Ep 480: How to Become a Great Writer with Bill Blankschaen
AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here, and I’m so, so, so super excited to introduce you to a good friend today. But I’m equally as excited about this conversation. So before you decide whether or not this is the episode episode for you, let me tell you why you probably wanna stick around no matter where you’re at in terms of building your business and building your personal brand. Because today we’re gonna talk about the process of writing a book. And you might be in that process right now, or you dream of being in that process, or maybe you just left this process thinking, I’ll never do that again. And if you’re feeling that way, it’s probably because you went out of order. And today, we’re gonna just break it down into when should you start writing your book? What does it look like?
AJV (00:52):
How, how do you publish? What are the options for publishing? What makes a good writer? And how do you systematically do that? And if you know this about yourself and that you’re not a quote unquote good writer, which is your opinion only what are the other options out there for you, right? Because there are other options to help you get your message out into the world and your voice be heard. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today with my good friend, bill Blanken Shane from Story Builders. And so, before I formally pass it over to him to share all of his expertise and his knowledge, I’m gonna give you just a little bit of a formal bio because it’s worth it, right? So Bill is the founder and chief story architect of Story Builders, which is the coolest company that we get to be affiliated with as well at Brain Builders Group.
AJV (01:40):
And Bill is actually helping Rory and I architect our next book for Brand Builders Group. So I can speak personally when I talk about how awesome him and his team is, but he is a New York Times bestselling writer. They have worked with very well known people like the John Maxwell team, Kevin Haring, Lewis Howes, Michael Hyatt as well as us, and not as well known as those other peoples but entrepreneurs, corporate leaders influencers, consultants, political figures. The list goes on and on. And I share that because writing a book is not some for someone who just is a influencer. And if you can’t see me, I’m doing bunny quotes right now or just someone who is famous. It is for anyone who has a message that deserves to be heard. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about right now. So, bill, welcome to the show.
BB (02:33):
Well, thank you, aj. My goodness, I’m so excited to be here. You and Rory are some of my favorite people, and we’re talking about storytelling. I mean, what, what could be better than this? I’m excited to be here.
AJV (02:43):
Yes. Well, the first thing I want to talk about and help our audience get to know you a little bit is how’d you get into this? Like, how did you get into the business of writing books for other people and helping get their stories out there?
BB (02:57):
That’s a great question. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna go on the way back machine here to, to my early days even. You know, I think a lot of us have these dreams inside of us when we’re children and, and we kind of have a sense of what we really are good at and what we love to do. And then somewhere along the way, we, we kind of, kind of lose our focus. We find other dreams. We, we, we end up with what Steven Pressfield calls the, our shadow calling, right? We’re, we’re doing something that’s kind of similar, but not exactly what we’re really called to do. And I ended up in I’ve always had a love for storytelling, right? So I majored in English and history, right. Stories and how to tell them. But I ended up going into education and helping start a private school and leading that for a dozen years.
BB (03:37):
And what I was really doing was helping other people learn how to write well and learn how to tell stories well, and that’s really what that was about. And learning a lot about leadership along the way. But it wasn’t until probably about 13 years ago now that I just had this stirring with NI felt like there was more that I was supposed to be doing on a wider scale in and around telling stories. And so I stepped out from the school. We had six kids stepped out from the school, went a year with no income as we navigated that place. But I, I’ve never worked harder in my life than during that year, actually, when we were going through that. And really just becoming a student of story, a student of storytelling, a student of writing, of publishing, of this whole process that you mentioned.
BB (04:22):
And, and then navigating those, you know, turns over the years building what became story builders, really one relationship at a time is how it happened, right? And that’s something I know you and Rory talk about a lot, right? The power of your reputation, which is about your relationships that you have. And, and so that’s really how it came to be, just me following my passions and my skills and where those came together at a place where there was a need, where people who had great messages, great ideas, they just struggled to tell them. Well for a lot of reasons. And I found I could come alongside and really help them to do that in an exceptional way, build a team around it to really truly tell stories that make the world a better place.
AJV (05:03):
You know, I think one of the things that I’m so curious about always, because we have so many people who are in our community and who listen to this podcast that are trying to figure out that next thing they’re going to do. And what I always love asking people is, how’d you get that first client? Right? So you’re transitioning out of something seemingly different, although lots of connectedness, but how did you pick up that very first client that’s like, yeah, bill I know you’ve never done this before, but I’m gonna trust you to get this book out into the world.
BB (05:37):
Sure, sure. Well, I think one of the first ones that we had actually was John Maxwell and working with his company. And it was because of both my leadership experience and my deep knowledge of John’s content and my education background. So we were, what, we’ve created a lot of a content for John’s company ever since then, and it’s really around instructional design and so forth. So, in other words, I think I leaned into the strengths that I had to develop those and began to realize they could transfer into other areas. On the book front, there were someone I encountered in the ministry space where I had written my own book, and I realized, well, actually, I’m pretty good at doing that
AJV (06:51):
Hmm. I love that. ’cause I think at the end of the day, it’s using relationships, leaning into what you’re good at, leaning into what you’re passionate about, solving a problem other people have, it’s not rocket science. Yeah.
BB (07:03):
Right. And, and if, actually, if I can add, now that you add mentioned that, that reminds me, I, I can point back to one instance in particular when I was still running the school, that I can trace just about every connection I have today. Even my connection with you and Rory, I can connect back to this one project that I tackled on the side. I didn’t get paid a dime for it. It was a passion project. I had worked with a book in the school and developed curriculum around it and so forth. And I encountered the author and I pitched him on the idea, Hey I really believe in your message. I’d be willing to do this to help republish the book with this thing included and so forth. And really make it even even more useful just to be of help. And so, you know, I worked late at night, worked, put in all the extra hours, and, and again, I did it from a place of mission-driven perspective of, I’m not getting paid for this, I just love to do it. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (08:13):
Actually. I’m really glad that came to mind because I think, like, the biggest thing that sticks out to me is what are you willing to do just to be of service? Mm. It doesn’t matter if you get paid, you’re just like, I can help. Yeah. How, and here’s how I can help knowing that. And it’s like give, to give mindset, right? Right. Versus a give to get. And I love that. And I think that’s very representative of what we’re trying to be about and getting these messages out into the world. And so, you guys have been doing this for a long time, and you’ve helped get a lot of books out there and a lot of messages into the pages of those books. And so I would love to hear it from you for all of these people out there, regardless if they’re in the process or dream of being in the process of writing a book one day, what would you say is a good overarching process of when is it time for you to write a book? Like, how do you know this is the year or this is the time? But then also, how do you know when it’s time to start thinking about the publishing options? ’cause We’re in a world today where you can self-publish, hybrid publish, traditionally publish, and how much writing needs to be done before you start thinking about that thing.
BB (09:27):
Sure. Big questions.
BB (10:11):
I think now’s the time. Let me do it. I’ve got like 30 days. I can just crank this out.
BB (10:57):
That needs to be your focus. That needs to be what you talk about. So make sure that this is where your heart is, this is where your passion is. And frankly, it wasn’t. I, I wasn’t, that wasn’t my calling to be, like, my calling was the story. It wasn’t that topic as important as that topic is. And so I, I decided not to pursue it at that time. And I think that’s the kind of, you have to know where you want to go in order to know what that timing is. But then I think you need to look at, from a business perspective as well, this is one of the first questions I ask someone when we start talking about putting a book together is, is where do you wanna go with this? What, what are you trying to do? What, what’s the big picture that you’re trying to accomplish?
BB (11:35):
Paint that vision for me. And if they can, and it makes sense to, I see how the book fits in. I see it feeds into your business model. I see how it helps open these doors. That makes sense. Let’s keep talking. If not, my advice to them is, again, take a few steps back, get clarity on that strategically. Otherwise, you’re just gonna, you’re gonna jump, jump in, you’re gonna get a lot of activity, and you, the author and anybody helping you is gonna get frustrated because we don’t have a clear end in mind. Right? So that’s a little bit from a timing standpoint on the process standpoint. You know, one of, one of the things that we really love as story builders is when authors come to us, having gone through your captivating content session with brand builders, with the brand, DNA and so forth, because they come to us with great clarity already around the main pillars that they want to talk about.
BB (12:27):
Mm-Hmm. What their behaviors are, are what their stories are. They, they have a lot of clarity around that. So I think the first place you need to start is get clarity on what exactly do you wanna talk about? What, what is it? And, and what is the uniqueness of that? What really makes it, makes it special and different from everybody else. And, and it’s not that the topic you want to talk about has to be completely different. It, it’s that what is it about your story, your unique approach to that that gives it an angle that maybe not everybody has. No book is gonna resonate with everyone, right? You’re looking to write a message that will resonate with the people you really want to connect with, right? So getting clarity on that, I think is huge on the front end from that, then, okay.
AJV (13:11):
Before you go on. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I think this is important. Like, how many people would you say come to you without even really knowing what they want to write about?
BB (13:24):
Not as many as you might think. There have been some, I’ve had some, I’ve had somebody, you know, text me from the beach kind of, Hey, here’s what I’m thinking of writing. And from that text, we build a whole book
BB (14:09):
And that’s okay, as long as you’re open to being teachable and open to in, you know, in, in input on that and shape it and really make it exceptional. That’s what we’re about, is if we’re gonna do a project, we’re gonna do it with excellence, or we’re not gonna do it at all. And so, you know, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not, we’re just not motivated by helping people crank out some word widgets, you know? We want it to be a meaningful message, something that can actually impact the world, make it a better place. So yeah. I, I short answer. I would say not too often, and when they do, it’s really about, you need to get clarity on what that is. Yeah.
AJV (14:45):
Okay. Now, one of the other things that I hear a lot from just people in the Brand Builders Group community, and just even just in the larger audience at hand of, there’s just so many different ways to publish these days, and some people are cranking out self-published book that they did write in a 30 day period, and boom, here it is. Even though that is more rare. But I would love to know when it comes to writing and the relationship to publishing, like what are those timelines? Sure. Like, how much of the book needs to be started completed before you think about publishing?
BB (15:22):
Sure. Well, let me, let me answer that by filling that gap between clarity and publishing. I think that’ll help fill in that timeline a little bit. Because yes, there are people out there who said, oh, I did my book in 30 days. And, and you, you usually can tell that it was done in 30 days, quite candidly. But even if you can’t, my response is, well, imagine how good it could have been
BB (16:09):
So what, what is that structure gonna be? And then, you know, we use what we call the storytelling structure method. It’s, it’s a five point process that that really walks people through. It’s just proven storytelling structure that has been used for millennia in the human race, right? Of, and we follow that five point process, both to build the book itself, the framework, and then each chapter, each component, we, we componentize it, essentially break it down into small pieces that you can then write. If, if the author’s writing themselves and we’re coaching them, we, we, they go through that process. If we’re doing the writing for and with them, we go through that process. And, and typically I think you know, a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking, I have to have the publisher nailed down before I can do anything. I have to have to begin with the end in mind.
BB (16:57):
And, and that’s good advice to begin with, the end in mind. But you can’t really decide your publishing path until you have a really good sense of where the book is going. Mm-Hmm.
BB (17:43):
You know, maybe you’re going a different hybrid brow. It can, there, there’s all kinds of factors that affect all of those things, kind of what you’re doing, what you want to accomplish. But you need to know what the book is going to be. Otherwise you’re going to publishers and saying, Hey, I have a little bit of an idea. Do you buy it? Do you wanna be part of it?
AJV (18:21):
You know, that’s interesting because being in this world for such a long time, you know, we have such a personal experience with, you know, we’ve done the traditional routes, right? We’re now hybrid publishers ourselves. And then we just have tons and tons of friends who’ve gone the, you know, self-publishing route. And what I have found is there’s no necessary right nor wrong. It has everything to do with what are you trying to accomplish with this book, right. With the purpose of it, in addition to getting the message out in the world. But Right. How you get that message out into the world means a lot in terms of someone actually reading the book, which is goal and intent. Usually. It’s like, I want someone to read the book. Sure. And one of the things that I had found, you know, when we went the traditional route and all, although, and this was almost 10 years ago when we shopped our last book to a traditional publisher, but it’s like, you gotta have at least a few sample chapters.
AJV (19:19):
We had to have all of the book outlined, all of the chapters had to have titles, and we didn’t have just one chapter. It was a few chapters. And so we’re talking 30, like what you said, 30% plus of the book was written. And, and the outline was complete for them to even acknowledge, like, this is something that represents us, something that we think most importantly will sell. Right? Which is what kept coming back to, it’s like, do we think the market will buy this? Right. And an idea wasn’t enough. But even in the hybrid publishing space now, I have people come to us at Mission-Driven Press saying, Hey I’m just trying to get failures of how I wanna publish this. I don’t have anything done yet. And I’m like, well then I don’t know if we’re a fit for you based on your timelines, our timelines, how long is it gonna take you to get the book done so that I can actually review it and decide if it’s a fit for us and vice versa.
AJV (20:14):
And it’s, you know, one of the prerequisites for us to even go, yeah, this looks like something that we’d wanna help get out there and I wanna see at least a few sample chapters. Sure. I wanna see the outline, the overview. Whereas, you know, in the self-publishing route, you don’t have that. Right. But at least with hybrid and traditional 30% minimum, I would say has been our experience so that people can go, do I think the market will buy this? Do do I think this is a, a big enough topic for the masses to be interested in? Is it something we wanna align ourselves with? Does it fit, you know, our published house or imprint or whatever? Would you say that’s similar to what you’ve seen?
BB (20:55):
Oh, a absolutely. ’cause We help people develop book proposals, like if they’re going their traditional route, they wanna shop that. We help people do that all the time. But, and that’s the same process, exactly what you said. It’s several chapters. It’s the framework. Usually it’s an annotated outline. It’s basically making the case for the book. It tells the publisher, you’ve done the thought work behind this. Right? and, and, and what was really popular actually for us, when people aren’t sure what publishing path they want to go yet that they don’t, they don’t have to figure that out to get started. Like, we can help them get clarity on that, begin building that actually drafting a manuscript, putting that, getting it to that place where they know they’re putting their best foot forward, their their best representation to publishers, whatever that might be.
BB (21:41):
Because you usually only get one shot at that, right? So if, if you’re pitching it to publishers or presenting it to someone, you, you don’t want to give them like your C level work. You want your A level
AJV (22:23):
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great transition into talking about making sure that what you put forth is excellent and making sure it’s the best of what you have, not an idea of what might be the best of what you have. So Right, right. High level, what makes a great writer?
BB (22:40):
Hmm. Yeah. I think the first thing that makes a great is almost too, it sounds too simple, but if someone is actually gonna be a writer, they’ve gotta put their butt in the chair and do the work, right? They’ve gotta show up and write. And so a lot of people have this perception that they are a writer, or they could be a writer if they wanted to, they just never do it, right?
BB (23:30):
You have to actually do the writing. So just showing up every day. I think the second thing is to understand that writing is a process. And many people think that the first draft of what they do is writing, but it’s not, that’s just the beginning of the writing process, right? So good writing becomes great writing through editing. So simply putting something on a page that just gives you raw material to work with that you can then evaluate. You can edit, you can cut a lot of stuff. If you’re a good writer, a lot of what you write will get cut and left on the editing room floor, even though it’s really good, it just doesn’t fit. Mm-Hmm.
BB (24:23):
It, it, it lacks depth. Often it lacks detail. It lacks clarity. It doesn’t get to the point in a powerful way. It kind of rambles a little bit here and there. You know, so thinking about that, a third thing I would say too is understand that writing is a unique medium. So speaker, for example, if you’re a speaker and you, you like to give keynote speech and maybe really good at that, but recognizing that giving a speech and putting words on a page are two different mediums for conveyance. Just like video is different than speaking, right? We, there are different mediums and you need to understand the nuances of them. So writing, for example, here’s the challenge of writing. You have to put words on a page and then put it out into the world. And then someone who you don’t even know has to open that page, read it, and understand what you intended to say, and have the same emotional impact that you intended to say as if they were in the room with you talking with you,
BB (25:26):
But they’re not
BB (26:15):
The the fourth thing I would add is that it takes time and effort to become a really good writer. And you have to become a writing. And a lot of people simply don’t have the time to do that, right? They’re, they’re professionals. They’re entrepreneurs, they’re speakers. They’re building their influential brand. They’ve got business going on. They don’t have time to do that. And that’s okay, right? This is what a lot of people don’t realize is you don’t actually have to become a writer to create a, an incredible book. You can partner with someone like me, like my team, who we, we do the work of becoming the writers and understanding your ideas to help turn them in to something that, that is really cool.
AJV (26:56):
I love that. And I wanna go back and touch on each of these points because I think there’s a lot of wisdom and depth into each of these. And then on that last one, I think it’s a grand a grand transition into, okay, well, if you know you’re not a writer Yeah. Tell me about that. What, what, what, how do we do that? But I wanna hop all the way back to that first thing you said, which is the first thing that takes to become a great writer is showing up. Mm-Hmm. Right? But in the feet. Right? And so what I’d love to hear is, do you have any tips or best practices of what’s the best way to actually get yourself to write the book? Is there like an ideal schedule or timeline? I have my own, you know, experiences of what I’ve seen happen in my house as well as with others. Sure. But like, what would you say would be a good schedule for writing?
BB (27:43):
Yeah. What I find is using something like our storytelling structure method that would help break it down, right? If you think, I gotta write this big book, so easy to stare at the screen and have no idea what to write next, but when you break it down into small enough parts, anything can be done If you break it down to small enough parts. And so breaking it down into, all right, I need this chunk. It’s, it’s, I don’t know, three or four or 5, 6, 7 paragraphs, maybe a page and a half. That’s all I need, right? That’s what I need to do today. Mm-Hmm.
BB (28:26):
And, and I just, I just don’t believe that’s true. Having written so much and, and all this, I, what I find is that writer’s block isn’t really a thing provided we are simply willing to do it messy, right? That’s something you guys talked about at brand builders also. Right? Just do it messy. And so when you have it broken down into small enough pieces, then it’s Right. All right, where does it feel right for me to begin? Where do I have clarity within this? Well, I have this one statement I wanna make. Start with that statement, and then give yourself, as a writer, the freedom to go wherever that takes you. And, you know, we, we think about creating and editing, we’re talking about two different sides of the brain. And so you have to give your creative side freedom to say, this is a creative session.
BB (29:16):
I’m not editing, I’m not perfecting, I’m not polishing. I’m just allowing myself to get out what’s in my heart and head and, and approach that session with that in mind of this. I, I’m, I’m, this is gonna be messy. It’s not gonna be perfect. It’s first draft, and that’s okay. There’ll be another time that I’ll come back and I’ll switch to the other side of my brain and do the editing and bring the critical eye and apply that. But for this session, it’s gonna be about creativity. I’m gonna have it, whatever, wherever I do have clarity, I’m gonna push forward. I’m gonna start putting words on a page. Even if they don’t even make a lot of sense to me, I’m just gonna do it. ’cause Motion creates momentum, right? So going through that process allows you to do that and not get hung up on this you know, idea of writer’s block. And then we grab that as an excuse, well, I can’t write because I have writer’s block, you know, air quotes. Right? Whatever that means. And I just, I’ve just found, put it on the page, be creative. Get in the right mindset and let it flow.
AJV (30:17):
I love that because I think that comes back to if you have a robust outline and you have clarity on what you’re writing about, right? There isn’t, well, I don’t know what to do today. I have writer’s block. It’s like, no, we’ve already done that work. Right? We know exactly what we’re writing about. We know the pillars, we know the points. We know the stories, right? So I hear what I hear you saying is that if people quote unquote struggle with writer’s block, it’s probably due to a lack of clarity of what they’re writing about. And they haven’t done the strategy work and the larger picture work in order to do the, Hey, I need to do this one chapter, or I need to, you know, do X, Y, and Z.
