Author: Nicole Gale

Ep 561: Choose Your Hard | Chris Janssen Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Choose your hard. That’s the conversation that I would like to have today. I just got off of an amazing conversation with author and coach Chris Janssen. She’s the author of a new book called Grace Yourself, how to Show Up for the Sober Life You Want. And our conversation was about choose your hard and whatever, whatever we choose in life can be hard. Like I heard somebody say the other day, it’s like, life is hard. It’s, it’s just hard. And so it’s up to us to choose our hard. And in this conversation that I had with Chris Jansen, we were talking about very specifically choosing a sober life versus a, a life where something has a stronghold over you. Not necessarily just alcohol, but in this quote I saw the other day, it was like, you know, choose to be fit. That’s hard.
AJV (00:55):
Choose to be fat. That’s hard. Choose to save your money. That’s hard. Choose to go in debt. That’s hard, right? Choose to focus and work on your marriage. That’s hard. Choose not to and get a divorce that’s hard. Choose to prioritize your time and spending time with your kids while you’re young. That, that can be hard. Choose not to do that and miss out on knowing your kids while they’re young. That’s hard. It’s like, regardless of what we choose, there is going to be hard parts to it. It’s just what hard are you going to choose? Right? And it doesn’t matter if it’s a health journey or a money journey or a relationship journey, or it’s a sobriety journey, right? Either way you go, it can be hard and there’s going to be hard parts of whatever it is that you choose.
AJV (01:49):
The differences is, do you want to, you know, choose the salad and be healthy or, you know, choose the dessert and have a temporary indulgence. And I’m not saying having a dessert is bad and having salad every meal is good. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying the repetitive nature of those choices lead to rewards and consequences. Not all that different than, you know, spending money or investing in relationships or anything else. Our choices are what lead to the rewards or the consequences. And there’s going to be hard parts about either there’s gonna be hard long days lots of extra work. There’s going to be discipline and obedience. There’s going to be missing out on some things to get something else later. Like they’re, they’re just hard things. But we each get to choose our hard, and this conversation with Chris was about, you know, you, you could choose right? To, you know, have that quick fix and have that drink in the moment, or you can choose to make a better, healthy choice for your life and
AJV (02:58):
Not do that. And again, not saying having a drink is bad. I’m not saying that. But for some of us, it is for some people it is. And it’s for each of us. We just gotta choose our hard ’cause it’s gonna be hard either way. And so as you’re, as you’re sitting here and listening to this, I just wanted to pose a couple of quick questions. One, what’s the hard that you need to choose in 2025? And it could be, it’s like, I’m gonna choose the hard of getting up at 5:00 AM to get in early morning reading time or time with the Lord, or going on a walk or going to the gym, right? Could it be that it’s like I’m gonna choose the heart of missing out on seemingly a lot of fun stuff because I’m committing to getting in bed by, you know, 9:00 PM it, I don’t know what your heart is.
AJV (03:49):
I’m just saying what is the hard that you need to choose for 2025? Because they can go both ways. There’s the good hard and the bad. Hard, but there’s hard either way. So that’s my first question is, you know, what is the hard that you need to choose for 2025? My second question to you is, what are gonna be the rewards of choosing that hard and the consequences of not choosing that hard in 2025? Because with any choice, right? There comes an opportunity for reward or for consequence. And if you know that there is a hard that you need to choose, and I can just tell you personally for me almost two years ago, it was, I had to give up alcohol. I knew that it had created a default mechanism in my life and my choices. It had a strong hold on the way that I was decompressing.
AJV (04:45):
And I had to give it up. And it was hard. And then it wasn’t . It was hard until it wasn’t. And there were a lot of hard days where it’s like, man, it’s like, am I not getting invited because they know I don’t drink? Or do I, I’m not gonna go to that networking meeting. ’cause I, I feel awkward if I don’t have a drink in my hand. It’s like there was a lot of firsts and a lot of hearts, but the reward has been a healthier, happier me. The consequence would’ve been I was in the same position thinking the same thing two years later, and I hadn’t done anything that would’ve, that was my reward and that could have been my consequence. We all have hearts that we have to pick. I’m just asking you, what’s yours and what’s the reward that you can get from it this year, and what’s the consequence of you not doing it? So it’s 2025. What’s your hard for this year?

Ep 560: Grace Yourself with Chris Janssen

AJV (00:00):
Hey, y’all. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here today. And I am so, so excited for today’s guest for so many reasons. One, I love her personally. And as I get to introduce Chris, Jan since you guys formally in just a second, I have had the privilege of getting to know Chris over the last year in a variety of different ways. But she’s one of the sweetest, hardest working , personable. Honestly, like when you think about like the ideal person to kind of partner with, like Chris is always, we use her as the exemplary example of like, this is what it means to do the work all the time. And you’re gonna learn about what kind of work she’s been doing as we get into our interview today. But for those of you who are listening, I always tell you why, why do you need to stick around?
AJV (00:51):
And how do you know if this episode is for you? So I invited Chris on the show today for two reasons. One, she’s in the middle of a book launch, right? So when I talk about hardworking , that’s what we’re gonna talk about. Like, what does it mean to launch a bestselling book? Not necessarily just the writing part, right? But the marketing, the selling, the promotion all the work that goes into the words on the pages, but then getting books in hands of people. So if you are an aspiring author, you are an author in process of writing a book, you are just in the process of selling your book. You’re in a book launch, or man, you’re just curious of what it would be like to do that one day. And this is an episode for you. This is a custom tailored episode for the authors and aspiring audience, aspiring authors in our audience.
AJV (01:38):
Secondarily, though, we’re gonna actually talk about the contents of her book, which I think is just a really important topic. And Chris’s upcoming book is called Grace Yourself. And without getting too much into the contents of the book right now, let’s just say that it’s a great reflection of a lot of people are talking about dry January as we are in January, 2025 at the recording of this episode. And so we’re gonna talk about what it means to be sober, curious, and Chris’s journey on that path. So that is, that is who this episode is for. Now, let me formally introduce you to Chris so we can get to our interview, which is the best part. Chris Janssen is a leading results coach in performance and mindset. She’s a bestselling author who’s worked with hundreds of sought after creators entrepreneurs soldiers, small business o owners. She has been taught by and has worked with Tony Robbins on his team of results coaches. She’s a board certified coach with a master’s in counseling psychology with more than 20 years of experience. Chris, welcome to the show.
CJ (02:42):
Thanks, aj. I have the biggest smile on my face ’cause it’s so fun to be here with you. Yes.
AJV (02:48):
This is going to be an amazing episode for so many reasons. But I know that I just get asked all the time, like, what is it like, what do you have to do to have a bestselling book and what, what does that even mean? And since you’re in the middle of a book launch right now, and this is not your first book, what I would love for you to share with the audience is one, what’s been your journey of writing and publishing books up to this one? And how has this one similar or different than what you’ve done in the past?
CJ (03:20):
Mm. That’s such a good question. Yeah, because people ask a lot, you know, what, what do I have to do to write a book? And there’s so much to know, and I am a good person to ask because the first book I self-published and no regrets. I did learn a lot of what I wanted to do differently the second time, though. And so I kind of thought, like a lot of authors, I hear this a lot, that I would write a great book. I had a great editor. I had, I had help. I knew what I was doing. I’m really proud of it. It’s a really good book. It’s a coaching book. But I thought, you know, let’s, let’s self-publish. We’ll put it out there so people can start reading it. I didn’t, none of the, you know, the prep, right? I didn’t, I didn’t have the audience ahead of time. I didn’t think about lists. I just thought all that came after that. If you write a book, you then people start calling you
AJV (04:13):
. Did they?
CJ (04:15):
They, it was, they did not like, I thought though, , but they did. You know, I was asked in small things, you know, I was asked to speak at church. I was asked to do, I, and I did things that were very fun. And really though I did write that book for my clients because I wanted a tool. And I think that’s a great reason to write a book, is who are you writing it for? So I, every word of that book, I knew who I was writing to and I wrote it to my clients. And it’s, it’s a very handy tool. The second time, I would say call brand builders . I called brand builders because, you know, I’ve, I’ve heard you talking about bestselling books. And by that time I knew I had missed the window to make bestseller lists. So now I am full of information of what to do different.
CJ (05:07):
I am still doing it a little bit backwards where I am writing this second book, and I don’t have a huge audience. I have a thriving coaching business. So I have kind of doubled up on the PR side where I’m using the bestseller bestseller launch plan strategy. And then I’m also using a little bit of PR to get me on more stages, right? Because I didn’t have that element. And that’s been phenomenal. I mean, that, it just, it’s like the butterfly effect. It just, people tell, people tell people, and then the message gets to get in the hands of the people. ’cause Not everyone wants to read a coaching book or a book on sobriety. And then when you have these specific audiences, though, those are the people who are looking for that material and they tell the other people looking for that material. Yeah. So it’s been great this time
AJV (06:03):
Around. Well, you know, I, I love that you’ve done it both ways, right? Mm-Hmm . And for all of you guys listening, Chris was our first ever signed author at Mission-Driven Press, which is the hybrid publishing imprint that we started which is a sister company of brand builders group. And so Chris has been so gracious and so helpful to come along as we kind of like cover the, the bumps and bruises of her being our very first author. But what I also think is so powerful is that we tell this to people all the time. There’s like, there’s, there’s self-publishing, there’s hybrid publishing, and then there’s traditional publishing. And they’re all three extremely different. They’re, they’re very different. But I would, I would say something to you that you said, it’s like, I’m kind of doing it backwards. I still don’t have the biggest audience, but we have also seen, for everyone who’s listening, we’ve seen people who have mm-hmm . Millions of followers on social media. Mm-Hmm . Millions of people on their email list mm-hmm . And they still miss the bestseller list. Mm-Hmm . Why? ’cause they thought all they needed to do was write the book.
CJ (07:07):
Right?
AJV (07:08):
I don’t have to go Right. Tell people to buy it. I don’t need to pick up the phone. I don’t need to like do a launch. I already have a huge following. If I write a book, they’ll just buy it. And we’ve literally heard people tell us that. And you know what? Nobody bought the book.
CJ (07:24):
Right? Yeah. We’ll sit on a black, in a black hole on Amazon, or wherever it is, , right. Where books are sold. So that’s exactly right.
AJV (07:33):
And so sometimes it’s not always about how big is the audience, it’s mm-hmm . How engaged and how Target is targeted, is the audience. ’cause We’ve seen the exact same thing happen mm-hmm . So I would love to know so through this process, what would you say out of all of the things that you’ve been doing during this launch season what would you say for you has been, like, for everyone listening again, who’s thinking about like, okay, well I want to do that one day. Like, what would you say here, here’s what you need to know if you want to write and launch a bestselling book. Like, what would you tell that person listening today?
CJ (08:09):
Get in front of targeted audiences. And you’re, before you even pick up the pin, know who your audience is, know who you’re writing to, and then those are the people that will, you’ll want to get in front of, to start talking about your book months before the launch and months after the launch. So the, those, those specific people, like if you have a following on Facebook or Instagram, a lot of those people might be your friends now. Like, let’s use me, for example, I have lot of friends and they follow me on my socials and they wanna hear what my kids are up to and this type of thing. They don’t all wanna hear about my book, and this book might not be for them. So I, it was the, the most helpful thing was getting help, getting in front of the people who want and need this.
CJ (09:00):
And then also not getting tripped up in the numbers, just staying focused on impact. You are a, a steward of your message. If God put it on your heart to write a book, especially if it’s a vulnerable book that was uncomfortable to write, then you, then your mission is to steward that message after launch for the rest of your life, really. And so if God put it on your heart, he’s going to help you do that. So the people will, the people that need to hear the message will show up. The reason for wanting to make bestseller lists though isn’t fame or numbers. It is the impact, right. It is being a steward of your message. And if it does make lists, your message, you’ll being a better steward of your message because it’s, it’s going to reach more people.
AJV (09:51):
Mm. I love that. I think that’s such a great clarifying distinction of hitting a bestseller list is not for ego or vanity or any of that. It’s, it’s, it’s a sign that you are doing what you are supposed to do and reaching the people that you wrote it for. Mm-Hmm .
CJ (10:09):
Exactly.
AJV (10:10):
That’s really, really good. I would be, I would be so curious to go, so you said you’ve had some luck with pr,
CJ (10:17):
Right?
AJV (10:17):
Mm-Hmm . And have, we have a variety of experiences on both sides of the corn. Right? Right. But you know, our, we, you know, our opinion, and for those of you listening, so we have a love hate relationship with pr, right? Yeah. Because sometimes it moves the needle and a lot of times it doesn’t. Right. But when it does, what, well, it’s a great success story. Mm-Hmm . So I would love to hear from you, as I’m sure everyone else is, is like, well, is it worth the money? Where should you put the money? So on the PR scheme, what’s been working?
CJ (10:45):
So what’s, well, I, I’m a lucky one. My daughter, she’s 25, she runs a pr, an LA based PR company. She runs the UK division in London. So I had the advantage of one, the publisher, you guys sent me a, like a list of maybe 15 vetted PR places that they know love and work with. So that’s great. Have a rep get it from somebody you trust in anything, in anything to do with the publishing world. Trust is a big thing, right? People are out to make money on your dream. So no, these hybrid publishers, you know, you wanna have a reputable vetted people that you’re working with. So we, my daughter helped me take those, say 15 PR companies and reach out to the top five that, that I thought were really in line with my mission. So of the book like that. So, so not my mission as a coach, not my mission as a person, the mission of the book. And so those people I reached out to, and then, you know, there was one, I just had a gut feeling that stood out above them all. And, and I, it, it was a really good match. She’s been wonderful. And so the audiences I’m getting in front of are very in line with the mission of the book.
AJV (12:07):
So I think this is a great question because I think a lot of people hear about pr, but they don’t really know what it means. Mm-Hmm . So can you like, and not everyone gets to have a daughter in the industry, right?
CJ (12:18):
Exactly. Right. That’s why I’m trying to like, teach what I know from her.
AJV (12:23):
But I think it’s really like, so like for those who are listening, it’s like, okay, great, but what did they do for you? Like, give us some insights.
CJ (12:29):
Mm-Hmm . Right? So there’s digital, like somebody could come and they could do take over your Instagram page, for example. They could do your newsletter so that mine doesn’t do that. So know, you know, know those questions to ask, are you gonna be help me digitally? What are you helping me? And then there’s, are you helping me get on podcasts, TV shows, writing news article. For example, mine were, were really FI was on a TV show this morning, but she’s helping me with mostly podcasts because, and then also know the trend. It needs to be what the trends change every six months. So it has to be what’s helping people make bestseller lists that month. Mm-Hmm . And then she had an idea to get me in front of, because I love writing to get me in front of people that would run articles that I write.
CJ (13:21):
So I’m writing some articles for different publications, and then you get to talk about the book and it tells you where to buy the book. So that’s all good. So that’s what this, but not all PR companies are gonna do that exact thing. Some are just more tv. Some are just virtual things. Some are more social media. Some do all of it. Some do a lot of in-person events. One of the ones I interviewed is here in LA and was going to get me in front. That was like my, I was trying to decide between this one and the other one. They were gonna get me in front of a lot of in my community in la a lot of like book signings or the, at the local bookstore, that type of thing, which is also really good. So that was, it was a tough decision because they’re all good. So there’s not one size fits all for sure. Like anything.
AJV (14:16):
Yeah. Well, I love that. ’cause I think what I hear you saying, it’s like, like with anything, before you go searching out a PR firm or like with anything else that you’re gonna spend money on, do your research and know what are you actually trying to get out of this mm-hmm . And I think when a lot of people say, oh, well I’ve hired pr, it doesn’t work. It’s like, did it not work? Or were you just trying to like, throw mud against the wall and see what sticks? And I love that there’s like a, a very targeted approach. It’s like, no, are you trying to get in front of audiences? Is this podcast, is it tv, is it digital? Is it book signings? And again, with anything without a clear strategy, anything is likely not to work,
CJ (14:55):
Right? And like as a coach, we’re always very hyper-focused on the outcome. So what have a crystal clear outcome. So I came to the these inter these vetting these people with the outcome. The outcome for me was to make a bestseller list, right? Like I said, for the reasons I said. So somebody’s outcome might be to get well known or famous. Those are two different outcomes. So know your outcome before you start looking for who to work with.
AJV (15:23):
Yeah. And so I know that you did this too, looking for publishers, so mm-hmm . Same thing with pr. So what were you looking for when you decided to go on a publishing hunt? Because the first time you did this, it was a self-publisher mm-hmm . And I think, again, everyone who’s listening very high level, right? You have self-publishing, which is basically, you are paying for it, right? But you’re also mm-hmm . You’re doing the editing, you’re picking out all the artwork. It’s the cheapest way to get a book out there. But you’re doing all the work, right? You’re the writer, you’re the editor, you’re the creative , you’re all the things. Then there’s hybrid where it’s like you pay for it upfront. But you have a partner on the back end who’s gonna take care of the editorial and the cover designs and the printing and the publishing and the distribution. And then you’ve got traditional publishing, which is typically they pay you upfront, but then they take all your money on the backend, right? So I think
CJ (16:17):
It’s, well, and they take the rights to your book
AJV (16:18):
And they own it, right? Mm-Hmm. And I think mm-hmm. For people who are going, well, if you listen to that, you just have to like, pick up the nuance of the creator at some point is always paying for it.
CJ (16:29):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (16:29):
. Right? Right. There is, there is an investment on behalf of the Craig creator. So you’re gonna pay for it upfront and own it, which is our preference, or you’re going to get paid for it upfront, and they’re gonna take all the money on the back end and you don’t own it. And so That’s right. So I think it’s, it’s when people think, well, oh, it’s better to have an advance. It’s like, well, is it it depends on your goals, like with anything. So you did self-publishing the first time mm-hmm . You decided hybrid publishing the second time mm-hmm . What was a part of that choice? What was a part of that decision?
CJ (17:02):
Right. So a few distinctions. One I’ll say even traditional publishing, you’re gonna spend money because you’re gonna have an editor help you make it look fantastic before you send the proposal in. So there’s always an investment on the author’s part. Especially with the, the first one to three books, let’s say. And, and technically hybrid publishing is self-publishing. We have, you’re, you’re technically called an indie author, like when I go into my books in book contests and stuff, because I’ve done hybrid the second time in self, the first time. They’re both in the self-publishing category as opposed to traditional publishing. So the greatest thing is you get to keep your rights. Now self-publishing can be done really well. Like I did self-publishing. The first time I hired a developmental editor, she helped me hire the copy editor, and I hired a cover designer and interior designer.
CJ (18:04):
And there’s websites in places that can help you. And I, it, I will just say this, all of me wanted to do hybrid because I didn’t want to be the one out there hiring these people. I couldn’t trust anybody. Mm. People need to know there’s not, every hybrid publisher is trustworthy, right? There’s Vanity Pub publishers, some of them will even take the rights if you can believe it and, and take a lot of royalties too. And so that is why I kept coming back to the self-publishing with the first one. And then when I met brand builders, I thought, okay, well I’m working with them. I already know and trust them. So that took care of the trust part. And then I heard you all were having a mission driven press, and I just thought, well, let’s get . Let’s get it going. We need it now. And so that was the biggest thing for me, was finding someone I could trust. And this has been so much more fun the second time because, because you all came with this really professional team of people that’s been doing this for years, that have the developmental editor, the copy editor, the cover designer, the interior designer, and then even the people helping with marketing and audiobook and all the other things. So it really is a one stop shop. So if people can find someone they trust, hybrid’s a really wonderful way to do it.
AJV (19:39):
Yeah. And I, I, I think that’s such an important conversation on the trust part, because I think it’s all important at, at the end of the day, what’s most important in my opinion, is like the creator gets to keep what they create. Mm-Hmm . And that is a huge, like, you’re trusting someone else with your intellectual property. And it’s not only that, it’s like what you said, it’s like, Hey, this is a message that wasn’t meant just for me. It was meant for me to put on the pages of books and get it out into the world. And you’re trusting in, you know, the validity of, Hey, are you, are you gonna do what you say you’re gonna do? Do you believe in this message? Are you gonna help me get it out there? And it’s, I tell people, it’s like when you know that you’re supposed to write a book is when you go, like, it is not about anything else other than getting this message to the hands of other people.
AJV (20:28):
And that is a big trust jump. Mm-Hmm . I mean, that is a huge partnership endeavor of going, I’m entrusting this thing that I feel called to and I’m trusting you to help me do it. So I I love that you said that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else talk about that when selecting, it’s been more of the logistics and details of the partnership and arrangement, but it’s like, no, trust is a big deal because you’re gonna spend years of your life on this between the ideation and the writing and the publishing and the selling and the marketing and the talking mm-hmm . About it forever and ever and ever. Like, this is a large part of your life. It better be a trusted partnership.
CJ (21:06):
That’s right. And it’s a really vulnerable process. Right. There’s I don’t get hit with a ton of rejection and, and criticism. It is vulnerable though. So you wanna be around people that, that make your nervous system calm. Mm-Hmm . You know, that you wanna be around people that, you know, have your back. Right. And so there are some, you know, like your team is fantastic. There’s some other teams, though I know a lot of other authors where, you know, it’s yucky. There’s, there’s lawsuits people feel like they were taken advantage of. So I just think those feelings on top of all the work that you need to do to launch a book, I just don’t see that helping at all to have that contradictory feelings when it’s already hard enough to be vulnerable and get a book out into the world.
AJV (22:00):
You know? I love too that you brought this up because I have also never heard anyone else bring up this part of, Hey, don’t forget, like, this is also an emotional ride for the author . Yes. There are some vulnerability factors here of I, I, I remember maybe it was like a year ago, ’cause at Mission-Driven Press, I, I still am the one who approves all the books that we decide to publish. Not every book is a fit for us. So I still do a content review of all the books that are being submitted. And I just remember someone saying, it’s like, well, before I submit the book, like, are y’all gonna like critique it ? And it was like one of those like very interesting things. And I’m like, oh my goodness, there I, you, you forget that this is someone’s life’s work.
AJV (22:47):
Mm-Hmm . Right? Mm-Hmm . And I was like, well, I was like, well, no, I won’t critique it. I’ll just tell you if it’s a fit for what we do or not, but not looking for a critique unless you, you want us to critique it. And they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. Right. And I think it’s a really, it is vulnerable and it’s like you’re, especially through the editing process mm-hmm . Rory and I just finished our manuscript a few weeks ago and it’s been in content development. Yes. Yay is right. Yeah. Yay is right. We are, yes. Yay. But it was interesting ’cause both of us were waiting on the content development edits to come back and you know, it is vulnerable to go through all the comments of like, well, this is a little wordy here, and I wouldn’t use this word there and I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t think it’s gonna hit the reader. Right. And it’s like, what do you mean? Like says who says who? It won’t hit the reader, you know, and it is vulnerable and you have to put your ego aside and go mm-hmm . This is not about me. Mm-Hmm . Or this is not about me. This is not about what I wanna say. It’s about what they need to hear.
CJ (23:46):
Right. That’s right.
AJV (23:48):
But I think that’s a good thing of like, the writing process is vulnerable, the editing process is vulnerable, the sales processes too. And it’s like, right there is a lot of people who are like, yeah, I love what you’re doing. Not gonna buy any. It’s like, great, thanks. Great welcome. You know, welcome to to business and to sales. Mm-Hmm . And I think that’s probably the underlying tone that it’s important for everyone to, to hear. Like, this is like a business.
CJ (24:15):
It really is. I’m so fortunate I have my husband around me because he’s so great at business and he works from home, so he, you know, and he sees me working from home. So he’s been a constant sounding board for me to keep going. Don’t take it personally, to really believe in the impact and the message and have, have confidence selling, right? Yeah. So,
AJV (24:42):
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a huge thing for everyone to realize. Mm-Hmm. It’s like launching a book is like launching a business.
CJ (24:47):
Yes.
AJV (24:48):
Genuinely speaking. Now let’s talk about the book for a second. ’cause Okay. I wanna make sure that as we talk about the process of writing and, you know, publishing and launching a book, but you have a book coming out mm-hmm . You have a book coming out in March. So we are just
CJ (25:03):
February, February
AJV (25:04):
18. Oh, is it February? February 18th? Yes. Okay. Yes. So we’re just a few weeks away. Mm-Hmm . And so let’s talk a little bit about what is, what is Grace Yourself about
CJ (25:14):
Grace Yourself, the subtitles, how to show Up for the Sober Life You Want. And I love the subtitle. So the subtitle of my first book is The First Book’s, living All In How to Show Up for the Life You Want. And I love Show up and for the Life you want because in coaching, we need to know what we want, right? That’s always my first question. What do you want? And we need to show up for the strategy to get what we want. Showing up iss easy when it’s easy, and we need to show up when it’s not easy. So for this book particularly, because it does share my story of sobriety to me showing up is for life is the opposite of numbing out when things get uncomfortable or checking out, and we can check out or numb in small ways and big ways.
CJ (26:06):
And it doesn’t need to be alcohol. It can be all kinds of things. We all can think of ways. I mean, it could even be biting our nails, right? There’s just things that we do to check out or not show up. And I’m writing this to let people know, here’s my story, but I’m using this story to couple it with my coaching tools to show you, you don’t need to be afraid. You can show up for life. And here’s all these tools to help you do that. So someone doesn’t need to be even in an act of addiction, and it doesn’t even need to be alcohol for this book to be beneficial, because you’re gonna take whatever that thing is, and these tools will help, they’ll help take the shame off, get it out of the darkness. Let let you know you’re not alone. Let you know there’s millions of people struggling with the same thing. We’re not unique. We don’t, you know, we’re not special. We are special just like everybody else. . That’s right. Right. And so our addictions and hangups and things are not, they’re not unique. And so we do need to share stories and be in community. And it’s a very practical book that walks people through this hold your hand and says, here are the questions that ask yourself to get unstuck.
AJV (27:24):
I love that. What, what does the title Grace Yourself, like, where did that come from?
CJ (27:32):
So I love this title. The, to me, since I am a Person of Faith, to me it’s God’s grace, and that’s unmerited favor. And I explain in the book how, to me, what I’ve seen with people that fall into negative patterns and addictions. A lot of us have control issues. We, because in essence, we’re controlling our state. We’re, we’re, we’re looking to control the way we feel or control not feeling the way we don’t wanna feel. And we do that, like I said, in with lots of different ways. And so grace, since grace from God is unmerited favor, it means I don’t get to control whether I receive it or not. And so as a person, as a young woman who struggled with perfectionism and rigid thinking, and really, you know, high achiever, I have to control everything. I did not understand grace as a young person because I thought I had to control everything I earned.
CJ (28:36):
I’ll tell you what I’m worth. I’ll tell you if I deserve it or not. The concept that something’s free, even if I don’t deserve it, just didn’t compute with me. So I go through that in the book and, and what I really want people to know is they’re worthy no matter what, you’re worthy and you get grace, even though we don’t deserve it. Mm-Hmm . You’re worthy. If you’re addicted, you’re wor you don’t have to get clean to take a bath. You’re already valuable and worthy. Right. So we can start from wherever we are right now. And that is where the Grace yourself came from, is understanding that unmerited favor and not, and letting go of needing to be in con in control of our own worth.
AJV (29:23):
Mm. I love that. And I think it’s so applicable too to the story of sobriety. Mm-Hmm . I’ve had so many people share that, you know, hey, it’s like you know, I started with, Hey, I’m just gonna do a week mm-hmm . And then they were like, well, maybe I can do a month and if I don’t make it though, you know, and it was so interesting. It’s like there is a little grace of, it’s like, it’s okay to fall off and it’s okay to get back on mm-hmm . But I feel like there’s a, a growing trend mm-hmm . Of people who are sober, curious and sobriety. And I, as you know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and I’d say like one of the biggest trends in Nashville right now are zero proof bars. Mm-Hmm . There’s like a zero proof I don’t even know what you call it. It’s not a liquor store, but it’s a zero proof liquor store. There’s
CJ (30:11):
All these, right. We have the mm-hmm
AJV (30:12):
. Yeah. But it’s like their entire stores of is, everything is zero proof. There’s all these new bars and every menu now has some sort of zero proof wine or, or drink or whatever. And it wasn’t that way even a year ago.
CJ (30:27):
No.
AJV (30:27):
Like, it, this is a, a very big growing trend. And I’m just one, so this book is like right on par with a lot of the things mm-hmm . That people are talking about. And I’ve, I have a lot of friends who are sober, have been sober. My husband Rory, he’s sober eight years. I’m sober almost two years. Yay. And I, I don’t know if you have noticed this, ’cause you walk in this life as well. Like, what have you noticed in terms of why now? Like, is is it not just now or is it just because people are on social media talking about it now, but there seems to be more of a growing public, like no, like, we’re accommodating this, like we’re promoting this that didn’t exist before. Why do you think that is?
CJ (31:12):
Well, I think it’s like cigarettes, right? We all . If we, if we remember back then, we all used to smoke. And then over time the knowledge, right? We became educated that these were killing us. And there’s a lot of content out there right now that alcohol is a toxic poison. And now we have the facts where, remember they used to say a red wine, a cup of red wine a day is good for your health. Yeah. Well, so is grape juice and eating blueberries because it has antioxidants, right? So it’s misinformation. So I think that’s part of it. It is interesting to me though, because I got sober out of necessity in 2007 and, and I tell this story in the book where it, we didn’t have sober curious. We didn’t have mocktails. No, you were weird. If you didn’t drink , it was, it was no like, and you were alcoholic.
CJ (32:09):
I do identify as an alcoholic. I do go into detail in that, in the book and explain that there’s no la regarding labels use what label works for you. It energizes me because to me it was a solution to something that I was trying to quit on my own. Like, I walked into a meeting, heard, there’s this thing called alcoholism, and there’s all these beautiful women in the meeting that just beautiful humans that like, yeah, we’re alcoholic too, and there’s a solution and it’s not your fault. It’s like an allergy and you never have to have another drink again. That for me, took all the shame off my shoulders. It changed the narrative from I’m a monster because I can’t stop drinking to, I’m worthy of sobriety and recovery because I can’t stop drinking. So it, it’s so much easier now for people. I do think, I do touch on this in the book.
CJ (33:05):
I think that it’s important if you’re like me, where you kind of re because alcohol is a progressive condition, which means the more you drink, you don’t, you don’t build up a tolerance and get better at it. You get worse at it. And if you quit drinking for a certain amount of years and then pick it up again, you’re going to be worse off than when you started Just age. Does that, so it is, that’s a medical fact. It’s a progressive condition. So some people we, like we say, in recovery, you can’t you’ve been pickled, so you can’t go back to being a cucumber. Hmm. Even if you quit drinking 30 years and then decide to try it again, you can’t go back to being a cucumber. So the book is really for people like me who got pickled. Mm-Hmm. And we can’t go back.
CJ (33:53):
And we do have a stigma. Like it really messed with us. It messed with our self-worth. We dealt with shame and guilt. And I am all for all for any recovery movement. I love that people are sober curious that we have mocktails, that people are going alcohol free. And for these people, I, a lot of my friends and clients are doing this. And it’s wonderful. I don’t think those people all need a support community or recovery community, if that makes sense. People like me, and there’s a chapter or section in the book called Alcoholic Like Me. We, we have to be in community because the world is changing, but it still is the way it is. And so we have to be sharing stories. We can’t do it alone. And we need to stay in community. So we don’t, our forgetter doesn’t forget and start thinking that we are like these other people that can just quit for health reasons.
CJ (34:48):
Some of us just can’t. And so do make that distinction in the book. And I also say in the book, look, don’t, don’t diss anybody. If they wanna call themselves an alcoholic, if they wanna go to AA or don’t wanna go to aa, let’s not get hung up on these things. Recovery, sobriety, health, it’s all a win. We all have, we’d have different churches for people. We have different therapists for people. Mm-Hmm . We have different recovery groups for people and different mocktails for people. Because there’s no one size fits all. So we all just need to be kind and not dis the language or get hung up on the, the logos or you know, of it all. I love that. Yeah.
AJV (35:32):
I think that’s really important. ’cause I think that that’s a great distinction. It’s some people do it for health reasons, some people do it. Because it’s a necessity, right? It’s a lifesaving choice. They have to make, there’s a lot of different reasons why people are making these choices. For the person who’s out there, who’s going, what does it even mean to be sober? Curious? Like what, what, what is the first step? What would you say?
CJ (36:00):
I think it’s probably yeah, they starting to ask yourself those questions. Could I live without this thing in my life? And it might not be alcohol. Like I said, it could be something else that’s a stronghold. And so I think that the important thing to ask is really get leverage on yourself and ask and write it down, what is the cost of giving this thing up? And be honest about it. Because there will be a cost, it will require some grit. It will require the neuroplasticity in your brain to change. It will require, you know, when you pick up a new workout routine, it’s gonna require going to the gym and doing that. We don’t just get biceps one time at the gym, so it’s gonna, there’s gonna be some cost, unfortunately. Unfortunately. I know. So be honest with yourself about that and write down what, what is the cost of removing this thing from my life?
CJ (36:53):
And then write down what is the cost of not removing it from my life? And really be honest and look at that. And that’s how you get leverage on yourself. And so if the cost of not removing it is greater, then you’re gonna need to find some grit, read some self-help books like mine and then, and get in community. Right. But I’ll say if someone’s trying to do this at dry January, I really want people to take the shame off of it. If they start my friend across the street, oh, I did dry January and I already messed up. Well, we don’t need, you didn’t mess up. You’re just, it’s all there. It’s, it’s not a straight line. Mm-Hmm . Right. It’s two steps forward, three steps back some days. So just grace yourself, keep moving forward, but keep asking those questions to make it sustainable.
AJV (37:46):
Why do, that’s a great point. So why, why do you think that for the person who, who does resonate with this, and they go, well, I’m, I’m curious. And then some, like, I know I need to make a change. I know that there, I do have a stronghold in my life and I need to get rid of it. Why is it that’s that we, some people can just be like, cold Turkey, I quit. I’m, I’m never doing it again. And there’s others of us who it’s like, man, it’s like, well, I did fall off. Mm-Hmm . And again and again. Like what, what trends have you seen both in your coaching practice and in your own personal life? It’s like, what causes the fall off?
CJ (38:25):
Hmm. Oh, well we’re human really. I mean, and the reason for falling off is ’cause it’s hard. Mm-Hmm . It’s hard to give something up. That’s a pattern. Especially if it’s a really ingrained pattern and something you’ve been doing for years. So, you know, there’s a chapter in the book, choose your Heart. It’s hard to get sober. Is it gonna be harder to not get sober is the question. And so you wanna choose. It’s, and you can use that, you know, I was saying to a parent the other day, it’s hard say to your kid, yeah, it’s hard to put clothes on to go to church. ’cause Kids don’t wanna get dressed sometimes. Right. It’s harder to go to church naked. .
AJV (39:05):
.
CJ (39:06):
Right. There’s always a cost. So so just, yeah, I think it’s because it’s hard. And so I think, and that’s what we talk about in recovery is hitting bottom. And I think people, it’s, I’ve heard so many stories over the last 18 years. Everybody’s, when you say enough is enough is looks different for everybody. Mm-Hmm . So it doesn’t need to look like the next person’s. You don’t need to get thrown in jail or get a DUI or any of those things. It can be enough is enough. And you, you know, in your gut, the cost is gonna be greater than not giving it up. Mm-Hmm . And so that would qualify as a bottom. And that’s the time to find people to help you. Because right now, that’s the beautiful thing. We have so many communities online and in person that that can help and that are supportive and that people are joined together with a common goal of being sober.
AJV (40:06):
Well, I love that honesty and that it’s like, why do people follow up? ’cause It’s hard , right? It’s hard the end. Right. It’s hard. And I think that’s a really honest, powerful, you know, truth. It’s like, yeah, it’s hard, but choose your hard. It’s, it’s hard either way. It’s just which harder are you gonna pick? Now we, we you mentioned dry January that’s when we’re recording this. And so can you give us like two or three quick tips on how can you, if, if you’re listening to this going, yep, I did dry January, and if you haven’t, it’s never too late to start. Doesn’t even matter if it’s the last day of month. But like, what are some quick tips to carry you know, sober curious lifestyle past this dry January? Like how can you keep it going?
CJ (40:52):
Right. Well start with those questions I just talked about and ask what, write it down too. What, what did January give me? If you made it all the way through January dry, get honest about that and write it down. What did it cost and what did it give me? My guess is if alcohol is a stronghold in your life, that you’re gonna have more benefits that you got out of it. But write it down so you know. Right. And then ask yourself, well, why wouldn’t I wanna carry this on to February? Why wouldn’t I wanna keep doing it? And and knowing that any habit we, the best way to approach it is one day at a time. And so we say that in recovery all the time. And we don’t, we, if we come in and think, I need to be sober like the next guy for the next 20 years, we’ll we’ll panic and run out of the room because who can sink like that? So you just have to be sober right now for today. And maybe it’s not one day at a time, maybe it’s one minute at a time. And so just keep doing that and then do it the next minute and the next minute. .
AJV (41:59):
Yeah. I think it’s good. It’s like we used to tease, it’s, it’s no different than getting healthy or losing weight. It’s like if you told someone you’re only going to get to eat fo you know, foliage for the rest of your life, people would be like, I’m never doing this. But if you can just be, just focus on eating salad today. Just get a salad for lunch. Just get a salad for dinner and wake up and just do the same thing. It’s like, it’s the difference of like the magnitude of, wait, am I never gonna get to have a cookie again? What do you mean Versus Nope, just pick a salad today. Pick a salad at the meal that you’re at. And it’s, it’s, it’s a lot like that is what I hear you saying. It’s like, just make the choice in the moment and then in the next moment and then in the next moment.
AJV (42:40):
And I think this is a, a great conversation. I I wanted you to have a time to talk about the book. ’cause I, one of the reasons that we wanted to partner with you in publishing the book is because Rory and I personally resonate with the message of both of us would not identify as someone who had a, a problem with alcohol, but we both identify that it, that it had a strong hold and the way that we were living our daily life both of us were fortunate enough to be able to go, we’re just not doing this anymore. Like, we’re done. But both of us recognized a pattern that we were no longer comfortable with. And it’s like we, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but you know, for those of you who are listening of going like, well, I don’t, I don’t really know if that’s me.
AJV (43:24):
It’s like, I would maybe have a glass of wine every couple of days, but here, here was the pattern that I noticed. I would always default to a glass of wine on a hard day. And I would also default to a glass of wine on a good day. So if it was a really good day, I wanted to celebrate glass of wine. Mm-Hmm . If it was a really, really hard day, I wanted a, a glass of wine to decompress. Right. What I wasn’t doing is I wasn’t decompressing with God. I wasn’t decompressing with my husband. I wasn’t even talking about it. It was like, Nope, I just wanna go grab his glass of wine and go take a bath. Mm-Hmm . And I realized I was like living in this this isolated environment where it’s like, like I went to the wine and never to the point of ever getting drunk, but it was like, man, this, this is not a healthy default for me anymore.
AJV (44:19):
It is, it is a negative trend that I can see in my life where as I started giving it up, I noticed it’s like, oh my gosh, they serve mimosas at breakfast, margaritas at lunch, you know, aifs for pre dinner. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s everywhere. And it’s, it was never so recognizable of like, oh man, the access, the accessibility is right. What had created some of the problem of it was there when you celebrate, it’s there and it’s a hard day. It’s there at the sporting event. It’s there, it’s at the adults’ table, at the kids’ party. And it was like, it wasn’t until I just said I can’t have it. It’s a hard no. Right. that I could actually even set limits for myself.
CJ (45:00):
Right? Yes. I mean, happy, sad matter, glad that’s how we drank. That’s, that’s a saying too. You know, it it, when you start thinking of it as, ’cause you had mentioned it’s hard to give it up, right? And when we start changing our language to what am I gonna gain? Like, we’re gaining all this other stuff, we’re gaining sobriety, and yes, we’re giving something up, but like you just said, it’s, if we think of it that we’re giving something up, we’ll, even subconsciously, we’ll feel sorry for ourselves. We’ll have a little pity party and then that’s really unfair to us because you’re right, it’s everywhere. It’s at the kids’ birthday party, it’s at breakfast. And if we have that mindset, it makes us feel like we’re not disciplined because we can’t partake or like we really don’t wanna have it, but it’s, we feel like we should almost, because it’s everywhere, which is the good news why it’s starting to not be everywhere. Right. But we, we wanna flip that mindset to, yeah, maybe I’m gonna miss out for 20 minutes or an hour or that first hit feeling, but what I’m gaining is so much more and really focus on what we’re gaining not on what is not on what we’re giving up.
AJV (46:19):
Yeah. I love that. I can’t repeat this enough. It’s like, it’s gonna be hard either way. Choose your heart. Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love that. Y’all I could talk to Chris about this for much longer, but our time is up and I want you guys to know where you can go pick up a copy of this book. So if you go to grace yourself book.com, you can get your pre-ordered copy right now. At the time of the release, there’s just a few weeks left, but very soon, February 18th, you can get your real copy in the mail immediately. Chris, what would you tell to the person who’s like, yep, I’m going to pick up your book. What, what would you wanna tell them and why they need to go do that?
CJ (47:04):
Well, first thank you and yeah, it, it’s, you are going to gain tools for that will just make you happier, really. Right. It, like I said, it’s, it’s really a book about what you’re gaining not on how to give up one thing. You know, you’re giving up one thing to gain everything and if you, you know, on the flip side, you could lose everything to hang onto that one thing and that’s not what we want. So this book will really reframe your mind to all the way, all the things that you’re gaining and all the things that you want for your life.
AJV (47:38):
I love that. Again, y’all go check it out, grace yourself book.com, coming to bookstores everywhere, February 18th. Get your copy now. Chris, thank you so much. It was so awesome to have you on. And everyone else who’s listening, stick around the recap episode will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.
CJ (48:00):
Thank you.

