it’s a, we all possess a certain set of skill sets that you may not offer in your business. That doesn’t mean you don’t have those skillsets. Like I know zoom up down all around, been using it for eight, nine years. I mean, it’s a, it’s a crucial part of our daily life and our daily business. There’s no reason I couldn’t start offering a zoom training service if you needed to, RV: (05:55) if you needed to. AJV: (05:58) So like what are all of the Skillsets that you just naturally present has asked that you take for granted now that the whole world is gone, virtual, gone online to do business. And in addition to that, it seemed, I saw a story about these New York city dressmakers that have turned their sewing skills into sewing masks. RV: (06:18) Ah, AJV: (06:18) And there’s just so many great examples. Yeah. Like even here in Nashville, CycleBar apply it to what is needed or just get really creative. And I think that the story that I love here in Nashville where we live is CycleBar is one of the cycle studios in town. Clearly no one is going to class right now or shouldn’t be so here’s what they’ve done. Yeah. They are letting you rent their bikes that usually sit in their studio to deliver them to your house. You rent them, then they’re doing live virtual classes and you’re paying more to rent the bikes then you would for your monthly subscription to come to the studio. So just like there’s so many opportunities to innovate. Maybe they’ll never go back from that. Like this could be their new business, maybe not. But I’m just saying there’s just so much opportunity if we choose to get a little creative. RV: (07:12) Well, and for us, like we, we have done all of our live in person events have gone virtual and, and they are awesome. The feedback has been incredible. AJV: (07:22) We think so! RV: (07:22) Well, our clients think so too because they, they, they’re riding in the feedback and we do think it’s incredible, but it’s like people are saving money on travel and they’re having, you know, a very similar, comparable experience and they’re not having to do the risk. And there’s some, some really amazing things that come out of that. But I think, you know, and the two big thing questions at a high level that you should be asking yourself as one, you know, how can I be digital? Like whatever business you’re in, how can I be more digital? And you know, like this is the time for video courses and video funnels and webinar funnels and blogging and social and like all the things that we talk about on a normal basis to be accelerating because that’s how can I go digital? RV: (08:03) The second question I would be asking is going, how can I deliver service to people in their home? Okay. So like the CycleBar example is, yeah. Is a great example. There’s other examples of people you’re doing home-based kind of delivery services, right? Like Amazon announced 100,000 jobs or something that they need. Why? Because everybody needs stuff delivered to their house, which, and, and, and if this goes on for awhile, like eventually people are gonna need haircuts from their house. They’re going to want Manny Pedis from their house. They’re going to need, like everything is going to be who can deliver, get the service delivered to the home, you know? So in a safe way. AJV: (08:43) And if it’s not in the home, it’s just how are you uniquely transforming your business? You know, I read some stories the other day about a high end restaurants, that our now I’m doing a family meal prep. They would have never done take like these are not takeout places you don’t get take out and you don’t get to go orders from these five star four star restaurants, but now they’re making family style meals where you can come and pick them up curbside. So they’re quickly pivoting to save jobs, to save their businesses at like, clearly no one’s coming in here. That doesn’t mean we can’t pivot what we do still comparable, right? We’re still a food hospitality business. We’re just now doing it and family meal style planning for you to come pick it up. So even if it’s not in the home, it’s [inaudible] coven related, right. What are the things that are necessities of our current time and how are you adjusting your business now and for the future, which is one of the points that we had talked about in the interview, which is RV: (09:43) That would be my final, my final point. Right. I think to me a big part of this interview was just sort of like the creativity and the pivot and the awareness that like for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. So for every challenge there’s an equal and opposite opportunity somewhere. And to bring Jack in as a real life example of someone that’s, you know, one of our clients who’s just all of a sudden like [inaudible] loaded that is out there everywhere. But then practically to directly what he was saying, I mean this was an eyeopener for me about selling to the government, that if you want to create recession-proof revenue, everybody should at