Author: Nicole Gale

Ep 376: How to Build A Credible Personal Brand with Dr. Mariel Buqué

RV (00:02):
I am delighted that you get to meet a newer friend of mine, but someone who I absolutely adore and I feel is really, really a special soul. And this woman is a true expert and a total class act, and you probably have already seen her on social, but I predict that she’s, she’s gonna be one of the most influential personal brands in the mental health space in our era. So her name is Dr. Mariel Buque, and she is a Columbia University trained psychologist. Okay. So she’s an actual psychologist, a trauma expert. She’s the author of a book coming out called Break the Cycle which is from Penguin which is my publisher, Woohoo. Go Penguin. And she’s been featured on CNN and the Today Show b ABC News, and she does corporate wellness workshops to companies like Google and Twitter and Capital One and Facebook.
RV (00:57):
Her and I shared the stage together at Louis How Summit of Greatness. So she was one of the other speakers, and that was how I met her. And I immediately was like, Aw, I just love this woman. She’s awesome. And so we got to connect a little bit and I want you to hear her story because, you know, she, she was a psychologist and she had a practice, which we’re gonna talk about, and she’s gone from that to over 700,000 followers online. Huge following on both, both Instagram and TikTok. And so I want to hear about some of what her strategy’s been with social media, how she kind of went from, you know private practice to personal brand and just kind of hear that journey. And then also, you know, maybe, maybe we’ll get some free trauma counseling out of it along the way. So Dr. Mariel Buque, welcome to the show.
MB (01:49):
Thank you so much. Rory I’m such a fan of yours just from a professional standpoint, but also you’re just such a wonderful person and so I’m, I’m delighted to be with you here today.
RV (02:00):
Well, thanks buddy. I, so, so tell us your story. So you go to Columbia, you become, you, you’re a classically trained psychologist, and then did you immediately, like, start a, a private practice?
MB (02:13):
No, actually I started a private practice in the pandemic, but even prior to, I was already offering some education online as a student. So part of the reason why I decided to start offering information was because I was seeing so much of this information floating through these ivory towers, right? We have like these peer review journals and all these places where we place information that’s really important for the public to know, but it wasn’t really out there. And so I was like, okay, social media is a public space that can be a space where people can gather some of this mental health information. So it kind of all started even before I graduated, about a year or two before that. And then I transitioned into being a psychologist at Columbia University Medical Center. So I was a staff psychologist there in addition to also holding some courses. I was a professor in the medical center and in the main campus. And then within a year’s time, that’s when I developed my private practice. So I was very busy.
RV (03:17):
Wow. Okay. All, so you actually started while you were still in school, so you were still, you were a grad student mm-hmm. . And and then, and then you were, you said you were a counselor at Columbia University Medical and also a professor.
MB (03:31):
That’s
RV (03:31):
Right, yeah. And then went into private practice. So, so talk to me a little bit about social media, like the journey on social media, because I think there’s a lot of, a lot of people say, well, I’m not an online influencer, and I don’t know if social media applies to me because I don’t wanna do dances on TikTok, or, you know, I don’t really want to do hashtags. And our audience, you know, we describe as mission driven messengers mm-hmm. , and if I had to sum it up in one word, I would call ’em experts. I would say that they’re experts and, and you know, I just have this deep-rooted belief that you, you know, there’s nothing wrong with all of these things. You know, different transitions and reels and like, you know, learning all the skills, the hashtags and the angles and the, you know, the dancing and the music and whatever.
RV (04:17):
But I’m a, I’m a really firm believer that if you just share your expertise, there’s gotta be a way to make this all work. And when I look at, when I follow you and I go, oh my gosh, you have blown up so massively. So can you just like, tell us how did you get started on social media? What are some of your philosophies there? And, and also like, yeah, just like your mindset of going, you know, you’re a Columbia trained psychologist, but yet you’re on social media and, and, and going, there’s a little bit of a dichotomy there of like credibility mm-hmm. things, but clearly you’ve, you’ve made it work for you in a really big way.
MB (04:55):
Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting that you say the, that there’s that dichotomy because when I first started off, I actually, I was really hopeful that none of my professors would find me on social media, , .
MB (05:11):
Cause I thought, you know, this perhaps doesn’t present as professional. They might have some sort of view on what, how I’m presenting the information to make it more accessible to the general public and not feel like this, like very dense clinical information. And so there were so many things that I had to think about in, in reference to how to make the information feel like it was reaching the places that I wanted it to reach. And interestingly enough, I’m actually going to speak at Columbia this week. So it’s, it’s very, very interesting how that, the reason why I’m going to go speak at Columbia is because of the visibility that I’ve been able to amass based on social media. So it, it’s just coming back so full circle where, where,
RV (05:57):
I just think it’s funny cuz it’s like, normally, you know, people post stuff online and they’re like, I hope my parents don’t find out, or I hope like, you know, my, my boyfriend and my girlfriend doesn’t see. And you’re like, yeah, I hope my professors don’t see, I think . That’s, that’s so funny. Yeah.
MB (06:12):
You know, it was in part because it was so new, like, I was one of the, the first therapists and therapists in training that were coming into the social media space. So we didn’t have a blueprint for how we were supposed to be showing up into these spaces. We were just doing it based on our own personal style. And this is one thing that I, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned even through looking at your work, shout out to Lewis House also, like looking at how Louis shows up to the work itself as well. And I, because I show up from a place of wanting to serve in addition to wanting to be very authentic in my delivery, I think that’s worked out really well for me. And it’s something that people have gravitated to because they appreciate the authentic expression of the things that I say.
MB (07:01):
Right? And like being able to connect with the real human, but then also because I show up from a place of wanting to serve every day, I present information that is driven towards like, helping the public to better feel, better educated, and feel healed. And so that allows me to step into these spaces without having to overthink how it is reflected upon me. So I think that that’s been really helpful and being able to see the folks that I’ve been able to connect with, like you and Lewis and others, and also just bring in my own element of authenticity into this work. And I think that that has contributed to the, the amalgamation of like, you know followers across all these social media spaces.
RV (07:46):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, I mean, I, I think that’s really powerful because you go, Hey, on the one hand, I don’t wanna risk like my professional credibility with my peers and my colleagues. On the other hand, you’re, you’re going, I’m using social media as an outlet to serve people so that I’m, I’m deliberately trying to make this information more accessible, as you say, which I think is a, is a great word, word for it. So how would you describe your social media strategy? Like, when you just think about it and you go, in my mind, here’s what I think about in terms of the type of content I’m gonna present, the way I’m gonna present it, the frequency at which I’m gonna present it. Can you just like, talk to us briefly about about that? Like just what, what are some of, what’s your mindset as a, as how you approach content creation for social?
MB (08:42):
Mm. Ooh, I love this question. Content creation has been a combination of a few things. The first of which is a unique approach that has been very, very much a part of what has driven like my mission to show up in these spaces. And what I mean by that is, I have this way that I present information with something that I do every single day, which is drink tea. And so I present the information like I’m having tea with someone and I’m breaking the fourth wall and I’m engaging the person. And when I started doing that, I started getting the feedback that people were actually feeling like they were landing in a gentle place where they can actually like listen to a tip that felt doable, accessible. And so when I started hearing from my community that that was the case, I started doing more of those very unique types of videos. In addition to that, in terms of the cadence, I believe that right now algorithms are a little bit influx, but what matters is that people notice your presence. So I have had a steady flow of information for now almost seven years.
RV (09:56):
Wow.
MB (09:57):
Yeah. It’s been a while. . So the information has looked very different because I started off just as many of us did with very dry mental health information. Like, this is depression, this is anxiety, these are the symptoms. And we were just educating the public and bringing that information out. Whereas now there’s a lot more that people are talking about, what is codependency? What’s trauma, you know? So there are a lot more nuances that people are willing to engage in, in terms of the work. And so there’s more that we can do in terms of how we can deliver it. And there’s so much more content that we can actually use because people are having, you know, these kinds of words in their vocabulary and they’re, they’re understanding what we’re saying outside of the therapy room. So the cadence is daily. And what I aim to do is to provide information that hopefully people feel is new in some way.
MB (10:52):
Like, I presented information about grief the other day and how grief is connected to healing. That’s something that a lot of people, my followers were like, wow, I never thought of it that way. This is something that I’d like to sit with. Right? And so the fact that it’s new information, or at least my, my interpretation of how healing can look is allowing someone to take a step back into their life and really think about their healing work in a different way. So I try to add that element in there too, in addition to the other pieces. But I have realized that when you show up with consistency, people that digest your information are really grateful for the fact that you’re willing to do that.
RV (11:38):
When you say daily, break that down for me, like mm-hmm. , does that, does that mean every single day? Saturday and Sunday? Does that mean multiple times a day? Does that mean you’re like going, you have a YouTube video every day and a bunch of, you know, Instagram posts? Like, like talk to me about that. The, what, when you say showing up daily, cuz that’s, that’s an, that’s an insight in and of itself to just go like, Hey, you’ve been doing this for seven years. It’s, it’s not an overnight success story. Mm-Hmm. . And it’s like consistency always wins. I mean, if you post great content for seven years, how could you lose? Like, but, but break it down. Tell me the seven, well, tell me what you’re doing every day. Like what’s your daily rhythm?
MB (12:21):
Yeah. So I must say there is one day where I’m no longer posting, and that’s because I’ve looked into my insights and that day isn’t a very highly engaging day, which is Friday. And so every platform’s different, every account is different. So I would urge anyone that is like hoping to understand how their users are digesting their content to look into their insights. So Fridays is the day off, basically, but on my bigger platforms on Instagram and TikTok, there is a, an almost daily presentation of information in some way or another. There’s a carousel post, there’s a video, there’s some sort of a repost of somewhere where I’ve been. And I have also restructured, especially my Instagram into being break the cycle of trauma, that being one account, which is primarily the information that you’ll find in my upcoming book, and like information that can be digestible around trauma.
MB (13:23):
And then there’s my main account, Dr. Dot Mario Bouquet, which is where I present some information about what I have going on in addition to some mental health tips. So there, I, I’ve actually just recently broken them out instead of having everything live in one space. And the reason being is because I wanted there to be a space where people can go to and then just digest the information and a space where pe where that would be more branded in, in reference to my own personal brand. Now typically what the posts look like are carousel posts or reels, given that they’re so popular now with a boom of TikTok. And whenever I’m doing a tee time video presenting information in that way, that’s typically presented like on a weekly, now two times a month basis. And I, I find that presenting the information in that way gives people an, an opportunity to look forward to the information and to really digest it even more. Versus when I was posting a video on tee time and trauma every single day, I felt like I was oversaturating my audience and it wasn’t being received in the same way. So I did do a little bit of internal studying of what has worked, what the feedback I’ve received in the comments section, dms, I get emails every day. So all of this, I’ve kind of created my own self case study, if you may, and it has led me to figure out what the right cadence is for me on each of these platforms.
RV (15:01):
Mm-Hmm. and, and so, so is tee time a longer format post?
MB (15:07):
It is, it’s an approximate minute of me inviting someone to tea, offering up a, a bit of information about mental health, providing a mental health tip that they can try for the week, and then closing out the segment within a minute’s time. I don’t know how I do it, but it, it gets done.
RV (15:25):
Okay. And so you do that, you do that only once a week?
MB (15:28):
Once a week, sometimes twice a month, just depending on whether or not I can actually provide my team with the video that they need to chop up and make into a tee time. But yes, once a week.
RV (15:42):
Okay. But it’s, it’s only a 62nd video.
MB (15:45):
Yeah, it is. Yeah. But it, it’s, it’s about seven minutes before it’s chopped up.
RV (15:50):
Oh, it’s a seven. So it’s a seven minute video mm-hmm. that you record that then gets chopped up and they take like one, the, like, the top 60 seconds of it and that’s what they turn into a post for you? Yeah,
MB (16:02):
Yeah, because it’s a, it has a certain style, so it’s chopped up in a certain way where it’s inviting, it’s a little bit on the therapy humor and but it brings us back into something that’s a little more serious, so it has a flow to it and the editing behind it you know, requires for me to have a little bit more B-roll.
RV (16:21):
Got it. And then the rest of that, like every day you’re doing just a carousel post with more of like just text copy and tips that way and, and then other personal stuff or re-sharing things that you’ve been up to. Mm-Hmm.
MB (16:36):
. That’s right. Yeah.
RV (16:38):
Mm-Hmm. . How, and so tell me about your team. So you bring up a good, a good point, right? I think this is something that people struggle with as they’re like, okay, well, you know, I, I have some of this, I have some expertise, right? Like, I’m a lawyer, or I’m a, you know, I’m a C P A or whatever. I’m a financial advisor. Like I’ve got this, this professional, you know, expertise, but I don’t have the time to do this and I don’t, maybe I don’t love social media or don’t even feel comfortable, like, or maybe I don’t even get on the apps that much and like, push the buttons and like, know what to do to whatever, edit the, edit the reels and, and, and all of that. How do you get around that and how big is your team? And, and, and talk me through like the evolution of your team. So when you first started, I’m guessing you maybe did, were doing it yourself. And then how has that evolved where you’re at now?
MB (17:28):
Yeah. So I absolutely first started with doing it every, doing everything myself. And interestingly enough, when I was doing interviews for publishers, like shopping around publishers to determine who I was gonna go with for my book in every single meeting, and I have 15 of these me meetings Wow. Within a two day span. And in all of those meetings, everyone asked you do all that yourself. And I said, yes, I do. And so they actually couldn’t believe it, but I realized in that moment, I need to outsource. I’m clearly doing much more than what I need to be doing. And what I learned in that journey is that people have an area of expertise in their respective area that can help burgeon your platform that you may not have. And outsourcing is actually one of the wisest things that you can do in order to really build a platform beyond, you know, where you are.
MB (18:22):
So right now, my team is still relatively small, but it’s a very mighty team. And so I have a brand manager someone who is a, a content creator and facilitates a lot of the brand elements of what is forward facing to my followers. I have someone who manages more of the financial side of things and helps me in orienting me around those moving pieces. Someone who in essence oversees everyone else who is more of a business manager and oversees also all of the moving pieces of the business, including speaking, although I am transitioning into speaking via a speaker’s bureau and which is it, it’s still tentative who I’m gonna go with. But I have been managing all of that on my own, on the backend with my team. And so there is a person that helps me to make sure that everything is like running smoothly.
MB (19:28):
So it’s been, in essence, more of a, with myself included four person team, which I think given how much I have on my plate is most of what I can manage. But I do believe that having someone that oversees everything has freed up a lot of my own space to be able to be creative, know what kind of content I wanna put out, because I still very much am tied to that part of the work. And the reason being is because it’s such sensitive material that I have to be closely connected to it, whatever goes out into the public. And so it, it gives me an opportunity to do that, to write and to think about, you know, the evolution of what will be out there in the future for, for all of us, for my business.
RV (20:12):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So, and, and business model wise. So you finished school mm-hmm.
MB (20:20):

RV (20:21):
When, when you first started, you, you, you were a counselor, right? So you, you, you, you were taking on clients and that was how you were bringing in most of your money mm-hmm. and then how, how has your bus, how has the business model evolved? Like, how have the revenue streams kind of come and gone and changed over the, over the time span of, of making this like your official full-time gig? Mm-Hmm.
MB (20:45):
. So it has had an evolution that has geared in the direction of consulting, writing, and speaking. So those are my main areas. Now. I do a lot of corporate wellness consulting. And then as you mentioned, you know, kind of through some of my bio stuff, and then also with the authorship journey, it’s my very first book, right? So I did give myself an opportunity to, to streamline everything else so that I can then focus on the writing piece. The evolution of that was primarily me trying to set up the business financially. So before I, I used to take on a lot of brand partnerships with some of the health organizations that are out there, Ali Wellness, c v s even some organizations that had a health element or an element around self care, like anthropology for example, or Dove who weren’t necessarily like health organizations, but were connected to a mission to serve in, in the area of mental health.
MB (21:48):
And so all of that actually helped me with the financial setup to be able to then create a team and have an actual funnel of income to individuals that can help me to build what, what I really desired, which was an evolution of my expertise in the authorship and speaker arena, right? And so now that’s where I am now. I’m, I’ve been able to build that out. I have a really solid book deal. You know, I have a strategy for how to move forward. And so all of that is now in place because I first started off with doing all those other things, right? Like all the things that are in your traditional kind of psychology trajectory, being a clinician, being a professor, and consulting here and there, but not as much as I’m doing now.
RV (22:39):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I, one of the things that I love about the way that you’ve done what you have done is you know, like a lot of times, you know, lots of people wanna write a book, and, and one of the, one of the big things that we’re always telling people is we’re saying, Hey, build the audience before you build the book. Because you gotta have, you gotta have people who, who want to buy the book really like because you know, we all think, oh, I’ll just write a book and then all of a sudden, you know, everybody will run out and buy it. But it’s like, you really need that kind of core fan base. Mm-Hmm. . So how do you nurture that fan base? Like in addition to posting, how do you handle are like, are you doing comments and dms all day long? Like, are, how much time do you spend on that actual you know, interaction piece?
MB (23:36):
I go in at least once a day to make sure that I’m connected in some way to community and see it, especially if there are any comments that I feel, feel like might need special attention, however, and, and also with people that DM me that wanna build with me in some way. There’s a lot of people like that, and I, I don’t wanna miss those messages, but for the most part, the, the, my team member who is managing a lot of the content side does have a good way of being able to connect with people in a way that is my voice in many ways. A lot of us are doing now. Because sometimes these platforms just get way too big and it can be a bit overwhelming to manage it as one person. So I try to stay connected to the community. And even through my newsletter, like in my newsletters, people email me still via the newsletter when they receive it, and they’ll tell me it’s a newsletter that helps people with coping skills.
MB (24:34):
And people always tell me like, this one really helped me. I’m gonna use this one this week. And so I try to be responsive there as well. However, because of the enormity of these platforms, now I, I can’t respond to everyone. And before, when I first started off that first and second year, every comment was attended to every last one, even when I was at, you know, 10, 20, 30,000. But now it, it’s almost impossible to do. But I do try and make sure that if there’s ever any sensitive material or if there’s anybody who feels a little bit more tender and sensitive or like they really want to connect that they’re being attended to, because one of the things that is really important for me is for a person to feel like when they come to any of my platforms, they feel a sense of security, safety and like they’ve landed in a soft place. And if I can make that even, even though I can’t please everyone, if I can make that a core part of my mission, then I’ve been able to really fulfill a lot of what I’m, I feel like is a part of the work that I’m here to, to do. So the, the comment section is an important part of my work, but you know, the more that we grow the, the harder it gets to mm-hmm. manage
RV (25:58):
. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good. I mean, that’s true about everything. I mean, the, the more the business grows, it’s like it’s harder to keep up within, that’s how you end up creating jobs for people and, and doing that. So well, Dr. Marielle, this is, this has been so good. Like, it’s so cool to to hear this. I got one other question for you, but before we do that, where do you want people to go if they want to connect up to you and like, follow your journey? And, and obviously we didn’t talk much about what your actual expertise is, like intergenerational trauma and like, you know, like you said, the dealing with having coping skills and things for, for dealing with, with trauma and mental health. But where should people go if they wanna, if they wanna follow you?
MB (26:41):
They can go to dr marielle bouquet.com, which is my website. And there, there’s just about everything that I’m up to, but I’m Dr. Dot Marielle bouquet on all socials, and so they can find me in that way as well.
RV (26:55):
Uh huh . So, and it’s, and her name is m a r i e L, and then Bouquet is spelled B U Q U E, just so you all know. So head over and at least leave her a comment or a shout out on TikTok or Instagram and follow her and, and just let her know that you heard her here on influential personal Brand podcast, Dr. Mariel is, if, if there’s somebody out there who is professional services person who’s like, has a really deep expertise, who really cares a lot about quality and credibility, and you know, has a true desire to maintain professionalism within their craft mm-hmm. but they’ve been sort of slow to adapt to social media or to adopt social media, or you just haven’t made it a priority, what advice or encouragement would you give, you know, would you give to that person?
MB (27:49):
I would say bring your authenticity and your voice. So find whatever it is that it is your voice within this space, within your own respective health space, and bring that in. Like, there are people waiting to hear from you. And I think we oftentimes, we’re, we’re so caught up in our own process of how to make it happen, that we forget that there’s an audience that’s there that’s waiting for our voice. And in addition to that, I know you mentioned TikTok videos and dancing. I just wanna say I don’t dance and I don’t dance on these videos, , and I’ve still been able to to amass a healthy audience. So there is a way that we can, as health professionals, really get the message out there. Just find your own flow, your own way, whatever authentic message it is that you wanna relay and your own clinical voice. And I think that there’s so much power in that and you can bring to these platforms.
RV (28:42):
I love it. Well, we will link up to dr mariel Buque.com [email protected] slash podcast in the show notes. So you, that’s an easy way to find her if you, if you don’t find her on your own. And Dr. Mariel, this is so wonderful. I, I love connecting with you. I’m excited to follow your journey. I’m absolutely confident that you’re just going to go so far and, and continue to impact millions and millions of people. So thanks for making time for us friend, and we wish you the best of luck.
MB (29:10):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Ep 375: What Is Imposter Syndrome and Do I Have It | Michelle Chalfant Episode Recap

AJV (00:03):
Hey, allI don’t even know if I can talk, I just had one of the most insightful and enlightening conversations about what it means to be an emotionally healthy adult. And I need that. Like, I need that. And it was like such a really great conversation about as adults, do we make time and space to feel the feelings that we have? And then to actually sit down and talk about where did those feelings come from? Are they true, are they not true? And what do we do about these? And how are these feelings causing success or problems in our lives? Or, you know, and, and some of these, it’s like, how are they affecting our relationships or how are they causing havoc in our relationships because we don’t even realize what they are? And so as a part of this conversation the question came up, what is imposter syndrome and how do you know if you have it right?
AJV (01:09):
So I thought this was really good because a part of being around tons of people who are creating content and building businesses and doing things that are exceptionally important to their lives, and they believe in them deeply, that also comes with some insecurity, right? Because the more willing that you are to put yourself out there, the more, the more vulnerable you have to be and the more vulnerable you are to negative commentary which can cause problems on your mental wellbeing your state of emotional health it, it just doesn’t feel good to go, Hey, that sucks. You suck. I don’t like that. Though nobody likes that. So what, what do we do about it? And so I, I love this conversation. They said that imposter syndrome, I simply believing that you are a fraud. That you are ill-equipped to do the job or task at hand, although, right, and this isn’t a part of any formal definition, although you have the necessary expertise, experience, credentials to do exactly what you’re doing.
AJV (02:24):
You, you are capable of doing it, but you have feelings of like, I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough, I don’t know enough, I don’t have enough experience. I don’t have enough time. I I, whatever it is, it’s you allow yourself to believe that you are fraud even when you’re not. And so we talked about, well, where does that come from? Where do these feelings come from? And then how do we overcome them? And a huge part of it is just recognizing your own limiting beliefs of what are the things that I actually believe to be true that are not true? They are not true. And so I’m just gonna pause for a second introspection moment here and go, what do you tell yourself? What do you allow yourself to believe about yourself? That is blatantly not true.
AJV (03:28):
Just gonna sit in this awkward silence for just a minute. What lie do you believe about yourself that maybe you’re not even aware of? That’s a limiting belief. And through this conversation I shared that over the last several weeks that I have really been struggling with like, am I capable of doing the job at hand that I have as c e o and co-founder of Brand Builders Group? Am I capable of doing that and being a great mom to two toddlers and being a good wife to my husband and being a good friend and dedicating enough time to the Lord as I walk in my Christian faith? And do I, does that leave any time for me? It’s like, can I do the job and not work 80 hours a week? And where does that leave me? Because the truth is I’ve been struggling with that.
AJV (04:22):
I had a recent emergency surgery and I have not been able to get back to my normal workplace, which has caused my, caused my workload to grow and grow and grow. And my time is less and less and it makes me feel like I’m not equipped to do the job. It makes me feel like I’m incapable of, somehow I’m different than I was six weeks ago. Or something has changed in me that doesn’t have have it in me anymore. And I had not really paused and taken the time to go where this is coming from. And what lies am I saying? What lies am I believing? And I think a part of this conversation really comes down to it’s like, do you even recognize the lies that you believe? Do you even recognize that you have limiting beliefs that you say to yourself and you literally speak out into the world without even realizing?
AJV (05:15):
It is a limiting belief. It is a lie that you have allowed yourself to believe and it is holding you back. And I think awareness, consciousness of this is the first step of, of overcoming these limiting beliefs, which ultimately can result in imposter syndrome, right? It’s like I’m sitting here as the c e o of Brand builders group. I’m going like, can I imposter? Like, am I equipped for this? Like, can I do this? Deep down knowing I was built for this, I’ve been training and working my whole life for this. Like everything leading up to this is, is God preparing me to do the work that he has for me? And also knowing that I’m not doing this alone God is working through this and I have an amazing husband and a partner and a staff and a team and coaches and mentors.
AJV (06:02):
I am not doing this on my own. So where is this nonsense coming from? And here’s what I can just tell you in my own journey through this conversation, and not just one conversation. But it’s, I have literally said out loud, I don’t know a hundred times over the last six weeks, I just don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time. That is my limiting belief. And until I took a moment to have a conversation about what was going on, I did not even realize that I was literally suffering from imposter syndrome, allowing myself to believe I’m a fraud. That I’m incapable of doing something that I’m fully capable of doing while simultaneously allowing and even repeating it out loud, a limiting belief, speaking it into the world, letting it control my life and my thoughts and feeling more ill-equipped every single time I say it.
AJV (06:57):
I don’t have enough time. That’s not true. . I have the exact same amount of time that I did six weeks ago prior to this surgery. How I’m using that time may be different, but I have the exact same amount of time that is a lie, and I’ve got to call it what it is. It’s a lie. It’s not true. I’m in a season, a short season in the scheme of things, of reallocating time to d different areas of my life that need it more than others. And I have allowed myself to feel guilty and shameful about that. And I’ve tried to work harder and longer, thus more exhausting myself because of it. And he said, that’s what we do. And we, we don’t believe in ourselves, right? We, we work, we try to do our way into being better to being more worthy, more valuable, more important.
AJV (07:54):
And we just can’t work ourself into that because you already are right? There’s nothing that you can do to make yourself more valuable than you already are. I am just as worthy and just as valuable. If I work 80 hours a week or eight hours a week or zero that is my, my doing is not what makes me worthy. My doing is not what makes me valuable. Who I am is what makes me worthy. Who I am is what makes me valuable. And who I am has nothing to do about the hours and the minutes in my day. It has everything to do with do I believe it for myself? Do I believe in myself? And do I believe that God has a plan that he is working on me and through me to do that? And do I believe in him? Y’all, this is like a life-changing conversation.
AJV (08:45):
And so maybe this podcast interview that I did with Michelle Shon was really just for me. And the interesting thing, and I didn’t tell her this, but I’ll tell everyone else who’s listening. I almost canceled it today because I have a, a sick baby at home and I’m so behind and I’m like, I just need to postpone it. I just need to reschedule. I don’t have time for this. But I didn’t, I don’t know why, but I didn’t. Mainly cuz I’m looking at my calendar going, what am I, where am I gonna move this to? And I I’m so glad, , that sometimes the things that we need the most are the things that we don’t give ourself the permission to do, which is to take an hour and have a conversation about what it means to be an emotionally healthy adult.
AJV (09:26):
To feel the feelings that you have to recognize what is true and what is not. And then to speak truth to the lie, which is what I got to do on my own podcast interview with Michelle . And not what I’m telling you about. So here’s my encouragement. Here’s the gist of this particular shorts recap. Take a moment right now and allow yourself to feel the feeling. Recognize what is true, recognize what is a lie, and then speak truth into the lie. And for me, I have the time. The time has not changed. That’s a lie. I am capable, I am prepared, I am called to it. And I just needed to write that down, to say it out loud and then to speak actual factual evidence and to prove that somehow the, you know, 24 hours in a day did not change over the last six weeks.
AJV (10:34):
There was 24 hours, then there’s 24 hours. Now that’s not new and different. I have the same team, the same staff. Everything else is the same, but my feeling about it has changed. And that’s what I can control. That’s what I can own. That’s what I can write down. I can think about it, I can speak truth to it. I can write down the evidence to it. I can make a plan and I can move forward. We can all do that. But it takes time and it takes space and it takes desire and intention. What it doesn’t take is you vegging out and going, I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m just so tired. I’m gonna go, go get a glass of wine and I’m gonna pop on the TV and I’m gonna watch a show. How about instead of doing that, we take these five minutes and we go, what is true? What is a lie? And what is factual evidence of truth in my life when it comes to this certain thing? So I hope right now you’ll just give yourself five minutes. Anything that is calling your attention will be there in five minutes. But give yourself five minutes right now to go, what is a limiting belief in my life that I’m allowing to wreak havoc on my belief in myself and my relationships and everything around me? And start making a change about it right now?
AJV (11:53):
Cuz it really could only be five minutes. Awareness is the first step. So take five minutes and see where it gets you. We’ll see you next time.