Ep 559: What it Means to be a Bestselling Author | Lucinda Halpern Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Something truly amazing just happened this week, which is that we had our 24th Brand Builders Group client become a national bestselling author. That means that they had hit the Wall Street Journal and or USA today, or Publishers Weekly, or one of the real major national bestseller lists. Not only that, but we had two clients that hit the New York Times bestseller list. We’ve had the eight that has happened eight times in the last 12 months.
RV (01:01):
So we know something about becoming a bestselling author, and I myself hit the New York Times bestseller list when I was 29. I wanna share with you some of the most popular misconceptions that people have about what it means to become a bestselling author and how you become one. So the first misconception that I think every author has, and I think a lot of people in the industry have, is exactly how you become a bestseller. Most people think that publicity and PR is what sells books. People think that it is social media and pr and that for authors, that’s their entire strategy. And when they come to us, they go, well, we hired a PR firm and you know, we’re, we’re gonna do some contests on social, and that’s what they think sells books. And I hate to burst your bubble, but PR and social media don’t sell a lot of books, not typically, and not for most authors.
RV (02:00):
And we have authors like our clients, we have pretty famous clients. It’s very normal that one of our clients gets on Good Morning America or The Today Show or some other national television show. And even on those national television shows, they might move a few hundred units, maybe 700 to a thousand units, even if you get that Hail Mary Miracle Dream come true shot on like national television, typically it’s not even gonna add up to around a thousand units. But to hit a New York Times bestseller list, you’re gonna need at least 10,000 units typically. And to even hit the USA today or the Wall Street Journal is usually several thousand units sold inside of a week. In fact, we have a whole data science team that is a part of Brand Builders Group that all we do is study and deconstruct and analyze these bestseller lists to understand what does it really take to get there?
RV (02:51):
And that’s part of why our clients are hitting it. But the misconception is that PR and social is gonna get you there. And here’s the, here’s the real secret. It’s not online strategy that sells books. It’s offline strategy, it’s offline relationships, it’s offline stages. It’s humans that you have a, a deep relationship with. It’s the people who already know you and love you, getting behind you and supporting you and telling all of their people in their communities and sometimes buying books for their people in their communities and, and creating opportunities for stages for you to be on. And that’s something that we talk about in our training, but social media and PR is not what’s gonna get you there. The second misconception that authors have about what it means to become a bestselling author is they don’t understand how much it depends on a team.
RV (03:42):
In fact, the way that we say this at Brand Builders Group is there is no such thing as a bestselling author. There is only such a thing as a bestselling team. You need a team because you need a lot of people to rally together to pull this off, right? Even though Rory is a New York Times bestselling author, the truth is, I’ve only gotten there because I’ve had lots and lots of people support me and help me and be on that journey. So you need literary agents, typically, and publishers, and you need graphic designers, and you need social media, and you do need email, and you need speakers program managers, and, and you need strategists, right? And that’s part of what we do, is we quarterback and control the whole strategy to pull this together to really, really make it happen. Because the part that everyone misses is selling the book.
RV (04:33):
Writers write editors, edit publishers, publish distributors, distribute retailers, retail, and nobody actually sells the book. And that’s what our team at Brand Builders Group does. We have strategies for how to sell books, how to actually get people to pull out their credit card and buy books in a way that makes the bestseller list tick. So that your hard earned sales get registered and counted and hopefully report in the most optimized way so that you can get the dream of becoming a bestseller. But you need a team. You need, you need to enroll everyone around you. Hitting the bestseller list is not about tricks. It’s not about hacks. It’s not about gimmicks. And it certainly is not about buying your own books to get on the list. What it is about is taking every relational asset you have and pointing them all in one direction at one moment to create a huge spark so that you move the most books possible and get that, you know, that big dream of becoming a bestseller.
RV (05:36):
And that leads me to the fourth misconception that people have about becoming a bestseller, which is, what does it mean when you actually become a bestseller? Well, here’s what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you’re gonna get a call from a producer to host your own television show, or that emails are gonna flood into your inbox with invites to go speak around the globe for tens of thousands of dollars. It doesn’t work like that in many ways. The day after you become a bestseller, your life will look no different than it did the day before. So it’s not some magic pill or secret sauce that suddenly makes your life easy. But what it does do is it opens doors, it makes things possible, it gets you in front of more people. I mean, think about it this way, if you are a podcast host and you get pitches several of our clients at Brand Builders Group are some of the biggest podcast hosts in the world.
RV (06:34):
Louis Howes, ed Millet, Amy Porterfield, Jasmine Starr, right? People like this, they have huge podcasts. And just imagine that they get pitched every day, people wanting to come on their show. They don’t have time to read all the books, they don’t have time to watch all the videos. They don’t have time to learn about every person who wants to come on the show. So what they typically are gonna do, either literally or at at least metaphorically, is they’re gonna divide the list into two piles. There’s gonna be a no list, the automatic no list, which is gonna be a big pile that grows really fast. It’s just the automatic nous list. Then there’s gonna be another list, which is, we’ll give ’em a second look. We’ll give them a bigger chance. We’ll spend more time. And if you are a bestselling author, there’s a much higher chance that you will go from the no list to the maybe list.
RV (07:26):
And that’s where it starts. The same is true for speaking on the biggest stages in the world. I personally have spoken at several of the biggest speaking events in the world. That is an amazing honor. Many times that happens because people are looking at lots of speakers and they look at all of these different things. There’s all of these different, what academic criteria do they have and how big is their following? And what is their message and how good are they on, on stage? And how funny are they? And all these things. So it’s one notch on the belt, but especially if you’re gonna be paid a lot of money, if someone’s gonna pay you a lot of money to come speak, that means somebody’s job is on the line. Somebody is recommending to say, we should hire this speaker and we should pay them this money.
RV (08:11):
Well, it’s a lot easier to justify if we go, they have all of these credentials, right? They meet all of this criteria to justify getting a higher fee. Becoming a bestselling author is one of those things. It’s one of the most, the biggest pieces of notoriety and credibility that there is. So it does open doors it does open relationships. We, we hosted an event this summer where I, I coed this with my, my good friend Donald Miller and Mike Mcal and John Rulon and some of my other friends. And we hosted an event, and the event was free to come to, but here was the catch. You had to be a New York Times bestselling author or someone who had sold a million copies of a book to get invited to the party, right? So that opens doors, it opens relationships. So it’s just one more thing that, that, that really gets you a chance to, to get in the second look pile, to get in the maybe pile to get in the separate yourself from everyone else pile.
RV (09:09):
But what matters more than anything else is realizing this bestseller lists. Don’t change lives, but books do. Bestseller lists don’t change lives, but books really do. If you become a bestseller, it’s maybe gonna open some doors. It’s gonna do some really great things. But what really matters more than a bestseller title is getting a lot of people to read your book. Making a difference in the world, having your ideas spread, ha having, having your concepts out there, improving and elevating humanity. That’s what being a bestselling author is all about. It’s not about just some silly title or some vein recognition, and it’s not just about getting more opportunity for yourself. Those are small games to play. The big game to play is to go, how do I get lots of people reading my book? How do I get people sharing my book? How do I get people benefiting from my book? And that has to do with first writing a great book, and second, doing everything you can in your power to let people in the world hear about it. So does being a bestselling author matter? It sure does. But what really matters is having a mission that makes a difference. Having a mission is what matters. But if you wanna become a bestselling author, you need to make sure that you don’t have these four common misconceptions.