least take a look at this, not just for the short term, I mean whatever that website, right. Whatever the website he gave, I think short term, you know, gov, quote dot U S it’s like, go look at that for short term money. Like yeah, money is flying out and available, but longterm is going, the number one spender of all is out. They are. And in down economies they spend more money. It’s like you should have a piece of your business and a piece of your mind, or at least being aware AJV: (10:52) Is somewhat recession proof. RV: (10:54) Yeah. AJV: (10:55) And yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, and perhaps today you don’t really have a segment of your business that applies and perhaps that’s where your creativity needs to come in and play. Mmm. Because that leaves needs to be a consideration. And RV: (11:10) Even if you don’t offer, you know, like that website of all the stuff they’re asking for. Right. You may not offer something, but that’s going to tell you what they need right now. And you go, Oh, I could [inaudible] AJV: (11:20) I could pull that. Yeah. Like another story. I’ve got so many stories. I’ve been, RV: (11:23) You’ve been reading the positive [inaudible] positive pandemic stories. Welcome to the positive pandemic news with Paula. Amanda Johns Faden reporting to you live on all of the most amazing creative businesses. Yes. AJV: (11:38) But I just thought this GM, right, I saw this [inaudible] the other day and yeah, so an African his name. But anyways, I saw it and I was just like, that’s amazing how they were calling all us manufacturers to do what the government can’t do. Yeah. And so RV: (11:54) At GM has all this manufacturing equipment, they’re going to start manufacturing respirators. Oh wow. AJV: (12:00) And so it’s like, yeah, I mean, they’ve got all the equipment that’s not a product that they’ve been doing, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be doing that. They have the tools, they have the people, they have all of the manufacturing materials. They just have to reconfigure how they’re doing and what they’re providing. So again, there’s just so many things like that that are out there, that are happening, causing people to rethink, readjust, innovate, and create in a time that [inaudible] going to push us all to our limits. RV: (12:31) Yeah. And you, but you can do it. We’re doing it with you, right? Like our live keynote business when indefinitely postponed our live event business, which is like a core part of our business, suddenly became [inaudible] all real time in person events and they’ve been incredible. And you know, I’m sure there’s more curve balls coming our way and there’s going to be curve balls coming your way, but you can do it. There are opportunities out there. You have to just know that for every challenge there is an equal and opposite opportunity. So thank you babe for inviting Jack. And thank you for tuning in. We want to be that source of encouragement and inspiration for you. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 58: Selling to the Government with Jack Siney and GovSpent | Special Edition
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@brandbuildersgroupdotcomslashsummitcallbrandbuildersgroup.com slash summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Hey friend, I am so glad to have you with us. We were talking about this is a special edition, a special episode here of the influential personal brand podcast. This was content that we were not planning on releasing. And we have a good friend who you’re about to meet named Jack Sinai. Now Jack is the nation’s leading expert on selling to the government completing over one point $5 billion in government sales. And he is the co founder of a company called gov spend, which maintains the only database purchase order records for federal, state, and local agencies. The reason this matters right now is because obviously the economy has been spiraling in a variety of different ways and the government is one of the only groups that we’ll be spending more money than they, they would in normal times. So Jack has been featured in entrepreneur, MSNBC, Forbes. RV: (02:02) He has multiple degrees including an MBA from UCLA and a master’s in legislative affairs from George Washington university. He’s got 25 years experience working in the public sector. He is also one of our brand builders group clients. And so that’s why we knew about him and we were having some conversations and you know, we’ve been looking for creative ideas and creative ways for you to be building and growing your business and your personal brand in the economy that we are facing right now. And so that is why Jack is here. So Jack, welcome to the show. JS: (02:35) Hey, great. Thank you so much for having me. I would, I tell your audience that long intro is not worthy, that brand builders helped build it. So bring all those, my 50 years of life crunched into those senses. So thanks for the intro. Yeah, and I would just say to everyone