BB (30:55):
Exactly. And if, for instance, if we apply our storytelling structure method to a 12 chapter book, I can pretty much right now, without knowing anything about the book, know that you pretty much have at least 60 sub components that you need to build out. It’s actually a little more than that. And some of it can shift and change, and there’s nuance to all of it, but it’s pretty much what it is. And then once you know what those pieces are, you can schedule those. This is my creative time to work on that. It’s probably gonna take X amount of time. And then you get to know, give yourself the freedom if you’re doing the writing yourself, get yourself, give yourself the freedom to get to know how you work best, right? Yeah. There are no, no two writers are alike. You know, I think of famous writers who, you know, might be approached it one way, others approach another. No. Two writers are like, so don’t think that, oh, I have to be like Bill, or I have to be like Ernest Hemingway, or I have to be whoever. Right? no, you define your own style and what works best for you.
AJV (31:51):
Yeah. I love that. You know, and it’s interesting ’cause I’ve had the privilege to watch my husband go through the process of, of writing two books. And as we are heading into the process of writing our signature book for Brain Builders group, it’s been really interesting of going, how he does it and how I do could not be more completely different on this planet. Like, his whole thing is, I gotta block two weeks and I just gotta get it done, you know? And it’s like, Mm-Hmm.
BB (32:47):
Right, right. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. There, there’s no single right way to do it. It’s just, there there is wisdom and guidelines that can help you get there faster and better. I love that. That’s what it’s about.
AJV (32:58):
It’s flexible. Right. All right. Second thing. Yeah. And I loved what you said, and I just wanted to call back out. And this is something that we say a lot at Brain Builders Group. So no one take offense to this, but there are no great writers. Mm-Hmm. Only great editors. Mm-Hmm. Right. It’s like when we write Mm-Hmm. If you do it, you know, if you do it often and you do it well, it’s like you’re verbose
BB (33:44):
BB (34:28):
Right. The ability to know, Hey, this is our objective. This is what I’m trying to accomplish. And so because of that, I’m gonna cut that out. I’m gonna cut that out. I’m cut that out so these things in my life can flourish. Right. And giving space for those ideas to take place and, and not trying to do so much that you know, I think of your, what the analogy you and Rory use about Sheehan’s wall, right? That in order to get out of obscurity and part become well known, you have to get focused and punched through that wall. I think it’s, I mean, it applies to larger vision of life, right? In order to live the life you truly want, I like to say live a story. We’re telling, like, you have to get clear on what you do want focus, so you can punch through that resistance and enjoy what you’re seeking on the other side.
AJV (35:13):
Yeah. So true. Okay. Third thing is just the process of getting words on a page. And so I was curious, I’ve just got two quick things here that I jotted down, is what’s your take on the trend of people just audio, they’re audio ing? Is that a thing? I’m making it a thing. Audio ing their book, right? Doing everything Voice Right. And then having it transcribed and edited from there. Sure, sure. And then also, what’s your take on using ai?
BB (35:42):
Oh, great question. Great question. Yeah. First of all, on the transcript side you know, we, we don’t do that. And again, it goes back to the medium conversation, right? A speaker is going to speak things one way, and and that’s fine in a conversation, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into the, into the written word. And so there are services out there that will say they actually tout the fact that, oh, you, you just answer these questions. We take your answers, we make sure they’re grammatically correct. And boom, you gotta book it’s magic. The, again, the problem is, first of all, it, it hasn’t gone through the filter of translating into that medium. Secondly the ideas, any one of us all by ourselves only has certain ideas and only has a certain perspective. And so when you bring in other voices into that process, who can bring fresh insights strategically raise the value of that perspective, and cause you to realize other things.
BB (36:41):
We have one gentleman incredible business consultant. We’ve written several books with him and what he has said, I come into a book project, I have a good idea of what I wanna say, but by the time I leave, that book has been improved so dramatically because of the ideas that we’ve developed through that process. I could never have gotten there on my own. I, and so that’s, that’s what we look for. That’s the value of what we do. You know, so this kind of outta the box plan if that’s a fit for you, great. We, our focus is more does it actually serve your audience or is it more about easy for you? And if you’re here to serve, then you gotta make sure that book is really strategically powerful. So that’s the one question on the AI front.
BB (37:28):
It, it, it is like, it’s not even the wild West yet. It’s, it’s even messier than the Wild West
BB (38:22):
What is new and different is your ability to bring unique perspective, your story, your, your unique approach to it that only you can bring. And AI doesn’t know that. And so it, it just spits out whatever other people have said. And, and it removes that uniqueness on the one hand. On the other hand what AI cannot do is it cannot make connections. It hasn’t already made that already haven’t been made. And this is the, the genius of the human mind is that we can put thoughts together that no one has ever put together before. Right? We, we can bring fresh ideas and insights into all that in a way that, you know, no machine ever will be able to do. Right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (39:31):
Yeah. And it’s interesting, I think most of us have encountered enough AI content at this point where it’s like, yeah, I think that’s ai Right? Versus right
BB (40:23):
Sure. Well, I, I usually don’t even use the term ghostwriter. I don’t mind it at all. I like to use the term collaborative writing. Mm. I like that. ’cause It’s really how I view it as really coming alongside. Yeah. An author not replacing them, not pretending that they did something they didn’t. But a lot of the big names and big books you see out there, not all of them by any means were written with collaborative writers or ghost writers, whatever the case may be. The key, I think a lot of people tend to, this is another reason why I use that name is people think of ghost writing as almost like it’s a fake writing. Mm-Hmm. And that’s not what the collaborative process is at all. In fact, it really relies on authenticity. You know, that the people I work with on books we, we go deep into, into content and our team goes deep with them to develop that content.
BB (41:13):
You know, so it is very much the author’s ideas. That’s another thing some people think is, well, it won’t actually be what I have to say. It won’t be my message. No, not if you have a good collaborative writer, it will be your method. We, we have a priority of preserving that and adding value to it, not not replacing it. Right? so we serve as that sounding board for ideas and value add for ideas. And we just go through that process. I mean, we, a lot of times the authors I work with, we become good friends ’cause we get to know each other really well. Our team becomes good friends and so forth. And we have a whole process laid out where we help people really turn their ideas into compelling books and compelling manuscripts that they can then decide what’s the best publishing path for me? What do I do with this now that I have a book I can be proud of? Right? So that, that’s really where, where the heart of that comes in. And that’s really where our passion is. ’cause You know, we’ve seen so many people who have ideas and they either take them half baked into the world and regret it, or they don’t take ’em at all. ’cause They’re afraid they don’t know how. And we believe the world needs to hear what these leaders need have to say.
AJV (42:19):
You know, it’s interesting ’cause I liken what you just said to something that I also experience when the red light on the camera goes on. Because we do so much video work. And what I’ve noticed that even with our team at Brand Builders Group, they will have the most amazing ideas and eloquent conversation and wisdom. And then I’m like, we gotta get that on camera. And we put the camera in front of them and that red light comes on. It’s like,
AJV (43:09):
What? I don’t know what I said. And it’s because what came to them was in the form of the question. And so what I see that you do so well is it’s helping the writer get into dialogue mode in conversation mode. Because you’re asking the questions that help them get to the root of the story or the point, or what they’re trying to share. Where when you’re just looking at a camera screen, it’s like what, what was that? Or, or you start questioning yourself like, wait, is this really good? And what you have an hour to write and you’re like, yeah, it’ll sucked. And it’s like, says who? And it’s because you don’t have that dialogue and conversation. And so to hear you use the term collaborative writing makes a lot of sense because it’s that dialogue. It’s that conversation that allows the author, the, the content creator to flow more naturally, which is how it would in real conversation versus putting words on a page or talking to a blank screen.
BB (44:06):
I completely agree. Again, pushing back against that myth that people think it, I I have to do it myself, or it’s not my ideas. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (45:18):
And it doesn’t matter who you are and at what level. Everybody still needs coaching. Rightly, the best athlete in the world still have coaches, absolutely the best anything in the world Absolutely. Are seeking never and constant, yeah. Improvement. you know, so I think that’s back to the process. We all need to coach in something in our lives. And if you’re going through this process that’s a lot of what it is. It’s collaborative writing, body coaching questions and the, and, and making time and having accountability to the time, which we all need that too. So bill, if people wanna learn more about Story Builders, where should they go?
BB (46:05):
I would say the best. Sorry about that. My internet stuttered for a minute there, I think.
AJV (46:10):
Okay. I’m almost gonna start that little sentence over. So Bill, if people wanna learn more about Story Builders, where should they go?
BB (46:17):
We would love to connect with people who have a story that they, maybe they’re wondering, is my story worth telling
AJV (47:10):
Hmm. I love that y’all, my story builders.com/story. I will put that in the show notes, at least vet the idea of, is this the route for me? What is this idea I have? And have some conversation around what that looks like. Now, bill, people wanna connect with you personally. What’s the best platform for them to connect with you personally?
BB (47:31):
Best one is gonna be LinkedIn. We, we put a lot of focus in actually serving the clients and story partners as we call ’em, that we’re serving. But LinkedIn’s probably the best place. Just look me up, bill Blank Shane, or Story Builders, one of the two. And or, you know, schedule some time with our story strategist and say, Hey, I’d really like to talk to Bill. I’d, you know, got a project. I’d like to explore what it would look like to have him help me personally or anything like that. It’s fine, whatever that takes. And yeah, just, just reach out and we’re here.
AJV (48:00):
And I’ll put your LinkedIn link in the show notes as well. This was so helpful, so insightful, so many good nuggets. And for everyone else who is listening, stick around for the recap, which will be up next. And we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 479: 3 Tips for Awkward-less Networking | April Garcia Episode Recap
RV (00:00):
You know how when you go to events and they give you a name tag and you always feel awkward meeting new people, I’m gonna share with you three simple steps in three different environments to make it easy for you to meet new people so that you can grow your business. All right? So first of all, let’s talk about events. What do you do at events? Well, here’s what you don’t do. I’m not a fan of walking up and saying, hi, I’m Rory, nice to meet you. Mm. Like, I always feel weird, and, and it’s not wrong to do that. It’s not bad to do it, but it just feels very abrupt and sharp. So lemme give you the three part formula that works really at any event or any in-person environment, anywhere you go, it’s compliment questions and then free compliment question and free. So here’s how it starts.
RV (00:53):
Start with a compliment. Don’t walk up and say, hi, my name is, walk up and compliment somebody on something. Hey, I love your smile. I love your hair, I love your shoes, I love your outfit. And if you can’t find something honest to compliment them on, then what you should do is comment on the environment, right? Rather than introduce yourself to the person, comment on the environment. So you would say like, man, it’s freezing in here. Or you know, do you have any idea what that food is? The the point is to break the ice of the conversation by not having such direct eye contact and such an, an abrupt opening to the relationship. So either compliment somebody on something genuinely, or comment on the environment. The second thing that you should do to meet new people is you should ask questions. This is the easiest secret tip of building relationships with new people.
RV (01:50):
And it takes all the pressure off of you when you feel like you have to meet people. Like you have to be somebody, you have to share something magnificent, or you have to like, show up and impress people. That’s gonna put pressure on you. And it’s also not the way to actually build relationships quickly. The way to build relationships quickly is to ask questions. Just simply ask questions. So where are you from? How did you find out about this? Have you been to this event before? Do you know? Who do you know here? Did you come with somebody? How did you hear about this? And then from that question, go to the next question to the next question to the next question. The key to meeting people is to not be so focused on yourself, but just be focused on asking great questions. Then how does this turn into creating new business for you? Well, that’s step three, which is offer something for free. Remember the formula, compliment questions, and free. That means offer something for free. Offer them free help, free advice, a free call. Offer them to, to connect
RV (02:58):
Them to somebody for free. A vendor, perhaps a friend of yours that might be useful for them, or a contact that you have. Or send them an article or send them a video or, or send them send them something, right? Give them something valuable that is free and it might just be free time with you, a free assessment, something like that. So we wanna be thinking about whenever you transition from a meeting somebody for the first time, usually you’re asking them questions. A lot of times that will show up as them asking you questions back. But when you transition into your business, think about what can you give them for free. That’s the, that’s the most gradual, safe, easy, smooth way to transition into talking about your business. And this works in person at events, it can work on an airplane, right? If you’re sitting next to someone on an airplane, you might feel awkward saying, hi, my name is, and, and immediately breaking the physical barrier of shaking hands, right?
RV (03:59):
Not everybody is prepared initially to, to make physical contact. They’re also not prepared to make eye contact. So if you instead compliment them and say, Hey, I love your shoes. Or hey, I love that show. If they’re, if they’re, if they’re, if they’re watching something on their iPad or comment on the situation, right? Like, comment on the airline, comment on how small the plane is, comment on the tray, comment on the flight attendant, comment on the environment as a way of breaking the ice. Then ask questions, then offer something for free that will work in any sort of in-person environment. The second place that you can really meet people, and you can follow this same three part process, is online on social media. So how do you build a relationship with somebody digitally in the interwebs on social media? Same exact formula, compliment question, and offer something for free.
RV (05:04):
So you show up and you leave a genuine compliment. Now it’s, if you just go to somebody’s profile and you comment on their post and you say, great post, they’re not gonna notice that. But if you write a genuine compli compliment as a comment on one of their posts, they’re gonna see it. I’m telling you, we work with some of the fam most famous personal brands in the world. These people have millions of followers. When you write genuine compliments, they see them. Here’s a secret tip. Realize nobody ever gets tired of hearing how awesome they are. Nobody, doesn’t matter how rich, how famous, how successful. You might think, oh my gosh, everyone tells ’em this. I’m telling you, there’s not a person in the world. Whoever gets sick of having other people tell them how
RV (05:56):
Awesome they are. So don’t do this in a fake way. Do it in a genuine way. Tell them what it is about them that you love. Tell them why you follow that person. Tell them what was awesome in the video or in the thing they just shared. And by the way, the other way to compliment people online is to share their content, right? You should retweet them. Or what do we call a retweet now for X? I don’t know. Rex them. I, I actually don’t know. But you can share their post, you can send it to a friend. And they’ll often see that as well. But leave a genuine compliment. Then if and when they respond to you, ask them a question. And this is a mistake that people make, is if they ever get a response from the person, they often immediately launch into their pitch of like, Hey, can, can I come on your podcast?
RV (06:52):
Or can I, can we go to lunch? Or can you know? They asking them for something? Don’t do that. Just ask them questions about something going on in their life. The key is to ask questions and not for those questions to be about something that they can do for you. And then the third thing is, if the opportunity presents itself, offer something for free. Now, I wanna say this, in the online world, where you wanna build relationships is not in the comments. You wanna do it in the dms. The, the goal of content is to create comments. The goal of comments is to create dms. And then once you have dms, then you can build offline relationships and then you can get stuff done. So you don’t wanna do this back and forth in comments. You wanna tell ’em, Hey you could leave a compliment publicly on their post.
RV (07:41):
And then if they respond, you can say, Hey, I just dmd you a question. And then move them into the dms. Ask them questions, go back and forth. And if the opportunity presents itself for some way for you to potentially, possibly, maybe might do business with them, do it in a way of offering them something for free. Give them free value. Don’t try to sell ’em something. Don’t try to pitch them on. You. Offer something for free. If you do that, then you have a chance of building the relationship. Now, the third place that you can meet people is through referrals. Referrals, referrals, referrals. I promise you that referrals from humans to other humans is the fastest way to build your business and to build relationships. And on this one, I’m just gonna give you one really quick line. One simple technique and tactic that works for asking with for referrals. And it all comes down to how you tee it up. The reason why most people are terrible at asking for referrals is because they think that if they ask for referrals, they’re going to come across somehow as needy or annoying or unsuccessful
RV (08:54):
Or weak. But in reality, you should be none of those things. People love to do business with friends. We all understand that we all prefer to do business by way of referral. So when you ask for referrals, I want you to use that line or to use this line that I’m gonna give you. And here’s the transition as you say, Hey, you may not realize this, but I really only prefer to do business with friends or friends of friends. And because of that, I was wondering if you might be open-minded to introducing me to, and then you explain the kind of people that you’re trying to meet. But that key transitional phrase is, is where the magic is. You may not realize this, but I really prefer to do business with friends or friends of friends. And so I was wondering if you might be open-minded to introducing me to people who are, and then you describe the type of people that you’re looking for.
RV (09:53):
If you can get past that part, if you can get past that awkwardness that, that opening moment, then there’s a good chance that your friends, your family, your active clients, your past clients will introduce you to people. They will refer you to people when you simply explain that’s how you prefer to do business. So there you have three different environments, live events, social media, and referrals. If you’re meeting new people for the first time, remember compliments questions and offer things for free. And if you’re asking for referrals, just explain that you prefer to do business with friends or friends of friends. Hey, if this video is valuable for you, make sure to hit the subscribe button and share this with somebody who you know in your life that needs some tips on meeting more people.
Ep 478: Small Business Success Secrets with April Garcia
RV (00:02):
It’s always a privilege when I get to introduce you to someone that I’ve known for years and worked with as a friend also as a client. And April Garcia is one of my favorite people that we have ever worked with. She was one of the early BBG members B-B-G-O-G as we like to say. And she comes from a world of big, big business. And she climbed the ladder as a top performer in the financial and telecom industries. She’s got a bachelor’s degree in biology. She built several businesses. She’s advised both US and international corporations all the way from like startup to billion dollar enterprises, right? So she’s an expert in growing revenue, sales, operations, and just kind of like what it takes to scale. But a few years ago, she made a pivot to say, I wanna start working with small businesses to help them succeed. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, is basically how can small businesses apply the principles of big business to help ’em scale faster? And where should they not try to be, like big businesses so that they can scale faster? So anyways, welcome to the show. April Garcia, it’s great to have you,
AG (01:12):
Rory. It’s so good to be here. I’m so glad that we made this happen, and it has been such a journey with you, with the company I’ve loved working together, and I so appreciate being here today.
RV (01:22):
Well, thanks buddy. So I just wanna start, like, right, what I was just talking about is going, what, you come from the big business world. You’ve been working, helping small businesses. What do small business owners need to know and ex like, what do they need to do, like big businesses? How do, how should they be thinking more like big businesses? Mm-Hmm.
AG (01:57):
Yeah. There’s so many things. I’m gonna try to boil ’em down to just a couple of things. Part of it is that we, we don’t realize when we’re leveling up, we’re a small business owner. We start with zero sales, zero experience. And it’s not like someone comes to you and says, Hey, you just crossed this threshold. Now you need to start doing these things. Or you need to let go of these old habits. And so there’s no kind of this magic moment where someone comes to you and says, it’s time for, for example, processes. And so, one of the first things I will tell you is, when I made this transition from big business to small business, what I found overwhelming was that, well, small business owners were completely overwhelmed. They had way more things than could possibly get done. And so it’s, it’s funny, I did this exercise one time.
AG (02:40):
I was, I was doing a training and I said, okay, if there’s one word that could describe your state, write it down on a piece of paper and I’m gonna gather everyone’s up, and then I’m gonna look at it. And there’s probably 30 business owners in the room, and they ran anywhere from they’re small business owners, you’d say probably about 500 K to about 5 million. And they all wrote down a word. And then I opened it up, and every single one of the words were some iteration of overwhelmed. Wow. Every single one of them. And then I said, okay, we’re gonna take this a little bit farther. I said, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? And now I put a little space between these two questions. And what was very interesting is I was kind of thinking we’d get a couple of, like flying or I don’t know, see-through walls or something like that.