Ep 374: How Believing In Yourself Can Grow Your Business with Michelle Chalfant

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. As you know, I say this every time, and I genuinely mean it every single time, but I am so excited to have my friend and our, our guest on the show today, Michelle Chalfant. And there’s a couple of things that I think you need to know. So, before you settle in and go, is this the episode for me? I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you it is this is an episode for you. Because we’re not talking about unique or specific business tactics today. However, what we’re gonna talk about today is one of the most common and universal things that you require to be successful in business and in life. And it’s self-worth, it’s self-confidence. It’s the belief in yourself that you can do what you were put on this planet to do, what you were set out to do, most likely, whatever it is you’re doing which is why you’re listening to this podcast in the first place.
AJV (01:03):
So it is, I’m, I’m gonna say it’s like it’s not a traditional business tactic, but it’s one that is absolutely necessary in the space that we’re in. Building your reputation, building your personal brand, and doing it with authority and authenticity. So it is for you. So now you know this is the episode for you. So stay tuned and listen to the whole thing. I promise it’s going to be worth your time. Now, before we get started, let me just do a quick formal bio of Michelle, and then I will also give her a chance to introduce herself a little bit more casually. But she is a licensed therapist, a master life coach, and the founder and c e o of the Michelle Shon Company. She also leads this wickedly awesome podcast called The Adult Chair Podcast, which blends psychology and spirituality together, which is probably to me, one of the most foundational important things in all of our lives is how we’re connected spiritually, which drives all of our, our business decisions and life decisions.
AJV (02:05):
It also is globally recognized. It’s got millions and millions of downloads. We’ll put links to it, but you definitely wanna check it out. She also runs these amazing events. She’s got courses she does coaching. I could go on and on and on, but I think the, one of the reasons that’s so relevant to everyone who is listening is because these are the same things that you are doing. These are the same things that you wanna do. And so how do you go from not doing those things to doing those things? So, Michelle, welcome to the show.
MC (02:35):
Thank you so much, aj. That was such a warm welcome. I loved it. I feel like I’m joining a party. I’m like, oh,
AJV (02:43):
That’s how we should feel. That’s
MC (02:45):
Fun, .
AJV (02:47):
Alright, so help our audience get to know you a little bit. Like how did you get into this space of coaching and events and content creation and courses? Because being a licensed therapist and doing all these things, I kind of find is a little bit unique. Yeah. And you didn’t always do these things. So how’d you get into this?
MC (03:08):
Oh my gosh. Okay. So I was a licensed, I still am a licensed therapist for about 20 years, but about, gosh, 10 or 15 years in, actually moved to Nashville in oh seven and had to start my practice all over again because nobody knew me in Nashville, . So for me, I was like, okay, let’s go. I just went out, started offering free workshops, free and free courses, built a business really, really quickly because my style, what I realize now is my style is very unique. It’s not exactly traditional therapy, but it’s not exactly coaching. It’s kind of a hybrid model of coaching, therapy, consulting, teaching, the whole thing. So I built it very quickly and in 2013, I hired a guy by a friend who said, Hey, you need to use this guy to do your, your, your new website. I said, fine. We clicked right away. We started working together and he’s putting together my whole site and he goes, the way you work with people is so cool, it’s unique. He said, you should do a podcast. And this is in 2013, right? I’m like, what’s the podcast? I go, is that like that radio thing that people are talking about? He’s like, yes, you really have a lot to talk about. You know, this is a long time ago. This is 10 10. Is it 10?
AJV (04:20):
Almost 10 years ago? Yeah.
MC (04:22):
Yeah. It’s, and I said, okay, I don’t know. So he kind of hounded me for like a year. So the end of 2014, I said, fine, I’m doing it. So we launched the Adult Share podcast. And the podcast is all about teaching people how to be emotionally healthy adults. Hmm. It’s stuff I love to talk about. So it is, it’s a lot of self-worth. It’s how to have healthy relationship. It’s how to work through your fears, your codependency, whatever the heck, anything at all. That is what I used to what I talk about. So that happened the end of 2014. I did not even pay attention to the stats. I didn’t care about them, you know, I was like, oh, this is good. You know, I didn’t really wanna do it. I was like, I’ll do it for my clients. So it was fun to say to my clients like, Hey, you wanna learn how to set a boundary?
MC (05:08):
Go listen to number 15. You know, I just did a podcast on it. So anyway, that was the end of 2014. By 2018, 19, it’s really, you know, then the podcast rule is really growing and it’s taking off. It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I realized I’m like, I, I gotta, I need to do more. Because what was happening was my business that was already full-time. I was getting people all around the world hitting me up for sessions. Cuz I was also a coach at that time. I became a coach, I think sometime like maybe 2010, something like that. So I did that to my, to my trainings so I could see clients anywhere in the world. So I was getting reached out to, you know, from Germany to San Francisco to China. You know, people were like, Hey, can you, I wanna see you as a, as can I see you as a coach?
MC (05:54):
Well, I couldn’t cuz I was already full-time. So I said, let me create something for them that will appease them. Right? So I did a membership, I started a membership in 2019. I kept getting hit up. They’re like, well, we want more. We wanna, we want people that know how to talk about what you do . I was like, what am I gonna do? Those really inspired and I am a big meditation person. And I sat there for about two months and I kept hearing and becoming aware of the same thing. I kept hearing these words, teach people to do what you do. So with that, I said, I’m gonna create a coaching certification program and I’m gonna teach people how to do what I do, but frame it through their own per their own style. Right. So I, we launched that in 2020 and yeah.
MC (06:39):
So now we have this global, you know, people from all over the world are taking our certification program. We are now, this is the year. So we’ve run it since in the middle of Covid is when we launched it. If you can imagine, we launch it in September of 2020. We’re now in our third year now we do two pro programs a year. So we’re launching our next one this June in 2023. And it’s just, it’s such an incredible way cuz my mission is to bring healing into this world. Mm-Hmm. So I have this vision for creating this army of light workers, like these army of coaches that can go out into the world and really multiply what I’m doing. And again, it’s not all about me. I’m not the only person doing this work, of course in the world, but I love that we’re able to reach more people through our coaches. So that is where I, that is where I am today. So I’ve got a book, I’ve got, I’ve got another book coming out. I just gave it to my agent the other day. Congrats.
AJV (07:30):
Yeah. So when did, when did your first book come out?
MC (07:34):
Oh gosh, 2018. Yeah, so, so the first book really outlines the adult chair model. And then again, I do the live teachings, I’ve got the podcasts, and now the coaching program is, are really the biggest thing right now.
AJV (07:48):
And you have a new book coming out?
MC (07:51):
I don’t know one, I just gave it to him. He is looking at it. So I’m, I’m the beginning stages of that, probably am gonna say in the next nine months or so to a year.
AJV (07:59):
Okay. So I think one of the things I was trying to do as you were talking because a lot of people, what I have found, which will be very relevant to our conversation today, and I think this is really important because I see this no matter who you are, no matter what your business is, is we compare our step one to someone else’s step 1000. Yep. And we go, well this just isn’t working and you’ve been doing it all of six months. Or you think it needs to be happening faster, but yet
MC (08:28):
Yeah,
AJV (08:28):
Good things just don’t happen fast often. It takes time and work. So I was trying to capture this and I built a little timeline. I think this is important. So tell me if I missed anything, but I was trying to capture this. So one, you’ve been a therapist for 20 years, so let’s just pause for a second. Go . That’s an enormous amount of time building content and real life practice and doing this, right? Mm-Hmm. , this is ton of already pre-existing value education information. Like that’s a lot. 20 years is a lot. So then in 2010 you became a coach. So just a pause, that’s 13 years ago for everyone who’s listening. Then four years after becoming a coach is when you launched a podcast. Not the next day, not four weeks later. Four years later. Then a book came out four years after that in 2018, not four months.
AJV (09:26):
This is so important for everyone . Then after the book, you’re like, okay, now I’ve got a whole, you know, one, you have requests, right? You have demand, but also it’s like you’ve got frameworks, you’ve got everything built out. So then a membership in 2019, then a year after that, a coaching certification program in 2020 and now almost three years after that. A new book. Yes. That’s it. Okay. So I think that timeline is so important. for so true. So many, so many different levels. And I think there’s something that you said that resonated when me and I was listening to this. And we do book launches for our clients. So we’ll actually do the fulfillment of book launches. Mm-Hmm. It’s not, it’s not the main thing of our business at Grand Builders Group, but we will help people that we work with on the strategy, do the fulfillment and someone on our own team, cuz brand builders group as a company, as our own entities, only five years old this year.
AJV (10:25):
Mm-Hmm. . So we’re babies. It’s just still a baby company. Mm-Hmm. . But somebody had in our own company, on our own team, literally I heard ’em in a side comment going, well this is just amazing. We just started doing that a year ago and look at all these clients we have. We’ve had 12 people hit a New York Times or you know, a Wall Street Journal bestseller list. And I heard it outta the corner and I was like, we just started doing this. And they were like, yeah, like, you know, like Yj started doing this like a year ago and look at all this. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We did our own book launch in 2010. We’ve been doing this for ourselves for 14 years. And it was like an aha moment for them of going, you did, what do you mean?
AJV (11:09):
And I was like, take the stairs. When we launched that in 2010, this was a grassroots hiding away in our closets into the wee hours of the morning . Like, what do you think we did? And there it was like, it was such one of those moments of, even in our own company mm-hmm. , I’m going, oh, this isn’t new. You’ve been doing this a really long time. But you look at where people are today and you go, man, I’m failing. I’m not, I’m not, this isn’t working for me. Should I be doing this? And we look at everything that’s happening all around us and we somehow don’t realize that there’s decades of work and experience and ups and downs wins and losses behind the scenes. Yeah,
MC (11:52):
For sure. People, people absolutely look at the 1% that are making it and doing so well and making the millions and millions of dollars. And they think it’s so easy and they don’t see all the struggles. In 2018, if I can tell you a little side story here about one of my biggest struggles probably was when, again, the podcast is taken off. I mean, I’m getting hit up constantly. Like, can I work with you? Can I work with you? Can you come to this country? Can you come to this? Like, I was like, I I can’t do it all. I need to hire a marketing firm really to help me. Mm-Hmm. , I, I knew I needed like online courses and I, you know, and I gotta do what I’m best at. And that’s the other thing we should talk about. But I can’t do it all.
MC (12:34):
I don’t wanna learn how to build a website. I don’t wanna learn how to build an online course. I don’t wanna learn how to build a membership. I don’t know how to do that. I’m not a tech person, but I can get up on stage and I can talk and I can write books and I can do all that. I’m gonna do what I’m great at. So anyway, I researched marketing firms and I said, okay, I need to hire a company. They can help me really launch this thing big time. And the one that I hired in August of 2018, I, I signed a contract with her and shortly thereafter I knew it. I was like, this was a big mistake. And I mean, it was horrible emails that went out. I had given her a membership. I said, these are the thing, these are the ones that I really like.
MC (13:13):
Well, she took one of them and copycatted it almost exactly like I looked at it when it was done and I said, this is someone else’s. I’ll get sued for the, like it was, I can go on and on. I’m not gonna go into it. But it was one thing after the next I’d signed a contract. I was stuck with her for six months. A hundred thousand dollars I spent on her. It was one debacle after the next, after the next, after the next, after the next. So that was from August through, I think it was December some or July through Dec. It was December 3rd is when it ended. I can tell you that’s branded in my mind. But I remember the day I was done with her, I was like, I am done. I’m not only done with this, I’m done with everything. She had just fried me out.
MC (13:56):
I had lost all this money that I had saved that I was so ready to launch my company. And I actually went out with one of my husband’s mentors that lives in Nashville. And I went out to breakfast with him and I looked at him, I was in tears all the time. I was like, I don’t wanna do co this business. I don’t wanna be an entrepreneur. It fried me out. I mean, I was done. And I went out with Richard and he looked across the table from me. He’s a guy that goes into companies. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he looked at me across the table and he goes, Michelle, what’s going on? And I told him my whole story and he said, I said, Richard, I just lost a hundred thousand dollars. I am fried. I don’t wanna do this anymore. And he goes, so you lost a hundred thousand dollars? And I said, yeah. And he goes, so what? He looks at me, he said it as if I dropped $5 out in the parking lot, like I had lost $5. And I was like, what
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Do you, you hear what I said?
MC (14:51):
Like, that’s a ton of money. Goes are you’re an entrepreneur. Do you expect not to lose anything? And I said, yeah, you know, I researched her, other people I know used her and I, but I found out that the other people that had used her also dropped her. And I was like, I don’t know how I made such a bad mistake. I’m so intuitive. What’s wrong with me? And he goes, how do you know that you didn’t learn from it. Mm-Hmm. It wasn’t a mistake. And he made it sound like it was so not a big deal. He completely reframed my whole drama. You know, I was quitting my company. He goes, you can quit if you want, but I think you’re stupid. I was like, no, I’m stupid. I said, okay. So I left breakfast and that was when I got back on the horse and I was really done.
MC (15:34):
I mean, aj I was done and I spent the rest of that month. I remember I went through Christmas and I said, okay, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna stay or go? And I made the decision. I said, okay, I’m going to do this and I’m gonna do it in my own way and a different way. And that was then when I hired one of the best hired as I’ve ever hired, which I still working with her now. She’s my c o o and I hired her January 7th. And it has been full steam ahead ever since. But I’ve still made a lot of mistakes along the way though I’ve still lost money. Not a hundred thousand, thank God, but that’s expected. I mean, yeah. You know,
AJV (16:09):
I think that’s, that’s such a good reminder. And I’m actually, I’m pulling up something because I, I have like recently even been in the season, so I think you know this cuz we had to reschedule this podcast, but just five weeks ago to the day I had emergency gallbladder surgery, rush to the ER said, you’re not leaving here until this comes out. It was somewhat of a, a life or death situation. And I came out of that and I think part of it is like, it was a really big wake up call for me of like, whatever I think is big is not big when it’s compared to this mm-hmm. . And it was a, a deep desire and a longing to change my schedule, change my priorities but also paired with an, an unbelievable workload at this particular time. Brand builders group as we’re blessed, we’re growing fast.
AJV (16:59):
We have lots of teams that have two young babies. Mm-Hmm. Just a very busy season. And I feel like over the last six weeks I have been dropping balls left and right. I can’t catch a break in terms of, and it’s, and I think, it’s not that I can’t catch a break, it’s God trying to slow me down. He’s like, woman , like, what else do I gotta do for you to like slow down? And I’ve been really feeling a lot of like, oh man. It’s like, I don’t know if I’m just, maybe this isn’t the season for me to be doing this role in our company and that own thing. And it was a very similar thing to like you going out and having this breakfast and I, I pop open, I do a lot of like bible study reading through a bunch of people that I follow on, on the Gram.
AJV (17:43):
And I thought I was like, this was like very, very similar to that of going, man, it’s, it’s my own perspective. It’s my own perception of my situation. And when we’re too close to it, we can’t even see what’s happening. And I, I literally popped it up and this is the very first thing I saw on my phone. And this was just like last week, like super relevant to what you were just saying. And it says, God is saying to you today, you have been questioning yourself lately and wondering if you are really strong enough or good enough to do what I have placed in your heart to do. But let me remind you that you can do all things through me. Don’t let fear talk you out of your dream. And remember I am with you and you will make it. You can do this. And it’s so similar to like those breakfast conversations when I think we, we just give up too soon. We give up too easy because it’s hard. Running a business, pursuing a dream life is hard.
MC (18:38):
It’s hard. It’s really hard. And, you know, so we certify coaches now. Like that is a big part of what I do. And it’s so interesting cuz people get so excited about becoming a coach. I’m like, all right, now let’s, let’s talk about going out and building your business, you know, and let’s go get some clients and let’s go talk to people about what you do. And people are like, can you help me? , , I remember, I remember years ago, like 20 years ago, doing a lot of the MLMs, you know, and even that, it’s like you gotta go out and you gotta ask for business. And I have no problem. It’s easy for me. I love talking to people. Right. But I realize it’s really hard for people like to overcome that and really put yourself out there.
AJV (19:21):
So, so let’s talk about this for a minute. Cause I think this is a good transition because one thing I know is true, it’s like you wouldn’t still be in business if you weren’t going, I’m gonna tell people about this. And it’s like, yeah. The way that it has iterated and grown and evolved just p it, I love it because it’s organic and it’s like, I’ll do what my audience tells me they want from me. Right. Yeah. That feels true
MC (19:45):
To me. Yeah.
AJV (19:46):
However, a lot of people want to be coaches. A lot of people are coaches, wanna be authors, wanna be speakers, and a lot who are but I thought this was an interesting statistic is that the coaching industry is the second fastest growing industry in the world right now. It’s expected more than 20 billion in the United States. Just the United States this year. There’s more than I think 1.4 million people with coaches their title just on LinkedIn alone. There’s so many indicators of going, man, there is a deep desire, a deep longing for someone to be like, help me . Yes. And truly. And simultaneously for someone who’s hearing that going, I want to do this. I’m not a therapist, I’m not a counselor, but I can coach. I can mentor.
MC (20:35):
Yeah.
AJV (20:36):
Yet they can’t get clients. Mm-Hmm. . So let’s talk about how do you bridge that gap? And how did, we’ll just start with how did you bridge the gap? Like how did you go from therapists to full on coach mm-hmm. , speaker, author, podcaster, event host, all the things. Yeah. Membership. Right? How did you do it?
MC (20:56):
I really, again, I followed what the audience wanted from me. So I, people started asking me, is there a book on this? Is there a book on this? Is there a book on this? I’m like, sure I can create a book. So I wrote the book, you know, is there a live event? Can you do a live event? I love doing live event. Sure. I’ll do a live event. So I’d put together what the audience was asking me to do. But when you talk about like, how do you overcome that fear? I mean, I moved to Nashville and I didn’t know any, I knew nobody. And I had a a, a shingle. I, I could hang a shingle as a therapist. I had a private practice, I had a license, I could do it. But it’s like, I don’t know anybody here. There was no social, like, maybe, I don’t even remember when Facebook, I think Facebook might have been coming up, but it’s not anything like it was now. And it’s funny because I didn’t think twice about it. I really didn’t, I didn’t think it would be hard. I was like, all right, well I’m gonna go out and talk about what I enjoy talking about. I’m gonna go out and talk about again, like how do you have a healthy relationship with, with self and others? You know, how do you, how do you build self-worth? How do you love yourself? I’m just gonna go out and talk about that. How do you build a business? I would just go out And where
AJV (22:03):
Would you go? Yeah. Where would
MC (22:07):
Went to I, I and I, I went to the Brentwood Library, that was one of the first places I went. I hit up yoga studios. I was like, Hey, do you want a speaker to come in? Like I’d love to come and talk to you about this. I remember different schools would say, Hey, will you come in? Oh, I like what you’re doing. Can you come talk to my, we’ve got a classroom full of parents, or I’ve got a classroom full of, so I got a classroom full of so-and-so will you come talk to my mothers about this? Sure. I’d go to like the doctor’s office and I’d bring my business cards and I’d go, Hey, if you have anyone that needs any help at all, this is what I do. And I give them my cards. You just can’t be afraid to put yourself out there in that way.
MC (22:46):
And y it’s not like you’re asking for money in that moment, but you, this is where the self-worth comes in. You’ve got to believe in yourself in what you’re putting out there. And you need to believe that you have value. And I knew what I was doing was different for me. And I can say this cuz I’m a therapist. I think therapy is outdated. It’s a little archaic. And not to say that, hear me now, there are a lot of great therapists out there, but it’s interesting and I have heard that coaching is really taking off. But when I started my coaching program, I didn’t even know that. I was like, this is just what I wanna do. I wanna create something that’s really a crossbreed between both that has the best of both worlds coming together. And honestly, it’s more of like a consulting coaching kind of thing.
MC (23:31):
But anyway, you’ve gotta believe in what you’re doing. Hmm. And the way that I teach my coaches, like, they have such great success when they’re in the practicum hour part of it. They’re like, I really st I’m believing in what I can do do. Like, they’re walking away saying how great I am. So for anyone listening, you’ve got to believe in what you’re putting out in the world. You have to believe in that. Like what are you putting out there? If you believe in it, then, then, then when you talk about it, there’s an energy that you portray out into the world. And yeah. So,
AJV (24:03):
You know, it’s, I’m so glad that you said that because I, we all know this, we’ve all met, let’s just call ’em salespeople, right? Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we got a little bit of salespeople in all of us. Yeah. We need to. But it’s like, you know what it’s like to talk to someone who’s like, man, even if I don’t buy this, they, you are so passionate about this, I’m just like, totally, I wanna help you even though I’m not gonna buy it. It’s like, who can help? Yes. Who can I tell? Because you can feel it. It is, it’s an energy. It’s no, it’s an energy. But I think a lot of that just stems from one, they believe in it. Two, they’ve, they’re confident. Right. The, the confidence. Totally. You can, you can feel when someone is confident, even if they don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.
AJV (24:48):
It’s like when you say it like you do, it’s just so funny because I was just talking to my husband in the car driving home somewhere the other night, and I’m trying to remember what the word is, but I completely made up a word. And as soon as it came outta my mouth, it was like I was trying to say a very normal basic word. And then I got like tongue twisted in my head and I said the word, and then I was like thinking like, wait, that’s not a word. And I looked at Rory and I said, did you just let me say that? And he goes, babe, like you said it so confidently, I was wondering if I’d never heard this word before . But it’s like, you gotta just be like, I don’t care if you buy from me or not.
AJV (25:23):
I believe in what this is. And so I’m, I think this is like two things. I think a really important one is I wanna talk about how do you build that level of self-belief? Yeah. How do you build that level of self-worth where, you know, you are a little bit rejection proof. Yeah. And you don’t let the external things in this world impact you. So you give up on your dream. Mm-Hmm. specifically too early. But also I wanna make sure people heard what you said. I said, where did you go and talk about these things?
MC (25:53):
Oh
AJV (25:53):
Yeah. I wanna recap. If you do not write this down and humble yourself to the point of, if I really wanna do this, if I really wanna be this bus and be in this business, I’m going to have to show up at the Brentwood library. Yep. At the local yoga studio with sweaty people and yoga clothes. Yep. At schools with parents. Yep. At doctor’s offices who were like, I thought there was a no station slot on the door. Right. It’s like, but you gotta be able to go like the, anywhere I go, there is an audience. If you believe
MC (26:27):
Always
AJV (26:28):
What you do, and I’m imagining a lot of those were not paid
MC (26:33):
In the very beginning. I’m gonna say probably the first two that I did were not paid. And, but very quickly, again, there’s an energy, like I love showing up and speak. I, I get, I’m very excited when I speak. I’m like, oh, we’re so excited to be here. And then people would say, when are you doing this again? I’m gonna come back. I go, oh. So I always had the next one ready mm-hmm. . So when they’d ask me that, I’d say, oh, I’m coming back in two months. They’re like, where do I sign up? Oh, it’s right here. And that one is gonna be, you know, and I’d raise it to like $50 for the class. Okay, great. It was like, no problem. It’s always an energy. There’s just, it’s not about the words, it’s our energy. So the words are great, but if you don’t line up with what you’re saying, people won’t buy into it.
AJV (27:19):
And, and a little bit of it’s a plan, right? It’s like what? And a plan. Yeah. A plan, right? It’s like you gotta show up prepared. Absolutely. It’s, it’s, you gotta show up with the belief that they’re gonna wanna come back. Yes. That they’re gonna want more. So you better be ready and prepared. And how are you gonna give it to ’em? But stems from self-belief,
MC (27:39):
You have to show up. Like, they’d be crazy not to work with you
AJV (27:44):
Like, have you ? It’s, it’s a little bit of like yes, I am here. I know you’ve been asking where have I been your whole life. Here I am.
MC (27:52):
That’s it.
AJV (27:53):
. And
MC (27:54):
It’s not arrogant though, it’s just believing in yourself. It’s believing in what you’re putting out into the world
AJV (27:59):
And believing what you do can actually help the end user. Right? And,
MC (28:04):
And yes. And you’re gonna have people that are gonna be like, well that’s too much money. Or why would I do that? And that’s okay. That’s okay. Because there’re for, for those few people, there are like a hundred or thousands more that really want to work with you mm-hmm. . So you will have those people that will be like, oh, no way. You know, no way. Da, da da. That’s okay. You can’t buy into those people. You keep focusing on your goal and what is your vision and what is your mission. And if you stay on target, these little people over here that are saying these things to you, just brush ’em off and go, thank you anyway.
AJV (28:38):
Not
MC (28:38):
For you. Not everyone is gonna be for us. Right? Like, not everybody is, and that’s okay.
AJV (28:43):
Yeah. This is so, such a good reminder. So for, again, I don’t wanna recap, just if you didn’t catch it for the second time, one more time. you’ve got to be willing to talk about what you do everywhere you go. And if you’re going, well, man, I just don’t know where to go. It’s like, go to your yoga studio, go to your church, go to your kid’s school, go to whatever school is closest nearby, find a library, do something. Right? But it’s not gonna just fall in your lap. You gotta go find it. So now let’s talk about, well, how do we create this feeling of self-belief, this self-worth? And we had a a little bit of a conversation about this before we hit record on the podcast today. And one of the things that I mentioned is, I just hear this term so often that I, I, I wanna talk about it on the show. And I think it’s super tied to self-worth, self-belief, confidence, all the things. But this term, imposter syndrome. Mm. Right. And I dunno if it’s just like a really trendy term or do we really all suffer from it because of comparison? Like I, so I’d love to just unpack that with you mm-hmm. in the, in the conversation of how do we generate self-belief in ourselves. And so I’d love to hear from you like, what is imposter syndrome and how do you know if you have it?
MC (29:57):
Imposter syndrome is when we feel like we’re a fraud, it feels like we are not capable of doing what we are doing. It feels like I’m, I’m giving you all the ideas. You might have the, like you need more education, you need more training, you’re not good enough. There are people that are better than you out there. You shouldn’t be doing this until you reach this level, which the level keeps going up and up. There’s a never ending point to that. So yeah, really it’s feeling like a fraud. Like you shouldn’t be doing or offering what you are offering in the world. That’s what it is.
AJV (30:30):
Where does that come from?
MC (30:32):
You know what I had, you know who Stephen Pres Presfield is the war of art.
AJV (30:36):
Oh, yes, yes.
MC (30:38):
So great. Okay. So something that he said, which I love, and the war of art is all about resistance. And I had him on the show and he said to me, when you meet resistance, you know you’re moving in the right direction. That’s how you know, because that part of there we, we are, we are human beings that are filled with parts. So even though there’s one Michelle sitting here and filled with hundreds and hundreds of different parts of self, we’ve got a victim, we’ve got an inner critic, we’ve got a fraud, we’ve got an inner child, we’ve got all of these parts, right? So we all have it. And the more exposed we are and the more we put ourselves out there in the world, the greater the chance that we are gonna get judged or criticized for what we’re doing. So there’s that inner part of all of us that we have this fraud or this inner this or inner critic or this imposter that will say, don’t do that.
MC (31:35):
Get small, stay small. Don’t put yourself out there. So the way that you can turn that around is you look at and examine the thoughts or the beliefs that are coming up around this imposter syndrome or the fraud statements that you’re getting, all of the limiting beliefs. So you might hear things like, you’ll never be good enough. You are a loser. I’m not, I’m not lovable. You don’t matter. You know, whatever it might be that you’re saying to yourself. You look at those statements and those are the statements that you wanna go after. And you examine, you say, thank you so much, I appreciate it, but here really is what’s true. Mm-Hmm. . So what most humans do is when we have negative thinking, they push it aside. Like we just don’t wanna look at it. You know, people go home, they’ll have a glass of wine or a bottle of wine, or they’ll do whatever they can do to numb out.
MC (32:27):
Well, those beliefs don’t go away by numbing them out. It’s like putting a bandaid on something. You’ve gotta invite those beliefs in and get to know them. And when you get to know those beliefs, that’s how, how you then transform those beliefs. You can’t transform them until you get to know them. Mm-Hmm. . So humans will just say things like, that just feels horrible and we don’t really even know what the belief is. So slow down, stop what you’re doing, sit down and close your eyes and ask yourself, what is coming up inside of me? What are these beliefs? And if you give yourself even a few minutes, you will hear the belief like, I’m afraid I don’t wanna get judged. I’m gonna get criticized. And that scares me. And that’s, all of these thoughts are okay. And they’re so common. And that’s what people don’t believe. They’re like, I think it’s just me. I’m the only one in the whole world . Right.
AJV (33:21):
Definitely not, definitely not right.
MC (33:23):
People think, oh, this is just me. It’s like, no, you know, I have one that that says continue to get better, more trained. Like mine was like, you’re not trained enough. I mean, I have so many certifications, it’s ridiculous. , it’s like 30 like ridiculous amounts of training. And yet mine will come in and go, you need to get more now. Thank God I’ve worked with it enough now. It, it slowed me way down. But you can’t change those beliefs until you look at them. You gotta look at them and you’ve gotta decide what’s fact and truth today in this very moment. And that’s what, what the whole model of the adult chair is, is what I talk a lot about. And when we live in the adult chair, we live in this moment with fact and truth and these beliefs are from a long time ago.
MC (34:09):
So they’re coming up saying, you’re bad, you’re not worthy, you’re not good enough. And it’s like, well wait a minute, what’s the evidence of that? Is that true today? 2023 in this moment? It’s like, well, you know, I guess it’s not because this person likes me and this person loves me. And you know, you kind of, you challenge it, but you don’t fight with it. You have a conversation with it. And that’s how you start to morph and change that belief. And then it gets quiet and then when it rears up again, you go, I hear you. Thank you for, for that. I hear you. I know you think that I’m not good enough. I know you want me to not move forward, but I’m gonna move forward. We’re okay. And then it gets quiet.
AJV (34:48):
So I mean, it’s like just even being cognizant and aware and conscious of these is life altering. Totally. It really is. Like, as you’re talking, I was thinking about the last six weeks in my own brain of going like, man, why was I feeling that way? Like, what was the limiting belief that I keep saying to myself? Or I keep saying out loud. And it was like, as soon as you were talking, I was like, oh, I don’t exactly what it is. I have caught myself saying, I just don’t have enough time. Oh. Like a hundred times in the last six weeks because I’ve been healing and things are piling up and I haven’t been able to work at normal capacity and all these things. And I have allowed myself to go. It’s like I literally let this idea of, because I don’t ha I’m not working a full work schedule. I’m not capable of being the c e o.
MC (35:40):
Oh
AJV (35:41):
Yeah. And it’s like, but just even allowing yourself to go, let’s pause for a second and go, why am I feeling this way? It’s life altering. Cause the truth is, it’s like I have just as much time today as I did before. The days, like the hours of the day haven’t changed. What’s happening in those hours have changed. But it’s like a funny thing that if you don’t watch it and you don’t, you don’t stay on top of it. It’s like that will turn you upside down so fast.
MC (36:08):
Yes. These beliefs come in and instead of witnessing them, they, they kind of take us over and we get lost in them and we start spiraling down and we make decisions based on those limiting beliefs. And all of a sudden, you know, we’re not in a good place where if we can witness it and see it as a part almost external to self, so we can go, oh, there it is, there’s my fraud again, you can even give your fraud like a visual. Like you can see it as, you know, a little person or a little, little mony guy or whatever you, however you wanna see it. A blue blob, it doesn’t matter. But when it comes back, you can go there. You are, what do you want me to know? All that it’s coming in to do is to protect you. Like it’s intentions. Very good. Trying to keep you safe, trying to keep you from getting criticized and judged. You can go, thank you so much for being here. I’ve got this, I appreciate you being here, but really it’s okay, but you don’t let it take you over. You witness it and talk to it in that way. And that’s how you change it.
AJV (37:07):
And this right here is why the coaching industry is exploding. Yeah. Right? Because yeah, we need these reminders. We need to vocalize them, verbalize them, tear them down, figure out how to conquer. Yes. A lot of our own mindset. And I don’t think that’s new. I just think that, like, I know when we started our first coaching business in 2000 and oh my gosh, what year was that? 2006. wow. A long time ago. I just remember it was like the idea of having a coach was like in a very, they were very niche industries where it was widely accepted. I remember this is one of the most significant I memories I have from my late twenties. And I was at a b and I networking meeting, I don’t even know anymore. But I was at one of those and they were, you know, like networking hour, whatever. And they were going around and saying, you know, what do you do? And I said, Hey, my name is AJ Vaden, I’m a consultant and I remember this one guy looks me dead in the eye, laughs in my face and says, oh, you mean you’re unemployed?
MC (38:08):
Oh my gosh.
AJV (38:09):
And I was like, no, I mean, I’m a consultant. And he goes like, for real, like, you actually have paying clients. And it was like such a taboo thing of, oh, if you’re a coach, that means you don’t have a job. Like, I remember that. But like today, if you don’t have a coach, I’m wondering why not? I don’t know anyone totally doesn’t have one or who isn’t looking for one.
MC (38:30):
Yep.
AJV (38:30):
You know, and it’s, it’s completely different just 15 years later. So, okay, so on that note of like this whole thing of, because I really do think this lack of self-belief is the number one I believe regardless of what anyone else does, I believe, and I see it with my own eyes, it’s the number one reason and my personal experiences of why your business fails.
MC (38:54):
Yep.
AJV (38:55):
Because you stop.
MC (38:56):
Yeah. You
AJV (38:57):
Could. And a lot of that has to do with, are you going to be willing, confident enough to go and ask people for the business, even if they tell you no. So how do you build self-belief and self-worth? And I will just tell our audience right now before we get into this conversation, because this’ll probably be a part of us wrapping up because I’m a chatty Kathy and I could talk about this stuff for the next three hours, have to watch the clock. I’m like, oh,
MC (39:22):
Countdown,
AJV (39:23):
. You have put together this generous, thoughtful, extraordinary offer for everyone who is listening on the podcast today. And you have this awesome course mm-hmm. called the, it’s the self-worth bundle. Right? Yeah. And for all of you guys listening, Michelle has made this available for free to you today as being a listener of this show. So if you go to the adult chair.com/brand builders mm-hmm. , so the adult chair.com/brand builders, you can get this awesome self-worth bundle for free, which is going to be a much larger expansion on this conversation that we’re gonna head into right now. So Michelle, loaded question, how do we build self-worth? How do we get this thing?
MC (40:11):
Yeah. So, oh my goodness. So again, with self-worth, we wanna notice when we don’t feel good about ourselves, we wanna start slowing down and paying attention to the thoughts that we’re having. I love journaling and writing them down because, you know, we try to like master these things in our mind. So it’s like, okay, well I don’t wanna think that thought, I’m just not gonna think it anymore. No, that does not work. . You’ve gotta write it down and then look at it and then you can go, wait, is that still true today? Is it true? Is it true? And then you write ro you wanna write down what’s the evidence that that is not true. So that’s one, that’s one thing. The second thing we wanna do is start planting the seeds of the positive things that we want in our life. The positive beliefs.
MC (40:59):
So it’s hard to go from, I hate myself, do I love myself? But can you go from, I hate myself to, I like who I am today or I’m starting to like myself. So you wanna build that bridge to where you wanna go. So find beliefs that feel right for you today, and you start saying those to yourself. You look in the mirror and you say those back and forth to yourself. I like myself, I’m beginning to like myself more and look at it and then feel it in the body. When we feel these beliefs in the body, we’re anchoring them in. That’s what happens is again, we try to, to do this mental ping pong. It’s like, I don’t wanna think this thought. I’m gonna stop. I’m gonna have wine, I’m gonna watch Netflix, I’m gonna do, it just numbs us out temporarily because the beliefs are there until we really look at them and work with them.
MC (41:46):
Meditation is wonderful and this and this self-worth bundle that I put that I’m offering for you guys is for meditations. Mm-Hmm. And one of them is on limiting beliefs, is journaling prompts, all of those things. So you can re and it’s not gonna, does not take a lot of time, but it really is a way to get you started, to start changing your self worth so you can feel really solid about who you are. Because again, if you don’t feel Val valuable, then what you’re putting out in the world is gonna fe other people will feel that lack of value in what you are putting out. It comes from you, it comes from inside. So again, examine the beliefs that you’re having now that are in conflict with you and how you want to feel. Write them down, challenge them, figure out what’s true today. And positive affirmations are huge, especially looking in the mirror. That’s a great place to start for sure.
AJV (42:38):
So good. For sure. That’s one of the things that I wrote down that I heard in my brain that you said is, you know, it’s like what we really do instead of dealing with this stuff is we distract ourselves. Oh yeah. Right. It’s like we grab, grab the glass of wine, say, I don’t wanna talk about it right now, we turn on a show and we veg out. Yep. We just smacked ourselves and all the while we’re just pushing all this stuff down and never actually going. I should probably address that. Should probably figure out why that’s happening. Yep. And so I love this and I love that you’ve provided some frameworks and meditations to like, help people do some additional exercises. So y’all please go grab the self-worth bundle. We’ll make sure the link is in the show notes on this same topic.
MC (43:23):
Yeah.
AJV (43:24):
Kind of tied to business development because I think for any coach or any entrepreneur for that matter but I’ll, I’ll target this to the coaches right now. It’s like how, how do you get someone to be confident enough to go, I’m gonna go sell what I do, I’m gonna go ask somebody to pay me money to be their coach.
MC (43:43):
Mm-Hmm. again, it goes back to why are you doing what you’re doing? What gets you jazzed up? What gets you excited about doing what you’re doing? From my own coaches, I’ll say to them, why did you join this program? Like, what’s your why? If you don’t know what your why is, then you can’t go out and sell yourself and offer whatever you’re here to offer. And for my coaches, they’ll say, well, I wanna help you change the world. I wanna change the world. I wanna be part of that. This is the key though. I say, okay, those are great words. How does that feel? What does that feel like in your body? That again, anchors in this beautiful belief of I’m here to change the world, I want to change the world. When you feel it in the body, your whole body starts to expand and then there’s that energy and then it’s like, the words just start to come.
MC (44:34):
People have it backwards. You know, people ask me all the time too, like, how do I set a boundary? Can you give me the words? I’m like, no, I can’t give you the words because you won’t set a boundary until you feel worthy. Yeah. And you feel value. It’s, it’s a, you gotta go inside first. So no matter what job, no matter what business you have, you’ve gotta believe in it. You’ve gotta remember what’s your why, why are you doing what you’re doing? When you believe it and you believe that what you’re doing is really important in the world, not to everybody, but to, there are, there’s a target audience that really wants to hear from you. When you believe that that is how then you can go out and sell yourself. And again, challenge the thoughts that will come up and say, you’re not good enough though.
MC (45:18):
You, it’s alwa for me, it’s always about looking at the thoughts. What are the thoughts that are coming up? The thoughts are gonna come up to trip you up. It’s just is every human has these thoughts that try to stop us, get in touch with those. But again, more importantly, what’s your value? What’s your why? What’s your reason for doing what you’re doing? For me, it’s like my north star is I’m here to bring healing into this world. Everything I do is about bringing healing and to every human I can touch on this planet. That’s my thing. That is what I’m here to do and nothing’s gonna stop me, but I believe that for myself. So that’s what others have to do for their own business as well.
AJV (45:56):
Yeah. It’s like you gotta find that, that deep resonating belief of like, yep, I don’t care if you pay me or not, I’d still be doing this, totally doing this for the next six months. I’m gonna be doing this for the next 60 years. Totally. But you gotta kinda have that like longevity perspective in it. I love that. I think that’s, it is true. It’s like you gotta know your why and then you gotta know your who. Like who are you doing this for? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s so, so good. Okay, so two last quick things. And this can be rapid fire. We don’t have to like go into like deep dialogue if we don’t have time, but I, I think these are two really just quick things. Do. You mentioned earlier it’s like way in beginning and the early of the conversation of like, I just learned it’s like I have to do what I am best at and that’s not everything. Mm-Hmm. . So how do you learn to say, this is what I’m best at and this is what I’m gonna do and this is what I’m gonna go hire out. So it’s like what phase in the journey you’re going? Listen, you are no longer the person who can do all the things.
MC (46:54):
Yes. So this, again, I I, I go back to my body as a barometer or what that tells me. I’m very in tune with what I feel. And again, it goes back to energy. So if I am cha, if someone says to me, and let me give you an example, Wayne. In the beginning way, in the beginning in 2000, whatever it was 14, 15, I remember I was working with a guy that started the podcast with me and he goes, you need to start doing social media posts. And I was like, okay. And he sat down with me and he did a tutorial for me. Like he could do it in two minutes. I sat there, I remember like checking out , my whole body was like contracted. And I’m like, I don’t like this. Like I don’t wanna learn this. I’m feeling resistance.
MC (47:37):
Mm-Hmm. So there’s resistance from fear and there’s resistance because it’s just not my thing. I wasn’t afraid to do it. I was resistant because it’s not my thing. Like if you said to me, go write four meditations and start writing a book, I’d be so happy. Right? , it’s like, that’s what I wanna do. So the resistance came up and I tried to do the first social post on Facebook. I remember way back when it was crooked, the words were coming off of the thing. It took me an hour and a half and I go, I’m done . I’m not doing this. And I remember in that moment, this is when like oh my god, what was it called? Craigslist was vague. We supposed to ask, this is like 2014 or 15 or whatever. So I went in there, I hired an assistant like that day and it was so inexpensive and I said, oh yeah, she turned it around in five minutes.
MC (48:24):
I’m like, it took me an hour and a half and I go done. So look for that resistance. When you feel resistance, you’re not meant to do it. And I talk to a lot of people that’ll say to me, I’m gonna design my new website. I’m like, are you outta your mind? Hire, go to Upwork. Like, hire someone to do that. Do, do you wanna do websites, you know, for a living? They’re like, no, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m gonna take a tutorial on YouTube. I’m like, you’re insane. Like, resistance. You hire it up. Upwork is my friend. So
AJV (48:51):
Yes, I love it. I think that’s like such a good reminder to all of us. It’s like, there are, there are so few things that only you can do, right? Totally do those things. Do those things. There’s a whole world of people who can do other things that you not do. So, all right, last question. We talked about this just a little bit, but you had mentioned a, a key part of what you do and all the things that you do is just teaching people how to be an emotionally healthy adult, right? Yeah. Yeah. So in as few words, as quickly as you can of going, I wanna be an emotionally healthy adult , what do I do? My husband really wants me to be an emotionally healthy, the adults. So give us some tips, give us some best practices. What does that mean?
MC (49:35):
Okay? The whole model is based on five tenets. I’m just gonna give you the five tenets, right? You gotta own your reality. That means get radically honest with yourself. What do you, what’s going on in your life that you’re not owning? Like, are you drinking too much? Are you in a marriage that you’re not happy in? Are you in a relationship you’re not happy in? So own your reality and live responsibly. Number two, you’ve got to learn how to feel your emotions. Because if we don’t, we project. If we don’t know how to do that, we numb out. So you’ve got to feel your emotions. Number three, we’ve gotta manage our triggers. We don’t project our pain on other people. When you’re triggered, here’s the key. When we’re triggered, it means that there’s an unconscious limiting belief that belongs to us, that’s rising up for us. It’s a belief that belongs to us. Yet what what we do is we get mad at others. Right? Stop it. Look at yourself. It’s a limiting belief. It’s a gift, honestly, that’s what I say. Triggers are a gift. So we gotta manage our triggers. Number four, build self-worth. Number five, you’ve got to learn how to set healthy boundaries for yourself. That’s it.
AJV (50:45):
Where do people go? Where do people go? How do they work with you? If they’re going, whoa, what you just said is what I need, where do you wanna go?
MC (50:54):
Yeah. Yep. You go to the adult chair.com, I’ve got the podcast. I talk about all this on the podcast. I have guests on. This is what I teach my coaches how to do. This is how I teach my coaches to work with other people, though, doing this exact thing.
AJV (51:07):
So, oh, Michelle, so much wisdom. This is, thank you. This is so awesome. So, I mean, I, I’m literally like taking notes both for all of you, for the show notes, but then for myself, right? It’s like this, this is what we need, right? This is what everyone needs, and that’s why I started this podcast. I saying, this isn’t a business tactics episode, but this is a necessary and required, universally applicable conversation that we all need to help succeed in what we’re doing, whatever that is. And then also to get your message out to the world. You don’t wanna be the world’s best kept secret. That’s not what we’re doing this for. We wanna get it out there. So Michelle, thank you so, so much for this gem of a conversation. Thank you. I will put all of these links in the show notes. And for everyone listening, don’t forget to grab the self-worth bundle and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 373: 3 Hidden Traits of Successful People | Carey Nieuwhof Episode Recap