who’s listening, I was on a unexpected and random call with Jack last week and was definitely not planning on this Steve and pop up. And as I was reading through all the stuff that is happening with his company and all the people that they’re able to help, I was like, we have to have you on our podcast and we need to release it ASAP. Hence you being here today. And I told worry, I was like, this is, this is timely, it’s urgent. RV: (03:20) And when mama says this is how it’s going down, this is how it’s going down. So tell us Jack, like what, what is going on? What does government sales mean? What does gov spend do like your company. But like why is this all matter? Just like give us the context. Cause I think for most entrepreneurs, like at least the ones that we know and we hang out with a bunch, the idea of selling to the government, it’s like [inaudible], JS: (03:47) Right? We’ve already lost half your audience, right? RV: (03:50) So walk us through like high level. What does that mean? JS: (03:53) Sure. So I would tell if anybody, you’re just listening don’t hang up or don’t click off or whatever it is. So just hopefully we’ll simplify it. So obviously we’ve all heard the stereotypes of selling to the government. It can be long and complex and challenging and red tape and it’s, it can, you know, historically can be a challenging to go win some of that government business. So about 10 years ago we took on this challenge of Hey, how can we make that process simpler for companies that are trying to sell the government? If your audience does not know that the government combined, there’s 90,000 government agencies, they spend over $7 trillion a year, they’re by far the largest prospect in the entire world. It’s a ton of money. And, and the current events, we’ve all seen that the government just actually approved another $2 trillion in government spending. JS: (04:38) So there is a ton of money in the system. And one of the things why it’s so important from our conversation the other day with AJ is that now sometimes when the U S market slows, then folks go internationally. Well now with the pandemic, there really is very few opportunities internationally. And really the main opportunity for most companies over the next two quarters is going to be selling to the government. And so that’s really been our messaging over the last week or two. It’s our businesses exploded as folks realize this can be the saving grace for probably most middle to small businesses across the country. Across the world. RV: (05:13) So who can, who can sell to the government like that? It’s such a nameless, faceless, massive entity. JS: (05:21) Sure, sure. JS: (05:22) Plus, it’s like per our conversation, there’s over 90,000 government agencies that you can sell to. Like what are these and how do you know as an entrepreneur, a small business owner? RV: (05:33) Like does my stuff apply to them? JS: (05:36) Yeah. First off, the government buys everything, literally everything. So if you make it, the government buys it. And so I would just encourage folks, even now, folks here, we hear a lot about this medical stuff. The government’s also buying a ton of nonmedical stuffs to support all of this infrastructure that’s needed for the COBIT 19 effort. There’s a ton of nonmedical stuff being purchased. Okay. So the second part is folks are like, Hey, how can I go sell to the government? How do I, how can I win some of this business? Well, once that we always give to folks is 80% of government spending does not go through the bid. An RFP process, 80% so that’s 7 trillion. And this $2 trillion they’re going to put out 80% of it doesn’t go through the bidding or RFP process. So there’s about 10 ways that the government will buy that expedites the entire process. JS: (06:20) So here’s one. So there’s a platform called Gulf quote. Where literally government agencies will go out, they’ll put things they need on Gulf quotes. It’s a release, an RFQ [inaudible]. They will literally award business in just a day or two once they get a sufficient number of quotes. So that’s happening real time right now. So agencies go to Gulf quote, we’ll say, Hey, we need and 95 masks. We need a laptop computers, because we’re going to be e-learning. We need hotspots for some of the stuff we’re doing. We need infrastructure for these test stations. Literally, once they get three, four, or five quotes, they will award that contract. Sometimes just a couple of hours. It is amazing. We have folks, government agencies, to list that RFQ in the morning and then awarded later the day or the next day. So the one thing that everybody on this podcasts can do, you can go to Gulf quote.us, register your company, you’ll see the RFQ that are coming out. It’s free, it takes 15 minutes and you can see a flow of government contracts that are happening right now live. It’s amazing how quickly it’s happening. RV: (07:21) This is services too. Does that include like educational, educational services and training and all