AG (03:24):
Ultimately, it was some version of could I multiply myself like, or slow down time so I could get more things done. And I remember this hitting me like a, a, a ton of bricks. And I thought, gosh, they’re really struggling with overwhelm. And so part of that is when we’re small businesses, we don’t think about things like processes. Processes aren’t fun, processes aren’t sexy. But if you don’t have time for processes, you never have time, right? And so, one of the things that big businesses have, they have processes, they have SOPs, standard operating procedures. Now, this doesn’t have to be a super involved process. This doesn’t have to be someone that, you know, an onset consultant that you bring in to do this. Just capturing what needs to happen to make your business run so that as you staff up, you can convey that information to them will be huge. Now, let me tell you what I see small business owners where, where we mess up, and I’ve done this too in the businesses that I’ve owned. We say things like, well, I need someone who’s quick on their feet. I need someone who’s a fast learner that doesn’t need me to handhold. And when you hear words like that, they need to be red flags of like, oh, so you’re planning on not training that person, right?
RV (04:35):
Can you come take care of this mess for me while I pay you, pay you under market value, overload you with work? And can you just like, solve all my problems,
AG (04:46):
Sometimes I’ll be asking you to work on operations, and other time I’ll ask you to pick up my car. This is, we all do this, right? Like, we all start there. And, you know, I worked with this real estate investor in Ohio for a couple of years, and he always complained about like the job market. And he’d say stuff about the millennials and the job market and what kind of, you know, what kind of talent are they turning out of the universities? And what I continuously had to remind him, as I said, Eric, and we’ll say your name, Eric. Eric, what kind of training program do you have? How are you training these people? Mm-Hmm. He wasn’t. And yet he was continuously disappointed with what they were providing. So when I say training guys, I don’t mean that you have to sit down and you have to write a dissertation on how to do a job.
AG (05:30):
I mean, it could be you turning on Zoom or you know, Google Meet or something like this. And you walking through a process your organization does while you’re doing a screen share. And that does a couple of things. One, it addresses the people that are audio learners who are listening, but it also addresses the people that are visual learners. They actually are watching you walk through the process. So, I mean, this is a very tactical thing I’m jumping into right away. But for example, if you need to know about how to onboard a client or how to send out an invoice, you turn on Zoom, you do a screen share, and someone’s watching your mouse clicks, someone’s watching. As you talk through the process on Zoom, it’s being recorded. And then afterwards, zoom has this nice, and it doesn’t have to be Zoom guys, but it was a nice little transcribed feature.
AG (06:10):
Transcribe it, go back in, take five minutes, just clean up, make sure that the transcription was accurate. Bam. Now you have an SOP. Now you have a process in your organization for onboarding. And this doesn’t, you don’t require tens of thousands of dollars of software or tools or, or consulting fees. There’s value to that. Yes. But if I’m talking to a small business owner right now, they’re already so busy that when you propose more expenses and when you propose more work, it feels overwhelming. You can literally put something together in a Google drive. Now again, big businesses, they’ve got nicer tools for that. But let’s just talk about the scrapper. That’s the up and coming. Mm-Hmm.
RV (07:14):
Mm-Hmm, yeah, I, that, that is what happens, right? I mean, in so many of these small businesses, the hardest thing is they go, well, I can’t, I don’t have the time to hire someone, so I’ll do it myself. And then they get to expert and they go, okay, I’ll hire someone, but I don’t have the time to train ’em. And then the person leaves and they go, see, I don’t have time to hire them. That never works out. And mm-Hmm,
AG (07:34):
RV (07:35):
I’ll do it myself. And, and it’s just this sort of vicious cycle. And I think a lot of times a lot of times I think small business owners mislead themselves to thinking, oh, a person is the answer. I’m looking for this magical person. And it’s not. The process is the answer, which is good news. Absolute is because the process is more controllable. The process is mm-hmm,
AG (08:15):
You can keep doing iterations and it gets better and better. And, and, you know, the other thing is, we, we jumped in the process thing. And, and, and I’ll be honest with you, where no one wants to hear that they need a process, no small business order. They’re like, oh God, not the process thing. Next thing I’m gonna tell ’em to have a morning routine or journal. I get it. I get it. Everybody’s busy and they don’t wanna hear that, even if it’s good for them. But Rory, I’ll tell you another piece that big businesses do fantastic and small businesses overlook. Oftentimes we get into running our own business because we’re very good at our craft, but we are not very good at selling our craft. And what I see small business learners do over and over again is they love a good product development.
AG (08:51):
They love getting better and better and better at their craft. Mm-Hmm,
AG (09:38):
So get it’s facts and you know, it’s, it’s, it’s facts. And, and that’s, and that’s the thing I see a lot too, is people will go, well, why that person? Why, why is that person, you know, getting the book deal? Why is that person on stage? Why did that person get the big clients? It’s not skillset guys. It’s mindset. It’s confidence. It’s things that you have totally under your control if you just use the tools that help you improve those things. So I have a lot of people that sit in front of me and say, I’m not good at sales. Well, you’re not gonna be good at your craft. You’re not gonna be able to do it for the right people, because there’s someone out there tonight, I want you to imagine that 11 o’clock at night, someone has opened up their laptop and they’re trying to find a solution. They’re googling for answers that are inside your head. And unless you get good at sales, unless you, unless you get a sales plan together or hire someone who’s good at sales, they’re never gonna get that solution. So stop burning the midnight oil, getting better at your craft and get better at sales.
RV (10:34):
Yeah, I think, I think, you know, there’s, there’s something to be said to be for being great at your craft, for sure. Sure. But it, it’s like there’s, there’s so many great artists that are the starving artists and you and Mm-Hmm.
AG (11:31):
And it’s because product development is fun. It’s fun.
RV (11:33):
Product development is fun. Yep. You don’t have the rejection, you don’t have the, the the, the fear. Totally. And like, it is this, it’s creative avoidance to use a term from take the stairs. Yes. It’s, it’s going, it looks like we’re being productive, but we’re really doing it subconsciously as a defense mechanism to avoid the pain that comes from, like, what, what needs to happen. So I wanna stick on this for a second, and then I want to talk about what small businesses should do different from the big businesses, but to stick on this Mm-Hmm.
AG (12:47):
So we constantly iterate so we don’t have to sell, maybe because we really like it to be perfect, maybe because we’re convincing ourselves that we wanna make the most impact in the end user if we make it really, really good. But I have found time and time again that it’s fear. Because if we get to stay in our workshop and tinker on our craft, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a speak if, if it’s a speech, if it’s a book, it doesn’t matter what the, the particular craft is or the product. And when I say product development product, I mean your service, your product, whatever widget you sell or whatever service you sell, when we get to just stay in our workshop and tinker, we get to stay safe. Mm. And we don’t have to get out in the middle of the arena where people are gonna throw things at us, right?
AG (13:30):
I mean, it’s scary to get your product out there. There’s there’s a famous quote. I’m gonna, I’m gonna paraphrase. But essentially if you know that your product is ready to release it, then you’ve waited too long. I’m paraphrasing. But you have to get your product out messy. You have to get it out and iterate. Product development needs to be an iterative process because you have to get feedback from the marketplace, not feedback from your mom or your brother or your wife. You have to get feedback from the end user. Don’t show it to someone that isn’t the end user. I wanna say end user. I mean, if I am writing a book about how to help real estate agents sell, don’t sell, show it to your sister that runs a bakery. Like that’s not your market. And it won’t resonate with her. And besides she loves you and she’s probably gonna tell you good things.
AG (14:16):
So you have to get it out. Like you have to birth that out in the universe and then let someone throw tomatoes at it. And I see that over and over again. I, I work with a client Ben, who’s a remarkable composer. And he, he said it great. He said, I find that I just over complicate it like it’s a Christmas tree and I keep hanging ornaments on over and over and again until it gets so heavy, it just falls over and I start again. And I thought, what a great way to do that. So small businesses continuously focus on making their craft better, making their product better so that they don’t have to be exposed. I mean, this is why I, I go on a tangent here for a second, Roy, but I hate when social media loves people love to put this out on social media about like hustle and silence and then surprise them with their results.
AG (15:00):
And I think that is absolute garbage. I hate that when I see that on Instagram and Facebook, because people should see you iterate. People should see you get out there and like, well, this didn’t work. Well, that’s okay, I’m gonna try again and I’m gonna try again. Like, don’t only come out when everything is polished and perfect. The only person you are protecting in that instance is you, is your ego. But when someone sees you iterate, they see, hey, that’s available. Or someone like me for someone who’s messy or someone that maybe has a learning disability with someone with, with a DHD, someone with young kids. All those reasons that we tell ourselves. ’cause We, we’ve got that negative narrative well rehearsed as to why that success isn’t available to someone like me. When you actually get it out to the marketplace, when you stop living in product development, that’s when you can also inspire people with your journey.
RV (15:50):
Mm-Hmm.
AG (16:39):
Yeah. So I will start by telling you how I did this wrong, Rory. So I’m glad that you asked this question. So, when I came out of the big business world, I had just finished this we’ll say a very, very popular telecom launch. And it was a hundreds of millions of dollars of a launch. And I was very much a part of the strategy and spearheading this and negotiating all the contracts and the deals and flying over all over the world to make this happen. And then I went and built a personal brand five years ago, which is where we met, right? Mm-Hmm.
AG (17:24):
I was used to being the big dog on campus. Well, when you’re a small business, you aren’t, and you have to be aware of your expenses. And so, one thing I would encourage someone is you are not building a hundred million dollar company. You’ve first gotta build a million dollar company before you can build a hundred million dollar company. So when you’re out there looking at the big guys again, let’s say you’re, you are speaker, if you’re out there looking at someone who’s been speaking for 20 years and they’re, you know, wildly successful at what they’re doing, you cannot fully emulate them. Yes. I say, who are you chasing? You, you should be chasing someone. You should be, you know, have an idea of, okay, I wanna be similar to the speaker we were talking about John Maxwell earlier, or Les Brown. You can have an idea of someone that you’re like, okay, this is someone that I’m, I’m, I’m sort of chasing, but understand you’re chasing the version of them that are finely tuned 40 years down the road.
AG (18:13):
If I am trying to scale a large consulting business, I can’t look at a, a consulting business that’s a billion dollar business and say, I wanna be like them because they were first a million dollar business. So I will say, scale appropriately, watch your expenses. You can’t indulge in expenses like the big guys can. But I’ll, I’ll make it even more tactical than that. Rory. I’m going to say that you’ve got to be very particular who you take on as a client. Oh, large businesses, yeah. This is key. This is key. So large businesses can take on a multitude of clients, and they have lots of customer service people and lots of salespeople and lots of account managers and, and engineers and different people to sort of scale according to the customer demographic. Small businesses, we don’t get that. The problem is, when we are a small business, we kind of have this rule, whether we say it or not, they’re like, well, if it ships, it fits.
AG (19:07):
If they pay, they play. Right? And we take on all these clients that aren’t a good fit for our model, which is one of the reasons why I loved your guys’ program about like the avatar work and primary and secondary audience that is so key. Because what I saw with small businesses is that anybody who could write a check, they would say yes to. Mm-Hmm.
AG (19:47):
We’ve all had those clients. Like we’ve had the client that just made us not love our craft anymore. Big businesses can afford that. Big businesses have the, the latitude to take on different client demographics. If I’m talking to a small business owner right now, like whoever’s listening right now, if you’re running, and, and I’ll say I usually define small businesses under 50 million, but probably for, for who we’re talking to, I’m saying between, you know, 1,000,020 5 million, who you choose to have as clients is everything. Because that will make you and your team love your work or hate your work. And I’ll give you a little, I’ll give you a little insider tip. This is an exercise I do as a business advisor. Your highest maintenance clients will almost always be your lowest profit clients. But they won’t appear like that at f at first. So that same 750, you know, K revenue c client might get a 250 K contract and they go, this is the mo the biggest contract we’ve ever had as a business.
AG (20:46):
This is amazing. This is amazing. But if it’s not the right fit, it will end up costing you in the long run. They might be high maintenance, they might not be a good fit. You might have to add on extra bells and whistles just to meet their demands or meet their needs because they weren’t quite a fit. But you really needed the money. And I, I’ll tell you, I’ve seen so many small business owners grow to dislike what they do. And it wasn’t because they, they don’t like doing it anymore. It’s who they, who they’re doing it with. A lot of times when I talk to small business owners, when they say that they’ve lost that love and feeling like, oh, I just don’t enjoy it as much. I always say, talk to me about your client demographics. Who are you working with? How has that changed through the years?
AG (21:26):
And sometimes it’s, well, I got part of this organization and they were sending me leads and so I just took them. And they aren’t realizing that they’re not loving it anymore ’cause they’re working with the right, wrong kind of clients. So small business owners be very clear, not who you can serve because you are a creative person, you’re a resourceful person, you can help lots of people, but I want you to be very specific on who you should serve, not who you can, you can serve lots of people, but who should I serve? Who am I passionate about serving? But also will light me up too. Because again, you’re resourceful. You can help lots of people, but you help the wrong person and you won’t love your business anymore.
RV (22:03):
Mm-Hmm.
AG (22:43):
Yeah.
RV (22:43):
So, you know, that kind of fits with alignment and goals and something in general you talk about. So mm-hmm.
AG (23:04):
Absolutely. So smart goals is sort of, well, the gold standard, right? Like they it, and, and there is, there is validity to that. I, I operated off of smart goals for years, but there is a piece that’s missing in the smart growth format that I found has really handicapped a lot of people’s success. Part of what I do, much of what I do, I, I said that people come for skillset, but they stay for mindset. Part of the mindset piece is just getting people out of their own way and making sure they’re truly leveraging all the tools that they have around them, even the ones that they’re overlooking. So I use a framework called the anatomy of goals. And in the anatomy of goals, it’s around identifying the what. That’s, that’s key. But usually when people are setting goals, they move right into the how.
AG (23:45):
The second they say the what, it doesn’t matter what the goal is. It could be, I wanna hit seven figures this year. It can be I wanna run a marathon or write a book. The goal doesn’t matter. And, and that’s a piece that’s important too. Goals are just project management with a bunch of emotions baked in. People try to make goals into this big thing. It’s just project management. It’s, it’s figuring out the what and then chipping away at it a little bit at the time and figuring out a way to keep yourself focused on it until you hit that. But the piece that’s missing with smart goals is the who, like who can help you get ahead. And so what I created in the anatomy of goals is, is it’s a three part. You establish the what, which is very important. Okay? I want a seven figure revenue, for example.
AG (24:25):
Great. We’ve got the what now, resist the temptation to move right into the how, which is where our brain immediately goes. If I say, okay, I’m gonna hit seven figures immediately, it’s like, well, the market’s downturn with the political climate, dah, I’ve got all the reasons why I’ve, I’ve practiced this narrative many times of all the reasons why that’s not feasible, or if it’s I’m gonna run a marathon. Yeah, but you know, my kids are still kind of young and would drop off and now we’re sending so and so to soccer practice. There’s all these reasons why that’s not possible. ’cause We moved into the how, forget the how go from what. And then you immediately go into the who. I break the who into three parts. So regardless of the goal, I want you to be looking for three different parts. The first one is the mentor, which makes sense.
AG (25:06):
Like, who’s done this thing that I’m about to do? I wanna hit seven figures. Who do I know who’s hit seven figures? I want to write a bestselling book. Who do I know who’s written a bestselling book? That’s the mentor, the person who has gone ahead of you. The next is the networker who has the network to support this goal that I want. Sometimes the mentor and the network are the same person. You know, if I want to climb Everest and I have this friend Allison who’s climbed Everest, okay, great. She could be the mentor. Does she have the network? Now here’s how that’s different. Does she know the Sherpas I should use? Does she know the pilot that can fly me in? So who’s got the network, the connections that can help me get to my goal quicker? Here’s the third piece, the buddy.
AG (25:46):
And that is simply the accountability buddy. So again, I want to hit seven figures, so I’ve gotta sell a bunch or I want to climb ever. It doesn’t matter what the goal is. You should have an accountability buddy in there for your goals. The buddy doesn’t need to know anything about your goal. They could never have written a book in their life. But just by virtue of the fact that they text you every morning and ask what your word count was, I mean, I’ve done this before. I have a cousin that knew nothing about the goal that I was doing. She’d understand the intricacies, but I said, here’s the exact words you need to say to me. This was years ago. I said, this is the exact words you need to say to me. You can even set this up that it automatically gets text to me.
AG (26:22):
But by me just knowing I was gonna get that text from my cousin, I tended to perform. So when you’re looking at your goals, a lot of people will go, okay, I’m gonna research this. I’m, I’m gonna run my first marathon. So they’ll research a ton out of how to run a marathon. But if you simply hang out with a bunch of people that have run marathons before, it’s gonna shorten your path to success. If you talk to someone, how did they do it? Who do they know? Do they know? Any races come up? And so when you’re looking at your goals, guys,
RV (26:49):
It’s funny that you talk about this. ’cause I’m literally in Bible study with a bunch of marathon runners, Uhhuh. And I’m actively gonna end up running, trying to repel the idea. It’s not gonna work that I get, that I get recruited into running this. ’cause It’s like, it’s not gonna work. It’s so organically there’s such an organic draw to like, come do this. And I’m like, no. The answer is no. Resistance
AG (27:08):
Is futile. I Rory
RV (27:09):
Given
AG (27:12):
We’re gonna talk to Rory again in six months and he’s gonna tell us how many miles a week he’s doing It just, just, you can’t, you can’t, you gotta give in if, I mean, if you what was it Steve Harvey says, if nine of your friends are broke, you’ll be the 10th. I love that saying, but the truth is, the opposite is true as well. If nine of your friends are rich, you’re likely to be the 10th. Totally. I I, I worked with a guy who was part of a, a I’ll say a men’s group that was amazing. This was a few years back. And he ended up dropping out and I said, man, I thought you really liked that group. And he said, yeah, but he’s like, they were all really, really wealthy and it kind of made me uncomfortable, like their conversation, I didn’t feel like I belonged at that table.
AG (27:46):
And I said, and by you dropping out, you will never belong at that table. Hmm. If you can just withstand the discomfort that you, yourself feel, nobody else needs to feel it. But if you can just withstand the discomfort that you feel because you, you feel that they’re operating at a higher level, you’ll reach their level. This is the power of a network. This is the power of a social circle. Our mamas we’re right. Like we are who the, you know, the people we surround ourselves with, which is why Rory Vaden will become a runner.
RV (28:13):
No, you heard it here first. Not become a, I’ll change Bible studies before that happens.
AG (28:28):
Absolutely. So the best place is the april garcia.com. I’m the April Garcia on all the platforms as well. And I got a lot of free tools and free resources as well as the the Pivot Me podcast, the April Garcia Pivot Me podcast. I love what I do, I love who I do it with. And I’m happy to answer any questions about what we talked about here or any other topics on the podcast.
RV (28:48):
So cool, friend, well, we’re cheering you on. We’re, we’re so grateful for you and just believe in you more and more friend. I, I know the be the best is ahead for you. So thanks for making time for us and, and keep crushing it.
AG (29:00):
Absolutely. This was amazing. Well done. Thank you so much for having me on Rory.