Ep 558: How to Land Book Deals with Traditional Publishers with Lucinda Halpern

RV (00:03):
Hey, my, one of my biggest dreams and one of the most important moments of my life as a personal brand was the moment I got assigned by a literary agent. And that took me years to figure out. It took me years to even understand who they were, what they did, how they worked, and then trying to get ahold of them to where I could actually talk to one and understand like how I could possibly build a relationship. And I figured that out. It eventually led to the book deal that became Take The Stairs, which became the New York Times bestselling book that launched my career. Well, today we are going to shave years off of your learning curve because you are about to hear from one of the most successful literary agents in our lifetime. Her name is Lucinda Halper. She has worked with several bestselling authors, several of my friends, Dan Martel, Ron Friedman I’ve known, I’ve known them for years.
RV (01:00):
So she has signed book deals for authors as a literary agent with Maj, all the major publishers, penguin Random House, Hachette, you know Simon and Schuster McMill and so forth and so on. They have represented several New York Times bestselling books in all different categories. And Lucinda is was never my agent. She would not sign me. I could I actually didn’t know her back then, but she has been a friend and someone that I know is an expert in this space. And she is switched sides to become an author. And she has a new book coming out called Get Signed, find an Agent, land a Book Deal, and Become a published author, which is coming out or came out from hay House. Yeah. earlier this year. And she is we love Hay House. And I was like, man, what an opportunity to learn from somebody. So she agreed to come on and basically teach her knowledge for free. And I was like, this is so perfect. So, Lucinda, welcome to the show.
LH (02:04):
Thanks so much, Rory. If I had met you with Take the Stairs, I would’ve signed you right away, so don’t worry, .
RV (02:10):
Well, thank you for saying that. It’s funny because Michael Hyatt is a good friend of ours, and he has someone who works on his team, who was the acquisitions editor at Thomas Nelson, who turned down take the stairs, and now I see him all the time, . And so that’s always a, always a laughter, a little bit of a, of a funny thing, but you and I didn’t know each other, but I’m so excited about what you’re doing. Thank you. I would love for you to just share the transparent, real deal on what does it take to get the attention of an a-list literary agent, and effectively a publisher, a major publisher. So if, if we’re talking traditional publishing, our audience knows that, that we have our own hybrid imprint, you know, Mission-Driven Press, that we can publish books. But usually if someone can get a huge book advance from a major publisher, we’ll tell ’em to go that direction much of the time. But a lot of people don’t understand that game and they don’t understand why you need a literary agent, and most of all, how to get the attention of somebody like you. ’cause I know you have people banging on your door all the time. So can you share a little bit on that? Yeah.
LH (03:24):
So I’ve simplified this to a very like, easy way to understand it, which are these three keys, right? That every publisher and agent are looking for. ’cause Agents have to think like publishers. We all have to think like the media, and we all have to think like readers. So those three keys are great. Writing a big idea, and an irrefutable platform. What’s interesting for your audience is you really only need two of those three keys. Can you guess which ones they are? Rory, can you guess which they might be? Idea. Idea and platform.
RV (03:55):
Idea and platform.
LH (03:56):
So the first thing that an agent, and I’ve quizzed editors on this, we interviewed about 20 New York editors, big five houses, literary agents and bestselling authors on like, what they look for in first time authors. The idea leads and the idea, by what I mean, a big idea has gotta be something that is timely and timeless and feel really of the moment, but like, it’s going to stay, right? So if you’ve got that big idea, which means it’s, it feels a little new and different, but it’s proven ground to be popular. And then you’ve got this platform, which we could spend time talking about. I know your company builds platforms so well. That’s really about an author’s public recognition in their field to their audience. If you’ve got those two things, idea and platform, you should be a slam dunk for any literary agent or publisher. And if any of your authors listening, or your aspiring authors and thought leaders listening are thinking, yeah, but all I’m looking at all these query guidelines and I don’t know how to query these agents and how to get through to them, and that, you know, their guidelines are so confusing, I can assure you that we’re all actually looking for just those two or three things.
RV (05:13):
Mm-Hmm. . I love that. So you said it takes three things to get a great book deal, great writing, big idea, irrefutable platform. You said the one that we don’t need is great writing. Yep. And is that because that’s a mon that’s a problem we can solve with money is great writing
LH (05:29):
. I love the way you put that. Yeah. You only need two of the three to get signed, to get an agent or book deal. So in the case of your nonfiction entrepreneur authors, it’s definitely about big idea and platform. The writer, as you said, can be outsourced or maybe you write well. But I always encourage, you know, my, my thought leaders and entrepreneurs, so many of whom we work with at Usin, the literary, why do you wanna be in a trade where you are not the expert, you’re the expert on presenting your business, beating the drum. You are being hired by a publisher to do exactly what you do so well. So if you know what you don’t know, and I only wanna be in business with people who know what they don’t know, I know what I don’t know, then you hire another expert to do that writing piece for you. There’s just no use in trying to do it all. So, you know, that is a problem to be solved with money. , uhhuh, , I think you’re right. Yeah.
RV (06:23):
Uhhuh , yeah. No, it’s
LH (06:24):
Really different for fiction. Right? And, and it’s different ’cause I’m sure you work with memoirs also. People are writing their life story.
RV (06:30):
Yep, yep. We do some of those. We do No, almost no fiction. We other than a few kids’ books.
LH (06:35):
Right? So, so there you go. If you’re writing your life story, which many of these like land on my desk as memoirs as their life story, and we transform them into something that’s much bigger. But if your intent on writing your life story, the writing’s gotta be so beautiful. It’s gotta, it’s, you’ve gotta see the movie. Mm-Hmm. . And that’s where that key of writing becomes actually most important.
RV (06:58):
Hmm. I love that. So yeah, one, one of my favorite quotes is from a guy named Dan Sullivan, and he says, if you have enough money to solve a problem, then you don’t have a problem. And if you get a big enough book deal, then you can hire someone to do the writing and you don’t have a problem. Right? Yeah. So then the, the, so we go, great, one third, we can just cross off right away. And we go, we gotta get a big enough book deal so that we can just pay the writer. And now we’re already a third of the way there, but then the big thing is going okay, in order to get a big book deal. Mm-Hmm. , I need a big idea. So you said the big idea has to be timely, but also timeless.
LH (07:37):
Yeah. Yeah.
RV (07:38):
How do we know what, I think we know what ideas are timeless. You look and see which books have been selling for decades, right? Mm-Hmm. . And you go, oh, well, you know John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is timeless. It’s been, it’s been selling 2000 units a week for like, you know, a couple decades. Right. How do we spot the timely ideas?
LH (07:59):
Yeah. Well, even just to add to what your friend Dan said, you know, the way I say it is, it’s not a problem, it’s an expense. Right. . That’s what, that’s
RV (08:08):
Good. I love that. It’s
LH (08:09):
Not a problem, it’s an expense. And mainly these authors that you and I work with are looking at the book as a calling card, as a tentpole, you know, holds together the other businesses, but is really an investment on what they’re going to be seeing on the backend in terms of their courses and their speaking and everything else. Amen. So the timely, timeless, by the way, I’m the only I’m, I’m the only person that I know of who’s actually identified that equation. And so what, what I want people, when they’re listening to this interview to understand is this is a formula for them to think about it. But it’s not, it’s not as though you need to fill in a sheet to your agent or your pub publisher that you’re aspiring to and say, here’s what’s timely. Here’s what’s timeless. You just wanna be striking those cores.
LH (08:56):
Yeah. So, ind terms of figuring it out, the timely, easiest way to think about it is the new and the different. If you’re thinking about John Maxwell’s book that’s existed on the shelf and is a bestseller, you have to compete with that now, right? If you’re writing a book in the same category. So instead of saying to an agent, because we love comps, comparative titles, we love to envision what this book has the power to be. Instead of saying, my book is just like John Maxwell’s Law of Leadership, you now need to say it’s like the laws of leadership for millennials or for people who work in Silicon Valley, or with this sort of twist to it. It’s like, it’s adding your different, what we call your differentiator that makes it, that makes it timely. And really paying attention, like doing the data collection of, of what’s selling in the market. The number of people that you and I both, both work with who wanna write books, write books, but haven’t read books or don’t read in their genre, a lot of ’em. And then how are they gonna know what’s popular with selling? Mm-Hmm. . Right?
RV (10:01):
So that’s, so you’re saying it’s, it’s like something timeless. Mm-Hmm. . But it’s timely because it, it strikes this differentiation point. And is it, is it like one example of that formula is who it’s written for, like millennials or whatever. What are some other, is it always a who, like is it always the, the who it’s
LH (10:26):
For? No, it’s not. No, it’s not. And it’s just paying attention to like what’s in the current conversation. So I think of a book I represented as an example that was about I talked to her today, so it’s on my mind, like minimizing consumption, right? So she could have pitched her book, which was ultimately called the Year of Less. It was more, it was like a secret, like the secret for another generation. But riding the wave of this minimalism of van life, of people like, of Marie Kondo, right? Those are the sorts of categories that make her book timely. And so she’s, the, the timeless is always those universal themes. It’s like love and loss and resilience and how to get rich and how to lose weight, , you know, all those things that we’re perennially interested in. But there’s some new appetite in the market.
RV (11:18):
It jumps One book that’s, that’s selling like crazy, which is a phenomenal book, is called The Psychology of Money.
LH (11:25):
Yes. Love that. Yeah.
RV (11:26):
And you go, it’s just a book about money. There’s a bazillion books about money, but it’s the psychology of it. It’s not the, it’s not the empirical, you know, it’s not the analytical or the tactical. It’s more of like the, the emotional parts of money. Yeah. That’s what we tried to do with procrastinating on purpose. My second book was the emotional Side of time management. That’s how we pitched it and got the deal. But it was really about how to multiply time. And my Ted talk went viral ’cause it was called How to Multiply Time. And it’s all about the emotional side of time management. Mm-Hmm. But we didn’t call the book How to Multiply Time. We called it Procrastinate on Purpose. And that’s a fatal, that was the fatal mistake. I talk about why the idea was good, the title was terrible, and that’s what tanked it. But anyways, the psychology of money would be maybe, is that a good example of going, it’s about money, but it’s like a new example, new spin on it. Example,
LH (12:16):
Although yours is an even better example because Title Aside, had that book been pitched and published today, it would be incredibly timely. ’cause Now there’s so much burgeoning about eq psychology. Mental health is huge. Wellness is everywhere. You know, I was thinking today I am like, if, so if we have another wellness day for someone else in my company, you know, there’s, there’s . Like you’ve gotta be so sensitive to that now. It’s in
RV (12:44):
Big deal. Yeah.
LH (12:46):
So mental health, emotionality finding its way new masculinity, Brene Brown, all about vulnerability, right? Like, these things are all coalescing, which means that your book, if it were sold today, would absolutely strike those chords of timely and timeless and may have had a different verdict.
RV (13:04):
Interesting. Well, maybe you can sell it to my publisher again. Maybe they’ll pay based on the terrible performance. Maybe they’ll pay even, even more money. The second time story. The, the so I think, so one of the things you said here is you, you said something like, pay attention to what’s happening in the go. Go back to that for a second. So
LH (13:26):
In, in inside I’ve got these it’s right in the intermission, there’s a, there’s a great story in it about our friend Ron there. Four types of writers who get book deals. And they’re the ideator person who has great big ideas, always prolific in their ideas. The data collector, who does the market research, who figures out the comps, those comparative titles that are selling? Well, the everywhere is whose person has a platform very visible. And the and the crusader. And the crusader. That’s who I’m through, through That’s who you are. It’s, it’s usually the type I work with is that combination of idea or crusader that is constantly relentlessly advocating. The problem with the crusader who runs a company is so many people for so many years have said, you gotta write the book. I love your story. You know, you’re surrounded by yes men essentially.
LH (14:18):
And what they’re not doing is going out into the world, particularly in business books and seeing that this has been said before, dude, it’s been said like 20 times. And, and another issue that most aspiring business authors. ’cause I love business books. I love to represent business books. I can learn some, like any, any book I can learn from is a book I wanna represent. But so many of them come to us as memoirs. It’s like, I just wanna tell my story of founding an amazing company and making millions of dollars. Like that’s not interesting. Let’s, let’s consider how this can be applicable and universal to a wide audience of people. Not just the people who work for you and not just your spouse and your sister-in-Law, but how this can be applicable to a wide audience of people. And how we’re gonna make it timely and stand out in the market. Like what’s its contemporary hook or appeal
RV (15:12):
Uhhuh . And, and, and to make it, to make it stand out in the market. It’s kind of like you said, like basically like pay attention to what the market is talking about or pay attention to what the hot topics are. You know, pay attention to the news cycle. Is it all that kind of stuff?
LH (15:26):
A thousand percent. But you know what? Right now, and it is here to stay. Diversity and inclusion is like the order of the day, right? Yeah. So if you are not writing from that perspective, you should be including portraits of others, anecdotes of others from that perspective, right? And so that’s like a small twist that you can be making in your pitch to show that you’re not just like your average. You, you know, I hesitate like how much of this is gonna be edited, but you’re not just like your average person sitting around and writing a book ’cause you feel like it and you feel like you’ve got a message to share. It is going out there and seeing what hasn’t been done. So the number of people come to me, say, I’m writing the next Ben Hardy, or what’s that book that everyone loves to write? Hard thing about hard things. Another Ben good to Great. I’m writing the Next Good to Great. It’s like, fantastic. Those books were are 20 years old easily. So what’s the new book that people are talking about and what is it missing that you can expand on that you can lend your unique vantage point to?
RV (16:30):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So you’re not just gonna rewrite a version of the same book, you’re gonna write a new angle on a proven a new angle on a proven concept.
LH (16:41):
Right? But the issue with this crusader type that again, love to work with the crusaders, the ones who run companies, is that they’re not out there. They literally don’t have time to go about searching the market and doing the data collection. They’re just saying their spiel. And people are like, oh, that’s amazing. It should be a book. A keynote’s not a book. Yeah.
RV (17:02):
Yeah. And I would say it’s, it’s interesting, a lot of who we publish at Mission-Driven Press, they are the crusaders. They’re going, I’m not so concerned about a new idea. I’m concerned about sharing. This is what’s worked for me hardcore tactical. And it’s like, it’s, in many ways, it’s not really new. Mm-Hmm. . And the goal is not new. The goal is like what works. And it’s really about platform, right? They’re just going, well, I can sell it to all my customers. I can sell it to all my people. And that’s dawning on me as you’re talking going, that’s, that’s a perfect fit for that person. But if you want a traditional publisher liter, a-list literary agent, big advance. Yeah. Half the battle here is the big idea. And in order for it to be a big idea, it’s got to somehow be new, different, unique, feel
LH (17:50):
Radical feel, feel like something we know. You know, it is, it is a Hollywood business. Publishing is a Hollywood business. So a lookalike, what what I mean by that is it’s a lookalike. This is an X meets y. So we wanna feel like there is a po a popularity around this. But you have a new spin. What I like about what you just said about your particular clients is that it is highly how-to imp practical, which is also a trend in the market we see for books by entrepreneurs. Again, veering away from the life story unless you’re like the guy who runs Disney, you know? Yeah.
RV (18:22):
Unless you’re celebrity, like the life story place,
LH (18:24):
The life story piece is not what we we’re looking for is the replicable is the useful. And always being oriented toward your reader, which is different from your employee, is, is how I encourage aspiring authors to think. It’s not just like the big advance though for many of our authors. Funny, your, the name of your press is called Mission Driven Press. It’s about impact, mission, legacy. And you just don’t get that. If we were to speak about why even traditionally publish it in the first place, why even work with someone like me? It’s because you’re just not going to get those distribution possibilities, those media opportunities, foreign rights, general word of mouth, unless you’ve got at the moment that pedigree of a traditionally published book.
RV (19:11):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And that was the, the game all changed for me when we figured out how to get our books distributed through Simon and Schuster. Yes. That was where, when, when, first of all, when we hit the New York Times and when we could get distribution through Simon and Schuster, it was like, whoa, this is hybrid. But it’s not really hybrid. It’s really as close to traditional publishing as you can get with just being inside the hybrid line for the reasons that you’re saying. Now, the difference is we don’t pay advances. People have to pay for us to produce the book. Mm-Hmm. . So, hybrid aside for a second. ’cause That’s a, that’s a fun, exciting area to me that’s like, you know, emerging and, you know, has lots of great things and some challenges and all that, but traditional publishing is still here. There’s still big advances. But when you talked about there’s three things you need, you need, you need great writing a big idea in a refutable platform, we don’t necessarily need great writing ’cause we can hire it. And the editors are really good. I mean, that’s another thing of traditional publishing that’s incredible. It’s just like, yes. My, my editor is freaking phenomenal. I mean, I’m absolutely amazing. The big idea, I hear you on it. I go, that’s good. What I have not, you come up with it
LH (20:27):
Yourself, you gotta come up with it yourself. Right? We’re with a team. Gotta
RV (20:30):
Come up with it.
LH (20:30):
It’s not like the publisher gives it to you, or the agent gives it to you. Totally.
RV (20:33):
And I, and I hear you on the big idea. I’m totally with you in my experience, and you tell me if you have a different experience, if you have a big idea, you need a big idea to get a book deal. But if all you have is a big idea and you don’t have a platform, you not gonna get a very big advance. True. So, so when you start talking about not only getting a book deal, but getting a big advance, the platform, I think is the thing that probably matters the most, is that matters the most. True or false.
LH (21:03):
True. True, true, true. And also, I, I tried to approach this unscientific business of publishing as a science, and I’ve actually done some of the math on like, oh, they’ve got a hundred thousand email list subscribers. They got a hundred thousand dollars advance, they have 500,000 TikTok artists. They got a $500,000 advance. Like it sometimes is that unfortunately simple? Mm-Hmm, . Incidentally, my, my publisher at Hayas said that only 30% of an email list generally converts to books to book buys. Because if you’re an expert of any kind, it’s not, maybe your audience isn’t long form readers and book buyers, right. So you can’t like, make the assumption that everyone on your list is gonna buy the book. Oh,
RV (21:48):
And I, I have a secret and I I love Hays. Oh yeah.
LH (21:50):
Tell me.
RV (21:51):
There’s no way It’s 30%
LH (21:54):
You think it’s a higher than you should than no
RV (21:56):
Way lower.
LH (21:58):
Yeah. Right. But I mean, is like that they overestimated. Yeah. They,
RV (22:01):
And that’s a, I mean, 30% is a generous, so if you have a hundred thousand email subscribers and they give you a $30,000 advance thinking, you know, or whatever, based on 30,000, it’s like that’s being super generous. The reality is, if you send a hundred thousand emails, only 3% of those are getting clicked on anyways. Right. So, you know, 20% are getting open, 3% are getting clicked on. You’re talking about you got 3000 people. Like, so email is, I’m not saying email is not important. It’s still to this day, in our opinion, the most, the single most important metric, way more important than TikTok and social media and all that stuff. Mm-Hmm. . ’cause That converts even less. But anyways, that’s fascinating to go. And I think publishers are waking up to this. They’re going, Hey, I have someone who has 5 million Instagram followers. I’m gonna pay them a million dollars. And oh my gosh, they sold 2000 books. Not, you know, and they, they vastly overestimated the impact of social.
LH (22:51):
Totally. But if we were just to look at, ’cause this is a burning question for all aspiring authors about the way that agents assess platform.
RV (23:00):
Yes.
LH (23:01):
Just to give you some like very basic and overlooked secrets, people are gonna Google you the minute we pick up your pitch. If we’re even interested, even if, if you’ve got us with the idea and you’ve indicated that you have some sort of credential to write this thing, the next thing we’re gonna do is Google you. Because why would we want to get into marriage with someone we haven’t Googled? You know, like this is a lifetime relationship. So we Google you and we find, eh, there’s nothing. Well, that’s a bad indication that you have any public recognition around you. So what you’re going to have to tell us in your letter, if you’re not all over social media, is I have this email list of X numbers, I do this amount of speaking year, I have these like five people in my network that could all end endorsements and their, their names you’d probably recognize. And in fact some of them are on your client list. Right. So this is like, those three things alone, network speaking and email list are three things that we can’t necessarily find out about you unless you tell us in the letter. And so the optimistic message of get signed is here all the different ways. And by the way, this is cross genres, this is for fiction, for children’s, for memoir. It’s not just for business
RV (24:08):
Books. Oh, really? Interesting. I was curious. I was curious about that. Well,
LH (24:11):
This book is, this book is for any writer, any stage, anything they’re writing. And because I’ve tried to craft the universal rules
RV (24:20):
For how Yeah. But and and that’s even what you’re saying, like, you know, platform matters even for those non, for even for fiction writers and even for those people. ’cause That doesn’t equate in my mind ’cause that’s not our space. Like most of our space is nonfiction.
LH (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, it does. I mean, again, with, with moderation, right? So like, if you wanna be a fiction or, or a children’s book writer, it is much more about that timely, timeless idea and the writing itself. So there’s a different weight being placed on two of those three keys.
RV (24:48):
Ah, that makes sense.
LH (24:49):
Nonfiction space. But any way you cut it, like you should be working on your public recognition because how else are you, how proving to the first agent who googles you, that someone knows who you are.
RV (25:02):
So you’re saying if you show up blank on Google, it’s a very uphill, a very uphill battle. It’s
LH (25:09):
A totally uphill battle. So for my, for the older folks in our community, ’cause we’re, as you know, we do a ton of coaching workshops, live events, and we’ve got a lot of people who are 50 and above writing the books that they always dreamed of writing. And they’re like, I’m not going on Instagram . And, and frankly, even for thought leaders, business people, psychologists, finance professionals, lawyers, they’re not going all over social media. They’re like, who has the time, the interest, the publicity sometimes bad for their business. So what I’m trying to instruct all of these folks to do and get signed is like, here’s some other ways you could prove and build your platform. You gotta be explicit about it in your letter. Mm-Hmm. a lot of people aren’t.
RV (25:49):
And a, a letter meaning the letter to the agent. Yeah. And then in turn, the book proposal y’all put together that you pitched to a publisher. ’cause They’re gonna go do the same thing and they’re gonna find the same result and be like, who, who you guys sell this to?
LH (26:03):
So wait, good clarification on that for your audience in terms of what you need to even be at the stage where you’re pitching your book. It can, it’s not just a query letter. And then you get in conversation with someone like me and you pay us to do the book or we develop the book together. That’s not, that’s not how the traditional model works. You have to have that pitch letter. The minute someone like me says, we’re interested, send us your book proposal. You’ve gotta have this 50 page roadmap of what the, it’s basically a sales document of what this book looks like, how it’s gonna be, does it have a plot, , is it interesting? It, does it have a platform? Let’s see more about it. Who are you, what’s the like larger bio? What’s the, you know where’s the sample writing? So you’ve gotta have that whole book proposal already. What you don’t need to have as a nonfiction practical business thought leader author is a full manuscript. And so I don’t wanna make everyone listening to this episode. Please do not write your full manuscript if you’re trying to get an agent. Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:03):
. Yep. They don’t, they, because they wanna shape the idea. The agent that wants to help you, the publisher, they, part of it is they’re buying the idea, but they want to shape the, the outline of it. That was something that, that I learned, which is another reason why it’s slower. It tends to be a slower process. ’cause It’s like, first I have to sell the agent, then we gotta sell the publisher, then we all gotta collaborate on what the outline is. Then we have to write it, then we have to edit it, then we have to sell it, then we have to, you know, do all this stuff. So it’s a, it’s a slower process, which to your point, it’s like another thing to weigh where you gotta go. You gotta balance. How much am I playing this like, big, big long game with a publisher and an agent? Mm-Hmm. versus like, I just want to tell my story. I just wanna teach my method to get it out there. It’s like a balancing act.
LH (27:52):
Yeah. But more than ever, I mean, I’m thinking of authors of mine, like Jake Wood, I don’t know if you if you work with him, but he did tours in Afghanistan and Iran. He runs, he used to run a nonprofit called Team Rubicon. You know anything about this?
RV (28:04):
Heard of Team Rubicon? Yep. Yeah.
LH (28:05):
So he’s a phenomenal guy. Speaker, author, you know, all of the things. But he was classic in terms of the client I worked with. He’s like, assumed I wanted this book out yesterday. We’re not waiting three years to get this out on shelves. Well, pub day arrives and you’re like, wait a second, this is way too soon. I’m not nearly as lined up as I want things to be. Right. Because, you know, it takes so much groundwork, it takes such a village and you’re never really ready when it comes out. But more than that, the people who contact me and say, this book has gotta be out tomorrow, immediately my antenna goes up because I’m thinking if this can’t be successful in five years, it’s not a book I want on my list because it doesn’t have that timeless appeal. Publishers love the New York Times bestseller list. Like we love the New York Times bestseller list, but what they really want end of day is the long tail.
RV (28:56):
Yep.
LH (28:57):
The book that sells on the long tail.
RV (28:59):
Yep. And the other thing is, if you, if you tell an agent or a publisher like, I want this out tomorrow, that means you better have your whole marketing and sales plan not planned. It better be done. Like it, it takes six months, Tori, just do a proper marketing and sales plan. And so it’s like if you’re trying to advance faster than that, you better have the thing on lockstep. Yeah. Before you go, I know we have to wrap up soon. Yeah. I wanna ask you about advances because I never like to ask authors what their specific advance was. I don’t like to ask publishers what their specific advance was, but in general terms, I feel like literary agents can talk. You are more educated than anyone. I’m like, what’s realistic Lucinda? Like, if I’m a first time author with 20,000 email addresses, you know, can, what, what am I talking about? Like, realistically, I know the range depends on how big the idea is and, and obviously stuff like that. But like, do do authors get more than a half a million for an advance? Do they get more than a million for an advance? Like what are the, what are the ranges and the quick, you know, factors on that? Yeah, it
LH (30:08):
Was super rare. I mean, I would say that I remember looking back at like Todd Herman Steel and it’s widely advertised, so it’s, you know, I’m not sharing anything I shouldn’t share, but I think he was like the last in the space that I’d seen as a new author to get a million dollar advance in the space. We’re talking about pre pandemic, right? So it’s like, if you’re James, I don’t know what James Clear got paid to begin. I’m guessing it was a handsome advance because he built that list way past 20,000. You know, so he had, he had it all on lock. So I, I’m taking a roundabout way of answering your question. The six figure to half a million is very much the sweet spot for authors that are first timers, but have a robust platform, a great idea, and then if they hire a writer and do a great proposal, like that’s also gonna help. Right? so that’s sort of like where we’re, where we’re focused
RV (31:02):
And what’s robust platform
LH (31:05):
Robust would be more in the range of like 50 or even past a hundred. But it’s a composite, right?
RV (31:12):
Like a hundred thousand email addresses.
LH (31:14):
Yeah. But I’m ta I’m talking about not just that data point alone, but they’re doing speaking, they’ve got 20 people they’re connected to are gonna have ’em on their podcasts or blurb the book or do X, y, Z for them, right? It’s this composite. So it’s network, it’s speaking, it’s email lists, it’s social, it’s media that you’ve obtained. Like how widely recognized are you by the media? How often are you on the media circuit? So to qualify the advance based on just an email list. Like, I don’t, it’s not enough anymore, right? It’s all of these things that can lead to a six to seven figure advance. But we’re seeing the seven figure advances, mainly not with the first time authors at this point, but with the proven track record they’ve had like , even
RV (31:58):
If they’re like a celebrity, like a reality TV star
LH (32:00):
Oh sure. If it’s Oh, a thousand. Yes. A re I’m, I’m talking more in our spot of like business books, thought leaders but celebrities. Absolutely. You you would be looking at that. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.
RV (32:10):
. Yeah. That, that is it. Lucinda, this has been so good as y’all, you could see this is why I wanted to have her on the book is out right now. Get signed, find an agent, land a book deal, become a published author Lucinda Halper and is who we’re talking to. You know, make sure you go, go check out this book and you know, this is the real deal on, on what it takes. You want to go traditional publishing. You want to get an a-list agent that’s in there. Or if, regardless of that, if you just want to go, how do I spot my big idea? How do I write the book and what do I need to be thinking about? If I’m going a different route, I still need to write a great book that’s in there too. So Lucinda, this has been amazing. I’m so grateful for you and my friend. We just wish you all the best.
LH (32:57):
Thanks so much, Rory. Love it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Ep 557: Create an Environment You Thrive In | Dr. Cody Golman Episode Recap

AJV (00:00):
Here are a few things that I just pulled out that were phenomenally important to me that just hit me in a certain way, so hopefully they hit you the same way. So the first thing is we started the whole conversation of just remember that you have a choice. And I think that’s just a good reminder for anyone, no matter where you are in life, it’s, you have a choice of how you feel. You have a choice of your attitude. You have a choice of whether or not you’re happy today or you’re stressed today. And I’m not saying that we don’t have days where we’re stressed and overwhelmed. I have those days often, but those are also choices I make. And it’s, I think it, the difference is am I choosing to focus on the things that aren’t going well? Or am I choosing to focus on the things that are, and it’s not that you ignore the things that aren’t they need fixing, but it’s choosing to put your, your, your hope and your aspirations in the things that are working and not get bogged down by the things that aren’t.
AJV (00:59):
It’s, are you choosing little things that make you feel good versus choosing things that don’t make you feel good? I know for me it’s like, am I choosing to go on a walk or am I choosing a glass of wine? I need to choose a to go on a walk, right? And it’s like, you have a choice. You have a choice about are you gonna be disciplined and do the things you know you’re supposed to do, or are you not? Are you going to do it? Even if you think it doesn’t make a difference, even though it does or not. It’s like you have a choice and all the things, you have a choice. And I think that is just a good place, a good foundation to start for the rest of this conversation is we all have choices to make. How we spend our time, our attitudes, how we feel, how we treat people.
AJV (01:46):
Those are choices that we get to make. And we do have influence and control over those things so you have a choice. So that was the first thing I think that was really good. Second thing is similar to that is you have a choice in your environment. Now, sometimes we are temporarily stuck in an environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create counter environment. So maybe you are temporarily in a, a job per se that isn’t healthy for you and you can’t just up and leave. You have bills to pay, you have a family to take care of. You have responsibilities, but there can be other environments that you surround yourself with IE community outside of work that help counter negative environments. So environment, your environment is a really important part of your ability to make progress. And I love what Lori said, and I’m totally just stealing this right outta her mouth.
AJV (02:39):
Your environment has a mental, emotional and physical impact on you. And if you are not consciously making decisions, choices to improve your environment, then your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer. So let’s all just take a a second, take a step back and go, what environments am I in that are healthy and good and, you know, moving me in the right direction? And what environments may I be in that are not those things? And how do I have more of the good and, and less of the not so good? Right? And I think, again, it’s like environments can be places. They can be groups of people, they can be communities, they can be all different sorts of things. But I know for me, and I love what she said when she talks about her childhood and an environment she was used to seeing versus a new environment when she went to go stay with a family a a a set of friends.
AJV (03:38):
And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? I, I didn’t even know this existed. If we don’t create new environments, then we convince ourselves that things are just the way that they are. We don’t even know things are possible ’cause we’ve never seen them be possible for anyone in our environment. So it’s, I think it’s just so incredibly important to have different and varying environments so that you see new patterns and new habits and new ways of living or thinking or acting or doing that create new possibilities for you. I don’t remember who said this first, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you are who you hang out with. Well, I think that’s probably true for most of us. It’s like we are the, you know, culmination of where we spend our time, energy, thinking resources, right? That begins to create who we are.
AJV (04:27):
So what environments are you in and what environments do you need to be in? I love this quote. This is so good. And she said that your environments are often stronger than your willpower. So if you know that you have a temptation to do things that you don’t want to do, then remove yourself from those environments, right? If you’re trying to eat healthy, then do not put yourself in environments where it’s, you know, chips and dips and nachos and hamburgers and hot dogs, right? Remove yourself from those environments. If you hang out with a group of people who aren’t healthy and you’re trying to be healthy, remove yourself from those sorts of temptations, not from the people, from the environments, right? See them on a hike, see them doing something else. But you’ve got to know that if you’ve got struggles in the willpower discipline arena, then you’ve got to change the environment.
AJV (05:24):
So, so good. Oh my gosh, this isn’t like brand new, but such a new fresh context of looking at this really does hit it in a different way. And just remembering, it’s like your environment is often stronger than your willpower. So good. Love this. Okay, moving right along here. This next one is like same kind of quote where I’m like, this should just be all over lord’s social media. I don’t know why this isn’t everywhere she goes, but there is always a gift in what you just did. And if you have ever said to yourself, I just wasted so much time, or I just wasted so much money, or what a bunch of waste of time, resources, emotions, I would just encourage you to rephrase that and go, you wasted nothing. You learned a ton, a ton about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, what you want and what you don’t want.
AJV (06:25):
But there is a gift in what you just did. And a lot of times that gift comes in experience and it comes in knowledge, and it come, it comes in clarification. But there isn’t a, there is a gift in what you just did, whether it was a success or it was a temporary failure, whether it worked out or it didn’t. There was a gift in what you just did. You just have to make the choice to look for it. And that is so powerful because often we look at things that don’t work out as failures, and we look at failures as a waste of time. And I’m currently reading a book right now called, called to Create by Jordan Rayner. And in this book he talks about something in Silicon Valley where they talk about the fail faster rule. And that’s just my syn my, my synopsis of what he’s talking about.
AJV (07:19):
I don’t know if that’s really what he said in the book, but this is how I remember it anyways. But the fail, the fail faster rule is like in Silicon Valley, it’s like, if your startup fails fast, that means that you’re learning just as fast. So it’s like if you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough, risked enough that there hasn’t been something that happened enough. And I think that’s both healthy and potentially not as long as we’re willing to express that. You know, failure does not, failures do not mean we are a failure. That means we did things that didn’t work. Welcome to life, , right? We all fail. That doesn’t mean we are failures, right? And I think this whole idea of fail faster, learn faster, get better faster, those are all part of just the life experience. It’s not, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just a part of the experience.
AJV (08:10):
And so creating different ways of looking at this of like, what are the lessons learned? What are the gifts I received from what I just did? Because nothing was a waste of time. There was something that was received, there was something that was learned. There was something that came out of it that is going to make you a better person, but you gotta make the choice to find it. So just, I thought that was such a good reminder of everything that we do, whether it was a, an investment loss or it was a business loss, a relationship loss. Whereas in the what is the gift and what you just did also in, in the wins, right? There’s clearly gifts in the wins. I think it’s easier for us to find those, but it’s, it’s a mental, a discipline to find the gifts and the things that we don’t consider wins.
AJV (08:58):
But there is always a gift in what you just did, I just thought was so good. Now, tactically speaking there were a few other things that I’m gonna share that I thought were equally as powerful here. So with courses we talked about the concept of less is more. The whole idea of this, it’s like you want to save, like this is what we say at brand builders all the time, is you wanna save the best for first. Because if you give, if you serve up the best first, if you give your audience the best first, they feel accomplished faster, they feel more empowered faster, they feel more educated, more knowledgeable they feel like they can do things right up front. And so you wanna give them as much as you can as early as you can because that shows a very quick return on their investment.
AJV (09:44):
They don’t need to spend six hours and 66 pages to feel like they got their money’s worth. You want ’em to feel like they got their money, their money’s worth in the first hour. So how can you do less is more and help ’em feel accomplished way upfront? Love that. Second thing about courses is just don’t forget that fundamentals never get old. We think we have to create some new twist and make new shiny objects and, you know, talk about a brand new way of doing something. And sometimes people don’t need a brand new way of doing something. They just need to hear it in a new way. They need to hear the solid, basic fundamentals in a way that hits them, right? The whole concept of there’s always a gift in what you just did. You could say that a hundred different ways, but the way that Lori said that hit me, right?
AJV (10:32):
The fact that she said that, you know, your environments often are stronger than your willpower. It’s not like that has never been said before. It’s just never been said that way. And so sometimes it’s not that you’re saying brand new stuff, you’re just saying it away that your audience can relate to in a way that they don’t relate to the way someone else says it. So just don’t forget, like fundamentals don’t get old. Just make sure to share it in your lens and your perspective and provide as much value as possible right up front. Now, when it comes to podcasts, Lori’s podcast now has more than 47 million downloads. So how do you go from a new podcast or a podcast that maybe has a few thousand downloads to millions of downloads? I thought this was really good. Keep it simple. It’s fundamentals, but talk about it everywhere you go.
AJV (11:21):
It’s be consistent. Don’t give up. It takes time. But talk about it everywhere you go. Ask people to share it. Ask people to rate it. Ask people to give reviews on it. But talk about it and then ask people to do what you want them to do. We talked about how it’s like if you never ask, the answer is always no. So you’ve got to ask, remind people, tell people this is how you can help talk about it everywhere you go and tell people what to do. That’s how you grow your podcast and you to do those two things consistently right? Now, last but not least, we also talked about stepping into the world of physical products, right? So that could be anything from t-shirts, shoes to water bottles, wine, food, snacks, nutritional supplements, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (12:13):
Could be any sort of physical product, but going from an an educational and information product world to a physical product world. And what are some of the things that we need to know and what should we be looking for if we are considering making this transition or adding a physical product line to our business offering? So first, find some help , don’t do it by yourself. Please find someone who has actually, who has actually done what you want to do in the, you know, sector that you want to do it. So if you were trying to launch a nutritional supplements, don’t talk to someone who has only done a clothing line. Actually talk to someone who has done what you want to do. So find some help. This is where you want to hire a coach, find a mentor, join a mastermind, go to a conference, read books, but find some expert help and exactly what it is that you want to do.
AJV (13:08):
That’s the first thing. Second is make sure that you’re just filling a need that you see in the market. Don’t think don’t, don’t create a product as you think there’s a need. Find a need and then create a product to fulfill that need, right? And if you’ve got a trusted audience, you can start by asking them, but fill a need that you already see in the marketplace. ’cause There is there, focus on why your product is different than competing products, right? So focus on what differentiate your products. How are you gonna market it differently? How does it help differently? How does it serve your audience differently? How is it made for your audience specifically? So focus on your differentiator. I loved this one that this was so pa impactful. Avoid any sort of products as your first product that have lots of legal tape, right?
AJV (13:58):
So anything that would require like FDA regulatory issues, anything that, you know, like beauty products, food, beverage nutritional lines, anything that has lots and lots of legal take. What’s gonna happen is most of your investment money or your own money is going to be going to the lawyers versus product development, research and development marketing. Most of it’s actually just gonna go to the pockets of attorneys versus actually helping develop your product. So as your first product entry to market, avoid anything that has lots of legal red tape almost to the end of my list here, focus on one thing. In other words, don’t create a product line that has lots of skews first. So if you’re gonna create a makeup line start with one thing, right? Is it a lip gloss? Then stick to that.
AJV (14:50):
Is it a mascara? Stick to that. Don’t go, here’s an entire makeup on, we’re gonna have this and this and this and this. It’s like, no, start with one thing. So you have centralized focus on what works. You do all of your checks and balances, all your trial and error, all of your market testing with one product. So you get the marketing right, you get the audience right, you get the pricing right? You get the packaging and the shipping and all the things right on one product, and then you expand from there. So start with one sku, one product,and that will save you lots of time, lots of money, and actually help you generate revenue. So y’all, there’s so many things I could talk for another 20 minutes on this. Ubut I’m looking at my timer and my time is up. So,go check out this full interview.
AJV (15:35):
Catch us next time on the influential personal brand. And if this has been helpful to you, please go and like this episode, share this episode, comment on it, leave us a review, rate it. If this is helpful to you and you think it would be helpful to someone else, please share it with them. You get to be the conduit of sharing good information out into the world. So I’m asking for your help. If you like our podcast, the influential personal brand, please like it, share it, leave a review and get it out into the world and share it with a friend. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.