RV (00:02):
Well, I absolutely adored my conversation with Carrie Nieuwhof, and as often happens, he inspired me. Some of the things that he was talking about, I guess, you know, set me on a path of thinking about things that are important for, for my life. And, you know, even though we were sort of talking about how pastors can build their personal brand, it really, it was him sharing a lot about how his speaking career got started. And so if you’re interested in, in hearing that story about, you know, how did he build his speaking career? And, and, and how did he, how did he start from scratch? I think that’s super powerful. And so I was thinking this was related to that. And then the more I kept processing on it, I realized no, what it reminded me of are three hidden traits of successful people. And so I’m gonna walk you through, through these because I think these, these are, when I say they’re hidden traits, I mean, these are three things that make successful people successful that I don’t know that we hear enough about, or that we maybe we take for granted, or we’re not sure that they, they are really there.
RV (01:11):
And so as I was listening to Carrie’s story and also thinking back on my own life, and then thinking about so many of our successful clients and where also where we’re going, these, these three things really jumped out to me to go, you know, if you want to be a successful person, these are three things that I think you really need to commit to. And you need to ask yourself on the front end, am I willing to commit to these things? Because if you’re not, no matter how skilled you are, no matter how talented you are, no how much, no matter how much head knowledge you have, I think these are the things that are, are more invisible, they’re more hidden, that really hold people back from success. And so the first one is to crush it where you are at. And this is one we definitely don’t hear enough about when it comes to success.
RV (02:04):
Everybody talks about like, Hey, start the side hustle. Hey, do the next thing. Hey, you, you know, figure out what your vision is. And all of those things are good. And I think too many times we overlook the importance of being successful, not just successful, but being very successful at the thing that is right in front of us. Meaning the best way to set yourself up for success in the next thing is to be successful doing the thing that you’re doing right now. Let me say that again. The best way to set yourself up for being successful at the next thing is to be successful at doing the thing that you’re doing right now. And I think that many of us embrace this lie. We live in this fantasy land
RV (02:59):
That once I’m doing the thing I want to do, then I will suddenly make the sacrifices it takes to be successful. Once it’s my business, then I would, then I would pay the price, then I would put in the work. Or once, once we get past, you know, once I get this certification or that certification or, or once I got a new boss, or once I got promoted, or once I made this much money or, or once I had kids, or once I didn’t have kids, you know, like once they were growing and out of the house, like we are so often convince ourselves that we will really turn it on. We’ll really pay the price, we’ll really put in the work. Like we’ll really show up and do what it takes to be successful when the external circumstances change. And that is a lie.
RV (03:49):
I mean, if you can’t turn it on now, if you can’t pay the price, if you can’t make a sacrifice, if you can’t endure some short-term pain to be successful at the thing you’re doing now, why do you suddenly think you would be willing to in a different situation? And I guess there’s times where maybe that is true, right? Where you go, man, I hate my job, I hate my boss. I’m not given this company one lick of more effort. You know, I’m gonna work just hard enough not to get fired. And maybe that is true, that if it was your own thing, maybe, maybe you would. But I think we overestimate how easy that is. The reality is that, like Vince Lombardi said, winning is a habit. Being a winner is something in your character, right? People who are winners win at everything. Like they win at all the things they pursue, not just winning on the scoreboard, are not just beating other people, but, but creating excellence, doing excellent work, showing up powerfully, serving people, making a difference, making an impact, right?
RV (04:53):
Making contributions to the teams they are a part of. That’s not something you do once in a while. That is not something you do when the conditions are perfect. That is a character trait that you have to decide and commit to embracing that I am a winner because I’m always a winner and I’m gonna succeed because I, I, that’s what I do. I succeed. We’re gonna be excellent cuz that’s what we do around here. We, we make excellent things and yeah, it’s hard at times. Yeah, it’s inconvenient. Yeah, it’s painful. But that is the price of admission to being excellent. That is the price of admission for being great. That’s the price of admission for doing anything that matters. And so if you wanna be successful at your next thing, don’t wait to start developing the success habits until you’re doing those things. Start developing them now.
RV (05:47):
And in my life, you know, there, there’s been a couple times where my life direction has abruptly changed very and, and, and, and a couple times very unexpectedly. And I think the reason why we were able to pivot so quickly to the next thing was because we had done everything in our power to make the current thing succeed. And it’s sort of like, you know, it’s like jumping from the top of one mountain to the top of another mountain versus having like to be on the, if you’re on the, if you’re, if you’re halfway up a mountain or you’re on the bottom of a mountain, you have to like go down that mountain and then go up the bottom of the next mountain. But if you’re on the top of a mountain, you just jump from the top of one mountain to the top of the next, to the top of the next, you know, maybe not from top to top, but you know, near the top.
RV (06:31):
And then you climb back up to the top. And this is what successful people do, right? They’re successful in everything. So don’t convince yourself, don’t lie to yourself that, oh, I would really be successful, you know, if I had a different this or that or whatever. Maybe that’s true. But, but the reality is that most of success comes down to you making that decision to be successful regardless of your circumstances. So do that now. Crush it where you are at. And that is concept right out of take the stairs, you know, from years and years ago. Hasn’t changed. Second thing, second thing that I don’t think people talk enough about when it comes to being successful, specifically at generating revenue, right? So when specifically at, you know, building your personal brand or selling your course or selling your keynote or getting a promotion or, you know, let’s, let’s just say sales in general, generating revenue.
RV (07:30):
I think what we don’t hear enough about is that when somebody succeeds at something, a lot of times, like most of the time it’s because they have banked up all of this trust first, right? So when, and I’ll, I’ll I’ll use this. I think this is a great example. You know, we, we were fortunate to, to be a, a very significant part of Ed Millet’s book launch in 2022. And we made a major contribution. We did a lot, we worked very closely with Ed, and we brought the best that we had to offer in terms of strategy and relationships and you know, we did what we did. But, you know, and we helped Ed pre-sell 117,000 copies of his book. You know, and just recently we, we, we helped Louis House and Amy Porterfield both and, and they both became New York Times bestsellers.
RV (08:24):
All in all, we’ve now helped 13 different clients become New York Times, wall Street Journal, U s USA Today bestsellers. But with Ed, you know, he pre-sold 117,000 copies of his book. Did we have a lot to do with it? Sure, we had a lot, we had something to do with it, right? We, we helped Ed, we helped Ed. The reality is we get far more credit than we deserve. The reality is Ed had banked up so much trust with his audience, so much reputation, right? Did some of our stuff help? I, I hope so. I like to think so. Ed is very gracious in saying that it did. But the reality is that we taught Ed the same thing. We teach all of our clients, right? It wasn’t like we gave him some secret that we didn’t give anybody else the difference in his results, right?
RV (09:11):
The difference in what Ed, ed Mylet experience was not because we did a better job with him or because we taught him something, we don’t teach everybody else. It’s, it’s case in point that what happened was it was his trust that was banked with his audience before he asked them to buy. Trust must always take place before there’s a transaction. Trust must take place before there’s a transaction. When Ed did his book launch, he had years and years of trust banked up. Now we showed up, we were lucky enough to get introduced to him. We were one part of a team of people that were all working together to support him. And we might have helped him maybe, you know, optimize efficiently the, the, the quote unquote extraction of that trust in the form of book sales. But he was the one that banked the trust.
RV (09:58):
And so when we get extraordinary results with clients, you know, I don’t think we could take, like, we cannot take all the credit for it by any means. Even when they follow our formulas, even when they use our ex exact stuff. And similarly, when clients don’t succeed, it’s not because of us, it’s because of them, right? We know our formulas work. They’ve worked for us. They’re working for lots of other clients, the biggest personal brands in the world, all the way down to intermediate and novice people who are just starting out getting extraordinary results. We know what we do works. The difference is you, the difference is how much are you willing? How hard are you willing to work? And how much trust have you banked with your audience? Trust must take place before there’s a transaction. And too many people want to come out and just sell right away.
RV (10:45):
Too many people want to come out and just like, oh, I’m gonna launch something and go, I just wanna sell to a bunch of random strangers on the internet. Well, it’s not bad to do that. It’s not necessarily wrong to do that. But I think the reason that people struggle to succeed right away is because they think, oh, there’s some technique that I need to develop. There is, there’s some strategy. And if it didn’t work, it’s cuz oh, I got bad advice from, you know, this person or that person, or brand builders group, or this course didn’t teach me. And the reality is, it’s because you didn’t have enough trust banked up with your audience. You have to build trust before people are willing to buy. You have to build trust with people. You have to add value, you have to give first. You have to help them.
RV (11:27):
You have to pour into them. And so if your launch failed, it doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you got horrible advice. It doesn’t mean that the thing that you’re doing is bad. It doesn’t mean that people won’t ever buy it. It probably means more often. It means that you’re just too early, meaning you are trying to extract revenue before you have deposited trust. So I don’t, don’t think we hear enough about that. And I think, you know, I think people like us, you know, wanna take credit because we do. We, we wanna, we wanna have a part of people’s success. We work really, really hard for it. And you know, sometimes you’re hard on yourself when you don’t succeed or you’re hard on the people around you. And the, the fact of the matter is, a lot of success has to do with trust.
RV (12:13):
And trust comes from adding value to people in your life that they see you, they learn from you, they know you. You’re giving to them, you’re teaching them. And that’s why our entire content marketing strategy, right? Everything we teach, which, you know, can get very sophisticated, but it all boils down to like our entire content marketing strategy is this simple, teach everything you know, for free, but in small bite size chunks and all random miscellaneous order. That’s how we do our whole, our whole content strategy for podcasting, for YouTube, for social media, right? Like, I mean, we’re teaching everything we know for free, but in small bite size chunks, in all random order because we, there’s two things we believe. First of all, we believe that people don’t pay for information. People pay for application. People don’t pay for information, they pay for organization and they pay for application.
RV (13:06):
So even if you teach everything, you know, what they’re gonna hire you to do is they’re not gonna hire you for the knowledge. They’re gonna help, they’re gonna hire you to help them apply the knowledge to their own life and their own business and their own situation. But the second reason why we do that is because we’re automating trust. What are we doing here on this podcast? We’re automating trust. That’s what we’re trying to do. What are we doing on my blog? We’re, you know, you rory vaden blog.com. I’ve, I mean, I feel like I’ve given away a master’s degree in free content on my blog, like for free. Like if you actually sat and went and read all the hundreds of articles, it’s like equivalent to a master’s degree, like probably better in some ways in terms of the ability to help you generate more income for your life immediately.
RV (13:52):
And it’s all there for free because we’re automating trust. We want, we want to add value to people before we need something, right? We we’re, you know, we don’t particularly need anything. Now, what we do hope you do at some point is you, as you go to free brand call.com/podcast and you say, you know what, I like these guys. I like what they’re about. I like their style, I like their guests, I like their information, I like their knowledge, and I think they could help me take my small business to the next level. I think they could help me grow my reach, grow my revenue, increase my sales build my personal brand, build my audience, build my impact, and I wanna talk to them, right? So that’s why we do the podcast for free. That’s why we work so hard at it. We’re automating trust.
RV (14:35):
That’s what we’re trying to do. You can do the same thing. That’s what we’re doing on social automating trust. Teach everything you know, for free, but in one small bite size chunk in an all random miscellaneous order, all right? That accounts for a lot of your success, like more than you realize. So if your last launch failed, give yourself a break, right? Like, if your revenue’s not climbing as fast as you want it, welcome to the club, right? If your audience isn’t taken off and you’re not getting the kind of reach that you want, welcome to the club, right? That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, it means you’re just early on the journey. That’s it. And that leads me to the third thing. The third thing that I don’t think we hear enough about when it comes to success. I mean, you do hear about this some, but I don’t think that we index it enough.
RV (15:28):
I don’t think we appropriately wait this enough. And that is simply that you have to make a decision to stick with it most of succeeding in the personal brand space. Okay? So if you wanna become a, a bestselling author, a world renowned speaker, if you wanna become a world renowned coach, a high paid consultant, if you wanna just make it in this space, in this business, a huge part. Like most of it, probably 80% of it is just sticking around . Like, it’s just not quitting. I mean, most people just, they just quit. They quit after a f a few months, you know, a bunch of people quit after a few weeks, you know, and then a whole bunch of people will quit after a few months where they don’t see traction. You know, there’ll be some smaller group that they’ll make it, they’ll make it two years, and then it didn’t take off.
RV (16:22):
And so they give up, or you know, sometimes they have to, right? Something changes and they’re, they run out of, you know, money or somebody gets hurt in their life, they gotta take care of ’em or you know, whatever, whatever. Like, there’s life situation, but they, but they of ultimately, they just, they, they quit. They, they, because either they choose to or they have to, they stop pursuing the dream. And I think 80% of achieving a dream is just not giving up on it. Like 80% of you achieving your wildest dream is just not giving up on it. It’s just pursuing it is sticking with it. And, and the reason why I think this matters, especially for small business owners, especially for entrepreneurs and especially for personal brands, but I think this, I would round this out and say that this applies to all small business owners, right?
RV (17:05):
Because this is, here’s what it means to be an entrepreneur. Like, ultimately people think what are, what’s the criteria that it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? We think, oh, we gotta have a great product, or we gotta be good at sales, or we gotta have the gift of gab. We gotta be good with people, or we gotta have, you know, good time management, or we have to have, you know, good systems or good at marketing, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that. I mean, all of those things help. None of them are the predominant criteria for a success. Successful entrepreneur. You wanna know what the number one most predominant criteria for a successful entrepreneur is. I’ll tell you, I’m a hundred percent convicted that this is the number one most important criteria for being a successful entrepreneur.
RV (17:50):
You have to be willing to get kicked in the face over and over and over every day and keep coming back for more. That’s it. Like, you have to get punched, you have to get kicked, you have to get hit, you have to get beat down and be willing to come back for more. If you wanna be a successful entrepreneur. That’s the job. That’s the job. It’s not secret strategies, it’s not mentorship, it’s not this personal development book, that coaching program, the perfect product, customer experience sales. It is that it is going, what is your appetite? What is, what is your threshold for getting kicked in the face? Forgetting, beat down for having problem after problem, rejection after rejection, set back after setback in your personal life, your professional life, people quitting on you, losing clients, thought you had the gig and you didn’t getting zing with a, a tax bill from the government.
RV (18:46):
You weren’t expecting the product breaking down that you thought was perfect. The marketing thing busted. Having people run off with your money. Like it’s, it’s, and then it’s, it’s managing all that, right? While in your personal life, you have chaos going on. This is the story of our life, like in the last few weeks, right? We’ve had unexpected surgeries, we have kids throwing up in the middle of the night, someone drove into our fence, right? On accident, we, we knocked over our fence. We’ve had people bump into the car. We have had gas leaks in our house where we had to tear open the walls. We have so many things, kids riding on the walls with markers like the, the kids’ teachers getting sick and now the kids are home. Like all of that is normal. That’s the job, right? So you go, can you manage all of that simultaneously while getting kicked in the face simultaneously, while trying to like, make an impact in the world? That is what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. What is your threshold for getting beat up? What is your threshold for, for getting hit? How hard can you get hit and keep coming back for more? How many times can you be told no? How many times can someone let you down? How many times can you be taken advantage of? H how many times do you have to fail? But w and but you’re willing to iterate and keep coming back. That is what it takes.
RV (20:16):
That’s what it takes. So if you’re going, if you’re having a hard day, if you’re having a hard day, don’t, I, I feel for you, right? I don’t mean to be too hard on you. I know it’s freaking hard. It’s hard. And if you have kids, you have young kids, it’s freaking hard. And if you have a team and you’re managing people and you’re dealing with the gossip and the relationships and their personal life and their, you know, traveling in this and what, and they let somebody down and they didn’t show up, right? I, it’s hard. And I know you don’t have the, you don’t have as much money to hire the vendors and you hire and then you hire a vendor and they let you down or they don’t do a good job or they ghost on you. We had a vendor ghost on us recently.
RV (21:02):
$6,000. We paid them. They disappeared. $6,000 gone disappeared. I know it’s hard, but that’s the job. Like, that’s the price of admission for success in this business, in this game of entrepreneurship, of being a small business owner, of being a world changer. Do you think things were easy for Martin Luther King Jr? Do you think things were easy for Mother Teresa? Like, do you think things are easy for the people who change the world? Like if you wanna change the world, that’s the job. You wanna own your own business, that’s the job you wanna make. Unlimited income, that’s the job you want freedom. That’s the job. You wanna be well-known. That’s the job. You wanna make more money than anyone in your family has ever made. That is the job. What is your appetite for getting kicked in the face?
RV (22:00):
I’m not saying I like it, I’m just saying that’s the job. So if today’s a hard day, welcome to the club. You’re on the right track, right? These are the things we don’t hear enough about, but they are the truth. In order for you to succeed at launching your next thing, you need to crush it. Where you crush it with the thing you’re doing now, crush it where you’re at. In order to succeed and make money and generate sales, you have to bank trust first. Trust must take place before a transaction. And if you’re gonna succeed as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a personal brand, or as anything else, you just gotta increase your threshold for getting kicked in the face and keep coming back for more because that’s what it takes. But if you’re here listening now, if you’re still listening by this point, if you found your way here to us and you found your way to this episode and you’ve found your way to this moment and you’re still here, here’s what I believe.
RV (23:17):
I believe you have what it takes. I believe you have what it takes. I believe that there’s a calling on your life to do something so big in the world that that calling will outweigh the, the, the pain that you have to go through. That, that long-term calling that purpose for your life is to make such a positive impact for other people that you will be willing to endure the pain. So you’re on the right track. It’s okay to have hard days. Just realize that’s the job. Keep going and keep coming back for more. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.