Ep 477: Entrepreneur Mindset | AJ Vaden Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
We’re gonna talk about mindset today. And specifically we’re gonna talk about the entrepreneur mindset. And I’ve got five quick things that I wanna hit on to help you develop a rock solid entrepreneur mindset. And even if you are not a, you know, definitive entrepreneur, I wanna create an entrepreneurial mindset that no matter what you do, what role you have or title you possess, that these five characteristics can go with you anywhere you go. Because having an entrepreneurial mindset really just means you have an ownership mindset. And I don’t mean ownership of a business, I mean ownership over a task, ownership over a person, right? In terms of like owning, like what you’re gonna do in order to develop, develop, and lead that person, it’s over a project, or it could be over a business, but it is an ownership mindset. That’s what I need mean by an entrepreneur mindset.
AJV (00:59):
So number one, build as you go. That’s the first thing. Don’t wait until it’s perfect. It’s not going to be, so you must build it as you go. There’s this great analogy, actually, I saw a picture of this on Instagram so, so many years ago, and it was a picture of an individual who had jumped off a cliff and they were building the airplane as they fell. And the, the caption read below the life of an entrepreneur, right? Building the airplane after you jump off the cliff. And that’s a little bit of the ownership mindset of like, no matter how it goes, I’m gonna own it. I’m gonna own the successes, own the failures, but I, most importantly, I’m going to own the process of building it as we go and knowing that it’s always going to have opportunity to improve and be better.
AJV (01:44):
And we will do so as we go. But I’m not going to wait to launch. I’m gonna own what I’ve got and I’m gonna go and I’ll make it better as we continue. Number two, be a salesperson first. The ownership mindset is the, the key to all business is to make more than you spend
AJV (02:59):
Companies. ’cause Other companies have said, my gosh, they’re better at selling this than we are. They have more influence than we do. They have become great salespeople. So in an ownership and an entrepreneur mindset, you have got to, to own and take on the abilities and the responsibilities of being a great salesperson for your company, your products and your services. Number three, grow only as fast as you can. Serve your community. IE your clients and your employees. Grow only as fast as you can. Serve your community. Some of the greatest stories of all time about companies who have had enormous growth in unbelievable timeframes and in a devastatingly sad story of how they imploded that’s most of the docuseries out right now are about that. And I won’t list any of them specifically, but there are story after story after story about this monumental mind blowing growth.
AJV (03:57):
Only to watch it come to a tumbling disaster. A pile of rubble in the end because they outgrew their ability to serve their customers in a good and decent way. Right? Now, that’s not just their own customers, that’s also your employees. Don’t outgrow your capacity to take care of your people. So if that means you need to slow growth down, slow it down so that you can do it right? You don’t have to grow fast. There’s no accolades and fast growth, although seemingly that’s what people talk about in the market often fast growth is worrisome to me of going, do you have the infrastructure in place? Like if you’ve grown that fast in that short amount of time, like, do you really have all the systems in place? Like, can I see a little bit more into the, you know, under the cover now, under the hood, grow only as fast as you can serve your people, your community.
AJV (04:51):
That’s your employees and your customers. Number four, hire a players only if they are not an A player, don’t hire ’em. You gotta have a players in every single role of your company. This whole idea of the weakest link, why do you have weak links? Why? Why do you have those? I have no idea. I’m not saying that we haven’t had weak links. I’m just saying like, be cognizant of hire a players. An A player can do the job of three C players. So hire one phenomenal person. Pay ’em every single thing that they’re worth and it will save you three other positions. Hire top talent. Hire A players. Don’t settle. Hire the person that can help you grow, help you take it to the next level. Hire top talent. Hire A players. I cannot say that enough on repeat. And then number five, focus on being better over bigger. This is one of my favorite stories to tell right now. And it’s funny ’cause I don’t even remember the book that I read this in last year but I, that’s
AJV (05:57):
Not true. I think it was called To Create, it was a book called, called to Create. And they were telling this amazing story about Truitt Kathy, who’s the founder of Chick-fil-A And it was in the late mid or mid to late 1990s. And there was apparently this, you know, once of kind of like once of a lifetime boardroom meeting with Truit Kathy, who I, I did not know personally clearly, but was known to be a very calm executive. But in this particular meeting they were meeting about a competitor company called Boston Market, who had come on the scene and was growing at an expedient rate, taking up massive market share. And they were on the track to being a a billion dollar company at this point. I think Chick-fil-A was maybe like $400 million. Don’t quote me on the facts here, I’m recalling from memory.
AJV (06:46):
But they were in this conversation about how all these other Chick-fil-A executives were wanting to talk about, well, how do we grow market share? We need to open more stores. We need to do this and do this. And uncharacteristically of Truitt Kathy, he bangs his fist on the table and he said, we’ll have no more talk of this. The only thing that we need to talk about is how do we become better? We don’t need to become bigger. We need to become better and let our audience demand that we become bigger. And this saying has become a mantra at Brand Builders Group because who says you need to be bigger? Who says scale is better? That’s not necessarily the case. And I love this story with Truitt Kathy, because less than a decade later, Boston Market had filed bankruptcy. But Chick-fil-A was now a billion dollar company.
AJV (07:41):
When you focus on becoming better at what you do, you force your customers to talk about you more in the best way. Better quality products, better quality team members, better quality experiences. That’s how you grow. That’s how you become bigger, better, makes you bigger. Bigger does not always make you better, but better, almost always makes you bigger. So focus on being better at what you do, not just being bigger. Focus on better teammates, better training, better experiences, better service, better programs, better products, better services, better, better, better. And then let your audience demand that you get bigger because they want so much of it.
Ep 476: How to Go From 0 to 8 Figures in 5 Years with AJ Vaden
AJV (00:02):
How do you go from zero to eight figures in five years or less? That’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. And I gotta be transparent. I gotta be honest. I was actually in the shower this morning and I was brainstorming, what am I gonna do for this solo episode for our podcast today? And I, I looked over at my husband, Rory, and I said, Hey babe, what do you think would be worthy of doing a solo podcast episode, which is what we’re doing right now? And he said, babe, you gotta talk about the growth trajectory of Brain Builders Group. Because what’s what’s been done is something that has happened organically and the lessons that we have learned are extraordinary for entrepreneurs. And mainly because of all the things that we’ve done wrong. But luckily over the last five years, there’s been a few things that we’ve been blessed to do right through the grace of God and good coaches and mentors and amazing community.
AJV (00:54):
And in a fantastically awesome team at Brand Builders Group, we’ve been able to pull some pretty cool things off. And so we’re gonna talk about that. It’s what are eight things that you should know to help you go from zero to eight figures and five things and five years or less, right? So number one, focus on sales and revenue first. And don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying don’t focus on people or service. What I am saying is you have to know how to sell your product and service as the first thing you do. You have got to have a sales oriented mindset, a revenue focused effort before you start thinking of things that are ancillary, which I’m gonna throw out there would be marketing, right? And this will hear, hear more about this over our story, but it was sales first. It was like, we have to bring revenue in the door. If we’re going to make it, we’ll figure the rest out later. We’ll get better as we go, but we have to figure out how to sell this first. So it was figuring out what problem we solve, who we solve it for, the unique way in which we solve it. It’s what at Brand Builders Group, we call your brand positioning statement. It’s what are the offerings that
AJV (02:03):
We have and the price points, which will inevitably change. They will evolve. They must evolve. They must change as you grow as a company. But first and foremost, you have to know how to sell what you offer products or services alike. So, sales mindset first, revenue focused first. Not in lieu of service, but you’ve gotta bring clients in the door. You gotta bring money in the door in order to serve them well. So that was number one. Number two,
AJV (02:35):
Make more than you’re spending, right? Simple Law of Economics. Spend less than what
AJV (02:43):
You’re earning, right? In our case, it was like we, we were focused on making more than we were spending. And that means that us as the business owners were the, honestly, the, the lease paid people in the company for a minute. ’cause We could afford it. We had lots of savings. But
AJV (02:58):
We were not getting big office spaces. We still work from home. Still don’t have a permanent office space. We still use coworking spaces. We’ve decided that’s not the right capital investment for our company. We are investing in other things first. Website. We, we had, we full launched as a company way before we had a website. We didn’t even have a website until we were almost a full eight months in to Brand Builders group. So yeah, it’s a little bit amazing that this thing took off the ground, but it did. And we’ll talk about why. But just focus on spending less than you’re making, right? Be wise with the money. We did not take loans. This was all self-funded. I’m not saying don’t take a loan, I’m just saying we didn’t. ’cause We were sales focused first and we were focused on making more than we were spending, right?
AJV (03:43):
That was number two. Number three, build and adjust as you go. We were not tied to, it has to be this way. In fact, we were tied to the fact that we don’t know how it’s supposed to be. That we’re very open and very quick to adapt. And I think that’s one of the, the great blessings of our team and our company at Brain Builders Group is we are quick to pivot and rather everyone that is a part of our team is naturally this way, or they have adapted and adjusted to be this way. Our team has an incredibly high tolerance for change. Myself and my business partner, my husband, Rory, have an incredibly high tolerance for change because we know that in a startup, that we know in order to survive, in order to succeed, things have to change. And they, we have to be able to change them quickly.
AJV (04:27):
There can be no bureaucracy. We have to see a problem, fix a problem, right? See something, say something. Airport policies, we gotta be able to quick to pivot, right? And as a smaller, more nimble company we’re able to do those things. So we have been very willing to build and adjust as we go knowing that what we build today very likely won’t be a fit for even a year from now. And we’ve bought into the idea that that means we’re growing. That means we’re succeeding. So we’re buying into that. That’s a choice. It’s not a choice everyone wants to make, but it’s a choice that is necessary to make. And that with a changing market, a changing economy, changing technologies, as you have to be willing to build and adjust as you go, you cannot build it to be perfect and wait till it’s perfect to sell it.
AJV (05:13):
‘Cause That date never comes, right? It’s never gonna be perfect. It’s never gonna be exactly the way that you want it. There are 1,000,001 things I could list out right now that I wish were different, that I wish were better, that I wish were X, Y, and Z. But that doesn’t mean we don’t launch. That doesn’t mean that we don’t continue as is because what we have is good. And that’s how you know that it’s ready to sell. ’cause You know that it works. You know that it can help people. And we work to make it better every day, every week, every month. But it’s not the best. It’s better. And that’s okay. So build and adjust as you go. Number four, hire, right? Hire for the long term and set the vision for the people hiring, right? You’re gonna probably hear me mention the importance of team members again, in just a, a second.
AJV (05:55):
But hire right means hiring for the long term. And what I mean by that is like, when we bring on somebody literally on our first interview, I tell people and I think that’s something that I would just, I would like to mention, I’m a part of every single interview process. I do not hire anyone for any position in our company without also getting to meet them and interview them. This is a family. This is not just a business to us. This is our ministry. This is our calling. This is what we feel like we were put on this planet to do. And we wanna do it with people who share those values and beliefs and who are in it for the right reasons and who are in it for the long term. So on the very first interview, I say, I’m not asking you to sign a 50 year contract, although I would if I could.
AJV (06:37):
But I am asking you to don’t take this position. Don’t continue this interview if you don’t think this is a company that you could be with in 10 years, right? And I think that says something because we want to hire top talent. That doesn’t mean we can’t afford all top talent, but it means we want to hire the top talent so that we can afford top talent. And you do that with having a long-term in mind of like, Hey, we see the potential in you and in this company, and we want you to be here when we can afford to pay the top, the top pay for the top talent. We don’t want to grow and replace, grow and replace. We want to grow and promote, grow and promote, grow and promote the team that is here today. I would love to say that we hired so well, and so, right?
AJV (07:21):
It’s almost the same team that you’re gonna see in five years or 10 years, knowing that of course there’s gonna be turnover. We have had turnover. We have made not ideal hiring decisions based on fit and skills, but that doesn’t mean that’s not what we aim for, right? It is not hire just a body or hire the lowest, you know, paid person I can find it’s no, I hire the right person and I see if we can, we can make it work. And as we grow, their income’s gonna grow along with us. But that means you’ve got to sell the long term. You’ve gotta know the vision and sell the vision. Being a great recruiter is one of the most important assets of a leader. And as a CEO and an entrepreneur, recruiting is one of my number one jobs as the owner of Brand Builders Group.
AJV (08:07):
And it needs to be one of the number one jobs of our team recruiting, IE selling, right? But recruiting great talent is a skill that can be developed and honed. But a part of that is knowing where you’re going so that you can sell the vision and bring people along with you and actually fulfill the vision and the process, right? Number five, ask clients for feedback and then actually act on that feedback. It’s one thing to get feedback, and I think that’s humbling enough to, to constantly ask your clients like, what are the things we’re doing not so well? As well as what’s, what’s, what’s going well? What can we do more of? It’s a whole nother thing to go, I hear you and I’m gonna do something about it because I want the clients that we have today, just like my team to be the clients we have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 year, 10 years from now.
AJV (08:52):
I want them to feel like they’re a part of building this company because honestly, our community at Brand Builders Group has been, they are the people who come up with the ideas. They are the ones who give us the feedback. And sometimes it’s not awesome feedback to hear that often is the feedback that is necessary to make that next move to growth. I can give you countless examples of things that I’ve just grabbed off of a survey of going, yeah, why aren’t we doing that? Or a conversation that someone said, Hey, would you be willing to hear me on this? And it created a whole new event or a product line or a service line. It’s ask for it. Genuinely, genuinely ask for it and then actually act on it. Help your community be a part of what makes you great. Because they know, they know where your weaknesses are.
AJV (09:39):
They know where your strengths are. And if you’re humble enough to ask for it and to listen to it and to act on it, it will make you a better company, a stronger company, and it will create more loyal customers. Okay? Number six, dev or sorry, give 10 times the value of what you charge. That’s a core philosophy of brand builders group. Every single time that we look at our, our suite of offerings for each of our product products or programs, we go, do we feel like they’re getting 10 times the value of what they’re paying for? And if not, how do we add more? It’s not, how do we constantly increase prices, although we’re in business at some point, we have to do price increases with the rate of inflation and the, the, you know, just cost of economies. Like, yes, those are things that we have to do to adjust with the rest of the world and the markets, but we are going to add more as we do that.
AJV (10:28):
Why? Because retention matters. Our customers matter. Our team matters. We don’t wanna be a revolving door. We want the, we want lifetime customers just like, and to some degree, I want lifetime employees, right? Again, but it’s, are you giving 10 times the value for what you’re charging for? So instead of thinking, what should you be charging, just be like, how much value can I give? And how can I make it such a no-brainer that it’s impossible to say no. Like I would be so dumb to leave. I would be so dumb not to do this. Like, I’m getting what? Like, is there a catch? Is there a trick? Like you want people to be like, this is extraordinary. How do you afford doing this? In fact, one of the most often questions I get from other people I know in our space is, why aren’t you charging more?
AJV (11:12):
Like, you know, you should be charging more, right? And I’m like, I mean, I know we could be charging more, but I don’t know that we should because we are aiming to do a very specific thing for a very certain group of people. Not to say that our prices won’t increase over time, they will, but always subservient to the value that we’re providing. So give 10 times the value than what you charge. Number seven, care. I’m just gonna pause for dramatic effect. Care, care about your team. Care about what you’re doing. Care about the numbers. Care about the details, care about your clients. Care about how things are done. Care. And I don’t mean you should be involved in every minute detail, that’s not what I’m saying. But in order to care, that does mean you need to stay on the front lines. You need to have contact with your customers.
AJV (12:06):
What we call our community. They’re way more than customers to us. They are our community, they are our friends, they’re our family. These are the dreams that we’re, we are working to empower, to come to life. These are not clients. This is our community. These are people that we care deeply about serving and helping. That’s why we’re doing this. And back to, it’s like we treat this as our ministry, not just our business. This is, these are friends and family. These are relationships, not clients. Customers and employees care. Stay on the front lines. Know your people. Know your community. Know what they’re about. Know what their brands are doing. Know what they’re up to on social media. Now, if you’ve got thousands and thousands of clients, I know that gets harder, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay on the front lines. You read the surveys, you show up at the events, you get on customer service calls.
AJV (12:59):
You meet with the sales team, you meet with your team of people who deliver your products and services. You stay on the front lines. That’s how you show that you care, right? There’s places that you can care and there’s people that you can care. And what I mean by that is that there are some places that you need to be. And then there are some people that you need to be with. Know the places and know the people, the care, stay on the front lines. And number eight, develop your team so you can trust your team. And that has a lot to do with the mindset of no one is going to step into any role perfectly. It doesn’t matter what their experience is. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been with you. There are nuances to every day, every role, every market, every year.
AJV (13:52):
They need developing just like you do as the business owner or as the leader. Develop your team. Provide them books to read, classes to go to courses to part, to participate, to participate in events, to go to coaches, develop your team so that you can trust your team. If you are a leader right now who questions your team, then I would question how much time you have spent developing your team. When you develop your team, it grows trust in your team because you know that they are getting equipped with the skills that they need. And they don’t all need to come from you. They cannot all come from you. They should not all come from you. They need to learn things outside of you so that they bring new things to the table. And that means they need developing. And that means you need developing.
AJV (14:44):
So who is your coach? How are you growing? What conferences are you going to? What classes are you attending? What courses are you participating in? Develop your team so that you can trust your team. And if you can’t do it together, right? Have a book of the month, have a book of the quarter, go to events together atti, you know, participate in courses together, whatever it is. Like, do things together so that trust grows at the same time, in the same ways, in the same places. But develop your team so that you can trust your team. Now I have probably like 88 more things that I could have listed, but when I reflect over the last five years of brand builders group, these are the eight things that we have done to go from zero to eight figures in the last five years. Now, there is one overriding thing that I would be remiss if I did not mention, and it is the fact that more so than anything else over the last five years, we have had open hands and we have said, God, this is yours.
AJV (15:46):
Do with it what you will and equip us to do what you want. Now, regardless of what your religious beliefs are and your affiliation with any sort of faith or religion, I would just encourage you that there is power and surrender of holding your business with open hands of going, this is not me. This is not my identity. This is something I do. It’s something I’ve been entrusted with. There are people here that I care about and that I have the opportunity to grow, trust, and develop. I have been entrusted with them. That is a responsibility I carry. It is not a burden. It is a responsibility. It is an honor, it is a privilege. And I hold it loosely knowing that this is not mine. There is no way that we could have done what has been done in the last five years on our own.
AJV (16:42):
And I don’t just mean our team and our community. I mean, this was a, God did it company, it is a God did it company. And it is because that we have been obedient and disciplined and we have listened. We have made lots of mistakes. But you know what? We didn’t stop. But it is holding it with faith of going, whatever is happening, I believe it’s for a reason. I believe there is a lesson for me to learn. I believe there, there is something to garner out of every bad situation that’s going to make us better. And for every ounce of faith that it has taken to do this. When we had to sell our car to make payroll, we said, okay when we had to you know, battle a lawsuit in order to start the company, we said, okay, when we gave up our life savings to start this, okay when it required us taking no pay so that we could pay our team, okay, there is an element of faith.
AJV (17:39):
IE trust that what you’re doing is significant enough that it’s worth the risk. But that doesn’t mean you don’t work. You must work. We, we work, we work hard, and at the same time, we do what we can while letting God do it. Only he can. And that’s where the trust and the faith has to come in. And again, regardless of your religious beliefs, I would just encourage you holding it loosely of knowing your business is not who you are and it is not your identity. It is something that you’ve been given. It is something that you’ve been entrusted with. You have skills that align well with you being successful at this, but it is not who you are. It’s not your identity. And if you hold it loosely there, the success has come a little easier and with a little less ego, but the failures come a little less hard. So five years, eight lessons to go from zero to eight. Hope this was helpful and I can’t wait to hear your story in the next five years.
Ep 475: 6 Tips to Scale the Profits of Your Personal Brand | Jeremie Kubicek Episode Recap
RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help Mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started.