Ep 556: Take Back Your Health with Radical Accountability with Dr. Cody Golman

AJV (00:00:02):

All right, everybody. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here, and y’all all right. If you follow me on social at all, then you will know that over the last year I’ve gone through a major health transformation in my life, both physically, mentally, emotional, and I talk about it a lot in the Brave Room community. And I’m so honored, and I’m also so excited to introduce you guys to Dr. Cody Goldman. Because it was his program that I went through. It was him that I worked with. That, and I say this in the humblest possible way. I have never been in a better space in my entire da adult life. I’m in the best physical shape. I am the best version of myself that I have been as a human on this earth not just my adult life.

AJV (00:01:00):

And I credit so much of that to the transformation that happened in Dr. Cody’s program. And so when I say that this is a life changing, life transforming program, I mean it, I also can tell you that and why, and this is why I’m telling you guys this before I introduce Cody. There are some things that we talk about at Brand Builders Group that resonate in some areas. And there’s just some things that are just universal truth. And one of the things that we say a lot at Brand Builders Group is that the best form of marketing in the world is a changed life, right? And the reason that I promote and refer so many people to Dr. Cody is because it changed my life. And if you guys are sitting here wondering how to get more clients and how to grow your business, I would encourage you to stop thinking about that and start thinking about how do I change the lives of the clients that I have?

AJV (00:02:01):

And really, that’s what today’s episode is gonna be about. And we’re gonna talk a lot about the physical side and the health and nutrition side but also the mechanics of how to create a program that can actually be life changing. And that is why I wanted to have Dr. Cody on, not just to talk about his content, which we will, but also talk about the actual structure of how to create a life changing program that can help you grow your business by changing lives. So, with that said, let me also professionally introduce Dr. Cody Goldman. Dr. Cody has been a dedicated healthcare professional for the last 20 years. And uniquely he has a unique avatar of empowering women, age 35 to 55, who struggle with stubborn weight loss that will not go away regardless of how many things you track. And a huge part of what he has created is a hormone reset waste weight loss program that helps women specifically change and better their lives. And so, I am formally inviting or formally introducing Cody to the show. Thank you for accepting my invitation. We’re so glad you’re here.

CG (00:03:14):

Wow, what a, I, I be honest with you, I am I have tears with that introduction because I can feel how much your life has changed. And this is, I was put in this planet to change and inspire and, and help people. So I feel I can feel a mission just hearing that from you. So thank you for those loving words.

AJV (00:03:32):

Well, enjoy those. ’cause I’m gonna use not as friendly words later, so . But this is genuinely such a treat to introduce you to the audience because I have been talking about you a ton and you and the program and, and really the, the structure of how you built this. But before we get into that, I think it’s always important to know is I imagine most of our audience this is their first time being introduced to you. And so I’d love for you just to quickly tell everyone a little bit about where you started and how you got to where you are.

CG (00:04:07):

Yeah, I’ll, I’ll do brief briefly. So I was in the military at, I joined at 17. I was still in high school back in the day you could do that. And I became a tank commander at 19. And these, we were throwing these bullets. The bullets are a hundred pounds a piece, and the bullet hole was about a foot over your head, and you could do three a minute. And over the course of time, I started having problems with my neck and shoulders and went to doctors, went to medical doctors, went through the whole gamut, got medications with, and I started questioning like, why, you know, they really didn’t have a diagnosis, but it got medications. And so it truly led me towards natural healthcare. And I finally went to a chiropractor who said, Hey man, you got a pinched nerve in your neck.

CG (00:04:47):

And I said, that’s, that can’t be true. I’ve been to a neurologist, I’ve been to a cardiologist. And he did one adjustment and I had a numb hand for about three months. I had asthma’s analogies and all kinds of stuff. In, in three seconds, the energy came back into my hand and I could have feeling again. Mm-Hmm. And at that moment, I knew it was universe. It was the God saying, listen, like this is your role in this planet, is to help other people. And so I set off to go into chiropractic school, and one of my thoughts at that time was, how many people have gone through? I’ve gone through, gone to doctors, gave me medications, and never actually found the cause of their problem. And that’s an important part of the story because that is my passion, is helping people truly understand their body, our healthcare system, our medical system, our school system does not teach you about your body.

CG (00:05:37):

And I think that’s like literally what I’m creating now is literally a school for how does our body work. So, so I had a, a healthcare center for 17 years. We saw 325 patients a week. I’ve had everything from asthmas, allergies, aids, sickle cell anemia, breast cancer, digestive cancer. I’ve seen every single one of these things heal multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia. So I won’t go into too much more of that. But, so I learned a lot in that time. And it wasn’t, most of it wasn’t from just physical treatments. I started understanding the, how the mind is wired, how your mind and body are connected. And so I sold IT office, and I, I, I opened up a, a physical product business on Amazon. And over time I wasn’t working with any people. And I got, I started getting like, really antsy. I’m like, I forgot my purpose.

CG (00:06:23):

I’m like, I’m here to work with people. I’m here to ignite and inspire people to their highest potential. That’s it. And so, interesting enough, people started calling me, my patients after I sold the office, they called me and said, Hey, remember that weight loss program you had? I had a weight loss program just because we were attracting people in the office. I was, I, that’s, that’s why we did it. And people started calling me and they said, okay, I’ll figure out how to do this. I don’t have an office anymore. So we, we just figured how to do it virtually, and it worked well. And so that literally is what happened. And with, with the Fast 40, it wasn’t something I was looking to do. Most of the businesses that I’ve created, they’ve been things that have come to me. I didn’t choose to do it. And at this stage of my life I think those, some of the best things that we, that we do, that we think we create are the things that are, are being created for us. So that, that’s, that’s how I got to this point here. So

AJV (00:07:14):

I love that. And, you know, and here’s one of the things that I would, I would say, ’cause I’ve been through the program and everything, it’s, it’s so interesting in such a awesome way to reflect back on, ’cause ’cause what you just said is like, nobody explains how the body works, or it’s like the amounts that I learned in the, the course itself of, you know, just the, even of like what my bo my body responds to, but unique things that are specific to a woman’s body. Like when you’re on your menstrual cycle, like you will never lose weight. And the amount of water that I was definitely not taking and what you think is healthy, which really isn’t healthy, and mm-hmm. like, to your point, I had gone through two years of a misdiagnosis with, you know, gallstones from being pregnant and literally misdiagnosed for two years.

AJV (00:08:06):

And then on top of that, I kept having all my labs checked and like, no, your hormones are great. And then I realized, oh, your hormones change daily as a woman. And so it’s like, unless you’re having them checked pre like every day, it’s like, how would you ever, and it was, there’s so many things that we just don’t know, right? And what I love is that, and we say this all the time at Brand Builders Group, it’s like, your content should be your conclusion, never your hypothesis. And what I love about you and your program is like, no, this started from a, a personal need to then a dedication and expertise of doing the thing, right? 300 times a week for a very long time Yeah. To get to the place of conviction, right? And I think that’s one of the most powerful things that I have seen in your program, is that you, the leader of the program, are so convicted that what the program offers works.

AJV (00:09:02):

That if it’s not working, it’s my fault. Right? . And that’s one of the things that you reminded me of all the time. Well, the program works, so you’re not doing something right. And you know what I love? I love, now, I didn’t love it then, but what I love now is the pure confidence and conviction that you have in the program, because you know that if you follow it, it works. And if it’s not working, then you’re doing something wrong. And as I think about even as brand Builders group of, like our program, I think sometimes the creators of programs or runners of memberships or coaches or consultants or whatever your business is we somehow think like, man, what am I not doing right? And, and I think maybe you haven’t time tested it enough, or you haven’t, you know, gone through it yourself enough.

AJV (00:09:54):

But it’s like when you believe in the program so much and you have time tested it so many times that you can go Uhuh, you are wrong. The program is not wrong. You are wrong. Like, it does increase the level of one accountability and expectations that you have from your clients and realizing, Hey, I can’t do this for you. You have to do it. I’m gonna give you the information. At the end of the day, you have to take it and do something with it. And it creates the partnership versus everyone who buys something and was like, oh, that didn’t work. And it’s like, oh no, it didn’t work ’cause you didn’t do it. Right? Mm-Hmm. . And I think that was a huge part of what I walked away in a business standpoint of like, d our, does our team have the level of conviction in our products and services that you do to be able to go, well, clearly you’re doing something wrong because I know it works. And if it’s not working, it’s you. Right? And I love, I love the confidence that comes in that. And so my first question for you, ’cause I could go on and on and on would be, how’d you get to that level of confidence in your own program?

CG (00:10:58):

Mm-Hmm. , beautiful question. And by the way, I do feel that with BBG I do for that I’m in the, I’m, I’m in, I’m dive, I’ve been diving in, I can tell the system works. I just, I just know it. So I’m, I’m in it and I can feel that conviction from you guys. So I love that you’re asking all your employees like, Hey, do we all have that level of conviction? We know this works after you, you’ve done it with 600 people. And I’ve been, I’ve been through multiple businesses, I’ve listened to your guys’ stuff. I’m like, they know what they’re talking about. Like, I know, you know, so how did I get that level? So there’s something that came up in, in what you were saying that I wanna bring up. Of course, repetition is the mother of skill.

CG (00:11:39):

So when you do something enough, you start building a skillset. But you know what, I noticed this probably, almost probably two years into the fast 40, I started realizing like that I knew what I was doing. I was like, oh my God, this is really good. When you’ve put your hands in enough people and watch them heal. This happened in the chiropractic office. It’s a very important thing for people to hear in terms of programs or courses or even your doctor. Without that certainty, your level of results goes down quite a bit. And so that’s why it’s an important question. When people came to my office many times they had literally untreatable diseases that weren’t gonna get better. And when you sit in front of a doctor that says, I’ve got you. I’m gonna work with you. We’ve got this. The reason I have so much certainty is because I know that it’s not me doing the healing Mm-Hmm. ,

CG (00:12:32):

Because there’s a power inside you that I know how to work with. And I’m wanna get you acquainted with the universe is inside you. I already know that your natural state is health, homeostatic health. I know your natural state is inspiration. I know your natural state is to be able to be energized and also to be able to be asleep and need to sleep. It allows yourself to go back and forth. I’m not doing a thing except tapping into the things you already have. So when you have certainty in the universe, is there anything else you need? Hmm.

AJV (00:13:05):

Yeah. I think that’s really good. And I love what you said too, and this is how I interpret it anyway. It’s like without certainty, your level of skill diminishes

CG (00:13:14):

Mm-Hmm.

AJV (00:13:14):

, right? And it’s like there’s a, there’s certain level of certainty that actually creates confidence in other people that, okay, well he’s, he’s so confident and clearly if I just do this, it’ll work. Right? And I think that’s really important. People need that level of confidence in what they’re buying. ’cause It’s like, I think for a lot of people to whatever business that you’re in, as you’re listening, it’s like, man, a lot of their hopes and dreams are, are within you and what they’re paying for from you. It’s like, man, I think you can help me. Like give me the confidence that you can. And so, right, I love that. And I love that reminder too, that repetition is the mother of all skill, right? And then from that, that grows also confidence and conviction and clarity and all the things. So there’s a lot of different things that I’d love to talk about today.

AJV (00:14:05):

One of them is the mechanics of how you’ve built your program. And then I actually wanna talk about the content of your program. And so I think by talking about the content, it’ll naturally, we can talk about the mechanics. And I would just be so curious to know, because I think there’s a lot of people who are, or who will be in some sort of career transition of, I had the thing, I did the thing, I was the thing, and now I’m moving into the new thing. And you did that, right? And so why fast Forward? Like, why this program? Why a course, why the coaching element? There was lots of things you could have done, and I heard you say a lot of people was coming to you, but you could have done it in a lot of different ways. Why did you decide to go this route?

CG (00:14:54):

Yeah. I have so many, so many things that come to my mind. So, okay, so I’ve done this three times when you talked about the thing where you’ve got the thing and you move to something else. So I went from a very successful, we were the top chiropractic office in Denver, sold it for the top 10% of all chiro offices. And people ask me why I sold it. I was an incredible chiropractor, not from an ego standpoint, but I was, I I literally one of the best ones. I know, I’m, I’m serious when I say that, why the hell would I sell? I’ve learned to listen to my inner guidance. There’s no other answer. There is no other thing. I heard that it was time to sell. Mm-Hmm. I resisted it for five years. Those five years were painful. When you resist what the universe is asking you to do, I thought that I got, I thought that being a chiropractor was like, like literally you have people heal from this stuff. I was like, what else could you do? And it’s like, this is my, my skillset, right? Well, I learned something really powerful. The universe gives you more than one amazing talent. ,

CG (00:15:55):

When you have completed a cycle of action, our reality is, is constructed in cycles. Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end all. We just don’t want to acknowledge it. All relationships, beginning, middle, end, your body, beginning, middle, end, everything. If you sit in that, you can feel the beginning, middle, and end that the universe or God or whatever the life is telling you. So it told me the end. And it, it may sound crazy, but I literally listened to it. And when I, again, five years of pain of resisting it, you start going, let me figure out how to listen to life a little more. So the, I moved from, you know, chiropractic to building a product business on Amazon. And there was a beginning, middle, and end. And it was interesting because as people started calling me and saying, Hey, could you do the weight loss thing?

CG (00:16:40):

I sensed something’s beginning. Because I think the, the, the challenge is like, as a, as an entrepreneur, we think that we are cr we are, we are creating and driving and building. That’s the push. I’d rather follow the pull. Mm-Hmm. . And so I’ve learned to follow the pull in my, in my twenties I was doing the push. And you know, you start thirties and forties, follow the pull. And I, and I, I’ve, I’ve, I died, almost died to learn that lesson of how to follow the pull, the, the driven, the pushing, the accomplishing, checking boxes. Someone who had never stopped to truly feel themselves. That was me at, at age 40 and had a near death experience and realized, whoa, I wasn’t truly tapping into my feeling, into my heart and listening, not listening with my ears, but listening with my heart. And so that is really what guiding me towards when I, when you say why there, there was a calling.

CG (00:17:38):

Now I did learn in the chiropractic office that I love my freedom. So when you see 325 patients, I was only open 12 and a half hours a week, but I still had to be somewhere. So I had a thought of like, I’ve accomplished that. Could I do the same thing and, and try to have freedom? So I had this interesting, so I had money, but no freedom. Then with the Amazon business, I had I had money and freedom, and I was totally uninspired because I, because I wasn’t fulfilling my purpose. So I’ve realized the money and freedom are really kind of boring, to be honest with you, . Because if you don’t, if you have money and freedom and you don’t truly, you’re not here doing the thing you’re put on this plant to do. What’s the point? And so that’s when I could feel like, oh, the universe wanted to go through these processes.

CG (00:18:28):

And so I, I realized I gotta work with people. I love people. And I wanna say this, this is kind of a, a segue from our last question to this question. I spent 10 years teaching metaphysical seminars. There was a, a brilliant man named Dr. Thurman Fleet who connected together how the subconscious mind works in the body. And in my twenties, I was studying this. Okay. And I just wanna say this ’cause this is important. When you’re working with people, your, we talked about clarity and certainty and conviction. He taught me that the more you focus on and you can concentrate on the things that you want, the mor will amplify it. So, for example, as a doctor, most doctors are so busy, their mind is scattered with all kinds of stuff. What insurance should I bill? Is this person gonna pay blah, blah, blah, that diminishes the patient’s healing result because you’re not present in the moment.

CG (00:19:24):

So one of the things I learned was that when I say something, I’m saying with full brain power, full brain cell activation. So when I say, Diane, when I make this adjustment, your stomach is going to heal. It’s not the words, it’s the power. So 90% of communication, 90% or more of all communication is subconscious, subconscious. 10% is our words and our gestures. It’s the energy behind things. So what I realized was, and that’s why we got such great healings, I started realizing in the fast 40, now I’m not working with people in person. So now I’ve got freedom, I’ve got money, and I’ve got inspiration . That’s where I went. Right? But it was interesting, as I said these words over WhatsApp messages, I literally would start watching people heal. And I, and it just astounded me. I was like, oh my gosh, energy transcends time and space.

CG (00:20:19):

I don’t actually physically need to be with someone to help them heal. The Christian scientists have known that for a long time. They do remote healings. The Egyptians knew this. They were doing remote healings. So I’m dropping some, some heavier stuff because there’s a lot more behind just assert of what’s happening in the unconscious mind. And understand, when you activate someone’s subconscious mind, that is a direct connection to their body. So you have a direct connection to be able to access their body and their life. So when you say your stomach’s going to heal and you’re gonna notice your relationship improving, that’s what will happen in their life with that level of certainty.

AJV (00:20:56):

Hmm. That is good. You know, it’s so interesting. We’re writing our next book right now, Rory, my husband and I, and I just finished up writing our chapter on identity. And it’s so interesting to hear you say that. And it’s really resonating because one of the, you know, kind of, you know, claims that I’m making, at least for me, is that the definition of identity is simply what you choose to believe about yourself. Hmm. Right? And it’s so much about, it’s like what you think about, you bring about like all these little phrases that we’ve heard over the years. And but it, but it’s true, right? It’s like if you believe, like, not you say you believe, but if you actually believe, then there is like this, you know, spiritual thing that starts to happen where it’s like, I tell people all the time, it’s like your reticular activator kicks in, right?

AJV (00:21:49):

And it’s like the moment that, you know, I started really honing in on my health. It’s like I started noticing things that I didn’t notice before. And once I believed that this was, this was possible, it’s like I was more motivated and I was more disciplined. And, you know, I finished the program, what, in April. And this, at the time of this recording, we’re in mid-November. And it’s like, I have not gained not one pound back, not one. Wow. So cool. And so, but a lot of that was from that, that deep inner belief of like, this is my healthiest state and alcohol is not good for me. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying it’s not good for me. Oils are not good for me. Not saying they’re bad, they’re just not good for me. Going to bed at 9:00 PM is good for me, right? It’s like , no, it’s like I started like saying all these different things because they’re true for me, right? And it was like, it was really believing. It’s like I am a better person when I eat healthier. I’m a better person when I get more sleep. And those are true things about me. But too, like what you’re saying, it’s like I really did, it’s like the more that I started believing, it’s like the, the more results that I started getting

CG (00:23:02):

Mm-Hmm, , that’s so

AJV (00:23:03):

Much of what you were saying. That’s so beautiful. So that, that’s a good transition to the program itself. And so I would love to talk about some of the, the phenomenons that I call them anyways, because I considered myself a fairly healthy person all my whole life, right? I’ve been a pretty healthy individual. And then I was just completely dumbfounded and played with, you know, this stubborn weight that wouldn’t leave that which was then diagnosed to a gallbladder issue that I had, had it removed. Long story short, there was lots of things in place, but I remember being on my sales call with you. I have bunny fingers with the sales call, right? Because, you know, all free calls are, you know, a sales call. And that’s okay. ’cause We do free calls too. But it was interesting ’cause I remember you said, it’s like, do you eat a lot of sugar?

AJV (00:23:51):

And I said, no, I’m not a sweets person. And you were like, let me ask that again. Do you eat a lot of sugar? And I said, no. And he, you were like, okay, let me rephrase that. You eat a lot of sugar . And I just remember being like, no, I don’t . I like, and, and I think you even said, you’re like, I want you to do me a favor after our call. I want you to go to your pantry. I want you to go to your refrigerator and I want you to look at the sugar content that’s in all the foods. Look at all the sauces, look at all the drinks, look at all the foods in your pantry, and then come back and tell me that you don’t eat a lot of sugar. And I remember doing that, and this is before I signed up for your program and paid for the program.

AJV (00:24:38):

And I remember sitting in my pantry for like an hour pulling up every single thing. And I was like, oh, what? Like, I was like, in every spice like my favorite garlic salt, I’m like, why is there sugar in garlic salt? It was in the craziest, like, what? Like what do you mean? And it was one of those convicting moments that I was like, okay, maybe I, maybe I’m missing something here. Maybe I don’t , maybe I’m not as healthy as I thought I was. Right? Which is when I then signed up for your program and realized, oh, I’ve missed a lot of things. So there, therein lies my question. What are the things for the person now there’s some people listening who just go, I know I’m not healthy. Like I know it. There’s other people who go, no, I’m not. I’m pretty healthy. Like, what, what would you say to the person, let’s just say me that’s going, no, I, you know, I’m, I’m pretty healthy, but yet I’m not in optimal shape and I’m not where I wanted to be. I’m not actually happy where I’m at and yet Mm-Hmm, , you know, that I, ’cause I know, you know, so what would you say to the person that’s going, I’m pretty healthy and you’re going well, let’s talk about that.

CG (00:25:54):

Well, okay, a few things. I’m not in the business of telling someone to do something that they don’t want to do. So I’m a big fan of letting people find their own pain. That’s what my sales calls are. So my entire process is if someone’s calling and they would lose 10, 20 pounds, they haven’t and, and they haven’t yet. What I want someone to be able to truly see is how that 10 or 20 pounds is robbing them of the things they value the most. And what’s happened in our country, over 33 33 million people are obese. Over 99 million more in the third of our country is overweight. So if we have enough people walking with a limp and you got a limp, you’re pretty normal.

CG (00:26:43):

And that’s the problem. You look around and 10, 10 pounds of weight, no big deal. My cousin’s 60 pounds of weight. My family’s from Louisiana. Louisiana is some of the best food in the planet and some of the worst food in the planet. 60 pounds of weight is healthy in Louisiana. And so, you know it, it’s very wild to look at this. It’s all comparison. Our brain has comparison. We are the fattest country on the planet. And I wanna say this in, in the most direct way to people. You should look up the life expectancy versus a per capita spent on healthcare. It will make you vomit. We have so many countries that are spending 2, 3, 4, $5,000 a year on, on healthcare for someone and their life expectancy. Sweden, Italy is over over the eighties. Our average life expectancy is in the, is low seventies.

CG (00:27:32):

And we spend over $10,000. There’s no one even close. Sweden is spends $4,000. And that is they most spent the, all the countries in the world per capita per person. We spend over $10,000 per capita on person. And we have a almost 10 year less life expectancy. Why? So, so when you look at why there’s two big things. One, our food has been riddled with preservatives and sugars. Now something just happened re recently we saw the elections and there’s, there’s a man named RFK Jr. Whether or not you like him or not is not the question. I’ve watched him for years. He’s tapped in. He is set out to hold our companies accountable. When you look at Cheerios, when you look at fruit loops, there are 13 more ingredients in our cereals than other countries allow. Those ingredients are things like dyes, actual toxic dyes made from petroleum.

CG (00:28:30):

If you go to Australia, Cheerios are dyed with beet juice and carrot juice for the color. This is the sadness of what our FDA has allowed. Your government has allowed this in your food. And I’m saying this in a way that I hope it gets whoever’s listening to this upset. So when you start understanding this, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s actually happening. Our foods are riddled with stuff. Why it’s cheaper to use dye, then use beet juice. There’s no reason other than profit. And I won’t go into too many details about this, but the FDA they’ve allowed it because the biggest lobbyist right? Can, can, and the companies have the biggest money for them to allow that to happen in your food and sugar. There’s a book called Sugar Blues that I recommend everyone read it is fantastic. But it tracks, it’s very interesting ’cause it tracks the rise and fall of almost every major civilization since like the 16 hundreds.

CG (00:29:23):

The countries that owned sugar became wealthy. They became wealthy, but their people were eating it. So in 100 to 300 years, another country took them over. ’cause They’re a two week to fight. This has happened for thousands of years. This is nothing new. This is what’s happening with America right now. So, so I love to empower people, number one about what’s put what they’re putting in their food. And you know, like you did in, in my program, we eat real food. So many weight loss programs are using powders and pills. Nutrition doesn’t come from a bottle. It’s never come from a bottle. Nutrients don’t come from a bottle, comes from the food that God put in the earth. So that’s number one. And number two is because of the excess sugars. One of the things that’s important to understand is a process called du lipogenesis.

CG (00:30:11):

Your body will convert. It’s magical. You gotta listen to this. You body takes sugar and it converts it into fat on you. Why is that magical fat is the most amazing fuel source for the human being. You are a genius. When you burn fat, you are a rockstar marathon runner. When you burn fat, you’re an amazing bodybuilder. You’re an amazing mother. When you burn fat, fat has nine calories per gram where a protein and carbohydrate has four. So fat is literally jet fuel. Okay? But so your body geniusly takes sugar in and it converts it to fat. Why? It’s because it goes, Hey, I’d rather lay down fat because you’re gonna have a better fuel source for, for you it’s doing it out of love. But when you have too much sugar coming in than you start loading up the fat, okay? So that, it’s almost as if you put a low octane fuel in your car and your car could change it to a higher octane fuel.

CG (00:31:03):

That’d be magical. That’s what your body’s doing. So when you start seeing how much sugar is being put in, yes we are, we’re we’re generating more fat, we’re becoming bigger. But why is that an issue? Why not just be fat? Why not just, just like you said, just 10 pounds, 10 pounds, no big deal. It has been proven that if you reduce your weight just by five to 10%, five to 10% of your fat, you decrease your risk of disease by 50%. And the true reason is when you are not utilizing fat, there’s a, there’s hormones in your body that use fat. When you load your body full of sugar, your hormones go, Hey, let’s start using this thing. It stops using fat. That’s the moment where disease process sets in. Your joints become arthritic, your mind becomes slow. Digestive issues, a chronic diseases, cancers matter of fact, can many cancers use sugar to metastasize to get bigger inside your body? So those are the main reasons I’ve seen and that’s truly what the fast 40 targets is clearing those up. Not just clearing ’em up, but getting people educated so they understand what’s happening with both our nutrition in our, in our, in our environment.

AJV (00:32:14):

Yeah. And that, that was truly like to what you said, and I think a lot of people hear that a lot about the sugars and don’t do anything about it. ’cause I don’t think you understand for the most part that it’s in everything. Like I, I was thinking about, I don’t, I don’t really eat sweetss. Like I don’t, and then I realized, oh my gosh, I eat sugar all day. What is happening? ? And there’s some of that. But what I was more blown away with is the oils. And as I have talked about this program ad nauseum to all my friends and anyone who will listen that has also been like, what do you mean? You mean olive oil? You mean like good oils? And I’m like, I mean all oils, body lotions, facial lotions, body gels food oils in your foods. And out of everything that I’ve noticed since the program, ’cause I have an insanely low tolerance to anything that has oil in it. At home we cook with water. But if I go out somewhere within five minutes of putting something in my body, even if I requested, Hey, please just steam this, I don’t want it. I know within an instant. So I feel like there’s a lot of the sugar conversation, regardless of people are buying into it or not. I had never in my life heard this oil component. Yeah. So talk, wanna talk about that.

CG (00:33:39):

Yeah, that’d be good. Yeah. This is by the way, the, the, the, it’s fun. What’s fun for me is I’ve always been the guy, especially as a chiropractor, that I, I literally am doing something completely different than what mainstream media and medical system tells you. That’s why I get such good results. And to fast forward is no different. I’m willing to be the guy that’s like, listen, what you’ve been told is completely false. I’m okay. I’m okay telling you that. And that’s why we have such great results. So the truth is so the fat reserves, you have different types of fat reserves. You have, you have structural fat, which is a necessary fat inside your cells and tissues. You have normal fat. Normal fat is a res, is a reserve that you need. And then you have abnormal fat. Abnormal fat is when you’ve tapped out your normal reserves and your body goes, okay, well I gotta put this somewhere.

CG (00:34:28):

Where does it put it? Your belly, your thighs, your legs, your hips, your butt, all these different areas. And the reason it does it is because of survival. And there’s so many things behind this. But when, when during our hormone reset number one, understand that your hypothalamus, the part of the brain that is very, very primitive is naturally used to looking for fat. It already knows I’m gonna do great with that. Okay? And so over time, like I said, your body becomes efficient in what you give it. So you give it the sugar, it starts switching over sugar. So what we do during our 40 day reset is we remove all oils and fats because listen to it this way. Your brain and body have no reason to use its own fat reserves if you put fat in your mouth. And it’s very confusing to people because they’re still thinking, well, aren’t fats good?