different eyes? JS: (07:29) The government buys everything from a commodity, a phone to a laptop to services, construction, engineering, you name it. Like in New York, you know, they’ve built all of these now offsite hospitals, they need engineers to lay out the room engineering of Hey what’s all the facilities? It has to be, you know, say for all the patients. So there is an array, an array array of services and products mean the purchase right now, and I used my pitchers to behave. Government sales used to take six to nine months and now it’s down to weeks or days. So our company has been told, Hey, you can win a government contract and weeks and days. We’ve been saying that for a long time and then the last three weeks I’ll just say we’ve now gone to hours. We literally, you can win a government contract in just a few hours. It can literally save your business and just a few hours. We had a tool, one store to AGA the other day. We had a, we had a Midwest public university had an RFP, RFQ out for 174 laptops. They needed because their student body went off campus, right? Like all of the schools, they released that on Thursday morning. They awarded on Friday morning. So in 48 work hours, 48 business hours, they awarded $150,000 contract that fast on the Gulf quotes site. JS: (08:41) It’s happening super fast. It’s amazing cause everyone’s in this hyperspeed try to accommodate them. AJV: (08:48) Now tell us, do they need personal brands? That’s what we need to know. I do government aid. JS: (08:56) Well listen, you know what’s, you know what’s really interesting is that I think this time is, I think everyone looks back, you know, we were talking about just before we kick this off, that having a personal brand and having folks that are aware of you and this digital only age is, can be so important that government does everything. Like there’s no doubt government agencies that have a higher social media following and have spent some time building followers are no doubt more prepared for this crisis because they can outreach to their community, their constituents much faster than someone tried to put that together. You know, if you’ve been doing this kind of digital thing and communicating with your community virtually, this is a much easier process than if you’re trying to start that thing from scratch. So there’s no doubt even for the services that brand builders offers, there’s definitely a need for communities to outreach and inform their constituents. That’s a real, real [inaudible]. AJV: (09:44) Yeah. So there’s, that’s really fascinating. So a ton of our audience are people who are consultants, trainers, speakers. What, what, what would you recommend to them to do two access? Some of this opportunity? Like what w what would be the easiest, fastest thing to do? JS: (10:04) Yeah, so I think again for everybody, I would just go to GovQuote.com, Register your company. Just cause it’s, it’s free and it’s simple. It takes 15 minutes. It’s there. It’s an autopilot that have you. Then I think your, the organization, whatever organization of the person has fear like, Hey, where potentially is the best fit for me? Right? What, not every, everything is for everybody, right? Am I, I would, I would just encourage folks to always start. If you’ve never done anything with the government, start state and local, start local. When you go to the federal, it gets very complicated. There are bigger contracts at the federal level, no doubt. But if you’ve never done any government business, the easiest business is closer to you. Just like a regular mom and pop business, right? It’s, it’s easier to reach out, communicate, have great affinity towards your local agencies because you can talk the talk of your area, your state. JS: (10:48) So I would encourage folks, Hey, where would I potentially best fit my services? What I offer? I’d encourage you to start state local. And then once they do, there’s really, we’d say there’s two options if you’ve never sold to the government. Like you want to learn some of that, right? Because like all things having the intricacies of it can be important. And so there’s some of that, there’s govsalesuniversity.com you can go on and learn how to sell to the government. So it’s just like all these online classes, a chance for folks to go. What are some of the nuances of songs to the government? AJV: (11:16) And that’s govsalesuniversity. JS: (11:18) It’s called sales, sorry, it’s gov sales university.com so anybody can go on there. It’s a one line on demand set of classes. They can learn how to sell. The government’s a couple hundred bucks for some free ones on there now. So it’s just chance for you to get your feet wet on how does it really work? Right. Okay. Then. And then once you do the selling to the government part is really like selling to a an enterprise. It’s like, Hey, who do I contact and how can I reach out and send them my value proposition because again, everything that private industry goes through, the government goes