RV (00:34):
I want to share with you one powerful principle and six key questions that you can use to scale your personal brand revenue right away. And this is really what I more and more as time goes on, I really believe that this is the secret to making more money. And it’s not something that most people are doing, it’s just the thing that I see the people who are making a lot of money are doing. And what this concept is all based upon is the idea that most people are pursuing width rather than depth. They’re concerned about the width of their reach, they’re trying to get more followers and more subscribers and, and that kind of thing. But the people who are making money are focused not on the width of their reach as much as they’re focused on the depth of their impact, and they’re utilizing something that we have created or coined as fractal math.
RV (01:30):
That’s the, the, the fractal Math method as what we call it. And we didn’t create the concept necessarily, but we’ve kind of branded it as that. And we are teaching it formally in our Brand Builders Group membership to all of our members. And so this is the big idea, this is the big concept that I will share with you. Fractal Math is a principle that says that 10% of your customers will invest at a level 10 times what they have already invested in. So 10% of your customers will buy something that’s 10 times more than what they’ve already invested in, right? So the the simple math example or illustration that I used for this is, let’s say that you had a $30 offer. Okay? You had a a $30 product, a $30 book, let’s say and you got a thousand people to buy it.
RV (02:20):
If a thousand people buy a $30 offer, that’s $30,000. When most people think about doubling their revenue, they think about adding more customers, right? To go, okay, if I wanna add another, if I wanna add another 30,000 revenue, I need to add another thousand customers. But a new customer is the most expensive type of customer there is acquiring, you’ve probably heard the term CAC or cac, the cost customer acquisition cost. It’s how much does it cost to acquire a new customer? Because new customers are the most expensive thing. The most profitable customers are existing customers when they buy repeat business, that is the most profitable because you get to have new revenue without any of the CAC. So the concept here, fractal Math, says to focus on serving your existing customers. And instead of getting a thousand new customers, the, the fractal math says that 10% of your customers will invest at a level 10 times higher than what they’ve already invested.
RV (03:21):
So if you have a thousand people who bought a $30 product, then that means 10 per, that means a hundred people, which is 10% of the thousand, a thousand customers, 10% of those is a hundred, a hundred people would invest in a $300 product. So 10, you know, 10 times what they’ve already invested, they already bought 30 times 10 is 300. So one 10th of the audience will spend 10 times more than what they just spent. And now you have a hundred customers who are already in your database, who invested at $300 rather than 30. And $300 times a hundred is also 30 grand. So you doubled your revenue without adding a single new customer. And it continues, right? So you go, if a hundred people would buy a $300 offer, then that means that 10 people, 10% of a hundred is 10, 10 people would buy a $3,000 offer.
RV (04:13):
And that’s another 30 grand because $3,000 offer times 10 people is $30,000. And then that means that one person, ’cause 10% of 10 is one, one person would invest at $30,000 with you potentially. So that’s another 30,000. So that’s three sets of $30,000, a thousand people buying a $30 product, a hundred people buying a $300 product, 10 people buying a $3,000 product, and one person buying a $30,000 product, 30,000, 30,000, 30,000, 30,000. That’s $120,000. That means you have not just doubled your revenue, you’ve quadrupled your revenue, and you’ve quadrupled your revenue without adding a single new customer. And that is the most profitable way to do it. And so this is, this is one example When we say that we teach monetization strategy inside a brand builders group, right? Part of our spiritual gifting is making money. We are good at it, we are good at teaching people to do it, and it’s through helping them understand principles and concepts of money that are like this, that a lot of people don’t know.
RV (05:21):
So that’s the concept. The concept here is fractal math. 10% of your customers will invest at a level 10 times higher than what they’ve already invested with you. And another way of saying it at a principle is to say, focus not just on the width of your reach, but the depth of your impact. And so now I’m gonna give you the six key questions that we ask for to, to increase our monetization at Brand Builders Group by increasing our, our level of service to our clients. And there’s six of the same questions that we ask, you know, my private clients who, who you know, either come invest to spend two days with me, one-on-one, or they come to one of my Brand Mastery events, which are very, very small events that I host now that are just like five or 10 people.
RV (06:07):
And we spend two days together. And basically I fractionalize the cost of two days with me, one-on-one across like five to 10 people. And so it becomes much more affordable. And these are the kind of concepts that I’m helping walk them through, okay? So here are the six questions that will help you extract more revenue from your current customers. But I don’t wanna don’t just think about it like that. And this is what question number one is. Question number one is, how can I help my clients succeed faster? How can I help my clients succeed faster? That is something that you should be asking. This is not just how do I get more money out of people, right? That’s not it. It’s thinking in a service centered way. And that’s what these six questions are. These are six service centered questions that lead to scale, that lead to more profitability for your personal brand and really for any business.
RV (07:02):
Although we only focus on working with personal brands. So when you ask that question, the quality of your answers is determined by the quality of your questions. And so if you want different answers, you gotta ask different questions. And if you ask better questions, you’ll get better answers. And that’s why these questions are so important. How can I help my clients succeed faster? Remember, money follows speed. That’s a principle of money. The faster you can, you can get a result for somebody, the more they’re willing to pay you for that result. And the more people there are who are willing to pay you that money. So that’s a question you should be asking. How can I help my clients succeed faster? Number two, what can I offer to help my clients succeed in a deeper way? Right? So how do I, how, how can I serve them in a deeper way?
RV (08:01):
How can I give them more access to me? There’s a, a, a principle and a, a framework that we teach in monetization strategy in our, in our formal curriculum that’s called the services spectrum, which is basically this idea that as, as intimacy goes up, as, as, you know, proximity to the messenger goes up, the price goes up because you’re able to serve people in a deeper way, right? Like the most expensive thing someone can buy from brand builders group is two days with me, one-on-one that’s expensive, but that’s also the most value that I’m able to give. I can completely customize everything I’ve spent my life learning to one person’s business or one person’s strategy. And that’s what, you know, most of my big private clients, the Louis Howes, the Ed millet, the, you know, the, the Eric Thomas’, the, the, the Amy Porterfield, the Jasmine Stars, the Jim Quicks, right?
RV (08:47):
These are people that are private clients of mine where I’m able to work with them one-on-one, and I can help them create massive value. Some because of who they are and what they have. And, and, and some just because, you know, they’re massive action takers and they, they, they execute and they’re coachable. So how can you serve your clients in a deeper way? How can you give them more access to you? More access to you requires more of your time. If it requires more of your time, then you should, you should. It’s justifiable to collect more money for that. It’s also worth more money to people because you’re able to shorten the learning curve because they’ve got more custom solutions coming directly from you. As they get closer to you, the solutions become more custom to their unique situation and more applied to their specific questions.
RV (09:34):
And so it’s worth more, and it also is worth more because it takes more of your time. So there’s more opportunity cost to your time. So how can you help your clients? How can you serve your clients in a deeper way? How can you give them more intimate access to you? Number three, what tools can I create that make it easier for my clients to implement? What tools can I create that make it easier for my clients to implement? Right? So especially if you are some type of educator or you, you’re an expert, right? We, we serve mission-driven messengers. A lot of our clients are experts. They don’t all sell information like courses and eBooks. A lot of ’em are professional service providers, right? They’re doctors, they’re lawyers, they’re accountants, they’re chiropractors, their financial advisors, their real estate agents. But what tool can you create where the tool can help your clients succeed without you having to be there?
RV (10:30):
Especially what tools can you create that help them implement the things that you teach or implement the things that you ask them to do? The more that you can create those tools, the higher value you, you, you are providing because you’re moving them from just education to application. And remember, that’s another one of our principles that we say is that people don’t pay for information. They pay for organization and application and tools accelerate the time, you know, it takes to, to implement it. You know, they, it compresses the amount of time that it takes to, to execute related lead. Number four, what vendor partnerships or vendor relationships can I form that I can refer my clients to that will help them execute, right? So maybe you can’t execute everything for all your clients we’re that way, right? Like we have over 800 clients in our, in our flagship membership program now, right?
RV (11:23):
Like, we’re serving 800 people. Our vision when we started the company was a thousand messengers. We’re getting really close to that. And we have like another 1500 private clients that just do, you know, private two day sessions with us. Well, the, the question is, is to go, well, we can’t write the copy for all, you know, 2000 of our clients. We can’t build every funnel for 2000 clients. We can’t ever, every video, you know, launch every podcast, manage every speaking career, do every single book launch write every single speech, write every joke. We can’t do that for all 2000 clients. And so we are going, what tools can we create to make it more accessible? And then also, where are their strategic vendor relationships? And I think one of the most valuable parts of our community when someone becomes a, a, a paying member of Brand Builders group is we curate a community of vendors, right?
RV (12:13):
So it’s like you need people to write copy, graphic design, do video editing, do websites, you know, build funnels like, you know, do research studies. Be a literary agent, book you for speaking like what all, you know, PR services, all of the things that personal brands need that we can’t provide. We’re just not that big, at least not yet. We go, well, let’s, let’s let’s curate vendors to introduce you to. And we do referral fees with the vendors, right? We pay them when they refer people to us, and they pay us when we refer people to them. So it’s a win-win win for everybody. Number five, big question. Where do my clients most often get stuck when they’re trying to implement the things that I teach? Right? So that’s a big question. Where do my clients most often get stuck when they’re trying to implement the things that, that you teach to them, right?
RV (13:06):
So you know what to do, you know how to do it. You’ve been doing it your whole life, your whole career, or some big chunk of it, right? And so what you gotta identify and your current clients well, and your past clients can help you do this, is go where do they fall apart, right? Where does, where does everything fall off the tracks? Where do they, it’s like they, they get excited and inspired, but then when they get to, you know, blank, it all just disintegrates and they lose all their momentum. You have to identify those roadblocks, those bottlenecks, and then you have to provide support to them. And then question number six, what problem can I solve for my clients? That never goes away. What, what problem can I solve for my clients that never goes away? And I give you example of some of the ones that we do at Brand Builders Group.
RV (13:51):
People come for our content, right? They come for our expertise, they come for our principles. They come because we give them a world class education that, in my opinion, exceeds the practical value by a long shot of what you would get from, you know, a a hundred thousand six, multi six figure MBA. And we teach them how to apply things quickly and make money for an a, a, a fraction of what something like that would cost. They come for the content, but they stay for the community. See, people leave college, they get their degree and they leave here. They stay because there’s, there’s community, there’s relationships, there’s joint ventures there’s friendships that are formed, right? There’s accountability that’s developed. They’ve got access not just to me and aj, but to our strategists and, and to the other clients. We also provide a lot around data and trends.
RV (14:41):
So our clients get insider access to like, what’s working right now. Not what worked five years ago, or just what worked five years ago, but what worked right now. Another thing that we have started doing for our members is pr. Our members need pr. They need publicity. They need to get in front of more stages. They need to get on more podcasts. They need to be on more YouTube shows. They need to be doing more Instagram lives. They need to be doing more, you know, onstage speaking breakouts, virtual summits, et cetera. Well, we are not a PR service, so you can’t hire us to book you for pr. We don’t do that. But what we figured out is, wow, we have 2000 clients. Almost every one of our clients, e every one of our clients has some type of a platform. They have podcasts, YouTube channel, they have events, they do stages, they do summits.
RV (15:27):
And so what we, we hired a full-time person to do nothing but connect our members to one another. So it’s an internal PR service inside our own community. And so people are going, wow, I’m paying for education, but I’m getting community and I’m getting these tremendous PR opportunities because I’m sitting next to people at your events who write for Forbes and do big summits and have huge podcasts. And all of them have social media followings, like is PR and then related is gigs. This is the next thing that we’re, we’re moving towards is helping our clients actually get paid gigs. And that’s like the new emerging area for us. So those are problems we can solve that never go away. So there you have it, one key principle, fractal math, and six key questions to ask to help you scale the revenues of your personal brand much faster.
RV (16:20):
Don’t be so consumed with the width of your reach that you ignore the depth of your impact. If you want more strategies like this, and you’re serious about taking your personal brand to the next level, make sure you go to free brand call.com/podcast to request a call with our team. If you’re not ready for that, that’s all right. Hang on here. Stay tuned next week, share this episode with someone who you think it would be valuable for. Come talk to me on social media and we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.
Ep 474: How to Build a Personal Brand that has Enterprise Value with Jeremie Kubicek
RV (00:02):
One of my favorite sayings that we’ve been talking about recently with our community is that, you know, in golf, you drive for show and you put for dough, and we’ve been talking about how email or social media is for show, and email lists are for dough, and that’s really where you make money inside of that same vein of that concept, a lot of the personal, the biggest personal brands in the world that you meet and you follow and you hear of often don’t have that big of businesses on the back end. And that’s usually because they’re really built around one person and one person can only do so much, they can only be available so many days in so many ways and so many places. And so there’s a very different conversation that happens around building a personal brand versus turning a personal brand into something that has enterprise value, basically a, a business or a revenue stream or set of revenue streams that you can sell.
RV (00:59):
And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. We’re gonna talk about how to turn your personal brand into a business that you could actually sell one day, or just that has enterprise value, that it would live beyond you if you died, or that could be transferred to your kids or your employees you know, after you die. And to talk about that, we’re gonna bring one of the people who is truly the best in this space of anyone in the industry, of any, anyone that I’ve ever met in the personal development industry. So his name is Jeremy Kubek. I’ve known about Jeremy for years probably over a decade. We’re gonna, you’re gonna hear some of his background. But this person, like this man has had a lot to do with being a part of John Maxwell and helping build the Maxwell companies and some of the things they’ve done.
RV (01:47):
If you’ve ever heard of Chick-fil-A leader cast Jeremy was a huge part of that. These are, you know, huge catalyst catalyst conferences. This is a man who was very involved in a significant way behind the scenes. Now today he’s a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He’s a speaker. He talks, he’s a thought leader and he is a serial entrepreneur, and he, you know, generally works in this space of kind of corporate leadership. And we’ll talk about some of his model today. But I really brought him on the show to talk about his newest book, the Communication Code. So, we’ll, we’ll touch on that a little bit, and also to really talk about how do you turn your personal brand into something with enterprise value. So Jeremy, welcome to the show,
JK (02:32):
Or good to be with you. Thank you, man. I’m, I appreciate all that you do. You have such a good reputation and just fun to be here.
RV (02:38):
Well, thank you, man. I, I, so you too. And, and I think specifically when I, the brands, the, the, the, the brands, the movements, the conferences, the companies that you’ve been a part of are ones where it’s like, you know, they have very, very strong reputation. So knowing that the context of this conversation is kind of around building a scalable enterprise can you just give us sort of like a brief history? I know you’ve done so many things, but like some of the high points of the big personal development brands that you’ve been a part of, of building.
JK (03:15):
Yeah. And so much of what I’ve done in the past, you know, which was, and I’ll tell you why I shifted to where I’m going and where I’m now, but we were a part of helping John Maxwell. We bought John Maxwell’s assets years ago inside Enjoy Maximum Impact. We bought inside of that was Catalyst. We stripped out and built the Catalyst conferences. We created Leadercast as a brand and started that as well. And then we partnered with people like Henry Cloud, pat Lencioni, Craig Rochelle, Andy Stanley you know, these thought leaders that were just doing amazing things and, and still are. But at the time that was, you know, that was back in the day, right? It’s like, yeah, I’m the good old days. And it was at the height of the conference world, and I, I saw the writing on the wall.
RV (04:08):
What year is this? What year is this? This is
JK (04:10):
2007 to 2015 that timeframe. And up to, I sold it all in 2011 and then 17 in parcels. And these
RV (04:23):
Were all on my vision board. FYI like Leadercast funny. I’m speaking at Leadercast this year. That’s, that’s still going. I’m actually speaking there in April. But like Leadercast and Catalyst, like these, these were events that were on my vision board as like an, as a up and coming speaker. So that’s, that’s awesome.
JK (04:39):
Yeah. And so, and you know, catalyst was so fun because Brad Lanik and I I was CEO he was exec director. He, he did such a good job, but we built an unbelievable experiential event. I don’t think there’s anything like Catalyst today. And, but the problem was, is that I, I was looking at it going, okay, this is a 20th century model. We are one pandemic away from going outta business. We’re one terrorist attack. And I was trying to figure out how to scale, how do we scale content? And most all the content was speakers having books, and what do you do from here? Right? And that led me on this journey of like, man, I wanna, I wanna actually go and look at how do you actually scale. So I moved to London, sold all of that, and people thought it was crazy. But we started over because I was trying to look at the 21st century, how do adults learn? How do you actually work inside B2B and actually make it stick and last? And that’s what we’ve done since that time.
RV (05:46):
Uhhuh
JK (06:06):
Yeah, that’s right.
RV (06:07):
Is that like, and how do you, how do you get a title sponsor? How did you even think to go to them? Like how did that come about? And like, if somebody has a big event, like what, what do they do to land sponsors like that?
JK (06:18):
Okay. It was, it was unbelievable how this happened. This is an epic story. So I my, I have a phrase like, who says we can, right? And so I had built a relationship through Chick-fil-A through David ERs, and he was over marketing and a good friend of mine, JT Robinson at Chick-fil-A and they connected me to Dan Cathy, and then we started becoming friends. And, you know, they loved the Catalyst conference. We were in Atlanta, so they already knew all about us because of that, right? So we already had these great relationships. But I invited, we were, we had Tony Blair, we as the speaker with Leadercast, and I invited David to come with me, Sawers and Dan, Kathy and I had Henry Cloud do the interview. So we’re in Tony Blair’s office, which was the home of John and Abigail Adams that shows you how old it was.
JK (07:08):
Wow. And we did the interview there, and it was, I have funny side stories with Henry Cloud and, and Tony Blair’s socks. But anyway funny things that happened. And then Dan, Kathy was with us and he saw the gravitas of it. He saw it. And on the way home David Sawers we took another trip to Paris and let, let’s get a couple of days and just, you know, process a partnership. What would a partnership look like? We’re on the way to the airport in a taxi, and David throws out a number, he’s in the front seat. I’m right behind him. He goes, Hey, how about X? And I go, how about Y? And then he goes, well, how about Z? And we shook hands at the, at the airport as we’re both flying back, and that’s how it took place. And we created the title sponsorship with a vision of the Chick-fil-A leader cast. Unfortunately, I had sold down by the time we were finished, I had sold down. And the other owners, they made different moves and didn’t value that partnership. I think it was fear of political positions of Chick-fil-A and things like that, that I think they overthought it. And now Chick-fil-A’s at 22 billion and Leader cast missed out on it. But I had already sold at that point in time.
RV (08:30):
Yeah, that is, that’s just wild. And so, like,
JK (09:21):
Well, so let’s take Leader Cap. I meant Catalyst is pretty simple. You have an arena, it has a cost. You build an amazing experience and amazing brand. And we actually, we, we did Catalyst. We said you had to be over 40 to come under under 40 to come. And we, we carted people at the door. So we created Scarcity with the idea, and then we produced the ticket price, and we said it’s for volunteers inside churches. So it’s not just church leaders, it’s the entire volunteers of a church. So they would use it as their annual retreat. And so Catalyst became kind of a mecca, probably the wrong word to use, but from that, the, a mecca of that, that that world. And then for Leadercast, it was different. I had already done the Maximum Impact simulcast, we own that. And then I sold that with John Maxwell and I sold it back to him.