CG (00:35:20):

Yes. But you already have 20 pounds of good fat on you. It’s not about fats being good and bad. I want to get your body to use the good fat on you. It’s the best fat. So that’s why people feel so amazing is your body made this fat Mm-Hmm, , why not use that fat? So once you remove those and you’ve seen this, the fat just slides off. And once someone gets to their healthy fat percentage, then we sparingly put fats in. And it’s, and the reason why this is good, you, you know, I’m glad you really got to that point of seeing that is I saw the same thing. We, we are, we have a whole program after the fast forwarding, now that I’m because of BBG I’m creating, I wouldn’t have figured this out without BBG. And part of what it does is we are actually tracking people’s actual calories and proteins and fats and we have an app we use that people load their foods in every time we go out to eat.

CG (00:36:09):

What you said is exactly it. My mom and I went out to eat, we loaded our food and our fat content was just, it was skyrocketed. And I’m like, oh my God. It’s because when you go to a restaurant, you’re gonna get a fatty burger because if they don’t put a fatty burger in there, you’re gonna complain. ’cause It doesn’t taste good. Mm-Hmm. , most people would eat that. Then there’s bacon, all kinds of stuff. So fat was designed to be, to be utilized very sparingly because it is jet fuel. You don’t need as much of it. You do need certain amounts each day. And you’re a very high energy woman. I attract very powerful, I have entrepreneurs and all kinds of stuff. I work well with powerful people. So we, I want them burning fat, but the brain loves to burn fat, but we just don’t need as much as we’ve been using.

CG (00:36:52):

And, and that was a shocker to me. So none of the stuff I’ve really, you’ve, you’ve seen, I figured this out on my own. It wasn’t that I learned it in the, in school. It was like me and Tubi going, oh my God, look at my body. I used to be, I used to have extra fat on my body. I couldn’t get it off. I was a bodybuilder. And I literally went through and figured this process out and I was like, oh my God, this is so different. I had the same cognitions you did about sugar. I was eating sandwiches, the white bread was sugar . Like I’d go to restaurants, it was full of sugar. Right? So all these things I figured out over time and experimented on my own body and then experimented with my family Mm-Hmm. and then experimented with, I had thousands of patients experiment with to figure these things out.

AJV (00:37:33):

Yeah. And I love that because I think one of the things that is so helpful not just with like the, the health components of this, but you know, it’s, it’s also understanding the, the choices that we make, right? And it’s like, it’s one thing, right? And I think that’s one of like the, the ahas that I love in any program. It’s like, it’s one thing if I’m making choices out of ignorance, right? And, but it’s another, if I’m going, Hey, I know if I do this, this is gonna happen and then if I do this, then this will happen. And I think that’s, that’s a huge part of the success of any program, is giving people the information, the awareness and the cognition to be able to make good choices, right? And that’s part of what I loved about this program is like even if I choose not to like, you know, follow it very strictly in a day, it’s like I also understand the consequences of my choices.

AJV (00:38:34):

And what I also love is I also now know how to reset. I didn’t know how to reset before. And so I’d love for you to talk about that next. And then I have two other things and then I wanna talk about the mechanics of your program. Yeah. Because go on and on. Yeah. But like, just as a quick example, it’s like I know that if I choose to go out to eat, and I think a part of this is I still weigh myself every single day. Not because I’m obsessed about my weight. I’m not, I am truly monitoring how my body reacts to the food that I put in it. Good or bad. This is not a weight obsession. And people go get rid of the scales. No, don’t do that. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like me trying to run analytics on my funnels with no data.

CG (00:39:17):

Bingo. Like

AJV (00:39:18):

What? No, I have to have data. I have to know what works and what doesn’t. I have to be able to monitor that, the output. So I know the input. And that is like, so back to what I was gonna say is the thing that’s amazing is I literally know if I choose to, you know, splurge, which looks different for me now, but if I do, then I know the very next day, here are the three things that I need to do and I will completely reset and I will be fine. Mm-Hmm. , I never knew that before. Part of it I wasn’t monitoring it, but then I’m like, oh man, I no, I don’t know what to do. And so what would you say to the person who’s the, the yo-yo dieter, right? Like, they’re the person who gets on it and all of a sudden fall off the wagon and it’s just this constant yo-yo like what, what are the benefits of your program that teach you how to reset in a way that in my, you know, 41 years had never learned before?

CG (00:40:17):

Well first of all, yo-yo dieting is damaging your health. That’s the first thing. Yo-Yo diet is absolutely damaging. Matter of fact, you look at people who are yo-yo dieting, they end up fatter in the long run. Hmm. Every time you reduce your calories and, and deprive yourself of what you need, you will temporarily lose weight. Both muscle, water and fat. And those aren’t the type you wanna lose fat, you don’t wanna lose muscle. But that’s what happens with calorie deprivation diets. That’s Jenny Craig, that’s Weight Watchers, that’s paleo keto, that’s all of them. So we don’t create calorie deprivation, we create caloric balance. That’s a very specific thing. That’s one of our, one of our pillars in bbg, right? Is we, we literally cr create caloric balance and reset your metabolism. The yo-yo dieting is a screwing your metabolism and making you malnourished. And what happens is you’ll lose weight the moment you put food back in because your brain and body love you, it will lay down more fat.

CG (00:41:10):

Why? Because there’s a 25,000 plus year old mechanism that says, this person’s starving, we must add fat for the next time they starve themselves. Mm-Hmm. So that’s a big clue if someone hears that. Okay. So, so that’s the first thing. The other thing is that you said something, it’s funny ’cause ro I hear Rory in a lot of the videos say the thing that I’ve been saying in a different way. But it’s about pain. It’s about you get two types of pain in this world. Some, some of my patients think I’m a positive person. And I keep kinda reminding people that I’m not positive. I’m an equilibrium. Positive thinking is. Absolute. The most sad people on the planet, the ones that are striving for happiness, the most sick people in the planet are the ones that are striving for health.
CG (00:41:59):

Why? Because we live in a world of polarity. We have two types of pain in this world. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And so what I’ve noticed, I’m kind of going back to what you were saying here, is you either decide the discipline of weighing yourself, of looking at the scale. I wanna just mention this. So many women have been told you shouldn’t weigh yourself because you can create some emotional obsession. Absolute. All you’re doing is avoiding pain. There’s nothing else. There’s no other thing. Now I, the primitive brain is wired to avoid pain. So just check this out. We have primitive brain centers, the amygdala and hippocampus, and then you have advanced brain centers. Okay? Your primitive brain, when you are avoiding pain, you are in your animalistic brain center. When you weigh yourself and you face the pain, you are in the advanced frontal lobe.

CG (00:42:51):

So understand this in the, in the, in the animalistic, avoid pain, chase pleasure. You are gonna go back and forth. Yo-Yo diet. You are gonna go back and forth in your relationship. You’re gonna be on a, on a, on a massive pendulum swing of incredibly happy and incredibly sad. That’s what the majority of our, our reality and most of our people are going through. So you have the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. You can decide to avoid the scale each day, and you’ll pay the price of regret, which is sitting in a hospital bed with a, you know, a heart attack trying to get your heart worked, done. That’s a bigger pain. So one of the things that, you know, you’ve seen this is I really push people to actually feel pain. The emotional pain specifically it, you cannot avoid the little pains.

CG (00:43:36):

And I, I thought the same thing when you were talking about that. It was like, that’s like saying I should just stop checking my bank account or checking my analytics. You cannot manage what you don’t measure. So people are worried about creating some kind of emotional trauma to themselves. I would rather you learn to sit in your pain because I know the pathway to your most greatest change is through your pain. If you think about the things that have probably with you two aj, the things that have truly been the most amazing things in our lives, it’s when the hits the fan and you deal with pain, it’s not been from being coddled and supported. Right? So, so anyway that’s a few things about that of, of why, you know, the, the, the whole up and down, the yo-yo dieting, most of it is just truly voting pain.

CG (00:44:20):

So difference of, with us, we create caloric balance. I don’t want you hungry in this program. I don’t want you starving. I already know it’s not gonna work. It hasn’t worked for most people. For third of our country is fat. If dieting was gonna work, it would’ve already worked, right? Secondly, we actually reset your hormones. So we reset your hormones away from sugar and we switch to flip the switch back to fat. That does not happen with any program. And literally there’s not one program, including the recent injections that are completely damaging people’s gallbladder and intestines called ozempic and wegovy. There’s 50 to 60 lawsuits per day for these injections. It doesn’t reset your hormones. It actually screws your hormones up. And, and I’m very passionate just about the hormone reset for both men and women, of course work with both, but men seem to not take care of the health as much as women do.

CG (00:45:11):

So a focus for women. But o one of the things that I think is powerful is if you go into menopause, if you’re 35 to 55, you start having menopausal changes and you are a sugar burner. You’re in for a hellish like condition and hellish like symptoms. If you go through menopause as a fat burner, here’s my experience with thousands of people. Dr. Goldman, this isn’t so bad, right? The medical community would like you to think that you need to load yourself full of chemicals because you’re now 40. That is where I’m standing up for women and for people. Your body has everything it needs. If you get to reset it and put the right fuels in, you’ll create health. And your second half will be healthier than your first half.

AJV (00:46:01):

Well, I mean y’all, I I don’t get affiliate fees for Dr. Cody. I wish he did send me affiliate fees. I do not get them. I am not like . I am not exaggerating. I’m 41, right? And I have so many friends who have chalked up to, well this is just life post 40. This is just life post babies. And I’m literally sitting here going, I’m in the best physical shape of my adult life, better than I was in college. I look better than I did on my wedding day. Like this is the best physical shape that I have been in in my adult life. And most certainly the healthiest. This isn’t just about physical appearance. It’s like I went and had an executive physical a few weeks ago and my doctor was like, well you do not have the labs of a 41-year-old. And I was like, I didn’t think I could, I didn’t think I would ,

AJV (00:46:56):

But it’s like, I’m not tooting Dr. Cody’s horn. It’s like this has been a life transformative change where I feel like so many of us have ignored the pain ’cause we didn’t wanna see it or we’ve been told you don’t need to. But at the same time, we’re being shoved a bunch of powders and pills and programs that ultimately don’t work. I was never hungry and I’m never hungry. People look at the amount of food I eat and they’re like, there’s no way you’re gonna eat all that. And I’m like, I’m gonna eat all you some more. Like I eat so much food, it’s admirable. And it’s all because it’s like my body has reset. It has reset. And I cannot say enough about this program and the way that it has changed my physical and mental health over the last years.

AJV (00:47:44):

But I do wanna talk about two things in transition before I run outta time because you’ve talked about this a lot. The last five minutes is women and specifically women, 35 to 55. And I think a lot of people struggle with, you know, breaking through what we call she hands wall. They struggle with really dialing it in because their audience is too broad. And I feel like you, even though you’ve said, Hey, we can work with men too, but but I love that you, you have actually really defined a very niche audience that you can just crush with. And because of that, it makes it easy for people like me to go, oh, I know who I refer you to. Anyone who talks about hormones, menopause, post children can’t lose this weight. And I’m like, I know someone, I know someone , right?

AJV (00:48:32):

And, and it’s because it’s so clear, right? And so I just wanna recap this. This is even in Dr. Cody’s bio, y’all. So when you’re thinking about how clear should you be, this was in his intro that I said, Hey, send me the bio that you want me to read about you. This is what it says. Dr. Goldman empowers women age 35 to 55 who struggle with stubborn weight that won’t budge despite diet or exercise. Right? And it’s like you have found like the, the demographic and psychographic elements of these are women in this age range who struggle with this, right? And we talk a lot about this at brand builders. I help who do what? I help women age 35 to 55 lose weight that won’t go away. And so how did you pick that audience? And that’s, I wanna talk about that and then I wanna talk about how you decided some of, some of the accountability measures of your program. Yeah.
CG (00:49:28):

Yeah. I can’t wait to chat about that . Okay. So I, yeah, just to, just to really toot bbgs horn like I had done, I, I’ve been in, this is my third business, I actual business. I’m lean hobby and I had done all kinds of finding your avatar stuff before you guys. So I was like, I already knew this, but you guys have truly helped me dial it in. I’ve loved your process. You, you helped me truly dial it in. In the chiropractic office, what I saw was I had mostly women patients. And I, I thought it was ’cause maybe I’m a good looking guy or something. I, I started my bi, my, my, my, my chiropractor office. I was 24 when I built that office. I was, I was young so I was, you know, but I had mostly women. I thought, what the hell’s going on?

CG (00:50:06):

I’m like, okay. But over time what I realized was, this is what I realized. And, and I’m a man so I know this. I can say this, women take action on their health long before men do. So I realized if I could get the women in my office, I eventually would get the man. ’cause I wanna work with men too, but I didn’t have to focus on them. ’cause The men follow the women. Doesn’t, doesn’t that work everywhere? Yes. That’s what, that’s what the bars do. The bars say listen, it’s, it’s happy hour women, women come in free ’cause they know the men are gonna come in. Right? So I’m just using maybe the, maybe it’s the bar strategy. Sure. But that’s what I figured out. And so truly that’s, that’s just what came through is like, my God, I love working with women ’cause they take care of themselves in general.

CG (00:50:46):

Women will tap into feel pain longer before men do. And I’m a man that I feel more feelings than most women. I feel people when I talk to ’em that just start, that happened to me. Just, just whatever it is, whatever my makeup is. So men truly sometimes don’t even understand what I’m even saying. But women understand when I say, would you stop for a second and just drop it and feel what your body’s telling you right now? Like, women can hear that, right? And eventually there maybe, maybe we’ll have a big advancement. Evolution and men will, we will, we’ll follow our women and we’ll catch up to you guys. Right? So that’s truly why I ended up working with that, that, that set of you know of people. And, and I love the age range because it’s, it is the age range that our healthcare system in to, in my, to me, has disempowered.

CG (00:51:36):

The and, and by the way, this has been happening from the time you’re born, our healthcare system. This happened in, in back in the 1930s and forties. They realized that they can teach people that your body doesn’t have what it needs to be healthy. You can become a customer of a lifelong medicine system. I’m not against medicines. Thank God we have emergency care. Freaking love it. Amazing. But emergency care started lapsing over into healthcare, and that’s where we went wrong. And so my message that I’ve known the universe has showed me is the universe is inside you. It’s called innate intelligence. You have everything you need. The universe didn’t build you, or God didn’t make you to turn 40 and forget what chemicals to make. What kind of story are we trying to, like, what the, you know, I’m not gonna curse here as much, but, so anyway, I love empowering and, and disempowering those old beliefs and putting new ones in.

CG (00:52:35):

And you’re such a good model of that. As I get 41, that’s what I experienced. I’m 46. I have more energy now than 26. My, a lot of my people around me are 46. They look like they’re 66. It’s like sad. I want to lo, I want people to truly be healthy. And I’m a very spiritual person. I found that the number one thing to lead people to God is create a healthy body. Mm. When you are sick, you’re not seeking spirituality. When you’re sick, you’re barely, you’re seeking survival. So there’s a much deeper meaning behind, for me, for health. It’s truly getting you connected with your source. This is our ultimate gift from the universe. Mm-Hmm. . When you see it like that, my God, you’re circulating 60,000 miles of arteries and veins. You have no idea how that works. You’re, you put food in your mouth and it turns it into your body. You have over 200 pharmacies inside that make not bioidentical. They make identical chemicals for your body. Why would you need to go to Walgreens? You got 220 Walgreens inside your body. I won’t go on. But the things pretty freaking amazing.

AJV (00:53:44):

I mean, I would let you go on and on and on. This would easily be a three hour episode for me because I think it’s fascinating and I think it’s true. And I think it’s, there has been a disempowering amount of ignorance that we have allowed. And that can’t blame just the government. We have allowed it. And there needs to be more voices who go uhuh. Right? And part of why I wanted to have you on the show is because I believe in the program so much. And also because the dead gum thing works, right? And so I want to help share this. Now, I believe that a huge part of the why the program works is the mechanics of the accountability and the touch points, right? Because there’s a course component which is very informative. And I will tell you, it’s the only course that I’ve ever completed.

AJV (00:54:30):

I am not a course learner. I’m an in-person learner. I’m tactical hands-on, gotta shut it down. It took a lot of self discipline to get through this course. It is not my jam. It’s not how I learned. It’s not how I function, but I did it. It’s probably the only one I’ve ever finished. But that is not what now the information was transformative and just going like, how am I this old and never knew this, but what really moved the needle is your ability to stalk me every day, , or six weeks. And this is a part where I will talk about how Cody is so annoying. , he is so annoying in the best way possible. It’s the most annoyingly helpful program on the planet. But every day, and I have brought this up to countless people who are in the coaching or membership space, I was just literally came off the heels of a female entrepreneur mastermind that I’m a part of, 10 of us who are all in, you know, this different kind of chorus, membership coaching world and space. And they were like, what do you mean every day? How does he do that? And I’m like, I know he does it on WhatsApp. I can tell some of them are more general. I can tell some are more personal. But I was like, I’m having him on my podcast. I’m gonna ask him. So how are you pulling this off? Daily accountability. Daily.

CG (00:55:56):

Yeah. I’ve had many versions of trying you know, of trying to figure out how to do this. Just FYI, I’d landed on this, right? I figured it out. But, so I tried in my chiropractic office when we did the, was this weight loss program. I met with people once a week and we, we measured them. But what I found was seven days was way too long. In seven days, you could have completely screwed it up. So I was like, well, how do I do this daily? I am someone that freedom is just as important to me as money. ’cause I’ve experienced money without freedom and it sucks. It, it’s not worth it. So how do I make money? How do I have freedom and be inspired in helping people? That was the blend of all this. Mm-Hmm. . So it just happened to be that someone was a FA friend of mine introduced me to an app called Voxer.

Ep 555: Nail the First 30 Seconds of a Cold Call | Ryan Lang Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Over the course of my career, I have had to cold call a lot. I knocked on over 20,000 doors when I was in college as, as a door to door salesperson. After I finished graduate school, I then worked for an enterprise software company selling anti-spam like spyware and anti-spam filtering software to large corporate enterprises. And then my wife and I built an actual sales consulting company where we cold called on large companies and small companies to train their salespeople how to sell.
RV (01:08):
And as an author, I’ve, I’ve cold called on literary agents as a speaker. I’ve cold called companies to get speaking engagements. I’ve made tens of thousands of cold calls. And how you open your cold call makes a big difference. And, and when it comes to cold calling, I think most of us get super nervous and super, like when we’re nervous and when we’re afraid and when we’re scared, it’s usually about nailing those first 30 seconds. Like we’re most nervous about what do we say and what happens in those first opening seconds? And it really is important that you get it right. And most people don’t. Most people get it wrong. In fact, most of the sales trainers and most of the scripts that you ever come across are awful. They’re, they’re terrible. They’re stupid. Like they, they’re, they’re, they’re horrendous. They don’t make any, they don’t work like and so I wanna talk to you in this video, I’m gonna share with you first of all the mindset of what we’re after here when we are cold calling.
RV (02:04):
And then I’m gonna talk you through the, the two most common mistakes that we see when we watch people, like when we’ve coached people who are cold calling, or the mistakes that I, I have made, right? I mean, out of 30,000 or, you know, more thousands and thousands of cold calls. I’ve made a lot of these mistakes myself. So I’m just gonna share with you the things that don’t really work. And then I’m gonna share with you a three step process here towards the end of exactly what you should do when you’re making cold calls. If you want to nail those opening seconds and, and have an actual chance. First of all, let’s talk about the mindset, right? What is, what’s the, what’s the mindset here? The, the mindset is serving, not selling, right? That’s everything that we’re about at brand builders groups, service centered selling.
RV (02:48):
So the mindset is always serving, not selling. So the mindset isn’t how do I trick someone? It’s not how do I manipulate them? It’s, it’s not what’s the, the ninja, voodoo tactic that I can magically say that’s gonna somehow take someone who wouldn’t buy and make them a buyer. I’m not trying to like sneak something under their radar, right? That’s not what it’s about. Now, service centered is, is being confident. It’s being direct, it’s being confident. It’s also being aware that for many people, the answer’s gonna be no. And that’s okay. Your job as a service centered salesperson is not to magically take someone who’s a no and make them a yes. And that’s not your job. If you think that’s your job, that is gonna create pressure on you. That’s not the job of a service centered salesperson. The job of a service centered salesperson is to find all of the people that could genuinely benefit from your product or service.
RV (03:43):
That’s it. To find all the people who could benefit from, from your product or service, and give them a genuine, honest look, a genuine opportunity to buy what you are, what you’re selling, or, or to show them, right? I, I often don’t even think about it as like, my job is to sell. My job is to find them, and my job is to show this to them. It’s really their job to decide whether or not it’s the fit. And right there is the mindset shift, right? Like, it takes you from that adversarial of like me against you. And this is like some type of a, of a combat where I’m, I’m given some manipulative, high pressure, slimy sales tactic from some video you saw on the internet, like, or, you know, one of these old school sales training manuals or something. It’s not that, right?
RV (04:31):
It’s just being direct and saying, Hey, here’s who I am. This is what I got. This is who I talked to. Can, can it help you? Right? So I want you to understand that that mindset, like your job is not to sell. Your job is to serve. Now that said, you’re going to, you’re going to be dealing with some, some sales resistance, right? People have a natural resistance to being sold something because of all the bad advice and because of the, the decades of horrible training that has gone on, you’re gonna have to combat some of that. So your internal mindset is one of, of service. Also externally, the things that come out of your mouth, they should sound more like you’re talking to a friend and less like you’re giving a formal pitch. And you’ll, we’ll, we’ll, you’ll understand here when we talk about some of these mistakes.
RV (05:21):
But, but I want you to, to approach the whole thing as it’s not adversarial, right? You are, it’s not you versus them. It’s you in service of them. You’re there to see if you can help them. And if they’re gonna say no, if they’re gonna reject, reject you, they’re not rejecting you. They’re, they’re rejecting this thing that you have. And so that takes a lot of the pressure off of you right up front. In fact, one of the things that we say at Brand Builders Group all the time is there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. If you shift this sales encounter from one away from the idea of it’s me versus them, and you shift it too, it’s me for them, it’s me with them, it’s me coming around and sitting on, on their side, and then I’m gonna talk to them the way that I would talk to a normal person, like the way that I would, that I would talk to a friend, the, the way that I would talk in real life, not the way that a robot would sound, or some weird cheesy professional salesman with sound.
RV (06:18):
Okay? So that’s, that’s the mindset. Now, let’s talk about the mistakes. Okay? So here’s, here’s the most common mistakes. Mistake number one is leading with your company name, right? So if you say, Hey, it’s Rory Vaden from Brand Builders Group, that is a mistake. Why? Because they’re not gonna recognize your company name most likely. And whether they do or they don’t, that’s not how friends talk to each other, right? You don’t call someone and say, call your buddy and be like, Hey, it’s Roy from Brand Builder’s Group. What’s up, man? You wanna hang out? Like, that’s not how we talk to in real life. It’s not how we talk to normal people. Now, by not sharing your company name, I’m, we’re not trying to be misleading. We’re we’re not trying to hide anything. We’re not hiding anything. We’re just going, look, if my job is to honestly serve them, if my job is to help them take an honest look at what I have, if, if my job is to present to them something that may or may not help them, I have to give them a, an honest chance to do that.
RV (07:18):
And so I also don’t wanna do anything that is going to negatively, you know, work against that opportunity. So anything that immediately signals and, and, and ties into their fear that I’m just, you know, some slimy salesperson or something, I wanna stay away from that, right? I just wanna have an honest human conversation. And so usually I will stick with first names if I’m cold calling, right? So, you know, say, you know, Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. Why? Because that’s how people talk to each other, right? You call your friends usually by nicknames and stuff like that. You don’t call and you don’t use people’s last names. So I want to create this sort of friendly conversational tone, just like I would in real life, talking to a real life friend. So don’t lead with your company name. The other thing is don’t ask them a question right away.
RV (08:08):
Now, I’m a fan of questions, questions are good questions. Great sales is more about being a great question asker than a great talker. I really believe that. And there is a place for questions, and we’re gonna use a question here soon, but don’t, don’t start your conversation with like, Hey, Lisa, it’s Rory. Do you have a minute? Like, nobody has a minute, okay? Nobody does. Like, nobody has spare time. There’s not a, there’s not a sales call that I’ve ever made where someone was like, you know what? I was just looking for someone to talk to. Thanks for calling. Like, I, I, I, I actually would love to talk to somebody. They don’t like, they’re busy, right? They, they, they, they weren’t sitting around waiting for you, and it accomplishes zero by asking them if they have time. If they have a minute, also, they go, how you doing?
RV (08:53):
I don’t care. I don’t care to tell you how I’m doing. Right? So that, that kind of cheesy fodder, that pandering, it doesn’t work. It’s just not helpful. You’re not, it doesn’t serve them in any way. And, and what we want is we wanna serve them. We wanna be useful to them. So we wanna shape the conversation to be helpful for them right away. And, and doing a question is going to create that, that sales resistance right up front because they go, man, I don’t know you. Like, that’s what they’re thinking, right? They’re going, man, I don’t know you. Like, who are you? What? Like, why are you bugging me? That is what they are afraid of, all right? So don’t do that. Don’t do one of those two things. Don’t lead with your company name. Don’t use your last name. And also don’t ask them some frivolous question.
RV (09:38):
Don’t pander to them. Those are telltale signs that you are a cheesy salesperson, that you are just another solicitor, right? Talk them in a normal voice. Use first names, okay? And, and now let’s talk about the three step process for how you do want to execute that call. Step number one, we’ve already talked about this a little bit, is a conversational tone. You’re going to use first names not last names. So you’re just going to make sure that you say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory. Okay? Not this is Rory Vaden, because you don’t introduce yourself with last names like you do. I mean, that, that is a sign that you’re a stranger, right? Now that said, I’m not gonna introduce my last name, but the very first thing that I’m gonna say after my name is I’m gonna acknowledge the fact that we haven’t met yet.
RV (10:29):
Why? Because I’m gonna come forward with that. I’m gonna say, look, I know that you’re thinking, who the heck am I? And I don’t need you to rack your brain. I wanna let you know that we haven’t met yet. So I’m gonna take a confident stance of, of making it clear that we don’t know each other, but maybe we should, but also maybe there’s no reason for us to talk, okay? So I wanna sort of stand confidently in this space. And so a line, there’s many different ways you can say this, but an example of a line you would use is you would say Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet. Or I’d say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory, and don’t worry, don’t try to rack your brain thinking about where we’ve met because we we’ve not been introduced to one another yet.
RV (11:10):
Something like that. So I’m going to let her know, or him right up front that we haven’t met. That’s, that’s part of the relationship. So they go, okay, great. So now I have, I’ve just opened the door. Instead of getting an immediate door slammed by going, oh my gosh, you know, hi, this is Rory Vaden, okay, slam, I don’t know, Rory Vaden, hi, this is Rory from Brand Miller’s Group Slam. Like, I’ve never heard of your company. Hey, this is Rory, how you doing? Slam? You sound like a salesperson. Why? I say, Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet. Okay? I got, I got a little window here, not much, right? But I’ve bought myself an extra half a second, which is all I need to execute step two, okay? So step one of how to do this right, okay?
RV (11:58):
Is to, is to let them know that you haven’t met yet, and be right up front, be open, be honest. If there’s any chance of someone giving you an extra second is through honesty and openness. So that’s what we’re gonna do. Let them know that we haven’t met yet. Now, that gives me a, an opportunity, a fraction of a second to get to step two, which is to use this phrase, the reason, this is a magical phrase. The reason, the reason I’m calling you there is a, a, a psychological trigger that happens when you hear the reason everybody p peaks interest, right? They tune in, they pay attention because you go, great. You are getting to the point. Now, here’s another common mistake is people say, Hey, this will only take a minute. I’m not a fan of saying that, because first of all, they don’t have a minute to waste.
RV (12:51):
And I, it’s almost like I’m saying, Hey, if you can just endure this for a second, that that’s not it. And I don’t wanna say I’ll get to, I don’t wanna waste time saying, I’ll get to the point. I wanna just get to the point. And that’s what they want too. They don’t wanna hear you say, you’ll get to the point, they just wanna hear you get to the point. So get to the point. So you say, hi, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa this is Rory and you and I haven’t met yet, but the reason I’m calling is, and so right there you have these, all of these things happening, firing in that opening moment. We’re using first names, right? We’re not using last names, we’re not using company names, we’re keeping it casual. We’re talking the way that we would talk among friends, yet I am openly, transparently, and honestly letting her know that we haven’t met yet.
RV (13:37):
Okay? So now she doesn’t have to worry about is this a, like, is this a weird something going on? Or like, who is this person? Say, Hey, we haven’t met yet. So I’ve got the slate clean. And now in step two, I’m saying, the reason I’m calling is I’m not telling her I’m getting to the point. I’m just getting to the point. Don’t waste time telling people that you’re gonna get to the point, just get to the point by using the phrase, the reason, the reason I’m calling is, and then here’s step three, and this is where their magic happens. If you’ve never done this before, this will sound different to you. But this is different because this is not what most people do which is one of the reasons why it works. Okay? And here, here’s what I want you to do. Talk about who not what.
RV (14:24):
In other words, don’t talk about what you’re selling. Don’t talk about what company you are from. Talk about who are the kind of people you talk to. Alright? So I’ll say that again, don’t talk about what, talk about who are the kind of people you talk to. And we’re gonna do this in two ways. We’re gonna first start generally, and then we’re gonna be specific. And when you talk about who not what, this is the magic. And, and if there is a secret trick to great cold calling to it to oring, it is this, it is talking about who not what. Now, I wanna let you know, like there’s no ultimate secret here. A lot of this is just a numbers game. A lot of this is you’re just gonna deal with rejection. A lot of this is you have to just do hundreds and hundreds and thousands of thousands of calls until you get comfortable doing this kind of a thing.
RV (15:14):
But if there’s a secret, if there is a, if there’s a magic strategy, a magic technique that will tip the odds in your favor, it is talking about who not what. And there’s two types of who. There’s the general and the specific. Okay? So let’s, let’s talk about the general. So I’ll say, the reason I’m calling is because I am the one talking to all of the, and then usually I will insert the job title, and then I will insert like the, the area, the geographic region. So when I was knocking on doors when I was in college, I would say I’m the one talking with all the moms, with students here in the blankety blank school district or with students here in, you know, whatever, Nashville, Tennessee, or Brentwood or Davidson County. I would say, I am talking to the who. This is super powerful.
RV (16:05):
I mean, I’m telling you this works in all different scales, all different environments. So when I was selling enterprise software solutions, I would say, Hey, I’m the one talking with all the IT directors for all the, all the large, you know, software companies or all the, all the companies based here in Cherry Creek, Colorado, for example. So I would say the who, the job title in the region, like the geographic region. You could also say in an industry. So if you’re calling by verticals in industry, right? You could say, you know, I’m the one talking with all the, all the, you know, mortgage bankers here in the western United States, but make the geographic region, the more specific, the more terrific. So, so narrow the region or narrow the industry as much as you can. And because it shows credibility, and it, it shows, it shows specificity, which is what you want.
RV (16:56):
Because you what, here’s what happens psychologically when they hear that you are talking to all the IT directors for all the companies in Cherry Creek, Colorado, or all the moms in the Davidson County School District. Or if, if I’m calling to sell, you know, a keynote speech, I might say, I’m talking to all the event coordinators for all the companies who have events in Orlando. Now it shifts from who are you? ’cause I’ve just said, who am I? This is what I’m doing. And it shifts to them asking the question, am I the right fit? Right? So the it, it turns their focus psychologically from who, who are you? I don’t know if I like you. What are you doing? And all this sort of like sales resistance to am I the right person that you’re trying to reach? And that’s good because we want them to be thinking about themselves.
RV (17:47):
All of sales is about that. All of sales is getting them to shift the focus away from you as the salesperson and onto them and their situation and their needs. And so by letting them know who are the kind of people that you’re talking to, then you’re, you’re more likely to create a connection with them. Or they might say, oh, that’s not me, and that’s great. So we just saved the whole conversation. They can put you in touch with, with the right person. So lead with the who and say the job title from the geographic industry or, or the geographic region, or say the job title of people in this industry, or whatever vertical or territory that you are working in terms of whatever your sales territory is. Okay? That’s what we wanna see. So that’s the general, and it immediately has them going, am I qualified?
RV (18:35):
Like, am I the right person? Am I, am I the right candidate? And that shifts the focus off of you, the salesperson, and on to them, which is what we want. We want the whole conversation, the whole relationship to, to not be focused on you, but on them and their needs. So I’ll say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory, and don’t worry, you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason I’m calling is because I’m the one talking with all the IT directors for all the small businesses right here in Cherry Creek, Colorado. Now notice how I’m, I’m, I’m narrowing down to the job title. I’m saying the small businesses. So this is like business type and the geographic region. You wanna use as many of those qualifiers as you can when you do this because you want to check and you’re going to use the criteria that they will relate to, right?
RV (19:23):
You want them to, you want them to go, Ooh, I am an IT director of a small business in Cherry Creek, Colorado. That is how you, you, you’re gaining momentum. Now notice all of it’s happening in their mind. That’s all, all of sales is communication, it’s human behavior, it’s psychology. So most of the conversation is, is happening in their mind. And that’s what we’re designing this to in a way to make it comfortable for them. This isn’t about magically squeezing your way past them or manipulating them. This is putting them in a state of psychological comfort. It is helping them self-identify quickly are, is this a conversation worth having? So, hi, is it Lisa? Hi Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason I’m calling is that I’m talking with all the IT directors of the small businesses in the Cherry Creek, Colorado area.
RV (20:16):
That’s the opening, that’s the general who. Now I’m gonna follow up with the specific who and the specific who is, I’m going to use examples of the other people that I’m talking with. So I’m going to use the names of our preferably clients, okay? Now, typically, you know, there’s some logistical details here and some legal implications in, in certain scenarios in certain industries. So one of the things you wanna do is get the permission to use the, the name, image and likeness of your clients. This is more of a contract thing. Or just at least ask ’em and say, Hey, do you mind if I let people know that we’re working together as I’m out introducing myself to other people, and you just ask for their permission? And you need that so that you can use it here. Now, if it’s your very first day and you don’t have any customers, you can delicately and carefully and specifically mention, these are people you’re talking to, they’re not clients.
RV (21:14):
As soon as you have clients, you wanna use the client’s names because the client’s names give you credibility because of the specificity. Even if they don’t know that person, they probably will know that company, or they will at least relate to the idea that it’s a similar type of person in a similar type of company, in a similar type of geographic region or a similar type of industry as the one they, as the one that they are in. And that gives you credibility, right? So you would ideally, and now if they recognize the clients or if then that’s, that’s a game changer. I mean, that is the secret sauce. That is the magic is if they recognize people that you’re working with. So get the permission to use their name, image, and likeness and use customers as soon as you can. In the beginning, if you don’t have customers, you can just say, share I’ve been talking with, but be very specific that you are.
RV (22:07):
Don’t imply that you’re working together. Just clarify. I’ve been talking to people that some of whom you may know, like so and so and so and so and so and so. But here’s the dynamic of this conversation. The whole dynamic is based on who, not what, who are the kind of people you’re talking to? Who are the kind of people you’ve been working with and, and who are the kind of people that you have relationships with? Notice you haven’t said what company you’re with, what it is that you’re selling. We’re trying to open a conversation based on who. And this is why in some of our other training videos, we talk about using tools like LinkedIn and things to help identify and know and, and have names and references of people that they actually will recognize because of the tools of modern day.
RV (22:52):
But let’s say you didn’t have any of those, you would say, hi, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, my name is Rory and you and I actually haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason that I’m calling you is because I’m the one talking with all the IT directors here in the Cherry Creek area who all work with small businesses. In fact, you might know some of the other IT directors I’ve been talking to by chance. Do you know Tom Williams over at x, y, Z company? Or maybe you, maybe you know Mike Lorenzo, or maybe you know Jim Johnson or maybe, you know and they may not recognize any of them, and that’s okay, but, but they might recognize the company names. And the more specific, the more terrific. So if you’re, if you’re, if you’re using names, like if your clients, if you actually have clients that are recognizable or they work for companies, you’re gonna gain a lot of traction in that way.
RV (23:44):
I wanna mention, don’t ever use a customer’s name if they don’t, if they tell you not to or anybody’s name, if they tell you not to, but you’re not doing this for you, you’re doing this for them. Why? Because this puts them at ease. This helps your prospect reduce their sales resistance. It helps them reduce this, this friction, this automatic no. And it allows us to have an honest conversation amongst friends, and it allows us to open up what hopefully will be a beautiful relationship. It might be a short relationship if it’s not a fit, but we’re shifting the focus away from me as this cold calling solicitor, and we’re shifting the conversation over to them and their needs by talking about who not what. So for more insights and information on the psychology of influence, make sure that you hit subscribe on my channel. Follow me here below. If you have a question, leave a comment. But this is what I’m spend my whole life studying on the four levels of influence. So I’ll hope you hit subscribe and check out some of our other videos.