through. So for the consultants and the folks that are in development and there is no doubt that this crisis is going to create an array of needs for staffing infrastructure. How do I use these online platforms? How do we connect with our community? JS: (12:03) I have like all the things probably that most high tech executives and I assume most of the folks you’re dealing with take for granted. I’ll just tell you the folks in the government, some of them are like, how do I do a zoom meeting? How do they all connect? How do I get it on? How do I, the stuff we have room for this call. How do we get infrastructurally and how do I get all my stuff set up? How do I reach out? All of those things. So maybe it’s not in the wheelhouse of what you’ve historically done, but looking at the community and saying, Hey, how do I help my government agency interact with the community? If everybody’s at home for the next 90 days, like how it’s going to be new ways to reach the community, inform them, when are we back to work? JS: (12:41) Where are we going? How is my website? How can I communicate? How can I creatively? If you watch governor Cuomo, he’s done an amazing job, right? He’s turned his press briefing, kind of. Have you seen any of them kind of into this kind of almost inspirational message every day, right? He mixes in the update. It also sends a message of, Hey, here’s what’s happening in the community. Here’s how you can stay calm. He talks about his communication with his daughter and all those things. It’s been really amazing to watch. And so I would say that all the folks that are in the brand builders network, there’s a chance for you to take your skill set, probably most of the things you take for granted and offer them to your state and local agency to help them deal with the communication struggles and the all the connections they’re going to need to make over the next 60, 96, you know, 180 days. So that would be my encouragement. AJV: (13:26) You said something there that I think is really, really important and I want to draw people’s attention to, it may not be what you’ve always done, but it’s a skill set that you already possess. How are you utilizing that in these unique times? And you know, I was just, I was dying laughing inside because, you know, there’s that viral video going on of poor Jessica who was on the zoom meeting who didn’t realize that they could see her going to the restroom for Jessica. But to that point it’s like even using brand olders in example, that, you know, we don’t offer online training skillsets as a service of ours. Yeah. But we know exactly how to set up all of the online infrastructure, what you need and what you need to do to be a good host. How do you have good sound quality quality? How do you make sure everyone knows what they’re doing? How do you host an interact and online meeting or an online training? Those are service skill sets that we don’t currently offer, but those are also skill sets that we already possessed that we could be offering to innovate and create during this interesting time. RV: (14:37) Yeah. This is just a whole opportunity if you are struggling, like if you’re in, where can you go and you want to follow the money, right? Like there’s, there are people, there’s always people spending money. It’s just where are they getting money. Yeah. JS: (14:52) Yeah. I wouldn’t, I, I’ve seen you guys like you moved, some of, you’ve had a lot of onsite moving online, but, and I encourage it in the sales world. I would just say this, I’m very biased. I think we’re all indebted now with Hey virtual this and virtual conference and have a tell them, you know, all these LinkedIn line. But I would just say most of it is very pithy. I think a lot of folks, this took them by shock. And so they’re like, Oh, let me just get online and get my face in front of people and let me talk about feel, felt, found and Hey, be empathetic. And you know, and I think a lot of it is to me a little empty to be quite honest. And so if you can find a way to inject yourself into the process with some facts and some data and some hardcore information to help people get through it, huge, huge, huge opportunity. JS: (15:33) Like one, I was talking to one of my friends of mine who’s is in ministry and you know, we hear so much about work from home, right? But what we don’t hear I, I’ve seen no training or feedback on the family dynamic of work from home. Hey, get me set up for work from home. But now what happens to your family with your kids are home and how do you balance all your days and the meals and also trying to teach them and education. It’s like I haven’t seen one thing yet where it’s like, Hey, how do I now immerse work from home with my family and you know, almost homeschooling. Like, so there are so many opportunities to like help people in this dynamic. And so I’d encourage just be the brand builders group or what are concrete hard deliverable as you can give folks because the world said, Oh, I’ve got to go online, let