Ep 372: How Pastors Can Build Their Personal Brand with Carey Nieuwhof

RV (00:02):
Hey, I am so excited to have this conversation with someone who is a newer, but quickly, I think quickly becoming good friend of mine, Carey Nieuwhof, and I love this guy. So I was him and I met backstage at a couple, at, at different events. We’ve had a lot of friends of friends through the years. It’s one of those relationships where it’s like, how, how do we not know each other? Uhhuh, how have we not connected? Recently I was on his podcast. He has a great podcast. It’s got millions and millions of downloads, and he is one of the most influential leadership speakers and authors, I think, in the world today. So he’s got blogs and his online content which has over 1.5 million, you know, visitors, viewers, readers a month. He’s the founder of the Art of Leadership Academy.
RV (00:53):
His bestselling book is called, at Your Best, how to Get Time, energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor. He has been profiled by Forbes and Fast Company. He lives in Toronto, and he also is a pastor. And his personal mission is about reducing the decline in the church. And so, you know, I’m a hardcore bible thump in Jesus freak, and so we have that in common. But I thought it would be fun to hear Carrie’s interesting and unique perspective on how do you grow your personal brand as a pastor in gen, you know, building, becoming an author and a speaker, and having a huge podcast and blog following in general, but also specifically as a pastor in some of those church specific dynamics. So anyways, Carey, welcome to the show.
CN (01:39):
Hey, Rory, great to hang out with you. Thanks so much for having me on.
RV (01:43):
So, can you just tell us a little bit about your story, because I, I think there’s a, you know, churches are, you know, hu huge institution in the world, obviously, but even in, just if you think about it in the context of personal branding, so many authors and so many speakers come out of quote unquote the church world, whether it’s church conferences or their pastors, or they have like sermon series that go viral and that launches their personal brand. You know? Tell us a little bit of your story of just like how you came up through the church world, and then where did your personal brand, like what do you mark as the genesis of your personal brand?
CN (02:24):
So there was absolutely no strategy behind the personal brand. It was completely fortuitous, providential, accidental, I mean, pick your adjective. It was no intention. I had started out as a lawyer that was what I was gonna do with my life, and God interrupted me in the middle of law school and put a call to ministry on my heart. So I finished up law, went into seminary, but started at three little churches just north of Toronto. And I’m in my house right now as we’re doing this interview. It’s like 10 minutes from my house, these three little churches. We’ve lived in the same community for over 25 years. Wow. And started with these dying rural mainline churches. So just think about every stereotype that comes to mind when you think about a dying mainline rural church. Okay. I was facing that as a 30 year old a number of years ago, starting out in ministry.
CN (03:25):
And we, we just kind of saw the writing on the wall. Like I would do the circuit between these three churches on a Sunday morning. Attendance was extremely low, had been since before I was born. So one of them had six people attending on a Sunday morning regularly. Another had 14, and then the megachurch had 23. Wow. So I started, I’m the like, young 30 year old, let’s go get ’em pastor. And by the grace of God, we started to see growth almost overnight. And we soon out grew those historic buildings. We amalgamated those three churches, built a new facility, but we were part of a mainline denomination. And that’s got a lot of benefits and some challenges. So a number of us, for a variety of reasons thought it would be best to start over again. So in 2007, we rebooted and became Connexus Church, a non-denominational church.
CN (04:18):
I was the founding pastor there. A lot of those people came with me, went up and down the road. We started a multi-site thing. And that was in 2007. So that’s when the church really, it started, we, we were the fastest growing church in our denomination and one of the largest in our denomination. But when we started over again as a non-denominational church, we started to reach even more unchurched people. And I led that until 2015. And that was when I turned 50. And so I really felt it was time to hand things over to the next generation, found somebody who could do a great job as lead pastor. He’s been doing an awesome job. And then I started focusing more on this hobby, which a lot of people call a a personal brand, but it sort of developed by accident around 2012. For real. It was just a hobby of mine. I thought, I’m leading this church full-time, it’s not taking all of my time, it’s going well, but I really want to like, like start helping leaders. And so I started doing that on a semi-serious hobby basis in 2012, and it just kind of took off
RV (05:32):
Uhhuh . And when did you start the podcast?
CN (05:34):
Podcast was 2014. So actually when we started Nexus in 2007, the denomination I was a part of said, Hey we don’t want you communicating about this new church in a church owned by our denomination. I’m like, fair enough. Blogging was fairly new in 2000. So I had a friend of me of mine who said, I’ll set, set up a blog for you. So I started blogging as a way of communicating with people who wanted to be part of this startup. And that became like a bit of a habit and a discipline for me. But then like a lot of bloggers back in the day, I’d let it slide. So in 2012, I had written my first solo book and I’d read Michael Hyatt’s platform, Uhhuh Uhhuh. And I thought, well, I probably should start blogging on a semi-serious basis. So I started doing it in the fall of 2012 and have never really looked back since.
RV (06:37):
Got it.
CN (06:38):
And, and then the podcast came two years later in 2014, fall of 2014.
RV (06:42):
Yeah. So that was you, that’s fair. Still fairly early to that, but you’ve, so you’ve been at this for 10 years. Yeah. I mean, effectively this is, this is far from an overnight success story in terms of building the audience and everything. How do you, how do you, so, so it’s interesting. So you said when you started Conexus, then you became a non-denominational, nondenom non-denominational church. Yeah. And I guess, how have you navigated, or how do you think about, or how did you think about up until 2015, the reconciling the dynamics of Carrie as a personal brand and this like leadership writer and podcaster and teacher, and then Carrie, the pastor of ConnectUS Church, and how do you d how do you, how do those overlap and how do you like draw the line between the two?
CN (07:39):
I saw the leadership aspect as a hobbyist. Okay. I needed a hobby. I had gone through burnout back in 2006, 2007, and I realized I didn’t have a hobby. So I really enjoyed writing, I love building into leaders, and I thought this’ll be my hobby. So the hobby really took off in 2012, and I literally did it in my spare time. I had six or eight weeks of vacation, I forget how much, but enough that I could squeeze the speaking into a vacation day or a Friday or another day off. And then my writing would happen in the morning. I’d hit the alarm at 5:00 AM I’d write for a couple hours, and then I would publish initially three days a week. So it totally fit into hobbyist hours. And that’s really how I saw it. And, and the truth is, even if you go to Nexus today, a lot of people have no idea. I do the whole leadership thing. They see me as the founding pastor. And when I was still the lead pastor of the church, a lot of them didn’t really track with that stuff. If they saw that I was in Atlanta or LA or a place like that, they would be like, okay, what was that about? Again? Like, they weren’t really sure because I was just their pastor and it never really bled into, not, not on a serious basis, my full-time job.
RV (09:01):
Got it. And then, and then how did your, how did your first speaking engagements come along? Like where did you, were you making like a proactive sort of outbound, I want to go speak at these places, and that happened? Or was it more organic as people had seen you at church or because they were following your podcast or your blog? Or like, when did you, and and when did your speaking career start? Like,
CN (09:24):
I guess, so my speaking career started probably, I’m gonna say, well, I’ve always done forms of it. So even in the nineties when I was starting out, because our church was growing I would get invited to go to a neighboring city and like, what, what’s your new membership process? Explain that to us. Or how are you reaching new people? And I got a text from a friend the other day, a mentor who I’ve known for over 30 years, who sent me, like, one of my early resources, it was literally, it was like a Word document with clip art. Nice. I printed out on a printer and was like three staples along the side. So I, I guess I’ve been producing resources for church leaders for a long time, and that was just an instinctive thing for me to do. It’s like, okay, if we have a resource that really worked for you or for us, I’m happy to share it with you.
CN (10:17):
So I would do that. And then I think the first time I got invited to be on a plane was maybe in 2005, 2006, Willow Creek Canada invited me to do a conference, or I would get invited to do breakout somewhere. But then I had a providential meeting in, in oh five, I met a guy named Reggie Joiner who was a co-founder of NorthPoint Church, and we became fast friends and he said, listen, I want to introduce you to my boss, Andy Stanley. Well, I’ve been following Andy for a number of years online. I met Andy, Andy and Reggie invited me to speak at NorthPoint. Then Reggie left and started Orange. He kind of recruited me to do a lot of speaking for him. And when I got on some US stages back in oh 6, 0 7, 0 8, that’s when things really started to take off.
RV (11:06):
Got it. So, and, and you met him just sort of organically at a conference or something like that?
CN (11:12):
Actually, I was doing a conference in 2004, 2005. We did this conference at our church called Generation Next because we were growing fast and one of the largest churches in the country in our denomination, we had inbound requests from coast to coast. Like, how are you doing this? How’s it growing? And I said to the team, let’s just throw a conference. So both years we had about 400 liters fly in from across Canada. And the way you do something in Canada is if you’re just a Canadian, no one’s gonna come. You have to have an American speaker, you gotta have a big time speaker. You gotta go connect with a guy like Rory to get you a keynote speaker. So I didn’t really know anybody, but I knew somebody who knew John Maxwell and John wasn’t able to come, but Tim Elmore came one year and Tim was friends with Andy Stanley tried to get Andy, Andy wasn’t traveling at the time, but he said, I won’t come, but I bet you Reggie Joiner would. So I had Reggie come up and we just became really fast friends. And then ironically invites me to meet Andy. I end up speaking at North Point. And that’s how it kind of took off. So that’s how that happened.
RV (12:22):
I
CN (12:23):
Love it. Again, I couldn’t engineer that if my life depended on it. There’s so much providence in this story. It’s, it’s unbelievable, Rory.
RV (12:30):
Totally. Well, and, and there’s, you know, there’s a couple like very consistent themes here too, though. It’s just like doing great at what’s in front of you is what opens the next door. Like you were growing the church and that’s part of why you were getting attention is you were, people were hearing and seeing that as a leader yourself, you were, you were doing great at the thing that was right in front of you. And so people wanted to know and they were inviting you, come teach us how to do that. So you were operating in your uniqueness, operating in your, in your strength. And that’s what opened the door and I, that, you know, I mean that’s, at least that’s one of the things that I’m seeing
CN (13:09):
That No, that’s exactly it. And I mean, there were a lot like, not to over glamorize anything in the early two thousands. There were a lot of church basements where an elder board would invite me in and I mean, you know, I wasn’t getting paid for those. Maybe on a good day they’d give me a Subway gift card or a a card for gas so I could get home. And it didn’t cost me anything. Lot of hundred dollars honorariums for workshops or keynotes. But again, I really enjoyed the opportunity to help other leaders. And so I’m like, yeah, I’ll, I’ll do that. And as long as it didn’t overcom compete with my family, I was very happy to do that. And most of it, for the first number of years, well probably seven, eight years, was all within a one or two hour drive of my house. It was just people who had heard word was spreading. And of course we didn’t have social media back in the nineties and early two thousands, so ideas didn’t spread as fast. But I was, you know, as far as I was concerned, that’s what I was gonna do for the rest of my life. I was gonna lead a church and if I was able to help another congregation or a presbytery a regional government or you know, someone else, then sure, I’ll, I’ll sign up for that.
RV (14:19):
Uhhuh . And you said that you were speaking within one to two hour radius for how many years?
CN (14:25):
Oh, probably six, seven years before I ever got on an airplane to do something more.
RV (14:31):
Wow. And so that, and were those all like all for those six or seven years? All of that was mostly that kind of like honorarium gift card, maybe
CN (14:40):
A few hundred percent here. Nothing. Uhhuh , Uhhuh
RV (14:42):
.
CN (14:43):
Yeah. And I just did it cuz I like helping leaders and there was again, no plan. It was just like, it was all inbound. There was no outbound, there was no website, there was no hire me, there was none of that. It was just all inbound. And actually today most of my business is inbound. Like I’ve never, I’m with the speakers bureau, but I know how that works. Nine times outta 10, it is somebody saying, okay, I want to get Carrie to speak. Okay, I gotta go through Premiere in Nashville, you know those guys right? Yeah. So away we go. And there just hasn’t been a lot of outbound. I haven’t, I haven’t like yeah, I have a website now, et cetera, et cetera. But it’s all pretty much still word of mouth.
RV (15:25):
Interesting. So when thinking about today, okay, fast forwarding today cuz you get to invited to speak at some big big events and part of how we met, where do you think most of your speaking opportunities come from? Do you think it’s more of people heard you on the podcast, they read your book, they followed your blog, they saw you preach, you know, as a pastor somewhere, they saw you speak somewhere. Is it a YouTube video? Is it social media posts that you’re making? Like are you able to kind of tie back and go in terms of generating invitations to speak today? Here is where I think they come from.
CN (16:06):
Definitely not the preaching. It’s, it’s ironic. Okay. You know, I probably, if you look at my last 27 years, I probably spent more time writing sermons than I’ve done anything. Now the reality is I think they served our local church really well and you know, you have those moments, particularly when I was in my thirties where I thought, you know, maybe one day somebody will hear a sermon or whatever. The sermons never really took off despite all the work that I, and I think I’m a decent preacher, but it was the exposure at NorthPoint Orange conference, which is Reggie Joiner’s Conference, rethink Leadership, which I’ve headed up for Orange for a number of years that probably gave me more of a national stage. And then definitely blogging, blogging’s changed a lot. I mean, blogging isn’t what it used to be 10 years ago, so I don’t blog as much anymore, but that kind of thought leadership on blogging generated a lot of inbound requests.
CN (17:04):
And then yeah, people would hear me at other conferences. They, the podcast definitely gives me, I think probably in authority in the marketplace, not because I’m talking like, I’ve already talked more on your show than I would ever talk in a 90 minute episode on my show. Right. If I’m doing my job right. Because I’m interviewing guests. Right. But I’ve had some world-class leaders on like yourself, but, you know, I, I kicked off this year with James Clear and Chris Anderson from Ted I mean we have pretty much the who’s who of whoever on my show. And it’s been fantastic. So I think it’s a combination of all of those things. And then, yeah, just like we’re, we’re, we’re, I did go with the Speaker’s bureau because they’re better at negotiating than I am. Mm-Hmm. , and we get parameters a lot clearer on that, but there hasn’t been a lot of outbound
RV (17:59):
Mm-Hmm. . and then it’s, it’s never been in terms of, if you were mentoring a young pastor today and going, Hey, here’s some ideas or some, what are some of your philosophies or your tips around balancing this? Because on the one hand you go, there’s some really massive personal brands. You know, I think of like Mike Todd as an example. And when they did their relationship goals sermon series on YouTube, that thing went viral, drove a lot of awareness, was an amazing sermon series and, you know, for Transformation Church. And they’ve grown a bunch and you know, you see him everywhere. He became a New York Times bestselling author. There’s, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of pastors who end up sort of becoming celebrity personal brands. They have, you know, they’re speaking at huge conferences, they’re selling lots of books. Their churches are growing. And then, you know, I think there’s also this dichotomy of going, well, hey, you know, you’re, you’re a pastor. You’re like, it’s really not about you being out in front and you know, like h how do you, how do you balance that? Or what would you say to somebody going through that right now?
CN (19:13):
So I think Mike is a great example and I know Mike and I’ve interviewed him a few times and we’ve gone over the story that you talked about when relationship goals, this series went viral. So I’m gonna share with you nothing he hasn’t shared in public, but it’s a really helpful thing. What I see a lot of young leaders trying to do now, cuz we, we get a lot of requests in this area is like, you know, how do I grow a personal brand? A guy like Mike would be the first to tell you he had no intention of growing a personal brand. He was pastoring a church of three or 400 people at the time. And he had this series that he was really passionate about called Relationship Goals. And what he said to his elder board was, he said, Hey, more and more people are watching messages through the lens of a camera they spent, if I’ve got the number right, about $80,000 on new cameras, which is a pretty, you know, ambitious but local church thing to do.
CN (20:05):
And he said, that way when we capture the message, it’ll, it’ll look a lot better than what we have right now. So he did that and the series didn’t actually take off. It was normal Sunday at church, 250, 300 people there series was over. And then one day someone on Twitter of all places found it, tweeted it and it went viral. The snowball started rolling down the hill and it was completely, he was as shocked as anybody and took off on Twitter. Then it took off on Instagram, then it took off across all social media platforms. And his story has been, he was doing really good work as a local pastor. I would say Mike is still mostly focused on doing really good work as a local pastor, but the influence that he’s had has exploded Transformation church. I mean, they meet in an arena and they bought an office complex to house the whole infrastructure now.
CN (21:01):
But that’s an example. And, and I tell you that story to say what Mike did is on a much bigger scale, similar to what I did, just do the work, do the really good work of writing a great series for your local church. Maybe it’ll take off, maybe it won’t. I set a pretty ambitious goal 10 years ago because otherwise my hobbies die a pretty quick death. And I said, all right, when I start blogging three times a week, I want to hit a hundred thousand page views in 2013 and I might as well have said a million because it was impossible. It’s like saying, I wish it was a million dollars in my bank. You get 10 bucks in the bank, it’s like that chance that’s gonna happen. But I said, a hundred thousand is a goal. So what I did was I started sharing on social media as it was then if I wrote a new post, I’d put it on Twitter, Facebook, and then one day Instagram, when that came along and it just started to go crazy. And within a couple of months I had my first a hundred thousand page views. And then 2013 wasn’t a hundred thousand, it was a million. Now social spread ideas via blogs a lot easier 10 years ago than they do today. But that was sort of the thing, I wasn’t focused so much on acquiring an audience as I was producing the best content I knew how to produce that I thought would be helpful to other leaders.
RV (22:25):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And I think if somebody listening, like even if you’re not a, you’re not a pastor, when most people listening are not pastors, it’s the same connection point though to say, do great work at what you’re already doing. And, and it’s not going, oh, I need to leave this thing so that I can go start the work I wanna do. It’s almost always a, you, you, you, you transition off of doing great at the thing that you’re doing and that is what sort of gives life to the next thing.
CN (22:54):
Yeah. And you may not even have a, my a financial model, like for the first three or four years of this hobby I had no, I had, I had entrepreneurs in my ear on a regular basis. Good friends who are like, Carrie, you got a million people visiting your website, you gotta monetize this, you gotta monetize your blog, you gotta monetize the podcast. And I was drawing a salary at the church I mean, wasn’t a huge salary, but we were able to pay our bills and save to put our kids through school. I had some speaking income that was definitely, you know, not what I get today for doing a keynote at a conference. But it was meaningful enough. And I made a decision early on. I’m like, I’m not gonna monetize because my currency is trust and what I want to build is I want to build a readership, a listenership, and I want to build trust with my audience.
CN (23:46):
I want them to know that they can trust in my content, not everything’s for sale. They can trust in the guests that I bring to the podcast. And so for a couple years I didn’t monetize anything and then when I was ready to monetize, I had choice cuz I had this big audience. I didn’t have to jump at $10. I could go and interview different people who were interested in partnering with me. And you know, we joke about it with my team all the time. I’ve left a lot of money on the table because I’m like, I don’t think this is the right fit for my audience and I won’t do a deal if I don’t think it’s the right deal for my audience. So what I would do is focus on your craft, do really good work, focus on building an audience, and the monetization will eventually take care of itself.
RV (24:34):
Mm-Hmm. . And now, and then the, how do you monetize a blog following in a podcast following?
CN (24:44):
Well, it’s changing. It’s changing pretty rapidly. So before we used to have ads on the blog and that kind of stuff, and we don’t anymore. If you go to our website, a lot of that is our internal product. So the financial model for what I do now has changed dramatically in the last seven years since I focused on this pretty much full-time. Used to be mostly speaking income, little bit of sponsorship income on the podcast these days because the podcast is so big and has a lot of influence and authority in our field. We take a couple of partners, we call them partners, not sponsors per episode. So I’ll have two ads read by me per episode. And you know, it’s not cheap to be on my podcast, but it’s not cheap now because I didn’t take anything at the beginning. I banked all of this trust and almost 30 million downloads later.
CN (25:37):
Mm-Hmm. Now I can say, this is what it costs to get on the podcast. And we sell out every year really before January 1st. People are itching to get on. We also, because I limit it too, I’ve had people say, well you can do a third ad or you can do a mid-roll. And I’m like, nah, I don’t wanna exhaust my audience and I wanna make it meaningful. So I do those reads all the time. We also have a newsletter, a sponsored newsletter that I started every Friday called On the Rise. And in it I find really curious, interesting articles that I’ve enjoyed on the internet. I’ll link to them. These are all outbound links. And then there’s a partner link in that as well has an excellent open rate. And so we’re able to monetize that just one outta maybe 5, 6, 7 links will be a partner link.
CN (26:25):
And we’re transparent about it. And then once in a while we send out a dedicated email on behalf of a partner. And then there’s speaking income. And then I have my own platform. I got into courses about five years ago. And so courses eventually became the Art of Leadership Academy. It’s a membership site and that generates about half the revenue in the company these days. So that’s sort of how we did monetization. But we did it very slowly very experimentally and little bit of trial and error. You know, there was one, one or two sponsors I had in the early days of the podcast where we were getting feedback from. And these were, I don’t wanna say who it was, but I mean, I used to listen to this company, advertise on other podcasts so bad on me. I didn’t do my due diligence. We got complaints from listeners who said, Hey, I used this agency service wasn’t what I thought. And I’m like, that’s it, you’re fired. You’re off the podcast. That’s it. You’re disappointing our clients. And we went without revenue for a month or two and then we found another partner to fill that gap down the road. But I think because we’ve done that so well, we’re able to monetize with some integrity what we’re doing. And our audience now trusts us. And that’s what our partners tell us is like, your audience takes action.
RV (27:41):
Uhhuh , do you sell your own ads? Like have you always sold your own ads? Mm-Hmm. and yeah,
CN (27:46):
How do you, we have someone in-house who helps with that. At the very beginning we did that through an agency associated with a company in Atlanta. And then in 2017 I bought all that out. And I have a guy who helps me. He’s sort of on our team. He works with a lot of different organizations. He’ll do the leads and then we’re developing our own internal team to handle all of that in-house now.
RV (28:08):
Interesting. And so you’re
CN (28:09):
Just Yeah, so we’re not, we’re not like part of a network like HubSpot or that kind of thing that, that sells ads. Again, because we’re such a niche market, it’s mostly you’re either a pastor or a church leader who works at a church or you’re a guy like you. If, if you listen to my show, so you’re all about the church even though you don’t work in the church. So we’re either entrepreneurs who do what you do or we’re people who work at churches and that’s a very high value audience to a select group of people in the marketplace.
RV (28:39):
And so you basically just say, this is my audience who, what companies or organizations wanna reach my audience? And then you just like contact, just email ’em or phone call ’em
CN (28:52):
Actually, actually Brad Loick does that work for us. And mostly it’s, it’s again, inbound to pick up on a theme that we’ve talked about. We, I don’t, I think I can honestly say I haven’t pursued anybody. They have pursued us.
RV (29:05):
Gotcha. Uhhuh .
CN (29:08):
I haven’t personally, I don’t know a hundred percent what Brad does, but mostly it’s people approaching us. And so I recruited Brad to sort of be the go-between cuz I don’t wanna be involved in the negotiation
RV (29:21):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. But that’s interesting to be at your size and to do it all yourself, like do it internally. Mm-Hmm. , you don’t have to have a huge agency. And then you know, and so you’ve got that. And then you’re saying the membership side, actually what started as courses became a membership side and now that’s like half the revenue of the whole operation.
CN (29:39):
Yeah. And that’s all in-house two. We and my team’s small. There’s six of us, seven of us, so that’s it. And we keep it in-house, we keep it small. It’s grown as a company, as has grown. A few years ago it was me and a couple of assistants and then we started hiring some leaders to really lead. But yeah, I’m very, very proud of the team and what they’ve been able to accomplish. And that allows me to really focus on what I do, which is interview people, write content, serve the members in the academy, and try to deliver great keynotes when I speak at conferences or events
RV (30:14):
Mm-Hmm. . And are you trying to speak more? Like, is that something that you’re, or have you always sort of tempered it? Because you have two, two kids, right?
CN (30:22):
Yeah, two kids. They’re grown, actually. My youngest works with me. So that’s, that’s a fun part of running the company. He’s 27 and my 31 year old’s a software engineer. So he works outside the company.
RV (30:32):
Uhhuh, . So you’re, do you speak a bunch? Like how often do you
CN (30:36):
Speak? I could speak a lot more. Our mutual friend John ak, like he’s on a plane almost every week and that kind of thing. And, and he and I catch up on this all the time. I think it works best for me if I’m speaking one or two times a month. Yeah. Nine times outta 10 in the US I do a little bit of international, I’m already lined up for Australia, New Zealand and Germany in 2024. A big like one month road trip. That’s gonna be a lot of fun. But for the most part, like I’m flying to Tennessee next week, it’ll be great. And then I’m on, I’m at home for another three weeks and then I’ll go to Atlanta and then we’ll fly from Atlanta up to Northern California and I’ll do an event there. And then I’m back for another three weeks and then down to Orlando. So that’s a pretty typical rhythm for me. And we say no to about 90% of all speaking engagements.
RV (31:26):
And then books. You also have books on top of all that. So you’ve got books.
CN (31:30):
Yeah, I got five, five books that I’ve written.
RV (31:33):
Uhhuh, . I mean it’s, it’s interesting because to me this, this follows a very similar path. I mean like, you know you know, like pastor or not like just going, you build an audience, you build trust, you create a a, a fan base, a group of people, you’re serving them. And then over time it leads, it just sort of becomes all of these, all of these things. What is, what is the, what’s the business of speaking in churches? Like how do you, is it mostly just pastors? Like some, cuz churches will hire people to come in and do a Sunday service, right? Mm-Hmm. . And then also it’s like some people hold, hold these big events and conferences at churches. Are that mostly only, is that mostly only just pastors who are doing that kind of a thing and
CN (32:24):
Yeah, so that’s, that’s a really interesting thing. So I mean, my old denomination, we used to call it pulpit supply and I used to do a lot of that when I was a pastor where, you know, for a couple hundred bucks, you speak at my church, I’ll speak at your church or whatever. I think with mega churches there is guest preaching that happens where you bring people in. I almost always say no to that. I can’t think of the last time I did guest preaching. Interesting. And the reason is, you
RV (32:51):
Mean you going there or someone coming to connect us?
CN (32:54):
Oh no, we, my successor, I, I used to bring people in to guest preach at our church, and my successor has definitely done his share of that, which I think is awesome. Okay. I don’t see that as my personal calling. I feel like my personal calling is to help leaders that I’m there to serve leaders. And it’s not that there’s not leaders on a Sunday morning in a church, but I, I really feel like if you’re doing a conference to the second part of your question, that’s more my jam. That’s what I love. I love talking to leaders. I love it when the leaders of a church or the leaders from industry gather and we get to talk or where sometimes that, that’s often hosted. Occasionally it’s hosted by churches. I did an event in Indianapolis that was hosted by a church and they invited business leaders and church leaders from their area.
CN (33:44):
But often I’m just speaking to church leaders or to bus, well I’m speaking to industry leaders too. So I’m speaking to Christian broadcast executives. I’ve done a number of events like that over the last few years. Or I’ll speak to chartered accountants who have a faith base or I’ll speak to just pastors who have gathered for a conference. And sometimes that’s hosted as a separate K not-for-profit or a for-profit company. Sometimes that hosted by marketplace people. Occasionally it’s hosted by a church, but that would be more of the kind of speaking that I do. Mm-Hmm. and that’s by choice. I I used to get a lot of invites to do and maybe I still get them, I don’t see every invi invite that comes, but I’m just like, no, I don’t do guest preaching as
RV (34:30):
A rule, but, but that, that is a business model. You can get paid to go guest preach yet.
CN (34:34):
Oh, there are people who, yeah, they would be itinerant teachers and they could go and, you know, speak almost every weekend at a church around the country. I’m, I’m just don’t feel like that’s a good calling for me.
RV (34:48):
Ah-Huh . And what, like, you know, roughly speaking, if you’re doing that, it, I’m, I’m assuming the fees for those are lower than what you would experience in the corporate market. Maybe more like an association, maybe like a few thousand bucks for a weekend or something like that.
CN (35:02):
Probably. You know, I’m not really in that field so I couldn’t tell you. Yeah. But like the conference circuit would definitely, I assume pay more more. Yeah. And you know, it would be like, well, you know, premier speakers and agencies like that, that it would be more like what you get paid at a leadership conference wouldn’t be quite what you get paid to keynote at a business conference, but it would be more on par with that.
RV (35:26):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it when we have, I mean, when Crosspoint in Nashville we have, we have guest preachers come in probably, I don’t know, maybe like four or five times a year. And it’s always, it’s always great. It’s always great. We had Lisa Harper this last weekend and do you, have you ever met her? Do you know Lisa Harper?
CN (35:42):
I haven’t, but I have all kinds of friends who know her and I Oh man. She’s hilarious and brilliant and wonderful.
RV (35:48):
Yes. Hilarious, brilliant Moving. I mean it was, it was such an incredible, such an incredible sermon. And
CN (35:56):
See and that is such a gift and like, it’s, it’s really interesting because you know, when I was, for the three years that I was still a lead pastor, I would work like crazy on a sermon and you know, we’d get maybe 1500 people who heard it or watched it or something like that. And that was great. And then I’d whip off a blog post in an hour and a half at 6:00 AM one morning and post it and the next week a hundred thousand people would’ve read it . So I was getting really disproportionate results on the leadership content and I take that like eventually it’s like, okay God, that might be a sign that this is something you’ve equipped me for. So that’s really the lane that I focus in. And even I was talking to a client this afternoon where you know, they wanted some kind of inspirational message and I’m like, I think you got the wrong guy. Like I am, I’m a leadership guy, but here’s what I can deliver. It’ll be in bullet points, it’ll have a few stories, it’ll be interesting. They’re like, yeah, we’re good for that. I’m like, I just don’t want you to think I’m the sermon guy cuz I’m not the sermon guy that said, I’m preaching at my church in April and I’m gonna do my best. But I can promise you it won’t have the resonance or the impact that a keynote I give at a conference will have. Yeah. It’s just the way I’m wired.
RV (37:11):
Yeah. I mean, I doing the sermons, man writing a new 20 minute speech every week. Like that’s not for the faint of heart that is. So,
CN (37:19):
But I did it for 30 years, so I’m like done.
RV (37:22):
Yeah. It’s, that’s, it’s, it is really, really hard to to, to do that. And
CN (37:27):
To the same people. Like when you’re Yeah. When you’re doing the conference thing, like I give a version of the same three talks wherever I go. Right. Usually have two or three that are kind of your current roster. And I’ll vary it by the event, but like I get to tell the same stories, the same jokes Yes. All that stuff because 98% of the audience has never heard you and that’s what they expect you to do. When you’re a conference speaker and you’re doing the circuit, it’s kinda like going to see Coldplay or Taylor Swift, you know, Taylor Swift to better do shake it off or you want your money back. Right. And so there are talks that I’ve been known for on the conference circuit and they want me to do them and I actually really enjoy it because I know I’m gonna help everybody in the audience. It’s sort of like, oh, I know where this is going. I know this is really gonna help people. We’re gonna have a great time together. Whereas, you know, if you’re preaching 40 Sundays a year, you’re kind of hoping this thing’s gonna connect, but you don’t know. It’s a very special thing, a really great period of my life, but like not anxious to go back
RV (38:25):
There. Interesting. Interesting. Well man, it, the this has been, this has been an awesome sort of journey down. I’m just always curious about the path of past, you know, pastor to leadership, you know, consultant and teacher and, you know this is, this has been super inspiring. Where do you want people to go, Carrie, if they want to connect with you and like link up with what you’re doing?
CN (38:54):
So my name is really easy to spell. Just go to carrie new h.com or you can go to the art of leadership academy.com. You’ll, you’ll find us there. Also Carrie New H Leadership podcast anywhere you listen to your podcast.
RV (39:07):
Yeah, yeah. It’s a great, a great, great show. Man, it’s been, it’s been so wonderful to get to know you a little bit and, and to be your pal and thanks for the work that you’re doing and, and all the people that you’re inspiring and r and thanks for being here and just sort of sharing like a little bit of behind the scenes of how Carrie New H became ke new H Man. It’s, it’s been awesome.
CN (39:28):
Well, it’s an absolute joy to be with you Rory. Thanks for having me.