Ep 554: How to Close More Free Call Sales with Ryan Lang

0:02
If you follow the Brand Builders Group methodology, either as a client or just someone who benefits from our free content, you know that our entire strategy that took us from zero to 8 figures is giveaway content for free.

0:18
Teach everything you know for free and bite sized chunks and small, you know, all random miscellaneous order and then invite people to request free calls with you and then offer those people a chance to enroll.

0:29
And that’s how we have become an Inc 5000 company.

0:33
Two years in a row, zero to 8 figures in five years worked with all these amazing celebrity clients.

0:37
Well, a big part of that conversation is what do you say on those free calls?

0:43
So if you do all that right and you drive the free calls, there is an art form to how to manage those free calls, what to say on them, what not to say, how to follow up with those people.

0:53
And the man that you’re about to learn from is somebody who has helped us tremendously in that area.

0:59
He’s actually helped us grow our conversion percentage between 10 to 15% consistently in that one metric ever since we started working together.

1:09
So originally he was a Brand Builders group client and then he became somebody that we recognize.

1:14
His expertise is specifically in the area of sales in human performance.

1:18
And we hired him and you’re about to meet him and we’re going to talk about some of the things that we did together that he helped us implement that moved our conversion percentage in a very, very positive direction in very, very short order.

1:33
So his name is Ryan Lang.

1:35
The company he is a part of, it’s called Empire Partners.

1:38
He’s the Co founder of that company.

1:39
He has coached lots of people in the area of sales and humor performance.

1:45
So in addition to working with me and AJ and our team at Brand Builders Group, he’s worked with Russ Ruffino, he’s worked with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New York Yankees, Conoco Phillips.

1:56
He has been involved in corporate like divestitures of hundreds of millions of dollars.

2:01
He also has certifications from digital marketer, the Transformational Coaching Academy, and is just one of my favorite guys who actually talks sales and understands the right way to sell and the right way to service people.

2:14
Ryan Lang, welcome to the show, brother.

2:17
Oh, man, thank you.

2:18
I’m so excited to be here.

2:19
Listen, after that introduction, you set your expectations right above low and I’ll try to rise up to meet them.

2:27
Well, man, it, it’s been great working with you, in fact.

2:31
And it’s, it’s funny because you know, you know this and, and maybe people who are watching know, but like AJ and I, the first company we built was a sales training company.

2:42
And we have very specific philosophies about how to sell.

2:45
And, and people were hiring us to teach them how to close and teach their teams how to sell and get referrals.

2:52
And then we built brand Builders group.

2:54
Brand Builders group in many ways is more of a marketing organization.

2:58
We drive all warm leads.

3:01
And so we went from a world where all we did was train our team to make cold calls and outbound sales to driving inbound where our sales team is pretty much does exclusively free calls with people who already are at least somewhat aware of us.

3:17
And then we got sloppy with our own sales training and and sales conversion.

3:21
And we hired you and you moved the needle for us.

3:24
And our team loves you.

3:27
And yeah, so we’re just, so we’re so grateful to have you.

3:30
And I think I’d really love to hone in on how to have free calls, what to do on free calls and, and all the things around the free call to convert it to a customer because and this is we’re, we’re only teaching people to do what we’ve done and, and we’re only doing things that work.

3:52
So tell us first a little bit about how did you get started doing sales training specifically for like thought leaders and coaches and consultants?

4:01
Because that’s, that’s one area that you have a real depth, deep expertise.

4:05
It’s not just sales training, but like sales consulting for personal brand specifically.

4:10
Yeah.

4:11
So I, you know, I, I have a very deep background in sales and, and really I think I got my first job selling something when I was like 15 years old.

4:20
Like you, you know, very, very, very deep background in sales.

4:23
And I’ve sold all kinds of things from things that are very cheap to literally things, you know, that are we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

4:31
And when I transitioned, I, I had AI was, you know, Co founder and, and, and part of a, an 8 figure business in the energy energy industry and walked away from that partnership after many years.

4:44
And after I walked away and I, I decided to get into the coaching space, I realized very quickly that I wanted to learn how to do this over the Internet.

4:54
This is around 2015.

4:55
So we’re, there was still a lot of things in terms of selling online and, and you know, funnels and all of that stuff that we’re still newish at that time.

5:05
And I knew that I had to kind of figure that out.

5:08
Well, I got my **** kicked as a coach for the first two years and I finally went out and hired somebody to help me with both.

5:18
I thought it was just my marketing.

5:19
I wasn’t even thinking about sales.

5:21
Once I would get somebody in person, most of the time I could figure it out, I could close the deal, but I didn’t understand how to market.

5:28
And I, I hired a group to help me do my marketing and in that as part of it was a sales training.

5:35
And the interesting thing was Rory, that I, I literally did everything that they said and completely ignored the sales training.

5:45
Like 100%.

5:46
I was like, just give me this funnel stuff.

5:48
Just give me that.

5:50
You get somebody on my phone, I’ll close the deal.

5:53
And but I, you know, I had what I, you know, what I’ve kind of determined is sometimes the kiss of death in sales is that the first high ticket sales call that I got for my coaching business, I closed.

6:06
And so now I think I’m Johnny closer here, you know, and I’m like, I knew it, you know, just get me the leads and I’m going to crush this.

6:15
And I went over for like, I don’t like 3-4 months and I’m spending money on ads and I’ve got leads coming in the door and I’m not closing anything.

6:25
And eventually I got to a point where my financial situation got so bad that I had to, you know, I had to kind of slow things down.

6:34
And so when I did that, I, I went back to doing some consulting and oil and gas and kind of decided for myself at that point that I was going to not just master sales, that I was going to put away everything I knew and figure out how to master this type of sales specifically.

6:52
And so I, I went to work with the training that I had at that time.

6:56
I did some work and then eventually I, I helped a couple of friends with, with their sales.

7:03
I knew a lot of coaches and several of whom were, you know, very successful.

7:08
We’re struggling with their sales teams.

7:09
And I ended up being able to come in the door and close at, you know, 4050%, which is kind of unheard of.

7:16
And some of the types of sales that we think and talk about.

7:19
And eventually I, you know, ended up working for clients on demand and Rustrofino and my, my mentor in this type of sale, Mark von Muser, you know, I, I basically just said, look, I’m going to empty my cup.

7:34
Rather you fill it up and I will eat, sleep and breathe this every day.

7:40
And I did that for like a year and a half was the only thing.

7:43
I mean, I literally shut off all content.

7:45
I didn’t listen to anything.

7:46
I didn’t read anything.

7:47
I just ate, slept and breathe this all day long.

7:50
And that was kind of the beginning of what eventually became coaching people on sales.

7:56
And so these organizations, so like you mentioned, Russ Rufina, right?

7:59
Like these, these organizations in this model of driving free calls and selling a high dollar offers.

8:08
Yep.

8:09
Would you say that that model works in terms of growing companies that are really significant in terms of their revenue?

8:17
No question, no question it is.

8:25
There are a lot of people that believe that a lot of things have to happen before somebody lands on a sales call and, or discovery call and, and you then sell them into, you know, a high ticket offer.

8:37
And for those that don’t, you know, that aren’t familiar with the terminology, we’re probably talking about anything north of, you know, $3000 or something like that.

8:47
And not only does it, not only do I believe it’s effective, but I’ve watched it work and I’ve worked it through multiple organizations.

8:56
And my partner, Brooke, exactly the same with his work with Tony Robbins and Brian Bufini and John Asfrith, you know, that was the model for every single one of them.

9:10
So let’s talk about so, so where do the free calls come from?

9:14
So let’s start there because I’d love to just kind of like walk through the, the, the, the, the process.

9:20
So you mentioned ads, but like walk me through in these different organizations, including ours.

9:26
So feel free to like talk about what, what you see, what we do since you’re, you’re got, you know what, you’re behind the curtain here at Brand Builders group too, of like, where do the leads come from?

9:36
Where the best places for leads to come from?

9:39
Are there certain places that convert better or worse or you know, are are warmer or colder, etcetera?

9:46
And let’s just talk about that, that component or piece of it.

9:53
So there are a couple of different places that that the leads can come from when you when you drive them to a call.

10:00
So, for example, you know, the the Russ Ruffino’s model was you know that he kind of made famous was Facebook ad to landing page to webinar to call that that was that was the funnel that that can work.

10:19
The main key component.

10:22
There is something that warms the the the person up because I I need a reason to want to jump on your calendar, right.

10:30
So in the case of a brand builders, you’ve done an amazing job with, you know, getting people warm to your message and what brand builders does through the podcast that you’ve been on.

10:42
And so, you know, you’ve been able to drive leads direct to count at brand builders through, you know, through podcasts, you basically have the opportunity to rent authority and then you deliver like crazy, which is awesome.

11:00
You deliver a ton of value.

11:01
People get a lot out of it.

11:02
And they go, holy crap, if this is what I got out of this podcast, what happens if I end up working with this guy and his team?

11:09
And we can do that through a pod.

11:12
You know, in your case, it’s a podcast that’s got fantastic reach.

11:16
We can also do that through really, really good quality lead magnets brand builders, for example, has got an amazing study on personal branding, which is insanely valuable and very, very compelling information that can drive people to a call.

11:34
We can also, if you know it for those people that have done a lot of legwork ahead of time and have built up a good following in a good audience, you can also do that, you know, directly through e-mail marketing where, you know, we deliver a lot of value to somebody for a while, great content on social or via e-mail.

11:55
And then giving people an opportunity where we kind of describe what it is maybe that they’re wanting or describe what it is their pain points are.

12:03
And if they’d like to fix it.

12:04
Listen, we’d love to jump on a call and see if it would be a fit for us to work together and help you past your your problems to the dream that you really want to get to.

12:12
Yeah.

12:13
And that’s, it’s, it’s interesting because if when I sit back and I look at like, OK, here’s Russ Ruffino or Tony Robbins or Brian Buffini or, you know, like Tom Perry is one of our friends.

12:28
Like the thing that all of these have in common is you initiate attention, then you add a lot of value, then you offer a free call.

12:43
And whether you initiate that attention on social media or a podcast or an ad or speaking as another place where we drive a lot of leads, right?

12:51
Anytime, anytime I’m out speaking, I speak a lot.

12:54
So we drive leads.

12:55
We drive leads from that or even referrals, but even when people give us referrals, even when a referral comes in, we we give them a lead magnet and we try to make them watch something or do something before they get on, even though they’re already warm.

13:11
It’s like we really try to make sure that they consume some of our content before the call so that if they show up for that call, we know they know who we are, what we do, they trust us.

13:23
They’ve gotten value.

13:25
Sort of the law of reciprocity is set in motion and sort of tipped in our favor because we’ve already added so much value to people and it and that includes and that includes this podcast, right?

13:36
Like everything we’re doing is like, we’re just trying to give so much value to people that they go exactly what he said.

13:42
If I’ve learned this much for free, what how much would I get if I actually went through this like formal program?

13:49
So I love that.

13:50
And you’re, you’re saying that in general that those principles kind of apply across the board with the different companies you’ve seen that have been successful doing this.

14:01
No question, each of them did it in a slightly different way, but there was always some way to build familiarity.

14:10
And, and, and also, you know, you, you are a master at really helping people as, as really or just about everybody else that you mentioned.

14:20
They’re masters at helping people understand that there is a mindset shift that they have to make between who they are and where they are now and who they want to be and where they want to go in some way, shape or form.

14:35
There’s a mindset shift that has to be made.

14:38
And that’s one of the commonalities that I’ve really noticed, Rory, is that whether it’s a lead magnet or a great webinar or a podcast or a phenomenal speaking engagement, the, the best of the best have have the ability to get somebody to think to themselves, Oh gosh, that’s not what I thought.

15:00
It’s actually different than what I thought.

15:02
Well, what do I do then?

15:04
How, how do I make this happen?

15:05
If it’s not what I thought, then what is it?

15:08
And then, you know, if you get the what, then you need to know the how.

15:11
And, and that’s where your free call comes in.

15:14
You know, you can give them the what And then, you know, the, the free call is the, the, the gateway to the how.

15:20
Yeah, I love that.

15:22
That’s so, that’s so good.

15:23
I don’t even know that I’ve consciously thought about it that way.

15:26
But but we even teach in our sales training in BBG that sales is all about the gap.

15:31
It’s the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

15:34
And you got to be able to paint that future and then also help them realize without offending them that like they’re not there.

15:41
And then that gap is basically what they buy is going like, oh, if you can help me close that gap.

15:45
So I, I, I love that.

15:47
So, so let’s say someone requests a free call.

15:50
What should happen to increase conversions between the moment when someone requests a free call and when they show up for the free call?

16:01
Like so now let’s just say we got the lead comes in the person requests the call, there’s a whole window there.

16:09
What are some of those things that need to happen inside of between that moment and when you’re on the phone with the client?

16:15
This is such a great question and one of the reasons why is that most people don’t even think about it.

16:22
They’re just excited, right?

16:24
They’re just excited that somebody landed on their calendar and it’s like, oh great, they’re going to get on my phone.

16:30
But they’re absolutely are ways to increase conversion and part of it in, in some cases, we’ve seen a lot of efficacy with like a really good solid application.

16:46
You know, that that almost feels like a a bit of a homework assignment for them.

16:51
You know, prior to the call where you get to learn a bit about them, they’ve got to spend a little bit of time digging in on maybe what’s not working, what they really want, what they’ve tried in the past, those kinds of things that can be very helpful.

17:07
Most people think that applications are are just for the salesperson.

17:11
Now all of a sudden, you know, all the things that are going to help you close the deal.

17:15
It’s actually very helpful in the, when you do it right, very helpful in the context of the potential client because they’ve got to spend a moment thinking about like, OK, what isn’t working?

17:26
What do I really want?

17:28
What is kind of sucking for me right now?

17:31
So that’s one thing.

17:32
The other thing is making sure that you’ve got really good, solid, ample notifications.

17:37
So, you know, that can come through, you know, your calendaring platform like Callan Lee or any of the other ones have got very good, you know, notifications.

17:48
It’s through e-mail as well.

17:50
Just letting people know.

17:51
I mean, I think we take for granted, Rory, that that, you know, we’re not the only busy ones in the world, but we get awfully offended when people don’t show up to sales calls.

18:02
And if we haven’t taken the time to try to remind them that they’ve got a sales call, then we don’t really have any reason to get offended.

18:09
So that’s one small simple step.

18:11
And then lastly, I would say anything that you can send them, you were talking about kind of the resources to get people warmed up and anything that you can send them that will, you know, help them understand more about, you know, either a, what they’re struggling with, you know, the the types of solutions that you provide a client testimonials are phenomenal things to send before people get on a sales call instead of after, which is what most people do.

18:41
Any of that kind of stuff is really good.

18:43
And I would say that if you can, automation is wonderful.

18:46
You and I both love automation, but one of the things that I think is a lost art in the world of sales is personalization.

18:54
We’re so quick to automate everything that when you get a prospective client, if you can do what I would, you know, if you can take some steps that I would call, you know, pro moves, you do a little bit of research, find out who they are, look at their application, what industry are they in, what are they struggling with?

19:12
And then try to send them some things that are curated.

19:15
Send them one of your podcasts that you know what is going to resonate with them.

19:19
Send them a client testimonial that somebody that they would identify with, you’re going to be so far ahead by the time they get on, you know, your phone by that point, drastically increasing the chances that you’re actually going to get to help them.

19:33
Yeah, that’s so good.

19:35
It’s such a simple thing you can do, right?

19:37
And it’s like you read their application and you send them a note.

19:39
Hey, I saw you were struggling with this.

19:42
Here is one of our free podcasts or one of your vlogs or an or 62nd Instagram Reel.

19:47
Like here’s a link to a reel.

19:49
You should check this out.

19:51
You know, can’t wait to talk, you know, more like that’s that’s, that’s really, really good.

19:59
The next thing I want to ask you about is the free call itself.

20:03
What is the best way to position this free call?

20:07
And the reason I asked this question is because nobody wants to show up as a consumer as to a sales call and just sit there and be sold the whole time.

20:17
But if the company offers it as a free call.

20:22
Then people go, oh, I’ll just take advantage of this free call.

20:25
And they have, they’ve got, no, they’ve got no psychological orientation towards making a decision.

20:33
So how, how do we strike the balance?

20:36
And what is that balance between making the call valuable for someone even if they don’t buy, not making it a not making it a sales pitch, but creating conversions and also making it valuable for the client, but not just wasting your team’s time?

20:52
Like how do you find that balance in both what it’s called and what you do on the call?

20:58
And like, how long are these calls and what percentage of the time is like adding value to the client versus telling them about the program?

21:07
But this is so important.

21:09
And what it starts with is framing, which is one of my favorite subjects in sales in general.

21:16
And most people think that framing happens when you get into an engagement, but actually happens before the engagement ever even starts.

21:24
So to your point, what, what, what a lot of people do is when they offer a free call, they’re so concerned that that that people are going to run from the idea of, you know, a sales call or actually talking about, you know, doing business together, that they go heavy on the free.

21:40
And often times in their copy or when they’re explaining it in a video, it’s free, free, free, free, free, free, free or or worse, they say, you know, come to a free coaching session.

21:52
That idea, because as you, as you mentioned it in that instance, you know, I’ve now given people the expectation that it’s it, it’s a free coaching session.

22:02
You’re going to get a lot of lucky lose.

22:04
You’re going to get a lot of looky loos and people that are coming on your call saying, Hey, I want you to fix my whole problem in the next hour.

22:12
So the first key is making sure that you position this in a way where you set a good frame for what’s going to happen.

22:21
You know, in sales, you and I know that we are always holding slightly different postures in a sales engagement and any kind of conversation and that begins with copy or, or how you’re inviting them to the call.

22:36
So just to, to, to give an example, the way that I like to kind of frame this up is I like to say things like, listen, Rory, so you know, we talk a little bit, we, you know, about a struggle or hate, you know, if, if, if anything that you read in this e-mail resonates with you, but I’d love to invite you to a free 45 minute discovery call.

22:58
Now on this call, we’re going to take some really serious time and deep dive on what’s not working for you right now.

23:05
And also really where you want to go.

23:08
And if I feel like I’m the right person to help you get there, we’ll talk about what that looks like.

23:13
If not, I promise I’m going to deliver you a ton of value and it’s going to be an incredibly valuable experience for you one way or the other.

23:21
If that sounds good, you know, book now there’s your copy.

23:24
By the way, if you’re, if you’re listening to this right now, you can go slap that in your landing page.

23:29
But, and we call that the pressure free promise.

23:31
By the way, also in, in our pressure free persuasion, we, we, we brand a technique called pressure free promise, which is to say, I’m going to give you a good look at this.

23:40
I’m going to learn about you.

23:41
You’re going to learn about us.

23:42
My job isn’t to talk you into buying anything.

23:45
My job is to help us to figure out if we have a match, if we’re a good fit, I’ll show you how we can work together.

23:51
If we’re not, that’s totally OK.

23:54
And just letting people have permission to say no really makes them comfortable enough to where they might actually say yes.

24:05
And that’s such a simple thing to do that takes pressure off of you as a salesperson and pressure off of off of them as a prospect.

24:13
And it’s you can do it in writing, you can do it with your words, you can do it, you can do it five times during the conversation.

24:20
But that’s really important.

24:21
And I like that was one of the things that when I think back to your time helping us when you started, like listening to our sales teams calls as you were, like, they’re not framing the conversation properly on the front end that there is the potential that a buying a purchase decision will happen on this call.

24:44
They’re saving it.

24:45
They’re saving it until the very end.

24:47
And then sort of springing it on someone and dropping in their lap like, So what do you think?

24:52
You want to work together?

24:53
And it’s like, that’s not a good framing.

24:56
That’s like dropping it in their lap at the end.

24:58
And they’re like, I don’t know what to do with this.

24:59
Like the objections come and I remember you’re like the team is not teeing it up properly on the beginning of the call, saying exactly what you just said, like, hey, we’re going to these are the things we’re going to do on this call.

25:13
It’s going to be valuable for you one way or the other.

25:17
If we can work together, I’ll show you how to do that.

25:19
If not, that’s OK too.

25:21
But you know, let’s have this and see if we can partner with you to get to the next level.

25:26
That that initial framing and that the first few minutes of the call and in the copy coming up in the video going leading into it is really been key.

25:36
That man, it’s it that that it is so important because what, what what I found at the very beginning, and by the way, this is what I’ve listened to literally thousands of sales calls in in this type of engagement.

25:51
And this is what most of them sound like.

25:53
It’s like, you know, somebody shows up and we go through the rigmarole about, Hey, how about that weather?

25:59
You know, man, Denver’s really awesome this time of year kind of thing.

26:02
And I think I’m building rapport.

26:04
And then comes the question.

26:05
And it’s something like, well, so tell me what’s going on and which leads to, you know, vomit, as I like to say, they vomit on you for like the next 10 or 15 minutes.

26:18
Your call, your call is way off track.

26:21
And worse yet, we think that we’re going to build rapport then as we go along by by, you know, relating to them.

26:29
Oh yeah, you know what?

26:30
I’ve been there.