JK (10:11):
So I built the leader cast brand. And we just took a brand that we had, we had done before, but we hadn’t used it. And I basically thought of Jake at State Farm. This is State Farm Insurance around the, the United States, like small town insurance agents, small town chambers, small town bank presidents. They want to gather and have events, but they can’t afford to bring Tony Blair in. They can’t afford to bring John Maxwell in or pick a thought leader. So really, there was a simulcast for small towns. And then you get them to, to host it, and they pay a host fee. And I can’t remember what we charged at the time the fees, but we basically, there’s different levels. They sold tickets and it was different. You know, if you bring X people, if you bring under 50, it’s this price, 50 to a hundred, a hundred to, and then you just sell the host fees. So we’d have, I think the highest I had was 184,000 people at 874 host sites. And that was the highest that we had ever gotten. I
RV (11:21):
Said 184,000 people watching live from how many host
JK (11:25):
Sites? The simulcast at 874 sites.
RV (11:30):
8 74.
JK (11:32):
Yep.
RV (11:32):
Wow. And so each of those sites, they basically pay a fee to be able to host it, but then they go resell the tickets and they keep the profit from it, some of
JK (11:40):
It that’s right. Mm-Hmm.
RV (12:08):
A break in the agenda for like a local person to get up and speak.
JK (12:12):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (12:13):
Oh, that is brilliant.
JK (12:16):
So, so now that became a massive business year over year. And then we would do live, well then Chick-fil-A sponsorship basically helped me pay for the live location, because that’s where all the expense is. You have the technology back in the day, this is, this was before the modern streaming, but you had a lot more broadcast, literally broadcast trucks, you know, and, and so it was just, but it was a lot of risk, man, a lot of expense. Just to pull it all off, you work 360 4 days for one day, and it was just, it was intense.
RV (12:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh
JK (13:03):
We had, we had we had, we got hacked. The group that we bought got hacked, and we had Aramaic on the bottom screen for 45 minutes one year. You know, this is little spooked out after nine 11, things like that. I mean, it was just, we had some hard stuff that took place, but we did it from 2000, whatever, all the way to you know, it’s still going, you know, I sold it and now it’s become a lot smaller. But it’s, it’s the concept. Anyone could do it. I mean, it’s, if you have vision for it, yeah. But what was the problem was this, the group that I sold to, they started going to larger companies. Larger companies. They get to see Tony Blair, they get, and they took, I think they took their eye off the ball of Jake at State Farm. It’s small town America, small town, you know other countries that, that’s where the, the, the opportunity is. But how do
RV (14:01):
You reach those people? Did you have local reps or do were you just do an advertising and stuff like that? You have an inside phone sales team? All,
JK (14:08):
All, yeah, we had a sales team. And so the sales team, then we had leads, and we’d have, when I, what I had at the time, we had regional connectors and, you know, people who would be one city leader. Hey, I know 10 churches, three chambers, you know, and you kind of build it that way.
RV (14:28):
Amazing, amazing. So you, but then you thought, you saw going, man, we’re one pandemic away here from live events or something. So you saw that in 2017 and bounced out. That was, that was about as perfect autonomy as you could have gotten. And, and you basically thought, okay, adults are gonna be learning virtually, and how do we deploy this to companies? And that’s so, so, so catch us up now to what you’re doing now.
JK (14:55):
Yeah. So Steve Cocker and I my business partner in England, we started to, like, honestly, here’s how we did it. We’re like, who’s scaled better than anyone in the world? And we’re like, Jesus
JK (15:11):
How did he do it? So we dissected the Jesus model, and this, I’m not even religious when I say this. Just how did he do it? And we’re like, oh my goodness. He used parables. So we use visual tools and we figured out that most adults, they, they’re cynical know-it-alls, and they don’t read much anymore. And they have short attention spans, and everything they do is on video and short video. And so we’re like, okay, where we go. So we took all of these concepts and we built 75 visual tools, and we made the tools so scalable that they help people get healthy relational, intelligent, but we teach them to multiply. So they have to teach it to other people. ’cause When you teach, you learn. So we started packaging these programs and we started certifying people. And eventually, now we just, we’re just a wholesaler. We just certify our content for coaches and consultants, and anyone in the world can use it. And so now we’ve got a, a system. So the Five Voices is probably what we’re best known for. Okay.
RV (16:13):
So hold on a second. Let me just, let me back up and pause there to make sure I understand. Because, because you’re saying we’re just a wholesaler, basically, you’re a, you’re a wholesaler, a wholesaler of your own product. Like you basically created ip and then you allow coaches to resell that IP wherever they are at, to whoever they want. So then how do you, how do you make money? And how does the coach make money? So
JK (16:41):
Here’s how, here’s what we figured out. It’s a win type of, of proposition. And it’s really interesting. We to set in 2019 we were more traditional in our certification process, 2019. I’m like, we have to be in technology. We have to be ready to scale. Don’t, didn’t like our business model. So we shifted and we launched in January of 2020 into a SaaS business. Wow. So we moved in January with the pandemic in March. We had no idea, but we, we turned and we started selling to coaches, in essence. I don’t know why that does that. But we started selling to coaches for 2 99 a month. So $299 a month. They get to be certified in our content. They take our content, and then they become a partner with us. And we built a community and we help them build their business.
JK (17:37):
And then they take our content of the Five Voices, 100 x our toolkit, and they sell that inside companies. And then we have an operating system, it’s called Giant os pro. And they take five Voices assessments, team performance assessments, and it’s a recurring revenue machine. It’s basically a SaaS business for them. We, we help coaches have a SaaS company. And if you don’t know what SaaS is for those listing, it’s software as a subscription. So it’s, it’s technology at $10 a month. So we have now they sell price points and products inside companies, but they get to keep a hundred percent of their workshops, of their keynotes, any of the content. They keep a hundred percent of that. They pay us 2 99 a month. And then they sell products, technology products inside companies. And then we do a rev share with them.
JK (18:33):
So it’s brilliant. They have direct work. They have directed work because now we have a community and they help each other around the world. They get pulled in to each other to help each other at Google or Pfizer or Biogen or wherever. And then they have a recurring revenue, a SaaS model. Well, here’s the beauty. If you think about us from enterprise, our evaluation of our company in 2018, we had a hundred coaches at 2018, and we did rev share splits. When you take their gross margin and all the way down to our ebitda, we maybe would’ve gotten three times our ebitda, which was really low. And we’re like, we’re gonna work this hard for that. It’s not sellable. We have content that everyone loves. We have this coaching community. It’s kumbaya, people love Giant, but it, the economics weren’t working. We flipped it, went to a SaaS model.
JK (19:31):
We’ve spent the last three years really, really pushing hard to get it established. Now we’re at scale, but now we’re being traded off of revenue. And Rory, this is the craziest part, you know, this, but SaaS businesses are traded off of revenue because our growth rate is so high. Our gross margins are so high, but now we’re probably worth on the minimum of six times revenue up to 12 times revenue, depending on our growth rate. Growth rate, not of ebitda, off of revenue. So a, a business that was worth maybe 900,000 in an EBITDA model is now worth 30 to 40 million in a SaaS model. And that’s the beauty of it.
RV (20:18):
Yeah. And let me just, just to walk y’all through like some rough math on this. If you’re not familiar with valuations, right? So let’s, let’s say you have a company that does just for easy math, 10 million in revenue and 1 million in profit or ebitda, right? Earnings before interest, tax risk, depreciation and amortization, that’s basically profit. So most companies are valued at a multiple of profit. That’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what Jeremy is saying. A, a service-based business would be valued at a multiple of profit. So if you had a, a three x multiple on profit, that’d be three times your ebitda. So in this case, three times $1 million would be a $3 million company. But if you’re a SaaS company, you’re valued off of revenue. And instead of three times a million, which is, you know, the multiple times the profit, it’s, it’s maybe something like, let’s say five for easy math, five times the revenue.
RV (21:09):
So five times 10, which is 50 million, right? So that’s by, by repositioning the company. For, for those of you, that’s just like a quick little math, like lesson in how this works. And so anyways, so, so come back. So, so it’s blowing my mind here is now you said the coaches are creating a recurring revenue, you’re creating a recurring revenue model for them. So I see how you’re creating a, a recurring revenue model for yourself because they’re paying you 299 a month. Got it. They get to use all your content. They get to keep all a hundred percent of their training and speaking, which is cool. ’cause That’s always a rub, right? Is who gets to, you know, who gets to keep the percentage, but then you have these IT products you’re talking about that they’re then selling into companies. And so are those basically subscription products and that that’s what your revenue sharing? Yeah.
JK (21:58):
So they’re selling the operating system inside companies. So when they do Five Voices, for instance, five Voices is we think the most innovative personality driven growth tools. So you understand your personality and wiring. Well, people take the assessment through the operating system and it’s $10 a month per employee. And then they, they find or
RV (22:20):
Limited access to the test,
JK (22:22):
To the operating system. Mm-Hmm.
RV (22:24):
Whole operating system,
JK (22:25):
They get everything. So the employee, they get, and, and it’s robust, they get team performance assessments, they have peace index assessment, communication code assessment, all of our books and tools, they get access to all of it. So, and employees now can build their team leaders. They can run their teams through Giant, but we’re partnering with a coach, a consultant. So each of them are then bringing on, like today I showed you that list that wins channel. Becky in England, she brought on 45 people at $10 a month. Well, that’s $450 a month, so it’s really low for the client. But that adds up because our churn rate is super low. It’s less than 3%. So people stay with us a long time because they’re using it as an ongoing basis. So now we’re in the software model. So now we’re helping coaches and consultants actually have a software business because they couldn’t afford to build what we’ve built.
JK (23:27):
So now we’re partnering with them. They’re selling five Voices, pro or Giant inside the company. They’re adding people onto the software and technology, and they’re running their systems off of it. The coach and consultants working with the company to do that. So now you have your direct income. So the, the direct income would be if you do a workshop or speaking, that’s a hundred percent yours. If you are so full and you need help, you can pull from any of the other giant community and ask, Hey, can you do this work for me, Rory, I can’t do it. But you keep a percentage of it. So you get a percentage of you directing work to people, and then you have recurring revenue. So we have one group, and it’s the largest group. So be be mindful of this, we have one group that’s making 49,000, or they have 49,000 a month in recurring revenue, and they’re making 25% of that. So 25, 30% that they’re making of 49,000 a month. We have other people making 9,000 a month. We have other people making 1000 a month. But it’s the idea that as a coach or consultant, you can actually have recurring revenues. You can actually be in the SaaS model itself. And that’s the partnership that we’ve, we’ve figured out.
RV (24:43):
Amazing. So, so basically they get a hundred percent of the speaking, you get a hundred percent of the coach’s monthly fee, and then they get 25 to 30% of the recurring. But then they also have a, they’re also vested in making sure people are logging in and using it and using the tools and all that sort of stuff. Yeah.
JK (25:00):
And it’s a frequent
RV (25:00):
That is so brilliant. That is so magnificent. I love that so much.
JK (25:05):
JK (25:59):
We’re doing different businesses, but Giant has now got five voices, but we are building certifications around five voices for other things. There’ll be a future of five Voices for healthcare, five voices for cells. And so now we’ve got this community that wants to take it in different directions than they can, but it’s just a different way to think than the other alternative, which was, I go speak, I sell books, and then maybe I get a certification product that I can sell to people. There we go. I’ve, I’ve already sold it. Maybe they do renewals. Well, in this case, it’s like we’re trying to, we we’re, we’re, our churn is so low. We’re trying to get to 3000 consultants. We’re at a thousand right now. We’re trying to get to 3000 consultants minimum that we think that will be the kind of next level for us. So, and we made it where it’s just very inexpensive. It’s 2 99 a month in that regard. So,
RV (26:56):
Yeah. Interesting. Well, that, I mean, that is so fascinating, and it’s just part of what I wanted to, to, to show in the interview is like, there’s different, there’s different ways to do this. And sometimes a shift in your thinking sometimes a minor shift in your thinking, create an exponential difference in the outcome of, of what it’s worth. And I think, you know, there, there’s a lot of people chasing like big speaking fees and, you know, wanna be the bestselling author and want to have lots of followers and like the celebrity, which is not bad or wrong. I mean, there’s, we, we do a lot of that, right? And we, we understand that world, but it’s also like there’s a way to be filthy rich and totally obscure at the same time.
RV (27:42):
You can get your content out. You can change the world. You can, you can multiply through other people. You can leverage. I, I also love how in both the story of Leadercast and in this model, you are really like reaching like the small town people and the, you know, the independent coaches. And, but, but, but pulling all those people together becomes a really powerful force. So I think that’s just really, really fascinating. So all right. Well, I, I, I, I, I, we, we gotta wrap up here soon. I, I wanna make sure that you get a chance to talk about the communication code. And maybe you can, you, you can just do a brief mention of how does that book tie into what you’re doing and, and you know, why did you write it and all that? ’cause I know that’s your, your most reset.
JK (28:24):
Yeah. So real fast. So I create content. The content then goes into our operating system and it goes into our consulting pool. They use that content for marketing. So we have the five gears, five voices, a hundred x leader, peace index, communication code, so on and so forth. So the communication code is one of our powerful tools in the giant community. They love it. And you can check it out giant worldwide.com if you want to find out more of what that community looks like. But communication code was really a tool. The idea is this, that Rory when we communicate, we have communication has expectation attached to it. Every communication is an expectation. And every expectation has a code word attached to it. If you understand and learn the code word, then you’ll unlock the expectation or the relationship. If you miss the code word, then you’re gonna miscommunicate.
JK (29:17):
And when you miscommunicate walls go up and then relationship sour, that’s the summary. So the five code words are, there’s care, there’s celebrate or celebration, care, clar, clarify, collaborate, and critique. Those are the five things that people are wanting when you understand what it is, and specifically how, and you customize it. ’cause Your care might look different than my care. But once you figure it out, then you actually use code language. Hey Roy, all right, we’re working today. Hey, what are you wanting today? Well, I want you to clarify first, and then I want you to collaborate. Awesome. You gave me the code words. I, I probably won’t miscommunicate, but if, if you come to me with desiring care and I start critiquing and then you pull back and I’m like, dude, what’s up with him? And most relationships are strained because we’ve missed the code words of communication. So it’s a, it’s one of the tools in our communication sec or section of Giant. We have communication, we have a relationship alignment, execution, and capacity tools. And that’s one of the key tools for that.
RV (30:28):
Very, very cool. So Jeremy, where do you want people to go if they wanna learn more about you and be connected with what you’re, what you’re up to? Yeah,
JK (30:36):
So jeremy ache.com. It’s not the easiest spell. Maybe that can be in the show notes. Giant.
RV (30:41):
We’ll put it in the show notes.
JK (30:43):
Yeah. And giant worldwide.com. Those are two that are very easy. You can also find our books on Amazon.
RV (30:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you reach out, make sure you just let ’em know that you heard ’em with Brand Builders Group and Influential Personal brand and show ’em some love online to some of his social counsel stuff. Jeremy, thanks for that story, man. What, what an amazing trip kind of down memory line and just the evolution of the industry and, and kudos to you for making a lot of impact. I mean, separate of money and all that stuff is like, I just think about all the people who came to Leader, leader ca have come to Leader, cast and Catalyst, and, you know, Maxwell and all the stuff that you guys are doing, you’re doing now at Giant. Like, it’s really, really cool to add all that up and go, you know, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere somebody’s lives been vastly improved by the sacrifices and the work that you’ve put in. So kudos to that. Man. We wish you the best. Thanks for being here. And we’ll continue to follow your journey.
JK (31:38):
Thanks Rory. Appreciate you
Ep 473: How to Know When You Are Ready to Launch | Melanie Ann Layer Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So the question of today is this. How do you know when you’re ready to launch? And here’s the answer, you know you’re ready to launch when you know that your product or service has the ability to help someone else, the end. You see, so often in life and in business, we complicate things because we think they should be more complicated. We think it should mean more and be more complex and have more steps. And the truth is
AJV (00:54):
And at some point it makes sense, but you don’t need it to launch. You don’t need funnels or webinars or a podcast or a big email list. You can have those things and at some point I encourage you that you should, but you don’t need it to launch you. See, you also, you don’t need lots of social media followers or fancy graphics or brand guidelines or fonts and email marketing. You can have those things and one day you should, but you do not have to have them to launch. The only thing that you need to launch is a product or a service that has the ability to help someone else. The end
AJV (01:49):
It is your obligation. It’s your responsibility to launch because you know that someone is out there who needs what you have, they need you and the way that only you can do it and the way that only you can serve them because you’re you and all those other things come with a price and with time and energy and resources and there’s a time and a place for everything. All I’m saying is that those aren’t requirements to launch. They are supplemental, they are ancillary. And at some point they do feel like in order to scale to grow, they become more necessary. They’re just not necessary or essential to launch. The only thing that you need to launch is knowing and believing that your product has the ability to get someone else results in whatever it is that you do. Now, that believing part is really critical.
AJV (02:42):
‘Cause That means you believe it. You believe it enough to talk about it. You believe it enough to tell people about it. You believe it enough to have sales calls and ask for their business. You believe it enough to go speak on stages. And those are stages of one 100 or 1000. It’s to go to the networking meetings. It’s to show up and go, I know this can help you. And that comes with that inner conviction that you know, you can get someone else results ’cause you’ve done it before. You’ve done it for yourself, you’ve done it for someone else, and you know how to help somebody else experience those level those levels of results. That is what is required to launch. If you know that you can help people, then you are ready right now today. Even if you don’t have a way to collect money, even if you don’t have a way to process it, even if you don’t have a fancy course or PDFs, if you know you can help someone, then you are ready right now.
AJV (03:42):
Now that’s not to disvalue or undervalue. The importance of all those other things, systems and processes and technology and having ways to collect money are important. So don’t hear what I’m not saying. What I am saying is that you’re ready today. You don’t need to be perfect. It never will be perfect. And you don’t need fancy websites and lots of followers. All you need is knowing that you have the ability to help someone else. And when you know that you are ready. And you see, here’s the thing. I actually heard this quote and on a conversation I had on the influential personal brand podcast just a couple of weeks ago with Melanie Laer. And I loved what she said and she said, and I don’t know if she came up with this or she heard it somewhere else, but man, it has stuck with me.
AJV (04:27):
And she said, here’s the thing, is you’re gonna wonder how to do it until you wonder how you did it. And that is the beauty of moving forward in conviction and in belief of just knowing like, I don’t have to have all of that stuff. No, you can, but it’s not necessary in order to launch. And sometimes you’re gonna wonder like, how is this ever gonna work? How am I going to do this? Until one day you wake up and you’re like, how did this ever work? How did this happen? Like, how am I here? Like how is it that I am looking at the answered prayers and the hopes and dreams and the goals that were of my past and I’m living them today? ’cause You will ask the question, I wonder how it’s gonna happen. I wonder how I’m gonna figure this out.
AJV (05:09):
I wonder how I’m gonna do it until one day it just changes to I wonder how I did it. I wonder how this all happened. And it’s because you move forward in faith, you move forward in action. You don’t procrastinate, you don’t wait because you know that you are ready. When you know you have the ability to help someone else and you’re not afraid to talk about it, you’re not embarrassed to talk about it. Now, I’m not saying to be prideful and ego ridden and talk about everywhere you go that and be self-promotional. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is though you have a deep unwavering conviction that what you do helps other people and you have proof. And when you feel that you are ready, let’s go. That’s how you know you’re ready. So when
AJV (05:56):
Are you ready to launch? You know you’re ready to launch when you know that your products and service can help other people. So are you ready?