Ep 371: 5 Things You Need to Know to Hit A Bestseller List | Esther Fedorkevich Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Have you ever wondered what makes a New York Times bestselling book? A bestselling book, ? And this has just been a question that has kind of plagued me over the years, because often we assume if it was a Wall Street Journal or New York Times bestselling book, or even an Amazon bestseller, like somehow this list definement makes it a better book than others. And that’s just not true. I mean, sometimes, right? That’s a very solid indicator. This is a fabulous book worth sharing. And other times you’re like, how did this book make the list? I’m, I’m not quite sure. And so this has just been a conversation that has come up so many times in my house, outside of my house. And so I actually just got finished having this awesome conversation with my friend Esther, about what really makes a bestselling book, a bestselling book, regardless of if it’s Amazon, wall Street Journal, or even New York Times.
AJV (00:58):
And so I thought I would share some of those tidbits with you because they were really important to me with the disclaimer. At the end of the day for anyone who is a writer, an author, a content creator, a thought leader, it’s like, I just think this should go without saying that. I do believe solely wholehearted wholeheartedly that knowing the amount of work that it takes to write a book and then edit it, and then rewrite it and then edit again, and then rewrite it again, like that’s no small feat. So I know that at the heart, most authors, most people who have a message on their hearts are not doing this just to hit the list, right? Because the real benefit is a life changed, a life transformed, sometimes a life saved because books have the power to do that. Words have the power to do that.
AJV (01:45):
And at the same time, we know that when you do hit a list, it creates a credibility factor, a shareability factor, a just a, a component to it that helps you share it more, get it into the hands of more people, thus impact change, transform save more lives. So I don’t want this to just be about, oh, like the only reason you write a book is if it’s only good if it hits the list. That’s clearly not the case, cuz lots of not so good books hit the list. and lots of incredible books never hit the list. Because at the end of the day, the end result, the most important, impactful thing is that you’re doing this to make a difference in the lives of the readers. And knowing that if you do happen to hit a list with some strategy and a plan, which is what it takes more people will get it, thus more people will be impacted. So let’s just let that be what it is. And I just like knock something off my desk with my hands flailing. And then let’s share some things around, okay, well, how do we then help it be a bestseller? Whatever that means to you. So here’s a couple things I thought were really, really good, is one, having great content is the prerequisite. It’s the
AJV (02:59):
you know, payment for entrance. You gotta have great content. But what is great content, and you gotta think about it like this and think about great content is content that you can remember, internalize, and then share. That’s great content. It’s simple in terms of its ability to be internalized and then regurgitated back out into the public. When it’s super complex, you’re like, oh, that’s really too hard for me to explain. Just go read it. Or you just have to go watch it, or you had to be there, right? It can’t be one of those things. It’s gotta be one of those things. I read this and this is what it meant to me and this is how it has changed me, and this is what I have done that has made such a monumental difference in my life. That’s great content. So let’s preface what is great content.
AJV (03:44):
Number two is you gotta have a platform. You’ve got to have people that are already coming alongside with you on this journey. And that’s a really important part of this because although not every author is in the business of hitting the bestseller book or selling millions of books, publishers are . So if you wanna work with a traditional publisher, a publishing house, they are in the business of publishing and making sure lots of books get sold. They don’t necessarily sell them, but they want them to get sold, which is why they publish them. So you’ve got to treat this like I am building a business, writing a book, launching a book is like building and launching a business. And that’s worth noting. If you’re not ready for that, you don’t have time capacity for that, then perhaps working with a traditional publishing house isn’t the venue for you.
AJV (04:37):
If you don’t want to hit a list and make this some sort of big part of your business, then self-publishing is an amazing route. And self-publishing today is extraordinarily amazing. Like, truly like it’s not the self-publishing that it was 12 years ago. Like you can’t even tell some of these self-publishing houses. You couldn’t even tell that this was done self-published. They’re really great. And so you’ve gotta think about the intent of that, of knowing that if you’re going after a traditional publisher, the intent is that you’re gonna hit the list and you’re gonna sell lots of copies. And in order to do that, you need a platform, right? You, you gotta have a platform of, of fans, followers customers that already know who you are and subscribe to the content that you’re teaching. Then I love this and I loved what Esther said, and she was like, you actually have to have a unique idea, right?
AJV (05:27):
Having great content is one thing, but it needs to be unique. It needs to be a creative idea or concept. What we would say is it’s got to forward thought leadership. It doesn’t have to be a brand new idea, but it’s got to be presented in a brand new way. So those are the three things fundamentally that are kind of like at the base, the foundation of if you’re going after a bestseller list to get this in the hands of lots of, or get this book in the hands of lots of people, those are like the prerequisites. Then there was a few other things that I thought was really important, and she was like, you just, the bestseller list, just hitting the bestseller list on Amazon alone is its own algorithm and its own beast of just knowing what category listings, not listing listings to be in.
AJV (06:15):
And I’m gonna tell you, go listen to my podcast interview with Esther. This is just like one of the most insightful interviews. So just go listen to it in terms of if you’re in that world of writing and publishing a book right now and your launch season or pre-launch season go listen to the interview with Esther. But this whole concept of Amazon listings, it’s like, think about it like this way, when you go look for a book in a retail bookstore yes, there are a few of those left , not many, but a few. It’s, it’s not like you’re looking for, you know, you know, let’s just say religion Christian, female entrepreneur, right? You’re not doing that. You’re just going and looking for like, what categorically speaking, I’m, I’m looking for some sort of entrepreneur book for females, for whatever, right?
AJV (07:07):
And I think it’s like, it’s like that but different when it comes to Amazon because you’re just typing in book names or categories. You’re not saying, Hey, I want to research kids books about turtles. Most likely you’re saying, Hey, I want to go kids books for five to seven year olds, boys, right? And it’s like, the thing is though, the category listings are really important and Esther told us awesome story about one of her clients who is a 17 year old who wrote a kid’s book about turtles and it hit number one on the Amazon bestseller list under the category of turtles. Turtles, right? It’s a kiss moment, it hit it under turtles. So it’s like being strategic with the marketing intent is a really important part of, you can’t just have a great book and assume you can just throw it on Amazon or anywhere.
AJV (07:55):
It’s like no, that there needs to be some strategy and marketing intent in order to get it to some of those credibility components like a bestseller’s list that’s then going to help it spread and help the message populate throughout, you know, your intended audience. So category listings actually do make a difference. I think that was really unique and very insightful. The other thing that I thought was really interesting is she shared with me that audiobooks audio sales are up 347%. Now, book sales are also up, but audiobook sales are up 347%. And what she said is that most people even though they listen to it on audio, they will also buy a physical copy because after they listen to it, they wanna go back and have something to underline or highlight or go back over. And so many people are doing both.
AJV (08:49):
But audio that’s huge. And then she goes, I make my author. So Esther is an agent, right? She is the owner and founder of the Fed Agency, but she goes, I say, if you’re gonna write a book, you must do an audio book. It’s a prerequisite, right? You’re doing it. And I would say I would throw that in there as the unsolicited feedback from a consumer books. If you’re gonna do an audio book, make sure you read it. You need to read your own book. Don’t hire someone else to read your book. You read your book. It makes it so much better for the consumer to listen to if you’re listening to the actual author. So just a couple of quick things about audio and the importance of not just having your book and words on pages, but having the audio version will actually help your book sales, audio sales help book sales.
AJV (09:35):
So make sure you have it on audio. Then we talked about a couple of other things that I thought were just really important. And some of them are just high level and, but worthwhile, worthwhile is that if you’re gonna launch a book you need to treat it like you’re launching a business because that’s what it is. And you need to be prepared to put in the time, resources, money as if you were launching a business. And because that’s what it takes. It’s gonna take a lot of sweat equity, a lot of actual equity, bro, dollars and cents like things cost money to prize. But a lot of time, and I thought this was really again, an important thing to remember. It’s like people talk about launch season. If you’re an author or an aspiring author, you know what I’m talking about.
AJV (10:20):
There’s a launch season. But nobody really explains like how long is a launch season. And what Esther said is she was like, A launch season is about a year, a year, not six weeks not three months, not six months, 12 months, let’s say year. And she goes, most of my authors begin their pre-sales and their kind of pre-launch season, six months before the pub date of their book, six months. And now that’s after they already have a plan in place. So think about how much time before that where they actually architecting and creating the plan to then actually go into launch season to start pre-selling. Then you have your launch season, right, which is probably the week before, week of week after your book launch. But then you’ve got your post-launch season, which is if you’ve spent years of your life writing, editing, publishing, marketing, selling a book, you don’t really wanna give up a week after it goes live. So there is an entire season of how do we build up all the anticipation and all the excitement for the book, and then how do we keep it going for six more months after, right? And one of the things that we say at Brand Builders Group is, if you’re not willing and interested and inspired to be talking about what you’re writing about for at least the next 10 years of your life, and don’t write it, it’s not the right topic. Find something else. Find something that you could talk about incessantly, naturally,
AJV (11:53):
Organically, or at least 10 years. Now that doesn’t mean you won’t write other books and talk about other things, but you gotta love it so much that for the next 10 years I would dedicate every conversation to this or for my life. Like, I could be talking about this until the day that, you know, I go to heaven, I God brings me home. It’s like I could talk about it forever. That is what needs to be in your book, is the things that people are like, man, like you always talk about that. You should write a book about that. And so just think about that. It’s like, this is not, I’m gonna write it and then for a couple of weeks we’re gonna market it and then it’s gonna spread. And no, it’s the, it’s not build it and they will come. It is you build it and then you go talk about it and talk about it some more and talk about some more and then some more and then a little bit more.
AJV (12:37):
And so it’s just treating it like a business that it’s like, it’s not something you write and it just sits on a shelf. It’s just like a business. It takes a continual process over the course of time before, during, and after to really make it successful. And then the last thing that I would just say I would just share is there is not one sales aha. In order to sell a lot of books, there’s a lot of sales aha movements and a lot of sales strategies. And there’s not one thing that’s a lot of things happening simultaneously that work today and that’s new and that’s different and that can’t feel overwhelming, which is why you need a good strategy and you need a plan that you can do over six months. So some of those things are making sure you’ve got a good social media plan.
AJV (13:22):
And some of the things that Esther and I talked about on our conversation I thought was so good is do fun things that create engagement. Like do a do a book cover reveal with your social media followings. Do a challenge from content in the book. Do different fun things like do a book launch party do giveaways, but create engagement with your social media months and months before it releases. You know, give tiny little sample excerpts outs, share stories, but create engagement all around the content that’s happening in the book. Other things were make sure you do a podcast tour, right? Make sure that it’s like you’re hitting every single media outlet in media venue. You can speaking, right? Speak for free, speak for money, go on podcasts. If you can get big media outlets to interview you, that’s great too.
AJV (14:12):
But it’s making sure that you’re just exhausting all of your resources. It’s not just sending an email to your list or just focusing on your followers. It’s how do I access anyone who I think could benefit from the message that are on the pages of this book? And that takes time and it takes a plan. And it’s not one thing. It’s lots of things happening simultaneously, which means you gotta have a sales and marketing plan. And I think that’s like the big overarching takeaway is that launching a book is like launching a business. And as the author, a huge part of your role is the salesperson. You, like, you are the sales team of the book. And if you are not a great salesperson, then you’ve got got to surround yourself with great salespeople who can go out and market and sell the book on your behalf.
AJV (14:57):
But again, like this is a really important thing just to walk away with, is we say this all the time that Brand Builders Group is, there is no such thing as a New York Times best writing author. There’s only New York Times best selling author. Highlight, bold, underline, whatever you need to do, which means that’s who is selling it, right? That’s who is selling the most. That’s who’s buying the most of that book. There’s not a lot of the best writing. That’s the, you know, that’s just what’s required. That’s the prerequisite, is it’s great writing, it’s great content that should be right. But then there’s gotta be the sales and marketing plan to get it in the hands of the people that you can help. So I hope this helps. You’re so insightful for me. Great reminders, new stuff. So hope this was helpful. Go check out the full conversation on our podcast, the influential Personal brand. I’ll catch you later.