26:31
Oh, I totally get it, you know, and, and sharing experiences.

26:35
And to your point, what happens is that we turn it into what I call a bro call.

26:40
Now all of a sudden I’m having I’m having a coffee chat with a friend and I get to the end of the coffee chat and I drop, you know, some kind of eight figure hammer on that person and they go, whoa, Rory, hold on a second here.

26:55
I thought we were friends, You know, I mean, and and so the frame it, it, it starts in your marketing, in your copy, and then it has to happen again at the beginning of the call where you set expectations.

27:09
Now one of the other key pieces too is that when you set the proper expectations at the beginning of the call, we talked so much in sales about building trust and an old school sales, you think that you build trust through ridiculous conversation at the beginning of the call and it’s not.

27:25
So one of the key ways that we build trust inside of a sales engagement is keeping our promises.

27:32
And when we set up the call in a certain way, and then we run the call in exactly that way, internally, they’re going, oh, he said he was going to do it like this.

27:43
And that’s exactly what he did.

27:45
You know, this is exactly what they told me it was going to be.

27:48
That’s that builds trust.

27:51
That’s so good.

27:53
And, and so would you say that the to delineate and to differentiate from the like bro call to the like helpful consultative decision making session?

28:07
Is that frame in the beginning?

28:09
And it’s, it’s just that what you said earlier, it’s just like, hey, here’s what’s going to happen today.

28:13
We’re going to cover these things.

28:16
And at the end of the call, I’ll share with you what it might look like for us to partner together.

28:21
And if you like it, great.

28:22
And if not, that’s OK too.

28:23
Is that basically the, the key to that?

28:27
That is, that’s the basic idea.

28:30
That’s the basic idea.

28:31
We, we take it as, you know, a little bit further by basically also just acknowledging that we were, we may need to dive deep on the call and, and asking permission to do so, which is also really key.

28:47
That’s another big problem that happens is that, you know, we hear a lot like, oh, you got to tell clients the honest truth and you got to be willing to, you know, call them out on their stuff and all the things.

28:58
Well, if you haven’t asked permission for that, try that out and see how that goes.

29:03
You know, you need a frame in front of that as well.

29:06
So that’s one little nuance that we kind of add in.

29:09
And then what do you cover on the call and how long should these calls go?

29:13
Yeah, great question.

29:15
So in the call in general, like loosely speaking, the the you know, we’ve got kind of our framing process.

29:22
And then then the next piece of the puzzle is, is discovery where we’re going to start by, you know, asking some some pointed questions.

29:30
Every person business offer is slightly different on that front.

29:34
When we talk about BBG, we, you know, we, we’ll ask somebody like, Hey, tell us a little bit about, you know, what’s not working and creating your personal brand right now, you know, something like that or, you know, what’s kind of the struggle in your personal brand that that brought you to the call.

29:53
And from there we, we go through a discovery process where we ask a whole lot of questions about, you know, what, what’s the, what’s the biggest challenge they’re currently facing?

30:04
How is that impacting them?

30:07
If that challenge were remedied, what would, what would it look like?

30:10
What you know, what’s kind of the dream?

30:12
How long has it been going on?

30:14
You know, etcetera, etcetera, things like that.

30:17
What I’m really looking for there is I’m looking to establish, you know, duration of, of the problem.

30:25
I’m also looking to establish frequency.

30:27
How often are they thinking about this?

30:29
Is this something that comes up for them often?

30:32
Is it a priority for them right now?

30:33
And also, I’m, I’m looking for intensity, you know, where else in their life is, is this maybe showing up if they’re really struggling with something, is it showing up in their relationships?

30:44
Are they, you know, is it showing up in, in their health, etcetera, etcetera.

30:48
So we go through that discovery process where we really understand more about the human being, the struggle, the dream.

30:55
And then once we get specifics on that, and I do want to use that word very intentionally, you have such a wonderful saying that, you know, the more specific, the more terrific and and never is that more true than in this part of the call.

31:08
If you lack specifics in the discovery phase of the call, you will fall short at the end.

31:15
So we want specifics.

31:16
And then, you know, from that piece, we kind of go into sharing it it if it feels like a fit at that point.

31:22
And this is a big key, you know, one of the things we’re so in alignment, you and I, on our philosophies about selling.

31:29
And I think we both believe very strongly that in order for us to say yes to helping someone, we have to believe wholeheartedly that we can do that.

31:37
So the discovery process is not just to learn more about the pain in the dream, but also to understand, can we help this person?

31:45
And do we want to help this person?

31:47
Is this the right fit for us?

31:49
Once we figure that out, we can kind of go through the, the solution portion of the call and the solution that was one of the other keys really in, in the increase of conversion rate.

32:02
You have I, I’ve told you this before and I’m going to say it again on air you, your frameworks are the are, are the, I think they’re the best in the world.

32:11
I think they’re bet they’re better than anybody else’s that I’ve ever known.

32:14
They’re phenomenal.

32:17
And we have a team of people at Brand Builders on our sales team that knows the, the, the these programs really well.

32:24
Several of them have experienced them.

32:27
And what was happening at the end of those calls at the beginning was that they were just, they were sharing the whole shooting match.

32:34
And it’s big, like the Brand Builders journey is, is is huge.

32:39
So they were sharing a lot and then giving a lot of options at the end.

32:44
And so that’s one of the other big keys is that once we get to the portion about the solution, we want to be very refined about the way we deliver it.

32:53
If at all possible, you want to try to take the pieces of your solution or your program that actually apply to the struggles that are having and perfectly match those and then offer them one option.

33:06
Even if you have multiple options at at the end of the deal, steer them towards one option and and leave something as a backup.

33:15
Because you know, as we all know in sales, the, you know, the confused mind doesn’t buy.

33:21
And that’s one of the big keys to finishing the whole thing strong.

33:25
And ideally, if you can complete one of these calls in 45 minutes, that’s rock solid.

33:32
What we usually like to do is to leave about an hour so that if somebody has any, what most people would call objections and we call limiting beliefs at the end of the call, then we’ve got 15 minutes to torpedo those and and hopefully we can move on within an hour.

33:48
Yeah, that that’s so good.

33:50
The, the one thing to add in there to, to kind of connect what you said earlier, like you, you talked about permission where you, you said early in the framing, do I have, do I have your permission to, to dig deep and to really get real with you?

34:09
That’s so powerful there.

34:11
And then I’ve also seen where you ask for that same the transition from the discovery portion of the call into the solution is also a permission conversation.

34:23
It’s almost like, as I’m saying this out loud, I’ve never actually realized this, but just as we’re talking you, you’ve got like the framing portion, the discovery portion and the solution portion.

34:36
And it seems almost like permission is the transition between each of those.

34:40
So the first, the first permission is do I have permission to dig deep, which sets up the stage for discovery and then asking their permission at the end of discovery.

34:49
Like if I’m reading you right, it, it seems like you’re very serious about this.

34:55
You know, would you be open minded if I share with you how our program works?

34:59
Like, do you want to hear how our program works?

35:02
Do you want to know what it would look like to work together?

35:05
Like, do I have your permission to share?

35:06
That is like it’s, it’s a, it’s a first, yes, it’s building, yes, momentum.

35:12
And it’s a really elegant transition and also a psychological powerful moment for them to go.

35:17
Yeah, I I do want to at least hear about the program.

35:21
If they say yes to that, it seems like they’re much more likely to like they’re much further along the buying line 100%.

35:30
And and it, it’s so true that that really is yet another permission frame.

35:36
And it’s basically to say, you know, we kind of the way we structure it as we do a little bit of a mini recap where we just kind of say, wow, Rory, all right, it seems like, you know, you’re struggling with AB and C right now.

35:47
I and, and really it’s affecting you here and what you really want is to be able to this.

35:53
Listen, if, if I could show you a way that that would help you remedy those challenges, would it be something that you’d be interested in hearing about right now?

36:02
You know, and, and if we think about this, this just goes back to good human communication.

36:09
I’ve now demonstrated, we talked about trust.

36:12
I’m now demonstrated to somebody that I’m present, I’m listening.

36:15
I’ve paid well enough attention to really understand the struggle and what, you know, what they really want, if at all possible.

36:22
I’ve given that back to them in their own words, which makes it even more powerful.

36:28
And then I’m saying, listen, if that’s really what it is, if I could show you something that would help you fix that and get where you really want to go, It’s not would you buy it?

36:37
That’s a key distinction.

36:39
As you said, it’s not would you buy it or can we do business together?

36:42
It’s can I just share something with you it, you know, if I believe it would help you pass these problems.

36:48
You know, if we’re having a good interaction at this point, the chances you’re going to get a no, there are slim to none.

36:56
It’s a, it really is a very elegant, elegant way.

36:59
And people feel good about that.

37:01
They’re going Oh my gosh, yeah, wow.

37:03
I mean, I just had to tell you everything that’s sucking.

37:06
I want out of the suck.

37:07
How do I get out of that yes, please tell me.

37:10
You know it’s also it’s like they’re asking to be shown the program versus just you dropping it on them and asking for a sale.

37:21
Like having that intermittent yes, right there is really important for them, for them and for you, because if they say no there, it’s like this is like conversation is over.

37:30
Like if they say no to that, they’re not going to, they’re not going to randomly say yes to a sale later.

37:35
So I think that’s that’s really, really cool.

37:39
The inside a brand builders group.

37:43
We we teach some sales training, pressure free persuasion.

37:46
We talked about the nine ways to close.

37:48
I want to talk about, I want to hear some of your philosophies on closing before we do that.

37:52
We only have a couple minutes left.

37:54
The if, if you all want to learn more from Ryan, like if you and I would say if you have a business, if you’ve got a business where you’ve got sales people doing free calls and you’re like, man, I need some support to come in and just like coach my sales team, work with them, listen to them or just get, you know, sales training in general.

38:15
Like I cannot recommend Ryan enough.

38:18
Like there are so few people we trust with this.

38:20
We know a lot about this space.

38:22
It takes a lot for us to hire someone to go, yeah, we’re philosophically aligned and we believe we’ve got stuff to learn from this person in this space.

38:30
And that is Ryan.

38:31
If you e-mail [email protected] and just put Ryan Lang in the subject line and then just kind of say, hey, we’d love to be connected.

38:41
We will connect you directly to Ryan because we recommend him as as one of our implementation partners and specifically are the implementation partner on this area.

38:49
Like if you’ve got a coaching business, so you got free, if you’ve got free calls coming in, selling anything, you got to work together.

38:57
So check that out.

38:59
Obviously inside of our curriculum, we have some sales training.

39:04
We talked about the nine different categories of closing questions.

39:08
I’d love to hear from you, Ryan, just a couple like 2 minutes on how to bring the call gracefully to a close, you know, and ask for the business.

39:18
If you’ve framed this right, you’ve gotten permission to go deep, you’ve done discovery, you’ve gotten permission to show them a solution.

39:27
You show them one specific solution option.

39:29
How do we wrap this up and actually turn this free call into dollars in the bank account and A and a changed life?

39:36
Yes.

39:38
So I, I think the very first thing that I, that I want to give someone on this call right now is that before we even dive into the tactical what to say, certainty sales is about transference always your energy and how you show up is going to transfer on your sales call and certainty is.

40:02
Of the utmost importance in this part of the call.

40:06
And so I would say First things first, you need to make sure that your delivery of your offer is buttoned up, that it is clear and concise and that you are extremely confident in being able to deliver it.

40:20
If you haven’t practiced it, practice it.

40:23
Do some repetitions, borrow some friends and family, go in the mirror, whatever you got to do, record yourself doing it and then play it back and listen and go, man, am I, Does that feel certain?

40:34
Does that feel confident?

40:36
Because that beyond the words is the single most important thing at the end of the call.

40:41
The next thing is make sure that you’re you don’t get cute with your pricing.

40:47
So one of the other ways that we can confuse buyers at the end of the calls, we can offer them one thing and then we can come up with nine different ways that we’re pricing it, you know, or it’s $12137.43.

41:03
Don’t confuse people with the pricing at the end of it.

41:06
Make it very, very simple for them to say yes.

41:10
And the, the, the last piece that I would say as it relates to kind of, you know, a closing question is I really like to present people, while my, while my program offering may be the same, I do like from a pricing standpoint, one of the things that Brooke and I teach is, is just the same way that you guys do it at, at Brand Builders is to have a monthly option and an annual option.

41:38
If you’ve got some sort of a subscription, if you have two different payment options, I really like that because I’m not just saying, Hey, do you want to buy it?

41:47
I’m going.

41:47
So, you know, I’m explaining the solution and then I’m going to go and, and Roy.

41:52
So basically at this point, I’m going to keep this simple.

41:55
Notice my, my, my phrasing and my languaging.

41:58
Rory, at this point, the only thing left to do is, is, is just answer one simple question.

42:04
And that’s basically, you know, which option works best for you.

42:07
Is it the monthly option or is it the annual option?

42:11
And how can I support you?

42:13
This is something I learned from my mentor that I love.

42:15
How can I support you in getting to super awesome goal and getting out of, you know, super suck and that at the end of it is really, really powerful because I’ve now taken my my price and don’t use that word, by the way, use the word investment.

42:33
We like that word better, but I’m not taking my investment and I’ve linked it to the pain in the dream.

42:41
We all, you know, those of us have been sales for a long time.

42:45
Know that price without context is always expensive, and in this case, it’s it’s especially true.

42:51
I don’t like to just leave the price out there dangling.

42:54
Most people will go, OK, so Rory, you know, it’s $10,000 and then they just sit there.

43:02
So give them an option a Rory, you know, the, the investment is the investment is 10K and you can either do the pay in full where you know, you actually save two months and you can pay us 8.

43:12
Or if you want to do it monthly, it’s it’s 1000.

43:15
You know, it’s, it’s $800 a month or 900.

43:17
I can’t do the math 809 hundred a month, whatever it is.

43:21
So give them that’s a really important nuance, though, of like it’s 11 program option, but two payment options so that it’s not a yes or no at the end, it’s a this or that, it’s a this or that.

43:34
You know that that’s really good.

43:36
That’s really, that’s really good, man.

43:38
Well, Ryan, this, this was a master class.

43:40
Like literally when I tell people our podcast is worth just the content we give away on our podcast is worth millions of dollars.

43:48
This conversation literally is worth millions of dollars to the person who puts it into practice.

43:54
We’ve been the beneficiaries of that.

43:55
Like it, it, it can at least be 10s of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a couple years if you just implement the few things on this call.

44:07
So you’ve been so generous with that.

44:09
We’re so grateful for you.

44:11
We, we proudly recommend you because we, we, we formally were in the world of sales training.

44:17
We are no longer in the world of sales training.

44:19
So we push those, we push those people enthusiastically over to you specifically in this space.

44:25
You’ve been nothing but honest and had integrity and focus and most of all, service centeredness.

44:31
Like, at the end of the day, we just don’t believe in selling things to people that they don’t need or it won’t really help them.

44:37
And we don’t care how fancy the sales tactics are.

44:39
If it’s not going to help someone, we don’t sell it to them.

44:41
And I know you share that philosophy with us, brother.

44:44
So what an honor to have you and to work with you.

44:47
And man, we’re just cheering for you.

44:49
We wish you all the best, Rory.

44:51
Thank you and thank you number one for having me on the podcast and and also thank you for your trust.

44:57
It means such a great deal to me that you and AJ have have entrusted me to take care of your team and you are a friend, a colleague and and I’m very grateful for the work that we get to do together.

45:11
Brother, my pleasure, man.

Ep 553: Speak for Free to Speak for Fee | Toni Collier Episode Recap

WATCH THE INTERVIEW LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW Something our guest Toni Collier shared in a recent interview has really stuck with AJ. Toni said that if you want to build a speaking career, you need to be so passionate about it, so called to it, that you’d be willing to speak for free! In […]