me do some pithy things. And so the more meaty, the more data, the more concrete it can be, I think the more valuable folks will find it. And we’ve certainly found out at our company because we were blessed to have the shoot dataset and it’s been invaluable to companies here over the last several weeks. RV: (16:32) So, Jack, the, to clarify one thing, so you know, you said go to gov, gov, quote dot U S right. And that is, that’s basically agent government agencies that are looking to spend money actively, potentially within hours where they need something done. So those would be kind of low hanging fruits. But then you’re saying additionally [inaudible] [inaudible] in parallel with that, you could just reach out to your local government agencies and try to con just like you would just like you would reach out to any new customer and offer whatever you know, market, whatever your services are. So that’s kinda, is that what you were saying? There’s like two different ways to kind of go about it. JS: (17:14) Yeah, the, the government buys in a variety of ways. So just for the, just to kind of level set a little, the Gulf quote thing is happening live. It’s exploded because of COBIT 19 the traditional way folks always hear about, it’s kind of this big new RFP thing, like go out and get a bid, an RFP. So government agencies will still put out bids and RFPs and during this time it’s somewhat hard to reach government people. So one of the things we’re going to do is actually make all the coven 19 type efforts. We’re going to make them free online and we can talk about that again. So it’ll be available to folks. The key three shouts at agencies is going to be the contacts. Like, Hey, how do I reach people? How do I get ahold of them? So one of the additional things we’re going to be doing is if you reach out to gov, spend.com we actually within our database, not only did we have all this historical spending and we have the bids and RFPs, we keep this whole set of contacts for folks to reach out to because we’ll, we’ll give you actually their name, title, phone number and email. JS: (18:07) So it can, in the sales world can be super beneficial because not everyone’s on site when they go to emergency, state of emergency, it’s only site. Essential personnel is how they define it. So not everyone will be around. So it’ll take a couple cycles. But I would encourage the listeners to start reaching out because we all know this in sales and marketing, you have to hear from you seven to nine times, right? And if you wait, so this thing settled. So if I have a lot of folks that work with schools and they’re like, well, the schools are gone, the schools are out, the schools are closed. Well listen, it’s a great time to start marketing to the schools, reaching out to the schools because you know, they’ll start to get your stuff. They’ll see your name the first time you write. They may be like, I don’t want to hear it, but they’re going to fire that thing back up. JS: (18:48) And when they do, if you’re not one of the names, they think about if you haven’t done some marketing and some selling and some ranting for yourself, when they go to fire the schools back up, they’re just going to go back to their old vendors. Right. They’re going to, I know, I know Bob. I know Susie. I know Mike. I’m going to go back to them, but if you can find some time now to start marketing to them and have them know your brand, know your logo, they’re your service when it comes back because it is going to come back. You were then you’re way down the road of your seven to nine times, right? Folks who have seen your own, Hey, I saw that company, they were around here, they offered us some free services, they did this for us. Let’s give them a try. So strongly encouraged folks, even if the short term deal flow does not work, start planting seeds in the government world that could pay off 10 X 20 X down the road because we all know the normal stats of sales and marketing that applies to government agencies to letting them see your brand. Now in a time where it’s much more quiet and they’re not inundated with opera, they’re not inundated operationally could be a huge, huge win, you know, later this year. RV: (19:47) And so just just to be clear, Jack, so, that’s what govspend is. So your company is actually a data, you’re basically a database you keep and people pay for access to this database and they can say, you know, whatever, I need this zip code. Like what agencies are close by to me. And then you, you providing that most UpToDate information like of, of who they would reach out to. JS: (20:09) Yeah. So for your audience, just to clarify, so gov fan. Really what we do is 10 years ago we started to go to agencies because we watched them. You’ve watched some of the government contracts and they don’t make sense, right? You’re like, wow, why did I do that? That doesn’t really make sense. We started to gather purchase orders from government agencies across the country, federal, state