Ep 370: What Makes A New York Times Bestselling Book with Esther Fedorkevich

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody and welcome to another episode on the influential Personal Brands. AJ Vaden here, one of your co-hosts. And I’m very, very excited to have a special guest and a new friend on the show today. But she’s new to me. She’s not new to Brain Builders Group or to my husband Roy Vaden, because Esther works with tons of our clients, lots of our friends, and also some of our team members. And I was just sharing this with her before, if we didn’t already have such a tight relationship with our literary agent, Nina, like there is no one else on the planet that we would even consider to desire to work with other than Esther. So before I give her a formal introduction, I just wanna tell you guys why you need to stick around for this show because as you saw the title of the show, it’s How to Write a New York Times bestselling book.
AJV (00:48):
And here are the reasons that you wanna stick around to the end. Number one, you can’t write a New York Times bestselling book surprise. So you probably need to stick on, figure out then, well, how on God’s green Earth do you get one if it’s not writing one? So that’s the first thing. Second thing is that this is an episode for you who are in the author space. It doesn’t not matter if you dream of being one, you’re an aspiring one, you’re a first time one, or you’re an established author. This is an episode of if you have a book that you want to get into the hands of other humans you need to listen to, because that’s what we’re gonna talk about. And then the third are just what are some of the ins and outs of actually making it work in the publishing industry today?
AJV (01:32):
Because it’s changing. It’s been changing, it will continue to change. So as someone who’s in that creative space and you wanna get your thoughts on paper and that paper into the hands of many, what do you need to know of how to get a book published and out into the world today? So that’s why you wanna listen and lemme tell you mainly why you want to listen. So I’m gonna tell you a little bit about Esther formally. So Esther is the owner of the Fed Agency. Esther oh my gosh, see better Kevin? Yep. I’ve been saying for Dork for Forever Better Kevi, I’m gonna like say this in my sleep now, but she’s the owner of the Fed Agency. She started her career in a lot of different ways, but some very I think important things to know is like you were part of the Dave Ramsey organization and really helped grow that to what it is. I think that, I think I read somewhere that you have helped more than 80 books become on the New York Times bestseller list a hundred.
EF (02:28):
We’re over a hundred now. We just hit 102.
AJV (02:31):
Woo. I mean, if that doesn’t inspire you to listen to the rest of this episode, then you can just go ahead and like hop off right now. But it’s like if you’ve helped more than a hundred people hit the New York Times list, this is just extraordinary. But one of the things that I loved most about your bio that you sent over is that you’re not just in the business of helping people get their books published. This is about changing lives helping dreams come true and really being a conduit of really good messages for people all around the world. And I love that you’re also a mom. You’ve got two kids. You live in Austin, Texas, and I could go on and on and on, but Esther, welcome to the
EF (03:07):
Show. Thanks AJ for having me.
AJV (03:10):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. I have like, genuinely been looking forward to this conversation. Four weeks ever since we got this scheduled because I, I wanna just be I wanna be like one of your customers today because I think there’s so much changing in this space and in the industry of what I’m gonna call thought leadership or the knowledge economy. That’s, I just, I think that we’re, if you’re not constantly having these conversations, you’re already behind. And so as we kinda like step into this and what does it look like today, I wanna know two things to help our audience get to know you is one, you could have done so many different things. Like you have sold millions and millions and millions of dollars through book publishing. You have worked with some of the largest names, household names out there. You could be doing anything you want. Why did you pick this space? So that’s my first question.
EF (04:04):
Okay. So I didn’t pick it, it kind of fell in my lap when I started working for Dave Ramsey. We were self-publishing and then publishing with publishers about 50 different products a year. And they were all financial products. So I was trying to think of like a new way to say the same thing with a new marketing. It’s all marketing guys, right? So new marketing idea, new way. And it was get, I’m like, I wanna do more than just finance books. And so I worked for Dave till the day I gave birth to my first daughter. I was 25 years old and I said, I’m gonna start my own literary agency and I think I could do this. I was good at sales. And I’m like, I love story. So what, it really fell in my lap. Cause I love story. I’m really a branding and marketing person.
EF (04:43):
A lot of literary agents come in this space because they’re literary, they’re writers. I came in this space as an entrepreneur and businesswoman, but coming in from the say I love story and I love helping people know how to market that story. Cuz there’s one thing about writing a great book and then there’s the other thing about getting it out there and selling it. So both things matter, but it kind of fell in my lap. And then I’m really good with people. I was a big Zig Zeigler fan growing up. I mean, I think I’ve listened to every Zig zeigler, you know, audio cassette back in the day. And like, I also just love people. So Dave Ramsey had us read a book. He made all of his employees read a book, how To Win Friends and Influence People. And then I did this Dale Carnegie course and I’m like, I’m really good with people. I love story and I can sell. So I kind of said, wow, that makes a good literary agent, someone who can sell Ari. Because most writers aren’t salespeople naturally. Yeah. Most writers are, you know, they have the ideas, they’re right, they’re, they don’t like bragging about themselves. So it’s perfect for someone like me coming in and helping get their message out.
AJV (05:42):
Matt, I love that. And you put in your bio statement that that’s your also your favorite book. Why is that your favorite book?
EF (05:48):
I think because it’s still relevant today. When he wrote that, think about it, it was no social media. There was no, I mean, I told my employees all the time, did you talk to them? Did you actually actually pick up the phone and talk to them? Right? Did you, so I love relationships, I love building relationships. And my whole business has been built on relationships, real genuine relationships. And I think a lot of times this younger generation comes in and they have, you know, a hundred thousand friends on Instagram or Facebook, but they couldn’t, they have never picked up the phone and talked to them. Mm-Hmm. . So that’s a big thing for me is in How to Win Friends and people like, like all those principles, if you haven’t read it, read it, it’s still relevant today.
AJV (06:26):
Oh, it’s one of my favorite books too. It was mandatory reading early in my sales career. And you said something that I think is gonna set the precedent for the rest of our conversation, which is, you’re, you’re in the literary field, but at the end of the day, you’re branding and marketing aka sales. And I think one of the things that we run into all the time with our podcast listeners to, with, with our Brain Builders Group community and just with everyday conversations is people somehow have forgotten that relationships are still the fundamental way that we do business today. And they think that you get enough followers, you get enough this and this is gonna figure itself out. And, you know, we are lucky to be behind the scenes of a lot of launches. And I’ll tell you what, lots of emails do not convert into lots of books all the time. And lots of followers do not convert into lots of sales most of the time. And so hence why I think this conversation, I’m
EF (07:23):
Glad you figured that out. Cause if there, if that was true, right? We’d all have the magic formula and no, just to sign someone if they had 10 million followers that they were gonna sell 10 million books. But that’s not the case.
AJV (07:34):
That is not the case. And so here is why we’re here today. Like what is it? Like, what do we need to be doing? So here’s my first here’s my first question which is kind of like, you know, part two of a little bit about your backstory is what, what do you think makes someone not a great writer, but a great candidate to hit a list? Because I think that’s like ultimately what so many people want is like, how do I hit that Personally, I don’t really care, but I know that it’s a big goal of most. And so I’m curious, what do you think it is not about the writing, but what makes someone a good candidate to have the list eligibility?
EF (08:16):
Well, I say like, as an agent, I look for three things, right? And you have to have two of these three things to be successful. And I think to have a chance to be a New York Times bestseller, and this is for me acquiring an author to go sell, right? But then I still think it’s relevant as when they go to brand builders and you’re helping ’em, or they’re doing it on their own. It, you have to have a great book. It still has to be a good book guys to sell. Like you can’t just write crap, right? And then think it’s gonna sell because you have 50 million followers, right? That’s, I mean, I can prove you over and over again people that have 50 million plus followers that haven’t sold a hundred thousand books.
AJV (08:53):
I, I agree.
EF (08:54):
So step one, have good content. Step one, the content’s gotta be good. And if you have the ideas and thoughts, work with a great writer or, or collaborator that can help you put those, read them in a way that you’re making the reader, you’re empowering ’em to change, you’re encouraging, you’re inspiring, you’re, you know, making ’em cry. You’re making ’em laugh, whatever the goal is of that book. But they really wanna, at the end, when they close it, they wanna get up and go their, their life has changed somehow. Mm-Hmm. number two is platform, right? And we always talk about this platform, platform platform. It’s easier for me to sell someone with a big platform than someone who’s the most incredible writer, right? But they don’t have a platform. And that’s sad. Back in the day, it was all about the writing or, you know, before social media.
EF (09:39):
When I started, I started in 2003, the only social media around was MySpace. So there was no Facebook, there was no Instagram, there was, there was no TikTok there. So think like I like started as a young agent, right? When social media was coming out and how the older authors were thinking that we’re selling, you’d actually go into retail and find their book. So I, a quote of mine is, with the death of retail is the death of discoverability. So there’s no retail anymore. So gotta get that outta your mind. And everything is our phone. I don’t have mine here or like the computer. It’s how people are getting to you to buy that book. So platform is huge. And when I can find, even if someone doesn’t have the biggest platforms, but they have a cultish engaged platform mm-hmm. , but where people really follow ’em and respond, that’s even more important.
EF (10:27):
If you, and you can look at that by like, what’s their engagement level, what’s their likes? How many people are actually commenting? That’s super important. That means they have a tribe that’s pretty, you know, dialed into them. And then the third thing, so you got, it has to be a good book, right? A good content. It’s gotta be platform. And the third one is gotta be a creative idea. It’s gotta be a good idea. That’s why when you see some of these books that they have a saying on it, like, make Your Bed Right? Or the four Hour We Work Week, I put them the four hour work week just cause I’m like, Ooh, that sounds amazing. Four hours a week, that’s all I would have to work. Right? And it’s not even about that. So it’s like having a really cool concept where idea or thought process that like actually makes your book different is really big.
EF (11:10):
The har like when someone has a great story, so many people have great stories. It’s finding that secret thing in your story and expanding off of that. Mm-Hmm. . And that’s what we do. Because I come from marketing and branding. When I sit with an author, I never go to an author and say, you should write a book. Right? If I’m talking to a huge celebrity, they hear that all the time. I go to them and say, Hey, I’ve been studying, I look at what they engage in. You should write this book. This is the type of book you should write. And that’s why I usually sign these big, you know, celebrities because I’m actually bringing them a really creative idea of why this is the type of book they should write. And I think a lot of times people wanna write a book and it’s not the book they should write, they actually should start somewhere else. And it, and that’s where it’s great when you’re talking to marketers or branders where you’re coming up in a network of saying, this is what really makes you unique.
AJV (11:59):
No, I love that. It’s not that you should write a book, it’s you should write that book that you need to write a book about that. So like, for any of you listening, it’s just, I would just sit there and ask yourself like, what do people actually come to you for? Right? And it’s like, that’s something we talk about all a lot, a lot even in like our own like family and our own personal brands at Brand Builders Group is like, what do people come to you for? Like, what’s that superpower thing? It’s not that you have a great story, it’s the stories, the launching pad. It’s what is something that you do so well, so uniquely different that you could write a whole book about it. Yeah.
EF (12:31):
And so like a lot of times like for a pastor by, like, I work with a lot of pastors of huge megachurches, right? And let’s say they wanna write on something and that’s the sermon that got the worst downloads, right? But that’s what they really care about. And I’ll look at them and say, what’s the message that everyone comes back? They remember 10 years? Like, what’s your core message? And guess what that core message is? Their biggest selling book. Like if you look at Warren with the Purpose Driven Life or Joel o with Your Best Life Now, or like, I could go on and on. All of those were those pastor’s core message that people remembered and kept coming back to them. So it’s not the other, the new message because why haven’t any of their other books sold with that book is sold. So it’s, it’s, I think it’s really kind of identifying what that secret thing is, why people love you and are coming to you, what content is that that they’re going
AJV (13:21):
For? Yeah, I love that. Cuz so many people do. It’s like, and there’s this, I’m not saying this is right and or wrong, you can say that, but I won’t. But it’s like so many people want to tell their story, right? And it’s like, that’s for a keynote, that’s for a blog, that’s for social media and that’s a piece of the book, but it’s not the book.
EF (13:36):
Yep. You got it. You’re exactly. So a lot of times people are like, oh, I wanna tell my story. Well, memoirs don’t sell that well, right? You have to have the secret in the memoir, right? Mm-Hmm. in your story. So I’m really big on my biggest space is it’s on the New York Times, it’s the miscellaneous how to, it’s the self-help space. So we do tons of memoirs, but when we tell that celebrity story, it’s a hook about how they live their life. What, what made them successful? Yeah. What made them not quit? What made them, so that’s the angle of the book with pieces of their story throughout. But I don’t like a book where it’s like, I was born here and then I went here , and then I like, that’s boring, right? And the only person you’re selling that to is your core, core crazy cultish fan base, right? Yeah. That’s the only people that are gonna buy that book. And that’s why lots of huge celebrities that do memoirs, they’re like a bestseller for them is 40,000 books and they have mm-hmm. millions and millions of fans. It’s because they didn’t like identify what that core thing is.
AJV (14:31):
Yeah. I love that so much. And I love this whole thing. It’s, you know, it’s one, one, I kind of wrote this down, it’s like whenever you’re saying it’s like clearly you have to have good content, but it’s like, make it sticky, make it memorable. Make it shareable, right? It’s like, it’s not like, oh, that was a good book and then you forget that you ever read it. Which I’ve done lots of those two platform, it matters. And I love what you said, it’s like death of retail is death of discoverability. So you’ve got to have a platform and what is it, right? And how many people are you reaching? I love that. Number three this is just what I wrote down is it’s about the creative idea, but it’s, it’s about developing true thought leadership. Right? You know, people always say there’s, you can’t say anything that hasn’t been said that may be true, but you can say it in a new way.
AJV (15:14):
You can say it in new context. And with that slight twist, so what is your version of forwarding this thought, this idea this thing. And I, I love that so much because I feel like people really struggle with how do I take these ideas from my head, get ’em on paper, but then translate them in a way where it’s not about me, it’s about the reader, it’s about the end audience, but then getting it from there to actually having someone buy it, right? Yes. So let’s assume we have great content. It’s sticky, it’s memorable, shareable. We have a good platform, we got a great idea, a unique, awesome idea. Where do we go from there?
EF (15:58):
Okay, so let me first say, if there was a magic formula, we would all be worth a billion dollars. Okay. , I’m just like, if there was a magic formula, cause then I would only pick the winners, right? So I think a lot of times you have those three things and you’re working it and sometimes something goes viral, right? That you don’t expect goes viral. Like, I did this, my daughter did, it is a good example. My daughter was doing a TikTok and she said, Hey mom I wanna let you know I put you in this TikTok. And we, it went viral and it went crazy and we had over 2 million views and 500,000 likes. And it was the dumbest video, right? And, but hot, like it went viral. So sometimes you get lucky, something goes viral, it’s the perfect timing. You get on, you know, the Today Show in Good Morning America and it’s just like the perfect lineup, right?
EF (16:43):
But I’ve had the perfect lineup of all the major shows and it wasn’t a bestseller, which it’s just like, oh, you get so upset, you’re like, what? That’s, and then that book you see 12 months later hit the New York Times. So sometimes you don’t know. It’s not like you, you, you have to do all the right things, right? And one of the things is what worked, and you, I know h i u would agree with this and Rory would agree with this. What worked two years ago doesn’t work today. It keeps changing because people are buying differently. Yeah. And they’re using different, like it was the day of the email blast was everything, right? And then it was the day of Facebook like it all, I believe you have to, you have to do all of the things and consistently. So I kind of think it, it’s like marketing you.
EF (17:28):
You can’t just talk about your book on book launch week and then not talk about it anymore. It’s, you can’t just be onto the next thing. You really gotta give a book time and make that your core message for the whole year and let people hear it, let people talk about it. That’s why if it’s a good book and it’s changing people’s lives, guess who what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna tell your friend when someone gives you a book and it’s not that great of a book. You’re not talking about it it to others. Yeah. So it’s about, I think, I think authors give up too quick. And I see this all the time. It’s like the ones that are persistent, that keep going, that keep working it, that keep investing because you have to look at an author. It’s like when you write a book, it’s a business.
EF (18:04):
Let’s get real. It’s not a hobby. If you wanna be successful, you’re starting a new business and that book is your new business. And a book can turn into more speaking dates. A book can turn into, you know, like you are opening into new audiences that you never were before. It could get you on podcasts, it could get you on media. I mean, a book, a book opens lots of doors. But, and it also makes you that expert in that topic. When you put a book out, what does everyone think? Oh my gosh, that you’re an expert. You, you must be, cuz you have a whole book, a book’s a lot of work. It’s not like, oh, you say I wanna write a book, and then you think it’s gonna be a couple hours a week of your time. Yeah. But I think authors spends so much time writing the book and then it comes to marketing and they don’t put the same amount of time into the marketing.
EF (18:45):
And they think an agent, I always say an agent is not a magician. I I’m not this, I can’t wave my magic wand and make all my books that I do hit the New York Times bestseller list. Right? It’s hard work. And so when you go in, if you can go into with that like, perspective of publishing and your book is, this is a business, I’m gonna grow my business. If you had any other business, you’re not gonna sit open up a retail store and never go work it and never go check, check out your competition and ev I mean, you’re consistently working it. And so I think authors gotta be looking at, you know, when they write a book, it’s part of their bus, it’s a business and it, or it’s part of their business and they’re gonna spend some time growing it.
AJV (19:23):
Yeah. I love that. I think that’s such a great reminder of if you, if you just wanna talk about your book, just so it hits the list, don’t even bother writing it. But it’s like, you gotta be able to willing to talk about this book all day long, every single day for years and years and years. And if you don’t wanna talk about it for a lifetime, don’t write it.
EF (19:41):
And AJ that’s why when it’s your life message, you’re always talking about it. So though, that’s why the, there’s always a book for every author that’s the one that sells the most. It’s because they’re, they love talking about it. So I, identifying that makes it big.
AJV (19:56):
Yeah. I think for, again, for everyone listening, it’s just, if you don’t want to talk about whatever is going on the pages of your book for a lifetime, then start over. Like start over. Because if you want people to buy it, you’re gonna have to talk about it incessantly to the point where you’re sick and tired of hearing your own voice and then you do it some more. Right? And I think that is a thing for all of us, is we move on too quickly.
EF (20:19):
What drives me crazy is when an author is on a, like they have a big break, they’re on a big show, right? Let’s say they’re on Joe Rogan and they never talk about their book. And I’m like, you’re on the big, like one of the biggest podcasts and you know, you’re talking about your book, but you never mentioned that you have a book. So like really working with authors too, and I know you guys do this like on a regular basis, but in my book, you know, here’s the title. This is what I talk about in my book. Like it’s really also training the authors. You want people, people to buy your book, right? So you’ve gotta talk about your book.
AJV (20:50):
Yeah. So that kinda leads me to the second thing that I wanna talk about, which is this concept of, to be a great author, in my opinion, to be a bestselling author anyways, you have to be a great salesperson. And we, we have this saying that brain builders group that, you know, editors edit, publishers publish, but Hoover, him sells, right? And it’s like the author does, the author needs to sell. So I’d love to hear your take on how do you get people to buy your book, right? Because at some point you get big advances for authors all the time, but that big advances don’t mean anyone’s buying it. It’s like at some point you gotta, you gotta put some hustle and grind into this and say, what am I gonna do to move some books? So what moves books? Like what do you see as actually moving books today?
EF (21:40):
A bunch of things, right? All together at the same time because people look and once you see things, you know, like on your, on your feed, when you get the same thing coming up then what do you do? Oh, I gotta buy that. Right? You can’t just do it one time. You gotta keep talking. Like, if I keep seeing something over and over on Instagram, guess what? I’m gonna finally click it and buy it. So it’s consistently talking. Get on line up your podcast, do 50 podcasts, right? Do like, make sure you’re always talking about it. But okay, so when you were, when you were talking about authors have to sell their book, if you’re an author, I’m just, that is not a good salesperson that can’t sell. You better have a freaking amazing team around you that can sell for you. So if your natural skill, like I’m probably, I would say the best salesperson probably I’ve ever met.
EF (22:24):
Like honestly that’s my one gift. I didn’t think that sales actually mattered. Like, but I’m like, oh, I’m really good at selling, so let me, but I can’t sell all my authors books for them. They have to. So if I can train them a little bit how to be at least a little better than what they are at sales. And if they, if they lack that, like the truly like the writers, the introverts that can’t sell, get people around you that can help you sell mm-hmm. because there’s lots of introverts that have sold millions and millions of copies of books, right? And have had bestsellers, but they have good teams around them. So if I’m just saying that in case you’re not a naturally born salesperson, that it just comes easy to you. But be authentic to who you are. And if you love the message, you’re gonna be authentic and you won’t even realize it, but you’re selling.
EF (23:06):
Right? So I think, and I mean you guys do this right? I think it’s putting enough time in your presales up. You have to, you can’t just start promoting your book a week before your book releases. The, it’s getting longer and longer. Six months before start talking, do a cover reveal, have your audience like build up this anticipation that your book’s coming out and why they need your book. So I think it’s the building up. You can’t just start a it, I mean you can’t just start week of release. You got, I mean the best selling books, I mean we’ve have planned six months, nine months ahead of time that we’re building towards that release. Hmm. Creating multiple products. Like I love it when we have a trade book and a devotional or e-course or a bible study or a gift book like, or a children’s book like actually building where there’s other products feeding into people wanting to buy the trade book.
EF (23:58):
So everything test leads back to the trade book. So if you have a children’s book that has a some little message that kind of gears you to the trade book, it makes you wanna read the trade book. So a trade book is your, your your main book. You know, it’s, it’s the, it’s the non-fiction self-help book. And then you can have all these little products that kind of leads you or are magnets to lead you to the trade book. So offering free content, doing some kind of challenge before getting people for free to get invested in something that they’re like, wow, this is so great that they have to buy the trade book speaking, setting up a speaking tour around your book. That’s huge. Cuz speaking, you’re, you’re getting a hundred people or a thousand or 10,000 people at one time, all motivated talking, putting it on social media, buying it on Amazon. So that’s why I say like, it’s multiple things going at the same time. Is all of our bestsellers have had that.
AJV (24:51):
Yeah, I think that’s
EF (24:52):
Had a plan. You can’t just go into publishing your book without a marketing plan. And so many authors go into books without a marketing plan. And the biggest, biggest mistake authors make is they think the publisher’s gonna do it for them Guys, I’m telling you, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. The publisher is not gonna do it for you. It’s all on. You have to go in, even if you’re with the biggest publisher in the world and you ha and you got a 5 million advance and every, yeah, they’re gonna put some more money into you. That’s really what they’re gonna do. But you still have to be involved and you have to work your butt off. Like it’s just how it is. You’re never gonna get a best seller if you’re sitting back and just thinking the publisher’s gonna do it for you.
AJV (25:34):
No, I, I think this is really, really important. Going back to what you said earlier about launching a book, writing a book is like starting a business. So it needs to be treated like one or at least a part of the business because like to that it’s like how many of us would’ve actually lodged a business without some sort of plan or some sort of budget with the money and the funds that we had? And it’s like, most would not do that most, right? It’s no different with your book. It’s no different. And
EF (26:02):
If you go,
AJV (26:03):
You gotta have a plan.
EF (26:04):
If you go the business mentality into it, you’re thinking, okay, like if I was gonna start a business and I’m like, okay, it’s gonna cost me $80,000 to invest and start this business and I’m gonna be working 80 hours a week, and I that’s your book. You should be thinking with that mentality going into your book, that is a business and you’re investing in something, however it’s gonna return. You know what your revenue returns gonna be on it, great. But it’s how much work you put into it. You cannot go into a book think you don’t have to invest any money, you don’t have to invest any time. You know, it’s not gonna be a bestseller then you’re just writing a legacy book. Like a lot of, like my rich billionaire clients do they just write a book so that their family can have it. They don’t care about sales, they don’t care about, they don’t wanna talk about it. It’s just for their, their kids, grandkids, great grandkids to know about how they started their business.
AJV (26:47):
All right. So that leads me to a question that I have for you. Something you said made me think about this. So what about for the authors who want an agent wanna go the traditionally published route and they don’t really care if they ever hit a list, they want a big advance and then they just want sales to happen organically.
EF (27:04):
That’s tricky cuz most, most big one, big celebrity clients, they wanna hit a bestseller list, right? The issue I see a lot AJ, is when an author comes in, they don’t have a platform, they have a really good idea, they’re a good writer, they don’t have a big platform. And I don’t work with the smaller publishers really because the smaller publishers don’t pay advances. You’re giving up too much, you’re not controlling your rights. So we have a program here at the Fed Agency where we, we pick a select few, right? But that we publish it for them where we’re helping them grow their platform so that when they’re at the point that they’re ready for a big New York publisher, we’re able to go sell ’em and they’re of value to them. But the days of the big advances, you have to have a big platform if you’re thinking you’re good or it’s gotta be a national media story where then everybody knows the story, everybody wants to do the book and there’s a bidding war on it. And I think, I think the mistake authors make is they don’t treat a book like a business. And that’s really comes down to, so an author comes in here and they don’t care about the bestseller list, but they want a big advance, then we’ll probably get them a big advance if we can. And then the publisher’s disappointed, everyone’s disappointed, and then they’re not really doing another book anymore.
AJV (28:16):
Hmm. So that’s around
EF (28:18):
Building a publishing enterprise. Like we want authors coming in and we do have the books that the authors that they’re only gonna do one book in their career and that’s it. But most of our authors are looking at building a publishing enterprise. They’re saying, I want publishing to be part of my business, part of my brand, part of everything I do. And then we’re mapping out what that could look like.
AJV (28:36):
And if you don’t want that, then probably don’t need an agent, don’t need a publishing house. That’s really the, this is the self-published route, right? If you’re not trying to do this to grow a and treat it like a business, because at the end of the day, publishers are in business to sell books. Right. And they’re depending on you to do that.
EF (28:56):
Yeah. So like, like I’ll take 2022, we did 200 million in sales in book sales. And when you think about that, like wow, that’s $20 a book that’s 10 millions books sold last year from the Fed agency of all of our authors. Right? And that seems like a lot, but at the majority of, if you look at how many of those books actually sold over 500,000 copies, I mean you, you it’s maybe six.
AJV (29:22):
Yeah.
EF (29:24):
Lot of ’em sold a hundred thousand. And so you’re trying to get that author that sold 50,000 in the first year to the next year, saw a hundred thousand of their next book. Mm-Hmm. , you’re trying, we’re all of our authors, were trying to grow their platform. We’re not like, so that each book they do is selling more and more. So that when you get to a, a point where you’re an author that anytime you put a book out, you’re selling a quarter of a million no matter what, that’s when you’ve really arrived and you’ve really found success because you have this following that’s gonna buy anything from you. And it’s a big enough number that every publisher wants you.
AJV (29:55):
And you know, it’s so funny, it’s like when you’re thinking of selling a half a million or a million books, in theory that feels like a lot. But then if you think about it in context of even just the population of the United States is like roughly 365 million and we’re talking about people are trying to figure out how to sell 100,000. That’s such a teeny tiny, I know minuscule portion of the actual just population in the US forget North America or you know, the remain the remainder of the world. But it’s like, it’s really small. So what makes it so hard to reach even such a small percentage of the population?
EF (30:30):
I think a lot of authors give away their content for free. So people don’t think they need to buy the book cuz they’ve heard it. And that’s a big mistake. I mean, you have to give bits mm-hmm. And pieces, but you have to make the book unique that it’s a, you need to read this, right? Don’t, like PE pastors do a sermon series. You walk in, you’ve heard it, you’ve seen you get everything for free, right? So why would you spend $25 for a hardback book? You already got it for free. So it’s making that urgency, right? That need that you need to buy it. And we try to help our authors build transactional audiences, audiences that will pay money, not audiences that just get everything from you for free. And that’s where I think if you’re in business, you’re gonna be thinking, I wanna give some things for free, but I’m not gonna give the magic away for free. Right. I’m gonna make them know that there’s value and that they’re gonna pay for that.
AJV (31:18):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I’m just laughing and smiling because like, our biggest philosophy is always and forever give away the what but charge for the how
EF (31:28):
Good
AJV (31:29):
You can give away the what charge for the how.
EF (31:32):
I agree with that like that. And that’s why e-courses are doing so well, right? Because people want, but listen, it’s like if someone gives you a free ticket to a concert right? You’re chances are you probably won’t go right? But when you pay $200 for a ticket, you’re gonna
AJV (31:46):
Show up. It’s an investment. Yeah.
EF (31:47):
It’s an investment. And so I think like, I think the same thing when you, when it an e-course someone says, oh, here’s my e-course for 20 bucks join. I show up like it’s a $20 e-course. Right? But if I’m paying $3,000 for e-course, I’m gonna show up like it’s a $3,000 e-course, I’m gonna look nice. I’m gonna do my makeup, I’m gonna like, but if it’s 20 bucks, I’m like in my workout clothes with wall cap on saying, okay, let me see what the heck this is. You know?
AJV (32:10):
Yeah. Well, and like I’ll, I I tell you like last year I made this commitment that I was gonna read a book every month, right. And I did. I was like, so I, I read 15 books last year. I was so proud of myself. And so, let tell you what happened though is I was reminded of the power of a book and I had forgotten that because I had gotten away and just listening to podcasts and listening to short form contents. And I got reminded in the biggest, most profound way last year from reading 15 books that I even think about myself. Like the amount of time, like, you know, don’t take offense to this, but the amount of time that I took to prepare for this interview, right? That it’s, it’s minutes, right? It’s like 30 minutes versus the amount of time that you prepare, write, edit, rewrite, reedit.
AJV (33:02):
A book is months if not years. Versus I will throw out a podcast with 30 minutes of preparation. I’ll whip together a blog post in 30 minutes and I’ll do a short form video content with five minute prep time. And that is nothing compared to the amount of time, sweat efforts, just incredible resource to put together a book that we then only charge $25 for. Yep. And just a major shout out to when you think you listen to a podcast and you got it, you don’t, you don’t, like there is just, I’m so positively reminded of that last year.
EF (33:44):
Yeah. And there aj there’s something about highlighting in a book, right? It’s thinking about it like if you’re reading it that like I read it a lot for living. So I’m always reading but highlighting and saying, oh, this is really good. This is a sticky state statement of magic. Right? This could change someone’s life. It’s, you get to spend time and sit with it. Mm-Hmm. podcast, you’re on the run, you’re listening to it, you’re doing something like you’re not sitting with it and really thinking through it. So I, I feel like it’s a lot of value in a $25 book . And that’s why it’s so important that the marketing and branding of that book shows that value to the end consumer.
AJV (34:20):
I’m so on the same page with that because I just, I’m still reveling in the fact that some of these books, I’m like, this will change my life forever. And it was a $25 investment. I’ve spent 8,000, $10,000 on events that I’m like, I’m taking long lunch breaks and checking emails. And it’s like,
EF (34:42):
Yeah. So I represent this, this really famous therapist, right? And like, she doesn’t even do sessions anymore, but if you did a session, it’ll be like a thousand dollars an hour, right? This is here, you can get her book for $25 Right. And she can, you’ll read it and it could actually save your marriage, right? Or yes. You know, help you like deal with depression or whatever it is. Any mental health issue. And I’m like, it’s $25, right? Like that is like, that’s so amazing, right? That you could get that. You just have to read it and do the work, right? Yeah. It’s the same, like, same thing with any diet book, right? Or health book. It really can change your life, right? If you read it and apply it and it’s only 25 bucks cuz you get a personal trainer, it’s gonna cost you a hundred bucks an hour at least. Right?
AJV (35:23):
Or a coach or a consultant or counseling, all these things. Yeah. So there’s, there’s
EF (35:29):
A way, there’s a way a book, like if you actually use it, do it. You can save a lot of money and get the best value, you know? Heck
AJV (35:39):
Yeah. Cause I just, that’s part of why I wanted to have this call with you cuz I have had such a, I I’ve, I’ve re fallen in love with books and the written words because of my commitment to do this, you know, for a little personal challenge last year. And now I’m just like, I’m blown away that it’s like the amount of money I’ve spent on other things compared to the amount of money I spent on books is not even in comparison. But what I learned from the books versus what I’ve learned from all the other things I did is insurmountably bigger.
EF (36:06):
What was, okay, out of the 15 books you read last year, what was your favorite book?
AJV (36:10):
I have, well, I have to have two because one is the one that will forever change my life and my Eternity, which is the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn. And I read every single word and it’s long and it’s heavy and it’s dense reading, but I couldn’t believe that I had made it through 39 years of my life without hearing about heaven in this context. It will forever change the trajectory of my life and my family. So that, and then I discovered for the first time ever, Jenny Allen, who is now my favorite author. Awesome. And I read, I read four of her books in one year. Get Outta Your
EF (36:46):
Head. Did you read that one?
AJV (36:48):
I did. That was, that’s how I finished the year was with that. But the one that was my favorite book of the entire year is Nothing to Prove.
EF (36:55):
Good
AJV (36:56):
Book. Nothing to prove. Get out of your head, find your People. We’re all Jenny Allen books that were at the top of my list. But nothing to prove would’ve been my favorites last year. And I just like, I think that’s just a great reminder for anyone who’s listening who is an author. It’s like, don’t forget that in addition to hitting the list, you’re actually changing people’s lives. That’s ultimately, yeah, ultimately that’s really
EF (37:19):
Good. But you got one Jenny Allen booking, guess what you did? You wrote, you read three more after that. So
AJV (37:24):
I have her avatar. Like she, she writes for me
EF (37:27):
like when you read that, like, then you bought, and, and that’s the best thing is like when you write something and you, and put someone loves it, they’re looking for anything else from you that you have, right? Yeah. We
AJV (37:37):
You gotta have great content, right? Have great content.
EF (37:41):
Yep. We get thousands of letters in of suicides, not committed of people coming to Christ of marriages saying family’s reunited. And we, like, I tell my staff all the time, this is why we do what we do, right? Like we’re, we’re a part of this because we help get the book out. And I like, that’s really rewarding and I mean humbling and rewarding, but that’s, that’s why you write a book is you’re, the last part is what we were talking about is that these lives are changed, right? Mm-Hmm. that someone was overweight is now healthy, someone that was depressed is now happy. Someone that, like, as you go through the list, I mean that’s what you’re hoping you’re writing to a business that was failing is now successful, right? Because they read something from you. Yeah. So that’s why I do what I do. And like aj, I know that’s why you do what you do, but let’s not forget the most important part of why you’re writing a book. It’s not only just to sell a million copies, it’s yeah, to hopefully change a million lives,
AJV (38:31):
But you’ll never sell a million copies if you don’t have incredibly great content and you’re not willing to market and sell the pants off of it. And I think that is like two really big takeaways for everybody. All right. I know we’re almost outta time, but I have two more really important questions for you. Okay. When it comes to category listings, how important is that?
EF (38:51):
When you mean like on the what it’s the one category or are you talking about Amazon?
AJV (38:58):
I would say both, but we’ll start with Amazon, right? Because I know so many people who are obsessive of has to be in this very specific category because in this category I know that on this week that I can hit X, y, Z.
EF (39:12):
So I, we do a much categories as you can, right? Like on Amazon, because you can, we have a book that hit the okay, so our youngest author, she’s 17, she did a, a c book, a children’s book on like aquarium type of thing, right? And one of the categories we picked that we put her on at Amazon was Turtles. And she hit number one bestseller in Turtles Never. But now that helps the algorithm, right? So yes, I think authors the mistake they make is like, I wanna be in self-help. Great. Let’s be a little more specific because we want you, the algorithms start kicking in and it working and I could do a whole talk with you on Amazon how it works. Cuz doing this for years and years and actually working with people on Amazon are very high level trying to figure this stuff out. You wanna, you want the algorithm working in your favor. So you, you don’t wanna be so broad, you actually wanna try to nail down be pretty specific and that’s what helps you hit bestsellers in different categories. Yeah. And nobody looks back in the day for categorizing, like for Barnes Noble people cared if it was like religious religion, right? Or sell cookbooks or nobody looks at that anymore. Mm-Hmm. , that’s the thing. It’s like you’re you’re 90% of all books are sold online. You’re not looking at that little category.
AJV (40:26):
Totally. No one even pays attention.
EF (40:29):
No one pays attention. Just like no one pays attention to what’s on a spine of a book. Like who the publisher is really only people in the business like me and you and but like the general person doesn’t know the difference between what publishers, what publisher, they couldn’t tell you Penguin Random House was the largest publisher in the world. They have no clue. Right? So Yeah,
AJV (40:46):
That’s so true. It’s so true about nobody
EF (40:50):
Else cares about
AJV (40:51):
, but as an author you’re like, oh, is this publishing house? So somehow it’s gonna be like nobody freaking knows. They don’t care, they don’t know it’s just us. Do they like the cover category? Yeah. Yeah. The same thing for category listings. And I think that’s really important because I to what you said I love is that you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta niche down, right? And that the more specific you are like, and, and no one’s really taking a screenshot that you were number one in turtles, this is that you were number one, which a lot of times seller
EF (41:19):
And you, you wanted to say number one bestseller, right? It doesn’t, they’re not looking number one best seller in turtles, right? But our marketing director did a really good job of really narrowing it down to that niche of turtles, right? Cause there’s a turtle on the cover. I’m not laughing cause I’m like, that was kind of genius, right? Because this girl doesn’t have any platform. She’s like a high school student, but here you go. She just hit number one Amazon bestseller interns.
AJV (41:41):
You know, I’m telling you like that is just so important. Back to marketing, branding, selling, writing the book is just a piece of this puzzle. But it’s like you’ve gotta have a good team who knows what they’re doing to figure out these little nuances. And a part of that is like, and I, Rory always corrects me and he goes, it’s not that hitting the list doesn’t matter, it’s just, it’s a piece of the puzzle. But the more times that you can hit the list and the more you sell, the more other people will hear about it and then it spreads. So I have to remind myself of that. Cuz I’m one of those like, it doesn’t matter, but it kinda does. Cause when you do
EF (42:19):
Exactly rose’s, right, you’re both are right. But the other side is the best part is when you see it on the list over and over and mm-hmm. over and over because then you’re like, wow, it was really a good book. Cuz people keep buying it. It wasn’t just hit the list and then left. Right, right. The best part, right? See, oh, it’s up, been on the New York Times bestseller list for 54 weeks, you know, or Yeah. That’s like, wow. We really have a winner now.
AJV (42:40):
Yeah. Not looking for the one hit wonder. Okay, last set of questions and then I have a personal question for you. What, no, you told me earlier like kinda like three things, like make it sticky, have good content, have a good platform, it needs to be unique. That’s like generally speaking, but for you personally, like working with a 17 year old girl who has no platform, right? And I just also happen to know some of your authors who don’t have big platforms and all of that. So I know that’s not the only thing you look for and I just think it’s really unique to find an agent who is willing to invest in people who you’re like, no, I see something in you. I see something in this message and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it regardless. It may not get me the biggest advance and you may not this, this and this, but so I’m curious for you personally, what, what makes an author someone that you’re like, you, I wanna work with you.
EF (43:29):
Oh, okay. So I’m a sucker. Okay. Like, listen, like for story, right? So someone comes in and they have a crazy story. I’m like, oh my gosh. And I cry all the time. Like, I don’t know what happened in my forties. I just like . They’ll tell a story and I’ll be falling, crying and too emotional. So because we have this other publishing program where we can help, and actually more and more influencers with huge platforms are not wanting to go to traditional publishing. They wanna own all their own content and they don’t wanna wait two years for it to come out. Mm-Hmm. . So when we develop this program and we put millions of dollars into it, so it’s it, but it’s awesome. So when an author comes in and they’re looking at it like they’re, it’s a business and they really wanna get the story out, I’m like, I’m all for it.
EF (44:09):
If I’m touched by the story, I’m like, I wanna do it. I wanna help you get this message out. But that author has to wanna work. I usually, yeah. Like if an author is like, eh, I don’t need it. I really, I, I, I don’t have that much time in the day. Like, I like to help start businesses and empower people to keep going. I think the biggest mistake people make is they quit before their miracle. Like they’re right there and they just give up. So the best are the authors that are really in it. And so if I have someone that’s super passionate and really in it and know that this is a core message, it’s really hard for me to say no to that.
AJV (44:42):
Mm. I love that. So for you, it really does come down to two.
EF (44:46):
Oh yeah. I’m, I said, I was like, my whole team’s like Esther say no. I’m like, yeah, but this story’s so good and I think it’s got some legs and maybe this could be a movie or maybe we could do this. And so it’s fun like thinking through it. But yeah, like sometimes I have to bring my team in the, for them to be like, no, this isn’t,
AJV (45:04):
We all have to have people who are willing to say no in our lives. But I love that it’s like it’s, this is story, but also are you willing to work? Are you willing to work? Are you willing to work as hard as I’m gonna have to to make this come to life? I love that. I think that’s so cool. All right. Here’s a personal question for you in the group. So you kinda told us earlier what your favorite book was. Well I dunno if it’s your favorite book of all time, but How to Win Friends and Influence People. I would say, what has been the book that you would say, like, for me, heaven will be like forever change the direction of my life. But I would also say like nothing to prove and discovering Jenny Allen has been a life-changing event for me in the last 12 months of going, I’ve never read a book where I’m like, oh, I’m your avatar. It’s so clear who you’re writing to. It’s me. Hi My name’s aj. So I would say to you like, do you have a, an author or a book that you’re like, I don’t care who you are or anything, but if you read this work or read, read this book, or from this author, like, it’s gonna change your life?
EF (46:02):
I do. So everybody that knows me knows my book. Like it’s changed my life. It changed the way I thought about business. It’s changed everything. It’s actually Buck there. It’s by Mark Patterson, who’s one of my favorite authors that I have the privilege of working with. It’s called the Circle Maker. And I, I read the Circle Maker. I was agenting for seven years of my own company and I was pretty successful. And I read this book and it like, it, it just wrecked me. And you know how people are like, oh, I pray, or I, I do this right? And, and remember I get to read it before all of you guys read it. So I’m like, way ahead of thinking, you know? And I’m like, this is gonna be a bestseller. It was a New York Times bestseller. It’s sold over 5 million copies. It’s been unbelievable.
EF (46:44):
But what’s so cool about this book is this guy, it’s, we, we sold it as Hony the circle draw what’s called the Circle Maker. And it’s about praying circles, right? So I started believing God. I prayed circles around every office. I prayed circles around an office building I wanted to buy. I prayed circles like, God, if this is for me, prayed for every employee on every desk. And guess what? I started getting better employees. I started getting like more champions. I started getting bigger authors. And there was this guy, he talks about the end of the book, right? So it doesn’t ruin the book for you guys, but there was this guy named Gypsy Smith, right? And he was this evangelist that traveled all over the world. I think he did 45 trips around the world. And he was this amazing preacher speaker. And somebody asked him like, what was, was the secret?
EF (47:29):
And he’s like, was his prayer life? And he goes right away, he goes, these revival secrets were asking what was God like, what’s, how can God use me? And so when I was reading this book, I’m like, God, how can you use me in a bigger way? And he goes, go home, lock your door, kneel in the middle of the floor. Draw, take a piece of chalk, draw a circle around yourself and pray fervently and brokenly for God to do a revival inside that chalk circle. Mm-Hmm. . And that’s from this guy Gypsy Smith, this evangelist. But I started, I did that right? And I went home, I locked the door and I drew, took a piece of chalk and I drew a circle and I said, God, I want you to use me. Bring me the clients you want me to use. Bring me the employees you want me to work with. Bring me the team. Help me scale my company. Like, just use me to pick those right books or the ones that you want me to be part of. And that like totally forever changed my company. Mm-Hmm. . So it was prayer. And, and so re if you haven’t read the Circle Maker, you have to, every employee here has to read the Circle Maker and How To Win Friends With Influence People. Those are the two books that everyone, that works with me for me.
AJV (48:29):
Why? I just wrote it down. I wrote it down. Part of me is
EF (48:33):
I’m gonna send you a copy. So I’ll send you one today.
AJV (48:36):
. I’m always looking for really good books. And then, okay, last question. Do you read or do you listen?
EF (48:42):
Both. Right. So I’m a speed reader so I can read pretty fast obviously cuz I, I read like 300 books a year. But I listened to, so a lot of times I’m, I’m a big believer every book you have to do an audiobook. I don’t let my authors not do an audiobook. It really, yeah. Makes me mad if they don’t wanna do an audiobook. Audio is up to 347% in the last two years. Wow. So more people are listening than reading right now. Huge authors, and I can give you the stats. They’re selling more in audio than actual print. Print cells are still up by the way. So it’s, it’s like, it’s both, they’re buying both versions. Like I do that all the time. I buy the print version and I buy, I listen to audio and sometimes I read a little bit of books. Sometimes I listen to it. I think listening, like when I’m walking or working out or like in the car, it’s so much easier to listen. But I still love to read. So I read every one of the books I represent I or listen to it, one or the other. So I think it’s whatever, whatever your preference is.
AJV (49:41):
Yeah, I love that. I
EF (49:42):
Remember it better AJ if I’m reading it than if I’m listening to it cuz like, you can tune out or get too strong. But when I’m reading it, I feel like I really take it in more.

AJV (49:50):
Yeah, I’m with you on that. I always I always tease my husband. I’m like, you did not read that. You listened to that. That’s not, you can’t say I’ve read that. You can only say I listen to it.

EF (50:00):
I have to tell her when reading or listening. It’s the same thing, right? Because

AJV (50:03):
No, it’s not, it’s not the same thing. I’m so too, I’m so biased, but I’m, I’m very much like, I’m a speed reader. So it’s like I can, I can crush books. I crush books. But I love but I love to hold it. I love to like feel the pages fold ’em, doggier, highlight, underline. But there’s power in everything. Think

EF (50:21):
All women. I think all women like that, right? Like we like take those.

AJV (50:24):
I like to hold it. But I would also say as unbiased feedback for anyone who is listening, when you do your audiobook, at least from this one consumer’s piece of feedback, read your own book. Please do not hire someone else to read your book. I want to hear the author’s voice and connotations and I want to hear it from you. So piece of unbiased feedback. And Esther, I would just say, man, not only are you like repre representing authors that are truly changing the trajectory of this world, like the work you’re doing is changing the world. You are helping get things out there that are saving lives transforming lives. And man, it’s such an honor to get to meet you and have you on the show. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to release this episode and get it out into the world. So thanks for giving us your time today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody, stay tuned and listen to the recap conversation that I’m gonna do on my conversation with Esther. And we’ll see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. See you later.