Ep 472: Building a Huge Business without Having a Huge Audience with Melanie Ann Layer
AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden, one of your co-hosts, and super excited today to talk about how to build a multimillion dollar business without having to build a huge, multimillion follower brand. So I think for everyone who is listening of going, man, how, how do I continue to grow my business without feeling the pressure of having to grow podcasts and email lists and paid media? And if you fit in that bucket, then this is a conversation that you wanna stick around for, because today we’re gonna talk about how you can explosively grow and build your business without having to do what a lot of people talk about in digital marketing today, which is you know, you gotta have all the things on all the platforms, you gotta have a podcast, gotta have an email list. And it’s like those things aren’t bad, and you can have ’em, but they’re not a necessity to having an amazingly successful business.
AJV (01:01):
So if you fit in that boat where you wanna grow your business without the pressure of having to grow everything else underneath the sun, then this is probably one that you wanna stick around to. Now, let me formally introduce you to my guest today, which is Melanie, Melanie Ann Layer. Sorry, I’ve got tongue tied there. I mean, she’s the founder of Alpha F Brand, which I’ve spent a bunch of time stalking on social media, and I love all the visuals and glamor that is associated with what you see online, but also just really love the concept and the heart around a lot of the conversation that’s gonna happen today. But just so you know, alpha Femme is a global coaching and mentoring company. It launched in the online space in 2017. So to talk about growing a super successful business and not a ton of time that’s one of the things we’re gonna talk about because that was not that long ago. And so one of the reasons I invited Melanie Ann on today is to really talk about how do you do these things in a way that works for you, and how do you weave your story into all the things that you do. And so we’re gonna talk about growing businesses. We’re gonna talk about using your story. We’re gonna talk about how you do it with staying true to yourself and so much more. So welcome to the show,
MAL (02:18):
AJV (02:21):
MAL (02:44):
Well, I would probably start by saying I’ve always been a little bit different. And my, my experience of myself is always, I’ve been a little bit different, even, you know, my brother and my sister were really good with the traditional education model, and I just could not get myself to do it. It just, I’d study for a test a minute. The exam would go in front of my face. I’d forget absolutely everything, but I knew every lyric to every song I cared about by heart. It’s like I, my brain just was wired differently. And I came to realize later in life that I have an emotional brain. I have an artist brain. If I care about it, I remember it forever. If I don’t care about it, doesn’t matter how much I repeat it, the minute you add pressure, stress to my life, I forget.
MAL (03:22):
And so, it’s been such an interesting journey for me to not discredit what anybody else is doing, actually, to take a stand and say, let’s not ever discredit what anybody’s doing ever again. Let’s instead look for other ways. What are all the ways we can become successful? What are all the ways that we can highlight our intellect and our creativity and our uniqueness? Because I, I think that a lot of times success is put in a box where if you don’t fit the guidelines, it’s predictable that you won’t get it, or that you’re not deserving of it, or it, it’s just kind of a weird thing where even, even after I achieved a lot of the success that I achieved, I was constantly questioned about my education and why I felt I had the right. And so I think what I love about the conversation we’re gonna have today is the fact that I decided I had the right, and then I built something extraordinary after that.
MAL (04:09):
Nobody told me that I was special or that I deserved it. Nobody gave me a leg up, a hand up, a whatever up to help me do it. I didn’t receive any funding. I didn’t like, there was no help. There was just, I wanted to do it, and then I did it. And I feel like we need more stories like this. Yeah. Now, the other thing I wanna say is, I’m gonna talk about how I built this without any of the traditional stuff, but I’ve helped so many of my clients, whether they have the traditional stuff or not, I think the key is not to say, oh, I, I, you know, I stand against the traditional stuff. It’s more I wanna find my, my perfect recipe that makes it, that I’m not fighting against any part of myself in order to be successful. It’s the opposite.
MAL (04:47):
I’m leaning into every best part of me and finding what are the things that are actually my effortless, we’ll call it a strategy, it’s an energetic strategy. Like, when I do this, I feel good empowered, I feel limitless, I feel magnetic. Like those are the things that are usually the gateway. And so I just followed my own magnetism. Whenever I felt stifled, stuck questioning myself, I was like, is there another way? I just questioned what everybody ever told me was the only way. And I found many alternative ways. And what I wanna say, we’re celebrating now since, you know, I opened my brand in 2017. We’re se we’re celebrating $78 million since 2017 in Alpha Femme. And I can tell you, I have found 78 different ways to make a million dollars. I did not make any of those the same way. They’re all different. And so that’s why I feel like I can help so many different people because not one of those millions was the same. And so it’s just to open your mind, open your heart, start getting curious, ditch whatever you’ve been told that would have felt like limiting. And let’s get into the expansive mindset of what could be. And that’s, that’s who I am. That’s why I’m here.
AJV (05:55):
I love that. You know, and one of the reasons I thought that you would be so great for this particular, you know, time for our audience, is that we get asked all the time, do I have to have this? Do I have to do this? Right? And a lot of that circulates around, do I have to do social media? Do I have to do video content? Do I have to have a podcast? And we’re always like, no, you don’t have to do anything. So I thought this was just really good. So this is where I’d like to start, is how did you build what you’ve built in a relatively short amount of time without any websites, any podcast, no paid ads? So walk us through like, what was the strategy and how did this happen?
MAL (06:41):
So the first thing I wanna say is I was actually good at what I did. So when I first started my business, I started this brand. I had gone bankrupt. My whole life had fallen apart. And I started, I, I took a phone call from a friend that was going through a hard time and she fell in love with my life coaching. And my life coaching was literally just everything I was studying to try to get myself back on track. But my focus at that time was helping people fall in love with their lives, regardless of their circumstances. So I was not selling a dream here. I was, I was like, I felt sitting in the front seat of a car, low on food, gas, heat, everything you could think of in the winter snow storm. If I can find gratitude, I can help anyone find gratitude in their life right now.
MAL (07:26):
And I built this life coaching brand from the front seat of my car. And I hit six figures from the front seat of that Honda Civic, the fir the first year we, I hit six figures. And so what all I cared about at that point was helping people and becoming better at really saying the thing the person had. Like, what was the thing that the person wasn’t seeing? What was the blind spot? How could we create more joy now, more happiness now, more power now? How could we, how could we build on that? So I was not trying to be famous, I was not trying to be successful. All I cared about was being excellent and giving transformation to my clients. And because I was sleeping in the front seat of a car, and I did not feel that any of that was very appealing, I called my brand the Invisible Coach.
MAL (08:09):
And so no social media, no email, no Facebook, no nothing. Everything was word of mouth referral. So if a client loved what I did, they referred a friend, they got 20%, and that’s it. I built my whole business that way. Now, eventually things kind of got bigger because someone asked me if I could come and do this kind of work at their office, and could I help on a bigger scale? Could I coach a team for this kind of mindset stuff? Then some of my past life where I was, I was good in sales, came in and I was, I helped teach high ticket sales to people who felt kind of stressed, especially the dental field when they had to sell big cases like, you know, $60,000 veneer case. And they’re making, you know, 30, $40,000 a year. Like, there’s a gap there. It feels very stressful to sell high ticket when you’re not making a lot of money.
MAL (08:55):
Money. So I started bringing sales training into what I was doing. My business organically expanded. So the first thing that’s so important is I did not start trying to get rich, trying to get famous. I started wanting to be excellent and wanting to be good at my work. That, that’s the first thing I think is very important. The second thing is, I didn’t even use social media when I first started on social media thinking I would become social media famous either. So the first time I ever put my stuff out on, on Facebook, it was like 2015 or 2016, I started posting. 2016 was my first ever live stream. The reason I did this was because I never actually went anywhere. I didn’t buy a house or get an apartment after I went bankrupt and ended up sleeping in the front seat of my car, I actually just became a digital nomad.
MAL (09:38):
So I would drive my car all over the country, all over the, you know, all over the us, wherever, and I would just live wherever I I was. And so as my financial situation got better, the hotels got better, but I just never got another place to live. So I would connect with people everywhere, whether it was by the pool, at the coffee shop, at the grocery store. And in order to stay connected, I had the social media presence. It never crossed my mind that I could meet a person on the internet that would become client. That felt impossible. What did feel possible is someone who I’d had a conversation with, who stayed connected over time could eventually, maybe especially if I went back to that town, become a potential client or a connection, but never ever did I think I would create something on the internet.
MAL (10:26):
So what I think made me very different there as well is I wasn’t doing any kind of strategy. The all I was doing was being the most real version of me because it was like, you’ve met me in person, you know who I am. I’m gonna be the same person online as I am offline. ’cause That’s what it’s gotta be. And by doing that, an audience started to build. And it was the weirdest feeling of my life when someone messaged me that I did not know and said, I’ve been watching your live streams and I’m wondering if you, you do private coaching? And I was like, how did you meet me? And they’re like, I, I saw your live stream. And I was like, what
MAL (11:06):
It all came from a very real place. I think that’s another important thing to to know. My first brand that I ever made, my first company name was my name Melanie Layer, incorporated. That was it, MLI. But then people started asking me what it meant and I felt a little weird, but that’s what it meant,
MAL (11:52):
I didn’t look for it. It, I didn’t work hard to find it. I didn’t hire someone to tell me what I should call my company. I didn’t wait until I had a good name before I made money. I didn’t wait until I had a good name in order to become successful. I called it whatever I wanted to call it until one day Alpha Femme came outta my mouth and I was like, oh my God, that’s it. And I, I could not believe it when I was looking for it on the internet and no one had it. I was like, how does this not already exist meant to be, meant to be? So when I claimed Alpha Femme, the next thing that happened is I realized this is a really good brand. I’ve gotta raise the bar. There was a moment where I realized this is not just about me making money. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (12:58):
One thing, I wanna pause there and talk about this just for a second. So one of the things that you said earlier, which I, I jotted down because I think it’s so good, it’s, you know, let your results speak for themselves. Right. And it’s like, kind of like that’s what I heard you say. I don’t know if that’s exactly what you said, but it’s along these lines of just be so good. People can’t not tell other people.
MAL (13:17):
Yeah,
AJV (13:17):
Exactly. It’s like they can’t not, and so I just would love for you to talk about that for a second of like, what was the mentality that you had around? It’s like, if I just focused on the people who I have right in front of me and changing their life, I know that by the nature of doing awesome work, more business is gonna come. ’cause One of the things that I feel like I’m constantly hearing from friends, family, and our Brain Builders group community is like, well, how do I get more clients? How do I get more clients? How what our constant message back to them is just focus on the ones you have.
MAL (13:49):
Yeah.
AJV (13:50):
And so that’s such a mentality shift. It’s such a, a redirecting of abundance versus scarcity. And so I’d love just to hear like what your message would be to anyone who’s out there going, yeah, I’d love to have a word of mouth referral business where everyone is just sending me business. How do I do that?
MAL (14:08):
When your intention is being excellent for your clients, they feel that when your intention is growing your business, they feel that it’s a different energy. And sometimes it is hard to pivot it when you’re like, okay, that sounds great, but I really do wanna build my business. And it’s like, I know, but is there something else inside of you? Is there something bigger inside of you? Can you actually see that your business, if it, if it were to grow the people, it would help that that’s good for the world. Like, can you actually get behind that? Can you see the ripple? Like I remember early on in my career when one of my first clients was telling me, she’s like, my, my marriage was on the rocks when we started. And I, I’ve, my husband is completely different. You know, another client with her daughter, she’d had, she’d been on the rocks with their daughter and things were just turning around.
MAL (14:56):
Another client’s sister reached out from, for, you know, years ago that hadn’t talked to her sister in years, you know, promotions. And I’m like, I’m speaking to one person. But the the wor their work is changing their, their, you know, sister, their mother, their partner, their everything’s changing. And I was like, the ripple effect of this is spectacular. I’m making such a difference. Mm-Hmm. And that was the thing that really drove me was like, this is helping. This is working. And I think especially in businesses where people have this profession, obviously it depends what profession you have in your life. I, for me, ha being a, a coach, that meant I have to be good at, at having people change their lives. That’s my job. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people get caught up in being marketers and then the job is secondary.
MAL (15:45):
But really it’s, you’ve gotta be good at your job and then you’ve gotta market how, you’ve gotta market that you’re good at your job if you are a good marketer, but you’re not good at your job. It’s like, hmm. So the first thing is be good at your job, then the marketing is easy. Is it word of mouth? You know, is it through live streams? Is it through a beautiful brand? Is it through this? Now you’re adding things to support this amazing career that you have. And it, and it’s never do I have to, it’s like what are the channels that are gonna help me expand this? But nothing’s gonna make you good. You know, you, you can’t just market. I mean you can, but eventually your reputation will catch up with you and it won’t work. You know, it is gotta come from I’m excellent at this and then I market my excellence from that. The sky isn’t even the limit.
AJV (16:27):
Yeah. I love that so much. ’cause I think that is, that is just such a heart change of going, the marketing will come, the sales will come. But right now I just have to be the best in the world out of what I’m doing or
MAL (16:39):
The best therapist I can be right now. Because this is another thing is every single industry has nuances. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (17:19):
MAL (17:20):
I really only thought when I first started this work that there was me, Tony Robbins and Esther Hicks. I thought that was it. Like we, we were the only people in the world that knew about this profession. I wasn’t trying to beat anybody. I thought the world was in need of more people like me. That’s another perspective shift. I don’t need to be the best. I wanna be one of the greats.
AJV (17:38):
Yeah. That’s so good. That’s such a good, you know, just even verbiage reminder to me it’s like, it’s not about being the best in the world. It’s about being the best you, which somebody needs that somebody needs the best you. And so, so, okay, so here’s my second question that kind of popped up through all the things that you were ta talking about in my notes, is this whole idea of figuring out what feels most aligned with you. And you said, you know, it’s like made $78 million done at 78, you know, different ways. So what, what advice would you have or any sort of tips around, like, how do you just figure out what that combination is?
MAL (18:20):
So what I love about marketing and also coaching, what I love about the whole thing is it feels to me like a scientific experiment. I think a lot of people do marketing and do business like math. I sucked at math, but I love, like, why is it that when you add milk and vinegar, it, it does this weird thing? Like why? And that’s a lot of times what business is. It’s like, why did that work? How did that work? Why did that work? It’s not one plus one equals two, it’s milk plus vinegar equals like why? And so I love it so much because I always tell my clients, you’re gonna wonder how to do it until you wonder how you did it. Mm-Hmm. It’s not this like recipe that you do it once, then you nail it forever. You’re gonna have to pivot course correct.
MAL (19:08):
You’re gonna have to innovate. It’s gonna work once in the second time. It won’t work again. You’re gonna have to change. Like, you’ve gotta be a mad scientist. It’s gotta be this like, let me explore myself, my clients, the world, the market. Like it’s, everything’s changing. So if you’re trying to find the one ticket to success, the one ticket to fame, the one, it’s like, it’s very rarely gonna be an energetic match for you to succeed long term. But if you’re like, sky isn’t even the limit. Give me everything you’ve got. I’m a mad scientist. I’ll make anything work. I’ll make 1 million, I’ll make it 1,000,078 ways I’ll do it so differently. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It doesn’t need to be the same. I don’t need to do it like her or like him or like them. I do not need to beat anyone.
MAL (19:45):
I wanna be one of the greats. I respect the people I walk with. I walk with giants. I love this moment that we’re in, in this planet. I love that I get to be in business in this modern time. I love that there’s so many different ways I can market what I do. Let me do this this month and if I’m sick of this next year, I’ll find something new. Like I’m in the game evolution and growth over a lifetime. Let’s figure this thing out. That energy is so magnetic, so playful, so fun. And you’ll just end up making money. And it is like, money’s the byproduct of the entrepreneur you become. Yeah.
AJV (20:16):
And I think I, and I love what you said, it’s like don’t be afraid to just try it. Yeah. And if you hand it, stop, pivot, do something else. And I think that’s a lot of people just kind of feel like if I start it, I have to just keep doing it. And that’s not true.
MAL (20:29):
No. You get to say, okay, well look, and, and you can see it through, you know, you can say, okay, so we did this and here, what’s the outcome? Well, the outcome is this. Okay. So now we know we won’t do that again. Like, you track it without meaning. Yeah. Kind of like Einstein, who found 3000 ways not to build a light bulb
AJV (20:45):
MAL (20:46):
You can’t get defeated. It’s like, okay, so this is not the way for me not, and this is not the way for me. And it’ll just make you wiser. Mm-Hmm.
MAL (21:20):
Like get your hands dirty. Go in, leave your ego aside and just go in the sandbox. Be like, let me get my hands dirty. Let me build something fun here. Let me figure out what I’ve got, what my tools are, what my skills are, where I need to get better. What results can I produce with what I’ve got? Because it’s not gonna, it might not be a million, but it could be a few tens of thousands. And that’s celebrate something to celebrate. Like, you’re gonna get good stuff on the way, and then you’ll learn to celebrate those little things and build off of those. And it really is, it’s a scientific experiment. And the people who are able to play like a mad scientist at this, they have fun for way longer.
AJV (21:57):
And that’s a key word in all of this is you wanna have fun. Yes. It should be fun. It shouldn’t be, I think
MAL (22:04):
Before we all decided to be entrepreneurs because we imagined it would be, yeah. We thought, can you imagine not having to wake up at a certain time? Imagine being able to go to lunch at the restaurant in the middle of the afternoon. Imagine not having to work till 5, 6, 7 every night. Imagine not being stuck in traffic. Imagine. Oh my gosh, I could work from wherever in the world. Oh my gosh. Then you get this opportunity and you make it, you, you forget a job. I
AJV (22:28):
Think
MAL (23:22):
Yeah, so there’s a, there was a few pivots. It happened a few times along the way. The first really important pivot was the Alpha Femme brand. When I said, I have a brand, like this is my brand, this is what I, it’s like I, I felt the brand had so much potential that I had to raise the bar of who Melanie was to fit Alpha Femme. Mm. And that was amazing because instead of trying to build the business, instead of having Melanie and Laer try to build a business that would be successful so that I could feel like I had done it, you know, that feeling we sometimes have where it’s like I’m trying to build a business so that I won’t have to worry about money. And so that I will feel like I have done something with my life. I, I I I, mm-Hmm
MAL (24:14):
Who do I need to be? Do, am I even an energetic match for this brand and what it could be? And so that made me raise the bar in even who, who I was. And it was like, I’m the founder of this brand that represents the world. There was like a, an uplevel there, but the real huge uplevel that happened for me that changed everything. And this is quite interesting because the story starts in 2020 or the story starts, pardon me, in 2013 when I went bankrupt and I was sleeping in my car, IWI had, I was working a commission only sales job. So if I made nothing in one day, no money came. There was no minimum wage. It was just whatever money I made. And there were days and days and days that I made absolutely no money whatsoever. I’m sleeping in the front seat of this car.
MAL (24:55):
I sometimes I have money for a night at the hotel. Most nights I’m just sleeping directly in the car. Some days I can eat, some days I can’t. Like it’s, it, there’s just no consistency in my life whatsoever. And I have this like really traumatic experience while I’m sleeping in the front seat of a car and there’s first responders on site and they, one woman comes, psychologist sits in the car with me and starts talking to me and she’s like, I don’t know why, but I keep having this, this feeling to give you this business card of this person. I feel like you need to speak to this person. And it was this super like spiritual, like a person, like a, that could see into the future kind of thing. And I’d never done this stuff before at all. So I’m, I, I’m like, okay, thank you.
MAL (25:36):
But I have no money for this whatsoever. I have no money. And so I keep the card in my car and I keep looking at it and it’s burning the image in my head of this person. Like, I, I need to call, I need to do it, but I don’t have the money to do it. So I chose to not, I slept in the my car for cup for like, nonstop, nonstop, nonstop. Even when I had the money not eat, even if I had the money to save up to buy this one session for a hundred dollars. And I drove up to this person’s condo and she was moving, there were boxes everywhere when I walked in. She said, I’m sorry, the place is a mess. We’re moving. You know, I’ll have to have you sit in my bedroom. I sat on her bed, I was like, I’m gonna die.