and locals. We gathered their purchase orders. We put in this online database and in this database it looks, it works like Google. You could put in any product and you could see every government agency that’s buying that product, who they bought it from and what they pay it is, it almost feels like corporate espionage. It is. It’s very, very informative. It’s 250 times bigger than Wikipedia. And so what, what happens with that database? Like all things in life, if you just follow the money, then the transaction makes sense. JS: (20:54) So for instance, when a government agency pays 20% more for a product that you bid, maybe as a company, you’re like, why don’t they do that? We were low cost. What happened? Well, when you go into our database, you see they’ve worked with that company nine straight years. You’re not unseating that company that RSP was on the street that it was on the street as a formality, right? They love that company. But if you find out as a company, Ooh, I have a been RFP that’s open, and that agency has used a different vendor every other year, you have a much better shot at that deal, right? That’s a deal. You can actually win because they are looking for the best provider overall. But again, if you go look at it, a purchase of an agency and they’ve had the same vendor for nine or 10 years, the chance of you winning that business is so small. So that’s what our database does. It allows you to really go in, find the product or service that you sell, find out the agencies that are buying it, and then you can make a subset. These are our deal target, this price point. This set of agencies work great for us. It’s a huge, huge win at that point. It’s kind of like shooting fish in a barrel on the sales side. JS: (21:51) Yeah. I think too though, it’s just helping you have the necessary sales data to know where should I spend my time and invest my time versus where’s my best chances of winning versus, Hey, I’m, I’m putting in all of these proposals and there’s no chance of me ever winning these because they use the same vendor for the last decade. This gives you the insight to know where my best chances. JS: (22:14) Definitely. It’s, it’s, it’s this database is amazing because we as sales reps, we have this thing like we kinda like, you use our gut feel, you know, we’ll see it. We’ll see, Oh, Google posts, we’ll see our press release and we kinda like follow our intuition. But always say, just see if you’re dealing with the government, imagine this. If you’re a salesperson trying to target a government agency and you sell iOS, right? So you spend three or four months, you’re trying to get into the city of Miami, you spend three or four months trying to get this meeting set up, you get it set up. You’re so excited, your best suit, your best stuff. You walk in there and the first 10 minutes you start talking about what you do and they go, Oh, we’re totally on the windows platform. Literally that whole meeting, that months and months of effort is wasted at that point because now that product is done on Iran, but they’re not going to change their entire infrastructure for your product. JS: (22:55) So being able to look at the legacy purchases and know exactly which agencies are the best fit for you and what you’re selling. When you guys mentioned earlier, not every agency wants to blow out their social media. They don’t. They don’t want to necessarily communicate the way, communicate that way. But I promise you there are a bunch of agencies of the 90,000 that do. So you guys can go in and check, Hey, what are all the agencies looking for? Additional social media connections and using your firm that would be a great fit versus trying to target all 90,000, which could be very challenging. RV: (23:25) Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, [inaudible] and for our clients, right? Like brand builders group, we’ve had a, fortunately for us, we’ve had a very, very strong, like we’ve got, I think we’re sort of counter market what’s going on right now because people are going, I need to make money online. But I’m thinking about like, you know, somebody who teaches leadership who sitting at home or a JS: (23:45) Web designer or photographers or you know, people, fitness instructors, home designers, all of JS: (23:55) It’s all, it’s all happening. If you guys watch on Fox has it was interesting. One of the shows on Fox at every intro and outro break. There’s a photographer that’s taken shots of empty in New York city. I don’t know if anyone’s seen that and that’s how he goes into break and out of break every single race. It’s amazing. So there are opportunities. It’s creative. No one would, no one had thought about, there’s a videographer that goes around New York city and he tapes what would be the subway, you know, normally populated nine 11 Memorial areas and he put some music background to it and he shows how empty it is and it’s so compelling. It is super compelling, which again, is an innovative way to take your skillset