Ep 369: How to Build Recurring Revenue | John Meese Episode Recap

RV (00:02):
How do you build massive recurring revenue? That is the theme of today’s show. And recap, this is sort of based off the interview that I did with John Meese talking about how to build massive membership sites, and we’re gonna talk about some of those highlights. But really, I wanna zero in on some of what our, what we believe our keys are to building massive recurring revenue and, and even just understanding what recurring revenue is and why does, why does recurring revenue even matter? And I wanna just kind of start with a little bit of a track record here. So you know, this is something that we know something about. Brand Builders is a recurring revenue model. I mean, our core business is a one-on-one coaching or, and training product that people pay a subscription for. And that’s our, our flagship program includes you know, coming to two days of training every month, and also one-on-one coaching every single month as well.
RV (01:04):
And then there’s a, there’s a, a, a, a do it yourself, like a self-study version of it, which is you get access to all the online training, and that’s a lower, a lower version. But we are a membership site, or not a membership site. We’re a recurring revenue business. And the business that we sold in 2018, a huge component of that business was also recurring revenue. So this is something we know a lot about and have a lot of experience in. And I first wanna talk to you about why would you even consider recurring revenue and, and, and, and what are some of the, some of the strengths and some of the reasons to have recurring revenue. One of the great things about recurring revenue, so this is some of the, you know, selling subscriptions, is because every month you don’t start on zero, right?
RV (01:48):
Like every month you’re not automatically on zero every month, you automatically come into the month with revenue contracted. Now, not always does a hundred percent of that come in, but you always have a, a, a, a large number, a large proportion of revenue contracted. And so that’s really, really valuable. And y you know, just in terms of taking the pressure off, because what recurring revenue does is it allows you to kind of predict for the future. It’s, it’s, it’s more predictable. And so because it’s more predictable, we can say, okay, well if, if we can grow our revenues, you know, we’re always factoring for churn. So some percentage of people are gonna leave, and hopefully we’re gonna seal that back door with retention, which we’ll talk about. But the the other thing that we will we’ll try to do is we’re always bringing people in the front door and, and then the snowball is growing.
RV (02:44):
And so it’s a snowball that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So the revenue is steady, it’s consistent, and then you can plan for growth. You can say, gosh, you know, hiring this person would be a little scary right now, I don’t know that we could afford them, but assuming some basic metrics. And, you know, if we can look back and say, Hey, statistically our, our revenues grow at this rate, we can sort of forecast more predictably and more comfortably in the future to say, yeah, there’s probably some investments we could make, whether it’s technology or personnel or you know, equipment or whatever you know, software tools you need or services you need done to go, I think we, we can, we can swing it based on, you know, our growth trajectory. The other reason why recurring revenue is so valuable is it’s, it’s literally more valued in terms of business valuation.
RV (03:35):
So when you look at the financial valuations of a business, this is a super deep dive by the way that in our, one of our phase four courses is called eight Figure Entrepreneur. And we really teach the real mechanics of, of, you know, the, just the, the basic foundations of finance and acumen, cash flow and things like that that most entrepreneurs don’t get, not even in business school. You know, I have an M B A and I would say I, there was so much practical information I I never got. But when you look at how businesses are valued, businesses are valued based on an estimated stream of future cash flows. So in other words, they’re saying, what’s the likelihood, the way I describe it is pretend that you, here’s how you, here’s how you value a business. Think of it as a money machine.
RV (04:22):
And if, if I had a money machine that printed dollar bills and I said, Hey, I have a machine here that prints a $1 bill every year. How much is, how much would, would I sell this machine to you? And what would you be willing to buy this machine? And we go, well, we know it’s, it’s probably worth at least a dollar cuz it prints a dollar every year. And you know, if you don’t do anything to improve the machine, if it’s a reliable machine, there’s probably gonna be a dollar next year. So that would be $2, you know, in, in three years from now, it’s gonna be at least $3. Now the machine could break down. So that’s part of what as the buyer is assessing as what’s the likelihood that machine’s gonna break down or the strategic, A strategic buyer is somebody who says, Hmm, I know how to take $1 machines and I can turn them into machines that print a dollar every month.
RV (05:09):
I have some expertise or some skill or some people on my team who can take that machine and make it per print more, either $1 bills faster or can print dollar bills that are not a dollar, but $5 or $10 or $50. And so that’s what, how businesses are valued. It’s like, what’s the, what’s the reliability of the revenue coming in the future and saying, I’m willing to, when someone values a business and buys a business, they’re saying, I’m gonna, I’m gonna basically buy three years of your future cash flow now and assuming going, I’m gonna take the risk of going this machine. I’m buying from you. I’m going to, it’s gonna take me three years to earn my money back, but then after that, I’ll make more money. Or because I believe that I can pay, pay you three years worth of earnings for your machine now.
RV (05:59):
And I think I can, I can increase the productivity of that machine. And that’s effectively right there is how businesses are valued, which they really overcomplicate in a lot of, you know, academic institutions and schools and just people don’t understand it in general. Well, so then why is recurring revenue valuable? Because recurring revenue is predictable, and as predictability goes up, the valuation of the business goes up because the likelihood of those cash flows being there, every single month goes up when it’s already contracted versus when I have to go out and sell a whole new bunch of customers. So recurring revenue companies have higher values, they’re literally worth more because they’re more consistent and more the revenue’s more consistent and more predictable. You know, and if you look at SaaS companies, software companies, a lot of times those companies are valued based on a multiple of their revenue.
RV (06:51):
Whereas most companies are valued on a multiple of their profits. And so it becomes highly valuable when you have recurring revenue because it, it’s enticing to a potential buyer. So the demand for that money machine i e a business is, is higher. So those are some of the reasons to do recurring revenue. The, one of the other reasons why we love recurring revenue, and, and here’s a good way so in our, our phase one course one which is called finding your brand, d n a, one of the things we help people do is, is figure out what their primary business model should be. Your primary business model. Is that the revenue stream to which all others are subservient to that one. And we talk about when you should choose a course versus when you should choose a membership site. And there’s all these factors.
RV (07:39):
Well, one of the factors is to say, if you are good at constantly finding new customers and you’re good at it and you, you, your talents lend themselves to it and you want to do it, you go, a course is a really good option because once the course is built, you don’t have to change much. You can focus your time on just finding new people to buy the existing thing. But if you struggle with marketing and sales and you go, man, I struggle to find new customers, I’m not as, as talented at as that, then we go, well, sometimes membership sites are better because what you can do is you can spend less time acquiring new customers and spend more time creating content to service your existing customers. And so that’s kind of what we do. I mean, we like to think we’re good at both marketing and sales especially is like kind of our expertise.
RV (08:30):
And, but, but we don’t love having to sell every single month just to like hit the budget, right? So we love having the recurring revenue and going, you know, at least for me, I think one of my superpowers is creating content. So it’s easier for me, even though I love marketing and sales, and we’re good at marketing and sales, and that’s what we teach people how to do. I, I, my superpower I think is even more so in creating content. So it’s easier for me to go, yeah, let me, let me find a few customers who will be in a continuity with us and let’s serve them in a deeper way. Now, at Brand Builders Group, we currently have over 600 active clients that are in our, our our monthly training, you know, and coaching program which are our flagship programs. And there’s like a self, you know, there’s a do-it-yourself version, and then there’s a one-on-one version, which also includes our live training events.
RV (09:25):
And then we have, we have like 300 private clients on top of that who just hire us for private projects and private, you know topics at at at less consistent. Those are more like, those are more like sales. They’re not recurring revenue, they’re bigger hits of revenue. When someone just says, ah, I really wanna like, focus on my podcast, just hire us to help you with that. Or writing their book or launching their book or their keynote or building out their funnels or, and it’s more of just they’re hiring us for, in a more expedient way to focus on a burst. But those are ones like, you have to be selling new ones every month versus the recurring revenues going, Hey, when you’re on a recurring membership, we give you all of those things, we give you access to all of ’em, and we’ll step you through ’em as you need to.
RV (10:06):
So that’s a little bit about why recurring revenue matters and understanding how it affects business valuation. Again, if, if you look at the difference between a company valued on revenue versus a company valued on profit most companies are valued on, on, on profit or ebitda earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, which basically just means profit, which is, you know, to use my money machine analogy which by the way is an analogy I came up with of, of just thinking about a business just as a simple m money printing machine to go, okay, a dollar, if my money, my money machine prints a dollar every year, that’s the profit of, that’s the final output. But and most companies, you know, depending on a whole number of factors, but let’s say you were getting a just a five multiple meanings, if someone were to pay you a five multiple, that means a buyer’s gonna basically come in and say, I’m gonna pay you five years worth of profits, five years worth of future profits today to buy your money machine.
RV (11:08):
So I’m gonna, if, if you have a dollar in profit, I’m gonna pay you $5. I’m a multiple of five, I’m gonna give you $5 today knowing or feeling confidently, like I will at least get my $5 back over the next five years and hopefully faster if I can do some things to improve the efficiency of the operation or if I have other strategic reasons to make that acquisition. That’s how most business deals are done. It’s a multiple of profits or multiple of ebitda, but recurring revenue, like SaaS companies often are valued on revenue. So if, if you get a, a value of let’s say you get a, a multiple of five, but instead of on your profits, it’s a, it is on your revenue. So, for example, to use this same example, a company that produces a dollar in profit every year, let’s say their revenue is $10, so that would be a company operating at a 10% profit margin.
RV (12:03):
So they generate $10 in revenue, they gotta pay all their expenses, their salespeople, their marketing, their overhead, you know, the product acquisition, their taxes, their insurance, their, you know, everything. And then at the end of the day, maybe they have a 10% profit. Like, and you go, okay, I generated $10 in revenue, a dollar in profit. Normally it’s a a five multiple would say, oh I’m getting, I’m gonna get $5 for that business, five times, $1. But when you’re valued on revenue, it’s a game changer to go, I’m, if I got a, if I got a a, a multiple of five on revenue, it’s not five times $1, it’s five times $10. So that company is to buy that company is not $5, but $50, five times 10, the multiple of five times the revenue of $10. So that’s five years worth of revenues.
RV (12:55):
I’m valuing, valuing that company based on revenues that that company is worth $50 instead of $5 because it’s five years of future revenues versus five years of future profits, right? One of the dynamics that makes companies more have a higher enterprise value is, oh, and be more likely to be valued on revenue, is the consistency of the revenue, which is, you know, happens with recurring revenue. So that’s probably more than most of you wanted to know, but I, I mean, I literally went through MBA school and never understood that basic core concept. It wasn’t until years later as an entrepreneur that I, I, I had a mentor finally explained it to me, sort of in, in simpler English. And it’s important to understand that. And, and that is, even if you plan on never selling your business, I mean, this is again, another principle.
RV (13:45):
We teach an eight figure entrepreneur, is that a business worth selling? Looks a whole lot like a business worth keeping. You know, a business worth selling is a business that operates without you with consistency and produces loss of cash flow inevitably into the future. Well, a business that does that looks a lot like a business worth keeping. I mean, if you have a money machine that prints money every year and it doesn’t require a lot of your time, and there’s not a lot of risk in, in those, that money machine breaking down, you go, why didn’t I just keep it? So the money machine’s just printing money and I’m just keeping the money every year. That’s the way to think about it. Recurring revenue increases consistency, thereby reduces volatility or reduces risk, thereby increasing the valuation of that business, whether you sell it or you keep it.
RV (14:25):
So high level, that’s why recurring revenue is such a good idea. Now, how do you create great recurring revenue? Couple of the key things, if you’re wanting to create recurring revenue of your business, and John talked about this a little bit in the, in the interview, but if you really wanna create a quality recurring revenue product, the question that I would pose for you to answer is this, what is the problem that I can solve that never goes away? What is a problem that I can solve that never goes away? In other words, the need for it continues on month after month after month, which causes people to want to continue paying for us. Accountability is one of the, one of the core problems that we solve. Now, technically the problem we solve is obscurity. We help people who are struggling to be more well known to, to do that.
RV (15:24):
And we teach them a set of information and strategies for how to do that. And all the tactics that we have now used to launch, you know, we’ve had 12 clients that have become New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers. We’ve had four clients create TED Talks that have gone viral with over a million views. We’ve had over we, we just had our, our fifth client generate more than seven figures growth in their annual revenue. So they’ve grown their revenue more than a million dollars a year since being a client of ours. So we have a set of knowledge that we teach people to do that. But what the need, the, the, the problems that never go away are accountability, community and access to great vendors and as well as inspiration, right? You, the inspiration is like never, it’s a, it’s something that never disappears.
RV (16:13):
So those are the, some of the problems we’re solving. So you gotta sort of think about it if you’re gonna create a membership site or if you have one and you’re going, how do I, how do I get the snowball rolling faster? Be thinking about what are the problems that my clients have that never go away? And how can I serve those needs better? All right? So that’s my first key for how to grow your recurring revenue. The second, the second key, and this one is directly from the, from the the mind of AJ Vaden. So AJ talks about this all the time with our team internally, is when you’re growing recurring revenue, it’s sort of a two-part game. You need new people coming in the front door. But the big thing that everybody misses, which is really the, like, the more critical one I think is you have to seal the back door.
RV (17:05):
You have to like, you have to be so sticky that people aren’t leaving. Otherwise, you literally have a treadmill or this revolving door where you got people coming in as fast as they’re going out, or if they’re leaving faster, then you’re bringing ’em in, then you’re going backwards, right? And that’s negative churn. So y you, the, the, the first real job is to go, man, even before we perfect bringing in new customers, it’s going, how do we close that back door? In other words, how do we keep people from canceling? And when I say key people from canceling, I don’t mean like locking them in to, to, to, to being forced to stay to something that they hate. It’s not like going, Hey, you gotta have, you know, these contract terms that are just relentless. And it’s not that, here’s the key, the key is retention or, or excuse me, here’s the, here is the key to growing your membership site.
RV (18:00):
Utilization equals retention. Utilization equals retention. This is what AJ is saying all the time. Utilization equals retention. Meaning the way to serve your current customers is you have to make sure they’re using whatever the thing is that you’ve given them. And this is a distinct mindset shift. A lot of people think that sales is done once the sale is made. And when you have that mindset of like, oh, I closed the sale, I’m onto the next, I’m onto the next, that doesn’t work. We don’t think that works, period. You know, in one of our phase three courses, it’s called pressure-free persuasion. We, we talk about how the sale is not done when the sale is made. The sale is finished. When the client experiences the result that you promised the sale isn’t made, or the sale, the sale isn’t finished. When the sale is made, the sale is finished.
RV (18:55):
When the client experiences the result that you know, you promised or that you were both working towards you probably didn’t promise it. I would recommend you don’t promise results. Just like you can’t, we cannot guarantee results even though we’ve had amazing results. And that’s why our client list continues to be amazing, right? I mean, we’re working with Ed Millet and Louis Howes and Amy Porterfield and, and you know, Eric Thomas et the hip hop preacher and Peter Diamandis and all these amazing people that are, are now clients of ours, cuz we are really getting amazing results. But utilization equals retention. So the sale that you have to make every month is not so much to a new customer like you might with more of a commoditized model, like a course offering, let’s say the sale you gotta make is to your current customers to use the thing they have.
RV (19:45):
So you always have to be selling, right? You still have to be selling, you gotta be selling them on making sure they’re using what you’ve given them. Utilization equals retention. If your people are using your program, if they’re using your service, if they’re using, if they’re accessing your portal, if they’re utilizing your tools, they’re gonna stay. If they’re not using your tools, they gonna leave, right? They’re not going to pay for something they’re not using. Even if what you’re providing is amazing world class best in class, even if your solution is the best there is, if your clients aren’t using it, they are bowing out, they’re gonna be leaving, right? So I’m not so focused, like if I were gonna buy a recurring, if as a, as a, as a business acquirer, if I were gonna go buy a company who had recurring revenue, I would be looking at their u the utilization.
RV (20:40):
Are people using the thing they’re paying for? If they’re using it, even if the product is crappy, I go, it’s, that’s great. I can make the product better. That’s not that hard. But if people aren’t using it, then I go, you just got a bunch of people paying for something here that are, you know, it’s a parking lot that no one is using and going, that’s not gonna long term, that’s not gonna work. We gotta get people using the thing. So utilization equals retention. And there’s a couple key things here for how to increase your utilization. So first of all, you gotta have a journey. You need to have a map, you need to have a visual that outlines what the process looks like. For those of you that are listening that are members in captivating content, which is our phase one course two program, that’s what we help you do.
RV (21:26):
We help you extrapolate your unique expertise and experience into a proprietary methodology, a body of work, a visual journey of, of illustrations and frameworks and flow charts and, and, and chart and tables that that show. This is the process. If you’re a member of ours, you know, we have the brand builder journey. It’s our four phase process that we walk you through from going you’re completely obs obscure and unknown to world famous and world recognized eight figure entrepreneur, best-selling author, hall of fame speaker you know, all the things that we have done and helped people do. We’ve got a four phase, a simple four-phase process that we push people through. And it works. Part of the reason why people stay is cuz they can see the whole journey. You gotta show them this, it’s this step and this step and this step. Don’t just assume that they’re gonna hang around blindly not knowing what, what it takes to actually get to where they’re trying to go.
RV (22:23):
So you wanna show that, talk about it, keep that in front of them so that they’re seeing like, oh, okay, you know, yes, it’s hard right now, but this is just a step and I’m gonna go to the next step and the next step and the next step, and that’s how I’m gonna ultimately get to where I want to go. So you gotta have a journey. The other thing is you gotta have data. You gotta have red flags going on, firing off in, in your, in your business. Meaning if somebody’s not using your stuff, you need to have dashboards and tools or reports or people who are monitoring that, who send up an alert to say, Hey, this is, and at, at at Brand Builders Group, I’ll just tell you transparently, we have something called an at-risk report where we’re looking at all of the people who haven’t been doing a certain number of activities.
RV (23:11):
So in our case, they haven’t logged into a portal in a certain number of days. They haven’t been to a course been to one of our live events in a certain number of days. They haven’t showed up for one on their one-on-one calls in a certain number of days. They haven’t, you know, been inside of our, our Facebook community, our private Facebook community in a certain number of days. And so we’re, because part of what we’re providing, part of what they’re paying for is frankly is accountability and inspiration. And this is how we track that, is go like, Hey, you’re not showing up, like you’re not doing the work. Like if you’re not coming, you’re not doing the work, which means you’re not getting the results, which means even though it’s not our fault that you’re not getting the result, the fact of the matter is you’re not getting the result, which means, means you’re not gonna keep paying.
RV (23:46):
So even if everything we do is perfect, if they’re not using it, it doesn’t matter, they’re gonna cancel. So we have to set up triggers and, you know, red flags and this at-risk report of all of these things. And we’re using automation tools to do this. And we’re using some of its manual reporting, some of it is customer surveys, some of it is manual outreach and check-ins, like to constantly go make sure people are using this. And, and here’s here’s another question that I would encourage you, you know, to, to ponder as it relate as it relates to this. Ask yourself this question, how can I serve my current audience in a deeper way? How can I serve my current audience in a deeper way? Because utilization equals retention. And if I’m serving them in a deeper way, then I’m, I’m speaking more powerfully to their immediate needs.
RV (24:40):
I’m providing the tools, the templates, the checklist for them to do it. Here’s a recent example for us. A lot of speakers struggle with how much should I charge? This has been, you know, gone on for decades, like what’s the right price to charge? And people throw out all these weird numbers. We created this, this speaker fee calculator. It’s, and it’s a simple set of questions you answer and it spits out not only what your speaking fee should be, but what your virtual fee should be and your half day fee and your two day fee and your international fee and your interview fee and all of it, it all spits out and it takes you like two and a half minutes to fill in this, this thing that is now a tool that solves a problem. We then also have a, a a a toolkit that is our speaker press kit and we go, you know, your speaker press Prescott needs to have a fee schedule.
RV (25:28):
Well, we just solved that problem, but then what about the rest of your speaker Prescott? What are all the things that need to be in there and how should it be structured and how should it be laid out? And we go, great. One of our incentives for people when they sign up I I think it’s, if I think if they sign up and pay for a year in advance, is we give them the template that we actually use for our own speaker press kits. And then you can like, model off of it and you can just build it, boom, up and running. So everything that we’ve been doing at Brand Builders Group for the last few years has been basically creating the education and all the educational resources. Now we’re moving much more aggressively and a assertively into how do we give people tools and templates and checklists to help them execute and implement what they’re learning faster.
RV (26:10):
And internally, our team is going, how are we monitoring utilization? Because utilization equals retention. Utilization equals retention. So that’s the second thing you really gotta do. Now the third thing is you gotta keep people coming in the front door. You gotta keep people always coming in the front door. And it’s just, you know, sales, sales solves all problems, right? Like if, if we, if we can figure out how to constantly generate new sales, then we’re gonna always have cash flow coming in that we can use to solve other problems or to hire people who can solve problems. The question is, do you have a consistent engine for driving new leads and new customers into your business?
RV (27:00):
Think about that. Just just think about that question to yourself for a second. Are you confident that you have an engine that consistently produces new leads and new customers for your business every month, every week, every day? Do you know exactly this is, this is how my machine works, we do this and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens and that brings somebody who finds us here and then they do this, and then they do this, and then they become a customer and then they stay because they’re utilizing the program. And you, if you aren’t confident on that, like if you aren’t crystal clear on what is your process, what is your system, what is your method for perpetually continually, constantly never ending, always driving new leads and new customers into your business? If you’re not clear on that, go to free brand call.com slash podcast right now, free brand call.com/podcast because you need to talk to our team because this is one of the things that we specialize the most in, is helping you create a, a set of mechanisms and systems and processes in your business to keep people coming in the front door.
RV (28:13):
They’ve gotta be coming in the front door because they’re always gonna leave out the back no matter how good your program is. And no matter how much you focus on retention, which, you know, as I just said, utilization equals retention. So we wanna close that back door, but even if your program is the best in the world, people are always going to leave. So you just gotta make sure you’re bringing in new customers faster than the older one, than the old ones are leaving by. And so you’re adding value to them and you’re also constantly refining and perfecting your new customer acquisition strategy. If you don’t feel confident or you’re not clear on how you get new customers and new leads on a regular consistent basis, you need to talk to us. I mean, I’m, I’m serious. Just go to free ran call.com/podcast, fill out the form and talk, talk to someone on our team because this is what we specialize in and this is why we’re doing it, right?
RV (29:07):
And I, you know, i i I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a total jerk, but like we, we just launched another seven figure business inside a brand builders group in like the last year. So we, we now have five different seven figure, multi seven figures businesses that we’ve built and two eight figure businesses. And it’s by following the same principles. All of these principles are are very straightforward, they’re not easy, but they are simple and they do work if you follow the system. So that’s why we’re here. We’d love to talk to you. If you’re not ready for that, hey, share this episode with somebody who needs to hear it. Obviously anything you can do to, to leave reviews helps us tremendously, but also helps new listeners so you know, rate and review and help us that way. And no matter what, keep coming back every week so that we can be keep pouring into you and giving you as much as we can Right here for free on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. That’s all we got today for how to build massive recurring revenue. We’ll catch you next time. We love ya. Bye-Bye.