MAL (26:13):
This is how the story ends,
MAL (26:58):
We were, we had only rented it for a few days to do content creation. They shut the country down. We couldn’t leave. They had no other Airbnbs, no other hotels. Like we either stayed there, we lived in the street and it was way above our budget. It was the craziest thing. And we were having this like meeting the three of us, what are we going to do? And my sister, obviously, I had told her the story about the this woman in the card and all the things, but she just has this look on her face. Like she just saw a ghost. And I said, what, what? Like, what? And she, she said, just look. Oh, because that’s the craziest thing. Like I was, I was in a town where there is no ocean. Like I don’t, there she says to me, you’re gonna change the world where the mountain meets the ocean. There is no ocean. Like I am in Quebec, Canada. There is no ocean anywhere. And so I said to her, which ocean? And she said, oh, I can’t tell you that. Of course you can’t. Okay, how do I even get there? And she said, you’ll be there when it happens.
MAL (28:01):
MAL (28:53):
It stopped being about alpha femme and it started being about changing the world where the mountain meets the ocean. Hmm. It started being about helping people through a pandemic. It started being about having a mission, feeling like there was a reason that I was alive to serve the planet. Like I, I took it out of my, am I good enough? Am I worthy? Do I have what it takes? Do I, blah, blah, blah. All the little chatter. And I expanded my vision outside into like my impact on the world as it stands. And my entire business changed. And I just kept myself in that mindset. This isn’t about my worthiness and my deserving. Every single thing I touch helps people. Every dollar in my business is a person who’s expanding every Yes. Is a person who’s working on their life, their purpose, their their marriage, their their business is helping people.
MAL (29:43):
It’s like, I’m a funnel now. Mm-Hmm. Everything that goes through me comes to other people. Whoever’s distributing the funds up there is going, okay, pass it through her hands. Money in her hands is good for the world. Power in her hands is good for the world. Influence in her hands is good for the world. And so my message to people is like, get out of the little smallness of your fear that you somehow are inadequate because that, that’s like you are just hoping everything that’s funnels towards you is just gonna come to you and die there.
AJV (30:13):
Yeah. So good. Cut
MAL (30:14):
The floor. Cut the floor and make sure that things go through you, not just to you make sure that you amplify everything you receive and you’ll never have to get blocked about worthiness again. And actually it becomes about the world. And you can stop being all stuck in your ego and we can actually start doing something.
AJV (30:31):
You know what I love most about everything that you just said is that whole thing of like, stop worrying about what comes to you and pay attention of what’s going through you. Because I think that is, it is such a limiting belief of going, like everything I’m doing is just so that money comes into the account or a client comes into the account or followers show up or emails show up. It’s like, that’s really small thinking.
MAL (30:57):
Yeah.
AJV (30:58):
I love that about this. Like, no, don’t think about what comes to you. Think about how it comes through you of just like, whatever comes through you needs to go right back out.
MAL (31:07):
Yeah. And, and it’ll, that’s
AJV (31:09):
An abundant mindset and
MAL (31:11):
It’ll, and it’ll create so much beauty on the way through. But everything is temporary. You know, even the money you think you want, you want it so you can spend it on something
AJV (31:21):
MAL (31:22):
You know, it’s like everything, if it comes through you, if there’s something that passes through, joy is temporary, sadness is temporary. Just let it pass through. Let just let yourself be the biggest conduit you can be and don’t shut yourself off and shut down the channels when you’re afraid of losing. You know, don’t hang on too tight to things ’cause you’re afraid if you lose them, you lose them forever. Just be confident that things through you are good for the world and amplify how much can pass through you.
AJV (31:50):
Yes. I love that. And you said something earlier, I wanna go back to really quick, and I’m, I’m cognizant of the time because I think there’s so much richen richness in the conversation. But one of the things that you said earlier, and again, this is again how I perceived it, is like, don’t wait until it’s perfect to get going. Like, don’t wait to get going. And I think a lot of people wait to get going ’cause it’s like, oh, it has to look a certain way or I have to have this lined up a certain way. So I’d love to just hear like, what would your 2 cents be to the people here out there listening? Well that’s sounds great for you Melanie. I’m so glad you did that, but I don’t have this, this or this or that. And then it’s like, and I love that you come from a Yeah, don’t give me any, I don’t have that. I was making calls from my car, living in my car. So we’re good there. And, and still people really get stuck with like, I just can’t do it yet. Right. I can’t sell it yet. I can’t teach it yet ’cause my website’s not live or whatever limiting belief they’ve come up with. And so for those people listening who going, yeah, but it’s not ready.
MAL (32:56):
Yeah. I think the most important thing is it’s not about what it looks like. It’s about what it is. So if it’s good, it’s ready. The only time I would say, okay, get like, take the time is if you’re like, I don’t know how to do it. You know, I wanna, I wanna do a coaching business, but I’m terrible at coaching. I want, I wanna be an art, I wanna sell my paintings, but I’ve never painted a painting and I’m no good at painting. I wanna be an a singer. But I I, I haven’t taken lessons. I don’t know how to sing. I’ve never s sang a song. Like that’s when I’m like, okay, well then get good at your craft. Mm-Hmm
MAL (33:34):
It’s about what it is. How many hole in the wall spots do people line up at the door outside and it’s like, don’t let this fool you. This is the best pizza. Yeah. This is the best coffee, this is the best. You know what, whatever it is. Like there’s a lineup. You can’t even get in the best tacos. And it’s like this place, this place
AJV (34:17):
And back to what you said earlier, it’s like if you’re so good at your craft that you’re helping your clients get results, everything else will work.
MAL (34:28):
Yes.
AJV (34:28):
And I don’t have to have all the things. Okay. I have one more category, so I’m bouncing around a little bit. ’cause I think there’s so many good nuggets here. You mentioned this earlier, which I think is a really good takeaway for a lot of people who are listening. And so I didn’t wanna just skip over it and not come back to it. It’s incentivize your customers to help you grow your business. It’s the, you know, the difference of like, hey, whether I’m gonna pay you or I’m gonna pay marketing agencies or Facebook ads or whatever. So being selective of like, how am I gonna spend the funds that I have to help grow my business and why not market and create some incentive to my clients to refer me business. So you wanna talk about that for a sec?
MAL (35:07):
Well, the most beautiful frequency I’ve ever found for my business is for me, for you, for us, for me, for you, for us. If I have it be all about me, there is no us. And if there’s no us, there’s no long-term business. If I make it everything about you, there’s also no us
AJV (36:07):
Mm-Hmm.
MAL (37:05):
That’s incredible.
AJV (37:07):
Anyone can do that, right? It’s like, it’s just choosing on where you invest the funds, right? And it’s like, that’s your choice. So make your choice. Don’t be mad about it. But you get to make your choice. And I think that’s a really solid, great way of going, Hey, I win, you win, we win. I love my business and this is a great way for you to spread something that you love and get paid for it. I win. You win. Thus, I think that’s such a good reminder to everyone. And back to, there’s many different ways to build something that you love. Don’t be afraid to try things. Don’t be afraid to pivot. Don’t be afraid to change and adapt through the process. It is a part of finding your niche. It’s a part of finding your groove.
MAL (37:49):
Yes.
AJV (37:51):
I love that. Where should people go if they want to stay in touch with you? Like where would be like the central place that you would wanna say, Hey, if you run a, a real feel of what I talk about and, and here’s what I, I loved this conversation today. I thought, I mean I probably have like 10 bullet points that I wrote down and I usually have like five
MAL (38:29):
And the wild thing is like all the strategies work.
AJV (38:32):
Yeah.
MAL (38:33):
All of them. So it’s just none of them work for a not good product. Yeah. All of them work. When you’re in alignment, it’s just about what do you like? So even if it’s a good strategy, if you hate it, it’s not good for you. If it’s a good strategy and you love it, it’s good for you. And you tell people that’s the best way because it’s good for you. They try. It’s not good for them. So I love, I love strategy, I love trying different strategies, but from the place of if the energetics are aligned to all the strategies work. Yeah.
AJV (38:59):
And I love that too. It’s like anyone who says this is what you have to do and this is how you have to do it, it’s like, well not really. There’s a way
MAL (39:07):
For my scientific mind comes in and is like, really, let me see if I can find another way. Yeah.
AJV (39:13):
MAL (39:33):
So at this stage still, I don’t have a website. So the way is Facebook and Instagram. So you’ll either be my friend on Facebook or you follow, I have two accounts on Instagram, Melanie n Layer and Alpha Fme. And if you follow that, you’ll know when I have free masterclasses, you’ll know what programs are running. You’ll be able to read my posts that are masterclasses within themselves, watch my live streams. Like I’m, that’s where I connect with people and that’s the way to do it.
AJV (39:58):
And I will make sure to put all of the different links in the show notes ’cause she’s got her personal and Alpha F for Facebook and Instagram. So just go to the show notes and you can grab those. Connect with Melanie directly. Melanie, this was awesome. Really, really awesome, rich conversation. I’ll say that probably five more times today.
Ep 471: 4 Techniques to Make Your Content Go Viral
RV (00:04):
So I’m gonna share something awesome with you today. I’m gonna share with you four techniques to make your content go more viral. And the reason I’m sharing this is because I’ve spent a lot of time learning about this in the last several months. And if you’re new to this podcast or if you’re new to following me, you won’t know any different. But if you’ve been here for a while, you know that especially if you’re one of our brand builders group members, you’ll know that we don’t put a lot of stock into things like social media or a lot of time upfront into social media. And the reason why is because we know that building a real business is much more profitable. Focusing on systems, developing people, creating use, useful content, having automation and you know, follow up and, and these kinds of things that aren’t as sexy that you don’t hear about as much in the world today.
RV (01:00):
But you know, generating referrals speaking on stages, those are the things that actually are gonna generate meaningful or significant income in your pocket quickly. But there is this vanity of going viral that everybody is chasing. And you know, then they’re surprised when they don’t actually make much money from it. And so we just don’t focus on social media as much, right? Early on. But if you’ve, if you’re one of our members, you know that in our brand builder journey, we, we talk about doing the, there’s a, there’s a, people sometimes do the right things, but in the wrong order, right? They do the right thing at the wrong time. And the sequence matters a lot, particularly if you wanna scale a really significant multi seven or eight figure business. Now, that all said, we hit eight figures last year as a company, and we have spent five years perfecting our craft and creating our curriculum and building our systems and training our people, and doing all of those things.
RV (02:03):
And so what we have done is we are now set up to scale. We are set up to really rapidly grow. And so now all we have to do is go out and grow our audience. And so we are now turning our focus and our attention to learning some of these things that are more about scaling your audience. Because we’ve scaled our people, we’ve scaled our offerings, we’ve scaled our systems, we’ve scaled our team, we’ve scaled our technology, and so now we’re really ready to go out and scale our audience. And so that’s what I’m gonna share with you a little bit about what I’ve been learning in that front. And, and also to kind of say like, if you’ve been following me for a while watch out. Here we come, right? Watch how, watch how fast we’re gonna start to grow on social media and things.
RV (02:49):
And that’s because we can afford to do things now. We can afford to hire the team. We can afford to, to, to buy traffic if we need to, to, we can afford to produce high quality content. We can afford to invest in education to grow our audience because we have a backend business that can pay for it, right? If you know anything about how we teach paid traffic, which we don’t really talk much about here on the podcast, that’s really for members only. But we talk about how the, the person who wins the click is whoever can afford the most to pay for the click. And so the key is to not actually spend so much time just trying to build the audience or dropping a bunch of money into ads, is to build something on the backend that is very profitable so that you can afford to go buy traffic so that you can afford to go buy awareness.
RV (03:37):
And that’s basically what we spent five years doing. That said, I know that many of you’ll be excited to be learning about, you know, some of the strategies and techniques that we are learning to go viral. And I’m gonna share with you four of them today that are really important. That will make a huge difference for any of you, regardless of, of whether or not you have that backend system, and you have that, that clear personal brand, and you have that uniqueness and, and you really are building things the right way. Or if, you know, you’re just trying to get more views on your videos, and that’s what you, you, you know, or your, or your podcast or whatever your YouTube. And so either way this is, this is gonna be great. All right? So let me walk you through these. So the first one is content selection secrets.
RV (04:22):
Content selection secrets. A huge part of going viral is knowing what type of content is going to go viral. What kind of topics are going viral? What are, in other words, what are people already interested in that they are naturally sharing, that they are likely to share? And you might say, well, okay, but how do I know what the whole world is interested in? How do I know what people are likely to share? And that is the great question. And the answer is actually much simpler than you might realize. It is to watch what other content is going viral and to recreate your version of that same content. When we teach media strategy we referenced, you know, a term that David Meerman Scott created years ago called Newsjacking. And he said, if you wanna get featured in the news, what you do is you watch what is breaking news, and then you produce content on that same story, but with your slant, your expertise, your angle on that topic, because it will get picked up by the media that’s breaking news.
RV (05:32):
Well, this sort of viral drafting as I sometimes I think of it as like drafting is you’re, you are figuring out which topics are already going viral, and then you’re gonna draft off of those. So you’re not gonna copy them. You’re not going to, like, you’re not gonna just take a, a viral video and post it on your feed. That’s actually against many of the, the terms of many of these social media outlets, although people do it all the time. What, what I’m gonna say is watch for, for topics that are going viral in your niche and then create your version of it. So how do you do that? Well, there’s some simple ways. One is look at what’s showing up in your explore page. Look what is showing up in, in the trending section in YouTube, you can simply go look at a video and look at how many views a video has compared to how many subscribers the channel has.
RV (06:30):
If it has way more views than there are subscribers in the channel, you know, that piece of content is performing very well. There’s also lots of other third party tools that you can use to do this research for you. We talk about those in our membership program. But, but, but you can watch on what’s recommended for you. Like all of these platforms recommend content and push content. You know, in YouTube there’s like a whole panel down the side that will say, you know, you know, recommended next or, or watch this next. Those are all videos that are being recommended because they’re holding people’s attention, and that’s what the, the platform wants. And so those videos are performing well, and so they’re recommending those to more people, which, so you have to just pay attention. You have to like open your eyes. You know, when we say the next level of thinking or the next level of results requires the next level of thinking, it’s like your eyes have to be opened to a, a new way of viewing the world.
RV (07:23):
And, and this is happening all around you, and you’re probably just not paying attention to it. You’re not seeing it. So you need to look for that. And then you look for the topics that lend themselves to your expertise, to your niche, to your industry, or that you have something to say and you kind of recreate it in your own style, in your own voice. That is how you create viral content is, is basically recreating your own version of content that has already been proven to go viral by other people, right? So that’s content selection. And then that’s the first technique. Now, each of the next three techniques are all gonna be about hooks, okay? We’re gonna talk about visual hooks, text hooks, and audio hooks. In order to teach you each of those, you need to understand what a hook is. And this has been one of the most frustrating parts of my journey as it relates to kind of organic marketing and social media marketing is so many people say, you gotta have a hook.
RV (08:28):
You gotta start with a hook. You need a great hook. That’s a great hook. But nobody can define what in the freaking heck an actual hook is. Like, what does that mean? What is a hook? Like, I know the concept is that it hooks people attention, it hooks people’s attention, but how, like, what’s the formula for creating a hook? And I now, after studying this, you know, for a couple years, I think I found the answer. And I think it is insanely simple. And I think even the people who teach it, they can’t articulate what it is. They know what it is, and they’re able to replicate it, and that’s why they grow. But they actually can’t articulate it in a way that they could teach it to somebody else. And that’s what’s been so frustrating is, is, is figuring out how, what is, what is a hook?
RV (09:20):
What does that mean? What is a hook? And when I was in Toastmasters, when I started my professional speaking career, Toastmasters used to have this formula for a speech, okay? Not for videos, but for speech. And they said, and its formula’s been around for, you know, probably centuries, but at least decades. And they said, the formula for a great speech is tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em, tell them, and then tell ’em what you told ’em. Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em, tell ’em, and then tell ’em what you told them. And that’s, that’s what the formula was for a great speech. What I’m realizing now is that what a hook is, is that first part. Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell them. So many people will start a video by just saying like, you know, here’s something I was thinking about the other day.
RV (10:08):
Well, that’s a random thought. Instead, what you wanna do is make the first words out of your mouth on the video telling the people exactly what you’re about to teach them, right? So you don’t wanna pontificate and flounder and mess around. You wanna say, here’s four ways to make your content go viral. And then it’s like, okay, one, I’m gonna teach you 1, 2, 3, 4. But the opening line should be, here’s four techniques that will help you go viral, right? I’m telling you what I’m about to tell you, or I’m telling you what I’m about to teach you. That’s the hook, right? I had my first con, my first social media content. I mean, my Ted Talk has gone viral and I studied TED Talks, right? So that, that’s gone viral. But in terms of like just creating organic content, I finally had a, a, a a, a social media piece go viral.
RV (11:03):
And it was when you, you know, I told the, the story of how someone stole $40,000 from me and for me and aj, and that was the opening line. I, I said, someone just stole $40,000 from me, and I want to tell you what they did. So it doesn’t happen to you, right? I’m telling them what I’m about to tell them, or I’m telling them what I’m about to teach them. I promise you, if you, if you focus on making the opening three to five seconds of your content and be very clear of just telling them what you’re about to teach them, your content is gonna perform exponentially better, exponentially better. So that’s the big idea. Now, let me teach you, you know, I promise you four techniques to make you go viral. So all three of these next techniques are related to hooks, but there’s three different type of hooks I want you to focus on.
RV (11:55):
Visual hooks, text hooks, and audio hooks. So a visual hook is when you hold something or you show something visual like you could be holding a prop or you could be, you could be doing anything that is different than just a talking head. It could be where you are. The, the where you’re behind. It could be something you’re wearing. It could be something you’re holding, but it is, it is something like visual that the eye can see to go, oh, this piece of content is going to explain this thing. Why am I standing here? Or why am I holding this? Or why am I doing x? That’s a visual hook. The visual hook is a signal that I’m about to tell you something related to that visual element, and that serves as a hook. So that’s visual hooks. Then you wanna use text hooks.
RV (12:53):
Text hooks are actually the easiest is to make sure the onscreen texts, like the, the, the, not what you say, but, but what you, what they see, that text that they see visually says what you’re about to teach them. So if this were a video, it would say four techniques to make you go, make your content go viral. And it would be titled that, and the text would be on the screen. It would also be the first line of your caption. And then the third type of hook is an audio hook. An audio hook is what you actually say, assuming it’s a video or a podcast where there is a spoken word element as you say. You know what I’m gonna share with you four ideas to make your content go more viral. So they’re seeing a visual element, they’re reading a text, a description, and they’re hearing an auditory description, all of which are three different types of hooks, A visual hook, a text hook, and an audio hook, right?
RV (13:55):
Lemme say that again. You’re giving them, they’re, they’re, they’re seeing a visual element, they’re reading a text description, and they’re hearing an auditory explanation. So they’re seeing a visual hook, they’re reading a text hook, and they’re hearing an auditory hook. I promise you, if you start your content with those three elements, and especially if you’ve, you’ve made a content selection, a strategic content selection, your content will go more viral. So there you have it, four techniques that will make your content go viral. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please make sure you leave a review for me on iTunes or wherever you listen to the show, and share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from it. That’s how you can pay us back and really help us. We, it’s what keeps this podcast going. So thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.