and apply it to what’s needed today because folks are in dire need of, JS: (24:38) Yeah. The big idea is what are you doing differently to innovate during this time period and government selling is one of those things specifically right now. Yeah. They’re prime to spend more money than ever over the next two to four months. So how are you going to capture some of that market? JS: (24:59) Yeah, my heart, my heart, my heart for all of your folks who are listening are please, please, please, if you, if you’ve kind of dismissed, the government thought it was annoying. Are government buys very, very quickly. There’s 10 ways they can buy. Now is the time. Don’t wait until Q three when your business is upside down and you’re at the break, now’s the time. The U S government, the federal state, local is going to be spending more money the next two quarters in anybody’s ever spent ever. And so they are spending a quicker, it’s more like private industry. You must, must, must take a run at it because a lot of other things are going to get locked up and if you wait, so it’s, you know, a couple of months it could be too late for your business. So I can’t encourage folks enough. Please, please, you don’t have to come to golf, spend or do anything we’re doing. Please go out. Look at the government marketplace. It’s a ton of money. They need a ton of services, products, medical and nonmedical. Super critical for most companies in the United States for the next couple of quarters. JS: (25:50) Yeah, and I just have one last thing because I think so many of the people out there are inundated with media and news. Talking about how business or businesses are suffering. And the prediction is that tens of thousands of businesses are going to go out of business over the next six months. And there’s so much talk around that there’s not a lot of talk around [inaudible]. At the same time, there are businesses that are succeeding or businesses that are winning. There are opportunities to be had invented, businesses are being invented. And you know, I love this post I saw from Lewis house between 2008 and 2010 the, see that was Uber, Airbnb, Venmo. There was a whole list of, other ones were in, were, were invented, but golf spend is one of the companies right now, but you’re not just maintaining your tripling sales and revenues right now in this unique time period. So I want just to, I think it’s important for people to get the counterbalance of, yeah, there’s a lot of people hurting and struggling right now and a lot of businesses, but there is also an opportunity to innovate and change and win during this time period. So can you give us just a quick highlight of how gov spin is winning right now? Is it, RV: (27:10) And also give us, just like as we’re wrapping up Jack, make sure we’ll, we’ll put a link to, to what you talked about gov quote.us, but then also where should people go if they want to connect with you? JS: (27:21) Sure. So I would encourage folks to kind of stay in touch what’s happening in the government. If you go to my LinkedIn account, which is Jack [inaudible], S I N E Y is probably the best way to follow because we’re constantly putting a, every day we’re putting out government opportunities for free. Oh, on my LinkedIn site. And that’s where you get all the connections. Probably the easiest way. And as Aja mentioned, we’ve been really less humbly, I’ll just say during this time, you know, we’ve been in this market niche and it’s kind of funny previously when we’ve done PR and other things, we’ve kind of been on the back burner and folks don’t want to talk about government procurement. And they’re like, Hey, I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to weave this into, you know, some marketing cycle, some newspaper article. And then in the last three week has been just the opposite. JS: (27:59) We have been inundated, spun, crazy spokesman, reaching out all the time. Hey, how can I win government business? How do folks settle the government? How do I find some of this $2 trillion previously, the $60 billion, all this money? How do we, how do we access it? How can we find it? And so, yeah, our business has exploded. I’ll take that, you know, just the grace of God. We’re so thankful for that. And, and so it’s been amazing. So I encourage all your listeners, if you go to my LinkedIn, it’s Jack [inaudible], S. I. N. E. Y. You’ll find all the links and everything. We put out several things a day. We’re going to, we’re having a live link, we’re having a LinkedIn live coming up. We’re kind of a couple different other free services we’re going to be offering. So it’s probably the easiest way to follow what we’re doing. RV: (28:39) Awesome. Well, Jack, thanks so much for the energy and the insight and the perspective, and then, you know, thanks for being one of our customers and, and being willing to contribute to the whole community here. It’s very, very timely. JS: (28:51) I bless, they say, thank you all so much. Speaker 1: (28:54) Thanks so much.