Ep 368: How to Build Massive Membership Sites with John Meese

RV (00:02):
Well, today we’re gonna talk about a really important topic, membership sites, and a favorite topic of mine. And you’re gonna get to hear from one of my favorite people in the world on that topic, John Meese. So I’ve known John kind of loosely for years because he’s, he’s helped multiple people build membership sites. These, you know, six figure seven figure membership sites, specifically Platform University, which used to be owned by Michael Hyatt, who of course is good friend of ours, of mine, and AJ’s, Michael and Gail. And we’ve known Michael for years and he’d been a mentor and a friend. And so that’s how I met John. And Michael sold Platform University a few years ago. And I think around that time is when John started taking his expertise out and helping coaches and, and trainers and consultants and just anybody who’s out there to build wealth by starting an online business. And specifically, I think, you know membership sites. So he’s also the author of a bestselling book called Survive and Thrive, how to Build a Profitable Business in Any Economy, including this one. He’s bilingual in Espanol, and he just moved to Puerto Rico where he’s saving money on taxes, although that’s not why he’s went there primarily. But anyways, buddy, it’s good to have you here.
JM (01:23):
Thank you, Rory. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be here. Is the interview today gonna be bilingual or are we stick in English?
RV (01:28):
Yeah, no, I, yeah, we’re gonna do it in Spanish, man. Yes, you and me. It’s gonna be a back very, very short interview. . . It’s gonna be about 30 seconds, but so in all seriousness membership sites, why, let’s start with why membership sites? Sure. Why should, why should people be thinking about membership sites as a business model? And maybe even just kind of clarify what, what you classify, like what counts as a membership site and exactly what it means.
JM (02:02):
Yeah, so there are a lot of subscription type businesses, so I think it’s probably helpful to start by saying that my focus is generally helping people turn wisdom into wealth by building a thriving online education business. And so that’s a lot of the same work you do Rory, with Brand Builders Group of helping people build personal brands where there’s an educational component sometimes that looks like a course or coaching program or a life event or books. But memberships are the subscription version of that. And so some of my favorite membership sites that I’ve been a part of myself you know, you’re typically paying a monthly or annual fee to be part of a community where you get access to a combination of training, support, community. It’s more, there’s definitely more of a peer element than if you were maybe in like just watching a course.
JM (02:48):
Cuz often courses online courses are typically very kind of, you’re consuming it. And then that’s kind of it, like, there’s not usually a lot of community interaction, but community is a key part of membership sites. So there’s really two primary reasons to want a membership site in your business. One of them is kind of the obvious one, which is that when you build recurring revenue, now all of a sudden, every month you get to start knowing that you have a reliable recurring revenue coming in from customers who’ve subscribed to pay you automatically. I, like John Orlow calls this the the automatic customer, and I like that idea. I was just saying like, that’s a great book, you make the sale once. Yeah, it’s a great book. And, and it’s a great concept too, of just the idea that each month you’re like, well, I automatically have customers, I don’t have to start with zero.
JM (03:31):
So that’s huge. And recurring revenue can really grow over time to become an incredible source of generating wealth. But the flip side of that is also, it’s a phenomenal way to serve to serve your clients, to serve your customers and your audience. Because the reality is what, I mean, the academic churn is typically MOOCs or massive open online courses for like, what we know is like an online course where you buy it, it sits on the digital shelf somewhere, maybe you watch it. And historically, the, I mean just kind of industry-wide, the completion rates on online courses are very low. And the success rate of someone taking an online course and actually going to do it, actually do the work and succeed, which of course is what you want, not just their money. That’s also very low. Membership sides allow you to take the same kind of educational content and scalable educational content you might put in a course, but add ongoing community and support that allows people to stay connected to ongoing transformation. How
RV (04:26):
Do you do the community part of it? Like Yeah. Is is it, is it mostly a Facebook group? Like is it I mean, do you, do you, do you see that most people are using a Facebook group as their mechanism for hosting community? Or is there some other way that they’re achieving that? The objective of getting the members? Cuz that is a huge part of it is yeah, who do you meet and supporting people and meeting other, like referral relationships, et cetera, et cetera. How do, how do you facilitate that?
JM (04:58):
You know, Facebook groups at one point in time were kind of just the standard for membership sites because it’s kind of where everybody is or was. But I would say these days it’s still an option, really. The, the software you’re using or the platform you’re using is really secondary to the strategy for how you’re interacting with people. That said, I don’t really know, I can maybe think of one or two people I know with successful membership sites that are still on Facebook groups. Most people have used an independent platform that where you have a lot more control. There’s a lot of popular ones, but honestly I think the best one by far is circle. And so that was created by some of the early people at Teachable, which, you know, is like the biggest course platform in the world. And some of them spun off and created Circle, which is you know, essentially it’s your ability to create a private group. They even added courses within that now. So you can have courses community, you can, well, as much as I love Zoom, which you and I are talking in right now, you can actually replace Zoom by doing live streams or, or meetings through Circle as well. And they have a mobile app. And so there’s really the software secondary to the strategy strategy, but I would say Circle is like an all in one for having a great membership site.
RV (06:01):
Okay. That’s interesting. So kind of in the vein of, of retention or, or yeah, like of community is, there’s a retention, right? So the, the, to me, when it, when somebody starts a membership site, they go, oh man, recurring revenue. Like, yeah, you know, why, why, why sell a course for $500 when I can get people to pay me a hundred dollars a month and then they’ll stay forever. But I feel like the thing that we see pretty consistently is that people are gonna drop off around month three or four. So what do you think are some of the keys to retention? Because if that happens, if you were gonna sell a $500 course and now you’re just doing a hundred dollars a month membership Yeah. And now they’re only staying three or four, you actually have, you’ve gone the wrong direction, right? You’re losing money by converting it. Now there’s some other benefits of, of it, but I, I mean, what are some of the things that you see that help the retention component of this? Because to me, that’s really where the magic is, right?
JM (07:05):
Yeah. Well, it’s worth talking about your question’s. Great, Victoria, because it, it kind of illuminates sort of the ugly truth about membership sites. Cause we started with sort of the beauty of membership sites, right? It’s just recurring revenue. Your customers are getting transformation all the time. You’re getting recurring revenue all the time. That’s like the nice side. But the between the membership sites is that the minute you start a membership site, it’s upside down. And by that I mean the same way that you can be upside down at a house where you owe more than it’s worth. The minute you start a membership site, you have members who are paying, you have some members coming to pay, but for you to deliver a high value membership site, you have to give ongoing value. It has to be re not just, it’s not just kind of an on-demand library.
JM (07:43):
There has to be some sort of value giving on a regular basis to get people to stay. Because really the measure of success, the membership site is not that somebody joins, it’s that it’s retention, as you said Rory, it’s that they stay for a long period of time. Right? So I guess the first thing I would say is that if you’re looking at different products and considering a membership site, I actually don’t recommend you start with a membership site until you’ve already built a successful flagship program. Like a coaching service or a group coaching program or mastermind and a gateway product, like a low price course or a book or some, or a workshop or some other, you know, those really, those two anchors of the flagship product and the gateway product, they allow you to both bring in new customers on a regular basis, but also be able to create massive transformation in the flagship program at a, at a premium price. What those two things do is not just the revenue piece and the audience growth piece, which they do that, but they also help you refine your understanding of your target customer, their problems, their needs. And the way you sell a membership site versus the way you sell any other product that has a one-time purchase is completely different. Mm. And so it’s, it’s because are are you familiar with the concept of the the Infinite game by any chance? Rory?
RV (08:57):
I mean, you mean Simon Sinek’s book?
JM (09:00):
So Simon Sinek has a book on this, but the concept is not unique to him. But yes, his book
RV (09:04):
Is a great, no, I don’t even know what that, I don’t even know what that book’s about. I, I have read his others, but I’ve not read that book.
JM (09:09):
It’s a phenomenal book. And there are other great resources on this subject, but that’s usually the book I recommend is The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. But the point of this concept is that essentially that there are finite games. Like for example, what’s your favorite sport, Laurie?
RV (09:24):
The spot here. Oh, we’ll, we’ll go, we’ll go, we’ll go with, we’ll go with soccer. I’m Nashville Soccer Club season two. There we go. So now I’m, now I’m soccer man.
JM (09:32):
There you go. All right. So soccer or football as we call it in Puerto Rico, but that’s a whole other thing. soccer itself is a very, is a finite game. There’s a clear point where the game starts, the game ends in between, the ball kicks around a bit. Some people score points, some don’t. There’s a, but that’s not, there’s ar that’s not arbitrary, right? There’s a clear way where you know how points are scored and there’s a clear point where the game ends, it’s finite, the game ends, and you have a winner and a loser.
RV (10:01):
Yep.
JM (10:02):
Most things in life are not finite games. Most things in life that matter are infinite games. Like how do you win at marriage or raising kids or building wealth or growing a business. There’s definitely milestones along the way where you’ve achieved success, but there’s not really a finish line unless you create one arbitrarily that says you’re done. You can’t just say, all right, honey, that was our, that was our winning date night, actually. We’re done, now we’ve won the game. I’m just gonna kind of coast through the rest of this marriage. Like that does not work. I’ve been very for about a decade and I’ve already learned that lesson. So the point of this, the reason why I bring this up is kind of bring this back into products, is that when you sell like a course or a book or even a group coaching program, typically what you’re selling is a finite promise by this thing.
JM (10:50):
You will get this result, right? Like if you join my seven figure school accelerator, my flagship program, the promise is that I’m gonna help you build a personalized playbook to build a seven your seventh Figure school, which is an online education business that generates a million dollars a year from three core products. But I’m also gonna help you scale a flag share product to six figures. That’s a finite promise, right? And then when you sell a book or a course, if the course is how to get a thousand email subscribers, for example, that’s a finite promise. The only way to sell a membership site effectively and grow retention over time is actually to sell an infinite promise. Because baked into it is this idea that it’s ongoing. If I sell you a membership site, it’s like, Hey, just pay $10 a month to join my program and I’m gonna help you lose 20 pounds Immediately your brain kind of got off go, like, gets us like kind of like full break, full stop, and you’re like, wait, what? Lose 20 pounds, then I’ll just cancel the membership. Like why would I e even before you body, you’re already talking yourself out of staying as a member. Mm-Hmm.
RV (11:50):
Mm-Hmm.
JM (11:51):
Interesting. But if instead, and instead I approach that same exact membership and I say it’s $10 a month and as part of this, you’re gonna get access to all of my, all of my training and support to help you to help you build and live like a fit, a fit body and a fit life. Or I like the phrase to transform your I’m, I’m expecting my fourth son in April, so I’m definitely have a dad bought, but I wanna transform my dad bought to a father figure. Like I’ve heard that phrase a couple of times and that stuck with me. Mm-Hmm. Right? That’s, but that’s like, that’s an ongoing thing. That’s an infinite game. And so a key is you have to make an infinite promise. And so that’s, that’s really the first key to retention is really just upfront. You have to be clear on what transformation are you promising.
RV (12:31):
Yeah. I mean that’s in, that’s interesting thought. You know, cuz we’ve like of course our, our core business as you would say is a membership model. I guess we’re really a coaching company, so peop like we, we do coaching and training, but people pay a recurring fee. We don’t charge like an upfront fee. And like, you know, I’ve wrestled with, gosh, it’s so much easier to sell like a course where you go sign up for this, you’re going, we’re gonna teach you this, it’s gonna give you this result and boom is done. Whereas like, you know, we’re selling building an influential personal brand and like that never ends. It gets bigger and bigger, but the game. But sometimes I’ve wondered, should we be selling more terminal points or, you know, checkpoints along the way cuz like, you know, we’ve had 11 clients that have become New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers. We’ve had four clients have Ted talks that have gone viral. We’ve had, we’ve had four clients who have, you know, grown multi seven figures, the, those kinds of things. Where it’s like, so it’s, it’s a fascinating to think about. You’re saying that it’s actually a good thing to align a membership site with more of an infinite promise, something that there’s no finish line.
JM (13:42):
I am, but I’m, but I also want to wanna say that from my experience, it is more difficult to sell some an infinite promise. And you’re probably have seen this with a coaching program like you just said. Like, yeah. And it’d be convenient if we could do, you know, a finite promise. I will say this is not on the membership side necessarily, but in my accelerator program, what I do is I really focus on selling the finite promise of my 90 day program. And then on the back end, it’s like as soon as you achieve those results, it’s like, okay, great, let’s keep working together in a mask line group. And that has an infinite promise attached to it. And so I would, I think there is a way probably to do some sort of hybrid of like taking your coaching services and figure out, okay, is there maybe a 90 day promise or a 30 day promise we could make? And you can see how that affects your conversions. Cuz my hunch is it’ll actually be a lot easier to sell. Cause that’s the thing you can go back and justify to your your bank or your spouse or, or your business partner, whatever, to say like, I’m gonna invest this money and I’m gonna get this result. That’s a finite equation. You can’t really run that math on a program that never ends. And so I Yeah,
RV (14:41):
Yeah, no, I follow, I follow you there. So let’s on the, on the topic of selling membership sites. Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about is, is about urgency, right? So the, the the the, you know, if you think of like, so many launch models are based on this closed cart idea that’s like, yeah, you, you gotta buy it between this window or else whatever, you lose bonuses or the price goes up or, or, or whatever. When you have a membership, I mean some people keep like our membership is open year round, right? So people can come in anytime, some people only open it for certain windows. Have you seen any like best practices around how to create urgency if you leave it open year round? Do you, do you recommend one way or the other? Like how have you navigated that with mem different types of membership sites?
JM (15:31):
Yeah, it’s totally, I’ve seen done both ways and it’s totally either one’s totally legitimate. I do have my preference in what I do as well as what I’ve, I’ve done that’s done well. And it’s sort of essentially to leverage the urgency factor, especially when you launch the membership site to get your core membership base. Cuz remember, because your membership site does start upside down, you wanna get as quickly as possible to the point where you have enough recurring revenue coming in to offset all the overhead that it takes to run a really good membership site. And I don’t just mean expenses, there’s not a ton of expenses attached to running a membership site. The biggest expense is gonna be your time or your team’s time, depending upon how you’re doing that.
RV (16:09):
Cuz in terms of finite and infinite, that’s the other problem here is when you create a course, you have a finite expense, you create the course and you’re done. When you create a membership site, you have the infinite, the infinite expense
JM (16:22):
, the infinite hamster wheel is the term that I hear them most actually about the content strategy. And, and I’ve worked with clients who didn’t come outta the gate with a huge bang, and so now all of a sudden they’re on year two of their membership site and now they’ve got, you know, less than a hundred members paying them $15 a month for their membership site. And they’re, you know, they’re, they’ve got on the hamster wheel of masterclass and live q and a and customer support and, you know, guides. And it’s just, it’s this maddening amount of work for really a meager recurring revenue. And so I do think you have to come outta the gate really strong. And so I do recommend having a founding membership launch. And that could be you know, they could be short, it could be like, you know, 10 days a week or like a normal launch.
JM (17:01):
But my founding membership launch for my membership site, I did the full month of September. And so I, when this is recently, you know, I recently launched my own membership site after doing this for other people enough times that I wanted one my own. But I did that for the full month of September. And so I, throughout that month, I could just emphasize that, hey, this is a founding membership opportunity. A some people are just attracted to the idea of being an early adopter because they know they get to help shape a product. There are plenty of people who are not right. There are plenty of people who say, Nope, I’m not an early adopter, I’m gonna come back when it’s done. But I typically like to reward the early adopters as well by offering a founding membership price. Now with the membership site, I do think you have to be really careful about discounts.
JM (17:39):
They can get really complicated with the exception of when you launch it, when you launch it, you sort of have this one time opportunity to say like, Hey, here’s the normal price of membership and here’s the founding membership price. And my, what I would do here then is actually only offer the founding membership discount on annual membership. And so, for example, thrive School Pro, my membership is a hundred dollars a month or a thousand a year, but during my founding membership launch, it was $500 for the year for founding membership. And so that got a lot of these like highly invested members to join, establish the core foundation of the, of the membership of the group. And so that’s one of the things I would recommend. In terms of urgency beyond that, I do think you need to look at how a membership site fits into your full product strategy.
JM (18:24):
And so yes, urgency self for sure, but a membership site is not about converting someone from being on the fence or not knowing who you are to being, you know, all in a membership is really about nurturing your raving fans, your super fans. And so the gateway product or multiple gateway products, I do think that is a great way to really lean on urgency of having a course or a book or a workshop that’s only available for a short period of time, leaning into that, getting people into that experience. But then it’s much easier, again, for people to buy a product with a finite promise and then be able to like get that experience and choose from then if they want to go further into your membership site. So I, I’m a fan of what you’re doing, Laurie, which is keep your membership open all the time. With the exception of having a founding membership launch I can share a real life example with some numbers. Would that be helpful in terms of like Sure. How these products kinda fit into each other?
RV (19:16):
Yeah,
JM (19:16):
So in September when I knew that I was launching my membership site, at this point, I’d already scaled my flagship product so that it was doing very well. I was funding my lifestyle and I had, you know, I had a bestselling book and another gateway products in the pipeline. Then at this point I did a couple you partner workshops. So I wrote it to my own audience, but I also convert Kit asked me to come teach a workshop to their audience about my seven figure school strategy. So they’re like kind of pro, I had to put a big pause here. They’re proc creators, , they’re professional creators. So I’ve, I’ve run into that issue before mm-hmm. but converts professional creators. They asked me to teach a workshop for them, so I did. And then, well,
RV (19:55):
You do have four kids, so you’re a procreator also.
JM (19:57):
I’m a procreator, I’m a procre and I’m a professional.
RV (19:59):
Yeah, you’re you’re a double a double procreator.
JM (20:02):
I’m a double dipper. Yeah, for sure. But convert side, so I taught this free workshop and then in the workshop I met, I kind of explained this concept of having these three core products, gateway membership with flagship. And then I said, Hey, let me create a gateway product for you live as a demo just to show you how easy this is. So I, of course, I planned this, right? So I created, I opened convert IT commerce, and I created a little order form and I said, okay, here’s the product. It’s called five Figure Flagship Earn $10,000 in the next 30 days from your existing expertise by creating and selling a flagship product. It’s a hundred dollars. And then I put a little image on it, just a slide, and then I dropped a link in that chat and I said, this is for real and it’s for sale and it’s, I’m teaching it live next week.
JM (20:45):
And out of that workshop, there were a little, a little over 300 people there, 35 bought the workshop right then. And so I had made over $3,000 live from that workshop. Who bought that course of the 35 who bought that course? Nine of them in my follow up with them upgraded from $400 to my, my founding membership offer for my membership site. So remember it was, it was $500 a year, but I said, Hey, you already paid a hundred for this course. I’m gonna credit that towards this. This is a campaign just for those people. So nine of them upgraded to my membership site, one of them upgraded to my accelerator program for $10,000. So that one workshop that I taught, that audience of 300 people made me over $20,000 very quickly in terms of when you start looking at recurring revenue and the fact that many of those customers are still in my pipeline. Another one I just noticed just on my membership last week, even though that workshop was several months ago. So this is kind of, that’s just one example, but I think you can see now how the products, the products, the urgency really play into each other. It’s not just the membership site. There really has to be ecosystem.
RV (21:47):
Yeah. So let’s talk about that for a second. Yeah, that, what you’re describing there is like a concept lifetime value, right? Customer lifetime value, L t v, which is what Yeah. You know, very sophisticated digital marketers and people understand that. It’s like, okay, the, the, the whatever, the 35 people that bought you a hundred dollars, but then nine of ’em upgraded from there and then one of ’em upgraded to to $10,000. How do you calculate lifetime value and and how do you utilize that when you’re managing a membership site?
JM (22:27):
Yeah, so I mean, the civil way of calculating left hand value is, it’s easier said than done. You know, first of all, it’s just saying like, how much has someone paid you over time and adding it up. You know, I some of this Stripe, like if you’re using Azure Hanger Pro, they includes some of this data in there. I actually have a custom, you know, I call it a people profits pipeline, essentially a custom CRM or custom way to track my customers. That’s, I built a notion and that tool, basically, I have a, this is a little nerdy, but I have a Zap set up with Zapier that says whenever someone buys something, it automatically updates their lifetime value there. Now, I’ve seen some people do this really well and convert Kit and other email service providers and just having all your data there.
JM (23:09):
But lifetime value is one of the ones that I wanted to pull out, especially because I do have an actual direct outreach sales strategy to sell into my accelerator program. And so it’s not just email marketing funnels, there’s this other piece. But then the other way, the other way to look at it then, of course is to say, okay, but then what’s the average value of a subscriber? Cause if you can look at a campaign like what I just described, and if you can do the math on how many subscribers and what’s the total value, and if you can come up with a dollar value per, like your average quality email subscriber, what they’re worth to you in your business, well then all of it makes it lot easier to decide where to invest deal marketing money. I will say all of that is true, everything I just said, and even though I know how to do all that stuff, I really try not to get distracted by most of that.
JM (23:55):
And I try to keep it super simple for my clients and myself, which is that of those three core products, my gateway product, every dollar that I generate from my gateway product is my sales and marketing budget. And so my goal is not actually to make money from my gateway product, it’s basically to say whether it’s a book or a course or a workshop, when the goal of that gateway product is to create customers not cash. And so when that money comes in, great, that’s what I can use now to either partner with other affiliates and pay commission or to sponsor a newsletter to get featured. I don’t do a lot of paper click ads, but that’s something else you could do with that strategy. And then my, my flagship program is primarily how I fund my lifestyle. And the goal of the membership then is that funds sort of the core infrastructure of your business, your ability to hire, to scale things like that. And so that’s like super simple and any accountants or bookkeepers listen this are, are just like, oh my gosh, how do you put that on a p and l? That’s way too simple and Yep. Skipping all the complicated stuff. Yeah. But I, it really helps. I find when you’re selling these products to think about, especially when you’re starting from scratch, to think about how
RV (24:55):
Do you calculate the value of the email subscriber?
JM (24:59):
Well, I mean, candidly, I don’t, I don’t do that a lot. I mean, technically, yeah, I’ve done this for clients, I’ve done this in the past when I was a, like a full-time fractional chief marketing officer. And so the way you would calculate that essentially is, is look at, look at a period of time. I mean, typically it’s a long period of time. Look at your total revenue and divided by number of subscribers. And you know that the reality is that 80 to 90% of your email subscribers, they never bought anything from you. So they’re obviously gonna throw that math off. But even if you say, okay, wait a minute, a subscriber, a quality target subscriber to me is worth two or $3 when all of a sudden, or maybe $5, now all of a sudden it’s easier to make decisions about how you’re gonna get your leads.
RV (25:39):
Mm-Hmm. Interesting.
JM (25:41):
But I don’t wanna mislead you. I don’t, I don’t do that, all that tracking myself in my business.
RV (25:44):
Yeah, no. Well the, they and I know you’re kind of just in terms of running your own membership site, you’re newer to, newer to that, newer to that party. But it’s really interesting to see you doing that and to hear some of the data of how you’re kind of getting this up and running, which is cool. And so the, talk to me about free trials. So this is another real common thing that I think you, you see, right? Is either a free trial or try it for a dollar for 30 days or seven days. Have you seen those strategies work? Do they work well? Do they work not so well? Do they work only if you do it in a certain way? Like yeah. Tell me about the trial trial period.
JM (26:31):
Well, the reality is, is we’re talking about this right now. Subscription products have been on for a long time. And so the average modern consumer has subscription fatigue. You know, you’ve got Subscri, you’re subscribed to like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and I mean, you know, your utility company, of course that one’s been around for a long time, but you’ve got all these different things that you’re paying for on a regular basis that are the mean that once upon a time you could sell very differently. In the early days of membership sites, there was a lot of like leading with a 30 day trial, getting people in there, they forget about it, now they’re a customer. Well, if the goal of your membership website is to create raving super fans, your goal is not to get people to become a customer by accident, right?
JM (27:14):
So there is a way to use free trials, but I just wanna put that disclaimer in there, that sort of, the way that a lot of people used to do it doesn’t really work anymore, nor do I recommend it. But there’s a, one of my favorite newsletters, I can’t even pronounce it, I think it’s called ari, but it’s academic, it’s an acronym for academic research in your hands, A R I Y H. But he dove into like the, there’s actual studies on pre-trial link. And what they found was that the order trials actually had a higher a higher effect on sales and retention, specifically seven day trials. What they found was if it’s a longer trial, people are nervous that they’re gonna forget it. And so it actually hurts your sales. But also then even if they do forget it, and then it automatically when used, they’re more likely to either cancel asper refund, but a shooter trial gives someone to say, yeah, I’ll try this this week.
JM (28:04):
And so it is a great way to get customers. I what I do is typically I use, I use free trials as an opportunity to introduce urgency to get people from a gateway product to a membership product. So like for example, I don’t do any public free trials, but what I’ll do is say like, Hey, when once you buy a gateway product, like a course, then included in that is a complimentary 30 day membership in Thrive School Pro. And that is essentially a free trial. That’s one way to do it. One of the most profitable ways we grew PLA University was we did have paid ads going to a funnel for a $1 10 day trial. Now, there’s two reasons I love this. One is it’s a short trial, and so people know going into it like, yeah, that’s, that’s realistic. Like, I’m not gonna forget, forget about it. I’m gonna actually give this thing a shot, see if I like it, stick around
RV (28:50):
Or 10 days the second one, 10 day trial.
JM (28:52):
10, yeah, yeah, we did a 10 day. The second thing I like about that is that it’s a dollar. It’s not free. That means there’s actually some money changing hands, but it’s not much. But it also means we’re actually getting real life payment information cuz we’re free trials. People will often put in fake credit, like fake payment information, but the $1 trial, it’s like we actually charge ’em, they have 10 days and then it turns into a regular membership. And that was very effective.
RV (29:17):
Yep. Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. So I got one other question for you. I knew our time was gonna sort of fly by be before I do that you know, you’ve talked about some of the things, some of the things that you do and teach people in terms of membership site, like specific where should people, where should we send people and connect them if they wanna learn more about what you’re up to? John,
JM (29:40):
Thank you so much for asking Roy. I’m honored to be here and I wanted to share some of this. So I set up a special website just for you, Rory. Nice. It’s Rory loves memberships.com. Rory loves memberships.com. You do love memberships, right?
RV (29:53):
Rory? I do love, I do love memberships. We are okay. We’re, I mean, I think of us as our real, I would say our real expertise is like coaching. That was, you know, we have built an eight figure company before Phoebe Brand Builders group will be our second. But coaching and membership have a lot of similarities. Coaching is less scalable digitally you know, it’s, it’s much more people intensive, but Yes. Yeah, but
JM (30:17):
You’re still a subscription based coaching, which is very similar.
RV (30:20):
We are, yeah. A lot of the, a lot of the mechanics are very much the same. Yep.
JM (30:24):
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So if you go to rory loves membership.com, you can download a free copy of a book I wrote could always be teaching that goes into this in more detail. But I’m also teaching at works, a live workshop there on turning your wisdom into wealth on how these different products play into each other that we talked about today. How does the Flasher product play to the gateway product play in the membership? Which do you do first? How do you scale them? And so that’s totally free Rory for anybody listening to this. So Rory loves memberships.com.
RV (30:53):
Cool. So we’ll link, we’ll link that up in the show notes and over on our website and everything. So one last question for you, John. One of the things that you guys did at Platform University, which is very, very rare is you sold or in this case Michael sold the membership site. That’s unusual. It’s unusual to see like, you know, people don’t often buy someone other creator’s video course because it’s very much connected to that person. So you guys were able to create an asset that was a brand that was sort of beyond just, just Michael. Obviously Michael was a big part of that, but you know, do you have any keys around scaling a membership beyond just like the original founder or the original brand? And like how do you go about, how do you go about doing that and setting that up? Because when you do that, it actually creates an asset that would be sellable so that, that has enterprise value, which is one of the big potential payoffs compared to Yeah. You know, a course that’s just tied directly to a course creator. How’d you do that?
JM (32:03):
Well, so now you’re tapping into my secret mission because when I was hired by Michael Hya Clocking University, I had a public mission, which is hello meet John Mes. He’s the brand director and dean of PLO University, and he now runs this thing and serves up our students whole time. I actually was a student originally, so it was a cool story of sort of like from Success student to the dean. That was my public title. My secret mission was I was hired to help separate platform university from being attached to Michael Hyatt’s brand to sell. That was explicit from the beginning. And so that was a huge part of, of my job behind the scenes for a long period of time. At this point, we’re talking about a multimillion dollar membership site with its own massive audience separate from Michael Hyatt’s audience. And so because of that, that means like we’re, this was, this was a slow process but it meant looking at the content strategy and finding out, okay, how much of this content is dependent on Michael itself and minimizing that as much as possible.
JM (33:01):
So we switched from having a hamster wheel of live content to creating a core curriculum and then recording all of that in a two day video shoot with guests that we flew in from all over to interview. And then Michael interviewed the guests for those interviews. And actually the, there was 13 interviews and the first and the 13th was actually me. It was sort of like we, Michael and I were in the book ends of like interviewing each other sort of Mm, which helped set me up in that role. But also every single one of those masterclass videos, we then created screening videos. They’d that when in detail on that subject that were, that Michael was never part of. And so we either had other people fly in, sometimes we had members of our team teach them. Sometimes I taught it, but we really just diversified the, the talent pool of who was teaching the content.
JM (33:45):
And then we took off the hamster wheel. Now all of a sudden it was all of our job to run the membership site was, was get new members in, serve the current members direct into the core curriculum and do regular weekly group live q and a coaching calls. And that was really a huge part of the process so that by the time we hired a broker and we were negotiating with different people to who were interested in buying the business, we’d already answered a lot of the questions that people were gonna ask about. Like, but what about Michael? And Michael was like, Michael could honestly say, he was like, I literally haven’t touched Pop University in more than two years and it’s still made over a million a year in revenue. Like that was, he was at that point where I was running the whole thing and he could, I mean, he knew of a financial and all that kinda stuff, but he was not involved in the day to day of that, which is really what convinced ultimately to have multiple people at the table who wanted to buy it. And then Pete Vargas was the one who ultimately struck a deal, bought Platform University and it became his
RV (34:38):
Yeah, wild. What an interesting what a really cool, really, really cool case study. And you know, that’s a, that’s a very unique potential feature of building membership sites. And just, and then giving life to people’s personal brands. Right now, here you are on your own teaching people how to do this, and that’s inside a brand builder’s group. We’ve, we’re, we’re raising up all many personalities. I mean, you were the primary one at Platform University, but like all of our strategists, you know, we’re constantly pushing forward and they genuinely get to know the content better than me because they spend more time in a more specific area and, and they just do it over and over, you know, like a specific area with clients and they, they actually really, really develop. It’s a really, really cool thing and gives life to other people. So I love that. Well, thank you for this, John. Thanks for sharing this, this. Oh,
JM (35:32):
It’s my
RV (35:32):
Pleasure. Really cool stuff, man. Congratulations on starting your Journey, your own membership site. So that’s, that’s fun. We’ll be, we’ll be cheering you on and watching you and wishing for the best my friend. So take care and, and keep going.
JM (35:47):
Thank you, Roy. Please keep up the good work.

Ep 367: Tips For Being a Better Coach | Minal Mehta Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
So this note is specifically for the coaches out there. I had an awesome podcast interview actually earlier this week with a new friend of mine, Minal. And we got to talking about coaches and the coaching community and the coaching industry as a whole. And there were a few quick takeaways that I thought would be worth to pull out, put ’em in a little condensed version for you right now. But this is for you coaches out there who are out there serving your clients. So here was the question that was asked, what do you think coaches need to know to be better coaches? And I thought the answers were super helpful and pretty tactical, so I’m gonna share ’em with you right now. Number one, be niche, right? Get clear on who you wanna serve, how you wanna serve ’em, and what you’re going to actually do, right?
AJV (00:53):
Being a generalist is not in your best benefit. So niche down, niche down, both on the who, the how, and the what. Like what is it that you actually do coaching on? Who do you do it for and how do you uniquely do it? So it’s niche down in each of those three categories. So that’s the first thing you can actually do to be a better coach, is be more specific, less general, right? There’s a little saying in our house at the vaden household, the more specific, the more terrific, right? And this is a chance that you can be more specific and be more terrific. So niche down on the who, what, and the how of how you serve your clients. All right? That’s number one. Note, note and be honest with yourself, that being a great coach and building a coaching business are two very different things.
AJV (01:45):
The talent and the skills that it takes to be a great coach are often different than the skills that it takes to learn and master of running a great coaching business, right? Being a great coach means that you’ve got tactical experience and expertise that you can help someone with. You’re a great listener. You are a great asker of questions. You have great empathy, you have great accountability. There are so many amazing skills that it takes to be a great coach, but there are also some really important skills that it takes to build a good coaching business. Like having a sound operational system that you can invoice people with and collect money with. A good way of keeping notes clean and information updated, A great way of sending out reminders for calls, meetings, content a notes consolidation process. You’ve got taxes. You’ve got all those operational, administrative and financial things that you also have to have in place. Otherwise, you don’t have a coaching business, thus you don’t have a coaching practice. So just be aware that the skills that it takes to be a great coach are
AJV (02:58):
Uniquely different than the skills that it takes to run a coaching business, and definitely different than the ones it’s gonna take to grow and scale one if that’s of your desire. So it’s just to be aware consciously aware of the unique set of skillsets that you need in both areas, both of being a coach and running a coaching business. And if you’re not even sure what those are, then that’s what we at Brand Builders Group, that’s what we do. That’s what we help you with, . So we got massive amounts of resources on that. But you also reach out to the coaching community, right? I reach out to other business owners, entrepreneurs and find those things out. Be like, what, what do I need to know to, to run a great coaching business? Or maybe you’re asking, what, what am I lacking in being a great coach?
AJV (03:45):
E it works either way. I think the first step is just be consciously aware. Those are uniquely different skill sets, and you need ’em both. Okay? Yes. Number two number three is the importance, the importance of organized systems and how important that organization is to the client experience. And this is where there’s a combination of both technology and psychology that’s really important for your practice as a coach, is that there’s a, a component of me where it’s like, man, I, I want access to that recording that we just did on that session. I want access to the raw notes. You said you were gonna put a a list together. I have some action items. Where is it? You were gonna refer me a book, you were gonna send me this. Where is it? There’s a, a process to the organization that improves the experience that makes it easy for me as your client to have a great experience and make positive progress on every single call.
AJV (04:38):
And that’s where technology plays a great role. Automation and just different platforms. But there is a really important part of our role as coaches of staying organized to improve the customer experience so that they can make the progress they need to improve their lives and their businesses. So just the importance of organized systems will make you a better coach, right? Then that kind of lends itself to this question of technology, right? Which is, well, how does technology make the coaching experience better? And there are three simple things. One, it’s consolidation, right? Keeping all of your emails, chats, communication, documentation, recording content material in a a singular place is so helpful when I don’t have to go to a SharePoint drive and an email and a text thread and an L m s, I’m only saying those things because we have these same struggles, right? But the consolidation, if I go to one place to find all my stuff, then that’s so helpful to me. It allows me to be a better client by saying, organize so I don’t bug you the coach all the time. So it’s in your benefit too, as the coach. It’s like the more that you can consolidate, it’s like your life is gonna be more streamlined because your clients’ lives are more streamlined. So consolidation is a
AJV (05:56):
Major perk and benefit of technology. The second thing, it’s simplicity, right? Finding technology platforms that are simple they don’t have to be robust and complicated. They just need to work. So finding a technology platform that actually is easy to use, simple to use, right? Has basic trainings already available out there. So you’re not the person to conduct in inform, instruct and teach everyone how to use this, right? But the, just having something that is simple and easy to use, and there’s already a well known process, right? So easy user interface is a part of that. If I log in and can’t figure out how to do it, it’s not a good platform, right? So as you go through it of going, Hey, how long did it take you to learn it? And just double that or triple that for each of your clients, right?
AJV (06:44):
So pick technology that is simple. And then the third thing about technology and how we can use technology to create better experiences with our coaching community is community. It’s connection, right? So use technology to actually amplify the community component, which makes your clients have a better coaching experience. So how can you use technology to better create the connection within all of your different clients, or even if it’s just you and your client? That could be something as simple as having a Slack channel for all of your clients. That could be having a private group of some sort, a private community group somewhere. Maybe it’s hosting unique group calls that you just do over some sort of, you know, webinar or virtual meeting. I’m, I’m trying to stay technology agnostic right now and not mention any technologies because I think there’s pros and cons to all of them.
AJV (07:41):
But it’s just finding ways to use technology to increase connection, not decrease connection, right? And that can happen too. Like one of the things that I’ll do to keep this completely technology agnostic is that I just make video messages. I make videos or even audio messages and send those to my client, right? Just seeing the face means a great deal. So instead of sending a text, make a quick video message or an audio message versus sending an email or sending a text, really simple increases that connection point in that community. And so there’s some things that you can do right now to increase the community experience, the coaching experience by using technology and at the same time making your life and your business easier and the process. So you coaches out there, you’re doing awesome. I so admire what you do. I, I, you are who I am meant to serve. Keep doing what you’re doing and let us help it make just a little bit easier for you. So keep on coming, we’ll see you next time.