Ep 552: How To Know What Makes You Unique with Toni Collier

AJV (00:01):
Hey everybody, welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast with AJ Vaden here today. I’m so excited because I’m a long time fan of who you’re gonna get to meet today. So I’m over here fangirling and so honored and so humbled to get to introduce this audience to Toni Collier, who I just love. And before I formally introduce her to you guys, as I always do, I wanna remind you of why you should stick around for this particular episode. I think that at every stage in our lives, we all have an opportunity or, you know, we just kind of get it no matter what the opportunity or the challenge to reinvent, right? And I think that in a season of all types of things happening in the world around us, and when things can look crazy on the outside sometimes we can get lost of who we are, what we wanna talk about, what we wanna be known for how we wanna be seen, how we wanna show up.
AJV (01:01):
And if you’re in one of those seasons today, then this is an episode for you, right? This is a place to recenter, refocus, and talk about what does it look like to be resilient? What does it look like to show up as a new version of you? And also how to just stand your ground regardless of what’s going on around you. So if that sounds like it might be relative to you, then this is one of those e episodes that you do not want to miss. So stick around for the entire show. Now, let me formally introduce you to Miss Toni Collier. She is the founder of the International Women’s Organization called Broken Crayons, still Color. She is a speaker. She is the host of the Still Coloring Podcast. She’s the author of two books, brave Enough To Be Broken, and I love kids books. Broken Crayons still color. So Tony, I’ll go to the
TC (01:54):
Show. Ah, it’s gonna be fun. That’s what I, it’s gonna be fun.
AJV (01:59):
And who doesn’t love a fun episode that also touches on all the things that help us learn, grow, and improve? So here’s where I wanna start. Our audience maybe new to you. And so I want them to know where did you start? How did you start building your personal brand, speaking, becoming an author? Like, some of us fall into it, some of us intentionally do it, but I think it’s always really interesting to help people know, where’d you start and how did you get to where you are?
TC (02:32):
Yeah, you know, I honestly started serving, which sounds so cliche and all fluffy, like a little care bear. But the truth is, I connected with a local church when I was 21, and I was a pretty wild girl. You know, I was the you know, popping, twerking, drinking, smoking, all in the club, doing all the things, and just stumbled upon the church, let me tell you that. ’cause I thought I was gonna be a corporate lawyer. It is what it is. Stumbled upon the church and honestly fell in love with middle schoolers and high schoolers. Like, I just love those whippersnappers because they don’t care about your feelings, okay? They don’t care who you are. They are just like, they just ooze humility because you can’t be prideful around that age because they’re just so honest. And I loved it. I loved being able to be authentically myself.
TC (03:16):
I was far from perfect entering into any type of ministry space, but there was something so beautiful about that age, because that’s when we dream and we discover and we cultivate like around our purpose. That’s what these, you know, middle schoolers and high schoolers taught me. And so I just started bopping around different schools, middle schoolers and high schools speaking. The students love me because again, I just was crazy and wild and I didn’t really hold anything back. Never have, never will. And from that place, I just started getting opportunities. I always say that when you’re building a brand, it’s like building a snowball, right? Like you’re just got this little bitty snowball and it’s just going and going and your exposure and who you are around and the relationships that you build and the stages you get to stand on, it all just contributes to making a bigger snowball.
TC (04:03):
And that’s what happened. I just started ending up on stages that I probably didn’t have no business being on, but I started working with Chick-fil-A they kind of saw some of my stuff out there, and they were like, you wanna come host our conference? I’m like, are you sure? Okay, . I started working with other organizations just all over the world, win Shape Camps and Mom Con and all these people just tired of like, reaching out. And from that place, I think I got enough reps to start cultivating my voice to figure out where am I really gonna land. And it wasn’t with students, surprisingly, it was with women helping them on a healing journey. And I think I started to discover that because I was on my own healing journey for so long, and I realized that I don’t just wanna walk through pain. I don’t just want to heal, but I want to help other people heal and walk through pain well as well. And so that’s how I ended up here with my little crazy self helping women heal, producing books and resources and podcasts and courses to help women do that really well. And it has been beautiful and so freaking hard, . And there’s, that,
AJV (05:08):
That’s just definition, definition of entrepreneurship right there, right? Beautiful and unbelievably hard. That’s right. You know, I wanna go back to a couple of things that you said, because I think this is a really important thing for our audience who really, for the most part, everyone listening has some, some level of desire and passion to get their message out into the world, whether it be speaking or podcasting or writing or content creation. And you said two things that are so unbelievably important that I wanna double back on these. Number one, you started speaking for free
TC (05:43):
Surprise,
AJV (05:44):
. So can you talk a little bit about like, how long did you do that? How many times did you do that? Where did you do that?
TC (05:53):
Gosh, probably for three years, honestly. And I mean, I remember the moment I got paid for my first speaking engagement, and it was after I spoke to a freaking auditorium of 200 middle schoolers. And these whipper snappers were barely even listening. And I was s not crying on the stage. And a a mom came up to me afterwards and was like, I have a women’s ministry and I’d love for you to come and do this broken crayons talk that you just did for these middle schoolers who didn’t even care about you. And I was like, what? And they were like, can you send us a contract? Can you send us a, I’m like, what are you even talking about? Like, what? I was like googling a template for a contract. Like, oh my gosh, I was just so overwhelmed. And I think I was overwhelmed because I, I didn’t believe that I deserved it.
TC (06:37):
And not from like a self-deprecating place, but from like, no, this is my passion. I would do this for free for the rest of my life. Amen. Because there’s a fulfillment that happens that’s far beyond an honorarium check or, you know, a speaking engagement. It’s, it’s really about like, what do you wanna put out into the world? And I think it’s such a beautiful indicator that we’re in our sweet spot, we’re in our purpose, we are so aligned that we could actually do it for free. And obviously there’s a business aspect to it. And I had to get a little wise, I had to get some mentors so I wouldn’t just out there doing things for free all the time because I had to make a living. But I mean, three years of serving my local community, of going to churches and schools with people that could give me nothing.
TC (07:19):
And let me tell you what I learned from that one. Obviously I learned that like, oh, I’m in my sweet spot ’cause I could do this for free. But also I think I learned that I could get better at it the more reps that I had without being prideful enough to ask for money because the reps that I got for three years speaking is why people book me now because I got so good at it, and it was for free and it was awesome. And honestly, it wasn’t for free because what I got in exchange for currency was excellence was the ability to do this really, really, really well in front of some of the hardest audiences that would fall asleep and be on their phones. And now it feels like a walk in the park because I got all those reps in
AJV (08:02):
Girl preach. Yeah. This is so important and I just wanna reiterate, and he said three years. I mean, I can’t even imagine how many dozens, if not hundreds of engagements happened in that time period. And I think that’s really important for all of you listening who’s like, oh, I have to have this fee scheduled to go speak. No, you don’t call people up, right? Yeah. Like, just call ’em. And then the other thing that I love that you said is, I got excellence in exchange for currency. And I think in a, in a day and a time where everyone’s teaching everyone how to build your personal brand, how to get booked to speak, how to make it this, it’s like we forget that before we start charging people, we need to be excellent at what we do,
TC (08:46):
Girl, girl.
AJV (08:47):
And that normally happens through doing it and doing it a lot, doing it so much that you know, what’s gonna make the audience laugh, right? What’s gonna make ’em think? And that just happens through experience.
TC (09:01):
Yeah. 100%.
AJV (09:02):
I mean, I just, I mean, I could just sit here and talk about that for the next 45 minutes, right?
TC (09:07):
, let’s just go.
AJV (09:08):
I think that is, that is what nobody wants to promote and tell you. But at the end of the day, anyone who’s in this business, this is the story they’ll give you.
TC (09:17):
Yeah. 100%. I also think that like, we forget about relational capital. It’s so funny because I think about some of those reps that I did for free, and I think about the doors that those people open for me, I was building relational capital in so many different ways to where, you know, when I always say that, you know, you’re getting good at what you do when someone mentions your name and the next thing they mention is what you do because you’re so good at it, right? Like, you’re like, oh, it’s Tony Collier, man, she’s a great speaker, man, it’s Tony Collier. Have you listened to her podcast? It’s Tony Collier. You’re like, oh, have you read her book on healing? Like those things only come with relational capital because people actually love you so much. They enjoy you so much. They know you’re not in it just for a paycheck, that they’re willing to use their relationships and their conversations to market you without you even having to be in the room. And that’s where the good stuff comes in.
AJV (10:09):
Yeah. So I wanna double down on that too real quick, because, okay, come on. Girl has said another thing that people forget, which is the importance of that relational capital. But what you said is, what I wanna highlight is be so good. This is what I heard anyways, be so good. People can’t not talk about you. Yep. And the, I think the , what happens as a result of being so good is what we would call word of mouth marketing, right? Yep. And we spend so much time consuming content, teaching us how to convert strangers on the internet to somehow be convinced of our products and services. And we forget that there’s real life humans that we have access to access to all day long who can give us more than enough business that we could ever handle. And so can you just talk about like, yeah, what, what would you like for someone who is starting into this business, or even if they’re pretty established into this business and maybe they’ve plateaued and they’re going, wow, like, oh, I need to do a paid traffic campaign, or I need to do more stuff online. Like, would, would you just kind of give a little bit of insights of where have most of your speaking opportunities come from over the years? Yeah.
TC (11:26):
I’m gonna pivot a little bit to product because I know that everyone here is not a speaker, right? Like, and, and this is such a beautiful example. So in 2020, my team and I decided that we would take a lot of the blogs that we were producing, a lot of the social media content, and that we would put it into a product and we had to sit down and decide what product is it? Is it a devotional? Is it a whatever? So we created a devotional all around anxiety and abuse. That’s kind of the felt needs of our audience. We started to realize like, people are really engaging with these two topics, anxiety and abuse. And so we created a devotional around it. Then after that we were like, okay, we really would love something that creates more engagement. So we decided to create a course and everybody was at home in front of their computers.
TC (12:07):
So we were like, surely this is a great market to create a course. And so we all sat down, did some market research, started doing some story mapping with StoryBrand and all those folks. And we came up with this course and it was great. 50 videos all under five minutes because attention spans are short. A super diverse cast of people that shot videos for us. We produced a journal from it, and then we were like, okay, cool. We’re just gonna put it out there and we’re just gonna say buy this course. And no one did . And we were like, what happened? What is going on? And so I sat down with Jamal Miller, who is one of the most brilliant. If there is another human being you need to get on this podcast, it is gonna be him, Jamal, I will connect you guys, it’s gonna be great.
TC (12:53):
I said, why can’t I sell my corpse? Like, what is happening? And he said, you just haven’t created enough relational capital and enough of a buyer’s market from your audience. And I’m like, well, how are we gonna do that ? And he said, well, I think the first thing you should do is a, a conference. I think you need to spend your relational capital with people like Christine Kane. I’ve done some things for her, Jenny Allen, Joe Saxton, all these people that you formed relationships with. And I think you need to pull in some favors and say, Hey, I’m gonna do an online conference. If you could come and speak for 30 to 45 minutes, I’d love it. We’re gonna give it for free. It’s gonna be awesome. These women so graciously came into our platforms. We did this conference. It was a three night challenge.
TC (13:33):
We were so excited about it. And then after night one, something crazy happened and we started getting emails and requests for like, what’s next? Like after this conference. And so we love this so much, what is next? And we transition people into the course from that free environment. But really that environment was us having a virtual lunch, you know, every single day for three days. It was us holding stories, pouring into women, giving them access to these amazing speakers and this amazing platform for free. And they loved it so much that they were like, I’m willing to pay for the course. And we’ve been doing the course for four years every year, and it’s just been so great, but I’m telling you, it’s gonna take time. It’s the delayed gratification. We think we want things and can build things very quickly, but the truth is, the work and the time that it takes to cultivate even a buyer’s market is the real work. That’s actually where it comes into play. And it’s all behind the scenes and no one sees it and then blah, blah, blah. But you gotta do it, period.
AJV (14:40):
I love that. And you know, one of the things we say to our community all the time is you wanna give 10 times the value of what you talk. It’s right there. It’s, it’s like again, it’s like you wanna have such good content that people are like, I feel guilty taking this for free. It’s like, I need to pay you. Like, this was so life giving. Like I
TC (15:01):
Need to
AJV (15:02):
Something, anything.
TC (15:03):
Yeah. But
AJV (15:04):
That comes back to you gotta have really good content, gotta know your voice. You gotta have done it a lot of times. And there’s just no way around speeding that process up other than doing it,
TC (15:16):
Doing it. That’s it. There you go. Surprise. Sorry. Burst some bubbles here today.
AJV (15:21):
You know? That’s the truth we all need to hear, right? That’s the truth. That’s the truth. We all need to hear. And I, and I love that it’s also, you’re such a great example of what happens Yeah. When you produce great stuff and you do it consistently. Yeah. And you know, it’s like you’re living your passion. It’s like, like you said, I do it for free, but I’m so good at it, people pay me.
TC (15:43):
Right. Surprise. Okay. You know, I will also say this too. That system that we’re talking about, cultivating a buyer’s market, making sure that we’re adding 10 times value, it never ends. There’d be a moment where you’ll kind of get a little prideful and be like, I can just put my product out there. It doesn’t work that way, especially if your front door is wide, because new people are always getting access to you. And so those new people all also always need to be cultivated with relationships. And the 10 times the value, it just never stops. And that’s something that I made a mistake on. I was like, I’m just gonna put the course up at this point. People know who I am, they know what’s going on, but if I wanna get new people in the course that have never experienced me, I’ve got to cultivate my relationship with them and the value that I give them in the same way that I did day one. And so it never ends too.
AJV (16:31):
Yeah. And I, I hear this phrase all the time in this digital space that we live in, and I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it, but I’d love to get your thoughts on it. When people say, you know, I just want mailbox money. I just want to make money while I sleep.
TC (16:48):
Ha passive income
AJV (16:49):
. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on the realities of passive income mailbox money. I just wanna create something and let it make me money while I
TC (17:01):
Sleep. Oh man. I, I just think, you know, it goes back to like the original like bone structure of investing and of having a really diverse portfolio. There are some things that you can use to make money. For example, I have merch and I, instead of creating my own merch and hosting it on my website, I did a partnership with an incredible company called Etch and Co two moms, they’re just so cute living their best lives. And because their business model was already a machine that was up and running, instead of doing my own merch, again, I partnered with them. So we sent them some designs, we asked them for some different colors. We got all the things. And that one thing is making money for me while I sleep, but it is because I have tapped into another machine that’s running. I can’t do that with my course.
TC (17:49):
I can’t do that with my book. I have to talk about it. I can’t do that with speaking. It is me. Okay, I’ve got to get my behind on a plane with my little suitcases and I’ve gotta do the job. And that’s just not passive. But I can have passive income if I master my partnerships. And I think our portfolio, so many Ps here, our portfolio has to be diverse enough so that again, this snowball is being built around all of the different streams that we have. And yeah, it’s just not one thing. You’re just not gonna have one little thing that’s making you money. It’s gonna be a diverse portfolio of things that will bring in money in different ways. So yeah.
AJV (18:26):
So lemme talk about that. When did start diversifying, because you don’t, I talked about this, say, I know
TC (18:33):
I this the other day. I talked about this the other day with my friends. I was like, I’m, I’ve got so many irons in the fire, I don’t even really know when it happened. But I think I, I think it’s a mindset of I want as many people to have access to what I have to offer in as many ways. And because I know that everyone is intricately created differently and they’re consuming information. I mean, for me, like I’ve got severe A DHD Okay. And I have decided not to take the medicine. So I’m just out here floating around like a tele tubby. Okay. And what that means is, for me, like I can’t read a book like a physical book, which is crazy because I’m an author, right? But I have to listen to it. It just is what it is. We’re not gonna finish it.
TC (19:14):
I’m consuming books through via the audio book. And so if an author has a great book that everyone recommends, I’m like, I’m not gonna read it unless it’s an audiobook. And so creating different streams I think is, this is gonna be a bold statement. I think it’s actually less about how much money you can make and how much we can build this portfolio. And really it’s about how much access you can give different types of people to be hooked into what you have to give. It’s about creating hooks for different types of people. And I think if you focus on that, if you focus on who’s my audience, who can have access to what I have to give, how can I build something for them that fits in their sweet spot? Okay, I’m gonna create a podcast now because I got mamas that are following me, single mamas that are following me that don’t have time to read no book, but they can listen to a 30 minute episode and at the end of the episode they can text the word hope to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and get a freebie. That’s only, you know, a quick read. And so I think if we begin to cater to these different audiences, I call them hooks. If we create different hooks for people with different places and different lifestyles, then I think we’ll look up, like I looked up the other day and be like, oh, I got all these different streams. I got this book, I got that book, and why are my nets getting wider and wider? But it’s not at all about me. It’s about who I can serve and how I can get to them.
AJV (20:35):
And I think that’s the key, right? It’s like you got real clear on the who and then said, how else can I serve this? This who, right? And I think most people, when you think about diversified revenue streams, it’s like, it’s not all the same audience. Yeah. And then it feels like work. ’cause It is, it’s a lot of stuff to keep up with. Yeah. So I would be curious to hear from you, like, yeah, there’s, there’s been an evolution in your journey of the who, right? Yeah. Clearly your who today is not who, when you started with middle schoolers, right? How did you find your who and how would you encourage other people to find theirs?
TC (21:11):
Yeah. I did this. So I did a couple things strategically, I hired a life coach from the Tom Patterson Institute. Her name is Emily Johnson. She’s incredible. Her husband, Chad Johnson works really closely with the John Maxwell Institute, and they’re just incredible people. And I saw the fruit of their life and I was like, Emily, please help me. I want what you guys got. What’s going on? And so the Tom Patterson Institute, if, if you guys don’t know, it’s just this hub for life planning. There’s life coaches all over the United States helping people to really hone in on like, what are you doing? What’s your message? What are you, all the things, you know, the purpose driven things. And in that meeting, honestly, I left and well, it was two days I left and I was so discouraged because out of that process, I discovered that it actually wasn’t middle schoolers and high schoolers, that it was grown women and grown women made my armpit sweat.
TC (22:05):
Okay. Because I’m just, I’m very playful. I’m really goofy. Like I’m very business oriented. But people get like the playful, goofy version of me. And then I get into a boardroom and they’re like, oh crap. Like she’s actually really like smart. And I’m like, you know, and, but it’s, but, but it takes a little while for people to really take me seriously, honestly, because I refuse to give up my authenticity to impress someone, right? And so I’m just gonna be bopping around and saying all the things I wanna say, and then I’m gonna get in the meeting and they’re gonna be like, oh, dang, we really underestimated her. But that’s one of the things I did. And, and I just was nervous about it. I’m like, are we sure? Like, is it women? Is it adults? I’m super young. How can I do this? And so I took it a step further that I think is a bit more accessible for everyone listening in than spending all these, this money on a life plan.
TC (22:53):
I got about three to five friends, really close friends that know me, that have known me for a while, and I ask them two questions. Number one, what’s special about me? Like what gifts and talents do I have? And number two, what gifts and talents do I have that impact the world? What happened was I got all these texts back and I put it on a whiteboard, and I started to circle all the consistencies. You’re a great communicator, you’re super funny, you’re a really hopeful person. Like you are always looking at the glass half full. Like all those things you make women feel really safe, which is where the women thing came. And I was like, dang it, it is women. Darn it. It’s adults. And I took all those things and I just really processed it. And let me tell you what it helped me do.
TC (23:37):
It helped me realize that I’m not a singer, because there are some people that’s like, this is my gift. I a hundred percent know that I’m supposed to be a singer. I’m the next Adele. And you text your friends and you find out that no one actually says that you’re a great singer, that it’s not actually your gifts and talents for the people out there that’s like, I’m a chef, I’m whipping and serving in the kitchen, and you text your four to five friends and none of them text back that you cook. Great. That’s not it. Because the people that are closest to you have already been impacted by your gifts and talents. They know, they know what you do that can actually impact the world. And you gotta listen to that and hone in on that and trust that that’s what you gotta pick, trusted people. And that was like two of the things that I did that was like, oh dang, okay. So I’m like a hope coach, communicator girl for women. Cool. How can I build around that? And that’s what I did,
AJV (24:32):
. I love that. And yep. I was literally, literally sitting here thinking, you know what it was hard for me is when you were talking is who would I send this to?
TC (24:41):
Uhhuh ,
AJV (24:41):
You know, like, who would, who would give me the honest truth, right? Mm-Hmm. not gonna sugarcoat anything to me. And I think that who even you send it to is pretty important, right?
TC (24:52):
Right. Don’t send it to your mama. Do not send it to your mama. Who gonna tell you that you everything you wanna be okay. Because she been lying to you from day one. I’m
AJV (24:59):
Just kidding. Like, I’m like, I’m like, but, but some truth, there’s some truth to that, right? There’s some truth to that. I know, I know. My dad is,
TC (25:05):
Tell me the truth. My dad will tell me the truth now. So you may have a parent that’s like, no, that you ain’t good at that. Okay, .
AJV (25:11):
But I think that’s an important part of this is like, don’t send it to be people who tell you what you wanna hear, right? Mm-Hmm. send it to people who can speak the truth into your life, even if it’s not what you wanna hear.
TC (25:23):
Correct?
AJV (25:24):
Yeah. That’s good. Now you should, oh, go ahead.
TC (25:27):
Sorry. My bad. I get so passionate about this stuff, I forgot. I love
AJV (25:30):
It. I love, but you know what I love about this is like, this is on the honest truth.
TC (25:34):
Yeah.
AJV (25:35):
Like, people think there’s like some like, secret behind all of this. And I was like, no, it’s not.
TC (25:39):
It’s,
AJV (25:40):
It’s hard work. I would also
TC (25:42):
Say this, like, I think we, we have to become less offended with our, with our dreams and aspirations because I, I need for my dreams and aspirations for my books to be in the fire because I want it to be the best. Mm-Hmm. And so I, like, I have to lay my pride aside when it comes to who I want to be and what I want to accomplish. Because it’s in that space of humility where we get better, where we can take the criticism truly. Like, again, there were just things that I, I mean, it was really hard for me to let youth and students go. It was like my sweet spot. I’m funny, I’m crazy. I kind of like to dress like the young people like it. I was so comfortable in it. But pride said, I’m gonna stay what I’m comfortable in versus what I’m called to. And I don’t want that. I, I wanna be wherever it is that I’m supposed to be, not where I’m comfortable. So I will, I just wanna put that little note in there, guys. Okay.
AJV (26:41):
Yeah. You know, what am I, my personal life mantras, because that with me for a really long time is that your comfort will always hold you back from your calling.
TC (26:52):
Surprise, you know, again,
AJV (26:54):
Again. And, and sometimes like if you’re not willing to step into it, it’s gonna show up anyways. And then it’s gonna be a painful, a painful evolution process versus an intentional one. Now you, you mentioned authenticity, so let’s just talk about that for a second. ’cause I love that you’re so vocal about, hey, like, people really misconstrue, misconstrue my business savvy until I get into the boardroom. It’s like, you think I’m this, but there’s this other stuff.
TC (27:21):
I know, I
AJV (27:22):
Know. And I, and I love that because I think a lot of people make a lot of unnecessary assumptions. We all do every day. But I love what you said, it’s like, I refuse to give, give up my authenticity. And so I’d love to hear why, where did that come from and how can other people develop that same level of commitment?
TC (27:42):
Oh, well I can only speak into this because I’ve done it wrong. Right? Like, you only get authority when you start doing stuff wrong and you’re like, well, that didn’t work. I’m a recovering people pleaser that it is what it is. I’m a recovering people pleaser. My counselor one time said, you’re like a little chameleon. Like you’ll just blend in. It’s because you wanna make people feel comfortable, which is commendable. That’s the gift side of it. The shadow side is at the expense of who you are, you will blend in at the expense of who you are. And honestly, like I’m super extroverted. My friends, 110% of middle school called me a tele tubby. I’m loud. I have a really strong loud laugh. I, I’m, I just have a lot of energy and I’ve always felt like, man, I have some insecurities around. I’m just too much for people.
TC (28:31):
Like, they are getting so shocked it when I roll upon an introvert, they’re like, their eyes look like, please someone save me. Like from this girl. Like, it’s just a lot, you know? And I remember when I first got into ministry, and again, I didn’t get saved till I was 21. Like, it took me a whole long time to get into any type of church thing. But you know, like the pastor and his wife, it was a really foreign space to me. It was like, they were like the king and queen, you know? And I had no idea. I had no idea at all. And I went, they, they took me to this conference and I was so excited. I was like yelling. I was bopping around everywhere. And I saw the pastor’s wife and I’m like, Hey girl. And I like rubbed her face.
TC (29:10):
I did it. I took my hand, I rubbed the side of her face, and I was like, here’s o okay girl. And she, and it was like, I was probably gonna be fired the next day. Like, it was like not okay. And there are some really unhealthy aspects of that type of culture, you know? But I like really just messed all up in her personal space because I didn’t know. And I was also in staff meetings all the time with all the ideas, talking over people. And I remember my mentor was like, for the next two staff meetings, you have to be quiet. You don’t get to say anything at all. And I was like, at all, but my ideas are great. What do we mean? Like, I can contribute to this environment. He is like, no. What I was learning in that time was that I can absolutely be myself.
TC (29:52):
I have to have boundaries around that, that there is an appropriate time and place to do and say certain things. And really, I was just becoming mature. I was so young in ministry, just like doing my best, trying to do whatever. And I think over time what I realized is when you enter into new spaces, there is a level of humility that you have to have. And it’s not at all dimming your light. It’s leaving space for you to grow and learn. Mm-Hmm. , I was really young. I didn’t have all the ideas. I didn’t have context. There were things that I was so ignorant to, but because my personality was so big, I essentially was robbing myself of a learning experience to really understand how people work, who they are, what to say, what not to say. I was really robbing myself of being a better communicator.
TC (30:43):
So over time, I just learned how to balance that really well. And now I think I’m at a place where I have so much authority that I have the freedom to just be myself. And it has been so beautiful. People love it. They’re like, you are nuts. Like, we don’t actually know what’s happening right now. It’s weird to me that you can be super deep and be on a stage talking about the hardest things and walk me through my healing journey. And then you’re like cackling for 50 minutes because you are sitting in a quiet meeting and you’re not supposed to be telling the joke, you know? And you told the joke and now you’re like crying, laughing. So I love that. And I love that people say all the time, like, Tony, I just feel so free around you. Like I can actually be myself. And I think it’s because I am being myself. And it gives people their permission to be themselves. And you want people to buy from you, learn from you, grow from you. Give them the freedom to be themselves by being yourself. Oh my gosh. It changes the game and it’s been beautiful.
AJV (31:43):
Well, this needs to be like a quote on a poster somewhere. Being yourself allows others to be their selves.
TC (31:50):
And there you go.
AJV (31:51):
I mean, that needs, that needs to be on your next merch right there.
TC (31:54):
All right, I’m gonna do it. I’ll tag you .
AJV (31:58):
But, but, but you’re, but you actually do this. You don’t just talk about it. You do this. And you have recently been through some really public trials. And one of the things that I, I think I’d love to kind of talk about, and this kind of relates to some of your content and what you spend a lot of time talking about, which is a big part of your personal brand. But what I have found is that a lot of people that we get to engage with, with our company, brand Builders group, and probably a lot of people listening to the show, they try to hide the hard parts.
TC (32:28):
Yeah.
AJV (32:28):
And I think this is connected to the conversation around authenticity, right? Yeah. And it’s like we, we wanna show all the good stuff we’ve done and all the great accomplishments, and then we just kind of, of like to like cover up the really hard and difficult parts because we’re guilty, shameful whatever, whatever, embarrassed, who knows, whatever, all the things, right? Right. But you, you haven’t and you don’t. And so can we just talk about like what’s the value Yeah. And sharing the hard parts of our journey.
TC (33:00):
Yeah. I love this question for so many reasons. There was a girl on our course call or woman, I dunno why I say girl, there was a woman in our course call last night. Literally last night I started my new women’s course cohort group. And we have this thing, the strategy called story liturgy, where you just tell all your business or, or a specific pain point. And instead of responding with solution, we all respond with how their story made us feel. And we do rounds and rounds and rounds of that. And I always go first always, and I talk to them about something, you know, that, that I’m battling through right now with my daughter. And it was hard. I was like tearing up. I was like, blah, blah la and I just had like this outer body experience and thought, I wonder what these women are thinking right now that they signed up for this course and healing.
TC (33:52):
And I’m finding hope. And the leader starts off by telling like a really hard part of her story that just happened that’s, that she’s literally in right now. And the first little feeling is like the remnants of shame. It’s like, it, it’s that, it’s what you’re talking about. It’s what society has done. It’s like, wait, wait, wait. You can’t be imperfect in front of your audience, in front of your followers, in front of you, et cetera, et cetera. Like that’s the first little thing. And then because I’ve been doing this for so long, the truth comes out and says, no, no, no. The reason why they’re here is because for some odd reason, in the midst of all the hard you’re going through in your vulnerable, crazy, broken, painful filled moments, you still have hope. Mm-Hmm. . And they want that. And they can’t see it unless you show them the dark side.
TC (34:47):
They can’t see the mountains of hope that you’re standing on unless they can actually be exposed to the deepest, darkest valleys that you’re going through. Because I wouldn’t have, I said this earlier, I wouldn’t have the authority to tell them that healing is on the way that hope is on the way if I didn’t experience it myself. Amen. I can truthfully and honestly say I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of living. I have seen healing, I’ve seen redemption. I’ve seen my actual neurons in my little brain on a screen change and grow and heal and mend because I’ve been through some of the hardest things. And you just don’t need hope unless you’re in a valley. And I need them to know that I have the authority to speak on this because I’ve walked it over and over and over and over again. The greatest products, the things that we purchase always comes behind a felt need. Always. We’re all gonna get a little zoom camera because our MacBook cameras are whack and they’re blurry and they look stupid. So I’m gonna go buy the thing that they’re selling because I’ve seen the dark side of it. I’ve seen what life is like without a great little 4K camera attachment. Okay. And I’m gonna buy 17 of these suckers because I wanna look like Beyonce. Okay. On the thing. So don’t
AJV (36:09):
We all.
TC (36:10):
Yeah. We all. And so we have to show people what life is like without the thing that we’re producing, selling, putting on the market. We have to because it makes the very thing that we’re selling, producing, presenting so worth it if they can see why they need it. And that’s, that,
AJV (36:29):
That’s so good. And, and you know, it doesn’t matter. And I’ll just give you like a quick personal example. It’s like, doesn’t matter how many times I speak or what I talk about, the moment that I share the hardest parts of my life, the parts that I’m most embarrassed to talk about or used to be. Right. Those are the things that every single time people Thank you. That
TC (36:51):
Was Thank you. Because I connect deeply through pain. Yeah. Period.
AJV (36:56):
I can’t remember anyone ever coming up to me and be like, aj, I just love about all your accomplishments. Oh my gosh.
TC (37:03):
Oh my gosh. My kid got straight A too. My kid got straight A’s too girl. I was like, okay. No, nobody
AJV (37:10):
Says that ever. Not once has anyone ever come up to me and was like, loved hearing about all your success was so good for me. Like, this isn’t happen. It just doesn’t happen. And I think if we can all remind ourselves that it’s like the, the hard parts are there for a reason. They’re there for a purpose. And there is always purpose in the pain. Like always. Yeah. Always,
TC (37:32):
Always. Yeah. Well, it’s never worth it, but it’s also never wasted. And there’s so many studies around what we do with our pain is the litmus test of the pain that we’ve been through. It’s what we do with it. It’s the life of meaning. On the other side, it’s like, how can I take this thing? I mean, it’s my whole thing. Like, I mean, honestly my whole entire everything, ministry, whatever, all the things that I produce, the catalyst of everything I do is my pain. Hmm. Privilege. And it doesn’t make it worth it now, but I for sure know that none of it’s wasted. None of it.
AJV (38:10):
You know? That’s so good. And this is slightly an off topic question. Ready?
TC (38:16):
I ask you, let’s do a rabbit
AJV (38:17):
Trail, because I’m always looking for little cracks to talk about some of this stuff. . I found what? I’ll take it. We’ll take it. You mentioned, you know, like your, your faith journey and it, it wasn’t like it was from the very beginning, it was crafted over time. But you’ve also mentioned some of these really, really hard dark valley. Right? Some of ago, some recent. And we all have, and I have interestingly enough, been in a few different circles here lately where people have said, I’ve, I’m just walking away from the faith. Right? I I did, I used to believe and now I don’t. And when we dig a little deeper, it’s usually like of some, some event that has occurred in their life or it’s because of some person, right? Mm-Hmm. Right. They’re looking at other, you know, in this case, Christians believers going, Mm-Hmm. I don’t see it. Yeah, I, I used to, but I don’t see it anymore. And I’m someone who you’ve had a lot of really hard stuff in trials and you still go and I still believe,
TC (39:25):
Mm.
AJV (39:25):
Where’s that come? That’s good. Where’s that come from?
TC (39:27):
Well, this is another one of those. I’ve done it wrong and I’m back and I’m doing it again. You know, I’ve only been on the Salvation Bus for like 12 years, you know, like I spent most of my life drunk, high, sleeping with everybody’s son doing all the things, you know, partying. And when I first got saved, all of my faith was in a pastor, a person. I just, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. Look at this pastor. He is like preaching. He’s giving me opportunities to be a youth pastor and to like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I remember one time the, the first time that something felt a little off was when I was having a conversation with him and he said, you know, only one tree can be planted in a church, in this church house.
TC (40:15):
And I’m that tree and you are a branch. And so the further up I go, the further you will go. So you gotta stay connected to me so that you purpose can grow. And I just remember being like just this young 20 some odd year old, like that feels really weird. And especially it’s not biologically correct because trees actually planted by each other helped to strengthen each other. So I’m a little confused here buddy. And I realized that I had put my faith in a man and not a savior. And I was. I was like, when stuff got weird, when I asked for a break time off from the ministry, it was like, no, where are you going? You’re building your own kingdom. You’re doing this. It just got so weird. And when I decided to transition from the church with no ill intent at all, the pastor completely cut me off and I completely cut my faith off because it was stored up in a man and not a savior.
TC (41:10):
And I remember around, so that was around 24, 25 and I’ve been saved for four or five years. And I was, you know, singing all the little songs on Sunday and living a reckless life Monday through Saturday. You know, going to church hung over like just crazy wild. Didn’t know what I was doing. There was no discipleship there. And I remember at 24, 25 when I was going through my divorce, my first divorce, I’ve been divorced twice. And my ex-husband was very violent. He would just rip doors off the hinges and I ended up having a little girl and I had to, you know, just create some safety and stability for her. And I remember I went to God and I was like, bro, you gotta show up like straight up. Like you need to fix this. I have done nothing wrong. I am, well, I mean, I did some crazy stuff, but I did not like I’ve been serving you.
TC (42:02):
I’ve been trying like I am new in this faith thing and this just sucks. Like all this sucks. And I would say it probably was like my deconstructing kind of like period. And I was just like, you gotta show up. Like if you are real out here, if you out here bringing people from the dead, healing people that can’t walk, like you gonna have to heal my life. Okay? And what’s interesting is I look back at that now and I’m like, you were so feisty. And that was okay. ’cause God was like, alright, I’m gonna show you. And over the next couple of years, between 24 and 26, I started having these wild radical encounters, like stupid stuff that was just like, Lord, is this sorcery? You know, like what is happening? Like just people I would meet and scriptures that would pop up and all these real, I call them God winks now because I’m like, oh, he’s playing chess up there.
TC (42:51):
Beautiful. and it changed me because then, and now my faith is in a savior who created the entire universe who’s just as off as me and mad as me and sad as me about this crazy broken fallen world with all this free will and people being all ugly and nasty and ratchet and all the things. And I needed 24-year-old Tony to 3-year-old Tony to actually have a faith that was grounded. Not in an institution or whatever, but in a savior who came back from the actual dead. Okay. After three days. And I needed that because this past year I was married to a pastor, we had planted a church, and last year I got a FaceTime call from him that he was being extorted by a prostitute . And this was the third time that it had happened. And I had given grace and I had believed in restoration and redemption for our marriage.
TC (43:55):
And then it wasn’t real. And it was so close to home and so close to my faith. And it didn’t impact my faith because my faith wasn’t in a husband who was a pastor standing on a stage. It was in a savior. And I gotta tell you, while the healing journey this past year or so, especially with my kids being a single mom now, has been horrific. Because you try to go through a divorce, but babe, you try to go through a public one without, it’s your name all over the internet. It is insane. And I have chosen not to share all the things that have happened publicly to protect my kids, but my God, it was terrible. And my faith has never felt stronger. And it’s,
AJV (44:43):
That’s pretty
TC (44:43):
Cool. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.
AJV (44:46):
But that’s the result of knowing where to put your faith.
TC (44:51):
100%. And I get a little feisty sometimes, honestly, because I’d be like, you really think some little measly human can have my faith? Mm-Hmm,
AJV (45:00):
.
TC (45:01):
You playing around. You playing around. Not when God has provided for me and my kids in ways that no man could not, no, no, no. Not when, not when the Lord, not when I’ve seen miracles in my mother’s life who has had so many health issues and have almost died and been brought back to life. And little things that don’t even make sense in her body. No. So sorry. You can’t have it because it’s not yours in the first place. So that’s my take on the thing.
AJV (45:30):
I love that I, as you were talking, it made me think about this song take It All Back by Torin Wells and Y’all Dunno, this song by Torin Wells. It’s all together. It’s my anthem cry. It’s my battle song. And it’s like that whole thing. It’s like, I’m gonna take back what the enemy stole. It’s not yours. You can’t have it.
TC (45:51):
You have it.
AJV (45:52):
I pray. I pray for your level of faith for every single person in the world and speci specifically over our country right now. And then oh yeah. Pray for that level of restoration, of reckoning of who it belongs to, who’s who it is. Like that is such an inspiration on so many different levels. And also it’s, that’s the kind of faith that’s rewarded and it’s not rewarded in necessarily worldly things, but it’s rewarded. Knowing nothing in this world can shake me. So bring Wow. You know, that’s the type of faith that hurt people search for long, for listen to find. Yep. So thanks for being open about it. Thanks for being vulnerable about it. And honestly, thanks for, for walking the path. That’s really hard. And not losing what’s so important.
TC (46:43):
Yeah. ’cause it is important. It’s the only thing. Yeah. When you don’t have anything, it is the only thing. Yeah. And it’s more than enough, huh? How about that? You don’t have anything at all. It’s the only thing. And it’s more than enough. I know. It’s all that you actually need. What a gift. Dang.
AJV (47:01):
That’s so good. And sometimes you only know it when you go for those dark valleys, which is why again, it’s like the pain is never wasted. It’s how we choose to see it. It’s so good. I could, I know I could blabber on for a while here with you, but I know our time is coming up. We have to get ourselves
TC (47:18):
Together here.
AJV (47:19):
Y’all please check Tony out. Just go to her. Instagram is like a central hub on social media. It’s Tony with an IJ Collier. You’ll get this in the show notes. But Tony j Collier is her handle on Instagram. You can also go to tony j collier.com, which you can find all the things and all the places. So this is just a, a personal shout out of follow, learn , right? Absorb right. Do all the things. But there, I believe there are so few places in my personal opinion that teach it the right way. And this is the place that you can go to not only find hope and healing and encouragement, but also it’s like, man, there’s, there’s some real business savvy around just building an authentic audience. Like right. Not a paid, like paid for audience, but an audience that’s coming for a reason. And it doesn’t have to be millions of people. Y’all don’t have to be huge for it to make a massive and eternal impact. And Tony, I just think you’re doing that and I think you’re doing it in such a awesome and impactful way. Now I have that one last question before I, before I let you.
TC (48:33):
I like it.
AJV (48:34):
You and I, this is just something because so many people have this passion and desire to do it. I personally know that the journey to writing a book, becoming an author and doing all the things is not, not easy. Yeah. And I think it’s always important to ask people who have written a book, why did you decide to do a book?
TC (48:55):
This is the wor this is the hardest decision I probably ever made outside of switching from students to women. Because I kept saying, why would I write a book? Why would I write 50 to 60,000 words? I don’t even wanna write a paper in school. Who’s gonna read my book? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I wrote a book because when I leave this Earth, which could be tomorrow, and I’m totally fine with with it ’cause I’m absolutely ready to go be with Jesus. I want what I’ve overcome to live on beyond me. Hmm. And sitting up at my laptop with severe A DHD trying to work in coffee shops and in my little office nook and in my bed and on planes and typing out 50 to 60,000 words is worth thinking that one day, my kid, her kids, I don’t want my son to have kids because I’m territorial over him and I don’t want him to have a wife.
TC (49:50):
May, but maybe his kids will be able to pick up a book and read that their mom, their grandmother, their great-grandmother fought with everything in her Mm-Hmm. And she never gave up. And I was at the park yesterday and there was this little mom sitting there, Ashley Williams, I’ll never forget. And we followed each other on Instagram and sh and we were just sitting there talking, playing with our kids. And I said something to my son and she was like, I recognize your voice. She’s like, are what’s your name? I was like, Tony. She’s like, you write books? I was like, yeah. She said, my daughter has your book Broken Crayon still color. Literally just yesterday. She lives in my neighborhood. I’m gonna go drop off some stuff for her daughter. And she’s like, it’s helped her so much process through her emotions and what that, I wrote a book because of how difficult my dau my own daughter was having a time in school and all these different things with her emotions. I wrote that book to honor her and to share with other parents that it’s really difficult. And Ashley Williams, who I was sitting next to in the park yesterday, it’s helped her daughter. And it’s a selfless act because it’s so hard to produce, but it’s one that lives so beyond me and where I can be and a stage I can be on. And so I have unfortunately done it again. And I have a book coming out next year and Yep. . So I’ll keep doing it ’cause it’s worth it.
AJV (51:25):
It’s worth it. Yeah. I love that. And I hope that gives everyone a good heartfelt reminder of the, that thing that you feel in your heart and your soul. It’s there for a reason. Don’t ignore it. Get those words on paper. Paper. Y’all like, put it out there. There’s somebody out there who needs it. You may never know who it is, but they need it and they need to hear it from you. Tony. So good. One of the best interviews I’ve had all year. Yay. So good. So many amazing golden nuggets, y’all, this is one last call to action. Go follow Tony on Instagram, Tony j Collier. I’ll put it in the show notes again, and for the rest of y’all, stick around for the recap episode. It’ll be coming up next. And we’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand. See you later y’all.
TC (52:12):
Bye .
AJV (52:14):
See you. All right